I haven't even done it yet and I already feel guilty

I really hate it when people are required to work on major holidays, unless their jobs are crucial to the health or safety or others. In general I disapprove of supermarkets, restaurants, etc. in the US being open on Christmas.*

And yet.

The Imitation Game is supposed to open nationwide in the US on Christmas day. Since I don't have any Christmas plans apart from Yuletide, I'm extremely tempted.

And then there's Yuletide. Judging by past performance, I may not have a working internet connection on Christmas day. I would hate not to be able to read my Yuletide fic on Christmas, especially since I'll probably have to work the next day. But Starbucks will be open.

If you listen carefully, you can hear my principles creaking under the strain.

(If I left a big tip at Starbucks, would that make it less wrong?)



*Obviously this doesn't apply to, say, a kosher bakery. Nor to any owner-operated small business whose owner chooses to personally work on a holiday. I'm thinking of larger businesses, and also of the fact that where I live, the overwhelming majority of people are at least culturally Christian and would probably quite like to have the day off.

December meme

Trying to catch up on the talk meme a bit while I have connectivity.

miss_morland asked what my favorite animal was and why.

I know this a tediously predictable answer from a single person of a certain age, but . . . I really like cats. The average cat is the right degree of affectionate for someone like me. They're not irritatingly dependent the way dogs are, and they're also not potentially aggressive and scary the way dogs are. Nor are they unsociable and other the way a gerbil or a fish is. Of course there are exceptions; my ex-housemate had a cat that fixated on me with terrifying devotion and used to follow me around the apartment, getting underfoot as often as possible. But generally cats aren't overwhelming. They come and sit on your lap for a bit and then they go away again about their business. I like that in a creature. (You can all see why I have never wanted children, right?)

One of these days I want to get a kitty of my very own, but I need to be much more financially stable first.


An anonymous person asked what I like about classic British television.

I think that British television from what I unashamedly think of as the Golden Age (late sixties through early eighties) was objectively better written and better acted. I can make a guess as to why that's the case: the BBC was less commercialized then and even commercial television often strove to do at least some "quality" programming, so the writing of dramas wasn't dumbed down to attract as broad an audience as possible. Less commercialization also meant actors weren't cast primarily for being young and hot; looks still certainly played a role, but less of one than now, I think, and what counted as being acceptably attractive for television was a lot broader. This allowed acting ability to be a factor as well.

Other more subjective considerations also make classic British TV more to my taste than modern TV. For one, storytelling was allowed to take its time; even shows like Doctor Who weren't required to be all action every second, and Who in particular used a serial format that meant stories developed over, typically, four to six 25-minute episodes rather than being shoehorned into 45 minutes to an hour at most. The slower pace (for all shows, not just Who) meant there was room for interesting little details and charming moments that didn't necessarily advance the main plot! Guest characters got actual development instead of being drawn in the broadest possible terms! A modern show would never allow time to be taken up by scenes of, say, two characters competing in a warplay game (which happened in Callan), a one-off character worrying about his mother (Colditz), or some minor baddies complaining about their working conditions (Blake's 7). But those scenes are marvellous and I love them!

Another reason is that classic shows seemed to feel less pressure to include a heterosexual love story as a main plot thread, nor to demonstrate the heterosexuality of every single character. As I've said elsewhere on this topic, the reasons for this often aren't good--they can include a lack of interest in female characters (though this was by no means universally the case) and a homophobic assumption that no admirable character could possibly be queer even if their heterosexuality isn't demonstrated--but the effect for me can be liberating. I like not having to struggle against a huge weight of canonical heterosexuality in order to make a space to breathe, or at least to interpret queerly. Of course, modern shows are more likely to have canonical queerness, but there are lots of exceptions. Callan had three or four canonically gay men, all presented with extraordinary empathy given the culture of the time, while there are plenty of modern shows with no queer characters at all and every avenue of queer interpretation deliberately blocked. Plus, I'll usually take a show where an important main character or two can be seen as queer over one where there is canonical queerness, but only among minor or non-recurring characters.

One of the things I loved about this year's first series of Grantchester is that in tone, aesthetic, and to some degree structure it was very like a classic drama, but also had a canonically gay character in the main cast. A rare instance of the best of both worlds.