Mulubinba Moments

Whales and others enjoy the water off Nobbys

The Hobbit Movie: Possible casting for Bard the Bowman? Richard Armitage?

Last Sunday, I registered for an online chat (The Unexpected Party) hosted by Weta. It featured Peter Jackson (LOTR) and Guillermo del Toro discussing their latest project - The Hobbit Movie (in fact it appears that there will be two movies). The transcript for the session can be found on the Weta website. Unfortunately PJ and GDT were very vague about casting for the films mainly because they had not yet written the scripts. The prediction is that they will start filming in 2010, so there is plenty of time for consideration.

One of my favourite characters in The Hobbit is Bard the Bowman, heir of Girion, Guardsman of Esgaroth and last king of Dale. Bard was a skilled archer who in the story was able to slay the dragon, Smaug, with the Black Arrow after learning of a weakness in the dragon's armour. Bard shared a fourteenth of the dragon's treasure with the Master of Esgaroth, and with this, they were able to rebuild their town which had been destroyed by smaug. After the town's rebuilding, Bard became the first King of restored Dale. Bard is described as "grim faced, and as guardsman of Esgaroth, often predicted floods and poisoned fish" (Wikipedia). Apologies, I need to search out my copy of the Hobbit to do more research.

All that aside, a number of people I am in touch with as well as Lalaithiel from The Hobbit Blog  and her (35?) commenters, are certain that the actor pictured below is ideal to be cast as Bard. Why? He is a great actor, he can play "grim faced" as needed, he has used a bow and arrow (lol), and it would be a change to see him play the hero.

" And they praised the courage of Bard and his last mighty shot. 'If only he had not been killed' they all said, 'we would make him a king. Bard the Dragon-shooter of the line of Girion! Alas that he is lost!'

And in the very midst of their talk a tall figure stepped from the shadows. He was drenched with water, his black hair hung wet over his face and shoulders, and a fierce light was in his eyes.

'Bard is not lost!' he cried.......'I am Bard of the line of Girion. I am the slayer of the dragon!' "

THE HOBBIT

J.R.R.TOLKIEN

I am now shooting a thousand of the broadest hints using my hypothetical bow to the producer and director of the movies as well as Richard Armitage's agents, not to mention RA himself.....PLEASE CONSIDER!

Feel free to leave a comment - contact details remain private, names can be fictitious if you wish.

For those people who don't know, this photo is of Richard Armitage playing the role of the infamous Guy of Gisborne in the BBC production of Robin Hood but he has acted in many quality BBC productions including North and South ( a few mentions of which occur in this blog), and of course he married the Vicar of Dibley (on screen).

Our cathedral

 

I don't seem to be able to manage to text wrap these photos. For my new cyberfriends, this is the Cathedral I have been telling you about. For my longterm visitors to the blog - Sunday is the day when I trial the role of higher order server (or subdeacon). One more practise today - a few more tips hints with the chalice ie.  beware ladies with lots of lipstick - wipe chalice well. Did you know that silver can act to kill germs so that if you rotate the chalice a small turn after every communicant, by the time you do one full rotation, the silver would have sterilized the spot you started from?? (Tvindy - I bet you have something to say to that).

Intercessions - still a little to do with those and I need to add prayers for rain for the drought stricken Upper Hunter. 

Sunday's looming....

I'm experimenting with Typepad's new options here. We now have a toolbar but I don't think you can change the font. Arial is a good acceptable standard anyway...

Last rehearsal with the head server took place on sunday with a walk through. I have an appointment with our assistant priest tomorrow to check intercessions and run through the chalice. The intercessions are coming along....I looked up all sorts of resources and ended up sticking with the prayer book format....quite nice wording. I'm hoping upon hope we don't have any more disasters given Myanmar/Burma and SW China. I just need to add the sick list, marriages and baptisms...

