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A League of their Own

A League of their Own

A League of Their Own is one of those films that on the surface I really shouldn’t like, however it’s probably one of my favourite films of all time.

It should be noted that I really don’t understand everything about baseball, but when this film came out in 1992 I was in a “baseball phase” I was watching baseball films and reading books about baseball. I went out and bought and read Shoeless Joe by W P Kinsella (it was made into the film Field of Dreams). In many ways baseball was the background to the stories, the stories themselves were not about baseball.

The first time I watched it, I had rented it on VHS from my local corner shop where I use to rent films from, this was in the days before Blockbuster! I think another reason I picked and watched the film was that I had really enjoyed Tom Hanks in Big and he plays Jimmy Dugan in this film, an embittered coach who at first can’t believe he’s coaching a “girl” baseball team. Eventually he does come round to the fact that these women can play and can play well.

Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan

There is no real plot to the film, there is no romantic core to the story. This is a story about a team of women coming together, working and playing together during a difficult time in history and making a difference.

There is humour and comedy, larger than life characters as well as some very emotional scenes.

Historically there is a fair bit of poetic licence taken by the film with actual events and people. For example the film indicates that the games weren’t popular with the crowds until the teams introduced gimmicks (sliding splits). However in reality the games were popular from day one as people had been really missing live baseball games and as a result there were huge crowds at the games.

I like this film, it is a feel good movie and something that I would watch on a rainy sunday afternoon.

There was something very clever about the story and the emotional journey that the women in the film were on. It reminds us that in the 1940s equality was a dirty word for many people and women at that time were nowhere in the same league as their male counterparts in both life, work and sport.

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Weston Grand Pier

Managed to get some photographs of the Pier…

Weston Grand Pier

Weston Grand Pier

Weston Grand Pier

If you know Weston, you will know with a huge tidal range, most of the time the tide is out, far out…

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Watch all of Star Trek all at once




Want to watch the original series of Star Trek, but don’t have the time?

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered)

Why not watch all the episodes in one go!

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered), Season 1 – Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered)

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered), Season 2 – Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered)

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered), Season 3 – Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered)

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered)

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Tom Selleck’s Moustache

Everyone knows that the greatest and most iconic contribution to Cinema is Tom Selleck’s Moustache. So great is it that there isn’t a single film that would not be improved by the inclusion of Tom Selleck’s Moustache.

Via that Mark Power

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Lego Millennium Falcon

Clever piece of animation. All computer generated.

Remind me never to buy this Lego kit for my son…

Actually it would keep him quiet for years…

Via Shirley Crawford

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I remember you…

York University

Reading a tweet from that Mark Power returning to a conference venue yesterday.

Lofl! The barman at the venue remembered me from last time. November 2010! :)

I was reminded of a similar incident that happened to myself, and as the story was going to be a lot longer than 140 characters decided to write this on the blog rather than filling my Twitter stream with this story.

I went to the University of York to do my degree and those that know York will know that it is a collegiate university made up of individual colleges. Now they were never colleges in the vein that Cambridge and Oxford had colleges, much more a pale imitation. However when I was there each college did have it’s own bar! So though other universities had big Student Unions with a single bar, York had no big Student Union building, but we did have seven bars on campus.

My college was Langwith and the two Ethels that ran the bar back in the 1980s certainly kept us in check. Though I did go to other college bars, I usually ended up in the Langwith bar.

Once I left York, I left the area so didn’t go back to the city and certainly didn’t frequent the bars.

Just under ten years later, following a mailing from York, knowing that I could have cheap accommodation at the university as I was a graduate. I phoned the accommodation office and booked a couple of nights to have a break in the city. As it was the summer break they put me in Goodricke college. Goodricke was the home of the student union and the Rag, so I knew it quite well. It was also the closest college to my final year accommodation.

Though a different college to my own, Goodricke was similar in style to Langwith in terms of build and rooms. It was slightly weird staying again in student accommodation, but it was cheap.

One evening I decided that I would go to the bar, the only bar open on the campus was Goodricke, so off I went for a beer.

So there I was just under ten years since I left the university, in a bar that I did know, but had spent more time at another on campus… and the barmaid recognised me!

It wasn’t my regular university drinking hole, wasn’t my college… and the bar staff recognised me from ten years ago.

Five years later I was vindicated slightly, when at a Library event in London, run by JISC, I started chatting with some Library staff from the University of York and they recognised me too!