A Diary

breakon87 @ 2007-11-05T19:55:00

2007-11-05T20:19:13Z

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.?

breakon87 @ 2007-11-04T18:12:00

2007-11-04T18:41:14Z

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.

MATILDA WHO TOLD LIES AND WAS BURNED TO DEATH.
by Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.

For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London's Noble Fire-Brigade.

Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,
They galloped, roaring through the Town,

"Matilda's House is Burning Down!"

Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda's Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away!
It happened that a few Weeks later

Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.

That Night a Fire did break out—
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street—
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)—but all in vain!
For every time she shouted "Fire!"
They only answered "Little Liar!"
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

breakon87 @ 2007-11-03T16:13:00

2007-11-03T16:33:07Z

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.

breakon87 @ 2007-11-03T02:44:00

2007-11-03T03:07:50Z

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.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-31T19:59:00

2007-10-31T20:09:02Z

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!

breakon87 @ 2007-10-30T20:06:00

2007-10-30T20:23:09Z

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.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-29T19:55:00

2007-10-29T20:09:01Z

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!

breakon87 @ 2007-10-28T17:17:00

2007-10-28T17:43:10Z

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.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-28T01:57:00

2007-10-28T02:04:26Z

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

breakon87 @ 2007-10-27T21:26:00

2007-10-27T20:51:51Z

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.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-26T22:56:00

2007-10-26T22:30:53Z

Last night I saw the final couple of episodes of Quatermass and the Pit. It was very good. The story concerns the discovery of an alien spaceship buried for millions of years, which it turns out was reponsible for the unusually high amounts of so-called paranormal activity in the local area. It was made in 1959, and by today's standards its quite slow with a minimum of special effects, but it has a witty and genuinely gripping script, and great performances. It was also very influential. In fact Stephen King's novel The Tommyknockers bears a very strong resemblance to the show.

I also watched a movie called An American Haunting, directed by Courtney Solomon. The story is based on the famous American story of the Bell Witch. The film is mostly set in a small rural community in 1818 where the Bell family are tormented by an unseen force, which they believe is the result of a curse placed on them by a local witch. The film stars Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek, with Rachel Hurd-Wood as the eldest daughter and the principal focus of the hauntings. It wasn't too bad, with some quite suspenseful scenes.

Today at work we all had to pack away all the stuff on our desks into crates for the desk move at the weekend. It took ages. I've been sitting at that desk for about fourteen months now, and it's quite amazing how much rubbish accumulates. Of course, Monday will probably be absolute chaos.

this evening I went up to the Queen's Hall to see filmmaker David Lynch and 1960s folk singer Donovan Leitch. David Lynch was there mainly to answer audience questions, which were mostly about his Transcendental Meditation, it was all interesting though, and there were some interesting comments about his films, although he was very reluctant to discuss his film of Dune (an experience Lynch described as "a three-year nightmare"). After Lynch, Donovan Leitch came on and sang some of his hits (such as "Mellow Yellow", "Catch the Wind", "Colours", "Hurdy-Gurdy Man" and "The Universal Soldier"). It was a good evening.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-25T19:31:00

2007-10-25T18:39:36Z

There was a lot at work today about the impending desk moves. Basically by the end of Friday we have to have completely emptied everything from our desks and during the weekend people will be moving around lockers and tubs and whatnot. The thing is I've been sitting at the desk I am at now for about fifteen months and obviously there is a lot that will need to be cleaned up before I leave on Friday. Actually that's the longest time I've been sitting at one desk without being moved since I started at that place about four and a half years ago.

Anyway, as it's nearly Halloween, the time for horror, here's a picture of me.

That's me standing up, with a tequila sunrise, and my friend Joe, at the Limelite for a leaving party that was held for someone at work in August.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-24T19:52:00

2007-10-24T19:52:45Z

It was another depressingly dull day at work today. Everyone is gearing up for the big desk move. A couple of people who sit near me, Gordon and Sean, were amusing themselves by flicking rubber bands around the place. Everyone seemed kind of more depressed than usual, probably because it's the end of the month and money is running short.

I went straight back home from work today. I'm seeing David Lynch on Friday night that should be good. I found out that my friend Malcolm is going along. We've known each other since we were about five years old, we went to school together, and he used to live just up the street from me. Over the years we still keep in touch and meet up once in awhile, because we have similar interests. Malcolm works in a cinema as a projectionist and makes his own comic books. He started his own publishing company a few months ago to sell them through. Malcolm was always very talented at art, as far back as school. Like my brother with his music. I've always really envied talented people.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-23T23:23:00

2007-10-23T22:50:22Z

I was watching a couple of episodes of Quatermass and the Pit on DVD last night. That's probably the most famous and well remembered of the Quatermass serials. It's really good, and very well-written and well-acted. The show was broadcast live and so there are a few sequences were the camera loses focus, or bumps into things and in one sequence where the camera operator seems to lose control of the thign and the picture ends up going all over the place.

