anitabuchan

My mum called yesterday, to let me know that our dog Brandy has only about a month to live.

He has cancer, which we've known for a while. It started with a large tumour on his back. This was removed, then regrew, and at about that time they also found a small tumour in his liver. But yesterday he was supposed to have the tumour on his back removed a second time, with the hope that the inoperable tumour in his liver would turn out not to be cancerous. Except they x-rayed him before the surgery, and found about a dozen new small tumours in his lungs.

So. No operation. It all depends on how fast the tumours in his lungs grow, but the vet thinks about a month.

I've got some time off work to go visit him (luckily my boss also has dogs). He's about the best dog you could imagine - a collie/spaniel cross, absolutely gorgeous and dead clever, and he always knew when you were upset, and would come to you. Most of the time he considered himself too far above the us to pay any of us much attention, but whenever you were upset he'd somehow sense it, and appear to let you hug him. He was found abandoned at 5 weeks, and we got him shortly after that. He's 14 now.

He doesn't seem to be in pain. He gets breathless easily, but that's it. I know he's just a dog, but he's also family, and I am going to miss him so much.

1. At the moment, I think that a Lib Dem-Tory agreement is a real possibility. I would have thought that the Lib Dem rank and file would rise up in rebellion against any such thing, but the Guardian seems to be of the opinion that Lib Dem MPs would in fact defect if Clegg considered backing Brown. English politics confuses me.

2. My idea of a happy ending would be a rainbow coalition. This is possible. Labour (258) and SDLP (3), plus Lib Dems (57), plus some combination of SNP (6), Plaid Cymru (3), Greens (1), and Alliance (1) would get over the 326 needed. Alex Salmond has ruled out backing the Tories, and is planning to/already talking to Gordon Brown. Alliance I'm sure would follow the Lib Dems, and surely Caroline Lucas would extract what she could and then back Labour? At which point Plaid Cymru wouldn't actually be needed, although I'm sure they'd still be welcome.

I'm not sure how long that could actually last, but we'd get electoral reform.

3. Someone asked me what I'd prefer: the above rainbow coalition, or a Falkirk win tomorrow. I'm ashamed to say I did actually need to pause and think about it.

4. This is the second 'big' election in a row where there's been a fight at the Glasgow count (yay stereotypes?). In 2007, if I recall correctly, which I may well not, it was some kind of Solidarity-Labour-Socialists affair. This time it involved the BNP. And while I know that violence at election counts is obviously wrong, the BNP were apparently being quite provocative: for the Glasgow East announcement, the other candidates weren't happy about standing on the platform with the BNP, but the BNP candidate insisted on following them around as they tried to avoid him. Also, there were several Muslim candidates standing for both Labour and the SNP, and allegedly some BNP supporters made some remarks.

My source at the count would also like people to be aware that while the media seemed to blame the fight on the Socialists, plenty of people from other parties piled in as well. And if we do have to have a punch-up at the count, at least this time it was aimed at the BNP, rather than another Judea-related incident.

5. One thing I'm genuinely worried about is Cameron's plan to reform the size of constituencies. It's hard not to see it as targeting the Labour/LD support in Scotland. Also, while the Tories are wittering on about how Gordon Brown has no 'moral authority' or whatever to govern, could they please pause and notice that in Scotland they have 1 seat and only 17% of the vote?

6. I did vote SNP in the end, for all the difference it made. And while I may be biased, I think that if I could pick one UK politician to lead my party through a situation like this, I think I'd pick Alex Salmond. He has his flaws, but sometimes you just need a canny politician.

ETA: Initially I forgot to mention this, but it's more important that any of the above. Much of the voting chaos last night seems to have been caused by simple disorganisation. However, in Sheffield, election officials made the decision to discriminate against students in favour of 'residents'. There are some key quotes at the bottom of this page, while more info can be found on Facebook. Contrary to what is now being claimed in some media reports, students generally DID bring their polling cards and DID arrive in plenty of time - only to be left standing in the rain for three hours while said 'residents' were ushered in and out in under 20 minutes. My brother's a student in Sheffield (although he forgot to register at all, the muppet), and knows several people who were unable to vote, despite queuing for long periods of time.

Well, at least we got beaten by the best team in the world. And how good is it, having four different nations in the CL semi-finals?

Two days of election coverage and I'm already bored. I can also already tell you that on May 6th my MP will be Ann McKechin (Lab). I know electoral reform isn't the sexiest of issues, but it's worth pointing out that almost 400 seats are safe and won't be changing hands - that's 25 million people whose votes won't count.

I know it's Austism Awareness month right now, although I'm not sure if it's a worldwide thing or just American, but I'm kind of ignoring it. I don't really think we need more scaremongering or tragic stories from parents about their autie kids, and my optimism of anything better happening was kind of soured when CafePress announced they would be donating 10% of proceeds from all 'autism' tagged products to Autism Speaks this month. Because that's how to help ASD people - donating money to an organisation which hates us, thinks it's understandable to want to kill us, and claims we have no souls.

/anger

In other news, I have started rewatching The West Wing, and now remember how completely awesome C.J is.

