Movie Review: The Dark Knight

Took the girls to Manchester's IMAX theatre today to see this. Apparently there are six (or so) scenes shot in IMAX 3D.

This is the first time I've been to a 3D show where you didn't have to wear special glasses to get the effect. OK, OK, that shows (a) my age and (b) that I don't go to the cinema much any more. What can I say? When you have a 50-inch plasma TV and a Dolby5.1 surround-sound home cinema system, you don't need to go to the cinema much.

Except to see IMAX. God. It was awesome. And I mean that in its original sense, not in the vacuous American high school "ah-summmmm" sense. Those 3D scenes - the ones shot from high above the Gotham city skyline looking down, especially the night-time one where Batman leaps from a tall building, extends his bat-wings and flies (glides) around the skyscrapers for a bit - were simply breathtaking.

Special effects apart, and not wishing to spoil the plot for anyone, the rest of the movie was good. Much has been written about how dark it is, and it is. Both literally in places, and figuratively. But in this case that's a good thing. It's quite clever too - the symbolism of starting the film with mainly sunny scenes and daytime aerial shots, and moving it to night scenes as the story gets darker. Very graphic.

Much has also been written about Heath Ledger's monumental performance as the Joker. I suspect most of that is right too. No, he didn't "steal" the film. He was a very significant, but integral, part of it. But his acting? You can't really call it acting. He INHABITED the character. He was the Joker, pure and simple, and for once, and rightly so, there was nothing funny about the Joke. I'd put Heath's Joker in the top five performances I've seen in a film, ever. He'll be a hard act to follow, and presumably (OK, small spoiler coming up), since the Joker survived he will at some stage be followed.

Criticisms? If pushed I'd say the movie is about 30 minutes too long. Indeed at one point somewhere between 1:50 and 2:15 (and since our showing started at noon, those are both times-into-the-movie and actual clock times) things got so slow and tedious that I fell asleep, only to be woken up with a HUGE jump by a set of exploding windows. That'll teach me. And those interminable fight scenes. Why do directors think we want to see long sequences of thwapthwapthwapthwap when you can't really tell what's going on? Yawn. Very clever, seen it before, get on with the plot, thank you.

One for the DVD collection though, definitely. There is so much going on in the film that it will certainly stand another watch. Might even be the one that convinces me to buy a Blu-ray player.

We're all fired up!

Due at 9.30, the fireplace fitters were 15 minutes early and after exactly two-and-a-half hours, the new fire was in and looking pretty damned good.

Just having that awful gaping hole plugged has made the room look so much more complete. The end is now enticingly near. I just have some woodwork painting to complete and we can order the carpet fitters. Oh, and I need to pour some self-levelling compound in front of the new hearth. It's marginally shallower than the previous hearth, so there's a small gap. Too small to be cemented in - it would crumble eventually and leave the carpet sagging in front of the fire.

As with the radiator, we had to suffer a test firing, but at least it was only in the one room this time, and only for a few minutes. Looks brill with the flames on, btw.

Book Review: The Riders

Book of the month for July, I finished this yesterday - just in time for the book club meeting tomorrow. Recommended by a member who originally hails from Australia, it's written by an Australian writer - Tim Winton - who receives all the usual sycophantic gushing praise in his cover notes, but who stirs up a storm of adverse comment if you read some of the reviews of this novel, The Riders, on Amazon.

So let's accentuate the positive to start with. Winton has a unique descriptive formula. A way of selecting words that are at once slightly out of the ordinary and yet also surprisingly apt. It's a clever trick. One which, when you first start to read this book, feels a little uncomfortable and awkward, but which after a few chapters begins, almost against your will, to feel natural, clever and right. So I'd have to say that yes, I ended up enjoying his writing style, his use of language, and the meter of his prose.

But of this novel in particular, I'd have to say: No. A virtually plotless mish-mash of travelogue-style observations, a few good but half-formed characters thrown into the mix in various separate geographical locations, and a central character who verges on being a child abuser by virtue of dragging his 7-year-old daughter halfway round Europe on a hopeless quest to find a wife who he believes is just missing but, we have to conclude, never really wanted to be with him at all.

