Chocolate and Vodka

Summary of posts over on the new incarnation of Chocolate and Vodka, oh, and please don't comment here anymore

Suw Charman — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:38:15 +0000

I'm trying to keep everything all together over on the new version of CnV, so have taken the decision to no longer publish comments submitted here. I'm only going to post the occasional summary of new posts, and will probably even give that up after a few months. If you haven't changed your RSS feed yet, please do so.

Meantime, here's where the action is:

Wisdom of crowds, part 2: Hen nights
Wisdom of crowds, part 1: Honeymoons
Catch-up
Wisdom tooth update
ORG Day!
Toothless wonder
Gym progress

Vote for Neil!

Suw Charman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:27:20 +0000

OK, we all know I'm a devoted fan of Neil Gaiman. Devoted, if possibly a bit rubbish at actually doing fan-like things, such as standing in line for signings, making it to any of his recent appearances in London, or buying everything he's ever released. I hang my head in shame for that and hope that he'll forgive me.

To make up for such shoddy behaviour, I hereby implore you all to go and vote for Neil in the 2007 Weblog Awards Best Literature Blog category. He's doing pretty well so far, but Pepys' Diary is creeping up behind, so he still needs your votes. It'll take just a second of your time, I promise you, so go vote!

"Wedding" Flowers and "Wedding" Cake

Suw Charman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:06:15 +0000

A new post, that you can read on my new blog. :) And don't forget to change your RSS feed!

Shock dress news!

Suw Charman — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:33:08 +0000

But to get it, you'll have to go to the new blog... Or get the new RSS feed!

Getting there, bit by bit

Suw Charman — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:18:48 +0000

I think I've pretty much imported all of the old posts, including the old Blog-City posts that until now had been stuck on my laptop. The formatting's all gone to hell in a handbasket, but when I have a quiet moment one day I might start trying to fix at least some of the more recent ones. The theme is temporary - it will do until I find one that I prefer. And there are still a few additional tweaks and changes, but overall, it's come together much faster than I had thought it would. I've even got it all set up in Ecto too.

Guess you had better update your RSS feeds now.

Slowly, slowly move-y bloggy

Suw Charman — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:51:58 +0000

OK, so it's time. I have to move away from Blogware at some point, and the pain may as well start now whilst I'm already too busy to blog much. I have disabled anonymous comments on old post, turned off comments on new posts, and set all other comments to "moderate all", so that I can make sure that any comments that do get left on all posts are caputured and moved to the new blog. There will be very little activity here til I complete move over, so please accept my apologies for that. It might take a while - I'll post here just as soon as I have things sorted.

Jack o' Lanterns 2008

Suw Charman — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:45:37 +0000

This year's carvings:

My witch and cat familiar.

Kev's Jack Skellington.

I love carving pumpkins. This year we got a proper carving set with tiny saws, a plastic 'drill' and all sorts. Made it much, much easier than trying to do it with a kitchen knife. Probably safer, too.

Me working on transferring the hand-drawn design:

Gutting the pumkin:

One tooth none the richer

Suw Charman — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:27:02 +0100

It's been a while since I've whined about my wisdom tooth, but it's that time again. It's been shifting about since April last year, on and off, with a series of minor infections, aches, and general unpleasantness. The other day I caught a look at it in the mirror, and frankly, it's just sitting there, rotting. So last week I went to see my dentist down in Dorset, to plead with him to remove it. When he looked at it last, a few years ago, he took an x-ray which showed that it was embedded too deeply to easily remove, and would need to be pulverised by ultrasound under general anaesthetic. Yeah, that didn't sound fun to me either.

Now, however, it's a different kettle of fish, as it's surfaced considerably, with only a small corner still hidden in the back of my jaw. So, it's time. I can't say that I've ever looked forward to having a tooth pulled out, but in all honesty, I am looking forward to November 15th, when a local anaesthetic and probably quite a bit of tugging will hopefully result in me being one tooth the poorer.

It also gives me a good excuse to take a few days off, as it's going to hurt like hell and I'm sure I'm not going to want to do much the day after. I can't wait.

Stardust - a little slice of wonderfulness

Suw Charman — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:00:58 +0100

Regular readers will know that I'm what you might call a bit of a fan of Mr Neil, so it should come as no surprise to discover that I've been rather looking forward to Stardust, the film version of Mr Neil's book of the same name. It's been a while since I last read the book - it's currently packed away in a box in my parents' loft, along with about 75% of all my belongings - but like all Mr Neil's work, it's a book of which I have fond memories.

Unlike the awful mess that has been made of another of my favourite books, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, I never much worried about what the film makers would do to Stardust. Mr Neil was involved, and occasionally gave us snippets of news, so it always felt like the film was in good hands and that the only thing we need do was to sit back and await the day.

Well, the day turned out, in fact, to be a night: Last night. Tom, MrA*, Phil Gyford (whose name I've seen around for ages, but had never met before - seemed like a lovely chap), and I met up at the Odeon Leicester Square and went in for a not-quite-full 8.25pm showing.

OK, so herewith the short review: It's wonderful. Truly, truly wonderful. If you are hesitant about going, then don't be, just go. If you hadn't considered going, then take my word for it and go. And if for any bizarre reason you'd written it off as yet another crappy fantasy film that's not worth your hard earnt readies, then put that thought behind you and go. Because this is a film that will warm the cockles of your heart. It'll make you laugh, make you smile, make you giggle, and make you feel all warm and fuzzy, when it's over you'll wish that it was just beginning.

Now for the long review (and I'll try not to give you any spoilers, but if you're concerned, stop reading now and just go see the film).

Tristan Thorn (the fabulous Charlie Cox) is 18, works in a shop and is hopelessly in love with the beautiful, but shallow, Victoria (Sienna Miller). But Victoria, who never seems to get herself out of her nightie, has got her eye on the more dashing Humphrey, who's more well spoken, gives her roses in comparison to Tristan's rather tatty daffodils, and who is better than Tristan at everything. Especially fencing.

Tristan, in an effort to woo Victoria, takes her on a candlelit picnic, spending all the money he's saved on a bottle of champagne. She's duly impressed by the champers, but drops the bombshell that she's expecting Humphrey to to propose to her on her birthday, in seven days time, with the ring that he's going all the way to Ipswich to buy. Poor Tristan vows that he would go to London - London! - in order to buy a ring good enough for Victoria. He would go to Paris! He would go to the Arctic to kill a polar bear and give her the head! Together, they see a star, falling from the sky and, ever the romantic, vows to find the fallen star and give it to Victoria as a token of his love for her. She gives him a week - until her birthday - to retrieve the star.

Meantime, in Faerie, the land on the other side of the wall for which Tristan's town of Wall is named, the King of Stormhold (Peter O'Toole) is dying. Traditionally, the princes should have assassinated each other, with the last one standing being able to claim the crown. But the trouble is, there are four left - Septimus, Primus, Tertius and Secundus. Well, three, after Septimus pushes Secundus off the King's bedchamber balcony. So the King resorts to magic - he bleaches the red out of the royal ruby and casts it into the sky - the heir that finds the ruby and restores the colour will be king. As the King dies, and his sons set off to find it.

But in falling to earth, the ruby knocks a star from the heavens, and so Tristan's quest and that of the royal heirs is intertwined... But then there are also the witches after the fallen star, and the missing princess and Captain Shakespeare...

I just popped over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what their reviews are, and out of curiosity I read some of the bad ones, and frankly, did these people see the same film I did? (No links - I frankly don't want to give them any Google juice at all.) Apparently, it was poorly cast... let's just review that a second. Robert de Niro as Captain Shakepeare, Claire Danes as Yvaine, Michelle Pfeiffer as Lamia, Mark Heap as Tertius (aaaah, Spaced). Even Charlie Cox as Tristan was fabulous, and I'd never heard of him before.

Another charge was that Stardust had no plot. No plot? Er, hello? Were you asleep? It's got plenty of plot! And no, it doesn't have too much plot, either. It's got enough plot to keep you happy, with enough unexpected turns to keep you interested, but not so much twistiness that you get lots and confused.

My advice? Ignore the bad reviews. They were obviously watching a different movie.

Highlights, then. Michelle Pfeiffer plays evil witch Lamia, who has two sisters, Empusa and Mormo. They want the fallen star for themselves - it has the power to restore their youth and beauty. As it is, they have only the littlest bit left of the last one they caught, so Lamia uses it to recover her looks so that she can go out into the world to get the latest star to fall. Unfortunately, every time she uses her magical powers, it erodes her now good looks, exposing the ugly witch underneath. First to go are her hands, then her hair... and eventually, in one rather hysterically funny scene (probably more to me than most), she casts a spell and her boobs rather precipitously drop.

Robert de Niro plays Captain Shakespeare, the ruthless captain of a lightening-harvesting airship - a ship held aloft by a huge balloon. There's not much I can say about de Niro's performance that wouldn't totally give the game away, but he's fabulous.

Ricky Gervais does a guest turn too. To start with, I was really annoyed - it was Gervais doing Gervais, in a really annoying manner, but his come-uppance is one of the most satisfying moments of the film. Indeed, when Kev and I were walking round the park this morning, we saw a flock of seagulls (that is, a large group of white, sea-going birds, not the 80s band), and Kevin said "Oh look, a flock of Rickies!"

But Claire Danes and Charlie Cox really shine as Yvain and Tristan. They have a real chemistry together, and there are moments when Danes truly shines. As with all fantasy heroes, Tristan has to grow up, has to turn from the self-absorbed boy he was into the man he's destined to become, and Cox handles that transition very subtly. Mind you, he has some help, not least from a haircut that magically (as in, magic is done, not as in 'that was a continuity mistake') makes his hair longer, and the acquisition of a really rather lovely set of clothes.

Indeed, when young Tristan got his new suit, Kev turned to me and whispered "I think I've just had an idea." Hmm, I had the same idea, and it has to do with what he's going to wear one day in February next year.

Stardust is a really wonderful film. It's got a wry, but subtle sense of humour. It's got real warmth and heart. It's smart, and not scared of being intelligent. But more than that, it's fabulously romantic, the kind of romantic that we need more of - not soppy or schmaltzy, but proper fairytale romance, the sort that's a little bit dark in places, but has a true and faithful heart.

* I'm not sure I should call MrA "MrA" anymore, not after seeing the documentary on Steve Ditko, in which came to light that he did a cartoon called Mr. A, all about someone who saw things in rather too stark a black and white. Maybe it's back to T'Other.

CnV weirdness

Suw Charman — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:50:04 +0100

I just noticed that the emails from Blogware informing me that a comment has gone into moderation have been caught in Gmail's spam trap, and that there is no easy way for me to look at any comment beyond the 50th most recent. I fear this means that some of you may have left comments that never appeared, and which never will appear now because they are lost somewhere in the depths of Blogware's admin system.

I'm sorry about that.

I will be moving off Blogware onto an installation of Wordpress at some point, just as soon as I can get round to it.

The right (silk) stuff

Suw Charman — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:30:49 +0100

As well as trying hard to find exactly the right shade of burgundy card for the invitations, I've also been trying to find exactly the right silks for my wedding dress. Having finally settled on a dressmaker, who not only can do exactly what I want but can also do it at a reasonable price and without throwing a strop about "design rights" and attempting to charge for quotes, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the right fabric.

AnitaJane, my dressmaker, showed me a number of dupion silks by James O'Hare, some of which were lovely, but they didn't have any silk brocades, which we'll need for the insert in the skirt. Instead, I went off to Maculloch & Wallis, to see what they had, and found about half a dozen vaguely ivory-coloured brocades, and a few more burgundy silks. I also managed to get three brocade samples from Dalston Mill, but when you compared all the brocades with the ivory dupion, most of them were a long way away from being the right sort of ivory: too pink or too gold or too yellow. One was about right in shade, but it was a bit too subtle - from a distance you really wouldn't be able to see the detail. I thought I'd deal with this by beading it with pearls and burgundy Swarovski crystals, but that also seemed like an awful lot of work, not just because beading is quite slow and tedious, but also because it would require a whole new thought process about what would be an appropriate design.

Last week was Kevin and my anniversary - two years ago we had our first date, and so Kevin booked us in to one of our favourite restaurants, Andrew Edmund. We had about an hour to spare before our booking, though, so we wandered round Soho looking for a place to have a quick pre-dinner drink. That's a lot easier said than done on a Friday night in London, especially when a warm day has people grasping at summery straws, pretending that autumn hasn't really set in, honest guv. We ended up in a vodka bar that appeared to be mainly frequented by gangsters. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. Kev has a good street sense about these things, and I'd put money on there being various mafias present that evening. We finished our drinks and legged it.

On our way back from the dodgy bar, we walked down Broadwick Street, right past Broadwick Silks. They had some brocades in the window that immediately caught my eye, so yesterday we went back for a closer look. It seemed that they had a much bigger range of silks than Macculloch & Wallis, although M&W only put samples out on display, keeping the rolls themselves behind the counter, so it's really hard to judge. But Broadwick Silks' staff were dramatically nicer, letting me browse when I wanted to, and then helping me out when I asked.

I earmarked a few silks to examine further, then I told the assistant what I was doing and what I was looking for, and pointed out the rolls I liked the look of. She asked me if I had the fabric for the rest of the skirt, explaining that it is actually hard to match fabrics off a swatch, and that if I buy all the ivory I need from them, both the dupion and the brocade, then I can ensure a better match. She went on to explain that silks are dyed in batches, and that so long as the colour is within 10% lighter or darker - within "industry tolerances" - then it's deemed a match, but you can't really tell until you have a large piece to compare.

We haven't bought the ivory dupion yet, so she showed me the dupion that would go with the silks that I had chosen, and you could see it was a good match. I ended up buying 10cm of each, so I have a decent amount of fabric to play with. The assistant agreed that my choice was a bit more period than the alternatives - it's actually not a brocade, it's a dupion that's embroidered and beaded.

(For those of you who don't know, a brocade is "a rich fabric, usually silk, woven with a raised pattern, typically with gold or silver thread"; a dupion is "a rough slubbed silk fabric woven from the threads of double cocoons"; and a slub is "a lump or thick place in yarn or thread". There, I bet you thought I'd never explain.)

This is all very exciting! Firstly, it means I don't have to do so much beadwork as I had expected. Secondly, it's going to look more period, and thirdly, I can go in some time next week and buy the fabric I need, in time for my second fitting. Of course, on the way back towards Oxford Street, we passed two more fabric shops, so I don't suppose for a second that I'll be able to resits popping in to make sure that they don't have anything better, but I really do think I've found the right silks now.

You'll noticed that I said "second fitting" - had the first one on Thursday. Really all it was just having my measurements taken, trying on a corset again and making a few decisions on how I want to adjust the shape, and deciding on a skirt pattern. Pretty simple stuff, but it's exciting to be making these decisions and getting on with it all.

Of course, as the process progresses, I find myself changing my mind about things, and refining what I want. I was originally going to have lace trim on my corset, for example, but have since decided that pearls (or rather, Czech glass pearls, given that real ones are rather expensive to buy in bulk) would be more appropriate ... and less work. I still intend to use lace on the skirt, but I'm also considering whether pearls might not work better there too... it's a rather organic process, this, which means high cognitive overheads as I do more research and try to make decisions, but also gives me a real feeling of ownership. This dress, for better or for worse, will be a true expression of my personality, not just some pretty thing I picked out of a book.

Makes me wish I had room in my flat for a sewing machine.

Somewhere between here and there

Suw Charman — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:12:13 +0100

I'm writing this on my old Palm Vx, which I dug up the last time I went home. In nearly pristine condition, it's a relic from my web designer days, when I needed to keep track of an awful lot of meetings and was given this by my boss to do so. As soon as I left that job, I found I didn't really need it, so it was put away for half a decade to emerge only now.

It's funny how stylish it still looks - actually, it looks nicer than Kevin's Tungsten T5, and if you can't see the screen, it could pass for something new. I used to be quite good at the Graffiti alphabet used to input text, and am quickly getting my chops back. Certainly it's quicker than trying to type on the Nokia E61's tiny keyboard. Battery life is fab, and the flash memory means no faffing around with stupidly long menu trees to save stuff.

The problem is that it doesn't seem possible to sync it any more. I have a serial to USB adaptor, and the Palm Desktop in both Mac and PC flavours, but the Mac refuses to recognise that there is anything there to sync with, whilst the PC sees the device but can't figure out how to talk to it. I've spent a fair amount of time fiddling, but nothing seems to help. Palm Vx and computer just don't like each other any more. Perhaps the laptops feel the ol' Palm is just too passé.

But hoorah! All is not lost. It turns out that I can beam documents from the Vx to my E61 using infrared, then I can Bluetooth them from the E61 to my Macbook. In theory, this works the other way round too, as the E61 can beam files to the Palm but in practice the Palm can't recognise the file contents, so displays them as truncated gobbledegook.

What this means is that I can't add any new Palm apps to the Vx, so I can't add AvantGo (which it used to have), so I can't cram it full of stuff to read. It is, effectively, a write-only device. There is not much else it can do that's of any use. Yes, the other apps all work, but I don't do much calculating on a daily basis, and an address book on an un-networked device is a bit useless. So really all I can do is write... No disturbances. No multitasking. No interruption. (Although also, no spell checker either.)

I've started to carry it with me wherever I go, and scribbling down scraps of blog posts whilst on the tube or, as today, on the plane. (Let's just say that going to Berlin and back in one day is not necessarily a habit I would encourage anyone to get into.) The amount of stuff I've got going on never seems to diminish, and time for blogging seems to be getting harder and harder to come by. But maybe by using the little lost moments on the tube I can get more written.

