Day 706 – 28th February 2009

I don’t know how much I’ve mentioned this in the past, probably quite a bit, but I’m a bit of a Clint Eastwood buff. It all started when I decided to do a project on him a couple of years back, not really knowing who he was, and I really started to like his work a lot (I know there’s bad ones, even terrible ones, but the quality puts the crap in the shade).

Anyway, I was yet again bowled over tonight when I went to see his Oscar-nominated Changeling, from last year. It was at the uni cinema, so it was very uncomfortable, but two and a half hours were made bearable by such a moving, gripping, compelling and true plot.

I could go on about the acting, the dialogue, the sound track, the lighting, the direction etc for hours, but it’s getting late, so I just recommend you go and see what is one of Angelina Jolie’s greatest performances to date.

As I have mentioned before, the pictures are, for seasonal reasons, rather dark – but once again I’m pleased with the result…

It’s March tomorrow – spring is on the way…

Day 705 – 27th February 2009

Spent the morning watching some more Italian cop dramas, followed by work, lessons and more work, capped by watching a film and getting some popcorn.

Also, I worked out how to invert the peephole on my room door so that it looks inwards, rather than outwards. Why? I’m not sure why. Let’s leave it at that.

Day 704 – 26th February 2009

Better than Taggart and A Touch of Frost, yet not quite as good as Morse or Waking The Dead, Montalbano is the Italian cop show we’ve been asked to study for, you guessed it, Italian lessons. He’s a maverick, he doesn’t play by the rules, but that doesn’t matter because by gosh does he get results.

There’s little all else to talk about really. The credit crunch still runs on, as do the various wars and conflicts plaguing the world today; it’s not trivial, but it’s not new.

Actually, I almost forgot to mention that I gave a lecture about learning languages in the management school lecture theatre 1 – the presidential suite of lecture theatres. It was to a bunch of sixth formers who weren’t sure what to take up for a degree; they were friendly and mature, and it all went well.

Twitter is beginning to bore me. Maybe it’s not quite boredom yet, but it definitely is tiresome. It’s just so inane, for example, as I type, a message seems to come in every two minutes and it’s either dull, or makes no sense. So far, the only points of interest have been Jonathan Ross taking pictures on his show with the top guests, and Stephen Fry, who is currently travelling the world, and often posts pictures from the set of any project he’s working on.

Otherwise, It’s turning into more of a chore than an activity. Twitter got big pretty much in ten days, despite having been around for a few years (I used to use it as a ‘now playing’ sign on my site for the music player), and as they say, the quicker the rise, the quicker the fall…

Day 703 – 25th February 2009

Oh how I love today’s picture. It’s not of anything in particular, but I just adore the lines dancing across the frame, along with that flash at the top and, my favourite of all, that warm, green-edged opalescent glow underlying it all.

Like so many pictures I like, and so many other great things – it was a total accident, which is why I speak of it without a hint of modesty; it wasn’t really my doing! Well, it was, but at the time it was close to deletion.

It’s been an odd day today – the alarm rang solidly for two hours before it actually woke me up, which meant a morning lesson; I don’t like this at all, and am slightly worried that this might happen again…

Day 702 – 24th February 2009

Late last night I got a parcel from my mum, who sent me an indoor boomerang and two balloons that fly like UFOs. I’ve had some fun so far, I hope it continues.

It’s pancake day today – I think I’m about to burst! Tasted good though, and my walk helped to burn some of it off…

Day 701 – 23rd February 2009

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen – it’s a corsa cabriolet. Wisely accepted as being the height of taste, the DIY drop top is a particularly good feature, well adapted for the Lancaster weather. Also, it’s brilliant if you don’t like your passenger – you wouldn’t be able to hear them talking to you during any one of the frequent downpours. In fact, you wouldn’t be able to hear anything at all through the pissing rain and gale force winds.

I don’t know whose choice this was, and I can’t decide whether to take the piss, or admire the owner. There’s something so British about the fact that we own the most convertible cars in the whole of Europe, and yet we get such shit weather; I guess it’s a sort of stiff upper lip optimism – by all means an important quality.

