Monday, February 28, 2005

Two posts masquerading as one ...

Nunhead Cemetery
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… and what an amusing day today has been
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I've haven't had so much public exposure since that identikit picture looking like me was shown on Crimestoppers a few years back.

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Come to think of it, it's probably safe to stop wearing these glasses now.

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Thanks to that referral in Boing Boing, something like 21,000 people visited the Lite version of my London photo gallery on Flickr. Fair play to Flickr and their free account, it served up those 21,000 pages over a two day period without choking. Part of me is a little disappointed though as I thought this would be the moment I would taste the bittersweet joy of a 'bandwidth exceeded' message on one of my web pages.

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And, of course, Life being what it is this spurt of traffic came completely out of the blue and my web presence was in no way configured to benefit from it in any way whatsoever; no pictures for sale, no professional looking presentations, no scintillating, darkly humorous writing suitable for filming or publication. I had 21,000 visitors round to my virtual house and what they saw, for the most part, was the virtual equivalent of half-eaten fast food containers lying around the virtual equivalent of my front room.

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I had my chance and I blew it.

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Ho Ho

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I've had my 15 Megapixels of fame, may as well never take another photo or never write anything again and retire to a fortified compound in the South Western United States, with just a moderate cache of firearms for company.

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Of course, what the listing in Boing Boing and the fair number of favourable comments I've received on Flickr do suggest is that there is a market for London imagery that is more 'real' and less affected than the usual, cliched fare. This suggestion is in keeping with my lukewarm project about writing for a new London Mythos, that I will probably dust off and finally get stuck into sometime this week.

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Anyway, today's post wasn't supposed to be about all that stuff, no. I was hoping today that I could write praising the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for finally awarding an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar to one of the greatest actors or our time, Bill Paxton.

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Every year I watch the Oscars with bated breath and every year I'm disappointed. This year was no exception.

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For men of a certain age, my age, a significant proportion of our ever-dimming memories of the period 1985-1995 involve sitting in front of the television, surrounded by other men, beer and pizza, watching videos of Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton trying to save the world and normally getting killed in the process; particularly Bill. From Terminator through to Aliens, Navy SEALs and Tombstone you could always rely on Bill Paxton to deliver some memorably spineless lines, then find his inner courage just before being torn apart by some nameless horror.

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Bill has died nobly for our entertainment; many, many times, and the least we could do is make sure he gets the recognition he deserves and receives a fricking Oscar. Time to start a campaign methinks …

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The three most interesting Bill Paxton facts I can think of off the top of my head at the moment:

  • Along with Lance Henrikson, Bill is the only actor to have been slaughtered on screen by a Terminator, a Predator and an Alien (that should be worthy of some kind of award in itself)
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  • Surprisingly, Bill has never worn a red sweater and beamed down to a planet surface as part of a Star Trek 'Away Team'
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  • As well as appearing in Apollo 13, Bill Paxton has also travelled on a number 13 London bus; upon which, the story goes, he first met his wife. Disappointingly, the No.13 bus route itself is not as scary as its Apollo namesake or its number would suggest, travelling as it does between Golders Green and Aldwych via Baker Street. Personally, I think that the No. 13 route number should be swapped with something like the 88 which, whilst being a lucky number in Chinese, is far from fortunate for anyone boarding or alighting in the Stockwell area.
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