I've been fighting a chest cold - I sincerely hope cough disappears over the next 3 days. Chalice and cough - not a good combination. Intercessions and coughing fit - lousy combination.

Update: Second reading has just been given to me. Romans Ch1: vs 16-17 & Ch 3: vs 21-28.

This is all beginning to seem very real - up until now, I've just been having fun going through the paces......

SAY NO TO CYBERBULLYING !!!!

Call me old and naive - I had never realised until a few weeks ago that there was such a thing as internet bullying, cyberfights and flaming. I was aware that children are warned about inappropriate searches on the internet and about stalkers but not bullying. I recently did a quick search on the net on cyberbullying and came up with a few useful facts (mainly from school sites). Facts as follows from The Computer school.net internet safety tutorials:

"Cyberbullying can occur through an Internet service such as e mail, chat rooms, discussion groups, instant messaging or web pages. Cyber bullying can include 1. Teasing and being made fun of 2. Spreading of false and hurtful rumours about people online 3. Sending unwanted messages 4. Racist or sexist attacks 5. Defamation Preventing cyber bullying 1. Always treat other people online the way you like to be treated. 2. If you are chatting in a chat room or by instant messenger, stop doing so if anyone says offensive things to you. Shut down the message or window and tell your parents about it straight away. 3. If somebody in a chat room is offensive to you, tell the chat room host or moderator. Trolls (I thought these were the things in LOTR or "3 Billy Goats Gruff"). A troll intentionally posts messages about sensitive topics constructed to cause controversy in an online community such as a forum. Trolls post on message boards. More recently they have been posting on blogs. Dealing with trolls People who run message boards and blogs always say "Do not feed the trolls". That means you should ignore what they write. Do not respond to them or attack them back. They are only trying to stir people up." (The Computer school.net internet safety tutorial)

Dr. Parry Aftab in his paper Kids Online in Schools: Risk Management and the Law proposes that there are four types of online bullies: 1. The Vengeful Angel 2. The Power-Hungry or revenge of the Nerds 3. The "Mean Girls" in which group he includes Malfoy from the Harry Potter books. 4. The Inadvertent Cyberbully or "Because I can". I inadvertently witnessed what I think was an example of Vengeful Angel behaviour on a messageboard quite recently which I found quite dreadful and can now understand why the school system has had to introduce strategies to protect pupils. This group however were adults and therefore cyberbullying is not necessarily confined to the middle school years as described in many articles on the subject. Dr Aftab describes the "Vengeful Angel" (in my recent experience I would call them "Avenging Angels") as follows:

”

"In this type of cyberbullying, the cyberbully doesn’t see themselves as a bully at all. They see themselves as righting wrongs, or protecting themselves or others from the “bad guy” they are now victimizing. The “Vengeful Angel” cyberbully often gets involved trying to protect a friend who is being bullied or cyberbullied. They generally work alone, but may share their activities and motives with their close friends and others they perceive as being victimized by the person they are cyberbullying. Vengeful Angels need to know that no one should try and take justice into their own hands. They need to understand that few things are clear enough to understand, and that fighting bullying with more bullying only makes things worse. They need to see themselves as bullies, not the do-gooder they think they are." (Aftab, P. 2005. Kids Online in Schools).

He goes on to say that their sense of injustice and reasons for bullying need to be addressed but that this should be done through official means.

My reading states that if you are witnessing a case of flaming, cyberfighting or cyberbullying on a messageboard for example, you do not respond in kind but report the abuse to the administrators. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time 10 years ago

This time 10 years ago I was sitting on QF1 bound for the UK to visit my sister for the first time. What a stunning place she lives in! The view here is taken from one of my favourite places - Glastonbury Tor.

Stage fright?

Less than two weeks to go and my ability to think about my role as subdeacon is at an all time zero. I started some intercessions - there are a few formulae but you do have to have some inspiration in terms of wording. I had one practise with an empty chalice and managed to tilt it so just imagine with a full one! I've asked for a run through of steps/where we stand/bow etc with the head server next sunday and have to catch a time with the curate to run through with the chalice. I was told to be wary of administering the chalice to "tall blokes" as apparently you can misjudge where their mouths are....very funny, i don't think!!

