Avaragado's blog

One (male) c.16 year-old to another (female), in Borders, on seeing Germaine Greer’s book, The Boy:

Germaine Greer, ooh, I love her.

And he did actually know who she was. The girl didn’t though.

I signed on again this morning. My usual Pauline was absent, so I spoke to another. This one more or less told me off for not having rung the Jobseeker Direct phone line (looks like they put notes in your file when you do). I told her I was looking for jobs online, but I don’t think she was satisfied by that answer. She also seemed miffed when I told her there were no suitable jobs on their “Jobcentre Plus” in-office touchscreen system.

(I thought it best not to suggest that the DWP‘s online, phone and touchscreen services probably all used the same job database, so I shouldn’t need to use more than one service. Of course, this is all cobbled together by EDS so who knows?)

After the grilling I mentioned that I wouldn’t be able to attend the next appointment in two weeks, as I’m away all that week. She asked where. Switzerland, I said. In that case, she said, I’d have to sign off, and sign on again when I return from holiday.

I’d been told when I first signed on that a week’s absence can be finessed within the system with a “quickie” sign-off/sign-on without the complete form-filling palaver. This Pauline, however, didn’t seem to think so. So I signed off, grumbling that this was all designed to make it hard for people to stay on the system. She tended to agree. (And I’m tempted not to bother signing back on again after the holilday.)

A very Merry Christmas to all my loyal readers.

(Spoilers for the book/films ahead!)

Hmm. What would a Hollywood version of The Lord of the Rings book
be like?

• Audiences “won’t understand” two enemies, so Saruman and Sauron
  are combined. None of this “eye” nonsense: the enemy is called Sauron
  but looks like Saruman, and is played by Alan Rickman.

• Nine in the fellowship? Too many characters. Combine Merry and
  Pippin. Drop Sam (“he’s just a gardener!”). Drop Boromir (“another
  enemy?”). Keep Gimli as the comic relief to Aragorn, but drop Legolas
  (“Spock ears?”); in fact, drop the elves altogether. So the
  fellowship is Gandalf, Frodo, Merry/Pippin, Aragorn, and Gimli. Much
  better, and helps save on salary too, considering the star-name cast: Aragorn is Tom Cruise, Gandalf is John Malkovich, Frodo is Haley Joel Osment, Merry/Pippin is Kieran Culkin, and Gimli is Danny DeVito.

• There’s only one film, so after Frodo receives the ring from
  Bilbo, played in a cameo by Mickey Rooney, we then jump more or less
  straight from the Shire to the passage through Moria (the fellowship
  is explained as a voice-over). This proceeds more or less as the
  book, but Gandalf does something Harry Potter to stop himself falling
  after the battle with the Balrog (avoids all that awkward mystical
  stuff), but is mysteriously unable to do something else Harry Potter
  to catch up with the fellowship.

• The fellowship breaks up straight away film-time, with the
  journey to the Falls of Rauros explained by a montage of lingering
  gloomy looks at each other. The break-up is caused by an
  argument round a camp fire rather than a battle. No meeting with
  Galadriel, of course.

• Frodo heads to Mordor alone. He meets up with Gollum, voiced by
  Robin Williams (if unavailable, Mike Myers). Crossing the Dead
  Marshes, Frodo is caught in a bog and rescued by Gollum, in a
  video-game-franchise-friendly way.

• The Merry/Pippin hybrid walks to Minas Tirith, where he
  meets up with Gandalf who’d gone straight there for some reason.
  No Fangorn Forest (“fighting trees?”), and no Isengard.

• Gimli and Aragorn go to Osgiliath (Frodo and Gollum don’t), where
  they meet Faramir (played by Sean Connery). There’s a small skirmish
  here, involving Sauron (no Nazgul), of the “You win this time, men of
  Gondor, but I’ll be back… and next time I’ll bring some friends of
  mine” variety.

• Gimli, Aragorn and Faramir go to Minas Tirith, rejoin Gandalf and
  Merry/Pippin, and prepare for the battle. (No Denethor: Faramir’s in
  charge. No Theoden or Helm’s Deep.) Here Aragorn meets Eowyn, and
  they fall in love.

• Frodo and Gollum dodge through the legs of marching orcs to reach
  the stairs of Cirith Ungol. Gollum leads him deliberately to Shelob’s
  lair and abandons him, and there’s a hobbit-spider fight, in which
  Frodo kills Shelob before she can paralyse him. Gollum follows Frodo
  secretly, and we know about it through Robin Williams ad libs.

