little bits of everything

I went to see Amazing Grace at the weekend. It's a good film. It seems to start in the middle, but then there's a lot to cover. As well as being true, and worth knowing, it was also a good story. I wonder in 200 years time what thing we'll look back on now and wonder why we ever tolerated it.

Can you guess what it is? Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

It's not often I get very interested in a band that isn't played heavily on the radio stations I listen to (XFM, Radio 1, Virgin), but a band on Zane Lowe (Radio 1) tonight really caught my ears - Field Music/ . It reminded me of early Genesis - very tuneful and interesting.

A couple of things amused me about the recent snow fall we had in the south of England. One was a family out for a walk on the Thursday morning. Trailing behind the mum and two teenage daughters was the dad with a mobile to his ear. "I'll get my guy to talk to your guy", he said. Have a break from work I thought, standing by the snowball that I'd just made that was so large I could hardly roll it. The second was the people getting stuck at the end of our road. It slopes away a bit and if people back down the slope to turn then they can't come back up. I've done it myself. Fortunately there was a guy with a big 4x4 who was able to pull people out, with a bit of help from the grit bin and my spade. One of the cars that got stuck was a smaller 4x4. 4 wheel drive? 4 wheels spinning at once.

Icy spiderweb on birdbox Originally uploaded by paulmorriss . After shooting two films of close-up pictures the novelty was wearing off, but after scanning them in I think they look good on the screen. Especially on a black background, if I can figure out how to do that.

I saw Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy recently. I thought it was really good. I'm sure it didn't quite follow the book, but as it was so long since I read the book I couldn't tell all of the bits that were new. Pure fans probably hate it, but I'd recommend it to half-hearted fans. It's quite quirky, so I wouldn't recommend it to people without a strange sense of humour. I was very restrained and didn't recite all the famous lines as they came up, apart from at one point. The old TV Marvin makes a cameo appearance which was a nice touch.

I got tickets for Genesis ! Roll on July 2007.