Curiosity Killed the Cat

Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve

Wed, 30 May 2007 19:31:32 GMT

Whoo. Great book. Rollicking, imaginative SciFi at its best (though not so hard on the Sci). With a sense of humour too, which seems to be rare in the genre.

Don't know how I haven't come across this author before. Perhaps I was put off by the fact I didn't get on with Mortal Engines' namesake.

The big idea is that in the far future, towns have become peripatetic. Large portions of the world is ruled by Municipal Darwinism, which of course is the natural order of things and not to be messed with. Or is it?

This in itself makes for lots of fun parallels. I was in Tottenham Court Road elevator station just last week. And of course Tunbridge Wheels is an upstart pirate town, preying mercilessly on the smaller villages.

The present day parallels and adoption and adaption of names of things - and places - made a great running start. The author's touch was so light that by the time I got up the hill from the library, the whole world was set up, all the key characters introduced (the orphan hero, the glamorous rich girl, the dashing adult hero, the minor bully, the mysterious stranger and many more...), a mystery had arisen, and I felt I was leaving familiar territory as the hero was packed off out of London.

This was a great adventure story, but seemed rather more than that. The world was set up so securely that it seemed a real tragedy when it started to be overturned. The dashing hero Valentine turned out to be a dashing villain - only it wasn't quite that simple either, more of a dashed idiot.

And the climax was - well, climactic. The whole cast were lined up to save the world in the traditional manner, only the world wasn't quite in agreement about who was to be saved. I felt we were given due notice about just how brutal the ending could be when Dog was killed, and it didn't get lighter from there.

And the best thing is there's more!

Double take

Mon, 14 May 2007 22:33:27 GMT

Flesh-eating slugs. Cabbages.

Books

Sat, 05 May 2007 15:05:02 GMT

Well, exams are officially survived, and I have ceremoniously ordered Deathly Hallows. And of course, being at Amazon and having new house-space (though no new shelves as yet), more books.

The latest book for my book club turns out to be historical romance written in the style of bad NC17 fanfic, complete with Mary Sue victim-character. Ick. I think I may be unavoidably detained from the next meeting.

However, the bad taste is very much taken away by Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. It's a long time since I've got so addicted to a book. It seemed to fall in the narrow category of books I am bound to like whatever weaknesses or huge gaping plot-holes or Grawp subplots they may contain.

Things I loved about this book:

The college setting. Not enough good books are set in colleges. Also, I think I'd have liked studying in the US. You seem to get to do much more random just for fun courses.
Throwing quotations around. I'm not well-read enough to recognise most of them, but it still makes me feel cultured.
A very slow build-up of mystery and supernatural. With clues and everything. It started off seeming like the silly ghost-stories all old communities have lurking around, then it started lining up just that bit too neatly.
Having the heroine date someone else for 3/4 of the book. That's style. If it weren't for the title, I probably wouldn't have spotted she was with the wrong one at all.
People talking random pseudo-Elizabethan. It's so much the sort of thing students do no one thinks to wonder if it might be real.
Intelligent people. Thomas seems barely able to talk to Janet by the end, realising what an awkward position he's putting her in. (Though I think he's overdoing this one a bit...)

Things I wasn't so sure about:

What is actually so difficult about Janet's position? I mean, either she believes or she doesn't believe. If she believes then surely the question of trying to save a life has to come first. Whatever your position on abortions. I mean, she's got something difficult to do, but she seems to be agonising about whether to try to save the life of someone she is at least close friends with.? And if she doesn't believe (though I'm convinced she does) what does it matter if she waits till after Halloween for an abortion anyway?
The title. Is it really necessary to give away the whole plot before you start? I mean, sure, we'd probably have figured it (well, in my case only "probably", I tend to be dim about these things...), but why not let us work it out for ourselves?
Janet's reaction to the ghost at the beginning. If you think someone's having you on, surely you just grin and look knowing, you don't head off and research it. It seemed to give away that the ghost's important sooner than was necessary or natural.
Things seemed to happen rather abruptly at times, particularly in the romantic sense. Can't quite put my finger on why, but I was never quite sure - even to the end of the book - if she actually cared about him or not. Something about the extremely factual tone. The narrator voice describes what Thomas looks like to Janet, but not what her reaction is to him? I know show not tell and all that, but somehow felt something missing here. Oh well, will enjoy rereading to pick up the subtle hints I bulldozed through this time!

