Yum!

The song isn't half bad either.

The Dutch have arrived

There are around twenty aryan-looking people squashed around our dining room table, all yabbering at each other.

My mother woke me at the ungodly hour of 9:30 this morning, telling me she was off to the airport to meet the relatives. "There are 18 bread rolls out in the kitchen", she declared. "I want them all buttered and ready to be served when I get back. Be sure to heat up the two huge saucepans of soup as well. That'll take at least half an hour". "Haven't you realised by now," I returned, "that anytime before 1pm is not good for me".

"Tough titty. See you in an hour, and don't you dare go back to sleep".

God above, the things I have to deal with.

So things (and my mother along with them) are only going to get more frantic between now and Sunday.

As an aside, my father's broadband provider is really starting to do my head in. The most harmless of sites are blocked, being categorized as sex sites or occult sites (never heard of the latter rating in content filters before) and they can only be temporarily unblocked for upto 8 hours. It's not that big a deal, as since it was me that set up the connection, I know all the passwords for changing the settings, but it's more than a little irritating. The provider is gaelic.ie, set up in connection with the GAA of Ireland, and it's more than a little reflective of the values of its parent organisation. Newsflash, boys: youtube is not what anyone with half a brain would consider a sex site.

Ho ho ho

It's been a bit of a mixed bag.

Most of my family have come down with some illness or other in the last few days. We had Christmas dinner at my sister's this 25th, and in a particularly cruel irony, she herself was unable to taste it, having completely lost her sense of smell. I myself still had a bit of an earache on the day, but it's gone now. Yesterday was pretty good though, as I had rather a lot to drink last night and met loads of people who I hadn't seen since last Christmas and probably won't see until this time next year. I ended up at a house party, and got home at around 5am or something like that.

Some of the people I know don't have much of a sense of ceremony about going out at Christmas though, which is a bit annoying as when I come home, I'm generally raring to go. Or maybe it's the fact that every pub was packed to the rafters last night. Oh well...

My brother's wedding is on Sunday, and the dutch side of the family are all arriving at the airport tomorrow. My mother is catastrophising left, right and centre as she's still feeling a bit sick, and is worrying more than usual about getting better in time for the wedding. I can understand, but anytime I tell her to GO TO BED AND TAKE IT EASY she dismisses it, saying she has too much to do, and ignores any offers we make to do things for her. There's nothing like a couple of obstacles being thrown in my mother's path to send her into a full-blown panic, and she is not one to suffer in silence.

Because of the wedding, Christmas has taken a bit of a back seat this year for us. None of us bothered to try and surprise each other with regard to presents. I got my brother a CD and kept the receipt so he can change it if he wants. I asked for Armistead Maupin's Tales From the City, which I've heard good things about. My father has just given it to me. All three of the titles.

So roll on Sunday. Thanks be to God I don't have to do any speeches. Thank God.

At home again

I'm at home, since last Saturday, the 16th.

Little did I know that as I began my descent into Cork, events were taking place in my left eardrum that would lay the foundation for a very unpleasant couple of days ahead.

At the start of this week, a pain had appeared in my left ear. Attempts to disinfect with olive-oil-soaked cotton wool balls failed miserably, and a couple of days later, I was unable to sleep, such was my agony. I also found it very difficult to have conversations with people who were anywhere in the vicinity of my left side, or watch films on TV at night, such was the deafness that had taken hold in my left ear. I hauled myself off to the doctor, and he prescribed a five-day course of amoxycillin. He also recommended an over-the-counter lotion with a dropper that you use to put the liquid into your ear. I used this once, and shortly afterwards, the entire left side of my head felt like it was going to explode, so I'm not continuing with that one.

So that's it. Antibiotics over Christmas. Which means very little alcohol (I don't think alcohol is advised against when taking amoxycillin but there's NO WAY I'm running the risk of that pain making a reappearance. I'm only just about back to normal now).

In other news, my parents are starting to embrace the 21st century. I came home to see a widescreen LCD tv in the sitting room. There was also a broadband router AND DVD/VCR combi waiting to be setup. My parents can be quite clever about these things. They buy them just before Christmas, when they know I'm coming home, and then don't touch them until I'm in the door, knowing they can count on me to do it all.

But thank GOD. Mallow may still suck compared to Brighton, but it's a bit more bearable now.

That bear I was supposed to meet on Friday before I left Brighton texted and cancelled at the last minute, so an opportunity for hot gratuitous sex was lost to me. Perhaps in the new year...

The preparations for the wedding grind on. Like a lot of women in such a position, the bride-to-be has turned into a bit of a psychopath, and has already fallen out with, and subsequently replaced, the two bridesmaids that she had lined up. They had been friends for almost 20 years. That's enough of a catastrophe. Hopefully there won't be any more.

In other news, I've been helping my mother type up a list of dutch recipes given to us by our relatives across the pond. The relatives had tried translating the recipes using an online translation tool, but had come up with some truly hilarious results. Pigs Head stuffed with cheese had come up as (fnar fnar) Head Cheese, and my favourite, Water-based Gruel had come up as 'Water Horror'. An interesting name for a horror film, that one would be. Anyway, it's done now, so my brother the chef will be getting a bound book of traditional dutch recipes as one of his wedding presents. He'd better apprecitate it.

Now I have to go and help my mother polish silver.

