The Secret Life of Andrew

I'm having the week from hell here. It's the start of term and I seem to be asked for everything. Why have I done this to myself for nearly four years? I need to get out desperately.

Anyway, I had a good weekend. It was Heritage Open Day weekend and on Saturday we went for a tour of the Central Library. It's a beautiful building and we got to go to places that aren't open to the public. I refrained from breaking down and shouting 'GIVE ME A JOB!' So I think it went ok. On Sunday we went on a waterfront walk. It was a little disappointing if I'm honest as we went around the part of the river we've been round a lot and the woman who guided us (blatant Daily Mail reader) didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I get the impression that we weren't alone in that respect. The group was big though. 60 people turned up so they had to split us into 2 groups.

I don't really have that much to talk about to be honest. I'm just holding on until London at the weekend which will be good. We've booked tickets to go and see the Queen! Might tackle the V+A on Thursday afternoon as well, not sure yet though.

I've started a new book - 'Balthazar Jones and the Tower Of London Zoo' which I'm reading for obvious reasons and we finished watching Brothers and Sisters which was really good this season. Music-wise, the Hurts album is excellent and the Robyn album has arrived. Very exciting. Looking forward to The Pipettes album landing in my letterbox soon too. Oh, and there's the new Skunk Anansie album too. Goodness ahoy!

I'd better get an interview for that job I've applied for. I can't take much more of this :s

A busy weekend - again! On Friday night I made James a nice meal. It felt like I was in the kitchen for an age but it well worth it. I made a Turkish lamb and apricot casserole thing followed by cherry clafoutis. I de-stoned two whole punnets of cherries and parts of my figures are still stained now. Seriously, I suffer for my art. But it was a big success, especially the casserole. We've been cutting down our meat in-take lately so buying and eating lamb felt like a proper treat!

On Saturday it was fairly quiet which made a nice change! In the evening we ventured out to spend our voucher at Thai Edge. I had sweet and sour pork and we shared a vegetarian starter. It was all very nice but Leeds is quite good for Thai restaurants so I thin I prefer its competition. However, I've won a £15 voucher on twitter so we will be going back (if anyone wants to add me on there who hasn't already then my username is the same as here)! The restaurant did redeem itself on desserts though. I had banana ice cream and mango sorbet which was lovely. We were quite full afterwards so we podged out and watched (and I stress that this wasn't my choice) First Knight. First time that James has chosen a dud in a while! It was just very bland, and while some of it was quite good (some good fights, chases) it was all quite flat and unengaging.

Sunday was busier. We went on the Leeds tour bus! It was resident's weekend so it was free. I learned lots of little interesting snippets too. There used to be Monopoly factory here, the first moving picture was filmed here and the first permanent traffic lights were erected here! Also, the guy who created the sculptures in city square created the Queen Victoria statue outside Buckingham Palace. Also, Dame Judy Dench opened the West Yorkshire Playhouse! Fascinating! Of course, some of the commentary did get mocked by us. 'Clarance Dock is now an urban village...' - "Ghost Town more like". 'Leeds has more park space than any city in the UK' - "None in the city centre though!". Leeds College of Music got a hefty mention surprisingly. I didn't know that we were the country's biggest music College so I even learned something about my workplace! Haha.

In the afternoon we went to Leeds Pride. It's a funny thing. We go but we still feel like outsiders when we're there. As James said, it makes us feel excluded from a group that can already often feel excluded. We're not really 'scene' people, but the acts are fun and it's free. We had dinner at the Museum Cafe (obviously) first and got treated to Bears Aloud, the Dame Shirley Bassey Experience and, errr, Adam Rickitt. Mr Rickitt (Tory hearthrob that he is *ugh*) did his new David Guetta produced single (?!), I Breathe Again 2010 (?!!), Everything My Heart Desires and a topless Encore of the original I Breathe Again (??!!!). very bizarre. there were some right sights there as well. As James rightfully said, "Some of these multi-coloured lesbians don't half look miserable". Haha. We didn't march this year. James had done it every time he'd been so he wanted to watch the whole thing for a change. Although half way round he did say "We should join in really to show that not all gay people are weirdos". See, it's a love/hate thing. We slacked off the Lower Briggate party side in favour of going shopping in Tescos. Oh, we did see Ellen and Jonathan who we knew through James' old Skipton LGBT group although they were working so we couldn't chat for long.

