Hello!
Our ulta-smart algorithm has detected that you’re looking for a blog entry. Unfortunately, Dominic is currently on holiday in Wales and is seemingly unable to provide any. How about a link to Alix Wilton Regan‘s website instead? (She’s my cousin, and the exciting launch of her website was singularly neglected from my last post. Oops!)
I’m not really up on the whole acting world but, y’know, if you happen to be an influential casting director you should phone or something. Go on, take my advice, I give it so freely!
Message to regular readers who aren’t Google PageRank: cheers for reading all that. Have a funny photo from the archive. Go on, leave a witty caption as a comment and win eternal life!*
Caption Contest!
*Eternal life provided in the metaphorical sense of being immortalised for a number of years in a comment to a blog post on a personal website. Employees of dominicself.co.uk and their families are excluded. This does not affect your religious rites.
OK, so there is wireless Internet in our cottage. Won’t blog much – it’s a holiday 
– but here are a few photos from the beach. Enjoy!
Blood, sweat and tears
Our beautiful creation
Recreational hazards
Book courtesy of Saoirse, top courtesy of Andy
…I mean, it’s not, is it? Travelling to Birmingham has taught me that, actually, London is a little bit hotter than there – one or two degrees – but tomorrow might open my eyes a little further since we’re setting off on a family holiday to [drumroll] Wales!
I do pay attention to Josie’s blogs, so I expect rain and coldness. It should be fun though – assuming we don’t drive each other mad in the car – to have a proper, relaxing break. It does make me laugh how technology has grown around us: a few years ago, we had to compromise as to which programmes we would record to fit on a 3 hour videotape. Now, with Heroes pre-watched on BBC 3 and the rest of the library set in a few button clicks, we’re setting off accompanied by mobiles, a walkman (jeez, get with the times), MP3 player, DVDs, an iPod, some speakers, a laptop (with Media Centre remote, naturally) and lots and lots of chargers. And just in case we’ve missed anything on TV, the new BBC iPlayer beta will fill us in, right?
Perhaps this holiday won’t be a proper, relaxing break after all 
and perhaps I won’t get any much-needed reading done after all! Ooh, I must though, Saoirse has a gun to my head. [Goes to pack another book.] I’m also packing my History options which Cambridge sent me, in the hope that I’ll be able to make a decision in the happy holiday atmosphere.
Love to all! Especially you.
The Simpsons Movie
It was with some trepidation that I saw The Simpsons Movie yesterday. Put simply, The Simpsons means a hell of a lot to me, as one of the defining experiences of the 90s. I grew up with the show, and in its day it was beyond brilliant. So good that Fridays on BBC2 at 6pm (yes, just before Robot Wars or The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air) became a ritual that even my dad enjoyed, and you can measure the amount of TV he watches in nanoseconds.
And, yeah, of course it lost its edge. If you’re geeky, Season 9 to be precise – that’s 1997 in the States. So I stopped watching the episodes, and savoured the memory. But the lure of the yellow family on the big screen is strong, and there’s no way I couldn’t see this movie. So I lowered my expectations and took a deep breath. The result was a film which is not amazingly brilliantly wonderful, but was supremely enjoyable and even brought back some of the serious emotions The Simpsons used to be famous for. There was some great visual gags, many clever lines and still the ‘wow’ sense of seeing the show in the cinema, surrounded by so many other people laughing with you. There was even a queue to get in: a nice reminder of the 90s when everyone loved The Simpsons, aside from the Bush family, naturally.
So, go see it! It put a new shine on your favourite memories from the past, and you even get to hear Maggie speak. Can’t say fairer than that, eh?
Incidentally, if you want to laugh until your throat is sore and your stomach feels weak, go see The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Been around for ages, and when I saw it on Saturday I could see why. In fact, I’m going again! All hail the mighty Shakespeare, and the still-mighty Simpsons!
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, thank you one and all for once again joining me on an exciting post of the blog. Please familiarise yourself with the safety procedures: a spoiler warning will appear later for those wishing to avoid plot details for the seventh and final Harry Potter book. Thank you.
Well well, this week has been slightly exhausting! Working on the Queens Park \ UCL summer school is tiring mostly because schoolchildren are biologically incapable of keeping together when walking in public. Even my voice is sore, which I blame on shouting so much – not to discipline – but just to make sure that those boys at the back don’t get hit by an incoming truck because they were so distracted by miming kicks at the sleeping homeless man outside Euston station and his dog. Poor sleeping homeless man. Though I reserve no such sympathy for his dog as those who know me best will appreciate, hehe.
Harry Potter
Anyway, it was good, and I think the kids got a lot out of it. For the first two days I was desperately avoiding accidentally overhearing any discussion of the plot of Harry Potter, which I was successfully able to do! Finished it on Tuesday night, and henceforth follows my thoughts…
Warning! The time has come… do not read on if you haven’t finished it yet.
Continue Reading
Rob Bell on Baby’s first blog: “Congratulations! Sounds like you are really enjoying the first few weeks which is great. Time flies!” Oct 13, 12:59
