Plymouth Surgery

This must have looked like a weird placeholder. I added the information to the wrong area. Still, it looks kind of cool. Of course people could use this information to hack into my medical records to see how the hole in my leg healed. 

2a Beaumont Road 
St. Judes 
Plymouth 
Devon 
PL4 9BH

Friary house surgery

The keep

While I sit at home trying to recover my long stay in hospital, I have watching the many films in my watchlist for netflix. Last night I watched a horror film called "the keep".  It was a mixture of Nazis and hidden monsters. The plot seemed a bit confusing, but it seemed to be a hard film to make.

Kung fu killer

While let me try to restart this blog. It is not as though many things have happened. I have been to Japan again. Also I have spent nearly three weeks in Hospital after a problem with my leg.

Still let us get my writing juices together, while my health improves. Last night I watched Kung fu killer starring Donnie Yen. It was an enjoyable film, based on different martial arts systems. As the reviews say, some of the plot was a bit confused.

There were some great fights though.

more dreams

My dreams last night involved a complicated crime drama with American high school students. OK, it was a little bit like ScoobyDoo, but with no dogs. Someone asked me about whether I was still going to gigs. How do my dreams follow my life?

dreams

Last night I went to the gym. After that I went to the Walkabout bar for a beer before I got the bus. I ordered a  pint of carling and a shot of absinthe. Unfortunately I didn't realise, but it was 2 for 1 on carling, so I ended up with 2 pints. I didn't wanted to stay, but since it was there. I left half of the second pint, when I went for the bus. The bus was 20 minutes late.

I didn't drink anything else when I got home. I had incredible dreams last night . There were secret societies, time travel, paranoia. I blame the absinthe.

Milk and drinking

With this week's order of shopping I bought a bottle of Tia Maria with two cartons of milk. There was Vodka in the freezer, so I thought I would try to make a White Russian cocktail. 
It tasted great, but I didn't get the separation of layers.

Below is what wikipedia claimed it should look like:

Perhaps I should try cream rather than milk?

Milky boozy Friday

I was sitting in the Nowhere pub in Plymouth on Friday after work. I had planned to go to the gym, but it was raining and my feet hurt in the new shoes I was wearing.  A guy came to the bar with a carton of milk and he ordered a drink. He hurriedly  stopped the bar maid as she tried to use the pubs own milk in his drink. I don't think he was drinking coffee or tea, so he was drinking some kind of basic cocktail. Ok, perhaps he has some milk allergy I thought, or perhaps he is trying to save some money, by using milk from the store. He paid with coins from a small plastic bag.

About 10 minutes later, he pulled out a plastic bag with a thick wad of tenners in it, which he counted
out onto the bar. At this point I had finished my pint and since the guy was freaking me out, I decided to leave.

The key issue is what he was drinking with the milk. It looks as though he was drinking a White Russian.

Black unicorn

I did recently manage to a read a book. Luckily the book was short:  Black Unicorn  by the recently deceased Tanith Lee.  This was a great book, about a young woman who can mend anything.  She mends the bones of a black unicorn and things go a bit crazy and colourful.

I don't really follow fantasy too much, so I only learned of her existence when she died.

Spring brings desire

So although it is windy in Plymouth, there is much less rain, so we can safely say that spring is here. I can also feel desire for the warm of a woman's touch growing. I was in the pub on Friday night with a beer and a chaser of whisky. The place was a lot fuller than normal. My eye was caught by a woman with a bag with "girl scientist" written on it. She was drinking a bottle of punk IPA. Notice that I am not one of those sexist Nobel prize winning scientists, because I just mention her personality rather than what she looks like. It would have been rude to try to start a conversation. Also I was wearing new trainers and my feet were on fire.

dreams

I dreamed a lot last night, mostly fueled by an alcohol free day. At one point a rat came out of his hole. I know I should be cleaning the floor more. There were some disturbing gaming/TV dreams where I was connected with a group of other people.  Perhaps even worse I was sitting in a living room with a couple and their child. They refused to accept their child was disabled. For some reason I thought the child was me.

