The rewards of optimism

The Countess's foot was giving her agony all yesterday and the night before last. Don't know about last night yet. Nearest regular doctor's appointment is in a week's time. It had better sort itself out or we'll both be climbing the walls.

Then the internet went away, and didn't come back till this morning. Lengthy phone calls to ISP established the problem was at their end, but frustration and panic were very much in evidence in case it didn't come back at all.

On the other hand, please welcome (somewhat tentatively) thrutch, who is not too happy with LJ's business practices but who has joined mainly for reading purposes. He's a long-standing and dear friend and a Seminal Influence on the Nyronds, if I may put it that way, and his real blog is elsewhere. And he's offered to find me a replacement Boscastle mug.

And I did make the veggie stew, so I did. So I'm calling yesterday a win on points.

The lady said NO.

So because there was nothing else worthwhile on, we found ourselves watching the last episode of nuWho season four yesterday. You know, the one where the TARDIS tows a planet back through space to its original orbit and all that happens is a few papers get blown about and people in England have to hold on to furniture but you don't mind because of all the fannish squee. And then came the bit after that, when all the other companions left or got dumped, and then there was That Bit.

And just like the first time, all I could think was "the lady said NO."

Consent was definitely withheld, not to say repeatedly refused, and the man went in and did it anyway because he could. There's a short and ugly word for that. Whatever the motives, whatever the outcome, he forced himself on a *NON*-consenting adult female and took something she wanted to keep, and then made her forget that he had taken it so that he wouldn't get caught.

There's always justification, there's always an excuse. She was asking for it. She owes me. She needed to be saved. None of that matters. When nuWho said it was okay for the Doctor to be a rapist, I finally gave up on it. The added implication that at about the same moment, in the parallel universe, the human Doctor with the Time Lord mind was therefore also dying, in the arms of a Rose who couldn't reach into his head and take away his memory--or that if he wasn't, then there was no need for Donna to be mindraped at all--just put the little pink bow on top of the whole thing, the final flourish on Russell T Davies' gold-edged disinvitation to the Doctor Who party.

Next time I'll put a DVD on. Or sit through an hour of Watching Paint Dry With Tommy Walsh, or Why Not Buy A Fourth Home With Your Spare Housekeeping, or Look We Found A Brown Lump Isn't Archaeology Keen, or anything.

EDITed to insert particle whose absence makes nonsense of sentence. Never write while angry.