Favourite Films: One Hour Photo

Robin Williams playing a simple delusional lonely man. In many ways this film is too sad to watch. Excruciatingly embarassing but fascinating at the same time.
The main character is a nice man at heart, but so lonely he latches onto a family he absolutely no connection with, beyond that he develops their photos at the local mall. A relatively low skilled job he probably mastered in a few months.

What makes this film work so well is:
1) The insight it gives into how a basically good man, can become so delusional and lonely. Later under duress he is driven to a terrible mistake.
2) The film is beautifully shot, the sad character is always in stark light, which hardens the poverty of his existence. While the "ideal family" with a fantastic home and all things beautiful are shot in rich colours ...
3) A good sound track - atmospheric and perfectly fitting the mood of the film
4) There is a clever plot twist

Self-righteous Brits? Sweet, I totally agree...

One of my bug bears is the endemic self-righteous nature of our tabloid press.

There are many great things in British culture, but we are as a nation becoming increasingly aggressive and abusive. There are many other problems: poor diet, cheap booze, drugs ... This is all very sad and the tabloids seem to be in denial, adopting a classic chav "aggressive defensive" posture. Rather than talk about real issues, they focus on celebrity, sports, and banging on about British superiority plus beating the Germans over half a century ago?

I was lamenting this point about "endemic self-righteous of the Brits" on the way back home, when an attractive young women (late twenties), with an Eastern European accent passed and called out laughing "sweet, I totally agree!"

Pero theatre trip

A Saturday with my mother and two nieces (10 and 8 years old)

The lunch went down well, for the main course:

1) a base of couscous and soya (no tumeric: Sophia has a phobia of all things spicy) with some veg (grean beans) and prunes

2) fried turkey breasts adding cashew nuts at the end (so as to soak up some of the juices)

3) pour into baking dish the "base" (couscous, soya, veg, prunes) and then add on top the turkey and cashews

4) bake/grill for 5 - 10 minutes

serve with pesto and/or sweet chilly sauce. Possible variations:

1) add pumpkin or sunflower seeds at the baking stage?

2) add walnuts or brazil nuts stage

3) spinach <-- delicious but not so good for children who like blander flavour

4) tuna or salmon stakes instead of turkey

The theatre was great, a stylish puppet theatre with operatic themes. The younger couple (washing girl & baker) were attractive, dance in a puppet like movement and sung nicely. They were slightly coquetish: very theatrical displays of legs and playful taps :) The pretty washer girl with curly brown hair had very rouge, which looked grat on her pale complexion. The baker looked slim, athletic and neat altogether a simple but vaguely handsome young man.

The older couple (the sun and the moon) were the music and song which drove the theatre. She had a very powerful, saprano voice, I expect she was an ex-opera singer. They played a wide range of instruments: keyboard, percussion, sax, ...

The whole arrangement had a rather traditioning Victorian style, there is little in this show which would have looked obviuosly out of place 100 years ago? Not so clearly visible there were: amplifers, spot lights, synthizer

For supper (with Mum & Nadjib), I did a nice salad: bed of spinach leaves, cherry tomatos, roasted figs (it is the season), asparagus, olives, feta cheese (cows milk?), rapeseed oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dinner with friends: Dawits, Stephanie, Emmanuelle and Nadjib

Aperitif: Champagne cocktails (dry pinot noir plus a few drops of sweet creme cassis)
Starter: Red and Green salad (peppers, cumcumber, tomatos, olives, asparagus)
Main: Coucous and turkey baked (plus sweet potatos, sunflowers, greens, farmhouse vegs, rapeseed oil, cranberries ...)
Wine: Chilean Red (muy bueno Cabernet Sauvigon)
Desert: Desert wine (nice Sauterne/Montbazillac) and chocolates

Halloween - the battered boyfriend!

Nadjib and me went straight from work in Brighton to a Halloween fancy dress party in London, only minus the fancy dress.

