Tag: cornwall

Return to the Cinematic Wasteland.

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I think it might be time to subscribe to a DVD-mail-rental service, so I can catch up on all the films I’ve not yet seen (complete works of Preston Sturges here I come…) while I spend the next few months missing a large proportion of the films I might want to see, or waiting weeks for them to arrive. Yay, West Cornwall cinema-going.

I live within half an hour of four cinemas. They’re all owned by the same company. They are all around half an hour from each other (and people in this part of the world are generally used to driving places). Yet they are all showing the Exact Same films. You’d think they might put at least one different film on in each, to provide a bit of variety – especially allowing smaller, independent films to be seen by lunatics like me. It’s especially annoying as none of the films they’re showing are Four Lions, which I want to take my dad to see as I think he’d like it. It’s on in Falmouth (which is a student town), which is about 45 minutes away. So long, planet, I will be driving a lot this summer if I want to see good films, clearly.

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: Arts
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home sweet home

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Back in Cornwall. Is pretty much autumnal rather than springlike right now.

It was nice earlier, went to the Eden Project along with several thousand other people, and took lots and lots and lots of photos of tulips. And then discovered that I didn’t bring home the camera cable, and anyway, I don’t have lightroom on my laptop. So that’s what I’ll be doing when I get back to St Andrews next week, before heading to Rome…

Home is much the same. Ellie is already shorn of her hair for summer, since she had apparently managed to get it all knotted up. Therefore she looks like an overgrown poodle with a fringe and fluffy tail. I still love my barn, even if I have to sit in the window sill to pick up a very low wifi signal. My mother has hung new anti-squirrel bird feeders across the garden between the barn and the main house,which means that when I run from one to t’other in the rain and wind, head down, clutching laptop in carrier bag to chest, I am guaranteeably going to hit one of them with my head and concuss myself, and won’t that be delightful.

I have a wedding invitation for up the summer, a bunch of people to meet up with over the weekend, and some parents to introduce to the Daily Show. Byeee.

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: Musings
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Solomon Browne

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A friend of mine reminded me that it is the anniversary of the Penlee lifeboat disaster today. On 19 December 1981 the Union Star developed an engine fault off the Wolf Rock, the fuel supply became contaminated by sea water and the weather continued to worsen, driving the ship onto the rocks near Penlee Point. The Penlee Lifeboat the Solomon Browne was launched, manned by eight volunteers, and attempted to rescue the eight passengers and crew of tthe Union Star. The weather was so bad that the Royal Navy Sea King helicopter was unable to airlift the crew from the ship, but the Solomon Browne made repeated attempts to pull alongside.

The Solomon Browne’s last message was: “We’ve got four men off, hang on, we have got four at the moment. There’s two left on board…”, at which point the radio went dead and her lights disappeared. Lifeboats from Sennen Cove and St Marys on the Isles of Scilly attempted a search and rescue for survivors, but none were found.

The crew of Solomon Browne were: William Trevelyan Richards (Coxswain), James Madron (2nd Coxswain.), Nigel Brockman, John Blewett, Kevin Smith, Barrie Torrie, Charles Greenhaugh and Gary Wallis. Nigel Brockman’s son, Neil, still serves on the Penlee lifeboat. He volunteered for the 1981 ‘shout’ but was sent back by Richards who did not want two members of the same family out in such conditions. Tonight, as every year, the world famous Christmas illuminations of Mousehole will be turned off at 8pm for an hour as an act of remembrance.  Read more...

: Arts,Musings
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In which Cornwall beats the Med

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It may have rained for most of August, but today was just one of those days in which Cornwall proves that it can, in fact, beat the Mediterranean’s clubbing-happy little ass.

Today, after watching some of the barnstormingly loopy modern pentathalon (drawing lots for horses, wtf?), I stole the Maternal Unit’s car and free parking ticket for Land’s End and made a getaway for the coast for it was sunny. Sunny sunny sunny. Everyone else in the world seemed to be headed for Land’s End and Sennen too, but they were not doing what I was doing, no. They were going to sit on the beach, or go to the tacky exhibitions at Land’s End. I was going to park at Land’s End (free, lots of it), as opposed to Sennen (expensive, tiny amounts) and then walk myself along the coast path between the two to have lunch at the Sennen Beach Cafe and watch the surfers. It was lovely. There were a other people out on the coast path, but not enough to constitute serious traffic. There was an inshore breeze, smelling of salt, and the ferns were doing their nice sunshine-after-rain scenty thing, and there was a little bit of heather, and it was so so clear that you could not only see the Longships, but also the Wolf Rock and the Isles of Scilly out there on the horizon.  Read more...

: Musings,Travel
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