Alexei Sayle

I went to my parent's house yesterday. My brother and his wife and my two nephews were there, so that was nice. They went out on a visit, and one of my nephews, Lawrence, who'll be five next month, ran up to me and gave me a big hug as they were saying goodbye, which was really sweet.

Yesterday evening I went out to the Book Festival and saw Alexei Sayle, who was one of the leading lights of the "Alternative Comedy" movement of the 1980s, which brought a political and social conscience to British comedy, and he was really funny.

I was off today so I went out and watched some of the Festival street performers and had a slice of salami pizza form one of the street vendors.

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.

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!

Birthday and Christmas

It has been a really busy few days! On Wednesday the 23rd it was my 31st birthday and my Dad came around to take me to my parent's house. For my birthday presents I got the Blu-Ray DVD of True Blood season one, the DVD of Peep Show season six, the graphic novel of The Sandman Volume Ten: The Wake written by Neil Gaiman, a New England tee-shirt, a portable Trivial Pursuit pack with all the questions focussing on Entertainment (i.e. film, music, books and sport), a magnetic dart board and some gift vouchers. My brother and his girlfriend, Katherine, were due to come up the day before to spend Christmas at my parents but, due to the really bad weather, they weren't able to come up then, and they came on my brithday so instead of going to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch as we had planned, we decided to have a Chinese take-away meal instead.

On Christmas Eve I stayed in and watched Peep Show. In the afternoon I played a few games of darts and Trivial Pursuit with the family. In the evening I was watching a horror movie from 1974 on TV called Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark, in which a mysterious killer stalks a group of college students who are staying in a sorority house over Christmas.

On Christmas Day itself We all opened up our presents together. I got a DVD of Doctor Who: The War Games, the graphic novel of The Sandman Volume Nine: The Kindly Ones written by Neil Gaiman, a video game called Bioshock for the PlayStation 3, a book called The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, a book called Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar, a 2010 diary, a Doctor Who calendar, and some chocolate. We had a great Christmas lunch with the usual turkey, miniature sausages, stuffing, rolls of bacon, roast potatoes, peas and gravy with crackers that all had musical instruments in them and basically one person acted as conducter and the rest of us had to try to play a tune with the instruments. In the evening I watched the Christmas special of Doctor Who, which was the first of a two part story which marks the final story that David Tennant plays the role of the Doctor.

Yesterday I went back home and watched the TV broadcast of Hamlet, which is probably the most famous of the plays by William Shakespeare. The story revolves around Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, who is extremely upset by his mother marrying his uncle, Claudius, less than two months after the mysterious death of his father. One night, Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father who informs Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius, and orders Hamlet to avenge his death. The TV broadcast was a version of the very highly acclaimed recent Royal Shakespeare Company production and starred David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius.

Today I stayed in and listened to a radio show called On the Outside it Looked like an Old-Fashioned Police Box, which was a documentary, hosted by Mark Gatiss, about the Target Books novelisations of Doctor Who stories which were very popular in the 1970s and 80s. I remember those books really well, because I read loads of them when I was a kid. They were really good and they were pretty much the first novels that I ever really read kind of on my own. In my High School they had a wide selection of them in the school library and they used to let us spend two lunchtimes a week in the library, if we wanted to, and every time I got the chance I used to go over there and read a Doctor Who book. Only the Doctor Who books for about five years. So even today if I watch an old episode of the show on DVD that I have never seen before I still have a weird sense of deja vu, and I remember it was because I read the novelisation of the show about twenty times when I was thirteen. Later on I watched a 1966 Doctor Who story on DVD called "The War Machines" in which a powerful new supercomputer has been installed in the then-newly constructed Post Office Tower in London. Of course the computer then decides to take over the world by brainwashing people to build robot "War Machines" (which kind of look like miniature tanks). It was pretty good.

It has been a really good few days.

Feast Day

Last night I watched another episode from the second season of The Wire on DVD and a couple of episodes of South Park. I also collected a bunch of old DVDs and PC games and put them in the sack for the charity collection today.

I went along to work today and this time, luckily, the journey was without incident. They were having the annual "feast day" at work where the Team Leaders brought in food for everyone, and there was a lot of stuff. It was good, they had a selection of sandwiches, crisps, soft drinks, cakes, miniature sausages, sausage rolls, slices of pizza and various other bite size Chinese and Indian food. Despite a steady stream of people, there was still food left at the end of the day. lso on Friday it's the main office Christmas party. I'm not going to the party, but my friend Joe, who I have not seen in about seven months, is meeting some of his friends for a couple of hours before they go on to it, and so I should be going there. It should make a nice change.

