Politics I continue to be obsessed with the US presidential campaign season, far more to be honest than I've ever been with our own elections. Obviously some of this has to do with the glamour of it all, the big stadiums, the rhetoric, the colours (and being from Liverpool I can well understand how divisive the colours red and blue can be depending upon the context). Unlike UK politics of late in which ideologies have rather become blurred, the selection of Palin sees the two sides, liberal and conservative, being polarised around fundamental points of view, between what I think is right and what's clearly wrong. There's no grey area this time, or rather a kind of purple.
After spending months saying that I didn't really care who the Democratic candidate would be, after seeing his 'conference' speech, I've become really rather energised by Obama. He is fresh, he is new and more importantly it seems like he would be perfect for the job president. Much was made in the past couple of days about how Palin and McCain's speeches demonstrate that 'they're just like us' (or in this case 'they're just like US'). Which is fine, if that's what you want, though you can't then complain if they're just as corruptible as we are and prone to the same mistakes. Personally what I would like to see is someone who's nothing like us; I want someone who's better than I am, because otherwise what's the point?
Also: Now that was one bad convention speech: "John McCain sounded like the vestry board chairman speaking at the church social about the success of the raffle. Or, as a colleague just put it: he looked like the guy who'd been the office accountant for 40 years giving his retirement address. After he'd eaten a little too much Chicken Kiev."
Incy Wincy
Liverpool Life Here, then, the obligatory Liverpool blogger's photo of La Machine, which I visited this morning just before it was hoisted off the building and carried to a 'secret location'. It is an immense structure and pictures don't really reflect that. There were hundreds of us watching, from travellers taking a peak as they wait for a train at Lime Street to those wanting to have a wider view from St.George's Hall. I was reminded of scenes in the Godzilla of people looking up, which was clearly the point -- it's incongruous and unreal and like nothing the city has seen before so all you can do is stand and gape.
a problem of their choosing
Giant spider brings Liverpool to standstill
La Machine is here and it's big. I wondered how they were going to demolish that building.
Wallace & Gromit model for Harvey Nics
How It Was Done
So much work for a single frame.
Scotland the Baffling
"I've come to love so many things about Scotland. The fish suppers, the mountains, the graffiti ... but I cannot get my head around THE TUB." It's called simply a bowl in these parts and I agree that on the face of it, this is a curious habit. But then you look at the sink itself and ugh!
I'm a rock chick, get me out of here!
Laura Barton tackles opera and has pretty much the same reaction I have. The comments from readers are as callous as you'd expect.
In Search of the Simple Sandwich
"For the last few years, I’ve noticed a creeping obsession among the sandwich-vendors of our nation’s capital and high street to add all sorts of random stuff to their lunchtime staples, turning what might otherwise be a simple, beautiful, tasty thing into something utterly fussy and overcomplicated."
Librarians find the weirdest things in returned books
"Pals keeps a collection of creative and unusual "bookmarks" on display behind her desk in case people want them back. Her wall is covered with greeting cards, personal letters, travel mementos, board game pieces, doilies, playing cards and one recent addition: a list of "karma violations." She also has found combs, deflated balloons and origami creations."
How pop music transfers should work
If Keisha were to leave and somehow convince Mutya and Siobhan to give it another go, who would be the Sugababes then? It'd be the Bucks Fizz band dispute all over again.
Sushi & business have more in common than you might think
I do love the design of Yo Sushi outlets. It's just a pity I'm not fond of the food.
Curtains Up On Sydney Theatre Company 2009
Cate Blanchett's new company has snagged Steven Soderbergh to direct a production, the content of which is still under wraps.
Pink Panther Ultimate Collection Prowls to Disc
Proper recreations of Eighties tea times are finally in our grasp. The Panther goes into the car and five minutes later the TARDIS is materialising at the side of the road. A different road, obviously.
The borrowers: 16-plus American adaptations of British television shows
A typically well researched piece from The AV Club. I hadn't seen any clips from the US version of Coupling before and I can immediately see why it flopped. Over here we seem more used to long involved scenes about situations with speeches and fewer punchlines, whereas the US sitcoms I've seen tend to have staccato editing and much higher gag rate.
The Palin Meltdown in Slo-Mo
Sarah Palin Soap Opera
I'm becoming slightly obsessed with the Sarah Palin story. Not her, you understand, but the fall out at the Republican Party's apparent inability to deal with a problem of their choosing, pulling out of interviews with networks when they have the audacity to criticise a candidate and the like. Unlike here, were not too long ago on BBC News, John Sopel referred to Palin as John Major's running mate during the news headlines. Now, as per The Daily Show, here's your moment of zen:
La Machine is here and it's big. I wondered how they were going to demolish that building.
Wallace & Gromit model for Harvey Nics
How It Was Done
So much work for a single frame.
Scotland the Baffling
"I've come to love so many things about Scotland. The fish suppers, the mountains, the graffiti ... but I cannot get my head around THE TUB." It's called simply a bowl in these parts and I agree that on the face of it, this is a curious habit. But then you look at the sink itself and ugh!
I'm a rock chick, get me out of here!
Laura Barton tackles opera and has pretty much the same reaction I have. The comments from readers are as callous as you'd expect.
In Search of the Simple Sandwich
"For the last few years, I’ve noticed a creeping obsession among the sandwich-vendors of our nation’s capital and high street to add all sorts of random stuff to their lunchtime staples, turning what might otherwise be a simple, beautiful, tasty thing into something utterly fussy and overcomplicated."
Librarians find the weirdest things in returned books
"Pals keeps a collection of creative and unusual "bookmarks" on display behind her desk in case people want them back. Her wall is covered with greeting cards, personal letters, travel mementos, board game pieces, doilies, playing cards and one recent addition: a list of "karma violations." She also has found combs, deflated balloons and origami creations."
How pop music transfers should work
If Keisha were to leave and somehow convince Mutya and Siobhan to give it another go, who would be the Sugababes then? It'd be the Bucks Fizz band dispute all over again.
Sushi & business have more in common than you might think
I do love the design of Yo Sushi outlets. It's just a pity I'm not fond of the food.
Curtains Up On Sydney Theatre Company 2009
Cate Blanchett's new company has snagged Steven Soderbergh to direct a production, the content of which is still under wraps.
Pink Panther Ultimate Collection Prowls to Disc
Proper recreations of Eighties tea times are finally in our grasp. The Panther goes into the car and five minutes later the TARDIS is materialising at the side of the road. A different road, obviously.
The borrowers: 16-plus American adaptations of British television shows
A typically well researched piece from The AV Club. I hadn't seen any clips from the US version of Coupling before and I can immediately see why it flopped. Over here we seem more used to long involved scenes about situations with speeches and fewer punchlines, whereas the US sitcoms I've seen tend to have staccato editing and much higher gag rate.
The Palin Meltdown in Slo-Mo
Sarah Palin Soap Opera
I'm becoming slightly obsessed with the Sarah Palin story. Not her, you understand, but the fall out at the Republican Party's apparent inability to deal with a problem of their choosing, pulling out of interviews with networks when they have the audacity to criticise a candidate and the like. Unlike here, were not too long ago on BBC News, John Sopel referred to Palin as John Major's running mate during the news headlines. Now, as per The Daily Show, here's your moment of zen:
Elsewhere I spin round in circles trying to review a Doctor Who novel because I don't want to give too much away.
Lost Souls.
