contemporaneous re-enactment Tuesday, 9 November 2010 link

Our current bedtime story is The Hobbit. One thing R loves is to act out what's happening as I read. She crawls around the living room being Gollum; she puts the sheepskin rug on her back to be a warg. Last night, we got to the part where there's a goblin's head on a pike. She got very excited - "I've seen pictures of this! In that book about Guy Fawkes we read at school!" - and then grabbed an old lollipop stick to hold under her chin as the pike. Awesome. I can't wait for the bit where they all get sealed up in barrels; I might get some peace for ten minutes.

Speaking of Guy Fawkes, a little point for those playing at home. If you offer to walk yer mum's dogs on Guy Fawkes, try to do it before 8:30pm when everyone's letting their fireworks off. Particularly if the dogs are ex-racing greyhounds, so a combined total of 65kg of finely-tuned athlete that Really Doesn't Like Explosions. Nearly took my bloody arm off.

Really enjoyed the first episode of the Walking Dead. I've been hanging out for this, and it does not disappoint. Particularly love the whole bit at the end of the first episode where the protagonist, in his shining clean uniform with his sheriff's badge and his six-shooter, rides a horse into the town... and is promptly taken to fucking pieces. Beautiful bit of business: sets up the great American western archetype of good, the upstanding sheriff cowboy movie trope, and then makes it abundantly clear that this is not that kind of narrative, and trying to act like a shining white knight is actually a really dumb move. Bodes well for the rest of the series.