The Giants Causeway

Its been a long long time between drinks but changes afoot in more amounts of normality that even constant change freaks like me can say.

Though Tom Hardy was a simply dreadful Heathcliff, and now he will be our Mad Max. Casting mismatches a plenty here.

And my bucket list has been critiqued by the wondrous and charming Ms Melba - Ned is not whom you think Melbs xoxoxoxo

And the Doctor locks the TARDIS like a car - beep beep but Ood Sigma does not laugh (not long now for Tennant).

This is the story of Finn McCool, I dedicate it to Ms Melba and her diaries and hope that one day she might visit this stunning piece of coastline not far from the home of my grandparents.

(I took this photo a while ago on a rainy miserable day but it still is stunning)

Finn McCool was a legendary Irish giant who, according to Irish mythology, built the Giant’s Causeway as a pathway to Scotland in order to fight Benandonner, his Scottish counterpart.

One day when going about his daily business a Scottish Giant named Benandonner began to shout insults and hurl abuse from across he channel. In anger Finn lifted a clod of earth and threw it at the giant as a challenge, the earth landed in the sea. Benandonner retaliated with a rock thrown back at Finn and shouted that Finn was lucky that he wasn't a strong swimmer or he would have made sure he could never fight again.

Finn was enraged and began lifting huge clumps of earth from the shore, throwing them so as to make a pathway for the Scottish giant to come and face him. However by the time he finished making the crossing he had not slept for a week and so instead devised a cunning plan to fool the Scot.

Finn diguised himself as a baby in a cot and when his adversary came to face him Finn's wife told the Giant that Finn was away but showed him his son sleeping in the cradle. The Scottish giant became apprehensive, for if the son was so huge, what size would the father be?

In his haste to escape Benandonner sped back along the causeway Finn had built, tearing it up as he went.

Movie Review - Bronson

I saw Bronson last week. I look like Bronson, without the pee-pee, except my mo is white and I have long hair.




Did you see Watchmen - Billy Crudups little blue pee-pee, well Bronson has a little white one, it was in many many scenes. The actor was emoting with such earnest intensity and all I could do was look at the little limp pee-pee as it bounced around.

I guess Bronson was a movie stuck in the prologue, we left wondering when it would get started, or when Picard would ask for tea, Earl Grey,hot.

The List

1. See the Pyramids and climb inside one
   


2. Climb to Macchu Pichu
   


3. Go to Istanbul and have tea & haggle with a carpet seller
   


4. Walk from Coast to Coast - St Bee’s to Robin Hood Bay (190 miles)
   


5. Walk part of the Camino de Santiago
   


6. Write a story & have it published
   


7. Have a photo I took published in a book or magazine
   


8. Learn to paint/draw
   


9. Learn to play an instrument – piano/guitar/bass/violin (haven’t picked one yet)
   


10. Spend a year working for a charity in a third world country
    


11. Run a small pub that has live bands
    


12. Cruise along the Nile
    


13. Take a trip on the Orient Express
    


14. Go for a balloon ride over Cappadocia
    


15. Attend a dawn service at Gallipoli (I've been to Gallipoli and stood on the pebbly beach of Anzac Cove in the pouring rain, but I'd like to go back for a dawn service)
    


16. Go to the South Pole
    


17. Learn to pull a pint – properly
    


18. Walk the streets of London
    


19. Take the Trans-Siberian railway
    


20. Brew a batch of Scotch that tastes good
    


21. Elope
    


22. Get lost in the British Museum
    


23. Go on a dig
    


24. Learn Spanish
    


25. Go to Stonehenge
    


26. Keep a close friendship for 20 years or longer
    


27. Learn to belly dance
    


28. Have my portrait painted
    


29. Be the most important person in someone’s life, even if it’s for a short time
    


30. Kiss the Blarney Stone
    


31. Walk across the Giants Causeway
    


32. See the sun rise from Mount Sinai
    


33. Spend a winter in the Highlands of Scotland or on one of the Orkney Islands
    


34. Go to Jerusalem
    


35. Take singing lessons
    


36. Learn to recite Yeats
    


37. Visit the Andes
    


38. See the Himalayas
    


39. Go to Easter Island and see the statues (I've seen one in Chile but havent been to Eater Island yet)


40. Fly over the Nasca Lines in a small plane pretending to be aliens
    


41. Go on Safari
    


42. Watched a meteor shower
    


43. Learn to make my own ear rings
    


44. Venture into the jungle to see Mayan and Aztec ruins in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize
    


45. Go to Rome
    


46. Spend some time in a concentration camp
    


47. Milk a cow
    


48. Ride a camel into a desert
    


49. Make someones wedding cake
    


50. See the Pope (JP II)
    


51. Take a gondola ride in Venice
    


52. Go to China & see the Statue Army and Great Wall
    


53. Say ‘I love you’ and really mean it - unconditionally, with all my being
    


54. Get a tattoo
    


55. Followed my favorite band on tour
    


56. Live on a canal boat for a month
    


57. Fly over an active volcano
    


58. Attend an Olympics
    


59. Take a trip down the Amazon
    


60. Make a short film (been the subject of one, but havent made one yet)
    


61. Take a pilgrimage to Lourdes
    


62. Get a masters degree before I’m thirty
    


63. Visit the big galleries of the world – Musee du Lourve in Paris, The Prado in Madrid, Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Egyptian Museum in Cairo, The Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, Musee d’Orsay in Paris, Tate Modern/Britain in London, The Kunsthistoisches Museum in Vienna, The Vatican Museums in Rome
    