Still a bit of make up and I could play the "battered boyfriend" ;-)

A cool party with Nadjib's old colleagues

Financial Crisis? How bad are things? "J'ai tort" Alan Greenspan

Following on from my blog entry last weekend, Nadjib has sent me another link to a credit crunch story. This time the article is in French, from the liberal paper "Liberation".

The article is a report of Alan Greenspan confession:

"J'ai fait une erreur en comptant sur l'intérêt privé des organisations, principalement des banquiers, pour protéger leurs actionnaires."

i.e. we can not blindly trust in free markets. Emphasizing the point he stresses that the markets (and himself) are in a state of shock:

"Ceux d'entre nous qui comptaient sur l'intérêt des établissements de crédit pour protéger les actionnaires (en particulier moi-même) sont dans un état de choc et d'incrédulité".

"La crise a pris une dimension beaucoup plus grande que ce que j'avais imaginé".

Also he doesn't know just how bad are:

"J'ai trouvé une faille dans l'idéologie capitaliste. Je ne sais pas à quel point elle est significative ou durable, mais cela m'a plongé dans un grand désarroi."

He continue to blame those who blindly followed the false god of free markets and deregulation (personally I am angry at Thatcher and Bush and their followers who for years have been so consending to anyone who has questioned the wisdom of complete deruglation):

"La raison pour laquelle j'ai été choqué, c'est que l'idéologie du libre marché a fonctionné pendant 40 ans, et même exceptionnellement bien".

I was really interested that he is particularly concerned about Credit Default Swaps:

"J'ai eu en partie tort en n'essayant pas de réguler le marché des Credit Default Swaps"

I blogged about this last week:

In brief a huge market for insuring against corporate bonds defaulting, in fact the CDS market ($50 trillion) has become much bigger than the actual corporate bond market ($5 trillion). Worse still these products, originally insurance tools have become highly leveraged, speculative products. If this market was to partially collapse (one big financial institution collapsing bring down another?) would it leave a financial black hole? Or have I mis-understood?

The article finishes with Alan Greenspan comment that risk managment model and market have collapsed:

"Le modèle de gestion des risques tenait depuis des décennies. Mais l'ensemble de cet édifice intellectuel s'est effondré l'été dernier."

Given ths CDS (risk managment) market is $50 trillion dollars that sounds very bad.

Financial Crisis? How bad are things? The Nero awards ...

Nadjib (my partner) recently found a great article in the Guardian, touching on several aspects of the current financial crisis (aka "the credit crunch"):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/12/executivesalaries-creditcrunch

How bad are things? I recently heard a very freightening story regarding Credit Default Swaps. In brief a huge market for insuring against corporate bonds defaulting, in fact the CDS market ($50 trillion) has become much bigger than the actual corporate bond market ($5 trillion). Worse still these products, originally insurance tools have become highly leveraged, speculative products. If this market was to partially collapse (one big financial institution collapsing bring down another?) would it leave a financial black hole? Or have I mis-understood?

Returning to the article, it appears there are reputable academics calling for "promoting transparency in the financial system" and worrying about "opaque off-balance sheet structures hidden in secretive tax havens have helped to bring capitalism to its knees":

"Opaque off-balance sheet structures hidden in secretive tax havens have helped to bring capitalism to its knees, but no one can say they weren't warned. Three characters - Professor Prem Sikka, accountant Richard Murphy and former Jersey economic adviser, John Christensen, created from nothing an international network of academics, investigators and campaigners dedicated to promoting transparency in the financial system. Their organisation, Tax Justice Network has been adopted by charities, some sympathetic governments (Norway) and extends to heavyweight officials in the Obama camp who have promised to squash tax havens if elected. Unlike Gordon Brown."

Another re-occuring theme in the press at the moment, is how the UK has wasted it's fantastic natural resources (inherited wealth and north sea oil & gas), whilst partly true, blaming the poor and unemployed is bit too right-wing for me:

"Norway has emerged from the international financial crisis relatively unscathed. Virtually every country cut interest rates last week, but not Norway and billionaires are now stuffing their fortunes into Norwegian banks. Unlike the UK, it did not fritter its oil and gas revenues keeping citizens on the dole. Instead it ploughed receipts into what is now a £380bn sovereign wealth fund poised to snap up assets at knock-down, post-crash prices."