Audio This morning, when the Large Hadron Collider was turned on at CERN in Geneva, the world didn’t end, despite the presence of Radio 4’s correspondent for the Big Bang Day Andrew Marr, who as Doctor Who’s Aliens of London demonstrated is always on hand for some of mankind’s greatest apocalypses. The non-appearance of a cosmos crunching singularity made some people very cross, particularly viewers texting in to the BBC News channel who seemed to be suggesting that there was little point in spending all that money if it didn’t have a greater televisual spectacle than men and women in coats becoming really excited over a white dot on a plasma screen. What were they expecting? A shot of a giant laser beam flying through a tunnel like the Death Star in Star Wars? A crack in the Earth’s core perhaps? Or even as today’s Torchwood radio special suggested, the emergence of inter-dimensional aliens on a mission to make humanity glow like they’ve collectively overdosed on Ready Brek?It’s not unknown for the recent franchise to be authoring to a shopping list (no matter what Russell T Davies says) but this was a particular difficult commission because it also had to fit within a day’s worth of programmes marking this ‘historic event’ ™. It could not have been easy for writer Joseph Lidster to work a story around this kind of real life scientific event, especially with the real switch on having already been broadcast, and also take mash it up with post-watershed gore and swearfest and make it acceptable for a Radio 4 audience in the middle of the afternoon (though after listening to Professor Brian Cox’s earlier doco about famous fans of particle physics which dropped the shit-word, the channel’s inspirationally far swearier already than most people might suspect).
In the event Lost Souls did at times sound like the Torchwood Quiz Book of Particle Physics. At one point, Captain Jack plonked Gwen and Ianto in front of a plane window and explained what CERN was and what the LHC did, and though that information was to become important later in the episode, if this had been the eighties the scene would have been illustrated by Rowan Barnes-Murphy. To keep things on narratively on track and tell a proper story rather than ask us a question about how Quarks are made (or something), the writer’s solution was take his cue from the setting of the story, Geneva, and turn in a love letter to the UNIT stories of the Pertwee era, with Captain Jack filling in for the Doctor.
Instead of a suspicious Brigadier, we found Martha Jones calling in Torchwood to investigate strange disappearance at a scientific project, the LHC becoming a nu-Who Inferno project, with CERN essentially a base under siege. Instead of being tempted to take full advantage of radio and flying in dragons or turning the sky purple, Lidster instead had the aliens sucking neutrons from their prey in tunnels with the companions under greatest threat, almost being transformed themselves. The head of the project turned out to be a patsy and with one of her subordinates working against him having already been possessed already by said aliens. And to cap it all there was a squee inducing finale as, for the first time in the franchise’s history, reversing the polarity of the neutron flow wasn't simply a cover for some useless deus ex machina, but the actual resolution for the story.
Lord knows what the usual audience for the Afternoon Play thought of this intrusion into their quiet universe. Tomorrow’s slot offers a drama in which ‘poetry dialogue, monologue and song combine to provide and insight into the spirit of a 1930s industrial town and its people’. Lost Soul’s only concession was a rather contrived opening scene in which the supposedly secret organisation introduced themselves to some random club employee in an effort to orientate casual listeners and a quote from Tennyson at the end. Otherwise it was business as usual with faux-dance music, exposition and shouting and a spectacular amount of continuity in what was essentially a direct sequel to the shocking conclusion of the previous series, with the team are still grieving over the deaths of Owen and Tosh, their funerals having just passed.
It is to Lidster’s credit that unlike The Stolen Earth this felt like a genuine next episode, especially as the hole in the team was utilised as a way for the aliens to suck on Ianto/ turn him into a gibbering idiot. The execution was just a bit clumsy with Martha becoming the kind of person we all hate at funerals as she went first to Jack then Gwen asking them if they were all right and how they feel – leading to one of Torchwood’s worst ever scenes in which, whilst waiting for a computer whatsit to do a thing, the Captain underscored once again that for decades everyone’s been dying around his feet but that he has to keep strong, with all the dramatic power of a US daytime tv soap. The episode was replete with such duff moments ('I wish I had a sonic screwdriver! This rock will have to do...'), though it wouldn’t be Torchwood without them, and most of the time I was laugh with rather than at it.
The acting was good across the board, especially of the guests Tittybangbang's Lucy Montgomery as the blustering head of the project (more Pertwee!). John and Freema were a bit ill at ease without a camera, and Eve seemed to be emphasising her accent more than usual but Gareth was best, working the ‘Welsh Ambassador’ joke for all its worth but turning direction perfectly for his usual descent into madness. I’m getting old so I think the music was too loud, but the soundscape was effective and at times even a cut above what you’d expect from Big Finish. Director Kate McAll kept the drama moving and had clearly researched how a usual tv episode is paced. Overall, the radio producers tried their hardest not remake Slipback and create a worthwhile addition to what they’re apparently calling the Torchwood sub-universe these days, and if it had been filmed it would certainly be seen as one of the better episodes.
For what that’s worth.
The Doctor Trap.
Books Expectation is one of the more intriguing emotions. Before reading Simon Messingham’s The Doctor Trap, I’d expected to open the subsequent review talking about The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell's short story from the 1920s in which a New York big game hunter is shipwrecked on a Caribbean island and ironically finds himself being tracked by a Russian aristocrat with a very large gun who gives him a taste of his own medicine. It’s been filmed many times in various guises, most notably as a Hollywood b-picture in the early 30s, shot cheaply on the already standing Skull Island set from King Kong and featuring much of the cast of that film, including Fay Wrey. I was going to write about that story, because the blurb on the back of the book suggests this would be another iteration of it, with the Doctor being chased across a planet by a small army of hunters led by an apparently English aristo this time, replacing Zaroff, the evil genius from the original.As the book opens there’s nothing to suggest that this going to be any different. We’re introduced to Sebastiene, a Squire of Gothos figure, emperor of his own eco-system who’s invited a society who task themselves on killing the last specimens of dying predatory species to a game across twelve zones, the prize being the last of the Time Lords. Meanwhile, the Doctor/Donna answer a distress call, and having landed at a polar base, soon find themselves in the midst of a remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing with scientists being murdered and fleeing by the dozen. It’s not long, though, before the Doctor is captured and dropped into the first of the hunting zones, Donna’s whisked away to who knows were and reader sits back awaiting endless chapters recreating episode three of The Deadly Assassin with our brown suited friend outwitting each of the different hunters and Sebastiene enjoying the spectacle.
Expectation is such an intriguing emotion because sometimes, just sometimes, expectation can be confounded. To explain how would ruin the first of Messingham’s novel’s many twists but suffice to say that it’s been a while since I’ve read one of these Tenth Doctor novels and found myself wondering exactly what it was going to do next, in which the author is hell bent on keeping the reader on their toes. If a certain recent Big Finish audio was seemingly impossible to review because of a single twist, The Doctor Trap is actually impossible to review because to really enjoy it you can’t know what happens much after page twenty-two. Whilst there are a few familiar beats in what occurs, Messingham unfortunately predicts genre elements that became rather important towards the bottom end of the last season, their application is sufficiently different enough not to matter too much.
I really enjoyed Simon’s Eighth Doctor Novel, The Face Eater, especially the characters, and it’s pleasing to see that nearly ten years later he’s not lost his touch. Sebastiene is a captivating creation, the kind of larger than life adversary that I wish the new series would do more often, so desperate is it to present a kind of realistic human evil. A pretentious Prospero, part pantomime ponce, mainly malevolent menace, his unpredictability underscores everything, weakened by an irrational idiocy. There’s Baris too, the nu-Who Whizz Kid, a Gallifrey One attendee taken to its ultimate extreme. Sadly, the gathering of hunters are a bit of a mixed bag and the author’s clearly constrained by the pagination as to how much personality he can give them; on screen you’d imagine that the actor would be the one to flesh out the details. Not so the Doctor or Donna, both of whom are captured perfectly and now that we know what Catherine Tate is capable of you can only imagine how inspired she’d be in some of the scenes this story would give her.
