RSA

The Witch of Kyteler’s Inn

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Ridley: I was in Kyteler’s Inn in Kilkenny at the weekend, it’s one of my favourite places in the city to visit, I always get the breaded chicken with garlic butter for lunch. Yummers! I also always spend my meal chewing and staring around at all the different bits and bobs lining the walls and shelves; rusted trombones, old jars, flags, plates and impressive wrought iron chandeliers. Not to mention the fake witch huddling over a cauldron in the hearth of a massive fire place, over to the side. (She gave me a fright the very first time I saw her!)

The best thing about Kyteler’s Inn, other than the food, is the story behind it. It’s a really old stone house, in the style of an old merchant’s building or a tavern, and its final owner was accused of witchcraft. This accusation was one of the very first in Europe. Lady Alice Kyteler managed to get away, though her servant was caught. She was forced into a fake confession, implicating Alice and then she was burned at the stake.

Another really interesting point, Lady Kyteler is mentioned in the poem, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen by William Butler Yeats, which makes reference to these accusations.

There were various reasons for these charges. Alice Kyteler was married four times; each of her husbands died, there were rumours all through these marriages that she was poisoning them. 

Spreading and listening to these stories, the children and relatives of her husbands accused her of murder. It was also said she was a very good looking woman, who could ensnare men with her charms and manipulated them into lavishing her with gifts. Unnatural looks and unnatural charms, possibly due to magic spells, everyone whispered.

There was also major resentment within the community from her involvement as a money-lender; she was supposedly quite ruthless.

So we are left wondering whether she had any allies, though she must have done as she managed to escape to England and never stand trial.

When you visit the inn now, her story is on the menu, so if you go there, not only can you order the garlic butter covered breaded chicken but you read all about Alice for yourself!

Get Animated!

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Latimer: We went to an event in the Science Gallery on Friday night (the Science Gallery is located in Trinity college). It was held by the PEGBAR Irish animators network. I was late… and word to the wise, DO NOT try and run on wet cobblestones (of which there are many in Trinity) – it doesn’t end well!

Ridley: While she was slipping and sliding her way to the event, I was already there waiting for her, with a name badge on and surrounded by very friendly strangers. Picture, crowds milling around with glasses of wine at the reception, everyone grinning, laughing and waving towards people who they hadn’t seen in ages, it was like one big reunion. I think the animation world, in Ireland anyway, is a small one. And then there was me, not even a proper hobbyist animator never mind a professional, trying to look like I belonged. I was doing the ‘I‘m texting lots of people and looking up important things on my phone, not desperate for anyone to talk to me, nope nope‘…in the corner! I was going for busy but still approachable look! It worked in the end, I randomly made a new friend who was also waiting around near me. It turned out he was a freelance animator, so I got to pepper him with questions and see some of his cool artwork. It was really great to get an insight into the job by someone ‘in the biz’ and to hear what he thought of it.

Beware the cobblestones! Beware!

Latimer: I arrived for the talk, which started with a colourist from Marvel comics, Jordie Bellaire (she worked for DC and others, very lucky :)).

Marvelous Marvel 🙂

She was talking about the importance of colours and mood, and this can also be seen in movies. She was so enthusiastic and animated about her work; even when she wasn’t ‘working’, her mind was fixed on colours. She would watch movies and list out the colours in the scenes. It’s always really cool to see someone so inspired by what they do 🙂

Ridley: Really inspiring! She seemed like a really cool person too. Her talk opened my eyes to seeing films and images in a different way! Who knew the use of colour could have so much impact on a scene and on the feelings of the audience, really interesting!

Latimer: Then there was a talk from Nora Twomey, she is a director from the Irish animation studio, Cartoon Saloon. (Ridley: One of my favourite Irish studios! I love their work! I was dying to hear what she had to say!) She was showing some of the short films she had worked on and talking about getting them funded and the compromises you have to make with scenes and moments you have to leave out.

It made me think of when you’re writing and there are times you want to say more and show another scene, but in the end, the story is better off without it (no matter how in love with the moment you were!). It’s hard to cut them out, but it makes a tighter story in the end. (Ridley: Very true!)

There was this one film she showed; it really stuck with me, it was really atmospheric and drew me in. (Ridley: Creepy too…in a delightful way…is that possible, to be delightfully creepy? haha) 

The studio also did some work for TG4 (that’s TG Ceathair, an all-Irish-speaking TV channel we have here in Ireland). The cartoon studio were asked to do some short animations to Irish songs, the series called Anam an Amhráin (Soul of the Song).

