I'm not really getting the hang of posting frequently, am I?
Last weekend was a bit of a downer for sport, what with the Rugby final (which I watched half-heartedly) and the Grand Prix (which I have absolutely no interest in at all). Still, Leeds won on the back of another poor performance. Unfortunately, I was working so didn't get to hear the full match. What I did hear sounded pretty dire. At home to Millwall today, so will be trooping off there this afternoon.
The half-term break saw Debbie and Elizabeth spend a couple of nights with Debbie's parents, freeing my evenings up to catch up on a couple of recent film releases. The Dark is Rising is OK, but should have been so much better - I marked it 6/10 over on Yahoo. The Last Legion is a film which ties the last days of the Roman Empire into Arthurian Legend and tells the origin of Excalibur. I'm a sucker for Arthurian Legend, so probably enjoyed it more than I should. It was clumsy in places and very similar to King Arthur (the Clive Owen starrer from a few years back) in others. 7/10.
On Friday morning I went (with Debbie, Elizabeth, Elizabeth's friend Cathryn and her mum) to see Ratatouille - the latest Pixar offering. As usual it was up to their high standards, with laughs aplenty and the odd tear-in-the-eye moment. It's hard to see how animation can get any more detailed than this. 8/10.
Friday evening (with Elizabeth away again) Debbie and I went to the Post Office Social Club for the CD launch of Coming up for Air, by Breathing Space. It's a slightly more upmarket venue than Fibbers - we could drink hand-pulled beer in proper glasses and sit at tables while the band played. Unfortunately, we chose to sit near the bar - too close to those who had paid their £7 ticket money to try to talk over the band. Muppets! The band played two sets - songs from the first album during the first set, followed by the whole of the new CD. It all sounded very good, except for a couple of times when the sound went a bit dodgy. For most of the gig it was hard to hear what Olivia was singing - that might of been her lack of vocal power, bad mixing or simply that the brain wasn't filling in the missing lyrics because it hadn't heard them before. I picked up both CDs and a limited edition Amberstone one as well. I have high hopes for the Breathing Space pair, but Amberstone is an unknown quantity at the moment.
Finally, a confession... Breathing Space is the breakaway project by Iain Jennings, ex-keyboard player of Mostly Autumn (and Olivia is still their backing vocalist). I only came across Mostly Autumn a few weeks ago but, since then, The Gap Is Too Wide (from their second album) has become one of my favourite pieces of music. It is stunningly beautiful and full of emotion. It was written by Iain Jennings. Apparently, it is no surprise to people who have seen Breathing Space before that it is also their encore song, so I got to hear it live last night. Afterwards, I'm afraid I turned into a bit of a fanboy and gushed praise, for writing the song, at Mr. Jennings while getting him to sign the new CD. I blame the beer!
Saturday 27 October 2007
Sunday 14 October 2007
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
I'm not a huge rugby fan (either code) but have just watched England progress to the final of the union World Cup, beating France on their home turf. I find games like this mildly exciting and always think that understanding the rules would probably help my enjoyment immensely. However, it still looks like legalised mugging to me. I'll probably watch the final next weekend. That'll be three games I'll have watched in four years.
England also won at football, beating Estonia in a European qualifier. I didn't see this one as, being a season ticket holder, I was at Elland Road watching Leeds United. Ignoring the fifteen point deficit we were handed at the start of the season, this was effectively top of the table versus third place (Leyton Orient). It probably lived up to that billing, in a strange way. An early goalkeeping error gave Orient the lead from a free-kick that they should never have had and, not long after, our keeper again watched the ball sail over his head, this time to hit the bar. Orient's scorer was sent off in the first half for using an elbow, so Leeds spent most of the game trying to break down a team of ten men. Unfortunately, we only managed one goal (Seb Carole with a curling shot from a corner) before Orient contrived to miss an open goal and have an apparently good goal disallowed (couldn't see it from where we sit but everybody who could says it was a goal, except the linesman...) A missed penalty from Tresor Kandol added to an exciting, but frustrating match and once again Leeds ended a match with more points than they should have won, even if this time it was only a single point. We stay in 12th place, just six points behind top spot, but teams behind us now have a game in hand...
Last night, I met with a couple of mates to see The Travellin' Band at The Roman Bath. A four-piece with a combined age greater than most football teams. They dressed the stage with Confederate flags and performed covers of Bob Seger, the Van Zandt brothers and others. Good guitar playing and drumming but the vocals were, for the most part, not that good.
I'm reading two books at the moment - I'm two-thirds of the way through Terry Brooks' "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" trilogy. The first book was much the same as the previous trilogies but the second left me a little disappointed. Every since the first Shannara book, way back when, there have been hints that the world they are set in used to know technology. I know that the latest trilogy is explaining what happened to that but "Antrax", the book I've just finished had the first instance of the druid Walker and his companions meeting (and fighting) that technology in the form of an ancient A.I. To me, it just didn't work - swords and magic versus lasers and robots and none of the characters really seemed too phased by what to them would be the complete unknown.
Because I have the trilogy in hardback and wanted something to read while cycling at the gym today, I started Stephen Donaldson's "The Real Story", first in his "Gap" series. At about 200 pages, it's probably one of the shortest modern SF books, but the other four books in the series more than make up for it. I haven't got far into it, but it seems an easy enough read.
England also won at football, beating Estonia in a European qualifier. I didn't see this one as, being a season ticket holder, I was at Elland Road watching Leeds United. Ignoring the fifteen point deficit we were handed at the start of the season, this was effectively top of the table versus third place (Leyton Orient). It probably lived up to that billing, in a strange way. An early goalkeeping error gave Orient the lead from a free-kick that they should never have had and, not long after, our keeper again watched the ball sail over his head, this time to hit the bar. Orient's scorer was sent off in the first half for using an elbow, so Leeds spent most of the game trying to break down a team of ten men. Unfortunately, we only managed one goal (Seb Carole with a curling shot from a corner) before Orient contrived to miss an open goal and have an apparently good goal disallowed (couldn't see it from where we sit but everybody who could says it was a goal, except the linesman...) A missed penalty from Tresor Kandol added to an exciting, but frustrating match and once again Leeds ended a match with more points than they should have won, even if this time it was only a single point. We stay in 12th place, just six points behind top spot, but teams behind us now have a game in hand...
Last night, I met with a couple of mates to see The Travellin' Band at The Roman Bath. A four-piece with a combined age greater than most football teams. They dressed the stage with Confederate flags and performed covers of Bob Seger, the Van Zandt brothers and others. Good guitar playing and drumming but the vocals were, for the most part, not that good.
I'm reading two books at the moment - I'm two-thirds of the way through Terry Brooks' "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" trilogy. The first book was much the same as the previous trilogies but the second left me a little disappointed. Every since the first Shannara book, way back when, there have been hints that the world they are set in used to know technology. I know that the latest trilogy is explaining what happened to that but "Antrax", the book I've just finished had the first instance of the druid Walker and his companions meeting (and fighting) that technology in the form of an ancient A.I. To me, it just didn't work - swords and magic versus lasers and robots and none of the characters really seemed too phased by what to them would be the complete unknown.
Because I have the trilogy in hardback and wanted something to read while cycling at the gym today, I started Stephen Donaldson's "The Real Story", first in his "Gap" series. At about 200 pages, it's probably one of the shortest modern SF books, but the other four books in the series more than make up for it. I haven't got far into it, but it seems an easy enough read.
Friday 12 October 2007
A first time blogger
"Hello!" to anybody reading this. (There are people (or even a person) reading this, aren't there???)
As the title suggests, I'm new to blogging and this first entry is as much of a test as anything else. I hope to use this to share thoughts on my many interests (films, TV, books, comics and music basically covers them) but who knows how often that will be.
Why "The Druid's Thoughts"? Well, about fifteen years ago, back when I still had hair, I wore it very long and colleagues at work nicknamed me "druid". Even tho' the name is no longer valid and I never get called it now, it's always been my favourite nickname and I still use it when I can. Sadly, I've never spent a solstice at Stonehenge.
As the title suggests, I'm new to blogging and this first entry is as much of a test as anything else. I hope to use this to share thoughts on my many interests (films, TV, books, comics and music basically covers them) but who knows how often that will be.
Why "The Druid's Thoughts"? Well, about fifteen years ago, back when I still had hair, I wore it very long and colleagues at work nicknamed me "druid". Even tho' the name is no longer valid and I never get called it now, it's always been my favourite nickname and I still use it when I can. Sadly, I've never spent a solstice at Stonehenge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)