Beautiful Photography

Just wanted to share some of my favourite photography from the last few months.


A mother comforting her son in Concord, Alabama, near his house which was entirely destroyed by a tornado. Photograph: Jeff Roberts/AP


Royal wedding celebrations in the Victoria memorial fountain outside Buckingham Palace. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty


Lightning over Kathmandu. Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters


Lightning over Portland Harbour and Chesil Beach on Dorset's Jurassic Coast. Photograph: Justin Turner/Dorset Media Service


Lava shooting from an Icelandic volcano as photographer Skarphedinn Thrainsson stands nearby (he regularly risks injury to get his pictures) Photograph: Skarphedinn Thrainsson


The Royal Festival Hall stage in london filled with grand pianos from Lang Lang Inspires - the Chinese piano star plays alongside 100 outstanding young British pianists. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA


Believe it or not this is actually a photograph. It's of the flooded rice fields of Laohuzui in Yuanyang, Yunnan province, China reflecting the sky. The Hani people have grown rice here for more than 700 years. The blue strips are vegetable greenhouses; the black, rows of trees and water embankments. Photograph: George Doupas/Solent News


The skies above southern Chile the day after an eruption in the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic chain. An average of 230 earthquakes an hour were recorded in the region before the eruption, which blew an ash cloud six miles high and produced storms of volcanic lightning. Photograph: Francisco Negroni/AP


Chelsea pensioners at the annual Founders Day Parade at the Royal hospital in London. Photograph: Max Mumby


The Olympic stadium in east London as all the arena lights are turned on simultaneously for the first time. Photograph: Jason Hawkes/Barcroft Media


People walking in to a familiar sight at Glastonbury Festival. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA


A pigeon at a fountain in Madrid. Photograph: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images


Gay Pride parade participants march down Regent Street. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA


A group of crested black macaques at a national park in Indonesia turn the tables on wildlife photographer David Slater. Photograph: Wild Monkey/David Slater/Caters News


Artist David Mach's most recent piece, Golgotha, made from coat hangers and pinned to steel girders. Photograph: Rosie Hallam/Barcroft Media


A calf leaps over revellers in the bullring after a running of the bulls at the San Fermin fiesta in Pamplona, Spain. Photograph: Ivan Aguinaga/AP


Samantha Langsdale plays at the 27th Underwater Music Festival off Florida. About 500 musical divers took part. Photograph: Dan Burton/Barcroft Media


Sydney Truba, 11, participates in Mud Day, when 75,000 litres of water are mixed with 180 tonnes of topsoil to create a giant sludge bath in Michigan. Photograph: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images


Lucien Freud, who recently died aged 88, working in his Holland Park studio in 2005. David Dawson, Freud's long-time assistant, artist and photographer, took the picture. Photograph: David Dawson

When you're part-Italian...

...a quick midnight snack is a huge bowl of pasta with cubes of succulent fried chicken, homemade pesto made with leaves from your own basil plant, juicy warm olives and a sprinkling of parmesan on top.

I love my heritage.

Torchwood Review: Miracle Day - The New World (Ep. 1) Part 1

******N.B. THIS POST CONTAINS *SO* MANY EPISODE SPOILERS.******

This is not a review, as such, more a rambling stream of consciousness, most of which will make very little sense to most reading it. Sorry about that.

Also, please note that my screenshots are douchey because they're from my iPad and are not authorised by the BBC but all images are copyright to the BBC and Starz and blahblahlblahlhlag

I'm sure I'm not the only person to say that I was a little bit worried about what state Torchwood would return to our screens in after the deal with Starz. Children of Earth was, in my opinion, one of the greatest, most chilling, mini-series I'd ever seen, so when this time last year Starz, BBC Wales and BBC Worldwide announced a ten episode mini-series from Torchwood I was anxious to see if Children of Earth could be topped.

So far, I am not convinced.

This is probably due to the writing credit of the first episode: Russell T. Davies.

Yes, sure, we all owe him a little something something for rebooting Doctor Who to its mainstream status and for *creating* Torchwood, but his scriptwriting is badly-paced and oftentimes ridiculous to the point of annoying. However, I'm not going to let that ruin my watching of this episode too much as I know later in the series Jane Espenson has written (and co-written) some episodes. Torchwood is in wonderful hands there.

