“Always be yourself... unless you suck.”

"All day long the sky is blue
and no one has a lot to do
in Shangri-La"

We now return you to your regular programme...



I was a bit rambling yesterday eh? And I assure you no alcohol was involved, just youthful enthusiasm (although obviously not mine - see I'm implying I'm not young, get it?).
It's a lovely day (at least in the Weather sense) let's see where my budget, stupor and daughter take me ... (here's a hint - don't expect much)

(some time later - I was right, now where's the wine!)

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” - Oscar Wilde

"Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed"

"You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo.

What a thing to do!"

(Hello there "Anonymous", good to hear from you, if a little unexpected - coincidentally my next post was a film review!)

Here Be Spoilers!!!! (and perhaps boredom , this is long...)
My Daughter and I went to an early showing of "The Dark Knight" this morning. Strangely it was the first time I'd been to my local cinema, and it's been there a few years now. The Cinema itself was small and uninspiring, and of course the worst thing about a local cinema is that it's full of locals!
Luckily (maybe not entirely luck) we got the best seats, I can never relax until I'm in that "sweet spot" and I'm satisfied that nearby seats are not inhabited by the bag rustling, chattering, phone ringing types you know I love to hate (as always "hate" maybe the wrong word, how about despise?)

Standby for an incoherent rambling review:
The thing I liked best about the film was (apart from the conceit that a velour cloaked, bat eared superhero actually exists) it's attempt to portray a "real" Batman in a "real" world. The Wayne employees attempt to reveal the Batman's identity is a case in point . It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that you need to be "quite" rich to afford such "wonderful toys", and this was handled wittily. Anyway - the film is hardly a laugh fest, but I enjoyed the grimness, tinged with a vague optimism (the Jokers disappointment at The Ferry bound Gotham Citizens unwillingness to blow each other up was a hoot!) for the good in people!
I loved the use of practical effects, CGI was obviously used (hello Two Face!) , but the set pieces had a real world , visceral feel to them, that pretty CGI usually lacks and the fight scenes had a no nonsense, powerful , unrelenting and painful feel, Batman isn't trying to be stylish here, just get the job done.
And yes, Heath Ledgers Joker was a tour de force, the lizard tongue and the voice (which to me at least was influenced at least a little, by Mark Hamill's performance in the Animated Adventures, which is now alas the second best incarnation of the Dark Knight) the tics and gestures, all have been discussed ad nauseum in real reviews.
Obviously, the promise of Batman and Joker becoming the (almost) eternal enemies we know cannot now come to fruition, as I suspect may have happened if Ledger had not died. Consequently it doesn't seem likely we will see another Joker on screen, at least for the 20 or so year cycle that remakes usually seem to allow.
Gotham city felt like a real and dangerous place, not the 3 or so Gothic street corners we saw in Tim Burton's version, speaking of which, the "turn my head" reference was surely a dig at Michael Keaton's "only attack me form the front" costume?
sequel?
I was sad to see the demise of the "tumbler" Batmobile, but (like most of the best parts of the movie) we knew from the trailer(s) that the "Batpod" cycle would feature heavily.
I'm not sure how a child of 9 or 10 would feel about this film (and there was a fair few in the cinema today), It's grim, gritty, the action is not comic book stuff, two face is pretty graphic, the plot and character motivations are complicated, and above all it's really long!
Speaking of plot - it really got away from the familiar villain origin , conflict, love , more conflict, resolution plot we are so used to in superhero movies. ( Obviously Gordon wasn't dead, as he has to become commissioner - I do hope we never see the strangely faceless Barbara Gordon Junior metamorphose into Batgirl, as we have already seen the Batman copycats in this movie). I didn't know where the story would go next, which is so refreshing (compare with Iron Man , a great movie, but every event signposted) and Katie Holmes, Sorry Maggie Gyllenhaalls death was totally unexpected. (Loved the "Sky hook" and a fully realised Bruce Wayne as despisable, womanising Playboy). We did not need to know where the Joker came from or who he was (I did enjoy the running Joke of him explaining away his scars origins however) and his lack of motivation, other than deadly mischief was so refreshing.
The "sonar" subplot was pointless and under explained, but the white , comic book style eyes were "pretty cool". And a fire engine - on fire!
This film for me is the closest thing to a recreation of a Frank Miller Batman, that we are ever likely to see.
Duality is maybe the over arcing theme of the whole piece, Two face and his coin being the ultimate example.
I'm so sorry for the disjointed "ness" of this post, I'm just too tired ( and lazy, go on say it!) to edit and reorder points, heck it's just a blog for mercy's sake not Empire Magazine!


must see "Cracked" Batman skit!

