Cheap Dessert and a general update

Hey.

Uni season has begun again, and things move from one end of the fun spectrum to the other as this week has gone by. But of most of the things that have happened this week, I think I would start with Saturday's activities.

On Sunday I travelled back to the big smoke. So, with Saturday being my last full day to go and do fun things, the Old Guard from my home church headed out to a waterhole that us and a handful of other people in the local area know about. It's a spot you need a four-wheel-drive car to get to, and judging by the small jungle that we had to push through to get to the parking area, it would seem that the last time the track was used was when we last went down there.

It's also been raining quite a bit since the start of the holidays, so our trek down was something of a giant mad-toboggan ride. We got out okay, but there was a lot of mud stuck to the back of the car at the end of it.

I have a couple photos from this outing. I've gone with the group twice before and both times forgot to grab clothes for swimming in. Which was an error. This time that fact got fixed, so I was spending more time in the water than taking photos of everyone jumping around and chasing a butterfly.

So, Documentational footage.

Podiatry-based puns aside, I think also half the reason why the photos were less this time was because I spent more time being dunked in freezing cold water and generally having fun; looking at the tiny details in the moss and rotting wood chilling up on the top of the waterfall with us, poking weird stuff, and laughing when the lads fed one of the tiny ponds of tadpoles sunkist.

It's the little things in life.

The little, glorious things. I really like this waterhole, freezingness aside.



The other, slightly important (well, it's important now) thing that happened when we were out there was that I fell over. It sounds short and concise and that's really what it is. Some of those bits of rock were really slippery. I walked on one of those slippery bits without traction control engaged and the hardest rock in the world hi-fived my body.



I was a bit busy trying not to let it hi-five my head on the way down, so I didn't have any idea on what happened to my big toe. Still don't have any idea at the moment, but I've got roughly the same stride length as my grandfather, and he only has one knee.

At the moment? Visited the doctor yesterday. She thinks it might be fractured. My toe, that is. Not Grandpa's knee. I have to go somewhere and let them do science to my foot to find out. I'll show you the results when I get back from it. Anyway, it hurts, and I tend to whinge a lot when I bust something. So there you are. My whinging. Moving on.

We spent the rest of the arvo chilling out, watching Zombieland, until finally darkness fell and the last bits of the plan were put into place. Steel Wool, it turns out, you can set on fire if you rub it with a battery. By putting together a simple rig, we made sparks and took photos of them.

Also, I'll probably include details for that in a pyro-related post. I've still got to tell you all about fireball. It will be fun, and also disclaimer-riddled. Comes with the job description.

Does it? hrm.


Okay. Fast-forward to at the moment. Uni is about to start, there is food in the fridge and I'm going to try and write a doujinshi this year. (A doujinshi is a fanfiction in manga format. Last time I checked.)
It's as much an exercise in drawing as it is in storytelling. And as a writer, I'm so hyper-aware of Mary Sue that staying away from them is something that happens all the time. I hope.

(Although, I did plan to write a send-up for the concept a while back. One day...)


So, the present. It's a bit scary, but I'm not too worried. Everything happens according to Someone Else's plan, and that Someone Else has my best interests at heart. Yours too.


What else should I yammer on about for ages?

Oh yeah. The other part of the title.

I've got a few more friends from home moving down to Newie this year. They're already here, and I've caught glimpses of one or two about campus.


That said, I kind-of decided to start posting recipes to cheaply-made, good unifood. So, the first one is:


Caramelised Apples.
(Stuff you, American Spellcheck! I'm going to spell it with an 'S' whether you like it or not!)

This is possibly the simplest dessert I've ever made, aside from Jelly. It got rolled into the food-book when part of the Old Guard went to Queensland to visit more of the Old Guard mid last year. You need.

