Sorry I haven't blogged for a while - I've been doing interesting stuff, but no time and less inclination. Here's a few updates:

I finally have a film season! I tried setting up a film club in the other place, and it didn't really work. When Calypso was brainstorming alternate ideas for LGBT events, I suggested queer cinema evenings. We found some helpful people in the Film Department who have given us huge rooms with huge screens, and at least 30 attendees and hundreds of recommendations for films. Woo hoo! The screenings will be on Wednesday afternoons, will be a mix between the more populist "camp classics" and serious/landmark movies. We've even had offers from lecturers to come and give talks. On my agenda? Definitely Madchen in Uniform, Victim, Beautiful Laundrette, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and (though I've already seen this one) Paris is Burning. I think Calypso is keen to show Boys Don't Cry, and the first screening - Transamerica - is set for next week. Very, very excited.


Greek is killing me. Our teacher is really nice and all, but she insists on going through the homework in lessons sentence by sentence. This is intensely frustrating: if I've done the homework, then it's really a wasted hour. I've been entertaining myself by doing Greek composition in the back to brush up my vocab. I was going to do some summaries, but I don't have enough words: I know Doctor and Master, but the closest word I have for Dalek (aside from ο Δαλεκ) would be η υδρια - water jar. Luckily, I do have enough generic words to do Blake's 7 -or ο του πολιτου χορος as it is best rendered in Greek. It's keeping me immensely entertained every time we get a new word list, working out what I can now write. This week we finally learnt "ship", "sail" and "kill" enabling me to much expand my mini-masterpiece. It certainly saved my neck in the Greek test we had this week. So far, I've summarised the first two episodes and introduced a few characters - Blake is ο πολιτες (the citizen), while Travis is obviously ο στρατεγως (the soldier). The best I could do for Avon and Jenna is ο φιλος (the friend) and η γυνη (the woman) - both of which are hilariously inappropriate. Still, it allows me to do a lot of "he frees the slaves" and it is coming in handy, albeit in a crazy way.

One of my favourite free-London-mags is Shortlist and Stylist. They come out one day after the other, courtesy of the gender binary. Shortlist is blue, and typically has a tough actor on the cover, and it has stories about cars, TV and technology. Stylist is a day later, is very pink - or has a very full-lipped and feminine close up of a lady icon on it, and naturally has sections on make up, travel and fashion. It's not quite as bad as it sounds: Stylist is actually pretty progressive, once you get over the hilarious covers. But that's not why I mention it. Stylist has just mentioned a documentary featuring five actresses, all who will be playing the Queen but in different decades. Barbara Flynn, for example, "depicts HRH during her "anus horribilis", 1992"

Oh, how I love geeky giggles. Spot the mistake! What Stylist was attempting to say is "annus horribilis", miserable year. Not "anus horribilis", which means miserable old woman. What a Freudian slip!

Did I update you all about Swapbot? I've now got about 20 art cards in my collection on topics as various as Alice in Wonderland, Imaginary Friends and the Disney Haunted Mansion. Half made by me, half made by partners all over the globe. The fun of it is really the scope - everyone has a different style, so while they are all individually a tad shoddy they look marvellous next to one another. One thing I've noted is how unsurprisingly female based it is: they're either teenage girls, or hockey moms from Idaho, with a penchant for scrapbooking. This has been a source of amusement, but also guilt - as I prepare to send off cards inspired by Watchmen to a woman who loves rabbits and whose favourite film is The Notebook, and one based on Reservoir Dogs to "Rainbow Colour ! Theme: Orange". So I was quite taken aback to find this swap in the listings. O-kay then. Not all scrapbookers and ribbon-obsessives then. I am really confused. I know there are people into True Crime and the like - I think it's a bit sick and strange, but each to their own. But WTF?! And who in their right mind has a favourite serial killer?

Oh yes. Right. Moving on.

So I had to sign up for it. My motivation is this: as a collector, I want a diverse and interesting collection, and I'm sure this bizzare oppertunity will never come back. You have to design two cards, one with the serial killer of your choice - and the other your partner chooses. I still haven't found a way of requesting Jack the Ripper that doesn't make me feel like a horrific individual. Even though I designed a card partly inspired by him a whole two months back (but it was also about London, Dark London, smog, gothic horror, Victoriana, the Valeyard, Doctor Who and all sorts of other things). And I don't know what I'm going to do when I get a serial killer prompt from my partner. At least Jack is dead, and shrouded in fiction: part of the point of the card I made was exploring the ways he has been appropriated by the gothic horror genre and made "acceptable" by it. He's cameoed in Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Batman and Doctor Who in a way I can't see Charles Manson doing any time soon. Take a look at the two images on this page and see if you can spot the difference. I've found the pictures from the previous Serial Killer swap (there have been two. Why on earth has there been not one, but two?!) and they are quite beautiful as art.

But Jesu. Maybe I'll do my first kooky-collage, with all the art-bits I've been sent by the hockey soroity, and create something deeply ironic and brightly coloured.

I've updated my birthday list a bit. Expect stuff to keep crawling on there as I remember them