Eyre Affair

I can't remember where this was recommended to me, but I liked the idea enough to try it. It's another comic fantasy, though like many it didn't quite grab me in the end. ("In fact, the secret agency is kind of incompetant" is only funny so many times.)

But there were some wonderful touches in the premise. Imagine a world where literature has the importance, say, intoxicants have here. Vending machines recites verses of Shakespeare for small change. Fake original manuscripts are a big problem. Cheap knockoffs of famous books are raided from criminal warehouses.

Baconists, an organisation doubting the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, have a status something like Jehova's Witnesses[1] and something like recent communists[2]. Lots of little touches like this, make me feel very comfortable in the world.

The novels it bases itself off are slightly Martin Chuzzelwit and mainly Jane Eyre. It shows enough love for it that I feel inspired to try it.

[1] "Excuse me, ma'am, have you ever wondered who really wrote shakespeare's plays? Is the Shakespeare in Stratford even the same person as the playwright in London? Why does no-one in Stratford seem to have any notion of his literary success?"
"But then why does the Stratford Shakespeare mention the London Shakespeare's colleagues in his will?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't know that."

[2] "Steady on. It's not illegal"
"More's the pity."

Mistakes

Fuck again. Today overall went very well. Work went well, wrapped up by 7. Came home, had dinner and watched TV for a bit but not too long. Fiddled with breaks, answered email, ok.

Spent an hour getting CTS agenda, (hopefully) last announcements about the agm, and everything else written. Went the carlton. Know what I'm doing tomorrow so I don't put off going to sleep or getting up.

Except, fuck, guess what I did? I used winscp and ms word to write the agenda on my server space. Oops. It was in text only format, but with an rtf extension (oops). I saved it as rich text (double oops) because Word helpfully changed "agenda.rtf" to "agenda.rtf.doc". Then scp uploaded it when I closed word (treble oops) because it then deleted the directory.

When will I learn?

ETA: And then I spent half the night trying to propose a good compromise between having life members and not dinging freshers for so much they don't join. It takes a long time to compose my thoughts into something coherent and persuasive, and I don't think I even reached that point. But I felt I had to do my bit, hoping the AGM won't be a big argument about this that ends inconclusively by picking one unsatisfactory side arbitrarily.

"Sorry" on Trial

I'd be awful in court.

Q. Mr. Daemon, is this the man you saw?
A. It looks like him.
Q. It looks like him? Can't you be more certain?
A. Well, I don't know for certain that he doesn't have a twin brother or coincidental lookalike. I did swear an oath...
Q. Please, leave those questions to me.
A. But, if I'd said he was, you might have sprung the twin thing. "Yes" means anything from "Pretty sure (85%)" to "Certain (98%)" in colloquial speech, but those are too different when someone's liberty is at stake.
Q. Are you in contempt of court?
A. I don't know. That sounds like it has a specific legal definition, and as I'm not a trained jurist I'm not competent to say.
Q. Mr. Daemon! You say, "No, Your Honour." Is that clear?
A. No, Your Honour.
Q. Wait, is that "No, that isn't clear, Your Honour?" or "No, I'm not in contempt, Your Honour?"
A. Yes.
Q. 30 days!

Seriously, I think too much about saying things. What does everyone else do? Probably say what they really mean, eg. "I'm sorry, can we be friends?"

"Sorry" being an extremely ambiguous word. I can just hear the exchange in court. "No, I didn't admit culpability. I said I was sorry. There are are number of citations I can point you to on the meaning of the word..." Specifcally:

( Cut for importing more than twice as many shades of meaning into a word than it has letters, or possibly squared as many, )

Update

Again, my inbox is (nearly) cleared! After half as long as last time. At this rate in another two months I will process things instantly and have achieved transcendence -- logically tricky for omnipotent beings :)

I've even:

* Emptied my "Old LJ comments" folder
* Emptied my "Important grown-up-type emails" folder (partly into my todo list)
* Emptied my "LJ comments requiring an understanding of the doctrine of Christus Victor, and hence having visited wikipedia before replying, folder"
* Answered more of my personal correspondance than I had last time (this inherently and sociably grows back, as opposed to growing with time)

Though:

* My inbox is *nearly* empty. Remaining is an email cluster reminding me to manifest a Viezla, which won't quite fit onto my todo list.

ETA:

* Oops. And then, an influx of half a dozen emails arrive... Half are my fault, for posting to LJ after I'd cleaned up :)