Autumn sunset - Newcastle harbour

Fishermen on Newcastle Harbour

View over Horseshoe Beach (right).

...when you are made to feel you've done the wrong thing.

Last night we were ushers at a local venue (I will not disclose the venue). A gentleman who was dishevelled and in what we perceived to be an acute psychotic state was seated at the back of this venue talking to himself loudly. He was not making a lot of sense and was using expressions that implied violence (I won't quote for fear of spam) to himself/property/others - it was difficult to understand him and he was unable to give us his name or contacts. We made the decision to call an ambulance as we felt that he needed medical/psychiatric attention. The ambulance sent two policemen instead. (I think this was an OH&S issue/mental health act policy - not sure). The gentleman decided he would move to the front of the venue thus coming into full view of a number of people. The police professionally and gently escorted him outside and then took him to a facility that could provide him with appropriate medical/psychiatric assistance. As ushers, we were approached by two people outraged by what we had done in terms of calling for assistance - they stated they would have been happy to have had the gentleman stay implying we should have been more tolerant. They clearly misunderstood that we had called the ambulance out of concern for the gentleman's condition and welfare of others should he become aggressive (implied by some of his speech). The irony was that only two people had bothered to speak to him, most people steered a very wide arc away from him. They therefore had no way of assessing the state of the gentleman's mental state and what the issues were.
The other irony was that at the end of the performance, the audience would have left leaving the workers at the venue to ask the gentleman to leave in order to lock up - where would he have gone in that state? To roam the streets at night exposing him to more harm to self or to others... who knows? If we had waited until the performance had ended and then called an ambulance (they probably still would have sent the police), would that have appeased the people who were outraged? We left the venue (and we are volunteers with no procedures to follow in these circumstances) feeling we were entirely in the wrong.

I should point out that we are in no way strangers to mental health issues having a close relative who has had first episode psychosis. I wonder if the attitude would have been different if the gentleman had been a younger person - would they have let a young person alone to fend for themselves or would assistance have been called? As a parent, I know what my preference would have been particularly if the child had been in such a state rendering them incapable of telling people their name and next of kin.

Linking celebrity worship with Internet search engines (metaphorical eye(s) of Sauron?)

When I was very young, I went to see "The Way We Were" starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. I'm going to be honest and say that for two years I collected bits and pieces on Redford out of magazines and watched as many movies he was in as I could on TV (some of them were not great, I can tell you, but I watched them nevertheless). I even persuaded my parents to take me to the Drive-In to see a repeat screening of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid - the sound came through a little box placed in our car window and we watched the movie through the foggy windscreen. I forgot all about Redford as time went by until I saw him in a film with Brad Pitt some years ago in which he played a father figure (well, that's what it seemed). Name of movie? I can't remember. Once upon a time I could have told you everything about it. At that time, there were no videos, DVDs and there was certainly no internet. I don't believe there was a fanbase.....well not one that I ever found out about.

