Sawdust & Diamonds

If I have ever been more distant from the real world than I was this afternoon, it is a time I cannot remember. Lying warm in the sun with a cool ginger ale, and Joanna Newsom's Ys pulling me by the ears into a mythical world of meteorites and diamonds, I slipped completely into another state. No care in the world but as to when I should cool off in the pool. Phone call this morning soothed a worried pain.

Newsom's so-called "child-like" voice, actually thrillingly controlled and trained, breathing over harp and string, is one of the most enchanting sounds I have ever heard. And her lyrics are startlingly different to most modern songwriting in any form;

The meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor's just what we see.
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid
Of the fire that propelled it to thee.

And the meteorite's just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived.
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void
That lies quiet in offering to thee.

Five minutes shy of the end of the album my batteries cut out. Like being pulled out of the lake by a hook on a string. Kicked by a badger in the eye. Poked in the eye by a low-flying fountain pen. Annoyance.

I Wish I Could Have Loved You More

Yesterday was spent at SeaWorld Orlando, a delightful place full of all things aquatic. It is much harder to try and put into words the spectacle of watching someone ride on the nose of a killer whale than to watch it, either in person or on video. As such it was very tempting to upload some of the video I took yesterday onto YouTube and then put that on here. But I'm not doing that, because if there's one thing I've learnt from the bizarre success of Carol Smillie, its don't mess with the formula. Also, I'm on holiday and can't be arsed.

Anyway, SeaWorld, the first theme park I've been to on this visit, was a refreshing change from the Disney parks I'm used to in Florida. That's not to say it is better, but it was certainly less hectic. Much of the time was spent sitting down in the shade watching various shows: dolphins, false killer whales, birds, sealions and real killer whales all took part in entertaining and often spectacular shows. There were also quite a lot of zoo-like areas, with large environments for animals from penguins, polar bears and beluga whales of the arctic to alligators and manatees native to Florida, and everything aquatic in between.

Out of a party of six, only two of us (self included) felt inclined to try the "water-coaster", which was a laugh; it was a strange mix of log flume, roller-coaster and simple boat trip, and was most memorable for a terrifying 60 foot drop at a 60 degree angle - scary, trust me. None of us really fancied the seven-inversion supercoaster tacked onto the side of the park.

I left the park with a feeling of satisfaction and without the exhaustion that usually comes with a day in a theme park, especially when the temperature is above that of blood. But on the trip home, the lingering feeling I had was one of doubt. Was it really fair to imprison all these animals and make them perform tricks for us?

I have no doubt that the company owning the park, Anhauser-Busch (a beer company who also own Budweiser) invest a lot of money in care and conservation. Indeed, the park itself is littered with signs promoting conservation and highlighting their own role in this field. But ultimately I suspect its all just lip service, designed to silence voices that cried out in desperation when SeaWorld was found to stock dolphins bought from controversial sources in Japan. Voices that repeatedly point out the vastly shortened lifespan of the imprisoned Orca. Voices that I'm inclined to agree with.

I enjoyed my day at SeaWorld, very much so, but I doubt I will go again. The bitter taste I now feel has taken the edge off an otherwise enjoyable experience, and I don't much feel like supporting an at best environmentally-neutral organisation. Especially not at seventy dollars a pop.

Heavy Weather

Nothing from me for nearly a week, then you go and get two posts in one day, you lucky devils. For the record, the last one was actually written three days before it was published; it took that long to get internet access here. And I'm running five hours behind UK time, in case you thought this was a bit late to be surfing the net.

I'd forgotten how brilliant sunshine can be. I mean that quite literally, I really had quite forgotten how sensationally bright it can get when the sun is above you and the skies are clear. Hand in hand with this brilliant, searing sunshine is a daily "bubbling up" of huge, vertical clouds that grow all day and peak in size at about 4pm. Despite this, we're six days in and only today have we been rewarded with a punchline of rain; a huge and thunderous storm blew up about two hours ago.

