Journal Entries
T'was the Night Before Christmas...
Posted Dec 24, 2005
It turns out I do have time for one more entry before Christmas. I’m writing this from my parents’ house in West Bromwich. I got here yesterday afternoon after an epic journey from Bath carrying my big rucksack and two equally massive holdalls. I don’t know how much it all weighed, but it must have been quite a lot and I was pretty exhausted when I got here.
But a cup of tea and some dinner soon revived me and I spent yesterday evening down the pub drinking Guinness with an old friend of mine. Then today my brother and his girlfriend and two sons came over to visit and we all went to see my grandparents together. It’s been really great catching up with the people over the last couple of days. I don’t see my family often enough so it was nice to see my grandparents and my nephews both seem to have grown up so much since I last saw them. I hope that being in the area for the next couple of months means that I’ll be able to see a bit more of them.
Tomorrow it’s just going to be my parents and I expect It’s going to be pretty quiet as Christmas goes. But I’m quite looking forward to a relaxing time for a couple of days because I have to get a train back to Bath on the 27th December to meet my girlfriend and bring a carload of my things back here. We’re planning on spending New Year with my parents and then spending the first couple of days of 2006 together before she drives back to Bath. And then it’ll be time for me to get my head down and get on with writing up my PhD.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 24, 2005
Cheer Up, It’ll Soon be Christmas.
Posted Dec 20, 2005
Once again it’s been about two weeks since I wrote anything so I have a bit of catching up to do, but not all that much has been happening really so I’ll try and keep things short.
I’ve been spending most of my spare time trying to get myself ready to move out of my house by the end of December. Our landlady wants her house back and I’m running out of money so I have to move back in with my parents while I get on with writing my thesis. I hadn’t realised until I started trying to pack things away just how much crap I actually own and how much has to be moved, sold or simply just thrown away. It’s all a little depressing really because it’s finally dawning on me that I’m leaving Bath very soon. I love this place and I’m really going to miss it. I remember how I felt going to Stevenage last summer and at least then I knew I would only have to be away for a finite amount of time and would eventually come back.
Last week we had the Chemistry Department Christmas Meal, which was quite lovely. Bizarrely I managed to start being hung over at about midnight and felt extremely rough on the walk home, but fortunately I think I slept through the worst of it and woke up feeling fresh and well the next morning.
Yesterday the Organic Section went to a conference in Cardiff. As usual the talks were pretty dull, though I managed to stay awake this year which isn’t always the case. I shouldn’t complain overly though because my girlfriend and I and a couple of the post-doctoral researchers skived off the final talk (we’d already seen the guy speak a few weeks ago) and went ice skating instead. I haven’t been ice skating in more than ten years (and I wasn’t especially good at it back then) but I really enjoyed slipping and skidding around the ice for an hour, no chemistry lecture could possibly have been so much fun.
We made it back in time for a few drinks at the wine (and beer) reception after the conference and most of us swiped a bottle or two for the journey back to Bath. We were just getting warmed up when we got back to Bath so we had a swift pint in a pub in town, then my girlfriend and I went and had dinner at Nando’s (one of a chain of South African/Portuguese peri-peri chicken restaurants).
After dinner we wandered into the cinema (which is just next door to Nando’s) and saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the film. After the depth and majesty of Lord of the Rings over the last few years I found it somewhat lacking in substance, though this isn’t entirely down to the filmmakers; having re-read Narnia again as an adult it struck me as actually being pretty thin on plot and background. I suppose you could argue that the simple plot means that the film moves at a reasonable pace and you are unlikely to get bored, but aside from the plot I found the main characters (the four children that is) extremely annoying. Lucy seemed to have an awestruck look of childish wonder permanently painted on her face and Peter managed to achieve previously unassailed heights of sanctimoniousness. The Witch, on the other hand, was actually pretty cool and I wanted her to win.
I wonder if we’ve come to expect more substance and “realism” from children’s literature these days (since J.K. Rowling gave us Harry Potter that is)? Not that there’s anything wrong with C.S. Lewis’s books, it just they look a bit lightweight next to more recent children’s books. But then again is that such a bad thing? Do kids really need all the detail and depth that seems to be in their books these days? Or is that just there for the benefit of the adults who read them as well?
Anyway, I’m going to be really busy over the next few days so I don’t suppose I’ll get chance to write again before I head back to Birmingham. Hopefully I’ll have time to make an entry or two over Christmas and I’ll be back in the New-Year with my annual summary. But just in case I’d better say Merry Christmas and a Happy New-Year to everyone. Hope you all have a good one and Santa brings you what you want.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 20, 2005
The Constant Gardener.