This is a book to read if you're depressed and you want proof that someone is worse off than you. Less skilled at living than you, more stupid than you, uglier than you and certainly, with the exceptions of Billie and Postman Paddy, lonelier than you. It's one of those books that you finish and your uppermost thought is how much life you wasted reading it, that you'll never get back. Does it help that the desperately tedious voyagings of Scully as he drags Billie from Ireland to Greece to France to Holland are well written? Not really.

It helps that the book is a page-turner, I guess, but only because you rattle through it looking for answers at a cracking pace. Trouble is, you find none. It's like climbing a hill and cresting it only to find there's another hill further on. And another. And another. And when you finally reach the top, there's nothing there. Not even a particularly rewarding view.

Blowing hot and cold

Continuing the theme I started yesterday, with a bifurcated post on writing and decorating, today was a day for blowing hot and cold too.

The cold? My daft way of referring to the 5th and final draft (hahaha! 'draft' geddit? I crack myself up) of my novel, which I began today. Working through the feedback I've had from my most excellent beta-readers Nat & Blythe, I took it from the top. I noted as I progressed through the chapters that the volume of comments dropped off steeply. There could be several reasons for this.

I think the main one is that the quality of writing improves as the story picks up pace. Bearing in mind some of the early chapters were written 7-8 years ago and despite being edited several times still had structural faults that I hadn't spotted. But I like to think a secondary reason is that both of them became so engrossed in the story towards the end that they kind of forgot they were supposed to be reviewing. I'm fairly comfortable with that delusion. And I'm not losing out, revision-wise. Funny, but the fact that someone else is reading/has read it has made me review it more closely, even in the absence of many comments.

The hot? Well wouldn't you know it, we "chose" the hottest day of the year on which to have the new radiator fitted in the lounge. With temperatures pushing 30° we had to run the heating for half an hour to test the installation. Sheesh! I'm melting! Meeeellllllting!

Anyway, it was worth it. Here's our nice new rad all ready to go. The end of this project is nigh. It's nigh, I tell ya!

New light through old windows

It's a pun. Shorthand for two subjects I want to write about today. The inevitable and the inspirational.

Decorating
This, of course, is the inevitable. At least, it will be for the next few years as we traverse the house, repairing the neglect and damage wrought by the previous occupants and restoring the place to some semblance of habitability. In the case of the old windows, I refer to those in the new lounge, which have not seen a brush, mop, leather, squeegee or even vacuum cleaner in however many years it takes to build up a layer of dust and dead bugs several millimetres deep on the rails. There's paint to scrape off, dirt to wash off and broken catches to screw off, but sadly we can't stretch to a full refurb job on these lovely Edwardian sashes just yet, so they'll have to make do with a spit and polish.

So a spit and polish is exactly what I gave them yesterday. One of the hottest days of the year so far and I'm stood with both hands submerged in a bucket of hot sugar soap, with a scrubbing brush for the larger areas and an old toothbrush to winkle out the grime and grit from the lead work. As I've remarked before I'm not wedded to the idea of returning the house entirely to its original state. In 2008 I believe it should be comfortable, functional and benefit from the one-hundred-years of progress we've made since it was built. Even so I love some of the period detail and I would be sad to lose these windows. They may not be the most detailed or interesting examples of leaded lights you've ever seen, but I like their symmetrical simplicity.

Writing
And this is the inspirational. Eyes are the windows of the soul, poets have told us through the ages, and mine can certainly be classed as old, so I've felt ... well, blessed I suppose is the best word for it and, yes, inspired ... this week, to have some new light come in through these old windows in the shape of some fresh perspectives on my writing.

I have a colleague on TV Scoop who regularly bemoans the lack of feedback on his writing and it's true that blogging of any kind, unless you're one of those fortunate enough to appear on a "top 100" list somewhere, is a shot in the dark. With a few notable (and welcome!) exceptions among family and friends, you never really know who, if anyone, is reading your blatherings and from those, who is really enjoying it.

So here's a heartfelt thank-you to those who have felt moved to comment recently. Since childhood, I've never felt comfortable receiving compliments. I put this down to having it drummed into me by my mother that I would become "big-headed." Something, apparently, almost worse than being two-headed, at least in her mind. Whether I overcompensated or what, I don't know, but I've always been very... British... when it comes to compliments. Oh, no, seriously? You liked it? Well...thank you. It's nothing really.

