I haven't posted much about New Zealand, mainly because there has been very little to post. We submitted our application for permanent residency at the beginning of April, they took the money, and then it all went quiet. This was to be expected; the London branch website has a rather nice little application processing time note on it (which is not updated as regularly as anyone who is waiting would like) which gives the processing time to be just under three months, taking us to the 4th July before anybody actually opened our envelope. (and this, in branch times, is actually a good waiting period - the poor folks whose main branch is NZIS Bejing have to wait up to a year).
So imagine my suprise to open my emails up Monday evening to see that we'd been allocated a Visa Officer two weeks ahead of when I was expecting, and he wanted a bit of extra paperwork to prove that we were still in a relationship (marriage certificates and the like don't count for much - all that proves is that you went through a ceremony!), and then asked whether I'd be available for a phone interview at 11am on Thursday.
My first feeling was of relief - we've got to the next stage; they don't want to look further at John's medicals (a couple of elevated results, not by much, and even noted by the Dr as being ok, but if you get an arsey officer, they can refer anything they want up to the Medical Assessor which means more tests, more time, more money); they don't want us to actually travel to London for the interview. Then panic... I had a business trip that was going to last from Tuesday afternoon to Weds evening - it was going to be difficult to find the time to prepare. But, I wanted to get it over and done with, so I agreed to the Thursday.
Concentrating properly over the next couple of days was very difficult, and I actually stopped breathing for about ten seconds when the phone rang at 11am on Thursday morning. But I needn't have worried - Tom was absolutely lovely. He had a great way of putting me at my ease (and it helped that he laughed at my Lord of the Rings joke and that he is a Welly boy, meaning that I could really enthuse about the city!), and the 45 minutes just flew by. At the end of the interview, he told me that he had three options open to him; the first was to decline us "and I'm not going to do that", the second was to grant us Work to Residence, the option open to him if he didn't think that we were serious about finding work or settling "and you've proved to me that that is not the case"; the third option was full Permanent Residence, "which is the most likely". So already, I was feeling pretty good. He then said that he would make the decision by the end of the week, and get it signed off (someone else has to check it just in case we were trying to bribe him!) at the beginning of next.
Again, I was wondering how I'd be able to concentrate over the next day and a half of work, and then through the weekend... So it was amazing to hear the phone ring on Friday afternoon, and Tom's voice saying that he'd approved us for full PR, and that it had been signed off, and did we want the visas put in our passports now?
I've been floating around a little bit over the last day or so - getting our visas is still only part of the challenge (we've also got to find jobs), but it is such a major hurdle to clear, and so much sooner than we expected (the website said that it would take 1-3 months to be given a decision after allocation, so we weren't expecting anything till August at the soonest!). We're expecting to clear out of the UK by the beginning of November; we've got a number of things going on over the Autumn (seeing David Attenborough doing a narration of "Nature's Great Events" with the BBC Concert Orchestra in September; doing a 10k run September; the Reading TKD competition on the 11th October) that I don't want to miss!
There are going to be major stresses over the next few months; job hunting, sorting out removals, working out when we hand in our notices at work and on the flat, many logistics that I haven't even thought about. But for now, I can relax...
And how better to do that than sat outside at my in-laws using their wireless network on my new netbook, and waiting to go to see War of the Worlds in concert? :-D
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Another post mainly about sport...
June is half over already - this is incredibly scary! I've had a lot of sport recently; no hockey, as the matches have been on Thursdays for the last month, and I'm not missing orchestra for anything, however, TKD and running have more than made up for it!
