Ragtag Giggagon

A couple of random thoughts have recently sprung to mind about this mostly excellent tv show. Josh Lyman Josh has PTSD after getting shot in an assassination attempt on President Bartlett. Bartlett (also shot at the end of Season 1 in the same attempt) has trouble sleeping later too.  Bartlett's been plagued by insomnia for some time, apparently. So they're both working through their problems. Josh loses it at Christmas, with the military brass band being too loud. He's counselled by Leo. At the end of the show's run, Josh has been running Matt Santos's campaign, and he becomes the new White House Chief of Staff under the Santos administration. He brings Sam back to play Josh Lyman's role in the Bartlett adminsistration to Josh's Leo role in the new administration. If that doesn't make sense to you, it's fine. But Josh vents at an underling about where his phone is, when Josh is almost completely at fault. Sam insists that Josh take a vacation immedi...

Mental health funding is being cut in the UK. "You've got the stress of the exams, you've got the stress of the bullying together. Young people find it easier to hide behind a computer screen and they can do whatever they want." -A victim of bullying who came out the far side now training to be a counsellor at 19, speaking on C4 news. You ever notice how bullies try to turn something into a trigger for their victims? Inflict someone to an hour of bagpipes to induce a fear of Scots, for instance. PUT IT AWAY, yeh dirty aul bully! My idea is an abusive father who sits in front of his toddler child in his high chair. And he just repeats "Mind...the gap!" over and over, and slaps the kid in the face. Two decades later, after getting away from it all, the son has rising anxiety on the London tube when he hears the same repetitive announcement. And he has no idea why he's having the panic attack.

Continued from Chapter 27 . My brother Larry was the other sole surviving fambly member. But he wasn't the heir as he had fled the abuse.  I climbed out of the well-pool sewer at Camden Market and found myself at the stall of a Pretend Antique Dealer. Just as I pulled aside the man-hold cover – so called because it kept the men in at their work on the shitty facilities provision – who should cross my path – or rather her foot planting atop my head – only Ai Bang Mi Fa Kin Ni her very self. I caught her off-balance on my emergence from the ground, and she leaned for support from the man with whom she was holding hands – with whom the self-same man I’d seen her in the boat in the Irish Sea, whom with. “Paddy!” she screamed in delight, hugging me. “This my husband!” I looked at the man – and recognised him twice! – for not only had he been in the rowing boat with Ai Bang, but I now realised that he was – in point of fact, seeing the same groany deadness about him – that he was in fact...

CeDany has a web presence from where you can download a fantasy book series, The Wyndermyre Memoirs, featuring a family from a different realm. That star's system and its calendrical similarities and differences to Earth's are outlined, and (at least some of) the residents on that planet appear to have more in common with the Ancient Greek or Scandinavian gods than with us mere mortals. The fantasy elements feature something of a genealogy. Further background is detailed, linking our own blood types (A, AB, O, etc) to what could closely align with a clever "Twelve Tribes of Israel"-type concept. It doesn't explain why we have blood types, but the assignation of a deity and descendants to each blood type is a nice touch. The series is told from multiple perspectives, with an epistolary form that stretches back half a millennium, featuring raids on villages from a slightly prochronistic "Viking" class underpinning a modern-day setting featuring a college-...

Dear Mr Mace, I appreciate that your name is the start of the word "Mason" in the phonetic alphabet I'm familiar with.  WTF, like? I was however most surprised to see some very wacked out, dervish-like esoteric bliss from some of your other clientele. I only visited your store to have a look around for some tasty conventional product you'd expect - not quinoa-and-tofu shape-throwing. I's outrageoused. Yours, Voucha for Trauma Dear Msrsrs Trauma, I see from your name and, indeed, your non-pink hue, that you're clearly one of these blummin' innagrins. If you come over here, you must assimilate. I think you have, Mrserzs Trauma. I think you have. Why so?   Because we CAUGHT you on the CCTV no less than five seconds later, providing your OWN support on KEYS. Not only that, but ACCEPTING A BLESSING, NO LESS, from our tiger god, KEWLTONY, pointing down at you from a hole in the blummin' ceiling with his paw! What's THAT about? No, seriously. I have NO i...

Well, winter is here, everybody! Here's my new song - YOU'RE HIS AUNTIE!!! (Lyrics below.) Oh Dany girl, the wights, the wights are coming From glen to glen and down the mountain side The summer's gone and all the flowers are dying It's you, it's you must go on Drogon’s hide But come ye back for your unknowing nephew For he is kin, tainted, not white with Snow Tis he'll be there in sunshine or in shadow Oh Dany Girl, oh Dany Girl, you’re his aunty! You’re his aunty.