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Friday 1st August 2008
Bolton Abbey
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Today we had a day out at Embsay. After lunch, we got the steam train to, erm . . . Bolton Abbey and then walked from the station to the priory and then back again. |
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Sunday 10th August 2008
Even with the code, it would take months to decipher
I wonder how many films have used that line . . . and then I stop wondering and continue watching one of them ('The Prestige'). Oh, and if you saw an Easily holding-page here instead of my web-page, that's because the company I buy my domains through, Easily, decided to 'lose' some of the DNS information for a few of my domains. Oooops.
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Thursday 14th August 2008
Hercules! Monkeys aloft!
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Blimey, I haven't been writing much here of late, have I? No major news . . . A****** fine, R****** fine . . . everything's all fine. I've been busily creating a Mini-ITX-based multimedia PC thingy, which is now pretty much done, save for a dodgy connection between roof-top aerial and DVB decoder. Otherwise, there's a cute little silver/grey box sitting in my living room, able to play music, surf the internet, play DVDs, play videos in various formats . . . pretty much all the stuff a normal PC would do, but in a tiny living room friendly format. And no DRM, thank the lord. It can record (in theory, if I can sort the aerial connection out) TV and convert DVDs into various formats, if it wanted, so yeah . . . anyway . . .
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Saturday 16th August 2008
You're a comms officer on a ship with no means of communication
     
We're wandering along the path by the Lune, round and about Halton (Crook-a-Lune). Uncle Simon is thoroughly entertaining A****** with tales of giants and monsters lurking in the woods, either side of the path.
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Sunday 17th August 2008
Grange-over-sands . . . another unimaginative title for what could potentially be . . .
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Pub lunch at The Ship Inn (Sandside, near Arnside), followed by a walk along the front at Grange. I don't currently have time to write much more. Mark took some of these pictures and I took the ones from 7299 onwards. Not sure who took the others.
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Tuesday 19th August 2008
Ruby, ruby, ruby
     
Tonight, whilst A****** and R****** were baby-sat at Helen & Stu's, M**** and I went to the Boot and Shoe to celebrate my parents' Ruby wedding anniversary. M**** took some of these pictures, I took some and if there's a picture with both of us in it, then the camera was balanced precariously on a mantelpiece.
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Wednesday 20th August 2008
Jump where?!
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Just finished watching the film 'Jumper' and I'm thinking, "What!? Did everyone involved in this film just get bored or something?" The film just seemed to end half-way through or perhaps at the end of part 1, I'm not sure. Is there a part 2? Do I care? Does anyone? |
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Friday 22nd August 2008
Glazzon
     
Glasson Dock, eh? (or 'Glazzon', as I once heard an old lady refer to it on the radio) Dontcha just love it? You got boats, ships, barges, cranes, a freaky road/bridge/lock thing, fine views of Heysham A (and B!), a fantastic smokehouse (yeah, okay, so the paté was a trifle expensive) and loads of water. Love it.
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Saturday 23rd August 2008
Adaptation
I remember when I started doing my driving lessons, with none other than John G. Wilde (where are you now, John?), I was really into stuff like Yes, Queen, Pink Floyd, stuff like that. But, and here's the important thing, I had recently 'discovered' 'The Yes Album' (that might not have been its name . . . I mean, was 'The White Album' actually called the 'The White Album'?!) by the band, Yes. Then John lent me, amongst other things, 'The Faust Tapes' by . . . yep, Faust. And suddenly, I grew out of Yes. I say all this because, when I first watched 'Being John Malkovich', I thought this was a really, really good film. I'm stuggling now to remember what would have been the comparable film to the music version of 'The Faust Tapes' . . . where do I start? I'm kinda thinking 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', but even 'The Truman Show' would do. That is, we grow out of certain films, but then there are other films we would watch again and again and again. And so, on Friday night I found myself watching Adaptation. It stank of 'Spike Jonze' (not least because of the opening credits), but I was prepared to give it a chance, not least (again) because it featured Nicholas Cage (hey, we loved you in 'Leaving Las Vegas'). I was loving the thing about orchids, the characters played by Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper . . . and here's where M**** and I agreed . . . they could have done so much with those two characters and the orchids, but no . . . they didn't. Instead we get a typically quirky, self-indulgent, self-referential . . . mess, really. Half-way through the film, I was like, "Well, I've invested this much time into this film, I might as well see how it ends," not that I was too much bothered by that point (SPOILER ABOUT TO OCCUR) as I had already assumed that John was gonna get monged up by a crocodile/alligator/thing . . . it was kind of inevitable, really. So I give this film a five out of ten. If you loved 'Being John Malkovich', you'll probably love this too, but then you'll probably also be bored senseless by something like 'There Will be Blood' and get heavily frustrated by the ending to 'No Country for Old Men' but, hey . . . what do they know?
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Sunday 24th August 2008
Grandpa's on the hill
   
Today we went over to Ambleside to see M****'s grandparents. There is, of course, confusion with the names Nanna/Grandpa, as these are already taken by Helen & Stu. So A****** has taken to calling M****'s granddad 'grandpa on the hill', which kind of makes sense. A****** took (or pretty much did) the last photo in this sequence above.
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I think M**** took all these pictures to the right, hoping to capture all the various people in attendance (I think we're missing Kath and M****).
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Friday 29th August 2008
A****** and R******
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Saturday 30th August 2008
The wedding of Alexis and David
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For those wondering: Alexis is the daughter of M****'s mum's boyfriend, Stu. The connection may be tenuous, but is gradually getting less so. Hmmmmmm. What on earth could that be a reference to?
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Sunday 31st August 2008
Wentworth 'Castle'
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Well, I say 'castle', but it's more of a folly than a castle. The dude who owned Wentworth House decided to make a castle to 'keep up with the Jones' as it were. That is, his neighbours were in the process of building something fantastic, and so Wentworth Castle was constructed (late 18th century) in competition, but also as a playground for his children, or so the story goes. The grounds were kind of abandoned at some point, and the restoration still continues today, but the gardens were pretty amazing nonetheless, although I'm not sure if these pictures can really convey that, of course.
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