Monday, September 20, 2004

And they're off!

yay, the start of the real teaching today. I'm busy plotting how much of three hours' class time I can waste with vague exercises and bureaucracy. To my consternation, I've discovered that two elementary munchkins, who somehow managed to wangle a 5.0 in IELTS, are in my group. I'm laying bets on how long they last: Odds are they'll be off by the end of term. I asked one of them which university he wanted to go to. His brow furrowed. 'Universty?' 'Yes, which University would you like to go to?' 'Univesty?' 'UNIVERSITY' 'Ahh! Yes, I want go WAR-wick'. 'What do you want to study?''Account.''Why?''I like account ver'much.' Faackin' 'Ell.

Watched 'She's Gone' on ITV last night: I can't say I was impressed. The storyline - young woman goes missing, father goes in search of her, discovers all sorts of stuff along the way - has been covered many times and by better writers. The depiction of Istanbul and Turks was, to my mind, rather lazy and disingenuous. Apparently, much of the location filming was done in Malta, and it showed as well: shots purporting to be from a rooftop looking over the Golden Horn clearly weren't, the police vehicles weren't the ones used in Turkey, and many of the buildings, even though they had Turkish flags draped over them, weren't the sort you'd find in Istanbul. One very crap shot in the final couple of scenes: The buildings used for the backdrop were the same as those used for the prison in Midnight Express! The acting was largely wooden, apart from Ray Winstone, who did a good job as a confused, self-centred bear of a man.

No comments: