Costume Laurel = Bitch

It occurs to me that I have been far too nice lately. And J is away on holidays, which means I either blog or clean. So I'll blog because by jingo I loathe housework. My mother was right and every girl deserves a good wife.

So, costume laurels. We're mean, vile, ghastly people who will criticise your stitch length, mock your alleged doco and then steal your boyfriends all before lunch on the first day of Festival (Pennsic/Canty Faire/big multi-day Drachenwald camping thingy ... what's the one in Sweden?). At least, that's what our press office says. Admittedly we got them cheap from the US intelligence service, so they may not be the most accurate of bunnies, but you've all heard the tales.

And no matter what we do to be helpful, caring, generous teachers of our arts, everyone reverts to the stereotype at the first available opportunity. Two days before I stepped down from the last reign I was at a sewing night with my apprentice marking out my hem and clearly about three weeks behind in my sewing time when a young woman came up to me and said "Oh please, can I ask you a teeny weeny favour?"

I looked at her straight. "If it's for sewing or patterning help tonight, no. I have absolutely no time at the moment."

"But it's for this weekend!" she protested.

I replied, "Yes, me too!"

She mooched off with the expression of "Bitch!"

Which is fair enough, I could have been the sainted lupin and put aside my own work to help her out, except that I AM a bitch and wanted to do something for me. Something else I quite want to do for me is have the following moans about bad costume. But I hasten to add that just because I am a bitchy costume laurel doesn't mean we all are.

It's just me.

And the people who taught me.

And most of my friends, and theirs, and a few of our role models, too.

Aside from that we're all delightful.

WHEN GOOD FROCKS GO BAD
1. Breasts
In general, I'm all for breasts. Pert little ones, soft rounded ones, saggy lived-in ones, even. I've used mine over the years for everything from picking up attractive young folk to storing keys between and resting sleeping babies on (other people's sleeping babies, but they're not fussy about whose breasts they rest on. Actually, neither were the attractive young folk now that I think about it.) They're a handy tool when you need an instant comedy accessory, and a decorative element that has many functional uses.

But in period costume, breasts have clearly defined places. Those places are almost never rolling over the top of your neckline.

I've just been off to look at yet another dress-diary and what is otherwise a pleasant frock has had the neckline lowered by about four inches so that instead of having a nice smooth cone-like demure Venetian profile (as in the doco on the same page), it's all quivering norkage wobbling over the neckline, which is barely excusable when you're twentysomething, but ladies, after thirty, if you can't attract attention without threatening a wardrobe malfunction, then you did not use your twenties wisely.

There are some frocks in Lochac that I can't talk to the owners of when they're in them, as I find myself just staring at their cleavage. Not in the good way where your brain goes to metaphors like marble and adjectives like yielding, but in the bad way, where the metaphors are all down the veined cheese path and the adjectives start at wobbly and get much worse from there.

I know all about making a frock and turning into a fat bastard before you make the next one, and I accept that it can strain bodices beyond where they're really happy to go, but that's why partlets were invented. Or you can pull up your chemise or smock so that at least there's a layer of white linen reinforcing the concept of mystique.

Because if I want to see your nipples, I'll buy you a few beers first, and maybe quote some Sappho.

2. Corsets
While never in the course of human costuming have more corsets been misused for more bad breastage than in the SCA, there is still an important place for this undergarment. That place is the 16th century.

Sure there are some corsetted pre-16th century items. There are even some 16th century styles that actually don't have corsetry. But most of them do, and not always the one type.

So why do I keep reading doco that says, "After looking at the image, I decided that there was no corsetry underneath this frock"?

How many people do you know who have perfectly straight lines from their shoulders to their artificially lowered waistines? That go in little Vs at the front and back? And that make their breasts smooth out into either a straight line or a very controlled curve?

People, if you put on your lovingly made late-period frock and discover that you look a lot more like a shapeless sack than the girl in the picture, then try adding a layer of corsetry beneath and see if things improve. And then refit the fucking frock!

