Josy's Medical Adventure, pars prima

Saturday, 20th June, 14.15

I don’t normally post personal stuff on here, but this is quite important, so a brief note seems expedient. I’m going into hospital tomorrow for an operation; it’s something that has been in the works for quite a while, so no immediate threat to life or limb. I’ll be in hospital for about a week, then staying with my mother for a bit. For you Glasgow-dwelling lifeforms, I expect to be back in town in three to four weeks. I’ll write another post as soon as possible after I’m out of theatre to let you all know I’m not dead, et cetera et cetera.

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NOT IN OUR NAME

Monday, 8th June, 16.55

In light of the recent success of the British National Party I ask that anyone reading this who is of a Britain-dwelling nature sign this petition. That is all.

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Topology for Geese proudly presents . . .

Friday, 3rd April, 22.40

. . . Anton and Leon in Discovery.

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Knowing

Friday, 27th March, 01.34

I hadn’t intended to see Knowing; from the posters and so forth I expected it to be a terrible film. As it turned out, it was clearly mainstream, and heavy-handed in places, but still perfectly enjoyable.

My greatest complaint has to be the science, which was completely ropey. From the wildly inaccurate definition of determinism (making out that it involved some kind of meaning or order to events, rather than mere predictability) to main character John Kessler’s ‘scientific’ colleague remaining sceptical of Kessler’s belief in the list even in the face of massive, and most definitely statistically significant, confirmation, and not forgetting the solar flare (a frequent occurrance) that produced a ‘radiation surge of four hundred microtesla [sic]’ that could apparently remove the ozone layer and wipe out all life on Earth, apparently forgetting about all the extremophile bacteria that wouldn’t care about anything like that, the plot cheerfully disregards any kind of scientific accuracy. I don’t think that’s necessarily a damning thing though, and in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the film.

The character of John Kessler, a man trying to bring up his nine-year-old son Caleb on his own while mourning the death of his wife, was well written, and the trap of an annoying romantic sub-plot between him and Diana, the daughter of the woman who wrote the list that he found in the time capsule was successfully avoided. Every prophecy that was on the list came true, something which doesn’t often happen in films of this type, which has often left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

The plot is in places contrived, with characters repeatedly being at the right place at the right time. This could be explained by the actions of the ‘whisper people’, extraterrestrials who were the originators of the list, but that seems an almost literal deus ex machina.

The camera work is of a high standard. The shooting of the train crash scene was described by one of my fellow filmgoers as ‘brutal’, and I also enjoyed the aftermath of the train crash and the scene towards the end of the people after they know all is lost.

Mention must be made of the largely superb special effects. The two major disaster scenes were well portrayed, but special mention must be given to the whisper people. Towards the end of the film, they shed their human guise and reveal their true forms, as pretty standard ‘sufficiently advanced’ tall shiny humanoids, but extremely well-rendered.

There is much Abrahamic religious, and in particular eschatological, imagery in the film, echoing Kessler’s relationship with his estranged father, a pastor. When the main characters finally confront the whisper people, there are four of them, perhaps evoking the four archangels of Christian tradition, Uriel, Michael, Raphael and Gabriel; indeed, their true forms have patches of what looks like glowing gas behind them, in which faint wing shapes can be seen. In truth, this could have been a lot subtler, but I have no particular problem with such use of symbolism.

The point where Kessler tells his son to ‘be strong for Abby’ made me cringe slightly, but I’ve learnt to expect that sort of thing from mainstream film. All in all, I enjoyed this film, and would definitely recommend seeing it.

Tagged in: films; 0 comments

Bisexual Erasure

Sunday, 15th February, 00.04

Five minutes ago, I got back from the Glasgow University LGBT Society’s Valentine’s Day wossname, in association with its Edinburgh counterpart or something, at a local gay bar. Anyway, during the course of the evening, I spoke to a friendly, young presumably-gay man, who asked me,

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

I truthfully replied, “No.”

This brings me to what is neither a new nor an original point, but one which bears repeating: I had in essence walked from a society which assumed that I was heterosexual into one which assumed I was a lesbian. That young man had not even given a moment’s thought to the possibility that I might have a boyfriend. I can’t win, can I?

Tagged in: LGBT, politics; 0 comments

Yet more erosions to our civil liberties

Monday, 19th January, 16.41

New Labour have announced plans for a vast database of all our e-mails, phone calls and Internet histories, at an estimated cost of £12 000 000 000.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want all of my e-mails to be stored in a government (or more likely, third-party contractor’s) computer.

This scares me. I didn’t like the ID cards scheme, but it was peanuts compared to this wholesale erosion of our civil liberties.

If there’s any chance sie might be sympathetic, I urge you to write to your MP and ask hir to do something about this.

Tagged in: politics; 6 comments

Fulfilment

Wednesday, 14th January, 12.53

Topology for Geese

Photo by Stuart Crawford.

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Yearly Review: 2008

Wednesday, 31st December, 16.51

This has been a funny old year for me: a lot has happened in it.

The first and most important thing has probably been my involvement in Io, Glasgow University’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Society. My first Io event was in fact this one, pretty close to a year ago. Since then, I have integrated and ingratiated myself with the society, and have somehow risen to become games convenor. So it goes.

I’m still at the University of Glasgow itself, of course, now half-way through my Junior Honours year. Maths is still its old familiar and comforting self, except for differential equations. Those bastards are out to get me.

The other major change of the last year happened more recently: I am now in a relationship with a nice young man called Korin. Nearly everyone who reads this blog already knows this, so I’m only really saying it because no review of the year would be complete without at least mentioning it.

Looking further afield, this year has seen the election of a new President of the United States. I don’t know how much can be said about him at this stage: I’m going to withhold judgement until he has taken office. There is also the deepening of the international financial crisis. It didn’t really start to seem real until the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi brought it home to me that this was something that actually affected ordinary people like me; however, I remain sceptical as to how much it will affect me. These large-scale things are by definition, well, large-scale.

So that’s the year. I’ve left it as late as possible to write this, just in case something important happened at the last minute, but I’m going off to a party in a couple of hours, so here it is. Good night, and may joy go with you.

Tagged in: yearly reviews; 1 comment

In which Things are discussed

Friday, 7th November, 10.35

I welcome Barack Obama as President-elect of the United States; let us see what he makes of his presidency. One thing is certain: it will be a time of great change.

I commiserate with the many same-sex couples in California who thanks to the ridiculous Proposition 8 are now denied the right of marriage. The fact that marriage is not an institution I want any part of doesn’t lessen this sentiment.

I’m still alive. Seriously. You’re going to have to try harder than this, ninja. Moreover I’m generally feeling pretty okay with life, which is nice for a change.

Here are some song lyrics, just because. It’s the first verse of The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood, as performed by the late, great Sandy Denny.

As gently tides go rolling by

Along the salt-sea strand,

The colours blend and roll as one

Together in the sand,

And often too the winds entwined

Do send their distant call:

The quiet joys of brotherhood,

And love is lord of all.

Tagged in: things, LGBT, politics; 3 comments

NaNoWriMo

Sunday, 2nd November, 16.56

Perhaps ill-advisedly, I’m doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This is a challenge to write a fifty-kiloword novel in its entirety during November. I haven’t started yet. As you can see it’s going great.

Fifty thousand words is more of a novella really, but it is allowed to write the beginning of a longer work instead, which is what I’ll probably end up doing.

Tagged in: writing, language, NaNoWriMo; 5 comments

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