Things I Like - 1 - Movies

Ever since I worked at the Savoy Cinema in Nottingham I've been hooked on going to the movies. I'm happy to go any time, alone or with friends to see any film - expect scary ones. I draw the line at scary anything. I love the popcorn (sweet and salted mixed please), the slushy drinks and the chocolatey snacks (expensive though they may be) and tend to feel quite at home sitting in the screens, be they traditional or modern.

- Just a note on working at a cinema. When I first started I got told to go and "clean the screen". To which I responded "Ok, do I just brush it down or use a mop?". I got a pretty blank look. You see "screen" can of course refer to the room in which the movie is shown, not just the big white thing at the front. I think this is the cinema staff equivalent of an electrician's apprentice being sent for a left-handed screwdriver. If you ever get asked to do this this, be a pro and go and get the hoover. Don't go hunting for ladders like I did. -

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Most recently I've been to see The Muppets and John Carter. The Muppets blew me away with how funny it was. I was expecting outdated jokes and cutesy storyline. Indeed, the storyline was the usual formula of "ARGH! They want to cancel The Muppet Show, quick, we need to make money!" but anything cutesy was served with a side order of slapstick/ironic/situational comedy which just made the whole thing ace. Fans of Flight of the Conchords will love the musical numbers. Brett McKenzie himself was musical director and contributed to a lot of the songs (won a few awards for them too). I'd say this movie is a must see for anyone with a sense of humour. There is also an impressive string of cameos from the likes of Dave Grohl and the dude who plays Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory which made it all the more fun. I for one am going to buy it on DVD as soon as it's released.

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John Carter, on the other hand, is a film which I think lacks humour. I think it would have benefited from a Jack Sparrow type character with a few one-liners, just to make it stand up as typical Disney fare. Saying that, there is a pretty cool Martian dog in it which was funny and cute (in a toothy, slobbery way), and, aside from the humour stuff, I personally thought it was an enjoyable movie. There wasn't anything really spectacular about it which blew my mind as such, but my mum (49) and nephew (12) both thought it was really good, and it was definitely aided by good use of 3D. I feel quite sad that it's reported as a flop by the BBC. I think this could be due to harsh reviews given to it by websites and newspapers putting people off going, but Rotten Tomatoes shows that, even though it was given a review score of 51%, 71% of people who actually went to see it enjoyed it and I think that speaks for itself. If you have a free evening I recommend giving it a whirl.

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One must-see movie, which I'm so excited to see I get a funny feeling in my tummy when I think about it, is The Hunger Games which will be released on the 23rd March (that's only two days time!!). I intend to go watch it this weekend because sadly I can't do cinema during the week when I'm away working in Yorkshire, but hopefully I will be able to book tickets and it won't be too busy.

I'm super excited about this movie because I recently read the book trilogy by Suzanne Collins and enjoyed it immensely, despite the fact that the concept of post-apocalyptic survival isn't really a new one. I'm expecting it to be pretty dramatic and I saw the trailer last weekend before John Carter and it looked like it would be emotional. However, I heard on the radio yesterday a snippet of a review that said the extreme mortal peril wasn't really put across properly in the movie. I figure this is to be expected in order to make the film a 12A rating. Personally I'd like to see it properly souped up and aimed at adults, with a lot of emotion, fear and gore but hey, that's just me. I like book-to-movie adaptations to be intense in order to meet my expectations.

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DVD wise I recently bought The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a Japanese animated movie about a girl who, in a minor lab accident, gains the power to be able to jump backwards in time. She uses this power to go back and fix events and help out her school friends. It's a really sweet story with a fairly simple time travel angle and I think it's going to be one I'll watch over and over because I find animated movies pretty relaxing. I'm also going to get hold of the book of the same name which is loosely described as a prequel, but I imagine it will be more of an inspiration for the story in the movie.

If you've been to see a movie lately that you think is a must-see, or you think is a do-not-see, please let me know. I definitely appreciate recommendations!

Advice for First-Time Conference Goers

Recently I went to a conference. It was the first time I've been to one and I wasn't sure what to expect. Since coming back I've thought of a few tips for people who don't have a clue like me, based on things I saw last week.

- What to wear - 

This can depend on the type of conference. If you are a business person then I'm sure suits will be all the rage but this farmy/sciency crop protection conference seemed more chilled. People were still expected to look smart but some students wore jeans and converse and nobody commented. I like a little bit of dress up though, I find wearing smart clothes makes me feel more confident.

