The continuation of Twitter by longer posts: 2013

Friday 29 November 2013

Libera's concert at St. George's 2013

The first Libera fans arrived in the late morning. When I got there, Yorkie and Tom already had a chat with David, a nice guy from the Libera staff.

St. George's doesn`t look very spectacular from the outside, but I was pleasantly surprised on how nice it was in there:

The staff was already at work setting up the equipment. They even put up screens for the people who weren't so lucky to have a premium ticket.

One by one all the important guys in charge of things arrived

The same can be said about the fans. After lunch there were quite a few of us there, including Patrick, Meme, Yuki, Paul and a few others.

After we got back into the cathedral (there was a service that day which we didn't want to interrupt), the tech guys were ready for sound and light tests.

Shortly afterwards we were asked to leave and the doors were closed. Standing outside was pretty interesting as well though because the boys arrived and gathered in a building beside the cathedral entrance. As it had a glass front we could watch the boys to put on their robes, signing programmes and some looked like they were doing homework. I admire the time and dedication they put into their hobby.

After they finally finished their rehearsal, the premium ticket holders were allowed to queue in the side building and we got the chance to buy signed programmes. Of course those were sold out very quickly. Then the rush to secure the best places began. I was extremely lucky to gain one directly behind Robert Prizeman on the main aisle.

For the first time, they had their "juniors" on the program, They were seated at the far left and right seats in the front row. When the show began, the regular boys would proceed to the stage through the main aisle and so walked by me within only a few centimeters. You don't get many chances to be so close to them I presume. The "juniors" would go on stage for one song or another and retain their seats for the time between.

The setlist for the evening was
Dies Irae
Gloria
Angels from on high
The Wexford Carol
Sanctus
I'm dreaming of home
Voca me
Away in a manger
In Dulci Jubilo

And after the Interval
God rest you merry gentlemen
Orinocco Flow
Joy to the world
What child is this
Carol of the bells
Corpus Christi carol
Gaudete
Silent night
Exsultate

not on the list was "Hymn to Mary" which Isaac performed before the Intermission and the encores Have yourself a merry little christmas and, because of the typhoon relief effort, Bayan Ko.

The concert itself was great. I still can't believe how high Thomas can sing, especially noticeable on Voca me. He seems to get more solo parts now, he sang the Corpus Christi Carol all by himself. Then there was of course Isaac who was in top form again.

The speeches begin to get a bit old after several concerts but they alter them at least a bit to retain the element of surprise. I liked Cassius' bit after "Gloria" which went like "the next song is about angels...just like us". I also liked the fact that Allessandro made a short speech. I think it was the part about how they didn't even have time to change their school uniforms for other clothes before taking off for the Philippines and that they arrived in school uniforms for this concert as well. I could hear that he was very nervous as he began speaking very fast before Robert gave him a sign to slow down a bit.

Here are some pics I could take at the end of the show. The first one is from one of the "junior" groups. Perhaps someone can stick names to their pics. The other group of them was gone from stage so fast that I couldn't get them on film.

While I wast standing outside after the concert I got to see quite a few of the boys being picked up by parents or relatives. It felt really good to see how proud they were of the kids. There was much hugging and kissing going on and some of them even got some attention from girls who didn't behave exactly like relatives. So after all, the hard work seems to be paying off ;-)

Saturday 2 November 2013

Ender's Game

The following critique of the film Ender's Game comes from the perspective of a hardcore fan of Card's Enderverse.

All in all it's a decent to good film, there's much eye candy in the form of CGI and they got most of the essential parts of the book into the film. There are, however, differences. Some were surely the consequences of time and budget shortages and thus more or less necessary but there were some unnecessary as well.

If you haven't read the book and haven't seen the film yet, you should quit reading here for possible spoilers.

The more or less necessary differences include the compressed timeframe (to save money for quite some actors) and the nearly inexistent background of earth's society. Also, the family scenes only last a few minutes. There's much missing in the Peter/Ender relationship.

The Battle School part of the film is much too short as well, leaving no room to properly tell the story of the launchies. This is especially sad because I enjoyed the banter parts quite much. It's nearly as trying to film Harry Potter without Hogwards. Needless to say that many dialogues that were a highlight in the book didn't make it into the film. As a consequence many of the secondary characters aren't well represented.

Ender's development and Graff's motives and character are present but quite a bit lacking in details. I concede though, that it is probably hard to turn so much thought content into speech/dialogue. The effect was, that these characters seemed a bit stereotypic and it was hard to connect with them.

What really angered me was that they changed the whole Enderverse by leaving out the relativistic effects which take a great role in the books, although not so much in the first book. They also relocated the command school from an asteroid to the first formic colony. Probably to save screen time. For me that was a big no-go.

All in all, it was a bit much to make the book into a 90 min movie. Another half hour with the right content would have made the difference between a decent/good and a spectacular movie.

What really interests me is, if reading the book first actually increases the value of the movie because one automatically adds content and evens out the edges or if it decreases the value because one finds so much lacking. It would be nice if other fans would comment on this.

Sunday 22 September 2013

The Battle of the Göhrde

Yesterday I decided to visit the reenactment of the Battle of the Göhrde, a biannual event which was even more special this year because it was the 200th anniversary.

