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January 30, 2006
how to be nang
My favourite line in this is:
“If you want to be cool you have to live, and if you smoke you will be dead, and that is not cool, to be dead.”
B-)
Posted by Billy at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
cosmopolitan
Well, it’s Chinese New Year, so naturally we celebrated by attacking a haggis-shaped pinata that Kiloh made and then eating haggis neaps and tatties with a bit of Rabbie on the side (Kiloh was slightly disappointed as she says she prefers the meaty haggis but had to eat the veggie one since she’s just joined Verena on the meat-free side of the family). We think it’s been a productive weekend, but that’s partly cos we didn’t really go out and have any fun. The kids did that on their own yesterday. The closest I got was half an hour in the garden with a cup of tea and Nobuyoshi Araki. Apart from getting the handouts ready for tomorrow, my big breakthroughs were to get the tax return 80% done - there are always a couple of bits of paper you can’t find just when you need them so it’s desperate phone call time tomorrow yet again - and to finally fix the puncture I’ve been cycling around on for a couple of weeks. I’ve been calling it a ‘slow’ puncture but it didn’t look slow when I took the tube out of the tyre. Hope it’s still inflated in the morning.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 1:38 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2006
sleeper train
Had a weekend in Scotland last weekend. Mike and I went up by sleeper for Elma’s 60th. A nice journey, although the plunge into darkness and silence when the engine failed at Watford was a bit weird. We arrived 4 and a half hours late, which is pretty significant when you’ve only got two days. It was a nice visit and good to see everybody. Kyle is at the one-word stage and has some nice versions of names. Kirstin is ‘tin’ and Kyle is ‘me’. Kirstin is a laugh a minute and I was pleased to see her adopting ‘Uncle Pongo’ as a name for Mike.
I’d post a Scottish photo but blueyonder is letting me down again.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 2:02 PM | Comments (0)
#3
“The noises are about to begin”! (followed by some thuds) B-))
Posted by Billy at 1:47 PM | Comments (0)
#2
Followed by: ‘Billy! Do you know where there are any nails?”
B-)
Posted by Billy at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
utterances you might not be sure you want to hear #1
Kiloh just said: ‘I’m about to do some DIY, so don’t be alarmed if you hear some noises’
B-)
Posted by Billy at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2006
the suspense is over
mai’s blog - mai and mr. right
Well, she kept us in suspense for a while but I’m sure we were all guessing more or less the same thing. Looking forward to hearing more details…
B-)
Posted by Billy at 5:50 PM | Comments (1)
January 13, 2006
la campagne to pluto
Saw a talk on Renoir the other day. The highlight was the unused footage from Une Partie de Campagne
I’m nerdy enough to enjoy hearing Renoir say ‘coupez’ and watching his son using the clapper board but I felt like I was dreaming watching the main love scene again and again, and then wakening up every time the scene was over and Sylvia Bataille switched off her rapture and laughed at the camera. It is of course the classic ‘man-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer’ scene but I won’t comment on patonamu’s ‘Romantisized rape scene fantasy of a Man’ comment (at bottom of imdb page.
I left before the question session to go to the screen next door for Breakfast On Pluto followed by a Q+A with Neil Jordan and Cillian Murphy. As Neil Jordan says, the film is ‘picaresque’ and ‘not plot-driven’ so there is a slight sense that it’s just a bunch of stuff happening until it finishes rather than having a sense of climax and resolution. But it’s great, and Cillian Murphy really is awesome. All the other performers are great too, including Gavin Friday and his glam rock covers band.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 1:22 PM | Comments (0)
film language
premiere - film-making lexicon
This is tiny but I guess it’s a start. Hope they’re planning to add to it.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 1:18 PM | Comments (1)
January 3, 2006
balderdash and piffle
This was an enjoyable programme about the OED. The main idea is for viewers and the programme makers to work together to find new info to update the OED. They focused on words where the earliest citation seems too recent, e.g. the earliest citation they’ve got for ‘pear-shaped’ is 1983 and the earliest for ‘ploughman’s lunch’ is 1970. I loved the story about ‘ploughman’s lunch’ (the phrase was invented in the late 50’s/early 60’s as a way of promoting British cheeses) and the literature and beer mats. And I especially liked the scene where Victoria Coren found the phrase in a letter and some minutes while searching the archive with her big white gloves on. The piece on Polari by Mark Ravenhill was also good.
Billy
Posted by Billy at 2:44 PM | Comments (0)
Linguist of the Year
Noam Chomsky just won another poll.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
back to work
There were a few funny tummies at Christmas, as well as a broken boiler (which chose christmas eve to pack in) and Hogmanay was also a bit sick. Donal had mumps so his 18th birthday party/hogmanay combo was cancelled and replaced with a small neighbours’ party. Andrew caught it (them?) too and we had a rather strange evening with people disappearing for lie-downs and to pop into other parties before we all got onto the bathroom roof to watch the fireworks and toast the new year. We had a quick game of Buzz (playstation music quiz) after which Ohna suggested that reducing Dad’s Competivitiveness might be a resolution to go alongside my main one about improving my contribution to the quality of family life.
The last couple of days have been really nice with all of us at home and no school or anything. It’s ending soon, though. Apoa’s back to school today. We weren’t sure whether she’d be able to get up after having adjusted to late mornings and nights, so we were amazed to hear her up making breakfast an hour early at 5.30. She then went back to bed and was pretty tired by the time she caught her train. I’m back to work today but working at home before getting back on campus tomorrow. We’ve pencilled in a break later on to start taking down decorations and the tree. Kiloh’s back on Thursday so she’s PS2ing like crazy in the meantime.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
January 2, 2006
relativity
I’ve just been listening to Albert Einstein telling me about the equivalence of energy and matter.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)