Well this is a bit odd - http://www.isthisyour.name/mark_sunderland.htm. The thought that there should, according to statistics, be about 50-odd Americans called Mark Sunderland was kinda interesting.
Plan for the weekend is to start on this huge pile of stuff I've got to scan. Quite whether I'll actually be arsed I'm not sure - I'm not really in the mood to be at the moment I have to admit.
Right, well, I admitted I was watching the damn thing and I don't appear to have stopped, so here's a kinda summary of my thoughts of BB so far.
One of the things about BB is that, generally, those people that are interested in going on the show are, by nature going to be at least a little bit extrovert and possibly a little attention seeking. These things are basically a given.
And by my nature I'm the sort of person who doesn't really like those traits in other people. Especially when they're ramped up to high levels.
What I mean is that I instantly dislike people who put on a "big show" or who deliberately act OTT. This is a little difficult to really explain properly, as we all are a bit fake. We all have to 'put on faces' and pretend to be certain things at certain times.
It's like talking about other "people behind their backs", which is one of the things Big Brother always brings out, because the cameras are there all the time on everybody. The thing about it is that it's something we all profess to hate, and yet everyone does it.
Now I have a theory on why - I think it's part of being in and interacting with social groups. See, we communicate verbally, so in order for us to establish out pecking order in a group and in order to find like minded people in that group we discuss the common element - other people. It's only natural and normal.
Of the degree of bitchiness will vary wildly, the basic thing is the same.
Where was I?
Oh yeah - basically what I'm saying is that the housemates fall into two basic groups for me. There's the ones that stepped over that line of "fakeness" and there's everybody else. Now I don't think the everybody else are actually normal because of what I said above about the type of people that go into BB, but they're the ones that are near enough to what I consider normal for me to find them likeable.
But there's even a further sub-divisions within that. Anyway, here's the basic groupings:
The fakes:
Angel: She entered the house posing a lot and making hissing noises. Oh dear.
As time progressed she seemed a bit more normal, although she seems obsessed with exercise and proclaims almost on an hourly basis that people will 'get fat'. Also, when the housemates were given booze and pizza as a kind of treat thing, she instead sucked an egg and had a glass of milk.
Yes, you did read that right - sucked an egg. She punched a little hole in it and sucked out the contents. Seriously.
However, in terms of how she's been in the actual house generally she seems okay.
Siavash: To some extent I'm being a bit harsh here again. As a person I think Siavash is probably alright, but he's, well, I dunno how to put it - too obsessed with clothes, I suppose.
When he entered the house he had some natty suit on, but then while they were non-housemates they had to change into some generic clothes. Siavash kept complaining about not being able to get at his clothes and 'needing' his clothes. When he eventually got in this became apparent why - his outfits are bonkers and he's obsessed with clothes.
Now it's one thing to have a unique style, it's another to go into Big Brother with a full-on opera-mask with a ginormous 12-inch pointy nose packed in your case.
Maybe his general alright-ness will make me forget such things, but I'm guessing now that he has access to his clothes the opposite will happen.
Halfwit (Freddie): He and Sophie were required to legally change their names in order to get into the house, which is why the stupid name.
But it kinda suits him. He's a posh, rich toff type, which I've no fundamental problem with, although his toff accent is a bit extreme. No, it's the following I don't like: Says his profession is "Entrepreneur" - tool. Babbles lots of hippy-dippy shite - idiot. Sings, badly - cock. And worst of all proclaimed himself to be bisexual.
Now I've nothing wrong with bisexuality. To some extent I'm of the opinion that most people are, to a greater or lesser extent, bisexual. Whether or not the majority of people would act on any desires or feelings they had is the thing that fixes most people to hetero- or homo-sexuality, I think.
No, the problem is that people who proclaim their sexuality, especially when it's bisexuality, get on my nerves. It's always just smacked to me of "look at me, I'm so different from everyone else".
Let's put it this way - most people I think tend to view their sexuality both as their business and not a general area of discussion unless specifically asked about it. You don't go up to a group of people you've just met and just tell them you're bisexual right off do you? Surely topics like your favourite cheese are more normal.
Sree: He seems so utterly fake. He's Indian and he has the weirdest accent I've ever heard - not from the point of view of the sound of it, but how good his grasp of English is seems to come and go. It's like sometimes his sentences are all totally muddled and then suddenly he'll be throwing around big words.
I keep expecting a crime thriller-esque moment where, having confronted him about it, Sree smiles, leans back and then reveals how much of a creep his is, talking in a posh, plumy English accent.
He's weird too - on the one hand he proclaims shyness, yet if other people are talking he'll bound up and start nosing in. Also he keeps invading everyone's personal space - especially the girls, who he keeps pawing at.
And when it came to the day of evicting the first person he was clamouring around the housemates basically asking "do you like me?" and stuff. Then he goes to the diary room upset about possibly going, but it came across as really fake, playing on the sympathy vote.
Maybe it's all genuine and that's how he is, but it really comes across as someone faking it to try to win.
The normals:
Charlie: Mr Gay UK or something. He's a bit full-on for me personally - a good in small doses sort - but he seems like quite a good laugh. He has a tendency to do practical jokes though and I'm really not a fan of practical jokes.
Kris: A former male model and he is pretty handsome I'd say. I think a haircut and shave would actually work better on him, but otherwise he seems like a fairly normal chap. Albeit a normal chap who knows he's attractive to the ladies anyway.
Lisa: I think the term is 'butch lesbian' and she's definitely that. I've no real problem with her, although she seems to be the type that's into new age crap. She's mentioned energy a few times and I would guess she knows what Reiki is. Well, I know what Reiki is too, but I'd never believe it actually works. Not that I'd know if Lisa does either, but that's the feeling I get.
Marcus: Looks a bit like Wolverine (the comic book superhero, not the large weasel) with big lamb-chop sideburns. To me he seems like a decent enough chap. He's certainly not as flamboyant and OTT as some, but that's not a bad thing.
Noirin: She's Irish, but she's clearly of mixed-race parentage and to me that keeps being slightly disconcerting. I guess that's prejudice on my part isn't it? But I dunno, I don't tend to think of there being Black Irish people. I mean, with the IRA and whoever else going around blowing things up would you want to move there? And slaves weren't really used in Ireland in the way they were in the colonies or on the mainland, where they? Or maybe they were - I don't know.
Anyway, what I will say is she's very pretty (is it me or are mixed-race (what's the proper PC term? - I haven't a clue) girls all gorgeous?) and swears like a trooper and that's about it because she's really lacking for air-time - the highlights shows almost never show her, even when there's a big crowd.
Rodrigo: An early favourite to win. He's from Brazil, is really good looking in an elfish sort of way, very bouncy and up-beat and seems like a genuinely nice person so I can see why.
Cairon: Tough one. The big problem is he's only 18, but he looks a lot older. So oftentimes when I see him acting in the ways he does I'm unimpressed, but then I remember he's really only a kid so I forgive him a bit more.
The American accent is a bit odd, though. He's apparently actually from London, but lived in America growing up. What's weird though is you get odd English bits sneaking in from his time here - like he keeps saying 'innit' which is very English.
He's got an eye on Sophie and she seems to like him too, so things may get interesting there. He certainly doesn't seem to lack in confidence.
Karly: She did well in something called 'High Street Honeys' which is something FHM magazine did, apparently. She certainly pretty.
I'll tell you the most surprising thing, though - so far she doesn't seem bitchy or nasty. Indeed, there are quite a few pretty girls in the house and to be frank all of them seem like they're nice enough people. Which just goes to show you can't always trust stereotypes.
Things get a little confusing now as there are three girls with, like, variations on the same name - Sophia, Saffia and Sophie - and two of them have been having a big old barny.
Saffia: She seems very strong willed and more than a little independent. All good things in my book, although I have to admit I worry about a single mother of two very young kids who would go on BB which could last anything up to 3 or 4 months. There's independence and then there's independence. I hope there's a clutch of grandparents on hand.
Sophia: She's tiny. Apparently she has Lupus and I dunno if it's because of that but she must only be about 5 foot tall.
Sophia is the closest of those in the normal pile to being in with the fakes. Trouble is I don't think she's fake. But I do find her to be an unpleasant person.
Basically, she and Saffia are having a massive row. It's because on the first night Saffia and Sophia slept close together and talked a lot. Then Saffia had to pick 3 people to do a task to get into the house and she didn't pick Sophia.
Clearly Sophia took umbrage at this and I don't blame her for that. What I don't like is that Sophia has become utterly obsessed with it.
It's like later the other housemates played a small joke on Sophia by stealing her (un-drunk) champagne and her reaction to it did not show her in a good light. It just became such a big melodrama. Indeed, everything is a big melodrama for Sophia and I really don't like people like that.
Dogface (Sophie): Again, stupid name because of the challenge.
Basically, Sophie is probably my favourite. And yes a big part of that is that she's hawt and has huge breasts. And yes, I did Google for pics of her as soon as I got the opportunity. Sorry, that's very old-skool and unreconstructed caveman of me isn't it?