So after all that fun we went home and watched Sherlock! It's very good. It's just so nice to have something on the BBC that's 90 and can breathe a bit. So if that's the price that I have to pay for only three episodes then so be it!

I forgot to mention last time about Toy Story 3 and their portrayal of Ken. There's been quite the wittering about how homophobic it was. Even Attitude mentioned it this month (Did I mention that I'm in Gay Times this month? Haha. A tweet about Lisa Scott-Lee is in there! Haha!). But surely it's more homophobic to assume that he's gay? He just likes clothes and is quite effeminate. I dunno.

In a desperate attempt to cheer ourselves up we've been watching The Muppets a lot lately. It's doing the trick certainly. We also watched 'Sunshine Cleaning' the other day as well. I expected it to be a bit more funny than it was somehow but I think that's to do with how it's sold. However I really enjoyed it. I think it helped that it wasn't overly long and the acting from the leading ladies is especially good. It's only downside was the slightly uneven plotlines, some are tied up, but some are left completely hanging. The DVD also comes with a fascinating short documentary though about the real life people who clean up after crime scenes. What a job!

In other news, we've booked a mini-cruise to Bruges. I know, all I do is book trips and holidays but this was too good to miss. It's costing me £70 for two nights on a ferry and an extra night's stay in Bruges itself. Fun times. We've bought a Belgian guide book and it looks lovely. Very exciting.

Not a lot else to report. The beginning of the end has started at work as the Director responsible for my area is leaving. Due to cost cutting he's not being replaced but (get this) three people are getting a promotion of sorts to cover the work. It begins!

Oh my God, news flash! Just got a phone call from the Department of Health job that I'd given up hope for and they've asked me to go for an interview! Amazing start to the weekend! Better fish out that job description, I've completely forgotten what I applied for. I only remember that the application took an age to do.I

I can't say that I have much to update about really. I had the most amazing week last week. Due to the show and the way my days off fell I didn't have to go back to work until Friday, and I can tell you it was amazing. I played on the Xbox, read lots and generally enjoyed the warmth. My God I miss it now. I hate January so much and I hate being back at work, especially when there aren't any jobs to apply for!

The snow's mostly gone today, which is good as it was getting very boring. Aside from it being on the news all the time it just makes everything soggy and reminds me of Iceland and how much I wish I was there right now.

So what have I been up to? Well we've got back into our James Bond watching, ticking off Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only. To be honest, I think we'd stopped watching them because Moonraker was next. My God it was dire. And so depressing to think that it was the biggest grossing Bond film until Goldeneye. Proof that people will go to see any old shit if it jumps on the zeitgeist. It was such a rip-off of Star Wars I wanted to weep. Reasons why Moonraker is shit:

1. A double taking pigeon.
2. Hovercraft gondola
3. Jaws coming back even though he'd been eaten in the last film
4. Jaws gets a girlfriend. I mean really, WTF?!
5. There is a laser shoot out in space.
6. the first hour is useless. Bond goes all over the world to find that a man has stolen his own space shuttle.
7. Sexism a-hoy! And it's bad, even for Bond.
8. Rotating space station with an emergency stop button. Christ.
9. Evil man plans to poison all humans with a gas that doesn't kill animals or plants. How does that work exactly.
10. Did I mention that there's a double taking pigeon.

Awful. And what was more frustrating is that it had the making of a normal, good Bond film in there, it's just because they didn't stick with the original plan and tried to cash in on Star Wars. Grrr. For Your Eyes Only though, I'm happy to say was brilliant, maybe Roger Moore's finest. Strnage Blofeld death prelude aside, it was bang on form, possibly because Bond employs a lot of outside help which feels quite different and interesting. Hell, Bond even turns down the offer of a woman which is very rare. A great film. While on the subject of Bond films - What's your favourite Bond theme? I'm intrigued to know.

The other thing we've watched lately was the documentary on Barack Obama. James sums it up better than I can here: http://theresnotime-jrm.blogspot.com/2010/01/by-people-election-of-barack-obama-2008.html , putting that 1st degree to good use! But I really enjoyed it. Obama could read a shopping list out and I'd feel inspired. It was very interesting to see what happens behind the scenes though, American politics is much more interesting than here. It brought back memories of how exciting the Democratic nominations were compared to here where I'll be voting for a middle aged man in a suit - again (mind you, look what happened when we broke the mould last time...) So yes, a good watch.

