I've been home for a few days to see the cat, who is crazy. And very naughty. I get a few things done, then have to stop to play with the cat. He particularly likes paper. He takes it off to play with - no idea why but it keeps him happy. He also likes having a ping pong ball thrown up the stairs for him to chase. Or often for me to chase because he's just sat there and watched it. There are photos of him, some of them are new.

I have managed to change my blog about a bit to get rid of some of the crap I had down the sidebars, and only have one sidebar, so it doesn't look so cramped and busy any more. And discovered while I was doing it that my tag cloud didn't display. It does now. And I did my Remix reviews for Sel's website, which would have been so much easier if I'd done them at the time and not had to re-read them...

Writing-wise I have looked a bit prolific lately. Partly because I actually got off my arse and wrote stuff this month. I managed to write something for lotr_community: The Ghosts of Men about the Dead Men. I got my fic in for intoabar early: The Magic Ring where Maria Jackson unexpectedly finds herself in Rivendell. And I wrote an episode tag for SJA: Death of the Doctor by starting it before the episode was broadcast: The Importance of Family starring Jo.

For November there's picowrimo which is a mini Nanowrimo where you set your own goals. I haven't had the energy to do it the past few years, but this year I am going to finish my Four, Sarah and Harry end up in present day UNIT fic that I started a long time ago. I thought that after that I'd done every combination of Sarah and Harry fic, until I thought of two more I could write. So it seems not. And then there'll also be Yuletide, of course, but by the time the assignments have gone out and I've done some research it'll be late November by the time I start writing that.

I was going to write a review of this episode when I saw it, or last weekend, but didn't get to it. And I've been writing an episode tag and I wanted to check a few details, so I re-watched bits of this Monday and Tuesday night. And now I'm awake stupidly early, I thought I'd write it up now. And include the odd detail that came out of the BFI panel which I couldn't say before because they would have been spoilers. SPOILERS. Read more...

Today I did something I hadn't done since the second episode of the first series of SJA - I watch part 1 of an episode without watching part 2 straight after. Well, I say watching, I watched a few bits out of order since I remembered what went in between given that I only saw it two weeks ago. I just wanted to check I remembered some stuff.

Overall, the whole episode is great, I loved it. But part 1 on its own is merely alright. All the good stuff happens in part 2. Out of curiosity I watched the part 2 trailer too and I'm very glad I don't usually do that. After seeing that I can't believe anyone needs to watch part 2 - they've given it all away! Maybe that's just because I know what they're hinting at, but now I'm very glad I stop the video before the trailer can manage more than a word.

I stopped watching SJA in two parts when there was a week between the two. I wondered if it wouldn't be so bad when there's only a day between them - I have time for one part of an episode on Tuesdays, but both is pushing it. Now I know - don't do it. And since Spooks is already making Mondays less bad, it'll be good to have SJA to make Wednesdays less bad (I hate Wednesdays, nothing good ever happens on Wednesdays).

I hate cliffhangers in TV programmes. The reason why I've thought about it now (and ok, only just got round to posting about it) is because at the SJA panel last week someone asked why each episode was split into two parts. The reason was that the people making the decision liked cliffhangers. And in some of the commentaries on the Doctor Who DVDs some of the people have said how much they prefer the old format because they had cliffhangers. I think they're crazy.

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A rare Tuesday in for me, so I got to watch this week's SJA tonight. Review of this week's episode, so spoilers for it: Read more...

Having effectively taken September off writing, it's been really hard to get back into it. I thought signing up to write the monthly prompt at lotr_community and signing up for A Ficathon Walks into a Bar (intobar) would do it, but then I just couldn't get started. I eventually managed to start my ficathon walks into a bar story by giving myself permission not to do my lotr_community story if I couldn't manage it (on the basis the LOTR one was due first).

So then I had a busy week and didn't get much done. But I managed to sit down this weekend and finish them both off. So now I am all ready for picowrimo and Yuletide. As long as I'm not ill like last year.

Is there anyone willing to beta a 300 word fic, which is basically a series of three drabbles? It's due next weekend and features no named characters and is about the Dead Men (the ones that live on the Paths of the Dead).

Now I am behind - it's been a busy week. Wednesday I decided I was too tired to do any museums, so I went into London in time to attempt to find the theatre and pick up my ticket. You have to pick your ticket up at least 30 minutes before the start and that was the only option. As I didn't want to be hanging around the theatre for 30 minutes, I went earlier. And got lost coming out of Euston Street Station because I didn't read the sign closely enough. But I got there in the end, and I found the station useful to go through to get from one side to the other. I never worked out how to go round. And to get from the station to the theatre I had to cross a road with three lanes on either side with traffic lights, but no pelican crossing. I'm really scared of London traffic because there's so much of it, I have no idea where any of it's going (except at great speed) and the bikes don't always stop at red lights.

I met up with my best friend again and we found a pub where they did double steak and chips (ie two 4oz steaks and an extra large portion of chips ) for £6. Half of which was the perfect amount each. So we ordered it and then had great trouble getting another plate. We made do with the one steak knife between us, though. We also established that Single Father was rubbish. I saw so much hype about it beforehand that it seemed like it had to be good, so it was good to talk to someone else who it bored too.

Chris Addison was very funny. At first he started talking about the Chilean Miners and Thatcher and repeated the jokes he'd posted to Twitter earlier in the day. So I was a bit unsure, but he improved no end. He kept getting side-tracked in his jokes and going off on a tangent to tell another funny story and never went back to the original story. But I had to think what the original story was, so I didn't mind. He was funny either way.

