weaselett

There really isn't any other episodes of any TV show that hit as damn hard as Victoria's secret.

We have a new puppy (white husky *heh*) - I found due south on freeview to watch in the kitchen while minding the terror, innocently thinking yay due south.

AND OF COURSE it's Victoria's Secret.

Fraser's confession story. Sarah Maclachlan. THE WHOLE STRUCTURE. THE FEELS.

If you've never seen it, it's a defining character studt set of two episodes, and if you care about the character it will BREAK YOU.

AND the show remembered it. There was a third episode following up, and references later.

Just, due south and leverage. The two shows that just. Went hard, character focused while still having good plots. *gasps*

I'm just......

I get that people see 'stonehenge' and 'road' and start screaming but it's.....this version of the bypass is the least damaging?

Stonehenge and it's environs are also easily the MOST recorded and explored archaeological site in the UK, followed by Orkney, then Shetland.

I am currently working as a commercial archaeologist in the UK - I have been aware of commmercial archaeology since before university.

I am actually so mad that Stonehenge is the hill people are going to fight for.

Heathrow terminal five - they did actual excavation on like 0.5% of that site, the rest got geophysed and that was it. They found things they had no record of anywhere else in the country at the time. They got noted but covered by terminal 5. No excavation, absolutely no finds recovered.

HS2? They will excavate like 15% at most of that route.

Crossrail in London, it's pretty much just the cemeteries that legally have to be moved. The same is true of most road projects.

I live in the North West of England, we know almost nothing about the past besides surface remains and written evidence. There are lots of new roads, you know how many of them had ANY archaeological investigation?

It's only guidance that any investigation gets done, and that's a desk based assessment followed by investigation of generally at most 5% of an area (we had to write up a proposal at uni, and were told that any more than like 10 test trenches would be too many, so you had to do a desk based assessment and GUESS where the best places to look for things would be).

The bypass moves a road that currently runs straight though the cursus (which was built before the guidance existed...so yeah) and actually reduces a lot of things.

And again, Stonehenge has had more attention archaeologically than 99.9% of the rest of the UK.

The M6 in Cumbria runs right next to one stone circle, a motte and bailey and through the middle of another stone circle, we known almost nothing about any of those sites besides tha they exist - if people are going to get up in arms about stonehenge, they need to do it more about other places that we know almost nothing about and that knowing more about would be really really refreshing.

People also need to keep in mind that in a world were money matters, archaeological investigation costs money, adds to the overall bill for any project. The government funded projects typically get more archaeological investigation these days, private ones.....yeah o.o

/end archaeology rant.

I have been quiet - not hugely unusual for me these days, but still.

There's been a lot of stuff to deal with, financial and emotional and I have been tired in a whole load of ways. So, there's that.

Uni stuff, continues to be complicated. I have made the choice to wait to go back until prob January (they are still all for starting again in September - yesterday Preston (where Uni be) after lots of talk that it was coming for over a week, got added to the increased restrictions list.

And yesterday I got an email from the uni going on about final details. So, yeah. Not regretting that choice.

I...am worried about universities starting back up - a lot are going to do mostly online, but the students are all going back to the uni housing (have been speaking to a few second going into third year York students who are working with me at the mo - York is doing better for communication than UClan *heh*) There's the losing out on SO much of your uni chances (practical work, full use of libraries, the social nature of thing, all of the uni facilities.....). Uni costs sooo much these days, and they are not going to get value for that money.

AND the actual concerning thing, is the health side.

This is my third uni, third degree - freshers flu is ALWAYS a thing. September is ALWAYS uni plague month. And that's an unpleasant but passing illness. (I never got it, thankfully, but I did get the god awful flu that was going around my third year exam period - two months of feeling half dead and having no voice). Sickness spreads like crazy amongst uni students.

They're saying, here at least, that young people are the ones with the spiking infection rates and passing it on to each other more.

How in the heck has no one started to wonder if maybe, universities may be something to seriously consider. (People have been discussing it - and arguing that students should start anyhow, but it's rather short sighted in a lot of ways).

I know no one wants to be 'a year behind' or missing out on a year, people have queried what those students will do otherwise, but that just highlights more and more the way society here views people (in that the year must have a value). Online teaching, which has never been assessed to say if it's even fit for purpose, does not compare to what they would normally be getting, and there is a health risk.

(Open uni and the existing distance learning courses are different, because they are designed, and assessed as being delievered that way).

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In the meantime, I have gone back to my roots a bit.

I managed to finally get to working at the sorting office again in late June but it was at most 16 hours a week, normally 7, which just didn't work.

Then I spotted that the local commercial arch unit was recruiting for a project very close to home, and I applied. I just finished my first week, and it's taking some getting used to especially being out in the heat! (And social distancing is in force, which makes it interesting in some of the trenches).

It's nice to be doing archaeology again, but commercial archaeology does have it downsides. But, eh, 37 hours plus 7 hours overtime a week, not going to complain on the having work front.

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I hope you are all well.

