Spirited Away

I went out to the Filmhouse cinema this afternoon and saw Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It tells the story of ten year old Chihiro who finds herself trapped in a magical fantasy world when her parents are changed into pigs. It's a brilliant film and one of the classics of animation. It was the highest grossing film in Japan when it was released, and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

 

This evening I went to the Book Festival and saw Ben Aaronovitch, who has written comics, urban fantasy novels and scripts for Doctor Who (he wrote the "Remembrance of the Daleks" which I would say is one of the best older Doctor Who stories). It was basically an hour long Question and Answer session, and Aaronovitch gave some really good writing advice and was very funny. After the show I bought his book Rivers of London and got it signed.

 

Shows

It was a very packed day today: I went up to the Book Festival to meet up with my Mom. We saw actor Simon Callow talk about Orson Welles, to promote the third volume of Callow's massive biography of Welles. It was really good. 

After the show we went along to Cafe Andaluz and had tapas: seafood paella, small potatoes in tomato sauce and sour cream and some diced lamb in breadcrumbs with a cheese sauce, along with bread, olives and olive oil. It was a really good meal.

After that we went to a show called Rodney Bewes: Whatever Happened to the Likely Lad? Part Two! a one man show by Rodney Bewes, sharing anecdotes from his long acting career. I always liked his show, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, even though it's dated horribly.

We went along to see a show called Radio Active, which was a live stage version of a 1980s radio comedy show that purported to be the line up for a fictional radio station. I'm a big fan of radio comedy and drama and so I had heard a few episodes of the original show, and the live version really stuck close to it. 

Mom and I stopped off for a drink, and then we went to see a play called Of Wardrobes and Rings which was about the friendship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and involves the elderly writers reconciling after a serious falling out. It was really good.

Mom went home after the show but I stayed out and had a Belgian waffle and maple syrup and went to see a show called 24 Hours with Mary Lynn Rajskub, which was a stand-up comedy show by Mary Lynn Rajskub (who is possibly best known for starring in the show 24). 

I stopped off at The Joker and The Thief on the way back home and had a couple of drinks. It was a really nice day and all the shows were great.

Swamp Thing

Last night I wrote some more of the Script Frenzy script, and I managed to get to bed fairly early. I was in work for seven and there was a baguette run. I had a panini with cajun chicken, roast beef, savoury cheese, brie, jalapeno peppers and English mustard. It was really nice. I was on a half day and left at around half past eleven. The day was really beautiful, the weather all warm and sunny so I walked along to the comic-book store, which took about forty five mnutes walking from work, and I bought a couple of graphic novels of Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore. It was the Swamp Thing series that really made Alan Moore's name and are among the most acclaimed comic series ever written. I've been wanting to read them for ages. On my way home I had a couple of drinks, since it was so hot.

Work Drinks

Last night was pretty quiet. I got to bed relatively early, by my standards, and went to work, arriving for about ten past seven. It was a really dull morning, but I was only in for six hours. I left and got some groceries for the coming week. I was home for about an hour, before I headed up to a bar for a few drinks with some people from work. I was only there for a short time and had two drinks. The bar was really crowded and noisy and I didn't really know anyone so I made my excuses and left.

Week Off

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching a few TV comedy shows, and I managed to get to bed before one o'clock in the morning, which for me is really, really early! I was up at half past five and headed off to work, arriving at about quarter past seven. There was a baguette run today and I ordered a white bread panini with roast beef, brie, savoury cheese, jalapeno peppers and English mustard. It was really nice. I was kind of rushing to get everything done before having my week off work. I didn't manage to get everything finished but I did get as much as possible done.

I went up to the comic-book store after work and got Wolverine: The Best There Is issues 1 to 4, Silver Surfer issue 1, X-Men issue 8, Freedom Fighters issue 7, Amazing Spider-Man issue 651, Sweet Tooth issue 19 and House of Mystery issue 35 (I really like that comic-book, it's set in a house in another dimension where people end up trapped and they pay for their food and drink by telling stories in the bar, and so in each issue alongside the main story there is always a really short self-contained story). On my way home I stopped off for a drink

The Faculty

Last night I went up to the Vampire/Zombie/Horror Group. The movie that we saw was a 1998 movie called The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Kevin Williamson (who wrote Scream and Scream 2 and created the TV series Dawson's Creek). It stars Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Robert Patrick and Famke Janssen and is about a group of Ohio teenagers who discover that the staff and most of the students of their high school have been infected by mind controlling alien parasites. It's a pretty good movie. I remember watching it when it was first released. The group itself was really good. We had a few drinks afterwards and I got home at around two in the morning.

