Chronicles of an Old Cheeser

Not many new posts...

2011-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

....from moi, as you can see.

Ho hum!

Sorry, peeps!

And they're probably aren't going to be any for the next few weeks, either. Tomorrow I am heading off on my hols to Cornwall. I must admit I am rather excited, having never visited that neck of the woods before (even though I was actually born in Falmouth but was, erm, far too young to remember). We're staying in Newquay, which I've heard lots of good things about, not to mention Cornwall itself - we're planning on visiting lots of other places in the county too - St Ives, Tintagel, etc. The gay scene there looks pretty non-existent but then, that's not the be-all and end-all is it?! After that I'm back home for a few days but have scarcely time to rest before setting off on another trip, this time to visit folks/friends up North - and I'm going to be journeying from place to place - a Yorkshire/Lancashire/Leicestershire road trip no less: my family in York; a mate in Newcastle; a place in the Pennines called Haltwhistle; then Morecambe, Lancs, where one of my oldest friends resides (looks gloriously tacky but don't tell him that...) and finally Loughborough near Leicester. Should be good!

Not been many "cheesy" posts of late, I know, and still nothing on the last series of Dr Who!! You want the truth? I can't be bothered to watch all the episodes from Season Six again, in order to write some reviews! What has happened to me?! When I started my original blog, one of my main aims was to write a lot of posts on Dr Who-related things but over time my interest has really waned...am I turning into a boring old fart? Nah. I just wasn't that crazy about the latest series, that's all (and I agree with what you said, Amanda! And Tim, yes, perhaps I should dust out some old series DVDs and write about those instead!)

Anyways, enough of that. Have a fab Summer whatever you're doing everyone and I will be back...

OC x

The heart is a very resilient muscle

2011-07-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

I realise I haven't blogged for f*ck knows how long...

...so what's new??

Sorry, everyone.

But I'm still here!! And not intending on going away! Just bear with these hiatuses...

As the Summer hols are up and coming, perhaps I'll be able to manage more frequent posts...one hopes.

There are a few fairly valid reasons for my absence, though.

1. I did my usual stint of Summer exam marking, which is always time-consuming (but good for the coffers).

2. A few weeks ago, I went into hospital with a heart condition. It started off with a virus, swollen glands and then chest pains which wouldn't go away and which I'd never experienced before. After a few days, I thought "f*ck this" and took myself off to my local A&E. I was told I may have had a mini heart attack! After having an inordinate number of needles shoved into my arm, blood pressure taken etc, they shipped me off to another hospital with a good cardio dept, and kept me in for a few days whilst they conducted more tests etc...it transpired I had a condition called Myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle that had stopped my ticker from working as efficiently as it should have been and consequently lead to the pain I'd been experiencing. Not blocked arteries or cholestrol, I'm pleased to add, as they shoved a stem into one of my arteries and then sent this dye up there so they could take a look and everything proved okay...thankfully. I've never been a massively unhealthy person, so that kind of figured.

Anyway after a few days of antibiotics and being checked up on I was discharged and sent home, but ordered to rest before going back to work. (I've got to say I take back all my previous gripes about the NHS. Apart from the school dinner-like food, which was, admittedly, cr*p, the attention and care I received was great. It's also a massive cliche, but you really do start reflecting on your own mortality when you're somewhere like that. For a couple of days I stayed in a ward with a lot of men who were much older and physically weaker than me, some awaiting triple by-passes and other more serious operations...one dear old guy in the bed across from me looked at death's door, but was so nice and kind to me even though we'd barely met/spoken: "Hello Simon, it's so nice to see a friendly face; so nice". I wanted to cry. I'm very, very lucky.)

3. Erm, that's it.

But I'm alive! Hoorah! And will be back!!

(And I can't be a*sed to write about the latest series of Dr Who. I just felt so disappointed with the whole thing! Doh!)

OC xxx

I'm into sci-fi UFO

2011-06-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Went to a rather good science fiction exhibition at the British Library with my Dad last Bank Holiday weekend. We both really enjoyed it. I'd urge you to do the same if you're in the vicinity of Kings Cross/St Pancras, or even just contemplating a London visit. It's free and there's lots of literary works by sci-fi authors on display plus various exhibits etc...for instance, you can draw your own alien and listen to clips of Marvin the Paranoid android * and HG Wells.

Talking of sci-fi you'll have no doubt observed that I have written/posted precisely nothing re: the brand new series of Doctor Who. I'm behind again, yes, I know. Work busyness and all has precluded it...story of my life. Anyway once this Saturday's final-cliffhanging-episode-until-the-show-comes-back-in-the-Autumn is over, I shall endeavour to write something. What I can admit to already though is an overarching feeling of disappointment with the series so far. The fact is, I'm becoming more and more hard to please, but the quality of the stories seems to be declining. Or is just my old age? (I actually whacked on my DVD of "The Hand of Fear" recently, partly to commemorate Lis Sladen's passing but it also to fulfil my yearning for old style "Who"...and I preferred it!) However I do have fairly high hopes about tomorrow's episode - apparently there's a mega-revelation in store regarding River Song's identity and we also get to find out about Amy's "baby". And the Cybermen are back. And the Silurians. And the "eye-patch" lady, aka Francis Barber, gets a starring role. Mmmm not too much to fit into one episode is it? Let's pray those hopes aren't dashed to dust...

Meanwhile to keep you going through the hiatus, I present you with this gem from .... Sir Clifford of Richard....yes his ode to Sci-fi...listen to the lyrics, they're actually rather witty/good! ** Just forgive the fact that the video seems to bear absolutely no relation to the song, but then it was the only clip on You Tube I could find....

Trust y'all are doing well....

OC xxx

* First prize to the first blogger who can explain who he is.
** Well, in my befuddled mind, any road.

The Eurovision Pong Contest

2011-05-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well I couldn't resist tuning into Eurovision tonight to take in all the wondrous acts from all over Europe...except "wondrous" wasn't really the operative word. A right bunch of old tat and some seriously weird acts up there...examples included a bizarre jazz number with a singer who had an incredibly caterwauling voice, then a band from Moldova wearing pointy witchy type hats and some crazy bird on a unicycle, with an oompah brass section...weeeeeird. The winners, Azerbaijan, were no great shakes ...not a terrible song, but there were some worthier acts who deserved to claim the "Eurovision" crown such as Austria.

As for our lot, boyband Blue...well the song wasn't terrible either but obviously the judges thought otherwise. Irish act Jedward were their usual typically tacky selves, an act who send themselves up so much they didn't stand any serious chance of winning. As usual it's all tactical voting with neigbouring countries giving one another loads of points, as opposed to "nil points"...

I once blogged about Eurovision, and here too but the less than brilliant acts on show tonight have just inspired me to do some more Cheeser-ish harking back to the good old days of Euro-pop (okay not all of these are strictly Eurovision acts but who cares...)

Ladies and gents, I give you...

Brother Louie, Louie, Louie!! Remember Modern Talking? The bouffed up hair! The jackets!! The glamour!!

And what about...

And who's this Tarzan Boy...?

However, I demand that you CALL ME...

Oooh la la...it' s Ryan Paris...

You could have taken one step further and I would have been there...

And is it true that you were only playing Love Games....?

But perhaps I'm just your Jack in a Box...

Will you parlez vous francais?

And last but not least...

Stuff the wedding

2011-04-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't guessed, the title of this post pretty much sums up my opinion of the Royal Nuptials occurring tomorrow. Apologies to all royalists and William and Kate lovers - I suppose. We just can't get away from it though, can we?

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I'm getting cynical. Maybe I don't like the fact that our taxes are paying for the extraordinarily expensive extravagance that is the Royal Wedding.

I am however very pleased to be having the day off work tomorrow. There's been an awful lot of Bank Holidays recently, hence lots of time off from one's job. A four day weekend now beckons. Yaaaay! Not bad atall.

When I was a nipper I distinctly remember getting all in a tizzy about Charles and Diana getting spliced. I had a Charles and Di mug, a Charles and Di wedding brochure, even a Charles and Di plastic bag if memory serves me correctly. But it was 1981 and I was a mere 12 years old...things have changed somewhat. I'm really not bovvered, as Lauren might say...(I am also rather surprised to see that none of my fellow bloggers have commented on the forthcoming wedding! Can it be that none of you are "bothered" either??)

Don't get me wrong. I can appreciate the "fairy tale" element and I'm sure Kate Middleton will look ravishing. William isn't too bad himself, come to that - well, more than certain other gawky and geeky looking male members of the Royal Family. He's turned out quite a handsome fella...And on that particular note, I thought it might be nice to present y'all with a completely gratuitous picture of the aforementioned Prince in a pair of speedos (to hell with Kate Middleton, she's not important.) Good bod, eh? I do wonder what the ball is covering up, though...

Kissing ain't no crime

2011-04-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

A friend has just alerted me to this story. Read it and grimace. One might have hoped that we'd moved on in these enlightened times. Granted, doing this in some pub in the ghettos of Hackney or some other equally rough and homophobic pocket of the UK might not have been such a good idea, but Soho....?!

Oddly enough I am probably heading there tonight and am tempted to go and join in the kissathon!! Wooohooo!! Power to the Homos!!!

Let me hear your body talk

2011-04-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud owner of a new exercise bike. And I started my regime today. I burnt over 400 calories. A good start...

I'm not quite sure if I will end up looking as trim and slim as the fine (if somewhat plastic) specimen of manhood below, but one must have something to aspire towards...

Give me a year or so and I might just get there...

The Bush is back (so to speak)

2011-04-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

Hooray!! It's only been 6 years since the last Kate Bush album (a comparatively short hiatus given the 12 year mega-gap that ensued between "The Red Shoes" and "Aerial"). And now La Bush is about to unleash a new one on the music-listening public. Yaaaay!! (In case you didn't know, I'm a big KB fan).

At least, a sort-of new album. To be precise, it's going to be a reworking of some of her old tracks, taken from her "Sensual World" and "Red Shoes" albums. Here's the blurb:
On "Director's Cut" Kate revisits a selection of tracks from her albums, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, a process that presents a fascinating portrait of an artist in a constant state of evolution. She has re-recorded some elements whilst keeping the best musical performances of each song – making it something of a director’s cut but in sound, not vision.

Sounds interesting. And a single, "Deeper Understanding", is due for release in May. Here it is!

Actually I have to say, I'm not entirely crazy about this re-interpretation - the chorus in particular, which is way too vocodery-robot - presumably in a bid to fit in with the virtual communication theme of the song and give it a more contemporary feel. I preferred the "straight singing" of the original, which was more soulful. But I think it still might grow on me...

As for the other tracks on the forthcoming long-player, they be as follows, me hearties:

Flower of the Mountain (previously ‘The Sensual World’)

Song of Solomon

Lily

Red Shoes

This Woman’s Work

Moments of Pleasure

Never Be Mine

Top of The City

And So Is Love

...Which all sounds promising stuff! Due out on May 11th....and apparently Kate is working on some "real" new material too!

PS Don't you just love the "Kate as mad director splicing up the film" piccie?!

More more more....how do you like your Whoooooo??

2011-04-01T13:48:00.001-07:00

Admittedly the new series is looking rather good...

Mmm I wonder why they shoved in so many clips of Utah and the US desert in an advert for BBC America??

The sixth coming

2011-03-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

It's coming back!!

I've got to say, I am slightly apprehensive cos hyper-critical me was rather disappointed by the last series...

Time will tell.

Strike!!

2011-03-24T15:18:00.001-07:00

Today I went on strike from my job. For the first time ever.

All because of this...

Goodbye Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-24T05:18:00.000-07:00

So sad to hear about the loss of Elizabeth Taylor. Sure she was a drama queen, she was OTT, she was camp as hell and that voice of hers sometimes resembled one of those screeching, caterwauling cats that keeps you awake in the middle of the night and irritates the hell out of you ... but she was also a lady with integrity, emotion and guts (and before you say anything that isn't a reference to her weight problem, even though I acknowledge that was a problem for her). She also was also a strong advocate of gay rights and was majorly involved in the fight against AIDS and lent her support (and money) to many charities. At the 8th International Aids Conference in 1991, she said of the first President Bush: "I'm not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS." Classic!! She raised millions.

Oh. And she was a pretty good actress. I concede, not everything Liz did was good, particularly her output in her latter years, but who can forget "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"? "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? I've got "Cat" on DVD and another movie she did based on a Tennessee Williams play, "Suddenly Last Summer", and I love 'em (I'm a big fan of Mr Williams' writing too, and have recently been teaching "Streetcar Named Desire" to my A Level students - I adored it, and they do too). In fact I'm gonna rewatch these films in a day or two, to celebrate the life of this special lady.

And here's a few clips to remember her by...

"Aaaah feel....like....like a cat on a hot tin rroof!!" Doesn't she look stunning here?

Hilarious trailer for "Suddenly Last Summer" (this film is as camp as knickers - and it's not just Liz's presence that guarantees that):

Taylor and Burton getting nasty in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (art very much imitating life). Couldn't resist putting up a couple of clips here. Love Liz's line in the first one ("I swear if you existed, I'd divorce you".) Then doing the "public display of our bad marriage" thing in front of friends - soooo embarrassing. Liz seems to hit the booze with remarkable...conviction.

RIP Elizabeth!

No longer the apple of my eye

2011-03-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Read this and disapprove of what Apple approves. I did!

The ultimate irony is, I bought a new iPod today. Kind of wish I hadn't now...

Thanks to my blogging pal Eva for bringing this to our attention...

Remembering the Brig

2011-03-01T04:03:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Brazil now. Had a lovely time, even if I didn't get as much of a tan as I'd hoped...! Always a shock coming back to cold Blightey, though fortunately it wasn't snowing...never very pleasant having to get back into work mode though. I just want to crawl into bed and stay there instead of facing hordes of marauding students!

Anyway just a quick note to mark the sad passing of actor Nicholas Courtney, best known for playing long-running character/companion Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in "Dr Who". Nick C appeared alongside several incarnations of the Doc in the role of the Brig (Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy) and prior to that, made his Who debut as space agent Bret Vyon in an epic William Hartnell adventure, "The Dalek Masterplan"! He also popped up again in "The Sarah Jane Adventures" very recently, reunited with Liz Sladen.

I couldn't quite believe it when I heard he'd gone...you sometimes think these people will be around for ever. RIP Mr Courtney / Brigadier.

Tomorrow....

2011-02-17T09:37:00.001-08:00

...I'm going on holiday to the country wot has this as their flag...

.... and I can't bloody wait!!

Disco Darth

2011-02-13T05:05:00.000-08:00

And - what about this??

Oddly enough, I'm actually planning a sci-fi themed fancy dress party for my birthday this March. I'm sure that comes as a great surprise to all of you...

He is the Disco Doctor

2011-02-13T04:43:00.001-08:00

I was at Duckie last night and the first thing I heard as I walked through the door was this:

Ring any bells with any of you?? Fab!!

Rip off merchants and cheating b*stards

2011-02-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

I feel compelled to write a post today, even though I hadn't planned on doing so this weekend (sorry folks, again you will have gathered I'm very much a part time blogger at present....but still here though!!)

Today Gustavo and his cousin were out shopping in Camden whilst I stayed at home doing my usual Sunday college work. Whilst they were looking round the market, Gustavo's cousin had her bag - containing purse, credit cards, mobile and brand new digital camera - stolen. One minute she was walking round the stalls and shops with Gustavo enjoying herself, the next it had totally vanished. Some thieving personage obviously whipped it off her shoulder when she wasn't looking. I don't think she was being particularly inattentive, but it still happened. Naturally she was majorly upset and in floods of tears afterwards. An awful thing to happen and her weekend has now been ruined. What kind of ar*eholes get a kick out of doing this kind of thing?

I mentioned on a previous post that I've bought a brand new car and sold my old model. What I didn't mention was the rigmarole I went through in flogging it (but after what happened to Gu's cousin today I feel extremely angry and the need to do some serious venting, all of which is related to the above). I eventually ended up getting a pretty good deal from a buyer who paid me cash up front for the car; this was only after I'd received a number of scam emails from "buyers" who said they wanted to purchase the car through PayPal (an online payment merchant) without even coming to view it and giving me various "explanations" as to why they preferred this method. One such "buyer" nearly got the better of me.

Now, I'm definitely not what you'd call naive, but I'm not always wise to every one's tricks...well, who is in this life? The "buyer", who called themselves Maria, emailed me to say that they had seen my ad on Autotrader and wanted to purchase the car for their son as a surprise birthday present - they claimed they were at an industry exhibition and didn't have the time to come and view it. I guess I thought that was odd, and given the amount I was asking for the car, an awful lot of money to pay without even wanting to check it out! I said as much to the "buyer" in my reply, but they then came back saying they were happy to buy the car, were very keen etc and just wanted me to email my PayPal details so they could send through the payment asap. This was when slight alarm bells went off in my head...I'd heard stories that you should never send your personal/financial details to strangers.

So, instead I emailed the buyer back to say I would send them an invoice from my Paypal account asking for the payment to be made; that way I could safely wait for the money to be sent to me and if they were genuine then I would receive the payment. I completed the invoice with the amount owed and emailed it to the buyer.

The next day, I received a message from "Maria" saying she had sent the money through to my PayPal account, however, when I checked there was nothing there. 0.00. "Maria" then emailed me again to say that for the funds to be released to my Paypal account, I needed to make a payment of £500 to Western Union first, as the car was going to be shipped to them - they were not currently living in London. They assured me that the shipping fee would be refunded in the amount that had been sent through to my PayPal account, once I had sent the money to Western Union. This was the alarm bells started to ring even louder. There had been absolutely no mention of shipping and additional costs before and things were now becoming far too complicated. I emailed the buyer back to say thank you, but no, I no longer wished to proceed with the purchase as a) Nothing about shipping fees had been discussed before and this hadn't been part of the deal b) I hadn't even received payment from the buyer.