Personally I would prefer to blame a divided society, tabaloid culture and continual dumbing down ... are the upper and middle classes as much at fault here as the poor? Anyway one thing is for sure, our pension funds which were looking "worrying under-funded" now look a lot worse!

Lastly to the Nero awards:

"What do you do when billions are wiped off shares? Pull! Invesco Perpetual, one of the UK's biggest fund managers, took brokers clay pigeon shooting near Chichester, Sussex. Norwich Union held a major company conference earlier this month in Venice. Barclays flew 320 rich clients to Lake Como, Italy last week on an all-expenses three-day jaunt costing more than £500,000. AIG spent $440,000 on a lavish corporate retreat at one of California's top beachside resorts days after accepting an $85bn emergency loan from the US to stave off bankruptcy. Words are inadequate."

NB: "Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for a number of executions, including those of his mother and adoptive brother, as the emperor who "fiddled while Rome burned", and as an early persecutor of Christians." (wikipedia)

Red Wine and Lentils

Ever since having a Waitrose salad with some quinoa in it (a pulse / bean from South America?) and being blown away with just how well this worked (I surprise myself how excited I can get about good food) I have been experimenting with salads and pulses.

I now eat salads several times a week - often for my main even meal. They are delicious and extremely healthy. The main ingredients are:

1) Sauce / dressing

I always start with olives marinaded in oil (olive, hemp and / or sunflower). Sometimes I remember to add herbs to this marinade. Typically I make a large pot of this marinade about once or twice a week and then pop it in fridge.

As a child I didn't like olives at all, it is only since having olives marinade in oil that I realised that it was the brine the olives are preserved in that I don't like. I now drain and rinse my olives before preparing my own healthy marinade.

2) Protein

My favourites are quinoa or green lentils. Although recently I have been experimenting with mung bean and barley. Mung bean are a pain to cook (you have to soak them for 24 hours) but are worth the effort - they are probably really good for you and have a great sounding name.

3) Vegetables

Vegetable are good for you and the more variety the better, I will list a few of my current favourite.

Spinach - frozen, simply defrost in the microwave

Roasted Vegetables (Peppers, aubergines, onions) - frozen, again simply defrost in the microwave. A side issue here is the Tesco vs Waitrose value debate: I am regular being told that Tesco is better value than Waitrose? In my experience is that if you match items of similar quality, the two are comparable. One exception, is frozen roasted vegetables, both Tesco and Waitrose do tasty frozen roasted veg, and Tesco's is a lot cheaper (2/3 of price?). However after some months of Tesco frozen veg (in London - where Tesco is my local supermarket), I noticed that they have added mono-sodium glutamate to their product. I will still enjoy Tesco's product but I don't mind paying the Waitrose premium for a quality, wholesome product.

Broccoli - frozen, simply defrost in the microwave

Carrot and Onions - these I actually buy fresh and can be steamed in the microwave

Cherry Tomatoes - Borough Market at the weekend does bag of delicious cherry tomatoes and they are not expensive. But if I'm not in London then any Supermarket tomatoes will do ...

Apples - I love a chopped apple in a salad (is it a Waldorf salad which have chopped apple and walnuts in it?)

There are literally dozens of great veg out there to be savoured, I could go on and on but I think this is enough for now!

Peak Oil and the UK's first green MP

For a couple of years I have been hearing about "peak oil" - mainly from environmentalists who slightly surprising often quote reports and studies from their "enemies" in the oil / petrol-chemical industries.

