A Change From The Usual Programming

I don't, generally speaking, do movie reviews, for a few reasons really:

• I rarely get to go the cinema.
• I don't think most people care what I think, plenty of people can say it better than I could hope to.
  
• I'm not a critic, if I don't have something positive to say I would rather say nothing at all. I don't think its my place to criticise unless its something really atrociously bad - then its fair game!
• Besides - if I took movie reviewing seriously I might have to watch Sex In The City which holds no interest for me. Those two or three hours could be better spent elsewhere. And believe me I would watch that before I would watch some of the other crap out there.

But, I'm going to break a habit of a blogging lifetime. I decided that it was about time I actually made some time for me and spent a couple of hours at the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre) watching Mongol. I love the GFT, its a beautiful old fashioned cinema building. It only has the two cinemas which are quite small by today's standards but the Art Deco interior is stunning compared to the rather bland huge multiplex cinemas that have largely replaced the traditional cinemas of old.

Anyway the film. Mongol is a gorgeous piece of photography and is well worth watching for that alone. The landscape of the Mongolian and Kazakhstan is truly stunning and the film makes the most of this backdrop to create what is a beautiful film. The acting isn't bad either. I'm not entirely sure I buy the story that the reason for Temudjin conquering and uniting the warring Mongolian tribes was due to him falling in love with a girl at the age of 9. It makes a nice story but from what I've read of the history of Genghis Khan it probably came about more due to a combination of circumstances, luck, opportunity, and no small amount of ambition rather than love of a good woman who he met as a prepubescent boy.

Besides there is supposedly 16 million men in the world today who according to geneticists can trace their origin to one man in Mongolia who was alive around the aggressive foreign policy of Genghis Khans rein. Now call me a cynic if you want but the thought that Temudjin would unite the tribes of Mongolia through the love of a good woman and then spread his love around so seems a little unlikely. Of course geneticists can't say for sure that Genghis Khan was the man in question but he probably had more opportunity than most seeing as he was top boss so to speak and probably had more opportunity than most under him.

Anyway the plot may not ring true, but it is a nice story nonetheless it just goes to show that its not only Hollywood that can rewrite history to suit the creative process - the Russian film industry can do the same. Perhaps wisely the film Mongol only addresses 34 years of Temudjin's early political life and steers clear of the story of raping, pillaging and concubines. That's not to say its all sweetness and light, there are a few bloody scenes but it was a violent time in the history of Mongolia so a little blood spillage is to be expected. However even the battle scenes were handled quite artistically.

If you don't mind watching a film with subtitles you could do far worse things with 2 hours of your time. There is a nice moment in the film where Temedjin is speaking to his young daughter and teaching her the word for meat and justifies this word as the reason for Mongolian being the most beautiful language in the world. A nice scene in itself and probably the writers justification to its Russian/German backers that for sake of authenticity it had to be acted in Mongolian, a language that few of its intended audience would understand.

Go watch it, and if you don't like it I'll let you throw popcorn in my direction. Honest I won't duck.

Whenever God Shines His Light

No I'm not getting all religious on you, I was just listening to grumpy old Van Morrison as I was writing this and the title seemed apt.

Sometimes getting home from work at 6:30am when the sun is already up and most everyone else are only just contemplating rising out of bed gets old. But on a gorgeous summer's day with blue skies and fantastic light its best not to waste it by going to bed, far better to go for a long walk - especially if you have a camera and 6 day old 30mm 1.4 in your bag. Can I just say I love this lens, I may only have used it ta couple of times and still getting used to it but damn its a lot of fun, so much so it was 4 hours before I got home and that was after a 12 hour shift. I really need to get out more.

I'm convinced that this lens (with its very nice bokeh - thats the blurred out of focus background) in hands better than mine could make just about anything beautiful but it would be nice if someone made a lens that can make me feel comfortable in front of the camera that didn't involve an expensive and painful make-over, but now I'm just being silly.

Everybody's Got A Story

I don't know about your reason but I like to read blogs because I like a good story. I've liked story telling since I was an itty bitty thing when I practically forced my mother to reread the Billy Goat's Gruff again and again on a nightly basis, much to her distress - yes I was an evil child.

I also like to travel, I don't do as much of that as I wish I could - if I had my way I would be a lazy bugger who wouldn't do any work and would travel the world by balloon and land, whereever the wind had taken me, whenever I was running out of gas, but I can't do that that blasted thing called work gets in the way and so when I get time I read the stories of other people that way my mind gets to travel even though my passport hasn't been exotically stamped.

