Babi a Fi

My month in fandom...

I enlisted a couple of 1/10 scale Diamond Select Gotham action figures to help demonstrate the size. Find the unfiltered pic HERE . Supplier: MiniatureVictoriya Website:   Etsy Shop . Products:  Super realistic 1/12 scale food and drink, as well as more unusual miniature items like vodka with pickled scorpions, condoms, and, ahem, adult entertainment. It was the first time I'd ever seen those in miniature so obviously I had to add a couple to my collection! I bought a set of 1/12 scale toys that came in a little shoebox for £24 - it contained condoms, a vibrator, a pink feather tickler, and more. They are so tiny! Then I bought a 1/6 scale box of condoms and a few other bits and pieces. In the interests of keeping this safe for work here's a detail of a photo: For the full picture, click HERE . I already knew from reading other reviews that orders took a long time but the wait was worth it. In the end it took about two months from order to delivery. Post an

My back continues to be my major preoccupation. It started to ease up a bit Thursday and Friday, then Saturday it just seemed to be back to square one. :( The plan for next week (half term) was to sort out the house and repaint a couple of rooms but, sigh, I don't think I'm going to get very far with it. Thankfully there wasn't much on this week. I had my first meeting about learning overview and scrutiny committee, to fix the dates for a few preliminary meetings, etc, and I had a full board meeting at Bron Afon. Anthony had his community council AGM and was appointed Vice Chairman. Other than that I watched a lot of TV, wrote a few short stories, and generally wallowed in self pity... I haven't posted much - read: any - this week because I've been too busy feeling sorry for myself. I will doubtless backdate content... at some point. For more like this, please click the image below:

I finally got around to watching Batman: Gotham by Gaslight today. The thirtieth film in the DCU animated original movie series, it was released for digital download back in January this year. I was keen to see this one because a) Ripperology has long been an obsession, and b) I loved the comic it is based on - ' Gotham by Gaslight ', the very first Elseworlds story published in February 1989. It combined two of my favourite things: Batman and Jack the Ripper. In the comic, Bruce Wayne has been studying in Vienna under Freud when he starts having recurring dreams about his parents' death. They convince him he needs to return to Gotham City where, in attempting to keep the streets safe as Batman, he comes under suspicion as the Ripper. Bruce is eventually arrested and convicted, then shipped off to Arkham Asylum. There he is given information on the case by Jim Gordon, eventually helped to escape by his trusty butler Alfred, and goes on to catch the Ripper just befor

The big thing this week was officially finishing as Mayor. It's been such a life changing year - I've always suffered with a lot of social anxiety and wasn't sure how I'd hold up having to go out and meet new people, day after day. It has been hard at times, I can't deny, but I'm so glad to have done it. Especially as it turned out to be the very last chance I would have gotten! You can read the speech I gave to full council about it on Tuesday HERE . Or watch it via the webcast HERE . All the nominations made at Labour group last week were accepted and agreed too, which meant I could stop stressing about them. Normally I wouldn't put myself forward for anything, but my family nagged and nagged about how if I never tried I would never know, so I filled out a few application forms and crossed my fingers. I ended up being voted in for Chair of the Learning Communities Scrutiny Committee. It was really hotly contested and it means a lot that my colleag

My Top Ten tracks of the month! Needle In A Haystack - The Velvelettes (1964) I went through a bit of a Motown phase at the beginning of the month, but this is the track I kept coming back to. Founded in 1961, The Velvelettes were signed to Motown in '62 but never really given the star treatment. Their debut album was never completed and this first hit remained their biggest, reaching #45 on the mainstream USA billboard chart. Their only UK hit was in 1971 with the reissue of 1966's These Things Will Keep Me Loving You . Tainted Love -  Gloria Jones (1964) Tainted Love is one of my all time favourite songs, in all its many and varied versions. This month I've been mostly listening to the original recording by US singer, Gloria Jones. It was the B-side of a single that failed to chart, later picked up in 1973 by Northern Soul DJ Richard Searling on a trip to the States. Jones re-recorded the track for release in 1976, with the help of boyfriend Marc Bol

