Mother's Day

I did write some more of my Script Frenzy script last night, which means I'm now on page eight of it. The general rule of thumb for screenplays is the one page of a script equals one minute of screentime. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet. I spent most of the time watching TV and reading. This morning my Dad came round and took me to the Omni Centre shopping centre. We had coffee and a muffin at Starbucks and then went out to look at our own stuff. I got a DVD of the Dario Argento movie Inferno and a book called Ricky Gervais Presents... The World According to Karl Pilkington. Of course it was Mother's Day today. Mom was really happy with her present (a book called Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde) and her card. I'd also brought along some olives for my parents. The latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived in the mail during the week. Among the articles this month was a feature about director Wim Wenders, an article about New Russian Cinema and a feature about the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo. My mum had ordered Dad to make the lunch today, which was salmon, roast potatoes and peas. I thought it was nice, but Mum didn't seem to happy with it for some reason. I got home at around five, also I have tomorrow off work, so that should be good!

The Dharma Bums

Last night I finished reading the book The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, which was first published in 1958. The novel opens in October 1955 and concerns aspiring writer Ray Smith who makes his way to San Francisco where he meets poet and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder. Enthused by Ryder's beliefs and philosophies, Smith joins him on his mountain-climbing expeditions in the High Sierras. However, Ray soon finds his devotions to the simple life sorely tested by the marathon poetry readings, wine-fuelled orgies and wild, three-day parties that make up bohemian life in San Francisco. It is an autobiographical book. All the characters are loosely disguised real people. Kerouac himself is Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder is poet Gary Snyder. Kerouac's friend and fellow "Beat Generation" luminary Allen Ginsberg appears as Alvah Goldbook, and an early scene describes the famous Six Gallery poetry reading at which Ginsberg first performed his classic poem Howl (which is named "Wail" in the book). There's not much of a story to it but the book does contain some truely beautiful writing, and there are some amusing anecdotes of Kerouac's adventures hitch-hiking across America. The book is reviewed at Permanently Weird.

I was back at work today, and it was pretty much an average dull day. I was doing an "Environmental Awareness" test that apparently everyone has to do at work, and I got 92%. It really wasn't a difficult test at all. I also have all of next week off work! I've got a lot of annual leave left and I'll lose a lot of it if I don't use it by the end of March, so that should be fun.

I got home at around quarter past six and had a microwaved chicken and bacon pasta bake ready meal, which was quite nice. I've seen the main Oscar results. The King's Speech got four awards. I've not seen that movie. Although I was glad that Natalie Portman got the Best Actress nomination for Black Swan. I think she deserved it.

More Stuff

Last night was fairly quiet. I spent most of the time watching TV and reading my book.

Today was the start of another week at work, and it was fairly quiet. As usual. There seems to be quite a few people off today. There must be something going round.

I was on the Meetup.com site and joined a group called "Vampires, Zombies and Horror Movies/Literature". Which I thought might be quite fun.

Pattern Recognition

Last night I was watching the 2005 movie Sin City directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller with "Special Guest Director" Quentin Tarantino. The movie is based on a series of graphic novels by Frank Miller and tells four connected stories set in a violent city. It's all hugely stylised film-noir shot in black and white with occasional flashes of colour. It is a really good movie.

I went along to my parent's house today for lunch and in the afternoon I finished reading the novel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. The book was published in 2003 and tells the story of Cayce Pollard, a woman who has a bizarre allergy to certain corporate logos and symbols and who earns money by testing the effectiveness of company's new logos. She is hired by an advertising agency to investigate the origin of a series of strangely addictive film clips which are being released onto the internet. It is a really good book and very well written.

Both Sin City and Pattern Recognition are reviewed on Permanently Weird.

