Latimer: As a nineties kid, I always felt like we had the best cartoons – all the Marvel cartoons, Gargoyles, Animals of Farthing Wood, Mummy’s Alive, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Batman… the list goes on!
Those cartoons had proper, involved story-lines.
But somewhere in the late nineties cartoons got fixed on this one episode, one story, structure, that I never liked. I always missed the ‘larger picture’, the big story arcs.
Then, around this time, I more or less stopped watching cartoons – so they remained, in my mind, fixed in that ‘one episode, one unconnected story’ structure.
In slightly later life, I swapped Western cartoons for Eastern ones. This would be around the time my obsession with anime kicked in. In anime, big story-lines never went out of style!!
I noticed early in the naughties Western cartoons started to taken on this East-meets-West style; an almost ‘anime but not quite, style’. I think it was due to the popularity of anime at the time.
That was probably what brought me slightly back to Western cartoons.
I think out of all those new ‘East-meets-West’ cartoon series, Avatar, has got to be one of the best.
Forget that terrible movie version. The cartoon is where it’s at!
Avatar is a great show. I was late to the game – I haven’t seen all of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but am a pretty big follower of Avatar: Legend of Korra.
I love the style, music and feel of Avatar… It’s a well-thought out story-line, with interesting characters, with interesting ethnic backgrounds. Basically the story is focused on a world where people have the power of controlling (bending) elements; water, fire, earth and air. The avatar is the one person in the world that can do all four and is sort of the, near as I can tell, spiritual and bending guide of the people. A big figure-head basically.
When the avatar dies, the next avatar is born and so on….
So, when the new Avatar Korra takes centre-stage, you know that the previous Avatar, Aang, is dead.
Which is pretty sad actually, given that the last time we see him is as this chipper 12 year old kid who saved the world. We don’t really get time to grieve over that, we just have to accept it, which is… yeah kind of rough!
But there’s lots of cool, funny characters in Legend of Korra too (and Korra is a very strong female lead, so that’s pretty cool!)
My favourite characters are Bolin and his little red panda Pabu – Bolin is just brilliant…
Okay, so maybe the best cartoons didn’t end with the 90s, maybe there are lots more to come! 🙂
I wouldn’t say I was a real gamer, because I know what it is to be obsessed about stuff and I didn’t qualify for this one!
I do have a bit of a history with gaming though.
We used to have an Amstrad in our house, when I was young. I say we, but that’s a lie, my big brother owned it and it got passed down to us young’ens over time.
It was a clunky, beautiful beast.
Games came on cassettes and you had to wait for it to ‘load’ whereby the title image would appear on the screen, one painful, pixelated line at a time.
Games took a very, very, long time to load. I remember we had a game called ‘Run the Gauntlet’ that was a series of different races; boats, cars and a final cross-country level – that was impossible to pass!
I always wondered what came after that, as the computer AI’s whizzed past my character… I would sigh, thinking, ‘I’ll never know’. And I never did. The joy of being denied content because you have no talent for gaming – that was my lot!
I used to beg my parents to buy me a console.
A Sega Mega Drive?
NO!
A Dreamcast (what happened to them!?)?
NO!
A Playstation –
No – look how are you not getting this by now? Stop asking!
Sometimes we would rent consoles from the video shop (I wonder do people do that at all anymore?) – it was about 10 pounds (back before the euro!) a night, and you’d get a game. Usually the console was a Sega. And it would be the best night ever and I’d wake up early the next day to get all the enjoyment I could before the console was pried away from me, never to be touched by my crappy, but loving, gaming hands again.
My brother somehow managed to wrangle a Gameboy out of my parents one year.
That was brilliant… that’s when I met Kirby, in Kirby’s Dream Land. Oh what a game! The premise – you are Kirby, loveable vacuum-powered ball of joy, protecting his homeland from an evil dragon-creature.
Sssss… POW evil tree!
This was one of the few I cleared and I still take it as a badge of pride. Ridley has this honour too I believe!
We did have games for the PC though. That’s where I met Lara Croft and I decided I wanted to be an archaeologist – ah, yeah, I was easily swayed!
When my sister got a real job, she bought herself a Playstation and that was my first look into having a games console on demand. She bought Kingdom Hearts and to this day I will say that it’s my favourite game to play.
I’m a Keyblade Master!! I AM!!!!
Here’s the thing, the ending made me cry and the whole game made me love Disney again. Yup, that’s the power of Kingdom Hearts – I won’t have a bad word said about Sora and the boys (Donald Duck and Goofy)!
