Ending

I finally finished my many-times-renewed contract today, and received a nice card, lunch, and a weird green tennis shirt as leaving pressies. One of the nicest contracts I’ve ever had with some great colleagues and a very good atmosphere in the office.

Holiday to follow? Not so fast – it looks like there’s an editing job starting next week, although no contract has yet been signed…

Never mind – there’s a bank holiday week-end to come, although the forecast is for torrential rain and storms.

Thinking About Your Holidays

Am in desperate need of a holiday (a proper holiday, one that features a 737 or similar, and lots of heat and dust) and after working the entire week-end am feeling imprisoned and impulsive.

Phrases like "Cheap flights" and "Cheap holidays" find their way into today's Google searches.

Let's hope the uncertain future resolves itself soon so plans become possible.

Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning,
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol,
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard,
Watching the tele and thinking about your holidays.

That's entertainment...

28 Weeks Later

Saw this brilliant sequel on Saturday night and spent several happy hours afterwards pondering the difficulties of surviving the new breed of 'Turbo Zombies.'*

Up till Danny Boyles' amazing 28 Days Later, there was always something amusing and slightly pitiful about zombies as they shuffled about in shopping malls and outside the fences of survivor compounds, providing cheap laughs and lots of target practice.

Boyle's British variety are very different - infected by a 'rage virus' these fuckers sprint at you and are fully capable of running through windows and wooden walls.

I don't want to give too much away about 28 Weeks Later because hopefully you'll go and see it.

Suffice to say it has:

• The best extended opening sequence of any film I've seen since Saving Private Ryan.
• Maintained and expanded the urban spookiness of a deserted London that made the first film so memorable.
• A very obvious Iraq analogy that maintains the Zombie genre tradition of cultural and political comment.
• A great lesson in how to treat virulent killer diseases; your quarantine has to be cruel to be kind.
• Got to be the first film I've seen this century that I actually wished was 30 mins longer.

One minor nitpick - I wish we'd have had just a sequence or two of the brilliant Cillian Murphy (assuming his character, Jim is still alive) and Naomie Harris (who played Selina), and the young Megan Burns (Hannah). To be a 100% proper sequel you have to have at least a scene or two that features the characters from the first film.

Enjoy!

* I believe a BBC reviewer first coined the term 'Turbo Zombies' to describe this new scary type compared to the earlier type, which of course was based on the I.Q and behaviour of Republican voters.

Wanky Comment Overheard At Work Just Now

Voice on the Speaker Phone: Have a good bank holiday week-end?

Manager: Yeah, spent most of it flying helicopters, actually.

La Scuderia

An e-mail exchange with the same friend yesterday led to a discussion of the brilliant Ferrari badge, seen here in it's 1950s/early 60s form. SF stands for Scuderia Ferrari.

It's great the way Italian transforms something as staid as Ferrari Stable into something that sounds so beautiful. Fantastic language.

Music

On the advice of a dear friend I've been listening to a few tracks (including the single Brianstorm) from the Arctic Monkeys second album Favourite Worst Nightmare.

Gosh! It's quite loud and jangly, despite my friend insisting it's suitable for all ages...