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!