I used to partly believe the stereotype that the green party was largely made of "left wing eccentrics", with passionate ideas but not always the most well-balanced and happy people (tree-huggers as Jeremy Clarkson or my brother would say). To my slight surprise, over my 6 years in Brighton, I have got to know several of our green activists, attended meetings, been to a House of Commons Select Committee (on Carbon charging) and I found the greens to be intelligent, realistic and surprisingly happy and balanced in their personal lives. Like a folk musician explained recently in an interview (Dick Gaughan on Mike Harding's Radio 2 show) - "I want to create a historical record ... to leave a foot-print in the sand ... that there those who fought against what was wrong". Going on there is an understanding that it is going to be very difficult to change the "majority tabloid driven" views however it is important to stand-up and say what you believe in and to start to make the difficult changes which it is human nature to resist. History has shown collectively we have a tendency to ignore tough problems until it is too late. Hard chance is going to be forced on us all in a "post-peek oil world", the general public may not accept this yet but the environmentalist and right-wing oil industry already know this.

One of the side effects of the current labour party collapse is to make the UK's first green MP in Brighton Pavilion a real possibility, the last general election (2005) was close

Labour 15427
Green Party 9530
Liberal Democrat 7171
Conservative 10397

in local elections since 2005, the green party have done stunning well. Caroline Lucas is a very impressive candidate, clear, well-spoken and stylish. She could well now become the UK's first green MP. Caroline was on the World Tonight (Radio 4) this evening - talking sense but it was not easy listening - we are going to have get used to a world with less and less cheap fuel and increasing oil production in the short term will (a) not solve the fundamental problem of peak oil and (b) not going help with CO2 emissions ...

Highlight of my day - bumping into an old friend :)

The highlight of my day was bumping into Michael from the Rainbow Chorus, walking along the Charing Cross Rd!

This photo (currently on the front of rainbow chorus web-site at rainbowchorus.org.uk) has both Michael and myself on it (both in green) and is from our totally amazing trip to Paris last summer! Although this photo doesn't really show it, Simon rather stole the day in terms of photos with the most incredible outfit ;-)

I really miss Brighton and although London is exciting, has fantastic galleries and restaurants and the best IT user groups - I want to move back to Brighton!

I've been in London for nearly a year now and I virtually never bump into people casually, and on the rare occasion I do, they are old friends from Brighton.

Still London is great for Nadjib's career - he is going to overtake me before very long! Mind you this is great by me :)

I also went to London Linux group tonight (www.lonix.org.uk). Some very interesting and colourful techies & eccentrics - a good night but I got out at the right time (i.e. before I got too drunk). This is doubled by the fact that I then bumped into Michael!

At the "Lonix meet" amongst other things I learnt about CP/M:

CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initially confined to single tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes (64 KiB) of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations, and were migrated to 16-bit processors. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M)

All good techie stuff! Very nice and smart people but after two hours it was time to escape before I got too drunk - I do find London is too boozy!

Japanese in Brixton

Personally although I like Brixton, I also find it a bit intimating. It is extremely colourful and one of many things which surprises me about Brixton is the quality of Japanese restaurants! My favourite is Ichiban Sushi (quite simply superb food and pretty cheap as well), but this was shut today (Bank Holiday Monday) and so we went to Fujirama - another good Japanese! Both restaurant are great and are on Atlantic Road (near Electric Avenue)

Persepolis

I went to see Persepolis for a 2nd time today - the autobiographical "bande dessinée" by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian, from a communist family but also with ties to an old Iranian Prince and fortunately educate in a French school in Tehran.

The 1st time I saw this film, was in Paris in May 2007, in a cinema next to the Centre Pompidou. Despite missing some of the detail the first time, I think I enjoyed the film even more the 1st time in French!

The film pushed all the right button for a left of centre, liberal audience but is also a great story. Highlighting how oppressive regimes operate, the casual violence of petty officials and the stupidity of such regimes and the frustration for intelligent people who must suddenly act in a subservient way to religious fanatic window cleaners... Unfortunately unlike our heroine manner of the characters to do not survive - many are tortured and/or executed!

The film also tells a lot about life in the West too, from apathy to teenage nihilism.

Everyone favourite character, is her grandmother, who is full of wisdom. Every-time she opens her mouth, she says something intelligent and insightful. My favourite is her counsel to a very frustrated Marjane, that she is "going to meet a lot of jerks in her life" (i.e. get used to it!). In another scene, she stresses the importance of integrity (Marjane has escaped trouble by dropping an innocent man into deep trouble) .

