Kiwi

Poor little Kiwi...



(if that bums you out.... click here)

Just one of those days...

The sun is beginning to shine already in Denmark, and considering its only March, its both a bit scary and yet welcome. I'm so tired of the miserable weather and being cooped up inside, not least because I've been coughing and all stuffy in my head since like, christmas! And this is something which happened last year and the year before that. On wednesday I was at the hospital and the doc asked me if I wasn't allergic to anything. I thought about it the rest of the day but couldn't think of anything... until I came to note some small black spots on the refrigerator which I hadn't noticed before. Now, this building we live in is pretty old, a hundred years or so I believe, and we live on the top floor so the walls are thinnest up here. This means we get some problems with condensation in the winter and this last year its been worse than ever with the window sills all grungy and mold springing up all over the place. Try as we might, its not easy to get rid of. In fact its impossible. We have a machine to get rid of the damp in an effort to stop this stuff from spreading but it doesn't make a big difference as far as I can see.

So there I was, fetching some food and suddenly I realised there was a black mold in the fridge door seal which had ruptured. Being such a totally paranoid hypochondriac I refused to touch it, and waited for Mette to come home so I could ask her opinion. She immedietely cleared it away, but I'm not happy. I want a new fridge! Suddenly I've come to understand why I'm so messed up every year from January to April. Its the damned fungus!!! Oleg's had similar problems too, though and I get the feeling that the mild weather we've been having in recent years may be causing a lot of similar problems here and there. Its certainly something I've been hearing a lot about in recent years.

Today (Friday) was a grandparents day at Freja's day care and my parents turned up there to scare the life out of the little children. It was grandparents only so I didn't arrive until it was time for the Snoos to come home, at which point I saw my Dad, standing in the street, looking quite dapper in a dark jacket and smoking his pipe. Its odd. He had a moustache since I was born until very recently, but now I'm so used to his 'new face' that I can't remember what he looked like before. After we'd fetched Freja we sat out on the roof terrace and soaked up the sun. As weak as it was I still needed my sunglasses (which made Freja stare at me in suspicion). The place looked like a bomb had gone off though. All the crap lying about from last year and the winter through lying about it seem pretty shoddy and I think we need to clear a lot of that stuff away. It looks like a tip!



Its good to see the sun out though. I'm looking forward to getting out and about on my bike. All this EVE is not good for me. The other day, some one (was it Mette?) told me that Danes suffer from vitamin D defficiency because we don't get enough sunlight. Given that I sit all day long in a darkened room, staring at a flat screen, I could well believe it. I took some bottles over to the recycle station today (500 metre round trip) and broke out into a sweat! Sure the sun was shining but even so!

I had my headpones on as usual and the Stone Temple Pilots had me nearly singing and dancing but I restrained myself and just mouthed the words (with a bit of air guitar at one point). I went past the café at the end of Munkegade and the guests, sitting out on the pavement all stared at me as if they'd never seen any thing like me. Any one would think they were the secluded nutters and I was the dazzling socialite! One of them even pointed me out to her boyfriend as if to say 'look! a guy singing to himself!'

The trouble is though, EVE is still fun. The game is immense, intense and a barrell of laughs. My corp mates are fun, their is a sense of Esprit de Corps there that one just doesn't find in real life, and I know its escapism, but I don't care. As my friend Vicky points out reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle sci fi.

During the winter this addiction wasn't such a big deal but I don't want to be sitting in doors staring at a screen all the time, no matter how alluring EVE is. I'd also like to get back to making images, but I'm still being distracted and the emotional pay back just isn't kicking in any more. Without an audience, art is no more interesting than picking my nose. I tried to explain to Mette why this was, but I hadn't stopped to think about it much. It has something to do with not caring with people who don't appreciate what I've done. There is an aspect to creating images which reflects a desire to share... something. Whether its a shared pleasure or a transfer of funds is all much the same thing I guess. As long as I'm stuck in my insular world then I'm afraid I'm not going to be making any images any time soon.