~1 Apple per person. (Juicy is best, but whatever is in season is pretty good)
Sugar
Water
Something to fry in/with. A saucepan will do the trick, but a frying pan has more surface area. Bec and I don't have a cooktop, so we'd use a skillet instead.
Ice-cream. Uni Students tend to prefer Homebrand for some reason.

So. Slice the apples into six-eight pieces. Take the seeds and funk in the middle out.
Heat up the pan to a low-medium temperature.
Throw le apples in. Throw le sugar on top. Don't actually le throw literally otherwise you'll have a buttload of stuff to clean up later.
Add a little bit of water too.

Thing is, when you heat up the apples, the juice begins to heat up. Caramelises them, with the help of the sugar. So, if everything goes alright, the apples turn a slightly-mushy golden brown, and sit in their own juices and the melted sugar and water. Reduce the liquid in the pan.

Apply Ice-cream to bowls, then apply apples and caramelly goodness to the ice-cream. Get as much of the juice out of the pan as possible before it cools.

Side-effects:
Makes Kitchen smell like apple-themed awesome.
Melted Sugar requires really hot water to clean up once it hardens. So try and wash out the pan before it cools.

Also, sugar can be easy to burn if you use a temperature too hot. The water acts as a buffer, so it's a little bit harder to mess up, but if you begin to smell burning, get that food off the heat immediately. Hot sugar redefines what you understand as 'hot'. But it's good. Be liberal with your sugar application.

Cost:

I put this together for my Bible study group last year. It fed twelve people and cost me about eight bucks.

It's really rich and sugar laden. I was astonished when Babs went back for seconds.

Life lessons from Video Games and Anime.

I probably need to start this post by presenting you, the reader, with some important things. They aren't by themselves and of themselves of great importance, but they will make sense shortly.

It goes without saying that I am an avid gamer. It's pretty evident for my face-to-face mates, and probably traceable from the blog posts that exist so far. I'm into RPGs and puzzle games, but also a lot of the culture that comes with it. So, while I play games like Zelda and Final Fantasy, I also follow Red vs. Blue and understand a lot of the terminology that comes with the territory.

Like the bit where you don't give Caboose anything pointy, ever.

That aside, I actually spent a lot of my childhood during Christmas holidays playing Zelda. But not any other time of year, because it was our Aunts who lived in Queensland who owned the game.

By leaps and bounds and walkthroughs, we made it, and seven years after we started fiddling with the '64, we beat Ganon.

Well, Jack's file beat Ganon. It was a joint effort between him and myself.

So yeah. Ocarina of Time was kind of instrumental in how I see stories and the world and the characters. It was a little weird back in January when I realised the list of similarities between reality and Hyrule.

That can be saved for later.

But then.

Part of the whole Zelda thing is the fact that you, the protagonist, have to save the Princess and the Kingdom from the Evil Socerer and obtain the Triforce (magical thing that lets you do whatever the heck you want). But the push behind your character obtaining the Triforce, and the reason why the bad guy can't hold it, is because he is out of balance (and also evil.).

The Triforce splits and then he gets the third devoted to Power, which is what he has.

You, the player, get the bit that is for the guy with the most Courage, because obviously you have to be crazy brave or crazy stupid to fight giant spiders, dinosaurs, jellyfish, ghosts, dragons, more jelly creatures, more ghosts, witches and Big Bad himself.

The Princess (your girlfriend (or your sister, according to Jack)) gets the bit of the triforce with Wisdom. Probably because they need another thing to tie you and Big Bad and the Legend of Zelda, even though your character's name is Link.

So, Ganon just wants his Power bit and Zelda's Wisdom bit. And somehow you and Zelda beat him. Courage and Wisdom.

Courage and Wisdom.

Slightly monumental in how I see things. Because, well, not just the Triforce.

It takes Courage to go out and do something gutsy. But Wisdom kind of helps in making sure that you don't behave like a complete idiot when you do keep going. Power? Pfft. Power is good in getting you places. But I have found over time that, in keeping with Japanese RPGs and mute fairy boys, if you know what to do, all you need to do is be willing to stick your neck out and try.

