Wednesday 14 April 2010

 

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Dream: Millwall are in the play offs but rather than going into the ground and watching the game I linger around outside the stadium seemingly for fear of jinxing proceedings.  Eventually I wander off and find a deserted pub in the sticks where all the fans have been beforehand (before the game) and where they have left all their stuff.

Things are grey again today but that’s OK, it doesn’t affect me badly.  Against this, events runs smoothly and on cue.

Today will probably be remembered in history as “Paedo Bikini” day according to the front page of The Sun.  Things really are grey.

Entering the train station I spot Disney Face and later both Kym Marsh lookalikes, which is something of a rare happening these days.  Such is repetition and the reassurance that it brings to my commuting experience.

On cue I board the 6.59AM with The Metro in hand and as I flick through it I am disheartened and depressed by the number of advertisements from credit rating agencies that deal in scoring.  In a civilised society this really is something that we shouldn’t be having to use, a service that is disgusting in concept.  Companies such as Experian and CreditExpert are truly vultures just playing on the fears and paranoia of the vulnerable (the poor).  What a decadent concept, one designed to keep people down and away from being lent the spirit of being socially mobile.  These organisations serve no purpose; their necessity has just been invented for the modern world. 

Again the train journey is another quiet one, lacking in personalities and lookalikes.  There is definitely something to be said for that.

Upon arrival at Liverpool Street all goes wild and insane as I discover a tiny midget lady bumping into my knees just as I spot (and stare at) a rubbish Bunk from The Wire doppelganger.

From here the trot into work is so so.  I see no more midgets or The Wire lookalikes in the process so I am safe.  Once again I find myself first into the building so I treat myself to an orange and lemonade with view to clearing my head.

The day rolls OK.  Still I cannot build/muster up any momentum.  These accounts are such a mess from all the various restructural dealings, nothing and nobody is on the same page.

Humpday is deflated.  The Filipino looks bored and I can’t blame her, so am I.

As ever before we realise it the time is lunch.  Today I have penne with merguez.  It has most of the food groups and the sausage is one of my five meats a day.

The afternoon plays out in an equally unspectacular fashion.  If I’m being truthful I can’t be bothered to deal with this mess, as it is not necessarily my doing.

Out of boredom I even respond to a Craigslist advert for an Oriental girl seeking marriage and a passport.  What the fuck am I playing at?

Eventually glumness turns into grumpiness as thoughts begin to turn to dusting off 1000 Hurts.

Finally 5.30PM arrives and with it moves towards Leicester Square to see CEMETERY JUNCTION on release day.  Obviously with anything Gervais related thoughts are drawn to you know who.

Straight from work I get out at Green Park and head along Piccadilly.  Upon arriving at the Vue on Leicester Square I find myself confronted by a large queue.  Now is this for the latest Ricky Gervais movie or the fact that it is Orange Wednesday.  You decide.

In the end I pay £12.15 for a cinema ticket and yet again feel like a total mark.  In six months time the DVD will cost half this price and in a year it will probably be less than a third.  Madness.

Leicester Square is heaving this evening.  What is it with so many walking slowly?  Is this a reflection of people’s pulses grinding to a halt?  Where is the London hustle I’ve become acclimatised to over the past five years?

I decide to get a Starbucks on Shaftesbury Avenue and with the purchase dinner is served.  With time to kill I take a wander down to Trafalgar Square, which is always a sight that never fails to impress or blow away.

As I head back to the cinema I pass a band (or rather their crew) packing out of Capital Radio.  Looking at the flight cases I spot the word Ash.  So I get to see their equipment but not them themselves.  Surely this still counts as a star spot though.

Finally I take my seat in Screen 4 of the cinema.  This is a little one.  What, the new UK blockbuster is not showing on the main screen?  FAIL.

CEMETERY JUNCTION turns out to be a fairly fun but truly frustrating and agonising experience.  The good intentions and messages are there but the execution just isn’t.  Throughout the movie I struggle to harbour much in the way of empathy for the characters, as at times it plays out as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Perhaps it isn’t helped that the setting fails to reconcile with small-town existence.  This town looks too rural to the point it looks like a village from a lost golden age.  The England being portrayed physically looks more like the forties as opposed to the sixties.

The first solid laughs arrive when Brian Gittins turns up as the café owner at the railway station.  I’d like to think that this guy is going places but he is just still too weird for most people’s tastes I fear.

In the end for me the big problem is that the main characters just aren’t convincing or likeable, indeed Tom Hughes is just an American style anti-hero, the kind we just don’t tend to do or get behind (root for) in this country.  You can’t help but feel the casting has been executed in a Hollywood method (bloody Americans).  And why not, people aren’t going to go for a young version of Ricky Gervais as much as they will some vacant pretty boy.

CEMETERY JUNCTION gets A for effort but much like The Invention Of Lying fails to nail what blatantly are great ideas and concepts (not least with the Billy Liar type situation).  Perhaps two hours is just not long enough anymore in order to develop such supposedly complex characters, backgrounds and storylines.  With HBO being so amazing there is now a desire to cover areas with much more depth in addition to there being a new found interest in peripheral characters that is always going to be impossible to squeeze into a two hour movie.

It all pans out in predictable manner, which should really derive some kind of euphoria but ultimately does not necessarily work that way.  If I’m honest, I wanted the characters to fail.

In addition to this once more my enjoyment of a movie is blighted by external forces.  Throughout the movie I feel the back of my seat being kicked as the dickhead that sat behind me seconds before the beginning of the movie persists in tapping my chair all the way through.  Is he bored or just an arsehole?  Probably both.  What is it about supposedly adult people who find it impossible to just sit still for the duration of a movie?  Then in an ultimate kick in the balls after the movie ends he comments “we should have gone to see The Letter.”  Idiot.

Also, I said earlier, anything with Ricky Gervais comes the baggage of my American friend as it all reminds me of a person I met through being a fan of the guy who turned out to be rubbish and depressing.

Afterwards I emerge from the cinema following the guy that was sat behind me ruining my evening, I just have to see which kind of dick represents the ruling class these days.  He is just some skinny Strokes wannabe, a guy with a look that will always serve to get him laid more times than I could ever dream of.  Sadness accrues.

Eventually I wind up on the 9.30PM train, a comfy Norwich proposition.  In many ways this is the ideal train, almost quiet and calming.

When I get home the time is around 10.30PM and the night is almost done.  With no time to squeeze in anything useful or productive I soon turn in.