Zombie Diaries 2

Last night I watched "World of the Dead: Zombie Diaries 2" via itunes. Why, well it was a 1 pound rent. It was one of those films where it is meant to look as though it was filmed on a camcorder. This was a fresh idea with the cloverfeld film

The thing that really made me mad was that at some stage they were in a safe compound. The zombies got in because someone had left the gate open. But the film never explained who opened the gate? Then there were some nasty torture scenes.

When I looked on Amazon I see that the reviews for the first Zombie Diaries film are mostly poor. Perhaps I should not watch any more films about zombies.

I still have to red the Jane Austin and zombie mash up I have on my kindle. I will not be well read unless I have read this.

dreams and kickboxing

I had a strange dream last week. I was with a friend looking for something -- but what? I was in a pub looking for what ever I wanted. I think it was a photograph of some kind.

Then I was in a pub. The landlady of the pub was someone I knew in Knutsford, when I was growing up and starting to succumb to demon that is drink. The pub had a Thai kick boxing demonstration.

What does it all mean? I have eaten two Thai dinners in the last week and unfortunately I have not had any further dreams of kickboxing.

Spinning elbow shots are cool!

kindle and walking

I love my kindle. I have nearly 100 books on it -- obviously I have not read them all! It is so small and compact. Soon there will be no problems with carrying the weight of books on trips.

Of course some people take their love of kindle too far. I assume that there is less of risk of street crime for kindles, than there is for smart phones, partly because I don't think that crooks are too keen on reading, but mostly because kindles need to be registered.

Casino Royal

When I was a teenager I used to collect the James Bond books by Ian Fleming from second hand shops. I am not sure why. I don't think I actually read that many of them. I was forced to sell them when we moved to the first of the ever smaller houses we used to live in.

The only story by Fleming I remember was a man who kidnapped a Gypsy women for some reason. He chained her somewhere and fed her red meat. When he unchained her, she didn't want to leave him. In the few times that I have an intimate conversation with a women, they often say "tell me what you are thinking." I am mostly think that it is not wise to tell them about the Fleming story.

Anyway a week ago I read "Casino Royal" by the Ian Fleming. The book has a certain power, even without knowing the prehistory of the films. I had forgotten about how big a viscous shit he was.

Mystery man

Last week I finished reading "Mystery Man" by by Bateman. THis was a amusing detective story set in Belfast. An owner of a bookshop -- who has some cute mental health issues and is a big coward solves some minor and one big crime.

Not that it mattter but it was a real physical book as wel.

Vinegar addict in Germany

I don't want to criticize German people but sometimes I find what they do a bit strange. Today I was in the queue at the Mensa to pay for my lunch. A student in front of me had two bowls of french fries and one bowl of raw carrots. He picked up a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar and poured it over the carrots only!

What the fuck I thought. I have noticed that I am the only person who puts vinegar on their french fries. I pour it on, point to it and say "lovely" in loud commanding English voice. I will introduce the joys of Anglo Saxon cuisine to this country.

Some time in Heidelberg

I have wanted to visit Heidelberg for a long time. Essentially I want to grow a big black mustache and get some dueling scars that women like. I payed more money than I normally do for a hotel, so that I was staying in the interesting bit. So since Darmstad is fairly close to Heidelberg, I thought it was time to visit. I took a slow local train so that I would have more time for reading my Parker book. I was expecting that Heidelberg was old fashioned but the view from the train station was the standard concrete that greets every visitor by train While I was waiting for the tram I saw a modern sculpture.

As I go I got off the tram and saw a Woolworths shop, and after some confusion I found the hotel. So Woolworths lives on in parts of Germany, I didn't buy any pick and mix sweets for old times sake. I didn't get to the hotel until about 5, so I didn't have much time to explore in the light. There is a huge main street that stretches for miles and miles. All the good bars were a long way from my hotel. There was a shop that sold many different types of absinthe, but I decided to buy any, because they were all expensive, but I wanted to buy a lot.

