The Teaser

Yes, me again. Disappointing, isn't it?

I've had a pretty quiet summer. My main activity appears to have been gaining weight, thanks to the assistance of a semi-competent personal trainer who had no idea what she was doing. My original trainer is back now, and the weight is sloughing off like skin from a burn victim. She's getting a Christmas present. Patience of a saint, that woman.

The other thing I've been up to, surprise surprise, is watching DVDs, and I've managed to make a big dent in the pile as a consequence. Which has since filled up again with new discs - apart from the copy of if... which never turned up from the Amazon vendor. A circle of hell is reserved for him.

The thing I haven't been doing is maintaining this blog, principally because I have really struggled to think of topics to write about. So, I've had to make something up. I'm going to do a marathon.

Not a running marathon. That would be insane. A DVD marathon. Inspired by the wonderful Adventures with the Wife in Space, I will be undertaking that great right of passage for any true Englishman - I will be watching the James Bond films in order over the course of a year and blogging about them. And possibly livetweeting; I haven't decided yet.

As was announced yesterday, the new James Bond film, Skyfall, will be released at the end of October next year. This will be the 26th screen outing for 007, counting the 23 regular films, the 60s version of Casino Royale, the lawsuit-enabled remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, and the little-seen 50s TV version of Casino Royale. I will be starting in two weeks time, and watching one film every fortnight, leading up to the release of Skyfall, and will try to post as soon as possible my thoughts and comments on each film.

I've been a huge Bond fan for many years, and cannot in fact remember a period when I hadn't seen one of the films. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say that this isn't the first time I've done this. ITV ran all the films in 1999, conveniently slotting them around my exams, and when I first acquired the DVDs I ran through them from late 2003 to spring 2005. I'd be interested to see if there is any change in my opinions, as well as appending the Daniel Craig films to the equation.

To try to give the postings some kind of structure, I'm thinking of putting in some regular categories that might not have appeared in previous similar compendia. Already, I feel that listing the moments when Bond does something weirdly out of character ("Bond bakes a quiche"), or just weird ("Bond locks a midget in a suitcase"). Any other suggestion would be appreciated. There will also be the usual succession of interesting facts and remarks about how closely each film resembles the source material. A fun visual game will be adding pictures of those nearly cast, with a line of dialogue as a caption so you can imagine them saying it. That does sound like fun, doesn't it?

First off the blocks will be the 1954 version of Casino Royale, a 50-minute production broadcast live on American television. Hopefully, the review will be online sometime on Saturday 19 November. Wish me luck. A final note of oddness. At my place of work I recently saw someone reading this blog. It was the entry about last year's Christmas party and my subsequent blackout. Perhaps I've found the culprit. Yes, you. You will never know when I will strike, and you will never hear me coming. But I will have my revenge. Oh yes.

Looks Like that Maths Degree is Paying Off After All

This is pretty much a companion piece to my rambling last week about my pile of unread books. I also happen to have a MOUNTAIN of unwatched DVDs and recordings.

Despite having a minimum social life and few enriching hobbies, I seem to acquire DVDs at a much faster rate than I am capable of watching them. Like the books, I still have presents from the last Christmas but one that I haven't watched, not to mention stuff that I've bought on a whim.

On top of that, the stuff I've been recording onto my lovely hard-disc recorder (with built-in Freeview turner and multiregion DVD player-recorder - wave goodbye to your friends upon purchase) has been accumulating since I bought it three years ago. It has a capacity of 160GB, and I have to watch almost everything I record as I record it to avoid running out of space. My long-term plan is to replace all that is on there with lovely DVDs, but I still have to get through the pile that I have now. You can imagine how this might vex me.

This is where my logician's training kick in. I have to approach this problem with an organisational mind, and start drawing up a plan. No, better yet - an algorithm.

First, divide everything into separate groups. OK, done. Now criteria for what goes when. OK, that's done too. Let's start with the hard drive.

Everything on there divides into two categories: stuff to watch and stuff to keep. To make sure there's a minimum of space, make sure that there's enough room for all recordings up to the end of tomorrow. That's the priority. Now we've got our first line.

1 Is there enough space on the hard drive for everything up to the end of tomorrow? If no, watch until there is. If yes, go to 2.

This bit's a bit trickier (nice broad vocabulary there). The majority of DVDs split into two piles. One is for replacements of recordings or completion of series I've started, and the other is for other gifts and things I've bought on the spur of the moment. At the top of the first pile are Doctor Who DVDs, because obviously they have priority. My idea was to watch an episodes every day over breakfast, but I'm a bit behind. This goes next.

2 Are you behind with the Doctor Who Original Series DVDs? If yes, watch until you aren't. If no, go to 3.

The other stuff from the first pile I save for non-work nights - Friday and Saturday, unless there's a bank holiday. I'll watch films in one go, but if it's a series I might break off. So this should come next.

