Welcome to the world of the Vincent D'Onofrio obsessed - and a bit of real life thrown in.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Stonehenge
There are only so visitors many per year that English Heritage is permitted to allow actually inside Stonehenge. Most of those are taken up by the so-called "Druids" that regard it as their holy place, even though it predates them by millennia and is probably not a giant calendar to mark the summer solstice like they think.
I was lucky enough to go on a trip to the stones in the summer of 2004. The weather was appalling all day, and we all soaked our way round Salisbury and Old Sarum. First we went round Stonehenge as ordinary visitors, and it continued to pour down. Then it closed and we left to encourage the ordinary visitors to go. As our time approached, the skies cleared and the sun came beaming out. It was magical.
Friday, May 26, 2006
I managed it
Thursday, May 25, 2006
A Vertical Ascent
Not very easy to see, but on the hillside behind these buildings on the North York Moors, there is a road which is going up what is apparently the steepest hill in England.
In the early 1980s on my grail quest in the south of France I acquired a fear of driving up hills, when the driver of the car I was in couldn't get the car down into first gear going up a mountain road, on account of his artificial left hand. We were rolling backwards down the mountainside till his wiffe managed to whack the gearstick in.
The BBC wanted people with driving problems for a TV programme and I volunteered. They took me to Rosedale Chimney Bank (the hill in the picture) in the village of Rosedale Abbey, gave me some hypnotherapy type of treatment, and set me loose on the hillside road. Repeatedly. On camera. Round tight bends. Forwards and in reverse.
They never used the footage, but I've been much better since, and I know what a Dolly Grip is.
For this TV-show-that-never-was, the state-funded BBC paid for hotel rooms for me, the therapist, the producer, the gofer, the sound man, the cameraman and the guy to put the fixed camera in the car. They hired two cars, paid all these people, and paid train and cab fare home to London for me and the therapist.
It was a hell of an experience though.
I now drive an automatic. It was the cure all the time.
In the early 1980s on my grail quest in the south of France I acquired a fear of driving up hills, when the driver of the car I was in couldn't get the car down into first gear going up a mountain road, on account of his artificial left hand. We were rolling backwards down the mountainside till his wiffe managed to whack the gearstick in.
The BBC wanted people with driving problems for a TV programme and I volunteered. They took me to Rosedale Chimney Bank (the hill in the picture) in the village of Rosedale Abbey, gave me some hypnotherapy type of treatment, and set me loose on the hillside road. Repeatedly. On camera. Round tight bends. Forwards and in reverse.
They never used the footage, but I've been much better since, and I know what a Dolly Grip is.
For this TV-show-that-never-was, the state-funded BBC paid for hotel rooms for me, the therapist, the producer, the gofer, the sound man, the cameraman and the guy to put the fixed camera in the car. They hired two cars, paid all these people, and paid train and cab fare home to London for me and the therapist.
It was a hell of an experience though.
I now drive an automatic. It was the cure all the time.
Hey, hey - me, me, me, me, me!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Snow Leopard
I love these cats. They have the most amazing tails. Like Vincent's hands, really.
I'd rather they were in the wild, but we can't afford to lose them from the planet, so I guess we have to put up with breeding programmes in wild animal parks so as to assure the future of the species.
This one was at Port Lympne in Kent, England. It's a great place as animal parks go. It was funded by a casino owner, the late John Aspinall, along with another one in the same county, Howlett's. There's also a part of the foundation which sets up schemes to release big cats, gorillas and other endangered creatures back into the wild. Nice to know the money lost by mugs goes to a good cause.
A Winning Oscar
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Adventures in Bodybuilding
Did Vincent really build himself up like this for this movie?
I guess if he put on 70lbs for FMJ it must be so.
I'm just glad he didn't keep either physique. I like him slim, I like him big but a little out of shape, but musclebound or obese I can only tolerate because it's Vincent. I wouldn't even look at another man who was either of those things.
An elephant remembers
I saw this elephant at London Zoo reach over with her trunk and repeatedly bolt and unbolt the gate of which you can just see the post on the left.
They no longer keep elephants there since one stomped a keeper's head. They were moved to the expanses of their country arm, Whipsnade Wild Animal Park.