Blauen Light

Of late I've been quite ill with myriad complaints and not really up for much. I get ill a lot (in case you hadn't noticed) so I've been spoiling myself with films, books, TV stuff and EVE and generally not being very interesting or creative. But one thing I have been doing is inventing Dwarven thaumatech*

This is probably of no interest to any one but myself and my friend Oleg (for who's game these thaumaturigal mysteries and inventions were created) but since this is my blog, then I can post what ever I want to and thats about the end of that. Heh heh heh heh.

So any way, in this role playing game, I play a group of Dwarves (yes they are seven in number) and these belong to an ethnic group known as Blue Valley Dwarves. As a means of flexing my imagination then I've been dreaming up fantastical machines invented by this ethnic group over the course of their history. This is strictly an exersize in frivolity you understand, a way to solidify random thoughts, so if your not into that sort of thing, then please keep moving, there's nothing to see here....

Oh, random thoughts and idea's are always welcome. Don't stand on ceremony, most of my idea's are stolen any way.

~~~~~

Blauen Light.

(Some times is also known as Blauen Radiation or the Blauen Chemical Ray) Several centuries ago, an old top secret military project developed Blauen light as a method of attacking Qionst**. Blauen light is known to have been an electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than visible light, very similar to ultraviolet, but ultimately ’not of this world’. Quite where Blauen light came from is unknown, but its effects could be profound. Any one caught in the direct glare of Blauen light become incapacitated by an extreme lethargy which gripped the mind and body to so great an extent that the victim was quickly unable to respond to external stimulation. At the same time the light had an effect on organic matter, causing a darkening of the flesh that could quickly become a serious burn if untreated and even caused deformation over a long term exposure. Blauen light was invisible to the naked eye, but could be seen with ultraviolet filters. Unfortunately the secret of Blauen light has been lost. The Qionst quickly discovered that it could be countered with reflective surfaces such as a polished metal foil suit or umbrella. Highly polished metal armour also provided a high degree of protection. Eventually Blauen light was abandoned. Many years later an experimental thaumaturg working with some old artefacts she’d aquired noted that even reflected Blauen light can also be used to detect demons since these were illuminated, but not harmed, by it. She concluded that Blauen light might be some sort of light from Hell, but was unable to explain why the qionst should not have been aware of such a thing when it was first deployed. All subsequent research with Blauen light has been discontinued since the revolution*** and all known artefects have been destroyed or lost. There is no common knowledge remaining as to how to even generate Blauen light any more and many believe it may be a myth.

~~~~~

The Cube of Hochwolkersdorf

An intricate cube of densely packed tubes and machinary, measuring roughly fifty inches to a side. The Cube of Hochwolkersdorf is said to be a containment vessel for evil spirits but no one knows for sure if this is so, or how the device works. Maribus Hochwolkersdorf was a mediocre alchemist and thamuaturg who lived in Flemendorff in the tenth century. During his research one day he came across a novel method of capturing spirits in a negative energy thauma-field and set about designing a means of utilising this discovery to make a trap. With some help from local mechanicians he eventually built an artefact that was able to capture and hold wandering spirits (and some even suggest daemons). Hochwolkersdorf activated the machine and discovered it worked perfectly. Pretty soon he had a fine collection of malignent entities trapped within the cube’s internal, negative energy thauma-field but he then realised he had no way of shutting the machine down without releasing these monsters and was thus forced to leave it working. For a long time the machine was kept in a basement store room in the Royal Society of Alchemists, but when that society was accused of treasonous behaviour and disbanded in 1611 the cube was moved to the Schwartzenburg Hall of Science where it still resides to this day and can be viewed by scholars and budding thaumamechanicians for a small fee.
No one is quite sure how the machine works. It appears to be a perpetual energy device since it has been running, without pause for almost ten centuries and yet has no moving parts that any one can perceive. According to one of the several inscriptions on its outer surfaces, the machine feeds upon the energy of the spirits it traps. Another of the inscrptions warns: ’to open the cube is invite the mischance of all evil upon the world’.