And that's something that I wish I saw more of in the real world.

To keep trying. To pick yourself up and stand, even when everything else tells you that you should just lie down and die. To keep your heart in the centre of the maelstrom because there's every chance that if you stay, you can fix it.

This is especially important, because I spent a lot of my teenage years hiding mine and running away. When I wasn't trying to figure out how to interact with people who'd learned those skills back when they were eight.

Homeschooling has its ups and downs.

So yeah. Courage. Need it.

Wisdom. Need that too. I spend a lot of time with my feet in my mouth. Maybe not literally, but figuratively? Dude, if you want figurative I have three feet. It's ridiculous, and there's no excuse for it. So. Get Wisdom. It does miles of good.

What else?

Not Power.

Resolve.

I learned Resolve a little bit later down the track.

I mentioned Bleach a while back. You can read the synopsis there if you really want.

Part of the whole Bleach thing that I didn't mention in the post about the Giant Black Butterfly From Hell was how the protagonist has to go and rescue the girl and fight the Big Bad.

Sound familiar?

There's more drama and action and yelling in Bleach. And more blood. But, the thing that the protagonist has to learn before he saddles up and storms the fortress is that he would face up against things determined to bring him down. To kill him. And he had a duty there; to protect her. Save the girl from an execution, because she had saved him before. Protect her with the ability she'd given him.

I understand if it reads a little weird, or if it doesn't immediately make sense where all this is going just yet. I'll get there.

The guy who trains the protagonist teaches him the value of Resolve. Of deciding something and deciding it so strongly that your eyes glow and you gain the will to see this thing through.

So, it takes a certain setup to make one's eyes glow, and an even more careful one to make a human's eyes glow without causing permanent damage to them. But that's not really the point.

The point, and the value in learning Resolve, is that Ichigo, the protagonist, takes on an army of enemies. I'm including Squad 11 in there, for those who follow the series and want to get nitpicky. On just about every occasion he is only just able to defeat them; partially because it makes for a good story, partially because the Anime producers want you to tune in next week, and partially because he decides to get off his rear and do this thing.

Sometimes it's because Shiro rocks up. But Shiro will get a blog post later.

So, the series teaches the viewer/reader the importance of protecting what you hold dear (in Ichigo's case, it's pretty much always his friends. Unless he's sparring with his Dad.), and the value in Resolving to see something through. Because otherwise, nothing will change.

Like I mentioned in the other Post, Bleach didn't get discovered until I was in my final year of High School. But the idea of Resolve stuck, and stuck as well and as truly as the aforementioned Courage and Wisdom combo.

Because, when I started thinking about it, it takes Courage to stand up and grab your sword/item of a catalyst nature. It takes Wisdom to know what to do with that Sword. But it takes Resolve to hang onto it.

So go out. Be willing to do something, even when the odds seem poor. Don't do a half-assed job with something because you couldn't be bothered, or if it didn't resonate with you the way you wanted. Talk to people, whether or not you think that they're mad. Treasure what's around you, because chances are that you'll have to defend it at some point in time and not only will you want that thing you're protecting to be solid, but you'll want to be solid when you stand up. Start properly, and finish properly.

Be Courageous.

Be Wise with that Courage.

Be Resolute when you're being Wise with that Courage.

And something worthwhile might just happen.

Halfway to Life, the Universe and Everything

So.

This, I have noted, is the season of life where almost more of my friends are married now than not. This can be slightly understandable in some circumstances. I mean, some of the friends got married to each other.

But yes. We enter our early twenties and the season of 'weddings and twenty-firsts'.

When most of your friends are at least a year older than yourself, the process gets accelerated a bit. I've been witnessing frequent matrimonies for the last four years or so.

ANYWAY.

I'm not talking about Weddings yet. But Twenty-Firsts, yes. Sounds good.