"Maria" then came back again, then saying that they had sent through the payment already from their account and what were they supposed to do now, as the money couldn't be "recalled". They said I was reneging on the deal, this was unfair, etc and they wanted to discuss the matter with me, or ... they would take legal action. They left a phone number.

If I'd stopped to think about this properly I would have realised the contradiction - that the money had been apparently sent to my account yet couldn't be released until I made the shipping fee payment - this was really just a load of baloney. However by this stage I still had the very positive feeling that I was dealing with someone dishonest and dodgy.

Being the fair person I am, I actually rang them up. The person that answered the phone was definitely not "Maria", but a foreign-sounding man who said his wife Maria was away at present and he was speaking on her behalf. He kept insisting that the money had been sent to me and so I couldn't pull out of the deal. I kept saying that I was sorry but nothing to do with shipping costs had been mentioned before and I wanted to sell the car in a straightforward transaction, rather than this method. They kept talking and talking and ignoring what I was saying and insisting I pay Western Union or they would take legal action. Whatever I said would not dissuade them. In the end I had to say goodbye and hung up.

Cut to a few hours later. I'd gone into work and was sitting at my desk checking my emails. Suddenly I receive a "legal action" email from PayPal saying I had two hours to make payment to the client or I would be reported to the FBI. I admit, a horrible chill went through me when I read this. Oh my God. I actually felt incredibly nervous and frightened at this point. Was it for real?

I then thought, I have to get this all properly checked out. I rang up Paypal and explained about the email that I'd just received. They almost immediately verified that no such email had been sent by them and it was very likely a scam. The relief I felt was immense. I forwarded the email to their "spoof" dept and they were able to back this up - the email had been sent by a fake buyer who was trying to embezzle funds and I should ignore any further communication from them. Again, massive relief.

Nevertheless, I was also left feeling extremely angry and incensed by what I'd been put through, wasting my time dealing with someone who wasn't remotely interested in buying my car but just wanted to take my money. And judging by the other emails I'd received from "buyers" similar to "Maria", there were a hell of a lot of people out there doing similar things.

I guess I shouldn't have done it but I couldn't resist emailing "Maria" back again and telling her: "I now know that you are a fake buyer and you have no intention of buying my car. I think you are disgusting. Now go away." They replied saying: "Don't hang that "checked with PayPal stuff" on me, that won't work. We are sending the FBI to your address tomorrow afternoon, so you will be sorry, swear down". Unbelievable. Of course nothing happened the next day, but it just proves that there are no limits to the depths to which some desperate people will go...I felt sorely tempted to send another response, but this would of course have added further fuel to the fire, and probably have made me as bad as them. So I left it at that.

The point I'm getting to here is just how terrible it is to know that there are so many rotten, cheating b*stards out there that will willingly and knowingly try to rip people off, one way or another, whether it be through stealing people's bags or embezzling their money over the internet. What kind of sad existences do these people live? How can they actually live with themselves? It's very obvious and cliched, but I honestly think this planet we live on is getting worse and the people who inhabit it more and more unpleasant, selfish and acquisitive. Some people, anyway.

I hope you have all had a better weekend!

OC x

Go into the garden, go under the ivy...

2011-01-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

I'm a big Kate Bush fan. And one of my Crimbo pressies was a brand new biography of Ms Bush, "Under The Ivy, by Graeme Thomson. I've only just finished it, but it's recommended reading, especially for KB fans. There've been several past attempts at cataloguing the events of Kate's life but generally these literary endeavours were deemed duds - Thomson's offering, however, is far more extensive and provides a wealth of information regarding the weird but wonderful songstress (especially the periods when she's working on her latest albums...) Okay, it does go a little overboard with certain details but you get lots of insights into a) Kate's wonderfully bohemian and hippy-dippy family and their influence on her (I wish I could think of a better term than "hippy", it's so....reductive. Anyone care to help out?) b) The painstaking process by which she produces her music (demanding that musicians perform 20+ takes of a particular instrument "bit", for instance) c) Her growing demand for privacy as the years go on d) The paradox of having to do the whole publicity thing at the expense of c). I kind of wished the book had lifted the lid a little more on the "inner Kate" but this is probably as close as we're going to get.

And reading all about Kate and her music made me want to dig out all my old KB CDs again and give them a (long delayed) play. "The Dreaming" in particular, an album that never makes an easy listen, surprised me with its craziness and creativity (it was, in many ways, a landmark album that marked a breakaway from the "old style" Kate). But "Hounds of Love" will always be, for me, Kate's complete and utter opus, when her voice and songwriting powers were at their zenith. Sheer brilliance.

And...stop the press! There's rumours of some new Kate stuff this year!

Nina, schizo ballerina

2011-01-23T02:01:00.000-08:00

A belated Happy New Year, everybody. I'm back!

Boy, am I finding this month hard to get through financially. I'm willing to bet a lot of you are in exactly the same situation. Xmas shopping did drain the old cofffers although not as much as I thought it would; nevertheless it's still been a bit tight until pay day. Ho hum. Not as bad as all that. I guess the brand new car I purchased just before Crimbo might have had something to do with it...I figured it was time I traded in my old model for a new one and it was money well spent (I sold my Ford Focus and bought a Ford Fiesta Zetec, in case you're wondering....it's in hot magenta and has ambient lighting!! Ooer. I love it).

Anyhow, even though spending has had to be reigned in, I managed to go to the pictures last night to see "Black Swan". I wanted to see what all the hype was about.

Very good and very creepy would be my summation. Admittedly it does take a while to get going and the real "horror" aspect doesn't kick in until about 2/3 of the way through....but worth seeing. For those of you not in the know, the movie concerns a production of "Swan Lake" by New York City ballet company. The production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Mila Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself and starts to experience elaborate hallucinations and delusions about other people and their behaviour. From thereon, things spiral drastically downwards...

Natalie Portman was excellent as Nina, doing the whole "driven but repressed ballet dancer" bit convincingly, hardly surprising, given the presence of her overbearing and controlling mother, played by Barbara Hershey (an actress you don't see much of these days but who I used to love in films like "Hannah and Her Sisters". Good to see her back, but what has she done to her teeth? Huge overbite or what...) Kunis, an actress I haven't seen in anything else, made a good foil for Portman's uptight Nina as her sassy ballet dancing colleague and the scenes where she takes her out to get her p*ssed, then drugs her drink, are entertaining (and then there's the raunchy shenanigans that follow...)

The horror aspect was well conveyed with several genuinely disturbing and unsettling moments e.g. the part when Nina's mothers' paintings all start talking to and mocking her and her eyes turn swan red. Not to mention the strange barbed black things that start poking up out of Nina's skin. Ugggh! I won't say any more otherwise there won't be any surprising nasty bits left, for those of you that are planning on seeing it. The psychological angle - are all of these things genuinely happening or are they in Nina's mind? - made the film gripping for me, and put me in mind of old movies like "Repulsion", "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives", even if the final revelation was kind of obvious.

My criticisms would be that the film has a rather unrelentingly "dour" feel about it and there's not much humour in evidence. The muted visuals/cinematography (there's little colour in there) reinforce this atmosphere but that's kind of deliberate I think - emphasising the harshness and claustrophobia of Nina's world. Every now and then colour breaks through e.g. the scene when a drugged-up/p*ssed Nina goes to the club and is bathed in red whilst a strobed light flashes - all very symbolic.

The dance sequences, in particular the final realisation of "Swan Lake" at the end - are pretty amazing and it's clear that Portman can do ballet (although apparently she's replaced in some long shots - still not as bad as Jennifer Beales in "Flashdance" who didn't dance properly atall. Pah!).

It really creeped me out and I want to see it again!

And it's made me want to go out and buy the soundtrack to the real "Swan Lake". Truly moving and beautiful music. Erm...oh yeah. When I've got some money.

4 out of 5.

No more champagne....

2010-12-31T10:47:00.000-08:00

Well actually, I expect there'll be more than a few bottles of champers being uncorked tonight as I write this ... it is still a few hours from midnight, after all....

But Agnetha says it best ... (thanks Alan for letting me nick this from your blog!!) (And I've always dug ABBA's pronunciation of "champagne"....)

So on that note, I'd like to wish all of you dear people a DELIRIOUS, DELIGHTFUL AND DELOVELY NEW YEAR!!

I WILL be back next year...

I wish you a Cheesy Christmas

2010-12-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

...I may still be in a state of hiatus...

...But I'm thinking of y'all...

Hope you're all having a Fabulous Yuletide whatever you are doing at this current moment!!

Me: up North, in York, enjoying my pressies, food, booze, being around family and the like!!

And Dr Who is on shortly...although I'm not holding my breath....(!)

Hopefully catch up with all of you in the New Year; in the meantime, have a fab one...

OC xx

I'm so sorry...

2010-11-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

...that I don't blog much these days.

I feel crap about it.

Dr Who - a quick(ish) spin through the remainder of Season Five

2010-10-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

Blimey oh riley. It's taken me enough time to get round to tackling this one hasn't it? (DW S5 that is, to use the abbreviated version). By now most of you will be way familiar with my busy life and how quite often I am forced to relegate blogging to the back burner. But it's better to be here sometimes than not atall; I hope you will all agree??

Anyhow, it's half term now (hoorah!!) and I for one am feeling pretty damn happy....Mums and Dads of kiddies may not be feeling quite so gleeful. I've got a few nice things lined up this week too which gives me something to look forward to!

Anyway (have you noticed that "anyhow" and "anyway" are two of the most overused words in this Cheeser's vocabulary? Time to consult that thesaurus, something I am always recommending that my students do...) I digress...(oooh that's better, isn't it?) Here goes nothing, following on from where I left off last time...

The Vampires of Venice

Not actually filmed in Venice, but Croatia, but still looked suitably Venetian. All about a race of fishy aliens disguised as humans who were planning to breed and take over the Earth - hence a watery setting was an ideal place for them to hatch their plans...

...Oh and I forget to mention the aliens were also vampires....the ones disguised as schoolgirls in nighties were bound to appeal to the fantasies of Hammer House of Horror fans/pervy old dads.

The pre-titles sequence, in which the Dr burst out of a wedding cake unexpectedly at Rory's stag party, ready to whisk the huband-to-be off on a TARDIS trip and reunite him with Amy, was funny stuff. The bemused look on Matt Smith's face was hilarious - there really is something adorable about this guy. Unfortunately, the comedy element ended up subsuming much of the rest of the story - what should have been an altogether darker tale, given the setting and theme, became something rather too farcical.

Helen McCrory, as lead vamp Signora Rosanna Calvierri, put in a decent performance; an imperious presence and a decent actress to boot. However there was also quite a lot of running around in the episode and Rory's "comic" fight Rosanna's son Francesco was pretty silly (attempting to beat him off with a broom). There was one good scene in which the Dr faced off with Rosanna and told her that he won't help because she didn't know the name of one of the human victims, classic Time Lord vs Villain confrontational stuff. The ending, in which the Doc had to ascend a bell tower to deactivate a device that threatened to sink Venice, smacked of Logopolis/The Idiot's Lantern/Evolution of the Daleks though i.e. a method that has been used way too many times before. And what happened to all the fishy aliens that were still in the water at the end of the story?

Venice has been used as a scary dramatic backdrop many times before - Don't Look Now, Comfort of Strangers etc- but the tone of this story felt much more lightweight than heavy, which left moi feeling rather short-changed.

2.5 out of 5

Amy's Choice

Much more interesting. In which the Dr, Amy and Rory become trapped in two "realities" - one in which Rory and Amy are living a happily married in Leadworth and the ginger Scots one is also up the duff with the Doc as reluctant visitor; the other in which the two companions and Time Lord are stuck in a rapidly deteriorating TARDIS control room. In both of these worlds they are constantly taunted by a "Dream Lord" - an evil cosmic trickster who seems determined to put the time travelling threesome through their paces and who keeps them guessing which of the two worlds is the "real" one. Oh and they need to make up their minds about this, cos they stand to die in both places.

The village setting worked well again as in the season's debut story, this time playing on the "eccentric villagers" angle even more - it transpires that the local OAPs are actually all aliens and they're out to get the Dr, Amy and Rory - the siege scenes e.g. in Amy's house, the children's' playground, were quite sinister and the tension was cranked up quite nicely. The worm-like things that came out of the old fogies' mouths were pretty horrid too, and the stuff of classic DW. The part when they vaporised Rory was also sad..

Toby Jones put in a sly performance as the Dream Lord (though I felt he could have been even more nasty at times) and had some good lines, especially his taunting of the Dr: "If you show any more tawdry quirks you could open a tawdry quirks shop...." It turns out that the Dream Lord was actually a manifestation of the Dr's "dark side" (rather like the Valeyard?) brought about by psychic pollen falling into the time rotor causing the Dr and his companions to hallucinate (aaah I see...) I liked the moment when the Dr sees the Dream Lord reflected back at him in the TARDIS console near the end (creepy) and Amy's question to the Doc, "Were those things about you true?" remained unanswered, suggesting it may not all be over yet...

Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan continued to demonstrate their decent acting abilities - streets ahead of Freema Agyeman for instance - in what was essentially an Amy and Rory focused story...although I must say the title "Amy's Choice" is a bit of a misnomer, as in the end it isn't really her who makes the choice. I still find Amy's sarcastic and up-herself persona too much to take at times however.

Not an out-and-out classic but definitely one of the best of the season.

3.5 out of 5

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood

The one in which the Silurians came back! Yay! Except by the end of the two-parter I was left with the distinct feeling that they needn't have bothered....

In terms of the eagerly-awaited resurrection of the Eocene creatures, their new look was definitely more convincing than in "Warriors of the Deep" (plus there was no Myrka)...however I actually thought they looked better with their masks on, than off! The "bug-eyed" look of the masks looked rather good and I'd assumed this was what they'd be like from the Season 5 pre-broadcast trailer...

...however when the masks were off, the Silurians had very human-looking peepers indeed. And what happened to the third "eye" that could zap people? Their voices were decidedly human-sounding too i.e. no voice modulation, no vocal effects...which, for me, detracted from their menace to quite a large degree. Okay, so Alaya/Restac, played by the rather good Neve McIntosh, had a suitably sibilant, hissing delivery, but the utterances of the other Silurian folk sounded way too normal. In fact one of them sounded like he had a Yorkshire accent!

The Silurians' subterranean base was impressive though, in large part down to the far better special / visual effects of the Noughties...

However, as a vehicle for bringing the reptilian ones back, I felt this could have been handled better. The action for the first half of the story centred around a small Welsh community and a local drilling project, supervised by Dr Nasreen Chaudhry, boring down into the earth and disturbing...guess who? The reasons for the project could have been better fleshed out and I felt kind of disappointed with the "smallscale" focus here - an "every family" group of characters - father Mo, wife Ambrose, son Eliot and grandfather - who were all affected by the arrival of the Silurians on the earth's surface. Probably trying to give the story a more intimate feel but I was hoping for a more "grand scale" invasion scenario as in The Silurians or The Sea Devils, with more of humankind affected, but this never happened. Even the drilling project itself felt very "smallscale" and I yearned for some big "Nuclear powerbase" sets with loads of computers and important-looking white-coated technicians with clipboards striding around, as in in "The Silurians". Could the budget not stretch to all of this having blown it all on the underground Silurian base? More on this in a mo...

Admittedly opening episode "The Hungry Earth" did build up the suspense very nicely - scenes of the project workers, then Amy, getting pulled down into the ground and the fleeting glimpses of Silurian Alaya running around the churchyard were some of the scariest moments in the whole of this series (the churchyard bits in particular). However once we progressed onto episode two "Cold Blood", things started to nose-dive. The "exchange of the hostages" plot line took up too much time - even though there was a nice sense of impending, inevitable doom once the grandfather accidentally shot Alaya - and the "let's discuss sharing the Earth" scenes later on with Nasreen and the old Silurian scientist were, well, discussions that precluded anything more exciting from occurring. The only real action came towards the end when the Silurian warriors, led by the vengeful sister of Alaya, Restac, chased the Doc and co down corridors but that was virtually the conclusion of the story. As a whole the two parter was obviously trying to go for the "cerebral" approach but going back to what I said before, this meant that the potential for a cracking "invasion of the earth" story was lost. It never felt like the threat progressed beyond a small bunch of characters, because, well, it didn't. However the Silurian troops are still stacked up in their millions down below, so perhaps there's potential for a sequel...

A few other observations...Meera Syall, decent actress / comedian / writer though she is, was really kind of wasted as Nasreen. It was neither here nor there that she was a scientist as she just seemed to be playing....herself. Not much authority to the character and it was hard to credit that she'd just let the Dr and Amy walk into the drilling complex like that!

Matt Smith continued to impress though; nice little exchange with the boy Eliot (incidentally another instance of decent child acting, after the rather good little girl who played young Amy earlier on):

Eliot (asking the Dr about escaping the destruction of Gallifrey): Did you get away?
Dr: Yeah.
Eliot: Do you miss it?
Dr (pause): So much.

The final scenes, in which a dying Restac shoots Rory and he then dissolves, claimed by the crack in time, suddenly upped the ante and resulted in a nice "I wasn't expecting that atall" cliffhanger.

Moreover, Karen Gillan was very convincing in conveying Amy's grief at Rory's "death" and demonstrated some of her best acting in the show thus far - I almost forgot how smug she can sometimes be. Shame the rest of the story wasn't really up to par though. It made me want to dig out my DVD of "The Silurians" and watch it all over again, which in fact I have already started doing as I write this. Jon Pertwee, Liz Shaw, the Brig and UNIT did it so much better. As did Geoffey Palmer and commuters dying all over the place in London, in suitably apocalyptic style. Now that's what an invasion can really do to you.

3 out of 5

Vincent and the Doctor

Another of those perennial "The Dr meets famous historical figure" story of which we get at least one per season...in this case centred around the Doc and Amy's encounter with the painter Vincent Van Gogh. With Rory now "dead" and off the scene, this was essentially a three-hander - with the Doc, Amy and the mad Dutch painter occupying centre stage. And a charming episode this was (if somewhat meandering and thin on the ground in terms of plot).

Firstly Tony Curran did a very passable job of portraying the ginger genius painter - although I wasn't sure why they let him have a Scottish accent? Was he incapable of "doing Dutch"? Vincent's so-called "madness" was also dealt with by means of a clever metaphor - Van Gogh was able to see the Krafayis monster, a pack predator alien abandoned on Earth, whereas no-one else could (to the Doc, Amy and everyone else it was invisible). Vincent's unique "second sight" thus allowed him to assist the Dr and Amy in their defeat of the monster. Neat device there.

As said, there wasn't much else to the story in terms of plot - this was essentially a much more character-driven tale. But you know what? There's no harm in having a diversion from the norm every once in a while.

I loved the recreation of Van Gogh's paintings and their incorporation into the narrative - e.g. the cafe scene - so clever!

Best scene of all (and in fact one of my favourite in the entire season) occurred towards the end of the episode, when the Doc takes Van Gogh to the Louvre in modern day Paris to prove exactly how much of an impact the Dutch artists has made on world culture. The Doc asks the gallery guide (a lovely cameo from the ever-droll Bill Nighy) to espouse the virtues of Van Gogh, whilst the man himself watchs and listens, undetected and moved to tears at the revelations he hears...Vincent then goes up to Bill N and hugs him, thanking him...he and the Doc walk off...and Bill N does a great double take...was that really....no....it couldn't be...This scene was so lovely and virtually reduced me to tears too. It also epitomised - I'm trying to put this into words and finding it really hard - one of the essential ideas of Dr Who: that time travel can be used as a force for good; a way of looking into the future with positive consequences; of showing an individual that their memory and legacy can endure, long after their physical death. And it was just so lovely that we saw the Dr allowing someone such a privilege.

I never rated episode writer Richard Curtis very highly before (I'm not a fan of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" - everything that is quintessentially cliched and stereotyped about representations of English culture) but he proved his worth here as a penner of DW episodes and I for one wouldn't mind a second outing from him.

3.75 out of 5 (okay I'm cheating on the ratings but it's as near as damnit...)

The Lodger

Mmmm. I thought this was going to be the "Doctor-lite" story of the seaon but it seems that's all been scrapped under the new reign of Steven Moffat. In fact it was more of an "Amy-lite" tale, with the sarcy Scots one stuck in the TARDIS for the majority of the story. Meanwhile separated from his beloved time machine by some freak cosmic disturbance, the Dr is stranded on Earth and tracks down the source of the trouble to the second floor of a house. In order to get closer to the problem, he is forced to infiltrate the house and pose as the lodger of Craig Owens, the tenant occuping the downstairs flat...

A reasonable enough idea for a story, but it was all a bit lame for my liking. This was a very "human-interest" story, with a lot of the focus taking place on Craig, played by current fave actor James Corden, and his blossoming relationship with co-worker Sophie. Corden is a decent enough actor I guess and with his down to earth manner I can see why people find him endearing. However all of this domestic, lovey-dovey stuff reminded me more of a Russell T Davies story and I was half expecting the Tyler family to pop up at some stage.

We also got "comedy Dr" with the Time Lord (gasp!) walking around half naked in a towel, which got me all in a tizzy some time back....

...and joining Craig and his laddie mates for some footballing shenanigans (a chance for Matt Smith to demonstrate his real life football skills - he nearly became a professional player, but due to a back injury had to forget that one and opt for an acting career instead - all I can say is, good thing, although Mr Smith may not agree...) All mildly amusing and diverting but not exactly rivetting drama. Oh, am I become boring in my old age...?

The denouement - that there was an alien spaceship occupying the top floor (which wasn't really a top floor after all) and that the deaths of the human passersby were caused by the aliens in their desire to escape - wasn't very ground-breaking and also felt kind of rushed. The "solution" - Craig admits his love for Sophie, that he doesn't want to leave and then touches the controls - was corny.

James Corden was generally fine as Craig as was Daisy Haggard as Sophie but I couldn't help all thinking of this rom-com stuff was better suited to some 9.30pm show on BBC2. A very average story for me.

2.5 out of 5

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

And so we reach yet another season finale. Once more, the concluding two-parter had been hyped up to the max weeks before actual transmission, not least through the recurrent "cracks in time" motif we'd been hammered with in every episode thus far this season. I can honestly say I'd be quite happy to see a concluding story which didn't bear any relation to its preceding ones - for me, (the only ones which I really liked were Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways in Season One and Army of Ghosts/Doomsday in Season Two).

The first episode set up things intriguingly: River Song summons the Dr to Stonehenge, Roman Britain, 102 AD, where the fabled Pandorica is found, hidden in a vault beneath the stone circle...

...it transpires that the giant device (which rather reminded me of one of the Borg's ships from Star Trek/that cube thing from the Hellraiser movies all those years back) is opening from inside and transmitting a message across time and space using the rocks of Stonehenge, a signal drawing "everything that ever hated the Doctor" to Earth that night.

And lo and behold, just about every baddy from the Doc's past suddenly materialises - Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans etc - orbitting the stone circle. I loved the revelation that the whole Roman world was an imaginary construct/trap devised by the Dr's enemies - ideas that they had taken ideas from books Amy had read as a child, representing Pandora's box and Roman soldiers...

And yikes - Rory suddenly reappears, reincarnated as a Roman soldier, with no knowledge of how he ended up there...until it turns out that he, along with the other soldiers, is a now an Auton (an interesting idea which never got sufficiently explained) and he then shoots Amy!

The cliffhanger - another revelation that the Pandorica has actually been built to imprison the Dr and does not in fact contain "all the evils of the universe" made for a good twist and set things up promisingly for the next episode...

...which is where things all got incredibly complicated for me, with some convuluted techno-speak and plot developments. I found it a bit of a let-down really. The exploding TARDIS in which River was trapped was triggering the end of the Universe. I can't actually be bothered to go into masses of detail here (as you might have realised, my "quick spin" has turned into anything but and one grows tired - you probably are by now!!). Except to say:

- Nice to say the little girl actress back as young Amy.
- The idea of Centurion Rory guarding the Pandorica through the centuries, thus creating a mythology, was a good un - but how did he make sure that he was always there? Oh, he was an Auton and they never die, do they?
- All that "Amy's dead except she's not" stuff got too bewildering.

- Setting up such an effective cliffhanger with all the Doc's enemies finally getting one over on the Time Lord boded well for the next episode - then when we get there and the Doc manages to escape the Pandorica, they've all been frozen to death!! Threat quickly and too conveniently disposed of, except for a stray, fossilised Dalek that kept getting reactivated and was frankly, annoying...
- This leads to my next point - having got rid of the Dr's adversaries so quickly, there was no "real enemy" for the Time Lord in this story. Just a load of techno-gubbins about the TARDIS being at the heart of the Big Bang and the Dr having to pilot the TARDIS back into the explosion to create a second explosion...? I confess I got lost here.
- The Dr coming back "from the void/death" at Amy's wedding just because Amy was able to wish it - phew! How convenient!

- The "soapy" focus on Amy and Rory's relationship - again. In some respects their getting spliced felt more important than the so-called universal threat of the Big Bang itself. It's ironic, cos I thought we were moving away from the soap opera theatrics of RTD when Steven M took over as lead writer - but we haven't exactly....

- River Song. Alex Kingston really is very good and the presence of her character was one of the saving graces of the story. We were given more tantalising clues about her real identity at the end - who is she? Apparently we find out more next season.

Anyway, my overall rating would be:
3 out of 5 - just.

And that's it for my reviews of Season 5. As I said, so much for the quick spin...but hey guys and gals, I got there eventually!

Now I've looked at the series as a whole, I can honestly say that S5 unfortunately left me feeling quite short-changed. The best stories for me were The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below and The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone; most of the rest I rated 3 stars or below and some didn't even make that. There's no doubt that Steven Moffat has a different style of writing to Russell TD, but I'm not entirely sold on his style - in spite of the fact that he penned some of the best stories in previous seasons e.g. The Empty Child/The Dr Dances etc. One aspect of Moffat's new reign that has surprised me has been the sacrificing of "hardcore" sci-fi ideas at the expense of the human interest/relationships stuff. As said, I thought we were moving away from this...I've got to say I've lost a bit of my enthusiasm for the prog and am actually not feeling all that excited about the forthcoming Season 6. (One interesting development about the up and coming next series, in case you didn't know, it's that it's going to be split down the middle on broadcast: the first half of the series will start around March/April 2011 and continue until episode 7 is aired - apparently there's a big mid-season cliffhanger at that point - episode 8 and the remainder of the run will then recommence in the Autumn. At least that way we won't have to wait so long inbetween series, I guess...)

One large positive which I won't deny has been the arrival of Matt Smith - a decent actor and he's brought many of the right qualities to the role of the Doctor - quirkiness, eccentricity, intelligence, humour, whackiness and more besides. I really am quite fond of him and prefer him to David Tennant.

I feel bad that I have spent a lot of this post whinging, but as I think I've mentioned before, as a pretty big DW fan I am even more critical of the show than some...ho hum! I just can't help the way I feel....But I'm not at the point where I'm giving up on my favourite show quite yet...! Anyway thanks for reading.

What's your poison?

2010-10-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

The other night, a friend introduced me to the delights of birthday cake vodka. Mmmmm mmmm!!!! Sweet and delicious, it slipped down all too easily...

Oddly enough I couldn't find much about it on the net, although I did find this recipe. I sampled it in Revolution bar btw...

My other favourite tipples are:

- Caipirinha - my hubbie's influence, it's cool, refreshing and delicious, a perfect Summer drink. The more crushed the ice, the better.

- Pina Colada - creamy and lush, I consumed many on these on the beach in Brazil last December. The kind I had there was made with condensed milk, which might sound disgusting but in fact made it taste even more heavenly. And Rupert Holmes got it right. So much so that I insist you give this a listen/view now!! (Slightly odd video, it has to be said...)

What else? There's...

- Amaretto - totally gorge, j'adore most almond-tasting things and this little liqueur tastes good on a lot of other things like ice cream (I also love Amaretti biscuits and gateau!! Anyone want to send me some??)

Mmm, are any of you detecting a slightly kitsch-camp drinks theme here? Look, you trying to suggest I may not be into real men's drink?!?! Wanna make something of it?? Shocking as it might seem, I'm also quite partial to...

- good old-fashioned Beer. I was a relatively late convert. In my student days I starting drinking it for the street cred, but now I'm partial to a nice chilled lager...Grolsch be one of my favourites. Stella is good for getting hammered but kind of gives you a headache the next day...

So then. Slightly obvious topic but after my vodka experience I wanted to share the boozy lurve. What are your favourite tipples, ladies and gents? This Cheeser wants to hear about it, including all those guilty drinking pleasures of yours....*

Now, I do happen to know that the lovely Amanda has a tipple every Tuesday so she's probably got too many to choose from...

* And you know what? I LOVE my kitsch/camp drinks...and anyone who's got a problem with that, well...I'll strap you to a chair, blindfold you, force open your gob and then subject you to 37 screaming orgasms...**

** No, you idiots!! I'm talking about the cocktail (another one to add to my list then...)

Santa Monica and Venice Beach

2010-10-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

I'd decided, before we even reached LA, that Santa Monica would be a good place to pitch down whilst doing the whole tourist thang. Santa Monica is basically the Southern, coastal part of LA. Santa Monica Boulevard runs from the beach all the way into LA itself. The prospect of staying in the heart of LA had given me visions of smog, too much traffic, urban ugliness...and to some extent I was right, so Santa M was a much better choice and as you'll see from the pics, a pretty gorgeous place! There was one drawback though - the price of accomodation - given the niceness of the area. But we were only there a couple of nights and I thought "it's a holiday, why not...?"

I'd had this freewheeling plan that we'd just take each day as it came and sort out the places to stay when we got there - kind of made sense, as I wasn't sure exactly what day we'd be in LA etc. The downside was that it was hard to find decently priced places! When we arrived in Santa M the first place we stepped into was the hotel above (Marriott are universal aren't they). The receptionist was very warm and friendly but the immaculateness of the place should have told us how much we'd be paying...$300 per night!! Erm, slightly out of our price range, holiday or not. So we drove around some more until we found...

This appropriately coloured motel. Actually very nice (much classier than the shabby place in Santa Barbara) and in a very good location. Still not cheap but cheaper! A lesson to be learnt here then: sort out the accomodation beforehand if one can!

Once we'd dropped off our stuff we headed straight for the beach, passing all of these abodes on the way...

Aren't they gorgeous? I bet it costs an arm and a leg to live there though (these places were literally yards from the beach).

Hitting the beach! Look at those palm trees!

Someone attempting to be butch...

The famous pier in the distance there. It's been used in lots of movies, TV shows, etc...

We then went to visit the pier and encountered...Princess Leia and Darth Vadar!! Must have been on their honeymoon or something. No hang on...they're father and daughter aren't they? Okay then, Daddy Darth is obviously taking lovely Leia for a stroll along the pier...don't think he'll get a very good tan dressed like that though...

Naturally I couldn't resist getting into a lightsaber duel...

And the Princess and Simon Skywalker triumphed over the Dark Lord of the Sith!

A genuine Californian cab! It actually looks like it's gonna fall through those wooden slats...

Aaaaah! It could be Brighton, but it's not...

And then, me and Gu braved the Big Wheel! These shots are actually the view from our Big Wheel "carriage"...

After spending some time on Santa M pier we then headed for Venice Beach - once home to lots of beat poets and hippies and the like - now more commercial but still with lots of performers and arty shops/stalls - kind of reminded me of a beach version of Camden. Some of the opening scenes in the Leonardo De Capprio version of "Romeo and Juliet" were shot there there too - some shots might look familiar...

The "V" sign is cool, eh?

From San Fran to LA

2010-10-09T00:26:00.000-07:00

No, not from New York to LA (we didn't have Patsy Gallant as a passenger) but here's some shots of our journey down the Californian coast on our recent-ish SF/LA trip! Lots of people had recommended taking Highway 1/the Pacific Coast Highway and this is what we did! It took over a day to get there - well, due to waiting in line at the car rental place we didn't depart SF until midday. We stopped over in Santa Barbara for the first night (remember the cheesy 80s soap?) then the next day set off for LA and we were there within a few hours. Here's the evidence...

Starting the long journey...I should add that Gustavo did all the driving while we there. In spite of my motoring "skills" I just felt too nervous about driving on the other side of the road and was worried I might take a turning and forget which side I was meant to be on...whereas to him it was all normal.

Have you ever driven past houses on the motorway/freeway and thought "Yuk, I'd hate to live there?" Quite nice places here actually but not such a nice vista and what about the noise...? Stating the obvious I know.

Love this great big US truck we passed...you don't get many like this over here. The map reflection is me attempting to navigate...

And here's the car we hired for our trip!! Did you know, the car hire company classed it as a "compact"?! I thought my Ford Focus car at home was big, but this took the biscuit. Americans' idea of "compact" is obviously vastly different to ours - but then as I've said elsewhere, everything over there is on a bigger scale. The car could have seated an entire family to be frank. Admittedly it drove very well and was tres comfortable (tons of leg room in the front). One thing that freaked Gu out to start with was the fact it was an automatic, which he'd never driven before (yanks don't "do" manual cars, at least not in vast quantities). However he soon got the knack.

A genuine Californian numberplate.

This was the first stop we made on the trip - Monterey. A bit desolate actually but maybe that's cos it was a weekday. Quite a lot of fishing going on...

Driving through the Californian hills...

Can you see the bridge in the distance? This was the "classic" part of Highway 1 that went on for miles and miles - the road ran very close to the sea/beach with great views. It was also kind of hair-raising in places though - very sharp bends with literal drops down to the sea which meant you really had to slow down - in places the speed limit was 25 mph or less. Most drivers were good at observing this though and I saw very little reckless driving. Thank the lord!

More coastal road views:

There were also several "vista points" where you could stop your car along the way, get out and just take in the scenery! Great stuff! At one vista point we happened upon a charming hippy couple and their friends who were very chatty - they insisted we posed with their "lucky cat" which they take with them wherever they visit:

Miaow!

And this is Santa Barbara, where we stayed the first night. A motel to be precise - we didn't really get to see the city itself properly as we didn't have time.

It really made me think of your classic US motels - all that was missing was Norman Bates. Probably a good thing...

I have to say our motel room was decidedly shabby/run down, but we were only staying one night and slumming it was part of the appeal. And the Fresh Prince of Bell Air was playing on TV...doesn't Will Smith look young?

A little further down the line we stopped at Malibu Beach - roughly 27 miles of beach to be exact! It's a preserved area and very unspoilt. Also loads of celebs and film stars live around here. At one point when trying to reach the beach we took a wrong turn and ended up in a "private residence" area - very impressive houses, though we sadly didn't run into any famous folk. Babs Streisand apparently has a huge compound somewhere around there. A pity we couldn't have dropped in for a nescafe, Matty would have been very jealous.

Some real US school buses! Like, wow!

We stopped and had a burger and chips here...

Some Malibu homes. Pity I didn't take more snaps...

Heading into Santa Monica...the weather got hotter and hotter the further we headed down the coast, yay. As much as I loved San Fran, a downside was the colder and sometimes foggy weather.

And finally we were at our destination - Santa Monica!

The Cheeser's Choice: Deceptions

2010-10-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

I've got crapper and crapper at posting updates and I can only apologise.

However by way of recompense...

