Withnail & I (1987)
Told you I'd get to review a few more over the summer. Although as I start to type this, its is quarter to 8, or 25 minutes before the Olympic Opening Ceremony starts, so who knows when I'll get round to finishing it. I know all the cool kids are cynical about the Olympics, but I shall be watching the Opening Ceremony with pleasure because a) I am genuinely looking forward to it and b) one of my work friends is in it.
This week has been a good week. Mostly. Actually, what it mainly was was yesterday was damn fine, and the rest of the week was average to poor.
Yesterday was great. Got into work about 10 to 10, a little later than hoped for but not unreasonable. Did some work for about half an hour, then realised I had to submit some our project code for the internal release deadline at 11, so spent about 20 minutes merging code. At 11 we had a team brief that took almost an hour, then back to work again until 12.30, when we all knocked off early to go to a local pub for a company paid for BBQ for the afternoon. Lovely food. Lovely drinks (not provided) and an entirely pleasant afternoon sitting in the sun chatting with colleagues. I discovered that one guy has a Dalek cupboard in his house. No joke, when they were re-modelling, one of the specs they gave to the architect was it had to have room to house a Dalek. Which is kept almost entirely to surprise people as they exit the downstairs loo.
Then, just after 5, we went back across town in order to go to a different pub where a couple of guys were having their leaving do. I'm quite sad they are leaving, actually. We get on quite well and I would consider them work friends. They are part of the usual Friday pub lunch crew, so I've spent more social time with them than a lot of other people in my office. They were two of the... biggest characters in the office and they place will be quieter without them. They have been there for years and are well known and liked so there was a good turn out, including quite a few people who had previously left the company, which meant I got to meet an ex-employee who has become the stuff of myth and legend, and discovered he is exactly as described.
Anyway a couple of hours there, we wandered down to a nearby curry house where the guys who were leaving very kindly paid for us to have a very fine curry, and thence off to another pub for one last round before I finally got home around midnight.
So total tally for yesterday: Time doing actual coding: 1.5 hours. Time spent eating, drinking and generally relaxing with colleagues: 10.5 hours.
As I said. Damn fine.
Today was pretty meh in comparison, and the weather has been a lot more humid today, so I was quite glad it was over. Had a pretty decent driving lesson this evening but got rather hot and sticky doing so.
Oh, and on Monday I buggered my right knee. I occasionally get twinges in it, that are painful for a day or so. I've never quite worked out what sets it off, but it's been going on for 3 years or so. I have dubbed it (due to a slightly convoluted in joke) Sympathy Javert Knee. Anyway, Monday at choir, I was standing singing and something went twing. I can only imagine that I twisted it strangely somehow. It hurt a little more than normal, but I didn't think much of it. Anyway, it's Friday now and it's still hurting, so I'm going to the Doctors on Tuesday. Sod's law says that it'll be fine by then, of course.
And tomorrow, I am going to see Rock of Ages! I have an excite! I admit that going to London on the first Saturday of the Olympics was perhaps not my smartest move, but by golly am I looking forward to it!
And speaking of the theatre, I think I have convinced my mum to see Shakespeare by the power of ranting.
When I was home last I mentioned that I wanted to go and see Henry V at The Globe and was trying to find people to go with me. I was somewhat surprised when my mum said that she'd join me. Shakespeare is really not her thing. She'll go to the occasional musical, but she doesn't share my love of theatre.
What she has had, however is the... pleasure of being subjected to my rants on the subject of how I love Shakespeare and think it is a terrible shame that so many people are put off by school, and how if you just see it acted, you see it come alive and so on and so forth. And I think, I think I might have convinced her to give it a go.
Withnail & I (1987)
There are films that if you mention you haven't seen them, people looked at you as if you've personally insulted them. Withnail & I is one of them. I actually borrowed the DVD off a colleague and I've had it for an *aaaaaage* and finally got round to it. I liked it. It's not going on to my list of favourite films, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think perhaps I was not quite as in the mood for a meandering film as I thought as my attention did wander a bit in the middle. The thing that really struck me about the film was how *different* Richard E Grant and Paul McGann looked. I don't just mean they looked young, although they did, but they just look so *different*
And Paul McGann just doesn't suit short back and sides.
