My 500th film on IMDB

As a result of boredom, too much time on my hands and the bad influence of a particular person, I have created and been updating a list of all the films I’ve ever seen on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB). Naturally of course, there are plenty of films I don’t remember for various reasons. These reasons of course range from ‘I was too young’ to ‘they weren’t memorable films’ to various other things not worth mentioning. Anyway, as it turns out, my 500th film added is ‘The Italian Job’ (2003) (i.e., the remake)*.

The original ‘Italian Job’ entertained me to some extent. The extent of that entertainment of course should be understood as ‘it sent me to sleep before then end more than once.’ But you know – it could have been worse right? And at least I’ve seen that clichéd entirely grating line ‘you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’ (I wonder if slipping that in will improve my google rank?). As I remember that was pretty much the only memorable thing (tautology/truism). This poses a question – is it better to watch a film which is ‘good’ but not memorable (original), or one so bad that you’re frustrated, arguing solipsistically against the [alleged] ‘plot’ (remake)?

Personally, I think I’d probably go for the latter in its Ocean’s 11 like format, over the original somewhat slapstick heist film. I can certainly see why people said they were nothing alike, to the extent that to call it a 'remake' is really quite misleading - a 'title thief' might be more appropriate a label to apply...

* And as an indicator of how arbitrary the ‘film number added’ is – I just added ‘The Italian Job’ (original) as my 501st film…seems I’d forgotten I’d seen it. What film would I have been blogging on otherwise…?

The list can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=40423196

Paradoxes

I have recently been reading 2 books by Bertrand Russell – his autobiography, and his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. The former is fairly interesting; I find it nice to be reminded that even fantastic academics/thinkers are human and have ‘issues’ [innit].

Having said that, these are not always so usual…I’m also reading “Phantoms in the brain” by V.S. Ramachandran [alternative title “The Man who Mistook His Foot for a Penis”] and there’s a great quote in which Crick (of DNA fame) asks Ramachandran for advice on making his book more accessible to the lay person:
“I say, Rama,” Crick said with exasperation, “the trouble is, I don’t know any lay people. Do you know any lay people I could show the book to?”

What a long aside. So the latter is quite interesting but largely stuff I know but in a wordier format which doesn’t really suit me anymore but might be useful when I forget these things. The autobiography has just passed Russell’s first mention of his struggle with paradoxes, specifically a version of the ‘liar paradox’.

By coincidence I happened to pick out a book (Vagueness & Contradiction by Roy Sorensen; less coincidental) and a particular page in this book (more coincidental) pointing out Russell had originally made an error in his transcription of this paradox, one which was later corrected (by a guy who noticed the error quoted in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers…the trail of books gets ever longer :D). The error was as follows:

1a) The 2nd statement is false
2a) The 1st statement is false

In the version I have the paradox is:

1b) The 2nd statement is true
2b) The 1st statement is false

If 1a is true then 2a is false. If 2a is false then 1a is true. [no paradox]
If 1a is false then 2a is true. If 2a is true then 1a is false. [no paradox]

If 1b is true then 2b is true. If 2b is true 1b is false. [paradox]
If 1b is false then 2b is false. If 2b is false 1b is true. (if 1b is true then…) [paradox]

1a and 1b are interesting because it seems perverse to arbitrarily assign different truth values (i.e. truth or falsehood) to two tokens (instances) of the same sentence in the absence of a good reason. But 1b and 2b are a proper paradox (propa innit…doing this makes it more accessible right?) in that, it is absolutely not clear how one might solve the problem. Now, I’d love to offer up a succinct thesis as to the solution to this problem…but although I do have ideas (evolutionary epistemology to name drop, oh hohoho how we chortle :p) I have neither succinct ideas nor a proof so I can’t…but err, well I haven’t blogged in a while and this is one of a few things that I’ve thought about and which coexists with the things one might put on a blog. I might put up some paradoxes with solutions (so not real paradoxes) at some point because they also interest me :).

Unfortunately my reading is interrupted by that whole work thing I’m doing, so I actually wrote most of this blog last week I just didn’t get around to finishing it until now…hohum. At some point I'm sure I'll get to Russell's whole issue about books containing all the books (but what book {insert shock face} may contain that book, and that book and that book...)...I dunno if you call it philosophy or maths (or 'dull shit that no one cares about')...I quite like it sometimes :).

London

So as I sat waiting for my sister's 'mystery' Christmas present which Del will now be delivering for the 3rd time I thought 'oooh I should blog about London!'

