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memoirs of an Invisible man is on film 4 - I'm passionate about the films of John Carpenter, even the bad ones. I'd get rid of the voice over though.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Darts is excellent.
Agreed. I am watching the Premier League on Sky Sports as I type this. Peter 'One Dart' Manley has just dispatched Dennis 'The Menace' Priestley, and Colin 'Jaws' Lloyd has just achieved the first ever Premier League whitewash against Terry 'The Bull' Jenkins. Darts history as I type, folks!
I think the Power is going to take the whole thing, but I'll be cheering on Barney.
I also follow the snooker as well, Ringo - though less than back in the 1980s when there were more genuine characters in the game. Back then it was a real passion - I used to play around half a dozen frames a day, and kept track of every tournament up to and including the Irish Masters played at Goffs in Co. Kildare. While everyone liked Hurricane Higgins and Whirlwing White, I was a fan of the 'methodical mountie' aka the 'Grinder' Cliff Thorburn. I remember being gutted when he was at 12-12 overnight with Steve Davis in the World Championship Semi in 1986 only for the interesting ginger one to reel off the four he needed to win the following afternoon. I also remembering myself and my best mate and fellow green baize afficianado Robert 'Silas' Tyler pleading with the head to allow us to watch the Davis v Taylor midnight epic in 1985.
Writing this is bringing all the memories back... Ted Lowe described Davis as 'the young man from Romford', Higgins' hilarious tics, David Taylor's silver hair, and Dennis Taylor's glasses. I also remember a demonstration frame between Ray Reardon and Tony Drago - when the latter looked like a beanpole rather than the fat lump he is now.
My other big passion is cricket - I have been glued to the World Cup for the past two months, and haven't missed a game - Saturday is going to be a cracker. Nightowl cannot understand how a tournament can last this long - and has breathed a sigh of relief that the final chapter is about to be played out - but I haven't yet told her that no more than three weeks from now England will be taking on the Windies in the much-awaited Lara-less test series. I am waiting for the immortal line 'but I thought it was all finished... ( with added )
Add to this my obsession with Bayern Munich, stamps and model tanks... I am more than just a Nazi memorabilia collector, children.
quote:Originally posted by Benny the Ball: Norton - I too have a love of 20th C history, WWII and Cold War, to be specific - is yours strictly a Bryan Ferry like love of all things Nazi?
lol.
More or less - I think my core interests can be identified by looking at the bookshelves which are chock-full of biographies on personalities who were around between 1923 and 1945 - the most striking of which are the two Kershaw tomes - if only because they scream HITLER at you from their spines. Around four metre and bit long shelves are dedicated to the boy from Braunau am Inn and his hierarchy. Around two and bit shelves are dedicated to various Waffen-SS divisional histories, but I am most proud of my U-47 research shelf, on which I have every single book in the English language ever written on said vessel and the raid on Scapa Flow - as well as a number of original German volumes.
My historical interests do step out of these areas though - I have a fascination with sub-Saharan Africa, and there are a number of interesting books on weird and perhaps not so wonderful places like Somalia, Liberia, Nigeria and Zaire. Also thrown into the mix are books on subjects as diverse as Richard Wagner, King Ludwig II and the history of the city of Prague.
Balanced against Nightowl's collection of classic fiction and graphic novels, the bookshelves chez Snortowl are an interesting focal point of the house. In fact the place looks like a library.
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posted
Have you ever read Alan Clarke's Barbarossa - it's a favourite of mine, for during war history (beautifully written). I'd say I'm more interested in the politics post war (Rise to Globalism like stuff) and the OSS/CIA though.
The bookshelves are more taken up with ancient history though.
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Barbarossa is excellent - as are all of the late Alan Clark's historical works. He was very much underrated, probably because his take on events more often than not brushed the controversial. I remember talking about the subject with him over a glass of wine when he visited Brunel to entertain us Conservative Party student radicals.
Despite being able to find Clark's Barbarossa and The Fall of Crete, I'll admit that your interests are not really catered to in the Snortowl library - there are a few books on Cold War events tied in with personal interests such as the Berlin Wall and the Hungarian revolution of 1956 (including a signed copy of David Irving's Uprising!), but I have close to zero interest in the United States so there is nothing on OSS/CIA - in fact the only places these institutions are likely to crop up are in those works that cover the postwar situation in Germany and the Nuremberg Tribunals.
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posted
When I got home late last night a fox walked out in front of me down my road. Not the skittish, nervous scamper of a wild animal acknowledging the presence of its evoloutionary overlord, but a casual swagger. It cocked its leg against a car, glanced at me and then strolled off. It made me want to take up hunting just to wipe the smug grin off its fat, bin-fed face. Do you think urban foxes tell their cubs stories about their thickie, impoverished country cousins?
