My life: work, fun and then some...

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Catching up

I finally have a few spare moments to get back to last weekend. Well, first of all - it was another cold and windy one, but luckily we had some sun. I didn't really do much of sightseeing on Saturday and Sunday, however we went to Greenwich Observatory on Monday.


It's really crappy, if you're more than 15 years old. I mean - I was there long time ago and I really liked it (well, that was my first trip to the UK then), but today, although the park is really nice, the over-all experience is quite boring.



Greenwich Park and Canary Wharf *skyscrapers*

The Royal Observatory is also the source of the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude "0". The line divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the Earth and here is how it looks.



The only *funny* thing about Greenwich was this:



Two additional jobs thanks to that regulation (the guy who gives you the tickets, and another one, who checks, if you have a ticket).

We did many other interesting things though. We spent half of the Saturday in Camden Town (um, I know) and then on Sunday we decided to walk around some nicer areas of London to find the best place to live. And we did! I love Queensway, its climate, its restaurants, pubs and bars. Also Hyde Park is just around the corner and the fact that it's so close to everything makes this place rock. This is where I want to live and this is where I definitely will do everything to move in a few months (ideally July, but most likely September). BTW - one of the best chicken curries I have tried in London is served by a restaurant on Queensway, ha!

Now, about Californian wines. This is what made me finally buy a wine rack-yesterday. Good wines need a neat wine-rack and here it is. I don't know what it is about wine from Napa or Sonoma, but it's just the best. I know, the wine kings would kill me for saying that, but I somehow cannot convince myself to French wines. I should probably visit France this spring / summer and give them a try again. Hmm, that sounds like a plan, and it's not really too far from London to Paris. I'll have to think about that. Oh, and here is my new wine-rack...



Only red...

Okay, and finally - Brokeback Mountain. That was really a brilliant movie. "In outline, the story is simple: Boy gets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets and loses boy over and over again across a lifetime. But, somehow there is a whole world of suffering and grief in all that getting and losing, some permanent sense of loss, of possibilities forever forestalled, happiness perpetually found and then denied, lessons learned too late". And how hard those lessons were, could be summed up by one of the conversations between Jack and Ennis:

- I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain't foolin. What I don't know, all them things I don't know could get you killed if I should come to know them.
- Try this one and I'll say it just one time. Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life. You wouldn't do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everythingng built on that. It's all we got, boy, fuckin all, so I hope you know that if you don't never know the rest. Count the damn few times we been together in twenty years. Measure the fuckin short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you'll kill me for needin it and not hardly never gettin it. You got no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.

"This is a very climactic, powerful scene. It shows the two of them literally tearing each other to shreds. Each hurling accusations, warnings, and ultimatums at the other. Jack wanting so much to be near Ennis more than *the short leash* Ennis keeps him on. Ennis, hating himself because deep down inside he knows Jack is right, but is too crippled by fear and guilt to do anything but fall down on his knees and drown in his own self-pity. So all that really happens is Jack saying "Come here...it's all right" and feeling compassion even when Ennis is shoving him away with his "Get the fuck off me!". Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved..."

"And what makes the film so fresh is not the modest story, but the combination of: the period, the people, the language". If you haven't seen the movie yet, I would really highly recommend it. Definitely top-class...

Anyway, that's pretty much all about last weekend. The next one is just around the corner (yeah!) and I really am looking forward to it....

4 Comments:

  • At 9:29 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sentymentalna sie na starość robisz :)))

     
  • At 8:26 pm, Blogger Daga said…

    No, I am not! The wine-rack is a very useful thing and there is absolutely nothing sentimental about it :P

     
  • At 4:33 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "In outline, the film is simple: Boy gets boy; boy loses boy; boy gets and loses boy over and over again across a lifetime — but there’s a whole world of suffering and grief in all that getting and losing, a permanent sense of loss, of possibilities forever forestalled, happiness perpetually found and then denied, lessons learned too late."

    Visit:
    http://www.pajiba.com/brokeback-mountain.htm
    and compare...

    Seems you have just made a copy-paste, haven't you?

     
  • At 4:45 pm, Blogger Daga said…

    I have. That's why it's in inverted commas. Take a closer look ;-)

     

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