House of Mystery

Last night I was reading my new comics, and the graphic novel of House of Mystery: Room & Boredom written by Matthew Sturges and Bill Willingham and illustrated by Luca Rossi. The story revolves around the House of Mystery, which sits at the crossroads of many different realities, and where customers have to pay for their food and drinks in the bar with a story. A young architecture student from Texas finds her way to the House after being pursued by a ghostly couple, but is unable to leave. It's a pretty good story, and is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

The snow fell again overnight and it was really thick this morning, so I couldn't go along to my parent's house. Instead we went up to Cafe Rouge, a French restaurant, and I had some bread and olives to start, with a minute steak and fries with garlic butter as the main course and a hot chocolate and walnut brownie topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert and a pint of Stella Artois beer. It was really nice. Afterwards I looked around the shops for a bit, but didn't buy anything.

Walking the Dogs

Last night I went out with my parents, my brother's girlfriend, her brother and his girlfriend. We went to a restaurant called the Smokestack and I had a calamari starter and then a six ounce burger with fries and salad, along with two pints of Grolsch beer. It was a nice evening. When I got back I watched the extra features on the Twin Peaks DVD set and later on I saw the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, which featured the debut of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor. It was a really good show, and I do think that Matt Smith will make a very good Doctor.

This morning my parents came round and picked me up and we went to a park where my brother's girlfriend, her brother and his girlfriend met us with their dogs. My brother and his girlfriend have a four month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy called Hamish, and her brother and his girlfriend have a one year old Labrador / Springer Spaniel mix called Rueben. Hamish was absolutely adorable, he is really tiny and he was just running around investigating anything that caught his fancy, making friends with people and playing with the other dogs. He's a very friendly dog, and was just bounding around all over the place. Rueben was only interested in chasing after and fetching his tennis balls, and really did not care about anything else except chasing after the balls.

When we got back to my parent's house we had some sausage casserole which was nice. I got home at about half past five. Happy Easter!

Samaritan

Last night was pretty quiet. I finished reading the book Samaritan by Richard Price. The book is set in a tough inner-city area of New Jersey in the present day, and tells the story of Ray Mitchell, who grew up in the tough housing projects but now in his forties he is a moderately successful screenwriter on a popular TV show. Returning to the projects and with an almost coompulsive urge to do good, he decides to take a creative writing class at the local high school. However one night he is brutally beaten in his apartment and hospitalised. The only cop who is in any way interested in the case is Nerese "Tweetie" Ammons, who grew up with Ray and owes him a favour from when they were children. However Ray knows who attacked him but for some reason refuses to give a name or help in any way and Tweetie becomes determined to find the truth. It was a pretty interesting book which moves between the events leading up to the attack and the events after the attack. It's well-written, interesting and witty, however the ending is kind of spoiled when it becomes a bit preachy, but mostly it is worth reading.

Today I went to the shops to get a new battery installed in my watch, which stopped working on Christmas Eve. I also got a DVD set called Box of the Dead, which collects all five of the Dead films written and directed by George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead). I also got a couple of desk calendars one of which I was planning to put up at home and the other of which I was planning on putting up in my office at work. The calendars were called The Book-Lovers Calendar 2010 and Urban Dictionary Calendar 2010. Heading back I stopped off at Burger King and had a Whopper Meal (basically a Whopper hamburger, large fries and a large coke).

Today is really the last day of the holidays. Work starts up properly tomorrow and this evening I'll be taking down my Christmas decorations and putting them all away in storage. It's always kind of sad, but there's not really much you can do about it. One good thing is that I do have about three weeks worth of holiday days to use up before the end of March, which means that I should have another two week holiday coming up in the next three months.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Yesterday evening I listened to an episode of The Price of Fear on the radio. It's a series of one off half-hour horror plays for the radio from the 1970s hosted by Vincent Price. This week's story was called "The Family Album" and concerned a mild-mannered commuter whose wife is having an affair with his best friend. The wife and her boyfriend consider the commuter to be a timid joke, but he is secretly planning a macabre revenge.