The first episode of Miracle Day opens with a news report from Montrose Hill State Penitentiary about the death sentence of Oswald Danes, played by Bill Pullman (the best thing about Miracle Day so far, might I add).
For some reason the shots of the Neve-Campbell-lookalike-reporter's face go really close and flail about by her mouth a bit, as if the audience are supposed to feel like an annoying fly. Or maybe it's meant to bring us 'closer' to the news. Who knows? I thought it was a little bit silly.



We see a shot of Oswald Danes awaiting his execution and he is terrifying. Bill Pullman is far from the friendly guy I loved in While You Were Sleeping; he's in character as a paedophile rapist murderer, or as close to that mentality as it's legal for actors to get (let's never let Christian Bale play a role like that please?)

Next we have more sweepy camera shots in the execution room with a slight haze around the edges, presumably to make us feel all drugged up like Oswald Danes is. Cheers, Starz, for that attempt to make me feel like a paedophile rapist murderer about to be executed, always wondered what that was like.
The first notion of 'Miracle Day' we get is when Oswald is given his lethal injection. He appears, at first, to be going into the drug-induced coma before execution but then begins thrashing around and choking.

WHY WON'T HE DIE? Oh, right, yeah.



Next up we see the mouth (and then the face) of Esther Drummond, played by Alexa Havins. She's asking CIA Agent Rex Matheson, played by Mehki Phifer, if he's heard of Torchwood but all he seems interested in is driving fast and talking gleefully about his friend's wife's leaukemia. He's happy because he might get a promotion due to the fatal illness of a work colleague's spouse. Hnh. Not that likeable a character to begin with, if I'm being honest. Poor Steve. Let's hope something bad happens to Rex, eh?

Us die-hard Torchwood fans are then treated to a dabbling of comedy as the silly old Americans don't understand: "No, no, it's not 'touch wood', it's 'TORCHwood'". Ho, ho, ho. Then Torchwood is explained for the new watchers. I feel sorry for the new watchers.

Rex makes it clear that he doesn't give a crap about Torchwood and asks Esther to get a 'timeline' on Steve's wife's illness. What a douche. Please let something bad happen to him.



WOO! There we go. He's dead, right? RIGHT?


After a short re-introduction of the incredible Eve Myles as Gwen (and her husband Rhys) we see the titles, which I really like.



Then we see Rex being rushed into hospital. WE THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD. WHAT IS GOING ON?

'He's the second one tonight. DOAs that just won't die!'



The following sequence SCREAMS "RUSSELL T. DAVIES WROTE ME! RUSSELL T. DAVIES WROTE ME!" But hey, it's got Eve Myles in it, so I don't care too much about that. It's all a little silly bit of a filler about how Gwen, Rhys and their newborn baby Anwen (gorgeous name) went into hiding somewhere remote in Wales (basically anywhere in Wales north of Caerphilly). But how can we be sure that it's actually in Wales?



Oh. Never mind, then.



YES. FINE. THE SHEEP WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH.

After this we learn more about how unpopular Rex Matheson is when nobody except his colleague visits him at the hospital. Esther and Dr. Vera Juarez have a very repetitive conversation which basically says that nobody in the world has died in the past 24 hours. What follows is more stupid fake news reporting with the weird flail-near-the-mouth-to-emphasise-the-words 'technique'.

"They're calling it 'Miracle Day'."
"'Miracle Day'"
"'Miracle Day'"
"'Miracle Day!'"
"'MIRACLE DAY!!!'"

Lol, they done said the name of the show. Hur hur.

Next up is a little ridiculous sequence which aims to explain why Oswald Danes didn't die. The guy from the governer's office is a southern hick and I spent the entire scene hoping he would suddenly scream 'WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?!' He didn't, though.



Oswald Danes (with some help from his lawyers (who must hate themselves oh SO much)) then bitchslaps Brokeback Representative with the fact that his sentence was carried out so technically, TECHNICALLY, he's a free man. Ohshit.

