Becca Jane St Clair

I feel like the luckiest girl right now. Not only did I get to go down to London to watch the red carpet for the Star Trek Picard premiere, but I was handed tickets to the actual premiere!!!

So, let me backtrack. BTW, this post will contain NO SPOILERS for Episode 1, but will mention things like cast (which has been announced for ages). I won’t be offended if you click out and come back on Friday after you watch the first episode.

When I first heard about the premiere happening in London, I immediately checked trains and sighed. The first train of the day wouldn’t have arrived early enough for the 8AM wrist band distribution, and I couldn’t get anyone to pick one up for me, so I was pretty sure I was out of luck. Until I decided to go down the night before on Tuesday.

I arrived to the theatre around 0645 in the morning after a not so great night of sleep. My friend John had been there since 6, and there was about 6-8 people standing around. Weirdly, the majority were actually autograph hounders/dealers…and it had never crossed my mind to bring something to get signed!(oh well). John and I recieved our wristbands and I was #4!

We were told to come back around three to be let into the viewing pens, but John and I decided we didn’t want to stray too far. Of course, it was now just past eight in the morning, so we headed to a Costa for a coffee and wound up hanging around chatting for about an hour, maybe two. John was told they might be giving out tickets to the event, too, so we became hopeful.

After our coffee, we headed back towards the cinema and watched set up for a while until we decided we were getting cold and decided to have an early lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to the park and basically just hung around some more until around 2 in the afternoon, when John suggested we get another hot drink and utilize toilets (it wasn’t his first premiere!). Naturally, we drank Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. By this time, the wind had really picked up and where we were told to wait for our escort was basically in a wind tunnel. BRR. We hoped we would feel warmer once we were in the viewing pen with the others, but they had only given out about 60 out of the 400 wristbands so far.

They put us in the pen around three, with guests set to arrive around five, so we basically spent the two hours standing up against the fence watching set-up finish.

The evening finally got underway with a bit of entertainment for the crowd, and a giveaway of the new comm badge we see in Picard made by Fan Sets. As they were going down the line, I held up Mini Picard because, I mean, I had a Mini Picard on me. I got the Emcee’s attention and he came over and we had some interaction and he gave me a pin and asked me to take a picture with the minis and post it to instagram.

He then started doing an easy quiz to pick people to win tickets into the actual premiere. I wasn’t super hopeful that we would get in because he wasn’t over in our direction, but then there were two guys – one dressed in a TOS uniform and on in a TNG uniform who were duking it out for “best Trek series” and I was heckling the TOS Guy (“Why did you come to a Picard premiere then?” etc) and the Emcee came back to us because he forgot to give John a badge. And then….the best thing…he handed us tickets into the premiere! I hugged him.

Then, the red carpet got underway!

My only complaint about the red carpet walk was that they decided to bring the ticket holders through on the same side we were standing on, so we sometimes had to stretch and crane our heads to watch the arrivals. A better plan would have been to have the ticket holders go in on the other side, especially as it seemed that was where they were directing people to watch the red carpet arrivals. But oh well. So my pictures didn’t come out as great as I would have hoped, but I grabbed a few.

The first arrival was Michelle Hurd, who immediately came through on our side to do signings and selfies.

Jeri Ryan also arrived, and I got to tell her I thought her dress was gorgeous. A few more arrivals from the cast arrived (my photos turned out terrible) and then the man himself arrived!

I also was excited to see Sir Ian arrive to support his friend and I got to witness their reunion, but again, my photos turned out pretty bad. (but there are plenty online!)

…and then my phone battery completely died! Fortunately, I had my battery box along and I quickly plugged in and turned back on my phone.

I won’t go into the bad experience I had just after Patrick Stewart walked past me, that will be in a separate post. But shortly after, an obnoxious man started shouting “Jason, Jason, Jason” over and over at Jason Isaacs, who was in the middle of giving an interview. He walked over and said “WHAT?” to the man, followed by “I heard you shouting my name for ten minutes.” and then he promptly ignored the guy and I got to say hello to him and tell him that #TeamBasement (his unofficial fan club he knows about) said hello, and he told me to tell them hello back, and did I want a selfie to share with them?

…Uhm, YES.

The red carpet (Well, white and silver!) portion ended, and most of the people left, except for those of us who were given tickets to go inside. They let us in and John and I climbed…and climbed…and climbed. Row Q was at the very top of the balcony level…but it didn’t matter, we were IN!

Patrick Stewart and Alex Kurtzman took to the stage and welcomed us, and Patrick asked us not to spoil anything we saw that night, and Alex added that we could after Thursday (US release date), so I will not be adding any spoilers for the first episode other than to say that it was amazing and I’m really excited for the series. The show was dramatic and it had it’s funny moments and at one point we heard Ian loudly exclaiming in surprise!

After the episode, we go to have a Q&A with the cast who was present, although that did contain spoilers as well.

And then, the evening was over, and I found my friend Duncan, who said he wanted to talk to me for his podcast. You can hear me in The Line, available on Trek.fm!

I made a quick detour to check out Picardilly Circus before heading to King’s Cross and my train back home.

I managed to catch the Portal 47 folks briefly on our monthly Euro call to tell them about the evening, and then I napped the whole way home.

What a night!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission.

Tickets to the premiere of Star Trek Picard and the Fan Set’s delta badge provided by Amazon Prime UK.

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About a week ago, I received an alert about a gala event happening in support of Unique Voice, a charity in Bristol that works with schools and the community to “empower children emotionally through the use of Drama and the Arts” (source: About Us section of their website). Their Patron is Sir Patrick Stewart, and he would be hosting their Summer Gala.

I wanted to go.

With everything that’s been going on, and all the other things we have planned this year, it wasn’t looking like a possibility until someone close to me decided they wanted to purchase a ticket for me to attend. They have asked that I not say publicly who they were, but they are someone I love very much. My ticket arrived in my inbox a few days ago, and I became excited.

I decided to wear my LindyBop dress because it gives me confidence and I love the way it looks on me. I wore it with the underskirt this time for extra poof, and added a little feathery blue clip in my hair to try to dress it up a bit. I didn’t clean up too bad if I say so myself!

I was sat at a table with 9 strangers, but fortunately, they were all amazing and immediately drew me into their fold as they all knew each other. I can’t remember everyone’s names (sorry!) but table 9 had a blast. We shared stories and laughed and it was like I had been friends with these people for years and not just minutes.

One of the organizers recognized me from my Twitter photo and we had a short conversation with a promise to talk later, but we sadly never got the chance…but I’m sure I’ll be around again as I really like this charity and wish we lived closer to Bristol so I could work with them!

There were signs on the table telling us not to ask Patrick for selfies, but to take photos and to share them on social media. I took a few from my vantage point that didn’t really come out the best, but I’ll share them here anyway.

After dinner, Patrick was coming around to the individual tables to talk to everyone – the room had 13 tables of 10, but at least two of the tables were all people related to/working with the organisation, so it was an intimate gala. When he got to our table, he was on the other side from me and chatting and one of the men at our table said “She’s come all the way from New Jersey to see you!” I called back “He’s lying, I live here, I promise,” but Patrick Stewart came over to speak with me. His hand came down on the back of my chair and he said, “You know, I used to be married to someone from New Jersey.” I answered back in the only way I possibly could – “Well, then on behalf of my home state, I do apologize.” He laughed and stretched out his hand to shake mine.

