I'm writing this from a dying machine. It has just failed to boot from the system disk. Fortunately I'm made of sterner stuff, and so I have a spare bootable drive in the system (doesn't everyone?). Anyhoo, the data files look recoverable, and so I think I'm going to be spending the next evening or two rebuilding the machine. No idea why it failed though. Could be hardware, could be any number of things.

It was kind of appropriate that I fired up the machine having got back from seeing "Corpse Bride". This is the new Tim Burton produced animated feature. All done with models. And very well done too. What with Wallace and Gromit last time, I've spent quite a bit of my time watching clay over the last week. The film is good. Not sure it is better for being a musical, but then I've never been that keen on musical films anyway. The songs are kind of appopriate, the best number is a nightclub one where the hapless hero, having accidently married a dead person (it could happen) is welcomed into the fold by all manner of animated deceased. The part of the bride herself is very well voiced by Helena Bonham Carter, and everyone else plays their parts well, including the dastardly villan. Nowhere near the wit and inventiveness of W+G, but not a bad night out. And some moments of real pathos.