Even though it had been raining the previous days, about 400 people decided to stay the night on the site and depict a camp of the Napoleonic time.

Some Brits resting...

A few Saxons playing cards

After a muster in the morning, all marched to the memorial stone to hold a ceremony in remembreance of the men who fought here.

After that I had a good opportunity to capture most of the reenactors on film

After taking a short rest and lunch the units prepared for battle

The battle began with skirmishers from both sides

Then the line troops joined in

Here a short clip of the action

Defending against cavalry

The winning side advances

What remains...

All in all it was a very intense experience. The drums, pipes, shouted commands, the shooting with a tremendous sound level and the smoke it created made me feel a bit of what it must have felt like to be on a battlefield in the Napoleonic era.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Brugge

If you've never been to Brugge/Bruges (Belgium) you should definitely change that. It's an amazing city for everyone who likes the unique flair of medieval and renaissance era buildings and art. If you don't have the chance to come here, I recommend watching the film "In Bruges" which gives you good impressions of the city. It is also an instant classic for anyone who`s into very dark humor.

I've taken hundreds of pics of which I can present only a handful here. Hope you'll like them. To see a few more, look on my Instagram

My Hotel

A small corner by the entrance

The breakfast room

The provincial court on the market square

The Belfry, also on the market square. 366 steps to the top for a great view. Doubles as a workout.

An example of the magnificent view from up there

and another one

A part of the Burg, once the seat of the regional government

Inside of the city hall. Not bad, huh?

and the rear part...

Even the parking lots here come with a view.

Inside the church of our Lady. In the foreground the tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Bold

Even some shops are located in very fancy buildings

And last but not least a building in Minnewater Park

Friday 5 July 2013

Yes we scan

The exposure of the biggest intelligence scandals ever, the U.S.A’s PRISM and Great Britain’s Tempora have shocked me. I knew the Intelligence services were have access to online communication data, but I wasn´t aware of the extent.

I know that this is not only a problem of these countries, others will surely do or try the same, but I find it especially sad if you compare this to their own high standards as the U.S.A. but also Great Britain have traditionally been democratic countries where liberty has been held high.

The central question to me is, whether we can rightly call ourselves democratic societies any more. The term democracy means rule of the people. In order to rule (that is, to express one's will through elections and voting) it is essential for the people to have enough information to explicitly and informedly vote for or against a specific course of action. We now live in a world where the governments know or at least could know everything about the ordinary people while the people know ever less about what the government is doing and their reasons for doing it. It´s a sorry state of affairs if the only thing you legally are supposed to know is, that there are intelligence agencies and they do *stuff*. Everything else is kept secret and whistleblowers face harsh penalties (in the US up to the death penalty for “spying”; a joke if it weren´t so severe).

The exposure of all this is at least an opportunity for societies all over the world to have a good look at the details and decide if we really want this to go on. Just ask yourself what information you and others give about yourself on the telephone and on the web and imagine what it tells about yourself if it is combined. A few examples:

- Do you use twitter under your real name? What do you tell your friends or the world about you?

- If you use facebook, you´re supposed to give your real name and address. Even things that are not on public display, can be accessed.

- Whom do you call on the phone and how often? A doctor, a lawyer? What does that tell about you?

- Do you carry a mobile (cell) phone 24/7? Then your whereabouts can be tracked all of the time.

- What do you order from or look at in internet shops?

- What do you search for on google? What kind of websites do you visit?

- If your doctor takes blood or other samples from you and has them analyzed, the results will most likely come by E-mail, and can be read.

- If you travel by plane, all the informations associated with that will be stored (even what food you ordered)

- Banking informations will also be stored

Taken together these things will tell the governments virtually everything about you:

Your name, address, age, religion and how/if you practice it, friends, relatives,acquaintances; occupation, preferred music, food, films, cars, books, sports, political affiliations in general as well as views on specific topics, sexual orientation, illnesses, travels, financial status, legal quarries and so on.

If the government wants something from you, they’ll know the best way to either bribe or blackmail you “Wouldn’t it be a shame if anyone found out about your extramarital affair/ illegal gambling/ alcohol problem/ racist comments/ con brother/ std/ abortion/ drug abuse/debt…..” Or how about your name turning up in a no-fly list because an NSA algorithm combined some information (mobile phone was located in the vicinity of a radical mosque& has booked a flight to Pakistan& bought a Koran& posted comments that criticized the war on terror).

How will it alter your behavior, now that you know you´re being watched? Do you refrain from critical comments or actions? Do you withhold information from others because you fear it might be turned against you in the future? For who can say which information might get relevant. These days it´s all about radical muslims; what if it`ll change to communists yet again in 20 years? Or christians or civil liberties activists? Will it harm you to buy a book on Marx and attend the Occupy camps? With their new data storage centers built, the NSA will be able to store data in the range of terabytes ON EACH LIVING HUMAN BEING. You can´t count on anything you ever wrote or did to be forgotten.

We simply can´t have a free and democratic society if we have to fear that our government (and other governments) know everything about us and can turn every bit of information against us. It´s on us to watch our governments, not the other way round.