19°C, light NE, C67miles
District 9: a South African science-fiction film. Okay, third time lucky: I liked this one.
District 9
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Monthly Archives: Jun 2010
Rushmore
14°C, sun & wind & clouds scudding
Rushmore: Didn’t make it through this one.
Easily one of the finest comedies since THE GRADUATE, RUSHMORE is a
monument to brilliant filmmaking (said ilovefilm)
monument to brilliant filmmaking (said ilovefilm)
I gave it 40 mins, but I felt nothing: I’d expect a comedy to have some funny bits, this has none in my experience. This is the second film in a row that left me feeling bored. We switched off and put BBC’s Springwatch on instead.
So instead, here are some summer ducklings, this morning:
earlies
23°C,
Up early for about a month now. Wake at 04.00 and get up ½ hour later. Such a fine time of day: all’s quiet and the dogs get an outing before work; hence these photos.
Tilting butt
22°C, . Light NE.
. Light NE.
It filled up fast: the water butt filled to the brim in only 1 day of rain. Problem now is that it’s tilting, the slab it stands on has given a little under the half-tonne weight. I may have to empty it and make the foundation stronger.
Hornbeam: is now planted. I raise a glass to its good fortune.
The Road
16+°C, NW winds, getting easing
First Orchid: (think it’s an orchid anyway). Seen in Woodland Trust land.
Even it it’s not, still a nicely light picture I’d say.
Getting ready to plant that Hornbeam tree. It’s quite an effort because I want it near the Eucalyptus stump- so lots of hacking away at roots to dig the hole.
Film: The Road. post apocalyptic road film + father/son film. I can’t quite put a finger on why I was largely unmoved by this film The slow storyline isn’t a problem for me, it’s just that something was missing. Perhaps it’s the director, it just needs a bit more Tarkovsky. In other words it needed some magic that would lift it above the predictable.
Eucalyptus is down
14°C, grey all day, NE winds.
The Eucalyptus tree is now sawn logs. Some are huge, storage might be slightly awkward.
They’re gorgeous though, such nice wood. I may polish up a few and have them in the house.
Vulpes Vitreol
18°C, grey, rain overdue
Incredible: Having trouble believing this story: BBC. A fox attacks two sleeping children in London. The response is as difficult to believe as the original story. Apparently they trapped a fox in the garden later in the day and shot it. Is this supposed to be some kind of justice, or are they taking revenge out on a whole species?
Imagine- someone burgles your house, so the police will stop the next bloke passing your front door and imprison him awaiting the firing squad in the morning. Doesn’t matter that there is no known connection between the perpetrator and the suspect, why bother finding evidence beyond the location, let’s just kill something. That’ll appease the locals, they’ll be baying for blood. Perhaps it’s a Tory ward, they’ve always liked killing foxes, no matter how cruelly.
Escape
15°C, thunder & lightning
Tales from the compost heap: dug a new compost heap space yesterday. "Dug" because there was another slab 6" below the surface. Anyway, doing that I disturbed a mouse who dived under a block which needed to be moved. Carefully, I lifted it and the mouse sprang upwards a foot in the air and scampered away. He was quite fast, apart from doing another Zebedee like leap on the way.
Conventional wisdom has it that it’s part of their escape tactic, to distract & confuse predators. It’s the word ‘confuse’ that needs a re-think; what they really do is render the predator helpless with laughter. There must be other examples of natural behaviour that needs a re-think.
It’s early, and we’ve started the day with a 5am thunderstorm.
Spirit of Turpentine 