Good Things

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:18:58 GMT

Remarkably many good things. And that despite looming exams.

In a new house, with space and GARDEN. This is very exciting, as we were previously living in a rather small flat.
I seem to be averaging about 2 days a week at work this month. I do like my job when I'm there, but it's still nice to do other things.
My orchestra is playing the theme from Harry Potter. It's great fun to play, though fiendishly hard for the violin section. Also Star Wars, Mission Impossible, and assorted other silly stuff. Bit of a change from Shostakovich last term! The conservative element appear to be grumpy about film music as well as about Shostakovich. Perhaps they'll leave...
There is new Dr Who.
There will quite soon be new Harry Potter. I'm going to put in my reservation as a post exam treat. Am wondering whether to select it for our (thus far rather serious) book club to read. At the moment we're reading Waterland by Graham Swift, which is either very intellectual or very pretentious, I'm not sure which.
And it's been sunny all day!

Thankyou internet

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:52:01 GMT

Student: How is this defined exactly?
Me: Hmm, I'm not sure. I'll look it up.
Me: *searches internet*
Internet: Here's some definitions A, B and C. Oh, and you'll want this article from a minor journal in 1938.
Me: Will I? Oh dear. Nearest uni library at least 30 miles, and they don't have a big maths department so are highly unlikely to have the article. Hmm, suppose I could mail-order a copy, but it probably won't turn out to be interesting.
Internet: Hem-hem. *brandishes journal archive*
Journal article: Well, there are definitions A, B and C, but they aren't consistent. Here, try definition D.
Me: *triples resolve to keep the part time teaching job that gets me access to both students and journal archives*

Oh, and hi - I'm still here, I'm still reading LJ occasionally, I still haven't figured out what this journal is for, and I still don't have much to say or time to say it. Having a fantastic year so far, I hope everyone else is too.

Quote unquote

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:41:35 GMT

Double-take quotes of yesterday:
Giorgio Armani : "Sure, I choose very feminine women with little breast and straight hips".
And from BBC Radio 5 introducing a guest: "The man who's trying to make jazz sexy!"

Housework. No, really.

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:01:28 GMT

Our landlady has decided to enter the twentieth century (sic.) and supplied us with a vacuum cleaner which doesn't require a trip to the antique shop to fit it with a bag.

So now we are proud cohabiters-with of a Dyson. And it is really really cool. I mean, it has buttons to click and levery things all over, and you can see how to take it apart and put it back together. And you can see the dust going round! This is a vacuum cleaner designed by geeks. No streamlining - it's not supposed to fly, is it? No clever invisible springy-things to wind up the wire - far too complicated, far too likely to break. No, they've designed a small plastic clip to keep the flex tidy. It works. It's simple. It's neat. Every hoover I've met in the last twenty years could have had one but didn't.

Well-designed things make me happy.

Now all I have to do is clear papers off enough carpet to be worth turning the thing on.

Der Jammerwoch

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:00:48 GMT

I have to post this link before it disappears down my friendslist on languagehat. Apparently translating the Jabberwocky is an old sport; attempting to pronounce the results is a new game to me. Should be set as an exercise to all language students.

I don't usually like the idea of translated literature, let alone poetry, if I stand a chance of understanding the original; but this sounds fantastic in German. Otherwise I stumble too much over even the French. Must learn more languages.

JKR Interview

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:10:53 GMT

I have my fingers in my ears and I am humming out of tune. I don't want to know who dies. I don't want to know who doesn't die. I don't want to know how many people die. I don't want to know the title of chapter 93 1/4.

