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| 2011-05-16 17:08 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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(Just to keep this journal alive!)
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My mother has it now. Circe. Does it end? Does it ever bloody end?
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| 2009-11-08 21:03 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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I had the most horrific thought just now--can animals spread the plague?
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And now it begins.
I went into the office today. We've been printing up announcements--no, make that writing them. We've taken what can be found on avoiding sickness and posting that where we can. I had always thought that washing hands and staying away from the sick was common practice. Apparently, it hasn't been. Moreover, it can't be for everyone, not with children and parents and lovers.
Roland's left word that Nott's left the city, to head for Cornwall. I tried to convince him that he and Mum ought to do the same but they won't do it. They risk bringing it back home then, to Dad. I wonder whether Dad's even heard of it. And Mum was so bloody close to going back before this. I ought to go and see her but... other things prevent that.
Any road, Demp's sick. I can't leave him alone. I'm afraid And Fiona... I have no bloody clue what's happened to her. Merlin.
( Private to Ash )
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| 2009-10-21 19:45 |
| 15. |
| Public |
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It is absolutely, bloody ridiculous that I only now find out that my top journalist has been thrown into holding by the hit wizards on suspicion of arson.
I had thought about putting out an edition of the Call to make that correction and to point out that the likelihood of her guilt is extremely minimal. What would a reporter have to do with the burning of the Minster? Does Fiona have any bloody thing to gain? I think not.
What it shows is the complete and utter incompetence of our system of government.
For once, I've gone beyond words, I'm afraid.
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I've been following the recent state of the events in the militia with interest. Demp's preparing an article about it tonight - he seems to think that he can grill a militia member or two into giving him an in-depth discussion.
But that's neither here nor there. Or it is, but it seems rather counter-intuitive to discuss an article before I have the final proofs on my desk. He likes to wait until the last bloody possible minute. Fiona, on the other hand, has everything waiting for me, neatly organized and she's made the coffee. Some might argue, however, that last bit's just self-defense.
There are a few other thoughts rolling around in my mind at the moment. The first, and foremost, is the acquisition and production of paper, to be followed by determining how muggles managed printing. I might try to locate a muggle who knows something about it but any road, it's a problem that I have to decide whether or not it's worth our effort to conquer. It could easily be one more project to take on when I can sense that it's well past time to look for other journalists, given the scope of the things that we ought to be covering which we're not. Fiona's out for two weeks so that she can settle her home affairs and that's going to put something of a strain on our already-stretched resources.
There was a muggle leader named Stalin who used to constantly use the phrase "people are our greatest resource." Ironic, perhaps, in his case but singularly appropriate in mine.
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I'm leaving final production and publication of the Call tomorrow in the hands of my very capable reporters. I realize that this may result in an equivalent amount of drama as the last time; however, given that I'm nowhere near to be cited, I'm relatively assured that it won't be quite as explosive tomorrow.
But for now, I'm taking the weekend to settle in. It's been a bloody long week otherwise, even without all this poetry in you lot's journals.
( Private )
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| 2009-09-21 20:33 |
| 12. |
| Public |
| Askham Bryan |
| drumming of a pencil |
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I had a visit today from a man who wanted to speak to me about learning. It was an interesting discussion and one that I'm not entirely settled on. It had to do with the state of education, or the lack thereof, and while I agree with the sentiment, I'm not entirely certain that I feel confident of our ability to dive in and assist on the matter. By our, I mean the offices of the Yorkshire Call. We may not be a newspaper the likes of what's been lost but it certainly feels like it some days.
Today being one, I suppose. Fiona opened another death threat. This one had a powder in it. Demp took it away and tested it for something - I don't know what. It was just sugar. Merlin, I'd like to know where they got it.
Either way, it's kept me from thinking clearly today. I keep trying to consider this book that I've been reading but I keep reading the same paragraph over and over, trying to decide why it strikes me.
"Good morning," said the little prince.
"Good morning," said the flower.
"Where are the people?" the little prince inquired politely.
The flower had one day seen a caravan passing.
"People? there are six or seven of them, I believe, in existence. I caught sight of them
years ago. But you never know where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no
roots, which hampers them a good deal."
"Goodbye," said the little prince.
"Goodbye," said the flower.