Eye Test

Today I was up fairly sharp because I had to go and meet my Mum in the city centre. We had some coffee and I had a raspberry and white chocolate muffin, and then I had to go and have my eyes tested. I get them tested every two years to see if I need new glasses. The testing went fine except for when they tried to take photographs of the backs of my eyes and I couldn't stop blinking due to the bright flash they used. I literally couldn't not blink, not matter how hard I tried. My eyes were fine though, and they slightly modified the prescription, but I just decided to get a new frame to replace one that had broken.

After the eye test I went and had a look around the shops. I got a Tchaikovsky CD and a book called A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. I noticed there was a quote from Stephen King on the cover of the Straub book saying how great it was, and I just thought it was quite amusing because it's well known that Stephen King and Peter Straub are really good friends and so King is not likely to have a particularly objective opinion. I'm sure it's a good book or I wouldn't have got it, and you can hardly blame famous writers for wanting to promote their friend's books it just means you kind of have to take it with a pinch of salt.

More Lonely Cities

Last night I wrote a review of EmiTown by Emi Lenox on Permanently Weird, wrote some more on my comic and watched an episode of The Wire and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

It was another dull day at work. I got back at around six.

I actually think that I have nearly finished the script for the first issue of my comic. I know the look I want to go for on it. I'm going to try and write a few more issues this week and then at the weekend do some test drawings for the artwork.

Shame the Devil

Last night I finished reading the book Shame the Devil by George Pelecanos, who is probably best known as one of the writers on the TV show The Wire. The book was published in 2000 and tells the story of the botched robbery of a pizza parlour which leaves several people dead, and the robber's return two and a half years later to get revenge on the cop who shot dead his brother. Like all of Pelecanos' books it is set in and around Washington D.C. and deals with themes of violence, betrayal, loyalty, family, friendship and the difficulty of doing the right thing in a violent world, as well as classic American cars, basketball and soul and funk music of the seventies. It's a good book and recommended for fans of crime novels and thrillers. There's a review on Permanently Weird.

It was the start of another week at work today. It was a pretty dull day. On the way home I stopped off and got a mince pie with fries for my dinner.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Last night I finished reading the book The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. It's the second part of the Millennium Trilogy which began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and concludes with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. In this book a young journalist and his student girlfirend, who were both writing an expose on prostitution, are found murdered in their home. The chief suspect is enigmatic computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. The target of a nationwide police search and media frenzy, the only one who seems convinced that she did not kill the couple is journalist Mikael Blomkvist who races to prove her innocence and find the real killer before it's too late. It's a good book actually. Personally, I preferred it to the first book, but they really have to be read in order. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

Later on I watched a TV show called Dirk Gently, which was loosely based on the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (author of Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy), it's about a private detective who uses the "interconnectedness of all things" and quantum physics to solve his cases and how an investigation into a missing cat becomes a bizarre tale involving time travel and murder. I enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny.

Today was a pretty dull day at work. I was only working for six hours. I'm now off work until the 31st December.

The Runaways

This morning my Dad came to collect me and we went to the Gyle shopping centre. I had a scone and a mocha in the coffee section and then we split up to look at our own things. I got a book called The Hell of It All by Charlie Brooker, which is a collection of TV reviews. Charlie Brooker is a TV reviewer and general commentator and does various TV shows where he discusses TV, video games and the news and he hosts a comedy panel shows, and has written a couple of other books. I think he's really clever and funny. I also got a CD called American Anthems which is a collection of American rock anthems from the 1980s mostly. I happen to like that kind of music.

Then we went over to my parent's house. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived, which this month featured an article on the possibility of a giant serpent living in Sweden and an article exploring the background to the Peid Piper of Hamelin myth. The new issue of Sight and Sound also arrived, featuring this month a centenary tribute to director Akira Kurosawa. In the afternoon my Mum and I went out for a bit of a walk.