I had the Cornish TKD competition two weekends ago - it was a great atmosphere as 15 of us from our club were competing (plus associated families and supporters); I came away with two bronzes - my patterns one I don't really feel that I deserved, particularly as I mucked up, and only got the medal because I had a bye into the second round. However, the sparring one was definitely mine! My first match was very tough - it was against someone who I've fought before and lost (she is two belts above me); however, as I was really frustrated at mucking up on the patterns, I really went at it hammer and tongs (apparantly quite scary from the sidelines!), and ended up with a draw after the initial two minute round. So we had another thirty seconds, which ended in another draw, then *another* thirty seconds, which was a draw again! So the umpires all put their heads together, and decided to make it a sudden death round; first point to be scored was the winner. I was very lucky in that about a month earlier in the squad training, we'd actually done this, so I knew the tactics :-) Unfortunately, the first time they ran it, it relied on three of the four corner judges actually seeing the point, and only two of them saw me bop her on the head... So they changed the rules, and, after stop-starting it two more times, I finally got them to see one of the points that I scored!
So - through to the second round... The next person I was fighting was three belts higher than me, and I was already incredibly exhausted from the first round - however I wasn't going to give up ;-) We actually had the fight stopped because the umpire thought we were being a bit too heavy handed (ironic given what happened later on...), and after the 2 minutes, it was a draw... (I'm ready to melt into a little puddle by this point!) We then had the next thirty seconds; when that was up, all I could think of was "I don't care if I win or lose, just please not a draw!" I did end up losing it, but it couldn't have been by much, because of the flags I could see, one was for me, and one was a draw (the other two were for the other person).
However, I was very pleased with my performance, and actually quite glad that I didn't get into the next round, as the other finalist was the lady that I'd been losing weight to avoid (unfortunately as there were so few of us competing, they'd lumped together both the belts and the weight categories...). She and the lady I'd been facing started the final, but it wasn't long into it before the scary lady thumped my opponent extra hard (after she'd been pummeling her all over the ring without the umpire stopping it!), and she collapsed... To compound it, the umpire decided to take off her helmet - not good with a potential head injury, and this was verified when she came round about ten seconds later complaining about a pain in her neck and not being able to feel her legs!
Obviously an ambulance was called, and they had a medic on duty as well, and fortunately, by the time the ambulance actually got her into the big white van, she had regained feeling in her legs and was laughing and joking - my instructor said later that she had been discharged at 7.30 with nothing wrong (apart from being annoyed at missing the rest of the competition!).
John and I stayed down in Cornwall for the Monday, and took a trip around the Lost Gardens of Helligan - definitely worth a visit if you are ever in Cornwall - a most amazing story, where the 200 acres of gardens had become completely overgrown following the loss of most of the garden staff during WW1 - the same chap who did the Eden Project was involved in their restoration, and the result is astounding!
Then back up to Bristol Monday evening, and had a relaxing but busy birthday on the Tuesday; we went out to an all you can eat pan-asian restaurant for lunch (we were a bit disappointed that, although we could watch the sushi chef making sushi, we weren't allowed to actually have any of it - it was all for the evening diners! However, they did make up for it with an amazing dessert selection...) and did some shopping (which did include buying some takeaway sushi for tea - I was determined to have my birthday sushi!), and then loads of baking in the evening for cakes for work (I have the most *amazing* brownie recipe - the "Secret" ingredient really does work!).
This weekend just gone has also been manic! All the running training that I've been putting in paid off dividends. The Race for Life went really well - not only did Alice and I run it in a new personal best of 32 mins - helped by having to overtake a whole load of people who went into the "runners" section, ran about 50 yards, then decided to walk, and also by an amazing sprint at the end - I paid for it the next day with thighs that did not want to speak to me! There was also a whole load of my TKD group there (most of them being completely insane and running it in their doboks!), and we ended up having a 'blink and you'll miss it' slot on TV - as John was doing his 'photographer' act (with about 8 cameras) for the post-run group photo, the HTV cameras snuck up behind him. I missed the actual broadcast, and can't catch up on it, so I'm waiting for someone from the TKD group to post their recordings online...
I've managed to raise £249 for Cancer Research as well, which is a fantastic bonus - everyone has been so generous!
I'm really looking forward to the next challenge now - there are a few 10K races coming up in September, and I'm hoping that with a bit of a push, I'll be able to take part in those as well.
