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Just a few pics I took the weekend after rocketing down to Cornwall when the sun decided to make an appearance. Headed to Levant Mine and the surrounding areas though didn't learn much about the mines as all the tinny tourist traps close on a Saturday. However it was pretty interesting to walk from the Levant Mine towards the nearby Pendeen Lighthouse, through a couple hundred years of mining history.

I did learn one interesting fact - arsenic was a by-product of tin mining and health and safety wasn't a huge concern with cotton nose plugs and handkerchiefs being the only protection for the workers.

It's a pretty unique landscape and deffo worth a visit if you've already checked out the other major tourist attactions nearby, it's only a stone’s throw from Land’s End and St Michael's Mount.

Traditionally paper tablecloths may have been a laundry-saving option for messy family dinners but the Rockfish seafood restaurant in Dartmouth has seen their deeper potential. I discovered this week that the restaurant's paper table coverings offer a fun way to keep children, and people with a pen in their pocket, occupied. Simply by encouraging children to draw on them and colour them in.

Genius! More places need to do this, and not just for children. Just imagine the things which might have been created or thought of if da Vinci or Einstein had sat at a table with a plain paper mat in front of them.

As for me I just drew a strange irradiated sea, where fish fall in love and giant squid eat submarines for breakfast. 

I was excited to discover this week that Lana Del Rey has released a cover of the Leonard Cohen song 'Chelsea Hotel No 2', being a fan of the lyrical genius of Cohen (though not so much his deadpan delivery) and the reverb-laden vocal stylings of Lana. It didn't take long for it to click that it’s a tad reminiscent of Jeff Buckley's reworking of 'Hallelujah'.

Vs

This got me to thinking about the various merits of the two and which one I prefer ... Lana's.

It’s a more unusual choice of song, the lyrics are more personal, plus her vocals are haunting in their own special way and with the lyric "giving me head on the unmade bed" it's unlikely to get covered to death as the more familiar Cohen song has been.

Of course it could also be because I've listened to 'Hallelujah' far too much and Chelsea Hotel sounds fresh. Either way they both add a depth of emotion Cohen's vocals never quite reached for me, making me feel something in the good kind of way that doesn't leave me searching for the nearest noose.

While I’m still not certain that Robert Redford isn’t future Brad Pitt who time travels to the past while doing research for a biopic of Redford, can’t find the older actor’s younger self, gets stuck there and then discovers that he was Redford all along (they look very similar), there’s nothing uncertain about the awesomeness of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I was watching it recently and was reminded of how great this classic line is, just one of many memorable moments in the film:

“Boy, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals”

It pretty much sums up Butch Cassidy’s cool self-assurance and confidence in his own plans (even though he's frequently proven wrong) that makes him so likeable yet eventually leads to both him and Sundance getting killed. Of course if they’d gone to Bolivia sooner it might not have ended so badly.

I was also reminded that Gibbs, aka Mark Harmon, had quoted it in the Season 8 episode of NCIS ‘Baltimore’, one of the few people who could do it justice. Thankfully though him an DiNozzo have yet to be outnumbered by a large number of men with guns.