Thankful for Auntie Beeb

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Our family has a lot to be thankful for this year. Most of it related to the Sprog.

Chats, because of her workplace's vacation scheduling rules, can't take any time between Christmas and New Year's, so she using a couple of her days now (she has a birthday coming up Sunday). She doesn't have to be back at work until Monday the 9th. (You get a lot of mileage out of a few days off as a part-timer.)

We kicked off her holiday last night with a viewing of a never-before-seen (at least in this household) Jane Austen, the BBC's 1971 Sense and Sensibility. Thankfully, it didn't look quite as "stagey" as other Austens we have from this era (the otherwise great 1972 Emma suffers in particular). Best part about it was Joanna David as Elinor -- she played the sensible Mrs. Gardiner in the gold-standard BBC Pride and Prejudice Firth/Ehle version. David's take on Elinor was a little more controlled and less barely-hiding-the-heartbreak than most performances and I thought she outshone her fellow Elinors in the key scene where she admits to Marianne that she knew about Edward's engagement to Lucy Steele. Another treat was Patricia "It's pronounced bou-QUET" Routledge as Mrs. Jennings. She did Austen with such zest I was wishing I could see her as Mrs. Bennet or Aunt Norris.

Chats had some quibbles with the costuming and wanted to talk with Missyisms several times during the viewing.

My problem was that this version, being from 1971, meant that all the male characters had Big Gay Perms. They looked like Eternals from Zardoz. I shouldn't cast stones, having resorted to a body wave in the early 80s thanks to my rather thin and lifeless hair, but there it is. Any time it looks like the men worked harder on their hair than the women it gets distracting. Not that the women didn't have lovely hair in this -- I really liked David's blond up-do.

Anyway, it's good to have another BBC miniseries Austen in our rotation. They may not have the budgets of the theatricals, but you get more verbatim Jane for your viewing pleasure.

Our top five Austen rankings remain unchanged:

1. 
   
2. Pride and Prejudice (1995) Still unchallenged.
   
3. Sense and Sensibility (1995) Alan Rickman's presence always means I get a right good shagging.
   
4. Persuasion (1995)
   
5. Mansfield Park (1983)
   
6. Emma (1972)
   

Was 1995 a good year for Austen or what?

Chats and I are in some disagreement over the Emma/Mansfield Park 4 and 5 rankings. She thinks Fanny Price is Austen's second greatest heroine (shy women rarely get to be heroines) and Sylvestra Le Touzel is great in the role, but I think the 72 Emma cast solid -- to the tiniest part they're all pitch-perfect to my taste -- but I'll accept her arrangement as justified.

Hammer Glamour

One of my purchases at WindyCon was Marcus Hearn's new compilation of Hammer gals, Hammer Glamour. Who wouldn't love a nice hardcover featuring all those former playmates and Bond girls? Lots of people, I imagine, but I was willing to pony up some cash.

Cover girl Madeline Smith pretty much says it all about this volume: plenty of great 60s-early 70s totty.

New Oak Park logo: now bears 95% more resemblance to a penis

Chats & my tax dollars at work:



They hired a consulting firm to come up with this. Reminds me of the old "Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day!" joke.

While I support this logo, since Oak Park is so full of dicks, I gotta say most of the dicks here are shriveled and useless, in contrast to this satisfyingly plump, proud chubby one would be happy to bring home to the wife. So I call Shenanigans with the charge of false advertising.

On another fun note, roller-skating babies advertising Evian:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs

Blogging of babies, I think I picked up a bug at the pediatrician's office on Thursday. I became rather sick last night. Getting over it though.

Best of Hubble

Space. The Final Frontier. One of the few things I'd rather look at than tits...

http://www.chilloutpoint.com/featured/space-images-the-best-of-hubbles-shots.html

Kaufmann: the scam is afoot!

The always-entertaining nick_kaufmann is exposing a new writer's scam here with an appalling follow-up here.

Perhaps there is more money to be made in bilking starry-eyed amateurs than in publishing interesting stories. But that doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be fought.