The Squeee

The bloggosphere is downright awesome sometimes, because it's such a great community, and I'm so happy to be a part of it. Today, a bunch of Richard Armitage fanbloggers start polls about various aspects of Richard Armitage and his acting career, as well as the fandom that has popped up around him. (Fandom that has happened, of course, because we just can't help ourselves - he brings out the creativity in us all. Imagine if that was a superhero power. "Who are you?" "I am the CREATIVITOR!" ...Okay, that was lame.) Before I introduce the topic of voting here at The Squeee, here are the other participants. Hop over to their blogs and vote on the Fanstravaganza polls, but don't just vote and then bugger off again - no, please stick around and read their other posts as well. It'll be well worth your time, I promise. :) Avalon at Avalon's Blog Mulubinba at An RA Viewer's Perspective Nat at The RA Fan Blog Ragtag at Reviewerama Skully

Came back from London today, and watching TV, I saw this advert. It's been on before, and it's always brilliant. It's from the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency, to promote reading and literacy. Many people find books boring, and some say they've never read for pleasure - something I find shocking, as I've grown up with books, and you'd never see me without one. Books are great, and I can't imagine a life without them.

Okay, so channel-hopping after Masterchef on BBC1, we came upon the end of Natural World on BBC2. There was a baby elephant to begin with, and then elephants in general, and my delighted "naww!" probably prevented the Squeeze from changing channels straight away. I LOVE elephants! Squeeeee!! An Indian elephant at Twycross Zoo in 2004. So, sitting there with a huge smile on my face, I realised who the voiceover artist was... and that person... was Richard Armitage. I just looked him up on IMDb (if I had a penny every time I went to that site...) but it's not listed there, although there is a thread about it on the message board. His voice seems to be everywhere on TV nowadays - and it's good to get confirmation of it. It means it's not just me being delusional! ;)

The new Thomas Anders album, Strong , is already released in Russia - the rest of us have to wait until May or June before its being released in Germany in order to get it from Amazon. Boo! Hiss! The first single from it is called "Why Do You Cry" and is a catchy song, not unlike a good Modern Talking track. Here's the official video: For the new album, Thomas has gone to Russia. The Russians have written songs, they've come up with a video and directed it and everything. It might actually be quite a smart move, because Modern Talking were (and still are, seven years after the second split) huge over there. Having the duo's singer working with a team of Russians and releasing the album there first might actually be a really clever move, rather than working with the usual bunch of Germans. Whatever. I wish him lots of success with this new album, and I can't wait to get my hands on it! Meanwhile, I suppose I'll just keep working on my SingStar hig

DH Lawrence (1885-1930). Controversial. Censored. Persecuted. Misunderstood or just way ahead of his time? I'm liking these literary challenges being posted around various blogs, because they get people reading, and perhaps reading things they would otherwise not get around to. As I found DH Lawrence omnibus book in a charity shop recently, and have been curious to host one myself, I decided that would be the subject. Not only because I enjoy his writing and his thoughts on society and people, but also, because I like the regional aspect of it: DH Lawrence was from Eastwood in Nottinghamshire, 20 minutes down the road! :) I first read Lady Chatterley's Lover after a classmate let me borrow it, as she thought I might like it. I don't recall exactly what the discussion around it was, as it was in 2003, but one day, she brought it with her, and I started reading it, not quite knowing what to expect. I had heard of the title before, certainly, but had never actually read i

I was going to create my own layout, but I haven't had any inspiration for how it would look. That, and the fact that I couldn't quite be bothered to make a template that's perfectly Blogger compatible as there's soooooo much extra code that goes into it that I haven't quite figured out where to begin. *cough* Today, I decided to google Blogger templates (the default ones are terribly boring) and found one I quite liked and I think would fit with the blog. So, this is the new look, called Club Red. What do you think? Better or worse or the same, just different? :) The background is similar to what I had in mind, and if there's already a finished template, weeeeell... no work and all play! ;) I might still decide to make my own template, but at least this is a bit more interesting in the meantime. (Not that any attempt of mine would look better than this one, I have to admit!)

