Friday 28th January 2011

The end of another week at work and nearly the end of another month. I can't believe it's the end of January already. It was another very busy day at work with the system not working correctly again. Hopefully it will now be working OK next week. They think they tracked it down to possibly missing quote marks in a new script!

I was late home from work. So late that I only just caught the last post collection. The van was pulling up just as I left. I didn't have time to eat properly. Just about had time to cook pizza quick and had a couple of bits before setting off for astronomy club. We got there about 7.30. The car park was full again and we spent the start of the meeting standing up until some more chairs appeared. After the news of the week, one of the Steve's did a talk on telescopes. It was very interesting. As with most hobbies, all the individual parts soon add up to an expensive hobby. After the talk, I escaped to the kitchen to help with the washing up. It wasn't clear enough to get outside and look at the real thing so Drew gave us a tour with Stellarium. He also told us about the correct 13 star signs. According to this I am not a Leo, but Cancer. I prefer Leo! I think it suits me better. The 13th sign of the Zodiac is Ophiuchus represented by a man wrestling a serpent and was discarded by the Babylonians because they only wanted 12 constellations.

When we got home, I found a two part series called “Alice” based on Alice in Wonderland. It was very strange but I carried on watching it. It was made in 2009. Using the classic Lewis Carroll books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as a place to begin, writer/director Nick Willing (director of Syfy's Tin Man) has created the modern-day story of Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone), a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the deliciously devilish Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates) who's not very happy about Alice's arrival.

In the course of her adventure, Alice enlists the help of an array of characters including the resistance fighter Hatter (Andrew-Lee Potts), resistance leader Dodo (Tim Curry) and the White Knight (Matt Frewer). Rounding out the cast are Colm Meaney as the King of Hearts, Harry Dean Stanton as Caterpillar, Alessandro Juliani as 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber as Carpenter, Alex Diakun as Ratcatcher, and Eugene Lipinski as Doctors Dee and Dum.

It was good to see Colm Meaney in something again and of course Matt Frewer for the second time this week. I didn't set it to record as I had missed the first 8 minutes. I have now found the next showing of it to record so that Dave can watch it. Part two is also set to record next week.