...and the divine baby, born in squalor in a strange town?

technorati tag: christmas, engage

in a packed programme tonight...

...it's Happy Christmas from me, and Happy Christmas from him!

So, we're off up north for a few days in a wee while, and things might be a bit quiet round here till the new year. Until then, wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful Christmas.


technorati tag: happy christmas

five things...

Darn that emergentkiwi! Just as this was starting to calm down, and I thought I’d escaped the possibility of being tagged, he went and got me…

Five things you probably didn’t know about me:

1 - I won a public debating competition when I was a teenager and as a part of the prize, got chauffeured to London to visit Parliament for the day with Dr Liam Fox MP (the now Shadow Secretary of State for Defence).

2 - In sixth form, I took two extra classes and dropped one - S-level English Lit (failed), GCSE Latin (grade A), and A-level Maths (dropped, it was my fourth subject anyway). Incidentally, I’ve got a GCSE in Photography (grade A).

3 - I have never (knowingly) told anyone how I vote in elections – I strongly believe in the notion of a secret ballot.

4 - For the first decade or so of my life, I was inseparable from my small toy rabbit called Jasmine (given to me by my great aunt Chrysle at my birth, and named by my brother after a similar Teddy Edward character).

5 - I knew within a week of going out with M that he was the one for me forever. Sometimes you just know, right?


I tag Ben Edson, Reach Out And Touch The Screen, Jonnyfun, Cris Acher, and Malcolm Chamberlain.


technorati tag: silly quiz

well, who am I?

I'm the darkness in the light
I'm the leftness in the right
I'm the rightness in the wrong
I'm the shortness in the long
I'm the goodness in the bad
I'm the saneness in the mad
I'm the sadness in the joy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the ghost in the machine
I'm the genius in the gene
I'm the beauty in the beast
I'm the sunset in the east
I'm the ruby in the dust
I'm the trust in the mistrust
I'm the Trojan horse in Troy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the tiger's empty cage
I'm the mystery's final page
I'm the stranger's lonely glance
I'm the hero's only chance
I'm the undiscovered land
I'm the single grain of sand
I'm the Christmas morning toy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the world you'll never see
I'm the slave you'll never free
I'm the truth you'll never know
I'm the place you'll never go
I'm the sound you'll never hear
I'm the course you'll never steer
I'm the will you'll not destroy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the half-truth in the lie
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the last roll of the die
I'm the old school in the tie
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm the Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

Well, who am I?


[Divine Comedy's 'Gin-Soaked Boy']


technorati tag: divine comedy, gin-soaked boy

a tale of two spaces...

“Black box” and “white cube” - in the arts, we bandy these about to mean two very different kinds of spaces.

A black box refers to a theatre space – dark, contained, flexible, experimental, in-the-background, technically sparse, (a)live. It brings to mind the experimental off-Broadway studios of the 60s and 70s, bearded men in polo necks doing monologues, “worthy” and “wacky” performances, earnestness…

White cube refers to a gallery space – clean, bright, light, simple, neutral, literally and metaphorically a blank canvass. The phrase has been so adopted into the cultural firmament that it’s the name of one of the most famous contemporary art galleries in London (conceived and run by Jay Jopling, art dealer extra-ordinaire). (In)Famously, Martin Creed won the Turner Prize a few years ago for his lights flashing on and off in a white cube…

But hearing the phrases seemingly anew a couple of weeks ago, it struck me that both these places are: for experimentation and experience; for creating work and challenging perception; for providing physical and mental space to encounter ‘the other’; and for hosting and confining both the work and the viewer for the duration.

So similar, so different. Why have we placed these two spaces, indeed two artforms, at one of each end of a spectrum, made them seem so opposed, when in fact they have so much in common?


technorati tag: black box, white cube

first beta post

I'm no techie but even I think that the introduction of the beta Blogger format/ system is a good thing... As I work out what it all does you might find some differences in layout and style in the coming weeks.


technorati tag: beta blogger

gig of the year!

