Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide
French critic, essayist, & novelist (1869 - 1951)

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas – no food fights with the leftover turkey!

Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.

Helen Rowland

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Eleanor Roosevelt
US diplomat & reformer (1884 - 1962)

I’m heading off to New Zealand soon for my brother’s wedding and to do some travelling so Betty the Sheep will be quiet for about six weeks or so with the exception of ‘Quote of the Week’. I hope that you should still be able to pick up your weekly quote every Friday if I have got my scheduling right!

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.

Confucius, The Confucian Analects
Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC - 479 BC)

I went to see the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, the first night it was in the cinema and it was fairly packed. It’s mad to think that the Bond franchise is as popular as ever. I enjoyed this film but felt that it wasn’t as clever or entertaining as ‘Casino Royale’. I loved the banter in Casino Royale and thought that there was great chemistry between Daniel Craig and Eva Green. Quantum of Solace is all about the action and while the action is very good at times it is too fast. This much action comes at the expense of a decent and involving storyline and also lacks humour. The best bit of humour is when Bond, Mathis and Agent Fields are checking into a hotel in Bolivia (I think) and the hotel isn’t great so Bond takes them to a more expensive one. Agent Field protests that they are supposed to be teachers having a reunion or something and Bond checks in saying that they are teachers that have won the lotto. I also like the fact that Agent Fields is only referred to as Agent Fields in the film and you have to wait until the end to find out from the credits that her first name is Strawberry. It’s good to see that the tradition of interesting names for female characters is still being upheld in places. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench gave solid performances but overall the film was lacking, maybe if I saw the film a second time I might get more out of it or maybe not. I like the Bond song by Jack White and Alicia Keys.

Ghost town is an enjoyable film if you like Ricky Gervais. If you don’t like Ricky Gervais, and there are some people in the world that don’t, then I wouldn’t really recommend it. I found Ghost town funny in places but I didn’t think it was hilarious. If yon are looking for an easy going film that won’t traumatise you then this film is a pretty safe bet.




I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see ‘W’, Oliver Stone’s film about George W Bush. There are lots of familiar faces in the film and it is well acted by the cast. In particular Josh Brolin, as George W Bush, and Thandie Newton, as Condoleezza Rice, were great performances. I’ve lived through eight years with George W Bush as the American President and I’m aware of the way that he is portrayed. His quotes are legendary and have done the rounds on emails across the world several times over. It was interesting to get a view of his relationship with his father and his mother and the differences between him and his brother. I left the cinema feeling slightly sorry for George W as someone who has spent their life trying to get their father’s approval. It seems very extreme that you would have to become the President of the United States to get your father’s approval but on one level that’s what the film says about the Bush family!

I went to see BellX1 play two of the three gigs that they did in Vicar Street in the middle of November. I’ve never done that before, i.e. see the same band play two nights in a row. It was really good especially since they are playing loads of new songs. The first night was a sit down gig and the second night was standing. Apparently Brian Crosby was in the audience on the first night and Paul dedicated one of the songs to him. It was weird not seeing him on stage but the new guy seemed to be doing a good job. Having said that there were one or two small technical hiccups, which is just typically Murphy’s Law on the guy’s first night on the job (or one of his first nights). I’m still loving the new BellX1 songs and waiting with bated breath for the album release date to be announced.

Saturday night on Strictly was very exciting with the remaining five couples dancing two dances for the first time in one show. There were some great performances from all of the contestants. Tom finally got a ten from Len but this achievement was slightly overshadowed by the fact that Craig gave him a seven for the same dance! Rachel, Lisa and Austin did some great dances. Len seemed less than impressed with some of the Latin dances on the night. Austin almost got a perfect score for his passo doble except that Len didn’t like it at all and gave him an eight. At the end of the night Christine and Rachel were in the dance off and the judges saved Rachel as expected. Christine put up a brave fight but it wasn’t enough. On a different topic altogether, I was surprised to see that Matthew has a large tattoo on one of his upper arms. I didn’t think he was a tattoo kind of person! :-)

Who know brown hair could say such strong things about a person? :-) I think I’ll definitely be taking this one with large pinches of salt!

Your Hair Should Be Brown

You are an intelligent, well respected person. You are very confident. You take yourself seriously, and other people take you seriously too. You are a good leader, and you can be trusted with someone's life. You motivate people well, and you command respect easily. You are competent, successful, and organized. You can't stand chaos. Some people mistake you for being cold, calculating, or elitist.