Only thing I would say is she clearly didn't need the boob job. I can see why she did it as her natural breasts are so large they did have a bit of sag to them, but such things are what make breasts and their infinite variety so appealing.
Er, sorry, got off the topic there a bit.
Basically, as well as the hawt thing, Sophie also seems like a really nice person. Slightly incongruously for a glamour model she seems a little shy. Or if not exactly shy then I think it took a while for her to settle in and be comfortable, and she's not an OTT type.
There was another housemate, Beinazir, who got booted out after only three days. I have absolutely no opinion of her because I'm not aware of her having done anything or said anything whilst in there - certainly there's nothing I remember from the highlights shows. Which is probably why nobody voted to let her in.
Wow this is a huge post - and all of it makes me feel slightly dirty.
Halfwit (Freddie) and Sophia are up for nominations. I'm guessing Sophia will be voted off, but I'd prefer to see Freddie go.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
oops
Well today I'd initially planned to bring you the last of my textual blog posts about my holiday. It was meant to be a sort of odds and sods round up.
I am actually planning another post or two that will hopefully be some of the photos I took. Unfortunately that does mean I have to find time to wade through them all, though, so don't hold your breath!
Anyway, I say oops because I totally forgot that today we had a meeting planned with a customer. That means I've just not had the time to write the post.
The meeting was kinda pointless, tbh. It was sort of a progress meeting I guess and there wasn't a lot to discuss in terms of the progress, so it was a bit of a non-event. I actually tried to wiggle my way out of it by suggesting the project manager go on his own while I was on holiday, but that idea didn't seem to take.
I am actually planning another post or two that will hopefully be some of the photos I took. Unfortunately that does mean I have to find time to wade through them all, though, so don't hold your breath!
Anyway, I say oops because I totally forgot that today we had a meeting planned with a customer. That means I've just not had the time to write the post.
The meeting was kinda pointless, tbh. It was sort of a progress meeting I guess and there wasn't a lot to discuss in terms of the progress, so it was a bit of a non-event. I actually tried to wiggle my way out of it by suggesting the project manager go on his own while I was on holiday, but that idea didn't seem to take.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
10,000BC
Wow, this film was bad.
I think I've mentioned that I read Empire magazine. My memory of their review for 10,000BC was that it was a bit daft but entertaining enough.
While I'd agree with it being daft I really didn't find it very entertaining at all.
There's actually a line about two-thirds of the way through that kinda summarises the main thing that annoyed me about the film. One of the good guys is explaining about the bad guys and says something to the effect that nobody knows where they came from.
He says something along the lines of "some think they came from the sky, others that they came from across the ocean from a land that sunk." Basically what this is referring to is the 'theory' that Egyptians were really aliens (see Stargate) and the theory of Atlantis (see, well, if you've not heard of Atlantis then start with wikipedia I guess :/).
But I think that it's also referring to Erich Von Daniken and his fellow "Real history is kinda confusing and a little dull and takes far to much painstaking research to work out, so here's a collection of bonkers ideas with half-baked and very loose evidence to back them up" writers.
Again, wikipedia's a good place to get the skinny on the whacky theories these people come up with.
Now part of me kinda likes these writers because they come up with some interesting ideas. What I don't like about them is that they genuinely seem to think their ideas hold merit and so do their readers.
But anyway, it's daft ideas like these that seem to have formed the basis for 10,000BC.
So as I say, the bad guys are possibly alien or from Atlantis or maybe just foreigners. Which I guess is okay, but you also get the utterly bizarre proposition that wholly mammoths were used to build the pyramids.
I mean seriously - whut?
Setting aside all problems of getting the timing wrong (mammoths are extinct by the time we build the pyramids), are we seriously supposed to believe that wholly mammoths with their huge mass and great big furry bodies that evolved to cope with the extreme cold of the northern latitudes during the last ice age would survive for any period of time in the Egyptian desert?
I mean come on - fantasy is one thing; utterly retarded is another.
And that's just one of many utterly ridiculous things.
My personal favourite is to do with the journey that the heroes go on.
If you look at the locations in an analytical way it seemed to be that the cavemen start somewhere in central Europe. They then move south, travelling through what appears to be a tropical jungle, arriving in a desert country that very much appears to be Northern Africa.
Okay, so if we ignore the whole jungle bit (especially since it's filled with terror birds - large, carnivorous, flightless birds... that were native to South America and extinct 2 million years ago :/) that seems like a basically sensible journey. However, it starts to unravel when you get to the point where all these tribes are apparently unfamiliar with boats and sailing.
