Last night, lying in bed, Mr Click started to doze off while we were still chatting.
"Your boob's got bigger," he said, resting his hand on my leg (nowhere near my boob, I might add).
"Why's that?" I replied, slightly discombobulated by the sudden turn of conversation.
The reply was not reassuring.
"To make more room for the warm-up bands."
Monday, 7 October 2013
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Not A Project 52 Post
Normally I get my Project 52 post written and posted while I'm at my in-laws' house but we've stayed home today so my blog posts this week will be a wee bit disorganised. I've got them all written on my laptop, but no Internet connection to upload them.
We've been for a long walk with Tara and got some housework done. Now we're watching Labyrinth and I'm trying to remember which bits are which in the bag of elephant parts.
Unfortunately I have no photos to share of this mess because my phone won't let me upload them. But I'll share my herd of elephants as soon as I'm done.
We've been for a long walk with Tara and got some housework done. Now we're watching Labyrinth and I'm trying to remember which bits are which in the bag of elephant parts.
Unfortunately I have no photos to share of this mess because my phone won't let me upload them. But I'll share my herd of elephants as soon as I'm done.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Film Review: Aladdin
Mr Click’s favourite Disney film is Aladdin and I’ve bought it for him on DVD
twice. The first time it wasn’t available in the UK so I had to buy him a copy
from the Netherlands, then they released the film in the UK as a box set with
the two sequels so I bought it for him a second time. At some point they’ll
probably bring it out on blu-ray and I’ll end up having to buy it for him a
third time!
When the blu-ray player packed up and we had to buy a new TV to get a modern player working we moved the old TV into the bedroom and pinched my in-laws’ DVD player to hook up in there (we gave them a blu-ray player so it was a fair swap). The first Saturday morning we watched Aladdin in bed and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit glad that we had a TV in there, it’s quite nice to snuggle up in bed with a good film before you get moving for the day.
If you’re not familiar with the film, Aladdin is a ‘street-rat’ living on the streets of Agrabah and stealing to survive. He dreams of bigger things; meanwhile the Princess, Jasmine, dreams of there being more to life than just living in the castle and being married off to some suitor chosen by her father. In true Disney style she wants true love, and so one day runs away from the castle and meets Aladdin. They have a bit of fun in the marketplace before the Palace Guards come and pick Jasmine up and arrest Aladdin.
In the dungeon Jafar finds Aladdin and shows him the way out of the dungeon, leading him into the desert where there is an underground lair full of jewels. Jafer wants Aladdin to bring him a magic lamp, but Aladdin’s monkey grabs a jewel and the lair closes in trapping them underground. This is where Aladdin discovers that rubbing the lamp produces the Genie who gives Aladdin three wishes, the first of which Aladdin kind of gets as a freebie. Genie then turns Aladdin into a Prince allowing him to go after Princess Jasmine, and they’d all live happily ever if it wasn’t for Jafar figuring out Aladdin and throwing a major spanner in the works.
I think that one of the things that helps to really make Aladdin is Robin Williams as the Genie. From what I’ve read he did a lot of improvising during his recordings and it really adds to the comedy factor. I like the little bits and pieces that link to other Disney films; at one point Genie wears a Goofy hat, Sebastian from The Little Mermaid makes an appearance. There are also little nods to other actors and films, like Jack Nicholson as well. I love looking out for things like that, it makes rewatching these films more fun because you know where they’re coming.
Aladdin was also one of the first ones where digital animation was starting to play a more obvious role, which is really visible in a couple of scenes, but it’s not really that distracting when you are expecting it. It’s much the same as the ceiling in the ballroom scene of Beauty and the Beasty.
