Arts

Film: Kingdom of Heaven

It's easy to hear what you want to hear; to project onto a film the message you want to take away.

So I'll come away from Kingdom of Heaven having seen a war between religious hatred and religious tolerance, Bono's "Abraham, tell your sons" speech thrown onto the silver screen. Our hero sides with tolerance and coexistence; those who choose hatred and division seem to be using dialogue ripped from speeches delivered by recent national leaders.

On the other hand, I could be reading too much into it.

Personal

Two years early

I nudged Emma when the huge screen behind U2 flickered into life last week. "I love abstract visuals like these," I said as City of Blinding Lights burst forth.

At the time I had in mind Ed Holdsworth's great short, Arrive. What I couldn't tell from where we were sat - but learnt today - is that Arrive was the very film being played at that point of the gig.

Personal

Please leave quietly

You know those signs you get on the back of pub and club doors?

Please respect our neighbours by leaving the premises quietly.

Do you think they every work? I'm after a load to donate to The Angel. These warm evenings the eleven-twenty sumble has grown noisier than ever. If all-day licensing will thin the shouted post-boozing conversations out over a longer period then I'm all for it.

Tech

Not such a geek

After months of waiting, it's finally here. A shiny new laptop for work.

But get this: I let someone else install it, and once done I just got on with my job. I've not prodded and poked to see what holes and buttons it's got. I've not opened it up and replaced core components. I've hardly added any software.

Am I becoming less of a geek?

OK, don't answer that. It's enough to know that the frustration of having to wait so long vanished as soon as the new toy arrived. (And the way I refer to it as a toy might be a bit of a clue too.)

Personal

Failed

I set myself the objective some time in February and now I look certain to fail.

This year I wanted to complete at least one leg of my coastwalk per month. Paul asked me yesterday if I'd be walking today. I wish I had been - it was my last opportunity to do a coastwalk in June.

Ah well, I'll make up for it later in the summer.

Greenbelt

Radio by proxy

I still don't listen to Radio 4. But some of my friends do, and they're good enough to tell me when there's something worth checking out on Listen Again. This morning, Beki was interviewed on the Today programme about Greenbelt.

In the meantime today we had the last trustees meeting before the festival. It's getting close.

Comment

Still with the Co-op

Today someone who the media increasingly portrays as spokesperson for Christians throughout the UK called on Christians to stop banking with the Co-operative Bank.

I'm a Christian. I bank with the Co-op. Neither of those are about to change.

I'm not going to link to the individual's website because he doesn't need any more coverage. If you stumble across it, put it to this simple test: is everything the site publishes based on a Christian view? Every press release carries a direct quotation from the one person (are there any other members?). The topics tackled are arbitrary and diverse. (Motoring legislation? Since when is that a 'prophetic Biblical issue'?)

To my mind it adds up to a single individual desperate to have his personal views heard. Sadly the press are only too happy to oblige.

Personal

Making progress

Tonight's open meeting of the Woodbridge and Melton Riverside Action Group was disappointing. Chiefly because in the year that I've been aware of the group - and in the year that I've been a member - there doesn't seem to have been a huge amount of progress.

Perhaps the pace is inevitable when reconciling so many different view. Perhaps it's more about the limited amount of work that can be done by those who actually volunteer to do the work (as opposed to just turn up to open evenings for the wine).

Perhaps by this time next year I'll have actually pitched in myself.

Arts

Film: A Good Woman

There's a reason that A Good Woman didn't show up at your local cinema: it's not that great.

I saw the play on which it was based - Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan - in Ipswich some years ago. While the film adapts the play well, it was ultimately a let-down. There are some very funny lines in the dialogue, but they weren't given the time and space to be savoured.

File this one under 'so-so'.

Personal

The return of Radar

The weekend's other disappointment (the first being my car) was breaking my glasses as I clambered off the train at the end of my journey home. Worse than that, I'm told they can't be repaired without being sent away.

This has two side-effects. First, I've finally booked a sight test. (The optician even gave me a letter of recommendation for work.) Second, I'm back wearing my old glasses. You know, the pair that led Jude to call me Radar.

Please use the comments to get the verbal abuse out of the way.

Arts

Gig: U2 // Vertigo Tour

Wonderful. Loud. Hot. Gripping. Memorable.

Since others have reviewed last night's gig in some detail I'll spare you a blow-by-blow. We endured the scorching heat to watch the support acts; Idlewild didn't do it for me, but I enjoyed Ash. Shade finally arrived just before U2.

The communal singing of "Greenbelt's favourite hymn", I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For was a clear highlight, as was the Achtung Baby encore - sounding as fresh and experimental as it did on release. (Was that really fourteen years ago?!)

