Category: Uncategorized

It has been a while since I titled one of these with something besides “administrivia.”

An interesting side-effect of me running this site is that once in a very great while, a complete stranger will email me. Not a big deal; I’m an easy find, on purpose. (I used to not be public about my identity, and then realized I didn’t give two shits.) You would be surprised how often it’s been someone with an actual connection to Rory, which has freaked me out more than a little, though that hasn’t happened in a long time. But sometimes it’s another fangirl (not meaning to be dismissive; I call myself a fangirl) who likes to go down internet rabbit holes about Rory, and then presents me her findings to bounce them off me and see what I think. It’s kind of fun. I used to search for stuff like that but damn, that’s been four or five years gone now — I’ve been in kind of a personal almost-life-and-death struggle more often than not. So it’s nice someone’s helping me out. I didn’t ask. They’re just being helpful.

I don’t mean they’re breaking into anything they don’t belong in. There are places where orphan news articles end up that mention Rory in some capacity. These articles used to be on the websites of the publications that first published them, but those publications have since removed the articles because they are old, so you have to look to archive sites and mirror sites to find them. I really wish publications would quit being assholes about this — you’re supposed to be papers of record, for fuck’s sake, and text files do not require much storage space — but, here we are. Unfortunately. So I’m glad anyone stored them at all, and this is why I store articles here too. The more repeats, the better. Anyway, that’s where people look. It’s no secret. It’s all public record.

There are other public records too. Again, no big secret. Just stuff.

I said all that to say this: I am pondering making a change to the bio section, specifically about Rory’s family. If I do that it will not be as a “gotcha,” it will just be to make a more complete record, because I do that here. I don’t want the rest of you getting the fucking vapors, getting offended, or whatever other negative thing you can come up with. Like I said, it’s public record already. Freely accessible. Hell, some of you have likely seen this stuff already and you thought it was supposed to be classified info so you don’t talk about it. That is your decision. I might make a different one.

But I gotta think about this some more, about whether it’s worth the drama. There will probably be drama. I’m really not up for that at the moment.

Let me get this out of the way, too: it’s nothing to do with his wife. I have reason to believe I recently learned her name and you will not see me announce it here or anywhere else. That’s a line I won’t cross. I don’t know if they have kids, but I wouldn’t name them either. This person I’m talking about is an adult male — someone older than Rory, in fact. FYI.

“What’s the vexing question?”

Just whether to update his bio with this new info. I might, I might not. I haven’t decided yet. No, this is not a ploy to get Rory to talk to me. (Let’s just get that out of the way right now.) I just want to make it clear that if I do add this info, it’s not to be an asshole and it wasn’t on a whim. I really did give it serious thought. That is all. Carry on.

Oh wow, I’ve been gone way too long.

Okay. Not really “gone.” Was here, just wasn’t updating.

Long story short, shit had gotten hairy. I’m still where I was, but there for a while I wasn’t real sure how things would go and I spent many weeks teetering on the edge of real hunger because a lot of what was keeping me going materially had dried up. It wasn’t from lack of trying to improve my situation but it was starting to look like nothing was going to work.

And finally I found a job. It is nothing earth-shattering but, based on the number of times I saw a job listing for this on Indeed before I finally applied because there wasn’t anything that would have kept me from working any days asked, they needed me at least as much as I needed them. It’s nice when it works out that way.

It’s not meant to be permanent. I’ll stay in the current employment situation as long as I have to in order to get to the next phase — there are phases now; I finally have a game plan — but I intend to move on to something else at some point. I’ll know when it’s time.

In the meantime, here is a recent Rory for you!

Well. It’s recent from my POV. Possibly also yours, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve seen it on Instagram already. It seems Mr. McCann has entered into some sort of partnership with an outfit (no pun intended) called Slanj Kilts, which has apparently decided to diversify into whisky-making somehow. And as we fangirls are marvelously aware, if there are two things Rory loves in this world besides Mrs. McCann and his mum, those are kilts and whisky. Thus.

I was given to understand Rory likes the peaty whiskies, or at least he loves two of them that I’m aware of — but apparently, this one’s not peaty. I’m mad curious to try it. Perhaps one of these days.

Anyway. Have fun. If this wasn’t on Instagram before, it will turn up there now. (Big man has not shared it himself.) I still find stuff there from my old screenshots and stuff. On Pinterest too. It’s a nice little walk down memory lane.

I had meant to be a good little fangirl and wish Rory a happy birthday on the day of, but I’ve got all manner of stuff going on that isn’t usually going on in my day-to-day, and the minute you throw me off my daily routine, I start forgetting things left and right. I did post about it on Facebook, but I get on Facebook daily. I don’t write here daily. Therein lies the problem.

Anyway, happy birthday, big man! Hope you had a great time.

Similarly I’ve got all kinds of shit to do today, but I wanted to pop in here real quick because I got this in the Google Alerts and thought it was funny so I am passing it on to you: Apparently, we’re seeing another wolf reference in Rory’s life and career. You may have seen from his bio on this site that McCann means “son of wolf cub,” right? And then there was the whole House Clegane saving the girls of House Stark thing. Here we go again with the lupine references. And I don’t mean the flowers.