To downplay things slightly, given that this is a spin-off novel and the general status-quo can’t change, don’t expect (there’s that word again) anything quite as cosmos shattering as the close of The Stolen Earth. Indeed in some ways the author becomes so determined to pull the Axminster out from under us there’s a bit too much happening at the climax. But you can’t criticise the fact that Messingham, whilst still keeping the book largely within the primary age demographic, doesn’t make many concessions in terms of the narrative construction and has perfectly injected the magic ingredients that make a story work for a family audience, though like some of Steven Moffat’s writing for the series I’d say its skewed towards the older members of that group. He's also unafraid to drop in a few fan-pleasing references and so he should. If your story features hunters who chase down the most dangerous monsters in the galaxy, why wouldn’t they want a Dalek head hanging on their wall?
Doctor Who: The Doctor Trap by Simon Messingham
ISBN: 978-1846075582
RRP: £6.99
Released: 4th September 2008
the 'troubled' tag
Collective: Amy Winehouse in 2003
The BBC's largely user content motivated culture site recently closed but the archive is still up and includes gems such as this interview with Winehouse when she was only 19 and still starting out in the business. The featured live performance video reminds us that behind the 'troubled' tag she's been given by the tabloid is one of our great singers. The forum comments are very poignant.
Some of the World's Strangest Fences
McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School
I bookmarked this before tonight's announcement. Taking a look at the photographs I posted about yesterday, of course she's pregnant in them, or at the very least trying to make it less obvious with the scarf and wearing black. Barack's response is perfectly pitched too: "Let me be as clear as possible... I think people's families are off limits and people's children are especially off limits." If I was an undecided and my decision was purely on the basis on how well the two sides were running their campaign, let alone the issues, I'd say the Democrats would be swaying me at the moment.
Charles van Commenee to take up baton for Britain
Like football managers, even the heads of athletic squads can be replaced it seems if the team's not doing so well. Commanee's a task master -- even when she won Bronze in Athens he offered harsh worlds to Kelly Sotherton when he was coaching her. Will our runners and throwers respond to tough love?
Even more live music in new schedule for Radio 3
There was a fair about of tetchiness when the new controller of the station announced that all of the concerts in the Performance slot would be pre-recorded -- some of the letters to Radio 4's Feedback were downright nasty! But I agreed with them all -- the taped version of the programme lacks the atmosphere gained by a presenter if not being there at least having the sounds of the audience behind them as happens with the Proms. They could just as well be playing cds sometimes. Great news, then, and an acknowledgement that to some extent the experiment hasn't worked. Note though that it is still only thirty and from the BBC's own orchestras.
Obituary: Ken Campbell
I've been a bit out of it, so imagine the shock when I had to read this in an RSS feed this morning. Ken's one of my favourite performers, one of Doctor Who's nearly men, there wasn't a form of performance he couldn't or didn't achieve. As Michael Billington says, he is truly irreplaceable.
Opinion: Can Blockbuster be saved?
There are some useful ideas in here -- scrapping the genre arrangement and simply using alphabetical order amongst the most sensible -- but I don't know that it can. Having been the market leader for so long it's find it difficult in a more crowded market, where it's almost as cheap to buy a film as travel to Blockbuster and rent it for one night and where people are patient enough to wait the extra couple of months for it to be in pay-per-view (should they have the technology) or for it to turn up through Livefilm/Netflix.
Panel Beating : Relaunch Issues
Noise To Signal analyses pointless instances of renaming, renumbering and reimagining in comics of the kind which simply seem designed to piss off collectors just trying to work out a way of storing their collection. I'm sure there's money to be made by someone who designs a classification system for comics and graphic novels which takes into account both chronology and the desperation to alphabetise.
Have you ever seen Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog in the same room together?
Publisher admits errors in 'damaging' age banding row
Would this have happened if an independent body, in other words a BBFC for words and pages, had taken up this challenge rather than a publisher themselves?
Finally, though this isn't quite as entertaining as the famous Jim'll of the cub scouts and their packed lunches, here's a video of some horrendously drunk Hollywood animators on a roller coaster. According to the imdb, the shooter, Jim Baker worked at Disney in the late 90s and was most recently a senior on Beowolf.
The BBC's largely user content motivated culture site recently closed but the archive is still up and includes gems such as this interview with Winehouse when she was only 19 and still starting out in the business. The featured live performance video reminds us that behind the 'troubled' tag she's been given by the tabloid is one of our great singers. The forum comments are very poignant.
Some of the World's Strangest Fences
McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School
I bookmarked this before tonight's announcement. Taking a look at the photographs I posted about yesterday, of course she's pregnant in them, or at the very least trying to make it less obvious with the scarf and wearing black. Barack's response is perfectly pitched too: "Let me be as clear as possible... I think people's families are off limits and people's children are especially off limits." If I was an undecided and my decision was purely on the basis on how well the two sides were running their campaign, let alone the issues, I'd say the Democrats would be swaying me at the moment.
Charles van Commenee to take up baton for Britain
Like football managers, even the heads of athletic squads can be replaced it seems if the team's not doing so well. Commanee's a task master -- even when she won Bronze in Athens he offered harsh worlds to Kelly Sotherton when he was coaching her. Will our runners and throwers respond to tough love?
Even more live music in new schedule for Radio 3
There was a fair about of tetchiness when the new controller of the station announced that all of the concerts in the Performance slot would be pre-recorded -- some of the letters to Radio 4's Feedback were downright nasty! But I agreed with them all -- the taped version of the programme lacks the atmosphere gained by a presenter if not being there at least having the sounds of the audience behind them as happens with the Proms. They could just as well be playing cds sometimes. Great news, then, and an acknowledgement that to some extent the experiment hasn't worked. Note though that it is still only thirty and from the BBC's own orchestras.
Obituary: Ken Campbell
I've been a bit out of it, so imagine the shock when I had to read this in an RSS feed this morning. Ken's one of my favourite performers, one of Doctor Who's nearly men, there wasn't a form of performance he couldn't or didn't achieve. As Michael Billington says, he is truly irreplaceable.
Opinion: Can Blockbuster be saved?
There are some useful ideas in here -- scrapping the genre arrangement and simply using alphabetical order amongst the most sensible -- but I don't know that it can. Having been the market leader for so long it's find it difficult in a more crowded market, where it's almost as cheap to buy a film as travel to Blockbuster and rent it for one night and where people are patient enough to wait the extra couple of months for it to be in pay-per-view (should they have the technology) or for it to turn up through Livefilm/Netflix.
Panel Beating : Relaunch Issues
Noise To Signal analyses pointless instances of renaming, renumbering and reimagining in comics of the kind which simply seem designed to piss off collectors just trying to work out a way of storing their collection. I'm sure there's money to be made by someone who designs a classification system for comics and graphic novels which takes into account both chronology and the desperation to alphabetise.
Have you ever seen Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog in the same room together?
Publisher admits errors in 'damaging' age banding row
Would this have happened if an independent body, in other words a BBFC for words and pages, had taken up this challenge rather than a publisher themselves?
Finally, though this isn't quite as entertaining as the famous Jim'll of the cub scouts and their packed lunches, here's a video of some horrendously drunk Hollywood animators on a roller coaster. According to the imdb, the shooter, Jim Baker worked at Disney in the late 90s and was most recently a senior on Beowolf.
To Be Or Not To Be (1942)
Hamlet played by Joseph Tura
The title of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film offers a double meaning. Of course there’s the Hamlet reference which I’ll get to in a moment, but remembering that the film concerns the Polish occupation by Nazi Germany it’s a question and a call to arms – do we hide away in these difficult times surrender ourselves to death (not to be) or be true to ourselves and battle against what presently seems inevitable (to be)?
