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Random

I'm planning to do a metric ton of posts about politics, social media, feminism and the world n general, so you've got that to look forward to in the next few months.

First, though I thought I'd throw some random facts up on here to see if anything takes your interest.

To make it truly random, I thought I'd throw dice to decide how many facts you're getting, and I videoed it.



I don't know if that video is working but I rolled a ten on one dice and a six on another - using a pair of standard d10s.

I also decided to roll dice for categories of what to admit to, and the categories are as follows:

1 History
2 Culture
3 Personal
4 Nature
5 Politics
6 Travel
7 Favourite Things
8 A Thing I Dislike or Hate
9 Oddness (something weird about me)
10 Um... I ran out  of things to choose from - so I'll leave you to ask me things for those three...

So.... Anyway. Let's get started, shall we?  I have sixteen things to tell you (the 0 is a 10 on those dice).

1) Politics - I've consistently voted Liberal Democrat, Green, and Labour in elections. In future I'm likely to vote Green, as I think they're the only party with the vision needed to guide the UK through this century.

2) A Thing I Dislike or Hate - Online comment facilities on news sites, as most of the people who comment there are full of bile and unpleasantness and I find them depressing. I'd like to give a nod to the commentators on Charles Stross' site (I know that's not a news site) for always having lively but interesting and balanced debates).

3) Nature - My favourite dinosaur is the Triceratops, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. I just think they're cool. (Related, my favourite Transformer as a child was the unfortunately named Slag, whose not a robot form was a triceratops).

Image result for triceratops

4) Personal - I really, really don't like the way I look and haven't done since I was a teenager. I think I look ugly - which is why I use the chibi Galactus as my picture on Google Plus rather than putting my ugly mug up here.

5) Travel - I really want to go to San Francisco. I want to see Alcatraz, go to Haight Ashbury and the Folsom Fair, as well as go Goth clubbing.

6) A Thing I Dislike or Hate - People interrupting, especially if it's in the 'oh I have to tell you this' category of things. It always just feels like they blurt out something which could have waited.

7) History - One of the people I admire most in history is Chevalier D'Eon the transvestite spy, statesman, and fencer, who Britain recognised as a woman during zir stay in the country and was reputed to be the best French fencer alive (and who is meant to have retired to live with zir male lovers). More information about hir/zir can be found here.

The Beaumont Society, which supports transgender people, cross dressers, and transvestites, takes its name from D'Eon.

8) History - I find the fact that Byzantium ran on the labour and skills of eunuchs fascinating, and that the culture they had sought to promote the mystique of the Imperial Family by using secret passages throughout the palace, fascinating. It feels so alien to the things we have been told are right and true in the West, and yet Byzantium was the last vestige of Rome. It makes me wonder if we actually understand the Romans at all.

9) Politics - I'd favour the adoption of a unicameral system - abolishing the second chamber entirely if safeguards to control the power of government were put into place (making the decisions of select committees binding enough to be voted on, abolishing the Whip system entirely, etc). I'd like to replace the Lords* with a group of Law Lords/Top Judges whose job was to make sure that the laws Parliament passed actually fitted into our constitution and didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater (so to speak).

* I don't see the point of having an elected second chamber because I think it would just repeat the problems we have with the House of Commons, creating a two-tier system that pretty much did the same thing.

10) Personal - I have eight piercings, four of which are below the neck and one tattoo which is on my right arm, which is the caduceus like symbol from Full Metal Alchemist. I would post a picture, but I can't find one.

I would like to have more tattoos, in particular, I'd like to have an Egyptian gods themed half sleeve.

11) Culture - I love the art of Roger Dean, and have done for ages. His website is here.

12) I rolled a 10 - please feel free to ask me something.

13) Personal - I have a fear of medical stuff and of biology in general (despite loving nature and finding genetics fascinating - especially stuff to do with eye colour, since I'm basically a mutant because I should have brown eyes (they're actually blue)). I can only think about how my body works by envisaging it as a city and had a panic attack in the brain bit of the Natural History Museum's Human Biology section.

14) Another 10 - chuck us a question, Squire? *shakes tin cup*

15) Another one -ten that is. Please Sir, a question for the guy?

16) Last one, and it's 'Oddness' (which I like to think is said in a deep booming movie trailer style voice). - I had three Septembers in a row where I had to have big, proper, surgical procedures. First, I had to have some teeth extracted, then I had to be circumcised as I had phimosis, and lastly I had to have a hernia operation (back in 2012).

That's your lot!

Please, do feel free to ask me for the three missing things - there are a few things I won't answer (if its too personal, for example) but otherwise, shoot.


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