THX 1138

On Wednesday I went round Scott and Fran's for a take-away and a DVD. I didn't know what film they wanted to watch so I took 4 round, we finally decided on watching THX 1138. Now for those people who have never heard of THX 1138 before (which is probably most of you!) it's actually the first professional film George Lucas ever made after he left film college and helped founder American Zoetrope with fellow film director Francis Ford Coppola. The film is actually very VERY arty - probably too arty for most people - but it is also, in fact, one of the most hypnotic and creepy sci-fi films you could ever watch. It's essentially about a bleak futuristic society located beneath the Earths surface. Society has outlawed sex, with drugs to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs and gets LUH 3417 (his wife/girlfriend/assigned unit!!) pregnant. Both are arrested, separated and sent to jail where they plan their escape. I thoroughly recommend this film to anyone but always remind people that this may be too arty. I made a point of saying this to Scott, Fran and Pri before we put the film on. Fran decided to have a bath but us remaining 3 watched it and loved every minute of it. The version we watched was the Remastered DVD - and in true Lucas style has been cleaned up and tweaked to improve it. Thankfully the remaster is a lot more sutble than the Star Wars Special Editions where the changes only enhance the original vision. For a run-down of some of the updates click here. Here's a couple of stills from the film....

London revisited ....continued

It's about bloody time I updated this thing, isn't it?!? Luckily I've not been too busy this week so... but what I do decide to write up here will have to be summarised - otherwise I'll be chained to the keyboard for a week. And then I'll have to write a blog entry detailing the time I was chained to the keyboard for a week. And then...... etc etc etc

Right, so when we got to London the first thing we did was get ourselves a Travelcard for regions 1 and 2, and set our way to Spitalfield Market. On the subway Scott was checking the camera settings on his camera and took a random snap of Fran and Pri. When we looked back at it later we noticed this guy stood behind them looking like a fuckin' crazed psycho!! Check it out... it's well creepy!

When we got to Liverpool Street Station we bee-lined our way to Spitalfield Market - we found a few bits of banksy's grafitti on route. There was some pretty funky stuff in the actual market, very studenty. Fran bought herself a wicked magazine rack. None of us bought anything else though ... except a curry!

After some food we wanted to find Brick Lane - some random stall-holder just happened to overhear that we were looking for it and gave us directions.. so off we went......

This place was great. It was totally full of proper cockney marketstall holders making a living out of selling pretty much anything. A Fruit and Veg stall was always available - we came across several at different intervals, selling a stupidly large amount of fruit for a "pand" (that's cockney for pound! - pictures of that coming soon!) Amongst the stuff for sell was also some really old and dusty laptops, video cameras the size and weight of breeze-blocks, and shoes that have probably been prized off of some dead fella's body!!

Me and Scott used most of this time taking photos of all the characters, graffiti and stuff. Fran and Pri bought some grapes (which we all lapped up!) and a couple of purses.

With just 3 hours left before our bus headed back for Bournemouth we headed over to Oxford Street via tube and looked for a suit for Scott... and see what else we could buy ourselves. Like I said in the previous post, I bought some jeans, trainers, trousers and shirt.

All the shops were starting to close at this time so we made our way back to Victoria Station on the tube to grab a Subway and catch the bus home. We weren't able to muck about and have as much fun on the bus this time cos it was so busy. We managed to get the back row seats on the top deck but then some guy come and sat right in the middle of us all and told us to move our shopping off the seats so he could sit there! Cheek!!! That basically put a wedge in between all of us so we just behaved and slept! Boo!!

London revisited

Went to London on Sunday with Caprice, Scott and Fran. We used Megabus again cos they were so good last time - cheap, quick and easy (god, I sound like an advert!!). It was a little bit more expensive than last time we went though - must've been cos it was a Sunday and not a weekday. We went to Spitalfield market and had a trek around Brick Lane market (where one of The Killers video's was shot no less!).

