marramgrass

There’s a few of the younger teens who were helping out with Holiday Club this week are running around with these wee noisemaker things. They’re kind of like a bit a papery-felty-type stuff with a small bit of plastic on the end that you stick to the roof of your mouth and then blow over or something and it makes the most awful squealing noise as the bit of plastic vibrates.

I’m very nervous about these things, for two reasons. First, I just know that someone will inhale the wrong way and choke on one (I have no confidence at all in my ability as a responsible (!) adult to use one of these things without doing myself harm in this way). Second, when I was growing up, my parents impressed upon me from a very young age that you don’t put little papery things in your mouth that you got from a man on the street in case all is not as it seems. Seems a basic lesson in self-preservation.

Honestly, I wouldn’t touch one of these things with a ten-foot pole.

…Holiday Club (or VBS for any - here’s hoping - trans-Atlantic readers).

Without a shadow of a doubt the absolute busiest week of my year, but a whole lot of fun. 88 different children, at about 75 a day, making a whole load of noise. Coupled with some cafe-type things in the evenings.

The week has passed without any major mishaps, and now my relief is physical. The only annoying thing is that I woke up at 8.30 this morning, and my head is full of fuzz.

OK, it’s been a while, alright?

Terminator 3:Rise Of The Machines

Last night with Adrian. How can I put this tactfully? It’s not really a Terminator movie, is it? Both in a good, not-just-connor-on-the-run-from-a-terminator kind of way, and in a bad, hasn’t-really-got-the-intelligence-or-the-atmosphere kind of way.

It looks good - the effects are nice. The action bits are fairly decent (although ask us not how the crane can actually keep up with the emergency vehicles). The ‘Terminatrix’ is a nice evolution.

But not much actually happens. There’s 109 minutes (I think - according to Empire) of this film, and in those 109 minutes you get perhaps 35 or 40 minutes’ worth of plot and action. It could have worked really well as the first reel of a Matrix-style man-against-machines dark social fable. But it ended up as a fairly run-of-the-mill B-movie. I wonder… if it hadn’t said ‘Terminator’ on the front, would this have gone straight to video? If there’s justice.

So. Did I enjoy it? Aye, it was a laugh.

Just spotted that I’ve got a link from Joy over here.

It’s sad how excited I am by this… but there you go.

If I’m getting linked to, I guess this means I’m really going to have to learn to say interesting things here. Oh, dear.

I’m sometimes with Steve Stockman, and I’m sometimes not. But I reckon this is right on the money.

Last Thursday night was the start of the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh, and we went along. The whole pipe-and-drum band thing isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it was fun. Various military bands, a motorcycle display team and a couple of other bits and pieces - it was something of a spectacle.

The show was stolen by the Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland (check out a bit about them). I know, the name is pretty naff, but… these boys were spectacular. They came on and formed up, and I noticed that they only had drums, and no other instruments. At that point I had a strong suspicion that this was going to be good. I’m deliberately not gushing to much here, but I mean, WOW. Tighter-than-tight drumming, stick throws, nice choreography, comedy touches, technical brilliance. I would pay the ticket price for the Tattoo just to see these guys for ten minutes. I’m actually genuinely bothered that I probably won’t ever see their display again. That good.

And they easily got the most enthusiastic response from the crowd all night.