Buzz gets into training

Not the old guy. The Lightyear chap. His performance on the running machine is not unlike mine in Milan...

Martin made me do it

In response to Martin's post on the Copydesk yesterday, I went looking for this KLF track, which is one of my favourites.

When I worked in Atlanta in 91/92, covering the NFL, I used this as a music bed to do the highlight package for the end of the programme. It's brilliant to cut to and this edit made my 'showreel' - such as it is - when I still worked in TV. Must encode it one of these days.

Oh, and it's also great to run to, as I prepare myself for a wet and cold 10k today...

More Disney trauma

My Mum's earliest cinema memory is going to see Bambi and being inconsoleable at 'that scene'. I sent this to a friend who pointed out that her young son's book about the cute wee deer doesn't even mention the Mummy. Surely that level of re-versioning means you miss some of the pathos and drama of the whole film?

Anyhoo - the cat's cute.

Blogging your grub

What is it about taking pictures of food? In the last few months I've photographed meals on trains, in restaurants all over the place and - as above - in beachfront cafes. Is it to make people jealous? To capture the moment? Not sure, but I smiled at this post on my favourite food blog, Serious Eats, this morning. Because it was spookily familiar...

Call me Mrs Corporate-Head...

..but I am in love with Wall-E. At a recent Disney preview of the film's first thirty minutes, even the most hardened film critics came out raving about it. Put July 18th in your diaries...

An Ex Pat writes

Found this image of the Isle of Iona on a card in Waterstones today and, after buying several to send to folk, I headed online to buy a framed print.

There are lots of paintings of Iona out there by people like John Lowrie Morrison and the Scottish colourist, Francis Cadell. In fact there are some rather lovely ones about to be exhibited in London next month by Frances Macdonald.

But this painting absolutely captures the light of the island and, in imagining the walk back into the village from the beach at the North End, I can almost feel the sun, the breeze and the air which is so fresh and clean you could chew it. This is exactly the kind of picture which makes this Hammersmith resident a tad homesick...

Wall:E & the Superbowl

Great ad for Wall:E which ran during the Superbowl. The teaser itself is cute but it's really made by the addition of two familiar couch potatoes.

My new tipple

Having spent the last few days coughing convulsively, often in the middle of meetings, my new best friend is this bottle of Covonia.

It actually tastes pretty ghastly - should have trusted my instincts and stuck to the original version (Covonia 1.0, if you will) but I gambled on this new and improved mentholated expectorant. After gagging at the first spoonful, I reached for the bottle to find out what on earth was in it. Not only does it contain the mysterious 'squill tincture' (something to do with fluffy-tailed park rodents?) but it has an alcohol level of 7.7%.

Which rather negates my attempts at temperance this week (no wine since Sunday, thank you very much). Could be worse though. I could be one of the 3.1 million 12-25 year-olds in the US getting high on Calpol, Tixilix and the like. Or maybe by the weekend I will be...