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.

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.

More Stranger Things

It was another long day at work. I was really tired by the end.

Back home I watched an episode of Stranger Things. I'm half way through it now, and the story's starting to pick up.

I'm watching an episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? which was a 1970s show about two best friends who reunite after one of them has been in the Army for five years. Despite playing best friends onscreen, the two lead actors, Rodney Bewes and James Bolam, apparently disliked each other during the filming of the show and now completely hate each other. 

Preacher

I saw the season finale of Preacher last night. I've kind of enjoyed it, I guess. I liked it enough to watch the whole series, but I always felt like I was waiting for it to be really awesome, and it never actually did. Also the entire plot is basically in the first and last episodes, which roughly adapts the first issue of the comic. I was kind of annoyed by it, but I will watch the second season.

It was a fairly quiet day at work. I listened to Chilling Tales: The Podcast which had two stories about a bad father who has an unpleasant experience in a fairground ghost train, and a gang of monsters hunting a little girl, who turns out to be a hunter herself. I also heard The Astonishing Legends Podcast which was discussing the mystery of the Mary Celeste.

Ghostbusters II

Last night I did some more writing, some reading, and watched some of Hostel Part IIwhich was on TV.

It was a pretty long day at work because there weren't many people in. I listened to some of a podcast called Saturday Night Freak Show which is usually devoted to discussing horror and cult movies, but this week was discussing Ghostbusters II, which apparently a lot of people do not like at all, but I remember really enjoying it when I saw it as a kid. When I was about 11 I thought it was funnier than the first one, which I have always liked but never really found particularly hilarious.

Millennium

Last night I was watching the first episode of Millennium from 1996.  It was a TV show created by Chris Carter (who came up with The X-Files) and it starred Lance Henricksen as a retired FBI profiler who has a unique ability to get inside the heads of serial killers, and he moves back to the suburbs of Seattle and becomes a consultant for a strange organisation called The Millennium Group.  It's a strange show, very much of it's time, and it lasted for three seasons, and totally changed each season.  The first one is extremely bleak and quite intense horror, the second went into bizarre fantasy-horror, and in the third it became an X-Files clone, and there was actually an X-Files / Millennium cross-over episode.  I still think Millennium is an underrated show.  It's dated, but it is still surprisingly disturbing for a mainstream network TV show.

Also last night I downloaded The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson on to my Kindle Fire.

It was a pretty long day at work.  I listened to This American Life about getting your money's worth, which told a short story from the point of view of a condom.  I also heard Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, which is basically an analysis of the whole history of the X-Men comics and their many, many spin-offs.  I heard Comedy of the Week (presenting a sketch comedy show called Daphne Sounds Expensive), Happy Sad Confused (which interviewed Tom Hiddleston and Nicholas Hoult) and one of my favourite podcasts You Must Remember This, about the "secrets and / or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century".

It was really hot today, surprisingly so.  The problem is that it's been really cold recently, and it often gets very cold at work, and so I was wearing my thick woolen top and thick jacket.  When I got home I was absolutely exhausted with heat.

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.

Scream 4

Last night I was watching a TV show called Awfully Good Ads which was about TV commercials that are so bad that they are funny. Some of them were really terrible. I fell asleep on my couch again. On Fridays I get up much earlier than usual, and I tend to stay up quite late so I often end up pretty much crashing out. Today I went out to see Scream 4, directed by Wes Craven. The movie opens on the tenth anniversary of the murders from the first film, when two teenagers recieve taunting phone calls and are then brutally stabbed to death by a "Ghostface" killer. The following day, Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell) returns to town to promote a book and becomes involved in the murders. It wasn't a bad movie at all. I was kind of doubtful about it because it was coming out eleven years after the last Scream movie, but it was fun. I loved the Scream movies and I used to watch them all the time. The movie is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

The Walking Dead

Last night I watched the first episode of The Walking Dead, and I thought it was really good. I've only ever read one issue of the comic-book series. I'll probably check out more now and some of the collected editions. I love a good zombie story. One good zombie story that I've been reading is the iZombie comic, in which it is possible, with difficulty, for the zombies to retain their humanity. After that I saw a couple of epsiodes of Spaced and The IT Crowd. It was another pretty dull day at work today and it seemed to last forever. I got home at about half past six.

