Forgotten Worlds

Public Service Announcment

2009-04-30T14:14:36Z

On Thursday 23rd April, I woke up at 5.30am as a carefree thirtysomething. By 1pm, I was a widow and single mother.

After breaking up with my husband in 2006, I moved out of the family house and into my own place. Within a few months, he had met someone new and moved in with her, in Cardiff (around 200 miles away), taking with him my step-son, who was then 11 years old.

In the time since the break up, we were alternately fighting and being civil, but neither of us had filed for divorce, primarily because neither of us wanted to pay the court costs, and since we did not have any property in common, and neither wanted to remarry, it seemed pointless.

Then last Thursday, Patrick suffered a coronary thrombosis and died instantly.

In the last week I have run through every emotion possible, and it's been made far more difficult by the lack of preparedness.

Even if you are in perfect health, be prepared. If anything happens, your loved ones will already be grieving for you. On top of that, they don't need the extra problems that can come with a sudden death. Please, please take heed of these simple points.

Get Life Insurance. The cost will vary depending on your age and state of health, and how much cover you require, but the cost can be as little as £5 a month to insure yourself for £50,000. Often your motor or house insurer will offer a discount if you take life cover through them, so make that your first port of call. Check carefully for any exclusions for pre-existing illnesses. If you are over 50 and can't afford full life insurance, consider taking out a funeral plan instead, which will at least cover the expenses of your burial or cremation.

Start looking here

Also check if your employer offers any death-in-service benefit, and if they do, get some documentation on it, make sure you've filled out the relevant forms (usually called "Expression of wish") and handed them back to your Human Resources department. Not only that, but tell your relatives about it, because many of these benefits are never claimed.

We are still waiting to arrange my husband's funeral, because none of us can afford to pay the funeral fees upfront, so we have to wait for his girlfriend's claim to be approved by the benefits office. This means it could take up to a month for him to be buried.

Write down your wishes for your funeral. Many people may mention this lightly in passing to a partner, but then what happens when the wishes of the deceased's family contradict what he said to his partner? Having a document setting out your wishes - burial or cremation, in your current place of residence or hometown, even down to what music you would prefer - make it easy for everyone and means that the bereaved don't have the stress of trying to think what the deceased would have wanted.

You do not need a form or legal document for this, but you may find that your local cemetary and crematorium have a form or booklet that you can fill out. This will usually be called an "Advanced Funeral Wishes" form.

My husband's family were adamant that he should be brought back to his birth town for burial, but his partner and I know that he wanted to be buried in Cardiff. As his next of kin, the decision falls to me, luckily. This brings me to...

Ensure the legal status of your partner. If you have split from a spouse, file for divorce. Until that has happened, you are still each other's next of kin. If you have a new partner, and you want them to be your next of kin, marry them. Until you do, their wishes count for nothing, and can be overridden by your family members, or even by your ex-spouse. Don't let this happen.

If you're havering over whether or how to divorce, check out the information on wikivorce.com.

I have had to sign legal declarations absolving myself of responsibility for the burial arrangments and hand them over to Patrick's girlfriend. Until this happened, the Funeral Directors wouldn't even talk to her. Not what you want when you're grieving.

Make a will. You may think that this is irrelevant if you don't have any significant estate, but you never know when circumstances will change. You can write your own will from as little as £6.99, and it's very easy to do. Be aware that it could still be challenged by family members, but having a will is a great starting place, so that at least everyone knows what your wishes were at the time of writing.

There's a good guide to will writing here: Which? Will Writing Advice

Patrick didn't have any assets, only debts. But if he had, I would now be walking away with everything he owned, leaving his partner of two years, and his child, with nothing.

Keep important documents filed in a safe place. Your birth certificate, passport, and any other legal documents (residence order for kids, pension details, tax statements, divorce decree, drivers license, etc) should all be filed in a secure place that everyone knows about. You can get these from £25 and up. Search ebay, froogle or any department store for "secure document boxes".

Patrick's papers were in a complete mess at the time of his death, and his partner now has to search through everything looking for his documents and those for his child as well. Another horrible task made especially worse by the fact that the papers are all in the room where he died.

This all probably sounds very morbid and boring, but please - don't ever think that it couldn't happen to you and yours. Patrick was only 50 and had no warning whatsoever. Please don't leave your family with the type of mess that we are now facing. Do it now, please.

Good health and good wishes to all.

A spooky fragment

2009-01-07T18:33:59Z

Seen on a gravestone in the local churchyard:

"His Mortall Part
In Dust Here Lies
In Hope To Life
Agane To Rise"

I think the date was about 1750.

Is anyone else thinking, "OMG ZOMBIES!"?

One more reason to love Ian McKellen

2008-11-11T19:50:15Z

Hadn't heard this anecdote before.

[McKellen] has been out since 1988—the year in which the British government enacted a controversial act, popularly known as Clause 28, forbidding the "promotion" of homosexuality "as a pretended family relationship" in schools. That same year McKellen met with British Secretary for the Environment Michael Howard, hoping to enlist his opposition. Howard refused, but asked for McKellen's autograph. The actor gallantly pulled out a pen, before writing: "Fuck off, I'm gay."
(From Out Magazine's Out 100 2008)

I hope that's true and not apocryphal. Hahaha!

In other news: I'm not dead.

Meme

2008-07-03T08:42:31Z

1. What time did you get up today? 5.50am

2. Diamonds or pearls? Depends on the setting. Hmm. Thinking about it,
I'd rather just have the cash.

3. Latest film in a cinema? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skulls.

4. Favourite TV series? Doctor Who, of course.

5. What did you have for breakfast? A bowl of Tesco's worryingly-named
"Special Flakes" and a yoghurt.

6. What's your middle name? Anne.

7. Favourite food? That's kind of difficult to pick, since I'm dieting
so stringently. Can I pick an imaginary pizza with no calories?

8. Which food don't you like? Brussel sprouts. Anything involving salad
cream (aka Demon Spunk.) Beetroot.

9. What's your favourite CD at the moment? Haven't played any CDs in
ages. I've got one of Eddie Izzard's concert albums on repeat on my MP3
player.

10. What car do you drive? Peugeot 306.

11. Favourite sandwich? Well, that would totally depend on how I feel at
any given meal occasion. Marmite and cheese is always good. Ham salad on
a poppyseed bread, that's good too. Sainsbury's low fat Ardennes Pate
and cherry tomatoes on crusty bread, that's good too.

12. Which human traits can't you stand? There are too many to name, but
indifference and wilful ignorance are probably the ones which make me
angriest.

13. What are your favourite clothes? Whatever fits.

14. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? I would like to
see China. Bit iffy under the current regime, though.

15. Favourite clothing brand? WTF? I dunno. Matalan?

16. Where would you like to retire? I hope I die before I get to
thinking about retirement. That sounds like hell. I hope I drop in my
traces.

17. Favourite time of day? Dawn.

18. Where were you born? Tunbridge Wells.

19. Which is your favourite sport to watch? I was going to say footie,
but it's actually a long time since I watched a match. It's not the same
when you're at home on your own with no beer and no fags.

20. Coke or Pepsi? Diet Coke with Lime.

21. Soccer or hockey? Soccer. (Who the fuck watched hockey?)

22. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Both.

23. Pedicure or manicure? Manicure. I can't stand anyone touching my
feet.

24. Any exciting news to share? Umm. No.

25. What did you want to become as a child? Independent.

26. Best childhood memory? I think I was pretty happy up to about age
11, but I can't think of a specific memory.

27. Ever been to Africa? No.

28. Ever rolled anybody in toilet paper? No. But I did let our Simon use
a roll to wrap me up like an Egyptian Mummy.

29. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yeah, a couple. Nothing
life-threatening, though.

30. Favourite day of the week? Saturday... Dr Who is on. Heh.

31. Favourite flower? Snapdragons.

32. Favourite - Hot dog or Chinese food? Chinese. A hot dog is not
"food".

33. Do you own a bike? No.

34. Who was you latest e-mail from? A spammer telling me that, "we can
sure offer high quality of all kinds of cosmetic brush. As powder brush,
kabuki brush, blush brush, eye shadow brush, eye brow brush, eye comb
brush, conceal brush, brush sets, makup brush, lip brush, eye liner
brush , fan brush,brush sets and so on."

35. Where would you like to shop more if you could afford to? eBuyer..

36. Bed time? About 10pm.

37. Latest person to share dinner with? Mum.

38. What are you up to now? I'm at work. It's all gone quiet.

39. Favourite colour? Purple.

40. How many tattoos? None.

New jobs. It's all go, innit? Plus extraordinary random occurrence!

2008-07-01T09:25:55Z

Been at CPP now for over 2 weeks. On the one hand it seems like I only
started yesterday, but on the other, I feel like I've been here for
years!

I'm so so glad to be back in realtime! It's a really good team here,
split between this site in Chesterfield (brand new), York, and Tamworth.
My boss and one of the senior analysts from Tamworth have been here for
the past couple of weeks, showing me the ropes. This has been very
helpful, although I notice I've picked up a slight West Midlands twang
from them! They are very appreciative of my L33T XL SK1LLZ so I'm
keeping busy creating lots of new spreadsheets and stuff right now.

ALL UR FORMULAE R BELONG TO US!

The site here is nice - it's not brand new, but it's pretty modern.
We're leasing it from the Royal Mail, who have the sorting office next
door. Unlimited free vending machine drinks, which is nice (especially
after Otto, the tight sods) and a free gym (which I haven't yet
investigated.) The grounds back onto Queen's Park, which has a little
boating lake. So I've been going to eat my lunch down by the lake (well,
it's more of a pond really) so I can feed the geese and ducks
afterwards! The population seems to be mainly Canada geese and mallards,
although I did see a Moorhen yesterday, which was on the path!! Quite
surprising as they are usually very shy.

The only downside right now is that I'm the only analyst for
Chesterfield; they're still interviewing for a second position. This
means that I'm doing a hell of a lot of hours to try to cover this site
- I'm doing 8.30-5pm every day this week (inc Saturday) and next week
I'm on 8.30-6pm. On the other hand, this is the first role I've ever
known since my Friday-Ad days where I've been eligible for overtime, so
woohoo! My paypacket should look pretty good at the end of this month,
and I'll be putting the extra by to go towards a holiday next year.

I'm hoping to take Simon to Cyprus; I think he's old enough now to enjoy
himself without needing to be with other kids all the time or be
constantly demanding my attention. I'm looking at the Polis/Latchi area,
which is gorgeous and not overly developed (and hence quite reasonable.)
The coastline is beautiful (see first 5 shots here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/pocket_saviour/gallery/0001s18p - taken on
the footpath below Aphrodite's Bath, just east of Latchi.)

I haven't said anything about this to Simon yet, because if it turns out
I can't afford it, or Pat doesn't want to let him out of school, I don't
want to disappoint him. I do feel a bit guilty about taking him out of
school, what with his learning problems, but on the other hand, there's
no way I could ever afford to take him during school holidays. Anyway,
it's not like it's an exam year or anything.

On that subject, he has been doing well with his reading during our
nightly phone call, although we are now at a bit of a hiatus, as the
book we were planning on doing next has gone missing, and I haven't
received my copy of the replacement. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with his
progress and he's been sticking to it without any tantrums (so far,
haha.)

And now for the extraordinary random occurrence.

Last year, when I started indexing my comics and listing them on eBay, I
was musing about old times and wondering how my old friend and colleague
Simon Smith was doing.

http://pocket-saviour.livejournal.com/169167.html (sorry I can't do html
cos I'm posting by email and every time I try, I fail spectacularly.)

Yesterday morning, I signed on and had a notice that I'd sold 4
comics... to a Mr Simon Smith of Tunbridge Wells!

OMGWTFBBQ!

So I sent an enquiring email, and there was much "oh my gosh, it's
YOU!"-ing, and exchanging of news!

And the most totally weird and random thing of all is that I BOUGHT
THOSE COMICS FROM SIMON IN THE FIRST PLACE!!

Beat that, Carl Jung!

What I Did On My Holidays

2008-05-31T13:20:42Z

Tues 6th May
Set out to Manchester around 7.30pm, since we'd be up at 5am for the flight. Arrived at Cresta Court, which was tiny but clean, and strolled down the street to the george & dragon for a pint.

The george & dragon was one of those pubs which have clearly been there for decades (if not centuries) but which have been taken over and chained into a kind of soulless vacuum. Two older blokes at the bar who have probably been going there for 20 years and refuse to go elsewhere, even though their trade is clearly not what the chain wants (that being people who come in, eat, then fuck off home to make room for more.) Shame.

