Man on Wire

I missed Man On Wire at the Duke of York's but caught it this afternoon at the Odeon (I think it's on at Brighton Marina next week).  This documentary was staged as an artistic heist movie (the tagline is
"1974. 1350 feet up. The artistic crime of the century.") and follows Philippe Petit as he pursues an apparently impossible dream of crossing the twin towers on a tightrope.

It's fascinating seeing the amount of work and preparation that went into creating such a spectacular event for its own sake.  The characters involved were fascinating, seen in contemporary footage and looking back in modern interviews.  The film is also striking for the stories not told, such as exactly how the group's friendships fractured after the event.  I'm very glad I got to see this on a cinema screen, where the scale of Petit's achievement was underlined.

Roger Ebert Review

I needed absolute detachment. Complete freedom. I needed to be a cast away on the desert island of my dreams.

Short Story at Liar’s League, London, 9th September

A new short story of mine, Eat At Lovecraft's is going to be read at Liar's League.  This is a regular night featuring short stories read by actors and the theme for the night is Crime and Punishment.  Liar's League also publish the stories online with a podcast of each story after the event.  The event starts 7pm on September 9th and is at The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1DG.

Settling back in Brighton

I've now been back in Brighton for the best part of a week. Most of my things are still in Coventry meaning I'm camping out in my new house.  I feel very settled despite that. I've caught up with lots of people and am slowly rebuilding my mental maps of Brighton, connecting locations together again.

Friday night was Club Smooch.  There were over two hours of acts, most of which were very good.  Kitty's pirate aerial performance was superb, despite working with a shorter rope than she was used to.  We also saw a couple of performances by Diva Hollywood whose Evolution of Woman was a fantastic burleqsue act. 

The night also featured Mr. B. the Gentleman Rhymer, who was as good as Tom had promised – some of his songs are available on the Myspace page.  I particularly liked  Straight out of Surrey (his version of Straight Outta Compton) and Timothy.

On Saturday I visited the Tea-Dance at the library.  I love the idea of dancing lessons and cake in the middle of town.  Next time I'll definitely join in.

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Low tide was less exciting than I'd hoped, with the sea not receding as far as it has in the past.  Despite that we loitered on the beach for about three hours, celebrating a birthday, with various people dropping by.  

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It's good to be back.

Back in Brighton

I'd been planning to relax when I reached Brighton but instead the last few days have been incredibly busy.  It's all been fun though and I'm glad to be back.  I moved into my new flat last night and already feel settled (despite the fact my furniture is still in Coventry).

It looks as if the rest of the week will be busy too, as I'm now going to be helping out at dConstruct 2008.  Between now and then I have to complete my talk for Brighton Barcamp 3.  I considered a number of potential topics, such as 10 commandments for using an RDBMS, but instead decided to talk about this.  The title of my talk is, currently 'Bad XKCD: An introduction to deconstruction for programmers'.  I don't know it it will be interesting to anyone other than me but it's going to be fun to put it together.