A New Hope

Mickey Mouse has opened his cheque-book once again. After paying ten figure sums for Pixar in 2006 and then Marvel in 2009, Disney has acquired Lucasfilm in a deal worth just over $4bn, half in shares and half in cash.


As always with these things, my first thought is what impact there might be on the parks, but then again, Star Wars is already fairly well represented at Hollywood Studios, and even gets its own special weekend each year. In fact, Lucasfilm is even better represented at the Studios park, as Indiana Jones is another one of their films.

The other good news is that having had episodes 4-6, and then episodes 1-3, we are now guaranteed episodes 7-9, with number 7 coming in 2015. That should give me enough time to make sure that I have seen all of the first 6. Pretty sure I've never seen The Return of the Jedi!

Also, it's good to see that Disney can have a laugh about the possibilities of the arrival of Darth Vader at Disneyland. Here is a video posted today by the official Disney Parks Youtube channel.

Baker

Off to a meeting in London this morning, and rather than my normal eastbound journey from St Pancras on the Circle Line, I headed west for three stops, and alighted at Baker Street. With a few minutes to spare before my meeting, I wandered along Baker Street in search of a blue plaque.

In The House of Silk, the new Holmes novel by Anthony Horowitz, the author, in the voice of Dr Watson, explains why the book has been published so long after the other stories of the great detective. The reason is that Watson had not chronicled this particular adventure until towards the end of his life (after Holmes' death) and due to its highly sensitive nature, had given orders that the manuscript was to be sealed away for 100 years, hence its recent publication.

Considering timelines, and sequences of events, it's interesting that Holmes and Watson are always travelling around London in horse-drawn cabs. As Kate told us, Baker Street was the first of the London Underground stations to be opened, in 1863, and so the Underground would have been available as a mode of transport to Sherlock. I wonder if ACD ever sent him travelling on the tube!

Having thoroughly enjoyed The House of Silk, maybe the time has come to revisit some of the originals.

Trust

Isn't it funny how a particular verse that gets a mention at church can seem somehow appropriate and directed just at you:

"The one who trusts will not panic."  Isaiah 28:16

Still trusting, still trusting ...

Waiting

Time for a minor overhaul and tidy up of the website. I've sorted out the Twitter feed that had stopped working, and changed the pictures in the banner across the top, as well as a subtle change in the background. Despite the fact that it's the page that pops up whenever I open Safari, I've been neglecting it for a couple of months, but I decided that it was worth a tidy up, as hopefully at some point during the next week or so, we will have some exciting news to report.

But for now, we are just waiting ... !!

Be our guest

Today was the first day for making reservations for the Be Our Guest restaurant at the new Fantasyland, and after much perseverance, Nicky managed to get through, although we did cheat and call DVC rather than calling WDW-DINE.

We will be putting their service to the test on New Year's Day 2013, but I don't propose trying the grey stuff, even if they do claim it's delicious!

Amy Grant

OK, it's the hottest day of the year so far, and I'm about to post a Christmas song!

Why - because I noticed today that the narrators have been announced for the Candlelight Processional for this year, and whilst we are there, they are going to be:

21-22 - Trace Adkins (never heard of him, but a country singer)
23-25 - Gary Sinise (Lieutenant Dan!)
26-28 - Amy Grant (see below)
29-30 - Marlee Matlin / Jack Jason (no idea)

I thought I'd look up Amy Grant, as hers sounded like a name that I ought to know. She is an American singer, and does a lot of Christian music, as well as recording some more mainstream pop - her most famous hits seem to be "Baby, Baby" and "The next time I fall" (a duet with Peter Cetera).

I've been having a rummage around on Spotify and Youtube, and as we'll be there at Christmas (leaving 125 days from now according to the countdown) I thought I'd post one of her Christmas songs.

 

Wizarding

Today was a day for a family summer outing.

We started off with a trip to St Albans, where we had a nice lunch and a little wander around the cathedral, but this was really just a warm up for the main event of the day, which was a trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour.

Despite not being a Harry Potter aficionado, I thought the tour was fantastic. We started off in the Great Hall, and then made our way around loads of different sets from the films, and saw lots of the props and costumes, as well as learning about how some of the effects were achieved on screen.

At the end of the tour we saw a truly amazing model of Hogwarts, which features in almost all of the films, and took almost 74 man years to build!

Here are a few photo highlights of our day.


Oh yes, and we were able to stop off for a spot of Butterbeer on the way round as well!   
Right, must crack on with reading the books now, then I'll appreciate what I've seen today even more.