Here is a post on progress on the Judge’s song from “Trial by Jury”.
This is a line test of the first verse. The Right arm and some of the body is still missing as well as the earlier frames of the pigtail and the pupils.
The animation was completed on the Harmony/toon boom system though I note the production of the brilliant and recently-screened “Ethel and Ernest” on BBC was done with TV Paint which seems to offer so much more opportunity in terms of textures and usability. Harmony was a wonderful tool when it was run by the Vogelesang family, particularly Lilly and Joan, but they were taken over by Corus entertainment in 2014 or so and it does not seem to have been the same ever since. I have been teaching in a school in Moscow that apparently promotes the software and it was a devil of a job to get it actually to work at all on the school machines. So much for Industry standard! I note the company also acquired Animo, Pegs’n’co and the Cambridge animation system, rival 2d animating software and has not made any effort to update any of these since, effectively smashing the opposition and leaving precious little choice.
The wonderful Miron who was formerly the president of the Oxford University Russian society and who now sings intelligent Russian rap under the name Oxxxymiron pointed out two weeks’ ago that the founder of the OURS was one of the principle assassins in the death of Grigori Rasputin. Yusopov was apparently a rather fey man who, having been dressed as a child like a girl, continued to do so as a teenager partly to get into the Bolshoi to see performances and partly to attract the attentions of older men. I gather the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII counted him as a great beauty and Rasputin seems to have kissed him a few times. He was not a very fine student and the University seems to have modified the exact subject he was reading a few times before he sat his finals. Later on, in 1927, he wrote the definitive book on Rasputin.
As a haemophiliac, I have always had an interest in the mad monk! Here is a quick picture to celebrate his the anniversary of his end.
There is news today of refugees accepted in Greece because they had been raped by Police and security guards ( or specifically, a “government official” κυβερνητικό αξιωματούχο) in Syria. The newly established ΣΥΔ has, to date, taken on 30 cases, 9 of which it has accepted immediately according to the article which I am reprinting below.
While there are many reasons to be critical of Tsipras and the Syriza government, and while I think their management of the economy is a disaster, I applaud their record on human rights. Indeed, recent news of the EU’s irritation about a Christmas payout to pensioners highlights the fact that Syriza are determined to take responsibility for the society they are running rather than cow-tow to a discredited EU.
It has now been 16 years since Necati was assaulted in Greece and over 5 years since the ECHR found against Greece. This story, in other words, I think, draws a line under what happened. Progress has been made.
Δεκτό έγινε το αίτημα για διεθνή προστασία ομοφυλόφιλου πρόσφυγα από τη Συρία, ο οποίος είχε δεχτεί στη χώρα του ακραίες διακρίσεις για τον σεξουαλικό του προσανατολισμό και βία που έφτασαν μέχρι και επανειλημμένους βιασμούς του από κυβερνητικό αξιωματούχο.
Την υπόθεση έκανε γνωστή το Σωματείο Υποστήριξης Διεμφυλικών (ΣΥΔ), αναγνωρισμένο μη κερδοσκοπικό σωματείο εθελοντικού χαρακτήρα για την προστασία των δικαιωμάτων της τρανς κοινότητας.
Η συνέντευξη του πρόσφυγα έγινε στις 19 Δεκεμβρίου στην Υπηρεσία Ασύλου με την παρουσία των ειδικών συμβούλων του ΣΥΔ, σε θέματα ασύλου, Άννας Κουρουπού (Γενική Γραμματέας) και Άννας Απέργη (Γραμματέας Περιφέρειας ΣΥΔ), που έδωσαν όλο το περίγραμμα των λόγων που ο αιτών έπρεπε να τύχει διεθνούς προστασίας ασύλου, ενώ κατατέθηκε υποστηρικτικό Υπόμνημα από το ΣΥΔ που εξηγεί αναλυτικά τη νομική βάση του αιτήματος της συμμετοχής του σε ιδιαίτερη κοινωνική ομάδα λόγω κινδύνου δίωξης ή της σωματικής του ακεραιότητας λόγω σεξουαλικού προσανατολισμού.
Το ΣΥΔ από την αρχή του 2016 έχει υποστηρίξει περίπου 30 υποθέσεις αιτούντων διεθνούς προστασίας ασύλου λόγω σεξουαλικού προσανατολισμού και ταυτότητας φύλου, εκ των οποίων εννέα έγιναν δεκτές στον πρώτο βαθμό, σε άλλες δύο υποθέσεις έγινε δεκτό αίτημα μετεγκατάστασης σε άλλη χώρα, τρεις απερρίφθησαν στον πρώτο βαθμό εκ των οποίων μία θα υποστηριχθεί και στον δεύτερο βαθμό, ενώ οι υπόλοιπες εκκρεμούν προς εξέταση.
So sorry to hear of the death of Liz Smith, a wonderful actress with an improbable and hilarious range. Maybe the only person ever to upstage Maggie Smith with the wonderful pig slapstick in “A private function”.
Just been working on a project for the BBC. The title is being revised so meanwhile here is a bit of work which is not being used in the project but I think is rather fun. This is the story of the crowning of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, as imagined in the style of a comic strip…
animate-tim.com 