Fucking Computers

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that I have computer problems every few years. My normal response is to simply replace the computer. Frequently, the computer is well out of date by this point, so it's virtually a necessity anyway. This time, that option is unavailable to me.

Over the last few days, I've found my... what, 2-year-old desktop..? has been playing up. I've got it set up so there are two Admin logins (2nd being for emergency backup purposes) for installation of software and then me as a user with no admin rights. My own login has been desperately slow. For no obvious reason, Photoshop suddenly couldn't play a 12-frame GIF animation with a 0.06 second frame delay. It managed about a frame a second, with occasional bursts where it might get through 2 whole frames in a second. I didn't dare try a movie. I could start up a web browser, but navigating from page to page, or opening new tabs reduced everything to a crawl. Frequently, it would report that a page had 'become unresponsive'. Switching to email was a chore. Then things started to get really weird.

I mean, I accept that computers - particularly PCs - will slow down over time and through use. Startup is never as fast on a 2-year-old machine as it was when it was brand new. Programs are installed, the startup sequence gets added to. That kind of thing is inevitable.

But when a machine takes a couple of minutes to start up one day, then about 25 minutes the next, and can't run any fucking software, and then takes several minutes to close windows, let alone programs, there's something very seriously adrift.

And when it reports, in the bottom, righthand side of the screen that "this version of Windows is not genuine", it's starting to look like some kind of malware must be at work.

So, after sleeping very poorly last night after a day of utter frustration which left me near tears, I figured the situation left me with two choices:

1. Start the machine up as Admin, run a full virus check, run the registry checker, and run system restore to bomb it back a few weeks.
2. Give up and take it back to the shop, for the first time ever in my life actually taking damned advantage of the damned service contract.

And surely you know I'm too pig-headed for the second option.

So now I'm working on a machine which, at first glance, is up and running normally again. The system restore was simple enough, the registry checker picked up nothing out of the ordinary (3 errors have been present since I first started the machine, and are never fixed) and the virus checker reported nothing... having taken 9 hours, 1 minute and 1 second to check the machine.

That's significantly better than the 3+ days it estimated for most of the duration of the check.

As an aside, I also cleared out some of my 'Temporary Files'... It frustrates me no end that Windows is capable of hanging on to over half a gigabyte of 'Temporary Files' - some of them executables, by the looks of it - because it's supposed to remove them when it's finished. That's why they're called 'Temporary'.

It's been an awfully stressful day, and I've kept myself distracted - as far as possible - by reading the second Millennium book, The Girl Who Played with Fire. I was just over halfway through yesterday... and now I've almost finished what has been one of the most exciting books I've read this year (OK, it's still January, so that's not difficult). Even without the need for distraction, I might have found it difficult to put down. It's not quite as exciting (or as twisty) as The Delicate Dependency, which I finished shortly before I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I've been very impressed with almost every aspect.

The extent of Larsson's product placement is disturbing, but I guess that could just be the result of a writer who was fastidious about his details...

Nocturnal Self-Harm

When I was younger, I used to find myself waking up with a bleeding nose every so often. Most of the time, I couldn't figure out why but, on a few notable occasions, I woke up during the event that caused it, rather than afterward.

Once, I was banging my face into my pillows.

Once, I had my finger jammed up my nose.

I mention this only because I have now experienced a new variation on this theme - thankfully one not involving my nose.

I was having a strange dream about travelling somewhere by train. I was on a station platform that seemed to be underground, though the layout was something like the nearest station to my parents' home - that is, there's the open platform, a covered-over but otherwise open 'waiting area', and a staircase leading up to the ticket office. Something about this dream station (the darkness, maybe?) made it seem to be located in a natural underground cavern - the columns looked more like stalagmites and stalactites that had joined together, rather than something built.

An old friend of mine was there as well, so it seemed as though we were going wherever together, and we were trying to decide where on the platform would be best to stand. There was plenty of choice - other than the two of us, I saw maybe three people occupying the platform.

That is, until the train arrived... whereupon floods of people seemed to come from the walls, pushing toward the train and, in that fashion typical of frequent passengers of the London Underground, pushing other people out of the way to ensure they got themselves on.