Work was dull today, as usual. There is a big desk move happening at the weekend, where we are all going to end up in different rooms. I was really bored. My brother works as a musician and lives in London. He's a free-lance musician and part-time teacher and naturally his income can be very erratic, whereas I have a regular income. Also he shares a house with a bunch of people, whereas I have my own place. However, I have always envied him in a way because he does something that he really loves. My brother loves music and would probably still be involved in it even if he wasn't getting paid for it. The only reason I do my job is because I need the money. I'd like to be successful like my brother, I want to do something in film, writing, performance, something creative or cultural, but I'm kind of stuck because of my own stupidity and complete lack of any talent whatsoever.

On to something much more cheerful, I left work at around quarter past six and headed into Princes Street, where I killed about quarter of an hour looking at the DVD sales in HMV. I met my mum at around seven and we headed up to the King's Theatre to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play is one of William Shakespeare's most famous and best loved comedies. The story is set in Athens where Lysander and Hermia are in love, but Hermia's father insists that she marries Demeter, who is in love with her bust she is not interested in him. However, Helena is in love with Demeter who is not interested in her. Lysander and Hermia decide to elope and escape into the nearby forest, closely followed by Demeter, who is in turn followed by Helena. In the forest, Oberon, King of the Fairies and his Queen, Titania, are fighting, and a group of amateur actors are rehersing a play to be performed at the wedding of the Duke of Athens. I know the plya well, I've read it and I've seen it performed a few times. This was an Indian production of the play, and was extremely lavish, featuring musicians, dancers, singers, acrobats and martial artists from all over India and Malaysia. The show was very colourful and spectacular. It mixed the English dialogue with other languages. It was a great evening.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-22T19:44:00

2007-10-22T19:17:14Z

Last night I finished reading Dr. No by Ian Fleming. The story opens with secret agent James Bond seriously injured after an attack by an enemy agent. In order to aid his recuperation, his boss "M." sends him to Jamaica to look into the disappearance of a British agent and his secretary. The obvious assumption is that the two have run off together, but Bond is not so sure. He soon discovers a connection between their disappearance and a seemingly uninhabited island owned by the mysterious and reclusive Doctor No. This was the seventh James Bond book published and achieved the distinction of being the first one filmed in 1962, with Sean Connery in the lead role. The book features plenty of action, adventure, glamour, danger and suspense. The familiar ingredients of beautiful women, villainous maniacs bent on world domination, secret bases and armies of disposable henchmen are all present and correct. The main difference between the James Bond novels and the films are that the books don't feature any of the film series' trademark gadgets or much of the humour. Fleming writes well, making Bond more of a flawed anti-hero than the films do. He is also very good at the action scenes. However, the books, at least judged by today's standards, are very politically incorrect at times and there is a surprisingly strong sadistic element to Fleming's prose. If you enjoyed the early Bond films, or if you enjoyed the most recent Bond film, Casino Royale, than you would probably enjoy the books.

I also watched a film on TV last night called Stephen King's Thinner, directed by Tom Holland. The film tells the story of a very successful and very overweight lawyer, who accidentally runs over and kills an elderly gypsy woman. However, the lawyer and his friends, the local policeman and judge, manage to rig the inquest so he gets off completely free. The woman's father touches the lawyer on his way out and mutters the word "thinner". The lawyer soon finds that he is losing weight every day. At first he is overjoyed, but then he realises that the weight continues to drop and no matter what he eats or how much he eats, he can't gain any weight. It wasn't a very good film, with lots of very silly elements, such as a cursed strawberry pie,

Of course it was the start of a new week at work, and as dull as ever. Everyone seemed to be in a really sour mood today, presumably because it was a Monday and a week and a half until payday, so no-one had any money. I bought today's copy of The Times for the weekly poetry section they have started running on Mondays, written by Freida Hughes (daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and a noted poet, painter and author in her own right).

I didn't go out after work and instead just went straight home.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-21T17:45:00

2007-10-21T17:16:43Z

Last night I went along to the Cineworld cinema to meet Michele. We saw a German film called The Counterfeiters, directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. The film was based on a true story, and is set in Nazi Germany centering on a master counterfeiter, who is also Jewish. He is caught and sentenced to a concentration camp. However, due to his skills at counterfeiting he is forced to work on a project to forge mass amounts of documents and money, in particular millions of US dollars and British pounds, in an attempt to destabilise the economies as well as to provide funds for the German war effort. Although the prisoners working on the counterfeiting operation are treated comparatively well, with soft beds, music records and even a ping-pong table, they can hear the atrocities being perpetrated behind the high wall which seperates them from the rest of the camp. They are faced with the dilemma that if they do good work, then they are helping their enemies, whereas if they don't do good work, they will be killed. It's a very good film, but very dark. After the film Michele and I went and had a quick drink and a chat before heading on our seperate ways.

Back home I saw the film Screamers, directed by Christian Duguay, and based on a short story called "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick. The film is set in the year 2078 on the planet Sirius 6B, which has been completely devestated by a war between the New Economic Bloc (NEB) and the Alliance over the mining of an extremely rare and valuable mineral. However by now the war has been reduced to just small pockets of military forces wearily struggling to survive. One of the Alliance commanders, realising that they have been more or less abandoned and the war forgotten, decides to set out over the planet's wastelands and ruined cities to make peace with the NEB forces. However, the main danger comes from the Alliances's army of small, underground, blade-wielding robots (nicknamed "Screamers" due to the noise they make when they attack). He soon realises however that the Screamers have upgraded and there are new types virtually indistinguishable from humans. The film wasn't very good, being more or less a typical, low-budget action film, with special-effects ranging from quite good to quite bad.
I also watched a TV version of Dracula, which was first shown last Christmas. It wasn't bad and certainly looked very good, but the novel had been completely altered.

Today I went over to my parent's house for lunch, as usual for a Sunday. We had chunks of chicken and carrots in white wine sauce with peas and a baked potato. The new issues of Fortean Times and Sight and Sound had arrived. Also my mum had got me the book of Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris, which she got very cheap with The Times. It was a nice afternoon.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-20T15:02:00

2007-10-20T14:08:56Z

Last night I was having a terrible time updating my computer, which seemed to be having some trouble, but, fingers crossed, it seems to be okay now, but it took a few hours!

Today has been pretty quiet so far. I went to the post office to post a letter, however when I got there, it must have shut early, because it was closed up. I was actually quite annoyed at that.

After that I went to the supermarket and got my groceries for the week and then came home. I had a message from Michele, and I should be meeting up with her this evening at the Cineworld cinema to see a film called The Counterfeiters.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-19T23:53:00

2007-10-19T23:06:18Z

I went to the New Yorker bar after work today with Joe and Jackie. I had two pints of beer and a pint of cider. Joe and Jackie stayed out, but I went home. I might be going to the movies with Michele tomorrow but I don't know because she hasn't replied to my message. If I knew for certain that I wasn't going to be seeing her tomorrow I would have stayed out with Joe and Jackie, but I didn't want to get drunk or spend too much money, if I was going to be out tomorrow.

One good thing is I have a ticket for David Lynch next Friday. So that should be very good!

breakon87 @ 2007-10-18T19:32:00

2007-10-18T19:31:21Z

It's been another pretty quiet day, more or less the same as usual. I didn't go out after work at all and came straight home. I'll be glad when it's the weekend, actually, because in many ways it has been a very dull week.

Next week does promise to be quite interesting, because on Tuesday I am going to the theatre with my parents to see a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream (perfect for the middle of October), it should be good though, and a week tomorrow, hopefully, if I can get a ticket, I should be seeing film-maker David Lynch on stage along side sixties folk singer Donovan

breakon87 @ 2007-10-17T22:25:00

2007-10-17T21:37:03Z

It was yet another dull day at work, as usual. Afterwards I went along to the New Yorker bar with Joe and Jackie to watch football (soccer). It was Scotland versus Georgia, and Scotland lost two to nothing. I've not actually watched any football for over ten years, but I was trying to interest myself in it a bit. I live very close to a large stadium, so I thought it might actually be in my interests. It was quite good (even if the results of the match were very disappointing). I had a few drinks as well while I was there.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-16T23:47:00

2007-10-16T23:03:22Z

Tonight I finished reading The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

It's a very slim (150 pages) collection of short stories, that are kind of retellings of classic fairy tales, such as Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, as well as stories about vampires and werewolves. However, all the violence and sexuality which are hinted at in the original stories are the main theme here, and given a strong feminist slant. In fact the main linking themes throughout the stories are sex and transformation. The stories are very beautifully written and range from Gothic horror, comedy, to complete surrealism, with holes in snow filled with blood and flowers with biting teeth. One of the stories was turned into a film Company of Wolves, directed by Neil Jordan, which is a film that I like a lot and I've seen it a number of times. If you have any interest in horror or fantasy, or very macabre fairy tales, it's well worth checking out.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-16T19:10:00

2007-10-16T18:39:18Z

Today was another pretty quiet and pretty dull day at work. I didn't go out after work today, but just went straight back home. There's never really much to say about work because it is more or less the same thing day after day. One thing that I will definitely have to do sometime next year is to go somewhere on holiday. I've not really been anywhere on holiday for a few years.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-15T22:56:00

2007-10-15T22:11:42Z

Today I finished reading the book Kingdom Come by J. G. Ballard.

The story revolves around 42 year old, divorced, recently fired advertising executive Richard Pearson, who lives in London and whose father was jsut killed in an apparently random shooting in the new Metro-Centre shopping mall in the town of Brooklands on the outskirts of London. The prime suspect, a discontented, eccentric loner, is arrested, but quickly released on the evidence of the local 'pillars of the community'. Pearson becomes consumed with discovering the truth, but soon discovers that Brooklands, with it's glittering shopping mall and militant sports clubs, has some very dangerous secrets to hide.

The book revisits typical Ballard themes, most notably the potential for extreme violence and insanity that hides just behind the comfortable facade of English middle class life. in his world boredom, and not money, is the root of all evil. The book is beautifully written with plenty of the Ballard's trademark dark humour, and dazzling writing. The story is also an involving mystery, although the plot is often slowed down by Ballard's habit of having the characters discuss his philosophical theories.

It was another extremely dull day at work, with the usual trivial diversions. For instance someone said that she thought the abbreviation "GSOH" (Good Sense Of Humour) in personal adverts stood for "Gas Central Heating".

After work I went for a quick drink with my friend Joe, which of course soon turned into four pints.

breakon87 @ 2007-10-14T18:24:00

2007-10-14T17:47:44Z

Last night was fairly quiet. I spent most of the time watching a bunch of episodes of 24 on DVD.

My mum came around quite early this morning and we wnet along to the Vue Cinema at Ocean Terminal to see the film Stardust, directed by Matthew Vaughn, and based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. The film opens in Victorian England, in a small town called Wall which is named after the long stone wall which seperates the country from a fantasy world called Stormhold. The story centres around a young man who crosses the wall to find a fallen star and bring it to the girl he loves, but who isn't bothered about him. He finds that the "star" is actually a woman, but he determines to take her to his girlfriend, in return for helping her return to the sky. However, a trio of evil witches want to find the star so they can kille her and thus restore their youth and beauty. There are also three princes who are each searching for the star, because she has a necklace which will allow one of them to become king. The film is hugely entertaining and very amusing in places. It stars Charlie Cox as the hero, Sienna Miller as the girl he loves, Claire Danes as the fallen star, Michelle Pfeiffer as a witch, Robert De Niro as a pirate captain and Ricky Gervais as a trader.

After the film we stopped at the cafe at Marks and Spencer and I had a cheese scone and a mocha coffee. Then we went back to my parent's house and had lunch (meatballs and pasta, in a pasta sauce with melted cheese).

breakon87 @ 2007-10-13T14:52:00

2007-10-13T14:17:22Z

Last night I was watching A Scanner Darkly on DVD. The film was directed by Richard Linklater and based on a novel by Philip K. Dick. The film is set about seven years in the future in Anaheim, California, by which time about twenty percent of the US population have become addicted to a new drug called 'Substance D', the side effects of which include paranoia and hallucinations. The story involves a police narcotics officer (Keanu Reeves) who goes undercover to infiltrate a group of addicts. However, not even his superiors know his real identity (they all wear disguises when they communicate with him) and he ends up being ordered to spy on himself. This, as well as his increasing consumption of the highly addictive Substance D (one character comments: "You're either addicted to Substance D, or you haven't tried it.") brings on a severe identity crisis. The film also stars Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder. It's made using a technique called Rotoscope, whereby the movie was filmed in conventional live action and then animated over that, which creates quite a disorientating effect. It was previously used by Linklater in his bizarre film Waking Life. It is a very interesting film, and probably one of the best Philip K. Dick adaptations to date, or at least one of the most faithful.

Today has been fairly quiet. I went out to get my groceries for the coming week, but the rest of the day, I'm planning on just staying in, really.