Within the film, that means that the group of actors continue their profession but instead of performing for an audience, they bend their skills to self preservation and fighting the oppressor, wearing disguises and improvising and generally being very convincing for all that. Of course, depending on how you’re interpreting Hamlet itself, the prince is either mad or using his acting skills himself to feign madness to avenge his father’s death.
The play’s appearance in the film is largely played for laughs. On both occasions that we glimpse the production it’s viewed from the stalls as the Polish actor Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) steps forward to deliver ‘To Be Or Not To’ on each occasion the opening line sparking the walk out of a service man which he initially suspects has something to do with his acting skills but he later discovers is the code his wife is using to let gentlemen callers that they can visit her dressing room because he’ll be on stage for a while.
The staging is fairly stereotypical, a stone castle hallway and medieval dress and we don’t have much of an idea of what the rest of the show will be like, because we don’t need to. It’s interesting to see that Tura’s Hamlet’s reading a book, not unlike Jacobi in the BBC production though he doesn’t read from it, shouting the lines instead at the prospective cuckold as he dashes for the exit. He’s not one of the greats; as one Nazi officer notes: “"Oh, yes I saw him [Tura] in 'Hamlet' once. What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland".”
The film has a cross genre appeal years ahead of its time, merging what initially looks like a fairly traditional back stage farce with elements of the spy and war movies. It is often hilarious, which drew some controversy at the time of release and the film flopped presumably because it was ‘too soon’ and the public weren’t ready for jokes about the occupation which sparked the war. What they missed is that like the play which inspired its title, the comedy and tragedy are intermixed and interchangable and the film is at its darkest when the Nazis frogmarch into Warsaw.
found this set of pictures
Politics A Sarah Palin pregnancy story/rumour is all over the internet. After an initial flurry of excitement all I'll say is that based on photographs alone, I'm not sure. Oh and that I've bothered to check flickr and found this set of pictures:
Whole Truth Campaign
Taken on 26th February 2008, according to the camera's date stamp, a week before it was announced. They were posted to flickr on 1st March. Here's one of them. I can't tell either way to be honest, due to lighting and a scarf. The campaign, by the way, is an attempt to gather evidence related to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
I can't tell in this photo (taken 1 March 2008) either since she's wearing a big purple coat.
Whole Truth Campaign
Taken on 26th February 2008, according to the camera's date stamp, a week before it was announced. They were posted to flickr on 1st March. Here's one of them. I can't tell either way to be honest, due to lighting and a scarf. The campaign, by the way, is an attempt to gather evidence related to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
I can't tell in this photo (taken 1 March 2008) either since she's wearing a big purple coat.
100 Things About Me
Life I've been waiting for a quiet moment to write about this. It's not much of a story. Actually it is a story and you can read about it here, but before you do I'll frame it like this. When I was constructing the 'about me', this list, the one that has at the top '100 Things About Me', I knew it was an opportunity to have a permanent place to keep certain things. One of them was the sound of my voice, the other was the following:
45: If there was one person from my past I would like to meet again it would be Rosie Holt. We were in halls together in Leeds and I always worry about what happened to her. Sometimes you don't hold on tight to the people who you later wanted to be life long friends. That's Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. I'm hoping she'll find this if she ever does an ego search on Google, so I'll repeat her name again, Rosie Holt. Just email and tell me you're OK will you?
Well, a couple of weeks ago, a day after my computer died, I finally had a chance to check my email and there was a flickr update, a Facebook friend request and an email and they were all from Rosie. I screamed to be honest -- I didn't think the plan would actually work. But she'd googled her maiden name (she's been married since then) and found herself listed here there and everywhere!
Though for reasons that are none of your business her life's been a bit more eventful than mine (something made perfectly clear when she asked me to describe the past fifteen years and the best I could do was list my CV) I think she is genuinely ok, thank goodness. So for those of you who've asked now and then if I have ever heard from her, there's your answer.
45: If there was one person from my past I would like to meet again it would be Rosie Holt. We were in halls together in Leeds and I always worry about what happened to her. Sometimes you don't hold on tight to the people who you later wanted to be life long friends. That's Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. I'm hoping she'll find this if she ever does an ego search on Google, so I'll repeat her name again, Rosie Holt. Just email and tell me you're OK will you?
Well, a couple of weeks ago, a day after my computer died, I finally had a chance to check my email and there was a flickr update, a Facebook friend request and an email and they were all from Rosie. I screamed to be honest -- I didn't think the plan would actually work. But she'd googled her maiden name (she's been married since then) and found herself listed here there and everywhere!
Though for reasons that are none of your business her life's been a bit more eventful than mine (something made perfectly clear when she asked me to describe the past fifteen years and the best I could do was list my CV) I think she is genuinely ok, thank goodness. So for those of you who've asked now and then if I have ever heard from her, there's your answer.
About Wow, I've only just noticed that Off The Telly is back online, spruced up and dynamic! Not all the old content is back up yet (and good luck to Graham or Ian or Jack or whosoever is doing that). It's clean, colourful and has an rss feed. I've missed you (us?).
Amusingly sweary
The Flying Doctors comes to dvd.
I've had one of those days were time just seems to disappear from under you and it's suddenly eight in evening and you're not sure exactly what you did with your day. I'm about to watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which I'm very excited about, though it's so humid this evening I'll be lucky to reach the end without dozing, probably.
Dirty pretty thing
Amusingly sweary interview with Keira Knightley, who I still think has done her best work out of period costume. As I noted way back in 2006, when asked by potential director John Maybury why she should appear in his film The Jacket, she replied: "If I don't make this film I'll be stuck in corsets for the rest of my career." It didn't really work did it, duchess?
Ben Affleck tones down the love for Barack Obama
I do find it interesting that there's a correlation between the actors I like and their political persuasion. To be honest though, the best thing about this linked article is the photograph, in which Ben is surprised by a cellotape machine going on the offensive.
a veep debate fantasy
Meanwhile, marbury is speculating on what the Biden/Palin televisual verbal smackdown will look like and includes a brilliant clip from the Bentsen/Quayle contest in which the latter is demolished by the former, though it's a salient reminder that the best VP candidate in the world isn't going to swing and election. Also: John McCain Only Met Sarah Palin Once!
I've had one of those days were time just seems to disappear from under you and it's suddenly eight in evening and you're not sure exactly what you did with your day. I'm about to watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which I'm very excited about, though it's so humid this evening I'll be lucky to reach the end without dozing, probably.
Dirty pretty thing
Amusingly sweary interview with Keira Knightley, who I still think has done her best work out of period costume. As I noted way back in 2006, when asked by potential director John Maybury why she should appear in his film The Jacket, she replied: "If I don't make this film I'll be stuck in corsets for the rest of my career." It didn't really work did it, duchess?
Ben Affleck tones down the love for Barack Obama
I do find it interesting that there's a correlation between the actors I like and their political persuasion. To be honest though, the best thing about this linked article is the photograph, in which Ben is surprised by a cellotape machine going on the offensive.
a veep debate fantasy
Meanwhile, marbury is speculating on what the Biden/Palin televisual verbal smackdown will look like and includes a brilliant clip from the Bentsen/Quayle contest in which the latter is demolished by the former, though it's a salient reminder that the best VP candidate in the world isn't going to swing and election. Also: John McCain Only Met Sarah Palin Once!
Please, people, not another four years
Geoffrey Perkins, the former BBC TV head of comedy has died in a road accident in London.
