Creepy crawlies

RÚV – Icelandic State TV – has just begun broadcasting a David Attenborough series called The Amazing World of Insects, or something. Having been mildly fascinated by that bug movie a few years back [that French one that used all this new technology to film bugs close up – or am I confusing it with that migrating birds movie… ach! I don’t remember]… I keenly tuned in on Monday night to see what old David would get superenthusiastic about in this particular nature series.

Well, there were bugs aplenty – some of them mildly fascinating, and some pretty grotesque. But what kind of freaked me out was that through some trick of technology he had magnified up the individual insects so that they were huge and then spliced himself into the frame, with the effect that the insects looked proportionally about as big as he was.

Even scarier [much scarier] was when he turned his attention on this particular type of millipede that lives in Venezuela or somewhere. This disgusting creature is about the size of his [David’s] forearm and lives in caves where all sorts of creepy crawlies abide under rocks and at the bottom of the cave. In extreme close-up the millipede was seen out on a feeding mission, crawling over a dark cave floor teeming with beetles and the like, which it purposefully ignored on its way to the real food. It headed upwards to the roof and, once there, what did it do? Dug its poisonous fangs into a bat that was there hanging upside down, and ate every bit of flesh off its body in about three hours. Gah!! If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, I don’t know what will.

Anyway, long story short, what was intended to be a fascinating insight into the insect world turned out to be lengthy, mostly boring, frequently disgusting and occasionally interesting program about a life form that I’d rather not be on intimate terms with. I’d have to agree with the Blaðið columnist, who yesterday wrote that she started to feel like the bugs were crawling all over her arms and legs, and what she thought was going to be a pleasant nature program turned into an extremely disagreeable experience. Like her, I probably don’t have the stomach to watch any more of that five-part series. Shudder.

MEANWHILE, ON THE MORE AGREEABLE FRONT
EPI and I went to see Walk the Line last night, a.k.a. Yet Another Film About a Famous Musician Who has an Unhappy Childhood, Becomes a Junkie, Hits Rock Bottom, Gets Sober, Then Lives Happily Ever After. In other words, the stuff that Hollywood loves. It was perhaps just a tad too predictable – I mean, I saw Ray, did I need to see this? Well no I didn’t, but I’m glad I did, because for all its formulaic predictability it didn’t disappoint. Loved the acting – particularly Reese Witherspoon, who did an excellent job and gave the film both grace and dignity and who, judging by the sound clips we heard, is even a better singer than June Carter ever was. Joaquin Phoenix was pretty good, too.

Came home, and watched The 40-Year Old Virgin on DVD with AAH. Normally I wouldn't be caught dead watching anything with such an ingratiating title, but I’d actually heard that it was a notch above your normal teen-flick fare, and indeed it was. It was pretty funny and even had a moral, which was sort of an antidote to the porn culture that currently permeates everything. Which in and of itself is definitely a Good Thing.

… BUT THE WEATHER IS NOT GOOD
In fact ugh, it’s the worst kind of winter weather – cold and dry and very windy. There was a storm on last night and we still have the residues. Definitely not a day for a leisurely run along the seashore, but rather for cosying up with a blanket in front of the telly, which is just what AAH is doing. She’s been sick since Sunday – her temperature was very high for the first couple of days; yesterday she looked to be recovering, yet this morning her temperature is up again. Not a good state of affairs for a leading lady, whose show is due to open in about a month and who needs to get to rehearsals. Meanwhile the outside temperature is a blustery –3°C which with windchill is probably around –13 or something. Sunrise today was at 09.20 and sunset at 18.05.