Tim Chapman

trying to remember the name of that terrible old comedian who did something similar. Not Freddie Parrotface Davies, but that kind of period.

Sold!

are you doing Le Moribond? That one has really suffered in both translation and arrangements...

bird call whistle, from Frazer Merrick's mudlarking performance with audience participation.

Souvenir of a cracking Shorts day at @hcmfuk.bsky.social
3 very different improv sessions with Heiner Goebbels gave a backbone to the day - I particularly liked the church organ / sax wigout with Raymond MacDonald.

Nice, thanks! Seems much closer in tone to the original than the Scott Walker version.
Have you heard this @pierrelaronde.bsky.social ?

some apparatus of the Estonian Electronic
Music Society Ensemble, following their performance at @hcmfuk.bsky.social

Real, and less cringey than a lot of his 80s/90s output.

Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro DG DN Art Lens for Sony E | Wex Photo Video

Not a Sony user, but I’ve had good results from a Sigma macro on a Canon at a much lower price than Canon’s own.
This might be worth a look, depending on how you’re defining ‘cheap’ - www.wexphotovideo.com/sigma-af-105...

Assez amusant, c'est le niveau soixante-neuf.

Ne me quitte pas

have reached the Jacques Brel level of Duolingo.

Dreamt I'd invented Crosswalks, where you have to solve a grid of cryptic clues to obtain the directions for a hike through demanding countryside.
Now I don't know if this is the best or worst idea I've ever unconsciously had.

Article from Bizarre 40, December 2020: SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE It was supposed to be the dope Dotcom, but all it turned out to be was the smokescreen for a marketing scam. TIM CHAPMAN gets fired-up about iToke

25 years ago, I wrote for Bizarre magazine about online hoaxes and scams. This was cutting-edge stuff back then, in the fallout from the first great dotcom bubble.

How very different things are today.

This was my first freelance sale - ta @drblacklock.bsky.social for the commission.

In the nature reserve at Bishop Monkton railway cuttings, a woman in excessive knitwear points towards the sky.

Many birds flying in curved formation, in a blue sky seen over a tree.

Look, up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Yeah, it's some birds.

A crow atop a hedge, seen in silhouetted profile, a sloe berry in its beak.

Sloe eater.

Lapwings at YWT Staveley - loads of them.

Spotted a squirrel scampering through lakeside grass, with something in its mouth - presumably taking its young to safety.

Birthday visit to the railway cuttings.

Checking in.

Knaresborough viaduct

Nidd's in good spate.

Belatedly saw Bugonia. It’s OK if unnecessary - the original had a lot more going on, but I enjoyed the alien costumes and the Marlene Dietrich.

Woody Allen in Casino Royale (1967)

All I’m saying is that there is one early James Bond actor who the new producers could bring back to resolve any continuity issues. And he could probably do with a career boost.

Nah - do it properly and bring back Woody Allen.

I do have an Italian disc of Oggi a me... domani a te! in which Nakadai plays a Mexican bandit chief.
Fun, but I wouldn't say it's a hard recommend...

Unforgettable in The Human Condition which, if you consider it as a single film, dwarfs Satantango.

Also genuinely awesome in The Sword of Doom.

And - lest we forget - Oggi a me... domani a te!

<slap bass>

I would rate them equally, yes.

I reread the original Die over the weekend, and hope to be emotionally stable again by Wednesday.

"speak distinctly, hit your final consonance" - surely (and ironically) that should be "consonants"?

There’s a bum-baring figure on the gothic but secular Estate Buildings in Huddersfield (1871), with the same story of a disgruntled mason - huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Ramsden...

I'd called it "relatively faithful" - but my instinctive benchmark is the Cushing/Lee.

Glad you enjoyed it anyway!