So last night, courtesy of Lisa (you doll!), M and I went to see Seth Lakeman at the Academy 3. The best of the venues in the Academy, it's so small that you can smell the performers' sweat. And what a sweatpit it was! Despite a slightly static but appreciateive crowd, Seth and band "folked" their socks off. By the hour and a bit was up, they had nothing left to give - all 110% had gone into the show they'd treated us to. A pleasure and a privilege - and surely the coolest double-basser ever!

Best gig of 2006, no quibble Officer Dibble.




technorati tag: seth lakeman, manchester academy

swapsies

Tekin and I are undertaking a little experiment this week - reading the newspaper that the other one normally takes, thus he The Guardian and me The Independent. I think we both think we'll have ended the week converting the other to our normal reading matter...


technorati tag: the guardian, the independent

the expectations of a veiled woman...

A veiled woman.
Waiting.
Concealing.
Patiently expecting.
For the advent of the peacemaker, god-with-us son she carries.



In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (Luke, chapter1)


technorati tag: veiled woman, advent

lost...?

Sara just found a tenner down the back of her keyboard whilst doing her Friday desk tidy. The (post) modern equivalent of coins down the back of the sofa? Result!


technorati tag: lost and found

a new work-walk scrawl that summed up my mood this morning...

technorati tag: graffiti

an old fashioned laser quest...

Maybe that explains why this one had to shut down?


technorati tag: laser quest

is this jesus?

technorati tag: is this jesus

whether the weather...

Am I the only weather geek who has the Beeb’s RSS weather feeds in my feed reader? (Probably.) Al and I always say that Auntie has trouble telling the weather whilst looking out of the window but today’s feeds take the biscuit!

So far for today (and issued today) I’ve had three:

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 10°C (50°F), Min Temp: 10°C (50°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 11°C (51°F), Min Temp: 10°C (50°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 11°C (51°F), Min Temp: 8°C (46°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

Wow! Three feeds just to tell me the max temp could be one degree higher and the min two lower.

What is the point?
(rhetorical - for those of you who are feeling funny/ overly serious)


technorati tag: BBC, weather

Shhhhhhhh...

It's No Music Day today. Observe it. Or Bill will come and see to you... That's Mr Drummond to you.


technorati tag: bill drummond, no music day

reel spirituality - OLDBOY (sun 3 dec)

Reel Spirituality (from Sanctus1)

Ba-humbug! Who needs twee Christmas films when you can have award-winning Asian extreme?

OLDBOY (18)

Sunday 3 December

The third in our 'The Outsider' series - four films exploring alienation, isolation, exclusion and ‘the other’






Every first Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +


The Outsider series concludes...
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

Heroes and Villains
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)


technorati tag: reel spirituality, oldboy

t-shirt design?

I seriously hope that someone somewhere is producing a T-shirt with the following slogan:

"Ben Bradshaw made me do it…"


technorati tag: Ben Bradshaw, recycling, packaging

squirrel jam...

There are days when language just seems to fail me. Not because I don’t have an adequate grasp of it, but that somehow it doesn’t quite suffice for the task in hand.

As a child, when I couldn’t describe what I did want or make a decision, out of frustration I would sometimes say I wanted “squirrel jam” – originating from the inexpressible thing that I wanted on my toast because I didn’t want any of the other things that were on offer.

Today I want the linguistic equivalent of squirrel jam. If a noun is something that names name a person, place, thing, quality, or action, and a verb expresses existence, action, or occurrence, then today I want a nerb or voun or something.

For instance, I hate it when people refer to me only as “M’s wife” or “S’s sister”. Nope, I’m Laura. Yes, I am married to M, and yes S is my sibling, but I’m not purely defined by them either – I’m my own person…

So over the next little while I’m going to propose a list – of things I am/ not, of things I do/ don’t – sort of based along these lines. I am married to M/ I'm not M’s wife – that sort of thing…

Does this all make sense, or is it just more squirrel jam?


technorati tag: language, squirrel jam

sorry seems to be the hardest word...

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. ... I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. ... But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate." (Sir Elton John in The Observer Music Monthly)

Sorry Sir Elton - it wasn't me but I can't deny we did do it. And I think saying sorry for things we personally didn't do but have to take some responsibility for can sometimes be a step forward...

technorati tag: elton john, religion, sexuality

i used to think 'one' was an anti-poverty song...

...not any longer. Long live Bank of America!

HT: jonny


technorati tag: U2's one, bank of america

fifteen

M mentioned this morning on the way into work that I'd not written much on the blog of late. “Not true”, I cried. Turns out he meant I’d stuck up some phonephotos but not actually written much else. Oh… So I’m here to address the issue.

One of the things that I didn’t get around to blogging about (cos it deserved a post all of its own) was my surprise trip to fifteen whilst we were in London. Yep, that’s right – one of the world’s biggest Jamie fans got to eat in one of his restaurants. And the worthy one that helps da kidz dontchaknow…

It. Was. Stunning. The whole thing, from start to finish, was like a dream (apart from the fat, sluglike, snobby couple who were sitting on the next door table, and were from something far more nightmareish).

We went for lunch and had a great selection from the set menu, plus a glass of wine each. I opted for the chickpea and herb soup (much sexier than it sounds) and Mark had the goats’ cheese and beetroot salad. And then we both had the braised rabbit (drool…). [It’s amazing how many carnivores have got all “you ate a bunny rabbit?!” at this point when I tell people in conversation. C’mon you eat lambs don’t you?] Gorgeous! M declined to eat desert on the grounds that he was full (there IS a first time for everything!) but I managed to scoff a panna cotta with apple puree and mini donuts. YUM!

No sign of Himself – but well worth it nonetheless. Now we just have to go back to the Big Smoke sometime having saved our pennies for the six course tasting menu with wine… (gulp)


technorati tag: fifteen

a sneaky peak at some of my re:source "homework"...

As part of the culmination of the re:source course at the end of November, we're supposed to present to our huddles what we've learned and our thinking over the year.

Not being the most conventional person (!) I've opted to do visuals for mine, one sheet of collage/ writing covering each of the five weekends - mission, culture, leadership, church and transformation. Here's a peak at my sheets for leadership and transformation.






technorati tag: re:source course

things we do to lessen our office's environmental impact

Use degradable bin bags, return our laser cartridges, print on both sides of every sheet of paper, and then recycle it...









Plus the usual fairtrade coffee and milk in bottles bought from a co-op, recycled toilet paper, etc etc. Any other ideas?

our building floodlights when it rains

technorati tag: floodlights

no sex please, we're the church...

Men in leadership in the church – listen up! (unless of course you think that listening to a woman might be part of the problem…)

Do you find the anonymity and fatigue of the road too tempting? Do you feel like your wife has let herself go and succumbed to laziness? Do you think that having a female assistant (God forbid, co-leader?) is a temptation too far? Do you ever think about sticking closer to Jesus to avoid sin?

Then get yourself over to Mark Driscoll’s blog for his handy hints on men and women working together in church, in the wake of the Ted Haggard allegations…

[The BBC has the back story about Ted Haggard here.]


No but seriously…

You couldn’t make this up, and Ben’s comment about laughing/ crying goes for me too… How 19th century and sexist does this all sound? I’m utterly convinced that unless and until men and women can model working together in church as partners, equal in God’s service and with gifts to offer together – whilst NOT having it off together all the time - no-one is going to take us seriously.

I work closely with male freelancers, designers, artists, chief execs and programmers every day. I’m the female third of an emerging church leadership team. I’m friends with men, see them in the street, get served by them in bars and shops. My husband even lets me out the house unaccompanied... So why is church seen as being so different, such a hot bed of inappropriate sexual desire and activity?

