Memories of "Casino"

Last night I was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1959, about a stressed out executive who returns to his old home town and finds himself transported back in time and meets his family and himself as an eleven year old. I also watched one of the first Doctor Who episodes from 1963, it was the first story to feature the Daleks (the show's most popular adversary). It's really interesting going back to the earliest epsiodes of shows that you like and seeing how they begin. It often takes awhile to get everything worked out in a series. It's interesting that Doctor Who was originally conceived as an educational series to teach kids about history, and most of the stories were not intended science-fiction elements aside from the central premise of time-travelling, however they would put in the odd trip to the future and other planets for a bit of variety. However it soon became apparent that viewers much preferred the science-fiction stories to the historical ones and they were quickly phased out after a few years.

I also watched a documentary about the true story behind the Martin Scorsese film Casino. It was really interesting although I knew a lot of it already because I had read the Nicholas Pileggi book that the film was based on. I remember watching the film with my Gran and in one scene where Joe Pesci's character had comitted a brutal murder and was going on a swear-laden rant, my Gran piped up with: "Eee, Joe, you don't want to be using language like that. You'll get your mouth washed out with soap and water." Bad language was the only thing that ever really bothered my Gran. I remember she was once complaining about something she had seen on TV and I said to her that I thought she liked her murder stories, and Gran replied: "Oh, I love my murders, but only the nice ones." I asked her what exactly a nice murder was, and she thought for a bit before replying: "Well, one where no-one uses any bad language."

I had a really bad night's sleep last night and I was absolutely stuffed up with the cold this morning. The whole day was freezing cold and there was a very thick mist. It was really cold at work as well, where there was hardly anyone in.