In the evening I went up to the Cineworld cinema to see the movie The Runaways, directed by Floria Sigismondi. The movie is set in the mid 1970s and tells the story of the all-girl rock band The Runaways, focusing mainly on lead singer Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). The movie is pretty much a typical rock movie biography, but it's a lot of fun with a great soundtrack, and a cool, punky seventies feel to it. It also features great performances from Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Personally I really like Joan Jett, her version of "Crimson and Clover" is one of my favourite songs, but the movie only really deals with the early part of her career.

The Haunting of Hill House

Last night I watched another episode of the second season of True Blood on DVD. I'm a little over half way through it and I have been really enjoying this season so far.

I also finished reading the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. The book tells the story of a group of three people: the neurotic Eleanor, artistic Theodora and wealthy playboy Luke who are brought to the supposedly haunted mansion of Hill House by a doctor who is trying to investigate the supernatural. While they are there they experience a variety of bizarre events. The book is very well-written and intriguing, the supernatural elements are of a very ambiguous and very subtle nature. In fact the book is more about the psychology of the characters rather than supernatural horror. It was filmed twice as The Haunting in 1963 and 1999. The 1963 version is a mastepriece of horror cinema but the 1999 version is, to be honest, garbage.

I was at work today and it was another very quiet and ordinary day. I have decided to take Thursday off, and the reason for that is because on Thursday the tickets for the Film Festival go on sale, and the popular events sell out very quickly, in fact I've learned form bitter experience that if you do want anything you have to book up as quickly as possible. The programme is officially announced tomorrow. The weather was really good today and so I left work after six hours and went home.

Back home I read a short story called "Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick, in which humans who are travelling home from Mars bring aboard their spaceship a Martian pig-like creature called a Wub which, despite it being intelligent, peaceful and able to communicate with them, the humans are intent on killing and eating. However they learn that, when necessary, the Wub has a unique method of self-defence. It was a pretty good story.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Last night I finished reading the book Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. The book was first published in 1962 and is set during the last week of October in the small town of Green Town, Illinois. It tells the story of two 13 year old boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, who were born minutes apart, live next door to each other and have been best friends all their lives. The two boys are intrigued when a strange carnival, Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, arrives in town, and before long the entire town is enraptured by the strange magic of the carnival, which promises to restore youth and fulfil everyone's deepest wishes, but Jim and Will discover the carnival's dark side and the horrific price that must be paid for the granted wishes. The book which has become acclaimed as one of the classics of the horror and fantasy genre is written, like many Bradbury books, in a very unique style that mixes in heavy amounts of sentimentality and nostalgia, along with very poetic descriptions, which is an extremely difficult style to pull off and to get the balance right, and even Bradbury isn't successful all the time but mostly it really works well. I think the Bradbury style is one of the reasons why they very rarely adapted, successfully, for film. The style is really beautiful when it's read, but to hear it spoken as dialogue sounds very stilted and artificial. Actually, Something Wicked This Way Comes started out as a screenplay Bradbury wrote for Gene Kelly. Kelly loved the script but couldn't get financing for it, and so Bradbury turned it into the novel. The book was turned into a film in 1983 by Disney, which Bradbury described as: "Not a great film, no, but a decently nice one."

I was back at work again, but only for one day before the weekend so that is good. Although it was pretty weird being back in after two days off for just one day and then having another couple of days off. The problem is that Friday's are so difficult to get off work now, and so I tend to go for days in the middle of the week now.

Nineteen Seventy-Seven

Last week I finished reading the book Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace, the second part of the "Red Riding" series. The book is set against the background of the brutal Yorkshire Ripper killings and tells the stories of a corrupt and violent cop and a journalist who is rapidly falling apart. Both of them become dangerously involved with the murders when they start to suspect that there is more than one killer on the loose. The book is tense, mesmerising and powerful, but it is extremely disturbing, bleak and violent. The whole series has been really good but the unrelenting misery can be a bit much at times.

Last night I listened to the first part of a Doctor Who story on the radio, which was really pretty good and I also watched a show called Worried About the Boy about the rise to fame of pop star Boy George, which was pretty interesting. I was never a fan, but I usually enjoy watching music biographies.