Anyhow, I think that Mark Driscoll’s given me, Ben and Cris a lot to think about in advance of our Sanctus1 team meeting this week… like – do we now need a third party chaperone? ;-)


technorati tag: mark driscoll, sexism, church

a busy manchester bee

technorati tag: manchester, bee, mosaic

some london film festival highlights

Walking the red carpet three times and papping the paparazzi

The soundtrack of Breaking and Entering (by Underworld and Gabriel Yared)

Seeing Charles Clarke (ex-Home Secretary) going into Odeon West End - either to the screening of Bobby or Princess (I know what I'd prefer to imagine the answer to be!)

M and I observing the “10 Minute Rule” (talk about anything but…) at the end of each film, and then (mostly) all hell breaking loose as we both simultaneously try to say what we thought of it, how many stars, etc


technorati tag: london film festival

reel review

So, it's nearly here... tomorrow we're off to the Big Smoke for the London Film Festival! As a result I won't be blogging here for a good few days.

Join us over at Reel Review is you want to know what we've seen, who we've spotted, etc etc.

technorati tag: london film festival

nobody knows you when you're down and out...

reel spirituality - kes

Don’t go to a cold and rainy bonfire party - join us for a cosy film night…

KES
by Ken Loach (rated PG)

The second of four films exploring the theme of “The Outsider” – alienation, isolation, exclusion and “the other”.

Every 1st Sunday of the month at Nexus, Northern Quarter
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
See Sanctus1 for more details.

Other films in this series include:
3rd December - Old Boy (18)
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

IMDB listing and technorati tag: kes

you know autumn has arrived when you find these in your lawn...

everything i ever learned about cultural relations, i learned from spooks

No really, it's true! Worrying but true nonetheless. Spooks - the TV series where nothing is ever as it seems. Watch tonight's second parter to understand what I mean (we saw it after last week's episode on BBC3).

So in that context (!) I had a really interesting and varied week last week:
Last Saturday, I was affirming my views of the oneness of the world and all of its inhabitants, and my integrated place in it, through a symposium developed by the Pachamama Alliance
Tuesday, I was speaking about the dekhomai/ MBS/ Jesus Deck thing at the Faith to Faith conference
Friday, I was at the MBS fair, actually doing the dekhomai thing (see Ben's posts)

What a great and varied week, talking faith, spirituality and interconnectedness with everyone! And nothing was as it seemed/ I expected. FtoF people were so welcoming and challenging, and made a very short journey from their interfaith conversations to the world of MBS. Dekhomai was busier than expected for a Friday and I had several very encouraging conversations with people who were really searching. Jonathan and I even chose Jesus cards at the start of the day - The Innkeeper and The Dove. Perfect - hospitality and peace. (And as an aside - what might cultural non-assimilation mean for the MBS/ new age crowd who become followers of the Christ?)

Oh for more weeks like this...

technorati tag: spirituality

right and right again

Sam Wollaston is right and right *again*, about Robin Hood (pants! bring back The Doctor - and pronto!) and Torchwood (jury's out - don't worry, he'll be apologising for giving that a chance later in the month as well).

Torchwood was so bloomin' BBC - clunky, cheap, not scary, kitsch without meaning to be. There were some good lines, and I'm usually first in the queue for RTD's telly output, but this was well below par, despite its apparently good overnight viewing figures...

++ UPDATE ++
Urgh - and I'd forgotten that pathetic Silence of the Lambs take-off as well.

Well, Sam - how's that apology shaping up?

technorati tag: Torchwood

mr pot meet mrs kettle?...

(BBC News Magazine)

technorati tag: heather mills, max clifford

apparently heaven's short of a few angels...

Sign up here if you're interested.

welcome to our two new office mates...

...or Big Boy and Little Boy as they're known to you and me. (Guess which is which - go on.)

S rescued them from the Chinese Arts Centre because they were remodelling their foyer and didn't have anywhere else for them to go. Now at least they have a home. Well, an office anyway. More specifically, the corner of A's desk... Welcome boys!

tomorrow is one day in history

A mass blog for the national record. The History Matters campaign has designated 17 October a day for the public to make historic. We have chosen 'an ordinary' weekday of no particular significance to ask you to write a one day on-line diary.