Now, I've been down to London twice since I've been back. The first time for my PGCE interview. I stayed for 2 nights, did a bit of shopping, had the PGCE interview (which incidentally went very well – I found out I got in 6 days later), and a meeting with the Philosophy of Education MA coordinator. It was nice to see where I'll be studying, and indeed to catch up with Ed but other than a quick trip to Covent Garden I didn't do much of touristy value. I'm sure when I'm studying there from May I'll do more of that!

Yesterday I went to London with a group of 6th formers on a school trip (as opposed to on a social visit...which would've been weird). Due to the intricacies of the train timetable I had to arrive at Coventry station at 9.30 despite not needing to leave till 10:30 (I'll throw this rant in here – there is now only ONE direct train a day to Leeds from Leamington Spa – fuckers). The rail companies, being the paragons of efficiency that they are, neglected to send the train tickets to school prior to the day...and correspondingly failed to get them to the station, so the head of 6th was required to force them to give us a paper group ticket and pay for underground passes when we got there...I noticed about half way through the day that I was running on a 'child' ticket and started to avoid the barriers with official looking people anywhere near them! I think it was a 'child group' pass...but you know.

After an hour shopping on Oxford Street (really not a lot to take photos of round there except Marble Arch and Selfridges' (or should that be Selfridges's [and do I need a question mark for that rhetorical question?]) windows. Having failed to take any pictures of the latter, I'll atone for that by posting these links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kujunu/3056057484/ (I like this one)
http://londonist.com/2005/11/londonist_revie_1.php (This article ignores the Santa windows!!)

From there the groups went their separate ways: A Wembley tour; ice skating; and – my group, of 3 students - to Her Majesty's Theatre for Phantom of the Opera. The performance was pretty good. I liked some of the stage stuff, for example the boat crossing the lake looked like it was going over water (with all the smoke and the swaying light on the bow) and so on. There really is only one memorable song in it though...and then a couple of other dramatic singing moments...but not the greatest musically. I heard someone outside saying she'd thought the dancers were really good...but there was hardly any dance in it and certainly none of it was interesting at all so I find this hard to understand. So after a fairly long day I got home about 9 to grab a beer a pizza and a lot of sleep :D.

Next: Christmas (family); New Year (friends); New job (work); Feb Holiday (friend...maybe); Easter Holiday (planning stage!); Masters (In London); 2 months off; PGCE; rest of life. Yup.

So...this is england eh

Having only one 'follower' (official Google blogger stats 24/11/08) as I do, I have been fairly unconcerned about my lack of blog publishing of recent. Or to be more accurate, I've had some concern that although I'd like to blog something, I have not, but little concern that anyone (except of course, my single devoted 'follower') had any concern regarding this lack of new blog post. The lack of anything worthy of blog may be evidenced by the previous sentences.

None the less, here we go. Since I have been back, I have worked. It is hard to believe I've only been back 2.5 weeks, because although everything still feels fresh to my sense memory, I feel like I've done quite a lot in that time. I went to Leeds, I read 2 books ('Are you experience' by William Sutcliffe - a 'gap year' Indian travel story with all the sex, diarrhea and obnoxious travelers you'd expect; and 'The life of Pi' an excellent read with a fantastic ending, both read in a single sitting on a Sunday afternoon), I've worked 71 hours, I recovered from jet lag exacerbated cold, I printed some of my old photos in LARGE (I won't lie, they look ace, at least one is sellable), I had my plan to go to Sweden next year shattered and conjured up a new - arguably better - plan...certainly one which involves me having more money, oh and I prepared for my PGCE interview.

On Saturday I went to Solihul as part of this preparation. I have been wearing the same shoes since I went to the prom at 16. Although those shoes have, thus, seen a lot, and I don't wear them so much that they're actually falling apart, there comes a time when...well I just wanted some new damned shoes. This exercise was completed perfectly easily. Lunch was interesting, we went to quite a nice restaurant, painted white, mostly upstairs tables, all v nice food, set menu for £11. I chose red pepper and tomato soup and pork with mash. Annoyance one - the sparkling water was as much as a glass of wine (almost) - what, did you have to squeeze sparkles and let them ferment to make the water? Bastards.

Before the start arrived, a 'complimentary appetiser' arrived (after the homemade bread) of salmon risotto. The two spit fulls worth on the full sized plate were gorgeous and I would highly recommend it should one wish to coat one's lips with a delicious morsel. It wasn't particularly complementary (there really should be a 3rd spelling to distinguish the 3 meanings) to the soup, but it was much appreciated. Less appreciated was the 'apple granita' (that's ground flavoured ice...or slush puppy), with - and I forget the posh name - what were essentially fizzing nerds (that's fizzing nerds), served in a shot glass...it was weird...nuff said. Dull main course.