My brother finally got in touch with me about what he wants for his Christmas. Apparently he wants either a book about King Charles spaniels or a book about the Lake District.

The Virgin Spring

Last night I was watching a couple of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV. I always really liked that show, and I used to watch it regularly. The episodes that were on were from the first season, before the show had really got going. Following that I watched an Ingmar Bergman film from 1960 called The Virgin Spring which was based on a 13th Century Swedish ballad. Set in medieval Sweden, the film stars Max von Sydow as a man who seeks violent revenge on the herdsmen who attack and murder his daughter. The film is beautifully shot and extremely powerful. At times shocking, it is a very somber piece of work. It was very loosely remade in 1972 by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday afternoon. My Dad had gone up to a golf course at Gleneagles for a trip. My brother's girlfriend, Katherine, came over. She had been singing in a concert, but was unable to find a good train back to London today and so she decided to go over to my parent's for tonight and travel down tomorrow. For lunch we had salmon fillets in breadcrumbs covered with a kind of lemon dressing, sliced poatoes covered with a cheese sauce and peas. It was really nice. Later on in the afternoon we watched the first episode of True Blood through the TV On Demand service, which Katherine hadn't seen, but wanted to.

My parent's got me a new toaster which I tried out when I got home and that worked really well. It'll be nice to be abe to have some toast.

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.

Family Lunch

The fifth season of The Wire started last night, which was pretty good. I've decided not to record this one.

I had a day off work today and I went off to meet up with my Dad and my brother for lunch. We went to Cafe Rouge and had a three course fixed menu meal. I had mushrooms in garlic butter to start, followed by a burger done in the French style (no bun and garlic butter on top) with fries and fried tomato, and a chocolate mousse as dessert, so that was really nice.

Afterwards my brother's girlfriend arrived and we went along to a book store with a cafe for some coffee. The other three went home and I stayed in the book store for a bit and bought the CD of season one of That Mitchell and Webb Sound. I really like putting the sketch comedy radio shows on to my iPod, because at work or on the bus they are really great to kind of dip in and out of.

Tonight I'm going up to the Book Festival to see the comedian Arthur Smith. My brother's girlfriend is singing in an opera of Macbeth this evening and so my parents, my brother, her parents and her brother with his girlfirend are apparently going to go along and go out for a drink afterwards, so I am planning on going up to join them after my show.

Woodstock

Last night I was watching most of Woodstock, a 1969 concert movie about the famous Woodstock festival. It was a pretty good movie, and definitely worth watching for anyone who likes the music of the late sixties. However it was long: The version that they broadcast was the three and a half hour "director's cut."

Today I went out to my parent's house for lunch as usual. During the afternoon my brother and his girlfriend arrived from London. They are staying with my parents until Saturday.

Radio and Books

Last night I spent a lot of time listening to radio verisons of old episodes of Dad's Army. I was also reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which so far is really good. I remember watching the TV miniseries when it was first shown back in 1996. I also started writing a new story about a mapmaker whose works have the power to trap people in their own bizarre worlds.

Today I went along to my parent's house as usual. My mum had come back from her holiday in Spain with her friend from Australia. Also it is my Dad's birthday tomorrow so we all had a kind of special party lunch of pizza slices, roast chicken, pork pies and quiche so that was nice.

Also things will be back to normal at work this next week with no more training courses.

Rendezvous

It was another busy day at work today. However I have taken tomorrow (Friday) and Monday off for my annual leave as a kind of Easter break, so I get a four day weekend.

This afternoon I managed to get a couple of free tickets to a preview of the 3D film Coraline. I'm actually really glad about that because I originally saw the preview advertised in a magazine that I got on Saturday, but when I went to get the tickets they were all gone. However, I was a member of the magazine's weekly e-mail list and they had another set of tickets so I meneged to get a couple. I'm looking forward to seeing the film. It's based on a novel by Neil Gaiman, and I am a big fan of his work.

After work I went out to Rendezvous, a Chinese restaurant, with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend who are both up from London this week. We had crispy aromatic Peking duck to start, followed by egg foo yung, chicken chow mein, chicken satay, quick fried mixed seafood and a prawn chop suey. It was a really nice meal.

When I got back I watched an episode of The Wire.

