Nature Photos

Some recent photos of flora & fauna.

Seaside Photos

IWOOT: fit-PC2

I came across this the other day and think it is one of the coolest things I've seen in some time.



The fit-PC2 is a tiny (4" x 4.5" x 1.05") fully featured PC. The whole engineering of it appeals to me, not to mention its tiny power usage.

I don't think they are shipping in the UK just yet, but I'm waiting for a few reviews to see if they really are as good as they look. If they are then I think I'm going to have to buy one.

Australia

Baz Luhrmann - people often say you either like his work or you don't. I seem to fall between those two camps. Strictly Ballroom wasn't for me, I thought that Romeo + Juliet was brilliant, Moulin Rouge! sort of grew on me, and now Australia.

Australia

Plot: 12/20
Acting: 17/20
Production: 18/20
Entertainment: 31/40

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Total: 78/100

Let's start by saying that there are no twists in the plot, you can guess what is going to happen in most instances without much difficulty whatsoever. Strangely this doesn't seem to matter.

The cinematography and soundtrack work very well to provide a suitably backdrop to what was a relatively bland story. The acting was also mostly quite good with notable performances by Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Bryan Brown, et. al., but what makes this film better than it would otherwise seem is the Luhrmann effect. You don't quite get the full Luhrmann [maybe 80% Luhrmann] but it is enough to lift the film out of the ordinary into the worthwhile.

Altogether I thought it was worth forking out to see it in the cinema and that it was a bit better than I expected.

Spanish Fauna

A photo of some sort of grasshopper, I think it may be a locust.

There were quite a few of them, but this one was the only one that wasn't camera shy.

The pigeons and gulls on the other hand didn't have a care in the world and the pigeons in particular would fly right up to you and land a few feet away in the hope that you'd feed them.

Coffee

Coffee is one of the four major food groups, have you been getting enough?

Puerto de Mazarrón - Sunday Market

Every Sunday there is a large, very busy market in Puerto de Mazarrón, it isn't easy to find if you don't know where it is, but once there it is the hub of activity on a Sunday morning.

There are numerous stalls selling fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetables, local meat products and lot of textile and leather stalls. Between these there are a few jewellery stalls selling trinkets made from sea shells, semiprecious stones, regular polished stones and some metal (they said it was silver, I wasn't convinced).











Legs stall! Almost. There were quite a lot of stalls selling stockings, they must be popular in this part of Spain.



Heavy Metal Tee-shirts. Not locally produced I don't think, but they were selling quite a lot of them, so maybe it is a popular music genre in this region.





I didn't think anyone still used these, but they were selling music on cassette tapes!

Lorca Castle / Fortaleza del Sol

Fortaleza del Sol (the fortress of the sun) is a fortress of Arabic origin which dominates the whole city of Lorca. It dates back to the 13th century, and sits on the top of a large hill.





The Spanish seem to have a different view of conservation than we do in the UK, they repair their ruins without too much effort to hide the repairs. This does have the benefit of allowing you to clearly identify the old from the new, but does somewhat ruin the ambiance of the ruin.









Unfortunately it was very overcast on the day I visited it, but there was a hint of blue sky when I was leaving.

Water

gUiLLeMoTS, EDITORS & R.E.M.

On Saturday I went to Twickenham Stadium to see R.E.M. and the two supporting acts gUiLLeMoTS & EDITORS. It was a surprisingly nice sunny day for a change and so we went early so as to see the supporting acts.

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gUiLLeMoTS got things started and they were good, but not quite my kind of music. I could appreciate the talent, but didn't feel the vibe.

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EDITORS was more to my liking. They could do with improving their stagecraft a bit; particularly interacting with the crowd. As it was they just banged the songs out one after another, almost oblivious to the fact that anyone was there, until the very end of their set.

They may have just banged them out one after the other, but what songs! The sound was well suited to a large venue and sounded good from the very first track.

Okay, (I know now that) some of the subtler aspects of the guitars was lost, but I liked them so much that I bought some overpriced merchandise (a tee-shirt), and have subsequently got both of their albums which I have listed to a few times now.

My favourite tracks of theirs at the moment are "Bones", "The Racing Rats" & "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors". You can hear some of their songs on their YuckSpace page.

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The headline act was of course R.E.M. and to be honest I'm not really sure what to say about the performance.

The music was for the most part performed very well and I enjoyed the performance as a whole , but, there's always a but, I didn't know any of the first three songs of the performance that they started with and the sound hadn't been sorted out yet, so, they just sounded like noise really. If the concert had ended after the third song I'd have said that they were rubbish.

Luckily it didn't and by the time they had arrive at the fourth song ("What's The Frequency Kenneth") things started improving and the atmosphere completely changed. From that point onwards it was a great performance, full of energy.

Michael Stipe is a great front man and he really does work hard, interacting with the crowd, telling stories, plugging Obama and ripping into the Bush administration. The seriously jerky dancing is very entertaining.

In short it was a very good way to spend a pleasant (if rare these days) summer evening.

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R.E.M.'s Set List (if you are interested)
01. Living Well Is The Best Revenge
02. These Days
03. The Wake-up Bomb
04. What's The Frequency Kenneth
05. Drive
06. Man Sized Wreath
07. Disturbance At The Heron House
08. Ignoreland
09. Walk Unafraid
10. Hollow Man
11. Fall On Me
12. Electrolite
13. The Great Beyond
14. I'm Gonna DJ
15. Exhuming McCarthy
16. The One I Love
17. I've Been High
18. Let Me In
19. Horse To Water
20. Bad Day
21. Orange Crush
22. Imitation of life
23. Supernatural Superserious (Encore)
24. Losing My Religion
25. Perfect Circle
26. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
27. Man On The Moon

Hurt

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way - Trent Reznor

Written by Trent Reznor and first performed by Nine Inch Nails on their 1994 Album, 'The Downward Spiral' (which features the rather excellent track, 'A Warm Place').

The Nine INch Nails version doesn't really do much for me, but Johnny Cash's version from his 2002 album 'American IV: The Man Comes Around', which is mostly comprised of covers of other people's songs, is mind-bogglingly good, in a low key, sort of depressing kind of way.

You can listen to it on YouTube by visiting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go