Halloween Costumes

Stormfly's face is based on the bird masks from last year, but with a new nose horn (a little shorter than the real thing) and a different paint job.

Shoulder pads:
I bought some foam sheets from a craft store. This is great stuff, easy to use, flexible, strong, and takes a coat of paint. Perfect for making the armoured shoulders of the costume.

First I cut strips of the same length and width, (xcm x 5cm wide), then trimmed them to the shapes above. Each set of four makes one shoulder.

These were then glued in place, and all four held in place with corn forks till the glue dried. By placing them the right way, they were curved into shape. Small circles were cut and glued in place to make the rivets

The shoulders were then sprayed with dark silver paint, and dry-brushed with a lighter silver for the highlights.
The biggest issue was how to hold the shoulder pads onto the fur material of the clothes we had in place for the fur collars. I tried staples, discarded stitches, as they would cut through the foam, and decided glue would not hold on the fur. In the end, the ideal solution were those little brass round headed fasteners used to hold paper together. The kind of thing that is never used as stationary, but only in craft projects. These things.

One of the features that distinguishes Astrid's costume is the little bird skulls all over it. These were moulded in a cool lightweight clay, and baked for 15 minutes, before having the lines an eye-socket marked out with black paint. Super-easy. They're also very easy to hold in place with hot-glue, due to their lightness.

The whole ensemble for the top half in place.

The skirt was the part I was to have the most trouble with.

Cultural Vs Civic Nationalism: It's not that simple

Emmigrant Brits and their numbers:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/so-many-brits-now-live-abroad-that-theyre-causing-immigration-debates-oh-the-irony-a6723006.html

The Rise of English Nationalism, and the schadenfreude in watching them sleepwalk into independence
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/18/england-eu-referendum-brexit

Rise of Racism:
http://robertsomynne.blogspot.ca/2016/06/the-whistle-and-dogs-when-being-racist.html?m=1s

Comparison to the IndyRef in the Herald:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14569205.Iain_Macwhirter__Nicola_Sturgeon__Nigel_Farage_and_two_very_different_kinds_of_nationalism/

#Indyref2

After the flurry of posts back in 2014, I have been so far silent on the subject of the second independence referendum, and indeed the Brexit fallout. There are a few reasons for this, but I think for the moment, this article sums up my thoughts on the matter of the second referendum.

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays to you all, and a great big Fuck Off! to 2016. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

2017, we're looking to you now, you know what not to do!

I had plans to post a few things here over the last few months, but, you know, life and all. I may go in and backdate a few posts for things like Halloween and the like, or not. We'll see how the Xmas Holidays fill up.

EU Referendum, another TV appearance

Last Wednesday, I was asked again to speak to a CBC journalist, on the EU referendum, I did so, but in the end, they didn't use so much of what I said. I'm okay with this, as last week, this was not something I had much to say on. I mean I had my reasons for voting the way I did, but they were pretty uninteresting I thought.

The report can still be seen here.

So I gave this interview, then we went off down to New York for a long weekend (but that's for another post) so didn't have time to post this here. I was also asked to do an early morning thing somewhere for the morning after, but since we were in NY, I declined.  I also figured, that'd, pretty much be the ed of it, as I thought the British people too conservative to change, so figured it may be close, but in the end, nothing would change. Ok, so maybe I was wrong in that assumption. Maybe a little.

It seems that, yes indeed as I suggested, there was a difference in how Scotland and England voted, and that is having huge repercussions. It may be too close to the actual event to make a diagnosis or  dissection of what happened (although this article probably nails it pretty close), this is something we will be debating for years, but we are certainly living in interesting times!

I will leave you with one more link, to a friend of mine who voted leave, and not for the reasons that we are hearing from the UKIP side of the debate.  I think it is important to read this post on his reasoning, so that we can move forward in this mew world order.

The only thing I would like to add, is that as a scientist, if I ever tried to publish 49.1% and 51.9% as a significant result, I would be given my head to play with!

Differences between the Scottish and English in terms of the EU Referendum, An Ex-Pat's Perspective

I'm not one for using this space as a link-dump, but I think this is the best place for me to post this link, as I'm steering away from talking bout the EU referendum on other social media sites, for various reasons, some previously mentioned.

One point that keeps coming up is how Scotland (and Northern Ireland, maybe not so much Wales, but certainly Gibraltar) may vote differently than England in this upcoming referendum. I read this article on the differences between Scotland and England in terms of how they are approaching the EU referendum, and I think the article hits many points squarely on the head.

I think the first point is particularly on point:

For most Scots, being Scottish and British is, to use an old analogy, a bit like Russian dolls. One can sit comfortably inside the other, without any conflict. That means it’s easy enough to add another one – European – on top...

English people essentially see the two as synonymous, as two sides of the same coin, with Englishness facing in and Britishness facing out. Adding the ‘European’ identity to that feels like an imposition. 

I see this attitude even here. The Ex-Pat community may not be the best reflection of British society, but English and British being synonyms is a very common attitude amongst certain (but not all) of the English Ex-Pats I know. As much as I don't necessarily identify as British a lot of the time, that does rankle. Those who have a stronger regional identity, either Scots, (Norn) Irish or otherwise tend to be able to slot these identities together more smoothly. They are more capable to live with multifaceted national identities. How this affects adding Canadian identity to those who take the route of citizenship is something I haven't really looked at, but would be interesting to think about.

In a related point, the interview for ICI Radio-Canada I mentioned in my last post contained only the viewpoints of Scots in Montreal. Some of these Scots certainly consider themselves more British than maybe I do, but the journalist was having a hard time tracking down other viewpoints. She was pointed towards the facebook group for Brits in the city, but she was refused access, as she wasn't British. As a curator of other facebook groups, I certainly see the logic in this decision, but I do also see the irony in the outcome. She also had difficulty finding people to talk from a leave perspective, but I think that is not such a great shock in the Ex-Pat community, a we all may have a more global perspective than those who have not lived abroad (I generalise, of course).

L'heure du Monde

I thought that my last post would be pretty much all I had to say on the EU-Referendum. I vote, we move on with life. However, I was slightly mistaken.

Turns out all the media attention that the IndyRef got over here, and the fact I was willing to go on record to talk about it means there are some journalists out there who have our details. To that end I was contacted my a rather desperate CBC journalist, looking for Brits who were willing to talk to her about the referendum. I did say to her that I don't think I had anything much to say of interest in the matter, but she convinced me to talk. She came over one evening and spoke to K and I, and the resulting interview can be heard here. Click on the link in red just under the story to hear our part of the show.

Still not sure I have much of interest or depth to say on the matter, but it's nice to be asked!