I wish that I knew the history behind this book. I feel as if it was written as a lesson and not a book for children, yet I can't define why that is. Perhaps because it's filled with such simple truths and yet each one is deep. The passage that I cite above is not the most intense or the most philosophical and yet, it reminds me of the way that things are, or that they could be.
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| 2009-09-13 15:09 |
| 11. |
| Public |
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To whomever sent the Bible in Croatian, my eternal thanks. I'll be sure to place it on my nightstand so that I can cite the appropriate passages right before I proceed to desecrate the sacraments in question. I'll need to translate it, of course, but my staff assures me that everything I need is in the Book of Leviticus, so I ought to be able to manage that in short order.
In other news, it's been a rather uneventful weekend. I managed to get the Call out and we've only received one death threat this morning. Nettles is taking two days off to move house, Wiggleswade is claiming the east end of Askham Bryan as his kingdom, and I think we've managed to clear most of the dead from the area. No help from our faithful militia, of course.
I wonder what happened here. There was nothing that we could determine with any certainty from those that we buried. They were left to sit too long and in every kind of weather. I suppose, it's a wonder that there was anything left at all to bury. I wish, in a way, that there hadn't been.
I feel fitful today. I ought to go for a walk but I can't decide where to walk to.
( Private to Ash )
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| 2009-09-07 10:18 |
| 10. |
| Public |
| Askham Bryan |
| whistling to myself |
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((OOC: None of the wards are holding much at all, due to where he's writing. Flip a coin if you want - tails, your character can see it all and may not even know it was warded.))
It will never cease to amaze me the things that people will find passion in as opposed to the ones that they do not. It is obviously easier to throw your anger and your sense of righteous indignation against the pithy and the trivial than it is to actually consider, much less write about or act upon, the problems and concerns of a legitimate society.
It's been suggested to me that I discontinue the personal advertisements in the Call, in the interest of forcing people to read the actual articles. Initially, I thought this was a brilliant idea - my staff, however, is insisting that if I do that, no one will subscribe to the paper at all.
What a wonderful idea - the first element of society to return is its banality.
I haven't made a decision on it yet. It must be my unbounded optimism although at the moment, I feel as if I've just suggested that the teenage population of England used to read Playwitch for the articles.
Despite all of this rambling this morning, I feel remarkably euphoric, something that even Wiggleswade hasn't managed to puncture. I ought to ask him to pinch me - I feel as if I dreamt the day before. Unfortunately, I can't get lost in daydreams, as much as I'd like to this morning. There's still such work to be done and other things to think of, besides.
( Private to Hannah Abbott )
( Private )
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| 2009-09-06 07:31 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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It's come to my attention that certain items have been printed in the Call that should not have made it out of the proof stage. As a result of recent injury, the editor did not edit as well as he might have and regretfully apologizes for the inattentiveness that resulted in a personal ad that was both hurtful and thoughtless.
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| 2009-08-15 18:58 |
| 08. |
| Public |
| Nott's garden |
| humming "hymne al'amour" |
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I still haven't managed to sleep, not since yesterday, any road, when I got about three hours before waking. Now I don't believe in complaining about the current state of existence but there's times when I miss potions. But the Call's out and I had an absolutely brilliant night last night and I'm far too bloody chuffed to do much good around here in terms of actual thinking, much less any sort of deeper philosophy.
Never let it be said I walked away from a chance to ramble, any road.
I had thought about writing in the paper about the state of affairs with the hit wizards and the militia. I managed to pull back from that (which is why it's shorter) because it's my belief that by so doing, I would interfere with a case still being investigated. I still believe that there's a world of mismanagement going on politically and I can't believe that nothing's being done to correct it. Two Ministries do not make for an effective political system - for one thing, we aren't large enough to justify it. It would be more correct to consolidate the resources and I don't understand why we haven't done.
I believe that what it is, is that we're afraid to merge mundane and wizarding worlds in more than token ways. It's all very easy to say that we've joint patrols but that's not a sign, necessarily, of cooperation so much as it is a sign of distrust. In many respects, it would seem that the same divides still exist between "us" and "them" - it's simply that they've been flushed into the open.
