December172011
Lennon, aka Len, aka Lenny, aka Lenford Lenfordfudge: 1993 - 2011 Living with cats teaches you many things. You learn responsibility, kindness, loyalty, and that you should always switch the light on before you walk around barefoot downstairs in the morning. But there’s one thing I have never managed to learn, and that is how to deal with saying goodbye. Len was my oldest friend. He used to try to follow us to school in the morning. He used to bring us gifts on the doorstep (mostly unwelcome but all given a proper burial). His favourite occupations (aside from napping in the sun) were dribbling, stealing food from my plate, kneading my favourite winter jumper and chasing his housemates Bot and Den. He has been such an integral part of my life for the last 18 years - more than half my life - that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to him not being around. Over the years has been the subject of songs (mostly popropriation involving his name), short stories, not to mention the occasional Black Squadron command. I miss him so much.

Lennon, aka Len, aka Lenny, aka Lenford Lenfordfudge: 1993 - 2011

Living with cats teaches you many things. You learn responsibility, kindness, loyalty, and that you should always switch the light on before you walk around barefoot downstairs in the morning. But there’s one thing I have never managed to learn, and that is how to deal with saying goodbye.

Len was my oldest friend. He used to try to follow us to school in the morning. He used to bring us gifts on the doorstep (mostly unwelcome but all given a proper burial). His favourite occupations (aside from napping in the sun) were dribbling, stealing food from my plate, kneading my favourite winter jumper and chasing his housemates Bot and Den.

He has been such an integral part of my life for the last 18 years - more than half my life - that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to him not being around. Over the years has been the subject of songs (mostly popropriation involving his name), short stories, not to mention the occasional Black Squadron command.

I miss him so much.
June52011
iamblessed: ‘Allo there! This made me smile :)

iamblessed:

‘Allo there! This made me smile :)

(via ladyfabulous)
May222011
I watched Restrepo last night. I can’t remember the last time a film had such a huge effect on my psyche. I spent the entire night dreaming about these guys, about being holed up with them in that tiny outpost, about sitting and waiting for the next ambush, the next casualty. I dreamed about the children caught in the middle of it, and my mind going so far as to construct an amalgam that even my dreaming self would recognise as the Afghan equivalent of my beautiful 6 year old niece. The point being, this film gets right under your skin, without being particularly graphic or sensationalist. It puts you right there in the middle of everything and just compels you to watch, to try and understand what being there might feel like. Directors Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington (the latter was killed in Libya earlier this year along with colleague Chris Hondros) deserve a great deal of praise for creating a film that is both understated and quietly devastating.

I watched Restrepo last night.

I can’t remember the last time a film had such a huge effect on my psyche. I spent the entire night dreaming about these guys, about being holed up with them in that tiny outpost, about sitting and waiting for the next ambush, the next casualty. I dreamed about the children caught in the middle of it, and my mind going so far as to construct an amalgam that even my dreaming self would recognise as the Afghan equivalent of my beautiful 6 year old niece.

The point being, this film gets right under your skin, without being particularly graphic or sensationalist. It puts you right there in the middle of everything and just compels you to watch, to try and understand what being there might feel like.

Directors Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington (the latter was killed in Libya earlier this year along with colleague Chris Hondros) deserve a great deal of praise for creating a film that is both understated and quietly devastating.
May32011

The night picture is from our hotel room window last night - there was some kind of lightshow going on at the casino, complete with flamethrowers on the waterfront and loud orchestral music. Quite fun

It’s about 3.30pm here on our first full day. We’ve done a couple of touristy things today as I didn’t have any meetings/interviews; starting off at the Butterfly/Insect World over on Sentosa (the ‘resort’ island that houses Universal Studios and about a billion golf courses), taking the cable car back to the city (see the pic - G loved it, I was as terrified as I was last time I did it but it’s a great view) and then spending a bit of time in Chinatown.

