Monday 11 August 2008
Musings of the Muse
Wednesday 9 July 2008
Sunday 1 June 2008
Christmas songs... in June...
The problem is that christmas songs are so bloody entertaining. They're full of cheer and nice stuff, which is ironic in itself because I hate christmas. Ok, yeah, I'm a real Scrooge. No doubt I'll be visited by the ghost of christmas whatever the hell. Don't worry, I'll be reaching for the salt if some creepy-looking dude tries to drag me off in my pjs. But anyway, my point is... and yes I do have one... is that christmas songs are surprisingly catchy, and I'm not entirely convinced they should be limited to only being played around the season of 'goodwill'.
Monday 26 May 2008
79 ways to tell you're obsessed with Supernatural
2. When hiking in the woods, your friends are looking out for bears. You keep a flare gun under your pillow in case Wendigos are about
3. M&Ms make you giggle and are considered a respectable meal.
4. Everytime someone mentions being bossy, you automatically follow it with '...and short...'
5. You overuse the phrase 'dude'
6. You no longer want to smack people who annoy you, but talk about salting and burning them
7. You develop an irritational fear of flying
8. Clowns can kill, and you know it. Although telling a group of seven year olds at a party means you're no longer invited to any birthday bashes anymore
9. If anyone mentions Samuel Colt, you immediately inform them that he wasnt just a gun maker, but a demon fighting hunter whose colt model can kill anything... ANYTHING
10. You actually read up on the Alamo
11. You're wary of anyone called Meg
12. Your mum asks you why there's a knife under your pillow.
13. Going to an art museum is your worst idea of a nightmare. You find yourself staring at paintings to see if any of the portraits disappear.
14. You now have a legitimate reason to be afraid of bugs.
15. You lace your soft drinks with holy water and make people drink it before you trust them
16. Everytime you pass a crossroads you find yourself wondering if it could actually work.
17. Your friends suggest playing Bloody Mary. You point blank refuse and ask them where they want you to send the flower to.
18. You constantly check peoples eyes and say christo under your breath
19. You debate buying an EMF meter... you can never be too careful
20. When watching home movies you find yourself pausing the tape and checking your family's eyes for camera flares.
21. Porcelain dolls scare you
22. You can no longer listen to Chris de Burgh 'Lady in Red' without laughing hysterically
23. Your terrified of your neighbours. They've just started a book club.
24. You find your humour has gotten drier and more inappropriate.
25. You find yourself attracted to guys who are over six foot tall.
26. You ask your boyfriend to buy a beat up leather jacket
27. You try to convince your brother to buy a classic car and go on a roadtrip across America.
28. You build a secret compartment in your trunk and fill it with crosses, stakes, holy water, and rock salt.
29. You decide it would be a good idea to learn Latin
30. In your spare time you read every book you can find on demonology
31. You learn how to draw the Key of Solomon... just in case.
32. When you go to the hospital to visit your grandmother you're looking for reapers. You also freak the doctor out by asking him when he was born and if he steals children's souls.
33. Urban legends scare you. Your friends think you're crazy because you believe they can happen.
34. You consider buying lambs blood and keeping it in the fridge with a silver knife.
35. You argue with Buffy fans about how Joss Whedon got vampires and werewolves 'wrong'.
36. You can name at least five supernatural creatures and how to kill them
37. You think plaid looks cool
38. You tell your little brother or sister that its your job to look after them, no matter what.
39. At Christmas, you check to make sure the wreaths your parents bought don't contain any ingredients to summon Pagan Gods.
