Another retelling of Cinderella

Ella was always very close to her father, and her mother's death only made her more so. When he fell in love again, she was delighted for him, though she wasn't overly fond of his new love, and her two daughters were positively unpleasant to her. Ella's family had always been poor, and through skill and dedication to her art, she had become an accomplished seamstress. Her clothes were always nicer than what others were wearing, and you could never tell to look at her that she was poor.

It wasn't long after her father's second marriage that her step mother and step sisters' polite requests for ever more elaborate clothes became demands.

When her father passed away, she was utterly desolate. Her step mother's demands worsened, and extended. Soon Ella was cooking and cleaning for the whole household, as well as dressmaking. She was barely given enough food to eat, let alone any money for materials. Her own clothes became ragged. The house was heated only by fires, and she was often covered in soot and dust from cleaning them. Her step-family started to call her 'Cinder-Ella' and the name stuck.


Cinderella dreamt about getting out of the house, making her own way in the world. She thought maybe that she could start a business making dresses. But she had no idea how to go about getting the capital needed to start out.


The King was getting impatient. He wanted to have a grandchild to continue his legacy. He worried what would happen to the country if there was no one to take over from his only son. But his only son, Prince Mark, wasn't interested. He was waiting for the right woman before getting married and he wasn't budging. He insisted that she existed, but he just had to wait to meet her.

The King, being quite literal minded, decided that what he needed to do was to organise for Prince Mark to meet the right woman. He had already tried introducing him to every Princess from nearby lands, but Mark had said that none of them were 'the one'. The King said that he would be happy enough for the Prince to marry a commoner if he wanted to, so long as he married someone. So he arranged for a series of balls, one for each region of the Kingdom. Each time he sent out an invitation to every household in the region. All eligible women were invited.



Cinderella read the invitation when it arrived of course. She thought it was ridiculous really. How could one party be enough to decide who you would marry? Especially when you met hundreds or thousands of people at it? Oh, but it would be great to have the materials to make a dress worthy of a Prince's ball. But mostly, she didn't want to go. Until her step mother said she couldn't. Cinderella was a teenager. Of course she wanted to go then. All eligible women were invited. She was just as eligible as her step sisters! She worked on so many plans to get to the ball, but got nowhere.

Knowing that many people would see them, she poured her heart into her step sisters' dresses. Her step mother was sure that the Prince would want to marry one of them, so she allowed no time or expense to be spared. Cinderella managed to sneak enough time and materials from the dresses to make one for herself. She still had no shoes, and no way to get to the ball (which was a long way off). But if she did get there, she knew all eyes would be on her. She hoped that she might get an investor for her dress making business that way. Hoped beyond hope.

The night before the ball, Cinderella woke up to the sound of fluttering at her window. Concerned and surprised she went to it. There was a fairy. Convinced she was dreaming, since she didn't believe in fairies, she opened the window anyway. The fairy introduced herself as Cinderella's fairy godmother. Cinderella's mother had prevented a logger from cutting down a fairy ring of trees and the fairies had promised her that, in return, they would provide one favour to her first born child when needed. The fairy was going to provide her with shoes and a carriage and make sure that her step-mother slept through. But, she was a fairy and there had to be conditions. The shoes would be a perfect fit, moulded to her feet on the inside and beautiful beyond compare on the outside. They would fit perfectly for walking and dancing. But Cinderella could not run. If she ran, the shoes would fall off. And the carriage would come to her house at seven to bring her to the ball. But it would leave the ball at midnight, and if she didn't catch it she'd be stranded.

The next morning Cinderella woke up, wondering at her strange dream. Then she looked at her dress where it was hanging, so sorry that she would not have the chance to wear it and show it off, but optimistic that the dresses she made for her sisters might still be her ticket out. And then she looked below the dress. And there were two shoes, beautiful beyond compare and perfect for her dress. She tried them on and found they fit like gloves.

Sure enough, at seven o’clock, her step sisters had left, her step mother was fast asleep, and the carriage waited outside.


