Thursday, December 31, 2009

Invictus




Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) written in 1875

Rather a bleak view of life but you've got to love that last couplet.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Best of the Cracker Jokes 2009

How do farmers count their cows?

On a cowculator.

***

Why did the astronomer get told off at school?

Because he was always staring into space.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

CinemaConnections #1


Me & Orson Welles (& me):

Louis Elman - Sound Casting (my first experience of the film industry, in Dean Street)
Dick Pope - DoP (my first job in the film industry, at Solus in Marshall St)
Jacqueline Hurt - Legals
Marc Samuelson - Producer

Actresses I fancy





I played this game late one night in a bar in Edinburgh or somewhere with Anthony Lilley but was struggling to come up with answers...


Madeleine Stowe (in 12 Monkeys and Last of the Mohicans)

Claire Danes (in Me & Orson Welles and Romeo & Juliet)

Audrey Tautou (in Amelie)

Halle Berry (in Bulworth)




Creative Accounting #103


12 Monkeys = KPax / Terminator

(even the poster has echoes of Terminator)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Week begins - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Being reappointed as Trustee of Culture24

Revisiting Banksy's Anywhere in Archway

Being in the edit suite again - at Uncle for Life Begins - including an amazing sequence of a Japanese woman giving birth in a waterpool

Friday, December 04, 2009

Zurich - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Ulysses close-reading session with Fritz Senn at James Joyce Foundation

Doing 90 minutes unscripted for Schweizer Fernsehen with Anita Hugi and the culture dept

Bumping into Johnny & Sue as if destined, after thinking about Wulfi & Nat - they told me the story about Milly's parents and how a love affair against the tide saved us all