3. Bad fit = ugly
I have garb that is too small for me, it draws horizontal lines across the front and back, creates unsightly bulges and means I can't move my arms. I have garb that is too large for me, it hangs like a sack and lets everyone know that 40 is just around the corner for this little brown duck. I have garb that fits just right and it is comfortable and attractive and makes me look better than I was looking before I put the frock on.

And that's from pieces that all did fit properly at one time or another (mercifully the large ones fit only very briefly. Don't eat all the cakes!) I know several lovely women whose SCA clothes all have terrible fit and who always end up looking like frumps because of it.

It is hard, sometimes impossible to do it for yourself. I'm damned lucky to live near several of the best fitting laurels in Lochac, and I appreciate that not everyone has that luxury. But make an effort. Wear the right support garments, have a clear idea of where the seams should go and how the support should work. Cut your pieces on the correct grain, and find someone who knows what they're doing to fit your basic bodice, even if that means hiring in a mundane dressmaker and talking her through everything at length. (You may want to check the outcome with someone who has a good period eye to make sure that your instructions yielded the correct fruit.)

Once you have a good block that will work for what you want, never gain or lose weight again and you can adapt it a whole lot of ways.

This is really a hard one, and I am so far from perfect when it comes to my own garb because I can't ever believe I'm really this short or this fat, that I'm prepared to be really forgiving until I see stunning fabric cut up and butchered in a travesty of sofa-like construction, at which point I get a little twitch at the side of my mouth. If you can't fit clothing, only buy cheap fabric. It will cause you less pain once you learn what you're doing, and it will be easier on the rest of us, too.

4. Why choose an ugly frock?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the kooky frock. I own one of the stupider frocks in the Kingdom – it has many buttons! Wacky hats, I'm there. Hell, I like brown.

But there are also some frocks that are just plain ugly. They have stripes that make you look stumpy. They have padded arses, and enough fabric around your middle to make you look like the Michelin Man. The have big shoulders and big sleeves and more dangly crap than the Olympics. They have detail that draws the eyes to your knees and that makes you look about two feet high and four feet across.

And you should not spend weeks of your life making one of these frocks, for it will not magically suit you. Rather, it will look awful, and so will you.

There's a simple rule of thumb if you're going from a portrait. Does the person wearing the frock remotely resemble you and, if yes, does the frock look good on them? Look carefully. Sometimes you might think "yes, she has my brown hair and pearly skin." but then when you look more closely, you will realise that she also has a body length that is about twice as long and half as wide as it is in reality, which is why that frock makes her look long and lean. The artists just added in extra ribs or neck where they thought they could do some good, or took out a bit of hip. In one painting, there's n ectra leg. It's sort of a period Photoshopping.

Duke Cornelius and Sir Philipe recently related a tale to me where they had been sent images for some garb they had been asked to make, drawn to standard fashion model shapes. Apparently they scanned the shot and Photoshopped it so that it was much shorter and much wider, then sent on the two images labelled The Dream and The Reality. It's a bit of a harsh thing to do to yourself, but it's so much less painful than spending weeks or months making something that will look manky.

Being seduced by a pretty painting and missing that fact that the frock is manky is bad, but much, much worse are the people who choose to make something that is inherently ugly because they like one of the elements. Chaps and Chapettes, you can take that pretty embroidery or lace or colour or whatever, and make a whole new frock out if it. It is, as Gabrielle often reminds me, the Society for CREATIVE Anachronism, and while we horrid Laurels will no doubt giggle at you if you make up something that is outlandish, we will think highly of you if you come up with something plausible.

5. Shit fabric with braid is still shit fabric
I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. If the fabric looks plastic, ugly, vile-coloured, sweat-inducing or creased to buggery in the shop, that's what it will also look like when you wear it as a frock. No amount of pretty braid, pearls or even hand-woven lace will redeem crap fabric.

Buy the nicest, most period fabric that you can afford. And if that's plain wools and linens, they will still look better than shiny shit. Maybe buy a bit less braid if it's becoming a real issue.