He's at it again, it would seem! Now, I'm just waiting for him to do a voiceover for Thornton's chocolate or take over Dirvla Kirwan's role as the seductive voice for Marks & Spencer... Spontaneous self-combustion in three... two... one...

On the way back from the supermarket this afternoon, we were listening to BBC Radio 1 in the car and came upon a trailer for the Winter Olympics coverage. Something about snowboarding. The voice was familiar... My thought was "hey, even though you're doing the voiceover for the ad, Richard, doesn't mean I'm going to watch snowboarding!" Perhaps if he was an actual commentator... but alas. So yeah, Richard Armitage has got some more voiceover work going on at the moment than that Santander ad! :)

Time to put a new date in the calendar: Saturday, 31 July 2010! Not just the birthday of Harry Potter and his creator, JK Rowling, but also the date of the first International Magic Day! The aim is to dress up as witches and wizards (or witches/wizards trying to blend into muggle society) for the day, and celebrate everything magic! You are hereby cordially invited to participate (and invite other muggles and magic folk alike).

Been busy with stuff recently... and at the same time, not more than usual. Oh well. On the Squeee front... Couldn't help myself, so I've started on North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell... Think I'm on chapter six so far, and from sneaking a peak, I think it's in the next chapter (i.e. 7) where she first encounters dear Thornton. I've watched Jane Eyre '73 and been ogling some spin-off books on Amazon (waiting to get a voucher to buy them). Also been reading some... I think I've read past the shoelace scene. It's somewhere around when Blanche et al are at Thornfield anyway. Saw the Heroes and then the Heroines episodes of the documentary Reader, I Married Him yesterday, and for the first time, found myself disagreeing with Daisy Goodwin. Something she was saying about Rochester "marrying a mad woman for her money" had me exclaiming, "Oi! He was tricked into that marriage! He didn't know she was mad, and he didn't marr

It's always fun to go places where they've filmed things, especially if it's something you're really into. For instance, I think I'd die and go to fangirl heaven if I were to go to Minyip in Australia (the town of Coopers Crossing in The Flying Doctors ). Australia is a bit far to travel, but Derbyshire isn't, it's just next door. :) "the most complete and most interesting house of [its] period" Growing up, every summer, we used to go on family holidays in the caravan and travel around Sweden and go to museums, old houses, glass-blowing places and a number of other things. It wasn't just swimming and eating ice cream, no, we got to do Boring Cultural Things. At the time, I wasn't perhaps not very appreciative of it, as I never had any stories in class that quite measured up with my classmates who went to Crete or the Canary Islands for their holidays. What had I done? Gone gallavanting up a boring mountain up north somewhere and seen so

Aye, I'll jump on the bandwagon too! :) Although, instead of pictures of RA, I thought I'd show some pictures I took this morning, as I wanted to try out the camera on my new old mobile phone. (I don't buy mobile phones anymore, I just use the Squeeze's old one when his contract gets upgraded. I didn't want the previous one, so haven't had an upgrade for quite some time, so yay, the new one is pretty damn cool!) This is Daisy. It's not a very good picture, admittedly, with the light coming in through the window and all, but hey, we'll ignore that. She's about 10 years old or so, but we don't know for sure. She was a stray originally, who one day just appeared in the cellar of a friend's house. They advertised and went to the police and things but she wasn't chipped and no one came forward to claim her, so they kept her. Three years later, I came along and wanted a cat, and seeing as how the new-born stable kittens (of which I was to get

I was listening to Chris Evans on BBC Radio2 the other morning and heard them talking about Sharleen Spiteri and the song "Xanadu", and if it was a hit or a miss sort of thing. Didn't hear the song itself, but as the first single from her album Melody (2008) showed up in my playlist, I was reminded, and went to see if I could hear it. Found this, from the Graham Norton Show on New Year's Eve:

I was searching IMDb for info about Wuthering Heights '98 as I was going to review it, and while doing so, came across the entry for Wuthering Heights (2010) , which is currently in pre-production, apparently. Yet another version, and this one just a year after the last one?! Says it will be shot in Scotland and Ireland and star Gemma Arterton as Cathy and Ed Westwick as Heathcliff. So, who are these people? Let's have a look.