If I still had my young heart today, I would buy a console; a Playstation 3 or 4… or 5,000 – whatever it is now. But, truth is, being denied the content of a story because I couldn’t figure out the puzzle or beat the boss (which would be inevitable) would kill me. I remember telling Ridley once (as I was playing Kingdom Hearts 2) that I got a stabbing pain in my eye and had to lie down, because I couldn’t beat a boss (the one with the water guitar – ARGH!) – I got so frustrated I literately had to go lie down and sleep away the anger.
So I know that I couldn’t handle the stress.
That’s why today, I don’t play games. I’ve moved from recreational gamer, to avid games watcher. You see I love watching games trailers and game cutscenes.
That might seem weird, but computer games combine two of my loves, art and story-telling. Games are beautiful pieces of art and they’re getting smarter and bigger all the time – and this means the stories can get more complex and involved too. Games are like books; they draw you in.
Because I don’t play, I like watching people like Pewdiepie playing for me – because it’s fun to have the shock moments during the game and Pewds is fun!
The new games today are amazing feats of world-building.
Bioshock Infinite had this massively involved story set in this epic world. It was a stunning place – a city in the clouds.
My ultimate favourite game to watch though is the Uncharted series! Oh how brilliant are they! It’s basically modern-day Indiana Jones treasure hunting.
Damn it’s hot out in the desert…
Uncharted 2 is a major reason for me wanting to go visit Nepal! I want to stand on a mountain surrounded by temples and prayer-wheels and flags… one day…one day!
I often wonder if there are other people out there who love to watch games as much as I do – other games watchers.
We should come up with a name for ourselves – unless it exists already, in which case… what are we? 🙂
Latimer: Recently I’ve been taking a lot of notice of street art. To the point where, as I walk down the street and come face-to-face with an empty wall, I start to daydream about what maybe I could put there…
I imagine images weaving across the concrete. And I start to think, leaning back and getting some perspective on the wall – ‘That would be fun!’
My daydream then takes me to the street at night-time, wearing dark clothes and carrying a bag of spray-paint cans. I’m going to unfold my masterpiece image. I’m going to fix it to the wall, by climbing a steep rickety old ladder that stretches up six floors to the roof. And I’m not afraid to do it (this would never happen, I’d be crying if I had to climb a ladder).
I spray-paint the stencil. I scramble down the ladder and race across the road.
Girl in an egg, Barcelona
No police catch me.
I admire my mural, and then, I fade into the darkness like a thief in the night. A wispy shadowy creature of the witching hour; in the morning people will pass the image, wondering – who did that? How’d they do that? And I’ll pass by, smile a secret smile, and walk on.
Then my daydream ends with the harsh whack from the reality stick. I don’t go down that street at night-time, because it’s too dark and could be full of people baying for my blood; like gangs of New York.
I don’t dress in all black, because if I remember correctly I don’t have a black hat and I threw out those black jeans the other day. Where would I find the stencil? That’s a big wall, the perspective would be too much; I mean drawing on an A3 page is the most I’ve ever done. And I’ve never made a stencil…
No. I’d get caught! Definitely; if anyone would I would. The police would catch me. I’d get in trouble.
It’s too risky!!
Where do you get the spray paint anyway… is it expensive… etc. etc.
Yup, the dream fades pretty fast.
So, I’m left as a voyeur on the street art of others. I like the secret pictures and I like the mysterious people that flit in the night, spicing up the streets with quirky images. Their work waves at me as I pass the streets, from time-to-time, and I smile thinking, “Well, hello there piece of art!” Like it’s a secret discovery, belonging to just me and the street.
After you see one, as with all things, a door opens and suddenly they’re everywhere. It used to be a Dublin thing, now it’s a world thing. The images from people I’ll never know, waving across countries at me, a little Latimer they’ll never know.
Here are some I found in Barcelona.
Keep an eye out on whatever streets you’re walking! There are cool secret artists out there! Thank you for sharing your art!
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I’m not sure who the artists are, so if anyone knows, drop us a message and we’ll tag the photos etc!
Latimer: For as long as I can remember, I wanted to go to Hampton Court.
But, I kept forgetting/never knew, what it was called, so I’d get really frustrated trying to explain to people where it was I wanted to go.
“I’d love to go to Henry VIII’s Palace… you know with the,” cue my distant expression, “with the red-brick gatehouse.”
I would stare expectantly at the person and they would stare back rightly confused. I would get frustrated, thinking everyone should know what I meant and give me the name of said building (so I could forever remember it and not look like a fool every time I said I wanted to visit it!).