Ladies: I'd recommend aiming for the mid-ground that is smart-casual. General office wear is good - I wore a knee-length skirt with flat black pumps and a blouse. Unfortunately that's not me in the picture on the right (those images came from a pretty cool dressing room function on the H&M website where you can plan oufits easily by clicking on items you like) but that's the look I'm gonna aim for next time I go.

Gents: Simple! Trousers and a shirt! Or a nice jumper if you're wanting to look more casual. Again only the real pros wore suit jackets so maybe think twice about that if you're a student.  If wearing a shirt please, please, please tuck it in. One bloke who gave a talk had his shirt hanging out and it looked like he had just rolled out of bed. I couldn't take him seriously.

Looking smart is important because you are representing yourself and your institution but looking too formal will make people think you're too big for your boots! I'm pretty sure I ended up looking like a schoolteacher on the second day but hey, you live and learn! Following the above suggestions will hopefully make sure you don't make any faux pas.

Hint: The venue might be air-conditioned to feel like the North Pole so do take some extra layers along just in case.

- Giving a Talk - 

I wish I'd given a talk instead of presenting a poster as with hindsight I think my work would have gone down well with the audience. If you're deliberating over whether to give a talk or make a poster I'd say go for it and give a talk. It's more stressful to plan but it is a good opportunity to show off your project, make your face  familiar to potential contacts and the relief feels pretty darn good when it's over!

Things to remember when giving a talk:

If there is a microphone at the podium, please stay still and speak into it. I know it's important to engage with the audience but turning back and forth to face them makes it hard to follow what is being said. Take some time before you begin speaking to angle the mic towards you and position it a reasonable distance from your mouth - about 30cm away should be fine.

Don't go crazy with the laser pointer! People don't need each line of your presentation highlighted for them, it can be taken as a given that most of your audience can read so try to keep the pointer for essential uses only. Also when designing your PowerPoint, think ahead about what you want to emphasise and make an animation to do this for you when you click.

Don't read out reams of raw data and results. People just don't care. Explain your methods, have a few graphs and tables and then spend most time on the conclusions or discussion. Numbers don't mean much to other people but the facts you have deduced from them are what people want to know, so, be a crowd pleaser!

- Poster Presenters -

Do try to stand near your poster during the coffee breaks and lunchtimes but don't stand guard by it like the Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace. That can make people too nervous to come and read your poster or, alternatively, can induce your audience to start poking you in the face, taking pictures with you and telling you jokes to see if you will move from your post. Instead I recommend standing a little way back and approaching people once you have seen that they have already begun reading the poster. Don't do what I did and get scared and avoid staying with my poster altogether, I missed speaking to someone who I really wanted to network with. Luckily I managed to catch her later in the day but she was disappointed I wasn't available earlier when she had more time to talk.

As for things to bring along, it can be helpful to provide A4 handouts for people to take away with them. It will make you more memorable and it should have your contact information on it so people can email with questions. Also get some business cards printed, they're always handy to have just in case.

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Feel free to comment with questions and if I think of anything else useful I'll put it up here. 

Morals of the story are: look good, be confident, be prepared, don't wear bearskin hats and maybe go have a little fun with that H&M dressing room thing!

Not an Animal Lover...

Anyone who knows me will know I am not a huge animal lover. Don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless, I got upset when Bambi's mum and Simba's dad died but to be honest that's probably because they could talk. I do appreciate that larger animals can have their own individual personality but I'm not one of those who thinks animals are like people. I'm also pretty strongly allergic to anything bigger and hairier than a hamster (they make me sneeze too but just with less intensity).

- As an aside: I hate the Dog's Trust charity advert, which, amongst other charity ads, try to give dogs human characteristics and say they will send you a card in the post. How can they lick the envelope? How can they place the stamp? The answer is they cannot and thus I feel so obviously lied to that I get annoyed and grumble loudly at the TV, irritating those around me more than the advert probably did. I'd feel much better about donating if they said "Billy is a grumpy dog who won't fetch your paper but he'll lie happily on your feet for a bit. He also likes chicken but it makes him fart.", although I suppose guilt-tripping people does make money. -

Anyway, back to the point, I am not a typical animal lover. I do have pet gerbils who entertain me hugely, but I think of them as pets instead of friends. Some people might think this is isn't right but I look after them as best I can (with some help from my kind friends), I buy them new houses and toys which they destroy in 3 hours and I sometimes try to give them a sand bath but they just eat the sand instead. Idiots. I am under no illusion that they see me as anything other than their primary food giver and besides doing that important task I am unimportant to them.

So, it is safe to say I have never wanted a large, uncaged house pet like a cat or dog... until this day. When I saw this Youtube video my heart officially turned to mush and I Googled hard to see what kind of breed he/she is. I then discovered the Munchkin Cat. They have teeny-tiny legs. Here's the Japanese website linked in the video which sells them and you don't have to speak Nihon-go to enjoy this site because the pictures, like the ones on the right, speak for themselves! It is all I can do to not shout "AWWWW!" out loud but rest assured I am doing so in my head!

If there is some way of overcoming my allergies, when I am a grown up with a house and a proper job I will be getting one of those little fluffballs. Preferably a grey one. And maybe he or she will send me cards in the post. More likely they will just behave like any normal cat and do this instead.

Here's what's left of my gerbils' destroyed wicker teepee:

One for the Ladies!

Last weekend I went shopping in Nottingham. I stopped by Boots as I usually do just to grab a few essentials and check the offers for my advantage card. There were a few offers I liked the sound of on the automated machine. The first was 'buy something from the Tea Tree and Witch Hazel range and get 100 advantage card points' - that's equal to £1.00 to spend in store. I got a face mask for 99p which was very nice, satisfying to peel off and made me a profit of £0.01!

The second offer was for 'free blusher if you buy something from the 17 range'. I thought, great I'll get something for cheap and get the freebie (even though I didn't reeally need a new blusher in the first place). Unfortunately (or fortunately) a fancy nail polish caught my eye. 17 magnetized nail polish contains small particles of black metal which give a lovely stripy textured effect after you hover the magnet provided over the nail while the polish is still wet. It takes a little practise but is quite straightforward to use. I bought the teal coloured one which does work well but I think the effect would be more striking on the gun metal grey polish. That cost £5.99, but the blusher would have been £3.99 so I guess I didn't feel too bad about buying it, especially as it looks really cool!

The final thing I bought was actually something I went into Boots for. New foundation. I always have issues with buying foundation as it's so expensive. It's not something you can repeatedly buy and discard if the texture/colour isn't perfect so I usually dread buying a new foundation. I stick to Maybelline as they have the best range of tones for my skin. I had been using the Dream Matte Mouse type since I was a teenager but that seemed to dry out my combination skin. Switching to Dream Satin Liquid had the opposite effect and my skin became incredibly greasy about an hour after application.

The one I chose on a whim at the weekend has been amazing! It's called Dream Nude Airfoam and it gives a lovely matte finish without drying out my skin. Admittedly the coverage of blemishes isn't great because the texture is very light but a bit of concealer on problem areas fixes that issue easily. It comes in a pressurised container and is a mousse, very similar to hair mousse, so it expands when you dispense it onto your hand. A small amount goes a long way and, importantly for me, it's labelled SPF 16. I've never been so happy with a foundation!

Images from here and here.

Now in the spirit of 'One for the Ladies' I thought it necessary to include a hen-party type willy image. Below is a type of chilli pepper which grows without modification into a decidedly phallic shape. We're thinking of getting some to grow in the office at work! Spicy!

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Sherlock Sunday *Spoiler Alert*

At the moment I am suffering from complete demotivation at work. This morning I arrived at 9:00 but instead of going straight to the office I had a hobbit-like second breakfast of a seeded bagel and Nutella - which is the closest I can easily get to a sugary doughnut in the mornings. Now it's >11:00 and I've perused facebook, twitter, congratulated my friends Gemma and Kieron on the birth of their super-cute baby girl (Elise Grace in case you were wondering), found a naughty calendar of Disney ladies and begun writing a blog. I've also sat here for a good few minutes thinking about that Sherlock episode from Sunday.

I knew he wouldn't be dead after reading the original story a few months back (and the BBC know a cash-cow when they see one) but I can't figure out how he survived it. In the story (novella? article? thing?), and in the recent blockbuster movie A Game of Shadows, Moriarty and Holmes appear to have fallen to their doom down a raging waterfall, indeed in the stories Moriarty does never appear again, but Sherlock was resurrected by Conan Doyle for more adventures. It's more easy to believe he survived in this case because they fell into water, but on the BBC he fell onto a pavement. Solid, non-cushioning pavement. And people saw him fall.

As an aside I read this morning in the QI book I have on my kindle that cats survive any fall from higher than seven storeys as they reach a non-terminal velocity of 60 mph and manage to, I think the quote was, "parachute to earth like a squirrel". I've never seen a squirrel parachute, but hey ho. Going by this fact it would seem my gerbil Sherlock could probably have survived it but I doubt BBC's non-rodent Sherlock parachuted anywhere and I think Watson would probably have noticed him gliding down to earth like a floaty-light Quaver (although Watson was pushed over by a bicycle and seemed a bit concussed).

Those I was watching with on Sunday quite rightly pointed out that the hospital staff wheeled the supposedly-deceased Holmes away rather quickly after the fall, suggesting he was showing vital signs. If he wasn't then it would have been a crime-scene and the area preserved for the police surely..?

So, I suppose I figure he wasn't dead after the fall, he escaped the hospital and somebody (Molly?) swapped in another cadaver in place of Holmes' to be buried and provide Watson with a headstone to which he could pour out his heart and bring a tear to my eye.

This all makes sense although I can't help having a fanciful thought that the man who knocked John off the bike was actually Sherlock and it will all work out as some David Blaine/Copperfield style magic trick. Please do comment if you have any other ideas about how you think it could be explained.

I guess I'll find out Christmas 2012 when the series returns but for now I'm eagerly anticipating a Sunday session of Birdsong with the beautiful Clemence Poesy (Harry Potter, Gossip Girl) and unusual-looking-but-rather-attractive Eddie Redmayne (The Other Boleyn Girl, My Week with Marilyn). It's based on a book I haven't read but it looks positively dramatic and I am looking forward to it.

I'm Still Alive (and criticising and baking)!

Yo! It's been a while! I've been trying to finish a paper for a conference in Dundee. Ok, so it's not the Caribbean or whatever but I'm just happy to be getting my name in print! The conference is by the Crop Protection in Northern Britain people and I'm going to be presenting a poster on my PhD subject. Eeek!

Since the last time I posted (October - wow!) my friend's band Area 11 have had a pretty successful video on Youtube in collaboration with Yogscast. You can see it here, if you aren't one of the 1.4 million who have watched already: http://bit.ly/ts3gdb

In case you missed it, it's just been Christmas! I got an awesome present - a Totoro cushion! I would put a photo here but Ye Olde PeeCee I'm using won't allow it. You'll just have to take my word that it's just the coolest thing! He's all fluffy with a soot sprite on his head ^_^

I also got a recipe book from the Hummingbird Bakery. As I type there's a Lemon & Poppy Seed Loaf baking away in the oven! Pretty sure I've done something wrong though as the recipe says one hour cooking time and I'm already pushing two and a half hours.. Uh oh! Hopefully it will taste ok.

I've just finished watching the 2nd episode of the 2011 Royal Society Christmas Lectures recorded from BBC2 (so I guess it's probably on iPlayer). This series are really interesting, the lecturer, Professor Bruce Hood, is very compelling and it's all about the brain with bits about optical illusions, MRI scanning and senses. It's also pretty cool to see the audiences' minds carefully blown by a number of well-executed illustrative experiements.

Also I watched the new adaptation of Great Expectations (also on iPlayer). It's a fantastic version of the Dickens novel with a perfect atmosphere and lovely sets. It still doesn't make me like the story though. I hate the charater of Pip. I know he's supposed to be arrogant and a pain in the arse and then change his spots towards the end. I know it's a classic tale about the effect of money and influence on an impressionable young mind... But I dislike him constantly and, maybe it's just me, I like to like my protagonist. It's one novel I've not been able to finish because I've been irritated too much by the main character.

Oops, I smell burning lemon sponge! Gotta go!

Mads Langer/ The Feeling/ Peachykeens

I went to see Mads Langer last night at Rock City. He was supporting The Feeling on their tour. After a speedy buffet dinner at Peachykeens, Linda and I sprinted to City to catch his set.

It was amazing. Mads' voice is so beautiful and way better live than on record. The worst part was that his set was really short, about 6-7 songs and so it was over much too soon. If you haven't listened to his stuff it's mostly laid back acoustic-type tracks. Personally I get a lovely, oxymoronic shivery-warm feeling when I listen to his voice.

Neither myself or Linda are really fans of The Feeling so we stuck around for a few songs to see what they were like and decided it was a bit too loud (even with earplugs!) and the lead singer was a bit too irritating to stick out the whole gig. He kept spinning around and waving his arms and generally being so full of himself I started to feel the urge to slap him with a wet fish. I didn't though. The fishmongers were all shut at that time of night.

Overall it was a fun night and in case you were wondering, Peachykeens is an all-you-can eat 'live' buffet restaurant. That doesn't mean lobster tanks and loose livestock, it means they cook things for you there and then so it's hot and fresh and 'live'. I left feeling very full and sick. Happy days.