Recap

It's very rare, in the history of this blog, for the month of June to go by without a single mention of my birthday, but that's just what's happened this year. That's not through lack of things to blog about - quite the reverse. If nothing else, the small fact that I'm now less than a year from turning 40 is something to write about. So, yay! 39!

For my birthday, my girlfriend and I had a cool day out at the Tower of London. I've been meaning to go back there for years, as the only other time I've been was a school trip, wayback when. Since I remember so little of the original trip, it's probably not surprising that it all seemed completely new... either they've changed things around a lot in the intervening years, I've forgotten more about it than I thought, or it's a mixture of both. Probably the latter, since I've heard tell of Living History shows (in addition to the beefeaters and guards), though there were none in evidence the day we went.

For anyone looking to go to the Tower, I would heartily recommend going on the London Walks tour, since that offers not only a fascinating load of history about the tower, its occupants, and the politics of the time, but it also gets you into the Tower cheaper. The whole thing got off to a bad start, with the guide arriving about 45 minutes late, but the walk - taking in areas outside the Tower grounds as well as inside - was very lively and interesting (London Walks generally are very good!). Once the guide left us - the tour finishes in the interminable queue for the Crown Jewels - things became a bit more random, as there's virtually no structure to the Tower as a tourist attraction. You can pick up a map, and then you are set upon your way. There's plenty to see and experience but, after such a brilliant guided tour, I felt something of a spare part. Some sections of the grounds are very definitely one-way systems, with rope barriers preventing visitors going where they shouldn't. Gift shops are everywhere and, while there's some crossover in the products available, most have something unique somewhere in their stock.

Interesting fact about the guards at the Tower: If you're in their way when they're marching, they shout "Make way for the Queen!"... and they really do expect you to make way for them. Also, the reason the queue for the jewels is so long isn't the jewels themselves... but an unaccountably hypnotic video presentation in the room before. People just bunch up in the doorway, so my advice would be to move straight on as soon as you see that room.

We ended up staying quite late and, despite the day being overcast and quite rainy at times, I ended up with some slight sunburn on my nose, forehead and, very probably, the top of my head where my hair is thinning - I do keep forgetting to wear a hat and/or use sunscreen...

I've also been a bit unwell lately. On my final day at my last job, I was struck by either food poisoning or a stomach bug of some kind (the latter being very common in that office - at one point, barely a fortnight went by without someone on my team getting a stomach bug and, judging by the sound effects in the Gents, it was just as common on other floors). About a week later, the same kind of thing happened to me at home (seemed very likely to be food poisoning that time, since I'd eaten something that was a little past it's 'Best Before' date). Just yesterday, the same thing happened again... though it's not exactly the same. This round came with terrible stomach cramps (which woke me up during the night and required pain killers) and a couple of other symptoms I shan't mention. Suffice it to say, I've made an appointment with my GP.

Just to add to the fun, after my ant infestation back in April, I've notices wasps flying in and out of a hole left by a loose and protruding board beneath the guttering around the roof. At some point, I shall have to call in the exterminators again... but I've only seen two or three at most for the moment - no sign of any swarming. I shouldn't be procrastinating, but it's another expense I can do without right now.

On a similar note, I received a letter from the managing agents of my flats - asking for a little over two and a half thousand pounds, to ensure the roof works can go ahead. Now, on the one hand, this is great news, and exactly what I've been hoping for over the last two or three years... On the other hand, they basically wanted the money within ten days of the date of the letter when, only a couple of years ago, I had to stump up just over two thousand for roof works which didn't happen. I had expected, based on my many conversations and email exchanges with the managing agents, that the landlord would foot the bill and then recoup the money in service charge. I did not expect to have to pay for roof works before they happened... not after last time. I wrote back to the managing agents, saying as much... and it took a week for them to get back to me, saying only that they would get back to me...

In other news, I've seen a few movies recently... World War Z is roundly described as having only the title in common with the book. It was a fairly dull, generic zombie movie in which the CGI hordes frequently behaved like a fluid, rather than crowds of former people. It also had a rather politically dodgy sequence where the singing of a group of Muslim refugees caused the swift downfall of a Jewish safe zone. I gather the book was quite far-reaching - evidently beyond Hollywood, either in terms of budget or intelligence and insight... Or possibly both. Perhaps I'll pick up the book, and see what the story was supposed to be about.

