Slow news day in Yorkshire

We get the papers every day in the office and I always agitate for the Western Mail and the Yorkshire Post. No-one can understand this, but I always say I already know what the national news is from Metro - if it's not in Metro, it's not news in my opinion.

Today the Western Mail had a full page on Charlotte Church's great grandmother, taken from the latest census to be released (I assume it's the latest and there is at least a sliver of news there). And the Yorkshire Post had a "news story" about how the next series of Ashes to Ashes would "reveal all". My first thought was: I'm sorry, but how is this news, or indeed related to Yorkshire? My second thought was, ooh.

I'm so sad.

Alternate universe or time travel? big fat spoilers for the Star Trek film

Me and lovely schoolfriend went to see the new Star Trek film at the Leicester Square Empire last night (after a brief and mistaken foray into the casino. "A casino! A cinema! Countless possibilities!" the advert said, but I count two.)

I loved it - the crew were better looking, sexier versions while still retaining the essence of themselves, and hello, Chris Pine, thanks for making me remember why Captain Kirk was always my favourite character, something that got a bit hidden over the years under tubbiness and toupees. And your man from Heroes was brilliant - almost more Spock than Spock without doing an impression of Leonard Nimoy.

Apart from that rather shallow summing up, I was interested in what they did with the whole alternate universe thing (although it was a bit rammed home "So, we're now in an alternate universe? You mean, we're kind of living lives that we wouldn't have lived before? Our lives are going off in a different direction you mean?").

Clearly it was something that had to be done, as otherwise there's no dramatic tension - we know they all survive, even relatively minor characters like Captain Pike, we know earth is safe, we know Vulcan won't blow up...oh, hang on. At that point, I thought the writers were going to go down the "time travel/ reset" route, as in that episode of Dr Who where everone is enslaved by the Master for a year and then, er, isn't, or when Superman rescued Lois Lane by pushing the earth backwards (which led my Dad to ponder "but how can he breathe in space?". Well, Dad, how can he fly?)

But as the film progressed the emotional investment we had in the characters as they were began to outweigh the emotional investment we had in "returning" to the proper Star Trek universe, and a "reset" would have been emotionally unsatisfying as we'd have lost the characters we had come to know. So they stuck with it. And now they can redo the whole five year mission if they want to, cos it could all be different.

Some bullet points:

• Not sure about the Spock/ Uhura thing although it was quite sweet and funny, and I suppose his Dad had basically given him permission.
• The all-new, all-lovin' Spock kind of doesn't really have the interesting internal struggle between emotion and logic anymore which might make things difficult in potential sequels, but then I suppose he has the angst of having his planet blown up and his mum killed.
• Dr McCoy was like Alan Alda with a massive hangover, but I still liked him.
• As lovely schoolfriend said, the Romulans are the worst marooners in the universe - who maroons someone on a planet where a StarFleet base is 14 km away? And if old!Spock could see Vulcan blowing up from where he was, wouldn't that do very bad things to the planet he was on?
  
• It was so obvious Jim would appear at the end in his gold shirt but very satisfying anyway.
• What on earth was MumofJim doing on a starship in the first place?
• I seem to remember Jim's mum is called Winona - and Winona Ryder was playing Spock's mum. Ha.

Well, that was long.

Helicopter frenzy

I was just gazing out of the office window and saw 15 or so helicopters in close formation flying in a circle a few miles away. The office conclusion is there's some kind of naval celebration happening. I wouldn't want to be up in a plane right now though and suddenly see 15 helicopters scrambling around me.

They look really cool.

Swine flu

I don't understand why we are supposed to be so scared. I haven't read anything that says swine flu is any worse than any other kind of flu in terms of virulence and deadliness. Some people have died who had it, but they may well have died because they had other illnesses as well.

Of course these words may come back to bite me when Survivors comes true and we are all dead or getting hanged as looters.

The coolest postcode in London

Is E8 , apparently, my very own hood. Oh yes, "wander around at 11pm and the feeling is not dissimilar to being in the lower east side of Manhattan at its mid-90s peak." Not sure what Manhattan was like in its mid-90s peak; although I was there briefly at that time I spent much of the time trying to get a/ a car and b/ plane tickets to San Francisco.

I have just received this email:

Dear Hackney Hackette (well, obviously it addressed me by my actual name)

Where will you be in four weeks?

Well, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Hackney. Maybe at work, or down at the Mus of Ch or London Fields, or the City Farm perhaps...why?

We suggest joining your peers and other digital printing industry leaders who will be exploring new business opportunities, technology developments and emerging profitable applications at IMI’s 12th Toner & Toner Chemicals Conference on May 4-6, 2009 and 2nd Digital Printing Presses – The Next Era Conference on May 6-8, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza San Marcos Resort in Chandler (Phoenix), Arizona.

Whoa, slow down a minute matey. If you'd said "your peers and other distracted working mums" I might have flown with you, but I'm not sure I can count any "digital printing industry leaders" among my peers.

In these difficult times, are you taking advantage of new and developing opportunities as the world goes digital and toner-based systems compete with other technologies for market share?

No, no I'm not. I feel bad about it, but what can I do?

Please forward this email to interested colleagues and contacts and inform your associates of these unique and exciting programs.

I will do better than that. I will include it in my blog.

Words words words

Do you ever find out that you have been saying a word wrong all your life? When I was at school (primary I think although it may have been secondary) we used to call the Portakabin-style classrooms "demantables". I have always, in my head, called them demantables, although never spoken it aloud since school I don't think. I never had any idea why we called them that or what the word meant.

Today I needed to use the word in print, Googled it to check the spelling, and found that we had actually been mangling the word "demountable" in our Essex accent. Are there any other words I have been saying wrong for 30-odd years I wonder?

My personal favourite is my lovely friend's belief that there were two words - misled, pronouced mis-led, which she only ever heard, and misled, pronounced myselled (kind of), which she only ever saw written down. "My lord, you have myselled me!" Much like I thought there were two different states, pronounced Ah Kansas and Arkensaw.