No Reason to Sleep

Love this song. White Hinterland - “No Logic” Dead...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:56:00 +0100

Love this song.

White Hinterland - “No Logic” Dead Oceans (by BlankTV)

Actually, it’s pretty hard to chose a favourite song from the album Kairos, so you should just listen to it all.

A few snaps from my trip to Dartmouth. To say the weather was...

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:08:07 +0100

A few snaps from my trip to Dartmouth. To say the weather was gloomy would be, well, an understatement.

Olympus XA2 with Fuji Color.

All these bikes are waiting for their owners to get off the...

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:57:00 +0100

All these bikes are waiting for their owners to get off the train and take them home.

Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

Sudden downpour during our walk around Dartington. Olympus XA2...

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:42:00 +0100

Sudden downpour during our walk around Dartington.

Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

Low tide in Totnes. Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:26:00 +0100

Low tide in Totnes.

Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

Graffiti in Totnes. Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:25:00 +0100

Graffiti in Totnes.

Olympus XA2 with Fuji Neopan.

The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon Just a reminder that the top tax...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:42:00 +0100

The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon

Just a reminder that the top tax rate has been cut from 50% to 45%, meanwhile austerity measures directed at the poor march on.

I love that The Kinks could write such a satirical song back when the top tax rate was 95%, to think that even today we are worrying about the rich having to pay 45% tax or else they will up and leave.

Lazy-man, who has no ice cream maker, PB&J ice cream. I...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:11:27 +0100

Lazy-man, who has no ice cream maker, PB&J ice cream.

I know the photos aren’t pretty and I didn’t try to make it look fancy. I don’t have time for that nonsense, I was too eager to eat it!

So, I’ve never made ice cream before and don’t have the energy to make proper ‘real’ ice cream so I found a recipe from Martha Stewart for cheat ice cream. It’s not traditional ice cream, but it requires such little effort and no ice cream maker I just had to try it. I added the PB&J twist myself. Want to have a go? Here is the recipe.

For the basic ice cream:

397g condensed milk
500ml double cream
2 tsp vanilla extract

That’s all. Mix the condensed milk with the vanilla in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl whip the cream until you have stiff peaks, this will take a while, I did it by hand no problem, just don’t over whisk it! Gently combine the condensed milk mixture into the cream and mix until smooth and well combined. You can stop here, but we don’t want to…

Make it PB&J

OK, so I didn’t measure my ingredients here, so it’s an estimation. Try it, taste it, and change it for your taste.

Approx 5 tbsp peanut butter
Approx 3 tbsp jam

Put the peanut butter in a microwavable proof dish and heat for 10 seconds. This softens it up so you can easily mix it in. And that’s all you do. Gently mix in the peanut butter and jam so that it’s not completely combined but is spread throughout most of the mixture.

Taste it. Make sure it’s good enough. Add more flavour if you need it.

Transfer mixture to a 2lb loaf tin or similar size container, stuff it in the freezer, and forget about it. If you can forget about it! You don’t have to remove and mix over ands over, just leave it alone. Wait 6 hours for it to freeze and then help yourself to some home made ice cream. You deserve it after all that hard work!

To continue the conversation on Christian Mungiu’s films, his...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:32:00 +0000

To continue the conversation on Christian Mungiu’s films, his films remind me that the lack of ‘female centric stories’ in cinema and the lack of women creating films are two sperate problems as many male directors have no problems writing and creating great films with a female focus. Bergman is a great example of that, but Mungiu is proving to head in a similar direction. 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days and Beyond the Hills tell important stories about women, and society, and not simply stories about women finding a man. They tell of things that need to be thought about and questioned and remain slightly ambiguous, never quite forcing an opinion on you. It’s sad that ‘serious’ or art house cinema is just as male centric as Hollywood, but Hollywood’s ‘serious’ films tend to be the most male centric of them all. Thank God some people can notice that women can be in ‘serious’ stories too.

