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My Wife And I...
(painted today, in acrylic) |
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13.5.05 23:37 |
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A Cheery Wave
I should call this blog 'reasons to fear a move to the US', but that would be silly. I don't fear it at all; it's happening and I'm very happy about it. I need away from London, and how great is it that I'm moving to California, eh?! My wife will be closer to family, and in the place she knows so well; I have that Joni Mitchell song 'California' in my head, and it makes me happy. I've gotten over my fear of black widows (until I see one, that is), I'm pretty sure I won't become a big flabby SUV American, and though I may not get BBC1, I'll learn to live without Match of the Day (Spurs are doing badly anyway). However... Angela read in a guidebook that the north of California was hit by a big Tsunami back in the early sixties, and most of Crescent City was wiped out! Tsunamis? Damn, of course - California is on the Pacific, the biggest and most earthquaceous (?) and volcaniferous (??) ocean in, well, the world I guess. Oo-er!! When I was a kid I was nervous of everything. I would ask before I ate anything unusual if I could swallow it. I was scared of other parts of the world because of sunburn, tidal waves, diseases, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, and most of all big poisonous spiders. I come from Britain, and we don't get any of those things really, nothing that dangerous. As an adult I have largely overcome these fears; but is it all coming back? I've spent my life being a nervous Brit; am I going to become a nervous American? |
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14.5.05 16:43 |
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la peur de vendredi treize
...and I have found out a new word, for those who fear yesterday, which was Friday the Thirteenth: paraskevidekatriaphobia. Personally I fear saying the word, in case it summons up demons.
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14.5.05 17:13 |
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Foot Loose
Oooh...aaaahh...the dramatic end of the footy season, the bottom club stayed up (West Brom), Spurs missed out on Europe, Djibril Cissé's hair made him look like an extra from Bladerunner, and David James went up front for Man City to prove that it doesn't matter which penalty box he is in, he always looks wobbly. And Arsenal lost. Next season we'll be joined for the first time by Wigan, and Man United will be under the control of the window-maker in the big cap. Rumour has it that when he heard Fergie was the club's manager, he asked about Prince Andrew. Now, there's a few Cup Finals to deal with, but then it's a footy-free summer; what will I do? This is my last full season in the UK; shortly after the next one starts I'll be jetting off to Glazer's own land, and will have to say 'soccer' to talk about the game I love. It's a different world. I went to a baseball match when I first went to the states. I wore my Spurs top, and surprisingly somebody shouted out "Tottenham!" when I was off trying to find out what a 'rootbeer float' was. But baseball matches are not like footy games, it's a very family affair. They sing songs about being taken to the ball-game; down the Lane we sing songs about being taken out and getting your f*ing head kicked in. They sing songs about my old man saying follow the band; in N17, that old man proposes supporting Arsenal, to which the only fair response is expletive deleted. There, they say, 'good call, umpire', whereas at Spurs the referee's short-sightedness is attributed to his masturbation. And I got real evil looks whenever the pitcher threw the ball at the batter, and I met each strike with "ooooooh...you're! shit! aaaahh...." Yep, I think a life in the States will help me with the way I watch sport. I'll be more tolerant of the game. I will be praying for time-outs so I can get garlic fries and soda. I will know statistics, and not just pretend I do, like here. And my team - in whatever sport that is - may even win things. Who am I kidding! I'll be following Spurs online! We aint gonna win things...
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15.5.05 23:59 |
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Spur Wars
The Force is with us, but critics will not shut up. Revenge of the Sith, the final Star Wars movie, premiered in Cannes last night, and in London tonight (after a day-long marathon of Star Wars movies in Leicester Square). And still there are the critics who can but jeer and sneer at Lucas' creation, for its dodgy dialogue, atrocious acting and over-zealous CG effects. To whom I must say this: you don't have to watch it if you don't like it. That snobby film critic on the Culture Show granted royal audience to three SW fans, that they might convince him that star Wars is a good movie; but he ultimately had made his mind up, so anything they said did not matter. In the Guardian, they said Star Wars had ruined 1970s cinema. Eh? The reason it was a success is because 1970s cinema was depressing as hell, in a depressing as hell decade. Elsewhere (MSN for one), reviewers largely reeled off a patterned script of the "Star Wars and Empire were great, Jedi less so because of the Ewoks, Menace was awful, Clones slightly better, and Sith better by far, but still not as good as the first ones." Yawn, that wasn't predictable. And I hate the whole thing about the Ewoks. I loved the Ewoks in Jedi personally. Why? Because I was a bloody KID at the time, and I was the TARGET AUDIENCE!!! Same reason that kids loved Jar-Jar, cretin that he was. Get over it! I support Star Wars, like I support Spurs. Sure, I know that there are better teams out there, winning trophies every season and always signing the biggest stars, not the unknown former carpenters. I know that we don't always pass the ball so well, or defend very cohesively, and that for all this I am among the loyal fans that get fleeced financially, and never really agree with the director's decisions, and know that we have some quality players out there who can do better when given a better script, and that we are all show and little substance; but they are my team, and I always love watching them. When moments are good, they make me feel very good. And we used to be very good when I was a little kid, in the late seventies and early eighties, but then a good deal of nothing until a resurgence in 1999 which proved a little false; we got rid of the gungan Sol and started to improve, and this year was nearly our year...(hmmm, that metaphor only works if you forget the 1991 Cup triumph, Gazza and Lineker, all that...) Why do I love Star Wars? I asked my wife to give me the reasons why she thought I loved the holy double-trilogy, and she was spot on. I love the whole mythology aspect, yes. But more importantly, I love LIGHTSABRES - in what other film is there any weapon so exciting? (and by the way, Star Wars - and The Phantom Menace in particular - kickstarted the resurgence in sword-fighting movies.) But mostly, I love these films because they are FUN. Yes, the prequels have been a little stale at times, but overall the Galaxy Far, Far Away is pretty damn exciting. I can't wait until Thursday. |
