So, last night I went to see Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I've read the books several times over the years, and love them, but never heard the radio show or seen the TV series.

The film is absolutely superb, though :)
Al got there first this morning, and has already written a good long review, but I had to say something myself too!

Firstly, the casting is excellent. Martin Freeman reprises his put-upon Tim From The Office role and looks suitably bewildered as Arthur, Alan Rickman provides the despondent drawl of Marvin the Paranoid Android, and Jim Henson's Creature Workshop and the League Of Gentlemen combine forces to create the thoroughly unpleasant but comically officious Vogons.

There are many differences from the book, some more important than others. I always imagined Zaphod having two heads side-by-side, but in the film his second head pops out from under his chin (as a continuation of his first) when the more manic elements of his personality manifest themselves. (Otherwise, I have to say, Zaphod's charisma, hair, clothes and whiter-than-white cheesy grin are perfect.)

More important are the plot amendments - but don't worry, they were mostly the work of Douglas Adams himself, who always wanted a film version to be made. If the book were followed to the letter, I don't think the resulting film would have worked - certainly it would appeal to hardcore fans only. The actual film is tidier, with a nice neat Hollywood ending and with many of the book's verbal gags replaced with different visual ones, often quite Pythonesque in nature. The opening song is brilliantly cheesy, too.

Small quibbles: the speed of the plot is variable - sometimes it lurches about very quickly and without warning, possibly leaving the uninitiated bewildered; and sometimes it drags a bit (oddly, these places are often those where the book is followed the most closely - and this includes some of Stephen Fry's narrative asides, well-animated though they are). Also, I thought the planet maker Slartibartfast (played by Bill Nighy) was a bit dull (although the visual sequences inside the planet factory are pretty astounding!).

But anyway. To summarise: GO SEE! Now!

Well, in that it's political, anyway.
I'm sure everyone has already seen the Political Compass - but here's a much simpler political questionnaire that focusses on the coming General Election.

As admitted on its main page, it does not cover all the issues, concentrating instead on those where the main parties differ most. Anyway, it would seem that I'm a loony leftie hippy Green first, closely followed by the Lib Dems, with Labour quite some way behind. In reality I'm certainly Green in some ways, and certainly Liberal in others, but probably not enough of either to swing my vote.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 15
Conservative -20
	Liberal Democrat 57
UK Independence Party -24
	Green 59

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Following on from Bob's recent post about absolutism versus relativism - currently a hot topic following the pope-ification (what's the correct term here?) of avowed absolutist Benedict XVI - I would like to add my own nominal amount of US currency.

Yesterday the Guardian published an "in his own words" feature on various issues on religion, marriage, homosexuality, abortion and so on, most of which were regrettably predictable. The one that caught my eye, though, was the following quote:

"The church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin... the Evangelium Vitae [a Vatican edict] states that there is a "grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection ... In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law or vote for it"."

In other words, if a state law exists that conflicts with Catholic dogma, then Catholics are obliged to disobey that law. This really surprised me. Clearly in the case of abortion or euthanasia there is no conflict - a good Catholic wouldn't want to make use of these laws anyway. But the implications of this are that Catholics are not obliged to obey state laws, and presumably would be obliged to condemn them wherever possible.

A similar situation may exist within Islam, in that some adherents claim to put their religion before their nationality, though I don't know whether this is a formal edict or not and so won't comment further. But my point is: by acting in this way, organised religions (whether of East or West) can become disruptive influences on society and democracy, and in my opinion this is precisely why religion should have no place on politics whatever. I would never vote for a politician that condemned or oppressed religious adherency - I am a liberal. But at the same time, to say that godless states and societies are corrosive and flawed is pretty hypocritical when you are actively encouraging your followers to corrode them.

Personal beliefs are fine - I believe people should be able to live how they like as long as it doesn't harm those around them. Also, at a personal level religion has got a lot going for it - all the Christians I know are gentle, kind people, and I love the peaceful atmosphere of churches. But absolutism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. I guess it comes down to change. Change and progress are human, and therefore permanence and stasis are godly. But change is not only human, it is also natural, and nature is also presumed to be godly. I'm going to end up tying myself in philosophical knots if I'm not careful, so I think I'll stop there. I hope I've made at least some kind of intelligent point! ;)

Edit: Just realised that I've missed out something important! Where does the unchanging, godly authority for Catholic dogma come from? Nowhere in the Bible are issues such as euthanasia, contraception/abortion and homosexuality laid bare in an unambiguous, Ten Commandments type way (oh, and Leviticus, schmeviticus!). It's all down to interpretation, which can never be static.

Ben, keeper of the Southampton Pub Quiz Diary, noticed that the Varsity was starting a pub quiz on Mondays, so we went and checked out the first night.

It's an unusual but good set-up: the winners of each round get £20, the overall winners get £50, and there are a couple of other bonus prizes like "best team name".

At the end of the first round (general knowledge) we thought we'd done really badly (and indeed we kinda had), but in fact we were joint first - whether this reflects on the average intelligence of Varsity's patrons I couldn't possibly say. In any case, we went on to win one of the rounds and the overall title, netting us £70. A good evening's work, all in all! :)

To celebrate, here is a picture of a BIG POTATO! (taken at a barbecue round at Ben's house in March - I think I mentioned it in passing at the time)

Click here for more photos!

So yesterday (Sunday) I went up to London to meet some family (and some family-to-be) and go to the Zoo, as described in my previous post. Things didn't start off well. We were meant to meet at the entrance at 11am, and sure enough at 11am prompt my bro texted me to say he'd arrived ("LONDON BABY! Yeah! I win" may have been his exact words). Unfortunately, I was still at Clapham Junction and Hannah and Crispin were "nearly there but a bit lost". I sympathised with them soon enough when I also got lost between the Tube station and the entrance and ended up in a random Camden council estate. Since Andy, my bro, is renowned for his lack of direction or geographical knowledge, it seemed just a tad unfair that he apparently found it so easy. Eventually, at about 12pm and nearer 1pm respectively, Hannah & Crispin and myself staggered in.

After that, however, it was great. A gorgeous day, good company and ALL teh animals. Granted, a lot of them were asleep or not to be seen (maybe Sunday is a day of rest in the animal kingdom, too), but we still saw a lot.

Best bits: the giraffes, penguin feeding time, the walk-through monkey enclosure, some not-particularly-large snakes swallowing mice whole (took them about 5 mins each), a snail bigger than your hand, and various odd-looking lizards. I particularly loved the elephant shrews, which are almost entirely round balls of fluff with little shrewy noses. Their legs seem too close together, adding to their rounded appearance but making you fearful of them falling head-over-heels! They were behind glass in quite a dark room so I couldn't take a photo, but here's one I found on t'internet. Sooo cute!

It's funny how these things work. After posting my last, er, post, I read my friends' blogs to find Mary also lamenting her blog's lack of "seriousness", and Elly, chuffed with the response to her 'serious' post, proposing more of the same, only to find Rach stating a preference for posts about the simpler things in life. I guess it is a bit foolish to feel pressured by something like blogging - after all, in general I'm quite content knowing that certain people have more journalistic skill than me :)

[NB This was written Thursday night]

Just got off the 'phone to my parents. I always end up feeling a bit down and frustrated after speaking to them, not because of any tension between us or anything, but because unsurprisingly they ask what I’ve been up to and what I’ve got planned, and the answer is always... well, not a lot really. Been to the pub, seen some bands, watched some films... going to Glastonbury... erm, anything I’ve missed? Thing is, day to day I don’t think of myself as having a particularly dull existence, but times like this do make me think. I know I’ve got to sort out my career – my current job just isn’t stimulating enough, India or no India – but what to do and where to go? Also, a proper summer holiday with friends wouldn’t go amiss.

Also, if my life were a bit more interesting it might make for more interesting blog entries. At the moment I’m quite content to let my friends be interesting for me: see Liam’s excellent Papal post, Bob’s thoughts on the General Election and Elly’s views on faith schools.

Ah well. Shouldn’t complain really. It’s Friday tomorrow, it’s been a fantastic week for English football clubs in Europe* (and while I’m on the subject, congratulations to Norwich on their thrashing of Man Utd last weekend – let’s be havin’ you indeed!), and the sun’s started coming out. It’s my friend Vicky’s birthday tomorrow, so I’m sure it’ll be a fun evening, and Sunday I’m off to London Zoo for the day with my brother, our cousin and her fiancé, so I’ll try to get loads of pics of the naminals!

* Friday morning edit: but not Newcastle, apparently, who despite being 2-0 up at one point, including one away goal, still contrived to lose 4-2. The fools.

Haha! Friday night was one of those rare and very cool occasions when multiple groups of friends all end up at the same place, completely unplanned. The venue, of course, was Jesters. One of the people I bumped into was Lauren; here is her take on the evening ;)

Also: Glasto line-up has been released!

Argh! Bastard thing just lost my whole post!
*cries into keyboard*

It went something like this...

So, after a painfully uneventful week - come back soon, everyone! - last night I went to see Idlewild. A surprising number of AIM folk turned up - Bob, Mac, Mary, Nance, Lisa, plus a few others who I didn't know but who seemed cool. Plus Laurent, Elly and Nigel for good measure :) Went to 'Spoons first for a chat, which is always good.

The support act, Sons And Daughters, were, as their name might suggest, 2 guys and 2 girls (no idea if they're related!). They had a strange, indie rockabilly kind of sound - sort of like some of the Pixies' early, more drawn-out stuff, with simple, insistent White Stripes-esque rhythms (though with a more highly skilled drummer - sorry Meg!). A good, solid live sound, but one that would maybe sound a bit muted and repetitive on record.

Idlewild opened with a rousing Love Steals Us From Loneliness and proceeded to play what I considered to be a damn good set - plenty of material from their best 2 albums "Hope Is Important" and "100 Broken Windows", a couple of surprises (a lighters-in-the-air Bronze Medal and a slowed-down acoustic version of Self Healer from their first mini-album, "Captain") and a Neil Young cover in honour of the great man's birthday. The one disappointment for me, though, was that, ok, their more recent material is slower, smoother and more Snow Patrol mainstream, but they played their earlier stuff in the same way. In particular, during encore closer Everyone Says You're So Fragile Roddy sounded almost bored, and kept running his fingers through his hair as if putting any more effort in would ruin its style. Any rawk yelps and screams here or in songs like Film For The Future were out of the question too.

All in all, if you were a new fan you'd be pretty impressed, and I'm glad I finally got to see them, but I'm fully aware that I've missed their best days. Afterwards, no-one wanted to go to Lennons, but luckily Ben and Al were there waiting for me :)

After a surreal Saturday night out, in which we ended up with pretty much our own private party in Jesters for Matt's birthday, I crashed over at Al's and we woke up early to bash at 'F5' and 'redial' buttons for a couple of hours. In the end we got through (on the webshite) after only 40mins or so. Al's confirmation e-mail came through later in the day, so the only question now is whether the fact that Al entered my postcode incorrectly will matter :)

I know Ben & Lucy got tickets, and I've just read Mary's blog so I know she's coming too, but what about the rest of you?

Wooooooooooooooooooooo! :)

P.S. I've just realised that I'm going to see Idlewild this Thursday. Snuck up on me a bit, that one :)
Anyone else going?