That means they somehow made the journey without ever crossing or travelling down a large river, which is fair enough until you think about the time taken to trek around such rivers. But it also means they couldn't have gone from Europe to Africa by crossing the Mediterranean. That in turn means they must have passed through Egypt to get there... and yet Egypt is their final destination.
Eh?
And those are just the tip of the iceberg.
But the real kicker is that you could have ignored all of these blatant time buggerations and logical problems if the personal story had been any good. But it really wasn't.
The general jist was a quest for the hero to save his true love and I guess rescue humanity. Which is pretty tried and true ground you'd think, but I dunno, they totally bungled it. Not least of all because I didn't really care about the romance and the hero was actually a bit of an idiot and also rather bland.
Avoid.
I think I've mentioned that I read Empire magazine. My memory of their review for 10,000BC was that it was a bit daft but entertaining enough.
While I'd agree with it being daft I really didn't find it very entertaining at all.
There's actually a line about two-thirds of the way through that kinda summarises the main thing that annoyed me about the film. One of the good guys is explaining about the bad guys and says something to the effect that nobody knows where they came from.
He says something along the lines of "some think they came from the sky, others that they came from across the ocean from a land that sunk." Basically what this is referring to is the 'theory' that Egyptians were really aliens (see Stargate) and the theory of Atlantis (see, well, if you've not heard of Atlantis then start with wikipedia I guess :/).
But I think that it's also referring to Erich Von Daniken and his fellow "Real history is kinda confusing and a little dull and takes far to much painstaking research to work out, so here's a collection of bonkers ideas with half-baked and very loose evidence to back them up" writers.
Again, wikipedia's a good place to get the skinny on the whacky theories these people come up with.
Now part of me kinda likes these writers because they come up with some interesting ideas. What I don't like about them is that they genuinely seem to think their ideas hold merit and so do their readers.
But anyway, it's daft ideas like these that seem to have formed the basis for 10,000BC.
So as I say, the bad guys are possibly alien or from Atlantis or maybe just foreigners. Which I guess is okay, but you also get the utterly bizarre proposition that wholly mammoths were used to build the pyramids.
I mean seriously - whut?
Setting aside all problems of getting the timing wrong (mammoths are extinct by the time we build the pyramids), are we seriously supposed to believe that wholly mammoths with their huge mass and great big furry bodies that evolved to cope with the extreme cold of the northern latitudes during the last ice age would survive for any period of time in the Egyptian desert?
I mean come on - fantasy is one thing; utterly retarded is another.
And that's just one of many utterly ridiculous things.
My personal favourite is to do with the journey that the heroes go on.
If you look at the locations in an analytical way it seemed to be that the cavemen start somewhere in central Europe. They then move south, travelling through what appears to be a tropical jungle, arriving in a desert country that very much appears to be Northern Africa.
Okay, so if we ignore the whole jungle bit (especially since it's filled with terror birds - large, carnivorous, flightless birds... that were native to South America and extinct 2 million years ago :/) that seems like a basically sensible journey. However, it starts to unravel when you get to the point where all these tribes are apparently unfamiliar with boats and sailing.
That means they somehow made the journey without ever crossing or travelling down a large river, which is fair enough until you think about the time taken to trek around such rivers. But it also means they couldn't have gone from Europe to Africa by crossing the Mediterranean. That in turn means they must have passed through Egypt to get there... and yet Egypt is their final destination.
Eh?
And those are just the tip of the iceberg.
But the real kicker is that you could have ignored all of these blatant time buggerations and logical problems if the personal story had been any good. But it really wasn't.
The general jist was a quest for the hero to save his true love and I guess rescue humanity. Which is pretty tried and true ground you'd think, but I dunno, they totally bungled it. Not least of all because I didn't really care about the romance and the hero was actually a bit of an idiot and also rather bland.
Avoid.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
holiday 3 - the other days
So one of the best things about going to Monaco was that we were doing it as a proper holiday.
As mentioned the other day, Friday is a racing day, but it has no Formula 1 action. Plus, the Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, so the cost of flights was artificially elevated, so the travel company we went with did it so that the flights were on Tuesday. We therefore also had Monday as a free day.
On the Friday we decided to pay a visit to Cannes.
For many years I've often wondered why random Hollywood celebrities turn up at the Monaco Grand Prix, being interviewed on the start. Now you do occasionally get celebs at other GPs of course, but the frequency and calibre at Monaco always seemed unusual.
Well it turns out that the Cannes film festival basically runs at a similar time as the Monaco GP. The main activity of Cannes is normally over by the time Monaco rolls around, but you can imagine that the celebs are kicking about doing nothing when an invite turns up from Monaco and off they trot.
Anyway, so we thought we'd have a butchers at Cannes on Friday. That meant a short train journey down the coast.