Help us publicise it. Participate. Urge others to do so.

reel review

In advance of our trip to the London Film Festival, and because we've been meaning to do it for ages, M and I have started a film review blog.

It's called Reel Review.

Maybe see you over there sometime...

the arndale's stairway to... (where?)

talking or doing?

“An older, wiser woman once said to me that there were two choices with this stuff - you could either talk about the place of women, and make that your project, or you could choose another project and just bash down the resistance and take your place in the world, but you can't do both.”

[From Maggi Dawn's reflections on occasionally being asked to comment on the place of women in church]

there are some films you just can't blog about...

...and Gaspar Noe's Irreversible is one of them.

the story of the lost cheque

Imagine a woman who has ten cheques and loses one. Won’t she clear her desk and scour her account, looking in every folder and bank statement until she finds it (or discovers that her colleague hasn’t paid the invoice in the first place)? And when she finds it (or is belatedly given a cheque by said colleague) you can be sure she’ll call out to her colleague: “Lunch is on me! I found my lost cheque!”

Based on true events.
(With due deference to the Story of the Lost Coin, Luke 15)

the outsider's view

In addition to the Donnie Darko showing as the first of the “Outsider” series for Reel Spirituality, M and I watched two other DVDs this weekend which (with hindsight) fitted the theme well – Napoleon Dynamite and Lost in La Mancha.

Napoleon Dynamite is a quirky indie film charting the nothing happening, small-town life of the protagonist – dealing with his dodgy salesman Uncle Rico, his chat-room-wannabe brother Kip, and his new friend Pedro’s campaign to be elected school president. It’s a film in which almost nothing happens – but I guess that’s Idaho for you… The tagline is “He’s out to prove he’s got nothing to prove”. Exactly.



Fulton and Pepe’s documentary of Terry Gilliam’s doooomed and never-completed feature film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, is a brilliantly revealing insight into the paranoid, fragile and tempestuous process of film-making.

A decade after he first had the idea, and on a budget of only $34m (ie tiny! but still the biggest budgeted feature film using only European financing), Gilliam and his crew are beset by problem after problem after problem – overhead noise from the nearby NATO airbase, the mother of all hail storms and subsequent flash flood, the illness, absence and conflicting schedules of the cast, many pan-European linguistic and geographic co-ordination problems, and an eventual insurance claim for a cool $15m. Frankly, it makes even my hard weeks at work look like making daisy chains in the sunshine…

Two films about fantastical dreamers, filmic outsiders, maybe even victorious losers in a way… Oh, and I fully expect the “Vote Pedro” backlash to start any minute via the comments!

maybe if they learnt to check punctuation and grammar...

words only ever used in tabloid newspapers

Another in the occasional series of the same name.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... "romp".

causality and correlation

They’re all wrong.

I’ve yet to hear one commentator give the real reason why the delegates cheered and wept at the end of Tony's speech to conference yesterday, or as Nick Robinson puts it, “like every great showman, he left the crowd wanting more”.

As Levitt and Dubner remind us in their excellently accessible, holiday-read explanation of “real-life” economics (like there’s any other sort?), we need to understand the difference between causality and correlation.

The delegates didn’t cheer for however-many-minutes in a standing ovation because they love TB and want him to stay on for a “full third term”. They did it precisely because they know he’s going. And thus the affectionate farewell has begun…

And while we're on the speech to end all political goodbyes, what a bold and risky use of Take That’s Never Forget to walk in to! It paid off. It’s now ranks as one of those tracks I’ll never hear the same way again. like I used to think that U2’s One was a love/ hate relationship song, now I think it’s an anti-poverty anthem. Once you’ve heard it that way, you can’t unhear it.

reel spirituality

1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

THIS MONTH - 1st October
Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut (15)
The first in our 'The Outsider' series - four films exploring alienation, isolation, exclusion and ‘the other’



Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +

Upcoming films include:
5th November - Kes (PG)
3rd December - Old Boy (18)
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

high on hope

Well, last night's Sanctus1 service, High on Hope, seemed to go pretty well and a few people said some nice things about it afterwards. Here's the prayer that I wrote for one bit of the service, using naive hopes as prayers.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where the grass is always greener
Where there’s light at the end of the tunnel
Where we give peace a chance
Where hope springs eternal
Where love conquers all
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where we’ve got all the time in the world
Where every cloud does have a silver lining
Where we always look on the bright side of life
Where good things come to those that waitWhere we do to each other as we would be done by
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where the road to hell isn’t paved with good intentionsWhere good hearts aren’t hard to find
Where hope is not abandoned by those who enter there
Where nothing’s too good to be true
Where we don’t have to be cruel to be kind
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where we don’t have to take the rough with the smooth
Where it’s not a jungle out there
Where we don’t see through rose tinted glasses
Where no-one has to put a good face on it
Where we don’t worry and are happy
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for…
Sight for the blind and healing for the sick
Freedom for the prisoners and good news for the poor
Release for the oppressed and love for each other
And the coming of God’s upside-down, inside-out, topsy-turvy kingdom.

11 into 5 goes...?

I’m a lucky young lady.

M decided recently that we should do something suitable to mark my upcoming birthday. Nice. He decided that he should share the idea with me, to sound me out and to give me time to get properly excited about it. Even nicer. Sooo…we’re going to the London Film Festival! Very nice!

And yesterday after days of pouring over the programme and website, I got to choose and buy my our tickets.

We’re seeing 11 films in 5 days – and amongst the highlights that I picked and managed to get tickets for:

Little Children – the new Kate Winslet film which is apparently the best thing she’s done in years

Princess – a Japanese live action/ anime film about a brother seeking revenge for his dead porn star sister’s memory…

Bobby – directed by Emilio Estevez about the assassination of Robert Kennedy

Two films about mysterious deaths in Hollywood – Infamous and Hollywoodland

Christopher Guest’s new film, For Your Consideration

Anthony Mighella’s Breaking and Entering with Jude Law and Martin Freeman

Plus a film about a female suicide bomber in New York, called Day Night Day Night

I’ll try and post up some reviews when we get back…

goodbye European Microwave Week...

Goodbye to the unnoticed and unseen European Microwave Week. Come back soon...


Hello to the over-policed and over-exposed Labour Party Conference. Wish you weren't here...

win, win, win

I just won this (plus the soundtrack) on Phill Jupitus' 6music show this morning for correctly identifying The Vanishing on the Hollywood Pitch.

Hurray! Thanks guys...

more NOT fashion statements

So as I suspect the Indie/ Giorgio wanted - it's all caused a bit of a fuss, blacking up Kate Moss for their Africa edition.

I've always liked Hannah Pool's writing in the Guardian. Right now I think she's better than ever.

"Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do. Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong. If blacking up existed in a society where racism was not an issue, then it would not be such a problem. But then it would also lose its power to shock. After all, what is so shocking about a white person being made to look black if black and white are equal?"

And the BBC Magazine's Paper Monitor gave it a bit of a roasting too...

NOT a fashion statement. really?

film night

presented by www.sanctus1.co.uk

1st Sunday of the month at Nexus, Northern Quarter, Manchester
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to stay and explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
(otherwise please feel free to leave in the break after the film ends)

You can bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
There will be a selection of film and spiritual books on sale.



The Outsider
A series of four films exploring alienation, isolation, exclusion and ‘the other’
1st October - Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut (15)
5th November - Kes (PG)
3rd December - Old Boy (18)
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

Heroes and Villains
A series of four films exploring the good, the bad and the rest of us…
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)

gubbins

Some bits and bobs.

Etsy is like a homespun eBay – thanks to Sal for the link.

This the first in an occasional series (in other words, bear with me)…
Words only ever used in tabloid papers. Today’s word – fracas.

Manchester Facts makes for interesting reading if you’ve got 2 minutes and are interested in the headlines of the city.

