Change & Decay In All Around I See

Wednesday 18 February 2009, 11:38PM

Medusa cheers me up

Kate is working upstairs on New Testament Greek. I am downstairs drafting yet another website home page. It’s getting towards midnight again. Our lives have descended into endless work.

For my part I don’t know how much of it is poor organisation, and how much of it is inescapable. What I do know is there is a ton of stuff to do or the bills won’t get paid at the end of the month. I’m tired and miserable, so to get away from it all for a few minutes I do what any other sane, clear-headed and God-fearing individual would do: have a look on YouTube for the scene in ‘Clash of the Titans’ when Perseus has to chop Medusa’s head off.

And, thank God, it’s there. In fact there are several versions to choose from. I remember this scene scared the hell out of me when the film first came out (shockingly, nearly 30 years ago, when I was a child and the sky was always blue). I still find it rather gripping. As one of the YouTube clip’s reviewers describes it: ‘the best and scariest scene that harryhausen [the special effects guru] has done,everytime i see this it gives me the chills,put yourself in perseus position, you would be shitting yourself!!’ Quite so.