Month: July 2008

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I’m Hot, Casanova.

The weather died down yesterday, only for it to be hot again today! And it’ll be even HOTTER tomorrow. I’m glad the weather is sunny, but it SERIOUSLY does not need to be this hot with it. It was sunny yesterday, but there was a lovely north wind blowing keeping the temp. down.

I watched Casanova yesterday. You think (for me anyway, only vaguely knowing the reputation of Giacomo Casanova) that there isn’t going to be anything at all redeeming about him. That by the end you’ll just think of him as a half-wit ladies man. But not so at all. I never knew of the story of Henriette. I’m sure given “artistic licence” given more relevance by writer of the script Russell T Davies. Casanova was not just a mere “ladies man”. He seems to have truly loved women.

Peter O’ Toole plays an older Casanova and even at the age he’s at in this point in his life (around 73 years old), he still manages to seduce a young woman (he doesn’t go on to “have his way” with her, and there is no actual intercourse) and you are totally “spun-in” with her. You find yourself, watching, thinking “Yes, you are old, but you can have me too!!!” If he was anything like he was portrayed in the series, I can see why he is held as such a Lothario. But with such overwhelming love for women, with no malice ever meant, no harm ever wanting to be done. Even though he lived over 200 years ago, I fell in love with him too.

The experience was made all the lovelier for watching David Tennant as the younger Casanova, as well as Mr O’ Toole being the older Casanova. When I was in Australia last year, they showed Goodbye, Mr Chips on the TV on a Saturday afternoon. I watched it and just fell in love with it. It was a musical version with Petula Clark and Peter O’ Toole as Chips. Oh, it was so lovely, and O’ Toole played such a lovely, gentle version of Chips. Despite the man being in his 70’s, I fell in love with him as Chips. Still, he was 37 at the time of making Chips, so that’s OK!

Can you tell I loved Casanova? 🙂

And of course, with the repeats being on BBC3, I watched ANOTHER Doctor Who last night. Probably my equal favourite of the series with the one being aired tonight (Turn Left). I was just mesmerised by Mr T’s performance in this and this was pre-hots-for! It was after this went to air, I had my dream of him…

Well, I’ll let you know what’s in stall for DVD watching when the new batch arrives.

I’m looking forward to a new series of The Tudors starting up too this Friday. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, more absolute male hotness to be had. I’m sure Henry VIII was never THAT sexy!!!

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Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (The Tudors)

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Man Flu, Black Books and Casanova.

I’m already starting to get over my “man flu”, thank goodness! I know it’s hard to believe, but the weather has actually been hot of late and having man flu in the middle of a heat-wave is NOT fun! If you don’t believe me, I snapped this from the TV last night. This is today’s forecast!

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YES! That is a three and a zero, together, hovering over London!!!

I can hear titties outside!!! Yay!!! Titties are back!!!! Can you tell I love tits?

Anyway, I am already feeling better with my man flu, but I now have yet ANOTHER fungal infection and my boobs are red-raw, which isn’t fun in this weather either. I wouldn’t care if I only ever got to use it for 2 days a year, I SSSSSSOOOOOOO want air-con!

Just finished watching the 2nd series of Black Books last night and the 3rd is coming in the post today with the Casanova disc. Even MORE David Tennant to OD on! There was a special Doctor Who Prom on at the Albert Hall yesterday. It was broadcast on the radio with a little specially made clip played during the interval. Mr T wasn’t there himself, as he’s being Hamlet at RSC Stratford at the moment, but he was in the little specially commissioned clip. Radio listeners didn’t miss out as it was available on the official Doctor Who web site as well.


Lovely and interactive, must’ve been great fun for the kids there, believing The Doctor was talking to them all, too cute!!

All of series four is being repeated on BBC3 at the moment. Silence In The Library was on last night…that’s SSOO scary the way that ends with “Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved” repeated ad nauseam while a clan of Vashta Nerada (the dust in sunbeams – hidden in shadows) that have invaded a human body manoeuvre it chasing The Doctor and a group of archaeologists down the narrow halls of the library.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/9eg6PdFdAFg]


These episodes to come are my faves, the second part of this (Forest Of The Dead), Midnight and Turn Left, all brilliant.

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Wildlife Update.

The bird scene has been a bit sparse lately. I think since the breeding season is over, most of the adult birds have gone off to recover. I think I *did* confirm the blackbird that died wasn’t our resident Mr B, as there was a male blackbird in the garden with white flecks on the left wing, so it must’ve been Mr B. For about a week now there’s been no presence of either he or Mrs B.