The unexpected benefit of resurrecting this old thing is the retro geek joy it engenders. At Future of Web Apps, everyone I showed it too cooed as if it were something new and exciting, like an iPod Touch. I think people have fond memories of Palms from this era - they were certainly nicer than many of their contemporary competitors - but these days Palm devices feel old and unloved. If only Palm would do a serious update of both their OS and their desktop. Syncing and conduits and stuff are just all so boring - we want it to just work, not to be a right royal pain the backside. (Although frankly, all syncing is a right royal pain in the backside, if you ask me.)

Anyway, I am not going to promise anything, but it is possible that I will get more blogging done now.

Maybe.

Swishes, swashes and swashbuckling

Suw Charman — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:48:55 +0100

After finally getting all the right shades of paper and card to make our invitations, the next thing to get sorted was the wording and the typesetting. If you've ever bought a wedding magazine, and I pity you if you have, you'll have noticed that they tend to come with half a forest's worth of inserts, usually including at least one from a stationers advertising invitation printing. Some of those brochures even have suggestions of how to word your invitations, so I thought that it'd be a pretty easy thing to figure out.

Wrong.

Ok, so if you want to be traditional about these things, then there are a number of forms and rules that you have to follow. Firstly, who's hosting the wedding? The bride and groom? Bride's family? Bride, groom and both families? Bride's and groom's families? Groom's family? Divorced parents? Divorced parent who has remarried? Widowed parent? Old Uncle Tom Cobbly? All (of the above)?

We're being quite traditional in some senses, so my parents are hosting the weddings. Right, so that's:

Mr & Mrs Robert Charman

Now, do you "request the pleasure of your company" or "request the honour of your presence"? A not-so-quick Google discovered that you use "request the honour of your presence" for religious venues, and "request the pleasure of your company" for non-religious venues. Ok, so we're getting married in a public school (always feels weird saying that), ergo:

request the pleasure of your company

Except, these are for form invitations, where you're not stating the person's name. Each one of our invitations names the people invited, so:

request the pleasure of the company of

One then spells out the name of the recipient in full. I had a bit of a moment there when I was trying to figure out if it should be Mr Nigel Charman and Mrs Margaret Charman, or Mr & Mrs Nigel Charman. I ended up going with the latter, mainly for space reasons but also because it sounds a bit more formal. It is a wee bit sexist, but it is just too much to spell out everyone's name in full. The only time we broke with this male first rule was when we were inviting a friend and their (named) partner, and the friend was female. Just seemed wrong to be inviting someone we didn't know as an adjunct to someone we did!

The next bit's easy, given that my parents are hosting:

at the marriage of their daughter

I'm their daughter, I'm getting married, so no arguments there really.

Susan M....

Ok, so now we do have a problem. I don't mind my name in full, but it seems strange given that whilst Susan is my full name, my mother is the only person who uses it. Apart from immigration officials, and they don't count. Kevin preferred not to use his full name, so it becomes:

Suw Charman
to
Kevin Anderson

Still following me?

Then it's the date, which some people say you should spell out in full, e.g. Saturday, the sixteenth of February two thousand and eight. Now, one could slap an 'Anno Domini' in there too, just to pep things up a bit, but again, it gets a bit too wordy.

Now time for another couple of rules: The prepositions should be on a separate line:

on
Saturday, 16th February 2008 at 2.30 p.m.

And the date should come first. Except, of course, when it doesn't, and I've seen plenty of invitation examples where the location comes first and the date second. I can't find the guide that insisted it was the other way round, but that's what we ended up with. I also didn't put the prepositions on a separate line, because it just took up too much room. Ooh, such a rebel.

RSVP is to the Mother of the Bride, even if she did protest otherwise, and I chose to include email and phone as well as the traditional postal address.

And there we are! Done! Sort of...

Next up was the font. Again, easy enough to get ideas from samples and brochures, and my first stab at it ended up looking like it had come straight out of the pages of the Confetti stationery brochure, with a copperplate type font for everything except our names, which was done in a big swoopy calligraphic font, Edwardian Script IT.

I have to say, at this stage I wasn't particularly enamoured of our invitations, so I had a chat with my friend Matt Patterson, whose arm I twisted into agreeing to have a look at my typesetting. He gave me a few tips, the main one of which was to find a font with "non-lining (old-style) figures, i.e. numbers where they're the height of lower-case letters and some of them stick up (8) and others stick down (3, 9)." Inspiration!

A few of my friends are designers or into typography, so I asked around for fonts and links, and was given a selection of suggestions to look at, some of which come pre-installed on one's Mac. For the terminally curious, my shortlist was:

Aquiline
Aquiline Two
Blackmoor LET
Casablanca Antique
Dominican
Goudy Old Style
Hoefler Text
IM FELL DW Pica
IM FELL English
IM FELL French Canon
IM FELL Three Line Pica
JSL Ancient
Lucida Blackletter
Ludovicos
Xenippa
Zapfino
Monotype Corsiva

There are some really nice fonts here, some of them with that sort of 17th century feel, which is appropriate given that the wedding has a very light 'somewhere in the middle of the last millennium' feel to it (I wouldn't go as far as to say "theme" because there's no way I can get MrA into doublet and hose, let alone a codpiece).

One thing I learnt is that Hoefler Text has all these really cool ligatures that you can enable:

That really got me going. Swashes! That long archaic s that looks like an f but with only half the crossbar, if anything. Trouble is, whilst Hoefler Text is nice, it's not exactly quite as old-style as I would like. I did experimental invitations with Aquiline, IM FELL English and Ludovicos instead, and after quite a bit of faffing about, decided on a mix of Aquiline and Aquiline Two for the main body of the invitation, with IM FELL English for the RSVP address - at low point sizes, Aquiline and Aquiline Two really don't work.

And it turns out that Aquiline has a nice long archaic s too. Question is, when do you use a long s, and when do you use a short one? I ended up on Andrew West's blog, BabelStone, reading two posts that he wrote last year: The Long and the Short of the Letter S, and The Rules for Long S. Both are really fascinating and worth a read. They conclude that the rules for the use of a long s are:

* short s is always used at the end of a word
* short s is always used before an apostrophe (e.g. clos'd, us'd, and in French books words like s'il and s'eſt)
* short s is always used before 'f' (e.g. ſatisfaction, misfortune, transfuſe, transfix, transfer, succeſsful)
* short s is sometimes used before 'b' (e.g. husband, Shaftsbury)
* short s is sometimes used before 'k' (e.g. ask, risk, skin, skill)
* long s is used before a hyphen at line break (e.g. neceſ-ſary, pleaſ-ed), even when it would normally be a short s (e.g. Shaftſ-bury in a book where Shaftsbury is normal)
* long s is maintained in abbreviations such as Geneſ. for Geneſis

OK! That's easy!

Having added in the long s in the appropriate places, I then started to think that the wording needed a bit of work - it just seemed a bit flat and uninspired. Obviously you can't faff around too much with things like time and date - they are what they are - but you can have a bit of fun with the rest of it. We ended up, after much agonising, with:

Miſter & Miſtreſs Robert Charman
requeſt the pleaſure of the company of

Mr & Mrs Nigel Charman

on the occaſsion of the marriage of their daughter

Miſs Suw Charman
to
Miſter Kevin Anderson

etc. etc.

Now we come to capitalisation. In modern English, we don't capitalise all that much, really, and the trend in colloquial writing seems to be to capitalise less and less. But I remember, years ago, seeing a reproduction of Shakespeare's First Folio, and he seemed to capitalise all over the place! It was explained to me at the time by my actor friend that this was to emphasise the key words, so that the actors could more easily remember their lines. I've done a bit of a Google to try to find out if that's true and if there were rules about capitalisation in Elizabethan English, but have so far been unsuccessful (although if there's anyone around who knows about these things, I'm still curious!).

In the end, I decided on capitalising the words that looked important. Then there was a bit of ... well, quite a lot of ... fiddling with the kerning and leading, and eventually we ended up with:

All we have to do now is finish putting them together and get them in the post. Turns out there are a whole bunch of conventions about how you write envelopes but, well, frankly? Bugger that.

The post that would be longer if it wasn't so short

Suw Charman — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 01:08:07 +0100

Off for nearly 3 weeks, so no blogging during that period. Back after hols. Yay! Hols!

Weirdipedia

Suw Charman — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:46:21 +0100

This morning, just before I woke up, I had a dream that my Wikipedia page was up for deletion, and that I was making the case for keeping it by saying that 83 pages had linked to it and that it's bad form to wilfully rot links.

I woke up somewhat bemused by my dream, but couldn't resist checking to see if my Wikipedia page is still there. It is, but only just - it's been marked for deletion, you see. (And it only has about six pages linking to it. I just had to check that, too.)

I don't see anything psychic in this as it was marked for deletion - or, as they put it, merging with the Open Rights Group page - on 17 August but my psyche never bothered to mention it until this morning. Maybe the ether's got really bad latency. Anyway, Betsy Devine spoke up on my behalf saying that the stub should be retained, and now a couple of other people have too, which is nice.

