23 December 2012
Kumar and I brave Christmas shoppers and the great indifferent to film our latest epic, THE MAN WITH THE WOOLLY FISTS. Kumar plays RZA. I play everyone else (well, Russell Crowe and David Bautista). I ended up on my back in Hyde Park. Well, that's quite enough of my private life. Kumar did an excellent impression of Quentin Tarantino. He tells me I should have entered the DJANGO UNCHAINED competition on VUE. You can win RZA headphones. Are they any good for listening to the cricket?
25 December 2012
Spent most of the morning in the kitchen preparing Christmas lunch. I could have opted for 'meals on wheels' but Kumar's roller skates did not fit me. After a sumptuous banquet of department store turkey, pigs in blankets, pork and sage stuffing, BRUSSEL SPROUTS and leading brand of cube gravy, I retired to my chamber quite pooped. Later watched MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL on the telly. Moderately entertaining, but why is the big show-stopping set piece in the middle? There was the usual hero suspended above a floor routine. Why does not Jeremy Renner just get a long pair of mechanical arms? Tom Cruise did his usual running. Lady Oliver & I reckoned Gina Carano could beat him as she has the better technique.
28 December 2012
Lady Oliver, Kumar & I braved a slightly knackered tube network to travel to the O2 Cineworld in North Greenwich. There Kumar watched MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED whilst Lady O and I saw QUARTET. There were quite a few five to seven year old children at the screening of QUARTET and I wanted to tell the parents that they've got the wrong movie. 'Don't you know you're supposed to play classical music to children whilst they are in the womb?' This lot looked like the makings of an East End crime syndicate, taking over one climbing frame and set of swings at a time. The audience were pretty well behaved and Lady O confessed that she enjoyed the film. I was less impressed.
After lunch, the three of us saw JACK REACHER (at same cinema). Kumar fell asleep, bless the little lad.
29 December 2012
Arsenal win at home, 7-3 against Newcastle. I could scarcely believe it. Three goals conceded, one by Jack Wilshire, who did not fancy being hit in the face whilst in the wall. Poor lad.
Kumar stayed up to watch EVIL DEAD II on Channel Four. It was as junky as I remember it.
30 December 2012
Kumar and I visit a new cinema venue, THE DUKE OF YORK'S AT THE KOMEDIA, in Brighton. Agreeable bar prices and a photo display on the second floor. Even the toilets work, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT. We met a fellow thespian who described his difficulties in the further education sector in Poland. Much cursing!
31 December 2012
Someone was written a biography of Pauline Kael: 'Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark' by Brian Kellow. I skip read it in Foyles Charing Cross Road over ninety absorbing minutes. Even Kumar was begging me to leave at the end. I got the message that I was blocking the shelf by another customer. I say customer, but I had no intention of buying the book. It made a rainy afterrnoon pass away quickly. Put that on your dust jacket, Mr Kellow.
Kumar and I fell asleep during THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN on TV. Then watched THE MUPPETS and JULIE & JULIA. Meryl Streep's Julia Child sounds like a rehearsal for her Margaret Thatcher. I bet Mrs T would have no problem boning a duck, which sounds like sexually deviant behaviour in a man, if you ask me. Evening rounded off with Graham Norton's chat show (amusing) with guests Hugh Jackman, Billy Crystal, John Bishop, Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood (can't be his real name) and Pink (obviously not her real name, but I wonder: was FUCHSIA taken?) Then the BBC New Year Countdown programme: much wittering about the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics (but not Greek debt, deaths in DRC, Mali, Syria, Afghanistan) before the fireworks went off. Happy New Year, my dear readers.