A woman at a German hotel

Last week I was in Germany for a couple of days. Germany was the same as usual. I didn't realise how hard it was to get from Bonn from Bonn-Cologne airport by train. I should have got the bus.

When I walked into the breakfast room of my hotel. There was a woman siting with her back to me. She was eating her breakfast, staring out at the view of a Bonn road. She looked like a woman I was secretly in love with, but I have not seen for about 5 years. I could have broken the spell and waled around the room to stare at her, and say "hi, I wasn't expecting to see you here,", and we would make arrangements for drink later.

But it just seemed so unlikely that the woman was my secret desire and I had work to do, emails to write. I drank a quick coffee and shoveled some fruit salad into my screaming stomach. I left the hotel and walked to my meeting. I am too old for lust  to hold me for very long.

A burning cross scars my back, but no one cares.

I have been feeling pissed off by an  email about my teaching (or lack of). Last night I dreamed there was a burning building, perhaps a church.  I was rescuing people, although this does seem out of character. I was shouting orders. There was a huge iron cross outside the building and the heat had turned it red hot. The cross fell on me. I screamed with pain, even though it was quickly pulled off me. Somehow it fell on me again. Oh the pain.

I awoke in my bed, but in a confused state.

Streetfighter

Last night I finished watching "Streetfighter assassin's fist" . I enjoyed it, even though I don't know the game the film was based on. Two guys were training at a dojo and there was some mystical aspect to their training. The film was part in English and part in Japanese. But there was no subtitles for fairly long sections of the film.

It was a strange film, because it looked to be part of a miniseries. Now that I do a web search I see that is released as a web series first.

The martial arts was basic kick boxng with some meditation throw in.

The film streetfighter with Sonny Chiba is more interesting, because it seems based on old school Karate or Kenpo.

Friday night

Now that lectures are over, I can spend early evening on Friday at the Gym, followed by a few downtown beers. People are normally very polite in the gym, partly because when you see the amount of weight some of the people can lift and it makes you think that may be able to hit hard.
(This is probably not true, but strength is always good to have).

I drank my after gym beer and walked t the bus stop. Outside the walkabout bar, the door staff had stopped a drunk guy from going into the pub. He was trying to get the bouncer to shake his hand, the bouncer said "no mate."   The drunk guy through a very slow haymaker at the bouncer, but stopped it about 6 inches away. I walked on by. The guy was clearly all talk and most of the talk was from the ale.

Election blues

Another deeply depressing election. It is unbelievable that the conservatives are back in. So we are going to now get another New Labour leader for the Labour party. Any mild attempt at reform of the business sector is not allowed. I have just stopped listening to the news.

Still life goes on. It is very similar to 1992, when major got in.

The paper magician

The last couple of days I have been in Birmingham for a short break. While traveling I read "The Paper Magician",  by Charlie Holmberg. This was yet another fantasy novel. A youg woman is apprenticed to an expert in the magical folding of paper. The pacing of the novel seemed weird. She settled in for a couple of days,  before going on a big quest inside a dream sequence. She very quickly falls in love with her boss.

Dark city

For some time I have wanted to watch the film "Dark  City" . Trouble is I also dimly remember having watched it before. It was a great film if you are paranoid and scared of the thin veil of sleep. It was the changing of the buildings that freaked me out the most. Also the never ending night.

101000 messages from vodka

Two days OK I had a great idea for a story. A man is trapped inside his flat. His feet no longer work. He is a cripple with bloody stumps at the end of his legs. His only communication with the world, is via a vodka bottle. He keeps the vodka bottle in the icebox of the fridge. Sometimes the vodka is frozen and sometimes it is liquid. By opening the fridge every night, and checking the vodka, he sets up a binary communication system which allows him to talk to the dead. He gets angry with the solid vodka. He shakes and shakes the bottle, but nothing comes out. He puts another zero on the message pad.

Friday guilt .......

