Movie Quests

I'm thinking about movie quests, at this moment. Small, achievable goals which allow me turn my movie-watching into a tickable to-do list. Because that's the sort of thing that makes any action into an incredible accomplishment. 

Jessie Buckley in The Bride!

Early in the year I posted about wanting to watch every Jessie Buckley movie (I'm only at 6 out of 35 - how embarrassing), and every David Lean movie (3 of 17). I haven't completed those beautiful goals, but I did watch one awful Jessie film (Fingernails - a Black Mirror style sci-fi romcom which had no idea how to flesh out its premise), and an amazing David Lean one (This Happy Breed - a drama spanning the gap between world wars, watch it here immediately). This is already enough to make having thought of these goals worthwhile, but I will have to get back into it and continue my gorgeous quest. It must be done.

Sexy old man, David Lean.

That said, I have a new one in mind. Sophie Thatcher. She has, as it turns out, not been in a huge amount of films yet. But she was in Companion, which I really enjoyed. A true "good for her" movie. 

There she is.

There's something charming about her, and I guess it was that first season of Yellowjackets that did it. She pulled me in. And I'm at 2 out of 14. This could be my chance. And then, who? Sidney Poitier, perhaps? Yeah. But he has 83 movies. I've seen ONE.

Well then. Only 82 to go.

I must quest. I have no choice.

The Bunny Approaches

Picture this. It's a sunny day with a light breeze. You're walking through a pleasant meadow, peppered with daisies. The distant buzzing of stray bees can be heard as they work their way through the flowers. And there's a lumpen creature, you notice. 

Here she is:

What will you do?

What will you do?

You will become her. 

Top 3 Elves

I finally missed a day of updating my blog! Sound the alarm, release the party poppers, ready the handcuffs. For yesterday, I did not post. What I did do though, was stream some Morrowind. And it was incredible.

It's my first time playing the game, and while I've played tons of Skyrim and Oblivion before, and so know the rough shape of Elder Scrolls living, this is a different beast I am yet to know. What struck me most, immediately, was the incredible elf choices available. 

Peter, this Reddit poster's Altmer mage.

Of course, the other games allow a lot of good elf choices of their own, but between the beautiful assembly of these polygonal, yet wonderfully realistic, faces, and the sheer emphasis on elf typing you're thrust into right away, I figured why not give you my initial ranking of the Morrowind elves? Yes, that's right. Forget all external elves for now. This is serious. 

Here is the third best elf:

3. WOOD ELF (BOSMER)

Menelras, a gorgeous wood elf.

Now, the wood elves are super normal. They don't have unusual skin colour, by human standards, and they're just chilling in the woods or whatever. It's good to have a relatively normal elf in the world, but they don't intrigue and delight me as much as a more otherwordly elf might, so I have to put them dead last. Sorry guys, your archery skills bore me. Get nastier. 

2. DARK ELF (DUNMER)

Giron, a beautiful dark elf.

These elves are hateful and sinister. They have glowing red eyes. They are undeniable gothic icons. It can't be denied that this is a great elf. They are absolutely committed to judging, and I think they all listen to Cradle of Filth. Unfortunately for them, when it comes to the ranking, there is a yet nastier type of elf.

1. HIGH ELF (ALTMER)

Eldafire, a stunning high elf.

Okay, so as you can already tell, the more snooty and insane an elf's culture is, the more I love them. These elves have the incredible combo of being bright yellow, and being mega racist. They're always talking about their superior genetics, meanwhile they're jaundiced as hell. They look like pee pee. That's awesome.

These elves are supremely pompous, and sure of their own perfection. I think Matt Groening probably saw these guys and new instantly that he had to make Simpsons. Yellowness, as we all surely know, is next to Godliness.

***

So that's my elf ranking. If you wish to debate me on it, I will listen sombrely. In the meantime, I will be streaming and meeting many more of these wonderful elves.

Baby: Unleashed

Would you like to see me as a baby? Yes? Great. Please observe and take notes on the following images. You may be tested at a later date.

It's always a bit comical to know that I, truthfully, was once a little tiny baby. This is the kind of information that seems inherently funny. Me? A fully grown adult? I was once a goo goo gaa gaa ass little baby with a neat blonde fuzz atop my tiny, foolish head? That's funny. And true.

Me and my mum.

