Cast in the Shade

I thought I had posted this here before, but I can't find it. I probably just tagged it wrong, but thought I would re-post it, just in case.

Title: Cast in the Shade
Fandom: Chalet School
Characters/Pairings: Verity, Mary-Lou (Verity/OMC)
Summary: Verity thinks about how her life and character have been changed by Mary-Lou.


( I feel like shouting it, like telegramming the school, like taking out an advertisement in the Times. I do not need Mary-Lou Trelawney. I am my own woman. )

"I hope your apple pie was freakin' worth it!"

♥ Helen is back – huzzah! Didst thou have a pleasant holiday, ma chere? And Chadstock! Chadstock on Saturday! Very exciting indeed!

♥ I find myself bewildered by the goings on with the Ministry of Health etc in South Africa. It’s so very, very bizarre.

♥ Thanks for the sympathy in my time of woe and period pain. They are poo, frankly. Speaking of, incidentally, it’s still not blue, and blueberries are no longer plentiful and cheap in M&S (or anywhere else), so it looks like my blue poo dreams will remain just that.

♥ A foolish question to my boss on the nature of femoro-acetabular impingements has led him to demand a statistical survey of same. Dammit. Still, at least I got a demonstration with a plastic joint, and that’s never not fun.

♥ Today’s fun fact: according to The Economist (September 1st edition), Texas has put to death 401 people since 1976. The next closest is Oklahoma, with 86. After that it tails off dramatically, with large swathes of the country having executed only a handful, if any at all. I was mildly entertained (in a macabre kind of way, admittedly), that, in Florida recently capital punishment was suspended after a lethal injection went wrong, and the person took half an hour to die – there are fears that the lethal injection may be ‘cruel’ and therefore illegal under the constitution (fortunately for world peace and freedom, a committee in Florida then came up with 37 ways to make the lethal injection less cruel). I love how that actual executing part isn’t considered cruel.

♥ I finally got round to contacting FOCS about our missing magazines, and they are sending them out forthwith. Hurrah.

"You think you know such a lot about everything, but really you're as ignorant as a frog."

I love how, despite the fact that Mme Sarkozy apparently had no qualms about bopping off to Libya to be all humanitarian, presumably in her capacity as M Sarkozy's wife, she does not think that she should have to answer any official questions on the subject.

"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School..."

"...or the Boy who is Led Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"


It is no secret that I worship at the altar of PG Wodehouse. Similarly, I adore those books by Heyer and Christie, and indeed Sayers, who in their earlier years espoused a similar style. Nothing is as glorious as Wodehouse, obviously, and their use of the English language never quite reaches the same dizzy heights, but then, whose could? Having read Mike and Psmith recently (as you are all too well aware *g*), and followed that with selected stories from Tales of St Austin's (short school stories), I have decided to make it my mission to seek out Wodehouse's other school stories (he wrote a healthy number of them in his earliest writing days, pre-Wooster or anything like it, right at the beginning of the C20th). I already have Mike and Psmith and The Pothunters/Tales of St Austins. Very annoyingly I missed out on a copy of Mike at Wrykyn on eBay due entirely to my own stupidity, but of course Mike in its entirety is available on Guttenberg (though it's hardly the same, of course). I have just done a small eBay order, and have tentatively included in it a 70s copy of The Head of Kay's which Amazon claims to have in stock, but I am sceptical about this - I think it may be one of those cunning lies which Amazon occasionally perpetrates.

I shall let you know how my quest turns out...

Boo

A few minor things before bed:

♥ I have dyed my hair. It was inevitable. Will hopefully be a cheery shade of auburn come morning (currently it is too wet to tell), but may be radioactive orange. Qui sait? I will keep you updated throughout the day.

♥ NCIS tonight. Tiva ftw.

♥ As probly everyone knows, am off to France next week with Katie and Xanthe. Today purchased fabulous new weekend bag for hand luggage (as laptop does not fit current editions). Have also discovered that I already have travel insurance with Natwest. Huh. Will buy my euros tomorrow, probably. Or maybe I will leave it to Friday. Could go either way.

♥ I have once again forgotten to watch Hollyoaks. This is shocking, as my grandfather will doubtless be anxiously awaiting news of same. I have however won grandparental points by finding a reasonably priced hardback copy of the book of Turner's paintings that Grandma allegedly borrowed from Mike Bacon and now cannot find, though there is some doubt as to whether she actually ever borrowed it, but she's been in a tizz wanting to replace it anyway. Go eBay.

...And so to bed.