Pennies From Heaven

Last night I was watching the first episode of Pennies from Heaven on DVD. It was a British TV series written by Dennis Potter and first shown in 1978, and set in England during the 1930s. The show stars Bob Hoskins as a travelling sheet music salesman, frustrated by his marriage and the daily grind, but finds escape by indulging in surreal musical fantasies. It was the first of several Dennis Potter plays in which the characters mime along to recordings of popular songs.

Today was a really dull day at work. The computer syystems went down in the early afternoon which was really annoying because it meant there was nothing to do.

Cold Lazarus

Last night I watched the first two episodes of Cold Lazarus, which was the last work by the writer Dennis Potter before his death of cancer in 1994. The show was broadcast in 1996 immediately after Karaoke, and the two shows kind of follow on from each other. In the 1990s writer Daniel Feeld (played by Arthur Finney, reprising his role from Karaoke) dies of cancer but, over 370 years later his cryogenically frozen head is reactivated by a team of scientists who want to study his memories. The future is depicted as a grim and violent world where Britain no longer exists as a country in it’s own right and where the world is controlled by vast Virtual Reality entertainment companies who want to buy Feeld’s memories to sell on their networks. However the scientists notice that Feeld seems to be attempting to edit and control the memories they can access, which makes them suspect that more of his brain than his memories have been accessed. It’s a very dark and genuinely disturbing science-fiction piece but it does have plenty of wildly funny elements.

Today I took the day off work to celebrate finishing NaNoWriMo. In the morning I went off to the cinema and saw the movie Paranormal Activity, directed by Oren Peli. The film revolves around a young San Diego couple who seem to be plagued by unexplained phenomena, and so the guy, Micah (Micah Sloat), buys a video camera to record the events and, as with The Blair Witch Project, it’s their home video footage that, allegedly, makes up the film. It’s actually really quite scary, with most of the scares coming from strange noises and shadows in the dead of night.

After the movie I went out and did some shopping. I got the DVD of the TV serial Pennies From Heaven, which is another one of the Dennis Potter shows, and a book called The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez, which is like a guidebook to The Wire TV series containing episode guides, interviews, behind the scenes pieces and essays.

Finished for Another Year

Last night I finially finished NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). My novel, Vampire City, has a total word count of 50,270 (the total by the end of November had to be at least 50,000 words). Sometime during Christmas I’ll probably go back to it and try and edit it and improve it.

Last night I watched the final two episodes of Karaoke which were really good. Although, I have never seen a Dennis Potter play which wasn’t at the very least interesting.

My Dad came over to collect me fairly early this morning and we went to a shopping mall for a look around. Then I went back to my parent’s house and we had lunch. In the afternoon I helped my Dad get the Christmas decorations down from the loft, although we haven’t put them up yet, and then I listened to the first of a three part radio adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on the John le Carre novel.

To celebrate getting the novel finished I’m taking tomorrow off work, which should be really fun.

Karaoke

Last night I got to 48,130 words in my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel Vampire City. The total has to be at least 50,00 words by Monday. I am hoping that it will be finished today. I was also watching an interesting documentary about the concerts that Johnny Cash gave in Folsom Prison. Later on I watched the sixth and final epsiode of The Singing Detective. Later on I watched the first couple of episodes of a TV serial from 1996 called Karaoke. Along with the show’s companion serial Cold Lazarus, it was the final seires written by Dennis Potter before his death in 1994. The series revolves around a seriously ill screenwriter, played by Albert Finney, who notices that random people he sees on the street are reciting lines from his scripts and appear to be living out the plot from his latest play, a gangster thriller called “Karaoke”. I haven’t seen it since it was first on in Summer 1996, and yet I could still remember it really well.

Today I just went out to get my groceries for the week.

Writing and Eating

Last night I got to 46,107 words in my NaNoWriMo story. I’ve not really been eating much recently, because I haven’t had much time. I usually have my dinner at around ten or eleven at night these days when I’ve finished my writing. Pretty much that and a sandwich at work is pretty much what I’ve been eating for the past two weeks. I do love food, if it’s good, but I do find that I can eat very little and very infrequently and I don’t get hungry at all. I was watching the fifth episode of The Singing Detective on DVD. It is a really great series.

 Today I was at work and it was another very dull and quiet day. As usual for a Friday the placewas really quiet and pretty empty.

