- The saola, a large mammal which was discovered in the Vietnamese forest inā¦ wait for itā¦ 1992! Really makes you wonder what else is hiding out there.
- Circuits
- ā Can studies of living animal colour constrain the colours of dinosaurs? A case study with big theropodsā
- A record history of the Cannonball Run, the illegal street race from New York to Los Angeles
- Really enjoyed this documentary about the varied weirdos of the life-extension movement. I came away surprisingly endeared by that one billionaire guy with the cock monitor.
- Absolutely gutted to find out that you could stay in a hotel shaped like a giant beagle until just this year.
- Walking Nairobi
į¼ĻĪ± Ī½ĪæĪ¼ĪÆĪ¶įæ Ī¼į½²Ī½ Ļį½² ĻĪµĻĪµįæĪ½ į¼Īŗ ĪŗĪæĪŗĪæĻĪæĪÆĪ½Ī¹ĪŗĪæĻ; Īį¼¶ Ī“į½² ĪŗĪ±Ļį½° Ļį½° ĻĻĪ¬Ī³Ī¼Ī±ĻĪ± ĻĪ±Ī½Ļį½øĻ Īæį½ Ī¶įæĻ Ļį¼ ĻĪæĪ¹ į¼„Ī³Ī·ĻĪ±Ī¹. (ā ĪĪ¬Ī¼Ī±Ī»Ī± į¼ĻĻĪÆĪ“ĪæĻ , ĻĶ“.Ī²Ķ“)
Diplodocus is the best dinosaur
Well, i care about what my favourite dinosaur is, and itās Diplodocus, that lumbering old fool. Allow me to be possessed by the spirit of my nine-year-old self for a little bit.
Reason number one why the diplodocus is the best dinosaur is because it is called a diplodocus. This is a very fun name to say and does not strike the same terror into the hearts of men as, say, š¤š¤š¤ Tyrannosaurus Rex!!! š¤š¤š¤ or š„š„š„ Velociraptor!!! š„š„š„. I like to think this is because they are, themselves, gentle creatures, being peaceable herbivores and all that. (My favourite dinosaur could beat up your favourite dinosaur, but chooses not to because it is a conscientious objector. Iām sure this taunt would have gone down great on the playground.)
Another reason diplodoci are great is how long they are, getting up to thirty metres from tip of the snout to top of the tail. Part of me thinks it would be fun to be that long, but the other part likes being able to turn around corners. Thereās other dinosaurs that we think were longer, but most of them donāt have a complete skeleton to back them up, which is a skill issue if iāve ever heard one. If my species was about to be wiped out i would simply do the smart thing and die in an area that would preserve my fossil better. Suck it, Maraapunisaurus.
That long neck isnāt just for show, either. This is the kind of thing that causes massive arguments among palƦontologists, but a study in the Journal of Vertebrate PalƦontology (yes iām backing up my dinosaur preferences with a source) suggests that, because their centre of mass would lie so close to their hip socket, they could assume a bipedal stance without much effort, lifting them high up into the canopy into the land of only the most gourmet leaves. Then, when a foodie diplodocus was done with its land-based course, it could dip its neck into the riverbank and feast on some fine vegan seafood.
One last thing. After PangƦa broke up, the land where the diplodoci reigned shifted and drifted until its reached its present place, in the American southwest. The implication is clear:
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Diplodoci are cowboys.
More Diplodocus links
- The tale of Bone 37
- A most wonderful article title: āI Have Opinions About Dippyā
- Restoring a celebrity diplodocus in art
One hundred questions
Alright, why not? These questions are adapted from Cidoku and ergo Burypink. I have told the truth everywhere except where i have lied.
1. Time and date you started this?
2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-two hours, seven minutes, two seconds.
2. ASL?
Early twenties/Itās complicated/Itās complicated.
3. Opinions on musicals?
Never been a theatre person, but Little Shop of Horrors is a favourite film of mine. šµ Son, be a dentist! People will pay you to be inhumaneā¦ šµ
4. Favorite snack?
Squashies.
5. Have you ever been in love?
Not yet.
6. Favourite PokƩmon?
Eevee ā my favourite evolution of which is Sylveon, obviously.
7. Mario Kart main?
Donkey Kong. Monke always wins.
8. Team Fortress 2 main?
Donāt play it.
9. Do you laugh at Youtube Poops?
Well, obviously. That shitās hilarious.