Emma kept grinning at me, so I guess she enjoyed the gig too. It was certainly one to remember.

Personal

Twickenham

Emma and I are off to the Twickenham tonight to see the boys play.

It'll be my second visit to the home of Rugby Union. Sadly no photographs exist of my first visit when, as a seven-year-old I went with Dad and Jez to see the All Blacks play England. My memories are hazy and almost as limited in number as the photographs, but I do recall walking back to the car across the wide yard of the stadium, clutching my programme and with an All Blacks rosette proudly pinned to my shirt.

Personal

Who'd have a car?

For the record, I love my car. And I'm quietly pleased that the intermittent problem I've had with it now seems to be a recurrent issue. I just wish it hadn't happened a hundred and twenty miles from home.

Personal

The bridge

For the past couple of weeks people have been leaving work early.

The roads around my office are usually jammed solid between half four and half five but that rush hour has crept forwards as southbound workers try to find an alternative to crossing the Orwell Bridge. The bridge is pretty much the only structural highlight of the A14, providing the essential link between the Port of Felixstowe and the rest of the country. When it's even partially closed, traffic jams up for miles around so it's understandable that the multi-week inspection is spreading out the evening rush.

Living north of the office this doesn't usually bother me. Tonight though, I'm heading south. Oh joy. I've left it as late as I can but I have to go sometime. See you in the tailback.

Personal

Civilised

Now this is civilised. I'm sitting in the garden enjoying the evening sun and a glass of fresh elder-flower cordial that my neighbour made during the afternoon from the tree in my garden. Her cat is sitting on the the low wall that separates our gardens, and I'm listening to the radio online.

Tech

Today's the day

Hurray. I've been waiting since February, but today my broadband finally became four times faster.

I'm surprised at how noticeable the difference is. Web pages seem a little snappier, the streaming news from the BBC is much better behaved, and I don't have to wait when watching trailers. I'd expected that since the step from narrowband to broadband is roughly a ten-fold increase in speed, this wouldn't be so dramatic.

Best of all, the upgrade was free. If you're on BT Yahoo! Broadband you may know that your line is likely to be upgraded for you over the coming months. What took me until last week to figure out is that you can upgrade yourself if you're tired of waiting.

Sign in to BT Yahoo!, go to the 'My Account' page, click 'Upgrade Options' then read the paragraph at the bottom and click 'upgrade now'. The most painful part of the process is finding that link.

Personal

Essential reading

Further proof that Make Poverty History is getting heard: I found myself in long discussion about the campaign over lunch at work today. Penguin have published a great little book that explains the aims - and answers common questions and objections. It's only £2. It's only sixty-four pages. Very worthwhile.

Comment

"All our coffee is Fair Trade"

A bad thing has happened. I have discovered Starbucks' Cheese and Marmite Panini. Stepping off the train at Liverpool Street tonight nothing else was going to hit the spot.

As for the drink to wash it down with, "a Fair Trade black coffee please". They were out. "I'm sure you'd love the Brazilian instead."

All the staff turned round when I declined. By the time I explained "I only drink Fair Trade", there was silence in the coffee shop. They didn't know how to handle it. (The fact is, I was one minute away from the Greenbelt office and I knew I could scrounge a cup there.)

That's when I was told the lie. "All our coffee is Fair Trade."

It turns out Starbucks are doing better than most, and their literature at least reflects a desire to treat farmers fairly - even those whose produce has not been certified as Fair Trade. I guess a large multinational has the clout to do that: to use its influence not to drive prices down, but to drive working conditions up.

It has the capability, but is it doing so in practise? For me that's where the independent scrutiny of the Fair Trade mark comes in. Let's hope Starbucks continues to push in that direction. Oh, and train their staff to refrain from gawping.

Personal

The tide mill

In seven years I've lived here I've not visited the town's major tourist attraction. Today Emma and I rectified that; we finally entered the Tide Mill.

The mill frustrates me. It's the popular image of the town: the white boarded mill perched on a river teeming with boats. It makes a good postcard, but there's so much else to see. (The river at low tide is a thing of complex beauty and is almost never depicted.)

Some parts of the mill were interesting but overall I was unimpressed. My recommended mill to visit in town remains not the tide mill, but Buttrum's.

Arts , Greenbelt

Film: Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

You know all about the film. You've probably already seen it, so could tell me more about how it was obviously and interesting challenge — making a film where everyone knows the downbeat ending. You'd tell me that it's nevertheless a good film, perhaps the best of Episodes I-III, that it's full of well-imagined and well-realised people, places and things.