That is really, really tragic. Perkins was the producer of the first Hitchhikers radio series as well as being involved with pretty much all of the best television comedy since then.
Ever Decreasing Circles
We've only recently lost John Esmonde too. Here's a lengthy analysis of his finest half hours.
This Hillary Democrat won't vote for Palin
As one Egon Spendler said: “This could be extraordinarily bad.” The problem with new Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is that she has the appearance of being horrendously inoffensive (though not the politics), which perhaps makes her about the most offensive (in both senses of the word) thing that party could have done. They’re clearly desperate to suck the disillusioned Hilary supporters under her event horizon and some will be caught in her wake (despite the whiff of scandal). And here’s the thing I don’t understand -- that there may well be people who profess to be Democrats yet will vote for this other party, the very party which brought the rest of us in the world George Bush for eight years, simply because they’ve picked some woman who to be fair has nothing in common with Senator Clinton other than her gender and a lack of baggage, even though it was the very baggage and experience which made their ideal candidate interesting and useful in the first place [somewhat via].
If Obama Loses it's because of racism
But then I can’t understand why anyone would look at McCain then Obama and then pick the man who doesn’t know how many houses he owns simply because he's in the same age group and white. McCain's actually campaigning on a promise of change. Well, yes, there'll be a different man in the White House but will you or we really be able to tell the difference? Please, people, not another four years, the rest of the world, particularly the environment couldn’t take it. I'm a staunch Liberal Democrat and proud of it or hadn't you already noticed?
Is blogging dead?
I think it's changed. I think bloggers are far more aware now that they're using a communication tool and have often changed their style accordingly. I also think that there are less people taking their fingers to the keyboard rather than picking up a camera or microphone but I also think that to an extent that the quality of the writing has improved too. Plus this Metafilter thread on a certain subject shows signs of life.
The unpredictable way that useful emails arrive makes checking for them as addictive as slot machines.
Great piece from Suw about how email now commands our lives.
Giving My Sport A Bad Name
Keith Topping quite rightly calls out a Mirror tv reviewer who sarcastically refers to the BBC's apparent 'celebration of mediocrity' and fundamentally misses the point that a relay team coming fourth in the olympics is still better than coming twentieth.
Serious Macy's Shoppers
Caligula's sex and excess is bizarre and depressing
Having attempted to watch this in the late 90s when Channel 4 showed the cut version, I can only imagine that the full version is horrendous. And I agree, having oddly enough watched the I, CLAVDIVS version tonight, that John Hurt's interpretation is scary and superior.
Google Workplace
Mork calling Orson. Come in Orson.
That is really, really tragic. Perkins was the producer of the first Hitchhikers radio series as well as being involved with pretty much all of the best television comedy since then.
Ever Decreasing Circles
We've only recently lost John Esmonde too. Here's a lengthy analysis of his finest half hours.
This Hillary Democrat won't vote for Palin
As one Egon Spendler said: “This could be extraordinarily bad.” The problem with new Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is that she has the appearance of being horrendously inoffensive (though not the politics), which perhaps makes her about the most offensive (in both senses of the word) thing that party could have done. They’re clearly desperate to suck the disillusioned Hilary supporters under her event horizon and some will be caught in her wake (despite the whiff of scandal). And here’s the thing I don’t understand -- that there may well be people who profess to be Democrats yet will vote for this other party, the very party which brought the rest of us in the world George Bush for eight years, simply because they’ve picked some woman who to be fair has nothing in common with Senator Clinton other than her gender and a lack of baggage, even though it was the very baggage and experience which made their ideal candidate interesting and useful in the first place [somewhat via].
If Obama Loses it's because of racism
But then I can’t understand why anyone would look at McCain then Obama and then pick the man who doesn’t know how many houses he owns simply because he's in the same age group and white. McCain's actually campaigning on a promise of change. Well, yes, there'll be a different man in the White House but will you or we really be able to tell the difference? Please, people, not another four years, the rest of the world, particularly the environment couldn’t take it. I'm a staunch Liberal Democrat and proud of it or hadn't you already noticed?
Is blogging dead?
I think it's changed. I think bloggers are far more aware now that they're using a communication tool and have often changed their style accordingly. I also think that there are less people taking their fingers to the keyboard rather than picking up a camera or microphone but I also think that to an extent that the quality of the writing has improved too. Plus this Metafilter thread on a certain subject shows signs of life.
The unpredictable way that useful emails arrive makes checking for them as addictive as slot machines.
Great piece from Suw about how email now commands our lives.
Giving My Sport A Bad Name
Keith Topping quite rightly calls out a Mirror tv reviewer who sarcastically refers to the BBC's apparent 'celebration of mediocrity' and fundamentally misses the point that a relay team coming fourth in the olympics is still better than coming twentieth.
Serious Macy's Shoppers
Caligula's sex and excess is bizarre and depressing
Having attempted to watch this in the late 90s when Channel 4 showed the cut version, I can only imagine that the full version is horrendous. And I agree, having oddly enough watched the I, CLAVDIVS version tonight, that John Hurt's interpretation is scary and superior.
Google Workplace
Mork calling Orson. Come in Orson.
Words
I've had a letter...
Hello,Thanks Meaghan. Hope the show goes well for you and the audience. More reviews coming soon, I promise!
I am absolutely loving the Hamlet blog - the play happens to be my personal favourite so it's nice to see the Dane finally gets a blog where he can vent (or I can catch up on various versions of the show). I'm sure you're well versed on all of the Hamlet variations currently available but I did want to mention that the company for which I work is running a competition for two free tickets to Factory's presentation of Hamlet at Shakespeare's Globe Theater at midnight (the very witching time of night, perhaps?) on September 6th. It sticks to the script by only uses props provided by the audience and each cast member can play multiple roles - and which actor plays which character is decided upon by the audience as well. Should be quite interesting, I'm really looking forward to it!
If you'd like some more information about the show and the competition, you can see a listing here:
http://www.spoonfed.co.uk/spooners/competition-394/win-2-tickets-to-factorys-hamlet-430/
Otherwise, I look forward to more blogging!
Cheers,
Meaghan
Escape Velocity.
Books Pity Colin Brake, or at least the 2001 version of him. Writing his first novel, he’s commissioned to cap off one of the most experimental and interesting story arcs in the series’s history, finally answering the question of what will happen in St. Louis when the Doctor (and we) meets Fitz for the first time in a hundred years (or half a dozen novels) and doesn’t know him then send the time lord back into the vortex with his old companion and a much publicised new addition and also following Father Time, an instant classic and one of the best stories the franchise has produced in any medium. Pity him, and then wonder …The ‘stranded on Earth’ arc has by and large been very entertaining. Bits of The Turing Test might have been incoherent and as is often the case in Doctor Who some of the climaxes of the novels haven’t quite lived up to the promise of the preceding pages, but we’ve seen a largely coherent description of the passage of time and its effect on our favourite albeit debilitated timelord. It’s been most interesting to see the Doctor thread himself into society, to gather friends and allies and we ended Father Time on a note of optimism and the impression that to be frank, the Doctor had got his shit together and though still not completely in control of his faculties looking forward to seeing the decade out in the knowledge that it’s going to be alright, just wait and see. In Escape Velocity, Brake largely ignores all that and decides that since this may be the only Doctor who novel he ever writes, he’s going to tell the story he wants and basically pays lip service to everything else. In other words, wall wait just there whilst I piss up you.
I should say that for much of the time the novel is at least readable, even if its taken a good two weeks to read it, for reasons related to bitter resentment. The story, in which members of an alien race having crash landed on Earth motivate rival earth scientists in developing manned missions into space so that they can liaise with their fleet and argue the case for invasion or not, isn’t bad and offers a decent literal space race, suitably tipping its hat at the rivalry across the iron curtain of Wernher von Braun in the US and Sergey Korolyov back in the USSR. The slightly dull Kulan are probably the alien type this kind of story requires -- like the Stoans in Voyage of the Damned, just human enough for us to see that they don’t all have the same point of view. It’s the kind of romp which is the franchise’s stock in trade and has been done far worse elsewhere. But why does it have to be so determined to be a romp with dozens of characters and yet another Star Trek-lite space battle when a quest story with a personal angle would have been so much more appropriate?
The meeting in St. Louis, could have been at the climax of the novel and a more thoughtful approach would have made it what the novel is about -- perhaps making the time and place a ticking clock with both Fitz and the Doctor held up for some reason and fighting to get there for their rendezvous which they both do at the last minute or to make it really interesting not -- only to actually enter each other’s company due to an amusing coincidence related to the fact that whatever they’ve been doing is linked. Instead, Brake has the Doctor take over a bar in London, rename it St. Louis and sit in the back brooding for some months until Fitz stumbles through the door which he inevitably does at the appointed time, even though actually travelling to Missouri is the more logical option. Then, the much signposted, much awaited reunion is curtailed in favour of the aforementioned two hundred pages worth of running around only to transpire about two pages before the end and in an ill advised homage to An Unearthly Child. Hardly The Stolen Earth is it? I’m clearly falling into the trap of reviewing what’s not there, but after all the build up, we’re desperate for a story about the Doctor’s search for identity, whereas moments, such as realisation that he is a time traveller are thrown away in a sentence or two.
You want to be seeing the Doctor coming to terms with the fact that his extended stay on Earth should soon be at an end and his optimism at what may lay ahead, that his quest for knowledge will continue in time and space as he resumes his journey through the cosmos, finally able to see the sights that he‘s been reading about at The British Library all of these decades. Instead, Brake decides to unnecessarily shoehorn in the character of Control, previously seen in two past Doctor novels on the assumption that there is a cross over in readership and who I had absolutely no knowledge of. He apparently appeared in The Devil Goblins From Neptune and The King of Terror, but from what I’ve seen he’s hardly a well loved character; compare all this with the cameo of Iris in Father Time which was done with some humour. The problem is that were not really told who Control is, he doesn’t seem to have much to do with the main story and you hardly miss him when he’s gone. The sub-plot has the look, feel and chemical properties of padding and I spent much of it trying to square it with the character that Stephen Fry played in A Bit of Fry & Laurie. You can’t help but feel that if Paul Magrs had been writing the book it would indeed have been the character that Stephen Fry played in A Bit of Fry & Laurie.
To an extent, such expectations are born of our collective change in presumption as to what Doctor Who should be doing and how story arcs these days do have an epic though emotional quality. But this was being written at the same time that the audio Neverland was being recorded so there was already evidence that the franchise was already sailing its 'ships into uncharted waters. If anything in the preceding forty or so novels had done anything its to emphasise the mythic qualities of the character and the stories and here both are in short supply. Though its interesting to see him and Anji entering the TARDIS together, the Doctor and companion having largely the same reaction to its scale for the first time, it's on their way to save Fitz and planet Earth from the Kulan. Their next reaction? To have cup of tea and sit down and a chat about what to do next. Yes, the TARDIS can sit in the vortex for days before doing something, but this is supposed to be the same man who stole a space shuttle to save his daughter in the previous book! Miranda doesn’t even warrant a mention by the way. Brake’s simplistic characterisation of the Eighth Doctor seems based on a recent viewing of the TV Movie more than anything else and lacks any of the depth injected by the likes of Parkin, Miles, Orman, Blum and Magrs in their version. In places too he seems to be channelling First as though amnesia automatically leads to befuddlement.
Brake is far more comfortable when bending his breezy if sometimes grammatically incoherent style around the supporting characters. Fitz is pretty well described, though now he's conveniently developing amnesia too. There’s a quite wonderful journey through gender politics when a female scientist whose superior position on a team is torpedoed when the Doctor strides in and takes over and a figure like science fiction fan Dave, which could so easily have been a stereotype has very real world concerns, not least in keeping his girlfriend on side and taking her to Brussels does strike a chord as the kind of boneheaded thing some like him (or us to be fair might do). Said girlfriend and new companion Anji, though created by series editor Justin Richards, has a good start here, as she slowly realises that everything her boyf has been saying about aliens is true and a certain quote from Hamlet pretty much covers everything. It helps that at launch time, Richards very particularly publicised that she was inspired by actress Amita Dhiri, or rather he character Milly, from the iconic 90s sex in the chambers drama This Life, so for once we’ve someone in mind and it's often pretty amusing to imagine that often dower figure hurling bricks at windows and the like. She's a neat, useful addition and a brilliant contrast to Fitz, Sam and Compassion.But the rest? Sweet Jehoshaphat.
"I don't know why Y didn't come..."
The Sugababes: does intra-band tension create the best music?
Thesis -- that the babes have been getting worse the more they've become chummier. "Certainly the music that former members Mutya Buena and Siobhan Donaghy made after their departures from the group, suggests that they took the creative spark with them."
Joss-sticks increase cancer risk: Official
I was a scented cone man myself.
US Presidential Campaign Videos
I was asked who Obama's running mate was last night at a pub quiz. I've spent so long calling him Leo Mcgarry, I couldn't remember the name Joe Biden. It's art imitating life, life imitating art. Though hopefully not, at least for Biden or a power plant, if you see what I mean.
Lord Mayor flies Olympic flag
"The Lord Mayor of Liverpool will help get the official preparations for London 2012 underway this weekend by hoisting the Olympic flag from the roof of the Town Hall."
The Asda Story Item Mall Now Open for Business
Brand confusion for those of us in the UK
Blake's 7 Returns, Red Dwarf Rumored Next
Just so long as it's as funny as Season 7.
Shakespeare’s Globe to release music through own label
Record label name almost a Daily Show reference.
Finally, following on from last night's review:
Thesis -- that the babes have been getting worse the more they've become chummier. "Certainly the music that former members Mutya Buena and Siobhan Donaghy made after their departures from the group, suggests that they took the creative spark with them."
Joss-sticks increase cancer risk: Official
I was a scented cone man myself.
US Presidential Campaign Videos
I was asked who Obama's running mate was last night at a pub quiz. I've spent so long calling him Leo Mcgarry, I couldn't remember the name Joe Biden. It's art imitating life, life imitating art. Though hopefully not, at least for Biden or a power plant, if you see what I mean.
Lord Mayor flies Olympic flag
"The Lord Mayor of Liverpool will help get the official preparations for London 2012 underway this weekend by hoisting the Olympic flag from the roof of the Town Hall."
The Asda Story Item Mall Now Open for Business
Brand confusion for those of us in the UK
Blake's 7 Returns, Red Dwarf Rumored Next
Just so long as it's as funny as Season 7.
Shakespeare’s Globe to release music through own label
Record label name almost a Daily Show reference.
Finally, following on from last night's review:
"There's nothing wrong with the Blueberry Pie, just people make other choices. You can't blame the Blueberry Pie, it's just... no one wants it."
Film On release a few months ago, Wong Kar-wai’s My Blueberry Nights received a fair few mixed reviews -- many were beguiled by it, but the same criticisms did seem to crop up -- that it lacked substance, that Wong’s style was compromised in its translation to the west and that the performances are contrived with Norah Jones in particular not showing much promise. I can see those points of view -- it isn’t quite as mysterious or oblique at the director's other work, he doesn’t seem to be playing to some of his strengths as he tries to capture American culture and Jones does melt into the background.