Later on I watched an Arena documentary about the life and work of the famous poet T. S. Eliot, which was very interesting. After the show I must have fallen asleep on the sofa for awhile. When I woke up I saw a 1965 film on TV called Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, directed by Freddie Francis. The movie is made up of five different stories linked by a framing story, and it starts when five strangers (incuding Christopher Lee and a young Donald Sutherland) meet an elderly tarot card reader (played by Peter Cushing) on a train. The tarot card reader claims that he will tell each of the five how they will die and proceeds to tell each of them a series of stories involving werewolves, man-eating plants, voodoo curses, disembodied living hands and vampires. It was the first of a series of such films that were made in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Mostly it's neither scary nor gruesome although it is still fun.

This morning my Dad came to pick me up fairly early and take me over to my parent's house. The reason for that is because he is playing in the final of his golf club championships this afternoon. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived during the week. This month's main features including a report on the Cannes Film Festival, interviews with Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch and an article about the career of experimental film-maker Kenneth Anger. My Mum and I went along to Pizza Express where I had dough balls and garlic butter to start and a Four Seasons pizza (that's one where each quarter of the pizza has a differnet topping: one is plain cheese and tomato, another has anchovies and capers, a third has pepperoni and the fourth has mushrooms). It was really good. When I got back I watched a couple of episodes of Peep Show on DVD.

The Scariest Movie

I managed to get to sixteen pages on the Script Frenzy script yesterday. Last night was fairly quiet, I watched an episode of The Wire that I taped from TV on Friday night. Later on I watched the second and last part of The 100 Greatest Scary Moments. They rated The Shining as the scariest film of all time, with it's scariest moment being the famous sequence where Jack Nicholson smashes down the door with his axe and shouts out "Here's Johnny!" The second scariest film of all time according to the poll was The Exorcist.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual. The latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived with the main feature this month concerning the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the French New Wave movement.

We went along to Pizza Express for lunch. I had a some fried dough balls with garlic butter and Four Seasons Pizza (which had tomato, cheese, mushrooms, anchovies, capers and olives) along with a bottle of Peroni Nastro beer. That was really nice.

Graphic Novels

Last night was pretty quiet. I watched an episode of Hammer House of Horror which dealt with a woman who kills an attacker and later on believes that his ghost is haunting her. It was a pretty good one.

My Mum is on holiday to Egypt at the moment and so my Dad picked me up fairly sharply this morning and took me along to the St. James Centre shopping mall here we had some coffee and a scone. After that we split up to look around. I bought a selection of graphic novels by Alan Moore in a three for two offer: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes one and two and From Hell. After that I went back to my parent's house for a while. After awhile we went over to Pizza Express for some food. I had a Capriciosa pizza (which had tomato, cheese, anchovies, capers, ham, peppers, olives and a boiled egg) it was really nice, that was followed by a Chocolate Glory ice cream, which was vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge cake and chocolate sauce poured over it. It was a really nice meal.

Today is the last day of the holiday. I have to go back to work tomorrow, which I am really not looking forward to. It feels like I have been away for a lot longer than just two weeks.

This evening I signed up for this year's "Script Frenzy". You might remember last November I did the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where the aim was to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. Script Frenzy is a similar thing, in fact it's run by the same people, but the idea with it is to write 100 pages of a script (a movie screenplay, TV show script, play or comic-book script) during the month of April. I did manage to complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, so this one should be pretty good.

Comedy Characters

Last night was fairly quiet. I was watching a show called The World's Greatest Comedy Characters. Number one was Basil Fawlty (the character John Cleese played in the sit-com Fawlty Towers). It was quite an interesting show and very amusing.

Today I went along to my parent's house as usual. They have been decorating and the living room was completely empty of carpet and furniture, except a table, two chairs and the TV. All the rest had been moved into the lounge. So we went along to Pizza Express for lunch. I had a Four Seasons pizza and a Chocolate Glory for dessert, with a glass of Peroni beer. The waitress originally misheard the order and brought along the wrong pizza, but it was changed without any trouble. It was a really nice meal, anyway.

After lunch we went out to look at hi-fi equipment. Also the new issue of Sight and Sound and Fortean Times had arrived, so there was plenty to read.

I managed to get up to 16,519 words on NaNoWriMo yesterday.

The Dogs

Last night was really quiet, and it was another quiet day at work. I listened to about four episodes of The Mighty Boosh on my iPod during the afternoon.

I got home at around quarter to six and left again about an hour later. I was going up to meet my parents and my brother, who has come up from London where he works as a musician. We went to a restaurant called The Dogs, which specialises in "old-fashioned comfort food". The restaurant appeared at one time to have been a block of tenement flats. I had a slice of brawn (which is a bit like meatloaf) with chicory and parsley salad as a starter, the main course was deep fried pollock with smoked mackeral and rice along with a salad, and for dessert some vanilla ice-cream and hot toffee sauce. To drink i had a couple of bottles of Peroni beer. It was a really nice meal.

I've got the day off work tomorrow, during which I plan to see the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, and buy a present and card for my mum.

James Bond and Rock Stars

I went out to meet my mum in Princes Street today. We went up to the City Art Centre to see an exhibition called Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the Art of Cover Design which focussed mainly on the cover designs of Ian Fleming's James Bond books from the 1950s and 60s to the present. It also had exhibits of some of the film posters, some of the prelimenary sketches and memos, along with one of Fleming's manuscripts for a book, with his notes. It was good, but it could have done with a bit of analysis about the art work and what aspects of the books different covers focussed on. Some really focus on the sex appeal, some on the exotic locations and some on the action. After the exhibition I had a look in the gift shop and bought a book called Major Works by John Keats (it cost £4 reduced from £11.99).

After that we went along to Pizza Express and I had a Four Season pizza (basically it's a pizza divided into quarters with olives: One quarter is plain cheese and tomato, one is mushroom, one is pepperoni and one is anchovies and capers). For dessert I had a Chocolate Glory (vanilla ice-cream with squares of chocolate fudge cake and chocolate sauce).

After eating, we went along to the Edinburgh Book Festival and saw Rick Wakeman. in the 1970s, Rick Wakeman was a pretty big rock star in bands like The Strawbs and Yes. These days he does quite a lot of TV shows. He was really, really funny. With some hilarious anecdotes especially about his days as a session musician working with people like David Bowie and Lou Reed.

A Birthday Party

Last night I went along to my friend Alice's birthday party. It was originally planned to be a barbecue but, due to the heavy rainfall, the barbecue was cancelled and the party was held in her flat. The party was fairly busy, because apparently there were at least six people staying there. Alice is backpacking from Australia and so she lives with a number of other backpackers in the flat. The barbecue ended up being cooked inside and so we had some burgers and sausages. It was quite nice. I left after about three hours. The only person that I knew there was Alice, so I was quite uncomfortable. I always am when I am with groups of people that I don't know. I tend to get extremely nervous and kind of clam up.

I was back at work today. It was really quiet in the office today. There was no word about how the strike went, but then it is a bit too early for that. I had just arrived home after work when I had a phone call from my Mum saying that we were going out for dinner at a new fish restaurant at the other end of my street. I had about an hour before we were scheduled to meet and so I watched yesterday's episode of Mock the Week, which was very funny.

When I arrived at the resturant, Mum said that there weren't any tables available an so we went to an Italian resturant called La Favorita. I had garlic bread with mozarella to start and then a seafood pizza along with a hot chocolate sauce mashmallow sundae. It was a really nice meal.

Yesterday's strike was about a pay dispute. Basically, every year we are supposed to get a cost of living raise, but it has now been set way below the rate of inflation meaning that we are, to all intents and purposes, getting a pay cut. Basically, the Union just want a raise that is in line with the rate of inflation, so that we can maintain our standards of living.

Buffalo Grill

Yesterday evening my parents, along with my younger brother and his girlfriend who are up from London, came over to pick me up and we went along to a restaurant called the Buffalo Grill. It was like a steak-house place with a Wild West theme. The place was packed when we got there and we had to wait for awhile to get seated. To start I had a shrimp tempura (which was large shrimp in batter and a pot of sweet and sour sauce), for my main course I had a medium cooked chargrilled steak with a thick garlic and jalapeno sauce, salad and a side order of french fries, and for dessert I had a California Suite (which was like orage and mint and chocolate chip ice-cream topped with whipped cream, almonds and chocolate sauce with two wafers). It was a really nice meal. I had a can of Budweiser beer for my drink. The Buffalo Grill doesn't have a license to sell alcohol and so my brother had to go to the nearest shop and get some beer, mainly because he was the only one that could get out easily. However I was the only one that had any and so my brother said I could just have the rest of the beer to take home with me, so that was nice of him.