Sunday we did manage to grab a bit of a lie-in (finally! First time in weeks!), and I had my TKD grading in the evening. It went reasonably well - I'm a bit disappointed that I fluffed some of the step-sparring (but I've never been very good at them in a pressure situation - I can do them in lessons, but I seem to lose concentration when I'm being examined on them), but when sneaking a look at my grading card (I like being able to read upside down!), I got B's across the board again, so should be getting my blue belt next lesson! (This puts me at the highest grade in the Adult Juniors group, and I'm not likely to grade again before we leave for NZ, so it is a nice goal to have met...)
I also have a nice new toy - an Acer Aspire Netbook - it is a very small laptop (it fits onto an A4 sheet of paper with space all round the outside); whilst it isn't something that I could use to play mega computer games on, it is absolutely perfect for writing stories and surfing the net (when I can get wireless access!) It's also Linux based, rather than Windows, which means that when I turn it on, it is fully loaded within a few seconds - I am able to get a lot of writing done on the 8 minute train journey to and from work! (webpage link - ignore the spelling errors!) There is a possibility that when not working on my story (it's currently at 4,000 words, and most of those have been Twittered to myself), I might even get some blog posts done, which might make my updates a little more frequent than they have been!
I had the Cornish TKD competition two weekends ago - it was a great atmosphere as 15 of us from our club were competing (plus associated families and supporters); I came away with two bronzes - my patterns one I don't really feel that I deserved, particularly as I mucked up, and only got the medal because I had a bye into the second round. However, the sparring one was definitely mine! My first match was very tough - it was against someone who I've fought before and lost (she is two belts above me); however, as I was really frustrated at mucking up on the patterns, I really went at it hammer and tongs (apparantly quite scary from the sidelines!), and ended up with a draw after the initial two minute round. So we had another thirty seconds, which ended in another draw, then *another* thirty seconds, which was a draw again! So the umpires all put their heads together, and decided to make it a sudden death round; first point to be scored was the winner. I was very lucky in that about a month earlier in the squad training, we'd actually done this, so I knew the tactics :-) Unfortunately, the first time they ran it, it relied on three of the four corner judges actually seeing the point, and only two of them saw me bop her on the head... So they changed the rules, and, after stop-starting it two more times, I finally got them to see one of the points that I scored!
So - through to the second round... The next person I was fighting was three belts higher than me, and I was already incredibly exhausted from the first round - however I wasn't going to give up ;-) We actually had the fight stopped because the umpire thought we were being a bit too heavy handed (ironic given what happened later on...), and after the 2 minutes, it was a draw... (I'm ready to melt into a little puddle by this point!) We then had the next thirty seconds; when that was up, all I could think of was "I don't care if I win or lose, just please not a draw!" I did end up losing it, but it couldn't have been by much, because of the flags I could see, one was for me, and one was a draw (the other two were for the other person).
However, I was very pleased with my performance, and actually quite glad that I didn't get into the next round, as the other finalist was the lady that I'd been losing weight to avoid (unfortunately as there were so few of us competing, they'd lumped together both the belts and the weight categories...). She and the lady I'd been facing started the final, but it wasn't long into it before the scary lady thumped my opponent extra hard (after she'd been pummeling her all over the ring without the umpire stopping it!), and she collapsed... To compound it, the umpire decided to take off her helmet - not good with a potential head injury, and this was verified when she came round about ten seconds later complaining about a pain in her neck and not being able to feel her legs!
Obviously an ambulance was called, and they had a medic on duty as well, and fortunately, by the time the ambulance actually got her into the big white van, she had regained feeling in her legs and was laughing and joking - my instructor said later that she had been discharged at 7.30 with nothing wrong (apart from being annoyed at missing the rest of the competition!).
John and I stayed down in Cornwall for the Monday, and took a trip around the Lost Gardens of Helligan - definitely worth a visit if you are ever in Cornwall - a most amazing story, where the 200 acres of gardens had become completely overgrown following the loss of most of the garden staff during WW1 - the same chap who did the Eden Project was involved in their restoration, and the result is astounding!