Only get about 3 hours sleep due to pillows like bricks. Never known owt like it. Also, Mum snores.

Wed 7th May
Get up at 5am so as to get to the airport for 6.55 check-in. In the event, we are 20 mins early, but check-in is already open, so heigh-ho.

Flight is delayed by 30 mins or so - not sure why. Mum moaning already, probably due to lack of nicotine.

Good thing we opted out of the in-flight meal, because it transpires they didn't bring enough! We share a sandwich and a crayfish and rocket salad that we brought with us.

Arrive at Pafos airport at 3.45pm local time (BST +2). Eventually find car hire rep and locate our car, which I am disappointed to find is a tiny, girlie Renault Clio, but actually turns out to be a good drive.

Locate our villa around 30 mins later, without incident.

We manage to let ourselves in okay, but due to the odd locking/unlocking mechanism, can't work out how to close the door. I start to get very stressed. Eventually I have a brainwave and work out how to do it, hurrah!

The villa is gorgeous, all marble tiled floors, a large open-plan ground floor, and two bedrooms with a bathroom each upstairs. Thge grounds are beautifully kept, with hedges of flowering hibiscus all around, jasmine and honeysuckle climing all over the trellises, an outside dining porch area, and a generously-sized pool. Perfection!

We decide to walk into town for our tea, which turns out to be about a 20-minute walk, although we're not exactly striding out. We end up earing in a slightly pricey restaurant called the Hippopotamus, where I have grilled sea bass and Mum has kleftiko. Mum also has one glass of wine and is totally pissed. We decide to get a taxi back, and get charged €10. Rip off!

On arriving home, we head for bed, only to find that something is making a horrible racket. We think at first it's the air-conditioning, then decide it's something to do with the water heater. Nothing we do affects the noise, which starts up about every 30 seconds or so and is noisiest in my bedroom. I put my MP3 player on and try to sleep. I get about 2 hours. Not good, especially after such a long day and crappy night on Tuesday.

Thurs 8th May
Crawl out of bed around 8am, having had about 2hrs kip. Not a happy bunny. Call the number given for the local agent, William, who turns out to be a sixty-ish ex-pat Scouser. He comes round, listens to a few cycles of the noise, fiddles with some switches (to no effect) and says he'll have to call a plumber, and he'll have a guy here by 2pm. Hurrah!

Much cheered, Mum and I drive into the village of Pegeia to get some provisions. I'm shocked by the prices - everything seems so much more expensive than I remember from previous visit to Cyprus, even taking inflation into account and the strength of the Euro versus the Pound. We stock up on fruit, veg, milk, bread, etc, and some low fat cheese which appears to be Greek, but on closer inspection turns out to be from Somerset! We stop and have a coffee, and wander up to the local church, built in a striking white stone.

After having a bite of lunch, Mum and I decide to visit the Tombs of the Kings. This is possibly Cyprus's most famous historical site, and at a mere €1.71 entry each, a bargain to boot. We clamber about over the more ruined trombs, check out the beautiful views out to sea, and go down into the better preserved ones. I get some good photos.

Having been over most of the site, we head back to the villa, only to find no evidence of a plumber, and the noise still going on. It's now nearly 5pm, and I'm pissed off. I phone William again, who says he's still waiting for the plumber, who's been held up in Limassol.

Eventually the plumber arrives, and goes up on the roof to investigate. Mum and I start imagining disaster scenarios. I say that if it isn't fixed tonight, we'll have to be put up somewhere else, as we can't sleep, and can't even get a shower or use the toilet, since there's no cold water at all. However, in the middle of our pessimistic discussions, the plumber suddenly reappears, announcing, "All fix." Hooray!

We get showered and changed and decide to go and eat at a hotel that William has recommended. However, the lack of sleep, stress and acute PMS lead to me snapping at a clueless water, and then running out of the restaurant in tears. We decide that we're not really that hungry anyway, and drive home for some fruit and crackers with tsatziki, then an early night.

Fri 9th May
After the stresses of yesterday, we decide to have a lazy day of it, and spend all day laying out by the pool, swimming, and reading. We keep having to rescue various creatures from the pool - mainly bees, but also a couple of lizards, butterflies and a tiny shrew! The pool water is pretty cold - it's still early in the season, after all - but since the outside temperature is around 25° C, it's bearable.

In the evening, we drive into town again and eat at the Palm Grove, where I treat myself to a pizza, and Mum has fish. Very yummy! We wander up the road looking for a shop that sells stamps, so we can post our postcards, only to be told in every shop, "Sorry, we only sell stamps if you've bought your postcards here." Outrage! We resolve to find a post office.

Sat 10th May
We stop at a local market, La Fontaine, on our way into Pafos. The market doesn't have a huge amount of stuff to see and appears to be a cross between a boot fair and an arts and crafts market (and not in a particularly good way...)

We drive on to Pafos, and investigate the harbour and the old castle. Pafos, of course, has no beach, which doesn't stop the local kids playing there. I spend about half an hour browsing round an art gallery on the harbourside, containing a real mix of everything from twee crap up to a couple of original oil painting that I want to steal. Alas, our baggage allowance certainly wouldn't cover a 4' by 3' heavy-framed painting, so I settle for buying a pack of blank greeting cards which I plan to cut in half and frame like photos.

After the harbour, it's on to the House of Dionysus and the rest of the mosaics. They are still as impressive as the last time I came, and Mum is suitably appreciative. It strikes me that the Greek alphabet has changed so little since the mosaics were laid that the inscriptions on the mosaics can be read easily (well, presuming you know your Greek alphabet.) Compare that with things written in medieval English - the formation of the letters is hardly recognisable as the roman alphabet.

Outside the mosaics, we see a pretty little house, which is probably an equipment shed or something, but looked so sweet and fairytale that I couldn't but take a photo. We also encounter a very small, very thin and very pregnant little cat, who is incredibly friendly even after working out that we have no food. We worry about her welfare, then reassure ourselves that if she were actually starving she wouldn't be pregnant.

Back to the villa via a roadside fruitmarket, and I do some more sunbathing and swimming while Mum has a nap.

Into town for the evening, we have a meze at the Corrallo, which is very good but suffers from unenthusiastic service.

Sun 11th May
We decide to do a cross-country drive through Pegiea, Arodes, Ineia and Drouseia and on down to Lakki and the Baths of Aphrodite. We stop for some juice in Drouseia, which is one of the few towns we see without new development everywhere. The drive is fairly straightforward, although the sudden drop from the mountains to sea level makes our ears pop!

I hadn't investigated the Baths of Aphrodite before (because Paul and I always stayed in Limassol, and it's a long way from there.) We end up behind a busload of tourists and I'm only able to sneak one half-decent photo.

But just below the Baths, we spy a sign for a nature trail, and decide to see what it's all about, since we have our walking shoes with us. And it's well worth the look, as it takes us out onto the mountainside overlooking the bay, which sweeps round towards Lakki and Polis.

The sun is hot, and we're getting hungry, so we go back to the car and decide to head into Lakki for something to eat. We choose the Soukli hotel purely on the basis that it has a covered porch dining area which looks out to sea, and it's a good decision, my halloumi and tomato pitta being delectable, and Mum's greek salad declared "divine", and all served with homemade chips cooked just right.

Back on the road after this handsome repast, we head out through Polis, and then back towards Pafos via the B7, through Chrysochou, Giolou and Stroumpi. We head into Pafos in the hopes of finding the market, but this being a Sunday, it's not open. So we head home instead for a nap.

A stroll down to the beach in the evening, and then back to the villa again, where we have a simple meal of baked potatoes and salad.

Mon 11th May
Today is the day we're going to see the Sanctuary of Apollo, my favourite place on Cyprus, and I've been looking forward to it since we arrived. We decide to leave home early to try to avoid the crowds (and avoid being out in the hottest sun, since the site has no cover or shade.) We head up on the B6, past Aphrodite's Rock, and through the switchbacks at Episkopi military zone, which are a bit challenging. We arrive at 9am and have the whole place to ourselves, no sight or sound of another soul. Mum is enchanted as soon as we arrive and we stop to sit for a while and get our bearings. We investigate the probable dormitories and the southwest building, before walking up the processional way towards the temple itself. I always feel awed by the size of the temple and the fact that it's stood for so long (although part of it has been restored.) I also feel a special affinity for Apollo, the god of light, poetry and music.

We move on to look at the baths (still being excavated - as they were last time I was here about 10 years ago), and the atrium and palaestra (which features some interesting capstones). We also see a large gecko, the only one I manage to get a picture of the whole week.

Being a bit "cultured-out", we decide to skip Kourion and drive back on the A6. We lunch at the Angelina Tavern, on the main road between Coral Bay and Pafos. It's very nice, with my mushroom omelette cooked to perfection, although the chips aren't a patch on those we had at the Soukli.

Back home for an afternoon by the pool, followed by a short stroll down to the beach and back.

In the evening, we decide to follow a recommendation from one of the guide books, and drive out to Agios Georgios and have a meal at the Agios Georgios tavern, which has a dining terrace overlooking the west-facing bay. Unfortunately, the wind picks up so strongly that we have to eat inside, where the decor is pedestrian and the service miserable. My red mullets are good, but Mum's chicken is tough. This is the only time we have taken a dining recommendation, and it's the only bad meal we've had!

Tue 12th May
Due to my driving duties of the last few days, my neck has become very irritated where the seatbelt cuts across it, and in combination with a lot of sun, I've developed a sort of friction-sun-burn. I spend the day by the pool, under the umbrella, with my sarong fashioned into a sort of neckerchief.

Dinner at the Palm Grove again in the evening, and I buy a new handbag, a nice patchwork leather affair - Cyprus, of course, being famed for leatherwork.

Weds 13th May
Time to go home. Wah!

Our flight is supposedly at 5pm but is delayed by around 2 hours. Pafos airport is low on facilities, seating and space. I have, of course, finished the seven books I brought with me, so I go to the airport newsagent to try to find something for the plane. The markups are obscene, and I end up paying €4 for an Independent.

The 5-hour flight home is made decidedly more miserable by Mum's constant litany of complaints. The seats are too small. Why should I have to put my handbag on the floor, I want it on my lap. No I don't want to put my seatbelt on. Why aren't there any sandwiches to buy. Why are the toilets so small. Everything smells bad. I'm bored. I'm never flying again. You would seriously think that this was the worst experience of her entire life.This woman has given birth, twice!! and I'm pretty sure she didn't do that with a fag in her mouth!

Anyway, back to Manchester, and then on back to Sheffield, where we were given a rapturous welcome by the kitties, even stroppy-pants Sarah.

I have decided that my future holidays will definitely take place in villas. It's the first time I've booked a villa instead of a hotel package, and it was astronomically better, for not really much more money. Time to start saving for my next trip to Cyprus, which hopefully will be with Simon!

The most humongous catch-up entry EVAH

2008-05-31T10:47:48Z

I got so much stuff to write about, I got to get it done before I forget it all, LOL.

OK let me start with two short(ish) entries:

I have a job again! I interviewed at CPP in Chesterfield on Thursday, and on Friday morning they offered me the job. Go me! It's Platform Analyst (aka realtime analyst) and it's a drop from my Otto salary, but there's about 2.5k in benefits, and it's BACK IN REAL TIME! and out of the hell of forecasting! WIN!

I'm starting on 16th June - not sure what my hours will be yet, they're open 8-8 so probably one week earlies, one week lates. The building is really nice, in a great position right in the shopping area, so I'll be able to get bits and pieces when I feel like it, unlike being stuck out on the industrial estate and if you want to go out at lunchtime you have to break the speed limit to be back within your lunch break (honest, Officer, that's the only reason I was speeding...)

Simon has not been getting on very well at school, so I went down to see him this Tuesday/Wednesday just gone. We had a good chat about his schoolwork, and a lot of the problems are stemming from his difficulties with reading/writing. So we made an agreement that he's going to read to me over the phone every night, and he's also going to write me a letter once a week (the bribe with the latter being that I will reply, and if his letter was good then I'll put a little treat in there.) He has also promised to pay more attention in some of his other lessons.

As well as chatting about school, of course we also hung out and had a good time. We went to see the latest Indiana Jones film on the Tuesday night. It was silly and preposterous and highly enjoyable! On Wednesday we went to visit Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset, which was very interesting and a good day out.

Drove back on Wednesday night after dropping Simon back at Pat's. Had a good talk with Simon about not creating a fuss and upsetting us both, and he was very very good, bless him.

Need to blog about the holiday in Cyprus now, but I'll do that separately because the LJ editor always goes a bit funny with cuts and html combined...

