2014 — 28 November: Friday
Junior tells me he hopes for progress in re-instating the external view of 'molehole' this weekend.1 So far, only Big Bro has complained more than once :-)
Last night's...
... double dose of Nina Conti was a little too much in one go; there was inevitably a fair amount of overlap in the material. But the lady is capable of flights of genuinely surreal fancy both on-stage and while being filmed simply wandering about Leeds with "Monkey" making acid comments. Quick-witted in both senses and very highly recommended.
As I browsed...
... through a few of the frankly disappointing potted biographies of 100 "outstanding thinkers" profiled here I couldn't help wondering why I'd never even heard of so many of them. It reminded me of an IBM Hursley meeting at which the Lab Director — on being presented with a list (by HR, naturally) of the great and the good who were deemed worthy of double-sized promotions to keep them on the "correct" gradient as they rose vertiginously through the Corporate ranks — commented "If they're so good, how come I don't know any of them?" Not the reaction HR had been expecting, as they slunk away with instructions to re-think their list.
Mr Taxman...
... has just reduced my winter fuel payment... on the grounds that dear Mama is living here (she is also herself entitled to one of these annual payments, of course). Mr Taxman clearly doesn't bother to read my carefully-crafted letters regarding Power of Attorney and Change of Address quite carefully enough. If I can find both a postage stamp, and an envelope, I may yet try again. Alternatively, I may just settle for a rather late lunch.
[Pause]
Followed by tea 'n' biccies over with Roger and Eileen — cunningly dodging all the mad Black Friday shopping idiots.
Getting a round tuit
It took me a while to convince myself that "Pulp Fiction" was actually a pretty good film. "From Dusk Till Dawn" is a riotous piece of tosh (if anything, Sarah Kelly's "Full Tilt Boogie" on-set film about it is even better). I enjoyed "Jackie Brown" the first time Christa and I saw it in the Harbour Lights cinema. We agreed, too, on "Sin City". I even eventually saw the merits of (most of) "Kill Bill", though I hate the burial scene. Much more recently "Django Unchained" was OK, though I've never felt compelled to finish it, so it can't have made that deep an impression on me. So what?
So, quite a while ago (in December 2006, to be precise) I finally picked up a DVD of Reservoir Dogs, remarking "I guess it's time I watched this horrible, horribly-influential film". Guess what I've just finished watching? It, too, is actually a pretty good film. Not too bad for a directorial début, certainly, 23 years ago...