Then back up to Bristol Monday evening, and had a relaxing but busy birthday on the Tuesday; we went out to an all you can eat pan-asian restaurant for lunch (we were a bit disappointed that, although we could watch the sushi chef making sushi, we weren't allowed to actually have any of it - it was all for the evening diners! However, they did make up for it with an amazing dessert selection...) and did some shopping (which did include buying some takeaway sushi for tea - I was determined to have my birthday sushi!), and then loads of baking in the evening for cakes for work (I have the most *amazing* brownie recipe - the "Secret" ingredient really does work!).
This weekend just gone has also been manic! All the running training that I've been putting in paid off dividends. The Race for Life went really well - not only did Alice and I run it in a new personal best of 32 mins - helped by having to overtake a whole load of people who went into the "runners" section, ran about 50 yards, then decided to walk, and also by an amazing sprint at the end - I paid for it the next day with thighs that did not want to speak to me! There was also a whole load of my TKD group there (most of them being completely insane and running it in their doboks!), and we ended up having a 'blink and you'll miss it' slot on TV - as John was doing his 'photographer' act (with about 8 cameras) for the post-run group photo, the HTV cameras snuck up behind him. I missed the actual broadcast, and can't catch up on it, so I'm waiting for someone from the TKD group to post their recordings online...
I've managed to raise £249 for Cancer Research as well, which is a fantastic bonus - everyone has been so generous!
I'm really looking forward to the next challenge now - there are a few 10K races coming up in September, and I'm hoping that with a bit of a push, I'll be able to take part in those as well.
Sunday we did manage to grab a bit of a lie-in (finally! First time in weeks!), and I had my TKD grading in the evening. It went reasonably well - I'm a bit disappointed that I fluffed some of the step-sparring (but I've never been very good at them in a pressure situation - I can do them in lessons, but I seem to lose concentration when I'm being examined on them), but when sneaking a look at my grading card (I like being able to read upside down!), I got B's across the board again, so should be getting my blue belt next lesson! (This puts me at the highest grade in the Adult Juniors group, and I'm not likely to grade again before we leave for NZ, so it is a nice goal to have met...)
I also have a nice new toy - an Acer Aspire Netbook - it is a very small laptop (it fits onto an A4 sheet of paper with space all round the outside); whilst it isn't something that I could use to play mega computer games on, it is absolutely perfect for writing stories and surfing the net (when I can get wireless access!) It's also Linux based, rather than Windows, which means that when I turn it on, it is fully loaded within a few seconds - I am able to get a lot of writing done on the 8 minute train journey to and from work! (webpage link - ignore the spelling errors!) There is a possibility that when not working on my story (it's currently at 4,000 words, and most of those have been Twittered to myself), I might even get some blog posts done, which might make my updates a little more frequent than they have been!
Monday, 1 June 2009
5 Minute Chocolate Cake
This one isn't my recipe; I got sent it on an email on Friday. I had to try it out over the weekend - I'm not a big microwave cooker, using it mainly for reheating or defrosting, so I was a little sceptical on how this would work...
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons self raising flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
Chocolate syrup (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe) (I used my large Starbucks mug, and the mixture rose about an inch above the edge)
Add dry ingredients to a bowl, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Pour a little chocolate syrup into the bottom of the mug; just enough to coat the bottom. Pour the cake mixture in.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (My microwave is 800 watts, and 3 1/2 mins was enough to cook it through). The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. (though I ate it directly from the mug with a fork whilst it was still steaming hot :-) )
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).
This is an amazing recipe - incredibly easy, and makes a very good sponge. Without the chocolate chips and the syrup, it might be a bit dry, though...
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons self raising flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
Chocolate syrup (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe) (I used my large Starbucks mug, and the mixture rose about an inch above the edge)
Add dry ingredients to a bowl, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Pour a little chocolate syrup into the bottom of the mug; just enough to coat the bottom. Pour the cake mixture in.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (My microwave is 800 watts, and 3 1/2 mins was enough to cook it through). The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. (though I ate it directly from the mug with a fork whilst it was still steaming hot :-) )
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).
