A Journey Underground

It really does astound me to think that there are places on this Earth that are just as stunning and breath-taking as any one of the many wonders of the world, but which are located underground. We are so preoccupied with what's on the surface, where we dwell, that we barely consider what is happening beneath us, what is down there, and if it truly is just earth and rock.
On a brief family holiday this summer, we stayed in the south of France at my great-aunt's house near Cordes-sur-Ciel. Cordes itself is a very old town that is raised into the sky by the huge hill that it is situated on:

(not own photo)

About a two hour drive north of here, however, is a place known as Le Gouffre de Padirac, which is simply one of the most impressive places I have visited. What is fascinating about it is that it is situated underground, accessed by either a 75 metre stairway that descends into the initial part of the cavern, or a series of lifts.

Here on the right I am taking photos of the cavern from above:

And on the left is the cavern itself, taken by myself from the bottom of it. My vertigo just about dealt with the staircase, which seemed like it would never end, and then we went into the tunnel that extends for quite a way alongside an underground river, until you reach a section where you can only continue further by boat. There were lots of signs up prohibiting photography in here, but I assumed that it was flash photography that they had a problem with, so I switched my flash off. Unfortunately, a lot of my photos are quite blurry as a result, but you can just about make out what some of them are of. Each boat took about 10 or so people, and we were slowly pushed towards the next section, where we alighted and were given a tour around the caverns. Sadly, this was in French. It would have been nice to understand the no-doubt interesting facts that we were being given about the various caverns and their features, but instead I can only imagine what we were told. In some of the caverns, we climbed high, on stone steps, and although there were railings, I still - naturally - got the sense that I could very easily fall at any moment. Many parts of these caverns seemed to me like a combination of Gringotts Bank in the Harry Potter series (the passageway sections of the bank, that is, not the marble entrance to it), and the Mines of Moria from The Lord of the Rings, except of course, they are naturally formed. I don't know to what extent there has been human interference in there, in the sense of making it safe and accessible for the public to navigate around, but certainly doesn't look like much of it has been altered by man.

Apparently this is not the only underground place like this in France, but it is certainly the most-visited one in the country, and I believe it is one of the largest too, in terms of how far it spreads. To think that all of this is located underneath some fields is just amazing, especially if you consider that nobody would have any idea that there are people walking some 100 metres below them, if it weren't for the huge gaping hole on the surface that leads down into the complex of caverns.

Radio 1's Big Weekend 2010 (Bangor)

I have spent the past few hours this evening continuing work on my scrapbook. Currently I am working on my 3rd page for the Big Weekend (I have so many photos and newspaper cuttings for it that I realised the event would require about four pages, rather than the maximum of two that I have so far assigned to every other theme in the scrapbook).


Here is the stage the page was at about four hours ago, surrounded by some of my materials (and just visible to the left, Florence from Florence and the Machine stuck on the bottom of the 1st page of the Big Weekend section).

And now this is how it currently looks:

I need to add some more text but otherwise it is nearly complete. I think this is definitely one of my brighter pages. I love how I have ended up positioned next to Scott Mills :-D

It's almost official

7/10 blogs focus on the equally admirable practices of Pony upkeep and the mucking-out of stables.
Or something to that effect.

The remaining percentage are dedicated to describing the exploits of derring-do families, updated solely by the Scrapbooking Moms of America, who are easily identified by their frequent expressions of thanks to God for the wonderful children he has blessed them with. Photographs of these children in turn appear frequently on the blog, accompanied by a short paragraph in which the S.M.A. individual describes how the children differ from their siblings and summarises their most lovable quality contrasted with the most nefarious aspect of their personality.

A very small minority will write about fashion, zombies, photography, or their travels. An intriguing combination of any of these themes is hoped to be the cause of increased readership.

In case I ever get extremely bored ...

... this should prove entertaining.

Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Scrubs.
The story should use legalizing gay marriage as a plot device!

Generated by the Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator

I think it's Criticise Superheroes Week, though it's kind of unintentional

Yaay, whoo, etc., etc.
Issue two of Your Voice is finally out! I finally managed to get my article written today, and then compiled the last two pages.
Enjoy!

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Now playing: Fiction Plane - I Wish I Would Die
via FoxyTunes

Oh my God - it's a runaway!

