"Nothing but the rain"
On my run this morning I took some photographs because this area of Kent is lovely. It was nice and sunny, although cold. I run in the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Here’s my route:
Here’re my photographs:
Kit’s Coty House – note the moon hanging around!
A road / footpath:
The North Downs taken half way up / down from the footpath from Burham to the Robin Hood pub:
A kind of triptych of the view just out of Burham on Church Street
I tweeted about giving up Dr Who and it seems fair to give you more information, dear Fooyah fans.
I’m (most likely) middle-aged. I grew up believing in The Doctor. The glory days of Tom Baker as the time traveller. I liked Peter Davison as the Doctor and also watched a little of Sylvester McCoy. By this time I was a little older and TV had outgrown its purposes of entertaining me for a while.
I remember looking forward to the Doctor Who film in the mid 90s. I quite liked it but had hoped it would prove to be enough for a new series. The things of wonder from my childhood still provide wonder as long as I don’t return to them because the adult mind is so different to that of a young boy. Things I thought were great don’t always stand the test of time.
When the BBC returned the series in the 2000s I was hooked. It was great. Funny, exciting and what it should be. Ecclestone was good and although I was rather shocked when he left I still enjoyed the story line with Tennant. Personally I found that the series peaked with the discovery of who the Face of Bo really was. It was such a revelation that I can’t wait to watch the first few series with my children when they are older just to see their faces at that point. I think that occurs about 4 seasons into the new imagining of Dr Who.
When Matt Smith took over I had no problem accepting him as the Doctor and I didn’t stop watching because of him. I stopped watching because the plots and solutions to universe ending crises seemed too thin and similar. I don’t need the Doctor to save the existence of the entire universe once a series. I just want intelligent scripts and reasonable effects. The sonic screw driver seemed to have become such a plot device that it could do anything, boring. The Doctor would think for a while, rush off while our companions are in mortal danger and fix everything with a zap from the screwdriver. More boring. Deus Ex Machina. Boring.
I gave up watching it. I only have a certain amount of time I give over to television and Doctor Who dropped of the list of things I like to watch. There, said it for the world to see. I don’t think it’s as good as it used to be. Put that in your screwdriver and smoke it.
So, here’s W.A.S.P. singing “I don’t need no Doctor” [yes, I know that’s a double negative but you know what it means].
First off: I haven’t read the books. I probably won’t. I don’t get a great deal of time to read and so when I do I read other stuff I find interesting. I’m currently reading “Ring World” by Larry Niven and have been for about 4 months!
Second thing: People who eat from noisy packets should be escorted from the cinema. I go to the cinema about once a week and last night was the first time for quite a while where there were idiots eating from extremely noisy crinkly packets. I could understand it if you sneak food into the auditorium in a plastic bag and quickly get food out and make a “one-off” noise but making noise all the way through the film is not acceptable. It displays a complete lack of empathy and care.
Thirdly: Since I haven’t read this book this communication is simply about what I thought of the film and not how it did as an adaptation.
Overall, it was a good film. Very well made and filmed. The acting is ok and the storyline worked well, possibly apart from the final five minutes which left me a little non-plussed. Out of it all I think I liked the chariot ride the best. Well, that’s not much written for a film of 146 minutes but it’s not outstanding.
I do like the look of the Capital and the politics. It makes it quite interesting. The fashion looks good but then again flamboyant costumes have been used for years to enhance films. I can’t help thinking that the same story has been told many times. We all know how it’s going to end. I keep thinking of “The Running Man” and how this is essentially just a cross between that and “Battle Royale”.
It’s all cyclical, I guess. When I grew up I think that Swallows and Amazons was still quite a big thing for kids to read along with the Famous Five and also the Hobbit stuff. Over time franchises grow and decline giving a snap shot of the teen zeitgeist. Harry Potter and then the Vampire crap will all become a thing of the past with children only reading it because their parents buy it for them thinking it’s good stuff while a new story will rise and sell shed-loads. Is Lord Of The Rings really (I mean really) that good? This cycle is probably going to get worse with bigger blockbusters with a shorter lifespan because information travels so much more quickly via the internet now. My conclusion is that the grand-themes will return but jacketed within different characters, leading each generation to think they have “their” thing. Ha ha. It’s all been done before.
Addition 4 hours later:
Potential Spoiler
When Katniss fires her lightning conductor at the force field it breaks the shield. That’s fine but then there’s loads of roofing and girders crashing down to the ground. If you have a force field you don’t need a solid structure too. I don’t understand what was going on here. It doesn’t fit with the technology in the film.
This is a really enjoyable film. It is funny, predictable and grand. Finally, superhero films have grown up.
