SKY FILM HISTORY LONDON

...doing hard, intellectually..

2009-11-26T23:44:04Z

So gave a presentation about my work to some colleagues today; seemed to be well received. Also started writing my paper; feels good to be doing hard, intellectually stimulating writing again.

..Nihongo long way to go...

2009-11-22T23:33:04Z

So, once again I realise that, uselessly I've left it ages since I last wrote. Back in September I saw the British Museum's Moctezuma exhibition with alankria , another superb and satisfying show. I spent most of October frantically trying to get a submission for PhD funding in on time, and it came off! Hurrah! Should get initial feedback in January and a final yes/no in April. Have also had a paper approved for an academic conference next year, and I also have to write an article for the IWM magazine at some point. I'm also back at King's once a week for Japanese lessons; my Nihongo has still a very long way to go, but it feels great to be studying it again.

...repaired to a pub...

2009-09-15T22:41:54Z

Gosh, how lax of me - no posts since June! Won't try and do everything, so will stick to the recent. On Friday had lunch with Natalee, a friend from San Francisco. Met up at the war museum, had lunch at a nearby cafe then went to the British Museum, where we spent a good three hours gazing in wonder at all manner of ancient and historic odds and ends. We repaired to a pub for refreshment before going to her place in Notting Hill for dinner with her, her husband and some friends. Much beer and wine followed, and were in turn followed by a cocktail and champagne. I wandered home thoroughly smashed but not too worse for wear, and it was all in all a superb day.

...scuttling for cover like cowards....

2009-06-09T23:27:23Z

Must be in bed very soon, but have just seen something that makes me happy. Namely, a BBC News report showing that flabby, smarmy, racist, BNP-leading bastard Nick Griffin having eggs thrown in his face and driven off College Green outside the Houses of Parliament by anti-fascist protestors.

Yes, democracies sometimes allow knob ends like Griffin to get elected. But they also allow those same knob ends, lacking the courage or strength in numbers to prevail, to be sent scuttling for cover like cowards. And it's delicious to later hear those same knob ends whine about freedom of speech...

...bloody knackered now....

2009-06-05T23:25:43Z

Some good running today. So far for June I'm 4.5 miles up compared to May, and today I ran new bests for both 6 miles and 7.5 miles. Finally got my 6 mile time to under 54 minutes. Bloody knackered now though....

...sailed gracefully for a six...

2009-06-03T23:09:39Z

Fine evening yesterday; instead of the usual bowling, the bowling club met at a house in Peckham for a barbecue. Much food, fine conversation and fun followed, and the evening was capped with a game of cricket. I wasn't long at the crease, but the first ball I managed to hit sailed gracefully for a six. The very next ball, fittingly, sailed equally gracefully into my wicket and sent the bales tumbling. Ah well....

...being newly knowledged....

2009-05-31T17:30:01Z

So , a cracking weekend. Yesterday I was at the British Museum, that great palace of culture, architecture and whatever artefacts we managed to swipe during more Imperial times. The fashion now seems to be to ask nicely and to get other countries to lend us their stuff, and the result has been a string of fabulous exhibitions at the BM. Yesterday with alankria I saw Shah 'Abbas and Garden & Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. Two excellent and very different exhibitions, and I was particularly interested in the emphasis on 17th century Iran as an international trade hub, exchanging goods from as far apart as South America and China. And they say globalisation is a new thing.... Also featured some exquisite calligraphy, textiles, architecture and (suprisingly, Chinese) pottery. Garden & Cosmos meanwhile gave a glimpse of a culture so different through a dazzling array of the most wonderful paintings. I left the BM with that satisfying sense of being newly knowledged.

A stroll through a fantastically busy and toastingly warm Covent Garden was followed by a Wagamama lunch, made better by friendly and stimulating company. We parted after lunch, and I had a look in North Face for a pair of walking boots (decided to put off a decision for another day). Then I dropped in on a sport shop, for some running stuff. Then I went across Covent Garden to St Martin Court, and visited the bookshop that used to be the one I worked in in 2005. I wound up browsing rather longer than expected and found a number of interesting titles, at least one of which might be very useful to my work (it's about post-war Burma 1945-1948). After that I dropped in on Motor Books, the shop that I had worked at but which has since moved one alley down to a different site. Headed home with a satisfied sense of having been busy. That night saw a barbecue of extreme deliciousness.