I have always felt a bit strange about my Wikipedia entry. On the one hand, if it had never been put up, I never would have said that there was any need to create it - I'm not convinved that I'm that notable a person, except in the areas of British digital rights activism and social software/blogging, where I would like to think I have made a positive contribution. On the other hand, now that I have a Wikipedia page, I'd be sad to see it go. That's human nature I think - having something taken away is worse than not being given it in the first place.

Later... It has come to my attention that my pages is being edited a bit now, with some more information being put up, which is nice. I could have done that myself, but Wikipedia policy is that you're not allowed to edit your own pages, so I've stayed well clear. But whether it stays, or whether it gets deleted still, only time will tell.

Stories from beyond the veil

Suw Charman — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:27:35 +0100

I wasn't very sure whether I should blog this publicly or not, because I fear it might actually be quite boring unless you're really into making wedding veils. But it has been pointed out to me that you are the best judges of what you find interesting, not me. So I'm bunging it up, and if it's not up your street, you can always skip it. But I must warn you, there'll be yet more wedding blogging over the next few days...

So, a few weeks ago, I bought three metres of tulle in order to make my 'test veil', but when I spread it all out I realised that not only is three metres quite a lot of tulle, but that there's also just nowhere near enough room in our flat to spread it all out flat. I also learnt that it's really hard to fold that much tulle up on your own in a confined space.

Last Tuesday, I went back to Dorset to get some wedding planning done whilst Kev was away on his trip. Mum and Dad have a lot more room in their place than we do, so I took down the tulle so that I could work up the alpha version of the veil.

The main set of instructions I'm using were written by Jennifer Haley, but there's this Michael's Stores illustration of how to make a veil as well, and lots of veil pictures on The Veil Shop to give you an idea of how it should look. What I'm going for is a two layer veil, with a fingertip or waltz length lower layer, and a blusher that comes to just above my elbows. The exact lengths will be determined at my first fitting for the dress, so that I can make sure that the veil and dress work perfectly together.

So, right before we get to the whole making the veil thing, a little geometry. When you think about a veil, you think about something that's longer than it is wide, right? Hm, yes, me too. And when you read the 'making a veil' instructions, they all make it sound like you're making something that's longer than it is wide too. But the tulle is 108" wide, and if the blusher is 50" long, and the blusher is 35" long, that's 85" long... which means that the rectangle of tulle that I'm working with is actually wider than it is long.

The key thing to getting a veil that hangs well, with lots of wavy edges that cascade down your back, is the shape of the tulle. In Jennifer's instructions, she suggests that you fold the tulle in half, and round the corners off with a radius equal to half the full width. Indeed, the diagram makes that look like a pretty simple thing. But the problem is, with a rectangle that's wider than it is long, you run out of length before you've finished your half-width curves. Indeed, given that the curve for the blusher has even less length than the curve for the waltz layer, the whole thing ends up being, well, a bit squished.

Rather than the expected U shape, geometry insists we have a sort of asymetrically flattened 0 on its side.

So, right, Veil Mark 1. I cut the tulle to roughly the right length and rounded off the corners with a radius of 24", which was at that time my estimate for the length of the blusher.

This is where I have to interject that tulle is a right bugger to cut. It doesn't matter how sharp your scissors, it's a nightmare to get a straight line or, indeed, a smooth curve. It's also quite hard to cut tulle if you have a kitten sat on it.

Anyway, back to the veil. I folded the blusher part over, and then used whipstitch to gather up the tulle along the fold, leaving 24" on either side ungathered. I didn't have a comb so I had to test it out by pinning it to my hair with one of mum's spring-loaded interlocking toothy comby thingies. You know the sort of thing I mean.

Can't say that I was overly pleased with the way that this one worked. It didn't really hang all that well - you couldn't really see any of the edges cascading in a nice wavy way, nor was the blusher long enough.

Veil Mark 2. I'd only loosely sewn the veil up, so it was easy enough to undo the gather, and fold more fabric over for a longer blusher - this time, 34". I also this time whipstiched all along the fold, from edge to edge, rather than just gathering in the centre. Whilst the blusher looked about the right length once pinned to my hair, it really didn't fall well, and the waltz layer looked again quite drab.

Mum kindly offered me her veil, but whilst it's a lovely veil it's way too short, but I spent some time studying it and trying to figure out how it had been made. It seemed to me to be made of two separate pieces of tulle, rather than one that's been folded, so I decided to try that tactic.

The problem with the folded tulle is that the gathers of the blusher become smooshed up with the gathers of the waltz layer, and it become hard to separate them when you bring the blusher forward to cover your face. That affects the way that the tulle falls, and it obscures the edges, so where they should be falling attractively to frame the face, they are buried in the depths of the longer waltz layer.

My veil experiment didn't take place all in one day, although if you had nothing else to do, one day would be more than long enough. Rather, I spread it out over three days, picking it up and putting it down. I'm pretty sure that I can make the real thing in one day, or maybe one weekend, given that the real thing will need more embellishment than this trial veil.

Veil Mark 3. I cut the tulle in two, one piece 51" long (I had intended 45", but it came out a bit longer), and the other around 34", and then gathered the longer piece with whipstitch all along the flat top - now it really did have the fabled U-shape. The blusher piece I trimmed down further, so that it was the same width and length as the blusher on my Mum's veil, and then I gathered that too. I sewed the two together and again pinned them to my head.

Now the blusher was falling better, but because I am going to have it pinned quite far back, rather than on the crown of my head, it was producing a rather unattractive undulation in the hemline when brought forward. I pinned it where it was falling too long, then took it apart again, and trimmed the bottom into a smoother, more circular curve. Sewed it up again, and bingo, problem solved.

That just left the longer bottom layer to sort out. By this point, I'd figured out that to get a very subtle veil with few waves you need a U shape; to get what they call an 'angel' veil you need a V shape; but what I wanted was something in between, without the V point of an angel veil, but more curvy than a U veil, which has all it's drapes in the middle instead of the edges. (Bearing in mind, of course that the U and V are wider than they are tall.)

Veil Mark 4. I undid the waltz layer again, spread it out on the floor, marked out a longer curve with pins, sort of a half-oval, and shooed Castor away. (The little blighter had decided I was paying way too much attention to the veil, and had come to the conclusion that a good tactic to regain my attention would be to position herself in the middle of the veil and then move as if to sharpen her claws on the tulle. I will admit, it was a tactic that worked flawlessly.)

It took four attempts, but the last, more sweeping curve worked just fine. The edges of the tulle cascade nicely down the sides, and it works really well with the narrower blusher.

I then took my lace samples that I made a couple of months ago, and sewed three of them to the bottom of the blusher, just to see what they would look like. I was surprised that the wider sample actually looked far better than the narrower ones. I still need to find some other patterns to try, because it's going to take 4ft of lace to trim just the blusher so I need to be able to make it quite quickly. The rest of the veil would need 17ft, which is really rather a lot, so I need to think of an alternative trim for that.

Friday, we popped into Ringwood and I managed to get a proper comb, albeit black, and some satin bias binding, so I could see how the veil looks with the waltz length layer thusly edged, and with the whole thing attached properly to a comb. And I have to say, it looks good! The bias binding is a little bit stiff and it flattens out some of the curves, but it's a possibility.

That's as much as I can do, really. Next thing is to try it with the dress and see how the lengths work, and to buy the right coloured tulle. Obviously I can't do that until I have a sample of the ivory silk dupion that the dress will be made of. I might see if I can find some real silk tulle - although it's much more expensive than synthetic tulle, it falls much more softly.

I also need to decide how to decorate the veil, and how much decoration I should indulge in. The dress is going to be quite simple, so the veil can afford to be a little bit more flamboyant, but I don't want to overdo it! Still, we have time to think about all that yet!

Stationery problem solved

Suw Charman — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:00:10 +0100

So, a couple of weeks ago, I realised that the burgundy card I had bought to make the invitations with was, well, the wrong colour. This was particularly painful, given that I thought I'd finally cracked it, just a few days before. Honestly, I felt like I'd been round every art supply shop in London, and had got samples from all of them.

I really couldn't face searching out yet more art supplies shops to try and find yet more burgundy card, so I gathered together my samples and reconsidered the situation. See the burgundy mulberry paper - that's the one that's laid on top of the ivory coloured card? That's the colour I was trying to match. See that burgundy card towards the bottom of the pic, with the writing on it? I figured that was a pretty good match, but as a card it's just way too thin - it won't really hold up very well to having lots of thing stuck to it.

What to do? What to do?

I laid out all my supplies, and had a think.

Then, inspiration! given that I bought a ton of burgundy card that's just enough of the wrong shade to be usable, but the right thickness, why not glue the card that's the right shade to it? That'll give me a double thickness backing card, and the wrong coloured card won't be seen because it'll have ivory mulberry paper glued to the back of it. Sorted!

Of course, this means that we have the added tediousness of gluing together some 25 sheets of card, but it hopefully won't be too much of a chore. When I was home last I got Dad to make me a jig, just two bits of wood at right angles, so that I can more easily line up the two bits of card.