And for those of you who thought that I was either hallucinating or just plain lying (!) here’s a snap of the Water Womble from the other morning:

bore of the worlds

A film by Steven Spielberg with Tom Cruise, a score by John Williams and cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, coming together in an everyman film about struggle against ‘the other’. An easy blockbuster right? Wrong. My advice based on Saturday’s viewing of War of the Worlds? Don’t bother if you’ve not already had the misfortune to waste your cash on it.

Even with time to mull it over, I’m honestly struggling to think of a redeeming feature – there were plot holes and inconsistencies, corny dialogue, far, far too much screaming, an overlong cameo involving Tim Robbins, and one of the most underexplained and anticlimactic endings of any recent summer ‘hit’ (basically we were all doomed apart from the stupidity of the “intelligences greater than our own”).

If it’s true that it takes about a decade to get something from inception to screen, thereby reflecting in our present-day viewing the concerns and events of ten years earlier, maybe we should blame 1995 its part in the making of this film. It was the year of the Oklahoma City bomb, the collapse of Barings Bank (courtesy of Nick Leeson), and the Srebrenica massacre. It was the busiest hurricane season in 62 years, and the year that OJ Simpson was tried and found not guilty. I know that if you searched any year it’d look pretty bleak, but if even this short summary doesn’t invoke ‘fear of the other’ and ‘struggle to survive against events outside our control’, I don’t know what does.

In the greater scheme of blockbusters though, I’m struggling to think of a better (worse?) example of wasted potential. Maybe Minority Report? A film by Steven Spielberg with Tom Cruise, a score by John Williams and cinematography by Janusz Kaminski… Ah. I was blind but now I see...

royal wail

It used to be so easy. You put whatever-it-was in an envelope, weighed it, affixed the right cost in postage stamps, put it in the post box. Hey presto! It arrived on time/ late/ not at all (delete as applicable). But you know, generally, it worked fine for a century or two. And then Royal Mail decided that items should be subject to postage cost regarding their dimensions AND weight.

So my very current dilemma is that I have two copies of a 14-page contract to send to a client’s office near Huddersfield. It’s printed on A4 paper and weighs 150g. I can’t send it as a ‘letter’ now, because it’s too large. If I fold it to make it fit the ‘letter’ category, it’s too thick. And regardless of all that, because of the new 100g rule for ‘letters’, it’s also too heavy… So this document now comes under the ‘large letter’ category – slightly larger than A4, up to 25mm thick, and weighing up to 750g.

Frankly, I don’t give a feck that “although some things will cost more to send, over 80% of all mail will cost the same or less to send.” It’s taken me the best part of quarter of an hour to work out how to post the thing. And at my charge out rate, that means posting the contract has cost me a cool £7.55 (not including the time to type this rant).

So - do you think I should invoice the client or Royal Mail for that?

And what would RM do about it if we all just ignored their new guidelines and used the old ones? Surely their “lost items” rate can’t get any higher than it already is?

[btw I could go on the train and hand deliver it for only 15p more. AND do some work on the train! Next time…]

howies mcr sample sale

I think we're going to try and go tonight.

now i know i'm (really) old

My niece has an email address.

She's five years old.

Geeeeez...

hold up your badge

I've just uploaded a post about last night's repeat viewing of LA Confidential at the Sanctus1 site. Seemed like a waste of good bandwith to reproduce it in full here...

five years on

Things that I remember, 11-09-01.

Listening to Simon Mayo narrate the TV pictures on FiveLive as it happened
Trying to track my mate down and eventually finding her on the end of an email, alive and well, unlike so many others
Switching off the TV, being unable to watch anymore reruns of the planes hitting and the buildings collapsing
Hearing the many stories of friends and family – one who missed their connection into Boston and hence one of the two hijacked NYC planes, one who was meant to be in a meeting on the 80-something-th floor but stayed home with a cold, one who was on a trans-Atlantic call to a colleague in the north tower as the first plane hit…
A colleague asking me why we were still planning on going to New York for Thanksgiving that November (if she didn’t know, I couldn’t explain)

Five years on. Where exactly are we now? I don’t know, but I do remember and I know many, many others do too.

onwards and upwards...