Dog

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of the time watching TV. The weather was really good today. I went along to my parent's house today for lunch. We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, peas with ice cream for dessert. My brother and his girlfriend came over later on in the afternoon with their pet dog, a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Hamish. He's a really sweet, friendly little dog but also very curious and he was running around all over the garden checking everything out. I got back home at around seven. The first episode of The Walking Dead is on TV tonight. I've never seen that show and I'm really psyched to watch it. One thing I need to do during the week is get back on track with the Script Frenzy script. I seem to have fallen badly behind.

13 Pages

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of the time watching TV and reading. I was back at work today, and mostly it was another pretty quiet and dull day in the office. I got to 13 pages with the Script Frenzy script last night, so that was good.

A Few Days to Go

It was a pretty quiet evening last night. I watched repeats of Spaced and The IT Crowd. I also finished the fifth volume of Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo. It is really good and very different to the film version. Apparently they are making a live action version, which will be split into two films. Leonardo DiCaprio is apparently in line to produce it. Today was the start of another week at work and it was pretty much the same as usual. I got home at about half past six. There are only a few days to go until the Script Frenzy challenge starts. I am going to attempt it this year. I have been thinking very hard about it, but I still have no idea exactly what I'll be doing for it. I still don't know whether I'll be doing a movie script, a TV show or a comic book script.

(500) Days of Summer

Last night I was watching a TV movie called Christopher and His Kind which starred Matt Smith (the current Doctor in Doctor Who) as novelist Christopher Isherwood and it was about Isherwood's experiences as a gay Englishman in 1930s Berlin, as the Nazis come to power. It was quite an interesting show. I've never read any of Isherwood's books but I still thought it was good.

Today I decided to stay in. I watched a movie this afternoon called (500) Days of Summer, directed by Marc Webb. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a greetings card designer, who meets and falls in love with a co-worker (Zooey Deschanel). The movie is told in a non-linear style, moving back and forth in time during the five hundred days of their relationship from the joy and exuberance of the early days if the relationship to the bitterness and heartbreak of the end. It was a good film actually. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

As I've said before I'm not a huge fan of romance movies usually, and I know nothing about relationships as I've never really been in one and realistically have little to no chance of ever being in one.

Ricky Gervais Show

Last night I was watching an episode of The Ricky Gervais Show. Basically Ricky Gervais and his friends Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington did an internet podcast which have now been turned into an animated series. It pretty much consists of Karl Pilkington saying various ridiculous things while Gervais laughs at him. In this one they were talking about whether seals evolved from crossbreeding fish and dogs. I also watched a double bill of The Big Bang Theory.

There was a baguette run at work today and I got a white bread panini with roast beef, onions, jalapeno peppers, brie, savoury cheese, English mustard and sliced egg. I took a half day from work today and went up to the comic book store. I got Hellblazer issue 277, Batman: Streets of Gotham issue 21, Batman: The Dark Knight issue 2, Batman Incorporated issue 4, The New York Five issue 3, Fables issue 103, Spawn issue 205, Ultimate Spider-Man issue 156, Silver Surfer issue 2, Dracula: The Company of Monsters issue 8, Neonomicon issue 4 and Hellraiser issue 1. The Hellraiser comic was co-written by Clive Barker and marks the first time he has been directly involved with the franchise since the first Hellraiser movie in 1987.

I went for a drink afterwards. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading weekly comic book reviews on my Permanently Weird site? Let me know if it's something you'd be interested in reading about.

Pump Up the Volume

Last night I watched some of the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume, directed by Allan Moyle. The film stars Christian Slater as a shy, largely ignored high-school student, who has just recently moved into town. However, at night he hosts a pirate radio show from his bedroom which becomes a smash hit among the students, due to his anarchic, confrontational style but is widely hated by the faculty and parents. It is a good movie, with a really great soundtrack including Leonard Cohen and the Cowboy Junkies. However, watching it now it looks really dated. I think the internet and podcasts have effectively killed off traditional pirate radio stations.

After that I was watching an episode of Peep Show which I had seen several times before but was still funny. During it I felt really tired all of a sudden and came close to falling asleep on my couch, but I didn't.

It was another fairly quiet day at work, and I got back around half past six.

Dead Parrots

Last night I was watching episodes of Spaced, The IT Crowd and Red Dwarf, which used to be one of my favourite shows when I was about twelve, and is still very funny.