It's nothing really. Why do I say that? It's my life. It's my heart and soul. It's everything, really. And I've already spent almost 50 years denying it. So, I must learn to accept compliments graciously and admit that, yes, your words of encouragement, enjoyment, and even enchantment with my writing have not only touched me deeply but also given me a new impetus. A work-free week stretches before me and I'll be spending as much of that time writing as I can.

Insignia - you drive; we nag

I made the mistake of giving the local Vauxhall dealer my email address, so every now and then I receive a gentle reminder that it's been a while since I bought a car. The reminder usually includes a supposedly tempting offer I can't refuse and/or an "irresistible" graphic of their latest climate change inducing product.

Nothing, however, could have prepared me for what arrived in my much-abused Inbox yesterday.

This is the Vauxhall Insignia. "Designed to make life easier," the marketing blurb trumpets, "new Insignia is packed with technological innovation:" and then proceeds to supply a bulleted list of features clearly intended to make the prospective car buyer's mouth water.

My mouth watered alright. Only it was the kind of watering that usually precedes vomit. Especially when I reached the final point.

"The Front Camera System even reads speed limit signs and displays a reminder"

Whoop-di-do! You know, that's really useful. Cos my eyes aren't that good any more and I find it hard to read those little round red "30" signs when I'm doing 85 past my local primary school. So a dashboard reminder is guaranteed to make me think "oh - 30 is it? Gosh, I'd better slow down right away."

Good grief.

'Course, it's only a matter of time before that "Front Camera System" is connected directly to the throttle and rather than displaying a reminder it will simply adjust the speed for you. Welcome to Stepford.

Getting down with the brown

Having taken the day off on Sunday, I figured yesterday that it was time to get back to it. I also figured that if I worked a slightly shifted day, I could probably get around the top of the walls - above the picture rail - before dinner.

Putting down my proverbial quill at 3pm and picking up my paintbrush, I started on the umpteenth circumnavigation of the room. Astonishingly, by around 4.30 I'd completed two tours - edges and filling in - and on such a bright sunny day I had at least another 3 hours of usable light left. What could I do but press on?

The simple explanation for my increased speed is the reduced accuracy with which I needed to paint the edges. Having already applied one coat, I could skim around the cornice, picture rail and door frame very quickly (and inaccurately) with no ill effect. In those few areas where the first coat hadn't quite covered the white base coat I had to take a bit more care, but these made up less than 5% of the total. I was flying!

I completed the whole room at 6.50, which made me feel very smug and put me back on track with my self-imposed schedule. This schedule is a double-edged sword. There's no doubt it has speeded up the whole process - when compared to the five months the study was out of commission, this room (admittedly only half the size) has so far only taken two - but it has also made me feel pressured to keep up the pace. Taking a day off has felt like a guilty pleasure. I like the increased level of control over the project, but if I plan the next one in such detail, I'll set a more relaxed pace and build in some down time.

All grown up

I'm sitting here in the study, staring at the empty space on the floor where for the last few weeks my elder daughter's worldly belongings - or at least that part of them she had with her in Uni halls of residence for a year - have sat patiently waiting to be taken to her new home.

The new home for which yesterday, at 12:30, she picked up the keys and moved in.

A lovely place it is too. As I commented to the other families assembled while Nat's housemates collected their keys: at least three orders of magnitude better than anything I ever lived in as a student. It has brand-new carpet throughout, not the threadbare rags we walked quickly over, on account of them being so sticky-dirty they threatened to hold you down forever if you stood for too long in one spot. It has bright, modern, NEW decor, not the damp and peeling Anaglypta that provided a depressing back-drop to our evening revision sessions. All the furniture is new, including (double) beds and mattresses, so she won't have to sleep on a lumpy, sagging, stained, single bed like I did. The kitchen is equipped with every modern appliance - separate upright fridge and freezer, washing machine, tumble drier and dishwasher, combi boiler, kettle, microwave and cooker. We had a cooker, a kettle and a small fridge. Laundry was dragged around the corner to the laundrette, or taken home in the holidays for Mum to do. In a house of 6 blokes, I'll let you guess which was the more popular option.

No, I wouldn't have wished my digs on my worst enemy, let alone my own daughter, so I'm very pleased she's found such a grand place. Didn't stop me having a small pang as she waved us goodbye and closed her own front door to spend her first night alone in the place though.

