Aw, Shim!

That whale in the Thames got deaded.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4635440.stm
Makes me sad.

Also in the news, there might be legislation that means all smacking of children will be banned. 1st reaction was 'Oh God, bloody Nanny State strikes again!' After all, I, like most people of my generation, was given the odd slapped hand when I was very naughty (ie when I'd done something dangerous that could have resulted in me getting me hurt much worse) and I had the leftiest of lefty parents, and certainly hasn't turned me into a cowering wreck/thug. But then Hubby said 'well, if you ever slapped an adult it would be assault, no matte what the circumstances', and he has a point. I've seen Boss reasoning with his very young son. He doesn't resort to slaps, he uses other punishment methods - sitting on 'the naughty step', no pudding, etc, and baby ALWAYS has to apologise if he's naughty before he's let off. And, let's face it, just because something's been done for a long time doesn't neccesarily mean we should carry on doing it. Because at the moment where is the line drawn? When is it acceptable to hit a child and when is it abuse? How hard can they be hit? How often? For what reasons? Until they're how old? One girl I was at school with was still getting punched by her dad at 16/17 and she reckoned that was fine, because that was just the way they'd always done it (the whole family were ultra right wing anyway, and pretty weird with it). Maybe it would be a good thing after all. Hmmmm...

A long night of Scribbling later...

...and Ch5 of O Most Wonderful is posted, and (drumroll please) Hank finally has a surname!!!

You will notice that in my fics, every other D&D kid has been named in full several times, except for Hankyboy. Eric, Sheila & Bob were easy because I liked the traditional fanfic surnames - Montgomery & O'Brian really fit. Diana Jones just popped into my head one day and I couldn't get rid of it, and Arthur Greene for Presto because of all the 1st names floating around for Presto I thought Arthur was the dorkiest (apologies to any Arthurs out there) and because, um, he wears green. I tend to use colours for names a lot, hence Arthur Greene, Bob's Older Woman Lilac and Grey the bandit. there will also probably be a character later on in the fic called Blue as well.

But I never liked Grayson for Hank. I don't know why. It just didn't click with me, and for a long time I thought he'd never have a surname. But now he does! I decided last week that, since most of the others have quite ordinary surnames, hank should have something very strange. Foreign and difficult to pronounce. I went with a Dutch name out of the phone book in the end.

BTW those of you who haven't read 'Knight of the Living Dead', I have given everybody their Mothers' maiden names, in the interest of giving them their Porn Names. See if you can guess who's who:
Happy Taylor, Tinkerbell Taylor, Honey Delainey, Killer Darling, Socks McNally and Bubbles Monroe.