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!

An Education

Last night I was watching almost the whole series of Smiley's People on DVD. It is very good and really faithful to the John le Carre book. It's much darker and a lot more bitter than the previous le Carre mini-series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's also a lot more exciting than the previous work, although that was also very good. The special feature on the DVD was a half-hour interview with John le Carre and the show's director John Irwin where they discuss working with Alec Guinness who starred in both shows.

This morning I set out early because I was going along to the Cameo cinema with my Mum to see a preview of An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig, and a screenplay by novelist Nick Hornby, based on a memoir by journalist Lynn Barber. The film is set in England, 1961, and tells the story of 16 year old Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan) whose life is pretty much entirely devoted to passing her exams and getting into Oxford University to study English. Until that is she meets a charismatic older man, David (Peter Sarsgaard) who seduces her with his glamorous and exciting lifestyle, and leaves Jenny with some very tough choices to make. It is a hugely entertaining movie, and very funny, although it is also very emotional. It is definitely worth watching.

After the movie, Dad came to collect us and we all went along to La Tasca, a tapas restuarant, in order to celebrate Mum's birthday which isn't until the 2nd November. It was really nice. After that we went back to my parent's house for awhile, before I went back home.

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.

Day at the Festival

Last night I was watching the 2008 movie version of Brideshead Revisited, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. The story with take place during the first half of the 20th century tells of Charles Ryder (played by Matthew Goode) who, as a student at Oxford, befriends the aristocratic Sebastian Flyte (Ben Wishaw) and soon finds himself involved in the lives of the whole Flyte family at their large family mansion, Brideshead. It was okay, kind of slow, but pretty interesting.

Today I had the day off from work. I went up to the shows at the Edinburgh Festival. The Edinburgh Festival is heald every August and is the largest arts and cultural festival in the world. It consists of the main Edinburgh International Festival, which consists mainly of theatre, dance, opera, talks, exhibitions and music. Then there's the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which consists of comedy, music, theatre, dance and children's shows, and is now bigger than the main Festival. There is also the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival. Originally the Film Festival was also held in August but it was changed to June from last year, because the organisers felt it was getting overshadowed by all the other festivals.

Anyway, I met my Mum and we went along to see Mervyn Stutter's Pick of the Fringe, in which basically Mervyn Stutter, a comedian who sings humerous songs on radio comedy shows, selects highlights from different Fringe shows every day. In today's show they had a couple of musicians, a couple of stand-up comedians, an excerpt from a piece of dance theatre about knife crime and an excerpt from a dance musical set in the 1970s about an Elvis Presley fan. It was good.

After the show we went and had a muffin and a cup of coffee before heading off to another theatre at one of the Universities. The play we saw there was called Morecambe and told the story of Eric Morecambe, the famous comedian who was one half of the famous "Morecambe and Wise" double act. The show was a one man look at his life and career. It was a great show. Very funny and genuinely moving.

After that we went to La Tasca and had some tapas, which was really nice. When I got home I saw a letter had arrived about booking an appointment to get my wisdom teeth out. You have to phone up within one week of the date on the letter, which was 10 August, and then you have to choose one of two dates and times for the appointment. The thing is, it was eight when I got home so there wasn't anyone there. I'll have to phone up on Monday when I'm at work. I'm really not looking forward to it, but it's best to get it over with.

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.

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.

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.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Last night I listened to the second part of Guards! Guards!, based on the Terry Pratchett book, and the second and concluding part of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, which was a really good reading of the story.

Today I was up pretty sharp and went out to get my groceries for the week. After I had put them away in the fridge and taken out my rubbish I set off again to meet my mum in the city centre. We were there to get my Ridacard bus pass transferred to Direct Debit payment, but were told to wait until the card had actually expired. Also it turned out that the initial cost of transferring to Direct Debit was more than we had expected. So we had a look around the shops at the Tvs on sale, before heading over to the opticians for an eye test. It was just a check-up, like I have every two years. It turned out that my eyes were fine and there was no change to my glasses. After that we went along to Pizza Express for some lunch. I had a Diavolo pizza (a pizza topped with tomato, cheese, pepperoni, spicy beef, green peppers, jalapeno peppers and some tabasco sauce) it was really nice. After the meal we went our seperate ways and I bought the game of Grand Theft Auto IV for my Playstation 3 in the sales.

This afternoon I finished reading the novel The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre. The book was published in 1963 and tells the story of Alec Leamas, a British secret agent in Germany during the Cold War, who has been running a spy network in communist East Germany. However, his spies are being killed off and, with his network completely destroyed, Leamas returns to Britain in disgrace. Broken, burnt-out, cynical and bitter, all Leamas wants is to leave the world of espionage and spying (in spy terms to "come in from the cold") until he is offered one last mission to set a trap to destroy the sadistic spymaster who slaughtered his network. However before long Leamas discovers that he is a pawn in a much crueler game. It was the third le Carre book to be published, but this was the one that made his name. A million miles away from the glamorous world of spies such as James Bond, this relentlessly downbeat book depicts a brutal, morally ambiguous world filled with casual violence, with very little, if anything, distinguishing the "good" from the "bad". Well worth reading.

Disturbia

Last night I was watching the film Disturbia, directed by D.J. Caruso. The film involves a teenager (played by Shia LaBeouf) who is placed under house arrest for three months and is fitted with a monitoring device around his ankle that forbids him from going further than his lawn. To pass the time, he takes to spying on his neighbours through binoculars, especially the teenage daughter of the family that just moved in next door, and the creepy neighbour that he suspects of being a wanted serial killer. The film is very closely modelled on the classic 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window, which was in turn inspired by a short-story by Cornell Woolrich. It was a pretty good film, and for the most part pretty suspenseful and exciting.