Bill Pullman delivers his lines in a slurred, breathless and almost hypnotic fashion which is haunting and mesmerising all at once. He's definitely the best thing about this episode.

Next bit is kinda boring. Just about how nobody's paying attention to Torchwood anymore and isn't that a bit strange, don't you think? Well? Don't you? Holy mother of Odin though, look at how creased her skirt is. Ridiculous.



We witness the Grinch- sorry, Rex's heart grow three sizes as he watches reports of 'miracles' on the telly.



I'm kinda warming to him now, aren't you? I think we're supposed to be :)

At this point, nearly a third of the way through the episode, I have to admit I was pining for my Barrowman a little bit. Seriously, losing interest here. This is typical Russell T. Davies; dragging out what is obvious to intelligent viewers so that everyone else can catch up. People aren't dying even though they should be. And they're only just starting to raise the problems which might come from this: Walking corpses, loss of space in hospitals, booming population, mis-executed paedophiles on the loose. Dear, oh dear.

Back to Wales now, where Gwen, Rhys and Anwen are busy being Welsh. Gwen gets a phonecall on her special hidden mobile phone which no one's meant to know the number to. I got excited at this point because I recognised a road in Cardiff:



This scene draws Gwen into the action as we find out her father is in the hospital. (It's okay, Gwen. He won't die). Finally, the episode can start to pick up.


Meanwhile, Esther is doing some investigating into Torchwood. She finds the '456' file, at which point I break down - "OH, GOD. IANTOOOOO. WHY? WHY, IANTO?!"

I quickly recover though, because LOOK WHO'S HERE.




YAY!!

Following this is some general Captain Jack Harkness kickassery where he shoots a bad guy who's strapped to a bunch of explosives and runs around being awesome.



See? Awesome.



Oh. Now he's wet. Awesome. Just, awesome.

People want Jack dead on the very day that no one can die. Intriguing and upsetting.

Here Esther acts on behalf of the unknowing audience (another Russell T. Davies favourite technique) and asks pressing questions like 'What is Torchwood?' 'Was that your father in that photo?' and 'Are you all right?'

She doesn't understand that Jack's hurt arm is veeery significant. Something strange is going down here; he's hurt when usually he doesn't get hurt and people aren't dying when they should be.

The Torchwood institute was set up by the British Royal Family in 1879 to defend the realm of Great Britain by investigating the unusual, the strange and the alien.

Jack admits that the email just saying "Torchwood" wasn't him. Now things are getting interesting. Was it from someone who means harm or not?



Haaha, he used RedCon on her. Can you say date rape?



Rex is angry, and getting INVOLVED.



Jack gets his FBI on with Dr. Vera.



And yep, under ^there^ is the 'reconstructed' living body of the man who we know exploded only minutes previously in the episode. This is all a bit too awesome now.



OH GOD YES. I love that Torchwood will go places that Doctor Who just CAN'T. Epic graphic win.



'He's not indestructible, just, not dying'

Jack awesomely suggests that they remove the head and see what happens. I like Jack.

So, Surgeon Barack Obama goes to do it.





GAH!!! He's still alive! Okay, Torchwood is back. That's freaky dude.

'Who could do this? Who's got the technology? Simple answer: No one on this Earth'.

Awwwwwww yeaaaaaaaaa. (I get very excited)

Miracle Day - The New World (Ep.1) Part 2 coming VERY SOON. Promise.

Life Update Again

Getting sick of these now, eh? Ah well

Job: I have a job! I start on Wednesday! It's so, so far from a dream job (i.e. working in a call centre) but for now, it's money in the bank. I also interviewed with Specsavers yesterday afternoon so we'll see how that goes too. I'd rather do that to be honest.

Move out of Cathays: Done! Living in Heath. I whinged before that it was further from my boyfriend, but we are no longer and I get a nice healthy foot-killing walk into town. Could be worse.

Book Club: Decided to hold off starting my own for a bit but have joined Cardiff Read which meets once a month at Chapter in Canton. Next month's book is The Scarlet Letter which is what inspires Olive to become 'Easy A' in one of my favourite films of the same name. It was meant to be. I'll enjoy that one.

