Spies like us...

Went to see the new Cohen brothers movie 'Burn after reading'.

Ok, so upfront, I really like the Cohen brothers... so this probably won't be in any way objective...

Great film, a totally over the top spy movie... in a Sarah Palin/hockey mom kind of way (in the sense that it is totally ridiculous)

The story isn't really that important. Like Fargo, most of the fun is in the ridiculousness of the characters, who are all way too extreme to be serious. I'm impressed that Brad Pitt and George Clooney were up for playing such embarassing characters (especially Brad). All of the characters are excellent sterotypes of something... My personal favourites are the two CIA guys who appear occasionally and act as a strangely plausible deus ex machina and smoothing things over at the end...

Things of beauty...

Really want one...
from here

Compulsive Dissatisfaction

Just been to see the new Woody Allen movie 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona'
Hate to admit it, but this is the first time in ages that I've sat through a movie which has pushed so many of my buttons and that I've really wanted to go straight back into and watch again.

The movie follows two women, one who is (as Penelope Cruz points out) impulsive, passionate and suffers from 'compulsive dissatisfaction'. The other who is sensible, 'grounded' and follows the established New York path to happiness....

Enter Javier Bardem, a pasionate, charming painter who flagrantly ignores their anoying americanisms and seduces both women... Also enter Penelope Cruz, who is just damn, damn crazy.... Enough synopsis, just watch the film.

The film dances between hysterical pokes at American/New York bankers/expats and disturbingly honest emotional experiences and hangups...

in my head...

heard/noticed this in Starbucks this morning, has been depressing the hell out of me ever since....

Wonderful designs...

I love this design for a hot-tub, especially because it doesn't need any kind of power source. You make a fire in the metal coil and the water convection circulates hot water into the tub.. takes a couple of hours to heat up, but I'd like one for the mountain cabin I plan to survive in after civilization collapses...

Why the U.S. election is scary (but at least some people realise)

wonders...

one of the random things I've seen on the interweb which I'd love to try and make, especially with my love for steampunk.
(from here)

Travelers lore...

From my travels I have discovered the following.










First, England is, as most foreigners believe as cold, wet and generally unwelcoming (especially at its airports). You will be forced to queue like a refugee and will be glared at suspiciously from the moment you step off the plane until well after you've cleared immigration... and that's if you're lucky enough to hold a European passport...

Secondly, the Airbus A380 is very much the same as any other damn jumbo jet once your in it, just as noisy, still not enough toilets, nothing particularly fancy unless you are a Sheik or Lord (although they did give me a complementary pack of cards for no obvious reason).

Thirdly, Heathrow airport has yet to realised that if the plane is twice as big as all the others there will be twice as many bags, hence it will take its normal pack of hunchbacks twice as long to unload, and there will be twice as many people trying to fight their way to the luggage belt to try and see if that ubiquitous black suitcase is theirs...

Fourthly, noise cancelling headphones are wonderful, but do not cancel out babies...

there and back again

Am back, tired as hell, eyes burning, but slightly glad of the fact that just having gotten off a plane seems to excuse staring into space while people are talking to you....

A Popular pastime...

Just spent a happy half hour sitting in the courtyard of EMBL, drinking coffee with Oguz (a former student in the lab). We just discovered the following: We are both here visiting our girlfriends, and both hanging out in the library until they are finished, until then we're both spending all the money of their lunch cards....