May Movie Update

Here are the films that Pete and I have received from Lovefilm.com and watched on TV and DVD over the past month or so, in reverse order, with my ratings out of ten from my movie list on IMDB.

The Girlfriend Experience 3
How could Steven Soderbergh would put his name to this rubbish.

Alfie 7
Classic Caine.

Paranormal Activity 7
Excellent horror film. Pete lasted 15 minutes watching this before making excuses to leave the room!

Away We Go 5

Vertigo 7
Amazed I had never seen this Hitchcock thriller.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 6
Violent and too long.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 2
I really like Terry Gilliam, I really hated this film.

2012 4
Cliches, awful acting, stupid story, idiotic sub-plots, great effects (all 4 points for that alone).

New Moon 6
Not the greatest story - but most points are for the guys whose shirts keep coming off.

The Truman Show 7
How come Jim Carrey can act normally and pretty well and other times he's a complete prat?

The Proposition 7

Sunshine Cleaning 7

K-PAX 7

Some Voices 6

Religulous 8
Already commented on this one at this blog entry.

The Fall 7
A visually stunning film with a story within a story. Bit too long.

Bye bye Miss American pie...

Last night Pete and I accompanied my Mum and Dad to the Royal Albert hall to see singer/songwriter Don McLean. The tickets were a present for my Dad's 70th birthday. As expected, the venue was full of people of a certain age.

I grew up with Don's music as my Dad played the American Pie album (on scratchy vinyl) over and over, so I knew a lot more than Pete did.

The warm up act was the excellent Lesley Roley who played a witty song about an ex-boyfriend who had written loads of non-complementary songs about her after they broke up. So she had written a song called Mr Sad and had a great line in it:

"Size is important when you're not very big".

She said he ex was none too happy when he heard the song.

Not much to say about the election result other than other European countries survive well with coalititons, so we need to get on and sort something out! I do believe we need a change in the voting system as too many votes are wasted, especially at safe seats, but that can wait.

Anyway, enjoy the dull rainy May day!

Five on the fifth #11

Welcome to 5 on the fifth, a monthly posting that benefits from audience participation. You take 5 photographs on the 5th of the month (or the days leading up to the 5th) - post a comment here with your name, location and link to the site containing your photos and I will update the blog entry with your information. Remember to mention my blog on your own blog, so that your visitors get to see the other contributions. You can take 5 random pictures or follow my suggested theme - this month it is: A journey.

You can join the 5 on the fifth Facebook page here.

My own pictures are below the links of those who kindly contributed:


It's My time, Oz via Dublin
Mark, Washington, USA
New Leaf, Arizona, USA
Al, Philippines
Les Maudites, France
Coffeedoff, Suffolk
David, Brighton
Daniel, Sweden
Mr Urs, Switzerland
Johan, Namibia 
Pete, Our house, UK
Dennis, UK
Howard, USA
I am witness, USA
Torchy, UK
Erik, USA

 

 

Busy busy

It's been a busy weekend so far and there is another bank holiday Monday to come.

On Saturday, Pete and I went to Grand Designs Live at the Excel centre in London as we had free tickets. I had been to the venue before, but the sheer size of the building still astounded me. The show itself was not as good as I had expended - although there were hundreds of stalls and events, it was mainly high end stuff - i.e. expensive everything from furniture to kitchens and swimming pools to power tools. My favourite section was the food area - lots of gadgets and food to try.

On the way back, we called in at Ikea and bought some new furniture for the spare bedroom which we are currently doing up with some cool colours and a new carpet. Ikea was full of North London chavs and as usual, not enough tills were open.

Today I got up early (partly as Pete woke me up constructing the Ikea furniture) and spent a while clearing the garage and building "things" like shelves from an old bed. Recycling in action! I then spent hours painting, which I hate doing.

We then took loads of old wood, cupboard doors and furniture to Pete's mums house and had a massive bonfire. Great for a cold(ish) day like today - Caveman instincts to the fore.

And finally, Crystal Palace played their final game of the season today and managed a draw with Sheffield Wednesday sending the Northern team down and rescuing the Eagles. It's been a crazy seasons with stupid refereeing decisions, cup runs, great results, awful results and a bankrupt club. I am praying for a saviour and it has to come very soon. I'll blog about this again I am sure.

One other thing, when we were in Venice, we found a great gallery called BAC Art and we bought a print of a watercolour - the only obviously gay picture in the house. It's this image on the right... hope you like it too.

May

It's almost time for the next "5 on the fifth".  As usual, everyone is welcome to take part. You can either take 5 random pictures of anything that happens to you on the 5th of May (or the days leading up to it) or perhaps go for my suggested theme. This month, the theme is A Journey.

I hope that you will be inspired take part. If you are looking for a place to store your images, you can create photo folders on Hotmail or Google (Picassa) for free. Don't forget to add a comment on my blog on the 5th with your name, location and link where the pictures can be found. Remember to mention my blog on your own blog so that your visitors get to see the other contributions.

