For all the Indians who would like to see the Laughter Knights tv program.
http://www.desifun.tv/play.php?vid=8855
http://www.desifun.tv/play.php?vid=8854
http://www.desifun.tv/play.php?vid=8853
Having seen these you can also see other older comedy shows.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Films vs Books part 2
Well the other day I watched the film Angles and Demons. My opinion that books are better is right again. My husband who had not read the book commented that the film was not smooth and often the scenes were not connecting up. The relationships between people are not entirely understandable. Partly like Da Vinci Code the plot is set over a period of 24 hours and so a lot of the film is in the dark.
Am sure the getting locked into the Vatican library was with Vitoria and not a guard. There are of course chunks missing like when Robert Langdon goes up in the chopper to look for the next church and has to jump out of it. I do believe that at the 3rd church Robert had to hide in a sarcophagus and had to be let out by alerting the police outside with his mickey mouse watch chimes. Also the cardinal eventually elected as pope was the one (sadly I cannot remember the names as well as the plot) who was presiding over the conclave as none of the 4 preferred cardinals survived.
I liked the book as again there story is developed around facts and makes the fiction believable. Am going to read The Lost Symbol now.
Am sure the getting locked into the Vatican library was with Vitoria and not a guard. There are of course chunks missing like when Robert Langdon goes up in the chopper to look for the next church and has to jump out of it. I do believe that at the 3rd church Robert had to hide in a sarcophagus and had to be let out by alerting the police outside with his mickey mouse watch chimes. Also the cardinal eventually elected as pope was the one (sadly I cannot remember the names as well as the plot) who was presiding over the conclave as none of the 4 preferred cardinals survived.
I liked the book as again there story is developed around facts and makes the fiction believable. Am going to read The Lost Symbol now.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Films versus Books
The other day Stephen Fry was tweeting about his guest role in one episode of 'Bones' and I was looking forward to seeing it sometime in the future the new series are not on freeview channels. To my surprise I saw it was on Sky 3 on Friday. It was good to see and Stephen was good. The episode got me thinking about how different the series is from the books by Kathy Reiches. The only thing that is common to the books is the name Temperance Brennan and her profession as a forensic anthropologist. Other than that the TV series is totally different. If I had not read the books I would still like the series as the story lines are good. I definitely like Booth and the team is eccentric too.
For those of you who have not read the books I would suggest reading them. Totally different and Tempe is a much more human and down to earth person. She generally works alone in the lab and with the police rather than the FBI. She is a divorced, recovering alcoholic with a daughter who is in college in the last book. She is tenacious and thorough in her work and caring about her friends. Many of her 'cases' are in Montreal where she works part of the year. The books I find are always more exciting as there is so much more one can imagine. The concrete pictures on the film do not allow you to imagine the happenings in people's lives as one can from descriptions in a book. In fact every time I read a book (generally I read the books again and again over the years) I can find new things to concentrate on, imagine things differently, may pick up things I missed the last time for often I can get hasty and skim over the detailed descriptions. This makes reading the same book exciting and different every time.
While I agree that films might reach more people than books I still feel that it is better to read the book. If one sees the film before reading the book it is not so bad but the other way round and I am generally disappointed. I am looking for the things that intrigued me and fired my imagination but they seemed to have been totally missed in the movie. I have read most of the Agatha Christie books (last week it was a celebrations of her crime writing) which are fairly well translated into the films and TV series. I am happy seeing the movies over and over again too. I must say that with authors like Colin Dexter I have not read many books but just seen Inspector Morse. Have read some of Ruth Randell and P D James but not seen many episodes of the books I read.
What about the James Bond films and books? I have read all the books and again some things that are in the book would, I guess, be hard to film and tend to get omitted. But I have enjoyed both the books and movies. Maybe what the books portray are total make believe worlds and so the characters can do things which might not be entirely feasible in reality. So for films I guess one has to work out what can be realistically achieved and is within human capabilities. As my favorite reading includes thrillers, crime and murder mysteries it would be difficult to be exact and true to the book. But I think same applies to most films from books, be it something like the Bourne series or the Harry Potter movies. Books always seem larger than life. I have yet to find a film as more gripping than a book. Take Da Vincie Code as another example. The movie is good albeit a bit dark and not so smooth. Having read the book I could make the links between different parts and follow the plot in a much clearer manner.
Well my view is only from a fairly small list of books and their movies as am sure there are many many examples. Also other people might have a totally opposing view. For some might finding reading tedious and so enjoy the visual aspect more. I was first aware of this difference when I read the book Coma by Robin Cook and then saw the film on TV. After than whenever there was a book and a film (in the themes that I liked) I tended to read the book and film and over time the opinion that books are better than films has become firmly entrenched. Maybe One of these days I will do short blogs on the differences between the books and films of my choice.