If only Potter had seen fit to share his glorious plan with the world rather than walking it in his head up to the Wizengamot. Not that I actually believe he had one - I tend to attribute little more than careless ignorance to our fallen hero - but it would be good to know what the thought was that provoked him to want the two worlds joined in the first place. Was there ever a plan for doing so? What were the provisions? If we had that history, we might be able to apply it here. We're all working together but I'm not certain at all that it is because of any real ability to pull together for a common cause. It's all patchwork, pasting over our own fears to get through. I still don't see mundanes and wizards socializing - that's for bloody sure.
That isn't quite what I wanted to write tonight but my head's apparently lost in the clouds so I'll leave it at that. My toes are cold and that's a bit distracting as well.
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For anyone who might've been wondering, weekend production was suspended due to yours truly having a run-in with York's finest. The Call will be out again this week as we catch up on the news that we've been sent.
One of the problems, I'm learning, with news in a post-apocalyptic era is the breadth of what's being reported. I've got Fiona sorting good from bad and Dempster working on deciding what goes in the paper and what's considered a serious crime or something that should go to the authorities and not to us. While I've no doubt we'll have competition eventually, at this point, it's not for us to break news that might be at odds with public safety. We're meant to be a vehicle for public communication and to remind people that there's someone out there listening and reporting, as best they can. There's nothing so horrible as feeling that you've lost your voice - or worse still, that it's been suppressed.
They're lofty ambitions but I'm tired of reading nothing but people's consideration for how they're going to get through the day. I refuse to live in a world where there's nothing beyond tomorrow. It's a theme that I keep returning to but it frightens me, this idea of settling. This can be our chance to start over, if we take it - the thing is, that the only ones who appear to be taking the chance are those who wish the world harm.
My passion has always been history - I find myself questioning what sort will be made from this time, if any. There have been at least three Dark Ages that I recall. I despise the thought that we are willfully driving ourselves towards another.
( Private to Nott )
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Yesterday's little encounter with York's finest was certainly enlightening, to say the least. I won't say much about it here, mainly because I don't feel that it would be appropriate, but it reminded me of other times and places that I've been.
The heat's taking me back to Kailahun, in memory, if not actuality. Sun beating on the back of my neck, skin starting to peel and blister in a way that almost feels good to start but that will hurt like hell in the morning. The earth beneath my feet is brown, however, not red or yellow. The walls in the distance are made of stone, not people. I don't like the fact that I can see Kailahun in York's mirror - I like less the circumstances that provoke the reflection.
( Warded in such a way that anyone who slips under the ward will have red writing rather than black when their response is returned. )
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| 2009-07-30 20:11 |
| 05. |
| Public |
| in a tree |
| a distant cry of birds |
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When I was a child, I once had valiant ideas of British honour and British duty. That whole notion of keeping a stiff upper lip and never allowing the other side to see you with your head down - there were values that I thought everyone had been raised with. That is what happens when a child's raised on a diet of books, most of them legend. The sense of reality becomes a bit skewered.
This is sponsored by the fact that I walked past a pair of women today who were bemoaning the fact that there was nothing to do. How bloody mental. The world's gone and completely reversed on its axis and yet, they were commenting on the fact that they didn't know how to account for themselves. It has something to do with the steady flow of information that we produced in our societies, wizarding and otherwise. In our world, communication was - and still is, or can be - instantaneous. It formed the center of the universe for some.
We all, myself included, have made a huge deal out of the fact that we have been cut off from the rest of the world and yet, before all of this, how many of us held out our hands to try to touch it?
It's no secret, or shouldn't be, that I'm trying to build a newspaper. Say what you will of the decline of society - none of us have any right to go spare about it if we don't put our backs into keeping it all from falling apart.
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Have we lost the night? There are so few people flying or walking whenever I go out at this time.
I'm not afraid of the darkness, with all that it contains. It's still beautiful out here - if anything, it's more beautiful to fly out across the countryside, watching as the lights in cottages dim and staring out at the signal fires. The world is a mystery again. For all our thought, philosophy, and science, we cannot conquer earth or magic.
I'm coming to believe, any road, that it's mysteries people are afraid of. We seek to know the depths of anyone we're involved with - plumbing and picking at the things that they keep private - when it shouldn't bloody matter to the relationship. I've never understood that. Why does it invalidate who a person is if they cannot tell you the whole of who they were?
