Journal Entries
Rocks from Space
Posted Sep 19, 2007
Hmmm...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7001897.stm
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Latest reply: Sep 19, 2007
Portsmouth
Posted Sep 5, 2007
A longish weekend took me and Mrs D to Portsmouth. We called in to renew our acquaintance with the Mary Rose which we last saw when it first went on view after it was raised from the Solent. What an amazing change has been wrought to the sea front area. New building everywhere and especially outstanding is the Spinnaker Tower, a needle shaped building on the waterfront that stands out for miles around.
We took the tour and up to the observation platform at about 300 feet. The view was fantastic laying out the whole of the Portsmouth area with the Isle of Wight on the horizon. I spent a few buttock clenching moments on the glass floor over the 300 foot drop.
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Latest reply: Sep 5, 2007
Bargain Hunt
Posted Sep 1, 2007
Off down to the town yesterday afternoon and took in a visit to the local bookstore to check out the books I don't need. Unusually Mrs Deke attracted me to the DVD racks where she had found a bit of an offer on the go. Any two DVDs for £10. It was a conucopia of older style films and I could have happily cleared the lot.
Instead I came away with;
The Dam Busters.
Dr Strangelove
All quiet on the Western Front (The silent one)
Walk the Line. (one of Mrs D's choice)
Great!
DK
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Latest reply: Sep 1, 2007
Filmfest
Posted Aug 12, 2007
Thursday night, I was channel hopping again and I caught up with an old film that I haven’t seen in years. ‘The Leather Boys’. It’s an old B&W film from the sixties and for me it’s a bit nostalgic because the opening scene was photographed in and outside a local girl’s school in Kingston, about a quarter mile from where I lived at the time.
It also happens to feature some of the other aspects of life I indulged in during the sixties with motor cycles and the Rocker café culture. One of the places featured being the Ace café, a meeting place for Rockers on the north circular road up Lunnon way. I did in fact actually visit the place a couple of time a bit after its heyday, but to my regret never indulged in disco racing which was a feature of the life there. Anyway, although I did have the bikes to do it with, mine in particular being a Norton 650ss, I digress.
The film is part of the BBC’s summer filmfest here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/britishfilm/summer/whats_on/index.shtml which looks like having one or two films that I'd like to see or see again.
I wouldn’t really have bothered mentioning it except that after watching it I was reflecting on how life-like it really was. I’ve never previously rated it as a particularly ‘good’ film, it just happens to nudge a few memories for me. The dialog is awful, it’s stilted and sort of gets nowhere, and the acting isn’t particularly good either except for Rita Tushingham (the Tush as Dot)' But after I’d watched with fresh eyes so to speak, I realised that that was how what passed for conversations were really like at the time. It didn't reflect very well on us and the expletives had largely been omitted, and I didn’t like it much.
I still wouldn’t have bothered remarking on it here but for the fact that I caught another of the films in the season last night. It was titled ‘All or Nothing’ and because a reviewer mentioned something along the lines of ‘If you want to see what a cross section of life in Britain is like today, watch this’
This was probably one of the most depressing and hateful films I have encountered. The language was revolting and I know that it probably does reflect some, even many people’s lives, but if it is a cross section then God help us. Whereas the first film at least showed some sort of hope for the future, this monotonous drudgery of life interspaced with a singular coarseness of its characters didn’t. I left it feeling thoroughly depressed. Perhaps that's what the director wanted.
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Latest reply: Aug 12, 2007
Sunny Surrey
Posted Jul 20, 2007
OK, I can take a joke. I'm convinced that global cataclysmic downpours are here to stay.
Over last weekend torrential, and I mean TORRENTIAL< downpours flooded our workshop and the drains backed up far enough to fill the handbasins from underneath. The guttering overflowed the roof drains and water poured in through the roof damaging computers and photocopiers. No bad thing necessarily.
Monday, a rather more moderate thunderstorm, (no flooding this time) struck the building twice in quick succession. The accounts office staff abandoned ship and fled for the day.
Today, I'm sitting in the middle of another torrential downpour. The four way junction outside which is at a low point has just flooded and stalled the traffic and water is cascading over the high point of the kerb into some poor sod's garden and washing up to his front door. It doesn't look good for him. I hope his insurance is up to date.
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Latest reply: Jul 20, 2007
Deek
Researcher U27380
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