Quick-ish update

2008-04-18T22:15:14Z

Yes, I know: it's been ages since I've updated. Consider me admonished.

This will only be a fairly quick one (hurr hurr) because it's quite late and Mum's dragging me out shopping tomorrow morning. I'm writing this in between seemingly endless test renders of G2 James's nipples. This is a path I've trodden before, and I probably couldn't be blamed for giving up and leaving it at my lo-res freebie, but I decided that since I have this time off work I should bloody well get some stuff done, because once I'm working again I certainly won't have time.

Trust me when I say that playing with man-nipples for several hours isn't as much fun as it sounds, when they're digital.

Anyway, things are going along fine here. I had Simon for a week over the Easter holidays, while Mum went to stay in Filey for a week, since she didn't think she could cope with the noise and disruption. Probably a good choice ;-)

We were blessed with great weather while Simon was here, and we took full advantage of it by going to Alton Towers mid-week. We took Simon's friend Daniel, which was a great choice as he was actually wanting to go on the rides unlike when we took James last year. We went on nearly every ride in the park but unfortunately ran out of time before we could get on the new Battle Galleons ride. Probably not a bad thing as my back was quite painful by then as I had got an unexpected jolt on the Log Flume ride.

I always wish I could take a camera with me to Alton, but there's no way mine will fit in my pocket, and I don't like to take a bag in with me. They sell that "Your Day" thing, but it's an extra £20 each...

Actually... I've been thinking of treating myself to a day at Alton on my own. If I went mid-week, when the kids are at school, I bet I could get on every ride, especially as a single rider (because you get priority queuing on most of the big rides.) Buuu-uuut... a) it's £25 and b) about half the fun of rollercoaster rides is getting off the other end and going "Fucking hell, that was amazing, man! Let's go again!" to your friend/partner/whatever...

Oyyy... I need to decide what to do with this texture set. The model whose photos I used for the texture has got some really nasty dry skin/eczema on his thighs, and whilst it looks very realistic, it's not very attractive... I'm also debating whether to enlarge the texture map for the body to 6144x5200, because at the current res, the inefficiency of the body texture map make the lack of detailing a real problem. It's incredibly hard to match the head to neck, for example, because the head texture is, pixel for pixel, about 10 times the size of the body.

Wow... I've just realised his knees need major work as well. They look really dry and cracked. I want to rub some E45 cream on them, LOL.

OK gonna finish up and go to bed, I need to work on this tomorrow, preferably with coffee on hand. Let's hope Mum can be persuaded that shopping should only take 30 minutes MAXIMUM, and if you haven't found anything to wear within that time, you should go home...

All change!

2008-03-26T11:44:53Z

Well, it's been a month of changes and no mistake.

Mum and I have been talking about her selling her flat and moving up here with me since last year, when she realised she was going to have to sell up due to her lack of earnings while she was looking after Grandma.

She received an offer on her flat just before Christmas, but there have been really ridiculous delays on the completion, mainly because the solictor for the buyer at the bottom of the chain was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

The week after Grandma's funeral, we finally got notice that the sale was going through, but without much notice: completion date was just 5 days' time!

So whilst Mum was in a frenzy of packing, I went into work the next day and gave my notice in, the plan being for Mum to support me for a couple of months with the leftover money from her sale, until I get something a lot more to my taste.

My boss, being eager to get rid of me, agreed to release me that Friday, which was very handy with Mum arriving the following Monday!

There were, of course, last minute unpleasantnesses with my unpleasant boss, including her spitefully removing my systems access completely on the Thursday - which meant that I arrived on the Friday, having caught two buses to work (since my car was being fixed) to find I had nothing I could do, and that of course I couldn't salvage any of my spreadsheets which I'd produced and send them to myself at home for future use. (All resource planners do this when quitting a job. When you've spent nigh on 15 hours crafting a macro or pivot table from scratch, believe you me, you want to get all of the use out of it that you can!)

Anyway, nuts to all that, I'm free, free, free! Goodbye Otto with your stupid, stuck-in-the-seventies ideas about call centre management! Goodbye Evil BitchBoss, with your witless shoe-and-handbag fetish! Hahahaha!

Anyway, as I was saying, Mum arrived on the following Monday, and for the last two weeks, we've been settling in nicely, getting all Mum's stuff unpacked (well, most of it - we haven't got room to unpack it all.) We've had to go pretty slowly, because Mum had a really dreadful cough and cold when she arrived, which of course she then passed on to me, so we've both been hacking and sneezing and using masses of tissues, cough sweets and Night Nurse.

Mum tried to persuade me to sell all my comics as a job lot, but I refused, so we managed to find some better storage options for them, and at present I'm re-cataloging and indexing them, and will be listing a goodly bulk on eBay again, but definitely retaining a good number that I just refuse to ever sell. I suppose in some ways I'm a bit silly, because (for example) all of the Sandman comics, I've got in trade paperback collections. But at the same time, I can't bear the thought of letting them go, and not just because the value's going up, either. They're part of me, part of the person I was then, on my way to who I am now.

I've had a few nice surprises as I've gone through, too. A few older first editions, nothing spectacular, but certainly worth a few quid. And some things I'd completely forgotten about: an old copy of Sandman 23 which Simon Smith and I, in a fit of boredom one evening, decided to edit with our own wording for every other character but Morpheus. (The cover had got ripped, and we both already had another pristine copy.) I might have to upload some scans of some of the more inspired pages; I reckon the Fair Use clause on satire should allow me to print a few panels without enraging the copyright gods.

It's been nice having Mum here - it's horrible being on your own when you're ill. Although of course she gave me the bloody thing in the first place, so perhaps that evens out, LOL. But it IS nice having her here; I know she will push me to get out and get some exercise more, which should help with the weightloss thing (which is still going well; 15lbs lost now.)

The cats have definitely got used to Mum and are enjoying having someone around who sits on the sofa more often, although neither of them are really lap cats.

Mum has given both me and our Lucy a bit of money as a present, so I have blown mine (and some of me own money) on a new PC, which should arrive next week. It's a custom job, with 4gb RAM, a dual-core 2.3ghz processor, two HDDs, a lightscribe DVD writer, a TV card, internal card reader, AND a new TFT widescreen monitor. GEEKGASM!

Interests collage

2008-03-15T17:17:14Z

This, in lieu of a real entry...

Create your own! By ga_woo using Web Services by Yahoo!

Goodnight Grandma

2008-02-26T09:08:42Z

So last Wednesday it was time to say goodbye to Grandma.

I drove down on Tuesday via Wales (in order to pick Simon up.) This made my entire journey approx 900 miles in three days, ouch.

We had a cremation at T.Wells crem at 12, and then a memorial service at Hartfield church at 1pm, followed by a wake at The Anchor afterwards.

There was a bit of a panic mid-morning, as

lucy_pointycat and rhandolph were catching the bus up to Mum's, and the damn thing never showed up. Thankfully they were able to get one to Lewes, so I drove down and picked them up there. Not the most auspicious start to the day.

My Aunty Val (who is a florist) did all the flowers, and they were lovely. Grandma would have loved them.

I think most of us were in tears at the crem. I lost it halfway through singing Psalm 23. By the time we got to the church, we were pretty much cried out, and Mum and I managed to give our two-part eulogy without breaking down, which was good, and by all accounts we did a good job.

The wake was extremely subdued - as our Lucy remarked, "Our family don't really know how to have fun, do they?" I suppose having several alcoholics in the family tree does tend somewhat to put the dampers on.

Walked down to the village with Lucy, Rhandolph and Simon. Went into Pooh Corner, where Grandma worked for several years. It's expanded quite considerably since those days. Chatted with the owner, Mike, for a while, but had to leave before having an unfortunate wallet accident. Everyone knows what a sucker I am for Pooh memorabilia. When Grandma was working there, every Xmas and birthday would bring me a present that was Pooh-related :-)

Walked up to the rec (recreation ground aka playground) with Simon and Rhandolph, where they both had a go on the slide and swings. Rhandolph got muddy trousers, and I got muddy boots.

Everyone left by about 5pm, so we went back to Mum's for a cuppa, and then I drove L&R back to Brighton, where we played with their incredibly cute kittens for a bit.

Wednesday I drove back, via Wales. Simon was very clingy and did not want to go back at all, so we had one of those sessions just before I dropped him off. Very exhausting, especially on top of a funeral. Still, he was very very well-behaved the whole time we were there, and it was such a short visit, I can't ask for more, really.

I was so exhausted on Friday that I called in to my boss to ask for an extra day's holiday, or alternatively I'd have to take it as sick since I was waaaay too tired to work. There has now been a fuss over that since she was on holiday (which I didn't know since she'd said to me on Monday "see you Friday") and didn't pick up her voicemail. More on that later in the week, probably.

"The journey doesn't end here"

2008-02-12T21:34:06Z

I haven't written in a while, I know.

Mum called me on Friday 1st to tell me that Grandma was really deteriorating. Grandma had been in hospital for a couple of weeks in January, because she was having falls with increasing regularity and the nursing home staff were getting very concerned as she was getting very bruised and battered. She managed to break her walking frame by trying to go down the stairs with it and she fell on top of it. Thankfully it was only the walker that broke and not Grandma's bones. Anyway they had admitted her to the K&S in Tunbridge Wells, which wasn't the best news as they recently were involved in several C.Diff outbreaks. They kept her in the K&S for a couple of weeks while they waited for a qualified doctor to turn up and give her a sonagram (heart x-ray). (Don't even get me started on the failing of the NHS in the south east. After living in Sheffield a few years, I've come to take the excellent hospital system up here rather for granted.)

Well the sonagram didn't show anything so they discharged Grandma, but while she'd been in, she'd been quite distressed. The Lewy Body dementia made her very prone to anxiety and when she was taken away from familiar surroundings, this really came to the fore. So the hospital put her on some extremely strong sedatives - I'm not sure what, but I'm guessing some kind of barbiturate. When they discharged her, they did not do a proper handover with the nursing home, and the nursing staff were unaware that she'd been dosed up to the eyeballs, and although she'd only been on whatever-it-was for three days, Grandma developed withdrawal symptoms. She was very restless, kept trying to get up out of bed or her chair (at which point she'd fall over again) and scratching at herself.

The GP on call to the home prescribed her some different, milder sedatives (lithium carbonate) to stabilise her, which seemed to work. But she had become very withdrawn and stopped responding to most vocal contact and wasn't opening her eyes at all. She also wouldn't eat anything and had only had a few tiny mouthfuls of mushed-up Weetabix in the last few days, and few sips of water.

Well this was at the point Mum called me, and I had been reading on the Lewy Body Dementia Assoc forums that this was a common thing for patients going into end stage and was likely to signal that they were really at the end of their days. Luckily I already had last week booked off work (just using up my holiday allowance) so I decided to go down to see Grandma, despite Mum and our Lucy trying to put me off.

I arrived late afternoon Monday, so I didn't see Grandma until Tuesday morning. Even being prepared for seeing her, knowing from speaking to Mum every week how she was deteriorating, the change was a shock; I suppose it always is, because people stay the same in our memories when we don't see them often. I hadn't seen her since Lucy's wedding, around 7 months before, and she'd seemed changed then; hunched over and as if she'd shrunken into her shell (this is apparently a common feature of Lewy Body dementia and is a result of the psychological changes rather than a physiological problem.)

When we got up to her room, she was in the wheelchair while the staff were changing her bed, which at this point was a mattress on the floor; she'd had so many falls out of bed (like, multiple every night) that they'd put her on the floor so that at least she wouldn't get any more battered when she rolled off the mattress. (Mum arranged with them to buy a proper hospital bed with raisable sides which was delivered last Friday.)

So she was sitting in the chair, with a restraining strap around her because she keeps slipping out of it, with her eyes closed. And when we went in, Mum said, "Look who's come to see you, it's Karen," and Grandma managed to get her eyes hoisted about to half mast and she said, "Karen." and I said hello and gave her a kiss, and she said, "I had something to tell you..." but then she just drifted off again and didn't respond when we asked her what.

We took her downstairs and into the "library" room and got her into an armchair, and we sat with her for a couple of hours, until dinner. Trouble was, she kept sliding down further and further in the chair, trying to get comfortable, I think, and we kept having to hoist her back up. My Grandma is not a small woman, I think Mum said she was about 14 stone, so this wasn't easy for me and Mum with our bad backs :-\

At dinnertime, one of the nursing staff helped get her into the wheelchair again and took her over to the table to try to get her to eat, but she started the sliding act in the wheelchair and ended up coming out of it and landing on the floor, half under the table. The staff had to go and get the lifting apparatus and hoist her back into her chair. It was awful. There was another resident sitting at the dining table waiting for her dinner and she was looking at Grandma and obviously feeling so sorry for her. (And this lady is 101 so has twenty years on Grandma!) If Grandma had been in her right mind and known what was happening, she'd have died of embarrassment on the spot.