However, it’s a Corsa with a canvas roof. In other words, it’s completely bloody ridiculous, cold and impractical.

 

Day 700 – 22nd February 2009

Day 700 – another landmark for picture of the day, I hope I manage to carry it on for another 700 and more!

It’s a slightly odd coincidence that the seven hundredth day should fall on the seventh day of the week. i wouldn’t read too much into it though.

We’re getting to the sort of numbers now where a lot has changed since the start of the picture diary. Leaders have changed, wars have started and ended, people have been born and people have died. 700 pictures is actually getting to be a half decent collection now, definitely something interesting to look back on.

Picking up form yesterday’s theme, looks like my brother got away fairly lightly in the end – justice has clearly been served.

I like today’s picture, although I must say that my tendency to get the shot on my evening walk has resulted in many of them looking similar! It’s all very dark, but then again, it is winter…

Hopefully as summer comes and the skies brighten, so will picture of the day. Not that I mind winter, it’s my favourite season in fact, but I’ll be happy when I can stop having to take long exposure shots of everything just to get a normal image!

Day 699 – 21st February 2009

Man I really need a tripod. I’d got such a lovely shot lined up, but the only thing around to rest my camera on was a tree, which would only support the device at an angle – a steep one as you can see.

There were few other cars or buses around, so this was my only option really. If it were straight, it would have been dynamic and interesting – now it looks a bit weird.

Earlier this evening I received a text massage from my brother saying “I’ve been caught, pissed, due to a girl.” He’s in sixth form at a boarding school, so I knew it was the teachers who’d caught him, but pissed? If you were pissed, would you use commas and words like ‘due to’ in a text? Unlikely.

Anyway, I asked for more information, and the reply said, “Ben, I’ve been liking this girl for ages but I think she’s going out with someone elsewhere. And I've…” Then another one saying “I’ve thrown it all away.”

When I asked how much trouble he thought he was in, I got a message saying “It’s so bad.” What was I supposed to say to that?

Next came a phone call from him, clearly not pissed very much at all, since he was making perfect sense on the phone. Apparently he’d had a few too many, then some dodgy baileys off some Russian guy and a teacher saw him ‘acting slightly oddly’.

The unbelievable part is what happened next – they breathalysed him! The teachers actually made him blow into a machine! Apparently, he was ‘over the limit’. Christ knows what limit that is, it’s not like he’s got to drive home, he’s in a bloody boarding school! What’s more, they put him in sick bay! Since when did anyone go to sick bay for being slightly tipsy?

I’m writing this up so that it gets documented as it was on the night it happened, in case he gets into deeper trouble. He clearly was not in any state of severe drunkenness, since he was talking to me as normal on the phone, and his messages made sense.

He also messaged the parents so that they might be forewarned about any calls they might be getting from the school, the actions of a drunkard?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say so. What’s more is that if he was that bad, he wouldn’t even have needed to have been tested – it would have been obvious from the vomiting and passing out. There was none of that.

I really hope he doesn’t get into too much trouble over this, it was a one off incident, he’s not a big drinker, and he wasn’t even drunk! Tomorrow I’ll call my parents about this, tell them what happened from my end – we’ll wait and see what the school do, I’d be very surprised if too much came of it though.

Unfortunate brothers aside, It’s been a crazy, crazy night for me too, although I can’t really go into it much, suffice to say that it’s very late now, I’m still getting calls and I’m absolutely shattered. It had to be said.

Right, well I’ve been going on for hours now, it’s 2am,and it’ll be a while before I get to bed by the looks of things, but I wish you a goodnight anyway!

 

Day 698 – 20th February 2009

Can’t say what prompted me to take today’s picture.

The one thing it does do is show that nothing really picture worthy has happened today. The flat smells badly of TCP, but you can’t photograph a smell. I had a listening test, but the same applies to sound (for those who might not be completely au fait with the workings of a camera).

