The Weekend That Was
We popped up to Oxford by Oxford Tube bus on Saturday to meet some friends for lunch at a place called Atomic Pizza.
Atomic Pizza comes highly recommended. We ate and ate and ate and laughed and chatted. And we commented on the decor and chatted to the owner who was wearing a t-shirt with the Inigo Montoya speech:
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
It was perfect, we loved it. We also gave him some more sterling quotes including the one from Dodgeball: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Oh Patches, if there were more coaches like you, I think the world of sports would be a far better place.
Anyway, apart from meeting up with Kate and Rob and their respective partners at Atomic Pizza I got to spend time with my friend and fellow UV longlister, Jo. We spoke about our terror and joy and worry about the next few weeks, leading up the the announcement of the final 12 for Undiscovered Voices. We tried reasoning out our fear and joy and guilt and what to do next, whilst waiting.
Jo wrote this fab article for Notes from the Slushpile - http://notesfromtheslushpile.blogspot.com/2011/11/undiscovered-voices-2012-long-list.html - and got loads of us to give quotes and things.
I fully suspect that none of the comments quite showed the fear we felt both on the day and for the next few weeks. But also excitement.
Anyway. It was great to chat to Jo and soon after we all headed back home. Mark and I talked about moving to Oxford - we love the place. It is pretty and not that far from London to make it impossible. Commuting by tube would also make life easier - it would mean a lot of reading / writing time…but then I realised exactly what time I would have to be up and what time I would get home, what with my mental hours I work anyway…and well, let’s just say, that thought was put on the back burner.
We met with our matey Sue Hyams yesterday morning - she popped by for some coffee and to raid the bookshelves. There was a lot to raid. She went away with two bags stuffed full of books. Yay! I hope she enjoys what I pressed on her.
Stake Land
Sunday really was a lazy day - we had chai tea in Beckenham, did some shopping and came home and ended up watching Stake Land.
It has to be one of the best vampire movies I have ever seen. Sparse, scary, great scripting and most of all, interesting and intriguing characters. It’s a slow burner with a great ending that I loved. I’m sad that so few people will bother picking it up as it has no one famous in it, apart from Kelly McGillis who is as far from pretty (think Top Gun) as you can find. However, her character is a minor one, yet one that propels the plot along very nicely.
Saturday night, after getting home from Oxford I sat down and wrote an exploratory chapter for a new book. I like it. As an acquaintance of mine is fond of saying when an idea works: it has legs. Or rather, I hope it does!
These images have just come through from Pixar about their movie BRAVE that hits our screen in August next year. They look fabulous:
I cannot wait to see it. Strong female main character that goes on a hero’s quest? Sign me up! Also: red hair!
Mirrored from Liz De Jager.