Tomorrow I'm going to De Montfort uni, Leicester to 'supervise' the 6th form students. This should involve sitting in a café and reading, perhaps doing work, maybe begging someone to log me on to the wi-fi. Perhaps trying to learn about teaching study skills, which should henceforth be one of my roles...should be fun :).
Perhaps on my Sunday's till whenever (you know, whenever I remember I'm supposed to be writing an article, and that I could prep for next year, and that I probably want to be planning traveling again, oh and that I should do some Christmas shopping at some point), I'll fill the gaps in my reading of this list: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/mar/02/news.michellepauli

Next week I'll call specsavers...they inform me it's been 3.5 years since my last eye test. Maybe school can pay for it...

The Long Journey Home

Well, as I sat wishing I could've gone to the Seoul art museum with Chi-Hé (see http://chihe13.blogspot.com/2008/11/turn-and-widen-exhibition.html) and writing my 'back home' to do list, I remembered I'd written some things down when I was in Doha about the journey home.

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Leaving Chi-Hé's at 2pmish I walked the 100 meters to the bus stop and waited for my airport bus to arrive. It was a crisp autumnal day, the men out the front of Chi-Hé's local supermarket were hawking the veg over the headset implemented tannoy system and sweeping the street of vegetable debris. It certainly felt strange to put Chi-Hé's key in the mail box and wander past the shop with my bags on - I wondered whether they'd notice I wasn't around anymore. This isn't just arrogance or an assumption that they'd notice a 50% drop in the number of Westerners walking past the shop, they did generally nod and smile as I (or others) walked past.

The bus journey to the airport was largely uneventful, combining in winning style some sleeping, some observation of the city scape, and some of the countryside on the outskirts - a combo I highly recommend for any 2 hour bus journey out of a city. I arrived at the departures hall 5 hours prior to my flight, assuming I'd be able to check in at 5pm (4 hours ahead). I wandered around for a while looking for where Qatar were based and eventually found the counters they would be using later, and then noticed on the 'flight status' boards that there was only enough space for check ins about 2 or 3 hours in advance - partly because codeshare flights were placed on separate lines, so when I looked at one point (I was bored and I'd been there a long time) no less than 50 flight lines could have been removed, which amounted to 50% of the flights, or 2 out of 4 'pages' of flights. So, I got a coffee, had a pain au chocolate with actually chocolate in (as opposed to the red bean paste that I got so used to being in the things which looked like pain au chocolate), and a fantastic sandwich - mozzarella, pesto, and tomato on a light rye bread with walnuts in...and I waited, and waited and waited until 2.5 hours ahead of my international long haul flight, I was allowed to check in...that's 2.5 hours pre-security right there. eurghhh.

When I spotted my flight up on the board, I had a double take as I was sure it said somewhere else as well as Doha. When I noticed there were only about 10 people checking in I really started thinking something was up. I had of course forgotten that my flight was going via Osaka (a natural detour from Seoul to Doha...except of course for the fact that it's about 1000km in the wrong direction - and yes, yes I am sad enough to have checked that). This detour of course also adds down time in Osaka, and takeoff/landing time. We were down for at least 1.5 hours there, and it took about 1.5 hours to get there. (so if we're all keeping up that means by the time we took off again I've been on the plane for 3 hours roughly, and out of Chi-Hé's for 10 hours). From there it was a hop skip and a 12 hour jump to Doha with a shitty semi-broken in-flight entertainment system. I don't know how to describe it technically, but it seemed the indexing system was broken - i.e. I'd select one film and another one would play.

Landing in Doha to a very beautiful sunrise was pleasant, although trying to work out what the hell time it was, and spotting a 9.15am flight to London (4 hours later) rather than my flight (7.00am) was slightly panic inducing. I had about 1.5 hours in the terminal at Doha before boarding...which gives me about 2/2.5 hours there (so that's 24 hours from Chi-Hé's). My first breakfast, going into Doha, was at 3am Doha time, 9am Seoul time, and about midnight UK time.

I was exceptionally happy, delighted, not ecstatic, but certainly relieved to find the entertainment system from Doha working perfectly, making the 8 hour flight from Doha to London a lot more bearable. Fortunately I got through security and baggage claim fast in London, and a short 1.5 hour car journey later arrived home. Arriving home at about 3pm - 12am Seoul time - means that, if we're all keeping up, I arrived back about 34 hours after leaving Chi-Hé's place, and about 27 hours after taking off from Seoul.

