First up is Enemy (2013), a movie somebody peed on. Summarising the plot it sounds
a bit thin ā Jake Gyllenhaal meets his evil twin Jake Evyllenhaal and not much else happens ā
but Denis Villeneuve does a fantastic job of building up tension and dread around a slow-burning
premise which, in itself, isnāt necessarily the scariest thing. 6/10.
Took a trip to the cinema to see Longlegs (2024), starring the greatest living
actor himself, Nic Cage. I say āstarringā; heās not in it so much, as itās more about
the internal tensions of our mildly psychic, mildly autistic Clarice Starling stand-in, played
wonderfully by Maika Monroe. Again, the plotās a bit thin, falling apart with a whimper in the
third act, but the style and execution more than makes up for it. There are so many looming
shots of doors and windows just at the edge of frame, snippets of interspersed terror, ominous
rumbling soundscapesā¦ pretty good! 7/10.
Green Room (2015) is a solid little low-budget thriller where a punk band get
trapped in a nazi bar. Not much to say other than 6/10.
Watched Schindlerās List (1993) for the first time. Cue several hours of inelegant
blubbering from me. (āI could have got moreā¦ā) I would like to apologise for calling John
Williams a hack. I was not familiar with your game, sir. 10/10, but it feels wrong to give it a
numbered score in the first place.
In Bruges (2008)! The online hype for this is ravenous and iām not quite sure it
lives up, but i was suitably entertained. Colin Farrell has very kind eyes. 6Ā½/10.
The Olympics were as uplifting as always. A Discord friend of mine put it best: āThe
Olympics makes me feel patriotic for the human raceā. For a few glorious weeks, it doesnāt
matter that the IOC is the third most corrupt organisation on the
planet behind Fifa and the Mafia. It doesnāt matter that there are wars raging across the old
world. All that matters is that the most fit people on the planet have come to show what the
human body can really do when pushed to its limits.
After years of putting it off, i finally got around to
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), all 3Ā½ hours of it. Itās hard to review just
the first part of the trilogy, but if the rest is as good as this, itās on track for an easy 9.
Iāve been getting into the Eighth Doctor audio dramas recently and
āThe Chimes of Midnightā might be among the best things to come out of Doctor Who.
Very dark. Very weird. It builds up this offputting atmosphere perfectly, Paul McGann and India
Fisher making you wish theyād gotten a proper series, with the traditional timey-wimey twist.
9/10.
Feeling really quite glum over the news of
far-right riots near here yesterday.
I just keep coming back to the questionā¦ why Sunderland, of all places?
Not that it would be okay in any situation, but itās not Leicester, where you have sectarian
tensions flaring up. Itās not Southport, where you just had a mass stabbing. Itās not even somewhere
with a properly substantial Muslim or immigrant population, like a Birmingham or a Boston. Itās
Sunderland. Why here, in what is, pardon my bluntness, the White British1
working-class capital of the UK?
I donāt know. I guess i thought it couldnāt happen here. That we were nicer up north. Or that the
scenery was too nice for people to get angry. Or that we were too left-wing even though Reform beat
the Tories in every constituency. Or maybe that we were too deprived, and that we didnāt
have anyone to scapegoat, because we knew itād be shit no matter what.
Ach. History will trundle on as always, and in due time iām sure the internet shit-stirrers and
fundie imams will be joining hands and complaining about all those filthy undersea neo-post-BahĆ”āĆ
immigrants from Atlantis taking our jobs. Maybe we can set up a football rivalry for everyone to
redirect their hate into like they did in Glasgow. Who knows.
A very minor thing, but iāve refreshed my blogroll. Do check the linked sites out if you havenāt
already. :-)
Just bought a month of Discovery+ to be able to watch the Olympic surfing and iām not happy about
it.
The saola, a large mammal which was discovered
in the Vietnamese forest inā¦ wait for itā¦ 1992! Really makes you wonder what else is
hiding out there.