My friend and I eventually managed to squeeze on, though I can't even be sure that we were in the same carriage. Most of my attention was occupied by a small boy who was doing something annoying. What it was, I don't recall - I really should have written this up yesterday, when it was fresh(er) in my mind - but it must have been serious because I eventually grabbed him by the throat, lifted him up (actually made easier by the crowding) and proceeded to throttle him, while he tried to laugh it off.

And then, when I woke up, I found my right forearm was going numb, because I was strangling it (just above the elbow) with my left hand.

Curiously, in the dream, I was throttling the boy with my right hand.

Strange things, dreams...

I had a call from my bank today... one of those "just checking... what can we do for you?" type of calls that seem entirely superfluous, though I'm sure the banks feel they are a vital tool in ensuring that customers feel 'cared for'.

Point of fact, banks: If you really want to care for your customers, increase your fucking interest rates. 0.01%? Versus what kind of profits you're making off our backs? Are you fucking serious?

There was some guff about their insurance offers - combining life insurance and contents insurance on one policy? - but nothing of any genuine use... Good old banks, eh?

The Demon Drink

Several times in the past, I've mentioned experiencing something like insomnia. Every so often, I'll be lying in bed, wide awake, well into the morning. This happens regardless of what time I go to bed, though I'll freely admit I tend to go to bed not long before 'tomorrow morning' begins, and sometimes quite a while after. Sometimes it's because my mind is racing - if something's bothering me, for example - but sometimes I can't identify any reason.

It has been said that there's a state of tiredness where you go beyond mere tiredness and into a weird, hyperwakeful state... and it certainly feels like that sometimes. I've only once stayed awake almost all night and, even then, eventually got to sleep.

On a whim, a few weeks ago, I decided to have an alcoholic drink while watching a late movie. This actually happened several times over the space of a couple of weeks (who knew there would be so many late movies I was sufficiently interested in?) and, on each and every occasion, I managed to get off to sleep almost immediately after reading a chapter or so of whatever book I was reading.

Perhaps I should have made a connection, but I genuinely didn't...

...Until I'd spent a couple of weeks without any alcoholic nightcaps and having trouble getting to sleep again.

It strikes me as a Bad Thing that I might 'need' to take a drink before going to sleep - surely alcoholism lies down that path - but perhaps it suggests that I'm tense? Maybe I need to relax?

Clearly not having a job to make me tense and grouchy is making me tense and grouchy.

In other news, 600 posts, 4000 pageviews... Gosh...

Creative Differences

The obvious thing with any book-to-movie adaptation is that there are going to be changes... Even when the book is a graphic novel, in the case of Watchmen. Thing is, sometimes those changes are for the better (apologies to Mr Alan Moore, but I thought that the giant interdimensional squids were a bit too much, and the movie was far more sensible about its 'world-uniting threat').

With traditional novels, the changes generally amount to great swathes of plot being entirely removed, and the story being rewritten to plug the gaps. Look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Never having read all the way through any of the books, I thought the movies were great, and told a nice, complete story. Everyone I know who has read the books, however, complained about some key plot point that was either missing or truncated or generally glossed over.

Even newly written novels - which, all too frequently, are obviously written with a movie adaptation in mind - aren't safe from Hollywood's plot shredders.

OK, Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy probably aren't in that particular category... But, having just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - which I started reading a week or so before seeing the movie - it's fresh in my mind for the sake of comparison.

Most of the US version is remarkably close to the text, but a couple of great chunks were either removed or rewritten, with a few odd lines of dialogue revised. For example:

• The movie begins after Blomkvist loses the libel case brought by Wennerstrom, and he's been fined, but has avoided prison time.
• I don't recall reading anything about Blomkvist going to London to meet Anita Vanger quite early on in his investigation... Maybe it was just so brief that it's slipped my mind...
• There's no physical relationship between Blomkvist and Cecilia... which struck me as rather odd, because they'd cast Geraldine James. I mean, come on... I would.
• In connection with the second point, there's no trip to Australia at the end of the movie... which leaves me puzzled as to what the movie did with Anita Vanger. I honestly don't recall.

I was given the trilogy by a friend, who read the first book, but gave up on the second because she didn't like Blomkvist as a character, citing amongst other things his "sexual incontinence". Now that I've finished the book, I kind of take issue with that assessment.

