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Thursday 20 November 2008
Early Start
Tomorrow that is - I have to be up at 3.45 in order to get ready and out of the flat in time to check in for a flight leaving Heathrow at 6.45. How much am I looking forward to that?
Not at all, basically.
Back on Wednesday.
The Grudge
Been to see a Halloween preview of The Grudge, the 'American' remake of the Japanese original, this evening. I put 'American' in inverted commas because it's actually made in Japan by the original Japanese director, just with a primarily English-speaking cast (Sarah-Michelle Gellar, Ted Raimi, Bill Pullman among them).
It's a very effective creepy film, with some nice little shocks and a degree of suspense that comes from having an actual supernatural basis, not being just another mad slasher film.
I get the distinct sense that *some* people (I name no names, but I will gesture in the direction of my beloved) were rather more scared by the thing than I was.
Recommended though.
Ah - Politics
I'm not sure what was giving me the most entertainment value yesterday.
It could have been Robert Kilroy-Silk resigning the UKIP whip after that glorious moment when he had his microphone turned off in the Parliament (and I see he's now predicting doom for the 'party' if they expel him).
Or it might have been the aftermath of the European Parliament's imminent rejection of his Commission that caused Jose Manual Barosso to hold off putting it to the vote, watching those of both pro and con camps addressing themselves to the situation. I keep seeing it referred to as the day that European Parliamentary Democracy finally came into its own, which certainly seems to be the case. Obviously I'm glad that someone with the views of Rocco Buttiglione (and the record of having inplementing policy informed by those views) will likely be denied such an important role, but I'm more pleased that the Parliament has indeed finally asserted itself. The Commission may well get the work done, but while so much power and influence clearly resided in the non-elected body, Europe-bashers always have an unnecessary additional weapon at their disposal.
John Peel
Well, much as I think that Home Truths is as maudlin and unnecessarily sentimental a piece of tosh as any that's ever cluttered the Radio 4 wavelength, I'll join the general chorus of approval for John Peel's body of other work while mourning his passing.
But come on - at the end of the day, he was just a radio presenter, he didn't discover a cure for cancer for gods' sake - it's been three days and they're *still* carrying comments and plaudits about him on the news.
Let's just move on, shall we?
No Sex Please...
Listening to Radio 4's Thought For The Day this morning (yes, I know I have no one to blame but myself), I heard someone going on about the fact that Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs has been passed for cinema release uncut despite containing lengthy scenes of real sex. Unfortunately, the BBFC spokesperson quoted seems to have done the organisation no favours by noting that they don't make moral judgements, as people apply different standards of what constitutes morally acceptable.
This gave the irritating woman who was taking issue with them an opening to explain that of course they make moral decisions - they do so all the time when they decide what should or shouldn't be seen by the public. And of course she's right, which allowed her to criticise them for their position, rather than for what she started out attacking, which is the depiction of the sex in the first place. "'Real' sex to me is what happens between me and my husband - if people are being paid to do it, it's just a transaction." (I paraphrase slightly.) It's clear that her real issue was there, rather than with the BBFC itself, but rather than do the usual routine of coming across like she's being prudish she was instead able to make it seem that she was rightly chastising a public body for abbrogating its responsibilities.
It's a pathetically carping attitude to take which is the more annoying because she was given the opening in the first place. But if the BBFC are going to be responsible for setting a standard of 'public acceptability', they do indeed have to recognise that they are making value ('moral') judgements on a daily basis.
NaNoWriMo
It's a word!
Well, it's not really, but National Novel Writing Month looms.
50,000 words in 30 days - it's all about the speed and discipline of getting the words out:
"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down. "
Go on - you know you want to.
Sleepy
This is getting unreal - four days after I got back from San Francisco, and having slept well every night since, I'm completely shattered. I'm sitting here now yawning, and could actually go to sleep right now if the opportunity presented itself. I can only chalk it up to jetlag, but I've *never* been hit by it this badly before. Usually I shake it off in a day, if it even bothers me at all.
I don't get this, and I really don't like it.
No Fags Please, We're Anglicans
I heard on the radio this morning, and now it's been confirmed, that the Anglican Church's Lambeth Commission, which was commissioned to explore the vexed (it says here) question of homosexual ministers, is to ask the US church which invested Gene Robinson as a bishop to apologise for the hurt they've caused the church. They also want a moratorium on any further such appointments.
Now you know that I don't give a rat's ass about the Anglican church, but I do care a great deal about this kind of bigotry, and so I hope that the Episcopalian Church tells Lambeth to go fuck themselves.
Back
Well, after a somewhat delayed flight which left me wiped out on Saturday (to the point where I couldn't even move towards the night out at Owen and Tammy's, at which Cath and Gareth were in attendance). So we missed all that (as well as baby David), but honestly, if I'd tried driving while that tired I'd probably have killed us both.