So, Steven Pressley is our new manager. I think it's an interesting choice. And by interesting, I mean I'm covering my eyes and hardly daring to watch. I can't help but wishing they'd hired someone with a little more experience. Or, you know, any experience.

I'm a little sad about Eddie May. He was good at bringing players through the academy. On the other hand, we've lost 15 of our last 27 games, are on 17 points, and he really should have been fired weeks ago.

I do like Steven Pressley, and he seems to have the inspiring speeches part down. It's just that he only stopped playing for us six months ago. But I'm hoping! Not too hard, though. Last season I would have been so gutted by relegation, just absolutely devastated. This season, sadly I'm a little more mentally prepared, mainly because it's seemed a 90% certainty from day one.

But. I'm hoping.

I would just like to pimp help_haiti, where people are auctioning off everything from fanfic to socks to tarot readings to try and raise money for Haiti. I'm sure everyone's aware of what's happened there, and how desperately help is needed.

So. Go bid on something, or even offer something if you can. You'll be helping Haiti and getting something cool.

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it, and general best wishes to those who don't. I'm about to head off to meet family, and we'll probably spend the next few days getting increasingly irritated with each other until I flee back here.

We're going to see Falkirk play Hearts on Boxing Day, so here's hoping we'll move out of the relegation zone as a late Christmas present! Although tbh I'm not holding out much hope. I think this season might be it. Anyway, wish us luck. We'll need it!

According to lj I last updated six weeks ago, which is just a silly amount of time. I've been failing at reading my flist and commenting as well, so if anything major has happened I'm sorry to have missed it. Although good luck to everyone doing nano! I hope you all get your 50,000.

I have:

Started writing my dissertation. Slowly. Seriously, it takes me about three days to write one paragraph. So I'm starting to panic.

Been cheering Arsenal, moping over Falkirk, and WTF-ing over Scotland. 3-0 to Wales? I'm glad Burley's gone, but also kind of disgusted at the treatment he's been getting in the papers. Did anyone else see the Sun yesterday?

Decided I want a bike for Christmas.

Been watching I'm A Celebrity (Ant and Dec = love) and X-Factor (Team Jedward!).

Become freaked out by a new colleague erecting what can only be described as a shrine to Jade Goody on her desk. (I'm serious. She started three weeks ago, brought all these photos in a few days ago.)

That's about it.

So, anyone else freaked out that it's only 36 days till Christmas?

Has anyone else watched Stargate Universe? I finally got around to downloading and watching today. I was always going to - I know that there's been a ton of negative publicity, but SG1 was one of my favourite shows (I own every single episode on DVD), and while Atlantis got annoying, the first 2.5 seasons were at least entertaining.

Thoughts on SGU: Up until the last five minutes I found it fairly blah, but then at the end it became more like proper Stargate and I got all excited. Other thoughts:

- JACK! DANIEL! SAM! WALTER! MORE JACK AND SAM! And the ship was called the Hammond, I love that so much.
- I love Robert Carlyle and everything he does.
- The young lieutenant? No idea what his name is, but I liked him and he seemed interesting, with an actual personality and everything.
- Also liked Chloe. Though I'm not sure I'd have worn a leopard-skin print mini-dress while visiting a secret military base on another planet.
- The medic seemed a bit useless. Was that bouncy thing supposed to be CPR? And I'm not sure crying on your patients helps them.
- Eli annoyed me. I disliked him, and found the whole idea (recruit people through computer games?) ridiculous.
- Could have done without all the flashbacks.
- Renewed my resolve to learn some kind of useful skill, so that if I'm ever stranded on a space ship a billion light-years from Earth, I won't head the list of people to be sacrificed.

Overall, 6/10.

In other news, yay Arsenal! (Just don't ask me about Falkirk...)

I always know it's time to update when I start receiving messages asking if I'm still alive :). In my defense, I have been on holiday recently (to the Shetlands, which were OMG so beautiful, and through some miracle we had sunshine every day), and was without internet access.

I am currently busy:

1. Applying for another job, as a customer service assistant at Glasgow Concert Hall.

2. Looking for a new flatmate, since my current one is moving out next month.

3. Working overtime on my dissertation, which is way behind schedule.

I'm also very excited because I have tickets to see Arsenal play Celtic tonight! I can't remember how long its been since I last saw Arsenal play. I'm going with a Rangers fan, who'll be cheering on Arsenal simply because she hates Celtic.

I also saw Falkirk play Rangers, and thought we did much better than the scoreline suggested. For big patches we were the better team, it's just that every time they were the better team they scored a goal. Which is probably why they're fighting for the title and we're hoping not to be relegated.

And I just read that 120,000 people are going to be travelling in Glasgow, for the game and the U2 concert. I don't mind leaving really early going there, but getting back is going to be a nightmare.

Why I love Russell T Davies:

For creating Queer as Folk and Torchwood, and bringing back Doctor Who.

Why I hate Russell T Davies:

WHAT HE THEN DID TO THEM.

( Spoilers for Torchwood Day 4 )