This song is about a young 9 year old girl who is in love with a shoemaker, wants to marry him and runs away from home to be with him! In the actual animation, they felt this was a bit too much, so instead they made her dream of the shoe maker when she slips on the hill! (Ridley: It’s an absolutely gorgeous song. This is Irish at it’s best and most beautiful.)

I got caught up with these and wanted to know what other songs had been animated… this is what I found…

This one is about a woman to wants to be Paddy’s wife and wishes his actual wife ill… her struggles are desperate but pretty funny! (Ridley: Haha, this is good, she even wishes a broken foot and hand on the wife!!)

This next one is about the Irish pirate queen Gráinne Mhaol, or Grace O’Malley… ‘Óró Sé do Bheatha ‘Bhaile’ is an interesting song, it started out originally about Bonnie Prince Charlie and was a Jacobite rebel song.. then later in the 1900s it became a rebel song about Grace O’Malley coming to Ireland with her warriors to free the land from English rule. In the video it seems mostly about Grace’s life.

All and all, pretty interesting, particularly because the event made me look for these videos :)! 

Ridley: It was a great night, I loved seeing all the Irish language work that’s being done! Not to mention, we went for yummy Korean food afterwards, it was so tasty *happy sigh*.

Out Now!

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HUZZAH!!

Latimer and Ridley: So we’re done, it’s out!

What’s out you asked? Our book, Legend Unleashed! We’ve pushed the button!

It’s available now, as an e-book, see the links below if you’re interested!

The paperback will follow on soon enough, we’re just waiting on the proof copy to arrive in the post so we can look over it and make sure there are no issues.

It’s been such a steep learning curve, but really worth it! It was fantastic that we had full control over every part of the process. It’s also been hard work though, with long hours put in and full ‘bookwork’ weekends, so don’t let anyone fool you into thinking self-publishing is an easy task! We finished writing the book many many many months ago. In the time since we’d typed ‘the end’, we’ve spent the rest of our days editing, agonising, formatting, fist shaking, commissioning our cover design, smiling, book trailers, grinning and that was just the start!

In the past, we’ve been asked how the two of go about writing a book together (we’re also fascinated by how other writing duos work together, so we love these explanations. Skip down through this part if you don’t care though!!) We always start with a single idea, whether it’s a scene, a ‘what if’ scenario, or a character. We seem to have plenty of these knocking around! More often than not, it’s a character. After this comes the fun part, world building! We love this, picking character names, places and plotting the story.

We let our imaginations run free scribbling it all down on an A4 pad as we sip on endless cups of tea; what would happen if we…? If he did this….? If she went there…? Wouldn’t it be great if…? If you read this part, what would you want him to do…? It’s the ultimate freedom, we just run wild! After this, we tease out any issues, then we divide them into chapter summaries. Each summary has bullet points, information taken from the plot and any extras we think of as we’re going along, with exactly what we need to have happen. Then these summaries get divided out, we get two chapters each at a time and usually one of us starts the book and the other ends it. This gives us the chance to experience at least part of the book as readers, rather than just the authors. We give each other constant feedback after each chapter stint. In this way, we’ve written six books together, Legend Unleashed is our fifth book and the most polished. So we decided to bite the bullet and self-publish it.

So far it’s been a great decision! Has it been the same for others who have followed the same path? We’d love to hear their tales!

We’re staring into the dark void, not knowing what’s to come, but either way we look forward to what the future might bring!

Sample chapters:

Legend Unleashed Prologue-Chapter 4

Author: M. Latimer-Ridley
Publisher: Cranmer Publishing
Available to buy:  
E-book: Amazon US
E-book: Amazon UK
Paperback: Amazon UK
Paperback: CreateSpace Page

Bram Stoker Festival 2012

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Spooky, ghoulish goings-on, in the courtyards of Dublin Castle this bank holiday weekend… welcome to Bram Stoker’s imagination!

Ridley: The Bram Stoker festival was packed with things to do all weekend, from talks by Patricia Cornwell, writing workshops for children, plays and discussions on vampires. Christopher Lee was even awarded the Bram Stoker Gold Medal by the Philosophical society in Trinity College for his past role as Dracula. Bram, in his time at Trinity, was the president of this society.