Yesterday, still feeling decidedly off, David and I spent at his new flat, moving in stuff from his old one, awaiting the delivery of white goods, and assembling the bed which arrived on Saturday. Unfortunately, the latter was not to be, as the headboard piece was broken clean in two when we came to open it, which was a bit of a blow. I'm loving how excited by the flat David is - it reminds me of when I first bought mine.
Back at mine later last night, we played a game of Risk. I've only ever played this once before, and wasn't overly impressed, but this is the modified Lord Of The Rings version, in which the aim is to conquer Middle Earth, and it was actually a lot of fun, because there's an underlying narrative that makes it more interesting. It was also fun because I won of course....
'Frisco
Well, it's been an interesting and productive week - I've done everything I wanted to get done and established some very positive working relationships.
I had a get-together with some of the local Millarworlders on Wednesday night, in the only comic store I've ever been to that provides alcohol, which is Isotope. That was a night of solid drinking and a half.
Then last night the local office were having a night out, and so I was taken along to Teatro Zinzanni where a huge amount more alcohol was consumed, and I was pulled from the audience to be the recipient of an airborne strip from a very, let's just say 'fit' young woman, before being taken off backstage, stripped to the waist, kissed all over (big lipstick marks *everywhere*), then paraded back out (still topless note) and returned to my seat. I think the image of strait-laced Englishmen may have been slightly soiled.
Heading off to the airport at lunch time for the flight back, so I get back to the UK tomorrow morning.
Lagging
I don't care what time it says on this posting, as far as I'm concerned it's just after 5pm, since I'm now eight timezones from home, having spent nearly 11 hours on a plane today.
Not a bad flight all told - online check-in last night actually worked, traffic to the airport was absolutely nightmarish, so it's just as well I had checked-in from home, got an aisle seat and there was a spare seat between me and the man by the window, so I liked that, everything was more or less on time, and Virgin's new (to me, at any rate) in-flight entertainment system is absolutely cracking. It's *all* on-demand, so you can choose to start watching or listening to anything in the system whenever you want, you can pause, remind, fast forward, and best of all, set up a playlist drawn from all the different channels and just work you way through it.
Once again, I'm impressed by the thought and effort that Virgin put into their service offerings. I think the food's slipped a little though.
Downside to this little jaunt, apart from some jetlag that will probably hit after I get home at the weekend, is that tonight is going to be my first night without David since he was away for a friend's wedding at the end of August. *Not* looking forward to that at all.
Bush vs Marriage
It's odd that President Bush is so apparently for the Constitutional Amendment that would 'protect' marriage, when the forces under his command seem so determined to wipe out people who actually do get married.
At least, that's the way it'll look if they keep on blowing up wedding parties all the time.
You Heard It Here First
My beloved colleagues are in the process of spreading the word to such channels as might want to make hay with it and spread it wider (NTK, The Register, etc), but this is something that I found first.
The UK HM Customs and Excise website doesn't work in any browser but Internet Explorer, at least none that we have available here, which includes Netscape, Firefox and Opera, tested as far as possible on PCs and Macs.
Don't believe me? One screenshot, captured about two minutes ago.
EDIT - Looks like they've sorted out the problem. Oh well, it was funny while it lasted. Or have they? Wow, that's one out of control site.
Remember 'The Born-Again Busted Fan'?
Well he's having doubts about them now that Radio Four has mentioned that they apparently came out as 'unashamed Tories' yesterday.
What on earth is that all about??????
Back
Yes, we did return (reluctantly) from Barcelona, and yes, there are photos, but I just haven't got round to doing anything with them yet. Since I got back, I've been trying to get my head round doing various stuff at home, and also trying to energise myself to get a bunch of other things I've been talking about for too long sorted - like joining a gym for instance.
In the middle of that, David suddenly exchanged contracts and completed on his flat purchase in the space of a couple of hours, after weeks of uncertainty and confusion caused by the nightmarish vendor; the woman who shut the door in my face when we went to see the flat because she was only willing to let David in alone, and who it transpires was so apparently weird about keeping her environment hermetically pristine that she had the windows painted shut and sellotape over the inside faces of her keyholes. She's the kind of vendor who took the lightbulbs with her too.
And so, as an additional demonstration of how devoted to the man I must be, last night we went to Ikea (now open 'til midnight during the week! WTF????) - my first trip to one since I finally snapped and said "no more" after they'd fucked me off once too often with that "we deliberately give you crap service to save you money" attitude of theirs.
Barcelona Bound
Right, that's it - we're off. Passports packed, tickets not required, and a row to be had at the airport because we used the useful online check-in facility to save time, and we've ended you in separate rows, with no way to change the preallocation.
Ho hum.
Back on Sunday evening with photos.