Man of Steel wasn't quite the triumphal return of Superman I'd hoped for. On balance, despite its flaws, I much prefer Superman Returns. Superman is one of those heroes that just doesn't do 'gritty', so this virtually monochromatic reboot, with it's jumpy camera work and dark tone seemed like something else altogether. Henry Cavill was great, Amy Adams was better than I'd expected as Lois Lane (I should expect better of her, but since I've only seen her do comedy thusfar, playing a seasoned investigative journalist seemed like a stretch... then again, I haven't like the casting of Lois Lane in any version of Superman in my lifetime!). The premise was superficially similar to Christopher Reeve's Superman 2, in that it featured General Zod and his cohorts arriving on Earth. The rest was like that rash of 'alien invasion' flicks that hit a couple of years ago. If this is paving the way for a Justice League movie, I suspect it's still a good few years off... The Avengers worked by coming after two Iron Man movies and one each of Thor and Captain America. Justice League would require a deeper look into this new Superman and, at the very least, introduce this continuity's Batman and Wonder Woman... the latter being a contentious property at best.

Movies aren't the only things I've been seeing lately, though. My girlfriend invited me to the recording of a Greg Proops podcast uptown, which was a very entertaining evening. I remember Proops from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and had listened to one of his podcasts a few months back, so I had a fair idea what to expect. Seeing something like that in person is always a treat, though, and since each show is a completely new podcast, it was a unique experience.

A couple of days later, I took my girlfriend to see Derren Brown's new live show, Infamous. Due to the nature of the show, they ask that everyone in the audience keeps quiet about the content, so I won't go into detail. It wasn't as new and unique as I'd hoped - quite a few parts of the show were repackaged from previous tours - though it was an incredibly good evening, and seeing his performances is always a treat. The Palace Theatre is a beautiful venue - intricate carvings adorn the balconies and boxes, and it has the labyrinthine layout of all old London theatres. I've been wanting to see Derren Brown live for many years now, having seen previous shows when they turned up on television, and will probably try to see his next show, whenever that might be.

One thing I will mention, since it's not directly related to the content of the show, is that one of the possible 'volunteers' seemed to be faking his trance-like state. While most seemed genuinely hypnotised, this one guy, when 'dismissed' behaved very differently from the others, stretching and yawning as if he'd literally been asleep on his feet. I was only a little disappointed that I didn't succumb to the trance... Part of me was terrified by Mr Brown's description of what we should be feeling, so I found myself very deliberately checking myself every few moments. Weirdly, it's been said of me before that I'd never relax enough to let anyone hypnotise me, and I guess that evening served as confirmation.

Since finishing my last job, I've spent rather too long worrying about my lack of 'productivity' and not enough time striving to be productive. That lasted a good couple of weeks then, last week, I actually managed to start getting stuff done. On a whim, I did some sketching. I started adding to my other blogs. I finally got this update written, when some of this stuff could have been written about two or three weeks ago.

Still, any progress is good progress, right?

Shortbread

So... what's new in the world of //ƒuƶƶy[løgic]?

Well, today was the last day in a temping assignment that started last year... I was almost on my own in the office, and kept quite busy managing a potential disaster that occurred as a result of a misunderstanding at the Printers. The returning mum - whose maternity leave I had been covering - had been absent from the office for the last few days because her baby has been unwell (getting unwell is basically what babies do, after all), and there's no certainty that she'll be back on Monday... But I won't be there either way... I'll be taking a well-earned break. I'm intending to write a bit of a rant about the job - certainly some events from the last few months, at least - but that can wait. I am genuinely sad to leave... the work has been fun and, by and large, I like the people there... but the company as a whole is a little bit nutty.

Today is also a demi-anniversary... I know I haven't said much about my successful dating on this blog, and that is likely to continue to be the case... Still, six months, eh? I somehow resisted the urge to post something 'subtle' on Facebook. Then again, I dislike Facebook, and try to keep my interactions with it to a minimum anyway.

So now I'm free to do my own stuff for a bit, and happily in a relationship. Nice coincidence.

In weird news, I almost bumped into another actor recently... While strolling to the station on the way home from work, Douglas frickin' Henshall wandered along the road right in front of me. This sort of thing hasn't happened since I worked in Notting Hill Gate (when it was such a regular occurrence, it almost became passé... Though seeing an unshaven Charles Dance lugging around a pair of Sainsbury's carrier bags laden with groceries can surely never be truly passé) but I guess actors can occasionally be found near the great shopping streets of London... Especially where there are theatres nearby.

Then there's the strange dream I had, in which my girlfriend left my home (actually my parents' home in terms of the way it looked) in such a hurry, she left a whole load of stuff behind, and I had to go after her. Or the dream in which I sort of became Spider-Man (the Tobey Maguire/Internal Web Shooters version, rather than the Andrew Garfield/Truer-to-the-Comics version), escaping from some pursuers in a damp labyrinth by swinging up to a higher level using webbing that seemed to come out of my wrists.

