meish dot org: life, unfolding

I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the similarities between the promo poster for Inception and the “horizonless projection of Manhattan” map made by BERG (here’s a post by Jack Schulze about the design influences for the project):

I’ve got the Here And There (HAT) map prints, and they absolutely deserve further scrutiny because they’re so detailed, plus it’s a really interesting, mind-bending (sorry) way to think about space, and the world.

1. Vicky Christina Barcelona (Woody Allen makes not entirely irritating film shocker)
2. Robots (VO artiste who’s who)
3. Eagle Eye (Shia Le Boeuf and Billy-Ray Thornton in risible action thriller. Not dis-similar to The Net, or Phone Booth)
4. Body of Lies (Lots of mumbling, plus bad facial hair (Di Caprio) and bad accents (Crowe))
5. Dangerous Liasons (Wigs and social complexities)
6. W (Truth is stranger than fiction, plus special bonus appearance by Noah Wylie)
7. The Secret Life of Bees (Almost exactly what you would expect)
8. A Bunch of Amateurs (Horrible ensemble Brit Com starring a plank of wood as Burt Reynolds)
9. Ballet Shoes (sweet BBC seasonal adaptation of Noel Streatfield book)
10. Burn After Reading (Engaging Coen brothers caper)
11. Rachel Getting Married (AKA is this film STILL on?)
12. The Sea Inside (Javier Bardem, mumbling hotly)
13. Primary Colors (electioneering fascination)

Telly, and other things:

1. QI XL (3 episodes)
2. Dexter s1 e1-4
3. The Wire s1 e1-3
4. Greys Anatomy (1 episode)
5. Gossip Girl (2 episodes)
6. Flight of the Conchords (s1)

Things I opted not to watch:

1. High School Musical 3: Senior Year

PLUS! Bonus tip for international air travel:
You must never, ever look at yourself in the bathroom mirror at 40,000 feet, after 6+ hours in the air. There’s something about the combination of lighting, dehydration, stress, fatigue and having to stand 6″ from your bedraggled reflection that will make you feel even worse than you look (as if that were possible).

This is absolutely delightful.

(Slideshow of this set on Flickr)

(More context and reflection here)

The end.

Last night, out for dinner with a group of friends in celebration of one of our number’s birthday, I mentioned that I had noticed that in an awful lot of articles lamenting the lately departed entertainer and king of trivia and video clips, Jeremy Beadle, he was referred to as a “Prankster”.

In fact, a casual search on the interwebs shows that he’s been referred to as such online on no fewer than 464,000 occasions, and that his name occurs in nearly a fifth of all search results for “prankster”. This is surely the only proof required.

This got me thinking about where “prankster” registers in the general field of japes and subterfuge, which in turn got us talking about whether there was, in fact, a continuum of such things, into which all of the various shades of japery, trickery and subterfuge might appear.

And you know, there is. And here’s how the categories break out, with a full explanation of each, and examples, after the jump.

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Challenged by m’colleague Neil to reveal what I’ve been consuming, media-wise this week, I am delighted to flash my digital hem, as it were, particularly because it affords me the parallel opportunity to apologise for being AWOL since before Christmas. I’ve been away, you see, and as a result, my media consumption for the past week has been a bit different in many ways to what I might otherwise have consumed.

What I read
Despite not being in the office (or perhaps because of it), I’ve enjoyed reading the paper: The Guardian, of course and particularly enjoyed the NYE quiz special edition of G2 - I got further with King Williams College Quiz than in previous years (i.e. managed to answer a whole 23 questions), and the general quiz of the year kept me guessing for at least a few pots of tea. But since I’ve been up in Scotland for a few days, I’ve also been reading The Oban Times (which is handy for broader local news as well as the cult-reading that is D Morisson’s weekly roundup of Scalpay news) as well as Round And About Mull, the monthly island paper, for local perspective (i.e. in order to understand the contexts of what many local conversations are about).

In addition, I flicked through the Birmingham Airport free magazine (called Destinations, I think) and had a saunter through both The Herald and The Daily Record in the BA lounge this afternoon, though I don’t think we can really count that as reading. Oh, and I read an article about the Isle of Mull Weavers at Ardalanish, which featured in Country Life of all things, which my mum had borrowed from a friend. I swear I didn’t read anything else in there, though.

