The Euro Change Game

From the area around Munich, but also containing the left overs from a couple of other holidays Mum took (but also in Germany).

1 Greek coin
1 Austrian coin (One of the EMU/WWU commemorative coins)
1 Spanish coin
1 Belgian coin (done before the redesign so there was no way of knowing where it was from unless you recognised King Albert)
2 German coins

The Greek coin is the interesting one because I don't think either of us has ever been to Greece. It does at least show that the coins are circulating.

(no subject)

There have been complaints about my top 10 films of 2014 list (http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/939232.html).

Expected complaints, from parties that shall remain nameless but obvious, who are partisans for Guardians of the Galaxy.

First of all, it's a top 10 favourite, not a top 10 best list so it will be wonked by my taste, or lack thereof.

Secondly, some explanation of how I rank films.

a) Does this film achieve what it set out to do? Or the Ebert rule. Or, you can't watch a horror film and then a musical and complain about the lack of songs in the horror and the lack of gore in the musical (unless it's supposed to be a musical horror).

b) Technical merit. Which I grade on a curve, which we shall call angstbunny's curve for the person who explained it best. Basically, I expect the explosions in a film that cost £150 million to be better than the ones in a film that cost £150.

Or to use a proper example, the fact that in 'Tooth and Claw', Doctor Who produced a better werewolf than Warner Brothers managed to make for Harry Potter, means that Prisoner of Azkaban gets a lower tech. merit score.

Soundtracks so loud I can't hear the actors goes in here, along with lighting so poor I can't see anything. It's that sort of category.

Then there's the even more subjective criteria.

c) Intellectual satisfaction. Is the premise internally consistent, are the characters? Is there an annoying deus ex machina? (It's possible to do deus ex machina well without me claiming that a film has cheated. It normally involves a film charming me or being clever enough that I don't care.)

Then there's the most subjective.

d) Does it affect me?

Obviously this is going to vary wildly from person to person, because part of what you get out is the influences you brought in.

I am always going to like a film that makes me respond more than one that didn't.

A perfect example is Inception, and the spinning top at the end. I saw it at the Leicester Odeon on an Orange Wednesday and the entire, sold-out, audience groaned at the end, making a noise that can only be described as 'ngh'. There was a woman a few rows in front of me who was trying to knock the top over by waving at the screen. That film got us all and good.

So, some justification for the positions:

( 1 - Grand Budapest Hotel )

( 2 - Nightcrawler )

( 3 - Zero Theorem. )

( 4 - Days of Future Past )

( 5 - Edge of Tomorrow )

( 6 - Charlie Countryman )

( 7 - Hercules )

( 8 - Guardians of the Galaxy )

( 9 - How To Train Your Dragon 2 )

( 10 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles )

30 Days of Torchwood Meme - Day 01 - Your favourite Torchwood member

Owen the Slappable

As you may have gathered by my nickname for him, just because he's my favourite, it doesn't mean I always like him.

Because he is an arsehole of the first order. He is insufferable. He is frequently thoroughly unpleasant.

There's a brittle anger to him that's always there and, unlike Tosh and Ianto, when someone annoys or upsets him, he doesn't swallow it down, he explodes outwards and isn't too careful about who gets caught in the crossfire.

But he's also conscientious, even if he'd never want anyone to know it, and good at his job.

And he cares, he's terribly bad at expressing it, and is entirely too cool for school to admit it, but under several layers of leather jacket armour and sneer, there's the man who fell in love with Katie, with Diane and is in love with Tosh. Somewhere there is the guy who went into medicine to save people and keeps trying to do that.

I think it's the combination of the two parts of his character that make him interesting, one without the other would be bland.

Owen also has the advantage of being played by the best actor on the show.

( The Other Days )