We actually missed the train we were supposed to go on as they changed the platform and didn't properly announce it (more on such things at a later date). However, we got the next train and ended up where we were supposed to.
To be perfectly frank, Cannes is distinctly unimpressive.
It's kinda obvious that they created the film festival in order to attract people to an otherwise fairly standard French seaside town.
The actual film festival is held at a Casino close to the coast. It's probably the most ugly building I've ever seen.
Nothing was really happening, but the red carpets were there and bouncers were milling about on doorways.
Most of the seafront was blocked off mainly by tent-like things, some of which sold horribly over-priced merchandise. However, the harbour was accessible, so we had a wander around that. A bit like Monaco there were some staggeringly big and expensive-looking yachts. Some appeared to be hosting lunch parties and on one there was clearly someone that other people recognised.
We didn't know who it was so we guessed it was maybe a local French celebrity.
Oh, and while we were having lunch some bikini-clad girls turned up with some guys with cameras. Now, because of how it worked out I never really got a proper look at the girls, which when I think back on it is bizarre, because they came and sat right behind me. One of the girls must literally have been 6 inches away.
Now if you know anything about me the one thing you can be assured of is that I'm not a prude. However, one thing that's probably not apparent is that I find it... I dunno, confusing I suppose, as to whether I'm allowed to look, well, look at girls.
It's like I don't want to leer at them. It's such a typical reaction and I'm always unsure whether a girl finds it to be uncomfortable or not, even when she's clearly putting everything on display, as it were.
I also sort of hate the power it has over me. It's like the old cliché that men will do anything for a pretty girl. I hate that, but equally I know that in the same situation if a pretty girl asked me to do something I almost certainly would.
I'm not sure I'm explaining this properly - but the basic point is that these scantily clad girls were cavorting around on the grass behind me and I didn't have a look.
But then there is a caveat to that - the blokes with them were photographers and they were taking pictures. Very quickly a huge crowd formed of random people taking pictures and so I was basically buried in a scrum of sweaty blokes.
If there's one thing I hate it's the invasion of my personal space in such a fashion, which pretty much explains why I didn't look and high-tailed it out of there.
After the harbour we sat and had an ice-cream and then went for a wander around Cannes. If you're female and shoes and expensive designer clothes are your thing then Cannes's shops are probably heaven.
Oh and oddly there's a large Boulez (French Bowls) pitch in Cannes. There were quite a few playing as well.
So that was Cannes - colour me unimpressed.
On Monday we did two things.
In the morning we went into Nice, which is where we stayed.
If I'm honest I was totally shattered, so wasn't in much of a 'doing stuff' mood, but it seemed like quite a nice place. We had a pleasant lunch and sat next to a big fountain they have. It was in the middle of a gigantic plaza/square thing. It was so big I think you could have put the entirety of Farnham town centre in there and still had room to spare.
Nice is a big place. This was emphasised on a touristy train ride thing we did. It was a car thing that was made up to look like a train with carriages behind. We were going to do the same basic thing in Cannes, but it would have taken too long. This one lasted about 45 minutes or so with a 15 minute break in the middle.
It went past some sites and went up onto a big hill thing towards the edge of Nice and it was there we really got to see Nice - it's a huge place that would take you hours to walk end-to-end.
The train-ride was good actually - it was a bit touristy but took you to historical places you would not have known were there unless you spent hours wandering around.
We then went on the Tram. Public transport is not my idea of heaven, but my Dad likes that sort of stuff so he wanted to ride the tram.
We then headed back for a nap before we headed out that evening for a trip to the casino in Monaco.
Well that was the plan anyway.
In an attempt to find out what the weather was doing my Dad occasionally put the French news on in the morning. Now rolling along the bottom that morning I'd seen "SNCF" something-something that was too quick for me to really pay attention too.
It turned out that the something-something should have been translated as "bloody communist French rail workers are going on poxing strike yet again."
The strike started at 8pm (we basically arrived at the station at 8pm :/) Monday evening and went on until 8am on Wednesday morning.
This buggered us right up as you can imagine. We had to wait for a train that was running at Nice and then it threw into total confusion what time we would be getting back.
We'd planned to get the second-to-last train back, but it wasn't at all clear what trains would be running. We therefore only had a very short time in the Casinos because it would have been a nightmare missing the train.
The worst thing about that was that in actuality we could have spent hour in the Casino. The boards that were up that claimed the last train would run at 11:05 were clearly a total fabrication, because the train didn't actually turn up until way-past midnight.
For me this didn't matter so much, because I don't like Casinos. They make you feel like a criminal because all the staff are watching you. Plus they have loads of CCTV cameras.