It’s really hot. Like seriously hot. I quite like it : )
March132011
rockysullivan: The awesome Joe Cornish. #AttackTheBlock #SXSW Cornballs!

rockysullivan:

The awesome Joe Cornish. #AttackTheBlock #SXSW

Cornballs!
January32011
The Obligatory ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ Blog Entry.Last Christmas, my long-suffering husbaloid bought me the complete ‘Star Trek: DS9’ DVD box set. I’d just finished trawling my way through the variable delights of ‘The Next Generation’; seven seasons watched pretty much back-to-back and becoming more a way of life than a television programme. I watched a lot of TNG in my misspent youth, and was fairly familiar with the characters and the general direction of the show. DS9, however, sort of passed me by. I remember it being on, but nothing about it really grabbed me at the time. Many people since have extolled the virtues of DS9 and tried to convince me I was missing out, but it was only when presented with the box set that I relented and decided to give Captain ‘Baldy’ Sisko and his companions a fair hearing. I have to admit, I found the first three seasons extremely hard going. It had none of the compulsive qualities of TNG, and I failed to really latch on to any of the characters emotionally aside from perhaps Major Kira. The story lines seemed featherweight, inconsistent and (quite an achievement) even sillier than some of TNG’s early season offerings. To put it bluntly I wasn’t terribly impressed. By the time I’d struggled into season four, despite the appearance of TNG mainstay Worf, I’d grown weary of it altogether and I put it to one side. I watched seasons 1-7 of Buffy for about the fourth time, in the space of about 2 months. Now *that’s* some compulsive viewing, right there. Eventually (probably motivated by a little bit of guilt-tripping about unwanted gifts from @re_mute) I dipped back into DS9. I guess I just missed the universe, or maybe even the characters without realising. Whatever the reason, I soon found myself hooked in a way I had not expected. Whether there was a change of writers or showrunners I don’t know, but it suddenly seemed to get good. Kira Nerys is definitely my favourite thing about the whole series. She’s smart, she kicks ass, she’s unwaveringly and unashamedly spiritual, she takes no shit from anyone. I could watch her all day long. The most surprising thing for me though was how much I grew to love Worf, son of Mogh. I liked him fine on TNG, but I don’t remember them using Dorn’s excellent comic timing and hilarious facial expressions to such wonderful effect, the way they did on DS9. Worf became the character that made me laugh (and cry) the most overall. I loved him with Jadzia Dax, and his uneasy relationship with Ezri Dax in the final season was wonderfully played. As with the whole modern Star Trek franchise, DS9 seemed to attract wonderful character actors. Garak (Andrew J. Robinson), Martok (J.G. Hertzler) and Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) are all outstanding, but my favourite of the recurring guest stars has to be the magnificent Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun. Combs steals every single scene in which he appears, often elevating the show far above what it would have been without him. Also: he rocks purple contact lenses like no one else. I’m sad it’s over. We’ve started watching ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ by way of compensation, but the ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ nature of the series arc (i.e. ‘They need to get home. Here’s a chance for them to get home! Oh it didn’t work. Next episode…’) pissed me off at the time and shows no sign of doing otherwise this time around. Maybe it gets better. I’ll stick with it, as I ended up doing with DS9.One thing is for certain - there’s no way DS9 would get made in today’s cut-throat TV world. A show barely gets four episodes to hit its stride these days, never mind four seasons. It’s a shame. Makes you wonder where something as beautiful and complex as ‘Firefly’ could have ended up if given four years’ breathing space.

The Obligatory ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ Blog Entry.

Last Christmas, my long-suffering husbaloid bought me the complete ‘Star Trek: DS9’ DVD box set. I’d just finished trawling my way through the variable delights of ‘The Next Generation’; seven seasons watched pretty much back-to-back and becoming more a way of life than a television programme. I watched a lot of TNG in my misspent youth, and was fairly familiar with the characters and the general direction of the show. DS9, however, sort of passed me by. I remember it being on, but nothing about it really grabbed me at the time.
Many people since have extolled the virtues of DS9 and tried to convince me I was missing out, but it was only when presented with the box set that I relented and decided to give Captain ‘Baldy’ Sisko and his companions a fair hearing.
I have to admit, I found the first three seasons extremely hard going. It had none of the compulsive qualities of TNG, and I failed to really latch on to any of the characters emotionally aside from perhaps Major Kira. The story lines seemed featherweight, inconsistent and (quite an achievement) even sillier than some of TNG’s early season offerings. To put it bluntly I wasn’t terribly impressed. By the time I’d struggled into season four, despite the appearance of TNG mainstay Worf, I’d grown weary of it altogether and I put it to one side. I watched seasons 1-7 of Buffy for about the fourth time, in the space of about 2 months. Now *that’s* some compulsive viewing, right there.
Eventually (probably motivated by a little bit of guilt-tripping about unwanted gifts from @re_mute) I dipped back into DS9. I guess I just missed the universe, or maybe even the characters without realising. Whatever the reason, I soon found myself hooked in a way I had not expected. Whether there was a change of writers or showrunners I don’t know, but it suddenly seemed to get good.
Kira Nerys is definitely my favourite thing about the whole series. She’s smart, she kicks ass, she’s unwaveringly and unashamedly spiritual, she takes no shit from anyone. I could watch her all day long.
The most surprising thing for me though was how much I grew to love Worf, son of Mogh. I liked him fine on TNG, but I don’t remember them using Dorn’s excellent comic timing and hilarious facial expressions to such wonderful effect, the way they did on DS9. Worf became the character that made me laugh (and cry) the most overall. I loved him with Jadzia Dax, and his uneasy relationship with Ezri Dax in the final season was wonderfully played.
As with the whole modern Star Trek franchise, DS9 seemed to attract wonderful character actors. Garak (Andrew J. Robinson), Martok (J.G. Hertzler) and Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) are all outstanding, but my favourite of the recurring guest stars has to be the magnificent Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun. Combs steals every single scene in which he appears, often elevating the show far above what it would have been without him. Also: he rocks purple contact lenses like no one else.
I’m sad it’s over. We’ve started watching ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ by way of compensation, but the ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ nature of the series arc (i.e. ‘They need to get home. Here’s a chance for them to get home! Oh it didn’t work. Next episode…’) pissed me off at the time and shows no sign of doing otherwise this time around. Maybe it gets better. I’ll stick with it, as I ended up doing with DS9.
One thing is for certain - there’s no way DS9 would get made in today’s cut-throat TV world. A show barely gets four episodes to hit its stride these days, never mind four seasons. It’s a shame. Makes you wonder where something as beautiful and complex as ‘Firefly’ could have ended up if given four years’ breathing space.
January12011