So many of these events were ticket only and sold out quite quickly!

Latimer: We didn’t realise until too late that you had to have tickets for these events! So we really missed out. Derek Landy (author of Skulduggery was talking in one of the theatres) and there were lots of talks about vampires and vampirism in Trinity College (as Ridley says, Bram’s old Alma mater). There were a lot of interesting talks, and I was really disappointed that we didn’t get to go to them! 😦

Ridley: Well, no matter, we did manage to get tickets to one event at least!

We attended a night time, outdoor performance by the award winning street theatre company, Spraoi, in the Grand Courtyard of Dublin Castle. It was held there as Bram used to have a tedious desk job in one of the offices in the castle.

Latimer: I like to imagine Bram sitting at a desk inside the fantastic building that is Dublin Castle, daydreaming about Romania and vampires! I wonder did Dublin Castle spark off any dreams of Vlad’s castle? You can just picture vampire’s roaming the darkness of the Castle courtyards…

Our good friend Orbie joined us on this night of terror! She told me that there was a Bram Stoker App (made by the Science Gallery), that was devised for the festival. The App uses your phone GPS to tell you if you are in a hotspot for vampires or ghosts in Dublin. When it tells you, you are, you take a photo of the street or area, and a ghost will appear on your image! Or so Orbie told me… While we waited in the queue to go into the Castle courtyard… we tried to find some ghosts!

Then we got bored and the queue started moving, so we were swept inside and pretty much forgot until now about this App!

There was the chilling sound of people moaning like ghosts… The idea of the event was scenes and characters from Dracula. As the crowd moved forward under the arch into the courtyard, we were met with a massive moon display, against the backdrop of a dark and eerie courtyard. There was a man sitting within the moon, screaming and shouting…

We were pulled into a dark world, filled with vampires and ghouls. There were performers wandering around the cold courtyard, screaming and hissing.

As I was standing staring at an eerie display (wedding dresses hanging off a man-made tree) a ghoulish performer came up to me and started pulling at a plastic bag I was holding (it contained a proof copy of our book, which I was handing off to Ridley). I gave a nervous laugh, “you’re really getting into this” I said, there was absolutely no break in character, she raced off to pull at some of the other people (some of the crowd was also dressed up for the night as vampire’s and devils – she was particularly fascinated by these people, me in my north face jacket didn’t do much for her! Boring I guess!). 

As we walked from display-to-display, a rock band played Gothic sounding music under arches lit in an eerie green glow…

Vampire girls dressed in haunting white dresses stalked through the crowd. They came together at one display (a bench lit by a single street lamp) and performed a strange struggle – pulling out of a young girl dressed in white (eventually turning her into a vampire). I think these girls were Dracula’s vampire women!

As Orbie was talking her photos of this performance… this girl crept up behind her!

Naturally, I started snapping photos, THEN, I said “Orbie… behind you!” and she turned and jumped out of the way with a yelp, “JAYSUS”!

The crowd started to move then over to a macabre display of an autopsy table… two vampire ghouls were pulling at the body… Afterward I got some photos and it looks pretty creepy… The face… the face! Very scary!

All the while, a carriage was working its way through the crowd… the man inside looks like he could be someone important… eh? Well, yep, as it turns out, this guy was playing Bram Stoker…

He was heading towards this large wooden construct;

Once he reached the top he read to us, telling us to stay in the light, and out of darkness… away from the shadows…

He then sat back, writing at a typewriter.

Nearby, there was a display in the corner that looked important.. 

There was a massive coffin beside it… Dracula making his way from the port (as in the book… which for me is actually the Gary Oldman movie… I remember the port from the movie!)

Out of it came this massive skeleton! Dracula!

A performer dressed up as a more manageable-sized Dracula, made his way to Bram in his wooden tower, along with all the hissing vampire ladies!

Dracula looks like he’s smiling here, haha, going, ‘this is great! look at me Mammy!’ haha

Bram brought the night to an end, with a brief final reading from the book. It was pretty cool.

Ridley: The event was really interesting! (Though it was wet and absolutely freezing!! Our hands were red raw, time to buy some gloves, me thinks!).

Latimer: Yea! My hands felt like I’d stuck them in a -80 freezer! The pain traveled right up my arms! It was so cold! God bless my north face jacket (the best buy ever!) – it did save me from the cutting breeze, I just needed some gloves!