I got mum to create a blog and add me as a contributor so that we can keep in touch via bloggings while I'm at Uni, seeing as Facebook practically makes me come over in a cold sweat whenever I even think about it. So, naturally, I made a perfectly awesome first post, and then figured I ought to post it here also, even though I think most of you have already seen the clip that I wrote about, and discussed it with me. It's too good to not share out again, anyway.
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I like sharing things. Well, actually I don't. No, I do. Well, I like making people aware of the existence of a certain thing, and then reminding them that I was the first to know about it, which invariably results in them having no choice but to bow down to me in an act of complete and utter deference. So what do I have to share with you all today? Why, something totally awesome, of course.

Everyone loves a good giggle, right?
This has been a good year for comic book movies, so far. I would call them 'superhero' movies, except neither Batman nor Iron Man actually have any super powers - they simply rely on charm, teh monies, and a box of scraps (that last has to be roared angrily). Box office records have been smashed and snooty peeps have been shown that comic books isn't just kiddly escapism; there's, like, death, and wars, and um, playboys and stuff.

Which is just as well, really, considering the genre hasn't exactly received the best rap, in the past. I can't lay claim to ever having seen the whole of Supergirl (1984), which is a shame, because the one clip that I have seen from this film suggests to me that it is a chuckle-worthy romp through badder and badder-er. It's not camp in an Adam-West-as-Batman sort of way; it's just nonsensical. I discovered the clip over at io9 and immediately showed it to a bunch of friends, who all had the exact same reaction, more or less at the exact same time, which was essentially, "WHY IS THE MAN CRAWLING ON THE FLOOR?! RUN, MAN, RUN!"

What bemuses me the most, however, is Supergirl's utterly mundane use of her powers. Not only is she sitting around doing bugger-all in some diner while her boyfriend gets chased about by the runaway digger (you really have to see to believe), but then she super-runs (it probably actually is called something like that. I mean, Superman actually has a super-weaving ability, so it wouldn't surprise me) through the diner as though she has just realised how much time she has wasted, and figures she ought to make up for it. This is completely negated, however, by the fact that she then apologises to a waitress for being in a rush.

She then goes through a super-hair-colour-change and then, most bizarrely of all, shoots lasers out of her eyes to put out some dangerous sparks that are undoubtedly about to start a fire in the middle of the street. I'm sorry? What? Lasers + sparks does not equal nothing. It probably equals something along the lines of freaking lightning bolts or something. I really think that Supergirl needs a tactician to guide her in her actions, a bit like how the characters in the Fire Emblem game series are controlled by you, so they don't screw up and get massacred by bandits. Seriously, if this scene from Supergirl was available to play as a chapter in some turn-based strategy game, I would have Supergirl find a hose somewhere, instead of flying through that huge water tower and damaging it to such an unnecessary extent, make her spray out the tyre fire with the hose, then pick up one of the tyres and bash it about on the sparking cables a bit until they ... stop ... sparking.

Also, listen out for some of the things that are said in this clip. "Oh my God! A leg!" makes me giggle like a giddy school-girl. A leg?! Oh, sheeeet, you're kidding me. Where did that come from? Of course, the most perplexing line is the second-to-last: "A storm dragon?"
No, it's-- it's not--that's not-- just no.

Lil' Inez: "Miss, may I please audition?"
Velma von Tussle: "Aha haa, no of course not, but you may bow and exalt, for I am Miss. Baltimore Crabs"

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Now playing: Robbie Williams - Feel
via FoxyTunes

AND THEN JAKE SNAKE SHOT SOMETHING SPECIAL AT THEM

Yaaay, Kat-chan called me just over an hour ago to see how everyone had done in their exams, so I got to talk to her, but also - AYE BLEDREN - it was ME that she phoned. I am of the specialsauce. I kind of needed that actually, considering Richard goes on holiday tomorrow and came offline at nine tonight - I'm not going to be able to speak to him for about a week, apart from when he texts and whatnot and with BOTH my best friends on holiday this next week it's going to get looonely. Still, Frenchy has invited me around for next Friday/Saturday, so we'll have another of our mad film-watching sleepover things, which we haven't done in aaages. But yessings, was pleased to hear from Kat-chan, although her new phone apparently isn't working properly, which must be rather awkward - she had to use some payphone to call me and I could hear lots of background noise, as it was not quite even five o'clock over there. DAMN, I forgot to tell her what Ru's favourite Disney character is, which she asked for me to find out. Ahh, I'll try and let her know if she phones again.
Other than that, yes, this is just a post for me to be happy at the special call and because I had salmon for dindins.

