Diary

A busy week. I managed to start it by annoying a friend by inadvertently claiming, thanks to some poorly-chosen words and an over-enthusiastic continuation of a long-expired private joke, that I was passing off my opinions as hers. Always a good plan for a Monday. Really takes the sting out of the rest of the week.

Monday also saw another networking event for aspiring film people. Don't get me wrong, I know these can serve a terrific purpose and the organisers do their level best to have them run smoothly, but by Christ I hate them. I dread having to walk up to total strangers, introduce myself and then launch into a sales pitch about how great I am. It's like trying to chat someone up, but using the medium of public speaking and knowing you definitely aren't having sex later.

On the plus side however, I did meet a few people who found me interesting - possibly because of the ragged state of my trousers - and I got an email a few days from an agent who asked me for some writing samples. So that's nice.

Tuesday was to have been a work evening. Instead I did bugger all.

Wednesday was film quiz night. We won, yet again, but a miscount with the points meant that we wound up third. As a result, our prize was doubled to 24 bottles of beer to be split between five people. Weirdly, this almost degenerated into an argument between myself and another teammate, who happens to be The Most Famous Person I Know, because I wouldn't take any. You can't put beer into the hands of a man trying to lose weight. You may as well shove a white baguette down my gullet.

The novelty wears off quickly.

An interesting occurrence a little earlier. The cinema nearby has a little 3D demonstration booth set up nearby, with a Blu-ray player running trailer clips on a loop and a couple of polarised glasses on poles.

I have an astigmatic left eye, which simply means that the muscles are not as strong as they should be. My right eye tends to dominate, therefore, which is why I have poor depth perception - hence my excuse for being rubbish at most sports, since I can't tell how far away the ball is - and have never seen a Magic Eye picture.

I had assumed that I wouldn't be able to see polarised 3D either, since I thought the eyes would need to be of equal strength. I had a look through the glasses, and it turns out they don't. I'm a bit late to catch Tron: Legacy again, so it's going to have to be The Green Hornet tomorrow as my first experience of a 3D movie. Let's hope it doesn't put me off, eh?

Even more amusing was the fire drill at work that afternoon. As a fire marshal, I outrank everyone once the alarm sounds, so I was a little surprised to find a colleague still sitting in the kitchen, supping at a cuppa and browsing through the Metro. A little interrogation revealed that he thought it was fine to ignore the alarm, that it didn't apply to him and was probably a drill.  I attempted to hustle him out of the building, to no avail, and then the building supervisor turned up.

I was forced to suppress a smile, as he casually told the transgressor that he would be reported to his HR department and took my name to act as witness at any resulting disciplinary hearing. Looking rather sheepish, the asbestoid twit departed through the nearest fire exit.

Thursday was book group day, and this seems to be attracting fewer and fewer attendees each month. The subject of discussion was Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, which everyone seemed to enjoy, thus rendering any serious debate a little redundant. Nevertheless, an enjoyable evening was had.

"I could grow to love this place."
Only "could"?

Friday evening was another exercise in work avoidance. Instead of matching up my highlighted notes from the "how to write" book with the screenplay I had actually written, I decided to watch Local Hero instead, thus eroding my huge, teetering pile of unwatched DVDs by the tune of one. It's a beautiful film, a sheer miracle. If you haven't seen it, it's available for peanuts from Play.
Soon there will be more here, about my first 3D movie, why I'm not a member of Alarm Clock Britain and my worrying parsnip obsession. But that's all for now.

Diary

Dear me, back to the grindstone.

I was caught taking Female Portuguese Housemate's clothes out of the washing machine on Monday. What did she worry I would do? Try them on?

The return to the office was as fun-packed as might be expected, especially with the news that the person who was supposed to be covering for me over Christmas was too busy to do anything of the kind. I have literally spent the last two days doing nothing else, while the accounts department hassles me to finish up the special spreadsheet for the end of the year. Not only is this a bit rich coming from people who've kept me waiting with worse excuses in the past, but it seems that even the real pen-pushers are trying to push me around. Apparently they got a bollocking for it, though. Serves them right, big meanies.

The other delightful aspect of leaving the cozy comfort of the Christmas holidays for the harsh psychological beating of January is getting back into a keep fit habit. In my case, I start this by having scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. Only following orders.

My personal trainer - yes, I have a personal trainer - advised this for the combination of protein and carbs. It seems to be protein all round, since I managed to lose a fair bit of weight before Christmas while having steak and chops for dinner. I am also now capable of press-ups.

I know you want to eat me.

The routine I have to get back into is not too tough. After washing down the eggs with orange juice, I can have a yoghurt mid-morning, soup for lunch - with my own choice of flavours. Today, Chicken! - and some fruit mid-afternoon. A sensible dinner, lots of water and the occasional filter coffee without sweetener, and I'm well on the way to being a miserable sack of undefined flesh. Which is where the daily hour of exercise comes in. Running during lunch or after work, cycling around the place and press-ups and stomach crunches before getting in the shower all add up to making my grey bulbous body even more odd-looking. But apparently I'll live longer than you, so I get dibs on your stuff.

The other routine to back into is working on my scripts and attempting to interest people in them. I've started re-reading and redrafting I.T.D., the first of the magnum opi, but hit a slight snag last night when I dozed off after page 8. That I managed to bore myself is criticism that I shall ignore.

Now for a bit more, then tea, then off to see 127 Hours. I may report back.