The Squeee

Coming in March is the second annual FanstRAvaganza! It's a celebration of all things Richard Armitage around a number of participant blogs. Some blogs are normally exclusively about Richard Armitage, others - like this one - has him as a recurring topic, simply because we can't help but swoon over the guy. (Seriously, can you blame us?) Over the course of a week, specifically 14-21 March, every blogger will run her own particular RA-related theme. My theme last year was the leading ladies of the RA productions. This year, I've chosen a theme myself and what that will be ... well, Read And Find Out! :P This year is going to be bigger than ever! Okay, well, bigger than last year, which is when it all began. So far, these wonderful bloggers and their equally wonderful blogs will be taking part: Avalon - Avalon's Blog CDoart - CDoart Judiang - Confessions of a Watcher Mesmered - Mesmered's Blog Mulubinba - An RA viewer's perspective from 33°0'S of

The beginning of this post can be found here: Celebrity and the Big C - Part 1 . Sorry for dwelling on this topic even longer, but I just remembered something as I wrote "It hurts to lose a loved one, regardless of if they're famous or Joe Schmoe down the street." THIS WAS (and still is) MY F***ING PROBLEM WITH JADE GOODY . To people outside of Britain, she was a woman who basically got famous for being famously unedumacated on Big Brother and making an arse of herself on Celebrity Big Brother a few years later by making bullying racist comments about a fellow housemate and thereby causing a huge scandal. Foot-in-mouth disease. You has had it. When she got diagnosed with cancer, it was made into a reality TV show and gathered a media circus around the whole thing. While I'm genuinely sad for the sake of her young children that they did actually have the misfortune of losing their mother to cancer, the whole show around her passing I found deeply offensi

I'm going to be really quite serious for once, but so many things are going on in the world of the stars that I can no longer just sit here in my own little world and pretend things are fine, because sometimes, things are not fine. And it makes me sad. Behind the headlines, the stars are real people, with families who care for them. Zsa Zsa Gabor is fighting gangrene and might lose a leg, but she's age 93 now, so let's face it, while that's obviously sad for her and a terrible worry for her family, I'm not too bothered by it personally. I hope she gets better, obviously, but I can't sit here and pretend that it pulls my heartstrings too much. She's almost a century old - NONE of my grandparents lived to her age. Maybe it's also because I can't relate to her either that makes it less of a biggie. Coming down in ages, and while not young, Dame Maggie Smith (76) battled breast cancer in 2007 and was declared cancer-free in 2009. You wouldn't th

I was writing a review when I came across an article on BBC News , saying actress Susannah York has died at 72, having struggled with cancer for a while. She has been in a number of things over the years, but the thing I knew her from was as the red-haired, too-beautiful Jane in the 1970 adaptation of Jane Eyre , opposite George C Scott. Probably one of the adaptations I enjoyed the least, to be fair, but still, one of the Janes has passed away. My thoughts are with her family and friends. May the Mother's last embrace welcome you home. What are your recollections of Susannah York?

There's this trailer running on TV at the moment, about a new movie that's out, called Season of the Witch . A 14th century Crusader returns to a homeland devastated by the Black Plague. A beleaguered church, deeming sorcery the culprit of the plague, commands the two knights to transport an accused witch to a remote abbey, where monks will perform a ritual in hopes of ending the pestilence. A priest, a grieving knight, a disgraced itinerant and a headstrong youth who can only dream of becoming a knight join a mission troubled by mythically hostile wilderness and fierce contention over the fate of the girl. When the embattled party arrives at the abbey, a horrific discovery jeopardises the knight's pledge to ensure the girl fair treatment, and pits them against an inexplicably powerful and destructive force. Momentum Pictures, you had me at "accused witch" and "14th century". :) But that's not what ran through my head when I saw the trai

Saw a bit of it. Seemed awright. Perhaps a bit better than it used to be, even? Which is just as well, heh. Haven't followed this show with any sort of zeal, or, indeed, at all, really. Seen the odd episode here and there, and most of series one, I think. For this new one (series four is it?), I was struck by: Complete and total inability to watch Ben Miller without expecting him to say something along the lines of "actually, this isn't funny. This actually happened to a mate of mine" or "isn't it? Isn't it, though?" or basically any other Armstrong & Miller catchphrase you can think of. "Hey, isn't that the guy from Strike Back ?" Just checked, and yes, yes it is! (Alexander Siddig, rowr!) The complete and total droolworthiness of Connor (Andrew Lee Potts) and Abby (Hannah Spearritt). That's one hawt couple. They weren't exactly ugly before, but now ... wowza. Woah, HELL YES! And the guy on the right ain't ba

