test please delete

[BR14]

Now watching "The Small Back Room (1949)" with Jack Hawkins, directed by Powell and Pressburger.

deep joy.

[NickFitz]

Now watching "The Small Back Room (1949)" with Jack Hawkins, directed by Powell and Pressburger.

That’s a good one. Some lovely shots of Stonehenge when they’re testing the Reeves Gun

[DoctorStrangelove]

I won't be watching it all.

TFBSZ.

Feck me it's a bit atmospheric, innit?

All "Lost Weekend"y without starring someone from Neath.

[WTFH]

5pm, time to go for a walk. It’s a bit breezy out.

[BR14]

I won't be watching it all.

TFBSZ.

Feck me it's a bit atmospheric, innit?

All "Lost Weekend"y without starring someone from Neath.

is that where JohntheBore lives?

[NickFitz]

Tonight I wasn’t really in the mood for reading, but I also wasn’t in the mood for watching any of the TV series I have on the go, nor a film, which left me in something of a quandary. Then I remembered I intended to watch the BBC’s recent adaptation of Dracula, so I figured I’d give the first episode a go.

…and ended up watching all three, each getting on for ninety minutes long, and throughly enjoyed it

Well, almost all of it; there were some bits in the early regions of the third episode where I thought the writing got a tad lazy for a couple of minutes here and there, but it soon picked back up, and flowed well from there.

I have Great Thoughts about certain aspects of it in the context of the original novel (which I didn’t get around to re-reading yet, but I still remember it in detail despite not having read it for at least thirty years, which may be one mark of a good novel) but I fear that expressing them here would involve spoilers, so I won’t

One nitpick though: Van Helsing’s Dutch accent is atrocious. I say this as one who lived with a Dutch girlfriend for a number of years, and knows what someone with a Dutch accent sounds like.

And speaking of my Dutch GF and Dracula: around 1998 some Goth friends of ours applied for a job running a NAAFI canteen and bar (if that’s what they’re still called) at Fylingdales, the Top Secret base with the ABM radars and NSA listening posts, because it was near Whitby and they wanted to live there, it being Goth Central because of the Dracula connection. Neither of them could drive, so they asked my Dutch GF to drive them up there for the job interview.

Upon arrival at the gates of one of the most secure military installations in the United Kingdom, the two Goths had to present all their documents from Birth Certificates up at the gate, which were all checked there and then via numerous phone calls and computer searches, before they were allowed in. As for Gerda: the military just accepted the explanation that “She’s our friend who drove us up here” and, when she presented her Dutch passport as proof of ID, they merely glanced at it in a manner that she later described to me as “like they were being polite because I offered it to them” and otherwise just accepted her presence.

Once they were finally let in, she drove up to the place where the Goths were to be interviewed. Having gained admission while she quite happily settled down in the car to wait, they were asked how they’d got there and explained that a friend had driven them. Whereupon a soldier was dispatched to invite her in, she was taken into the room where they were being interviewed, asked if she’d like a cup of tea which was duly provided along with a plate of biscuits, and got to sit at the back of the room and watch her friends (who hadn’t been offered tea and biscuits) go through their job interview

They got the job, but sadly they broke up a few months later. I don’t know what happened to them after that, as not long after, so did we

Still, it’s nice to know that the Top Secrets are being carefully preserved from people who’ve lived here all their lives while mysterious women with strange foreign accents get tea and biscuits just for showing up at the gate

Goodnight all

[original PM]

Morning All,

Must be a bit earlier today as it's still dark.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning all

Grey.

Colder at 17.5 deg in here.

Breezy.

Dry.

Dark.

Sunless (mostly because the sun hasn't risen over the mountain yet even if there's no cloud).

I believe it to be Tuesday.

I won't be watching it all.

TFBSZ.

Feck me it's a bit atmospheric, innit?

All "Lost Weekend"y without starring someone from Neath.

is that where JohntheBore lives?

Dunno about that, but it certainly is where Ray Milland (The Lost Weeked) came from.

Tonight I wasn’t really in the mood for reading, but I also wasn’t in the mood for watching any of the TV series I have on the go, nor a film

Same here, thousands of film, dozens of box sets, and still nothing to watch, giving rise to much time wasting on the stairs with a torch scanning the piles of dvds for something that appeals.

Then giving up & watching Dr Pimplepopper.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Dry.

That was then, raining now.

[BrilloPad]

Bugger. I leave the country and my uncle decides to die.

Now, from my parents’ generation of the clan, there’s only 3 left.