It seems everybody today has access to a camera - whether it be a digital compact, a fancy slr or a camera phone - every picture tells a story, and we all live in interesting places, maybe not to ourselves but to others and so I thought why not create a new blog. A co-operative blog if you like, a blog called something like Our World (title undecided - come up with a better title if you like) where people from around the world in exotic and not so exotic locations come together and share picture stories of subjects that interest them. The chosen subject could be anything - I personally might be tempted to do a photo story on Scottish church buildings, not because I'm particularly religious - I'm not, religion and religionists tend to get in the way of me being religious but despite this for some reason I do have a weird thing for churches. I like the fact that every village or town in Scotland has a solid stone church building at its heart and each building though in some ways similar to the church(es) in the previous village or town is also in some ways architecturally unique. For some reason those church buildings to me speak about the Scottish landscape as much as the rolling green fields and purple heathered mountains and golden eagles.

I might even do a picture story with trees, another thing I have a fondness for, for no apparent reason other than maybe I'm an old hippy at heart, or maybe its my landscaping background or maybe its because I'd rather be a free loving bonobo than a mean old traffic warden (remember that blog?).

Now those are stupid random things and I could possibly come up with more interesting things to share than those two ideas I came up with off the cuff, well I hope I can but nonetheless it would be a very boring blog if it was all about me. To be an interesting blog it needs diversity. It needs people with interesting things to say, and show, to take part. And that means YOU. Yes YOU who is reading this now, don't think I can't see you looking I can, it needs You to take part too. The finest tapestry takes patience to sow and the ability to wait for each thread to support a bigger picture. The more people who take part the more diverse it will be. So come on, join in and sign up, add you name to the comments here and if you go outside take you camera with you and if you see something worth sharing take a few snaps and tell your story. Its not the quality of the camera that matters, noone will judge your camera work its the story behind the pictures that matters and if they have are self proclaimed art critics out there, they will have to be careful with what they say because they won't be the one deciding if their comment gets published or not. So come on, sign up and share something about your world. Or are you just going to lurk and play chicken?

Just Scotsman Destroying A Myth

Along the way in the sands of time there has been a myth perpetrated that Scots are a friendly people who are welcoming to visitors. I suspect this myth was first penned by a Scot who wasn't feeling very good about himself after the Scottish national football team had performed badly at yet another World Cup.

I can't be sure, seeing as I wasn't there when the first person got the myth under way but I have a feeling it went something like this -after a particular humiliating game in the history of Scottish sporting achievements (or lack of) a few whiskies were drunk, sorrows drowned before someone stood up at the back of the publican house and said with much slurring "Och a ken we'll never win the World Cup, but see us, we're great we are, we know how to have a good time, we know how to have a party. We might not be able to play a game of fitba but we're the friendliest people in the world we are." This was heard by someone who worked at the old Scottish Tourist Board sometime before it was renamed Visit Scotland who thought 'Ooh I can use that and get myself a nice bonus from the chairman and use the money to see some Spanish sun for two weeks.'

Like all myths it could have died before it took hold and was believed but this myth was helped to survive by reporters from Scotland Today running off to Glasgow Airport on a slow news day and shoving a microphone under the noses of American Tourists and asking the question "Well what did you think of Scotland then?" The unsuspecting tourist suffering a little from stage fright and eager just to get home by this stage had to think up something quick - "Scatland?".... (spelling deliberate).... "well it rained a lot but the people were friendly enough, even if I didn't know what they were saying and there was that day I walked into the pub toilet when they were shooting Trainspotting and Robert Carlyle beat me up, but I think he was only acting...." Scotland Today being the professional news show that it is ended the transmission at "Scatland? .... well it rained a lot but the people were friendly.." and so the myth grew and took hold.

I have deliberately used the word myth not because I'm too lazy to use a thesaurus, I do have other words in my vocabulary, but because I am a cynical bugger and don't much go in for the 'Wha's like us?' attitude of some Scots. I tend to think that one nationality is as good and as bad as one another. On a bad day we can all can all throw rocks and missiles at one another and on a good day can all hug and kiss one another - especially after a few whiskies have been drunk by one and all. I also think as far as Scotland is concerned its a lot of crap to be honest.

Let's face it, if we were really that friendly wouldn't we have a much easier to understand accent? Would the BBC have felt the need to use subtitles when showing the Scottish film Ratcatcher on the national televison network a couple of year ago if we as a people had learned to slow down when talking to the uninitiated ear?

And what about our place names? Our place names aren't all that friendly to the visitor either. Many people find it difficult to pronounce Scottish place names. At one point this probably had a purpose, for hundreds of years the only visitors likely to come calling were marauding English and Viking armies so in the days before GPS it was probably a good way to identify whether a stranger was friend or foe if they could or could not pronounce the name of the place they were asking directions for. Today though marauding armies have more sense that to come to Scotland, they get as far as Hadrian's wall, conveniently built by the Romans, and head south for somewhere drier.

Despite this though, we haven't renamed our place names to be more accommodating to the visitor. I'm Scottish and even I have had some trouble getting from one place to another. For years I lived just 5 miles from my great aunt who lived in Milngavie but at the age of 8 if I had wanted to visit her on my own and were to go asking the oh so friendly Scottish staff (don't make me laugh) at the bus station information desk the number of the bus to Milngavie they wouldn't have been able to answer me for laughing. Because at that age I didn't pronounce it in the correct manner, I pronounced it as I saw it written down and broke it into easy to say pieces Mil-in-gav-eh only the correct pronunciation is in fact Mill-guy. How you get Millguy from Milngavie to this day I have no idea, is it any wonder that Blogger as a little red line under it?