It's forty-five minutes to midnight, and I've made it back from the trek out to a mate's property for his 21st celebration. Ate a lot of food and enjoyed pleasurable company. And caught frogs, and tried to avoid the mud. Only one of that second set of statements was true.

[it was the one about the mud. SO MUCH MUD.]

And then I drive home in Dad's car because mine is missing most of the doors at the moment (maintenance). Dad's car which has no functioning stereo because it locked up after Jack ran the car flat. This is not the point.

The point is that I spent about equal parts of time, driving silently because I had to concentrate and avoid the potholes, talking to myself and singing as loud as I could because I was driving through the middle of nowhere.

Am I tone-deaf? Partly. Yes.

Can I do anything about it? Not really. But this way was alright. There was the curved road, damp under the recent rains, and the soft glow of Navi the GPS and me bellowing out Florence + the Machine lyrics like it was kareoke and I was intoxicated.

I wasn't intoxicated. I was trying to think of an allusion that involved little inhibition. Because it was me and about 800kg of car.

And when you drive at night, with no stereo, you start thinking lots. Some of it is trying to tell yourself that the bark hanging of those powerlines is not a body. Some of it is trying to rationalise other parts of life in general. Some of the bits are devoted to whatever you just experienced.

Turns out I was musing over what I'd just experienced. And realised where it was in relation to myself.

I do a lot of comparison. I think it's a firstborn thing. You and Second spend a lot of time trying to be noticed by the parents more; the firstborn because you have to do all the trailblazing, and people expect you to be awesome and successful, and the secondborn trying to top that with something else.

Jack does it with personality. He's the people person at a party. I'm the person that chills over next to the guacamole. Guacamole girl. Until it comes to making something cool that might explode. I can do that too.

But.

I've never been able to pick up a proper job. At the moment I'm still trying to plug these painted shoes I'm working on. And they do look cool. I'm just not very good at marketing.
I've had work patternmaking before; once. I had a second one lined up for the beginning of last year, when I had almost a week between landing in Sydney from London and then moving to Newcastle. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that that one fell through. I had the guy adding more and more and more things to the order. Which was insane.
The rest of the time it's been deskwork, cleaning or popcorn. None of which are very fulfilling.

I'm hoping to find employment when I head home again. Maybe. Maybe I'll just get swamped again and spend my days hunched over a computer, sniggering at Red vs. Blue shorts. It seems to be one of the few things I'm good at.
Getting paid to do some art; that would be nice. Being able to sell my art would be nicer.
Ah well, artists aren't usually famous until they're dead. Unless they are Picasso. But Picasso was a genius.

pfft. Yep. Not famous 'til dead.
I guess that shouldn't be long on a student's diet.

...


this is a really positive blog post, eh? I'm sorry if it was not to your liking. It's probably the rum talking.
Well.

Rum can't talk.

It's probably the removal of inhibitions. Which I'm attributing to the rum.

Now, back to the best idea I had while driving. Go and find my old Hanson CDs. And listen to all of them.

90's boy bands with bad hair, here we come.

Post-Portal rant

Hey Guys.

So, after acquiring Portal late last year (like, August/September/October [I downloaded a bit of the file at a time]), and then spending the next few months deciding to play it only after semester had finished, I finally sat down and gave it a go.

It follows that this blog post should be dedicated to what I thought of the game.

I started playing yesterday arvo, when it was discovered that the darling rabbit had eaten through the video cable for the PS2. Essentially, you would have the same amount of fun with it as someone with no sight. The audio cables were still intact, but my temper was not. So, I sat down in protest and hijacked my sister's desk so I could play Portal, because it was on my computer and I was still keen for some gaming.

The handling experience was quite different to anything I have tried before. First-person is usually something reserved for shoot-em-up games, and since I don't play a lot of those, I frankly stink at them. The most experience I could speak for would be the couple of weeks I spent playing LAN Halo on computers at school. Even then, I had all the tactical ability of Michael J. Caboose.

