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Busy little bee
This was going to be one of many posts on this blog about how uninspired I'm feeling right now, until I realised that's not entirely the case. I'm positively brimming with ideas of things to write and photograph, it's just getting the time to do it. My evenings are filled with a darkroom course, our weekly film night, gym visits and get-togethers with friends. My weekends also seem to get booked up pretty fast, so many things I spent ages on before (like writing and reading blogs) have suddenly slipped by the wayside.
It's not all bad though. I have been spending more time over at Just Shoot making new friends and organising things, plus I have at least one new reader (hello William!) who has a wealth of archive material and photos to check out before becoming bored due to my current lack of posts.
Normal service will be resumed shortly. Oh, actually... this is normal for me!
Posted on April 29, 2005 | Comments (4)
TBA
Went to a mystery showing at the UCI Filmworks in Manchester this evening. Someone Topper knows had spotted that the film that wouldn't be revealed until you'd bought a ticket and were sat in the cinema screen was the same certificate and length as Sin City. Lo and behold, it was Sin City. What an awesome movie it was too. I've not seen or read any of Frank Miller's graphic novels, on which it was based, but on this evidence I think I'll be tracking some copies down. The movie looked just like a graphic novel (due in part to the CG backgrounds, 'noir' lighting, and the fact the action was shot on HD), and had a lot of heart behind all the gore. I don't have time for a full review now, but one will perhaps follow after my second viewing. I have a while to wait for that though if the release date of 3rd June is correct.
Posted on April 26, 2005 | Comments (2)
Is there nothing it can't do? Google Maps is ace!
Posted on April 19, 2005 | Comments (8)
Is it just me, or...?
Unless you are Steven Hawking, there must be a rule somewhere that dictates there will always be someone around who can make you feel a bit stupid. Sometimes they're right behind you (check out my review, followed by one with actual facts, here), but occasionally they are you. Makes you feel even more daft. Today's example came from our IT manager at work who emailed all staff this morning with this:
"I think I might have mentioned a 'couple' of times that this group is strictly for college business use, but it is still continuously being used to propagate non-business specific information.
"When you send an all staff email EVERYBODY gets a copy... and believe it or not some people actually do not want to hear about babies being born, birthday wishes, fun runs, neither do they want 'junk' being forwarded to them claiming to be legitimate 'conservation' petitions in fact they complain, they quite rightly consider this as SPAM. Content such as this should go on the staff intranet notice board."
The same person emailed all staff again just now to say this:
"We have a number of Black Dell 17" monitors in as new condition for sale - £20.00 each. See any member of ITS staff to purchase."
Posted on April 18, 2005 | Comments (3)
Where's that soapbox?
Oh dear. Where do I start with this? Scrap Top Gear, say road safety campaigners. "Will that actually do any good?", says me. My favourite television programme should, apparently, be replaced by one promoting "sensible driving in sensible vehicles". If a show like that were running instead of Clarkson & Co, I don't think it would make any difference to UK roads because the only people watching it would be the sort of folk who already drive sensibly in sensible vehicles. The Guardian article then goes on to use an example of content from the show that, I'm assuming, they think must encourage the sort of bad driving that Transport 2000 is whining about - "Co-presented by Richard Hammond and James May, regular Top Gear slots include 'star in a reasonably priced car', in which celebrities race around a track as quickly as possible" - key word there, for me, being track.
The only places I have seen the Top Gear presenters pushing the cars past 70mph is off the public roads, or on the Isle of Man where you are allowed to put your foot to the floor. In addition to this, one glance at the Top Gear studio audience (who are always made up of people who watch the show regularly from home), should confirm that we are not really the sort of viewers who need to be told 'don't try this at home'. The very reason it's fun to watch is because I cannot do those things myself. No one would let me loose in a Bentley Continental GT on the road, let alone going practically sideways on a track, so I want to see someone else do that for me. Even if I could convince a dealer to let me test drive a Noble, do you think a short jaunt down a congested city road would be as thrilling as watching someone else take the car to the limit? Er, no. This is escapism at it's best as, every week, I imagine being able to afford cars like that and having a track to take them to.