Yet it’s a beautiful, luminous, beguiling experience, precisely the kind of film which works best late on a Friday night, when you’re tired but too wired on caffeine to go to sleep, replete with images and incidents of the kind which stay in the memory the following morning, making you grin or shudder. Even as I sit writing this, moments swim through the chemicals in my brain, the kiss which wipes the ice cream from her lips, the pile of returned postcards, the final drink, the celebration of the final drink, the toast, the loss, the win, the to-let sign and I’m mellowing in a way which only really happens after a cocoa and a Madeleine Peyroux album.
Wong’s never been much for complex stories, preferring instead to concentrate on the wreckage of relationships, and that continues here. Jude Law’s Mancunian New York café owner is surprised when a bedraggled Norah Jones appears at his door trying to confirm the infidelity of her boyfriend. Over successive nights she visits and he eventually authenticates the awful truth, then provides solace in the blueberry pie and ice cream which are always left over at the end each day. Before long and before he can tell her how he’s come to feel about her, Norah’s well enough to drift off into an odyssey across America, becoming involved with a spousal dispute in Memphis then a professional gambler in Vegas, keeping Jude abreast of her thoughts and feelings and learning experiences via postcards.
It’s a film about addicts; people who are hooked on solitude and pain, to alcohol and cards, to learning and lying. It’s also not the kind of film for people who like solid copper bottom plots with a beginning, middle and end and a watertight life lesson along the way. It is a road movie, but the destination is contentment. It’s a portemanteau film but with a central character gaining an education but not learning anything she didn’t already know. There are no easy answers, no pat conclusions and like most of Wong’s other films you’re seeing a slithers of some lives, but not everything, you don’t really know these people any better by the end than you did from the first of its ninety minutes.
The reason that Norah Jones doesn’t stand out is that she shouldn’t. Elizabeth’s the kind of person people can talk to, who only now and then has a sense of purpose when she’s pushed to it. Jones's performance is of the kind you’d find in independent cinema in the 90s, not desperately showy, rather naturalistic but with bags of emotion hidden behind the eyes. Sullen for much of the film, it lights up when she smiles, making those occasions explode with emotion. It is true though, that it improves as the film progresses and you might wonder if Wong shot in order, since she clearly finds confidence in the other performers, sparring best with Natalie Portman’s gambler towards the climax. It's intelligent and even better than some actresses who're making their living in the profession.
It is a great cast, though also a ramshackle one. As the warring couple, Strathern is a reliable drunk and Rachel Weisz introduces us to another of her American accents with a focused unpredictability. It’s been suggested that the rest struggle, that perhaps Law and Portman are miscast, but I’ve never really understand what that means in this kind of context. True, if Vin Diesel had played the café owner there might have been a problem, and though Law’s accent wanders like a pissed student trying to work back to the station down Oxford Road in Manchester, he’s able to communicate a kind of guileful tenacity masking loss and loneliness. Similarly, I think this is some of Portman’s best work -- she’s maturing into a great actress and it’s a genuine surprise to find that face gregariously commanding a poker table, only revealing her vulnerability when it best suits her cause.
Two elements of the film‘s style stand out. It’s also one of the best uses of popular music I’ve seen lately in film; the director repeats music within the same vignettes, most clearly when Jude Law is searching for Norah; the repeated opening piano steps of Cat Power’s The Greatest signalling his longing over and over. Wong’s new cinematographer Darius Khondji largely continues the look developed in previous films, with our view of the characters often blocked by furniture or writing on a window pain, only opening out as the film heads off into the desert and a familiarly Fordian landscape, perhaps signalling Jones's emotional freedom. But it’s the jerky effect created through hand cranking during filming which is the most revealing, allowing us glimpses into the souls of the characters, still images dropped in during motion revealing to us the very thoughts they're desperate to hide.
Magic. Excitement. Some nudity.
George Lucas is lining his wallet once more and rereleasing both trilogies in new boxes. The reaction at the Amazon review pages is suitably hostile. For I, II & III: "A new box doesn't make these films any better, George. Nice try. There is nothing new in this set folks, so don't bother."
For IV, V, VI, the prose is even more florid: "Why isn't the 1997 Special Edition on DVD?! Wasn't it supposed to be "George Lucas' definitive vision"?! Now he has YET ANOTHER vision of the Original Trilogy?! Why didn't he make the prequels fit the Original Trilogy, instead of butchering the originals?! Weren't we told that he was releasing the first versions of Episodes IV, V and VI back in 1995 "one last time"?! But no, now he's releasing the versions he said would never again see the light of day, and what he said was the finished product is not available on DVD. I guess the word "logic" is not part of Lucas' vocabulary..."
Lush Sees Link Between Naked Backsides & Packaging
I've been trying to imagine this happening in Liverpool.
Meltdown expected
Andrew Collins offers a textual analysis of the reworking of a popular music track which happened during the Olympic party yesterday: "Are Scouting For Girls really so witless as to think singing a song about a nuclear attack on London would be appropriate for what is a celebration of London ideally not being attacked? (Were they trying to be punk rock and dangerous? If so, then why change the words?)"
Doctor Who Quiz
How many titles can you name in five minutes?
Carlotta
Kat has a nice encounter. Reminds me of my own adventure.
Dell May Be Signaling New Type of Innovation WIth Lattitude-On
"The basic idea of the new Latitude is that the machine will have a second ARM based processor and Linux operating system along side the standard Intel processor and Windows OS. This machine within a machine will provide a super fast, lightweight, battery friendly environment for doing things like email, web browsing, and perhaps other communications tasks. It will be “instant on”, so you will always be able to get to your basic functionality, and yet you will get a battery life measured in days and not hours when in this mode."
Finally! The Daily Mail admits what I already know. This is NOT a revenge blog
Justice is served.
Spooks stars in city band's debut video
"Having played at the real-life wedding of two of the stars of BBC 1's Spooks, Miranda Raison and Raza Jaffrey, the band called in a favour and asked the duo the help them create a hostile reception as part of the plot."
150 Olympic Images.
Magic. Excitement. Some nudity.
Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera
The next generation of hi-def camera. Four times more powerful than that used on the Star Wars prequels and the first to have depth of focus features.
Robin Hood in Queens
"The relocation gives the library a more central role in the school's daily rhythms. The library's curvilinear wall affirms its unique status within the school; its variously sized inhabitable windows operate like the cutouts in a construction fence, providing selected views from the ground-floor hallway and cafeteria. "
For IV, V, VI, the prose is even more florid: "Why isn't the 1997 Special Edition on DVD?! Wasn't it supposed to be "George Lucas' definitive vision"?! Now he has YET ANOTHER vision of the Original Trilogy?! Why didn't he make the prequels fit the Original Trilogy, instead of butchering the originals?! Weren't we told that he was releasing the first versions of Episodes IV, V and VI back in 1995 "one last time"?! But no, now he's releasing the versions he said would never again see the light of day, and what he said was the finished product is not available on DVD. I guess the word "logic" is not part of Lucas' vocabulary..."
Lush Sees Link Between Naked Backsides & Packaging
I've been trying to imagine this happening in Liverpool.
Meltdown expected
Andrew Collins offers a textual analysis of the reworking of a popular music track which happened during the Olympic party yesterday: "Are Scouting For Girls really so witless as to think singing a song about a nuclear attack on London would be appropriate for what is a celebration of London ideally not being attacked? (Were they trying to be punk rock and dangerous? If so, then why change the words?)"
Doctor Who Quiz
How many titles can you name in five minutes?
Carlotta
Kat has a nice encounter. Reminds me of my own adventure.
