Xenon's Seventh Circle

I just found this post, which I apparently wrote on August 6th, and have no memory of at all. I do remember thisbluespirit doing the poetry meme again, and me thinking what a good idea that was; but it's news to me that I actually did it! Anyway, it's a simple enough endeavour (and I recommend it). You write down five fandoms, and then go here, and write down the fifth line of the random poem that you land on - whatever it is, and believe me, there's some doozies. Then hit refresh a few times until you've got five. Use them as inspiration for a ficlet for each fandom. Usually you'll end up with at least four poems by Emily Dickinson, but try not to find it too disheartening. The internet has always been obsessed with her.

(Not posting for two months isn't one of the rules, incidentally. That just happened, for reasons. Mostly involving stupidity.)

( ... )

I think I've reached the point where, if I don't post now, I never will. I keep intending to post, but somehow it never happens. Think about it too much, and it feels like I've said everything that I intended to anyway, so why bother? That probably isn't the right way to play this game though, huh.

It has been an interesting few months (using the term 'interesting' in its most flexible definition). For starters the weather has been lending its own special hand. I've been looking after a neighbour's garden whilst she's been away, and that's been unexpectedly entertaining on its own. There I've been every evening, gallantly attempting to water her whatnots, with a gale force wind whipping the stream from the watering can in every direction but down. Seriously, it's like the Keystone Cops do gardening. I should probably have sold tickets.

Elsewhere, things have been virtually non-stop, one way or another. My father had a heart attack back in April - and, being a member of my family, he couldn't do it sensibly of course. Instead he had what appears to have been quite a serious heart attack without realising it. He therefore spent a week and a half gradually losing more and more energy, and getting more and more breathless, until my mother practically frogmarched him to the doctor. Consequently I've been doing even more for them than I usually do - which I don't mind in the slightest, but it all takes time. And also it means yet more gardening, which is definitely not my forté. Why does nobody ever want a bit of swashbuckling done? "I'm going away for a fortnight. You couldn't swing from a rope with a sword between your teeth every evening could you? Around seven thirty?" I don't know that it's all that much to ask. Anyway, they sent Dad home from the hospital eventually, with what looks like his own pharmacy, and every so often a nice lady comes around to check his blood pressure, and steal a bit more of his blood. I think it's for medical reasons, rather than just some questionable hobby. And I say "nice" lady, but I haven't actually met her. I assume she's a district nurse, and I usually expect them all to look like Nerys Hughes (and preferably ride bicycles).

So yeah. I've missed a whole hell of a lot of LJ and DreamWidth lately, although I have tried to catch up here and there. I'm not ignoring anybody, I've just been busy. On the plus side, I managed to swing an extra shift at work, which meant that I got to go see Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Hurrah! Turns out it was the first time I've been to the cinema since LOTR III, and in the meantime they've knocked down the old cinema and built a new one. So that was nice. Or mostly nice. Are they always so bloody loud these days?! During the battle scenes the floor was shaking so much I was half expecting to get evacuated. It was a jolly good film though, if perhaps not quite so much fun as the first one. ( Some minor plot spoilers here )

So yeah. I made a post! There would be the obligatory TV stuff here, but ABC axed Forever because they're cold, unfeeling bastards, and I hate them. Although they didn't axe Agents Of SHIELD, so I don't hate them as much as I might.

Um. I think that's probably it. If anything exciting happens, I shall probably be wrestling with something that I don't understand in my parents' garden, or crying forlornly over cruelly stolen television. Hey ho.

I have been watching new television! It wasn't at all crackly or old. These things always take time to get used to. Anyway, I posted a trailer a while ago for a new, upcoming series called Forever, starring Ioan Gruffudd as a naked, immortal murder detective. Quite the most gloriously silly premise that television has ever come up with. Why they're calling it Forever, I have no idea. Surely Naked, Immortal Murder Detectives! would be a much better title? But anyhow, ABC put episode one up on the internet, a month prior to its TV debut, so I watched it over the weekend. I'm happy to report that it's just as daft as the premise would suggest, although in all the right ways. Clearly it knows that it's completely ridiculous. I hope it does well, as I would like to see a full season, even if a second one is probably highly unlikely. No spoilers, but Gruffudd plays a bloke who discovered two hundred years ago that he can't die, and has spent his time since then learning languages, studying death, and attempting not to fall in love with inconveniently mortal women. Along the way he's picked up Judd Hirsch, a war orphan who he's raised as a son (and who is now much older than him); and has also acquired an in-depth familiarity with all the many ways there are of killing people. He seems to find his own death quite entertaining. Well, perhaps one would.

Obligatory "woe is me, for immortality is such a curse" nonsense. Yes, it probably is, but that phrase does get awfully boring when you've heard it a billion times; and any fan of Highlander/Torchwood/any other show that features immortality has heard it at least that often. It would be nice to have a happy immortal for a change. Somebody other than Methos, that is, since even he gets broody about it on occasion. There's Kronos, I suppose, but Duncan sodding MacLeod beheaded him, so he probably doesn't count, and sorry, distracted. But once you've got past the brooding, this is ridiculously entertaining. And, yes, silly. A man dies - with frightening regularity - and instantly pops up again in the nearest large body of water, completely naked. In between deaths he solves murders, because why not? Some niggles here and there. Concentration camps didn't tattoo babies, they just killed them, so trying to pass Judd Hirsch off as a tattooed baby rescued from a concentration camp at the end of World War Two is just a little bizarre. Nice nod to the original Highlander movie there though. Connor MacLeod also lived with a war orphan he'd raised, who eventually grew older than him. So I quite like that. Also the obligatory lady cop is pretty generic, but then I suppose it has only been one episode. And perhaps one should feel sorry for her, since she can never hope to be prettier than he is? Very promising arc plot. Not sure about the occasional narration, but it's done with a spring in its step and adds to the general air of fun, so maybe it will work, and what the hell am I grumbling about? Naked, immortal murder detectives! Who can consider that premise and fail to smile?! I like this show, at least on the basis of one episode. It's nonsense, but honestly, who the hell cares.


Ioan Gruffudd as Henry Morgan. The only thing more entertaining than your own (alarmingly frequent) horrific death is being arrested afterwards for indecent exposure.

So there's your recommendation for new TV to look out for. It won't change your life, but it ought to make you smile. Good enough, some might say?