For those of you who have not read the books I would suggest reading them. Totally different and Tempe is a much more human and down to earth person. She generally works alone in the lab and with the police rather than the FBI. She is a divorced, recovering alcoholic with a daughter who is in college in the last book. She is tenacious and thorough in her work and caring about her friends. Many of her 'cases' are in Montreal where she works part of the year. The books I find are always more exciting as there is so much more one can imagine. The concrete pictures on the film do not allow you to imagine the happenings in people's lives as one can from descriptions in a book. In fact every time I read a book (generally I read the books again and again over the years) I can find new things to concentrate on, imagine things differently, may pick up things I missed the last time for often I can get hasty and skim over the detailed descriptions. This makes reading the same book exciting and different every time.
While I agree that films might reach more people than books I still feel that it is better to read the book. If one sees the film before reading the book it is not so bad but the other way round and I am generally disappointed. I am looking for the things that intrigued me and fired my imagination but they seemed to have been totally missed in the movie. I have read most of the Agatha Christie books (last week it was a celebrations of her crime writing) which are fairly well translated into the films and TV series. I am happy seeing the movies over and over again too. I must say that with authors like Colin Dexter I have not read many books but just seen Inspector Morse. Have read some of Ruth Randell and P D James but not seen many episodes of the books I read.
What about the James Bond films and books? I have read all the books and again some things that are in the book would, I guess, be hard to film and tend to get omitted. But I have enjoyed both the books and movies. Maybe what the books portray are total make believe worlds and so the characters can do things which might not be entirely feasible in reality. So for films I guess one has to work out what can be realistically achieved and is within human capabilities. As my favorite reading includes thrillers, crime and murder mysteries it would be difficult to be exact and true to the book. But I think same applies to most films from books, be it something like the Bourne series or the Harry Potter movies. Books always seem larger than life. I have yet to find a film as more gripping than a book. Take Da Vincie Code as another example. The movie is good albeit a bit dark and not so smooth. Having read the book I could make the links between different parts and follow the plot in a much clearer manner.
Well my view is only from a fairly small list of books and their movies as am sure there are many many examples. Also other people might have a totally opposing view. For some might finding reading tedious and so enjoy the visual aspect more. I was first aware of this difference when I read the book Coma by Robin Cook and then saw the film on TV. After than whenever there was a book and a film (in the themes that I liked) I tended to read the book and film and over time the opinion that books are better than films has become firmly entrenched. Maybe One of these days I will do short blogs on the differences between the books and films of my choice.
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Sleepless in Bed.....
I should have sat and done my blog the night before last. I was up all night.. why? well the pain kept me awake and then the awake kept me in pain! a vicious cycle and after the first round of it I knew I would not sleep. Painkillers were at hand and so were sleeping pills. But I prefer to hit the pills only after a couple nights of insomnia. There was nothing on TV either to watch and so I got my laptop on and Internet going. Played a couple of games of Mahjong to see if that would relax me. But I think the insomnia was there to stay.
So got my writing out and sat down to revise and complete my chapter 7 (experiment was on InterLoc). After finishing the summery I moved to the chapter 6 (experiment on Digalo plus MI) where part of the chapter has to be written still. By 5 am I had managed to revise the writing and reach the point where I had to start new inclusions. By now I was seeing double and so had to shut it all down. Had a cup of tea and just rested my eyes for a couple of hours.
During the day I thought I would be able to catch up on some sleep at least as by now I had been up for over 24 hours and had only about 2 hours of shut eye. But despite reading a novel...The Janus Man by Colin Forbes (have read it about 20 times by now) thinking surely I would sleep....no such luck. At least this evening the TV would be good. There was a repeat of the first program of the series called Ganges on BBC 2. It is a fascinating documentary of the river from its beginning to end with a good overview of the geological, socio cultural history with all the related flora and fauna. There is some excellent photography of the flow of the river and the speed of the rapids high up in the mountains. It brought back some memories as I have been to Rishikesh and walked along the Laxshman Jhula. The monkeys there are truly as bold as shown in the documentary.
Next good program was a documentary called Black Adder Rides Again. All the characters were there to talk about their recollections of all the series. I remember Stephen Fry on twitter saying the program makers had gone out to where he was filming the 'Last Chance to See' (a wildlife series). I had seen the series backwards I guess as I first saw Black Adder in the last series set in the first world war trenches. Later I saw the series 2 and 3 in bits and finally the first series. I never really liked the fist one and it was good to hear that the people in the documentary were of the same opinion - good to know am not a bad connoisseur of good comedy. They seemed to agree that the best series was the one in world war trenches, there was humour and also lots of sadness. As Ben Elton said the best subject for satire... people going to fight just because.... Well suffice to say I enjoyed the documentary.
