Went to see an old friend last week…

Certain films, no matter how many times I’ve seen them or regardless of the time of day or night they may be on, will suck me in and keep me glued to the TV right up to the bitter end. Last night was a prime example…

It was gone 8.00 when I finally finished work (which is never good!!!), so by the time I’d arrived home, eaten, done a bit of computer work (the joys of being self employed!!!) and sipped a couple of glasses of red, I thought it was probably wise to get to bed at a sensible time for a change. When I went to turn the TV off ‘A Time to Kill’ had not long started; Samuel L. Jackson had just opened fire in the courtroom, killing the two men who’d raped his daughter and then general carnage followed. It is a truly great film, but I had no intention of watching it. I’d seen the film at least 3 or 4 times already, I knew exactly how it ended (which in tense courtroom films is often the big hook) and it was already late. I zapped the TV off and returned my half drunk bottle of red to the kitchen. Less than 5 minutes later I’d somehow returned to the sofa with a glass now full and the TV was back on. Sandra Bullock & Matthew McConaughey were hopelessly firting with each other, while over in the the bad boys camp, Kiefer Sutherland & Kevin Spacey were both putting on their best Paddington hard stares… I had one more failed attempt at switching the film off, before staggering to bed a little bleary eyed at just after one in the morning

If there is anyone out there who hasn’t seen this film, then I urge you to do so… But maybe you could watch ‘A time to kill’ at a sensible time of the day

Anorak on… This really is a fab album; best for a long, long time (and I know that many, many people really hate this band )… And anorak off again

Ok, Lost…

So seven episodes into Season 5 and I’m still of the opinion that this is probably one of, if not the best season so far (and I know that many, many people really hate this show ). I know the whole time-travel thing can seriously mess with the mind (as if the show wasn’t confusing enough!!!) and I know we’re now getting flash-forwards and flash-backs to contend with but I’m still hopelessly gripped…And as always, there are countless questions.

Is Ben good or evil? He certainly had his not so nice head on this week and was his motive for killing Locke purely to get the Eloise Hawking info? Did he also know that Locke would return to life once back on the island?

Is Charles Widmore really a nice guy after all? He did seem rather keen to help Locke, but if Widmore knows of the mysterious Eloise Hawking, who can whisk people back to the island, then why hasn’t he returned himself?

What happened to Aaron?

What happened to Ben?

What made Kate, Hurley & Sayid suddenly change their minds about returning to the island?

And more importantly, when have the Oceanic 6 returned to the island? I do have a theory on this one… When Locke fell down the well and zapped himself off the island, he left Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles & Daniel well (no pun intended ) into early/Dharma island times and because of Jin’s appearance last week in Dharma uniform and because of Daniel’s appearance in the Orchid drilling scene in episode 1, I’m assuming that our remaining survivors somehow join the Dharma Initative… Maybe in a hope of changing things, even though apparently that’s imposible (oooh bloody time-travel!!!).

Oh yeah and then there’s the smoke monster, the temple, the ‘moving the island wheel’, Jack’s dad, Claire’s disappearance, the 3 toed statue and those darn Apollo bars to get answers for

Why oh why is blogging sooooooooooooooooooo darn hard this year?

And as I really hate those  ‘I’m still here…’ blog posts, I’ll refrain from using those words I’ll simply say that I’ve been insanely busy with work, which as a self-employed arty farty bod is obviously hugely rewarding, but boy do I need some time off

I’m also hopelessly gripped with Season 5 of Lost and have had a ‘Lost…with’ blog post on the back burner for some time now, so watch this space.

Oh what the hell… I’m still here you know

But before I do, I need to explain something a little weird…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always visualised the year as a certain shape, well a wavy line to be more precise, which looks a little bit like this…

Try as I might, I can’t get this shape out of my confused little head whenever I think about the year. I believe it’s a kind of Synesthesia…

So basically, my year begins with a downhill plummet (which is bad ) until we reach April (about the 5th usually) when things start to level out (which is better ).  At some point during May (about the 10th usually) I begin the climb to July & August (which is superb ) and then things level off again during September. The time between October, November and December is basically a downhill depressing repeat of the beginning of the year . And as if that isn’t complicated enough my bizarre visualisation of the year always ends about January 5th; hence the little bit of January at the end of my ‘S’ shape

So with all that in mind, you can perhaps appreciate my general mood at this time of the year and my eagerness to look on the bright side…

Well first off, all of my teaching has been canceled today, which enabled me and the dog to have huge childish fun in the snow on the park this morning . Last night Derby knocked Nottingham Forest out of the F.A. Cup, which for the non football folk out their, is massive for anyone in Derby . The new season of Lost is now well under way, which for anyone who knows me or this blog is clearly an obvious joy to me . A new U2 album is out in a few weeks time, which for a sad anorak fan like me is very exciting indeed . And finally we’ve just booked tickets to see Eddie Izzard but not until October when I’ll be on that sad downhill wintery bit of my year

I did say it was a little weird…

I’m building up quite a lot of character myself tonight… But that’s largely down to the fact that I’m down to my last two logs Unfortunately our mountain of Xmas cards lasted mere minutes on the fire and didn’t really fill us with much bodily warmth

I’ve resorted to the whiskey