HBD
Happy birthday arcmorality!! :)

The music is weaving
It's here again.....

Last year's winner loses his paper boat, which then goes on a Stick Man journey to get home to Vienna. And he sings some actual opera!  And a new song?

Apparently Romania are back? (Edit after looking up their participation record: first time since 2022, and before that 2017!)  And Delta Goodrem is representing Australia?!

Another spectacular performance of last year's winning song in the middle of the flag parade! Guhhh, that guy's voice!

Just two hosts this year, male and female, seemingly dressed as a Disney mermaid and genie. (Oh, and a third presenter in the green room.) They intend to tediously namedrop winning songs throughout the show...

( Songs and assorted madnessCollapse )

Current Mood: amused

HBD
Happy birthday chemina42, if you're still reading!

HBD
Happy birthday pookatimes!

Caaaaards
Thank you glitteringloke, billyhicks and arcmorality for your cards which all arrived today! :)

Current Mood: busy

Languages Of Truth
On Saturday I finished reading Salman Rushdie's Languages Of Truth: Essays 2003-2020, which was published in 2021 and brings together all kinds of stuff he's written over the years - lectures he's given, newspaper and magazine articles, introductions to books etc. There are general musings about things like storytelling, adaptations, truth, censorship and people assuming fiction is autobiographical (I tended to like these essays more), while other chapters discuss the work of various writers, artists and photographers (often people I'd never heard of and books I haven't read, so that stuff ranged from "totally over my head" to "interesting to hear about"). There's a thoughtful piece of journalism about the hijra community which taught me all kinds of details I had no idea about. There's a chapter about how his Christmas celebrations have changed over the years, and one reflecting on the Covid pandemic - a real mixture!  I didn't make a lot of notes, but I always enjoy reading his non-fiction stuff.

( What notes I did makeCollapse )

Current Mood: tired

HBD
Happy birthday glitteringloke! :)

HBD
Happy birthday billyhicks! :)

HBD
Happy birthday immortalityfix, I hope it's been one of the better days!

Eurovision review!
So, here we are in Basel for the annual nonsense. I love that they're making a joke out of the trophy getting broken last year, haha!

( Here we gooooooooo...Collapse )

Current Mood: pleased

Birthday baby
Happy "birthday", darling devil. I did once again try using the AI story generator to come up with a creative gift idea, but everything it churned out was either irrelevant nonsense or unprintable filth!! Those zeroes and ones aren't all they're cracked up to be!

Current Mood: shocked

HBD
Happy birthday chemina42! Hope you're well!

Birth
Happy birthday to pookatimes!

Some Songs I Like
Celine Dion - All By Myself

Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen

Cass Elliot - Make Your Own Kind Of Music

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way

Carpenters - Yesterday Once More

Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy Lover

Tori Amos - Crucify

Sailor - A Glass Of Champagne

Noisettes - Don't Upset The Rhythm

Roy Orbison - In Dreams

My love... ♥


Current Mood: content

The Wrong Trousers appreciation post
As promised, albeit somewhat delayed as I haven't had a spare moment to post it, a rundown of all the moments that make me smile in The Wrong Trousers! (You'll have to imagine the "crying with laughter" emoji at the end of almost every line.)

( Peak Wallace & Gromit!Collapse )

Current Mood: amused

Christmas viewings
That was a pretty good Christmas!  No illness, no dramas, no disasters, a delicious lunch and not half as hectic as I thought it was gonna be. I even had time to get started on my jigsaw! Yaaaaay.

Doctor Who... I mean, it wasn't that great but it wasn't awful. Gatwa was somewhat more fun in this, and the "no room at the inn" line was quite good!  It kinda lost the plot towards the end but I guess they were just going for something poignant and I'm sure there are viewers who will have appreciated that.

Vengeance Most Fowl: I must preface this by saying how much I love The Wrong Trousers, even using it as the basis for a writing experiment a few years ago. It's just utter perfection from start to finish - I watched it for the millionth time the other day and still found myself grinning throughout, there are so many brilliant and hilarious details (in fact I've prepared another post listing them all). And it's the last time Wallace & Gromit was really great, IMO. I think maybe the Were-Rabbit film was OK but I barely recall anything about it, and I know I didn't particularly enjoy their subsequent TV adventures. (Possibly some of the charm was lost when they introduced other speaking characters apart from Wallace?)  So it filled me with some trepidation to hear that they were making a follow-up to The Wrong Trousers after all this time - would it be able to recapture the old magic or would it just tarnish the legacy of the original?  And yeah, it was more the latter. It's just completely soulless now, isn't it?  Are they even still using clay or are they just CGI-ing it all? (Either way, the fact it looks like CGI is a big problem.)  The attempts at humour were very weak too, and so many jokes lazily rehashed from TWT - it barely raised a smile in the whole 80 minutes, although the cheese CAPTCHA was properly hilarious!  I did laugh at the nun disguise too. Feathers was as brilliant as ever but he was barely in it, they wasted so much time with the annoying gnome rubbish and the police officers. I will no doubt watch The Wrong Trousers a million more times but I won't bother with this one again!