I made the Pontypool Free Press today in their report on the end of the Mayoral role. (A big thanks to our local democracy reporter Steven Prince - @stevenjprince - for the write up!) You can read the piece online HERE . TORFAEN County Borough Council has appointed its first presiding member and deputy - the two roles replacing the mayoral function. Cllr Jessica Powell, the final councillor to hold the role of mayor, was selected as the presiding member at the council’s annual meeting this week. Her deputy will be Cllr Norma Parrish. The council needed to pick one of 17 councillors receiving a senior salary, consisting of committee chairs and executive members. The Panteg ward member replaced Blaenavon’s Cllr Stuart Evans – the final deputy mayor of Torfaen.   Cllr Powell said she had changed her view on the mayoral function, which has been cut as a £52,000 annual budget saving. “This really is the end of an era. When I was first elected to the council in 2012 I was quite

Pop culture, geek culture, etc, blogs and news outlets are ten a penny these days. My go to is The Mary Sue . Active blogs focusing on transformative fandom - particularly beyond the odd op-ed, cosplay or occasional piece of fanart - are more difficult to find. Here are ten of my favourites... but I'd love to hear your recs for more! I'm going to be a rebel to semantics and start with a rec for a newsletter! The Rec Center was set up in 2016 in response to fans asking if there were any regular fandom round-ups. It is collated by fan culture journalists  Elizabeth Minkel and Gavia Baker-Whitelaw , and includes fandom news, posts of interest on Tumblr and social media, and fanfiction recs. Check out the archive or sign up for the weekly email updates at tinyletter . ' The Learned Fangirl analyzes media, technology, and online culture from a critical, academic perspective .' Posting is irregular and review heavy - but when they do tackle fan culture

Reverend Canon Harald Thomas (Chaplain), Me, Alison Ward (Chief Executive of TCBC), Stuart Evans (Deputy Mayor) I made it! It's been an amazing year - surreal at times, sure, but something that I know will stay with me forever. I did about 250 official engagements, and have written about some of them that made the local papers in my ' In the Press ' series. Below is the speech I gave at council today about my year in office... (It can also be viewed on the council webcast HERE .) Torfaen Deputy Mayoral Chains It has been a real honour and a privilege to serve as Mayor this last year. I have met so many inspirational people, seen some of the truly amazing work going on in our community, and attended all kinds of weird and wonderful events. I've officially opened not one but two toilets, embarrassed myself countless times over in the name of charity, and blown the starting whistle at the Men's Roller Derby Associations' world championships. (If, li

We were in the paper today, in the Grassroots section of the South Wales Argus on page 31. I had forgotten we even did this litter pick already which probably says something about my age... It was really nice of Mary - retired TCBC councillor Mary Barnett - to include us in her write up though! Mary and Gil have been such a great support at so many of my Mayoral events this year, and at the charity quiz night mentioned they single handedly contributed about a tenth of the total in raffle ticket sales. :) For more like this, please click the image below:

This week has mostly been about winding things up and getting organised. I want to write to all the groups / organisations I visited during my time as Mayor to thank them for the invite and helping to make the year special, so I've been stocking up on note cards, writing paper, and stamps. I feel like I finally have a use for all the stationery I keep buying! It's all ready to go now and I'll start actually writing them out next week. On Tuesday we went to a 100th birthday party in Blaenavon - there must be something in the water up there - and then I had finance committee and school governors at Maendy. Of course I didn't check my email before going so I had to be like, oh yeah, I totally knew I was chairing today. (I'm the Vice Chair.) It was fine though and we managed to get through the AGM by 7pm. After that we had a little 'retirement' party for Marianna as she had served her last day as the Mini Mayor! I officially finish at the Council AGM n