A Diary — LiveJournal

A Diary

[entries|archive|friends|userinfo]

Rachael

[	website	\|	My Website	]
[	userinfo	\|	livejournal userinfo	]
[	archive	\|	journal archive	]

(no subject)	[Nov. 5th, 2007\|07:55 pm] Rachael
Last night I watched a documentary film on TV called Gone to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. The movie was, obviously enough, an examination of the history of the slasher films, discussing Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Scream and several others. There were lots of interviews with horror directors such as Wes Craven, Sean S. Cunningham, Rob Zombie and John Carpenter, along with a plethora of gruesome clips. It was quite entertaining, and would probably serve as a good introduction to the genre, but probably wouldn't tell fans much that they didn't already know. It's quite surprising how many of them were made, especially in the early 1980s which was really the hey-day for slasher films. Back to work again, and it was a long day. My double glazing at home is set to be fitted in next Monday, and on that same day I've been called up to go for possible jury selection. I might be able to get the day off on special leave for that, because with jury selection you don't really have a choice. You have to go to it. I'm trying to examine my life a bit more at the moment and it's interesting actually looking back through this journal, how much is actually about me, and how much is about movies, books and TV shows. I think I have probably written more about moves then I have about myself. Although I have noticed places where I do seem to be just a little bit lacking in self-esteem. So I don't know, should I write more about myself and my personal thoughts and feelings, or more about movies etc.?
Link	38 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Nov. 4th, 2007\|06:12 pm] Rachael
Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of the evening watching Doctor Who on DVD. I watched An Unearthy Child, which was the first Doctor Who story broadcast back in November 1963. In the story, set in London 1963, two school teachers are curious about a girl who displays an unusual amount of knowledge of science and history, so they follow her to her home, which is nothing more than a junkyard. They follow her inside and confront her strange, elderly gradfather, The Doctor (played here by William Hartnell), who they accuse of having locked the girl up in an old police telephone box. Breaking in, of course, they find that the telephone box is in fact a vast time and space machine and that the girl and her grandfather are aliens. They are soon whisked back to the Stone Age and spend the next three episodes involved in a leadership struggle amongst a tribe of cavemen. The original conception of Doctor Who was that it would be primarily an educational series about history, and that most of the stories would involve The Doctor and his companions traveling back in time and interacting with historical figures, with occasional stories set in the future or on other planets with aliens and whatnot. However the purely historical stories were abandoned very quickly. I also watched a Doctor Who story called Remembrance of the Daleks, which was first broadcast in 1988. In this story the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) travel back to London 1963, where they and a military task-force are caught up in a battle between two rival factions of Daleks over a powerful device created by the Time Lords, which the Daleks want to use in their endless attempts at universal domination. It was a good story. They were both very good actually. I went to my parent's house today as usual. Since it was my mum's birthday on Friday, we went out to a restaurant called Howies for lunch. I had a venison burger with onion relish and melted mozarella cheese, and chips, with a chocolate brownie cake topped with vanilla ice-cream for dessert. I was listening to a show on the radio this afternoon called Adventures in Poetry which this week was discussing a poem called "Matilda Who Told Lies and was Burned to Death" by Hilaire Belloc, which was very amusing. You can read the poem under the cut. ( Read more...Collapse )
Link	Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Nov. 3rd, 2007\|04:13 pm] Rachael
Last night I more or less passed out on my bed while writing my diary. I woke up with the lights on and my book and pen on the pillow beside me. I was feeling slightly hungover and terrified of the thought of how I might have hideously embarrased myself last night. I went out into Princes Street and renewed my bus pass for four weeks, and once again looked for the book for this month's book group (this month's book is Northern Light by Philip Pullman, published as The Golden Compass in the USA) but again I couldn't find it, as long as I manage to get a copy and read it by the 28th of this month. I was feeling depressed and decided to treat myself a bit by getting some DVDs in the sales. I bought a set called Doctor Who: The Beginnings, which contains the first three Doctor Who stories from 1963 and 1964: An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge of Destruction. I also got a DVD of Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks from 1988. That was the first Doctor Who story I ever saw when I was nine years old. Although I remember watching bits and pieces of the show before then. It's still one of my personal favourite stories. I can still remember my brother and I doing Dalek impressions, basically putting a bucket over the head and shuffling around, with the arms stretched out and screeching "ex-ter-mi-nate!" I've always preferred the older series to the newer one, which is still very good. I liked that the older stories were longer, and invariably split into several episodes, the stories in the new series often seem kind of rushed.
Link	2 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Nov. 3rd, 2007\|02:44 am] Rachael
It's been quite an eventful couple of days. Yesterday I went over and met up with Emily. We had some dinner and watched some TV and had a jolly good time. Today was my Mum's birthday. She was very happy with the Stephenm Fry book that I bought for her, and she's already started reading it. I went to work today and it was an extremely dull day. One of the crucial computer systems froze up during the morning, but it was fixed by the afternoon. I left at around half past five, early for me even for a Friday. On my way home I bought the latest issue of Radio Times. There was a letter waiting for me that was a citation to appear for jury selction at the High Court on November 12th, the same day I'm getting double glazing fitted. I can't say that I'm really looking forward to that. I was only home for an hour or so before I headed off again to meet Alan and his friend John at The Crags. It took about an hour for me to get there, and we weren't at The Crags for long. We went to The Mitre for a drink and then to a bar called Olivers, which Alan's friend manages, and had a couple of drinks. I was feeling kind of depressed for some reason. I have to say, it is true that there has been barely a day of my life when i have not wished I was someone else, or, simply enough, dead. We went to the Subway for a while, before I headed off on the long walk home.
Link	5 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 31st, 2007\|07:59 pm] Rachael
Last night was pretty quiet. I was talking to Emily on the phone for about an hour, which was very nice. Work is still going through a period of adjustment in regard to the big desk move. One curious thing actually, Owen, the guy who sits directly behind me, was in my class at college for three years. I studied Information Management at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh for four years from 1997 to 2001. I miss those days actually, I had a lot of fun. I remember being absolutely worried sick and stressed out for weeks after I finished the course because I was convinced I'd failed. Surprisingly enough I did graduate in the end. Anyway, happy Halloween!
Link	5 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 30th, 2007\|08:06 pm] Rachael
Last night I listened to the first part of a radio adaptation of Dracula. It was pretty good, and despite a number of changes in the story structure and a few other changes, presumably to make it more understandable for a radio audience. Today was another average day at work. It was about as excitng as usual. I left work at about half past six and on my way home I picked up the latest issue of Total Film magazine.
Link	2 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 29th, 2007\|07:55 pm] Rachael
Last night I watched a film called The Innocents, directed by Jack Clayton, and based on the short novel The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The film stars Deborah Kerr as a governess in presumably Victorian England. She is hired to look after the orphaned neice and nephew of an extremely wealthy, and almost always absent, man. The governess goes to live on the man's vast country estate. However, she soon comes to believe the place is haunted by the ghosts of the previous governess and her brutal boyfriend, who have very sinister intentions towards the two children. The film, like the story is very ambiguous. It is very slow-moving, with the horror mostly suggested through the interplay of light and shadow, distorted sounds and so on. However for some reason the film feels far scarier than most of the more graphically gruesome horror films. I also listened to the first part of a radio adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. It wasn't really an adaptation, it was just someone reading the story. It was good though. Horror can work really well on radio, especially late at night, when you switch all the lights out, your imagination can run riot. Today, of course, was our first day at our new desks. As a result it took ages to get everything sorted out, and put on the desks, and then arranged so that it was bearable, and to check that everything was working, and also to find out where everything was supposed to go. I was glad to get out of work today, but then I usually am!
Link	1 comment\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 28th, 2007\|05:17 pm] Rachael
Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual for a Sunday. Lunch today was tacos with mince, tomato, spring onions, grated cheese, mushrooms and salsa sauce. It was very nice. The afternoon was pretty quiet, for the most part. I sat around reading the supplements for the Sunday newspapers. Next Sunday we are going out to a restuarant for lunch to celebrate my mum's birthday which should be nice.
Link	6 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 28th, 2007\|01:57 am] Rachael
I thought I'd post some of my poetry. They are usually written very much on the spur of the moment and are really pretty rubbish, but I thought I might share them anyway. The night explodes Incandescent fragments tear apart The eye's mind Heart opens Blood wine flows over Stone teeth. LUNCHTIME AT WORK The eyes gaze out Through endless time The screen shatters Myriad blades of glass The red flower blooming Through pale white fields Life worships at the alter of death The endless skulls invade My secret eyes
Link	3 comments\|Leave a comment

