Townsville City Council wants to hurt us

It's starting to feel like I fell heavily and hit my head on a rock yesterday.

Possibly because I fell heavily at hit my head on a rock yesterday.

I've often commented about the fact that the Townsville City Council seems to be trying to kill me, but now they're getting better at it. We have an underpass going from the Western Campus of the university to the residential area on the other side of the highway. It passes under two roads and it's the only place where one can cross these roads for a couple of kilometres in either direction. It also doubles as a drain, and it seems to be fostering a lovely culture of grey-green algae wherever the sun hits the water (at both entrances and a longish stretch between the two roads).

Turns out this is incredibly slippery when wet. Slick, actually. I had slowed on approach to try to glide through the "rough" patch, but my tires started slipping sideways, so I put a foot down to stop myself from moving before things got out of control.

The algae was so slick that my foot shot out from under me and I came down pretty hard. My helmet has a lovely dint in the side of it from where it came between me and a rock. Good thing I always wear one. Of course, now I'm going to have to buy a new one. Every time a helmet does its job you have to replace it.

The annoying thing is, the Townsville City Council knows that this underpass is dangerous when it acts as a drain. I know they know this, because about a month ago an email was sent around to the members of the Bike Users' Group warning about the underpass and saying that the council had been informed. This was shortly followed by another email saying the council was looking into it and had erected barriers to stop people using it.

Now, of course no one was ever going to pay attention to those barriers. It's the only place to cross the road for kilometres in either direction. But there was supposed to be some sort of warning or indication that it wasn't safe.

When I approached the underpass, I noticed there were no warnings or barriers. If I had, I would have taken a different route. I'm one of those crazy people who prefer to go a little out of my way rather than get hurt. I assumed the lack of warning meant the council had fixed the problem enough to decide it was safe. Apparently, they just don't care.

Then again, they never have. If they had, they wouldn't have made the cycle/pedestrian underpass double as a drain in the first place. I mean, it isn't safe for people travelling on foot. It's downright hazardous for cyclists, and any kid crazy enough to try to skate or run through it? Someone is going to get seriously hurt. Hell, if I hadn't been wearing a helmet, I would have been seriously hurt.

This whole damn town is riddle with things that are intended for us to use, but not designed for us to use safely. In short, the council is quite clearly trying to kill us.

Pretty soon it's going to work.

Comment Spam

I'm over spambots trying to put comments on my posts.

I'm particularly over the pointless ones. Someone trying to sell something is at least vaguely understandable, if intensely obnoxious.

Something leaving nonsensical anonymous comments that don't even connect to any kind of advertisement/website/money making scam? Well that's just being annoying for the sake of it.

I don't approve.

I have to say...

Edward is a jerk, Bella is an idiot and Jacob deserves better.

I'm mildly convinced the only way this can end well is if no one ends up with anyone.

A Novel Experiment: Aino

Van Havien has been haunting me lately, so I decided to get my own back and put him in a ghost story. Or maybe it's a monster story. I'm not sure, really. Who is van Havien? I have no idea. His name just keeps coming up in my head at the end of phrases like "So we meet again, van Havien!"

The bigger question is, really, who is Aino? You'll find out in a couple of months, I hope.

Okay, I've tried this before and it didn't work, but I'm going to give it another shot.

I have a slight problem with finishing anything longer than a poem unless I've got some sort of external "incentive" (such as a deadline). This means I've got a lot of half-written things lying about the place, for which I've long lost the impetus of the story.

So, I'm going to try to serialise a story. I've nominally given myself a deadline of fortnightly posts, for which I'll have to have a rough draft of a chapter available for all and sundry. I'm hoping at least some of you will a) read the thing, and b) not let me give up on the story part-way through.

Once it's finished I'll think about what to do with it next. I don't think I've got the space on the server I'm currently using to have multiple chapters up at the same time, so I may have to rotate them. Hmmm.

Anyway, the first few paragraphs of each chapter will go up on my Siege Works blog, and a link to the chapter itself will go up at the end of those posts as well as being posted here.

Here's the first chapter: Aino, Chapter One: van Havien Tells His Story

Happy reading...

Of Love and Janes

I've been reading Twilight these past couple of days, and I've noticed it's sitting in the same headspace that Charlotte Brontë's novels usually take up. That whole gothic-romance thing, the first-person narration, the inexperienced young woman and the strange and foreboding fear that her love will be unrequited - even if you know it's not the case - and that maybe it would be even more dangerous for her (emotionally) if it was...