Our minute was over…or was it?

During the auction, I was trying to win one of the items – all winning bidders would get a picture with Sir Pat – but it got too high for me. Especially when he auctioned off breakfast with him the following morning and it went for £350!

The rest of the night there was dancing, drinking, and talking to my new group of friends. After the Gala, we went to a speakeasy, and that was a new experience for me too.

In the morning, I had breakfast in the same restaurant Patrick Stewart was in, and after I was standing outside waiting for my taxi and he came out. He had his suitcase, and we made polite conversation. We both were complaining about how long it was taking our taxis to show up and he said he was trying to catch a train at a specific time. Since I have the ability to take whatever train I want, I offered him my taxi when it showed up first. He thanked me, and I had another handshake.

Ironically, his taxi turned up only about 30 seconds later. When I got to the railway station, I needed to speak with the gate attendant to be waved through the barriers. Who was standing there talking to the man? None other than Patrick Stewart! I made some silly joke about meeting again, and we both went through the barriers and started heading in the same direction. More jokes about “I’m not following you/You’re not following me” and the like and it turned out we would be boarding the same train. We both went into the waiting room, but when they called our train, I noticed he went out the door for the opposite platform.

When I didn’t spot him on the platform, I thought I had better let him know, so I walked over to him and gently tapped him on the shoulder to let him know. He thanked me with a hand pressed against my shoulder and another handshake.

These small encounters with one of my absolute favourite actors will stay with me for a long time, even without photos of the event. Who can forget getting three handshakes within a 12 hour span?

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First two images from Unique Voice on Twitter.

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I’ve been a user of the internet in all of its many forms since the mid 90s, and since then I have had my fair share of trolls and mean comments – usually simple one offs like “I don’t like your voice” left on a video (which is ironic when I have acted and sang semi professionally!). But in my history of using the internet and becoming a content creator, I can count on one hand the number of people who just don’t know when to stop and start to become a nuisance . The first incident happened around 15 years ago and was a guy my husband and sister dubbed “Batteries” and things got so bad with him and his threats that I did have to go to the police. The second was about 10 years ago, and it might have been more than one person but at any rate, the result was *me* getting banned from a useful website I posted on and I had to speak with the police about the harassment. Then we delve into the land of psycho expats with more than one just losing their shit and stalking several fellow expats…and now we get to the most recent, ridiculous harassment/trolling efforts of someone who…well, they’re anon as far as I know. They do have internet handles, but I’m not going to mention them out of politeness.

Here’s where we get to the title of my post – Renting space in your brain. It’s incredible how ONE SINGLE COMMENT can kill you. For example, ONE music director in 2002 didn’t like my voice and I didn’t sing for 10 years. These comments weren’t about my singing, but another way I contribute to the arts – these comments were on the words I wrote.

The first comment came in September on my account over on Fanfiction.net. It was from a fellow “author”, and it was nasty and harrassive. FFN doesn’t let you remove nasty comments from registered users, so I simply deleted (And later re-posted) the story the comment had been left on and blocked the user id. Speaking to a fellow reader, I found out that the author in question “does this to any author who writes better than them and has a following”. Ok, so it was down to sheer jealousy then. Fine, whatever. I kept publishing.

I made the move to Archive of Our Own a few months ago after I finally got my invite to the site. I moved over much of my fic from FFN, but I also made an announcement on FFN that I was going to be posting on AO3 and if I wasn’t updating on FFN, to check me on AO3 and I listed my AO3 pseudo – AnnaOnTheMoon.

AO3 allows you to screen comments before they are posted, and a few came in from a person. Again, they were filled with harassment and well, they tried to tell me what I should write. Like, telling me “You need to write blahblahblah and blahblahblah needs to happen.” My response wanted to be “Go write it yourself”, but instead I just deleted the messages, figuring they would get the hint that I wasn’t interested in their “orders”. Other readers left comments requesting different storylines and if I felt I could write them, I did.  But when someone demanded I do something or another…no. AO3 doesn’t have a block feature, so I just had to delete the comments as they came in.

Finally, they stopped using their registered profile, and swapped to posting anon. And funny enough, the only reason I found out they were the same person was due to what they wrote in their comments when they referenced “a lack of negative feedback”.  Now, why would you assume someone even had negative feedback unless you had been the one who tried to leave it in the first place under your other nom de plume?

It was at this point I turned to getting advice from Author Dayton Ward on Twitter:

Dayton Ward was right. Just ignore, ignore, ignore. Don’t let them have space in my brain. But…it was hard. Especially with the comments that were coming through. At one point, they seemed to blame me for the entire Picard/Crusher fandom.

They decided that a fic I wrote called “The Comment Box” was about them. The fic itself was a tongue in cheek story about the ridiculous comments that are posted on Trek pages. Their response? Dedicating a story to me (and a friend of mine who is a big supporter of my writing.)

They thought they were writing an opt-ed. Uhm…no.  They also decided to steal my own tag of tongue in cheek, because…well, why not.

They admitted they had been reading me on FFN and had been the FFN user I blocked. They claimed to have “Been stalked in high school” (I also should note, that basing their age on what they mention in their own author’s notes, they aren’t much out of HS) and yet they decided to stalk me. (oh, and told me my depiction of stalking was wrong, because the way they were stalked is the absolute only way things ever happen)

The story got weird. I was Queen of the kingdom who churned out shit, but then I also inspire people? But the gem had to have been where I basically get blamed for the entire fandom.

I mean…what now?  But this “fic” was the final straw, and I contacted the AO3 admins and reported the story and the user for harassment.

…but I still can’t get their comments out of my head.  It’s poisoned my story, just like it poisoned one of my previous stories.  At this point, I want to either abandon the story (and the series as it’s second in a series), or delete it.  But if I delete it, I doubt I’ll ever re-write it, so then that also means that months of work will just be down the toilet because I can’t evict this asshole from my brain.

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*sigh* Hopefully, by getting this all out, I will be able to evict them once and for all and return to my writing…because how does that phrase go? The best revenge is a life well lived?

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+Meme made by me, screenshot from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
++Meme by Swear Trek
All other screenshots are from Archive Of Our Own or my own Email and Twitter accounts. 

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A little over a month ago, my Google Alert for Patrick Stewart (shut up) went off with an interesting alert – Sir Patrick Stewart would be giving a talk during the Huddersfield Literature Festival. Tickets were £15, and I hadn’t yet seen it pop up on Twitter.

…So I blagged front row tickets. And then I waited…and waited..and waited for the day…and OH, was it worth it!

I had a bit of a panic on Thursday when I started to read the weather report for both Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Snow. But not until the wee hours, so we would likely be fine. To be on the safe side, we packed sleeping bags, extra warm clothing (hats, scarfs, fleeces), water,and snacks into the back of the car just in case the snow turned into a second Beast and we had to sleep in the car.

Our day started off with a walk through Huddersfield. There was an international food fair going on, so we checked that out and we headed to the Town Hall to make sure we knew where we would need to be and we scoped out the place we were meeting up with some friends for dinner before settling down into a local coffee shop (I’ve forgotten the name!) for a cup of Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. (Naturally.)