This has been the way it’s been for me for years. But finally I realised it was Hampton Court I wanted to visit.
It’s in London, so when Ridley and I went there, I just had to go!
Hampton Court is epic and after being stuck in a queue for every which-way-thing in London, it was surprisingly low on visitors, which probably made the experience all the better. We had an ice-cream on the lawn, enjoyed the sun and stared in wonderment at the gorgeousness that is the Court.
While there, Ridley got real bohemian. She headed over to a tree, sat down, pulled out a notebook and pen, and with a big smile said –
“Let’s do book-work!”
I shuffled over to the tree, thinking this was a very quaint idea; we’d be like Jane Austen or something. A minute later I leaped up. “There’re ants crawling all over the tree! I hate nature -!”
Ridley jumped up, screaming, her dream of book-work in the park destroyed by nature. Deflated we gave up and headed into the Palace, letting the magic of Hampton Court wash over us.
If anyone watches/reads Game of Thrones, Robert Baratheon reminds me of Henry VIII. I think that might be intentional – George R. R. Martin draws from history right? Well, the banquet hall has Baratheon stamped all over it – it’s so cool!
In my head I was saying, ‘ours is the fury’! over and over again, until I annoyed myself!
Ours is the Fury!… or something.. ha!
Apparently the tapestries that hang in the hall are made of gold and silver thread.
Rich people back then got tapestries as a show of wealth, because of the cost involved in making them and the materials used. Henry VIII amassed tapestries like celebrities today buy diamond encrusted iPhones and fancy cars. Tapestries were the flash accessory of the day, and Henry VIII had the largest collection. The tapestries aren’t as bright now as they were in his day, but they are still impressive!
Throughout our holiday we were asking each other the question of – ‘what would you do if you fell back in time?’ Our hypothesis started out with the notion that we’d be gods! We’d know everything.
But, Dara O’Briain sums up the truth of what would happen…
Ridley struggled to read the tiny script writing on a massive charter in Hampton Court. Waving her hand she moaned; “And I wouldn’t even be able to read!”
Even if we could read it wouldn’t be written in the same English as it is today – we would probably not even understand what people were saying to us. That old adage by Wittgenstein that; “If a lion could talk, we would not understand him,” because his frame of reference would be so different to ours.
So, the portal that opens sucking me and Ridley into the past becomes more and more dangerous! I think our science backgrounds would also lead to us being burnt as witches!
We did conclude, on our travels, that it would not be good to get sucked back in time and end up in Edinburgh. It was hit by ‘plague’ (we never learned which plague) 11 times. We also would not have survived the closes, with people tossing buckets of waste down the narrow streets… or having to drink beer because the water was so dangerously full of bacteria (from the waste flowing down into the lake and therefore the drinking water).
Walking around the Court is almost like walking through time (the safer version of it). You half expect to turn a corner and see a man in tights, a grey curly wig, heels and a fancy velvet jacket…
Funnily enough, that did actually happen at one point. He was sitting talking to a 1700’s era woman.
We (the tourists) all walked past them, listening in on the conversation, confused as to whether they were in-character or not and nobody talking to them to find out.
We all kept a safe distance; blinking and straining inward to listen to them, but glancing to each other and giving a nervous laugh, like we were all thinking, ‘is this a mass hallucination?! Can you see them too?!’
We left the palace, happier for having been there! If you’re in need of an oasis of calm in London, head to Court!
My stupidity started when I neglected to pack sunscreen. Oh yes, I brought sunscreen to England and Scotland… but to Spain? No. Why? I don’t know! “Latimer you fool! You complete fool!”
It was so hot over there. I touched down, stepped off the plane and my insides began to melt! I didn’t actually burn like I thought I would – nope. I boiled, from the inside out!
My second lot of stupidity was my continued disregard for one Antoni Gaudí. Yup; I was more or less content to let my exploration of the man’s work end at a fly-by visit to Sagrada Família and a hellish, blistering walk around Parc Güell .
WOW!! @_@
I flew by Sagrada Família for two reasons; 1) I thought I didn’t like it (but actually I was in awe like everyone else when I saw it) and, 2) the queue to get inside stretched around the entire building, in the harsh glare of the sun.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t queue (not after a summer of queuing in London, and the heat of the Barcelona supernova sky @_@).
Parc Güell was a-trip-and-a-half.
A view of Barcelona from the climb!