And then on top of that most gambling games are complicated. Well, sometimes they're not that complicated as games as such, but they often have little rules you don't appreciate. Plus there's always etiquette and ways of behaving that no-one tells you about until you do the wrong thing, like betting too little on.
Plus even your bog-standard slot machines have become horribly complicated electronic devices. Long-gone are the days of things physically rotating to show you three cherries and oodles of coins falling out - it's all done with screens and credit slips.
On top of that I'm an appallingly unlucky gambler - I never win at pure-chance gambling.
Take for example the national lottery - I've been playing one set of numbers in each main draw using the online system for 6 months now and haven't won so much as a tenner.
Anyway - the casino thing wasn't for my benefit, it was for my sister who seemed really keen on the idea. Hopefully she had a good time, even if it was a lot shorter than expected.
In the end we didn't go in the Casino de Monte Carlo proper, but went in a Casino next to it. This casino you could wear anything in, but we didn't know that and so had gotten done up in all the clobber.
The net result was the three of us were up on the night, though. I lost a tenner, but my sister gained about £1.50 on a slot machine and my Dad and Sister had a win on the roulette wheel. A single number win pays out at 35-to-1 (minimum bet was £2) and they'd only spent £20 (I'm using pounds for convenience because the Euro exchange rate is piss poor at about 1:1) so they were up.
As mentioned the other day, Friday is a racing day, but it has no Formula 1 action. Plus, the Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, so the cost of flights was artificially elevated, so the travel company we went with did it so that the flights were on Tuesday. We therefore also had Monday as a free day.
On the Friday we decided to pay a visit to Cannes.
For many years I've often wondered why random Hollywood celebrities turn up at the Monaco Grand Prix, being interviewed on the start. Now you do occasionally get celebs at other GPs of course, but the frequency and calibre at Monaco always seemed unusual.
Well it turns out that the Cannes film festival basically runs at a similar time as the Monaco GP. The main activity of Cannes is normally over by the time Monaco rolls around, but you can imagine that the celebs are kicking about doing nothing when an invite turns up from Monaco and off they trot.
Anyway, so we thought we'd have a butchers at Cannes on Friday. That meant a short train journey down the coast.
We actually missed the train we were supposed to go on as they changed the platform and didn't properly announce it (more on such things at a later date). However, we got the next train and ended up where we were supposed to.
To be perfectly frank, Cannes is distinctly unimpressive.
It's kinda obvious that they created the film festival in order to attract people to an otherwise fairly standard French seaside town.
The actual film festival is held at a Casino close to the coast. It's probably the most ugly building I've ever seen.
Nothing was really happening, but the red carpets were there and bouncers were milling about on doorways.
Most of the seafront was blocked off mainly by tent-like things, some of which sold horribly over-priced merchandise. However, the harbour was accessible, so we had a wander around that. A bit like Monaco there were some staggeringly big and expensive-looking yachts. Some appeared to be hosting lunch parties and on one there was clearly someone that other people recognised.
We didn't know who it was so we guessed it was maybe a local French celebrity.
Oh, and while we were having lunch some bikini-clad girls turned up with some guys with cameras. Now, because of how it worked out I never really got a proper look at the girls, which when I think back on it is bizarre, because they came and sat right behind me. One of the girls must literally have been 6 inches away.
Now if you know anything about me the one thing you can be assured of is that I'm not a prude. However, one thing that's probably not apparent is that I find it... I dunno, confusing I suppose, as to whether I'm allowed to look, well, look at girls.
It's like I don't want to leer at them. It's such a typical reaction and I'm always unsure whether a girl finds it to be uncomfortable or not, even when she's clearly putting everything on display, as it were.
I also sort of hate the power it has over me. It's like the old cliché that men will do anything for a pretty girl. I hate that, but equally I know that in the same situation if a pretty girl asked me to do something I almost certainly would.
I'm not sure I'm explaining this properly - but the basic point is that these scantily clad girls were cavorting around on the grass behind me and I didn't have a look.
But then there is a caveat to that - the blokes with them were photographers and they were taking pictures. Very quickly a huge crowd formed of random people taking pictures and so I was basically buried in a scrum of sweaty blokes.
If there's one thing I hate it's the invasion of my personal space in such a fashion, which pretty much explains why I didn't look and high-tailed it out of there.
After the harbour we sat and had an ice-cream and then went for a wander around Cannes. If you're female and shoes and expensive designer clothes are your thing then Cannes's shops are probably heaven.
Oh and oddly there's a large Boulez (French Bowls) pitch in Cannes. There were quite a few playing as well.
