Reports are circulating now about a guy who, while infected with a rare, drug resistant form of tuberculosis, traveled extensively from America to Europe and back through Canada – while he was aware of his disease and having being told not to travel. Great. You just have to think he’s either incredibly stupid or incredibly selfish, or both. Worryingly he traveled through Montreal and New York, but we won’t know if he had any impact as the incubation period can be up to decades.
Brad Pitt in Montreal
Yep, Brad Pitt is now officially in Montreal, as I just watched him film a scene in an Old Port alley way for his latest movie – Benjamin Button. No pics this time I’m afraid, as it was a very dark alley way and there was an over-anxious security guard who made grumpy faces and used pointy finger tactics every time someone reached for a camera. Plus he had a scary beard.
Roof Collapses Near Brad Pitt’s Latest Movie in Montreal
Benjamin Button Shoot: Clearing the Roof
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.
Brad Pitt’s latest movie “Benjamin Button” is being shot in Montreal just down the road from us in Montreal. I was watching them shoot the scene when about 50 minutes ago there was an almighty crash. Part of the roof from a building alongside the shoot had just fallen down! Luckily it appears that no-one was hurt. The police and fire brigade were along quickly and cordoned off the road. Thankfully the roof was just off the road where they were shooting.
“Benjamin Button” is directed by David Fincher, he of Fight Club fame, and stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, as well as Tilda Swanton. I’ve no idea if any of them were on the set for this shoot as I’ve not seen any of them.
See more photos here.
Mt. Football
FIFA have announced a ban on matches above 2,500m (8,200 ft) after complaints from some teams that the thin atmosphere at high altitudes is dangerous to the health of their players. Oh, and possibly because teams that are acclimatised to the high altitudes would have an advantage. No, honestly – it is just because of the health risks. Understandably, the high altitude locations such as Peru are upset at this ban, as t means they can never host competitions locally and get the related influx of tourist dollars, etc.
I can understand the health issues, but surely this now opens the way for teams from temperate climates to complain about games held in more tropical areas? Excessive humidity is a big issue to us Brits for example. Conversely teams from warmer areas must suffer in colder regions surely? In the future are we never going to allow players to don scuba gear and challenge Poseidon United on their home sand? It’s a slippery slope.
en Montreal (‘with’ Brad Pitt)
Well I’m now up in Montreal and it turns out that Brad Pitt & Cate Blanchett are filming in the Old Port this week. In fact, not only are they filming in our neighbourhood, they’re actually filming about half a block away from us opposite our regular dep (that’s short for ‘depanneur’ which is long for ‘deli’ which is short for ‘newsagent’). So from 5am tomorrow, till 11pm at night, we can expect fun & games in a movie stylee. I’ll try and get some pics from our balcony if anything exciting happens, but we don’t have a great angle onto where they are as they’re on a side street.
Green & Pleasent City
Folks in London should head down to Trafalgar Square to see what it’s like all green and grassy. The few photos I’ve seen look amazing, it totally changes the way the square works and just makes me think that more public places need grass. Other than the fact it’ll be a mud bath within a few days of course as soon as it rains. I love this current push for all things green, makes a nice change from fighting ‘terror’ – or creating it by scaring everyone into thinking we’re all going to die any minute.
In related London land news – a squatter has been granted the right to stay on his little piece of Hampstead Heath. Harry Hallowes has lived on this piece of land, estimated worth £2m (that’s ~$4m at current crappy exchange rates), for 20 years now and so has gained squatters rights of ownership on it. This strikes me as a classically English resolution to the problem. Nice to see that his plot didn’t accidentally burn down, like happens over here with some landlord’s properties on a regular basis…
Cutty Sark: Good News & Bad News
The devastating fire that hit the Cutty Sark last night is now out, but there’s been significant damage. The only saving grace is that since the ship was undergoing extensive resotration, it turns out that half of the timbers were stored away from the site and so are completely safe.
For some reason this event is really upsetting me. The last time I went past the Cutty Sark was about four years ago on the way to a festival in Greenwich Park, but it was such a part of my childhood from regular visits with school and family. Unfortunately last year when we were visiting London we didn’t go to see the ship as planned. Ah well. Hopefully they can restore it to near its former glory, and once there are official restoration donation pages made public I’ll post them up.
Cutty Sark on fire!
I just took a brief break from some late night work to find that the Cutty Sark is on fire! There aren’t any pictures right now and no webcams pointing that way, but the fire brigade quote of “100% on fire” is not positive. Hopefully this beautiful old ship, and a real London landmark, can be saved. Guess we’ll find out soon.
Fly the Virgin Skies
Virgin America is finally approved to start flying! Good news for fans of Richard Branson. Sorry, I mean fans of companies that have a name starting with ‘Virgin’, as due to FAA regulations no US based airline can be operated by non-US citizens. This seemed to be a bit of an attempt by their (justifiably scared) competitors to slow them down, as it was almost a year ago that I saw some Virgin America plans sitting around up in Montreal.
You can check out some of their in-plane gadgets over at youTube. Highlights for me are the full embedded Linux media center for every seat, proper keyboard on the controls and a full 110v socket at every seat. Yep, they are totally targetting the current Web 2.0 boom kiddies with this one, and being based out west that’s no surprise.
Flickr’d In 24 Hours
Hunting Comics
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.
A few weeks ago, well just before 5th May to be precise, Flickr started to prepare its members for their first ‘24 Hours of Flickr‘ event. This group had one simple goal – to take photos on 5th May, whatever you’re doing, then to choose the best and add it to the group. Then the lovely folks over at Flickr make their picks and put them in a book commerating the day, which you can either buy or enjoy a free copy if your photo gets chosen.
Nice idea, although Fotolog already did something similar but with all the photos on their site. Personally I think I prefer Fotolog’s approach, as I was having a ‘bad photo day’ on the 5th and wasn’t particularly inspired with any of my pics.
Anyways, after much cogimatation I chose the photo above which pretty much represents the lazy, hanging out day that it was – plus it’s a representative ‘Matt Hobbs’ photo. I’ll let you know if it gets chosen. Fingers crossed..