Which is not much.

So, we've established that I am much more used to the handling of games such as Zelda, Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. Which are all good games in their own right. Franchises. Whatever. I think better when I can see the back of the character's head.

But the puzzles, and the physics! I've never seen something so wondrous! And Valve is paying me nothing. But the teleport/portal setup kept the physics and gravity intact. Flinging was a lot of fun, once you got the hang of it. Oh. Flinging?
Set up a portal on the wall. Set up a portal on the ground. Jump into the one on the ground and you fall out of the one on the wall at the same speed as you were falling. Fall faster or further, and you fling further.

<speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out>

according to GLaDOS. The passive-agressive evil robot.

But purely concerning the puzzles? It forced me to think. Not just grind through levels like every other game I try. Sure, there are moments when you're stuck, but the Block Puzzles I've done in Zelda and Golden Sun games are probably the closest 'large challenge'. Some of the stages were a matter of trying the same thing over and over again, because all you needed was some more momentum. Or you had to fire a portal in midair and for someone who can't drive first person video games, that is very hard. So, I get cranky. I yell at the screen, at GLaDOS, at the portal placement; anything. Talking to myself is my second-worst habit. (The worst is mumbling.) So, when my sister decided to talk to one of her mates last night, he also got to participate in my vented frustration at being unable to escape before getting incinerated. Or falling in the water. Portal device doesn't like the water. Just something you should note.

But, offsetting the cranky is the sheer exhilaration when finally, you manage to throw yourself in the right direction and land where you need to. Or you figure out where to stick the next portal. Or figure out how to use a gun when all you've got is an enemy missile launcher that only shoots at you and is five rooms away.

That is all okay. The sense of being rewarded at the end was greater than any lie-based cake that someone could cook up for me. I am Chell. And we are assuming the Party Escort Submission Position and going to that party.

(I realise how unstructured this post is. I also realise how weird 'party escort submission position' sounds to someone not familiar with Portal. it is lying down on the ground with your hands behind your head so the party escort robot can drag you away back into that incinerator I mentioned earlier.)

Told you GLaDOS was evil.

But not the cackling type of evil. It's like, passive aggressive to the max. And it's a lot of fun to imitate from time to time.

Once again, to someone unfamiliar with the series, this is bound to cause confusion.

I often find myself singing the lyrics to 'Want You Gone', which is from the Portal 2 soundtrack. It is the credits from the game. And, like the first, it is written from and sung by GLaDOS. So, passive agressive and mildly humorous. Prue tells me off for it though; citing that it is about 'someone hating someone else'.

But Prue, GLaDOS doesn't hate Chell. She only wants her gone.

See? This is what happens when you eat too much chocolate and spend your whole day being a taxi service and babysitter for your sisters. You write poorly-structured blog posts and spend the rest of the evening shooting nerf darts at the ceiling.

Well. It sounds good to me.

In short? Portal is spoon-bendingly awesome. It challenges the way you think in a game, and makes you use more than just the physical infrastructure of the platform. It has a good storyline which is enjoyable to some back to, which you will, because it's only a short game.

Also, I apologise to my other readers who may feel slightly alienated by the rambling and the specific nature of the blog post subject. Consider it a rant, and do with it what you want.

If you really want, you should give Portal a go. My laptop (herafter known as Shirosaki) handles it okay, so most other computers should be fine.

Why we need Watson

The last two weeks, I have been immersed in the 'ness' of Sherlock Holmes.

None of it has been canon.

The first experiences have been through the newly released film, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

While I would dearly love to discuss the film, I'm appreciating that there are probably a lot of people who haven't seen it yet. So, I'll keep spoilers to a minimum and save that one for a later date.

Besides, Hollywood is not the purpose of the blogpost.

...where else to begin? Ah.