Back home I watched the second half of the second of a three part series called Comics Britannia which was about the history of British comic-books. It was quite entertaining and interesting.

This morning I went along to my parent's house as usual for my lunch, which today was salmon, peas and mashed potato witha kind of fruit dessert. It was really nice. My brother and his girlfriend had left before I arrived. The DVD of Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, which I ordered a couple of weeks ago had arrived, so that was good. The film was made in 1972 and based on a science-fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. It's about a planet called Solaris which is almost entirely covered by a strange ocean, which is in fact a vast living "liquid brain". The story concerns a psychologist who arrives on a spacestation orbiting the planet and finds the place wrecked, one of the crew dead and the remaining three completely demoralised. It turns out that the planet has been sending them "visions" of people from their deepest dreams and memories, however the visions are entirely real and physical. The first night the psycholocgist is visited by his dead wife who comitted suicide several years earlier. It was remade in 2002 by Steven Soderbergh with George Clooney in the main role. The film is very good, if slow (it's about twice the length of the 2002 film).I'm off work tomorrow as well, so that should be good.

Gone Baby Gone

Last night I was watching a film on television called This is England, written and directed by Shane Meadows. The film is set in July 1983, where twelve year old Shaun Fields (Thomas Turgoose) lives on a tough housing estate with his mother, his father having been killed in the Falklands war, and suffers constant bullying. One day he befriends a friendly gang of skinheads led by the affable Woody (Joe Gilgun), who soon become almost like a second family. It's all fun and games until the brutal, militant, racist Combo (Stephen Graham) reappears after spending three years in prison and the gang splits in two, and Shaun finds himself in much more uncomfortable territiory. The film is largely autobiographical, based on Meadows' own childhood experiences (note the names: Shane Meadows = Shaun Fields). The film is shot in an almost documentary style, with context provided by plentiful archive footage of the early 1980s. The film is frequently brutal and harsh, but there is also a lot of humour and genuine compassion. I remember seeing Meadows at the Film Festival about four years ago where he was discussing short film-making and showing some of his own short films. Apparently he used to make a short film more or less every week on his video camera with his friend, actor Paddy Considine, and most of the films are just five or ten minutes of Considine in a costume delivering a monologue in character, and sometimes the short films spawned his features.

It was another very dull day at work, as usual. After work I went along to the Ocean Terminal shopping centre with my mum. We had a coffee at Costa Coffee and then went up to the cinema in the mall to see a preview of Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck, and based on a novel by Dennis Lehane. When a young girl is abducted in a closely knit Boston neighbourhood, private investigator Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner and girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) are hired to assist in the investigation because of their contacts in the neighbourhood. As their investigation progresses, Kenzie and Angie are drawn into an increasingly dark and brutal world. The film, which also stars Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, is a very bleak and complex thriller. I thought it was really good.

After the film, Dad picked us up and we went to Pizza Express for something to eat. I had a Four Seasons pizza, which was really nice, and a chocolate ice-cream dessert.

Dad's Birthday

Last night I was watching Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, directed by Joe Berlinger, on DVD. The film is set shortly after the hugely successful release of the original Blair Witch Project which has caused worldwide attention and bands of film fans and curiosity seekers have besieged the small town of Burkittsville in Maryland where the film was set, searching for Blair Witch souveniers. While most of the townspeople are sick of the tourists, a few have decided to cash in on all the attention. One of these is Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan) who runs a Blair Witch website and also runs the "Blair Witch Tour" which offers people the chance to spend two days and nights at the locations featured in the movie. On the first outing he is accompanied by a Goth (Kim Director), a practising Wiccan (Erica Leerhsen) and a married couple of academics who are writing a book about the Blair Witch (Steven Barker Turner and Tristen Skyler). The first night they encounter a rival tour group, who they trick into going to a different location, and spend the night partying. In the morning they discover all of Jeff's expensive audio/visual equipment either missing or smashed to pieces and their notes completely shredded. They also have no memory of the previous night. They discover some of Jeff's videotapes have been carefully buried and so they travel to the cavernous warehouse where he lives to review the tapes and solve the mystery. However they soon find out that thir nightmare is far from over. The film was very badly received on it's release, but I've always quite liked it. I can remember the release of the two Blair Witch films really well. The original got a massive amount of attention at the time.

Today was my Dad's birthday so I went around to my parent's house a bit earlier than usual, and gave my dad his present and card. Then we all went along to a restaurant called Howies where I had a shredded duck spring roll as a starter and sardine fillets as a main course, along with a couple of bottles of Corona beer. Back at my parents' the new issue of Fortean Times had arrived during the week. The main feature this month involved Crystal Skulls to tie in with the release of the new Indiana Jones film.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Last night I was watching another couple of episodes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on DVD. It is really good, very faithful to the novel, with very good acting (especially from Alec Guinness in the lead role). I also saw a few episodes of Extras on DVD, which was always really funny.

I had the day off work today and headed up to the cinema to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg. It's the fourth in the Indiana Jones series and, set in the late 1950s, the story involves archeologist Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) in a race to find a legendary crystal skull before the Soviet military. I thought it was really enjoyable, with some really good action scenes. I've always really enjoyed those movies. I remember seeing the previous one (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) at the cinema when I was about ten.

After the film I went to a bar next to the cinema and had a plate of fish and chips and a glass of beer.

Going Out After Work

It was yet another fairly quiet and dull day at work. It was very quiet, but then Friday's always are. Next Monday should be another really quiet day because it's a public holiday, but I'll still be in.

After work I went along to the Omni Centre and had a drink at a bar called the Slug and Lettuce. I was waiting for my dad but I was quite a bit early, so I had a drink and sat around for an hour or so reading my book (the autobiography of Anthony Burgess). When my dad arrived we had a drink and then went over to Frankie and Benny's restaurant where we shared a cheese and garlic pizza bread starter with olives, for the main course I had a Manhattan burger (which is like two burgers with cheese and bacon on them) with fries and onion rings. This was followed by a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream covered with chocolate sauce. After that my dad and I had another drink before heading our seperate ways.

When I got back I watched the first episode of the new series of Peep Show, which is a show that I think is really hilarious.

Eating Out

Last night I headed up to a Moroccan restaurant called The Fez Restaurant, to meet up with some people, Sarah, kate and Kate's finacee Stuart. However when we arrived we found out that the Fez Restaurant had been closed for three years, despite the fact that Kate had telephoned them to reserve a table and had even telephoned them that day to confirm the reservation, so that was pretty weird. Although we did manage to find another Moroccan restaurant called Walima, so we went there. It was a nice restaurant and I had a mixture of barbecued meat (lamb, chicken and prawn), with some rice and salad and a kind of spicy sauce, so that was really nice. For dessert I had a vanilla, strawberry and chocolate flavour ice-cream. We pretty much went our seperate ways after dinner, but it was a nice time.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch and they gave me an After Eight Easter Egg. We had chicken, sausage, stuffing, roast potatoes and peas, with ice cream and some white wine. After lunch my mum and I played Scrabble (she won by 243 to 200).

Books and DVDs

Last night I watched a couple of episodes of Torchwood on TV. It's almost finished now, and they've suddenly changed the day it's on from Wednesday to Friday. It will also be a couple of weeks until the next episode. I was also watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, directed by David Yates and based on the novel by JK Rowling. It's the fifth in the series, and I think it's probably not the best of them to start off with if you've never seen any of the other films, or read the books. It is a good film, and a lot darker in tone than the previous ones.

This morning I went up to the post office to post a letter to my friend Allison in New York. Then I went along to the shops and exchanged my DVD copy of Peep Show Season One. Then I went along and bought some books in a three for two offer: Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson (which is the next book for the book group), No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Oil! by Upton Sinclair (which was adapted into the film There Will be Blood). After that I met my mum to sort something out at the building society. When we had finished there we went to get some lunch at Ryans Bar (I had tomato and lentil soup with chicken, bacon and mayonnaise sandwiches, and a glass of coke). On my way home I picked up some groceries for the week.