And I'll agree. I enjoyed it.

What I remember most of this evening's trip to the cinema is an unexpected new advert for Orange's "Orange Wednesdays" promotion. The latest in this series of ads where film stars have their funding pitches wrecked shows Ewan McGregor seeking funding for a film on Make Poverty History. Make no mistake. This campaign is now firmly in the mainstream.

Personal

Punctured

I slept with something nasty last night. (Please, no smutty comments.)

The only explanation that matches this morning's wounds is that a mozzie decided to spend the night dining out on me. I've a good dozen or so bites, on my legs, my arms, my torso and they itch like mad. It's going to be a long day.

Personal

No nukes then

The rumour — as I remember it — was of a nuclear bomb in the basement. Two months after Iraq invaded Kuwait I started college, in the building directly over the road from the Iraqi Embassy in South Ken.

The Kuwait Embassy stood perhaps fifty metres further south, and once the metal detectors and permanent Police presence started, there was no stopping the talk. There was much discussion of the college's new evacuation plans. Sparkies offered details about the suspiciously large 'television antenna' that appeared on the top of the Iraqi embassy, and someone from MechEng had seen a warhead being smuggled into the basement after a heavy night at the union bar.

The truth, it seems, is rather more mundane. As journalists chatter about this exciting discovery I just shrug my shoulders and ask, "is that all?".

Tech

Personal domains

Jon and Hannah have settled on a name for their baby. The first thing I did when I heard the news was to check the domain. (What does this obsessive behaviour say about me?)

It turns out danielburgess.com is already taken.

Welcome to the world Daniel. When you want to start a blog of your own I'm sure you'll think of something suitable.

Personal

Thanks Catbert

Because I last had my eyes tested under two years ago, my employer is reticent about providing a sight test for free.

HR told me an exception can be made. I can have a free sight test if an optometrist deems it necessary. Which would naturally mean forking out for the test I wanted in the first place.

Catbert would be proud.

Tech

Well, well

Repeat a rumour often enough and it'll become truth. (I think scientists call this the inductive principle.)

Apple have announced they're going to put Intel processors in the Mac. They also announced the next version of Mac OS X will be called "Leopard" and bloggers everywhere scrambled to write obvious puns about changing spots.

One thing seems clear: although the announcement has answered one question ("When?"), it raises far more. "Which Intel? IA-32? IA-64?" "What instead of OpenFirmware?" "Goodbye Mach-O?" Perhaps most worryingly, "Isn't passing arguments on the stack asking for trouble?"

Here's to an interesting couple of years. (OK, perhaps more interesting to geeks than mortals.)

Personal

What Sunday afternoons are for

Returning from my holiday in February I found a large brown wheelie-bin on my doorstep. On the surface the local council's Ploughback scheme is great: I fill the bin with garden waste and they collect it for composting every two weeks. Back then though, I couldn't see myself generating so much green waste, and wondered where I'd fit the bin that's close to half the size of my garden.

Today for the third fortnight in a row I've filled the bin. Why does everything grow so fast at this time of the year? More to the point, why do I feel I have to cut it all back and keep the garden so trim? Perhaps it's that this is what gives my Sunday afternoons a purpose.

Personal

A close call

Woodbridge's rather remarkable campaign to become a more happening town continues at full pace today as it hosts the first Suffolk Folk Festival.

At first I was disappointed I'd not heard about this until it was pretty much over this evening. After all, it's not everyday there's a beer festival on your doorstep. It turns out that was the only part of the programme to appeal though. The other event (yes, there were pretty much only two) was the presence of 20 Morris teams dotted about town.

And to think, I so nearly went shopping.

Personal

21 years ago

One week or twenty-one years ago. Pick which account of Snowdon you'd like to read.

As I uncover other artifacts from my past I'll publish them here under the Memories category. And for the record, yes I did ask Ruth if she was happy with me posting that old picture of her. Just understand that she's changed a lot since.

Arts

Film: Hitch

This is Will Smith in his Fresh Prince of Bel-Air mode. Entertaining, sometimes patronising, occasionally trying to be deep, frequently funny. A mindless evening out.

Arts

Looking for a festival?

Time to plan the summer holiday. Yes, maybe I'm leaving things a bit late.

Scotland seems a likely destination at the moment. One idea that really struck a chord is the Isle of Skye Music Festival.

The event's missing from the BBC Festivals 2005 guide, which means it's in good company and probably less rowdy than others. Mylo's headlining one night and KT Tunstall another. With the Cuillin as a backdrop it should be perfect.

Or it would be — if it weren't the weekend I'm seeing U2.

Still, you might enjoy it.