This is an amazing recipe - incredibly easy, and makes a very good sponge. Without the chocolate chips and the syrup, it might be a bit dry, though...
Friday, 29 May 2009
Music and Ice-Cream
We had a fantastic concert last night with the Longwell Green Orchestra - we were playing as the opening event in a music festival organised by one of our members. The venue was a glorious church, which had the best accoustics of any place I've played in. We had quite a 'serious' classical first half, with pieces like Borodin's Polovtsian Dances (with a lovely oboe solo in the intro and first piece played by yours truely), Bizet's L'Arlesienne, the overture to Peter Schmoll... These pieces all had Grand Pauses (i.e. where the whole orchestra shuts up for a few beats), and the echoes of the notes we had been playing soared up to the rafters. I discovered that it is very difficult to play the oboe and grin at the same time! The second half of the concert was much lighter (including medleys from Duke Ellington and Leroy Anderson; the theme from Jurassic Park), and ended with the Can-Can - such a fun piece to play, particularly when you don't announce what it is (it was our encore piece, so we didn't have it in the programme), and you can hear the audience catching on during the introductory ten bars or so... All in all, a wonderful evening, and I really hope that we get to go back and play in that venue again.
My other success has been in making icecream - I always thought that an ice-cream maker was fairly mandatory, but a couple of recipes have convinced me otherwise. I played around with a very basic banana one from the BBC Good Food website, and came up with this:
Ingredients:
For every banana used (I used 3)
100ml whipping cream
100ml double cream
30g dark chocolate, broken into chips
30g sugar
Splash of lemon juice (about 5ml but I didn't measure)
Splash of Irish cream / Baileys (optional!) (about 10ml but I didn't measure)
Method:
Mash up the bananas, add lemon juice.
Pour on the creams
Mix well (I used my blender)
Add the chocolate, sugar and Irish cream
Mix again
Taste - add more lemon / Irish cream if needed.
Pour into a tub; 3 bananas three quarters filled a 2 litre icecream tub.
Put in freezer - every hour or so stir to break up the ice crystals.
It doesn't come out soft scoop (there was a lot of hacking!), but it is very nice :-) As the weather gets warmer, I suspect that I will be making more...
My other success has been in making icecream - I always thought that an ice-cream maker was fairly mandatory, but a couple of recipes have convinced me otherwise. I played around with a very basic banana one from the BBC Good Food website, and came up with this:
Ingredients:
For every banana used (I used 3)
100ml whipping cream
100ml double cream
30g dark chocolate, broken into chips
30g sugar
Splash of lemon juice (about 5ml but I didn't measure)
Splash of Irish cream / Baileys (optional!) (about 10ml but I didn't measure)
Method:
Mash up the bananas, add lemon juice.
Pour on the creams
Mix well (I used my blender)
Add the chocolate, sugar and Irish cream
Mix again
Taste - add more lemon / Irish cream if needed.
Pour into a tub; 3 bananas three quarters filled a 2 litre icecream tub.
Put in freezer - every hour or so stir to break up the ice crystals.
It doesn't come out soft scoop (there was a lot of hacking!), but it is very nice :-) As the weather gets warmer, I suspect that I will be making more...
Friday, 22 May 2009
Wow...
Well, May has been a very busy month - I turn round twice and it is nearly over!
More sport - I can now run over 4 miles without stopping (we've done it twice) - I have discovered that my legs have a magical ability to speed up if I'm going uphill - I think that they know that it is going to hurt, so if they go faster, it will be over sooner! We're off to the in-laws on Saturday, and I'm hoping to get a run along the beach-front in if the weather is nice (it should be a 4 1/2 mile run if I don't get lost!)