I couldn't help feeling lucky in life when I saw how tough her life was! But I still have to watch out too; for those jerks out there "waiting to trip you up" ...

There is much more to this film, I have seen it twice now but I know this is a film I am going to watch many more times :)

integrity |inˈtegritē|

noun

1 the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness : he is known to be a man of integrity.

2 the state of being whole and undivided : upholding territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

• the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction : the structural integrity of the novel.

• internal consistency or lack of corruption in electronic data : [as adj. ] integrity checking.

ORIGIN late Middle English (sense 2) : from French intégrité or Latin integritas, from integer ‘intact’ (see integer ). Compare with entirety , integral , and integrate .

Dawit is back!

This morning I woke up early, suffering from:

(a) Drinking too much with my brother and sister. My sister (+ husband and two year old daughter) visit London a couple of times a year and we have traditional family get togethers at my brother's place where Charlotte (my brother's wife) cook fantastic food (the baked pink trout last night was superb) and we drink heartily. Unfortunately last night, we got a little carried away and I missed the last tube home (by a whisker) and had to catch the night bus to Elephant & Castle and then walked the last mile home at 1am - dooh!

(b) Yesterday I started some weight training - I've been doing a little too much aerobic exercise recently which is good for the health but I want to build-up a bit now. In the past, I've not been very good at weight training - I'll do it for a while and then get bored (fortunately I love aerobic exercise).

(c) Psychologically, I'm a bit sad about the Tory rout of Labour and in particular by Ken (who I liked) being beaten by Boris ...

The good news is that Dawit is back from Africa! And that he is fit and well :) Dawit's he is an old friend of Nadjib's. A great guy, but we have been concerned when he went to Africa to visit his family and didn't appear to be coming back? Anyway while my family where arguing about politics and getting drunk, Dawit's and Nadjib were having pizza and messing up my rubik cube.

Recently at work I have been on a "management / accelerated development" training programme (running over 12 month), this is mostly good health stuff: some management theory, a little psychology, lots of team exercises, the odd assault course ... Anyway one of the modules was about "selling you brand" (glorified CVs) and not surprisingly we had to describe "our greatest every achievement". Now my 8+ year relationship with my boyfriend may be my greatest achievement but that is not really suitable for "selling your brand" as IT technology specialist. Having solved the rubik cube, developing my very own solution from scratch (I didn't read the solution from a book!) at the age of 11 seems ideal. It was not the most elegant solution, a bit slow (typically 30 minutes to 1 hour) but it was my own solution and I was still at middle school!

Last year I picked up a rubik cube again and I was a bit sad when I couldn't remember how to solve it. However the rubik cube is ideal for the tube (I can even block out being packed into the jubilee line during rush hour - a rubik cube is a lot small than a newspaper and rush hour is too distracting for me to read a proper book). Anyway after a couple of weeks of enjoyable struggle, I finally solved it again - for the first time in roughly 25 years! This was quite a rush of excitement. I went on to complete my rubik cube 14 times in total (over a six week period) - and by the end I had the time down to about 1 or 1.5 hours.

Anyway I'm now studying my SAP notes everyday on the way to work (I may have to find a new job if my company want me to move back to Brighton / Worthing - officially I'm currently only in London on a temporary basis) and so I have put my rubik cube aside and go through my notebook (typically I learn a few interesting / useful new things about SAP and/or IT in general every day at work) . This is very effective for making sure I don't forget all the good stuff I learnt a few weeks / months before.

This morning while making an early morning cup of tea, I found my rubik cube undone, beside some pizza remains (young children and adults after a few drinks, can't resist a completed rubik cube). I was delighted when I solved it while making a cup of tea (under 10 minutes?). I'm sure there is an element of luck here but I am definitely getting better at the corner pieces (the difficult part). Last month after a visit by Nathan and his two year old daughter, it took my about half an hour to complete the cube. This is only the 2nd time I solved the cube this year but I am still getting better :)

The New London Mayor: Boris vs Ken

Let’s dive straight in - I don't like Boris.

