test please delete

[zeitghost]

Gosh.

The day (Saturday) dawned bright & sunny and almost warmish.

The shopping got itself done, the railway tickets got bought.

Lunch was had, a Peters' Steak & Kidney pie (full price not reduced) with a Heinz snap pot of baked beans.

Then the train times were checked to reveal dire warnings re the line to Bristol Temple Meads.

90 minute delays possible.

So, nothing ventured, nothing gained, Zeity duly caught the train & went on his way.

Without any particular problem, arrived more or less on time & took a taxi to the venue.

Wedding was endured.

Drink was taken.

Meal was eaten.

Then, before the dancing began, Zeity legged it & took a taxi back to the station.

Caught the train back to Cardiff, which was a GWR cross country thing, but quite civilised.

The train from Cardiff to Neath was anything but, though it was a Class 175 with 2 carriages.

The previous train had been cancelled, so it was packed to the gunwhales with drunken Welsh persons.

As an example of how the other half lives it was a bit of an eye opener.

Many got off at Pontyclun to be replaced by other drunks.

Some got off at Llanharan to be replaced by yet more.

Then there was a mass departure at Bridgend which calmed things down a bit.

And eventually we got to Neath.

Whereupon I walked home having come to the conclusion that spending £20 in one day on taxis was quite enough.

Neath, in contrast, was quiet apart from the racket coming from the odd pub or two.

Happily the sun and blue skies lasted long enough for the photos, and it clouded over about 19:00 or so.

Picking with rain in Cardiff & it had been raining in Neath.

Watched the last ep of Doctor Who.

And now it's time for bed.

[NickFitz]

Gosh.
…{hectic stuff}…

Sounds like a bit of a change from your usual Saturday

Bet you're hoping this marriage sticks

[NickFitz]

Tonight's kinematic extravaganza commenced with Quadrophenia, which I had seen when it was on telly some time in the Eighties.

I have to say, it's not very good really

It can be summarised as "Life seemed crap as a young working class person in West London in the mid-1960s, but in fact there were an abundance of reasonably well-paying jobs, and a lack of credit controls meant that you could get a motor bike or scooter on HP with such a job. But your house didn't have a bathroom, and you and your mates were all small-minded dickheads."

I noticed that they made a big play of the bloke going to the tailors to make the last payment on his new suit, but never showed anybody making the HP payments on their means of transport, even though they must all have been doing so.

Oh, and the new songs The Who wrote to go with it demonstrated why they should have stopped being The Who at about the time The Beatles decided to part ways. Let's face it, writing a few songs that reflect a generation's mood at the time doesn't necessarily equip you to write songs that provide adequate reflection back on the experience fifteen years later

And I've tipped people generously for carrying my bags into the Grand Hotel, and even if all their customers do the same, they're still not going to be able to afford a suit and scooter like Sting's character had while supposedly doing the same job.

Having thought about giving up a third of the way through, but deciding to stick it out to the end, I felt I needed something with a bit more action than some staged rucks in East Street in Brighton. And at the tail end of a "people also watched" list I found just the thing: a film from five or six years ago that I'd never heard of, called Hanna.

This opened with a young girl in an Arctic forest shooting a reindeer with a bow and arrow, pursuing it until it collapsed on the tundra, apologising to it for having missed its heart (so it didn't die immediately), pulling out a gun and shooting it dead, then gutting it… and then the action begins. I think we can all agree that this is an excellent opening

Anyway, it's basically Jason Bourne but she's a sixteen year old girl who's been raised in an Arctic forest by a renegade CIA operative as a deadly killing machine out to avenge her mother's death. And there's a good chunk of the film where she ends up travelling in the company of a British family who are Hampstead Liberal Guardian Readers, which provides for some light relief accompanied by brutal murders. And then there's a long sequence set in that abandoned East German theme park. All in all, I really enjoyed it and don't care what the posh film critics might think about it

And as it wasn't yet really getting that light, I rounded the night off with Klute, which is another one of those films that I think I last saw in the Seventies, and about which so much has been said and written over the years that I'll just say that I appreciated it much more now than I was able to then.

Goodnight (or morning) all

[BrilloPad]

[BrilloPad]

Lovely and Sunny in LLandudno

[zeitghost]

Tonight's kinematic extravaganza commenced with Quadrophenia, which I had seen when it was on telly some time in the Eighties.

I have to say, it's not very good really

It can be summarised as "Life seemed crap as a young working class person in West London in the mid-1960s, but in fact there were an abundance of reasonably well-paying jobs, and a lack of credit controls meant that you could get a motor bike or scooter on HP with such a job. But your house didn't have a bathroom, and you and your mates were all small-minded dickheads."

I noticed that they made a big play of the bloke going to the tailors to make the last payment on his new suit, but never showed anybody making the HP payments on their means of transport, even though they must all have been doing so.

Oh, and the new songs The Who wrote to go with it demonstrated why they should have stopped being The Who at about the time The Beatles decided to part ways. Let's face it, writing a few songs that reflect a generation's mood at the time doesn't necessarily equip you to write songs that provide adequate reflection back on the experience fifteen years later

And I've tipped people generously for carrying my bags into the Grand Hotel, and even if all their customers do the same, they're still not going to be able to afford a suit and scooter like Sting's character had while supposedly doing the same job.

Having thought about giving up a third of the way through, but deciding to stick it out to the end, I felt I needed something with a bit more action than some staged rucks in East Street in Brighton. And at the tail end of a "people also watched" list I found just the thing: a film from five or six years ago that I'd never heard of, called Hanna.

This opened with a young girl in an Arctic forest shooting a reindeer with a bow and arrow, pursuing it until it collapsed on the tundra, apologising to it for having missed its heart (so it didn't die immediately), pulling out a gun and shooting it dead, then gutting it… and then the action begins. I think we can all agree that this is an excellent opening

Anyway, it's basically Jason Bourne but she's a sixteen year old girl who's been raised in an Arctic forest by a renegade CIA operative as a deadly killing machine out to avenge her mother's death. And there's a good chunk of the film where she ends up travelling in the company of a British family who are Hampstead Liberal Guardian Readers, which provides for some light relief accompanied by brutal murders. And then there's a long sequence set in that abandoned East German theme park. All in all, I really enjoyed it and don't care what the posh film critics might think about it

And as it wasn't yet really getting that light, I rounded the night off with Klute, which is another one of those films that I think I last saw in the Seventies, and about which so much has been said and written over the years that I'll just say that I appreciated it much more now than I was able to then.

Goodnight (or morning) all

Quadrophenia, most remarkable for the early appearance of Toyah Wilcox IIRC.

The cost of his suit must have paled into insignificance compared with the cost of the additional wing mirrors on the scooter. WTF was that all about? Increasing the wind drag?

The only memory of "Klute" that I have is it seeming interminable in a double feature with "Dirty Harry" which is what I really wanted to watch again.

I think that was in the Albert Hall in Swansea, back when it was a cinema rather than a dangerously decaying ex Bingo Hall.

I'll look out for "Hanna" in the charity shops.

[zeitghost]

Sounds like a bit of a change from your usual Saturday

Bet you're hoping this marriage sticks

Indeed.

Twice in 38 years is pushing it a bit.

And I had to find a reasonable tie that wasn't black.

The one I found was covered in flowers & such like & must have been purchased in the late 1990s.

[zeitghost]

Oh, and the black shoes were pinching a bit by the end of it all.

Today the ZeitLunch shall consist of lamb's heart plus breast of lamb.

Yum.

[SueEllen]

Watching Darling Buds of May

[zeitghost]

Watching Darling Buds of May

I suppose somebody has to.

Is it any good?