One is rejoicing, for Syfy's Alice is finally coming to the UK! From what I've gathered, it's to Alice in Wonderland what Tin Man is to the Wizard of Oz . And that's enough to get me very excited. Not to mention it stars The Seriously Cute Guy off Primeval (new series started over the weekend just gone, even though I thought they cancelled it), the magnificent Kathy Bates and the insanely brilliant Tim Curry. Oh, note to self: Andrew Lee Potts is the name of the cutie. Actually, better make that hottie, I just saw the piccy on his IMDb profile. Goodness me! Phwoar! The journey in two parts begins on Syfy (Sky 129 / Virgin 135 / TalkTalk 22 - but does anyone even have TalkTalk?) Thursday, 27 January 2011, at 8:00pm / 20:00. Syfy UK: Alice

Last night, I dreamed of Spooks . And Lucas North John Bateman wasn't even in it! (Bloody traitor.) It was something to do with a human-looking robot and a secret room in a house. It was hidden behind a bunk bed and the lock was really dodgy. And for being a super-secret bunker, why on earth did it have perfectly normal windows? Anyway, I believe Dmitri took Harry there, because it was top priority to keep Harry safe. Did that make me Dmitri or was I another spook? Anyway. I think I woke up somewhere there, after having given up on that blasted little key that wouldn't quite lock the secret door properly. Chin up, Harry. I saved you! If anyone wanted to vote in the National Television Awards, the shortlist voting opened today, and will remain open until 26 January. You can vote here: http://www.nationaltvawards.com/vote but there's nothing about Spooks or Richard Armitage or anything else Richard, boo. However, if you want to vote for Doctor Who or Sherlock , or t

This is positively the best song I've heard so far this year! Okay, admittedly, the year has only just begun, but what a way to begin! Allison, you are my hero. In fact, you should be the hero of Richard Armitage fangirls everywhere. Absolutely brilliant song, it made me both smile and giggle. Thank you! And many thanks to Skully for posting about it and thus making me aware of it! 2011 has begun!

Tonight, in an hour, the UK will pass from 2010 to 2011. Almost half the world is already there, in fact! I hope 2010 has treated you well, and even if it hasn't, I hope 2011 will be (even) better. :) Here's a quick re-cap of the year of The Squeee . The Squeee in 2010 - A year of unabashed fangirling January opened with the All About the Brontës Challenge , where I set to work straight away, listening to some old radio plays of Jane Eyre , watched the 1996 film adaptation of the same and finished reading Wuthering Heights for the very first time. I also wrote about my visit to Haddon Hall the year before, and had ideas on how you might be able to make sports interesting , because let's face it, it's not exactly all that interesting. I also discovered I was Marianne Dashwood , even though I don't really play the piano. February announced the first International Magic Day , the blog got itself a makeover, and we were being spoiled rotten by Mr. Armitage n

BrontëBlog are reporting some very much awaited release dates for Jane Eyre 2011. Here's me thinking merrily that it'll have a release 11 March, or at least thereabouts. Wrong! In chronological order: 11 March 2011 - USA (limited) 7 April 2011 - Australia 14 April 2011 - Germany 9 June 2011 - The Netherlands 9 September 2011 - UK 23 September 2011 - Spain September 2011 - Denmark

Humber Road, to be precise. He was walking down it, in broad daylight. Right about here. Nice and sunny day too, like this. And why was I sort of having a conversation with his "manager"? And who was I walking with? And why was his manager (a man) on Twitter under a fake name - a random woman? It was very peculiar indeed. And if it sounds a bit weird, that's because it was a dream. Had it last night. For some reason, I ... oh hang on. I remember now! I was walking down said fairly non-descript street in the Nottingham suburb of Beeston together with Nat from the Richard Armitage Fanblog , for some reason. Perhaps because I don't know what she looks like in real life is the reason why I can't remember what she looked like in the dream? Like this, and with jeans. But in the flesh. Gorgeous isn't a strong enough word. We came upon Richard Armitage's manager, who was also walking down the road, and we spoke of his charge. And speak of the handso

