Holiday in York

After the Easter period we travelled up to the North to have a couple of days in York, staying overnight in a hotel. York is an interesting place geographically and historically. The streets are narrow and cobbled and the city castle walls make you feel like time has stood still. Obviously, the shops are modern and trading in goods that are born of the 21st century. However it is the buildings themselves that are original, The Shambles area is very much like Diagon Alley from out of the Harry Potter books. We had a great time in York and we visited a couple of antique shops we hadn't been to before. Here are some photographs I took of the place.

Divergent

I bought this DVD a few weeks ago from a charity shop and watched it last night. The premise is that in the future the world has all but destroyed itself through war and the remnants of society have formed into 5 factions to retain order and keep everlasting peace. The idea being if everyone knows their place, everyone will be happy. These five factions are specialisations by broad human personality type. Each person has to choose a type and are supposed to be assisted by taking a test but free choice still exists, the test is to supposed to help the person choose by revealing some unconscious information. The story centres around a girl coming of age who is called Beatrice (played by Shailene Woodley). Her test reveals that she has infact equal propensity across several factions, a very rare test results and one that means she is what is known as Divergent. Needless to say that Divergent person are a threat to the order of society that the factions have been set up to deliver.

The 5 factions

I haven't read the Young Adult books by Veronica Roth on which the film is based but I think I'd like to based on the film. The premise is good but the film probably dumbs down the story a bit. However, the casting of the film is good but I don't think Kate Winslett makes the best baddie. For me she didn't convey the threat she needed to.
Shailene Woodley plays her character well and she looks amazing throughout the film, particularly as she transforms into the Dauntless faction under the oppressive tutelage of the trainers. There are some unexplained things in the story I would like to understand better. However, the books are probably the way to get those things.

Misty morning light

One thing I have noticed in the last couple of weeks has been the mornings are getting lighter. Particularly noticeable for me on Wednesday mornings as I have to get up at 5:40am. I feed the cats at this time. Back in February it was pitch dark outside at this time but lately the light has been increasingly brighter. We have also had a lot of mist in the mornings and even at night, which I find I like. We have been sleeping with the window slightly open, as apparently it helps with my snoring. It is nice to wake up snuggly and warm in a cool room.

Easter Holiday Coming Up

Well, at the end of the month the Easter holidays are going to come up and this is surprisingly only a week away. Next Friday is Good Friday believe it or not, I can't really believe it. I have a week off after Easter Sunday, taking advantage of needing to use up some annual leave and spending some time with my family. I have booked us a night's stay in a hotel but I shall tell you more about that in another post! For now, I'm just looking forwards to a break in the regular pattern of work, sleep, eat.

The New F1 Season has Started this Weekend

Yes, the Australian GP was held during the small hours. I know the result, Nico Rosberg has won his first race. I hope it is not just going to be Mercedes winning all of the races again this year. I see the yellow Renault cars are here again. There has been some criticism of the qualifying changes but I am not really aware of what the new rules are yet. I will hope to watch the highlights later, the TV presentation has switched to Channel Four for the next 3 years. I'm really pleased that the team includes Lee McKenzie, who I think is really good at interviewing the divers. We rarely see her infront of the camera but she deserves to be.

Other DVDs to watch

As well as the classics I've mentioned, I've also bought a few things on DVD that I'm working my way through, these are:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - this one is the original TV series broadcast in 1981. It was for me something that has stuck in my mind my whole life and as such is one thing worth remembering and revisiting. I bought this from HMV because I doubt I'll see it in a charity shop
• Taxi the French film by Luc Besson, there is a story attached to purchasing this that I'll save for the blog post on it
• Divergent - I know this film is based on a Young Adult sci-fi series of books but I haven't read them so don't know if they're any good. Incidentally, I am currently reading the second book in the Hunger games trilogy.
• Battlestar Galactica Razor - a TV movie made for purest fans of the series as far as I can tell from Wikipedia. I bought this a while ago but haven't posted about it before
• Kick Ass 2 - I have two copies of the first film Kick Ass because when I saw it in a charity shop I couldn't remember whether I already had Kick Ass or Kick Ass 2. I bought the original from HMV I think. I have seen both films on loan before buying, I do like the sheer violent craziness of these movies.
• Cowboy Bepop - this is a Japanese Manga cartoon film but I have seen it before and enjoyed it. It has the same kind of setting of the TV series Serenity, bringing a Wild West kind of vibe to the film.
• Macross Plus - a Japanese Manga cartoon film, the box I have bought also includes some of the first episodes of TV series I think. It will be interesting to see if or how the styles differ between the TV and the film. I've started watching the film but haven't finished it yet

