I play WoW. I love my guild because it has a really good set of people in it. Some I raid with more often than others, because I'm in the progression group, some are not, because they've just not quite at the skill level to do so. They're not bad raiders, just they're not as group-aware as our progression lot, partly because they haven't been raiding as long. They're not happy at this, but to bring one of them to the progression group for a run, makes 10 people unhappy (the 9 they're raiding with and the one whose position they have taken). No doubt they'll improve with time, as they have done so far, but until that time they'll just have to stick with the group that still struggles with the first few bosses. In honour of these raiders:
Hello Raiders. Look at your gear, now back to mine, now at your gear, now back to mine. Sadly, it's not mine, but if you stopped failing and started reading boss strategies it could be like mine. Look down, back up. Where are you? You're with your guildies in the raid you want to raid in. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it, it's that green weapon you've had for months. Look again. Your green is now an epic. Anything is possible when you listen to your raid leader. I'm on a drake.
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Verdun Overview
Hmm, well I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd post something useful. This is about Verdun and the surrounding area as I have experienced it with some hints for anyone that may want to visit. I have visited the area with both a historical and a paranormal interest, so there'll be a little description as regards to each area. From a paranormal point of view, I am an open-minded sceptic (fascinated by the whole range of paranormal phenomena, unconvinced by a lot of it, but enjoying exploring things for myself) but have a number of sensitive friends who I went to the area with.
It's quite a long post, so if you just want videos or pretty pictures with fewer words, look at the links at the bottom!
Introduction
Verdun is often overlooked by the history books, or at least the ones written in English, which is a shame because it has a fascinating, if bloody and devastating, history. World War 1 is the most critical point in this history and the Battle of Verdun basically appears to be to the French what the Battle of the Somme was to the British.
Whether you're interested in history or not, it is a place with many reminders, both stark and beautiful, as well as functional, of what war can do to places and to people. Paranormally, sensitive friends have said it is an extremely active area and I have to say there is an extraordinary atmosphere about the place. Even the wildlife are part of it - at sunset birdsong, in my experience, usually dies off gradually. In the area around the forts and the Ossuary it just stops dead, absolutely silent all of a sudden - rather creepy!
I definitely recommend a visit to the area, even simply because it is beautiful and interesting. Whatever your purpose for a visit, remember to be respectful as the whole area is basically one massive war memorial.
Verdun Town
The town is really pretty, with the Meuse river running through the centre. Plenty of cafes and restaurants serving delicious food on the banks of it. The town is a mix of old and new buildings, the older ones often bearing deep shrapnel scars from bombs in both World Wars. Places of note include the Cathedral (housing the second largest organ in France), the Victory Monument and the Citadel, which has tours run on funky little carts on rails that I can only describe as reminding me of a ghost train!
The Citadel gift shop (and probably other places like the Tourist Office) also sells clever RFID controlled personal audio guides (in a range of languages) with headphones. At various locations in the surrounding area (at forts, old villages and other monuments) you will see posts with a hemispherical object stuck to them. These are radio transmitters that, when your receiver comes close enough to them, it triggers the right track in the memory card in the device to tell you about the area.
Forts
There are a massive number of forts in the area, mostly in a semi-ruined state. Two of them, Douaumont and Vaux, are open to the public (very small entrance fee) and definitely worth a visit. They are powerfully atmospheric places. Be warned that, even when it's 25+ centigrade outside, they're still quite cold on the inner/lower parts due to being mostly underground. They are also damp, having to be constantly pumped out in places due to changes in the local water table. Worth taking a torch even in these ones as not all places (e.g. side rooms) are fully lit.
I have placed markers on a map to show where forts and other points of interest are in the area, it can be found here. Zoom in closely in satellite view and you can still see the distinctive pentagonal outlines of many of the forts, showing how massive they are.