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Films I watched on the flight:
Hancock - Will Smith plays a Superhero with some etiquette issues. Very entertaining, very silly naturally but perfect for a flight.

Nim's island - crap children's film, no character development, rubbish plot, crappy 'happily ever after' ending with no good reason for us having got there (except to make the film come to a much needed end).

Swing Vote - Presumably someone (possibly Kevin Costner) said to Kelsey Grammar "Yo Kels' you want to play a republican president?" and he said yes. The film is based around one man's vote being the deciding vote in a U.S. presidential election. Due to a voting machine malfunction on election night he has one week to cast this deciding vote - and thus the candidates devote all of their attention to this 'swing vote'. Now never mind the fact that American democracy doesn't work like this what with the whole electoral college thing, the film is fairly entertaining but although I wish I hadn't fallen asleep for the last half, I won't be going out of my way to watch the rest of it.

Donnie Brasko - Johnnie Depp plays undercover FBI agent who is getting rather too into his roll as a mafia man. Depends how you feel about mafia movies - quite entertaining I thought, but perhaps a bit slow.

Royal Tenenbaums - I will go out of my way to watch the latter half of this film.

Last few days

My last few days:

Friday - Today it was mostly dull. This, and the threat of rain, combined to thwart my plan to go on the Shamanist shrine walk today – I will instead do this on Monday, having now completed my souvenir shopping and had my fill of Insadong (full of craft shops, art shops, souvenir shops, tea shops and coffee shops – your parents would love it [this is patently a lie given that, to my knowledge, most of 'my readers' are my parents and other family, and I'm not convinced it is the case that my grandparents would love it...the general point stands though...it's certainly true of my sister]. Small city that Seoul is (10 million) while in Insadong I bumped into the Korean and the American girls I met in Busan which made me smile.

Not much more to say about that really...check the Seoul album on picasa for updated pictures. This is funny [but only if you've paid any attention to the Ross/Brand rubbish]:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/cartoon/2008/oct/31/cartoon-credit-crunch-crisis


This is trying:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7697000/7697762.stm


Saturday – Today I went to help at Chi-He's school for a haloween/English day. Deciding not to go out except to the local bar (literally over the road from the apartment) the night before was definitely appreciated with the 8.30am start. The first job was to stamp each of the children's 'passports', asking them a few 'passport control' questions they arrived - ½ in the morning, and then again in the afternoon. The highlight of this task was the competitive element – who would get rid of all their name badges first...this tells you how dull it was. It was also cold. The children are aged 4-6...they have limited English.

I had been placed in the 'cooking class' for the day. In this class the children were learning to make a healthy (and YUMMY!) sandwich with their parents. So that's a ratio of 1 to 1 kids to adults anyway, plus some had more than one parent with them. Add to that the 6 other adults in the room and I felt somewhat surplus to requirements. After the 20 minute sandwich making sess' I went to the next room to 'sell' the children a juice carton, with scripted question-answer style. This was a perfectly nice job and some of the children clearly have alright English and can go outside the script...some struggled a lot though. Being asked to speak up by a Korean teacher did not amuse me given her sole reason was because she couldn't hear me – but she was stood 3 meters away and didn't NEED to hear me; never mind. Much to my surprise I was paid for the day – about $90 or so which is not an inconsiderable amount of money which was very nice and as I say, much appreciated. Following this very dull day (8*sandwich making class is not my idea of fun no matter how cute the children are), we had a bit of a shopping session (by which I mean Chi-Hé bought some stuff), got icecream and went to a cafe to have our feet nibbled at by Dr fish (the one's that eat the dead skin from your feet – I believe I've mentioned them before), before heading back home to the local BBQ place for dinner.

Sunday – Today we decided to relax and do very little. We had icecream for breakfast. We took a walk in the woods near by and watched films...yup. If you ever think about watching 'The Oxford Murders' - rethink, watch something else, anything else really.

Monday – Today I decided I'd go on the Shamanist walk in Seoul. My arrival coincided with that of two other Westerners, so I followed them (while trying to avoid actually meeting them) up the hill to a few nice temple buildings, and interestingly shapped rocks. All in all, the buildings were not particularly interesting – nor indeed the rocks, but the area itself was quite attractive and the views of the mountains in Seoul, and the fortress wall were very pleasant. Unfortunately the prison near there, built under Japanese rule, is not open on Mondays...never mind. Jumping on a subway for 5 stops down the line to an area with nothing in it, I jumped off crossed the platform and went 10 stops towards the shopping district I'd intended to go to – oops, my first subway mishap. Walking around this commercial area full of coffee shops, eateries and shops – including but not limited to international chains such as Gap – was quite pleasant, and I managed to replace my very sorry looking shoes...I think the girl in the store was somewhat confused when I kept the new shoes on and just left the old ones behind...but I really couldn't work out how to explain it to her and she seemed OK with it if a bit bemused :D. Heading to one of the many coffee shops I realised I may have an addiction when I ordered a double espresso and an iced caramel latte...whatev's.