Really enjoyed this documentary about
the varied weirdos of the life-extension movement. I came away surprisingly endeared by that one
billionaire guy with the cock monitor.
Well, i care about what my favourite dinosaur is, and itās Diplodocus, that
lumbering old fool. Allow me to be possessed by the spirit of my nine-year-old self for a little
bit.
Reason number one why the diplodocus is the best dinosaur is because it is called a diplodocus. This
is a very fun name to say and does not strike the same terror into the hearts of men as, say, š¤š¤š¤
Tyrannosaurus Rex!!! š¤š¤š¤ or š„š„š„
Velociraptor!!! š„š„š„. I like to think this is
because they are, themselves, gentle creatures, being peaceable herbivores and all that. (My
favourite dinosaur could beat up your favourite dinosaur, but chooses not to because it is a
conscientious objector. Iām sure this taunt would have gone down great on the playground.)
Another reason diplodoci are great is how long they are, getting up to thirty metres from tip of the
snout to top of the tail. Part of me thinks it would be fun to be that long, but the other part
likes being able to turn around corners. Thereās other dinosaurs that we think were longer, but most
of them donāt have a complete skeleton to back them up, which is a skill issue if iāve ever heard
one. If my species was about to be wiped out i would simply do the smart thing and die in an area
that would preserve my fossil better. Suck it, Maraapunisaurus.
That long neck isnāt just for show, either. This is the kind of thing that causes massive arguments
among palƦontologists, but
a study in the Journal of Vertebrate PalƦontology
(yes iām backing up my dinosaur preferences with a source) suggests that, because their centre of
mass would lie so close to their hip socket, they could assume a bipedal stance without much effort,
lifting them high up into the canopy into the land of only the most gourmet leaves. Then, when a
foodie diplodocus was done with its land-based course, it could dip its neck into the riverbank and
feast on some fine vegan seafood.
One last thing. After PangƦa broke up, the land where the diplodoci reigned shifted and drifted
until its reached its present place, in the American southwest. The implication is clear:
Alright, why not? These questions are adapted from
Cidoku and ergo
Burypink. I have told the truth everywhere except
where i have lied.
1. Time and date you started this?
2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-two hours, seven minutes, two seconds.
2. ASL?
Early twenties/Itās complicated/Itās complicated.
3. Opinions on musicals?
Never been a theatre person, but Little Shop of Horrors is a favourite film of mine. šµ
Son, be a dentist! People will pay you to be inhumaneā¦ šµ
Eevee ā my favourite evolution of which is Sylveon, obviously.
7. Mario Kart main?
Donkey Kong. Monke always wins.
8. Team Fortress 2 main?
Donāt play it.
9. Do you laugh at Youtube Poops?
Well, obviously. That shitās hilarious.
10. Are you listening to music right now?
Almost always ā currently āStarlingsā, the
opening from Elbowās The Seldom Seen Kid. Iāll always have a soft spot for them; theyāre my
mumās favourite band, so theyāre tied in with a lot of emotional moments growing up.
11. Favourite shape?
A trefoil knot:
12. Do you believe in astrology?
I find the pop-culture āOMG, thatās such a Gemini thing to doā
thing lacking as much in novelty as it is in substance, but i do, at the very least, think there are
auspicious and inauspicious days. No further comment, since itās not a particular focus of mine.
13. Do you believe in the occult?
Are you aware of what website this is? ;-)
14. Opinions on vocaloid?
Not my thing, but i can respect the art of forcing computers to make human noises.
15. Would you ever want to be a rock star?
It seems at once liberating and terrifying ā a great big audience for your work and to provoke as
you wish, but alsoā¦
16. Do you easily get stressed?
Welcome to Fluoxetine: The Blog.
17. What is/was your favorite class in high school?
Further Maths, baby! Iāve gussied this place up but in my heart of hearts i am the biggest stemlord
in history. Mathematics, i think, is the highest beauty among the sciences; none of the tangled
messes of diagrams of biology or headaches of physics, just three axioms and the truth.