Although the thing that really really got to me about the film, having just completed a rewatch of Life on Mars, is that Danny, the stoner drug dealer dude, is played by Ralph Brown, who also played DCI Frank Morgan. Just think on that. I can't quite wrap my head around it.
So. Yes. I can see why it a perennial student favourite. Good film.
This week has been a good week. Mostly. Actually, what it mainly was was yesterday was damn fine, and the rest of the week was average to poor.
Yesterday was great. Got into work about 10 to 10, a little later than hoped for but not unreasonable. Did some work for about half an hour, then realised I had to submit some our project code for the internal release deadline at 11, so spent about 20 minutes merging code. At 11 we had a team brief that took almost an hour, then back to work again until 12.30, when we all knocked off early to go to a local pub for a company paid for BBQ for the afternoon. Lovely food. Lovely drinks (not provided) and an entirely pleasant afternoon sitting in the sun chatting with colleagues. I discovered that one guy has a Dalek cupboard in his house. No joke, when they were re-modelling, one of the specs they gave to the architect was it had to have room to house a Dalek. Which is kept almost entirely to surprise people as they exit the downstairs loo.
Then, just after 5, we went back across town in order to go to a different pub where a couple of guys were having their leaving do. I'm quite sad they are leaving, actually. We get on quite well and I would consider them work friends. They are part of the usual Friday pub lunch crew, so I've spent more social time with them than a lot of other people in my office. They were two of the... biggest characters in the office and they place will be quieter without them. They have been there for years and are well known and liked so there was a good turn out, including quite a few people who had previously left the company, which meant I got to meet an ex-employee who has become the stuff of myth and legend, and discovered he is exactly as described.
Anyway a couple of hours there, we wandered down to a nearby curry house where the guys who were leaving very kindly paid for us to have a very fine curry, and thence off to another pub for one last round before I finally got home around midnight.
So total tally for yesterday: Time doing actual coding: 1.5 hours. Time spent eating, drinking and generally relaxing with colleagues: 10.5 hours.
As I said. Damn fine.
Today was pretty meh in comparison, and the weather has been a lot more humid today, so I was quite glad it was over. Had a pretty decent driving lesson this evening but got rather hot and sticky doing so.
Oh, and on Monday I buggered my right knee. I occasionally get twinges in it, that are painful for a day or so. I've never quite worked out what sets it off, but it's been going on for 3 years or so. I have dubbed it (due to a slightly convoluted in joke) Sympathy Javert Knee. Anyway, Monday at choir, I was standing singing and something went twing. I can only imagine that I twisted it strangely somehow. It hurt a little more than normal, but I didn't think much of it. Anyway, it's Friday now and it's still hurting, so I'm going to the Doctors on Tuesday. Sod's law says that it'll be fine by then, of course.
And tomorrow, I am going to see Rock of Ages! I have an excite! I admit that going to London on the first Saturday of the Olympics was perhaps not my smartest move, but by golly am I looking forward to it!
And speaking of the theatre, I think I have convinced my mum to see Shakespeare by the power of ranting.
When I was home last I mentioned that I wanted to go and see Henry V at The Globe and was trying to find people to go with me. I was somewhat surprised when my mum said that she'd join me. Shakespeare is really not her thing. She'll go to the occasional musical, but she doesn't share my love of theatre.
What she has had, however is the... pleasure of being subjected to my rants on the subject of how I love Shakespeare and think it is a terrible shame that so many people are put off by school, and how if you just see it acted, you see it come alive and so on and so forth. And I think, I think I might have convinced her to give it a go.
Withnail & I (1987)
There are films that if you mention you haven't seen them, people looked at you as if you've personally insulted them. Withnail & I is one of them. I actually borrowed the DVD off a colleague and I've had it for an *aaaaaage* and finally got round to it. I liked it. It's not going on to my list of favourite films, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think perhaps I was not quite as in the mood for a meandering film as I thought as my attention did wander a bit in the middle. The thing that really struck me about the film was how *different* Richard E Grant and Paul McGann looked. I don't just mean they looked young, although they did, but they just look so *different*
And Paul McGann just doesn't suit short back and sides.
Although the thing that really really got to me about the film, having just completed a rewatch of Life on Mars, is that Danny, the stoner drug dealer dude, is played by Ralph Brown, who also played DCI Frank Morgan. Just think on that. I can't quite wrap my head around it.
So. Yes. I can see why it a perennial student favourite. Good film.