Last book I had fun playing guessing games, and I expect I'll do that again, but I don't think I want to pick up all the hints dropped in interviews and spoilers and covers this time. It gave too much away in HBP and OotP to be sitting there waiting to see who died.

Seems a bit early to start the hype too. What do we reckon, next June?

Help! Wrong world error. Redo from start.

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:41:02 GMT

My employer seems to think they can motivate us (=bunch of middle-aged professionals) by means of balloons, stickers and party games. What's more, a large proportion of my colleagues seem to agree. Feels like I've strayed into a very alien culture at times. Am I a total bore? Yes, probably. But... but a roomful of self-respecting fifteen year olds would laugh them out of court. I know retro is in and all that, but you have to be pretty bored with your job to find blowing up balloons a welcome change. Surely we can think of ways to have fun without pretending to be five years old?

In fact, am off to do so now. See, not a total curmudgeon really.

People

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 21:57:37 GMT

To the stranger who, on being asked for directions, stopped in the middle of cooking her dinner and forcibly gave me a lift to my destination after I absent-mindedly got off the train at the wrong stop and idiotically tried to walk to the next station without a map: thank you.

To the stranger who sat down opposite me in an empty station and proceeded to have a loud conversation about personal matters on her mobile phone, presumably on the assumption that I was reading a book, so couldn't possibly hear her: um?

All evens out I guess.

And now for something completely different

Tue, 02 May 2006 21:11:09 GMT

The BBC's Jamie Kane game is rather interesting.

It's a murder-mystery game played through a series of websites, blogs and message-boards. It features quite impressive chat robots, albeit speaking a strange dialect of fangirl. There are even bits sprinkled through the BBC's music coverage. Unfortunately the parts of the game requiring search engines have been a bit spoiled by self-reference, as the game itself has attracted some coverage.

I have to confess that I found their fake boyband star more listenable to than most chart music, though some of his lyrics are a bit daft.

St George

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 21:34:21 GMT

They seem to be making a huge kerfuffle about St George's day in England this year. There are flags and red and white balloons everywhere - you'd think there was a football match on or something.

I've been out of the country on this great day for the last three years, but I'm sure they didn't always make such a fuss. Is this a sudden thing, or has it been catching on generally? Or am I just imagining things?

Another one for the rant line

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:33:03 GMT

Erk. Street preachers.

I just wanted to eat my lunch, I didn't ask to be shouted at.

But really, I find them even more offensive than out-of-tune buskers. I was seriously tempted to go and stand in front of them and shout back just why what they were saying was total rubbish, except they clearly had practice and a lot more breath on their side. And I'm a coward.

I mean, it's a total ego-trip, isn't it? I refuse to believe they convert anyone, ever. No one was listening. The only reason I can see for doing it is that they get to feel virtuous. Even Jehovah's Witnesses at least engage people in conversation, these guys were just standing there shouting. Come on people, go and volunteer your time for a good cause, or failing that study some theology. If I ever found a religion, self-righteousness is going to be sin number one.

It might have been the done thing 2000 years ago, or even 200 - there wasn't much other entertainment to be had in those days, and some idiot shouting in the street was better than nothing.

The thing that offends me most about them and evangelicals in general is that their method of conversion is based on the assumption that they are right and not on any attempt to convince the poor passerby that this is the case. Your sins could be forgiven! Or you could take responsibility for your own actions and try not to do something so stupid and antisocial again. Wouldn't you like to be loved by Jesus? Ugh, necrophilia. And thanks, but I'm thankfully neither your brother nor any other close family member...

Kids' Lit

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:02:44 GMT

I'm still engaged in catching up on things I've missed in children's fantasy:

I am belatedly very chuffed that the Diana Wynne Jones character survey a few weeks ago pegged me as Moril.
I already knew DWJ was the master of cross-generational romance, but 200 years plays 13? The mind boggles.
Artemis Fowl is sweeeet. Hi-tech fairies!
My local libraries are well stocked in Lemony Snicket – except for the first book which is always out. One day I'll get fed up of this and either reserve it or buy it.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 13:41:39 GMT

You know the stuff you get in school canteens that tastes like lemon flavoured washing up liquid? That's not lemon meringue pie: this is. Recipe from a friend.

Ingredients:
For the pastry:
150g plain flour
70g butter
milk

For the lemon curd:
110g caster sugar
3 tablespoons cornflour
225 ml cold water
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 3 lemons
80g butter
4 egg yolks

For the meringue:
4 egg whites
220g caster sugar

Recipe: Make pastry, line a suitable dish (e.g. 20cm pie dish) and put it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, separate the eggs - the egg whites go in a large clean bowl ready to be meringued, and the yolks in a mug to one side. Measure the water and put all except a small amount into a saucepan. Keep a few spoonfuls in the measuring jug, and add to it 110g sugar and the cornflour. Grate the lemon-peel into the pan of water, and juice the lemons, keeping the juice to one side in another jug or mug. Measure the butter, then everything is ready to make the lemon curd.

Around now, turn on the oven, take the pastry out of the freezer, prick the bottom and put it in to bake for about 10 minutes on gas 5.

To make the lemon curd, boil the saucepan of water and lemon peel. When it's boiling, add the cornflour mixture (cornflour, remainder of water, sugar), whisking as you go, and keep whisking until it thickens. Then take it off the heat and add the remaining ingredients (egg yolks, lemon juice, butter), still whisking. Makes a slightly thinner sauce than you expect if you've ever seen the packet version.

Make meringue. (N.B. If you're as bad at this as me, make sure your dish has high sides so it can't flop out.)

By this time the pastry will be a bit cooked. Pour the curd into it, lump the meringue on top, and bake for about 45 mins on gas 5. (I think longer on lower would be even better.)

Yum.

Also works as lemon pie without the meringue, but you have to add extra sugar as the lemon mix is very tart on its own, and you have to find something to do with 4 egg whites. Meringues anyone?

Moving Pictures

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:04:46 GMT

I just realised that moving pictures have a disturbing effect on me. If there are moving pictures, I watch them, whatever else there is to see.

That's why moving LJ icons irritate me, however cool they may be. Scrolling "Happy-Birthdays" put me off reading anything that lands next to them on my f-list. If I go anywhere where there's a TV set on I will watch whatever's playing, however pointless or annoying it may be. I even watch the ads in the cinema.

Perhaps I should reconsider ever owning a TV set. It may turn me into a cabbage.

Isms

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:35:36 GMT

Someone had a post a few weeks ago saying that (I paraphrase) racism is "worse" than sexism. This was in response to someone else comparing incidents of the two, and I'm afraid I can't remember who any of the someones involved were. The big disagreement really seemed to come down to what the word "worse" was standing for. On the whole I'd agree sexism tends not to get as serious as racism because the other sex are all around, are your mothers and sons and wives, so you have to live with them. Genocide of the opposite sex isn't (at present at least) an option. But not getting a job because your skin's green is exactly as bad as not getting it because you're hermaphroditic.

In the context of a discussion I was having recently, I've been wondering if sexism might not be in some ways a worse problem. The thing is, racism is pretty easy to spot, isn't it? There is no fundamental difference between the different races, and anyone who suggests otherwise is being racist. Punkt. (Though I think there might be some value in – er – discriminating more between racism and discrimination on the basis of religion or origin.)

With sexism – well, sometimes I at least find it hard to tell if someone (myself included) is being sexist. It's much more pervasive, in the society I live in anyway. And I see no way of getting away from that. As long as grannies give their granddaughters dolls and their grandsons lego, and we read our kids fairy stories, and the shops separate everything into his and hers, sexism is being ingrained from birth. Hell, friends of mine were seriously talking about waiting till they know the gender of their baby so they know what colour to paint its room!

