I won't elaborate on the story as others have already done that but whilst quite engaging as a narrative, I wasn't as bowled over as many other reviewers and I also believe more rigorous editing would have been preferred.

p330 "... ripe with the stench of immigrants and Negroes and mongrels..." Well thanks for the capitalisation Mr Chabon! I know it's largely set in an earlier age but do we really need this to convey the story? Doesn't seem to be necessary for this tale. Adds nothing.

Compares very favourably with a wonderful radio biographical dramatisation I heard some years ago; an unadorned portrait of a man seemingly trapped within a body, sexual orientation and intellectual environment all of which he variously despised.

Funny, deeply personal, unsentimental, Sheen paints a picture of a man who could charm and annoy, entertain and exasperate in equal measure. Never feeling much part of this world, Williams left it leaving a warm memory but ultimately little of any real depth, something at which I fear he would ironically have sneered in his inimitably cynical manner.

Sheen is one of the acting world's great chameleons but he imbues his roles with his own character and energy; fascinating stuff

If you're an aficionado of this increasingly cultish film, you'll love the cool-dudeness of this offering some of which is heard in the film but all of which captures the mood and atmosphere of the opening track - ensemble playing at its finest - and of the film itself. A classy personnel serve up a menu of subtly cast musical gems rendering the palette suitably refreshed and the abdominal region replete with a complex panoply of notational, chromatic and harmonic nourishment... dine richly but don't overeat! Actually, be greedy and stuff your face cos I reckon this is a classic

This is a very interesting and at times extremely funny film which perhaps focuses on christianity overmuch but certainly does not shirk the awkwardness and potential minefield of a clearly critical stance on islam.

Mr Maher obviously edits the film to suit his objective but nonetheless I do feel he asks straightforward questions of learned (and not so learned!) religious adherents who do not necessarily provide straightforward answers, often preferring seemingly irritable obfuscation rather than enlightening or even vaguely logical encouragement beyond the age old refuge of blind faith.

This author leans heavily towards the filmmaker's point of view and I doubt if believers are likely to be swayed by the piece. However it's refreshing to observe an entertaining rather than excessively polemic or bombastic personal analysis or enquiry of a profoundly significant area of human activity.

I bought a couple of these as presents for friends and I have been embarrassed to find that they do not really work at all

I have a Galileo thermometer which I purchased several years ago and the gulf in quality of finish and functionality between it and these new ones is huge

I would not recommend these because they are completely insensitive to the temperature gradations which they were designed to read unlike my old one where part of the pleasure was noting the instrument's changing aesthetic in relation to the ambient temperature

they are also poorly made i.e. cheap components and poorly shaped cheap glass

I cannot recommend this product

didn't James Burke do this in his under appreciated epic "After the Warming"? the premise appears the same.

I feel that Age of Stupid is rather plagiaristic, rather dull, colourless and considerably less creative (i.e. far too much archive and interviews) compared to Mr Burke's original fine work which is much more speculative and yet somehow more engagingly informative and prescient - shame Mr Burke's piece is not on DVD

If you really enjoyed TLOTR and read/studied the Prologue and the Appendices in particular, you would thoroughly enjoy The Silmarillion which carries on the theme of grandiloquent historical prose but delivered in a more biblical style. It provides the solid and deep foundation on which TLOTR sits so comfortably.

Taken together, TLOTR and the Silmarillion represent a titanic and unparalleled literary achievement fulfilling Professor Tolkien's objective which was to create a new English language mythology to join the pantheon of ancient Greek and Norse tales and I genuinely feel he has surpassed them all. He was a deeply learned man and his work in this respect bears testimony to his staggering academic, scholastic, linguistic, historical, creative and narrative perseverance. The book does not seek any meaning outside its own realm but in many ways it offers fable and philosophy in a very simple and pure way.

One interesting observation is that despite the enormous temporal scope of the book (I've worked it out as something like 10,000 years, give or take...) there is very little evidence of any technological development or evolution throughout even though the characters and peoples are clearly depicted as being possessed of the deepest wisdom and creativity and yet the whole thing still hangs together; amazing!

... with Michael Sheen as Nero if I remember right, however the rest of the series is plagued by utterly dire acting which is brutally painful to watch

... I wouldn't rave about it though. There are one or two very decent jazzy tunes which have a Satie like quality, otherwise a fairly quiet unassuming piece of work which makes good background sounds while you're having a dinner party. I like it

lovely warm chilled beats on CD1; easily takes repeat playing in the car on long journeys

esoteric, heavily reverb'ed wandering aimless piano on CD2

huge contrast; couldn't see the connection

(wish I could use CD2 to record some other material instead)