Browned off

If I thought last Saturday's efforts were a marathon, nothing could have prepared me for yesterday.

I'd intended to make an early start to put the final coat on the cornice (the first coat went on in two stages during the week) and finish that before breakfast so I could progress to the colour - the bit we'd all been waiting for. Ha! I hadn't appreciated just how long it would take for the whole room. Thing is, the cornice is so detailed it effectively has nine surfaces to be painted. So each metre takes nine times as long as a metre of, for example, skirting board. I started at 7.30 and didn't finish until 11am. A late breakfast then.

Although breakfast was a leisurely affair - when the girls are here we like to take our time, chew and chat as it were - it wasn't long enough for the cornice to have skinned over, so I started the edge work below the picture rail. We went through four different choices of colour for this room, trying to find a brown that was rich and warm without being too dark. Our final choice still didn't have our full confidence, so we only had one tin mixed up just in case it proved wrong. We needn't have worried. It was clear even at this early stage that it was perfect.

But again, my estimates of elapsed time were way off. I expected to have finished the first coat by mid-afternoon, but I was having to take much greater care with the brown than I had with the white undercoat. I wanted to get the edges as near perfect as I could, which meant very slow progress with the brush along the edge of the picture rail (although the bottom edge wasn't so critical, since I always leave skirting boards 'til last).

By around 1pm I'd completed the lower section of walls and graduated to the upper section. Here progress proved even slower. Now I had two critical edges - cornice and picture rail - and I was working on a plank. I decided to complete both edging and rollering in one circuit, but this slowed me down even further, as I had to keep swapping from brush to roller. It was after 5 by the time the upper section was complete, but having already worked for so long I was determined to finish the whole room in one day.

I finally completed the bottom section rollering at 6.40, having worked for eleven hours with only a short break for breakfast. Even though this is the first coat (of two), the coverage of this paint is excellent and we were very pleased with the result. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It was starting to get dark and I had to use flash. Imagine that Wedgewood's Jasperware comes in brown - oh, hang on (*checks Google*), it does - so yeah, it's that kind of effect. That powder-brown (cf powder-blue) matt effect against the crisp white of Jasperware, during daylight, and in artificial light it takes on a wonderful rich, warm, chocolatey aspect which is exactly what we were trying to achieve.

It needs a second coat, but that's a job for another day. Me? I'm taking the day off to recuperate!

I have done 53 stupid things

Been a dearth of "Friday Fives" recently, so here's an alternative bit of Friday fun. I don't usually do these, but I found this on my younger daughter's blog and I don't mind making a fool of meself, so here goes.

Level 1.
[X] Said LOL out loud. (Not until you two started!)
[] Forgotten your own age.
[] Tried to lick your elbow.
Total so far: 1

Level 2.
[] Said the wrong name in bed. (Came close, but covered it up with an authentic-sounding moan)
[X] Had unprotected sex.
[X] Hurt yourself sexing.
[] Sexed yourself hurting.
Total so far: 3

Level 3.
[] Licked your toe.
[] Licked a frozen pole.
[] Licked a dog bone.
[] Licked a dog.
Total so far: 3

Level 4.
[] Drank old milk.
[] Drank milk right from a cow.
[] Ever thought chocolate milk came from brown cows.
[] Drank Qwik right from the brown cow.
[] Pushed a cow over.
Total so far: 3

Level 5.
[] Eaten bugs.
[] Eaten garbage.
[X] Eaten food off the floor after five seconds. (Umm...chewing gum. Off the pavement. When it had a footprint on it)
[] Eaten a booger.
Total so far: 4

Level 6.
[X] Been in a five-seater car with more than seven people. (Easy. I've been in a four-seater car with 10 people. And I was driving)
[] Been in a seven-seater van with over twelve people.
[X] Driven in a seven-seater van by yourself.
[X] Driven a tricycle past the age of three.
[X] Driven yourself to the wrong house.
Total so far: 8

Level 7.
[] Put dirty dishes in the fridge.
[] Put bowls of food in the dishwasher.
[] Put a full glass of juice in the cupboard.
[] Put salt in your coffee.
[] Dropped the cap into the glass you were drinking from.
Total so far: 8