You know, Jane Eyre was only 18 in her book. She's never been played "young" in any of the movies, so I don't think most people pick up on the fact that she's basically an inexperienced teenager who's never really spoken to a man (besides married clergymen) before being confronted with the strange and mysterious Rochester - a good twenty years her senior. She's not that far away from Bella, falling for her 100 year old mystery man. And Rochester? Trying desperately to recover from a past that has left him with a terrible secret, both wanting to be redeemed by Jane's love and struggling with the inevitability of ruining her life? He's not that far from Edward. Especially since his first name is Edward. I wonder how co-incidental that is?

There's a scene in Jane Eyre (if you've read the book, you'll know exactly which scene I'm talking about) where Rochester is clearly playing with Jane. You might not pick up on this at first, but on subsequent readings it's painfully obvious. He suspects what she feels for him. He knows she's inexperienced, unsure of her place in the world and desperately trying to keep in control of her reactions and her emotions. So he pushes her buttons - says things carefully calculated to dash what few hopes she may have and push her heart to breaking point - just to see what she'll do.

On the one hand, the guy's an absolute jerk and we should hate him. On the other hand, the scene is this massive exercise in catharsis. The fear of unrequited love reaches it's zenith, only to be rewarded by the fact that he does, indeed, love her and not the beautiful rich woman. Chapters' worth of longing looks quickly hidden, of the exquisite pain that comes from standing three inches away from someone you long to touch but can't, of the "could he possibly want me? No, I mustn't dare think it" self questioning... all of this is finally brought to a head in a way that is pure romantic fantasy.

It's all over. Hope is gone. He doesn't want me. But, wait! No, it's not! I'm wanted after all! O, frabjuous day! Callooh! Callay!

I've always thought it terribly interesting that the romantic novels (gothic or other wise) that we keep reading, selling and adapting for other media for over and over again for more than a hundred years were written by single women who never knew such love in real life. If what we know about Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen is correct, neither of them found that love of their own. Jane may have had a romance that never went anywhere. Charlotte eventually settled for a man who made her feel "comfortable" (and then she died about a year later). Sure, we're starting to see more of Mrs Gaskell's stuff working it's way back into public consciousness, but she doesn't really grip the heart quite the way that Charlotte and Jane's books do.

I mean, have you read Villette? That scene where Lucy suddenly realises on an instinctual level that she's in love with you-know-who* but her brain hasn't quite caught on yet, so she just bolts like a frightened rabbit and can't figure out why she's hiding from him? Oh. My. God. That book is just drenching with unrequited love. Stupid, stupid ending. Must have stern words with Charlotte next time I see her.

I had this theory for some time that only women who had never known requited love could write about romance with such power. This was, of course, completely blown out of the water by Elizabeth Barret Moulton-Barrett - aka, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Okay, so this sickly woman who almost never leaves her house, isn't terribly attractive and has an active intellectual life manages to catch the eye of a young handsome stud through her talent? A popular, pop-star of a poet engages in a secret courtship of an older woman who might not live for very long because he loves her mind? They get married in secret and runaway to Italy together, and he sticks with her right up to her death and then never remarries? The entire real-life story is one of the greatest romantic fantasies I've ever heard.

And out of that we get the Sonnets From the Portugese - her love for him expressed in poetry heart-wrenchingly gripping. When you don't know the story behind the poems, the poems are brilliant. When you do know it... It's enough to make your head spin.

So my grand theory about unrequited romance was dashed. I'm not even sure I care.

Sorry for the weird, rambling post. Gothic romances do that to my brain.


*Um, this isn't exactly a mystery book, but it doesn't finish with the same romantic lead it starts with. Can't tell you who, why, or what happens in the end, just in case you actually read the thing. Ah, Villette - the novel that makes us go through the heroine's romantic angst twice, and then decides to kick us in the head in the end. We don't read it because it makes us feel good - but because it makes us feel bad in a way that's hard to ignore...

je suis fatiguée

Und mein Gehirn ist kaputt.

Plus, je ne parler pas Français.

Noch Deutsch.

C'est la vie, Jah?

Mets Kohas

Yes, for some reason I'm still taking Juhan Liiv's poems and re-writing them as English sonnets.

No, I don't think this is a good idea.

I'm enjoying myself, though.

This one is a Spencerian Sonnet. It's the first sonnet I've written in Spencerian rhyme structure, so that was fun:

Mets Kohas