Bodies in Motion

Bodies in motion
Stars in Flight
Of these things
That shine in the night

Fleeting glances
Gravity sways
Pulling together
From light years away

Quickening orbits
Coming together
Closer, much closer
For moments of pleasure

Desiring this fate
In Heavens divine
I pray soon
That the planets collide

Book catalogue

I've spent the last four hours or so cataloguing my books, just because I was bored.  I got to about 172, and I've kind of given up for the night, I've gone through about half my books here, and I still have about twice as many again back at home in Oswestry.  If only I'd actually read all of them....  Its kind of depressing, I've bought all these books because I want to read them, but every time I go to do so I think I should be doing something more valuable with my time, like writing my dissertations, and then I decide to do something stupid like catalogue all my books.... Ho hum.

Rising and Falling Stars review

Quite a while ago I submitted a track of mine, Rising and Falling Stars, to the Consensus kind of like Gods of Music, but only with more reviewers, so you get a more balanced review of your work.  I've just received an email from the website saying my reviews have been published!  Having taken a look over there I am really pleased with the comments, if not some of the scores, because they at least get my music, even if they don't like it.  Also, only one review, out of over 200 has had an average score of higher than 8.00, so I'm quite pleased with getting a 6.34 overall.

Victoria and Albert

Well, today Fay, my girlfriend left for the final time.  Before anyone gets worried, we haven't split up or anything, but I am going to be moving back in with her sometime in the next couple of months, after I've finished my damn degree, so it should be the last time we ever have to say goodbye at a bus station, or a train station or from a car window.  Which will be rather pleasant.  I've had a really great week, Fay and I went to see The Life Aquatic and Robots at the cinema, we went out for a meal, went to the Komedia club in Brighton with Matt, and a good time was had by all, and we went to London for the day to check out the Victoria and Albert museum.  We had planned to go to the Natural History Museum as well, but we only managed to get to the restaurant before we realised we really had to be getting back to the train.  Matt was asking me what was in the V and A, and I'd like to list off all the amazing things we saw, with a few choice pictures, but there was so much stuff and my camera is still not behaving properly, I'm afraid its going to be a very truncated tour.

Okay, so we started off by heading into London and began our tour at:

I'm afraid the picture doesn't do the massive building justice, it is immense, and it impresses upon you the feeling that 'You do not know enough'. 


That is, in fact, a musical instrument.  Its a type of automated organ thing, from India, and that is a British redcoat underneath that Tiger.



These were in the musical instrument section, and they all look like they belong on stage at a Yes gig, so I took a picture.



Yes, that is me, and the biggest piece of silverware I've ever seen.  If you don't know what it is, its a giant ice bucket. 

The cast room was the most impressive thing, visually, in the whole building.  The V&A has taken some of the worlds most important sculptural and architectural art and moulded and cast plaster versions of them and put them in these two massive rooms in the middle of the museum.  Here's one room:


And here is the other, and yes, that is Fay in the foreground:


The Pulpit in the first room amazes me, simply because of its complexity.  How did they managed to make a cast of this:



It's so complex that I can't see how they managed to make an accurate replica of it without taking it pieces and destroying it.  They do demonstrate how to make a replica of a face of statue, which seemed relatively straightforward, but this is a whole new level of reverse-jigsaw work.  Also, I didn't realise the statue of David was so massive.  You can't really tell by looking at the photographs because usually there isn't anyone standing next door to it to give a sense of scale, but he is at least three times the size of a normal man...  Awe-inspiring.

After this we headed off to the Natural History Museum:



Past the defensive gargoyles:


And into the main hall where you are greeted by a pesky dinosaur:


We reached the restaurant and got some ridiculously expensive, but really quite tasty, smoked salmon and cheese bagels, and then found out we had to head back. 

I couldn't take photos of some of the more impressive things, like some of Michaelangelo's paintings, which were also incredibly large and detailed and I wish I'd taken more photos of some of the more mundane stuff, but I thought I'd run out of space on my camera.  But anyway, that's enough of my yackin'.