Flowers! And it’s the first day of Spring!
Hurrah for Spring.
I got my first viola yesterday! I am so excited; it is beautiful. And it reassures me that the other plants might also eventually flower, in their time. All of the plants at least look healthy, so that’s a good thing.
I also have a couple of daffs in the back yard, which is blissful. And the roses are taking off like weeds after I fertilised them. And… I have one helleborus with flowers on it… the other one that’s been in the ground a while hasn’t flowered and doesn’t look remarkably happy. The new one I planted (did I mention that?) does look healthy, so hopefully next year will reward me with some winter roses.
And I managed not to kill the daisy out the front; how remarkable.
New plants
I’m very excited. To start with, I bought a little punnet of mini cyclamens, which make very good presents. I also bought a new helleborus – one of the ones I got last year is flowering beautifully; not sure the other is very happy though. And the other part is that I’ve added some stuff to the front garden that I am hoping will turn out well. On the right, I’ve planted some alyssum – I did this a while ago but didn’t water it enough and they withered through neglect. On the other side, I have pulled out half the creeper, and added some totally gratuitous cottage plants, which I hope will survive and flower for me: delphiniums, foxploves, snapdragons and violas (I said it was gratuitous). Here’s hoping.
Films I saw in the holidays…
… which was a while ago now, but what the heck.
Batman Begins
Fantastic. So well filmed; Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were great in support, and I barely noticed Katie Holmes (‘ray). And Batman himself – well, he was brilliant. Played the dark and brooding very convincingly. I am definitely looking forward to the sequel, because this Batmas – with all new and improved gadgets – is very entertaining to watch.
War of the Worlds
Yeh. Not convinced. Thinking back on the book, I’m wondering whether it is actually the book’s fault. HG Wells did not exactly write a book that could be easily turned into a movie; I haven’t read it in years, but I think he was writing with less of an idea to character development than to exploring the concept of alien invasion and its consequences for the world. As a result, any movie (and what I’ve seen of the 50s version, while being an intersting commentary on nuclear USA, was crap) has to have some people-stuff inserted by someone else, and I just don’t think it works – not and still calling it War of the Worlds. I think Tom Cruise was actually quite weak in it, but then the character itself didn’t allow for much. There were some cool effects.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Did I see it on holidays? Don’t recall; anyway. I liked it, in defiance of all the purists I think. The fact that it was started before Adams died made me feel a bit better about it. Yes, there were bits that were totally not in the book, but anyone who thinks those books could be successfull translated to the screen and be understood by total Adams-novices, which is a large part of the world, needs their heads read. I liked most of the insertions, actually, and I thought John Malkovitch was quite funny. Truly, though, Arthur was very enteraining, but for me the entire film was owned by Zaphod. He was perfect.
There was another movie we saw in Darwin, too, but I forget what it was…
Sin City
Hmmm.
J has wanted to see this film for a long time, and I thought it looked interesting too – quite like film noir usually, and such a fantastic cast (Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Rosaria Dawson…)! I must say that I hadn’t heard very much about it before we saw it, except that it was black and white with bits of colour. I wish now that I had been a bit more prepared – well, the dude at the theatre warned me a bit, saying it was gruesome, but still. It was very good: fascinating and intertwined stories, very well done as an adaption of a graphic novel because that’s just what it looked like, and the colour was superbly done. However. Gruesome and not a little grotesque; I had not realised that it is rated MA+. I would definitely have to think before I recommended it to anyone.
The Island
Someone I know described this as The Rock (Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage) meets Minority Report, with a little bit of Matrix thrown in. Pretty much. I liked the story, and I thought it was developed well; the characters were mostly quite realistic, and the acting was great – Steve Buscemi is, as ever, very good, although I wouldn’t have recognised Sean Bean until the end if I hadn’t seen his name in the credits, since mostly he looks (unusually) very slick.
Overall, worthwhile. Some superfluous explosions and chases, and some scenes that just made me impatient because of their patent absurdity, but those were fairly minor. The ending… well, you can probably imagine. It is Hollywood, after all.
Penguins
Well, penguin tetras, anyway. Actually, to be precise, they are long-finned penguin tetras; apparently their dorsal fin will eventually stream past their tails. I’ll wait and see. We got them about two weeks ago (mm, slack me); they transferred into the main tank yesterday. I think my tank is now officially Full. It certainly looks it, particularly with my two Monster Angels. And the Colombians are no dwarves, either.
We also got some plant called Red Pogo. It is red – the old bits, anyway; new growth is green. I know this because it seems to be growing well, in the two weeks we’ve had it. And it’s sent out lots of roots.
And the lily-pad plant is still going berko. Lots of bits actually outside of the tank. Have I mentioned that? It flowers, when outside of the tank.
Carnivores
I looked in my fish tank this morning, before I went to work (erk; first day back) – this is not something I always do. Anyway, I noticed the biggest silver angel seemed to have something in its mouth, and was busy trying to swallow it. I thought it was a bit of plant. Turns out, after I looked at it again from a different angle, that it was the tail of a tetra. I knew it was a tetra because there was a little bit of red poking out of its mouth, and then the tail flukes sticking out. Cannibal! Carnivore! I know angels prey on tetras in the wild, but it doesn’t mean I have to feel good about it. 😦
The tank does look very nice, though; the lily plant is taking over one side of the tank again, so I will have to hack it on the weekend. There are still a lot of tetras mooching around, too.
Deathstalker saga has stalked itself out
I am finally completely finished with the Deathstalker series… except for Deathstalker Prelude, but that doesn’t count, since it’s not about a Deathstalker, it’s just set in the same universe. I am very glad I have read them all – very worthwhile in the end, and I must say not quite as dark as I had been expecting. It’s certainly not Eddings, but there is definitely more horrid scifi in the world than Green. I really liked the Owen character, and thought he developed quite well, although once again the repetition of words and phrases did get a little tiring. I guess that’s the danger of a series that’s about 7 books long. I forgive him.
Pruning
Yes folks, it is winter, and we all know what that means… it’s Rose Mutilation Time! (Hurrah.) Not that we ought to be feeling too sorry for said roses, though, since they do have very nasty thorns and they do know how to use them to great effect (yes, I own gardening gloves; what’s your point?). Anyway, my roses are but faded shadows of their former selves, which ought to see them go nuts in about three months’ time, with any luck. Worked like that last year, at any rate, although I guess Mum was here for it then, and she’s probably a bit more ruthless than I am when it comes to snipping. I have tried my hardest this time, and I think there are few places where Mum would tsk me.
Now all I have to do is remember to fertilise them.
Bookcrossing… yay!!!
How cool is this!! Excuse my excitement, but one of the books I released yesterday has been registered as found!! Yippee!! I would guess that the others have been found too, just not registered.
I hope that I may add “not yet” into that last clause and it proves true.
Anyway, I am excited to bursting that Aeneid has been found, and the person who found it said they would read and release it!
Yay. How exciting.
Randomly Yours, Alex 