The real secret behind The DaVinci Code...

Is that Audrey Tautou's real hair? I have to say, I'm going with wig.

Anyway, I finally managed to get Matthew to accompany me to what he refers to as 'The DaVinci Crap', given that we went on 'Cheapy Tuesday', and that while out and out raucous laughter was banned, he would be allowed a muted chuckle. Anyway, potential spoliers, yadda yadda.

Now I don't mind the book. It's great for long waits at airports or, you know, if you have a Latin exam to revise for (although had I known there would be Latin spoken in the film I'd have gone to see it before the exam, and counted it as revision). I'd recommend anyone who hasn't read it to try and get hold of the Illustrated Edition (they also do an Angels & Demons Illustrated too), as it's much nicer to read it when you can see the pictures and buildings mentioned (and it helps you to skip over some of the more turgid prose).

The main reason why I wanted to watch the film was to see what they'd done to the monk character, played by Paul Bettany. Now I really don't understand why people keep getting their knickers in a twist with regards to the whole 'Dan Brown is TRUE/ Dan Brown's book is a LIE' controversy. It is quite clear that the man has done this much research --> <-- using only books which support his argument. Warning bells were sounding for me after the two mentions of the word 'Wicca', both in completely the wrong context. But did I get antsy over it? Nope. Because before the mention of Wicca, before the mention of the Holy Grail, Dan Brown describes the albino monk as having red eyes. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

That would be albino RATS, Dan Brown, rats. Albino people have blue eyes.

In my opinion, the only people who should get upset about the events depicted in the novel are the Albino Association.

In the film (disappointingly I must say ;) ) Paul Bettany has blue/grey eyes. And contrary to suggestions given by the billboard poster, they hadn't just covered him in talcum powder either.

However, this, in essence, encapsulates the attitude to the film towards the book. The film makers appear to have made some effort at placating any potential organisation who had a beef with the book. Well, except maybe the church.

So, instead of agreeing wholeheartedly with Leigh Teabing (can't believe I can bring myself to type such a dreadful name) as he does in the book, the Robert Langdon character actually provides half-attempt at a lot of the counter arguments against the ideas of the Holy Grail Holy Blood idea. This leads to many shots of Tom Hanks looking scornful and rolling his eyes. But you never know, he may just have caught sight of his mullet in a mirror and be thinking bad thoughts towards his hairdresser.

The film makers may have tried to balance the film one way, but they tipped the scales in another. In the book the Sophie character, being a Cryologist an' all, is actually quite swotty and works out many of the clues herself. In the film Audrey Tautou is just along for the ride, a pretty accompanyment to Hanks' puzzle-solver - she doesn't work out anything for herself, not even the clues which in the book her grandfather had been training her to solve. Maybe they spent too much of Audrey's 'how to learn English phonetically' on that wig.

And in the film the Vatican and Opus Dei are complicit in all the murders, and the attempt to destroy the grail. Even the character of the police captain becomes an Opus Dei fanatic, whereas I think in the book the suggestion is more that he is a Priory menber. And his relationship with his Lieutenant is not a good one, again, contrary to the book.

In fact - especially in the last half hour (man, the last hour really really drags. I had to stop Matthew from eating his own hand), the film has managed to make itself worse than the book. I seriously didn't think that could ever happen. Usually when a book is changed so drastically it's to make it more filmable, shorter, etc. While I can understand only having the one cryptex, I don't see why they changed the ending so drastically. I feel the book's ending would have been - dare I say it - shorter and snappier.

According to director Ron Howard, it's much better on a second viewing, which sounds to me like a suspicious ploy to make people pay twice to see a film they weren't overly enamoured with. It wasn't the worst film I've seen and I'm sure when it comes on channel 5 I'll watch it again, though I wouldn't be devastated if we had a power cut just after they solve the cryptex.

Our Edale Trip

Well, having finished my Latin exam I now need to work on building up the amount of typing my arms can stand, from nil to, you know, thesis length. So I thought I'd write abou the trip Matthew & I took to Edale, in the Peak District.

We stayed in a Landmark Trust property - our first Landmark but not our last I'm sure! - Edale Mill. The Landmark Trust own lots of old buildings which they let out as holiday homes. The mill was lovely - except for the lack of soundproofing between floors, and we had amazing views out of every window. Of course, when I wanted to take photos to show off our amazing view the Peak District weather came into its own and there was thick fog (no, we didn't climb Kinder Scout).