10. Are you listening to music right now?
Almost always ā currently āStarlingsā, the opening from Elbowās The Seldom Seen Kid. Iāll always have a soft spot for them; theyāre my mumās favourite band, so theyāre tied in with a lot of emotional moments growing up.
11. Favourite shape?
A trefoil knot:
12. Do you believe in astrology?
I find the pop-culture āOMG, thatās such a Gemini thing to doā thing lacking as much in novelty as it is in substance, but i do, at the very least, think there are auspicious and inauspicious days. No further comment, since itās not a particular focus of mine.
13. Do you believe in the occult?
Are you aware of what website this is? ;-)
14. Opinions on vocaloid?
Not my thing, but i can respect the art of forcing computers to make human noises.
15. Would you ever want to be a rock star?
It seems at once liberating and terrifying ā a great big audience for your work and to provoke as you wish, but alsoā¦
16. Do you easily get stressed?
Welcome to Fluoxetine: The Blog.
17. What is/was your favorite class in high school?
Further Maths, baby! Iāve gussied this place up but in my heart of hearts i am the biggest stemlord in history. Mathematics, i think, is the highest beauty among the sciences; none of the tangled messes of diagrams of biology or headaches of physics, just three axioms and the truth.
18. What pokemon type would you be? Dual types are allowed, LOL
Water/Fairy.
19. Rei or Asuka?
Who are you and how did you get into my house?
20. Favorite HTML tag?
<details>.
21. Are you religious?
Pagan, albeit not very good at it.
22. Opinions on nightcore?
I instinctively want to be dismissive, but iām not going to pretend that i donāt regularly load up songs into Audacity and slow them down for the vibeā¦
23. Did you go through any major phase? (emo, goth, weeaboo, &c.)
Not really ā i had a very cheugy adolescence.
24. Are you good at drawing?
No, but i like to think iām better than i was a month ago.
25. Do you crack your joints?
No.
26. Do you read visual novels?
No.
27. Can you sew?
No, but now you mention it, that is something to add to the āmaybe some timeā pileā¦
28. Can you cook?
I make a mean honey and pork stir fry.
29. Most expensive thing youāve bought?
My new computer tots up to just over a thousand pounds in total and itās been worth every penny.
30. Opinions on cosplay?
Seems fun, although not my thing.
31. What's your most hated band/musician?
I donāt have it in me to haā¦ā¦ Maroon 5.
32. Are you a dramatic person?
Cripes, who has the energy for that?
33. What emoticon do you use most?
A winky ;-) face in ascii, a thinky š¤ļø face in emoji.
34. Can a miracle certainly occur?
I donāt understand the question.
35. Would you let a vampire suck your blood?
Nah. The vampire life sounds like it sucks. Now, would i let a werewolf bite me, on the other handā¦
36. Do you have a celebrity crush?
Dev Patel, full name Sexiest Man Alive Dev Patel, is the sexiest man alive (Dev Patel).
37. Do you like snow?
Yes, rare as it comes these daysā¦ every year winter turns more and more into all the drawbacks without the benefits.
38. Were you really into Greek mythology as a kid?
You get three guesses.
39. What are some things you could competently deliver a speech on?
Esperanto. My mildly schizophrenic interpretation of Synecdoche, New York. The finer places on the internet.
40. Are you good at spelling?
I like to think so! English orthography is one of the tongueās great beauties; every word hides its origins within itself.
41. which touhou wud u fuk?
Itās time to log off.
42. Do you think there's going to be a robot takeover?
Nah. The singularity is overhyped, in my view ā just because robots think faster than us doesnāt mean theyāre smarter.
43. Has science gone too far??!?!??!?!
Not far enough. Nowhere near far enough.
44. Would you be an angel or devil?
Devil, because then you get cute little hooves and horns. (I am eternally about two bad bonks on the head from unironically calling myself satyrkin.)
45. Sine, cosine, or tangent?
Tangent.
46. Do you like licorice?
It freaks my English friends out, but absolutely!
47. Whatās thing you cant stand that everyone else loves?
Star Wars, also known as The Adventures of Luke Cardboardeater and His Annoying Friends, is complete and utter tripe and i will never understand the obsession. Every character is either boring or awful, every film is just ninety minutes of Harrison Ford running around rickety sets, the score is caterwauling overemotive tripe, and the whole franchise is so utterly uninterested in the star part of the name that it makes me wonder why they even bothered setting it in space.
