Burgertastic Baby!…And also BBQlicious beeyatch!

Summary of weekend: Marj stuffs her face :o)

The weekend was kicked off in fine style on Friday evening with a slap-up feed from the Jasmine in the good company of Cat, Rachel and Ruth. Such a feast we had! That place really is the mutt’s nuts by the way. Oh! The prawn crackers! So thick and crunchy. Mmmm. *drools* I’m getting a bit wussy in my old age and all that good food and, of course, wine had me yawning my head off and almost falling asleep by about 11pm. Or that could have been a result of the emotional trauma of being forced to watch Big Brother for the first time this year. Gah! Who let those awful people on telly?? It’s flipping painful to watch is what it is. I am really of the opinion that they should just make the BB house as close to Winston’s world as possible and feed them with nasty gin and fags that fall to bits. Now that I would watch!

During this ordeal I received a couple of texts from Naomi in Brataslava and I’m hard pressed to judge which of us was witnessing more horror. Poor Naomi, supposedly relaxing on holiday, was having a surreal time in “a huge metal shed (exhibition hall) watching dodgy 80s pop acts who Graham is all excited about and who I’ve never heard of.” About an hour later I was informed that they were now “listening to Sam Fox attempt to sing Touch Me very, very badly.” I was assured that it was very painful and I did not wish I was there at all. I regarded the caterwauling cretins on the tellybox attempt to backstab and shag each other I thought to myself “Don’t be too sure of that dolly!”

On Saturday morning I woke up at about ten past eight and thought “Feck! Feck! Feck! Have I slept in? Why didn’t the alarm go off? Oh my God! Am I going to be late again? Fuuuuuuuuck!” Then I realised it was Saturday, allowed myself a small “Woo hoo!” and went back to sleep.

The weather on Saturday was hot and sticky and yuck. I had to gnash from Fopp in Rose Street to the one in Cockburn Street in order to pick up Kelly’s birthday present and by the time I got there I was not a pretty sight. Eeeeeeeeuw! I don’t do humid. Luckily I didn’t have to do too much moving about that evening as we were at Kelly and Andy’s new house for her birthday BBQ. A proper house with a garden you can char meat in – how groan up they seem! I’m sure it’s all a front though ;oP

After we had stuffed ourselves silly with charred meat and things on sticks (hoorah for things on sticks! Pineapple, lamb, tofu, mushrooms, etc…. though not all on the same stick…) we adjourned to the living room where some damn fool got out the Giant Jenga set. Jenga freaks me out by the way, I just can’t handle it. It dates back to an unfortunate incident of combustible over-indulgence in my younger days. *shudder* I can watch people play it now but I’d still rather not join in myself. I think my fear is quite justified when you get to the silly arena of Giant Jenga. We were discussing if your work would buy it if you phoned in sick with Giant Jenga concussion and I’m sure many people have already. Those blocks look lethal.

On Sunday a BT contingent headed out to Tantallon for more BBQ fun, despite the lovely Scottish weather – i.e. it was pissing down. At least it meant the beach was quiet. We had a bit of a fiasco trying to get there as we had a convoy of 5 cars and only a vague notion of where we were going. We got there in the end though, after blocking the harbour at North Berwick – oops! Ali had brought a gazebo which took about 6 of us to erect but once it was up it did the job a treat. In no time we had the disposable barbies fired up and various yummy foodstuffs were cooking away. I even went for a paddle in the sea – and laughed at the wussy Ozzie and Italian who got as far as dipping a toe in and then running away. That’ll be the Celtic blood and lard insulation :oD On the whole, despite the precipitation, the day was hailed by all as a great success and I hope we do it again soon.

Marj's Movie Reviews

This episode:
Everything Is Illuminated *** (Worth a look)
Guy X * (Pish!)
Thumbsucker **** (Well worth a look)
South Pacific *** (a classic and who am I to argue? Much...)

