This and that
Apr. 19th, 2009 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sensiblecatI am trying very hard to come up with a good displacement activity, because the alternative is reading "Cymbeline", which I find the most daunting of Shakespeare's plays despite the fact that my first date with the man who is now my husband was a performance of it. Our second was the movie 1984. It's remarkable we're still an item, really.
My daughter turned 15 this week. The house was full of teenage girls sleeping on the floor, eating burgers and popcorn and watching "Bones". She is very into "Bones." I certainly don't have a problem with that. As she pointed out when I mentioned homework, she knows what a clavicle is now. It's more than Martha Jones ever taught her.
I used to dread the kids' birthday parties but now they more or less organise their own - I just come in useful when bills need to be paid. They all went off on the train to a place called Formby on Merseyside, the nearest one to us that could reasonably be called seaside. There they played frisbee, struggled over the sand dunes in flipflops and ate an awful lot of cake. I thought it was so sweet that out of the eight she invited, two of her friends turned up with home made birthday cake. You don't get that with boys.
Spent Easter in the Lake District with DH. I am terribly unfit - partly because I have recently had a bug, partly because I am just unfit. Nevertheless we managed to walk over from Langdale into Eskdale on Easter Sunday - 14 miles and a lot of climbing. My knee became very painful on descent and if we hadn't met some kind people who helped strap it up, I'm not sure how I'd have managed. By the time we reached our hotel, I literally had to heave myself upstairs, I was so stiff and exhausted.
So, I need to get the the gym a LOT more than I have been doing if I'm going to enjoy the summer.
On the plus side, I have been gardening this weekend. That always makes me feel better. Today I planted out my salad bed with fennel, dill, parsley, lettuce and coriander. Okay, my salad/herb bed. And I bought my son a new iPod. My DH will not approve - he thinks he should pay for these things himself.
Apple prices really are a law unto themselves. Not only the goods themselves, but also the accessories. Today I payed £19.00 for an iPod mains adapter that cost £68.00 a year ago.
I have no desire to upgrade my own iPod, or my phone. I've reached the age now where the thought of mastering the instruction manual puts me off. I suppose, if I really had to find something to spend money on, it would be nice to have room for all my songs (I only have a 2GB now), instead of having to choose which playlists to put on, but since I only use it in the gym, and I haven't been going lately, it's really not a purchase I could easily justify. Although the new colours are certainly pretty.
Yes, I did watch POTD. Don't have an awful lot to say about it, really, that others haven't said before. I find Ten a less and less attractive character - so much so that I'm beginning to take more of an interest in TenToo. I find the more I write about him the more I like him. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy POTD. I did, very much, and if I'd not seen DW before I'd think it was brilliant. But there's a feel to it that they're going through the motions. Everybody knows Tennant's strengths and the script plays to them. It feels a bit predictable.
I didn't have any strong views either way about Lady Christina. She was very formulaic, and meant to be, I think. Kind of went through without touching the sides. I did find her remarkably self-centered and it boggles the mind that people criticise Rose for that. I think it might have played better if the Doctor had just politely turned her down because she was so cocky and certain he'd want her to come along. I don't like the thought of him taking companions just so they can escape the consequences of their actions, really. Although, having said that, I think it's probably a mistake to get too heavily analytical about this particular episode. It's a bit like dissecting the values in "The Avengers" or "The Italian Job", both of which it intentionally resembled. I've a feeling that if I saw "The Avengers" now it would embarrass me in exactly the way re-watching "The Goodies" with my kids did a few years ago. Nostalgia blinded me to the crass sexism, racism and homophobia - the kids were pretty shocked that I'd built it up into something worth a look.
So much about the DW formula is showing its age now - the prophecies of doom, the Doctor's emo statements and even the jokes at times. I hope the final specials will push Tennant to the limit and really redefine the character. I'm quite excited about them really. But a day or two after Easter I happened to catch one of the S2 episodes on Watch, and I couldn't help thinking how much emotional depth and sweetness we'd lost along the way. It makes me very sad.
My daughter turned 15 this week. The house was full of teenage girls sleeping on the floor, eating burgers and popcorn and watching "Bones". She is very into "Bones." I certainly don't have a problem with that. As she pointed out when I mentioned homework, she knows what a clavicle is now. It's more than Martha Jones ever taught her.
I used to dread the kids' birthday parties but now they more or less organise their own - I just come in useful when bills need to be paid. They all went off on the train to a place called Formby on Merseyside, the nearest one to us that could reasonably be called seaside. There they played frisbee, struggled over the sand dunes in flipflops and ate an awful lot of cake. I thought it was so sweet that out of the eight she invited, two of her friends turned up with home made birthday cake. You don't get that with boys.
Spent Easter in the Lake District with DH. I am terribly unfit - partly because I have recently had a bug, partly because I am just unfit. Nevertheless we managed to walk over from Langdale into Eskdale on Easter Sunday - 14 miles and a lot of climbing. My knee became very painful on descent and if we hadn't met some kind people who helped strap it up, I'm not sure how I'd have managed. By the time we reached our hotel, I literally had to heave myself upstairs, I was so stiff and exhausted.
So, I need to get the the gym a LOT more than I have been doing if I'm going to enjoy the summer.
On the plus side, I have been gardening this weekend. That always makes me feel better. Today I planted out my salad bed with fennel, dill, parsley, lettuce and coriander. Okay, my salad/herb bed. And I bought my son a new iPod. My DH will not approve - he thinks he should pay for these things himself.
Apple prices really are a law unto themselves. Not only the goods themselves, but also the accessories. Today I payed £19.00 for an iPod mains adapter that cost £68.00 a year ago.
I have no desire to upgrade my own iPod, or my phone. I've reached the age now where the thought of mastering the instruction manual puts me off. I suppose, if I really had to find something to spend money on, it would be nice to have room for all my songs (I only have a 2GB now), instead of having to choose which playlists to put on, but since I only use it in the gym, and I haven't been going lately, it's really not a purchase I could easily justify. Although the new colours are certainly pretty.
Yes, I did watch POTD. Don't have an awful lot to say about it, really, that others haven't said before. I find Ten a less and less attractive character - so much so that I'm beginning to take more of an interest in TenToo. I find the more I write about him the more I like him. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy POTD. I did, very much, and if I'd not seen DW before I'd think it was brilliant. But there's a feel to it that they're going through the motions. Everybody knows Tennant's strengths and the script plays to them. It feels a bit predictable.
I didn't have any strong views either way about Lady Christina. She was very formulaic, and meant to be, I think. Kind of went through without touching the sides. I did find her remarkably self-centered and it boggles the mind that people criticise Rose for that. I think it might have played better if the Doctor had just politely turned her down because she was so cocky and certain he'd want her to come along. I don't like the thought of him taking companions just so they can escape the consequences of their actions, really. Although, having said that, I think it's probably a mistake to get too heavily analytical about this particular episode. It's a bit like dissecting the values in "The Avengers" or "The Italian Job", both of which it intentionally resembled. I've a feeling that if I saw "The Avengers" now it would embarrass me in exactly the way re-watching "The Goodies" with my kids did a few years ago. Nostalgia blinded me to the crass sexism, racism and homophobia - the kids were pretty shocked that I'd built it up into something worth a look.
So much about the DW formula is showing its age now - the prophecies of doom, the Doctor's emo statements and even the jokes at times. I hope the final specials will push Tennant to the limit and really redefine the character. I'm quite excited about them really. But a day or two after Easter I happened to catch one of the S2 episodes on Watch, and I couldn't help thinking how much emotional depth and sweetness we'd lost along the way. It makes me very sad.
