Nepenthe

More Order of the Phoenix pics on Cinematical

The Art of Bjorn Lindberg

Publishing company McGraw-Hill announced yesterday the release of a new language-learning utility compatible with iPods called the iSpeak. The series currently comes in 4 languages: Spanish, French, German, and Italian, and is available on CDs to be downloaded into your iPod for both audible and visual reference. Perhaps the best thing about it is the way you find phrases; if you're familiar with iPod navigation, it's a breeze. Just dial up the Artist to choose a theme (restaurant, perhaps) and then the Album (ordering, for example) to find "I'd like a cup of fresh fruit with my beer, please." Quisiera una taza de fruta fresca con mi cerveza, por favor. Gadling

In sealed rooms, as sterile as computer microprocessor factories, chicks hatch while being closely monitored. A huge hose sucks salmon out of a fjord. Metal teeth chomp up fields of sunflowers which, thanks to chemicals, have withered at just the right time. On mechanized conveyor systems, chickens are cut up and pigs are gutted in seconds, although cows take a little longer. OUR DAILY BREAD reveals the little-known world of high-tech agriculture. In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis. There's little space for humans here. They almost seem like flaws in this system: undersized and vulnerable, though they adapt as best they can, with che...

On my recent return from an excellent gastronomic romp through France, what an honour it was to be begged by the editor of Food Monthly to contribute to these highly esteemed and extremely posh pages, though the words 'time', 'ruddy' and 'about' rose and browned soufflé-like in the hotly miffed fan-oven of my mind (food writers, watch your backs).Said editor's grovelling aside, she'd come to the right man and I'll tell you why. It's because I'm probably the only French food expert that'll tell you straight that there's no mystery to the blinking stuff. You don't even have to understand the lingo for crying out loud. 'Oui', 'non' and 'gracias' are all you need to get yourself fed and watered in France and if you're too stupid to remember those three words then pointing at something on a menu and then at your gob is 'feed me' in anybody's language! Quite frankly, given the Frenchies haven'...

Spain has its haciendas, Portugal its quintas - country estates with bags of character. Some are hidden in the hills, some on the coast, some cheap, others very chic, but glorious scenery and a slower pace of life come as standard. In this preview from the new edition of his book, Alastair Sawday picks his favourites. Rustic chic Quinta das Sequoias Estremadura Hidden in a deep forest, this long, two-storey white quinta, dating from 1870, is full of delights and dream-like views of palaces and castles. Corridors and walls are adorned with paintings and sculptures from some of Portugal's foremost artists, alongside fascinating older pieces from all over the world. Bedrooms are individual, with carved beds and polished mahogany furniture, with rugs on tiled floors. In front of the house the garden descends on lawned terraces, with pergolas and lush foliage, to a burbling stream below and a swimming pool with views for miles. · Estrada de Monserrate, Estremadura (00 351 219 230342); ...

Three weeks ago a handful of reporters at an international press junket here for the Warner Brothers movie “300,” about the battle of Thermopylae some 2,500 years ago, cornered the director Zack Snyder with an unanticipated question. “Is George Bush Leonidas or Xerxes?” one of them asked. The questioner, by Mr. Snyder’s recollection, insisted that Mr. Bush was Xerxes, the Persian emperor who led his force against Greek’s city states in 480 B.C., unleashing an army on a small country guarded by fanatical guerilla fighters so he could finish a job his father had left undone. More likely, another reporter chimed in, Mr. Bush was Leonidas, the Spartan king who would defend freedom at any cost. Mr. Snyder, who said he intended neither analogy when he set out to adapt the graphic novel created by Frank Miller with Lynn Varley in 1998, suddenly knew he had the contemporary version of a water-cooler movie on his hands. And it has turned out to be one that could be construed as a thinly vei...

The first new Tolkien novel for 30 years is to be published next month. In a move eagerly anticipated by millions of fans across the world, The Children of Húrin will be released worldwide on 17 April, 89 years after the author started the work and four years after the final cinematic instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of biggest box office successes in history. The book, whose contents are being jealously guarded by publisher HarperCollins - is described as "an epic story of adventure, tragedy, fellowship and heroism." It is likely to be a publishing sensation, particularly as it is illustrated by veteran Middle Earth artist Alan Lee, who won an Oscar for art direction on Peter Jackson's third film The Return of The King. Lee provided 25 pencil sketches and eight paintings for the first edition of the book, one of which is reproduced here for the first time in a national newspaper. Tolkien...

My favorites, so far Thanx to Mawalien Invasion

A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves that Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, says a new book which details the secret discovery of Australia. The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 -- almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook. Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney -- the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770. "It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at all," Trickett told Reuters on Wednesday. Trickett said he stumbled across a copy of the map while browsin...

Especially if they start resorting to Kenaf fibre paper: I mean, if Sir Paul McCartney goes Starbucks, we can bloody well start lobbying Kenaf ;) Now: This one I have, it's the biggest book in da house ;)

Dress for dinner Ideally, your movie should feature lots of couples immaculately attired in tuxedos and ballgowns. The spectacle of people dressed this way, at once intensely conventional yet utterly bizarre, is a staple of surrealist movies from Luis Buñuel to Monty Python. Somehow, it can always be made to seem more strange and subversive if they appear in the proper context: at a ball or a dinner party. Made in 1962, The Exterminating Angel, one of Buñuel's finest movies, features upper-class dinner guests who find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the party, even as the lavish house of the host, Señor Nobile, is reduced to rubble over the course of the next few days. There is no explanation for this destruction, nor for the sheep that is slaughtered and the couple who commit suicide in a closet, although it is safe to assume that bourgeois values are being attacked. Repeat scenes shamelessly Do this wholesale in different locations with small, enigmatic variations in dial...

In the opinion of his one-time backer Mel Brooks, David Lynch is... "The boy next door, if you live next door to a lunatic asylum" "Jimmy Stewart from Mars" "Crazier than a shit-house rat" "As American as apple-pie and the death penalty" What is "The Angriest Dog in the World"? Lynch's nickname for the dark side of his personality that helps him make movies The name of David Lynch's independent production company ...

What was your favourite book as a child? I used to like the Moomin books of Tove Jansson, and another favourite was 'The Magic Pudding', by the Australian author Norman Lindsay. When you were growing up did you have books in your home? Yes. My mother used to read a lot, and so did my grandparents. I found a lot of books that interested me on their shelves; not just children's books (the ones they used to have when they were children) but adult novels, too. I remember reading the Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi, which were popular in the 50s when I was young. I don't suppose anyone reads them any more, but they were tales of a genial and amusing sort, in which the decent country priest Don Camillo confronts and defeats the communist mayor Peppone, who is himself fundamentally decent anyway, when cornered. It was right-wing cold war propaganda (to put it very crudely) showing the goodness and honesty of ordinary simple Christian villagers, the generous wisdom of...

Entrecampos - (Biblioteca Nacional :) by Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos Zoo, by Júlio Resende Parque, sculpture by Federica Matta Parque - Hommage to Aristides de Sousa Mendes by João Cutileiro, that for the life of me I never noticed before :( This because of a postcard that Kseniya sent me from St. Petersburg underground, that I will be posting soon soon, and that got me to checking that there are no decent Parque station photographs anywhere :(( Françoise Schein's artwork (the ceramist of Parque station) is on exhibit at Galeria Ratton and Museu Nacional do Azulejo.