Tulips from Hull

The university this fine morning.

Jack Dee Joke

Heard this at a Jack Dee thing last week. Just got to share it with you...

"Why are pirates called pirates?"

"Because they arrrrrrr"

The Interpreter speaks my language

Went to see "The Interpreter" tonight. It is a UN flavoured adventure yarn with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. The plot was twisty and complex, but I was much more absorbed in the hairstyles of the two leads. Nicole (playing an interpreter who has so many language skills that she can completely change her accent in the middle of a conversation) had a wispy fringe type thing at the front which kept covering up one eye. It was so mobile that it even moved by itself during scenes, adopting a different pose from one shot to the next. Sean on the other hand had a hairstyle which seemed to have been carved out of black marble. it never moved. I was expecting him to get blown through a wall at one point, and see a perfect outline of his hair in the remaining bricks.

There were lots of moody shots, some running down corridors, some shouting and a large explosion. There was also a baddy that you would have to have been blind not to spot and everything was resolved comparatively satisfactorily. I reckon it is worth a visit. But try to resist the urge to shout "Just brush that hair away dammit!" at the screen.

Note: The google spell checker wants to replace "hairstyle" with "horsetail". I'm getting more respect for that program every day.

Product Placement

Went down to Matrix Multimedia today. They make teaching materials and are enlightened enough to employ me to write some of their stuff. No, really. I was quite inspired by a rack with a whole bunch of my course CDs. Fame at last.

Quality Controllers

Got a call from Comet today. They sent a man around to mend my microwave and so now want to know how he got on. I said he did a very good job (which he did) and that I'd buy from Comet again on the strength of the service (which I would).

It got me to wondering if our students get calls from some university quality machine. And worrying about the possible questions.

"What standard were the jokes?"
"Could you read his writing on the board?"

and, most scarily perhaps

"Did you learn anything from the course"

We do have a quality thing of course. Last week Peter sat in on one of my lectures and, after he had stopped gibbering and trying to eat the doorframe, I asked him how it went.

Apparently I did fine. But he had heard the jokes before....