2 and a half weeks
Jul. 11th, 2007 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Each time I go back to Britain lately, some incompetent nutjobs try to bomb an airport while I'm there and make flying back from Heathrow even more annoying than it needs to be. I'm really glad those people weren't my doctors - doctors are supposed to be intelligent and logical, and I'm fairly sure I could have put together a more effective attempt at a car bomb than Glasgow's. I would also have measured the gap between the door pillars, and bought a Mini instead of a 4x4.
We got an upgrade for the flight out to nice, wide chairs with loads of leg room and big adjustable footrests. So of course there was a fat woman who complained intermittently through the entire flight to her friend sitting next to me (and anyone else within several rows) that it was the most uncomfortable flight she'd ever taken and how she couldn't bear to spend nine hours there, and the staff did everything they could to make her happy, offering her extra cushions and alternative seats, and she was deeply ungrateful. Cattle class on the way back was full of cheerful students in a group from Edinburgh University instead.
The American embassy renewed our visas after the standard four hour period of dullness for two five minute sessions with paperwork, so I'm now free to come and go again for the first time since January. It was great to catch up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
charles_nancy after almost a year, and looking happier than I've seen him in a long time with his new Australian fiancee :-) We had a fun meal out that night with a bunch of his friends and our strangers, one of whom was born four miles from me, and the only one of the nine who was still living in the country they were born and raised in. I love the way the world is so small now. It's the first time I've ever spent four hours in a Pizza Express! Though admittedly it took 45 minutes for everyone to show up, due to the closure of King's X and a big stretch of the Piccadilly line - in London, nothing changes!
It rained every day I was in England except two, and meanwhile my local-to-home f-list entertained me with tales of the 10-day wave of glorious sun and heat that wasn't so pleasing for my plants in my absence. But it was still the perfect time to go, because I got to watch all of Wimbledon :-)
The men's singles final was a thing of absolute beauty and awe. I love both of those guys, and they gave us one hell of a match over five sets and four hours, the longest final since Connors beat McEnroe in '82. So many rallies where the ball was smacked from line to line, where the point would have been won three times over against any other player but the ball just keeps on coming back - one rally every single one of the last six strokes should have done it. But every time either Federer or Nadal look like going under, they just lift their game and play better. So much strength and power in both of them combined with inch-perfect control and delicacy - Federer I've adored for years for his incredible grace and athleticism that disguises his brute force, and Nadal has glorious dark eyes and those beautifully-muscled arms under flawless skin that just make me want to reach out and stroke :-) Those two have to be close to the perfect humans, stamina and skill and speed all working together with the ability to switch direction in a second, and a look that comes from actually using every single muscle in their bodies every day - so much hotter to me than any guy with big pecs and a six-pack from the gym.
Roger Federer truly deserved his Borg-equalling fifth consecutive win, because he brought a genuine talent and inspiration back to the men's game that had been missing since the late eighties. But surely in the next year or two, that trophy has to be Nadal's. To turn himself from a clay-court specialist into someone who can genuinely rival the master on grass in under a year (hell, in a month since the French Open) - wow. Federer strolling out onto the court in his white blazer and cotton slacks like he's there to eat strawberries and cream instead of play tennis just makes me giggle:-)
And Venus Williams - everything I said about the two guys goes the same for her. Her opponent in the final, gutsy as she was, just wasn't of the same calibre, so it was never going to be a classic match, but to be fair, is there anyone who can match Venus on a grass court? That second week, day after day she sliced through opponent after opponent like they were so much butter left out in the sun too long, and if she's pushed at all she just pushes back harder (at least at Wimbledon she does). She's so fast, and so strong and so determined, and then when she wins, she breaks into this enormous, infectious grin and laughs all through the interviews, and she becomes one of the most beautiful, sexy women on the planet. I could watch her all day.
In contrast, the British Grand Prix which we recorded and watched later after the fabulous Murray/Jankovic mixed doubles win (whoever scheduled the GP for the Sunday at the end of the first week in July was an idiot, because Wimbledon will steal the ratings) only reminded me of all the reasons I stopped watching the sport. A line of cars driving round in a long procession, with the only 'overtaking' happening because of pit stops. Yawn. Even with a British driver on pole setting a new record every race he's in, it managed to bore the crap out of me. If F1 racing drivers are ever allowed to get back to the racing part, I'll start taking an interest again.