Got a Tesco delivery coming in tomorrow – I’m out of bread, eggs, pasta, fruit, veg and meat; this’ll be a nice relief then.

Day 697 – 19th February 2009

Yesterday’s picture was of a typewriter, so today’s is of the fruits of the machine – our fifties Germany style Twitter.

Been a bit ill again today, but I’m starting to feel better now – I think it’ll be fine by tomorrow.

Day 696 – 18th February 2009

This is a German typewriter dating apparently from 1950. That’s far too close to the end of the war to be able to dodge nazi jokes, and if you were to look very closely at the paper (which luckily can’t be done), you’d see things like ‘achtung spitfire’ and ‘schnell schnell’ written up on there. It’s not mine, but was a gift to a flatmate – I couldn’t miss it as picture of the day. Sorry the photo isn’t that good, angles were rather awkward in the flat.

It’s been another day of illness today – seem to have had a bit of a relapse this morning, hopefully it won’t happen again. For you Tommy, ze var eez ova!

Day 695 – 17th February 2009

Well bugger me. This morning, I couldn’t help but notice an advert on Freecycle for a chair. Having been let down on my last one, I thought that this could be a second chance. Not so. I sent the message this morning, and this evening I got a reply informing me that it’d already gone. Better luck next time…

Been really ill today, feel a bit better now – although as I sat in a listening test I could feel myself slowly starting to die a little bit. Anyway, it’s all coming back on again, so I’ll be off to bed now.

Day 694 – 16th February 2009

I’ve been ill today, with what I would guess as being tonsillitis.

That’s not made for easy going, and considering how rough I feel now – I haven’t got my hopes up for tomorrow. I’m going to have to go to at least one thing though, as I understand we have a listening test at around 11am. Bugger.

Talking of which, whilst lying down, I came up with a catchphrase - ‘well bugger me’. I wrote it on my hand so that I don’t forget about it in the morning. I can’t say if it’s been taken or not already, I haven’t done much research – but hopefully not.

Day 693 – 15th February 2009

I’m not feeling very well, and I’ve prattled on for more than I should have the past two days or so; I’ll keep it short then.

Today was spent reading this book and watching ‘Heroes’, which, I can’t remember if I mentioned before, I’ve never seen before. I’m nearly at the end of season 1, I don’t have anything else, so I’ll be calling it a day for now after this, but it’s been gripping stuff so far! Dunno if I’d recommend the book, it’s part of my course so I’m biased towards finding it irritating; it’s well written though, just of little interest to me! Anything which is summed up by ‘one woman’s journey’ is going to have to be more than brilliant to really appeal to me!

Day 692 – 14th February 2009

It has come to my attention that the car I got a picture of two days ago, which was completely without a clue of identification, was a Daimler, which I think I may have mentioned yesterday.

All those classic car shows made it easy for me to pick out the car in today’s picture, a late 70s/early 80s MGB GT. It’s the second in three days, before that I think it was a picture of a DB9 several months back. It’s perhaps not quite old enough to be called a ‘classic’, but you don’t see many around, and (I think) it looks good – so here it is, the picture of the day.

In rugby, England lost to Wales, despite playing better than in their victorious encounter against Italy (maybe says a lot about Italy), and this final score rested at 23-15, England making something of a comeback in the middle of the game, but never quite outclassing a superior Welsh side. They went in underdogs, they came out as predicted.

I must say I was surprised at quite how many people had predicted an 8 point margin, nearly everyone on TV in fact, which is most unusual – I guess they know what they are talking about after all!

Proof that England weren’t disgraced is that Joe Worsley was made man of the match having put in a brilliant, tireless, performance amongst as well as many of his teammates.

It’s Valentine’s day today, so the smell of fake, imposed, commercial love was in the air. It hasn’t actually been St. Valentine’s day today since 1969 when the church replaced it with St. Cyril. Every year people say ‘ooh, I hate it, it’s so commercialised’, then every year thousands of people buy tons of schmaltzy hideous crap that no one wants.