The only ones officially open to the public are Douaumont and Vaux, plus the Abri de Quatre Cheminees (Four Chimneys). The rest have signs warning you not to enter, but no restrictions, however they have mostly been made safe (coverings or iron gates over internal stairs or ladders to lower levels for example) but you still need to be very aware of where you are treading. You will definitely need a torch to go anywhere beyond the entrance of them as they are pitch black inside. Also, don't go in if you don't like bats, there are quite a few flapping around in there even in the daytime! The exception to this is Tavannes Fort, which is the only one covered by military warning signs. We went as close as we could and, given the very destroyed-looking state, we assume it is because of potentially unexploded munitions and the area being too hazardous/unstable to clear.
Souville
The main entrance we found (marked on map) is from a track through the woods the track is easily passable by car and there is plenty of space for parking outside. The easiest route in is from a doorway to the right, but be careful as there is an open pit a few paces in, not deep (2-3ft) but enough to hurt if it catches you out. Follow to the left across the front entrance and round to the right into the fort proper. Definite need of torches as it gets very dark very quickly as you go further, to the point that on a bright summer's day you can't see your hand in front of your face inside. Lots of slippery mud, a few now-stable looking cave-ins, but do take caution. We explored a bit going through many passages and eventually up a long, steep mud slope to an exit in the woods above the fort.
A female friend tried automatic writing while inside the fort, while the rest of us called out in a mix of French and English, French seeming to get clearer responses (even with our stilted and muddled version of it!). She made contact with a young soldier fighting for the French side, but who was apparently part French, part German. In response to asking where he died she drew what we took to be a cross-section of a trench, a rectangular sign, with an arrow within the sign pointing into the trench - we had no torches on throughout this. He said he didn't like to fight and he felt sorry for all the soldiers on both sides due to the miserable, cold conditions.
Four Chimneys & Froideterre
The Four Chimneys is a straight tunnel-like room with two side entrances and has four ventilation shafts which give it its name. It was used as a field hospital at one point of the war. The area around here and Froideterre was one of the worst hit, because of the vantage point Froideterre gave. There are some astonishing statistics associated with this location, with the main one being that over a million shells were fired onto this area in a 24-hour period. Unsurprisingly this led to severe deafness and shell-shock of those in the Four Chimneys base. Froideterre is a defensive structure split into a few different sections, all with a distinctly different feel to them, the right-most section being the largest. There is a small amount of parking alongside the road near the steps down to the Four Chimneys and plenty of parking up at Froideterre.
In the Four Chimneys area some members of our group smelled cigar smoke and another saw a misty figure briefly nearer the left end (taken from the direction you enter). We all heard small stones being moved/thrown.
Froideterre has a completely different atmosphere in the day than it does at night - it feels much more oppressive at night, far more so than other areas that we visited. Our most interesting experience here was, as we were exiting the main part (at night) we saw a small light in the direction of the car. At first we assumed we'd left the interior light on but, as we got closer we realised there was no light on in the car and there was no evidence of the light we had just seen. We then thought that there may be other people up there with a torch, but the area is gravelled and we would have heard a car arriving (the fort has a number of barred-over exits onto the car park area in addition to the one you can go in, so easy to hear anything approaching). In case they had walked up, not driven, and then gone into one of the other sections we looked in them too, but there was nobody to be found!
Tavannes Tunnel
This was used as a troop and munitions store and was another heavily bombed area because of this, forcing the troops to stay within it. It is just over a kilometer in length. Bunk beds and boxes of explosives lined the walls with the gullies at the edges used as toilets. Apparently there was an accident which set off explosive materials, which quickly turned the place into an inferno. The fire lasted for three days and 500 men died in the incident.
Parking is available at the point "Parking 2" on the map, where there is also a memorial to 16 men found in a mass grave and thought to have been executed by the Gestapo. Follow the path beyond that, and continue heading straight and you will shortly see the railway line. It is now a double tunnel, with the original tunnel no longer used, but be very careful as the other track is still live, carrying high-speed trains and you need to cross the track to get to the older tunnel. It is quite a distinctive-looking tunnel as it was reinforced with concrete ribs every few metres after the war. The tunnel curves and does get quite dark, so torches are again needed. There are small side-rooms that link to the live tunnel, so take care if exploring them.
