Tuesday 21st July 2009, 12:02
Moon, with some stars
Saw Moon yesterday - a fine, 'little' film (one actor has 99% of the lines, although it's set on a moon station with what looks like an impressive budget on the screen) with Sam Rockwell as the lonely astronaut on the dark side of the moon. Until he finds someone else there, who looks somewhat familiar...
I could go on, but won't, because it's a great watch, and although I felt it nearly lost its way halfway through (there were moments where it seemed it didn't quite know where it was going), it all came together beautifully at the end. It's a rewarding, well-rounded film where you can tell that one guy (who happens to be, in reality, David Bowie's son) has had this idea and put it together with very little studio involvement. And it's fantastic that nowadays technological advances mean that even a small, British, independent movie can convey a space station on the moon with stunning detail, let alone the very tricky visual effects of having Sam Rockwell in scenes with... Well that would ruin it, but you probably get the idea.
The main point of note was that this was a Monday afternoon in the centre of London - I won't say which cinema to preserve anonymity, and so that I can go again for a similar experience - but three seats to my left sat none other than top actor Tim Roth. Wow, I thought. Then I heard a loud voice three seats to my right, complaining to his son that the curtain after the trailers was shut for far too long and made a not-very-slick show of it. And that was Kevin McNally. Wow again.
So there I was, sat in a small little screen, in the same row as Mr Orange and First Mate Joshamee Gibbs. It felt like a premiere. So there's your tip - if want to watch movies with movie stars, Monday afternoons in central London is where you'll find them.
Saturday 11th July 2009, 00:52
The future's bright
Now's when my new phone starts paying for itself. Got a new 'phone' just last week (I put 'phone' in inverted commas cos let's be honest, they stopped being phones a while back. That's about 8th down the list of things it does, somewhere after GPS and decibelometer), just when everyone else is getting the new iphone. And that prompted me to look into it, but after a well-played phone call to Vodafone ("I'm leaving you, you cad. Unless you can tempt me back with a good deal on the HTC Magic."), I decided to go for an iphone-a-like. So I now have this 'phone' that also does email on the move, BBC iplayer, camcorder, googlemaps, lightsaber (see last blog post) etc etc.
And so to now. Just returning from a gig in Newcastle, and thanks to an east-facing hotel in Doncaster last night, I had an early start this morning as soon as the sun rose. Grr to the summer. So tonight I'm a tad too tired to push on home, and decided to pull in to a hotel about halfway back.
Motorway services all offer hotels for £50ish, but at the gig I thought hmm. Bet I can get a better deal online. So I searched www.laterooms.com - the travelling performer's favourite - and found the Best Western near Rotherham had rooms for £35. A saving of £15 on motorway prices. Huzzah. Like I say, the phone has started paying for itself.
Of course I didn't know if I'd be ready to stop when I reached Rotherham, so I didn't click 'Submit' until I reached the hotel itself. In fact I was sat in the car park, cheekily using the hotel's own wifi, to book the cheap internet deal. Then mere seconds later I wandered into reception, clutching my internet booking code, to a confused porter who swore blind that there were no internet bookings tonight. But then as we stood there - beep - a booking came through. Mine. He was a tad bewildered by how someone can have booked online before they knew I was coming, but it worked. I got a room worth £75 (if you just walk in) for a mere £35, and since there's definitely (probably) no one else coming tonight, he's given me the best room. It's practically a suite - full of old-fashioned furniture and a nice king-size bed.
So thank you, new phone. I shall now check using the compass that the windows don't face east. Woo. West-facing. The sun shall not wake me after all. I like the future. So much better than the sun-waking past in Doncaster.
Tuesday 7th July 2009, 15:18
Notverysmartphone
Ah, a lovely long weekend in the Lake District, funded by gigs en route and while I was up there. Never been before, so twas a lovely chance to see Windermere, Coniston Water, etc and enjoy the nice views, nice walks, and nice cream teas (although we went to a cheap place and they used whipped cream, not clotted. Rookie error...)
