Day trippin’

Sunday - land in Blighty, then go to a barbecue, then stay at sister’s. Monday - go to Cornwall, stay over in a (shitty) Travelodge, do some Devon on Tuesday, then kip at other sister’s. Wednesday - go to Granny Weatherwax’s for’t night, back to sister’s Thursday long enough for a change clothes and pick up another one before going on to Blackpool. Stay over in another really shitty Travelodge, do the beachfront, buy the tat, get rained on, tits near frozen off, then jump in the car and make it to London. Get changed, get to the Wyndham Theatre in Leicester Square to watch Catherine Tate and David Tennant in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, *, have a bloody good time, have your sister flag down the only taxi in London that has a nice cabbie, get back to the Premier Inn (not shitty at all), open your MacBook Air and start typing - with a mojito in one hand and the other one over my ear. Yeah yeah, I know - maybe I just have three hands.

* Further to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, I have to say it was ace - they managed to get much more visual humour into it than the script called for, but I could see ol’ Bill approving of such visual gags and cheap stunts to make the play go faster. For the people who actually understood the English, it was bloody funny (especially the bloke who played the Captain of the Watch); for those who struggled, there was the silent fun of watching David Tennant and Catherine Tate go through their roles with fun, gusto, and obvious enjoyment. By the way they were grinning as they bowed at the end, I’d say every single person in that production was laughing their bloody socks off on the inside.

Actually, the holiday as a whole has been a lot of fun. Unimaginable amounts of hilarity and relaxation have ensued (both separately and together), and Blighty has been much easier on the soul this time than the last - mainly due to’t fact that it’s now May and not bloody freezing December.

So it’s now Sunday night and I’ve booked in for my return flight via Cathay. Such nice chaps and ladies (“laydeeez!”). Except for the fact that, during my flight here, they woke me up for food. Woke me up! I know! You’re sitting there right now, throwing your hands up in the air and exclaiming: “Woke you up, you say! Bloody hell-fire! How dare they!” etc. However, it were a good job they did, cos I was proper starving. Anyway, I’m hoping for an ok flight back - the usual twelve-to-fourteen hours int air, coupled with me trying to stay asleep long enough to avoid the crying children and wandering adults. At least I have my iPhone (and iPod function) to keep me comfortably numb.

And so to Sunday: Doctor bloody Who exhibitions in Olympia 2, car journeys, spot-the-wanker-driver competitions, etc. Fun, fun, fun - in the sun, sun, sun - especially as I’ve now amassed a total of four new tea mugs for my cupboard for when I return home (Details to follow. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you).


And here we are: Sunday night - telly, vodka, all those good things. After a movie and some amusement, I have to say I’ve enjoyed both Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson in ‘How To Train Your Dragon’, and copious amounts of vodka. I liked the movie; I laughed, I pointed, I enjoyed guessing the voices. I have two quibbles; one, that the dragon in question, ‘Toothless’, was just a pet and not a friend, and two, that the mighty David Tennant was so criminally under-used. I was greatly amused by the fact that the ‘elders’ (i.e., people who know better; the stronger, harder, much-feared and much-revered ones) sported Scottish voices, whilst the noobs, annoying oiks and kids who needed training had American ones. Nice.


Anyway, a good time was had by all, and the accompanying pizza weren’t bad, neither.


Think that’s about it. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

Tags:
holiday ~ Doctor Who ~ Shakespeare ~ David Tennant

You can never go home again

Well, you can. Of course you can. But it’s never the same. I got on a plane and came back to Blighty for a bit - birthdays of relatives, break from the routine, the whole job-lot - and while everything’s the same, it isn’t.

Cornwall. Never been to Cornwall before. Went yesterday and stayed over. It was alright. A lot of fun on the road trip to get there - and the associated places of interest, both near and far-flung. Corfe Castle and the surrounding village still looks like a place I could live for a bit. Car number plates (the ‘new’ ones) - still can’t get my head round them. I’ve decided to consign that whole mess to the ‘doesn’t matter whether I get it or not, so just accept it and move on’ bin. Oh yes.

Caught the sun today - yay! Real, actual, direct sunshine turning my face a different colour. Bloody hell, I’ve missed that. Not that Hong Kong isn’t bright - it just isn’t the same. Green fields, trees, sheep - horses - horses - and shitloads of stuff that I’d forgotten about. Sometimes, moving back to England wouldn’t be so bad. And sometimes it would.

Caught up with Doctor bloody Who and all that that means. And a place in the winter, for dignity. Or not - as it seems The God Who Is Stephen Moffat kind of let me down a bit with his season six opening two-parter. Not saying it was bad - it just wasn’t as explained or fleshed-out as much as it could have been.

That’s about it - just to let the masses know that reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated and I will be back to blog more as soon as I know what day I’m on. Time’s different on different continents, dontchaknow - and I can never keep up. It’s ok, though. It’s all wibbly-wobbly.