It’s also nice to have a Disney film which is set outside the fantasy Europe where most Disney Princess films took place up until this point. Being Mr Click’s favourite Disney film we watch it almost as often as my favourite, Beauty and the Beast. I tend to think of them as a bit of a trio along with The Lion King because they were the first Disney films that I was really properly aware of. Plus the music in those three films has to rank way up there with some of the best Disney songs ever written. Mr Click’s favourite is ‘Friend Like Me’ which I do like but I’m more partial to ‘A Whole New World’
So just for Mr Click, here's his favourite song from the film:
When the blu-ray player packed up and we had to buy a new TV to get a modern player working we moved the old TV into the bedroom and pinched my in-laws’ DVD player to hook up in there (we gave them a blu-ray player so it was a fair swap). The first Saturday morning we watched Aladdin in bed and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit glad that we had a TV in there, it’s quite nice to snuggle up in bed with a good film before you get moving for the day.
If you’re not familiar with the film, Aladdin is a ‘street-rat’ living on the streets of Agrabah and stealing to survive. He dreams of bigger things; meanwhile the Princess, Jasmine, dreams of there being more to life than just living in the castle and being married off to some suitor chosen by her father. In true Disney style she wants true love, and so one day runs away from the castle and meets Aladdin. They have a bit of fun in the marketplace before the Palace Guards come and pick Jasmine up and arrest Aladdin.
In the dungeon Jafar finds Aladdin and shows him the way out of the dungeon, leading him into the desert where there is an underground lair full of jewels. Jafer wants Aladdin to bring him a magic lamp, but Aladdin’s monkey grabs a jewel and the lair closes in trapping them underground. This is where Aladdin discovers that rubbing the lamp produces the Genie who gives Aladdin three wishes, the first of which Aladdin kind of gets as a freebie. Genie then turns Aladdin into a Prince allowing him to go after Princess Jasmine, and they’d all live happily ever if it wasn’t for Jafar figuring out Aladdin and throwing a major spanner in the works.
I think that one of the things that helps to really make Aladdin is Robin Williams as the Genie. From what I’ve read he did a lot of improvising during his recordings and it really adds to the comedy factor. I like the little bits and pieces that link to other Disney films; at one point Genie wears a Goofy hat, Sebastian from The Little Mermaid makes an appearance. There are also little nods to other actors and films, like Jack Nicholson as well. I love looking out for things like that, it makes rewatching these films more fun because you know where they’re coming.
Aladdin was also one of the first ones where digital animation was starting to play a more obvious role, which is really visible in a couple of scenes, but it’s not really that distracting when you are expecting it. It’s much the same as the ceiling in the ballroom scene of Beauty and the Beasty.
It’s also nice to have a Disney film which is set outside the fantasy Europe where most Disney Princess films took place up until this point. Being Mr Click’s favourite Disney film we watch it almost as often as my favourite, Beauty and the Beast. I tend to think of them as a bit of a trio along with The Lion King because they were the first Disney films that I was really properly aware of. Plus the music in those three films has to rank way up there with some of the best Disney songs ever written. Mr Click’s favourite is ‘Friend Like Me’ which I do like but I’m more partial to ‘A Whole New World’
So just for Mr Click, here's his favourite song from the film:
Friday, 4 October 2013
Stripy Scarf
As I mentioned on Wednesday, I've been getting well stuck into the scarf I've been working on. I had slowed down somewhat as I needed to order the last two main balls of colour and I didn't want to get to a point where I had to stop and wait for it to arrive. I will still need to get another ball later on, but I'll only need it for four rows so it'll wait for a while yet (and I won't need to get it in a 500g ball of wool like all the others I've been buying).
These photos show the state of the scarf as of Sunday, when it was roughly a third of the way through. I still have to do this much knitting twice more to finish it! It's interesting watching how the colours are changing as I go along. Last week I added my first two rows of yellow to the mix and all being well I'll get some bright red in soon as well.
The bright red is a slight change to the original plan. It was supposed to be orange, but there's a bit of a shortage of the shade of orange I was looking for. As it's a scarf for Mr Click I asked him what he wanted to do and he decided to go for bright red instead. It's working out quite well actually, it means there's three pairs of colours, plus an odd pair (dark blue and light blue; light green and dark green; bright red and dark red; pale yellow and some sort of purple).
I can't wait to see how it's looking after another two weeks!
These photos show the state of the scarf as of Sunday, when it was roughly a third of the way through. I still have to do this much knitting twice more to finish it! It's interesting watching how the colours are changing as I go along. Last week I added my first two rows of yellow to the mix and all being well I'll get some bright red in soon as well.