The furthest gig was Keswick Rugby Club, in the heart of the Lake District, and after a day's walk I bunged the venue's postcode into my satnav. Didn't recognise it. Hmm. Ah - I just got a new phone, with GPS and Google Maps and Lightsabers and everything. Maybe one of those will help us get there (probably not the lightsaber). And sure enough it did recognise the postcode, so we followed that map to the gig, and were driving and driving, out of Keswick, through the countryside some 30 minutes, while slowly thinking, "This is a long way out for Keswick Rugby Club." Keswick is no sprawling metropolis. It doesn't need to have its rugby club 10 miles from its centre. It's surrounded by fields. Sure enough, we asked a local, who, when he stopped laughing, pointed us back in the direction of Keswick centre, some half-hour away.
So what do we learn from this? Either Keswick Rugby Club has its postcode wrong on its website. Or my new phone's GPS is not to be trusted. The lightsaber, I have to say, works perfectly.
Thursday 25th June 2009, 23:37
Doing Pen(z)ance
The last time I played Penzance, I wrote my car off, or more correctly, some other bloke write it off for me by pulling out of a junction too soon. Either way, no car, and some chest injuries. Fun.
This time, this week, my car broke down. So the message is this: play Penzance at your peril. You can do the gig, but at what cost...
On this occasion I was driving with my good lady from Cornwall to Nottingham, and around about halfway the temperature light flashed a lot. Now I don't know much about cars, but i do know that flashy things are not to be ignored. So we got a second opinion from a bloke at a Peugeot garage, who walked over to my Audi, took a long look at the problem, and then concluded, "That's not a Peugeot." The RAC man confirmed the same, but was a little more helpful, telling us the car should not be driven, and that we needed to be towed home. Gah.
Thus ensued an hour wait for the tow truck, but thankfully it was a nice day, there was a Sainsbury's opposite, I had a couple of tressle tables in my car (thanks to the Penzance show being the iPaul Edinburgh show) plus a board game, so Zoe and I set up Rummikub and sandwiches by the side of the road while we waited for the tow-truck to arrive. I like to think we confused a few locals. But why wouldn't you be playing Rummikub on a foldable table alongside the A416 in Stroud?
I kissed goodbye to my Nottingham gig - Zoe's education in the way of Notts kebabs will have to wait for another day. Instead we arrived home at midnight-ish, thanks to the lovely tow-truck driver called Terry. He was having a barbecue and a siesta when the RAC called and asked if he wanted a job to Surrey, but bless him, he took it, and a gent he was too.
The lesson: beware your automobile trouble if you play Penzance, but always pack Rummikub.
Sunday 21st June 2009, 00:44
Fete accompli
Found a fete at the bottom of my garden today. It's the nice thing about the first year in a new house - you don't know what it's like in all the seasons until they happen. There I was working on my neverending tax return this morning (only 3 weeks late for my accountant at the mo - an improvement on last year by 3 months. If I were to hand it in tomorrow. Which I won't.), and heard some marching band music from the garden shed. Either the woodlice have put on a miniature carnival in there, or it's from beyond there, and sure enough, I peered over the fence to find hordes or proud parents watching their little sprogs dancing. Bless 'em.
So we popped round, and 50p's entrance fee later found the All Saints Church Summer Fete. Woo! Tombola, raffle, cake stall, book stall, bouncy castle (for the kids - darnit), hook-a-duck, squirt-a-can... all sorts of family fun set against the backdrop of our garden fence. I say 'family fun' cos that's what it was - for families. We don't have kids, so didn't quite feel at home (even though it was our home), and probably were just as much there to check no one threw Coke cans over into our garden as much as anything. But I bought a book for 50p and I'm sure I'll be back next year, with a matter of years before I'm hosting a Bric-a-Brac stall or something.
For now though, it proves a very nice afternoon - back in the house as I write this, the jazz band have started up and our garden is serenaded with The Girl From Ipanema. I may even turn off my Roxette CD in a minute and listen to it.