6. You probably won't look like the picture
Artists are kinder to their subjects than prepress technicians with the full Adobe Creative Suite. Choose things that appear to look good on your body type, with regard for what the actual fabric looks like against your skin, and then if things are still a bit sub-par, light-reflecting make-up works wonders. Or only go to events where everyone is really, really drunk, steal all their cameras and re-touch all the photos before letting anyone see them.

I have grown to accept that even if I am once again skinny, I will never, ever be tall enough to look like Mistress Marienna in 14th century garb. Like her friendly neighbourhood pixie, sure! Let go of the dream, embrace the reality. It hurts less.

7. Dress does not equal outfit
We've all seen it, the really well made and quite cleverly imagined frock that still manages to look wrong. Is it the chemise that was made for another frock and doesn't really go with this one? Is it the lack of belt and partlet, despite the fact that the dress is crying out for them? Is it the free-flowing pink locks? Is it the trainers and plastic sunnies?

It's hard to put your finger on the real source of the problem, but somehow, you just can't bring yourself to say "nice frock", even when it is.

(And let's not even talk about furs, pattens, hose, books, gloves, coats and other accessories! Start with the accessories and make the frock later, that way you're guaranteed to look great (and weigh the amount you will when you want to wear it).)

8. Two words: ticky and tacky
Just as for fabric, some beads, braids and other accessories aren't work the money, even if that money is $2. You will impress those in the know far more by creating a beautiful, simple garment than by sticking on a lot of nasty bling.

Okay, so you'll distract Gabrielle for a moment, but then she'll feel bad about herself in addition to not liking your frock as much as she thought she did, and that's just mean.

Hot glue is a grey area, along with invisible thread. If you can make it look invisible and hence fantastic, then most bitch laurels are prepared to buy your argument that it's a reasonable facsimile of glued garb (quite period) and near-invisible fine silk threads (almost impossible to find these days).

9. Bulk is not your friend
Unless you are really skinny, in which case carefully positioned bulk is. Otherwise, think through how many layers you really need in an outfit and how heavy each of those layers is. Once your outfit starts weighing 7kg and above, you're not going to like wearing it as much as you thought you would. Especially in an Australian summer. And the excess baggage is punishing.

You might also resemble a rugged-up toddler and not be able to move your arms, which isn't the best look. If you have multiple layers, make them out of light materials where possible. Trim all seams as much as possible. Stitch or iron all seams as flat as possible.

Be sure that if your garb is making you go out in particular areas, those are the areas you want to be going out in. And for boys, be reasonable on the codpieces unless they are for comedy.

10. Purple unicorns make me very cranky
I'm prepared to overlook this sort of stuff on kids, hell, girls can get away with it until they're about 20. But if you're a 37-year-old woman and you're trying to convince me to take you seriously while you wear a frock with the period equivalent of My Little Pony embroidery with a pink fluffy hat, it's not going to happen. Sorry.

As for the purple, I can kind of cope if you really love St Florian or are Katerina del Brescia, but even then, there are other colours, people, and you would look lovely in them!

Of course, sometimes it is good to break every rule.

The More Things Change ...

Back to SCAdia for the most part ...

As part of our Top Gear fixation, J and I have purchased merchandise. At least it's funny, which is more than can be said for most franchises. One book by Clarkson contains a series of articles written between 1985 and 1993. In one of the pieces he talks about mobile phones, and how a good model can be purchased for the princely sum of £2000, with a £50 connection charge and monthly fee of £25.

I remember those days well! In fact, as a young strumpet I would make a point of dating men who could afford mobile phones because all my money was going on travel, books and black clothes, but I still wanted to be able to call my friends from a dance party. (It gets worse, later I dated geeks so that I could use their computers to write my essays and learn about this Arpanet thingy. Some of them were very cute, though, especially after you pried them out of their cardigans and into some black stovepipes.)