I have to stop spending money like it's going out of fashion!! I bought a new pair of trainers (Dunlop Green Flash) and some jeans (by Carharrt) as well as some trousers and a shirt for work!

.... I'll complete this later. I've got a hangover from hell after last night's Rubber Soul opening at O'Neills! There'll be pictures 'n' stuff!

currently listening to: a slight ringing in my ears!

Engineers

Saturday was a good day. I woke up after having a bloody good night's sleep on a bit of a high. The reason? Cos I'm going to see Engineers at The Old Fire Station with Scott and Gary. Scott came round to mine near the end of Doctor Who. He wanted to get his camera's memory clear - he doesn't have a PC so he can't empty his memory card at home - so I burnt all his pics to CDROM.

Gary turned up - I gave him a little guided tour of the house (which he didn't really need cos he decorated the house about a year and a half ago!) and felt at home when he found the music room. After a 5 minute twang on the acoustic bass we set of on our merry way to the Old Firestation.

I'd never been to the Old Firestation before to that was a bit of a buzz. We grabbed some beer while the support acts were on and went to find somewhere to sitdown and chat cos the support acts were, to put it bluntly, shite! Ok ok, that's a bit harsh, the first act were actually pretty good - a boy and a girl singing chilled songs with an acoustic guitar. Nice. The second band played a folky set. I couldn't remember the bands name but it was unpronouncable and their songs weren't rounded off at the end so the audience didn't know when to clap! So that's two bad point against them already. And the songs?... ZZZZZzzzzzzz....

Then came Engineers which absolutely kicked arse! Totally amazing. Reminded me of Spiritualized and The Verve (during the very early years when they were still called Verve without the 'The') Their music, to the uninitiated, is a hypnotic blend of reverberated guitars with psycadelic keyboards. They've been pigeonholed among other bands (such as Amusement Parks On Fire) that are producing a resurgence of shoe-gazing music, which was extremely popular in the early nineties, under the banner of 'nu-gazers' (oooh that was a bit of a no-brainer!) This was the first gig on their UK tour before their recently confirmed Glastonbury appearance. Here's some pics....

Betika missed!!

Friday night was supposed to be the night I saw Betika play again at Mr Smiths. Unfortunately I had nobody to go with. I sent texts to Scott, Mooro and Simone but Scott was convinced they weren't playing and wanted to take an easy night in anyway, Mooro was going away for the weekend for somebody's wedding (oops, almost typed 'weeding'!) and Simone didn't get back to me... in fact she only remembered about it when Gary got back home and was like "Oh, I forgot to mention, Stevie wanted to come too!" Nice one, Simone. And I thought I was the forgetful one! hehe!

Oh well, no bother. I've now got Gary's mobile number (don't really know why I never had it before!) so whenever there's something like this happening I can text both - I'm sure one of them will reply! Will make sure I see the next gig on the 19th May - that's Star Wars: Episode III release date by the way, so if you couldn't get a ticket for the opening night of the final installment of the Lucas's saga then go to this instead. See Betika's schedule page for more info.

currently listening to: nothing
(but I do have 'Mama Mia' by Abba in my head... don't ask!)

Are Hula Hoops Lethal??

I've just been told that if I ate my packet of Hula Hoops I will die! I think he was being a bit mello-dramtaic. Y'see I've kinda given up chocolate because I believe I'm starting to put on a bit of a gut. They also put it to me that there is no difference between eating a chocolate and having a packet of crisps - they're equally as unhealthy.

Dave offered me a Celebration earlier and I refused.
He said to me "50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and a run around the block will burn that out of your system."
I said, "Well, I'm lazy, therefore if I don't eat the chocolate I don't have to do 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and run around the block."

I've given my crisps to Kirsty.

