Much of a muchness

I was tagged by Mimi over at Mimi writes… to take part in this meme, she tagged a whole lot of people and I noticed I was included over at Kim’s. Mimi was originally tagged by Travis, who created this - just as well, as a Mimi meme is too much of a mouthful :-)

Here are the instructions for Trav’s Staying Out Of The Dungeon Trivia Meme:
He said: A meme needs ’structions.OK…here’s your ’structions:
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to:
1. Choose a category from one of these: Television, Stage & Screen, Nightly News, Publishing, Lives & Times, Music
2. Find 8 bits of trivia about your selected category
3. Be sure to let me know when…ok, if…you decide to play along so I can see what you come up with.
4. You may tag, or simply offer the meme for borrowing or stealing as you like.

So here we go. My chosen topic is Stage and Screen.

1 Tom Selleck was the original choice to play Indiana Jones. He turned the part down as he was too busy with ‘Magnum PI’ and it went to the lovely Harrison Ford.

2 Daniel Craig is the first actor to play James Bond, who is younger than the series itself.

3 Johnny Depp only had 169 words to learn in ‘Edward Scissorhands’.

4 Daniel Day Lewis and Russell Crowe were considered for the part of Aragorn in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Even though he had never read any of the books, Viggo Mortensen took the part, after being persuaded by his son who loved them.

5 ‘The Last Samurai’ was not only Ken Watanabe’s first American Film, it was also the first time he had spoken English in a film. Tom Cruise took no ‘up front’ salary for making this film and trained for two years before film making began, learning sword fighting and taking Japanese language lessons.

6 Bette Davis was the original choice for the lead role in ‘Mary Poppins’. Danny Kaye and Fred Astaire were considered for the role of Bert, which was played by Dick van Dyke (and his atrocious Cockney accent….)

6 In the Coen Brothers film, ‘Intolerable Cruelty’, George Clooney plays a talkative character who is vain about his teeth. In his previous Coen Brothers film, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, he plays a talkative character who is vain about his hair.

7 Only days before the role of Batman was cast in ‘Batman Begins’, eight actors were asked to audition for the part. The actors were Christian Bale, Joshua Jackson, Eion Bailey, Hugh Dancy, Billy Crudup, Cillian Murphy, Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal. While Bale won the part, Christopher Nolan liked Cillian Murphy’s audition so much, he cast him as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow.

8 Due to his part in ‘The Machinist’, Christian Bale was vastly underweight (about 120 pounds on his 6 foot+ frame) when he was under consideration for the part of Batman in ‘Batman Begins’. After being cast, he was told to become as “big as you could be” by Christopher Nolan, the director. Bale underwent a dietary and exercise regimen and ending up weighing about 220 pounds (about 40 pounds above his normal weight). It was decided that Bale had became too large (friends of his on the film’s crew dubbed him “Fatman”) and he quickly shed about 20 pounds to have leaner, more muscular frame.

So there you have it, 8 perfectly random facts (largely culled from the Internet Movie Database) and a wonderful excuse to have a look at some of my favourite movie actors. Yum!

I’m not going to tag anyone as it’s quite task compiling this list but if you’d like to have a go, please feel free!

While I’m at it catching up on tags and things, Dunn over at Simply Dunn, passed on this lovely award, which she received from Crissy, called the ‘Arte Y Pico’ award. Thank you so much, Dunn!

Arte Y Pico Award rules :

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.

4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

I would like to pass this on to

Astrid

Rhonda

Teresa

Pete

Paul

I’ve tried to find out what ‘Arte y Pico’ means but the nearest I can get from my translator widget is ‘art and tip’ (which makes no sense) I think it means like a tip of a mountain (the peak) so maybe it means ‘the peak of art’. I’d be glad for a good translation….

The weather here has been glorious, we had a wonderful weekend and I went to my first barbecue of the year on Sunday. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we played croquet which was great fun. Not quite like this game though.