As you can see, I have been active but just haven't watched much. The story behind the Taxi film is the reason why, but more on that after I have finally watched the film!

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Classic Films purchased

Although I haven't sat down to watch something deliberately recently, I have been active in charity shops looking for films. I have picked up a few classics to enjoy at some point. These have been:

• John Carpenter's The Fog
• Under Siege
• Total Recall (the Arnold Schwarzenegger one)
• The Terminator
• Terminator 2: Rise of the Machine
• The Matrix Trilogy (even though only the first film is any good)

Rather than post the photos of the boxes now, I think I'll do that when I've watched each one of them.

Nothing to Speak Of...

I seem to have fallen behind in my blog posting lately, I'm not really sure why that is. I have been doing stuff I guess. I do maintain a number of writing channels and over the years I have become selective about where I post stuff. Music related activity is posted to my music channels (SoundCloud and WordPress), writing and reading related material (including comics) is posted to those channels (GoodReads and WordPress) and personal thoughts I keep for a journal app on my phone called Diaro. I have a video games channel in WordPress where I post stuff about that. Outside of these I post here about what I am watching in terms of film and TV, I also post about other things happening in my life in general. I haven't really been watching a lot of films or TV over the last few weeks though.

Relaxation update

I said I would provide an update to my previous post on the Shiatsu massage chair.

The chair is good, it is actually a cover that fits on top of a chair. A kitchen table chair is probably the best type to use it with. It feels a bit like ball bearings circling around and going up and down your back. Where the bone is close to the surface (shoulders, for example) it can be a bit painful, even through light clothes like a T shirt, but where there is a bit more fat like the lower back it feels very good. I tend to use the foot massager and the back massager at the same time. You get the double whammy that way and the sensation is very unique. I'd say it was a good purchase. The ability to get heat through it is good but the heat isn't as hot as I thought it might be, it is only a mild heat so if you are expecting something that is actually hot then you would be disappointed.

Belgian Beer

During our recent holiday, we visited Bruges in Belgium. While there I took the opportunity to sample some Belgian beer: also to buy some and bring it home with me. While in Bruges I went into a small bar and bought myself a half pint of a Pilsner beer I had never tried before called Primus. It was very good. Here's a photo I took of it:

As we walked around Bruges there were lots of tourist shops and plenty of places to buy beer from but it was all quite expensive for single bottles. I was also very unsure of what to buy. What would Belgian's be drinking? So, I spotted a Carrefour and went in there to get myself a six pack of beer that looked pretty good - it was a good choice. I've enjoyed a couple of these "Abbey beers" so far. I have some more photographs to present from Bruges but the beer is what I was mostly interested in from a personal viewpoint. I couldn't spend my whole time in the pub though as had friends and family with me who were not as interested as me in the beer.

Hero

This week I watched the film Hero. It originally came out in 2002 and was a Chinese box office smash. Very well scored by the critics. I however could enjoy the cinematography but the story did not engage me enough. I was a little bit untouched by the story when I should have been. There were lots of fantastical acrobatics and wobbly swords. I guess there is an aesthetic for these kinds of films that it fits into. I just didn't appreciate this when I watched it. I found it a bit too romantic and would have preferred more realistic action. It is a film telling a very old story though from 220 BC and who knows what the world was really like them. I suspect it was a very different place from that depicted here but who really knows.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

It's been years since I have watched the original BBC TV adaptation of the radio series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. My son mentioned something about it yesterday and it got me to thinking about whether they released it on DVD, I assumed they must have. It has past me by if they did. However, while out shopping yesterday I decided to try and find out and in HMV I found a copy. I decided to buy it and last night watched the first two episodes with my son.