So I have learned a few depressing things in all of this:

- The Scottish Police have more protections than English/Welsh - and don't actually have to release much information when they...kill people (Sheku Bayoh - 2015 - there was an enquiry....but who knows what the result was, or what actually happened that morning)

In England and Wales - they rarely do anything besides a statement and investigation through the oversight committee, court cases are rare and they tend to end with lots of shrugs and hand waving - it's always depressing, but at least details get released. Information is known.

- SO many people have no idea about British History. SO MANY. Urgh.
(An official statement had slavery being a Victorian era thing....Slavery was abolished in the Georgian Period, slavery was a Georgian crime - Victorian era, you are talking about indentures. Indentures are this thing we strangely do not talk about, 80% was slavery with a different name, 20% were apprentices (some of the 80% were considered apprentices, but their terms were.....less 'free' shall we say).)

It is extremely unlikely that there was ever a time that the UK didn't have a mixed population. Things have been traded internationally since the Neolithic, people moved around the world.

You can take your 'this is a recent change' thing and shove it. (I mean The Book of Kells has black monks in it! The 'Romans' who came to the UK came from North Africa and the edges of Asia. SO MUCH EVIDENCE. (this is a common argument with Ma, she has now given up, because I keep finding new examples))

( this got long, so saving you all from it )

Fan Fiction Masterlist
(other fics not on my LJ can be found here at AO3 or for the really old stuff here at fanfiction.net)
( Criminal Minds )
( SG-1 and SGA )
( Superstition - Supernatural fics focused on British OCs )
( Star Trek: The Next Generation )
( Torchwood and Doctor Who )
( Crossovers )

I really do despair of some things/behavour at the moment

I mean, QUEUING TO GO UP SNOWDON??!!??

*sighs*

There's this weird thing were up to the point of closing the schools and pubs etc people were social distancing and complaining about more stuff not being done - but once they closed things, people have started treating it like a holiday (apart from the issues getting food).


I think the funniest thing is, I've been debating for a week, going to Leighton Moss (nature reserve near us) to get some sketches and photos of the red deer. I was debating because of the whole social distancing thing, because while it's close it's not walkable. And there might be a few other people.

The only reason I was even considering it was because I am expected to be getting on with work for uni despite the uni buildings and workshops being shut. (I want to do animals, British animals specifically and lecturer informed me this means they expect loads of sketches and observation and study...) Hell I still have to do an assessment in May despite being unable to make anything new.

I shall be staying in, apart from dog walks, because even that short trip seems a bad idea now. (I just need to figure out a way to make friends with the local magpies, as they are the other subject of choice)


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Scotland is going to ban people soon as well, and to be honest, I do not blame them. The areas people are going (Snowdownia, the Highlands, Skegness) do not have the capability to cover for extra people in this situation. They have small hospitals covering huge areas.

It is not fair to be putting so much extra onto them in this situation.

I mean, my nana is currently in one of the small hospitals that exist in the Highlands. She doesn't have corona, but she won't be coming back out. We're having to deal with that, and limited numbers of us being able to go, because you know, the situation outside of our family sucks too.

I just. Yeah.

I would have been unimpressed by people even without that.It just makes it that little bit harder to be understanding of the people being idiots.

Like they had people saying 'oh well they said it was fine to be outside and nothing else' when like actually John, the guidance is it's fine to go outside so long as you follow social distancing rules. It's like people read/listening to the first piece of each piece of guidance and ignored the second.


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All my best to all of you still - I hope you're all safe
Here's hoping some sanity starts to win through.

We certainly live in interesting times at the moment :/

I hope you are all well, and continue to be, with whatever state your particular countries are in.

We're mostly ok - we have to go out hunting some essentials tomorrow, while collecting what things I can from Uni (doing a practical workshop based degree isn't possible online - and I only have limited space here, but I will have clay and my tools to do what I can).

The state of things in the shops is insane - and the media really isn't helping. We're shopping as normal, but that means that there are things we are out of and need, but can't get, which is a bit frustrating (it includes pet food :/)

My nana potentially has the virus - but at this point she's been in hospital for two weeks, with them not being able to figure out what's wrong, so we were semi expecting it. At some point Dad will head north, but as he's the only person earning money right now....that's even more complicated.

I'm hoping sense prevails with the shops/supplies, but it will take a little while at this point.

Best wishes to you all

So I went to a double bill showing (infinity war leading into the midnight showing of endgame). It was crazy busy, but I think that partly because they only did a 2d (the last two double bill/midnight showings I've done had choice of 2d or 3d, so screen wasn't so packed).

I have very mixed feelings about Endgame. And I am doing this post before going to see what other people thought. So it's entirely my feelings.

( massive spoilers behind here, and thinky thoughts )

So I went to see Captain Marvel today - and I in no way regret it :)

( Spoilers behind here for those who haven't seen :) )

well this year has been a RIDE - hopefully the last week or so will be less dramatic, but somehow doubt it *face palms*

(I make this post after having been randomly threatened by one of the village low lifes :/ because he thought ma filmed him doing something questionable....when she was checking her texts....)