Intelligence Vs Common Sense

Y'know I've often found that people who are extremely brainy seem to lack in common sense. For example, one of the guys I work with sent his daughter to grammer school, she got straight A's and is now in University to be a doctor. She rang up her dad a couple of days ago asking him to send her her voting card. He spent the next 20 minutes trying to explain to her that she votes for an MP for her constituency. Even though she'd had all the education she still hadn't got to grips with the voting system. She thought the new PM was selected via proportional representation! So, like I said, lots of brains = lack of common.

Whereas I, on the other hand, have the perfect balance. I'm not very clever and have little common. ......... well, it's better than having a lot of common and no brains at all!

Sunny Sunday

This was a lovely day, really hot weather and very sunny. Had a nice lazy Sunday planned just lounging around in the back garden when I got a text from Scott. So I went round there's at about 2ish - 3ish gave him the Atari bag I promised and he gave me another t-shirt that didn't fit him. Wicked. We then went down to King's Park and kicked a footy about for a bit and took some photos with Scott's camera (I'll post them up on here as soon as I get copies) After about an hour Paul and Kim joined us for a bit and then we went to Scott's for a cuppa and to give Kim her birthday presents.

Me, Scott and Fran walked into town to meet everyone at the Little Indian (formally known as The Original Balti) at 8pm. We made good time even though we stopped off at my house for me to drop off my bag and grab a different t-shirt (my first pink t-shirt!!) In fact we were 20 min early so we went into the Litten Tree to grab a quick drinky-poos. I got the round - a vodka and orange and 2 JD and coke's - then found somewhere to sit. The place was soooo towny it was unreal. But it was all so pretentious - a group of girls came in and slinked their way to the bar acting all prim and proper-like with short skirts and high heels, and then one of them started pulling her knickers out of her arse - very ladylike!!

So, we drank up and made our way across the road to The Little Indian where we saw Kim, Paul, Gary and Simone sitting in the foyer. After about 5 mins Steve, Kirsty, Rich and Lottie arived and we were ushered to our seats. I had a kick ass lamb bhuna with pilau rice.

After bloating ourselves out and drinking pints of Kingfisher and Cobra beer we wanted to find another provider of alcahol and commence with the merry proceedings! First thought - O'Neills (again!), they had just called time at the bar so went to find somewhere else. Inferno - they too had just called time but we thought as we were here we may as well get some drinks in.

After about 30 mins, when everybody except us had filtered out we wanted, nay NEEDED to find another establishment and promptly thought of The Consortium. So off we went...

En route we found Bar Vin and couldn't decide whether to go here or not (Kim: "What do ya think, shall we stick or twist?") Eventually we decided on going in. We found a big table, large enough to accomodate a bunch of misfits such as us. Queue lots of randomness and general nonsensical tom-foolery...

People filtered off to go home and get some shut eye but Paul, Kim, Rich and myself still hadn't quenched our thirst and decided to find a casino - they would still be selling booze and would also provide lighthearted entertainment such as gambling! We witnessed in awe as some italian fat bloke spunked about a grand up the wall whilst later on another table a person of oriental origin aquired 2 grand in chips and passed half of them to a friend to cash while he tried to get more. I took a few snaps of us in there and wanted to take more to soak in some of the atmosphere but Rich reminded me that it was, in fact, illegal to take pictures in a casino. Ah fuck it!....

Saturday = time out!

This was a day of nothing but pure hangover! I managed to make my way to my mum's to do the usual chores for her. I was chuckling to myself remembering the previous night's events still fresh in my mind whilst trying not to hurl on the bumpy busride.

After popping into Bournemouth to grab Kimmy a Birthday present I eventually got back home. Sarah and Neil were watching a gorey cheesy horror film called Toolbox Murders. There was no plot as such, it was just an excuse to see a bunch of teenagers (acted by twenty-something actors) get killed in various graphic and grusome ways with random tools from a mad-man's toolbox. I didn't really want to see it cos I was still feeling a bit queesy from the hangover so I just kept my head down and read the new Empire magazine which had a massive feature about the new Star Wars movie.

