Canuk

Methodwriter85, sometimes your knowledge of this family is scary!! I barely recall who is related to whom, let alone minutiae such as that Brad is now as old as his biological father was when he died!!

my first thought, too - Alexis carrington made to look like am amateur! I am looking forward to see how Mark does pure evil!

mark has us all on a string! i suspect he has a lurking god-complex and we are but his playthings......... but we love it!

Interesting - I did the "life expectancy test" part of the same website..... somehow I am to live to 91...... I have a feeling that this is slightly optimistic! otherwise, interesting site. For those hung up on "accuracy" it does give the basis for it's calculations, and as far as I can see, does admit that these are estimates based on known data. obvioulsy the unknown is not included!

good manners will win me every time!

LOL! I am so glad, Graeme, you made that correction - here I was all prepared fora "planet" 30% larger than earth and I now know I would have been woefully underprepared!

very best wishes for the future; may this achievement help you find the strength to keep on keeping on.

do you think she has names for them?

Great! Grainger doing what he does best! This boy is my perfect fantasy; he does everything with such aplomb! Many thanks for this latest installment and I look forward to the contuing saga......

Slightly off-topic, but I just want to ask about M'dwriter85's comment. Have so many people enlisted in the US that everyone in that age group is likely to know someone who has enlisted? I am not doubting it, I am just amazed that that many people have enlisted! in comparison, during the last of my ~10 years in Canada I did actually meet someone who had enlisted, but he was the first, and I have to admit here i Australia I do not know anyone in the armed forces. so methodwqriter85's comment that the enlistment levels in the US are that high I found almost shocking. it must have huge effects on the future of the US.....

at the rate lovers turn into relatives, Mark is going to have to whack a few friends as well as villains otherwise we are going to have a cast of thousands all interelated and all sleeping with their cousin/uncle/step-relation (which could be between one and three people) either way I am sure i will be fun - Mark's not bad at a decent whacking!!

24 seems so long ago! also then I was married, had a child and a mortgage. At my great age now, I still have the child, though there are now two and the youngest turns 24 in November! I also still have a mortage (different house, different continent), the wife went a good while ago, so while 24 is great, it does actually better, albeit in a different way, as time moves on..... congrats on 24, look forward to the next 24, and the 24 after that!

sorry a little off-topic, but I come from a family where debate was expected and a huge part of my growing up. I have an ex where simple questioning could be met with physical violence. it was a real shock the first time I encountered it. so I understand from whence you come. I sincerely hope that you have managed to find a way out from the history.

before i started reading this post i had a pretty good idea about what I understood to be asexual. I now have no f'ing idea. It comes down to which "filter" we apply first in determing the "label" to be applied. If a person is attacted to the opposite sex they tend to be labelled as straight ; if its the same sex , gay (or lesbian). the same applies to how a person is defined based on who they wish to be physically intimate with, (a bloke who insits he is straight, but only sleeps with men, is likely to be considered gay....isn't he?) to define a person interested in relationships but not sex, surely they would be considered straight or gay but only interested in platonic relationships. a person interested in sex only, without the realtionship is a slut, but still either gay or straight therefore to be by almost a process of exclusion someone who considers themself to "asexual" would be interested "people" completely disregarding that persons sex, and not interested in sex. so can an asexual preson be gay? not the way I look at it. but then that's me and as it has been said elsewhere, words have meaing and you can assign any meaning you like to any word - just if you are going to engage in discourse, you'd better lay down some decent guidelines! of course this still leave a few problems - I have no idea where masturbation fits into my neat paradigm, the same goes for bi-sexuality (an area I commented on elsewhere being an area of complete mystery to me). not sure I have contributed anything much, but it was an interesting intellectual exercise over coffee and toast!

but it is so much fun trying!!!

to me gay marriage is not about whether my partner and I marry or not, it's about some other person telling me I can't.