This has all come flooding back to me over the last few days because Deense has gone green and was pointing out that since 1987, we've had a massive increase in consumption. You can read about that here, but I'm going off on a tangent, so don't flee if you fear the eco warrior within. When I thought back to 1987, I remembered that it was a time when we had no iPods, mobiles or PDAs, when very few people had computers (although several people on Deense's LJ piped up to say that everyone they knew had computers, but I suspect they were all 14-year-old boys at the time, which is not the same as people), and most things had an off-switch, rather than a stand-by mode.

I also had a tiny bum and perfect skin, not to mention a short-term memory, but such are the cruelties of time, taxis and the Lindt factories' output.

This led to more reminiscence as I thought about the SCA in the days that I began, and how things had changed. Last night at Stitch and Smack (the fighters have the front of the hall, the A&S crew have the back room) I was reassuring Llewen, an old old-timer, that people were actively doing things about the proposed ban on lights. He then launched into a spiel about the days when he was a big political activist in the SCA, and I realised that I had never known him then (he actually was, just before I joined). By the time I met him, he was concentrating on performance and quite loudly P-ed off with SCA politics.

This got me thinking about the people who were doing things when I joined Lochac. Some of them are still around. Rowan is still Rowan, a dignified voice of reason who can materialise at odd moments and say pertinent things from "Your Majesty, not to worry you, but the High Table is on fire and your Barons are putting it out," to "Quick, go and say hello to that person before she thinks you're snubbing her. Here's her name!"

I remember being introduced to her as The One True Rowan and thinking that must be one hell of a weight to bear, but she is also still cheeky Rowan underneath and useful Rowan all the way through, so she copes admirably, especially with her good group of friends and the ever-supportive Nico. The first time I met properly, her she helped me pattern a frock and gave me sensible advice. The next time I met her she criticised said frock in ways that were constructive and correct, and I had a momentary flash of "Hey, I'm new to making things, be nice!" followed quickly by "Omigod, I'm worthy of Mistress Rowan's criticism! She takes me seriously! I've done a good job and if I listen to her I'll do a better one!" That was a useful insight, and it alerted me to the fact that she was one of the peers who would treat newbies as though they were capable, even if it could come as a shock the first time.

Given that there was a perceived cultural division between the peerage and the rest of the populace when I joined, this was good information. It led to me being able to see that the division was maintained by people who were not peers. So the several long-time non-peer players who snarked at me in my early days and accused me of rampant social climbing were actually defending their own positions, not reporting a reality about how the game was played.

I remember how interesting it was to work all of this out. SCA social mores pretend that they are based on a meritocracy, but to a newbie at that time, it seemed that they were based on who you knew, not what. Talking with newbies these days, that doesn't seem to have changed as much as I would have liked it to.

But as you learned more about the people and the systems, it became obvious that the reason the peers seemed all to be friends was that they had all been playing SCA for years and had all learned to work with each other, many of them finding commonalities that bonded them closely. Some were former teacher-students, some began playing together, some built groups together. Of course they looked like a cohesive mass from a distance!

As you got closer, cracks appeared, especially among the Knights and Laurels. I formed my theory of A-Peers and B-Peers early on, although it took quite a few years for me to realise that there were also C-Peers. More on that later.

My first SCA contacts aside from the much-loved Coco were with people like Mouse, who was living with a Knight, Mendoza, who was good friends with two Knights and several Laurels, plus Angie the rarely seen but ever-present in conversation Pelican, and then Fabes, Elfinn, Bran and Cornelius at Festival, all Knights, all bad, bad men (but they'd make worse women). This was very helpful in that it both debunked the stupid parts of the peer/populace divide and reinforced the useful parts.

The Knights all could kill most people on the field. Mendoza's friends Mistresses Gabrielle and Marguerite did look more spectacular than most other people. Fabes, who was both a Knight and a Laurel, had made his pretty, shiny helm. The mysterious Angie was pulling half the strings behind the scenes in the Kingdom. Each had earned their dangly through skill or hard work, and each was happy to share some aspect of their knowledge. Above all, they all reinforced the idea that you could achieve any goal within the SCA that you put your mind to, and that to want to achieve was not a negative.