Oh, we watched The latest Muppets film too, Letters to Santa. It was surprisngly good, especially the lengthy out takes. I'm a big believe that there's still room for the Muppets on TV (probably because I'm reading an amazing book on Sesame Street at the minute), they just need to kill the Disney-fied cutsy-ness stone dead.

Yesterday we went to see Nine at the cinema. It was very good, but not great. The cast is amazing, absolutely stunning and it's well acted. And the Dame Judimeister sings which is obviously amazing, but the whole thing was missing the wow factor like Chicago had. I don't know what it was. maybe the plot? Enjoyable at the cinema though, and it looked stunning.

Thankfully I've found another job to apply for. It's at the University of Huddersfield which seem like a great Uni. Commuting is an issue but hey, I'm desperate.

Christmas has been a pretty successful affair, although it's not quite over for me yet as I've not seen my family yet! My haul's been very good. James' presents had a broad muppet theme and I got:

The Mupper Show Season 3 on DVD
A cuddly Count and Janice
Angel 'Smile Time' graphic novel
Muppet Christmas Carol Soundtrack
A Swedish Chef mug
Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind Graphic Novel
Cuddly Totoro
Monty Python Fluxx card game
A Muppets Christmas DVD
'Animal' belt
Sesame Street DVD 1969-1974
Sesame Street 40th anniversary
Various chocolate goods

I haven't looked through them all properly yet but the Sesame Street stuff, especially the book makes for fantastic reading. I'm quite into the Muppets (good job eh?) so seeing what work goes into the shows is really interesting. We watched the first Sesame Street episode the other day and James keeps singing the songs round the house. In 1969 the only characters to appear were Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Kermit and the Cookie Monster (who doesn't even eat cookies!).


Ourliving room on Xmas day

My presents to James weren't themed at all:

Tetris Cube
Zac Efron calendar (so fucking hot)
Cow candles
Black Eyed Peas 'The E.N.D' album
Beyonce 'I Am...Sasha Fierce' album
The Argyle Sweater 2010 desk calendar
Top Trumps tournament
Cows In Action book
Mr Bump stress reliever
Mr Bump mints

Think that covers it all. Oh, and a cute toast cushion which I bought for both of us as I loved it! Haha. We played with the games and stuff a fair bit during the day. We've got various other bits from James' family too. Too many chocolates and biscuits, Ross Noble DVDs, a strange penguin thing, a digital photo frame (re-inventing the wheel? We're not convinced by it yet!).


James with toast cushion and other various gifts

On the day itself we played games and cooked the dinner. Very exciting as we'd never cooked a Xmas dinner before. It was a roaring success though. Should have taken a photo of it but we forgot! I was dead pleased with it though. Once that was eaten I'm ashamed to say that we watched a lot of TV. Top Of The Pops (I sung along to everything naturally and it was tonnes better than last year even though it still had Fearne 'The Programme Murderer' Cotton [who appropriately turns into Fearne Bottom when you type it into predictive text] and Reggie 'Please Punch Me In The Face' Yates), The Queen, The Gruffalo (beautifully animated), Doctor Who (OK. Got better. Too much confusion and contrived goings-on at the beginning), Strictly Come Dancing (vaguely), The Royle Family, Gavin And Stacey (Like week old sprouts. ie, off the boil) and Catherine Tate's Nan's Christmas Carol. Quite surprised by The Royle Family. I can take it or leave it usually. I find it a bit too depressing, like a lot of stuff about 'normal' families but it's miles better now they've left the house! A good day all told.


Me looking quite smug with my gifts

On Boxing Day we braved the shops just to leave the house. Town was busy and a lot was open. We did pretty well. We got the DK Prehistoric Life book from Smiths which we'd been after for a while. For dead cheap too. I bought the Ministry Of Sound 80s 3CD set, although I think I've over-dosed on electro 80s a bit now :s. I also got three pairs of trainers in the Schuh sale. I'm quite excited by this as I've never owned so many pairs of trainers!

Yesterday we went to visit James' family. The farm was nice, still all snowy, and we got fed lots and although we didn't do a lot it was nice enough. We played Scrabble today. I won the first one, James' Dad the second. He's worse to play board games with than James, haha. Julia and James' Dad don't get on all that well and Julia always blame me for his behaviour when we visit. Unfair! He'd show off with any visitor!