(no subject)	[Oct. 27th, 2007\|09:26 pm] Rachael
This morneing I went out and bought a book as a birthday present for my mum. The book was Making History by Stephen Fry. Mum was saying last week she wanted to read one of his books, and it should be very funny if it's by Stephen Fry. I also bought a card and some wrapping paper. On my way home I stopped off at the supermarket for my weekly groceries. After a very quick lunch, I went out to the Cineworld cinema. The bus took ages to come, probably because there was a big football (soccer) match at the nearby stadium. I saw the film Saw IV, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. The Saw films concern an ingenious serial killer, nick-named "Jigsaw", who abducts people he believes don't value their own lives and places them in lethal traps. In order to escape the victim has to do something extremely painful, either physically or psychologically. This film takes off directly after the end of the previous one, with the discovery of a new killer apparently imitating Jigsaw's methods. While two FBI agents attempt to solve the case, a cop is forced to play his own lethal game. This was probably the weakest of the Saw films. Despite a few effective scenes and plenty of blood and gore, it really seemed kind of bland. After a quick bottle of Budweiser at the nearby McCowans Brewhouse bar, I went back to the cinema to see Eastern Promises, the new film from David Cronenberg. This film is set in London, and revolves around a midwife, who attends a young Russian girl who dies in childbirth. Discovering the girl's diary, written entirely in Russian, the midwife sets out to translate it with the help of her Russian uncle. In the book, she discovers a leaflet for a nearby restaurant, which it turns out is a front for a Russian mob Family. The dead girl was a victim of their human trafficking schemes, and the gangsters want the diary back by any means necessary. The movie, which stars Naomi Watts as the midwife and Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel as two of the gangsters, was very good. The script is well-written and suspenseful, with some great performances. David Cronenberg seems to have almost completely moved away from the so-called "body horror" films that made his name. It was a nice afternoon and, because of my Cineworld pass, it's like a full afternoon's worth of entertainment for almost free, except for the beer.
Link	12 comments\|Leave a comment