~*~ Finn ~*~

Watch it. If you have young women you can mentor, watch it and pass it on.

If you're a fan of Anne McCaffrey's, a reader or writer of M/M fiction, a female author, or you just enjoy a well written blog, then you'll want to nip over to Savvy Authors and read this wonderful post by akasarahmadison

Let me tempt you with a taster:

"Like JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels, or David Weber's Honor Harrington series, McCaffrey's novels combine several key factors that are a powerful, magical attraction for teenagers and adults alike. 

It is the idea that you can be Chosen.

This is a critical component. This idea that you, whoever you are, no matter what your background or upbringing, have the potential to be Chosen. And that by being Chosen, you will somehow discover hidden talents and strengths within yourself and rise to your true potential. The idea that you can be Impressed by a Dragon, or bonded with a treecat, or receive an invitation to Hogwarts on your 11th birthday-- this is something that the child in all of us desperately longs for."

More than this, Sarah argues in defense of the author's right to write about things beyond the possibility of their personal experience. It's eloquent, and personal, and pretty damn wonderful.

Via the producer of Metal Hurlant on twitter in reply to my question

https://twitter.com/#!/JustineVeillot/status/130650517637570560

Having found out that Joe's episode of Metal Hurlant was called Masters of Destiny, I decided to ask one of my comic-geek friends to scan me a copy. Behind the cut are some spoilers, a story outline (but I haven't given the ending away) and images from some of the better scans.

( ***SPOILERS AHOY!*** )

As I intend to be posting more, I thought it was time to straighten up some of my groups and trim my f-list. It seems an ideal time to repost the 'every day is an unfriending amnesty' disclaimer :D

A tale from my dark side.

I'm almost fanatical in my belief that servers, shop assistants and customer service operators should be treated with respect. So it's even more embarrassing (apart from the fact that my brother-in-law, who was witness to my meltdown, still mocks me for it) that my worst public rant happened whilst phoning customer services.

It was mid-December 1999, freezing cold, and I was just out of hospital with a newborn baby and a c-section wound that needed looking after. Almost inevitably, our boiler broke down completely - no heat, no hot water, nothing. Initially I wasn't too worried as we had bought some ridiculously expensive breakdown cover when we had the boiler fitted the previous year. So I phoned the 'helpline' (and isn't that one of the greatest euphemisms ever?) gave them our policy details, told them that I had no heating or hot water and added the additional details of my baby/wound situation. I was informed by the man at the end of the phone that they couldn't get out to us until after the Christmas/Millennium holiday because we didn't have the (newly-introduced) 'Emergency cover' policy which offered priority repairs. No, we had merely paid a fortune for 'breakdown cover'...

Feeling pretty hormonal, extremely pissed off at them for introducing an extra level of cover, and not being a shy retiring type anyway, I asked the 'assistant' at the end of the line what 'emergency' my boiler could possibly undergo that didn't involve a it breaking down - the very thing that I had paid them to cover? He ummed and ah-ed and just kept repeating that they were different... and that just annoyed me further. My questions soon picked up speed into a full-on rant that involved me listing possible 'emergency' scenarios that didn't involve the simple fact that my broken down boiler refused to heat water.

"Hey, maybe it might be suicidal and I needed you to come round for emergency counselling to talk it down from the roof? Maybe it could have joined a cult and I would need you to abduct it from their country house headquarters and re-programme it back to sanity?" This eventually built up to me ranting on about "Who's that in the clock tower with a gun? It's the Wightman's Potterton boiler! Quick, call the EMERGENCY helpline!" before slamming the phone down.

You know that little announcement on a phoneline where it tells you that they monitor the calls? Well, half an hour later I received a phone call that started with, "Hello Mrs Wightman, I'm the helpline supervisor and I've just been listening to the recording of your phone call..." and ended with them making an appointment to come round the next day to fix the boiler.

The 'Emergency Cover' was renamed 'Premier Care' in the following January, and I'm fairly sure that my phone call is now used in training exercises.

I regret nothing.