London Visit June 2007

While my parents in law are visiting we decided to take a trip down to London. I have been before as I even worked there for a year so it wasn’t new to me but we took the chance to do all the tourist things you do when you goto London.

We started with the British Museum. I have been there already, about 3 years ago. Its well worth going if your ever in London, for one its free, also its huge! They have a bit of everything for the complete History of the world, the Museum is split into sections based on location, so there is an Asia room, Europe, Roman and Egypt, etc…

They have some impressive stuff, including an entire Roman building and a room full or slightly scary mummies, with accompanying x-rays to prove there are some disturbing things inside them.

We then went along to have a look at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Then on our way up to Trafalgar Square we noticed something interesting. At Horse Guards Parade they were, well, parading. There were a few police keeping the small crowd back from watching the guards and horses too close. But what happened next was the most interesting as a line of police bikes came barreling down the road, blocked off the traffic and a minute later the Queens car came down the road and into Horse Guards Parade. It was neat, we managed to get a really close up picture of the Queen. Not many people get that close, and all by chance, great. Check out my Flickr picture album to see the picture we took.

Once again, while in London, we took the chance to ride on the London Eye. It worth it for the great views and the London Eye itself is an amazing structure. It takes 30 minutes to get all the way around it. The weather was nicer on this day too so we could see much clearer, all the way to Wembley actually.

We finished the trip with a guided tour of the Tower of London. We got the chance to see the crown jewels and look around the tower. To be clear its not just a tower but an entire castle including a moat and complete surrounding outer defense wall. Also it was not apparently a prison but used as a royal castle. It was a great tour, the the guide was a real Yeoman Warder, nicknamed the ‘Beefeaters’ they are the Royal Guard.  The one giving the tour was quite entertaining, real fun and made the whole of the history of the Towers really enjoyable and he told some wild tales. If you ever go there make sure you wait around and go on one of the Yeoman guided tours, there are usually a couple going on each day.

Well thats it, London was a blast. Almost forgot to mention we got a good look at Tower Bridge and went down Oxford Street. A recommend a trip to London to anyone who has never been, Visit London.

My Review – Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End

I saw Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End at the cinema last night and it was very enjoyable. I won’t give away any spoilers here but since the film has already made in excess of $824million at the worldwide box office I can certainly assume most people have already seen it.

I was worried with the film to start with, its very grim and then once it gets going it gets a bit confusing as the plot jumps and skips all over the place until it finally settles down into a story line its comfortable with.

That said though it is a great film to watch, while the film is lost in complicated intermingled plots there is still certainly a lot of action and on screen eye candy to keep you entertained and as always there is the added benefit of a good few jokes or two or ten thrown in a long the way. Jack, the monkey, is back and providing a good few distractions from the plot, and there are the two bumbling pirates, plus the equally useless pair of navy soldiers from the East India company.

Most of the cast do a good job with their characters, although some of them have less to work with than others, and although they are the main characters Will and Elizerbeth have very little on screen time to work up their characters much before they are overwhelmed by the mass of other cast members. Jack is still the star though, and considering there are during the film at least several of him it does get very interesting. Captain Barbossa is also back and play off well against Captain Jack in the fight be the one true captain of the Black Pearl. Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) is new, but doesn’t get much of a look in against the existing well experienced cast, although he does a decent job.

The ending is a spectacular sea battle with some interesting conclusion and as to be expected Jack get the last say and the final screen time and finished as he started. I do hope to see more of him again soon.

Anyway since there is still too much to talk about the film here, I’ll just finish now and say that its generally a really fun and enjoyable film, certainly worth watching and certainly worth a fourth sequel and more. Great, 7/10.

7/10

Discworld Books – The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic is the concluding part of the story started in the first Discworld  book, The Colour of Magic. Rincewind the wizard and his tourist companion Twoflower, fresh from surviving falling off the edge of the world are on a quest to save the world. The Discworld, sitting on the back of a giant space turtle is heading directly into a giant red sun and only the power of the 8 great spells can save it.

Because of this, Rincewind has suddenly become very popular with a lot of people who want to kill him in order to retrieve one of the great spells hiding in his head.

The story is as imaginative as the last but not, in my opinion, as enjoyable. It lacks what the other Discworld novels have in that it is not a self contained story and it isn’t about something new and even more bizarre than before. However its still got loads of interesting stuff in it, and it does conclude the story ready for something new.

The highlight of the book was the luggage. Turing a travel accessory into such a fascinating and kinda scary character is genius. I certainly wouldn’t mind owning some luggage like that myself.

I enjoyed reading this and give it a high 7 out of 10 because I know that there is better to come from this series and need to leave room to rate them higher.

7/10