Let's go fly a kite

.....Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear

Oh, let's go fly a kite!

So we took Mary Poppins' words ot heart and took ourselves out to the East Coast Park, and bought ourselves a kite.

That, however, was the easy part. What was not easy was actually getting it to go over 10 feet up in the air. It didn't help much that our little energetic bundle of joy thought it was funny to get entangled in all that thread.

So Arun has decided that he can't let a pretty piece of paper get the better of him, and is determined to get it up and soaring tomorrow. And I plan to keep the video camera all ready to roll!

The kite we bought today was really pretty, and quite jazzed up. Arun and I were comparing it to the kites we flew, made with newspapers, sticks from brooms, waste thread for the 'tail' and begging for a length of sturdy thread to actually fly the airworthy(?) contraption. More often than not, it was held together with cooked rice rather than glue. And somehow it felt so wrong not being able to get this new engineered kite to take to the skies! If newspapers and 'parke-kaddi' could fly, why not this?

Maybe it's because we're older and wiser. Back then sheer confidence in our artwork gave us all the impetus we needed to coax scrap papers to fly, and fly really well.

So will this shiny swanky shop-bought marvel fly? We can only wait and see. A is determined that a kite won't get the better of him.

Here's to long forgotten skills. Go Arun!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

So how could I not watch this one on the day of it's release?

To start with, it was not too bad. In all honesty, I might have enjoyed the movie a lot better if I hadn't read the book yesterday. The book is really too big for the director to stay true to it, so there was a lot of editing! And very liberal doses of creative license...

For starters the Dursleys, the stay at the Burrow and (some of) the Weasley brothers were totally left out! At the Quidditch World cup, Harry and the Weasleys take the nosebleed seats instead of sitting in the main box. And there's no mention whatsoever of house-evles! Poor poor Dobby! And the Quidditch World Cup is totally left out. All we get to see is a starting line up of the two finalists. No Veelas!!!!! Ludo Bagman was a bit of a funny character in the book. Ludo Bagman who? That's right. He's been edited out. Rita Skeeter, the nosy journalist, is less than a pale shadow of her acidic, vicious self! For all the build-up and screen time she got, she might have been left out too! And did I mention that Barty Crouch Jr is brought in right at the beginning? There's never any explanation of how he's at Hogwarts when he's supposed to be in Azkaban!

The challenges in the Triwizard Tournament were well picturised. The maze challenge though, was a bit of a let down with hedges that rearranged themselves instead of assorted challenges thrown at the champions on the way to the trophy.

The Yule ball scene was good fun, so was the transformation of Hermione...

The finale at the graveyard was spectacular. And continuing in the spirit of cribbing, I must add that I didn't see Wormtail's new hand in the scene where the wands connect and Voldemort's wand spits out shadows of earlier spells. Ralph Fiennes was cool was Voldemort!

Hysteric Histrionics! My main crib (you mean there's more?) about this movie has to Michael Gambon who plays Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore is supposed to be calm and collected always and a class act all the way. You'll know what I mean if you've watched the first three movies, with Richard Harris (RiP) in the role. This Dumbledore raves and rants and at seems to be on the verge of hysteria. I was so irritated by the character!

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 on 5!