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30th November 2003

Saw "Master and Commander" at the UGC cinema - not my normal choice of film, I found it a bit slow. Set on a British sailing ship chasing a larger french ship. Quite a few people fell overboard and I didn't care. The sections in which the 2 lead characters played instruments together (in between naval battles and hand to hand fighting) were just bizare. The sub plot about the creatures of the galapagois isles and the occasional touching upon the C19th debate on evolution vs creation seemed to be taken from a different film! Still, the depiction of life on board ship was interesting. Went on a bit though

29th November 2003

Took part in a "Santa Parade" to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. Got a really good response from the shoppers and lots of positive comments. Great fun!

• Santa Parade in Birmingham:
  

22nd November 2003

Saw "Transnational" at the MAC, a series of films curated by Vivid. The one I was most interested in was "Gift/Gift" by Nina Katchadouria, in which she adds the word "Gift" (which apparently means "poison" in Swedish) to spiders web using thread. The spider then comes along and cuts out the letters! What would Dr Doolittle make of that?

I didn't see all the films, but the other one which grabbed me was a much longer film, Baraka, which is part of the " Koyaanisqatsi" series. No dialogue but fantastic images of people, religious ceremonies, speeded up and slowed down footage.

19th November 2003

Saw "The Permanent Way" at the rep. It's a David Hare play about railways, privatisation and crashes. Sounds very boring but was actually powerful and moving. The point at which the crash happened was incredible, almost physical in It's affects. The play appears to be based on a series of interviews with government ministers; civil servants; crash survivors; the bereaved etc. Each giving their own perspective on the events, like a dramatised documentary. Well worth seeing

16th November 2003

Went to the "Cinephilia" night at the Bulls Head (aka Medicine Bull) in Moseley to see The Big Lebowski. There was free pop-corn, but it was too noisy to hear the sound track properly, so not really worth going again.

11th November 2003

Looking at Free Anti Virus Software And Firewalls

Found this site with interesting info on herbs - http://www.purplesage.org.uk/profileindex.htm

3rd November 2003

Ran across this site which has lots of info on techniques for thinking/working - http://www.mindtools.com/ - I remember looking at it years ago, but has forgotten all about it

2nd November 2003

My Partition Tables have become corrupted on my hard drive after doing a defrag, so I'm looking at Partition Recovery And Creation Software.

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