Posted Dec 6, 2005
The movie last night was really quite good. We saw The Constant Gardener a film based on the book by John Le Carré. Ralph Finnes plays Justin Quayle, a British diplomat working in Africa and Rachel Weisz is Tessa, his activist wife. The movie is somewhat reminiscent of The English Patient, not just because of the beautiful sweeping shots of the African landscape, but because of the way the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks.
Tessa is raped and murdered in the Kenyan bush at the beginning of the film. At first it seems that she was just the victim of a bandit attack, but Justin begins to investigate the events leading up to his wife’s death and uncovers a global conspiracy. Along the way there are twists and turns galore and plentiful taut dramatic scenes. But there is also a deeply romantic level to the film as we see the passionate beginnings of Justin and Tessa’s relationship and have to rationalise how it slowly became so lifeless.
Both Finnes and Weisz turn in impressive performances and even with a supporting cast including Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite they still manage to shine. But the real star of the movie is Africa itself. The sweeping, majestic shots of the landscape and the vibrant, energetic scenes in the townships of Kenya and Nairobi will stir the hearts of anyone who watches this film.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 6, 2005
Dancing the Night Away.
Posted Dec 5, 2005
For most of the day on Saturday my girlfriend was dancing in a Ballroom and Latin competition at the University. I went along and watched a little last year and quite enjoyed it, so I thought I’d go along again this time around. I had a few things to do during the day (which took longer than it ought to have done because the centre of town was jammed full of tourists visiting the Christmas Markets) but I made it up to campus in the afternoon for the Latin rounds (which I like better anyway).
In the evening we went along to the Christmas Ball. I’m sure I wrote about what a lovely time we had last year and things were equally lovely this time around. The Pump Rooms is an amazing venue to have a ball in and it’s always nice to have an excuse to dress up. Since last year I’d managed to forget how to waltz and foxtrot and didn’t have the advantage of spending the summer learning to salsa dance so I went along to the beginners’ lesson on Friday night and got taught the basics once again.
I’ve always said I preferred the Latin dancing and during the evening on Saturday I managed a couple of jives and a cha-cha-cha or two and as usual we salsa danced to some of the samba music. We also managed a couple of “no frills” rhythm foxtrots and once again I made a passable attempt at a waltz at the end of the night (I think that’s my least favourite dance because I keep forgetting which foot I’m supposed to be on). We also drank quite a lot of wine and spent most of Sunday vegetating in front of the television nursing our hangovers.
This evening there’s a Millennium Lecture on the Huygens Probe which has been exploring Saturn’s largest moon, Titan which might be quite interesting. Then if there’s time afterwards we were thinking of going to the cinema.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 5, 2005
A Skin Too Few.
Posted Nov 29, 2005
The cinema last night was really good. A Skin Too Few wasn’t what I would consider a typical documentary. Rather than intricately examining everything Nick Drake ever said or did and interviewing everyone he ever met, the film makers tried to give more of an impression of who he was and what he was like. It wasn’t a comprehensive “full-colour” documentary, it was more of a “pastel-shade” journey through his life and his music. Some of the film was beautifully shot, scenes of rain running down the windows of a car through which we see the blurred lights of a city (presumably London) and shots of trees blowing in the wind stuck particularly in my mind. I don’t think I learned anything about Nick that I didn’t already know, but I enjoyed it anyway.
After the film Keith James (accompanied by Rick Foot on the double bass) performed some of Nick’s music. Nick Drake was famous for his incredibly precise and powerful guitar playing. In particular his finger picking was almost unique and is apparently very hard to recreate. But as you might expect, Keith turned out to be an exceptional guitarist and his interpretations of Nick’s music were very, very close to the mark. His voice was much deeper and harsher than Nick’s own and when he performed John Martyn’s Solid Air (written about Nick Drake), it fitted much better, however he put his own mark on each of the songs, making them sufficiently different from Nick’s performances, but at the same time retaining the soulful emotion that is present throughout Nick’s music. A couple of highlights were Riverman and Northern Sky largely because they are two of my favourite Nick Drake songs, but I really enjoyed Keith’s version of Made to Love Magic, which was far more melancholy than Nick’s version. Keith also performed a couple of Nick’s songs that I hadn’t heard before, which made for interesting listening.
I haven’t been to see much live music this year, so I was excited merely at the prospect of going to a gig. But one of the tragedies of Nick Drake is that because he died so young (at just twenty-six) and because he performed so little during his lifetime (a product of his intense shyness) very few people actually got to hear his music in the flesh. Keith said that they had been doing gigs showcasing Nick’s music for four years and in all that time they’d only met eight people who said they’d seen Nick live, that’s eight people out of who knows how many hundreds or thousands of Nick Drake fans must have been to their shows over the years; so a chance to hear a live performance of Nick Drake songs was something very special indeed.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Nov 29, 2005
Evil_Duncan
Researcher U529991
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."