Movie review: Her - Spike Jonze

I will admit it, when my boyfriend told me about this movie when it first came out in the cinema, I wasn't very impressed. Maybe it was the way he described it, or just my cynical nature coming through, but whatever it was, it was with great reluctance that I accompanied him to see it. And I couldn't have been more wrong.

Everything about this movie is impressive. Without exaggeration, I would watch this film a hundred times over and still probably not find anything to hate about it.

Her is a film directed and written by Spike Jonze, about a man named Theodore in the final stages of his divorce with his childhood sweetheart. Lonely, he turns to a new operating system (the film is futuristic) called OS1 for companionship, and his relationship with new found "friend" Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) increases and develops. Without giving you any spoilers, this film depicts perfectly how introverts on the internet feel about the friends and slightly more than friends they make.

Although filmed in Shanghai, the film is set in Los Angeles. The shots of this film are incredible, pale pastels set against startling brightness ocasionally makes for the most aesthetically pleasing cinematic experience I have had to date.

This movie contrasts the relationships we go through in life. Friends, family, co-workers, childhood sweethearts - and the question we are forced to ask ourselves for the first time since the explosion of technology, can you really love somebody  you have never met?

Some ramblings about Ukraine

So with all the mass hysteria that has been circulating recently thanks to Putin and Ukraine and god knows what else, I thought my blog was due a post on my own thoughts about the matter.

My parents met in Moscow in the 80s, my mother did a French and Russian degree, my father was based there for almost fifteen years... there was no way I'd ever escape Russia as a conversational topic. To make matters worse, my school decided to ruin my year 13 leisure time with Russian history from Alexander the 2nd until Khrushchev, and what a bundle of larks that was (Partially sarcastic, I did find it very interesting).

However, for those of you who feel somewhat confused or befuddled by the whole situation, I suggest you look at this:

This is a video explained by John Green in relatively simple terms what the problems are/were, and John Green may just be my favourite YouTuber by a slight margin.

When I arrived in Sweden with my dad, we got into a taxi and immediately my dad picked up on his Ukrainian accent. My inner journalist was bursting with questions and, after I overcame my shy tendancies, pretty much asked his life story. Originally from Kiev, married to a Russian-Ukrainian woman, he had so many stories and opinions on the matter to tell me. It was interesting hearing things first hand, and actually really sad to hear that his family were still back in Kiev, and needless to say, the poor man was very worried about them.

It just goes to show, it's worth getting to know strangers sometimes. Everyone has stories, you need only ask for them. And what a wonderful stroke of luck it was that I met him, because otherwise, this post might never have come into existence.

Some photographs

Hello again people of the internet! Firstly, a strange phenomenon has come to my attention that my blog has been viewed in fourteen countries across the glove! This is a.) very exciting and b.) a little bit scary but nonetheless, hello to you all wherever you may find yourself today.

So, after a series of not so pleasant events in my personal life, I somehow found myself in reasonable amount of despair in my bedroom back home when I saw in the corner of my eye, my hardrive from my first laptop. The nostalgia that burst through my veins was somewhat cancelled out by the sheer embarrassment of rereading my chat logs from MSN, some barely even readable due to the amount of emotiocon-ing and various other horrendous spelling mistakes but it was very very funny. However, what I would like to share with you today are in fact photographs.

I have always been a keen photographer. Upon recieving my first disposable camera at age seven, I have been obsessed by cameras - and that is not an exaggeration. I am fairly proud of my 4,103 photos on my phone that clog up my data usage, and my multiple SD cards full of random photographs I have taken over the years.

 Anyway, here are a few of my favourites with some descritions beneath. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, it is now more clear to me than ever how lucky I am to have such beautiful places to call home in my life

This was taken on my birthday in 2012, and it's the lake in front of my house, on the opposite side to the one below. September Sweden is incredibly beautiful, and this captures  for me exactly what an ideal autumn looks like.





This was taken on self timer in 2011 by me in my back garden in Stockholm, Sweden. The sky is looking particularly beautiful in this photograph, and I think this encapsulates the long Swedish summer days very well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



So before houses started springing up all over the place on my street in Sweden, it used to be very common to see these little furry garden destructors. And although they are a nuisance and my elderly neighbours have a personal vendetta against them for eating their azaleas, they really are cute in person.