3. Are you partway through something from the rest of the pile? If yes, finish that. If no, go to 4.

Next the stuff I record to keep. But this is dependent on the day of the week.

4. Is it a work night? If yes, go to 5. If no, go to 6.

5. Is there anything recorded to keep and unwatched? If yes, watch that. If no, go to 7.

Now, here's the part where I start to get really arbitrary. My main pile of discs is stacked next to my stereo, and it's an age-old rule that I'm only allowed to buy new discs from the "replacing stuff" list when the top of pile is lower than the top of the tape deck. But there's also the question of the New Series Doctor Who stuff - which for the sake of convenience includes Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and which I'm also behind with. Let's have that on weeknights.

Then there's the question of the other pile. That divides rather neatly into films and TV series. Let's have the TV series on weeknights and the films at weekends. There's also the limit of one film a night at weekends. I need my sleep in order to dream up bizarre choose-your-own-adventure algorithms.

6. Is the top of the pile below the level of the tape deck? If no, watch the next disc on that pile. If yes, watch the next disc from the other pile. Then go to 8.

7. Are there any New Series Doctor Who DVDs on the main pile? If yes, watch the next episodes. If no, watch the next episodes of the series on the other pile. Then go to 8.

I remember this... It's called...
something like... "outdoors".

Of course, I like to pay full attention to what I'm watching if it's a proper release, so if I've got all the way through that and it still isn't bedtime or I'm off sick or just plain lonely, there's a small pile of "other" discs, either freebies or odd, unsolicited gifts - including an Austrian coming-of-age film sent to by my mother's Bavarian penpal. So those come last.

8. Anything in the slush pile? If yes, watch that. If no, go outside and get some fresh air for Christ's sake.

Hmm, I really need a girlfriend, don't I?

Maybe the Umbrella's Unlucky



Me with my two oldest and closest friends. Yes, women
like me. The stain, by the way, is soda water, which I
spilt on myself when I drank it from my martini
glass, unaware that it was just to chill the glass and
wasn't the actual drink I'd ordered, although the huge
overflowing pile of ice in the glass ought to be a giveaway.

 Well, I'm back. And I'm old. Last week I turned 30, and it gave me an opportunity not only to reflect on having failed to pass certain milestones others of my generation manage before they leave school, but also to have a bit of a party, as the photograph on the right indicates. That's me in the middle.

The interesting part of the evening, apart from failing to put on an "I am 30" badge and deciding not to bother as I thought it would undermine my authority with the bar staff, was the suit I was wearing. I have not idea where it came from, but I do remember the last time I wore that particular outfit. Pin-stripe dark grey suit, red shirt open at the neck, black shoes, indeterminate socks and underpants, although I think I wore orange socks on Saturday in a feeble attempt at co-ordination.

I say remember. That's about half of it.

The last time, and the first for that matter, was last year's works Christmas party, held on the last Thursday of the working year. I'd spruced myself up a bit, left the requisite bottle of water and packet of ibuprofen on my pillow in case I came back in a poor state and left the house.

My first mistake was forgetting the mouthful of milk. This is, apparently, a trick to being able to drink without getting horribly drunk - a big mouthful of milk at the start of the evening, and the world is yours. I shrugged when I remembered, and decided not to bother. That was my second mistake.



Big Brother is Watching You Embarrassing Yourself.

 The evening was held in some of kind of post-Orwellian nightclub, housed in an industrial shed just south of London Bridge. There was a bar at one end and a huge, three-storey metal structure in the middle of the floor. The installation was the size of a house and covered in external metal staircases, up and down which trooped figures dressed like riot police. I might need to remind you, this was a Christmas party.

The structure turned out to be some kind of performance art feature, with a ball-fighting room at the top - a gantry around a central covered well, with the plastic ball you get in creche ball-pits around the edge - a karaoke room in the middle and at the bottom, visible through the transparent floor, an area divided between a group of people playing cards and a fat man in a sauna. I don't know what this represented. Advent, probably.

The food was barbecued outside, and drinks were lined up and handed out inside. I was having a good time, singing a few songs, chatting to a few colleagues and throwing plastic balls at people's heads, when suddenly at around 11.30pm I turned arou






...the next thing I know is that I'm at home. I'm in bed, in my usual sleeping attire. I'm alone, as usual. Daylight shines in through the window. It has woken me up. It's Friday. My alarm should have woken me up. I look at my watch. It's 9.45am. Oh, fuck.

First things first. I sit up. That was my third mistake. As the room spins around more axes that have yet been named, I stumble to my phone and call in sick. Appreciating that saying I have a hangover is not a good idea, I instead said that I must have picked up a bug after coming home in the snow. Highly credible. My reserves of energy spent, I returned to bed.

I woke a little after lunchtime. It is the only time I can remember having a meal in reverse. No, not that. A trip to the toilet and a bundling of the mat to allow a better kneeling position later, I went back to bed. I woke again in the early evening, and returned to the bathroom to use the toilet's more traditional function. Partway through, however, I needed the other.

