Let's pass over it being expensive now with a simple "Ow!" from my wallet, lying wounded on the bed. ;-) The important thing about money, I have always believed, is what using it can achieve, not just having it. Strange I never worked at a bank, eh?
Friday was the first incision, with an excursion to a Chinese restaurant and elsewhere for some secret planning and noble deeds. Then I picked up a new book by a favourite author - but not for myself, in a display of deplorable altruism. I singly failed to do something blogworthy when I spent an hour reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American. There must have been some reason they didn't give us this sort of interesting literature at school. Popped over to a friend's, then out in Newcastle-under-Lyme to celebrate Mo's birthday. Mo is a grand fella, but he nearly missed the evening after falling asleep at the end of a long day of work: a sure sign he is getting old. He's almost a year younger than I am, alarmingly!
Beer? Yes. Strange cocktails at Revolution (a vodka bar)? Yes. Something called a Strawberry Cheesecake? Yes. It was pink, liquid and had a strawberry on the side, so don't imagine we fed him a cake. Cider? Yes, when I saw Mo today, he remarked on how unpleasant was the hangover on Saturday, poor guy! I almost persuaded him to let me play "Have you met Mo?" This game will be familiar to fans of How I Met Your Mother, but not to anyone else. As I was on the verge, though, a mysterious stranger passed the window, and we recognised one another from back in school. We were just settling in to do a bit of a catch-up, but I had to dash when the birthday boy decided now was the time for curry. To be fair, it was about midnight at that point.
Nathan was advised by Mawbs to select an acari (I may be mis-spelling this, as when I hear the syllables, I think of this, not an Indian dish). This went badly awry, as it's apparently jolly hot. So he got some stick from another inebriate diner, whom he then challenged to eat his chilli. Said fellow having done so with no ill-effects, Nathan was profuse and charming in his praise. Still, this has rather undermined Nathan's image as our group's Dave Lister. Time to add chilli to everything to emerge victorious next time, perhaps.
I drove people home and got back myself a little after 2am. Needless to say, I got back this morning from the next night's excursion at about 2.30. Yes, while Mo was holding his head in his hands, B, N and I were off to celebrate Tammy's 25th in a very cool pub-cum-restaurant. I wasn't the only one to remark on the odd juxtaposition of celebrating life (a birthday party) while surrounded by the skulls of long-horned cattle. Still, there was vegan food and in copious quantities. I have worn larger trousers today in honour of that meal. Tammy's boss made the birthday cake, and it was a work of art. I shall try to get a picture up here of it. Edible "sushi bowls", edible "chopsticks" and other accoutrements: it was a visual Meisterwerk! Everyone eating it seemed to enjoy the taste, but I can only give a report of that at one remove for reasons mentioned long ago.
So back in the car, drop people off, then back up here again, and stumble into bed after 2am again. Sleep for six and a bit hours, then up for church. Last night's meal causes a slight contretemps to occur between my trousers' waistband and my waist, but the disagreement is smoothed over. I feel like Hercule Poirot in having such an attitude to my belly. Tsk! Back from church, change, to Festival Park, Hanley, where I find Mo and Mawbs. I was sure I'd be late, as we had agreed on 12.30, and I arrived at the rendezvous at 12.33. That I assumed they'd gone off already, and that they turned up at 12.38 tells you a lot about me. To Pizza Hut, in the end, cue cutting remarks: the menu includes a swankier section titled "If you're feeling a bit posh..." which all but demands the rejoinder "Then why are you at Pizza Hut?" Pulling the sting from such cruelty, I drew wide the door, and ushered the others within.
Did you know that you can have a wide-ranging conversation about horror films and their frightful contents in a family restaurant, with nobody the wiser and leave the kindly waitresses with the impression that you're sweet and nostalgic for youth. Well, nobody connected our discussion of the events of Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Saw 2 (3?), and the frankly underwhelming The Fog (proscribed until my brother and I were both past eighteen by our perturbed parents, as it had so unnerved them. I can imagine that it could frighten people, but that is as far as I shall go. Anyway, we ended up discussing a nasty bit of business with barbed wire in the second of those pointless Human Centipede films, which we broke off on our waitress bringing the bill. We changed our topic of conversation to our intention to visit Toys 'R' Us to indulge in a little nostalgia.
You may be relieved to hear that our knowledge of that last film is divorced from having seen it or even having an inclination to. Then again, you might feel us frightful milksops for failing to push our faculties to some limit or other. My ex got very quiet and curled up after about ten minutes of American Psycho, which is a charmingly bonkers black comedy, so I cut that off, then I did the same to a friend's showing of one of those two Cannibal films above on humanitarian grounds. Not everyone is a fan of gore. What most upset me about one of those Cannibal flicks was not the impaled people, realistic though they were (my friend told me that an Italian court took the director to task for murdering his stars), but that some poor turtle or tortoise had been butchered alive during the filming. Poor creature. Give me an actress pretending to be impaled with hypodermic needles any day rather than real human monstrousness.
Anyway! We then adjourned to do a spot of bowling. I quite enjoy the sport, despite my poor eyesight. I have perfectly good vision, but I have inherited from my mother along with the good eye for detail a slight wonkiness of targeting which means I'm always a bit off. I have to aim slightly to the right of my target. I was on fine form this afternoon, with my corrective aiming sometimes working perfectly, and then again yielding gutter ball after gutter ball! You can safely surmise that I came third of three both times, with Mawbs and Mo each winning once. A spot of air-hockey took place between matches, when my aggressive style was remarked on after I had three times sent the puck flying off the table in the course of one game. Oops!
We then went next-door to the motion picture house, where we elected to see Horrible Bosses. This is a rather engaging film, which is probably in the mould of The Hangover - which I have not seen. Three friends decide they must kill their awful bosses, and eventually decide to kill each other's bosses so that there's no link. Everything goes wrong, needless to say, with "hilarious consequences". If you know anything of films, you're saying Strangers on a Train, which it takes the characters half an hour longer to say than it does the viewer. For people who get all their information about how to kill someone from those cop shows we see everywhere these days (CSI, Law and Order, &c, &c), they don't seem to have picked up everything those shows hammer home.
That's about as far as criticism can go. They skewer that source material with lines such as "Yeah, and semen. The solve most of those cases with semen: the silent killer." I'm not quoting verbatim, but you can pretend I am Doctor Watson if you wish. Jason Bateman is absolutely gorgeous, as is Jennifer Aniston with dark hair in the role of nymphomaniac boss. Kevin Spacey revels in his part as a diabolical monster of a boss. Foxx, as a "murder consultant" is utterly priceless, and Jason Sudeikis has a string of delightfully entertaining lines when he tries to speak to any black character. I'll steal a snippet from imdb to show that isn't the only stuff happening.
Detective Hagan: You wanna explain why you were speeding?
Nick Hendricks: I was drag racing.
Detective Hagan: In a Prius?
Nick Hendricks: I don't win a lot.
It's a very entertaining black comedy. Well, I found it so, as my mates can attest. Indeed, anyone in the cinema will probably mention "that bloke with the booming laugh". I'll stop now as otherwise I'll just turn this into an overlong film review. Suffice to say that jokes in terrible taste will dominate our conversation for some time to come. With the suggestion you watch that film on my lips (er, fingers?), I promise to suggest something less diabolical in future! Until next time, dear readers, be well.
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