The only issue I then had was that the burgundy mulberry paper that I bought was also the wrong shade. I couldn't find the one that I wanted on the WeddingDIY site, so I had to email them. They replied really quickly and sent me the right URL and, well, frankly, it was just me being a bit dense and looking at the photos instead of the description, and therefore missing the right burgundy because it looked a bit lighter in the photo than I was expecting.

Last week, whilst I was down in Dorset, WeddingDIY sent me the right burgundy mulberry paper, and I am sending the wrong one back tomorrow. I have to say - this is fabulous customer service. They'd put the right paper in the post to me before I even asked them to! If you're looking to make your own wedding invitations, I couldn't recommend WeddingDIY more highly.

Tonight, then, is invitations night. Once we've had dinner, the laptops will go away and Kevin and I will start on making up the invitations for our family and friends who are travelling from afar. The rest of you, however, will have to wait. Invitations aren't usually sent out til about 6 weeks ahead, but given that people need to book travel and accommodation, I suspect we'll do our second batch when we get back from our holiday in mid-Sept.

Unexpected excitedness

Suw Charman — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:52:36 +0100

I just booked the register office (apparently, it's not registry, as I always thought it was) for our wedding in February, and had a sudden and unexpected burst of nerves and overwhelming excitement as I did so. Squeee!!

Now that I'm starting to get tangible evidence of impending nuptials, I'm starting to get much more excited than I have been since Kevin first proposed in January. We have the stuff for the invitations, bunches of lavender and rosemary drying, the 'trial veil' (which I'll blog about only if people actually want to hear about how you make a veil - I have lost the ability to tell what's interesting and what's dull now!).

It's all slowly become much more real, and I'm slowly getting much more excited. Indeed, every now and again I get a sort of flash of "Oh gosh! I'm getting married!", accompanied by a little fizz of excitement and happiness. I'm glad that we didn't rush things - I'd be missing out on all this anticipation if we had!

World's Sexiest Writer 2007

Suw Charman — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:12:47 +0100

Vince and some of his pals at Crimespace have set up a poll to find the World's Sexiest Writer 2007. The nice thing about it is that you can add people to the list, not just be forced to vote for one of the existing entrants.

Of course, I entirely deny that I added any names to that list at all, and I most strenuously repudiate the implication that I voted for person whose name I most definitely didn't add. Equally, I would never, upon my life, ever suggest that you pop over there and vote for the person whose name I am completely innocent of typing into the little box that says "Add another option".

I'm not sure when the poll ends, but I would hazard to propose that authors who wear a lot of black and are patrons of digital rights organisations are really rather dashing and lovely, although, of course, I would never attempt to influence anyone when they were just about to do something as serious as vote in something as important as the World's Sexiest Writer 2007 poll.

UPDATE: Recent developments in the poll require that I add a clarification to this post, lest anyone misunderstand. I might have possibly have added someone's name, but it wasn't mine! I'm quite embarrassed now, specially as if you look at Vince's post, I don't even qualify! *scurries away, blushing*

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: My name has now been removed from the poll. Mind you, I was doing quite well at one point, in the lead with 8 votes.

Maybe the lavender harvest hasn't been a total bust

Suw Charman — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:13:12 +0100

The thing about weddings is that the majority of the work is in getting the detail right. Luckily, I like detail. One such detail is how to do the place settings at the wedding breakfast. Everyone will have a specific place to sit, but how to we indicate who is sitting where?

I don't like traditional place settings - they're boring. So I struck on the idea that we could use a little posy of dried lavender, with a name tag attached to it with lace or ribbon. Mum and Dad have a lavender bush in the front garden, but it's not enough for the number of posies we need. In fact, it's probably only enough for one. But Mum teaches adult exercise classes, so she asked if any of her members had spare lavender that they would cut for me, and many of them said they had.

Sadly, the weather this year has been just dreadful, and the wetness during June and July has ruined much of the lavender which needs hot dry weather to flourish. The flowers came out earlier than expected, but when people cut them, they were so damp that they just went mouldy.

Despite this, some of Mum's members have managed to cut some nice lavender and successfully - to various extents - dry it for me. Mum has been keeping it in the airing cupboard, and yesterday i sorted it out. Some of it had gone a bit mouldy, so we had to throw out three large-ish bundles, but the rest of it was fine.

This is what we had left, and I've put it in a box in the loft, where it's nice and warm.

Mum got an additional bundle yesterday, which I prepared for drying in the loft, but I don't think it's going not be usable as it was picked after the majority of the flowers had died.

You can see how much greyer it is than the top photo. I bundled it and hung it up in the loft to dry anyway, as I might be able to use it for small favours.

If you look, you can see there are just a few actual flowers left on this lavender, the rest are just the dead husks of the flowers.

One other option is, instead of having posies of lavender, we use bundles of rosemary. Now, Mum and Dad do have an absolutely enormous rosemary bush in the garden, so yesterday we cut as many of the long stems as we could.

I've bundled handfuls of four or five stems together, and hung them in the loft to dry too.

It should take a couple of weeks for both the rosemary and the lavender to dry fully. It's hot up in the loft, and the weather at the moment is quite warm, so it should dry ok. The rosemary bush grows like the clappers, so Mum's going to do another prune in a few week's time so that I get a second harvest. Hopefully that will give us enough rosemary and lavender so that we can put one little posie on each place setting.

Flood

Suw Charman — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:05:10 +0100

I've had an interest in extreme weather events for as long as I can remember. Indeed, I very nearly did a meteorology degree at Southampton University, but had decided that it was just too close to home - only half an hour across the New Forest from where my parents lived. As it was, I opted for a joint geology/chemistry honours degree at Aberystwyth instead, only to find myself transferred to the geology department of the University of Wales, College of Cardiff when Aber's geology department was closed down. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had done meteorology instead.

I've been particularly interested in flooding since reading Richard Doyle's Flood, in which London drowns under 10m of water. It's one of those books where the actual writing style is a bit clichéd and clunky, and where it would have benefited from being a third of the length, but despite its shortcomings it's a gripping read. Pulp disaster fiction, maybe, but enjoyable stuff.

I had two reactions to Flood when I read it. The first was that I never looked at the London Underground quite the same way again. The second was that I wished I could have adapted it for the big screen. It would be just such a joy to take a book like this, with such potential, and turn it into a first-rate disaster flick.

So it was pretty inevitable that when I saw the headline on the BBC, Review of London's flood defences, that I'd click. Colour me surprised, however, to see this photograph:

Last I looked, London's never been flooded like that!

Turns out to be a still from the forthcoming disaster film... Flood. Fab! It's got Robert Carlyle in the lead, who I love, and Poirot, er, I mean, David Suchet as the Deputy Prime Minister, but what's more, it's being directed by Tony Mitchell. Mitchell also directed Supervolcano, a two part TV 'docu-drama' looking at what would happen if Yellowstone National Park - which is actually what's called a supervolcano - erupted. I rather liked Supervolcano, it seemed to me to be a pretty well thought-through piece of speculative fiction which was grounded in reality and which had paid attention to detail. I can see why someone like Mitchell would be attracted to a story like Flood.

Watching TV last night, I saw a documentary on flooding in the UK, which happened to include interviews both with Richard Doyle and a guy from the Met Office who, surprisingly to me, seemed to be supporting Doyle's point of view that the Thames Barrier is becoming inadequate and that London really could be at risk of a flood event. But according to that wonderfully reliable source of journalistic purity, The Daily Mail, the 'Environment Agency dismissed it as nonsense, saying: "It may make for a good read but it is not good science.'"

The reaction from the Environment Agency, who are responsible for the Thames Barrier, is slightly strange. On their website they say:

Media reactions to the fictional tale are being compared to the hysteria that swept the United States in 1938, when a radio adaptation of HG Wells' War of the Worlds saw Americans gripped by panic at the thought of martian invaders devastating their country.

Really? Where? The press release is dated 1 August, just a few days ago, but I can't say that I've seen any media hysteria over this film. Indeed, I've had to look pretty hard to find any sort of reaction at all in the media, and have found only the stuff on the BBC and The Daily Mail. That's hardly a media frenzy, now, is it? Unless you count the East London Advertiser (nice photos there, by the way).

The Environment Agency then say:

As a result of the interest, Lionsgate and the Environment Agency have resolved to work together to highlight the actions that people can take in the face of real-life flood events and to reassure London of the Thames Barrier’s efficiency.

In reality, a team of Environment Agency engineers and operations staff at the Thames Barrier work continuously to ensure that this type of scenario remains firm fiction, with most recent modelling showing that the Barrier can withstand expected flood pressures for many years to come.

The possibility of London’s defence structures succumbing to a major flood is currently estimated at having a 1:2000 or 0.05 per cent chance of occurring. The last major flood was a 1:300 event in 1953 and it was this event that led to the construction of the Barrier.

Steve East, Thames Barrier technical support team leader said: "The recent flooding and heavy rains in Britain will have made people more aware of the dangers of extreme weather. In fact, our current modelling already takes into account the many different factors that contribute to tidal flooding including weather conditions, fluvial flows and known tidal cycles.

