mockturle06 | water, water, everywhere

So I saw someone rocking the full Chrissie Hynde this morning, and I did think for a minute, in my bleary, sleep deprived state, that maybe that dvd boxset had hit me harder than I thought last night and I'd ended up in 1978.

No such luck. Just another dreary weekday. Oh well.

So I survived the French tribunal, mostly, but it's been so nasty, I just left this hell early to skive off at the Popcorn Taxi freebie screening of a Superman cartoon (the one with Bomer). They were giving away WB merch, tossing it into the audience and I caught the bluray anthology. With my head. The way I do.

The fanboys behind moaned and cast me flithy looks all evening but I don't care. My Matt Smith-like scar now, my box set. It was the one good thing that happened to me last night, getting smacked in the head by flying media, because until then I'd managed to put my bag down in something, then settle it on my lap, destroying my favourite skirt with something that would not scrub out despite four trips to the ladies with wads of soggy tissues, and then I decided to cheer up with a glass on vino, only to have a large insect decide to drown in it (indoors, in the bar, in the mall, I mean, wtf?).

The fillum? Eh. Shrug. It had it's moments. Bomer did not sound like Bomer, I suspect some sort of autotune because usually he always sounds the same. Me, I prefer the 40s cartoon series, stylistically. It's very 40s, though (in other words, check your 21stC sensibilities at the door). Mind you, the Supes cartoon I was watching would have been clunky in the 30s, characterwise (all Lois wants is for him to put a ring on it?).

Anyways, that was last night. And it was raining fit to burst.

Ditto Sunday when I went out to Supanova. I thought I should, as the Merlin boys were only a bus ride away. Big mistake. What a bunch of prats. Complete dicks. If any of them are up for consideration for the role of Doctor Who, then please don't, just don't. These wallies would not make good ambassadors for your leading brand. I mean, really, being nasty to career journalists gets you bad press these days. Sneering at excitable young fans is just nasty, mean spirited and unprofessional. I noticed all the cameras were down and off about halfway through. Shameful and so very disappointing. I may never be able to watch Merlin again.

photo DSCF0114_zps23fd82a8.jpg

Thank goodness Torchwood were there. Words I thought I'd never say, and mean with all my heart, but Torchwood saved the day. Still stinging from the realisation that my tv heroes were the worst kind of brats, I turned around and went back in for the Torchwood panel, because I didn't want to go home all miserable. And I'm so glad I did. This is how you do it, kids. Eve Myles and Kai Owen were completely mental, but they were warm, screamingly funny, energetic and entertaining, nothing was too daft, too rude or too silly for them. They threw themselves into it, everyone had a ball. I love those guys so much now. Me, loving Torchwood peeps.

But there it is. They rocked, they made the day. Thank goodness for Torchwood. And I mean it. Saved. The. Day.

photo DSCF0151_zpsf2719a3f.jpg

Picked up my usual bits of flim flam (Filmink bag, UNCLE comic) and then it was a long, cold, very wet wait for a taxi home - no more buses, and like hell was I doing the 2km walk home from the stop in that weather, with a poster, anyway).

Saturday started out sunny, but quickly became not. Nevertheless it was me off in the pouring all the way to Paddington to see The Globe Live. Quite a bitch, getting from the wild west to the rarified east via public transport on the weekend in the rain, but I kept telling myself it was easier than going to London (though it really, really didn't feel it).

Worth it, though. Twelth Night, that gender bending rom com from Bill Shakespeare, with Stephen Fry and his magnificent yellow hose and cross garters, Samuel Barnett giving great eyeroll, and Mark Rylance skidding across the stage like some Elizabethan Dalek. Hilarious. I was actually guffawing out loud, but you know me, pretend I'm going for the art, stay for the dick jokes. Such a saucy way about him, that William Shakespeare.

So yes, I loved it to bits. And, staying in '78, I didn't realise the Chauvel had a perfectly lovely cafe (I should, now that I go to grown up cinema on occasion, rare occasion) so I stopped for a (much needed) pot of tea at a cafe opposite which didn't look like it had been rennovated or indeed cleaned since '78 (or 83 at the latest), and the in-house music did not dispel that impression.

