Usually I wouldn’t bother going to the cinema for a kids’ film, certainly not one put out by Disney, but I made an exception for Wall-e, partly because IGN gave it a good review, partly because I like some of Pixar’s stuff and mostly because it stars a robot. And I have to admit, I was impressed by the film. (more…)

Lately I’ve been turning cold towards Japanese ’stuff’. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s suddenly becoming more popular and mainstream, or whether I’m just growing tired of it, but it’s just not as cool as it once was.

Take animé for example. I used to love animé: It was the first section I went to in DVD shops, I bought all the Studio Ghibli films, and I watched countless series and movies. But now I just don’t get so excited by all the visual bombast, by all the surreality or the squiggly little symbols. There’s a lot of cliché in anime films, perhaps no more than in any genre, say film noire, or romance, but the weird-for-weird’s sake, or the cool-for-cool’s sake of anime isn’t doing it for me any more. (more…)

In a coffee shop in Norwich, watching a girl I had never seen before drink an Earl Grey, I smiled to myself, secretly knowing that she would never know how much I knew about her, just from watching her as she sat there with a camera case, her companion, by her side. But it was obvious; it was in her clothes, in her movements, in her voice quiet with confidence as she spoke aloud, but still cracking timidly, unsurely, at the ends of her syllables, as if she knew what she said was worth saying, but did not know whether now was the time to say it, or if it was coming across right. And it was in the tiny rising intonation she added at the end of her statements too, as if hoping for reassurance, agreement. (From anyone else it would have seemed an annoying Americanism, but from her, it was somehow endearing). (more…)

“Repetitions and lack of grammatical complexity both help to make Homer a swift, lively, vivid and easy read” – that is from Peter Jones’ introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The Odyssey and I completely agree with that statement. I am often given the impression that The Odyssey is some long and arcane ancient text occupying a level well beyond the difficult language of Shakespeare, and just a little beyond Joyce’s Ulysses and Tolstoy’s War and Peace in terms of insurmountability: “You read the Odyssey?!” (with awed gasping). But really, it’s no more complex than, say, Philip Pullman’s excellent His Dark Materials trilogy; books primarily written for young teenagers. (more…)

I was sat the other night, watching X-files alone in the dark, and it finished. The creepy music started to play and then I felt something crawling up my leg, but only barely. I looked down and there was a Harvestman there, looking up at me (presumably) just about to reach my knee. Ugh.

Harvestmen are my least favourite of all creatures. They just look like they shouldn’t exist, and they really freak me out. (more…)

I recently read a post on the Olympics on Richard Swinburne’s blog in which he asks about why we should want to watch people “throw stuff or run fast” and why the Olympics is so concerned with physical attribution and not mental. What particularly seems to annoy him is that the closest mental equivalent is the Nobel prize, which is awarded for a lifetime’s work, and not a minute’s running.

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I

It is early morning, around eight o’ clock. The bicyclist begins his preparations. The shorts are first; Lycra. The black nylon strands reflect the ambient morning light in a criss-cross circle as they are pulled into place, slack at first, but then perfectly following the little contours around the calf muscles; a second-skin. Next; the top, a thin white vest under a tight jacket. This too wraps around the body, but not as tightly, reserving still some slack in its plastic threads. The zip tightens it considerably, running up its little tracks, making a slight click-clicking noise at it runs over each little tooth. (more…)

My father keeps praying mantises, four of them. I’m not sure why; they’re hardly the most affectionate of creatures, but at least they’re pretty cool as a sort of curiosity pet. Since he’s in Scotland this week, yanking innocent fish out of their murky-cold homes, I’m charged with looking after the little creatures. (more…)

I like cycling: I cycle to university, I cycle to the shops and I cycle for pleasure. Part of the appeal of cycling for me, apart from the fresh air and the exercise, is the incredibly strong connect between intention and movement. When you’re cycling, all you need to do to change direction is shift your body-weight slightly to one side or another, and instantly you’ve altered your trajectory. You don’t even have to think about. Now where else do you have this simplicity of movement? (more…)

(this is a follow-on from my explanation of modernism)

Thinking about Modernism a little more, I’ve decided that a big part of the reason I like it is that it seems to extend beyond the story to encompass the whole human experience, rather than just how the characters feel during the events of the book.Now, with a lot of books, and films, this is something that’s always bothered me: books and films always have an ending. Usually they end with the hero saving the world and/or getting the girl. Sometimes they end with a life-changing revelation or an optimistic message for the future, but they do all end. Which is, of course, in sharp contrast to life. Life has only one ending. Rarely, of course, a film will end with the death of a main character, which is generally very climactic and poignant, but this is still in contrast with life: in life when people die they just die, and everything goes on as normal around them. (more…)