The bright red is a slight change to the original plan. It was supposed to be orange, but there's a bit of a shortage of the shade of orange I was looking for. As it's a scarf for Mr Click I asked him what he wanted to do and he decided to go for bright red instead. It's working out quite well actually, it means there's three pairs of colours, plus an odd pair (dark blue and light blue; light green and dark green; bright red and dark red; pale yellow and some sort of purple).
I can't wait to see how it's looking after another two weeks!
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Day Zero Project: Finish Behind The Scenes
In the summer I was seventeen my best friend came up to visit and ended up
spending the whole summer. It was a fantastic summer with the pair of us doing
crazy things like trying to walk home from a beach at the north end of the
island, spending whole days in our pyjamas watching films, obsessing over Lord
of the Rings and also writing.
We’d always had a fairly competitive sort of friendship. Part of the reason why I read The Lord of the Rings (aside from becoming slightly obsessed with the film of The Fellowship of the Ring) was because she had read it and if she could then so could I. One of the first things she did when she arrived was started writing a story. That prompted me to start writing too.
At first I didn’t have a story. I just had an idea of trying to write a car crash without actually describing what was happening. It was just dialogue. Around the time that I started writing it I had a dream about a bunch of people from a film camping out (I’m thinking this was inspired by one of the special features on the Lord of the Rings DVD special features). And I decided to try working that into the car crash story I’d already started.
From there my main character Abby ended up being the only survivor of the car crash and going to live with her uncle, who was a film star. And things started to snowball. Whenever one of us started flagging, my friend and I would kind of swap characters because we realised both stories were taking place in the same bit of Scotland so it made sense that they might run into each other. One of her characters was a theatre director and my character Jack had started out on the stage, so we guessed they might have staying in contact.
When she went home I kind of slowed down on the story a little. After the summer it was back to school and I joined the drama group and didn’t have quite as much time for writing as I’d had over the summer. My poor characters spent a lot of time in limbo; Abby and Keeper must have spent about three months sitting outside a cafe in London. But I finally picked it back up again and realised where I wanted things to go.
And eventually, about nine months after I started it, I finally came to the end. I remember lying in bed at around 1am and writing the final word of the story, ‘Together’ on the 75th handwritten A4 page. It wound up being over 30,000 words long. The longest story I’d written and managed to actually conclude. I was thrilled, although at the time I finished it I had nobody to celebrate ‘The End’ with!
So then it languished in my notepad for quite a while. I typed it up and made a few small changes as I went. I put it into the smallest readable font size and printed it out; it came to around thirty pages (thank goodness we had a laser printer)! But I didn’t really touch it again until I went to University.
I decided that I wanted to rewrite it and maybe extend it a little bit as I had realised that it wasn’t really a novel-length story. I put together a little folder for myself and I started reading through the story making notes on all the characters when I realised that two of them had actually ended up getting together a little bit earlier than I had realised. It was funny to see things that I’d written but hadn’t actually been that conscious of.
Much later I started rewriting it again. I’m using the typed version of the story as a sort of outline for the plot. This time it even has chapters, with the action focusing on four main characters, rather than just one and later two as in the original. I’m currently around chapter ten, which corresponds to page four of the original typed version; oh and what I’ve written out by hand so far is roughly the same as the total handwritten original. It’s definitely going to be a much longer story this time around.
The page 4/chapter 10 thing means that I’ll probably not be finished with it any time soon. It’s slow going, mainly because I just sort of dip in and out of it. Also it’s fast becoming a historical novel as I try to come up with excuses for people not having mobile phones and other useful gadgets. Someday I’ll get it finished though. What happens after that will be anyone’s guess, though, I’ll probably decide it needs rewriting again or something.
We’d always had a fairly competitive sort of friendship. Part of the reason why I read The Lord of the Rings (aside from becoming slightly obsessed with the film of The Fellowship of the Ring) was because she had read it and if she could then so could I. One of the first things she did when she arrived was started writing a story. That prompted me to start writing too.
