QotD: Reality TV Star
If you could be on any reality TV show, which one would you pick and why?
I wouldn't. I really, really wouldn't.
QotD: Desktop Show and Tell
What is your current computer desktop image? Let's see it!
I like my desktop images fairly plain and uncluttered. I often have Apple's own images up, which meet that standard fairly nicely. Right now, though, I have a couple of my own photos. On the iBook (top) I have a details of a rock seen while walking in South Devon with Lorna Tinworth, Rev Stan and Mosh.
On the iMac I have a slightly abstract view of the London Eye, grabbed while walking along the Embankment one afternoon, on the way back from a meeting somewhere or another. I like them both because they work as images when on full display, but don't distract the eye when the poke out from behind an application.
Weekend Movies
I got the chance to watch a couple of movies over the weekend. Jarhead, directed by Sam Mendes, was a distinctly average movie. Some great acting and brilliant photography failed to conceal a movie that was essentially empty of real meaning.
It's only when you watch the special features that you get a feeling of what went wrong. Usually when I watch deleted scenes, I can see why the scenes were deleted. Here, all I could see was a far better movie than the one I watched. And Mendes' narration made it clear that he was a book whose power lay in the psychology of what the marines went though, in which the key element was lost in the transition to screen. Shame.
Memoirs of a Geisha was a far better film: visually stunning, beautifully acted and compelling viewing. Some slight elements of "westernising" the story grated a little, but that's just a nitpick. This was a film a genuine didn't want to end. Bearing in mind that I never got much beyond the first 100 pages of the book, that's quite a compliment.
QotD: Can you hear me now?
What's your cell phone's ringtone? What made you pick it?
It's one of the deafult Nokia ones that came with the phone. It sounds much like an old vinyl LP being put on a truntable, played for a bit and then "scratched" off.
I really like the mix of old and new technology it represents.
Sir Bob entertains
My friend alan is here on Vox. He's a musician who plays in Bob Geldof's band. He's posted a couple of YouTube videos of performances on his blog lately, but they don't seem to be fully "integrated". I just wanted to see if I could make it work:
Alan, feel free to ask me "how?" ;-)
QotD: You've got to blog!
If you could get someone in your life to start a blog, who would it be and why?
All three people I'd really like to get blogging are already signed up to Vox - they're just not using it yet:
My wife, Lorna, my Mum and a good mate, Andy.
Lorna has a lot of strong opinions that could do with an outlet elsewhere, I'd like to see more of my Mum's photography online and Andy's a great writer that needs to get the blogging habit…
QotD: Your fantasy restaurant
If you could open any sort of restaurant, what would it be like?
I have a small, quiet desire to run a food-led country pub. My time on Publican nearly killed that desire, but not quite.
I'd like somewhere on the edge of a country village, with a nice mix of local trade and passing trade. Somewhere not unlike the Huntsman & Hounds, in fact.
QotD: I wish I could...
Play any instrument or speak any language, which do you choose?
Question submitted by cruftbox.vox.com.
Honest answer: if I really wanted to learn a language or instrument, I would have done so. And I haven't.
QotD: Back where I'm from...
Soda? Cola? Pop? What do you say? Any other regional words that set you apart?
Question submitted by Gladys.
"Coke" or "fizzy drinks" or, more recently, "that evil gut-rotting bilge which I can't drink because it inflicts evil bathroom torment on me".
TMI?
QotD: It's hot in here...
What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?
Some years ago - maybe 18 - I was walking with schoolfriends in the Caingorms in Scotland. We were serveral miles out of Aviemore when we were caught in a whiteout while travelling over a mountain pass. We literally couldn't see our hands in front of our faces, the snow was so thick. We formed a train, with each of us holding the rucksack of the person in front, and moved in small circles until we found a bothy we knew was nearby to shelter in. We spent an hour or so there, waiting for the storm to pass.
A frightening, but exhilarating experience.
QotD: Shaken not stirred
What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com
Whisky. With nothing in it.
Ok, I might be prepared to put it on ice when it's this hot.
Scottish whiskey for choice.
Irish whiskey for quantity drinking.
American whiskey for lighting the BBQ.
Other whiskies for stripping paint.
QotD: Midway Through
What's one thing that you hope to do or accomplish before the end of this year?
Finish redeveloping the flat, sell it and be living outside the M25 by Christmas.
And I don't just hope to do this; I need to do this.
Science and Faith
I don't often blog about my faith any more, but with all the hoo-hah about Bush and stem cells, I would just like to repeat a quote I think is central to my world view as a Christian:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Albert Einstein
Bit Warm
As I was driving to Heathrow last night to pick up a couple of friends, my car indicated that the temperature had hit 36°C. Ouch. The Evening Standard confirmed it later: the hottest recorded day in London.
Luckily, perhaps, our friends live in Florida, and are used to far worse than the worst London offers us.
(I was going to post this last night, but Flickr was "having a massage". And we all know what that euphemism means…)
QotD: Celebrational Muppetational!
Who is your favorite Muppet? Why?
QotD submitted by knitwitology.vox.com.
It has to be Kermit the Frog. Waaaay back in the early 90s, when I was editing a student magazine, we had a chart on the wall comparing each member of staff to a muppet. I was, of course, Kermit: the good natured, but over-stressed guy at the heart of the production, trying to keep his eccentric team focused and directed.
And rarely succeeding.
The amusing thing is that the wonderful woman who is now my wife was nicknamed Miss Piggy by her family when she was much, much younger…
Away from the centre
It's the little, subtle things that tell you that you've moved away from the centre of London. Today, for example, I popped to Sutton Post Office to post some eBay and Amazon sales to the their buyers.
When I arrived the queue was about 10 people long. "Phew," I thought. "Nice and quick."
That was Central London Adam talking. Maybe I was lulled into a delusion by the fact I'm still within the M25, but it caught me with surpirse when each of those 10 people was served with a leisurely care that would have done Suffolk proud.
I have a little adjusting still to do.