Work has been a bit tricky - I've had a PQQ to get in. For the uninitiated, a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is the first (major) stage of applying for work to a local authority / government body. Normally they concern themselves with fairly basic questions (which is why I get them all to myself...) looking at company financial and legal standing and whether, at a high level, you can do the work required. Usually they are the work of about half a day to get complete. This one, however, has been a bit of a pig - there are a number of essay style questions, which normally wouldn't cause me trouble (I have framework answers which I then adapt to the tender). Unfortunately, these answers are length limited, which means that I've had to cut down my normal verbosity and actually stick to the point! I'm currently struggling to get an answer down from 416 words to the 400 needed for the answer (it was originally over 600 words, so I think I'm actually doing quite well!). The deadline is approaching fast, though - I've got Verdi's Requiem on rather loud which is helping me to concentrate.
We've headed out to the cinema once more since my last post, this time to see Coraline, the Neil Gaiman film, which was great fun. It was definitely a children's film (though for its creepiness deserved the PG rating), and as we went to see it on a Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of children around (including a babe in arms!). However the film was able to hold their attention - there was considerably less disturbance than I had anticipated (and felt incredibly gratified that so many of them commented on how scary it had been as they walked out - it's Neil Gaiman - it's *meant* to be scary!), and I was able to concentrate on the film. The animation work was beautiful - there were loads of hidden gems that mean that I know I want this on DVD so I can watch it with my finger over the pause button! The music was gorgeous, too - another sound track to add to my Amazon wish list! Definitely one to see, though it doesn't top Star Trek :-)
Right - back to the grindstone...
More sport - I can now run over 4 miles without stopping (we've done it twice) - I have discovered that my legs have a magical ability to speed up if I'm going uphill - I think that they know that it is going to hurt, so if they go faster, it will be over sooner! We're off to the in-laws on Saturday, and I'm hoping to get a run along the beach-front in if the weather is nice (it should be a 4 1/2 mile run if I don't get lost!)
Work has been a bit tricky - I've had a PQQ to get in. For the uninitiated, a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is the first (major) stage of applying for work to a local authority / government body. Normally they concern themselves with fairly basic questions (which is why I get them all to myself...) looking at company financial and legal standing and whether, at a high level, you can do the work required. Usually they are the work of about half a day to get complete. This one, however, has been a bit of a pig - there are a number of essay style questions, which normally wouldn't cause me trouble (I have framework answers which I then adapt to the tender). Unfortunately, these answers are length limited, which means that I've had to cut down my normal verbosity and actually stick to the point! I'm currently struggling to get an answer down from 416 words to the 400 needed for the answer (it was originally over 600 words, so I think I'm actually doing quite well!). The deadline is approaching fast, though - I've got Verdi's Requiem on rather loud which is helping me to concentrate.
We've headed out to the cinema once more since my last post, this time to see Coraline, the Neil Gaiman film, which was great fun. It was definitely a children's film (though for its creepiness deserved the PG rating), and as we went to see it on a Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of children around (including a babe in arms!). However the film was able to hold their attention - there was considerably less disturbance than I had anticipated (and felt incredibly gratified that so many of them commented on how scary it had been as they walked out - it's Neil Gaiman - it's *meant* to be scary!), and I was able to concentrate on the film. The animation work was beautiful - there were loads of hidden gems that mean that I know I want this on DVD so I can watch it with my finger over the pause button! The music was gorgeous, too - another sound track to add to my Amazon wish list! Definitely one to see, though it doesn't top Star Trek :-)
Right - back to the grindstone...
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Film review - no spoilers (hopefully!)
Ok, a non-sport related post this time...
Over the last couple of weeks, we've been to see two films; both of them prequels to a successful film series, filling in back stories on much loved characters.
Wolverine was a fun romp - purely a popcorn film, where you disengage the brain during the opening sequence, and re-engage it to find your way out of the cinema without treading on too many sticky sweets. The plot was used as a device to get the viewer from one explosion to the next, with the occasional good one-liner to make us smile. One that definitely needed to be seen on the big screen to get the full effects of the CGI (though I do wonder whether some of the final tweaks were a bit rushed following the leak - in particular the de-aging of Patrick Stewart made him look like he was wearing a plastic mask), but not one that I would watch again.
