We are voting for members of the European Parliament and some of us are voting for local council members.

Round these parts only the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have even fielded candiatates for the local council elections. You can tell it's getting bad for Labour, though because this time they sent round a leaflet - as opposed to every other election in the 10 years I've been living here, when they've sent round nothing. Granted that the rural South/South West of England is not and never has been a Labour heartland, you'd think that the party in government (why is that never abbreviated to PIG?) would at least show an interest.

Meanwhile, the European ballot paper shows a field of about 15 parties, two of which are from the main political parties (Labour and Liberal Democrats - the Conservatives don't really seem to be trying for this one). The rest are nutters. It is quite frightening when the next most reasonable party on the slate appears to be Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish Independence party. Of the remaining nutters there are the nasty extreme right wing ones, the nasty extreme left wing ones, a couple of "Christian" ones (and I use quotation marks advisedly here), a fair few single issue one (let's all vote for powering the country on fair trade organic sprouted mung beans) and a substantial tranche that want to be out of Europe all together. Leaving aside for a moment the irony of standing for election for a body that you actually don't want to exist at all (and turning aside any thought of them only being in it for the expenses - which reputedly make the Westminster ones look like modest claims for a cup of tea and a Chelsea bun every now and again) they appear to have missed one very important point: if you want Britain to withdraw from the EU the decision has to be made by the Westminster Parliament.

Or put even more simply: "Guys, you're standing in the wrong elections"

Unless, I suppose, they're hoping to go over there and kick off so badly that we get thrown out and barred for bad behaviour.

I have to admit though, it's quite fun to wake up in the morning and wonder how much of your government will have made it through the night. Soon there will be no one left in Westminster and I do wonder how much we'll notice.

A propos - public service announcement. I know they're all being a bunch of dicks at the moment, but it is still important to vote. Ladies, people died so that you could schlepp up to the polling station. Also if you don't use it they buggers will try to take it off you.

Current Mood: amused

I went to the dentist today.

( Cut to spare anyone who is phobic about dentists although the tale is more irksome than gruesome. )

For the dental phobes, here is a story about ducklings.

As I parked up I was accosted by a gentleman who seemed to have had several too many drinks (over the course of the last several years) but who, today, was most concerned with ducklings. Eight of them to be precise who were wandering about the car park obediently behind their mum. The gentleman was most concerned that I should ring the RSPCA and, to be fair, I was a little concerned myself as the car park is a significant distance from any body of water (and if she was trying to get to the Solent she was heading the wrong way) and it did not, on the whole, seem like a safe place for them to play. I duly rang the RSPCA who said that although they appeared to be in a odd place the chances were that mum knew what she was doing and they were best left to get on with it. About 30 minutes later they had made it across the main road (which is no mean feat - I sometimes struggle and I know how to use a zebra crossing) and were waddling determinedly onwards.

OK, the dental stuff is over. It's safe to stop thinking about ducklings. :D

Current Mood: contemplative

Some while ago I had an issue with my bathroom (bear with me, this is relevant) which began with one of the bath taps leaking and ended with the kitchen ceiling becoming waterlogged and collapsing on me. All was sorted out (thank you, home insurance) but as a result of this my bath shifted slightly such that I can no longer get the bath panel fitted properly up the side of the bath. With my customary alacrity in sorting out all repairs household of a minor nature, it has stayed propped again the bath. If the bathroom door hits it with enough force the bath panel will fall over¹. This was all well and good until the bathroom door stopped catching shut properly.

So, not to be outdone by one Marlowe who recently took an excursion into lillithj's roof space, DeeDee (black smoke Devon Rex aged 18 months) was playing chase with her partners in crime Alfie (also 18 months) and Spongebob (15 months). Some or all of them did a wipe out into the bathroom door with enough force, not just to knock it open, but also to overbalance the bath panel.

Of course, I should have been alerted, if not by the crash (I get a lot of those in my house), then by Alfie returning to the living room looking like Indiana Jones emerging from an Aztec cave. A little while later there were Stephen King type noises coming from the downstairs ceiling. And there was no DeeDee.

A short investigation showed that the bathroom door was now barricaded by the bath panel. I forced my way inside (I'm going to need a new bathroom door - panel corners and cheap doors do not go well together) and found that DeeDee had got herself into the space between the upper and lower floors. By now she was bored and quite insistent that she couldn't get out. I didn't have enough room to get her out easily (see note 1). She carried on explaining that she couldn't get out on her own.

So there was I wondering if I could remove a floorboard, wondering if the RSPCA would help if I asked them really nicely and cursing the fact that there is never, and I mean never, anyone around at times like this when I could use another pair of hands, or maybe a really large saw. However, before I embarked on a full scale remodelling of the bathroom, I managed to find a tin of chicken cat food ² and put it in a bowl near the bath. After some consideration DeeDee decided that perhaps she could get out on her own after all.

She now looked like Indiana Jones emerging from the ruins of Petra and trying to persuade everyone that he really did find the Holy Grail, honest.

The bathroom door now shuts properly. It still has a hole in it.

1. I live in a house in Southern England. I am not JKR. My house is small. My bathroom is very small.

2. Applaws 100% chicken, if anyone's interested. Not cheap, excellent quality and the only cat food that I have actually tasted myself (it was a dare).

Current Mood: aggravated

I have just finished Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by the gloriously named Simon Sebag Montefiore. It is a gripping and extraordinarily well written account of the life of Stalin and his rise to control the USSR. It left me musing about how exactly you end up wielding that sort of power and brutality: I get that one person thinks that this is the right way to run a country - what fascinates me is the process of getting other people to buy into it. Of course, right at the end, it's about gaining personal advantage and staying alive in the process. But it doesn't start off that way. In the beginning there are good things about following your leader. S/he is dynamic, sympathetic, charismatic, persuasive, articulates what you believe and contirives, through emotion, arguments, facts (of a more or less spurious nature) and your own inclinations to get you to think that their way is the right way. And maybe, for a while, it does get better until the rot sets in.