Douaumont Ossuary
The Ossuary (name deriving from the Latin for bones) is a spectacular, if somewhat gruesome and devastating place. It is a good starting place to get a feel for the surrounding area and there is a small cafe nearby (marked on map) which does good snacks.
The Ossuary building itself dominates the landscape, around 140 metres long with a 42 metre tower. In the top of the tower a red and white light revolves, sweeping the landscape at night - it is the "lighthouse for the dead". The building contains names of the known dead as well as a museum containing parts of the remains of the local destroyed villages. If you walk around the back of the building, there are many small windows near floor level. Look into them and in each you will see a room containing thousands upon thousands of bones, some stacked up by type - skull, thigh etc... - and some just piled in together. These are the remains of some 130,000 people, with more bones being added each year as they are discovered in the surrounding forest. It's probably one of the most hard-hitting and direct displays of the horrors and realities of war that you could ever see.
In the grounds in front of the Ossuary are the immaculately maintained graves of 15,000 soldiers, and not just the French. There are also monuments across the road from the main cemetery to soldiers of other religions. Across the road at the lower end there is an open patch where you can clearly see the many craters caused by shells fired onto the area. The whole landscape is like this beneath the trees, very little has been touched, this is just a good place to see the effect clearly. It is amazing to think that, at the end of the war, the landscape was dull and muddy, shelled to the point where there were no trees and churned up so much that barely a blade of grass could be seen. Now the area is mostly forest, some planted, some natural growth.
Fort de Belleville
This we visited in the daytime only. The main battles of the war never reached this fort, but it is interesting to look round as it is mostly intact. It is very overgrown though and, although unlike other forts, the majority of this one is above ground, there are still places over the top with ventilation shafts leading to rooms a few metres below, so be very careful where you tread.
Le Mort Homme
This is a memorial on the site of an strategically important hill (as a vantage point for potential bombing of the city of Verdun) and the French defended it fiercely. The nearby village was completely obliterated and never rebuilt. The statue has the words "Ils n'ont pas passé" meaning "They shall not pass".
The General Area
It is worth taking a walk through the forests to see other ruined structures such as field hospitals or ammo caches. Some are marked and signposted, others you just wander through and suddenly come across. There are a number of such places you can visit by walking from "Parking 1" on the map. Cross the road from the car park towards the south and go down a slope to the right and you will see a structure built under the road. Walk through the woods along the path leading from the car park and you come across a field hospital. Across the road towards the Tavannes Fort and there are small ammo caches in the undergrowth. Across many of the forests in the area, especially around Fort Souville there are still clear trenches that you can walk along. Over the top of Fort Souville, as well as Douaumont and Vaux, you will come across the iron-covered gun turrets of the respective forts, many of which have gouges and dents from where ammunition has hit. The whole area is pock-marked with shell holes of varying depths.
The wider area has many interesting places to see (museums, destroyed villages, monuments and other tunnels), too many to list here. Some are named on the map, some can be found detailed in the tourist office or from a brief search online. Listed below are some links to sites that have good detail of the war, the forts and/or good pictures of the area.
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/verdun.html - a good overview of the area and what is left today.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://en.wikipedia.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giforg/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun - detail of the battle itself.
http://tinyurl.com/3uht62u - some of my own pictures, taken in various locations mentioned above, labelled as to where they are.
http://www.tsarskoe-productions.com/verdunteaser.wma
http://www.tsarskoe-productions.com/Verdun2007.wmv - two videos done by a one of the friends that went to the area. The first gives some good images of almost all of the places mentioned above, quite a nice "quick tour" of them actually. The second is shorter but a bit more "dramatic" with statistics and old photos included.
It's quite a long post, so if you just want videos or pretty pictures with fewer words, look at the links at the bottom!
Introduction
Verdun is often overlooked by the history books, or at least the ones written in English, which is a shame because it has a fascinating, if bloody and devastating, history. World War 1 is the most critical point in this history and the Battle of Verdun basically appears to be to the French what the Battle of the Somme was to the British.
