I’ve been recovering for a couple of weeks now - I think I was too traumatised to talk about it earlier but I had a week or so off work to study for my CIM diploma exams. Now, perhaps I was over-confident, perhaps I was lazy or maybe just plain overworked, but I really hadn’t put in any extra time at all above attending the lectures. And boy did I suffer for it!
Hurray. My work’s syndicate has won a pound on Daily Play!! Only another £999,999 to go.
On our way home yesterday we decided to see ‘The Golden Compass’. I’ve read the books but Mark is new to the story.
I think Mark rather enjoyed it as he was talking about listening to the audiobook versions that I have over Christmas. I quite liked it too - I thought they’d tidied the story up nicely to fit on the big screen, and was glad that they’d left the big shock at the end of book one for the beginning of the second film. No-one likes to leave the cinema feeling sour. I thought the girl playing Lyra was excellent - very defiant, but the armoured bears really stole the show. Generally the casting was great and keeping the British luvvies in pocket money. I think it’s one of those films I’ll like better the second time though - sometimes I just need time to put my preconceptions to one side to enjoy a film properly.
Mark very much wanted to see the Turner Prize exhibition since it’s in Liverpool for the first time so we went to the Tate Liverpool yesterday.
It’s safe to say that I’m singularly unimpressed by the video of a man in a bear suit - he looked like Bungle from Rainbow after 6 months in a POW camp. I mean why?? What’s it supposed to be saying? They may as well have shown a video of David Blaine in his perspex box.
The only shortlisted work that I did like was a series of large boxes containing mirrors, sand and lights twinkling in the darkness. You looked through a small hole and could see infinity. It was very imaginative, disorientating and ‘festive’. I couldn’t help but think of ‘We three kings of orient are’. I’m not sure that was the effect the artist was looking to achieve, but hey, he got a response, what more could he want?