Anyway Mum and I left, we were absolutely wrung out after a few hours. God knows how Mum and Sally have managed to keep going with the daily visits for so long, although of course she hasn't been this bad all that time, but even so.

That evening I went down to Lucy's and we went out and had a very nice meal in a nearby pub and I got to see Lucy and Rhandolph's kittens, who are unbearably cute, so that was a nice change of scenery and good to have a natter.

The following day, Wednesday, we went over to the nursing home again (which by the way I have to say is incredibly nice - it's converted from an old Edwardian manor house and it's like a very upmarket old-fashioned hotel, or perhaps a ladies' finishing school. And all the staff that I met were incredibly nice and caring. Although at £550 a week I would expect no less...) this time with Sally, who had been down with a virus for the previous five days, so hadn't seen Grandma since she had deteriorated. Sally was really shocked at the change and very upset. I think she has wanted to believe all along that Grandma might somehow recover, or at least stabilise, and have a few more happy years ahead of her in a nice environment with trained and trustworthy staff to help her and the family around. I think she finally realised that that wasn't going to happen.

Again we had the performance with Grandma sliding down in the wheelchair. We didn't even try putting her in the armchair because we knew she'd be on the floor straightaway. The doctor came to visit while we were there - the staff had called him because they'd noticed Grandma breathing heavily and were worried she was getting a chest infection. The doctor said her chest was clear, but she had conjunctivitis. Grandma wouldn't even respond to the doctor, which was very unusual - mainly she's been very perky and garrulous with any doctors, social workers, etc., to the point where Mum and Sally were thinking "They're not going to believe us when we tell them what she's like!" But when he said hello to her she just mumbled a vague "Eh-oh" and then didn't respond any more. Even when he lifted up her eyelid to check her eyes - it was like there was nobody there; her pupil responded to light, but she didn't even track or refocus on him at all.

So of course dinner time came along, and I said "I think she's going to end up on the floor again if you try and feed her" but Sally wanted to try anyway, and of course Grandma ended up under the table again. I don't think she was doing it on purpose, I think that the smell or idea of the food was so distasteful (even though it smelled very nice and actually made me hungry!) that she was sort of recoiling and trying to get away, but just ended up slithering out in a heap because her legs had no strength.

The staff got her back into the chair, and we decided it was time to go. I kissed goodbye to Grandma and told her I loved her. I knew that in all probability I wouldn't get another chance to say it.

I came back up to Sheffield on Wednesday night; I'd only booked the cat sitter for three days and I was missing my babies, and I just felt there was nothing more I could do.

Mum called me on Saturday to say that the doctor had been out again and said that she was now developing a chest infection and that he felt it was likely to develop into pneumonia, which she almost certainly could not survive. We were really just waiting from that point on, and at four o'clock this morning she finally slipped away. She went so quickly that the staff didn't have a chance to phone Mum or Sally to come in, but they were with her at the end, and she really did just slip away from one breath to the one that never came.

Mum said that she looked very peaceful and that all the stress and anxiety of the last years had gone from her face, as if she'd never been ill.

I've been thinking all day of these lines from Return of the King, which I will close with. They comfort me and give me hope that Grandma is at peace now and journeying on without me.

PIPPIN I didn't think it would end this way . . .

GANDALF (gently) End? No, the journey doesn't end here.

PIPPIN looks up at GANDALF, questioningly . . . .

GANDALF (cont'd) Death is just another path, one that we all must take.

GANDALF (cont'd) The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to silver glass... and then you see it...

PIPPIN What, Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF White shores ... And beyond . . . A far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN (quietly) Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF (gently) No... No, it isn't.

Fellowship of the Ring: Sequence 2

2008-01-28T15:25:18Z

Concerning Hobbits
This is what was originally going to be the opening scene, when the prologue idea had been nixed. Obviously when it was decided that the prologue was back in, this scene was deemed superfluous and cut from the theatrical release. Hooray for its inclusion in the Extended Edition, for it is a fine scene.

You'll notice immediately that there's a huge contrast with the foregoing prologue. Just imagine what a different feeling the film would have had from the outset, had the prologue never been made. From the high drama and action of the prologue, to the quiet and serene Hobbits of the Shire.

Regardless of that, the transition certainly works well in the EE version. The contrasts between the two scenes are numerous: The colour pallette changes from the dark, cold blue-green of the prologue to the warm, golden tones of the Shire. The music score goes from the thudding, heavy martial theme to the lovely Shire theme. And Cate Blanchett's narration changes to Ian Holm's, so you go from a deep, dramatic female delivery, to a quiet, male voice that talks of everyday life.

Visually, we start with a map of Middle Earth, panning across the map from East to West, and zeroing in on the Shire. The camera pulls away from the map to reveal that we are in a house. And what an untidy but happy place it looks! Bilbo is clearly of the "It might look untidy to you, but I know where everything is" school of filing :-D

We then take a short trip around the Shire, seeing the inhabitants going about their everyday lives. There's a bit of low-brow humour - a man being distracted from kissing his sweetheart by a tray of passing cakes; the village idiot trying to flick earwax off his finger - and Bilbo tells us that Hobbits enjoy eating, drinking, and smoking pipeweed. He adds, "But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet, and good tilled earth; for all Hobbits share a love of things that grow" and we see Sam holding up a newly-potted plant, looking very pleased with it.

The Shire
We open on a shot of Frodo sitting against a tree, reading a book. I must say, the scene looks absolutely idyllic. I want nothing more than to go and sit down next to Frodo and ask him to read some pages aloud.

Enter Gandalf, in his little horse-drawn cart, and after sharing a joke with Frodo, the latter leaps off the bank and into the cart to hug Gandalf.

Now the dialogue differs depending on whether it's the theatrical version (which expounds a little more on Hobbits, to make up for the lack of the previous scene) or the EE, but Frodo and Gandalf talk together, Frodo mentioning that Bilbo seems to have a secret, and that he's been acting strangely.

We cut to shots of Bilbo in Bag End, his happy attitude all gone, as he begins to tear Bag End apart, looking for something. He throws papers to one side, pulls the contents out of drawers, until finally realising that whatever he seeks is in his pocket. We see him bring the object, hidden in his hand, up to his face. His expression and pose are heart-breaking, here - he knows that the Ring is driving him to madness, he hates that junkie feeling, but he's powerless to stop.

Note that we don't see the Ring at all. It won't be revealed until after Bilbo's party.

Back on the cart, Frodo tells Gandalf that the wizard has been officially labelled a "Disturber of the Peace", at which Gandalf looks surprised and somewhat proud. (Or maybe I'm projecting, because I would be, heheh.) They roll past a Hobbit house, and the Hobbit sweeping in the yard (one Odo Proudfoot, according to the script) gives Gandalf a filthy look and mutters under his breath.

As the cart rolls on, about a half dozen children run across the fields to the road, shouting "Gandalf,Gandalf!" I had some problems with this, because if Gandalf hasn't visited the Shire for many years (as is revealed when he greets Bilbo in the next scene) then how do they know who he is? Well, I imagine their parents will have told them about Gandalf and his magnificent fireworks, and that he'll be coming for Bilbo's party, and that he's a tall man who wears long grey robes and a big pointy hat, and if you are good little Hobbits then you'll get to see some fireworks...

The cart rolls on without stopping, and the children stop pursuing and give it some "Ohhhhhh" disappointment. And then boom! some fireworks explode out of the back of the cart, setting the children to jumping and shouting in excitement. Even old Odo Proudfoot is laughing in delight - until his wife gives him the death glare, and he resumes his muttering again.

I loved this scene. I can't think of a better introduction for Gandalf.

Very Old Friends
Gandalf bangs on the door of Bag End, causing Bilbo to yell that he's not at home to visitors and doesn't want any more visitors, well-wishers, or distant relations. "What about very old friends?" asks Gandalf. Bilbo comes to the door and greets Gandalf, rushing forward to embrace him. "You haven't aged a day," says Gandalf, and we get the impression that there might be something not altogether positive in that statement.

Now, bear in mind that the next shots, right through until we get into the kitchen, were taken on two different sets, on two different days, with only one actor present at a time. Firstly they shot Ian Holm on a "normal" sized set - that is, Bag End designed for average human proportions, so that Bilbo looks perfectly suited to his home. Then they shot Ian McKellen on a small set, where he would look like an oversized human in a Hobbit's home. So these two actors are basically acting to thin air, and my god, don't they pull it off? Talk about suspension of disbelief: I would never have questioned for a minute that the two were present together. Superb acting.

Anyway, we have a few shots of Gandalf wondering around the interior of Bag End, doing the comedy head-bump thing, while Bilbo runs around making tea and talking nineteen-to-the-dozen.

At a bang on the door, Bilbo flattens himself against the wall, telling Gandalf that he has to get away from "these confounded relatives." We learn that he has some sort of plan to leave, and that he won't be bringing nephew Frodo.

Bilbo's quickfire speech gives way to slower, more pensive words, as he tells Gandalf, "I feel thin...sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." Great line. He's fiddling with his pocket, where we know he's keeping whatever-it-is, and Gandalf watches him with interest.

Cut to the two of them smoking pipes outside. Gandalf blows a perfect smoke sailing ship, which he sends sailing through the centre of Bilbo's smoke ring. Foreshadowing? Of course.

A Long-Expected Party
Trivia: Many of the extras at the party were production crew members, their families and friends. If you look very closely, you can see Pippin on stage playing in the band.

Frodo "persuades" Sam to dance with Rosie, despite Sam's reluctance. This is what I mean about Elijah Wood not doing "happy" very well: Frodo looks positively maniacal as he watches Sam stumbling into the dance with Rosie. Then Frodo finishes Sam's beer. The git.

We get a kind of montage of Bilbo greeting guests and partygoers, and then his ears twitch as he hears the "confounded relatives" drawing near: the Sackville-Bagginses! Frodo help him hide behind a marquee. It's nice to see this touching moment between Bilbo and Frodo, even though Bilbo seems to bottle it at the last minute and contents himself with "You'll be alright" instead of telling Frodo his plans to leave. This conversation wasn't in the theatrical version, meaning that Bilbo and Frodo didn't actually share any screen time until all the way to Rivendell.

We then get Merry and Pippin's introduction as firework thieves. Notice Merry taking a big bite out of an apple as they run away from Gandalf's cart? The apples will be a recurring motif with these two... They light the firework and up it goes, taking the tent with it. Apparently everyone took the mickey out of Billy Boyd (Pippin) after this take, because he was genuinely startled by the effect and "screamed like a girl", to the derision of the other actors!

The stolen firework goes up spectacularly, then swoops back down... in the form of a dragon. Watch the partygoers running, screaming and panicking - with the exception of Bilbo and Frodo. Goes to show the different outlook and attitude in these two compared with Hobbits in general.

Gandalf drags Pippin and Merry off to do some chores in penance, while Bilbo gives his speech.

Fact: the birthday cake, which was made of polystyrene, actually caught fire during the take, but Ian Holm gamely carried on with the take. What a professional!

Bilbo makes his speech, being somewhat tipsy by this time, and his words leave the partygoers looking at each other and wondering if they've just been praised or insulted. I love that moment; haven't we all been there? Again we see Bilbo's hand go to his waistcoat pocket and remove something. He looks straight at Frodo, who clearly doesn't suspect a thing (or at least, that's what his expression says...) and whispers "Goodbye" - before vanishing completely.

For the very few people watching these movies for the first time and never having read the books or film or knowing that there's a magical ring, I imagine that might have come as a surprise. The Hobbits clearly aren't up on their reading, as they are all completely amazed, LOL

Farewell Dear Bilbo
We soon discover how Bilbo staged his magical disappearance, as he takes the ring from his finger, flips it in the air and re-pockets it, laughing at his own stunt.

Then, boo! Gandalf is behind him, and giving him a bit of a lecture about rings, proper use of. Bilbo waves him off and says he'll be leaving the ring to Frodo, along with Bag End. "It's in an envelope, over there on the mantelpiece," he says, before discovering "No wait... it's here in my pocket..."

Has Bilbo 'forgotten' to put the ring in the envelope? Or has the Ring itself got something to do with it? Judging by what else we come to know of the Ring in the rest of the films, I'm thinking that it clouded Bilbo's mind and made him 'forget' to leave it.