It was the start of another ordinary week at work.

Touching from a Distance

Last night I finished reading Touching from a Distance by Deborah Curtis. The book is a biography of Ian Curtis, the lead singer and lyricist of the band Joy Division (Deborah Curtis was married to Ian from when they were both teenagers until his suicide in May 1980 at the age of 23, two days before the band were scheduled to depart on their first US tour). It's a fascinating, but very bleak book, and Ian Curtis does not come across very well at all in the book. The book is very short, but it does include a complete list of Joy Dvision gigs and discography. It also includes all the lyrics that Curtis wrote and fragments of notebook entries. The book was used as the main source for the 2007 film Control.

It was another very quiet day at work today, but at least the weather had brightened up a little.

The Six Napoleans

Last night I was listening to a radio adaptation of a 1903 Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called "The Six Napoleans", in this one Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are presented with the seemingly trivial case of a man who seems to be obsessed with smashing cheap plaster busts of Napolean Bonaparte, even resorting to breaking and entering to achieve his goal. However, Holmes soon learns that the seemingly straightforward case has a far more sinister side. It was really pretty good.

I was reading more of The Beatles biography. I've almost finished it, actually. It is really interesting and they did have an incredible career. Personally I was always a big fan of John Lennon.

The Children of Hurin

Last night was another really quiet evening. I did watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, which I thought was really good, in which the Doctor (played by Matt Smith) encounters his oldest enemies, the Daleks, in Second World War London.

I finished reading the book The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is set in Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth about 6,500 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, where the world is terrorised by the evil Dark Lord Morgoth, who takes revenge on the warrior Hurin, the only man who ever dared defy Morgoth to his face, by placing a curse on Hurin's wife and children that they will be plagued by disaster and misfortune for the rest of their lives. Most of the book focuses on Hurin's son Turin as he wanders from place to place, bringing tragedy and misfortune wherever he goes as he tries to venge himself on Morgoth and find a way to break the curse. It's a pretty dark book and quite brutal, but it is really good and worth checking out. Tolkien worked on it for years, but never managed to finish it before his death in 1973 and, like all of Tolkien's posthumously published works, it was edited by his son Christopher.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday, and had my lunch there. We had minced beef and carrot, topped with mashed potato and baked cheese with spring onion on the top, and peas. It was a nice lunch.

6,500 Years Earlier

Last night was pretty quiet. I watched a couple of episodes of South Park on TV and I started reading The Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkien. I read the first hundred pages of it, and so far it seems pretty good, and certainly very different to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The books are all set in the same fantasy world but Children of Hurin is set about 6,500 years before the other books, and is quite surprisingly dark and violent.

I was back at work today, and mostly it was pretty quiet and dull except for the constant moaning from some of the people. I listened to some episodes of That Mitchell and Webb Sound on my iPod. That Mitchell and Webb Sound is a comedy sketch show and a lot of it is very funny. I left work at around ten past five. On my way home I bought the latest issue of Total Film magazine, which this month was about the previews of the upcoming summer movies.

Saboteur

Yesterday evening I ordered a Meltdown pizza (basically it's a pizza with tomato, mozarella cheese, chili cheese slices, ground beef, meatballs, jalapeno peppers, sweet chili peppers, birdseye chili peppers and American-style mustard) it was very hot and spicy. It was nice though.

I played some more on Dante's Inferno later on, and listened to a radio adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story called "The Musgrave Ritual". I also watched the first two episodes of V, which is a remake of the 1980s science-fiction series. As with the original, the remake deals with the arrival of alien "Visitors" in massive spaceships. The aliens appear human and offer to share their advanced technology and scientific knowledge with humanity in exchange for humans helping them to mine certain common minerals. However it's soon discovered that the aliens have sinister secrets. It is really different to the original series but it's not bad at all.