That’s okay. My life’s pretty much wall-to-wall with the big dogs and the caniforms; I live with three Great Pyrenees (and am dogsitting at present until the middle of next week), and I see black bears around here a lot. And to think I identify as a cat person…

I just want you all to know that when you search the name Sandor Clegane on Amazon (USA store), this turns up in the search results.

A panini press. A grilled-sandwich squisher. A toastie-maker. And this was NOT the first one I saw in these exact search results. Third or fourth actually?

I wanna know what smartass at Amazon algorithmed this one. I wanna shake his hand.

Like, five of you are outraged right now. Look. Rory’s gonna laugh too. Don’t believe me? Show it to him.

I’m giggling just thinking about him giggling. This has totally made my night. (I’m up late, not up early.)

Happy March Equinox! Spring for probably most of you reading, fall for the Southern Hemisphere.

First up, a recent interview with Rory, just ’cause we all love to hear his voice:

He’s righter than he knows. It’s not just a matter of scenery or of the Scottish economy. If you know enough about Scotland, there is a whole treasury of Scotland references in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Or I dunno, Rory probably knows that. He’s not one to show off his brains, but he’s a smart fella. I once hoped to compile a list of ASOIAF/GOT Scotland references for another site I was keeping, but during my worst poverty I lost that domain. I have another one I can stick it on, though. It’d be fun.

Next up. I wanted to let you know that I’m moving this site’s domain name again. There’s a sale on with .com domains for new registrations at my current hosting service. This wasn’t a new registration but I still got half off. I thought, “fuck it,” you know? I will have three more domains after this to move and I’ll probably do that later this week if I don’t forget. But ANYWAY, there may be a blip in site availability as they switch over. Past experience tells me that if there is one, it won’t last long, but I’m going to warn you anyway ’cause I’m nice like that.

And obviously, at that point it’ll be paid up for the following year, too. So that’ll be out of the way and no more drama for a while. Yay!

I haven’t forgotten Rory, this site, or y’all. Some things are better in my life, some I wish I could change, and basically just the whole past three and a half years has taken the wind out of my sails, and my mother’s passing last December didn’t help. (I have gotten particularly useless, except for the odd jobs I do around here, ever since then. Didn’t feel hugely sad, just went numb and got stuck. Same thing really, I guess.) I am currently planning a way to redirect my energy and make sure I get more done. This time in NorCal was never meant to be a final stop, unless the universe suddenly makes it one. It’s a way station, and I need to be making plans to move on at some point. I know where I’m going. You probably do too. (Not Scotland. Unless they develop a digital-nomad visa?) I just can’t do it YET. Got work to do.

Also got work to do here. As I allocate my time, that’ll include time spent here. Looooong overdue. Massive apologies that this place has gone stagnant. (Sorry, Rory!) I need to consolidate some more material at the very LEAST.

Sorry for my long silence here. I’ve been neglecting a whole bunch of stuff I shouldn’t be, one item of which I’m actually getting paid for, and I’m fairly disgusted with myself but hopefully I’m coming out the other side of it and can get on with things.

I wanted to drop in and say something because I just got the news about Denzil Meyrick today.

If you’re going “what’s that got to do with Rory?” then you’re new to the fandom, right? Meyrick wrote/ was writing a series of crime novels about a character named Jim Daley, a police officer in Scotland, and in recent years had been working on bringing DCI Daley to television. He posted on Facebook wondering aloud who his fans would want to see in the role, and they put him onto Rory as a candidate. Last I heard there had been filming of the pilot episode but I’ve heard nothing beyond that. The way TV works, the creators will put together the pilot episode and then shop it around to various networks and maybe it’ll get picked up and maybe it won’t. Rory’s already featured in at least one TV series that didn’t get picked up. You may have seen the video of the ad for it on YouTube.

I don’t know if that will be the fate of the DCI Daley series. It could go either way, really, if the decision has not already been made; they could say, “Oh, Meyrick has passed away so let’s drop this because it won’t be the same without him,” or they could say, “Oh no, Meyrick has passed away so let’s make this happen in his honor.” We’ll just have to wait and see.

One thing’s for sure: the news doesn’t say (as far as I’ve seen) what took Meyrick from us, but he didn’t see it coming. His recent Facebook posts indicate he expected to have a full year. There will be one more DCI Daley novel coming out this summer, apparently, for instance. All I can think is it was one of those things that tends to take us middle-aged people off when we least expect it. I always say that from ages forty to sixty we’re really running a deadly gauntlet and if we can make it to sixty we’ll be okay for a while yet. I am sorry for Denzil’s family, friends, and fans that that was not the case for him.

Oh hey, everyone! Happy New Year.

While I’d be lying if I said I was wall-to-wall busy, at least in a way that would have kept me from updating here, I have definitely been very distracted. Things got financially hairy there for a while. They may still yet again, but for now I’ve reached a weird little harbor: I’ve got a new odd job that may keep me for a while, and I’ve got a one-off gig for a friend that I’ve already been paid half for and when I get done, I’ll get the other half. That’s going to be my backup-slash-emergency fund. The odd job will be good for day-to-day financials, of which I have very few at this point, and also for adding to my savings. So I’m not panicking like I was. If you’ve never had money woes, you can’t really appreciate how much of your brainspace they can take up. I hate it. Hopefully I just went through my final year of things being That Bad. We’ll see.

We’ve just seen the U.S. debut of The Damned. Well. I haven’t seen it. The way things have been going, I’ll likely wait ’til it’s on DVD; there’s a movie theater in town, but it’s a bit farther than I would want to walk. If I already had a bicycle, that would be one thing; I can now afford the occasional movie excursion. The bicycle is coming. I just haven’t figured out how I’m going to make that happen yet. I have a few options, all with their unique pros and cons. But after I get it, I can start thinking about functioning a bit more normally as far as going out and doing stuff.

I’m certainly not going to wait until I’ve got a guy to do things with. There’s a vaguely possible candidate but, true to my general pattern of unavailable men, he’s in Canada so I can count on maybe seeing him once or twice a year unless we start dating, and even then it wouldn’t be often. I can at least look seriously at getting a passport now — the first time I met him in person, a passport might as well have been on the moon for me, so my change in fortunes affects that too. But this is counting my chickens before they hatch. I’ve seen signs that he’s interested? But he’s a weirdo, in a different way than I am a weirdo, so it’s hard to tell for sure. I do not say that to disparage. I mean, Rory’s a weirdo, and we all love him for that. Nothing wrong with being a weirdo. In general. But meanwhile, I’ve gone to movies by myself before. Restaurants too. It didn’t kill me. There’s also a library in town and I’ll be hitting that too.

I could even, hypothetically, restore my Rory collection and add to it. I probably will. I still have his autographed photo and some DVDs and that Entertainment Weekly edition with him and Thor on the cover. Also that miniature Hound helmet and the enamel pin. I’d like to snag the Game of Thrones box set again. I might do that for myself as a birthday present, since that’s coming up next Friday. (Fifty-one. Kind of anticlimactic.)

Hope you are all doing well. I see my visitor count hasn’t dropped any, and it’s nice to see that you still stop by. I’m not going to make any promises about upcoming updates, but that’s at least a thing I want to do, if that counts at all.

In case three of you have not seen this yet. Sound on:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rory McCann (@bigmanrorymccann)

I suspect there is a female-type person aboard in one clip, but of course I cannot tell who it is (even if it were his wife, I can’t confirm or deny that as I have no idea what she looks like, though the possibility of it being his sister is not off the table because now I think of it, Sally-Gay’s hair looked a lot like that during the filming of Season 8), and of course that’s not going to stop the wild speculation from fangirls generally. I get it. Just don’t expect any final answers, because those would have to come from the big man himself and y’all know by now he’s no blabbermouth.

He sort of used to be. He used to be more open about his life, but I can’t help thinking that backfired on him at some point and he has since wised up. It’s kind of a shame because he seems like a really interesting person, but if people were giving him shit because they knew stuff and they could find him — well, y’all know what they say about rotten apples and barrels.

Anyway. Enjoy.

P.S. I wouldn’t have done any better with that pillow shot. Except the ball would have STAYED ON the pillow as it sailed into the water. I’m talented like that.

I know all you fangirls have seen the trailer just dropped for The Damned, right? Probably got screenshots too.

Well, in case you didn’t get screenshots, here ya go.

And JUST IN CASE you have not seen the trailer:

Smart PR people, making sure Rory’s face was in the thumbnail.

It always amuses me to see him in something horror. We’ve talked about that before: he hates watching horror films. He’ll hide his face for the jump scares and probably the grody stuff. I’m the same way. Like, I love The Walking Dead, but I have to be crocheting or knitting as I’m watching it, that way I have an excuse to look down at strategic moments. So I get it, but it’s still funny to me. It is of course never the same experience being the actor and being the audience. Remember Rory talking about the scene in Game of Thrones with the zombie bear but all he saw was like a tennis ball and a green screen? Yeah. Never as scary to film it. So that’s why.

Well, and this was made in Iceland. Note to entertainment industry: If you want Rory in your project, film it in Iceland. You’re welcome. That’ll be eleventy billion dollars plz.

Just kidding.

No I’m not.

BUT, it looks like it will be a really good flick AND it is coming out the month of my birthday. I am so stoked. I live in a smallish town now, but it has a movie theater. WATCH me get my ass over there and see it. Might be matinee on opening day but god dawg it… Same goes for Gladiator II this next month if I can at all help it.

Hoping I can help it.

EXCITEMENT

Ahem. As you were. Sorry I ran a little late with this but you know what I always say: I chronicle. I do not scoop. It’s not even on purpose. It’s just me setting low expectations so I am less of a disappointment. I’m sneaky like that. You’re welcome.

Oh, how exciting! Rory got another voice job! If you were watching that DNA thing with Ancestry.com in the UK tonight, you heard him.

Just TYPICAL, though: this probably isn’t anything I’ll ever find on DVD. Dammit, big man… [shakes fist]

Nah, I’m playin’. (Okay, a little.) Always good to have a bit more of Rory’s voice out there in the world…