Drowning in Treacle

I'm surprised by the largely positive reviews of this film. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I'm a European living in California. We went to see this movie on the back of some positive press reviews. It starts well, but I was misled by it's start. I thought this was going to be more of a skeptical movie about the way religious people fool themselves into believing what they want to believe (a little like the sentiments behind "Life of Brian"). But no, the start is deceptive, as the film progresses, it actually wants to start to make you believe that a stain on the wall of a (supposedly) terminally ill mans house is the face of god, sheds blood and has magical powers. Sorry, I couldn't suspend my disbelief and the whole film then fell apart for me.

The lead character is supposed to be terminally ill, but his disease is unnamed, which I suppose is a good thing as it's difficult to believe what it could be as his only symptoms seem to be stubble and a craving for vodka and pizza. There is of course a beautiful woman who just happens to live next door who just happens to have a cute troubled 6 year old daughter, who of course the lead character falls in love with.

The whole thing descends into nauseating, saccharine, formulaic cinema. Towards the end I was beginning to laugh out loud in the cinema at the predictable happy every after ending, it seemed almost like some kind of spoof or wind up it was so corny.

But I suppose, if other people liked this then maybe it's a cultural thing. The US is a much more religious country than mine. I suppose that explains how George Bush got in - right?

How Environmental are Body Shop?

Sitting here in temperatures of a max of 37 Celsius today, you can't help but think about all those huge tanks called "SUV's" in this country, and what they could be doing to make matters worse. As everyone moans about the surprising early heatwave, I'm thinking about all the environmental damage that may be causing some of these temperatures.

So co-incedentally today, the above Body Shop product arrived at our house. I have no idea what it is or what it does but I do know that the little product (the little silver thing) arrived in a huge package that was pretty much 8 to tens times it's size. Aren't Body Shop supposed to care about the environment?

Back in Banglore

I'm back in Bangalore this week, we came here on Singapore Air, who tend to be a class above the normal economy class airlines. We stopped off via Hong Kong, where the first thing I saw when I left the plane was an advert for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

We are staying at the wonderful e-Inn in Electronics City. The e-Inn is a totally vegetarian, non smoking and (of all things) non alcoholic hotel. It's also got a jolly good free wireless network, which has got heavily used this week to play the BBC and do cheap and free calls on Skype.

We went for a walk on our first day round the local area. It was the first time I'd walked round a genuine Indian urban street, we are usually driven around and just see the chaos that India can be from the car window. I love some of the funny signs you get here, I'm not sure you could be openly advertising for ladies in the west.

Happily, although we were the only western looking people in the area, no one seemed to pay any particular attention to us.

I'm not sure who this person on the building is meant to be.

Yes, this is really February

We had one of those wonderful weekends last week in Santa Barbara. As you can see, the weather was wonderful. A real Californian experience, on the beach, and only early February!

Having been distracted by my new Nikon SLR, I'm now back to using my Leica more again and I think this photo set is pretty superb.


So, having had a particularly Californian weekend last weekend, I'm having a particularly Scottish morning. After literally years of trying, I've managed to persuade the BBC streaming audio server that I'm in the UK and am enjoying Aberdeen v Hibs. Aberdeen just scored!


I've also had a ton of new material for www.kirkcaldybands.com including the deeply wonderful picture above of Nationwide and the equally wonderful pic below of the Gimix. Nationwide look like something out of the 60's here! Scotty even has hair.

Don't worry about where I've gone - I'm writing the story of Plastic Shark!

Having genuinely had all sorts of good intentions to write more material for my blog, I have ended up burning most of my recent free time trying to learn how the editing software "Final Cut Express" works. It is rather cool, full featured - but complex to use.

Lara and I spent an exciting evening last Sunday recording footage of me talking about my musical past. This was really just to have some test footage to edit, so I could learn the software.


Having heard it all again, I do believe most of it is a bit of a ramble. The interview itself lasts for 50 minutes and that's before I do any clever Final Cut stuff, like adding music and pictures.


So rather than try and edit together the whole lot in one go, I decided this afternoon to just do one section and see how that works out. The section I chose, is my first ever attempt to be in a band twenty five years ago, the late lamented Plastic Shark! Interested? Well, you will just have to watch the movie when I finish it. As for me, I now have to go to bed with our incompetent music of twenty-five years ago ringing in my head, the side effect of having to listen to so much of our music to edit out the approximately 4 minutes of music I'll use in the piece!

Numberplate of the day

Spotted in Safeways car park today.

Martin and College Radio

We get a public holiday here today in the US. It seems a funny time to have a public holiday, soon after Christmas. But I'm glad we have it if it's for Martin Luther King.

The older get the more shocked I am about how young some people were when they died, did he really achieve so much in 39 years. Wow, I'm 41 and what have I done?

The photos immediately above was taken on Martin Luther King day 2 years ago, in San Francisco. There are some really nice tributes to him in Yerba Buena Park.

Silvana also encountered Martin in Newark New Jersey in 1990.

It's only 9.25 AM but I've spent a nice morning so far, listening to my favorite college radio station - Berkeley's KALX. I was so impressed with their programming yesterday that I sent them a donation. Due to the multiple computers we have at home, not being in Berkeley is not a huge issue, as all the big college radio stations now stream live on the internet. This is only a problem in the car, but if you are heading north here, KALX slowly appears out of the static and is only interrupted briefly when a local Christian radio station interferes with it around Daly City - I find this quite disturbing.

I always wonder if KALX is made for current students, or ex-students, as most of the music seems to be programmed to please my generation - Bob Dylan and the Only Ones were played in the same 4 song set yesterday.

To commorate Martin Luther King day today they have been playing songs about him and interspersing this with recordings of his speeches. This seems an unlikely mix, but it worked this morning.

We've just began to tentatively look, but funnily enough, the home of the best radio station in the area may be our home next, as a move to Berkeley is possible. So I can get the live version without internet streaming and cad drive around Berkeley listening to it.



Although, you'd need to have a pretty big aerial in Berkeley, the classic KCRW show, Morning Becomes Eclectic is on just now. They are playing St. Etienne, cool.

It's great to be off work to catch shows I don't hear normally.

Some weblinks, these stations broadcast EVERYWHERE on the internet:

KALX

KCRW