I also dipped into Utopian Dreams by Tobias Jones, which I’d heard snatches of when serialised on Radio 4, but found a copy of at my mum’s house. But managed not to touch the book I took up with me for holiday reading (A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon) until the train/plane today, because I was so busy. Busy relaxing, of course…

What I watched
Not a right lot. This is basically because my mum doesn’t have a television. However, in the few days I was in Shropshire at the end of last week, I saw The History Boys on the BBC, and the news. On DVD, I watched a couple of episodes of Coast 2 with my mum (showing her how to watch DVDs on new laptop) and after dinner with some friends on the Ross of Mull, An Inconvenient Truth, which I’d somehow managed to miss. And on New Year’s Day, when particularly hungover, I took the laptop back to bed and watched Dara O’Briain’s live solo standup gig via the streaming version of iPlayer. And let me tell you, for that alone, I *heart* the BBC.

I singularly failed to watch either of the DVDs I carried around with me because they’d just arrived from Lovefilm before I set off on my travels - The Magicians and The Lives of Others. Maybe this weekend - could make for a slightly random double bill…

What I listened to
Being in a rather (how can I put this politely?) radio-wave-light area, radio didn’t feature too hugely in my daily audio diet, but I did manage to receive Radio 4 (sort of) when driving across the island yesterday, and used the BBC’s Listen Again to catch up on news from R4.

Musically-speaking, I listened (with my dad) to some Peter Skellern, a lot of Bach, some Ella Fitzgerald and a bunch of 1950s Trinidadian London Calypso and (with my mum) to Julie Fowlis’ excellent Cuilidh album, plus Kate Rusby’s Awkward Annie, among others. On my ipod, I continued to plough my way through the This American Life archives (from about 1999), mainly. I didn’t listen to much music via ipod, really, which is odd for me.

What I surfed
Given that I’ve been away, a lot of my normal surfing patterns were disrupted, and so any surfing fell into two distinct classes: Maintenance (which included Gmail, Twitter, Netvibes and Flickr) and Random Weird Shit (which included ebay searching for sonic mouse deterrents for a friend of mum’s, Nestoria property porn and the official rules of shinty). When I could (and it wasn’t often) I used my phone to keep up with twitter and gmail. I used the web to create, though - both within flickr and for the local community on Mull following the annual Hogmanay Shinty on the beach shenanigans.

….and finally, though this wasn’t in the original meme: What I played
I can’t let an opportunity go by without mentioning Peggle (and specifically, Peggle for iPod) which kept my thumbs occupied for much of the journeying. I also played a lot of cards: Shithead, mostly.

I know I’m supposed to tag someone with this meme, though I don’t want anyone to feel under pressure, especially this early in the year. So, um, feel free to share what you’ve been consuming (if you want), Caroline, Tom, Gordon, Cliff and Wendy. Or don’t. It’s all gravy.

I’ve just come back from seeing the latest HP outing, in which Harry and chums do, y’know, wizardy things in the face of evil. This is the fifth in the series (the ‘difficult’ fifth Harry Potter tome is apparently much like most recording artists’ ‘difficult’ second album) and I don’t think I’ll be spoiling it for anyone if I tell you that the fact that there are two more books after this one both of which contain his name means that Harry scrapes through this one ok.

This was the book I didn;t read - or rather, this was the one that I bought, tried, and eventually hurled at the wall in dismay after several chapters - which took a sizable chunk out of the plaster, unfortunately, though that’ll give you some indication of its main problem - with a cry of “For feck’s sake, won’t someone get this woman an EDITOR!”

See, I’d read the first few books, though not when they’d first come out. I’m a bit anti-hype when it comes to media consumption, which means that the more people are shrieking about how everyone simply MUST read X or see Y, the less likely I am to do it. I’m contrary like that.

So thanks to having been blogging for yonks, I am able to note that in the middle of 2000, I still hadn’t read any Harry Potter, and in fact was steadfastly holding out on doing so, thanks to this contrary streak.

In this post, I predicted

what will probably happen is this: I’ll hold out on reading them for another year or so, until the fuss has died down, and then I’ll read them surreptitiously, and probably bore everyone to death on how much I enjoyed them, waaay after the fact is pertinent. I did it with Trainspotting. I did it with Memoirs of a Geisha. I did it with Letter to Daniel. I’m doing it with Cryptonomicon. I think I can manage it with a twelve year old wizard, don’t you?

Though that’s not quite the way it happened, because for one thing, the fuss didn’t die down in a couple of years, and for another, I suddenly found a pressing reason to read them, unrelated to having something to consume on the tube.

About 6 years ago, I was running a commercial publishing department within a big media company, which meant that my team dreamt up, designed, developed and delivered bespoke editorial projects for commercial partners. Essentially, whenever an advertiser or agency was talking to the general ad-sales team and said they wanted something “a bit different” - and remember, back then, that “a bit different” was anything that wasn’t a flashing gif banner, or a straightforward sponsorship - my phone rang. Drywipe markers were my wands, and with them I’d convene brainstorming sessions with people from all over the company, sketching possibilities on on the whiteboard until we came up with something magic.

Anyway, one Friday afternoon in August 2001, I got a phone call to say that we’d been asked to pitch for a particular piece of work with a major global brand, who were launching a promotion with a Potter theme, and wanted us to come in and talk ideas with them first thing Tuesday morning.

Around me, the team started buzzing excitedly, reaching into a vocabulary which I had no familiarity with, chuntering away about sorting hats and muggle this, dumble that. When someone said we could create a virtual Hogwarts, I thought “hog-whu?” and said we should take the weekend to think and come in with ideas on Monday.

On the way home that evening, I eschewed the lure of my friends and the pub, and went instead to Books Etc, where I bought the box set of the first three books and the fourth for good measure.

And then I sat down and read them.
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I’m away for a few days (in Scotland, where the weather is beautiful and I got sunburnt today while pootling about in a boat) but still in touch with the world, and wanted to note:

a) The untimely passing of Fopp. I first went to Fopp in Edinburgh in…ooh, must have been 1992 or 93, and continued to pour money into their tills while I worked in Aberdeen during the 90s. Fopp furnished me with most of my Tom Waits collection, actually, now I think about it. It was, for a long time, the perfect shop for a lover of eclectic music on a student budget. When it opened in London, I was chuffed, and I have to admit to being sad to hear it’s closing its doors this week. RIP FOPP.

b) I’ve been following the 1000 films to see before you die partwork in this week’s papers with some interest, and I’ve been trying to figure out how many ‘ve seen. My current breakdown is as follows:

A: 16
B: 27
C: 14
D: 10
E: 7
F: 10
G: 13
H: 6
I: 8
J: 6
K: 3
L: 5
M: 19
N: 1
O: 7
P: 11
Q: 0
R: 4
S: 27
T: 19
U: 3
V: 1
W: 8
X: 1
Y: 2
Z: 1

Making a total of just 229 from the full 1000.

By my reckoning, if I’ve got another 771 films which I absolutely MUST watch before I die, I’d better get cracking because at an average of 2 hours per film, that’s going to take me nearly 100,000 hours, or somewhere in the region of 9 1/2 weeks.

Which is sort of fitting, really.

I went to see La Môme (La Vie en Rose), the acclaimed Edith Piaf biopic, this weekend.

On the positive side:

• Leading actress Marion Cotillard was very good, managing to not only span four decades but also various physical and mental states during the film. Her approach to the character was embodied, in everything she did, and that made her engaging to watch.
• The girl sure knows how to lip-synch along to vocal performances. Kudos for that - it’s easy to look fake (see Top of The Pops in days gone by for that) but hard to not just match the pace but also the breathing.