Mostly the trip was about being obligatorially sociable with relatives (and isn't it nice when sociable means sitting and watching the tennis together? XD), so I didn't go to many interesting places, but there will be a few photos later. No birdwatching apart from the ones I fell over along the way, but I still managed to fall over a life bird - I was severely boggled by the sight of three raptors with dramatically forked tails soaring alongside the M40, but a quick check of the RSPB website agreed that the red kites reintroduced to the Chilterns are doing well. Somehow my mind still associates them firmly with Wales, but it was lovely to see the persecuted return to enjoy some of their old homes.
I got to read a few books over the trip, including The Time Traveler's Wife which a friend bought me for Christmas and I'd heard vaguely good things about.
It's a very clever book, with a number of intricately-tangled plot strands that must have been hellish to deal with in the writing, and a lot of thought given to the consequences of time travel, both on the grand scale and in the tiniest details. It definitely keeps the interest all through, with a whole series of 'Ah!' moments as some hint or throwaway comment from earlier becomes enlightened. But it's not great writing - having spent a number of years telling fanfic writers that if you have to label each section with 'Clare' and 'Henry' so that the reader knows whose POV you're with, then there's something very wrong with the narrative voice, here's a published author doing the same. And there really is no narrative voice, only the authorial one. Admittedly the two main characters are from the same kind of social background, but their life experiences and attitudes are so vastly different, at least initially, that it should be obviously there in the first person, and it's not.
Some reviewers of this book have opined at length on what a wonderful love story this is, but in that respect it left me utterly cold. If the characters have no personality in the language, I'm not going to become emotionally involved in them, unlike say Captain Corelli's Mandolin, where every character at every plot level was so vividly and wittily alive they just about killed me. I read The Time Traveler's Wife once for the plot, and I won't read it again.
So as you will have gathered, I'm back home with full computer access restored, and I'll get onto my emails soonish, but still no cats to hang round my ankles. We were going to collect them last night when we got back, but the Scooby's battery died while we were gone, and the carrier won't fit in the Seven! I'llreprieve retrieve the poor things later today.
We got an upgrade for the flight out to nice, wide chairs with loads of leg room and big adjustable footrests. So of course there was a fat woman who complained intermittently through the entire flight to her friend sitting next to me (and anyone else within several rows) that it was the most uncomfortable flight she'd ever taken and how she couldn't bear to spend nine hours there, and the staff did everything they could to make her happy, offering her extra cushions and alternative seats, and she was deeply ungrateful. Cattle class on the way back was full of cheerful students in a group from Edinburgh University instead.
The American embassy renewed our visas after the standard four hour period of dullness for two five minute sessions with paperwork, so I'm now free to come and go again for the first time since January. It was great to catch up with
charles_nancy after almost a year, and looking happier than I've seen him in a long time with his new Australian fiancee :-) We had a fun meal out that night with a bunch of his friends and our strangers, one of whom was born four miles from me, and the only one of the nine who was still living in the country they were born and raised in. I love the way the world is so small now. It's the first time I've ever spent four hours in a Pizza Express! Though admittedly it took 45 minutes for everyone to show up, due to the closure of King's X and a big stretch of the Piccadilly line - in London, nothing changes!It rained every day I was in England except two, and meanwhile my local-to-home f-list entertained me with tales of the 10-day wave of glorious sun and heat that wasn't so pleasing for my plants in my absence. But it was still the perfect time to go, because I got to watch all of Wimbledon :-)
The men's singles final was a thing of absolute beauty and awe. I love both of those guys, and they gave us one hell of a match over five sets and four hours, the longest final since Connors beat McEnroe in '82. So many rallies where the ball was smacked from line to line, where the point would have been won three times over against any other player but the ball just keeps on coming back - one rally every single one of the last six strokes should have done it. But every time either Federer or Nadal look like going under, they just lift their game and play better. So much strength and power in both of them combined with inch-perfect control and delicacy - Federer I've adored for years for his incredible grace and athleticism that disguises his brute force, and Nadal has glorious dark eyes and those beautifully-muscled arms under flawless skin that just make me want to reach out and stroke :-) Those two have to be close to the perfect humans, stamina and skill and speed all working together with the ability to switch direction in a second, and a look that comes from actually using every single muscle in their bodies every day - so much hotter to me than any guy with big pecs and a six-pack from the gym.