Whether you're interested in history or not, it is a place with many reminders, both stark and beautiful, as well as functional, of what war can do to places and to people. Paranormally, sensitive friends have said it is an extremely active area and I have to say there is an extraordinary atmosphere about the place. Even the wildlife are part of it - at sunset birdsong, in my experience, usually dies off gradually. In the area around the forts and the Ossuary it just stops dead, absolutely silent all of a sudden - rather creepy!
I definitely recommend a visit to the area, even simply because it is beautiful and interesting. Whatever your purpose for a visit, remember to be respectful as the whole area is basically one massive war memorial.
Verdun Town
The town is really pretty, with the Meuse river running through the centre. Plenty of cafes and restaurants serving delicious food on the banks of it. The town is a mix of old and new buildings, the older ones often bearing deep shrapnel scars from bombs in both World Wars. Places of note include the Cathedral (housing the second largest organ in France), the Victory Monument and the Citadel, which has tours run on funky little carts on rails that I can only describe as reminding me of a ghost train!
The Citadel gift shop (and probably other places like the Tourist Office) also sells clever RFID controlled personal audio guides (in a range of languages) with headphones. At various locations in the surrounding area (at forts, old villages and other monuments) you will see posts with a hemispherical object stuck to them. These are radio transmitters that, when your receiver comes close enough to them, it triggers the right track in the memory card in the device to tell you about the area.
Forts
There are a massive number of forts in the area, mostly in a semi-ruined state. Two of them, Douaumont and Vaux, are open to the public (very small entrance fee) and definitely worth a visit. They are powerfully atmospheric places. Be warned that, even when it's 25+ centigrade outside, they're still quite cold on the inner/lower parts due to being mostly underground. They are also damp, having to be constantly pumped out in places due to changes in the local water table. Worth taking a torch even in these ones as not all places (e.g. side rooms) are fully lit.
I have placed markers on a map to show where forts and other points of interest are in the area, it can be found here. Zoom in closely in satellite view and you can still see the distinctive pentagonal outlines of many of the forts, showing how massive they are.
The only ones officially open to the public are Douaumont and Vaux, plus the Abri de Quatre Cheminees (Four Chimneys). The rest have signs warning you not to enter, but no restrictions, however they have mostly been made safe (coverings or iron gates over internal stairs or ladders to lower levels for example) but you still need to be very aware of where you are treading. You will definitely need a torch to go anywhere beyond the entrance of them as they are pitch black inside. Also, don't go in if you don't like bats, there are quite a few flapping around in there even in the daytime! The exception to this is Tavannes Fort, which is the only one covered by military warning signs. We went as close as we could and, given the very destroyed-looking state, we assume it is because of potentially unexploded munitions and the area being too hazardous/unstable to clear.
Souville
The main entrance we found (marked on map) is from a track through the woods the track is easily passable by car and there is plenty of space for parking outside. The easiest route in is from a doorway to the right, but be careful as there is an open pit a few paces in, not deep (2-3ft) but enough to hurt if it catches you out. Follow to the left across the front entrance and round to the right into the fort proper. Definite need of torches as it gets very dark very quickly as you go further, to the point that on a bright summer's day you can't see your hand in front of your face inside. Lots of slippery mud, a few now-stable looking cave-ins, but do take caution. We explored a bit going through many passages and eventually up a long, steep mud slope to an exit in the woods above the fort.
A female friend tried automatic writing while inside the fort, while the rest of us called out in a mix of French and English, French seeming to get clearer responses (even with our stilted and muddled version of it!). She made contact with a young soldier fighting for the French side, but who was apparently part French, part German. In response to asking where he died she drew what we took to be a cross-section of a trench, a rectangular sign, with an arrow within the sign pointing into the trench - we had no torches on throughout this. He said he didn't like to fight and he felt sorry for all the soldiers on both sides due to the miserable, cold conditions.