So with these few examples, I can tell you that I am beyond excited to start my Photo Journalism module in September. (Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!)

Recipe/Dinner inspiration, Wagamama inspired Teriyaki Chicken with Spring Onion and Sesame Seeds

Japanese food is easily one of my favourite kinds of food. Not only is it very rich, simple and tasty, but I always feel really good after eating it, mainly because of the multiple vitamins and omega 3 available through the dishes. Therefore, I would like to share with you a recipe I have that is nutritious and delicious, but won't have you endlessly snacking or reaching for the junk food because you're still hungry.

 

You will need:
~ coconut oil
~ one chicken breast, sliced or diced
~ baby spinach
~ one spring onion
~ half a carrot, grated
~ rice, any kind will do )although obviously brown rice is a healthier option)
~ handful of sesame seeds
~ Wagamama teriyaki sauce, available at most supermarkets


1. Melt some coconut oil in a pan/wok (N.B you can use any oil you like, I use coconut oil because it adds a sweet flavour to the chicken and is packed with healthy fats and the health benefits of replacing regular olive oil with coconut are numerous), and brown the chicken until cooked. You will know chicken is cooked as the liquid will run clear from the meat when it is no longer raw.

2. Make rice the Thai way! Instead of boiling rice Western style, instead, wash the rice twice in the pan before cooking until the water is clear and not cloudy. Drain the water from the rice and refill the pan until it reaches the second finger joint above your fingernail. Put on full heat until it boils, and immediately put the heat down to the lowest available to you. Put a lid on it, and leave to steam for just over or under ten minutes depending on how much rice you are cooking.

2. Whilst you are waiting for the rice to steam, grate the carrot and chop up the spring onion finely. Wash the spinach leaves before you eat them, even if they are organic.

4. Finally, add the Teriyaki sauce to the chicken, along with a handful of sesame seeds and stir fry until the sauce is hot. Make a bed of rice, place your veggies around it and add the chicken and spring onion.

5. Bon appetit!

 Hello there! Quick apology for the lack of posts recently but the joy and frivolity of having Easter holidays has somewhat taken over my life and after seeing numerous members of my friends family etc I finally have some time to do my favourite past time (besides playing Sims 3 and eating soup.) - blogging!

So really, a bit of a catch up post on the most recent happenings. I spent the weekend in Cheltenham with my boyfriend, where I was reunited with my favourite chain restaurant Nando's (I am a modern cliche template and after being in Cornwall where there are NO popular chain restaurants besides Pizza Express and Prezzo I was pretty delighted) and we went exploring a little bit. During my Cheltenham adventures, we stumbled accross a vintage book shop which was any bookworm's dream. It was a heaven for those who are book inclined and history inclined too, because when I was digging around in there we managed to find three stacks of National Geographic magazines that date back as far as the late '50s. This probably sounds somewhat mundane to you but let me shatter the illusion and tell you that I was absolutely beside myself with excitement. Amidst my rummaging I found lots of old advertising from the '60s, mainly Coca Cola adverts and Kelloggs and cameras (as shown below),

as well as finding the 1963 edition which was dedicated to J.F Kennedy's funeral. Pardon the phrase, but it was history porn at its very best (for those of you who don't know what it is, if you're a history enthusiast you may wish to go to: http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn).  Not only that, but the finicky and fussy side of me was aesthetically pleased to see bookshelves dedicated to Penguin books based on the colour of their spines. Not as cool, of course, but still made for a good picture.

 

 And to end this post on my Cheltenham adventures, a quick stroll to the park made for smiles the whole walk home as I came across the most beautiful blossoming trees. SPRING IS HERE. I could not be more excited to see more flowers bloom and with it, the arrival of summer.

On being dual nationality in England.

Hello bloggers and people of the internet... bit of a controversial topic today, but I want to cover it because it's something I have lived with my whole life, and something that I will live with as long as I live in this country. Most people reading this will probably think, "you're European, how bad can it be?" and this is not a pity post in any way, nor is it propaganda of any sort. I just want to share my experiences as a non Englishman in England in the west country, which obviously differs from other parts.