I've had quite a movietastic weekend and thanks to Naomi, a bottle of plonk and Vogue Video. I spent Saturday afternoon supping Magners and scoffing goats cheese in the sun with Mandy and Emily (That place that used to be the Dutch House and is now a cafe type place: Huuuuawge sharing platters of yummy commestibles for £8.50 by the way. Bargainous and delicious - I'll definitely be going back!) I met up with Naomi later on and, after all that sun and booooze, an evening of cinematic entertainment seemed just the ticket. I think I've got mild sunburn on my ears anyway so it's probably for the best we decided not so stay out in the sun much longer. I like pink but not that special pink that my face goes when Mr Sun has bit my bum, so to speak. I look like a fecking eejit!

Anyhoo, rant over. To the movies!

Everything is Illuminated is about the grandson of a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine who fled from the Nazis to America in WW2. The earnest and bespectacled grandson sets out to find the woman who helped his grandfather with only an old photo and the name of a village to help him. I really liked this film for many reasons, which I won't say too much about because I was delightfully surprised by it and I wouldn't want to spoil that for you. I will say that the soundtrack is ace and I'd like to borrow it from Laura Pie please. Thank you very much ta :o)

Guy X, on the other hand, I was disappointed by. The cover was promising. The tagline was "There's been a f*ck up", it was hailed as a brilliant black comedy and a comparison to Catch 22 was made. All this made it seem like this would be an interesting and intelligent movie with a lot to offer. Unfortunately it wasn't. I'm afraid to say it barely kept my attention, and it only did because I felt sure it was going to go somewhere any minute and I wanted to see where that was cos, boy, it had better be good. The plot is that Jason Biggs,the dude who shagged the pie, is dropped on an army base in Greenland and immediately eaten by local insects. Boy, do I sympathise! When he comes to in the base hospital everyone is calling him by someone else's name and refuses to believe him when he tells them he was supposed to be in Hawaii. It goes on from there... Madness and boredom of isolated army life, bit of a love story, sinister cover-up, yadda yadda yadda...After watching this film I had a vague feeling that I'd missed the point of it and that annoyed me. I had that feeling after watching Jarhead as well (though I think I may have worked out what that movie's about - 2 months later!!!). It's like when someone gets to the end of an anecdote and looks like they are expecting you to go "Ho ho ho. That's so funny!" and all you are thinking is "Oh. Is that the end of the story? I don't get it..." Oooh, I do hate that in a movie!

Hooray for us keeping Thumbsucker for last! I put this one in the DVD player with a heavy heart because I felt that this one could go either way, thoughtful and enjoyable indie treat or tedious load of self-indulgent old waffle. I'm happy to say it turned out to be the first one - hoorah! And it had Kanoonie Reeves in it, as Ted Theodore Logan, all growed up and practicing dentistry. Woah, dude! This one is about a 17 year-old who still sucks his thumb and lives in suburbia. This guy really wants to stop sucking his thumb but it's how he copes with the normal horribleness of adolescence, middle-class white suburban family life and all that guff. He eventually gets prescribed Ritalin and the film deals with how that effects his life. Considering how many kids you hear are on this stuff in the States I'm glad they made this film and I hope a lot of people see it. Horrible stuff! The behind-the-scenes documentary in the extras is well worth a look.

I'm currently halfway through South Pacific and enjoying it immensely. Good old Rodgers & Hammerstein. It's big, it's bold and it's bloody silly in some places. South Pacific right? Polynesia, Japan, all that good stuff? How comes then, the famous Boar's Tooth Ceremony looks like something from tribal Africa and all the polynesians look suspiciously like tribal Africans as well? I can just imagine some big studio boss chomping on a cigar and saying "Ah what the Hell, nobody'll notice anyway. The public are dumb!" and some poor director weeping into his megaphone. It's getting exciting though. It's all gone to poo now and our 2 dashing and handsome leading men are heading off to a mission that could entail certain death because they've cocked up relations with their respective honeys...

And now I've just finished it. Cor, that was a good 'un. Still kinda silly in bits. When they're stalking around the island spying on the Japanese they have companions that are supposed to be local fishermen friends of the French dude. You guessed it... They look suspiciously like African tribesmen. Now, geography was never my best subject, once it got past colouring in maps I kind of lost interest, so if I'm overlooking a part of the population of the South Pacific please correct me. It's just all the local ladies in the film look, well, from the Pacific area at least. Hooray for Hollywood!

