...although it is very tempting, at least for a short while. Like, two days. Which is as long as I can do without London these days.

By the way, my hair looks almost like his in the picture linked to above, simply because it should have been cut long before Christmas. I guess I should have taken the hint when I went to the hairdresser's downstairs to book an appointment for my flatmate and the hairdresser said "Anything else?" / "No, thanks, that'll be all." / "Are you sure?"

So today I bought a different type of wax than the one I sometimes use. And my hair looks terrible whatever I do, so I'm ONCE AGAIN desperately considering becoming a skinhead. Not to worry, this notion comes creeping up on me every time I've been lingering too long outside the hairdresser's without actually entering, and it hasn't amounted to anything yet in the last ten years that the idea has reared its ugly head.

*puts on some old Bee Gees instead*

Think it's about time I watched some of my unseen Daniel Auteuil films, by the way. Some of them I've had for a year or so. Shame on me.

In other (Norwegian) news, Lommemannen ("The Pocket Man") seems to have been caught after more than 30 years of molesting boys, which is good news indeed. And since he is defended by notorious lawyer Tor Erling Staff, he must be guilty. I seriously don't understand why people would let themselves be "defended" by that guy. It's always a sign of extreme guilt. If anyone had ANY sympathy for you before you were arrested, it vanished when your defence lawyer was presented to the press. For f's sake, Staff managed to say live on telly (I actually tuned in to the webcast of tonight's news on NRK) that being molested couldn't possibly have harmed these under-age boys much. Just because he was molested himself (and let's face it, he is one freaky character), he seems to think everyone will have the reaction he had.

The only other news I'm managing to follow these days is the presidential election in the US, for some reason. Probably because it's more exciting and important than ever. For being the world's third largest country they certainly have too much power over the rest of us! Truthfully, when did you last hear anything from the second largest country, Canada, about invading nations they didn't like and imposing their political beliefs on everyone?

OK, I must admit I have always had a VERY soft spot for Canada. And Australia. And New Zealand. And I was obsessed with India for a while when I was about 12. Hmm...I think I can see a pattern forming in the periphery...

I've also had some extremely good news about a favourite film of mine today, but am too afraid to jinx it and will let you know tomorrow (heh, as if you'd be interested.)

Anyway, very happy to see La cage aux folles being featured in tonight's Newsnight Review (thanks to the PQ Board for the heads-up, AS PER USUAL) (loved the fact that they played quite a bit of one of the songs featuring Quast (have a look!)) and that they chose to show the Bill Bailey: Part Troll show again on Channel 4. His take on the intro music to the BBC News is a classic in its own right.

Well, guys, I don't want to go to bed, but I think I may have to. I see Madness (one of my favourite groups since I saw them perform House of Fun on The Young Ones the first time I saw that series back in the summer of 1998) (i.e. 16 years after it aired. Duh) is one of the guests on Jonathan Ross tomorrow. Maybe I'll tune in. Once upon a time I taped every show (and yes, I do regret not having catalogued each episode, meaning I now have to listen through 14 CD's and DVD's to find out who his guests were...although I am pretty sure I have no one "interesting" in there, if you know what I mean *s*), but I haven't done that since I moved here, really. Never listened to all the shows, anyway, so found it easy to just NOT restart recording the show once we finally got our internet connection up and running over here.

Phew.

Remember, everyone: 2,000 hamsters can't be wrong.

Labels: comedy, current affairs, daniel auteuil, film, greg proops, music, musicals, personal, philip quast, radio, rik mayall, theatre

Yep, we had a Daniel Auteuil day today, as I got 36 Quai des Orfèvres in the post. So we started with the film where I first really noticed him; La fille sur le pont and then went on to last year's hit, Caché, before ending with the aforementioned 36..., which I hadn't seen yet.

I had my own little Daniel Auteuil day last week when I watched Un coeur en hiver and Après vous... and I feel at least one more coming up soon.

Labels: daniel auteuil, film

I just have to say that I think the new Depeche Mode album is great. I only listen to it when I do the washing up, so I haven't heard the last few songs very much, but the first track is a brilliant start and then it just keeps going. One of the songs really annoy me, though, because when I listen to it using a headset it sounds out of key but on the stereo it sounds fine...ish. The problem is that the first thing I did when I got the CD was to rip it (yeah, so what) and then listen to the album on my headset, so even when I listen to the CD on the sitting room stereo (not that I have more than one stereo, just a 'fancy' way of telling you where it's situated) I can still hear the out of key bits.

Or perhaps my hearing is skewed.

I also learnt today that apparently it's bad luck to walk past someone tying their laces. I'm not sure if it only applies to winter shoe laces and on carpeted stairs, but this guy at work stopped right next to me today as I was in the process of fiddling with my shoes (because I am actually three years old and still don't know how to make knots), saying something in the neighbourhood of 'oh, I don't need any bad luck today', so I said 'is that it...ok, I'll just pretend they're fine and wait till you've gone'. Why on earth would I go out of my way (literally) to accomodate some stranger's superstitious whim?

Also in this edition: Congratulations to Daniel Auteuil on his getting the European Film Award for Best Actor! I'm looking forward to the film. Then again, I'm looking forward to any film of his, because there are lots that I haven't seen, since most French-speaking films aren't released over here. Not with subtitles, anyway, and I have to admit my French lacks something...or most things, to be precise. I think I can say a complete (clean) sentence if it would involve a knife, a hat and a heart. Of course, I wouldn't need to speak the language to understand a film (I mean, I've seen several Danish films without being able to utter much in that language).

Ooh, speaking of which, I heard this Icelandic guy today talking about how Norwegian sounded old-fashioned to them. I almost fell off my chair, because we consider Danish to sound old and Icelandic to sound ancient. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

Have I mentioned Bleak House yet? Well, it's a great series. The Beeb really knows how to make period dramas. Of course, the Beeb knows how to make most things TV related (including some bad telly as well, let's face it, after more than seventy years in the TV business there's bound to be a few misses, too), but Bleak House has been a real treat these last few weeks. Super talent, modern filming, brilliant script, wonderful costumes, great make-up and then of course Dickens. A must-buy on DVD.

Current track: Cliff Richard & The Young Ones - Living Doll

Labels: award shows, daniel auteuil, film, linguistics, music, personal, TV

I have a history of cheering for the underdog...or rather find the wrong team to back. I started following Sheffield Wednesday while they were in Premier League. A few years later they were to be found in Second Division. My hometown's team finally dissolved a couple of years ago and was resurrected in another division and with another name. As I don't live there anymore, this was very confusing and so I just gave up on the team. Last year, when I started playing Championship Manager 4, I chose the American team D.C. United as the team I wanted to manage. I knew nothing of any players or teams from the US prior to this. Now I feel connected to D.C. United. Everton was my team for many years, though, just because I was put on that team when we were playing a Saturday game in year one - the parents thought it'd be fun to name our teams after English ones. I also always cheer for Arsenal whenever they're playing against anyone other than Wednesday (which may only happen during the cup these days) - simply because David Seaman used to play there. Duh. Anyway, my current Norwegian team just secured their second season in the top division this weekend, so yay!

I have recently discovered I'm in love with the comedy series Green Wing. I would like to marry that series, actually, but it's not very likely that'll happen so I'll just have to settle for the weekly watching. It's just that every time an episode ends I want it to go on for at least another hour. Woe is me.

About Daniel Auteuil, I have been checking my collection and found out that I've got quite a lot of films starring him. I bought another one this week, Le Bossu (The Hunchback). I was minding my own business at work when suddenly this scene from a film I had seen not long ago popped up in my mind and I thought "didn't Daniel Auteuil have a part in that one?" So I paid IMDb a visit (as you do) and soon found out which film it was. With the emergence of the Internet it's become (far too) easy to buy stuff (you don't necessarily need) and it didn't take me many seconds to order the film from Play (which of course stocks all sorts of wonderful things). Watched ot yesterday, and it was as good as I remembered it to be. I've become quite the fan of Auteuil's this past year. It all started with The Girl on the Bridge and the fandom was definitely sealed when I first saw The Closet. The good thing is thanks to Amélie and Daniel Auteuil I have rediscovered French film. I used to watch whatever they threw at me on the only three TV channels we had when I was younger, but as the number of channels increased, my scope decreased and for a while there I was watching only English-speaking films, with the occasional Norwegian and Swedish ones thrown in for good measure. Seems like I'm back on the right track now, though. Lots more independent films and a lot less Hollywood trash.

Current track: Eric Prydz - Call On Me

Labels: comedy, daniel auteuil, film, gaming, online shopping, sport, TV

Sometimes it feels as if I'm the only one out there who's a fan of certain people. Like Simon Shepherd. Hands up those who like him. No, hands up those who've heard of him, apparently. And what about David Bamber? No? Ever seen Privates on Parade? Chalk? Buddha of Suburbia? No bells ringing? How about Pride and Prejudice, then? Or Daniel Deronda? Is there anyone out there who's a fan of Terence Stamp, then? Any non-French who's heard of Daniel Auteuil? Have I been watching too much telly??? :-)

I've spent many hours making my comedy favourite lists today. It's quite amazing that, although I must have seen about 50/50 of American and British shows, I've got three times as many British favourites as American ones. AND that includes one Canadian show. ;-) (How could I possibly ignore The Kids in the Hall?) Note that my list, which is situated as a permanent list at the bottom of the right hand menu, features only shows that I consider to be my definite favourites - even though I apparently have been watching way too much telly through the years, these are the shows that I come back to, that I think of at opportune and inopportune times, that I quote constantly. So...if you love any of those shows, even a few of them, we may have more in common than you think.

Current track: The Beatles - I'm Down

Labels: comedy, daniel auteuil, david bamber, film, simon shepherd, TV