I whole-heartedly agree with this; if the spelling/grammar are so bad that the story is unintelligible then be prepared for some heavy criticism. One story I read recently came with the statement "thank you so much to (name) for editing", however the work was unreadable. Now the person named as editor has written a large number of works here and writes VERY well. I was concerned that there was something remiss, so I emailed the editor. Sure enough the author had submitted the work to the editor and then ignored the comments and uploaded the work anyway. I'd like to suggest to anyone that, to me, this is the height of rudeness; if your aim was to try and trash the editors reputation, for god's sake go and get a life.... if it was some weird thought that what was written didn't need the editors help, then don't include the editors name on your story. I am not sure why this incident got me so riled up, but it did and it was to an extent compounded when I didn't get a reply to my (private, polite and concerned) message to the author (nothing says he or she has to reply, but given I suggested that perhaps he/she had uploaded the wrong version, or there was some other simple reason for a few of the blatant errors, I thought I might get at least an acknowledgement, an"f'off" or a request for help). Being an author is more than words on a page. putting your work out in public means it is no longer all about you, it is about your readers - do them the courtesy of paying them attention too. Rant over!!

as the consanguity rules are all about not producing DNA challenged children, gay sex with cousins shouldn't be a problem.... (and before someone pipes up about father/son sexual relationships - that type of relationship is/should be frowned upon due to likely power imbalances......) Mark , I envy the lucky bastard that does the autopsy on your brain sometime 50+ years from now - I am sure what they discover will rank among the wonders of the world..... A mind that can produce a buggered spanish grandee and lovers who discover a mutual relative on a sunken submarine in completely separate stories written days apart is truly sensational; all power to ya!

It is not whether anybody knows, it's whether you frighten the horses ..... ie do anything you like, just don't frighten the horses (my grandmother's advice to me on my coming out to her.....)

I was going to reply saying that Grainger is likely to be CofE and so no confession, no Hail Marys, but then I realised you are probably talking about the newly buggered grandee.... what a wonderful part of catholicism - the ability to do what you want and get absolution afterwards. Us poor anglicans (episcopalians in the US) just have to be good. Fortunately most of us are bloody good, verging on excellent so no problems there!!!

Great list - we agree on an awful lot; History - yep British, but I tend to concentrate on Georgian and Regency England The raj - yep, but again I love the social history rather than the seiges etc... Books; we have two house on two continents both bursting (the houses, not the continents) as well as 1250 books in storage.... we do try and stop buyng them but somehow it doesn't work...... RC -mmmm have to skip that one: closest I came (!) to that was having a 6 month affair with a trainee priest - proving Mark's translator works!!! can't get back to 964, but we were mid level bureaucrats in Norwich at the cathedral back in the 1300's (given until recently I was a mid level bureaucrat you can see that it's hereditary! Hussein of Jordan was a great leader and is truly missed. he is definately at my dinner party of people I'd most like to get to know I have watched EVERY episode of WW, most at least twice. Sam can have my babies any time he wants - he just needs to whistle and I'll come...... . CJ can come to dinner, provided she brings the First Lady with her (Stockard Channing has always done it for me....) Re tigers; my mother was born in the year the last Tasmanian Tiger died (is that enough of a connection????) You may like the Godfather trilogy; I'd like a trilogy of godfathers........ re nappies - I have to agree with Mark : haveing children is f'ing amazing; one of the many downers is changing nappies - however that is balanced by the joy and sheer self satisfaction in seeing your children growing up that it makes all those nasties pale into insignificance!

because Mark M, you have a the same way with words as you do with the other, more sensual, part of your life ! Perhaps long association with Mark 's sensuality has rubbed off (or on, as the case may be.....)

while I am overjoyed to have Grainger back (he's just so doable... ) his new openness (and with a Grandee of Spain) I find a tad worrying...... I am truly intrigued as to where it will "head", so to speak.....

methodwriter, you are right - it's about rejuvenation and adding to old infrastructure to produce desirable living places to support the new ins=dustry that will need to be developed. Some of this can be achieved in a 5-10 year period....the "transformation" may take longer. i need my coffee before I write any more

Great chapter; looks like they have finally grown into the same space.... too 'em long enough to get there. As far as the gentrification of Claremont; 10 years in no where long enough. programs/projects like this need to develop organically and be whole-heartedly adopted by residents if they are going to succeed. Otherwise you have one person's delusional estate that never quite works. This project is starting out well with a plan, a degree of consensus and bags of money. To make it a success with be local buy-in and a level of flexibility by the planners and instigators - whether JP et al have the ability to change/mold/add to, deduct or wvwn scrap "their" plan for what the community wants....... and all this takes time - so in my mind "quick" change is definately not what is needed...... so Mark , whenever you are ready, I'll be there ready to "consult" - I'll even bring some decent Australian wine.......