spirited away

finally got to see spirited away this morning. nothing more to say than we were not dissappointed.

blogs and dogs

so yeah apart from a blog this is the latest addition to our life- a puppy that we have called roxy, although the guys in the flat upstairs insist on calling her brian (i think they have been watching too much family guy). we're not quite sure what she is-bit a a mongrel really but we do know that she does three things pretty well: poos, chews and snoozes .

early bloggers

i know everyone seems to be getting a blog at the moment but i didn't quite expect to see one for this guy.

gunpowder treason and plot

bit strange when you see that people are actually reading your blog. cool though. so today's intresting thing i found out is kind of topical since we're coming up to guy fawkes night. this picture shows the area ( about 490m or 1/3 mile in radius) that would have been wiped out if the gunpowder plot had suceeded. i think i always thought that it would have just brought down the chamber which in inself would have killed the King and all the government, top clergy and judges. really the 2500kg of gunpowder would have been like a 5/11 for 17th century london. also quite relevent considering the recent bombs in london and the numerous terrorists threats.

the other thing i was reading was that it could have all been a massive set up so the King and the government of the day could crack down on the Catholics. there lots of little things that don't add up apparently like how a group of catholics (who were treated with suspicion anyway) could buy 36 barrels of gunpowder that was stored in the tower of london.

the first bonfire night was actually straight after when people found out that the king had been saved. people spontaneosly lit bonfires all over london in celebration. the next year an actual act was passed through parliament to desinate the day as a day of thangiving.

just some thoughts to muse on for when you all go to watch the bonfires and fireworks next week.

begin the begin

i feel like i've made quite a few leaps in my life in the the last few months so a blog was almost inevitable. not sure if i'm just just keeping up with the crowd or whether i think i'm going to create a vital historical source for future generation s(just started a History PGCE so my head's full of stuff like evidence and sources at the moment). it's probably just because we've just got the internet in our house finally and i've been hooked on what everyone else is writing on these things.

in case you we wondering the title of the blog is part of a quote from Northern Exposure. if you haven't seen it there's an episode where Chris in the morning is building a trebuchet to hurl a cow through the air but a distraught when ed tells him that monty python have already done it. As "repetition is the death of art" he struggles to find something else to fling. the final scene sees chris catapult a piano after coming to the conclusion (with the help of jung) that it's all about the journey and "the self is that which is in the process of becoming" and therefore "it's not the thing you fling; it the fling itself!"