Tags: film review, shipmeet, Wales, Cardiff, Museum
Date: 25 March 2007 22:25:45
So yesterday was nice and leisurely, marked a few more essays, and then in the evening we set off to Cardiff for a shipmeet. It was good to meet a few familiar and a few new people (including wiblogger Chorister), and a good time (and a heck of a lot of food) was had by all.
Today we said "yah boo sucks" to Daylight Savings Time by having a lie in (sorry no church) and this afternoon we went to an ace museum - the National Coal Museum, based at the Big Pit at Blaenavon (part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site) - which was a really fascinating look at the industry which until the 80s was such a huge part of the Welsh (and English) economy. It included a tour underground in the mine itself, led by a former miner who's now employed to do tours, and interestingly enough one of the other guys in our party was a former Derbyshire miner, so they were swapping tales of the 84/85 miners' strike and the various differences and similarities between the pits. There's also a really interesting exhibition set out in what was the Miners' Bath House, and I was particularly stunned at the exit to see an enormous list of pits and collieries which I assumed were UK-wide, and then I looked closer and they were just the Welsh ones. The whole place was so atmospheric, you had a real sense of the community at the pit, but at the same time were really aware of how a great industry is now in such decline, with an area of rusting bits of machinery outside which I thought was very poignant. I'd definitely recommend it though - a fascinating place.
This evening we've just watched a really funny film - Black Cat White Cat - great music, silly scenario, very funny, we laughed a lot, well worth a look. HD is definitely a good catch on the movie front - we've watched some brilliant foreign language films of his that I'd never have heard of otherwise. Of course he's a good catch anyway, but you know what I mean.