The Guardian

The Guardian is a left-of-centre "quality" newspaper in the UK. I often buy it - especially on Saturdays, when it has among its many sections a colour magazine - not least because one of my parrot cages is lined with newspaper rather than wood chips. My dear little Rio used to throw the wood lining out and make a real mess of the room.

There were two items of interest today. Bear with me to the end. The first is funny, but the second is, well, odd, and I'm only sorry I can't find the accompanying picture anywhere on the internet. Probably just as well, as I think it might turn a few stomachs.

Anyway, the "problem" page contains the following letter:

We're in despair. We bought two hens for the garden, but it has turned into a nightmare. They are bossy sods with strange alien eyes and weird dinosaur feet. They amuse themselves by terrorising the neighbour's cat and "singing" their special egg song at six o'clock every morning. They freak us out by pecking at the back door, so they can "be with us". Their fastidious appetites and mind control skills mean that we now spend a fortune on the special hen treats they insist on - so much so, in fact, that each egg we get now costs us roughly a tenner. And we're vegetarians, so we can't even kill or eat the feathered horrors. what can we do?

I laughed like a drain as I read this. I can just see myself in this situation if I didn't have a sleection of cats ready and willing to murder any poultry I decided to keep, not to mention the local foxes.

However, the really big surprise was on the penultimate page of the main section, where they routinely have an "Unsettling Animal Picture of the Week". It was a naked woman with a huge fish diagonally across her body, the head slightly above her right shoulder, the body hiding her fight breast and a fin almost but not quite hiding her left nipple. She is holding the tail in front of her at groin level, with a smattering of thin pubes showing.

The name of this weird woman? Great Skanky, of course. Missing Gavin, honey?

The Investigator

I think his character is so sweet in this.

Kittens!

These three little bundles of sweetness are just over a week old. Their mum belongs to a student I home tutor on Fridays. They thought she'd decided to have them in the drawer of the boy's wardrobe, but she actually climbed over the back of the drawer and into the space behind, so they had to dismantle the wardrobe for her!


The only way I could get photos was to wait for mum to take a pee. This is the only picture that resembles anything more than a bundle of colours.

Steal This Movie

Mr D. doing what Mr D. does best.

Imaginary Crimes

Today we have our favourite teacher.

(I'm sorry, Miss Gibbons, you were a great English teacher, but just look at our Vincent.)

Memory Lane

Today I decided to visit Deptford, the area where I lived till I was nearly 12. It's just a mile or two away from where I live now, but thanks to urban decay on the one hand, and developer's blight on the other, much of it bears very little resemblance to the place where I was born.

I couldn't take a picture of my old secondary school (11-18), Addey and Stanhope, because it's behind a wall with huge trees masking it. The oldest part of the building dates to just over a hundred years ago, but the school was founded in 1715.

This was my primary school (5-11), Tidemill. Say hello and goodbye - they are going to build a new one. Other old school buildings in neighbouring areas have been turned into apartments, but as Lewisham Council has demolished almost everything else in the last 45 years, I don't rate its chances very highly.



These are some of the oldest houses in the area, just yards from the semi-derelict High Street. Over 300 years ago, they were built for the leading admirals of the fleet. Deptford was an important naval port, and nearby were the docks and wharves where overseas goods were unloaded. Containers made the docks redundant.

The lucky inhabitants of these houses get to look out on an ugly new estate. The inhabitants of the new estate look out on these lovely old houses!






These shops are some of the oldest buildings of any kind in Deptford, some as much as 400 years old, maybe more. The cycle shop has just had to move to bigger premises after 40 years in the building. I used to go to school a matter of yards from here, but I never noticed the little white building with the black hatch in the wall. I bet it wasn't neat and clean in those days - there's just been a huge clean-up of this little bit of street, which now has a yuppy cafe with tables and chairs on the pavement.







There are some attractive buildings from more recent ages, too, including this former department store build in the Art Deco period.


St Paul's Church (poet John Betjeman's "pearl in the heart of Deptford") was built in 1715 when Deptford was at its height. I usually love early Gothic churches and cathedrals, but this jewel is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen.







As I walked round the churchyard today, I noticed this stone set in the grass.

I had never noticed it before. I'm wondering if Captain Bligh was on the Providence before or after he captained the Bounty.

I could have photographed the hand carwash where the New Cross Empire music hall and theatre used to stand. It was really worthwhile pulling that one down, then doing nothing with the site for 50 years.

I could have photographed the new shops with flats above on the opposite corner, which stand on the site of the fish and chip shop where we used to go after our rehearsals for the school play. It just blew up one day some years ago. A few years later the shop next door, presumably weakened by the explosion (why didn't anyone check it out), fell down. They wouldn't have been very interesting though, would they? I hope these are.

Good Luck

As my friend said when I first showed her this film, there are not many actors who are big enough to play an Americn footballer convincingly (I mean, imagine Tom Cruise...)

If I asked him nicely, do you think Vincent would come and move a large TV for me next week?

Folie A Deux

Or how the continuity people lost the plot.

We start with the wild locks and wayward beard.








On and off the beard seems more closely trimmed and the hair neater.








(Does anyone else think this looks like the house from Fico di Capo?)























Next the hair gets quite short and the beard turns into stubble.


Then grows back again.





And finally the crop and stubble triumph.



With thanks as usual to the High Priestess of VDO-dom, dear Eliza, for getting the DVD to me less than 36 hours after it aired in the US!

The Cell

I capped this scene yesterday to compare my copy of the film to those from two other people's. Not enough for a lengthy post, but the full-face in the tub lends itself particularly well to a slidshow.

For months on end I've been unable to download Adobe Flash Player on a permanent basis on to my computer. Every time I switched on, I had to remove it completely using a little thingamajig that Adobe sent me, then download for that session.

Last night, I noticed that, without my having downloaded it for days, Adobe was present on my machine. It's still there today. SO the problem was obviuosly with Adobe all the time, not my computer.

Anyway, this was clearly a sign that I should post a slidewhow today, so with no more ado:

The Whole Wide World

I managed to cap just over 30 minutes of this today. I didn't reach the kiss scene, folks, sorry.