The long walk

Their escape was just the beginning, in nine months they trekked over 4,000 miles through some of the harshest regions in the world.

Janusz, a young Polish cavalry officer is sentenced to 25 years in a Gulag forced labour camps in Siberia, for refusing admit he is an anti-communist spy, after the Russians extort a fraudulent statement from his wife.

Determined to escape Janusz  teams up with a cynical American Mr Smith, a hardened Russian criminal Valka, Polish artist Tomasz, a Latvian priest Voss, a Polish pastry chef Kazik (suffering from night blindness), and a Yugoslav accountant Zoran. They plan to break out during a severe snowstorm to cover their tracks, with little food or equipment, and no certainty of their location or intended direction, apart from trekking south to Mongolia.

During a second night Kazik freezes to death after losing his way and is buried but the group. After many days of travel across the snows and steppes of Siberia and at their limits, they reach Lake Baikal and its mosquitoes. They encounter a Polish girl Irena (who conceals a tragic experience), and who is grudgingly allowed to join their quest. Reaching the unpatrolled border between Russia and Mongolia, Valka chooses to remain, as he still sees Russia as his homeland, and Stalin as a hero. The rest continue but find that Mongolia is now also a Communist state, and that India is the closest refuge. They continue south, crossing  the Gobi Desert, suffering from a lack of water, sandstorms, and sun stroke which weakens and tests the group.

The film goes further than the book (which finishes in 1942) and brings the story full-circle.

Based on the book ‘The long walk : the true story of a trek to freedom’ by Slavomir Rawicz, the film version ‘The way back’ is directed by Australian great Peter Weir who has done a superb job with the prison camp and the landscapes.

The picnic is over

Time to pack up the basket and picnic rug - I just learnt that Picnik the photo editing site is closing, being absorbed/taken over by the giant Google. As they are stating 'the ants have invaded!'
So no more 'cueing birdsongs...picking blackberries...fluffing clouds...blooming blossoms'.
Picnik allowed you to upload photographs and add artistic effects, touch-ups, frames etc for scrapbooks, collages etc. It linked with sites like Flickr, Picasa & Photobucket.
Picnik started back in 2005, and though they joined the Google juggernaut in March 2010, they remained a separate site & presence. And now from April they will disappear into Google+

The comic...the film...the book

Cover 'Time' magazine (31.11.2011)

Like Dr Hook who wanted to get their picture On the cover of the "Rolling Stone", being on the cover of "Time" magazine is a big thing. And the film version of The adventure of Tintin has just achieved that milestone. While I might consider the Goscinny "Asterix" books superior to Herge's "Tintin", the books have been loved by generations and are still popular.
The film is motion-capture animation, to capture the look, the colour and the visual style of the original books.  Taken mainly from the book The secret of the unicorn, Tintin buys a a model ship, the "Unicorn", at a market but a couple of sinister characters are so eager to buy it from him, they are willing to resort to  kidnap and murder. Tintin and his dog Snowy sail to Morocco on an old cargo ship, mastered by the drunken Captain Haddock, to find the real "Unicorn". Haddock tells Tintin that  three hundred years earlier his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock was forced to scuttle the original Unicorn, but he managed to save his treasure and provide clues to its location in three separate scrolls (secreted in models of the Unicorn). With aid from bumbling Interpol agents the Thompson Twins our boy hero,his dog and the Captain obtain the scrolls to fulfil the prophecy that only the last of the Haddocks can discover the treasure's whereabouts.

Conceptual film images inspired by the books

Much of the film's success would lie with the artists at the Weta workshops in New Zealand, and there is a book which explores their achievements - The art of 'The adventures of Tintin'. The artists got the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg to bring the characters to the big screen (Spielberg first decided to turn the stories into film back in 1983 - just as well he spent over 20 years pondering the idea, as the digital visual effects used weren't in existence back then). The Weta people spent 5 years working on the movie. The book shows how the film makers started with the original Herge artwork; features early concept drawings; sequences, models, costume designs; and final stills from the film. It focuses on the creative process, showing the many designs that made it into the movie and others that didn't. It highlights the attention to detail. We gain an insight into the creative thinking behind the film.

Going Mobile

I have just changed this blog's template. For those readers who use a mobile phone device to access these posts, it should now fit into an appropriate screen layout instead of the old desktop style.
If you wish to see or access the links in the Sidebar, just use the View web version option at the bottom of the posts.
For those who view it via a PC, it will still appear in the desktop version.
What do you think??

And isn't that the truth

This is the ongoing balancing act - bestseller versus classic literature - which, how much, and how quickly.

Humour with a capital letter

"Going Postal" is the story of arch-swindler Moist Von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) and the beautiful, vengeful Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy). It has been made into a movie, which is screening on ABC1 TV on Saturday 17th at 7:30pm.

From the film version

A life-long travelling con-artist & fraud, Lipwig's crimes finally catch up with him in the city of Ankh-Morpork. Faced with death by hanging, Lipwig is spared by Lord Vetinari (Charles Dance), who sees him as the perfect man for the role of Postmaster in the decrepit Ankh-Morpork postal service.
 

Faced with an almost impossible task, and making an immediate enemy of bloodthirsty tyrant Reacher Gilt (David Suchet), owner of the rival money-hungry Grand Trunk Semaphore Company's clacks communication monopoly, Lipwig's first instinct is to run. That is until he meets the spellbinding Adora. Captivated by her beauty and her brains, Lipwig will try anything to win her affections... little knowing the part he has played in her family's downfall.
Lipwig  has got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers' Friendly & Benevolent Co., or a midnight killer. Maybe it'll take a criminal to succeed where honest men have failed, or perhaps there's a shot of redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...

Sir Terry Pratchett is the second most-read author in Britain today, behind J.K. Rowling. His back catalogue, is the number one best selling of any author in the U.K. Pratchett is increasingly popular in the United States and is now the sixth most read non U.S.-author in the United States.

Full of the jokes, parodies, allusions and references which season the Discworld stories, you need to see "Going postal".

FJs don't measure up?

Headline in today's Age newspaper -Fletcher Jones on the brink

'Venerable clothing retailer Fletcher Jones last night became the latest casualty of the gloom gripping Australian retail, being placed in administration after 93 years in the tailoring trade.
The company joined a string of retail sector failures this year that includes outdoors wear chain Colorado, Borders bookstores, and fashion groups Ed Hardy, Bettina Liano, Brown Sugar and Satch.
Staff at Fletcher Jones’ 45 stores across Australia were told of the predicament at 4pm meetings yesterday.

Fletcher Jones stores will continue to trade while administrator Bruno Secatore of Cor Cordis assesses the company’s situation.
‘‘It’s business as usual for customers and everyone,’’ he said last night, after confirming he had been appointed.
Founded in 1918 in Warrnambool by World War I veteran David Fletcher Jones, the company expanded through the 1920s and 1930s to become a postwar manufacturing success story that at its peak employed 3000 at four factories.
But it was hit by the rise of Chinese manufacturing and the dismantling of clothing tariffs from the 1980s.
Fletcher Jones' current owners, the Dimmick family, bought it in 1995. They slashed the number of shops, closing stores in shopping centres where rent was expensive in favour of lower-rent shopping strips.
Sales increased, with the introduction of the GST giving the business a one-off boost as shoppers brought forward the purchase of items such as suits.
But by 2000, sales had again started to suffer. The turmoil in Australia's manufacturing sector has also continued, with receivers taking control of packaging group HP, which employs 300 workers making a variety of products including bottles for Dettol, Harpic and Finish.
National Australia Bank, which is believed to be owed more than $50 million, appointed receivers Greg Hall and Michael Fung on Tuesday.
Mr Hall said''The business is undercapitalised and that is the main factor that has led to the decision to appoint receivers and managers and voluntary administrators''.'

FJ's iconic gardens at the Warrnambool plant

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/fletcher-jones-on-the-brink-20111207-1ojb8.html#ixzz1fvAeK8p0

Peak oil!?

I've just finished listening to (as opposed to reading) Alex Scarrow's Last light and Afterlight, and I'm scared.
These books are fiction, but I started Last light when the English riots in August were happening (the looting, the arson, the loss of control by the police), were in fact paralleling the book, hence my apprehension & fascination with pilchards in tomato sauce.
The story was recommended to me as another in the post-apocalyptic theme. It takes a relatively common gist, our reliance on oil, but takes the premise up a notch.

I'm not that keen with how some of the deaths come to pass, or a generation-encompassing conspiracy, but the scenarios as the publicity states - is as real as tomorrow, and how long would you last.
Not wishing to ruin the story for others, but essentially it primarily follows the members of the Sutherland family after a massive oil crisis - what happens to them and to the rest of the world at large.
All I know is I'm stocking up the pantry with non-perishables!
Be prepared.

In the Shed

The interior of the Stick Shed

The Murtoa Stick Shed spans the length of five Olympic swimming pools. Built in 1941, it is the last remaining of the sheds constructed in Australia as a solution for grain storage during the World War II wheat glut. The Stick Shed demonstrates Australian ingenuity during a time of hardship, some of the purlins and rafters were connected with twitched wire - the farmers' answer for holding things together.
Unfortunately the Stick Shed was only open to the public on the Big Weekend, work is underway to enable more frequent Open Days, but nothing has been announced yet - watch this space.