40. You like motels.
41. You find ways to embarrass your younger siblings in public.
42. You develop a taste for pie.
43. You aren't EVER going to visit Cold Oak.
44. You watched Transformers and refered to Samantha Smith as Mary Winchester.
45. You ask your father if there was ever a fire in your nursery when you were six months old.
46. You freak your friends out by asking them if they have any 'special abilities'.
47. You try to move the TV remote with the power of your mind.
48. Old houses SCARE you.
49. You read fanfiction more than actual books.
50. You wish you could write essays on Supernatural. You would get an A every time.
51. You get sick and ask your physician if you have sulfur in your blood results.
52. You see a woman at the side of the road hitchhiking. You don't stop in case she's a woman in white.
53. Dogs frighten you. They could be hellhounds.
54. Whenever someone mentions a 'deal' or 'contract' you automatically think of Dean.
55. You actually try to work out how long Sam was at Stanford for.
56. You paint a woman riding a polar bear on the side of your friend, Andy's, van.
57. You find yourself ducking your head whenever you see a cop in case they recognise you.
58. When you get into trouble you ask if it's 'misdemenour trouble or squeal like a pig trouble'.
59. You say WWBD way too much.
60. You ask your dad to take up hunting.
61. When a friend says they are going to L.A. you ask them to say hi to Lindsey Lohan whilst grinning.
62. You were scared to sleep after watching Dream a Little Dream of Me.
63. You know what Limp is.
64. You get ridiculous amounts of pleasure from seeing or reading limp.
65. You can't remember your friends birthdays but you celebrate the 24th Jan and 2nd May every year.
66. You actually looked up the sigil that John drew to summon YED in In my Time of Dying and know what it is.
67. You know that Ruby's knife is in the Book of Solomon - and can name the chapter.
68. You flirt with every hot guy/girl who enters the room. You have cheeky smiles down to an art form. You are also an expert at puppy eyes.
69. You start calling the tall kid in your class Sasquatch.
70. You know Jack, Jim and Jose aren't names.
71. You hand your kid sibling a gun when they tell you their scared of the monsters in their closet.
72. You buy a laptop so you can research on the road.
73. You ask your boyfriend to grow his hair out and start calling him Sammy.
74. You can't watch horror movies without shouting abuse at the idiots in them. In fact, during the Grudge you screamed at Sarah Michelle Gellar to find salt.
76. You search online for Harvelle's Roadhouse and are disappointed when you dont find it.
77. You are able to tell the difference between simple hauntings, poltergeists and hoodoo spells.
78. You can no longer read fairytales.
79. Every time you get a headache you wonder if it will be followed by a death vision. You're actually pretty disappointed when its not.
Wednesday 21 May 2008
Procrastination Central... Now Boarding
I'd like to say there is an actual purpose to this blog but there really isn't. I have no plans to discuss politics or world affairs, and I have even less desire to discuss anything of great importance. Mostly, I'm just revelling in the fact I can write again. With writing two dissertations and exams, writing has kind of been on a back burner since March. It sounds trite as hell, but I can't function when I'm not writing. It throws me into a complete funk. But I actually have a couple of projects on the go at the moment that should keep me busy over the summer.
The first is a Supernatural Fanfiction. Ok, so I hear the protestations about how fanfiction isn't real writing and my response to you would be a string of well-put together curses. Fanfiction is HARD to write, and it's hard for a number of reasons. Mainly because the fanbase knows every grain of sand in the sandbox you're playing in. You screw up one tiny detail and you will be lynched and flamed. That said, it's fun to play in the world created by someone else and, if you are like me, you tend to make your own world within that world anyway.
The second project is a little more ambitious and I have no idea how it's going to play out. I took a group of amateur writers and embarked on a quest to put together an original mini-series based on the supernatural genre. At the moment we're just in the planning stages, but I think it's going pretty well. I'm anxious to get writing on it though. Its been a while since I wrote anything original (over a year I think), and the idea of writing with others is highly appealing. Sometimes writing a novel seems like such a mammoth task. But we shall see how that goes.