I also watched an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD. This episode featured the famous "Dead Parrot" sketch in which an increasingly exasperated customer (played by John Cleese) tries to persuade the owner of a pet store (Michael Palin) that his just-bought parrot is dead, despite the owner's excuses and diversions. It eventually culminates in a long rant from the customer: "The parrot is dead. It is deceased. It is a late parrot. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket. It has snuffed it. It has pulled down the curtains, shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies. This is an EX-PARROT!" Apparently it was based on a real incident that happened to Michael Palin when he took his car to be repaired, and the mechanic kept making excuses and denying there was anything wrong. When Palin pointed out that the engine was completely busted, the mechanic pointed out that the car was a very pretty colour. Palin allowed that it was but also stated that the colour didn't really matter much if the thing wouldn't move. It must be one of the most famous comedy sketches of all time.

I tried to do some drawing last night, but it turned out really badly.

I was back at work today, for the start of another week and it was pretty much another fairly dull and average day.

Monty Python

Last night I was watching a few episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. If you've never seen it, it's a sketch comedy series that started in 1969 and finished in 1974 and was written and performed by John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (who also did the bizarre animation sequences that became a trademark of the show). Sketch shows tend to be very uneven, and in my opinion a sketch show that makes me laugh about fifty per cent of the time is doing pretty well, but with the Monty Python episodes I found about sixty percent of the show funny. When you see the full episodes, as opposed to edited highlights, you get to see how well the sketches work together, also a lot of the less well-known sketches are really funny as well. I really enjoy Monty Python comedy in general, although I know that a lot of people really don't find them funny at all.

Today was my first day of my week off work, and I didn't really do much of anything. I spent the day on the computer, trying to do some writing but not really succeeding much. Although it is a nice feeling that I have got pretty much the whole week to do more or less whatever I want.

Pancakes

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watchng some TV and reading. I fell asleep on my couch while watchng the movie All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which for what I saw was an okay horror movie, but for some reason I wasjust feeling really tired.

Today my Dad came to collect me and take me over to my parent's house. The new issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived, which this month had a big feature article about the latest Woody Allen movie. I'm often surprised about how prolific Woody Allen is, considering that he releases at least one film a year. For lunch we had some sausage cassarole and some pancakes (diue to it being Pancake Day on Tuesday). I really like pancakes but I very rarely have them, so it was really nice.

After lunch I had a walk to a supermarket with my Mum and I got a DVD set of the complete Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series, which was in the sales. That should be really interesting to watch. Monty Python seems to be one of those shows where you don't often get to see the full episodes, more isolated clips and edited compilations.

Blake's Seventh Seal

Last night I was watching an episode of How TV Ruined Your Life, hosted by writer, comedian and TV critic Charlie Brooker. This episode was about technology and how TV had influenced people's views on it. It had a lot of clips from old TV shows, particularly some weird ones from the fifties which basically said that by the 1990s everyone would be living on the Moon with their own personal robot servant. It also had a few clips from a 1970s British show called Blakes 7, which Brooker described as being so downbeat it was as if the "lenses were crafted from frozen widow's tears". I've seen a lot of Blakes 7 and it was a good show and it was pretty much usual adventures in outer space with mosters, aliens, and so on. Part of what was interesting about the show was the unremitting bleakness of it all. The main characters pretty much spent all their time arguing and fighting with other and being alternately insulted and patronised by a super-computer that looked like a glass box full of old Christmas tree lights. It was a little like if Ingmar Bergman had directed Star Wars and it's still kind of notorious for ending the series with all the main characters being killed. The show continued with clips of David Hasselhoff flirting with his car in Knight Rider and clips form a show about text messaging, which seemed to be all the fun of watching a lot of people texting, i.e. not any fun at all.

I also started writing a new thing last night It's basically set on another planet and the idea is that it's going to be a really big thing from when people first arrive and start settling down there to the establishment of it's own kind of civilisation.

It was another quiet day at work. However one good thing was that I did get a lot of praise for the way I'd been working. The boss said that my work has been "excellent", which was really nice to hear.

Reading and TV

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of my time reading and watching TV. There wasn't really much on, though.

Today was another fairly quiet day at work. There is apparently going to be some building work going on in the office over the next few weeks, so that will probably be a real headache. I got home at around quarter past six and had a microwave spaghetti bolognese meal. It wasn't bad.

I'm looking forward to having next week off! I really don't know what I'll be doing, except on the Wednesday when I'm going to the Dental Institute. Still, it should be fun and I usually manage to find something to do!