On a more positive note, YouTube recommended this cat & sheep friendship earlier and it's totally adorable!!  Also how to wrap a cat for Christmas!  And what an unexpected joy to rediscover the magic of The Snowman through the eyes of two people who've never seen it before - brought tears to my eyes. ♥

Current Mood: content

RRU: cinema, age, music videos, Beverley, Cyberzone
~ It turns out there *will* be a new cinema operator at Tower Park!  It has previously been a UCI, Empire and Cineworld (I think also an Odeon at one point?) and now it will be a Vue!  I don't know if I'm ever likely to visit the cinema again but it's good to know the option will still be there. :)

~ I was crossing the road at some traffic lights recently, and a middle-aged woman was crossing in the opposite direction with an elderly lady. As they passed me the woman said "Never cross before the green man", and I have no idea if she was talking to the old lady she was with or to me (or why she said it in any case when no-one *had* crossed before the green man), but if it was aimed at me, it makes me wonder just how young people think I am!!

~ Watching the Stay Another Day video, the coats are obviously a Boney M homage but I've only just noticed its similarities with the Lemon video a year before - the random shots of the woman twirling a sheet, and the four band members back to back on a rotating platform (plus it's in black & white). I wonder if it took any inspiration from that? (Maybe it was even the same spindizzy?! The Lemon video was filmed in London and there's every chance the East 17 one was too, though I can't seem to find out.)

Also, I've never noticed before how well the Saviour's Day video is edited so that the drums coincide with the crashing waves!

Frank & Bing doing Jingle Bells gets funnier the more times I see it. I hadn't noticed Frank cracks up as well when Bing almost misses his line after a badly timed sip of his drink, and it's also a grin creeping onto Frank's face that sets Bing off again later. *g*

~ Isn't Beverl(e)y an underused name?  I can only think of Crusher, the singers Craven and Knight, and the characters from Brookside and Neighbours. Never known anyone IRL with that name. Maybe it will come back into fashion at some point?

~ A second episode of Cyberzone has been uploaded, five years after I commented on the first one. Everything I wrote last time is equally true here, plus I'm wincing at some of Craig's gestures and remarks that wouldn't be acceptable now!  Not sure why there are audience members dressed as Kiss?!

Current Mood: nostalgic

2024 survey
It's hard to sum this year up because it was quite good for the most part, as these things go, but my mental health has taken a huge hit with the desecration of my beloved garden in November - it's not just a single upsetting event but something that will cause ongoing pain from now on. I have to stare at the floor or keep my back to the window so I don't accidentally see what's happened, which really hurts because I *loved* looking outside at the wildlife. (One time I forgot to avert my eyes whilst opening my curtains, reeled in sudden horror and snapped two of the curtain hooks, so that's yet more damage he's caused. I already managed to snap my favourite sewing needle in half while stressing out about what he was doing.) The slightest noise outside makes me panic, I haven't been sleeping well, I'm having a trauma response every time I see a man in a hi-vis jacket, and a feature about apple trees on Gardeners' World had me weeping. This is just thoroughly shit. :(  Still, I had ten decent months so let's review in the traditional manner.

( The ups and downsCollapse )

Current Mood: sad

RRU: landslide, Crowded House, velleity, Lemon, tune, HTDAAB reissue
~ OMG, the guy and his dog having to outrun a beach hut after the latest landslide in Bournemouth!!  A whole bunch of them just got scattered like Monopoly houses!

~ Assorted bits of banter + Misirlou from the Crowded House gig at the BIC:


And a few songs (It's Only Natural, Four Seasons In One Day, Better Be Home Soon, and parts of Into Temptation, Weather With You and All That I Can Ever Own):


Plus some more full songs:
Weather With You and Teenage Summer
World Where You Live
Fall At Your Feet
Whispers And Moans
Black Water, White Circle
Four Seasons In One Day (plus a random burst of Hair)
Pineapple Head (with snippet of I Feel Pretty)
The Howl
It's Only Natural, Some Greater Plan (For Claire), Better Be Home Soon and Into Temptation ♥

There is also a bit of Liam Finn's support slot if you're into that kind of thing...

~ Only a few months after I learned the great word "velleity" whilst reading Paradise Illustrated, I was amused to see it come up on QI in one of their "obscure words beginning with this letter" rounds!  Funny how things tend to show up repeatedly in different contexts within a short space of time.

~ I've watched the Lemon remix video a bunch of times in the past (and screencapped it a while back), but it wasn't until I made a GIF of this clip that I realised it's not just random patterns over the top, it's concept art for the video with a drawing of Adam in his sleeveless jacket on the left!


~ I had the instrumental part of a song randomly stuck in my head for days and it was driving me mad as I couldn't figure out what song it was from, and there was no way of Googling it!  I thought it might be something by Wings, like maybe Live And Let Die or Band On The Run, but I checked them both and no joy. *Eventually* I brought to mind just enough of the next part to identify it as Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman! (It was the piano solo from about 2:17 to 2:56.)  Funnily enough their guitarist was later in Wings so there was some connection with my initial guess!

~ This Random Round-Up has been hanging around for weeks as I decided to wait until I'd heard all the new HTDAAB bonus tracks before posting it. I will not be purchasing the anniversary box set - it costs about £100 so that was an instant nope, and I wasn't impressed by the pointless re-edit of Xanax & Wine (what was wrong with it before?) or the boring new song Country Mile (which might have its origins in the HTDAAB era but had clearly been recorded more recently). The next release Happiness didn't do much for me either, more rapped than sung and with some very strained vocals and blah lyrics, but at least it's trying to be more fun. ( More tracks reviewed - cut for lengthCollapse )

Current Mood: busy