Rightly or wrongly, men will frequently accept the advances of any woman they find attractive (enough... one must have standards, after all), whether they're in a relationship or not. Blomkvist isn't in a relationship, as such, he just has an understanding with Erika, his editor/partner in the magazine (and her husband). During the course of the book, he falls into a sexual fling with Cecilia (separated from her husband - no Vanger ever divorces - and lonely) which ends after Cecilia meets Erika. Once Salander turns up on the scene, she basically decides to pounce on him because she likes him. At the beginning of both of these 'relationships' Blomkvist is essentially passive.

Now, OK, when a man does this, he's considered... well, he's considered to be a lucky bastard by just about any other man and, sadly, all too often considered to be 'hot stuff' by teh wimminz. Sure, there are those - on both sides - who will think he's just stupidly promiscuous, but there's probably an element of jealousy in there somewhere. Worse still, a woman who behaves the same way is automatically branded a slut - easy pickings for certain kinds of bloke, and universally loathed by women.

And isn't it funny that, in this age of 'equality' between the sexes, it's more frequent for women to match men in terms of boozing, rowdiness and promiscuity than it is for them to match men in the employment/earnings stakes, or even in genuine self-confidence?

But I digress...

To me, Blomkvist came across as a bit of a chancer. When Salander made her first move on him, he did try to dissuade her. After that, his only crime was in not understanding what Salander herself didn't initially understand - that her feelings for him had developed beyond the purely sexual.

Moreover, it would have seemed to him that she was probably incapable of developing into whatever he would recognise as a 'friend' let alone a lover... Not least because Salander herself only considered him a sex partner right up until she realised she actually liked him.

Salander comes across better than I'd expected. I'd read comments to the effect that she was a walking deus ex machina, who basically became whatever the situation required of her (she only really pulls of a clever bit of - well-planned - acting right at the end), or somehow had access to the relevant equipment to accomplish whatever task was required of her. She is far better written than that and, since the narrative often switches to her perspective, one gets a greater insight into her mind as the reader than she (or Larsson) grants to any other character. She's very naive - particularly about Blomkvist - but that's completely consistent with her character - strong, resourceful, quick-witted... and a touch socially retarded.

Story-wise, it's one of the more interesting thrillers I've read (not that I've read many), and the revelation about the true origins of the pressed flowers sent to Henrik Vanger after Harriet's disappearance is almost heartbreaking.

I've now started the second book - The Girl Who Played with Fire - and it's already very different... Like the first book, it starts off slowly.... but I'd imagine it picks up the pace soon enough.

Alternative Endings

Once in a while, I'll have more than one book on the go at a time. This surprises some people, who wonder if I don't get the storylines or characters confused. It hasn't happened so far, and I can either alternate which one I'm reading each night or, if I'm feeling daring, read a chapter of each before nodding off.

Perhaps it's that I generally only read before going to bed that helps - sleep being that time when the brain organises everything, a full defrag for the day's myriad sensory inputs.

One might expect this would have an effect on my dreams but, as previously mentioned, I haven't been dreaming much of anything for quite a while. That recent one was a rather elaborate extension of my typical 'Zombie Dream' scenario... but last night's was something altogether different. I dreamt I was still reading one of my books.

There are times, either when reading, or watching TV shows or movies, that I can tell how the plot is going to go from a certain point. Far too many things basically telegraph later events by setting them up much too obviously. Other times, I'll make what I see as logical connections. Sometimes that leads me to the correct ending, sometimes it doesn't (I am not impervious to deus ex machina, after all).

What happened last night is that the book seemed to be suggesting a particular scenario so strongly, that my unconscious mind continued picking away at that thread. The upshot was that I woke up very keen to carry on reading, to see how close to the truth my dream came... and whether or not any of the dialogue I remember from my dream's version of the book is used in the real thing.

The other half of my dream was just as bizarre, but in a completely different way. It seemed to be set at a company meeting, where 'the boss' was giving everyone a bit of a grilling. I seemed to keep answering back as, eventually, she singled me out for some more direct abuse, making some slightly erroneous references to things that happened to me back in my school days, of all things.

Been feeling a bit odd today, generally. My stomach's playing up quite badly, so I'm in that situation where I don't know whether I'm hungry or about to be sick... and, sadly, only time will tell...

With Great Responsibility Comes... Er...

So, after lunch, my sister asked to have a word with me in private. Then she suggested that I might want to sit down. Then she said that she and her husband were planning to make some changes to their will.

And then she asked me if I'd be willing to become my niece's legal guardian in the event of their deaths.