Today I've been to the cinema with my little brother to see Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, a gloriously gross (gorius?) and over-the-top horror film. Acting nondescript, script reasonably good, sound absolutely pounding and all in all a good laugh. We added to our self-indulgent spending on entertainment with a round of bowling, which I did quite well.

Now, if I can fit in a 3.5-mile run this evening I can get my May mileage up to 80. So if you'll excuse me.....

skyfilmhistlndn @ 2009-05-27T23:19:00

2009-05-27T23:27:59Z

Since the 1st May I have run 69 miles.

...monumental bright and clear...

2009-05-03T23:43:38Z

On Friday I went for a run; my usual six-mile tramp up and down a path alongside a six-carriage A-road. It's never a fast run, but it is getting progressively less slow. Anyhow, as I made it through the 5-mile mark or so, I was distracted by a beautiful sight. It had been spitting with rain, very slightly, during the last half hour, and now a monumental bright and clear rainbow sat over much of Mill HIll. It was a full, glorious semicircle, with just a ghostly hint of a double rainbow on top of it. With my church school primary education my mind ran to the story of Noah. It was magnificent, each colour melting luxuriously into the next. Even seen standing over six lanes of traffic, there was something perfect about it. A piece of simple natural beauty over an ugly urban landscape.

...means, but satisfying...

2009-04-21T23:05:37Z

So, another fun evening tonight at the Elephant and Castle Superbowl. Yes, it's probably the dirtiest and dingiest bowling alley in all of London (something of a feat!), but it's fun and it keeps me in touch with my old mob. Even better, I set a new personal best today of 162. Not a spectacular score by any means, but satisfying.

Spent most of today doing research for a new online exhibition. Slow work, but it's coming together.

...just under 59...

2009-04-16T22:29:16Z

So, went for a little run earlier - 6 miles in just under 59 minutes, with half uphill and half down. Absolutely knackered by the end of it, but I didnt stop and so far no aches or pains or blisters, and it feels like a distance I might get more used to.

...permanent. Infinite. Open...

2009-03-27T21:03:59Z

So, some good - no, great - news recently. My job, which was temporary and due to end in a matter of days, is now permanent. Infinite. Open ended. Forever. And not only that, but I've also had an extra grand a year on my pay. Now I probably don't want to stay the museum forever, but at least now I can stop worrying about the immediate future and can now plan in the medium term.

Fuck you, credit crunch!

...roadkill wonkily stuck...

2009-02-24T20:46:19Z

At the moment I'm watching a documentary about David Lloyd George. Now, it seems like a reasonable enough programme, but it keeps resorting to reconstructions using some actor to play Lloyd George who is wearing the most hilariously ridiculous fake mustache that I've ever seen. It resembles a piece of roadkill wonkily stuck to this guy's face, and every time he comes on the screen I can't concentrate on anything else.

...minute per mile...

2009-02-22T16:03:09Z

So, I went for a run yesterday, for the first time in a long time. Last spring and summer I'd got into a good routine, running often, but then I injured myself and it completely broke my rhythm. I've been meaning to get back into it for ages, and with the good weather yesterday I got out and did my usual 3 miles. It was actually a lot easier than I'd expected, and I finished it at only a minute per mile slower than I'd been at my best.

...managed a complex...

2009-02-14T19:50:42Z

So, today I gave my first public lecture at the Museum. The cinema had about 40 or 50 people in it, and most listened closely. A fair few had small children with them, whose attention span didn't last them the entire hour, but the numbers held up and there was even a splattering of applause at the end.

It was a good experience. The projectionists were both very efficient and managed a complex running list of various types of tape and film and moved seamlessly from one to the next. I was nervous to start with but once the film started rolling I was much more in my comfort zone. All in all a good challenge.

...satisfaction he remembered...

2009-02-13T20:51:11Z

Today I had a chat with Major-General Sir Julian Thompson. I'd met him at King's four years ago, and to my surprise and satisfaction he remembered me. He was at the IWM doing research for a book which just happeneded to be about Burma, and so we had an interesting chat and I think I've made a useful contact.

Also, I should have mentioned last night, but after coming out of the exhibition I had a really nice chat with a young receptionist called Nikki. There was something endearingly neurotic about her, chattering away 14-to-the-dozen, and I completely forgot what I was about to write on the comment card I'd asked her for.

... told with sensitivity and elegance...

2009-02-12T23:16:13Z

Have just this evening been to the Wellcome Trust's exhibition War and Medicine. Really, absolutely superb. An interesting story told with sensitivity and elegance, illustrated with an excellent range of documents, art, film and artefacts. And free as well!