Sunday 2 March 2008
Gloucester Trip
Edward reigned from 1307 to 1327 - when he was deposed by his wife, Isabella, and her lover Roger Mortimer. His reign was a particularly messy due to a number of reasons: his choice of favourites which resulted in conflict between Edward and his barons, and importantly his loss of the Scottish lands in the battle of Bannockburn. He is often styled a poor king and a failure because he failed to keep the nobility together - eventually resulting in a civil war. Essentially he was a tyrant. He was one of the first king's to hang a member of the royal family for revolting against him (poor Thomas of Lancaster) and he was also particularly brutal to the nobles who rebelled against him.
Edward was eventually deposed by his own men, but refused to step down or come to parliament to discuss his abdication. There is great controversy surrounding the deposition of Edward and whether or not it was done legally. This is due to the fact parliament was held without the king present to discuss the terms of his 'abdication'.
The first place we visited was Tewksbury Abbey. The Abbey itself is an important structure in the fourteenth century. Originally built in the early twelfth century by Robert FitzHamon, it was a Benedict house and contains many Norman features. It was later added to in the fourteenth century and updated to include the Decorated style that was in fashion in the period. During the reign of Edward II, it was under the patronage of the Clare’s – a prestigious family who held the Earldom of Gloucester. Within the Abbey itself there are many memorials to the Clare’s in the stained glass windows. It also houses the tomb of Hugh Despenser, who married Elizabeth de Clare after her brother, Earl Gilbert, died in Bannockburn.
This is east end of the Abbey. The curving mark on the floor is where the Lady Chapel should have stood but it was destroyed in the reformation in the sixteenth century and the stone was used elsewhere.Architecturally it is plain to see this is a medieval church. The windows themselves are the biggest clue. The four leaf clover design, called quatrefoils. They are prominent in many medieval buildings.
Above is the view of the windows at the East end of the Abbey close up. From this angle you can clearly see the quatrefoils in the top of the window and also on the lower part from the vertical spikes (called steeply pointed gables) you can just make out the black inner scrolling. These are ogge’s due to the fact they make an O and G shape. The windows again are depicted below.
Below is the south end of the Abbey. Again there you can see the steeply pointed gables.
This is the northern face of the abbey. On the right hand side is a buttress which supports the structure and basically stops it falling down!!
Within the Abbey is the tombs of various de Clare’s, but this tomb belongs to Hugh Despenser himself. One of the King’s favourites, Hugh Despenser was hated by the other magnates of the realm because he had the king’s ear. He was a bit of a bugger and stole a lot of lands from many of the Marcher Lords, which, as you can imagine, didn’t go down to well. When Edward was deposed Hugh the Younger fell with him. He was captured at Caerphilly Castle in south Wales, hung until nearly dead, cut down and castrated and then quartered before having his head chopped off. Not a nice way to go, but I guess it teaches you not to piss the powers of the realm off! There is no way of really knowing if the bones in the tomb are Hugh’s because tombs were often moved around during the middle ages. Even the top part of the tomb itself is not original. Notable facts about this grave site include the lack of heraldry on the sides, the removal of the twelve disciples and Christ from the decoration above the semi-circle decoration and the lack of an effigy on the marble slab. There could be a number of reasons for this. The lack of heraldry could be because when Hugh was hanged, he was striped of his coat of arms for being a traitor against the state.
This is the tomb next to Hugh Despenser the Younger. If you look carefully you can see the shields on the side of the stonework. This is probably what should have been on the side of Hugh’s tomb. The paint work has since been rubbed off over the ages.
This is the tomb of Edward Despenser. Unlike Hugh’s there is a lot of fine detail on the structure and even a casted effigy of the man on top of the coffin itself.
Below is the southern transept of the cathedral, leading down to the central part of the nave and the east end – eventually, to the lady chapel. Again note the quatrefoils on the windows and the crenelations along the top. Crenelations are generally associated with castles but they are also prominent in church buildings also. The tower itself is held up by a series of buttresses that were applied in the middle ages when the south transept began to subside and fall. One of the kings own stone masons, a man called Thomas of Canterbury, was called in to solve the problem and came up with an ingenious design to hold the structure up.
The picture above shows one of the buttresses running through the inside of the south transept to hold the cathedral up after its near collapse in the 1300s.