This presents an interesting conundrum. Picture the scene. I'm sitting on the toilet, taking a pretty large but not uncomfortable shit. I can feel the bile rising in my throat, as I'm sure you can. Many bathrooms have the safety valve of the sink being close enough to the toilet to allow you to use both. Mine doesn't. In fact, there isn't anything within easy reach of the toilet. Before my landlord had it refurbished, I could have simply leaned over and vomited into the bath. But it was not to be.

As my struggling brain failed to arrive at a solution, only one option was left. I clenched, pinched off what I could, and launched myself at the sink with a squat-thrust that would make my personal trainer proud. As the last drops of unabsorbed water dribbled into the sink from my gaping maw, and I continued to dry heave on an empty stomach with half a turd hanging out of my arse, I felt the last vestiges of dignity leave my body. Now at my lowest ebb, there was only one thing to do. I cleaned myself and went downstairs to watch The One Show.

After a nap, I finally managed to force down some scrambled eggs at around midnight before getting to sleep at around 1am. The following day, I made my expedition to Wandsworth for the only screening of TRON: Legacy in Central London, negotiating the slippery roads and snow-covered pavements with a lot more care than normal.

It was at this point that I started to piece together what might have happened. Firstly, all my clothes had travelled with me. Even the umbrella I left at the coat-check was by the door, its raffle ticket still taped on. One of my first actions after calling in sick was checking that I was still... intact. I remained like a shredded wheat. Nothing had been added or taken away. When I told my father about this later, it was the first thing he asked; with a smile on his face if you please. I weighed myself on the Saturday morning, and found that I had, in two days, lost 5.5kg. That's a lot.

I didn't even have that much to drink. A couple of beers, maybe three-quarters of a glass of wine and a rum and coke - but that's only what I remember having. The barbecued food might not have helped, being cooked from raw outdoors, but it's not likely. I suspect that someone might have dropped something in a wine glass as a prank. No-one remembers me leaving the party, or any behaviour that stood out. Someone else mooned some of the guests, so that would have taken away the focus from any minor transgression. Blacking out like that has never happened to me before or since, and it took a fair bit of explaining when I had my Return to Work interview at 9.15am on 5th January.

So you may have understood my superstitious mind being a little concerned about putting the suit on again for another evening out. The thing is, it just looks that good on me.

Heard You Were Dead

The greatest film director of all time is Stanley Kubrick. I shall brook no argument on the matter. But the greatest living director is John Carpenter.

It's been 10 long years since his last film, Ghosts of Mars - the interregnum is perfect subject matter for a future post, along with a dissection of Image of the Fendahl, so remind me next week - but now he's back in the much-anticipated The Ward. Imagine my surprise when I was flicking through the new Empire in Tesco a couple of days ago when not only was there a broadly-positive review of the film, but mention of its release date - IN TWO WEEKS. I let out a little yelp.

Here's the trailer. Isn't it marvellous to see a master at work?

Resolution 9

The Best a Man Can Get.

Yes, hello. New Year, new blog. I'm sure you know what the reasons might be behind all this. I'm sure you watched the last season of Ugly Betty, where she started writing a blog and about three weeks later was offered a job running an expensive magazine by an unconvincing Englishman.

The point is, essentially, that I'm very interesting and have lots of worthwhile opinions, and this will give me the opportunity to air them in public, where people will be able to keep me in line by calling me a pointless dead-eyed prick.

Content is going to be split between commenting on film and television from a UK perspective, and also documenting the continuing weirdness that is my life - an existence that manages to be tolerable yet hellish, and that I wouldn't wish on others since they would struggle to cope with the surreal milieu to which I have become accustomed.

In any case, there will probably be a TRON: Legacy review shortly - where I shall try to avoid any comments relating to Olivia Wilde's fetish costume - and the glory of my opinions on screen-related stuff, apart from gaming, since I have no interest in gaming, or ITV, 'cos it's shite.

To kick off, a few observations made while venturing out of doors on New Year's Day:

1. I went to Burger King as a treat for lunch, and noticed a poster reading, "Crying Out For Onion Rings?" I wondered exactly what kind of person would do that, as they prostrated themselves in front of the counter, beating their hands against the floor.

2. Habitat is selling fitted kitchens with a "Lifetime Carcass Guarantee". I hope that, rather than being a peculiar translation error, they've started to anthropomorphise their goods. I look forward to being criticised on my eating habits by my own fridge.

3. HMV is selling DVDs of "Doctor Who: Time and the Rani" with three different prices in the same store. As will soon be clear, I am a Doctor Who fan. I feel no shame.

4. A man spraying himself with deodorant, while fully dressed and standing on a Tube platform.

5. ITV deciding to show early-80s Sean Connery sci-fi western Outland in the early hours of last night, with in-vision sign language. Handy for a film with long sequences of silence.

See you back here in a couple of days, assuming I've not broken my REAL resolution. More of that then...