Itisi

Hello Dear Reader, I’ve been a bit busy so no posts for a day or two I’m afraid. However, I’m now back to bore you with my ramblings. I’ll begin you telling you that I am a happy bunny. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but ITV are rewarding me with two consecutive evenings of Sean Bean, Yorkshire’s only doo-able famous bloke*. OK, it’s only Sharpe, which isn’t the greatest thing ever, but he does stride around in a very blokey way saying things like ey-oop, and bugger, which I find strangely attractive.

For the first time ever, someone has linked to an actual post on this blog, rather than the main page. Appreciation at last The blog in question is timrollpickering which is well worth a visit, not least because while I was there, I discovered that Ireland has a cricket team. I come from an Irish family and this was news to even me. It’s true though, who’d have guessed. Mind you this isn’t enough to make me take an interest in the game, I have never understood cricket, and I find the bizarre terminolgy highly amusing. I mean, silly mid whatever, googly . . . that just sounds rude . . . and quite honestly, I think the whole sport is just an excuse for men to stand around doing nothing. I have similar feelings about golf . . . if you want to go for a walk, do so, don’t try to pretend you are playing a serious sport.

( I have a feeling I have now alienated half the population of England, oops)

I noticed that following his latest video release, the media are now referring to Osama Bin Laden as OBL. Is this because he is he is an old, boring looney? Sorry, couldn’t resist that. His videos are very dull too. Really, he is becoming a bit like terrorism’s equivalent of Blink182, releasing a series of soundalike videos in quick succession. It’s always the same thing, ‘hiss, boo, the West sucks’ and all on what appears to be very cheap video tape. Has this man never heard of DVD? Or maybe trying a few special effects? A laser show in the background would jazz things up no end, or he could warm up his audience with a few jokes, and a spot of conjuring.

*Let’s face it Harvey Smith and Geoffrey Boycott don’t exactly offer much of a challenge in the doo-ability stakes.

Finally, here is a quiz which helps you discover which European city is best for you. I’m guessing it’s aimed at folk from the other side of the pond, but why not have a go, and see if you are in fact living in the right place.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You’re the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl… or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

Listening to: Californication – Red Hot Chili Peppers

My mouse is soon to be no more. It is sticking and making odd noises, and has become extremely difficult to use. Mr Blogs has a replacement in a box, somewhere. Exactly where he isn’t sure. The replacement was bought at the the same time as Current Mouse, approximately 5 years ago, and stored away in readiness for the day Current Mouse died. However, Current Mouse proved to very long lived, and in the mean time we have forgotten the location of his sibling. I will miss Current Mouse, even though Replacement Mouse is identical. He was my first optical mouse, and such a joy to use. Gone where the days of removing that small rubber ball, and cleaning out horrible grime in order to prevent jarring and sticking. Current Mouse rolled smoothly and needed no unpleasant maintenance at all. We have had so much fun together surfing the t’internet, learning HTML and graphic design, posting aimless drivel to this blog and I have to admit, he behaved so well, I really did take him for granted. But soon, he will off to the great computer in the sky, where the right click function is never disabled and I will embark on new cyber adventures with Replacement Mouse. RIP Current Mouse, as Elvis so eloquently put it, ‘Little things I should have said and done, I just never took the time, You were always on my mind’

During the last general election campaign, Cherie Blair spent £7000 of Labour Party funds on her hair. Naturally, there is a bit of a hoo ha about whether this is an appropriate use of said funds, but what I want to know is does this look like a £7000 hairdo? I think not. The PM’s wife is obviously an intelligent woman, but not known for her sense of style, and now we can see why. She is paying way over the odds for a rather 80′s Princess Di hair-do. All she needs is a few blonde streaks, and a pair of white stilettos and she will be ready to go bopping to the strains of Aga Do. Somebody really should have a quiet word with her, and tell her she could save the party a few quid by getting her hair done at any salon with a name like Kutz, or Coiffure by Ken.

And now Dear Reader, another meme, this one is also film/movie related, if you want to have a go you can find it here.

Top 100 Movies

Take this list of the top 100 movies from the IMDB and bold the movies you have seen. (I’m not sure where this is originally from). This list is from May 2004.