Do you remember "Deceptions", a mini series from the mid 1980s, based on the story of Stephanie and Sabrina, twin sisters who swap lives with "interesting" consequences...? Due to the original date of transmission - i.e. 1985 - only people of my generation are likely to recall it ...I've been watching the first ep on DVD tonight (a pirate version that I found and purchased on the net, but not bad quality nevertheless) and totally loving it!! It might help that this is Friday night, it's the end of the working week and I've had more than a few beers to compliment my viewing... But it's classic, deliciously indulgent cheese all the same. In fact, dare I say Stefanie "Jennifer Hart" Powers gives a damn good performance as the two sibling sisters in this...? If you wanna see more then just visit the other episodes posted by the self-same You Tuber!!

The opening sequence on the boat is an 80s classic...the Pointer Sisters (except it isn't if you listen carefully...must have been copyright issues), lots of boozed-up partygoers frugging wildly on the yacht (epitomising the height of 80s hedonism), Stef on the prow of the boat holding court....and then lots of naughtiness below decks resulting in...a bang of more than one variety.

I'M SO EXCITED....AND I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT!!!

The Cheeser's Choice: Mark Ronson and the Business INTL - Bang Bang Bang

2010-09-25T12:00:00.001-07:00

I love this!! Yes, it came out a little while ago and as per usual I'm behind with the times, but who cares....!

The album cover is cool too:

More San Fran....

2010-09-18T03:24:00.000-07:00

And now ladies and gents, I present ... the famously crooked section of Lombard Street! Amazing eh? And very pretty too, I hope you will agree. You may well recognise the location from a good few movies and shows, including What's Up Doc (a favourite of mine and Matty's). In the aforementioned film, there's a high speed car chase street down the ziggy zaggy street, however, in real life drivers are only permitted to drive down it at 5mph max! Much more sensible really... while we were there, the place was very popular with the tourists with people constantly snapping photos up and down the street. This led me to think what a pain in the a*se it must be to actually live in one of the houses there! A sight worth seeing, nevertheless.

Who's the blonde diva trying to get in on the action on the right? Honestly!

I love the bougainvillea growing on the side of this house on Lombard. SO pretty! It's very common in California and we also saw lots of it growing in the Hollywood hills. More on that later.

View from the top of the crooked street. That's San Francisco bay in the distance.

Just to prove I was actually there.

Me and my man, happy we made it to the top.

Now another well-known SF attraction: the Painted Ladies! Actually, to be precise the term "painted ladies" applies more generally to "Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details", but the most famous of these in SF is the row of six abodes you can see in the pic above, close to Alamo Square. Gorgeous, aren't they? Again they've featured in a lot of media, I recall Glenn Close jogging past the houses with her backpack in "Maxie" for instance (nice location in an otherwise pretty dire movie).

Up close and personal... again the place was overrun with sightseers, some of whom this time were even bolder. I spotted a group of German girls who went up to the doors and windows of the houses, even opening up letterboxes, trying to peer inside to see what was there! Ever so slightly invasive and rude. Similar to Lombard St, if I lived there I'd probably get wholeheartedly sick of the tourists and vacate to some back room in the house where I was invisible to all and sundry! Either that or go out all day.

Nice shot of us, once again proving we were there! Oddly enough I think there's a bit of a weird photoshop effect to this pic though which makes it look like the houses were stuck onto the background! We did go there, honest!

And here's us with lovely Matty and boyfriend Byron!

Yay for us! So good to visit all these places with residents Matty and Byron ... and great of them to drive us round!

And moving on: here comes Haight Ashbury! If you've never heard of it, it's a district of SF famous for "its role as a center of the 1960s hippie movement, a post-runner and closely associated offshoot of the Beat generation or beat movement" - now you know! Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix once resided there, at one point ... These days it's more gentrified but the counter-cultural influences are still in evidence ...
Loving the mural...spot the aforementioned musicians...

It figures that wacky baccy would be available in the neighbourhood...

Here's me and Matty again ... you can't see it from the photo but we're sitting in a fabulous creperie called Squat and Gobble (!! interesting name - who masterminded that one?!) which he took us to. Good choice Mr Stanfield!

Peace man! Now let's get nicely stoned...okay perhaps I'm stereotyping slightly here...

More great street art.

Whilst in the Haight, we did quite a bit of clothes shopping ... I was impressed.

Feeling up the footwear or should that be sizing up the shoes...sorry, I mean sizing up the sneakers (get the US lingo right...)

Legs akimbo! Don't you just love this pair of gams?! All done in the best possible taste, of course.

Some musical, erm, raisins, livening up a shop!

Rockin'!

And that is that ... hope you enjoyed and now fancy visiting even more ....

Alcatraz

2010-09-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

It was really rather good; much more so than I'd expected.

And it fulfilled most of my Prisoner Cell Block H fantasies too.

An interesting bit of graffiti ... if you want to know more, here's the backstory.

The original Alcatraz governors. But where's Googie Withers? And Erica Davidson??

Ah, Clint.

The not so Golden Gate

2010-09-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

It's very strange when you stand right in front of something that you've seen in so many pictures, TV programmes, films, etc. Kind of unreal ... and, as you can probably tell from here, the name "Golden Gate" is something of a misnomer cos it ain't golden! (If you want to know to what the goldie woldie bit really refers, try here). Anyway it was undoubtedly a momentous occasion for me to see this amazing construction in the erm, metallic flesh. Although I should add, in case you didn't know, there is actually another suspension bridge in SF also, the Oakland Bay Bridge, which seems to get far less attention (and which we drove over on our way back from LA...)

Look where I am!

Look where we are!

You can probably see the mist in the pics above as well - and the distinct lack of sunshine - very common in SF apparently. Most mornings were like this - being so exposed to the sea and having a large bay, SF gets a lot of the cold, foggy sea weather. In the afternoons it tends to brighten up and get warmer.

On another day we took a boat trip round the San Francisco bay which included a ride right under the bridge as in the photo above - boy, that really exposed you to the elements! The wind was up and roaring, the boat was rocking ... but it was worth it for the amazing views. There were even people windsurfing out there in the bay - very brave! (I don't have any pictorial proof unfortunately).

And this is the geezer who built the bridge...

We then took a hike about halfway across the bridge which really gives you an idea of its size and scope...

Would you fancy climbing to the top of that? Apparently there are maintenance workers that do, regularly. Rather them than me!

View from the Bridge as we walked across ... as you can see it's right on the edge of the city ... it did take us some time to get there!

Bridge blurb...

And there you have it!

More to come...

San Fran!

2010-09-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hey, hey, hey folks. I'm back!

I've been back in Blighty a few weeks actually but, as per usual, it's taken me a while to get my sh*t together. Apologies. I also returned to work a couple of weeks ago which was a bit of a shock to the system after my extended hiatus, but I guess I'm kind of getting used to it now. Anyway I had a fantastic time in San Francisco and LA and would like to show you the pictorial evidence...To tell the truth I took an absolute ton of photos and it's been quite hard deciding which ones to select. I'm going to put up a few posts on various places and locations we visited a bit at a time, seems the best way...

As said we had an amazing time and I would wholeheartedly recommend San Fran as a place to visit. LA was a different story - still good to see and with some worthy aspects but an altogether difference experience to SF - all those things you've heard about it being kind of vacuous and soulless do appear to be true and Dionne Warwick was pretty spot-on when she said "LA is a great big freeway". SF by contrast has a lot more character and eccentricity (reflected in the city's inhabitants as well as architecture and surroundings) and if I had to choose a place to live in the US, SF would definitely be the one for me.

Anyway here's the first batch of piccies and I shall attempt a commentary in places...

The Castro, in case you've never heard of it, is the number one GAY district of San Francisco and in fact one of the gayest areas I've ever visited in any city! I'd venture to say more so than Soho in London or Manchester, Amsterdam and Paris. Strictly speaking it's not the only gay area in SF - there are other places like SOMA but this district had the biggest proliferation of gay bars, clubs, restaurants and shops that I'd ever seen. Another thing of note is the wide ethnic mix amongst the gays and lesbians in SF - more than other cities it seems - lots of Asians, Blacks and Hispanics, which I think is great. I also noticed that quite a lot of the lesbians and gentleman in San Fran dress quite alternatively - more funky and retro in style than the usual cropped t-shirts and jeans that UK fags so often sport, which is refreshing...Anyhow we loved most of the bars that we visited. One other point of note is that the gays and lesbians in SF seem much more integrated into the city and to the "straights" it's not such a big deal - we spotted quite a few couples walking around holding hands, even in the "non-gay" areas, which was cool!

This is the lobby of the first hotel we stayed in - very nice place indeed and very central, only a few blocks away from Union Square. The hotel also had free wine from 5-6pm which we took advantage of!

When looking out of our hotel window, this was the view we were presented with ... a wacky and way-out mural, man.

Union Square, which is the focal point of Downtown SF.

Loved the big heart sculptures!

Macy's, which we visited on a couple of occasions. In fact we did tons of shopping and I came back home with a big fat overdraft. One of my justifications for spending so much is that you get more US dollars to the pound and thus most things over there are comparatively cheaper. For instance, after a recent "moaning about my age" post, I invested in not just one but four pots of "Dramatically Different" Clinique moisturiser, purchased in Macy's and recommended to me by a fellow blogger - thanks, Barry! Each pot worked out to only about £16, a bit of a bargain to say the least! Clinique products in the UK cost a bomb. So worth it, eh? In general I was impressed with the shops in SF - they've got Gap, H&M, even Body Shop but there's loads of other good places too.

Gustavo couldn't resist posing outside "Victoria's Secret"...

And now for some more San Fran scenery and architecture...This place made me think of 23 Barbary Lane, from Armistead Maupin's wonderful "Tales of the City" series i.e. this is how I imagined the place might be, with it's windy staircase on the outside. Very quaint!

Typical street view looking down a hill. Yes SF is very steep in places. In spite of the fact that the US is one of the most obese nations in the world, I didn't actually see many fat people around, but given the amount of hill climbing people in SF must have to do, it's little wonder...

And look at the car parking! I have to say, having to park one's vehicle in this fashion would really scare me. Or rather, starting up your car and moving off without sliding down the hill!

One of the famous cable cars of San Fran. They're so cute and extremely popular with the tourists. What I couldn't work out to begin with was why they are called "cable cars" when they're clearly not the type that hang from the sky. However I found out later. Any ideas, folks?

On one of our first days we took a cable car ride up to Fisherman's Wharf and whilst queuing were kept entertained by this sax-playing dude...

Later on I encountered this diva-esque lady in a shop window...very Scissor Sisters! Loved it!

More houses...

We also had breakfast/brunch one day in a typical American diner, with some great paraphenelia...

And now for a food intermission. Here's me eating eggs benedict - which was sooo yummy and I ended up plumping for this dish on a few occasions! Whilst on the subject of food, you've probably heard that the portions of food served up in US eateries are enormous - and it's true. You get far more to munch on than in the UK. I thought this would only apply to your typical fast food, burger-and-chips type meals, but NO!! Wherever we went, whatever type of cuisine we went for ... our plates were always full to the brim... be that Thai, Italian etc. Often delicious food but too much to stomach and when you didn't finish everything on your plate the waiting staff would sometimes get offended, or at the very least act like there was something wrong with you. "Whaaat? You don't wanna order deseeert?" Sorry!

Another example of brunch - a bagel with turkey, egg and cheese inside. Yummy but plenty of calories in there! I definitely came back from my excursion fatter. What would have happened if I'd been there 6 months?

This was the view from the second hotel we stayed in in San Fran! Great view though I did get distinct feelings of vertigo when I stepped right up to our room window:

Gustavo being all artsy looking down at the view...

Coming soon: The Golden Gate! Alcatraz! The Painted Ladies! And more besides...

Oh and how could I forget: meeting Matty!! Yeehaa!!

Jetting off...

2010-08-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm off on my hols to the USA. Yay!! Actually this is going to sound SO ungrateful and moaney, but the last few days I've been feeling a bit indifferent about it all - just kind of lazy and lethargic and wanting to stay on the couch all the time. However I'm sure that will all soon come to pass once I arrive there.

So just to let you know, there will be no further blog posts from moi (not that there have been that many anyway!) until I get back from vacation which will be in about a week and a half's time - so I shall speak to you all then.

And will I ever write those Dr Who reviews?! If truth be known I just haven't felt inspired enough to do it, that is why!!

Must go and finish packing...

Ciaou for now my lovelies...

OC x

Age cannot wither her...

2010-07-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well maybe not that lucky lady Cleopatra, but I'm not so sure about me.

Recently I have been musing rather a lot about my age and the effect this is having on me. Earlier on this year I hit the grand age of 41 and since then, things feel like they are changing - both externally and internally. Externally I've noticed wrinkles that weren't there before. Around my eyes in particular. I now have to apply face cream (OMG) before going to bed in an attempt to keep any further crow's feet at bay. Okay, I don't HAVE TO do this; it's a personal choice (my Dad, for instance, who is 60, never moisturises, even after he shaves - he's a man who doesn't give a sh*t about these things but still looks good in his way -well, what can I say, I am a gay man...) My hands have also become wrinkled and dry which I don't like very much and that's hard to reverse however much hand cream I keep bunging on.

Sticking with the physical side, the thing I probably dislike the most about my advancing years is my figure. A few years ago I could eat and drink pretty much to my heart's content, without having to worry too much about the effect it was having on my body, one reason being that I also exercised fairly regularly i.e. went to the gym and sometimes cycled too. I'm still going to the gym as much as I can - okay not quite as often as I used to, due to my teaching job, which sometimes means I don't have much time in the evenings. But on average I usually manage to drag my carcass there twice a week because I realise it's important. I've never been much of a sporty person - football does nothing for me and competitive or team sports I am just cr*p at. However I do attest to the benefits and necessity of physical exercise, hence the gym visits. Motivating myself to actually go and work out is bloody hard sometimes though, and involves a major effort on my part. Fortunately my journey home by car now involves passing the sports centre en route, so that's, erm, kind of handy. And afterwards I always feel much better and positively virtuous. Of late I've been burning approx 1,000 calories during my visits...

But ... and this is the point I am trying to make, which it has now taken me several sentences and lines to arrive at (and apologies for making you wade through this in the process): no matter how much I exercise, I just can't lose any bloody weight!! It used to be much easier to shed the pounds, but now I swear it's gotten a lot harder. And I'm sure being in my 40s has something to do with this - not having the same metabolism as when I was younger, for one thing.

I have what I consider to be a nice chest and I have often been complimented on my shapely legs. My calves, without slipping into too much narcissistic self-reflection, are in rather good form. My thighs, however, are flabby and untoned. Worst offender of all is my stomach, which is more protruding than ever with glimpses of - gasp - cellulite - and I feel embarrassed to bare (or should that be air?) it in public. As I mentioned, I'm off on a Californian trip shortly and I really hoped I might have slimmed down before then - how can I compete with all those Hollywood hotties strutting their stuff on the beach?? Now it seems like it's too late. Goddammit. Sometimes I have felt I look pretty ugly and it's not nice.

Yes, of course I know I'm certainly not the only one in this boat - those of you around the same age as me are probably experiencing, or have experienced, similar frustrations. Or maybe you just don't care. Perhaps that is the best route to take ...

And to add to my moanings, there are the internal - i.e. mental - changes as well. Recently I've started to feel kind of ... psychologically lethargic, if that makes any kind of sense. I don't have the mental energy or inclination to do certain things any more. For instance I'm not so bothered about going out clubbing; the thought of heading "up town" into central London to share a crowded room with a load of jostling and immature 20-something kiddies has ceased to appeal to me. If truth be known, these days I'm far more comfortable with just coming home, opening a bottle of wine, plonking my butt on the sofa and watching some quality kitsch / crap TV (slightly oxymoronic phrase going on there). Or playing with my PC. Or listening to music... Meanwhile, I'm usually more than happy for my husband to hook up with his mates after work and go out and get p*ssed, then roll up home in the early hours ... he's about 8 years younger than me and also works in central London, whereas I don't, so those are two fairly valid excuses. I should also add that in spite of the fact that I live in the supposed hip and happening cultural capital of England, increasingly I'm really not that bothered about going out and doing things. What has happened to me?!? Have I become completely switched off and indifferent? Am I now too laissez faire in my old age?

Now, my lovely people and fellow bloggers, please tell me that all of this is normal and a natural symptom of moving into one's 40s? Please also reassure me that I'm not going to morph into some boring old fuddy-duddy either... When I said I'm not so much into going out any more, that wasn't mean to sound like I've transformed a total couch potato. Just half a one... Maybe.

Meanwhile, perhaps I should leave it to Olivia Newton John and Sue Sylvester to serve up one remedy. And those school kids certainly seem to be in agreement...

I write like Douglas Adams

2010-07-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Give it a go! As you can imagine I was rather chuffed with the results of mine... And thank you Amanda!

Holiday!! Celebrate!!

2010-07-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

I tried desperately to think of a snappy n' cool title for my "return" post. I suppose it could have been "I'm back, back, BACK" but I feel that one has been ever so slightly flogged to death. So instead I had to settle for Madonna. Even more passe. Aw well.

Anyway folks, as you might have gathered from the aforementioned title, today was my very last day at work and I now have over 4 weeks' worth of holiday to look forward to!! Yaaaay!! As I sit typing this the sun is shining outside my lounge window and it all bodes well... It's been a long haul, marking, marking and yet more marking, preparing next year's schemes of work, etc... But it's all done and dusted now and I'm better off financially too having done my annual marking stint for AQA (a rather good exam board to work for, for anyone who might be remotely interested). And this will help considerably with my forthcoming trip to ...

... San Francisco!!!

Double yay!!

And also ... Los Angeles.

Yes, I'm off there at the start of August and can't wait. This is actually my first ever trip to the USA, let alone SF and LA! And I'll be meeting up with the lovely Matty too...whoop whoop!