Notes
* Thaumatrugy.
** Qionst are underground Goblin people.
***The Blauendallen (Blue Valley) Revolution took place from the over throw of the Royal House of Aachen in 1917 to the foundation of the first Central Commitee in 1922. Since the fall of the House of Aachen, the industrial nobility and most of the Bourgeoisie have been scattered in a disorganized diaspora leaving only the Lumpenproletariat and their militia behind. Since then a Central Committee has ruled Blauendallen with an iron hand.

Freja: manic little trucker

So my brother Peter bought Freja a pull cart when she was born and we finally assembled it. Its pretty large so it wasn't much use until now. Actually its not much use now either, except to pull about the flat though it hardly fits any where its so big! Freja loves sitting in it with Wabbit and of course I have to make 'brum brum' noises as I struggle to fit it through the door ways. When I've run out of steam, its also good to sit in with a duvet on her legs watching 'Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Were Rabbit' which we've seen about six times today. The idea is Freja can sit in the cart when she goes out and about, but she's so curious and figidty (the girl cannot sit still for 2 minutes) that I'm worried she'll hop out and crack a tooth or get run over by some Somali maniac driving a bus (I seem to be seeing a lot of manic Somali bus drivers these days, not to mention the care free Somali post men who don't seem to care which letter box they stuff the post into. Must be a cultural thing). Mette does not share my pessimism regarding Freja, but she does agree some form of restraint has to be added if Freja is to be dragged about the city in her SUV sized pull cart. At least until she can understand not to climb out.

In the mean time, life goes on. I'm broke, sick as a dog and bad tempered. At least the sun has been shining though! I watched all of 'X-files Season One'. I really miss that show.

Når... nu skal vi til det igen... Jan's fantastiske danske udgave af Freja's 'dag bog'. Jeg har været dårligt til det her på det sidste så nu må jeg tage mig sammen, men der ikke fordi der er sket så meget andet end at vi er allesammen syge med alverdens sygdom. Mette hoster stadigvæk, jeg har ingen stem og Snoosen's ansigt ligner en vandfald.

Her forleden fik vi samlet Peter's fødsels gave til Freja; en kæmpe trækvogn med stor hjul. (Drengen er en idiot når det gælder alt med fire hjul! Han kan bare ikke lad være. Vi tænkt på at sætte en Land Rover klister mærke på den) Snoosen er vild med den og forlanger at jeg træker hende rundt i lejligheden, selv om der er ingen luft i dækerne og den kan næsten ikke kom igennem. Hun har allerede slået hoved to gang, fået fingerene i klem i dørkammen og faldet på brystet, men hun er ligeglad. Efter hun har hyllet i et halv minute for formens skyld skal jeg forsat træk hende og Wabbit rundt mens jeg laver bil lyd. Bagefter sidder hun så i vognen med dyne på benene, sammen med ham Wabbit der (som få langt flere nysser end jeg gør) og ser 'Walter og Trofast', som de hedder på Dansk. Denne film har vi set 6 gang i dag...

Ellers så er alt som det plejer. Vi er total flad og jeg tænker vi snart må flytte hvis ikke vi tjener noget penge snart. Jeg skal snakke med min ny læge igen på Onsdag og jeg håber at hun har god nyheder. Jeg vil gerne finde på en måde jeg kan forhøj min indkomst, enten ved at arbejde eller bliv set på førtids pension. Jeg ville allerhelst arbejde, men er næsten ligeglad bare jeg kan få fat i mere penge. Det koster vildt meget at bo i Århus midtby. Alt, alt, alt for meget.

Så, jup, det går rigtig fedt. Jeg er stadigvæk syge (det er snart 13 år siden denne sygdom ramte mig), har ingen penge og er ved at blive gammel... men, solen skinnede idag så det var godt. I morgen skal jeg snak med banken og få skæl ud fordi jeg har ingen penge og har måtte leve på over træk siden Jul.

Treasure Island

By RL Stevenson.

The greatest pirate story of them all, I had to read it. It was getting annoying that I hadn't for I am a big fan of pirates and other morally dubious characters. I've had a lot of time recently for (big surprise) we've been ill all week with a confusing cocktail of colds, coughs and chest pains. No throwing up this week though.