"Even with all of the possible worst case scenario statistics included, our calculations can not be combined to create a wave that could pass over the top of the Thames Barrier. The defences that we have in place can presently cope with the worst that can realistically be thrown at it, but of course it is right that we plan for the future, to ensure that this level of protection is at least maintained in the decades to come. The Thames Barrier protects 125 square km of central London – encompassing 1.25 million people and an infrastructure valued at £80bn."

The Thames Barrier does not stand alone as a defence system – rather it is part of an integrated system of defences stretching from Teddington in west London, to Shoeburyness in the outer estuary. The estuary is also protected by over 300 km of floodwalls, embankments and numerous small gates and barriers. London’s flood defences compare with some of our European neighbours such as Italy where for example, flood protection in Venice is also being designed to 1:1000 year level. Defences in other major cities such as St Petersburg are also designed to the same level.

Producer Justin Bodle said: "The best way to create a programme about an unpredictable scenario like this one is to work with the real-life experts. The Thames Barrier is a structure admired the world over for its efficiency and resilience. Our production may be a work of fiction but it has served to highlight the challenges and investment needed to maintain effective flood management programmes in the UK."

So the Met Office say on TV that the Barrier is getting on a bit and needs to be reassessed, and the EA are saying that all's well, and Lionsgate will say whatever they've agreed to say. I find it rather disturbing that the EA should react to the release of Flood by immediately going on the defensive, especially when there actually are causes for concern. London is sinking and sea level rising; the Barrier was designed after the 1953 floods and so isn't cutting edge anymore; and a report by the London Assembly's Environment Committee into flooding in the Thames Gateway found 1.25 million people living in areas at risk from flooding, 5% of East London defences in "poor or very poor condition", and that flood planning is inadequate. I find it even stranger that the EA and Lionsgate should form an agreement to 'work together'. Perhaps it was a condition of their being able to film in the Thames Barrier itself. If so, that's more than a little distasteful to me.

But back to the BBC article that set all this off:

Westminster's head of contingency planning, Brian Blake, said: "Central London is very well protected thanks to the Thames Barrier to the east and Teddington Weir to the west.

"But given the uncertainty created by climate change and the intensity of some of the downpours we've had recently, it is only prudent to review our plans."

In my opinion, it's only wise to ensure that London's flood defences are up to snuff, but that's something to be determined by the evidence, not through media posturing and press releases. Saying that the Barrier is fine doesn't make it so - I want to see the evidence. Equally, Richard Doyle has done a fair amount of research but he's published only his conclusions, and not his sources, so it's hard to see if he's on the money or grasping at the wrong end of the stick.

Anyway, back to the film. Here's another still I found:

The trailer is on the official Flood site, although I can't find it on YouTube so I can't embed it, sorry.

Unlike The Dreck, sorry, Dark is Rising, I fully expect Flood-the-film to be a good adaptation of Flood-the-book, not necessarily because the source material is as good as Susan Cooper's books, but because I don't see any evidence that Mitchell has messed about with essential elements of the story in the way that Cunningham did. I fully expect Flood-the-movie to be a fun romp, with some great special effect and possibly, even, a better plot than the book, although we'll have to see whether I'm right or not.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing it on the big screen!

Waily! Waily! The wrong burgundy!

Suw Charman — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:53:44 +0100

Dammit. I don't believe this. Not only is the mulberry paper I bought the wrong one, but the burgundy card I got isn't actually the right burgundy, even though it looked like it was in the shop.

Waily! Waily! Waily!

Mornington Crescent on Twitter

Suw Charman — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:49:01 +0100

I blame Lloyd for this morning's game of Mornington Crescent on Twitter. I don't think that everyone could see every player - Lloyd has some people that I didn't see, and I know I had some that he couldn't see, and there were some players that I tried to follow but Twitter wouldn't show me their tweets... so all a bit of a mess, really. But still the best 20 minutes of the day, frankly.

LloydDavis omg @bowbrick that gives me an idea - Mornington Crescent on Twitter
LloydDavis So I'll start with my usual opening local gambit of *Pimlico*
bowbrick @lloyddavis I think you night be on to something. And with GPS you could play with real locations!
bowbrick Duke Street
LloydDavis some strikingly pedestrian moves so far. time to stir things up with a couple of blue tokens at *Lancaster Gate*
LloydDavis clearly stunned the fools into silence, building my empire with *Baker Street*
bowbrick Poland Street
LloydDavis intrigued by @bowbricks W1 strategy, but undeterred *Green Park*
Suw /thinks that @lloydDavis's Green Park is a predictable follow on to Pimlico and goes *Mundania Street*
kevinmarks Well, I me be confused by the jubilee extension showing up since I left London, but there are enough podumes for *Victoria*
LloydDavis clearly @suw has not seen the green podumes in my...curses! @kevinmarks comes out of nowhere
bowbrick Meard Street. Hah!
LloydDavis trying to think on my feet and ignoring @bowbricks scatology *White City*
LloydDavis wondering why I just got an invite to stay at Holiday Inn, Solihull. No, that's not part of the game... unlesss
bowbrick Is it my go?
LloydDavis @bowbrick - yes for heaven's sake, the clock is ticking
bowbrick Hey. I'll just take a moment to tell you how absolutely brilliant Harold Moore's Records in Great Marlborough Street is.
imajes @lloyddavis: frankly i go for the middle of it all and stick my pin in *Burnt Oak*
Suw Well, i'm going to double-switch podumes and nullify kevinmarks' Victoria with a Mudchute.
bowbrick And in Foyle's cafe they've now actually replaced the power sockets with blank plates!
Suw @browbrick: curses upon their foul and pestilent corpses!
kevinmarks Well, thanks to the Greenwich Ferry and the Millennium Bridge, that leaves me an escape route to *St Pauls*
imajes there's fantastic podumes to be had with Gloucester Road
LloydDavis @imajes shhhhh! don't tell the newbies
chrys got diverted to West Brompton this morning on my way to Hammersmith. damnation.
LloydDavis heh! lining up for some monster LV with *Fulham Broadway*
LloydDavis taking momentum from @kevinmarks Central Line opening to break into *Upton Park*
imajes @lloyd: Ruislip is unquestionablly next.
Suw Damn! i was going to go Fulham Broadway, but now you've blocked LV, I'm spenging Fairlop.
febake gets off the central line at *shepherds bush*
bowbrick Jaunting to Flask Walk!
febake and lines up a parallel line manouvre: gets on the H&C *Shepherds Bush*
imajes @Suw: i think we can divert around the LV and ensconce ourselves in Mansion House
Suw And a late joiner from @febake! and possibly @chrys, although that could have been a coincidence. Snaresbrook!
londonfilmgeek @lloyddavis Aurora Gambit, *Poplar*
LloydDavis drat @suw getting sneaky must think fast. *St John's Wood*
LloydDavis @londonfilmgeek - welcome, thank you and *Angel* for your trouble
LloydDavis does anyone have any pink tokens?
imajes @londonfilmgeek: if you're going to visit poplar, clearly next is Elephant & Castle.
Suw omg! the Aurora Gambit! I haven't seen that played in 20 years! My hand is forced. Neasden via the long way round.
LloydDavis erm pink tokens anyone?
febake Drops a "cleveland steamer" by moving to *Rickmansworth*
imajes @lloyd: low on the pinks, but i have a few spare reds. might that work?
londonfilmgeek @suw luggage spilled at All Saints, walkaround to *Whitechapel*
LloydDavis @imajes - how many can I have for two greens and a taupe podume?
Suw Feels a pincer movement from @Londonfilmgeek and @febake. Collusion! Collusion! I demand a Cockfosters!
LloydDavis *Holland Park* opening Parks and Recreation
imajes @lloyd: a dozen, bakers or otherwise. Cab at Whitechapel takes us to Lancaster Gate, which may or may not open.
LloydDavis swingin' @imajes it's a deal which makes my *Wembley Park* quite interesting I think you'll agree
imajes @lloyddavis: i think we can come to an accord, but only at *Sloane Square*
londonfilmgeek @suw is the Amicus shuffle up for grabs, if so *Hanger Lane* for 50
LloydDavis @suw : I think your Cockfosters is upheld, please people keep to Trott's Civility wherever possible
bowbrick I don't like the way you're all playing stations and I'm playing streets. I feel a bit intimidated: Denmark Hill!
imajes Excellent. Amicus shuffle played. now possible to do the Daisy Maneuver. I'll go all in for *Goldhawk Road*
Suw @londonfilmgeek: I take your Amicus Shuffle and swap you a Complexification and agree on Maida Vale.
febake tries an advanced pre-construction gambit *Wood Lane*
LloydDavis meh! Scoble's Retreat - *Warwick Avenue*
LloydDavis oh @imajes btw nice Daisy :)
Suw @LloydDavis: thank you for your ruling and a reminder that Trott's Civility is now in force. May I presume upon Boston Manor?
LloydDavis i don't think I'm ever going to get any work done ever ever again
imajes @lloyd: i think you're playing the california variation which was declared unsafe in the 1986 rulebook. go back 4 and start at *Kilburn*
LloydDavis @suw you're welcome, be aware though that Metcalfe's Interruption is still a possibility
londonfilmgeek @febake i call foul, it's clearly a post-construction move, we can settle for the dangerously close *Camden Town* Charring X/Edgware share
Suw @parkylondon: Invisible sammich exchange at Queen's Park.
LloydDavis @imajes - this is twitter, man, your 1986 rules hold no sway here!
LloydDavis oh if you must - *Leicester Square*
imajes @lloyd: you must stick to the agreed rule book as per the MC Rules Committee. it's the only way to preserve a level playing field at *Oval*
Suw Foul against @febake upheld, no deconstructionism allowed under the '64 rule 237a which clearly states all constructionism illegale. Oval.
LloydDavis @imajes - duh! haven't you heard of MC2.0 ? it's all pastel shades and round corners here matey *St Pauls*
Suw Damn! Gazumped! *panics* Morden!
LloydDavis *Dollis Hill* .... /sniggers
londonfilmgeek @suw, @febake has his Longhorn manual out, this isn't fair, therefore Inspector Sands
kevinmarks Aha, twice round gives enough momentum for me to play *San Jose Diridon*
LloydDavis @londonfilmgeek & @suw Oh, I knew we shouldn't have played on a Friday..
febake @LloydDavis sails past on a fast metroploitan bound for *Baker Street*
imajes @lloyd: no, MC is a strict rules-only game. one must adhere, it's the only way one can play safely. i bid 2 stickles in baron's court
Suw /calls on the Great Arbiter. In 1924, McCutchley-Spriggins held the Longhorn Manual as a fair move. Suck it up LFG. All Saints.
imajes @suw: all saints has been played. i suggest Amos Grove.
Suw Ah, the Baker at Baker Street - smooth! I play the Butcher at Heron Quays.
LloydDavis @imajes I'm not against rules, just suggesting we go along with the Winer Addendum which is much more appropriate to twitter
bowbrick Ladies who lunch sitting next to me are discussing that fact that their respective husbands are going to get iPhones for them...
bowbrick Mugs. Beak Street.
imajes @lloyddavis: if needs must... then i have no option but moving to close at Latimer Park
Suw Sidesteps both Latimer Park and San Jose Diridon with an Epping Swing.
LloydDavis time for a quick Semple's Surprise before I go to lunch - *Amersham*
febake Attempts the Cranbrook retreat and asks an American tourist how to reach *Aldwych*
LloydDavis now while I'm out, *nobody* touch my pieces...
kevinmarks well, depends on which Winer addendum, I'll take either *Oxford Circus* or *The Great Northern Hotel*, as that bridge is out in Minneapolis
londonfilmgeek *Finsbury Park* should stop @imajes in his tracks
LloydDavis @kevinmarks - ooh nicely done old chap
Suw Short and sweet. Kentish Town.
imajes depositing @lloyddavis in *Mill Hill East* whilst luncheoning myself
Suw Which sets me up really nicely for, and I'm sorry to say this as it pains my heart, Mornington Crescent.
imajes @londonfilmgeek the finsbury park play did in fact derail me. alas, @suw played the middle piece - the jigsaw is now complete.
dantekgeek Mornington Crescent! (I win, right? You brits are so silly)
plasticbagUK Does anyone know what the hell Suw is doing on Twitter? I'm completely puzzled.
Suw @dantekgeek: Sadly, you are too late as Mornington Crescent has already been played.
chrys @plasticbagUK http://tinyurl.com/7zz8a ,... and i'm not even a brit!
Suw @plasticbagUK: Sorry, got a bit carried away there. *giggles* shan't do it again, promise.
kevinmarks oh, neatly done, @Suw, very perspicacious use of Pilgrim's exegesis in the Universal Parser
Suw @Kevinmarks: your kindness, as always, warms my cockles. thank you for such kind words.
LloydDavis sneaking back in while nobody's looking with a quick *Mansion House* now lunch, really
Suw /pats LloydDavis on the head. Poor Lloyd. That's what you get for going to lunch at a crucial moment.
londonfilmgeek @suw I didn't see the erudite spaniard for the tress. Good Job!
bowbrick Dhhh. Didn't see that coming. Slick play @suw
Suw thank you, thank you. :) I can only thank my parents and the rest of my family, my MC mentor, my accupuncturist, my chiropractor, my frie...
rachelclarke I missed the game! @suw, @lloyddavis need to start it later next time ;) although @kevinmarks made it I see, must have never gone to bed
Remy @kevinmarks: Can I just note, witht the game is over, that I am still giggling that you dared to play the Winer addendum. That takes gall.
londonfilmgeek For the future i insist on the hastily drafted Twitter Compendium following the Clive Sinclair Manifesto http://tinyurl.com/24lldt
LloydDavis gasps. sulks. plots revenge...

