Close encounter

Blip mojo has been hard to find the last few days -- I've taken plenty of photos, but almost all of them went straight into the bin. Short of inspiration today, I headed out after work to take photos of wild flowers, which are at their best now. I was pleased to come nose-to-nose with this little plebeius argus. I was able to take several photos of it, and chose this one for the unusual angle -- there's a more conventional one in the extras below. And an old blip showing both sides of the wings here.

On the way back a large bird of prey landed in the road in front of me but flew off as I approached #blipfail. And I spent some time chasing a fast-moving swallowtail around some borage -- see the other extra.

Last night we went to the Centre Culturel for a special showing of Martin Scorsese's film Hugo Cabret. It was 3D -- a first for us -- and we really enjoyed it, from the first fabulous steampunk sequence of young Hugo dashing through the bowels of huge station clocks, to the beautiful reconstructions of early silent films by Georges Méliès. Apparently it was promoted as a children's film when it came out in 2011, but it isn't really. It's a stylised homage to Méliès, famed for his special effects, for which 3D was a perfect choice, and also an echo of Scorsese's championing of the neglected films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.