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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (Books 2019, 6)
A re-read of Pratchett & Gaiman’s comedy-horror masterpiece, prior to the forthcoming TV series.
I remembered little, and/but enjoyed it immensely. Probably more this time than whenever it was I last read it. You don’t have to have read The Omen to enjoy this, just in case you thought that.
Oh, turns out it was in 2007: the twelfth book I read that year. I’m starting to repeat myself.
Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassady (Books 2019, 5)
You’ve probably wondered what’s happened to my reading lately. Truth is, I have several things on the go, some or all of which I’ll finish eventually.
Meanwhile, here’s the latest of my reading of Warren’s superhero-type things. It’s pretty good: better than Stormwatch, which I wrote about last year, or The Authority, which for some reason I didn’t. The latter group make a guest appearance here. Multiverse-crossing, and all that.
Not the best thing I’ve read, but not bad.
Five years ago I tweeted this:
Five fucking years. Back when the F-word national disgrace was just a bad joke.
Note that I’m deliberately avoiding using his name.
Congratulations to the Event Horizon Telescope team. The first ever picture of a black hole. In this case, the supermassive one at the centre of the M87 galaxy.
Parrots! In Hackney!
There were four parrots in the tree across the road. You can see three of them here. Not great photo quality, unfortunately.
My daughter tells me there was a story about them escaping from the zoo recently. I couldn’t find that, but here’s a story with much better pictures about London’s feral parrots.
New passport arrived. The proper, dignified burgundy colour.
That’s me set as an EU citizen till 2029.
That’s how it works, right?
OK/Cancel
The other day I was explaining to my daughter why I thought a second referendum would be right and democratic. I reached for an analogy, and came up with the idea that you don’t (usually) do something as serious as deleting a file without getting a confirmation dialogue to confirm that you really mean to go ahead.
So now I’m planning on making a banner with some version of the image below for the “Put it to the People” march on Saturday. Just trying to perfect the wording. All suggestions gratefully considered.
Not shown: my Unix-based joke alternative, which would be something like:
# Leavers be all like:
rm -rf britains-special-place-in-the-eu/
Though maybe “Abort, Retry, Fail” would be more in keeping with the times.
Partners
We went to Parliament Square this morning for the passing into law of Equal Civil Partnerships (the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registrations etc) bill — or now, act — to give it its full name).
It has taken a long time, but different-sex couples can now have a civil partnership if they want to. Or will be able to, later this year or early next, once all the paperwork has been processed.
It’s not the biggest issue in the world — it wasn’t even the most important thing happening in Parliament Square this morning (those kids were noisy, and rightly so) — but it means a lot to us. Those of us who have problems with traditional marriage. Which just means that it isn’t right for us; it’s up to everyone else what’s right for them.
Rebecca & Charles Addressing the crowdRebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who took the case to the court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, were there, as was Tim Loughton, the Liberal Democrat MP whose private members bill it was. The government supported it, which is why it was able to get through; but of course they had to do something once the Supreme Court had told them that the existing situation was unlawful.
Tim Loughton MP addressing the crowdThe stupid thing is that all the time and money and stress could have been saved if civil partnerships had included mixed-sex couples in the first place. I was sure I’d had this thought back when they were introduced for same-sex couples. I thought I had written about it here. Not much, it turns out. There was a post expressing disappointment with a setback at the Supreme Court before the final decision.
But there was this post about Tony Blair’s legacy, where I said in an aside, “though why not for het couples?”
I took a few pictures. Did you know there’s a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Parliament Square? I didn’t. Seems rather strange, but why not, I suppose.
Statue of Abraham Lincoln in Parliament SquareAfter a week of Brexit insanity and a on a day of horror in New Zealand, it’s good to have some positive news.