I guess it's one of those questions one might preface with "there's no easy way to ask this..."

It's an unlikely occurrence, to be sure, but while I accepted quickly (and glibly?), it only later sank in what an awesome responsibility it would be... now, or at any age.

...I guess this is how my sister and her husband feel all the time now.

In other news, "In your face, power companies!" - my Direct Debit 'contributions' have pretty much doubled this year (certainly for gas, if not electricity), and are four or five times what I initially signed up to when I switched to my current supplier a few years ago. Last year, by first bill of the year was scary, to the tune of a £140-odd deficit. This year, with my higher 'contributions' and - evidently - lower consumption, they have over £200 of my money that they really shouldn't.

I may request a refund.

Ain't that some sh...

I haven't documented my dreams in any great detail for quite some time... Largely because they haven't really stuck with me once I've woken up. Last night's was... special... in so many weird ways. It's what people expect when they have dreams - a bizarre adventure, with danger and laughs along the way.

It started with weird 'veins' growing through a building. I was there to destroy them because "if they reach the mainland, it'll be a disaster" - so, instantly, you know I'm on an island, somewhere near the coast of 'the mainland'. Despite their protestations and, if I remember correctly, their attempts to fight back, the 'veins' seemed easy enough to break up. Whether they'd already been treated with something, I don't know... but most of them seemed to crumble like dried twigs, rather than squooshing, as one might expect from veins. I remember noting in the dream that "this would make great material for a story", which seemed remarkably close to lucid dreaming, for me... More on that later.

By and by, I found myself outside again, as a dark storm raged around a harbour town. There was a woman supervising the docking of a couple of boats, while also trying to keep on top of arrangements for a party where Mark Twain was the guest of honour - though this was to be kept secret, to avoid a rush of 'guests' who had not actually been invited.

She had to go off to supervise party things more directly, so she left me in charge of the boats. The tethering ropes were ridiculously short... in fact, looking back, I cannot understand how they actually connected to the boats because I'm sure I saw both ends. Nevertheless, I tethered them to the only things they could reach... things which looked remarkably like drawing pins embedded in the concrete of the harbour walls. This seemed to do the trick, however.

I got a phone call from that woman, instructing me that something had gone adrift - whether it was due to the storm or 'other circumstances', I'm not sure... All I know is that I was then instructed to fetch Mark Twain from his lodgings, and bring him personally, being sure to keep his identity secret. Two things bothered me about this, within the dream: Firstly, with the storm raging as it was, how could we possibly still throw the party? Second, if I was keeping in contact with 'home base' (as it were) by cellphone, how would I explain this to Mark frickin' Twain? In fact, anyone seeing the cellphone would surely get suspicious, let alone an author who died many years before their invention (albeit about 30 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the Photophone). I remember wondering to myself if it would be safe to ask if he'd already visited the Starship Enterprise (in the Next Gen story Time's Arrow), confirming that it was I, not he, who was the time-traveller here.

On my way to his lodgings, in the 'town centre' on the other side of the hills surrounding the harbour, I happened to pass my first (real-world) boss and his second-in-command, heading down a side road, clearly trying to escape. Perhaps I should have wondered what they were escaping.

The storm wasn't quite so apparent in the small, crowded town centre, but there was something very much amiss... People were starting to riot out in the streets, so I headed quickly into the tavern in which both Twain and I were staying (coincidence?). Along the way, I got another phone call from 'the boss', still adamant that the party was going to go ahead, still adamant that I should keep the star guest's identity secret... despite the fact that some uninvited guests were already trying to force their way in. Whatever riots these were, they'd already reached her stately home, overlooking the other side of the harbour.

In the tavern, I saw the staff lined up and being exposed to some kind of gas or aerosol. I asked for the girl who cleaned a particular room (there was something on a table in that room that made it distinctive, but I can't remember what that was) and, when she groggily identified herself, I yanked her out of the line-up, shook her about, and asked where someone was - not Twain. I dragged her along with me, up the stairs and into the room, clearly looking for someone other than Twain, who I never saw, even by chance, at any point in this dream. I can't remember if I found the person I was looking for, or if the maid I had commandeered just fainted, but while trying to help a woman to stand, one of the other staff ambled up, armed with some kind of Christmas decoration. The woman I was helping also produced some weird, ineffective weapon, and both swiped at me.

