Tempy

Miranda Richardson standing behind me in the queue at a petrol station. Didn't say anything to her as I was too scared. I'm sure she's lovely, but she looked scary. Bob Geldof walking his daughter to school in Hammersmith years ago. I shouted "Alright Bob?" across the street and he waved back. 90's pop star Kavanagh at Kentish Town tube station. My missus was a fan back in the day, but wouldn't go and ask him for a pic. Nick Berry at Bluewater That nice gentleman judge from strictly Len something or other sat on the table behind us in a restaurant at Bluewater. Didn't speak to him but could hear that he was incredibly polite and accomodating to the staff in the retaurant and the people that stopped to say hello. Noah Huntley who I think was in Hollyoaks years ago and was also in 28 days later at a tube station in London. Forget which. Syd Owen driving his range rover towards the Medway Towns about a month ago, god knows where he was going. Maybe he's in Panto somewhere? Vanilla Ice eating in Chimichangas in Chatham. Took ages to pluck up the courage to go over with my mate and say hello. Waited until he was finished eating and then pounced on him. He wasn't impressed to begin with. He probably thought who are these two chumps?. He warmed up once I apologised for disturbing him, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. He let his guard down and was actually very friendly. I posed for a cheeky picture. Legend! I met Orbital on the tube on the way to Camden on my birthday last year. Made my day that did. Got a picture then too. My missus knew something up because I was ignoring her even more than usual as for two stops I was trying to pluck up the courage to say hello. They were quite pleased to be spotted and was happy to pose for a picture and said they rarely ever get recognised. Spotted Vic Reeves and his Wife Nancy walking along Maidstone high street a couple of years back. Back in the day I used to work for security for the Seduction and Caister weekenders. At one of the Seductions I sat back stage with Slipmatt and Ratpack whilst they were chilling out drinking Jack Daniels. That was cool. Surreal, but cool.

My missus is going to New York next month and offered to get me a lens whilst she's out there. Great I thought, but having had a look the prices look astronimical. $109 for a nifty fifty doesn't seem too bad as that works out about £70, but looking at the Tamron 17-50 for example it's $649 which is over £400. Digitalrev sell that model for £279. That's a huge difference. Is America not really the place for cheap lenses? I'm looking at getting the 50mm, but it's hardly worth the bother when it's only £5 cheaper than Digitalrev. I was looking here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ as I'd heard it was a good store, but perhaps an independant would be better?

God that looks almost as awful as this little gem.....almost. For some reason the IMDB app had this as one of their main trailers for a while, god knows why. This thread just reminded me about it. It amazes me how these films get made.

Thanks Totoro. Although I've used an SLR a few times before, I had my first outing with my new toy at the weekend and took a few shots at a poker night at a friends flat. Due to the poor light and my inexperience with the camera, the majority of pictures were a bit shitty. I do have Lightroom already and that helped a great deal. It seems you can polish a turd a little bit and can get some very interesting effects out of the software. I was very impressed. I need to sit down and properly learn it though as it was very daunting when I first opened it up. I managed to fumble through importing pictures and applying some presets and tweaking and then sat there thinking "right, they look ok, how the hell do I get the pics out of the bloody program". The problem is you can sit for hours just messing around. It's all very addictive. I can hear my missus complaining about lack of attention already Good advice. I'm currently learning how all the camera settings relate such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO etc so I have a better idea what I'm doing when I go to shoot rather than blindly playing with settings and shooting the same thing over and over until I luck out. I'll get a better chance this weekend to have a play. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for the comments guys. It's appreciated. I think I will go with the 50mm as the other lens would be a real stretch at the moment where as I can afford the 50mm soon and can get some experience straight away. That plus the general concensus that it's a pretty decent lens for the money. I'm looking forward to get cracking taking some shots. I've started reading Understanding Exposure and it's very nicely put together. Now I know that my mate was going on about when he was talking about Bees

Cheers. I gotta say, as lenses go it's pretty cheap for a good lens and something I could afford to get quickly. I would have to start saving for the Sigma.

Well after years of wanting an SLR and borrowing other peoples an opportunity came up to purchase a barely used 400D from a mate at a bargain price, so I took the plunge. I got a 400D, Kit lens (non IS unfortunately), 2 x CF cards, 2 x batteries, remote shutter, battery grip, kit bag and all boxes and cables for £200, which I think is a pretty good deal. My missus bought me an SLR for dummies book last Christmas as she knew I was after an SLR bless her, so I’ll be able to read that to get some basic fundamentals and a friend has loaned me his copy of Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson to get me started which I’ve read on here is a good book for information. Are there any online resources or other books I should look at, or just get snapping and practice? I planned on getting a nifty fifty as it is a great little lens. My friend recommended that if I was looking at the Canon 50mm F1.8, I should perhaps consider spending a bit (more than a bloody bit lol) to get the Sigma 17-50mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM. Is this a good semi-all-rounder replacement for the kit lens? Is it a good alternative to the considerably cheaper 50mm? This thread is huge, but I’ve had a search and some people seem to have either something like the Sigma or Canon’s 17-55mm alongside the nifty fifty, where I was looking at the Sigma instead of the 50mm. I don’t know what my sort of shooting subject will be at the moment but generally like walking around the streets when I visit towns with the missus and snapping away or taking to parties etc and trying to grab natural shots. Excuse my noobish questions. Thanks.

Success! and my god is that tasty. Thanks for the recipe Craster. The sauce didn't reduce enough to make use of and I didn't have anything to thicken it up, but the meat was gorgeous without it. Here's my end result. Man I'm stuffed

I'm about to find out. I'm just about to take the pork out having cooked it on high for 8 hours. Oops....Hope it's not mush. I'll be back to report my results

It's a Tesco branded jobbie. Tesco SC356 Slow Cooker.