Well, afterward everyone made their way home, out of Bram Stoker’s dreams and back to reality… Which took the form of a woman dancing in the window of her apartment (which faced an entrance to Dublin Castle)! She had the lights on, the curtains pulled back and was going wild dancing. Everyone stood there laughing (of course she knew everyone could see!). Then she jumped away, leaving her two flatmates (who were sitting down on the couch) staring blankly out at us! 

The festival was fun, hopefully they’ll make it a yearly thing! It would be pretty interesting. We’ll hopefully be more prepared next year! 😦

Legend Unleashed Chapters 1 & 2

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Latimer and Ridley: The clock is ticking down to our publishing date! Soon!!

Following on from the prologue in our last post, which if you haven’t read you can find it here, this week we’re posting chapters one and two of our book, Legend Unleashed!  We hope you like them! We’d love all and any feedback. Stay tuned, as more chapters will follow these in the next couple of weeks. We’ve also created another shorter teaser trailer, with new scenes in it, which will be released later in the week!

Legend Unleashed Chapter 1&2

For those of you who prefer our rambling posts on random things than our current ones (we know not everyone is interested in all things bookie!), we will get back to those!!

The Bram Stoker festival is coming up soon, which we will both be attending and we’ll report back! We’re also going to a small gig by the band, Bastille, this week (our excellent friend Orbie says they’re on the up and up, one to watch! It’s great to be ‘in the know’ about these things!! Haha 😀 )

So we’ll keep you posted!

MLR

Legend Unleashed Prologue

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Latimer and Ridley have had a surprisingly busy weekend.

Latimer and Ridley: We got our book-proofs back on Saturday morning and have been working hard getting them ready to be sent back to our editor for ebook formatting!

It’s been a lot of work, but we’re getting there!

Slowly coming close to D-Day or MLR-Day!

We just want to share our prologue with everyone! A few chapters to follow soon 🙂

Please enjoy and let us know what you think 🙂

The clock is ticking….

Legend Unleashed Prologue

One Lovely Versatile Blogger Award

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We’d like to thank Livvy @ Nerdy Book Reviews, Christina and Steven Leo Campbell for nominating us for the ‘Versatile Blogger Award’ and the ‘One Lovely Blog Award’. We’ve had so much fun blogging over the last year. It’s fantastic and humbling to have been nominated for these awards! It also gives us a chance to share, ‘random facts about MLR’. 

These are the rules:

Nominees must: Tell seven things about themselves, pass the award on to 15 other blogs and thank the person who nominated them for the award. Also no one is obligated to take the award, so don’t feel you have to accept it.

And so it begins……….

Caesar Flickerman stepped up to the stage, the lights blinding him. He straightened his tie. A stage-hand appeared at his shoulder, talking into a headset; “1mins to go!” he warned, ducking away in a hurry. Flickerman shuffled the papers in his hand, he took a deep breath. The intro music started to play.

5…4… 3… 2…1…

He ran a hand through his blue hair.

“Show time!”

He stepped out to greet the crowd, “Are you all ready?” They cheered.

“Let’s introduce our guests! Latimer and Ridley!”

Two girls dressed in red, fiery dresses appeared on the stage. The crowd rose to it’s feet screaming…

Caesar guided the girls to their seats. “Ladies, congratulations on not one, but three nominations! How do you feel?”

“Thank you Caesar.” Ridley slipped into her seat and fanned her tears away. “We’re so happy. We’d like to give a shout-out to Livvy, Christina and Steven! Without them none of this could have happened.”

“Shout out!” Latimer screamed randomly. Ridley shushed her. “Shout out…” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

Caesar waved towards them with a flourish. “So, Latimer, Ridley, how about you tell us all some interesting facts about yourselves!”

Ridley scratched her head with a confused frown. “Oh, well I love ketchup! I put it on everything!” She gave a rapid nod and swung her arm. “Mash potato, curries, I’ve even had ketchup flavoured Pringles, they were lovely-“

“They were disgusting,” Latimer interrupted, punching the air.

“To you!” Ridley crossed her arms with a pout, then pressed on, “I wear fluffy socks in bed.”  She wiggled her feet, her sparkly high-heels caught the light and flashed out at the audience. The people in the front row covered their eyes with a grimace. Ridley shot them an apologetic shrug. “I recently found out this is actually weird as supposedly very few other people do this.”

“Sweaty feet! Stinky,” Latimer tittered.

