Spider-Man 2

I had a bit of a Spider-Man marathon recently. On Friday evening I watched The Amazing Spider-Man on 3D Blu-Ray and I enjoyed it. I found the new actor far better than Tobey Maguire who just annoyed me. I rated this film an 8 on the understanding that I will probably watch it again (mainly with my sons). See this communication for an explanation of my rating system.

I mainly watched the first (new) film because I went to see the second film at the cinema. I, again, rated this new film an 8. I enjoyed it and this film goes to show how you make a good super-hero film.

I won’t give too much away except to say that I found it rather curious that every product within the film was made by Sony. Some people might be thinking that because Sony paid for this film it allows them to place products [it does].

I won’t go into the organ-destroying acceleration experienced by the people that Spider-Man saves by swinging and catching them, also the conservation of momentum law seems to have been forgotten. Mind you, the film is about a man who can walk up walls.

 

Vantage Point

I had a good run yesterday [26 APR 14]. I decided to discover more of the North Downs and headed further to the north than I had previously. This run is shown below and includes all three of the Medway Valley villages.

Here’s the view (rather cloudy) of the valley from Wouldham Common.

20140426-214552.jpg

This is the longest run I have ever done and I am quite proud of myself. I am going to try and do this route more.

Circus

A short while ago I went to the circus! According to the information I was given it was the Circus Of France and they were based for a while at the Newnham Court shopping thing on the edge of Maidstone.

The tickets seemed expensive to me, although the last time I went to the circus was around 1991. The arena tent itself was pretty big and we were guided to some bench seats. I tried to take a photo but dropped my phone under the raised seating. I had to borrow someone else’s phone to use their camera flash to see below the seating and to find my phone, I could just reach it!

Santus Circus Arena
Santus Circus Arena

The acts we saw were all human, so animal lovers don’t have to worry about the living conditions. There was a juggler who came on in different costumes for three different acts, the high-wire artistes also did the trapeze at the end of the show, there was a climbing rope act and also a foot juggler (who was dull). The clowns provided reasonable entertainment for the scene changes although I would have liked to see a clown car fall apart in the ring.

 

Ropes
Ropes

 

The first ropes act included Spider-Man, which was an interesting piece of marketing, and also the anti-Spider-Man who was dressed in black. My sons loved this. During the interval there was the chance to have your photograph taken with Spiderman. We didn’t do this, but I can understand why the circus did this.

The knife throwing act was interesting. There was the typical man throwing the knives and a woman having knives thrown at (or not) her. The lady was tied to an upright spinning disc and the disc was set in motion. Before the man could throw a knife the axle broke and the woman and disc crashed to the floor, woman first and the mechanism on top of her. I have to say the staff reacted really quickly to this and the lady came back on stage shortly afterwards and completed the act.

The best part of the show was the trapeze act:

Trapeze
Trapeze

Leaving the circus there was some lovely blossom trees.

Blossom