(Originally posted Wednesday, July 09, 2008 over at my personal blog.) If you're like me, you couldn't care less about sports. So what to do when someone around you is into it and you for some reason or other have to sit there and watch it with them? How do you transform it from a boring game of no consequence to something whose outcome you are mildly interested in finding out? Here are a few pointers...

"You are Marianne Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are impulsive, romantic, impatient, and perhaps a bit too brutally honest. You enjoy romantic poetry and novels, and play the pianoforte beautifully. To boot, your singing voice is captivating. You feel deeply, and love passionately." Take the Quiz here! Umm. I took piano lessons for a year when I was ten... that's not "beautifully", that's "yes, you do play only a little". Captivating singing voice? I do okay on Singstar, but I wouldn't call that "captivating" by any stretch of the imagination! I also have an intense dislike of poetry. I once bought the collected poems of DH Lawrence in a fit of "I like his writing and he's a LOCAL!" (five years in Nottingham and I've still never been to the DH Lawrence Heritage site in Eastwood, 20 mins from where we live now *cough*) only to remember, when I finally opened it to read, that I find 98% of all poetry insanely

I just saw a TV commercial from Santander... and I wasn't paying attention (as we were discussing dinner options) but as there was a pause, I caught the end bit and thought "hang on... that voice... is that RA doing a voiceover?" He's done voiceover work before, and goodness knows he's got a good voice for it. I'll have to keep an ear out for the ad and have another listen. :) If anyone in the UK has heard it, what do you reckon, is it him? EDIT: 'Tis him. Who else would it be with That Voice? Have a listen/look: (Thanks for the link, Maria! :) When I tried to find it on YouTube, I didn't watch the one that said "Lewis Hamilton" as I was expecting it to have a title about RA... which it didn't, of course!)

In an article on the NOW Magazine website, namely this one: NOW Magazine // Movies // Q&A: Sam Neill , there's the following quote: The movie’s bloodthirsty quality makes a nice change from all the Twilight stuff. To be honest, I don’t particularly like a lot of them. For “vampire,” read “emo” – the disaffected, boring youths I put up with because I have teenagers. These people come drooping through my door, and I don’t particularly care for them. When they get to 21, they’ll be fine, but in the meantime they like vampires – and boring vampires. Aww, you da man, Mr. Neill! :D If I didn't love you already! He's in a vampire movie (with proper vampires, the fanged, non-sparkly kind who don't do garlic, mirrors or sunshine) called Daybreakers which premiered here in the UK yesterday. We're thinking of going to see it on Saturday. A Sam movie the Squeeze actually wants to watch! The movie also features Ethan Hawke and is probably more the Squeeze's cuppa tea t

First post of the year, yay! Hope you all had a fab New Year's! :) Safely back in the UK again (OMG, we have snow!), I thought I'd kick off the year in a slightly unusual fashion, by posting something I've written. Err. Okay, yeah, I normally post stuff I've written (duuh), but I mean a story. Or not strictly a story, it's more of a letter, and it's a sort of summary of a storyline in a roleplaying game. Reason for posting, more than feeling like it, is because I love the whole angst-ridden loveliness of the character, and it's a feeble excuse to post gratuitous pictures from North & South , as the letter-writer happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Richard Armitage. *cough* Pure coincidence, as it happens, as I decided what he looks like before I decided to cast RA in the role. ;) (The blackbird thing is his nickname for her, because her name is that of a blackbird, in Latin.) But anyhoo, tell me what you think, I love to get feedback / construc

I'm a little bit late with this (sorry!), mainly due to having had a busy Xmas and having a less than charming cold at the same time. :( Hope you've all had a lovely time, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, or whatever religious denomination floats your boat. I quite like the term "Xmas" because it's nicely unspecific, even though technically the X comes from the Greek letter pronounced "chi" or something, which is used when you start to spell "Christ", but still. Big letter X:es are good, they remind me of The X-Files . ;) Anyway. It's that time of year, and I'd like to wish everyone a splendidly Merry Xmas (retroactively) and a fantastically Happy New Year :D The little fella on the top was found somewhere online a number of years back and used to come out around this time of year at my old Thomas Anders fansite, Weidungs Welt! ... and I went and got him out again, along with this old photo manip: 'Tis t