We then see a great performance from Ian Holm, as he flips from good-hearted, kindly Bilbo into an aggressive and paranoid junkie. Anyone who's ever tried to get between an addict and their drug of choice will recognise Bilbo's abrupt personality change.

Gandalf draws himself up, and for the first time we see the awesome power of the Maia behind the kindly old wizard's guise. "Bilbo Baggins!" he thunders, and Bilbo is literally rocked back on his heels. I don't think there were any effects used on the shots of Ian McKellan; apart from lighting, it's all him, and the change is shocking.

Having frightened Bilbo out of his aggression, Gandalf relaxes from his frightening stance and tells Bilbo that he's trying to help. It's a touching moment, seeing Ian Holm run to Gandalf seeking comfort. And yet at the very last, he still tries to leave Bag End with the ring in his pocket. Lucky that Gandalf's there to make sure he does drop it after all.

The ring thuds to the floor (apparently there were magnets under the floor to stop it bouncing back up, thus making it appear heavier) and Bilbo steps outside, looking as if a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders... But also looking sadder and older, as he says goodbye to his very old friend.

"Until our next meeting," murmurs Gandalf. Wonder when that will be?

***********

These scenes, taken as a whole, work so well because of the scenery. The attention to detail which the prologue promised is here in spades. Did you know that the location manager found the setting for Hobbiton (MataMata on New Zealand's northern island) and they set all the structural stuff up and then left it a year so the plants would bed in and look suitably established? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. If Hobbiton had looked fake, it would have all fallen apart, but it's just perfect.

The score adds to the feeling without being overpowering or obtrusive. You'll notice the Shire theme creeping back into the score at various points throughout the films, generally when Frodo and Sam are talking about home. We've seen the Ring, and also heard, for the first time, the eerie noise that the Ring makes - a kind of almost-sub-aural humming tone. We've met our cast of hobbits. We've a long road to travel with them, and will learn plenty about them in the journey. And of course, we've met our good wizard, Gandalf, and learned that he is powerful and generally good-natured - but that he can be frightening, too.

Fellowship of the Ring: Sequence 1

2008-01-25T08:25:05Z

So, having dispensed my ultimate wisdom (LOL) on the cast and characterisations, I'm going to turn my attention to a scene-by-scene discussion.

The Prologue scene had a chequered history in filming. As far as I can remember, the sequence went something like: originally New Line wanted a prologue, but PJ didn't want to make one. (The book doesn't have one; all the back story is given by Gandalf in the "Shadows of the Past" chapter and during the Council of Elrond.)

PJ persuaded them that the film would open with "Concerning Hobbits" and that Gandalf would be responsible for exposition.

Then right as they were finishing filming, New Line again said they wanted a prologue. So PJ shot some footage. It came to about 20 minutes. New Line said he could have two and a half minutes. Lots more arguing later, and having changed from having Frodo narrate it, to Gandalf, and then to Galadriel, the film ended up with the Prologue. I'm not sure how long it was in the theatrical release, but the EE version is just over seven minutes long.

The scene opens to darkness, and Cate Blanchett narrating over the top in Elvish, which is immediately overdubbed in English. Immediately we get a shock of orange flames, as we enter Sauron's forge. The narrator tells us that Sauron is forging rings of power. The next few shots are subdued, with a very ritualistic, storied feel to them - look at the way the Kings of Men take their rings in synchronisation. Then we cut to Sauron forging the One Ring. The Ring itself looks fairly innocuous, beautiful even. (Incidentally, there was a lot of discussion about whether the engraving on the Ring should be on the outer or inner surface, before deciding that it should be on both.)

We then cut to shots of the Last Alliance. The attention to detail that was brought to this film is immediately visible. Look at the intricate metalwork on the armour and weapons! We see the Elves, with Elrond commanding (in fact he was the Herald of Gil-Galad, but that isn't explained in the film) wheeling their weapons into position in a very impressive display of synchronisation. I've heard a few people say that this would be totally ineffective in battle because it would only work if the enemy were all charging in synchronisation too, but I've always seen it as an intimidatory display prior to battle, rather than an actual fighting move.

We also see the soldiers of Gondor, complete with shields showing the emblem of Gondor; a white tree with seven stars. (I know the tree is the White Tree of the King, but I wondered what the stars were all about. Apparently the stars "originally represented the single stars on the banners of each of the seven ships (of nine) that bore a palantir; in Gondor the seven stars were set about a white-flowered tree, over which the Kings set a winged crown." (From the Index to the books.)) We'll be seeing that emblem of Gondor again, although not soon. We also see Elendil, King of Gondor, and his son, Isildur, although we don't get to know their names just yet.

An aside - it's kind of irritating that you can spot major characters by their allergy to wearing helmets. Helmets make for difficult visual identification for viewers, so we see Elrond and Isildur fighting without helmets here, which is a nonsense, especially since their soldiers are all wearing them. I can understand it from a film-maker's point of view, and I don't have a solution, but I still find it annoying.

We see Sauron's troops, the orcs, who are all uniquely ugly and in stark contrast to the uniformed and regimented soldiers of the Alliance. (You might think that PJ is making a point that conformity = bad, individuality = good, but then later on, the Uruk-Hai are all churned out of the same mould and are very uniform, so I don't think there's any deep message there.) The soldiers start hacking away at each other and we get a few shots of battle in progress. Things are just starting to look up for the Elves and Men, when Sauron decides to appear on the battlefield.

Not sure if Sauron's physical shape was ever mentioned in the books but he looks to be at least 10 feet tall here. He sweeps about him with his mace, smashing several soldiers with each blow, and throwing King Elendil into some rocks to die. Isildur snatches up Elendil's sword, but Sauron's standing on the blade, and it breaks. Sauron reaches down to Isildur (not sure why he would do this - why not just finish Isildur off with another blow from that mighty mace?) and Isildur reaches up with the broken sword to slice Sauron's finger, including ring, from his hand.

At this, Sauron deflates like a punctured balloon, and a vast shock waves knocks everyone on the battlefield off their feet. Sauron's helm thuds to the earth, smoking and empty, and the Ring glints on the severed finger which lies on the ground. Isildur picks up the finger (eww) which crumbles into something that resembles very old, charred wood and blows away, leaving the ring free. All of the battlefield shots have been in very darkened hues of blue and green, so the Ring's orange gleam is a sharp contrast. As Isildur watches, the Ring shrinks to something more human-sized. Isildur places it on his finger (as you would) and disappears.

Cut to Isildur riding at the head of a column of soldiers through the woods, the Ring on a chain about his neck. Isildur looks smug, arrogant and pompous. I hate him already. Suddenly, orcs attack. Fade to black. Isildur flees, invisible, from the scene. He runs to the river, where he dives in the water. (Not stopping to shed his armour, which should have sunk him like a stone..) As Isildur swims the river, the Ring comes off his finger and he becomes visible again. We see him reach for the Ring, dismayed. But too late - the orcs have spotted him and shoot a couple of arrows through him.

Again, the scene is shot in a very blue-grey hue which makes the gold Ring very striking.

The voiceover tells us that 2500 years pass. We then see Gollum finding the Ring, and we're told that he kept it for 500 years. We see a few long shots of Gollum in his cave in the Misty Mountains, crooning to the Ring. We don't see Gollum clearly, which makes his later appearance in the film quite suspenseful.

We see Bilbo finding the Ring. (For this scene, actor Ian Holm was given a "face lift" by sticking surgical tape behind his ears and stretching all the skin back. I guess they thought the Croydon Facelift wouldn't suit a Hobbit, heheh.)
Bilbo appears very differently than the other characters in this story so far. Neither an heroic Elf or Man in shining armour, nor a creature like Gollum, he's just an ordinary person like you or me.

What's striking about the Prologue scene is the way that the Ring is presented as an entity in its own right and not an inanimate object. "The Ring has a will of its own" the narrator tells us, and "It betrayed Isildur to his death." It was no accident that the ring came off Isildur's finger at just the worst moment - it meant to. "It abandoned Gollum," she tells us, "But something happened then that the Ring did not intend..." So Bilbo's got the ring, but that wasn't in the plan.
It's a novel approach, and probably one that best satisfied the needs of the non-book-reading filmgoer. It would be hard to talk about the Ring having a corrupting influence and it wanting to return to Sauron, if this wasn't made clear at the start.

The brief history given in the prologue also gets away from having to have Gandalf spend pages and pages explaining what's going on, which would have slowed things down considerably. All in all, I'd consider the prologue as time well spent.

Lord of the Rings: Cast part 2

2008-01-24T09:43:05Z

Here's the second part of my thoughts on the cast of LotR.

Bilbo Baggins - Ian Holm. Excellent casting. My love of The Hobbit made me a bit wary of anyone playing my much-loved Bilbo; would he be able to live up to my imagination? Yes, yes, yes. Holm makes the role so much his own that I'm now finding it hard to imagine anyone else taking the role, as is bound to happen when they come to film The Hobbit (as Holm is now in his late seventies and not in the best of health, sadly.)

Holm's acting is superb, the change from his normal happy and scatterbrained self to the desparate ring-addict is dynamic and believeable. The shots of him at the end of the "Concerning Hobbits" scene (sadly cut from the theatrical release) searching all over Bag End for the ring, only to find it in his pocket all along, are heart-wrenching.
It's only a pity he didn't have more scenes.

Arwen - Liv Tyler. When I heard Liv Tyler was playing Arwen, I was like "Oh fuck." Because as far as I was concerned she was this big-lipped american bimbo who's only claim to fame was being Steve Tyler's daughter. But in fact, she impressed me, not least for managing to keep her accent on point throughout (although I think she mainly achieved that by whispering more or less all of her lines.)

She also managed to strike the right note in her love scenes with Aragorn: not too over-the-top with passion or sloppiness, but with enough emotion to give it some oomph.

Elrond - Hugo Weaving. A lot of people have spoken of Elrond's "scary eyebrows" and said that he seemed very stern or mean. This is in stark contrast to the books, where he's described as being very kindly. However, I'd say his stern demeanour is actually more in keeping with the situation; the ring's in his city where the Dark Lord will be looking for it, he's got a bunch of dwarves on the premises who keep arguing with his elves, the elves themselves are all leaving Middle Earth, and his daughter's in love with a scruffy ranger who never washes his hair.

In the books, Elrond is effectively Aragorn's adoptive father, and it's a shame this couldn't be shown more clearly. He's really only got two scenes with Aragorn; the first before the Fellowship leave Rivendell, when they have a little chat in the graveyard where Aragorn's mother lies, and at the camp of the Rohirrim when Elrond brings Aragorn the reforged sword of Elendil.

I think Elrond is most effective when he's persuading Arwen to forget Aragorn and take ship to the West. His words are very precise, and he knows that he is hurting her terribly, but as a parent he has to try to save her from what he sees as her hopeless love.

Galadriel - Cate Blanchett. On my first watching, I wasn't really taken with Blanchett's interpretation of the Lady of Light. I don't find her beautiful at all, although she certainly appeared ethereal and other-worldly. However, on re-watchings she's grown on me.

Trivia snippet: when the crew did the lighting for Galadriel's scenes, they used dozens of tiny lights to reflect in Blanchett's eyes. The effect isn't consciously noticeable until you look for it, but once you see it, you can't stop watching for it.

Saruman the White - Christopher Lee. Well, what can you say about Christopher Lee? His scenes were cut scandalously short in theatrical release, including his entire death scene! which was just ridiculous.

His voice, of course, is incredibly disctinctive and lends itself very well to this sort of role. Considering the man is in his eighties, he still has an amazingly imposing bearing. The scenes of him on top of Orthanc chanting to bring the storm gave him a very potent and virile look, which I'd imagine takes some doing for an octogenarian. In fact Lee brought this almost sexual edge to much of his characterisation, although Saruman's lust is of course for power rather than for any being. Watch his face, particularly the eyes, when the first Uruk-Hai is "birthed", and again when the chief mountain man cuts his palm and swears fealty.

All praise to the extended edition, then, for bringing back Saruman's scenes in all their glory.

What did annoy some viewers, and jarred with me a little, was making Saruman simply a tool of Sauron. "Oh whoops, I looked into the Palantir and now I've been pwned." In the book, Saruman was setting himself against Sauron, and tried to persuade Gandalf to join up so they could kick Sauron's arse together. I guess Peter Jackson decided that having three separate factions would needlessly confuse the audience.

Smeagol/Gollum - Andy Serkis. What can you say about Gollum? Andy Serkis is a genius. Yes, yes, all the CG of Gollum was done by WETA, but the facial movements (and a surprising amount of body movements) and voice were pure Serkis. He certainly deserved the awards and nominations he got.

One thing that was better (for me) in the theatrical version: Smeagol/Gollum has decided to get rid of his nasty internal murderous Gollum-self and trust in Frodo. He is helpful and seems to be making overtures of friendship (which Sam is having none of.) Then Frodo and Sam are captured by Faramir and Frodo is forced to lure Smeagol out, where he is captured too, and very roughly treated. Frodo is forced to do this because otherwise Faramir's archers are going to shoot Smeagol. Naturally enough, Smeagol thinks that Frodo has betrayed him, and it's not long before the Gollum part is back again and in charge. And you can feel a certain sympathy with Smeagol, because just as he was learning to trust Frodo, it seemed that Frodo abused that trust.

However, in the extended edition, Sam explains to Gollum that Mr Frodo had no choice and that he didn't mean for the Rangers to hurt Gollum. And Gollum replies, "Oh no, no hard feelings." So when he does then lead Frodo into Shelob's lair and abandon him to her tender mercies, his actions are clearly evil and have no possible justification.
I suppose I find that disappointing because I feel so strongly for Smeagol; like Frodo, I want to believe that he can come back.

Again, there is so much to say about Gollum, and I don't want to get into a scene-by-scene discussion yet.

Faramir - David Wenham. I was so glad that Faramir got more scenes in the extended edition. The theatrical edition left him pretty much incomplete and blank; we never learned his motivation for first capturing Frodo and Sam and then releasing them. The EE showed us (as with Boromir) the huge pressure on him to impress his father, especially as Denethor only valued Boromir's skills and not the younger son's.

The flashback scene to Osgiliath showed Denethor's contempt for Faramir; to Boromir he says "Do not trouble me with Faramir. I know his uses and they are few." Even Boromir, who obviously would know his father well and realise in what low esteem Faramir was held, is visibly shocked and appalled that Denethor would actually say that out loud. It gives an extra dimension to the scene later on in RotK where Faramir says to his father, "You wish now that our places had been exchanged. That I had died and Boromir had lived." And Denethor replies, "Yes. I wish that."

Bastard!

David Wenham's acting is superb throughout. He is very subtle and doesn't overplay the emotion at all, but is visibly and heartbreakingly crushed by Denethor's continuous dismissal of him. Probably his finest scenes are near the end of RotK EE where he is in the Houses of Healing with Eowyn. The look in his eyes as he first catches sight of her, and later when he comforts her fears as they talk together before the final battle, just speaks volumes. His whole heart and soul are in his eyes, visible for the world to see.

Eowyn - Miranda Otto. Interestingly, Miranda Otto is older than she looks. She was in her mid-thirties when the films came out.

I'm not really sure how I feel about her portrayal of Eowyn. Some scenes are very good; the quieter, more emotional scenes, mainly. But I have trouble seeing her as a real Shield Maiden of Rohan because she is so small and slight. I always pictures Eowyn as a bit more amazonian and muscular. On the other hand, it does make her victory against the Witch King a lot more dramatic; the tiny Eowyn against the giant Witch King (and his giant mace) is much more striking and speaks loudly to her courage. I love the look on her face when the Witch King gets off his dead steed.
Otto's accent bothers me - she's Australian by birth and can't really manage the English accent, tending to veer off into Irish instead. (Hama does this as well, but the rest of the Rohan cast don't, so it grates.)

Another thing that irks me - although it's more directing than her acting at fault - is the scene in RotK when she tries to stop Aragorn leaving the Rohirrim and going off on the Dimmholt road. When Aragorn delivers his "I'm sorry, babe, but I'm just not into you" speech, Eowyn backs away, taking about five steps backward. I can see her taking one or maybe two steps in distress and embarrassment, but the exaggeration - I mean come on, five steps! you'd be bound to trip over something - just reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Homer sees Apu kissing the Squishy Lady and backs all the way out of the Kwik-E-Mart, through the streets, and back through his own front door...

Theoden - Bernard Hill. One of my favourite characters. Bernard Hill is absolutely superb. A fine, fine actor. His speech to the Rohirrim before the charge at Pelennor Fields is probably my one favourite scene from the whole trilogy.

Hill plays Theoden as a strong, authoritative king, but one who is keenly aware that his kingdom is in peril. Now I have an issue with Peter Jackson's direction here, because Aragorn, Gandalf and Gimli all say that Theoden should stand and fight Saruman's forces or even ride straight out and meet him in battle. However, Theoden rightly states that Eomer and his two thousand Rohirrim are gone, he has few fighters at his disposal and no allies. Moreover, although Edoras is in a good defensive position on top of a hill, it is not a heavily-fortified city; most of the buildings are wooden and therefore easy prey to fire and battering rams. He has already lost hundreds (thousands?) of his citizens in the burning of the Westfold villages. So his decision to evacuate Edoras and decamp to Helm's Deep is actually a very sound tactical move for the position that Rohan is in at this time. I really dislike the way he's portrayed as making a weak decision and basically taking the coward's path.

Despite these limitations from the production team, Hill makes the role his own and plays it well. His words with Aragorn when he's walking the defences of Helm's Deep are so well-played. When he chokes off his furious tirade asking "Where was Gondor" you see him physically struggling to keep his temper with Aragorn and not have a public argument which will further demoralise his troops.

The scene in the EE where Gamling is helping Theoden dress for battle, when Theoden recites the lines "Where is the horse and the rider?..." are very effective. His delivery is just right, managing to avoid that overblown "DOOM!" edge nicely.

During the battle of the Pelennor Fields, despite believing that he's leading his troops into what will prove to be their death, he deploys his men effectively against the orcs and the tide of battle is turning. But then... whoops, what's that sound? Theoden's face as the Oliphaunts appear out of the dust in the distance is a picture. Despite the fear, he orders his riders to reform the line, taking control over what could turn into a rout (imagine the fear of both riders and mounts at seeing such massive enemies appear on the field!) and leading the Rohirrim to another charge. The casualties are heavy, but once again the Rohirrim are gaining the upper hand, and then... the Witch King decides he's going to have a pop. Thoeden's expression just says it all, and you can see the despair take hold.

I still cry my eyes out at Theoden's death scene, every time.

Eomer - Karl Urban. Karl Urban does very well, and it's a pity he doesn't get more of a role. Eomer was a lot more important in the books and I'm not sure why he was sidelined. His devotion to his sister is touching, but his lack of respect for her prowess in battle is annoying.

I particularly would have liked to see more of him in the thick of battle.

Denethor - John Noble. Noble is really very impressive as the mad Steward of Gondor. Every time I watch, I end up loathing him even more than before. His voice is just right for the performance (here's one Aussie actor who didn't have any trouble with the accent.) You could say his performance becomes a little over the top as it goes on, however I'd forgive that on the grounds that when we first meet him, he's grieving for Boromir, the news of whose death has only recently reached him, and then when Faramir returns, nearly dead, to Minas Tirith, Denethor is stricken with both grief and guilt at the realisation that he's sent both of his sons to their deaths. So his actions following that don't seem entirely improbable.

It's a testament to the power of his acting that, following watching the scene where he's sent Faramir off on a suicide mission and is sitting scoffing grapes, tomatoes and chicken, while commanding Pippin to "sing me a song", I can no longer bear to eat whole cherry tomatoes, I have to cut them in half.

Also, his oratorial and dramatic delivery of "Flee! Flee for your lives!" when he sees the armies massed on the plains gives Gandalf an excuse to wallop him, a moment at which I always give a cheer. Perhaps that makes me a low-brow popularist, but you know what? I don't care.

My Lord of the Rings purge: The Fellowship

2008-01-23T11:47:22Z

I've been obsessively watching and re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy these past few weeks, originally inspired by catching a sequence by sequence discussion of each film over at Barrowdowns.com.

I think the only way I'm going to exorcise my obession is to talk about the films fairly excessively for a while - and then perhaps I can actually get something else in the DVD player...

First, a little bit of background.

I've read the trilogy only once, and that many years ago. Although I had adored The Hobbit (my cherished copy is now very battered from countless re-readings) I found the Rings books very hard-going. Perhaps it was because I was at a very low ebb in my life when I read them, but I never lost myself in Middle Earth the way other people seem to do. Never read Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales or any of the other bits.

So in many ways I came to the films as the perfect audience: having a good appreciation and understanding of Middle Earth, but without the encyclopaedic knowledge which would make me scream "Heresy!" at story changes.

I didn't see the films at the cinema (though god! I wish now that I had) because in those days I was a smoker, and I found it hard to sit through a kids' film, let alone a 3-hour epic, without a cig. Also, I've always been one for ignoring films that are getting hyped to death; I'm a bit of a snob in that regard.

So let me state now and for the record that I believe these films to be the finest ever made in the history of cinema to date. They transport me to Middle Earth in a way that the books never achieved.

But that's not to say that they don't have faults. Some of the acting can be a little wooden, and the dialogue clunks at times. Some of the action is ill-conceived and unneccesary. But the films transcend all this to become something that's somehow greater than the sum of their parts.

I'm going to start by discussing the cast and characters. And then I'm going to go through the films more-or-less scene by scene. And by the time I'm finished, maybe I'll have moved on!

Aragorn - Viggo Mortenson. Mortenson wasn't the first pick for this role; that was Stuart Townsend. I haven't, I don't think, ever seen Townsend in a full-length feature, so I can't imagine what he would have been like. But Mortenson was an inspired (if risky - he hadn't even read the books) choice. Very much the method actor, he apparently felt the key to Aragorn was his sword. He carried it with him at all times during filming, which on one night resulted in him being stopped by the local police.

Mortenson manages a largely English accent through most of the film, but his American does come out at times, largely when raising his voice. He spends a good portion of the film speaking in a relative undertone, as is common to most of the actors. (I probably notice this particularly because my hearing is a bit dodgy and I find myself having to strain to hear.)

Mortenson plays Aragorn as having a great innate authority, a great tactical brain, but somewhat of a lack of human warmth. It's in the love scenes with Arwen that Aragorn displays his human side the most - at other times it is noticeably absent, as when he orders the Fellowship up and onto their feet when they are all protrate with grief at losing Gandalf.

Aragorn is one character who doesn't really develop and change throughout the films. He's already fully-formed, as it were, from the first. Yes alright, he starts off a ranger and ends up king, but he's still the same person. The king's been there all along.

One thing that the extended edition made clear, during the scene between Eowyn and Aragorn on the road to Helm's Deep, is Aragorn's age. He's 87. I knew that he was one of the Dunedain and therefore a lot older than he looked, but the reminder suddenly made it obvious why Aragorn has such authority (aside from his essential, err, kingishness.) Because he's been there, done that. He feels able to challenge Theoden because he rode to war with Theoden's father. He can be the hard, practical leader because he's seen what happens when you're not. He has a perspective that the other mortal members of the Fellowship lack.

In the books, Aragorn was king through being of the blood of Numenor; essentially the concept of "divine right". This also gave him some special powers; he had the gift of healing, and he was often referred to as seeming as if crowned by a silver star, which inspires his men to fight for him. They respond not to him as a person, but to the "supra-human" king inside. The films did not really touch on this (although the EE shows Aragorn tending Eowyn's wound in the Houses of Healing, as a tearful Eomer looks on) and relied on Aragorn proving himself as king through skill in battle and leadership. Although this elision has been derided amongst book fans, I think PJ made the right choice: our modern world no longer accepts "divine right" as being an appropriate qualification for leadership; the world has moved on since Tolkein's time, in which royalty were treated as a special breed and revered as leaders instead of the tabloid clowns that they are now. I would rather have a King Elessar who won his throne through his courage, skill, wisdom and strength of purpose than one who just marched in to Minas Tirith and said, "See that silver star shining above my brow? Yeah, that's 'cos I'm king. Fetch me the crown, please."

Also in practical terms, I have difficulty envisaging how this could have been portrayed without turning Aragorn into a comic-book hero.

Boromir - Sean Bean. Go Sheffield! Sean Bean acquitted himself ably in this. He is a great actor, and he was an excellent choice for the big, tough warrior type. It was good to see the deleted scene with his brother and father restored in the extended edition of the Two Towers.

The "Big brother" aspect also came across in his interactions with Merry and Pippin. Teaching them to swordfight, begging Gandalf to turn back in the snows of Caradhas, throwing them across the broken stairs at Khazad-dum, comforting them after Gandalf's fall, and of course his fabulous death scene trying to protect them single-handedly against hundreds of orcs.

I thought the theatrical cut didn't do justice to Boromir's character. His scene with Faramir and Denethor showed how moral and decent he was without the Ring trying to pervert his desires. It also showed how he was under immense pressure from his father to bring the Ring back to Gondor - without this scene, he came across as just deciding he fancied the Ring more or less on a whim, which gave the Ring an easy in. Of course the Ring did find it easy to corrupt him in a sense, but not through simple greed, which was how I'd interpreted it at first, but through filial love and his desparate need for something to help his people.

Legolas - Orlando Bloom.Hmm. I don't know whether to blame Orlando Bloom for turning Legolas into a kind of wooden wind-up toy, or the scriptwriters. Hindsight says it may not have been the best idea to cast a young man with only a few TV credits and one very small cinematic speaking role to his name. Yes, he's very pretty (although I think he's a lot hotter with his naturally brown hair and eyes) but sometimes he just sounds and looks as if he's reading from a cue-card ("They are taking the hobbits to Isengard!" See YouTube for an hilarious parody of this moment.)

Now in the books, I thought Legolas was the coolest character ever. It's always going to be a challenge translating fey Elfin ways from Tolkein's land, which was imagined 60-odd years ago, into today's world without it sounding and looking totally ridiculous. I think Legolas' role just got unfairly diminished because the writers couldn't (or weren't confident in) accomplishing that.

The writers also skimped on the developing bond between Gimli and Legolas. You go from the two of them being mistrustful of each others' species at the Council of Elrond, to Legolas threatening to shoot Eomer for being rude to Gimli, without any real delineation of their relationship along the way. That said, from that point on there is quite a lot of interplay between them that is well-handled, culminating of course in their very moving exchange outside the Black Gate before the final battle starts.

Gimli - John Rhys-Davies. Rhys-Davies is a good actor - although his accent was a bit variable, getting stronger and weaker and seeming to move around from one Celtic place to another - and his interactions with other cast members were excellent.

What annoyed me is the way that Gimli was played increasingly as a clown. The script gave him enough humour without having to go for slapstick. Case in point: when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are tracking the Uruk-Hai who have hobbit-napped Pip and Merry, Gimli, puffing and blowing in the rear, has a great line about dwarves being natural sprinters. Amusing and well done. But this is preceeded by him rolling out from behind some rocks and tumbling down a slope. Completely unneccesary. Another example: On the road from Edoras to Helms Deep, Gimli is telling Eowyn about why you shouldn't believe rumours about their being no dwarf women. Again, an amusing exchange, but immediately followed by slapstick, as Gimli loses control of his horse and falls off.

John Rhys-Davies is an old school actor. Dom Monaghan tells a great story about him ordering food in a restaurant in the DVD extras.

Samwise Gamgee - Sean Astin. Sean's accent was spot on. He managed to get a very realistic rural English accent without descending into "oooh arrrr moine's a point of coiiider" territory. I think there was only one point at which it grated on me, which was the "Share the load" moment, but that I suppose was supposed to be grating since we were hearing it from Frodo's point of view of Ring-junkie paranoia.

Sam is another character whose development is fairly minor from start to finish. In fact that's his real strength - he's like a rock for Frodo to cling to, something to remind Frodo of what he's doing and why. There were moments when I disliked Sam - mainly when he was slapping Gollum around - but he was always true to himself, and of course to his beloved Mr Frodo.

Having watched the behind the scenes stuff, I have come to the conclusion that Sean Astin is a bit of a prat, but he's certainly a fine actor.

Peregrin Took - Billy Boyd. The most annoying, yet the most cute, hobbit in the films. Cute accent, rufflable hair, psychotically sunny nature. At the same time, if I were leading the Fellowship I'd want to slap the shit out of him!

Billy Boyd is one of those actors who you don't really hear much about, and he hasn't done anything really major since LotR. Which is surprising, because I think he was very good, and well-cast. He comes across as so likeable in the behind the scenes stuff.

The interplay between Pippin and Gandalf is very good. Gandalf constantly berating him (quite justifiably) as a fool for the first 8 hours of the trilogy, but then Pippin ends up defending Gandalf when the gate of Minas Tirith is breached, and the conversations between the two of them in the White City are much more friendly, with Gandalf seeming more of a paternal figure.

Pippin is probably the character, after Frodo, who changes most. Initially he's just played as a fun-seeking empty-headed fool, but by Two Towers he's hatching a cunning plan to get the Ents to join the war, and by the end of RotK he's rushing headlong into battle on behalf of his friends.

I think the moment Pippin entered my heart was the scene in Durin's tomb when he knocks the skeleton into the well. Probably because I am so damn clumsy myself, it could have been me!

Meriadoc Brandybuck - Dominic Monaghan. Poor old Merry, forever the indistinguishable background hobbit. Constantly playing straight man to Pippin's antics, it wasn't until the extended edition that I actually started thinking of him as a real, separate person.

I don't think costuming and makeup did him any favours, either, because he looks ridiculously cherubic through most of the film, but in fact is pretty smokin' hot in real life. His behind the scenes stuff is great; like Billy Boyd, he comes across as very down-to-earth and likeable.

He goes through a transformation from Pippin's slightly-more-responsible partner-in-crime to the brave and serious Merry who rides to war with Eowyn. His scene with King Theoden where Merry protests "But I want to fight!" is very well done.

Frodo Baggins - Elijah Wood. Wood's acting, for me, is problematic. His vocal delivery is quite good; he managed to overcome his American accent and achieve the posher-than-Sam English voice without any slips. He does very well at the being-tortured-by-the-ring stuff, but his handling of "carefree Frodo" is kind of off-base. Particularly gruesome is his smile at the very end of the film, which kind of ruins the whole Grey Havens scene for me, a great shame. It's more of a strangled grimace than a smile - you can imagine PJ in the background shouting "More smilier, Elijah! More! More! Stretch those lips!"

Frodo's characterisation is troubling to many, and that's purely down to the writing team. Frodo is played much more as a hapless (and frequently helpless) victim of the ring than as the brave and determined hobbit that the books portray. Yes, he volunteers to take the ring to Mordor. Yes, he decides to leave the Fellowship and travel alone to avoid his companions being corrupted. But at other times he's played as being terror-struck: the Weathertop stabbing scene, when he drops his sword and then falls over his own feet, made me cringe. In fact the only times, I think, that he draws his sword with intent to use it is in the scene where he and Sam first meet Gollum, in which Frodo uses the sword as a threat ("Release him, or I'll cut your throat") and the scene in Osgiliath where Sam stops Frodo from giving the ring to the Nazgul (an idiocy I'll be slagging off later) and Frodo attacks Sam. (Actually, it's pretty interesting that the two ocassions both involve Sam, with the first ocassion Frodo drawing his sword to protect Sam, and on the latter, attacking Sam. Hmm.)

In some scenes, mainly the ones involving a lot of CG where the cast would have been playing to thin air or a marker rather than each other, Wood is slightly wooden (pardon the pun). The scene in Rivendell when Bilbo tries to snatch the ring and goes all posessed is a case in point. They actually used a puppet, apparently, for the Evil!Bilbo moment, and if you watch Wood's face during the sequence, his expression barely changes. He says in the BTS stuff that he found it difficult to act in the scenes in Bag End with Gandalf where the two of them are sitting at the table. The scene is achieved by an optical illusion: the two actors are sitting about 5 feet apart from each other to give the impression of the disparity of height. It works very well on camera, but meant that the actors couldn't look each other in the face while filming. There's a clip of Ian McKellen repeatedly telling Wood, "No, don't look at me" as they sit and run through their lines.

At other points, however, his acting is very good. He can handle Tolkein's "high" dialogue ("I know what you would say, and it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart") equally as well, and with as much conviction, as the more informal, intimate lines ("Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam.")

One must bear in mind that Wood was only 18 when he started filming, and although he had plenty of credits to his name already, he'd never acted in anything approaching the depth of LotR. In that light, he did an admirable job.

He also gets points from me for being the voice of Mumble in my favourite ever kids' film, Happy Feet. ^_^

Gandalf - Sir Ian McKellen. Perfect casting as far as I'm concerned. I have long admired McKellen on both a personal and professional basis. His acting is stunning, especially considering a lot of the time he was acting to nobody (the scenes at Bag End) or in the case of the Balrog, a tennis ball on a stick!

What I really enjoyed about his version of Gandalf is that he doesn't stand there like some aloof wizard just casting thunderbolts from a distance, he gets right in the thick of the fighting and lays about him with sword and staff. McKellen stated that he wanted to look somewhat like a samurai, and the fight scenes certainly achieved that.

There are so many things to say about Gandalf, I'm going to get waylaid if I try to go through them now, so I'll save them until I start on the scenes.

2007 in review

2007-12-21T10:02:21Z

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Had more than 4 weeks off work on the sick.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any for this year. I will be starting new medication in 2008 and I will be making some "resolutions" around improving my health.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No humans, but Lucy and Rhandolph's beloved Leo passed away.

5. What countries did you visit?
Wales, but only in order to collect Simon.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Better health. More time with Simon. A decent job.

7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
June 23rd, Lucy and Rhandolph's wedding.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Oooo, something I found out about on Tuesday, but it hasn't been officially announced yet :-)

9. What was your biggest failure?
Putting on yet more weight :-(

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
Continued back pain.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'm gonna have to go with my sat nav.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Simon has been remarkably mature, under the circumstances of being uprooted and taken away from me to Cardiff.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My boss's >:-[

14. Where did most of your money go?
It seemed to just go on bits and bobs. I spent a really big chunk having a professional photo set done with Simon.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Pirates of the Carribbean 3 coming out. And series 3 of Dr Who!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
I reckon "Rain Down Love" by Freemasons, although "Uninvited" (also by Freemasons) is giving the former a run for its money.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter (again)
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Spending time with Simon, but then that wasn't really an option.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Eating...

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I'll be collecting Simon from Cardiff early Sunday morning, and we'll be spending Xmas at my house. All the shopping is done, we'll be having roast turkey with all the trimmings :o)

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
No.

22. How many one-night stands?
One.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Gonna have to go with Dr Who again.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don't like thinking of myself as a hater, but YES.

25. What was the best book you read?
I'm going to have to go with David Baddiel's "Whatever Love Means". Great plot, good writing, and provided the useful phrase, "He's not just a cunt. He's off the cuntometer."

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I've listened to/watched a lot of Shakira this year, but that's more about the hypnotic arse than anything else, LOL

27. What did you want and get?
A new critique forum and gallery on Renderosity.

28. What did you want and not get?
Improved health. Enough time with Simon.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I haven't been to the flicks much this year. I'm going to have to go with Pirates 3, even though it was over-long and not as good as previous efforts.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Nothing really, I was working.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having taken this job.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
I wouldn't.

33. What kept you sane?
Music.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Gonna have to go with David Tennant this year, although David Duchovny has reappeared on my radar.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I have to say I haven't really focussed on politics at all this year.

36. Who did you miss?
Simon :-(

37. Who was the best new person you met?
What an odd question. I've met quite a few new people this year thanks to changing jobs, and most of them suck. I suppose I will have to nominate the only one who doesn't suck...

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
Don't ever assume your boss knows what they're doing just because they're the boss.

39. Sum up 2007 in one word.
"Forgettable"

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Maybe there's no haven in this world for tender age
My heart beat like the wings of wild birds in a cage
My greatest hope my greatest cause to grieve
And my heart flew from its cage and it bled upon my sleeve
Oh the cries of passion were like wounds that needed healing
I couldn't hear them for the thunder
I was half the naked distance between hell and heaven's ceiling
And he almost pulled me under
Now someone's on the telephone, desperate in his pain
Someone's on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine
Someone's got his finger on the button in some room
No one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom
But I tried to make this place my place
I asked for providence to smile upon me with his sweet face
But I'll tell you
My place is of the sun and this place is of the dark
And I do not feel the romance I do not catch the spark
My place is of the sun and this place is of the dark
(by grace, my sight grows stronger)
And I do not feel the romance I do not catch the spark
(grows stronger)
By grace
(my place is of the sun)
My sight
(and this place is of the dark)
Is growing stronger
(I do not feel the romance)
I will not be a pawn
(I will not be)
For the prince of darkness any longer

(Prince of Darkness - Indigo Girls)

Reading and Ranting

2007-12-14T09:33:29Z

I love books, as any fule kno.

I am not a snob about my reading matter; I prefer that books say something at least, but if caught short without a decent book I can and have read anything from the back of a box of cornflakes to the Financial Times or one of the more garish "women's magazines" (Pick Me Up, Chat, Take a Break, etc.)

(That said, I was once reading Pick Me Up in the doctor's surgery while waiting for my appointment, and was so disgusted by one article that I made a kind of involuntary "ugh" noise and facial spasm. The guy sitting across from me leaned over and asked me if I was alright, as he thought I was having some kind of fit!)

But no matter how short of reading material I am, there is one genre that I will never touch, and that is the abomination that is "chick lit". Let us examine the reasons why.

1. The appellation of "lit" should supposedly stand for "literature". Nothing could be further from the truth. Literature is widely defined as imaginative or creative writings generally regarded as having artistic value. There is little of any value in these books, let alone artistry.
2. Almost every book in this genre uses curly, girly, script-type fonts, usually Curlz MT or Girls Are Weird. Just so, you know, the reader doesn't make the mistake of thinking that this book is in any way serious. No! Its author tossed off the work while enjoying a few cups of frothy coffee.
3. The titles are always appalling puns on well-known phrases or titles. From Here to Maternity. Looking for Mr Write. Bad Heir Day. Azur Like It. I mean, "Azur Like It"?! That sound you hear is probably Shakespeare not just turning in his grave, but spinning like a top.
4. Every book in this class that I've made the mistake of reading contains clunky dialogue, laughably predicatable plotlines, and clumsy errors of grammar. "Her eyes literally flew out of their sockets"; "'Who's there?' she gasped." (Come to think of it, they have a great deal in common with the type of writing in Pick Me Up et al's Readers' True Stories.)

I suppose you could consider that these books are the natural modern successor to Mills & Boon, Harlequin romance, Jilly Cooper, etc. The difference, though, is that nobody used to pretend that Mills & Boon was in any way adding to the literature of a generation, and the paperbacks were always confined to the Romance section in libraries and bookshops alike. "Chick Lit", however, is spread across the shelves like some sort of creeping plague.

Why is it so difficult for serious women writers to be recognised, published and stocked? Why is it that my local library has dozens, probably hundreds of these shoddy books on display, yet I could only find two Margaret Atwoods, three Fay Weldons, two Alice Walkers, no Shena McKays, no Alice Thomas Ellis, no Jayne Anne Phillips, and just one - one! - Joyce Carol Oates?

Finding something decent to read is becoming more of a task every month.

Perhaps I'm unfairly singling out the frothy female crapmeisters, because there are certainly utterly crappy and inconsequential books by men a-plenty. (James Masterton, Dan Brown, John Grisham and - going back a few years - Sidney Sheldon spring to mind.) But then, if I wanted, I could have chosen between six of Thomas Hardy's books, two Hanif Kurieshis, three Irvine Welshes, seven or eight Ian McEwans, three Kazuo Ishiguros, and so on, and so on.

Hanif Kurieshi has written five books, of which two were available. That's 40%. Joyce Carol Oates has written thirty-five published books, of which one was available. A less-than-encouraging figure of 3%.

I don't even know whether to blame this situation on the library councils, book sellers, publishing companies, or on the reading public for being so endlessly and disappointingly undiscriminating.

I do know that there are good female writers who are as pissed off as I am to find their work patronisingly labelled as "chick lit" and publicised as such with the crappy fonts. Cecilia Aherne and Kathy Lette spring instantly to mind, there, although Lette must take her share of the blame for the fad of punning titles; her Altar Egos, Mad Cows and Foetal Attraction clearly paved the way for a host of pale imitators.

The real shame of it is that my disdain for the label means I automatically skim over any book featuring curly fonts, punning titles or pink swirly illustrations on the cover - which could mean that I'm missing out on some great new authors just because their publishers have tried to shoehorn them into a box. But life is short, my reading list is long, and I simply don't have time to waste on the off-chance of discovering a gem amongst the mountains of dross.

Watching men get it up, fnar fnar

2007-12-11T11:42:11Z

Scaffolding!

There are two blokes putting up some scaffolding about 10 feet behind my desk, at the edge of the gangway which leads to the canteen.

They have been at it since about half nine this morning.

So far they've managed to get half the struts the wrong way round, partially disassembled it, reassembled it, wandered off for a tea break, come back and disassembled part of it again, and they are now reading the instructions with a very puzzled air.

What I'm really hoping for is that they'll finally get the thing up, climb up it to the staggering height of 12 feet, change one lightbulb, and then take the thing to bits again. Fucking Health and Safety, eh?
(Well, either that, or my second choice is that they accidentally drop one of the struts over the side and it lands on the Oli team pod, where it should prove an interesting focal point for many months to come. This has already nearly happened twice, so I think I'm in with a good chance, there.)

Weekly round-up

2007-12-10T10:48:43Z

Quick catch up of the last few days...

Went out to town last Friday with lots of the old resource planning gang from Crapita, including those of us who have moved on, and new boy Kieran, who disappeared halfway through the evening but seems a nice fella.

We started off in East 1 noodle bar off West Street, where we were served such enormous portions that none of us could finish (except Owen, who scoffed the lot!) and the quality was good, but the seating was that kind of wooden bench refectory-style which seems to be in fashion right now and plays merry hell with my back.

To our ever-lasting shame, nobody could work out how to split the bill equally nine ways, without using the calculator function of their mobiles. EXCEPT ME! Hahaha :-)

We then went on for drinks at a couple of pubs and then ended up back at Rhys' for a nightcap and an intellectual discussion about the merits of Shakira's videos. No, really. OK, it wasn't that intellectual, LOL. And once more I had terrible trouble getting a cab until I phoned Mercury, who have now moved to number one slot on my list.

Had to go into work on Sunday and Monday morning to run the [insert appropriate epithet here] reports in preparation for my holiday due to Mum coming to visit. The damn MI didn't turn up on Sunday, so that was a complete waste of a journey to work, although I did spend the four hours before I gave up productively updating Facebook, which I am now favouring over MySpace since it has far less spammers and security holes.

So Mum arrived on Monday afternoon, and then spent the next 24 hours cleaning my house. No lie. To be fair, I hadn't been able to clean properly for some time due to my back pain, but also (as all the world knows) I fucking hate cleaning anyway. So I was quite happy to get a free cleaning service! She even bought her own equipment!

So that took care of most of Tuesday, and on Wednesday we went out to Castleton with the intention of having a good walk, but unfortunately it started pissing down with rain, so after poking through the village for a bit (where i nearly had a wallet accident in a secondhand bookshop) and visiting the church, we decamped to the Plough at Hathersage for some lunch.

Waved Mum goodbye on Thursday morning and then into the bank for a review with my "personal account manager", a very nice lady called Helen who has managed to save me nearly £80 a month on my loan repayments by renegotiating it in the face of complete indifference from head office. Hooray! On a similar note, I got my Xmas bonus from Renderosity, and very nice it was too.

Caz came up this weekend for a girly night (well, as girly as you can get with us two, i.e. not very) which was great, as we haven't seen each other for at least two years. Went out and ate at Sheikhs, and made a fair dent in a bottle of Kahlua, and stayed up til after 4am yattering away about everything under the sun, and then carried on in the morning. Which explains why I had a sore throat the next day, LOL. We both said that we mustn't leave it so long next time!

And now I am at work, and it's just indescribably meh. The night out last Friday made me realise how much I miss having colleagues that I actually get on with. I even miss Owen's sarcasm and scathing remarks! I've just got nothing in common with the people I work with here. Well, the bloke I sit next to is a good laugh, but everyone else is just on another planet.

Nick said he missed my evil cackle, hahaha. And Liz said it's no fun in the morning there any more because they can't listen to my team fielding ridiculous excuses on the absence line!

Oh well better go, as Totalview has FINALLY generated the skill plan...

Holidays to come

2007-11-27T09:11:33Z

Well, Grandma went into care last Wednesday. Mum said it was very gruelling, as they decided to tell her the previous night. As predicted, Grandma was very panicked and upset, not really understanding what was going on, and kept accusing Mum and Sally of "stealing" her home (where she got the idea that she owns it I've no idea, because it's rented and always has been...)

Spoke to Mum at the weekend and she said that she'd been in to see Grandma on the Friday and Grandma was in a right state, still crying and distressed. She also told Mum that she had been too upset to eat anything since the previous day, but when Mum took her down to the dining hall she repeated this and one of the nurses said No, she had breakfast this morning and ate the lot!

The trouble is, she is so confused in her mind that you end up not believing anything she says, which is what makes the elderly so vulnerable to abuse. I mean, if she tripped over and bruised her knee, for example, and then she told Mum or Sally that one of the care staff pushed her or hit her, we just wouldn't know what to believe. But thankfully this facility has an excellent reputation and Mum and Sally both feel very confident in the level of care she will get.

Anyways, Mum has decided that me and her deserve a holiday, so we will be going away next year in the Spring, after Mum's sale completes. We could both really use one earlier, but so much stuff is not open until April, and Easter falls early next year, so we'd have to contend with school holidays. Also our Lucy is away through the middle of April on her charity trek, and if we're away during that then Mum will be fretting that we're incommunicado. So we're looking at the last week of April/first week of May.

So I've been looking around for nice holiday destinations and have been producing one of my famous shortlists (usually famous for being LONG, not short!) Our ideal destination will be somewhere that has nice sunny beaches, a pool, and sufficient shops, bars and restaurants without being overrun with sweaty English chavs. And we need to be within easy walking distance of both the beach and the restaurants/shops/etc. And we'd like there to be some local things of interest we can go see, like historical sites. Also, we want at least an apartment rather than just a hotel room, or for preference, a private villa.

I suppose that sounds like we want the moon on a stick! But even with my exhausting requirements, I've so far got 32 strong contenders spread across Cyprus, the Algarve, Menorca and Mallorca. I'm also considering Crete, but I'm having difficulty finding affordable flights. And I still haven't looked into Turkey, Malta, Italy or mainland Spain.

Feeling very bouncy and happy at the thought of sunshine, sea, sand and sangria! Realistically, I haven't had a good holiday since my honeymoon with Pat in 2002. 2006 - Mallorca with Pat and Simon, very stressful as we were at the point of breaking up; 2003 - Corfu with Pat, Simon and Eddie, and we all know how that one turned out. So I think both Mum and I deserve a good break!

In other unrelated news, I managed to completely destroy my beloved Bagpuss alarm clock. This was through total fuckwittery on my part which I am too embarassed to relate fully, but suffice to say Bagpuss ended up falling onto a hard surface, the display broke and the alarm was impossible to actually turn off once it had started going. Alas! So I have replaced him with a cheap and cheerful travel alarm, which I'm sure is far more adult and mature, but is much less friendly than Bagpuss waking me with his "*YAWN* It's time to wake up! And when Bagpuss wakes up, all his friends wake up too. It's time to wake up, you saggy old baggy old cat-person, it's time to wake up!"

Perhaps that will teach me not to be such a clumsy fuckwit in future, although I somehow doubt it, LOL.

Internet FUBAR

2007-11-19T14:04:56Z

My internet at home has been down since last night and still out of action this morning. Couldn't phone Pipex this morning as they STILL don't open until 8am. Cross fingers I can get it working tonight, because Pat took the XP install discs with him, so if I need to reformat, I'm fucked.

Update:
I don't know if it was my shut down and reboot of the modem, running of CCleaner, or my inventive threats and curses, but it's back up and running now!

Bloody cats!

2007-11-16T13:22:01Z

WTF is wrong with Sarah? She keeps digging in the fresh bag of cat litter, until she pulls the whole thing onto the floor, sending expensive cat litter cascading across the floor. Then she sits in the middle of the mess, looking pleased. It's like she's some sort of cat litter fetishist!

I have now managed to squeeeeeeze the bag into one of the cupboards, which is annoying because it strains my back to have to bend down and drag it out.

Damn you, strange cat behaviour!

Back to work Thursday!

2007-11-13T19:02:10Z

My chair has finally arrived at work and I'm going back Thursday! Woohoo!

So long Jeremy Kyle and the parade of hopeless chavs that grace our screens every afternoon! No more drooling in front of the telly for me!

Can I just say

2007-10-30T10:12:44Z

[Warning: this post will make no sense at all to anyone who doesn't use Poser.]

G2 James's seams are an absolute pain in the arse, and the difference in the scale of the head and body texture maps is laughable. To get a decent body texture, I'd have to increase the body map size to about 8000 pixels high, which Poser wouldn't be able to handle (in most cases) anyway.

His body seems totally out of proportion - his torso is very long compared to the width of it, whereas his arms are really short. His back musculature looks as if it was created out of plasticine by a motor-impaired child. His eyes are really deepset, which makes it very hard to morph the area without causing serious issues to the eyeballs and eyelashes.

And don't even get me STARTED on the penis...

GRRRRR.