Meanwhile, I am sooo behind with my Dr Who reviews and need to finish off discussing the remaining episodes (if you're remotely interested in hearing the musings of this Old Cheeser!) I can say right now though, the last instalments kind of disappointed me. Matt Smith is very endearing and has for the most part won me over, but some of the stories were just too sub-standard for me, and slipped into soap opera histrionics, which under the new regime of "The Moff" I thought and hoped we were getting away from, since Russell T Davies cleared off. However that was not entirely the case...More on that later...

Anyway, it's good to be back. And I've missed you all lots!!

Okay I might be on a blogging vacation, but I just HAD to take time out to say...

2010-07-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

...I'm a diva in a shop window!! I'm a Scissor Sister!!

And what a damned fine album their latest offering, Night Work, is. Can't bloody stop playing it!!

And a damned fine, tight pair of butt cheeks, to boot...

So, what do you think about the above-pictured bottom, then??

a) ladies?
b) homos?

And more to the point, is a well-chiselled pair of hot buns IMPORTANT to you??

Answers on a comment PLEASE.

(Okay, if no-one can be...arsed (pardon the pun) to reply, then I'm tagging Alan, Steve, Selina, Amanda, Graham, Jaimie, Nora and Thomas!!)

Work schmerk

2010-06-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings my lovelies...I have been endeavouring to post as much as I can, during what is essentially a very busy work period for me at the moment (mind, I always seem to be saying I'm busy, don't I...?) Though my blogging has been quite sparse as a whole...

Anyway in order to accommodate everything that's going on with moi, it looks like I'm going to have to go into blogging hibernation for a few weeks, so you can expect a proper return at the start of July. As you will have seen, I haven't even had time to post any Dr Who reviews since "Flesh and Stone" - but you know what I'm like on that score: a bloomin' perfectionist. I started writing up my thoughts on "Vampires in Venice" and "Amy's Choice" but didn't get much further than that! However on my return I will be letting you know my thoughts on all the remaining episodes - promise!! As a quick overall comment though, I must confess to feelings of disappointment with the episodes that have been broadcast over the last few weeks. Since "Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" there hasn't been a single story that I would award 4 stars or above. The Silurian story for example hd a lot of a potential but overall felt like a let down. Last night's "Pandorica Opens" had some slightly naff elements but also some very good ones - so I really pray the finale episode doesn't mess it all up. We'll see...

Will be back in July then. Now, in my absence I expect you all to conduct yourselves properly and be very good blogging boys and girls. No fighting or unpleasantness, please! And always use your Green Cross Code. Because I won't be there when you cross the road. *

Love OC xx

* Anyone remember who said that?

What we REALLY should be worrying about...

2010-06-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Screw football.

Screw England (metaphorically speaking you understand.

And screw the bloody world cup!!

Tomorrow, the Pandorica opens and that's all I care about.

Far more important.

Far more momentous.

Far more of a threat to the universe as we know it.

You have been warned...

Englaaaaaaaaaand!!

2010-06-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

...is something I can hear some teenage kiddies yelling outside my house, as I type this epistle.

What-eveeeeer.

Fellow blogger Steve left a hilarious update/comment on his Facebook page: "Hey footie fans - you can shove the World Cup up your arse". My sentiments exactly. Although from my own point of view, this might actually be quite a pleasurable experience, difficult though it may be to accommodate the whole of the cup into my, erm, nether regions. On second thoughts, forget that one.

Yes, I am not, and never have been:
1) A footie fan
2) Particularly bothered about the World Cup.

So there.

I think it all goes back to school really, where I was never particularly good at or bothered about sport, football and rugby chiefly. I used to hate team sports of this kind and would do anything to avoid getting involved. I'll never forget my sports teacher at Secondary school, Mr Willis, yelling: "Johnson! You're supposed to be running towards the rugby ball, not away from it!" From thereon it all went pear-shaped.

Back to the here and now...The abundance of cars with England flags a fluttering, driving up and down roads and tooting their horns, is already starting to grate. I went for a haircut earlier today and my barber had a huge St George's flag hung on the wall of his "salon", so no prizes for guessing who he'll be rooting for tonight. He then proceeded to subject me to a grilling as to why I wasn't watching the World Cup, why I wasn't a fan etc, etc. Grrr! The biggest consolation of having to deal with all of this was walking out of his shop with a very good haircut for a mere £7. Maybe I should take some ear plugs next time.

Okay, I'll concede to a certain amount of patriotism and if I was forced to make a choice, of course I'd want my own country to win. Then again I'm married to a Brazilian, so I'm kind of torn between two camps here. Divorce might be on the cards if I say the wrong thing. And you don't have to be a footballing expert to know that the Latino boys are far more likely to walk away with the trophy than us pale islanders...

Plus, there is of course the sexy factor. One can't deny the appeal of men in shorts and men with decent bodies (if you're a woman or gay man, I should add). So for purely gratuitous purposes and as a kind of "fingers up cos I don't care" gesture towards the World Cup, here's a few footballing hotties for you to drool over. They can come and play with my ball(s) any time. I couldn't even be bothered to check their names, so I'll leave that bit to you...Yes, so in my last post I was bemoaning the fact that it was morally wrong for Matt Smith to get his kit off in Dr Who, but this is a different matter entirely, surely? Isn't it...??

Doctor...Nude??

2010-06-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh! This must be a historic first ... in the forthcoming Dr Who episode, The Lodger (broadcast this coming Saturday) the Time Lord gets his kit off! Well, not quite the full kit as you can see, but close enough ... What is the programme coming to? In the soon to be screened story, the Doc also plays a game of football with James Corden (pictured left). They must have written this into the show deliberately, as Matt Smith is a bit of a footy fan (and fact fans, before becoming a thespian, Matt S almost embarked on a footballing career, but had to give it all up when he suffered a back injury).

I'm not sure what I think about the prospect of a near-naked Dr on the show. Whilst undoubtedly a fan of the masculine form, and normally happy at the presence of hot male totty, I'm not 100% convinced that the sight of the Time Lord stripping off in the programme is right. Granted, DW has moved on since the days of the old show with its acknowledgement of relationships and things sexual (e.g. Rose snogging the Dr, Captain Jack flirting with the fellas, etc etc) but the Dr has always been a bit exempt from all that stuff. Okay, so in the pic above he's only had a shower and that's all there is to it, but ...

Or am I being a prude about the Doc in the nude?

What are your thoughts, folks? And does Matt Smith's body float your boat? (Incidentally I'm expecting only an affirmative response from the girls and gays, in response to the latter question...)

(By the way more Dr Who reviews are on their way!)

Sex and the City 2

2010-05-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well as you'd gathered I went to see it yesterday - it was only a matter of time before I succumbed to the hype ... After reading a barrage of damning criticisms that said it was a travesty of the original show; that it was like seeing old friends being murdered in front of you; etc etc, I've got to say that I think a lot of people have actually been pretty damn harsh. There was a lot to appreciate and enjoy about SATC2 and I've seen far, far worse!

Yes, so they've pretty much exhausted the SATC franchise now and it's hard to envisage where else they could take the characters. The last SATC movie brought things to what I thought was a logical conclusion with a happy ending for everyone. However in the fictional world of romance and relationships, happiness is never eternal and so the writers have clearly contrived further ways to wring out even more drama. This they've managed to do fairly convincingly, but I really do think this should be the last outing for Carrie and the gals now. Of course one can't help surmising that one of the reasons SATC2 got made was because the four actresses couldn't get (much) work elsewhere (particularly Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis - has anyone seen them in anything else post SATC?? Nothing I can think of...) Or am I just being a bit cynical and bitchy here?

In case you weren't aware, the main focus of the new movie is on the four lead gals taking an impromptu trip to Abu Dhabi - Samantha receives an all-expenses-paid invitation there as part of her job and decides her pals just have to come with her. That's about halfway through the film though - up until that it's the normal SATC shenanigans and we see where the four friends are at in their lives since the events of the last movie. Samantha is now 52 and trying to keep her libido with hormones alive while dealing with menopause; Charlotte's two children are a handful and she's worried that husband Harry is attracted to their nanny; Miranda is battling with a boss who doesn't like strong and independent women and Carrie's marriage to Mr Big has settled down, though they differ on how to spend their spare time: she always wants to go out, he would prefer to stay home and watch television some evenings. Whilst none of this is exactly ground-breaking stuff and the "plot" as it were meanders along at a fairly non-urgent pace, it's still done decently enough, and I should add, better than your average Jennifer Anuston, I mean Aniston, type rom-com piece of fluff.

The Carrie/Big stuff probably rings true for a lot of people who are a few years down the line in established relationships - marriage isn't always a bed of roses and couples do have their differences even when they're "settled" - a situation which is convincingly conveyed / acted by Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth. Later on there's an even bigger challenge to Carrie's marriage in the form of ex lover Aiden who Carrie happens to run into in Abu Dubai, and who she snogs, leading to typical SATC angsty-type stuff. Rather too convenient and again contrived, but then, where would the drama be without it?

Sarah Jessica Parker is as good as ever and I love her philosophising voice over bits, a hallmark from the original series that still works. She is looking a bit haggard and drawn now though (okay the claws are coming out again now) - sometimes I can't work out if SJP is attractive or not. I've always liked her unconventional, off the wall ways but looks wise she is definitely, erm, different. Dazzling smile though! It also has to be said that she and the other gals still look incredibly well groomed and gorgeous in a variety of swish outfits and hairstyles. Kim Cattrall continues to imbue Samantha with her usual brand of sophisticated sluttishness, giving hope to all women in their 50s (well Joan Collins did it as Alexis back in the 80s I suppose, just not so, erm, overtly). Samantha gets the usual batch of rude but funny lines which I searched the net for and couldn't find, owing to the fact that I've forgotten what they were. (In fact the general dialogue in SATC2 is still of the witty, sharp and observational variety, which went quite some way towards putting the film in my favour). Kristin Davis is okay as Charlotte (she was never my favourite character) and I couldn't help laughing when her young daughter shoves two hands covered in red paint all over her white "vintage" trousers. Miranda's brittle persona seemed to have mellowed since last time and I felt she was side-lined a bit - the potentially interesting plot line about her sexist boss was only given brief attention.

Then there's the trip to Abu Dhabi which as I said occupies at least half of the narrative. There's already been tons of comments about this aspect of the movie, mainly centred around its "racist" and stereotypical portrayal of Middle Eastern culture. Wellll....firstly this has to be one of the first times the action is focused somewhere other than New York and admittedly that is rather strange. I wouldn't say the portrayal of the Emirates is particularly offensive, but then again there's nothing very enlightening about all of it. There's potential for an interesting storyline here - the culture in Adu Dhabi forbids public displays of affection between men and women, and as for open displays of sex - well you can guess who lands herself in trouble because of that one. Bar this and another very funny scene where Samantha screams at Muslim men that she does have sex and then throws lots of condoms into the air, the whole patriarchal culture of the Middle East is dealt with very uncritically - a missed opportunity given the liberated attitudes of those SATC girls and the resultant culture clashes - I'm sure Carrie could have dedicated a lot of column space to writing about that. There's also a rather bizarre scene in which a group of burkha clad Abu Dhabi women tell the NYC gals that they love fashion and labels and then - gasp! - reveal designer clothes underneath their robes. Making a "point" in a rather forced and corny way really.

Other stuff: I did like the gay wedding (Stanford and that vile queen Anthony) at the beginning, and Big's reactions were amusing, not to mention the presence of Liza Minnelli doing "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" - though her singing voice is sadly way past its prime.

So, by no means a disaster, more a visual and oral meringue - sophisticated, sweet and gorgeous to consume, but not particularly substantial or good for one's health either. Having said that, I've always been the indulgent type and I can't resist sweet tasting things. Ultimately though, I still think it's time Carrie put her manolas to bed once and for all and we were left to imagine what happens to the SATC girls from this point on... Happy Ever After for good, surely.

3 out of 5.

Kelis - Acapella

2010-05-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

Totally excellent new tune from Kelis which I really need to share with you - she of the maadddd "Caught Out There" (remember? "I hate you so much right now! I hate you so much right now! Aaaah Aaaah!") "Milkshake" and "Trick Me" - all bloody brilliant and this track is set to be yet another classic in its own right. Great "power synths" in the background which get stronger and stronger and I love the Amazonian warrior look she's sporting in the video.

More posts forthcoming... Off to see "Sex and the City 2" very shortly. I have my reservations, having heard mixed things about it, but we'll see... Have a great Bank Holiday weekend whatever you're up to...

Bittersweet

2010-05-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not so sold on Sophie Ellis Bextor's new single as I was "Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer" - it's a tad pedestrian on first hearing - but the Freemasons always bring the stamp of classiness to everything they produce, and the same is true here. And the daughter of Janet Ellis has a new album out in July to boot, with contributions from Calvin Harris and Cathy Dennis, amongst others!

All The Lovers...

2010-05-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

Alan's right. The Aussie bird's return is imminent and it's something worth celebrating...

A post, a post, my kingdom for a post

2010-05-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

...which doesn't make sense really, but I thought it was time for another (rare these days) update. I'm sooo busy at work with marking and the like...take my advice, my little fruity tartlets, don't become a teacher!! My A Level students have all recently completed coursework that needed marking, to top that my Access students are doing oodles of asssements which will all involve even more checking and marking, and as if I wasn't enough of a glutton for punishment, I'm doing even more marking for an exam board this Summer! Well, extra cash for a holiday, I'm hoping for a trip to San Francisco, actually, Matty, hope you've noted that one.

Anyway that's not desperately interesting news is it? Of course the big thing I should be writing about is the current state of politics in the UK. Okay, confession time. I didn't vote during this election. Ahem, ahem. Largely because I hadn't got round to putting myself put on the electoral role when I moved from my last abode, but also, if truth be known, because I couldn't be a*sed and my way of thinking is "one vote isn't going to make the world of difference". Yes I know you're probably all shaking your heads and thinking "Well, if everyone took that attitude it would mean that parties who people don't want running the country would get in..." But I don't actually think that's the case. Confession number two - those of you who visit this blog at least semi-regularly will probably have gathered that I'm not exactly a political animal. A pop cultural animal with cheesy/retro obsessions and leanings, that's for sure. But not political. Well that isn't strictly true, I mean I do believe in fighting for gay rights and other worthy causes etc...Mmm feels like I'm digging myself a bit a hole now. Actually, another confession (number 3 - at the rate I'm going I'll have more confessions than Madonna) - I know that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have now formed a "coalition" but I don't really understand what this means in terms of politics and how the country is run. Would anyone care to enlighten a rather thick old 41 year old man??

Anyway one must move on. One other thing that's been overdue, and you just knew it was coming, was a bit of comment on the current series of Doctor Who. Yes you'd be forgiven for thinking that's all I can write about at the moment...I promise to try and devise some differently-themed posts...the problem is my average week seems to revolve around working Monday-Friday including evenings, working some of my weekend and - oh! - watching DW...my gosh, isn't my existence sooo exciting!

The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

Loved this two parter, well, to be precise I really, really liked it and it was a definite improvement on the previous Dalek one. Steven Moffat proved his writing abilities again with an involving tale that brought back not only the gorgeous River Song but also those nasty stone angels that advance on you if you so much as blink. On closer analysis the story itself was a little laboured and slow in places and nothing out of the ordinary - ship crashes on planet, weeping angel escapes, River and her team go to find it, team get hunted down by more angels and the Dr must find a way to stop it...But the way it was all conveyed raised the story above the average stakes.

Shades of Marilyn...

I liked the opening Dr-River reunion scenes - great shots of her red high heels and forcibly ejecting herself out of an airlock, then flying towards the TARDIS (which confused me as I couldn't help but wonder how she could breath, let alone not actually explode in the vacuum of space - but as Dan informed me, if you listen carefully there's a line in there the Dr says about creating an air corridor - and someone else on his blog says that apparently you can survive for 1-2 minutes in space without asphyxiating! So there - and anyone remember what happened to Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect when they were ejected from the Vogon ship in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy? God that was a long bracket bit).

River also looked fab in her party dress and the dialogue between her and the Doc was sparky and fun (including the revelation that the wheezing noise when the TARDIS materialises comes from the Dr leaving the breaks on when landing - has he been doing it wrong all these years?!) River's TARDIS style diary was on show once again and there were further hints about future developments in her relationship with the Dr. I was kind of hoping, if not expecting, that this story would show the first meeting between the Time Lord and Ms Song, but no, that wasn't the case. It's another meeting somewhere down the line ... gets a bit confusing when you think about it too much but also kind of intriguing.

Girl talk

Amy's inquisitive involvement, wanting to know exactly who River was to the Dr, also made for some entertaining moments. And we also got the revelation that River had - gasp - killed a man ... not the Dr surely? Later on we got River in combats and her role in the story became slightly more pedestrian with her doing the usual "help the Dr out" assistant type stuff. But it won't be too long til we see her again...

If you go down to the woods today...

The angels themselves were back in force and even nastier this time round.

Going down the garden centre shouldn't be such an ordeal...

There were some genuinely chilling scenes, especially the one where Amy has to walk through a cluster of the stoney ones with her eyes shut. And the counting bit with the image of the angel in her eye was quite nasty. Also liked the bit when they all actually moved! Their method of defeat smacked too much of "Doomsday" though (when the Dr opened the rift and all the Daleks and Cybermen flew into it) - this was exactly the same. Would have been nice if they'd thought up a different solution.

The supporting cast were okayish - Ian Glenn was kind of bland but alright.

