The evening.

[zotz]

I was quite disappointed the other night that when the police drove down the seafront they didn't stop to tell us to put the fire out and go home. How are we to maintain the illusion that we're still young and wild if even The Man thinks we're beneath his attention?

A nice old couple dropped round last night to be introduced to the cat. They seemed to get on, but there's no telling what'll happen. It'll be a shame when she eventually goes, but I'm not really a pet-keeping kind of person. Except for goths, obviously.

Nice to see Graham and Sara, though.

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night. Somebody had kindly left a copy of the DVD lying around. It was, indeed, a lot of fun, but I still think that their version of Port Royal was at least as funny as any of the intentional jokes.

Photos from Tuesday night can be seen here and here.

Comments

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

The timescale of PotC is completely screwed, but I don't think that matters too much -- it's not really supposed to be historically accurate. :)

[zotz]

Very true, but it was the geography that got me. Almost up there with the infamous dragons from the mountains of Norfolk.

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the geographical and historical errors are interlinked though. There were two Port Royals; the first one fell in the sea in... 1697, I think? Around then. If we go by the presence of Redcoat soldiers and Marines in the Caribbee, I think that places the movie around 50 years after that date (again, I could be wrong). So we're talking the second Port Royal -- which seems even less likely to have hundred-foot basalt cliffs all round it than the first one did. I could almost believe it of the first one, it's a somewhat mythic place these days... although of course it was a hive of scum and villainy then, more like the movie's portrayal of Tortuga.

[zotz]

There are no cliffs anywhere near it. It's on a sandy spit formed by wave action, so it's as flat as a pancake and always was. There was a certain amount of rebuilding done ater the first quake, and it was cleaned up a lot, but it never really recovered and Kingston became the major port and then eventually the capital (which had been Spanish Town). There's a Wikipedia article, amazingly enough. The links at the bottom are worth following - one of them has an aerial photo of the area.

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for some reason though I'd have been more forgiving of a movie that portrayed a now-vanished-beneath-the-waves Port Royal incorrectly. Don't quite know why.

As it is I forgive it anyway since it's a great movie. :)

Still a little daft though -- there's a fair few cliffs, and indeed rocky volcanic islands, in the Caribbean that could have been the setting. I don't recall if the Barbadoes were still a major British centre by that time, but IIRC they have cliffs down one coast, where the Redlegs (sunburnt Scottish indentured servants) used to live in caves.

[zotz]

I forgive it anyway since it's a great movie.

Absolutely. It was an amusing liberty for them to have taken, rather than anything else.

there's a fair few cliffs, and indeed rocky volcanic islands, in the Caribbean that could have been the setting

The North coast of Jamaica certainly has areas like that. Near Port Antonio, for instance.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Those photos are absolutely stunning - who took them?

[zotz]

Indeed.

The first link is to occular's photos, and the second is to anonymous_seth's.

They both had a pretty good piece of reality to work from, of course.

[scy11a.livejournal.com]

So were you indeed the Sneaky Widdler?

[zotz]

?

[scy11a.livejournal.com]

So you didn't look at the photos (and their captions) then?!

[zotz]

Ah. I didn't read the captions, no, but I think I remember what you mean. No, that wasn't me.