Last night I also finished reading the book It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock - A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler. It was a very good book, mostly made up of interviews with Hitchcock's friends and colleagues, as well as interviews with Hitchock himself who was a friend of the authors in his last years. Mostly the book deals with the films, giving a detailed plot synopsis of each and then accounts of the makings of them, as well as brief details of the important events in Hitchcock's life. Hitchcock comes across in the book as someone who was very private, and very much a family man. The book discusses Hitchcock's legendary love of practical jokes, but claims that most of the stories about them were greatly exaggerated. A lot of the actors who worked with him had quite mixed feeling about Hitchcock because he didn't really talk to them much about their characters and so on. A lot of actors really resented his "hands-off" approach, but some of them appreciated it.

I was off work again today and decided to have a quiet day in. This afternoon I was watching the 1942 Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur, in which an aircraft factory is blown up by saboteurs and an innocent factory worker (played by Robert Cummings), whose best friend was killed in the explosion, is accused of being responsible. And so he goes on the run across America, trying to find the real saboteurs in order to clear his name and prevent further sabotage. It actually still holds up really well, it's genuinely exciting and engaging and moves at a good pace with plenty of memorable set-pieces.

Holiday Time

Last night was pretty quiet, but today was my last day of work before my three week holiday, so that was really nice. It actually already feels really good to be away for a bit.

I started reading Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane last night. I'm hoping to get it finished before I see the movie.

Withnail and I

Last night I was watching the 1986 film Withnail and I, directed by Bruce Robinson. The film is set in London in 1969 and follows two unemployed actors: Withnail (played by Richard E. Grant) a flamboyant alcoholic who pauses in his constant drinking only long enough to deliver long speeches about his own genius and the indignities heaped upon him by cruel fate, and his quieter, nervous friend Marwood (Paul McGann) who more or less goes along with whatever Withnail suggests. The two share a decaying, squalid flat as they hope for their big break. The two go off for a holiday to the English countryside where they stay in a miserable cottage and have to contend with bad weather, hostile locals and baffling wildlife, while Marwood has to work hard to avoid the advances of Withnail's infatuated Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths). The film at turns both hilarious and tragic, and is often acclaimed as "Britain's Greatest Cult Movie". The movie is based on Robinson's own experiences as a struggling actor in the sixties. Despite playing an alcoholic, Richard E. Grant is a teetotaller and Robinson felt that he would be unable to play the part without knowing what it was like to be drunk and hungover, and so he "forced" Grant to go on a drinking binge (an experience Grant found extremely unpleasant). Also in one scene Withnail drinks lighter fluid, and Grant had been told that it would be water in the lighter, but Robinson replaced it with vinegar without telling him. The look of complete disgust on Grant's face in that scene was real and unscripted.

I also finished reading the novel The Way Home by George Pelecanos. It's a crime novel set in Washington DC, and opens with teenager Chris Flynn being sent to a juvenile prison for a series of thefts, drug use and getting into fights. As an adult, Chris is determined to go straight and is working in his father's flooring company, with a friend of his from prison, until they discover a bag full of money hidden under the floorboards of a new house. The two have to decide what to do about it, a decision which will have dangerous consequences when the owners of the money decide to reclaim it. The book is fast moving, exciting and affecting.

At work today I got a £20 voucher which was really nice, it was because I'd been helping someone out a lot with their work. Also apparently there is going to be a two day strike in the coming few weeks. Although I'll be on holiday at that time, so I won't really have to worry about it.

Screen Burn

It was a pretty quiet evening last night. I spent most of my time sitting around reading and watching TV. Pretty much the same as usual, really.

Today was another very quiet day at work. I stopped off on my way home to get a few groceries.

I've been reading a bit of the Screen Burn book that I got on Sunday. It is really funny. It consists of reviews and essays basically poking fun at the world of television and all the bad shows on it, and it is very funny.