I really enjoyed the series when it was first broadcast 35 years ago (ouch!), when I was 13: the same age as my son is now. The special effects are not up to today's standards and the idea of an electronic book was not something that was readily available in those days. So, culturally there are quite big differences. However, I think the excerpts from Encyclopaedia Galactica and the Hitchhiker's Guide are very well done and stand up well even today. The acting is slightly wooden but still amusing nonetheless.

Donald Trump

I have seen the TV news coverage we get in the UK of the US presidential campaigns. I can't confess to understanding the process by which the US elections are contested. It seems to take a very long time and seems to be a very bruising experience with a lot of dirty tricks to discredit opponents. That might also be an impression given by the various US political TV drama series I've also watched however!
What is clear to me however is my dislike of Donald Trump. His language and views are unstatesmanlike and seem a million miles away from the views of the current president. I was also reading a piece by UK journalist Selina Scott who gives some incite into the man as a misogynist and a bully.
I try to keep politics out of this blog but in this case, I shall express my view that Trump as US president would be a very bad thing.

Cruise on the Ventura

I've been back at work this week, back to the grinding mill. The cruise of last week is fading into a memory. I haven't yet processed the images from it. I want to turn my photos into a video, so I shall be doing that this week. I also want to post some photos here though. These photos are some of the ship I took as I walked around. I didn't take any interior photos, not without people in them. So these are from our first walk - finding our bearings around the ship because it is so large. I shall post more photos in the days and weeks to come.

A Cruisin' We Will Go

My family and I are trying something different this half-term holiday. We're booked on a cruise to Amsterdam and Bruges. I have always wanted to visit Amsterdam and I've heard good things about Bruges as well. In terms of the cruise, I like the idea of a hotel that travels with you so you don't have to check in and check out of different places. I'm not entirely sure what there will be to do the rest of the time though. It will certainly be interesting and I will post a few photographs here when we get back. The cruise ships look like enormous floating tower blocks and effectively, I suppose that's what they are. Imagine this steaming up past the small houses of Venice!

Deadpool

There are a few superhero movies coming out this year including Batman v Robin, X-Men Apocalypse, Captain America: Civil War, Suicide Squad and Doctor Strange. The first out is Deadpool,  Marvel's smart, funny and motor-mouthed hero who cannot be killed. I don't know anything about Deadpool really, which is why I'm interested in seeing the film. I have no plans at the moment but I'd like to see it before the month is out.

Daredevil

I have watched 2 or 3 episodes of this series on Netflix and I think its very good so far, I'm enjoying it a lot. There is so much good TV on to watch, never mind all the DVDs I have as well. Anyway, back to Daredevil. The series is a Netflix original and has run one season so far, with the new season due to start in March. I have to watch some more before then! If you don't know Daredevil from the comics, he is a blind superhero who is a lawyer by day defending the poorest people. By night he beats up bad guys and gets beat up himself pretty bad. Considering its Marvel it has quite a dark tone to the series, there was a film a few years ago that starred Ben Affleck in the role of Daredevil. I don't like that Ben Affleck plays Daredevil in the film but it isn't bad as a film in itself, I'm not really looking forward to Ben Affleck playing Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when that comes out this year.

Escape Velocity

I watched this film this week. It's a sci-fi film, which is why I watched it. The plot is not very good though. It begins with a ex soldier being sentenced to death for his crimes against humanity. Except he doesn't get the execution he deserves, he escapes with his few supporters. They soldier and his group leave Earth (I assume it's Earth in the future) and suspend themselves in animation until the ship is found heading for a dying star and is rescued. The ship that rescues the soldier has a skeleton crew of three, the commander and his female companion and her 18 year old daughter. They are on a civilian mission to observe a dying star. Well, they rescue the soldier but obviously didn't bank on him being a psychopath. He appears friendly at first but then he goes insane and gets his companions out of the hidden freezer. The violence is very tame. It's a piece of low quality crap really.

Baise Moi

For a long time now I've wanted to watch this film and finally this week I had a chance so I took it. It is the story of two unemployed French women who live life on the edge - not holding down a proper job and forced to make a living by sex or begging. One of them is brutally raped and the other witnesses her boyfriend shot dead in the street outside his hotel. Things go out of control when one of the women accidentally kills her brother, she then robs his café till and takes his car. The two women happen to meet when they find the same train station shut. They then use the money and car to go on a spending and murder spree. They meet a variety of people on their journey and usually the meetings end in killing.
I watched a documentary afterwards. I thought it was an interesting film. There were some sex scenes in the film and I understand that they were not simulated but were in fact real. It feels odd to watch a film intended for mainstream cinemas with real sex scenes, the actresses had made porno movies before they were cast in this film. It is a subversive film in some ways, it was directed by two women (one of whom wrote the book on which it is based). It was banned in France for the combination of sex and violence. It is an extreme film, so is not for the squeamish but at the same time the violence is no more than something like Scarface. I think it is the combination with sex and that the actresses seem to enjoy the sex.

Rabid by David Cronenberg

Just two weeks ago I blogged about buying the film Shivers from a charity shop and watching it. Today, I saw Rabid in a charity shop and bought it. I used to have Rabid on VHS and while similar to Shivers in tone I think it is a slightly better made film. The themes and notions are similar to Shivers but I think the story is a little more developed and the effects benefit from a bigger budget. I feel very lucky to have found these two great films so close to each other.

Relaxation

More years ago than I can remember, my daughter seems to remember it though, I think I bought my wife a foot massager. Now, my memory has completely gone about this - I don't remember anything. I just know that the foot massager has been in the bottom of the wardrobe for some time but is now coming out a few times a week to enjoy some time in the sun (so to speak). I started using it to set the trend and now my wife is using it as well.
Well, I dug it out on Sunday (after doing some tidying recently) and looked it up on the company website. I then saw that there was a seat cover back massager on sale. So I love having a good back massage and so I decided to go ahead and order one as it was on sale and comes with a two year guarantee. It was £44 instead of £64 so not a bad discount at all. I will let you know how it all goes.

The Matrix

I watched The Matrix on Sunday evening with my son who has not seen it before. The pacing in that film is so good, there is not a dull moment. It really is a giant in the world of sci-fi cyberpunk films. I love how innovative it was when it was first released and it still stands up as a strong film even today. I looked for it on DVD in our cupboards however couldn't find it, so we ended up watching it from a UMD of it I had for the Sony PSP - I have a cool cable that links it to the television so we watched it at reasonably good quality, not bad for a small device to power such a larger screen. Great film, always take the Red pill!

Interstellar

Having bought the Blu-ray of this film a while ago, I thought last night was the time to see this film. It felt very long. I thought the main character was very annoying and he detracted from my enjoyment. It was a film that tried to do too many things for me. I didn't see enough sci-fi in it for my liking. Far too much time was taken up at the start with Coop on Earth. Then a load of physics was thrown in our face. Then there was a sole survivor scientist who they tried to save but who went mad. So, it felt a little bit clichéd in places and at other times felt slow. It also got too serious with itself. There were elements of other sci-fi films but none were that well taken up. The music was pretty good though, it certainly increased the drama to a higher level than the acting did.

Jurassic World

Over the Christmas and New Year period we watched Jurassic World. I was disappointed with it. There were few interesting moments in the film. It certainly was nowhere near as memorable as Jurassic Park. It features a return to a dinosaur theme park. However, this time I wasn't concerned by the plight of the theme park guests. It just didn't make me want to see the humans live, I wanted the dinosaurs to conquer them.

The Day of the Dead

I have watched George A Romero's film Day of the Dead this week. It's the third in his series after Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. The movie is set in an underground mine where a set of scientists and military personnel are isolated and trying to find the answer. The chief scientist is trying to find a way to domesticate the dead. He has a zombie called Bob who represents his most successful subject to date. The situation is bad as there is a lot of internal tension in the group and this eventually boils over into unimaginable horror. It's an amazing film in terms of the level of gore it provides.