So that was Cannes - colour me unimpressed.
On Monday we did two things.
In the morning we went into Nice, which is where we stayed.
If I'm honest I was totally shattered, so wasn't in much of a 'doing stuff' mood, but it seemed like quite a nice place. We had a pleasant lunch and sat next to a big fountain they have. It was in the middle of a gigantic plaza/square thing. It was so big I think you could have put the entirety of Farnham town centre in there and still had room to spare.
Nice is a big place. This was emphasised on a touristy train ride thing we did. It was a car thing that was made up to look like a train with carriages behind. We were going to do the same basic thing in Cannes, but it would have taken too long. This one lasted about 45 minutes or so with a 15 minute break in the middle.
It went past some sites and went up onto a big hill thing towards the edge of Nice and it was there we really got to see Nice - it's a huge place that would take you hours to walk end-to-end.
The train-ride was good actually - it was a bit touristy but took you to historical places you would not have known were there unless you spent hours wandering around.
We then went on the Tram. Public transport is not my idea of heaven, but my Dad likes that sort of stuff so he wanted to ride the tram.
We then headed back for a nap before we headed out that evening for a trip to the casino in Monaco.
Well that was the plan anyway.
In an attempt to find out what the weather was doing my Dad occasionally put the French news on in the morning. Now rolling along the bottom that morning I'd seen "SNCF" something-something that was too quick for me to really pay attention too.
It turned out that the something-something should have been translated as "bloody communist French rail workers are going on poxing strike yet again."
The strike started at 8pm (we basically arrived at the station at 8pm :/) Monday evening and went on until 8am on Wednesday morning.
This buggered us right up as you can imagine. We had to wait for a train that was running at Nice and then it threw into total confusion what time we would be getting back.
We'd planned to get the second-to-last train back, but it wasn't at all clear what trains would be running. We therefore only had a very short time in the Casinos because it would have been a nightmare missing the train.
The worst thing about that was that in actuality we could have spent hour in the Casino. The boards that were up that claimed the last train would run at 11:05 were clearly a total fabrication, because the train didn't actually turn up until way-past midnight.
For me this didn't matter so much, because I don't like Casinos. They make you feel like a criminal because all the staff are watching you. Plus they have loads of CCTV cameras.
And then on top of that most gambling games are complicated. Well, sometimes they're not that complicated as games as such, but they often have little rules you don't appreciate. Plus there's always etiquette and ways of behaving that no-one tells you about until you do the wrong thing, like betting too little on.
Plus even your bog-standard slot machines have become horribly complicated electronic devices. Long-gone are the days of things physically rotating to show you three cherries and oodles of coins falling out - it's all done with screens and credit slips.
On top of that I'm an appallingly unlucky gambler - I never win at pure-chance gambling.
Take for example the national lottery - I've been playing one set of numbers in each main draw using the online system for 6 months now and haven't won so much as a tenner.
Anyway - the casino thing wasn't for my benefit, it was for my sister who seemed really keen on the idea. Hopefully she had a good time, even if it was a lot shorter than expected.
In the end we didn't go in the Casino de Monte Carlo proper, but went in a Casino next to it. This casino you could wear anything in, but we didn't know that and so had gotten done up in all the clobber.
The net result was the three of us were up on the night, though. I lost a tenner, but my sister gained about £1.50 on a slot machine and my Dad and Sister had a win on the roulette wheel. A single number win pays out at 35-to-1 (minimum bet was £2) and they'd only spent £20 (I'm using pounds for convenience because the Euro exchange rate is piss poor at about 1:1) so they were up.
Monday, 8 June 2009
oh dear
Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Isn't it funny how words start to sound wrong the more you repeat them over and over?
Anyway, why the lamentations?
Because I have a horrible admission to make.
An admission that's so fundamentally against who I both perceive and portray myself to be that I'm at best embarrassed; at worst ashamed.
No I've not embezzled thousands of pounds; no I've not murdered someone. I have... wait for it in those annoying dramatic build-ups that are all the rage on telly nowadays... been watching Big Brother.
I know, I'm disgusted with me too.
I've actually been trying to think up some kind of excuse I could use to make it seem more all right than it is. For example, this is the tenth anniversary of BB so I thought maybe I could say I was watching it for that reason. I don't trumpet the fact, but I actually watched and enjoyed the first Big Brother series.
The second series was where it kinda lost me, as I only watched bits. Which was going to be my other potential excuse - from series 2 on it seemed to become very gimmick orientated. This time, I was going to say, it seemed a bit more normal. Only that's not true at all, they've been gimmicking it up to the hilt.
