via youtube.com
This is one of the most vivid memories of childhood TV viewing for me. And it's got a GROOVE. Enjoy :-)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Community cinema - how brilliant
via bffs.org.uk
I stumbled across this website this evening - it's for the British Federation of Film Societies. Basically, you can set up a local film society and then start showing movies in your local community shed / hall / library / park cafe etc etc.
What a totally brilliant idea.
Last year community cinemas screened more than 600 movies to over 300,000 people in Britain.
I think I just found something else to add to my "if I had more time" list. How cool would it be to set up a community cinema? Very cool.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
If I had a bit more time
via flickr.com
I would practice the piano every day.
I would write my book.
I would make a new dress for a friend each month.
I would read a new book every week.
I would call all my friends once a week.
I would see my mum and dad at least once a month.
I would garden every day.
I would join a choir.
I would make birthday cards for my friends and family and never miss a single one.
I'd watch a classic black and white movie every afternoon.
I'd learn to cook all the really hard meals that I find a bit scary sounding - things like bouillabaise and potted shrimps.
I'd write a screenplay and produce it with my film making friend.
I'd paint my bedroom and make new curtains for it.
I'd volunteer at my daughter's school.
I'd go fishing once a week.
I'd learn how to do bicycle maintenance.
I could *definitely* be a lady of leisure.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Withnail & I (In the tearoom)
via youtube.com
One of my favourite scens from a film ever. I have been this person. I have felt these feelings and had these thoughts. Sad, but true.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
I Love Brighton Pier
This is a test blog post which I've written as part of an experiment to test out Google's Social Search tool.
It's all about how much I love Brighton Pier. Which I really, really do love. Oh Brighton Pier. How I love you.
Thank you.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Old familar
Something brilliant has happened over the last three months. I've managed to get over the terrible case of "reader's block" which I'd been suffering from since I got pregnant with my daughter nine years ago.
I didn't notice it happen at the time - I was busy trying to work out how I was going to earn a crust post baby (the company I was working for was a dotcom whose bubble had just burst and the business was dying all around me at about the same pace that my unborn child was growing and developing inside me). But at some point post-baby, once the post-natal depression fog had lifted, I realised that I had more or less stopped reading fiction. And it wasn't just because I was too tired or too busy. I just *didn't want to* read books any more. When I started back into full time work when my daughter was a toddler, and I was commuting every day between Brighton and London, I would choose the newspaper and the crossword every time over a good book.
I felt a little bit embarassed about this change in me. Mr H had spotted it and interrogated me about it - and I reacted defensively. I don't know why. It felt like a guilty secret. I tried to "keep up appearances" by reading a few of my staple authors - Iain Banks, Patrick Gale, Sebastian Faulks. But in general, my heart was not in it.
I've loved reading for as long as I can remember. I can remember sneaking into the tiny library in my primary school at playtime and lunchtime (a great way to avoid the bullies) and losing myself in books. I discovered The Magician's Nephew, The Secret Garden and best of all The Silver Sword in that tiny room sitting on a ridged, green nylon carpet that I can still feel under my fingers now. The latter was the first book that I read again and again and again and again.
When I was a teenager I took a genuine thrill in being able to start my own personal library. I loved my books (as any of my friends who have helped my lug them from flat to flat in cardboard boxes over the years can tell you). I copied my dad's habit of writing my name and the month that I'd bought the book in the front cover. I enjoyed the process of bending back the spine of a book as I read it - and folding over the pages to mark my place. Truly making a book mine.
When I received my first ever pay packet (from a week of shifts behind the bar at Horts' wine bar in Edgbaston in Birmingham) I headed straight to an anitquarian bookshop in Harborne and bought myself a first edition copy of the biography of Oscar Wilde that Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas published in the 1930s. It cost me the entire contents of that pay packet - £60. It was worth it. (I still have that book. Wonder what it's worth now?)
I used to spend whole days in bookshops. This was a habit that began when I was a teenager in Birmingham - Waterstones opened a GIANT five storey shop in the centre of town that I could have lived in. At uni in Cambridge it was Heffers. When I moved to London I had the whole of Charing Cross Road to wander through. I followed chains of books and authors like a bloodhound, starting with a literary obsession with Oscar Wilde as a sixth former, winding through the 19th century's literary rebels and visionaries then moving backwards and forwards in time: Baudelaire and Welsh both connected by an unending chain of previous reads. Without wishing to sound like a complete arsehole - reading made things make sense.
So it came as a bit of a shock to realise in my early 30s that all of a sudden I just wasn't at all bothered about books or reading or bookshops. Friends recommended authors and titles to me and I just thought: "Yeah, whatever. I can't be arsed."
I still don't know why this happened.
But, earlier this year I started reading with my daughter. She has just the same inexhaustible appetite for a good book as I had at her age. I read her The Silver Sword in the spring, and since then we've worked through several other classics - and discovered some new ones.( Current read is book no.2 in the Lion Boy trilogy. I thoroughly recommend it. Genuis writing and a fantastically modern and relevant style and theme.)
And about three months ago that enjoyment of reading with her spilled over into reading on my own. Well, I had three Patrick Gale (my favourite author of all time) novels to catch up on for starters.
