Oh the life of an international jet-setter (as if).
Just got back from a lurvely holiday in Funchal, Madeira (as in Madeira wine) – part of an Portuguese archipelago of islands off the coast of Morroco (like 1000km) in the mid Atlantic.
Lovely island – friendly people, beautiful scenery, that sort of thing. Not that we were too adventurous as the purpose of the trip was for us to chill out, and spends lots of time with granny. We did wander a lot through Funchal, did a walk along a levada, and peered over the highest cliff in Europe.
I clearly have a jinx on flying though – we got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, and had to run through the terminal to the sounds of a “final boarding call for passengers…”, and on the way back we arrived an Funchal airport to discover our plane hadn’t left Manchester yet (and it’s about a 4 hour flight!). This wasn’t so bad, as Funchal airport has a great children’s play area which kept the little ‘un happy for most of our 6 hour wait (having got to the airport 2 hours early, like good bunnies).
The best bet was yet to come though – after the plane finally arrived from Manchester, we boarded and sat happily in our seats, only for them to ‘pop the hood’ on the port engine and start tinkering. Joy of joys – 90 minutes sitting on the tarmac while they search for a hydraulic leak that I don’t think existed in the end.
So we landed some point after midnight, and finally got home at 2.30 am – a good 6 hours after we should have got back.Perhaps I should give up flying?
Just had the pleasure of a last-minute work trip to the US – Boston to be exact – that, while I didn’t really get to see very much except the hotel and the people I was visiting, did afford half a day in downtime Boston, and of course the joys of international air travel.
I haven’t got time to put all my anecdotes down right now; got lots to do today and won’t be on the computer again for a week, but I will record them for posterity right here just as soon as I have a mo. I should have done it while I was out there, but somehow couldn’t really find inspiration.
So stay tuned (or more realistically tune in again in a few weeks) and you find out all about the joys of Schipol airport and an unscheduled visit to central Amsterdam, wading through icy sludge on the way to Harvard, and sleeping at Gate 12 of Kennedy airport while they fix the plane.
And all that’s before we talk about Lobsters, nachos, and George Bush Snr!
You hardly ever see hitch-hickers these days, do you? I remember about 15 or 20 years ago, it seemed you could never drive down a motorway slip road without seeing a chap with his thumb sticking out… But now I can’t remember the last time I saw someone trying to hitch a ride.
Until just now, that is. Leeds RAG is apparently doing a sponsored hitch to Hull, so the roads around the University are a-wash with students holding out cardboard signs saying “HULL” and generally cluttering up the roads.
I don’t know why hitching is out of vogue. Maybe more drivers have posh cars that they don’t want to share with smelly hitchers? Maybe drivers are more cautious of stopping for strangers? Maybe people generally are more affluent, so can afford to run their own car or hop on a bus or a train rather than getting soaked and freezing standing by the side of the road? Or perhaps it’s the advent of budget travel, with easyBus doing 99p seats to Glasgow or whatever, and of course all the budget airlines.
Probably a combination of all of the above. On balance it’s probably a bit of a shame – one day I just might need to hitch a ride, and I’ll be out of luck!
Oh yes, and do you think I should tell them that the centre of Leeds is probably not a great place to try and cadge a lift to Hull? 🙂
Just made a scary discovery – I first signed up to It’s Your Turn nearly six years ago! Since then I have lost 62% of the games of Chess I have played on the site, and most of those to my friend penguin.
Ho hum – but then it’s the taking part that counts!
If anyone fancies beating me at chess, send an invite – I’m “jhandley” over there. Probably best to set a 30 day limit for moves.
Hooray – my alarm has gone off for the last time until next Friday! 🙂
Well, actually, we’ll probably need it in order to to make it to the 8am service on Monday morning, which will probably mean leaving the house at the same time. Come to that, I’m sure our little human alarm clock is going to work his magic most mornings. Bosh var.
But ANYWAY, the point is no more work, after today, for a week (and even then it’s only a day). Yippee!!
Came across a term in the Metro yesterday that I’d not heard before; Google-stalker. Isn’t that a fantastic neologism; you instantly know exactly what it means, but then after a few minutes you think “Hey – I wonder if I’m a Google-stalker when I search for random friends/colleagues.” I quite often try to see if any of my friends from PGL or from uni are evident in cyberspace (usually with no success). I guess Friends Reunited and MySpace are other sites which promote this stalkeresque behaviour – at what point does looking up an old friend become an obsession?
The other term was wikipediholics, which again absolutely hits the nail on the head. Had the wikipedia been around when I was younger, I’m absolutely certain I would have absolutely addicted to it, and spent a lot of time and energy creating/correcting entries!
After a pretty slow start, I actually ended up really enjoying this film. The basic premise is that Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are mother and daughter, who magically swap bodies on the eve of the mother’s wedding (following the death of the husband/father 3 years previously). That said this is firmly aimed at the young teen market, and has it’s humour and tone pitched accordingly. Nothing too heavy here, everyone!
It must be said that Jamie Lee absolutely blew the socks of LiLo in terms of acting, although I guess it’s an easier ask for a 40/50 year old to believably act like a teenager than the other way round.
All the usual stuff about the importance of seeing the other person’s point of view and listening to one another was there – possibly laid on a little bit thick. On balane I enjoyed it though. The whole step-dad thing wasn’t done brilliantly – his character seem to drastically change in the last 5 minutes in a way that reeked of deus ex-machina, but that might just be me.
High point of the film was definitely when LiLo came home after getting 2 detentions to disover her bedroom door had been removed. “Privacy is a priviledge, not a right” says her mum. 🙂
Perhaps I only like kooky films these days, but I found To Die For a mild disappointment. There was nothing desperately wrong with it, and I quite like the idea of the story unfolding as Nicole Kidman videoed a CV and her relatives gave interviews to the media, both in response to the events of the film.
This probably made up half the film – the other half was the events themselves, told through flashbacks.
The problem was it didn’t really work for me. Nicole Kidman’s character Suzanne Stone simply didn’t hang together very well. On the one hand utterly failing to understand a fairly simple anecdote, but on the other hand a criminal mastermind. Ok, so the latter point is an exaggeration, but I found it jarring none-the-less. By a similar token, there was no real suspense in the film… the opening credits told you what had happened and who did it, the rest of the time was filling in the blanks. Somehow when American Beauty did this it was “wow – how’s this journey going to work”.. when To Die For did it it was “who cares?”.
Her motivation for killing her husband was also flimsy in the extreme, and while her method was believable, and well played out on camera, she really didn’t come across as that much of a psychopath. It was just a bit too hammy for my liking. The two huge stars where Joaquin Phoenix (already a fan of his) and Illeana Douglas, who were the only two people who didn’t look like they were acting. Everyone else could have been on the set of Friends, really.
The ending was very nicely done too – full marks for that. Watch it if it’s on telly, otherwise find another!
Yup, it’s another cracker. Crying shame they couldn’t get Nicole Kidman back (I don’t have anything against Bryce Dallas Howard, but her Grace doesn’t have the fragile beauty of Kidman’s Grace) – not that I’m particularly surprised since I don’t suppose our Nicole would have agreed to a scene were she is in flagrante delicto : lying on her back, naked, with her legs spread wide, filmed from the bottom of the bed….
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Lars von Trier has struck gold again, and the above gratuious sex was only about 2 minutes in an otherwise entirely modest film.
The story picks up from the end of Dogville – Grace and her father are travelling through the US, when they come upon the plantation called Manderlay. Grace discovers a negro slave is about to be beaten by his owners, and Grace intervenes to set the slaves free, as should have happenbed 70 years sooner. The stories follows Grace’s efforts to turn this former slave colony into a free enterprise – no easy task. Her father wants no part of it and continues on his way, although not before leaving Grace with some gangsters and guns (‘power’) to help things on their way.
Where Dogville was brutal and even shocking – very uncomfortable to watch, Manderlay is gentler on the surface, but a lot more challenging. Lars is making a very strong statement about the attitude of white Americans to black people – slave or otherwise – and winds up the films with clips like the beating of Rodney King (which he reminds us was only in 1991).
I won’t say anymore, because I don’t want to spoil it – suffice to say when I’ve watched next year’s offering – Washington – I fully intend to buy the trilogy to keep as powerful and thought provoking set of films.