You may well think that the correct pronounciation matters not but there are a surprisingly large number of ill prepared tourists who begin their Scottish holiday in Milngavie before walking in their khaki shorts, in the rain, along the West Highland Way. We may not be able to do much about the rain or our most terrifying beast - the dreaded midge - but we could surely, if we were a friendly bunch of people, make it easier for the visitor to get from one place to another by making them easier to say. It's not only Milngavie that's difficult to say - apparently Edinburgh our capital city isn't that easy either nor are our much visited Lochs or just a few miles from the English border the town of Kirkcudbright, which is not pronounced Kirk-cud-bright but more like kir-could-bree. And then there is the charming remote little town on the West coast of Scotland where I worked for 3 months of last year but could not tell anyone because I could not say - Ardrishaig.

Pfft, Scots? Friendly? Aye to a point maybe. Just don't ask us to change our place names.

Some More False Colour Infra-red Shots

Lock Him Up, And Throw Away The Key!

Yesterday was an unexpected eventful day. I was at home working away in my room , when I heard someone in the next room looking for something. Not unusual. I don't own this house and the person I live with is the most untidy person you have never met and so therefore is always losing something. So I ignored the rummaging for a bit and carried on working. But after a while I got up off my chair to see if I could help, I put one hand on the door handle and the person on the other side ran down the down the stairs, instinct took over, I ran after them.

Stupid thing to do for two reasons, the other person I was trying so desperately to confront could have had a knife or worse a syringe but more importantly I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and walking from A - B causes discomfort. Yet here I was suddenly trying to run after someone without a plan of what I was going to do if I caught them. I'm sure they would have been really scared if I said something like "Ooh you lil ******! Ow! You made me run after you, you ****! Ow! My back hurts, now your face is going to hurt - but wait, let me just get my posture back....OWW! That's better - kinda."

Something tells me he wouldn't have been suitably distressed, it may just as well he was always 10 steps ahead of me and got out the garden before I could catch up with him. I never even really got a good enough look to identify him. I did see a girl, well I say girl but as the police would prefer to say, and did so often, 'female' around 25 years of age, run across the garden in the same direction, after I had given up the chase. It was a second or two of seeing this 'female' before my mind went from 'what the hell is a woman doing running in the garden?' to 'oh hell, she's with him, and was the lookout.' At least, even though I was too slow in my reactions to give chase, I did get a decent look at her. Which then meant I spent much of the morning looking through a scrapbook this morning. It was a little disconcerting thumbing through a book of mugshots - there was that little bit of doubt that I might identify the wrong one but apparently I got the right one that the Police suspected all along. Phew! That was a relief I can tell you. My guilt was instantly dissipated. Why I felt guilt I cannot say, I was, presumedly, thumbing through a book of people who had all done something legally wrong and all guilty of something.

Perhaps I would have done society as a whole a favour by changing my story (slightly) to "Officer I remember now, I don't know why I didn't remember this important detail before - excitement perhaps, but there was 12 of them, girls in the garden that is, females I mean. All of them of similar appearance and here you are - one, two, three." Pointing at the corresponding pictures of course."Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve." But I didn't do it, I couldn't - even if I had thought of it. In the end I was around 90% sure I had the right one but still the nagging doubt of 'what if?' at least until I saw the knowing nodding exchanges between the two policemen in the room.

Anyway to my point, the above was just a long winded precursor inserted for a sense of place - nothing more. A neighbours suggestion after taking an interest in the activity caused by the arrival and dispersal of the police vans was that they should "lock up him and throw away the key." Personally I find this saying to be rather stupid and a counter productive approach. How far can you throw a key? I couldn't throw one very far, but then I'm injured, perhaps you with a better back might throw it further. But I suspect not much further. Even the best trained object throwers probably wouldn't throw a key a reasonably suitable distance. Steve Backley an ex Olympic silver medallist, eternal loser to a Czech (I think) whose name escapes me) with many years of experience could only throw a javelin 90 odd metres. As impressive as 90 metres may sound, my suspicion is that a javelin is a little more aerodynamic than a key and would take to being thrown further distances. A key being thrown by an expert with the perfect technique might throw it 40 metres away, maybe, failing a convenient passing hurricane, it would land 50 metres away on a good day. Now what's the point in locking someone up if his friend can so easily find the key and release him again? Someone really needs to rethink that saying.

Throwing a key into a key manufacturers workshop with hundreds of thousands of similar, but suitably different, keys lying on the floor might be a better idea. That way the friend might get bored and give up trying different keys in the lock or just take enough time to release the guilty and therefore give them time to rethink their ways. This may be unlikely too, but hey I'm an optimist, just a very cynical one.