Black Smoke (Germany)

Black Smoke was the song title. Anne Sophie was the singer. Germany was the entry to the Eurovision 2015. I didn't think it was a bad song at all. Here's a photo of poor old Anne Sophie looking glum during the scoring.

It's no wonder she looks glum, her entry goes into the history books as one of the songs to score nil points. The conspiracy theorists will have a field day because the Austrian (the host country) entry also scored nil points.

I think the score of zero was incredibly unfair on Anne Sophie because as I said earlier, it is a good song, not one of the crap songs that did score some points.

Event Horizon

After purchasing this on DVD from a charity shop not so long ago, I watched it this week. It's the story of a salvage team who are diverted from their leave to go into deep space to rendezvous with a ship called Event Horizon that went missing 9 years earlier (I think it was 9 years anyway, I can't really remember now). They have to take a scientist with them, played by Sam Neil, who is an advisor because he built the ship's space drive. A system so powerful and fast that it actually folds space to enable super-fast intergalactic travel. However, there is a problem - (there usually is). The scientist seems to be experiencing disturbing flashbacks of his wife. Well, the salvagers dock with Event Horizon and although the ship appears to be intact but the crew are dead, there are weird life signals all over the ship. Ok, so I won't give the plot away but suffice it to say that the last 20 minutes of the film are very strange indeed. I don't know what type of film this is trying to be. I don't know whether I liked it or enjoyed it or not or something inbetween. It wasn't the film I was expecting it to be, that's for sure. It wasn't a film I would happily recommend to others. I've seen worse but I've also seen much better films.

Tea Blending

I was down in Brighton today for the Bank Holiday with my family and I popped in to a shop I know that blends special teas. I thought I would try their stuff because I passed the shop a few times and thought about it in the past but today I finally went in and bought some. Here's what I bought. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to tea, so you can see I've gone for some traditional blends. They do have a lot of interesting sounding teas though, so worth investigating their others. The Smoky Russian sounds worth trying at some point but might be a bit strong.

Sammy Hagar Autobiography

I also picked up a copy of an autobiography on Saturday, that of the rock God himself Sammy Hagar. The first I heard of Sammy Hagar was when my brother gave me a copy of his album Red back in he 70s. Since then I have always liked his voice. I liked his solo work, I liked him in Van Halen and I liked Chickenfoot. An all round great guy and great vocalist. I look forward to reading about his crazy life.

Nakd Bars

I travel a fair amount and spend a proportion of my time skipping breakfast or having late lunches or skipping lunches too. Not very good! I'm always on the lookout for new things to try eating and I came across these bars a few weeks ago. They're called Nakd bars and I tried the Bakewell Tart one first.

It's made from fruit pulped and compressed into health bars. It comprises one of your five a day. For me, these are amazing. I love the texture and the chewiness of them. The flavour is strong also, whether you go for a fruity one like Strawberry Crunch or the Cashew Chewy.
The company that makes them is called Natural Balance Foods and they are based in Worminghall in Buckinghamshire, close to me!

Eurovision Song Contest 2015

Vienna in Austria played host to the 60th Eurovision Song Contest this year. I always enjoy watching the Eurovision, this year the songs were all  of a reasonably high standard. No real quirky ones or stupid staging, apart from the dancers for Azerbaijan who wore collars and detracted from the vocal performance. Sweden won and Russia came second. My favourite performance and winner for me came from Georgia but in the scoring it only came 11th. I thought Germany were hard done by, they didn't get any points and yet they were much better than the UK entry, which I believe got 5 sympathy votes.

More Horus Heresy books

I managed to pick up a couple more Horus Heresy novels published by The Black Library from a charity shop yesterday. They are book 19 and book 21 in the series, as follows:

• Know No Fear
• Fear To Tread

I'll let you know what I think when I eventually get around to reading them. This may be some time!

Rush

Last night I watched a film with my wife, something I don't seem to do these days. My wife watches a lot of films on her iPad it seems, so we don't watch as much together as we have done in the past. The film is about the rivalry between James Hunt and Nikki Lauder in the sport of Formula One in the seventies. James Hunt was played by Chris Hemsworth, who plays the God Thor in the Marvel films. I enjoyed the performance by Daniel Bruhl, he plays Nikki Lauder and I think did a pretty good job of it. Even if you don't like watching races and are not into F1, I think this is a film you will still enjoy. It's a vey human story at its heart.

Hiatus

There has been a bit of a hiatus on this blog since the first Bank Holiday in May. We're now onto the last Bank Holiday in May. For some reason, this one is going slower than the last and I'm actually enjoying it. I worked late on Friday and I did a few hours of work today. I think I feel better about things if I know I'm putting over and above the time in for work. I don't know why I feel that way but I do.
This posting probably means the hiatus is over, so expect more posts to come, we're going to Brighton tomorrow. Hope that leads to some good buys.

Bank Holiday

Yesterday we enjoyed a Bank Holiday, well that might be putting it too strongly. I enjoyed not having to work on a Monday: that's more like it. I can't say I care very much for Bank Holidays in general, although I do enjoy not having to work. I don't feel as though I really make the most of them because they are just another tacked on to the weekend.
There isn't a great deal to report in on this week. I haven't done very much since returning from Belfast last weekend. The diet is continuing and I haven't weighed myself today, I'll do that later. It is slowly going down though I think.
I took my son to go and watch the film Avengers: Age of Ultron at the Cineworld in Milton Keynes. We both enjoyed the film. I do feel as though the CGI effects are taking over from the plot in Marvel films because the pace is so frantic. It was entertaining though and there were lots of humorous moments. It's worth seeing if you enjoy Marvel films.