Shivers

I've been a fan of David Cronenberg for a long time. I don't like all his movies to the same degree though but some of the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s are in my all time favourites list. Shivers was a film I hadn't seen before. I associate the films Shivers, The Brood, Rabid and Scanners together. All strangely fascinating in their own way. Shivers is the simpler film in many ways. I like the way that not very much is explained in this film. The budget is noticeably small but I like that in a way. I think it made its funding back many times over!
The story is about the spread of a parasitic bug that incites its host to become sexually voracious. The parasite looks like a turd. An odd choice but there you go. There are some great set pieces in the film and some memorable acting. There are also some very lame effects and lame acting too, sadly.

Jagermeister

This week I tried a new liqueur, I bought a pack from Tesco of this drink that included two miniatures and two shot glasses. I asked how much it would be and when the lady on the tills said £2.50 I thought it was cheap enough to try it out. It was obviously a knock down price to get rid of stock bought in just for Christmas. The shot glasses alone will come in useful.
I put the drink and the glasses into the freezer. I didn't really know what to expect. It smelled quite strong, of a sort of aniseed or menthol flavour. That is pretty much what it tasted like. It wasn't completely unpleasant but wasn't as nice as I thought it might be. It had a similarity with cough syrup, being fairly sweet and dark ruby in colour. As it is sold in green glass you don't see what colour it is. I haven't drunk the other bottle, I might save that for another day. A friend of mine said he has enjoyed a drop of it on the ski slopes and I imagine that it would be nice and warming in those circumstances. Or perhaps when hunting deer in the frozen Norwegian tundra!

Sadly, the holidays are over

January usually bites in some ways, the first of the bites is the back to work one. I don't go back tomorrow as many do, however I will return on Tuesday and by then I will be feeling quite uncomfortable knowing that most of the people I work with have already returned and got a start on me. C'est la vie I think the expression goes.
I don't really feel like I've done very much this holiday. We have entertained people at home it seems more than usual this year. So, a lot of the time we have been preparing for people to come around. I've done some alcohol drinking and a lot of eating. I thought I would have catched up on more TV than I actually have.

New Years Eve and the Flu Arrives!

Typical that as the year end arrives I've come down with flu and I'm not able to celebrate in the way I would like to. I'm glad that I have no social plans this evening. My wife took the Christmas tree down already earlier today so the sitting room is already looking sparser than it was. I wish I felt better, that my headache was gone and that my nose wasn't dripping. Ah well, that's at least just a small inconvenience compared to what others have to go through everyday, I'm grateful for small mercies.

H A P P Y    N E W    Y E A R !!!

Instant Capuccino

My last post of 2015 is about coffee. This time, it's about instant cappuccino. I have tried Nescafe's instant cappuccino coffee sachets but they are very frothy, not too bad though just a bit too frothy for me. The top just blows up like a head of froth on a pint of beer. I like a bit of froth but there is such a thing as too much.
I was in the 99p Store the other day and saw that they had a box of 12 cappuccino sachets by a brand I didn't recognise so as I had no Nescafe sachets left I tried the 99p Store ones. The sachets are just in plain foil wrappers, no branding on them just plain and simple. The coffee is decent though and there is froth but not too much. Overall I can recommend these.
Have a very happy New Year this evening, take it easy and go careful whatever you are doing.

Christmas lunch

Well, the house here smells wonderful with the Christmas lunch cooking. We have got a great lunch lined up for everybody coming. We have my mother in-law and my step-sister and her partner coming to join the four of us. That's three people less than last year so the table won't be as crowded but hopefully it will be a little bit more intimate because of that.
I have prepared sprouts this morning, after opening my presents that largely consisted of PS4 games but there was a Manga book from my son, which was a surprise.

Jessica Jones

I watched the first episode of this series today. It was a good start to a series I hope to watch more of. The character is one from the Marvel universe although I have to confess my ignorance from that point on, I have no idea who she is or what her back story is.

Imitation Game

Last night I watched The Imitation Game with my family and we all thought it was a good film. I had bought the film earlier in the day from a charity shop, it just cost me 99p which I thought was a bargain for a film that is only about a year old. The film is set during and after the second world war and is a sad film in many ways, the story is based on Alan Turing and the code-breaking work he did with other code-breakers there. It is a remarkable story and one that is told very well by the film, although how accurate it all is who really knows. Shame that Alan Turing's life was so hard, if he had lived I wonder what he would have achieved in his lifetime. He was certainly a brilliant mathematician.

