Watched the second season of Bridgerton, which was frothy fun. Of all the (gazillion) things to snap me out of its cheerfully anachronistic universe, though, was various characters going "ugth, but we can't, he's our cousin!" at the prospect of a fourth degree cousin as a potential match. (And no, they didn't grow up with him, none of them had met him before, so there was no closer relation by raising.) Leaving side even the "first cousins = incest" thing is a distinctly modern equation, fourth degree? That feels as likely as the Bennet sisters objecting to Mr. Collins not because of his, well, Mr. Collins-ness, but because he's their cousin. And in the British aristocracy of any fictional or real incarnation, it's probably harder to find someone you don't share at least some ancestors with.

((I mean, I laughed at myself for minding, because Bridgerton never claims to be anything but what it is, but the "4th degree cousin, ew!" thing did what all the string arrangements of Material Girl could not.)

Have some multifandom links:

Interesting discussion of the Spielberg take on WEST SIDE STORY; some arguments I agree with, others I don't, but it's definitely worth reading.

Fire in the front yard: short but to the point take on an AU where Darla got cursed with a soul and Angelus is the one who dies seven episodes into s1 of BTVS; specifically, what then happens in Innocence?

Song of Women: a lovely vid focused on Börte, Genghis Khan's first wife, and her relationship with him, using footage from the 2008 movie "Mongol".

My friends, I spoke too early. Only yesterday I finished uploading all the Naadam photos, and there is no way I can present them only in one single post. I'll have to split the festival up. This is both due to all the spectacle there was, and due to the fact your faithfull chronicler was now armed with a proper camera again, having returned to the Mongol capital where there are, of course, the relevant shops.

In case you were wondering: "What IS this "Naadam" she's been going on about like a superhero comics foreshadowing the big battle at the end?" The annual Naadam festival celebrates the traditional three most beloved Mongol sports, archery, riding and wrestling. It used to be all male, but in the last few years competition for women was added as well, and I have, among other things, a fabulous photo of a fierce old lady archer. (BTW, speaking of female archers, the icon for this entry used to be Katniss but then I thought this implied some unfortunate things about Naadam = Hunger Games, which I did not want.) But it is the greatest event of the year, celebrated all over the country, and in the capital of course biggest of all, and it made for a wonderful finale to my three weeks in Mongolia. And the opening ceremonies are on an Olympic level.

( Let the games begin! )

In the later part of our journey, we camped at two famous Mongolian lakes, called "White Pearl" and "Blue Pearl" of Mongolia, respectively. In this post, you shall see them both, complete with an old volcano, Yaks and a lot of wrestling.

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Aka, my brave little mobile phone camera & self face the heart of Mongolia. Now, several places make that claim - Genghis Khan's birth place in the east, the brief ancient capical of the Mongols, Karakorum, are contenders - but in truth, there is only one obvious reply, and it has been made a world heritage - the valleys of the Orkhon River, giving birth to three people: the Xiongu, from whom later the Huns developed, the Turks (yes, really, and the graves are there to prove it) , and the Mongols. Also, the roads are supposedly the worst of Mongolia because of the sharp basalt stones. I have no opinion on this, other than having visited Tanzania repeateadly in the past came in as really handy training.

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Well, she said, with a stunning lack of originality, I'm back. Since a few hours, literally, and what a journey it was. Mongolia is a breathtaking country, and I'll probably spend most of next week making pic spam posts, given the sheer number of photos I took. This despite the fact that after a week, the singing sand dune of the Southern Gobi murdered my camera with its sand, singing or not, which meant from then onwards I had to use my mobile phone as a camera until we were back in Ulan Bator (or Ulaanbaatar, as its inhabitants spell it) for the Naadam Festival. At that point my guide & interpreter kindly lend her camera to me, and I used my old memory card from my old one which was undamaged. But for two weeks in the steppe, the desert and the mountains, it was cell phone or nothing, and I lucked out because that cell phone camera turned out to be not too bad at all. But now, onwards to share some impressions of my Mongolian adventure!

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