Month: January 2005
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Marvel At The Wonder Of It!
This piece from Slate details exactly what Cassini and Hugens have been through to get where they are. Even though none of it is “news” to me, it does put in perspective what our society has achieved.
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The Versuvius Club
In one of David Lodge’s campus novels, there’s a now very famous game where members of the English faculty have to admit to one another which books of monumental importance in English Literature that they haven’t read. I seem to remember that the trump book was Hamlet. My version is less likely to be books…
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Trailers
While I was sitting through some trailers for the umpteenth time at the cinema last night (and mainly the same ones I’d seen the previous night) a couple of thoughts occurred to me. Actually, they’ve occurred to me many times in the past, but for the purposes of this narrative, it fits in well to…
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Million Dollar Baby
Day two of my freebie cinema week, and I went to see Clint Eastwood’s new film, Million Dollar Baby. Now I like Clint Eastwood and he’s matured well, making some really interesting films, and in this instance, starring in it too (he even composed the music here). Eastwood’s a boxing trainer at a gym where…
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Inspector Sands
I finally heard a tannoy for Inspector Sands today. I guess that it really should have bothered me a little more – except that I’m sure it was a test…
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The Aviator
Never one to turn down a bargain, I collected several Evening Standards last week for the free cinema vouchers – one per day for Vue cinemas seven days hence. Now some time ago, a similar offer was run with Odeon, and that time it took some effort to get to see any film at all.…
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Another Chance to See “The Power of Nightmares”
This superb 3-part documentary that was first shown towards the end of last year is getting a swift(ish) BBC2 repeat starting tomorrow night after Newsnight. It’s definitely worth setting the video for, and if you missed it before, grab this opportunity to see it again. (You’ll gather that I really liked it).
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UK Radio Aid
So there’s lots happening on commerical radio today and it’s all very worthy etc. But for God’s sake, get Jade Goody off our airwaves! It’s the aural equivalent of someone running their finger nails down a blackboard. I’d prefer to hear that damn ringtone frog for several hours than put up with this. (Oh, and…
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Huygens
The Huygens probe seems to have been phenomenally successful with all sorts of pictures and even sounds being released. It’s incredible to see these pictures from such an alien world so far from our own. The whole thing’s phenomenal!
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Huygens lander
It’s all very exciting today with the Huygens probe landing on the surface of Titan. What will it find? Will it all work? We’ll find out later today, and in the meantime, I’ll be looking at the Cassini-Huygens website quite a lot.
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The Three Musketeers
Having recently read The Dumas Club (not to be confused with the more recent Dante Club), it did occur to me that I probably had most of my knowledge of The Three Musketeers from Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (altogether now). So I felt duty bound to read the original, and what a barnstorming read…
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Creep
Creep is a good “old-fashioned” horror film. It’s a British/German co-production and has a relatively low budget, although it sports a strong cast lead by Franka Potente (of Run Lola Run and the Bourne films) as a woman who heads off into the night to party but falls asleep in the tube at Charing Cross…