Batgirl: "How can I help?"
Batman: "By standing directly under that grating and concentrating on the Indian Fakir command, 'Rassi Seedha Rucko'. Hindi for 'Rope stay straight'."

“Fine words! I wonder where you stole them” - Jonathan Swift

"Though I smiled the tears inside were a-burnin
I wished him luck and then he said goodbye"

Another inconsequential day over! Work was so quiet, no one must feel unwell on such a sunny day. Consequently the day dragged on for several lifetimes. This post is really pointless, even more so than usual. Thirteen hour shift tomorrow for goodness sake! Sometimes doing nothing is more tiring than , er , doing something, but not very often - now on to hollow calories, and the brief satisfaction of food!

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” - Swift

“Always drink upstream from the herd” - - Cowboy Proverb

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you


The weather is fabulous today, hot with a light breeze. I don't really care of course, although I'm sure I would feel a lot worse if it was cold and the central heating was on full blast. Speaking of which I changed my energy supplier yesterday, to a capped rate, which while initially more expensive should save me something when prices go up by 22% in the next week or two - I know the world is in crisis but Britain really is a rip-off culture, honestly it is! -
fascinating!

Speaking of British "Culture" the heat has brought out the fashion disasters once again. The Briton on a hot day can be recognised anywhere in the world, never managing to look effortlessly cool, skin tone either deathly pale or tango'd orange/ sunburn red.

I seem to be just shuffling from one day to another, shuffle shuffle shuffle , there he goes...

My goodness how the Newcastle /Gateshead quayside has changed in 15 or so years!

“It is a cart if it goes well, otherwise it is but timber” - Hindi Proverb

“Fiction is life with the dull bits left out” - Clive James

“We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.”

"And there's nowt that I can bid ye
But that peace and love gan with ye
Never mind wherever call the fates
Away from Hexhamshire"

I wish I could adequately convey a series of discontented sighs, disinterested mumblings and "so what" shoulder shrugs through some sort of onomatopoeia and audio-visual extravaganza , but you'll just have to imagine won't you?
to other matters...
Well my daughter was certainly in a grumpy mood when she arrived first thing this morning. We basically spent the whole day doing even less than yesterday, she couldn't think of a thing she wanted to do, and I wasn't exactly helping. I worry about my parenting skills, mostly worrying if I actually have any?

Still can't shrug off my malaise. I don't feel unhappy or miserable, just numb and detached. I also can't seem to find any real joy or pleasure in anything. You should never seek solace in drink of course, but I had some wine last night and it just made me even more contemplative. But enough of this wallowing. Time for some frozen pizza and a bath, work in the morning.
Goodnight chums... (by the way I shall thaw out the pizza first)

“A man's interest in the world is only the overflow of his interest in himself” - George Bernard Shaw

“I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.” - Bill Hicks

"When I get to the bottom
I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and turn
and I go for a ride"


I've really got nothing to say today, which I suppose is a symptom of a bigger problem. Monotony.
Everyday is pretty much the same, at least until the weather changes! I can't even think of a single random irritation from today, and I'm thinking really hard.
One more week until payday, and then I can briefly enjoy some consumerism, well for maybe 30 or 40 minutes anyway.

I shall do my best to have some content next time - honest!

“What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.” - Goethe

“I don't say that we ought to all misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.” - Orson Welles

"I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour,
drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine,
dont think You knew you were in this song"

My Daughter has been staying with me for the past few days, it's been a welcome change from my newly instated isolationist grumpdom. It seems we are really birds of feather, this morning we just sat around on adjacent computers, vegging out , nipping out later for a Pizza and a brief look at the wonderful Sunshine (it's nearly midnight and its still 25 degrees - indoors at least).
She went out to a preteen disco last night and I felt all the protective Dad instincts coming out, but I wrestled them under control, well mostly. She wouldn't give me a kiss when I picked her up (in case her nearby friends thought it was "uncool")! It's funny really, practically a sitcom plot in itself).