It's something that's never quite sat right with me with the fandom portrayals of life in Voldie's circle as All Torture, All The Time. I mean, if that's *all* that Voldie ever offered, why would you get involved? Even if you are the local equivalent of a rabid white supremacist. Lucius, for example, is racist; there is no suggestion that he's a masochist or stupid. And even the thickest henchman is eventually going to think, "Bugger this for a game of Quidditch" if he gets nothing but random torture, ever. There are benefits to being the best friend of the playground bully but people tend to avoid the playground psychopath.

There must have been some payoff to being a Death Eater, something that would have drawn people in up until the moment that it had gone too far to withdraw and it became more about negotiating survival. Almost right up to the end there were enormous benefits to being one of Stalin's favourites; enormous risks as well if you fell out of favour, but people seemed to think the risk was worth it. That, and the usual human belief, against all available objective evidence, that it would never happen to them.

Anyway, I thoroughly recommend the book if you're interested in Soviet History and/or Stalin and/or tyranny. However, as with any book on Soviet history (especially if it happens to span the thirties and forties) it is not exactly a rousing romp with a belly laugh on every page. I am now off to read something with a sightly lower bodycount.

Current Mood: contemplative

... I checked over the contents of my fruit and veg trolley and found four bananas that were decidedly past their best. So I had another moment, this time of productivity and made a banana and walnut loaf with them.

I really do like banana bread,

Current Mood: satisfied

Near where I live: "This weekend! Woodland Cemetery Open Day."

Not too open, I hope.

On the westbound carriageway of the M27:

"Caution! Pedestrians in the road."

Not exactly where I would choose to go for a quiet stroll. In fact, there were no pedestrians to be seen so perhaps they had discovered their error of judgement.

And finally, the local Highways people have rediscovered the old "Think Bike" slogan to encourage drivers to look out for motorcyclists and not kill them and stuff. So, after driving up the motorway past a number of matrix signs telling me to "Think Bike" I pass one that says, "Think Bike: End". So, presumably, after that sign I am free to ignore motorcyclists and get on with the serious business of slaughtering them indiscriminately.

All very odd, really.

Current Mood: confused

This weekend I am going to a cat show in Jersey with three friends. This requires operational planning the like of which has not been seen since the Normandy landings. Travelling with cats is akin to travelling with small children: you take a small carrier bag for yourself and half a Transit load of gear for them - bedding, litter trays, food (wet and dry), bowls, cleaning stuff, small bin liners, large bin liners, cloths, toys, large pens, small pens not to mention the show kit itself, which is a whole separate collection of litter trays, bedding, bowls, cotton wool buds, ear wipes, eye wipes, claw clippers, food, water, shampoo (although my guys have already been bathed and hopefully won't need a second one), documentation ... it goes on.

Cats also have the same exciting range of, and capacity to spontaneously produce, bodily fluids as small children, but with concealed weaponry and a seriously impressive power-to-weight ratio to factor into the cleanup process.

Then there are the travel arrangements.

Yesterday evening Gloria arrived from Manchester, together with her cats (3), kit and luggage to stay with Vera.

This morning at quarter to six, I loaded up the car with my cats (2), kit and luggage and drove to Mo's house. To the car I added her cats (3), her kit and luggage.

I then drove to Gloria and Vera.

At quarter to seven Gloria left with her car (mercifully a big one) loaded with adult humans (2), cats (8), show and travel kit (8 sets) and luggage (for 4 adults) to get the car ferry to Jersey.

Mo and I are meeting at the airport later on this afternoon to fly over. Mo is working and as for me - well over the last 48 hours work has come in and out of my professional diary like it was doing the the sodding hokey cokey (as she is called in Good Old Blighty) which hasn't exactly left me calm and relaxed.

Yes, I did book today off work.

In my line of work that's regarded as a Gratuitous Challenge to the Universe to Bugger It Up and I must say the Universe responded like a good'un. Within my workload, maybe 5% of it is genuinely stuff that I need to do myself rather than hand it over (and believe me when I say that I do not have Delusions of Indispensability - my default position is always 'if I was run over by a bus you'd sort it then, so sort it now') and in true Pterryesque style it is always that 5% which threatens to disrupt leave plans.

The Universe and I concluded a temporary cessation of hostilities on the question of today at about 4 pm yesterday afternoon. Fingers crossed that this will actually hold at least until Monday morning.

Just in case you were wondering - this is what I do for fun, folks. *G*

Yes, there really were ten and a half chapters.

( Here are the remaining five and a half. Same warnings apply. )

In other news I have this season's fashionable viral complaint. I do not feel well and appear to have no time diarised in which to be ill.

Current Mood: gloomy

There is a story to this.

In the summer I went camping with a group of friends. One of them (the eponymous MrPhil) brought with him a parrot hand puppet.

No, I don't know why. It's one of those questions best left shrouded in mystery.

Anyway, one evening around the campfire we had consumed one or two modest halves of bitter shandy and I ended up agreeing to write an account of MrPhil's parrot at pivotal moments in history.

It's crackfic but hopefully it will make you smile.

So, I give you A History of MrPhil's Parrot in Ten and a Half Chapters

Rating: Gransafe.
Warnings: No Snape, no Hermione, no Lucius, no Harry Potter of any description, no sex of any description. Lots of parrots.

( First part of story here, if you're still with me )

Current Location: Home. At last. Thank God it's Friday
Current Mood: grumpy

Stolen from acusa_dora

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Current Location: Still watching the Olympics
Current Mood: cheerful