Sound and Fury

I just found out that the BBC did indeed make a TV miniseries of Titus Groan and Gormenghast and that Christopher Lee did indeed play the part of Flay. Richard Griffiths was Swelter. Cora Groan was played by Zoe Wannamaker. Stephen Fry was also in it, but playing a part I haven’t come across and wikipedia has nothing to say on the subject.

The Edward whose name I couldn’t remember is Edward Furlong.

Of course, it’s not just books you can do this to. But books are good because you don’t have a visual image of your character imposed upon you. So it is easier to find actors who fit. With cartoons or videogames or whatever, you are constrained by the person looking at least a bit like the character… Remaking films with new actors is another good source of idle speculation. “If I were remaking Bridge on the River Kwai, who would I have play Saito?” for example. (Beat Takeshi, obviously.)

One thing we did in our house last year was discuss who we would cast as whom if certain things were made into films: Brendan Fraser was made to play Peter Perfect from Wacky Racers. And our house, being our house, always had a role for Sam Leeroy Jackson. So, I’ve been reading Titus Groan recently, and I’ve been thinking about who I would cast.

• The obvious choice for Fuschia would be Addams family-era Christina Ricci.
• Johnny Vegas as Swelter would make me laugh.
• Sepulchrave, Flay and Sourdust are all too alike in my mind to cast indiviually, but you could choose from a pool of Christopher Lee, Vincent Price (circa Edward Scissorhands), Ian McKellen…
• Prunesquallor should be played by Mark Heap like a less neurotic, more annoying version of Alan Statham from Green Wing
• I wonder if Rupert Grint could pull off a convincing Steerpike. Or maybe Edward thingy from American History X and Terminator 2.

It’s an interesting way to amuse oneself. If you share my film-geekery and my book-nerdage. Of course, the whole thing is spoiled if the book has been made into a film. You can’t really talk about casting for Harry Potter characters or Lord of the Rings chaps without having the actual choices impinge upon your discussion.

I’m going to think about this with other books…

I have spent the last few days being kicked repeatedly in the nuts by a really bad cold. Figuratively. I’ve missed a few lectures which will take some catching up on… And my plan to have one of my essays pretty much written up has been put on the back burner. But today thanks to Beechams (which I think is made out of magic) or my partial convalescence, I managed to plan out my essay about Robot Scientists. It’s going to be awesome. I hope I can write something in the next week and get some feedback. I also have to catch up on a lot of reading and whatnot.

Fun fact: seventeen of the twenty-nine delegates at the fifth Solvay conference were, or later became Nobel prize winners… Yikes.

I managed to get as far as Boots to buy some paracetamol and ibuprofen and (for reasons unrelated to my illness) mouthwash and shower gel. On the way past Borders I popped in and snapped up two seasons of Red Dwarf for £7 each! So this week I have spent most of my time coughing my lungs up, feeling sorry for myself and watching Red Dwarf on DVD. But now I don’t have any more episodes to watch. Thankfully I have also got over the worst of my cold as well.

I watched Run Fat Boy Run, which is quite funny. Cheesy in the extreme, but just about silly enough that it doesn’t turn into a soppy chick-flick. It did kind of make me want to go and watch Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, though. In fact I might watch Hot Fuzz this evening… I do like Stephen Merchant’s cameos. In RFBR, in HF and in Green Wing. He went to Warwick, don’t you know…

Here is a list of things I have given up for lent (This list is not exhaustive):

• Going to the Ikea cafe
• Darts
• Faster than light travel
• Eye make-up
• Eating the hearts of my enemies
• Reciting Jabberwocky backwards in front of a mirror at midnight during an eclipse
• Smoking
• Fencing
• Spoon-theft
• Doing the lottery
• Telekenesis
• Faith-healing
• Pretending to have conversations with Marlon Brando at seances
• Black Mass
• Using the phrase “doxastic haecceity”
• Beer

I am like 16 times a better Christian than you. Ha ha.

First up, Charles Darwin was born a week on Tuesday. Thus evolution sunday is soon! Interesting project. Nice to see people trying to do more than just alienate religious people. Speaking of which; The four horsemen. I haven’t watched it yet, but I have my reservations. Putting four notorious atheists round a table isn’t exactly a recipe for reasoned debate on religion. That said, I have a great amount of respect for Dawkins as a scientist and Dennett as a philosopher. (I know nothing about the other two except that they are not fans of Him Upstairs)

In other news; why are people who study metaphysics called metaphysicians and not metaphysicists? I can’t see how metaphysics is more like being a physician than a physicist. When Aristotle coined the term it was because it came after the Physics, not because it came after a treatise on medicine.

I am buying books faster than I read them. And I’m amassing a list of books I want faster than I buy them. This despite the fact I got about a dozen books for Christmas… How the devil will I ever get out of this mess? I bought and have started reading the Gormenghast trilogy. None of the books I got for Christmas have been touched yet! Oh, except Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days.

My essays have been handed in now and I’m at a bit of a loose end. Nothing much to do. Well, all sorts of things I should do, like tidy up my room and catch up with the reading for my new courses, return my the library book Everest I have built on my desk and so on. But I’m enjoying not doing much a bit too much to start any of that nonsense.

I watched Bobby today. Quite a good film. Incredible cast… Not much else to say about it really…

I’m reading Night Watch and I saw the film of Day Watch a few days ago. The book is better than either film. But isn’t that always the way…