I went to my favorite cinema this weekend, the Arts Picturehouse...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:25:22 +0000

I went to my favorite cinema this weekend, the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge, and saw the film Beyond the Hills. The cinema was practically empty. Should I be surprised? Who wants to see a two and a half hour long film about nuns in a remote Romanian monastery on a Saturday afternoon? But at the same time I’m sad that no one wants to see such films, which have received favourable reviews and which are fantastic films. Cambridge isn’t exactly a cultural sink-hole so if these films have no viewers then they probably have few anywhere else. I don’t expect everyone to have my taste in films but so much of cinema has so much to say, it’s a shame no one is listening, or watching.

Hilarious and tragic: the “MAGGIE!” scene from Naked...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:43:59 +0000

Hilarious and tragic: the “MAGGIE!” scene from Naked (1993) by Mike Leigh.

This colour photo from the set of Fellini’s La Strada both...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:01:20 +0000

This colour photo from the set of Fellini’s La Strada both fills me with joy and breaks my heart all over again. Sigh.

To continue the pining for Cambridge, here are some River Cam...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:49:00 +0000

To continue the pining for Cambridge, here are some River Cam related photos, again, old photos, by me, taken with various cameras and film.

I really miss Cambridge. I really hate living in Luton. I want...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:45:54 +0000

I really miss Cambridge. I really hate living in Luton. I want to go back there. Photos are old, by me, various cameras and films.

My Personal Fitness/Diet Gripes

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:01:00 +0000

It’s that time of year when everyone wants to get fit and lose weight, it’s no wonder so many people fail when it’s January and it’s probably the worst time of year to get motivated to go out for a run! But nonetheless everyone promises to make a change and there are a million people talking about it (myself included) and every company is trying to sell you junk products.

Seeing as fitness is on everyone’s minds I feel like sharing my gripes when it comes to fitness, or more specifically, common fitness mythes. And then maybe share a little advice at the end so I don’t sound so mean. I’m sorry, but what’s coming up is pretty bitchy.

So you’ve been working out hard at the gym for two weeks and you’re not seeing the scale move downwards? You have NOT gained muscle! It’s pretty hard to gain muscle and it takes a long time and a lot of work to build only a small amount, especially if you’re a woman. Unless you are on a specific training/eating routine with the goal of gaining weight then it is unlikely you are gaining any muscle at all. What is happening? It’s most likely the following: either you are overestimating what you’ve burned (very common) and underestimating what you’re eating (very common) or you’re using the gym as an excuse to go to the pub (also very common). No amount of exercise will make up for a bad diet. Advice? Keep your post-workout snack to 100-200cals and eat normally the rest of the day. The other reason the scale isn’t changing is that when you start a new fitness regime your muscles often hold on to extra water so you may gain water weight. This weight will go after you get used to it so it’s not worth worrying about. Just don’t use this as an excuse to stop exercising. You will not see results quickly but exercising is essential for good health, who cares what the scale says when you’re improving your body physically?
The BBC posted an article about people forgetting the calories in alcoholic drinks while also encouraging a horrid myth. The article said it would take half an hour of walking to work off 180cals. No. Only if you weigh about 300lbs. Everyone overestimates the amount of calories exercise burns. It doesn’t burn as much as you think. Your normal bodily functions burn most of the energy you use and you have to push yourself really hard to burn a significant amount of calories. The other way to burn a lot is to be active all day, stood up and moving around all day, never sitting down! 200cals would take 30minutes of moderate to vigorous activity such as jogging or cycling, not walking!
BMI is inaccurate, but not like you think it is. So we’ve all heard that Brad Pitt would be obese by BMI standards so naturally we all think when the BMI chart is not in our favour it’s because we are muscular and we all know muscle is super heavy(!) Actually, most people suffer from the oposite problem. Brad Pitt knows very well he’s not fat, at all, and he knows he’s very fit, he works very hard to have his body. It takes years and a lot of effort to build muscle like that. Most people do not use their muscles as our modern lives are very easy and if you don’t use it you lose it. Most people, especially women, actually suffer from significant muscle LOSS! As a result you’ll actually have a higher body fat percentage than you might think.
Women, you will never look like Arnold Swarchenegger! As a lot of my gripes have been about muscle gain/loss I need to say, women, lift some weights! I will not go into the many benefits of weight lifting I will just say now that it is almost impossible for you to ‘get bulky’ so do not fear it, and it certainly is impossible for you to ‘get bulky’ by accident. If you are going to make a fitness promise this year please let it be to start a muscle building/maintaining routine and look into the benefits of such a routine.
But be warned! If you are on a diet you will not be building muscle. Why should you bother, then, you ask? Because when you diet or do a lot of cardio you are losing weight and a proportion of that weight is going to be from muscle. If you lift weights as well you are likely to keep as much of your muscle as possible instead of losing it. Your weight loss might be slower but you’ll still be burning fat. And when we talk about weight loss it’s fat we want to lose, not muscle.
If you’re a woman you need 2000 cals and a man 2500 cals? Just remember these are sweeping generalisations and I wish more people would point this out. Use the internet to find your real calorie burn throughout the day. Me? Mine is a pathetic 1600 calories, that’s a lot different from 2000! So be aware. Also, as you lose weight your calorie burn will go down so it’s worth adjusting it all the time.
Stop eating foods labeled as Diet, Low Fat or Light. I don’t have the energy to explain this one. Just stop it. Eat real food. The exception can be dairy but make sure it has no weird stuff added to it, ie buy 0% fat natural yogurt if you want but ignore Muller Lights. Fats are good for you and filling so it’s worth checking how much fat is in your diet already. If it is low then please do eat full fat dairy.

I could probably come up with so many more but I’ve ranted enough. So now a bit of positivity.

Focus on getting fit and eating well instead of the scale, the scale is less important than wellbeing and the scale LIES and fluctuates all the time, hurting your feelings… it is not your friend, it is not the be-all and end-all.
Make baby steps, no one has ever made a dramatic change overnight so don’t expect it from yourself.
Learn to exercise from home so you cannot use not being unable to make it to the gym or lack of time as an excuse. Search google for equipment free workouts so you cannot use not having the tools as an excuse. And best of all if you are working out from home you can wear whatever you want/nothing so your kit being in the wash isn’t an excuse. It makes getting in 20 minutes of good exercise easy!
Make it fun and varied, be it diet or exercise, no one wants to be bored AND suffering.
Spring, summer, and autumn, those are the better days for getting out there and getting fit. You’re hating it now? Don’t worry, everyone is, the weather will improve and you’ll enjoy it more.
Make a fitness goal, not just ‘get fit’, such as running a 5k or lifting a certain amount of weight or doing X amount of pushups, you’ll be more focused.
Exercising produces a natural high. Seek it out, reap its benefits, and then you won’t want to stop.
You can fall off the wagon, if there is such a thing, just pick yourself up and keep it up. I’ve not exercised for a month because I’ve had the flu and my lungs are still bad, but I cannot wait to get back into it. It’s not really a set back, it’s just life.

I really do love Sarah Lund and The Killing. We need more...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:40:47 +0000

I really do love Sarah Lund and The Killing. We need more fantastic female characters like her on TV and in the movies. I avoid the word ‘strong’ for a reason.

A great moment from what may be my favourite Tarkovsky film (I...

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:27:07 +0000

A great moment from what may be my favourite Tarkovsky film (I can never make up my mind), sorry, but it’s near the end. Worth watching though.

"In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight..."

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:31:33 +0000

“In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that businesses is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid anymore.”

- John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath

Listening to some new music to lift my mood: Phantogram -...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:54:51 +0100

Listening to some new music to lift my mood: Phantogram - Don’t Move

Listening to some new music to lift my mood: Purity Ring -...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:53:07 +0100

Listening to some new music to lift my mood: Purity Ring - Ungirth