(1) The whole Words/Language/Literature thing. When I was younger I thought I loved these things, and said so. Hector’s frustrations at the boys for thinking that they did – and Felix’s complete misunderstanding of who and what Hector was – struck a chord. I realised a while ago — it’s not that I love words, language, literature, writing… I love stories. It’s not the point Hector was making, Hector was talking about knowledge, I think, about acquiring knowledge, having natural curiosity, trusting that understanding would come (“Most of the things they write about haven’t happened to us yet, sir!” … “but they will, and then you’ll have the antidote… poetry!”)… but still.

(2) They call Felix the advance warning. The need for substance beyond… well, sheen. Felix was fairly one-dimensional. But a warning for those whose ambitions exceed their character.

(3) Love. The whole inoculation speech. Utterly brilliant. Really made sense. The idea that a few broken hearts provide a defense against “half a lifetime” of loneliness. Cynical, perhaps. But spoken by Hector, it was the tragedy of the moment that gave it poignancy.

(4) History is just one f****** thing after another. Rudge is a genius.

(5) “The best thing about reading,” says Hector (and here I start to paraphrase) “is when you read something, find a thought, an idea, that was special to you… and its from a complete stranger. It’s like they are shaking your hand.”

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Planning on watching every Spurs game I can this season. I even know the names of some of the players! Although spelling will take a while to follow…

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“The only positive for us is the new players now know the Premiership is different.”

There was doubt?

Still, I’ll be watching with interest. I understand that we’ve lost the last 5 matches against Bolton away and that it was more or less a foregone conclusion, so hopefully we’ll have more luck in the next game.

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Matt seemed to think that they shut out external sources of light so betters in residence wouldn’t notice the passage of time in the outside world, which seems rational enough in that respect… but if these guys are watching races/football matches, etc, they’ll know exactly what time it is…

Ah, ’tis a wonderful and variegated world we live in. The best I can hope for is that the Ladbroke’s faces the same end that the three preceding coffee shops that inhabited that space did: lack of custom.

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It’s a pretty intimate interaction; I like it a lot.

So those of you have been reading and giving your views – I thank you. And if you think I’ve not been commenting on your blog enough, tell me and I’ll get involved. I’m quite good about reading my RSS feeds, so you’re not going unread, don’t worry. Unlike these guys…

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Sister seemed to have a good time, which was generally pleasing. My abuse of my ‘presence’ information today on Google Talk and MSN Messenger resulted in a number of random birthday greetings for Sheila directed at me. Though oddly, none came in via this blog – are you people really paying attention? ;)

Tonight, I talked to Wu-Tang, amongst others of Sheila’s friends. Wu-tang has an awesome blog title, and a number of good anecdotes, many of which are Italian in nature.

The one thing I learned, however, was the lyrics to a particularly charming Neapolitan drinking song. Well, apparently it can be sung without drinking, but anyway, the lyrics go (please excuse spelling):

Funiculee, funicular, funiculee, funiculaaaaaaar…….
Yamba yamba yamba ya funiculee funicular

I think it’s about a funicular railway. Geor-.. I mean, Wu-Tang will no doubt drop by and correct me if I’m wrong.

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So I’m supporting Spurs, am subscribed the the right RSS feeds (as provided by the BBC), and even signed up to the Metro’s fantasy football game, playing in a private league organised by Tom. If you’re up for getting involved, let one of us know and we’ll send you the pin. For those curious, my winning striker combination is Berbatov (who I have high hopes for) and Crouch (the funniest man in football). I’m playing a 4:4:2 and have Paul Robinson in goal.

Why Spurs? Well, I’m not sure who my local club would be by geography, but have taken a policy that I’ll support the team supported by the first person who explained a sport to me. For football, this was Bozza back in my school days and Damo more recently (both Spurs fans, obviously) and Daf explained Rugby to me – so I support Wales in the six nations – and everywhere else. It’s one of the advantages of having no ‘origin’ location to speak of – Malaysia only really figures in international badminton and squash (and sepak takraw, but who’s counting…).

I am enjoying freaking out people who expect me to know nothing, though. I just keep saying “Berbatov’s having a great run,” or “I think Berbatov is going to make his 25 goals this season,” or “We’re doing well in the pre-season friendlies,” and people just stare at me blankly.