Flashes of lightning twice a minute for nearly an hour, and thunder echoing from miles away or overhead, it is one of the more spectacular storms I can remember, and is the answer to the prayers of the parched grass outside. There is some strange irony in coming to Florida on holiday to escape a flood-ravaged UK, only to find yourself in the middle of an oh-so-English hosepipe ban, but I can't quite tie it down.

Rain is a pleasant change from the otherwise "horrible" omnipresence of 35-in-the-shade heat. Have so far avoided the dreaded beetroot effect, but have suffered some minor burning and a bit of peeling, you'll be interested to hear. Its the details you love. Anyway, the tan is coming along nicely.

I look into the future and see... a trip to an aquatic theme park, a wild goose chase for a cheap iPod, and a future post labelled "rant" concerning American commercials.

Heavy, man.

The Passenger

A transatlantic flight is quite a peculiar thing, and a world apart from the internal European flights to which most Brits are accustomed. Those affairs, often for the price of a couple of DVDs, are hectic, Saturday-morning-on-the-high-street, screaming children, worried parents, cough-on-the-cheap-peanuts-and-you'll-miss-it trips into the darkness of the human psyche, and are characterised by manic attempts to draw the crew's attention to your lack of leg room, lack of coffee or lack of oxygen.

Conversely, the passengers on a transatlantic flight almost exclusively will sit in a zombie-like trance for the 9-hour duration, moving only to place food in mouth, or to shake off more serious bouts of pins and needles. Plugged in and switched on, its a case of headphones on, eyes front, and a dizzying concentration fixed on the selection of films showing. Instead of fending off passengers left, right and centre, the air crew's most tasking job is to try and get your attention long enough to pour you a cup of tea.

And so it's a shame when the roster of films is so limited. Almost exclusively, each film I could have chosen last Thursday pandered to a broad audience. While on some flights there will be only one channel, thus necessitating a schedule of "family films", in this case a personal screen gave me a choice of 10 film and 5 television channels. Why, then, was each (with one exception) an American or Brit blockbuster?

My movie viewing displeasure was counted in threes. Spider-Man 3 was tedious, long and overly plotted, with far too many villains and little of the real human comedy that so enlivened the first two (in its place was a cringingly unfunny "comedy" dance routine). Shrek The Third was funny in parts but had no proper finale and a series of annoying new charcters, though it was possibly redeemed by one brilliant dream-sequence sight gag. Possibly. Finally, I watched Magicians, not strictly (or remotely) a threequel, but the third major collaboration between Mitchell and Webb of which I am aware, and lacking all their usual sparkling wit. A promising setup ruined by a lack of jokes and a disappointing reappearance of Spaced's Jessica Stevenson absurdly left me more satisfied with this Britcom flop than with either of the successful franchise films.

I wonder if perhaps British comedies are genetically engineered to be viewed at high altitudes; I recall that in 2004 The Calcium Kid seemed an entertaining breath of fresh air after the tedium of unmemorable Hollywood slush, despite being one of the most critically mauled British films of recent times.

Surely the logic of showing only broad-audienced films is flawed. With ten film channels to schedule, a spot of diversity would give everyone something up their street, and maybe something to broaden their horizons too. Instead, pandering solely to a mainstream market leaves everyone pacified but unfulfilled. Maybe this is the idea.

While I may never get my wish of watching a Lynch or a Godard at 40,000 feet, I feel it would have been polite to at least have shown a good mainstream film that I've yet to see. Damn you, Branson.

This Hollywood Life

And so it was that the packing was done, and he looked upon it and smiled, for he saw that it was good. And he was to wait only until dawn to depart across the seas, to a land where the sun shines brightly and the locals bite, and stay there for one score and one nights. And he promised to keep in touch, not to leave the old ways of his world behind. And so he prepared to depart.

And, in all likelihood, he will have forgotten to pack any underwear.

Maps

As mentioned previously, I'm off to Florida on holiday this Thursday. This of course means that I should be readying swimming trunks and sunblock for packing. What it actually means is that I'm wasting my time between lounging in the sun trying to build a base tan (in the hope that I don't spend the entire first week looking like a pickled beetroot) and exploring my destination on Google Earth.

I'm firmly of the mind that this innovative programme is probably the best idea since Calvin the Caveman decided that, rather than attempting to scare pigs to death with girlish screaming and waving of the arms, it would be best to throw a pointy stick at its flabby flanks. Of course, all great ideas have terrible side effects, in the one case the most horrible, awful idea for a meal imaginable, and in the other the production of yet another fantastically compulsive, complete and utter total waste of time.

The problem with Google Earth is that it has the appearance of genuine utility, whilst actually hiding a shamefully simple concept under dazzling implementation. There is actually very little you can do with the programme. It can produce from-here-to-there directions, but without the simple interface of various equivalent websites this is less useful than it seems. Links to hundreds of websites and Wikipedia articles are present, but you're unlikely to find yourself reading about anything you're not already familiar with. The ability to type in any location and 'fly' there and view squillions of uploaded photos of famous landmarks is not useful; the same function is done far more effectively by Google's own Image Search. Fly to the top of the central pyramid at Giza and you'll find a photo of some random guy in sunglasses. This is not education.

Ultimately, the appeal of the programme is its "wow" factor, and it is here that it scores most points. It really is cool to look at the grand canyon, zoom into the three-dimensional topography and wander around a bit. Or to go to Tokyo and let the skyline fill up with skyscrapers as it streams the content in. I took the above photo in Grindelwald, Switzerland. It would take those of you with Google Earth only a couple of minutes to fly there, zoom in, level the camera and shuffle around to recreate my picture.

But herein lies the problem. You won't be there. To be nauseatingly sentimental, you won't feel the cool wind of the Swiss Alps, or the warm heat from the summer sun. You'll just see an albeit impressive, blocky representation of a real place. You gain nothing from the experience, and that is extremely frustrating.

Wandering Star

First up, an apology for the previous post. Incoherence is not cool.

After my pointless and rushed post last night, I went and sat outside under the stars with a glass of wine. It was one of those warm, balmy nights where its impossible to do anything but sit back and crane your neck up at the stars.

As the spinal spasms gave way to an enduring rigidity, my eyes became transfixed by a bright point of light travelling across the sky. At first I assumed it was an aircraft, but the constancy of the direction and speed, as well as a lack of flashing lights promptly scoffed at this theory. Too slow to be anything in the atmosphere, and too fast to be anything far away, I realised it must be a low flying satellite catching rays from a sun that had long since set for me. It maintained its fluorescence across much of the sky, and then suddenly dimmed, presumably as the sun slipped below its horizon.

I sat there for a few minutes, experiencing one of those wonderful moments of calm clarity. Maybe I should write a book. Or go jet skiing. Isn't it funny how tissues always have two layers? There seemed to be little noise apart from my own breathing.

The pacifying calm was suddenly broken by a large smashing sound on the patio, inches behind me. I jumped up, startled, trying to see the cause. My mind flicked through a couple of possibilities: a roof tile had fallen; I was under attack from aliens; a bat had crashed.

A torch revealed the presence of a presumably distraught snail slowly regaining its posture. I looked up at the roof, and down at my glass of wine. A snail had fallen from the roof of my house? A thrill seeking, skydiving snail?

At this point I decided it would be sensible to stop drinking wine, and head indoors for the safety of my bed.

The moral of the story is avoid drunken, nocturnal gardening. One of my neighbours had come home to find a snail on one of her plants. To protect the plant she picked it up and tossed it, but chose rather the wrong place to direct it.

Back On The Farm

Reports of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease hit the news yesterday, with so far one isolated case identified at a farm in Surrey, affecting 60 animals. Cue widespread hysteria and story after story of government ministers flying back from holidays to shield Britain from this apocalyptic storm in a teacup.