This morning was a special event: the first full lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice for about 400 years. In Nottingham, there was a solid cloud cover, so not much to see, unfortunately. Also, I woke up with my right foot hurting like the blazes, so I couldn't try to see if I could spot it anyway. This is what a lunar eclipse looks like, if you haven't seen one before: First time I heard of one was maybe ten years ago or so, when I decided to set the clock in the middle of the night to watch it. I thought it would be a quick thing, like a solar eclipse (never seen one - there was a partial one in Sweden once, but again, cloud cover ... with rain), but it took such a long time that I went back to bed. When I got up around 6 or 7, the moon was still red! It goes on for hours ! If you have the time and patience to wait all through it, or even just a few minutes, it's an amazing astronomical display. :) I thought that I wouldn't join in with the Christmas wishes this

Okay, let's start with one that didn't really work terribly well ... Epic Movie : And one that sort of worked ... Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire : And one that looks like it could be a heck of a lot of fun when it comes out, Your Highness . Enjoy! :)

What happens when Britain has a sprinkling of snow It's been cold and snowy in Britain recently (although today and during the weekend, we're going to have about +5°C, so nice and relatively warm), of course, being from Sweden, I've had a lot of "but of course, you're used to much worse!" comments. Which is true. -17°C certainly won't break any cold records even in the part where I'm from (which is around Gothenburg on the west coast, so definitely not "oop North"). However, Sweden has a neighbour in the east, where it does get very cold in winter. Because if you think even -20°C is cold, think again. The Finns are decidedly unfazed, because they're well hard, innit. No really, they are. Which made me think of a funny list I read ages ago, which I managed to track down and then translated: 15°C - It does not get hotter than this in Finland, so we begin here; the Spaniards put on caps, winter jackets and gloves. The Finns sunbat

Here's something I wrote for a creative writing course. These were our instructions: You will try writing two different versions of the same story. The first story should be a detective story; the second one a romance. Following is your topic: two people meet after having been separated for 20 years. One of them has stayed in their hometown, and lives a traditional family life; is married and has two children. The other person left home in her/his early twenties and experienced various things that you are free to imagine. /.../ It should be clear to the reader why they meet again after all these years. There must be a conflict of some kind. Is the conflict something that happened recently/is about to happen, or is it an old conflict that has been going on for decades. It couldn't be more than 400 words either, but I changed a few bits to post it here (according to the feedback the teacher gave me at the time), so it might be slightly different than it was to begin with. An

Was going through Marvin (the desktop computer) to find some files, and came across this, which I believe was posted on Facebook a couple of years ago or so. So not necessarily very up-to-date, but anyway. Here goes: 1) What author do you own the most books by? Technically, Carolyn Keene, but on the other hand, they’re not all mine and besides, they’re all at my parents’. Seriously though, we’ve got probably 100+ Nancy Drew books! Sheer number of books aside from that … Bengt Linder. My collection of books about Dante and Tvärsan is almost complete. :D 2) What book do you own the most copies of? Hmm. I’ve got a few doubles of Jane Austen books now, as I decided to get a new batch from the same series (Wordsworth Classics) to make it look nice and consistent. 3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Prepo-what-a? :P

I was googling to find a picture of Ciarán Hinds as Aberforth Dumbledore. Found this: Has a thing for goats. Hence the goatee? Har har. THAT'S Ciarán Hinds?! But but but ... it looks nothing like him? Hard to judge by just the one picture. Maybe it will be clearer in the actual film itself. But still, looking at that photo, it really looks like someone else? THIS on the other hand: Yup, that's definitely him. Oooh one of the Mr. Rochesters with a wand. I could swoon for less! Either way, I can't wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 to come out. While waiting, I really should be working on the review of Part 1, so I can gush over how brilliant it was. Yes. But first, sleep. EDIT: Bright and early (and very cold) morning, and a good night's sleep later, I've realised where the confusion lies. Aberforth Dumbledore, the character, is only shown in Part 1 as an eye glimpsed through the mirror Sirius Black gave Harry Potter. Harry thinks

Another day full of snowing, so I thought I'd share what it looks like outside the house at the moment! There's about 4-6 inches or 10-15 cm or so here, and temperatures are set to drop. Nice afro there, bird table! I also put together a little video for illustrative purposes! :) What's the weather like at the moment where you are?

...before they go as mad as the secret wife in the attic? I aim to find out! :) This is where it all began. Okay, I don't mean I aim to read Jane Eyre prequels, sequels, spin-offs and inspired bys/based ons until I actually go insane, more like, how many can I manage to read before I get thoroughly fed up with the whole thing. Here's the cunning plan ... (updated 13 December 2012)