Why does Boris Johnson get under my skin? Why is he the sort of politician that I don't trust and have a strong aversion too?

Firstly to be fair, Boris is a very talented guy: extremely clever, hard working, an excellent speaker, youthful, enthusiastic, funny and well educated (actually these last two are more debatable).

However the are a lot of highly talented people in London and let’s get to some of negative images / ideas I have about Boris:

1) His politics

On numerous occasions I have heard Boris speak (mostly on radio4) and he says things which make me want to shout and scream at my radio ;-) A few ‘which really stick in mind’ are his attacks on the smoking ban, congestion charging and the Kyoto accord. The first two are in my view are excellent policies making city living cleaner, safer and greener. Over the years Boris has tuned down his opposition to these broadly popular policies. To be kind, Boris does like to play the devils advocate sometimes on these debating programs. However he has shown his true colours – an upper class fool who has little idea about inner-city and/or metropolitan life for the less affluent?

2) An old fashioned racist?

Some very disturbing headlines:

"How can the Conservative party seek to gain credibility among black people while referring to them, as Boris Johnson has done, as 'picaninnies', and Africans as having 'watermelon smiles'?”

“Boris Johnson apologised again over race issues today after he was accused of condoning an article that claimed black people have a lower IQ.”

3) Attack on Liverpool

What more I can add …

Boris Johnson has been ordered to visit Liverpool to apologise in person for his magazine article that criticised the city's grief over Ken Bigley.

The Tory MP wrote in an editorial in The Spectator that the city was wallowing in "disproportionate" grief for Mr Bigley, who was killed in Iraq.

4) Private life

In France affairs are tolerated and private life is kept private. However here in the UK, we splash sensational stories and pictures from people private lives and past misdemeanours, all over the press. I’m uncomfortable with this practice but on the other hand French politicians are notoriously corrupt and have it too easy. Clearly there is a difficult balancing act here. However I am not convinced that Boris is a decent man?

So what about Ken?

Quite simply: a good guy with good ideas for London. A very decent man …

There is one area I would like to discuss, I think Ken gets a lot of unfair press: there are a lot of conservatives who will say anything to mock him. One case of this was Ken’s comments about the paparazzi and the practice of door-stepping being like “nazi concentration camp guards”. OK nazi is a taboo word and as a seasoned politician Ken should have known not to used it (although the right-wing press who have hounded Ken on this comment also hate ‘political correctness’ – now that’s duplicity!). But basically, Ken is right, the paparazzi behave like scum.

Anyway now the votes are nearly all cast and I’m a little sad as the polls suggest that Ken will lose…

NB Tragically in the mid 90s, about year before Diana death I started predicting that the daily press houndine and car-chases around London would lead to a tragic accident. Everyday I would see the press pictures and I knew what was going on was deeply wrong and it made me sad, angry, frustrated that it was so obviously wrong and dangerous but no one was able to stop the press witch hunt - until it would be too late …

NB2 Under French privacy law, not only does this protect immoral politicians but if Diana had been French and lived in France, it could have stopped the press harassment?

Why do I love religious art?

I adore spiritual song and art. I now record Aled Jones on Sunday morning, the singing is great and the program is full of a form of Christianity where they play down the more difficult aspects of their faith. One of my favourite books at the moment, is a book of religious art with accompanying biblical stories in French "Le Nouveau Testament" par Stefano Zuffi. All the art work is so chamring and beautiful with classic stories and icons to boot!

Is radio 2 cool?

When I was younger radio 2 had such a staid image - "more than a bit dull". However since getting a new digital radio for Xmas (cheers Mum!), I have been casually dropping in on Radio 2 and now it is my default radio station :) Honestly the diversity and variety of presentators and music is incredible. Highlights in the last few days alone include Bob Dylan presenting on the theme of the rich & poor (it was a great musical and philosophical journey), Elaine Paige on the world of musical and a couple of incredible documentaries on (1) Prince and (2) the musical world of London in the 16th century. There was lots more of other cool stuff - Radio 2 is now offering some great music and fantastic presentators. OK Terry Wagon still have me scrabbling for the off button but Radio 2 has great diversity, cool presentators and I like it!