Its a good story and I can see that if I'd read it as a child it would have gripped me as 'The Hobbit' once did. Alas, now I am older and stagnating, I found it quite difficult to read. Worryingly, I actually found it difficult to slow my mind down enough to get to grips with the story. I've never had such a problem before. I've always found good books easy to read. This time however, the flow of words just didn't want to settle down and I rode white water from start to finish.

Still enjoyed it though, especially the piratical dialogue and I noted a lot of the phrases were familiar because they had been stolen word for word for Roman Polanski's film 'Pirates'.

Blood Diamond

Dir: Edward Zwick.

I’m not a big fan of Leonardo DeCaprio (possibly because Mette is) so I was surprised to find myself enjoying ’Blood Diamond’ largely due to his performance. After watching ’The Departed’ (Ye gods that was crap) I was not expecting such a good performance and when DeCaprio started talking in a thick Rhodesian accent (very similar to South African) I was not enthusiastic. The film however quickly grew on me, though its a fairly straight forward moral lecture from the first scene to the last. Djimon Hounsou does his usual routine of the Noble African TM and Jennifer Connelly is DeCaprio’s love interest disguised as a jaded, though still crusading, journalist. Its particularly galling to see Hounsou carted out in the same role once again because I’m sure he has so much more to offer.

DeCaprio carries them all however. In a film utterly morally linear, his is the only character to break out of step and offer some one other than a sinister villain or helpless good guy. Archer (DeCaprio’s character) is after a large pink diamond that Solomon (Hounsou) has found and buried near an RUF mining camp in the diamond fields of Sierra Leone. He is not alone in this quest. The RUF want the diamond and so does Archers former emplyer, a South African mercenary commander called Colonel Coetzee (played by the guy who was Imhotep in 'The Mummy'). Archer must duck and dodge the whole film through, dragging and following Solomon who is searching for his missing family.

The film reaches its climax when Archer calls up Colonel Coetzee and calls in an airstrike on the RUF mining camp where Solomon's son is employed as a child soldier, whilst Solomon is listening. The mercenaries attack but of course the main characters are caught up in the fire fight. This could almost be so unusual a beast as a thought provoking action film, if only the ending weren't such a foregone conclusion.

An interesting detail is Colonel Coetzee's helicopter gunship. Apparently this same modified Soviet Hind-24 was actually used in Sierra Leone doing exactly what it is shown doing in the film. Hunting down and killing RUF rebels. There is a short documentary about it, here.

Legionernes Vrede

(Eng: The Centurions)

By Jean Lartèguy.

This novel was recommended to me by a friend as being an accurate portrayal of the decline of French colonial power. It deals with a group of French officers of the parachute regiment who survive defeat at Dien Bien Phu and struggle there after to come to terms with the changing world in Algeria.

Its a typically French book with emphasis placed on unanswerable existential questions, though posed from a quintissentially French military perspective. None of the various officers plays a central role to the plot and in essence they are collectively the main character of the story. One is the overall commander of the unit, another is an aristocrat. A third is the jaded son of a colonial magnate and a fourth is a communist. One is black, another Arabian. Thus, these various characters, all united by their experince of being captured by the Viet Minh, intertwine to form the basis of the narrative.

The story is interesting in that it poses some questions regarding the use of torture for a noble reason (according to Wikipedia the book is the first novel to pose such questions) and thus has a certain relevence to the contemporary political debate regarding Guantanamo Bay. Its also accurate in its historical and political observations, though some what biased. The actual story is boring, no doubt because the book is not about any one person or incident and unless you have a very specific interest in the mental processes behind the French military's inability to prevent the loss of its colonies, then there isn't much to read about here. If you are interested in such things though, then this is a good book for you.