It was the height of the midday heat, a harsh, steep upward climb to the top of the park, and 30 minutes spent traipsing around looking for the damn Gaudí lizard fountain! I didn’t come into the park through the entrance, but rather the end; so I really faded fast walking around in the heat.
I don’t know what feeling Gaudí was looking to create, but to me, it was like I was in hell; walking through the dried out skeletal carcasses of vast beasts that had perished in the desert sands of Güell/Hell.
Whoooh, are those two peeps snogging? I think so!! HA!
I nearly gave up looking for the entrance, but I steeled myself and plodded on, thinking of Bear Grylls and how I must have learned something that could save me, should the moment arise (which on a few occasions I thought, yup, it’s time to go Grylls!).
All I could think was; “Drink my own wee? Güell no…”
I found it in the end, and the lizard was being held hostage by the mob. I couldn’t get to see him much.
Back away from the lizard… pluz-leezz? No? Damnit…
I was feeling nauseous at this point, so I fled almost straightaway for a lie down in the hotel.
After that I thought, no more Gaudí.
BUT! An accidental walk over to Palau Güell changed that.
It was the mansion of the Güell family, the patrons of Gaudí, who commissioned Parc Güell . This family was super-rich, by today’s standards they’d be on the Forbes list and worth 70 billion euro. Their mansion was, actually very small, but the Gaudí -ness of it was astounding. I came to appreciate that he was in fact a genius architect and his mind was a wave of pure inspiration.
No one built like Gaudí before or afterward. The buildings are wacky and over the top; but its more how he built, his attention to ventilation or the way natural light could be brought into buildings. He put so much thought into the building itself, how it should and would function.
Palau Güell doesn’t have doors as such. It has two massive ornate wrought-iron gates, with curling metal.
When you stand in the entrance hall you can see right out onto the street, but the metal is deceptively thinner and thicker in parts that means the people on the outside can’t see in. That’s all Gaudí.
The halls curve and arch like waves; it’s like stepping onto a movie set, something from the imagination of a fantasy, or sci-fi writer.
Shakespeare-inspired stained glass! The Bard is everywhere!!That is a Gaudi designed toilet!
When Gaudí was awarded his degree one of his teachers remarked that; “We have given this degree to a madman or a genius, only time will tell.”
The most famous of the Gaudí buildings is probably Casa Batlló.
The interior is inspired by the sea, the ceilings are like ripples of water and there are whorls and eddies all over the house.
People have lots of thoughts of what the façade looks like. Some say it looks like bones (the spine of a fish); so they call it the House of Bones. They also say that Gaudí was inspired by Monet’s lilies painting and that the façade looks like that; or the balconies look like the masks worn in the parades that used to walk down the street outside the house. And the roof is supposed to look like a dragon resting.
Many people in Gaudí’s life died in the first decade of the 1900s – including his close collaborator and his patron Eusebi Güell. He took refuge in his work on Sagrada Família. By this point Gaudí didn’t have much money and confessed:
“My good friends are dead; I have no family and no clients, no fortune nor anything. Now I can dedicate myself entirely to the Church.”
He had to take alms to continue his work on the church.
One day, aged 73, Gaudí walked away from Sagrada Família and was knocked over by a tram. He was dressed in tatty clothes so people thought he was a beggar. He did not receive immediate aid and by the time he got to hospital, and was recognised, his condition was critical.
He died of his injuries and was buried in his Sagrada Família.
His story ended on a sad note. But we can look at it like this; his work survives to inspire people in big ways and little ways, and even though he passed away in poverty, the inspirational wealth he left behind will always be far greater than the money he might have had 🙂
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Ridley also went to Barcelona a year ago! Check out her thoughts here!
Also, just a quick note: if you want to see any more of our photos we’re up and running oninstagram, pretty regularly now 🙂
If you are on it too, drop us a line! Or if you haven’t joined yet, do!, it’s a great fun way to share your photos!
Latimer: This week Ridley gets grilled with questions with too many caveats!
Ridley: My grilling…do I smell something burning!? Well here goes…!
1.Let’s break the ice (because it will get so involved later!)
A favourite book – why?Pride and Prejudice, just because no matter how many books come and go, and how many I’ve become obsessed over and loved, nothing really every reaches P&P’s pedestal to knock it off. Though Persuasion has always been a close second. A favourite movie – why?Technically I have two favourite movies, Hot Fuzz and Zoolander, no matter how many times I’ve watched them, and it’s been a lot, I still laugh at all the same jokes. If you quote anything from either of these movies, or you get my random mutterings of things like ‘Mer-man,*cough* Mer-man’, then I’m pretty certain we could instantly become great friends. 😀 Surely I’m not the only person who absolutely loves these? Also, I (am ashamed to admit) have not seen The World’s End yet, I’ve heard it’s good, so it could possibly become another top contender. Stay tuned!