I went to the gym last night for the first time in 6 weeks. It felt good to work some weights. Afterwards I went for a beer in the Walkabout pub, followed by a beer in Noah's ark. It was kind of depressing. There were a bunch of old people staring at nothing in front of a pint. That was me of course too, but it is not much of a life.

On the other hand I have been at work all week, so a couple of pints is surely my due.

Master of Fiends

While travelling I managed to finish reading the fantasy novel "master of fiends" by Douglass Hill.
I had heard the tainted blade on the radio which is the first story featuring the characters in this book.
It was simply but cleverly written.

Bonn

I am sitting in a hotel room in Bonn Germany. I am at physics meeting. I have given my talk, so I am feeling relaxed. It has been very windy here. There was the most turbulence on the flight over from the UK, as I have experienced on a flight. I finally understood what the seat belt was for.

Germany seems the same as when I left it. They now have eye scanners to check the passport when you arrive. I didn't get arrested, because of my dispute with my ex-landlord, so perhaps I will visit again.

Political shame

I was sitting in my flat, just ideally digesting my lunch. The buzzer to the front door rang. I pressed the button and someone told me that there was a survey. I went to the front door. It turned out that the survey was for the Conservative party. I was so polite. I got confused by the paler shade of blue. He was an old guy, nice enough.

Did I really end the conversation with "Good luck" ?

Grr,  I am so weak.  What did I learn from reading all those Noam Chomsky novels?

Knight and Day

I watched the film Knight and Day this week, after having recorded it over a year ago. It was a fun light thriller with Tom Cruise as the superman CIA rogue agent.  I found Diaz's character kind of annoying.

Still a light level of violence, when you can't read, coz your brain is too fried.....

The Mexican

I was trying to think what kind of week I had. In my late night TV watching mode, I am slowly trying to watch all the films I saved on my digital recorder. I watched the Mexican, a film starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. It was a fun gangster film with a lot of twists and a bit of folk lore, but till not too intense.

There is a night club in my toilet.

I drink tea all day and finish the day with a beer or two. As a result I end up going to the toilet too much during the night, when I am trying to sleep. I have now installed a green/red light on the toilet seat, so that I don't have to switch the harsh white bathroom light on.
   I now feel I have a nightclub in my toilet.   This will freak out anyone, who is unlucky enough to stay with me. It also solves the lid up war between men and women, because if I put the lid down, the light may fall off. Sorted!

parallels

This week i watched the film parallels via netflix. It started a bit weekly, but then got going. It had a good cliff hanger at the end, but the film felt like the start of a long running series, than a stand alone film. It was also a bit strange that I couldn't find much information about the film, or any other episodes.  Anyway the above review explains a pilot got updated to a film. But will further episodes be made?

Time travel and primary school

There is a primary school on the route from my home to work. If I am such a lazy bum that I am not at my desk by 9:00 means that I walk through a crowd of parents dropping off their kids. Yesterday, I heard a little boy chant "I want a time machine/" Don't we all, I thought.

kill list

This week I watched the film "kill list".  This was a great  and very strange horror film.  The first part shows one of the guys with his family, but it was a strange familiy life. I liked the way he ate the stuff that cat brought him. He had a bad tempter, but he was a good father.

The second part was more violent, ok actually it was very violent. I am still haunted by the phrase "was that 20 minutes."

Parenting skils in the pub

I was drinking a beer in a pub close to the bus stop. A guy started to talk to his son on the phone. He was very loud. It looked as though he was divorced and he was arranging to pick his son up the next day and to take him to the park to ride his bike. But then he started telling the kid off. He asked where mummy was. The guy helpfully repeated what the kid said. His mum was in bed.

I went for a piss, but the guy followed me into the bathroom. He locked himself into a cubicle and continued the conversation.  He then asked the kid, whether he had sweets pills. He said he wasn't happy with the kids voice. He told the child to just drink water.

I then left the pub to catch my bus. I can't help feeling, that calling your son from a pub is a bit rude, when they are not old enough to have a pint as well.  I hope the kid was just on a sugar rush, rather than anything harder.

