// June 2007
A Shellsuit and Bling
It’s just not a good look is it?
However, I had the “pleasure” of sharing a bus journey earlier with a gentleman who for some unknowable reason thought it was. The black and purple shellsuit (0% organic content) was bad enough I felt, but the adornment of chains and sovereign rings seemed a little incongruous on top of this sartorial misfire.
Unfortunately it also appeared he also splashed himself with an aftershave amongst whose principal ingredients were sweat, urine and embrocation.
I’m not going to miss that particular bus-route I must say.
Posted on June 29, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 3 Comments
Sarcastic Buggers
It was thought the UK would only be leader-less for the few minutes it took Gordon Brown to drive from the Treasury to Buckingham Palace and accept the offer he’d been dreaming about all his life.
But as it turned out, the prime minister-in-waiting spent nearly an hour enjoying his audience with the Queen, before clambering into Pegasus as the UK’s 52nd prime minister.
And during that time, the kind of news everyone had been dreading broke with bizarre timing.
The event was given the highest status of urgency by the Press Association as it flashed up on screens in newsrooms across the country at 1424 BST.
Chantelle and Preston had split.
I wish they’d warn you sometimes. I nearly choked laughing.
Posted on June 28, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In | 1 Comment
“Let the Work of Change Begin”…
… says Gordon Brown, our new PM, in this article.
Which is eerily similar to the Master’s opening remarks to his cabinet in Saturday’s Doctor Who: “Let the work of Government begin.”
I wonder if Brown’s planning on assassinating them all in their first meeting?
Word to the wise, ministers: if he gets a gas mask out, run.
Posted on June 28, 2007 | Filed Under Film, TV, Theatre, The World we Live In | 1 Comment
Moving On…
For anyone who’s interested… the flathunt is (hopefully – subject to reference checks) complete.
We have a lovely place lined up in – yes, I know – Brixton and we appear to be taking possession next weekend.
On Sunday 1st July, following a doubtless boozy evening the day before watching Last of the Time Lords, we move.
Eeek!
Posted on June 22, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 2 Comments
The Homosexual Agenda
(It’s an old one… but a good one.)
You’ve all heard (probably in the Daily Mail) about the Homosexual Agenda and how it threatens society haven’t you? Well… here it is:
0600 Gym
0800 Breakfast
0900 Hair appointment
1000 Shopping
1200 Brunch
1400
- Assume complete control of the US Federal, State and local Governments as well as all other national governments
- Recruit all straight youngsters to our debauched lifestyle
- Destroy all healthy heterosexual marriages
- Replace all school counsellors in grades K-12 with agents of Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels
- Establish planetary chain of “homo breeding gulags” where over-medicated imprisoned straight women are turned into artificially impregnated baby factories to produce prepubescent love slaves for our devotedly pederastic gay leadership
- Bulldoze all houses of worship
- Secure total control of the internet and all mass media for the exclusive use of child pornographers
1430 Get Forty Winks of Beauty Rest to prevent facial wrinkles from stress of world conquest.
1600 Cocktails.
1800 Light Dinner.
2000 Theatre.
2300 Bed (du jour).
So now you know. You have to wonder what Phelps and Robertson are worried about really, don’t you?
Posted on June 22, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In | 0 Comments
Doctor Who – Utopia
Well, it’s got to be said (and has been by many), the first half of the episode was… well… average. Fun, but not terribly satisfying. Our visit to an alien planet turned out (in classic Who tradition) to be largely based in a quarry, the bad guys had piercings and tattoos (pah!) and frankly it all seemed a bit throwaway really.
If it hadn’t been for strong performances from the leads and an amazing turn from Derek Jacobi then it would all have been a bit “yeah, okay, fine”.
But by golly it picked up at the end didn’t it?
All those themes from various parts of the series suddenly starting to tie up. The heartbreaking poignancy of Professor Yana’s speech with us knowing that soon he’d be transformed into another Time Lord. The way Jacobi completely changed his performance when he became the Master. All of it was sublime (especially when the Master locked the Doctor out of the TARDIS just by slipping the latch – genius).
And then a cliff-hanger? What? A three-parter? Really? Bloody hell!
I can barely contain myself with excitement. All my thoughts are on tomorrow night.
Posted on June 22, 2007 | Filed Under Film, TV, Theatre | 2 Comments
Doctor Who – Blink
Doctor: “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. DON’T turn your back, DON’T look away, and DON’T BLINK. Good luck…”
Well, this year’s Doctor Lite episode was proof, if any were needed, of why Stephen Moffat is one of the best writers in television today.
Doctor: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect… but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly…timey-wimey…stuff.”
Taut, funny, densely plotted with twists and turns of time, plus nervousness galore and the occasional pull at the heartstrings too. Frankly there is no justice if if Moffat doesn’t get nominated for another Hugo his year.
Sally: “I love old things. They make me feel sad.”
Cathy: “What’s good about sad?”
Sally: “It’s happy for deep people.”
There were some things which made me go “eh?” like why the Weeping Angel threw a stone at Sally in the first place (it seemed to be implied that it did) and what happens next to the Angels in the cellar once they were defeated, but I’m guessing there’s a nice cleanup job done by the Doctor once he gets his TARDIS back. And frankly they were such minor details in an otherwise sparkling episode I don’t much care.
The flatmate’s reaction to the Angel statues was one of “oh no, they’re as bad as the scarecrows!” so another classic monster there. Well done them!
Plus, as is evidenced in this very posting, it’s just so damn quotable.
Doctor: “This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes ding when there’s stuff. Also it can boil an egg at thirty paces – whether you want it to or not, actually, so I’ve learned to stay away from hens: it’s not pretty when they blow…”
Posted on June 17, 2007 | Filed Under Film, TV, Theatre | 4 Comments
Aaaaa-Choooo!
Is anyone else, like Ben and myself, suffering more from hayfever this year than ever before?
We were discussing it yesterday and both of us seem to be troubled more than usual by allergic reactions, Ben being particularly badly afflicted it seems.
Thing is I never used to get any problems at all until I moved to Canterbury and even then it was a low-level affair: the first couple of weeks of spring had me sneeze once every morning (just once) and then it was over with again.
It worsened when I arrived in London it must be said. But even then it was just a few sudden sneezes and it lasted for a few weeks.
This year however I’m continuously suffering on a daily basis. More often than not I’ll get up and suddenly be sneezing several times, eyes and nose streaming for half an hour, cursing as I fall gratefully on the box of tissues by my bed.
Frankly it’s damned annoying. I do hope it lets up soon.
Posted on June 14, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 6 Comments
I’m sorry… are you blind?
The strangest thing happened to me in the Co-Op last night: I was asked for some ID.
The girl in front of me – a svelte young blonde thing who could easily have passed for twenty-one – had been asked for hers and, since she hadn’t had any to hand, had left her single bottle of wine and wandered off.
So I stepped up to the plate, gratefully heaving my weighty basket into place. The lady on the counter looked at it, saw the bottle of Semillon Sauvignon Blanc perched on top and nasally went “got any ID?”
At this point I assumed she was joking and laughed. Then she pointed at the sign on the other till which points out that the store has one of those “under 21″ policies.
“I’ve got to ask everyone,” she explained – in direct contradiction of the sign, it has to be said.
I was, frankly, speechless. To the mad, unhinged point of asking questions:
What sort of ID? “Driving Licence?” “I don’t drive.”
“Passport?” “I didn’t think Co-Op was a foreign country.”
And so on. But she was adamant. And frankly, since the last thing I needed – after a long day and a horrible journey home and a lengthy queue in the supermarket – was an argument about this, I am afraid I got a bit minty about it.
“Fine, sod it then,” I sighed wearily. And I left the queue and the basket behind me and stalked out.
You might think that, in retrospect, I should be flattered by her request, but I know the cashier of old and she is frankly a little bit insane. Her obsessiveness extends to great lengths sometimes – on one occasion when buying a bottle of wine she insisted on triple-bagging it despite my protests – so I know that it was more that she’d got the idea lodged in her head and wouldn’t let it go than it was about any possibility I was looking oddly youthful (because, frankly, yesterday I had awful skin and looked about ninety).
I had found myself earlier wondering – whilst disengaging myself from The Device – why the elderly gentleman in the tweed jacket two places afore me had stormed off without his shopping and now I knew why: he must have been checked as well.
Still, as I left, I noticed the most curious thing: next to the cashier was a growing pile of abandoned shopping which the other cashiers were now starting to look at in a puzzled way.
So there’s something else to add to my list of pet hates: someone who’s got the wrong end of the stick and then pursues it doggedly to the exclusion of all reason.
I will, in future, make the extra effort and shop at Sainsbury’s or Budgens. (And take my passport just in case.)
Posted on June 7, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
Moth Attack!
Is it my imagination, or are there more moths around at the moment than ever before?
I can’t seem to pass a single night without encountering a couple of the buggers at the moment. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head… (well, okay, maybe a mild exaggeration on that last one), but since barely a day goes by without being woken up with a panicked fluttering I struggle to ignore, or finding one floating in my bedside glass of water I’m beginning to think I’m the target of some lame plague.
Are moths the new locusts I wonder?
Posted on June 4, 2007 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 2 Comments