And did anyone spot black Steve from Eastenders as one of the clerics? As for the regulars, in case you weren't aware, this was actually the first story that Matt Smith and Karen Gillan filmed ("The Eleventh Hour" was the fourth one to be recorded I think. Similar to what they did with Peter Davison in "Four To Doomsday"...) If you look carefully you'll see that both Smith and Gillan have longer hair in this story than the previous one and in the very last scene in Amy's bedroom (I'll come to that in a minute) their hair is shorter, seeming to prove that this scene was shot and inserted later. God I am such a geek. It's no wonder I don't have time to vote, dwelling on such things...Anyway watching the performances of Matt and Kaz, I thought there was actually very little difference between the way they play the Doc and Amy in this one to previous (later shot) stories - they seemed to inhabit the parts automatically, and that was good to see. The only slightly jarring bits for Matt Smith were some "shouty-hyper" bits, reminscent of David Tennant. Well the guy was finding his feet I guess...

Then there was the closing bedroom scene. Erm, I must admit I hadn't seen that one coming and I'm not 100% sure if I liked it. Amy is a bit of a tart, isn't she? At least she didn't admit to a full on Rose/Martha style crush on the Dr, which frankly, would have been too much - no more mooning and pining over the Time Lord type companions, purlease! But snogging the Dr and asking him to sh*g her? Mmm.... Matt Smith's reactions were funny though -"Amy, I'm a 976 year old Time Lord!" (or words to that effect, I may have got the age wrong). I hope this plot strand gets forgotten to be honest - as good as it is to see Dr Who acknowledging adult grown up relationships and sex (which the Old Who largely didn't) these kind of soap opera theatrics do kind of detract from the storyline sometimes, something that RTD revelled in during the "Tyler" period of the show. Actually, "Vampires of Venice" has already been broadcast and most of us have seen what happens next ...

Anyways, in terms of overall rating, I'd give this two-parter 4 out of 5.

And talking of the aforementioned Vampires tale, that's the next one to be reviewed of course and yep, I'm late with it again! Got to say though, on first viewing, I wasn't massively enamoured with it and my rating might have to drop...Oh no!

So, see you in the not too distant...Ciao my lovelies....

OC xx

Victory of the Daleks

2010-05-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here comes my review, slightly late ...

Summoned by none other than Sir Winston Churchill, the Dr and Amy arrive in London during the height of World War 2 and find that Professor Bracewell has come up with a "new invention" to help the Brits win the war - fighting machines called "ironsides". Except they're not ironsides atall ... they're the dastardly Daleks!! With the pepperpots trundling around the war HQ continutally declaring "I am your servant" and "Fancy a cuppa?" (actually that last line is a slight lie, but it's a close enough approximation) the Dr's suspicions are naturally aroused... since when were the Daleks patriotic? And more to the point, on the human's side?

The twist of having the Daleks as "the goodies" made for an interesting start to the episode, but you just knew that their cover was going to be blown eventually - and sure enough some 20 mins or so into the story their evil intentions were revealed. A shame as this could have been sustained for longer - for instance if the story had been a two-parter, the Daleks' "exposure" could have been left til the end - but once again the (sometimes constricting) one episode format precluded this ... once aboard the Dalek spaceship it was business as usual ... and, what a surprise, some of the Daleks had escaped their "total destruction" (a phrase we'll now learn to take with a pinch of salt) at the end of "Journey's End". It's never bloody ending, eh? As iconic as they are, I do wish they'd let the metal monsters lie dormant for longer...

We also got brand new day glo Daleks into the bargain and I'm not sure whether I like them or not. Kind of reminded me of duplo and they're rather ... clunky. A merchandiser's dream though and one that will get all the geeky fans parting with shed loads of cash for the latest "model" (and that does not include me I hasten to add... surprise, surprise! Okay, I do have just about every DVD of the Pertwee, Baker and Davison DW years... )

And everything else? Though undeniably entertaining, the story wasn't Mark Gatiss' best and pretty formulaic and pedestrian overall. Sir Winston was midly endearing but a bit of a cigar-chomping stereotype; Bill Paterson put in an okayish performance as the mandroid Bracewell who turned out to be more human than machine. The Dr-Amy dynamic continued to work well but for the first time Matt Smith jarred a bit - especially his delivery of the lines "I am the Doctor! And you are the Daaaaleks!" The spitfires in space, though giving the opportunity for some great special effects (some of the best yet this season) were kind of far-fetched (yes I know lot's of things in DW are far-fetched, but...) and seemed to have been modified in a remarkably quick amount of time. I did like the revelation that Amy had never seen the Daleks before in spite of their previous Earth invasions - leading to some possible theories e.g. does Amy come from an alternative universe? Is it all tied up with the cracks that keep appearing ...

Probably my least favourite story of the season so far and I'd give it 3 out of 5. However in comparison with some RTD stories it was an improvement, so that ain't no bad thing ...

Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone review coming very soon!

It's the Blinkin' Testcard

2010-05-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings. This is Wendy the Weeping Angel. Or you can call me the new Testcard Girl. I'm here to plug those in between bits (so to speak) as well as: 1) playing noughts and crosses with a creepy looking clown (he almost qualifies for a Dr Who monster himself) 2) displace you in time if you so much as blink. And I've been in Dr Who recently too. Last Saturday and this one. Hip, hip hoorah. (I'm sorry, an angel is a killer and does not use exclamatory sentences - I'm a deadpan sort of laydeee you know).

Anyway, I am actually here on behalf of the Old Cheeser, who would like to inform you that he's a bit busy with work-related thingummys at the moment and hence hasn't had time to write any more posts (well, that's his excuse). He sends his most sincere apologies and hopes to resume service soon with some spanking new posts on, amongst other things, the latest episodes of Dr Who. Wooohooo.

... Tune in soon ... in the meantime here is some light music ...

Ciao.

Hello sweetie!!

2010-04-25T02:36:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to write about last week's Dalek episode yet! Or the just-shown "Time of Angels", featuring the return of the wonderful Alex Kingston as River Song. On reflection though I reckon this week's ep. was a lot better than the Dalek one. More soon. Bye, sweeties!!

The Cheeser's Choice: Muuuuuusic makes the people ... (complete as appropriate)

2010-04-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

Hello my lovelies ... life's got busy again now I'm back at work after the Easter break, hence fewer posts (you just knew it was gonna happen). Grr, grrr and triple grrr. Added to this, I haven't been sleeping very well of late which hasn't helped things. Oh well ... less sleep means more time to blog, doesn't it? (!)

In the meantime, I haven't done any music posts recently, so I feel it's high time for one! This is gonna be a bit of a mixed bag, as I'm the kind of person who gets into bands or artistes usually months (and sometimes years) after everyone else. Just call me a late developer.

Have you heard the new Goldfrapp LP, "Head First"? I've got to say I'm a tad disappointed with it overall. Sure, it's catchy, it's melodic and there are some great 80s influences (not least the abundance of synthesisers) but my overall feelings are that Alison G is coasting on this one.

The recent single "Rocket", for instance, whilst featuring some nice Van Halen type keyboards (and a fabulous pastiche of Xanadu on the cover, as you can see) is just too ... predictable ... normal ... formulaic. Last album "Seventh Tree" was an altogether richer and more in depth affair. However "Head First" is not without its merits. Best of the bunch for me are "Dreaming" (minor key and quite broody), title track "Head First" (a stately ballad which builds in intensity and features majestic vocals from Ms G), "Hunt" (another track in a minor key with a "dangerous" feel and "phasey" backing vocals) and, saving the very best til last, "Voice Thing" (no lyrics, just lots of amazing vocal effects from Alison which proves you don't need words for a good track - and more than a nod to Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" - my favourite on the whole album). In fact the last track shows the kind of direction the album could (and in my view, should) have gone in - i.e. more experimental, risk-taking and diverting from the norm. More of this is needed! 3 out of 5 for me as a whole. Sorry, Alan and Matty!

Blue Six. Not a "newbie" group but I happened upon them through listening to some soul-house type compilations. What a brilliant group! If you like sophisticated chill out fare/soulful vocals/music that's good for playing late at night/stripped back production, then this could well be the group for you. "Beautiful Tomorrow" is particularly to be recommended - best tracks for me are "Closer To Home" (funky bass line, muted brass, cool vibes), "Pure" (more funky bass, and both instrumental and vocal versions work very well), "Very Good Friend" (passionate vocals, clipped guitar, mellifluous synths, excellent ballad), "Beautiful Tomorrow" (broody closer). To be recommended. 4 and a half out of 5 for this particular album and their other stuff is worth investigating too.

Confection. A group I stumbled across whilst on iTunes. Their one and only album came out about 3 years ago but the moment you listen to it, you'll think you're back in 1986, circa Jam and Lewis, Cherelle, SOS Band, early Janet Jackson ... remember them?? Well, this album is an incredibly accurate reproduction of that whole electronic soul/funk style/genre and all the more enjoyable for that. "Flirt" has a ticker-ticker-ticker beat, "eeeow" bass line and those cowbell noises you used to get on Stock, Aitken and Dennis Waterman tracks (but thankfully rather higher quality than some of the dirge that lot put out), "Diamonds" is a reworking of the very same Herb Alpert dance track and probably better than the original, "Lovers or Best Friends" is a lovely ballad that treads familar territory and yet still works, carrying you away on a sea of its own soft-centre gorgeousness. Clever stuff. 4 out of 5.

Samantha James. Californian songstress Ms James has been around for a few years and I'm totally loving her debut album "Rise" ... Samantha J is a kind of new age pop singer whose songs vary from dreamy deep house to chill out, with lyrics that don't merely refer to the standard relationship stuff, but the spiritual side of life to boot. She's also got a great voice - enigmatic, yet seductive (which I just nicked from someone else's review - but I'm in agreement). Title track "Rise" is enticing pop with a laid-back feel, "Enchanted Life" has a recurrent synth motif and an urgent feel , "Angel Love" is dreamy dance with funky guitar and lovely, melting vocals from Ms S and "I Found You" is gorgeous - a bossa nova style duet with Brazilian Celso Fonseca. 4 out of 5.

Disco Discharge. Don't you just love the covers? (Especially the last one, ahem!) These are a series of compilations from, I believe, a Brighton based guy with a total love of disco! I came across him on Facebook. The difference between these and your standard disco compilations is that there's lots of unusual and different tracks that your average punter won't have heard of before (no "YMCA", "I Will Survive" then - thank God) making these albums all the more interesting for that ... and deliciously danceable! Okay, there's some more well known artists - Cheryl Lynn, Boystown Gang, Laura Branigan etc - but even with these we get (rarely heard) extended and 12" mixes. Other tracks are incredibly well selected, making for some eclectic and truly wonderful stuff. A particular fave for me is the "Disco Ladies" comp. which features amongst other things, Fern Kinney's "Groove Me", Amanda Lear "Blood and Honey" (wonderfully deep down and dirty vocal), an extended version of the fabulous "Get Up and Boogie" by Silver Connection and Phyllis Nelson's "I Like You" (you all thought the toe-curling "Move Closer" was her only track eh? This is much better...) And the "Euro Disco" comp is brilliant too - Space's futuristic "Magic Fly, the electronic "From Here To Eternity" by Giorgio Moroder (pre-Axel F days), the robotic and imposing "P Machinery" by Propaganda (one for you, Steve) and much more besides!! As expected, there's a fair amount of what might be labelled "camp" music in here too, but not to the point where it becomes unbearable ... it's all judiciously chosen and works really well. 5 out of 5 for imaginative, original and also great value compliations! Go check 'em out now!!

The Beast Below

2010-04-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit late with my review of the most recent DW episode. Reasons being: 1. It takes me a while to garner my thoughts 2. I usually require more than one viewing to take in everything that's worth writing about 3. Bloody blogger went and buggered up yesterday (how's that for alliteration) and all that I wrote didn't save! (Anyone else experience the same problems??)

Anyhow, I'm happy to report that The Beast Below was (in my oh-so-humble view) every bit as good as the previous week's offering, and the future of DW under Mr Steven Moffat continues to look very rosy indeed.

The good

Liked the whole central conceit: the entire population of the future UK, in order to escape the crippling of planet Earth by solar flares, have fled to the stars aboard a giant spaceship.

However, unbeknown to them, the "motor" for this vast collosus is a star whale, which mankind has enslaved in order to guarantee their survival and a permanent passage through space. Actually, this concept isn't particularly original. Anyone read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - about a whole world which is carried on the back of a giant space turtle? Was Steven M innocent or guilty of pilfering here?

The "Forget" or "Protest" voting plotline. Rather neatly tying in with the General Election, eh?? Good timing on the part of the Beeb and the Who team. The whole episode was about people making choices - the citizens of the UK are allowed to know the truth about what’s basically kept them safe, and are given the instant opportunity to either protest or forget once they know the full horror of it. Society as a whole chooses to forget, having their minds wiped, and then going about their everyday lives, freed from knowing what keeps them alive. Except for Amy at the end, going for the unthinkable option and freeing the whale, thus saving the Dr from making an agonising decision himself - I liked her instinct and recognition that the whale was basically a benevolent creature that has voluntarily been carrying the humans - clever girl.

Also liked the bit where Amy sits in the "Forget" or "Protest" chamber with all of the images flickering across her eyes - freaky - I wish we could have seen what she did, though.

Liz 10. Although a bit self-conciously cockney laddette at times, Sophie Okonedo (an actress I like - once a young soul rebel) put in a spirited and entertaining performance as the below-the-decks-Monarch of Starship UK (I wasn't exactly sure WHY she had to stay hidden though?)

Loved the scene where she told the Doc and co to duck, shot down two of the "smilers" and promptly stated: "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically I rule" (making appropriate gun-toting gestures whilst she delivered the last bit). But the bolshy Queen also had a lot of heart - witness her pre-recorded speech in which the truth about the star whale and Starship UK was revealed - delivered very sensitively and sadly by Sophie O, even if her accent inexplicably "went posh" at this point. Still, a great character of whom I would have liked to have seen more, but the 45 minute 1 episode format precludes this sometimes.

The Dr-Amy dynamic. It's warming up nicely now and the tension between the two, brought on as a result of Amy pressing the "Forget" button, was well realised. Karen Gillan really is proving to be a good actress and was a little less "up herself" this week than the last, for instance in her exchanges with the schoolgirl Mandy (another example of a decent child actress, hallelujah!) and her ultimately altruistic gesture at the end of the episode. Matt Smith remains delightfully quirky and we got to witness some genuine Time Lord anger at the end when he opted to turn the star whale into a vegetable, a decision which obviously sat very badly with him...

More fun dialogue, e.g. the Dr, in the scene when he picks up a glass of water from a couple's table, and then places it on the floor, to their consternation: "We're checking all the water in the area - there's an escaped fish."

And between the Doc and Amy, when they first arrive on Starship UK:

Amy: What you gonna do?
Dr: What I always do - stay out out of trouble. Badly.

The segue into the next episode was a nice touch - ringing TARDIS telephone, Amy takes a call from Winston Churchill, aforementioned PM speaks to the Doc and we see the silhouette of something all-too-familiar gliding behind him - tantalising stuff to whet our appetites for next time. Some DW stories have utilised this tactic and back in the days of William Hartnell it was a regular motif. Having wrapped up one particular adventure, the TARDIS travellers barely had time to draw a collective breath before being launched straight into their next escapade - made you wonder when they had time to eat, sleep or answer the call of nature, really. Still I'd quite like to see this method used a bit more!

The not so good

Fortunately, there isn't much to put here. A solid story with solid performances and ideas from all concerned.

Okay, I thought the Smilers, after being hyped up quite a bit, weren't quite as scarey and intimidating as they could have been.

One other point of note which I've already mentioned - and I thank Dan for this as I'm in agreement with him (hope you don't mind me duplicating your ideas a bit, Dan!) - for the one episode stories, 45 minutes is a very short time to cram everything in, and this can be problematic sometimes. The Beast Below had lots of interesting ideas - mankind escaping the solar flares, the arrival of the whale, the type of society that existed aboard Starship UK - all of which could have easily been fleshed out across two episodes rather than watered down into a constraining one. We've come a long way since the Dr Who of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and granted, the style and format used then probably wouldn't work now - things had to change. But that isn't to say that the 25 minute episode format of yore didn't have its merits - there was time for the viewer to digest ideas and plotlines, characters could be (reasonably) developed, you were kept on the edge of your seat until the next episode, and most stories ran to at least 4 episodes which made for 1 hour 40 minutes screen time. It's kind of symptomatic of today's generation I reckon - lower patience thresholds, the desire to have "everything at once" - okay I'm not putting this into words very well, but you know what I mean, don't you? In fact old DW and new DW and the subsequent differences have engendered some very interesting debates ... but that's for another time, before this rant gets even more elongated than it already is ...

All of this notwithstanding, The Beast Below made a pretty solid 4 out of 5 for me. Keep it up, chaps!

Rendezvous with the Woo!

2010-04-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Shame I only took the one pic...!

A couple of weekends ago I had the very good fortune of meeting the lovely Alan - who was visiting the UK for the first time ever! This was my first ever meeting with a blogger and it couldn't have been more pleasant. Some bloggers are kind of reticent about meeting "in the flesh", preferring to maintain their privacy etc, which I can understand up to a point. The whole virtual communication thing is funny really - you can get to "know" someone over the net and even feel a real kinship with them, but it's not always the same when you actually hook up face-to-face - sometimes you can end up feeling disappointed and your expectations are dashed - a bit like online dating?! Fortunately nothing went wrong on this occasion (well I'd hardly have written this post and embarrassed Mr Woo if it had, would I?!!)

Alan comes from Vancouver in Canada but is actually a Yorkshire boy, born and bred - from Bradford no less - his parents used to run a fish and chip shop - eeeeh bah gum - well, you can't get much more Northern than that! Alan's parents emigrated when he was a wee nipper, so his Blightey trip was a chance for him to see his roots - very exciting! He'd put in a whistle stop tour and visited not only London, but also his relatives in Bradford and Cardiff too (Dr Who land, how I approve!), plus a trip to Paris and back! I caught up with him during his last few days' stay in London - we met in a bar close to Soho and (appropriately - but I really wasn't trying to tell Alan anything!) in ... Chinatown. He's a very warm and friendly fellow indeed and having a joint love of all things pop-cultural, as well as both being gay boys, we had loads to talk about. We then moved onto Village Soho, and sat and nattered some more about all kinds of stuff. As he had to be off early the next day, it wasn't a late one but it was still a great night, lovely to meet him and I felt like we really clicked.