And then all of a sudden, I was spending every spare moment I could reading again.
Today I started Wuthering Heights - which I haven't picked up since studying it for my A' Level 19 years ago.
Hello, hello . . . It's good to be back. As Oasis once sang.
I didn't notice it happen at the time - I was busy trying to work out how I was going to earn a crust post baby (the company I was working for was a dotcom whose bubble had just burst and the business was dying all around me at about the same pace that my unborn child was growing and developing inside me). But at some point post-baby, once the post-natal depression fog had lifted, I realised that I had more or less stopped reading fiction. And it wasn't just because I was too tired or too busy. I just *didn't want to* read books any more. When I started back into full time work when my daughter was a toddler, and I was commuting every day between Brighton and London, I would choose the newspaper and the crossword every time over a good book.I felt a little bit embarassed about this change in me. Mr H had spotted it and interrogated me about it - and I reacted defensively. I don't know why. It felt like a guilty secret. I tried to "keep up appearances" by reading a few of my staple authors - Iain Banks, Patrick Gale, Sebastian Faulks. But in general, my heart was not in it.
I've loved reading for as long as I can remember. I can remember sneaking into the tiny library in my primary school at playtime and lunchtime (a great way to avoid the bullies) and losing myself in books. I discovered The Magician's Nephew, The Secret Garden and best of all The Silver Sword in that tiny room sitting on a ridged, green nylon carpet that I can still feel under my fingers now. The latter was the first book that I read again and again and again and again.
When I was a teenager I took a genuine thrill in being able to start my own personal library. I loved my books (as any of my friends who have helped my lug them from flat to flat in cardboard boxes over the years can tell you). I copied my dad's habit of writing my name and the month that I'd bought the book in the front cover. I enjoyed the process of bending back the spine of a book as I read it - and folding over the pages to mark my place. Truly making a book mine.
When I received my first ever pay packet (from a week of shifts behind the bar at Horts' wine bar in Edgbaston in Birmingham) I headed straight to an anitquarian bookshop in Harborne and bought myself a first edition copy of the biography of Oscar Wilde that Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas published in the 1930s. It cost me the entire contents of that pay packet - £60. It was worth it. (I still have that book. Wonder what it's worth now?)
I used to spend whole days in bookshops. This was a habit that began when I was a teenager in Birmingham - Waterstones opened a GIANT five storey shop in the centre of town that I could have lived in. At uni in Cambridge it was Heffers. When I moved to London I had the whole of Charing Cross Road to wander through. I followed chains of books and authors like a bloodhound, starting with a literary obsession with Oscar Wilde as a sixth former, winding through the 19th century's literary rebels and visionaries then moving backwards and forwards in time: Baudelaire and Welsh both connected by an unending chain of previous reads. Without wishing to sound like a complete arsehole - reading made things make sense.
So it came as a bit of a shock to realise in my early 30s that all of a sudden I just wasn't at all bothered about books or reading or bookshops. Friends recommended authors and titles to me and I just thought: "Yeah, whatever. I can't be arsed."
I still don't know why this happened.
But, earlier this year I started reading with my daughter. She has just the same inexhaustible appetite for a good book as I had at her age. I read her The Silver Sword in the spring, and since then we've worked through several other classics - and discovered some new ones.( Current read is book no.2 in the Lion Boy trilogy. I thoroughly recommend it. Genuis writing and a fantastically modern and relevant style and theme.)
And about three months ago that enjoyment of reading with her spilled over into reading on my own. Well, I had three Patrick Gale (my favourite author of all time) novels to catch up on for starters.
And then all of a sudden, I was spending every spare moment I could reading again.
Today I started Wuthering Heights - which I haven't picked up since studying it for my A' Level 19 years ago.
Hello, hello . . . It's good to be back. As Oasis once sang.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Blatant plug alert
So I don't blog about the specifics of my work very much on this blog. This is mainly because it's supposed to be a just-for-fun, personal blog. I want to keep it as a work-free zone if possible.
Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life
But I'm doing an interesting challenge this month as part of an energy saving campaign that my good friend Cpev is managing through the Living blog which we produce for insurance company MORE TH>N.
You can read all about the campaign here - if you're interested.
My personal energy saving challenge is to give up using our domestic washing machine for a month and to head to the local launderette instead. The purpose: to find out if being a more disciplined washer - planning my washing and doing it all in one big load each week, rather than just washing stuff as I need it - will save energy / money. I seem to spend huge great swathes of my life out of the office either putting washing into the machine, taking it out and hanging it up, or putting it away dried and clean. I am keen to find a way to do less of it and save the earth. And I've bought two new books that I'm looking forward to reading in the warm, clean-smelling, friendly interior of our local launderette whilst the machines go whirring round. It could work out very nicely, I reckon.
If you give even the slightest bit of a shit in finding out how I get on, why not follow my progress here?
Otherwise, sorry for bothering you, and sit back and just enjoy this brilliant clip from The Onion Twittered the other day by @jezhem. It's very, very funny. [Now, how does one get a job with The Onion I wonder?]
Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