• In the battle for Gondor, Aragorn, Gimli, Merry/Pippin and
  Faramir beat the orcs, with Gandalf fighting Sauron spell-to-spell,
  wheeling through the skies. On the verge of defeating Sauron, Gandalf
  inadvertently blabs about Frodo and the ring. Sauron immediately
  runs away, and heads for Mount Doom.

• A chase begins. Gandalf chases Sauron; Sauron rushes to find Frodo.
  Frodo reaches the crack of Doom just seconds ahead of Sauron.

• There is a hand-to-hand fight between Sauron and Frodo. Frodo
  uses the ring several times, with no ill-effects, to escape Sauron’s
  clutches. Finally Sauron grabs him, snatches the ring, and they
  topple towards the edge…

• And then Gollum jumps from the shadows onto Sauron, wrestles him
  away from Frodo, and they topple over the edge into the lava,
  destroying the ring.

• The mountain begins to explode. Gandalf rescues Frodo and they
  fly to safety. “He saved us,” says Frodo. “Saved us all in the end.
  Poor Gollum.”

• Big party at Minas Tirith. Aragorn marries Eowyn. Gimli catches
  the bouquet. Merry/Pippin is knighted for services to Gondor.
  Faramir crowns Aragorn king. Gandalf organises the fireworks. Frodo
  makes an “I couldn’t have done it without you guys” speech, and emotes
  about Gollum’s sacrifice with an undercurrent of God-Bless-America.
  Fanfares, fireworks, celebrations, fade to black, roll credits.

Last night I dreamed of quests. Unlike The Return of the King, which
I’d just seen, the dreams had intermissions. I’d wake up, mutter “what the hell was that
about?”, turn over, and rejoin the dream. I think the dream was
marginally longer than the film.

Avaragado’s summary: Return of the King is good.

The effects in the film are, as you’d expect, pretty
staggering. Ten years ago Minas Tirith would have been attacked by a
couple of old men and an alsatian with stuck-on tusks. Now George
Lucas has a new target to beat for Episode III.

The film’s ending has been the main focus for criticism. It’s true,
it’s long. Hollywood would’ve used a different ending; but then,
Hollywood would never have made the film. I think that if you’re
filming the book, then you have to, you know, film the book. To get
ten hours in to the trilogy and then bottle out on the ending would’ve
been awful.

I admit it, I’m a fanboy. But even if you’re not, you have to admit
that Peter Jackson has filmed an unfilmable book, and done it
incredibly well. I never thought I’d see it on screen as I’d seen it
in my head. Time to read the book again, I think!

If you consider the entire trilogy, Jackson should walk away with the
major awards. Not just him: the production as a whole deserves proper
recognition. But will it happen?

Avaragado’s rating: three-and-a-half marrows.

This afternoon I watched the special edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD.
Tomorrow afternoon it’s ditto for The Two Towers, which I bought this morning.

Then Wednesday night it’s The Return of the King on the big screen. I haven’t read any reviews, and I stick my fingers in my ears whenever a trailer appears.

Does this make me a Tolkien fanboy?

Straight to the photos

This year was the first exsquiddy Christmas party attended by no
current squiddies. Consequently it was the first at which we didn’t
bitch about the company, even though there was plenty
of gossip.

Aperitifs at The Pickerel, where a strange man kept hovering and
mumbling drunkenly at us.

The main event was at La Margherita. Italian food and Christmas
crackers, an interesting combination. Joining the usual suspects were
Nadia, Bryony with her new bloke Richard, and Simon with Anna.

After the meal we packed out The Rope and Twine for another couple
of hours.

It’s Tim’s birthday today, and Jo gave him a surprise party last night at their place. Lots of exsquiddies were there, some of them current bangettes, like Tim. Cambridge corporate incest, eh?

Just back from the dentist, complete with three fillings, less money and half a tongue. Well, that’s what it feels like.

The mouth in the mirror doesn’t seem to have any fillings at all. Must be some kind of trickery. Maybe the drill was actually hypnotising me with its high-pitched whining.

Chris and Melanie showed off their new Media PC last night. Quite a few nice features, like photo slideshows while you listen to music, plus the usual “pause live TV” stuff.

I managed to crash it in two button-presses. Chris had shown one of my
videos that he’d downloaded,
and I pressed down-arrow and OK to return to some menu or other. Only it hung on OK. I performed the usual press-random-buttons manoeuvre, but it needed a hardware reset to poke it into life again. Naturally it insisted on checking the disk for problems, all the usual Windows gubbins. It finished by proudly presenting a Windows desktop, followed by a “Such-and-such program has had to close due to a problem” dialog, much to my surprise and amusement.

More work needed there, I think. (As Alan Cooper, in The Inmates are Running the Asylum, would say: “What do you get if you cross a computer with a TV? A computer”.)