The Squeee

Here be Chapter 2 of The Squeee production of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre ! Go to listen/download the second chapter from Jellycast! In Chapter 2, Jane has been shut in the Red Room, where once her uncle Reed died, and she's not a happy bunny. Neither am I, I need to check the microphone settings better for next time. Kh. The whole Jane Eyre audiobook can be found at Jellycast: Jane Eyre Audiobook by Traxy

'What the deuce!' came the cry from out yonder. 'It wasn't like that earlier today, I'm sure of it! Something's broken the poll!' I'll get Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Tom Barnaby, Kurt Wallander, Nancy Drew and all the rest on the case and see if I can fix it, or if the poll has to be re-made. 'Stoopid bleedin' thing,' Traxy muttered under her breath, going to the layout page, pressing "Save" just to see if it does anything. 'There,' she says, casting a suspicious eye at the blog front page. 'I think I fixed it.' Possible culprit? A very cute gremlin if she was. :)

Woke up this morning (which was, by the time of posting, in January) to find I had not just received one award, but in fact three! I've never had a blog get an award before. :) Many thanks to Avalon for these - if you haven't already, do go and have a look at her wonderful blog! I'm trying to pass them on to people who have not received the award(s) before, but if any of them have... well, have another one. :) For this, you need to list ten things that make you happy, so here goes (and I'll seriously try to not just fill up the list with actors, movies or books *cough*): Cats, particularly my darling Daisy Stationary - a brand new notebook or notepad and a pen and I'm in heaven! Going to the cinema Good food Getting surprise flowers from my husband Heck, my husband in general! :) Snow - this winter has been fab in that respect! Animals in general Writing, of course! Random acts of kindness This one, I'd like to dedicate to my friends: isdock

This was something I posted as a comment on Avalon's Blog a few weeks ago, on the subject of why we love Guy of Gisborne of BBC's Robin Hood . Well, here's my reasoning behind loving the Man in Black: In a show where he was just meant to be a one-dimensional baddie, he turned out to be the hero. The transition from stereotypical goon, the sheriff's evil sidekick who leaves babies in the woods to die to lovestruck puppy - and later on very wounded puppy, and then fierce puppy - and angst-ridden emo to Man with a Tragic Past and then redeems himself... That range of emotion is very compelling to watch. A show where you don't root for the supposed hero (because the hero is a stuck-up brat) but for the guy you're supposed to hate - it's a bit confusing, but an interesting change to normal proceedings. A lot of the appeal of Gisborne is RA, though, that can't be forgotten. If someone else had played him, I doubt the show would've had the fanbase it n

(I did start writing this on the eve of the actual final... not that I got around to finishing it then... *cough*) The annual spectacle that is the Eurovision Song Contest has concluded. This year, Norway was the host, and they seemed to do a good job. We didn't watch the whole show, as we decided to pop to Blockbusters just before it started, but we heard a little of the broadcast on the radio in the car. It sounded like Terry Wogan had got back to his old job, but then we decided it wasn't, and opted for Radio 2 presenter Ken Bruce - who sounds 98% like Terry Wogan! The songs were their usual Eurovisiony selves, the hosts spoke their normal English with heavy accents... Then there was the voting, and in those 15 minutes between the end of the singing and the end of the voting, aside from the normal medley of songs to remember which numbers to call, were a couple of guys and some attempt at a flashmob around Europe. Surprised to see Gothenburg there - would've thought

There's a reason for pitting these two men against each other. Essentially, because P&P and N&S are similar in many ways. Just because a lot of you are fans of Richard Armitage and thus biased toward Mr. Thornton... well, it doesn't mean everyone is! Or does it? Read And Find Out! :D Okay, yeah, so I still haven't got over the fact that Darcy beat Rochester in the previous poll (14 vs 7). Y'all are just WRONG on that one. *sniff* :P No, really. Darcy might've been what got me into costume dramas, but Rochester and Thornton are what's keeping me hooked. And a bunch of others too, admittedly, but I need to get to bed and if I were to list them all, I'd be up all night!