The goldfinches have been away for a while too, but have just started to come back in the last few days. The robin and dunnock have been absent from the garden as well. The only birds that have been frequenting the garden have been doves and pigeons. As much as a I was happy to save the baby pigeon some weeks back, the daily sight of doves and pigeons isn’t exactly a twitcher’s delight! I mean, look at them!

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Collared Dove (L),
Woodpigeon (R)

But I’m glad to see the goldfinches back. I hope it means the others are to return shortly too.

As for the hedgehog…

I’ve been seeing him around at night. Last night he was out in the garden, nosing around with that little cute pointy snout of his. I watched him for about 10 minutes. We have a ground-feeding bird tray in the middle of the garden. He made his way over there. Em had given our regularly interloping cat, Kitty (the tortoiseshell one – the cat terrorist as she’s come to known – I’ll explain in a minute) some ham outside and Kitty had left some behind, so little hoggy might’ve been getting that. After a few mins he slowly made his way over to the direction of the compost bin. I lost sight of him then ‘cos he was in the shadows. I hope he found something to snack on. It was a warm, dry night last night, so I can’t imagine too many slugs were around.

Why is Kitty called The Cat Terrorist? Well, about a week ago, she came to visit. Normally we know she’s arrived, because she climbs up on the rubbish bins outside and sits on them looking into the living room windows. This day, she decided to take bold action. Em was downstairs on her own (I was having a shower, or upstairs doing something, can’t quite remember). When she’s sitting in front of a computer, Em can blot out all kinds of stuff, so the fact Kitty had arrived outside had (funnily enough) escaped her attention. Being ignored wasn’t going to stop Kitty! We have the living room window open most days. It’s surrounded by black mesh, to keep insects out and help keep Chrissy in. ANYWAY…Kitty decides it’s no barrier for her, uses a paw and makes a parting in the mesh and busts her way in!!! Em only then turns around to see on the lounge what she thought was Chris, was actually Kitty and nearly has an eppy!! Thank goodness Chris was upstairs with me, otherwise their would’ve been one holy cat war if Chris had seen Kitty in the house!

Another reason Kitty is called The Cat Terrorist – if you don’t get her her ham fast enough, she just helps herself to the food in Chris’s bowl! Naughty Kitty!!! She’s starting to get sick of ham though, so we’re going to have to buy her some other kind of deli meat.

The bats come and go. Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don’t. They are little masters of the air though. The way they fly about just on sonar just amazes me.

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Who’s Who?

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Mozzy gave Em an audio CD of a Doctor Who story read by Mr T. Thought I’d just have a quick listen, was intrigued if he’d read it in Scots or English. He reads it in Scots (ooh la la – although slightly flattened and not so Paisley) , but does the voices, so goes back to Estuary English for The Doctor and even tries to imitate Rose’s Eastend accent – very funny! Nice to hear the Scots drawl though, albeit a bit subdued.

He starts his run of Hamlet today at Stratford-upon-Avon, wonder how he’ll play that?

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Favourite Music Artist – X/Y/Z

I just thought I’d end it here. There’s not really enough artists in the X section to warrant a devoted post to. Anyway, here goes.

X – XTC
[youtube=http://youtu.be/S9gq-ANfjc0]

Senses Working Overtime

Y – You Am I
[youtube=http://youtu.be/kAdB-zRQdv8]

Forget It Sister (hidden bonus track on their album Hourly, Daily released in 1996)

Neil Young
[youtube=http://youtu.be/qVi0UvFu8Yo]

Harvest Moon

Weird Al Yankovic
[youtube=http://youtu.be/t2mU6USTBRE]

Fat

Z – Warren Zevon (only for this one song)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/MZa3EYWCY3w]

Werewolves Of London

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Favourite Music Artist – W

Three here:

Wings (I’ve chosen Silly Love Songs as a sample)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/AK9QVN0bpa4]

Stevie Wonder (I chose George Michael’s version of “As” with Mary J Blige as…it’s an excellent cover)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/kriL8CuxQV4]

(The) Who – early Who stuff though and I wouldn’t watch them live now, they’re too past it.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/7BmkBroiw1s]

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I Love Music.

And I just don’t listen to it enough.

When I was growing up, through my teens and into my late 20’s, I’d listen to at least 2 hours of music a DAY!

Now all my music I hear in a day is probably about 20 minutes worth of incidental music I hear whilst watching TV. I no doubt hear MORE than that, but it’s background stuff on TV shows and the like. Not music on the radio or from iTunes/CD’s/whatever.

