Yes, we're talking three movies in one week, folks. Today, Kiloh and I went to circus class with Apoa and waited in the cafe while she worked on the trapeze. Kiloh opened her little handbag and produced a giant hole punch, a staple remover and a stapler and set up an office in the cafe. We sat and worked on laptops and DS's, with a limited wifi connection while Apoa worked on her rope climbing and front balance.

Then we headed to Leicester Square and Chicken Little in 3D. The 3D was not hitech but it worked pretty well. It didn't add much to the movie, but there were a couple of nice moments when tentacles reached out to us from the screen. The movie was pretty good but not as gripping as some of the classics from recent years.

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imdb - walk the line

Saw this with Apoa today. She wasn't sure but I persuaded her and she thought it was pretty good. I think some of the middle bits were a bit slow and grownup for her. I've been playing the kids 'Folsom Prison Blues' for ages so it had a bit of family significance too. I really enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for popstar biopics anyway and would agree with Mark Kermode that this is up there with the Buddy Holly Story and Slade in Flame (although, to be honest, I don't remember too clearly what the teenage me made of them). Without wanting to spoil it, I thought the two best scenes were the 'one song' bit and the 'I can't go down there' bit.

Meanwhile, we came first equal in the school film quiz last night. We'd have won if we could have listed the 20 Broccoli Bond movies in their order of release. We got the first 9 and the last 3 but the rest were a bit of a Roger Moore-Timothy Dalton soup.

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imdb - good night, and good luck

Wonderful movie. Even the Holloway Odeon couldn't spoil it. I don't think it was just me who felt like the audience (who usually seem like they're really just out for a chat and just happen to have picked a cinema as the venue) were completely rapt. It had a really magical 'look-and-feel' - I felt like I was watching ghosts. Quite a Reithian message, which I always approve of (up to a point, Lord Copper). By the time it finished, I had a strong urge to chainsmoke and drink 'scotch' until 3 in the morning.

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Check out the Mayde Creeks

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Ohna has often commented on the irony of a useless communicator like me making a living out of studying communication. I've always thought, though, that it might be what you'd expect. Sometimes you get interested in things when they go wrong.

The latest example is now on my head. The barber thought the missing constituent in my explicature was 'all over my head including the top' when I thought he'd realise I meant 'just the back and sides'. I realised his mistake after he had dragged the mower right over the top of my head.

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The older you are, the more you're likely to be impressed by current technology. I'm quite excited to hear Apoa tell me that she's currently Mario-Karting (on Kiloh's DS, hope the permission is there) against 'some random guy in Japan'. She doesn't even know his name as it's displayed in Japanese characters.

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This blog hasn't been too linguistic recently, partly because I have London Language as an alternative outlet, as well as lots of opportunities to talk about language in class.

I got a really nice example from Apoa the other morning. We were discussing facts and propositions (I'm sure all parents chat about things like this with their kids over breakfast, right?) and we were agreeing that facts exist but that we can never know for sure which things are facts, when she said, 'Dettol protects. Fact!'

For the pragmatists among you, it strikes me as an interesting echoic usage illsutrating something rather than saying it, and also to be a good example of linguistic underdeterminacy - how do you work out the relationship between the two bits, and what exactly does 'dettol protects' mean?

Went to see Proof last night, followed by a talk with John Madden, who reminded me that maths is one area where you can prove things conclusively. One big issue with the film, of course, is that they can't tell us anything about the maths in it as we wouldn't have a clue about what it meant.

Just updated the site a bit, btw. Some new links below and a few handouts from this year's teaching.

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We got the message on Wednesday that visiting hours ended at 8pm so we all rushed to Hampstead to visit Nicki and Haldane. We came from three different starting places but made it on time. Apoa enjoyed me interrupting her guitar ensemble to ask if she could leave early as 'she has to go and see a doughnut'. We made it past the security and gathered behind the curtain to introduce ourselves. I was particularly excited as I got to do a bit of nappy-changing. He is, of course, much smaller in the flesh than in the photos but just as cute.

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Education Guardian - BA in Sign Language

I wonder how many people will go for this. I've always thought that they should introduce sign language in the national curriculum. If they taught BSL to kids when they start primary, they'd enjoy it, learn it easily, be happily bilingual, think positively about language learning and be able to communicate with BSL signers.

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Now that Ohna Apoa and Kiloh have all joined in, my whole family is blogging! I'm trying to get Verena to start one too.

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Here he is,

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He's here and his name is now Haldane Edward. Pictures are on Dug's flickr pages

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tragic life of a chocoholic

Yes, Kiloh has one too. I'm not sure about that title, though.

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oopsydaisyivegonecrazy

Yes, it's happened. Apoa has a blog. She's already had two comments, although she did send them herself!

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Ohna's in France (being interviewed by Liberation about short film-making in Britain, among other things!) so she couldn't take me up on one of her christmas presents, which was a ticket to see Belle and Sebastian in Cambridge. Robbie came instead. He even got away early so we had time for a pre-gig beer and fish and chips in the Eagle (famous as the place where Crick and Watson came up with the double helix idea and for the names of airmen carved into the ceiling during World War II). Belle and Sebastian were great. As they said, they've got a LOAD of songs to choose from now. After one person had yelled 'We Rule The School!' all night, they played one line of it and then stopped saying 'och, we'll do it tomorrow'. The locals didn't like all the references to braininess, lectures, etc. The woman next to me said 'Everybody who comes here goes on about that, even though most of the people here are locals!'

The support were Brakes who were great. Most songs were about a minute long. The final song, was introduced as 'a short one'. It was called 'comma comma comma full stop'. I liked it so much I bought the record! (And they covered a Camper van Beethoven song, Dug)*

According to the Belle and Sebastian band site we MAY listen to the album before it comes out if we find it on the web.

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*Dug planted the idea of this in my head but thought he shouldn't be going to a gig in Cambridge on the day his second kid is due.