We met up with friends for dinner at the Zephyr. None of us were familiar with the place. The food was…ok. I had a Cajun grilled chicken burger and there was no spice at all on my chicken, which was disappointing. But the Strawberry gin was good.

We all were scattered around the auditorium, so we parted in the lobby and Tim and I headed to our seats. I still didn’t think it was real…I would actually see one of my heros live on stage? Talking? Telling us about his life and career?

When Nick introduced Sir Pat, he explained that Patrick agreed to photos during the first five minutes (and he even posed for pics), and then asked for phones/cameras to be put away and asked that it wasn’t recorded. In fact, we were told if anyone did get caught with their phone held up during the talk, they would be kicked out. I did spot one guy on the balcony out of the corner of my eye holding up a phone though, so if any footage gets posted online I’ll link it.

Patrick Stewart was brilliant. He warned us that he didn’t give short answers, so there weren’t a whole lot of questions asked, but the stories the man told…it was worth it. I’d have gladly sat there for another hour..two….three…just listening to his stories. Perhaps one day he’ll publish a memoir (and Mr Stewart, if you’re reading this, Please can I edit it?)

We even got a rare treat! Not one accent,not two, but three accents! Sir Pat imitated a local accent when he was telling us about his interview to receive a scholarship to attend the Old Vic (and apologized for it being bad, though as a non-local I couldn’t tell), and then he gave us “Space, ze final frontiere” in a French accent. I have to say, I’m quite happy Paramount didn’t make him use a French accent! His third accent was a recreation of his role in 1967 on Coronation Street, plating a Fireman from Lancashire.

We also learned his favourite episode is the Inner Light (though the questioner asked “What’s your favourite Enterprise episode, so I’m not sure if the questioner was confused over which series Sir Pat was in!). This is honestly no surprise to me as it is an incredible episode and it’s made even better by the appearance of Daniel Stewart playing his son!

Sir Patrick told us about his early days in acting, about meeting and becoming bezzies with Sir Ian McKellen, and how he felt when he was on the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are and discovered more about his father. We also learned that the two charities he is patron for are in memory of his parents – Refuge for his mother and Combat Stress for his father.

And speaking of his early days in acting – did you know he lied his way into gaining his scholarship? Naughty Patrick! But I think he paid his debt in full back to Yorkshire in the end when he became Chancellor of the Huddersfield Uni.

I’m still giggling over his (former) hair piece having been flown across the atlantic specifically for his audition for Captain Picard…and then it was never used. While he did mention he wore a hair piece in one episode (Violations, in a flashback Beverly has), he didn’t specify if it was the same one or styled the same way. Hmm. Something to ask him in the future, perhaps?

Sir Patrick said in an interview on BBC Radio Leeds on Thursday that his favourite childhood book was Treasure Island…and I really think he should record an audiobook for it, don’t you?

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All in all, it was an incredible evening. Sadly, I didn’t get to ask him my question. I wanted to ask him to give advice to those of us in the arts (Performing, writing, creating) who face criticism and how you can bounce back from it…but it wasn’t meant to be and I’ll hopefully get to see him again and ask.

It started to snow on the way home. Not a significant amount, but enough to be annoying.

Thanks Huddersfield Literature Festival for having him, and THANK YOU Sir Patrick Stewart for speaking with us!

You are, forever, O Captain my Captain.

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+Photo by Neil Armstrong.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission.

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I know I haven’t updated properly in ages (not since before October, and then it was fanfic for #BevCrusherDay). I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. But right now, I feel like I need to write this post about hatred and fandoms. More specifically, I’m talking about the Star Trek fandom. Call us trekkies or trekkers, I really don’t care…but there’s a whole lot of hate in the fandom right now.

Don’t like the new series? Don’t watch it. You don’t have to watch week after week so you can spread your hate. And you most definitely don’t need to tweet the actors to tell them how much you hate it. No. That’s just…I’m not sure I have words. Now, I haven’t watched all of Discovery yet, because it’s something my husband and I want to watch together and we haven’t had time, so I can only speak based on what I’ve seen on the Facebook groups and Twitter. There is so much of this “this isn’t Star Trek” BS it could fill the Enterprise — all of them. My only response is – Does it have the trek logo? It’s Star Trek. It’s all part of one main franchise, people! And guess what? You don’t have to like ALL of the franchise to be a fan! You don’t even have to like the original series to be a fan!

And speaking of the original series, if I hear one more time “Your series wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for TOS!” Don’t you think we know that? But acknowledging TOS as the granddaddy of our franchise doesn’t mean it has to be my favourite series. And you can’t really compare Discovery to TOS. TOS was made in the 60s, for chrissake. It was the best sci-fi out there FOR ITS ERA. Yes, it has cheesy effects, the storylines are dated, the model ships look funny….but this is how sci fi was done in the 60s. You have to suspend some of your modern ideas when you watch TOS and try to be a person from the 60s watching it. And if you still think its awful, look for other sci fi series from that era and you’ll soon see that TOS was actually the best.

Move forward to the 80s and 90s of TNG, DS9, and VOY and the effects still won’t compare to the resources someone has in 2018. (And I’m saying that as a die hard TNG fan)

Or compare the Harry Potter films with Fantastic Beasts. FB takes place over 50 years before Harry Potter is even born, yet the effects in FB far outstrip HP. Why? Because HP was made in the early 00s, and FB was made in 2016. Yes, just a small time frame of FIVE YEARS separate the last HP film being made from the first FB film, and the effects have gotten better. OR we could look at Rogue One compared to A New Hope. Again, SAME THING. Film and TV makers aren’t going to take steps backwards with effects.

Another ridiculous amount of hate seems to be aimed at women – both fans and actors. It sometimes feels like as a woman, I’m somehow not supposed to like sci fi or have opinions and the female actors only role is to be sexy eye candy. Uhm…how about no? But you see it over and over again and it’s no wonder we had to make our own Feminist Trek group where we actually support each other.

While we’re talking about fandom and Star Trek, I also feel like I need to talk about fanfiction. I love fanfic, I write fanfic, I read fanfic. For those of you who don’t know what fan fiction is – Fan fic is Fiction written by a fan of a TV series, book, film, etc. that uses the characters/setting for their own storyline. And yes, there’s slash (which is pairing same sex characters together who are usually hetero in canon). I don’t write slash, for reasons I’m not going to get into on this post, but I do write a lot of fan fic. I mean, a lot. Most people like it and encourage me, and I love that. But what I don’t like are the people who decide to tell me what I should be writing or what I should do with my characters or even demanding that I explain why I made someone do something…and…no. The whole idea of fan fic is that you do whatever the heck you want to do with the characters and setting. I have one troll in particular…they must really hate me. They leave me PAGES of negative reviews…even told me they don’t like my writing. Fine. Don’t like me, don’t read me. And yet…they still read and still leave comments. Comments that I ignore and delete. I mean, get with the program already. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

And the sheer length of some of these comments – It must take them hours to compose…like, really? Don’t you have something better to do? I get that you don’t like my fic, you told me over a month ago. Pretty sure the answer to not liking something is to stop looking at it. Whether we’re talking about TV shows, Films, Books, Fanfic, Blog posts, Twitter posts, FB posts, Youtube videos…etc. I don’t look at things I dislike, why do you?

tl;dr – I think Swear Trek said it best with Picard up there.

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Gifs from Swear Trek, which if you aren’t following them on Twitter, you really should!

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Like every other die hard Anne of Green Gables fan out there, I waited with baited breath for the latest installation in adaptations, after being horribly disappointed in the 2015 version starring Martin Sheen as Matthew. Quite sadly, Anne With An E has sunk to the bottom of my ranking of all Anne adaptations that I’ve seen, and it sunk after episode one.

Even the trailer was a huge letdown:

So here are 99 thoughts I had while watching the full Anne With an E series now streaming on Netflix. Spoilers below (duh)

1) dislike the portrayal of Marilla so far. Yes she is supposed to be stern, but she seems nastier.

2) Anne’s flashback earlier to when Mr Hammond had his heart attack. No. While I don’t doubt that sort of thing happened to orphans, Anne never made mention of something like that, and given what triggered the flashback, I would have expected Anne to suffer from PTSD. Which she does not (though this Anne apparently does)

3) It’s Jasper!! I feel old now.

4) they definitely have taken some poetic licensing with the dialog. Matthew still speaks more than book!Matthew or Sullivan!Matthew.

5) GREEN GABLES

6) Mrs lynde is pretty spot on!

7) the actress playing Anne goes between “soreee” and “sorry”. But a friend knows her and she’s apparently Irish, so I guess I can forgive her.

8) Lol forgiveness scene spot on!!

9) hired hand scene….. unnecessary. Plus…..deliberately rude Anne!! OMG NO!

10) Mr Barry…..wrongwrongwrong!!!!!

11) another flashback. These sit uneasy with me.

12) The Barry’s are too posh for my liking.

13) er….no. that ending scene is definitely not canon. While a nice touch, I suspect this will lead episode 2 away from canon.

Episode 2

14) TRAIN!!!! We think potentially NG, now that they show more detail I’ll have Tim Lockley watch the first few minutes to try to identify……

15) I just noticed Anne has her carpet bag, but never made the comment about it being an “old carpet bag”

16) Ok, no. This Matthew is way way WAY out of character. NOPE.

17) WTF. Anne getting on the ferry….NO. Out of character for Anne. Anne does NOT run away. Anne challenges. More N-O-P-E.

18) I think “based on Anne of Green Gables” is right. LOOSELY based.

19) Seriously, seriously LOVING Mrs Lynde. She is incredible.

20) Well, she sure can spin a tale…..but again, doesn’t seem like Anne. I don’t think Anne would lie like that….I think Anne is more likely to tell people her fantasies, but not LIE.

21) REALLY???? Reeeeeaaaallllllyyyyy???? I….can’t……

22) Very sweet of Matthew to refer to her as his little girl. Heart. melt. I mean, it’s out of character for Matthew to speak this much, but this is totally Matthew.

23) “She’s my daughter” !!!!!! OH MATTHEW YOU BIG SOFTY I LOVE YOU!! (still OOC for him to say that out loud though)

24) Ah. No nonsense Marilla.

25) Ah, Awkward family meal time.

26) 30:52 in to the 45 minute episode and finally Anne is Anne.

27) Picnic. More overly posh Barrys. Seriously. No. This is NOT the Barry family!

28) Uhhhhh…..what? No. People were NOT that nasty to Anne. People were curious and cautious, but the only people nasty were Josy Pie, and Gilbert at first….but it still wasn’t THIS nasty.

29) well, at least she can finally call her Marilla.

30) Wait….take their name? I mean, that’s sweet and I was always surprised that Anne never did become a Cuthbert, but again this is kind of out of character. But I do think it was a really sweet moment.

Episode 3

31) Ok. Anne’s first day of school. Let’s hope this follow the book……

32) don’t like Diana either. She’s too bold!!

33) WTF is up with these kids?! Barking at her?

34) Birds and the bees talk?!?! Mouse in his pants?!?!? AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS NOT ANNE. NOT AT ALL. Anne is more of a romantic.

35) It’s a bit weird for Marilla and Matthew to refer to themselves as parents.

36) OTOH, I suppose Marilla is more true-to-book looks wise than Coleen Dewhurst was, but she was so amazing, you could overlook that she didn’t fit the description.

37) More too much speaking from Matthew. And to/in front of other women too! I mean, he can barely ask Rachel Lynde to make that dress in the book and yet here he is….chattering away. But other than the speaking, I still like the portrayal of Matthew.

38) I’m going to have to re-read the books, because I can’t remember how well Anne did in Math. I know she always has been better at English, but I can’t remember if she had math skills.

39) Gibert is…..not Jonathan Crombie (RIP). I don’t think young me would have had a crush on this Gilbert….but he is pretty chivalrous. Which Book!Gilbert wasn’t at first, so….that’s kind of weird.

40) Diana struggles with reading? No, that’s not right. Anne over dramatising her reading…..Yep. That’s our Anne.

41) Trollop?!

42) OH. THERE’S THE CARROTS INCIDENT. at least we got that! Albeit, she smacked him across the face with it instead of breaking it over his head…..but we got our Carrots moment…..so OK, ONE THING TRUE TO BOOK!

43) But Anne walking out of school….again, no. Anne Shirley does NOT walk away. Also, if she “changed her name” to Anne Shirley Cuthbert, why is the teacher calling her Shirley? Continuity error?

44) OTOH, it gave us an opportunity to have a tender Anne/Marilla moment, so that was kinda nice.

Episode 4

Reading the blurb, it sounds like it might get back onto the book track this Episode. Maybe. Or am I giving it too much credit?

45) Anne not going to school is just so out of character. Anne loves to learn! She would return to school with her head held high….unless she dyes her hair green. HAHA! (will we see that?)

46) However being in her fantasy world and letting the pie burn is VERY Anne….

47) Skipping school after being told to go back? Again, NOT LIKE ANNE.

48) ARGH. SO FLIPPING DECEITFUL.

49) Ruby Gillis is adorable. Still unsure about Diana. Shes just too posh for who she is. My impression was always that Diana’s parents weren’t rich. Perhaps a little well-off, but it was Diana’s great-aunt who had the money. Mr Barry was a farmer and worked the fields same as Matthew….

50) a fire? Again, this wasn’t in the books, but it IS a good example of small village life in the late 1800s and adds drama. Again, its OK if this was a generic story of an orphan girl in the 1890s….but not part of Anne. But I guess they needed an act for Anne to be accepted.

51) I don’t remember Ruby having a crush on Gilbert. I thought Josey wanted Gilbert….hmm. Going to have to re-read the books.

52) The story club!!

53) And now the teacher calls her “Anne Shirley Cuthbert”….is this to signify she has finally been accepted?

Episode 5

54) They can’t even get the spelling bee incident correct?!

55) Anne starting her period….I mean, Obviously it happened to Anne as it happens to most women, and given the number of children she eventually has, it’s a given that she would have had some kind of cycle….but it wouldn’t have been something that LMM would have written into her books….this kind of stuff wasn’t talked about openly when she penned AoGG…..but again, they are trying to appeal to a modern pre-teen audience, and probably a good number could sympathise with Anne.

56) John Blythe wasn’t in a wheelchair!!!

57)The interaction/conversation between Rachel and Marilla….while again, not part of the books, it’s a nice touch because it helps to solidify their lasting friendship.

58) OK so now we’re seeing where Gilbert is starting to have feelings for Anne and Anne doesn’t want anything to do with him! hehe!

59) Hormonal stroppy Anne kind of makes me laugh.

60) “You may have some of the raspberry cordial” YES!!!!!! Please don’t screw up this scene guys.

61) Oh, we’re going to get the puffed sleeves! Not like it was in the book or in Sully’s Anne, but this is still just as adorable and awkward for Matthew.

62) Ok, so they’re both getting drunk….this is different. But also funny.

63) Who is this woman Matthew is talking to?! MATTHEW DOESN’T TALK TO WOMEN!!!! “Old friend”?! Are they trying to give Matthew a former love interest?

64) Is Mrs Lynde making a sexual innuendo?!

65) Where did Anne get that corset from? It’s too fancy to have been Marilla’s!

66) OK, this part is exactly as it happened in the book. Of course, it’s one of the sadder things that happens, but I think Mrs Barry almost said word-for-word what is in the books…or at least what I remember!

67) NOOOOO I’M CRYING!!

68) I’m really confused over Gilbert’s father being so ill.

69) SHE’S GETTING THE DRESS!!!! Again, completely not how it was in the book, but she still got her dress!

Episode 6

70) Ah, Finally an episode that opens with an actual event from the book!

71) Oh, but who’s the old lady? OH! This must be Aunt Josephine! I mean, she wasn’t there in the book when Minnie May had croup, but I suppose we had to meet her somehow!

72) Ok, why does Gil’s dad sound like he’s going to die?!

73) YAY! Friends again!!!!

74) NO. NO NO NO! GILBERT’S FATHER IS DEAD?!?!? THAT IS NOT THE BOOK IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER! What purpose could this possibly be serving?!

75) A flashback to elude to the relationship between Marilla and John Blythe when they were younger is a nice touch. Also, John giving Marilla the hair ribbon she gave to Anne….who will of course wind up with Gilbert in the future.

76) So Anne and Gil’s fight has now been instigated by Gilbert. Interesting.

77) This is definitely delving deeper into the relationship between John and Marilla. I kind of like this, because it was only ever mentioned as an aside. But poor Marilla.

78) I still think Ruby is adorable. But her poor crush on Gilbert is never going to get anywhere.

79) Minnie May is cute too. Although I do think she’s slightly older than she should have been when she was ill in the book.

80) Well, that’s a pretty tender Marilla/Gilbert moment. I quite liked that.

81) Oh. Did they just make Aunt Josephine a lesbian? That’s interesting. I wonder if Mr Barry knows? Is that how they will explain Josephine having money?

82) DID GILBERT LEAVE?!?!??! OMG WHAT!!!!

Episode 7, at last…..

83) Hey look, there’s the bitch Josey Pye is known for being!

84) Woah. Matthew raised his voice!

85) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (I mean, OK, it’s Canon for it to happen eventually….but NOOOOOOOO) Oh Ok. Not dead. Er…..yet.

86) Anne not having a head for Geometry? She’s a whizz!

87) And, we’re back to completely out of canon.

88) I mean, maybe not. Because I know they did have a bit of the farm animals and things auctioned after Matthew passed away. But it wasn’t to pay the Mortgage as far as I can remember. It was just because Marilla wasn’t going to man the farm after Matthew.

89) OH CRAP. i was worried that one of them would get robbed!

90) GILBERT!!!!!!!!!

91) I Love Josephine Barry! She is pretty true-to-book once she warmed up to Anne

92) I do kind of like them expanding on Jerry. He was always just “the French boy” or “the hired boy” and I’m not even sure he had any lines of his own in the book.

93) What the heck is Matthew doing? I don’t like his being secretive….. NO! MATTHEW! YOU PUT THAT GUN DOWN RIGHT NOW. THAT IS NOT MATTHEW AT ALL. NO NO NO NO NO. PUT IT AWAY. DON’T YOU DARE THINK OF IT!!!! Whew.

94) Ah, resourceful Anne. Yep, that’s our Anne.

95) So….it’s going to end with the guys who robbed Jerry moving in and was Anne supposed to think he was good looking? What the….AAAAARRRGGGHHH

96) The opening song gave me chills every time, because it was the Hip.

97) Episode 2 seemed to be fabricated just for drama’s sake.

98) It wasn’t until Episode 5 that I felt it finally was starting to be Anne….until it wasn’t.

99) You know, if this has been just a regular period drama….it wouldn’t be so bad.

I have a 100th, but its not from me. A fellow Geek Girl Gang member said:

It’s like the GoT version of it, leaving the viewer stricken by omission of all the normal and good things that happen, and presenting a high-stakes view of the world that suffuses danger into the safety of our childhood tales.

And I have to agree with her. They tried to deliver Anne, but that’ not what we got. I think I only counted about a half dozen actual true-to-book events:

– The Cuthberts originally wanting a boy
– Rachel Lynde and the apology
– “Carrots!”
– Losing the broach
– Getting Diana Drunk
– Minnie May being ill
– The Story Club (briefly)
– Puffed sleeves

Ok, so EIGHT…..and even many of those barely followed canon for how the events unfolded. I’m just really disappointed overall with this adaptation. I wasn’t expecting another Sullivan version (and let’s be honest, he did plenty of out of canon things too!), but I was expecting something better than this.

And so, my definitive rank of all adaptations of Anne of Green Gables I have seen, from best to worst:

1) 1985/1987 Anne series with Megan Follows
2) BBC Anne of Avonlea from the 70s (no copies of AoGG exist!)
3) Anne of Green Gables the musical
4)Akage No Anne (Japanese Anime from 1979)
5) black and white 30s/40s AoGG film
6) Anne of Green Gabeles, The Animated Series (also by Sullivan)
7) the recent film version that had Martin Sheen as Matthew
8) That YouTube fan series that tried to modernise Anne into the 21st century)
9)Anne with an E (this series)
10)Anne 3 (the Sullivan version of books 5-8, which was total fiction)

So….it’s not at the bottom, but to be fair, Anne 3 was REALLY BAD and completely non-canon, and at least Anne With An E had SOME canon things in it. I read an interview that they hope it gets picked up for a second and third series…I can’t see that happening, unless there ARE Anne-fans out there who liked it, but all but one Anne-fan I spoke with has hated this.

I would rather Sullivan make an Anne 4 and totally botch that before I want a second Anne With An E.

***
*Anne with an E photo header is from their facebook page

Netflix, the CBC, etc. have not paid me for my opinion. You get it allll for free!!

For other articles about the new series, please see:
Vanity Fair – Netflix’s Bleak Adaptation Gets it All So Terribly Wrong
HuffPo – The Relentlessly Grim ‘Anne With An E’ Reveals The Limitations Of Today’s TV
Vox – Anne With an E turns Anne of Green Gables into a high gothic tragedy, missing the point

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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I know I have tons of blog posts and videos to get up from our holiday, but this happened yesterday so I wanted to post about it and get the video up ASAP.

I have had a strong love for the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies since I was in High School thanks to my boyfriend at the time. And me and BNL, well, we’ve been through a lot. I’ve been a fan of the band through their keyboardist, Kevin Hearn, getting diagnosed and ultimately beating Leukaemia, and I was a fan when the band had a bit of a line up change and longtime co-frontman Steven Page left the band in was it 2010? 2009? I can’t quite remember. And I won’t go into the details over the break (you can google for it if you really need to know), but in the end, it left me being very angry and upset with Steve. For a while, I wouldn’t even listen to any song that Steve sang lead on (which at the time was over 50% of the repertoire!). The split hurt the fanbase, and people really were divided over it. But over the past 5+ years, Iv’e gotten over my anger and I’ve understood that the break-up was something that had to happen. The band is still going strong, and I still love them to pieces, and Steve has been able to explore being an independent musician on his own without a band behind him. Sure, he still is “former Barenaked Ladies co-frontman”, but he’s definitely carved out a niche of his own, touring mostly around the area he lives in (NE USA and Canada).

This week, Steven has been on holiday in the UK with his family and started getting tweets from UK fans “wouldn’t it be nice if you played here?” So he decided to do a pop up concert. It was announced vaguely on Twitter at first. Just “would anyone be interested in coming to see me at a park on Saturday?” The response on his twitter poll was overwhelmingly YES.

Here we go: I'll just happen to be hanging out with a guitar in Regent's Park/Park Square West this Saturday 1pm.https://t.co/XxViLfxn8L

— steven page (@stevenpage) August 10, 2016

Regent’s Park is Huge! And the pinned place on his tweet goes to a private garden….so….now what? I headed into the park and posted a photo of the map of the park on the BNL UK group on facebook and one person found me….then two more….then two more…and soon we were a small group of people wandering around!

On my way now – let's meet at the southeastern corner of Regent's Park. If you're there early, could someone find us a nice spot?

— steven page (@stevenpage) August 13, 2016

so we all headed to the SE corner where we ran into more peopl and we soon increased our numbers and Liam sent a tweet to Steve to tell him where we were, and I had one more idea. Someone had brought along a Canadian flag and we managed between tying it to their push chair and my selfie stick to have it on display and I tweeted this pic out to Steve so he could find us:

We soon gathered a sizeable crowd (maybe 40-50?) and then Steve arrived, borrowed a guitar, and started off with a BNL classic – It’s All Been Done. At one point, he went into the opening strains of Jane.

I think I'm dead. @stevenpage @getbarenaked @bnlfans

A video posted by Rebecca L (@beccajanestclair) on Aug 13, 2016 at 5:16am PDT

In case you ever wondered where the URL for my blog came from, it’s from this song. ‘The girl works at the store sweet Jane St Clair’. My middle name is Jane, so using Becca Jane St Clair was perfect and so this song has always had incredible meaning to me and every time I hear it live I get goosebumps.

We were soon treated to nearly 2 hours of old favourite BNL hits and songs off his own albums. He even was joined randomly by a passing busker on his accordion, though we did have to chase him off after he tried to demand Steve play other songs and then tried to get us to give him money. Err….No. Just get out. And Steve played the opening strains to “Thanks That Was Fun” as the guy was walking away. I don’t think he even realised who he was playing with or that Steve wasn’t a busker with a crowd.

It was an absolutely amazing experience to be in such an intimate setting with one of my favourite musicians. A lot of us who had been on one of the Ships & Dip shows likened it to being on S&D in one of the smaller on-board venues. After, Steve stuck around to talk, sign autographs, and take photos with his fans, including Hamish!

Thank for an amazing day, Steve. Hope you come back for a proper tour soon, and don’t forget to come to Lincoln!

Watch the video I took including It’s All in Done, What A Good Boy, Upside Down, Break Your Heart, Call & Answer, and Brian Wilson.

***
The contents of this post, including personal images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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Just a short post to say I’ve blogged daily.

I’m off to see John Barrowman tonight!

Fun phone call tonight…

Man with Indian accent: Is this Mrs Lockley?
Me: Who may I ask is speaking?
Man: this is Bernard. I am calling about your bank account.
Me: Which bank are you calling from?
Man: I am from [firm name I didn’t catch, but it wasn’t a bank.]
Me: You told me you were calling from a bank. I’m not familiar with that bank.
Man: I am calling you about your bank account.
Me: yes, you told me that. I would like to know which bank account you are calling me about.
Man: I would tell you, if you listen.
Me: all right. go ahead.
Man: I am calling on behalf of your bank account
Me: [interrupting him] but you still haven’t told me which bank account you’re calling about.
Man: Would you listen to me? I am calling about your bank account.
Me: I’m sorry but until you verify which bank you are calling from I cannot tell you anything.
Man: [frustration in his voice] I am calling about all your bank accounts.
Me: So which banks would these accounts be at?
Man: All of them. All of the banks in Britain.
Me: I’m sorry, I need you to be more specific. I have several bank accounts [lie!] and I am interested in knowing which one you are talking about.
Man: If you tell me your bank sort code and your account number, I can help you.
Me: No, you just told me you were calling me about all of my accounts. How do I know which account number to give you?
Man: If you give me all of them, I will tell you which one.
Me: Please verify which bank you are calling from.
Man: [He is getting very frustrated] I told you. I am calling from all the banks you have accounts with.
Me: I only have one bank account.
Man: I am calling about it.
Me: Which bank is the account at?
Man: I will tell you once you verify the sort code and account number.
Me: You need to tell me which bank you are calling from and the account number and then I will verify if that is my account.
Man: I don’t have your account number. You have to give it to me.
Me: No I don’t. Where are you calling from?
Man: [name of firm spoken too fast to catch]
Me: That isn’t a bank I am familiar with.
Man: We are not a bank. We are calling about your bank account.
Me: I’m sorry. I cannot give you account information until you verify the account you are calling about.
Man: I am very sorry I called you. [click]

I 1471’ed it, but the only number I got back was 011.

But really, I had fun with that!!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Okay Harry Potter fans….we need your help!

My friend’s daughter purchased the item below to be installed at the head of her swimming pool. She was told that it is a prop from one of the Harry Potter films, but the seller didn’t know which one.

So, we need your help! If you can identify this item, please let me know in the comments. Please share this link around to as many HP fans as possible. If you have a screenshot of the movie scene, that would be even better. If I have to, I will sit down and re-watch all 7 of the DVDs to identify it (such a hardship, I know).

On to the photos:

Sorry for the bad photo, but it’s crammed into my friend’s garage and this was the best front on photo I could get. I had to hold the camera over my shoulder behind me to even get this much of it!

I was wondering if it was from the Prefect’s bathroom perhaps?

Any ideas please comment and let me know! You can easily share this post with your friends by clicking on the share button.

Thanks!!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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If you live under a rock, you might not know that my favourite band of all-time is Canadian rock group, Barenaked Ladies. BNL and I have been through a lot since I first listened to Gordon in my (then) boyfriend’s car in 1996. I have gone on road trips, cruises, slept in my car, camped out, squeezed 8 people into a hotel room, driven all night, held tailgates, snuck into meet and greets, threw panties, bras, and monkeys, held up signs, wore strange antennae on my head, and wore cat ears for this band. Yes, we’ve been through a lot together.

fortunately, they DO tour in the UK on occasion, so I wasn’t going to be BNL-less when I moved. My other favourite band, Carbon Leaf, has yet to show up here. BNL was performing at Glastonbury and Hard Rock Calling and added two other shows to their short trip – one in Glasgow and one in London.