Who knows , perhaps one day I'll visit Canada, not to mention the US of A, having never bloody been ...!! I'm actually considering a visit this Summer ... it has to be done. After all I'm now 41 and not getting any younger .... *sob*

Anyway Alan, hope you're safe and comfortable back home now - well actually I see you took a trip to Portland to ward off the post-Vacation blues ... don't blame you!!

The Eleventh Hour (which is roughly when I've finished this review)

2010-04-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

So. I'm a little behind some people with my review, but what were my thoughts on the Season Five opener/Matt & Kaz's debut??

The good

Well .... let's start with the obvious. Mr Matt Smith. Prior to his Doctor-debut, I'd seen him in very little (TV/film/drama wise) and knew even less about the man himself, so he's been something of a blank slate for me. I'm pleased to report that I really liked him. All the right qualities needed for the Doc - entertaining, eccentric, endearing, energetic (right, that's enough "e" words), funny and ... cute! I just quickly nipped over to my fellow blogger Steve's site to see what he had to say (no, not steal!) and Stevenage states that Smith has "... an eccentricity that appears to be genuine and is, I suspect, as much a part of Smith's true real-life make-up as that of the character he plays" - which I am fully in agreement with - from the few interviews I've seen of Matt S, he really does seem to be delightfully oddball in real life, which can only lend further weight to his performance as the Time Lord. Favourite Dr bits in this episode included:

- the comic food-eating/rejection scenes with the young Amelia at the start of the episode - a nice piece of role reversal with the Doc coming across as exceedingly kid like and all over the place, whilst Amelia played the part of the grown up doing the cooking - "Beans are evil! Bad, bad beans!"

- the scene when the Doc enters Mrs Angelo's house and is lecturing Amy:
Amy: "You're worse than my Aunt."
Dr: "I'm the Dr and I'm worse than everybody's Aunt."

What am I doing in my nightie? And oh - why is this place bigger on the inside than the - actually that's NOT what I said!

...What a jolly chap! And a lovely little smile there ...

- the final scene in the TARDIS when the Dr persuades Amy to follow in a long line of travelling companions - Amy: "I started to think that you were just a mad man with a box". Dr: "Amy Pond, there's something you better understand about me because it's important, and one day, your life may depend on it. I am definitely a mad man with a box. (Amy laughs) Ha ha - yeah!" (I loved Matt S's delivery of these last lines and the laugh - sweet and rather unnerving at the same time.).

- on entering the newly regenerated TARDIS: "Oh, you sexy thing."

Lots more that was good about Mr S too but too much to trawl through - all in all though an engaging debut from "Who dat man" (Oh yeah another comic bit - and the Whovian geek in me feels obliged to tell you that this was actually about the third or fourth story that Matt Smith filmed, so not, strictly speaking, his "debut" - there you go). I look forward to more of the same! One other thing I should add - whilst I acknowledge David Tennant's merits, I was never his greatest fan - the silly tics and OTT elements of his incarnation of the Dr ("New-new-new-new York") really grated at times and its refreshing to see these aspects are largely absent from Matt S's performance. I hope I'm going to like Matt Smith more.

(And he got his shirt off in the first episode!!)

What jolly japes!

And Miss Amelia Pond - well, I've got to say, I actually liked the younger version of Amy more than the grown-up version - a relatively rare occasion where a little girl actress isn't cloying and irritating but manages to convey innocence and knowingness at the same time which Caitlin Blackwood did very well (fact: did you know she's Karen Gillan's real-life cousin?) The opening scenes, with young Amelia and the Doc, made for fun viewing and a different approach to the "first new Dr"story. I kind of wish that "little girl" Amy has been given the chance to travel with the Time Lord after all, rather than being left high and dry sitting on her suitcase - then again, it would have probably led to floods of letters of complaint being sent into the BBC, with accusations of the show promoting "dodgy" and "corrupting" adult/child relationships, or probably worse, if you get my drift.

Still on the subject of Amy, I also loved the whole "Raggedy Dr" fairy tale aspect of the story, with the Dr's encounter with the wee Scotts lass becoming the stuff of legend (or should that be myth?) amongst the villagers of Leadworth. The idea that the older Amy had been creating dolls and drawing pictures of the Dr since his crash, 12 years previously, plus the revelation that she'd been forced to undergo years of psychoanalysis because no-one believed what had happened to her, made the Dr-companion dynamic a lot more different and unusual - good writing on the part of Mr Moffat here.

As for the older Amy who we shall of course be seeing much more of over the next 12 weeks, Karen Gillan was very good in her own way too - intelligent, independent, feisty and sarcastic. In spite of my comments about the potential cheapening of the character through making her a "kissogram", this was dealt with in a nicely satirical way that did not detract from the character - her rather defensive conversation in Mrs Angelo's house, for instance:

Mrs A: Hello Amy dear, are you a policewoman now?

Amy: Well, sometimes -

Mrs A: I thought you were a nurse.

Amy: I can - be a nurse ...

Mrs A: Or actually a nun?

Amy: I dabble (nervous laugh)

...

Dr: And what sort of job's a kissogram?

Amy: "I go to parties and I kiss people ... (self conscious throat clearing) ... it's a laugh! (last lines uttered very aggressively/defensively).

Amy at her mad, starey-eyed best

It's also clear (even from just one episode) that Karen G is a gifted actress - her vocal delivery was spot on at times (see above, and her mocking pronunciation of the Dr's "bow tie" near the end, for instance) not to mention her facial expressions - she can do wide, starey eyes very well - whilst this could be deemed annoying if overused, it was very appropriate in the scene where she discovered the "extra" bedroom in her house and the revelation that something nasty was hiding inside.

Cheeky!

I also loved the look on her face as the Dr stripped off in the hospital corridor and her response to Rory's question: "Aren't you going to turn your back?": "Nope".

I did find older Amy ever so slightly up herself though - a bit too self-assured and self-reliant to the point where she sometimes came across as contemptuous of others. But as I recall reading somewhere else, I guess you've got to take into account the traumatising effect of a) meeting a strange man from outer space who then promptly buggers off for 12 years b) having no-one believe you regarding a) - which has presumably made Amy into the defensive and rather guarded young lady she now is. Hopefully we'll see the ice on "the Pond" start to thaw over the resultant weeks and the ginger one showing a few more vulnerabilities.

The English village setting was also nicely used (as others have observed, shades of the Pertwee era), the guest cast also put in some nice turns, especially Annette Crosbie and the handsome young fella playing Jeff (damn, why can't he be the new "half-companion" instead of the rather dull Rory? Erm, presumably cos if he was Amy's boyfriend, she's have less reason to stay on Earth and forgo the excitement of travelling with the Dr for another kind of excitement ... )

Nasty lady

Also good to see actress Olivia Colman (of Mitchell and Webb fame / other comedies) as a nasty alien Mum.

New console room

Old typewriter

And I like the newly designed TARDIS - after blowing up at the end of the last story, the reborn space/time machine is definitely futuristic but this time round with more retro and antique touches (the typewriter on the keyboard, the "ding ding" bell, the 80s style trim phone ... the Time Lords are a kitsch old bunch really aren't they?) One thing that bothered me prior to seeing this episode were the rumours I'd heard that the Dr would be given a "more modern", "replacement" TARDIS for this series only because the old one was such a write-off - which didn't really ring true - where would he get it from? So to have the same craft literally regenerating like the Dr himself made more sense.

The not so good

That was a long enough "good" list, wasn't it? I'm pleased to report there was far less "not so good" about this episode. Only:

As mentioned Rory isn't a desperately exciting character - somewhat bland and dull. And we're gonna get some more of him later on this season. Ho hum.

Hello love! I won't bite, I'm CGI ...

Prisoner O, though a frightening proposition when in the form of a barking man and dog, or a mother and two little girlies (liked the stretched n' fanged teeth) was less so when in alien form - looked like a plastic/airfix worm and you could tell it wasn't really there. Presumably the Beeb are saving the really good special effects, not to mention the budget, for the remainder of the season (and if you look at the Star Wars style spaceship battles in the trailer you can kind of see why...)

And that is that. Until next week (although I suspect I'll have less time on my hands then owing to the fact that it's now Easter and I've had time off work...) One other quick observation to make (which should really go in the "good" list): under the new regime of Steven Moffat, Dr Who already feels different to the Russell T Davies era - whilst still recognisably DW, the show seems to be moving in a maturer, more quirky direction, which was sometimes lacking during RTD's reign. The jarring "soap opera" elements - e.g. the Tyler family and their bust ups and all of the self-conscious pop cultural references - are largely gone. And I'm not particularly sorry about that.

4 out of 5 btw. A tip top start to a tip top show!

RIP Blake Carrington

2010-04-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

Farewell, then, actor John Forsythe aka Blake Carrington.

Oddly enough, I've just started watching Season Four of Dynasty on DVD, so I'll have to watch some more episodes very soon by way of tribute. No disrespect to the deceased John F, but Blake's blue rinse, cardies and fatherly concern were what made the man so great.* ** Not to mention his all-consuming love for walking clothes horse wife Krystle and unbridled hatred for ex-from-hell Alexis, which collectively all made for great melodrama. Mr Carrington: you were the stuff of legend.

*I'm only being slightly ironic here.
** Okay, so I couldn't exactly condone Blake's narrow-minded stance on homosexuality and consequent bad treatment of gay son Steven, but I guess no-one's perfect. And by the time of the final Dynasty instalment, The Reunion, he'd come to accept his son's orientation and welcomed him and his lover into the family! Proof that even the most prejudiced of patriarchs can see the error of their ways.

Only a few hours to go ...

2010-04-03T05:27:00.000-07:00

... until the return of a certain sci-fi television programme ... Yay! Yay! And yaaaay again!!

I still can't quite believe it.

But I've bought my Radio Times Dr Who special with it's preview of the new series and lots of other good stuff.

And for anyone who fancies a birrova preview, here's what we've got to look forward to ... SPOILER ALERT!! - don't read any further if you want to be kept entirely in the dark!

Episode 1 - The Eleventh Hour by Steve Moffat. In which the new Dr meets new Earth companion Amy Pond by crash-landing in her back garden. She's got a crack (say nothing) in her bedroom wall which is far more dangerous than she could ever realise ... Amy also sports a rather fetching policewoman's uniform in this episode, but the shortness of her skirt has led to speculation that it's a fancy dress outfit rather than the uniform of her true profession i.e. she works as a kissogram. Mmm a bit trivial and daft for an assistant, anyone?

Episode 2 - The Beast Below by Steven Moffat. The Dr takes Amy to the far future - where British people are adrift among the stars on board a giant spaceship, Starship UK (sounds like a 1970s style dance troupe - will Sarah Brightman be there??). Features some new creatures called the Smilers whose image belies their true intentions ... Moffat likes coming up with seemingly innocuous but nasty aliens - remember the clockwork dolls in "The Girl in the Fireplace"?

Episode 3 - Victory of the Daleks by Mark Gattis. I've got to say, I wish they'd knock the Daleks on the head once and for all - it's been serious overkill as far as the evil pepper pots are concerned, with them springing up in every single season of the nu-Who so far. Give it a rest, dudes! However the fact that Mark Gattis has penned this episode bodes well - he wrote what were for me two of the best episodes from previous seasons - "The Unquiet Dead" (Charles Dickens in Cardiff and body-possessing gaseous aliens) and "The Idiot's Lantern" (Maureen Lipman as a 1950s upper crust television continuity announcer, in reality an alien that sucks the life force of human beings through the telly) so I hope this provides more of the same. Set in World War 2 Britain (the obligatory historical story then) and featuring none other than Sir Winston Churchill. Apparently it gives a new slant to the Daleks by having them as "goodies"! Patriotic pepper pots, then?

Episodes 4 and 5 - The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone by Steven Moffat. Featuring the return of those nastily effective stone monsters from "Blink", the Weeping Angels - except this time, there's only one of their number left, but it's still wreaking havoc. Expect more "Don't blink" stuff on the card then, plus, the return of .... Professor River Song, played by the gorgeous Alex Kingston and first seen in last season's "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead". This should make for very interesting stuff indeed, not least the Dr-River reunion. In the previous story, the Dr met River for the very first time, whereas she already knew him, having encountered him in his future! Oh, and apparently they also got married. So it looks as though the up-and-coming episodes are going to feature this first meeting ... and romance?? ... Can't wait.

Episode 6 - Vampires in Venice by Toby Whithouse. Featuring some young girlies who are also blood-sucking vampires. Why is it that Venice is always the setting for nasty stuff? (See films like "Don't Look Now", etc) "School Reunion", the Sarah-Jane and K9 return story of Season 3, and one of my personal faves, was also penned by Whithouse, so with a decent writer at the helm, this one looks promising.

Episode 7 - Amy's Choice by Simon's Nye. Is that anything like "Sophie's Choice" then? In this one, it's five years on from when Amy travelled with the Doc, and she's now preggers. Apparently she is faced with "a heartbreaking choice that will change her life forever". Mmm, I wonder what that could be?

Episodes 8 and 9 - As yet untitled - by Chris Chibnall. Mr Chibnal was actually responsible for what I thought were some of the worst episodes of "Torchwood", so I hope he fares better here. Set on Earth of 2015, not very far into our future then ... and an ambitious drilling project is under way. Dr Nasreen Chaudry (played by Meera Syall) and her team have reached 21 kilometres into the Earth's crust - but something is stirring far below. Could it be the Silurians?? Or even the Sea Devils?? Yes rumour strongly has it that these creatures of yore are back, and if you watch one of the new season trailers, there's a glimpse of some monsters in there that look remarkably similar ...

Episode 10 - As yet untitled - by Richard Curtis. Yes, the writer of "Blackadder" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" contributes an episode. Featuring none other than oddball Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and set in Provence! The obligatory "Dr meets famous historical figure from the past" story - in addition to Winston C's appearance in Episode 3, of course. Will Vincent cut off his ear to save the human race?

Episode 11 - Untitled again! - by Gareth Roberts.
Featuring man of the moment, James Corden. Erm, this one is about a flat share - I kid you not. Apparently people on Aickman Road are vanishing and there's a staircase that people walk up but never down! Sounds a bit silly, but let's wait and see ... could this be the "Dr Lite episode" we usually get once a season?

Episodes 12 and 13 - Untitled again - by Steven Moffat. Just as Russell T Davies used to do, the Moffster has penned the season finale. The Radio Times blurb reads: "A message on the oldest cliff face in the universe, a puzzle box opening from the inside and a love that lasts thousands of years. The fates are drawing close around the Tardis - is this the day the Doctor falls?" Mmm, quite intriguing sounding. Not sure who the villains will be in this one, but I can reveal it includes Stonehenge and also that River Song pops up again!

And that's it ... all very exciting stuff!

Erm, a few other fings to mention:

- The Dr gets a new TARDIS this season, owing to the fact that the old one is well and truly wrecked (remember it blowing up in "The End of Time"?) This includes a brand new console room complete with walkway, console, etc.

- Looks like the Cybermen are back too, owing to some glimpses we got of the metal men in another trailer.

Finally, after all previous moans about RTD, it's going to be very interesting indeed to see the new direction Who takes under Steven Moffat. We're very shortly going to find out ... !!

A Single Man

2010-03-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday the other week. And I turned ... well you can probably guess, can't you?

32?

Yes you guessed right!!

Ha ha ha ...

If only.

Add 33 to that number i.e. 32, then subtract 40, multiply by 2, add 1, and you'll probably get the right age ... if you can be bothered to do all of that ...

Anyways, to celebrate my b'day I went uptown for a very nice meal to a tried and tested place, followed by drinks and dancing at Escape. Prior to all of that was a visit to the cinema, which made the day even more divinely indulgent, helped by the fact that the movie I saw was very good indeed. And the movie was ...

... A Single Man. Based on the novel by gay author Christopher Isherwood, it's set in early 1960s Los Angeles and tells the story of George Falconer (played by Colin Firth) a middle-aged English university professor who, since the death of his longtime male partner Jim, in a car accident, has struggled to find meaning in his life and as a result is now seriously contemplating suicide. The film depicts events in a single day of George's life but also provides a lot of back story through a series of flashbacks that have a bearing on the here and now.

I loved it, for a number of reasons:

1) Colin Firth's brilliant portrayal of George. Prior to "A Single Man" I wasn't exactly his greatest fan. Regardless of all that hoo-ha about him as Darcy getting his shirt off in "Pride and Prejudice", I'd never been into him and also found him utterly annoying as the "modern" Darcy in the Bridget Jones movies - wet, boring, humourless, repressed and asexual - pretty much encompassing all those British stereotypes that non-UK people have of us, except in this case the character wasn't just a bunch of stereotypes, he really was like this. Although perhaps I am slightly forgetting the fact that Darcy is fictional, not real and probably nothing like Colin Firth the actor ... I dunno though, quite how the delightfully ditzy Bridget fancied such a dull as ditch water bloke was beyond me ...

Anyhow, Firth defied expectations for me in "A Single Man. He's a revelation - and in the film his quintessential Englishness and restrained mannerisms and behaviour are actually a virtue. The scene in which he receives a phone call from the brother of his partner, to tell him that Jim has been killed, is brilliantly acted - George keeping it together vocally as he talks to the brother, but his face telling a very different story as the grim reality sinks in. We then see his true reaction when, breaking down, he dashes next door in the pouring rain (slightly obvious symbolism) to see his best mate Charley for a (literal) shoulder to cry on (Charley played by the estimable Julianne Moore, more (excuse the pun) on her in a moment...) The meticulous way in which he lays out all of his belongings on his bed, including legal documents and letters to friends, as he plans his suicide, smacks of Englishness too, but rings true, so it's heartening to see George's attitude change near the end - and then by contrast hugely saddening when things then take an unexpected turn. I won't say any more for people who haven't yet seen it.

