Inglourious Basterds

I am not a lover of Quentin Tarantino movies, but I must admit I have a sort of grudging admiration for the guy after sitting through the world war II revenge movie Inglourious Basterds.

Every Zig zagging Tarantino trick is used in this movie....the audience is wrong footed time and time and time again, as characters are suddenly introduced, then seem to seesaw back and forth in their own power struggles and importance before being dispatched or dropped with an icy cold and very violent regard.

As usual the plot is convoluted and cram packed with overly "clever" dialogue (the opening 10 minute exchange between French farmer (the very attractive Denis Menochet) and Nazi Jew hunter Landa (Christoph Waltz) is a particular standout, but it is in certain tension cranking set pieces (and I am talking about the scene in a pub basement where a British agent,Michael Fassbender is unearthed as a spy) that Tarantino really flexes his muscles to the greatest cinematic effect.

I enjoyed these moments of the movie greatly but hated the gratuitous violence within other parts of the film. I also found Brad Pitt'S performance ( as the Jewish hit squad leader) rather uncomfortable and irritating to watch, but must add that Christopher Waltz was a revelation as the charming,unpredictable and psychopathic Col Landa and the two women in the film,Mélanie Laurent as a Jewish survivor and Diane Kruger as a German double agent are also particulary good

An interesting, uncomfortable,sometimes irritating and occasionally exhilarating movie 8/10

(photo Denis Menochet- sigh)

Dry stone wall geeks

Saturdays are usually a day for the weekly shop, a massive cooked breakfast at Sainsburys and a long walk on the beach. It is a day for Chris to "come down" after his busy week stretching his brain to excess at the University, and is also a day that I usually don't have to cook anything! (I am not the best of cooks!- but I can bake).
Anyhow when I returned to the field to check on the stock, Steve (above) had already started on the Herculean job of preparing the foundation of the repair of the Church wall. I have said before, he is going to teach me how to dry stone wall, but I guess he couldn't quite resist getting stuck in.
He figures that the original wall was constructed in the 1700's, and when I asked him what would be our course of action if we come across a skull or a pair of feet from the ancient Graveyard as we continue our repairs.... he wryly stated
"we stop!"

Tonight is a night in with lasagna and a movie. We are watching Inglourious Basterds, which I will review tomorrow (I hope Alex, Bel and Victor H will review it too!!!)

I have been given three young Rhode Island Red's from a friend in the village. Which was a awfully nice thing for her to do! The young girls will help plug the hole left by the fox attack two weeks ago!, and I will pick them up on Wednesday.

Guilty Pleasures & reorganisation

There was another burial in the churchyard this morning, so leaving the gravedigger and his lorry parked on the field, I went to Prestatyn to complete some jobs for Chris and to walk the dogs. Chris' moped broke down on the way to work today at 6.45am, but our phone is not working properly so didn't ring when he called for assistance! Subsequently he had to get my sister and her husband out to help him as I slumbered!Suffice to say he was not happy!! hey ho!

Now today's blog is entitled Guilty Pleasures ..... and no I am not reviewing some trashy tv movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery from the 1980s (My friend Nigel would be upset that this is not the case), I am actually referring to those little treats that you afford yourself to from time to time.....
This morning was a case in point.
I lost one of the dogs' leads on the beach this morning, so I called into "Home Bargains" ( the cheap shop in Prestatyn) to buy another one. When I was waiting in line to pay I notice jars of frankfurter sausages for the knockdown coast of 49p and on impulse bought one! Now all this is not particularly interesting, I would admit...but I have to be honest when I say I am rather partial to these cheapo amalgams of offal, even if they do look like dead man's fingers!)

Sitting back inside the car at the car park, I opened the jar and gave each dog a hot dog of their own( this can be a difficult procedure as the hot dogs are slippery little buggers and are surrounded in saline)- then I sat back comfortably and chomped my way through the 6 others with great pleasure.
I even have a particular way of munching the hot dog without even holding onto it, a feat which drives the dogs wild with excitement!
The whole event was watched by an elderly couple, who were sat in the car opposite....they must of thought I was some sort of lunatic!
I thought I would list my other "guilty pleasures"

Proper coffee,
custard slices,
Judge Judy
Chopper coppers (or any other tv police reality show)
Reading "home and antiques" on the loo,
Magnum ice cream
Cinema visits in the afternoon,




Anyhow enough of all this navel gazing. This afternoon I set the buffs up together again into a small breeding group. I had originally separated Scotty ( the cockerel) from the 5 hens as their feathers and skin were in a dreadful state after being covered constantly by the old cockerel Clover ( who died last year).Now they are in tip top form and look quite beautiful, so I have decided to put the birds together so I can collect some fertilised buff eggs for the incubator and to replace the two buffs that were killed recently by the fox. Scotty (above) is a sweet natured cockerel and is not quite as rampant than Clover, so, hopefully the girls will be left unscathed. It will be nice to have some chicks again.

