Fun Stuff

OK, so serious stuff is over and done with now it's time for the lighter side.

First, I am now inhumanly excited about the new Star Trek movie. I remained so sceptical for so long but now I simply can't wait. Simon Pegg was on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross last night, which only served to inflame my quiet hysteria. I think I might have to book us some tickets for the premiere - preferrably on IMAX! Oddly, after watching Friday Night... I also have a strange compulsion to go and see the Hannah Montana movie. I think Miley Cyrus has been exercising so sort of new hypnosis technique on me: The clue was probably the repeated shouts of "See my movie!" in hilarious fashion throughout Ross' show.

I recently found (or rather, was alerted to) a 'new' TV channel which I have been enjoying recently. Rocks & Co (Sky Channel 642) are modelled on the long running Gems TV (broadcasting on Sky, V irgin and Freesat) in that they offer a range of gemset jewellery in 'Reverse Auctions'. Basically they start at a ridiculous price and 'crash' to a lower, more realistic price and generally keep dropping until they hit the lowest price that they want to sell that item for. It's essentially a game of chicken: which viewer will 'blink' first and buy? If interested in something, the longer you wait the lower the price, but also the greater the chance that someone else will get there first. You can almost hear the masses reaching for the phone with one hand and the 'plastic' with the other! Whether you buy anything at any given time is up to you - I rarely purchase this sort of thing for myself, but tend to buy jewellery for my Mum - but what I'm loving at the moment is the 'window shopping'experience. Rocks & Co have some fabulous gemstones in sizes, quality and varieties that most people will rarely get the chance to see. I highly recommend it but make sure you lock the credit card away first. They have a ring resizing service, but much to my dismay have thus far been unable to resize my credit card! That 27ct Rubellite will have to wait.

Finally, Thursday nights is now music night for me. I have my piano lesson straight after work and then from there I head straight out to Bolton for choir practice! After careful consideration I decided to join SingLiveUK, who recruit amatuer singers for events that they organise all over the UK, and sometimes overseas too. (There is a group at the Vatican this weekend!) I'll be taking part in the performance of Sing The Music of the Big Bands at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester on June 28th. Tickets are available online from https://www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk or direct from SingLiveUK. Personally, I am very excited and can't wait to get back into singing after 12 years of musical silence! We'll be performing some of my personal favourites made famous by the likes of the Rat Pack and, more recently for the younger generation, Michael Buble and Robbie Williams. Incidentally, I will also be the third person in my immediate family to give a musical performance to a public audience: My Granny was a violinist for the Halle Orchestra many years ago and my Dad performed a few years ago at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness.

Life and Death

It has been an odd sort of week...

Patrick McGoohan died on Tuesday 13th January at the age of 80. I'm sure most people will remember him for his role as 'Number Six' in the cult TV series, The Prisoner, but I will always remember him most fondly for his utterly Machiavellian performance in the Mel Gibson film 'Braveheart' as Edward Longshanks. What a shame my generation didn't get the chance to see more of him.

Ricardo Montalban died on Wednesday 14th January aged 88. A stunning actor with a velvet voice, he has and always will be KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! He was a superb and totally underrated and underused acting talent who completely stole the show from William Shatner in Star Trek II. I had always hoped that one day I might meet this acting Titan and sadly that is no longer possible.

Television and film has lost two of it's best sons. May they rest in peace and may their legacies continue long into the future.

On Thursday January 15th, I witnessed something I never believed possible: a large passenger jet made a perfect landing... on water... with every single passenger and crew member walking away! For anyone that doubts it, the skill involved in landing on water is beyond comprehension. The angle at which the aircraft makes contact with the water has to be just right... nose too high and the tail will be ripped off by the force of the impact, nose too low and the aircraft will plunge into the water and somersault tail over nose, tearing the fuselage to shreds. The aircraft has to be perfectly level too... if one of the engines or wings touches the water before the other, it will be sent spinning out of control, pulling it to pieces. Carrying out this kind of perfect landing under power is hard enough, but with the added difficulty of having no engines (which also means no power or hydraulic assistance!) achieving any kind of survivable landing is truly remarkable. The pilot, Chelsey Sullenberger, is a hero and deserves a medal for his skill.


And so, in a week that has taken two wonderful actors, it has given us 155 lives in return. I'd call that a fair deal.