(P.S. I know I've been getting really bad at regular updates. I promise I'll try and keep you all scintillated over Christmas. Ta ra)

The Cock

I haven't written about any trysts with men for some time now, mostly because at the time I couldn't be bothered. But then I thought, well, half the reason I started this blog was to record them. So. An update.

It's either feast or famine when it has come to the men in my life lately, but I appear to be in the middle of a feast at the moment. It's about time.

Daffy hasn't been on the scene for a while now. It's a shame. As much as I know he's not boyfriend material, having one of his own already, he's still fun to be around. Oh well, maybe I'll see him around.

There was that time recently where I went out with Dan and June to celebrate the anniversary of their first date. Once that finished, I headed into the Bulldog and netted myself a man. As we headed back to his, he announced that he had a boyfriend. "Where is he?" asketh I. "In prison" replied the object of my desires. "Cripes" said I, "what for?". "I don't really want to talk about it", respondeth he.

We had much fun, but I hope it wasn't GBH or murder his boyfriend was in for, otherwise I may have to flee the country when he gets out.

On sunday night, I arranged to rendez-vous with a smouldering polar bear in the Star Inn. I thought we'd have time to go back to his after our drink, but he had to move on and meet other friends, though I might be able to pencil him in before I head back to Ireland on Saturday.

After he'd left, reinforcements were summoned, and I ended up staying for a few more. The Star has now set up its own playroom. As most of the crowd there weren't taking advantage of the opportunity, I waited until a burly person I've had my eye on went in there, and I followed him in. Some fun was had.

After that, I went to the Bulldog, and after a while, I made eye contact (and then mouth contact very quickly after that) with a hot skin bear. Locked in a passionate embrace, we took turns to pin each other against the wall. We're meeting at mine on Friday after lectures at about 3pm. I'm looking forward to it, and he's well-endowed, apart from anything else. Of course, as luck would have it, he's in a relationship, albeit an open one. Oh well...

Then there's Nuclear Physics Bear, who I'm still in touch with. We've been sending each other filthy texts lately, and now that I've got a camera phone, saucy pictures as well. One of them is currently being used as wallpaper on my phone. He hasn't been back to Brighton since Pride this summer, but there might be some potential there. He's single, at least.

Dying

I went out to an event organised by one of my classmates last night. It was for the kickboxing club, but the way it worked out, half my class was there.

A special arrangement had been made with the bar that they would only charge £1 for certain drinks (bottles of Fosters and vodka/cokes). By the end of the night we were all hammered (especially me. Surprise!) and cutting a serious rug on the dancefloor.

Unfortunately what goes up must come down, and now I am sitting at work with my head in my hands.

Please kill me...

Nnnnnggghhh!

Disaster, and shoddy landlords, seem to follow me at every turn.

It has been about two months now since we moved into our house in Staplefield Drive, near the university. After ironing out a few discrepancies, everything between me and the others in the house is now going fine. The house itself is not.

We found out not long after moving in that the previous tenants had left quite the trail of destruction after them. One of them was a drug dealer, and once the special branch of the police had gotten wind of this, they raided the house, SWAT team style. Everyone who had happened to be there at that time found themselves being forced face-down onto the floor and their hands cuffed behind their backs. It appears that none of the others in the house knew about their rogue housemate's activities and by the time the team descended, he was gone.

One thing we noticed in the aftermath of all of this was that there was a raft of unpaid bills left behind these people. One would expect a decent landlord worth his salt to have all that sorted before we moved in, but no. That was left to us. Sorting out the £300 gas bill wasn't too much of a problem, relatively speaking, although it still took a while. The landlord gave a meter reading to one of the housemates, and I (eventually, as I didn't know he had it) got it off him. So now that's done. The electricity has turned out to be a different kettle of fish entirely.

The electricity is managed by a pre-payment meter, which basically means you top it up in advance of using it, like using a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. We found, when we moved in, that once we topped up the meter, it was counting down our credit a lot quicker than it should have been. The landlord and his lackey fobbed us off, telling us that we must have been using high-drain appliances a lot, but we knew this was bullshit. A lot of phonecalls later, and I found out that the meter was incorrectly programmed (to recover debt from the last tenants, I think) and it was indeed deducting too much from us. More phonecalls to the suppliers later, and I was given a list of instructions on how to correct this. Basically, I've been sent a new electronic key in the post. I have to use this key in the same shop the next three times I top up the meter. A bit convoluted, I think you'll agree, but I went along with it.

This afternoon, I went along to the grocery store to put money on the key, and then went home and stuck this key into the meter to transfer credit to it. The meter responded by displaying a single message.

'No'.

I put in the old key we had been using all along. 'No'.

There is only 44p left in the meter, which should see us into the small hours of the morning, before our electricity is cut off, and I currently have no way of increasing it. I'm going to ring the supplier's emergency helpline in a minute...

Part 2: I've just got off the phone, and the monuments of incompetence at British Gas Electric kept me on the phone for twenty minutes (bang went £2 of airtime credit) and couldn't even find the computer records for our address. I'm going home now. Two of the others in our house have contract phones, so I'm going to use them in an effort to try and iron this out. Stay tuned for the sorry saga...

Part 3: I've come back from the house and am now in the library. I've made I don't know HOW MANY phone calls, and finally found out that I have to buy ANOTHER key (£8) at a participating outlet. I was told this at about 8pm. All participating outlets had by then closed. I told the moron on the phone that we had only 17p left on the meter. She assured me that as a a safety measure, meters don't cut out the power supply at night. They wait until 9am the following morning. The gibbering fool was mistaken. About half an hour later, the meter clocked down to zero, and the entire house was promptly plunged into darkness. I have to wait until I can go to a 'participating outlet' in the morning (6am) before I can (hopefully) restore the power supply.

