Revelations

At long last it's safe to reveal what was in the package we sent to Ms Ehle on behalf of the blog and its readers to thank her for the interview and wish her a happy birthday. It's so late because she'd left the country before it arrived.

We've been keeping this under our hats to keep it a surprise...oh alright, we just love being mysterious. Anyhow, since this was on everyone's behalf, we thought we'd better let you know what we sent:

Card. Cover says "to our favourite actress in the world, you are [ace]!". The ace is a playing card. There's also a photo of a BAFTA with fake lashes glued on. Inside left: our mugs with a note from each of us. Inside right: "Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thanks for everything! From Tina and Chelsea on behalf of our fellow loyal fans from the Blog" and a bunch of roses.

Inventory list. Cover says "CARE package inventory". CARE = "(hopefully) Cool (mostly) Aussie Random objEcts". Inside says "Unfortunately we couldn't procure these for you..." with a picture of Pemberley, a backyard with the Old Vic in it, a baby sling, a cellar full of wine, and a giant Starbucks cup. The other side says "...so we got you these instead" with a list of what's in the package and silly comments on them. There's an Aussie theme since we're both from down under.

"Gorgeous" moisturiser and "Eau Roma" from Lush. Les pièces de resistance.

Tim Tams, chocolate biscuits. Aimed at luring Ms Ehle down under for refills.

"Jane Austen - Antipodean Views". A collection of famous Australians and New Zealanders' opinions on Jane. There's a note to Ms Ehle from Susannah Fullerton, an editor of the book and the current president of JASA (I think?).

"Dogs of the world" playing cards.

Bookmarks with Aussie authors.

We also ended up getting stuff for the rest of the family since it was around Christmas. It started with something for George, a stuffed kangaroo and socks. Then we thought we'd better thank Rosemary Harris since we sent the parcel through her, so she and Mr Ehle received a box of tea and a card. It seemed too mean to exclude Mr Ryan, so he got "Prince" shaving cream from Lush and a card.

By the way, "we" here means Chelsea and I. Full interstate collaboration - from planning to making the cards to getting the presents, everything! We had a blast - seriously, we gleefully plotted for yonks. We hope that Ms Ehle and her family enjoy it at least as much as we did creating it.

Oprah

Kiri, a blog reader, has suggested that we write to Oprah to urge her to have Ms Ehle as a guest on her show. Who knows, maybe Oprah's a fan?

By the way, I just realised how close it is to the 15th! It's your last chance to see The Other Side.

Since this is turning into a random-bits-of-information post, here's a slightly interesting auction from eBay - a German edition of Possession ("Besessen") by A.S. Byatt, with the movie poster on its cover.

The thingo

Here's the collage of fans' birthday wishes.

What you see is not exactly the same as what we sent her. Her version allows for mega mega zoom so all the text can be read, whereas this public version is small and low-quality so the text can't be read. Wasn't sure whether it was entirely clear to people who submitted things that the final product would be made public, so this is to avoid treading on privacy toes. Hopefully you can get the general idea.

Thanks to everyone who took part!

BUT BUT BUT...this just in!

Thank you all so much! That is so sweet and creative of you. They are all wonderful and generous but there [are] a few particularly apt references...

Evelyn- have been reading much Pooh (the classic edition, of course, of course). There is little finer.

Mary- Kerala?! That's wild cause [I'm] on my slow boat there now. Or do you know that already?!

Tina- the Elvis - I've always fancied Eddie Izzard playing me in the hypothetical blah de blah but now you've got me wondering how things might have been...

I can not thank you all enough for thinking of me- a sweet, generous gift.

Thank you again,
Love,
Jennifer

What a way to end the year. Freaking cool, no?

Tickity tock

Last chance!

Join the mailing list

I've added a new form doodad on the sidebar which lets you sign up to the blog's mailing list. You'll receive reminders about blog events and important dates. We'll only write if there's something really important. No spam, promise.

Also, pssst...only 2 days left!

Deadline extension

We're moving the deadline for the thank-you project to December 22nd.

Forum events

We're doing a group-watch of Pride and Prejudice at the forum today. Want to join us? We're watching Episode 1 at 09:00 GMT (ie. 9am London time, 8pm here in Melbourne) and coming online at 10:00 GMT to discuss/squeal/sigh. We're going to be doing one episode a day til Wednesday. [edit: from Saturday onwards we're going to watch at 11:00 GMT and chat at 12:00].

We're also messing around trying to write a "P&P-in-15-minutes" parody, à la Movies in 15 Minutes. One LiveJournaler has already done one for the new film. Come play!

Pride and Prejudice script in full

Just noticed that the Pride and Prejudice script I linked to in an earlier post isn't complete. Well, Script-O-Rama has the whole thing, albeit without character names. They also have a transcript of the 1940 Garson/Olivier version.

By the way, 12/12 is approaching. It's soon, but there's time to throw something together. One nice submission we've had so far is a photo of scenery where the person lives and a little message, in a Word file. Nothing more complicated than that is needed.

Quick!

You've got 10 days left to participate in our project for Ms Ehle's birthday. Make haste, make haste!

Another (belated) reminder: The River King came out in Thailand on November 22nd.

There's an additional not-worth-its-own-post item as well, photos from Possession signed by Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Northam and Aaron Eckhart on eBay.