General musings for the week 13th March 2011

The musings this week are dominated - obviously - by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although Japan is one of the few places I haven't visited, I do have friends and friends-of-friends living there. Thank God they are all safe and sound at the moment.

The interesting/ironic/comforting thing about the 'quake is that the actual 'quake itself did relatively minor damage to the land and people (although there were, obviously, deaths and other casualties), but what caused the large amount of death and destruction was the tsunami which followed shortly thereafter. Watching the footage on television was both horrific and spectacular. In one shot  the sight of a wall of water 30 feet high sweeping across the countryside destroying everything in its way with impunity, gives way to a vehicle on the road trying to outrun the deadly wave before succumbing to the inevitable. It's not often you see cars, boats, planes and buildings rolling across the countryside pursued by a full scale fire either.

My video of the week is actually related to the 'quake. I found this on Youtube and it's from Japan (obviously!) and it shows why there were so relatively few injuries caused by collapsing skyscrapers - the skyscrapers in Japan are built on shock absorbers and sway when hit by seismic activity.

In lighter news, a big shout out to Stephen Brocklehurst - fellow  Supporting Artiste and actor. He's just landed the lead in a zombie short and is in the running for the lead in a feature film about boxing. Well done, sir! (I can see a lot of time at the gym in your future)

Congratulations also to Mike Archer who has just finished a successful run as  Philip 'The Bastard' Faulconbridge in the RSS production of 'King John'.