Forgive me if I'm dismissive of this disaster-to-be, but I never really understood the fuss the first time around. The 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the U.K. was, until the 11th of September that year, the biggest news story I can remember since New Labour's landslide election victory in 1997, and dwarfed the extended campaign of fuel protests from 2000. The outbreak clocked up an impressive 2,000 cases, which resulted in the culling - i.e. slaughtering, burning and burying - of around seven million sheep and cattle. Those who remember the outbreak may think this fair enough, and the epidemic was eventually stopped, so perhaps it was all a success? However, there are two crucial points to consider.

Firstly, foot-and-mouth disease is, in most cases, non-fatal. Symptoms include a high fever, blisters in the mouth that cause drooling, and sores on the feet. Animals will typically lose weight for several months, and milk production in cattle can decline. A very small minority can suffer inflammation of the heart and death. Essentially, the real damage is to a farmer's income; quantities of milk and meat that can be produced significantly decline in the short term, although in the long term they will rise again since the majority of the animals survive.

Secondly, there was at the time a policy of non-vaccination. An effective vaccination exists, but was unused due to vaccinated livestock being ineligible for sale abroad. It was decided that the damage to the economy would be far less if infected cattle, and all those with any possibility of contagion, were destroyed. The logic in this is baffling.

Farmers work in a tough market in Britain. Milk is constantly sold at a loss which the farmer has to pay. After the B.S.E. crisis in the 90s, British beef has sold terribly, if at all, abroad. Cattle are generally insured only in the case of death, and so there would be no compensation for farmers suffering financial losses due to vaccinations. As such, the National Farmers Union put pressure on the government not to adopt a policy of inoculation.

In the current outbreak, I sincerely hope that a policy of vaccinate-and-compensate is adopted by the government. While it will have to fork out substantial amounts to farmers whose cattle is vaccinated, the money lost from British meat exports - hardly a booming market - will be far less than the crushing blow delivered to the tourist industry last time, as the national parks were closed down for months.

And lets not forget that this would save the unnecessary slaughter of millions of innocent, often healthy animals.

Hammer Horror

Finally got round to buying Resident Evil 4 for my Wii today, after reading various claims of it being the "best game ever". I realise this happens a lot more than it should really, but after only an hour, I have had to shuffle off to the relative nirvana of my blog. Not through terror. In fact quite the opposite.

I was hoping to have my skin merrily crawling off my bones. I was expecting every appearing zombie would have me running for the door. I was certain I would at least let out the odd childish yelp of fear. Instead, I was presented with a sequence of decidedly mundane events.

The game opens with an interminably long opening cutscene, scream-free. Fact: driving is not particularly scary. Its okay, I think, as soon as I get control of this fella there'll be nasties hiding round every corner, desperate to jump out and give me the proverbial heebie-jeebies. But that would be too obvious. No adrenaline pumping opening chapter, no stonking mission statement of terror that tells me that anything could happen here. Instead, I get a nice wander through a little "European" village. Surely packed with terrifying beasts though? No. Packed with slow moving villagers with pitchforks. And spades. Terrifying I'm sure you'll agree.

Well maybe I'm supposed to talk to them? Build a sense of dread? Isn't that what The Wicker Man is about? Maybe not; still on my to-see list.

Well anyway, no I can't talk to them. All they do is shuffle grumpily forwards, like children going to ask the teacher for more paper, muttering in some incomprehensible dialect of - I assume - Spanish. They sound Bulgarian. They provide little more than target practice for me as I just stand there and dispense with one after another by shooting them two or three times in the head. As fun as this is (because I aim by pointing my Wiimote), it all feels a bit empty and "training level"-esque. And not the least bit terrifying. I suppose it is quite funny when their heads fly off.

I've never played a Resident Evil game before, so maybe I should be grateful that Capcom have thrown me a gentle introduction. I'm sure I progress I will no doubt become hooked, and will have to eat this post. But frankly, I bought this game to be scared, and won't be satisfied until I become little more than a quivering pile of jelly in the corner, screaming for my mummy. Or soil myself.