Caught in bed with another man

Back home now. Quite glad that we've got a break before we head off to my family for New Year. I want a rest! 

After the success of Wednesday, James decided to have the day off with me on Thursday so we could head out somewhere. The weather wasn't great so we didn't go out until later but when we did we went to the Royal Armouries. I've not been completely ok with museums ever since I fainted in one in June and think I have anxiety issues related back to that. So we didn't do the whole thing as it wasn't making me feel great. I'm so terrified of fainting in public, I think it has an adverse effect on me. The thing is, I never do, but I do get headahces because of it. It's pissing me off no end. But I will conquer this. Anyway, it's a large museum anyway so doing half of it wasn't such a bad idea. It's a funny place. It still seems very new even though it's about 12 years old now and it's laid out really well. It's not in cronological order though which we weren't sure if we liked. Sometimes it's good to see the development of things across time but this would probably just means a whole floor full of boring armour if they didn that. There are a lot of things vieing for your attention too, probably to keep the kids interested but still, it can be a bit much sometimes. The best bit were the interpretations which we saw two of. They solo pieces based on memoires or real accounts. We saw a Falklands soldier and Anne Boleyn and it really helped to put historical events in context.

After work on Friday we went bowling for Bev Spence's birthday. This was only the second time I'd ever been remember and I now without barriers. In fact, I came third in my lane which I was very pleased with. My arm still aches now which is really some indication of how much I need to work on my guns. It was a full house out I think so it was good to see everyone. I didn't get to chat to half of them though as we had to head off at 8 to the Cockpit (yes, again) as we had another gig to see.

This time it was VV Brown. Out of Alphabeat, Frankmusik and her she was the cheapest so I expected it to be, not more amaturish especially, but perhaps less confident. Not so. She was absolutely stunning, and from the Grace Jones like mask she came on with to the absolutely brilliant big black man of a bassist it was just brilliant. I can't find an ordered set list online but she did the following:

Quick Fix
Game Over
Leave!
Bottles
Crying Blood (acoustic)
Crying Blood (reggae version)
Viva La Vida (Coldplay cover)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Back In Time
I Love You
Caroline (new song)
L.O.V.E
Everybody
Travelling Like The Light
Shark In The Water
-------------
Sex On Fire (Kings Of Leon cover)

The covers I could have done without obviously but my favourite was probably the new song, Caroline which was just stunning, it really blew me away. The whole set was brilliant though. She did all the album apart from one track so kerching - value for money too. Everyone seemed really into it all, including myself. So, so good.

We've had a slow weekend. Yesterday evening we went out for a meal though, to Chaophraya, a Thai place not far from us. It was really nice inside. It's a little hidden away but we were surprised to find it quite full when we got there and by the time we left it was bursting! The staff bring you cake and sing to you if it's your birthday. We know this because we heard the same thing three times! Drinking a lovely fruit cocktail, I had a duck stir fry with a fruity sauce. I'm not a spicy fan and some people are funny about fruity stuff with meat but I love it. My duck had a peach sauce and had grapes and apples in it along with peppers and onions. So tasty. I then copped out with coconut ice-cream but James had chilled tapioca with melon ice. Weird but tasty, I suppose it's like cold rice pudding right? James paid which was very nice but really, it's how a Master of Science should be treated right? :p

We've watched a lot of TV stuff over the weekend and I don't often write about. However, over the past few days we've been watching:

Doctor Who (this really shook me up actually and has easily been the best of the specials. Lindsey Duncan is a brilliant actor)
Farscape (Just started, I've been missing Sci-Fi)
Medium
Have I Got News For You
The Thick Of It
Beautiful People (Like Gimme Gimme Gimme it often suggers from a weak script off-set by great performances, but it's set in 1997/8 so I can relate to so much).

Work is hell at the moment, today was just awful. But it's that time of year. What's that you say? Why yes, time to get a new job.