Vampire City

Last night I got to 44,094 words in the NaNoWriMo novel, Vampire City. I am on target to make the total of 50,000 words by Saturday. After I had finished I watched the latest episode of True Blood and the fourth episode of The Singing Detective on DVD. I haven’t had much to write about on here recently because pretty much all I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks is write, watch TV and go to work.

It was another very quiet and fairly uneventful day at work. I am looking forward to the weekend.

I do find it a lot easier to write about what I really think and feel about things when I’m writing fiction, because I tend to censor myself a lot on here, often without even realising I’m doing it. I do think it would be good to be a more open and stuff on-line, so people could get to know me a little better should they want to, but it’s not really something that comes naturally to me.

Nearly at the End

Last night I got to 42,062 words on my NaNoWriMo novel. Now the story is starting to move towards the conclusion. It’ll soon be time to start thinking about what to do once it’s finished. Later on last night I was watching the third episode of The Singing Detective on DVD.

It was another very dull day at work, which is pretty much the same as usual. This morning we had a meeting about new some new procedures that they are starting in a few months. It wasn’t particularly exciting.

More NaNo

Last night I got to 40,055 words in my NaNoWriMo novel, Vampire City, I’m hoping that it should be finished on Saturday. I know it’s not finished yet, but I really didn’t think I would finish NaNoWriMo this year, and there was a point when I seriously considered abandoning it, but I don’t really like to be beaten and so I decided to keep on with it. Last night I watched the sixth and final episode of Lipstick on Your Collar, which I thought was a really great show.

It was another very dull day at work today.

Goldfinger

Last night I got to 38,050 words in my NaNoWriMo novel, Vampire City.

Later on I finished reading the novel Goldfinger by Ian Fleming. The book was published in 1959, and the story opens with a tired and burnt-out James Bond, Agent 007 of the British Secret Service, returning from a particularly harrowing mission busting a drug ring in Mexico. When his plane is delayed in Miami, Bond is only too happy to accept an offer by a wealthy friend of his to spend the night at a five star luxury hotel and discover how the mysterious multi-millionaire Auric Goldfinger is cheating him at cards. Bond quickly discovers how Goldfinger’s been doing it, and completely humiliates him. Back in England, Bond discovers that the Secret Service are also interested in Goldfinger due to their suspicions that he is a large scale gold smuggler and is also bank-rolling enemy agents. When Bond is assigned to track Goldfinger, he quickly discovers that his quarry is a lot more dangerous than he could have guessed and is masterminding the biggest crime in history. The book was made into a very successful movie in 1964 with Sean Connery playing James Bond. As with a lot of the original Bond novels, it’s a lot grittier and more brutal than the films, which added most of the humour and all of the trademark gadgets. Also, by modern standards, the book hasn’t aged well and it is very politically incorrect. However it is a pretty exctiting thriller, regardless. The James Bond movies that are closest to the books are the very early Sean Connery films and the recent Casino Royale film. Actually, Daniel Craig is probably the closest to how James Bond is in the books.

It was another really dull day at work. The work actually ran out for me about an hour before I was planning to leave.

Greatest Ever 3-D Moments

I got to 36,015 words on my NaNoWriMo novel last night. I’ve decided to call it Vampire City.

Last night I was watching a show called The Greatest Ever 3-D Moments, which was quite fun. There’s a TV channel that’s been running a special 3-D week all this previous week, and you can get special 3-D glasses from one of the supermarkets to watch it. The show was fun but I think 3-D works a lot better at the cinema. My TV isn’t small but it isn’t exactly big and so the 3-D looks more like you’re watching a puppet theatre than anything else. It looks basically like a cute novelty. Also the new 3-D films at the movies have much better glasses than the cardboard ones with blue and red lenses (which are quite uncomfortable to wear with normal glasses).

I was also watching a 1960s episode of Doctor Who called “The Krotons”, in which the Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton) and his friends arrive on an alien planet where the humanoid inhabitants are ruled over by a race of crystalline aliens called the Krotons, who live in a large machine The Krotons teach the planet’s inhabitants and every so often select the two best students to go into their machine where they are never seen again. The story was good, but the Krotons themselves looked hilarious, because the costumes kept wobbling and the lower half was like a long skirt and they could only move in shuffling baby-steps, also one of them had a very strong Birmingham accent.

I went along to my parent’s house today for lunch as usual. We had a kind of beef stew for lunch with mashed potato and mushrooms. After lunch we walked in to the Modern Art Gallery, but only really had time to check out the gift shop before heading back.