Roger Federer truly deserved his Borg-equalling fifth consecutive win, because he brought a genuine talent and inspiration back to the men's game that had been missing since the late eighties. But surely in the next year or two, that trophy has to be Nadal's. To turn himself from a clay-court specialist into someone who can genuinely rival the master on grass in under a year (hell, in a month since the French Open) - wow. Federer strolling out onto the court in his white blazer and cotton slacks like he's there to eat strawberries and cream instead of play tennis just makes me giggle:-)
And Venus Williams - everything I said about the two guys goes the same for her. Her opponent in the final, gutsy as she was, just wasn't of the same calibre, so it was never going to be a classic match, but to be fair, is there anyone who can match Venus on a grass court? That second week, day after day she sliced through opponent after opponent like they were so much butter left out in the sun too long, and if she's pushed at all she just pushes back harder (at least at Wimbledon she does). She's so fast, and so strong and so determined, and then when she wins, she breaks into this enormous, infectious grin and laughs all through the interviews, and she becomes one of the most beautiful, sexy women on the planet. I could watch her all day.
In contrast, the British Grand Prix which we recorded and watched later after the fabulous Murray/Jankovic mixed doubles win (whoever scheduled the GP for the Sunday at the end of the first week in July was an idiot, because Wimbledon will steal the ratings) only reminded me of all the reasons I stopped watching the sport. A line of cars driving round in a long procession, with the only 'overtaking' happening because of pit stops. Yawn. Even with a British driver on pole setting a new record every race he's in, it managed to bore the crap out of me. If F1 racing drivers are ever allowed to get back to the racing part, I'll start taking an interest again.
Mostly the trip was about being obligatorially sociable with relatives (and isn't it nice when sociable means sitting and watching the tennis together? XD), so I didn't go to many interesting places, but there will be a few photos later. No birdwatching apart from the ones I fell over along the way, but I still managed to fall over a life bird - I was severely boggled by the sight of three raptors with dramatically forked tails soaring alongside the M40, but a quick check of the RSPB website agreed that the red kites reintroduced to the Chilterns are doing well. Somehow my mind still associates them firmly with Wales, but it was lovely to see the persecuted return to enjoy some of their old homes.
I got to read a few books over the trip, including The Time Traveler's Wife which a friend bought me for Christmas and I'd heard vaguely good things about.
It's a very clever book, with a number of intricately-tangled plot strands that must have been hellish to deal with in the writing, and a lot of thought given to the consequences of time travel, both on the grand scale and in the tiniest details. It definitely keeps the interest all through, with a whole series of 'Ah!' moments as some hint or throwaway comment from earlier becomes enlightened. But it's not great writing - having spent a number of years telling fanfic writers that if you have to label each section with 'Clare' and 'Henry' so that the reader knows whose POV you're with, then there's something very wrong with the narrative voice, here's a published author doing the same. And there really is no narrative voice, only the authorial one. Admittedly the two main characters are from the same kind of social background, but their life experiences and attitudes are so vastly different, at least initially, that it should be obviously there in the first person, and it's not.
Some reviewers of this book have opined at length on what a wonderful love story this is, but in that respect it left me utterly cold. If the characters have no personality in the language, I'm not going to become emotionally involved in them, unlike say Captain Corelli's Mandolin, where every character at every plot level was so vividly and wittily alive they just about killed me. I read The Time Traveler's Wife once for the plot, and I won't read it again.
So as you will have gathered, I'm back home with full computer access restored, and I'll get onto my emails soonish, but still no cats to hang round my ankles. We were going to collect them last night when we got back, but the Scooby's battery died while we were gone, and the carrier won't fit in the Seven! I'll
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 05:47 am (UTC)Give my love to the kitties.
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Date: 2007-07-12 06:27 am (UTC)It definitely helps when the competent ones kill themselves deliberately - at least they can only do it once! The IRA had a long history of blowing themselves up too, and they didn't even believe in a hundred virgins, or whatever the latest incentive scheme is.
The kitties are now home and happy, if somewhat hot and sprawled :-)