Talking with the Snoos

Its been interesting of late for Freja has begun to converse. Her subjects are few as yet and her vocabulary is barely comprehendable, but she obviously has opinions that matter to her for she goes to some length to express her dissatisfaction when ever something is not to her liking. Today for example she wished to watch ’Wallace and Gromit’ and not the ’Pingu’ which was cheerfully blabbing to itself in the background. She made this clear to me by pointing to a post card of W&G I have over my desk and chattering lively in her baby talk.
”Do you want to watch Wallace & Gromit?” I asked. She nodded her head emphatically, her face as solemn as a judges.
”You don’t want to watch Pingu?”. She shook her head and made an impatient grunting noise. The TV stands on a small wheeled table which can be moved to allow the screen to point into my room or the living room and she then grabbed this and tried to move it. She is pretty strong so it began to move but the wheels were caught on a able and given the oscilations she was causing I feared it was going to topple and break the screen.
”Don’t fiddle” I told her in Danish. I always say this when she is touching something she ought not to (usually my stuff) and frowning at me she stood with her hands on the TV. I repeated the order because she was till holding onto the TV and she threw herself to the floor and tried to cry. This is a common trick she has picked up from day care, but I ignore her for she is not a good actor and its not hard to see when she’s faking it
”You can go to bed if you keep that up” I told her and she immedietely stopped.
I nodded. ”Good”. I put ’Wallace & Gromit’ on and she brighten up considerably. She settled on the floor to watch it. About ten minutes later I lay down beside her and watched her face. She noticed this after a while and gave me a big smile then laid herself along side me to snuggle. I felt like the luckiest man alive.
Above is a picture of Freja immitating the Were Rabbit from another day...

Background

I kept seeing other blogs with the same background so I changed it. I can't decide if I like it or not so I may change it again soon...

Freja: in London

Mette didn't take any still images of Freja's trip to London but luckily her brother did. I especially like the above image as it shows three generations of Kjølby girls enjoying the English weather.

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300

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

edited to add:

Previews (lots of shouting) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Video: Meeting Xerxes

Iran condemns Hollywood war epic.

Whats notable about this BBC article is that they describe the film as an historical war epic which it is not. The film is based on a comic book and can hardly be described as an historical epic of any kind.

Children of Men

Dir: Alfonso Cuarón

Well, here's a depressing film and no mistake. Its almost as bad as a John Brunner novel!

Set in 2027 this is an adaptation of a PD James novel, set in a dystopian nightmare where the human race has become infertile. The story takes place in the UK, specifically in London and Sussex, when the contemporary problems of mass immigration, warfare and pollution have left most of the world in chaos. Only the UK has survived intact, but at the cost of becoming an oppressive society on the brink of complete collapse. Every where is dirty, ruined. London is full of urban ethnic detritus with rickshaws and graffiti every where the camera turns. Refugee's are a major problem for the last viable society on Earth and are rounded up into public cages by the military.

Clive Owen plays Theo, a jaded political activist who is settling down into alcoholic oblivion and awaiting the end of the world when his former wife Julian (Julianne Moore) suddenly resurfaces after twenty years. Julian has become a terrorist and needs Theo's help to smuggle out a young refugee who just happens to be pregnant... Thus is the plot.

This film is a deliberate statement regarding the world today. Alfonso Cuarón has confirmed this, but its fairly obvious from watching the film. Post 9/11 iconography saturates the film to so great a degree that its hard to take seriously its classification as science fiction. This is to sci fi what Stalin was to politics. Its also fairly obvious that this film plays to the idea that western society is doomed. Though the whole planet is apparently infertile, the focus of the film is solely on the west with London representing the last stand of European civilisation. The first baby born in twenty years is naturally born to an illegal immigrant from Africa who represents the coming new age.

The obvious symbolism has spawned some criticism on IMDb's forum for this film where people have called it a 'liberal wet dream' and I can see their point. Though Alfonso Cuarón appears to be trying to maintain an apolitical balance in the story, what he's actually doing, since he is not predicting the future is commenting on the present (he's said as much himself). This is not a 'what if' kind of film. It is a statement of opinion regarding how the world is today and that statement is radically left wing.

But its a good film. Far and away better than 'V for Vendetta' which tries to establish a similar point of view. More 'real', and way better made. The camera work, art direction and editing are all excellent and I can forgive the political bias as a consequence (something I could not do for 'V for Vendetta').