Is the world really in such a state that we have to be told when to be romantic? I’d like to think not, but after today’s goings on I’m beginning to doubt myself…

Day 691 – 13th February 2009

Well it’s time I showed the throne of crates to the world. I hope the folks at Tesco aren’t reading this, as I haven’t been entirely truthful with the delivery guys. Instead of ‘giving them back the next time’, I have hoarded them so as to make myself a chair of crates.

This is a good chair, and it does the job, but it’s rather large; it takes up so much space that getting in and out of the room has become something of a pain in the arse.

It’s left me in a bit of a dilemma. On the one side, having something to sit on that isn’t my bed or a kitchen chair is a great delight, it’s made me much happier, but on the other hand, the crates are really so big it’s almost ridiculous.

The answer lies in getting a real armchair, something more comfortable yet smaller – this is the case with most chairs available these days. Thus began my quest for a chair, I’ve searched far and wide, looked on eBay, looked in skips and shops right up until I remembered Freecycle.

Freecycle is a concept started in America that I recall hearing about on the radio one day. It’s basically a way to get rid of stuff you don’t want. You post it up on the site, and give it away, simple as that. Sounding like something that might only work in London, I still checked out the site, and I was surprised to find a thriving Lancaster group.

I put up an ad saying I wanted an armchair, and sure enough – I’ve got a reply! I just hope that the owner of said armchair can hang onto it long enough for me to be able to bring it home. All being well, if it’s not disappeared already, I’ll pick it up by the station on Wednesday! In this time of recession, Freecycle stands tall.

If you’re interested in Freecycle, you can find your local group here.

Day 690 – 12th February 2009

Well, it’s yet another night time picture today, but I do love it so. Sadly, I don’t have the time to photoshop out that scenic in the background, and that sparkle of light is just too good to crop out, so it stays in! I might do something with it someday though, I do like it a lot – fancy seeing such a car at night on a uni car park.

I’m normally good with classics, but I couldn’t say what this one is, no badge or anything, as was often the norm, but I’m sure someone will tell me what it is – there was no owner to be seen at all either.

Well, I hope you liked the picture as much as I did!

Day 689 – 11th February 2009

It’s been cold, harsh and miserable for along time, and although the sun came out today, it didn’t last very long at all. This makes it very difficult to get out of bed in the morning, you ask yourself every day why you bother to keep going.

As they say though, keep calm and carry on, and that’s what we do. I know today’s picture is another moon one, but my evening walk is rather a good time to get pictures this term!

Twitter is slowly but surely becoming a way of life. Admittedly, I haven’t quite understood the point of it yet, but it holds a strange intrigue which is undeniably fun.

As I speak, England are trailing 1-0 in a friendly away to Spain – they’re not actually playing badly, so it’d be a shame to lose…

Day 688 – 10th February 2009

You’ll have to take my word for it, but this is actually a picture of the moon. It’s redder and less moonlike than I’d like it, but it’s nonetheless nice to look at.

It’s been an odd day, started with a long meeting which overran into most things, but then tonight, on my evening stroll, a man walked past me wearing a pair of leather trousers with no arse; nothing. It wasn’t the nicest thing to see – fortunately, getting the camera out never really crossed my mind at that point!

On that bum note (ha-di-ha), it’s time for bed.

Day 687 – 9th February 2009

Today’s picture is of the new statistics building – it’s pretty average but I shouldn’t be mean; it does follow the recent trend though.

I hope that that tirade of statistical jokes didn’t send you running from the PC – if it has then it doesn’t matter too much, as I’ve got little else to say.

Day 686 – 8th February 2009

Snow has fallen once more. It didn’t stick this time, and it’s already stopped – but it fell, and that was enough. Those white specks in the picture are snowflakes – it wasn’t quite the right time of day to get a great picture, and it didn’t snow enough to get a snowy long exposure shot, so this is what I had to settle with. The tree on the right looks odd – the flash (needed to get the flakes) bleached it out completely!

My parents came up today with my brother, who is on half term. It was good to see them again and catch up over lunch – luckily the snow held off for their journey back.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Stoke lost, with yet another red card, but more positively, the six nations tournament started well for England, beating Italy 36-11 at Twickenham.