Comfort food that you love: Chocolate, particularly Cadbury’s and anything with caramel, oh and I adore Reese’s peanut butter cups. I will readily say I’m probably addicted to the sugary goodness, add in a hot cup of tea and it’s heaven! Though, the last few weeks, I’ve banned myself from eating anything sugary (or basically fun), which includes Cadbury’s. Sad times. 😀
Currently what are you’re listening to:Hmm, right at this moment? Phantom radio on the television, it has a good oldie playing! Anyone remember this one? Loved this song when I was younger.
After that, this song has really caught my attention.I think it’s more the video, I sit there trying to work it out. I know it’s based on Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, but the ending confusts me something awful. Explanations are most welcome (though I suppose I could google it!).
Current/recent obsession:Not so much an obsession, but my new show is (or was) Orange is the New Black, I watched the whole series, I finished it Friday night with mixed thoughts. An interesting take on prison, really loved seeing why and how each of the characters ended up in jail. For some of them, it was really purely just wrong place and wrong time, or just one small wrong decision, other times it was wandering down a dark road from where there was really no return. I did start to really not like the main character, Piper, by the end of it though. Despite starting out looking like she was angelic and good and just didn’t belong in prison compared to the hardened criminals in there, the character developments were so fantastic we ended up seeing that a lot of the other inmates had far more good in them, were less selfish and more caring than she turned out to be. Looks can be deceiving! But that’s just my take! I look forward to season two to see what happens. (Netflix really has revolutionised my life, how could you ever be bored with it? (or get any work done with it!))
2. What was the very first profession you wanted to be when you were a wee nipper?
Ridley: Like you Lat, I wanted to be an archaeologist for the longest time, but I think when Jurassic Park came out it switched to ‘dinosaur digging up’ (a palaeontologist). Then I become obsessed with Egypt and I settled on becoming an Egyptologist. After a time I realised though if I did become one there’d be a lot crawling around in dirty spaces, hot sand, hot sun, sunburn, blistering, dust, dry throat, scorpions, beetles…and very low likelihood of ever finding anything, so one or two of those things might have turned me off the idea. Now I just feed the small Egyptologist-wannabe in me by watching the Discovery channel, with this guy, Zahi Hawass presenting
(he turns up in everything and anything to do with Egypt…it could have been me you know, he obviously just had less of a fear of bugs…*sigh*) 3. You are shipped to a desert island with no internet – you must stay for 2 months – you have food and clothes and all the necessaries, but you can only take two items to really pass the time – what do you take?
Ridley: A notepad and a pencil. I was going to say a pen, but could you imagine how frustrating that would be running out of ink half way through the first month!? I’d have to go fishing for a squid and try and steal some of its ink or something. But with a notepad and pencil, you can draw, you can write (imagine all the work you’d get done), you can start a little diary, with the paper you could make origami friends to keep you company and then play little paper games (of some type, I’m sure before I go to the island, I’ll have looked up all the games there are to play with a piece of paper). Though…do I have a little knife to sharpen my pencil if it breaks? O_O ….I’m sure I do, she does say ‘all necessaries’, that leaves a lot of things open, maybe I can bring my phone as well, though somehow I don’t think there’d be any sockets for charging it in the palm trees. 😦
4. I can tell you for 100% that one of the following is real, which one do you want to be real (and why)?
Werewolves and shapeshifters(Ridley: I’m thinking this one is my choice, mainly (and being selfish here) as all the rest, even if they’re real, I can’t really become part of the world-unless that’s part of it becoming real, can i suddenly be one of these things??- anyway assuming that’s not the case, at least if shapeshifters and werewolves were real, I could join them- werewolf love bite anyone? Haha…)
Hogwarts and magic(Ridley: ah…if only, but if it was real, I still wouldn’t be apart of it, I’m too old for my letter. I’m possibly a Squib though! 😀 )
The Doctor and all that world(Ridley: Be so hard to pin him down, it would become a very unhealthy search for him on my part. So probably best not…)
Angels and Demons, and demon and angel hunters(Ridley: So cool. I imagine they’d wear cool boots and leather jackets. And moody striking frowns. They’d never want me tagging along asking questions and grinning like a fool.)