The palace was even more splendid than usual, made up for the ball. Cinderella barely noticed the people staring at her beautiful dress as she took it all in. But they were. She enjoyed the music and the food. She ate as much as she could, which wasn't much, the rich food disagreed with her stomach, sick from having so little for so long. She had just finished a fourth conversation with another woman who said she loved her dresses, and would buy them if she could, but didn't have the money to invest in the business, when she finally saw the prince. "My goodness, but he is handsome." She thought. Then she laughed at herself. He had thousands of women to choose from, why would he choose her? Why would she even want him to, she hadn't even talked to him!

The King had said that each woman at the ball must have one dance with the prince. Cinderella was nervous despite herself. But Prince Mark was polite, and pleasant, and kind. During their three minute dance, they talked. Something clicked between them. Sometimes, in life, you just know for certain that someone's personality matches yours, works with yours, even after a few minutes. Cinderella was sorry when the time was over; she really wanted to keep talking to him. But she knew that he had so many other women to dance with, so she said goodbye and walked away.

A few hours later, Cinderella was sitting alone in a corner. She was torn. She had had a lot of interest in her dresses, but no backers for her business. She was more convinced than ever that she could make it, if only she could get a start. But she was no closer to that start than before. Her thoughts also kept creeping back to the conversation with the prince, try as she might to stop them. Had he felt it too? That connection, that sureness that they should be, at least, friends? He was probably just being nice. He probably had to be nice.

She looked at her watch, it was five to twelve! The carriage was at least ten minutes away. She walked as fast as she could, even dancing a bit to the music to move faster, but she knew it was no use, she couldn't get there without running. So she lifted the ends of her dress and ran. But just as the fairy predicted, her shoes loosened and came off. But she kept running, barefoot, and caught the carriage just in time.


Meanwhile, Prince Mark was telling his father that he could call off the rest of the balls. He had met her. The woman he would marry. He just needed to find her again in this room full of women, so that he could ask her to be his wife. Then he saw her, Cinderella, lift her dress and run. He saw her shoes come off. He ran after her, begging her to stop. But she was very fit from all the house work, and he never caught her. He went back to where her shoes were and picked them up. He looked inside and saw that they were moulded to a particular pair of feet. He kept the shoes.

The next day two groups of the Kings' men were touring the region with the shoes, asking all women who were at the ball to try them on, searching for the owner. Cinderella's step mother came to the door, heard the story and invited them in. Cinderella watched from the shadows as her step sisters tried on the shoe, which clearly didn't fit them. The men were about to leave when she accidentally dropped a pot, making a noise. Despite her step mother's insistence that she wasn't at the ball, the men persuaded Cinderella to try on the shoe, which of course fit perfectly. Leaving her bewildered step-family behind, she got into the carriage and was brought back to the palace.


The prince ran out and hugged her when she arrived. She was delighted to see him and hugged him back. Then he went down on one knee and opened a small jewellery box, showing a beautiful, elaborate ring and asked her to marry him. Her eyes and mouth wide, Cinderella failed to say anything for several minutes. When she did speak, she was almost crying. "I'm, I'm sorry. I'm so honoured. But I can't agree to spend my life with someone I've just met. It's not a no, but maybe a not yet?" Prince Mark looked crestfallen, but said he understood. He asked her what she wanted, and if she would get to know him better and consider it in the future. She explained her plans for her business and he insisted that he would invest, exclaiming how impressed he was with her work, no strings attached. He did request that she give him the opportunity to get to know her better.

Three years later, Ella's dresses were the talk of the Kingdom. Even her step-mother and step sisters, who now appreciated just how hard all that housework was, were buying them. She had more than paid back the capital that her only investor, Prince Mark, had given her, and owned her own business outright. Their first impressions had proved correct, that first connection had built into a beautiful friendship and then a love affair. Three years exactly after the first time, he asked her again to marry him. This time she said yes, they got married, the King got his grandchildren, and they all lived happily ever after.

