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. )