Last program to be seen before I finally fell asleep was Law & Order Criminal Intent. Strange it was about some journalist being poisoned by polonium, close to reality? Did turn over to see Micheal McIntyre live from Apollo.... finally began to feel drowsy... did a quick switching off and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
So got my writing out and sat down to revise and complete my chapter 7 (experiment was on InterLoc). After finishing the summery I moved to the chapter 6 (experiment on Digalo plus MI) where part of the chapter has to be written still. By 5 am I had managed to revise the writing and reach the point where I had to start new inclusions. By now I was seeing double and so had to shut it all down. Had a cup of tea and just rested my eyes for a couple of hours.
During the day I thought I would be able to catch up on some sleep at least as by now I had been up for over 24 hours and had only about 2 hours of shut eye. But despite reading a novel...The Janus Man by Colin Forbes (have read it about 20 times by now) thinking surely I would sleep....no such luck. At least this evening the TV would be good. There was a repeat of the first program of the series called Ganges on BBC 2. It is a fascinating documentary of the river from its beginning to end with a good overview of the geological, socio cultural history with all the related flora and fauna. There is some excellent photography of the flow of the river and the speed of the rapids high up in the mountains. It brought back some memories as I have been to Rishikesh and walked along the Laxshman Jhula. The monkeys there are truly as bold as shown in the documentary.
Next good program was a documentary called Black Adder Rides Again. All the characters were there to talk about their recollections of all the series. I remember Stephen Fry on twitter saying the program makers had gone out to where he was filming the 'Last Chance to See' (a wildlife series). I had seen the series backwards I guess as I first saw Black Adder in the last series set in the first world war trenches. Later I saw the series 2 and 3 in bits and finally the first series. I never really liked the fist one and it was good to hear that the people in the documentary were of the same opinion - good to know am not a bad connoisseur of good comedy. They seemed to agree that the best series was the one in world war trenches, there was humour and also lots of sadness. As Ben Elton said the best subject for satire... people going to fight just because.... Well suffice to say I enjoyed the documentary.
Last program to be seen before I finally fell asleep was Law & Order Criminal Intent. Strange it was about some journalist being poisoned by polonium, close to reality? Did turn over to see Micheal McIntyre live from Apollo.... finally began to feel drowsy... did a quick switching off and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
EARLI 2009 conference
We flew into Amsterdam on 23rd of August in an 8 am flight. The weather in Amsterdam was beautiful warm and sunny. We were staying at a hotel near the museumplein. Since the film wasn't ready we sat at an outdoor cafe having hot chocolate, some lunch and warming ourselves. After that we walked down the museumplein towards Rijksmuseum and sat on the benches outside watching the world go by. According to the sightseeing books Rijksmuseum is closed for renovation for the next two years. The room in a hotel and large windows and the sun came in all day making it extremely hot which meant keeping the windows open fully all the time. In the evening we had dinner at an Indian restaurant called Mayuar just on the edge off Leidesplein. The food was fairly good but the best thing was the desert which combined kheer and kulfi.
On Monday we checked out the route to Vrije University where EARLI 2009 conference was being held. Since it was warm it continued on a lazy day. In the evening we found yet another Indian restaurant called Dosa. The food was reasonably good as this was the first time I found dosa in Amsterdam.
On Tuesday I got to the conference and got my pack and badge. The session started from 8:30 AM and finished at 6:45 PM. This is a very long day but I managed to attend many sessions. Most of the time an early start was difficult as I need time and medication to get moving in the morning. It was good to meet and talk to people with similar interests and thinking. I was part of a team presenting one paper and leading a second roundtable discussion as well.
While I was attending conferences Paul did some sightseeing of open-air large sculptures, ArtZuid exhibition, one of which could be seen on our way to the University. most evenings we found different restaurants, an Indian called Anmol where the food and service where average, a Mexican the food was okay but not actually Mexican as I understand it. on the last day we went to a Spanish restaurant just a block away from the van Gogh Museum with the service and the food were very nice. On Friday and Saturday nights there were massive thunderstorms which brought the temperature down a little bit.
Sunday came too soon and 10:30 AM saw us back in Stansted. At least we had sunshine for the morning. Now it is back to work and daily life with no plans for any more traveling in the near future.
On Monday we checked out the route to Vrije University where EARLI 2009 conference was being held. Since it was warm it continued on a lazy day. In the evening we found yet another Indian restaurant called Dosa. The food was reasonably good as this was the first time I found dosa in Amsterdam.
