Keeping Track

Rainy Sydney in 2011, much the same today In Sydney right now anyway. How about where you are, everybody? I hope all hoydens and hoyden-adjacent folks are safe and sound during the latest manifestations of the climate emergency. In other news I am definitely still masking up when I’m around other people. I use the brown paper bag system to extend the life of my N95s.

Diana Rigg in a publicity photo for The Avengers with Patrick McNee

Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in a still from an episode

A photo of Diana Rigg on set being playful with the photographer

Otterday and Open Thread

I have awoken with the urge to blog for the first time in many moons and offer you this otter doing a backflip at Capron Park Zoo in Massachusetts.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js The otters do back flips over and over | Ben Spark on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

I don’t know how many of Hoyden’s once-regular readers are still subscribed, but hello to all who are. I have an office job these days…

ATO scammer time of the year again for Aussies

Just got a robocall from a purported “ATO officer” “alerting” me to a supposed lawsuit “taken out against your name” reciting a phone number that I was supposed to call or suffer dire consequence. I guffawed and sang “Scam scam scam” to the tune of the Star Wars Imperial March until the call ended, because I’d already heard about these scammers from our public broadcaster, who’ve just revisited…

Otterday! And Open Thread

Seeing as I was logged in and all, I decided why not revisit our rusty weekend Open Thread tradition. Here’s an otter eating a carrot, photographed at Whipsnade Zoo in the UK. Otter eating a carrot that some family was feeding to the otters right next to a sign telling them not to | William Warby on Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart…

Like many other astrogeeknerds around our pale blue dot of a planet, I kept updating Twitter a few days ago to hear the latest about the Cassini spacecraft’s final orbit of Saturn and its guided plunge through the atmosphere for one last glorious burst of shiny new data. This morning I’ve been nostalgically scrolling through online galleries of the most visually spectacular photos sent back to…

Abortion will remain in the NSW Crimes Act

Yesterday – ABCNews: NSW Parliament votes no on legislation to decriminalise abortion A bill to decriminalise abortion has been voted down in New South Wales Parliament. Members of the public gallery yelled “shame” as it was announced the bill had been defeated 25 to 14. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js PedestrianTV has a photo gallery of the 25 NSW MPs who voted against…

Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots

…and not in a knowing nod to the cognoscenti way. Shana O’Neill on SyfyWire wonders Where is the Wonder Woman movie advertising? Wonder Woman finally gets her own movie and the movie marketing machines for DC and Warner Bros. haven’t seemed to have chugged to life. We’re less than six weeks out. There’s been more advertising for Justice League than the movie that’s supposed to kick off the whole…

No more will Clarke & Dawe slyly skewer the doublespeak abounding in public life. It’s been my Thursday night highlight for years, that tightly crafted jewel of scathing simplicity. I will miss that 3 minutes each week immensely. Two nations have lost a great satirist, a terrific writer, and by all accounts a delightful human being generally. So many people I know are utterly staggered that he’s…

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. From Freedom from Fear I heard this quoted on the radio today, and it was new to me, but it suddenly put a new slant on my thinking about social dynamics at every level, from the most intimate relationships to international diplomacy. Fear…

This Week in Even More Unnerving: Darth Bannon’s dodgy history obsession

Linette Lopez in Business Insider is disturbed by TIME magazine’s explication of Steve Bannon’s ideological reliance upon a (highly US/Anglo-centric focussed) book about cycles of history, where every 80-100 years there is a cataclysmic event (a “Fourth Turning”) necessitating a trial by fire resulting in a new order. According to the book, the last two Fourth Turnings America experienced were…

So I only just discovered the Tomlin Rule

“No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” – Lily Tomlin The quote is about trying to stay informed by reading the newspapers, and seems to embody my own attempts at self-preservation in a world where duplicitous absurdities constantly gain more traction than rigorously scrutinised realities. The last few months that’s been more true than ever. L-R: Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner…

Beyond Marching: I Will Not Be Passive #Resist

Two dogs attending the Womens March Sydney on Jan 21st, 2017. One is wearing a blue home-made coat that reads BITCHES AGAINST BIGOTS, the other dog is wearing fairy wings and a VOTE GREENS badge Last weekend I marched with #WomensMarchSyd in solidarity with women around the world who wanted to visibly repudiate the Trump agenda’s predictable winding back of women’s (and other marginalised…