Sometimes I make silly videos for my family. This is the Christmas 2010 effort.
December312010

Five fantastic BUG videos from 2010


12PM
(…and finally, in my top five favourite things of 2010 list…) #1: BUG (and Adam Buxton) This sort of follows on from #2 in my list, given that there’s no way I’d ever have ventured down to the Big Smoke for BUG if it wasn’t for #TwitSquadron (and in particular the lovely @monastico, who has managed to procure us the most amazing seats for every show this year). BUG is absolutely brilliant. It’s hard to convey the exact nature of the brilliance to someone who hasn’t been, but something about the combination of eclectic and inventive music videos on a big screen with Buxton’s unwaveringly and beautifully shambolic presentation style creates a sort of magical atmosphere of joyful hilarity. It’s an experience so powerful that you walk out feeling as though you’ve spent the last 2 hours with a coat-hanger in your mouth. You laugh, you grin, and you laugh some more until you literally ache from all the mirth your face has been put through. If you’re anything like me, you are completely addicted from the first show. I have been to every one since, dutifully travelling down on the train from Leeds and sleeping in hotels of variable quality in order to get my fix.The appeal isn’t entirely attributable to passing an evening [well, sort of] in the company of my biggest comedy hero and enduring schoolgirl crush (though that’s no small part of it) - it’s great for discovering new music and most importantly it has become a regular opportunity for a #TwitSquadron social gathering and the consumption of large amounts of chillcake (also provided by the multi-talented @monastico). So there you have it. BUG is my absolute favourite thing about 2010. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it - maybe it’ll become your favourite thing about 2011… To finish off, I’ll post some of my favourite videos from this year as seen at BUG. […Watch this space…]

(…and finally, in my top five favourite things of 2010 list…)

#1: BUG (and Adam Buxton)

This sort of follows on from #2 in my list, given that there’s no way I’d ever have ventured down to the Big Smoke for BUG if it wasn’t for #TwitSquadron (and in particular the lovely @monastico, who has managed to procure us the most amazing seats for every show this year).
BUG is absolutely brilliant. It’s hard to convey the exact nature of the brilliance to someone who hasn’t been, but something about the combination of eclectic and inventive music videos on a big screen with Buxton’s unwaveringly and beautifully shambolic presentation style creates a sort of magical atmosphere of joyful hilarity. It’s an experience so powerful that you walk out feeling as though you’ve spent the last 2 hours with a coat-hanger in your mouth. You laugh, you grin, and you laugh some more until you literally ache from all the mirth your face has been put through. If you’re anything like me, you are completely addicted from the first show. I have been to every one since, dutifully travelling down on the train from Leeds and sleeping in hotels of variable quality in order to get my fix.
The appeal isn’t entirely attributable to passing an evening [well, sort of] in the company of my biggest comedy hero and enduring schoolgirl crush (though that’s no small part of it) - it’s great for discovering new music and most importantly it has become a regular opportunity for a #TwitSquadron social gathering and the consumption of large amounts of chillcake (also provided by the multi-talented @monastico).