I love remembering being a baby and/or toddler. There's not much in the way of solid memory there, but I do distinctly remember things, such as learning to read (the coolest thing ever, and it still feels that way), playing with my doll, Gabriella, or indeed, my very first concrete memory (Rik Mayall smacking Adrian Edmondson with a frying pan on TV).

And of course, scattered memories of my dad, who died when I was four, and so remains something of a nebulous character to me. But I do remember him.

It's also just generally very cool to look at these pictures and find them so helpful in recalling specific things, like items of furniture (the coffee table and oversized books in some of these pictures, for example), or THE GORILLA.

Yes, the all important gorilla. One cannot forget the gorilla of one's childhood. I'm sure you remember your gorilla. 

Halloween: The Game

Guys. There's a Halloween game for the Atari 2600. And it is iconically silly.

You play as a blonde girl with blinding white tights, and your task is to walk leisurely away from Michael Myers, who spawns after a few seconds on each screen and follows you as a scintillating 8-bit version of the Halloween theme plays. It's sort of... cute.

The game, you will immediately discover, is broken beyond belief. You can walk to the next screen and then return to despawn the man, and so you're never in any real danger of getting gotten. Your task is to meander around the map until you find a weapon, with which you can hit your frightening villain one single time to kill his ass and gain a few hundred points. Then he returns, and you must do the same thing once again. This is more or less the extent of the gameplay, and it is delectably stupid.

It's pretty rapidly dull, given that there is nothing to do but run circles around your sad, useless enemy - aside from escorting some random children to safety, or alternatively watching them be brutally slain (you're not punishing for leaving them to die) - but there is an incredible delight to this empty interpretation of the movie. There are sections with flickering lights that are fairly effectively scary - if I can't see him for a second, he actually maybe could possibly get me! But nah... he's never gonna get me.

It's so good.

Memories, as if from a dream

Here are some old family photos I've scanned. Let me take you on a beautiful journey to explore them.

The first is this lovely picture of my grandma feeding a little bird perched atop my granddad's car door. This was probably somewhere we'd stopped the car so she could get out and have a cigarette break. And then along came the bird. I think I took this one, and I have a feeling it could have been the same trip where we spotted an eagle flying around. But maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Secondly, some beautiful clouds over the Wallace Monument. My family must collectively be responsible for an alarming number of landscape shots of the Wallace Monument on its mound. And who can blame them? It looks beautiful.

The third image I present you with is this cute photo of my aunt and uncle. I like the milk's presence in the scene. Very important.

Fourthly, my cousin's birthday. Please notice the immense amount of booze in the back of the shot.

Next, the dog. That's Poppy. She's resting.

I love this picture of my grandma. I don't know why she's holding some sort of Museum of Scotland booklet, but that's just classic Norma. She has a little bit of red eye going on, but I'll forgive her.

Finally, here's my cat. I always loved the little spot at the tip of her nose. Very chic.

Sleepy Zone (& some thoughts on reading)

I have hit the sleepy zone. There's nothing you can do. I'm literally sleepy right now.

See?

Yesterday I hit fifteen books read so far in 2026. I finished the tradwife tale (and I loved it). I assume I'm going to hit my twenty books goal in about two months, and after that the number will be a beautiful mystery, climbing steadily until the final reveal. Very exciting stuff.

My next book is actually one I started reading right before Yesteryear, and immediately found a bit boring: The People we Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. Emily Henry is a much hyped author in online reader spaces, so I wanted to try her out (and watch the movie adaptation afterwards), but I really don't gel with the characters at all. I hate their cheeky, flirty way of speaking. I can see the appeal, but to me it reads a bit like all of the interesting parts of YA trope world were taken out, leaving the dull personal relationships without the buffer of an ambitious, weird, or otherwise interesting premise.

Perhaps it will hook me somewhere further in, who knows, but I'm not feeling very confident. I will read the whole thing though, because it's reasonably short and I want to know what the masses are into. I want to have more of a broad understanding of what's going on in the end-of-year Goodreads awards, what people are talking about when they talk about popular trends in books.

I've been thinking about diving into the romantasy genre, because it fascinates me how popular, and also how hated, it is. It doesn't really appeal to me, especially because most of the covers are generic and hideous, but so many people talk about the genre and its supposed nastiness from a very obvious lack of familiarity with it, and that interests me. I would like to become a genius about this. Perhaps this could be on the cards for me.

Anyway, here I am, today - scanned.