2) Julianne Moore as the Upper Class socialite Charley, George's best friend from the UK who also happens to be his next door neighbour. Moore is one of my most favourite actresses - I loved her in Safe and Far From Heaven, and she excels here too, playing an entertaining but not entirely sympathetic character - an alcoholic, self-indulgent and self-obsessed one to be precise (not a million miles away from Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous ...) The dinner scene with her and George is a great piece of drama, with the pair getting progressively drunker and ending up hurling insults at one another, and Charley attempting to kiss George at the end of the night (still hoping and believing, after all these years, that she can "turn" him). Regardless of the selfishness of her character, she looked and sounded, erm, absolutely fabulous, with her glamorous 60s style and I loved her pink cigarettes, not to mention chic apartment with orange trees in the lobby. Mmm, think I wanna emigrate to California ... A pity the character isn't actually in the movie for very long.

3) The other male characters, all of whom were pretty hot, but also convincingly played. George's dead lover Jim was a handsome fella without being conventionally good-looking and the flashback scenes where we see the two lovers together - on the couch at home reading, or lying on the beach, are convincingly played, with that sense of easy familiarity and "couple banter" that people who've together in relationships for a long time maintain with one another. We also witness George and Jim's first meeting in bar, when Jim is a sailor on visit to the town and the undercurrent of flirtatiousness between them both is well observed - this was after all the 1960s and gay men couldn't be so blatant.

Nicholas Hoult is also very good as Kenny Potter, one of George's students who after one of his lectures, starts a conversation with him, becomes fixated on him as a kindred spirit and later on turns out to be his saviour. There's further clever observation in the way the film depicts the undercurrent of attraction between Kenny and George, always there and strongly hinted at (when the pair get drunk and go skinny dipping or later on when a soaking wet Kenny self consciously strips in front of George and stands there staring at him) without being properly verbalised or fully consummated (again perhaps a product of the sexually ambiguous times when it was a lot harder to be upfront about one's real inclinations and desires).

And there's also the male hustler played by Jon Kortajarena Redruello (bloody gorgeous!!) who George runs into, gets propositioned by and turns down - God knows why - old George seems to get more offers from men in one day than most would in a lifetime!

4) The attitudes towards homosexuality. As I mentioned there's an interesting level of ambiguousness in some of George's relationships with the men he meets - is something going on or not? - which is a hallmark of the time. But the prejudice and ostracism that gay men received back then is also dealt with, and whilst deplorable, I found the scenes which showed this to be the most truthful and telling of all. When George speaks to Jim's brother on the phone and is told that he hasn't been invited to the funeral as he is "not immediate family", you could almost hear the hiss of disapproval from the audience - the refusal to recognise George and Jim's relationship as a "proper one" grates massively but is (regrettably) indicative of people's attitudes at the time (and to be honest, still is in some backward quarters). This is reinforced even more in the dinner scene where a drunken Charley blurts out that she and George could have had something "real" and that she never thought that what he had with Jim was "real love". F**k off!!! Insulting and deeply ignorant, but nevertheless, the kind of views that I myself have heard people spout from time to time.

5) The look and cinematography of the film. American fashion designer Tom Ford makes his directing debut here and his design and style roots come through clearly in the movie - it's sumptuously shot and made - the 60s style being prevalent throughout (loved the profileration of ladies' beehives!) George's glass house is also pretty funky and trendy (though a bit of a nightmare for those craving privacy?!) and there's a funny scene where he sits on the toilet spying on his neighbours through the window, before one of them clocks him watching.

All in all, one of the best gay movies I've seen in a long time and proof that Colin Firth really can cut the mustard.
4 out of 5.

It begins...

2010-03-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Or rather, it's coming back:

THIS SATURDAY!!!

And I've barely had time to blog about it!!!

We haven't had a full series for so bloody long I've forgotten what it's like ...

... but I'm sure I'll very quickly get back into the space and time swing ... you know me.

And I'll be back with new posts soon ... including my thoughts on the very good A Single Man and meeting the lovely Alan ...

Thank heavens it's nearly Easter.

Ciaou for now.

OC xx

Have you ever had it blue?

2010-03-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well, you probably ARE blue, if you come from the planet Pandora.

Last night I went to see Avatar. Yes, it's only taken me about two months to get round to seeing it (as someone has already said to me) but then I find it hard getting the time to do these kind of things sometimes ...

I didn't see the 3D version but it was still pretty impressive in its "flatscreen" version I think ...

The good stuff:

1. Totally lush and mesmerising visuals, particularly the amazing phosphorescent flora and fauna on the planet. I loved all of the alien creatures too - the rhino-like things, the eagle-like birds - some nice, some scarey. The whole look and culture of the planet was very well done - the mark of a good sci-fi movie (it's been several decades since the polysterene rocks of Star Trek).
2. The alien race, the Na'vi, looked amazing too, even if they were obviously digital creations, though having said that, did you know that the facial expressions of the original actors were moulded onto the animations? That was probably why they actually looked very realistic ... and human. I loved their big emotional eyes and there were some wonderful nuances in their facial moements/expressions. The culture of the Na'vi was also very well presented, with their own language (created from a vocabulary of about 1,000 words apparently) and spiritual way of life.
3. The lead guy, Jake Skully (I liked the way the aliens pronounced his name) was convincing and sympathetic, even though I don't really know who Sam Worthington is. I liked the spiritual journey he underwent throughout the movie - by the end he was (literally) a different being.
4. Great to see old sci-fi stalwart Sigourney Weaver back on the scene (well, James Cameron directed her in Aliens) ... and considering it's been 31 years since the original Alien, she still looks pretty good.
5. The allegorical stuff worked well on the whole and wasn't dealt with in too heavy-handed a fashion, considering this was still a Hollywood movie (one race wanting to wipe out another race in the name of gaining something valuable; understanding and learning from other cultures; the destruction of the environment, etc etc). The scene when the Earth security torpedo and destroy Hometree (the home of one of the Na'vi clan) was gripping and horrible to watch - the poor, helpless Na'vi having their dwelling place destroyed and trying to fight back against technology and firepower with mere bows and arrows, and the brutality of the attack, made for very disturbing viewing. It made me think about all other instances of war, when we never consider that the "enemy" we are obliged to destroy are actually living beings. What gives us the right to take away others' lives? Gosh, I'm getting all heavy now.

The not so good stuff:
1. It was very long, clocking in at nearly 3 hours. I didn't realise this until I'd bought the ticket. James Cameron seems to go in for long epics (e.g. Titanic). Fortunately this seemed like quite a well-paced 3 hours, so it could have worse, even if my bum was rather numb by the end.
2. There was some predictable Hollywood stuff - the main villain, Colonel Quaritch, was a real stereotypical meanie, though I did like the face-off between him and Scully at the end, with Quaritch in his giant "robot" body suit (very similar to the one Ripley wore in "Aliens" though and probably loads of other sci-fi stuff that's been on in the interim).
3. During some of the fight/action sequences, the camera moved around too quickly for me, so much so that you couldn't always see what was going on - too blurry and fast to follow!

On balance then, this was imaginative, thought-provoking, visually stunning, well-acted and moving. Maybe not a total masterpiece but very good sci-fi. 4 out of 5.

Brazil pics - Part Three!

2010-03-13T06:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, you're perhaps getting a tad bored of Brazil pics now - 1) Because I've posted too many. 2) Because the thought of me sunning myself, relaxing, drinking and generally having a full-on good time in a place far more desirable than freezing cold Blighty turns you into a raving, foaming-at-the mouth, insanely jealous maniac ... Erm, well it might just be because of 2) but maybe I'm over-speculating here slightly. So this will probably be the last of such posts.

Anyhow, thought you'd like to see some photos, plus a little bit of reportage, on what was probably the longest journey I ever made, from Uberaba to Porto Seguro, the resort where we spent Xmas and New Year. The journey took some 2 days by car!! Before you ask why we didn't opt for some other, less arduous and time-consuming method of transport, firstly, there is no proper rail network in Brazil. The second option was taking an internal flight, but these are damned expensive, so that was a no-no. So the trip was by motor, and I can tell you that despite the length of the trip (1,400 km which equals nearly 900 miles, the equivalent of travelling from Brighton to Edinburgh and back again) it was one of the most memorable, picturesque and unforgettable journeys that I've ever been on ... and a bit hair-raising, bone-shaking, sweat-inducing, to boot - and any other kind of expression that relates to shaking up the body a little bit). It really made you reflect on how vast Brazil is as a country, too.

I've just realised I didn't actually take any photos on the first day of the journey. We set off quite early around 8am and hit the motorway. Now one significant point to make about Brazil (as with quite a lot of countries in the Southern hemisphere) is that the quality and standard of their roads is markedly different to those we're accumstomed to here. There aren't many dual carriageways in Brazil. In some of the states they do have 2 or even 3 lane roads in either direction, but these are pretty rare. Once we were a few hundred kms out of Gustavo's home town, the roads became single lane affairs in each direction. The other thing to mention is the abundance of slow-moving articulated lorries clogging up the roads. You get whole convoys of them sandwiched together. To deal with this, you can either go for the easy (but slower) option of staying behind them, or the faster (but more dangerous) way - which entails pulling out and accelerating past the hulking brutes, even whilst traffic is coming from the other direction. As soon as a car coming the other way gets close, you take your chances, indicate and move back into one of the gaps between the lorries. You think I'm kidding, don't you?! Well, I'm not. Driving like this is the norm over there. Otherwise it will take you simply ages to get anywhere. (Mmm, Steve, I wonder if I've put you off going, now!) Fortunately as this seems to be the accepted method of driving, people will be accommodating and drop back their cars to "let you in". The number of times we had to do this was countless ... at first I was absolutely sh*tting myself, but by the end of the holiday I was almost laid back out about it. Almost. I did joke with Gustavo's family that they should market a "Dodge the lorry" type computer game in Brazil - I'm sure it would sell like hot cakes.

Anyway, after our first day's travel (probably less eventful come to think of it, hence the lack of photos) we made an overnight stopover in a town called Salinas. As we were driving into the city, we were suddenly accosted by lots of young kids on bicycles who started riding up alongside the car and chasing us! This made me totally paranoid at first - at first I thought they were after our money or wanted to hold up the car, highwayman style, but no, all they wanted to do was show us some of the motels in the area and thus earn themselves a little bit of commission (obviously they could spot visitors a mile off). Anyway we followed a couple of them on their bikes, first place we were taken to was a bit too expensive, but then one of the pedal-pushing guys found us this joint:

The rather nice and posh lobby that no-one actually sat in.

The bar also had lots of cachaca for sale. Unfortunately (or unfortunately) I didn't get as far as opening any, but I did purchase a bottle, plus a couple of cute porcelain shot holders (you can see them in the pic below on the rustic-looking shelving). The bottle is still in my cupboard here at home, unopened.

Gustavo and his folks - we found a pizza place just on the other side of the road - very handy.

Gustavo in the hotel the next morning.

View from one of the hotel balconies. Love the mist in the background.

We then set off on day two of the journey. Note the guys sweeping the road! Wish I'd taken a close up of them. I remember one of them giving us the thumbs-up as we went past. Note how the road has turned into a rocky dirt track - this was pretty much the condition of the road for the next few 100 kms - no tarmac! - and was the only route we were able to take. I did wonder if people made this kind of journey every day - in which case, one's car suspension must get wrecked at a very fast rate and sales of cars must be remarkably frequent ...

Further on we drove past this landmark, which looks very much like the Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio.

Impressive eh.

Buildings like this ...

View from the car window, with rosary beads ... people are very religious in Brazil, Catholicism being the dominant belief system. Every time when we set out on a journey, Gustavo's Mum, Dad and Auntie would take the beads and pray, murmuring incantations to God and asking that we would have a safe journey. This often made me reflect on how much more spiritual people are in Brazil; in touch with the more fundamental side of life. Something we could learn from over here, I reckon ...

Gustavo takes his turn behind the wheel. Being a Native Brasileiro, he's used to being on the other side of the road! At one point I was quite keen on doing some driving over there, but given the condition of the roads, I'm not sure it would have been such a good idea ...!

There were lots of mountainous views like this one. Kind of reminds me of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

This could almost be the English countryside, mmm?

The road's a bit smoother here but just look at that orange colour!

Great mountain vista. However one problem with these type of roads was the amount of choking dust that vehicles would throw up, as you can see in the photo above. Consequently we had to have the car windows rolled up during these parts of the journey. In a 30-35 degree heat, this wasn't too much fun and the car got very stuffy ...

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Bridges of Brazil!!

On this section of the trip, we drove across lots of lovely constructions like this one ...

Made of wood, rickety, you could see through the gaps ...

And only with enough room for one car to get over ... yeeehaaaah!

Here's another one that looks even more precarious. But we made it over ...

Once again I couldn't help but reflect that this was the normal state of affairs for people in Brazil.

Another view whilst driving over ...

Later on we drove past these foresty regions. The picture's not that great as they're a bit far off, but these are rows and rows of tall, perpendicular trees that looked amazing.

Some of the aforementioned trees, closer up.

They looked amazing from the car. We drove through several avenues like this...

And I loved these trees with their red blossoms ...

And ... eventually ... we reached our destination! Welcome to Porto Seguro ...

Would you like to fertilize my crops? (No, that's NOT a metaphor...)

2010-03-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

Would someone care to enlighten me as to why Farmville is so popular?? Everyone's at it ... my husband ... my mates ... even my Auntie. I confess I've never tried it - I just can't see the appeal. Having said that I do have periods where I'm hooked on Bejewelled (yes even since this post). So perhaps there's a link there - a computer game that takes your mind off other stuff that you can't get enough of.

Anyway, can someone tell me the appeal, purlease??

Brazil pics - Part Two!

2010-03-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, time for some more pics from my Xmas trip which now seems like yonks ago. Hope you all enjoy...

These are all from the market in Porto Seguro, and what a gorgeous place it is! The market opens in the evening rather than daytime and boasts 2km of stalls - loads to see then. It was lovely wandering around and sampling lots of sellers' wares and taking in the atmosphere ...

I love the brightly coloured buildings in the background. "Coco Gelado" is chilled coconut water, in case you didn't know, senors and senoras.

The atmosphere in the market was both relaxed and vibrant.

Some t-shirt shops ...

There were also lots of bars, cafes and restaurants where you could sit and people watch ... I didn't take my camera with me (damnit!) but one other evening we found this excellent upstairs bar called "Crystal Blue" - a high tec affair with white sofas and neon lighting but also with a lovely open air balcony where you could sit and look down on the market and also out to sea ... bliss. We walked in and they were playing The Gibson Brothers track "Cuba", followed by various other cheese classics. Naturally I was in heaven immediately.

Confession time, people. One of my dreams has actually been to own and run my own bar playing all my favourite music and having all my fave customers around ... Gustavo and I have actually discussed this before and this place was exactly what I would have chosen, given the opportunity! The only downside to "Crystal Blue" was the lack of clientele i.e. there were about 5 people in the whole joint and anyone who came in usually stayed for a drink then left rapidly after. One of the reasons I think is that Brazilians don't really go in for "cheese" and retro stuff - they're too far away from Europe to be influenced by all that and tend to go for more anthemic, crowd-pleasing, music ... so sadly the bar wasn't a success in that respect, only for old cheesers like me. We actually got talking to the managaress of the place, who was, erm, somewhat tartily dressed in a short skirt and high heels and was constantly up and dancing amongst the customers, in a bit of a desperate attempt to whip up a party atmosphere (I hope she doesn't ever read this, then again, I don't think she could speak much English). Her frenetic and funny gyrations didn't really produce the desired effect though and I felt sorry for her. She told us she was selling the place, ostensibly because she had to move further North in Brazil because of another job, and also asked if we were interested in purchasing it!! Well, we never got back to her ... Somehow I suspect the real reason for her selling up was the lack of business, which as I said was a shame, given that the place had so much potential. Oh well, maybe one day for me, eh?

Also in the market were loads of homemade cocktails stalls - using natual ingredients and fruit! There were some truly delicious drinkies to sample ... and cheap too.

Great display in the background eh? I'm drinking a caipirinha, one of Brazil's national cocktails - and it's bloody gorgeous!

Gustavo gets in in the cocktail action. Mmmm what a lot of fruits! Er, that's the ones in the BACKGROUND, not foreground, okaaaaaaaayy??!

Great display though, isn't it? So colourful, and boy, must take some setting up ...

Whilst perusing the stalls I couldn't resist trying on these "shades" ... there were lots of items to sample and see ...

... including food! These cakes were mouthwatering (not that I actually tried any - missed my chance there ... )

And clothes - lots of T-shirts - very popular, but then in a 35 degree climate, who needs to wear a jumper??

Cute, eh?

And art! I loved this painting of the ladies in hats.

This is a bit of a stunning one too. I quite would have liked to have taken one home with me, but sadly couldn't squeeze it into my suitcase ...

And there was streetdancing ...

At the end of our market excursion, we went for a meal to one of the restaurants and were serenaded by this amazingly eccentric guy! That's a drum round his neck, which looks like it was made out of a dustbin - well, perhaps it was! He proceeded to play in all manner of ways, creating loads of incredible rhythms and sounds. I was in awe, and it shows you can make music and beats with the most basic of materials ...

That's one of Gustavo's sisters in the foreground and her hubbie!

You know what, muckers?

2010-03-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

I think my rating of 3 out of 5 for Blood Brothers was far too generous. I'm changing it to 2.5 out of 5. That's much more accurate.

Mmmm. That was really worthy subject material for a post, wasn't it?