Cynical Rant About That That Shall Not Be Named

I emailed this to the mailing list today, and got generally agreement back, so I'll post it here for wider perusal. You should be able to tell what I'm talking about:

[absolutely biased prejudice based cynism] To be honest I haven't been impressed by or particularly enjoyed any of the films. They're far too hackneyed and cliched, nor do they contain anything particularly original or inventive. Though I do admire the author's careful developed money spinning tool. I always get the feeling (based on what I've heard /seen etc) she wrote the stories (not that I've read any of them) by making a list of all the aspects that make certain books really popular and wove them into story that she then aimed at an audience that doesn't require her to actually be a particularly good writer but does have the largest market for royalty making merchandising. [absolutely biased prejudice based cynism ends]

And a calculation of film quality:

Book length increases exponentially across series + unchanging film length + guaranteed box office sales = films that get progressively worse, and cover exponentially less of the story

Nice Long Holiday

I used up most of my remaining holiday to take Monday and Wednesday off work this week, so that I could spend some more time with P before she goes home over Easter. She had all of her exams in the first four days of the exam timetable so finished on Friday.

The weekend was enjoyable I spent Friday making the fudge layer cake again (aka Death, Resurrection and Death again by Chocolate Fudge Cake), as a reward to P for working so hard, and to congratulate her on finishing her exams. Which of course meant I completely forgot how long the fudge takes to set, and spent about an 1.5 to 2 hours frantically scooping the fudge back on to the top of the cake again. The problem is I get bored with the slow process of adding fudge a little at a time, and just pour the whole lot on. The thing is I do remember that you do have to scoop the fudge back to the top, and that it will just suddenly stay put after a while, I just never remember how long that while is.

Saturday, my sister and my brother came down from London and Reading uni respectively as it was the family celebration of my 21st. It is strange celebrating your birthday three weeks after the event. Of course I'll be doing it again in about two more weeks time when all my pre-uni friends are available. It was a good day, though all the standard things that happen at my family gathering happened, all my uncles and aunts on my Dad's side turned up (they're all local) and so there was the inevitable playing of music and the usual topics of conversation. All things considered P did very very well with all those people, especially considering some of their personalities.

My sister got me the 8th book in the Sandman series (I've nearly read the series now) and 'Tales of the Fire' (I think) by Alan Moore (From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, other things I haven't heard of). The Sandman book was read quickly (but I've barely started Tales of the Fire). I like the whole stories within stories thing, especially when you realise that you're reading a story told by a character in a story, being said by a person in a story, being recounted by someone in the 'Inn an the end of the Worlds', the events, including the recounting of that story, that are being told to someone else which is the plot of the book your reading. Which is hard enough to write let along understand so approximately, using indents to show the next level of story down:

Sandman Book whose plot is, 
    a man telling the story of when he was stuck in the 'Inn at the end of the Worlds', in 
    which he recounts several stories he heard from the other guests there, 
        which includes a story, 
            in which a man from the Necropolis describes the stories he was told by his 
            colleagues, 
                that includes, the story about how one of his colleagues was told stories when 
                young and frightened by a storm.

                And among those stories is a story of some others from the Necropolis who got 
                caught in a strange storm and found themselves in the 'Inn at the End of the 
                Worlds' where they had to tell a story if they wished to wait out the storm 
                inside.

Phew.

On Monday I went on a picnic with P. We walked along the canal to Avoncliffe (it took about an hour and a quarter), it strange I don't think I've ever walked there before and that's to say that I could have walked that at any time in my life (the canal is only a couple of minutes from my home). It was a really enjoyable walk, the canal is shaded enough that the sun wasn't too bad, and the factor 35 sun block meant we didn't even get a slight tan. The things that I was really pleased/surprised to see was a duck with 11 ducklings, and a pike lazily swimming around the top of the water. I don't think I've ever actually managed to see a fish in the canal before considering how murky it is (after that I saw about a hundred small fish, they were obviously very young).

On Tuesday I got taken out to dinner by P which was cool, yesterday we went shopping but I've already mentioned the main outcome of that. And tonight we're going to see the new Harry Potter film.

So its been a really good week so far, and it's good to get to spend so much time with P when there's nothing else to worry about (like the work she's had to do for most of the year). The advantage of taking broken up holiday, is that you don't really feel like you went to work for the day in between, and with only a day and a half left this week (well now just a half) I won't have been at work long enough afterwards for me to miss being on holiday before the weekend starts again.

After all of this I have 6 hours of holiday left. I should be able to use it for something, but its more than a Friday off (5 hours), but less than a normal weekday (7.5 hours) and I'm not allowed to work time off in lue. Oh well I'm sure I'll find a good use for it.