[blogfocus saturday] the silly season

We're definitely in the silly season when major bloggers turn off the moderation and word verification in an effort to get commenters and when almost everyone talks of going away for some time.

The clever get other bloggers to guest post during the hiatus but it's a losing game really - people just aren't blogging to the same extent. We begin with a triumvirate of friends and there was a recent birthday party extraordinaire.

1 Geoff Jones explains the itinerary:

On Saturday July 28th I finally come off age. That is the age when you get free bus tickets, 30% of rail travel and 10% of ski passes.

Everyone is welcome to join me at one or more of the following places on the big day.

09:00 In line at Cambridge railway station to collect my pass :-)

10:30 Swimming at Jesus Green followed by celebratory drink.

11:30 Walk to Grantchester and lunch at The Orchard

15:00 Punting on upper river (weather permitting).

19:30 See Taming of the Shrew in the gardens of St Johns College (Queens Road entrance).

2 And Sally in Norfolk reports on it:

My favorite part of the day was going to see Taming of the shrew in the gardens of St Johns college. It was so good I almost didn’t notice that it was pouring down with rain. My cake turned out really well and was enjoyed by everyone… not a crumb was left.

3 But Ellee Seymour was elsewhere engaged at the time:

When we last stayed in Centre Parcs two years ago, I was in the spa having a detox seaweed wrap and had been coated all over with green slimy stuff and wrapped in silver foil, the lights were dimmed, the music played softly and I was dreamily dozing off when the fire alarm suddenly went off. I half hoped/dreaded a hunky fireman would come and rescue me, but I was unceremoniously rushed into the shower by staff and ushered out quickly in a toweling robe; and all for nothing as it turned out to be a false alarm.

4 Meanwhile, either in South Africa or Scotland, not sure which, The Good Woman reflects on expat bloggers:

Expat postings can be compared to marriages. At first there's the frisson of being in something new - finding your way around, forming early opinions, the desire to be open minded and to make it work. Then there's the wedding - the day you find your new home, the furniture arrives and you celebrate having done it.

The honeymoon follows closely thereafter. The routine is new and, therefore, not boring. You relish the new things that are better than the old things that irked in your last posting. You begin to explore your new home. But it still feels like a long holiday.

5 Juliet Pain or Julie if you wish goes back in time to the day the dingo supposedly took the baby:

The Lindy Chamberlain case (1980s), wherein baby Azaria was carried off by dingos, while the mother was accused and found guilty of her murder, being sentenced to life in prison. Some years later the torn and blood stained clothing belonging to baby Azaria was found, upholding the mother's version of events, that she had been taken by dingos.

6 Ian Russell went to WOMAD and reflects on the hygienic standards in eating in public places:

Furthermore, she said, getting into her stride, this is also why there is a ridiculous amount of wrapping of foodstuffs in shops. A banana in cling film?! Onions in a plastic bag?! Plastic bags provided for all sorts of foodstuffs already blessed by nature with a hermetic, inedible coverings?! She certainly does have a point. Modern western human is paranoid about picking up germs.

7 Mr. Fact earned one cent from his AdSense and wonders:

Does anyone know people who actually make any money from Google Adsense? As today’s total shows, I’m not sure it’s worth it to have all those irritating ads on the page (but are they more irritating than the text itself?) - although it would appear that some people can use it properly… Do you hate them (the ads, not the people who make thousands with them)? Should I get rid of them?

8 Inspector Phil A is right on the case of the EU and its clandestine wording of the constitution which was rejected in referenda but went ahead anyway:

The official English translation of the New EU Constitutional ‘Treaty’ is now out – It has not gone unnoticed that they waited until Parliament were off on their 10 week summer break. They have taken out the actual word 'constitution' and have avoided enshrining legal status to the EU flag, motto and anthem.

They have done a Find/Replace on ‘Foreign Minister’ and changed those references to ‘High Representative’. Mmmm - ‘Catchy’. They must have been reading Lord of the Rings again.

I'd like to announce that I shall not be going away on holiday and though my stats have suffered an extraordinarily major and inexplicable [to me] slump today, still we'll soldier on and reiterate that it's the quality of the readership, not the quantity.

Hope to see you on Wednesday evening.

[celeb couples] pass me the paper bag

I looked for ages for a suitable celeb couple photo, from Lennon/Ono to Brangelina and they were all sickening. Had to go back to a real celeb couple here.

Devout Christian Scientist Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes "have reportedly decided to pose nude for a magazine", in accordance with their beliefs.

As Michelle Johnson of the Melbourne Age pleads:

Tom, please, we've already been scarred by your couch-jumping antics and public displays of affection - enough is enough!

Or as one of the commenters pleaded:

Why can't couples just do it like john and yoko - straight up nude no effects with lighting or props or computers just "have a look at me todger and check out me missus tits".