Anyhow the gentle pace of the day continues. I am off now to start clearing the next vegetable patch and have arranged to start repairing the foundation of the Church wall next week with Steve. I am looking forward in learning how to lay a dry stone wall

Lonely

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ is an incredibly funny blog site that displays wry. pithy and often hilarious notes left by the general public.
Tonight I noted this rather sad message left by a college student on his/her bedroom door......
and my heart broke just a little......a brief message...but it says so much.....

Trelawnyd Gop Hill

I could not resist taking this short video on the top of the Gop this morning

The Flower Show

We had the first Flower Show meeting of the year tonight at Auntie Glad's house!

and after the usual bunfight we agreed on the format for this year's show!

see: http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/

I have lots to do before the next meeting. I need to liaise with the village school mistress to organise the childrens' entries, price up yards of bunting, and organise a new cup for the "basket of vegetables " entry!

Oh the responsibility!

The pigs of Trelawnyd

As requested by my cousin Carol.

1.12 am

The mouse has been dispatched........
peace has been restored

12.42.am

I can't sleep
Albert has brought in a live mouse and the whole household (1 cat and 4 dogs) are trying to catch the poor thing somewhere in the bedroom..... I have shut the door on them and am now having a cup of tea in the living room. Upstairs the noise is more frightening than the soundtrack of any horror film! and outside the guinea fowl have started to scream for the second time.....I have bolted out to the field with the torch twice now and have seen nothing
hey ho
Thank Goodness that Chris is still away

Avatar 3D

Janet and I were 3D virgins until this evening and although it was an interesting experience I won't be galloping like a wild thing to go and see my second "amazing multi dimensional experience".
What I didn't understand about 3D before tonight, is that it is only used at its fullest extent sporadically throughout the film. Certain sequences, such as Jake's walk through the forest at night and the 9/11-like destruction of the home tree are admittedly impressive, but generally I think that the slightly blurred and distracting 3D effects do not in fact enhance the experience of Avatar; in actual fact they make the whole experience, just that little bit unsatisfactory.
Avatar 3D 7/10
Well it least we kept the glasses!

Thanks to Kathy

This morning I have braved the icy wind and have manured the main vegetable patch. I have still got four more to weed,turn and fertilize but at least I have made the effort and have started the often back breaking ground work before spring.
I have unearthed the Jerusalem artichokes I planted last year (above left) and thanks to fellow blogger Kathy at The Cottage Garden Farmer-see (Kathy's blog ) I now know what to do with the little buggers (http://the-cottage-gardener.blogspot.com/2010/01/jerusalem-artichokes.html)
I have set out my potatoes for chiting and now have a ton of strawberry plants from my fellow villager Sandra, to plant out after the frosts in a huge strawberry bed of their own.

As I was humping the manure into place, the ducks, forgetting their usual reserve, jumped into action to sieve out the worms and grubs from the ground. Halleh (the only drake second from left) has been courting the runner females but has not as yet worked out how to mate with them, preferring the more "attractive" hens....hopefully it will be only a matter of time before he works out what exactly should go where. I do hope so, I am tired of chasing him off the hybrids on a daily basis.

The grave digger did a great job clearing the rubbish from the field stream, and although it looks rather muddy now, come spring the banks should be lovely and green. I will dam up part of it to make a proper small pond when I have some time, but the first thing I need to do is to re build the Church wall. Thank goodness the days are getting longer.

With Chris still away I am off to Llandudno later with my sister to see AVATAR in 3D.....

Dogs on the Beach

Cassie wanted me to post a video of the dogs, so apologies for the lazy post. As I type this, it has started to snow gently!

The Alarm - Knockin' On Heavens Door - The Gathering 30-01-2010

My brother Andrew is playing the guitar second from the right (in the white t shirt) Chris and I missed his gig with the Alarm ( I was working nights) but my sisters went (and can be heard shouting from the audience!)

