‘Bye for now

It is with great regret that I must announce the semi-cessation of DogRat.com. This is due to my Web hosting service revising its policy, and no longer allowing the posting of audio or video files.

I will be deleting ALL audio and video from the site, but I will leave WordPress running for the time being. Over a year ago I prepared to move to another Web hosting service, but it will take time to do that — assuming I want to do that.

The fact is that I’ve done everything with the blog that I set out to do in September, 2006. I’m not selling anything, nor am I promoting myself in an effort to find work, etc. The blog has existed solely for its own sake.

So that’s it. In the short term, embedded multimedia will be gone. After that, I don’t know. This may be the end, or it may be just the end for now.

This name, this curse

Oh, wait! Before I go, I wanted to post these panels from Sunday’s comic strip, ‘Cul De Sac’, by Richard Thompson, who points out one of the negative connotations for my surname.


Perhaps my ancestors were encouraged to leave England by way taunting…?

BTW, Richard Thompson was diagnosed last year with Parkinson’s Disease. From what I know of the illness, he has many good years ahead of him.

Green eyes in gray

The off-the-wall 1967 movie ‘Smashing Time‘ was the second time that Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave appeared together. Three years before that, they were in ‘Girl With Green Eyes’. Both movies were directed by Desmond Davis, but they couldn’t be more different. Desmond Davis is best known for directing ‘Clash of the Titans’, which has a big remake being released next week.

‘Girl With Green Eyes’ was produced by Tony Richardson. After a cheerful start, it has some of the same dark, depressing tone that I associate with Richardson’s ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’.

Here’s a sample of ‘Girl With Green Eyes’ that I spliced together, (with Spanish subtitles for Lia Pamina). Curiously, the band that’s playing in the dance hall scene sounds more like it belongs in ‘American Graffiti’, than in the Beatles-obsessed England of 1963-64.

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