Quatermass Baguettes

Last night I watched an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD. This epsiode featured a dangerous gang of criminals who are so paranoid about getting caught that their plans never actually involve them doing anything illegal (their elaborate jewellery store heist is basically just one of them buying a watch, followed by a complicated getaway).

I got up at half past five this morning and was in work shortly after seven. There was a baguette run today. I had a white bread panini with roast beef, jalapeno peppers, savoury cheese, brie, sliced egg and English mustard. The resulting sandwich might have looked like something from The Quatermass Experiment but it did actually taste nice.

I took a half day and left shortly after eleven. I went out to the comic-book store and got Batman issue 708, Xombi issue 1, Northlanders issue 38 and DMZ issue 62. After that I went up to the stationary store and got some sketching pencils, erasers, pencil sharpener and a marker pen. I got my groceries for next week on my way home.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Last night I was playing some of Batman: Arkham Asylum on the PlayStation 3. It's a really fun game. The background is that Batman has captured The Joker and has brought him to Arkham Asylum, but it turns out that it's all a trap and that Arkham Asylum has been taken over by The Joker and his henchmen, and the staff, including Comissioner Gordon, have been taken hostage. Basically you play Batman and you have to explore the corridors of Arkham, fighting with The Joker's henchmen and all the other familiar Batman enemies, including The Riddler who has left a number of puzzles scattered around that you have to solve. It's a very involving game, and a lot of fun.

Later on I was watching the 1982 movie Halloween III: Season of the Witch, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. It's a very unusual sequel because, unlike every other movie in the Halloween franchise, this one does not focus on the indestructible psychopath Michael Myers. Instead it concerns the insane owner of a toy company called Silver Shamrock, who maufactures a range of popular children's Halloween masks which are advertised endlessly with an irritating countdown jingle ("Three more days to Halloween... Halloween... Halloween... Three more days to Halloween... Silver Shamrock"). However, it turns out that the masks are lethal booby traps which are due to be activated by a special signal transmitted on Halloween night. Apparently, the producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill, wanted to turn the Halloween franchise into a kind of anthology film series with a new seperate horror film released every year focussing on a different aspect of the Halloween season. However the idea was abandoned due to the total commercial failure of this movie. The original script was written by acclaimed writer Nigel Kneale, who created the Quatermass TV series, but he had his name taken off the film when his script was changed in order to make it more gruesome and violent.

I started writing my NaNoWriMo story yesterday. I got 2,026 words done yesterday. The target is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of November.

Today was yet another dull and quiet day in the office.

Quatermass II

Last night I was watching the final few episodes of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy on DVD. It was pretty good and very close to the novel. It's a very complex drama and has some really great performances.

I went over to my parent's house for Sunday lunch as usual, so that was nice. In the afternoon I was watching Quatermass II on DVD. It was a BBC science-ficton serial from 1955 about aliens arriving in meteors and taking over the minds of humans, which they use to build huge refineries to incubate more alien creatures so they can take over the world. It was all filmed live and obviously in some respects it hasn't aged very well (especially with the special effects), but it was still pretty good.

Visit to the Castle

Last night I was watching Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks on DVD. The story was from 1984 with Peter Davison as the fifth Doctor, who discovers that the Daleks are trying to break their creator, Davros, out of a prison space station to help them find a cure for a fatal disease they encountered during their last war. They are also sending robot duplicates of humans back along a "time corridor" to a warehouse in 1980s London to allow the Daleks to invade the Earth, again. It was a good episode with some high production values, plenty of action and suspense. However, it was also surprisingly violent for Doctor Who.

Later on last night I tried to watch the film Quatermass 2 on television, but I fell asleep during the middle of it. I'd actually been quite looking forward to seeing it, because I have the original TV series on DVD.

I got up early this morning to go out and get my groceries for the week. Then I went up to see Emily and we went along to visit Edinburgh Castle, which I have not been to for years. It's expensive to get in, but it is a nice place to walk around, with some interesting exhibits and nice views of the city, although it was very windy today as well. I got home before dark.

The events of the past few days have certainly made me think a lot. I think it is about time that I did certainly consider making changes in my life to become happier with myself and to increse my confidence. Aside from figuring out some way to be less afraid and less stressed all the time, and figuring some way to do things that I really need to do, like find a job that I actually like better, and find a girlfriend, and all these other things that I need to do. I know what I want to do, I just don't have a clue how to go about it.

David Lynch

Last night I saw the final couple of episodes of Quatermass and the Pit. It was very good. The story concerns the discovery of an alien spaceship buried for millions of years, which it turns out was reponsible for the unusually high amounts of so-called paranormal activity in the local area. It was made in 1959, and by today's standards its quite slow with a minimum of special effects, but it has a witty and genuinely gripping script, and great performances. It was also very influential. In fact Stephen King's novel The Tommyknockers bears a very strong resemblance to the show.