Oh, I also saw The House at an encore screening of NT Live at the Dendy, but don't tell anyone as I was skiving again. It was really, really good, though. I think I might have appreciated it more if I knew the background better (70s Britain was so very far away back then, and now) but it was wickedly funny, and slyly educational, in the best way of the best plays. I now know all about whips and screwdrivers.

Friday night and I was down at the Opera House watching Dame Edna take us through Peter and the Wolf. No, really. I enjoyed the caberet night so much I thought I'd go again, but sadly, just didn't have that much fun, despite having my wonderful new dress from M and S that worked a treat (people talked to me, gentlemen held my wine glass while I fumbled for tickets). Not that Edna wasn't funny (though I could have done without the tired old political commentary, I prefer Humphries skewering more prosaic targets) and it was funny to watch the conductor's shoulder heave up and down with the giggles, and the music was lovely and fun, I finally have a name and composer for some familiar pieces which everyone assumes to know but mercifully the programmes are tenderly informative for the newbie, even if Humphries wasn't, castigating people for referring to the program mid set, not getting dressed up for the night, etc.

Anyway, it was worth it, just to see Edna singing Juanita the Spanish lobster. It wasn't a bad night, I just wasn't transported away from my cares and woes the way I had been before.

And that's what I've been up to. I know, no housework, no nothing, but I was so distressed about the work nastiness that I just required constant distraction, and, for the most part, mission acomplished.

Meanwhile, I have now lost count of the Kickstarter projects I've supported. Would that this qualified me to call myself a patron of the yartz, but I know it doesn't work that way, certainly not for my meagre donations. Still, even with my piddling cash poor change going to this project or that favourite artist, I reckon I've spent more on supporting the yartz than any mining magnate, shall we say.

Too many Brit boys in town, not enough time, whimper. (Never thought I'd ever say that, either). Also, had a weird dream Aidan Turner did Who, but for just a year. He wasn't bad (an aquired taste but I'm pretty darn loyal). I know, what me, reality? Nope. There was also a crannóg, a museum, and a fish and chip shop. Like I said, weird.

Gatsby. I liked it. I thought it was very faithful to the book (which I've studied several times now), very faithful to Baz's house style, and no matter what critics might say, it was exactly how I imagined Gatsby (mainly because they used a lot of places/things/people around here I'd used for my imaginings, so I was actually laughing with delight a couple of times at how in synch I was with this particular production.

I thought it was perfectly cast, and the parties done to decadent perfection (a lot of things in the film the critics harped on are, actually, in point of fact, lifted verbatim from the book, so there). I thought they'd done a decent job of a largely internal book (rather like Jordan's quote about large parties being more intimate, it's a book of observations and emotions rather than actions, though it has these, too, to shocking effect).

So yes, I liked it. I'm hoping time will be kinder to it than current critical thought, because, my gosh, it pretty much nailed it, as far as I'm concerned, but maybe it's just my Sydney-bound view of Twenties New York being in synch with the makers. But the Twenties were that mad, to those of us who can only see that world via books, press and film. It was pretty faithful to those surviving clips of Josephine Baker, and, oddy, King Kong.

Wednesday night was odd. First there was champagne to celebrate what I personally consider a travesty, so I had two, one for me and one for te memory of my father. On an empty stomach. So when I got off the bus at Newtown I started off walking the wrong way, got myself lost, wobbled back bumping into everything including the street furniture. Oh dear. No head for the fizzy stuff, I'm afraid. None at all. Then, when all was said and done, I emerged/stagged back onto the footpath to discover there'd been a political coup while I had my phone on silent.

Like I said, an odd night. Also, to my shame, I didn't survive the taxi ride home quite as well as I should, and as I was telling himself my tale of woe, the plate was put back in the cupboard, the oven turned off. Oh, the shame, the shame.

Not my finest hour, but it's been a rough week and I've screwed up badly re personal goals.

A very rough week. There isn't enough chocolate in the world. Just being tormented, nothing new, just cutting deep this week. It's a localised problem. Would that I were watching bumbleebees on the bank of the Thames, so many hundreds of thousands of miles away. Bliss.

Had my last ride on the monorail. So it joins the hydrofoil, hovercraft and concord with other failed modes of transport. The world just got even less Thunderbird-y. Sigh.

For those unaware of the history of the monorail, here's a quick primer: