The Squeee

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! Dress up, take a picture and share it. :) You are hereby cordially invited to participate (and invite other muggles and magic folk alike). An essential part of the gear for a witch or wizard is of course a wand. Might I introduce my choice of handycraft? Wandmaking! (Well, if you're a Harry Potter nerd with a penchant for Paganism and enjoyed whittling sticks as a child, it was bound to happen sooner or later!) Have a look at the collection at http://www.handcrafted-wands.co.uk - more are added as they are finished. :) And when my camera doesn't run out of batteries, which is the current problem!

Here's a story I wrote in 2004, just for the fun of it. It's jam-packed with references to movies and shows - and some off-screen stuff - with one common denominator. Guess who! :) (Not that the post tagging or 10-second Photoshop job of a picture gives it away or anything...) "Who Am I?" Mr. Actor-in-Cleverest-Disguise-Ever! Or not. Let's face it. To be the Antichrist isn't all it's cracked up to be. You can never find a decent girl, because all the ones you hang out with look at you with a dumb expression of awe. It's nice to be considered a god on occasion, but sometimes you just want to be loved. There is the proper kind of woman you want, of course, and if she has a kid, it's great! Package deal: pawn and mistress for the price of one! She might object to using her only child as a satanic agent, but hey - if you get bored, just tell her a dingo took her baby! She might object to being raped, however, and she might also end up stabbing y

I haven't even seen Fight Club and I think this is hilarious! :D (Even though I can't help but disagree with their costumes.) I bid you have a great weekend!

If anyone's been trying to contact me by email and have failed to get a response - I'm not being rude, I just haven't received your email (if you've had a mailer daemon response, it's obvious I haven't, but I'm not sure my domain sends those out). Okay, true, I can be pretty damn awful in responding to emails (or Facebook messages) sometimes, but if someone sends me an email to do with this blog, I tend to be so happily surprised and delighted that I answer straight away, as opposed to "yeah, I'll respond to that later. *six months on* Oh... umm... well, it's a bit late now, really, isn't it? *cough*" which is not a rare occurrence, unfortunately. Procrastination's a bitch. Or rather, I'm procrastination's bitch. So I'm really sorry if you've tried to contact me and think I'm ignoring you because I've not responded to you - I'm definitely not ignoring you, it's just that my contact details have be

Back in the end of March this year , I posted some blog statistics, because I was supposed to be doing schoolwork and therefore made myself busy doing something completely different. As it turned out, I figured my blog was about 1/5 about Richard Armitage. Now that I have 50 posts labelled "Richard Armitage" and 50 labelled "Jane Eyre", I'm curious to see what that does. Okay, here's a nice picture of a graph: How many times labels have been used, yo. Now, I've used labels 706 times in total, separated over 329 different things (phew!), and 232 posts have been published. Of the ones used ten or more times, we have: Jane Austen (10) - 4.31% of total posts have this label Toby Stephens (10) - 4.31% too, of course Emily Brontë (11) - 4.74% Spooks (12) - 5.17% Wuthering Heights (12) - 5.17% too, funny that ... Strike Back (14) - 6.03% Charlotte Brontë (18) - 7.76% ...then there's a minute, miniscule and minimal leap to: Jane Eyre (50

Rejoice, everyone, rejoice! There will be more of John Porter, says The Daily Mirror today! :D Okay, it doesn't say when it's going to happen or when filming starts or anything other than there will be a series two, but hey, more Action Man stuff for Mr. Armitage. Will he be flaunting his chesticles quite as much in the new series as he was in series one, you reckon? "Hasta la vista, baby. I'll be back." Three cheers for Servetus at Me + Richard Armitage for the link! :)

Came across this, from an article about Sally Hawkins in The Guardian : The actress, who won a Golden Globe for her lead role in Mike Leigh's 2008 Happy-Go-Lucky , is also to appear in a new version of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre due to premiere at the Venice film festival in September WTH! So it DOES come out a lot earlier than March - if you happen to be in Venice, at the film festival. Bah! And the rest of us have to wait another SIX MONTHS before we can go see it! No fair! I want to see it now! The article/interview also describes Ms Hawkins as "nervous, petite and a bit shy". The perfect Mrs. Reed then, obviously. For reference: Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficient

The problem with using templates that aren't endorsed by Blogger themselves is that they don't necessarily update whenever Blogger does. And Blogger have made a whole number of changes recently. Therefore, I have decided to switch to one of the official Blogger templates - and tinker with it a bit to make it look almost like it did before (which means using the same background image, as I rather liked it - the pre-chosen ones that were of a similar kind were ugwy). Now, if Blogger updates, I should be able to sit back and relax and have the new features by the click of a button. So, what do you think of the new template? :)

Writing interlude! This one, apparently is in the style of Kurt Vonnegut . I really haven't got a clue, but I seriously doubt it. It was written, I think, in 1999, and I've not changed it - simply because I think it's cute in all its naivité (hey, I was 17!). At the time, I had never been in Koblenz, so really had no idea of what the town looks like, what the temperature is actually likely to be in December, and so on. Today, I would've said "why on Earth would they pick a spot half-way across town to meet? They could've just said THE BLOODY SQUARE OUTSIDE THE TRAIN STATION". But I digress. The funny thing is, this got published in a Vietnamese students magazine, or something like that, back in the day. Had an email from someone about it and got into a hissy fit at first, but was happy about the unauthorised use when I found out that I was properly credited in the magazine, the emailer had not been paid for it and he even offered to send me a copy, which

A friend pointed me in the direction of this little text analyser: I Write Like . Paste a bit of text and voilà, it will tell you which author it thinks you write like. Mr. Joyce, I presume? Like looking in a mirror! Or not. I don't recall having a 'tache. Or glasses. Or a hat. Or a bowtie. Interesting stuff. Pasting part one of a story gave me Margaret Atwood. Part two, HP Lovecraft. Erm, what sort of a combination is that? Pasting the WHOLE story in one go, however, returned Stephanie Meyer. *bangs head on desk* I resent that. Those characters have plenty of personality, I'll have you know. I borrowed 'em off Charlotte Brontë, after all. Bah! Other bits of writing it analysed returned Kurt Vonnegut and PG Wodehouse. Some blog posts from here returned Dan Brown ( Jane Eyre - the Graphic Novel ), James Joyce ( The French Dancer's Bastard a.k.a. Thornfield Hall a.k.a. Adèle ), Charles Dickens ( Mrs. Rochester: The Sequel to Jane Eyre ) and Cory Doctorow (

The darkness steals the forms of all the queens, But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of the dead Hours that were once all glory and all queens. And I remember still the sunny hours Of queens in hyacinth and skies of gold, And morning singing where the woods are scrolled And diapered above the chaunting flowers. Here lamps are white like snowdrops in the grass; The town is like a churchyard, and so still And grey now night is here; nor will Another torn red sunset come to pass.  Good night, everybody! :)

Happy happy happy! Today, it's a year since I passed my driving test, and it's my birthday on Thursday, but right now, I'm happy happy happy because my IMDb message board note finally paid off. Someone responded - and had good news!   Evolution's Child from 1999 is finally available on DVD! :D It's part of a 6-movie box set called The Ultimate Sci-Fi Movie Marathon (and has a seriously ugly cover) and if that friendly IMDb user hadn't told me, I would probably never have found out. But now I know! And have zoomed over to Amazon accordingly! The films included on the three discs aaaare: Deep Red (1994) The Android Affair (1995) It Came from Outer Space II (1995) Night Visitors (1996) Evolution's Child (1999) Control Factor (2003) The movies included are all B-movies, to be fair (then again, that Evolution's Child is one was never doubted), but I've been looking for this particular film on DVD ever since I caught bits of it on the Sci-F

by Charlotte Brontë; script adaptation by Amy Corzine, artwork by John M Burns, lettering by Terry Wiley (Classical Comics, 2010 [1847]) "I scorn your idea of love and the counterfeit sentiment you offer. And I scorn you when you offer it." This Charlotte Brontë classic is brought to vibrant life by artist John M. Burns. His sympathetic treatment of Jane Eyre's life during the 19th century will delight any reader with its strong emotions and wonderfully rich atmosphere. Travel back to a time of grand Victorian mansions contrasted with the severest poverty and immerse yourself in this love story. It is presented in full colour graphic novel format wonderfully illustrated by legendary artist John M. Burns. It meets UK curriculum requirements. Teachers notes/study guides for KS2/KS3 available. There's not a lot to say about the graphic novel version of Jane Eyre more than "it's the most faithful adaptation I've come across". It even got th

