P.S. I Love you

I watched a film tonight for the first time since I saw it at the cinema, P.S. I Love you. For those who haven’t seen it or read the novel that it is based upon, it’s about a woman who loses her husband when he develops a brain tumour. Before he dies he writes her a series of letters and plans for them to be delivered to her one at a time after his death. He knew she would really struggle and wanted to help her through the loss himself and help her rebuild her life so she could move on. Some letters had memories he wanted her to think about, some had tasks he wanted her to complete but they all had one thing in common they all ended with the words “P.S. I Love you.”

This doesn’t usually happen in life, people often are far too scared to face their own mortality even when they are close to death themselves. I lost my Mum to cancer, she had tumours in her lung and as happens with a lot of lung cancer cases apparently it spread to her brain. She fought hard and was so ill with her chemotherapy and radiotherapy but she made it through and started to recover, it took a long time but she started to get back to normal. Unfortunately it didn’t last and her cancer came back with a vengeance as it often does when it reoccurs. She went downhill so quickly after that and so many things went unsaid, and I wish she had thought to write things down just a little note for us for when she was gone but as it was a brain tumour she started to fade before the end and that made it hard for her to write. She kept a diary – not a journal as such, just a normal daily diary for keeping track of things and she wrote in it every day what she had done or who she had seen. I read it after she died. May and Sheila visited today – brought flowers, they were lovely. Ross passed his exams, went out with friends to celebrate will be home late. Alex back in hospital but will be out on Friday. Got a letter from Ann today. Her handwriting was always so beautiful, but reading that diary you could see her fading away day by day just by watching the way that pen moved across the paper. It stopped a week or two before she died.

Dad had died as well by the time this film made it to the cinema and his death was very sudden too, it wasn’t any of his conditions that killed him – it was a bacterial infection. All those years fighting one problem after the other, open heart surgery, heart bypass, heart valve replacement, failing kidneys, dialysis and it was a simple little single celled organism that killed him and practically overnight too. I never even got to say goodbye because of interfering psychotic family members.

So watching this film with all those emotions still fresh and raw I’m not ashamed to say I cried my eyes out. It was a beautiful film and a beautiful story and I was left feeling stronger at the same time as I felt more broken than I had ever been. I cried myself to sleep that night wishing that I had gotten just one letter from them, it didn’t matter what they had said on them I just missed them so much and wanted some contact again. I felt silly for letting it get to me so much and put it down to the fact that I was depressed and dealing with what was essentially being orphaned. It doesn’t matter what age you are when you lose your parents or anyone you love for that matter its always going to feel like a part of you died as well.

My parents never wrote me letters but that doesn’t mean they didn’t love me or that they aren’t still watching over me somehow. I get little signs now and then that I take as messages from them, a song on the radio, a quote from a favourite poem or author, a shape or symbol in the most unlikely of places that caught my eye whilst I was thinking about them. This may be them showing me they are still here with me or it may be wishful thinking of a person desperately clinging to a world where things aren’t quite as hopeless as they feel sometimes, but I know one thing for sure…

A few days after I watched that film for the very first time and cried myself to sleep wishing for just one letter from my Mum I opened a box in the loft that was full of old junk looking for something which was so insignificant I don’t even remember now and in that box I found a single little piece of paper tucked away at the bottom having been there for who knows how long and on it were the following words.

To Ross, I Love you, Mum. xx

What a bunch of spoons...

1999 was the year of many fun exciting things most notably the panic about the impending technological apocalypse due to be caused by a certain damp squib also known as the millennium bug. Whilst this was happening in the real world Hollywood decided to distract us with a post apocalyptic world in The Matrix. This film was simply a work of art, breathtaking special effects and a storyline that was guaranteed to leave paranoid people all over the world wondering if there really was a spoon or if we were in fact stuck in a matrix as well. Reviewers everywhere praised the movie for its ingenuity and with global box office takings total of $463 million strongly suggests fans agreed making it a huge success.