Since there seemed to be some signs of lucidity in their eyes, I addressed them by name, and instructed them to stop and hand over their weapons, because something wasn't right. Both blinked briefly, then dropped their weapons and seemed to return to themselves. Not wasting any time, I snatched up their weapons, and told them that they'd be alright if they shut themselves in after I left.

And here's where it seemed to be lucid dreaming again: I strutted out of the room, armed with one serrated Christmas decoration (part of a snowflake, maybe?) and what may have been half a pair of scissors. In true videogame fashion, I started sneaking around the building - lit only by fires, and whether they were inside or outside I cannot be sure - trying to escape, because the situation was out of control. I knew my weapons wouldn't get me very far in a fight, so I had to either avoid fighting or find better weapons.

As luck would have it - bad luck, that is - I came across two nattily-dressed, positively Dickensian gentlemen, smashing the place up. I intervened, slashing at their necks, ineffectually, with my rubbish weapons. Neither were very much perturbed by these injuries, though one dropped a long nail. Discarding my Christmas decoration, I snatched up the nail. As one of the rioting gentlemen invited me to join them in their merriment, I was stabbing the other in the back of the neck with the nail.

With the both of them, eventually, out of the way, I managed to escape and get into a building over the other side of the road, which seemed to be 'home base' - lots more anachronistic technology, and some sort of escape pod arrangement on the back wall. I joined a bunch of colleagues, strapping ourselves in - roller-coaster fashion - and awaiting our escape. One of my colleagues, looking out the window, said something to the effect that the storm would prevent our leaving, so we might be stuck. The guy sat to my left jumped into the seat ahead of me, allowing none other than Cee Lo Green to take his seat next to me (and I should clarify that this was Cee Lo as played by Chi McBride - the only reason I knew who it was supposed to be was that 'Forget You' started playing as he appeared... though I'm not sure if the music was in my head, or being played over the building's PA). Mr. Green/McBride told me that he'd been "thinking a lot about how we used to kick it, and what we could do once we get out of here". Clearly, he wanted to quickly endear himself to me, to that he could escape along with us. I was formulating a response about we certainly had not done any 'kicking' together when I got woken up by a phone call... So I guess the world will never know if we got away, and if I ended up partying with the singer/actor. It was also somewhere near this end that I started to wonder if the things I'd taken to be tethering ropes back at the harbour were, in fact, the weighted things you throw over, tied to the rope, to make it easier to get a rope across from boat to harbourside...

Thinking about it, I can see threads of 'reality' woven into that dream. The 'veins' are something I've actually seen - strange, vein-like growths of algae in my bathroom sink's plughole which, indeed, I noted might be useful for a story. In fact, I already had a context for them, that might have involved the threat of disaster 'if they reach the mainland'.

The 'something on a table that made the room distinctive' in the tavern was clearly snatched from The Devil Wears Prada, which I'd watched earlier in the evening (getting my Anne Hathaway fix before The Dark Knight Rises, I guess...). At one point, the protagonist is supposed to leave 'the book' (of magazine proofs) on a particular table in her boss's home.

The weapons... Probably come from having recently watched a Let's Play of Condemned, by Helloween4545, on Youtube. Not that you have to fight with anything quite so crap as a Christmas decoration, half a pair of scissors, or a single, long nail in that...

The gas that turned people into a riotous mob could reference any number of zombie films, or just this week's episode of Sherlock, which took The Hound of the Baskervilles as its basis, and crafted a truly awesome tale of biological terror weapons gone wrong, and secrecy on a military base on Dartmoor. Nothing like the original story, but a thrilling - and thoughtful - reimagining. Some of it seemed a bit patchy, and I was not particularly impressed by Holmes 'mind palace', in all its CSI/Minority Report glory, but Martin Freeman was, at least, far less annoying this week. Russell Tovey is always worth watching (except as Midshipman Alonso Frame, in a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, where the actor was cruelly wasted), and Clive Mantle did a very good turn as one of the military researchers. I was quite impressed that the 'glowing' of the original hound was included, albeit downgraded to a rabbit, though the way it all linked together felt closer to Dirk Gently than Sherlock Holmes... And a couple of points remained unanswered, as far as I could tell... Perhaps all will be revealed in next week's episode - the last of this new run.

Random Christmas Recollection

Not sure how this escaped my Traditional Christmas Summary, but I woke up this morning remembering a conversation my sister started during a TV show about 'favourite Christmas toys' on the evening of Christmas Day.