Tuesday – Today. Another move, another goodbye, hohum...this might well be the last blog post...unless I think of some things I've forgotten, or I start it up again for another travel or something of that nature...will keep you posted.

Dobongsan hike

On Tuesday I spent most of the day in Buyeo. Leaving my motel at 9ish I walked the 30 or so meters to the temple site of Jeongnimsaji. Arriving on the opposite side of the site to the entrance, I walked around and looked over the wall to see excavation work going on, and a fairly uninteresting looking temple with a brick pagoda next to it. Although I completed the circuit to the entrance, I decided not to bother going in and instead headed up to the other attraction of Buyeo – the Busosan park and fort. This area was even nicer than the fort in Gongju and I spent a very pleasant 90 minutes or so just strolling around the perimeter, checking out the restored buildings, enjoying the views and the autumnal colours. With a minimum number of school trip children crossing my path, this was a very enjoyable morning. From there I decided to head back to Seoul, and then slowly back to Dobong (Chi-Hé's stop).

Yesterday, I did pretty well nothing. In the morning I tidied and sorted my bag out a bit, and in the afternoon I drank coffee, read my book and watched two couples break up (I assume that's what they were doing...there were certainly tears). That was pretty much it.

Today I went on a hike. Despite the fact Chi-Hé lives spitting distance away from Dobongsan – even drooling distance away in fact – she has never set foot on this mountain. I thought that, I having more time than she, it might be nice for one of us to attempt this feat, and we could share the pictures. To give some indication of where Chi-Hé lives in Seoul, and what type of city Seoul is, this part of Seoul is not on the lonely planet Seoul map, only on the Bukhansan National Park map, a National Park which is mostly within the area of the city of 10.4 million that is Seoul. So I set out to walk to the next subway stop and the entrance to this particular hike this morning, picking up a pizza baguette at the local Paris Bakery, making sure I had some layers and lots of water, and that my (holey) shoes were tied securely on.

Starting at the bottom of the mountain, I had my usual 'why are all of these people wearing all this hi-tech crap? What the hell do you need climbing poles for? Are those hiking boots really necessary? Gloves?! He has climbing gloves?! Oh give me a break!' reaction. Having got a fair way up, I stopped briefly to check out the view and munch on the fruit (this: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1623710.html) a friendly Korean had thrown to me (after I'd politely declined his offer of Makgeoll [막걸리 ], which is unrefined rice wine...often with bits of rice still in. Chi-Hé – presumably in a fit of madness, or thinking of something else - recommended it once...we left it at the motel, I also had some in Busan...as much as I thought was necessary to be polite). From there it was all up hill. I mean, it had been all up hill anyway...but this was real knees to your chin, grab hold of that handhold and pull yourself up, up hill walking.

The last stretch (about 10 meters) up to the very peak was up a 70 degree angle piece of rock, with a very conveniently placed fence to one side, and the odd hand hold – quite fun, but a touch tiring. The view from the top was beautiful if hazy. Walking back was fairly uneventful aside from a couple of 'almost flat on my ass' slip ups which I largely blame on my shoes and the sandy soil in some areas, and some slightly sore hands from gripping trees and ropes. The route I took takes you via a fairly uninteresting temple – but it was nice to stop for a minute and take a look at the art on the outside of the building, and then continue down the last stretch back towards the subway – which I walked alongside for 2 stops to get back here. All in all I think I walked about 14km (8.5 miles) on my 5 hour hike, which is not bad going...although I may be going on another walk tomorrow...and then dancing in the evening, so we'll see how I feel then.

I'm now approaching my last days at Chi-Hé's, in Seoul, in Korea, and indeed on holiday which is somewhat daunting particularly as I was hoping I'd know more about what I'm doing for the next 12 months by now...but I'll still be waiting to hear about those things when I get back. Anyway, the plan for the next few days is – go on a Shamnist walk around some shrines (apparently Korea has a history of Shamanism and presumably some of this is still active), go to Chi-Hé's school to help out with some Haloween activities on Saturday, and then to Suwon to go to the Folk Village on Sunday. Monday will be my last day of souvenir shopping and coffee drinking, and then I fly home via somewhere on Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday.