2014 — 10 May: Saturday
I've just learned that it was Ron Goodwin who composed the music to Where eagles dare1 though I don't understand why the ever-fallible IMDB asserts that he is also "known for" Children of Men which clearly lists the equally-late John Taverner for that gig.
Now, about that cuppa? Or should I first reset the two remaining Oppo Blu-ray player settings away from their factory defaults after loading the latest beta firmware yesterday? I forgot to change 'brightness' and 'contrast' values last night and somehow managed to watch two entire films without noticing, beyond noting that one of them looked a little dark in some night-time scenes.
I suspect that says quite a lot about the quality of the films as I must have been immersed in them :-)
Oh, good grief!
I had no idea "cute cats" had a role in the theory of Internet censorship. (Link.)
Ours is a century in which blogger, researcher and supergeek Ethan Zuckerman's "cute cat theory" of political activism is vigorously debated in academic journals and the US State Department. (The theory argues that the online tools used by millions to share comically-captioned cute cat photos are also a powerful tool for political activism.)
How does one become a 'supergeek'? Ought I to have heard of him? Probably! Perhaps if I signed up for one of these new-fangled social media network things? Naaaah!
I'm also...
... a little alarmed by this opinion, though I certainly share the worry about the effects:
It's often encountering the faith of others that I've found most disturbing. I don't wish to scorn faith as it's a universal part of human consciousness. But as such, it's a deep puzzle, and I'm interested in its effects and manifestations. I worry about the effects of it, especially in our increasingly conflicted religious world.
It reminds me of some of the clunkiest dialogue in the film of the Sagan novel "Contact" where religion gets a seat at the grown-ups' table (as it were) on the grounds that 95% of the population enjoys and guides itself (supposedly) by the moral and other strictures of invisible, imaginary beings. Still, it hasn't stopped me reading, and enjoying, several of Warner's books.
Completing my hat-trick...
... of snippets from "Prospect", we have the beloved Jane and the cult of the Janeites!
In 1900, the Church of England tried to memorialise this domestic and pious version of Austen by installing a stained glass window honouring her in Winchester Cathedral, where she had been buried years before. After its unveiling, the Winchester Diocesan Chronicle announced that the "object of the figures and text was to illustrate the high moral and religious teaching" of Austen's writing. The "moral" part is plausible, but as for "religious," apparently nobody told the editors of the Winchester Diocesan Chronicle that Mr Collins, the stupidest person in Pride and Prejudice and one of the great figures of ridicule in English fiction, is a clergyman.
Perhaps I should become a subscriber?
Breakfast? Eaten
Crockpot? Stuffed
Sun? Still shining
Cuppa? Overdue
I rarely follow...
... user-created lists on IMDB, but this one caught my eye. And I have a Criterion edition of one of the titles, too, though I had to get it from the USA. Meanwhile, I've been listening to a review of the 28-CD set of Neville Marriner "The Argo Years".
My favourite...
... album by Bruce Springsteen is the acoustically stripped-back "Nebraska". Which is (shudder) over 30 years old. My favourite album by the Beatles certainly isn't the version of "Let it be" that they had eventually let Phil Spector loose on. However, I do very much like the "Let it be... naked" remix that was issued in 2003, undoing much of the, erm, exuberance. Today, belatedly, I discovered that Suzanne Vega recently re-recorded much of her earliest material in four albums called "Close Up" in a similarly spare style. Bliss. This lovely stuff is now making itself comfortable on my NAS while I start to think thoughts of lunch.
The BBC's long-standing policy...
... of malign neglect of the contents of their vast archive has, on more than one occasion, sent me far afield in search of lost gems. Today's example is "Don't forget to write" — an acerbic 1977 comedy featuring George Cole as a procrastinating playwright with writer's block. It's available in Australia. Watch this space.
Last time I...
... saw these five names, they were all rock musicians in a moderately successful little band. They have metamorphosed2...
... into five corporate entities. So the lamb in my crockpot isn't the only Lamb hereabouts now that Mr Postie's dropped off the 1974 Genesis CD I mentioned last Monday.
What does it say...
... about the level of kitchen domesticity around here when it's taken me six days to notice, and then two minutes to find, the plastic washing-up bowl I habitually use to chill down my crockpot surplus when I've eaten my initial fill? Peter's g/f (for reasons I shan't attempt to fathom) had stuffed it full of kitchen cleaning, erm, stuff and then tucked it neatly away out of sight under the sink — six days ago. And it had somehow collected the corpse of a giant spider.
I must be slipping: it only took me half a minute to find where she'd stashed the meal tray I use every day...