If Labour MP Andrew Miller really thinks Clarkson is "turning our motorways into playgrounds", perhaps he should try and concentrate his party's efforts on getting more police on our roads rather than just trying to get a rather good television programme banned. With more police we could catch (and maybe deter) the taxless, the drunk, the tailgaters, the MoT-less, and all the generally dangerous drivers... as well as the speeders that the cameras nab now. Sounds like a much better idea to me.
Posted on April 13, 2005 | Comments (5)
From The Guardian's 'Northerner' email
A small business card arrives in an otherwise empty envelope. It is from the Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy. The address is the University of Manchester, but the phone number connects with an American voice on an answering machine. Detective work leads to the museum on the university campus, and a room off the entrance hall. But the door is locked. There is nobody in there.
Windows in the panelled door permit visitors to peer inside: two comfortable red armchairs are set on red linoleum in front of a fireplace, with a case of stuffed birds on the mantelpiece. There's a filing cabinet, a desk, a glass-fronted cupboard, and a black Bakelite phone. A closer look reveals details such as copies of the Kinsey Report and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and a tartan
scarf on a hat stand.
The scarf belongs to American artist Mark Dion, and the Bureau is all his own work - an installation that is the product of time spent rooting through the university's drawers, cupboards, cellars, attics and store rooms.
Dion is artist in residence at the museum and the university's Research Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy, which is real, and not a surreal fragment of the artist's imagination.
"I came to meet the people there in the art history building, one of the least inspiring on the campus," said Dion. "I saw that title [Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy] on the door and wondered what could be there. When I went in, I found a breezeblock office with a couple of Formica tables and a computer. I was dreadfully disappointed."
So he has created his own more desirable, more atmospheric office, packed with the bizarre and the forgotten. The room, which Dion hopes will be used by museum staff for meetings, simulates a surrealist experience. "The surrealists were less interested in technology than other avant-garde movements," he explains. "They were interested in the things that had slipped through the cracks to reveal the unconscious in some way."
What a lovely idea!
Posted on April 08, 2005 | Comments (0)
Eh? Dirty boy!
I have to admit, if I wasn't already heading off to Newcastle and Gateshead this weekend, I would have been seriously tempted to head off to Blackpool tonight. I wonder just how busy it will be... would have been good for some photos. Isn't it strange how interesting things always turn out to happen on weekends when you already have plans?
Posted on April 08, 2005 | Comments (1)
Spy-tastic!
After the hideous mockery of a classic franchise that was Die Another Day, I found myself hoping for a return to the realism that Timothy Dalton brought to 007 in the late 1980s. Having watched both his Bond films again recently, I was convinced that a proper spy film (rather than an OTT action movie) really was in order. I wavered briefly when Popbitch told me that the drool-worthy Julian McMahon was being considered for the role as I'd probably pay to sit through the worst Bond film yet just to see the guy on a big screen, but it turns out that Barbara Broccoli was far more sensible than that.
Anyone who has seen Layer Cake will know that Daniel Craig will make a believable James Bond - someone you really could imagine as both a spy and a ladies man. I can only hope that they employ a screenwriter with as much talent! Someone who can breathe life back into an old idea (they are apparently planning Casino Royale), like Russell T Davies has done with Dr Who. If the combined talents of Davies and Christopher Eccleston can turn the Doctor into the kind of man that a young girl would gladly run away with, anything less on the next Bond outing will seem a bit half-hearted.
UPDATE: Bum. Looks like it's not confirmed yet.
Posted on April 06, 2005 | Comments (4)
British Blogging Corporation
I've noticed over the last week that, whenever I visit the BBC news website, there is a story about blogging on the front page. This strikes me as rather odd. Does this mean they're really slow on the uptake, or that it's so mainstream now that even my Mum will have a blog within the next six months?
Posted on April 06, 2005 | Comments (5)
You know you're grown up when...
You sit on the floor, resting on your feet, for longer than 1 minute and you get really bad pins and needles.
Mind you, someone who still can't delete spam comments without accidentally binning a few genuine ones can't be that grown up. Bah.
Posted on April 05, 2005 | Comments (1)
Popeless
I know one shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I just can't bring myself to care. Sorry.
UPDATE: You never know, the replacement pope might be a whole lot more impressive.
Posted on April 03, 2005 | Comments (4)