I watched the end of "Flight of The Conchords" - Sublime, and tonight I finally got around to watching "Shoot em up" in which Clive Owen practically rehashes his "Sin City" performance (but I love Sin City), but nevertheless it was fun, Canadian, and gloriously silly (and short).

I'm broke, as it's a five week month, so "The Dark Knight" will have to wait until next week, and as you know it's my must see movie of the entire year (and since I average about 1 cinema trip a year, that's pretty important.) I only wish I could see it on an Imax screen, but I live in an has-been country with about 6 screens in the whole damn country.

"She's so hot she's making me sexist"...

“I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.”

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

"What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?"

Absolutely awful day at work. We had a sudden and unexpected death, an unsuccessful resuscitation, drunken visitors, and a strange deficit of staff due to sickness. Add into the mix ANOTHER 13 hour shift tomorrow, and something is rotten in the state of Billy. I was so tired all day that I'm going to bed early, let's face it, I'm not even vaguely young anymore (although if someone of my age dies people are want to say "he was so young" - go figure) anyhow tempus fugit Billy needs sleep (although the vaguely remembered spectre of insomnia has raised his cowled head once or twice lately. And so to bed...

“Time is the justice that examines all offenders.” - William Shakespeare

When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

One less bell to answer

One less egg to fry


Ugh ! what dreadful weather. The whole bedroom lit up suddenly in the middle of the night, a sudden downpour and thunderstorm. Now I actually enjoy electrical storms, but I've been sleeping a bit fitfully, and I got quite a start, poor thing eh?

Something that has really cheered me up this week is The Flight of The Conchords TV show. I listened to their BBC Radio 2 show a couple of years ago, and while it amused me it left no lasting impression. The TV show however has had me laughing more than I can remember er laughing, in er a while (poor sentence eh?) I've only watched the first eight episodes however, lets hope the last few don't take a quality dive, that's a dive in quality, not a good er dive. Time for bed I think, 13 hour tomorrow.

“And it's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard rain gonna fall” - Bob Dylan

"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."

And if a ten-ton truck

Kills the both of us

To die by your side

Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine


I went out fully intending to do something, er different, or at the very least something! As I, and you, suspected I ended up at my Mams, yet again, after a strange burning smell began to emanate (once again) from my car (I didn't want to risk bursting into flames in some distant lonely spot). Oh Dear.
I also somehow also managed to get oil all over my favourite jacket, whilst investigating "Oh calamity", I probably don't hear you cry.
The summer holidays start NOW, so for the next six weeks, prices will be inflated (and in today's economy that means a lot!), everywhere will be even more crowded, and the trampolining of my neighbours will probably begin to take on Edgar Allen Poe "Tell-tale Heart" levels of annoyance. At least I'm consistently petty!
Somehow I managed to end up with two 13 hours shifts in a row, and night shift is looming! blah...blah...blah... (yes I've bored myself into brackets again, we'll just close the door quietly and let him be eh?......).

“The less routine the more life.” - Amos Bronson Alcott

"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm"

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?


Something is wrong with my little car.

My left thumb is now heading the way of my right one, i.e. painful and useless (tendon trouble), I'm worried I'm going to end up a thumbless invalid , don't laugh, please! I MUST get a GP and get an orthopaedic opinion sorted out (I know I say this sort of stuff all the time!).

And finally in the cavalcade of negativity, I still feel like a complete (mind the language) shit! I feel pretty worthless, and to be honest it's what I deserve.

In fact I feel dreadful tonight both in mind and body, I'm off to bed for a very early night.

More jollity soon!

(love this song, the recorded version is much better, it's bleak and sad but beautiful)

Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo! - Steven Wright

“The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.” H.G.Wells

"I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again!"


Hurrah, this is post 365!
That's one inconsequential piece of nonsense for each day of the year (save leap years of course). Thought I'd better stop by to let you (me) know what's been happening, so bye then! (the implication being nothing is happening see? well do you punk?). Remember that bit in "The Time Machine" movie (the Rod Taylor one, not the Guy Pearce one) where he first travels forward in time, and the sun begins to speed up eventually becoming a blur? Well that's how thing seem at the moment, one day blurring into another. And by a bizarre coincidence when I went out to work this morning, I discovered that society had become segregated into a poor uneducated underclass, who do all the work, and an idle rich who enjoy the spoils, so no change there then ! (ah satire!)