I know there are some good turnabout fairy stories, but they tend to work because you can see the genre being undercut. Most modern children's stories are satisfyingly non-sexist, if Harriet Potter is anything to go by, because the publishers wouldn't dare do otherwise. But many of the classics are quite alarmingly sexist. As soon as teenagers are trying to be grown up, they have a choice between lads mags and girly mags, boy-bands and girl-bands and their associated images. And you can't isolate kids from culture, high or low, if you want them to grow up sane.

And I don't really have any intention of trying to bring up my hypothetical kids in a social and cultural vacuum in the hope of bringing them up egalitarian. Because it would be nonsense. Because there are differences, very real physical differences, between the male and the female of the species, and it would be ridiculous, not to mention cruel, to try to pretend otherwise. I'd go further and say it seems unreasonable to expect that the physical differences aren’t accompanied by some mental differences. On average, certainly, and perhaps even absolutely.

I was thinking about this in the light of a conversation in the pub the other night. I was vaguely disturbed at what was being said, and totally failed to articulate it at the time, so I’m ranting here instead. I was talking with a group of well-educated, well-meaning young parents, several of whom are involved in education in one way or another. And they were very seriously saying, well, boys are like this, girls are like that, and how you should expect different things of them. My first reaction was – erk, sexist. My second was, well, hang on a sec, I've had nothing to do with kids in ages, perhaps they're just right, and my nice principles are simply out of touch with biology. So I shut up.

But my third thought is that I was right in the first place, it is sexist, not because they're not right – they probably are in 90% of cases - but because they shouldn't be dividing children up like that to do the analysis. Because the trouble is, if their teachers are expecting boys to be like this and girls to be like that, there's a tendency to look askance at those boys and girls who slip in on the other side. Not that these very nice people would do anything to alienate the kids, but if the teachers are expecting different things, the children tend to cotton on to that. I think.

And if their parents are expecting different things from boys and girls from infancy, how will we ever find out how much of the difference is biological and how much social?

And in other news, I spent my Xmas vouchers on one of those magnetic-sticks-and-ballbearings toys. (Came labelled as “Boys Toys” though. Grrr.) I've been hankering after one of these for ages. They make a satisfying “clunk” when you fit the pieces together. Happy now.

Fire and Hemlock

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 23:27:45 GMT

I've been having a bit of a Diana Wynne Jones revival recently. It started with and has now returned to Fire and Hemlock.

When I first read the book I must have been quite young - there's a funny effect, like thinking in stereo, with re-reading after a long break. I remember that I didn't like the book a great deal at the time. Tom Lynn triggered my "don't talk to strangers" reaction in spades, so that I kept expecting doom to come on Polly from associating with him. The teenaged Polly was Far Too Ancient, and how was I supposed to identify with someone with such a silly old-fashioned name anyway?

My recent re-reading started when I picked up Fire and Hemlock in German, as an antidote to the German novel-writing sport of trying to get the reader to identify with as evil a character as possible (is that a general phenomenon, or was I just badly advised?). It made no sense in German. So I looked it up on the web, only to find a bunch of people saying it made no sense in English either. Now that sounded like a challenge...

A round or two of re-reading later, I seem to have caught at Fire and Hemlock again. From an adult(ish) perspective, it looks very different, and has become a favourite. It shows up a lot of the things I love about DWJ's writing. I think it's almost starting to make sense too...

The first thing I love is the wonderful intricacy. Everything down to Granny's cat has significance, and I'm sure there are plenty more details I've yet to pick up on. Indeed, the clues are laid before we could possibly be expected to pick up anything, on first reading at least.

There's an intricacy to the characters too. Everyone has their own agenda; many are not quite who they seem.

Then there's the tie-in with legends, in this case the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer in particular, but lots of other stuff and general background myth about faeries is drawn in. But it's not just the legends, Tam Lin is specifically incorporated. This is a neat trick DWJ often does, and does well - Howl's Moving Castle and Deep Secret come to mind particularly. Sufficient folklore seems to add a weight of inevitability to the story, but the story also twists the rhymes. Narrative causality?

But all this legend is tied firmly down to reality. Polly Whittacker is an ordinary girl with divorcing parents and boy-mad schoolfriends. Even in a totally fantasy setting, it's often the ordinary-ness - or ordinary extraordinarity - of DWJ's characters that I find attractive. She has a way of using little turns of phrase to tell you exactly how the hero sees someone, and her heros have a way of seeing people differently. What faerie queen ever came onstage as "the woman she had mistaken for Nina" before? Or what hero as "a high-shouldered man with glasses"?

Possibly it is also characteristic of DWJ that her heroine is rather people-clever. Or perceptive, or something. To start with she's often too young to understand what she perceives. She has a way of looking at people and knowing what they're thinking. How about this one:
"Come on out of that," said the look. "Please," it added, with a sort of polite, questioning stillness.
I'd have been sitting there thinking, has that bloke got a tic or what? There's a sort of safe feeling when your hero has more of a clue than those around her.

Another thing DWJ is particularly good at, I think, is the interactions between people of different ages, often within families. Here this particularly comes out in Polly's changing relationship with Tom Lynn, but also with Seb, for example, and her own family - her parents' self-obsession is quite crudely sketched here, but I'm afraid it must ring true to a lot of kids. Granny, on the other hand, is a hero in her own right.

The eventual romance is understated, and sweet.

It's sometimes funny, and sometimes surreal.

Add to all that that this is not only a book about people who read books, but also about people who make music (Tom - please stop resting that cello on chairs, it'll fall over and get hurt) and - well, I'm smitten.

Cats Bearing Gifts

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:45:31 GMT

I'm not clever enough to make things. I'm not organised enough to send cards. I'm not silly enough to shower you with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Instead, here are some treasures I found lying around the internet and have been hoarding (apologies to their owners)...

A neat green box with a delicate silver ribbon. The label reads "For the Slytherins among you".
At the turning of the year: Christmases chez Malfoy, courtesy of the brilliant penknife.

A dark-wrapped parcel with blue trimmings. "To Lions and Girly Girls."
A poem by Jo Walton (alias papersky), with touching insight into the mind of Susan Pevensie.

A cheerful red-green striped package. Jingles suspiciously. "To academics of all flavours."
An Indo-European Carol: Geekery of the highest class by atheneglaukopis.

A mysterious knobbly shape in red crepe paper. "To crossword nuts and other word-loving comestibles."
The visual thesaurus: What it says on the box. Unfortunately it now only allows you a couple of free trial searches, but is still definitely worth a visit.

A long thin package with a spray of tinsel at one end. "To Aunt Maud."
Uncyclopedia: Like Wikipedia, but more potato-shaped. Predictably, the Uncyclopedia already has its own Wikipedia entry.

Happy New Year!

Charity

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:05:56 GMT

I'm still sorting charity appeals, which are getting seriously busy with Xmas coming up.

We're getting huge numbers of grumpy pensioners saying "don't send me junk mail, I'm eighty-three and a half, I need charity myself" and variations on the theme with various degrees of vitriol. (Just like kids, OAPs seem to feel the need to tell you their age with mind-numbing precision and frequency.) Nothing against pensioners, they also make up a large majority of the donors, and I'm sure many really are in financial difficulties; but there's no need to get shirty with charities.

One young woman really made my week though: she wrote in broken English to say that she was an asylum seeker, living alone with her baby on no income to speak of, and apologised that she couldn't help financially. She then went on to offer to go and cook or clean for those in need, or to take her "smiley boy" to visit and cheer them up.

Someone give this woman a visa now, this is the sort of person we want in our country.

P.S. I do not apologise for using the word Xmas. I'm not celebrating anything Christian here.

Goblet of Fire

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:03:59 GMT

Please find enclosed: One obligatory GoF film review.

