Do unto others

It's so easy to forget.
What you give is what you get.

Ratt, 1985.

All in the Mind

Three trailers for the same film, Inception, due to be released in the UK on July 16. The film looks amazing, but just goes to show how a little variation in editing can produce quite different trailers. For me, it's this one that is the most compelling:



This slightly shorter one doesn't sell it enough:



And this one, almost twice as long, perhaps gives away too much:



Still want to go and see it though!

Real reason

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

The Story People.

Surprise!

You got me good and proper! Those furtive text messages, the turning of the laptop screen away from my eyes and the obsession with the weather. All is now clear. In some ways I feel a bit stupid to have not sussed, but in fact I am pleased to have got the full benefit of the surprise. It's the aspect of a surprise party that makes it, well, a surprise party!

Those of you who have been paying close attention over the last few years of this blog will know that I turn 40 this year. As will those of you who actually know me. My birthday is actually later this month, so I was not expecting to arrive back at the house (after a very enjoyable afternoon shooting clay-pigeons for the first time) to find a whole load of cars parked outside!

"What are all these cars doing here?" I asked Dave who was in the car with me. "I dunno..." Dave said back, unconvincingly, "Perhaps the neighbours have got friends round..." he suggested. A good attempt, Dave, but it doesn't explain why I recognised Rachel's parents' cars and my mum and dad's car! There was nobody around, so Dave led the way round to the garden at the back, and...

Surprise! A garden full of folks! Family and friends raising a glass to... well, to me! It appears that my better (oh, so better) half, Rachel, had spent the last couple of months planning a surprise party for my 40th! It was the start of the best party ever... live music, Chinese lanterns, a wonderful cake (that's me in the picture at my computer, complete with Rubik's Cube!), and a magician. Yes, a magician! In fact, the whole night was quite magical.

Thank you to everyone who came, and to everyone who clearly helped Rachel with the organising and the secret-keeping (shame on you). And thank you for cards and presents. I've not opened any as yet... will save for my actual birthday later this month. A few more days of my 30's left, which I shall hang on to as long as I can!

But thank you most of all to Rachel. So much thought and effort paid off. Thank you baby... I love you very much x

Get psyched!

Ever wondered what makes people tick? In which case you might want to sign up for a home learning course in psychology. But with so many to choose from, how do you decide which one to go for? It’s a good question. Luckily the answer is here.

If you follow this link you can discover other home learning courses offered by NCC Home Learning.

Are we human?

I love this song. Trouble is, I think the more I play it the more I think Rachel is beginning to dislike it.

Flashed Away

Oh, and if you were unhappy about the way Lost ended, you would have also been a little frustrated with the finale of Flashforward (nice little reviews here and here).

No answers there at all, apart from pretty much everyone experiencing their flashforward just as they had seen it (kind of). Apart from those that didn't. It ended with another blackout and of course another flashforward, setting it all up for a second series. The bummer is there won't be a second series as ABC cancelled the show. Ho hum.

Derren 'n' Lou

Derren's final encounter as part of Derren Brown Investigates took him to the US to spend a few days with Lou Gentile, a ghost hunter and demonologist. We were treated to a few ghost photographs which, for Lou, provided strong proof of life after death but, for Derren, provided strong proof that we are very adept at seeing meaningful patterns in 'noise'. Especially when we're highly motivated to look for them.

Much of Lou's 'data' were in the form of Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP. As part of an investigation of a haunted house, Lou would ask questions out loud to the spirits thought to be haunting the place, leaving a gap for the spirit(s) to respond. A digital voice recorder placed on a table recorded the questions along with any answers. Typically, no response would be heard back at the time, but when the recording was played back sounds could be heard in the gaps between Lou's questions. Many people, such as Lou, believe that these sounds are the faint voices of spirits trying to communicate from the other side. The difficulty is that these sounds, much like the ghost photos, usually require a fair bit of interpretation to hear what is supposedly being said. What Lou hears as a message from the dead, you or I (or indeed Derren) might hear as unintelligible crackle.

If these noises aren't voices from beyond then what might they be? A useful contribution to the programme was made by a forensic audio analyst who pointed out that the noises are likely to be an artifact of how these digital voice recorders work, particularly those that are voice-activated. As is often the case with claims of apparently paranormal phenomena, a more likely explanation tends to be quite mundane but is often overlooked by people wishing to believe that something supernatural is happening.

A rather poignant end to the programme was the news that Lou had died a few months after the filming. I wonder if he's been in touch yet?