Once on a donkey in Tunbridge Wells

My internet is on the fritz and may die again sometime within the next thirty seconds. Also, I am finding it deeply amusing how it will let me onto FF.Net and insanejournal, but not BBC News. Or my email. That bit is less amusing.

I have, however, been watching Merlin. (For those not in the know, this is a BBC TV series wherein Merlin is the same age as Arthur and somehow ends up being his manservant - stop sniggering - in a Camelot where magic is punishable by death and Guinevere is the blacksmith's daughter, in love with Merlin, and wants to be called Gwen. I make none of this up.) It is bizarrely good, and I am somewhat bemused that the closest I have come to a fic that properly summarises the Merlin/Arthur relationship for me is a fratboy!AU. Although what that says about the show I don't know.

Anyway! The entire flipping series is on the BBC website for online viewing here. You have fifteen days left. There's only one more episode, which will air next Saturday, so get cracking!

Edit: AHAHAHAHAHA I GOT FF7 TO WORK ON THE LAPTOP. TAKE THAT, VISTA!

I have had an AWESOME WEEKEND.

I went up to London on Friday to see Roz and go to the Amanda Palmer concert at Koko. This was automatically going to be awesome, as anyone who has heard the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" album, at the very least, should be able to tell you.

But then.

THEN.

NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN WAS THERE.

The back of the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" album has a short story by him, which is beautifully chilling and utterly appropriate. He read this out as part of the opening of Amanda's act. Unfortunately, I didn't have a particularly good view thanks to a dick who made us get there late, so most of what I could see of him was big hair and a tambourine. Everyone should at least find the album in HMV or something and read the back of it.

Or just buy the album off the web. Once you've got it you won't want to get rid of it.

However.

HOWEVER.

Before you get there.

NEIL GAIMAN. PLUS AMANDA PALMER.

EQUALS THIS.

(Sound quality isn't very good on that, but it IS the one from Friday, so hey. If you want better audio quality, try here. On the first one, try pretending that the title isn't there and you actually don't know what's coming next. It's fucking hilarious.)

Also, read this. After I sent a message to The Dave on Friday saying that Neil Gaiman was at the concert, I received one back saying (and I quote): "Ohmygodohmygodohmygodlickhimforme!"

Also, Neil Gaiman has a fantastic speaking voice.

And just to at least try tipping the scales of this post back towards Amanda Palmer (I think it's ended up Neil Gaiman-focussed because he was the surprise of the evening - I was pretty sure Amanda Palmer was going to be there, after all!), I'm going to direct you towards Amanda's MySpace page. Despite my general contempt for MySpace, this page is incredily useful if you want to listen to some of her music before buying her album anyway. My favourites are "The Point of It All" and "Ampersand" and "Runs in the Family" and I'm going to stop there before I end up listing all the tracks on the album.