Well today is not the best of days. I went for an interview yesterday at Leeds College of Art and I'm guessing that the silence following means that I haven't got it. I'm really annoyed with myself about it really. There were only four candidates so I had a good chance. The job had change which site it was based at so I had a tour of both sites and both are lovely small libraries. The one where the job was based was more FE orientated which would have been nice and different. It didn't help that I mucked up the test good and proper. I had to put 20 books in Dewey order (easy) and then write down the bibliographic reference of one of them. I still don't know what that means. Harvard reference? I think I was thrown by the fact that they told us that the job would entail a lot of cataloguing and since I'd never catalogued a book in my life I wrote it as a catalogue reference, or what I thought one would look like anyway. Still, I was prepared to sell myself at the interview and talk about how my current workplace even has its courses validated by the Open University as well and how it was clearly meant to be. However, I didn't get a chance to sell myself at all as the interview took about 15 minutes. I talked about why I wanted the job and was given a few scenarios which were easy enough but I didn't get to say much as all. I had all kinds of things to say about equal opportunities and all sorts. I'm so fed up about it all. I've got another job to apply for which would usually keep me going a bit but it's a medical library and I know less about that than I do about art! Why do libraries hate me so much?!

I dunno if I've been up to much else this week. We've been catching up on TV stuff I guess. We've finished watching the (not so) new series of Skins which was fairly good. So many of the characters are massive dicks though, I found it hard to care and wanted a fair few of them to get what they deserved. The excessive and over-exaggerated use of drink, drugs and sex was also a little off-putting. I know that's the point of Skins but I found it really divorced from reality this time around. Also - extremely mopey. More so than the last lot. It's had its moments though. We're also coming to the end of Medium series 3 which is brilliant. It's one of the most underrated shows. It's quite X-file-y but the excellent family scenes ground it so well. It's a joy to watch, and so original with it. The way its filmed is also quite interesting. A lot of 'cop' shows such as Monk and Psyche are quite bright and comedy based but Medium has more in common with Without A Trace which is more dramatic, but with great comedy touches.

We're continuing very slowly through our trip through every Bond film. We're on Roger Moore now. I've not seen many of his. After Diamonds Are Forever though I'm glad to get to him. It was fairly rubbish all told. Flat on all points. Live and Let Die though was fiarly solid I thought. James prefers Moore to Connery and I can see where he's coming from. Moore is a lot more suave and seems to suit the role better somehow. I do quite like Sean Connery still. The only major bad thing about Live and Let Die is the awful boat chase near the end. Well, the chase itself is very good (and there are a lot of good chanses in the film) but it's slowed down by being broken up by crap policemen bits. And that goddamn awful Sheriff character, just awful.   

The other thing of note that we've been doing is watching all of Madonna's music videos right from the start. The Celebration doesn't cover them all so we're watching the ones it misses out in-between the ones that are on there. I'm a bit ignorant of Madonna pre-Ray of Light so it's been a bit of an education to me. It's funny how time has a habit of just remembering the 'classics' and one of the joys of watching everything she's done is that I've become familiar with songs I've never heard of. It's so odd that there are either songs I had no idea existed ('Fever', 'Bad Girl') or videos I've never seen. Also interesting is that not all of her early stuff is as amazing as people seem to think. The Immaculate Collection is pretty solid but then there's stuff like 'True Blue' which is fairly terrible. On the whole though I'm much more of a 1998-onwards fan. Still the highlights in terms of music and video are (for me): 'Material Girl', 'Papa Don't Preach', 'Express Yourself', 'Vogue', 'Bedtime Story', 'Ray of Light', 'Don't Tell Me' and 'Hung Up'. We did the Evita and Music era last night and 'Music' still sounds incredibly weird to me. It's just such an odd song. There's loads going on, lots of weird noises and yet it just works. 'Don't Tell Me' is one of my favourite Madonna songs though. There's just something about the video, the production and the song which is utterly spot on. I think the same about 'Ray Of Light' too. Gutted that 'Nothing Really Matters' isn't on the DVD though, it's an excellent video. Also, her look from 1998-2002 is proof that she doesn't need her get her vadge out to look great. She's in her 40s at that time and she looks excellent, really classy and stylish. Put the Hard Candy away love!

Well after having a good week last week I'm back to not feeling so great. While I didn't have an 'attack' last night I certainly had the familiar feeling I've been having. And today the top of my back is killing me which not only convinces me that it's something to do with my nervous system/neck but also makes me wonder whether it's something like bad posture. I do use a computer a lot and I've read that tension in the muscles in your neck can reduce the flow of blood to your head. I guess that would make sense as the moment I start walking around after feeling unwell I'm fine again. So tonight I'm going to have a bath and a massage and see if that helps at all. I rarely have either (I'm not a bath fan and I'm hate massages!) and if a doctor won't help then I'll have to hlep myself won't I?!

