Good Luck?

The best! Best luck, favourite VDO film, fave character. OLEE!!

Impostor

Major Hathaway - a rare example Of a good baddie, or a bad goodie?

Quick Quiz

What do the Pope, Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right have in common?

They all want to control women's rights to control their own bodies.

I am SICK of the constant barrage of news about this new pope business. I do not care. Britain is barely a Christian country any more, and disestablished the Catholic church centuries ago.

I do not want to listen to people prattling on about their imaginary friends. Jesus was a real live character from history. He might have been good. That's it.

Religion has caused more deaths in the history of the world than just about anything else other than disease and old age. People, grow up. You don't need a supernatural being to explain the world.

The end.

Imaginary Crimes

And real dimension difficulties! Sorry, Mr Webster. Can I have my physical chastisement now?

Snow over Britain

No, not that sort of snow. Though we have had plenty of that in the last few days.

I'm talking about the Snow family.

There's broadcaster and newsreader Jon Snow, who seems to have been a fixture on our screens forever.

Then there's his cousin Peter Snow, renowned for leaping about on out TV screens, especially at election times.

But Peter's son Dan is making quite an impression these days. He looks just like his father, wounds like him too. He's a history man, and was most recently on our screens from Syria in a documentary about the phenomenal history of the place. Brave man.

Quite a hunk too (though a bit young), a big gangly man like his father, at a mere 6'6".

The family legacy is assured.

Household Saints

All hot and sweaty...

Hotel Paradise

Who could resist the Naked Stranger? Even the snake couldn't.

Naked Tango

Not naked enough.

Roro Your Boat

Cross Channel ferries are known as roro ferries, short for "roll on roll off". They have a very large capacity, with multiple vehicle decks and lounges and restaurants in several places. The bow doors open wide to allow vehicles on and off with maximum speed.

Sadly, on the night of March 6th 1987 the maximum speed was downwards as the ship sailed with the bow doors wide open.

She capsized really quickly as the rising waters swooshed the vehicles about and destabilised the vessel further. The only reason no more that 193 people died in the cold waters was that the Herald of Free Enterprise was over a sandbank and very close to the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.

 

You can see the wide open bow doors.

The Herald and her sister ships originally operated on the Dover to Calais (France) route, and I had taken students on them for day trips to France when I was a French teacher. It all felt really close to home. I still shudder when I think about it.

Feeling Minnesota

One of Vincent's many characters called Sam. Unexpectedly cute.

FMJ

Poor Private Pyle, while he's still innocent.

Orson Around Again

This time we got the voice too.

And a unique view.

First Turn On

Turns you off.

Poor old Lobotomy.

Sexy Sam

Who would ever choose the skeleton over him?

Moriarty

Deliciously devilish.

Awesome Orson

Born to be Wells.

A Non-V Movie

Yesterday I went to see Life of Pi. I suppose given the tiger content it was predictable that I would. But I knew animals were going to come to grief, so I'd been resisting. I decided not to read the book for the same reasons.

But the pressure from others became too great, so when the opportunity arose, I took it.

Certainly some of the 3D special effects were staggering, but I found I got used to the 3d-ness fairly quickly, and the glasses, on top of my own, were quite uncomfortable and very heavy. I don't mind not seeing any more 3D films for a while!

On balance I enjoyed it, though. And the young actor playing Pi gave a real tour-de-force performance, completely carrying the movie. He should be getting all sorts of awards.

Father Casey

Hottest priest EVER.

Gordon

Gorgeous.

Charley

Beautiful, sad, sexy.

Elton

Beautiful, sad, sexy.

As you "axed" me...

A clearer view of the axe in Vincent's character's chest:

Fire With FIre - Epilogue

The End.

Well, there is some more film, but no more Vincent.

Fire With Fire 10

Axe in the chest, anyone?

The London Underground Map

Anyone who's braved the London Underground will be familiar with the underground map. It's stylish and geometric, but it bears no resemblance to the geography above. This wasn't always the case. At first, the tube map was as if superimposed ona a map of central London, just like the Paris Metro.

In 1931 a man called Harry Beck started to play around with the map, and though there have been departures in between, his basic idea of using no angle less than 45 degrees persists, making this huge, complex and still expanding network comprehensible in a way that spaghetti on a street map would not.

I'm hoping it will get bigger if you click on it...

Tit, Tit, Hooray!

Today I went to the hospital breast clinic to enquire about having my boobs reduced. Since many of those waiting were fearful of cancer diagnoses, I was feeling fortunate. By the time I left I was smiling.

There would not be days in hospital, just an overnight stay, and no need for immobility, just a firm sports-style bra.

To get this done under the NHS you must first convince the specialist that it is needed for health reasons (just ask my shoulders, they'll convince anyone!) This doctor was not difficult to convince.

