Passing some time

[dc]

We have no water. Sinuses are pulsing again. I’ve done some necessary work, but now I’m just waiting for the hammering from next door (where I think they are repairing the damage done by the fuckwits who formerly lived there) to die down enough for me to watch “The Daleks” — yes, I got “The Beginning” box set yesterday. (Actually, it’s cheaper from Play).

[Just went to see what the postman had stuck through the door — our Hugo nomination forms have arrived — and discovered the water supply is back, although I think the mains pressure is down a bit.]

So, to pass some time, I thought I would do this “I’ve got this, you haven’t” meme that’s going around; I pinched it from progmeister. I’ve put in links to the editions I have, where possible; there might be newer/cheaper ones available of some of these. Here goes:

Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does:
Tricky. It seems to me the most likely option would be one of these three:

• Marquee Moon - Television
• Khmer - Nils Petter Molvaer
• Havergal Brian’s Symphony No. 1 “Gothic” - Ondrej Lenard conducting the CSR Symphony (Bratislava), Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic Choir, etc.

Probably the least likely one someone would have would be the Nils Petter Molvaer disc, with the Havergal Brian a close second.

Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does:
At first I thought of Dee Goong an by Robert H. van Gulik (well, translated by him), or possibly Coffin, Scarcely Used by Colin Watson. I can’t remember the last time I spoke to someone who had even heard of that, despite its having been adapted for TV in the 70s, with Anton Rodgers as Inspector Purbright and Christopher Timothy as Sgt. Love — pace the IMDB, which doesn’t include Coffin in the episode listing for Murder Most English: A Flaxborough Chronicle. I’m staggered that Watson’s books are out of print. If you have never stumbled on them, they are detective novels, but unusual ones, full of sharp humour, all set in or around Flaxborough, which one character describes as: “A high-spirited town. Like Gomorrah.”

However, this one is a book that no more than one or two people who might conceivably read my LJ let alone be on my friends list will have: Mongolian Shamanism by Purev Otgony & Purvee Gurbadaryn (ISBN 99929-0-239-6 — which will be no help at all in trying to find it!).

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friends list does:
I was going to say Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (silent films are generally a good bet for something like this) — but then I actually thought about who was on my friends list, and it isn’t out of the question that, say, highstone, who also has an interest in German cinema of the 20s, might have it. Not many people I know have even seen The 13th Warrior, but given the subject matter, it’s entirely possible that someone on my friends list might have it. I’d say Into The Night, which hardly anyone seems to have heard of despite its being a John Landis film starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, with David Bowie as a hit man and B.B. King on the soundtrack, and despite its well-publicised cinema release in the mid-80s; but I feel that might be cheating, as it’s only available on Region 1. [Actually, I have just discovered that isn’t true any more, it was sneaked out on R2 at some point. So maybe I would go for it, after all.]

For a random group of people, I’d be on safe ground with some of my SF stuff, but someone on my friends list might well have Solaris, Stalker, Destination Moon, Neverwhere, and so on. Perhaps... OK, one of these three: the disc with both Les Visiteurs and Les Visiteurs 2 on it (if you saw the American version of Les Visiteurs, Just Visiting, and thought it was not very good, the original is vastly superior), Le Dîner de Cons, or 101 Reykjavík. I’d say, on balance, the latter.

Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friends list has been:
The Kuwaiti desert.

Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friends list has:
On the shelf behind me I have an auroscope and an ophthalmoscope. Not sure if they still work. I would not be too surprised if someone did have one of those.

So... they have stopped hammering next door, but now a pneumatic drill is thumping away outside. Grrr.

Time to find the headphones and head for Skaro.

Comments

[jezreell1.livejournal.com]

CD - whalesong LOL (yes, it is as awful as it sounds)

Book - Runic Astrology

Movie - Ghosts of Nottingham (really bad)

Place - the foothills of Everest :)

Thing - A mechanical calculator and a set of books on how to use it

Jez

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a whalesong CD, too. :)

Mechanical calculator — ooh, haven’t seen one of those in years.

[highstone.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, although I have 'The testament of Dr Mabuse' on VHS, I have yet to buy 'DR The gambler' on DVD - despite seeing it on the shelves of HMV a few times - other things have so far claimed my money.

The Gothic Symphony is something else I really need to get - another work not yet obtained despite my hoardes of classical recordings!