Week 25, Film 25 – Jurassic World

I was really, really looking forward to Jurassic World.  Jurassic Park has a special place in my heart, having watched it in my mid teens and being in awe of the CGI that was used in it. I remember CGI being as something still quite new at the time and it made an impressive change from the old school SFX.

But I left this film feeling as if I’d seen it all before, mainly in the heavily promoted trailer.  It was a good film, and would recommend other seeing it, but to me it suffered in the comparison with the original.  I did really enjoy the knowing in-jokes though – the great white shark serving as dinner for one of its long-ago ancestors was great.

I am going to leave you with this far superior trailer for Jurassic Weenies.

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Booze sans booze!

I’ve been *terrible* at posting in here this month!  I am still keeping to my goal of four new things a week, but finding the time to post about them has been quite tricky!  Must get around to putting in some placeholder posts…

One of the things that’s been stopping me posting is the fact that I’m organising my first ever beer tasting session!  Club Soda UK wanted to put together a session for people who like beer but for various reasons want to drink beers that have either no alcohol, or have a low ABV.  It’s been quite a challenge to put together a varied list, but I think I’ve now managed to create something that shows that alcohol free beer doesn’t just mean Becks Blue.  I’ll post my list and tasting notes in here next week…

Beer Six, Week Six: Heavy Water, Beavertown

I had a glass of this lovely, lovely Imperial Stout up at the Beavertown Brewery on Valentine’s Day. Thick and dark, with a hint of raisins and liquorice rather than the expected sour cherries, dark chocolate, coffee and a slight burnt/smoky taste.

Colleen McCullough

Oh! But oh! I need to get on to a little diversion from the One x Four path and talk about one of my favourite authors.  I have just woken up to the news that Colleen McCullough has left us.

I’ve never really confessed this to anyone before, but she was a big part of the reason why I studied Ancient History at university. Her Masters of Rome series started about 1990, and I was fascinated at both the politics and the everyday Roman life she described in them. Because of these books, I started reading all the Roman classics, then the Greek classics, and next thing you know, I am studying everything in even more depth in an increasingly unpopular but never more relevant degree at the University of Queensland.

In the last year, I’ve been reading all of her novels, some for the first time, some for the seventh. It’s only as a grown up I’ve realised how amazingly, well, feminist her books have always been. So many strong women – her latest, Bittersweet, tells the story of four women growing up in 1920s rurals Australia and becoming nurses and it’s one of my favourite reads of 2014.

And she wrote this, which when I re-read it in The Thorn Birds last year, made my sit up and gasp, because she described me:

“Twelve thousand miles of it, to the other side of the world. And whether they came home again or not, they would belong neither here, nor there, for they would have lived on two continents and sampled two different ways of life.”

I will really miss her.

Beer Three, Week Three: Cärsmøl

I finally got around to drinking a bottle of the homebrew that my mate Steve gave me around Christmas time.  It was a bit fizzy out of the bottle, and I had to leave it rather a long time to settle, but the beer was worth it – such a lovely hint of smokiness.  I wish I had more than one bottle left – I might have to book myself a class at the London Brew Lab where this was made…

Book Three, Week Three: The Bees

The Bees by Laline Paull is like a cross between The Handmaiden’s Tale and the Hunger Games with a incongruous dash of Beatrix Potter. It’s in some ways yer standard dystopian novel but what makes it different and original is that the characters are, well, bees.  Definitely worth a read.

Habits

I’ve gotten out of some habits and into others.  I realised the other day that I watched only three films in a cinema last year, relying on long-distance flights to catch up on blockbusters.  I still read lots of books, but they seem to be chosen on the basis of what’s easy to read on the tube rather than anything intellectually challenging or even well-written.  I’ve definitely gotten into the habit of trying lots of new brews, which I think is an excellent life choice.  But I’ve only sporadically clung to 2014’s resolution to listen to lots of new music, and see new bands.

And I’ve definitely stopped the blogging habit.  Thanks Facebook and Twitter.

So this year I am going to try one times four things every week this year – one book, one film, one beer and one band and record them here.  I’m not going to set myself up to fail by promising to write long posts about each and every one, but here’s to trying!