“Quiet you!” Ridley coughed, “Don’t mind her. Another, semi-interesting thing about me is I have an obsession with stationary, I love pens, colouring pencils, highlighters, A4 pads, notebooks…” Her list petered off as a dreamy expression crossed her face. She shook herself from her stupor and frowned. “I hate to see pages torn out of a properly bound notebook (where the pages aren’t meant to be torn out, not like in a spiral one) Latimer knows of this particular OCD!”

“Don’t dog-ear my books; number one rule of borrowing from Ridley. I am always afraid when reading her paperbacks- must not break the spine, she’ll kill me,” Latimer added. Ridley nodded in agreement and slashed a finger across her neck with a wide grin.

Ridley pointed at Caesar. “I’m scared of clowns.”

He frowned at her. “I’m not a clown.”

“Hmmm…you’re very colourful.” Her pointing finger hovered in front of his face.

Latimer slapped her hand down. “Don’t mind her Caesar. She loves you really, she’s just a suspicious sort.”

“Of course! Of course…” Caesar gave a forgiving smile and smoothed back his blue hair.

Ridley rubbed her hand. “I find clowns quite creepy, with their wide smiles and abilities to squeeze into small spaces like mini cars. I also hate heights, which rules out all extreme sports to do with being up high and generally falling. Spiders make my skin crawl, this hatred of them started as a child. I read that in a year we all swallow six spiders in our sleep.” Everyone cringed. “As to mice, I have no problem with them, I think they’re cute and I often save them from my sadistic cat!”

“Imagine swallowing six mice a year…” Latimer added. Ridley shuddered.

Ridley scratched her head and then brightened. “My last interesting point or not…I’ve tried in the past to become a morning person, force the dawn cheeriness into me. I can really appreciate the beauty of a rising sun, however not matter how many times I’ve tried, I wander around like a bleary-eyed bear for the first few hours after getting up. I prefer night time! I think I’ll just have to stick to sunsets!”

“When we used to live together during college years, I was afraid of Ridley in the morning. I would be up eating my breakfast watching kids cartoons, and she would walk out of her room, like she was furious with the world,” Latimer nodded.

“And Latimer, tell us some interesting facts about yourself,” Caeser smiled.

“Righty-oh. Ahem; I love red things; given the chance at any option I will always pick the red thing- food, item etc. I love red me.”

She held out her hand counting off the various points. “Ridley says I look like a rabbit when I cross the road- darting and scuttling. She yanks me back from cars when they are about to run me over! Also, if other people around me start running I will automatically also start running (I don’t need to know the reason, I’ll just do it!).

I get obsessed very quickly with random things (face cream and body lotion, namely Burt’s Bees), countries (Japan..) and stories (eg. comic book characters backstories). I will find out everything about said obsession- I will often tell people, I am a fountain of useless information.A sponge for the unimportant.“

“It’s true. A giant sponge.” Ridley held her hands out wide.

Latimer tapped her chin with a long pale finger.“My obsessions often have no rhyme or reason; currently I love Sons of Anarchy and contrasting that, I’m crazy about girly anime (shoujo) and asian dramas. 🙂 Most recently; I’m obsessed with San Diego Comic Con. We both really want to go!”

“If you win the games,” Caesar said with a grin. The crowd errupted with laughter and applause.

“Games?” Latimer glanced at Ridley. She shrugged.

“Err, okay… anyway, another random fact- I have a bamboo plant in my room… his name is Herbert.

If I lock a door, I will leave the door walk away then run back to check it’s locked, up to, but not limited to 3 times. No.. I don’t have OCD. No.. I don’t have OCD. No.. I don’t have OCD….

Once I did a tandem sky-dive and a canyon swing- I didn’t ever realise it, but I could be an adrenaline junkie if I lived in a place that had these things on the doorstep! Ridley will watch me fall from the sky with an expression on her face that says she’s going to be sick. I’ll scream ‘look at me!!!!!!’ as I plummet with a smile on my face.”

“Death wish…” Ridley muttered with a shiver.

“I often make up words; when I go to bed, I don’t say goodnight to people, I say good-noooot… and sometimes I say ‘good-noooot lemon spoot’ I don’t know why.”

“Cause you’re nuuuuts….” Ridley giggled with a hand over her mouth and then gasped as she got a sharp elbow in the stomach from Latimer. “Ooh, me intestines…”

“That’s pretty much all I can think of,” Latimer said with a thoughtful look. There was a small pause, Caesar smiled at them both. Ridley had started playing with her dress, spinning the cloth and making small fires dance up her leg.

