Rathbone Returns.
How embarrassing. Back in May I was bitching about being rubbish at keeping a regular blog and here in September I finally draft the follow up post!
Just as well you lurking lurkers are all loyal visitors; actually I don’t think you are. Nobody visits here anymore, my blog is like my Twitter account, I just tweet into the void and the void is away having a holiday.
OK. So, dear voidy one, here is my confession…
I’ve been avoiding blogging because it’s true, I have been extremely busy. I’m not going to fill this page with the minutiae of my life since last mumbling here, I’ll offer a brief
‘Catch up’ sketch.
Big news number one:
I passed my level 3 NVQ in stone masonry; It means I’m now fully qualified as a trained-up stone mason. I also passed my advanced apprenticeship in the same subject so I can now say to my boss.
“The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master!”
Actually, that’s not such a good idea, last time I tried that kind of shit, he stabbed me in the eye with a chisel.
Big news number two:
I’m now training to be a conservator! It’s a logical progression really, the skills I have thus far acquired will provide an essential foundation in learning the more refined techniques of historical building conservation. What’s more, I’m doing my training here:
I would say where ‘Here’ is, however I’d have to kill you immediately afterwards.
Needless to say, these things have been big steps in the right direction, I’ve worked very hard to get this far and things like keeping a regular blog have been casualties of my adventures in the world of stone masonry and career progression.
Big news number three:
I’ve been top of the hit parade in Slovakia over the summer months with my single “Baby Left Me” here is an excerpt.
Big news number four:
I’m happy to say that I have successfully been a non-smoker for two years. I didn’t want to mention it this time last year as If felt an almost superstitious sense of tempting failure by announcing such an anniversary. It would have been three years but I briefly fell off the proverbial wagon just over a couple of years ago and that just rewound the clock back to zero as far as I was concerned. Anyway, I’m no longer Lady Nicotine’s bitch.
Micro Reviews:
Consumable media: Here are some things that have kept me entertained in those rare moments where I haven’t been moving with a purpose.
The Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.
My wife and I are fans of the series True Blood. I bought her the box set of Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris last Christmas. My wifed raved about how much she loved the books until I eventually buckled and started reading them myself. The stories are all written from a first person perspective (Sookie’s) so consequently, the books deviate massively from the parallel action story lines that the TV show delivers. Having said that, annoying characters from the show such as Tara and Jason get limited page time and when they do appear, they are significantly less irritating than their on-screen versions.
Southland (T.V fly-on-the-wall cop show)
Bloody incredible, ‘edge of your seat’ kind of stuff. Great performances all round, gripping stories, FIND IT!
Red Dead Redemption (PS3)
Wild West sandbox adventure with great central protagonist.
Jaw-droppingly beautiful environments, terrifically immersive.
Oh, just watch the trailer…
The Fantastic Mr.Fox
I have to say, this flick blew my socks off. There were several reasons: Incredible voice casting, deliciously organic animation style, razor sharp script and dozens of ‘laugh out loud’ moments.
I have to say, it was refreshing to see an animated feature thatisn’t by Pixar. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like Pixar movies, I’ve loved many of them, its just that they are starting to look very generic in their CGI stylings. The Fanatstic Mr.Fox however, is back to the ‘old school’ of stop frame animation with wonderful sets and models. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Regular lurkers will by now be fully aware that I’m very much a fan of nearly everything that Trent Reznor creates musically. So it should be of no surprise that I’ll typing my praises to the work he’s done with Atticus Ross for the new David Fincher flick called “The Social Network”. Reznor & Co put out a free five track sampler of the soundtrack here.
The soundtrack is a wonderful fusion of Autumnal sounding electronica with typically Reznor-esque rolling,swelling piano melodies. The timing for such music as the leaves fall from the trees and the cold starts to bite is a beautiful coincidence, download it with gusto!
OK, I’m sure there is a lot of other stuff I could be rambling on about here but I’m becoming acutely aware that this entry is starting to drift days beyond its point of origin. I’ll be making more of an effort to do stuff with my site now that I’m getting a little more free time to play with. What that actually means in terms of content remains as much a mystery to myself as it does to you. In the meanwhile, I’ll briefly draw attention to a couple of changes to the site before I sign off. I’ve taken down the page with the Youtube clips. Ideally, I would have liked a page that automatically updated itself with the latest things I’ve added to my playlist and put the clips in order of newest first. As it happens, Youtube doesn’t do that yet (Am I wrong?) I got bored with seeing a static playlist on my website that I don’t think anybody bothered looking at anyway. I may include a ‘Clip of the week’ page at some later point, I haven’t decided yet.
And that’s that, for this episode, comments, flowers and choccies always welcome…actually forget the choccies, Finlandia Pink Grapefruit Vodka on the rocks with a large dose of Grapefruit juice to measure will do 😉 ‘Til next time…