Wake Up And Smell The Ko-Fi

I recently set up a Ko-Fi page. It doesn't come easily to ask for support, but if people feel moved to offer support who am I turn that down? That would be churlish of me. Am I a churl? No, I am not. I churl for no one.

I have it on good authority that if you click on the Support Me on Ko-Fi button thingy below or over on the right hand side of your screen then you will be able to buy me a virtual coffee.

Carruthers Ten Years On: July 2009

July 2009's Carruthering, this photo really made laugh when I took it.

Other than that, not a lot happened.

"Trapped In The Headlights Of The 21st Century"

In a move designed to make me feel very old indeed, the sitcom Spaced is twenty years old today. I demand a recount. If you haven't seen it, do.

I wrote this in honour of Spaced's twentieth anniversary.

Carruthers Ten Years On: June 2009

June 2009's Carruthers bloggings reached 400 posts.

Favourite posts include more sitcom porn and a post about urine.

I posted about the first anniversary of Peel This, and then tried to move on in the certain knowledge that we would do more shows. The last lines were more prescient than I could ever have known "the sketches contained within however are obviously still game. If we didn't have those this blog might as well just be pictures of Peter Cushing."

Here's a photo that serves as a measure of just how young we were then or just how old we are now.

Arrr You Talking To Me?

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. You are actively encouraged to say things like "shiver me timbers!" and "avast behind!" all day, because you get so few real chances.

In related news, I have taken this opportunity to write about the use of space pirates as a plot device in televised science fiction. It's a bit of a stretch I know, but just as there should be more occasions for talking like a pirate, there should be more conversations about space pirates.

Here's one.

Outside In Gains A Soul Gains Essay Titles

ATB Publishing have announced the titles of the essays, who wrote them and which episode of Angel and Firefly they correspond to. There are lots of essays to enjoy by people that aren't me, including the likes of Jonathum Blum, Keith R.A. Candido, Rich Handley, Robert Greenberger and Dave Stone as well as 121 other people.

My essay is about Conviction, the first episode of the fifth and final season of Angel. The episode sees Angel Investigations getting used to their new surroundings at the heart of Wolfram &...Hart. Oddly, this means I have now written about the last season opener for both Buffy and Angel. It wasn't planned.

Also on the list that nearly wasn't is The R. Tam Sessions, a series of internet videos that Joss Whedon shot with Summer Glau as promotion for the release of Serenity. It had initially been overlooked as this volume was being prepared and yours truly stuck his oar in. My apologies to all concerned. I'm looking forward to seeing what Kelli Fitzpatrick has done with it.

Carruthers Ten Years On: May 2009

May 2009 saw the first birthday of the Carruther's blog.

I like this ransom-note style demand for payment.

When Andy tasked me with making a mask, I was fairly proud of using components One, Two and Three to make this to wear.

Son

So, this happened.

Sarah and I were having a baby. We were very excited. We decided not to find out what we were having. I mean it was a baby, obviously, but you know what I mean.

We were expecting to be induced on Monday the 11th of February and we planned to spend the weekend before relaxing ahead, we went out for a meal for my brother-in-law's birthday and afterwards Sarah couldn't feel the baby move, so we went to hospital to get checked out.

They were both fine, and we relaxed, but while she was on the monitor the baby's heart rate went from an apparently normal between 130 and 150 beats per minute to a more worrying jumping from 112 to 200 and back again instead. It calmed down a bit so they said we could go home. We did and went to bed about midnight.

At half two in the AM, Sarah woke me and said she thought her waters had broken, I leaped out of bed, turned the light on and pulled back the cover to reveal blood everywhere. I called an ambulance and we went in. After assuming the worst, when we got to the hospital we discovered that the baby's heartbeat was fine, Sarah was in labour and the blood appeared to be coming from the placenta. After such a big bleed they recommended a C-section and so instead of days of waiting for an induction to kick in, there was a baby in my arms 45 minutes later.

The surgeons and his team were amazing, but I can't give them all the credit. I cut the umbilical cord. While they finished working on Sarah, I held him in an ante room and found myself singing to him. What do you sing when you've forgotten all the nursery rhymes you ever knew?

Apparently, it's 'Joyriders'.

With Sarah out of surgery, we were a trio. We were parents. We decided not to share the news for a while and just sat and stared at him and at each other. I'm not sure who, but one of us turned to the other and said "What now?"

Being rushed in by the ambulance meant we didn't have any of the things we packed for the notoriously long induction. When my father-in-law brought them in we had games we no longer had time to play and books we no longer had time to read. We had impressively overprepared for one outcome and were woefully underprepared for another.

Between Sarah's blood loss and the baby's weight loss, we spent a week in hospital and got a bit institutionalised, but we got into a routine. Things came together and we worked out how to be less terrified.

I meant to post all this in February, but things have been manic since and so our son is now an astonishing seven months old. He's fantastic and has now paddled in the sea, begun weaning onto solid food and added the Only Fools And Horses theme tune to his favourite songs.

Carruthers Ten Years On: April 2009

For much of April 2009 on the Carruther's blog, I serialised the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, because it features a character called Carruthers.

I still like this April Fool's Day post and this Glommer one, but that's about it.

Masked Crusader

The Masked Raider was another character to appear in Marvel Comics #1 and like many of his peers he seemed to be doomed to obscurity.

Marvel is currently celebrating its octogenarian status and after 79 years away from the limelight, the Masked Raider has ridden his horse back on to the pages of Marvel Comics. This time in its one thousandth edition, but don't look too hard at the numbering in between.

I wrote this about the Masked Raider and his return.

Carruthers Ten Years On: March 2009

March 2009 was pretty bleak. It did make me look up the word 'osculate'.

I like don't cuss the bus, Simon Says and Hop, while this one uses a joke I came up with when I was seven. It made my cousins laugh, so it stayed with me.