So there you have it. BUG is my absolute favourite thing about 2010. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it - maybe it’ll become your favourite thing about 2011…

To finish off, I’ll post some of my favourite videos from this year as seen at BUG.

[…Watch this space…]
December302010
(Continuing my series of bloggins about my top five favourite things of the year…) #2 - Twitter, tweeting and #TwitSquadronHow to begin to sum up the effect Twitter has had on my life in 2010… that’s a tough one. I joined way back in summer 2008, but like a lot of people I really struggled to grasp the point of the thing. I came across a really spot-on accurate graphic earlier this year - ‘The four stages of “getting” Twitter’ - that perfectly captures my journey from Twitter-confusion to Twitter-compulsion.* The point at which Twitter clicked for me was during the Iranian elections in summer 2009. Suddenly the sharing of information, the meeting of new and interesting people, the urgency and the passion in which it all came together - it all made sense. A couple of months later it was my very good fortune to cross paths with a certain @AuntieNubbins, spotting me tweeting some random nonsense about Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish… and the rest is history. At some point during those heady months (during which we were spoiled with a new A&J show on 6Music *every weekend* - can you imagine?) #TwitSquadron was born, and since then I have met some of the funniest, wittiest, craziest and most wonderful people it has ever been my good fortune to encounter. (Granted, I’m a geek and don’t get out much, but still.) Somehow we have managed to sustain the madness for a full year since Adam and Joe disappeared, and I have been lucky enough to meet a good number of my Twitter buds in person at the bi-monthly BUG shows in London. So in 2010, Twitter, tweeting and #TwitSquadron have been my hobby, my lifeline, my procrastination of choice, my social life, my source of news and amusement, my support network and my near-constant companions. Hence the fact that I have clocked up more than 16,000 tweets. Sad? Lame? Pathetic? Maybe. But I don’t really ‘do’ social life on terms that can be described as normal. I never have. So to find a world full of people many of whom are (in their own various ways) as geeky and dysfunctional as I am has been a godsend. You’re all brilliant. I wish you all a magnificent and a Happy New Year. Let’s see what 2011 has in store…*(I agree with @lalaL0 though that there is a stage missing from this: the part where you realise that the celebrities you spent the first two months pointlessly following/tweeting at are actually the least interesting (and in some cases the most disappointing) thing about Twitter)

(Continuing my series of bloggins about my top five favourite things of the year…)

#2 - Twitter, tweeting and #TwitSquadron

How to begin to sum up the effect Twitter has had on my life in 2010… that’s a tough one. I joined way back in summer 2008, but like a lot of people I really struggled to grasp the point of the thing. I came across a really spot-on accurate graphic earlier this year - ‘The four stages of “getting” Twitter’ - that perfectly captures my journey from Twitter-confusion to Twitter-compulsion.*
The point at which Twitter clicked for me was during the Iranian elections in summer 2009. Suddenly the sharing of information, the meeting of new and interesting people, the urgency and the passion in which it all came together - it all made sense. A couple of months later it was my very good fortune to cross paths with a certain @AuntieNubbins, spotting me tweeting some random nonsense about Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish… and the rest is history. At some point during those heady months (during which we were spoiled with a new A&J show on 6Music *every weekend* - can you imagine?) #TwitSquadron was born, and since then I have met some of the funniest, wittiest, craziest and most wonderful people it has ever been my good fortune to encounter. (Granted, I’m a geek and don’t get out much, but still.) Somehow we have managed to sustain the madness for a full year since Adam and Joe disappeared, and I have been lucky enough to meet a good number of my Twitter buds in person at the bi-monthly BUG shows in London.
So in 2010, Twitter, tweeting and #TwitSquadron have been my hobby, my lifeline, my procrastination of choice, my social life, my source of news and amusement, my support network and my near-constant companions. Hence the fact that I have clocked up more than 16,000 tweets.
Sad? Lame? Pathetic?
Maybe. But I don’t really ‘do’ social life on terms that can be described as normal. I never have. So to find a world full of people many of whom are (in their own various ways) as geeky and dysfunctional as I am has been a godsend.
You’re all brilliant. I wish you all a magnificent and a Happy New Year.
Let’s see what 2011 has in store…

*(I agree with @lalaL0 though that there is a stage missing from this: the part where you realise that the celebrities you spent the first two months pointlessly following/tweeting at are actually the least interesting (and in some cases the most disappointing) thing about Twitter)
← Older entries Page 1 of 6