The Effects
... were stupendous. The settings for the Quidditch World Cup and the tasks were gorgeous, the Goblet of Fire was suitably grand, and Hogwarts had sprouted even more towers and crenellations. I particularly loved the way the flying carriage moved, and the dragon.

The dragon scene was carried to ridiculous extremes, as the Hippogryff scene was in the last film, but given the quality of the animations/models they got together I can hardly blame them. You can see the biology of the animals, they look natural, they've obviously been designed in minute and extremely expensive detail. I wanted to see more than I did.

I certainly wanted to see more Quidditch. Actually, in a way, I've wanted to see more Quidditch in all except the first film, because in the quest to do something different they've insisted on sending Harry out of the arena chasing round the stands, or up through artistic storms, and we haven't actually seen the game happening at all.

The Champions
In this film I really needed to see Krum doing his thing, to see why he's so brilliant and famous before we see him being sullen and clumsy on land. Which he wasn't either, much. He was rather Russian military.

Actually, I felt all the champions were rather lacking in character. Cedric's general goodness sort of missed the mark, particularly I thought I saw him laughing with his friends about the Potter Stinks badges. They tried to build him up a character, but succeeded more in building up his father's part IMO.

Fleur was altogether a bit invisible.

The Trio
There were lots of good bits here again - the fragments of banter, only some of them from the book. I particularly liked Ron getting Hermione to tell Harry that Hagrid was looking for him by such circuitous means. Ron was rather sweet altogether.

Hermione's reactions at the ball were great, though they've been making her so glamorous all along that her appearance lost its drama. (And did anyone else hate that dress? It's supposed to be blue and floaty, not pink and frilly. Ugh.) What on earth was that conversation about who's going to write to whom doing at the end? It really didn't seem worth the screen time, let alone being the last thing (which I seem to recall it was?).

The Actors
Yet again, they had astonishingly good actors to play astonishingly small parts. Moody was a total star. He looked just like he looks in my head, plus some. Knowing the plot, you could sort of see something was wrong with his character, but not too obviously. I felt the Unforgiveable lesson was much more dramatic than in the book.

David Tenant as the real Crouch Jr was also brilliant. Actually, I found him rather more scary than Voldemort. His tic of darting his tongue out like a snake really should have belonged to Voldemort, and he was gloriously mad. He also managed to look convincingly related to his papa, who was also a well-known English actor but I've forgotten his name. They're not actually related are they?

Alan Rickman is wrong for the part of Snape and always will be. He just seemed to be lacking malice again. His eyes don't glint. Perhaps it's the contacts.

I can't believe they bothered to get Gary Oldman for two minutes of an entirely unrecognisable face made of burning coals. I wonder if they're setting up to use someone else next film?

Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort didn't quite convince me. He was a bit too much thespian, and not enough snake. And I was distracted by his nose, which seemed different lengths from different camera-angles.

The Accents
For some reason my attention was really drawn to the accents in this film.

Jason Isaacs does a magnificent upper-class drawl, and seemed to have been giving some elocution lessons to Draco and Sirius too. I suppose when the last film was made Gary Oldman didn't know he was supposed to be a scion of the House of Black.

Dumbledore seemed to have gone rather more strongly and more erratically Irish. (No wonder Harry didn't recognise his name being called out!) He also seemed to drop out on the wrong side of eccentric at times.

Karkaroff didn't have much to say, but I don't think he was the plummy Old Hogwartsian I expected.

And Scottish Cho was rather charming, though she had so few lines I was still surprised every time she opened her mouth.

Overall
... the storyline came over a bit jumpy, but it was great to see Hogwarts again. The attention to detail was cool (I loved the dropping-splattered owlery), though a lot was pushed into the detail which shouldn't have been. I was sort of left thinking I'd like to use the same actors and the same props and scenery and make something a lot longer with it. The film was improved by having fragments of Maya's commentary running through my head as subtitles.