"Will you be following the World Cup this year, Miss Dashwood?" "Indeed I will not, Mr. Ferrars. I find football most disagreeable." Any football fans out there? (Soccer fans if you're American.) I couldn't give a stuff about the World Cup personally. Apparently, Sweden's not even in it - nor did we make it to the Eurovision final, gasp! At present, England is at a standstill, because they're playing the USA. So far, it's 1-1 and it's about 15 minutes to go. It being the World Cup means "but now there's nothing decent on telly for ages !" - or is there? Actually, there is. The channels are exceedingly agreeable, as it happens! One channel's showing Sense & Sensibility '95, another one's showing Pride & Prejudice '95. Another one is showing Notting Hill . It's chick flick heaven! And it'll go on during the World Cup so that all of us who give a collective yawn at a bunch of blokes chasing

Okay, because I've recently downloaded an audiobook ( Villette by Charlotte Brontë) from LibriVox - and signed up to volunteer at the same site - I decided to try out the recording facilities of Arthur (my laptop - considerably newer than Marvin, my desktop, on which I made my last attempt - which didn't have very good sound quality and the reading was pants too). And boy, they are AWESOME! Windows 7 have better microphone settings (proper gain!) and this computer seems to have a decent onboard soundcard too. And the audio editing software recommended by LibriVox - open source project Audacity - has a good noise reduction tool. It makes my voice sound a bit warbly sometimes, but not a lot. I can live with it. So here we go, a second attempt. This time, I've at least tried to not talk quite as quickly. But umm, still a bit quick maybe? Can't help it. I'll try to slow down in chapter two... Go to listen/download the first chapter from Jellycast! The whole Jan

You know when you have a dream, think it's the bees knees, and then you wake up again an hour later and have completely forgotten about it? Until a couple of hours later when something reminds you and you go "oh hang on, I dreamed that..." but then you've forgotten all the details and just have a vague recollection of having dreamed of something that you had to blog about, but you can't quite recall what it was about. Well, guess what? I am happy to announce that last night, I met Richard Armitage! :D Uh, and that's about all I can remember. Moo. :( Okay, the only details I recall is that I met him and he seemed uncomfortable. For the record, I'd like it to be made perfectly clear that I wasn't running after him yelling something ridiculous like "RICHARD, I LOVE YOU AND I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES!!!" or even just letting out the occasional squee at him. I might have been slightly awestruck, but I was acting perfectly sane, thank you.

So, the golden popcorn have been delivered... and like I predicted last month , Twilight won everything they were nominated in. Crud. We'll get to that in a bit. Christina Aguilera's performance, with the cogs in the background, would've been so much more interesting if she had been dressed up in a Steampunk style. I have no idea who the presenter was. But he was kinda funny. At least this year, we were spared Brüno going down on Eminem... ugh. (Or was that a different MTV awards show?) There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, especially the movie parody clip things. They're normally funny. Much to our delight, the studio boss Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder made several appearances. Including dancing with J-Lo. I didn't know Tom Cruise could move! His lady wife in the audience seemed to enjoy him more dressed up as Les gettin' jiggy wif it rather than when he was presenting an award with Cameron Diaz. Well, "Les is more" as a newspaper h

Watching bits of the BAFTAs on TV. There was Richard Armitage having a right laugh at something Graham Norton (the presenter) was saying - didn't hear which, as it was just as I switched over to BBC1. At ca 20:40, the man himself was introduced to present the award for Supporting Actress. Just me, or did he seem a little bit nervous? Anyway, here are the winners, which I got off the BAFTA website . Fellowship: Melvyn Bragg Special Award: Simon Cowell Leading Actor: Kenneth Branagh - Wallander (BBC One) - Nice one! It's odd to see a bunch of British actors filming a Swedish book in Sweden... in English. They couldn't get the pronounciations right, to start with, but it was still a good watch. Plus, I can't really say no to the effort they made. Leading Actress: Julie Walters - Mo (Channel 4) Supporting Actor: Matthew MacFadyen - Criminal Justice (BBC One) - Aww, he's even starting to look grown up! Just give it a few more years and then we'll

Thank heavens for Google Alerts! Up until now, the only hits on Richard Armitage have been to do with the US politician, but today - gold! The Mirror have an interview with him, signed Vicki Power. Highlights: Ladies, you need to sit down to read this. Because if you don't, you might hurt yourself on the way down! 1. He's looking for "that perfect food-loving woman" - hey, Nat! ;) 2. He uses Skype ! Add me! Add me! Add me! 3. "I’m not particularly alpha. ‘Nourish and nurture’ are my watchwords as opposed to ‘search and destroy’." - SNAP! *swoon* 4. He's off to LA! Americans, your wish has come true! 5. "Unfortunately, my love life is nil." - Plenty of women who'd be more than willing to remedy that... ;) Perhaps I should add "sadly", because it must be quite difficult being famous. You can't be too sure who's wanting you for the person you are, and who wants you just because you're famous. Makes finding th

For those who can - if you're abroad, see if you can access the page - the TVChoice Awards have the longlists open for voting now. From those, I guess there will then be a shortlist to vote on. Why am I telling you this? Because you can go vote for your favourite shows and actors! Specifically, Richard Armitage, Spooks and Strike Back ! Highlights: Best new drama: Chris Ryan’s Strike Back (Sky1), Emma (BBC) Best drama series: Spooks (BBC1) Best actor: Richard Armitage ( Chris Ryan’s Strike Back ) Best actress: Ruth Wilson ( Luther ) Off you go! http://www.tvchoicemagazine.co.uk/awards

Put this in your calendar, everyone: Friday, 11 March 2011 That's when the latest version of Jane Eyre comes out! Or at least that's when it'll have its "platform release in selected cities" ( ComingSoon.net ), whatever the hell that means. Probably the big, fancy premieres, that means the film won't open to the public until a week or two later. Bummer. But at least it's early in the year! Oooh, I wonder if it's worth sneaking off to London and hang around Leicester Square to see if it's a red carpet thing. That'd be... pretty cool.

While trying to find a photo to go with part two of Country Roads , I came across this: It was three stories high . . . a gentleman’s manor-house . . . battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look’ In 1845 Charlotte Brontë stayed at Hathersage vicarage with her friend Ellen Nussey and regularly visited the locally important Eyre family at North Lees Hall.  Charlotte’s letters reveal Hathersage as the village Morton in Jane Eyre (published 1847). The landlord of the George Inn was a Mr Morton at the time Brontë stayed here and she borrowed the Eyre family name for her heroine.  There’s a reference in the novel to ‘Mr Oliver’s needle factory’ in Morton, and there were several needle mills in Hathersage then. The novel’s crenellated Thornfield is clearly based on North Lees Hall. Robert Eyre is said to have built seven houses for seven sons and you can still see North Lees, an impressive Tudor manor just a short pleasant walk from the village.  It is rumou

Part 1 is here: "Country Roads" - a bit of Jane Eyre in the 21st century .While part one was chapter 12 of Jane Eyre , this is chapter 13... sort of. Brontë tells these bits in ~7000 words, I had 2500 in total, so it feels quite rushed and I'm not particularly pleased. I prefer the 2500-word version with all parts put together and rearranged slightly to these 1000-word bits I've posted here. Either way, constructive criticism is appreciated as always. :)

Just saw a trailer for the final two parts of Strike Back , and I'm happy to announce Toby Stephens was in it! In a suit with short hair, grim expression and American accent. With regards to the episode, it seems it's the Americans trying to get rid of people this time... If it's not the Iraqis or the Zimbabwis, it's the Americans, eh? Still, it'll be nice to see Toby back on screen. Talented actor and handsome fellow that he is, although he looks a bit tired on the pic on the left (from an interview in the London Evening Standard, 23 March 2010 ). Maybe his little kiddies keep him awake at night? In the interview, he says, "On TV a lot of stuff isn't well written. You spend a lot of time trying to polish a turd. Whereas in theatre you usually don't have to expend all that energy selling the thing, because the writing is superior." I wonder what he thinks of Strike Back . Does he consider that turd-polishing too, perhaps? Still, as long as

I came across something somewhere yesterday that mentioned the MTV Movie Awards, so I had a look on the website. I signed up to MTV.com to vote a previous year. Last year, was it? Don't remember. This year looks like it's going to be the same. PLEASE can they not just finish making those Twilight movies soon so we can be rid of them once and for all and get voting for something decent?! Last time, the one that annoys me greatly, was the time when the first Twilight movie had come out, and it was nominated in a bunch of categories, of which it won most of them. It was a shambles! I mean, Best Male Performance. Christian Bale was nominated, and I quite like him. Robert Downey Jr was nominated, and he's a superb actor - and I'm not just saying it because he's ridiculously swoonworthy as well - but as in, as an actor, he's freakin' AWESOME! And who won? Zac Efron! Are you KIDDING ME?! Best Villain - now, I approve of that. Heath Ledger won for playing the

Sadly, they're not real... but oh (wo)man, they should be! :D

Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre. Photo by Laurie Sparham, Focus Features, got from an article at USA Today , found through the BrontëBlog . The article also has some comments from the people behind that blog, which is nice to read! :) The photo looks a bit blurry, almost like a painting. Jane looks plain, in a way, but at the same time, very naturally beautiful. And, to be fair, Jane's Rivers cousins think she's beautiful, even if she does not. Still waiting for a picture of Rochester, though! Come on! Gimme gimme gimme!!