Cheers Craster. No, no manual mate. Just a crappy user guide which says what I posted above about low. It says high is the normal slow cooking setting. Cooking time is about 8 - 10 hours. I'm guessing that's what I need to go for, but just wanted to be sure that I'm not gonna burn the crap out of it.

Right, I've put off trying this for too long. I've bought all the stuff an I'm gonna prepare it tonight ready to cook tomorrow using my cheap Tesco slow cooker Is it definitely on low setting for 8 hours? The slow cooker manual says that setting is just for warming Pre cooked food? Just want to be sure I don't settle down for dinner with a load of raw pork.

It's a stupid story with some crappy characters and it's poorly written with some shoddy special effects. It's so cheesey and "yeah America woohoo" that it'll make you sick, but.... ...I thoroughly enjoyed it so did my mates that watched it with me. It's the sort of film that works well at the cinema, lots of shit explodes, lots of noise and it's fun. Maybe because I went into it with such low expectations. I agree that it is very Michael Bay'ish and I'm no fan of the recent toot he's been churning out. Transformers sequels I'm looking at you! It's also a hell of a lot more entertaining than Battle LA which was just plain boring.

Anybody wanna peanut?

Just a quick correction for an otherwise excellent and very useful list. Timecrimes is on Film4 tonight at 23:45 not 10:00 on ITV2 as posted. Looks like quite an interesting film. Thanks for all your hard work putting the list together Ben.

Just downloading this now having paid the $5. I'm really looking forward to watching it. The only reason I had even heard of Louis and ended up watching Shameless and Chewed Up was because of this forum and think he's excellent, so thanks for the heads up.

I love the IMDB iPhone app. It has become one of my most viewed things, the trivia page specifically. The problem is, now I can't watch a film without checking the trivia afterwards. There are some great little nuggets of information in there sometimes. Things like...... Not sure how much of these things are true, but they sometimes make for interesting reading.

Yep, I sure did. Two timed jumps that could drive a person to insanity. I guess it just makes it all that rewarding when you finally do it Anyway, I just finished Ico on my first ever run through. What a beautiful little game. I'll admit, that right the beginning I didn't buy into it. I ran up and up and up the spiral to release the cage. Then stared to run down and down and down and I thought to myself "seriously? are they gonna make me run all the way back down this effing thing?". Everything changed the first time Yorda jumped a gap too wide and I caught her by the hand mid air and pulled her up with a bit of struggle Those shadow things got righ on my tits, but then I realised that in some instances after that, they didn't bother me quite as much. Although it's an old game, the scenery is just fantastic to look at. There are times when you re-cross the same areas, but in some games where that becomes a chore, in Ico it's always something different or you have to do things in a slightly different way and that keeps it fresh. The more I played it, the more I loved it. It's just an old fashioned puzzle game with a very simple story at it's core and it's a little gem. Time to crack on to SotC

Surprised that mine arrived from Play today. Was expecting not to get it until next week. Glad I just finished Portal 2 in time to get stuck into this. I'm really looking forward to playing these having never played either of them before and experiencing all the love in this thread. Which one would people recommend playing first out of the two?

I took the plunge and bought the 360 version. I had too, it's such a glorious game and the cube version looks absolutely terrible on a HD telly. First thoughts are that it looks really very nice. Yes some of the textures are old, but it's a lot crisper. The one thing I'm initially disappointed in, is the dead zone when aiming with a 360 pad. I think it's going to take some adjusting to. I loaded up the game for a quick look last night and I was trying to shoot the crow on the way to the house and kept overshooting with the aim. You move it slightly and then just push the stick that little nit too much and bam, the little red dot takes a massive leap across the object your aiming at. I'm sure when I was playing the cube version it was far more accurate. It's a shame there isn't a sensitivity setting in the options. I'm really looking forward to playing through this again though. Such a fantastic game. I've just gotta finish off portal 2 first.

I notice a few people have both PSN and Gamertags, so which version did you go for?. The PS3 version is cheaper, but I'm a bit of an Xbox whore, so I'm torn. Is there much in it graphically or performance wise between the two versions?

Part 2 is also very interesting if you can get hold of it. I'm really looking forward to seeing Part 3 whenever it is released. According to IMDB, they wrapped shooting in August, but are now revisiting to alter the ending in light of recent events before it is being released. The Thin Blue Line is similar in theme and I would recommend it, although the frequent use of flashback re-enactments does get a little tiresome after a while.

This thread is becoming a gold mine for recommendations. There are so many I'm trying to get hold of to watch. I recently watched the 50 Docs to see before you die program on Current TV and I've been working through a few that appeared on there. So far, I've worked my way through King of Kong, Food Inc, The Thin Blue Line and Hoop Dreams. I am currently watching Paradise Lost 1 and 2. When I was younger, I was always fascinated by special effects, especially special effects makeup. Are there any documentaries on that subject I can look out for? As I kid I seem to remember watching loads of stuff about special effects on TV, but the only thing I can remember of the top of my head is a series called Movie Magic, which I loved. Can anyone recommend anything else?

I'm no film buff, but I have a pretty broad taste when it comes to films. I'm open to watching anything if it's good whereas most of my friends run screaming from something like subtitles like the plague. Despite my noob like knowlegde of films, I am really enjoying this series so far. Even though 15 parts sounds a lot, you could see how this could just run and run. I can see what some people are saying about Mark's voice. His delivery takes a bit of getting used to, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying what is turning out to be a fascinating program. Thanks for putting it on my radar

R.I.P Hightower