18. What pokemon type would you be? Dual types are allowed, LOL
Water/Fairy.
19. Rei or Asuka?
Who are you and how did you get into my house?
20. Favorite HTML tag?
<details>.
21. Are you religious?
Pagan, albeit not very good at it.
22. Opinions on nightcore?
I instinctively want to be dismissive, but iām not going to pretend that i donāt regularly load up
songs into Audacity and slow them down for the vibeā¦
23. Did you go through any major phase? (emo, goth, weeaboo, &c.)
Not really ā i had a very cheugy adolescence.
24. Are you good at drawing?
No, but i like to think iām better than i was a month ago.
25. Do you crack your joints?
No.
26. Do you read visual novels?
No.
27. Can you sew?
No, but now you mention it, that is something to add to the āmaybe some timeā pileā¦
28. Can you cook?
I make a mean honey and pork stir fry.
29. Most expensive thing youāve bought?
My new computer tots up to just over a thousand pounds in total and itās been worth every penny.
30. Opinions on cosplay?
Seems fun, although not my thing.
31. What's your most hated band/musician?
I donāt have it in me to haā¦ā¦ Maroon 5.
32. Are you a dramatic person?
Cripes, who has the energy for that?
33. What emoticon do you use most?
A winky ;-) face in ascii, a thinky š¤ļø face in emoji.
34. Can a miracle certainly occur?
I donāt understand the question.
35. Would you let a vampire suck your blood?
Nah. The vampire life sounds like it sucks. Now, would i let a werewolf bite me, on the other handā¦
36. Do you have a celebrity crush?
Dev Patel, full name Sexiest Man Alive Dev Patel, is the sexiest man alive (Dev Patel).
37. Do you like snow?
Yes, rare as it comes these daysā¦ every year winter turns more and more into all the drawbacks
without the benefits.
38. Were you really into Greek mythology as a kid?
You get three guesses.
39. What are some things you could competently deliver a speech on?
Esperanto. My mildly schizophrenic interpretation of Synecdoche, New York. The finer places
on the internet.
40. Are you good at spelling?
I like to think so! English orthography is one of the tongueās great beauties; every word hides its
origins within itself.
41. which touhou wud u fuk?
Itās time to log off.
42. Do you think there's going to be a robot takeover?
Nah. The singularity is overhyped, in my view ā just because robots think faster than us doesnāt
mean theyāre smarter.
43. Has science gone too far??!?!??!?!
Not far enough. Nowhere near far enough.
44. Would you be an angel or devil?
Devil, because then you get cute little hooves and horns. (I am eternally about two bad bonks on the
head from unironically calling myself satyrkin.)
45. Sine, cosine, or tangent?
Tangent.
46. Do you like licorice?
It freaks my English friends out, but absolutely!
47. Whatās thing you cant stand that everyone else loves?
Star Wars, also known as
The Adventures of Luke Cardboardeater and His Annoying Friends, is complete and utter tripe
and i will never understand the obsession. Every character is either boring or awful, every film is
just ninety minutes of Harrison Ford running around rickety sets, the score is caterwauling
overemotive tripe, and the whole franchise is so utterly uninterested in the star part of the
name that it makes me wonder why they even bothered setting it in space.
48. What books did you like as a kid?
A deep cut here, but thereās this series of Dutch kidsā books called
Dolfje Weerwolfje about a little kid who gets turned into a werewolf, and i suspect
it may have turned me into a furry.
49. Can you play any instruments?
Alas, not yet.
50. What song would you want to play at your wedding?
āOne Day Like Thisā, by Elbow, although that choice may just be because itās playing right now as i
write.
51. Do you believe in reincarnation?
Itās the only option that makes sense. An eternity in heaven is stupefying, and blinking out of
existence terrifying; the only thing i can be certain of in life is that there is
something experiencing the state of being me, and that something will keep experiencing
being me after iām gone ā probably being shunted into the body of the next birth in the queue.
52. Finish the sentence: Iām just a guy who ______
poasts on the internet
53. Have you been to another continent?
No, but itās arguable! I went to the Anatolian side of Turkey, which most would think of Asia, but i
personally include most of the country (as well as the Caucasus) in Europe.
54. Whatās your worst habit?
Well iām not going to tell you, am iā½
55. Favourite vegetable?
Carrots.
56. Whatās something stupid that scared the shit outta you as a kid?
When i was five i accidentally locked myself in the toilet at the
Holle Bolle Boom. This is Deep Xanthe Lore.
57. Whatās one of your guilty pleasures?
Middling immature pop punk. Every part of me knows itās not good, but come onā¦
58. Would you rather be a ghost or a vampire?
A vampire, since in that case i can at least interact with the world twelve hours a day instead of
zero.
59. What do you fear most?
Dementia. Generally, my policy is that i would like to live as long as possible, but if i ever
succumb to that, my family has my full permission to shoot me there and then. I refuse to go through
it, losing my sense of self bit by agonising, confusing, terrifying bit.
60. Do you sleep with any plushies?
I donāt sleep with them, but i do keep two plush otters as companions.
61. What hobby do you just not understand?
Thereās a subreddit for enthusiasts of electric torches and i justā¦ guysā¦ itās a torch. Theyāre all
torches. They all do the exact same thing. What are we doing here?
62. Do you like the taste of alcohol?
Itās an acquired taste1, but i find the fruitier, the better. I love a good liqueur or framboise.
63. Are you a hopeless romantic?
In the artistic sense, at least, i think romanticism was where the fine arts peaked. We had finally
shed the awkward masses of flesh of the baroque times, but not yet gone down the slippery slope of
abstraction that the modern era would lead us to.
64. Which deadly sin best fits you?
Gluttony.
65. Which of your physical features do you like the most?
I have lovely long blonde hair that refracts into golds and browns in the sunlight.
66. Are your ears pierced?
Not yet.
67. Have you ever been in a physical fight?
Thankfully not!
68. Where do you buy your clothes?
Are you an ad tracking script or something?
69. Where would you live if you could live anywhere?
Hold on, let me get the quote outā¦
A large, secluded home, out in the countryside, but not so far out that it becomes a pain to
visit the big city. Probably England, rather than the Netherlands, if only for the sheer
diversity of scenery.
70. Do you believe in magic? Or is it all a trick?
Magick is real, and without the somewhat provocative terminology for what is, ultimately, prayer
with attitude, i think this statement would be uncontroversial among most religious people.
71. Have you read Umineko When They Cry? You should!
No, and you canāt make me, because youāre a line of text in a blog post.
72. What is the worst chore to do?
Itās nowhere near the hardest or even most inconvenient, but thereās something distinctly
humiliating about the ritual of walking your dishes down to their automatic dish-washing throne.
Weāve automated the washing part away, but here i still am, taking time out of my life to stick a
dirty plate in between other dirty plates, trying not to get any residue on me.
74. What would you want your name to be if you were not your current gender?
Xanthe Tynehorne, seeing as itās not my real name.2
75. What were your first words?
āLionā. Or ājajaā, i guess. It all evens out.
76. What do you want your last words to be?
Ideally i wouldnāt have any, but if i am going to die, then i can hardly go out on anything other
than āDo not go gentle into that good nightā.
77. When did you first regularly start going online?
I literally donāt remember! The internet has ruined my soul.
78. What year do you miss the most?
2012 was the peak of human civilisation. Maybe itās just because i was a dumb kid, but man ā they
had smartphones, but they hadnāt yet completely taken over; social media still seemed like a fun
place to be rather than an endless bath of vitriol, and, of course, āCall Me Maybeā came out.
79. Are you psychic?
I predict the answer is ānoā.
80. Would you fuck a clone of yourself? Youāre not allowed to kill yourself.
Yes, obviously! Iām bisexual, so itās not like i have any reason not to. I am a bit worried about
what happens to the clone afterwards, thoughā¦ do they just go off into the woods, never to be seen
again?