I went for meal in a Korean restaurant. The food was really great -- with 8 vegetable side dishes. As far as I could tell all the other people in the restaurant were Americans. Somehow Korean restaurant attracts Americans.

Sandman Slim

In the last couple of days I read Sandman Slim: A Novel: by Richard Kadrey. This was an urban fantasy book, that starts with a man coming back from Hell to seek revenge on the magicians who had sent him to hell and later killed his girl friend. Well I enjoyed it. Do I need to read the next novel in the series. Hell yeah.

A quick tour of Darmstadt

After the workshop at GSI I thought I would explore a couple of close by German cities. I walked from my hotel in Darmstadt to the railway station. It is a fairly long walk from the hotel to the railway station, but I missed a turn and I walked too far down a long road. My rucksack seemed heavy, but perhaps I was weak.

When I got to the railway station, I thought I would give Darmstadt a better look over. I left my rucksack in a coin operated locker in the railway station. It amazed me that such things still existed. In UK train stations there are no rubbish bins and it costs close to ten pounds to leave luggage in left luggage, because they want to Xray everything and market efficiency means that customers get ripped off. But enough complaints about the UK. There was a coin operated locker and I left my rucksack in it

I walked into the center of the city. My body got tired, but luckily I found a nice park. It was threatening rain, but I the bench seats were dry enough to sit on. I started reading "Point Blank" by Richard Stark. This was the basis of the great film: Point Blank

It started to rain so that stopped my reading. I walked around the city center a bit and had fries for lunch. I took the bus back to the railway station, where I worried that my rucksack had been stolen. At the station I took the train to Heidelberg.

I dream of clean windows....

I had a strange dream a couple of nights ago. I was talking to a woman and then we kissed. That felt good. She was a friend or the partner of a friend (sorry, but desire took me). However later I was in a shower with a naked man very close in front of me in a non-sexual way. The shower took a long time.

Last night I dreamed I found a good tool to clean windows. This made me happy.

According to Freud we should be able to learn something about me from my dreams. The dirty windows in my flat are starting to get me down a little bit. They spoil the view of the forest. On the inside of the windows there are the corpses of many dead flies. I did buy a tool from a Euro shop, but the window still ends up streaky. Perhaps I will have another go at cleaning the windows. I should listen to my dreams.

A visit to Darmstadt

This week I have been at a workshop at Darmstadt.

So what are my impression of the city? Well frankly not much. I stayed at the Ibis hotel, but got bussed to the conference site. In the evening I would work on my talk and then at 23:00, I would pop out for a few drinks. On the first night I went for a beer in the bar next door. I was lookingt at the drinks menu and noticed that with some horror that the first choice was some nasty brew called "Fosters". I tried to order Pilsner, but compromised on Newcastle Brown.

After the conference on Friday night, I watched the Germany Turkey football game in a bar. I was interested to see that most of the bar were supporting Turkey. In fact all the coffee drinkers cheered for Turkey, but the beer drinkers supported Germany.

China shakes the world

When over lunch or dinner the conversation turns to the future of the West, or lack there of, there is the specter of the East. As the West is driven down by our right wing politicians and so called business men, so China rises.

I have recently read "China shakes the world" by James Kynge. This is a very interesting book about modern China. It touches on corruption, and the worrying rise of nationalism.

On tomatoes and class

I am trying to change my eating habits so that the dreaded calories going into my mouth are reduced. To succeed in this I need to add more variety in my diet. So I have been slightly more "adventurous" in the food I buy in the supermarket.

So in the supermarket I saw a box of red shriveled things. So those must be "sun dried tomatoes", I speculated. Will I be able to eat them without turning into a middle class person I thought. Luckily the current Tory government is trying to destroy the middle class by their management of the economy. Cameron and Osborne will only stop when there are two classes CEO and hedge fund traders and everyone else working in Tesco. I didn't realize that Hugh Osborne was the MP for my home town Knutsford. Yeah what a surprise.