I'm going out this evening as well, actually, to a restaurant with some friends, so that should be good.

At The Movies

Last night I was watching a film on television called Naked, a 1993 film directed by Mike Leigh, about the uglier side of urban Britain in the 1990s. The film opens with Johnny (played by David Thewlis) fleeing Manchester to London, after comitting a violent crime. He heads off to hide out at the flat of his ex-girlfriend, Louise (Lesley Sharp), but wastes no time in seducing her flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge). Louise very quickly gets sick of him and throws him out, and so Johnny takes to wandering the London streets, encountering various other characters whom he regales with his witty, intelligent but bitterly cynical rants about life and philosophy. It's quite a long film, and very talky. The film was almost entirely improvised over an eleven week rehearsal period (the original script was just 25 pages long). The film is intelligent, very bleak, quite brutal and at times very funny and surprisingly compassionate. David Thewlis turns in a superb performance, making an utterly repulsive character weirdly sympathetic, if never actually likeable.

I got a letter today telling me that I do not have to appear as a witness in court later this month as the case has been adjourned. I don't know whether it has been cancelled outright or if it has just been delayed. I daresay I'll find out soon enough, though.When I got my groceries today I got a copy of The Independent newspaper because they are giving away a booklet every day for the next two weeks about The Great Poets. Today was Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote The Canterbury Tales.

This afternoon I went up to the Cineworld cinema and saw Diary of the Dead, directed by George A. Romero, the fifth in his series of zombie films which started with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. In this film a group of university film student are making a bad horror about a Mummy when they find themselves under attack when the bodies of the dead start coming back to life to kill and eat the living. The film itself purports to be a spur of the moment documentary they are shooting about what's happening around them, as they attempt to find help and safety. There is a lot of social commentary in the film which at times breaks up the momentum, but it was still good, being very suspenseful, gruesome and at times very funny.

After the film I went for a drink before going back in to see There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is set in the early years of the 20th century and tells the story of Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis), a silver miner who decides to seek his fortune in oil mining. After he manages to become fairly wealthy in oil, he finds out about a massive oil deposit underneath the small town of Little Boston in California. However he soon comes into conflict with the local preacher (Paul Dano). It's a truly epic film and has a great performance from Daniel Day-Lewis (who won the Best Actor Oscar for this film). I think it atually deserved to win more than it did, although i know that it was nominated for a lot of Oscars.

After that film I went back to the bar and had a burger with chips, onion rings and coleslaw and a pint of beer, so that was nice.

Lunch with Alice

I went out today to have lunch with my friend Alice. We ended up at a pub called the Conan Doyle, where I had some fish and chips with mushy peas, and a couple of pints of beer. I went to the toilet at one stage and it was absolutely packed of drunk guys puking. I couldn't believe it really, because it wasn't even three o'clock in the afternoon.

When I got home I watched a film I had recorded called House of Usher, a 1961 film directed by Roger Corman and based on a short story called "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. In the film Philip Winthrop (played by Mark Damon) travels to the gloomy, crumbling, family mansion of his fiancee Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). However, when he arrives he is not exactly welcomed by her hypersensitive brother Roderick (Vincent Price), who can't abide noise, light or being touched. Roderick is determined that the couple should not be married because of the Usher family 'curse', and will go to any lenghts to keep them apart. The film is very atmospheric, but is quite slow by modern standards. It's all very stylised with bright, lurid colours.

Busy Weekend

Yesterday morning I went out to buy some groceries and in the afternoon I went out for drinks with my friends Alan and Joe. I was out really late, actually and got home at about two in the morning.

Today I went to my parent's house as usual, the new issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived during the week. We went out to eat at Howie's, I had a bowl of cullen skink to start (it's a kind of thick fish soup made with haddock), salmon and crab cakes and a lemon sorbet. It was really nice.

I've entered some competitions from Sight and Sound, at the moment I am in the running to win a DVD box-set of Stanley Kubrick films, a DVD box-set of Coen Brothers films and a book called Orson Welles at Work.