I've wasted quite a bit of time this weekend watching movies. Two of my very favourites were on, The Lion in Winter and Paper Moon. I also watched The Matrix. I don't think a lot of that film, but then again the old ultraviolence was never my scene. No Indiepunk Riotqueer I. Like I even had to say that...
Have you seen The Lion in Winter? It's fab. It won the 1968 Oscar for Best Screenplay. Practically every line is worth memorizing. And it's historical. It starred Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkin and Tomithy Dalton. The film version is gorgeous with location shots, and the production generally is sumptuous. I directed a production once. I had a girl as Henry II and Richard the Couer de Lion. And Phillip of France, for that matter. It was good, but not great.

I've also managed to watch about three episodes of Globe Trekker, a travel show on PBS. They went to China and Uzbekistan. I still want to be anywhere else right now. Even somewhere outof the way and exotic with poor plumbing, like, say, Uzbekistan. They went to Samarkand, Tashkent and Buqara. I was quite smug to say I knew all of them: Samarkand was on the Silk Road (actually, I expect all three were) and was a major trade center. And capital of something, though I couldn't say what. Ping Cho was going there in Marco Polo. Buqara was a religious center destroyed by Genghis Khan. Tashkent was destroyed by and Earthquake in the 60s a rebuilt a Soviet showpiece.
They seem all go to build up these Asian towns. I should like to meet somebody from there abouts.
I did meet somebody from Bulgaria last week, the woman who interviewed me for my grocery store job. Her name was a sort of unpronouncable smash of Baltic consonants.
I think it's fascinating to hear people speak a language you don't know.
I also want a Khirgiz nomad hat. (I might also try a sheep's eye...)

I'm still reading The Taking of Planet Five, and I expect I'll finish it tonight. This means I didn't watch any Dr Who.
Word of the day... for yesterday, it was Bannock, an old word for pancake.
for today, clerihew, a kind of quatrain, humorous, biographical poem:
Harry Houdini Sir Christopher Wren
never escape a bikini said 'I'm going to dine with some men."
He was afraid that the gizmo If anyone calls,
would spoil his machismo. say I'm designing St Paul's.


Reason Llew rocks: World travellers always rock. Yep, the girl's gone again.