Eagle

Not long now till the release of the new movie adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's classic The Eagle of the Ninth! I'm pretty excited about it. Frankly I'm willing to go and see it just for this reconstructed shot of Hadrian's Wall.

This is a photo I took a couple of months ago:


Here's a grab from the movie trailer:

How awesome is that? Pretty awesome.

Mouthy bitches

Scene: Morrison's checkout. I am packing my purchases. A woman is walking in a nearby aisle with a little dog in a green body warmer.

Man in checkout queue: Look, that lady's brought a dog inside. She's not allowed to do that, is she?

Checkout lady: I don't think so. [presses buzzer to summon reinforcements]

Woman with dog: It's all right, I'm allowed, I'm deaf. [exit]

Me: It's a hearing dog.

Man in checkout queue: A what dog?

Checkout lady: Oh, a hearing dog. I've heard of them.

Man in checkout queue: A hearing dog? How does that work then?

Me: They teach it to speak.

Man in checkout queue: [ponders this idea for a moment] I like it. So long as it's not a female dog.

Me: Ouch! [exit]

I like a bit of old-school misogyny when I go to the supermarket. Now I think about it, though, it wouldn't do much good to teach a hearing dog to speak, would it? There was a funny sketch about this years ago by the Not the Nine O'Clock News team. I couldn't find it on YouTube, so here's another sketch instead.

The worst thing about the threat of civil war

As far as I can tell this isn't meant to be ironic. It's good to know the BBC reporters have their fingers on the pulse of the British public.

BBC: Could Ivory Coast turmoil make chocolate more expensive?

Snow picture

Abi said she wanted to see snow pictures of Durham, so here's a snow picture. It includes an awful poem by Sir Walter Scott about how much he loves 'mixed and massive piles'. Whatever, Walt.