Four Chimneys & Froideterre
The Four Chimneys is a straight tunnel-like room with two side entrances and has four ventilation shafts which give it its name. It was used as a field hospital at one point of the war. The area around here and Froideterre was one of the worst hit, because of the vantage point Froideterre gave. There are some astonishing statistics associated with this location, with the main one being that over a million shells were fired onto this area in a 24-hour period. Unsurprisingly this led to severe deafness and shell-shock of those in the Four Chimneys base. Froideterre is a defensive structure split into a few different sections, all with a distinctly different feel to them, the right-most section being the largest. There is a small amount of parking alongside the road near the steps down to the Four Chimneys and plenty of parking up at Froideterre.
In the Four Chimneys area some members of our group smelled cigar smoke and another saw a misty figure briefly nearer the left end (taken from the direction you enter). We all heard small stones being moved/thrown.
Froideterre has a completely different atmosphere in the day than it does at night - it feels much more oppressive at night, far more so than other areas that we visited. Our most interesting experience here was, as we were exiting the main part (at night) we saw a small light in the direction of the car. At first we assumed we'd left the interior light on but, as we got closer we realised there was no light on in the car and there was no evidence of the light we had just seen. We then thought that there may be other people up there with a torch, but the area is gravelled and we would have heard a car arriving (the fort has a number of barred-over exits onto the car park area in addition to the one you can go in, so easy to hear anything approaching). In case they had walked up, not driven, and then gone into one of the other sections we looked in them too, but there was nobody to be found!
Tavannes Tunnel
This was used as a troop and munitions store and was another heavily bombed area because of this, forcing the troops to stay within it. It is just over a kilometer in length. Bunk beds and boxes of explosives lined the walls with the gullies at the edges used as toilets. Apparently there was an accident which set off explosive materials, which quickly turned the place into an inferno. The fire lasted for three days and 500 men died in the incident.
Parking is available at the point "Parking 2" on the map, where there is also a memorial to 16 men found in a mass grave and thought to have been executed by the Gestapo. Follow the path beyond that, and continue heading straight and you will shortly see the railway line. It is now a double tunnel, with the original tunnel no longer used, but be very careful as the other track is still live, carrying high-speed trains and you need to cross the track to get to the older tunnel. It is quite a distinctive-looking tunnel as it was reinforced with concrete ribs every few metres after the war. The tunnel curves and does get quite dark, so torches are again needed. There are small side-rooms that link to the live tunnel, so take care if exploring them.
Douaumont Ossuary
The Ossuary (name deriving from the Latin for bones) is a spectacular, if somewhat gruesome and devastating place. It is a good starting place to get a feel for the surrounding area and there is a small cafe nearby (marked on map) which does good snacks.
The Ossuary building itself dominates the landscape, around 140 metres long with a 42 metre tower. In the top of the tower a red and white light revolves, sweeping the landscape at night - it is the "lighthouse for the dead". The building contains names of the known dead as well as a museum containing parts of the remains of the local destroyed villages. If you walk around the back of the building, there are many small windows near floor level. Look into them and in each you will see a room containing thousands upon thousands of bones, some stacked up by type - skull, thigh etc... - and some just piled in together. These are the remains of some 130,000 people, with more bones being added each year as they are discovered in the surrounding forest. It's probably one of the most hard-hitting and direct displays of the horrors and realities of war that you could ever see.
In the grounds in front of the Ossuary are the immaculately maintained graves of 15,000 soldiers, and not just the French. There are also monuments across the road from the main cemetery to soldiers of other religions. Across the road at the lower end there is an open patch where you can clearly see the many craters caused by shells fired onto the area. The whole landscape is like this beneath the trees, very little has been touched, this is just a good place to see the effect clearly. It is amazing to think that, at the end of the war, the landscape was dull and muddy, shelled to the point where there were no trees and churned up so much that barely a blade of grass could be seen. Now the area is mostly forest, some planted, some natural growth.
Fort de Belleville
This we visited in the daytime only. The main battles of the war never reached this fort, but it is interesting to look round as it is mostly intact. It is very overgrown though and, although unlike other forts, the majority of this one is above ground, there are still places over the top with ventilation shafts leading to rooms a few metres below, so be very careful where you tread.
