While I'm feeling rejected...

The BBC Today programme's new law poll closes at 12 noon today.

Not only did they not pick my sensible proposal, but there are none listed in the broad field it was in, even in the 'other suggestions made' section of the site.

I'd bet money someone took a decision to not have anything connected to the Royal Family included.

Anyway, of the five proposals, there are two popular ones (banning smoking at work places and having organ donations as an 'opt out' rather than an 'opt in' system), two less popular ones (stopping Prime Ministers serving more than two terms - which would need a whole raft of other constitutional changes - and stopping Xmas advertising/displays before 1st Dec) and one from the Daily Mail section of the R4 listenership ("A Bill to authorise homeowners to use any means to defend their home from intruders.")

So, if you want to see more postmen etc shot, go along to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/vote/vote.shtml and vote for #5. It's currently running a strong second(!?!?)

Otherwise #1 & #3 are the two other contenders in this three horse race.

Cold Mountain #1

One of the things we did while away was to see this - it was playing on one screen of Nottingham's main multiplex cinema to about 30 or 40 people, while LotR: RotK was filling out about five screens, so say a couple of thousand people at any one time (there was a four hour wait for tickets!)

And guess what? It's a better film.

At least as a stand-alone effort. (I'll happily agree that LotR: RotK is magnificent in lots of ways, but unless you've read the books or seen part one and either seen or been told the necessary four sentences to catch up with part two, it won't make sense to anyone.)

I hadn't looked up the running time before seeing CM, and I was amazed when I checked my watch at the end. It didn't seem like over two and a half hours.

Yay for Jude Law (specialist in situations you wouldn't want to be in *), Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, and Ray Winstone (specialist in nasty characters) in particular, and Anthony Minghella's direction and script. So... a film about events in the US Civil War, where three of the five main people involved are British, and one's Australian.

I must make another attempt at reading the book. Because it's written in 'as spoken' dialect, and I don't usually vocalise when reading, I found it incredibly difficult work and quickly gave up. The Color Purple 2 in that regard...

* I see from imdb that he's going to be Lemony Snicket in the film adaptation of the wonderful Series of Unfortunate Events.

Cold Mountain #2

If you're going to see it - and you should - come back here later, as it contains a major spoiler.

( Read more... )

Told you so (and told you so again)

Tim Berners-Lee's got his much deserved knighthood.

LotR:RotK is (undeservedly) #4 in the imdb top 250.