“In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it.” - H.G. Wells again

"Before I speak, I have something important to say"

They're piling in the back seat
they're generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
the blitzkrieg bop

Remember When you could window shop of an evening or early morning? As I walk to work it's just a sea of tarnished shutters, and crooked paving stones, it's depressing.
(amongst many, many, many other things).
Society does seem to be heading in an "Escape from New York"/ "Mad Max", kind of direction, at least if you believe the tabloids. As I put the car away tonight I had to evade pieces of wood with nails in them. (This wasn't in my imagination it really happened) ,Who would do such a thing?
(Still it's not the strangest thing I've found there, once there was a huge opened crate of pumpkins! - Go figure !)
Bah! Humbug!

I used to really really like these fine Canadian fellas, no irony or postmodernism intended! (I have the vinyl!)

“Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” - Charles Schulz

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Your slightly intoxicated "Author" here . I'm off to bed as soon as I finish "this". It's a bit later than last time (obviously, unless I've discovered time travel). I always try to be a little vague here, as it's a bit of a public forum for what is essentially a diary. Er - What was my point?
Never mind, I'm going to try and post something a bit more upbeat next time - honest!

Good old Billy MacKenzie!

“The man that isn't jolly after drinking Is just a driveling idiot, to my thinking” - Euripides

Remember what the dormouse said; "Feed your head"

"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow."

Everybody hurts it seems, but not everyone wants to talk about it.
I don't want to bang on about my family again, (but you know I'm going to, don't you?) but when they cease to be a frustration , then I'll probably shut up about it.
I wish they were at least a little bit communicative and supportive. Not only for my benefit but so I can reciprocate. I go there, and faced by silence often retort (can you retort to silence? I think not!) with sarcasm and negativity. I'm aware of doing it but like Sisyphus (what him again?) I'm doomed to repeat myself.
In fact repetition seems to be the norm at the moment.
The weeks are flying by, and all are remarkably the same. Summer holidays start next week (for my daughter that is) and I was unable to get any time off , other than my days off that is, I'm a bad Dad I think.

warning - may contain self pity (this one way exceeds the maximum daily dose!)

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” - Oscar Wilde

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” - Orson Welles

It's been pouring down for two days now, it still is, and I was soaked walking home from work last night. It really suited my general mood however, directionless and flat, not miserable , but numb.
I am not okay. But then who is?

I didn't sleep well last night, I finally got up at 3.30am for a drink, and then tried again, but it took me an age to get back off to sleep. Of course that means now I feel so tired, and I'm off to work soon. But hey now funny stuff happens too! As soon as it does I'll get back to you!

“I think quotes are very dangerous things.” - Kate Bush

"Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes."

Welcome Messrs. Ouroboros and Sisyphus

I've had a lot of spare time this week. Okay, I always have a lot of spare time, but my "schedules" have seemed particularly wide and spacious this week.
Of course I've spent most of that time on my own (no self pity implied here, only fact) so inevitably I've been doing a lot of thinking, and thinking means reflection, reflection leads to nostalgia and nostalgia inevitably leads to regret.
Regret over roads not taken, and roads taken where my foot slipped onto the brake, but sadly hardly ever the accelerator.
Maybe I am going the teeniest bit mad ? (you think?)
I've actually had a couple of nightmares this week, for the first time in what seems like years. I don't hold to the theory that dreams foreshadow, but I do believe that your brain has "stuff" it needs to work out, so get on and work it out already!
It's a shame my conscious mind can't talk with that unconscious self, it's so damned creative the way it can seamlessly weave different locations, people and events together. I read recently that your brain cannot create new faces, and that everyone you come across in a dream was someone you actually met or at least glanced somewhere, sometime. Anyway I'm rambling so much I should be wearing hiking boots.
Be seeing you.

“'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.'
'How do you know I’m mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,” said the Cat. 'or you wouldn’t have come here.'”

"The empty vessel makes the greatest sound”

"He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears."

...er, yes.

I actually bought this on a 7" single when I was a wee lad.

“A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.” - Seneca

the format (both literally and er, literally, if you see what I mean?) seems a little screwy, sorry.