My phone credit is down from £7 this afternoon to the £1.50 it is now.

I have a report to hand in tomorrow.

Oh, and the university messed up my wages transfer, and I have not been paid for the work I did last month. I have £10 to my name.

I hate the world...

I have formed the definitive criterion for finding out what I call the 'monkey rating' of a landlord. I've dealt with quite a few in my time, and have thought about the differences in personality and competence of a lot of them.

Put bluntly, if your landlord's career comes under the heading of 'unskilled labour' or 'semi-skilled labour', hang on tight, boys, you're in for a bumpy ride. Prime examples of this class of people (oh, contradiction in terms) are bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, or any other kind of people involved in the building trade. Having worked in construction for some time, they've cottoned onto the fact that property can make for a good investment and, gathering their similarly inclined handymen around them so they can have a go at doing it themselves on the cheap, they decide to give it a shot. Unfortunately, once they start renting it out to their victims, the lack of skills required to organise a piss-up in a brewery become apparent.

Also not very encouraging are those who have inherited their property, or who have come by it in a way that they normally would not. Guards or other civil servants can also be a bit troublesome.

I think the quality one needs to look for in a landlord is whether he has the means to come by the money to buy the property without borrowing heavily and banking on the tenants covering the repayments. The best landlords I had were ones who had good careers anyway, and didn't need to invest in property to start bumping up their assets. They were also organised enough to get things sorted when it was necessary, without us having to harass them for weeks to get them to do it.

I've thought about property as an investment when I graduate. If some of these idiots I've rented from can do it, anyone can.

Casino Royale

Well, I came, I saw, I enjoyed.

Trying hard to forget that I had just paid £3 for a carton of popcorn that would have cost me 50p if I had been organised enough to buy it in a shop, I headed into screen 4 of Brighton CineWorld on Wednesday night.

Spoilers follow.

As I've previously said, I've never really been a fan of this franchise, and have only ever seen them when I've nothing better to do. Still, the amount of people who take seriously what is ultimately a load of fluff... oh well. One thing I've come across in some people so far is the conviction that Seán Connery was the original Bond. It speaks volumes for Connery's acting ability that he got famous off the back of what was essentially a bit of escapist bubblegum. Mediocre actor, mediocre films, match made in heaven, and yet he gets to be the benchmark by which all other subsequent Bonds are judged. Whatever.

Cheese has always been a problem with the Bond films in the past. Chat up lines, martinis, introductions, female leads, eyes rolling skyward inside of five minutes of the start of the film, you get the picture. This was different. Straight from the opening, it was obvious that the director was not going down the route tried and tried again. The flashback to the fight scene in the toilet was interestingly rendered, and when the theme song kicked off, I noticed a familiar timbre in the singer's voice. My hunch was right, ex-Soundgarden singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Chris Cornell was listed as singer and co-songwriter on the opening credits. My only trouble was working out if this shows that the Bond franchise was moving up in the world, or if Chris was moving down.

Other things that jumped out at me during the film was the opening sequence, which was more kinetic, and yet still more realistic than what I've seen in other Bonds, M's wit ("If an agent did something that embarassing before, he usually had the good sense to defect. God, I miss the cold war!"), and the scene with the camera effects where he's in the hotel bathroom, desperately trying to hold it together after being drugged. Also, the usual outlandishly far-fetched slew of gadgets was mercifully absent, save for a bucketload of product placement for Sony.

Then there's Daniel Craig.

It has been debated by everyone from Jonathan 'Woss' to 007 anoraks as to whether Craig is good enough to step into the shoes of the character. Well, if the ability to ham your way through an entire feature and take yourself seriously to a ludicrous extent in the process is a prerequisite, then Craig fails. If getting himself across as a hard-nosed hitman with a presence all of his own is the thing, then hats off, because he's pulled it off. Oh, and he looks great doing it. Much better than the other lot. That body. Mmmmmmm....

Otherwise the film is more or less the usual. An innocous subtext about a baddie trying to gamble his way out of debt to underworld crime lords is introduced, and I forgot it almost as soon as it was presented. As is often the case, the less than worthy one is afflicted with some physical malady to highlight further Bond's rugged manliness. There is also a near Road-To-Damascus experience where Bond falls in love and (almost) resigns from her majesty's secret service. However, the producers toward the end seem to adopt the philosophy of my flatmate - "No gadgets and he falls in love? Then it's not James Bond" - and all of that goes tits up. There are also a couple of knowing references to the original style, which grate more than anything else, and the last line does indeed cause me to, yes, roll my eyes towards heaven, but at least it was at the end.

So that's pretty much it. It's different, and there are worse ways to spend your time than watch it, even if it ultimately ends up paying tribute to the very style it helps revamp.

Now all they have to do is bring out a Daniel Craig blow-up doll in time for Christmas.

Ugh!

I hate Tuesdays, because they usually feature a big fat pharmaceutical chemistry lab that involves running around for up to six hours, competing with everyone else for analytical instruments, evaporators, bunsen burners, oh...everything. Today we did extraction and analysis of caffeine from tea-bags. The 0.02g sample of pure caffeine we ended up with did NOT seem worth all the effort, and now I will never look at a cup of Tetley's in the same way ever again.