Level 8.
[] Jumped over a car.
[X] Jumped out of a moving car. (It was a bus actually)
[] Jumped into a thorny bush on purpose.
[] Jumped off a bridge.
[X] Jumped off your house. (Outhouse, but still counts :o))
Total so far: 10

Level 9.
[] Forgotten where you live.
[] Forgotten your own birthday.
[X] Forgotten to zip up in the morning.
Total so far: 11

Level 10.
[X] Walked into a pole.
[X] Walked into a wall.
[X] Walked into someone.
[X] Walked into a parked car.
Total so far: 15

Level 11.
[] Won a burping contest.
[] Burped the alphabet.
[] Burped just to break the silence.
[] Burped too hard and thrown up.
Total so far: 15

Level 12.
[X] Eaten a whole bag of chips.
[X] Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night. (One night? One helping! :o))
[X] Eaten a whole pizza so no one else could have a slice.
Total so far: 18

Level 13.
[X] Been caught picking your nose.
[X] Been caught going to the bathroom outside.
[] Been caught with your pants down.
[X] Been caught having sex.
[] Been caught sexing yourself.
Total so far: 21

Level 14.
[X] Shoved something up your nose.
[X] Picked your nose and studied what came out.
[X] Picked your nose till it bled.
[] Let your nose bleed to see the awesome blood all over you.
[] Blew your nose so goddamn hard your whole body hurt.
Total so far: 24

Level 15.
[X] Told a lie.
[X] Been caught in a lie.
[X] Lied to cover a lie.
[X] Lied to cover your ass.
[] Lied to an undercover hooker cop.
Total so far: 28

Level 16.
[X] Laughed at someone in pain.
[X] Laughed too loud and embarrassed yourself.
[] Laughed at a funeral.
[] Laughed so hard you pissed yourself.
Total so far: 30

Level 17.
[X] Written a letter to Santa Claus.
[] Believed in Santa past the age of eight.
[] Believed your folks when they said that a bunny laid chocolate eggs in the house.
[] Believed you were NEVER too old for trick-or-treating.
Total so far: 31

Level 18.
[] Thrown a party for yourself.
[] Thrown a ball at yourself.
[] Thrown up on yourself.
[X] Thrown a ball at a wall that returned directly to your crotch.
[X] Thrown a super ball in the house and taken it right in the face.
Total so far: 33

Level 19.
[X] Pretended to know what you're doing. (This is my job)
[X] Pretended you were hot shit.
[X] Pretended you weren't listening.
[] Pretended you were Spider-Man.
Total so far: 36

Level 20.
[X] Fell on the sidewalk. (We call them pavements or footpaths over here)
[X] Fell down the stairs.
[] Fell UP the stairs.
[] Went sledding down the stairs.
Total so far: 38

Level 21.
[] Tried to do a really cool back flip...
[] And busted your ass.
[] Tried to do a really cool cartwheel...
[] And didn't lift your feet, retard.
Total so far: 38

Level 22.
[X] Eaten food that you just kind of... found.
[] Eaten the mystery food in the back of the fridge.
[] Eaten something nasty to get a laugh.
[] Cried when no one laughed.
Total so far: 39

Level 23.
[X] Cried when you hurt yourself. (This is the one. Why is this stupid?)
[X] Cried when you didn't get your way. (I was like, 39, so that was perfectly OK)
[] Cried over spilled milk.
[] Cried after sex.
Total so far: 41

Level 24.
[X] Gone swimming naked.
[] Gone swimming in a stranger's pool.
[] Gone swimming with a hose in the yard. (Huh?)
[] Gone swimming in a stank-ass pond.
[] Gone swimming in the bathtub like a champ.
Total so far: 42

Level 25.
[X] Ridden a pony.
[X] Ridden a donkey.
[] Ridden a lawnmower pretending it was an awesome racecar.
[] Ridden a shovel pretending it was an awesome spaceship.
[] Ridden the dog.
Total so far: 44

Level 26.
[] Locked yourself out of your house.
[X] Locked yourself out of your car.
[] Locked yourself IN the car.
[] Trapped yourself in a child's plastic house.
[] Tangled yourself up in a rope.
[] Tangled yourself up in a hose.
[] Locked yourself in the trunk WITH the keys.
Total so far: 45

Level 27.
[X] Overcooked a fancy meal.
[] Overcooked Easy MAC.
[] Overcooked a Pop-Tart.
[] Overcooked a tiny plastic army man.
[X] Overcooked yourself at the beach. (Klingon Head lives!!!)
Total so far: 47

Level 28.
[X] Bitten plastic fruit.
[X] Bitten into something too hard and hurt your teeth.
[X] Bitten down before you got the fork into your mouth.
[] Lifted an empty soda you thought was full, thereby flinging it.
[X] Overcompensated an extra step in the stairs that wasn't there.
Total so far: 51

Level 29.
[X] Mistaken a stranger for a family member and blabbed at them.
[X] Mistaken a man for a woman or vice-versa.
[] Shaved your eyebrows.
[] Poked yourself in the eye with safety goggles! Sweet irony.

TOTAL: 53
(There's definitely some blog posts in there!)

Every cloud...

In tonight's news Lewis Gordon Pugh, dubbed the human polar bear on account of having swum for a kilometre at the North Pole to prove how global warming has affected the polar ice caps, now plans to kayak all the way up there this summer.

This trip *should* be impossible, but returning from his swimming trip last year he predicted it would be possible "sometime in the next ten years." Now that the ice caps are melting faster than anyone believed possible, turns out it can be done this year.

In a grimly ironic turn, the fact that the North Pole will shortly be exposed for the whole summer on a regular basis has heated up (sorry) the race by the oil and mineral companies to exploit the rich natural resources that exist in the Arctic ocean bed. So global warming will itself allow us easier access to more of the fuels whose burning will ... contribute to ... more global warming.

(*sounds of hollow laughter indistinguishable from exasperated weeping*)

A good day's work

Very pleased with progress yesterday. Although I was aching so much I could hardly move, I'd managed to turn the photo from yesterday into one that looks like this:

Starting at 9.30 and working through virtually non-stop until after 5pm I'd effectively done a full day's work - on a weekend! Wah! - but I'd had to circumnavigate the room four times in all. Washing down the cornice and picture rail with sugar soap, going round again to rinse it off followed by a third go round with the paint brush to do "the margins." Old rooms like this have a lot of margins too - both sides of the cornice, both sides of the picture rail, skirting board and windows. Took blimmin' ages. And finally around again with the roller to fill in the blanks.

Damned hard work too. Fresh plaster sucks the moisture out of paint almost instantly, so I had to work quickly. It's inevitably patchy, but I'll be going over it all again today for what is effectively the second undercoat. By then the plaster will be well sealed and ready for the colour coats. (No, we're not having a white lounge! Good grief. It *is* the cheapest base coat though, and very easy to see where you've been :o))

And so it starts

Even such a cold, Northerly room as this has only taken a week to dry out. Look:

Aided by the ventilation of the fireplace, we're ready for painting a week earlier than scheduled. On top of that, I've stolen a march on proceedings by sanding the picture rail and the cornice this week, so apart from a bit of washing down with the old sugar soap, we're good to go.

Had a slight wobble when I couldn't find my pole. It makes painting ceilings so much easier when you don't have to climb up and down a ladder, or walk along a plank. But I couldn't remember where I put it. At least, I *could* remember, but it wasn't there. And it wasn't in any of the other logical places it could be either. And then I found it. In the place I thought I'd put it in the... err... first place. I just didn't look hard enough, if you know what I mean.

I dunno. Going blind now as well as deaf. Sheesh.

Chorlton Beer Festival - Mark 4

Although it was raining (again! Jeez!) early evening, by the time we'd had dinner the clouds had passed over and the rest of the evening looked promising, so we ventured out to the fourth ZestQuest beer fest.

This event has grown bigger and more popular with each passing year, and the early rain certainly had not dampened the spirits of the revellers who thronged the church grounds when we arrived shortly after 8.30. We'd soon filled our half-pint glasses with our first sample tipple - Jaipur India Pale Ale - and caught up with some friends who were already well established on a couple of large rugs in one corner of the grounds. This proved a good pitch later on, when a slight sprinkling of rain was easily held at bay by the canopy of trees above.