The sheer pragmatism of these people was quite a good influence on a newbie in those days. And their casual thoughtfulness, too. At my first Festival I was wearing my first frock, which was not spectacular, though not utter crap. Marguerite (looking wonderful) was coming up a path as I was going down, and she smiled at me and declared, "Don't you look pretty!" Instantly I decided that I was going to sew and sew until I had nice clothes like hers.

I remember well how she and Gabrielle caught my eye at that event, and how there seemed to be a gap between what they wore and what some of the people I knew better such as Tina and Mouse were wearing. A month or so later at a workshop where I couldn't do anything at due to broken bonage, Gabrielle explained that the difference came down to thinking and doing and redoing. And, of course, developing certain technical skills. It was the first glimpse of the library of knowledge these women carried about inside their heads.

Over the next few years I watched my friend Mouse go from good embroiderer to great embroiderer, and the process was exactly as they had described. At first she gathered a set of technical skills, then she immersed herself in period examples and yet more technique, and then she synthesised her knowledge and ability to the point where she could produce works that were simply exquisite.

We reigned as P&P during the period when she was being discussed for the Laurel Council, and it was interesting to see the process of how elevation happened. There were two broad directions of thinking, the peer focussed and the process focussed. Peer focussed thinking starts with does the candidate meet Corpora's criteria for peerage, and then moves to whether their work is comparable with other members of the order and whether they fulfil the technical requirements. Process focussed starts with the work and then looks at the peerage aspects.

Both ways of working have things to recommend them, and I think that they are usually a personal choice. Although I do worry when someone who is very strong on the process side gets through regardless of the peerage side. Sometimes this happens because we all get fooled into believing that individuals have put their days of deep craziness behind them. Usually there are one or two peers on the council who say "I think they're still a nutter!" and get out-voted. And in the rare case when the loony within re-emerges in full and freaky flight after dangly grantage, those peers are allowed to be rather smug forevermore, and the rest of us comfort ourselves with the knowledge we acted in good faith and that it is generally a good thing to believe that people can change for the better.

Other times it happens because the talent is so extraordinary that we allow ourselves to be swept away and forget to make sure that they have the involvement and deportment that makes up the other part of a peer. If we're lucky, the individual goes "Eep!" and leaps up to make the grade. More often it does terrible things to them and they often stop playing at a high level, or at all. Anyway, that's for more detail another time, too.

At about the same time, Mouse and Tops became B&B of Rowany. They were the third since I joined, and I have to confess that I was concerned when they took it on because they were so heavily identified as Lemmings and because Rowany had become very factionalised at that time. I needn't have been. They went out of their way to be inclusive and judged people, for the most part, wholly on merit rather than on affiliation. I say for the most part because it's not really possible to do it entirely. I know from my own experience that some people who are close to us got awards as soon as they were recommended, because we knew very well how good they were, whereas others would need recommendations from several disinterested parties before you could convince us. Mouse and Tops are not as narky as we are, but a little bit of this goes on with everyone who reigns as B&B, P&P or K&Q, even Arnfinr, who is otherwise perfect in every way (that'll be $5.75, Your Excellency. Happy now?)

Mouse and Tops's term as B&B is the time that J and I really started to identify ourselves as Rowanites. Prior to that there hadn't been that much of a Rowany to identify with during our time here. There had instead been several powerful households and two large colleges. I came in through one of the colleges and J still had ties to Mordenvale. And when I was too old to be an Ursie anymore, I identified as a Lochacian, since I wasn't an Attican, Celli, Lemming nor Lyon.

But Maeve, Aeron, Bethan, Hrothgar, Gui, Gawyne and several others at that time all decided that there should be a general Rowany, too. Maeve and Aeron trailblazed somewhat by making sure there was a Rowany campsite at Festival, which Nikki was also a part of if memory serves. I was by then a Viscountess (my peerage advice? Find a promising squire and train him up. Got me a Viscounty, County and Duchy) and they reminded me that it was important to work with the local groups as much as with the Principality as a whole. Since the Kingdom process had moved over into the useful hands of Del and Baron Stephen, and I needed something much more cheerful than the OziBoD for day-to-day SCA enjoyment, I listened. So I started to make a point of attending more baronial things, and they were right, it was fun!