I also watched a movie called An American Haunting, directed by Courtney Solomon. The story is based on the famous American story of the Bell Witch. The film is mostly set in a small rural community in 1818 where the Bell family are tormented by an unseen force, which they believe is the result of a curse placed on them by a local witch. The film stars Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek, with Rachel Hurd-Wood as the eldest daughter and the principal focus of the hauntings. It wasn't too bad, with some quite suspenseful scenes.

Today at work we all had to pack away all the stuff on our desks into crates for the desk move at the weekend. It took ages. I've been sitting at that desk for about fourteen months now, and it's quite amazing how much rubbish accumulates. Of course, Monday will probably be absolute chaos.

This evening I went up to the Queen's Hall to see filmmaker David Lynch and 1960s folk singer Donovan Leitch. David Lynch was there mainly to answer audience questions, which were mostly about his Transcendental Meditation, it was all interesting though, and there were some interesting comments about his films, although he was very reluctant to discuss his film of Dune (an experience Lynch described as "a three-year nightmare"). After Lynch, Donovan Leitch came on and sang some of his hits (such as "Mellow Yellow", "Catch the Wind", "Colours", "Hurdy-Gurdy Man" and "The Universal Soldier"). It was a good evening.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I was watching a couple of episodes of Quatermass and the Pit on DVD last night. That's probably the most famous and well remembered of the Quatermass serials. It's really good, and very well-written and well-acted. The show was broadcast live and so there are a few sequences were the camera loses focus, or bumps into things and in one sequence where the camera operator seems to lose control of the thing and the picture ends up going all over the place.

Work was dull today, as usual. There is a big desk move happening at the weekend, where we are all going to end up in different rooms. I was really bored. My brother works as a musician and lives in London. He's a free-lance musician and part-time teacher and naturally his income can be very erratic, whereas I have a regular income. Also he shares a house with a bunch of people, whereas I have my own place. However, I have always envied him in a way because he does something that he really loves. My brother loves music and would probably still be involved in it even if he wasn't getting paid for it. The only reason I do my job is because I need the money. I'd like to be successful like my brother, I want to do something in film, writing, performance, something creative or cultural, but I'm kind of stuck because of my own stupidity and complete lack of any talent whatsoever.

On to something much more cheerful, I left work at around quarter past six and headed into Princes Street, where I killed about quarter of an hour looking at the DVD sales in HMV. I met my mum at around seven and we headed up to the King's Theatre to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play is one of William Shakespeare's most famous and best loved comedies. The story is set in Athens where Lysander and Hermia are in love, but Hermia's father insists that she marries Demeter, who is in love with her bust she is not interested in him. However, Helena is in love with Demeter who is not interested in her. Lysander and Hermia decide to elope and escape into the nearby forest, closely followed by Demeter, who is in turn followed by Helena. In the forest, Oberon, King of the Fairies and his Queen, Titania, are fighting, and a group of amateur actors are rehersing a play to be performed at the wedding of the Duke of Athens. I know the plya well, I've read it and I've seen it performed a few times. This was an Indian production of the play, and was extremely lavish, featuring musicians, dancers, singers, acrobats and martial artists from all over India and Malaysia. The show was very colourful and spectacular. It mixed the English dialogue with other languages. It was a great evening.

Slow Sunday

Last night was fairly quiet. I watched some of my new DVD. They hold up pretty well for the most part, although allowances have to be made for the fact that the shows are over fifty years old, were recorded live and feature barely any special effects or anything like that. It's interestign to think that in their day they were considered so disturbing that there were warnings before the shows saying that they were "unsuitable for children or those of you who have a nervous disposition", but now they are considered as disturbing as Disney films.

Today was fairly quiet as well, so far. I went out to renew my bus pass, but most of the travel shops were closed on Sundays so I got a copy of The Sunday Times and went to Costa Coffee for a chocolate muffin and a mocha before heading back home.

A Night Out

Yesterday was really busy. After work I went to my place with Joe, Jackie and Alan (stopping on the way for beer and pizzas). Joe and Jackie stayed for about an hour, because Joe had to go home and Jackie was due to meet some of her friends, but Alan was there until around nine, whereupon Alan and I went out. We went to a bar called Rush, that was supposed to be quite cheap and wasn't a bad place, although it certainly wasn't all that cheap. Then we went to a place called Siglo, which wasn't too bad and a club place called Espionage. We didn't stay long though, because Alan had a text message from Jackie asking us to meet her at a bar called Aspen, but it took ages to find the place. We left there with Jackie around one, and stopped off for a Subway. I had a six inch sandwich with ham, pastrami, salami, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Then we went our seperate ways, and I just walked home. We didn't really drink that much. Just a few bottles of beer at home and a couple of pints each at Rush. The reason for going to my place first was to save money. With the Alton Towers trip on Friday and Joe's 21st birthday the week after it's shaping up to be an expensive month.

My Mum came around today to take me for my lunch back home, because my Dad was playing golf, and their both off to Tunisia on holiday tomorrow. Mum and I got some grocery shopping for myself at Marks and Spencer. The DVD that I ordered a week and a half ago had arrived: