Posts Tagged ‘Liverpool’

Wellington's Column Liverpool

Every work day I pass Wellington’s Column (or the Waterloo Memorial) on the corner of William Brown Street and Lime Street in Liverpool.

I think I may have spent too much time at work using Google Analytics and playing with numbers this week…

The following fact has absolutely no practical value I can think of…

On the first five days of March a seagull was stood on Wellington’s head four days out of five when I went past in the morning.

I had hoped to post a gallery of Go Penguin photographs I took after work tonight in St George’s Hall Liverpool as sixty of them are displayed before being put up for auction later in the week.  Photoshop doesn’t seem to want to do the image processing automatically so I’ll have to go through them and do them one at a time myself.  If you’re in Liverpool Thursday 4th February they’ll be on display from 8:30AM to 8PM.  Well worth a visit to look at the hall (which I got some good photos of too) as well as the penguins.

I’ve been living in Liverpool since the early ’90s and I can’t remember snow this deep.  Certainly beats the light dusting of snow in December.

See also: Winter Wonderland – Snow Day and Snow day :).

While doing a few bits odd an ends of Christmas shopping in Liverpool I did a bit of Go Penguin hunting. They’re sneaky and elusive creatures that like hiding in crowds of children. Here are the ones I managed to get shots of. The first few shots hint at the heavy snow that blanketed Liverpool briefly but had already vanished by the time I reached the city centre.

Oh dear looks like I need to get my grumpy hat out for both Il Forno and The Informant…

Went to Il Forno on Duke Street in Liverpool for dinner before going to see the early evening showing of The Informant at FACT.  Things started well with quick service and an excellent swordfish tart starter (with a name far too long to remember).  Unfortunately this is the point at which I have to become Mr Grumpy.  If a waiter announces that your pizzas are amongst the 10 best in the whole country they’d better be very good.  I’ve certainly had better pizzas from two other restaurants in Liverpool, two Liverpool takeaways, a restaurant in London and a takeaway in Sheffield.  Unfortunately both pizzas we ordered were described as bland so it wasn’t just me.   Personally I’d have prefered a more interesting pizza that was half the size.  To be fair I’ve had far worse ones in lots of places too.  Then I could have tried one of the deserts they offered us three times.  Overall opinion starter good, service OK and I’d try a different main course if I went again.

So on to the real main course of the evening as it were, the film The Informant picked largely because nothing else was on that appealed.  First could someone explain to me why Matt Damon was playing Mark Whitacre in the style of William H. Macy.  Did he have a bet with George Clooney, couldn’t they get William H. Macy himself or did someone decide that William H. Macy wasn’t a big enough name to star so cast Matt Damon to try and sell the film to audiences?

The story itself was a mess that every time it threatened to get interesting ran away from itself.  The meat was the technicality of the various crimes, deceptions and alleged crimes.  Each time they got close to one they brushed it out of sight as though it was scary stuff requiring a bit of (oh no!) thought and comprehension.  It was like watching a heist film in which showing a safe being cracked was technical and boring so lets not bother.  Hang on though did they really think this film was going to attract an audience who were looking for a no brainer action flick?

Then there was the really odd sound track and the 1970s retro font.  Fine except the film was set in the 1990s.  There were a large number of supporting characters who became interesting and then vanished.  Scott Bakula in particular was there and then suddenly gone treatment.  I’d make a Quantum Leap reference but it would be too easy a joke.  Now you may say this was based on a real life story but as they made clear before the film started they’d taken liberties with it.  So why not take the liberty needed to make it interesting?

The Informant just didn’t seem to know what it was: docudrama? docucomedy? In the end it was just docudisaster.  As it stands it’s a bad attempt at making a film in the style of a sprawling based on real life drama from the ’70s.  Maybe with William H. Macy and the Coen brothers directing possibly focusing on the investigation of what must have been an ever more bizarre situation it could have been a film worth seeing.  Personally I’d suggest saving your time and money.

Fanstastic Mr Fox is probably my favourite Roald Dahl children’s story.  So today I decided I’d go and see it at the Odeon in Liverpool 1 and crossed my fingers they’d not treated the source material as a slum clearance job it like Disney did with Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Given the source materials brevity it’s unsurprising they had to pad it to make it up to feature length.  The core story still sits at the heart of the film but a additions at the start and the end along with some padding in the middle brought it up to its 87 minutes.  While none of the additions were bad the incomprehensible sport seemed to me to be a joke forced a little to hard.  On reflection and a quick reread of the original story the ending is probably, saddly a little two Hollywood.  Maybe something less action orientated and closer to the heist movie theme that works so well earlier on.  They were almost there but not quite.  One last big job to break into a highly secure supermarket knowing it was a trap might have worked.

George Clooney and Meryl Streep had a lot of work to do and both delivered good performances.  Willem Dafoe’s take on the rat made his my favourite character of the film.  It was completely different from his Raven Shaddock performance in Streets of Fire (1984) but just as distinctive.  Part of me wonders what his take on Mr Fox would have been.  If you need someone to nail that kind of bad guy he’s still got it.  Michael Gambon was another exceptionally fine choice for Bean and while I had to check on IMDB Brian Cox was another fine piece of casting.

The animation style reminded me of Jill Bennetts illustrations in the book and was very well done.  Unfortunately it wasn’t quite up to the standards of say an Aardman Animation but was by no means sloppy.  Somehow Aardman’s work looks more cinematic and less like some of the eastern European animations of the 1970’s.  However maybe that was the look they were trying for in which case they nailed it.  Anyone with the resources or time to do stop animation deserves a great deal of respect.

Ignoring my gripes about the way the original material was expanded I’d say it was a very enjoyable 87 minutes.

I saw it on the first showing of the day in a screen which I thought I had to myself till someone else left from the very back at the end.  Odeon really need to get on top of their cleaning because if the cinema is dirty for the first show of the day what hope is there for the later shows?

• @KimKnox SpaceFluffin aX da univers, On d Starship Enterprise under Capt Knox. SFin aX da univers, 1ly goin fwd cauz we cnt fnd reverse. in reply to KimKnox #
• @KimKnox lol It was in my head messing up my editing so I thought I’d share it in reply to KimKnox #
• Doubt they ment this for working out comparative value of money stolen at different famous robberies http://bit.ly/c8VC6 #
• A good days editing almost got a complete piece to send off. Now a little light relaxation before bed… #
• listening to “Johnny Clegg & Savuka – One (Hu)’ Man One Vote” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b1stj #
• listening to “Tasmin Archer – Lords of the New Church” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b1t4h #
• listening to “nik kershaw one world” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b1tkw #
• @guardiantech G-Force http://bit.ly/HyvGW but Bruckheimer’s got a short memory Cats&Dogs did spy pets 8 yrs ago in reply to guardiantech #
• listening to “Billy Bragg – Moving The Goalposts” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b2qox #
• listening to “Ofra Haza Im Nin Alu” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b2r4a #
• Haggis invented in England? http://bit.ly/1olEv5 Doesn’t really matter its Scottish now.
  Just glad I’m not in a meeting with the SAA today. #
• listening to “Sisters of Mercy – Temple of Love ‘92″ ♫ http://blip.fm/~b2uo7 #
• @jearle Looks like there might be something fishy going on http://bit.ly/4hyQyv in reply to jearle #
• listening to “Nickel Creek- Hanging by a thread” ♫ http://blip.fm/~b2wmr #
• RT @criticalhits criticalhitsTop 10 Comic Book Cities from Architects Journal http://is.gd/20FDx #
• 2 Sites updated without a hitch RT wordpressWordPress 2.8.3: http://bit.ly/Qf1Cx #
• Akismet 227 : Spammers 0 #
• @very_true_thing I’ve no fish knife hang up but I did buy ice cream spoons on Sat so I can get the last of the jam out of jars – go with age in reply to very_true_thing #
• @very_true_thing It gets worse they do long handled melon spoons too. Is there a market for CDGs (Collectable Dinnerservice Games)? in reply to very_true_thing #
• RT @DanDiplo Is this the best programming related song ever? http://bit.ly/InfF0 #
• @very_true_thing I’ve seen grapefruit knives but never tomato knives – does that mean those are an Ultra rare or just a Promo? in reply to very_true_thing #
• Will you click unfollow, Oh ethereal twit spammers, By autumn? #poem #
• Back from round trip to London to see client. Liverpool a lot warmer. #
• What fuels US sitcom writers? Sort of a RT of @KenLevine http://bit.ly/aqBxN #
• What (if anything) should we read into it if Clarkson is hit by a meteorite now? #
• RT @richeym: @DanDiplo @impworks He does have a way with lyrics. Probably has the best zombie-related song too: http://bit.ly/9j3Ih #
• Is this cartoon the best comment on Bingoo deal? http://bit.ly/H8CGY #
• Quantum physics announcement on the Tube yesterday “Please use all entrances to enter the station” Are passengers wavicles? #
• Is it me or does aquiavic’s comment on my blog make no sense or is it some new sort of weird spam? http://bit.ly/3Shlg #
• Just saw a picture listed on a stock photo site described as “London Sky line 1970s”. Just one thing – when was the Gerkin built? lol #
• For the spec that just went in the recycling bin ♫ http://blip.fm/~b8xmf #
• RT: mediaguardian Twitter’s Evan Williams grilled on Demi Moore in Newsnight interview: http://bit.ly/3NNDTz [The claws come out at the end] #
• RIP John Hughes http://bit.ly/tTBGs ♫ http://blip.fm/~ba1cq #
• @KimKnox You did but don’t worry – I just saw a twitterer who posted the same tweet every 5 minutes for a day… in reply to KimKnox #
• RT @jearle Dear Tony Carter, You don’t get it, you’re an idiot. KTHXBYE. http://bit.ly/1Acpxs #
• RT @guardianweekly American word introduced into the office – neatnik: a person overly obsessed with tidiness, particularly IN the office #
• @KimKnox Or you didn’t and I saw it on your RSS feed lol.Too many ways to keep up these days.Should just turn everything off once a week. #
• RT @guardiantech: Twist in the tale of questioning spam http://bit.ly/sR5mq #
• RT @guardiantech: Charlie’s Angles: Why can’t local government and open source be friends? http://bit.ly/KPOVY #

