Good Will Hunting

With the recent death of George Dantzig still on the newswires, I thought I’d add to last weeks oh-so-fascinating 80s film facts with some 90s film tid-bits.

It is perhaps little known that in Good Will Hunting Will (Matt Damon) was originally going to become a physicist, at least according to Prof. Moniz, who was then head of the physics dept at MIT and is credited in the film.

The story, as told in the last lecture of 8.05 in Fall 2001, goes that he was approached by the producers and helped develop a storyline where Will went on to work in some General Relativity field and the film would feature images of galaxies etc. All this was devised when the mathematics department caught wind of this Course VIII coup and managed to convince the producers that the final storyline of Will getting a job wasn’t plausible as a physicist and that he should naturally be a mathmo. The producers took the bait and the rest, as they say, is history…

…and frankly the film is far better for this little twist of fate.
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Another Euro Rant

Apologies for another Euro rant: it must be the product of being off on Friday for another Anglo-American love-in. Perhaps this isn’t really a rant; more of an interesting fact.

George Trefgarne claims (and this may or may not be true) in today’s DT that the Euro is the only currency which doesn’t have a signature on its notes (thereby implying that it’s not backed by any sustainable government structure and is there unstable).

To be fair, however, I’m not too fused about the Euro. I only wish that the Pound would recover to the rates seen against the Dollar in March.
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80s Film Trivia!

Today I’m launching an irregular, soon-to-be-dropped feature: 80s Film Trivia!

Fact #1

John Hughes has appeared in three of his films. He ran between some cabs in an uncredited role in Ferris Bueller and played Brian’s Dad in Breakfast Club, presumably at the end of the film: from what I remember his Mother drops him off at school, famously in the EMC2-plated car.

Robert Zemeckis, according to IMDB, has no on-screen appearances.
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EU rules

There’s a story in today’s DT about the grounding of a B17 at an American tribute because of a new EU rule.

Obviously, as the story points out, the B17 Sally B is flying to recognise the sacrifice of all those airmen that gave their lives to liberate those countries that form of the core of EU.

But what is most pertinent, while the Dept of Transport is refusing to exclude the plane from the EU rule that demands increased insurance, the plane’s sister, Pink Lady, will be happily flying in France, because their government are (in this case) sensibly ignoring the ruling.

It would seem that the easiest solution to the massive overburden of EU legislation, but perhaps not the cheapest in light of fresh demands to review the British billion pound rebate, would be to overlook most of the new regulations with a new relaxed continental attitude.
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Banksy does it again…

Banksy, Bristol’s famous son, has made the nationals, this time for one of their treasure hunts.

Banksy announced on his website at lunchtime yesterday that “Early Man”, painted on a piece of rock 10in by 6in found in Peckham, had “remained in the collection [the BM] for quite some time”.

He announced a treasure hunt, saying that the first person to photograph him or herself next to it would win an original Banksy painting of a shopping trolley.

Alerted, museum staff quickly found the rock in Gallery 41 at 3.45pm but admitted that they had no idea how long it had been there.

See coverage in the DT.
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Finally some welcome news from Europe: apparently everyone does hate the French.
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Is this what they call observational humour?

Just been to vote this morning in the Oxford East constituency. Coming back I saw a hearse on Hollow Way with one of those little white signs on; it read: ‘Co-operative Funeral Services’, and I thought…. at least they must never get any complaints!

There. The first bit of Pooterish humour in the LJ of a Nobody.
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More Nanotube News…

http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/05/01/0415248.shtml?tid=160&tid=126&tid=14
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Oh, dear…

Oh, dear, that story this week in the DT (can’t find it right now) about Labour fears of a media-savy Tory mole somewhere in government must have been right, as more leaks have hit the Sunday papers (which the article cannily predicted).

See here for an example.

Update: (02:19) The minutes seen by the Sunday Times, as detailed in this article.
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English Irregular Verbs

On the problem of postal ballots in the May elections….

I am encouraging voter turn-out.
You are not acting in the spirit of democracy.
They are engaged in postal vote fraud.

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