Today has been fairly quiet. I stayed in most of the time. Aside from going out to get some groceries for the coming week.

A Day Off Work

I had the day off work today and went up to the comic-book store. I bought The Suicide Forest issues 1 and 2, Batman: Odyssey issue 6, Freedom Fighters issue 6, Dracula: Company of Monsters issue 6, Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead issue 2, House of Mystery issue 34 and iZombie issue 10.

After that I went and had a Big King meal at Burger King and had a drink on my way home. The wind and rain were really bad again. I didn't wear my hat at all today, pretty much the first time I've not worn it out since I left North America last March.

They were some pretty good comics that I got today.

Early Rise

Last night I wrote a bit more of the Lonely Cities comic. I got up at about five o'clock this morning and was in work for seven. There was a baguette run today. I ordered a panini with honey chilli chicken, onions, barbeque sauce, jalapeno peppers and savoury cheese. It wasn't bad but for some reason they had put sweetcorn in it, which I really don't like it, but the rest of the flavours managed to drown them out.

I left work at about one. While I was waiting for the bus some random drunk guy told me that I looked like a serial killer. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I had never seen this guy before in my life.

I went up to the comic book store and bought Batman issue 706, The Amazing Spider-Man issue 651, King City issue 12, Spawn issue 200, DMZ issue 61, Batman: Streets of Gotham issue 19 and Memoir issue 1. Afterwards I went and had a couple of drinks.

Early to Work

Last night I spent most of the time reading. This morning I was up at five in the morning and got into work around seven. There was a baguette run at work and I got a panini with cajun chicken, savoury cheese, onions, chilli sauce and jalapeno peppers. I was only working for six hours today so I left at about one and went up to the comic book store. I bought Batman and Robin issue 19, Dracula: Company of Monsters issue 5, Freedom Fighters issue 5, iZombie issue 9, Let Me In: Crossroads issue 2, The Walking Dead issue 81 and House of Mystery issue 33, along with the graphic novels John Constantine, Hellblazer: Original Sins by Jamie Delano, John Ridgway and Alfredo Alcala and John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis and William Simpson (incidentally the Dangerous Habits storyline was one of the main basis for the Hellblazer movie version, Constantine). I went out for a few drinks afterwards.

An Electric Ant

Last night was really quiet. I finished reading Human Is?: A Philip K. Dick Reader by Philip K. Dick. The final three stories I read in it were "An Electric Ant" in which a man is shocked to discover he is in fact a robot and, when he discovers that his reality is artificially generated, decides to experiment with his own perception of reality. That was followed by "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" in which the USA's first time travellers arrive in the future a few days after they supposedly died returning to their own time. The final story was "The Pre-persons" in which children up to the age of 12 can be legally executed.

I was also watching a few epsiodes of Blake's 7 on DVD. Blake's 7 was a British science-fiction TV show which ran for 52 episodes over four seasons from 1977 to 1980. It was kind of a blend of Star Trek and Star Wars and concerned a rag-tag group of bickering revolutionaries and criminals who travel around space in a derelict alien spacecraft fighting against the totalitarian Galactic Federation. These days the show is often made fun of due to the often really bad (by modern standards) special effects and production values. However, the show was usually well-written and clever. It was also a lot grittier and bleaker than most science-fiction shows with a strong vein of dark humour.

Today I went out and got some postcards to send to a friend and I also got a CD called Dirty House Blues by Lightnin' Hopkins and a book called The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. on my way home I stopped off in a bar and had a couple of drinks and read my book.

It's been a good weekend mostly, but it has been marred by the fact that I've been feeling really kind of depressed recently about the fact that I really am a complete loser (mainly the facts that I am kind of stupid, I'm ugly, I've never really had a girlfriend and I have never achieved anything). It does happen fairly frequently.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Last night I went up to the Standing Order bar to meet my Dad, and we had a couple of drinks and a plate of fish and chips. It was a nice trip out.

