Doing it for the cause!

I don’t know if it’s working or broke, but it made my giggle.

Hi, how are you today?

So many things I should have written about but I’m not going to go into too much detail here. They’re past and now is now. I’ll summarise a few things in the hope that simply logging in and writing will get me back into some kind of rhythm.

I went down to Nottingham to help out with the Survival of the Fittest race. It was a cracking good day’s work during which I sent a few thousand people through a very mucky drainage pipe. It was a bit of an epic getting home. Left N’ham at three and made it home not long before midnight. Luckily I had plenty of Answer Me This to listen to.

The following week Pyro & I ran the same race in Edinburgh. It was fun. Running after a night of curry and beer isn’t such a great idea though. I’ve written a race report for Sleepmonsters but it hasn’t appeared yet.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Frank Turner in concert and it was amazing. An awesome ninety minute sing-along of show and supported by Fake Problems! Double result. I only saw about half of Fake Problems’ set, but I did pick up their last two albums on vinyl afterwards along with a couple of 7s. How Far Our Bodies Go is currently spinning on the rather lovely Systemdek iix I’ve taken delivery of from Dave at work.

We had a Zombie Club pow-wow and a couple of the others are up for trying a podcast. Should be a good laugh. Lots of plans for EZC and the new year.

Saw Dawn… and Day of the Dead at the Cameo last night. Two wonderful presentations with some interesting Q&As as well. Meant I was fucking knackered when I got up today though and so didn’t take the car to work to pick up the turntable. Really wish I had cos lugging ten kilos of large, cumbersome hifi equipment home on public transport was painful. I reckon it’ll be a day or so before my arms move back into their sockets. It does, however, sound awesome. Needs some alterations but nothing major. Better shielded cables as the media centre plays havoc with it.

My piece of paper tells me there are six movies I haven’t noted down yet. I’ll probably do a post of everything and limit myself to a hundred words per film.

Hurt Locker

I am so very glad I went to the cinema to see this film. I’m normally sceptical these days about any film that people say has to be seen on the big screen. All too often I feel that’s a way of saying “this film is dumb as a bag of hammers so you have to be distracted by the spectacle of it”. Not so with The Hurt Locker, this is a film you should see on the big scren so that you can’t be distracted while watching it.

Possibly I shouldn’t have watched this so soon after listening to Mark Kermode’s review as it definitely coloured my opinion, but I agree with him on so many levels about this film that it doesn’t really matter.

This is a great, great film but it is not a film about the Iraq war. There are no great insights into combat or the soldier’s feelings about the war. It is, instead, a film about men and the macho, posturing, buddy relationships between those men. The story is propelled forward by the introduction of a new officer in the bomb disposal unit who is more gung-ho than the officer he’s replacing, putting the troops under him on edge.

I really can’t recommend this film highly enough, the time flew by and I left feeling completely satisfied with that I’d seen.

Strange Days

On loan from Jack, and in anticipation of her upcoming film Hurt Locker, I recently watched Strange Days. It’s a film I’ve been aware of since it came out but just never got around to watching. It’s certainly got a good pedigree so it should be a cracking film, right?

Well, it’s okay, but it’s been a while now since I actually sat down to it and I can’t remember all that much about it. What I do remember is feeling that it was distinctly average. The film has a “millenium fever” feel to it where serves to date it badly. It also has a number of actors who I’m not particularly fond of for one reason or another. And it’s long.

Ach, it was alright, and I can see myself sitting down to watch it again based on the fact it’s a Kathryn Bigelow film but it won’t be for a while yet.

L’appartement

One of the reasons I started a LoveFilm account was to start working through all those foreign language or plain arty films that I hadn’t gotten around to picking up. One of these is L’appartement which I’m not ashamed to say I was initially drawn to due the presence of Monica Bellucci. Add to that her husband-to-be Vincent Cassel and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get a run of the mill romance.

Cassel plays Max, a businessman on his way to Tokyo to close a major deal. He’s engaged and seemingly settled in his life. That is until he catches sight of Lisa, the love of his life, in a cafe. Max ditches the business trip to hunt Lisa through the streets of Paris to the apartment that she lives in. Through flashbacks to their earlier life together we get to know what happened to their relationship, to the people around them, the mistakes they made and what they missed.

I’m no expert on romantic cinema by any manner of means, but this is certainly a very interesting entry to the genre. What makes it more interesting the farcical nature of it at times as the two leads play an unwitting game of cat and mouse, not knowing where the other is. Both are superb, bringing an eminently believable chemistry to the screen. It’s not hard to believe they were married just a few years later.

I can definitely see myself picking this one up next time I see it in a sale.

Another Epic

The first thing I was going to do here was link to the post about last year’s epic bike journey but apparently I didn’t write one. So, instead, you’ll have to make do with pictures from the event. This year we headed to Fort William for a 43 mile round trip which was along terrain a lot rougher than I expected.

We set off a bit late and weren’t properly underway until 10:30 but we made reasonable time through the woods around Nevis Range though the innacurate Explorer map didn’t help. Some resurveying needs done there. In fact, all the way up the Lairig it was fine and not even all that steep (all hail SPDs). Though I did manage to bounce my balls off my saddle once or twice, as my expression will attest;

However the weather held and we were soon at the bothy which heralded the start of the last major climb.

And here’s where the rot set in for me. The climb from there was a horrible, rocky, muddy path that was ridable in places. The downhill on the other side wasn’t much better. By the time we made it to the river cross I wasn’t in a great mood and feeling resigned to the fact it was going to be a long slog back along the old military road.

This was only about halfway round so the prospect of another several hours of bouncing around off pram-sized boulders didn’t exactly fill me with joy. Tim and Sandy, top blokes that they are, left me to stew at the back which is exactly the thing to do with me; never get far enough ahead that I think “where the fuck are they?”, don’t stop so often that I think “patronising gits!” and don’t try and and cheer me up. I’m happy on my tod working through bad thoughts in my head.

However, after a couple more hours it was clear we were all getting very tired. I look pretty wasted here and Tim’s struggling to keep the camera steady.

I never felt as tired as this as I did on the last epic, but we had the weather on our side this time. I think this was about the point where I donated my emergency gel to Tim to get him back up and running and we pushed on. By this point it was starting to get a bit dark and I was the only one with lights. I think it’s fair to say that I disagree with the others on the idea of going out for a ride without illumination.

On the last push I was tired enough to just forget about the brakes and go hell for leather down the forestry track back to the b-road and home. I probably hit speeds I wouldn’t normally get to when I’m more awake.

A good day out though I do prefer ground that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve been a few rounds with a professional boxer.

All the photos are Tim’s, except the last one which is Sandy’s.

Uh uh uh uh

I wrote this post some while back after seeing the film in the internet. I was hoping it would get a DVD release at least but, sadly, it looks to be languishing in touring with few screenings. Anyway, without further ado –

No, I’m not reviewing a porn film, at least, not directly. Instead it’s a documentary called 9 to 5: Days In Porn. The last documentary film I watched on this subject was Sex: The Annabel Chong Story which I cannot recommend highly enough if you want to be thoroughly and utterly depressed.

9to5 is not so focused on one individual, preferring to take a slightly broader look at some of the people in the adult entertainment business who treat it as just that, a business, and have chosen to make their living from it. Some have taken to it as a career, some a way to earn a bit of extra cash quickly and some see it as a stepping stone to bigger things.

The director treats the subject matter as his subjects do; as a way to make a living. There’s little in the way of salaciousness on display, the documentary camera preferring to hang back and observe what’s happening on the periphery as well as the main stage. At the end of the day he manages to make the erotic industry thoroughly unerotic as video shoots are shown to be stop/start affairs where the performers look bored between takes, lounge at bars, chat on the phone, drink beer and wait for the paycheck.

