January 2012
3 posts
Photography resolutions
It’s January, which means it’s that time of year for resolutions. I’ve made a few of them, including keeping a kind of photo log of my cooking that I’m the most impressed with and blogging about it. But here’s one that I’m even more committed to achieving…
I want to improve my photography, which is more to do with my technical knowledge of the art. With...
December 2011
4 posts
November 2011
1 post
Ozzy: The First Two Weeks
Tonight marks the second week of our lives with our new family member, Ozzy the black labrador.
His mother – a black lab cross – found herself in Bath Cats & Dogs Rescue Home through no fault of her own. It soon turned out that she was in fact pregnant. Ozzy was one of the cheeky fellas who popped out. After receiving a phone call from the rescue home (we were on the puppy waiting list) that...
October 2011
1 post
Best Soundtracks/Scores
Chocolat - Rachel Portman
The Insider - Lisa Gerrard, Peter Bourke, Graeme Revell, and featuring various others
Moon - Clint Mansell
Battlestar Galactica - Bear McCreary
Amelie - Yann Tiersen
The Beach - Various artists
Drive - Cliff Martinez and featuring various others
Lost Boys - Various artists
Lost in Translation - Various artists
The Limits of Control - Boris, The Black Angels, and...
September 2011
2 posts
My first experience of Canada was Chinese
I went to Toronto for a month in 2003. There I got to experience the real Chinese Canadian culture. Staying in Toronto I stayed at the guest house of a Chinese couple from Shanghai, who had been living in Canada for around the past ten years. I lived in a Chinese area where my nearest supermarket was a Chinese store. In fact it was in eastern Canada where I had some of the nicest Chinese food...
August 2011
3 posts
People are the true spirit of travel: part 1
When I was younger I used to believe that you had one shot of travel; when you are young and had either just left university, or when you were taking a gap year in between school or college and university. I believed this when I went travelling with my then boyfriend (now fiancee) around Europe for one month. We had bought interrail tickets and used them to travel via train from London, as far...
An excerpt about George the cat on Deer Isle, from...
I couldn’t believe I would find the place, but in a hundred yards there was the great old house of Miss Eleanor Brace, and there she was to welcome me. I let Charley out, and suddenly an angry streak of gray burned across the clearing in the pines and bucketed into the house. That was George. He didn’t welcome me and he particularly didn’t welcome Charley. I never did rightly...
July 2011
2 posts
4 tags
WatchI bought this little guy in Beijing. He doesn’t know what he is, and he leads a very lonely and uneventful life.
May 2011
2 posts
Silverfish!
A flash of silver in the night
A dash of metal in the light?
He’s Silverfish! Silverfish!
He’s not a fish
He’s not a man
Call him an insect if you can
He may be your biggest wish
He’s Silverfish! Silverfish!
You can’t run as fast as
You can’t look as good as
No one is as cool as
Silverfish! Silverfish!
Looks like a fish
Flashes like metal
...
A Smuggler's Song
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark - Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk; Laces for a lady, letters for a spy, And watch the wall, my darling,...
March 2011
2 posts
Place to be
When I was young, younger than before
I never saw the truth hanging from the door
And now I’m older I see it face to face
And now I’m older gotta get up clean the place.
And I was green, greener than the hill
Where the flowers grew and the sun shone still
And now I’m darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me place to be.
And I was strong, strong in the sun
I...
February 2011
2 posts
January 2011
3 posts
Social science!
I watched an interesting documentary by Horizon recently – Science Under Attack. In it, Sir Paul Nurse argues that science is not ‘keeping up’ with the modern day communications, particularly in the online social sphere. He warns of the dangers of science lacking a voice in this virtual arena, as the Internet has enabled people to express their opinions like never before (see my article ‘BP oil...
Oh Social Media Networks, what a tangled Web we...
‘Social Media’. It’s a phrase that has started to grate on my nerves like someone who has scissors for hands (such as Edward Scissorhands) scraping their scissored nails down a blackboard. I hear the phrase ‘social media’ wherever I go, whether I like it or not.
I’ve always enjoyed the level of interaction and sharing that the ‘net has enabled us, and...
December 2010
1 post
November 2010
4 posts
University paper on Serbian nationalism
The below is part of a paper I wrote for my International Relations degree at university. I have the best intentions to rewrite it to a less academic, more condensed version at some point; of course this may never actually happen!
Historical Myths
In 1398, following the Turkish raids on Serbia during the mid-1380s, the Turks came to fight a battle with the Serbs in Kosovo. A battle between the...
September 2010
5 posts
Rescued dogs
I’ve recently decided to get a young dog from a rescue centre after coming to the conclusion that it didn’t make any sense to fork out hundreds of pounds for a pedigree dog that I would have to wait ages to get, when there are so many hundreds (thousands) of neglected and abandoned dogs needing homes.
I’ve been looking around and find myself constantly shocked by the sheer...
August 2010
13 posts
The Curse of the Black Gold →
I was inspired to visit this site again due to the recent story in the papers with the UN’s decision to exonerate Shell for four decades of oil pollution in the Niger Delta.
It still amazes me how relatively little attention this has received in comparison to the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as the issue has been much longer running and has received far more damage both in...
BP’s oil spill spreads across the online social...
There is a new phenomenon in the way in which news is being reported. Drastically different from traditional reporting, news is also being reported and translated online in social media. Through platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and more, individuals are able to express themselves, voice their opinions, translate stories in their own way, and reach out to individuals...
Steambot Studios concept artwork
I found a book on Steambot Studios’ concept artwork for Exodyssey the other week. Some truly amazing artwork has come out of this company, including work for the new Tron movie.
Their showroom on their site unfortunately doesn’t feature some of the amazing art shown in the Exodyssey book, but it is still worth having a look at their portfolio.
The On-Screen Onslaught of New York City
I decided to give some serious thought to how many times New York City has been destroyed or under attack in movies. NYC really seems to bare the brunt of on screen city destruction, be it by aliens, tidal waves, the next Ice Age, giant lizards, giant gorillas, giant roaches, epic battles, vampire diseases, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man; the list goes on and on.
Below I’ve compiled a short list...
July 2010
6 posts
