I thought I’d balance my post about Beowulf by mentioning Fellini’s La Dolce Vita that I also saw recently. This film I absolutely loved!

It’s the story of a journalist (played by Marcello Mastroianni) who’s unhappy with his life, in part because he really wants to be a writer and not a journalist and especially not the kind of journalist that he is. (The film is believed to be the origin of the term ‘papparazzi’.) He has a (rightly) jealous fiancée, mad crushes on film stars and a bored, rich mistress. Over the three hours of the film, we watch him gradually succumb to the shallowness of his existence until he’s basically lost everything, including his own self respect.

As is probably obvious, it’s not a terribly happy film. There are some absolutely hilarious scenes however. Two in particular, I loved as demonstrating how much easier his life would be without the women in it. Firstly, when the dumb, blonde Swedish actress (wonderfully played by Anita Ekberg) that he’s accompanying insists that he go find some milk for a stray kitten that she’s picked up, in the early hours of the morning. His reactions all through this sequence are just fantastic.

My other favourite was a scene between him and his fiancée (Yvonne Furneaux). It opens with the two of them in a car at night in the middle of nowhere arguing. It goes through some wonderful cycles with her getting out of the car and refusing to get back in; her getting into the car and refusing to get back out; while all the time he’s yelling at her to do whatever is the opposite of what she’s currently saying she’s going to do. The climax comes when he gives up and drives off, leaving her in the middle of the road. The next scene is a very short, simple one showing the same scene, only now it’s daylight. His fiancée is still standing in the middle of the road; he drives up and without either of them saying anything, she gets in and they drive off. Absolute genius.

One of the only problems I had with the film was the subtitling. It’s a real shame that when they restored the film, they didn’t get the subtitles re-done as well. Not only do they not manage to translate large portions of what is said (reminiscent of the photo-shoot scene with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation) but much of it isn’t even in correct English, i.e. parts of words are transposed. At times, this really distracted me.

Steven and I saw Beowulf at the weekend and I’m afraid that all I can really say is “Bleh!” They did a good job of trying to recreate the Anglo-Saxon-ness of the original with lots of carousing and swiving but the animation was really distracting. Why did they make Beowulf look like Shrek? Given the level of CGI that was involved in the monsters, I can understand why they didn’t want to have the human actors as live-action but there must have been a better way of doing it. Ray Winstone’s accent was also distracting at times. Again, I liked the idea behind the choice but there were a couple of points, which I’m sure weren’t supposed to be funny, where the entire audience couldn’t help giggling at his delivery.

And don’t get me started on Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother.

Overall, a fun movie, if you can put up with the animation, just don’t get your expectations up too high before you go.

I can recommend the excellent Seamus Heaney translation though, which I really need to re-read.

One of the books I’ve been most proud of during my time so far with Distributed Proofreaders has been The Encyclopedia of Needlework. It really was a labour of love (and a little hate) over about a two year period.

It’s a 19th century text, which hasn’t been out of print (in English) since then. This is the English translation of the original French and there has been a German translation as well. The German version is planned to go through Distributed Proofreaders as well (if it hasn’t already started). The text covers most forms of needlework including knitting, crochet, macramé, lace, embroidery, tapestry and others. It gives details of tools, techniques and patterns and is heavily illustrated throughout (which is what made it so difficult to process).

I’ve already received comments from various people on how useful it will be and how pleased they are that it’s available but today I got a message from a friend about something completely unrelated that led me to take a look at her blog. I hadn’t been there for a while so had a little wander round and discovered that she’s actually working on a needlepoint lace project from the Encyclopedia! I spent so long working on these illustrations and thinking about how beautiful some of these pieces would look that I’m just unbelievably chuffed to discover that someone is actually using it to make something. I can’t wait to see the finished piece.

If you’re interested in other books like this, the crafts bookshelf on Project Gutenberg is a good place to start looking. There are lots of non-needlework crafts on there too; taxidermy, anyone?