It didn't rain that much. The first day we walked up one hill, along the ridge for a while, then down to Castleton on the other side. Then back home via a different part of the hillside. Unsurprisingly it did rain, but it soon cleared up (though I still can't get the mud off my Dr Martens). (The second day we mostly did jigsaws ;) )

The view was worth it all, but really, how can people complain about windfarms when this got planning permission (the factory/quarry/power station - not the tree)?



On the way back Matthew saw a jutting out rock, which he thought would be perfectly safe for us to picnic on. I didn't believe him, but let him have a sit down (top view, eh?):



As for the 'safeness' of this rock. Well, what do you think?!!!



I was quite disappointed, given the propensity of sheepsies everywhere, that there were no knitting shops in the area. All I could find was a gift shop that had a rack of acrylic novelty wool. Any hope I had of getting some Edale fleece with which to spin up some yarn for a memento was lost. I did manage to pull a couple of bits of fleece off a fence, but it's not really the same.

I wanted to keep these though!



We walked this!



And on the way home we went to the Chestnut Centre - an owl and otter sanctuary! It's actually relatively near Manchester (as is Edale - most of the comments in the Mill Log Book were along the lines of 'Walked up Kinder Scout on Monday, went to Trafford Centre on Tuesday'). We went first thing in the morning on our way back, in the pouring rain. Despite otters being aquatic creatures, they certainly took a lot of persuading to go out in the rain. We walked through the entire park, past empty otter enclosure after empty otter enclosure, feeling a bit disappointed. The owls were cute of course, though. However, when we walked back through all the otters were out:



There's also a deer park, so it would be nice to take a picnic on a sunny day.

Where Was I?

Ah, yes, Newcastle! Golly, that was a while ago. Since then I have - yawn - been having RSI issues again, and so limited my computer use.

Anyway, this was the first time I have been to Newcastle. The conference was held at the university, and we were staying in halls. I know that Newcastle doesn't have a big town centre, but still, when we walked out of the halls towards the centre I wasn't expecting this:



Yes. Those are cows. Why someone thought it would be a good idea to have cows by a student hall, I don't know. I am now collecting photos of livestock framed by tower blocks, since I already have one of some sheep outside the train station at the Hoek van Holland.

The conference was interesting, and they filled our days so there wasn't much time to look around. We had a boat trip down the Tyne. It was very nice, although I didn't see much of the view considering it was a) the evening b) it was April c) it was the Tyne d) it was bloody freezing. Luckily the boat had an indoors ;)

We also had a trip out to Hadrian's Wall, the Housesteads fort. The coach pulled away during hail mixed with sleet. As we neared the wall it changed to a thick snowstorm - the entire landscape was white and you couldn't see a thing. Unfortunately our tour guide did keep telling us that if we looked into the distance we may be able to see x, y or z. The most amazing thing was the trees - the snow was blowing so strongly and horizontally that all the trees had a perfect vertical white stripe down them, and the rest was bark - it was lovely.

And then! Suddenly! It was sunshine and everything was green! Bonkers. The weather held until just after we got back on the coach - when it started raining.

I kept taking photos of the bleakness up on the wall. But basically, once you got one bleak photo, they all tend to look the same.



This is a much better picture of Housesteads, rendered in icing:



The real Housesteads sadly does not have a penguin dressed like a Roman soldier either:



This was the most exciting part of the coach trip (for saddos like me) - the actual real proper genuine tree used in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (you know, when Kevin Costner goes to Nottingham from Dover via Hadrian's Wall):



And yes, it really is that tree, because I watched the film again just to check.

I left a day early as the choice was get a lift with someone for £5 or get a train for £50. Hmmm. Managed to see some more of the sights from the motorway though:



And these! This is a blurry picture taken at speed on the wrong side of the motorway of THE NICEST MOTORWAY LOOS IN THE COUNTRY. Fact.



We stopped here on the way up. When we approached the toilets they really looked like sheds. Given my phobia of things extends to a dislike of going in sheds as things live in sheds, I was actually quite apprehensive of going in. I was tempted to ask if we could drive on to the next services, but that would have been unfair to the driver. However, inside they were palacial! I felt like there was a portal into the loos at the Ritz. I stepped back outside at the same time as someone left the gents - he looked at me and said, "that was the loo of the year." Fact.