Flame on

You know, typing in a room lit by candles on a dark and stormy night is very soothing, romantic and relaxing…

…but it plays merry hell with your eyes and gives you a headache. God bless the light bulb!

 

The Waters of Mars (and Worthing)

Please excuse the long silence – I’m currently drowning in a sea of work, which sounds a damn sight more poetic than it is.  It’s great to be busy – just ask my credit cards – but I’m getting to the point now where I’d like an entire week off with absolutely nothing to do and nothing to feel guilty about.

Still, I had a few weeks like that two months ago, which explains why this month I can barely afford to pay my rent. Woe is me, etc etc.

But anyway, because I don’t want this post to be all doom and gloom, check this out:

Clever kite surfers jump over pier!

That looks like SO MUCH FUN. I am very jealous!

Also: I loved last night’s new episode of Doctor Who – The Waters Of Mars. Less action than I was expecting, true, but I thought Lindsay Duncan was marvellous (I really liked her in Rome, so it was good to see her again) and Tennant’s Doctor was his usual batshit-crazy self.

Best of all, though… the trailer for the Christmas episode. Sweet Jesus, how many days left until we can see it? It looks like all our Christmasses will have come at once!

 

Don’t mess with his elephants, okay?

I just watched Warrior King, a Thai martial arts movie featuring ‘new Bruce Lee’ Tony Jaa on fine form as a young man on a roaring rampage of revenge after his two elephant friends are stolen from his village in Thailand and shipped to Sydney, Australia, by a crazy woman with a whip (no, I couldn’t make this up).

The film is absolutely dreadful – plot, acting, editing, everything – but HOLY CRAP, WHO CARES? Every time a fight scene starts it suddenly becomes the most amazing thing in the history of the world. Just as in his previous Muay Thai jawdropper, Ong-Bak, Tony Jaa fights without wires or CGI or stunt doubles or anything even resembling camera trickery: it’s all real.

And nowhere is it better displayed than here, in one continuous shot – no cuts at all – which lasts almost four entire minutes and is probably one of the greatest fight scenes you’ll ever see. The quality isn’t 100% but I just watched this on DVD with a crystal clear picture and can assure you, IT’S REAL.

Enjoy…

 

Happiness Personified!

Here’s a clip from this week’s episode of Nathan Fillion’s detective series Castle (which, may I say, is kicking ass in its second season). You may recognise this outfit. If you don’t… go watch Firefly, you mooks!

Warning: swearing ahead

I fancied a change, so here’s the new design for your perusal…

I took that header pic of the Daily Planet sign last year in Vancouver when I stumbled upon the filming of an episode of Smallville. (I snapped the picture from the steps of Luthorcorp!) I thought it was too cool to leave neglected in a folder on my desktop, so I’m happy to put it to good use here!

To continue my theme from yesterday: I’m still fuming about Jan Moir’s Daily Mail article and I note that not only has the newspaper STILL not issued a decent apology – only the one in which Moir seemed to blame everybody except herself – but they’ve also left the article up, despite the fact it has now become the most-complained-about piece in British newspaper history (or so I hear; I haven’t been able to confirm that story yet).

Which just goes to prove, and I very, VERY much apologise for my language here, that the Daily Mail are a bunch of utter cunts.

At least more people know that today than knew it yesterday morning. Progress of a sort.

Why Twitter Is Amazing

I’m fascinated by the Twitter phenomenon, and never more so than on days like today. In case it’s escaped your attention, this morning a columnist at the Daily Mail - not one of my favourite newspapers, minority-hating, self-righteous bastards that they are – posted an article online about the death of Boyzone’s Stephen Gately.

Here’s a jpg of the article’s first headline:

(Since then, the headline has been changed to the marginally less-offensive “A Strange, Lonely And Troubling Death…”)

You can read the article here.