Superheroes, mutants, X-men and Batman etc.(Ridley: All special people in groups of which I would not be a member, see option B for further explanations. Though if I thought I could become a superhero if this world was real…then possibly this one…god this question is too hard, and now I’m not playing the game right, changing and adding rules, Latimer is going to rap me on my knuckles. RUN! :D)
5. Well, it’s ghosts that are real for this question. Now, you have a choice… hehe…(Ridley: I dread seeing that ‘hehe’ it sends shivers of horror and unease through me…)
Spend 1.5 months in a one bed, really filthy hotel, with no internet access and a shared toilet that has never been cleaned and will never be cleaned. The location of the hotel is nowhere exciting, and you have to stay there too. You can’t get internet anywhere in the town
Spend 1 week in Mary King’s Close and 1 week in the Vaults. The alleged ghosts are definitely real (but they can’t physically hurt you). You will have blankets and you can choose where to sleep – but it must be in both places, you can’t hang around the visitor stairwells or anything!
You can leave both places at 9AM everyday but must return at 7PM.
Ridley: I think it would have to be ‘B’, you know me too well, that last line in ‘A’ got me. It was a hard choice, don’t like the idea of not sleep for a week due to all the bumps in the night I’d end up hearing. I was actually verging on picking ‘A’ but then no internet anywhere in town either? So cruel, that was the final straw – oh no, not the horrible bathroom, no no, it was limiting of my computers ability to check facebook, email and google…good to know I’ve my priorities right!! 😀
That was part 1, part 2 will come along….eventually!! By the by, join in if you want, we’d love to hear your answers!!
Latimer: Hope you guys liked Ridley’s grilling – hehe 🙂
Latimer: “Argh…” I blink, staring bleary eyed at a person I know, but can’t remember. The obsession fire has dulled my senses.
“Are you okay?” they ask, raising a dubious eyebrow. They kick at my leg, forcing me to scramble up onto my feet.
“That is…” I wave my hands at them, my fingers threading the air. I start to remember who they are. “I think truly… pray some tea!”
“Oh jezz, it’s happened again hasn’t it!” She shakes her head and sighs.
“Ridley my old friend, pray some tea… I feel very ill!”
“I’ll make you the tea, but really you need to let go of all those BBC period dramas – you have to let go Latimer!”
“……”
This all started with my kindle.
Yes, my kindle… and some 10 pride and prejudice variations that I have amassed like a hoarder, over the last few months.
It was inevitable that I’d get an urge to watch the actual Pride and Prejudice TV adaptions. I sat down and watched the 2005 movie – and it resulted in this comic thing…because my love for P&P overflowed!!
And, one thing led to another, before I knew what I was doing, I was putting the Colin Firth P&P DVD into my laptop (note: yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all women are born with a copy of this series :)).
Ah, no you won’t… it’s why we love you!
I think if I tried to express in words, how much I love this series it would just come out as; “Ohhh Mr Darcy” and you’d know what I meant!
I’ve come to the conclusion that, to me, Mr Darcy is the ultimate man of any series – I think he might be the perfect literary man and the romance with Elizabeth and him; ah, it’s the most well done and most loved in my heart of hearts.
I sashayed back into Austen, thinking; “Pride and Prejudice, that was fun, I shall be off again now…” but no – I ended up finding the 2009 BBC adaption of Emma – well more like it found me, as if it knew… “Hello there, would you like to watch me?” (and this started a massive chain reaction of drama watching!)
The only Emma adaption I’ve ever seen was the movie, and I did like it, but didn’t love it. This 2009 BBC series was really good though – and Johnny Lee Miller (Mr Knightley) was lovely 🙂
When the series was over, I thought, “more! I want more!”. Yes, by this point on the obsession scale I am almost lost to coherent thought, like a kid hopped up on sugar. My high led me to the North and South BBC series (based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell)…
Oh my god… this was brilliant!
Brilliant… Richard Armitage (Mr Thornton)… haha, how could I not love it (I can’t help but focus on the men, I mean they are a central theme to these period dramas!)! I don’t want to say anything much about this one – you should just go watch it, blissfully unaware of anything that will happen, it’s just so good.
And after that the journey went ever on an on –
Little Dorrit (BBC series – very good, recommend this as much for the mystery as the romance! The father and uncle are so sweet, and pitiful and silly… my heart bled for them, really did)
Mansfield Park (ITV movie – my main thought, Fanny is a very unfortunate name, very unfortunate!)
Northanger Abby (ITV movie – It’s a bit of an odd Austen story – but the ending was very sweet… – just look, Henry’s a lovely Austen man!!)
