MMXIX

Remembering those those we have lost along the past year and looking forward to new beginnings in the coming year. Take good self care of yourself and have a good time.

One More Sleep

It's the season to be happy and joyous,  unless you're the character on Eastenders whose just declared that "it's going to be the best Christmas Walford has ever seen" in which case you're going to die alone, heartbroken on Arthur's bench with the sound of people partying in the Vic in the background.

Tumblred

For many years Tumblr users have been complaining about porn bots and trolls and instead of taking a scalpel to deal with it and create a better experience for users they've grabbed a big sledgehammer and taken it to huge sections of their user base. The site was for many years an excellent resource for many trans users especially f2m and gender queer/ non binary people's for exploring their identity. The new policy will kill creative expression and harm marginalised groups. I've decided not to close my account, just ghost it like many other users.

Diversity Kills Comics

One big nonsense this year was comicsgate. If you hang around conversations about comic books you will find some guy complaining about diversity and you can be sure that once someone has laid that poop hundreds of other fly's will gather talking about sjw's, snowflakes and other such crap.
What has to be said is that diversity isn't killing comic books, bad comic books kill comic books. At current prices even a small pull list requires a decent financial commitment. It also has to be added comic books have always been political as soon as they started jumping from newspaper strips to their own publications early Stan Lee wrote about refugees, Superman is one and heavily coded Jewish.
A lot of dudes though spend their time and effort attacking on books not aimed at them like Squirrel Girl there are hundreds of Tony Stark Iron Man books out there for sale and so many guys punching guys comics out there.
Like any of those -gate'ers, and they generally are the same people Its pointless to debate them as they're either so stubborn no amount of facts of reason will dislodge them or they're deliberately out to annoy you so save your mental health and block, mute and ignore away.

Legitmate Concerns

"I have legitimate concerns...." seems to be 2018's "I'm not a racist but..." If £10 was donated to Mermaids every time somebody tries to dress up their transphobic drivel in that phrase they wouldn't have to worry about lottery support for their worthwhile work. People can explore and question sex and gender, in the same way you can explore race but using either phrase are red flags and mean I will automatically discount your bigoted opinion

British Comedy

Its fair to say there's a sad terf'y steak running through British comedy at the moment not just lazy hack writers using a deliberately masculine crossdresser to get a cheap laugh although that's bad enough (excusing the fine subversive gender queer pantomime tradition). From a co-writer of a sitcom you really liked to other male self appointed defenders of women and those bravely making other jokes that punch down to other marginalised groups like the poor and sex workers.

It matches the widespread anti trans media from all wings, possibly that's what is acceptable today that will be unacceptable, one can only hope.

Old Jokes

There is the problem with a lot of old pieces of entertainment. Culture moves on not just songs written in the immediate post war period but in my lifetime. There are many things I enjoyed that are not repeatable. Gay panic jokes while admittedly still a thing were much more prevalent and racial jokes generally mocking Asians though one bigoted comedian was still doing his Chalky character on prime time TV. Who knows what will be unacceptable that was accepted today?

Baby Its Cold Outside

The staple of many a festive playlist Baby It's Cold Outside is no longer such a staple, with some banning it. Having re-listened to the song, I think the most generous thing to say about it is that it's problematic, displaying attitudes that were common at the time but are no longer acceptable. Less generously it's downright rapey, where she says no many, many times and he's still trying to have his way with her.

Brussel Sprouts Flavoured

I tried the Brussel Sprouts flavoured crisps today.

I can confirm that, as you'd expect, they were vile.

Fighting Nazis on Many Planets

Based on past experience I was expecting the faceless trolls to pile into the current series of Doctor Who and newspapers to cull these unrepresentative tweets as evidence of a backlash, given ratings are up, many collum inches written and there is actual evidence that new fans of the show have been created the BBC will be hoping for many more of those kinds of backlashes. 

Those talking about the Darleks conveniently forget they weren't exactly subtlety coded as space nazis who frequently preached racial superiority and purity, I can also point out attacks on Thatcherism or just Robert Holmes essentially moaning about having to pay tax.

Is Die Hard A Christmas Film?

Been pondering  that not-so age old debate about whether the film Die Hard can be counted as a Christmas film. In the end its a subjective judgement, much like compiling a list of companions from Doctor Who, there's a definite yes pile, and then there's a few up for debate does Kamelion count? Or Adam from the post 2005 series'? In the end its just a bit of fun, much like Alan Rickman's performance.

Btw it is a Christmas film.

Binders

So the Mail on Sunday, following on from their expose of food banks a few years ago which gave the shocking revelation that they were willing to help someone who said they were in need. Comes their wont-somebody-think-of-the-children comes the story of a organisation helping young trans men access safe but not cheap binders. The alternative being trans teens resorting to methods that are potentially dangerous and among the many things this blog supports is that if you're binding do it well, and take care of yourself.

Eating at Desk

One thing I've noticed after having many office based jobs is that the smellier your lunch is the more likely it is that you're going to inflict your weird onion and garlic fishy diet on everyone around you by eating it at your desk. Which is certainly near the air conditioning / heating unit which amplifies the smell further and makes those not next to you smell it and hate you as well. All the while you go into some strange state of oblivion to everyone glaring daggers at you and start thinking of a egg, very mature cheese and extra onion mix to bring in tomorrow.

Monday

It's only Monday and I'm shattered already, politely opted out of the work secret Santa and treated myself to a dress partly using the savings from not buying someone a gift they probably wont like and buying something I definitely will. 

Mummified Hands

Being around with a free period to spare I took a look at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in what is a converted house with a little extension for the art displays. Being a converted house there are lots of little rooms and narrow stairs to navigate and explore while enjoyable, the whole collection is crying out for a more modern and accessible space, which hopefully they will get one day.