The joys of RSS ;).

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Me? I hate shopping. Buy everything online that I can. Not sure what that says about me :P

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Its an absolutely amazing speech. Unbelievably moving without being trite; unbelievably articulate without seeming scripted. Incredibly humble, but simply… incredible.

Some bits that moved me in particular…

Recognising somebody else’s power does not diminish your own

And

Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this Earth as men and women.

Legend.

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Highlights: Tim B from Info Age was there, who I’ve been speaking to for the last couple of years (mostly about Cisco as, well, I work on their PR), and was good value, as was his ‘not really a geek’ friend Dan (who likes comic books, and is therefore a geek ;)).

The pub, on Holborn Viaduct, was an interesting experience.

The chat was good – although there were some… unusual personalities at play, met a couple of cool guys who were doing interesting things (business cards from Azeem, Jon, and San), good conversations with Tim and Dan as well, and actually managed to (a) ask a question and (b) follow up with Chris Anderson himself afterwards, which was cool.

More on specific chat shortly. I’ll definitely go back for more dinners if Ian gets more good speakers – Ian and his wife, Sarah, were great hosts and did a good job getting us all corralled (even if it was slighly hard to hear Chris during the talk itself).. . and am sure there were others who contributed to making the evening a success.

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I think the Geek Dinners are a great concept, and they seem very popular (at time of writing, there are 72 comments to rsvp, despite the fact that its on a Friday night) — so if anyone has an interest in the topic that’s reading this, please do come along and keep me company. I’ll be the one in the corner who doesn’t know anyone ;).

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I’ve mentioned before that Slingshot Studios is specialising in all-digital film production – and Arvind’s working with some cool folks, on some interesting looking projects (from the little I’ve seen). I imagine more will go up at the Slingshot blog (in due course).

I’ll be speaking to them at some point soon about blogging and movie making — will need to look into quite how successfully people have used blogs to market films of late — but the if the paridigmata that are the King Kong and Superman Returns blogs is anything to go by, I suspect film-goers do want to hear things straight from the movie makers mouths (although those examples are arguably atypical ;)).

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And it was exciting. And I was getting involved. And – its pretty cool. I can’t afford another time-absorbing hobby (and don’t think I’m that interested anyway), but it is fun to kind of share it with my (almost all much more interested in football) friends – although a few of football fans in the room did not appreciate my stating the obvious (“damn, that was close” on the Ecuador shot in the first 20 minutes). Alan Hanson, I’m not.

Anyway, come on my adopted nation, ENG-ER-LAND! Bring on the quarter finals — oh, and don’t worry Daf, I still support Wales for the Rugby ;).

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Not quite this:

It was a dark and stormy night. Armand, clad in a tasteful Cowboy-Bebop style shirt and tan trousers stood on the top of his apartment block’s short set of entry stairs and prepared to brace the biting wind that infiltrated London like the a gust of… well, something cold

But more:

Do I really want to have that tub of Chinese food for lunch today? I’ve resolved to be healthy, I should get a salad. But I’m ill, and it tastes soooooo good. Sod it, Hong Kong café it is…

That said, since I’ve started being more… diligent about transcribing my unique brand of observational humour and insight here, I’ve started blogging in my head. It’s faintly disturbing and probably overwhelmingly geeky, but I quite enjoy the structure this blog gives my thoughts and the outlet for my puns it provides. It’s one of the reasons I carry around a small black notebook (as I’ve mentioned before)…

Is it just me?

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The play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, is listed on the National’s site as ‘…the clash between two cultures leaves thousands of unarmed Inca troops slaughteres and sparks and intense battles of wills between the sun-god and his captor…’ You can see this in full at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. It was like a badly animated cartoon. The ten pounds I’d paid for my (extremely good) seat seemed an exorbitant amount to have to sit through it. Simplistic, unsophisticated, completely cringeworthy dramatisation. The Inca god spoke in a similar style to Ken Brannagh’s Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing, diguising himself from Beatrice at the masque.

The pin-striped one and I made our exit at the interval and wandered up the bank, delighted that we’d escaped safely.

Next time I decide I want culture, am so picking up Jilly Cooper’s ‘Wicked.’ You can find it on amazon.com by searching for Jilly Cooper, legend.

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