j-r-r-tolkien on S Anand

Lord of the Rings - differences between movie and book

Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:00:00 +0000

A huge list of Lord of the Rings deviations between the movie and the book.

The rich and the dead

Tue, 13 Aug 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Forbes has a list the rich and the dead (dead celebrities who continue to earn a lot.) Elvis, of course, tops the list, but it’s good to see Charles Schulz and Tolkien on the list as well.

Two Towers named after the WTC

Wed, 01 May 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Some people petitioned that “The Two Towers” (sequel to “Fellowship of the Ring”) was named after the World Trade Centre. Curiously, this petition has a far larger number of votes compared to its counter-petition.

Lord of the Rings by other authors

Thu, 07 Feb 2002 12:00:00 +0000

The Lord of the Rings, by various other authors.

Fellowship of the Ring

Fri, 14 Dec 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Fellowship of the Ring. Releasing shortly.

Mordor

Thu, 22 Nov 2001 12:00:00 +0000

A Mordor site.

Inverness

Sun, 05 Nov 2000 12:00:00 +0000

The next stop was Inverness. I didn’t know Inverness had any history to it. It wasn’t till we got there that I learnt that the Inverness castle was where Macbeth (of Shakespearean fame) ruled from. In fact, it turns out that Macbeth was a really nice king. There was this barbarian who fought him, lost, and turned to the English for help – who of course were delighted, and they killed Macbeth. This barbarian stupidly signed a document saying that Scotland would pay tributes to England, and that’s been the source of all the trouble.

The other thing to see, of course, was the famous Loch Ness monstor, or Nessie as the locals like to call it. We made one mistake, though. We landed there on a Sunday. As we got off the bus, we learnt that no tours operate on Sundays. The tourist information center was closed. I wanted to buy batteries for my camera, and the shops were largely closed. The only practical thing that was open was MacDonald’s, so we picked up a meal.

Fortunately, a guy called Tony Harmsworth came along on his van. He conducts guided tours to the Loch Ness, so we hopped on with about 8 others. Tony was apparantly involved with the Loch Ness centre since its founding, and had in fact headed it. So he was very knowledgeable about the history of the monstor.

Loch Ness in itself is beautiful. It’s a huge lake, very calm, and apparantly very deep. On one end is the sea. On the other end is the Urquhart castle. It’s a stone castle that was destroyed by the Jacobites (who had the habit of destroying everything they saw, actually). I have a sneaking suspicion Tolkien borrowed quite a bit of inspiration from the Loch Ness and the Urquhart castle. It could well be the remnants of Isengard – or the fort of the Uruk-Hai orcs.

The monster itself, of course, is just a myth. The local folks always thought there was a large fish in the waters. In 1933, Mrs. McRoy saw something large – about 6 to 9 feet – that she thought was a whale. Journalists caught on, and blew it up to a monstor. A Mrs. and Mr. Spicer claimed to have seen a snake-like monstor walking past the road. (We drove past this spot.) A vet student told his mother that he broke his bike because he fell off in surprise when he saw a dinosaur-like creature. Since he was a vet student, journalists believed him. A famous reporter found hippo pugmarks. In the end, it turned out to be a hoax using his hippo foot-shaped ash tray. Then this reporter rigs a photograph that looks like a dinosaur peeping out of the lake. That’s a hoax too, using a toy submarine and a piece of cardboard. Many of the other ‘monstor’ photographs turned out to be fakes – in one case, a labrador fetching a piece of stick (see if you can spot the face of the dog). In the 1987, operation Deep Scan searched the whole lake, and found 3 suspiciously large living objects, but they were no where near large enough to be a monstor. Sure, there’s probably some big fish down there, though.

The rest of the evening was at a local pub with some loud music on. Then we hopped on to the bus, reaching London at 7AM on Monday.

In time to get back to class.

Oxford

Sat, 21 Oct 2000 12:00:00 +0000

We visited Oxford in the morning. It was a tour with the Indian YMCA. Though I slept through most of the beauty of the English country side, Oxford itself was a classic example. We went up a tower from which we could see most of Oxford. It was a small town, (about an hour-and-half from London) with lots of spires and quite an old architecture. The Oxford University is split into many colleges, Magdalen (pronounced Maud-len) being the most famous of the lot. Lewis Caroll (of Alice in Wonderland) and Tolkien (of Lord of the Rings) hailed from here. We went first to Christchurch college. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as the grass there, with the possible exception of Hampton Court Palace. From there, we took a walk along a river to Magdalen college.

The river was practically filled with people rowing. It was a saturday, so I guess everyone was practicing, but even then, there were far too many boats. Looks like EVERYONE at Oxford has an elective in rowing or something. It was fun to hear the coaches shout instructions over a microphone to those rowing. After walking along the river for about a mile, we learnt that Magdalen was somewhere else. Not enough time to see it, so we just walked back. On the way we found this troupe, the Huckleberrys, who were performing on the road, opposite to a MacDonald’s. They were even selling CDs of their album. The music was pretty fast, and nice too.

I stepped in to the MacDonald’s for some french fries. The prices were quite reasonable. That reminded me of one of the World Economy classes. We all know that Purchasing Power Parity should determine the exchange rate in the long run. (Those who do not are advised to attend an elementary course on International Finance at IIM-B.) Now, it appears that the OECD estimate of the Japanese Yen against the dollar says that the Yen is overvalued by at least 60%. A World Bank study says its overvalued by 50%. These studies are based on PPP. However, if you look at the price of a Big Mac in the US and in Japan, it turns out that the Yen is perfectly valued.

OK, coincidence, you say. What then of Thomas Friedman’s “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” which asserts that no two countries have fought a major war since after both of them have gotten their MacDonald’s? (Yugoslavia doesn’t count. They fought the NATO, so to speak, which is not a country.)

The next leg of the trip was Stratford upon Avon, which is Shakespeare’s birthplace. Being the uncultured bumpkin that I am, the bulk of my Shakespearean knowledge stems from Jeffrey Archer’s “Shall We Tell The President”. Anyway, we strolled over to Shakespeare’s birthplace, but refrained from paying a 5 pound entry fee. Apparantly, in Britain, you pay to see EVERYTHING. They make more money out of tourism than any other single industry. Then we went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which is the ‘original’ Shakespearean drama company. But the highlight of the trip was the “Teddy Bear Museum”.

Gyles Brandreth had set up this Teddy Bear Museum in 1984, and it had teddy bears from all over the world. Tony Blair’s teddy bear was there on vacation. Margaret Thatcher’s was there. Vivien Leigh’s was there. You name it. It was wonderful, especially since we could cuddle the teddies. They had a teddy library too, stocked with some masterpieces:

Lateral Thinking, by Edward de Bruno
The Goldilocks Conspiracy, by Little Bear
Vanity Bear, by Thackeray
Dr. Spock’s Cub & Bear Care, of the Medibear series
The Hunchbear of Notredame, by Victor Hugo
Bear Watching, by Desmond Forrest
The Complete Works of Shakesbear
Encyclopaedia Beartannica

I’d take up a job there, if they’d offer me one.