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A few weeks back there was a fox asleep in a front garden in the sun - comletely out in the open, not a care in the world. I remember when you were lucky if you saw a 3 legged skin and bone fox in my neighbourhood, now they are kings of the street!
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They're just not daunted by humans at all now, fucking foxes. One stuck its head through the curtains in my lounge last year, and just grinned its stupid foxy grin
Anyway, cat lovers will be pleased to know that my cat turned up last night, unmolested by cocky urban foxes. He still bites, so I'm going to have to stop him coming in soon, but at least he's not dead.
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quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: Anyway, cat lovers will be pleased to know that my cat turned up last night, unmolested by cocky urban foxes.
Result. If he bites you again, I'd be tempted to 'show him who's boss'. That cat needs to know its place by the sounds of it. If you don't, before you know it you'll be under its thumb - a cat slave. It will sneak into your bedroom in the early hours, hop onto your bed and scratch your face to a bloody pulp, expecting his midnight snack. Be warned.
I, too, saw a fox last night. It ran across the road, glanced at me, then shot off through some bushes. I didn't really get chance to kick it as I was struggling to maintain my balance.
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When I enter the building in which my office is located, there’s a smallish hallway. You go in through the doors and this hallway has a set of stairs on one side, a lift on the other, and two other doors – one to my office and another to the office of another department. Anyway, this morning, I come through the main door as normal, look towards the door to my office, and there’s this shape. This kind of brownish black thing, a bit like a bird. Half a second later I register, it’s a bat. And it’s flying towards me in the haphazard flutter that they do. “wuuurrrh!!” I exclaim, dodging the bat and running for my office door.
“There’s a bat in the hallway!” I say
“A what?”
“A bat! In the hallway! Flew right at me, the little bastard”
My colleague walked over to the door and looks through the little porthole window
“I can’t see anything”
It must have flown out the main door or up the stairs. I sit down at my desk and begin my normal morning routine, still slightly shaken by the bat attack. Suddenly I hear screaming and running outside the door
“I think someone found the bat” I say
We go and have a look to see that some people have come out of the other office and are now attempting to catch the poor little thing. They’re running up and down the stairs, Benny Hill style as this little bat flaps around terrified, trying to get away.
Eventually, security turn up. I’m not entirely sure why, I mean it’s not like they’re just going to tell it to leave or threaten to call the police. They stand around for a while, the bat having taken shelter behind one of the access panels in the lift, talking on their walkie talkies and generally looking unsure about what to do. Eventually someone has the bright idea and the RSPCA are called. They turn up, investigate the situation (an electrician also had to be called so free the poor little bat from its hiding place in the control panel in the lift) and find that there’s a little family of bats living in the lift shaft. Bless.
I don’t know quite what happened after that. They turned the lights off for a while, presumably to encourage the bat just to leave of its own accord. I don’t think they can evict the family of bats from the lift shaft, so I guess this might happen from time to time now.
It wasn’t one of those big black bats you see flying around trees, it was a little tiny brown thing, like a field mouse. It was well sweet.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: It made me want to take up hunting just to wipe the smug grin off its fat, bin-fed face.
Late the other night, drunk, catching up with a hippyish mate I went to school with (lives in a squat, dreadlocks, has a dog on a string and a big van). Pink and mate have almost completly opposite opinions on everything, but get talking about fox hunting and both say they wished they could have gone to a hunt before they were banned. They then clarified what they meant:
Pink - "I'd love to have gone on a hunt - the outfits, the excitement..."
Hippy mate - "I'd love to have gone on a hunt sab"
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Mark Selby for the win.
And he's in the final. He's gone up even further in my estimation after a brilliant post-match quote, in response to being told he looked quite cool and calm
"I didn't feel that calm. Felt like I had Parkinson's.."
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Harle - it's the story of how homless folk are ignored by the masses, and are therefore Invisible Men. It's a subject that has been broched in other films like 2001: A Space Odessey (the story of 2001 homeless people who descend on a hotel and take it over, but find that there is never enough room), The Terminator (the story of a homeless man who administers vigilante justice) and Star Wars (the story of a homeless group who become celebrities overnight, which leads to trouble in their lives)
You may like them.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by Benny the Ball: 2001: A Space Odyssey (the story of 2001 homeless people who descend on a hotel and take it over, but find that there is never enough room), The Terminator (the story of a homeless man who administers vigilante justice) and Star Wars (the story of a homeless group who become celebrities overnight, which leads to trouble in their lives)
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