I'm off soon to spend several hours covering an exhibit opening at a museum for art by veterans. It's one of three or four stories I may be covering during this holiday weekend, though now that I have an obligation to be somewhere, all I want to do is work on zombie apocalypse Hollow Crown fic (which is why I was up until well after 1 AM last night reading about the Black Death), despite the fact that I made no use of the several hours after I woke up, on my own, at 8. (Also, note to self.)

I guess this is just me delaying putting pants on. Also, you ever have links open in tabs that fascinate you but you can't really bring yourself to read them? Yeah.

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sigh

It's easier, in some respects, to outline than to write the story.

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There's now two charges against two girls in the south for child abuse with
two other girls. Each couple is within the so-called "Romeo and Juliet"
clauses that these laws usually have.

Gee, you hear lots of rumors about this with older boys against younger
girls.

The parents say they're not motivated by homophobia.

.......suuuuuuure. Yeah, I believe that. Really.

So these cases might be used to weaken age-of-consent laws, which will
pretty much benefit predatory males, given their numerical domination in
the sex offender category. Oh, and right here: anybody who tries ti trot
out, "I know a guy who got busted for public urination!" I'll ban you in a
heartbeat.

In case you haven't been keeping up, whining about the sex offender
registry and how you 'heard' about this guy getting put on there for a lewd
license plate is the new "Bitchez lie, amirite?"

Power came back on around 3ish, while I was still out with the monkeys getting batteries and tee lights and other such supplies. Rest of the day was quite dull by comparison, but the highlight was that I got the washing up done and managed to rope both of them into giving significant help. That's still an ordeal, but it's getting easier. And then the Boy tried some of the feta in the quiche and declared himself a fan, so he's clearly maturing. Woot!

Retro Review: "The Last Evolution" (1932) by John W. Campbell

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See my detailed description and analysis of this masterwork on Fantastic Worlds!

So I am setting down my record on the mentatype.


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What is the nature of this strange tale?  Find out on Fantastic Worlds!

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A lovely, impromptu 4-day holiday in the Pyrenees mountains and southern France for my birthday, with a quick hop by budget-flight and then by rail and sail, crossing off the last of Europe's unvisited microstates off my list.

Continuing the interesting tradition of celebrating my birthday outside of the country, I decided on a whim to fly to Barcelona on Sunday, needing to wake at the usual for the usual $deity-forsaken hour to get to Gatwick on time for the easyJet flight, departing for Barcelona at 0900hrs and arriving there just over 2hrs later, later realising it was the first time back in the city since my last visit in late 2005, nearly 8 years ago. Sadly I couldn't hang around, as the mini-bus to Andorra departed about an hour later, taking a leisurely 4 hours to dash across Catalonian motorways, wind up the mountain roads, and eventually cross into Andorra by the country's main southern gateway on the Spanish border, arriving at its capital Andorra la Vella around 1500hrs; it was a short walk from the city's main bus station to the 4-star hotel I'd booked just off the main shopping street, an absolute gem of a deal I'd found online, with a spacious double-room that could have counted as a small suite on its own. There wasn't much to do that afternoon except have a quick walk-around in the cold streets, and even then I was chased back indoors not long afterwards by pouring rain.

At least I had a rain-free day to explore the capital on Monday, after enjoying a long sleep-in and rugging up for the cold day outside: Andorra la Vella was past the 1,000m altitude mark, making for dingle-digit temperatures during the day and falling to zero at night. The city was quite small as cities go, but then again the country itself was one of the smallest in Europe, and while having a few attractions, I found out rather quickly that outside of skiing most people seem to visit Andorra for shopping: street after street was packed with feature shops, malls, and other designer-label outlets, selling mostly alcohol, cigars or tobacco products, electronics (especially Swiss watches), pharmaceuticals or medicines, or other duty-free offerings, taking advantage of the lower tax-rate the country offered. Once I'd discovered the Antic Barri (Old Town) and walked around the city in the next hour or three, I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying long spells of window-shopping.

Tuesday morning was another very early morning, as one of the only international buses headed north across the border left not far past my hotel at 0545hrs, trundling higher into the mountains before eventually crossing into France, and the closest railway station to the microstate at L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre at 0645hrs. The connecting train didn't leave for another hour afterwards, so I spent time walking around the tiny town, trying to warm up in the 2-3deg warm morning, before catching the regional train through a rather picturesque descent back to sea-level from the Pyrenees and into the regional capital of Toulouse, but by this time it was pouring down again and my rush from the railway station to the hotel in the centre of the city left me soaked.

Thankfully Wednesday wasn't as bad, although while it rained again in the morning, the afternoon later became warmer and the sun even peeked out through the gray clouds on the odd occasion. The town was sizeable, so I spend a lot of time walking around the old districts in the centre, visiting the iconic Capitole buildings, visited the church which held the remains of Thomas Aquinas, crossed the river Garonne for some lovely pictures, and later dined in a traditional trattoria (as Toulouse was known for good cuisine) for dinner.

Thursday was a long travel day, with the high-speed train (1st class on the upper level of a double-decker TGV, hooray for online specials!) departing the city at 0945hrs, crossing east across the country to the coast at Narbonne and rushing past Montpellier, giving me my first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in 3 years. We passed through Lyon and bypassed Paris - the first time travelling through France I've actually done that, as I usually use Paris as a changing point for further services - and eventually arrived at Lille just after 1700hrs. I spent the next hour or two wandering around the city so close to the Belgian border - it was a city I constantly travelled through without actually visiting until now - before the Eurostar left and I eventually arrived back in London via the usual trundle through the Eurotunnel just after 1900hrs, electing to go straight to work from St. Pancras International again.

All in all, a lovely 4 (and-a-bit) day trip in the Pyrenees and southern France, the first time I've actually spent time in the country since 2010 (when I visited Strasbourg and Lyon). Despite the weather being mostly gray (and raining in some extended spells on some days), I enjoyed the quick dash south, as as much as I love mountains I don't tend to spend that much time in them. Language wasn't too much of an issue either, as most people in Andorra spoke Catalan, Spanish or French - despite the country's reputation of a shopping haven, not many people spoke English, even in the more popular stores - so I pretty much stuck to French the entire time, adjusting only to accents as I passed through the various regions (and secretly a little proud that I barely needed to drop into English at all the entire time).

Visiting Andorra crosses off one of the last countries in the European continent I haven't visited yet - having crossed off Belarus in 2012 - so now the sole remaining country left on my list is Moldova. What shall I do about that? :)

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With all this wind, we knew it would happen sooner or later: we have a blackout. Oddly, this particular one was caused by someone crashing into a transformer, but never mind the details. I'm going on mobile internets and laptop power, but they won't last so I'm blogging now while I can. We had planned a pot luck feast for our imot this evening, but without power we can't cook, and as I said on the FB group, cold, raw food, while perfectly period, would not showcase our legendary culinary skills to their best advantage.

Right, now to go find blackout supplies. The kids love playing with torches and leaving them to go flat, so our supplies are in need of serious replenishment...