Of course, I don’t live anywhere near either of those places. When they toured in September 2010, Tim and I took the train up to Glasgow and stayed in an inexpensive hotel and hung out with the BNL UK crowd. I had decided NOT to see BNL on this trip, as I wasn’t feeling Glasto, I didn’t want to spend £125 for Hard Rock, and I didn’t want to get a hotel room on my own in Glasgow, since Tim would be at his training down near London.

Wait, did you say London?

Tim’s training was in Watford, which is actually on the Overground and Underground. On a fast train, it takes less than 15 minutes to get to London Euston. BNL’s London gig was at Koko, off the Northern Line of the Underground which even goes directly to Euston. And there were trains as late as 1:30 in the morning, too.

I decided to buy a ticket at the last minute and I headed down in the morning after letting a few of my friends know that I would be there. The doors weren’t opening until 7PM, but any good fan knows that if you want to be front row, you have to queue. Some of my friends were already at the venue when I arrived at noon, but I still managed to be eighth in “line”. We passed a pleasant afternoon in the sweltering heat, chatting, drinking, and having fun until it was time to be let in. And then, I had a problem.

Because I had ordered my ticket online the night before, I had a will-call ticket. Despite the fact that Koko’s box office window had been opened all day, I was not permitted to pick up my will-call ticket until the doors opened! My friends promised they would hold a front row spot for me while I sorted out my ticket, but they didn’t have any luck and I wound up in the second row, behind one of our tallest friends. Okay, second row might not be a big deal to you, but it was when I had queued from noon! When we were at Glasgow, Tim and I were about 15th and 16th to arrive for queueing and I wound up standing sideways so I could squeeze into the front row. The London crowd was not budging to let anyone in. I got upset and annoyed. I texted my friends I had been waiting with (because they couldn’t even see me!) to tell them I was stuck in the second row, and my friends Lou, Kirsty, and Liam were AMAZING and somehow managed to find me a spot in the front row….and it also happened to be center stage right at Ed’s mic!

The show was fantastic. Spot on. Everything I love about this band and then some. Everytime I go to a show, it feels like they personally picked songs for me, and this night was no different. Summertime, Blame it on Me, What a Good Boy…the list goes on. I was sad they didn’t play Jane (my blog’s namesake*!), but it was still a fantastic show.

What a Good Boy, as shared by Kirsty on YouTube:

Link: http://youtu.be/Fjx2rbIcbHU

Blame it On me:

Link: http://youtu.be/mmJJFWQ7hK8

Photos:
[apologies for the fuzzyness. The smoke machine made it difficult to take photos, and then I discovered I had a smudge on my camera. Photos taken with my Olympus Mμ 3000]

After the show, we hung around and I managed to get a photo with Ed, but I had to head off to join Tim at Watford….I wound up on the slow train, so I didn’t get to the hotel until nearly 2AM. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible leg cramps, so Tim had me stay an extra day with him.

*The girl works at the store sweet Jane St Clair. My first name is Rebecca, and my middle is Jane, hence, BeccaJaneStClair :D.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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It’s funny how social you become when you have a Wii. Last night, we hosted our second Wii Party. I love it. Tim and I scored a great deal on the Wii. For those of you who didn’t see me gush about it on facebook or LJ, we paid one of his co-workers £165 for a Wii, 2 motion plus controllers w/nunchucks, Wii Fit Plus, the balance board, an old school controller, Mario Kart (with wheel), Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Ledgend of Zelda, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and one other game we haven’t looked at yet. Amazon prices say we should have paid nearly £400 for everything, and a trip to a local gaming store gave us a price of over £500. Wooo.

Tim and I wanted a Wii for Christmas last year, but we just couldn’t swing it financially, so when his co-worker was talking about getting rid of his, Tim jumped on it. We both want to use the Wii Fit. We set it up and played for about 20 minutes each on Tuesday, but then we haven’t had time to get on it at all since then. We also love the bowling, swordfighting, and frisbee. Tim’s rather attached to Mario Kart, but I discovered watching it gives me motion sickness!

I don’t want to give out our Wii number publicly, but if you’d like to be Wii friends, let me know and I’ll give you the number. We still don’t really know how it works, other than how to send messages to other people, but we’re learning!

I love how the Wii has made video gaming a social thing. And an active thing. No more couch potatoes!

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Yesterday, I met up with two of my friends and we went and saw the new Harry Potter film. Loved it! I won’t spoil it for anyone, but despite it being a dark film, I found myself laughing a lot. What I didn’t like was the film was set to start at 1, but at 1 they started the commercials and previews and the actual film didn’t start until 1:30. But, I found the Odeon staff very friendly, and they even offered to put my big bag behind the box office so I didn’t have to find a place to put it in the theatre.

After the film, I met some of my friends from chorus for Tea and we headed over to the Drill Hall for our concert last night. Our concert was a 70s and 80s theme, so it was lots of fun dressing up. We had several people dressed up like Olivia Newton-John from her Physical video, punk rockers, hippie chicks, and several ladies wore their own clothing they still had hanging in their wardrobes! We had loads of wigs, too. I didn’t wear a wig. After wearing my hair piece for the first half (a ponytail on a clip), I put my hair into two pigtails for the second half, since that’s how I wore my hair in the 80s! I didn’t wear clothing I still owned. I probably DO still have some of the clothing I wore in the 80s at my mom’s house, but it would all be too small as I was a child in the 80s.

Our show was a great success. We shared the stage with the Foss Dyke Band, and at the end had a sing-a-long. The band director picked war-time songs, so we sang “White Cliffs of Dover”, “We’ll Meet Again”, and “The Army and the Navy and the Air Force”…..songs I had never heard before, but many of the chorus members and audience members recognized them. I think it would have been like ending a concert in the US with “Grand old Flag” or “Yankee Doodle”.

And I’m off again today! Seeing Harry Potter for the second time, this time with my husband, brother-in-law, and BIL’s girlfriend.

Pictures and hopefully video to follow!

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We won! We won! I’ll have a longer post up later about my experience at my first convention, but I just had to post that WE WON!!!

Lincoln Sounds came away from Region 31 Sweet Adelines convention with a bronze medal in the small chorus (under 30 members) category!! With 501 points, we exceeded the goal we set for ourselves and we were less than 20 points below the silver medallist.

Go Lincoln Sounds!!!!

Wooooo

[Photo courtesy of Linda’s facebook page.]

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Tuesday night I went to see a local performance of Oliver! at the Lincoln Theatre Royal with my friend H while my husband and her son went to a steam-up. Interesting to note, I also saw Oliver! on the West End being performed at the Theatre Royal. Just a funny coincidence. The theatre in Lincoln is small….I honestly think my high school auditorium had more seating in it, but it made for an intimate evening. We were back in row L, but had a clear view of (most of) the stage. We couldn’t see the bits that were far stage left, but that was only a few dancers in the full adult company numbers (“Who Will Buy?” and “Oom-Pah-Pah”). Overall, I enjoyed the show. The young boy playing Oliver was adorable. I was worried when he forgot the words to his first big number (“Where is Love?”), but it turns out those were just first-number jitters, as he was word-perfect for the rest of his songs and lines.