Was meant to go to Mark Wheeler's wedding reception but I really couldn't face it. Neither could Sarah and, after coming home and getting all comfortable, neither could Glen and Kate. Sarah and Niel went out the previous night too - they went up to The Triangle and did the gay scene. Some of their stories sounded priceless (such as pill-popping drag queens stopping traffic and draping over car bonnets and getting on busses to sing a few numbers), wish I could've witnessed them.

We watched another two DVD's (Blade Trinity and Connie & Carla) and then it was time for bed.

Kim Geliot has entered the building!!

Well, this weekend has been a busy one, that's for sure! It's currently Wednesday at the time of writing this so I'll try my hardest to recall events since Friday night to the best of my abilities (i'm sure I'll end up forgetting something!) Anyway, essentially Friday night was scheduled as Hayley-May Tucker's leaving party in town and Kim wanted to surprise her by turning up. The evening started with me being picked up by Kirsty and Steve from outside my place and were dropped off near Barclays Bank in Bournemouth to go meet Kim and Paul in Daisy O'Brians where we had a quick pint and catch up.... well I say catch up, what I meant by that was "We sat there not knowing what to say for 5 mins cos I was stunned that Kim and Paul were back and Paul and Kim were stunned to see us!"

The reason why we met there was cos Kimmy wanted to see Caprice before we went to Casa for Hayley's Leaving get together. After about 30 mins we drank up and stomped our way to Casa to find poor ol' Suzy standing there on her own and nobody else was there yet. Everybody was still at the restaurant and hadn't left yet. They eventually arrived at about 10ish in a massive group - Hayley, Kelly, Lauren, Paula, Gareth, Pete, Marcus, Nicky and a whole bunch of people I'd either never met before or couldn't remember the names of! Kelly was on crutches again because of a netball injury but still managing to shake her butt to the music. Mmmmm. *ahem*

Anyway, there was no sign of my favourite little cute barmaid with the dreds but there was another really cute blond girl who looked nothing short of a model, made me drool for a bit. And of course, the guy who thinks he's Tom Cruise was working in full Cocktail cheesiness serving ONLY girls who came to the bar.

After Casa we moved onwards to Bliss and, as per usual, it was wall-to-wall pretentious assholes. Sometimes I like to go to places like this for the pure mockery and to make me realise how normal and sane I am, but most times it can get a bit too much for me. Especially when I see somebody who I used to hang out and have a laugh with in The Villa about 8 years ago and does her very best to ignore me and disappear into the crowd. Mind you, I did spot her when I was talking to Paul (she was on the other side of the table) and didn't really want to speak to her, but when we both managed to catch eachothers eye I could see the awkwardness in her face. She clearly wanted to forget her skater grrrl past cos she was soooo immersed in the towny way of life. Oh well.

We got bored of Bliss after a couple of drinks so Kim, Paul, Kirsty and myself decided to break off from the rest of the gang and go to O'Neills. I'm starting to feel like I've done that place to death now as I really wasn't getting much of a good vibe out of the place. There was definitely no decent ladies in there that's for certain (not including Kim and Kirsty, obviously!) I think we all did shots of Sambuca in here but I really can't remember. Kirsty went home at some point (can't remember that either!) and then the three of us spent the last I don't know how long hanging out and drinking ourselves stupid until kicking out time. Then I walked with Kim and Paul up as far as the ASDA car park and had a long and emotional drunken chat about relationships and how Paul and Kim couldn't understand why I was single. Paul even shed a tear trying to build my confidence.... I really am still not ready for a girlfriend. Collette's pretty much destroyed my confidence and I just feel ugly. And if I feel ugly why the hell would anybody else think anything different. I dunno, I just don't want to be hurt again and I definitely don't want to set myself up for that. Too many girls have treated me like shit.

Er..... sorry about all that. Time for some pictures I think...