Turner Classic Movies

Okay, I haven't posted anything here in over a year, but I've decided to start up again. I make no guarantees that I'll post regularly or anything, but here goes.

It is nearly December, which is my favorite time of year, but not for the reasons you may think. Every year, on Christmas Day, Turner Classic Movies plays my very favorite old movie musical, Bundle of Joy, starring Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher (a.k.a-Princess Leia's parents). The basic story is that Debbie Reynolds gets fired from her job, then finds an abandoned baby and takes it to an orphanage, where they assume she is the baby's mother. The orphanage contacts her employer, who thinks she is giving up her baby because she's just lost her job. So he offers her the chance to have her job back, but only if she keeps her baby. Hilarity and cheesy musical sequences ensue.

I seriously love this movie, and I'd own it if I could, but when I checked Amazon, the only copies available are used VHS tapes, which cost a ridiculous amount of money. Plus, I'm not entirely sure whether I still own a VCR.

This is why the once yearly airing on TCM is so important. In fact, it's so important (in my world, at least) that I panicked just a little bit when I checked the schedule online and saw that Bundle of Joy is not playing on Christmas Day. It's been played on Christmas Day for the last three years (which is as long as I've been ritually watching it, so maybe even longer than that). I stopped panicking just long enough to do a little more investigating, which is a good thing. Although TCM is not playing Bundle of Joy on Christmas Day, it will be playing TWICE (!) during the month of December!

On December 14, TCM has the very best lineup ever. The movies playing that day include, in addition to Bundle of Joy, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, Singin' In the Rain, The Absent Minded Professor, and Son Of Flubber. My DVR will be very, very busy on that day.

Discussing this spectacular day of film viewing with my family led to a conversation about how I need to:

a)Find out who owns the rights to Bundle of Joy so I can bother them by email until they release it on DVD

and

b)Get DVD copies of The Happiest Millionaire, The Ugly Dachshund, and that James Stewart movie where his daughter goes to Europe and gets engaged (which, I have learned through the wonders of the Internet, is called Take Her, She's Mine).


Also, I did not win NaNoWriMo, because I started over halfway through the month. I know you're not supposed to do that, but I'd rather start over and have a novel I might actually get published someday than spend a month writing a 50,000 word book that doesn't work. I'm still writing. I do intend to keep writing daily, just as I have been all month. I will finish this book, or die trying.

Ending the Program

We had a sort of goodbye ceremony last night for the end of the summer school program. There was champagne (I stuck with sparkling water), and there were many toasts to the professors, the students, the conference, and then back around to the students and the professors. We're all so glad to have been a part of something like this, and many of us agreed last night that it's the best course we've taken.
Andy and Anthony, our British professors, gave each of us a certificate of completion of the course, a little UCL graduate bear (which I'm calling the Anthony Bear), and a UCL pin (which I've put on the bear, so I won't lose it). It was such a nice thing for them to do, I think, and they really didn't need to. It just goes to show what kind and generous professors we had for this course.

Andy sang us a parody of an old English folk song called "The Bold Librarian." We were all laughing out loud through the whole song. I won't post the whole thing here, but I'll give you the first verse.

Oh, some, they like the sailor man
When he comes back to shore,
And some they like the beggar man
That begs from door to door,
And some, they like the soldier man
With his musket and his can,
But my delight can read and write,
He's the bold librarian.

I've made some great friends on this trip, and I sincerely hope we'll be able to stay a part of each other's lives. From left to right, we have Laura, me, Barbara, Monica, and Mia.

It's class picture time! On the top row, there's Diana, Tim, Dahlia (who grew up in Arizona!) David, Phil, Terrence, Sam, Becky, and Anthony. Sitting in the middle row is Monica, Denise, Renee, Barbara, Ilaria, Laura, and Tula Gianini, the dean of Pratt Institute's School of Information and Library Science. And sitting on the floor, there's Lucy, Mia, me, Nanci, and Luz. A great group, and I'm glad to know them all.

Loo of the Year

In case you didn't already know, "loo" is British slang for bathroom. Yesterday, I had the great honor of using the Loo of the Year, which is located at the British National Archives. They had a sign and everything. Ironically, one of the toilets in the Loo of the Year was out of order.

The government offices

I don't have any pictures for this post, because I wasn't allowed to take any while I was inside the Cabinet building. That's right, I was in the Cabinet building. I was only a short underground tunnel away from Tony Blair as he left 10 Downing Street to go resign as Britain's Prime Minister.

I also got to watch the changing of the guard from a window in the conference room right next door to the office of a junior minister. I've never been in such an important location in my life. It was fantastic!

Cambridge Day

On Tuesday, we took the coach (bus) to Cambridge for the day. I didn't take very many pictures, because I was preoccupied with being the coldest I've ever been in my life. But here are a few fun ones.

My first time in a real English pub! With me is my friend Laura and my professor Andy. The fish & chips made a really yummy lunch.

Here's the Cambridge University Library. It's not as pretty as the Bodleian, but then, few buildings are.

Here's the King's College chapel, which is one of the more famous buildings in Cambridge.

The British Library

The British Library is quite an interesting place. They've got some of the Beatles' early song manuscripts on display next to Handel's Messiah, which is quite interesting. They also had an exhibit called "Sacred," which is a display of very early Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts. I didn't have enough time to go to that one, but I may try to go back before I head home.

Here's the grand entryway. I quite like it.

This is my favorite piece of art in the library. It's a bench, and it's titled "Sitting on History."

You can't tell from the photograph, but this painting is actually done on a 3-D, oddly shaped surface. It's designed so that when you lean from one side to the other, the bookshelves turn. So very cool.

This is one of the largest books in the world. It's an atlas, and it's so old that California is depicted as an island. This book is actually available for use, so if anyone requests it, it takes three people to use. Two people hold the book open from either side and the third person turns the pages. The last person who used the book wanted to take photographs, so they had to build a special scaffold so he could get high enough above the book to get a shot of the whole page.

And here's the bust of King George III. Those books behind him are his personal collection. It's a tower that's about 30-40 feet square, and six stories high. Those books are available for use as well, so whenever anyone asks for one, a library assistant has to go inside the tower on an elevator to find it.

Such cool stuff!

Future Plans

On my way back from the Tower of London today, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next Saturday, before my flight home on Sunday. I've already seen the major historical sights I wanted to see, and I think I've had about all the museums I can stand for one trip, so I was at a loss to decide on what I should do. But as I was riding the escalator back up to the street level from the tube, I was looking at all the advertising posters they have hanging up for plays in the West End. That gave me my idea!

I came back to my room and started looking up shows on the Internet to see which ones were offering reasonable prices. As it happens, the best price was offered by my very favorite play, Wicked. The wireless Internet connection I'm using is unsecured, so I didn't want to order my ticket online, and the phone in my room can't make calls outside the building. So I gathered up my change, wrote down the number for Ticketmaster, and went down to the phone box on the corner. I ordered my ticket, which I'll pick up at the box office on Saturday, and came back upstairs to map out my route to the theatre. As it happens, the theatre is three tube stops away on the line I've used most often, and it's right across the street from the station. It should be an easy trip, and a great show!