81. What do you use to listen to music?
Back when i used Windows i was a big fan of MusicBeeā¦ now, much as it pains me to say, i stick to
streaming and sometimes BBC Sounds. Iāve had a hand-coded music player
on the back-burner for a while now, but thereās so many fiddly ruddy edge cases to deal with, and
nothing ever imports formatted as nicely as i want it to!
82. Whats the biggest city youāve been to?
London.
83. Favourite animal?
Otters!!!!!!
84. What web browser do you use?
Firefox ā iāve found it Just Worksā¢.
85. Are you allergic to kitty cats???????????
No. My family used to foster them, actually!
86. Do you like energy drinks?
No.
87. Would you ever spend money on TF2 unusuals/CS:GO
skins/gacha pulls/&c.
No, because i may be a shmuck, but iām not a complete shmuck.
88. When do you usually go to bed?
Too late for comfort.
89. How often do you wash your hair?
Once a day, in the shower.
90. Would you download a car?
Me? Download a car? I would neverā¦ [looks nervously at my computerās three-hundred-gigabyte film folder]
91. What was your favorite show as a kid?
I cannot stress enough how much Phineas and Ferb was the absolute shit.
92. Whatās the silliest hat you own?
Iā¦ my word, i donāt know.
93. What album/song do you listen to when youāre feeling angsty?
āMeā, by The 1975.
āOh, i was thinking ābout killing myself; donāt you mindā¦ā
95. Whatās the goofiest thing you do when completely alone?
Make random mouth noises to myself.
96. Do you like fireworks?
When i was six i slept through the new yearsā fireworks and got so sad/angry i demanded my mama and
papa call everyone in Hoorn and make them do it again.
97. Favourite painter?
Maxfield Parrish has such a command of light and colour. Iām always blown away when i see his work.
98. Favourite numbers?
One-hundred-and-thirty-seven. I think one, three, and seven are all particularly special ā one is,
well, one; three has been associated with so much for so long that itās a waste to sum it up, and
seven is particularly interesting to me because six is the highest number of things we can
instinctively see without counting. Itās the first number we have to properly think about
to understand ā the first number that leaps out of the domain of nature and into that of humans! So
the fact that, when you put them next to each other, they wind up the inexplicable reciprocal of a
fundamental physical constant is incredible.
99. What genre of vidya gaems are you really good at? (FPS,
fightan, danmaku, racing, whatever)
I donāt know if i can give an answer, because if thereās a pattern in my favourite games, itās that
theyāre ones where you donāt have to be good at them. I just love a good wide open sandbox to muck
about in.
100. time and date you finished this?
2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-three hours, fifteen minutes, fifty seconds.
Man, i bet theyāre living it up in the Al Gore universe right now.
Hyped up to me as one of the best horror films in history, iām convinced itās actually an incredible
comedy. There is so much Gremlins energy oozing out of this whole film; every scene, you can
just imagine George Romero sitting back and going āā¦can i, like, put that in a movie?ā and then
putting that in a movie. A zombie gets pied in the face. 8/10.
Mad Max: Fury Road is not the greatest film ever made, but it feels like the
greatest film ever made while youāre watching it. Iāve never seen a film edited like this: a
two-hour-long sugar rush where every shot is overcranked till it breaks and nothing ever stops
moving. 9/10, with one point added solely because of the guy in the post-apocalyptic convoy whose
job it is to play the guitar.
Stepdadās pick, in honour of Donald Sutherlandās death. Great stuff, with a fascinating eerie
soundscape, creepily good practical effects, and, hang on, is that Jeff Goldblum? 7/10.
Well, that sure was a Russell T. Davies Doctor Who finale, wasnāt it? Part oneās always
great, and then, as always, he canāt write an ending for the life of him.