I've moved this blog over to the Beta version. I'm not sure how it'll look until I publish, though I think the comments will disappear, according to what I've heard.

(Oh Yuk! AGAIN! Someone near me in the computer pool room keeps farting, and it's VILE!)

In other news, I have bought a new phone (complete with new number. The chosen ones will be notified of it as soon as I get around to it) so I am now free of the torment of having long text messages truncated, the earpiece cutting out mid-conversation (kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a phone, when you can't hear the person talking to you), and the power cutting out whenever the notion takes it. My new baby is a Sagem my501c. It's really rather dishy...

Nothing else to report, except I'm back drinking again, albeit a bit more sensibly. Oh, the willpower of a dying swan.

Oh James!

History has just been made. For the first time ever, I am prepared to sit through a James Bond film.

(Clue: The reason doesn't have much to do with the story)

Daniel Craig has the honour of being the only one of the 007 movie stars - one of the few male Hollywood stars, in fact - that I would like to disrobe. Seán Connery's accent killed stone-dead any presence he may have had, Roger Moore's arched eyebrow added to the camp factor but detracted from the oomph, and Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan hardly registered at all. Craig is something of a departure for me. He's not particularly big, he's not at all hairy, and he doesn't have a beard. Yet he has a certain something, and a big part of that something is his eyes.

I've never really paid attention to someone's eyes in the grand scheme of attraction before, but his are definitely out there. Then there is the body. I've always been a fan of muscle (what person who digs guys isn't?) and Craig has the best body of all the 007's.

I've always thought the films themselves to be vastly overrated piles of shit. Octopussy was half-decent only because of the female acrobatics, and only Grace Jones could add an interesting twist to that one, what was it called? Does anyone care? I went to see Goldeneye with my sister when it first came out, and as soon as Pierce Brosnan did that jumping-onto-the-aeroplane thing, I rolled my eyes, sat back in my seat, and waited for the rest without too much anticipation. For some reason, being chosen for the role of either Bond himself or a Bond girl is an honour. Why? You could be incapable of acting your way out of a paper bag and still pull it off. It's nothing more than a dodgy signpost of popular culture.

But anyway, I shall be going, if only for the above scene where he come out of the water, and another one where he's apparently in the shower.

One thing I heard in the midst of all this was how lots of people felt that Craig wasn't right for the job (if someone could please take a minute to explain to me what being 'right' for this entails, I would be very interested), and some of these pathetic miserable fools saw fit to send him hate mail after he was chosen for the part. Which only goes to show just how much something of little consequence can mean to someone who seriously fucking seriously needs to get a life!

Bleh!

I'm in college this morning, having gotten up for an 'class' that has no attendance requirement, i.e. you submit everything for it over the internet. I still have something to work on from last week, but I could've stayed in bed for another couple of hours instead of hauling myself into the shower at the ungodly hour of 7:30am.

Dublin and Mallow was cool, although travelling at weekends reminds me of cattle being herded into the milking machine enclosure, with the way we were all trying to squeeze through airport security. On my way back, the steel toe caps on my army boots set off the metal detector, and the security guy made me take off my boots and walk through again. My socks had holes in them. It wasn't half obvious. 'Nice stockings, bud' said he. 'Thanks', said I, 'It's the student lifestyle, dontchya know'.

There were a couple of things I noticed about Dublin that distinguishes it from Brighton.

1. Dublin appears to have only one focal point for everyone at the weekends. That of the Temple Bar and Dame Street area. Every lager lout and his mother converges on the city centre at the weekends, and it's impossible to get away from them. Brighton is more diffuse in that respect, attracting different kinds of people to different areas, and West Street is enough to draw the flies away from the honey and towards the shit.

2. In spite of the fact that nightclub closing times in Dublin are more staggered than Brighton, taxi queues at 2 in the morning are still insane. What the fuck is going on? You can come out of a club in Brighton at any time and not have to wait more than 10 minutes for a cab home.

3. The traffic, Oh My God. I got on a bus yesterday to get to the airport TWO hours before my flight. It took an hour to get from Connolly Station to Drumcondra, and by that stage I was panicking that at that rate, I was going to miss my flight. I made it, but there was a mass exodus from the bus as soon as it arrived. Obviously others were counting on arriving earlier than it actually did.

4. Nightclubs and drink prices. EIGHT FUCKING EURO I had to pay to get into Bad Bobs at about 10pm. OVER TEN BLOODY EURO for a pint and a shot of vodka: I handed the barman a tenner, he went to the till, and came back. I had my hand out for the change. Into it, he put the receipt for 10.70 and held out his hand for the rest.

My nephew's christening on Sunday was cool, and the plans for my brother's wedding continue on, though the bride appears to have turned into an animal and has already had a massive blowup with the bridesmaids, both of whom have been her friends since school. Anyway, I've been measured for a tux.

I also had a meeting with my bank manager when I was in Dub, and I felt a bit better coming away from it, as I had a complex about my current debt, but he assured me that, relative to others in similar circumstances, I was doing quite well.

Anyway, back to work. I've got a report to hand in, eyes closing or not.

Ugh!

I fell off the wagon last night and stayed out more than a little bit beyond my bedtime. Today, for my sins, I am dying.

If nothing else, it serves as a reminder why I'm cutting down. Well, that or the fact that I really need to make myself drink some water before I fall into bed when I get home.

Days 'til I go home: 5. Roll on Friday!