48. What books did you like as a kid?
A deep cut here, but thereās this series of Dutch kidsā books called Dolfje Weerwolfje about a little kid who gets turned into a werewolf, and i suspect it may have turned me into a furry.
49. Can you play any instruments?
Alas, not yet.
50. What song would you want to play at your wedding?
āOne Day Like Thisā, by Elbow, although that choice may just be because itās playing right now as i write.
51. Do you believe in reincarnation?
Itās the only option that makes sense. An eternity in heaven is stupefying, and blinking out of existence terrifying; the only thing i can be certain of in life is that there is something experiencing the state of being me, and that something will keep experiencing being me after iām gone ā probably being shunted into the body of the next birth in the queue.
52. Finish the sentence: Iām just a guy who ______
poasts on the internet
53. Have you been to another continent?
No, but itās arguable! I went to the Anatolian side of Turkey, which most would think of Asia, but i personally include most of the country (as well as the Caucasus) in Europe.
54. Whatās your worst habit?
Well iām not going to tell you, am iā½
55. Favourite vegetable?
Carrots.
56. Whatās something stupid that scared the shit outta you as a kid?
When i was five i accidentally locked myself in the toilet at the Holle Bolle Boom. This is Deep Xanthe Lore.
57. Whatās one of your guilty pleasures?
Middling immature pop punk. Every part of me knows itās not good, but come onā¦
58. Would you rather be a ghost or a vampire?
A vampire, since in that case i can at least interact with the world twelve hours a day instead of zero.
59. What do you fear most?
Dementia. Generally, my policy is that i would like to live as long as possible, but if i ever succumb to that, my family has my full permission to shoot me there and then. I refuse to go through it, losing my sense of self bit by agonising, confusing, terrifying bit.
60. Do you sleep with any plushies?
I donāt sleep with them, but i do keep two plush otters as companions.
61. What hobby do you just not understand?
Thereās a subreddit for enthusiasts of electric torches and i justā¦ guysā¦ itās a torch. Theyāre all torches. They all do the exact same thing. What are we doing here?
62. Do you like the taste of alcohol?
Itās an acquired taste1, but i find the fruitier, the better. I love a good liqueur or framboise.
63. Are you a hopeless romantic?
In the artistic sense, at least, i think romanticism was where the fine arts peaked. We had finally shed the awkward masses of flesh of the baroque times, but not yet gone down the slippery slope of abstraction that the modern era would lead us to.
64. Which deadly sin best fits you?
Gluttony.
65. Which of your physical features do you like the most?
I have lovely long blonde hair that refracts into golds and browns in the sunlight.
66. Are your ears pierced?
Not yet.
67. Have you ever been in a physical fight?
Thankfully not!
68. Where do you buy your clothes?
Are you an ad tracking script or something?
69. Where would you live if you could live anywhere?
Hold on, let me get the quote outā¦
A large, secluded home, out in the countryside, but not so far out that it becomes a pain to visit the big city. Probably England, rather than the Netherlands, if only for the sheer diversity of scenery.
70. Do you believe in magic? Or is it all a trick?
Magick is real, and without the somewhat provocative terminology for what is, ultimately, prayer with attitude, i think this statement would be uncontroversial among most religious people.
71. Have you read Umineko When They Cry? You should!
No, and you canāt make me, because youāre a line of text in a blog post.
72. What is the worst chore to do?
Itās nowhere near the hardest or even most inconvenient, but thereās something distinctly humiliating about the ritual of walking your dishes down to their automatic dish-washing throne. Weāve automated the washing part away, but here i still am, taking time out of my life to stick a dirty plate in between other dirty plates, trying not to get any residue on me.
73. What did your parents almost name you?
Iāve thankfully been told alternate choices for both sexes, so this isnāt going to get me to reveal whatās in my pants ā i could have ended up a Fred or an AmĆ©lie.
74. What would you want your name to be if you were not your current gender?
Xanthe Tynehorne, seeing as itās not my real name.2
75. What were your first words?
āLionā. Or ājajaā, i guess. It all evens out.
76. What do you want your last words to be?
Ideally i wouldnāt have any, but if i am going to die, then i can hardly go out on anything other than āDo not go gentle into that good nightā.
77. When did you first regularly start going online?
I literally donāt remember! The internet has ruined my soul.
78. What year do you miss the most?
2012 was the peak of human civilisation. Maybe itās just because i was a dumb kid, but man ā they had smartphones, but they hadnāt yet completely taken over; social media still seemed like a fun place to be rather than an endless bath of vitriol, and, of course, āCall Me Maybeā came out.
79. Are you psychic?
I predict the answer is ānoā.
80. Would you fuck a clone of yourself? Youāre not allowed to kill yourself.
Yes, obviously! Iām bisexual, so itās not like i have any reason not to. I am a bit worried about what happens to the clone afterwards, thoughā¦ do they just go off into the woods, never to be seen again?
81. What do you use to listen to music?
Back when i used Windows i was a big fan of MusicBeeā¦ now, much as it pains me to say, i stick to streaming and sometimes BBC Sounds. Iāve had a hand-coded music player on the back-burner for a while now, but thereās so many fiddly ruddy edge cases to deal with, and nothing ever imports formatted as nicely as i want it to!
82. Whats the biggest city youāve been to?
London.
83. Favourite animal?
Otters!!!!!!
84. What web browser do you use?
Firefox ā iāve found it Just Worksā¢.
85. Are you allergic to kitty cats???????????
No. My family used to foster them, actually!
86. Do you like energy drinks?
No.
87. Would you ever spend money on TF2 unusuals/CS:GO skins/gacha pulls/&c.
No, because i may be a shmuck, but iām not a complete shmuck.
88. When do you usually go to bed?
Too late for comfort.
89. How often do you wash your hair?
Once a day, in the shower.
90. Would you download a car?
Me? Download a car? I would neverā¦ [looks nervously at my computerās three-hundred-gigabyte film folder]
91. What was your favorite show as a kid?
I cannot stress enough how much Phineas and Ferb was the absolute shit.
92. Whatās the silliest hat you own?
Iā¦ my word, i donāt know.
93. What album/song do you listen to when youāre feeling angsty?
āMeā, by The 1975. āOh, i was thinking ābout killing myself; donāt you mindā¦ā
94. Do you make OCs?
Do fursonƦ count?
95. Whatās the goofiest thing you do when completely alone?
Make random mouth noises to myself.
96. Do you like fireworks?
When i was six i slept through the new yearsā fireworks and got so sad/angry i demanded my mama and papa call everyone in Hoorn and make them do it again.
97. Favourite painter?
Maxfield Parrish has such a command of light and colour. Iām always blown away when i see his work.
98. Favourite numbers?
One-hundred-and-thirty-seven. I think one, three, and seven are all particularly special ā one is, well, one; three has been associated with so much for so long that itās a waste to sum it up, and seven is particularly interesting to me because six is the highest number of things we can instinctively see without counting. Itās the first number we have to properly think about to understand ā the first number that leaps out of the domain of nature and into that of humans! So the fact that, when you put them next to each other, they wind up the inexplicable reciprocal of a fundamental physical constant is incredible.
99. What genre of vidya gaems are you really good at? (FPS, fightan, danmaku, racing, whatever)
I donāt know if i can give an answer, because if thereās a pattern in my favourite games, itās that theyāre ones where you donāt have to be good at them. I just love a good wide open sandbox to muck about in.
100. time and date you finished this?
2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-three hours, fifteen minutes, fifty seconds.
Man, i bet theyāre living it up in the Al Gore universe right now.
Stuff i watched recently, Junely edition
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Hyped up to me as one of the best horror films in history, iām convinced itās actually an incredible comedy. There is so much Gremlins energy oozing out of this whole film; every scene, you can just imagine George Romero sitting back and going āā¦can i, like, put that in a movie?ā and then putting that in a movie. A zombie gets pied in the face. 8/10.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road is not the greatest film ever made, but it feels like the greatest film ever made while youāre watching it. Iāve never seen a film edited like this: a two-hour-long sugar rush where every shot is overcranked till it breaks and nothing ever stops moving. 9/10, with one point added solely because of the guy in the post-apocalyptic convoy whose job it is to play the guitar.
La La Land (2016)
Itās fine. Ryan Goslingās great as always, but something about this failed to grab me in the way it clearly has so many other people. 5/10.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Stepdadās pick, in honour of Donald Sutherlandās death. Great stuff, with a fascinating eerie soundscape, creepily good practical effects, and, hang on, is that Jeff Goldblum? 7/10.
Doctor Who: āThe Legend of Ruby Sundayā/āEmpire of Deathā (2024)
Well, that sure was a Russell T. Davies Doctor Who finale, wasnāt it? Part oneās always great, and then, as always, he canāt write an ending for the life of him.