Question of the week: Meyerpyre or Fwuffy Doggie? And the winner is ... Team Arrrrghhhh-I-bloody-hate-Twilight!!! You can has taste, 11 peoples (52%). Well done. :) Team Sparkles & Team Jacob - 5 (23%) each - aww, dey tied. Team Bella - 0 (0%) - and quite rightly so. Thank you, 21 voters! Always interesting to have some polls going! :D 26 people voted in the next poll, which posed a most important question: who your favourite Edward is. Sparkles or someone else? Turns out Sparkles wasn't it. Woop woop! (*does victory dance in the background*) Your favourite Edward? Edward Fairfax Rochester *Snap* 18 (69%) votes! <3 *victory dance again* My favourite Edward too. Like you didn't already know. ;) Edward Scissorhands is tied second with "Some other Edward" - 3 (11%) Which other Edward would that be? Norton? But he's not fictional. At least I don't believe he is ... Mr. Edward Ferrars - 2 (7%)  Cravatted blokes. Nowt wrong with that a

Today, it begins! Good luck everyone who's signed up . Thanks for joining in! It's my first go at this so please bear with me. :) My personal aim is to take it a bit easier with this challenge than with the Brontë one, where I went "a bit" mad, so have set my limit to a more reasonable one book a month. Will read them in order in the omnibus, but I can't remember which one comes first. Just know I plan on finishing with Lady Chatterley's Lover in December. That being said - let's go! :D Post your DH Lawrence Challenge reviews here! When you have finished something in the challenge and written something about it on your blog, please pop by here and let the rest of us know the link to your review, because sharing is caring! :) See the Challenge details and sign up to participate here!

... But no sign of Richard Armitage, Spooks , Strike Back ... or anything else half-decent. :( Here's the link, anyway: Vote in the TV Choice Awards 2010 Shortlist Voting's open until 9 July 2010.

As I posted the Twilight Saga: New Moon review earlier today, I thought "hey, let's have a poll about it" - so what'll it be? Team Jacob or Team Sparkles? Or, perhaps Team Bella if you can't decide. ... Or there's always the other option ... There's always the other option. Especially regarding this. And no, I refuse to call Sparkles by his real first name, because Stephanie Meyer nicked it off Charlotte Brontë and there is only ONE man who can live up to that name and Mr. Cullen, it ain't you. I'm Team Rochester all the way!

Question posed a while back was: who's your preference, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice , or Mr. John Thornton from Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South ? 1. John Thornton - 39 votes - 88%  2. Fitzwilliam Darcy - 5 votes - 11% Thank you to the 44 voters, the results are perhaps not that surprising, considering I'd say the majority of the readers of this blog (love you all!) are fans of Richard Armitage. ;) On the other hand, Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, he was the first introduction I had to the wonderful world of period drama, and my first cravat crush. (The 2005 version of P&P just doesn't work for me at all. Colin Firth is and always will be the perfect Darcy.)

Here's my list of things I wish to accomplish during the DH Lawrence Challenge 2010 , which kicks off on Thursday 1 July 2010! :) Lady Chatterley's Lover (book) The Captain's Doll (novella) The Ladybird (novella) The Man Who Died (short story) The Virgin and the Gypsy (novella) Love Among the Haystacks (short story) The Lovely Lady (short story) Rawdon's Roof (short story) The Rocking-Horse Winner (short story) The Man Who Loved Islands (short story) Visit DH Lawrence heritage! I hope to be able to track down some adaptations as well, such as the 1993 version of Lady Chatterley , with Sean Bean and Joely Richardson. We shall see. If so, I'll add more to the list as they come along. But this is my starting point! :) Oh, I nearly forgot: As part of the challenge, I also aim to visit DH Lawrence Heritage in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire . Don't know when exactly, but hopefully at some point this summer! Learn more about the author: DH Lawr

"Why does Ms. Bailey say I burned down Thornfield?" "Because she got all the characters wrong, Adèle." "And what of Ms. Tennant? She says I hate you!" "Hush; do not speak of that crime against fiction." Cashing in some Amazon vouchers, I'm now waiting for these babies to be delivered to my doorstep: Adèle, Grace, and Céline: The Other Women of "Jane Eyre" by Claire Moise Jane Eyre's Daughter by Elizabeth Newark Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin and Charlotte Brontë