December

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:55:10 GMT

I just wanted to link to the lovely Advent Calendar compiled by Christina Preuß. Behind the windows you'll find pictures and poems and all sorts. The written bits will make more sense to German-speakers, but it's worth a look just for the pretty pictures of snow on the calendar itself.

HP drabbly thing

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:40:00 GMT

This has in fact no connection with my previous entry, I just came across it on my hard drive and felt like posting it.

The End ... Or The Beginning.

Draco Malfoy hated pretty much everyone these days.

He hated Father for failing him first. For so long, the name of Lucius Malfoy had fetched Draco respect – now all it earned was sly smirks. Lucius had even had the gall to write to his son from Azkaban, deploring Draco's failure to "live up to the family name".

He hated Mother for having so little faith in his abilities, and for being right. She had cried all over him when Snape had unceremoniously dumped him in the hallway of the Manor. She had been happy, deliriously happy, to see him alive. Her gushing had made Draco want to curl up small and hide his face for the rest of eternity. He was supposed to protect his mother in her time of need, not be saved by her begging at the feet of his unsavoury housemaster.

Aunt Bellatrix, lurking in the shadows behind her sister, had been just as bad - worse in a way. She'd refused to even speak to Draco, referring to him as "the boy". She'd made it abundantly clear that he was an embarrassment to the whole family and would have saved them a lot of trouble if he had got himself killed.

He hated Slughorn for failing to listen to him, and Myrtle for listening too much, and Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson for sheer stupidity.

He hated Snape for his total lack of surprise at Draco's failure; for stealing Draco's task and Draco's glory. (For saving him.)

And, of course, Draco hated Voldemort, who had set him what he now realised was supposed to be an impossible task. That Draco had come so close to succeeding didn't change the fact that the Dark Lord had wanted Dumbledore dead for years and Dumbledore had still been serenely and irrefutably alive. Voldemort had branded Draco as a slave, not as a follower, and was ready to sacrifice this pawn without a thought when he wanted revenge on Lucius and Bellatrix.

Most of all, Draco hated himself: his lack of talent, his weakness, the slave-brand on his arm, and – whatever it was that had failed him, had left him standing helpless, wand-in-hand before an unarmed, injured old man. Potter at his mercy, Dumbledore at his mercy, the bookends of a horrendous year – and both times he had failed to capitalise.

What was wrong with him? What was missing? He remembered the crunch of his boot against Potter's face. It should have been satisfying, but had just been sickening. It was too easy, his enemy fallen and immobilised, unable even to whimper. He hadn't been able to carry on, had had to finish the job quickly and leave in time to throw up in the bushes. And whatever shameful part it was that had weakened him, Dumbledore had known - had spoken directly to it.

Aunt Bellatrix said it was hate you needed to cast an Unforgiveable. Draco was made of hate. He knew it inside and out.

Yet when it came down to it, he hadn't had enough. Not even for Potter.

Sporking (an anti-rant rant)

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:33:01 GMT

Dear Sporkers,

I hope you won't take it amiss if I say I find you are picking on people a great deal smaller than yourselves. Why does everyone have this fascination with bad writing? I guess I just don't "get" this sporking thing.

Suprise! The internet and (gasp!) even the Harry Potter fandom contains idiots. A lot of them are very young, or very ignorant, or both. If this bothers you, why not comment on their fic and tell them what's wrong with it? Maybe you can help them to grow up. More probably they will bitch about you, so please don't forget that if you bitch back you're just lowering yourselves to their level. Isn't it unkind to laugh at people's ignorance?

Why are intelligent people going to the trouble of reading bad fic just in order to deconstruct it? There's reams of the stuff out there. Just click on that handy back-button!

Now if you'd care to deconstruct published writers I'd be right behind you. They're paid for it. Come on guys, even Rowling isn't without her spork-worthy aspects.

Sincerely,

catkind the humourless

(This is a reaction to a_t_rain's recent post, but not aimed at her particularly - as she says, she doesn't usually spork.)