Stet » Movies

John Barry is forever

Ria — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:32:07 +0000

The composer John Barry died yesterday. He was one of my favourite film composers, close behind Lalo Schifrin at number one. Barry’s music, especially between the mid 60s to early 70s, was exceptional; some of the soundtrack albums, for example Goldfinger, stand on their own merit as “concept” albums, and can exist independently of the

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A little light relief

Ria — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:35:52 +0000

We are just entering a two-week period of exams and already my desk is beginning to overflow with papers to grade and regrade. While invigilating one exam this morning, filled with familiar faces of students taking the same exam for the nth time, I was inspired (actually the opposite) to make a little satire of

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Life imitates art

Ria — Sat, 01 May 2010 21:19:52 +0000

Last night’s news was dominated by coverage of the Dutch royal family’s visit to our proud little city on Queen’s Day (Koninginnedag). Security was ratcheted up to DEFCON 1 as a result of the car attack on the family during last year’s celebrations in Apeldoorn.

Mr B went into town with our oldest two, and

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The truckers were the real heroes

Ria — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:44:07 +0000

Our plan last night was to put up shelves in our wardrobe and further reduce the chaos of our living conditions, which seems to involve shifting boxes from one room to another, until it becomes unmanageable, then redistributing the boxes to other rooms. Every few days we generate enough garbage to fill the bus and

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Photos in motion

Ria — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:53:29 +0000

Here are a couple of examples of a very neat little program called Sqirlz, which makes water-related animations out of photos. In the first example, of Villa Sonsbeek in Arnhem, I tried to capture the slow swell of a breeze-blown lake. I’d give it 5/10.

In the second example, more appropriate for this time of

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Shaking Up Orange Street

Ria — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:22:23 +0000

Part II of my downtown tour should be loading below. It took a little longer to finish than I’d hoped, partly because I wanted to make it look better than my previous clip, and partly because uploading it to YouTube is very very slow.

As I’ve recommended previously, if your bandwidth is as bad as

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Driver! Don’t stop at all

Ria — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:34:31 +0000

Drawing to the end of my series of images of downtown Kingston, I post below the first part of a drive I took last week with my good friend, Barry White.

I know, it’s the voice.

If all goes according to plan, Part II will include a drive round the main square, Sir William Grant

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I cover the waterfront

Ria — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:01:36 +0000

Downtown Kingston ends at the waterfront and the wide expanse of the seventh largest natural harbour in the world. Morris Cargill, veteran journalist at The Daily Gleaner, described it more equivocally as “the world’s most beautiful sewer”, as tons of garbage are washed down the gullies running through the city, straight into the water; and,

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Cross Roads

Ria — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:59:30 +0000

While other place spellings may vary in Jamaica (Savannah-La-Mar, Savanna-La-Mar or Savanna la mar; Acadia or Arcadia), Cross Roads in Kingston is defiantly two separate words. A few years ago, it was considered to mark the frontier between uptown and downtown Kingston, although these days, one could argue the urban decay is still creeping northwards.

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View from the hills

Ria — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 04:22:39 +0000

If you are patient enough for the panorama to load (1.42MB; need free Quicktime player?), you’ll see a view from the northern foothills looking south towards Kingston harbour. You can move the panorama using the controls indicated in the bar at the bottom, or just click and drag the image around. You may also notice

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