Dis n Dat

Knitting
I think I've nearly finished the Rayures. It's almost five feet long.

I'm doing two shades of purple now and am tempted to add more but I think I'm just procrastinating because I don't want to do the kitchenering. In the round. I'm going cat-sitting again on Saturday so I'm trying to use that as a deadline for getting this finished.

I haven't decided whether I will resume the dusty denimy Shetland Triangle that I started last time, or just take the turquoise in-the-round Navigator from the previous post. I reckon I could really get a lot of that done while I'm Netflixing.

I spotted this photograph which was taken on the night of the London Olympics opening ceremony. I'm not particularly a fan of any of the people in it, but my eye was drawn to the shawl over H.M.'s arm - that yarn is Kidsilk Aura in Coral, isn't it?

I'm sure it is. I can't name the pattern but it looks familiar. I wonder who knitted it? I expect Ladies in Waiting have lots of time for knitting, or she might have knitted it herself. Or perhaps the designer of the dress arranged it. Anyway, it reminded me that I knitted a shawl in this very yarn and forgot to show it to you.

I'm sorry it's so crumpled but as you can see it hasn't been finished and blocked, and it had got dug into the clutter on the sofa. It was meant to be an Opal, which is a lovely, simple and effective pattern, but I lost concentration at a crucial moment and it went wrong. If the pattern had a stitch count for each row I could have recovered, but it doesn't. Anyway, it's smaller than an Opal should be but it's still very soft and fluffy and a wonderful colour, so I'm sure it'll come in handy at some point. Once I've blocked it and sewn in the ends.

The Flickering Screen
I saw a film from Sri Lanka which was on Film Four recently, called Machan, a co-production between Sri Lanka, Italy and Germany. It's about a bunch of poor young men who are desperate to go abroad and make some money but cannot get visas, and come up with the idea of forming the Sri Lankan National Handball Team so that they can get to Germany for the international games. They don't know the rules, and don't actually have a handball, but they get some tee shirts printed and get their visas.

 Their plan is to disperse as soon as they arrive, and I won't tell you any more than that. Apparently it's based on a true story, which I didn't realize when I saw it.  It's has a cast of actors and non-actors and it's very good. I was expecting it to be quite light-hearted, maybe a variation on Cool Runnings, but although it's funny it certainly has its dark side too.


Tonight I watched Young Adult, which I hadn't realized was written by Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno. I liked it and it was funnier than I expected. It's about a very unsympathetic character, a no-longer-girl who goes back to her small home town to disrupt her old boyfriend's marriage. She's played by Charlize Theron, who doesn't try to win us over at all and everyone else is good too.

And Inspector Montalbano is back for the winter on BBC4, bringing fabulous sunshine - which we need, I can tell you - and stunning architecture, exquisite tailoring, lots of shrugging and sensationally bad driving.

It's funny, we get a prim little warning beforehand about bad language, even although it's in Italian. For people who are offended by subtitles. Fortunately I have a friend who spent a year in Naples and she can help me out with translations and explications of the finer points, although as usual one often finds that insults are much less breathtaking when taken out of context.

And kmkat has already blogged about the Internet Cat Video Film Festival, so I don't have to. Thanks, kmkat.