Entries tagged with reviews

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(no subject)

Things I have done recently:

- Discovered a meadow - with cows! - right in the middle of Oxford. Okay, yes, I'm sure everyone else already knew about Christ Church Meadow, and I had in fact seen one of the entrances to it, but I'd never investigated it. Cows! In the city!

- Went to see The A-Team. Da-da-duh-duuuuh, duh-duh-DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH... I practically bounced all the way home, feeling like I was seven again. EXPLOSIONS! Plans coming together! MORE EXPLOSIONS! Overkill is underrated! YET MORE EXPLOSIONS TIMES ELEVENTY! It was exactly like my memory of the A-Team, and not at all like actually rewatching the A-Team, IYSWIM. If you go see it, stick around until the end of the credits (unlike everyone else in the cinema with me - what is their hurry?).

( Spoilers. )

- Watched two more Mac S6 episodes, of which more later.

- Seriously underestimated RDA's capacity for incomprehensible text-speak. Zoiks.

- Also watched the last ep of Sherlock – only three eps? Boo. Also, bastards, for that ending. Loved the umpty-billion references to the original stories. V. fond of John.

- I'm sure there was something else...

- ...Nope, it's not coming back to me.

ETA: Oh, I remembered! My local shop is now selling kulfi lollies, in pistachio (my favourite!) and it makes me very haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Entry tags:

music,
reviews

(no subject)

Ah, I know he's hopelessly middle-of-the-road. He's never been very innovative, some of his lyrics make me wince, I wouldn't be upset if he was banned from using pan pipes, his videos feature far too many skinny, pouting models, and he is Just Not Cool, but oh... I had a blast at the Bryan Adams concert last night.

( Quite distressingly sincere. )

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So worth risking the curse.

Wow. Amazing. Completely worth it. I wasn't disappointed at all by the absence of Tutankhamun's famous mask –the collection was huge and gorgeous enough on its own. I did have a few Stargate squees, mainly at the canopic jars, but mostly I was just awestruck by how amazing these things looked – how precious and detailed. Some museum exhibits look as though they'd have been about as precious to their owners as my tea mug is to me – they're fascinating because, to someone X amount of years ago, they were ordinary. This stuff, though, had the look of objects that someone would want to take with them into the afterlife. Ceremonial, elegant, beautiful. On the whole, of no practical use.

( Image-heavy behind cut. )

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(no subject)

Woohoo, meme-age! Because I am skating the crazy highs and lows of PMT, and can't cope with real life at the moment (I love you all! *cries* Everyone hates me! *hides* I want to sleep! *cleans tops of kitchen cupboards*).

Comment:
And I will name you 3 interests from your list, and 3 userpics and you explain them in your own post asking the same of your flisters.

Thanks to

rowan_d, (and I'm curious, rowan - which interests in particular do we have in common? edit: duh, just checked your interests, and yeah! *may go put Tennessee Williams on own interest list, actually*), who asked:

( Wow, I do talk when I get going, don't I? )

Entry tags:

comedy,
reviews

Are you tugging my squirrel?

Oh, blast! lj just decided that 'backspace' meant 'go back to the previous page and lose everything Pepper's just written'. Damn you, lj, damn you to helllllllll!!!

Okay. Today I be mostly enthusing about Green Wing. Because I can. And because it's Friday. And because I mentioned it to crazedturkey, and it seemed a bit rude to fill up her comments section with quotes and stuff.

And just to warn you: if you're of a sensitive nature, some of the quotes may offend. I don't know that it will, I say this just in case your sense of humour is not as sick as mine.

( And I want a chandelier. A motorised one. )

Entry tags:

(no subject)

So we went to see 'Rock 'n' Roll' on Saturday, at the Duke of York theatre (freakishly small seats; I'm only 5'3 and my toes were crushed up against the balcony, so they'd be hell if you're tall). It was lovely, and also gave me a great sense of closure.

( Love, chaos theory, communism, and rock 'n' roll )

Current Mood: geeky

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Word.

I've just read 'Lost In A Good Book', by Jasper Fforde, and am about to start the sequel, 'The Well Of Lost Plots'. They're very good, very funny (first book in the series is 'The Eyre Affair', FYI). Jasper Fforde reminds me of Terry Pratchett in that they both play around with the nature of books - the reality of text on paper. In Jasper Fforde's stuff, someone has invented a Prose Portal - a means of actually getting into a book. They run around in the background of Jane Eyre (one of my favourite novels), and Great Expectations (I loathe Dickens), and suchlike, trying not to disrupt the action of the book they're in, because it will appear in print... And because of this interaction between books and reality, he's come up with loads of lovely things, such as the footnoterphone.¹

Exactly. And the 'real' characters have conversations with...²

It's quite confusing at first.³

Terry Pratchett plays about in similar ways - sometimes quite subtly. 'Reaper Man', for instance, has two different storylines going on at the same time, for which he uses two different fonts. And there's Death, of course, who talks (without speech marks) LIKE THIS. I borrowed one of his inventions - a sort of fading out, fading back in of consciousness, done with ellipses - for my own short story, 'Safe And Sound'.

