Sunday random wombling

It is a beautiful day, and I would love to be out on Wimbledon Common.  For some of you, these lyrics may trigger nostalgia, and others may not have a clue what I’m on about.

Underground, overground, wombling free,
The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we.
Making good use of the things that we find,
Things that the everyday folks leave behind.

From The Wombling Song by Mike Batt, written for The Wombles, a BBC children’s television programme.

–IP

A dinnae ken what tae say

Among the results of this survey of filmgoers in Scotland, on the subject of which actor had the least convincing Scottish on-screen accent:

Several people in the online survey voted for Sean Connery, but these were discounted as the actor is Scottish.

I’ve always loved his voice.

–IP

The paperless Sunday

While promises of the paperless office have remained total poppycock, I do have paperless Sunday morning reading material. I used to read a Sunday paper, you see, but they’re so expensive and have very little in them that I actually want to read, and an awful lot of extra stuff that just goes straight into the recycling bin unread (including fashion supplements, style supplements, sports stupplements, business supplements, and about 80% of the newspaper). Thus I have taken to reading online on sunday mornings.

Anyway:

1. The Bitch has a new phrase for the lexicon:
   

   From here on out, the phrase is “do you have the skirt for that?” Variations include, but are not limited to, “she’s really got the skirt for that,” “that really takes the right kind of skirt,” “you haven’t got the skirt for that,” etc.

2. Shakes’s Sis takes on boobie novelites
3. Ampersand, Tiny Cat Pants, and BrownFemiPower discuss a recent case in which the US responds to a case of kidnap and rape of a child by deporting the child and possibly his family.

In other news, I am slightly disappointed to discover than an ex-partner of mine joined a Facebook group that links to one of the more misogynist essays I’ve read in a while. I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and say that this person probably hadn’t read the essay. Let that be a lesson to you, kids — read a group’s literature before you join it.

–IP

Friday random ten — “I have too much to do, so I’m blogging” edition

1. Midday (Avoid the City After Dark) — Cat Stevens
2. Folsom Prison Blues — Johnny Cash
3. First Song — Ralph McTell
4. Homeless — Ladysmith Black Mambazo
5. Vois Sur Ton Chemin — from Les Choristes
6. In my Life — The Beatles
7. Lord Anthony — Belle & Sebastian
8. The Wind — Cat Stevens
9. Shoot the Moon — Norah Jones
10. Who’ll Stop the Rain — Creedence Clearwater Revival

TGIF, y’all.

–IP

Links for your reading pleasure

1. Acceptance of transgenderedness depends on being seen as ill:
   

   “It’s a Catch-22,” O’Donnabhain said. “I have to accept the stigma of being labeled as having a disorder [or] a mental condition … in order to get benefits. I haven’t liked this diagnosis from the very beginning. But I’ve got to play the game.”

2. “Experts” tell women when to have babies:
   

   Egg freezing should not be offered to women who want to put off having a family purely for lifestyle reasons, say experts.

   …An increasing number of women are choosing to freeze their eggs for social reasons in the hope they will be able to have a child when they are older.

   Critics argue they are delaying motherhood for the wrong motives, such as climbing the career ladder or until they have more money.

   Dr Marc Fritz, of the ASRM, said it would be wrong for women who have frozen their eggs to think they had ensured their future fertility.

   So, the idea is that freezing eggs is not a guarantee that women will be able to have kids. That’s fine. But instead of doctors warning women that freezing their eggs is not a guarantee of being able to have kids, and letting women make up their own minds as to whether that’s a risk that they want to take, “experts” are saying that women shouldn’t have the option because women make “bad” choices, like having jobs. (And to hear these experts talk about how wanting earning money is a “bad” lifestyle choice, you’d think raising kids was free.)

3. An earth-like planet may have water
4. A radio play of Douglas Adams’s “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” is on Radio 4. Listen Again is a wonderful thing.

–IP

Friday random ten — the “this folk gig grows on you” edition

The post-long-week taking-the-afternoon-off playlist.

1. Bridge Over the River Ash — Fairport Convention
2. Darling — Tiny Tin Lady
3. Forever Young — Bob Dylan
4. The Silver Dagger — Maeve MacKinnon
5. Who Knows Where the Time Goes? — Sandy Denny
6. Walk a While — Fairport Convention
7. Ballad of Accounting — Ewan MacColl
8. A Rainy Night in Soho — The Pogues
9. The Shoals of Herring — Ewan MacColl
10. Sloth — Fairport Convention

–IP