OK then - to recap

Roz relaxed after the Evelyn-Evelyn row had wandered off past her mental periphery - nonono

Roz decided that she had said all she could usefully say on Palmergate, wrote a completely unconnected poem and was happy that something neat had been created in the world.

Roz met up with steerpikelet and ephemerita and went to Oxford to be on a panel for their LGBT month. Roz talked about how people had to imagine the LGBT politics of her Oxford days, without current analyses, without many modern conveniences, and with criminal sanctions for gay male sex only a couple of years abolished and still applicable if you or your partner were not 21. Much else of interest was said in the course of Steerpikelet's talk and that of her friend James which Roz is still absorbing - Roz argued for harm reduction being the way to go with the law around sex work, simply because actual observable immediate consequences are always better than relying on the long-term.

Roz also felt that, by deciding to keep their influence in Parliament by voting for the Wars and thus the deaths of uncounted brown-skinned women, New Labour women had forfeited the level of trust involved in letting them take any more risks with women's lives. If people have already chosen to sacrifice thousands of lives to some greater good, letting them pursue a prohibitionist agenda will almost certainly mean that they are prepared to sacrifice thousands of sex workers to the dangers of the streets who might be safer elsewhere. Just saying.

That was a hard saying, but met with some approval. Then there was a pub crawl with many delightful people whom I should probably try to meet again, before Roz, as an old person, decided to make an earlyish night of it at 1 am.

And enough of the third person because it is hard to remember to keep it up. Got up, went for breakfast in Browns in Oxford Market, a cafe in which I have not set foot for about forty years, and was joined there by a variety of people for several hours.

This was followed by an extended walk in the park with Ephemerita, Maki and darwinian_woman in the course of which many silly games were played and songs sung. I was so relaxed I forgot I can't sing, and therefore could. Good Thai, cuddling and the train to London.

Friday was a migraine and Saturday was Picocon and the LGBT history month closing gala which was full of good things not least an amazing set of songs by the brilliant Mz Kimberley.

Today, am ded, and watched the end of Being Human which did cliffhangers so awesome that no-one is allowed to get away with not watching all of both seasons and joining me in angst until next year's third season.

And it was always going to happen

The difference between Catullus and Sappho is that I can still more or less read Latin...These are still versions, rather than translations, because they are two of the most translated poems in literature. They're quite a bit more faithful than the Sappho poems have tended to be though.

I hate I love
And what the fuck? you say.
Dunno.That's how I feel,
torn into bits.


Howl, howl your eyes to ponds of tears
you little boys with bows, you pretty girls,
servants of Love, and all you loving men
who hold Love's train.
The little bird is dead
dingy brown sparrow that my girlfriend loved.
She sometimes said she'd gouge out her own eyes
rather than lose it. And it knew her like
A girl knows Mother, it was just that sweet
sat in her lap, fluttered and sang to her
chirrup pippip in language that she alone
could hear, its mistress. On the road to death
it flutters darkling never to return.
So fuck you greedy Death that takes good things
the pretty little sparrow could have stayed
you bastard! farewell sparrow...Ah, the tears
my red-eyed sweet is weeping at your grave