To add a bit of context to this post, I am a dual national of both England and Sweden. I was born in England, but have never felt like I belonged here. This is for a multiple of reasons, some personal and others I think a lot of people experience throughout their lives. But one of the main reasons for this is despite half of my heritage being English (my mother's family), it is almost impossible for me to do any kind of banking, signing up to anything, etc. My Student Finance University application was made immeasurably difficult due to my father's Swedish nationality. Where most people from my school simply had to get their parents to sign and help them through their application, I had to translate several documents of tax papers and prove my identity and home address (despite having lived here since I was four years old) twice as much as my fellow students.

To contribute to that problem, opening a bank account was equally if not more difficult. Having a Swedish passport has done me no favours in this country, not only does it receive a slight frown on arrival in the country but it is automatically dismissed by banks as valid id without THREE different documents for proof of address. I ask you, is that necessary for somebody who has lived here over 15 years, even having gone through the English education system? I don't think so.

But these are problems that have occurred in the later part of my life. I don't think I have met many people who haven't at least at one point asked me if I like Swedish meatballs or if I can say something to them in Swedish. This isn't much of a problem for me, I am incredibly proud of my heritage - on both sides - but this does grow to be very tiresome. Understandably, people are curious. They want to know things. But what DOES annoy me, and sadly this happens a lot, is when people are blatantly ignorant. A great deal of people I know couldn't even point out Sweden on a map yet manage to berate me on how high the suicide rate is there - which FYI is a myth, and has been proved wrong because of the differing legal opinions on what constitutes suicide but that's another story.

Another more comical "side effect" if you like of being Swedish is that the minute people know, they quite often start singing Abba. As if that's the best thing to come out of Sweden. But again, ignorantly, many people have no idea that a plethora of everyday things are in fact Swedish inventions, such as the seatbelt, Celsius, dynamite, TetraPak, and the list goes on...

So just to sum up, being a dual national is not always the most enjoyable experience in England. When you aren't being made fun of you're often trying hard to prove you aren't trying to blight England with your presence... but ultimately,  I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm very proud to be both English and Swedish, and identify more as a Swede - yes I can be reserved, like the cold and definitely like meatballs. But just as a side note, no my house is not made from Ikea items. I wish.

Some ramblings to update

Happy New Year people of the internet! This is a bit of a rambling post but bare with me, it's a little bit of everything and more so hopefully after I've got the rambling and catch up post out of the way I can go back to posting slightly more interesting things.

So, firstly, New Years Resolutions. I have kept my three New Years Resolutions from last year as I feel I lost sight of them somewhat along with the crazy journey that occurred, and although they are not extremely complex I am already struggling.

1.) Be more organised - I have always been a very disorganized person. My room looks something along the lines of a bomb explosion scene in a bad action movie and I have no sense of writing things down. It's a habit I have had throughout my whole life, much to my parents disdain. (To make matters more humorous, my father is ex navy and I'm sure you can imagine how much he loves disorganisation.) The amount of report cards I had throughout my entire school career with "BE MORE ORGANISED" in block capitals is more than I'd like to mention... so I want to change that, at least a tiny bit, if only to make life a little easier for myself.

2.) Drink more water - I will confess, I go through stages of being very health conscious and I succeed for a few months and as soon as I see a bit of progress fall back to old habits. I want to conquer this one though, as there are just way too many benefits of drinking more water to waste time consuming sugary drinks when I may as well eat blocks of sugar (which again, incidentally is something I still do. Never leave sugar cubes lying around as I will eat them. Shameful I know.)

3.) Be on time - You could argue this comes under being more organised, but er...I'm always late. I could blame it on a lot of things but I confess it is usually due to laziness or the transport system of Britain. Both are in need of desperate alteration.


So there we have my New Years resolutions, and I will maybe update you all on how they are going if that is not too tedious a topic in the future. In further news, I've recently received two very good  marks back from my lecturers at university, and of course my motivation has sky rocketed due to this. Nothing spurs me on more than success, I'm not someone to be motivated by failure. Needless to say, one cannot succeed all the time but when I do, it makes me adamant to succeed again.