This morning feerozac offered up a small prayer before boarding the 8.33 to Kings Cross.

I never wanted to write another word in this category but I couldn’t help it today – the day of the release of the ‘Tipton Three”. Their capture in Afghanistan and subsequent incarceration at Guantanamo precedes the War in Iraq but it’s all the same thing isn’t it!?

And now that Max Clifford is on the case the three midland lads will no doubt be reviled in the press (the ones who dont get to buy the story that is) for their mercenary exploitation of the situation (after all it was only two years of their young lives that they were locked up for for no good reason and without access to lawyers or family). Good luck to them I say, hope they can squeeze as much out of the situation as the press already have and will continue to do so.

It’s tragic that on the day they’re finally free from ‘coalition of the willing’ hands, that real ‘evil-doers’ are killing hundreds of innocent spanish commuters.

I’ve just caught the BBC News 24 lunchtime bulletin about it and perhaps it’s as a result of my share of the collective sense of persecution that muslims (even nominal ones) have but I’m sure the journalists were bending over backwards in their efforts to link Arab terrorists to the attacks. Were it in a court of law, they could have been accused of leading the witness for the way they were trying to get the various experts to say that Al-Qaeda could have done the bombings. But it wasn’t a court of law and sadly it could very well have been Osama’s lost boys – this despite the insistance at this stage, by both the Spanish police and a spokesman from the ruling Popular Party, that it was probably ETA.

Anyway, whoever it turns out to be – it’s just disgusting and I can’t see how murder (or kidnapping) helps any cause.

They have a new UK correspondent over at Cinema Minima – me! It’s voluntary but I get a weblog and Austin, the editor, can get press passes to festivals for the LA-based but international news digest for digital movie-makers.

Cinema Minima [CM]‘s focus isn’t so much upon the established movie making scene as it is upon the developments in the industry that effect independent filmmakers and the technologies that can enable them. In Austin’s own words,

CM is not directed at people working in Hollywood, rather to persons who — had it not been for the availability of inexpensive, easy-to-use, and broadcast-quality digital movie making tools — would not be even considering making movies.

The first entry was about the 10th Bradford Film Festival, running later on this month. There’s a short film strand at the festival which I’ll attend and scribble some notes about.

Had to do the museum thing when I was across in France. No doubt – conditioning which is the result of countless rain soaked school trips during childhood. Though why that hasn’t built up a mortal fear of museums in me I don’t know – okay I was a nerd then and I’m still a nerd … and I go to museums. But as museums go the Louvre isn’t half bad.

Having descended into the lobby of the museum via a huge glass fake pyramid you climb into the various wings of the Museum (oooh those Parisians do like their stairs). But the vast majority of culture vultures were there heading for one exhibit only. The Mona Lisa.

The Museum authorities know a good thing when they have one so ‘La Giaconda’ is sign posted very clearly right from the entrance onwards. The same, unfortunately, can not be said for the exit signs but that’s another story. So a steady train of humanity dutifully marches on through the halls of the French, Spanish and eventually Italian Schools of paintings, apparantly oblivious to their charms until they emerge into ‘her’ presence.

Stunning is all I have to say … not the painting but the effect of 1oo’s of flashguns going off in your eyes as the vultures swoop upon her. She might have been a pop star judging by the way the hoardes mill around her, elbowing each other viciously in the battle royale that takes place for the best camera vantage points. It’s a bit of a surprise that flashguns are allowed by the Museum anyway but I guess they know what they’re doing. Well, if it didn’t bother the American/Japanese/French tourists I certainly wasn’t going to let it bother me so I pulled out my Fuji and joined in the flashing frenzy.

Anyway, it’s probably a fake – they wouldn’t keep the real one there now would they … would they? Still, you have to say – she does seem quite serene despite all the fuss going on around her.

Having thus abandoned all pretence of being interested in the art for art’s sake I rushed ahead looking for the ‘celebrity’ paintings which I could tick off my list of famous things I’ve actually seen. There weren’t that many exhibits that I knew anything about and one I did want to see, an El Greco, was actually not available to view but I did find a couple of others. The first being Gericault’s “The Raft of the Medusa” which I’d read about in Julian Barnes’ ‘History of the World in 10 (1/2) chapters’. (I went through a very pretentious phase about a decade ago and would read lot’s of stuff without gaining any understanding, thinking that at some point in the future I could talk about it at length during some sort of dinner party and thus impress some young lady – surprisingly that scenario never happened).

So what can I say about the “The Raft of the Medusa” … it’s really big. In fact, a lot of the paintings were really huge, which is great – you can sit in front of them for hours, resting your feet which are tired from all the walking up and down stairs, noticing the details like how many little dogs you can see in the picture. Who needs Open University Lecturers hey?

Of course, the Louvre has more than just paintings and as I was strolling through the corridors trying quite hard to get back to where I’d left my companion, who’d very sensibly long since given up walking, I wondered into Napolean III’s home. It seems as if they’ve given over an entire wing to HR Napoleon H and you’ve got to hand it to the guy – he knew how to live like a king. You may remember him as being the one who cut huge swathes across Paris in order to build the Grand Boulevards. Apart from drastic town planning he seems to have had a thing about chandeliers too … he’d have got on well with my mom.

Eventually I managed to work out that ‘sortie’ means ‘exit’ and found my way out of the painting wing. This still left the Egyptian wing, the African and Oriental Arts wings and Chicken wings (probably not that last one) but I’ll have to save these for some future trip to Paris … (yeah sure) but one thing I won’t have to come back for, to tick off my list, is the Venus de Milo.

I aint too sure if I agreed with the blurb about her which suggested that she’s the ideal of womanhood but she is about 2200 year old and not looking too bad for all that. Of course it’s impossible to look at something as famous as this without having some cigar advert force it’s way up into your conciousness. So I stood there looking at this masterpiece of classical art all the time imagining some ancient sculptur lighting up a slim panatella while he contemplate’s lopping off the second arm. It’s probably a fake anyway.

Before Natalie over at Augustine’s Blog began an interview with God she had time to tell me about Demian’s take on treading the (call centre) mill … (*SHUDDER*)