Unthinkable Wings

I'm seriously considering turning commenting off on LJ - I'm reluctant to, but the whitespace in the new format is giving me headaches.

If you're interested in a DW account, you can currently create one without needing an invite. Offer available till the end of the year.

For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not decamping from LJ and I will continue to allow comments there, partly because I don't want to lose touch with those of you who for whatever reason don't like DW, and partly because although I've had my issues with some of LJ's policies in the past, their current difficulties are not their fault and, indeed, occurring because they're providing a platform for free speech in Russia, which is a Good Thing. But backing up your data or having alternate routes to access it is always good and crossposting from/ to DW is one easy way to do it.

1. Reply to this post with 'Icons!', and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

rivrea gave me:


Showing Charles I, quoting the description of the Cavaliers in 1066 And All That by Sellars and Yeatman, the best parodic history book ever written. I am not, in fact, much of a fan of Charles I (I may be an Anglo-Catholic, but I don't have much time for the cult of Charles King and Martyr, though he's a classic case of 'naught became him in life but the losing of it). However, I do have a great sympathy for doomed loyalties. I don't weep for Bonny Prince Charlie, either, but the fate of the Jacobites does move me, even if I think the House of Stewart, by and large, was a disaster we're better off without. Wrong but Wromantic, in fact. the icon is by angevin2, who has made a number of good Sellars and Yeatman icons (including the Not Angels but Anglicans one).


The pierced gothic of the Minster at Freiburg, with the sun setting behind it (and the Vogesen). The inhabitants of Freiburg know it as 'the most beautiful tower in Christendom', and I think they might well be right. A memory of a beautiful city and a very happy year - even if the tower is actually hidden behind scaffolding at the moment (I also use it for my more serious religious posts, where the snarky ones don't work...)


Surely this one doesn't need explained? I am an Anglican, and a socialist, and.... well, you've been following my journal. The icon's by commodorified; I tend to use it for political posts, or ones on Anglicanism (when I'm not using John Keble or Alan-Rickman-as-Slope)


Harriet Walters as Harriet Vane, one of my favourite characters in any medium, because of her honesty, stubborness, and way with a quotation. Also, my life looks pretty much exactly like this at the moment, only with a laptop.


Gene Hunt, in Life on Mars, on spotting-the-bleeding-obvious. I use it for being sarcastic and/ or gloomy about academia, mostly (actually, a worryingly high proportion of my icons are ironic or sarcastic). The icon's by royaldawn_uk.

I support the content strike. It's worth a shot, anyway.

The one-day content strike is on for this Friday, March 21, from midnight GMT to midnight GMT.

For 24 hours, we will not post or comment to LJ. Not in our own journals, not in communities. Not publicly, privately, or under friends-lock.

This is a protest that will have long-lasting effects, showing up forever in the daily posting statistics.

This is a protest that will not harm LJ in the long run, as leaving LJ might do.

This is a protest that will demonstrate the power of community, as all users unite to support Basic users and the concept of adfree space.

This is a protest that will educate the new owners that LJ is driven by user-created content.

I shan't, however, be about at any rate until Easter Sunday, and probably not much for the week after that, when I'm off jaunting round Thuringia.

Why does the newsletter from Melvyn Bragg on 'In Our Time' always arrive missing every single apostrophe, except for the one in the programme title in the subject line? It's surprisingly painful to read, and it's odd that one of R4's most self-consciously Intelleckshul programmes thus comes out looking sub-literate.

Also: I've posted a fair amount of religious/ churchy stuff recently, and I'm wondering if it is a good idea to put it on some sort of filter. (Of course, that would entail finding out how to do so). I'm unsure about filters - they seem rather artificial to me, though that may be because I ramble a lot and am quite capable of talking about the C of E and fannish stuff in the same post... Thoughts?

Gosh. I don't know what to say, other than "Thank you" and "I honestly wasn't soliciting gifts", but some anonymous benefactor has gifted me with a year's paid time. So thank you very much, who-ever you are. I'm a little embarassed, as I don't know what I've done to merit it, and because as I say, I didn't post the previous message in the hope of Free Stuff† - but also really touched.

I resolve to actually try and finish some fic. And, of course, I can now bore everyone with pictures of Oxford and the like....


† After all, I'm neither a BNF or a wannabe!