At first I didn’t have a story. I just had an idea of trying to write a car crash without actually describing what was happening. It was just dialogue. Around the time that I started writing it I had a dream about a bunch of people from a film camping out (I’m thinking this was inspired by one of the special features on the Lord of the Rings DVD special features). And I decided to try working that into the car crash story I’d already started.
From there my main character Abby ended up being the only survivor of the car crash and going to live with her uncle, who was a film star. And things started to snowball. Whenever one of us started flagging, my friend and I would kind of swap characters because we realised both stories were taking place in the same bit of Scotland so it made sense that they might run into each other. One of her characters was a theatre director and my character Jack had started out on the stage, so we guessed they might have staying in contact.
When she went home I kind of slowed down on the story a little. After the summer it was back to school and I joined the drama group and didn’t have quite as much time for writing as I’d had over the summer. My poor characters spent a lot of time in limbo; Abby and Keeper must have spent about three months sitting outside a cafe in London. But I finally picked it back up again and realised where I wanted things to go.
And eventually, about nine months after I started it, I finally came to the end. I remember lying in bed at around 1am and writing the final word of the story, ‘Together’ on the 75th handwritten A4 page. It wound up being over 30,000 words long. The longest story I’d written and managed to actually conclude. I was thrilled, although at the time I finished it I had nobody to celebrate ‘The End’ with!
So then it languished in my notepad for quite a while. I typed it up and made a few small changes as I went. I put it into the smallest readable font size and printed it out; it came to around thirty pages (thank goodness we had a laser printer)! But I didn’t really touch it again until I went to University.
I decided that I wanted to rewrite it and maybe extend it a little bit as I had realised that it wasn’t really a novel-length story. I put together a little folder for myself and I started reading through the story making notes on all the characters when I realised that two of them had actually ended up getting together a little bit earlier than I had realised. It was funny to see things that I’d written but hadn’t actually been that conscious of.
Much later I started rewriting it again. I’m using the typed version of the story as a sort of outline for the plot. This time it even has chapters, with the action focusing on four main characters, rather than just one and later two as in the original. I’m currently around chapter ten, which corresponds to page four of the original typed version; oh and what I’ve written out by hand so far is roughly the same as the total handwritten original. It’s definitely going to be a much longer story this time around.
The page 4/chapter 10 thing means that I’ll probably not be finished with it any time soon. It’s slow going, mainly because I just sort of dip in and out of it. Also it’s fast becoming a historical novel as I try to come up with excuses for people not having mobile phones and other useful gadgets. Someday I’ll get it finished though. What happens after that will be anyone’s guess, though, I’ll probably decide it needs rewriting again or something.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Yarn Bombing
Last weekend was a bit busy on Bute, not only were we invaded by Vikings (and there was a Gallery Tour on the Sunday) but there was also a Yarn Bombing event. I'd seen and heard about this several weeks ago and as much as I wanted to get involved with it, I had other knitting commitments and didn't really have the time to devote to knitting random strips of wool as well as working on a scarf and putting off sewing up elephants.
But that didn't stop me from going Yarn Bomb hunting on Sunday, armed with my camera and a rather excitable Labrador, I dragged Mr Click all over town and shamelessly photographed all my favourites.
Yarn Bombing basically involves a group of people doing a bunch of knitting, in this case mostly rectangular strips though there were a fair few pom-poms and crocheted embellishments as well, which are then sewn onto various things while no one is around. The result is lots of lampposts and signposts wearing brightly coloured jumpers.
It was really good fun wandering around the town looking for them. I didn't even get to go back to all the ones that I spotted on the Saturday when we were at the Viking invasion. Just when you thought you'd seen them all, you'd spot another one somewhere else.
These ones on the posts remind me of the scarf I'm working on at the moment. So many different colours and stripes!
And my absolute personal favourite thing in town was the pom-pom tree. It's such a brilliant idea. I want one of these in my own garden!
If they ever bring this event back to Bute I think I'd definitely like to get involved!
But that didn't stop me from going Yarn Bomb hunting on Sunday, armed with my camera and a rather excitable Labrador, I dragged Mr Click all over town and shamelessly photographed all my favourites.
 |
| I was amazed this little guy was still here on Sunday, I was sure someone would've made off with him. |
 |
| The giant cherry of pom-poms is a stroke of genius. |
 |
| Some of the pieces of knitting had tags on with things like 'Have a nice day' written on them. |
These ones on the posts remind me of the scarf I'm working on at the moment. So many different colours and stripes!
And my absolute personal favourite thing in town was the pom-pom tree. It's such a brilliant idea. I want one of these in my own garden!
If they ever bring this event back to Bute I think I'd definitely like to get involved!
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Book 37 of 2013: The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
I’ve had The Science Of Discworld
on my bookcase for ages, but I held
off reading it until I got to the end of the published Discworld series (of
course, between starting to read the first of the series and getting to the end
of it a couple more books came out which pushed it down my reading list
somewhat). Technically it comes somewhere in the middle of the series, but I
don’t think I missed out on anything by waiting until the end of the series to
read it.
This book is a mix of events taking place within Unseen University, with
those chapters written by Terry Pratchett, as the Wizards manage to create
‘Roundworld’ a spherical world inside one of the rooms of the university; and
then more scientific chapters written by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen which
explain the science behind what is actually happening at each stage of
development of ‘Roundworld’ basically explaining the evolution of our Earth.
I really enjoyed the bits set in Unseen University. They saw the Wizards using Hex to create a universe in miniature and then trying to figure out how it can possibly work without magic. It’s fun to see them trying to influence the world and getting annoyed with it when things don’t work the way they expect them to. That said, I don’t think that those chapters on their own would necessarily work as a stand alone story without the scientific stuff to help make sense of what the Wizards are seeing happening. It’s very clever the way that aspects of the book go together to make the whole.
I also found the science stuff very interesting, but some of it did kind of go over my head. Bits of it kind of reminded me of the Horrible Histories books I used to read when I was younger (expect this is what they would’ve been like had they been written for adults). In the beginning I struggled with the physics stuff, but as the world developed into something recognisable to me and it started talking about dinosaurs and evolution I started to feel a little more at home. Though I couldn’t help but think that some of the descriptions could have done with diagrams to illustrate what was being said.
When I first started reading this book I didn’t think I was going to get into it the way I did. In the beginning I kept on looking forward to the Discworld bits because I struggled with some of the scientific bits, but as I went on I got into it more and more. By the end I think I was enjoying the two different texts fairly equally. I’d definitely like to look out for more of the Science of Discworld books (as well as any other books which offer comparisons between Discworld and the real world).
on my bookcase for ages, but I held
off reading it until I got to the end of the published Discworld series (of
course, between starting to read the first of the series and getting to the end
of it a couple more books came out which pushed it down my reading list
somewhat). Technically it comes somewhere in the middle of the series, but I
don’t think I missed out on anything by waiting until the end of the series to
read it.
I really enjoyed the bits set in Unseen University. They saw the Wizards using Hex to create a universe in miniature and then trying to figure out how it can possibly work without magic. It’s fun to see them trying to influence the world and getting annoyed with it when things don’t work the way they expect them to. That said, I don’t think that those chapters on their own would necessarily work as a stand alone story without the scientific stuff to help make sense of what the Wizards are seeing happening. It’s very clever the way that aspects of the book go together to make the whole.
I also found the science stuff very interesting, but some of it did kind of go over my head. Bits of it kind of reminded me of the Horrible Histories books I used to read when I was younger (expect this is what they would’ve been like had they been written for adults). In the beginning I struggled with the physics stuff, but as the world developed into something recognisable to me and it started talking about dinosaurs and evolution I started to feel a little more at home. Though I couldn’t help but think that some of the descriptions could have done with diagrams to illustrate what was being said.
When I first started reading this book I didn’t think I was going to get into it the way I did. In the beginning I kept on looking forward to the Discworld bits because I struggled with some of the scientific bits, but as I went on I got into it more and more. By the end I think I was enjoying the two different texts fairly equally. I’d definitely like to look out for more of the Science of Discworld books (as well as any other books which offer comparisons between Discworld and the real world).
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