However, on the negative side…

• …about half the film consisted of the Piaf character shrieking at her various companions at a pitch that set my teeth on edge
• I don’t think I can listen to Piaf again - the film sort of spoilt the music for me, being so completely bound up with her character, which painted her as essentially a very nasty piece of work.
• …and in fact, I couldn’t sleep when I got home from the cinema because I had the most godawful earworm of “je ne regrette rien” which went round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in my head until dawn when I managed to drop off with headphones jammed in my ears, listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on my iPod.
• While Cotillard apparently went to great lengths to embody the character of Piaf - shaving her eyebrows and her hairline, there were points at which the prosthetic eyebrows (used for young Edith) threatened to overtake the acting. Extreme close-ups do that.
• The film jumped about all over the place in time, lacking an overall narrative structure, which made it confusing and a bit irritating to follow. Or, to put it another way: an overall place in time, lacking a structure, which made it the confusing narrative film about the irritating bit and jumped over all to follow.
• There’s a very fine line between emotive facialising and gurning. There were at least a few moments when I thought that we were about to see some Al Jolson -style expressions. Hard to know how much of that was Piaf, though.
• There was an awful lot of assumed knowledge. I found myself constantly wondering who people were, how they related to each other, and whether something was important or not.
• Weird lingering focus/emphasis on certain bits of the story, later revealed to add not much to the whole narrative. So detailed, in-depth exposition of her childhood, illnesses, parent-substitutes and so on, and then…no further mention. Just seemed odd, is all. See also: showing practically an entire boxing match in the middle of it.
• Way, way too long. Seriously.

If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a great opportunity to catch An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s double-Oscar winning film about our environmental crisis, this Sunday afternoon, 29th April. In fact, if you haven’t already seen it, then this might be your last chance to do so on the big screen, as it’s no longer available on general release.

There’s a special charity screening at The Tricycle Theatre, which is a great little independent place, on Kilburn High Road in NW6. It’s handy for the tube/north london line train and loads of buses go up there. Here’s a map.

The screening starts at 12.30pm (lunchtime) and costs £12.50 including some nibbles. All proceeds go to charity, too, which is cool. There are more details about both film and charity here.

Basically, if you’re in two minds about whether to attend, do: It could be the most informative and stimulating Sunday lunchtime you’ve had in ages - and it certainly beats the pants of the Eastenders omnibus…

Anyway, to book your seat, call 020 7328 1000. I’ll see you there.

Before we go any further, can I just point out in my defence that
a) I spent a lot of time on planes last year, and when on planes, I watch crap
b) I spent a lot of time being stressed last year, and when stressed I tend towards mindless pap on DVD, a cat on my knee and a nice cup of tea
c) I spent a lot of time last year craving big comfy cinema seat, total blackness, popcorn and an immersive bigscreen experience. Sometimes I’ll go and see things at the cinema just because they’re on.
d) My DVD rental service is a little….erratic. I have a nasty habit of going on to the site once in a while (possibvly while intoxicated) and adding all sorts of random things to the rental queue. Also, I’m sure they send me surprise things which I never ordered….

My rating system, as you’ll notice, is on the five Meg scale, with one Meg being dire and five Megs being something I really enjoyed, would definitely see again and would probably recommend.

Children of Men
Brokeback mountain
Mad Hot Ballroom
Bewitched
Da Vinci Code
Bobby
The Last King of Scotland
The History Boys
The Devil Wears Prada
Little Miss Sunshine
Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
School of Rock
Breaking All The Rules
Playing By Heart
Nacho Libre
Superman Returns
Casino Royale
Confetti
Deck the Halls
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Mission Impossible 3
Wah Wah
Thirteen Blocks
Assault on Precinct Sixteen
Serendipity
Alex & Emma
The Prince and Me
A Cinderella Story
Elf
The Girl Next Door
A Home At the End of the World
The Ladykillers
Spanglish
Million Dollar Baby
Anchorman
Raising Helen
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
Rumour Has It
Spartan
Paperback Hero
Bad Santa
Beauty Shop
Being Julia
Cellular
Christmas with the Kranks
Coach Carter
De-Lovely
Finding Neverland
Flight of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In Her Shoes
The Island
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Meet the Fockers
Nanny McPhee
The Notebook
Palindromes
Shall We Dance?
Surviving Christmas
Pride and Prejudice
Uptown Girls
Wedding Crashers
The Wedding Date

I had this theory that I was going to write about the films I saw. As you can see, I’ve watched so much dross in the last twelve months that I don’t think it’s worth the RSI, to be honest. However, since i’ll undoubtedly continue to watch films both good and bad, at some point in the future I might even get around to writing about any new ones…