The seventh book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series focuses on Djelibeybi, an ancient kingdom not unlike Ancient Egypt.
I hugely enjoyed the start of the novel in which it discusses Teppic at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork, as well as the description of the kingdom and many interesting rituals and customs presided over by the high preist Dios. My attention trailed a little towards the end, but overall it is one of my favour novels in the series so far.
For project nine of the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual, Persuade With Power, I presented a talk entitled “In Defence of Nudity”. It certainly wasn’t one of my best speeches, but I somehow muddled through to take home the best speaker ribbon.
It came round so fast. Falling on the same night as Wendy House resulted in us having a Eurovision party slash Wendy House night, which meant that we did at least have the same generic music from two different events.
The best entry of the night was clearly that of Finland’s Krista Siegfrids, though it did surprisingly badly in the voting. The important thing is though that it annoyed the whole of Turkey for daring to suggest that gay people should have equal rights – what more could you possibly want from a song?
Last month, Dr Joely Black presented a history of tarot. Joely was an animated and interesting speaker who is well worth going to see. If you missed it, you can watch it online via Worfolk Lectures.
We also tried out the new Leeds Skeptics t-shirts, as James models in the photos.
I thought the improvement in the experience over your traditional cinema was well worth the extra money. We dropped by for dinner first and the food was good, the sundaes were even better. Unfortunately the restaurant is separate to the cinema bit so we couldn’t pay our bill and buy our glasses at the same time.
Having a bar and being able to take proper drinks into the cinema is great. Everyone was very friendly too – several of the staff commented in detail on how good the movie was (without giving any spoilers) and the ushers show you to your seat when you arrive in the cinema.
The sofas are probably the best bit – it was far more comfortable than regular seating and allowed me and Elina to cuddle up together like we would if we were watching a film at home. There was also plenty of isle room and a ledge and enough room to put your feet up without reaching the row in front.
It isn’t quite how I first imagined it – a sprawling mess of mix match sofas – they are all the same, fairly small for a sofa and in rows like a traditional cinema, but still far better than your usual experience.
They also had carpeted floors that somehow weren’t sticky and unisex bathrooms in which every cubicle had it’s own sink and hand dryer. It was clean and even had rolls of toilet paper out.
All in all, for the amount I go to the cinema (not often) I think it is well worth paying a few pounds extra for the Everyman experience.
On the whole, I’m not totally sold on the idea. Comfort-wise, it was fine. It was uncomfortable at first, but that was probably because I was expecting it to be and once I settled into the movie, it was fine.
I found the 3D pretty tacky though. It reminded me of pop up books where there are just certain things that pop up – one character would be further forward than another but everything else still felt rather 2D. I also didn’t like the way they would constantly only have one character in focus at a time.
A few of the effects worked quite well though, I think I probably ducked a few times when things came flying out the screen. It was good, but I can’t say I was amazed.
Obviously the new Star Trek films completely ruin everything with their inaccurate depiction of events (you know, when they really happened in the original films). But that being said, I did rather enjoy the new movie.
I imagine there will be spoilers before the end of this article.
I had no problems accepting Benedict Cumberbatch. I struggle with Doctor Whos in other things, but for some reason he isn’t set in my mind as Sherlock. Or maybe I was so distracted thinking about how he looks almost identical to Keanu Reeves playing Neo in The Matrix. That was annoying.
I was also very close to jumping up and screaming “KHAN!!!!!!!!!!” at the appropriate point.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the British girl, who seemed more like she had been added to bring another pair of tits than a deep and meaningful character and it was a bit shallow at times – Admiral Marcus was a bit too much of a stereotypical evil villain.
Ultimately though, any film with a tribble in is going to warm your heart.
Wyrd Sisters is the sixth novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. For me, it was the first novel where the witches really came into their own – Equal Rites was good, but the development in Wyrd Sisters really brings them along.
As good as Granny Weatherwax is, I have to say that my favourite character is Nanny Ogg. I wasn’t overly in love with the Macbeth theme, but who needs to be when you have such awesome characters.
Last month, I length my thousandth dollar on Kiva.
This means I’ve now lent $1,000 to third world entrepreneurs who are working their way out of poverty. But the real genius of Kiva is that although I’ve lent $1,000, I’ve only deposited $240.
This is because Kiva doesn’t do donations – they do micro loans. You lend someone the money, usually quite a small amount, and they pay it back when they can afford to. Once they have done so, you can lend it out to someone else! This means that for every $1 I deposit, I’ve actually lent out $4.16 – and that number will continue to climb!
Best of all, Kiva is currently offering introductory loans for free. All you have to do is sign up and you get $25 to lend out to someone without having to deposit anything.