My favourite films ... Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers

First of all, I didn't particularly like this film on first viewing. I went on the opening day to the Odeon in Brighton (a huge screen with a top quality sound system) with Nadjib who was already a big Harry Potter fan (another story) and he loved the film straight away. However I was disappointed, I had read and quite enjoyed the book, however the film adaption didn't work for me. In brief, it was as if they had tried to cram as many as possible scenes and details from the book into a film. The result for me was disappointing, firstly it was rather disjointed and secondly it was a bit long.

OK so at first it was a disappointment, but now it is one of my favourite movies which I can watch over and over again (I've just finished it again!). What has changed? Firstly I wanted to like Harry Potter as Nadjib did, when the film came out Xmas 2001 we had only been together for two years and had just moved from Luton to Brighton.

However this affection for Nadjib alone was not be enough to change this very good but clunky film adaptation into one of my favourite movies (despite numerous attempts, I can not really get into virtual gaming despite having playing a very cute wood elf warrior and a female barbarian with impossibly large breasts).

What made me into a Harry Potter fantastic (although I am only keen on the first three books), is that through Harry Potter I finally learnt to speak passable French! This something gripping and memorable about JK Rowlings writing style, and I found when picking up Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers that it was relative easy to read in French, there were loads of words I didn't know but I got the sense of the story and slowly with time + a french-english dictionary I filled in the details. There area still odd words witch catch me out, for example chahut: Quiconque fera du chahut pendant mes cours sera immédiatement renvoyé avec interdiction de revenir.

To be honest, the film doesn't quite work as a whole, but the individual scenes are great, the acting is good (a collection of the great and good from British acting). Also the sounds track is pretty good and dubbed into the French I can watch this over and over again!

EverQuest 2: Jadar and Amant

Dave and I sometimes play together on EverQuest 2. Dave plays Jadar, a Wood Elf Warrior.

Jadar was first created in EverQuest 1. The Wood Elf Warrior Guild in Kelethin (the Wood Elf city highly perched on tree-tops) was so small there was only one guild master and no aid. Kelethin wasn't really the place for warriors and Jadar was outperformed by the water pet of the magician (Lynvellio) I played with him at the time. I remember Dave complaining while camping the goblins of Butcherblock Mountains that my pet could kill the monsters faster than he could.

However, in EverQuest 2, the new Jadar is a tough warrior and his Kelethin Warrior Guild has nothing to envy the Barbarian ones in either Freeport or Qeynos. Jadar can take quite a few hits, ensconsed in his thick armour, and his sword will bash through monsters without trouble.

I sometimes play along Jadar with Amant, my coercer. He's a mage that can control monsters so that Jadar and I can kill them one by one rather than taking all of them at once. Amant can't heal Jadar but he sure does lots of damage so we can kill monsters much faster.

Where to start my blog: my boyfriend is so cool and cute!

Where to start my blog: my boyfriend is so cool and cute. We've been together for ever now and it's good. Nadjib has the classic gaelic temperament (i.e. fiery) and is not always as compromising as an English gentlemen ought to be but the last 8+ years have been great. I must say that Nadjib is very clever and one thing which fascinates me about our relationship is that while I am mathematician at heart with a passion for IT and working out, while Nadjib is a linguist with a passion for philosophy, IT and virtual reality gaming. Intellectually we are quite different but it seems to work well. I have even learnt passable French now (something Mr Elkins, my old French teacher and a very good man, would be very surprised and pleased to see/hear).

I think this drawing of Nadjib is so cool, it was done by a rather eccentric Japanese friend of Nadjib's in Luton. She was really talented musically and great at manga + she liked my cooking :) However she was also extremely temperamental and somewhat unreliable. Still an unforgettable picture Kaori!