I sort of liked the sun dried tomatoes, but I still prefer the fresh kind.

11

I am a man of steady habits. I have cut chocolate out of most of my life, except for a bar of chocolate from a vending machine, close to my office, at 11:00. I could get the chocolate bar from the cafe in front of the vending machine and save 15 cents, but the chocolate from the machine is colder, and I like machines.

There is a great film called "the Repo man", that has a song that goes something like "when the shit hits the fan." One of the crazy characters, perhaps a scientist, has a long speech where he claims he only eats food from vending machine, because he likes the surprise that when he orders something, he might get something completely different. It was that kind of film.

I have been eating a twix (two double bars) at 11. There is now a white twix. Cunning;y they mix the white twixes in with the standard boring milk chocolate twixes in the same line. It is revolutionary! I never know whether I will get a magical white or boring milc chocolate twix from the vending machine -- it just depends on what is at the front of the rail. Sometimes I hang around the vending machine, waiting for someone else to come along and buy the milk chocolate so I can rush in and buy the white chocolate. It is like big game hunting, or like being in the secret police., when I stalk the vending machine.

I am easily pleased.

Smile or die

When I was young and unfortunate enough to live in a village in the south of England, a baker tried to make me smile more, by giving me sugary things. I am not a great smiler Smiling is a cultural thing as well. I remember an American radio program, where a person tried smiling at people in Paris. They were avoided as crazy people.

I have just finished reading "smile or die" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Barbara is an author with progressive politics (that is probably the worst bio she will ever get -- sorry). When she was close to 50, she got cancer. Luckily she recovered, but while she was taking chemical therapy, she found the world of positive thinking. There was a lot of pressure to think positive, however she was angry.

After this experience and when she got well again, she investigated the "positive thinking movement." I have read a number of positive thinking books. What I didn't realize was that the positive thinking movement is a very powerful way f brain washing people. For example the advantage of positive thinking for people with cancer is that they complain less to people around them. A similar situation occurs when a person loses their job. Companies are now using life coaches to tell people getting fired the challenge of finding a job is the best thing that could have append to them.

Barbara reviews the literature on whether positive thinking actually helps recovery from illness. It was not clear that it did help.

Now that you know that smiling and being positive is wrong, you are ready to listen to my worries.

On death and forests

I have been thinking a lot about death recently. Well once you get to certain age, death does seem to matter more. Especially as you start to lose friends and relatives. I am not getting too depressed about "the end", so that I just sit in a room drinking whisky, but ...

I was walking to work two days ago. I looked at the ground ans saw dead leaves. No, I screamed, all the trees are going to lose their leaves. I am going to sit on my balcony and stare out on a wasteland of empty trees. It is like waiting for the second coming. I will look out onto a road and see some allotments. Why do the trees have to lose their leaves?

Well some people may say that I should be enjoying the forest while the leaves are green. I should takes walks through it, trying to avoid the many dogs and dog shit. I should marvel as the leaves change color. Even when the leaves are gone, I only have to wait a few months, before they start to grow back. To these people I say "fuck you." I love the leaves and the forest. Why does it have to die every year?

This is what happens when you live in Germany. It is not enough that I have the daily challenge of finding a decent sausage, but I also worry about the forests.

1000th post

So dear readers my google account tells me that this is my thousandth post. I can feel your sense of excitement. What will he write about for this special occasion. Vague rumors may have reached you of me switching from Vodka to absinthe for light night cocktails, to pour green fire on my creativity. Strange stories tell of a man limping into many bars of Wuppertal, and saying in a loud voice "I will take a Gin Gimlet" and "has anyone seen my friend Terry."

Perhaps he will talk about special trip abroad. Some adventure in a foreign land, involving exotic fruit, veiled women, and some tassle with a taxi driver.

Maybe Craig will review this blog. He will try and make some sense of reallity through the prism of old blog posts. He might stress some lesson he has learnt.

