Sometimes I think I don't watch very much TV, as there are not many current shows that I follow.  Sometimes I think I watch a lot of TV, as I tend to get a bit obsessive about those shows I do watch.  Maybe if I make a list I'll have a better idea (and I do like making lists).

( You won't settle down... )

( Books, Films, Theatre )

[2009 version]

In two weeks time the first medals of the Winter Olympics will have been decided - ski-jumping, speed skating and biathlon, according to the schedule which will be helping me to fit my work and life and laundry around an intensive two weeks in front of the television.  But nowadays it's not enough to just watch the Olympics on television when there are so many other ways to indulge the Olympic obsessions, and particularly ways in which I can indulge when I've wrenched myself away from the television and have gone into campus and am attempting to do work.  That's why I'm asking you, dear flist, which winter olympians should I follow on twitter?

I'm not necessarily looking for athletes that I'm going to love, but people who manage to say things which are interesting, entertaining or amusing (advertently or otherwise) in 140 characters of less.  I'm looking for twitterers who will convey some idea of the Olympic atmosphere rather than awesome athlete but boring PR mouthpiece types.  Coaches, officials, random hangers on etc. are all fine too.

In return, I offer my recommendations for the five best (or most fun) figure skating twitters to follow:

( in short: @TanithJLB, @jeremyabbottpcf, @charlieawhite, @kimmiemeissner, @SarahandDrew )

This is for the Bones holiday fic exchange organised by zerodetorres  (also big thanks to tempertemper77) , and especially for alongthoselines .  I hope you’re having wonderful holidays, and enjoy a little bit of Booth & Cam sweetness.

Title: Scenes from Life
Characters/Pairing: Booth/Cam (backstory); Booth, Cam friendship; mention of others
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Bones belongs to Fox, Hart Hanson et al.  Not me.  No profit made, no infringement intended.
Spoilers: Nothing major, but up to the end of season four if you’re averse to all character and backstory spoilers.
Summary: Booth and Cam have a lot of history together, and I think that their current relationship is great and one of the most interesting on the show.  This collection of scenes is an attempt to fill in some of their past together.

( She had wondered, once, if he was her happy ever after. )

I love the (summer) Olympic Games, but I really LOVE the Winter Olympics. Calgary '88 is the first sporting event I can remember being excited about, and I am fully anticipating spending a large part of those two weeks in February in front of the television. The only winter Olympic sport I don't enjoy watching is curling.

There's now less than seventy days until the opening ceremonies, and this week the BOA announced the British team for figure skating. This is exciting because, firstly, it means that the BOA is sending the full squad and isn't being ridiculous with imposing additional qualification requirements on top of those set by the ISU and IOC, or messing people around by refusing to name the team until the last minute. It's also exciting for me because of the skaters included.

Most of the squad isn't a surprise: we only have one eligible pairs team, Jenna McCorkell may be plagued by inconsistency and nerves but she's still miles ahead of any other British lady, and the Kerrs have turned out to be the first really world class British skaters for a decade. So the only spot really open going into British nationals was for the second dance team.

I first saw Penny Coomes & Nick Buckland at British nationals four years ago when they placed fifth in junior dance at British nationals. They were the cutest teeny-tiny dance team ever, and one of the highlights of the event. We nicknamed her Baby Chait, partly because of her looks, but also because they had the same energy and enthusiasm as Chait & Sakhnovsky (it's a big complement form me, Galit is my second favourite female ice dancer ever) - and their skating, while at a fifth-in-British-juniors sort of level, was engaging and a lot of fun to watch.

Based on previous events, we would have expected them to split up, languish around on PartnerSearch for a few years, and then fade out of the skating life. Instead they've stuck together, continued competing, have grown (though obviously not that much, because at Sheffield they were back in the FD costumes from when I first saw them there), but they're still completely adorable, have great programmes, and now they're going to Vancouver.

It's exciting that my favourite obscure British juniors have grown up to be Olympians!



[It's also kind of amusing that in the British team we have siblings, two couples, and someone married to a fellow competitor (McCorkell and Kevin van der Perren of Belgium). Talk about keeping the personal and the professional separate!]

Arena Stage is using two temporary venues while its home theatre is being rebuilt, but I much prefer the Lincoln Theatre, even though it is less convenient for me to get to. The Lincoln is a beautiful, guilded jazz-era theatre on U Street. The Crystal City theatre is a former cinema in the bottom of a shopping mall. Of all the venues I have been to in the US, the Lincoln Theatre the one that comes closest to my perception of what a ‘traditional’ theatre should look like (which probably means that in structure and layout it is fairly similar to a nineteenth century British theatre, but with less plush seating).

(Of course, inconvenience is a relative statement: the Lincoln Theatre is directly across the road from the U Street metro station – but it is not necessary to go above ground to get to the Crystal City stage. Plus it is four times as far on the metro, with a change.)

( The Fantasticks is light, inconsequential and entertaining - but Sebastian LaCause was amazing )

This is nearly a month old, but I wrote it when I was having problems with the internet connection at my flat, and then forgot about it - but since I wrote it, I might as well post it, belatedly.


