The luvvies have descended darling... and the town is the star of the new TV show Downton Abbey starring Dame Maggie Smith, Huge Bonneville and someone else who I have been told is famous but didn't recognise.

The reality is that the production guys took our lovely village green bit in front of St Marys and turned it into North Yorkshire. A stretch in my view but I am sure those guy know what they are doing.

We had a few days of watching the crew and cast doing the same scene over and over and the initial hubbub has settled down.

I suspect the reality of shooting TV and film is very boring for many and repetitive. But it's a job and interesting to see, even if it is outside my front door.

Carnival Films who make the show are coming back in a week or two to shoot a night time scene. Let's hope Dame Mags knocks on my door for a cuppa. She is very welcome.

I have just spent another two hours of my life giving 2001 - A Space Odyssey another go. I think to review it here is simply not fair. This film was made in 1968 when I was one. Man had not yet stepped on the moon and all our lives had been taken over with a science fiction frenzy. You just needed to look at the cars, the fashions and the optimism at the time. There is no doubt that this film influenced many modern film directors. James Cameron robbed whole sections of score for his Aliens movie, every British child's favourite film maker Gerry Anderson must have based UFO on what he saw in 2001. The wonderful end title score by Barry Gray is so reminiscent. 

So, visionary, yes, technical master, yes...master storyteller I don't think so. His films are dry, clinical and the dialogue is stunted. You get the minimum, no fat. It's like Kubrick made a film for computers to watch. Exactly everything you need to tell the story except soul. A lot of his films are about breakdown, degradation, perhaps renewal but always seem to miss redemption. The complex character  in  every man are reduced to formula and method. 2001 is a stiff unrelenting film with extra starch.

However he has his moments. The opening title of The Shining is beautiful. This flowing long shot was way mapped out to sync with the Torrence Car, is a scene that works very well, but fast forward to the interview with Jack Torrence with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel. The editing is appalling.  It lacks the flow of normal speech and feels frankly odd. I suspect the editor had a brain fade cutting that film. The speech is disjointed and cut, cut, cut went the editor. The director should have had the courage to let his actors tell the story.

Full Metal Jacket is disappointing. It came a decade after movies that told the story much better. I didn't believe the characters, I didn't care about them. Sure it was bloody and cruel but it was dry, sanitised and cold. Michael Chimino told his story of The Deer Hunter with passion and conviction. Some of the scenes are painful, brutal, touching and bittersweet. The actors carried the plot and you believed in them, willed them to come through it. Full Metal jacket has none of that.

A Clockwork Orange is one of the films I like from Kubrick. It deals with violence in a appropriate sledge hammer style. However the violence feels cold and uninvolved, almost Tom & Jerry to have too much of an impact. The French Connection (who won the Oscar that year) is also violent and brutal, but you can't help root for "Popeye" whereas Malcolm McDowell' s  wonderfully sadistic Alex DeLarge is so far removed I didn't really give a hoot.

Is there a pattern emerging here?

I am not even going to mention Barry Lyndon and Spartacus. After Anthony Mann (the original Director) was given his marching orders, I suspect Kubrick was well under the studio influence. Kubrick never had final cut of the film and this is probably why Spartacus does not feel like a Stanley Kubrick movie and probably for that reason I have enjoyed it many times.

I know I am wandering off topic a little but please indulge me. Stanley Kubrick promising director scores movie hits with Paths of Glory and Spartacus. So the studio give him a pot of dosh and he goes off to make 2001 - A Space Odyssey. This is where I believe Kubrick became unstuck. Perhaps he believed the bullshit that people were saying about him.
Some people reach iconic status too soon before their actual ability can catch up. This is realised in a interview with Joseph Gelmis when asked about the meaning of 2001.

"They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded."

Make of that what you will. My view is that 2001 does really work as a film; it's more of a picture frame with moving images, a screensaver with wonderful views. I know it has a following and I respect your view to differ. However this is my Blog and I get the last word.

Movies to me are an experience. They can whisk you away to places far far away, to visit strange new worlds and meet mysterious inhabitants. They can bring you to terms with what it is to be human, the bonds between families and friends, and flood you with emotion and sorrow. Movies can do this when all the elements of film making come together. Whilst I am not qualified to know what elements make a good movie, I believe we can all tell when we are enchanted and time stops (for a couple of hours anyway).

For me this has never occurred watching a Stanley Kubrick movie.

Stanley Kubrick was without doubt a master film maker on every level. A genius of production and execution...but not a master storyteller. 

The march of the spammers will never abait. Here is a cracker...meet beautiful 26 year old KseniyaLam (which sounds African to me). Lookin' for lurrvee.

Oh if I was half my age.

Spam Start +++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello! My name is Kseniya. I want to get acquainted with you. I'm 26 years old. And I am lonely, and seeking long-term relations. In personal attitudes with the man and in the man in general I to search for full trust to each other, loyalty to go on the compromise each other, respect each other, understanding from a half-word, care of the friend the friend, mutual love to each other. I wish to find my second  half which I have not met befor. May be you? I hope, that you will answer me and it will be the beginning of our relations. I send you a picture that you to  see who I'm. More about myself I with pleasure will write you, if you answer me. Ask, if you have questions. I will be waiting for your answer. I hope, that  you will not keep me waiting for a long time.

 Please reply only to my personal e-mail:  kseniyakiss@yahoo.com

Bridget Street

I would like to thank you for:

the  wonderful holidays with fish & chips and Walls Cornettos

Fantastic roast dinners with those spuds.

Pushing me around when I broke my leg

Getting the wrong end of the stick

Teaching me how to jog

Letting me stay up late (when Lorraine wasn't allowed at that age)

Letting me have girlfriends back to my room (we just talked BTW)

Helping me buy my first car

Mixed Doubles Badminton in the summer

You always laughed at my impressions

Whilst we are at it… a few moans too:

You stunk like a chip throughout the summer.

Tescos cola is NOT the same as Coke

Lasagne with Brussels Sprouts is just WRONG

You are always with me every day. I miss you so much.

Now you can finally rest.

I am looking forward to the day we can hold each other again.

The sell in starts in September and doesn't let up until 24^th Dec at 23:59. The businesses that sell us all this stuff that we buy have to make a buck and I don't blame them for using advertising to coax the weak from parting with their cash.

Hell it's a festival isn't it. Sure a festival of consumption, of self indulgence. Where has the magic gone. The thrill of waking on Christmas morning. The sheer excitement of being all together and knowing that a miracle has happened all around the world. It's gone.

It's gone for me anyway. Hijacked by the ad men, Noddy Holder & Jona Lewie. The meaning of Christmas now rests in the hands of Mobile Phone operators, Supermarkets and Electrical Goods shops.

There is a wonderful film by John Carpenter called "they live". In it the main protagonist finds a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the "real world" . Where a bill board shows a cosmetics ad, wearing the glasses shows the real message,  "SLEEP, OBEY, CONSUME".  Whilst I don't think we have been overrun with aliens in disguise, I suspect that if the media and manufactures have their way the true message of Christmas will be lost forever.

I am not much of a religious man and the events of the past 8 months have driven a wedge even further between me and the church, but I still think Christmas is about being together with your friends and family, about renewal. It's about enjoying life for its own sake. For making it through another year.    

For me, I'll look forward to another Christmas in the hope that I'll get what I want next year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all those who (like me) like to dream also.

Another day and another email , this time from Vishal Vohra at Rhealsoftware spamming me. This company sounds like it might be OK. None of the usual spelling gaffs that make me laugh so heartily. No, this time my mucker Vishal is offering a developer at £8 pounds an hour.  No shit.

At that rate I needn't turn up for work. Tell you what I'll negotiate the deal and employ Vishals buddies to do all he hard work.

Here is the email (abridged):

________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sir

I was going through your website and read about your Software management services. We are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner software development company in India specializing in .Net based development. We have extensive experience in building applications (web as well as desktop) for various industries such as construction, project management, insurance, real estate, financial services & banking, accounting and services & dispatching. We are currently undergoing the CMMI Level 3 appraisal process and hope to achieve the certification by the end of this year.

As you may be aware, off shore outsourcing has become extremely feasible and is an accepted norm these days. Hence I thought there might be some possible interest in outsourcing development work to us. We specialize in Web Enablement, Enterprise Application Integration and database related workflow applications. We also have tremendous experience in integrating existing applications with all Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, Project etc. and QuickBooks as well as SharePoint. We assure substantial cost benefits, high quality work & timely delivery schedules. Further, I visit our clients 2-3 times a year in the US and the UK and can certainly try to meet with you personally during my trip later this year.