Sense and Sensibility (2008 BBC series – I’m not a fan of Sense and Sensibility but this was a very nicely done series)
I started to think, that the country life of a period drama was a very sweet one – with all these ladies of leisure, painting, reading, drinking copious amounts of tea and walking to the ‘parsonage’ down glorious sunny country lanes.
I started to admire it all, thinking it looked blissful. Then (as if to test me) the power went in our house (because a relay station exploded, or something!) leaving me standing around for two hours admiring the calm and peace of the warm sunny evening, reading from my kindle.
Then, I got bored and ran around screaming; “where is the power! Where is it! I want power! I want tea!”
When it finally came back, I did a little dance and song about, “power” and how it’s awesome.
So much for my dreamy wistful side – still, it’s so much fun to be lost in period dramas – truly; I highly recommend it 🙂
Any suggestions are more than welcome (I’m running out of dramas! Is Downton Abbey any good?!)!
Latimer: My love of comic book characters comes from the past; the not so, and yet so, distant past. Back in the mid 90s, Saturday mornings were filled with marvel cartoons. Ah yes, despite it being a non-school day I would be up at the crack of dawn to see them, my favourite being X-men (and come on, I can still hum that epic opening tune!).
Sometimes I had to watch Spiderman, or The Incredible Hulk, to get to X-men; now Spiderman I didn’t mind, but God, the Incredible Hulk left me feeling so depressed (even as a child). Nothing ever, ever, went right for Bruce Banner.
I traveled with him, though he didn’t notice, and every episode the promise of a hulk-cure made me feel elated along with Bruce and we’d go together to the place of promised salvation, only to find it wasn’t what we thought and then we’d leave – him with ripped clothes and inevitable fleeing from the army, and me, with a broken heart and dejected for about an hour afterward.
In my reality of Saturday morning cartoons, ‘Earth 90s’, Bruce never found a cure. Also, his cousin became the She-Hulk… Which, by the way, what the hell was the deal there?
How come she became this buxom babe with full control of her powers (remained a practicing lawyer) and Bruce… Bruce was essentially this instinct-driven beast. Well, in the cartoons a least this was never explained (only that she was really, really happy to be the She-Hulk, well in fairness, she looked amazing, of course she didn’t mind!).
Then there was Spiderman, where I left him… let’s see, vaguely I remember he was searching for Mary-Jane (she had gone missing, then he had found her again, for a while, only it turned out she wasn’t really Mary-Jane she was a water clone! Yeeaah…).
A water clone who evaporates and is no more! It was horrific to me at the time, honestly it still kind of is…
He never found the real Mary-Jane in my Earth 90s. Either I stopped watching (that’s unlikely!) or they stopped showing it (more likely!).
The X-men was the same; I remember lots of stories. I remember I really didn’t like boring, boring, Jean Grey (she was always collapsing – always – even though subsequently I found out that she is one of the strongest mutants in Marvel – what the…?!).
Oh my God, and I remember Jubilee… argh, she was so pointless (sparks… seriously? You are lucky Wolverine was your friend, that’s all I’m saying!).
Rogue and Gambit – now this is me all over; perfect couple, I shipped them all the way! I also remember Cyclops and Jean Grey got married (okay I didn’t like her but I shipped them – I still ship them, ships are hard to leave).
fantastic fanart by New Moon Night Mike Choi
Now in Earth 90s, Gambit and Rogue never kissed and couldn’t touch, because of Rogue’s powers, but in comics… love must’a found a way! I’m fan-girl squee-ing even after all these years…
They brought the X-men cartoon back; years and years later and I watched it, but it just wasn’t the same anymore. Spiderman’s not the same, and God, I’m not watching the Hulk. There’s a time for everything and my days of watching them had passed – unless it’s my other thought, that 90s cartoons were just better.
This brings me full circle; recently I’ve being sticking a toe (here and there) back into the Marvel world, via comics. There is some absolutely beautiful, gorgeous artwork in comics too…
Stunning image of Magneto (who survived a concentration camp) by Marko Djurdjevic… Stunning
I’m now skirting around the great cosmic comic-world windows, peaking in and going; ‘ohh, err, can I come in? I think I’m ready!’. This I should warn you, is how obsessions start for me!
In preparation for my skipping into comic books (baring in mind, I know very little and these are just random nuggets I uncovered!) – I have found out some strange things about the heroes I actually never knew at all…
Firstly (and shockingly) Peter Parker… is dead… seriously… You killed Peter Parker…. What…?