Now the seasonās over, itās clear that it needed more room to breathe. Eight episodes of forty minutes just isnāt enough for a show to do both monster-of-the-week and a longer arc; with two episodes taken up by the finale, two Doctor-lite episodes, and one where sheās unconscious for half of it, weāve barely gotten to know the relationship between Ruby and the Doctor, which is a shame, because what we do get is brilliant! They play off each other so well, and i wish we could have seen more of them together.
The Bikeriders (2024)
Seen on a whim. A nice little drama about a motorbike club, starring Elvis and Jodie Comer, whoās doing aā¦ fascinatingā¦ Midwestern-type accent. 6/10.
Roadgames (1980)
āItās like Rear Window, but on a lorry.ā This scrappy Australian flick delivers just what it says on the tin, with an early turn by Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker who gets picked up in the second half. 6/10.
šµļø Brat (2024)
Iām out of touch with music these days, but listening to Charli XCXās pulse-pounding new hyperpop record, i canāt help but think this is what pop music must sound like in the next universe over. I was sleep-deprived after staying up for election night and that definitely helped the vibeā¦ 8/10.
Ushaw Hall
Ushaw Hallās website plays coy about itself. You can learn that guide dogs are welcome, theyāll be exhibiting interactive āHumanimalā sculptures next month, and that they're very proud of the pun āUshaw inā, but curiously little about what the place actually is (or was). I went anyway.
To spoil the fun, itās an old Roman Catholic seminary that was turned into a museum when people stopped being religious enough to care. The entrance makes that well clear; walking up from the car park, the curious visitor is flanked by an ostentatious neo-Gothic chapel on their left and modernist student housing on their right. (The latter remains unmuseumified, too boring to make much out of.)
Right from reception thereās an interesting historical tidbit with a bust of Abraham Lincoln himself, who a helpful volunteer told me once attended Ushaw before he decided a more secular political career was right for him. (It was that or boxing, i suppose.) Upstairs is the Presidentsā Hall, whither the stairway looked off-limits enough not to chance it ā so never mind that, and letās instead turn right.1 This takes us down a series of winding hallways with wibbly tiled floor ā as of now, an exhibition has lined them with wedding dresses old and new, including replicas of those worn by the royal family, creepy mannequin heads and all.2 More importantly and more permanently, these are the chapels of Ushaw Hall.
They are beautiful, and have seen better days. The paint peels from a dimly-lit mural in a nook i presume is for choirists. In others, light dances in vibrant oranges and blues through expository stained glass. The brightest of them all, seen here to the right, invites its visitors to pray for Ukraine in a solemn reminder of the times.
These smaller shrines have an intimacy to them that reflects the houseās hush-hush history. First exiled from England, the Catholics settled in the small town of Douai, in the north of France ā only to be forced out again by the secular fervour of the French Revolution. Even then, they struggled to find welcome in a staunchly Protestant Georgian England, until a sympathetic aristocrat sold them land in Durhamās secluded hills. The hall itself was built with the faƧade of an unseeming terrace, only showing its religious nature to those within.
Onwards, then, into the star of the show ā the main chapel. Pews upon pews span the long gap between the entrance and the colossal tabernacle, behind which the walls are adorned with what first looks like simple ornament but reveals itself to be tightly-packed black-lettered Latin. You can tell itās Catholic by the eagle in the middle, the Vatican having never quite given up its attachment to its Roman roots.
ā¦Upstairs is the Presidentsā Hall, whither the stairway looked off-limits enough not to chance it ā so never mind that, and letās instead turn left. Winding at right angles around the central court we first arrive at the library, or what little you can access of it. Management and the university are promising big thingsā¦ eventuallyā¦ once they restore everythingā¦ and catalogue itā¦ andā¦ oh, sod this, letās go to the cafĆ©.
[One hot chocolate laterā¦]
As we were. Further along we find find the mess hall, where aspiring clergy once ate in silence, with only the wet sopping of a hundred English breakfasts reverberating back and forth across the walls. These days itās used for noisier conferences and school trips, fitted with identikit metal and plastic tables and seats which donāt do much to complement the nineteenth-century dĆ©cor.
Some time later, past the temporary exhibition of inkjet printouts of old maps3, our trip comes full circle. As i walk home through the well-kempt garden and around the reedy old pond, i might not have been convinced by the seminaryās faith, but i have been convinced of their taste in interior decoration.
Information for visitors
- Admission: Ā£10 per adult, Ā£6 per child, free for under-fives
- Address: Ushaw Historic House, Chapels & Gardens; Ushaw Moor; Durham DH7 9RH
- Accessibility: An accessible entrance is available, and the gardens have paths suitable for wheelchairs.