My only real pet peeve about the whole performance was some of the actors relying on imitating actors from the most recent West End production, most notably the characters of Fagin and Nancy. I would have loved to have heard the actress playing Nancy singing with her own voice, not trying to imitate Jodie Prenger, but I understand as a singer how hard it is not to mimic someone else’s voice when you’re singing “their” songs!

But we had a great time. Everytime I go to a local performance it makes me want to get involved in local theatre. Perhaps sometime I will!

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Just because Google offers walking directions, doesn’t mean you should follow them.

On Friday, Tim and I made plans to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I knew where the movie theatre was and I knew how to drive it, but Tim and I would not have access to a car on Friday. I used Google’s new walking direction feature, and it surprisingly took us the same route as we’d go via car.

Problem: The road (Schoolhouse Lane in Manor Twp) doesn’t have a sidewalk for most of the road! It doesn’t even have a shoulder at parts of it, and some of the homes along the road have Poison Ivy along the curb, so you don’t want to walk on the edge of the lawns. It was hard going and we kept getting dirty looks from the cars whizzing by us, but we finally made it over to the cinema.

As for how we liked the movie, that’s probably best for a different entry.

We’re leaving in a few minutes to head down to DC for a week, so see you on the flip side!

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[I was asked to post this somewhere where it could be linked to, so apologies to anyone reading this who saw it on FB or LJ who is also seeing the RSS re-posts.]

I took the train out to Philadelphia mid-morning. I couldn’t meet up with Erin until later in the afternoon, but I got a ride to the train station, so I had to go when the ride was offered! My plan was going to be to just plop myself on a bench in 30th Street and read for a few hours. I went into Cosi to get some tea and my iPod beeped with a discovered open wifi at the Cosi, so instead I grabbed a comfy booth and alternated between being online on either Jack (the N810) or Ianto (the iPod) and my book (Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry). I even managed to catch Tim for a bit on Skype before Erin was out of bar exam prep class and she finally met up with me.

We were only a few blocks away from WXPN, so we headed over there to pick up the tickets for the show. Surprise, surprise, guess who we bumped into? None other than Barry,who was going out to the van to get something as we were walking past. We stopped and chatted with him for a few minutes and had a fun moment while Barry tried to remember my name and all he could tell me was “you sell merch for us sometimes, but I didn’t need you tonight….” until I took pity on him and reminded him of my name.

Tickets procured, it was time to find dinner. They serve food at WXPN, but we both agreed the prices were a bit on the high side, so we opted to walk around until we came across a food court and got pizza slices the size of my head. I’m not kidding, they were huge! and cheap. We headed back over to WXPN, even though it was early, and got in a small (but growing) queue for the door. Most of the people ahead of us were older adults (which I now suspect might have been the family members of the new bassist) and they all went and sat at the tables to order food, so Erin and I were able to grab prime real estate at the front of the stage. We were *really* early, so we opened a bar tab, ordered some beer and just caught up on a lot of things. Nicole texted me at this point, so we made plans for her to meet us when she got there. I saw someone from S&D III who recognized my kitty ears, but I can’t remember who it was (Sorry!)

The opening act, Alternate Routes, was a lot more than I expected. I know I should give openers more credit than that, but more often than not I wind up not being overly impressed with openers. But Alternate Routes rocked, and the lead played a tool box. I’m not kidding! We saw this tool box on the stage with a cord sticking out of it and had no clue what it was and then the lead picked it up and started shaking it for boom effects. After the opener was done, I made a beeline for the bathroom. Erin and Nicole asked him what was in the box, and apparently it’s just a lot of junk that makes noise when you shake it. Still, pretty cool!

Soon it was time for Carbon Leaf! 😀 I received nods/grins/acknowledgment from Barry, Terry, and Carter (several times), and Barry kept focusing on our group. I don’t know if it was because he talked to Erin and I before the show or if it was because I was one of the few recognizable faces in the front, but no complains from me…until Barry almost took me out with his mic stand, that is.

Barry uses a cordless microphone and he has a stand for it. The stand can be batted around and will (usually) pop itself right back up, sort of like a boxing dummies. Well, a weight must have fallen out of it or something happened to it because Barry batted it and it stated coming down straight at me! If I hadn’t stuck my hand out to catch it, it would have cracked me (and possibly the person behind me) on the head! Erin and I tried to get the thing to go back on stage, but it bounced back and almost hit her, so then we just got it to lay flat on the stage. Whoops. After the song, I shouted “are you trying to kill me?” and Barry grins back at me and mimes being smacked in the face with a mic stand. Thanks.

Later in the show, he had a piece of paper with someone’s birthday on it, and he was trying to figure out if the date was the 26th or not. He claimed his watch said it was the 21st and everyone is laughing at him and people are shouting that he must be drunk, so he comes over to the edge of the stage and leans down at Erin and I to show us his watch to confirm the date. LOL. (and sure enough, his watch said the 21st)

But the funniest part had to be the re-telling of what happened at the Philly Diner. For those of you who follow CL and Terry on Twitter, you might have seen the posts about a guy passing out in the bathroom. Well, Barry proceeded to show us exactly how the man was laying on the ground:

and flops down with his butt right in front of my face (yeah, thanks for that “/)

The BEST part of the show was the encore. A reprise of Learn to Fly unplugged:

Absolutely beautiful.

After the show, we headed outside to the lobby where Erin got to talk to the lead from Alternate Routes a bit more while we waited for the crowd around Carbon Leaf to thin down. Finally it thinned down so we went over to talk to them and so Erin could get her CD signed (I recommended she start with Indian Summer, since she was familiar with a few songs off that album to begin with). Barry apologized for almost whacking me with his mic stand, and then decided it was better it was me and not a new fan, because then there might have been a lawsuit. I told him I’d have PTSD now and dream about mic stands flying at my head. LOL. We also found out that Carter’s banjo is broken! 🙁 He was playing his guitar as if it was a banjo for a few songs, so Erin asked him about it and he told us that it was broken. Oh noes! So I hope he can get it fixed soon! I got a big hug from Terry, and I talked to Terry about performing in the UK….he said maybe next year and asked me if I’d fill the bars with people I knew if they do. heh. I also found out that CL is NOT scheduled to be on ANY of Sixthman’s cruises in 2010, and Carter made it sound as though they had wanted to do BNL’s again before BNL decided to not do one. I asked about the rumors of a Celtic Cruise, and Terry said they’d probably do it if there was one….though there were questions on being able to fill an entire cruise ship, so we decided we ought to charter the Lewes-Cape May ferry for a show. LOL. Love those guys.

We made our good-byes and split off from Nicole. Erin decided since it was so late we’d just grab a cab back to her apartment and we were soon in Pajamas. I think we wound up going up to bed around 1. She has a studio loft with the bed in the loft. I woke up around 4/430 to use the bathroom and decided I didn’t want to climb up the ladder and try to squeeze my way back over to the bed, so I just crashed on her couch (and really didn’t get much sleep. Darn Philadelphia street noise!). I finally decided around 630 to just get dressed and I managed to make it to 30th street just as the 9AM Keystone was boarding. Woo.

So, fantastic day/night. I wish CL was playing more shows near me…they need to come out to Lancaster! 😀

[x-posted to facebook and LJ….with more photos on FB, so if you’re NOT on my FB, add me!]