Or perhaps he will review some special book, such as the Necronomicon, written by "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred. You will read with amazement, and then dread, as I rant on about "old ones", before I finally disintegrate into THE MADNESS OF CAPITAL LETTERS.

Suddenly I reveal the word hypnosis. My experiments with blog hypothesis have revealed the importance of the power word "tipple". When we meet again, I will say the power word. You will awake 2 hours latter, with your clothes in disarray, your money gone, but me smirking in front of you.

But as your eyes reach this part of the text, a sudden fear grips you. Could it be that Craig will write a post about "nothing at all". Sure it was funny when Seinfeld did a TV series about nothing, but the joke gets a bit dull after a while. I have read enough about literature to know that is more important to write about the process of writing and the difficulties of being an American teacher of creative writing, rather than anything as quaint and old fashioned as a story, or rational information.

So dear reader, I feel your pain and disappointment. (But I don't really care.) This post has been about nothing. And in your rage, you notice that the comments section is blocked. You will have to vent your frustration in the more traditional manner of going out and slapping someone.

Of course rather than writing a 1000 posts, I could have writen a 200 page novel instead. I could be looking at the reviews on Amazon of the kindle version: "a novel about nothing is not worth 20p." Still I would be cooler, and separate me from the twitter and facebook crowd.

Jeeves and me

I am often asked questions about the philosophy, history and culture of the Anglo Saxon world. A bit scary, because I know nothing about any of that. I do my best to wave the flag for the UK. People around me now know the importance of hating Manchester United and Etonians.

Currently the UK is being ruled by a bunch of ex-public school men. They are asset stripping the country. I want to put a horse whip to the dam blighters.

Why this sudden blast of posh, but weird threatening language? I have been reading a number of books P.J Wodehouse.

On holiday I read:

• Carry On, Jeeves,
• Very Good, Jeeves,
• The Inimitable Jeeves

I am sure I have read them all before. I also watch the old ITV series with Fry and Laurie. I recently purchased series 3 of that TV show. Also the BBC radio Iplayer is playing an old radio series of the stories by Bertie and friends.

I am not sure why I like the Jeeves stuff. I know nothing of their world. The upper class has declared "class war" on the rest of the country and are destroying it before they move to the US top work at a Hedge fund. So why then do I like reading and watching the exploits of a bunch of rich idiots running around?

They make me laugh anyway.

Doctor Who and the Daleks

I have never been so shocked by a book, before I had read: Doctor Who and the Daleks. This was the book of the first ever episode of Dr Who! What shocked me was that the Dr deliberately hid a piece of the Tardis, so he could explore the city of the Daleks. This was mean, and he looked even more stupid, when they all got radiation sickness.

Is this the same Dr, we have come to love and fear?

On bathing

The eternal question is shower or bath. There never seems to be enough time for a bath, although somehow there is always time to goof off and stare at the cartoons flickering on the TV.

I have not had a bath since I have been in Germany. It is such an effort. People used to say that a famous Archbishop in the middle ages was so clean that he took a bath twice yearly -- whether he needed it or not.

I do shower of course, but I suddenly noticed that the bottom of my legs looked a bit grimy. The idea of starting Sunday with a next hot bath grew and grew.

Well today, I thought, is bath day. I started the water and it flew into the bath. But it was not so hot. My past memories were of bathwater being so hot that it was almost scalding. It taking me 15 minutes to actually acclimatise my body to the sub-boiling liquid.

But sitting in tepid water is no challenge. My body is so stiff, that it was non-trivial for me to get in and sit in the bath. I did wonder whether I could get out. What a way to die - he starved to death in his bath, because he was too weak to get out.

My abdominal muscles have faded away, so I don't feel comfortable lying on my back, because I find it hard to breath. This was a problem when I was doing ground work in martial arts clubs. It make it hard to relax in the bath.

So after 5 minutes I got out of my tepid bath and dried myself down. I have scheduled my next bath for when I leave Germany. I am not looking forward to it.