I went to see this film in 3D as the showing time suited me better than a standard 2D showing. I don’t normally like 3D films as the 3D effect adds nothing to the enjoyment of the film for me. It’s a rather pointless gimmick [I am planning to write about my response to 3D at another time]. I was generally quite impressed as there weren’t too many gratuitous 3D shots and nothing in the film seemed out of place.
I like the CGI and battle scenes. Normally CGI battle scenes seem too busy and too much blurring. I struggle to make sense of what is going on on-screen. Thor did this well with sensible battle scenes and nothing over the top. A battle recently didn’t like was Superman’s final fight in his latest film. I like the fact that the people of Asgard use swords to fight, even with all their tech, it allows for good scenes in films. The final destruction was well done and not over the top as most films tend to make it.
The plot line doesn’t really matter. Once you invent “gods” and mythical creatures you can do anything you want in terms of plot [much like Doctor Who] and creatures [much like Doctor who]. The last part of the film and the epilogue just go to show you can just make-shit-up. Five infinity stones? Wow, they suddenly appeared from nowhere and can now be used for future films, clever but not thrilling. By the way, I don’t read graphic novels and so have no idea if these are in the books.
The cast was stellar and hammed it up brilliantly. Nice to see an old version of the Doctor in there and also nice to see Rene Ruso pop up, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen her in anything since Lethal Weapon 3.
This film was good fun and well done. I laughed out loud many times, on occasions by myself, but I don’t care.
It’s been a long time since I last wrote on a blackboard with chalk. I remember the second school on my teacher training programme had blackboards and especially in the small sixth form teaching room. I explained arithmetic and geometric progressions in there as my A Level teaching experience.
On Wednesday 13th November 2013 I also used chalk on a blackboard. It was a pleasant experience. I particularly like the contrast of the white text on a black background, it makes the writing stand out well [when I read in my Kindle app I have the setting that way around].
You might be able to see a little bit of white-roller-board in the picture and be wanting to ask why I didn’t use that? Well, it only makes up one third of the board and I didn’t want to have to erase my notes and it was dirty and creased. I’m rather fussy about white boards and how clean they should be kept. See this communication.
I could possibly be described as being slightly fussy. This may surprise you, dear reader, but then again I would think not. I’m a teacher of mathematics and I love science and the real world. Of course I’m going to be fussy and whimsical.
I am probably too fussy about white boards at work. The one in my main teaching room I keep as spotless as possible. I do not use permanent pens [you’d be surprised the number of times that does happen] and I always wipe the board using a circular motion with my hands.
If you wipe clean a white board using a side to side motion the ink gathers in small areas at the edge of the wipe, much like windscreen wipers. However, if you clean using a circular motion this does not happen.
There is a slight dent in my whiteboard in the bottom right of the picture. It irritates me slightly but I can’t do a lot about it! Also, if you look carefully you might be able to see my year 10 class doing a test!
This is a picture of the building where I predominantly work. You can see I have labelled certain parts of the building.
Over the last few years I have been here I have become aware that before I enter the building (through doors labelled A) I check the roof line (labelled B) for pigeons. This is because they poop over the edge of the building and I don’t want to get any of that on me. If I look at the floor underneath the eaves I can see a distribution of pigeon poop along the length of the building. If I spot pigeons directly above the doors I will adjust my approach to the building. In the picture the birds sitting quietly (labelled C) would not be considered a threat unless it was a windy day.
Don’t get me started on the seagulls on the other buildings!
Maps eh? This is the picture of a wall chart by Michelin (the French company but for their English cousins). It is a Van Der Grinten projection with changes made by Michelin. I’m not sure it’s ethical to change a map projection but they did.
This map makes Great Britain look the same size as France. The real multiplier is that France is 2.2 times the size of the UK, let alone GB.
Spain is really twice as big as Great Britain.
Although it’s not on this picture Kenya looks about the same size as GB but is in fact 2.4 times bigger.
What have Michelin done? They’ve made it appear that Great Britain is larger than it is really. Oh dear. Perhaps we should all watch the
Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail
episode of the West Wing. It will explain it all, I assure you.
By the way, the last time I saw this episode of the West Wing was summer 2013 in Keswick while I was visiting penguin.
In 1988 I went to the British Formula One Grand Prix with my sister and friends. We were four in total, Nick, Andy, Tracy and me. It was pretty exciting and one of the first “big days out” I had done as a teenager (I was 16).
I remember about five things about the day:
Ok, wow, that’s six things about the day. I also want to say that we drove there in an Austin Allegro but I don’t think that is correct. I shall check and get back to you.
According the to Wikipedia page on this race it did rain, which is reassuring for my memory cells and Mansell did come second. It’s the umbrella I want to focus on.
As it rained so much Andy and I decided to buy an umbrella. We didn’t have enough money to each buy one so we put our funds together and bought a Marlboro McLaren umbrella from a stall. This umbrella served us well during the day and from then on we agreed we would share the umbrella between us as we both owned it.
