As if having a rather unpleasant cold is not enough, I was walking through the field from work to buy a few assorted fathers day/birthday cards, when two pyschotic birds decided to exhibit some rather disturbing tendencies, such as flying in a circle around me as I walked in ever decreasing circles.  After a while of this they started to charge at me, pulling up at the last second.  I got so flummoxed I actually broke into a girlish run, crying like Gordon Brown must have on learning of yet another data scandal.

Last night qualifies as one of the worst nights viewings I have ever seen.  Firstly, The Apprentice, which I got into only last week and now will not be getting into next year, following the massively patronising way the producers spoon-feed information and attempted subterfuge into what was essentially a ten minute board meeting.  Arse.  I then avoided BB once more (it shall not defeat me) only to return to the TV to watch a hideous Five ‘documentary’ called, with no irony, ‘Most Evil’ in which some sort of alleged ‘Criminal Phychologist’ goes about looking at how ‘evil’ killers are, then putting them onto his ’scale of evil.’  Which is kind of ratings system dependent on seemingly nothing more than how mentally disturbed he thinks you are.  Aweful, sensationalist bilge.

Also, I am sure that I have precisely zero readers in the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden, but if there are, I really hope they punish the arrocance of Shadow Hitler, sorry I mean Home Secretary David Davis in resigning just to have a By-Election so the Tories can show the media just how popular they are.  And don’t for a second think this is about the issues.  Tories don’t care about issues, other than winning the next election.

It’s not often I get to the cinema these days, so yesterday was a real treat for me, offering as it did, the chance to see the new Indy film in an almost empty cinema.  I went in to the film with some fairly low expectations following reports from various friends, but was very pleasantly surprised, and was instantly transported again to the gibbering state of fandom one would normally associate with an 8-year-old with a new set of Pokemon (or whatever those crazy kids are playing with these days. Crack, perhaps.)

If you haven’t seen it yet (and I think I might be the last person  on the planet to go see it) then it is a proper old school Indy flick, full of thrills and spills and Harrison Ford pushing his age aside with the same age that Indy used to escape from Nazis.  Great to see Karen Allen reprise her role too, and Shia LeBeouf proves once again why Spielberg thinks he’s found his new muse.

After two hours of joy, went back witht he boys and listened to QOTSA’s Songs for the Deaf, an album that diminishes not a jot with the passing years, as well as the Priestess album Hello Master, which is a right rollicking journey through rock.

Anyway, lunchtime over.

That’s a comment on the weather, not my state of mind.  Anyway, the afformentioned heatwave has forced me to move inside this lunchtime, where it is also hot, but not in that ‘my-face-is-melting’ kind of way.

Managed to turn not a lot of money into a session of extreme drunkenness on Saturday, which then alas turned into a monster of a hangover yesterday.  So Ellen and I decided to limit our day to the great indoors, and I read a bit more Kevin Smith before we elected to watch the first X-files movie again.  Ellen isn’t much of a fan, and by all accounts didn’t think much of the film either.  I wouldn’t know, about halfway through I had to go to bed, wretched as I was feeling.

But it reminded me that with a new X Files movie on the horizon, I really need to finish watching the series.  i made it to the end of season 8 around the time it was released, and then started to get the box sets when they were re-issued, but only ever got as far as season 6. I feel a trip to Play.com coming on payday.

I am delighted to hear today that Cameron Crowe has stopped sulking about how badly Elizabethtown did at the box office, and is making a new film, with time with Ben Stiller and Reece Witherspoon.  I am totally in love with everything the man has done, so I am really looking forward to this one.

Election fever seems to have died down following Hillary’s exceptionally eloquent exit on Saturday, although a rather odd war of words has erupted between each of the candidates most high profile celebrity backers, Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee.  Guess which candidate each is supporting.  In most cases, I doubt very much that these celebrity backers hold a lot of sway with voters, but with these two being such pillars of integrity for their respective demographics, I imagine that isn’t the case.  But it interesting to see how the tone of each player in this argument matches the general tone of their political party.

• Spike Lee: “Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face. This is the last straw. I feel like I’ve been denied, I’ve been insulted, I’ve been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism.”
• Clint: “Shut your face.”

Right, well I am going to go back to melting into a bucket.

Now that the dreaded Big Brother is back on our screens, it appears that I will have a new regular blogging time, since it is my yearly task to avoid all contact with the pestilence brought about by Endemol and Channel 4.

One of the great things about the current election fervor is the fact that it has reminded the rest of the world that there are really quite a few things about America and Americans in general that are rather splendid, as evidenced by this charming little clip, spotted on Graham Linehan’s blog. (I would have embedded it, but since upgrading WordPress, I seem to no longer have the ability to do so, and my wine-addled brain has neither the patience nor the cunning to work out how.  Just press the bloody link ya lazy bastards.)

Anyway, the pestilence seems to have ended for another evening, so have a pleasant weekend one and all.

Also wanted to mention that last night I finally got around to watching the excellent Hollywoodland, which I heartily recommend to all and sundry.  I’ve been a fan of Affleck since Dazed and Confused, and his early career was chock full of excellent performances.  Then he went into autopilot for a few years, going after the almighty dollar, whilst still appearing in some occasionally great films.  Say what you want, Jersey Girl is mint.  But the fallout over his relationship with J.Lo was one of the more ludicrous things to befall the entertainment industry, so i’m pleased that he’s actually remembered the importance of integrity.  With Gone Baby Gone getting rave reviews, I really hope he is back to stay now.  And he was the bomb in Phantoms.