“Pretty…”  she sighed. When she looked up and the crowd was staring, she patted the fires down with a dreamy smile, “Haha, yep, nothing more to add.”

Caesar clapped and the crowd joined in, bringing the interview to an end. Flickerman leaned forward in his chair, the leather creaked.

“One final question ladies… are you ready to play the Hunger Games?”

Ridley smiled, “Of course…” She looked confused for a moment, her expression unsure. Her eyes widened and she turned sharply. “Wait… what?”

Latimer jumped to her feet, a manic look on her face. Diving off the stage, she shoved all the strangely dressed people out of the way, screaming,  “I’m out of here! You’ll never take me alive!!”

Ridley scrambled away from Caesar. Her heels snagged on her dress and she fell face first off the stage. Leaping up, she stared round with wide eyes at the vibrant colours and weird outfits of the audience and shrieked. “Aah, clowns!”

She hitched up her dress and raced after Latimer.

“Wait for me rabbit girl!!”

TED x Dublin = Fantastic

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Ridley: I was at a full day of TEDx talks on Saturday. I don’t know if anyone else ever watches the TED videos online (they can be found, funnily enough, at ted.com) These video clips are recorded at TED talks carried out all around the world, they can be inspirational, funny, sad, pack to the gills with techy/sciencey/ fun information from world renowned experts. This year, (though not for the first time ever-supposedly we’ve had small TED talks before this that I never knew about) there was a talk held in the Grand Canal theatre. (‘Twas Latimer who sent me an email to let me know they were on, I booked it immediately-she knows me well!)

I was really looking forward to it; the geek in me continued to give little shivers of excitement all week. (It was sort of creepy)

But I anticipated that I’d learn loads.

Even just from the last few Ted video clips I’ve watched on their website, I came away knowing what a snollygoster was (some words sound more exciting than their meanings) that animals can show moral behaviour like humans (very interesting, confirms my beliefs that animals are very smart. And the end bit with the monkeys, the cucumber pieces and the grapes is hilarious.) and I’ve watched Steve Job’s Stanford University commencement speech quite a few times (really really inspiring).

Considering I get such enjoyment out of seeing these clips all online, I could only imagine how great it was going to be with TED presenters in real life.I wasn’t disappointed! Even when I spent much of the few days before it daydreaming about what it was going to be like. I pictured myself at the theatre wearing round glasses, in a pin striped skirt suit thing, conversing with the informed important people on stage about their findings. In my head, I imagined I had an intelligent ‘tell me more’ frown and my nods were slow. I also often paused in thought, before I jotted down comprehensive notes for later. I dreamed the speakers’ jaws would drop at my fantastic insight into their fields of study and I’d sit back and cross my arms with a smug expression and the words, ‘oh, I know’. I had an image of a stunned audience gaping at me as I got up to leave the room. I’d marched away from the building, slipping on a pair of expensive sunglasses, shaking out my (suddenly) long blonde hair, as two helicopters battled it out overhead, while I slid into the leather front seat of a black sleek sports car with a James Bond type man waiting for me at the wheel. He’d have very white teeth…

(Ahem….yes…well being fairly quiet in large groups of more than six people, I don’t think this scenario will ever play out quite like this. It’s a pity as, in my head, that helicopter gun fight was pretty epic….and his teeth really were quite sparkly.)

So what really happened (I hear you sigh in exasperation)? I went and I frowned alright, but it was more of a grimace of confusion. The only thing I used my pen for was to scratch my head and any ‘notes’ started with ‘Whaaaaat’ and ended with a lot of question marks. Haha. Nah, this only really happened during one talk filled with statistics on urban settlements, my blonde brain followed along surprisingly well with everyone else! However, there were no smart-looking glasses or flashy suits anywhere near me! Try jeans and a t-shirt, turns out this smart casual was the dress code of everyone else too! I lucked out there! I was also seats and seats away from the stage. The only way the speakers were ever going to know I was there was if I’d been forcibly removed by security for setting off a fire cracker, or from falling down a long row of steps and landing in a heap at their feet (this is more likely than you could ever realise! My feet hate me. ‘Hello right foot, I’m bored. Want to play?’ ‘Sure, leftie, I’ll come over!’ Ridley frowns down in slow motion, “Noooo…” *thump*).