The last three days, we've been watching the BBC series titled Sherlock. It's a modern television adaption of the canon, with individual episodes lasting 90 minutes.

The Sherlock of each series is different. They show different sides to the personality/enigma/thing that we understand the detective to be.


First, the Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr.

For a short period of time in 2010, I worked at the local cinema in my hometown. This has relevance because I was working when the first Sherlock film was still screening. Something I noticed at work happening on more than one occasion was old ladies walking out of the film while it was still screening. Many of them either muttered on their way out or they complained to us about the film.

Their problem? This Sherlock did as much beating people up with his fists as he did with his mind. This incarnation of Sherlock seemed to break the rules of 'deerstalker cap' that had so long been set in place. So, Sherlock is brilliant. Sherlock is also master of whatever fighting art he possessed in the books (it's legit. Baritsu. Check it out.) Third, we see that Sherlock has some difficulties slotting in with society. His gifts of reading a person don't seem to extend to speaking to the person with compassion. As Mary and her glass of wine attest to.

The other Sherlock is played by a guy called Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (which has got to be one of the best names I have ever encountered in terms of sheer awesome-sounding properties). He looks like this.

Cumberbatch's incarnation has done some action scenes. Not a whole lot. And most of those he spent trying not to get bashed. But he is a thinker. Crazily so. And there is a lot of emphasis in his character on his inability to work with society.

"What must it be like to live inside your little brains?"

I think that both men focus on different parts of the Holmes character. The BBC adaption is probably the slightly more accurate to the character, but sheer Hollywood attests to the why. You've only got two hours to impress a character of awesome. Explosions are always a good way to do that. Explosions and ramping. (you know, that cinematographic effect where they suddenly chuck the film into slow-motion and then speed it up again?). And nothing says 'cool' about a character like the way he giftwraps his opponent after wiping the floor with their sorry rear end.

Simply? Hollywood and America would rather see him beat someone with his fists than do the equivalent to his mind.

Just for the heck of it, I would one day love to see some kind of crazy mash-up between Gregory House and Calvin Lightman and Sherlock Holmes. I'm sure they'd get along great.

But. I didn't title the post 'Why we need Holmes'.

So, Watson has to have some part of the conversation.

The Edwardian (Hollywood) adaption has Jude Law.

The BBC production has Martin Freeman, who is the guy who played Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

As the difference is between Sherlock and Sherlock, so there is between Watson and Watson. Jude Law spends more time beating people, and Martin Freeman spends a lot of time as the butt monkey. Both of them wear homely pieces of clothing. (Although this is only noticeable with Watson in the second film when he is wearing the scarf that Mary made for him). Both of them spend a lot of time entertaining Sherlock and trying to enable him to mesh properly with society.

This is where I started to notice something.

It's been established then that Sherlock is lacking in the human quality known as Compassion. The ability to Sympathise, Empathise and do anything but synthesise facts and data, because that is all Holmes knows. And in that area, he is brilliant.

But we can't appreciate him. Not properly, anyway. With just Holmes, we have an egocentric, overpowered character, whose purposes and plans are above us mortals. We could not understand or relate without Holmes' counterpart, Watson.

It is as though Watson has enough compassion to make up for Holmes' gross deficiency. He does the legwork. He is the butt of the jokes. He struggles.

Holmes' character is incredibly interesting. But it's not, strictly speaking, human. We relate better to Watson. Understand his struggles and his emotions because 1) the stories are always written from his perspective, and 2) he isn't the genius.

For a long time I've noticed this. We admire the genius. We are impressed by him. But we never want to be him. Maybe this is Tall Poppy Syndrome, endemic to the masses of Australians (and believe me. I've experienced the nasty end of it). Maybe it is because the genius, excellent as he is, has so few people to relate to in the upper echelon of brainpower.

So, Holmes has the superpowers. But Watson balances him out. Creates a duo we can see, read about and be amazed without being put off by how perfect they are. That bit is important. It is what stops them from turning into Marty-Stu's (the male equivalent of a Mary-Sue).