Getting old

Us 40 year olds suffer from our health don't you know?!

I was back from Venice 2 days before getting a killer migraine.  It meant I was in bed all day Wednesday and most of Thursday.  Today I am just a bit bluuurrrgghh, but did some work all the same.  Aren't I good to my employer!?

I have just got back from the knee Consultant (though  I assume he has a far more interesting title) and he says that I do not have a torn cartilage or tendons, which is good news.  I appears that the fatty tissues in the knee are getting trapped in the moving parts and he suggested a steroid injection then and there which I immediately chickened out of.  So I need to take even more inflammatory pills and ice the knee for a couple of weeks.  If that doesn't work, it's needle time.  My mum has had it done and has just told me that it hurts - that didn't help.

Some random Venice photos

Venice

The surprise 40th birthday trip ended up being a weekend in Venice. It's a place that I've always had on my "mental travel to do list", so Pete chose well and kept it a secret right up to the last minute.

If you have ever been to the city, you will know that it's an amazing place and very alien in so many ways - no cars, tourists outnumbering locals, huge churches, canals at every turn and tiny pathways everywhere.

We started the weekend on Friday morning leaving my Mum and Dad's house at 5am with my parents dropping us off - they had arrived back from Cyprus a day before. Pete had gone overboard as he sometimes does and booked us British Airways Business Class tickets, which meant access to the lounge - Magazines, juice, pastries and good coffee.

At the gate, my parents appeared and were coming along (though they left us to explore most of the time and were in economy class!). It was only a slight shock. My friend Sonny should also have been making a surprise appearance, but due to the volcano fun, wasn't in Milan on business as he should have been.

On the plane, you get a full breakfast in Business Class and much bigger seats. All very nice. We landed and got a water taxi. Basically they speed across the lagoon which was great fun.

The hotel was plush and the room huge. Hotels in Venice are not the usual chains, so what you get for your money can be a bit random - we got lucky.

Venice has some stunning buildings which are even more impressive when you know some are 500 years old. To build on some mud flats would be mad today, but doing this hundreds of years ago with wooden piles and ancient techniques was simply crazy.

We spent the next 3 days just looking at the sites, visiting the various islands using the water buses, eating and drinking. We has some rain on Friday, but by Sunday the sun was beating down. It's a great feeling, sitting and relaxing looking over the lagoon and drinking a well made Espresso in the sunshine.

On the way back, we ate snacks in the first class lounge (having just had a 2 course meal) and then had a meal on the plane along with 3 small bottles of Champagne each. The teenage couple opposite/behind us were almost having full on sex and the sunset was beautiful. And... I treated myself to a watch. It was my birthday weekend after all.

I would recommend a trip to Venice to anyone. Pictures to follow when I get on my home PC.

Who can pronounce Eyjafjallajökull?

The volcanic ash cloud from the volcano that no-one can pronounce has severely disrupted lives around the world. My brother and his family are stuck in Florida - he is losing income from not working and the 3 kids are missing school. Though I am sure that 2 of them wont be too upset at that.

Here are some witty comments from the 'net on the ash cloud - of course it’s probably a bit early for Icelandic volcano jokes and we should wait a while for the dust to settle (!), but here goes...

It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.

Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.

Iceland, we wanted your cash, not your ash.

Waiter, there's volcanic ash in my soup. I know, it's a no-fly zone.

I came out my house yesterday and was hit on the head by a bag of frozen sausages, a chocolate gateau and some fish fingers. I realised it must be the fallout from Iceland.

Woke this morning to find every surface in the house covered in a layer of dust and a foul stench of sulphur in the air. No change, I’ve been married to that bone-idle slob for 20 years.

I should be away in an aeroplane tomorrow morning as a surprise from Pete. All will be revealed when I post the next blog entry.. at which time I will be 40 years old. Oh my god... I mean God - if you believe in such things.

Me and Torres

I've just come back from my first ever MRI scan at the local private hospital. They have scanned the knee and I have to wait for the results and see the Consultant next week. It's highly likely that the cartilage is torn and I will need an operation. Whether this is before or after the holiday in late May has to be decided of course. By pure coincidence, the hunk that is Fernando Torres also has a torn cartilage and underwent surgery this week.

The scan itself is in a huge white Siemens machine and unlike those unfortunate people who have body or head scans, I went in only up to my chest. The contraption is quite noisy, so they put headphones on you and pipe Radio 2 through. It's a little surreal laying there with this large machine whirring away with Elvis Presley playing in your ears.

In other news... Pete has been planning a surprise trip for my 40th birthday this weekend for months. The plan had been to get a lift to the airport by my mum and dad and then fly off somewhere. Obviously, the travel chaos is likely to mean that we cant go away and as my parents are stuck in Cyprus, the family-taxi would not be available either. Watch this space...