Also the types of people they put in from season 2 almost became cynical choices. Rather than just being ordinary (well-ish) people they picked annoying people or deliberately picked minority or other small groups so viewers could feel good about not being prejudiced by not voting them out early.
And while I'd still say that's less of a thing this year, it's also not a valid excuse - there's one proper glamour model and one almost-glamour model in there, for example. They're hardly your average Joe Soap :/.
So basically I have no excuse. I've been watching Big Brother and I'm one of those people that always bangs on about hating 'reality' television and its cousins.
Well, there is one excuse. And it's kinda contained in the paragraph two above this one. There's a glamour model with very large boobs in the house. And I like the big boob if it's not been apparent before.
That's not the most self-flattering of admissions, but compared to the overall admission that I'm watching BB it's the least of my problems.
And I guess I'll be posting some blog updates as to what I think about BB stuff. Oh, although it's worth noting that even though I'm watching it, I'm doing so using my usual PVR magic, so I won't necessarily be current or up-to-date.
The weekend was otherwise fairly successful.
Weather forecasts beforehand had been filled with the doom and gloom of huge downpours and cold weather. And while this wasn't completely wrong where I was, it was more like Saturday morning it drizzled and then Saturday and Sunday night it rained. Otherwise it was pretty dry.
It was chilly, though. I was tempted to put my heating on at one point actually, although instead I just curled up under my duvet. The cold weather did have the advantage that it made it more pleasant to clean my car, though.
Which was why the weather mattered so much, btw. My landlord has gone on holiday for a week, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to clean me motor. The breaks in the weather where long enough for me to do so - even for me to Hoover without getting a massive electrical shock.
The other hope for the weekend didn't come off. As mentioned on Friday I'm way behind on scanning and so had hoped to find the time to start, but there just weren't the hours available. Especially with me still playing a bit of catch-up from my holiday.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Isn't it funny how words start to sound wrong the more you repeat them over and over?
Anyway, why the lamentations?
Because I have a horrible admission to make.
An admission that's so fundamentally against who I both perceive and portray myself to be that I'm at best embarrassed; at worst ashamed.
No I've not embezzled thousands of pounds; no I've not murdered someone. I have... wait for it in those annoying dramatic build-ups that are all the rage on telly nowadays... been watching Big Brother.
I know, I'm disgusted with me too.
I've actually been trying to think up some kind of excuse I could use to make it seem more all right than it is. For example, this is the tenth anniversary of BB so I thought maybe I could say I was watching it for that reason. I don't trumpet the fact, but I actually watched and enjoyed the first Big Brother series.
The second series was where it kinda lost me, as I only watched bits. Which was going to be my other potential excuse - from series 2 on it seemed to become very gimmick orientated. This time, I was going to say, it seemed a bit more normal. Only that's not true at all, they've been gimmicking it up to the hilt.
Also the types of people they put in from season 2 almost became cynical choices. Rather than just being ordinary (well-ish) people they picked annoying people or deliberately picked minority or other small groups so viewers could feel good about not being prejudiced by not voting them out early.
And while I'd still say that's less of a thing this year, it's also not a valid excuse - there's one proper glamour model and one almost-glamour model in there, for example. They're hardly your average Joe Soap :/.
So basically I have no excuse. I've been watching Big Brother and I'm one of those people that always bangs on about hating 'reality' television and its cousins.
Well, there is one excuse. And it's kinda contained in the paragraph two above this one. There's a glamour model with very large boobs in the house. And I like the big boob if it's not been apparent before.
That's not the most self-flattering of admissions, but compared to the overall admission that I'm watching BB it's the least of my problems.
And I guess I'll be posting some blog updates as to what I think about BB stuff. Oh, although it's worth noting that even though I'm watching it, I'm doing so using my usual PVR magic, so I won't necessarily be current or up-to-date.
The weekend was otherwise fairly successful.
Weather forecasts beforehand had been filled with the doom and gloom of huge downpours and cold weather. And while this wasn't completely wrong where I was, it was more like Saturday morning it drizzled and then Saturday and Sunday night it rained. Otherwise it was pretty dry.
It was chilly, though. I was tempted to put my heating on at one point actually, although instead I just curled up under my duvet. The cold weather did have the advantage that it made it more pleasant to clean my car, though.
Which was why the weather mattered so much, btw. My landlord has gone on holiday for a week, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to clean me motor. The breaks in the weather where long enough for me to do so - even for me to Hoover without getting a massive electrical shock.
The other hope for the weekend didn't come off. As mentioned on Friday I'm way behind on scanning and so had hoped to find the time to start, but there just weren't the hours available. Especially with me still playing a bit of catch-up from my holiday.
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