64. See an Ashes Test at Lords (been there, seen the urn, stood on the balcony, supped in the long room but not seen an Ashes test there yet)
    


65. Pick up and move to another city knowing no one, just to start over
    


66. Walk through the ruins of Pompeii
    


67. Visited all 7 continents in the world (Australia, Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, South American, Antarctica)
    


68. Swim in all 5 oceans of the world (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, Arctic)
    


69. See the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)
    


70. Float in the Dead Sea
    


71. Be invited to join a Board of Directors of a company
    


72. Spend more than a week in Paris
    


73. Visit Buckingham Palace & stand on the garden party lawn and have tea
    


74. Make paper
    


75. Walk on a beach watching the sun rise, having not been to bed yet.
    


76. Catch a fish, cook it straight away and eat it
    


77. Live in a quaint little village
    


78. Own a bookstore and run it the way I imagined
    


79. Own a house with an attic, a long kitchen, a library room and a magic walled garden
    


80. Learn how to build my own webpage
    


81. See a ghost
    


82. Make a difference in someone’s life
    


83. Be content within myself
    


84. Walked in the rain
    


85. Study at Oxford or Cambridge
    


86. Visit Shakespeare’s birthplace
    


87. Make someone cry of happiness
    


88. See a play at The Globe (been there a few times but not seen a play yet)
    


89. Raise a child
    


90. See Petra
    


91. Go to Glastonbury Music Festival
    


92. Drive across America
    


93. Have hair down to my bottom - once
    


94. Do my family tree
    


95. Own a new car
    


96. Read the books of Charles Dickens from start to finish
    


97. Travel around the Lakes District
    


98. Watch my nephew play guitar on one of the big stages of the world
    


99. Go to a Rugby Union World Cup final with the Wallabies
    


100. Live with no regrets

That was fun, I struggled a little at the 80 mark and had to think a little harder about what I really wanted to do, but I'm pretty happy with the list.

I've marked the ones I've done in Purple

Planning a list and giving a lecture

I’ve been thinking alot recently about all the things I’ve done and all the things I really want to do with what years I have left. There is no immediate mortality threat, theres been no incidents or recent deaths, I just dont want to have regrets.

So in my spare moments I’ve been working on a list of things made up of all the things I wanted to do or see or experience or be before I die.

I think its also linked to the reflection and redirection that I’ve been pondering a lot lately too, you know when you have a career and a certain kind of lifestyle and you get to a point where you start to think, I’ve done enough on that one now, I don’t think there really is more that I want to get out of it, its time to make some changes before I start to fall into the ’rut’ then ‘rot that I’m too scared to change’ way that engulfs so many of the miserable sods you see around you everyday – bugger off miserable sods I say.

Anyways back to the list, a list needs to be specific, I like lists, I always do lists. I think lists help you feel better, ie I think I’ve done nothing but have actually achieved stuff – “see crosses on my list”. The beauty of a good list is to make it achieveable and specific, airy fairy fluffy lists are silly, freak you out and send you to bed “too hard, I cant do it, give me a drink!!” Lists with things crossed off make you feel good.

I like to feel good.

Grocery shopping lists don’t count – anyone who can go grocery shopping without a list and doesn’t forget anything is a freak, or a liar.

I shall ponder my list further over the next few days. In work speak, I'm whiteboarding as we speak.

Whilst I’m pondering, consider this. I am terribly tough with myself and brutally honest, I don’t see the point in lying to myself or anybody else for that matter, that is me. I’m the same with the people around me; unfortunately there are some people that I come into contact with on occasion who cant seem to handle this. They are attracted to me by the bright lights and the excitement of my confidence and the inner strength (big ego here folks – yep, I know) but crumble at the first signs of honesty being directed back at them – lots of people are attracted to me but the weak ones, the needy ones, the insecure ones cant cope and don’t stay - it always ends in tears. I offer friendship easily but it becomes very clear very quickly that its more than likely going to end in tears. I like people too much, I enjoy people too much, I get so much enjoyment out of people that I just let the friendships form. I'm a hopeful, I'm always hopeful, and then they fall and the friendship breaks. And they disappoint me, they dont make me sad, they just disappoint me.

Yes I know please don’t start that argument, I don’t have the patience for dealing with those constant needy needy moments, the treat them softly softly or you’ll make the cry moments, the lie to then to keep them happy moments, but really, I don’t have to do I. (I originally put a question mark here but changed it to a full stop, its not a question for me, I just don’t have to).