Anyway, better news is that I've ordered myself an I-Pod! I'm very excited. I've always been quite anti-I-Pods, I don't think they're that reliable but I always look after my gadget-y stuff and I decided that I'd rather buy one than have a MP3 player which is literally useless. Anything's better than that! The current ones are 120GB and I don't need one that big so I've found a new one on eBay which is 30GB, so an upgrade, for £95 which is a bargain as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow. Fun stuff.

The weekend was fairly relaxed. Julia came over on Saturday and we didn't do much apart from play Trivia Pursuit (which I won) and then watch Zoolander. Now I was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt but, well, it was shit. I'm not adverse to 'that kind of thing', I liked Dodgeball, but I really think I missed the joke completely. By a country mile. Blue steel or not.

Sunday was Gay Pride so we headed to Millenium Square to watch the stage. I've always had conflicting feeling about Pride events but I think it makes sense if you look at it as more of a celebration of the weird and the wonderful, rather than 'we're here and queer' kind of thing. There certainly were some weird and wonderful sights though. Not always in a good way! Me and James look very very normal when you look at some couples! I'm very thankful for this. Some ace drag queens. Drag queens make me happy in the same way that seeing a dog with its head out of the window of a car makes me happy. And you know what's better than a drag queen? Well, two things actually. Firstly, a crap drag queen (no Amy Winehouse ones with beer bellies this time sadly), and secondly a drag queen with a fag in her mouth and a pint in her hand!

Pride seemed better this year. I always feel that Leeds has a meagre gay scene but they did a good job with it and had some actual proper acts this time round. There seemed to be more people as well. So on stage were Preston, Jade Ewan (Tiny lady! Big voice.) and The Yeah Yous plus others including the amazing Bears Aloud. Good stuff. The whole event was signed as well which I thought was really good. The presenters had a lot of fun making the poor signers say 'cock'! Haha. I managed to burn the tops of my arms too! I mean really! In this climate! We saw some people we knew too, mostly through James' group. Saw Ellen and Chris. So yeah, good stuff. I got roped into marching as well but we deviated at the end and nipped home to send Julia on her way. We came back to Lower Briggate after though and there wasn't much about. Not unless you wanted to drink and it was 4 o'clock so we went home! Got a nice sandwich on the way though. Watched a lot of West Wing series 4 which is brilliant as always. I only know about American politics through that show.

This week's not been exciting so far. I'm in real need of a holiday! Over two weeks until I break up, roll on Austria. Y'know, I've been writing this on and off while I work and I feel fine now. Stupid body. Could be the paracetamol I had at lunch though. Gah!

I've been wanting to update this all week but I haven't because I wanted to add photos and couldn't because all three USB ports on my laptop have now died. I can't really afford a new one so it really needs performing, especially as the keyboard is on its last legs too. Obviously I need a new one but aside from not being to afford I am not going to the darkside and joining the shitty Vista league. How would I play all of my ten year old computer games then?! Case in point - I am currently most of the way through Grim Fandago which is turning out to be wonderful. It's a bit object/puzzle light I have to say but I'm actually turning out to be pretty crap at solving the puzzles so maybe it's for the best. When I was 10 I used to be so good at these games! Manny is voiced by Ugly Betty's Dad which pleases me. After I found that out I started to look up the other voices on IMDB and when I said to James that I expected to find more of the cast of Ugly Betty among the voices he accused me of being a big ol' racist!

Speaking of computer games, I really need to find an online forum or community that likes games in the same way that I do. Popjustice serves my music community needs but there doesn't seem to be a computer game equivolant. I need a place that likes the history as well as the evolution of gaming as opposed to blowing things up. Gamespot has some nice bits but the forums themselves are a bit low brow in a way, plus the spelling is really bad. I feel like a marginalised gamer!