Last year, one of our daughters played the role of Marian in the local youth theatre production of Robin Hood. Coincidentally, Series 1 of the BBC production of Robin Hood began to be aired at this time on ABC television starring Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths, Richard Armitage and Keith Allen. A few months later, the Vicar of Dibley Christmas specials (I am a particular fan of the Vicar given my connections with church people) were shown on the ABC. These Xmas episodes featured Geraldine finally falling in love and marrying a "Handsome Stranger" who was played by Richard Armitage (AKA Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood). Once upon a time, we would have seen these shows on TV and that would have been the end of it. My daughter however had the Robin Hood Series 1 DVDs and I had the Vicar DVDs which meant that we were bombarded with the characters and actors from all sides. I confess, interest in the actors does occasionally happen, and a brief internet search elicited a number of fansites for all actors concerned along with the Internet Movie Database, YouTube and Wikipedia which provided all sorts of information. Most of it was very innocent and harmless but I was astonished at the number of message boards I found and the number of people chatting to one another about their favourite actor. Some fansites were beautifully presented with features on every aspect of the actors' work. There were others however, that made me feel a little uncomfortable - message threads drifted from discussion of movie roles and characters to more personal discussions on actors' private lives. Confining expressions of enthusiasm for actors' works on a board drifted into actual letter writing and attempted contact with the actors. Watching the actors on the screen drifted into trying to see them in real life. So, what are the appropriate boundaries for fans? When does appropriate behaviour become inappropriate behaviour? When does interest become obsession? When does healthy fun become unhealthy? Is there a happy medium?

I can tell you that now I have mentioned the names of several actors (particularly one) in this post, my statistics for hits will increase. Most hits will be from search engines which I can only assume have been set up to trawl the internet for mention of the actor's name. Apologies to LOTR fans, but I could not help but make the comparison of Frodo placing the Ring on his finger and by doing so, incurring the scrutiny from the "Eye of Sauron", with me mentioning a certain actor's name on this blog, and by doing so, incurring scrutiny from search engines which I can only assume have been set up by fans trawling the internet for any mention of news of that actor. This, I believe, is not an official "trawl" for news stories; I don't believe the people initiating the searches are paid. So, when does an interest become an obsession? When does fandom become unhealthy? Fans have always been around but media and the internet make the objects of fandom so much more accessible.

I first came across the term "Celebrity Worship Syndrome" by reading a post over at a blog whose author has a wealth of experience working with fanbases. The phenomenon of "Celebrity Worship Syndrome" was described by Maltby et al in 2003. A recent article written by them entitled "Praying at the Altar of the Stars" can be found here.

"imagine, if you have to, that you are a diehard fan of a famous individual. How much of your life is spent thinking about that individual? How much money have you spent on him or her (concert tickets, books, travel, souvenirs and other merchandising)? How important is it to your identity that you are a fan of that person? How would you feel if that person did something bad and it became embarrassing to be associated with them?" (Giles, D. & Maltby, J. (2006): "Praying at the Altar of the Stars", The Psychologist, Vol 19, Part 2.)

Maltby et al identified 3 dimensions of celebrity worship:

"1.Entertainment-social. Fans are attracted to a favourite celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain and to become a source of social interaction and gossip. Items include ‘My friends and I like to discuss what my favourite celebrity has done’ and ‘Learning the life story of my favourite celebrity is a lot of fun’.
2.Intense-personal. The intense-personal aspect of celebrity worship reflects intensive and compulsive feelings about the celebrity, akin to the obsessional tendencies of fans often referred to in the literature. Items include ‘My favourite celebrity is practically perfect in every way’ and ‘I consider my favourite celebrity to by my soul mate’.
3. Borderline-pathological. This dimension is typified by uncontrollable behaviours and fantasies about their celebrities. Items include ‘I would gladly die in order to save the life of my favourite celebrity’ and ‘If I walked through the door of my favourite celebrity’s house she or he would be happy to see me’."
(Giles, D. & Maltby, J. (2006): "Praying at the Altar of the Stars", The Psychologist, Vol 19, Part 2.)

One of the scales used in these studies was developed by McCutcheon, Lange and Houran in 2002 and is called the Celebrity Attitude Scale with 34 items to be answered by respondents. It can be found here or here.. Scoring method is outlined at the bottom of the survey. Item scores are added for each category and % calculated. eg. Entertainment social = total score for specified items/35 x 100.

Now before I start getting brick bats thrown at me from the internet fanbases - I am not implying that fans should not indulge in harmless fun chatting away on message boards and talking about favourite movies/shows - I do it myself.....but when thimgs go too far and the boundary from social entertainment to intense personal is crossed.......