Star Trek on the other hand, was an amazing film. It fills in the back stories of the original crew of the Enterprise, with younger versions of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekov, McCoy, Scotty and Sulu all making appearances. I will state here that I am not a Trekkie, though I did very much enjoy both the original Star Trek and Next Generation (I got thoroughly muddled with DS9 and Bab 5, which were playing at the same time, and gave up on them both originally, and never got into Voyager or Enterprise). By this, I mean that I would sit and watch and enjoy when I was able to watch TV, but I wouldn't dash home specifically to watch it, nor do I know all the names of all of the episodes ;-) (but, hey, I don't know the names of most of the Dr Who eps that I have watched far more recently...) However, a detailed knowledge of Star Trek or the universe that it inhabits was not needed to enjoy the film enormously - there were a number of nods to the series for devoted Trekkies, including a number of the cliches which everyone knows and expects from ST. However, if you had no sci-fi exposure at all, there was nothing in the film which would become incomprehensible should you not understand the in-jokes. The story was enthralling, and, even though you knew that the main players would have to be safe (in order for them to make the next film...), I still found myself holding my breath and willing the characters on. There was a lot of humour, and some excellent one-liners, as well as some real tear-jerker situations (not enough to make me wish I'd brought a hankie, but I did well up on a number of occasions...). If there is one film that you go to see this year, make sure that this is it!
The Onion has given its own, special take on the subject here.
Over the last couple of weeks, we've been to see two films; both of them prequels to a successful film series, filling in back stories on much loved characters.
Wolverine was a fun romp - purely a popcorn film, where you disengage the brain during the opening sequence, and re-engage it to find your way out of the cinema without treading on too many sticky sweets. The plot was used as a device to get the viewer from one explosion to the next, with the occasional good one-liner to make us smile. One that definitely needed to be seen on the big screen to get the full effects of the CGI (though I do wonder whether some of the final tweaks were a bit rushed following the leak - in particular the de-aging of Patrick Stewart made him look like he was wearing a plastic mask), but not one that I would watch again.
Star Trek on the other hand, was an amazing film. It fills in the back stories of the original crew of the Enterprise, with younger versions of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekov, McCoy, Scotty and Sulu all making appearances. I will state here that I am not a Trekkie, though I did very much enjoy both the original Star Trek and Next Generation (I got thoroughly muddled with DS9 and Bab 5, which were playing at the same time, and gave up on them both originally, and never got into Voyager or Enterprise). By this, I mean that I would sit and watch and enjoy when I was able to watch TV, but I wouldn't dash home specifically to watch it, nor do I know all the names of all of the episodes ;-) (but, hey, I don't know the names of most of the Dr Who eps that I have watched far more recently...) However, a detailed knowledge of Star Trek or the universe that it inhabits was not needed to enjoy the film enormously - there were a number of nods to the series for devoted Trekkies, including a number of the cliches which everyone knows and expects from ST. However, if you had no sci-fi exposure at all, there was nothing in the film which would become incomprehensible should you not understand the in-jokes. The story was enthralling, and, even though you knew that the main players would have to be safe (in order for them to make the next film...), I still found myself holding my breath and willing the characters on. There was a lot of humour, and some excellent one-liners, as well as some real tear-jerker situations (not enough to make me wish I'd brought a hankie, but I did well up on a number of occasions...). If there is one film that you go to see this year, make sure that this is it!
The Onion has given its own, special take on the subject here.
Friday, 8 May 2009
More Sport...
It does seem that all that I blog about at the moment is sport... This does seem very surreal to me when I think about it; I never really enjoyed sport at school, indeed two of the three sports I'm participating in at the moment were triggers for me to "play sick" at my first secondary school. Yet, now that I'm older, and these sports are not compulsory, I am really enjoying the challenges that they set me. I no longer feel that I am being judged by my classmates or teachers (even for TKD, which does have a class/teacher/pupil setting).