Freja: eating

Below is a test video of the Snoos having a spot of snotty lunch. I've been messing about with video uploading and I've finally figured it out, with a little help from my brother in law and You Tube's FAQ

Casino Royal

Dir Martin Cambell.

So here is the new re-vamped Bond in the form of Daniel Craig to bring a whole new depth to the character of 007. Its about time. Its not that the previous guy was a bad Bond, its just that the whole Bond concept was getting rather long in the tooth and kind of needed an overhaul. Craig and Cambell provide this quite well though there are a few jarring elements to the revamp. Judy Dench's continued presence annoys me. I don't think she carries her role at all, and would have liked to see another actor or actress as the case may be, in that role. Some one more gaunt and forbidding, but the reast of the cast play really well. The film moves at a good solid pace and apart from a dull airport chase scene I thought the whole piece worked rather well. Craig is a tougher, harder, grittier Bond altogether. More like the character in the books than any previous actor, including Connery.

Apocalypto.

Dir Mel Gibsen.

If you want real grit though, then this is where you'll find it. This is Mel 'bloody slaughter' Gibsen in all his carmine glory and it doesn't get much grittier than this. 'Apocalypto' is set in pre colonial South America and is the tale of a group of villagers taken captive by a larger and more powerful society. The whole film is done in the native language giving it a better edge of realism, just as in Gibsens last film 'The Passion of the Christ'. There is however plenty of symbolism here with myriad of hints at the way things are in the USA today and if thats what rings your bell then you can spend a long time nodding at the similarities, but I doubt this was why Gibsen made 'Apocalypto' . I suspect our friend Mel is a something of sadist because his films all seem to include graphic torture scene's and this one is as bad as they come. I don't know what it is about Gibsen that attracts so any people because frankly I think the guy is a creep. That doesn't mean he makes bad films though. He doesn't. Its just that I suspect his motivations are rooted in some sort of personal psychosis that would get most people locked up.

It was as I said though a really good film. Its a bit far fetched with the amount of coincidences along the way, but thats the stuff of story telling after all.

Alien concepts

My friend Fartacus mentioned the similarity between the tripods in Spielbergs 'War of the Worlds' and the alien queen in 'Aliens' and I thought this would be a good idea for a rambling post. Its one of those problems concept artists face. Just how do you make something appear alien? Or even just unusual and non terrestrial? Thanks to HR Geiger, there is a common perception of what a serious alien head should look like, it should be elongated, and preferably very dark. You can even find an online, step by step guide as to how to re-create this head:


The other popular type of alien head is of course the grey skinned, Roswell type, with a tiny nose and mouth and huge big black eyes, but these are not as scary so they only get used in cheaper sci fi aspiring to be 'realistic'. For the full, scare-your-pants-off experience, the common perception requires the elongated, phallic, head, preferably with a lot of teeth.

But say you want to design an alien being and you want to avoid the classic look. What do you do? It has to be recognisable in some way, but you want to make it look as 'alien' as possible. Easy, you look at the animal kingdom, find the animal which best suits your needs and then you add in the required anthropomorphic features which you wish to retain. Thats essentially how most aliens get designed. HR Geiger's first alien looked totally alien to the 1979 crowd, but if you look at it, then you see its still just a man in a suit. It has two arms and two legs, a head at the top and a fingers and toes. Yes it has a tail and spiny ridges all over, but essentially its just a scary humanoid. Its a spiky version of ET. HR Geiger used a snake skeleton as his template and then just added all the extra humanoid features. The only aliens that avoid this process of design are those which are described as being 'energy or gaseous beings' and almost every alien in the Sci fi TV universe which are actors in make up (or 'fore head of the week' as I've heard them aptly described)



In the original book 'War of the Worlds', HG Wells went the other way, he attempted to describe his Martians as being evolved humanoids. He took away many of the anthropomorphic features and left the bare essentials because his alien concept had the Martians wearing machines as bodies. An utterly cool concept for a Victorian author and one not really improved upon since. HG Wells might not have had the most 'alien' aliens, but he did have the most compelling concept I've ever seen for what an alien might actually look like, and he did it without recourse to an animal. Most of the science fiction I've ever read (and I've read a lot) has used animals or humanoids as the basis for alien concept, with spiders and insects being a firm favourite for the really unusual and HR Geiger's design being a sort of gold standard for the commercial exploitation of the whole idea. HG Wells used machines that moved with the unconsious grace and animation of bodies. He gave the 'fighting machines' three legs for stability and the 'handling machines' multiple limbs for practicality. "The Martians made and used different bodies according to their needs".


Getting back to the tripods in Spielbergs 'War of the Worlds', looking at the concept art I think they were originally meant to be closer to HG Wells vision of the machine body but some where along the way the humanoid meme crept back in. Spielbergs actual aliens became men in suits again. The fact that they are three legged doesn't change their humanoid appearance. HG Wells had described the Martians as being evolved into big heads with tentacle fingers and huge dark eyes in the front. Mollusc like. That description is echoed by the Spielberg tripods, but not by the actual aliens themselves who became pantomime variants of their own machines. Curious. I have no doubt that a scene where Tom Cruise hides from several large heads was not deemed 'cinematic' enough...

Rambling on...

Four days alone now and I really miss my girls. Been sitting here today all by myself, feeling the weight of the emptiness in the flat and hiding in cyber space. Strangely I have hardly played EVE at all the whole time (as my sudden surge in postings betrays) and I think I may finally be bored with it. I've thought that before only to return with a vengeance but this time it feels different. Apart from anything else, there is the pain in my right hand finger joints that tells me I've been over doing the mouse again. Odd that wearing out one mouse didn't tell me to slow down...

So, I'm slowly getting back to posting on my blogs as I used to, which means I've also been surfing and reading more again. Not much has changed in the last five or so months but I've seen one or two things that cracked me up. The most hilarious to my sarcastic mind was the raving enthusiasm with which the artitsic elite in the UK greeted the recent performance of 17-year-old Daniel Radcliffe (he of Harry Potter fame) who demonstrated his acting prowess by playing a boy who develops a sexual relationship with several horses, and who during the play gets naked and 'has sex' with his co star (a female human being) leading to sold out performances as fans rush to see the spectacle (or lack there of). You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. I don't know which is funnier. The rush to see Daniel Radcliffe simulating sex, or the fact that to be taken seriously by the art tossers needs only a few horses and a 17 year old boy...

Apart from that I've been watching various gems on You Tube. There's a lot of silver hidden in the dross over there so I've made an account there.

The Curse of the Were Rabbit!!!!

How can any one not love Wallace & Gromit? Its not hard to understand why Nick Park and his friends have won so many Oscars. There's is the best claymation team ever! This film is just brilliant. I bought it on DVD (special edition of course) and I've seen it twice already. Its full of jokes, especially 'Yorkshire humour' and a plethora of film references, some obvious some obscure. I laughed my self silly watching it the first time. The villagers are hilarious, and I especially liked the police man telling the organist to shut up. The best scene has to be Gromit in the van watching the appearance of the Were Rabbit. Classic.

I also liked Lady Tottington's roof top Victorian style conservatory... I love Victorian green houses... especially the curving sort!

The Illusionist

This is a rather delightful film which should appeal to any one who likes victoriana, steam punk or the gothic, for though it is none of those things, it retains a not so disimiliar ambience about it. The Illusionist Eisenheim, played by Edward Norton (who is always good) shares a great love with the Countess Sofie von Tessen, played by Jessica Biel. Alas, Sofie is to marry the Crown Prince of the Austro Hungarian Empire, played by Rufus Sewel (who is also always good) and as the lovers plan to flee, Sofie is found murdered.



Through out the film we follow Police Inspector Uhl as he tries to unravel the mystery as to who killed the countess. Naturally we want it to be the Crown Prince since he is a bit of a prick, but is he really guilty? Watch the film and find out.

Ariel Atom

I saw this Top Gear programme a year or more back and fell in love with the Atom. I haven't seen anything about it since, until I came across the You-tube video today. The Atom has to be the coolest little car I've ever seen.