1.Godfather, The (1972)
2.Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
3.Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
4.Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)
5.Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
6.Schindler’s List (1993)
7.Shichinin no samurai (1954)
8.Casablanca (1942)
9.Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
10.Star Wars (1977)
11.Citizen Kane (1941)
12.One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
13.Dr. Strangelove (1964)
14.Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
15.Rear Window (1954)
16.Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
17.Pulp Fiction (1994)
18.Usual Suspects, The (1995)
19.Memento (2000)
20.North by Northwest (1959)
21.12 Angry Men (1957)
22.Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
23.Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
24.Psycho (1960)
25.Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
26.Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
27.It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
28.Goodfellas (1990)
29.American Beauty (1999)
30.Sunset Blvd. (1950)
31.Vertigo (1958)
32.Matrix, The (1999)
33.Cidade de Deus (2002)
34.To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
35.C’era una volta il West (1968)
36.Apocalypse Now (1979)
37.Pianist, The (2002)
38.Third Man, The (1949)
39.Paths of Glory (1957)
40.Taxi Driver (1976)
41.Fight Club (1999)
42.Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
43.Some Like It Hot (1959)
44.Double Indemnity (1944)
45.Boot, Das (1981)
46.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
47.Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
48.Chinatown (1974)
49.L.A. Confidential (1997)
50.Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
51.Requiem for a Dream (2000)
52.All About Eve (1950)
53.M (1931)
54.Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
55.Se7en (1995)
56.Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
57.Saving Private Ryan (1998)
58.Rashômon (1950)
59.Raging Bull (1980)
60.Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
61.Alien (1979)
62.American History X (1998)
63.Sting, The (1973)
64.Léon (1994)
65.Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
66.Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
67.Vita è bella, La (1997)
68.Touch of Evil (1958)
69.Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
70.Finding Nemo (2003)
71.2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
72.Reservoir Dogs (1992)
73.Great Escape, The (1963)
74.Modern Times (1936)
75.Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
76.Amadeus (1984)
77.On the Waterfront (1954)
78.Ran (1985)
79.Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
80.Annie Hall (1977)
81.Wo hu cang long (2000)
82.Jaws (1975)
83.Apartment, The (1960)
84.Braveheart (1995)
85.High Noon (1952)
86.Aliens (1986)
87.Fargo (1996)
88.Strangers on a Train (1951)
89.Shining, The (1980)
90.Metropolis (1927)
91.Blade Runner (1982)
92.Sixth Sense, The (1999)
93.City Lights (1931)
94.Donnie Darko (2001)
95.Duck Soup (1933)
96.Great Dictator, The (1940)
97.General, The (1927)
98.Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
99.Princess Bride, The (1987)
100.Dogv
ille (2003)

Listening to: the rain, it’s spitting children run for your lives

Tony Blair is refusing to admit New Labour could possibly have made any mistakes with their Health Service reforms. Well, I suppose he would say that, wouldn’t he. Patricia Hewitt was on BBC Breakfast this morning defending the whole mess, in her usual unpleasant way. (You know, I find that woman hugely annoying. Maybe she is a wonderful person if you get to know her, but the second I hear her voice, the words ‘patronising bitch’ pop into my head. Given my deep dislike of her, it’s not really all that surprising that I can’t bring myself to believe a word she says.) Apparently, it’s not the reforms which are at fault, it’s the hospitals and doctors surgeries for employing the wrong sort of staff, which sounds reminiscent of the old ‘the trains can’t run because of the wrong kind of snow’ excuse. Of course, it has nothing to do with the Government expecting hospitals to find huge numbers of new employees overnight.

We all had a lot of fun with this over the weekend. Yes, folks, you can now become a speech writer for Dubbya, and make him say what you think he really means. Not that I’m sure he really knows himself.

And now for a meme. Today’s comes from Musing on Movies

“You mean, you’ll put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword, and we’ll try to kill each other like civilized people?”
~~The Princess Bride

How do you feel about violence in films? Does the potential violence content affect whether or not you will see a movie? Have you ever seen a movie that you would have liked better if it had less violence in it?

It really depends on how relevant violence is to the subject of the film. In context I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m not keen on the sort of film that is violent for the sake of being so, for example the stereotypical hack and slash genre. Those types of films never seem to have plots, just a succession of ever more gruesome ‘killins’ and that puts me off wanting to watch. I’m one of those odd bods who like plot, dialogue, character development etc. On the other hand, some real classics have been pretty grim, ie: Platoon, Gangs of New York, Pulp Fiction, but, it could be said that this is necessary because of the themes involved. There is also the argument that some films are not as violent as people think, Reservoir Dogs is one example, it seems very violent, but actually most of the violence is implied. A good director can use implied violence to great effect, making the viewer think they have seen something that really they haven’t.

A movie I would have enjoyed more if it had less violence . . . Bambi, Tarka the Otter and Ring of Brightwater I found all three pretty traumatic as a child. It’s like ‘Hey kids, look at the lovely furry creature, and now WATCH IT DIE.’

Listening to: the kettle boiling, I’m about to have a cup of tea.

This weeks Cast That Classic meme has been posted, the subject is Pratchett’s Witches, and you can find it here.

You can read more about the whole Tesco Vegetarian controversy here and also see a pic of the offending package. And if you want to know the latest, pop over to Blue Witches. Apparently, it was all a big mistake . . . oh well that’s alright then. No, hang on a minute, didn’t they say it was acceptable for veggie meals to contain fish? Could they possibly be backtracking and contradicting themselves?!?

Any budding Tom and/or Barbara Goode’s might like to pay a visit to SelfSufficientish TV. Set up by the folk from SelfSufficientish.com, the new site features video guides to all sorts of useful stuff for anyone interested in being more, well, self sufficient. There are only a small number of videos up at the moment, but more are promised very soon. And while we are on the subject, there is much rejoicing in the Blogs household . . . I have found my peas. Last year, I grew a delicious crop of peas (Hurst Greenshaft) and diligently saved some for this years crop, which I promptly lost. Fortunately, they turned up yesterday when I was looking through a drawer for something else . . . isn’t that always the way. So, our pea harvest is saved, which is a very good thing, because they were truly yummy, really you haven’t tasted peas until you have had home grown ones.

A couple of great cat stories caught my eye today. The first features a cute little black kitty who was rescued after spending two weeks trapped in the walls of a building, finally emerging none the worse for her confinement The second is the tale (sorry) of a clever German cat which saved the life of an abandoned new born baby. Talking of cats, am I the only who is rather puzzled by the spate of news stories claiming that it will be cats which transfer avian flu from birds to humans? The logic behind this idea is that cats will eat birds which have died of the H5N1 virus therefore catching the virus themselves, which they will then bring home. I can only think that whoever came up with this theory hasn’t spent much time around cats. Felines are amongst the worlds fussiest eaters. There are die hard gourmets who are less picky about their food than the average moggy. No self respecting cat will eat food which has been out for more than about about fifteen minutes, so the chances of them eating some manky dead bird that has been lying around for ages are remote to say the least. Dogs on the other hand, will eat anything*

Continuing with the cat theme, here’s an online quiz which helps you determine which breed is best for you.

* In case anyone is wondering, no, I’m not a rabid cat person who is trying to stir up anti-dog feelings. I like both animals, equally, both have good qualities, as well as negative points. In fact, I find people who claim to dislike one or the other a little odd. I can understand someone having a preference, but not actually disliking a particular animal. It’s a bit like saying, ‘oh yes, I like hedgehogs but hate squirrels’. Weird.

Listening to: the Bloglets

The subject of this week’s Cast That Classic is the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to cast each and every character, in fact, I’m going to break them down into separate parts. This week, we concentrate on the Witches, because they are amongst my favourites*, and because it’s my meme, so I can. So, post your suggestions for:

Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick.

Either post your answers here, or on your own blog, don’t forget to pop back and leave the url so I can have a peep at your answers. And speaking of answers, here are mine:

Granny Weatherwax – Emma Thompson

Nanny Ogg – Julie Walters

Magrat Garlick – Emma Chambers

* In fact, I like them so much, I want to be Nanny Ogg when I grow up.