R is for Repetition

Yes, I know I have blipped this tree many times before. But when I see clouds like these, my feet take me there of their own accord. With some difficulty today, as it was so windy that I saw a poor little bird flying backwards. I do try to process it differently every time. Last blipped here.

So, the new Blipfoto. I had very bad experiences with it yesterday, but I am very glad that BlipCentral have acted quickly to fix the most egregious problem -- inability to see the whole photo on a laptop. I feel quite sorry for blip staff. Anyone who works in software development knows how hard a launch like this is. They've worked really hard, had to rush it out unfinished, before the old Blipfoto fell apart completely, and then faced a barrage of criticism, not all of it legitimate. If you are going to complain, at least be polite and make constructive suggestions for improvement (or accurately describe the problem you're having and how to reproduce it). I am sure many of the reported problems and omissions will be ironed out over the next few weeks. And in any case, whatever the technical hurdles, Blipfoto is about people, and those same lovely blippers are still here. So I'm trying to stay positive. Can we have the grey back please?

I mentioned we were going to see Mr Turner on Tuesday night. I'm normally very intolerant of films that last longer than 90 minutes (the only one that has previously passed my quality test was Farewell My Concubine, 171 minutes of visual splendour). Yet, despite the fact that Mr Turner has no real plot, I was never bored or twitchy. Of course Timothy Spall was great, but I really loved Dorothy Atkinson, who played Turner's downtrodden housekeeper, Hannah Danby. She stole every frame she was in, even when she had no lines (she hardly said a thing). I really liked the music too, quite untypical for a costume drama. I doubt this will win any Oscars, because the dialogue will be too hard to understand for Americans ("I'm glad there were French subtitles", said S). But it should sweep the board for BAFTAs surely?

So here we go ... let's click Publish, having taken the precaution of copying all my text to the clipboard!