.....

...

.....

Like that. I'm a great fan of the written word, myself, so these slightly nerdy things please me.

In other news... I had no time to write in my lj yesterday, due to work stuff that's too dull even to write about. Bah to it - it's spoilt my record. No doubt obsessive-compulsively of me, I'd managed to write in it every day (except weekends) so far. Oh well. Pattern broken. It's probably healthier.

And next week I'm going to see the Mediaeval Baebes' London Christmas concert, with my mum. So, recently, I'll have been to see alt-country, comedy music, and pop-choral.

Eclectic.

1. Sort of the literary version of a telephone.
2. ...the fictional characters.
3. But you get used to it.

Entry tags:

reviews

James Bond

The new James Bond film is very, very cool. It was a bit like an AU James Bond movie as written by a really good fanfic writer. Let me explain.

( Do I look like I give a damn? )

edit: Whilst we're on the subject of Casino Royale, will someone please tie me to a chair and beat me with twigs until I finish a damn story. But not, I hasten to add, naked, and not with a knotted rope. Because, ow. You could tell who'd read the book when they brought out a wicker chair and half the audience sucked in a sharp breath.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Work

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I want Stargate Christmas icons

Trying to write. I want to write a nice long story with lots of, y'know, actual plot and stuff. Can't think at the moment, though, so I'm going back and playing with past unfinished stuff. Can't get stuck into that, either. Just adding bits and editing. Perhaps I should concentrate. Can't concentrate. Argh. Perhaps it's because I'm still residually exhausted from this weekend.

On Friday I went to see the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The image of Ade Edmonson (from 'The Young Ones', 'Comic Strip Presents', and 'Bottom', amongst other things) in a parrot costume, crowd-surfing, will stay with me for a long, long time. As will the man playing a (theramin) leg with his behind. And the elderly man, eighty if he was a day, with long flowing white hair and orange dungarees, playing the spoons and prancing like a mad pixie... Indelibly burned into my brain.

On Saturday I went to my mum's and we made gluten-free diabetic Christmas puddings, which were... yucky... and mushroom and cashew nutroast, which was lovely. Both for Christmas, although the puddings aren't for me, thank goodness. I don't really eat Christmas pudding, anyhow. Nasty stuff.

Sunday, I went to what is probably the biggest shopping mall in southern England, with a dear friend and my bf, and walked around, and around, and around... A 12-hour shopping trip, including travel time. I spent lots of money I don't have, but hopefully have bought all my Christmas presents, so it was worth it. Don't want to do any more Christmas shopping. Fed up of Christmas already, after this weekend. Also bought myself some pyjamas that say 'I understand - I just DON'T CARE.' And drawing pins in the shape of ladybirds. And some clear pink plastic stars. And... oh, other stuff, I can't even remember. I feel... slightly jaded from all the rampant consumerism. But we also ate sushi, and talked lots, and had a laugh, so it was overall a Good Thing.

I was thinking of this poem recently, don't know why...

( King John's Christmas )

Entry tags:

music,
reviews

Lucinda Williams

Coo-er-gosh but she's good. Just stunning. She's got a voice like Scarlet O'Hara on 50-a-day, she played the hell out of her guitar, and sang the hell out of her songs... She was, as her support act said, a kick-ass chick.

It was quite late by the time she came on, and I was getting kinda bored, having been there for three hours already - but I was completely blown away from the very first song. She played some that were familiar to me (I've got three of her albums), a few new ones, and some that the crowd knew but I hadn't heard before. I found it really easy to like the unfamiliar ones straight off - particularly one called 'Passionate Kisses'.

I guess her brand of harsh poetry appeals to me in part because I was brought up on Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, and recently went through a big phase of listening to all the Emmylou Harris I could get my hands on. She's very much in that style - not sticking to any one genre in particular. She said she couldn't get signed in the 80s 'cause she was "too country for rock, and too rock for country." The labelling of music - or of any art form - has always somewhat baffled me. How do you say that one artist is definitively "rock", or "folk", or whatever? And why should they stick to that? I'd rather someone followed their muse, and played what they were inspired to write.

So, me liked. Only downside was the T-shirt I bought, which appears to have been printed back-to-front - the picture is on the back, and the words 'Lucinda Williams' on the front. It looks like that's my name or something, when I wear it. Ah well, it gave my bf a good laugh. :)