Not much...

…going on this week. I read a manga “The Prince of Tennis” by Takeshi Konomi. It’s a very good sports manga with lots of rivals (too many to keep track of) and the usual compliment of goofy friends for our hero. Compared to “Hikaru no Go” however, this manga doesn’t really offer many tips for an aspiring tennis player. They went straight to the impossible-to-master techniques like a spin-serve.

For my evening light reading I chose “Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe” by Bill Bryson. It’s very funny and easy to read since it is in short snippets (he doesn’t stay long in any one place.) Someday I’d like to travel and write clever little travelogues like this. Only I wouldn’t be so mean. Why does he travel if he can’t stand the people, the weather, the trains, the food, the customs…etc. It is funny though and just a treat for the evenings.

I watched “Henry VIII” on Masterpiece Theater (well, the first half anyway.) Then I missed the second half with the confusion of the pledge drive, so I ordered the discs through Netflix. So far, it’s been interesting with some very good actors including Ray Winstone, Helena Bonham-Carter and Sean Bean. But, as is typical with these sorts of historical dramas I always feel compelled to read my history books to see what I am missing. After all, these shows are just a director’s conception of an actor’s interpretations of a writer’s re-telling of actual historical fact.

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LIBRARIANS: the books, the fame, the fortune… What more could you want? (Maybe more books.)

Who again

Back to Dr. Who with “The Horror of Fang Rock” one of those world-famous “everyone dies” episodes that made me want to stop watching. Set in an isolated lighthouse in Edwardian England, Rutans (or is it Rutons?) are invading and it is up to the Doctor, Leela and a terrified band of lighthouse keepers and shipwreck survivors to stop them.

This was also the episode where the standard to and fro of the characters seemed out of sync. I imagine that there is but one set of steps in this narrow lighthouse, yet there is one scene where the Doctor is trying to get Ruben out of his room. Lord Whatsis and the Colonel then go to the top of the tower to talk to the keeper. Later he asks where they are. How did they get past the Doctor without him seeing them? In another scene, the young keeper is down in the coal bin, stoking the boiler fires. Suddenly he is at the top of the tower, keeping the fog horn going.

Even though everyone dies, it is mostly through their own stupidity and the sub-plot of financial mis-dealings. The last death, that of the Colonel, was particularly stupid and against character. The otherwise cautious and not-greedy Colonel suddenly decides to stop and pick up the diamonds the Doctor has dropped. This gives the Rutan time to kill him. It was really pointless. If they wanted to kill everyone, then the producers should have had fewer characters to start with.

I also saw this week the film “My First Mister” with Albert Brooks, though I don’t think this is his work. Goth chick falls in love with an older guy and he has to repel her advances which include self-mutilation and mannequins in bizarre sexual positions. Ah, love… it smells like teen spirit. Amazingly, the old guy turns out to not be a horn-dog at all and gets on with the rest of his life while she falls in love with his son. All’s well that ends well.

<*<*<*<>*>*>* >LIBRARIANS: the books, the fame, the fortune… What more could you want? (Maybe more books.)