Bogie and Bacall were my parents' generation so it's hardly likely that they would be touted by me as a romantic couple and yet who else since the 50s would be worthy to tie their boot laces? Posh and Becks?

Of course you recognize this famous couple, don't you?

[stop press] female gives birth

Birthday cake for previous daughter, Su Lin

Hot off the world press today - a 16-year-old female has given birth after two and a half hours in labour:

The cub's gender was not immediately known. "All we've seen so far is a leg and a tail," said Dr Ron Swaisgood, co-head of [San Diego Zoo's] panda program.

"Usually the mother will bobble the cub or her paw will slip and the cub will cry until it's repositioned," said Swaisgood. "But [Bai Yun] was keeping that cub so content it didn't cry at all. It made a few squawks and that was it."

I'm getting confused with this family tree. Bai Yun, Hua Mei, Su Lin. And do Panda's really squawk? These are the pressing questions this Saturday morning. Have a nice day.

[moral rearmament] have to go to iceland

Blonde pole-dancing in her natural glory

Like this one a lot:

Goldfinger in Kópavogur, Iceland’s only remaining strip club, is without a license to host strip shows after Reykjavík’s police chief refused to recommend the issue of a permit for the club.

The owner fights back hard:

In an interview with Fréttabladid daily, Ásgeir Davídsson, the owner of Goldfinger, argues that no strip dance has taken place in his club since the new law came into force because the girls aren’t completely nude. He says he going to appeal the decision of the police chief to the Ministry of Justice. “I feel like I’m living in a police state where it’s up to one man what will happen,” he says.

All right, I know you think I cheated you over the blonde. So here's a real girl in all her glory.

[eyes wide shut] or some other inanity

Bit of a gruelling day and the eyes are closing up. Can't see the screen. Want to answer your comments and visit but tomorrow morning now, if you'll permit. Night night.

[bourne series] darker and darker

To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober. [Logan Persall Smith, Afterthoughts, 1931]

Ditto with fame. A first movie where we "discover" the talents of a vibrant new actor is infinitely preferable to the inevitable third movie, intended as a vehicle for the fully fledged star.

Reason? The star in the making is still raw and fresh, still amenable to being directed, still negotiating his salary. And much more than this, chemistry is possible between star and co-star, with few demands, hardly any tantrums on set and the result is often a pleasing and harmonious whole.

There's no distortion. It's a movie focused movie.

In Identity [2002], Franka Portenta, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Clive Owen and Chris Cooper and Damon himself added weight to the adage about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. And there were some great scenes, as Jeffrey Anderson says:

Liman is obligated to run Bourne and Marie through the expected car chase [and] he doesn't try to outdo "The Fast and the Furious" with pyrotechnics and editing. Instead, he raises the level of filmmaking simply by giving our heroes a few moments to breathe when the chase has finally ended. Bourne guides the car into an underground garage, and the pair simply sit for a moment and allow the experience to sink in.

Ditto the tense game of cat and mouse with the Professor [Clive Owen]. There were classic moments in identity.

Then the inevitable happened in Greengrass' Supremacy [2004] - the co-star was killed off early and the chemistry also died. The closest it got again and it really did get close, was with the remarkable but feisty and morose teenage actress Oksana Akinsha near the end.

Don't get me wrong - you have to like Matt Damon and the Bourne character suits him to a tee. James Berardinelli said at the time of Identity:

"If it came down to Damon's Bourne versus Affleck's Jack Ryan, my money would be on the former."

But as the sole star?

Which brings us to this tendency and it is controversial in Bourne, of playing great actors in bit parts. Kevin Wohler, on Julia Stiles, the enigmatic Nicky:

"As in The Bourne Identity, this great actress is underutilized. She has one good scene with Damon before her character completely falls out of the story…"

Michelle Monaghan was virtually never in it.

The reviews so far say Ultimatum [2007] is an excellent film and so it may be if you're a Matt Damon fan. I'd half expected the series to become darker and darker and darker, as seems to be the way these days. Referring to Jason Bourne, Manohla Dargis says:

"The light seems to have gone out in his eyes, and the skin stretches so tightly across his cantilevered cheekbones that you can see the outline of his skull, its macabre silhouette. He looks like death in more ways than one."

But there are supposedly some high points which lift it into the category of thoroughly entertaining and Dargis says:

"it introduces a couple of power-grasping, smooth-talking ghouls and stark reminders of Abu Ghraib that might make you blanch even if you don't throw up."

The question is - how long the series can be sustained for?

Mal Vincent quotes Matt Damon:

"It's the end," Damon said. "I can't imagine how we could go on with the story beyond this. Maybe we wait 10 years and do a movie about Jason losing his car keys, or something like that. Don't count it out."

Which is an interesting comment, given this dialogue in Identity:

Jason Bourne: I don't want to do this anymore.

Conklin: I don't think that's a decision you can make.