I don’t see how lying to someone is ever going to help them help themselves to get themselves out of whatever pit they are in? Agree?

Pandering to their neediness, continuing to support their own lack of ability or true want, to sort themselves out for themselves - I cant do this to people, I respect people too much to do that to them. And seriously, the only person who can ever get themselves out of whatever pit they are in is themselves - we can lower down the rope, we can guide them to whats the best available option to get them out, we can encourage and listen to them, we can send down food and water, we can help pull them up at times but its them that has to climb the rope, not me, not their parents, not their friends, not the governments, not society, not god(s), no-one....they just have to do it for themselves. So when you read this, that would be YOU.

You.

No one else.

Just you.

Lecture over.

On a lighter note, I cried like a stupid baby last night when Iato Jones died in Captain Jack’s arms – I knew he would, I knew it was happening, I knew how it would happen, but I still cried like a soppy silly baby.

Confidence, inner strength, brutal honesty, massive ego AND emotionally sensitive – what a catch !!!


Listening – Deaths & Entrances - My Latest Novel.
Reading - Darkmans - Nicola Barker (dont say still, I know but its over 800 pages long and I’ve been trying to go slow on it as its so good and I don’t want to stop)

A Return Squig and The Doctor

Casa del Mar, Pantai Cenang, Langkawi, Malaysia.

I cant fault the service or the staff or the atmosphere or the location - we had a perfect little mid winter beach holiday. Tom Yum every lunch time and divinely fresh seafood every night.

The sun, the beach, the company and the break where marvellous.

I flew back into Sydney at 8.00am in the morning, that evening I went and saw Bell Shakespeare's production of Perciles & drumming - its comfort food isnt. Its a lukewarm year for Bell Shakespeare, but its better than 2008 which is not much of stretch thankyou Brendan Cowell and the worst Hamlet I've ever seen and there has been a few.

Two days later I was at The Metro with Dickie (that would be my dear brother-in-law Mattie as the fall back speaker sound guy). Gareth Liddiard and Dan from The Drones doing an acoustic set of harsh and raw loveliness in The Drone style - I'm watching with interest to see where Liddiards songwriting will take us, I'm always awed by the raw emotion of the man and his performances. Oh yep, Augie March played too, they were the headliner and we had some darling little old songs, but it looked and sounded like a finale. I've loved this band and the music they've made for over 10 years, the first time I ever saw them play was at this same venue in January 1999 on a stinking hot summers night supporting Grant Lee Buffalo, its strange to think that a keyboardist, some horns and ten years sees me seeing them again at the same place 10 years later, knowing its probably the last time Sydney will see them play - but they play and oh how do they play. It would be romantic to say it would be the last time I ever see them play too, 10 years later at the same venue I first ever saw them play at but thats a bit too perfect and my world isnt perfect. I'll be in Melbourne next month when they have another show so we're popping along to that too - seems fitting though, as Melbourne is where my relationship with them truly grew.

Two days later on Sunday, the newest member of the family had his little christening - my nephew was christened with my other nephew as his godfather, out in Camden, full on family affair, jumping castles and squabbles and family togetherness.

5 days at work and then its another weekend. This weekend is the first time in over 6 months I've decided to do nothing, see no one and go nowhere, nice but different. Friday night I went to the gym then home for some noodles and a couple of episodes of the Doctor, Doctor/Donna, Donna/Doctor. Today I pottered about and just watched Touch of Evil. Orson Welles, film noir, bubbles - heaven.

Orson Welles chews up the screen every time Quinlan and his bulk stormed through, Dennis Weaver, Marlene - oh Marlene ages with such grace, dignity and f*cking style - whorehouse madame and the pianola. Janet Leigh is outclassed, but Charlton Heston - as a MEXICAN, freak, why? Heston doesnt ring my bells, his acting is lame (I'd be more expressive but I've had a bottle and just couldnt be arsed), Judah Ben-Hur I can live with, Moses I've never seen, but in this his Vargas was so not Mexican, so not film noir detective and so not right I didnt like it, but Orson was there.

I could listen to Orson Welles speak for hours, he has one of those voices that wraps you up in the sounds of his being - we like this.

So thats my last 10 days in blurt and a spurt.

Listening - The Men They Couldnt Hang - Devil On The Wind.
Reading - Darkmans - Nicola Barker

Its Winter

Its winter here in Sydney, so I've decided I need some sun so Sunday I fly out to here.



I will be staying here.




In a room like this.




Jealous?

Dont be.

See you when I get back.

xxoxox

Where the Title Came From

I spend alot of time watching people go about the business of living, people fascinate me, enthrall me and often make me proud, so I called this Watching from the Hill.

I stole the lines, I write as Ned; the lines are used out of context but they fitted.

Please go and visit the story to learn the context.



This song has always been pretty special to me, its beautiful and harsh and tells a story of a mans fight for freedom, Cromwell v the Catholics.

Freedom means everything.

This speech has always summed it up so beautifully.

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.

J. Michael Straczynski