The weekend

Friday in the cesspit of my childhood.

Well, it's been a productive couple of days. Yesterday my Dad drove me to Dublin and picked up the rest of my stuff from the house, so now all loose ends have been tied up. I felt a bit guilty for making him drop me off at home before picking up Mam but the car was such an oven from the hot weather I was starting to overheat. Oh well, I made it up to him later by moving a load of turf, so anyway...

It turns out I was wrong about the dilemma of flying to Gatwick. Bmibaby.com does flights from Cork to Gatwick, and my one has just been booked! Yay me! All I have to do now is book the B&B for Monday night.

Today, I went to Cork to visit my orthodontist. I've been in 'retention' for 3 years now, so he took off the fixed bar from the inside of the front of my bottom teeth. For the first time since I got braces, my mouth is now clear. This is good.

After that, I went to the cinema. Before I start on the film I have to ask: When did holding a conversation at normal volume in a cinema become the accepted norm? Nearly every time I've been to the cinema lately, I've invariably had to almost shout at someone to be quiet before they stop talking. It's at its most prevalent in the muliplex-type cinemas, but is a rare enough occurrence in the more arthouse cinemas. This makes sense: The latter attract a serious audience who actually want to see a film, whereas the former is a draw for any old joe gobshite, but at some point people seemed to start actually paying 6 euros just to use a film as background noise while they have a conversation. I derived a theory from the book 'No Logo' (Naomi Klein) about how the more like a shopping mall a place is, the more people are in 'browse' mode, just wandering around in a daze, not actually engaging themselves in anything. No coincidence then, that the cinemas that resemble a shopping mall in appearance, with the bar, snack section, and coffee counter, attract a bored, dazed, and (to put it very mildly) sheep-like clientele. The UGC in Dublin suffered from this, and by all accounts (though I've never been) the Liffey Valley centre is the same. I nearly came to blows with a bunch of pre-teen brats today in the Gate cinema in Cork, and even the usher had words a few times. They eventually left, about half an hour before the end. The next time I come across this, direct action will result. Unfortunately today, the law was on the side of the guilty party by default. Otherwise there would be one or two little shits in a dumpster now.

* DON'T WORRY, NO REAL SPOILERS AHEAD *

Anyway, I saw The Terminal. It's by Steven Speilberg, and as you'd expect, is an enjoyable piece of escapist fluff. He may make them commercial, but he does commercial better than almost anyone else, especially when you consider the competition. Tom Hanks stars as Viktor Navorski, a man from a country that had undergone a coup of some sort just after he left it, and as such, it's status as a country is uncertain. Because of this, he finds that his passport has been revoked, and he is stuck in an airport terminal , and he can't leave. It's wholesome, feelgood, and a bit silly, but worth the few bob of the entrance fee. Ms. Zeta-Jones is in here too, and so is Stanley Tucci, who as usual has been cast as the prick of the piece. The only quibble I have with it is the constant product placement throughout. Speilberg seems to love his brands, they representing, he seems to feel, All That Is Great About America. That, and the way that New York in the film seems to represent some promised land. Aul' Steve must have a boner for the symbolism of the cities of the great red, white and blue. And maybe he could have done more with Zoë Saldana's character (immigration control officer), I think. But, like I said, still decent. You may just need to leave your brain at the door.

The packing of a .44 magnum for the noisy little shits, however, is entirely up to you.