Even within a team setting (both for hockey and the TKD demo team), there are no recriminations when mistakes are made, just a knowledge that as we are human, mistakes are inevitable, but that we do our best not to make them.
A good example of this was our first hockey match of the summer league on Tuesday night. We were playing an excellent team (it turned out that they were in division one of their winter league, whereas we are division four of ours), and the ball was constantly down near our goal. Our defence and mid field played superbly; everything hung together, and, even though the attackers did their best, they were constantly being frustrated by our defence. Despite that, we lost 3-0, with all the goals happening in the second half of the match. Mistakes happened, though I feel that there was very little we could have done to stop any of the goals (we were purely outplayed), and there were no recriminations at any point from anyone on the team. So different from playing at school, where even the slightest error, particularly on the part of the goalkeeper (which tends to have major consequences for the match!) would be dissected and pulled apart.
Our Tae Kwon Do demo team had our first demo down in Bournemouth on the Bank Holiday Monday; again, we were not perfect as a team - mistakes were made, but there was a recognition throughout that we were trying our best (after a little pep talk (lecture) before we went on, mainly for the benefit of the younger members of the team :-) ), and that we impressed the crowd.
And, I'm rather proud of this shot of me breaking my first ever board (I've broken a plastic 'joined' piece before, but "on the day" was the first time I'd ever actually tried to break wood) I don't honestly remember whether I had my eyes shut for the strike or whether I happened to blink at exactly the point that the photo was taken!
EDIT I just had to add this photo in, too - pinched off our TKD website...
And my final sporting joy for this week was going out for a run last night, mainly to get rid of some frustrations that had been building up through the working day. I have a nice on-road circuit to run round John's office which is just under a mile from start to finish. With one minor break of about 30 secs to give a colleague directions, I managed to do 3.13 miles in 34 minutes without stopping running - this is my 5K target for the Race for Life in June. Now all I have to do is improve the time and persuade my legs that they don't need to shake once I stop running!
Even within a team setting (both for hockey and the TKD demo team), there are no recriminations when mistakes are made, just a knowledge that as we are human, mistakes are inevitable, but that we do our best not to make them.
A good example of this was our first hockey match of the summer league on Tuesday night. We were playing an excellent team (it turned out that they were in division one of their winter league, whereas we are division four of ours), and the ball was constantly down near our goal. Our defence and mid field played superbly; everything hung together, and, even though the attackers did their best, they were constantly being frustrated by our defence. Despite that, we lost 3-0, with all the goals happening in the second half of the match. Mistakes happened, though I feel that there was very little we could have done to stop any of the goals (we were purely outplayed), and there were no recriminations at any point from anyone on the team. So different from playing at school, where even the slightest error, particularly on the part of the goalkeeper (which tends to have major consequences for the match!) would be dissected and pulled apart.
Our Tae Kwon Do demo team had our first demo down in Bournemouth on the Bank Holiday Monday; again, we were not perfect as a team - mistakes were made, but there was a recognition throughout that we were trying our best (after a little pep talk (lecture) before we went on, mainly for the benefit of the younger members of the team :-) ), and that we impressed the crowd.
And, I'm rather proud of this shot of me breaking my first ever board (I've broken a plastic 'joined' piece before, but "on the day" was the first time I'd ever actually tried to break wood) I don't honestly remember whether I had my eyes shut for the strike or whether I happened to blink at exactly the point that the photo was taken!
EDIT I just had to add this photo in, too - pinched off our TKD website...
And my final sporting joy for this week was going out for a run last night, mainly to get rid of some frustrations that had been building up through the working day. I have a nice on-road circuit to run round John's office which is just under a mile from start to finish. With one minor break of about 30 secs to give a colleague directions, I managed to do 3.13 miles in 34 minutes without stopping running - this is my 5K target for the Race for Life in June. Now all I have to do is improve the time and persuade my legs that they don't need to shake once I stop running!
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