Le Mort Homme
This is a memorial on the site of an strategically important hill (as a vantage point for potential bombing of the city of Verdun) and the French defended it fiercely. The nearby village was completely obliterated and never rebuilt. The statue has the words "Ils n'ont pas passé" meaning "They shall not pass".
The General Area
It is worth taking a walk through the forests to see other ruined structures such as field hospitals or ammo caches. Some are marked and signposted, others you just wander through and suddenly come across. There are a number of such places you can visit by walking from "Parking 1" on the map. Cross the road from the car park towards the south and go down a slope to the right and you will see a structure built under the road. Walk through the woods along the path leading from the car park and you come across a field hospital. Across the road towards the Tavannes Fort and there are small ammo caches in the undergrowth. Across many of the forests in the area, especially around Fort Souville there are still clear trenches that you can walk along. Over the top of Fort Souville, as well as Douaumont and Vaux, you will come across the iron-covered gun turrets of the respective forts, many of which have gouges and dents from where ammunition has hit. The whole area is pock-marked with shell holes of varying depths.
The wider area has many interesting places to see (museums, destroyed villages, monuments and other tunnels), too many to list here. Some are named on the map, some can be found detailed in the tourist office or from a brief search online. Listed below are some links to sites that have good detail of the war, the forts and/or good pictures of the area.
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/verdun.html - a good overview of the area and what is left today.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://en.wikipedia.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giforg/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun - detail of the battle itself.
http://tinyurl.com/3uht62u - some of my own pictures, taken in various locations mentioned above, labelled as to where they are.
http://www.tsarskoe-productions.com/verdunteaser.wma
http://www.tsarskoe-productions.com/Verdun2007.wmv - two videos done by a one of the friends that went to the area. The first gives some good images of almost all of the places mentioned above, quite a nice "quick tour" of them actually. The second is shorter but a bit more "dramatic" with statistics and old photos included.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Love at first listen.
Ever heard a piece of music that you had no idea what on earth it was, but you loved it so much that you HAD to find out so you could buy it?
It's happened a few times with me. The ones I can remember:
(Slip & Slide) Suicide by Kosheen
Two Months Off by Underworld
Pride by Syntax
I'm not Alone by Calvin Harris
Pjanoo by Eric Prydz
I'm sure there were a few more but those are the ones that stick out the most. I ended up buying albums for the first 3 as soon as I found out what they were and they're all still some of my favourite albums now.
It's happened a few times with me. The ones I can remember:
(Slip & Slide) Suicide by Kosheen
Two Months Off by Underworld
Pride by Syntax
I'm not Alone by Calvin Harris
Pjanoo by Eric Prydz
I'm sure there were a few more but those are the ones that stick out the most. I ended up buying albums for the first 3 as soon as I found out what they were and they're all still some of my favourite albums now.
Monday, 1 June 2009
Britain HAS Got Talent
There are very few "reality" TV shows that I will watch, mostly consisting of the various versions of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The one other exception is Britain's Got Talent. I like it because it's not just singing, which really gets rather boring after a while, no matter how good the people are. I like the variety of it.
It's a bit of a curious beast in that way because you can get all your "normal" talents like singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic etc... and you unusual and unexpected but fun ones... and then you get the real weirdos. That's the main reason I like watching the auditions, for the totally off-the-wall things you get to see, either by people who really think they have a talent but don't or the people who know they're awful but have gone along for a laugh (and to get on TV, let's be honest!).
Then you get to the semi-finals, and I have to say those always annoy me. You get a lot of people who really deserve to be there because they're brilliant at whatever they do. Then you get the people that have obviously just been stuck in for comedy value. These are the people that annoy me. Well, not so much them, but the fact that the judges put them through. It wouldn't be so bad if there were quarter finals where the judges put a load of good people through and then the comedy value acts, but there were certainly a lot of people far more deserving of a place in the semis than a number of those that went through.