There are only like 200 mutants left in the Marvel universe following a big ‘event’ (an epic arc of a story that crosses across lots of titles etc)… WHAT?! NOOO, they are the coolest thing in Marvel!
Jean Grey is dead… Do I care…? Argh, yes, with age I now care, because she married Cyclops and damn it, a ship must not sink while part of me is still on it, or I turn into a pumpkin! Save me Marvel!
Cyclops was unfaithful when married to Jean Grey – okay, hold on a damn minute, I’m not happy about this! He is now, subsequently, having a relationship with the mutant he was having an affair with – a mutant called Emma Frost (who was played by January Jones in X-men: First Class). Main thought here; ‘Oh NO you didn’t…!’ Of course on the other side I wouldn’t be surprised if Jean Grey had a fling with Wolverine… I can tell relationships in comics will hurt me
Jean Grey is not happy when she finds out! In this instance, I am with you Jean, even though I don’t like you really…
Weirder still, Cyclops has turned into like a revolutionary leader for mutants (where Magneto is almost his second in command!) and he’s – my thought? ‘When did Cyclops get so interesting?’
What the hell… Cyclops has gone mad! MAD!
AND Cyclopes killed Prof X… buh?
Don’t just stand there! This isn’t going to end well Prof!Hard to know how permanent that is, he’s died ALOT apparently! As has Cyclops!
Cyclops is in jail… look at this. God, what happened to him, what made him turn into this character? I really want to know! What a spiral from the pure boy scout I remember!
Psychologically what the hell happened to you?
Wolverine is on the opposing side to Cyclops. He also runs a school for mutants…
Okay this is weird, but I’m intrigued by this school (there seems to be some interesting characters there)…
There are so many stories that happened before and after my time; the world of the Marvel characters is far bigger than I realised. Earth 90s was an introduction and I thought it was the story. It’s funny really, but I’m starting to wonder again about all those crazy characters. I love a good story and I really did love those characters.
Okay, it may be time to open the door to that comic book world, step in and have a look around 🙂
Latimer: If there is one thing in life that is the universal response to, well, everything – a piece of good news, bad news or a general break – it has to be tea. A good cup of tea (which must be roughly one out of three cups – I think!), a fine cup of tea, a tasty cup of tea – it must be what dreams taste like.
Dreams, they taste of good tea! At least, our dreams must (I speak for Ridley, hehe, she is like, “Err no, I’ll have you know my dreams taste of chicken! I’ve checked; took a bite out of the last one – chicken!”).
Either way, we adore tea, I mean we really do. It lately seems like we have been visiting tea houses all over the world (well, here and there, now and then!).
For example… Tea in Galway, in the lovely quaint and beautiful Cupán Tae (cup of tea in Irish!)…
And fancy tea in the Ginza district of Tokyo… (we couldn’t stop going on about how expense tea was in Tokyo – seriously to this day we still talk about it! But well, it was sooo nice here though!)
So, really how could we go to Oxford, England in general, and not have a cupan tae? Sure we couldn’t; it was top of the list, high-tea (it was something we dreamed of doing when Legend Unleashed was published – to toast it, we dreamed of high-tea in Oxford!)! We researched this a bit, and decided that The Old Parsonage seemed like the high-tea spot of Oxford.
As the name suggests it is an old parsonage from the 1660s and it’s like walking into a mini-cottage in a forest with twisted, gnarled alien trees with branches that claw at the building.
It’s fairy-tale like; quaint, English, very lovely. The fire burning in the hearth warmed our chilly bones; for whatever reason Ireland and the UK had been experiencing very cold weather and it was raining and snowing in Oxford.
It was perfect weather for a hot cup of tea and some cucumber sambos (sandwiches) (that was a first and they are very tasty!) and scones, with clotted cream (which I never really knew what that was, but it’s got the consistency of butter, but it’s yummy!) and strawberry jam. It was lovely; I had the old parsonage blend of tea and Ridley had old English breakfast tea.
Later that evening we made our way to the famous Eagle and Child pub; this was where the Inklings (a literately discussion group J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis were part of) used to have their Tuesday meetings.
As we sat and tucked into our fish, chips and mushy pea (and more tea!), supper…
…we wondered if there were untold stories, or remnants of half-dreamed characters, hidden in the walls, or in conversations waiting to be had… and as we munched away, we dreamed our own Carwick dreams!
Then we toddled off back to our quarters, wandering the dark cloisters of Hogwarts… no wait, Wonderland… ha, Christ Church College 🙂
Let me in!! Latimer screams…Fine, don’t *sniffle, sobble*..
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Carwicky 