It began during the sequence on Action Man, if I remember correctly. Action Man was the British name for what were 12" GI Joe figures in the States. Later, the smaller action figures came along as 'Action Force'. The TV show was harping on about the 'Eagle Eye' feature (strangely, the 'Kung Fu Grip' never came up), and my sister remembered that she'd had one of those. I added that we'd had one each, and that we'd had the Scuba Gear set (both now perished), the Space Sled and astronaut gear, and probably a couple of other bits.

Then she claimed to have had the Action Man 'Rom the Space Knight' figure.

Naturally, I set her straight, and said that Rom had very definitely been mine (still lurking - complete and functional, albeit with one gun's handle broken off - in one of my cupboards, in fact), and that I'd read the comics as well. She felt sure she had, too... but this seems unlikely, based on my - admittedly sketchy - recollection of events. I'm not sure what she was reading at the time, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Marvel's short-lived Rom the Space Knight comic...

Around the same time, the show mentioned the 12" action figure of The Six-Million Dollar Man... If I remember correctly, my sister knew that one had been mine (I believe I managed to lose all of the 'bionic implants' and, of course, the 'skin' has long since perished), but remembered his 'bionic eye'. She didn't remember the large plastic 'engine' that Mini-Steve Austin could lift thanks to a ratchet-action arm operated by a button on his back... Nor, strangely, did she remember having the Bionic Woman toy (some quick research suggests she had the 'Mission Purse' variant, as I can remember some of those accessories).

Weirdest of all, though, was when the show turned its attention - all too briefly - to TransFormers... Honestly, that section can only have been a minute or two. Shocking, really. But not as shocking as my sister's assertion that she'd had - and played with - TransFormers. Considering I was ten when they hit these shores, making my sister twelve, I'm fairly sure she was far too sophisticated to be playing with toys... let alone anything I was sinking my pocket money into.

It all made me wonder if she was sneaking into my room and playing with my toys when I wasn't around...

In other news, I went to see the US remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo yesterday, with my old mate Paul. I'm currently reading the book, so it was basically one massive great spoiler but, if the movie is even half as good as the book - and it certainly skimps on a lot of detail at the very beginning - I think I'm really going to enjoy the book. I may even pick up the boxed set of the original movies.

Brilliant though David Fincher's version is, it can be quite a harrowing film to watch. Not least, Lisbeth's rape is captured quite graphically... but then, so is her revenge. There's a mercifully brief scene featuring a dead cat, but the movie doesn't shy away from anything... I'd say it's quite calculating in what it shows and what it lets the viewer imagine.

Daniel Craig did nothing to change my opinion that Mikael Blomkvist is a complete dick, but Rooney Mara's performance as Lisbeth Salander was very compelling. I know I'm a sucker for 'damaged' girls but... wow...

In the front row of the cinema was a young-ish couple. I only had cause to notice them shortly after Lisbeth's rape, because it looked like the girl was crying or, at least, very upset. A fairly natural reaction to such a horrific scene, I'm sure you'll agree. It was disturbing, therefore, to hear her boyfriend laughing. Whether at the movie or at his girlfriend, I cannot say... but either would make him seem more than a little twisted. Sure, the film had its funny moments, but that scene was not one of them. They both left about half an hour before the end of the movie.

Bedraggled

I kid thee not, dear reader, when I say I've just spent less than two minutes outside (long enough to take my rubbish out and rearrange the bins) and experienced a deluge of nearly Biblical proportions. I literally could not see to the end of the short range of shops I live above because of the walls of water I had to wade through to get back inside.

OK, some of it was run-off from the roof (it gives you an idea of how heavy the rain was when you realise it had almost entirely bypassed the guttering, and yet the drain for the gutters still looked like a waterfall), but some of it was simply rainfall.

Supernaturally strong rainfall, to be sure, but rainfall just the same.

I am sincerely glad that it's still not cold enough for this to be snow, because snow that heavy would probably end up being a couple of feet deep, even in this grim, suburban setting, and that would be pretty terrifying.

I had planned to pop over to Harrow today, but now I'm going to stay indoors... possibly venturing outside again to pick up the bins which, I see through my window, must have been strewn down the road only moments after I dumped my rubbish, and are now lying on their sides against the kerbside railings.

