Questionably Unequestrian

This week is shaping up to be tough. Tonight I was down The Old Horse to have a blue burger and celebrate the coming of age of one our teaching assistants from Italy. Tomorrow we are going out for Chinese to mark him leaving for Italy, and on Friday I have to go out to the Fencing Christmas meal. I am thinking of skipping lunch tomorrow.

This week's Torchwood was interesting, though the villain's genius plot was just a little too open to random variables to be believable, and apparently Ianto may be sleeping with Jack (though I think this was deliberately implied but isn't true).

Recently the desire to rewatch some of my old films and look them out for other folk so unfortunate to have never seen such classics as Highlander, Jabberwocky and the Monty Python series caused me to rummage through my DVD collection. One film I'd forgotten I had was Ladyhawke - this is a wonderful film and if you have not seen it you simply must. Rutger Hauer plays a bad-ass good guy, a young Matthew Broderick plays a sidekick who steers dangerously close to becoming annoying but never crosses the line into Jar-Jarland and a young Michelle Pfiefer does okay too.

However what always sticks in my mind with this film is the music - the Alan Parson's Project did the soundtrack and electric guitars and 80s funk do not exactly match the lush landscapes of medieval Italy that are present in the film. However the music is fantastic in its own rights. I downloaded the soundtrack shortly after remembering this. I used to have it but used to be really terrible at backing files up - in fact I gave Alex and Lesley a copy of the mp3s to use during our old Rolemaster and Riddle of Steel campaigns. Any time during the game we rode on horses we made sure to play the funky and totally inappropriate cues from "The Search for Phillipe" (listen to it here). It was a great mood killer, as medieval as a Costner monologue on freedom, and often caused poor Paul, our Evil GM, to watch in utter dismay as we attempted to imitate horse riding in a way that made the coconut banging in Monty Python and the Holy Grail look like Shaft. Mind you Paul seemed to spend a lot of Wednesday's looking quietly dismayed at us, this was but one reason...

Lectures, Exams, Pirates in da Hood Oh My!

It's been a busy week. After my crap Monday a good evening's sleep meant that I returned to my regular game. I even went so far as to basically redo my errant lectures under the guise of a recap, a recap where I explained everything I had glossed over during my haze of sleeplessness. Further to that I've discovered that exam writing is a science in itself and it takes weeks to prepare a single paper.

We're getting a glass door, or more precisely a glass window into our door. I think this is supposed to alleviate the arguments over whether a drop-in centre should have a closed door, though it threatened to start an argument over who should be here at 8:30am on the day when the workmen turn up. I expect tantrums and tiaras soon.

At fencing I've been learning epee for a few weeks and some weird retroactive learning effect means I now find foils far too light and have little control when fencing with them. I also think my accuracy has decreased as I keep getting lots of near hits or hits with the flat of the blade. Today a fresher creamed me in epee. I've also finally bought some kit, though this stuff is not cheap, costing >£100 for a jacket and breeches, but at least they'll fit and I can finally do electrics.

I've uploaded my photos of the Pirate Pub Crawl and Bonfire Night - Bonfire Night was spent in the Old Horse watching a pirate themed burning of a ghostly galleon. Hence me wearing the pirate hat I am clearly getting good value for money from. It was certainly a lot better than watching the fireworks from the bus stop near my old gaff in Ireton Road last year before going to the pub I now aptly refer to as the Wyvern's Armpit.

In terms of TV I am starting to watch This Life, which was a show in the 90s I missed as I wasn't a 20-something back then. My mother watched it, despite I suspect disapproving of some of its themes and characters, and it is definitely "Friends on Acid" as A. described it. Torchwood has been good, though I wasn't so sure about the fairies episode, but overall it's a quality show. Season 3 of Galactica has proven epic, without a bad episode so far, compared to Season 2 which lost its way after the resolution of the cliffhanger from Season 1 (which took too long back then).

This week's episode of the increasingly mediocre Robin Hood 2006 was pure brilliance. Marion being maneuvered into marrying a somewhat dim Gisbourne and the Sheriff hanging Robin's men an hour early, preventing the obligatory gallows rescue, were genius - though I was worried how I was actually cheering on the villains rather than the excessively modern-moralistic heroes.

An example of this twaddle was in last week's episode where we had Robin shutting down a butcher for providing poor quality fly-riddled meat to peasants. I can see why Jamie Oliver inspired this incarnation of Hood. This week had a mobile pawn shop where peasants could sell their valuables (bit of a misstep in logic here, but hey). I am also not taking to the politically correct female Turk merry man Djaq though - so far she's been superfluous to all the plots. I'd say bring back Roy but his death added much needed grit to the show.

More Photos

I've uploaded more photos to the photo album, including the Sci Fi Weekend at the Space Centre, more fencing stuff, some morris dancing, and a few miscellanious piccies I don't know what to do with.

Heavy Lifting and the Ice Cream Van of the Damned

I played hookey at lunchtime and drove to Manor Road to help move our kit from there to secure it now term is ending today. Talk about closure, I will either have to go the leisure centre for fencing now, or start going to the gym like I've threatened for months.

Driving with 3 heavy bags in the back of the Stu Mobile was surprisingly difficult and I doubt my skill dazzled Naomi, our armourer, by completely failing to pause anywhere within reach of the entry buzzer to the university, but other than that and a lengthy parking sequence we managed to get the kit moved. On a really hot day.

Which made it a bit more surreal when I moved the car round the back of the University, got out and saw the ice cream van I'd decided to not go to following me. It's the first time I've nearly been run over on the pavement by a car wholly on the pavement. And then I was again nearly run over by the ice cream van as it decided to drive through the park. You might think on a hot day having an ice cream van seemingl try to mate with you is a handy thing, but I assure you it gets old fast.