To sum up, what Jan Moir is saying is that Stephen Gately’s death, despite being put down to ‘natural causes’ by the coroner, was actually something far more sinister. She mentions how he was out partying beforehand (how terrible of him!); how he may have taken drugs (god forbid he do such a thing!); how he and his partner brought home a young man with them that night to ‘play canasta’ (and Jesus, of all the euphemisms, how nice of her to choose one so appropriately 1950s in tone – which is where her homophobia belongs, too). She lists the death of another gay celebrity last week, too, as though that had ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS STORY WHATSOEVER; calls into question the future of gay marriage in the UK (because now two gay men have died within a week of each other, clearly gay marriage is eeeeevil) and claims that “Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again” (which obviously never happens, because she is an expert on such matters, even more so than the coroner who said Gately died of natural causes).

In other words, she’s saying one of either three things happened to this poor young man:

1) Stephen Gately drank himself to death that night (despite the coroner saying he died from natural causes).

2) Stephen Gately drugged himself to death that night (despite the coroner saying he died from natural causes).

3) Stephen Gately died that night because he and his partner brought home a young man to have sex with.

Or, to put it bluntly, Stephen Gately died because he was a young man with a lively social life.

…AND BECAUSE HE WAS GAY.

Moir claims that she’s not homophobic, but her article is all the evidence we need to prove that she is. She’s since issued possibly the most laughable apology in the world, the Daily Mail has had to remove advertising from the article because its advertisers were unsettled, and Twitter…

Well, Twitter went MAD. Moir’s name has been at the top of its trending topics all day, along with the Daily Mail and Stephen Gately. Thanks to the efforts of celebrities Stephen Fry, Derren Brown, Peter Serafinowicz (who came up with the hashtag thedailymailisgay, which trended all afternoon as well) and Charlie Brooker, so much of a storm was whipped up on Twitter (and then on Facebook) that the Press Complaints Commission have already received over a thousand complaints. Their website crashed and it’s looking likely that this will be a record-breaking subject for them. And other news sites are reporting the furore, too; you know it’s hit big when the BBC deign to cover it.

I’m so angry with Moir’s vile homophobia that I’d like to punch her squarely on the nose, but I must admit that the worst thing about her article was the wilful disregard she showed to the feelings of Gately’s family, friends and, most of all, his partner. By implying – however carefully – that Gately’s death ‘wasn’t natural’, she’s all but saying that he was murdered, and by drawing attention to his two companions that night, she’s placing the blame squarely on them. Her contempt for Gately (who, from all accounts, sounded like a thoroughly pleasant young chap with no scandals in his past and no skeletons in the closet) is sickening.

But thanks to Twitter, the outrage of the general public on this subject was both swift and loud. At times like this, Twitter is truly extraordinary.

And I’ll leave the final word to Charlie Brooker at The Guardian…

Still here… just…

I’m currently drowning under a pile of work. I’ve only had one day off in four weeks. Hence this blog, sadly, is being neglected. Apologies.

However, on the bright side, I can pay my rent next month! Yay!

“That’ll be two crowns and thruppence, missus.”

I had to go to my local sorting office yesterday to pick up a parcel I needed to pay customs duty on (an occupational hazard when you buy so many DVDs from the USA). When I pulled out my card to pay the £12 fee, the guy behind the counter looked rather embarrassed.

Post Office Guy: “I’m sorry, we don’t accept cards.”

Me: “You only take cash? Seriously?”

Post Office Guy: “There’s an ATM across the road.”

Me: “But why don’t you take cards? What is this, the 19th century?”

Post Office Guy: “We’re the Post Office, you know. I’m surprised we don’t still use horses and carts to deliver letters.”

Me: “In that case, you won’t mind if I pay you in shillings and farthings, will you?”

Post Office Guy: “It’s only fair.”

Honestly, the Royal Mail are trying to position themselves as an organised 21st century business but they don’t even accept Visa? How dumb is that?

Sometimes it amazes me this country even has the internet. Or the wheel.

Tea and Sympathy

This is what happens when you pick up a takeaway cup of very hot black tea in the cafe at Future Publishing’s London office and the lid isn’t on tightly enough so you end up spilling scalding water all over yourself.

What also happens is that you get first-aided by about nine different people because it happened in the workplace and they’ve all been trained in first aid but rarely get to use their skills so they get all excited, and you get burn gel smeared all over you that smells like raw alcohol and tea tree oil and sears the inside of your nostrils, and when you go home that afternoon because you can’t do any work you discover one of your favourite fish has died (sigh) and the filter in the tank has stopped working and you have to take it apart to fix it while trying to keep your bandages dry. Eventually you remove the bandages completely to have a rather painful shower and then discover you don’t have any fresh ones afterwards, so you have to wrap your arm in a tea towel and hold it in place with Sellotape because you are really sad and pathetic.