 Now, I am sure you are wary of outsourcing work to someone you have never met. We have another proposition that has worked successfully for many of our existing clients. In order to develop the trust (both ways) and to prove our commitment, what we do is develop the software and put it on our server for you to see & evaluate. You can monitor our progress daily. We work on mutually agreed milestones and you only pay us when you are satisfied after a successful completion of a milestone, we give you the code at that point. There is NO RISK to you as there is no upfront payment required. This proposition has worked very well for us in the past as we believe we can deliver the quality development services. In fact, 60% of our clients have switched to us from other offshore development companies as we are more productive and efficient than other organizations. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.rhealsoft.com . Also, if you need any references, I would be happy to provide you with the same.

Our rates are extremely competitive and are as follows:

Junior Developer                                                                                               GBP8/hr

Mid Level Developer                                                                                            GBP11/hr

Senior Developer                                                                                                GBP13/hr

QA                                                                                                                   GBP6/hr

I do look forward to your reply.
Thanks.

Thanks,

Vishal Vohra, Director

I was creating a new website based on code that I have created last year. I am sure many developers copy snippets of code to speed up the website construction phase. However when trying to access ProfileCommon from an external class it threw an error stating it wasn't defined.

Dim pfile As ProfileCommon = CType(HttpContext.Current.Profile, ProfileCommon)

ProfileCommon is not defined.

It worked great in code behind classes but not in an external class.

Why did it work before and not now?

I googled it and all the so called solutions involved recoding for ProfileBase which did help much. I had all this ready made code to work with the current profile and I didn't fancy all the re-coding.

I spent 4 hours debugging this issue and fell upon the answer. The problem was the fact that I was using a C# table profile provider and I typically write in VB. I had created a subdir in App_Code and put the C# files there, and created the mark-up to the subdir in Web.Config

<codeSubDirectories>

        <add directoryName="ProfileProvider"/>

</codeSubDirectories>

What gave the game away was that I noticed my Linq to SQL .dbml's were written in C# and not VB as selected. For some reason at rebuild time the first subdir parsed was the C# "ProvileProvider" dir, and VS decided to create C# objects from then on.

The fix was to delete all the C# objects and the C# subdir and rebuild the website, ProfileCommon access was restored. I re-created all my .dbml objects (in VB (which stuck this time)) and returned the ProfileProvider subdir with C# code .

Rebuilt the website and all is working as expected.

The problem is… I don't know why this fixed the problem or why the problem occurred.

Ideas gratefully received.

Oh yet another SPAMMER hoping for a mug. But wey-hey offering $2.3 million for the transaction.

God I love em.

START THE SPAM +++++++

Why are some trades people so rubbish at keeping appointments.

I mean, you call them up, they sound interested in the job and they will say something like "I'll call you back later to discuss" but you know what… they don't call back.

I called Rod Coles Plumbing & Heating (from Caterton) a few weeks ago. Nice chap on the phone said he would pop over to my house to look at the job in a few days. Two weeks later he phones and asks if the job is still on.

Same again with Mark Pipkin Plumber, said he would call back weeks ago and haven't heard from him since.

I was also looking for a builder for a building project and I approached quite a few. In six months I approached 38 builders and firms and got 9 replies.

These are the ones that blankly ignored me, others asked to send in drawings (which I did):

Not all were bad, Four guys came out to price the job but only three actually sent in a quote. Oaktree Building Company had the decency to decline the job.

I don't get it. Why don't they want my business?

Am I a problem customer? How do they know this? (PS I'm not).

I can only conclude that these people and firms have far too much easy money business to bother with a piffling little project like mine. Perhaps they can't make enough money out of it. Perhaps…Perhaps…Perhaps.

BUT. There is a silver lining on this cloud. I found a firm of Plumbers that are:

• Effective
• Tidy
• On time
• Good Value

They are EcoHeat from London. They are headed up by a fellow called Joe (the plumber) who is the oracle on anything heating and plumbing. Very impressed and would heartily recommend to anyone.

My contact was a friend called Enzo. He can be reached on 07775 851173.

In conclusion, the TV would have you believe the building and service trades are a treacherous place. Full of sharks ready to rip you off at a seconds notice. My experience is the opposite. The sharks just ignored me, presumably they have bigger fish to hunt.

Notice of Underreported Income - SCAM

Just had this email in:

Taxpayer ID: your.name-00000174073547US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)

Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):

review tax statement for taxpayer id: davis.brent-00000174073547US

Internal Revenue Service

…and you know for a minute I thought I was in trouble. Even though I don't owe and bean to the IR. Like a fool I clicked the link and immediately shutdown my browser. I saw the word "IRS" and immediately thought SCAM.

This is a good one.

If you get it…DELETE IT Immediately

More info:

http://blog.2work-at-home.com/WordPress/2009/09/10/scam-alert-unreportedunderreported-income-email/