I played tennis yesterday and today and have even been doing some gardening (not my forte, I must confess) but it is so wonderful to be outside in the warm sunshine. Needless to say, it is going to get cooler after today so I have been making the most of it - hence the lack of both bookbinding and blogging. I’m sure normal service will be resumed very soon.

I went for a walk on my favourite beach last night. I was delighted to find lots of the coastal plants in full bloom along the edge of the beach and on the cliff tops. I think the purple flowers are called ‘thrift’ but will have to check up on the others. 

I had lots of company on my walk - not of the human kind though.

The cliff tops are honeycombed with rabbit warrens and I saw dozens of them during my walk. It’s slightly disconcerting actually. The cliff edges are unstable enough without bunnies mining them! It was a lovely walk though, even though it was grey, the sun kept trying to break through and the sunbeams shining on the sea were gorgeous.

I went for a walk as I needed to get out - I had spent the entire day sewing this giant album I am making. I started by cutting 50 sheets of ivory Colorplan 270gsm paper (which is the same as Falkiners use in their photograph albums). Each sheet had to be measured and cut individually and then scored so I could fold over a 2cm section on one side. This helps to space the pages so that the album lies flat once photographs are placed into it. 

The next step was to sew the pages together which so far has taken me over a day and I am only about half of the way through. I normally just hold the text block in my hands to sew but as these pages are 40cm x 50cm, that’s just not possible. The sewing would be easier I think if I was using a sewing frame but as I don’t have one, I am just lying each new page on top of the previous one and holding them in place. It seems to be working so far….

I found this great web site the other day that invites people to post an image of themselves when they were a child and then to photograph themselves re-creating the childhood photograph. It’s called ‘Young Me, Now Me’ and some of the photographs are hilarious. I ‘borrowed’ these to show you what I mean. You must visit and see the rest of the photographs - or even post your own!

As you might have guessed, I couldn’t resist digging out a Young Me, Now Me combination. It’s not a direct recreation but with a bit of cropping and converting to B&W, it’s close enough…

It’s interesting to note I had bags under my eyes even when I was 8. Must have been all that reading after lights out under the bed covers with a torch! And my hairstyle hasn’t changed that much - just got longer. Which reminds me, I’m off to my hairdresser again on Wednesday. Last time I went, he was in a  wheelchair as he had broken his leg very badly and he did struggle to cut my hair - I’m amazed he even tried. It necessitated me lowering my chair until it was inches off the floor so that he could reach me - I felt like a little girl again, sitting on those miniature chairs we had in primary school.

Shall I be more adventurous this time….? Nah!

I like this paper. Despite being a Japanese chiyogami paper, it’s a very tribal or ethnic design and according to the latest edition of the fashion magazine I subscribe to, that is one of the trends for the summer. We should all be wearing dresses made out of fabrics like this book. Well, all you ladies should - guys, it’s optional :-)

Guess what? This is my 200th post. 200! Whoever would have thought when I first started this blog 14 months ago that I would have so much to say? Certainly not me! I used to be incredibly shy and spent my teens hardly speaking to a soul. Things did improve as I got older, largely due to my (then) husband who made a point of making me speak up for myself at parties and the like. It was far too easy otherwise to let him do all the talking. At the time I thought he was being really cruel but with hindsight I see that it was just what I needed.

I remember the moment when I realised I wasn’t shy any more, vividly. I had enrolled on a course designed to get women who had taken time out to raise their families, back into the work place. We were asked to describe how we saw ourselves and how we saw everyone else on the course. Describing me, I came up with shy, lacking in confidence, quiet, reserved. All the other 20 or so people on the course said talkative, confident, friendly, outgoing. And in one of those Damascene moments, I realised I had been talking my socks off and joining in happily for the entire week! I do still find some occasions where I revert to crippling shyness and become awkward and tongue tied, but they are few and far between these days.

This was my anthem in those days - I give you Kajagoogoo - I had a huge crush on Limahl, my world fell apart when I discovered he was gay…..

Check out those hairstyles and fashions - hilarious!

