Comedy; grave; Hobbit

Waitrose’s Christmas drinks catalogue published this photo and caption this year, with a complete lack of irony. The top caption relates to a photo that I snipped off; the bottom one reads ‘Xander helps Helen shell the quails’ eggs’, and relates to an article on Helen Someone or other (possibly a buyer for Waitrose, or possibly an organic chutney-maker supported by her stockbroker hubby) burbling on about how she has a very traditional Christmas (yawn) and involves her three children, including the unfortunately-named Xander, in festive preparations.

Received the usual warning via the OU’s Go Green programme to switch off all unnecessary electrical equipment over the Christmas period (though it did end with a slightly panic-stricken footnote about not going overboard and switching off servers or fridges). The OU’s Go Green programme is fronted by a Great Crested Newt called Neville, the thinking presumably being that cute talking animals are just the thing to achieve buy-in from fully grown adults.

Comedy outing to South Street Arts on 6 January to see Roisin Conaty, a comic I hadn’t thought I was familiar with, though realised from part of her routine that I’ve heard snippets of her on Radio 4 (a rather good joke about how raising the price of cigarettes won’t stop people smoking, but will just mean that poor people stop buying fruit). Very enjoyable show, enhanced by a funny supporting set from Jen Brister. Met Claire at the Global Café prior to the show – lovely as I hadn’t been there in ages, due to not living in Reading during the weeks. Glad to find that Tutu’s Ethiopian Kitchen is still surviving. Claire appeared to have slightly sold out – given our previous anti-diet rants – by going on a low-carb diet. She had indeed lost quite a bit of weight, but I can’t contemplate the thought of giving up bread.

Amused on meeting up with Helen, Ruth and Ali before the show to learn that Ali had recently had a spell of being Mother Christmas – and subsequently a postmistress elf – at some local Winter Wonderland. She didn’t appear to have lasted very long, and was full of tales of slave labour and minimum wage.

Mum stayed over on 13 December after an afternoon at an exhibition at the Museum of London. On the Saturday morning we wandered up to St Peter’s Church to have a potter around its Christmas Market, before meeting Ruth at the Alto Lounge for lunch. In the churchyard, Mum was interested in the memorial to William Crawshay II, a South Wales ironmaster who later retired to Caversham Park.

Went for our Information Office Christmas lunch on Thursday at The Crooked Billet at Newton Longville. Nice pub and food was pretty good, though its concession to the season was pretty minimal, leading Victoria to ask the waitress in somewhat aggrieved fashion as we were leaving why we hadn’t had any crackers. I found myself sitting next to Nick, our director, which always creates an initial pressure to make polite conversation, but in fact Nick was happy to outline his plans for his forthcoming retirement.

Returned to Reading on Thursday evening for our Christmas Book Group meeting at Claire’s. As I think I’ve missed the previous three meetings, partly because of the travel inconvenience and partly because I’ve been a bit off reading, I was determined to make this one, and had actually managed to finish the book, J K Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. Bloody good read, I thought, and was a bit disappointed at the dismissive attitude of most of the others who’d managed to finish it. Some of the disparaging comment seemed essentially to stem from the fact that JKR has had the effrontery to write something that isn’t Harry Potter, and the rest seemed to relate to the characters not being likeable. Um, no, but that’s probably real life for you. Currently considering joining a different book group that’s actually capable of having objective discussions.

With the impending release of the second instalment of Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit, Ray and I reminded ourselves of the content of Part 1 on Wednesday evening, as I purchased the extended edition DVD on its release in November. Some of the extra bits were enjoyable, particularly the additional scenes in Rivendell, partly because I am extremely partial to Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of Master Elrond (not ‘Lord’ – that’s a cinematic invention). It’s possibly not strictly in the spirit of Tolkien canon, as I seem to recall it being implied in the books that Elrond is a kind and reasonably gentle chap, whereas Weaving’s Elrond is not someone you would push too far in an argument, but all the same. We’ve booked tickets to see Part 2 next Monday afternoon.

A complicated business, booking cinema tickets these days – while trying to avoid the HFR (high frame rate) version of The Hobbit, as I wasn’t too sure about this last time, I was surprised to also be offered the choice of filtering on ‘Autism Friendly’ films. I didn’t look up quite what this meant, but the mind boggles.

Finally forced myself this morning to try out Roni’s Hand Car Wash on the V8 at Peartree Bridge, which several people at the OU have recommended. Quite an operation, and certainly not just a couple of blokes with sponges: you pull up to the first set of chaps who hose the worst of the dirt off your car (quite a lot of it, in my case), then pull a bit further on where you’re soaped, then you drive your car on to a small turntable where it’s turned 90 degrees for you to drive in to a more traditional car wash arrangement, which hoses you off. During this stage you make your choice of service from the card handed to you. Then you drive out to the final set of chaps, who polish and buff your car – and do the inside of it, depending on the service you choose – while you’re sent inside to the waiting room. All quite impressive, and a bargain at £10 for cleaning both inside and out.

Wandered along at 5pm to Simpson church to see the switching on of the lights on the tree that was planted by the church in November. Quite sweet, though I didn't stick around for the sing-song that was evidently pending afterwards.

Hobbit; unnecessary SFX; first Christmas lunch

Passed this decorated tree in Kents Hill Park last Friday. Cute.

Met Ray in town on Saturday to go and see The Hobbit. Evidently, Part 1 of 3. We had both been surprised and somewhat sceptical beforehand about its being a trilogy, but in the event, really enjoyed it. Rather than being a film of The Hobbit, it’s really Prequel to The Lord of the Rings, Part 1, featuring the events of The Hobbit. Having said that, it’s ace – though it almost certainly does help if you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise (having once watched all three extended edition DVDs back to back in a nine-hour gorge-athon, we can probably count ourselves as two such). The trilogy-ness is discussed in this Guardian article. It is, as one of the critics quoted therein notes, a purist’s delight.

The H was also the first movie I’d seen in 3D. Ray, being more of an old hand at 3D, thought it didn’t work too well. Certainly I didn’t think it added anything, and ideally I’d prefer not to have to sit through a film wearing a pair of special glasses. I was also disconcerted by something hard to place concerning the speed of panning across landscapes and action in some of the shots (created effect similar to being driven too fast over a humpback bridge), and the way the background was out of focus – spent the early part of the movie rubbing my eyes and attempting to clean my 3D glasses. Possibly this could have been due to the high frame rate referred to in the article above, not that I really know what that means.

Ruth and I went over to Ray’s boat in the evening for a casual lasagne dinner and chinwag. Returned the following morning to collect my car and to drive Ray to Marparts in Caversham to buy a new length of exhaust pipe, the exhaust having fallen off his van the previous Friday. I gather that it has since been expertly welded back on by his mate Darren and is now almost good as new.

Took a day’s leave on Monday to meet ex-Progress South Central people for Christmas lunch. This year, we had decided on having it at the eatery on the London Road campus, formerly The Cotton Club but now, following a refurb, called Eat & Drink London Road. Went not expecting much as the food used to be OK at best, but we were pleasantly surprised at the decent quality of the lunch – turkey was dry and uninteresting, as is often its wont, but the rest was pretty good, and there was much exclaiming over the positively al dente sprouts.

Returned to MK later on Monday afternoon, though not before getting my key to the internal garage door stuck fast in the lock – after trying for about 10 minutes to get it out with no luck, had to just leave it and go. Had to advise Ruth that she would have to access the garage, if she needed to, via the back gate and the main garage door – this forgetting that the key to the padlock on the back gate was locked inside the garage. In the event, she evidently had to climb over the back gate, something which I gather caused a certain amount of difficulty, though she appeared to have treated it with more humour than I think I would have done. Fortunately, there were apparently no onlookers.

Lowbrow walk; autumn leaves; mortgage frustrations

Went with Claire, Helen and Ruth for a voucher-assisted dinner at Strada on the 28^th (the modern way of eating out in these straitened times) and then on to see Shazia Mirza at South Street Arts, who delivered a funny show but misjudged some of the audience involvement (in brief, chose unwittingly to pick on some people who had come to the show straight from giving a free dinner for the town’s refugee population – cue supportive “ain’t that marvellous” applause from audience where Mirza had evidently intended to make game of them). Going through a member of the audience’s handbag is also possibly a bit of a cheap gag; one that Julian Clary also used when Ray and I saw him at the Wycombe Swan some years ago. Having said that, I do like Mirza’s comedy very much and most of the show was good value.

Took a day off rather randomly on Friday 29^th (just to have a day off really) and decided on a whim to go over to Newbury for a pootle about to see what had changed. As I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of times I’ve visited my hometown in the last 20 years, the answer was: quite a lot. Ended up having a longer-than-intended walk around the south side of town, taking in the pretty lowbrow Newbury Retail Park, which is sited where I remember Newbury Rugby Club being – this, confusingly, has now moved about half a mile down the road. The retail park was doing a roaring trade – must be those branches of Peacocks, Matalan and Poundstretcher Extra all next to each other. Lunched on a cup of tea and a ham and cheese toastie in the branch of Costa inside the enormous Tesco on Pinchington Lane – the café is on a sort of mezzanine at the back of the shop so that one can enjoy looking out on to the shop floor and taking in multipacks of crisps, children being clouted, and other low-budget supermarket joys.

Ray and I went for another walk on Saturday, starting from the same spot in Sulham Woods but heading the other way, up towards the Thames, along the Thames Path a bit and then back across country via Purley. Stopped for tea at the basic but useful tea place at Mapledurham Lock, where Ray had a chinwag with the lockkeeper and I dwelt on the strong smell of rotting cabbage - the small garden and greenhouse in between the cafe and the lock cottage look in need of a bit of tidying up. Proceeded back across country with a short detour into Tilehurst to have a quick snoop at the strikingly unusual houses in Ridgemount Close.

Didn’t make my usual Hallowe’en display with dried leaves this year, given that it has been eaten by rabbits for the last two years running. I still maintain that Jake’s excessive consumption of Hallowe’en-display leaves in 2008 had nothing to do with his subsequent death not long afterwards. Have been burning black candles instead as a mark of the season.

Helen appeared to have spent most of the week before our Book Group meeting last Wednesday bubbling enormous vats of soup, as three types of Hallowe’en/autumnal soup were on offer: two with pumpkin and one with butternut squash. Managed to put away two bowls of pumpkin and apple, along with a small tonnage of assorted bread and pastries. The book under discussion was Diana Athill’s excellent ruminations on advanced old age, Somewhere Towards the End. Most of us had enjoyed it and agreed that Athill sounds a super old bird.

Ruth and I went to the cinema last Thursday to take in lesbian family-drama The Kids Are All Right, focusing on dominating wine-loving doctor Nic and her flaky wannabe-garden designer partner Jules, and their two children fathered by an anonymous sperm donor, perfect little blonde A-grade waif daughter Joni and mulish-but-really-terribly-sweet son Laser. Good viewing although one feels a bit sorry for Mark Ruffalo’s character being so abruptly dispatched at the end. Was v. impressed with Annette Bening; I’d never formed much opinion on her before – a strong, unglamorous part – fair play to her. Lisa Cholodenko also directed the 1998 movie High Art, which Ruth has a VHS copy of but which I haven’t tackled yet, although I believe Ally Sheedy is in it.

Our attempt to remortgage to a new fixed-rate deal that will shave £200 off our monthly payments has been essentially progressing OK over the last couple of weeks but it’s a bit of a case of two steps forward and one back. The solicitors acting for our prospective new mortgage lender have elected to become obsessed with the Deed of Trust that Ruth and I had set up when we took out our first mortgage together in 2008 – albeit that we are not actually legally required to have one of these and merely chose to do so as a mark of good financial sense. As of today they are quibbling various clauses in it, leading to us going back to the solicitor who originally drew it up, who has responded with “nonsense, they’re just trying to add costs” and has offered to draft a one-page supplementary letter that should do the trick. Jury is still out as to whether it will or not. Have so far successfully repressed urge to ring lenders’ legal firm and challenge that they wouldn’t be asking a married couple for all this cr*p.