maynardcase.co.uk linkfest

Hope everyone is having an excellent Christmas and a great New Year!

Saw Glengarry Glen Ross the other week. An impressive bit of theatre transmuted without much effort to the screen, assisted by possibly one of the best casts ever: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin and Jonathan Pryce are all principal players. All of them deliver excellent performances, with the most memorable for me being Jack Lemmon’s Shelly Levine, a washed-up old salesman desperately searching for a successful sale in a cut-throat It sounds very much like it was originally a play; the dialogue is rather artifical but strangely that doesn’t at all detract but actually makes it more powerful and effective. It’s a David Mamet script and while I’m not familiar with any of his other writing I would like to be; there’s a lot of power and really unusual use of language. Thoroughly recommended.

See how a cover photo is retouched

I always thought I needed to sit closer to the TV

Animated evolution of the alphabet

Who gets what from the EU Common Agricultural Policy

Skulls

The Met Office is now doing health forecasts for some Primary Care Trusts.

2005 - the year in ideas from the New York Times

Freeview goodness
So, I bought the Topfield TF5800 which is a rather nice little PVR, with two Freeview receivers, 160Gb hard drive space and the ability to hook it up via USB to a PC. This allows you to download recorded TV from the box, in case there’s anything you want to preserve, and to upload programs which affect how the system behaves (eg. different electronic program guides, a nice list of your timed recordings, skipping through advert breaks and so forth).

Having not had one of these beasties before I am pretty impressed, although I keep forgetting to make proper use of it; for example, pausing live TV just doesn’t occur to me at the moment. I’ve got a set of searches running for key words (eg. “Simpsons”) - whenever this crops up in the EPG the cunning software that I’m running sets up a timer for me to record it, which should mean it works even when they change the scheduling. The gf likes to use the radio, which helpfully tells you which track you’re playing. Not amazing stuff but quite neatly done and astonishingly useful when you’re used to analogue.

Book review
About halfway through Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, which (given the fact that it contains no alternative histories, spaceships, high-end physics or unusual aliens) isn’t my usual reading material, but I can honestly say that it’s excellent: funny, moving, realistic characters and a very precise detailing of common tragedies that are no less tragic because they’re more frequent. Obviously now that I’ve said that, the ending will suck, but I’ll let you know.

Film review
Went to see Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Saturday. I’d love to be controversial and claim it was rubbish, but in truth I thought it was really good fun. Highlights include the rabbits floating around in the BV6000, and the excellent moment where some spare change is required for the plane.

Imdb keywords include: Funfair, Cheese, Chase Scene, Love Triangle, Pest Control, Police, Knitting and Bad Smell. So there you go.

Rather nice spring simulation

Experts are no better at predicting the future than anyone else

Doodle away

Gullible audiophiles