And then you’ll wake up in the night with burn gel all over your nice clean sheets, and you won’t be able to sleep at all, so you’ll go back to work the next day feeling like crap and you’ll get first-aided again and receive a nice new bandage, which becomes less important during the course of the afternoon because your burn’s improving underneath it, but it DOES come in handy when you end up having an impromptu shoving match on the Bakerloo line on the way home when a woman goes to sit in a seat at the same time as you and you accidentally knock her out of the way. She’ll take one look at the bandage and think, “This woman’s hurt! She can have the seat!” And then she’ll apologise profusely for trying to steal your seat and tell you she really likes the ring you’re wearing (ring not pictured above) because she feels so guilty about almost knocking you over, even though you were the one who almost knocked her over, and it feels really bloody weird having a stranger looking at you so guiltily when really they haven’t done anything bad at all.

And then you’ll arrive home and remove the bandage and marvel at the giant red stripe around your arm and be very thankful you don’t have hideous blisters or anything.

And then you’ll watch the third episode of Supernatural’s fifth season, hear the Lynyrd Skynyrd song ‘Simple Man’ being played over the opening credits and wonder HOW THE HELL YOU GOT TO THE AGE OF 37 (38 NEXT WEEK!) WITHOUT EVER HEARING IT BEFORE BECAUSE IT’S POSSIBLY THE GREATEST SONG IN THE WORLD.

See? TV makes everything better. I’ve been saying it for years.

*DEEP BREATH*

So, in conclusion: always make sure the lid is on a cup of boiling hot water before you move it. Or, at the very least, put milk in the damn thing.

This is my last post about fish, honest guv’nor!

I’m becoming a fish bore, so I’m shutting up about my finned friends after this. But seeing as I got so many comments on my post bemoaning the fact that I wanted to give my tank a makeover, I thought you might like to see the results!

I went with a ‘Monument Valley’ theme in the end:

…although now I desperately want a Marlboro Man-style cowboy figure in there, too. Darn it.

Oh, and I finally managed to snap a nice shot of Bobby the plec:

I’m sure you’ll agree he’s both rather pretty and also rather grumpy-looking. That’s Ruby the shark poking her head into shot, by the way.

…AND THAT’S ENOUGH ABOUT MY GODDAMN FISH.

It’s been a crazy week. Each year around this time I sit down, look at my workload and think, “Bugger! I have nothing to do this month – how will I pay my bills?” And every year, by some miracle, within a day or so of having that panic, I suddenly get inundated. This week I’ve written six features already and have three more hanging over my head; I’ve written an advertorial and it looks like there are more on the way; I’ve written so many reviews I’ve actually forgotten how many there were; conducted a fun phone interview with an actor and arranged an email interview with a casting director; and as of Monday I will be working for three weeks as a sub-editor on DVD & Blu-ray Review. So I can pay my bills next month after all. Phew.

Thank you, oh Lord Of The Freelancers, for looking out for me! I’m very grateful.

I’m also cat-sitting my neighbours’ kitten for them this weekend, which at the moment seems to involve popping downstairs every few hours and dangling a feather on a stick in the air and making the cat leap up and down trying to catch it until I wear it out. Which was all very entertaining, for both me and the kitten, right up until I came up with the idea of shouting, “Wingardium leviosa!” every time I made the feather fly in the air, and now I can’t stop giggling. Even the kitten’s looking at me as if to say, “What’re you, six years old?!”

I hope my neighbours didn’t leave a webcam running to check I’m not stealing their stuff. How embarrassing.

This is what happens when I purchase fish

Friendly man at the tropical fish store: “Wow, how can you possibly be in such a good mood on a miserable Sunday afternoon?”

Me: “It’s because whenever I leave the house to buy fish I always make sure I snort a lot of coke first. It really helps take the edge off.”

Friendly man at the tropical fish store: “…”

.

Nobody gets my humour.