Over the successive years my younger friends all took on leadership roles. Little Hrothgar who was still at school when I joined and who Gabrielle had described as permanently 11 in her head turned into this amazing adult (no longer 11 in anyone's head) and was the next to run the Barony with his beautiful and brilliant wife. It was less startling to see Helene go from newbie to Baroness and Laurel, because I had picked her early on as a woman of intelligence, taste and ability (when she turned down Uther in favour of Hrothgar, even though Hrothers was a nutter and had failed to make the trip north for the Coronet at which she planned to woo him).

Of the people who were leading things when I started, they're mostly still about albeit in different ways. Torg and Lindoret moved to Stowe. Mistresses G&M have bambinos yet are still spectacular (curse their genius). Rowan is still Rowan, Mouse is still Mouse, albeit with more titles and with a mini-Tops on the way, and Tops is as unchanging as the hills (except that he keeps learning more bits to add to his underwater city plans).

Around them a new generation of leaders has grown up, of which I was privileged to be a part. We were very lucky in many ways because we came through at a time when those who were in power were largely about education and not a whole lot about mystification. So we always knew that things were open to debate and that change was possible, even desirable when it was for the good.

I remember when J and I announced the Kingdom Poll we were told by several people that it was the worst idea at the worst time imaginable, but both the leaders that I admired, such as Gabrielle, Marguerite, Rowan and Mouse, and the leaders that I had joined with, such as Bethan, Gui, Maeve and Gawyne, all thought it was a great idea, so we knew that it would work. And it did.

Looking back, the last 11 years in Lochac have been a time when we have been very lucky to have had a long series of peers who have worked to build skills in the populace and to encourage participation. We have had B&Bs and P&Ps and K&Qs who have led with dignity and vision, but who have also been inclusive and encouraging for the most part. Those who were not have still been useful, because they bonded others together in a what-not-to-do way.

That same Llewen told me about a year after I joined that he saw me burning out quickly and becoming as P-ed off with the process as he was. While I definitely get cranky with individuals and groups when they are unecessarily thick, I've never felt despair. When I thought last night about what made the difference, I realised that it was the strength of the leaders around me that had allowed me to exercise my own leadership skills, and the bright future of leadership in Lochac that exists now, from the huge corps of Kiwi talent (Adele, Therese, BB and KK, Ulf and Alys, Angel, Benedict, Eleyne, Fina, Inigo and Cecilia, I'm barely skimming the bowl here), to the strong pool of B&Bs, to local people such as Tyg, Molly, Hunnydd, Paddy and Willem.

And that's why I'm not too fussed when things go a bit wrong. Because on the whole, things are going very right indeed. And earlier in the year, I watched Helene talk someone through how to improve her frock and I found myself saying "You look just lovely!" to a young woman. We were taught well.

Unprecedented.

Fox News and I are on the same page of an issue. In complete agreement and with not even a tiny space between us. It's never happened before and will probably never happen again. But the insanity of the Westboro Baptist Church has built a bridge that I would never have imagined.

Thanks to the LJ thoughtfulness of I-Autumnheart whose friend Misscam brought this to the attention of those beyond the reach of Murdoch Media. I loved her note that the image on the Fox site has clearly been chosen to show this nutter at her loopiest. A big round of media applause to the site crew.

Bring back the days when Christianity was represented by people like Mistress Gabrielle and not these lupins.

The Hamster is Doing Better

As many of you know, we have an unholy love of Top Gear in this house. Well, to be honest, it's all motorsport in general so far as J is concerned, but for me, it's F1 and Top Gear. F1 is fascinating for the high-tech high-tension sagas of drivers, cars and teams, where one month's Juan Pablo Montoya is the future of Mercedes-McLaren and the next month's JPM is that wanker who's going back to a lower series where he belongs. But I can understand people who see nothing in this; a lot of the actual racing has been processional for the last few years and it's only recently that things have hotted up again (Go Schumi!).