The documentary follows a number of people in the industry; performers, directors, agents and health care staff. All of these people are given free reign to speak their mind and there doesn’t seem to be any manipulation to play up anyone as a hero or villain. Some come across better than others but this is probably as much a product of the viewer’s own prejudices rather than anything else. There are a couple of participants who appear unsure of their motives for being in the business (aside from money) and tellingly, it is these who seem to have left the industry when the credits roll. We also learn that one “is better” which is a relief. We never know what is wrong but there’s an undercurrent through the feature.

This is a very interesting and entertaining documentary, but one that will probably be heavily censored if it ever surfaces on a UK DVD. That would be a shame as it would undermine the tone of the piece that this is an industry populated by willing participants. Recommended.

Wan Dae in the Pentlands

Ah, what a sodding great Saturday that was. My first solo multi-sport event (yes, hard to believe I’ve been dancing around the edges of this sport for so long without entering many events) and I’d stepped up from the five hour to the eight hour due to be being called a wimp. sigh.

So I decided to do the run first and set off into the Pentlands wearing my unused Mud Claws (they’re great). The first activity I reached was a crawl through a pipe which was so bad as it was clean. From there we set off straight up the side of the hill to checkpoints two and three. From there, the rot set in. I set off to try and grab a couple of the outliers but made an amazing navigational cock-up and missed both of them netting myself a massive 51 minute split between points so early on in the day.

After that I headed back to the bike in the hope of making it to the kayak stage in time. I didn’t. Again, shite route choice saw my pushing my bike up a muddy hill. Then it was three checkpoints in a row and I started to feel better. I definitely felt better when I rolled up to a checkpoint to be greeted by a marshal who recognised me and declared that was followed would be revenge for all the pain I’d inflicted as a marshal. It made me smile and luckily it was an easy checkpoint.

After that, I just kept pedalling and went for a couple of outliers on the bike with much more success than the running. After finding my last checkpoint, I was painfully getting myself up the hill when Gary rolled over the summit and started snapping pictures. I’m sure they’ll look great! Actually, I can’t wait to see them.

From there it was an easy ride home, part of which involved a sketchy descent that I’d wimped out on last year with Sandy and Tim. This time I flew down it without thinking too much about it. Result!

Last time I made that descent though, I managed to severly bruise my tailbone riding over the bumpy grass at the foot of it which saw me being pretty much unable to walk properly for a few days. This time I saw the dip coming, but only at the last minute. This time by front wheel stopped dead and the bike and I went for a somersault. Pain. Yay for helmets. Just a few hundred metres to home though so it was easy to pick myself up and carry on to the bottom.

Next time I’ll make better nav decisions as well as choosing what order to do the sections in. However, fucking awesome day out.

Reason #1

I think today is a good example of exactly why I finally got around to learning to drive. I set off this morning for Perth, picked up my Dad and then we headed further north to Glen Shee to climb four Munros. Not much in and of itself, but we’ve done that more in the last few months than we’ve probably managed in the last few years. As we stood enjoying the view at one point it really struck me that that was why I’d done it.

We made an amusing navigational error quite early on in the day. After cresting the first summit we decided that we should definitely take a bearing and walk on it since the cloud had enveloped us. This would have been fine if we’d bothered to stop and do it properly but no, we lined ourselves up once and set off. We wandered through bog and peat until we decided that should probably find out where we were. Out came the GPS which gave us a grid ref but since it didn’t match were we had planned to be we discounted it as faulty. Much checking of the map and airy-fairy “we must be around here” later, we decided the GPS was most likely right, set out South and lo, came to a recognisable point which was a fair bit off where we’d intended. No matter, we just reorganised which order we’d visit the summits in and set off again.

Plus points for the day; taking a stove up the hill is a brilliant idea and one I’ll repeat many times.

Bad points; my new Montane Featherlite is shit. It works well as a windproof but there’s so much fabric involved it flaps and inflates, making a racket in the process. That’s probably going to get ebayed and I’ll pick up a GT instead.

Too Soon

I think it’s fair to say I was rather upset yesterday morning when I went into Scotmid for some breakfast. There, by the door, were selection boxes. Christmas fucking selection boxes. We’re not even halfway through September and there are Christmas related goods in the shops. I can tell this is going to be a long seasonal malaise.