at least if their a tennant. The picture is of a leaflet sent out by Arena Housing and they have now apologised (see the BBC for more details). Last year another Liverpool landlord put notices on the house of tennants who they say hadn’t paid their rent. A growing number of tennants are being evicted or forced to move because while we have to go through credit checks and put down deposits a property owners word is their bond as far as estate agents are concerned. I got a letter a few weeks ago from the agency I rent through which started out with a threatening tone and carried on that way implying legal threats even though it was they who were at risk of breaking the law and their contractors who had failed to contact me using any of the three phone numbers, email or by sending a letter.

Don’t get me wrong I understand that there are bad tennants. Ones who don’t pay their rent or who wreck a property. I’ve seen a flat where there were footprints on the walls from floor to six feet off the ground. Not just a few but enough to leave you wondering. I’ve also been shown a house that was being let that the landlord couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t let even though one room had a ceiling covered solid in fungi. A friend of mine was charged by their landlord after moving for batteries for the smoke alarm – a smoke alarm they had fitted themselves saving the landlord from breaking the law.

Getting back to my original point – are there really many businesses where customers paying thousands of pounds each year are treated with such utter contempt?

Third Person

Mark Caldwell was born in the early 1970s. Some years later he studied Building Service and Environmental Engineering and then a Postgraduate Certificate of Software Technology at Liverpool University in the early 1990s. Mark’s first full time job saw him divide his time between travelling round Merseyside with the Internet Express, a project taking the Internet into libraries when no one knew what the World Wide Web was, and Virtual Reality projects. He moved onto supporting the delivery of Liverpool University website and then the development of content management systems that underpin a variety of web-based projects alongside other varied duties.

He has written articles for Valkyrie Magazine and Ragnarok, also illustrating some of these articles. He helps to organise the SFSFW’s annual show – Bifrost. He is looking to be published in a magazine without a name drawn from Norse legend. He has no objections to other mythological references.

Mark Caldwell has yet to sell his first story despite being over thirty years old. He admits his art really won’t be being hung in galleries anytime soon. He is still looking for an appealing anecdote for his biography. He is also really uncomfortable writing about himself in the Third Person like this.

First Person

Writing about myself always seems odd. Last time I made a website just for myself I stuck my CV up on it and hoped that would do for an About Me page. Unfortunately it also seemed to attract job offers I wasn’t looking for. These came mainly from strange companies in Texas, who sent long e-mails telling me about their company’s guard dog. This time I decided not to use my CV. I’d write something. I claim to be able to write. So how hard could writing about me be?

So I’m a thirty something computer systems developer / programmer by day. I never really meant to spend my days wrangling code. Somehow it just happened. I set out to be an architect and wound up trained as an engineer instead. Finding myself at a loose end after my degree, during what they politely term a downturn in the building industry, I took a postgraduate computing course and found myself caught up in the Internet boom. That’s when I started getting strange e-mails from Texas.

By night and on weekends I find myself creating things. Sometimes it’s a picture. Sometimes it’s a story. Sometimes it’s a game. I’ve a hard drive, filling cabinets and backups littered with my unfinished works. Sometimes I actually complete something.

I’ve been published in Valkyrie (a magazine once produced by Partizan Press), Ragnarok (the journal of the SFSFW) and in some long forgotten ‘zines. Some of the articles can be found scattered around this site. A few years ago I decided it was time to try my hand at fiction. I’m currently working on finishing a novella, a novel and some short stories. I also have a small skirmish miniatures game that is almost finished.

Most of my pictures are made using 3D computer graphics, although I do still dabble in more traditional methods of drawing, painting and photography. Some of my pictures have appeared in Valkyrie and Ragnarok alongside my articles. I’ve recently been exploring the possibilities of developing scripts that enhance the capabilities of the software I use and some of the more promising results of that work can be downloaded from this site.

Went to see Transporter 3 at the Liverpool One Odeon last night. It delivers exactly what it says on the packet – a straight forward action film. Of the three films I’d say its plot it probably the most coherent (well as coherent as any of them). I’d like to have seen more of François Berléand’s Inspector Tarconi. Glad to see less of the CG effects that crept into Transporter 2.