Gaaah, awesomesauce is tired

Okay, there was this thing where we had to throw a surprise party for Ru's birthday, which was yesterday, so it was like "gaaah, party stuffings!" and then her dad got arrested the night before so we were like "zomg, will the party still be on?" and it WAS, so I had to tidy my room like mad because it was being hosted at mine but didn't have time to sort out my clothing so it got dumped all around my bed, and yes, that is ALL OF MY CLOTHING THAT HAS EVAR EXISTED, ON AND AROUND MY BEDDINGS. Rosie, who arrived at one so we could prepare, can't have been to many parties, for her idea of snack food is caviar and RYE BREAD and sour cream so I scoffed all the banana fritters. It was her, scene-Charlotte, Ru and myself to begin with, then Frenchy arrived about half-five. We were very tired, but I don't know why. Charlotte left at six, then Rosie at half-seven, so Ru, Frances and I sat on all my cushions and had nice times for a few hours and all the party poppers had been left off so there were streamers everywhere. Ru eventually left but Frenchy was staying over, so she, Alec and I decided we would watch The Terminator but we had to watch it in Alec's room, because mine was such a mess. We had no dindins, because mum and dad were out all day, at the beach, and then at some pub in a place called Felsted, celebrating their 20th Anniversary, so we just cooked some sausage rolls and Cornish pasties and shared them and while they were cooking, talked about films and Alec told us about Universal snapping up the rights to the Wheel of Time books, so we were like 'WTF?'. Then we watched the awesomeness that is The Terminator and then mum and dad got home, so we talked with them for a bit, then they went to bed and our film ended at half-twelve. I managed to clear A space in my room for Frances to sleep although we stayed up until two, talking about stuffs. I must have been very tired, because I said how much I hated "Mand and Rat" from WOT, and then this morning I told Frances that I would have a look for her "banana bottoms" instead of her pyjama bottoms :P. We woke up and went on the UCAS website to check if we had got into our Universities, because her cousin told her that you could do that after midnight and we were like "yaaaay" because we had. Then we walked to school and the results came out at 10 and we got there about quarter of an hour after that and I saw Ru, and Charlotte, and Matt, and Frances went to talk to Jane and I did not see her AT ALL AFTER THAT, so she must have gone to work shortly afterward or something. Megan appeared WITH HER MUM, who - for some reason - she must always have with her on Exam Results Day, and for some reason, she was crying before she had even got the results so it was like "gaaah, can't be bothered to talk to you" and then people gradually left so I went into town with Rosie and Ru. We went to Rosie's and were there for about twenty minutes or so, talking to her parents, and my mum called just as I was texting my results to my dad so I spoke to her and we tried to find out Eleanor's results, but some stupid woman at her school had just said to her "oh well done darling, you got 6 As" and then hung up without telling her how she had done in her AEAs (I know - she took a ridiculous number of subjects, but that's private school for you) and then we went into the centre of town because I still needed to deliver my mum's sandals to her, which she had asked for this morning in a text that woke me up and then we went to Golden Butterflies and treated ourselves to chocolate and it started raining so we were like "aaargh" and ran under some trees on the common. I texted Kat, but haven't had a reply yet, and then we ran up to a bench up the top of the common. We were there for maybe 15-20 minutes, but started to get cold, so we went to Rosie's, listened to Jake Snake parts 1 and 2 being read out, got Ru to join Encycloclique and then went down and made a selection of things for lunch, so I had pasta, tomato pesto sauce, fried rice, and fried chicken kiev which was very nice and filling and then we went back up and I showed them the legendary Supergirl clip and then we watched the last few minutes of the OC season 2 ending, which according to Eleanor was ridiculous and then we watched a spoof of it from SNL, which had a cameo from Shia LaBeouf. Then we somehow ended up combining "Mmmm, what you saa~aay" with "a storm dragon?!" and Jake Snake, and lay on Rosie's bed, very tired, and making silly jokes, and then listening to 'Endlessly', 'Unintended' and 'Escape' by Muse and being silly and awesome simultaneously (very few people can pull it off). Then I went home at about 4:15, because I had to be back for when Frances came to collect her sleeping bag on the way back home from work, except it is now 5:57 and I'm not sure where she is.

I've been avoiding coming home all this time because my room is such an abysmal mess. I'm tempted to post the pictures here, but fiddling about on photobucket trying to host them is the least appealing prospect right now, so screw that. I started to lose my voice last night from talking to much, so that combined with sleepiness and the fact that there is like NO clean crockery in our house because we used so much at the party and all the leftover food is still out in my room - all that is making me like "ORZ, ORZ" so yeah :P.
OH, my actual A-level grades. Yeah, that might help. English Language was an A, Film Studies was an A, Philosophy was a C, General Studies was a B, and obv I got the D in History last year after taking it all early, so that's like a huge wank'splosion in the face of GCSE-A-level prediction grades, considering they were like "oh, A*s in English and an E in crappy ICT thing means that you're capable of getting BBCC at A-level" and I was just like "mmmy, what you sa--" no, I didn't say that, actually. I hadn't heard that song by that point in my life.
I still need to look at the specific module grades and figure out HOW well I did :P but yeah, Bangor University here I come.

A not so peaceful start to the night

So, I wanted to write about this, as it was quite a traumatising situation for me to be put in, but I can't be bothered to type it all out in detail, so I'll just paste the conversation I had with Sephos about it.

Sophie says (15:13):
Helloes.
Sephos says (15:13):
Heys
Sophie says (15:13):
Coco ate a bird last night @_@
Well, most of it.
Sephos says (15:13):
A living one?
Sophie says (15:14):
Well, she killed it first. But she brought it up to my room.
I was lying in bed, starting to fall asleep, and then I heard her coming up my staircase, beside me. I could also hear this weird flapping sound.
Then she went around the room and started meowing weirdly, like she wasn't opening her mouth.
So I got up to have a look and saw that there was a bird in her mouth, still alive and flapping its wings as it tried to escape.
Sophie says (15:15):
Then I realised that my other cat was up here as well, and Coco was growling at him to leave her, because it was her kill.
So I went down to my parents' room,a nd they were still awake, and asked for their help.
My dad and I scared Coco downstairs, by waving a towel at her. first, she went under my bed, which made it difficult, but eventually we got her to go downstairs.
and she ran intot he garden with the bird, so i shut my door all night.
Sophie says (15:16):
but then i went into the garden alittle while ago, and under the table out there is a half-eaten little bird with ants crawling all over it >___>
Sephos says (15:16):
Thats
Rather gross.
Go Coco.
Sophie says (15:16):
I know!
Sophie says (15:17):
I would have just picked her up and taken her down, but I didn't want her to open her mouth and drop the bird on my feet @_@
Sephos says (15:17):
So your room was filled with bird blood and gore? o_______O
Sophie says (15:17):
no, just a few small feathres.
it didn't bleed or anything.
But outside, there is only half a bird with its guts hanging out.
when Coco came up here today, she ate some of the small feathers off my floor >__>
Sophie says (15:18):
i'm just glad i didn't see her eating hte bird
Sephos says (15:18):
Is it a bad thing she ate the bird?
Sophie says (15:18):
not necessarily.
just gross
and annoying that she lef the other half lying around in the garden
Sophie says (15:19):
i mean, it was nice of her to bring a gift to me and all that, but i really could do without a panicked injured bird flapping around in my room
Sephos says (15:19):
Make the other cat eat that.
Sophie says (15:19):
especially when I'm about to SLEEP >__>
nah, he wouldn't now taht it's not fresh.
besides, i don't think he eats the animals they kill

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Now playing: Muse - Starlight
via FoxyTunes

Things We Lost In The Hoover

No, this is not a film that supposedly catapulted Halle Berry back into classiness after the sassy-basketball-cat-fun of FAILDOM that was Catwoman (because you guys don't seem to know a lot about films, I'll clarify: I'm referring to her 2007 film Things We Lost In The Fire). This is literally about things my family have lost in the hoover. It's a very short story though.
So, my mum had the day off today, which was nice, though of course it did at one point give her the opportunity to tickle me >__<. She decided to take the hoover bag out into the garden, snip it open, then go through it to look for one of her amber earrings. I joined her. We didn't find the earring, but we found various bits of paper and plastic, and most noticeably a paintbrush and a pair of knickers.

Yeah, that's pretty much the story.

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Now playing: James Marsden - The Nicest Kids in Town
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