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.

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.

Batman Begins

Last night I was watching the film Batman Begins, directed by Christopher Nolan, on DVD. It is a really good film, it was the one that really started the new cycle of Batman films.

I got up fairly late today and went into the centre of the city. I went and had a look at the comics and science-fiction store but I didn't buy anything. I walked around for awhile and had a look in a few other places at posters and tee-shirts, but I didn't buy anything. On my way home I stopped off and bought my groceries for the week. It was surprisingly hot today.

This evening I am going out to a restaurant with my parents along with my brother and his girlfried, who are up from London.

Mirror

Last night I was watching a Russian film from 1975 called Mirror, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a virtually plotless portrait of three generations of a Russian family. It is loosely autobiographical and merges past and present, childhood memories, semi-documentary elements, contemporary scenes and dreamlike fantasy. As with most Tarkovsky films this features astonishingly beautiful images, shot in long languid takes. The film was very much a family affair featuring Tarkovsky's wife and his mother as actors, as well as his father Arseny Tarkovsky, an acclaimed poet, who reads his own poetry on the soundtrack. If you let yourself go with the film it provides an astonishingly beautiful and genuinely haunting viewing experience.

Today I went out and renewed my Ridacard bus pass for another month. I also bought a gift voucher for my brother's birthday at the end of this month, and a card. My brother lives in London so we usually just give each other gift vouchers as gift, because we never know what else to get. On my way home I stopped off and got my groceries for the week. Among my groceries I got today's copy of The Guardian newspaper, which was giving away a free DVD of the original Godzilla.

This afternoon I was watching Godzilla, a 1954 Japanese film directed by Ishiro Honda. The film opens with the mysterious disappearances of several ships in the same area of the ocean. The disappearances are initially blamed on mines or undersea volcanos. However, when a research team visit a nearby island they soon discover the real source of the disappearances: A giant prehistoric monster, with a fiery breath, which the islanders named Godzilla, and which lives undersea but has been awakened by recent H-bomb tests and is now on the rampage. It's not long before he's headed for Tokyo, determined to stomp the city and eat the trains. The film was hugely successful in it's day, spawning endless sequels, cartoon shows and a big-budget Hollywood re-make. The film has a strong anti-nuclear message and is much darker than a lot of the later films, with a lot of emphasis on the death and devastation that the creature causes. The Japanese name for the film and the monster is "Gojira" (a combination of the words "gorilla" and "kujira" the Japanese word for "whale"), because the original conception for the creature was apparently to be a cross between a gorilla and a whale.

I was also watching a very good episode of Doctor Who this evening.

Thai Restaurant

Yesterday I went out to a Thai restaurant with my parents, my brother and his new girlfriend (who I have never met before). For a starter we shared platters of spring-rolls, prawns in batter, small spare ribs and chicke on sticks. For the main course I had a seafood platter which consisted of squid, mussels, prawns, noodles and vegetables covered in a spicy sauce. For dessert I had a vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice-cream sundae. It was a really nice meal.

Back home I watched a Doctor Who story from 1975 called "Planet of Evil" in which the TARDIS lands on a planet on the furthest reaches of the known universe. A spaceship arrives on the planet to check on a survey team that was investigating the planet for a new form of energy. However, they find the entire team dead, except for one. The Doctor (Tom Baker) is immediately suspected of murdering the team, however it soon turns out that a strange alien force was responsible. It was actually quite a good story, with surprisingly effective production values for 1970s Doctor Who.

I went to my parent's house today as usual for my Sunday lunch. My brother and his girlfriend were still there. The new issue of Fortean Times had arrived so that was good. I also got a letter reminding me to renew my subscription to Sight and Sound, if I do I also get a free DVD. I have the choice between Army in the Shadows a film about the French Resistance during the Second World War directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and Ordet a bleak Danish religious drama directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer.

GameCube

I was only in for a half day today at work, so that was good. I also bought Joe's GameCube console for £25. He also included three Resident Evil games (Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 0).

As soon as I brought it home I had to go out again to fix my bank card. Apparently it has been unlocked now, but I can't use it for twenty four hours. I also bought a few second-hand games, very cheaply, for the GameCube. I got Batman Begins, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, so I've got a nice selection to start off with.Everything really seems to work okay, so that's good. I've always enjoyed computer games, but was always put off by the cost for consoles, but the GameCube seems to be a good machine, and you can get really good games, fairly cheaply (albeit second-hand).