So you are the head of a huge Hollywood film studio and your film does incredibly well, you’d be forgiven for being tempted into the world of sequels based on popularity but not these guys… they clearly went ahead and made a trilogy purely on money making ability alone and sadly this meant a dire lack of quality despite the budgets both sequels received. Now I will say this in defence of them – they were watchable and vaguely entertaining… but why bother when they were completely pointless and all about eye candy in the form of special effects. 

In the 7 years since the release of the matrix sequels I haven’t once thought “oh you know what I’d really like to see, another matrix movie” actually if I’m honest I have occasionally thought to myself as I stumbled across one of the movies on tv “thank god this never went any further than a trilogy”. Well an article on the yahoo home page today caught my eye and set in motion a cringe which several hours later I am still feeling the effects of. There are 2 more sequels in the pipeline… why oh why cruel world must we have this inflicted upon us again.

Not content with ruining the legacy of the original perfectly formed stand alone film with 2 and 3 purely with their money making greed and relying on an overdose of special effects to hide their lack of a quality storyline – the new films are apparently intended to make use of 3D film technology.

*insert second cringe here*

I am not a fan of this new wave of 3D technology for use in this way, I personally feel very ill when forced to watch 3D films (particularly fast paced action films) and have left the cinema with a 3D induced migraine roughly 80% of the time. This is not a reaction unique to me and as discussed in an article posted just yesterday by Robert Ebert (link: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html) this is simply because we haven’t evolved to be able to view things this way. I look forward with great delight to the day when this 3D “phase” crashes and burns like the last one, its purely a way to charge even more for ticket prices, different tv systems and other home media products. I would much rather watch an old black and white film with a well written storyline and good acting than pay through the nose for yet more of the same 3D bullets/swords/zombies jumping out the screen at me kinda trash! Sadly this is what the future most likely holds for the new matrix sequels.

Now with all that said, I would like to stand up for 3D technology here but just a little. I recently visited a local science centre visitor attraction that has made use of 3D technology to offer a 4D “ride” experience. In this case it is designed as some sort of futuristic aircraft that you take a ride on and the 3D technology is used to simulate the flight and a holographic HUD (head up display) interface whilst the 4^th dimension is created by adding smells to the room which are appropriate to the images on screen to help to fully immerse you in the illusion. Now the reason I think this works so well is that it was only something like a 5-10 minute duration which means your brain isn’t having to work so hard to process the 3D technology for so long and you are therefore less likely to suffer from any headaches, migraines or eye pain because of it. It was also done in a much more sympathetic way as the main focus is on education and not harsh fast paced action sequences.

 

When are people going to wake up and smell the overpriced migraines and realise that 3D technology may have its place in the world but not in cinemas… and hopefully they’ll realise this before Keanu Reeves tries to hit us in the face with a non-existent spoon!

Thank you for the music

There’s a reason why music was used to calm the storm and the sky fish in the Doctor Who christmas special and its clearly not just because they wanted an excuse to use welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins. Music really is a powerful and magical thing, it can evoke long forgotten memories, feelings of sadness or joy and all in a few simple notes or bars of a song. As with many people I have always had a very special place in my heart for a lot of songs, if asked to pick a single favourite I honestly don’t think I could. I have a favourite for every purpose, every important stage in my life, every heartache and every moment of joy and I wouldn’t change them for anything no matter how sad the association.

I recently discovered that a song I found at a particularly dark place in my life and brought me a little hope and light at the end of the tunnel may have been written about the exact same thing that the song meant to me – the death of my mother and coping or not coping with the depression caused by loss. It’s a very beautiful song that speaks of the pain of loss and also the realisation that you are not coping or enjoying life any more and wanting to start rebuilding your life again. I found it odd but also particularly significant that I should stumble upon a song like this and connect so deeply to the lyrics and such clear and powerful emotion being conveyed at this time in my life, but given my history of falling in love with songs instantly I just accepted it and moved on knowing that I had added yet another song to my ever growing list. Here I am three years later and I finally discover that it was written by someone who was probably feeling the exact same things I was feeling, thinking the exact same things that I was thinking and you can really feel it in the words and the way every ounce of the song feels like it comes straight from the heart of a broken man.