A small victory

With the fire lit and the dogs in their usual place on my lap, it has been a relaxing and quiet day. Chris made a tasty chicken stew AND a syrup sponge pudding, so the order of the afternoon was having a doze and that was it!
Half way through the gloriously camp tv programme 60 Minute Makeover , Albert could be heard banging around the kitchen, and on checking he was battering a small beautiful blue tit between his paws and the remains of our chicken dinners!
The tiny bird looked quite dead when I found it covered in chicken gravy, but as I prised it off a growling Albert, it gave a shallow gasp.
Blue tits are amazingly pretty things, but like all wild birds that have been attacked, they die so easily through a combination of rough handling and shock, so I hid the bird in my palm and sat in the living room in the hope that the warmth of my hand would revive it.
The dogs all clambered on top of me, in the full realisation that something was afoot, but I managed to keep them away from the blue tit until I could feel a little more movement from the tiny animal and after another 20 minutes I sneaked out of the house to set the bird down on the wall before it flew unsteadily away still covered with big blobs of bisto.
I told you nothing much has happened today.. but this "little" victory was rather satisfying

Mockingbird Review

Gwyn Vaughan Jones as Atticus Finch
To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those novels that most (!) people remember with great affection from their schooldays. Harper Lee's warm and affectionate story of the coming of age of "Scout" Finch, the daughter of a small town lawyer, amid the racism of the American deep south, has a resonance with most people, even though they may not have read or reread the novel for years, and I really feel that this nostalgia for Lee's novel sometimes camouflages the brutality within the story....such as child abuse,the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill, alcohol addiction, and of course the horrendous racial divide within a rural community.
This stage version is beautifully set by Mark Bailey on a simple dirt road square of stage. Silhouette's of the tired folk of Maycomb are placed against a "Gone with the Wind" sky before Scout (an excellent Amy Morgan) starts her narration through the eyes of the eight year old tomboy.
The racial and economic tensions of 1935 Alabama grow steadily, until the cracking courtroom scene ( played cleverly still on the dirt road) bats to and fro between the dirt poor white trash Ewells and Atticus Finch who is defending defendant Tom Robinson. This scene is the best thing in the play , and Rhian Blyth ( as the abused Myella Ewell) is a standout, but having said all that, not everything works as well in this stage play as it does in the 1962 movie version.
The climax where the Finch Children are pursued by the abusive Bob Ewell is rather rushed and trivialised, and is absolutely lacking in the nail biting tension we witnessed as James Anderson stalked the terrified Mary Badham in the movie, but I guess it is a small complaint in a generally superior and enjoyable stage production .
8/10

Off to bed.... working an early shift tomorrow

To Kill A Mockingbird

Off to see the Theatre Clwyd Production of To Kill A Mockingbird this evening...review later!

New Oscar catagory

Now the Oscars nominations are out, and as usual the bun fight is uneven, manipulated and unfair!
Many years ago Elizabeth Taylor only won the statue for best actress because she had just had a tracheostomy!
Anyhow, I will not rant on about it all, but I would suggest that the academy would give an oscar for BEST MOVIE TRAILER!
These frantically edited snippets, are often little works of art in themselves, and although many of them bare no real connection to the main movie , the resulting "minifilm" is often a wonderful romp to be enjoyed....

my favourites are:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCqYuBIFE5I
(Dinosaur)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3UCHHZmvc
(Australia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBitOl11VnY
(All about my mother-) camp as christmas

I could go on and on and on.......sorry anout the links interested parties will need to cut and paste.....anyhow just sit back and enjoy CLIFFHANGER

Lilly

Well the plethera of videos continue ( and will stop for a while I promise you) with a brief introduction to my favourite hen on the field. the gentle natured Lilly.
Now the "voice over" was a little muted as I was mindful that the gravediggers are in to prepare for my neighbour's funeral later today.
Steve, the village elder (as I call him) is overseeing the work and is using the digger to scrape out the Church wall (which I am repairing) and to dredge out the ditch on the border of the field. Now all this work is his idea, so I am letting him get on with it as itis easier to do that rather than to discuss the whys and whatnots in any detail.....I feel a little like a spare wheel though ,so I will go and busy myself elsewhere

The Cottage and Church

I Know it is lazy blogging but I seem to be on a roll!
I will make one more "video" this afternoon then will get back to typing at the keyboard

Turkey Video

With my crappy old camera I took this brief video this morning.......