40 is the new 30

As I write this post I have approximately 35 or so days until my 40th birthday. It just shows you how quickly time passes. I can vividly remember being a kid and doing the mental arithmetic to calculate that I would be 32 in the year 2000... and here I am 8 years on from that date that seemed such a long way off. But hey... all of us are getting older.

Friday evening was spent at "The White Horse" pub in Old Welwyn followed by a curry at "The Sagar" Indian restaurant accompanied by 4 work colleagues (actually 2 of them are former work colleagues). What's this got to do with approaching 40 I hear you ask?... well it made me realise that after 4 pints and a gin and tonic I now realise when to stop drinking. Older and wiser? Maybe.

24 hours later - N and I went to a joint 40th birthday celebration at the Social Club in Bricket Wood. There were a few people there that I hadn't seen for about 20 years and at one point it took me 3 or 4 seconds to realise who one guy was. Lack of hair catches you unawares. One frightening observation was the fact that virtually all the blokes there were wearing similar striped shirts including myself. Embarrassing? Well I would say the observer was wearing some ridiculous braces so I don't feel to bad!

Sunday morning and I spoke to my sister-in-law to wish her a happy 30th birthday... and of course reminded her that for 30 odd days we would be in the same decade...

Cloverfield

Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project .... hmmmm... maybe a bit. Actually I was a little bit disappointed with the film and after coming out of the cinema I realised why. The characters were the problem... too two dimensional and to be quite honest I couldn't give a toss about them. Having said that the tension was good and it was the right thing to do in only letting you get glimpses of the monster. It looked very realistic and it was a great idea in that you were as much in the dark as the characters. The "little" monsters were reminiscent of the bugs from Starship Troopers. Well worth seeing!

Rating: 8/10

No. 8 DFS Adverts

"Hurry, sale ends soon!.... " Do these retards think we are bloody stupid? DFS perpetually have a sale on. But wait a bit - could it be that they call their normal prices "on sale prices". We make up a few fake prices put a slash through it, then another made up number with another slash through it and call it some utterly meaningless thing such as a double discount. Total BULLSHIT!

Another thing... on their adverts the sofas are always shown in some huge flash room. If you had a house that size you wouldn't buy their cheap shit.

Rant over.

The Hobbit and Watchmen

I've just been reading a report on AICN about the film versions of The Hobbit and Watchmen. It seems that The Hobbit has now been victim to another lawsuit this time from the Tolkien Estate. Apparently they have never been paid the 7.5% they are owed by New Line Cinema who made LoTR. What beggars belief is the second item about Watchmen. The film is nearing completion and suddenly 20th Century Fox (owned by Rupert Murdoch) has decided they own the rights and is suing Warner Brothers and demanding that it is not released. Unbelievable!!! What total scum Murdoch is... very very depressing. Deliberately let a rival studio make a film and then try and f*ck them over. Murdoch all over. Look at what he tried to do to Virgin Media!

Rant over.

Lost

I watched the second episode of series 4 last night. Absolutely bloody brilliant. This is truly the best programme on TV.

Rating: 10 / 10

More annoyance at price comparison sites...

Another advert that annoys me is the one where there is a picture of two identical cars - one has a much higher insurance premium on it. What does this advert prove? You could put any crap on there... just make up any old figures. These adverts are just utter bloody drivel!!!

I do like the way that Direct Line refuse to have their online quoting system linked to these parasites. Mind you unless you are a 60 year old woman driving a Ford Fiesta they will charge you an arm and a leg.

Rant over.

No. 9 Cyclists

In France and much of mainland Europe there are a series of professional cycle races who quite naturally have well trained fully equiped competitors... most of whom are not British. Why is it then (especially at weekends) along every winding road you find some boney-arsed-spectacle-wearing-git with fully skintight cycling regalia suddenly appearing in front of you on a dangerous bend. Then when you slow down for traffic at a junction they come sprinting up the inside and you have to go through the whole procedure again... and they are all the same type of idiot... and there are loads of them. But not one is remotely any good at winning a competition. Lance Armstrong they ain't!

The other type of cyclist I can't stand are the retarded ones who ride along the same winding roads, at night, with no lights on! Twats!

Rant over.

Sweeney Todd

Watch this film and you'll never eat a meatpie again! The cast are excellent, the visuals are sublime. But I found the constant singing became boring after a while. The gore factor is pretty high too with plenty of throat cutting and fountains of blood. Depp is great as Sweeney Todd but for me the best character and a truly tremendous actor is Timothy Spall as Mr Beedle (unsure of spelling). Fabulous! The film is worth seeing but I could have done with less singing.

Rating: 6.5 / 10

First Direct

A series of TV adverts that currently annoys me are the First Direct ones. In particular the prat who makes all the sarcastic comments. What the bloody hell is the point of him? Why snap your phone in half? Personally I wouldn't use First Direct on the grounds of the shit adverts.

Rant over.

Stratford-Upon-Avon (Part 3)

We visited Shakespeare's birthplace on Saturday - inside one of the rooms was a really weird bald bloke dressed up in 15th century clobber - who told visitors about life in the house. At £8 a pop it is a licence to print money, mind you they certainly give you the impression that Shakespeare's dad was a bit of a "Del Boy". During the afternoon we went on a guided walk around the town along with a large group of other people. One bit the guide showed us was the RSC's Courtyard Theatre which is a temporary affair whilst the old theatre is redeveloped. Now the guide described the Courtyard Theatre as an innovative building - personally it looked like a gigantic rusty old container like you get off a container ship - crap!

We had dinner at a gastropub called The One Elm - recommended by Raymond Blanc no less! I would certainly recommend it if you are ever in Stratford. We weren't "invisible" this time and service was very quick.

On the way back to the guesthouse I tried in vain to explain how a canal lock works to N (we had to cross over a canal en route)... eventually I gave up!!

Stratford-Upon-Avon (Part 2)

Friday's dinner was at a restaurant called The Opps. One thing N and I seem to suffer from though, when we eat out, is invisibilty. When we sit down at a table it always seems to require a request for a menu to be given to us rather than it be given automatically by our server. The two blokes who came in shortly after us (who were probably gay by the looks of them) were served much quicker. It makes it difficult to complain too much before your meal is served because you are tempting the offended waiter/waitress to gob a load of phelgm or worse onto your plate and mix it in with your food! Sick, I know, however I once worked with a guy who knew that went on when a customer would complain. Anyway dinner turned out to be excellent and it was a very pleasant if somewhat chilly walk back to the guest house...

To be continued.

Stratford-upon-Avon (Part 1)

The trouble with going on weekends away is that you seem be on your way back again in the blink of an eye. N and I drove up to Stratford-upon-Avon on Friday evening. We went via Aylesbury and on towards Oxford where we got onto the M40, which like many of the UK's main roads has a distinct lack of roadside illumination but an abundance of vermin BMW 3 series drivers. I shouldn't really be amazed but my mind boggled as I watched as one these scumbag w*nkers weaved in and out of the traffic, cut us up and then proceeded to tailgate some hapless Renault Scenic pressurising them into pulling over.

We arrived at the guest house just before 7pm which was fortunate for the owners as they were about to leave for an evening out, so we checked in quickly and headed out for dinner...

To be continued.

N's Birthday Weekend!

Friday 1st February... and it is my wonderful wife's birthday. As I keep reminding N - she is now closer to 40 than 30 - a statement which goes down like a ton of bricks. To celebrate we had decided to go away for the weekend and after studying the road atlas we plumped for Stratford-upon-Avon. The birthplace of William Shakespeare himself! A weekend of culture and a weekend of excessive eating awaited us! Hurrah!

To be continued.