The finals are always good though. I think this year there were only 2 acts that I wanted to go through to the finals that didn't make it, but I don't think it will have harmed their chances of getting where they want to be. I have to say I was amazed at the standards this year. The last two years there have been some definite front-runners all the way through, and putting the rest in the final has been more of a token gesture than anything else. This year was different - I think pretty much all of the acts had a good chance of winning, which made it so much more interesting.
I was so glad that Diversity won though. I don't have anything against Susan Boyle, her singing was excellent (though I was very glad she went back to her original song instead of Memory like she did in the semis!). But singing is not something that you can add originality to. Yes you can have a very unique voice, you can even change the phrasing and emphasis in a song, but it's not true originality unless you write the song yourself. Diversity's dancing was so different, so unusual, so original and they even made the effort to make it fun and relevant. I think that's where they beat Flawless.
Both Diversity and Flawless were tight, slick and brilliantly choreographed, but Diversity had far more unique moves, they had much more of a sense of fun with it and I just loved how they made the effort to add in little touches that showed that it wasn't just a routine they'd know for ages - the telephone and "You have just voted for Diversity" in the semis and the judges + buzzers in the final - very very cleverly done. Well done to them and I hope we see more of them.
It's a bit of a curious beast in that way because you can get all your "normal" talents like singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic etc... and you unusual and unexpected but fun ones... and then you get the real weirdos. That's the main reason I like watching the auditions, for the totally off-the-wall things you get to see, either by people who really think they have a talent but don't or the people who know they're awful but have gone along for a laugh (and to get on TV, let's be honest!).
Then you get to the semi-finals, and I have to say those always annoy me. You get a lot of people who really deserve to be there because they're brilliant at whatever they do. Then you get the people that have obviously just been stuck in for comedy value. These are the people that annoy me. Well, not so much them, but the fact that the judges put them through. It wouldn't be so bad if there were quarter finals where the judges put a load of good people through and then the comedy value acts, but there were certainly a lot of people far more deserving of a place in the semis than a number of those that went through.
The finals are always good though. I think this year there were only 2 acts that I wanted to go through to the finals that didn't make it, but I don't think it will have harmed their chances of getting where they want to be. I have to say I was amazed at the standards this year. The last two years there have been some definite front-runners all the way through, and putting the rest in the final has been more of a token gesture than anything else. This year was different - I think pretty much all of the acts had a good chance of winning, which made it so much more interesting.
I was so glad that Diversity won though. I don't have anything against Susan Boyle, her singing was excellent (though I was very glad she went back to her original song instead of Memory like she did in the semis!). But singing is not something that you can add originality to. Yes you can have a very unique voice, you can even change the phrasing and emphasis in a song, but it's not true originality unless you write the song yourself. Diversity's dancing was so different, so unusual, so original and they even made the effort to make it fun and relevant. I think that's where they beat Flawless.
Both Diversity and Flawless were tight, slick and brilliantly choreographed, but Diversity had far more unique moves, they had much more of a sense of fun with it and I just loved how they made the effort to add in little touches that showed that it wasn't just a routine they'd know for ages - the telephone and "You have just voted for Diversity" in the semis and the judges + buzzers in the final - very very cleverly done. Well done to them and I hope we see more of them.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Fuzzy Ponderings - An Introduction
Well, I never thought I'd ever start a blog. It's just not "my thing". However, I've got to a point where I have so many random, disjointed musings (aka Fuzzy Ponderings) filling my head with unanswered questions that I had to write them down somewhere!
I don't expect my questions to be answered, as mostly they're semi-rhetorical "what if?" thoughts, but if anyone wants to shed their own perspective on such things - please feel free!
Posting will probably be like London buses - nothing for ages, then three come along at once! It'll just be as and when I feel things need to be pondered upon.
I don't expect my questions to be answered, as mostly they're semi-rhetorical "what if?" thoughts, but if anyone wants to shed their own perspective on such things - please feel free!
Posting will probably be like London buses - nothing for ages, then three come along at once! It'll just be as and when I feel things need to be pondered upon.
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