I toddled along to Kung Fu again tonight, replete with navy tracksuit pants and cut-up black t-shirt, so that I would blend in a little bit more than I did the last time. Then I saw another guy there, one who had been before, in a white t-shirt and casual pants and I realised I was giving it too much thought.

It was pretty back-breaking this time, with loads of stretching and contortion exercises, and my basic movements still need some work, but progress is being made, so it will be stuck with for the moment. One thing I'm struggling with now is something called the choo-goo-e-loo, a sequence of combat moves, quickly executed one after another. I covered the first quarter of it tonight, and of that, I can only safely remember half of it. Hopefully there's something out there on the 'net (If any kung fu enthusiasts have come across this blog in the last while - a snowball's chance in hell, I know - feel free to furnish me with any information you may have).

The sessions technically are only supposed to be one hour or so, but this one went to about two, as we had started early and there was no-one waiting to use the hall after our alloted time. Towards the end of the session, he had us gather around him while he spoke.

What started off as a lecture on technique and commitment rapidly mushroomed into something more substantial, and anyone hoping to make an early exit would have been more than a little bit put out. Amongst his assertions, which I'm not sure if I'll be taking as read just yet (and others I simply couldn't hear, thanks to the lousy acoustics of the sports court) was the declaration that the body only needs 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and the 8 hour recommendation is worthy only of rejection. I can only say that it would make for an interesting reaction if he found out about my slumber patterns.

Another bone of contention with him was the stress that society imposes on people, and how it's become every man for himself. He wouldn't be the first person to say that the world is going to hell in a hanging basket, but some of what he said, well, I'm feeling the need to examine it right now.

To follow the standard pattern of job/marriage/mortgage/kids is a one way ticket to stress:

Leaving aside the fact that getting a job is basically an absolute unless you have an enormous trust fund, opting out of the others purely for the sake of it isn't really the way to go. If you plan to have a family, or stay with your partner for life, marriage isn't the most stupid thing you could ever do. Mortgage repayments are basically not much different to rent payments, except you own your own property at the end of it. Lastly, having kids can be the right thing to do if you genuinely want them.

Get an education for the sake of it. Don't worry about getting a job, you'll get one if you really want one:

This is the kind of advice I would offer to anyone, save for one thing. No one person can take on an entire job marketplace. Simply put, if you study for a degree that isn't vocational, you have to accept that there will be a lot of people in the queue for a job afterwards, both in front of and behind you, and the person willing to work for the least money will set the wage offered for that job. If you read for a degree in an area where there are more jobs than graduates, you'll be able to pick where you work and for how much, when you can leave, and most importantly, who you work with.

Simply put, you have be able to distinguish yourself from others in a very positive way if you follow that edict. I would have liked to ask the master how much he's pulling in per year, to see how successful this theory of his has made him, but I don't think that would have been a good idea.

Having said all that, it's better to have opinions than not, and he seems like an interesting person, if more than a little frighteningly driven. But then, I could do with some of that rubbing off on me.

Haaaaiiiiii-YAH!

Well, I've just come from my first Kung Fu class, and it was pretty interesting.

I walked in, and felt more than a little uncomfortable in a t-shirt, jeans and runners when most of the other people had fancy martial arts outfits on. It didn't seem to matter, and we started off doing laps of the gym, running in various different ways. Having jogged for some time now, I usually find these circuits pretty easy, but the instructor incorporated these arm and leg movements into the running that made it a whole lot more challenging, and within a minute or two I was breaking a sweat.

After that, the main tutor turned up, and we got down to it. Everyone was put into one of two groups and got on with it, except ME. *I* was left standing in the middle of the gym while the tutor (sensei?) gave a talk, which does wonders for your composure when you're feeling self-conscious already. Eventually, I was paired up with a more experienced guy, and he taught me a few postures and punches. The postures are hard bloody work. One of them involves the position you adopt when sitting in a chair, except without the chair underneath you. Yes, dear reader, I fell on my arse quite a few times at the start, and I still haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

There was also the lovely moment where the tutor said we would all have to be able to do the splits by christmas. I felt like leaving when he said that. Oh well...

My attention to form and breathing from the days of doing weights came in handy though, and I managed to pick a few things up without too much bother. I'm definitely going back. It beats doing circuits in the gym. The 75 minutes was over before I knew it.

In other news, I'm going to see a college counsellor tomorrow. I don't feel as overwhelmed as I did when I was in the middle of the exams, but I still think I need to get my thoughts out into the open for examination. My attention span is as usual all over the place, and I could with some help on getting focused.

With a bit of luck and playing my cards right, I might be able to wrangle a Ritalin prescription, which I can use to help me study for hours on end and help net me a string of A's at the end of the year. Ha!

Dear Gawd

A few days ago, I noticed from the tv guide that Showgirls was on cable over the weekend. I had seen bits of it here and there at different times, but had never seen it all the way through before. I should've counted myself lucky, and left it at that. Reviewed on entertainment.ie as 'Abominable', 'little more than a masterclass in how not to make films', and - the part I like the most - 'has garnered a cult following based purely on its awfulness'. I was intrigued, and when its' time came on Saturday, I sat down to experience it.

The critics were being charitable.

I don't think I've ever come across a story so unconvincing in all my life (main girl meets other girl, in less than a minute the other girl decides to take main girl in, and they become friends: What the fuck is that about?) and the acting, oh Jesus, I wouldn't know where to start. However, where Verhoeven really takes the piss is in his depiction of women. Hint: His service in the Navy may serve as a clue.