Today I had the day off work and so I went along to the Cineworld cinema to see A Nightmare on Elm Street, directed by Samuel Bayer and based on the legendary Wes Craven film from 1984. The film is set in the present day in the small town of Springwood, Ohio, where a group of the local teenagers are all experiencing the same nightmare where they are being stalked by Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley): a man with a horribly burned face and a glove with razor-sharp knives on the fingers. The teenagers soon realise that if they are injured in their dreams then the injury is carried through to reality, and so if they are killed by Krueger in their dreams, then they die in reality. They realise that they have to stay awake long enough to figure out the secret in their pasts that connects them with Krueger and how to stop him before they are killed. The movie really wasn't as bad as I had feared, and actually makes a good stab at reinventing the movie after all the sequels (seven if you count Freddy vs. Jason). Jackie Earle Haley was very good as Freddy, and wisely didn't imitate Robert Englund, who played the role in all the previous films.

Before the movie there were some trailers for some movies that look really good: REC 2 (I really liked the original REC film), Inception (which I have been wanting to see for awhile) and Predators.

Wind Chill

Last night I was listening to a radio show called Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, written by Terrance Dicks and read by Tom Baker. It's basically a reading of a novelisation of a Doctor Who TV story, in which the Doctor has to discover what is responsible for a series of impossible break-ins and killings. The title of the story has a subtle clue as to what is responsible.

Later on I was watching a 2007 movie called Wind Chill, directed by Gregory Jacobs, on TV. The film stars Emily Blunt as a college student who accepts a ride home for Christmas (which is a six hour drive) from another student (Ashton Holmes) who she has never met. As the drive progresses, she quickly realises that he has not been telling her the truth, and things go from bad to worse when they crash in the snow and soon find themselves contending not only with a wrecked car, no food and sub-zero temperatures, but also with a series of menacing ghosts. It started off slowly, but it was a pretty good show.

Today I got my groceries for the week and was intending to go out to see Clash of the Titans but I got a message from my friend Joe, and went out to hang out with him instead. I had a couple of drinks and then headed home.

Standing Order

The issue of Empire magazine that I got yesterday was pretty interesting. It had an article about the filmmaker Roman Polanski, and an article exploring the theory that Orson Welles might have committed the notorious "Black Dahlia" murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947. There was also an article about novelist Dennis Lehane and the new Martin Scorsese film of his novel Shutter Island (which I am really looking forward to seeing) and interviews with Natalie Portman and Harrison Ford. The Natalie Portman interview had by far the best picture.

Today was a really ordinary and depressing day at work. I just couldn't wait to get out of there. Afterwards I went along to the Standing Order bar to meet my Dad for a few drinks, which was nice and made a really good change.

A Short Night Out

Last night I had an unexpected call from my friend Joe. Joe used to work in the same building as me, but last May he was moved to a different area and I've not seen him since then. Also, he's been busy with other stuff, so there hasn't really been much of a chance to hang out recently. So I went along to the Omni Centre and met up with Joe and another friend of his. We only had a couple of drinks and I was only out for about two and a half hours. It was still a nice change though.

Today has been quiet. I've only gone out once and that was to get my groceries for the coming week. Otherwise I've just been at home, reading.

Another Early Day

Last night I watched the latest episode of The Wire. It was a fairly average one last night, but it was still good.

Today was a pretty quiet one. There were no fire alarms anyway. I left work early again today at around three in the afternoon and went to the New Yorker bar and had a drink with Alan, who used to be a good friend of mine a couple of years ago.

Then I went home and had a microwave meal of spaghetti bolognese and listened to the first episode of a new series of That Mitchell and Webb Sound which was pretty funny. It's a sketch comedy series starring comedians Robert Webb and David Mitchell who do a lot of really clever and funny material.

Late Evening

Last night went pretty well. I headed up to the Book Festival and saw the comedian Arthur Smith talk and read from his newly published autobiography. It was pretty good and he was very funny.

After the show I went down to the All Bar One near the Sheraton Hotel. I was waiting there for my family and I had a book with me (Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman) and I wrote a bit in the notebook I had with me so it was okay, even though I was waiting for nearly an hour and a half.When they arrived we moved through to the Sheraton itself. It was my parents, my brother, my brother's girlfriend, her parents, her brother and her brother's girlfriend. This was the first time I had ever met my brother's girlfriend's parents, or her brother and his girlfriend, but they all seemed nice enough. It was a really nice evening. We all left late and I got home at around two in the morning.

Today has been very quiet so far. I went out for a walk in the afternoon, so that was quite nice.