Hecate's teeth. I'm rambling tonight but it's a good night for it. Clear and a crescent moon.
Eridanus is above this hill. It reminds me of Africa, lying here in the long grass and smelling the wind. It was one of the good parts of that country and there were many. I do forget that at times.
I think I'll go for a walk. I don't know the Borderlands.
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I overheard two women talking today about the fact that they consider what's occurred the "apocalypse." Technically, the word was used correctly - it applies rather well to the time after the Summer of Rage - but the frustrating point of it all was that it was readily apparent that they didn't have the intent to wield it.
The word itself is Greek. It literally means "revelation," in one translation. In another, it is the "lifting of the veil." It's not simply a muggle mundane term. Apokálypsis was a English theory movement during the mid-1800s that studied necromancy for a time, before governmental interests put a clamp down on it. In all cases, the apocalypse, in its earliest historical sense, referred to the disclosure of secrets to particular persons - the sharing of ultimate truths, as it were.
Consider that in this context.
What is more of a mystery about our existence than magic itself? While mundanes have their religion, there is little thought comparatively placed towards analyzing what forces birth the spells that we depend upon. Supposing that this is, in fact, the lifting of the veil, isn't it possible that the release of wild magic to the world is a revelation to someone out there? Is it possible that prophecies walk?
But without proper communication, I don't know how we would disseminate ultimate truth even if it did exist.
I need paper. Prodigious amounts of paper. For all of the two-galleon words I seem to have tumbling from this bloody quill.
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I'm in some place called Nether Poppleton, outside of York, for anyone who might be in the vicinity. That's according to the addresses on a stack of bills I found in the drawer of their bedside table. I haven't seen many people in the areas outside - as I flew overhead, there wasn't much life beneath.
The harpies have got to the dresser now. I've just pushed it aside to try the food bit and it wasn't a go. It's back though, the dresser is.
It's either magic or fire then.
I've been thinking about wild magic and how it appears to work. It seems to me that there are two kinds of magic in operation here. We have the scholarly, or academic, magic and then this other form, known as wild. When one casts academically, it seems to go wild. That doesn't, however, indicate that the magic itself that you have cast is wild in and of itself. We are not casting wild magic - it's the wilderness that's overpowering the power from our wands. Is this, then, somehow dictated by the actual earth? When muggles - or Merlin, wizards for that matter - went about casing up the land into boxes and building upon them, did they actually alter magic at the same time? Did we create two forms of magic or did we simply bend what is there to our will?
Things that are caged for a long period of time are never the same when you release them again. Confinement leads to a number of different things, among them brutality.
But that assumes that magic has sentience. If it does, in fact, have sentience, what is the morality of using it at all? Do we have a right to control sentient forces? I understand that this is the same argument that Granger used on her crusades during the later part of the 2000s but she had an easier question to present. There is historical precedent for the enslavement of peoples - there is none for addressing the enslavement of a force with no physical entity.
Bloody hell. Scratching at the door again. Always when I'm trying to think. That's not a harpy's scratch - There's a cat in here. Circe, Morgana, and Hecate - how did a cat avoid them?
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Brill. It's positively staggering what having a cabinet shoved up against a bedroom door of a house that you don't know, a horde of rabid harpies scratching at window/said door and the sudden acquisition of a journal will do for a man's inclination to sit down and spill his thoughts out on the page.
I've been here since noon. It is now well after midnight and there is no sign of stopping on their part.
This room is filled with memories of its owners. They were lovers, at the least, married at the most. There aren't many photographs to look at - those that are here hang on the wall cocked in some places, in others, they're cracked or have simply fallen to the ground. The bed wasn't made before they left but there is no imprint of a body. It isn't as though they've just departed - while they left suddenly, they have been gone for years. How simple is it, to erase a life.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
A harpy's talon doesn't sound like a cat's claw when it goes for the door. It's slow. It's deliberate. It's like the noise that a woodcarver makes when he presses down to create a bold, strong line. They can take forever to carve their way through - they're intelligent creatures and even if they're not, the odds are halfway decent that I'll starve before they get through or else I'll have to brave my way out. They like rotted meat - I could smell it in their teeth as I ran up the stairs. They'd win either way.
I'll need a bloody plan. Oi.
( Step 1. Evaluate the Situation )
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