He is quoted on Imdb.com as follows:

"As a director, my goal is to be completely open. Just look at how I portray sex in my films. They're considered shocking and obscene because I like to carefully examine human sexuality. It has to be realistic."

Bollocks. He likes to focus on female sexuality in his films, and by christ, is he ham fisted about it. Let's have a look (I'm ignoring anything before Robocop. I really don't give a shit about his pre-Hollywood history):

Robocop: Hardly any women at all. The only one, a police officer, is carefully selected to not be conventionally too pretty, which no doubt is a reflection of her inner honesty. The only other women who can be considered attractive are drug-addled call girls, who for some reason are spared when Miguel Ferrer's character gets blown up.

Total Recall: Attractive woman: Oversexed, hyperagressive corrupt agent (Sharon Stone) who takes to fighting or fucking at the drop of a hat. Understatedly pretty woman: A goodie, who eventually is involved in the killing of Sharon Stone (Rachel Ticotin), but whose femininity ensures she never really upstages our 'hero' Arnie. Tit count: Not much, though a woman with three breasts makes an appearance at one stage. A similarly mutated man is nowhere to be seen.

Basic Instinct: Hardly in need of an analysis, such is its notoriety, but for the first time, Verhoeven's misogyny is fully highlighted. Attractive woman: Oversexed, cocained-addled icepick-wielding homicidal maniac. Her sexuality is 'examined' through various carefully chosen shots of her in various stages of undress, one of which features her vagina, and in various positions during sex. Slightly masculine-looking woman with big hair: Surprise! A lesbian. She proves that she's all (wo)man by trying to run Michael Douglas's character off the road in her car, but losing and getting killed, 'cos everyone knows that chicks can't drive as well as guys. Curiously, her corpse shows the very minimum of blood on her face. Well, it's important to die looking fabulous, isn't it? Passibly attractive man (as long as he keeps his clothes on): Michael Douglas. Portrayed as basically a decent cop, whose weakness is his penis. He has a problem with the relationship between the two girls, nay any two girls, and at no stage throughout the film are we led to criticise this state of affairs. Tit count: Lots of breasts and girl-on-girl action. Male nudity: Restricted to a single shot of Michael Douglas's saggy arse. There is a pattern emerging here. Can anyone spot it?

After a particularly vigorous session with Stone in her bed, Douglas realises that Roxy is watching in the bathroom, and requests an audience with her 'man-to-man'. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Verhoeven likes to 'examine' lesbian sexuality on top of everything else. As it happens, the gay community took exception to this depiction of themselves in the film, and at the premiere of the film, they handed out cards which gave away the ending. They needn't have bothered: As a whodunnit it was shit anyway.

Showgirls: Attractive woman: Desperate for stardom, and will do anything to get it, such as disrobing completely even when the plot doesn't require it in the slightest. She's not alone though. There are lots of shots of the backstage area where the girls get ready before going on, and judging by the (un)dress of all the women there, the air-conditioning must have been in serious need of repair. As an aside, this area is also the backdrop for another of Verhoeven's pet devices: Catfights between women, and they are legion. Understatedly attractive woman: The 'moral backbone' of the film, who tries to keep attractive blonde woman on the straight and narrow, but in a gratuitous twist that serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever, she is raped. Of course, attractive blond goes around to rapist's house to avenge her, and in a scene not entirely dissimilar to one in Total Recall, Verhoeven 'explores' female assertiveness through her beating the daylights out of the perpetrator. Oh, and there's a bisexual woman in there too, but far from us being invited to empathise with her on any level, she's cast as a bitch. Tit count: More breasts than a porn compilation. Male nudity: Once more kept to a single shot of Kyle Maclachlan's arse, which to be fair, did look better than Douglas' in Basic Instinct.

Starship Troopers: Not much fun to be had here, as the film is so ridiculous, it almost take the piss out of itself, but adhering to our original criteria: Attractive, classy woman: Becomes a figher pilot in the war against the creepy crawlies, while her high-school boyfriend joins the marines 'cos he flunks maths. She decides to move onto better things and dumps him, beginning a relationship with another pilot, but always keeping her clothes on. Flame-haired junoesque woman: Begins relationship with jilted boyfriend, and we are treated to her nude form while they share communal showers. Her feistiness is demonstrated when she slaps him on the arse which is, again, the only naked wickedness we see from Casper Van Dien.

*Cough*, sorry, I went all Margaret White there for a minute...

Of course, classy bird realises what she's been missing (well, that and the fact that her other boyfriend's brains gets sucked out by the queen creepy crawly) and she ends up back with her original squeeze again. The error of one's ways, eh?

Hollow man: Attractive blond woman (Elizabeth Shue): Technically gifted scientist, who shares a bed with one of her male colleagues, but they keep it a secret from the rest of their research team, as they don't want her ex-squeeze and team member, scientist-come-nutjob played by Kevin Bacon, to know. All other women are incidental to her, though at one point Shue is slapped across the face by one of them, so that's one purpose served. Tit count: Just one, surprisingly enough, from unfortunate but attractive woman who falls victim to a visit from ol' Kevin himself. Verhoeven must be mellowing in his old age.

So there you have it. Tits - 50, Cocks - nil. Verhoeven gets assimilated into Hollywood, providing a uniquely noxious perspective on femininity into the bargain.

His attempts at science fiction are nifty enough, though. If only he'd stick to them.