Top Gear, on the other hand, offers something for everyone. And that something is usually explosions. Now I'm as mild-mannered as the next woman, but I must say that a well-controlled explosion offers that certain je ne sais hedgehog that most television can't quite capture. And it works for me.

I'm not a natural TG viewer: I can't drive (and refuse to learn); I can change a tyre, but care not whether it is a Michelin, Bridgestone or Pirelli; I really don't give a sausage about the Ford Mondeo; and I ride a bicycle (well, in theory. In practise my nearest and dearest all threaten to kill me if I take my bike out on the roads again but only because they want to get in before the inevitable taxi. But we hit the parks now and then.) So I am actually the anti-Clarkson, and not just because I am a cute, short woman with straight hair.

Yet give me an hour of Jeremy Clarkson, James May or Richard Hammond fanging about in ridiculous vehicles while gleefully exclaiming that they have soiled themselves, and then blowing up a caravan, and I'm a happy punter.

So you can imagine my concern when Richard Hammond, better known as the Hamster, went completely cactus while screaming down their decommisioned runway in a dragster at 300mph recently. Reports have suggested everything from a blown tyre to asymmetrically deployed brake parachutes as the cause of the accident, but suffice to say it was a screaming pile of mess, with a bright-eyed, Colgate-whitened little TV presenter slumped in what remained of the vehicle.

For anyone who lives in a land untouched by motoring journalism, the Hamster is cute, amusing, slightly over four foot tall, and insanely enthusiastic about everything. So naturally, I quite like him. And as a denizen of the media world, I appreciate him allowing subbies all over the UK an opportunity for headlines such as Hamster's Horror Head-On. Here's a picture of him before the accident. He's sweet and goofy and has a lovely wife and two little girls. He's probably nice to dogs and cats, too. It was a bloody huge crash, with the Vampire dragster apparently rolling several times and leaving Hammond with his helmet half-buried at the end of the shunt.

Here's what's left of the car. Now these things are constructed to very high standards and have everything from roll cages to special devices to protecting your head and neck in the advent of a crash. In fact Hammond is reported as talking lucidly at the crash scene. But the paramedics had a better idea of what was really going on and, in the immortal words of the late Barry Sheehan: That's a major, major sausage. Look at the state of it! So our little fella was whisked off to hospital by air ambulance and some really good doctors did a really good job of stabilising him once he got there.

Jeremy Clarkson writes about it here, and rather sweetly manages to say nice things about the NHS for perhaps the first time in British media history. The good news is that in the intervening weeks, the Hamster has staged a remarkable recovery and has sodded off to rehab now that he's clearly on the road to being normal again. He's walking and talking and genuine experts rather than the media variety have said give him six months and he'll be fine.

I know from my own attempt to dislodge my head (at much lower speeds) that six months is about how long it takes to rewire properly, so I have every hope that this is a real prognosis and not the sort of thing that people say about celebrities in a bid to make people feel better about watching shows that encourage them to do stupid things.

However, the doing stupid things thing has gained a great deal of mileage in the UK. All over the press there have been screams of outrage that the BBC funds a show that exists primarily for people fanging about in cars and blowing things up. The argument is that these actions are inherently dangerous, serve no purpose, and are bad for global warming.

Now, that is true, but then again, it's true of most things. You can say exactly the same things about the SCA. (See! Linkage! I am On Topic, oh yes, I am!). Admittedly our Global Warming Impacts are all to do with enormous amounts of flights and long-distance drives (well, and letting some people talk), but there's really no good reason to get dressed up and hit each other with sticks.

Except it's a lot of fun.

And, in the case of Top Gear, it's all done away from public roads and without risk to anyone except the presenters themselves. I can even live with Clarkson hating cyclists, because you know he'd brake like a bastard to avoid hitting you on a bad corner – he's a marshamallow under the bluster.

