Life is… Edgy and Scary

Had a few pints of Fuller’s London Pride in The Tom Foolery tonight.  It’s always a safe bet for you bitter fans out there.  A premium beer, yet neither too overpowering nor hoppy in its taste.  At 4.5% it’s a mid-strength job from the more major label brewery.

The Tom Foolery is just about the only "decent" pub in Bromley (with the exception of, perhaps, The Compass, which is occasionally passable).  It is still designed to appeal to townie types, but its strict over 21s (or is it over 25s?) policy and high bar prices act as a barrier for all the unsavoury types in the queue for Walkabout next door.  Honestly, I don’t understand why they bother - it’s dire in there.

I used to like the Firkin when it was still there.  That was the first pub I went into, with James and Saman, back when I was about 15.  We hid in the corner and prayed that nobody noticed us.  It used to have some ales, but I was too young to appreciate them, and I remember my drink of choice in that pub was lager and lime.  Every time I taste that I’m reminded of the Firkin.  Oh, happy days.

Was very pleasant to see Laura tonight.  She’s always good for a laugh, especially when she gets drunk and talks a lot.  Enough for today.  I can’t really see myself updating my blog this regularly.

Bother.  I recorded Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) when it was on TV last night, but it would appear that I turned off the digital box or changed the recording channel by mistake, because all that is left after the first advert break (when I stopped watching it and went to bed) is a dark screen with lots of flickery bits.  Kinda scary, really, considering the subject of the film is a videotape which results in people’s death one week later.  And I’ve only just started writing my blog too!

I saw the remake, The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002) a couple of years ago with Alison in Oxford.  From what I’ve seen of the original (only the first half hour), it appears that the remake is a lot more reliant on shock tactics, whereas the Japanese one is dependent upon a threatening atmosphere, built up slowly throughout the film.

When Mum & Dad went to see The Grudge remake (Takashi Shimizu, 2004) after Christmas, they said one of the reasons it was scary was the fact that it was set in Japan, which is an alien environment to most Westerners and consquently a bit spooky anyway.  Ringu is set in Japan too, and I was interested to find out whether this was also the case for this film.  Didn’t get my chance, sadly.

Ringu 2 (Hideo Nakata, 1999) is on tonight.  Must make sure I record this one properly.  The remake of this, imaginatively entitled The Ring Two (Hideo Nakata, 2005) is out soon, or maybe already.  It’s directed by the Japanese director of the original Ring films, so should be interesting to compare.  Bonzer.

So, I’ve been dragged Kicking and Screaming into the twenty-first century, where pointless e-things such as "weblogs" seem to be flavour of the month.  I’ve seen how blogs work, mainly on Ross’ Website, where everything is rosy and simple, and occasionally on the Imsoc people’s websites, but I’ve always found them irritating if you don’t know the people they’re talking about.

However, there is something attractive about keeping a kind of online journal which other people can read.  It seems to allow you to organise your thoughts and gives you that little bit of exposure: a kind of reverse voyeurism, if you will.  It is also useful writing practice, and another way of getting good English on to an Internet riddled with substandard twaddle.  Ha ha - that sounded really pompous.  Good.

This moment I am sitting in my (Dad’s) dressing gown at home.  It’s 2.05pm and I’m hanging around at home following Easter, before I have to go back to Uni to start hardcore work for my finals.  I’ve read about thirty or forty pages of a play today.  It’s called Die Hose: Ein Bürgerliches Lustspiel and it’s by Sternheim.  So far it seems much easier to follow than Kaiser’s Die Bürger von Calais, which is almost laughably complicated.  I only managed thirty pages of that in several days’ fitful reading.  Expressionism is a complex movement, and I’m still trying to ascertain what constitutes an "expressionist" work.  Sure, there are some things in common.  I noticed some parallels between Calais and Toller’s Hinkemann, but Die Hose seems to fit more into the mould of a naturalist work than an expressionist one, yet it appeared on the reading list for the latter.  Maybe I should follow Dr. Kohl’s advice to the letter and never assign anything to a particular period or movement without first finding my own justification for labelling the movement as such.

I’m supposed to be going out for a drink with Laura tonight, but I bet she ends up on vet duty.  Ha ha.  We were going to go out last night, but she had to cancel for that reason.  Should be a laugh, providing her beeper doesn’t go off.  Honestly, why do people get so attached to their pets?

Ed and Debs are having a leaving party tomorrow.  They’re going travelling all over the shop.  Sounds like it’s going to be riotous.  Jez wanted us to play a guerrilla gig, but Ed didn’t seem to keen, and there’s no way on earth I can be persuaded to lug the amplifiers of doom anywhere.  I nearly did my back in the other day!

Anyway, I’m going to experiment with a few things now.  Ooh, that’s pretty. The text can get smaller! And bigger.  Strikeout?  Oh that’s probably to remove things later on.  Isn’t it wonderful what you can do these days?  When I first started with the ‘net in 1996 it was all so different!

I’m going to insert a little picture now.  I’m on my dad’s computer, so there’s not much to post.

Well, it’s very exciting.  OK.  Bye bye.  I’m going to publish this now.