Vagabond

My Dad came over and took me to a shopping centre.  We went to Starbucks where I had a mocha and a stack of pancakes, then we looked around on our own.  I bought a five year diary and a couple of books:  An Inspector Calls and Other Plays by J.B. Priestley and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

Dad and I went back to my parent's house.  I gave my Mom her Mother's Day present and card.  I drew a picture of a cat in  her card, and she seemed to really like it.  For lunch we had a selection of Indian food.

Dad took me back home.  This evening I watched the movie Vagabond, directed by Agnes Varda, who died on Friday at the age of 90.  It's a bleak and disturbing film which opens with the discovery of a young drifter (played by Sandrine Bonnaire) dead in a ditch, and then details her last days wandering through wintery rural France.  It's a bleak, grim and powerful film.

I finished reading the book Mindhunter:  Inside the FBI Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, which was really good, and genuinely quite suspenseful and gripping.

How Not to Be a Boy

Last night I was watching the latest episode of Strike, a TV show based on the series of crime novels by Robert Galbraith (who is actually a pseudonym for Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling).  It's been a really good show so far.  This is the fourth episode and the second book to be adapted.

It was busy at work.  I was trying to arrange for some books to be collected and sent on someplace else, which is apparently a lot more difficult than you might think.

I had some pizza when I got home, which was nice.

I read the book How Not to Be a Boy by Robert Webb, who is a British comedian, actor and writer, best known as one half of comedy duo "Mitchell and Webb", alongside David Mitchell, and co-star of long-running sitcom Peep Show. This book is his account of growing up in rural England during the 1980s and 90s, his start in comedy, and also his take on the traditional "rules" of how to be a man or boy, and gender norms, and whether they are any good for anyone. It's a thought-provoking book, and also very, very funny and often genuinely moving.

It

Last night I went out and saw It, based on the Stephen King novel.  I saw the two part miniseries adaptation from 1990 when I was about 15, and it was really my introduction to Stephen King, and I saw it several times.  I also read the book when I was 15, and I was on this massive King kick and buying pretty much everything I could find from him.  It is still one of my favorite Stephen King works.  The movie is good, and sticks fairly close to the book, although the setting is updated to 1989.  It's set in a small town in Maine (where else?), which is being terrorised by a string of mysterious disappearances of children.  Seven outcast kids band together to find out what is going on.  They soon learn that the culprit is a weird clown called Pennywise, which is just one manifestation of a hugely powerful, evil, shape-shifting entity, that the kids just call "It".

I saw the show with my friends Alan and Jackie, and we went out afterwards to Five Guys for some food.  I had a bacon cheeseburger and fries.  Then we had some drinks before heading home.

I went along to my parent's house today for lunch, which was fun.  When I got home I got the book I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist delivered.  I had pre-ordered it a few weeks ago.  Lindqvist is a Swedish horror writer, who is probably best known for Let the Right One In which was turned into a hugely successful Swedish movie, and was re-made in the US as Let Me In. 

I also got some writing done.

EveryDaze Comics

Spaceballs

Last night I was watching the movie Spaceballs, directed by Mel Brooks, which is a pretty funny spoof on the Star Wars movies from 1987. 

I also saw an episode of Peep Show, a British comedy show starring comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb as a pair of losers living in London. The whole show is filmed from the perspective of the characters in the scene, with voice-overs revealing their innermost thoughts. I really like, although it is often pretty dark. They made a pilot for a US version, but it never got picked up. It was kind of similar to the original show, but not nearly as dark.

I was back at work today after my few days vacation. I was listening to the Robin and Josie's Book Shambles podcast where Robin Ince and Josie Long interviewed comedian Alexei Sayle. They discussed how people do seem to be becoming more engaged with politics and activism and are coming together and so on and so on, and how grass-roots creative culture can have an impact and provide a reason for hope even when things get really bad.

I got a take-out steak-pie and french fries, and I have got to 15,004 words on my NaNoWriMo novel.

Rivers of London

Last night I finished reading the book Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. It's a blend of urban fantasy and police thriller. Police Constable Peter Grant is a rookie cop in London who is ordered to guard a headless corpse and finds himself taking a witness statement from a ghost. He is soon introduced to the secret side of Old London Town: a city of magic, vampires, ghosts and gods. As the headless corpse turns out to be just the first in a series of vicious, unexplained acts of violence sweeping the city, Peter learns that an old force has awakened, at the same time he finds himself embroiled in a feud between the two gods of the River Thames. It's a hugely entertaining novel. I reviewed it here: http://permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/rivers-of-london-by-ben-aaronovitch.html

I'm looking forward to seeing the new series of Black Mirror on Netflix tonight.

Dreamcatcher

I finally finished watching Game of Thrones season four, which I really liked. I'm hoping to start season five this evening. 

I went in to work today, and I was pretty busy. I listened to the Just a Story podcast which was quite a dark episode about situations where actual dead bodies have been confused for Halloween decorations. 

On a lighter note, I listened to the How Did This Get Made? podcast which was discussing the movie Dreamcatcher, probably the worst movie ever based on a Stephen King novel - and that's saying a lot. It's about four psychic friends on a hunting trip who come up against aliens that burst out of people's butts. I saw it when it first came out in 2003, and according to the notes I made at the time, it's garbage. The podcast was funny though.

I also heard Talking Movies which was about those movies that you loved when you were younger, but are now reluctant to watch again for fear that they might not be as good as you remember, or movies that you once loved, but now think are terrible.