On Thursday night there was SO little on TV, I decided to put the radio on and listen to Radio 2. Radcliffe/Maconie was just about to start – the program I was hoping to catch. Stuart Maconie was on his own this week while Mark Radcliffe was filling in for Steve Wright (in the afternoon). It was like stepping back in time…

Here’s a short back story. Mid March 2008, Em and I are on a anniversary break. We’d spent the afternoon in Birmingham waiting for the time to come around for us to go and watch U2-3D at the Imax theatre in Brum. We wasted time by sitting in the car listening to…Mark Radcliffe and Liza Tarbuck filling in for Steve Wright while he was on hols! That night as we were driving home (having just seen U2-3D on Imax), Stuart Maconie was hosting the show on his own.

I’d promised myself a few days ago that I MUST start listening to Radcliffe/Maconie because that night coming back from Brum, Stuart was playing some great stuff. So, lo and behold when I listen in for the first time since that night, Maconie’s on his own ‘cos Radcliffe’s filling in for Wrighty! It was like picking up where I’d left off!!

I only got to listen in to the first hour of the show and it was most enjoyable. And now because the BBC are so damn high-tech and stuff, if I DO miss a show, I can listen to it the next day via the BBC web site. Oh, technology!!

Tonight I listened to a program on Radio 2 that was repeated from 2004 about the history of Chillout music. I love Dance/Chillout/Ambient stuff. Love Chemical Brothers, Royksopp, Faithless, Daft Punk, Moby, Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold, Massive Attack, Moloko, Goldfrapp, and then into similar genre stuff like Portishead and Everything But The Girl. It was a good prog and it made me want to get back into listening to dance. There’s an Oz group I’ve just heard about called The Presets, as well as another group called Midnight Juggernauts (Stuart Maconie played MJ’s last night), they both sound fab. I thought The Avalanches were going to be the only Oz dance group ever to make it out of Terra Australis.

After that, it was time to watch a DVD. I watched Sweeney Todd. Much better than I anticipated. I know, if I felt like that, why did I want to see it? Curiosity mainly, to see how Johnny Depp would play it. I thought he was good. I know the reaction was mixed. A lot of people saying he just parodied David Bowie’s singing voice – is that bad? I thought he delivered good vocally. It was enough of his own NOT to totally sound like DB. And let’s face it, if we’re talking parodies, DB himself was only parodying Anthony Newley anyway in his early days, or Scott Walker. I was worried I was going to tire of the musicality of it, but I didn’t. It had aspects of being an old-style film musical, which surprised me. It wasn’t “top notch”, but it was better than I was lead to believe it would be, or that I thought it would be. I could endure it again at some point. It’s something I could watch again, so that’s good enough for me. The one thing that was making me giggle through it though was Helena Bonham-Carter’s character and the young kid regularly referring to Depp’s character as “Mr. T”!

DVD’s to come are…the first series of Black Books (re: Dylan Moran discussion a few posts back) and Threads – 80’s “crap yourself” drama about potential nuclear annihilation. Nothing like a bit of 80’s nuclear war drama to cheer you up! Credit crunch?! Peh!!!

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I Know I Have! Thanks Daniel.

I saw an article on the BBC New web site saying that Daniel Powter’s song Bad Day has been the most played song in the UK in the last 5 years.

I can’t tell you how much I detest this song. As soon as I hear the first melodies, I scream blue murder and try and get away or turn the sound down. Anything to get away from it. If I actually HAVE had a bad day, this song is the blooming last thing I want to hear! “Yes, Daniel. I’ve had a bad day. And now YOU’VE just made it worse!” I mean why sing to someone “you’ve had a bad day, ne na na na nar”. Just f*ck off Daniel Powter!!!

Next most played was Kelly Clarkson’s mediocre Because Of You. I don’t mind admitting to the “guilty pleasure” of liking Since You’ve Been Gone, but Because Of You?! God, it’s SO MOTR!

James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful was 3rd most played. That I don’t mind. There’s a lovely sentiment to that song that I’m not ashamed to admit liking. I can see why people have been “Blunted” out though. I like Goodbye My Lover and Same Mistake more though as songs.

Rounding off the top five were Scissors Sisters’ Don’t Feel Like Dancing (probably not my fave track of theirs) and Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars – which I adore! I mean, that sentiment in that chorus – “If I lay here. If I just lay here, will you lie with me and and just forget the world?” That’s on par with the chorus of The Smith’s There’s A Light That Never Goes Out…for me. As far as I’m concerned, Chasing Cars isn’t played ENOUGH!