Now to celebrate my 200th post, I thought I would say a little thank you to some of the regular visitors to Much of a Muchness who take the time to leave a comment. I always try to visit their blogs in return but sometimes I don’t manage it as often as I would like. So this is for you

Kim - wonderful artist and all round lovely person. She regularly updates the ‘101 Top Artists’ Blogs’ and is quite justifiably at number 1 in the rankings. (The fact I am number 3 has no influence on this list at all - honest) A labour of love if ever there was one. I won one of her portraits in one of her regular competitions, it is quite wonderful.

Paul - also known as Struggling Writer. Read his blog for snippets of his wonderful stories and news about his toddler daughter, ice hockey and his play off beard. Manages to be first to comment so many times it’s uncanny….

Creechman - what can I say? He loves actresses, TV, tennis, movies and his dog Emerson. He is a semi-rocket scientist from Houston. He seems to like English accents.

Teresa - sometimes her comments are funnier than my posts, but I forgive her :-) Her blog is full of news about yummy food, home schooling her lovely boys and birding amongst lots of other things.

Durano Lawayan - always has a pithy amusing comment to make. His blog is so full of wonderful, insightful posts about the world and all it’s many vagaries and absurdities which he brings to our attention with superlative skill.

RennyBA - everything I know about Norway I have learned from Renny! He is a ‘network evangelist’ and his mission is to introduce the food, customs and people of Norway to the rest of the world in a fascinating way. He succeeds admirably!

Diane CA - is Renny’s wife, her relatively new blog is full of insights into her interests in social work, her life as an American living in Norway and her views on the world around us. Her description of herself as ‘if I were any more of an extrovert I would turn inside out’ made me laugh!

Peteej - takes amazing photographs using his mobile phone camera and even is kind enough to give tutorials showing how he achieves such wonderful results. He also publishes photographs from other mobile phone photographers (ahem, mentioning no names but someone not too far from here was featured a while back…..)

Kylee - makes beautiful jewellery out of gemstones and polymer clay. She is an expat living in a beautiful part of France and I must warn her, one day I am going to arrive on the doorstep of her studio to see it properly! I have always vowed to visit Carcassonne and she lives quite close by…..

Astrid - is a German book artist who is talented and thoughtful enough to write her blog twice, once in German and then in English. I will confess to shamelessly stealing ideas from her and slavishly following her advice. A leading light over at the Book Arts Forum too.

Lord Likely - what can I say about Lord L that he hasn’t said himself? And in a much more - how can I put this? - outrageous, outré fashion than I could ever dare to….

Daddy Papersurfer - he thinks I’m scary. But perhaps not as much as his lovely wife, Lo the Terrible Goddess, who tries to keep him under control - with varying degrees of success it seems….

70’s teen - the diaries of a Manchester girl growing up in the 70’s. Strikes so many chords with me it’s scary. She is going to send me food parcels containing Northern delicacy, Hollands steak puddings - hurrah!

AmyH - I think Amy lives in a space -time continuum where she has 48 hours in each day - she has two small children and manages to make books, crochet, cook, read and do a million and one other things which totally puts me to shame….

Lady Banana- just loves to blog, in fact she thinks she may be addicted to it…. and I suffer from widget envy whenever I visit her blog. She loves photography and her life in London and it’s always fun to visit her wonderfully yellow blog.

Jenny - writes funny comments and has a blog to rival Lady B’s for widgets and an enthusiasm for life that leaves me breathless, Jenny’s blog contains the immortal truth ‘Drink coffee - do stupid things faster with more energy’ - that must be where I am going wrong. Memo to self - drink coffee!

And now to finish, a thought for the day.

Me? I’d be 21 again. But still with my lovely sons, (not sure how that would work as they are older than that!) but with the benefits of hindsight and experience…and better judgement as far as the opposite sex are concerned….. :-)

I haven’t got a book to show you today. I’ve had a busy couple of days. I had some friends over for dinner on Friday night and as I am not one of life’s natural cooks, it took me most of the day to shop and then prepare the food. I made crab and scallop chowder with home made bread, followed by rack of lamb with a red wine and shallot sauce, green beans and asparagus, rosemary and garlic roast potatoes followed by coconut rice pudding with mango and lime and yummy cheese and biscuits. A feast - even if I do say so myself. For once it all turned out well (the rice pudding was slightly stodgy but still tasted nice).

I was woken at 8am on Saturday morning by a delivery man - marvellous. He was delivering a new TV so I cleared up the mess from the night before and then unpacked the TV and started to set it up. The connections were all very complicated involving a satellite receiver and a DVD player but I just unplugged the cables from the old TV and attached them to the new TV. I just couldn’t get the DVD player to talk to the TV and fiddled about for ages trying to tune the TV to pick up the signal. Finally I realised that I was missing a scart lead ( I vaguely remember one of the boys ‘borrowing it’) so the DVD player wasn’t even connected to anything. I ransacked the garage and finally found another one then the DVD player still wouldn’t work but eventually it dawned on me that the batteries in the remote control were flat - DOH!

I spent the afternoon smashing up my old garden table and chairs which had rotted beyond repair - surprisingly satisfying! Some friends had come round to help and they carted the bits away for me and by the time they had left, the day had gone, so no books again. So instead of a book, I am going to share with you, some of my recent ‘StumbleUpon’ finds.

First up is Clive Stevens who does amazing paper sculpture. This is one of my favourites.

All the work is for sale and he sells kits, books, greeting cards and calendars too. Fabulous stuff.

Next up is a photograph of the new coins which are going to be introduced in the UK over the next year.

“The new designs have been chosen via an open competition which was widely publicised in the national media in August 2005 and attracted 4,000 entries. The winning designer is 26-year-old Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer. After exploring a number of different options, Matthew Dent finally developed the heraldic theme, taking the greatest heraldic device ever used on coinage – the Royal Arms.

As you can see in the image above, the Shield of the Royal Arms has been given a contemporary treatment and its whole has been cleverly split among all six denominations from the 1p to the 50p, with the £1 coin displaying the heraldic element in its entirety. This is the first time that a single design has been used across a range of United Kingdom coins.”

Aren’t they gorgeous? I love the way they form a compete design and I foresee hours of fun playing with them when they are finally released :-)

Next up is the work of Thomas Keeley, as featured on the woosta.com website.

He creates surreal 3D objects which are both thought provoking and fun. Obviously, this book appealed to me, so inventive.

The last thing I want to share with you is a voice. The voice of Andrew Johnston to be precise. There is a TV program on Saturday nights here in the UK called ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. This young boy appeared on the show last week. Enjoy this and if you are not crying your eyes out by the end then you have a heart of stone.

Hope you are having a great weekend. I’m off to make a book…..

I was visiting AmyH’s lovely blog to drool over her lovely new studio and I saw that she had made a book using a binding I hadn’t tried before and even better, she had included a tutorial showing how to do it. It’s called a Secret Belgian Binding. (I’m not sure if the binding or the Belgian is secret). However, never one to resist a challenge, I had a go and actually found it quite easy to follow BUT my book (unlike Amy’s) does have a couple of big errors. It looks fine on the outside.

Inside is where it all starts to go pear-shaped. I followed the instructions to the letter but two things went wrong. I ended up having to join two lengths of thread and didn’t realise the knot would show if I joined them where I did - I’ll know better next time. And the three sections - front cover, spine and back cover, have to be held in place using masking tape AFTER you have covered them with the decorative paper and unfortunately, it stuck to the inside paper when I peeled it off. Next time I will not use such a rough finished paper as the masking tape didn’t stick to the outside paper which is much smoother.

Anyway, I loved this binding and it is actually, quite easy to do, so I shall definitely try it again. It requires lots of very precise measuring and cutting which I love so you will be seeing more of these!

Now, are you sitting comfortably? Got a few minutes to spare? Well, following on from yesterday’s post, here is my favourite penguin, Pingu. My boys and I used to LOVE watching this on TV when they were very small.

But not all penguins are cute….

as Wallace and Gromit found….