And for the last few days I've been rather ill... I seem to have picked up some kind of stomach bug (and, going by the sound effects in the gents at the office, there's a lot of it going around) which has been most unpleasant, and is the reason for me being here, at home, blogging, rather than with my girlfriend, celebrating six completely amazing months (or more, were we to include the full length of time we've known each other).

If my stomach doesn't clear up over the weekend, I shall be visiting my GP first thing on Monday... Really don't want illness getting in the way of my doing stuff with all this free time I have now...

Trekking On, Geeking Out

I took my folks and girlfriend to see the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, on Saturday evening. It's certainly an enjoyable movie - virtually non-stop action the whole way through - but with some decent twists to keep the audience engaged on a more than visceral level. It was just as full of eye-scorching lens flare as the first, but it felt as though they'd toned down somewhat on the humour.

This new, young Kirk is puzzling. At times, he's as whiny as one of the crew from the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise, and some of his bickering exchanges with Spock made me wonder how he's ever going to become the bold, heroic Kirk of the original Star Trek... but that's kinda the point, I guess: he isn't.

A couple of things struck me in the negative column. First and foremost is the scale of the USS Enterprise. Considering the size of its shuttle bay, and the shuttles within, there's just no way it could accommodate an 'engine room' of the size it seems to have - it would take up the rest of the ship and more. Then, it appears to be positioned between the shuttle bay at the rear and the dish-thing at the front, meaning that people - such as John Harrison in this movie - are paraded through the engine room to get them, for example, to the brig. I'm also a little dubious about a ship like the Enterprise being capable to flying in-atmosphere. Weird enough that Star Fleet's shipyard was on Earth in the first movie, this one has the Enterprise 'hiding' in the ocean right at the start... so, not only does it fly in an alien planet's atmosphere, but it parks itself underwater, then flies itself out again before leaving the atmosphere. Given the construction of the ship, I'd agree with Scottie, that hiding underwater was ridiculous. There's also a massive deus ex machina that cheapens the protagonists' success, and connects this movie to Abrams' original in a way that was unnecessary (given a decent story which, for the most part, this had) and made things far too convenient.

In the plus column (kinda) it's continuing the traditions of Kirk getting the crap kicked out of him at every opportunity, Spock being pretty handy in a fist-fight, and Uhura doing a bit more than connecting phone calls.

Then, in the 'I'm not quite sure' column, it didn't so much reference one of the original Star Trek movies as lift scenes and dialogue, almost verbatim, just switching a few characters around.

On balance, though, I really liked it... It'll be interesting to see if Abrams continues with Trek while also working on Star Wars (wouldn't it be cool to have the series releasing one movie every alternate year? Though that would probably leave Abrams exhausted after a couple of each).

Yesterday, I spent the first half of the day at the MCM London Comic Con (nee The London Expo) at ExCel. It gets bigger each time I go... and yet it's never quite big enough. Attendance was far higher than I'd expected for a Sunday, so the place was almost unbearably crowded at times (despite another hall being opened up as an additional lunch area, people still flooded the main drag), even though there were still more people (Cosplayer, in the main) larking about in front of the ExCeL centre. Supposedly, for future events, they're basically going to occupy the entire centre, with the front and back entrances to the building being the entrances to the show (where you buy tickets or present your pre-booked tickets), and all the halls open from the start. This would put it on a par with Memorabilia, at which I've never had to queue - or wait - for entrance, even when buying tickets on the day.

On the retail front, it was very good... and yet also disappointing. I managed to nab a videogame-related statuette that I've been coveting for years, and one third-party transforming robot toy. Beast Hunters was certainly in evidence (on one stand, anyway), but the prices weren't great (£16 for a deluxe!), and the range was much reduced. Since I expect the toy range to turn up in the shops any day now, I wasn't tempted to get anything that was available there... though my decision may have been different if they'd had the one particular character I was keen to get my hands on.

I also got a bunch of t-shirts and a mug from Genki Gear, and the old friend who'd accompanied me got me an Optimus Prime t-shirt - basically a red t-shirt with a depiction of the Autobot leader's chest - for my birthday.

One thing that's getting rather weird is the cross-pollination between Collectormania, Memorabilia and the MCM Comic Cons, specifically in the 'star guests'. The former was always rather random, including stars from TV, movies, sports... and glamour modelling. This now seems to be bleeding into the MCM Comic Cons. Consider that title - Comic Con - and decide for yourself how appropriate or fitting that is.