So what's been going on lately? Well last week we went to see An Inspector Calls at Leeds Grand and you know what? It was utter shit. I tried to look on the bright side but James was on the verge of walking out. The Grand isn't doing well with us lately as every play we've seen there hasn't been great (only two granted). I liked the play itself but the production was terrible. The acting was mostly very bad and it was played too seriously. The set was nice but seemed to overwhelm everything. There also seemed to be a kids/WW!! thing going on which bared no relation to the setting of the play. It was directed by Stephen Daldry too, the director of the Billy Elliot film so it's not like he's incompetent. 2 Million deluded people then? Or maybe just disappointed. And blimey I've just found this piece about it:

"Following its initial success at the National Theatre, Stephen Daldry’s production of An Inspector Calls transferred to the West End for two years, prior to a world tour. In 1993 the production opened on Broadway, winning an unprecedented string of awards including four Tony Awards. Winning a total of 19 major awards since it first opened, this landmark production has played in Australia, the United States, Japan and Europe, and as well as its first West End run, has completed six major UK tours and a return visit to the West End which lasted for over eight years. Well in excess of 2 million theatergoers have watched the production at nearly 5000 performances."

The day after we'd had a think about it and James said how angry he was about it as it should have been good. I agree.

Anyway, better things now. Last weekend we went to see Wolverine and I was pleased to say that I liked it. I don't really get all the negative criticism about it to be honest. It's not a strong as when X-Men is at its best but it's enjoyable none the less. There are time plot holes if you want to look closely at it but it doesn't matter too much. And it's definitely better when there are a few mutants in the picture as one mutant alone doesn't really work for me. Gambit was brilliant though if a little sparsely used. I really want to see the cartoons again actually. I never watched that many cartoons when I was kid but I remember really liking the X-Men ones. Star Trek this afternoon which I'm excited about!

Other films we've watched this week include Babe and Stranger Than Fiction. I'd never seen Babe and it's so cute! It's quite a nice simple story at its heart but it's quite nicely done. How can you not like a duck that acts like a rooster right? Stranger Than Fiction was very very good. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did really as I thought it might have either gone really silly or ultra quirky. Thankfully it's neither of these things. There's a romance element that isn't laboured too hard and it's very bizarre without feeling too divorced from reality in a strange kind of way! So yeah, I loved it. Will Ferrell is one of those types that you can lump in with a load of other actors when it comes to silly films and whereas I don't like other actors or films of his type he seems to be the exception to the rule really.

This week we've mostly been watching Father Ted. For some reason I never watched it the first time round and I've really been missing out. It's so funny and every time the theme music comes on I have to question why I don't own any Divine Comedy stuff as I really like them. I might wait until a music lull happens as I've bought tonnes lately.

"What do you say to a cup of tea Father?"
"Feck off cup!"

Hehe, gets me every time. On the other hand, do you know who isn't funny? Michael Mcintyre, that's who. Yet everyone seems to love him. He's on TV now. Maybe I hate him because he's so southern? Nah, I think it's because he's not that funny. There aren't many comedians I don't like actually come to think of it. 

Right, picture time:

Well that didn't work did it? After saying how eager I was to write more often I seem to have gone the other way and started to write less. This is simply no good. 

Anyway, last Wednesday was my first book group meeting! So I trundled off to Skipton library, eager to talk about Sarah Waters'  'The Night Watch' which I think is one of my favourite books, simply because no other book has sucked me in quite so much. I don't really remember being compelled by a book so much since 'Cloud Atlas'. It turns out that having a book you love at your first book group meeting is both a blessing and a curse. It gives you something to talk about but if someone doesn't like it then you just want to punch them in the face. Funnily enough, when I first got there one of the ladies who interviewed for the job I went for there a year ago was on tea duty! I told her then and she just went, 'Oh God!' because, obviously I didn't get it (even though it was the best interview I had ever had and I know that they were gutted they couldn't give me the job because someone internally had got the job. Haha.) but she did remember me. She asked me what I was up to now. I made sure I told her about my MSc to get my foot in the door too! Hehe. After getting my tea I took my seat at the table. there must have been about 20 people there in total and it doesn't get much bigger apparently. With this being Skipton I wasn't surprised that I was the youngest there. I was surprised that I was one of only two males though! I sat down and I thought, 'God, this is like a WI meeting!'.

All was not lost however, and I really enjoyed myself. The housewife sector didn't really like the book and there were a few comments by other people that made me think 'what the fuck are you talking about?!' but otherwise the book was well received. I got chatting to a lady next to me who loved the book and it felt really good talking about how much we loved it. The refreshments were good too! Rum truffles, mini mince pies and posh juices :D The next one isn't until January now but I'll be going to the next one. It was really interesting hearing people's differing opinions about the book.