Hi to anyone who's stumbled over here whilst I've been swanning around for a couple of weeks. I know a few kind souls have linked here - ta guys. I just find it amazing how quickly this sort of stuff spreads itself across the blogosphere. I only told about ten people...

Anyhoo I've not given up posting anywhere else just because this is in process - check out some of my other stuff via the links on the RHS if it's of interest.

So, just to give you a flavour of what I've been up to while you've all been at Greenbelt, enjoying the end of the "summer", generally working hard hard hard, whatever... we climbed a few of these (see pic), spent two days learning to sail (on a Wayfarer - v cool but covered in bruises!) and generally relaxed after a crazy first half of the year. Shame that I'm now wading through the 500+ emails but hey... that's the price you pay!

downtime

(caption: what I discovered when we were up in the Lakes a fortnight ago…)







So it's time to retreat to M's homeland for a while and:
Put up the tent
Climb some Munros
Learn to sail
Eat, drink and make merry
Use our National Trust membership
Have our annual “state of the nation” conversation about life, the universe and us
And generally relax…

See you on the other side.

a nice pint

God love 8th Day for starting stocking milk in glass pint bottles!

Easy on the eye. Kind to the planet. Entirely reuseable. An icon of childhood.

writing on the wall...

Photo credit: Gawain Forster

Band on the Wall has a long and enviable history. Starting life as a pub called 'George and Dragon' in 1803, it was a pub, hotel, and entertainment venue for more than 150 years before being saved in the mid 1970s by jazzer, Steve Morris. Thousands of acts have played there over the years, including John Cooper Clarke, Joy Division, The Fall, and The Buzzcocks.

Having taken the decision to close in 2005, to do vital building work and reinvent the venue yet again, it now seems as if the funding is proving harder to find than anyone would have thought. And now there's an online petition to sign if you want to show solidarity. For a venue that's shown support to so many over the years - punters, bands, young people, the city and its cultural identity - it would seem a shame if a few of us can't find ways to support it now.

Good luck guys...

gareth asks... what is blogging for?

Something I often ask myself.

Somehow the pub-conversation-translated-into-a-post topics seem to get more comments than anything else I put up... Hmmm - a problem with my choice of subject matters/ writing or the readership, or both?

you whitewash the city if you whitewash me

We've got a local and prolific rapper-grafitti artist.

S/he likes to write in black marker pen on the Mancunian Way bridge pillars that come down on to the Oxford Road pavement.

Lately the council have started whitewashing the pillars to remove the stencils, grafitti, tags, etc.

Hence this latest verse...

if you're a U2 fan, you have to have a sense of humour...

...and this John Harris quote made me laugh out loud.

"Now, I have never much liked U2, neither in their Pained Artists in String Vests phase, nor the Ironic Media Studies Project on a Big Budget period that followed it, nor the post-All That You Can't Leave Behind incarnation that seems to lie somewhere between the two."

proof that our arty/ boho-chic run-down office was once a handsome town house

mountain weather information service

A really pracitcal site for checking to see whether the weather will do what you need when climbing the highest of peaks...

A brilliant service and a great help.

outed!

I've sort of outed myself as a solo-blogger to a few folk now (in addition to posting on a journal site for work, and at Sanctus1 and dekhomai).

Actually - now I see why I've been too busy to write one previously...

By George - how is this 'news' exactly?

the roof of oxford road station

spotted - misc#1

I saw the heron on the canal on my way to work again this morning, and took its picture.

Yep - it is that dark blob to the left of the pic, standing on the bank looking into the water...

And last night there was the most amazing, huge, round, orange harvest moon. Gorgeous.

1 Hillcourt Street

pigeons and seagulls

Two sides of the same pesky avian coin...

the result of this morning's walk to work