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16.5.05 23:57 |
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Don't You Weather
The BBC have a funky new weather forecasting system. They were hyping it up last week, waving goodbye to their old graphics system, while showing us the even older systems in which little clouds were stuck onto a map of the UK, often falling off making Scotland look less rainy than it should be. This new system has all sorts of 3D wizardry, where we see the clouds over Britain, and we can scoot underneath them and see exactly where the rain will be falling. It does not, however, seem to predict the weather in much greater accuracy; in fact, given that it attempts to look more accurate geographically, it renders itself even more inaccurate. Enough to make me just want to sit down and have a cup of tea. I notice that they have cynically brought this new swingometeresque (?) technology in during May, when the weather will be improving anyway; no doubt they will take the credit. Good to see the license fee is going toward something we all want. I would like to see a Voodoo weather map. They just pin a sun over the south-east and lo! it's sunny in Brighton. A snow-flake over devon and lo! blizzards on Dartmoor. Stick a naked Tony Blair over Antarctica and lo! Gordon Brown is PM. I'm surprised Greg Dyke never thought of it last year. |
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18.5.05 23:48 |
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Red-eye Jedi...
Sith craziness is spreading the planet as the last Star Wars movie hits screens - often with an audible splat. I just read on the force net (a website which normally brings the best, up-to-date SW news such as pictures of Pringles cartons or whether Grievous will be a Pez dispenser or not - hmmm) that cinemas in the US are having trouble getting it right. "Film melts in Dallas!" "Projector breaks down in Indiana!" "Reel jams in California!" "Show stops after 20 minutes in Maine! No refunds!" One of the best was "New Jersey plays Episode 3 in wrong language!" These were, admittedly, midnight screenings. People have to be the first ones to see it, don't they?! I was up late last night writing about Old High German philology. Can you imagine being at the cinema, bleary-eyed and excited, only to have the film bugger up? (Yes, yes, we all know George Lucas did this to the Phantom Menace himself) If that happens to me today, when I go to the 5.30 screening at Tottenham Court Road, I will probably force-choke somebody. Now I really do have a bad feeling about this... |
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19.5.05 14:18 |
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Post-Revenge
And so…that’s it, then. The prequel trilogy is over and Star Wars is now complete. How do I feel? I don’t know. I feel odd, strangely numb, dumbstruck. That film was fast and furious, and stuffed with action – and not that brilliantly edited, which although was not a surprise considering the snipping job on Clones and Menace, still irked me a little. If I weren’t a Star Wars fan, if I didn’t know the whole story before I saw the film, I would be one confused guy. The pacing was quite clunky in places, yet in others Lucas did take the time to have long, silent emotional shots. The acting was often atrocious, but McGregor performed ten times better than previous episodes. I cannot write about the film yet. I will say what I liked though.
This is what I didn’t like (editing apart):
When I came out, I passed a line of people queuing up to see the later showing. I said loudly to my wife (à la Homer Simpson), “I can’t believe Anakin isn’t actually Luke’s father!” I doubt people cared. I wouldn’t put it past Lucas to change that, though. |
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19.5.05 23:35 |
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Impartial Jose
FA Cup Final Day tomorrow, Arsenal scum vs Man United, and already Chelsea's boss Mourinho has said he wants United to win, because he has a lot of time for Fergie, and on the BBC websiteexplains how he feels about Arsenal:
"When he says he likes other Chelsea teams much more than our team I know why - because we are the champions. He preferred the other way when they were the champions. I didn't like Arsenal at the start of the season when they smashed everybody and I don't like them now when they beat Everton 7-0 and they win. But I liked them very much in the middle of the season when every weekend they lost points. I was in love with them then, so I can understand why Arsene doesn't like us."
Yeah!! He's arrogant, is Jose, but he's funny. |
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20.5.05 11:53 |
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Bayern morgen
I just handed in a paper on the influence of Gothic and Anglo-Saxon missions upon the Christian vocabulary of Old Saxon and Old High German. I know to most people that sounds as interesting as watching paint dry (or using outdated and creeking cliches like that), but I love the subject; it's just that on the back of a barrel of long essays, an exam and the new Star Wars movie, it exhausted me. I can now say though that I know some shit about Germanic Philology, and now I can take a rest. A week-long rest, in Germany. We are flying to Bavaria tomorrow. We'll be in Munich for a few days, then we'll drive (or more correctly, my wife will drive) around some romantic villages set amid choccie-box Alpine scenery. We'll also pop into St Gallen in Switzerland, where I'll look at Old High German manuscripts. I'm looking forward to the break, just chilling with my wife, relaxing in a Biergarten with one of those huge Biersteins, a 'Maß'; and speaking German again. I have to brush up - I don't want to end up speaking the language they spoke a thousand years ago, because that's all I've been reading lately... |
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20.5.05 16:48 |
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