I could take this moment to tell you what the song is, who the artist is or even link to a video to let you hear it, but that isn’t important because it won’t make any difference because its my song and no matter what I hear or feel when I put it on – it won’t be the same for you. This isn’t a personal attack to anyone reading this, its simply the truth and the reason it is true is a point I’ve already raised – we all have songs that make us laugh, smile, cry or spark that last little piece of hope we have for a happy ending. This song is mine, others may also share it and I truly love the thought that others may also have found hope or solace in this song.

Go stick on a song that means something to you and smile or cry, it doesn’t matter which – just enjoy it and appreciate it for everything it represents to you and maybe even take a moment to say thank you to the person or people who wrote it and made it possible for you to feel this way.

Wooden elephants are stalking me...

I've always found carved wooden animals fun and when done well really beautiful. I had a collection of wooden antelopes/gazelle as a kid - they seemed to be all the rage at some point (presumably in the seventies or eighties) and every car boot sale or charity shop I was dragged to had countless numbers of them and they were always dirt cheap so I decided to start a herd of wooden animals! A few years went by and I seem to recall getting to about 30 or 40 strong herd of wooden antelopes and gazelle... I even found a warthog and a crane/stork thing. Then the inevitable happened - we moved house and as part of the move I was told it was time to get rid of the herd so I gave in and donated the whole collection to a charity shop and never looked back.


Now I know what you are thinking, what does this have to do with wooden elephants stalking me - well this is what happened over the last few days.

Recently I started to decided to go with a more geeky random sciencey/museum like decor theme at home and along with old wooden tiki's and carved boats and bowls that used to belong to my parents, my various buddha statues and preserved insects - I thought it would be nice to get a few wooden animals again - not a full herd but one or two really nice pieces to fit with the new theme. But as with all things the perfect items have to be stumbled upon and can't be forced into existence!

I went into a charity shop on monday this week that I have been in only a few times as I know its a pretty rubbish one, but on monday I felt drawn to it for some reason and the first thing I noticed upon walking in the door was the most beautiful carved wooden african elephant - I don't think i've ever seen a more perfect carved elephant in my whole life. Only about 4 inches tall and about 6 or 7 inches long and a lovely warm rich wood. It wasn't priced and I dreaded asking as it looked like the kind of thing they would charge a fortune for as it was so beautiful but I had to have it so I picked it up and asked the old lady who was in charge of the till and she told me that it was a very expensive elephant, rare collectors piece and that she'd have to charge me the extortionate price of 50p for it! I actually laughed out loud, the old bat really made me smile with her sense of humour!

After the successful find on monday I decided to have a look on ebay just to see what other wooden animals there might be that I liked the look of and found a carved indian elephant that was very pretty but not worth the £30 price tag - partly because I don't have that kind of money right now but also largely because I don't like them as much as I like african elephants. However the universe clearly has a strange sense of humour as well because today I had some time to kill whilst waiting on a bus so I went into another charity shop I never go into because it too is usually absolute rubbish and often has a very strange old dead lady smell to it. But I was drawn to the shop and could barely believe my eyes when I walked in the door and the first thing I laid eyes on was a wooden indian elephant! almost completely identical to the one I spotted on ebay less than 24 hours earlier and yet again without a price on it so I crossed my fingers and wandered up to the till elephant in hand (feeling a very strange sense of deja vu) and thankfully yet again it was a delightfully extortionate £1 price tag!

So it would seem that I have wooden elephants stalking me, I wonder whether this is restricted to pretty pachyderms or if i've got a whole wooden migration of ark proportions heading my way?

New start for a new year

Well its a new year and as cliched as it might be... time for a new start in the blog world. This blog will hopefully be an entertaining ride through the weird and wonderful land that is my brain! so sit back relax and please ensure all seatbelts are securely fastened and that you keep your arms and belongings inside the blog at all times

Roostarr aka Ross