Another month, another LARP event at CP. This time it was The Court of Crimson and Gold, and it was certainly a busy weekend. The good news is that Cedric (my character) finally got promoted from Cadet to Private. The bad news is that it was posthumous.

(Apologies in advance: this is another long post.)

( Read more... )

Over on Facebook, someone posted a link to this petition:
Home Office @ukhomeoffice: Change the law so 17-year-olds are treated as children in custody #4JoeBasically, there's a discrepancy in UK law: if a 17 year old is arrested by the police then they get treated as an adult, but if they are subsequently charged then they'll be treated as a child ( Read more... )

There's been a bit of controversy in the news regarding an incident in New York. Basically, a man was pushed in front of a subway train, and subsequently died. Another man was on the platform, and he took photos of the incident: one of these photos subsequently appeared on the front page of the New York Post. Some people are criticising the ( Read more... )

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Last November, I adopted three Roborovski hamsters from what is now Starlight Trust. I named them Phoebe, Piper, and Paige (after the three sisters in Charmed), although I still have trouble telling them apart from appearance, so I have to rely on behaviour ( Read more... )

Last year, Charles Petzold wrote about the decline in book sales (Hard Work, No Pay: What's the Point?), and this phrase caught my eye in particular: A book is not 150 successive blog entries, just like a novel isn't 150 character sketches, descriptions, and scraps of dialog.There's a trend for books to be written exactly like that, using material ( Read more... )

"Do you know how to pluck a chicken?" said Miss Flitworth.
Bill looked from her to the hen.
BUT WE FEED THEM, he said helplessly.
"That's right. And then they feed us. This one's been off lay for months. That's how it goes in the chicken world."("Reaper Man", p130 ( Read more... )

Looking at the BBC website, I see that the rules are about to change (tomorrow) regarding organ donation. From my point of view, the most significant change is that relatives will no longer be able to override the wishes of the deceased person, e.g. if I register as a donor then my next of kin can't turn around to the doctors after I'm dead and say ( Read more... )