But the system to pay for this has changed. It used to be a Primary Care Trust that had to agree, and they often declined because it is usually seen as a cosmetic procedure. Now GPs hold the funds, and as my GP referred me, I can't imagine I'll be turned down. I hope.

Being as my nipples have, as the doctor said, "gone south" they will have to be repositioned, and there may be some resultant necrosis. (Hell, leave the bastards off altogether for all I care!)

The closest I could find of a likeness to my own boobs online was the "before" picture below, though mine are bigger. I hope the "after" will be even smaller - B cup, maybe?

Fire With Fire 9

Here comes the Fire.

Fire With Fire 8

Out-tough-guying Bruce Willis.

Fire With Fire 7

Nasty and jubilant.

I think we need a study of whether the tats are on his skin or a fake skin has been applied. Can't see any chest hair.

Fire With Fire 6

Perfectly mean. How does he do it?

Fire With Fire 5

Out on bail and making threats.

The Gentle Art of Love

Beano and Mitzi just adore each other. They spend lots of time cuddled up together snugly.



The vet was so clever when he removed Beano's right eye 13 years ago - it just looks like it's closed.



On the other hand, Jae Jae the Sumatran tiger has no idea how to entice his lady Melati. Just prior to this clip, he had pounced on her, much to her distaste. So then he tried a ploy equally unlikely to succeed. (You may want to reduce the volume, there were a few noisy children watching.)



See how tiny she is compared to him?

Fire With Fire 4

Picked out in the line-up. But he doesn't look bothered.

Odds and Sods, Cabbages and Kings

Thanks to our wonderful "traffic calming" methods in London, I regularly have to abuse my car by going over ridiculously large road humps (unaffectionately known as "sleeping policemen"), and recently the clunking has been worrying me. A call yesterday to the RAC and I found myself being towed to the Nissan dealership to have a broken coil spring replaced.

But not on the same day. Nissan dealerships apparently don't carry Nissan parts, and when they order them, they take some days to arrive. Eventually we agreed on a clone piece (and then a new battery, you know how it goes) but I would get it back this morning.

No. No call. No apology. No more me for a customer. And a bill for over £280.

But one of the more surreal and interesting news items of the week is the fate of good old Dick The Shit (Richard The Turd, geddit?) who died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was buried at Greyfriars church in Leicestershire, central England, but the church is long gone. So some of his fans - those particularly who think he was maligned by Shakespeare and did not murder the two little princes in the Tower before usurping their throne - have been hunting down the whereabouts of his remains. Old maps proved that the site of the church was now under the car park of a council building.

One parking space bizarrely had a letter R painted on it (for reserved, presumably) and Dick's top fan stood there and got a funny feeling. When the archaeological dig began, bones were found under that parking space. The woman was disappointed to find that the body had severe scoliosis, and like other Richardists she did not believe the slander of the hunchback. But they dug him up. They scanned him. They radio-carbon dated him. They did a facial reconstruction. And they found a 17th generation descendant of his sister for a DNA test. Guess what? It's him! Unbelievable!

 

Richard's portrait

 

Reconstruction

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      

Reconstruction.

Fire With Fire 3

Under arrest.

Fire With Fire 2

Nasty man with BIG shoulders!

Fire With Fire 1

Nasty, nasty man.

Charity Man

At the Global Poverty Project 2010.

Castles in the Sand

This year's sandcastle building competition on Coney Island.

What Next?

Well, folks, I've got to the end of LOCI, so I am now racking my brains for a new theme for my posts.

While I await ideas either from my brain or yours, dear readers, I'll just post a few random pictures.

Remember this one of Vincent filming Don't Go In The Woods in 2008? It's the wallpaper on my phone.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 11

And so the beautiful Bobby prepares to ride off into the sunset.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 10

Such expressive hands...

Playing to your strengths

As most visitors to this blog will most likely have realised, I don't cook. I'm not very good and I find it really boring.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to find yesterday that the teacher I was covering yesterday was the Food Technology teacher, and there was cooking as the cover work.

The school is one I know of old, though it has gone through many changes, and is due some more at Easter. The students used to be really difficult, but in my more recent visits there current cohort are much more amenable. Thank goodness.

The first class was to bake Anzac biscuits (so named because they originate in Australia and New Zealand. They are made from flour, rolled oats, golden syrup, butter and baking soda.

Sadly, the cut-outs spread on the baking trays and formed a whole. That would have been OK, but not all the trays were properly greased, and it was all I could do to chip a few crumbs from one.

The next two classes had to make a basic vegetable stir fry. There was a reasonable choice of ingredients, but kids being kids, most wouldn't touch some of them, especially the mushrooms, so no one's finished product lookd anything like this:

One girl rejected hers, so rather than waste it, I forced myself to eat it with a little soy sauce. It was yummy.

The kids were great throughout, and I'm not even dreading doing more of the same tomorrow and Thursday.

I feel I've had a very lucky escape.