...horror outside and conflict within...

2009-02-08T22:41:53Z

Have just watched George A Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, the film that more than any other defines the zombie horror genre. A subversive, b&w, 4:3, 1960s masterpiece. In many ways a very well balanced film, with a perfect balance between the horror outside and the conflict within.

Now, where's my copy of Shaun of the Dead....

...morning; crunching ...

2009-02-04T23:05:27Z

A nice thing this morning; crunching my way over the ice to the Tube I bumped into a girl I went to primary school with. As she lives locally I've run into her periodically (though probably less than once a year) but it was great to see her. We chatted for a few minutes about this and that, and then I wandered off to the station in a good mood.

...two pints...

2009-02-03T23:43:57Z

Today I checked my bank balances and discovered that one of my *savings* accounts with £800 in it will, if I leave it alone for a whole year, pay enough interest to buy two pints of beer.

The economy stinks.

...shovel the frozen seagulls ...

2009-02-02T17:27:30Z

SNOW! yells the weatherman. Yes! The heaviest for 18 years!

Snow? queries the train driver. What's SNOW?

You know, flaky frozen water from the sky... replies the weatherman.

Ah, I know what you mean! says the train driver. You mean Transportocollapso-powder! Don't worry, I know the drill! he says as waddles back to the tea room from another exhausting sit down.

I'm always amazed by Britain's approach to the weather. We moan, constantly, about not getting decent summers or white Christmases. Then, when something vaguely approaching seasonal weather occurs (like for instance - shock horror! - snow in winter) the transport network convulses with a gigantic orgasm of failure and half the country winds up either being buggered about by the tubes, trains, or buses, or abandons their car on the M25, or spends 18 hours at Grief-row Airport waiting for the workmen to shovel the frozen seagulls off the runway. The other half, meanwhile, say 'Bugger this for a laugh' and quite sensibly stay at home.

...gloriously unlikely sheer coincidence ...

2009-01-29T22:40:23Z

Time for a 4-week out of date New Year's Resolution: I will blog more often.

Tonight I gave a lecture to a surprisingly packed room of fellow museum staff members. It came off really well, the timings were about right and even the AVs worked properly too.

Last night I went bowling with the King's mob. I really ought to do that more often - I used to pass very often simply because it meant staying an hour and a half late, but thinking about it it's really not such an inconvenience. I'm a terrible bowler but it lets me see my old gang.

The night before that, I had drinks and dinner with a young couple from San Francisco. I'd met them only two and a half weeks before, when I was San Francisco myself. I'd been sat in a pub on Washington Square in North Beach, with my friend AD. We sat drinking the efforts of an Oregon brewery, our California guidebook lying open on the table. Before long a young woman, seeing the book, came over and asked us where we were from. Within a few moments, we were chatting as if we were old friends, and it turned out she and her husband were shortly moving to London. And so it was, that a few weeks later we were in London, with them drinking in my favourite pub in town, before going on Ian's Grand Walking River Tour from the Millenium Bridge, to Tower Bridge and back to Westminster. By gloriously unlikely sheer coincidence I've made two firm friends while half a world away from home, and it feels good.

...through the cold darkness of a December night....

2008-12-21T01:39:40Z

So, I've not written for ages, but I'm going to write tonight because I've had a special day. When I lived at Wolfson House, 2005-6, I knew a lovely girl called TT. Today she got married at a small but warm and intimate, and genuinely moving, service in Folkestone. I drove down at midday, attended the service and the reception, and met many lovely people who made me so welcome. Somehow, watching the rituals of the church wedding play themselves out, and then the rituals of speeches, toasts, food, and dancing, there was something beautiful about it all. Eventually, I said my farewells, and returned to my car. I sped home through the cold darkness of a December night with a warm glow.

...our antipodean sister...

2008-08-01T19:41:31Z

So, I've not written for about 6 weeks, mostly due to not having anything terribly exciting to talk about.

Today though, I've had some exciting news. I've been selected to take part in a Museum trip to the Western Front. 6 days in France with a party of ten others, as well as a party from the Australian War Memorial (our antipodean sister). Should see all the major British and Australian battlefields and it won't cost me a penny, in fact, I'll be being paid to be there.

Talk about a perk of the job!

...less than 1%...

2008-07-01T19:33:22Z

Today I repaid £100 of my student debt...

...then I realised that was less than 1% of the total. Bugger.