Easter Decorations

Last night was pretty quiet. I stayed in and watched TV and read some of my books. Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch. We had spicy chicken fajitas for lunch, and in the afternoon I went out with my Mum and we got a small branch, which we do every year, because my Mum likes to decorate them for Easter. I'm listening to a radio play version of Torchwood (a spin-off from Doctor Who about a group in Cardiff fighting off alien threats) in this episode they are investigating a group in India who are using alien technology to live forever in "one perfect day" (140 years ago). It bears a passing similarity to an issue of The Sandman comic. It's pretty good though, and works well on te radio. It's the second episode of The Walking Dead on TV tonight, so I'll be watching that.

The Man with the Twisted Lip

Last night I listened to another radio drama based on a Sherlock Holmes short story. This was based on the 1891 story called "The Man with the Twisted Lip" in which Dr Watson is summoned to find the husband of his wife's friend, who is indulging a lengthy drug binge in a dangerous opium den. While he's there he meets Sherlock Holmes in disguise and becomes involved in Holmes' search for a missing person who he believes could have met at a bad end at the hands of the opium den owner and a mysterious beggar. It was a pretty good story and it worked really well on the radio.

I was also watching another couple of episodes of Twin Peaks. I read an interview with David Lynch a week ago where he said that he really doubts that there will ever be any more Twin Peaks, but he didn't totally rule it out. The movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me really didn't do very well, although I really liked it, even if it doesn't really make much sense unless you've seen the series.

Even though it was Good Friday today I still went to work. I usualy take a couple of days off over the Easter period, but since I have had so much time off recently I just went into work. The place was pretty much empty, but they brought some cakes round and I had a slice of cherry pie.

Easter Specials

I got to a total of 42 pages of the Script Frenzy script yesterday.

Last night I listened to a good episode of The Twilight Zone radio series called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" about a future world where everyone is forced to have plastic surgery on their nineteenth birthday so they all look exactly the same. It was a pretty disturbing story that worked really well on the radio.

Following that I watched the Doctor Who Easter special. Instead of having a full length season this year, they are having four special episodes broadcast throught the year. It was a really enjoyable episode.

Later on I saw the second part of the new three part Red Dwarf special, which I thought was very funny. The problem is, because it's now being shown on a commercial cable channel, the new episodes are ten minutes shorter than they were on the BBC due to the advert breaks.

I went along to my parent's house this afternoon for lunch. We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, stuffing and peas, followed by marshmallows and melted chocolate. The afternoon was pretty quiet.

Back to Work

Yesterday afternoon I was watching a DVD of the Doctor Who story "The Daleks" from 1964. It was the second Doctor Who story broadcast and the first to feature the Daleks. It wasn't a bad story, even if the special effects have naturally aged quite badly. It's also interesting in the fact that the Doctor (William Hartnell) was a much more ambiguous character in the early stories, in this one for example he deliberately sabotages the TARDIS so he can investigate the alien city where they encounter the Daleks, who became an instant hit with the viewers in the sixties (there was even a rubbish pop song from a group called the Go-Gos called "I Want to Spend My Christmas With a Dalek").

I also finished reading my book for the next book group meeting: Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson. The novel is set in November 2002 where PC Billy Tyler is assigned to spend a twelve hour night shift in a hospital morgue to guard the body of one of Britain's most notorious killers. Sitting alone in the dead of night he starts reflecting on his past and present and realtionships with his family and friends. He even imagines himself having conversations with the killer's ghost. It's a book I really didn't think I was going to like, but it was pretty good. Not much really happens in it, but it is still quite disturbing. It is very stylish and well-written.

I went back to work today after my four day Easter break. There was literally no work around at all, so we just had to make do with what came by. Most people ended up leaving early. I spent a bit of time filling out the form for the annual performance review, so that's another thing to worry about. I left at around five and renewed my bus pass. On my way home I bought the latest copy of Total Film magazine.

This evening I've got to go and finish off my story for the evening class tomorrow. This'll be the last class. Which is a pity because it has been really good.

End of the Easter Break

Today I was still off work and so I had a long lie in bed and then I went out to the shops. I bought a bunch of Doctor Who DVDs in the sales. The ones I got were a 1960s story called "The Invasion" which starred Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor having to foil yet another attempt by the Cybermen to take over the Earth, and a box-set called "New Beginnings" which featured three linked stories from 1980: "The Keeper of Traken", "Logopolis" and "Castrovalva". I had intended to go and renew my bus pass, but the shop was closed today.

It's been really cold today and there has even been some snow. I have to go back to work tomorrow, but it has been a very nice few days off.

Eating Out

Last night I headed up to a Moroccan restaurant called The Fez Restaurant, to meet up with some people, Sarah, kate and Kate's finacee Stuart. However when we arrived we found out that the Fez Restaurant had been closed for three years, despite the fact that Kate had telephoned them to reserve a table and had even telephoned them that day to confirm the reservation, so that was pretty weird. Although we did manage to find another Moroccan restaurant called Walima, so we went there. It was a nice restaurant and I had a mixture of barbecued meat (lamb, chicken and prawn), with some rice and salad and a kind of spicy sauce, so that was really nice. For dessert I had a vanilla, strawberry and chocolate flavour ice-cream. We pretty much went our seperate ways after dinner, but it was a nice time.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch and they gave me an After Eight Easter Egg. We had chicken, sausage, stuffing, roast potatoes and peas, with ice cream and some white wine. After lunch my mum and I played Scrabble (she won by 243 to 200).

The Curse of Steptoe

Last night I was watching an interesting show on TV called The Curse of Steptoe, which was about the miserable lives of the two lead actors of the hit 1960s comedy show Steptoe and Son. Steptoe and Son ran from 1962 until 1974 and concerned two rag-and-bone men (basically guys who collected people's rubbish for them). Albert Steptoe (played by Wilfred Brambell) was an obnoxious, lecherous, ill-mannered, foul-mouthed old guy, while his son Harold (Harry H. Corbett) was constantly seeking to better himself and leave his father, their messy house, and the rag-and-bone trade. However his efforts are constantly thwarted by his father, who was naturally a lot smarter than he is. However they are both kind of bonded to each other in a kind of love-hate relationship. In The Curse of Steptoe Harry H. Corbett was already making a name for himself on the stage (he was dubbed "Britain's Marlon Brando") who ended up being completely typecast as Harold Steptoe, and in fact came to hate the show and the character, but he was making too much money to walk away from it , and also he just wasn't getting offered any other work. While Wilfred Barambell was presented as an extremely repressed individual, who was riddled with self-hatred. It was quite entertaining and very thought-provoking.

Work was fairly quiet, as usual. I left a little earlier than usual and went for a couple of drinks at the New Yorker bar with my friend Joe. I am off work until Tuesday, so that should be nice. A long Easter weekend.