Anyway…yes, I loved all the talks! They touched on topics like genetics, civic pride, comedy, art, the environment, architecture, public transport (I’d never have believed I could find learning about bus routes entertaining, but I did! And no, I’m not insane-yet!). There was even a band, The Amazing Few, who made us all get up and do a dolphin dance. I didn’t quite resemble a dolphin, more like a flopping dying fish. It basically involved a lot of awkward wriggling, jerking and bending while you tried to stay well clear of the strangers beside you in case they got the wrong idea!

I learned there’s an important link between bats and the advancement in genetics, health and agriculture. Despite this, the only bat I like is the one who sounds like he suffers from laryngitis; Batman! (The music always plays in head when I say his name. Daah na na na na na naa…now you can hear it too, can’t you? Mwhaa.)

In another talk I found out that a chance meeting of two men over a second dinner, because the spot-on-the-plate-just-give-me-a-bag-of-chips nouvelle cuisine of the 1980s still left you hungry enough to eat your arm, could lead to the establishment of one of the most important research endeavours carried out by the genetics department in Trinity College, Dublin.

I gained insight into great minds of the world renowned architect Daniel Libeskind (the man behind the master plan at Ground Zero in New York and even the designer of the very theatre I ended up listening to his speech in) and visual artist Kevin Abosch (whose photographed some of the most famous people in the world, including Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Scarlett Johansson…)

All in all, what could have been a day of absolute hell for some people was my idea of a grand ole time! I spent hours in the same room as the movers, shakers, thinkers and leaders of different fields. (Comedian Dara O’Briain was in the audience with us too, you know. I found this out via twitter from someone else who was there, technology is amazing really. He studied mathematics and theoretical physics in University College Dublin, you know. A very funny and extremely smart man! And I quite like watching his show ‘School of Hard Sums.’)

TEDx Dublin was enlightening, fascinating and in a way made me quite jealous, the speakers were all so passionate about what they do in their day-to-day lives. They clearly loved their work.

And personally, I think we all search for that, don’t we? To be inspired and in turn inspire others?

So it was nice to be inspired for the day!

(Of course when I came out of the theatre to find my car was clamped (street clampers, me ole foes. We meet again!) because I got the free times for the on-street parking wrong, that dimmed the inspirational surges for a time.

The scene of the clamping! My traumatised car is behind me

But I just did an about-face, figured my car wasn’t going anywhere and I went for food instead. And I found out you can’t be upset when you’re chomping down on a crunchy prawn cracker! 😀 )

Nineties Time Warp

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: I adored the nineties. My brother says I’m stuck in a nineties time warp. The TV shows, the movies, the music, I still love it all. I definitely think I have a bit of that ‘back in my day’ syndrome. Who knows what I’ll be like later in life when I’m already like this in my twenties!

I’ve watched two films that were made in the nineties in the last few days, I have to say, I never grow tired of them. Even though it’s been many years since they were first released, people still sit down and become enthralled by them again. There were numerous epic thrillers and disaster films made during that time, but they also had heart. In the middle of the attacking aliens, stomping giant monsters and reincarnated mummies, there were also well told touching stories which centred around the characters. The heroes were flawed, damaged and vulnerable. The relationships were fantastic and over came all the odds.

What was not to love?

Does anyone remember these:

My my, did my obsession with dinosaurs ever start after I watched this film. It was just fantastic, wasn’t it? With the velociraptors learning to open doors; ‘Clever girl,’ to the scene where the giant T-Rex bursts out of the trees to storm after the Jeep? As Ron Weasley would say, ‘Bloody Hell’!

The funny thing is, I have the television on as I’m writing this and Twister is on on Sky Modern Greats. I’ve seen this film dozens of times, if I notice it’s on, I’ll grab a cup of tea, change over and watch it. It’s one of my favourites, with the rekindled love between the two main characters, the epic tornadoes and the team’s pursuit to gain information about them so they can save lives. This need is particularly heightened and made more personal for the audience when the main character’s loveable aunt, who we’ve already met, is caught unaware by a tornado and nearly killed. The ending, while more than likely quite unrealistic, is still fantastic!

Anna and the King is such a heart wrenching tale, but definitely one to watch. Plus Tom Felton (the guy who plays Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter) is Anna’s son in it! He’s so young looking!

