Maypole Wars

See Vera's posting on Maypole Wars in the Czech Republic.

What she describes is very like the records of what used to happen with local village maypoles in Britain.

The reasons why we lost our maypole traditions are partly due to the puritans and partly due to other factors  - I'll try and write about it some day when I've more time and my fingers feel more flexible.   however, we do appear to have a unique tradition in ribbon maypole dancing, so we owe thanks to the Victorians for that.  Other traditions of dancing around maypoles are not the same as English maypole dancing.

Dreamwidth problems continued

We've established that most (but not absolutely everyone) can read my Dreamwidth page, except me.

waveney thinks it's a DNS corruption and should spontaneously clear within three days.  We're getting pretty close to that three day limit now...  (I have no idea what he's talking about, but he does!)

It's not my browser, as other Firefox users are fine.

It seems unlikely that it's anything at my end as I had no problems accessing Dreamwidth in the past.

If it's still down tomorrow, then the DNS theory is bust.  I'm not sure what to do if that happpens.

Succubus Blues by Richaelle Mead

I was given this as a promotional book at an SF convention (LX) and wasn't expecting to like it, as urban fantasy isn't a genre I normally read.  I don't normally read erotic romance either - nothing against the genre, more a feeling of 'been there, written that'.

However, I got a lot of pleasure from reading the book and found myself keeping coming back to read the next chapter when I really had other things I should have been doing...

The characters are well written and I fell in love with Seth, the shy, geeky writer.

The plot is engaging and the dilemma of the succubus (anyone she has sex with will end up giving her their life energy, and the more good/genuine the person is, the more they will lose to her) means that she can't have sex with any man whom she really likes and respects.

There's also some good minor characters who are more than just background cutouts.

The promotional book seems to have worked.  I've just bought the next one in the series...