March 1st was originally intended to be the day Hobbit Moments returned. Spring is starting out of doors, there’s a DVD release imminent and previews of the next movie and…..sadly, Hobbit Moments won’t ever be returning - because, in light of the news of the past week, I simply do not want to associate myself with anything being produced by WB or Peter Jackson.
Ummm…..what? I’ll explain, but first a little background. I’ve been a human rights campaigner for more years than I care to remember. Even more precious to me than the words of Professor Tolkien are the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those are the eyes through which I viewed this weeks release of emails between Peter Jackson, WB and the New Zealand goverment.
What these emails confirm is something I personally find to be disgusting - that very wealthy individuals and corporations would aggressively pressure a government to remove rights from its own people, that they would continue to do so when the government had originally responded that there was no need to change the law, that they would then further do so when they knew that any threat of a boycott had already been removed from the film production, that the minister responsible for eventually pushing through a very rapid law change now claims that he can’t remember why they rushed it through, that an international corporation were the financial beneficiaries of this erosion of the rights of people. I am as dumbstruck now as I was when I first read through the releases.
Labour rights have been fought for long and hard over many generations. That they can begin to be dismantled so quickly due to the pressure of rich individuals and corporations is nothing but a negative step and a basic contravention of Article 23 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I do not, cannot associate myself with that at all and as Hobbit Moments has always revolved around the hobbit movies, and because “Hobbit” on Tumblr pretty much equates to the movies now, then Hobbit Moments closes today. I’ll leave it up to support the posts that community has particularly enjoyed and reblogged, but there’ll be no further posts on here. The URL will revert to the default Tumblr URL in time.
I’m not stopping blogging, however. If you’ve enjoyed the natural world, landscape, food and drink posts on here, as opposed to the movie posts, then I’d love to see you over at the all-new Shire Moments blog, where those posts - seeking The Shire in my shire - will continue. There’s an awful lot more to enjoy about hobbits than the adventures of one particular hobbit after all…..
Thank you to all of you for following here at Hobbit Moments over the past few months. I’ve been honoured that you’ve wanted to follow me. Hope to see you for some Shire Moments in the future.
It’s a new month. The quietest month of winter. 50 days gone in the “hobbit” year and we know the release date for An unexpected journey on disc. All quiet on the Smaug front and unlikely to be much news for a little while at least.
It all adds up to being the perfect time for hobbit moments to take a break, so a break there shall be. Time to recharge.
Keep looking for the hobbit moments in your day!
Day 50, year 2 - Wandering off into the sunset.
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TheHobbit.com is reporting the DVD/Bluray release date as March 19.
Looks like its official, going to be an early release.
Day 48, year 2 - Marching off into the sunset
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Day 46, year 2 - Winter daisies.
Its easy to look at the broad sweep of a landscape and see the beauty within it. We’re wired for a connection to the land and for finding landscape beautiful on the large scale.
Sometimes though, if you look closely in unexpected places, like nestling in a sunny spot between the roots of a lime tree, you can find a beautiful little treasure. Its had sub-zero temperatures. Its been buried beneath inches of snow. And yet somehow these plucky little daisies are still blooming in January!
If you’re only looking at the large scale you can miss the little surprises. If you look at the large scale and don’t think there is beauty within it - in a town or city, perhaps - then you can miss the little pockets of surprising beauty….like daisies blooming in January on an average suburban street.
Keep your eyes open, look and truly see, and you never know what you might discover.
Day 45, year 2 - The final fling.
The end of the snow days are here, but not before they had a final fling in my corner of the shire, with a big snowfall (a foot deep in places) that then turned to rain and melting as soon as it was done. By the afternoon the sun was warming up and making the snow on the rooftops glow, as if it wanted to send it off looking its best.
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