Having eaten before we left home, we weren't tempted by the food on offer, even though it looked very good. The hog roast of previous years was absent, but the Danish sausage looked very appetising. Half a pint never lasts very long, so in the space of a few minutes we were back in the "beer tent" (I think it was the vestry, actually) queuing up for two halves of Summer Solstice from the Pictish Brewing Company. "A crisp refreshing blond ale" said the tasting notes and they weren't wrong. Delicious, and helped down by the good company which had by now been swelled by the arrival of another half-dozen friends.

With space on the rug now at a premium, the beers slipped down even faster and before we knew it we were supping on Wild Swan. We had limited ourselves to a £5 voucher each (I'm not going to explain the voucher system). We no longer live within walking distance of the festival, so having to drive meant four halves was my legal maximum and previous years' experience showed that with careful selection of ales we could each enjoy four beers for a fiver. If we'd been attending for the whole session - the Friday night session started at 5pm, and tomorrow the revelries will commence at 1pm and go right through to 11 - we'd have taken the bus, but this was only ever going to be a short, sweet visit.

The Wild Swan was excellent, but we were prevented from enjoying another on account of it having run out. Forced to choose anything at less than £1.25 a half, we opted for the rather mundane Hartington Bitter for our last glug, with a wistful nod in the direction of the more exotically named beers on offer such as Wobbly Bob, Alchemist, Dave's Hoppy Beer, Golden Wrath, Guzzler or Dark Side of the Moose. We'd beaten last orders by five minutes (yes, they rang the church bell to call last orders - how cool is that?) and stood supping our Hartington in the gloom of the churchyard, under the ancient trees and in the company of good friends. A very pleasant two hours or so, and a fine way to start the weekend!

Fine insults of our time

Just browsin' along, like you do, spinning my Internet wheels when I came across this gem. It was several minutes ago now, my excuse being that I couldn't type before now owing to being collapsed on the floor in fits of giggles.

"He's a RETARDIS. His brain is much smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside."

Genius.

When science fails

In the news today: How biofuels may not be such a good idea after all.

I can't tell you how disappointing this is. How stupid was I to think that we could trust today's scientists to come up with a solution to the world fuel crisis and global warming? The more you hear, the more incompetent they seem. Apparently, the worst offender is fuel made from American corn, which is responsible for releasing 20% MORE CO2 into the atmosphere than regular fuel made from crude oil! How pointless is that?

But naturally, there's more money in biofuel than there is in selling corn to - you know - FEED people, so we're making the world hotter and hungrier at the same time. Great solution guys.

We're drying out

Only two days after plastering and the new lounge is drying out nicely, as you can see from this pic which attempts to capture the same area as the one I took on Friday.

I put two weeks into the plan for drying out, because this is a North-facing room and a lot colder than the last room we had plastered, but I'd not accounted for two things. The new lounge has an open flue, so the moisture is flying up there, and the plaster is mainly skimming, which is a lot less deep than the study, where a lot of the original plaster was blown and had to be removed (or fell off!). With a bit of luck I'll be able to start painting next weekend.

We were planning on visiting Beech Road festival today, but it was bucketing down around noon, so we decided against it. By the time the rain had passed over and the sun came out, we'd already settled comfortably into doing other things and couldn't be arsed to rouse ourselves. Lazy Sundays. Ya can't beat 'em.

Bury Market

Nikki has a project in mind. In anticipation of the new lounge being a colder room than the old, and in an effort to keep the gas bills down in the face of rising fuel prices, she's going to crochet me a blanket to keep my old bones warm when I'm crashed out in front of the telly. The wool is available for an unbelievable price from Bury market, so we all headed off there first thing this morning to see what else is there.

Wow. I've lived in and around Manchester for 30 years and I've never been there, but it's big. A quarter of a million visitors a week and it's easy to see why. An initially confusing array of buildings and assemblies of open-air stalls - Market Hall; Market Place; Market Plaza to name but three - soon takes on a kind of weird logical structure as you wander about familiarising yourself with the place.

We stopped in a café for a breakfast toastie and a coffee (or banana milk shake in the case of the girls) before almost tripping over the right wool stall in our first five minutes. With the business of the day transacted straight away we were free to wander up and down the aisles in search of other bargains. We had an idea we may be able to find something for the new lounge, but in the end nothing was quite right. To be honest, faced with so much choice, I tend to go into a kind of sensory overload, and can't concetrate on any one thing because I'm always distracted by several other things all at once.