Now the seasonās over, itās clear that it needed more room to breathe. Eight episodes of forty
minutes just isnāt enough for a show to do both monster-of-the-week and a longer arc; with two
episodes taken up by the finale, two Doctor-lite episodes, and one where sheās unconscious for half
of it, weāve barely gotten to know the relationship between Ruby and the Doctor, which is a shame,
because what we do get is brilliant! They play off each other so well, and i wish we could
have seen more of them together.
Seen on a whim. A nice little drama about a motorbike club, starring Elvis and Jodie Comer, whoās
doing aā¦ fascinatingā¦ Midwestern-type accent. 6/10.
āItās like Rear Window, but on a lorry.ā This scrappy Australian flick delivers just what it
says on the tin, with an early turn by Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker who gets picked up in the
second half. 6/10.
Iām out of touch with music these days, but listening to Charli XCXās
pulse-pounding new hyperpop record, i canāt help but think this is what pop music must sound like in
the next universe over. I was sleep-deprived after staying up for election night and that definitely
helped the vibeā¦ 8/10.
Ushaw Hallās website plays coy about itself. You can learn that
guide dogs are welcome, theyāll be exhibiting interactive āHumanimalā sculptures next month, and
that they're very proud of the pun āUshaw inā, but curiously little about what the place actually is
(or was). I went anyway.
To spoil the fun, itās an old Roman Catholic seminary that was turned into a museum when people
stopped being religious enough to care. The entrance makes that well clear; walking up from the car
park, the curious visitor is flanked by an ostentatious neo-Gothic chapel on their left and
modernist student housing on their right. (The latter remains unmuseumified, too boring to make much
out of.)
Right from reception thereās an interesting historical tidbit with a bust of Abraham Lincoln
himself, who a helpful volunteer told me once attended Ushaw before he decided a more secular
political career was right for him. (It was that or boxing, i suppose.) Upstairs is the Presidentsā
Hall, whither the stairway looked off-limits enough not to chance it ā so never mind that, and letās
instead turn right.1
This takes us down a series of winding hallways with wibbly tiled floor ā as of now, an exhibition
has lined them with wedding dresses old and new, including replicas of those worn by the royal
family, creepy mannequin heads and all.2
More importantly and more permanently, these are the chapels of Ushaw Hall.
They are beautiful, and have seen better days. The paint peels from a dimly-lit mural in a nook i
presume is for choirists. In others, light dances in vibrant oranges and blues through expository
stained glass. The brightest of them all, seen here to the right, invites its visitors to pray for
Ukraine in a solemn reminder of the times.
These smaller shrines have an intimacy to them that reflects the houseās hush-hush history. First
exiled from England, the Catholics settled in the small town of Douai, in the north of France ā only
to be forced out again by the secular fervour of the French Revolution. Even then, they struggled to
find welcome in a staunchly Protestant Georgian England, until a sympathetic aristocrat sold them
land in Durhamās secluded hills. The hall itself was built with the faƧade of an unseeming terrace,
only showing its religious nature to those within.
Onwards, then, into the star of the show ā the main chapel. Pews upon pews span the long gap between
the entrance and the colossal tabernacle, behind which the walls are adorned with what first looks
like simple ornament but reveals itself to be tightly-packed black-lettered Latin. You can tell itās
Catholic by the eagle in the middle, the Vatican having never quite given up its attachment to its
Roman roots.
This is a wholly unrelated bookstore found elsewhere on church grounds. Behind the camera is a
fireplace. Yes, i am kicking myself for not photographing that instead.
Some time later, past the temporary exhibition of inkjet printouts of old maps3, our trip comes full circle. As i walk home through the well-kempt garden and around the reedy old
pond, i might not have been convinced by the seminaryās faith, but i have been convinced of their
taste in interior decoration.
A short website status update, since my ongoing writerās block on a relatively simple
interesting-place-visit post wasnāt enough for the universe: Ithaca12, the beat-up old laptop on which this fine website is hosted, is poorly, and has a
noticeable bulge coming up around the battery.
Everything is backed up and iām looking into a new, dedicated server machine, but if the site goes
down all of a sudden, youāll know why.
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