Wet.

I've just been swimming in the Jesus Green outdoor pool. In the Outside. It was ace. One of few things I've done in the last few ages which has actually been added to by the rain. Not too many people, grey sky and rain to watch. Unheated, so actually a pleasant experience to swim in, as opposed to the vastly overheated indoor pools, where you sweat in the water and it's yukky. Not too chlorinated either. It must be the largest pool I've ever swum in - a full 100 yards. You only have to swim 20 lengths to have done considerably more than a mile. Satisfying. I was, and indeed still am, shaky after I got out. It's been FOREVER since I did any concerted upper body exercise. That was the thing that started giving out...my stamina was fine, and (at least while I was in the water!) I felt like I could have kept going for ages, but my neck ached and my arm muscles ached from the unaccustomed effort. I was doing backstroke, which means that you actually have a lot of tension in your neck - hadn't really noticed that before. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed that stroke though, because it lets me breathe properly. Singers don't cope well with not being able to fill their lungs properly each breath, which is what happens in crawl, and breast stroke is disappointingly slow. Was tempted to play with butterfly, but thought everyone else would laugh at how bad I was, or think I was showing off. Which I probably would have been, for the first 5 strokes, until I got tired, and then they would have laughed... I think I'm going to have to invest in a swimming hat, despite how stupid they look and how uncomfortable they are. Damn hair. There is NO way of tying it up so that it doesn't come straight down the second I put it in the water.

And to cap all the watery experiences of today, as I came back over the bridge, there were canoeists jumping into the river in their kayaks from off the top of the lock - 5 or 6 feet above the water. It looked ace, and since I was already dripping I stopped to watch. Splishysplashy. Hee. It's nice to see the British enjoying their national weather.

I've noticed how rambly this post has become. I'm going to have a very hot shower and some food asap. And then I'm going to see how the rats are.

Cinematrix.

The weather's SILLY. Actually great fun though - enormous thunder storms that last seconds, then proper July sunshine. It's annoying, because I haven't spent ANY time lying on any grass, which means my Italian tan has more or less entirely faded. I'm keep meaning to give it a shot, but the trouble is I don't live right next to any grassy patches, such that I could run inside when the heavens open and not get drenched. I live close, don't get me wrong, but probably not close enough. Bah. Might give it a shot this afternoon though - need to get out of the flat for a bit.

I went to do the double bill of current kids films yesterday; Shrek 3 followed by Harry Potter. (*SPOILERS FOLLOW*) Both good fun, but distinctly lacking in plot. Shrek was more or less as expected - they need to flesh out events a bit more. There was a bit in a high school that could have been quite fun, but got skimped on, and in general the whole story went by so quickly that they were missing the chance to make it really entertaining. Bah. Harry Potter was actually similar. The book (The Order of the Phoenix) is really long, and they clearly had to pick highlights and put them up. They were, I think, relying on viewers having read the books a) to follow the story and b) even to understand who was which character. They changed a load of plot points, clearly for time reasons, such that events have different meanings and people do different things. The only bits I thought they did at all well were the DA meetings - I thought the spells were done really well and it was great to watch. I also loved Luna Lovegood. I know the Irish thing is a stereotype and it was slightly annoying from that point of view (see below), but she was great to watch and generally lovely. She wasn't what she is in the books at all, and she gave the whole film a Lord of the Rings air, but if you accepted you weren't really watching Harry Potter anymore, it was good.

The thing that annoys me most about the films is when they change things that seem to me fundamental in the books, particularly the ordinariness of magic in the magic world. Luna shouldn't be fey and beautiful, she should be like the weird kid in every other school. Kingsley Shacklebolt shouldn't be dressed in north African robes but should look like every other British wizard character except be black. Wizard society reflects the makeup of the rest of British society - yes there are people from different ethnic groups who wear traditional clothes all the time, but there are more who are second or third or even more generation, who wear western clothes and have ordinary UK accents rather than the accent of their ancestral country. It's something I think Rowling goes out of her way to suggest in the books - there are poor families and rich families and families from various ethnic backgrounds, as well as the muggle-born and the pure blood wizard families. I can deal with them changing things so long as they don't change the world too much, but that annoys me.

Anyway, courtesy of Charlotte, here's a spoof from someone called mistful. Enjoy!