This morning I went over to a shopping mall with my Dad, and we had a scone and coffee at one of the cafes. Then we went over to get my mobile telephone looked at. It turned out the problem was with the SIM card, so I got that replaced. Afterwards we had a look at hi-fi equipment and then went over to my parent's house. The house was still being completely redecorated and so we went along to La Tasca, a tapas restauarant, to eat. We started off with some bread ond olives, followed by a mixture of squid, prawn and mussels in paella, mushrooms in garlic sauce, chicken on little wooden skewers, chunks of potato in tomato sauce, pieces of chorizo sausage in red wine sauce for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. Tapas is a Spanish style of eating where you order small plates of food that you can share with whoever you're with. It's quite fun.

After lunch we went back to my parent's house. When I got home I wrote out the subscription for golf magazine Bunkered, for my Dad's Christmas present. I'll be writing more of my NaNoWriMo novel this evening. I'm up to 31,418 words with it now.

I've had a really bad cold and sore throat all day today, which has been really annoying.

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.

Needful Things

Last night I was watching a 1993 film on television called Needful Things, directed by Fraser C. Heston, and based on a novel by Stephen King. The film is set in the small town of Castle Rock in Maine, where a mysterious stranger named Leland Gaunt (played by Max von Sydow) arrives and sets up a shop called Needful Things, which at first glance appears to be an antiques store, but it turns out that Gaunt sells customers the one object they most desire, at a cash price that they can just about afford. However the money is only half the price, the other part of the price is that the customer has to play a malicious prank on someone else in the community, all of the pranks are designed to point to someone other than the actual culprit (usually someone else that the victim has an existing grudge against). Soon the town is tearing itself apart with misdirected revenge attacks. Stephen King has often been said to write "supernatural soap operas" and the novel of Needful Things (which is a very long book) is certainly like that, however it is essential to the plot that the character's lives and relationships are given in detail. Much of it is, naturally heavily cut or condensed for the film. It is interesting and well-acted, but it does take a while to get going and isn't very scary.

While I was getting ready to head out to work this morning I had a call from my Dad telling me he had lost his bank card and thought he had left it in a bag from the computer store we had visited on Sunday. I had the bag and sure enough it was there, so he was understandably relieved, although he had already cancelled the card.

It was a quiet day at work, as usual. After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to meet my Mum and Dad. The film we saw was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, directed by Mark Herman, and based on a novel by John Boyne. The film is set in Germany during the Second World War and tells the story of the eight year old son of the commander of a concentration camp who strikes up a friendship with a boy in the camp, who he communicates with through the fence. It's a good film, and well-made. It was also very thought-provoking.

We went out to a restaurant called The Tailend for something to eat. It's a fish restaurant and I had some haddock in batter with mushy peas, chips and bread and butter. It was some really nice food.

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.

Restaurant

Last night I was reading more of the Fragile Things collection by Neil Gaiman. They were more really good stories, including one about a man who impersonates an anthropology professor at a conference in New Orleans, a decision which he very soon comes to regret, and a selection of very short stories that were originally written for a Tori Amos album.

As I headed out for work today I bought the latest copy of Radio Times magazine. I had run out of sandwich spread yesterday and so I had to buy a pre-packaged one for my lunch.

Work was really quiet again and afterwards I went out for a drink with my friend Joe. We had one drink and then headed up to a restaurant called Frankie & Benny's (which is kind of a New York Italian-American theme restaurant). I had an eight ounce sirloin steak, covered with garlic butter, with fries, obion rings, a large mushroom and a fried tomato, followed by a slice of chocolate cheesecake with ice cream. The food was really good. It was an idea of Joe's actually, every month the weekend after we get paid, to go out to a different restaurant every month, instead of just going out drinking, which I personally think is a really good idea.

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).

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.

Doctor Who

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of the evening watching Doctor Who on DVD. I watched An Unearthy Child, which was the first Doctor Who story broadcast back in November 1963. In the story, set in London 1963, two school teachers are curious about a girl who displays an unusual amount of knowledge of science and history, so they follow her to her home, which is nothing more than a junkyard. They follow her inside and confront her strange, elderly gradfather, The Doctor (played here by William Hartnell), who they accuse of having locked the girl up in an old police telephone box. Breaking in, of course, they find that the telephone box is in fact a vast time and space machine and that the girl and her grandfather are aliens. They are soon whisked back to the Stone Age and spend the next three episodes involved in a leadership struggle amongst a tribe of cavemen. The original conception of Doctor Who was that it would be primarily an educational series about history, and that most of the stories would involve The Doctor and his companions traveling back in time and interacting with historical figures, with occasional stories set in the future or on other planets with aliens and whatnot. However the purely historical stories were abandoned very quickly.

I also watched a Doctor Who story called Remembrance of the Daleks, which was first broadcast in 1988. In this story the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) travel back to London 1963, where they and a military task-force are caught up in a battle between two rival factions of Daleks over a powerful device created by the Time Lords, which the Daleks want to use in their endless attempts at universal domination. It was a good story. They were both very good actually.

I went to my parent's house today as usual. Since it was my mum's birthday on Friday, we went out to a restaurant called Howies for lunch. I had a venison burger with onion relish and melted mozarella cheese, and chips, with a chocolate brownie cake topped with vanilla ice-cream for dessert.

I was listening to a show on the radio this afternoon called Adventures in Poetry which this week was discussing a poem called "Matilda Who Told Lies and was Burned to Death" by Hilaire Belloc, which was very amusing.

MATILDA WHO TOLD LIES AND WAS BURNED TO DEATH.
by Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London's Noble Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,
They galloped, roaring through the Town,
"Matilda's House is Burning Down!"
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda's Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away!
It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out—
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street—
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)—
but all in vain!
For every time she shouted "Fire!"
They only answered "Little Liar!"
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.