Hannibal Rising

Last night I finished reading the novel Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris. The fourth and most recent in the series of thrillers about serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter. This novel is a prequel to the others. Opening in Eastern Europe in the 1940s, young Hannibal is in line to become the next Count Lecter, living happily with his family in a large castle, until the Second World War forces the Lecter family from their castle. Years later Hannibal Lecter re-emerges traumatised by the fate of his beloved younger sister and the horrors he experienced. Adopted by an uncle and his beautiful Japanese wife, Hannibal blossoms and becomes a medical student in Paris, until his thirst for revenge awakens much darker obsessions. The book came around mainly because the Hannibal Lecter films had been so popular, and the studios wanted to make another movie exploring Lecter's origins. Lecter's creator, novelist Thomas Harris had no interest in doing another Lecter story, but was basically told that he had the choice of writing a book and having some say in how his character was treated, or in having a book written by someone else and thus having no say in how his character was treated. Harris chose the first option. It's not bad at all, being an interesting and involving thriller, but not as good as the others.

Later on I was watching a couple of episodes of the 1960s series of The Twilight Zone. The first story, "Black Leather Jackets" involves aliens who disguise themselves as a biker gang to take over the Earth. The episode doesn't start well, but does have a strikingly bleak conclosion. The second episode was called "Night Call", and was based on a short story by Richard Matheson, and told the genuinely scary story about a lonely old woman who is plagued by strange phone calls. Although the TV version changes the ending from the really scary story, it is still a really creepy slice of horror, that is still genuinely frightening. It was directed by horror movie director Jacques Tourneur, whose trademark sense of light and shadow made some really haunting sequences.

Today was pretty quiet. I went in to work early and left early. On my way home I picked up the latest copy of Empire magazine, and then I went out to have a walk and stopped off for a couple of drinks. I also got a couple of DVDs of Doctor Who in the sales.

Last Training Day

Last night was pretty quiet. I was listening to an adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story called "The Red-Headed League" on the radio. It was one of a number of Sherlock Holmes stories that I had on tape years ago. I wish I knew where the tapes are now, but I probably threw them out years ago.

Today I went along to the Roxburghe Hotel for the half day "Dealing with Change" training course for work. It started with an hour and a half talk about change in the workplace, how it affects people, and how different people deal with change. Then there was a coffee break for a few minutes and then we played a series of games and puzzles for the second hour and a half (which included making models out of Play-Doh). That was fun.

It finished at one in the afternoon and I had a half day booked off from work, so that was basically me free to do what I wanted. I headed up to the Filmhouse cinema to collect the Film Festival tickets that I booked a few weeks ago, so that went well. After that I did some shopping. I got a book called Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs for my Dad's birthday present. It's a kind of historical, political thriller and I know that Dad's read a few others in the series. I also got the book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman for myself. I got a birthday card for Dad and some wrapping paper. Then I went over to a hotel bar and had a club sandwich and a pint of beer for my lunch. So it was a pretty successful day!

Another Early Day

Last night I was watching an episode from the third season of The X-Files in which the audience of a cable TV channel find themselves subjected to bizarre hallucinations and extreme violence. After that I was watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation which was pretty good. Later on I watched an episode of The Wire.

Today was the second day of the training course which meant that I once again got to leave early. I came back home for an hour and then headed out to the Omni Centre to meet someone for a drink. I'd been e-mailing her for a couple of months and we were just meeting up as friends, so it was quite nice. We were there for about an hour and then I headed home. On my way I stopped off and bought some milk and sugar. As I was entering my building I saw an old friend of mine, Vince, who lives in the same building as me and we chatted about Star Trek and Watchmen.

Another Night Out

Last night I went out to hang out with my friend Joe. We started off at a bar called The Tron where I had a pint of beer and we were given a free promotional pint each of pear cider, which was quite nice. Then we went on to a kind of rock bar and had another drink before heading to a third bar where we had our final drink. I walked home, which took about half an hour and got back at around ten past one in the morning. When I got back I started writing a horror story set in the 18th century about a would-be poet, who is extremely unsuccessful and just spends most of his time drinking, until one night he meets a powerful supernatural creature who offers him fame and fortune in exchange for writing a poem for him. However, the poet soon discovers, to his cost, that the deal is not as straightforward as he thought. It's not really part of the main story I've been writing over the past week or so, but it is set in the same fictional universe and some of the same characters appear.

Today has been pretty quiet. I was listening to a very interesting interview with Neil Gaiman on the radio this morning. Later on I went out to get my groceries for the week and that has been about it.