Dell May Be Signaling New Type of Innovation WIth Lattitude-On
"The basic idea of the new Latitude is that the machine will have a second ARM based processor and Linux operating system along side the standard Intel processor and Windows OS. This machine within a machine will provide a super fast, lightweight, battery friendly environment for doing things like email, web browsing, and perhaps other communications tasks. It will be “instant on”, so you will always be able to get to your basic functionality, and yet you will get a battery life measured in days and not hours when in this mode."
Finally! The Daily Mail admits what I already know. This is NOT a revenge blog
Justice is served.
Spooks stars in city band's debut video
"Having played at the real-life wedding of two of the stars of BBC 1's Spooks, Miranda Raison and Raza Jaffrey, the band called in a favour and asked the duo the help them create a hostile reception as part of the plot."
150 Olympic Images.
Magic. Excitement. Some nudity.
Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera
The next generation of hi-def camera. Four times more powerful than that used on the Star Wars prequels and the first to have depth of focus features.
Robin Hood in Queens
"The relocation gives the library a more central role in the school's daily rhythms. The library's curvilinear wall affirms its unique status within the school; its variously sized inhabitable windows operate like the cutouts in a construction fence, providing selected views from the ground-floor hallway and cafeteria. "
I'm inconsolable as always at the close of these Olympics.
Sport If our hyped eight minutes of the Olympic closing ceremony were meant to offer a taste of what our life is like in modern Britain these days, it pretty much succeeded. It does piss down, we do spend a hell of a lot of time waiting at bus stops and when we do try and get on board the way is blocked by school kids and the sound of Leona Lewis blasting out from the speaker on a mobile phone or Led Zeppelin from an ipod and there'll inevitably be someone kicking a football around on the top deck. That is of course the cynical view of something which couldn't please everyone and has obviously been carefully thought out, and the opening of the top deck of the bus was very eye-catching as was the violin player. I just wasn't dazzled. When Armando Ianucci mentioned on Radio 4's Charm Offensive last week that David Beckham would be kicking a football from the top of a London bus it sounded like one of his flights of fancy.
Far more entertaining was the appearance of Boris, striding towards the ceremonial podium a salute here, thumbs up here, a small man trying to wave a very large flag. I felt a pang of regret that Ken Livingston wasn't in his place after all the work he did in bringing the Games to London, but as demonstrated in the post-show interview on BBC News, Ken just didn't have the ongoing element of verbal jeopardy as his successor. Boris was quick to point out that at the London opening ceremony there wouldn't be thousands of people being moved around like small dots of colour which is about the best description yet of the overwhelmingly pretty, spectacularly nice ceremonies we've seen. Though I hope the London closing is better than the one at the Manchester Commonwealth Games, where we subjected the former colonies to S Club 7 and a set from some local DJ.
Otherwise, I'm inconsolable as always at the close of these Olympics, blubbing more than once through each of the montage sequences showing British successes and failures. To repeat the rest of the media (what do you mean I'm not in the media?) this has been an amazing games for local sport and though the athletics have been disappointing, there have been enough signs that the youngsters having their first taste of major competition will be fighting to return at London 2012 because they know what's there to win or lose, and what it means to stand on the podium. But that's true in many of the events; Tom Daley's an inspiration -- I wish I'd been that articulate at the age of eighteen -- and so long as his confidence doesn't turn to arrogance he's sure to win a medal in four years.
I've also enjoyed the BBC's coverage. Waking up with Adrian Chiles and Hazel Irving or Claire Balding has been a refreshing change to the middle England groping BBC Breakfast, watching the sporting headlines of overnight achievement through bleary eyes and shooting awake during a rerun of Rebecca Adlington's startling win. The commentary team have been superlative, just as passionate as us to see British success, often shouting and screaming along with us at home. One of my favourite non-sporting moments were the shots of a certain swimmer being chased through the Tienanmen Square by locals under the impression that he's Michael Phelps, shouting "I'm Steve Parry from England" at the top of his voice. At the other end of the day, Radio Five Live's Drive programme has brought the atmosphere through Peter Allen and often Dom Joly in the centre of Beijing often chatting up a storm with the tourists or getting the athletes to open up in ways which might not happen with a camera in their face.
Ultimately then this has been a great games. The Chinese authorities still have a to lot to learn about freedom -- of the press, of their people to protest, of letting those who might not necessarily agree with them politically to live their lives. There's talk that the Olympic experience for spectators hasn't been spectacular (and I loved that Steve Redgrave at the climax when asked so Britishly complained about the food), but for this armchair fan of the non-spotlit sports it's been a blast. As with last time, I will be following a bunch of these athletes going forward but unlike last time there'll be no big announcement, no published list to jinx anyone. For the next four years the Google News Alerts will be my friend and hopefully next time, more good people will be able to follow there dreams. See I'm not as cynical as you thought, and really rather a cliche, so much of a cliche in fact that it's inspired me too.
Far more entertaining was the appearance of Boris, striding towards the ceremonial podium a salute here, thumbs up here, a small man trying to wave a very large flag. I felt a pang of regret that Ken Livingston wasn't in his place after all the work he did in bringing the Games to London, but as demonstrated in the post-show interview on BBC News, Ken just didn't have the ongoing element of verbal jeopardy as his successor. Boris was quick to point out that at the London opening ceremony there wouldn't be thousands of people being moved around like small dots of colour which is about the best description yet of the overwhelmingly pretty, spectacularly nice ceremonies we've seen. Though I hope the London closing is better than the one at the Manchester Commonwealth Games, where we subjected the former colonies to S Club 7 and a set from some local DJ.
Otherwise, I'm inconsolable as always at the close of these Olympics, blubbing more than once through each of the montage sequences showing British successes and failures. To repeat the rest of the media (what do you mean I'm not in the media?) this has been an amazing games for local sport and though the athletics have been disappointing, there have been enough signs that the youngsters having their first taste of major competition will be fighting to return at London 2012 because they know what's there to win or lose, and what it means to stand on the podium. But that's true in many of the events; Tom Daley's an inspiration -- I wish I'd been that articulate at the age of eighteen -- and so long as his confidence doesn't turn to arrogance he's sure to win a medal in four years.
I've also enjoyed the BBC's coverage. Waking up with Adrian Chiles and Hazel Irving or Claire Balding has been a refreshing change to the middle England groping BBC Breakfast, watching the sporting headlines of overnight achievement through bleary eyes and shooting awake during a rerun of Rebecca Adlington's startling win. The commentary team have been superlative, just as passionate as us to see British success, often shouting and screaming along with us at home. One of my favourite non-sporting moments were the shots of a certain swimmer being chased through the Tienanmen Square by locals under the impression that he's Michael Phelps, shouting "I'm Steve Parry from England" at the top of his voice. At the other end of the day, Radio Five Live's Drive programme has brought the atmosphere through Peter Allen and often Dom Joly in the centre of Beijing often chatting up a storm with the tourists or getting the athletes to open up in ways which might not happen with a camera in their face.
Ultimately then this has been a great games. The Chinese authorities still have a to lot to learn about freedom -- of the press, of their people to protest, of letting those who might not necessarily agree with them politically to live their lives. There's talk that the Olympic experience for spectators hasn't been spectacular (and I loved that Steve Redgrave at the climax when asked so Britishly complained about the food), but for this armchair fan of the non-spotlit sports it's been a blast. As with last time, I will be following a bunch of these athletes going forward but unlike last time there'll be no big announcement, no published list to jinx anyone. For the next four years the Google News Alerts will be my friend and hopefully next time, more good people will be able to follow there dreams. See I'm not as cynical as you thought, and really rather a cliche, so much of a cliche in fact that it's inspired me too.
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