::sigh::

Of Fish And Silly Things

As you can see from this picture:

I have a very serious living room. After years of living in student accommodation or studio flats or houses that were pretty much falling down – I’ve moved around a lot – I finally have a place where the wallpaper isn’t peeling off and I don’t have to cover up the damage with posters. I have grown-up things in my living room. Beautiful art prints by photographers Lehnert and Landrock, all the way from Cairo. An antique typewriter. Pretty plants. Fancy velvet sofas.

And a tropical fish tank.

I’ve not had much luck with my fish since I started keeping them back in April; only one of my original batch remains, a spotted plec named Bobby (after Supernatural’s grumpy old hunter) who makes me smile because he is (a) spotty and (b) grumpy. Last week I brought home some more fish – three silver dollars I’ve named Dave, Dave and Nick after the SFX team (don’t ask), two boesemani rainbow fish I’ve named Fred and George because they’re ginger like the Weasley twins; and a ruby shark I’ve called Ruby, after Ruby on Supernatural (what? It made sense at the time!). They all seem as happy as fish can be, their tank looks pretty and all is well with the world.

Except that I’m a bit fed up with being sensible. You know how you can buy special laminated pictures to stick on the back wall of your fish tank? Pictures of submerged mangrove tree roots or sunken shipwrecks or deep blue ocean ripples? They tend to look tacky and fake, but they give the fish something to look at that isn’t their own reflections, and I’m tempted to buy one.

The thing is, my living room is a nice, adult, grown-up, serious living room. BUT I WANT A PICTURE OF SOME DINOSAURS.

Someone talk me out of it. Please?

This Is Not Twitter

Great. So I post to say I keep getting distracted by Facebook and Twitter and I’m fed up of it and I promise I’ll stop all that nonsense and come back to my blog… and then I don’t post for two weeks.

I suck.

I wonder if the future of blogging will lie in one-sentence updates that are limited to a certain number of characters? It’ll be fairly dull, yes, but everybody appears to love it. And it’s certainly less time-consuming! Not to mention less guilt-making than having a blog that you keep ignoring…

Since my last post I saw Neil Finn (and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway, among others) perform in the sweatiest venue I’ve ever attended in my life – Dingwall’s in Camden, on a scorching hot evening – and I was THIS CLOSE to the stage:

…which, I’m sure you’ll agree, was plenty close enough. It was a fantastic gig and Neil was in fine voice, not to mention a very good mood, and the tracks on the new Seven Worlds Collide album sound magnificent. It’s out in a couple of weeks and proceeds go to Oxfam: make a purchase!

I was lucky enough to see 15 minutes of preview footage from James Cameron’s Avatar at the IMAX on Friday, which I must say made up for the fact that the movie trailer released the day before had disappointed me. It looked way too computer-gamey for my liking, but when you see some of the imagery in context and hear the characters talk, you get a sense of what Cameron’s trying to achieve.

The footage was quite literally breathtaking – though I must admit, some of that had to do with the fact I was sitting too close to the IMAX screen, and a 3D movie the size of a house does make you a little nauseous! But now I have high hopes for the film. And man, it’ll be nice to have action-extravaganza Cameron back. I miss his The Abyss days.

I also have a confession to make: after a year spent complaining about it and haughtily informing people that I’d watched the first episode and hated it and never wanted to see it again… I finally watched season one of True Blood. And yes, I’m addicted now. I hate Sookie Stackhouse with every atom of my being, but if I look past that it’s actually a pretty decent show. Glad to hear it’s doing so well in the ratings, too, although if Anna Paquin gets another Golden Globe for season two I’ll start feeling faintly homicidal toward her!

Right! Now I need to write a review of Dollhouse. There’s an extra episode on the DVD release that’s, well, interesting to say the least. If the show chooses to go in that direction from now on, I’ll be very happy…

Worlds Colliding

Blame Twitter. And Facebook. Thanks to this almighty team of time-wasters, I don’t seem to blog half as much as I used to. It’s easier to write a single sentence and post it on my Twitter than it is to write about it in length here, and it’s far easier to upload photographs on my Facebook page than to go through the fiddly process of posting them on WordPress. However, my blog tardiness is annoying me, and hopefully I can ignore the lure of social networking and start to blog properly again.