I did find a replacement pair of slippers though, which means my old slippers can now take the place of my painting slippers, and my painting slippers can be relegated further down the pecking order of household footwear (which might even mean them fetching up in the bin).

Two hours of dodging the pouring rain (pouring sometimes from the sky, and other times from the edges and corners of various awnings and canopies) was enough for us, and we headed home around 11am. A fascinating place though, which we'll certainly return to when the weather is more conducive to a leisurely amble.

A day for getting plastered

An early start today for our plasterers. They were here at 7.45 and aimed to be finished by 2pm. A much faster job than I'd anticipated, and a welcome surprise because this was not only a day for getting the new lounge plastered, in another sense it was a day for getting ourselves plastered. It was the day of Pete's funeral.

I collected Nikki from work at quarter past eleven, giving us time to return home, change into funeral gear, and step across the road to wait outside the house with the slowly gathering family, friends and neighbours. By the time the hearse arrived about half an hour later, I counted over a hundred people in the crowd. Pete's coffin was piped out of the house and carried behind the hearse down the road, with us all walking solemnly behind.

As we rounded the corner and the church came into view, I was amazed to see at least another hundred people waiting outside, but my astonishment hit new levels when, after a few moments delay, we entered the church to find ANOTHER hundred people had already taken their seats. A man who made his mark on many, many lives, Pete was given the kind of send-off most of us can only dream about.

The service was as nice as it was possible to be, given the sombre nature of the occasion. The priest did a very good job of explaining what was happening for those of us in the congregation not familiar with Catholic ritual, and also for the younger people there, so they weren't confused by the strange symbolism and incantations. My own views on this kind of event can wait for a more appropriate time to be expressed, because this was a day for Pete's friends and family, and in the end, who am I to question another person's beliefs? If the ritual brings them any comfort, then that can only be a good thing.

All told we were in the church for something approaching 90 minutes, which gave us time between the service and the wake, when the family and closest friends headed off to the cemetery to inter the coffin, to pop back home and see how the plastering was coming along.

With accuracy born of long experience, the men were virtually spot on with their estimate, and by the time we arrived home at about 1.45pm they had almost finished tidying up, and the room looked like this. Even in this state, it is so much more relaxing to walk into. To not have the glaring, angry, untidy look of the original paint, and to have the old, wobbly, dowel corners replaced with crisp modern angles just makes me feel calm.

Nikki fetched the colour chart and surprisingly the wet plaster was an almost perfect match to the chocolate colour we've chosen as the main colour for the walls. That copper colour on the picture rails will go - they'll be white - but apart from that, the photo above should be a pretty close approximation to the finished look.

We waited a few minutes for the plasterers to collect the last of their gear before locking up and walking back to the pub where the wake was being held. Almost all of the 300 throng appeared to have stayed behind to raise a glass in memory of Pete. I was only sorry I could only stay for one, but I left Nikki to represent our household and our "branch" of the neighbours' fraternity, while I headed off to pick up my lovely daughters for their weekend visit.

Book Review: Rebecca

Several people shuddered when they heard the book club book for June was a Daphne du Maurier. Apparently she's supposed to be a hard read. Nothing could be further from the truth with Rebecca though.

I wasn't overly familiar with the story, having only the vaguest of memories of the Hitchcock dramatisation as one of the many movies I watched on a Saturday afternoon as a boy, but it wasn't long before the pages were turning as du Maurier's fascinating prose passed beneath my flicking eyes.

Far from being a hard read, the 400+ pages fell away. I found I loved her style (whether it's not traditional du Maurier I don't know) - bubbly, spontaneous and full of sharp observation. I recognised many of the traits of her characters, empathised with the way the unnamed narrator takes off in flights of fancy before coming back to a reality that in the end bears no resemblance, and shuddered at the creepiness of Mrs Danvers as she padded the empty corridors of the west wing.

Much of the story seems formulaic now, having been copied many times since its publication in the 1930s, but somehow that doesn't detract from its charm. Perhaps because it is an original no matter how familiar the structure and how easily spotted are the problems "the second Mrs de Winter" has to handle and the mistakes she makes.

If you're in the mood for an unchallenging read that nevertheless delivers a few surprises and is thoroughly well written throughout, you could do worse than give this classic a try. It didn't quite manage to gain the accolade of the club's favourite book, but it scored very well and rightly so.