Weekend Chatterbox

I went to see Godzilla with my mate while he was waiting to pick up his wife from the spice girls, but they didn't have two seats together. The alternatives were Aladdin and some sort of X Man.

My mate hates superhero films, so Aladdin it was. I regret nothing*.



*I regretted everything the moment I got in there. It was weird. 4*

I think the problem here is why an adult would go to the cinema at all? Other people are phone-using snack-chomping dicks, the floors are sticky, they always smell, they're expensive and unpleasant. Plus most films are appalling drivel. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that good films are made exclusively by the bad type of sexual predator, so I also recommend not watching them either. But if you must, why not watch films alone at home while drinking heavily, before going to bed and crying yourself to sleep?

I watched Aladdin (the Disney version with the genie voiced by Mork) at the cinema as a teenager with a date. We didn't have children with us. I enjoyed the film.

I thought it was fairly clear that Trump meant visiting the Moon would be an integral stepping-stone for any project to visit Mars. Trump says enough stupid pig-ignorant shite without the Guardian resorting to disingenuous reporting to try to mock him. The article seemed dishonest and petty, took aim at an imagined rather than real blunder, and as such bordered on being Trumpian. Any pro-Trump supporter reading that might well use it to bolster the complaint that the mainstream media and Trump's opponents are dishonest and biased, peddlers, as one might put it, of fake news.

That sounds remarkably like my house, apart from the expensive part.

Hello.
TV. Finished S4 of Line of Duty.

Games. The Division. My pal insisted we do HVT missions on tier 5. We got killed. Not always straight away, but eventually. He seemed upset by this. You only get one chance on HVT missions.

Just made a vat of minestrone.

I used to go to the cinema only sporadically and not at all now that the Preferred Mammal has mobility issues, but I always made sure that I would go to the Electric Cinema where one can enjoy the film on a sofa with a G&T or a glass of wine and nibbles. It's worth being a decadent snob.

I extend my snobbery to pubs, and the only time I found myself in a rough one was when our usual in Erdington was closed due to water damage. I asked Mr Tent Rooster to get me a "Brew Eleven". When he repeated the order at the bar he was given the stink eye and corrected to "Brew Eks Aye".

Afternoon all.

This morning I cooked a reference quality roast chicken for Sunday lunch. And I used the chicken stock from last week's roast for the gravy. Boodiful. 4*

Amigablog - nothing today, other than showing off some old game boxes to my dad. F/A 18 Interceptor and Lemmings.

I remember seeing François Truffaut's The 400 Blows at the Electric; I think I had red wine and olives. The Electric was the last cinema I went to with any regularity, and that was probably ten years ago. I might have had two visits to other cinemas since then.

I once went to The Victoria (I think that's what it was called) in Erdington. There was a deposit on pool cues to discourage their misuse, and the toilet in the gents had been ripped from the floor and left free-standing. It wasn't the friendliest pub I've ever been to. It burnt down shortly afterwards and is now a Tesco Metro and a block of flats.

The Odeon in Sheffield has a special light in the toilets to make it hard doing the drugs.

The powers that be bestowed lovely weather this morning, the absolute shits, so I have been gardening with a hangover.

I've ordered halves many times, for a variety of reasons. Actual half pints of beer, not featuring any spirits.

"Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened, he descended the steps and crossed the narrow street. It was madness of course. As usual, there was no definite rule against talking to proles and frequenting their pubs, but it was far too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the patrols appeared he might plead an attack of faintness, but it was not likely that they would believe him. He pushed open the door, and a hideous cheesy smell of sour beer hit him in the face. As he entered the din of voices dropped to about half its volume. Behind his back he could feel everyone eyeing his blue overalls. A game of darts which was going on at the other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty seconds. The old man whom he had followed was standing at the bar, having some kind of altercation with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young man with enormous forearms. A knot of others, standing round with glasses in their hands, were watching the scene.
'I arst you civil enough, didn't I?' said the old man, straightening his shoulders pugnaciously. 'You telling me you ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?'
'And what in hell's name is a pint?' said the barman, leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter.
'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.'
'Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and half litre -- that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you.
'I likes a pint,' persisted the old man. 'You could 'a drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man.'
'When you were a young man we were all living in the treetops,' said the barman, with a glance at the other customers.
There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused by Winston's entry seemed to disappear. The old man's whitestubbled face had flushed pink. He turned away, muttering to himself, and bumped into Winston. Winston caught him gently by the arm.
'May I offer you a drink?' he said.
'You're a gent,' said the other, straightening his shoulders again. He appeared not to have noticed Winston's blue overalls. 'Pint!' he added aggressively to the barman. 'Pint of wallop.'
The barman swished two half-litres of dark-brown beer into thick glasses which he had rinsed in a bucket under the counter. Beer was the only drink you could get in prole pubs. The proles were supposed not to drink gin, though in practice they could get hold of it easily enough. The game of darts was in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar had begun talking about lottery tickets. Winston's presence was forgotten for a moment. There was a deal table under the window where he and the old man could talk without fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but at any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure of as soon as he came in.
"E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as he settled down behind a glass. 'A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.'
'You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,' said Winston tentatively.
The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as though it were in the bar-room that he expected the changes to have occurred.
'The beer was better,' he said finally. 'And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer -- wallop we used to call it -- was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.'
'Which war was that?' said Winston.
'It's all wars,' said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his shoulders straightened again. 'Ere's wishing you the very best of 'ealth!'
In his lean throat the sharp-pointed Adam's apple made a surprisingly rapid up-and-down movement, and the beer vanished. Winston went to the bar and came back with two more half-litres. The old man appeared to have forgotten his prejudice against drinking a full litre. "



ps. Yes, 'estate' pubs are the worst.