As an aside, I remember a show a while back that featured critics discussing trends in modern cinema, and how emphasis was shifting from sex to shoot-em-ups, and this was the reason why Showgirls bombed, because Verhoeven failed to anticipate this. Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, the simplest explanation works best. Showgirls flopped for the simple reason that...

IT WAS SHIT!

Christ, what a MONTH!

Well, I had another test on tuesday, and managed to redeem myself somewhat with the result. After 3 not unheavily-weighted assessments in the first month of the academic year, TWO of which centred on cardiac physiology, which was not formally taught in lectures, merely given as guided study, we now appear to have slowed things down somewhat. Thank God.

I'm going home for a break in two weeks time. It'll be needed. Friday 17th in Dublin and the rest of the weekend at home.

Alcohol is still being given a wide berth, though it's only been a week so I'm not about to congratulate myself just yet. I think I need something to distract myself with at the weekends. I've made enquiries about signing up for a Kung Fu class. It was on this evening, but they started early so by the time I arrived they were already at it. The instructor was understanding, but everyone was already paired up with fighting partners, and I wasn't exactly appropriately dressed (everyone else appeared to have some fancy gown on) so I told him I'd turn up on Tuesday instead.

Still, I ended up going around the side of the gym and having a look at them doing their thing, on my way to the library. It all looked rather impressive, with everyone periodically emitting guttural cries, and punching and kicking the air decisively. It'll be my turn next week.

Elle Driver watch out!

Marie Antoinette

It would not be an exaggeration to say I had very high expectations of this, after Sofia Coppola's last film Lost in Translation ranks in my all time top ten, and The Virgin Suicides before it also comes higly rated.

It didn't live up, unfortunately.

Coppola Jr.'s thing with her films so far has been dealing with women who jar with their surroundings (this film, Lost in Translation) or women who are just not of this world (The Virgin Suicides), and if ever there was a time for her to charter new territory, now could well be it.

One of the things I liked so much about Lost in Translation was how contemporary it was. The dialogue and the situation both of the characters found themselves in had never been approached in the same way before, nay approached at all, by any other writer-director, and it was only right that the film scooped an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Marie Antoinette was different. It was a period piece, and while the sets were spot on - it must be said they always have been in her films - the rest of it didn't really fly. For a start, the film was quite gender specific in that the men weren't exactly given all that much to do, with Marie's husband in particular enjoying the rather bizarre role of a leading character with very little to say. Women have been given the spotlight in Coppola's other films, but not generally at the expense of the opposite gender. Marie's frustration is linked to her husband, and while the director knows better than to pull a stunt like the one that was done with the prince in Braveheart, the circumstances the couple have found themselves in can hardly be described as his fault. It's left to the likes of Rip Torn, and to a lesser extent, Steve coogan, to carry the torch in that respect.

None of the other characters are fleshed out all that much either, with the ladies-in-waiting providing some diversion but never really allowed to participate fully in their own right.

Then there is the soundtrack.

I've waxed before about using contemporary songs in films. The fundamental problem is that the movement and climax of a song will not coincide with those of the scene in which it is used. The director got around this problem before by using tailor-made recordings for The Virgin Suicides, and using atmospheric songs without an obvious beginning, middle, or end in Lost In Translation. This was to a certain extent the case here, but (and I appreciate that this may be my problem) the thing was, the songs were almost without exception ones that I had heard before. It almost seemed to me like a game of spot-the-80s-artist, like she had compiled a mix tape of all the songs she liked, and thrown them up there. When you hear something like The Cure's Plainsong (played for, like, five seconds during Marie Antoinette's coronation as queen), it automatically registers as a separate entity, evoking something that you have previously associated with the song, rather than complimenting or augmenting the scene in which it is heard. But I appreciate that that is partly just me. It's integrated well, and still better than Martin Scorsese throwing in a U2 song or another Rolling Stones song into one of his films. Still, I think original composition for each film - provided it's affordable - is the way to go.

Still, the sound and visuals are as compelling as usual, such as the aforementioned sets, the views of Versailles, and the scene where they're using their wine glasses to make sounds reminds me of that scene in Lost In Translation where Bill Murray's character was swimming lengths in the pool, it's got that kind of experimental vibe.

A point of note that I mention is the historical aspect of it. There was none. External events are allowed only the most minor of intrusions into the storyline, and any historians who pick at it are only making themselves look like pedantic old farts.

So, cinema is better off for it than without it, but it still lacked a certain something for me. Next one, set in the present day please, Sofia, with more for the men to do.

A bad day

I'm at a seriously low ebb today. On so many levels.

Yesterday evening, I went out for a drink after lectures. For the umpteenth time, I ended up staying out for the rest of the night, sleeping it in this morning (on someone else's couch) and missing lectures. I've just come into college now to pick up a report I handed in last week, and found that I had got a crap mark. Added to an assessment I got in the same subject a couple of weeks back, where I barely passed, my record so far for this year has been rather rubbish.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've gone out for the 'just the one' and ended up staying out all night. I've lost count of the number of occasions I've checked my bank balance the next day, dreading what number is about to come up on the screen. And I've lost count of the how many days running upto an exam have seen me in bed, trying to sleep off a hangover.

I've had it. Starting today, I'm on the wagon. I'm going take it one month at a time, but at the very least, I'm aiming to be alcohol-free between now and Christmas, if not beyond.

Another example of Dan's recent penmanship

Received when I had first returned to Brighton in September, for passing my repeats.