On Tuesday I got to the conference and got my pack and badge. The session started from 8:30 AM and finished at 6:45 PM. This is a very long day but I managed to attend many sessions. Most of the time an early start was difficult as I need time and medication to get moving in the morning. It was good to meet and talk to people with similar interests and thinking. I was part of a team presenting one paper and leading a second roundtable discussion as well.
While I was attending conferences Paul did some sightseeing of open-air large sculptures, ArtZuid exhibition, one of which could be seen on our way to the University. most evenings we found different restaurants, an Indian called Anmol where the food and service where average, a Mexican the food was okay but not actually Mexican as I understand it. on the last day we went to a Spanish restaurant just a block away from the van Gogh Museum with the service and the food were very nice. On Friday and Saturday nights there were massive thunderstorms which brought the temperature down a little bit.
Sunday came too soon and 10:30 AM saw us back in Stansted. At least we had sunshine for the morning. Now it is back to work and daily life with no plans for any more traveling in the near future.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Travelling
Travelling is so good. I enjoy it generally. However travelling to work is another matter. I have to drive 40 mils each way. On good days when the sun is shinning the drive is a good experience. The countryside roads are small ut with not much traffice. Either I can have the windows down with cool breeze rushing past or have my AC on. I usually opt fo the AC as the hay fever season is on the same time as good weather! Driving through tunnels made by the trees meeting up in an arch i a cool experience when the sun is otherwise blazing hot. Yes it does that sometimes in the UK too.
But in winter, rainy and dark times the driving is tedious. The headlights glaring into your eyes, narrow roads and drizzle with the car in front of you chucking up spray making it harder to see. By the time the journey ends I have a hadache and sore eyes. Considering its dark when I go to work as well as when I return I often feel that day light has disappeared. I am sure I get SAD (I knwo some wil say whats new? but I mean Seasonal Affective Disorder). Any bit of sunlight will do to make me happy.
Just goes to show that human being can be dissatified no matter what or one can turn it on its head and be happy with what ever you get, as there is always an up side to everything.
But in winter, rainy and dark times the driving is tedious. The headlights glaring into your eyes, narrow roads and drizzle with the car in front of you chucking up spray making it harder to see. By the time the journey ends I have a hadache and sore eyes. Considering its dark when I go to work as well as when I return I often feel that day light has disappeared. I am sure I get SAD (I knwo some wil say whats new? but I mean Seasonal Affective Disorder). Any bit of sunlight will do to make me happy.
Just goes to show that human being can be dissatified no matter what or one can turn it on its head and be happy with what ever you get, as there is always an up side to everything.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Hot sunny sunday and music
Next week I am off to Amsterdam for EARLI conference. I am presenting a few papers with colleagues from the research team at University of Exeter. The papers are related to use of synchronous online learning tools called Digalo with Argunaut System and InterLoc. The first is a spatial and graphically displayed text tool while the latter is a linear text display tool. Argument theory underlies the development of both, and so they allow development of a collaborative discussion. The Argunaut System consists of the Moderators Interface which allows the facilitator to support online collaboration by the learners.
I just had a small panic attack as I needed to sort out the handout for my conference paper. I needed one screen dump to complete my snapshots of the awareness tools in Moderators Interface (Argunaut Project) for facilitators supporting students learning using Digalo. Considering I had not done screen dumps in ages, I could not remember how to do those. For some reason this always happens to me. Also then I had a panic trying to find the paper submitted among of the millions of files I have for my thesis and the related papers and projects.
The sunny and warm day makes it harder to be focused in my work as panic increases sweating! The songs playing on Sunrise Radio and Kismat Radio are a good company when I study or work. Later I will listen to another program on Asian network radio where there are old songs which are rare these days. While I never remember what was playing afterwords it is fun to hum and jig in place to some real fast tunes. But in this heat I prefer to have the slow numbers on the radio as bopping about is just too much. But music does not fill ones stomach... what to eat is always a major question......
I just had a small panic attack as I needed to sort out the handout for my conference paper. I needed one screen dump to complete my snapshots of the awareness tools in Moderators Interface (Argunaut Project) for facilitators supporting students learning using Digalo. Considering I had not done screen dumps in ages, I could not remember how to do those. For some reason this always happens to me. Also then I had a panic trying to find the paper submitted among of the millions of files I have for my thesis and the related papers and projects.
The sunny and warm day makes it harder to be focused in my work as panic increases sweating! The songs playing on Sunrise Radio and Kismat Radio are a good company when I study or work. Later I will listen to another program on Asian network radio where there are old songs which are rare these days. While I never remember what was playing afterwords it is fun to hum and jig in place to some real fast tunes. But in this heat I prefer to have the slow numbers on the radio as bopping about is just too much. But music does not fill ones stomach... what to eat is always a major question......
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