Captain America: the original avenger

I watched this film today. Or rather I had the misfortune of having to sit through it. It was quite awful and a bit of a disaster. The script was bad, the direction was bad and I'm finding it hard to say what might redeem it but I'm afraid I can't. The special effects were truly laughable. There was no sense of threat or danger, a very flat affair without making me want to side with Captain America. I even fell asleep during a section of it -- that's how much I felt engaged.

Lucy

This week I watched the film Lucy by the director Luc Beson. I watched a film by the same director recently, Nikita. This Lucy film was really interesting, it starred Scarlet Johansson. She is known to me through the Avengers films and her role as Black Widow, which she plays very well. In this film she starts out very ditzy as the girlfriend of a creep. Suddenly she comes into contact with a brutal Japanese criminal gang who want to smuggle drugs to Europe. They do this by surgically implanting kidnapped human mules, which she becomes due to her boyfriend getting her involved. The film takes a few crazy turns and then turns into something very strange.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I took my son out last night to go and see the new Star Wars motion picture The Force Awakens. I was hoping for a decent film after some of the disappointment that I experienced during the first three episodes. I was pleasantly surprised that this time the film was good. It had a few turns and twists in the plot that were good. It was good to Han Solo and Chewbacca. I liked the new characters, There was a little bit of humour in there as well, which were good. Overall, I'd recommend this film.

Japanese Sweets

I bought a bag of Japanese sweets from the Birmingham MCM ComicCon and there were several packets like these. They contain three balls that pack quite a lot of flavour into them. The balls are actually bubble gum but when you first start chewing them they don't have the texture of gum. They are quite strange in that the flavour bursts out of them overpowering your senses until after a couple of minutes of chewing when the bubblegum texture starts to appear. You'd almost be forgiven for swallowing them within the first two minutes, as they don't feel like bubblegum and if you haven't come across them before you wouldn't know.

Frenzy (1972)

Last night I watched a Hitchcock film I hadn't seen before. It was on TV and I wasn't intending to watch it but it got me hooked. It's a classic Hitchcock film. We have a character who has a lot of circumstantial evidence against him and a true monster villain who is a wolf in sheeps clothing. The style of the evil monster (Rusk) character is reminiscent of Jimmy Saville to me in a strange way, with very blonde hair and a tie pin. There is a good story and plenty of suspense and great acting. Some clever cinematography too.

Continuum

I've been slowly making my way through the TV Sci-Fi series Continuum this year. I finally got to the end of the first series last night. What a decent series it has been as well. My expectations were quite low but they have been surpassed quite healthily. It tells the story of a group of terrorists from 2077 who time jump back in time to the present day but inadvertently bring a policewoman with them. It's about her trying to bring them to justice in the present day whilst also trying to return back home to the future where she has a husband and a son. I look forward to watching season 2. I believe there are four seasons in total.

New headphones

I was in B&M Homestore a couple of weekends ago and I was looking for a new pair of headphones. I bought a pair earlier in the year that were very good but my wife has them now (since the cat bit through the wire of her last pair). I saw this pair of Akai headphones and thought they looked quite good. The sound is pretty good for the price, they were only £10. Nice packaging too, although it has to be destroyed to actually get in there.

Horus Heresy novels: False Gods

Okay, so I haven't started reading these novels yet but I did pick up the second in the series yesterday from a charity shop. Haven't got much to say on this book or series yet however!!

Watchmen

I picked this film up from a charity shop recently and I'm glad I did. There are not many films in the superhero category that delve into the psyche of a superhero character. This film does it very well and stays very faithful to the graphic novel as far as I can tell. I love the relationship between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre and how Nite Owl has to be in superhero character to become sexually virile.
It's a good cast as well. The Comedian turns in a good performance, showing the unfortunate side of a superhero. Probably my favourite performance is that of vigilante Rorschach played by Jackie Earle Haley and especially in prison where he has a famous line about him not being in prison with them but them being locked up with him. A cracker of a film, but don't expect it to be the all-out action film that other superhero films have become. This one is a film set in that world but is not about the action.