The Seeker: The Dreck is Still Rising

Suw Charman — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:22:47 +0100

Walden Media have changed the name of their abominable adaptation of The Dark Is Rising to "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising", and have reposted a new version of the trailer to YouTube. Conveniently, this gets rid of all the comments from the old one, so I suggest that if you're as unhappy about this movie as I am, go rate it low and leave a comment expressing your feelings.

A suffusion of... puce, I think it is

Suw Charman — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:57:47 +0100

Good to see that Neil's Official Web Elf has our best interests at heart, rather than his.

The Dark Is Rising: Innocent children's book brutally slaughtered by film-makers

Suw Charman — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:59:02 +0100

I don't think I've ever got so wound up by the film adaptation of a book that I've found myself struggling to express myself. But from what I've read today about David L Cunningham's adaptation of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, the second book in the eponymous sequence, well, I'm horrified almost to the point of muteness.

I first read The Dark is Rising sequence when I was about 19 or 20, introduced to them by someone I met at university. They didn't form a major part of my childhood (I was more into Asimov than CS Lewis), but as an adult I loved them. They are a series of books that I take great care not to read too often, because I like to try and forget them in between readings so that I'll experience the thrill of discovery each time. Of course that doesn't entirely work, but I try. And I only ever read them in winter - in an ideal world, I time it so that I'm reading The Dark is Rising in the run up to Christmas so that I can wring as much atmosphere out of it as possible.

Last year, through December and January, Kevin and I read the five books together, reading aloud to each other before bed. He loved them as much as I do, and it was just lovely to watch him experience the key revelations along the way - I'll never forget the moment he realised who Professor Merriman Lyon really is, or who Bran is.

And I'm not the only one who holds these books in high esteem. Cooper won the Newbery Medal in 1976 for The Grey King, and was the only recipient of the Newbery Honor in 1974 for The Dark is Rising. Indeed, Cooper has a quiet but loyal following, and it looks like most of us are utterly dismayed at the reports we're getting of what Cunningham and screenwriter John Hodge have done to these wonderful books.

Now, I'm not going to get into the whole thing about Cunningham's religion or attitude towards the truth, nor am I going to discuss his past films - none of which I have seen. I am going to admit to dismay at the thought that part of the reason why he might have butchered this adaptation is so that it fits in with his own religious beliefs, but that's as far as I'll go. Bellatrys does a good job of examining this over on LiveJournal, and I think she's better placed than I to comment.

I am surprised, though, that John Hodge should be involved in the adaptation of what are definitely children's books - or maybe we could say 'young adult' if you really want to get picky. This is a man better known for his work on edgy, disturbing and gritty films like Shallow Grave or Trainspotting, or the black comedy of A Life Less Ordinary. Hardly classic children's stories, unless you like scaring the bejeesus out of your children. Although I'm sure some would accuse him of being familiar with how to butcher an otherwise good book, The Beach. I've neither read the book nor seen the film, so I couldn't possibly say. Still, an odd choice.

What I find disturbing, from all of the stuff that I've read and the trailers that I've seen, is the total disregard for the source material. I understand very well that you need to change things to translate a book into a film. Books are very good for telling you what someone is thinking and feeling, but films need to show you. So sometimes you need change scenes from 'tell' to 'show' in order to make it work. Or maybe you need to cut out some of the less important scenes and some of the back story in order to keep the film to a reasonable length. All this I understand.

What I do not understand is why you would take a really gripping story, with sympathetic and well-developed characters, and which has some wonderful mythology underpinning it, and strip out all the stuff that makes it good.

If you haven't read The Dark is Rising (book), it's about an 11 year old English boy, Will, who suddenly discovers that he is the last of the Old Ones of the Light, and that he must find the Six Signs to help the Light in their battles against the Dark. (The battles span five books, so this is just a step on the way, not the final confrontation.) Will is helped by the oldest of the Old Ones, Merriman Lyon, and must deal with the Dark Rider, who tries at every turn to stop Will completing his quest. You've got lots of Arthurian stuff in there (including Merriman/Merlin and the Lady - possibly of the Lake, although that's never explicitly stated), lots of local British folklore, such as Herne the Hunter, Wayland Smith, and the idea of 'old ways' - roads as old as time and with magical properties.

Most importantly of all, is Will's character and background. A quiet, reflective boy who seems a lot older than his 11 years, Will is the seventh son of a seventh son. His family is big, but loving. His parents are kind, intelligent, fair-minded and thoughtful, and the family is painted as stable, supporting, and principled, but fun and rumbustious too. Will struggles to grasp the importance of his role, but he loves his family and when they are threatened, he goes all out to save them (oh, and the world).

This is all pretty much removed from the film. Will is a brattish blond American 13 year old, with "emotionally unavailable" parents, siblings who bully him, and a brother, Max, who's been corrupted by the Dark. Indeed, the family has been fucked up beyond all recognition - with Mary, Will's sister, becoming his mother, his older sister Gwen becoming his younger sister, his dad becoming Roger instead of John, and the introduction of a twin (I'm not sure where the twin comes into this - is the twin Max? There are twins in the original, but Will wasn't one of them). And all the Arthurian stuff has gone, along with the folklore, and suddenly the climactic battle is no long one fight in a longer war, but the final banishment of the Dark.

So instead of all the cool mythology, we've now got Will accused of shoplifting, blowing up a car, a big fight with snakes, a karate fight on a cart in a Viking village, a love interest... Oh, and I nearly forgot. There's a giant snow globe. Right, that'll help.

Authorblog has a comprehensive list of changes that have been made, as ascertained from clips, interviews and articles, and links to all the sources. Frankly, by the time I got to the end of the list - which is very long indeed - I had lost the heart to click on all the links.

If I could see any reason why those would improve on the book, I think I'd be ok with it. But they just don't. One otherwise dreadful article about the film says:

A joke among the journalists covering The Dark Is Rising set visit in Bucharest over the last couple of days was that the movie has only changed three things from the Newberry-winning novel on which it’s based: they’ve changed the lead kid’s nationality from English to American, they’ve changed the lead kid’s age from 11 to 14, and they’ve changed everything that happens in the story.

This isn't the end of it though. It seems that hardly any of the cast have bothered to read the original books, nor are they fussed that the books are being trashed. Ian McShane, who plays Merriman Lyon says:

Ian McShane: I don't think they've been very faithful to the book. I don't know how many of you've read the book. I know they sold a few copies, but I couldn't read it very well. It's really dense. It's from the 70s, you know? [...]

Where [sic] you familiar with the books before signing on to this?

Ian McShane: No, I never heard of them. I did try to read the book, but they were a little...I think...I don't know how...There's four of them apparently. Or five. Oh, god. That means I might have to do a sequel.

It's hard to tell how much of this is down to McShane being bad at doing interviews, or whether he genuinely couldn't give a rat's arse.

But let's just rewind a little. Ian McShane? No offence, but Merriman Lyon is supposed to be white-haired, hawk-nosed man, the eldest of the Old Ones, he has a timeless, ageless quality to him. He's Will's mentor, old and wise, but still fallible.

Ian McShane is short (5' 9"), black-haired, and about as timeless as a yesterday's Metro. Worse, to many Brits of the right age to be Dark is Rising fans, he's Lovejoy. A cheeky scamp of a dodgy wide-boy antiques dealer whose best mate was an alcoholic called Tinker. But let me be clear. It's not that I don't like McShane - he's great in what little Deadwood I've seen - but he's totally wrong for this part.

On the other hand, the choice of Christopher Eccleston as the Rider is a very good bit of casting. The rest of it, I'm not sure about.

I'm relieved to ay that it's not just me who's pissed off at this. Other fans are just as upset. Ragnell is unhappy:

So, the thoughtful, introverted youngest member of the Old Ones? Our gentle little hero who was loaded with ancient power despite all appearances to the contrary? The guy who was responsible and thoughtful and didn't waste his power in showy displays? Gone! Replaced by a Harry Potter clone!

Oh, but they changed all the surface stuff that would make people mistake him for Harry, but they went ahead and took Will's unique personality and exchanged it for the more popular boy's so they could clone Harry Potter but not be accused of cloning Harry Fucking Potter.

Fuckers.

You know, I hate to be one of those fans who gets mad whenever they change any little thing about a book I loved, but seriously, this sounds like mass-produced shit that's trying to capitalized on the Potter popularity. They're killing this book, dammit. Killing it (And yes, you can quote that for your fan entitlement rants, thank you very much.)

Soyo is too:

With everything I'm reading about The Dark is Rising, not much but the barest shreds of the book are left alive. Will is American instead of English, 14 instead of 11 (and not the youngest in his family!), an outcast instead of an alarmingly normal kid, worried about girls instead of... not seeming to notice girls exist. Also, he apparently has an evil twin. There's less emphasis on British folklore, almost no Arthurian elements left, and the magic's flashy instead of subtle. The Stantons don't get along as much as they do in the book, and Robin and Paul sound like Fred and George 2: Electric Boogaloo. There's some glowy teenage girl with eyeliner on the poster. There are also mentions of a scene with evil mall cops. Let me repeat that: EVIL MALL COPS. I just... what? Oh, and it's all modern.

The thing is, I can see changing almost any one of these things, or adding in any of these things that are... additiony... but altogether it gets to be a little much. No, really, just watch!

[...] In conclusion? It's like they were working with a copy of the book that had been mostly eaten by termites. Some of the names are the same, and that's about it. And what bothers me more than that they're changing so many things? It's the way they're taking every Hollywood cliche available and packing it into the spaces left.

The comments on MTV's Movies Blog are universally unhappy, as are many of the threads and comments over on Walden Media's forums, where we are treated to what appears to be a wonderful display of astroturfing (that is, faking grassroots approval). Oh, and here's the official site, which appears to include a name change to "The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising", like that'll do any good.

I can't imagine how on earth Susan Cooper could possibly be happy with what's been done to her creation, but sadly it doesn't matter if she's happy or not. Authors generally don't get to be involved in the process of turning their book into a film, and there's little to nothing one could do if they objected to what was happening.

Ah, there's so much more I could say about this, but I'm going to stop now before I plunge myself into chronic depression. Here's the trailer. Watch it and weep.

Technorati Tags: tdir, susan cooper, the dark is rising

Is that burgundy, or more a sort of plum?

Suw Charman — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:40:19 +0100

At last! After gathering a sample of pretty much every shade of burgundy card available in London, I've finally found exactly the right one! Yes, I will admit that I've been on a bit of a mission, and yes, perhaps I've been a bit more rigourous than maybe I needed to be, but I am a perfectionist at heart, and I really had to find the right shade of burgundy card, to match the burgundy mulberry paper and the burgundy ribbon.

Of course, none of these burgundies are going to match exactly the colour of my dress, but you can't win 'em all. At least they will match each other, and it's not like anyone's going to bring the invitation to the wedding to double check. (Although this is the level of obsessive detail that I naturally think in... *winces*.)

I also managed to get the perfect shade of thin ivory card from the same place - Cass Art London, in Islington. Wow, what a fabulous shop! Three floors of art supplies and stationery. Heaven! It was pretty much all I could do to stop myself blowing a hideous amount of money on unnecessary note books, paper samples and art supplies.

I've also ordered all my other stationery requirements from WeddingsDIY, although they've run out of ivory mulberry paper, which is going to put a crimp on sending the invitations out. We're only doing the invitations to those living abroad at this juncture - usually you don't send them out this early but people have to book flights and stuff.

(I just had to double check with Kevin as to whether I am sad blogging this, but he says not. I think he's just being kind. But, well, brace yourself. There's a lot more where this came from.)

The ring!

Suw Charman — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:23:13 +0100

It's come! Finally! Yay!!!

Kevin brought home some bubbly, and cooked a lovely meal and, just when I was least expecting it, he came round to my side of the table, got down on one knee, and re-proposed! Of course, I re-accepted.

It's amazing to finally have the ring after so long. The stones are just so beautiful - now and again I catch them sparkling, and it surprises me every time. Kevin made such a good choice. And, of course, I can't help playing with it - it'll take a while to get used to wearing it, but it's just lovely.

Weird day today

Suw Charman — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:18:12 +0100

I had such plans for today, including lunch plans, that all went for a Burton when I noticed at about 10.30 that I couldn't read. My heart sank. I hate migraines, and the first sign for me is that I lose the ability to see what's in the centre of my field of vision. Shortly after, I get visual disturbances, then if I'm lucky, it clears up. If not, I get the headache, and maybe the nausea. Got all three today, and spent three hours in bed, feeling crap and trying to sleep.

Eventually, hunger forced me out of bed and I'm trying not to go back again, despite the fact that it's several hours later and my head still hurts. It's that sort of dull ache behind the eyes, similar to the sort you get when you have eye strain.

I've not achieved anything useful today at all, and i don't feel particularly bright, certainly not bright enough to tackle any of the big important tasks I have to get on with. However, I'm hoping I feel better by 5pm as I have a call from America scheduled, and I have to be a bit intelligent for that.

What a waste of a day though.