- Arriving there: Accessible by car along the A167, and the 52 bus also intermittently stops.
I drew with the right side of my brain too hard and now the whole world just looks like crooked skewed angles and lines please help oh god oh fuck
The fall of Ithaca
A short website status update, since my ongoing writerās block on a relatively simple interesting-place-visit post wasnāt enough for the universe: Ithaca12, the beat-up old laptop on which this fine website is hosted, is poorly, and has a noticeable bulge coming up around the battery. Everything is backed up and iām looking into a new, dedicated server machine, but if the site goes down all of a sudden, youāll know why.
Mx Tynehorneās link roundup, volume XXXIII
-
In the category of āmost likely to graduate to the full linkrollā, we have
Aporee.org, a collection of soundscapes from all around the
world
- And on a similar note, hereās some sounds of the forest(s)
- William Buckley, a convict who was sentenced to Australia and proceeded to successfully escape and live with the natives for thirty years
- Epic dishwasher haxx
- Eight speedrunning categories that have completely broken
- TIL about Karaite Judaism, the Jewish equivalent to Islamās Quranism or Protestantsā sola scriptura
- Tidings.potato.horse, a mediƦval content farm with news stories written by generative bards
- Eighty guys singing the Halo theme in a bathroom
- Centuries of childhood
Mx Tynehorneās link roundup, volume XXXII
- Nobody will believe you when you say this, but the phrase āsweet summerās childā is from Game of Thrones. Every citation before that is supremely literal, talking about an actual child of summer.
- A 3D tour of the Temple of All Religions in Kazan, Russia. Almost normal until you get to the Egyptian room.
- Trying on Nasaās new spacesuit
- That one lost pop song that was found in a porno
- Calcuttaās Pen Hospital will nurse your broken fountain pen back to health
- How actors remember their lines
- Äryabaį¹ha numeration turns numbers into compact pronounceable syllables. Kind of genius ā we already took our digits from the Indians; why didnāt we lift this as well?
- The U.S.ās purge of naughty waypoint names from the skies
- JetBlue Flight 191
- Elizabeth Prophet, the prophet who failed after the apocalypse that wasnāt
- The Horny-Award-winning drug semaglutide now shows remarkable benefits for kidney disease in addition to everything else. I give it a year before we find out it cures cancer or something.
- The best, worst, and weirdest Star Wars knockoffs
- Someone on /r/Gallifrey is going through nearly every piece of canonical Doctor Who media in chronological order and iāve never been more intimidated.
- Donāt be a Mimsy
- Radio Caroline marks its sixtieth year on the waves
- Zubrinās nuclear saltwater rocket ā one of the most powerful rocket engines ever proposed, described as āpowered by Chernobylā.
- Hereās an interesting historical curio: an instructional video from the British government on travelling to West Berlin through East Germany.
- Why ornament went away. We are so back: āSo it is now possible to buy perfectly proportioned classical ornament, nearly indistinguishable from stone, that has ā if the molds and the factory infrastructure are treated as a given ā taken only minutes of labor to produce.ā
Stuff i watched recently, Maypril edition
-
Tombstone (1993). I have this pathological aversion to westerns, so i wasnāt expecting much ā but once i turned off the part of me that was waiting for Richard Pryor to show up i realised that this the āāemā in āthey just donāt make āem like they used taā: just a solid, well-made flick, regardless of my thoughts on the genre! I cried manly man tears at the end. 7/10.
-
The Thirteenth Floor, everyoneās fourth favourite film about a simulated world from 1999. I found it surprisingly interesting whenever it didnāt remind me too much of The Matrix, and a bit pathetic whenever it did. (Donāt try to do action, simulated world movie from 1999. Youāll never measure up.) 6/10.
As a bonus, since nobody cares about this movie, you can just watch it on Youtube if you want.
-
Little Shop of Horors (1986). My pick for family movie night. Utterly charming from leaf to toe ā the best example since Gremlins 2 of a film where you can see the craft that went into making every frame. Incredible effects, wonderful music, magnetic comedic performances from the whole castā¦ 10/10!
-
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the impromptu double feature to the above. My brain has been completely frazzled by watching this. I went from loving it to hating it to complete bafflement to examining it like a scientist would a new species of frog. This film may very well have invented homosexuality. Defies numerical rating/10.
