The Battleship Potemkin – Free DVD

In this Saturday’s The Guardian – paper they’re giving away a free DVD of Battleship Potemkin!

Anyone outside the UK wanting one, just let me know and I’ll buy a copy of the paper for you, and can post the DVD.

BTW when checking on YouTube just now to embed a video of the film, I found out that Arcade Fire are using footage of the film in their video for Intervention. Interesting!

Anyhow, here’s a clip from the original film (not the Arcade Fire vid..):

lenina loves Beethoven

I’ve been listening to Beethoven for the last week or two, and really really enjoying it.

I can’t remember what the pieces are called (they’re on my laptop at work and I listen to it while working). One of them is Sonata No. 14, and googling it just now I found a great site where you can listen to it. Well, not only to Beethoven, but also all sorts of other composers which is great! I tried embedding it into my blog but it wouldn’t work – so you have to go to the site yourselves.

/me thinks she’s turning into an old biddy.

Plans for 2008 (i.)

Out of the list of things to achieve in 2008, which was:

• move back up to Edinburgh (by mid-2008 the latest)
• sell Italy-house (by autumn 2008)
• get a cat
• start MA in Translation (Sept 08)
• buy a 52″ or bigger high-end HD TV

I’ve now achieved the first one – I’m moving back up to Edinburgh in a few weeks’ time. I have a new job and signed the contract today.

I don’t want to reveal what it is I’ll be doing – but it’s related to what I’m currently doing and is something I’m really passionate about!

It’s great news anyway – and I’m very excited.

This is What A Scotsman Looks Like

Earlier, a Scotsman won Big Brother – Celebrity Highjack. I haven’t blogged about the show as it was tucked away on E4, and no one really seemed to follow it (I did a little bit).

In terms of viewing figures etc., the show was probably a failure (similar to Space Cadets, which I also really liked).  The reason it worked for me was that the housemates chosen already had ‘talent’ and were successful in their own right before entering the house; thus, there was not one desperate fame wannabe that the regular show attracts these days (the BBC also calls the show ‘a secret success‘).

Either way, the point of this post is to show my readers what a Scotsman looks like – for it is a Scotsman, John, that won the show:

Campaign to get Edinburgh onto Monopoly Board!

Objective:

Get Edinburgh onto the new world-wide edition of the Monopoly Board

Task:

Vote for Edinburgh here

Deadline:

28th February 2008

References:

Edinburgh bids for world Monopoly (link)

Is Edinburgh world class? (link)

PS: Edinburgh shockingly did not get a place on the UK-edition of the Monopoly board:

Dundee and Cardiff are the only Scottish and Welsh cities to appear on the Monopoly Here and Now UK edition made by toy firm Hasbro

(see here)

Thus, it must get a place on the world-wide one!

Question for Sky Viewers

What is the new background music that Sky use for their TV guide? They’ve recently changed it from a really horrible one to a good instrumental tune. I think it’s a song by Scottish band Mogwai, though not sure – it’s not mentioned on their Wikipedia article. Hm..

Answers on a postcard.

Robert Burns Day

Today is Robert Burns – day.  Burns was born on January 25th, 1759 and is the ‘national poet of Scotland’.

Here’s a really informative, non-Wikipedia site about him. Apparently, he even wrote a poem about the Haggis!

Address To A Haggis

 

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,

Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!

Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang’s my arm.

 

The groaning trencher there ye fill,

Your hurdies like a distant hill,

Your pin wad help to mend a mill

In time o need,

While thro your pores the dews distil

Like amber bead.

 

His knife see rustic Labour dight,

An cut you up wi ready slight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright,

Like onie ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight,

Warm-reekin, rich!

 

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:

Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,

Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve

Are bent like drums;

The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,

‘Bethankit’ hums.

 

Is there that owre his French ragout,

Or olio that wad staw a sow,

Or fricassee wad mak her spew

Wi perfect sconner,

Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view

On sic a dinner?

 

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,

As feckless as a wither’d rash,

His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,

His nieve a nit:

Thro bloody flood or field to dash,

O how unfit!

 

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

He’ll make it whissle;

An legs an arms, an heads will sned,

Like taps o thrissle.

 

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,

And dish them out their bill o fare,

Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware

That jaups in luggies:

But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,

Gie her a Haggis!

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

I received an email today titled ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL’, and yes, it’s so private and confidential that I can’t tell you about it. Yet.

I do have a big story to reveal though, in the next few days. Watch this space.

I may even have to change the title of my blog! Again.

Social Networking the German Way II.

Today I logged in to wer-kennt-wen, the German social networking site started by some guys from the area where I used to live. It’s really huge in just that area, and I have over 100 ‘friends’ (!!). NB lenina doesn’t actually have that many friends, but so many people from my area are members of WKW that it’s quite easy to add people you know or used to. I.e. the ‘MySpace’ – effect – they’re more like nodes in my wider network.
I had a message today from my cousins’ half-sister – I have never met the girl but it’s the ‘love-child’ that my uncle’s wife had with another guy after she split with him. I.e. said child and I are not blood-related. Anyway, the message was as follows:

Hallo ich bin die schwester von ***** ****** und

***** und war auch schon in london und will auch mal da studieren also hallo

I don’t know how old she is – I’d imagine in her very early teens (?). It’s very strange seeing all those photos from people that you know but don’t really know. At all.

I quite liked her message. It’s some kind of meta-networking based on real social relations – most of my ‘friends’ on WKW belong to a distinct cultural and regional variety of German-ness, that I’m also part of. It’s kinda archaic and WKW fosters those relationships in a weird, postnational way. I.e. I don’t mind being part of that group, as long as I am in a land far far away!

Bear with lenina

Bear with lenina while she is making some important decisions. More news to be announced within the next week or so.

Funnily enough, my friend K. told me yesterday that she’s found an old video of her and I, where we talked about future plans and life aspirations etc. We filmed it in 1999, and I haven’t seen it – but she told me that I look much healthier and happier, and my aspirations are to be creative and to work just to earn a living, but not have a career.

Next time I see her I will watch it, and then the plan is to record another one, 9 years on. In the video, I apparently also show her my ‘mini-computer’ I had at the time – thinking about it, it was probably my Psion 5 as I bought it roundabout that time. She says that we should line up all our latest gadgets for the new video – though I don’t really have any, apart from my PS3 and various computers/laptops (e.g. my white Sony Vaio).  At least she’s got the iPhone!

Anyhow, as long as this old vid doesn’t end up on youtube, I don’t mind. Even if it did end up on there, I won’t point anyone to its location