Good as the book group was, it came at a bad time as I had an essay in the next day! Although it was a bit of a chore it didn't turn out too bad. I was 1 word over the word count which pleased me as I never go over it! I had to do my references and amendments at Uni though so that took a while and I just got it in before my last lecture. I've got another one in in a week and a half which I'm a little more worried about though :s After that I am free to think about Xmas! Thursday was also interesting because I brought home the whole Dewey Decimal system home with me, which is four volumes, but I could only carry three :s I just wanted to look eager really. I ended up meeting James on the way back through Leeds as he was going for a night out with his old workmates, courtesy of The Daily Mail of all things. He didn't get in until late, the drunkard.

Speaking of James, he's been at his new job a week now. It's with the Legal Services Commission. more importantly he's on flexitime and this has made me very jealous. My job would be so much better with flexitime and there is no good reason why we can't have it. Grrr. Anyway, it seems like he's enjoying his job and that is the main thing. At least I have a commuter buddy now :D

The weekend's been quite quiet really. We didn't even leave the house for that much, other than to go food shopping. Morissons had a nice Xmas tree up in the foyer which made me eager to get one of our own. Hopefully after the 6th December Uni will have calmed down and we can pick up decorations for cheap! I'm not sure where we'll put a tree but I want one to put presents under! 

We watched a few things including finishing off 'Life of Mammals'. The last one was a bit sinister with horrible killer chimps but hey, I've loved the series. I want to watch 'The Life of Birds' next I think. Hmm, I can't decide. It makes me sad to think that because of the BBC balls up with the Queen that documentaries and news are suffering cuts. Ironcially, it's documentaries that the BBC do the best, probably the best in the world and yet they're cutting funding and letting things like reality TV and 'light entertainment' go free, there's no justice. note how I didn't add that the BBC do the news the best, because they really don't . I fucking *hate* the news and its scaremongering. So speaking of things the Beeb do well, Cranford is really good. I've always missed out on period dramas. But I'm enjoying this, especially as it puts Dame Judi Dench back on our screens. Always a pleasure.   

We watched 'Lilo and Stitch' too wich was great! It's very different to a normal Disney movie but it's really, properly, funny and Stitch is so darn cute. The fact that it's set in Hawaii and yet has aliens in is also very odd. The look of the whole thing is great and the chartacters are really inventive. I always thought that Disney had gone off the boil in the 90s but I was clearly wrong. Also, it's after watching stuff like that i have to say, how can anyone think that 2D animation is dead. It can still be utterly beautiful.

Super Scrabble was also played, which killed an afternoon. I lost so I won't dwell on it, but we watched Spice Girl videos while we played. They were so 90s! And wasn't Posh a rubbish Spice Girl? She hardly sung and didn't really *do* anything. The Viva Forever video is pretty freaky too. We also watched the Best bits of Children in Need (is it so wrong that we taped it and skip through it to get to the good stuff?). We didn't end up watching much of it really as I don't care for soap stars singing or variety show stuff so it wasn' t too long in the end. James observation that it is full of awkward talking is also true!   

I have to mention that I'm really into Bloc Party at the moment. Yes I've caved. I did kind of stick them in pile of indie-bands-that-had-one-decent-song in 2005 pile, because in 2005 there were *loads* of bands like that but after liking 'Flux' I've caved in and gone for it. Their new album is pretty decent too I have to say.

I have to say though is that the highlight of my weekend was someone trading a pokemom with me globally via DS wIfi. Wonderful stuff. I didn't even need to be online while it was traded, I just logged on and someone had given me a Piplup. The wonders of the modern age. It's funny, I read a comment somewhere saying that we are lucky to live now rather than 200 years ago, which is true, but I bet that people in 2207 will think the same thing (also, how crazily futuristic does 2207 sound?! And yet it's the same distance away as 1807 is. Even 2107 sound futuristic and yet 1907 doesn't sound so old, there are people alive today who were born then!). It just makes me wonder what people in the future will think of us. Probably how horrible it is that we can die of cancer or heart disease just like how we think how horrible that people died of cholera. It is quite exciting to think that in my lifetime so many exciting things will be discovered :D