The picture above is the Lady Chapel at Gloucester. It is one of the few to survive the reformation. It is grander than the Lady Chapel at Lichfield Cathedral which was build by Walter Langton.
This is what is called a Mason’s block. By standing underneath it the mason can gauge if the tower is being competed straight or not. The depiction on it is a memorial to a boy who fell from the roof whilst working on the tower and died. Remember its 225ft high… ouch.
This is the stained glass window that sits almost opposite Edward’s tomb. It is not fourteenth century but rather nineteenth and is dedicated to a man called Edward Douglas – which you can just make out the Latin on the third pane at the bottom for.
This is on the north side of the cathedral and is the cloister – where the monks would have resided. Its unique in the fact that it survived the reformation largely in tact. These are the corridors they would have used to move between the nave and the dormitories (housed on the first floor) the Refectory and the lavatorium (were the monks washed their hands before dinner). Incidentally it was also used in the filming of Harry Potter!! Exciting stuff!
This picture above actually has nothing to do with Edward’s reign and in fact sits outside the Gloucester monastic borough. It is in fact the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon church from the tenth century and at one time housed the bones of both a king and a saint! (he was eventually moved to Chester).
Caerphilly Castle
The next stop was the famous Caerphilly Castle, located in the Welsh Marches. Said to be one of the greatest medieval stronghold's in Europe, it is one of the most astounding pieces of architecture ever raised in the period. Unlike most castles, Caerphilly was not raised for the King but for a powerful magnate.
A truly foreboding structure, built by Gilbert ‘Red’ de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford and Marcher Lord of Glamorgan between 1268 to 1271, it eventually passed into Hugh Despenser’s hands following his marriage to Elizabeth de Clare. This is the view from the south side. Despite being mostly ruinous, it still had an eerie as hell vibe to it.
The grass would have been filled with water during a siege, and this water flow was control by a series of dams. This is the outer curtain wall, complete with a round tower. The picture below is also a part of the outer walls and has large square buttresses.
This is the outer main gatehouse and one of the entrances into the castle. Having made it to this point, an attacking army would have had to get across a drawbridge, break through the portcullis (see below picture), and cross another drawbridge to gain access to the middle ward! All the while soldiers would have been firing arrows, rocks, throwing tar and pitch at the attacking force! The castle has only been besieged on two occasions but neither were successful attempts. I think possibly the vastness of the moat plus all those other obstacles were enough to put any invading force off! Oh and the middle ward isn’t even the end of the line. They still had to breach the inner gate house to get into the inner ward were the Lord resided! They also have really lovely things called 'murder holes' which are holes in the floor on the upper levels were they would pour rocks and hot pitch on people running through the portcullis's. Eek!
The portcullis on the outer main gatehouse. In the background you can just make out the Outer East gatehouse.
Stood in the inner moat. View of the Outer East Gatehouse – and most importantly the gift shop!!
The inner ward. Showing the inner side of the inner east gatehouse.
The great hall. Hugh Despenser’s heraldry is on the wall, third one in with the black diagonal stripe across it. The picture below is the outside of the great hall with the private apartments attached. These are both part of a renovation programme.
This is my entire history group in the Great Hall. Tim in the lord's chair because he would have been an incompetent King... much like Edward himself was!
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Did the earth move for you...?
Earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates beneath the earth's surface. This gives off a seismic wave that shakes or displaces the earth itself. There are twelve of these plates across the globe's surface and when the rock shifts beneath it, it causes an earthquake.
How Earthquakes happen
Dudley Epicentre 2002 - Keele University Geophysics Department
Seismic Activity in Lincolnshire 27 Feb 2008 - Daily Telegraph
The largest earthquake the UK has ever seen was in 1931, off the coast of Great Yarmouth, and measured 6.1. It's not even a patch on the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean that caused the tsunami over Indonesia. That was 9.2 and caused the deaths of thousands of people.
