Picture show

I'm not often excited about the cinema. I like films a lot, but I'm usually just as happy watching them at home without all those Other People one has to deal with at the cinema. At home I usually get to chose my company and I like that. All the same there's something quite special about seeing a film at the cinema and when I do go I generally enjoy myself.

Tonight I went to meet some friends and see a screening of The Blues Brothers which I was excited about. It's one of those films I've been meaning to see for years and somehow never have. I remember my friend Kris back at school enthusing about it often in classes, at least as far back as 1991 I can distinctly remember listening to him talk about it, and thinking then that I should really see it. He talked about it the way I sometimes talk about The Yellow Submarine and, I suspect, had a similarly verbatim mental recording of it to mine of Submarine*. Somehow 18 years later I still haven't seen it in full, so I was quite excited about seeing it "properly" at the cinema with a good crowd of friends.

When I arrived Anita was already there, and the boards listed the showing we planned to see in the colour that means limited tickets are left. By the time Dave and Doug** arrived it had been sold out so long that they were announcing the fact over the tannoy so that people would stop queuing for it and getting disappointed. A minor difficulty of seeing films with my friends you see is that some of them go to the movies an awful lot, and so they have those unlimited cinema pass thingies, which are great except that you can't book in advance with them.

Happily another of the (rare) films I was actually excited about seeing was (unexpectedly) on, and that wasn't sold out so while everyone else went home to sulk (mostly lightheartedly) Liz and I went to see Moon and it was brilliant.

Afterward I walked back home through a largely empty and slightly damp city. Light drizzle happened just enough to be refreshing and picturesque without ever reaching the point where it made me irritated about getting wet. Instead it just added a sheen to everything so that lights and colours reflected in very engaging ways. I startled a small shrew or vole or something on the corner of Canning Street and slowed to watch the tiny shape bounce off ahead of me in springy leaps along the edge of a building for a few meters before it found a hole to dive into. I like that the nights are getting properly dark again...

I love walking through the city on nights like that when everything looks like the set of a really well shot car commercial: reflective and moody and suggestive of adventure in a way that feels like there should perhaps be a saxophone involved, certainly a well scored soundtrack (I was borrowing Solaris' this evening because it was that sort of night and because, unsurprisingly, it fit well with my post-Moon mood.)

I'm not sure if it's the being intensely visually stimulated for two hours and then tipped out into the night but I often find I'm more-than-usually aware of my surroundings after a good film, and to be fair, I'm pretty aware of them most of the time while I'm walking around***, I think that's one of the reasons Edinburgh's home: it's just so damned pretty all the time.

Bed time for happy Patricks.

*Lost original edit that is, not the DVD release which unsettles me enormously
**Doug having even dressed up for the occasion!
***Except for the parts that are people I know, which I more often than not miss completely

structure appeals to me

As does good photography. Which is why this makes me happy. Worth a look through them all, there are some really cool ones.

No fair teasing!

There keep being offstage thunderstorms. The sort where you can hear the heavy rain outside and occasional thunder but no real theatrics. It's very irritating: I love a good thunderstorm but you need to be able to enjoy them and these glancing edges we keep getting just aren't the thing.

c'mon universe, proper storm please! One I can go outside in and watch big bolts of lightning while I get soaked.

Ta.

weekends

... are somehow never long enough even when they last all week.

A confession (or a realisation)

So I've been watching The Wonder Years... For nostalgia's sake (not the intended nostalgia of course, I don't remember the 60s, but the 80s I remember very well and watching The Wonder Years when it was new I also remember... in the 80s)

That's not the confession.

The confession/realisation is that I have a huge crush on Kevin Arnold's Dad.

I know. I should hang my head in shame, but it's true! Not to mention a little bit disturbing.

vile

(with apologies to one very close friend who is most emphatically the exception proving this rule)

Good grief Oasis fans are an unpleasant bunch!

The mediocre Beatles impersonators are playing a concert at Murrayfield tonight and as a consequence the West End was heaving with loud, loutish, rude and unpleasant oiks as I came home from work. I mean I know I'm a bit of a snob and all but even so...

Happily though where I live is unaffected by the infestation... and speaking of infestations, anyone who's heard me utter the words Fungus Gnat recently (or encountered one of the little nostril-diving, plant-damaging horrors while visiting) might be interested to know that I caved in last week and rained down chemical-ey-death on the little buggers. The insecticide says I need to do a follow up dose 10-14 days on so I'm not counting my chickens yet but they seem to be gone. *crosses fingers*

What? a proper update? OK maybe this weekend.

Cake for Breakfast

We won at the pub quiz. Again. (3rd week in a row now) Go team! Pleasingly decisive this week too (a nine point lead if memory serves).

I like my new Monday night routine (even if I sometimes forget it's happening until after I leave the office). Since I moved from the west end the regular Thursday nights at the pub have kinda dried up - there are plenty of nice pubs near my new place but most of the people I'd want to go and hang out there with live a bit further away, so a regular night is less feasible than it used to be.

The Judge (where we quiz) is a bit of a hike for me (all uphill! though happily that means home is downhill after) but it's among my favourite of the city's pubs and the quiz is really fun (even when we're not on a winning streak).

Happy!

:)