Picture the scene: You’re at the bottom of a set of stairs leading down from London Bridge to the Thames Walk pathway. In front of you is a set of about 12 stairs down to the river with the water of the Thames lapping at the bottom couple of stairs. On either side of the stairway is a blank wall. On the wall just to the right of the stairs is a small metal plaque with the words “Access to river only” engraved on it. You know, I’d never have guessed!

If I remember to bring my camera with me to work one day, I’ll put a picture up. I’ll add it to my collection of pictures of really stupid signs, which already includes this one:

(the sign says ‘Seafront ->’ in case you’re having trouble making it out) and the one that has a “Cyclists dismount” sign at the top of a flight of stairs.

The signs are really just examples of the triumph of logic over common sense in that there are good reasons for them being there despite them being mostly pointless. In the case of the “cyclists dismount” sign, the stairs are leading up to a footbridge that cyclists aren’t allowed to cycle over. A “cyclists don’t get back on your bike yet” sign would make more sense but I can see why they don’t put up one of those. The seafront sign (from Nairn beach) points the way to a section of the seafront that has benches and other facilities, rather than just a section of open sand. And, finally, the sign by the Thames is there to point out that those stairs aren’t part of the Thames Walk, which can be a rather confusing pathway to follow at times.

All of this doesn’t stop me enjoying the occasional rant about the pointlessness of it all though!

Henry has passed the psychologically all-important half-way mark! And this is in terms of pattern repeats, number of rows and quantity of yarn used so there can be absolutely no doubt that I really am more than half done. For the first time, I actually believe that I might get this finished for Christmas (she says, jinxing it so that now it won’t get done).

Being me, I am now thinking things like “Why don’t I knit my Mum a shawl for Christmas?” and “Oh! I could make some festive beaded napkin rings for Christmas”. I wish Christmas would hurry up and be over so that I can stop be tempted by the idea of more Christmas projects, especially when I still haven’t actually finished this scarf yet.

I need to start reading more bad books. I’ve been re-reading a lot of Iain (M.) Banks recently, which is what has led me to this conclusion. In particular, I’ve been re-reading Excession and The Crow Road, which are probably my two favourites, one from each genre. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved re-reading them. I got swept into the worlds again and followed the plots and characters with delight. Wherein lies the problem.

I do most of my reading on the train or in bed. And, I have decided, there is nothing worse than getting caught up in a good book, only to look up and realise that you’re at London Bridge station and have to get off the train and go to work. It’s just as well that the trains aren’t going any further than Charing Cross or Cannon Street or I might be tempted to stay on and keep reading. That’s not worth doing though, if you’re only going to be a mile or two further away from the office when the train stops in ten minutes’ time. If you were going to be 50 miles away and would be horribly late by the time you got back, instead of just a little, it might be worth doing.

Of course, I might be more keen to get to work if I hadn’t been reading till 1 a.m. Given that I’ve been doing that for about as long as I’ve been able to read though, I doubt that’s going to change any time soon.

and I’ve decided mine sucks. ‘Sucks’ is probably too strong a word since I do manage to knit and create knitted things and my tension is even and I can knit to gauge. However, I do all the things I shouldn’t and don’t do lots of things I should. I don’t tension my yarn (how it comes out even, I don’t know and am scared to investigate); I drop the right needle; I sit badly and end up with weird pains in hands and shoulders.

I keep thinking I should learn to knit ‘properly’ for an as yet undetermined definition of ‘properly’. (Apologies, I’m a mathematician by nature and I can’t help it slipping out sometimes.) I’ve heard lots of people say things like “I taught myself to knit Continental and I’ve never looked back”. My problem is “When do I do this?” Obviously, I can’t change my knitting technique half-way through a project. The chances of my tension/gauge with the new technique (as I’m learning it!) matching my old tension/gauge are pretty much non-existent. However, I’m very rarely between projects. I’ve usually started the next one (or two … or three) before the current one is finished.

Maybe next time I try a felting project, I’ll also try learning a new technique. That way it will all come right in the wash. (And I promise that this entire post was based on a genuine thought and not an attempt to make a bad pun.)

I stare at the screen;
Time passes; more time passes,
And still nothing comes.

Apparently the haiku section of my brain is working well though!