It's as important as the role of Sam in The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkein had purposed Hobbits with the task of carrying the Ring. Why? Because they are the weak. They are the peaceful. They are the pure of heart. We see Frodo try to give up the Ring within moments of inheriting it in the first book (or movie). The meek triumph.

And it is Frodo who has to bear the burden. We still get to see the stuggle, but the burden of bearing the Ring turns Frodo into something beyond the reach of the ordinary character. He must carry the plot; assimilated into the workings of the story. We cannot relate with Frodo. But that is why Sam is there.

Sam struggles. He worries and frets and remains faithful to his friend and his charge. Remember, Gandalf tells him to watch over Frodo. To look after him. And into Mordor they go. Walking simply, so to speak. Frodo turns into a plot piece. Sam stays human, though. Well, Hobbit. Something.
Anyway, his role as the chronicler continues as the story keeps on. He's the onlooker, but we identify with him because of his compassion and necessity to the hero. It's not Sam who sails off at the end, either.

Sam Gamgee. John Watson.

Neither are the main character. But they are so much more than sidekicks. We see and identify with them better than with the character they are seen interacting with because they are not above the noise and the hubris. They're in the thick of it.

Which goes to show.

People relate better to something that experiences what they experience. They falter at what makes us falter, and even though there's someone who is more than capable of one-upping them, they keep going. They don't fear their own humanity. Or Hobbitanity. Look, is it just easier if we think of the race of Man in Lord of the Rings as something else entirely? The Hobbits are the ones who we cheer on, anyway.

And honestly, without Watson, Sherlock is just a Sociopath with nothing to redeem him from being one ole nasty....

...person.

Backlog: the things I wish I'd told you about

So, henceforth begins the mile-long absent note, or excuse, or list. Anyway. Many things happened last year. I think it was probably the most manic year I have lived yet. So much went down, and there was also a lot that I didn't blog.

So, here's the blog post shortlist of things that happened last year that I didn't post.

The rest of London.

My overseas trip at the start of last year was something insane and unforgettable. I wish I had blogged more of this because it was interesting, amusing. Sometimes slightly terrifying. Like the first couple of days I spent in the city when I kept getting lost. Or the debilitating effects of jet lag. Wait. I've told you about those.

Everything from the Metro in Paris that reeked of urine to the wooden box I bought in Portobello road and got through customs. There was a lot that I could have talked about.

hey, wait. picture = 1000 words. yes?

London in pictures.

Trafalgar Square. Wet on windy days.

Moot is in this picture of an anatomically incorrect lion.

Watch for long enough and you'll see Sora and company.

Globe.

Flipping enormous door at St. Pauls. Moot is in this picture also.

St. Pauls in all its Baroquian glory.

Graffiti hunt.

Me and Fat Watson at 221b Baker St. I wanted Jude Law.

My mate the Squirrel at Regents Park

Westminster Cloisters

A postcard I sent to a friend. I adjusted it.

Sightings of the TARDIS at Earles Court

Julian the photographer I met at Kyoto gardens. We took photos of the Peacocks.

Said Peafowl and Moot. Moot felt slightly stressed.

Beanbag stack at Camden

Portobello Road

It came after the Strawhenge and Stickhenge.

Bath at Bath

There was the stump of what I hoped was a lime tree in the front yard.

Dunster

Me and Will.

And this kinda gives away the photo of me and Will.

Stairs at Tooting Bec Underground station. I ran up these.

Peter at Kensington.

Best tree at Kensington.

Look! Muggles replaced the fake wall with another fake wall!

There was more to London. And there's more to the Backlog. I'll do what every other franchise in Hollywood is doing at the moment and create a couple more sequels, not because I am running out of ideas, but because shortly I am heading down to the archery range again and I have to go find my kit. Happy viewing.