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Rambling entry by an expert in the genre...
Monday, October 5th, 2009 12:34 pmAh what a good weekend that was, though I am now rather tired – I woke up twice in the night with a sudden jump: bloody sleep apnoea.
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fen_wolfchile and mrs_karen_bear and we all took ourselves off to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington to look at the Dinosaurs, via a pub on Whitehall for lunch. We had hoped to see the Darwin exhibition too, complete with bottled squiddies, but we didn’t manage that bit, though we did look around the more general exhibition on cetaceans etc. Of course we found time for the gift shop and I now have an Emperor Penguin called Derek and a Darwin fridge magnet. Furtle is the proud owner of an ice age thing that I can’t recall a name for, plus bizarrely, some chilli seeds to grow.
Thanks to the dinosaur exhibition, I have a name for a new D&D character name taken directly from an exhibit: beware the might of Iguanadon Thumbspike. Oh, yes.
We repaired to the Griffin in Whetstone for a pint, though we only stopped for the one. The pub was crammed because of the live footie on telly and we ended up sitting next to the door. Yours Truly in particular, was subjected to a Force Nine every time some one came in or left, so we went back home and drank wine, listened to music, chatted and absorbed curry.
Marvellous.
Sunday was a lie in followed by breakfast and more music and chat. Thoughts about a pub lunch were halted by the fact that the timing of the Grand Prix (of which we had carefully avoided any news) meant that we would have had to zip out, order, absorb a meal and return to the flat in 50 minutes. Not likely. So we parked that idea and grazed on a carpet picnic instead, while watching the race.
After our guests had left, we indulged in a few chores, moved some books around and created a jalfrezi for dinner while watching Supernatural, Dollhouse and finishing with a bizarre ITV Marple story (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) in which the plot had been pretty much completely rewritten and Miss Marple parachuted in to justify the changes. It was entertaining enough, but somewhat hard to follow. I have noticed that in the ITV adaptations featuring first Geraldine McEwen and now Julia McKenzie, not only does Marple show up in entirely unrelated stories, but the plots get butchered even where she is supposed to be there. Also, unlike the Joan Hickson versions from the late 80s-early 90s (which were very faithful to the books), there seems to be an element of oddness that is almost psychedelic in the ITV productions that remind me in some ways of the 1960s Batman TV show, with the odd camera angles, strangely garish colours and more than half the characters evidently several fries shy of a happy meal.
Still, they’re quite entertaining, even if they would have old Agatha spinning in her grave.
The Carpathia hosted
fen_wolfchile and mrs_karen_bear and we all took ourselves off to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington to look at the Dinosaurs, via a pub on Whitehall for lunch. We had hoped to see the Darwin exhibition too, complete with bottled squiddies, but we didn’t manage that bit, though we did look around the more general exhibition on cetaceans etc. Of course we found time for the gift shop and I now have an Emperor Penguin called Derek and a Darwin fridge magnet. Furtle is the proud owner of an ice age thing that I can’t recall a name for, plus bizarrely, some chilli seeds to grow.Thanks to the dinosaur exhibition, I have a name for a new D&D character name taken directly from an exhibit: beware the might of Iguanadon Thumbspike. Oh, yes.
We repaired to the Griffin in Whetstone for a pint, though we only stopped for the one. The pub was crammed because of the live footie on telly and we ended up sitting next to the door. Yours Truly in particular, was subjected to a Force Nine every time some one came in or left, so we went back home and drank wine, listened to music, chatted and absorbed curry.
Marvellous.
Sunday was a lie in followed by breakfast and more music and chat. Thoughts about a pub lunch were halted by the fact that the timing of the Grand Prix (of which we had carefully avoided any news) meant that we would have had to zip out, order, absorb a meal and return to the flat in 50 minutes. Not likely. So we parked that idea and grazed on a carpet picnic instead, while watching the race.
After our guests had left, we indulged in a few chores, moved some books around and created a jalfrezi for dinner while watching Supernatural, Dollhouse and finishing with a bizarre ITV Marple story (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) in which the plot had been pretty much completely rewritten and Miss Marple parachuted in to justify the changes. It was entertaining enough, but somewhat hard to follow. I have noticed that in the ITV adaptations featuring first Geraldine McEwen and now Julia McKenzie, not only does Marple show up in entirely unrelated stories, but the plots get butchered even where she is supposed to be there. Also, unlike the Joan Hickson versions from the late 80s-early 90s (which were very faithful to the books), there seems to be an element of oddness that is almost psychedelic in the ITV productions that remind me in some ways of the 1960s Batman TV show, with the odd camera angles, strangely garish colours and more than half the characters evidently several fries shy of a happy meal.
Still, they’re quite entertaining, even if they would have old Agatha spinning in her grave.