And I have to say that millions of people enjoy watching Clarkson, May and Hammond destroy caravans (and if they could take out the odd Sydney taxi, I'd be even happier. And if they could have a certain I. Nakle driving it at the time, I'd be happier still!) Luckily the Beeb has renewed the show and started filming on the latest series, but this has all brought home once more what a nanny-state world we live in.

And for anyone thinking that it's only in the UK, HAH! Australia is just as bad and the US is much, much worse. In fact the only liberty that Americans seem hell-bent on preserving is the right to ready armaments to kill each other. This makes life very difficult for motoring programs, and I suspect it will continue to make life difficult for SCAidans, too.

The one bright light on the SCA front is that the SCA Inc has finally decided they need a liaison with the rest of the world. It won't be me, because I would spend all my time screaming crankily and this is not effective. But it may well be Maggie, who is every bit as smart as I am (quite possibly more, but like I'll admit that), and more useful in every direction from multi-linguality to patience and dignity. Or it could well be a Drachenwalder, which would also be good, as they seem to all have their heads screwed on and a reasonable sense of how the world works, not just their backyard.

On a final Hamster note, an appeal to raise funds for the air ambulance service is closing in on the £175,000 mark and hopes to raise some £500,000 for a new chopper. You can check up on the tally or donate here. So some good has come out of the whole thing.

Personally I'm looking forward to the next two F1 Grands Prix, where I have my fingers crossed for TGF (That German Fellow). It won't be the same once he finishes driving; I've grown to believe that the Italian national anthem is the second verse of the German one (that's how it's always played on the podium). I'm just hoping that he wins because then he'll cry in the press conference again, and with a bit of luck, Kimi Raikkonen will be there to take on the role of his fellow Finn in years past with the sympathetic back-patting. It's a beautiful thing.

Back to the usual SCA suspects next post ...

Reasons not to sleep with knights, part III

Back to the silliness! If you are an FTN subscriber, you will be holding a paper copy of all 75 in your hot little hand soon, along with much other dodginess. Any day now I will have time to finish my event reports on the St James Pas and Festival 2oo6. But we do have a lovely new bathroom cabinet and I have found the floor in both the bedroom and living room. And they said it would never happen (which may have some validity when it comes to the sewing room ...)

51. Say G-Spot and he thinks groin shot.
52. He loves your long hair, so much so that he snips it off one night and uses it for his helmet crest.
53. Your shed is filled with armour, your hall is filled with weapons, and then he starts to assemble his chainmaille in the living room …
54. Using your jewellery pliers.
55. Your leather tools become his leather tools. Your shoe leather becomes his leg armour.
56. He asks you if you love him, then he asks you if you can make him a new gambeson to show you how much you love him. For war. This weekend.
57. He gives the gambeson to his new squire in lieu of a belt and then asks you to make him another one.
58. He’s a wonderful man, except every Festival he disappears all day to the war or tourney fields.
59. Then he disappears half the night to gasbag with visiting international knights.
60. Then he organises your international travel plans so that you can catch up with his overseas knightly friends.
61. And 34kg of your 60kg travel allowance is made up of armour and vegemite. The vegemite is for him, you have to carry the bribery Tim Tams in your carry-on.
62. In your early days, he yells “Good!” at startling moments. After which there’s no way you’re going to be having a similar opportunity.
63. Yet years later, he still encourages you to adopt the same tactic.
64. “Left”, “Right”, “Slower”, ‘Faster”; none of this works. He only understands “Hold”
65. What the hell does he mean by “Light!”?
66. Someone writes a filk about his mightiness. He sings it in bed. He wants you to sing it.
67. Squires try to hit on you in case the magic can rub off. That’s not all they want rubbed.
68. He’s one of the good knights, and you love him. But then there are all his friends …
69. Who turn up at your house every time there’s a big tourney.
70. With their armour, in your hall.
71. For a week, because there’s another tourney…
72. Say ‘stick’ to them and they start waving their arms around. Not the effect you were after.
73. Don’t even mention thrusting tips.
74. They buy your favourite beer. They take it to Knight’s meeting.
75. You ask if they have protection. They smile and whip out a pair of gauntlets.