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Friday January 27, 2006

Narnia : Coming back through the Wardrobe...

Went to see 'The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' recently, full of the trepidation usually reserved for classic book film adaptions...

It opens with a quite terrifyingly accurate portrayal of the blitz (though the Pevensey's blackout rigour left something to be desired) and proceeds from there at an energetic pace.

The English countryside looked like England for a change. The train stations were correct for the period (yes, most country stations were unmanned) and they even got the right steam train, a 4-6-0 Great Western Castle Class. Top marks!

The fear and worry etched in the mothers faces whilst evacuating their children to an uncertain future was spot on too, this was set when the UK was standing alone against the Germans and we were expecting to be invaded in short order.

The rest of the film was a faithful protrayal of the book, with a few 'action sequences' thrown in. However these didn't detract from the flow. Giving the Beaver an east London accent was a nice touch, and it worked. Some of the dialogue was especially good, my favourite being from the eldest boy 'Peter' as the children are deliberating about whether or not to follow the beaver when he bursts out with "It's a beaver! It's not even supposed to be talking!"

All in all it felt like a junior version of Lord of the Rings, and that's not a criticism. Go, see and enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised. Recommended.

( Jan 27 2006, 11:52:00 AM GMT / Jan 27 2006, 11:42:09 AM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/narnia_coming_back_through_the

Out of the way, I'm coming through!

Whinge of the week time again, and I'm turning to the roads.

Usually I travel mostly by rail, which despite it's bad reputation hasn't been too bad of late, though extortionately expensive for what you get, particularly in the rush hour. You'd have thought £30 a day would guarantee you a seat... but no....

Anyway, this week is all about the motorways, and you get two whinges for the price of one...

1. Middle Lane Morons. This is where some bumbling idiot fails to return to the inside lane after overtaking something, even though the lane is clear far into the distance. Result, to overtake this idiot, you need to move into the fast lane (pedant alert : I know it's not supposed to be called the fast lane, but tough, ok?) and so you end up with a stream of mostly executive cars all queueing up to over take, whilst the inside lane is empty. Inefficient bandwidth utilisation that is. Great website here about it all btw.

2. HGV (Heavy Good Vehicles) or SGSLs as I prefer to call them (Sodding great slow lorries). You get one of these in the inside lane doing 55.5 mph, and then in the second lane another overtaking at 55.6 mph. These HGVs are of course about 600 metres long so it can take them the entire length of the UK for them to overtake one another. I understand it's not entirely their fault as they have speed limiters aboard, but they are guilty of the heinous crime of occasionally venturing into lane 3 (actually illegal) and blocking the entire country. Trouble is many of our motorways (particularly in my neck of the woods) only have 2 lanes anyway, which means I'm stuffed.

Solutions?

HGVs are easy. They should only be allowed in lane 1. No overtaking whatsoever. What's the point, you can only do .1 mph difference anyway.

Middle lane morons are trickier, though I think the latest round of cars is moving in the right direction...

I notice many car manufacturers are now adopting head up displays on the windscreen. All I want is a few small additions: The words 'Missile Armed', 'Target Locked' and a nice red trigger button....

( Jan 27 2006, 11:16:23 AM GMT / Jan 27 2006, 11:01:27 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [1]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/concentrate

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