Words, words, words...

I've been reading a lot lately - Hoorah! I just finished Flying Dutch by Tom Holt and enjoyed it immensely. The the story is about the Flying Dutchman (no surprises there), a cat, an alchemist, an accountant and a life insurance policy. It was extremely well written and hugely entertaining. I'd totally recommend it. Thanks for lending me it Kirsi, I'm not sure I want to give it back ;o)

The other book I'm excited about this week is Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I've only read what adds up to about 2 books by this author but I think he's superb. Let me explain - I've read Good Omens which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett (so that's about half a book), Stardust and half of Anansi Boys. I was lent Stardust a few weeks ago by Louise and wasn't quite sure what to expect out of it. It's a lovely book though, a charming and entertaining fairy story for groan-ups. Much like Dianna Wynne-Jones (the 2 I have read) but with more sex and swearing (woo hoo!)

Anansi boys is about the sons of Anansi, the trickster spider god. I don't really want to say much more than that, except that it had me absolutely guffawing out loud in the first chapter. Where's that bit I wanted to share?...

"Spider kept himself amused. That was what he did. That was the important bit. He would not have recognised guilt if he'd had an illustrated guide to it, with all the component parts clearly labelled. It was not that he was feckless - more that he had simply not been around the day they handed out feck."

Heh heh heh. Just a wee example of the gems that this book contains. Just as I pulled it out the carrier bag and confessed to Louise that I'd naughtily detoured through Fopp on my way home she told me she was about to recommend it to me as she is reading it too. Coincidence? Hmm, who knows? Maybe I've been reading too much Gaiman to answer that one? Alls I know is it's one to take note of. I don't know why it's been published with 2 covers though, hopefully they don't have alternate endings or something!

Oh and P.S. Woo hoo! Friday! Yippeee!

Our last, best hope for entertainment.....

Well, not quite. Joss Whedon's still going after all but nevertheless - Yay! Kirsi and I have started watching season 5 of Babylon 5 at last. We gave ourselves a good long break in which we worked our way through, among other things, 4 seasons of Alias, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Hex season 1, The 10th Kingdom, Lost season 1 and even.... Resident Evil - the movie (ho ho ho, what utter balderdash!). Why leave it so long? I hear you ask. Simply because, compared to the rest of Babylon 5, the last series is completer and utter kack. How can you go from "GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR GALAXY!" to some wally with Timotei perfect hair who has an annoying habit of looking winsome and quoting Hamlet unmercilessly? I swear if he does it once more I'm putting my foot through the telly! I just hope we're at Kirsi's house that week ;o)

Despite the hirsute ponce it's still most definitely a very fine dose of sci-fi though, and we still have dear old G'kar (pictured above with his hetero-life partner/nemesis Londo). I remember how brilliant the first 4 series were and we're definitely going to have to watch them again now that I know what's going on and Kirsi won't have to suppress herself every time something seemingly insignificant, but with later huuuge consequences, happens. Mmmmm, plot-arclicious baby!

The rest of the weekend just past was fairly quiet. After a traumatic experience with Orange (forkwits! The lot of them!!) on Friday I had a couple of quiet drinks after work and then went home to slump on the couch with Louise and Craig. On Saturday I slept until I woke up and when I woke up there was a girl meets boy/girl hates boy/boy and girl get friendly/girl gets all stroppy and hates boy/girl and boy fall in love type movie on ITV that just sucked me in to a movie bonanza. I followed Cutting Edge (for that was the name of the movie) up with Strictly Ballroom, How to Steal a Million and What's New Pussycat? Nice! It looked sunny outside but I was quite happy where I was. On Sunday I went to see Wah Wah, Richard E. Grant's movie about his childhood in Swaziland. I enjoyed it. I'm never sure what to make of these movies that are about actual people but he had the cream of British acting talent in there and the script made me laugh and cry so it was ok in my book.

And now it's Monday and that totally sucks boaby by the way. Harumph! How long until Friday?