Life in the Bus Lane

‘e’s not the Messiah, ‘e’s a very naughty boy!

Yet another in a long line of wet weekends. Friday night was spent supping ale in the local pub, and once everyone had surfaced on Saturday morning we headed off for a “Big Boy” breakfast at the local cafe. A trip into town followed breakfast where I managed to spend no money at all in HMV for a change, and fortunately got home before the rain started.

Late saturday evening I decided to take a quick shower. The shower itself was fine until I ran the bath tap to rinse the soapy water away. When I turned the tap off it seemed to forget it’s primary purpose, and the water kept running. I ended up removing the panels from the end of the bath to get at the ball valve in the pipe, whereupon I discovered that the ball valve had also forgotten what it was meant to do, and failed miserably to stop the water flowing. I ended up turning the tap off as much as possible and then shutting the door to mask the noise.

Father was duly summoned this morning where we replaced the washed in both bath taps and fitted a new valve which then proceeded to leak slightly. My “fixing” it made things worse, so another visit was required to refit the valve. It’s still seeping slightly but my “fixing” seems to be helping this time.

In between the plumbing and the rain I’ve made a start on my James Bond box set, and watched plenty of episodes of M*A*S*H which has given be a craving for a very dry Martini, mixed “five to one, five parts Gin and one moment’s silence for the Vermouth”. The Tuesday night video group is planning a “Martini and Medicine” evening as the first of a number of themed evenings.

Somehow I’d got through life without having seen this film, something which I’m glad I rectified last night. All bar a couple of minutes of the film are set in one room, and it’s entirely character-driven. Something of a rarity these days.

Coming next: Life of Brian

An early start means we had time for this lengthy masterpiece tonight.

I believe Schindler’s List was about 14^o

That’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” for the uncultured amongst you. A classic movie which I’ve not seen for years. However this special edition version seems to suffer from some slightly bizzare audio mixing where it’s been “upgraded” from mono to 5.1, it’s quite disconcerting at times.

Schindler’s List took a backseat this week as Dan ended up working late, so the much shorter The Usual Suspects took it’s place. One of my favourite films, but one I’d not watched for a while due to over-exposure a few years ago.

The second of our “top films” season, this time aided by a curry from the local takeaway.

I’d not seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for quite a while, and didn’t realise how many big names were in it. It was one of the first films for Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, and Danny DeVito (who none of us actually recognised).

Coming next: probably Schindler’s List.

Bat-tastic.

Last night we started an attempt at working our way through the top movies as listed on IMDB yesterday evening. I’m not sure we’ll make it through those we already own out of the top 250, so we’ll probably aim for just the top 100 to start with.

To kick things off we watched Full Metal Jacket. I’d forgotten quite how many quotes from the film have made their way into popular culture.

I’m currently sat watching Punk’s Not Dead, and the only person that they’ve seen fit to subtitle is Wattie from The Exploited, and it’s not as if he’s particularly difficult to understand. They musy have a particular problem understanding the Scots over in the US.

Update: They’ve subtitled his brother as well.