That said – the new week starts again tomorrow; until then goodnight.

Day 685 – 7th February 2009

I like today’s picture. Perhaps it’s a bit dark and the car ‘light trail’ could have gone on further, but all in all it’s something to be reasonably proud of.

I’m not someone who deliberately avoids new trends and technologies to seem ‘cool’, they usually just tend to pass me by, or I don’t understand them. A particular feature of the zeitgeist right now is a site called Twitter. I can’t explain it that well, but it’s like giving little updates about yourself to the world. Sort of like what happens in between blog posts. So if you wanted to know what I was doing and thinking at the very moment I took the picture, you could look up my messages around that time '(or ‘tweets’ as they’re called).

It’s a difficult concept to understand, and I’ll admit that it is a time vacuum – but it is nonetheless strangely intriguing. Where it gets interesting is when you see famous people on there, such as Stephen Fry or Jonathan Ross, giving a quick update on what they’ve just done – who they’ve just met.

It’s weird, I know, but then they said that about facebook; a site which is used by 1 in 50 people worldwide, and which is actually useful.

Day 684 – 6th February 2009

In a moment of boredom, we decided to make a short film about a wooden plane we got free.

It was all made in one go, and I used the pause button to make lots of cut scenes for effect. Sadly, I couldn’t be arsed to put a soundtrack to it, as it required a complex video conversion, and we came up with ideas as we went along; rendering it incoherent and strange.

Did I forget to mention that it’s a load of shite? Anyway, it can be viewed here. One day, I’ll perhaps put some music to it – I know what it needs, but it just takes so much time!

Day 683 – 5th February 2009

My brief illness was, as stated, brief. Things were rather odd this morning, but I quickly recovered and managed to attend everything I was due to.

A recent Tesco shop has brought along a batch of cheap creme eggs; it’s that time of year! I’ve been giving them out to people, and it’s surprising just quite how many don’t like them. I suppose it’s not knowing quite what the white stuff inside is made up of…

Day 682 – 4th February 2009

I was going to go on about how’s it been such a lovely day today, and how I spent a while by the pond with a coffee – but it appears I’ve had a rather funny turn, and have fallen ill.

My stomach aches and I’m all hot and bothered – I really need my bed. I think it was something I ate.

Day 681 – 3rd February 2009

The snow has gone, long live the snow!

It hasn’t gone in the rest of the country however, which makes the news slightly odd to watch – it’s all about people being snowed in, when we’ve got blue skies and green grass!

Today I tried a simple technique I got into a couple of years back, hand colouring pictures – it’s something I might start doing again, as I quite like the effect it can give. It’s not for everything of course, but I think it works here where I coloured the pins and WALL-E.

Day 680 – 2nd February 2009

Have no doubt in your mind that I absolutely, 100% love snow – what did we get today? A dose of the white stuff of course!

Apparently, this is the first time it’s actually stuck on the ground for a long time; coastal conditions usually restrict snowfall around these parts, but not today! Oh no, it came, it settled, I played.

That has made it a great day for me, and many others – sadly conditions around the country have not been so perfect, with many, my parents included, unable to move the car in the snow drifts.

From what I hear, there’s more to come, so I hope it’s not too bad for the UK, but from my point of view – bring it on!

Day 679 – 1st February 2009

I’m both pleased and dismayed with today’s picture – on the one hand it turned out colourful and vibrant as I wanted it, on the other hand if I could only have got the camera tilted a few inches higher towards the sky, the picture would have been framed so much better. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the shot, I had to keep the camera deadly still to get the photo and without my tripod my options were limited to resting the device on bollards and signposts.

In other news, a ten-man Stoke managed to score and beat Man City at home yesterday, a feat which I forgot to mention at the time. That said, we’ve lost Delap, the secret weapon throw-in expert for three games now – all thanks to a stupid, but not undeserved red card. It was never going to be easy to stay up this season.

A new working week begins tomorrow – the weekends seem to just fly by nowadays!