Soopytwist.

Supernatural 6x20: Wait, whut?

Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Supernatural season six spoilers are contained in the following post!


You know the story about the bloke who is drowning? A second bloke comes up to him in a boat and he says: ‘Do you need help?’ And the bloke goes: ‘No, it’s ok, God will save me’. So he’s still there in the water and then another bloke comes along with another boat, and he says the same thing: ‘Do you need help?’ And again the bloke says: ‘No, it’s ok, God will save me’. This happens a third time, and eventually, the bloke drowns. He goes up to Heaven, he sees Saint Peter on the Pearly gates, and he says: ‘Excuse me, but where was God? He said he would save me, he said he would look after me.’ And Saint Peter says: ‘Well what did you want? He sent three boats!’

This was the feeling I had when I was watching the latest Supernatural episode, The Man Who Would Be King. It was a really good episode, and I liked that they were brave enough to do an entire episode seemingly from Castiel’s point of view. It’s not very often that a show has the time and ability to give you the bug’s eye view, but this episode was very well done, and very well shot - especially the moments where Castiel is eavesdropping, totally invisible to people in his line of sight. There were lots of the usual lovely dark smouldering profile shots (yes Jensen Ackles, I am talking to you), and there were some very very nice touches (‘If there were a demon version of Bobby Singer, it would be Ellesworth’; cue lots of shots of a demon in a trucker cap giving people shit about dead bodies whilst bullshitting down the phone). In fact all of it was very well written - thank you Ben Edlund, again I bow to your script writing genius - and it was very well executed. So well executed, in fact, that you can appreciate Castiel’s predicament even as you side with Dean and want the two of them to understand why they’re butting heads.

But Castiel missed his boat sent by God; he didn’t listen to what he eavesdropped from Dean. That was his ‘message from God’, that was his wake-up call. He just didn’t hear it.

Considering that I have been bitching and moaning about how some of the episodes have been lacking recently, I really need to pass comment on how fucking good this episode was, and how it was a very welcome return to form. The episode before, where we see Eve finally get her comeuppance (and, I'm sorry, but how fucking badass was Dean, taking her out like that?), just goes to show that they are not going to be dragging out the story arcs over an entire season. There was the small matter of Sam’s dark and light broken chakram being put back together, which may well have been stretched out a lot longer under the previous management (no disrespect to the previous management. Don’t get me wrong; when season five finished, I thought the show was finished. Part of me thinks it still is). Then there was this whole Eve Mother arc, which I was very glad to see was not stretched out for the entire season. Now we have the entire finale set up in just the last three episodes. Normally, this is a little shaky and it’s not exactly the way you do things. However, season six has been all about throwing the rule book out of the window and dispensing with otherwise tiresome plot arcs quite quickly. This is the reason I am still watching it, even though I’ve not been happy with some of the episodes and how they’ve dragged their feet.

Using only the last three episodes to set up the finale is not as crazy as it sounds. In actual fact, they are drawing on the last five and a half seasons of history. Case in point: bringing back an old vampire friend, but because this is season six, she’s quickly dispatched by one of the new posse. And you know me: I love posse! (Yes, you knew that was coming!)

So, what do we have to look forward to? Obvious red herrings? Angels with their loyalties divided? Just for once, this will not be about tearing Sam and Dean asunder - and for that I am very fucking glad. That old chestnut was getting decidedly old, and it’s a brave new management than has decided to go with peripheral characters and how they can be put through the torture mill to tip their dominoes in Sam and Dean’s world. This episode should have played out as one of those Sam-and-Dean-lite stories, but in fact it worked really well as a 50-50. All we have left is two episodes shown back-to-back on USA TV, available for download in your area. At least, I really hope so.

If they hadn’t decided to have episode 20 this way, I don’t know if I would bother watching the last two episodes of the season. I know that’s sacrilege coming from someone like me who owns seasons one to five on DVD, has done a million episode LOLcaps, recaps, headlines, and has enjoyed the last few years of fanfiction excitement, both writing and reading, but it’s the absolute truth. As long as they continue to pull out brand-new plotlines, and save partial rehashes by subverting them, perhaps season seven may not be that bad.

*ducks rotten tomatoes*

What I mean to say is that it was all becoming much of a muchness, and I was bored with how it was going. However, the last few episodes have been solid, and there have been just enough good stories in the meantime to keep it ticking over. The good ol’ days of season two - and season three - it ain’t, but it does have its fair share of thrills and spills and wills. I will be watching the last two episodes, so I suppose I will be watching season seven when it finally airs.

So before I piss of any more of the Old Faithful, I’ll bring this to a close. A very satisfied close.

Soopytwist.

P.S. - THEY 'BROUGHT BACK' CROWLEY! For that alone, I will watch the finale.

Tags:
~ SPN ~ Supernatural ~ Jensen Ackles