-
Late Night with the Devil (2023). Always nice to see David Dastmalchian, even if itās nothing that hasnāt been done before ā 6/10.
-
The Fall Guy (2024). Ryan Goslingās a brilliant comedic actor, but him and some great setpieces struggle to save this film from a shoddy script and baffling editing choices. The jokes arenāt funny, the dialogue scenes linger for far too long, half the stuff from the trailer is gone from the movieā¦ the whole thing desperately needs a trimming down to a tight ninety minutes. 4/10.
-
Eurovision 2024. Bullet-pointed, as per tradition:
- I went in totally blind this year, having missed the semi-finals while building a new PC. Oops!
- Sweden appear to have trapped the Backstreet Boys in the Matrix.
- There is no country named the Netherlands and never has been. Doesnāt exist. Not real. We begin bombing in five minutes.
- Big fan of Spainās bizarre campy cougar energy, even if the audience and juries werenāt!
- Estonia are frankly embarrassing.
- Completely maxed out my scorecard for Ireland, who have sent in Xanthe-bait of the highest order. Yesā¦ hahahaā¦ yes!!!
- Greeceās song is the most annoying thing since Crazy Frog and it baffles me how highly it scored.
- I think the UK is just cursed at this point. We send a legitimate star with the worldās gayest performance (admittedly more in the āgetting sucked off in a dingy bathroomā way than the ācampy drag queenā way) and not a single point from the audience?
- God bless Finland. I usually hate it when acts try deliberately to be funny but i died laughing at a pantsless man in a censored Windows 95 T-shirt emerging from an egg while pyrotechnics go off.
- Switzerland have taken Sam Ryderās mantle as this yearās designated golden retrieverā¦ a great performance from someone whoās clearly happy beyond words to be there. A deserving winner if there ever was one.
- Croatiaās catchy pirate dance is great but i cannot forgive that abominable stage name. I donāt care how many records you sell; there is no excuse to call yourself Baby Lasagna. Go back to the drawing board. Now.
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T2 Trainspotting (2017). Mamaās pick for family movie night. I wasnāt so hot on the idea going inā¦ and then it was, to my surprise, pretty great! It uses the idea of the legacy sequel to its advantage ā itās a film about nostalgia, the good and bad of it all. It really does feel like youāre catching up with these characters twenty years later, all wondering where their lives have gone. Some beautiful shots, too ā a film from 2017 that bothered hiring a gaffer?? What a concept! 8/10.
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127 Hours (2010), continuing the Danny Boyle theme. Probably the best film a film about a guy whose hand is stuck next to a rock could ever be, it convinced me of the occasional merit of a good biopic over a documentary ā this would not and could not work if you only had access to the original crummy camera footage and talking-head interviews. Also perhaps the only movie in history to contain an inflatable Scooby-Doo jumpscare. I was going to give it an 8, but then they played Sigur RĆ³s in the triumphant ending scene, so sod it, itās a 9/10.
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Chris Chibnall is dead and Doctor Who is alive! I thought Ncuti Gatwa was playing the role too young at first, but the season proper has me totally convinced. His Doctor, the first Doctor to Fuckā¢, has this infectious energy and zest for life thatās totally new to the character, and a great rapoport with his companion ā even when the new series is bad, itās unhinged in a fun way, rather than the forgettable doldrums of the Chibnall era.
Got a new computer! I can run Minecraft with shaders without any lag now. We are so back.
Mx Tynehorneās link roundup, volume XXXI
- The Verge takes a trip on a submarine-cable-repair ship
- Vici.org, an āarchƦological atlas of antiquityā that shows you GrƦco-Roman history and artefacts in your area
- In Vesuvius Prize news, the vulcanised scrolls have now revealed Platoās precise burial place
- Ian Ridpathās Star Tales: āMyths, legends, and history of the constellationsā. I did not know there used to be a reindeer constellation around the north pole!
- āBring back the āRenaissance Manāā
- A gallery of n-wheeled vehicles, where 1 ā¤ n ā¤ 1496
- Simon Tathamās Portable Puzzle Collection
- Why are so many bodies in Britain found in a decomposed state?
- Kanye fails the quick-time event
A despatch from Consett
Hello. Iāve been to Consett. I thought you might like to hear about it. (Gosh, iāve missed writing that.)
Itās been a miserable year so far weather-wise, so wind-swept, cold-nipped, and rain-soaked that it took until April for me to look outside and go, ah, not a bad day, letās go for a jaunt.