Ah, surely everyone knows Braveheart? The quotes from it are brilliant.

“Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!”

Who knew a board game could be so dangerous. If you hear those drums, run, especially if they’re coming from a Monopoly box, who knows what would happen if you were pulled in there! Haha. No, seriously, think about it, it’s quite a unique storyline, isn’t it? (this is where about a dozen people tell me there’s a hundred other ‘the board game came to life’ stories out there!) Again, there’s action, adventure, overcoming the odds and a love story in the middle of it all. It may be fantastical with crazy knife throwing monkeys (i loved them), hunters and monsoons, but fundamentally we can all relate to the characters and how they’re feeling. The feelings we have are just because of more mundane less dangerous reasons, we generally don’t have stampeding wild animals bursting through our houses. 

Godzilla, he fed into my dinosaur obsession! I used to watch the old old Godzilla films too, where you could see the strings attached to the flying monsters! Haha.

Ah, Will Smith and Tommy Lee, could you ever fault a combination like that?? 

Magical tiny creatures fight against the giant, human loggers trying to destroy their home. Really great!

Another one up there on the pedestal with Twister. I’ve seen this a million times and I still get a bit teary-eyed when the president gives his speech as the soldiers are off to begin their aerial attack.

“Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day! 

This is played EVERY Christmas in my house, particularly as we’re putting up the Christmas tree. I love the music and the Muppets! Bit early in the year for this I know, still a great song though!

So creepy, the black rider’s teeth are like a shark’s fangs, he always made my skin crawl! Absolutely great though and while it’s another Gothic type film from Johnny Depp, it’s a good one. 

Honestly I got a bit tired of these films after awhile, but I still loved the first one when it came out. Da Da dada da….

The Lion King, need I say more? And every other Disney film that came out in the nineties should go here, I just figured it didn’t need to be said. 🙂

A Bruce Willis film, quite scifi-y and very different from his other movies, but brilliant nonetheless and a great ending!

The Mummy, I’ll include two and three in this, who doesn’t love them? They have an ancient love story, a modern one, magic, Egyptian everything (both Latimer and I at one point-separately too, we didn’t know each other at the time-both wanted to be Egyptianologists when we were younger! Crazy, eh?). There were also gun fights and handsome sword-wielding Medjai in these movies! While I’m aware they made four films, I only count the three with Rachel Weisz playing the mother as the proper ones, that last one, while it had Yetis, I didn’t really like it.   

Cult classic. If you haven’t seen this, then you’re really missing out. It’s a skilfully made stop motion animation, Tim Burton is behind it (another one he also produced in the nineties was James and the Giant Peach). Nightmare Before Christmas also had catchy songs! 

Loved the first film….I got lost though when I watched the rest of them 😀

Like Twister, but with a volcano!

Ah Pixar, I’ve loved all their films. This was the start of a fantastic trilogy. 

‘Yippie-kai-yay….’ I love all of them.

Brilliant sound track by Aerosmith came along with this. The end of the world is upon us and we follow the struggles of the oil drilling team to save us all. This film is fantastic, I still well up in parts when I watch it too. Another great Bruce Willis film!

Even though everyone knew the ending going in, the ship sinks, it’s quite a touching film. You couldn’t help but be moved, knowing that ultimately it’s a true story. Obviously not the part with Leo and Kate falling in love and her throwing off the shackles of her class, no it’s the bit where hundreds of people perished in the horrific accident all those years ago. Absolutely heart-wrenching.

Once my favourite Bond, Pierce Brosnan has since been replace by Daniel Craig, how fickle I am! Still, fun films to watch!

Ah Nick Cage, personally I think it’s one of his best films! And John Malkovich is in this, you couldn’t go wrong with him!

And that’s just scratching the surface of what we used to watch in the 90s! (there was also My Neighbor Totoro, The Rescuers Down Under, Dragonheart, My Girl, Home Alone)

As you scroll down through the movie posters, for the ones you’ve seen, you remember them, don’t you? You remember the people, the story, how it made you feel, where you were when you first watched it? I know I do! 

I’m not saying there aren’t good films being made now, there are, numerous ones, but for some of them these days, it looks like (not even trained!) monkeys pushed buttons and that was how they decided on what would happen in them. A lot of them really don’t feel like they’ll endure as long as some of the films made in the nineties have done-most of which have become modern greats.

Am I wrong? Do other people love these as much as me? No?

*sigh*  🙂