Another New Year

Missed out on my almost-traditional, pointless 'last post of the year' thing, largely because I was 'busy' watching Jules Holland's Hootenanny (my other almost-tradition, since I've been living on my own). Well, that, and more sketching. Interesting how one little doodle can lead to so many more...

Having spent the last few days (when not sketching or playing Skyward Sword) catching up on the few bits of Christmas television that I considered worth watching, and yet still conspired to miss (one of the three Christmas Lectures, the last episode of the latest BBC adaptation of Great Expectations... not much else!), I suppose some sort of TV round up is in order, if only because it leads to a rather unexpected twist.

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are always worth a look. This year there were only three... it's worrying that they've been so heavily cut back (always used to be five at least - one for every day of the week following Christmas), but the fact that they are still running, and still being broadcast by the BBC is something of a relief. Taking the human brain as his subject, Professor Bruce Hood presented a very lively, engaging and very interesting set of talks with well thought out and amusing demonstrations. I may even watch them all over again, because of a couple of distractions that occurred during the original broadcasts... neatly proving one of the points he demonstrated about concentration.

I am not being ironic when I say that I did not have great expectations of the BBC's latest Dickens adaptation. Something about the cast didn't seem right. But with David Suchet as Mr Jaggers and Ray Winstone as Magwitch, how could it possibly go wrong?

Well, casting a wooden pretty-boy as Pip would be a good start. Then not making Estella icy enough would be another nail in the coffin. And allowing Gillian Anderson (too young to be playing Havisham, if you ask me) to put on a cartoon voice for the role was just plain silly. Scene by scene, it was a decent enough adaptation, but Douglas Booth really needs to develop some range... Being generous, one could say that his usual expression was 'inscrutable', but even that doesn't (shouldn't) fit the character of Pip. The thing that really killed it for me, despite the excellent supporting cast, brilliant (though usually muted) photography and a very decent script, was that they decided to give the story a happy ending. Seriously, BBC?

Also, I must confess, it suffered in comparison to the BBC's own 1999 effort, starring Ioan Gruffudd as a rather more believably rough-around-the-edges Pip, Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham (her typically composed brand of frigid madness, rather than the sing-song "I'm MAAAAaaaAAaAaaaad!" approach unfortunately adopted by Anderson), and the utterly ethereal Justine Waddell, whose performance as Estella set the bar almost impossibly high for any who follow.

Granted, that was over ten years ago, so Great Expectations was ripe for a remake... but the fact that the performances from 1999 have stuck with me for so long clearly shows that it was superior. Only a day or so after watching the final episode of this new version, I can barely remember most of it. Even the previous supporting cast were memorable in a good way (Ian McDiarmid played Jaggers in a remarkably similar way to Suchet, but I guess the character is, by nature, inflexible, and Nicholas Woodeson's Wemmick had far more interesting stuff to work with than Paul Ritter's, while Bernard Hill's Magwitch was just as strong as Ray Winstone's though the latter just wins out for finding more of the humour in the man) where this new version seemed to focus far too rigidly on Pip (who was, in turn, far too rigid).

The 'surprising twist' in this set of brief summaries is the first of three new stories in the contemporised Sherlock Holmes series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Considering how much I loathed the original run of three episodes (so much so, in fact, that I can't find any reference to it on this blog found it!), I very nearly didn't bother with it. If this first episode is anything to go by, while still not perfect, it's substantially improved over the original - less flippant and annoying, something closer to proper detective work is in evidence, and it's clever without being overly smug about it. The introduction of Irene Adler was the one and only reason I watched the show (the trailers made it look very interesting), and I wasn't disappointed. I have to admit that, even in the excellent Jeremy Brett series, Irene Adler seemed a little downplayed, and you just had to accept it when the story told you she'd outwitted Holmes. This version very clearly did... Or did she? Really, the only thing that was clear by the end is that neither one was quite ready to lose the other... And that must count for something.

Martin Freeman is still not convincing as former military... And it's disappointing to see Watson reverting to almost Nigel Bruce levels of dippiness with a few hints of something more interesting, but the rest of the show was impressive, and very far removed from (what I remember of) the original three.

In other news, Skyward Sword continues to impress... and now I've reached the lava/volcano stage... traditionally my least favourite. I seem to be progressing quite well, though, so I'd imagine I'll soon be facing off against that giant lava monster from the trailer...