The Mike Weiss Foundation show, was as usual, a fun low key show, with a nice balance between the young up-and-comers and the seasoned pros, and a couple of stand-out performances.  It’s great to have such a high quality show so nearby, and I appreciate the efforts of the Weiss family, the skaters and all the volunteers to make it all come together so well, not to mention that it’s all for a good cause.  I never especially liked Weiss’ competitive skating, nor appreciated his efforts to be the poster-boy for heterosexual figure skating, but I admire what he has done with his foundation and this show.

( in which I discover that the Angela Maxwell hype is totally justified )

So the Michael Weiss Foundation benefit: fun show, good cause, great skating, opportunity to discover so new skater, tempers my annoyance at all those “here is where the action happens” fluff pieces of the past.

Also, learn from my fashion mistakes: if you’re going to spend a couple of hours sitting with your feet only a layer of flimsy plywood from an ice sheet, thin soled ballet flats and no socks are a terrible footwear choice.  I don’t think my feet have ever been so cold, not even after eight hours of skiing.

I don't know whether there really has been a spate of 'too young' celebrity deaths recently, or whether that is just a perception, but this is the one that has really got to me.

As a teenager I really liked Boyzone.  I started listening to pop music in the autumn of 1996, and one of the first things I bought was Boyzone's A Different Beat.  (Ah, the old days of buying cassette singles for 99p in HMV on a Saturday morning - like iTunes, for the pre-internet generation.)  I was never really a 'fan' as such; I never bought any merchandise aside from the music, and I never went to a concert to scream at them with ten thousand other teenage girls, but I bought all the music and listened to it on fairly heavy rotation.  I also recall writing lengthy diatribes in my diary about how it was 'unfair' that charity singles were keeping Boyzone off number one, and using my mother as a sounding board in my deliberations about whether I liked Ronan or Stephen better (eventual decision in favour of Ronan: I preferred his voice, and also his haircut...).

I still really like Boyzone, actually.  I know they are not exactly 'good taste' music, and some of the early album tracks haven't aged well, but I like somewhat cheesy Europop and overblown ballads.  Boyzone might not have been the most musically adventurous group, but they did what they did very well.  They had some great covers and, especially as the group developed, some good original songs, and Keating and Gately were both strong pop singers (and Mikey Graham, who is largely ignored, had the best solo album of them all).  I have pretty much their entire output (and various solo projects) on cassette back home, and copies of most of it on my iPod here.  Though I was really obsessed by You Needed Me for a while back when, probably the tracks I listen to the most are the mid-nineties covers of old-beyond-their-years seventies hits (indeed, iTunes informs me that the highest play count is Love Me For A Reason, with Stephen on lead). 

Stephen Gately and Boyzone brought me many hours of listening pleasure.  He was a strong singer, a great performer and by all accounts a genuinely nice guy.  If I still kept a diary now I would have something that really does seem unfair to write about.

So today I've been feeling kind of sniffly and out of sorts.  And there's all sorts of reasons why this might be, but, heck, our tweeny pop star crushes are not supposed to die when we are twenty-six.

( Spoilers, I suppose. Is ToI really enough of a big deal that anyone cares? )

( Also, pet gripe irrationally directed at Matti Breschel )

This week I've also been watching the World Athletics championships, so I've really had an overdose of all the awful adverts on Versus.  Using a beautiful deer to advertise products to kill said deer for fun makes me really not care anymore about the T-Mobile economists advert of hate on the main channels.

So, now the Tour de France has been over for almost as long as it was running in the first place, and now I think it’s time to postulate my thoughts on the matter? 
 

( I should post more often, because then maybe I would be able to keep my verbosity in check when I do post. )

 

( I had never considered that what King Lear really needs is urinals, Balkan rap, and naked men folk dancing. )

...or at least I hadn't written anything since some really atrocious X-Files stuff back when I was thirteen.  However, while I hope the amnesia storyline doesn't turn out to be any more than a corny cliffhanger, this scene was bugging me all last week.

I don't plan to write more fic (she said) but I do write other stuff, so feedback or concrit is always appreciated.

Title: Backstory
Rating: K+
Genre: Friendship/angst
Summary: Cam's perspective. An alternative take on the "Booth has amnesia" cliche.
Spoilers: I guess I already gave away the giant season finale spoiler.
250 words

 

( Angela was leaning over the bed, a shoebox full of photographs balanced on her knees. )

After enjoying writing my epic finale review last week, I decided to go back and look at a few of my favourite old episodes, so let's start where it all began, with the pilot.

 

( Glug glug, woohoo! )

It seems that the Bones season 4 finale stirred a lot of thought and discussion.  Whether people loved it, loathed it, or thought it was a cool idea disrupted by too much insanely corny dialogue, everyone has something to say about it, and is busy putting it online.  So without further ado, let me join the fray.

 

 

( Possibly the longest review ever. Here be spoilers, of course. )

 

( Design for Living makes me think, but I probably like the wrong character. )