The Mystery Road

The BBC Iplayer was showing a great Australian film called "The Mystery Road". A single detective is trying to find who killed a young girl and dumped her into a pipe. The landscape of the film was amazing.

Divergent

This week I watched a film called Divergent. This was a film based on some kind of Teen novel. People are assigned into 5 different factions. A cute 16 year old joins the army/police faction. At first she is crap, but with some training , she gets better. The army/police faction like laughing and free climbing. You get into their base by falling onto a trampoline through a smashed hole in the floor.

Perhaps the science fiction aspects were a bit naive and the teen romance stuff was boring,
but I enjoyed the film.

Calvary

I watched the film Calvary from a streaming site.  What a great film! I just love the actor Brendan Glesson. Normally I am not a big fan of priests, but I liked this film. A priest is given a week, before he will be shot.

It was the same set of people who were in the Guard. This confused me, because I kept getting flashbacks to their characters in the first film.

Blue ruin

I watched the film Blue ruin on netflix last night. What a great film. The "hero" starts out as a beach bum, but ends by becoming a Joe public. There is a lot of violence in the film, but it is done in a amateur way.

I now want to be a beach bum.

Time runners

Last night I watched the film: Time runners. I had started watching it before, but I had found it confusing. However, confusing can be good. An FBI agent is searching for her missing husband,  who has gone missing after some kind of accident. She can also rewind time for  short intervals. There are two sets of agents after her, one of which come from a war ravished future.

For the first half of the film, I had no idea what was going on, but things became clearer in the second part. it looks like they wanted to make a sequel, but that didn't happen, but given that the film was cheap to make and it wasn't released until last year, then it may still happen.

Anyway an interesting plot.

El gringo

Last night I watched the film El Gringo  starring the great Scott Adkins I had seen the film advertised on Netflix, but I never fancied the plot for some reason. I read a review of the work of the action guy
Adkins and this got me interested in watching the film.

I enjoyed the film. It was no great work of art, but there were some great fight scenes mostly
using guns though. It would be better if they filmed the fight scenes a bit faster, but it was a fun film.

The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension

Last night I watched the film
The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension on netflix.

What a great film! It was totally deranged though. It reminded me a bit about the man of bronze film, except that they were a lot more serious. He had a big gang of people working for him -- all of whom are armed with handguns.

There were aliens and just plenty of weirdness.


 

Alien hunter

I recorded from late night TV a film called: Alien hunter. It was a strange film, which almost seemed to be the start of a series, rather than a film. There were alien messages and nuclear strikes and a womanising scientist.

Suicide

A long time ago I ordered the video for the film:  Harakiri. a great film. Just the look of the film was amazing. It was all in black and white, but really beautiful. The story was so sad. It also includes the most horrific Harakiri (suicide by sword) ever put to a screen.

In the remake, I was hoping that there would be no big fight at the end. In this film, there is a big fight scene at the end, but it fits in better to this version.

My favourite Japanese writer Yukio Mishima committed Harakiri, in maybe the 70s after a failed coup. He clearly should have watched this film first.

drinking

I am getting slightly more sophisticated in drinking as I get older. I now prefer to drink a single malt Whisky, than a Bells. Although If I am in a pub, I will drink Bells whisky. After much experimentation I do occasionally drink cocktails. I now know some of the classy brands of cocktails, rather than the more popular "sex on the beach".

I have given up on trying to drink wine. I just don't like it too much. I do try to always drink red wine with fish.

I was thinking that I should drink like more water or something. However, when I reading this article on strong drinks, I realized I had only tried two of them: absinthe and raki. Dear Liver, we can't quit yet, still another 8 to go. So does Tesco sell Everclear? No. What about Amazon. No again.

47 ronin

Last  night I finally watched the DVD of the film of 47 Ronin . It was an OK film. They tried to add additional elements to the story with the use of magic and shape shifting, but they never really integrated the elements back into the story. They get magical swords, which they use to fight with, but they don't use the magical parts.

Still I enjoyed watching the film, but it was not as good as an eastern film.