An Inconvenient Truth

I had no idea that An Inconvenient Truth has only just come out in the UK. I got a chance to see it a couple of months back at a film festival (since when is NZ ahead of the UK?!) and I really recommend it. It's funny to think what the world would be like if Al Gore had only won that election! It is a very well put together documentary and he is a very good speaker. Even if you don't usually go to see documentaries at the cinema, go see this one - if we make it a box-office hit maybe then governments will listen.

There are many who doubt the existance of man-made climate change and as is always the case in science, it's much easier to disprove than to prove a concept. However even if you're not convinced, the changes that are needed are not necessarily that large, and the catastrophe that would face us if the scientists are proved right is too disasterous to play chance with. Go see this movie, then sell your SUV and get on your bike or hybrid car if you really must be one step ahead of the Jones'!

the beautiful people!

Last night was our department's annual ball, and despite always promising not to go again, we of course ended up going. It was actually a very good night, with the required TERRIBLE music and equally terrible dancing, no dramas or toilet hugging - just good fun! Best thing was it was a masquerade ball so we spent all week making our masks! Ah, the joys of paper mache and glitter! Sonia's brilliant mask deservedly won the competition for best mask, her's is the blue one with the rose. Mine was (of course) the purple one.

cluster bombs

I hate to get all political again, but I like to think that people power is still alive and kicking and that we can make a difference. I guess most will know that Israel chose to drop a monstrous number of cluster bombs in the last three days of it's war with Lebanon in civilian areas. This just as they were finalising the terms of the ceasefire. Even the Americans are like 'hmmmm...not too sure that was appropriate' and that really takes something!

Cluster bombs are specially designed to be indiscriminate and with a large number of the bomblets not exploding on impact they lie in wait to explode sometimes many years after the war is over. If they are disturbed later, for example while trying to rebuild a house or often when kids are playing in the rubble, they can explode causing severe injury or death.

Clearly these weapons have no place in civilian areas, but even in completely military cases they are of dubious morality given how indiscriminate they are and how long they can remain on the ground unexploded after battle lines and military targets have changed. These weapons are produced, used by and exported by our very own British government. In my opinion we should be pressuring our government to set up and heavily lobby other countries (in particular the USA and Israel) to sign an international agreement stopping the use and production of these weapons. There is a petition online for just this cause so if you're interested go along and sign it. Go to the British petition site or the international site.

As an aside the Israelis are still refusing to give the UN a map detailing where they dropped cluster bombs making the job of clearing them much more difficult and much more dangerous for the peacekeeping troups who have the job of clearing up Israel's mess. Yeah, cheers guys. We'll come bail you out again anytime.

codename e.

It's time to blow my favourite petite demoiselle's cover and expose the wonderful codename e.! That's right ladies and gents, she who doth actually leave comments on my blog and make me feel like I have friends! Meet the lovely Emelie! The only art historian I know. That's a lie actually, sorry Morgan! OK, the first art historian I ever met! And by her side is the wondrous codename mpy (Mikki!), also a frequent contributor to this blog. They just moved into their lovely house on the hill in Lyttelton which has a fantastic view over the harbour and banks peninsula (for a great picture see Mikki's blog http://mpydesigns.blogspot.com/).

Lyttelton is a really cute little town on the inside of the volcanic crater that Christchurch is just north of. It has gorgeous oldstyle colonial houses and the most cool bar near Christchurch - the Wunderbar. I'll have to go there again and get some photos cos that bar is so wierd (in the good way).

So anyway - thanks mpy and e. for a lovely bbq on Sunday (I managed to get my chickpeas peeled in time by the way!) and for always leaving messages on here! Love you crazy kidz!

Subversion part II

I saw "V for Vendetta" when it came out a few months back and whilst I knew it was a good movie, somehow the circumstances (being on holiday and having all sorts of other fun stuff to fill my mind) deflected me away from it. I saw it again tonight and I have to say - it is a faaaaaaaaaakin awesome movie. One of the best movies I've seen in a while and it really benefits a second viewing.

It discusses how fear and its use to manipulate the people can allow a nation to accept increasingly idealogical and fascist rule. The analogies to current issues in the world seems to only have made the film more relevant since I last saw it 6 months ago, and I hope that this doesn't represent an ongoing trend. Our acceptance of the loss of civil liberties in the face of terrorist attacks must be very carefully considered and while America may be showing a more extreme aspect of this fear, we are certainly not exempt from it in Britain. A very obvious example would be the killing of an innocent man in London by our own police force after the London terrorist attacks. I don't say that we should tie the hands of our government and police force, but we should be very wary of how slippery the slope can be.

I really recommend this movie; if you were disappointed by the second two Matrix movies, watch this one. The Wachowski brothers got it right again.

Subversion!

Banksy just gets better! Most Brits probably know him but for those of you who haven't come across him, go check out his website www.banksy.co.uk. He's a cheeky and subversive graffitti artist from Bristol and he's over in the states causing some mayhem! He snuck a life-size guantanamo bay prisoner model onto a ride at Disneyland and apparently he snuck an elephant (well hidden in pink!) into a warehouse for an exhibition. Keep an eye on the bbc news website for his ongoing stunts.

I don't usually understand art, but his stuff I get and I love it! I'd say he's the best artist Britain's generated in a long while. Anyone with the audacity to paint on the Israeli's illegal wall is pretty rock and roll in my books!
So cool!

stuff

I've been slack with this recently cos it's been all go here! I finally managed to get a pretty important step in my research to work but it only works when it feels like it and so I've been frustratedly working pretty hard recently. If I can get the thing reliable it's a very important step though, so it's well worth the effort and pretty exciting stuff. Well I think so anyway. But chemists are wierd. I wouldn't trust their definition of exciting if I were you!

It's not all work though, cos the spring is finally here in Christchurch and we went snowboarding today. Perfect conditions for it - gorgeous sunny day and good snow and we didn't even have to get mucky trying to put snowchains on cos the snow was all on the piste and not the road! What more could you ask for?! Couple of pictures below.

Also become quite the budding horticulturalist recently, cos we decided to grow a couple of vegetable plants from seed for the summer and I didn't really expect much to work, but actually they've pretty much all grown perfectly! So now we'll have our own classy vegetable and herb garden. Of course we may never get any actual vegetables out of it, but it's still fun to try! What with cycling to school everyday, our own "worm farm" (which is posh for compost heap!) and our own vege plot we're becoming right little hippies! I've got a lot of carbon footprint to make up for with these flights to NZ though!
Hope you're all hunky dorey and having fun! x