I think this arrangement may have lasted about a year until I lost the umbrella. It’s something I feel a little bad about even to this day [when I remember to]. I had a strange canvassing job for Eissman who were trying to build a business of home delivered frozen food. A group of us would wander crappy (and some not-so-crappy) housing estates delivering the catalogue of frozen delights and then two days later we would ring every door bell and see if we could have the catalogue back, preferably with an order. It was commission only.
For this particular week I was getting a lift with the son of the vicar of Ugley in Essex. We were working in Letchworth in Hertfordshire. The weather must’ve been bad because I had the umbrella with me and then left it in his car when he dropped me off from another unsuccessful day at work. I’m pretty sure he quit and didn’t turn up again. As a job it was pretty bad, I lasted two weeks. What is more annoying is that I lost the umbrella which meant quite a bit to me.
I remembered this recently when I was teaching ratios to a class of mine. I told the story and then text Andy about it. He had forgotten what happened to the umbrella, but for me, I feel the loss nearly every day!
I went to see this film and was rather excited about it. When I go to the cinema I generally don’t watch the trailers. Most trailers seem to give too much away about the film and if you see them once then you don’t need to see them again. If it is a film of which I am already aware and am looking forward to then I won’t watch the trailer and I will continue to read my book (on the Kindle app). Occasionally there’s a trailer that makes me look up and Gravity was one like that. Firstly it’s in space and I like space stuff. Secondly it was directed by Alfonso Cuarón. This was enough to make me very excited. Since I first saw the trailer I have avoided seeing it advertised since, I don’t want to know any more about the film.
I was rather worried that my expectations for this film were going to be too high. I have seen a number of films where I have been overly looking forward to them and have ultimately been disappointed as the film didn’t live up to expectations.
I needn’t have worried.
The opening shot was awesome [literally]. The rest of the film was beautifully filmed. It looks just stunningly gorgeous. I even decided to see it in 3D and in the past this has tended to remove something from the film but this was really well done. I won’t write too much because the trailer is so minimal and I don’t want to give anything away up in this section. Basically, apart from some simple scientific issues, this film is absolutely brilliant. I’d even go see it again. I am happy with the scientific short-cuts, as the film would not have worked or flowed as well if it had been truly simulated.
Go see this film. I dare you to be disappointed.
SPOILER ALERT
A couple of errors I picked up on. You can’t get out of a space suit in about a minute. It takes about an hour to get the whole thing on so this was a little imperfect. When returning to Earth the astronauts have their backs to the ground, Bullock’s return was filmed in such a way as to imply she was heading face down, or facing the direction of motion. There’s more analysis over at Phil Plait’s blog pages at Slate.com
Wow!
I have bought the book but will read it after seeing the film. I’m currently working my way through Ringworld by Larry Niven. Back to the film:
It was ace. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know a great deal about it before I went. I’d had a small synopsis from a friend and so went with a complete open mind. I loved it. The visuals were really good and the story was rather excellent. Go and see it.
I’m trying desperately to not give anything away but for me there were two moments when my jaw hit the floor. I guess if you’ve read the book you’ll know what these are.
It was great.
I don’t like the descriptions by the press of it being Harry Potter in space. That’s not what it is about. It’s a story with a wonderful political background and reflects on the politics of the time. Whereas Harry Potter is just the latest in a long line of book series that sell lots, it a generational thing. Every generation has “their” Harry Potter, or Famous Five, or Swallows and Amazons. My main issue was that Ender looked like a young Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory and I had to work hard to remove that thought as I watched.
Last June I was in a new lecture theatre at the University of Kent in Canterbury. It was a nice room and well designed, apart from the positioning of the projector screens. One thing that I found surprising (and expensive) was the personal air blowing device. It’s either that or the designers have included some form of personal-gas-recovery-system to save attendees from other people’s smells!
I had a lovely time at a wedding in June or at least people tell me so, I don’t remember much of it at all. Anyway, the hotel room had sugar lumps for coffee and tea but each one was individually wrapped in plastic. What a waste!
Yes, I know it’s grammatically incorrect. But that’s the point, read on dear Fooyah follower. I am sure that this is wrong and someone should be sacked for putting this on posters [if this poster is written correctly then tweet me or something and I’ll withdraw this post in shame]:
The correct version of this is:
Who’s stolen our lions?
I’m never really sure who to blame in these situations. It’s a bit like the problem with sign writers. If they are given instructions telling them what to write and it’s grammatically incorrect do sign writers have a duty to correct the English or to put what the customer has written on a sign? It probably doesn’t matter as most people wouldn’t be bothered by something as trivial as a spelling mistake or grammar. But these things are important. There’s a proper way to write information to ensure that meaning is as accurate as possible.
Language is there so we can communicate effectively. What happens to society when newspapers are unable to write properly?