Philadelphia

Recently, I saw Jonathan Demme's film Philadelphia for the first time since I saw it when it was released.

Along with Tom Hanks' Oscar win for his role, it was proclaimed as a major progression in the recognition of the 'plight' of gay men, in particular with regard to AIDS. The truth is that it finally, and rather belatedly, reflected the acceptance of same by the masses.

I remember a fairly mild backlash since then, denouncing the film as a bit simplistic and patronising, with its 'Gays are people too' message, and I watched it carefully the other night, and I noticed a few things. The following day I searched the internet, and came across a few sites, one of which was this, a critique of the film.

As is often the case with overly academic film criticism, the author draws some conclusions that are seriously open to debate, and tosses out questionable statements as if they were as obvious as night following day. That said, there are a number of points on which I agree with him.

a) Denzel Washington's character (Miller) was an annoying gnat. As a lawyer, he's obviously an educated, middle-class man, yet at times speaks like a small-town boy who never got the experience of the big city lights, so to speak. When we see his homophobia for the first time, with his wife, he excuses himself on the grounds that he's 'old-fashioned' and 'conservative'. I've heard people defend their homophobia in this way before, and it's bollocks, not to mention offensive. Do we take it, then, that anyone over a certain age automatically operates this kind of dicrimination, or that the acceptance of gay men is 'radical' or 'progressive'? You might, if you weren't the brightest light on the christmas tree, but this is what is put forward. Then there is his wife, who instead of doing what most people would do (and especially most women, and most women with gay relatives), which is telling him to shut it, just laughs it off.

A similar train of thought is put forward later when Miller tells Beckett (Hanks) that When he was growing up, they were taught that gays were weird, gays were afraid to fight, gays were this, gays were that, etc. etc. At times like this, Miller represents the voice of the lowest common denominator, but it's not all that necessary.

Then there are the images of Miller at home with his wife, presented as they are directly after scenes of substantial interaction with Beckett, and could, if one was predisposed to paranoia, be interpreted as a sort of escape back to normality for him. Either that, or they show him up as rampantly insecure, especially when he lies next to his wife in bed after the scene where Beckett waxes lyrical during a section of an opera.

Finally - at least, this is as far as I'm going to go with him - there are the scenes in the courtroom, where his opening lines about how he shares with most people (!) the desire to keep gays and AIDS far away, and the especially toe-curling posturing about how attitudes to AIDS is determined by attitudes to gays just make you want to chuck him into an all-night BDSM club and lock the door.

b) Tom Hanks' character Beckett, and his relationship with Miguel (Antonio Banderas) are about as neutured as any representation of gays up on big screen. Did anyone see a single mouth-to-mouth kiss between them during the film? I didn't. Yet (again!) Miller is repeatedly shown with his arms wrapped around his wife. Demme really played it safe here, and there was without doubt room for improvement in this regard.

c) The characterisation of people as either rampantly homophobic or completely accepting was a more than a little simplistic. The part where Hanks is holding his baby nephew in his arms may as well have had 'HIS FAMILY LOVE AND ACCEPT HIM FOR WHO HE IS' writ large across the screen, and the senior lawyers on trial are almost ridiculous: These are men of the law, and should at least know better than to open themselves to potential lawsuits by making homophobic jokes in a sauna, where they could be overheard by anyone.

d) The eternal connection between promiscuity and AIDS. At this point in the essay, the author argues the following, with regard to when Beckett is cross-examined in connection with his visits to a porn theatre:

"The film presents this connection in a negative way, however, by putting it in the mouth of the defense. This leads audiences to believe that the connection between AIDS and gay sex is unwarranted..."

Perhaps it could be argued that this is true at some level, it certainly didn't strike me as such during either of the times I saw it, and I'm pretty sure most other people wouldn't see it that way either. What it most likely did was reinforce in a lot of people's minds that AIDS is some kind of retribution for promiscuity in the gay community ("Oh yeah, it's a shame about him, but he was always sleeping around blah blah blah"), which is interesting in and of itself, because while promiscuity amongst gay men often makes some squirm, promiscuity amongst heterosexual men is still tacitly celebrated.

So, Demme could have done better in some respects. The closing scene, though, showing a home movie of Beckett as a child, was very moving. I've always found that a powerful device in any kind of film, and I've flagged it with high importance.

One thing I've noticed in this essay is the barely concealed contempt for liberals - another term so overused it has also started to lose all meaning - something that is shared by many of the more militant activists in the gay community. I can appreciate that the earnestness sometimes hides something a little darker within the well-intentioned, but which is better: A gay basher, or someone who speaks out against it?

One thing that was missed (and I'm not making this up) was that in the movie poster, Hanks appears to have had some lipstick photoshopped onto his lips, and looks strangely androgynous. What's that about?

Have said all of the above, the film was aimed squarely at heterosexual middle America, and Demme included Springsteen on the soundtrack as a way of reaching people who wouldn't otherwise be aware of the film, or wouldn't consider going to see it. With that in mind, we can't expect all that much, and the film still serves some purpose in that respect.

One quote I leave you with though, which jumped out at me the minute I read it:

"In the post-Philadelphia imagination of the Screen Actors Guild, straight-identified actors will consider such characters as Beckett a prestigious opportunity to explore their histrionic expertise. But God forbid an openly gay actor and actress play Harry and Sally types. Then again, openly gay men and women are rare commodities in Hollywood."

Never a truer work spoken.