He did a whole load of politics jokes in the first half, and having not watched any of the party conferences, I missed some of the jokes. The second half was more general stuff. He revealed that he tore a ligament in his ankle in Edinburgh running after the Sainsburys delivery man. He went off and then came back and took questions for 15 minutes. Someone asked him if Dara O'Briain's head was big, but he said that Dara was just generally big and it was in proportion.

I managed to get the third to last train back, with 5 minutes to spare, which meant getting home at midnight, rather than 12.30. If I wasn't ill I could do that sort of thing quite happily without having to take any days off. Which was half the point of living two minutes walk from the train station. It's really annoying not being able to.

Funnily enough, there are spoilers for The Nightmare Man in this post.
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Yesterday I went to London to see a preview of the third SJA story, Death of the Doctor. Without spoilers for any of series 4, with the exception of the two people in this episode. Even though I'm avoiding spoilers this one is impossible to avoid - and will be even more so in a week's time when doubtless it'll be all over all the TV guides.
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Today I am not at work. This is because I'm off to London this afternoon. This evening is the SJA episode Death of the Doctor featuring Jo Grant. And the Eleventh Doctor. And Lis Sladen and Katy Manning are going to be there, which is very exciting. Originally I had been going to work today and I'd have 15 minutes between getting home and catching a train. But then I rearranged my days off, so I have to be ultra organised tomorrow as I'm going back to London tomorrow afternoon, getting back late at night, going to work the next morning and then going to ballet straight after.

I almost don't quite know what to do with my morning, but I have been distracted watching Armstrong and Miller videos on their website (and then discovered they have a whole load more on their youtube page). But I am not going to see them until November.

But I have finished the first draft of my ficathon walks into a bar story, which has Elrond and Maria from SJA meeting. Although not in a bar. After effectively taking September off writing it was so hard to get started - I spent the whole of the weekend procrastinating about it. But I feel much better now I have a first draft, even if it is awful and without any actual emotion. I have a few weeks to get it finished in.

I lay in bed this morning, refusing to get up before 9am after I slept for a whole 15 minutes later than I would have done if I'd been going work. I was trying to decide what to do in London. I remembered my sister told me there are lots of second hand bookshops in Tottenham Court Road, but the trouble with those is they involve spending money, carrying round books and standing with my head on one side looking at bookshelves makes me dizzy. So instead I googled London museums and upon seeing the list it came up with I immediately remembered one I wanted to go to: the Imperial War Museum.

I was working through London museums, but it got put on hold a bit while I've been ill. At least they're free, so it doesn't matter if I don't finish any of them in one go. I originally had no interest at all in this one until I went to the War Museum in Ottawa as I had a day left and had run out of other places to go. And I unexpectedly enjoyed it. I didn't know much about wars between Europeans and the natives and hearing about WWII from the Canadian perspective was so different to what you hear here. The Imperial War Museum is just down from Westminster, which is near where the BFI is and I have two hours between the museum closing and the screening starting. Even I can't get that lost that it'll take me that long to get between the two. And the BFI is next to the place where I saw ISIHAC back in the summer. Tomorrow I have to find the Bloomsbury theatre to see Chris Addison, which will be a whole new adventure as I've never been to that area at all...

It is 10/10/10, an exciting date. There won't be another exciting date until 12th November, and that's not nearly as exciting.

I meant to post a few times this week and then it just didn't happen... Mostly because I've been spending my time working my way through the Commonwealth swimming. I tape what's on BBC1/2 during the day, then watch it in the evening. So then I can fast forward through everything that isn't an actual race, which is a vast improvement. Although sometimes I miss bits and only discover which stroke they're doing and how far they're going once they've started the race. It just makes it more exciting!

I got very excited this morning when I went up the road to Sainsburys and discovered the old Woolworths is turning into a Currys/PC World. Playing with an iPad is only ten minutes walk away!

This week I'm off to London to see the third Sarah Jane Adventures episode (ie the one with Jo Grant in). And then back again the next evening to see Chris Addison, which I'm really looking forward to. I will definitely write up the SJA thing, and depending on whether I can make it spoiler free or not, I'll either post it next week or in a couple of weeks time.

My plans for the last week and a bit were derailed by waking up the Sunday before last really dizzy without me having done anything to set it off. So I've done an awful lot of nothing at all recently. Well, except for watching all of Make it or Break it, for which I blame jedinic.

But it was the perfect thing for when I had no brain. I do have a secret love of teen dramas, although usually high school based ones. This one's just the same, only centred round gymnastics. It's completely OTT drama-wise, but that's what I like about it.I can forgive some of the gymnastics for not making sense (it helps not to think about it), but I can't forgive Sasha for saying he won an Olympic gold for England, as that's impossible and I can't believe that none of the writers or the actor (who's English) spotted that.

The characters took a while to grow on me, but Sasha (who's a bloke and played by an Englishman - I'm still not sure whether the character is Romanian or English) started a teasing relationship with Summer and then he became my favourite character. He's also the hero-type, which hhertzof pointed out are the ones that tend to be my favourites.

Fortunately just before I was dizzy my Gmail account got hacked. Gmail spotted it and stopped the emails from going out, but I did then spend a whole day changing all my passwords. Some of them are a nightmare to find where to change, some of them just didn't work and I ended up emailing to get them changed. I now have more passwords and more secure passwords than I did (I should have changed them long ago really). Some of them are so secure it takes me a few attempts to log in while I fail to remember what they are.

My friends' wedding was on Saturday, which was good. The actual ceremony felt never-ending and was really boring (seriously, it was 45 minutes and it only took 2 minutes to actually marry them), but it was good to talk to people I hadn't seen for ages. The official photographer took a picture of all the Rotaractors and that must have been at least half the people there. I definitely established that the whole thing isn't for me - that would be my idea of hell making such a big deal of it and being the centre of attention and all the formalities you have to do. The only part I like is getting to see all your friends at the reception.