The Orphanage

Last night I was watching a couple of episodes of Tales of the Unexpected. The first story involved a yong man who gets a room in a bording house owned by a very sinister landlady. The second episode starred John Gielgud as a butler who goes to extreme lengths after the obnoxious lady of the house (played by Joan Collins) gets her head stuck in a sculpture.

This morning when I got into work I went to an appointment with the welfare officer to discuss my depression about the events of the past few days, as well as the various other things about work, I was up there for a long time, but there wasn't really much else that he could suggest. I do think that it is time for a change really when it comes to work. I could probably do with going somewhere on holiday this year, as well.

After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to meet my mum. We saw a film called The Orphanage, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, and produced by Guillermo Del Toro. It's a Spanish language film, about a woman who moves with her husband and young adopted son, into the old one-time orphanage, where she spent part of her childhood. Shortly after they arrive the son starts to talk to a strange new imaginary friend. After he vanishes at a party, the woman finds herself drawn into a disturbing series of supernatural events. It's a brilliant old-fashioned style ghost story, as well as being an involving mystery and it is genuinely frightening at times.

I went to my parents' house for dinner and picked up the latest issue of Fortean Times which had arrived during the past couple of days.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

Last night I was watching a film on television called The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, directed by Stephen Hopkins. The film opens in the 1950s with Peter Sellers (played by Geoffrey Rush) already fairly successful in Britain due to his starring role in the hugely popular BBC radio series The Goon Show. However, encouraged by his pushy mother (Miriam Margolyes) and supportive wife Anne (Emily Watson), Sellers sets his sights on the film world and soon becomes a major star due to films such as The Pink Panther and Dr. Strangelove. However, as he plunges into the world of Hollywood excess, his wife leaves him, and he starts to lose his own sense of identity, as well as suffering increasing ill-health. The film depicts Sellers' personal relationships with women such as his second wife Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron), and his difficult professional relationships with directors such as Blake Edwards (John Lithgow), who is portrayed as a glitzy Hollywood type who pronounces "Hollywood is a state of mind!" and Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci), who is a portrayed as a sinister control freak. Sellers is portrayed as a phenomenally talented, and very funny man, who is also selfish, childish, irresponsible, sex-obsessed and given to violent tantrums. He is also portrayed as someone who was only comfortable when he was pretending to be someone else (in an inteview he once said: "There was a real me behind the mask once, but I had him surgically removed"). The film is really sad but also very funny. It's very well-acted, particularly by Rush who plays not only Sellers but also delivers monologues to the camera in the persona of the various other characters.

I also watched a good episode of Tales of the Unexpected called "Skeleton in the Cupboard" and starred Charles Dance as a very rich executive, who meets a young woman who is trying to track him down. He immediately assumes it was because some years previously he killed a child in a hit and run accident and was never found out. Terrified of his secret being revealed he decides that the only solution is murder.

Today has been very quiet and fairly dull at work. I spent some time trying to solve a puzzle that was going around the office. It was kind of a riddle, but I managed to solve it eventually.

Hammer House of Horror

Last night I was watching Hammer House of Horror on TV. This week's episode was called "The House That Bled to Death". It was about a family that move into a normal looking suburban house, where a murder was committed several years previously. Of course, it's not long before the family are plagued by strange and gruesome happenings, culminating in a memorable set-piece where they are hosting a children's party, and while all the kids are eating, a pipe bursts and sprays blood all over the table. That sequence was nominated as one of the 100 Greatest Scary Moments in a TV poll a few years ago. The episode itself is basically like The Amityville Horror compressed to about an hour. After that I watched a couple of episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, in which a nervous businessman (played by one-time Doctor Who Peter Davidson) who waits for a visit from a call girl in a hotel gets involved in an amusing case of mistaken identity. In the second episode a verger is fired from his job because he can't read or write and sets up a successful chain of tea-shops.

Today has been fairly quiet at work, but I managed to get away quite sharply, so that was good. The weather also seems to be starting to brighten up a bit now.

Of course, today is Saint Patrick's Day, one of the guys working at my desk at work is Irish and he announced on Friday that he was going to be off work today. When he was asked why he replied: "It's St. Paddy's Day. It's my national duty to get drunk."

Start of Another Week

Last night I was watching a couple of episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, the first one was about a doctor who is distraught when his beautiful wife leads him and then later turns up as a hit-and-run victim, but it soon turns out that things are not what they seem. The second one was about a successful English novelist doing a publicity tour in New York where he begins to be plagued by abusive phone calls threatening his life. Both of them were kind of disappointing with fairly predictable twists.

Today has been fairly quiet. Mostly it was a fairly average day at work. I left at around quarter past six and on my way home I bought a copy of The Independent for the latest in the Great Poets series (today the booklet discussed John Donne, Ben Johnson, George Herbert and Andrew Marvell).

Tales of the Unexpected

Last night I was watching a pretty good episode of Tales of the Unexpected called "Clerical Error". The story revolved around two elderly brothers who run an antique book store, however on the side they scour the newspaper obituaries to find wealthy, respectable men who have recently died and send their greiving relatives large "outstanding bills" for very old but very dirty books, which the relatives pay to save embarrasement. However their latest victim manages to turn the tables on them.

It was another dull day at work. Another one of the key systems unexpectedly crashed for about three hours today, which threw everything into chaos. I telephoned the IT department after about two hours and they said they had no idea what was wrong or when it would be fixed. They did work it out eventually though.

I returned home to a blown fuse and a burnt out lightbulb in my living room. Luckily I managed to get them both fixed up.

Hammer House of Horror

Last night I saw an episode of Hammer House of Horror. The story was called "The Two Faces of Evil" and was about a family on a drive through the country, who pick up a hitchhiker in a storm. Almost as soon as he gets in, the hitch-hiker attacks the husband causing a severe car crash. Recovering in hospital it turns out that the family have survived, without serious injury, except for the father who was attacked by the hitch-hiker. The attacker himself is dead. However, as they are recovering, the wife starts to notice strange things in her husband's behaviour, which makes her think that her husband may be posessed by the spirit of the hitch-hiker. It was pretty good, if not very scary.

I also saw an episode of Tales of the Unexpected. That story was called "William & Mary" about a woman whose hated, academic husband has recently died. Shortly afterwards she discovers that he has in fact survived - as a disembodied brain in a metal box. It was pretty good.

It was a very dull and average day at work, and I have still had no word from Michele! I just wish I knew what was actually going on.

Start of Another Week

Last night was fairly quiet. I watched a documentary called There's Something About... Dahl, which was about the writer Roald Dahl. It was pretty interesting. I also watched a film called Severance on television. It's about a group of London office workers on a "team building" paint-balling trip into the wilds of Hungary, where they are picked off one by one by a sadistic killer. The film blends comedy and gruesome horror, not always succesfully, and comes across a bit like a mix of The Office and The Hills Have Eyes. I also watched a triple bill of episodes of Tales of the Unexpected. The first one starred Derek Jacobi as a homeless man who has a valuable work of art tattoed on his back, the second one involved an elederly gentleman who is shocked to encounter the bully who tormented him during his days at boarding school and the final story involved a man in India who wakes up to find a deadly snake resting on his stomach.

Work was very slow and dull. There was barely any work in today at all.

Last night I was reading the first story in The Bloody Chamber collection that I got on Saturday, the title story. It was a beautifully written story about a young bride who discovers that her new husband hides a very nasty secret.