On Simon Pegg and cosplayers

Simon Pegg, someone who I very much admire, tweeted a link to a picture of lots of people cosplaying Princess Leia saying

"Also, I've got a thing about cosplay girls. They're like zombie stormtroopers, a glorious combination of beloved things. #SDCC"

and

"*makes noise like Homer Simpson thinking of donuts* twitpic.com/a8myof"

@cnstoker was bothered by this and responded to him on twitter about it.  He replied that he found this boring and referred to her tweets as 'late '90s political correctness'.

You can read the exchange, with some more input from @cnstoker, here.


The first place I saw it was in this tweet:

Turns out @simonpegg can be a bit of an unenlightened jerk > storify.com/cnstoker/cospl… (IMO similar to gizmodo.com/5915473/asus-h…)

    — Emma Jenkin (@indeedemma) July 17, 2012

Which she goes on to explain a bit more here.



I think that @indeedemma was possibly going a bit far with her original choice of words, but then, she agrees with that herself.

I think that @cnstoker started off confrontational, instead of trying to open a discussion.  She assumed that by appreciating how sexy these women looked, he was assuming that they weren't real geeks.  In fact, his tweet about them combining beloved things implies to me that he was appreciating them for their geekiness as well as the way they looked.

But I can see where both of them are coming from.


I think that he should have been more wary before comparing the attraction he felt towards these women to the desire for food in front of his literal millions of followers.  I think that he shouldn't assume that all people who dress in sexy cosplay actively want to be sexualised.  And I think that before dismissing the reaction of someone who does not have a privilege* that he does have as 'boring' or 'political correctness**', he should consider that his privilege may be making it hard for him to see their point of view clearly.  I hope, maybe, he's learned some of that from this.


I also think that people who attacked @cnstoker and @indeedemma on twitter as a result of this are twits.  There are too many twits on the internet, but that's a subject for another post.



* I've encountered the problem before where 'having a privilege' is meant and/or taken as an insult, rather like 'being entitled'.  That's not what I mean here.  No one can help having a particular priviledge.  Priviledge isn't a problem, it's how you deal with it that can be.
**  For the record, wikipedia confirms my impression that by the '90s, political correctness was mostly a 'pejorative term by the political right', rather than actually something anyone would aspire to.  There is a huge difference between objecting to people saying things that will offend a lot of people, and wanting people to say, or not say, particularly things in some arbitrary fashion.

Burzynski and the Irish Times

I have just sent the following email to newsdesk@irishtimes.com


To Whom it May Concern,

I'm writing in relation to your article, which I found here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0714/1224320064507.html entitled "Appeal for ill child to travel to US for pioneering treatment".

You state in the article that the clinic 'provides advanced alternative cancer treatments'.  You refer to it in the title and elsewhere in the article as 'pioneering treatment'.  This 'treatment' has been in clinical trials since 1984, and there is, as yet, no evidence that it is a useful treatment of any illness.  In a 2004 paper 'Alternative Cancer Cures: “Unproven” or “Disproven”?' Dr. Andrew Vickers PhD describes it as disproven.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved these products for the treatment of any disease. 

I understand the desire to find hope in a case like this.  But the Burzynski Clinic (which you have also, incidentally, misspelled in the article) does nothing more than sell people that hope, for vast sums of money, with nothing of any substance behind it.

Regards,
<My real name>




I will update this post with a reply, if I get one.

For more on Burzynski , I recommend following zenbuffy at her blog and/or on twitter @zenbuffy.


<EDITED TO ADD:> 

No reply, but the article has been taken down.  Screenshot available here, if you're curious.  Wouldn't it be nice if they put a short apology, or explanation, in place of the original though?

Please vote. I suggest 'no'.

I've done a lot of reading about the TREATY ON STABILITY, COORDINATION AND GOVERNANCE IN THE ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION BETWEEN Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism.  I have to admit, that I went in to most of that reading already having decided to vote no.  But nothing has come close to making me change my mind on that.

I am voting no because:

• The main mechanism the treaty offers for correcting the problem of countries not having enough money to cover their expenses is to fine them.  Which hardly seems logical.
• This treaty being in place wouldn't have stopped any of the foolishness that got our country into this position in the first place.  It's dealing with countries spending money they don't have.  We were spending money that we did have.  But we said we'd keep spending it.  And now we don't have it any more.  Ireland is like someone who treated a once or twice off bonus as a raise and signed up for a bunch of new expenses they couldn't really afford.
• Voting no doesn't stop us getting a further bail out, if we need one.  It just stops us getting a bail out from the fund which the treaty sets up.
• The rest of the European Union would be affected too badly by Ireland defaulting on its debt to refuse us a second bail out just to 'punish' us for voting no.
• A yes vote is irrevocable, a no vote is not.
• Structural deficit is not properly defined, but it is referred to.  That allows space for it to be redefined in some way we don't like and/or didn't anticipate.
• I am not voting for anything that gives anyone immunity to legal proceedings.  No.  (Articles 32 and 35)  - EDIT - This is not the right treaty.  Our Government signed this one without asking us in July 2011.  Thanks guys.
• The long list of muppets and loonies arguing for a no vote isn't actually a good reason to vote yes.  Funny as that idea might be.
• 'Vote yes because they'll only ask us again anyway' is a bad approach.  That is a really bad reason to vote yes.  And it's actually more likely that our Government will accept a no for this than it was for Nice and Lisbon.  Unlike in those cases, this treaty CAN go ahead without us.
• The turmoil in Europe and the many countries saying 'hm, maybe we should fix this a bit before we ratify it' was completely ignored by the Government.  The treaty should have been postponed.
• The only sort of stability I can see this treaty bringing in is stability in the sh*t state we're currently in.  Where mostly only people who have computer science degrees have jobs, everyone my age has lost a bunch of friends to emigration, everyone is paying more tax than they'd like or expect to and is never sure when they're going to start paying more tax and where they're expected to get the money to pay it.  You know, like this.

If you don't want to take my word for it, here's a bunch of stuff I watched or read:
A video explaining what the treaty is.
A little bit 'yes' biased, from my point of view anyway.  But about as close to neutral as possible.

Reasons to vote no, Ireland in Europe perspective.
A good read, author clearly doesn't like Angela Merkel much.

Arguing for a yes vote.
Mostly seems to be saying 'ah here lads, we need to do this stuff anyway, so let's not rock the boat and p*ss off potential allies'.  Calls Angela Merkel by her first name.

Why VinB is voting no.
Why VinB is voting no.  His reasons are not my reasons.  But they're not bad reasons.

"Treaty a mere clause in contract yet unseen."
Many great nuggets, including the idea that 'we have no choice' is not a reason to vote yes, it's a reason to spoil your vote.

Someone I know and really respect in real life.
Arguing that we should vote yes to take more power from the Irish Government, because the Irish people can't elect a good one

I don't normally find myself agreeing with Libertas.
But this is well worth reading.


And a few I didn't, but heard were good:
'Guide to the Fiscal Treaty'

ESM Treaty & Stability (Fiscal Compact) Treaty
Seriously long and detailed.  Has been summed up as 'we'd be off our heads to vote Yes, but we're going to anyway. FFS.'


Aaaand last but not least:
The text of the treaty itself. the treaty itself.
Edited on 31/05/2012 to fix typos.
Edited again on 31/05/2012 because the treaty with the scary article 32 is a different one that the Government already signed without asking us.

"Why should I have to WORK for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it!"

I've been reading articles on coding horror about the things like the fact that a lot of 'programmers' can't actually program and there is evidence that whether or not you can 'get' programming, whether or not it's something that you'll be able to do, is innate.  Either you have the ability to be a programmer, or you don't.

I find this incredibly frustrating.  I know I have that innate ability.  In school we had a computers class, which was mostly just playing with Logo, run by a teacher who also happened to be the career guidance teacher.  After that class she said, of me, 'she's a programmer' and told me I should do it for a living.  I did Computer Science and Software Engineering in college and loved it.  The only thing I could see myself having enjoyed more in college is pure maths.  I aced programming and logic courses all the way through.  I got a first class honours degree.  I left college wanting to write code, wanting to be a computer programmer. 

But I tried, and failed, to get a job writing code.  I had a few QA jobs that I was told would lead to writing code, but they never did.  I was aware that I had a lot to learn.  The sort of stuff that you can only learn on the job and/or by doing.  I am bad at learning by doing.  Not as bad as I was back then, but still bad.  If someone is willing to teach me, I am a sponge, I learn easilly and well.  But no one was.  No one was willing to hire me and teach me the things that my degree didn't and possibly couldn't.  I had ability, but I lacked skill.

I know that it's experience coding that counts and that it doesn't have to be in a professional setting.  I know that getting involved with an open source project and writing good code there, or just writing something myself and getting it out there, could lead to a programming job.  But I never seem to have the time, or the energy, or the brain space to do it.  Probably the most frustrating thing about this is knowing that I could fix it, but I haven't.  I know it's not reasonable or fair to expect to have a coding job served up to me on a plate.  But it's still frustrating that there are people out there programming badly for a living, when I'm so sure I could do it well.  And, well, see the title of this post.

What do you point your furniture at?

I don't have a TV. As it happens, in my current situation, I couldn't have one if I did want to, which I don't.

I do watch TV shows.  We have a Netflix account, before which we had a BBC iPlayer account. We own and borrow box sets.  But at home when I watch a television show, I am doing it on purpose.  And that, to me, is the key difference between me without a TV and me with a TV.

When I'm visiting somewhere that has one I find we end up watching the least bad thing on. The same thing used to happen to me when I had a TV. You have a time in your schedule, consciously or not, that says 'TV'. You fill that time with whatever is on. You pay various companies money so that you can have a large variety of choices. And you choose whatever is best from there. Not watching TV at all only becomes an option when really isn't anything on that's even passable.  Given the tendency of tired people who've been making decisions all day to take the easiest path, that bar can be pretty low.

To put it another way, for me, the difference between not owning and owning a TV is the difference between watching Firefly, or The Blue Planet, or Avatar and 'watching TV'. There are plenty of shows I like. But I don't like TV.  I don't like half the stuff I end up watching in other people's houses.  Yeah, a lot of the time I get into it and I keep watching because I want to find out what happens or whatever.  But that's not the same as coming out the other end really glad I spent that time that way.  And I don't like ads.  There are a now, I understand, many ways to record it and/or fast forward ads.  But I haven't come across one that's less effort than streaming the show or watching it from a disk in the first place.  Not to mention the price.

On the other hand, to mention the price, Mr. Money Mustache covers it quite nicely.  TV is expensive.  Organising it so 'the best thing on' is actually decent costs even more money.  Way more money than an account with Netflix or BBC iPlayer or something.  Heck, for the amount of money most people spend on cable, or satellite or whatever, I could more than afford to buy pretty much all of the shows I actually want to watch in box sets.  

I get the question 'what do you you point your furniture at?' from people I tell that I don't have a TV.  We point our furniture at tables.  Then we put things on the tables.  

Something I heard

Something I heard

We’ve had a few high tides lately

And a recent storm has left the normally placid and fairly stationary shingle

Spread out down the sand somewhat.

I’ve always loved water,

Particularly the sea,

Particularly beaches,

But most of all; this beach, my beach.

I’ve rarely seen a tide so high.

So tonight I went exploring,

My beach,

But different.

And that is when I heard it.

The sound of a wave pulling back through loose shingle.

Not much, maybe,

But that pulling, tumbling, clacking, clapping, laughing, calling sound,

Resonated with a joy string in my heart

And left it ringing.