Choir: I emailed the director of a choir who said that once their rehearsals begin again in September I am welcome to come along to a few before auditioning, so fingers crossed for that!

Karate/archery: No cigar, yet. Need to be more stable with my monies before I start looking into these.

Writing: Literally just now sent off my Masters application. Also last night I was talking to a friend who now lives in London but was a writer on the Cardiff comedy circuit previously. We's gonna do some scriptwriting together which is majorly exciting for me. I'll hopefully talk to Ana soon about getting back on track with the comic book art too.

TA DA! Apart from unstable financial situation, life's not too horrendously shabby right now. :]

Growing Up(date) Like... Update. Geddit?

Nearly a month ago I posted this blog about the crossroads I've hit in my life. Just wanted to post a quick update with how I'm doing on all the counts.

Find a job - well literally just a few hours ago I finished my CV and applied for no less than 10 jobs. We'll see...

Moving out of Cathays - we can put a big fat tick next to this one. No, a TICK. Not a tic. I don't want a bloodsucking mite next to it. As of July 1st I will be living in Heath. So what if it's the next area on from Cathays and further from town and my boyfriend? It's still NOT CATHAYS. Ding!

Book club - still haven't started plans for my own yet, was going to wait until I'd settled in the new house to do that, but I have joined a BookTwub on twitter. First book is The Great Gatsby and we're meant to be discussing it this Sunday, although no one has mentioned it in a while, I'm still curious to see how that one goes.

Karate/choir/archery - no progress yet. Want to get cashmoney sorted before I can start being frivolous and paying for such things!


Writing - Ana has begun research on the artwork for my idea and I'm doing some sample writing work forSidekick, which is very exciting. It's unpaid but I don't mind that right now. It's all published.

Becoming a Grown Up

I finish my undergraduate degree in 10 days (even though I don't technically graduate until July) and there are several things which I plan to do after I've finished.

In my three years living in Cardiff I've mainly (believe it or not) focussed on my degree. That and making friends, forming new relationships and 'finding myself'. Ha. So now that I'm finishing I feel like I should rejoin my former self and incongregate myself into the Cardiff community. I want to embrace my talents and actually achieve other things extra-curricular...ly now that I have my fancy 'BAAAA' (or just BA, I've been told) after my name.

The first is obvious, and probably the most upsetting and scary for me: find a job. Right now it's any job which will allow me to pay rent and live comfortably. I'm hoping for £12k upwards. Chance would be a fine thing.

The second is to move out of Cathays. There's a possibility this MAY not happen. We're house hunting on the 17th May and obviously it depends what/where/how much is best for the collective three of us. But moving out of Cathays, I feel, would definitely help me feel like much less of a student.

Thirdly, and strangely, I want to start a book club. I don't want to finish my degree in English Literature and then feel like I don't make time for reading any more. So once I've moved into the new house (hopefully not in Cathays) and settled in, once a month I'll hopefully be hosting a book club evening with wine and cheese and crackers and literature and other fancy grown-up things! I really don't want to lose my love of reading. I don't think I will seeing as all three of us in the house will be English Lit graduates with me doing a Master's in Scriptwriting, Lucy doing a Master's in Creative Writing and Katt doing a PGCE with hopes of teaching English Literature. Let's keep the love alive, people.

Fourthly: this was one I've been considering for a while. I've become all lazy and unfit and I hate going to the gym. So I want to start being active again. I obviously turned immediately to martial arts. I love the discipline and regimen of the arts and I really feel like it's something I would go to weekly or even twice a week. I was really excited about this one Taekwon Do club I found, even though the instructor looked like a bit of a self-righteous arse. However, when I came home the other day and told my mum about this she reminded me that my uncle (a Sensei in Tsuen-mo-Luen karate) had had one of his former pupils open a branch of the club in Cardiff. I used to train at Tsuen-mo-Luen and am already pretty high on the belt system so this was very exciting for me. Lo and behold, Glamorgan Karate branch have a website and I'm definitely starting this. Who knows? If I train enough I can become an instructor (if my Uncle trusts me enough. Which he won't. Ha). So there's that. Karate on a Monday and/or a Wednesday (7.30-9). AND AND AND they do the gradings in Yeovil, which is obviously nice for me. :D
WEBSITE

Fifthly (what a strange word): Singing. More specifically joining a choir/choral society. Oddly enough I was thinking about this during the Royal Wedding. I found myself singing along with the choral music and really properly missing it. I researched choral societies in Cardiff and a lot of the really good ones required an audition - which is fine - comprising a prepared solo piece - also fine, I have confidence in my ability - but also a sight reading audition - not so fine. I know that I can sight read, but not having been in a choir for three years means I'm less than fully confident with my sight reading, which is what I'd really like to be before auditioning. So what I think I'm going to do is join one of the (probably shitter) choirs which don't require an audition, just to get my sight reading and performance back up to scratch and then arrange an audition. WATCH THIS SPACE. Excited about this one too.

Sixthly (hoo boy): writing. Yeah, I'm doing the Master's in Scriptwriting but I feel like I should actually be doing some extra-curricular writing too. So, that. I've already given an artist friend of mine character descriptions for a comic book which I plan to script. It is very exciting. She's a phenomenal artist, loves my concept and I'm pretty sure she'll draw something close to what I picture, or failing that, 100x better than I ever could have imagined. This is also very exciting.

Seventh...ly (getting a bit absurd now, right?), continuing on from the fourthly, more sports. I quite like my obscure sports and a little known fact about me is that I *LOVE* archery. Like, properly LOVE IT. I used to have a bow and a straw target, but they got sold and the only places I could arch were at my ex's house or my friend Louise's castle. I haven't done it properly in absolutely ages and this makes me do a sad. With research I found a pretty awesome club. HERE'S THE CLUB. They offer a beginners course of six hour-long sessions in safety and basic technique. And it's only £30. Six lessons for £30 is rather damn good if I say so myself. After the course you can then join the club. The website doesn't specify what the membership fee is and I know that I'd have to buy my own equipment but I could actually finally participate in tournaments which would be FUCKING. EPIC. That is all.

No seriously, that is all. For now. I'll probably come up with more hairbrained schemes and add to this later.

Emo Blog!

Hooray! I promise this will be the only one.
I just feel like I've lost everything and it's all my fault. So I just wanna get this out there, off my chest so I can start being the positive person that I know I am most of the time.

My uni work: My own fault because I barely went to lectures and I'm a whole other level of pragmatic when it comes to concentrating on an essay. I rely on my intelligence which, not meaning to brag, I have and am hopefully gonna come out of my degree with a 2:1. I know I could have got a First.

My health: I don't know that this is my fault so much but my mental and physical health has been spiralling for the last few years. I can feel it happening and I don't know what to do to stop it. I might get a tattoo which says MAN UP or CARPE DIEM or similar. It might help.

My love life: Yeah, you knew this was coming. This is completely my fault and it's all come crashing down around me. Surprisingly, our break up was incredibly genial and I know that after all the silly post-breakup awkwardness he and I will be good friends again. I can definitely do that. But right now I just wish I hadn't screwed it all up so badly.

Death of someone close: I was, by his own secret admission, my grandad's favourite grandchild. I act like him, my aptitude for academia is from 'his genes' according to him (another reason I feel so awful for not trying my best at university) and I didn't realise it until the funeral how much I miss him. I was meant to read the eulogy and thought I was going to be fine, but then SO MANY PEOPLE started turning up. My grandad had so many friends who all travelled so far to pay their respects I basically broke down and Mum had to take me outside to calm down. My Mum also ended up reading the eulogy and had a really hard time of it which made me feel so guilty and weak. I love you so much, Grandad. I miss you more than anything.

My organisational skills: are PISS POOR. I have NO money, NO idea what I'm doing next year. Not even sure if I can stay in Cardiff now, which I've no idea how I'm gonna break that to Katt. I have no job applications in, no post-grad applications in, nowhere to live.

I'm sat here crying while I type this and I just don't know which aspect of my life to turn to first. It's all a bit screwed up, and it's all my fault. HALP?