Of course, now I’ve said that, I don’t really have anything to blog about at the moment! Life’s ticking over; I’m perfectly busy (in the sense that I have exactly the right amount of work and exactly the right amount of time to do it in); I haven’t done anything interesting except pay a tax bill which, oddly enough, is the reason I haven’t done anything interesting because it’s made sure that I can’t afford to. However, in a rather amazing bout of serendipity, my solicitor has managed to secure me a compensation pay-out from my car crash back in May which effectively pays off half of that bill, so I’m thrilled to pieces about that… particularly because my back seems to be a lot better, too. (Although I’m still having physiotherapy, and it still hurts. Last week the receptionist in the physio place was on the phone to a customer while I was screaming in the background, and every time I think about that it makes me giggle. What must that poor customer have thought?)

On Tuesday I’m seeing Neil Finn perform his new Seven Worlds Collide show at Dingwalls in Camden, so I’m happy about that (he was on Sky News this morning discussing it, and I’ve never seen his fringe look quite as spectacular). I’ve been a bit out of touch with Finn-fandom in the last two years so I’m hoping to redress the balance a little – I’m not sure anybody, with the possible exception of David Attenborough (my childhood hero!), has ever been more of an idol to me than Neil Finn, and so it’s always a joy to see – and hear – him in the flesh.

Myself (right) and the Finnster after a gig in 1998. Ah, happy times...

Changing the subject completely, I watched my very first Bruce Lee movie last night. Quite why it’s taken me so long to discover the joys of Mr Lee I have no idea, but apparently 37 isn’t too old an age to watch one of his films while bouncing up and down on the sofa and making “Waaaaah…. heeee!” noises while performing jerky chopping noises with your hands. Fist Of Fury was brilliant, so now I’m adding Enter The Dragon to my LoveFilm list and will, no doubt, find myself bouncing up and down on the sofa while I watch that one, too.

Also, has anybody else noticed that in the movie’s biggest showdown, Bruce Lee fights Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy?

And finally… I would be writing my opinions on the Palestinian suicide-bomber film Paradise Now here, after finally finding the time to settle down and watch the DVD that’s been sitting by my player for a year now. Given that I spend a lot of time working for a DVD magazine and I’m always in offices where review discs are everywhere, I’m generally assured of a steady stream of things to watch – but, being that they’re review discs and are sent out before the title is released, they usually have copyright warnings or timecodes on them. You get used to tuning them out while you watch. Unfortunately, however, Paradise Now’s enormous “PROPERTY OF WARNER BROS” stamp was positioned directly OVER the subtitles for the movie, so watching it was impossible.

I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it takes a special kind of stupidity to be able to do something like that. I despair, I really do.

And now I have some reviews to write, and I absolutely will not play on Facebook or Twitter while I do so.

Arrrrrrr!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited on a cruise along the River Thames by author Robert Rankin, who was celebrating his 60th birthday in suitably bonkers style. Sadly, I didn’t find out until the last minute that it was a fancy dress cruise, or that there was a pirate theme, so I couldn’t dress up like Admiral Robert:

Or any of his shipmates (who have impeccable reading taste):

But I still had a wicked time, particularly when all the pirates discovered the wonderfully echoey nature of the underside of a bridge, so every time we sailed under one there was an almighty “Arrrrrrrrrr!” Or when a pirate leant out of a window, spotted two women rowing by and yelled, “WENCHES! THERE BE WENCHES!” – prompting every other male pirate on the cruise to do the same until said wenches were giggling heaps in their boat. I also enjoyed all the cries of “Ramming speed, Cap’n!” every time we passed another boat, and the pirate who got rather excited as we passed the Houses of Parliament and shouted, “Thievin’ bastids!”

On the whole, however, a pirate’s life is not for me – far too noisy.

At times like these, I really wish I wore t-shirts more often, particularly this one:

THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE

I’ve lived in my humble top floor flat in St Margarets, on the border between Richmond and Twickenham, for five years next month. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere except for the house I grew up in, and it’s certainly the best place I’ve ever lived, if you excuse the crushing heat in the summer (which, considering the average British summer, can last anywhere from one day to eight weeks, so it’s not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, even though I whinge).

My flat is on the Heathrow Airport flight path. A plane flies over my house every one minute and 48 seconds. They fly until around midnight (I’m fairly certain they should stop at eleven, but they don’t seem to) and then resume at around four in the morning (I’m fairly certain they should start at six, but they don’t seem to). I’ve lived here for so long I don’t even hear them any more; they make my walls rumble and my windows rattle, but I’ve learned to filter them out.

I can’t stop looking at them, though. I have a skylight in the my kitchen and barely a day goes by where I don’t stop what I’m doing to gaze up at a 747, often wondering if the passengers are looking down at me (which can be disconcerting if I’ve just stepped out of the shower). I’ll lie in bed and watch the planes fly out of the distance, one after the after, keeping to their one-minute-and-48-second timeframe so perfectly it’s almost hypnotic – you can see the lights blinking on a new plane on the horizon just as one sails overhead. And when I’m watching TV I find myself staring past the screen at the big window in my living room, watching planes soaring this way and that, their routes changing slightly according to which system they’re following in any given week.

A few nights ago we had the most terrific thunderstorm I’ve seen in years: three hours long, centred directly above my house, with so much flashing lightning I turned off all the lights and could still see perfectly at least half the time. It was faintly apocalyptic but also beautiful, even if I did have a bit of a panic and unplugged all my electrical items in case I got smited (my friend’s house was hit by lightning last year and he lost a lot of expensive stuff, so I wasn’t taking any chances).

At precisely 9.35pm I was watching a plane flying towards my house through a squall of rain and thinking to myself, “Blimey, I wouldn’t like to be on that plane right now.” And then, almost two seconds later, I watched a tremendous burst of forked lightning dart across the sky, leaping from cloud to cloud until it hit the plane.

IT WAS THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.

Of course the plane was okay: I’ve had many conversations over the years with people who don’t like flying who are convinced that a lightning strike will mean instant death to all aboard, and now I can actually say to them, “I’ve seen a plane/lightning interface with my own eyes and the plane didn’t even shudder!” And, as I said, IT WAS THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.

Sadly I didn’t take a photo and I wasn’t filming it, but after mentioning the incident to my friend Pet Shop Anny, she found this picture:

Which sort of sums up what I saw, only my lightning came from sideways-on, not above. And, I’m sure you’ll agree, if you’d seen something like this as well, it might have been THE COOLEST THING YOU’D EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE, too.

I don’t think I’m going to stop plane-gazing any time soon. Particularly during a storm. Planes rock my world, and I love being able to worship them every one minute and 48 seconds for the shiny, winged gods they really are. Keep watching the skies…

Yet Another YouTube Sensation…

This time it’s a pleasing David and Goliath story.

Last year musician Dave Carroll made a journey with United Airlines. While he arrived at his destination in one piece, his hugely expensive Taylor guitar didn’t. After a lengthy and ultimately fruitless attempt to get United to cough up some compensation, he decided to record this song about the experience – the catchily titled ‘United Breaks Guitars’ – and to record a video.

Here is the result:

This video was posted on July 6th. That’s six days ago. As I write this, it’s had an astonishing TWO MILLION views.

It’s a catchy tune, and he seems like a nice chap, and apparently United have said they’ll look into his claim and might even use the video for training purposes. Until then, let’s see if you can watch the whole thing without it sticking in your head so firmly you’ll find yourself humming it the next time you’re on a plane. Or in the shower. Whatever.

Remember: United breaks guitars. Take a car.

Spoiler Alert! (Sort of)

This video sums up so much of my life over the past 20 years, it’s not so much fiction as fact.

And I laughed so hard I nearly spoiled myself.

Random Post Is Random

It’s been just over five weeks since my car accident and two days ago I got a clean bill of health from a medical professional. I still have an achey back, and the insurance company have organised physiotherapy sessions to make it better, but with any luck I’ll be right as rain in a few months.

Hurrah!

To celebrate, I’ve been watching this video and dancing along – apologies if you’ve seen it already (it’s been viewed 22 million times, so I’d be surprised if you hadn’t) but hey, it’s always worth another watch…

I saw the new Harry Potter movie on Friday. Half-Blood Prince isn’t the best book in the series by a long way and, in the same vein, the film isn’t the best film in the franchise either. But it’s got its charms and it’s very, very funny – kudos to Rupert Grint for selling his love potion affliction so brilliantly! But, like the book, bugger all happens until the end, where things get rather dramatic. I’m not sure the film manages to pull of the drama quite where it’s needed, but it didn’t fumble it either, so it’ll… do, I suppose.

And there’s SO MUCH SNAPE. I was a very happy Snape fangirl in that cinema, I can tell you, as my companions will no doubt confirm, because there was a lot of squeaking coming from my direction every time Alan Rickman said a line. How does he do it? How can any actor manage to say two words and make me fall on the floor in tucks of laughter? And oh, the things that man can do with the swirl of a robe…

Finally, because I haven’t posted any Obama-love recently, have two awesome photos of him I stumbled across last night:

I’ll bet he doesn’t fiddle his expenses like every British politician under the sun is doing at the moment. But then again, why would the White House need a moat, anyway?

On Twitter, Fish-Keeping And Not Fancying Chris Pine

I have much to say, so I thought bullet points would be a nice idea for a change. They make my comments look much more… well, professional. Like slipping an essay into a plastic binder, or using a staple instead of a paper clip. Maybe you agree. Maybe you don’t. Whatever you think, here they come…

• Buy this month’s Total Film. Go on. It’s a great issue, and it just so happens to contain a big feature about The Lord of the Rings which was written by yours truly.

• What? I’m not allowed to self-pimp on my own blog?

• I’ve started keeping tropical fish. They are surprisingly intelligent and seem to know who I am, and they also get very excited when they see me because they think I’m going to feed them, which makes me feel as though we have some kind of bond. Okay, so they’re not quite as cute as kittens, but they’ll do.

• I started watching The Mentalist. I really don’t like the lead guy (Simon Baker) but the show’s not bad.

• I also started watching Castle. I really like the lead guy (Nathan Fillion) but the show’s pretty poor.

• The Mentalist and Castle are essentially EXACTLY THE SAME SHOW WITH DIFFERENT CASTS. It’s creepy.

• I hate Twitter. It’s clunky, pig-ugly, counter-intuitive (seriously, can anybody use it without having to ask a friend what to do?) and it spams you with porn.

• I appear to be addicted to it. Twitter, that is, not the porn.

• I blame http://twitter.com/qikipedia, the Tweets from the Elves who put together all the information for the BBC show QI; they’re fascinating. And I also blame http://twitter.com/TW1TTERTRACKER, run by The Tonight Show, which re-Tweets banal messages from celebrities and pokes fun at how “exciting” they are. And I mostly blame http://twitter.com/mishacollins, who has taken Twitter to an entire new level by whipping up an alternate reality in which he’s either imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, being held for treason by Her Majesty the Queen or crawling through the desert to bring down the corrupt government of Iran. The fact that he’s posting pictures of himself and his friends living out these fantasies makes his Tweets all the more amazing.

• I went to Oxford the first time the other day and visited the Museum of Natural History. They had a kakapo! And the building was glorious and sort of steampunkish and also quite similar to London’s Natural History Museum in its architecture, which is a good thing, because London’s Natural History Museum is my favourite building in the whole world. It absolutely rocked!

Also, Oxford is beautiful:

• I seem to have been the only person in the world who liked Terminator Salvation. Oh well, it’s not like I’m a film critic who needs people to respect and trust my opinion or anything.

• Wait, hang on…

• For the record: in this month’s SFX, the contents page suggests that I “love Chris Pine”. I would like to say that I love him as Kirk. I do not love him in any other way. I know this sounds silly, but I have so many celebrity crushes that being accused of having a crush on a celebrity I don’t actually have a crush on seems insulting.  In fact, I’d like to state for the record that I don’t have a crush on anybody in the new Star Trek movie at all, okay? Not even Karl Urban. (Although I will admit to having had a crush on him in the past. So he sort of counts, I suppose.)

• I do, however, have a crush on Rafael Nadal, and now he’s pulled out of Wimbledon I am major-league sulking, because I was actually going to watch it this year. Dammit.

And I think that’s about it for the bullet points for today.