My brother came up from London a couple of days ago with his new girlfriend. I should be seeing them tomorrow.

On the Road

I was watching a show on TV yesterday evening called Russell Brand on the Road, in which British comedian Russell Brand and a friend of his travel across America from New York to San Francisco to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the classic novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac. They start off in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is where Kerouac was born and spent his formative years, and they interview people who knew Kerouac and see the original scroll the book was weritten on. Kerouac wrote the book in three weeks on a long scroll of tracing paper (120 feet long) which he taped together and fed into his typewriter. However most of the show seems to be devoted to Russell Brand himself and his fascination with the book and the effect the Kerouacian road trip has on him. It was very interesting actually.

I also saw some more episodes of The Twilight Zone. Last night's episodes were: "Little People" in which two astronauts crash land on a seemingly desolate planet, only to discover that there are intelligent life forms the size of ants who have developed a miniature version of 1960s America. "Four O'Clock" about a man who occupies his life with compiling detailed notes on anyone he encounters and attempts to ruin their lives if he believes they are 'evil', and soon becomes obssessed with a plan of revenge on all the evil people of the world. The other one was "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" about a boastful shopkeeper whose main interest in life is telling wildly improbable stories about how wonderful he is, which attract the attention of a couple of gullible aliens who believe that he will make a perfect addition to their zoo.

I stayed in late at work today. I hadn't intended to, but I spotted a mistake and had to stay late to fix it and so I was feeling very stressed when I left (since I was robbed I've been really on edge about making my way home in the evenings).

My brother telephoned me this evening wanting me to get a Crabtree and Evelyn gift box for him to send to mum as a Christmas present. I had been thinking my shopping was over, but I phoned dad and one of us will get it for him at the weekend.

It's the office Christmas party tomorrow night at a bowling club in Musselburgh, which is a few miles out from the city, so I'm not going, because getting home would be a nightmare (or a very expensive taxi rode). I've really not had a big party night out for a while, and I can't honestly say I've been really missing it.

Back Home

My parents came to collect me at around half past nine on Tuesday to go down to Leeds. The journey is about 200 miles and lasts about four hours in the car. We had a break for some lunch at a Little Chef restaurant just outside Newcastle. We arrived at my Gran's old house in Leeds at around two. It was really sad to see in a way, because everything was just as Gran had left it and I almost expected to see her come in. She had been living in that little house for about twenty years and when my brother and I were kids we used to go down all the time on Summer and Easter holidays. She had left me her eight volume set of The Diary of Samuel Pepys. My brother was due to arrive from London on the train at around half eleven at night, but it was delayed by an hour.

Wednesday was the day of the funeral, so we went out to the crematorium quite early, because my brother was playing the organ for the service (he's a professional classical musician and sometime music teacher). Of course my uncle and aunt, and two cousins were there, alog with various freinds of Gran. It was a Humanist service, because Gran was not religious, although at her request, my brother played her favourite hymn All Creatures Great and Small. After that there was a reception in a local hotel, where we all ate from a large buffet and there was plenty of wine. My brother had to leave early to get back to London. My parents and eye stayed after everyone had left with my aunt and uncle and cousin, looking at old photgraphs, mainly seeming to be my mum as a teenager at the beach, myself and my brother as babies, and my grandad and his colleagues from World War 2. It was obviously an extremely sad and emotional day.

Thursday, we decided to do something a little more holiday like and paid a visit to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, which is an exhibiton of weapons and armour from throughout the world. It was very interesting and enjoyable. They had this display called the Hall of Steel, which was like a stairway the walls of which were compeletly covered with swords, guns and shields. We also watched a display of fighting with a medieval sword.

Friday, we went into Leeds for some shopping. I got a new pair of Dr. Martens boots, a couple of notebooks and an Irvine Welsh novel.

Saturday, Mum was at a conference in Nottingham so Dad and I drove into Manchester to visit my Gran on his side (who is now my only surviving grandparent). She lives in a care home now, which seemed very nice, and my Dad's brother and his family live nearby so they see her a lot. My Gran is now blind in one eye and she is losing the sight in her other one, she can't hear well, and so you almost have to shout so she can hear you, and her memory is really bad, she'll forget what you told her minutes before, and she didn't recognise Dad when she saw him, so it was a really tough visit.

We left almost first thing this morning, and I feel completely drained, exhausted and I seem to have a splitting headache.