The plan was simple: get a bus into Consett and head straight for the nearest hill. A short and sweet saunter through woods and farmland; short compared to some of my previous odysseys from Newcastle to the Wansbeck, sweet compared to the scenery in the more populous parts of the palatinate. (It was not to be.)
We start in the centre of town, a humble lower-middle-class affair whose high street would strike southerners as horrifyingly dilapidated and northerners as above average ā nice enough, at least, for the areaās local MP to choose it as his base of operations. Around the corner from the cinema1, the pedestrianised and sensibly named Middle Street plays host to (in decreasing order of classiness) a provider of musical instruments, an independent sweet shopāgift shopāpet shop, a building society, a Greggs, a Superdrug, an animal rescue shelter, a frozen food emporium, a Turkish barber, Ladbrokes, a vape shop, another vape shop which also sells computer parts and repairs your phone (my lawyers say i canāt call it a mob front), and Barryās Bargain Superstore.
This dumps us onto a crossing onto Parliament Street, where the Galileanically inclined can attend the charming parish church (with āmessy churchā every month for the tots). I follow it down its procession of historic terraces, in a rather literal sense: Briton Terrace, Saxon Terrace, Norman Terrace, and then to spite me they finish it off with the pattern-breaking Tudor Terrace. I suppose it could have been a later addition, going with Stuart Court across the road, as well as Georgia and Edwardia Courts, two small cul-de-sacs i only noticed on Google Earth after the factā¦ but that sequence gets thrown off yet again by the road whence those two branch off, Romany Drive, which unless they meant to write āRomanā but hired a dyslexic cartographer has sod all to do with the other streets.
A path bearing at its mouth a welcoming sign (all caps, āno part of this land is dedicated to the public, any use of this land is entirely at the userās own risk, et cetera, et ceteraā) marks a liberating end to our onomastic confusion, funneling us down a sloping green crescent of parkland into a reclaimed steelworks. (Itās always a reclaimed steelworks.)
Finally, we reach the end of the funnel, where the light pours from the sky, the buildings abruptly stop, and any wayward ramblers are left with only a gorgeous view of Durhamās rolling hills stretching out before them. This exact moment, this exact view ā this is why i get out. To sit on the edge of a hill, the dull traces of modernity firmly behind you, and see the country not devoid of manās presence, but shaped by it, over hundreds and thousands of years, from hunting-grounds to cleared forest to farmland to steelworks to grass for grassās sake, a place where, like the terraces of Parliament Street, you can hear Englandās history sing in your veins.
Anyway then thereās a really steep path downhill where i almost slipped and fell like Super Mario going down a slide.
Traipsing down steps iām not 100% sure were public and over a road made of more pothole than asphalt
i wind up following a burn to the River Derwent. This is where our routeās industrial past makes
itself seen. Every few yards a worn sign pops up warning of a ādrainage
ditchā, or a graffiti-blanketed pipe crosses the rain-cleaved dene;
at the very end, a picnic table by a former pump house grants me some respite.
I take stock of myself. My phoneās battery, always surprising me with innovative ways to run out, is in danger of crossing the ten-percent mark. Itās the first nice day of the year, but that also means iām out of shape and out of practice: i wonāt be able to make it all the way.
Equally, iād be a fool to clamber back up all that. I keep walking. The rushing burn has become a tranquil river, its waters still enough to see your reflection. I think to myself that if youāre going to name a pencil company after a river, this oneās not a bad choice.2
Civilisation creeps back in with the tell-tale sounds of power tools. This is Allensford Holiday Park, a modest gathering of caravans proudly advertising itself as ānear the outstanding Northumberland National Parkā. (It isnāt.) When i get there itās thronged by teen schoolboys freshly out, chattering about video games and lining up for ice cream. (Something, something, nature is healing.) Checking Google Maps with what power i have left reveals my worst fear: thereās nowhere to go but up.
The distance is short, but the slope is grueling. I convince my legs to heave themselves up along the side of pavementless roads, ducking into fallow fields and passing places wherever i can find them. It gets worse the further i get. By the first field, iām a little out of it. By the Catholic boarding school, iām utterly exhausted. When i climb what i think is the final hill, only for perspective to cruelly show yet more around the corner, i wonder if this is what hell is like. But i make it ā sweating and breathless, hydrating myself sip by sip, i make it to the bus stop, and wait. The driver, when he comes, must think iām a zombie, but iām glad to be on my way home. Note to self: donāt take that big a break again.