Blogfromthebarn

New Yoick, New Yoick, it's a helluva town

2012-01-17T06:30:00.000Z

Apologies gentle reader for the retro blogging, truth is it's been a busy month or two work-wise, (no bad thing by the way) and I've neglected my bloggerly duties in order to pay the bills. Now I do know, deep down, that's not acceptable and indeed I feel guilty that I've also failed to get around to launching my oft-requested recipe blog. Well it is on one of my many to-do lists and it will happen, maybe soon, I promise.

So, anyway, a quick update and a few pithy thoughts on the big Apple. Every couple of years the lovely Mrs Stuffy finds some (teeny,tiny) gaps in her wardrobe and the urge to spend a weekend traipsing the shops becomes compelling, coincidentally, at about the same time I get to the stage where I become concerned that I may well be the rudest person in the world and need some proof that's not the case so we organise a trip to the city that allegedly never sleeps, (hard for us to argue with that as we're now getting to the cocoa and slippers stage of our lives).

There are some aspects of this trip that are writ into family tradition now, we prebook a table at my favourite restaurant, (in the world) the River Cafe in Brooklyn, a delightful Michelin starred place with great food, an awesome night-time view of Manhattan, a lovely piano bar, and crucially, (and in New York this is the real treat), the most relaxed and amiable yet professional staff. We booked a table for our anniversary dinner, 4 years of marital bliss, not bad from a total of 11 years of marriage, (just kidding). As ever the place and people didn't fail to impress, I'm normally nervous of returning to a great experience, the opportunity to be disappointed is so prevalent but this is obviously the exception, and one we'll keep on enjoying.

Our hotel, the Muse was very adjacent to the madness that is Times Square and apparently quite "happening" (translation=expensive bar). Our room was surprisingly spacious for NY where broom cupboards are the norm. It was quite acceptable for a couple of day's stay but it would have benefitted from a view of something other than a brick wall 18 inches away.

We visited Ground Zero and were surprised, (after experiencing the hushed, respectful and spooky quietness of the area a couple of years ago), to find it effectively just a busy, buzzing, building site, it's probably a good thing to move on but it was odd, nevertheless, to us. We enjoyed a leisurely amble from the Financial sector up through the Village and TriBeCa, enjoyed morning coffee in SoHo at Spring Street Natural restaurant, recommended by Sophie and a very pleasant place.

Lunch, again following a recommendation from Sophie, was at Dos Caminos where your correspondent indulged his passion for Mexican food and newfound but profound affection for Tequila, thus ensuring an afternoon of gentle acquiescence to the random, repetitive and recursive process that is the Mrs Stuffy shopping technique.

A word about diners, we tried two for breakfast, it seems really wrong in NY to eat in the hotel and I do like to try new stuff, we went to Cafe Edison which is old school, and reminded me of so many movies, the service was authentic (brusque) and the food, not that special, indeed, not that good at all.

We also tried a more touristy version, the relatively well known Brooklyn Diner, which was a bit smarter, a bit slicker, busy as heck and with exceptionally good food and obscenely huge portions.

On the subject of food another tradition of ours has developed around taking an occasional luncheon on the 5th floor of Saks.For her Ladyship, the entrance is through the designer shoe floor which is like shoe-nirvana (apparently), for me it's really good food, most excellent people watching and an excuse to step out of the fray for a well earned glass or two.

This was only a two day trip, brief but practical, the flights, BA on the way out, (we were spoilt rotten, an upgrade is always a joy) and we flew back with American Airlines on a daytime flight, unusually, and more enjoyably, noticeably reducing the effect of lag and making it a very pleasant couple of days.

On this trip we really enjoyed spending more time away from the Fifth Avenue and Times Square heaving-tourist-throng-end-of-the-city and next time (2013 I guess) I think we'll look for a hotel in the Village or Meatpackers and go for a less frantic, more laid-back trip.

Be aware that in early preparation for the next trip Mrs Stuffy is keen to engage any of our chums who consist of a lady shopper and gentlemen drinker who'd be prepared to join us and reduce (for her) the (alleged) plethora of "you've already got one of those, you don't need another" type of comment.

New York? "Fageddaboutit"

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Panto, O Panto, O pants, Oh no

2012-01-03T15:58:00.000Z

Panto, Oh Panto, Oh pants, Oh no ...

There's a tradition in my lovely wife's family that demands that all youngsters incapable of summoning up a reasonable excuse are hauled off in the month preceding Christmas to a theatre by an indulgent mix of mums, dads, uncles and aunts and subjected to a couple of hours of thigh-slapping, shouting, innuendo and camp cross-dressing inspired (allegedly) by the Commedia dell’ Arte (which Italian tradition, rightly in my view, carries the can for quite a lot of theatrical unpleasantness).

There are very few areas on which the gorgeous Mrs Stuffy and I are not entirely aligned, but regular readers will be aware that the prancing around and shouting of allegedly grown-up men and women on a stage is one of them. When I first plighted my troth to Mrs Stuffy this, bastard child of Harlequin, the English panto, was a ritual of which I was blissfully unaware but I'm a dutiful and caring hubby and a few less than horrible years later I was surprised and delighted to find myself cheering one of my teenage heroes, Henry Winkler, AKA the Fonz, as Cap'n Hook and quite enjoying the shapely terpsichorean Tiger Lily and the slapstick humour ( although not necessarily in that order).

I'm prompted to put finger to iPad on this matter once more to record my feelings about the latest visit to panto land, just before Christmas when a mixed party of young'uns and we not so young'uns made our way to Woking to view the 2011 stab at (again) the Peter Pan story.

As you'll know dear reader I'm not a huge fan of the vomitous drivel that constitutes the majority of TV output. So you'll understand that I was distressed to find that I recognised none of the headline stars adorning the posters and programmes. A chap who's thespian credentials appear limited to playing a thug off that there East Enders, ("oy leave it arrrt" is apparently his mantra) and a young man from a "reality" show whose single talent appears to be the ability to say "shut up" (which, to be fair, delighted many of the youngsters in the crowd), these two, for me, nonentities, seemed to be the draw to a pantomime oft proclaimed to be one of the best in the country.

It seems evident (the loudest applause was reserved for the effeminate orange monosyllabelist from Essex) that the "tv names" are necessary to draw in the crowds but, much as I hate 'theatre dahling' I'd dearly love to see a little acting skill, some decent singers, maybe some rehearsal and some genuine comedy timing added to the panto mix.

Perhaps next year will be better, "Oh no it won't"... "Oh yes it will", ad nauseum

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Movie Review - Arthur Christmas

2011-12-21T15:28:00.000Z

Movie Review - Arthur Christmas

Obviously it's always a worry when there's a pun of sorts in the title of a film, it does seem to be a xmas related issue though, does The Santa Clause ring any bells?

This animation (an Aardman/Sony co-production) is an unusual approach to the present-distributing-fat-bloke concept which explains in some detail how the family dynasty of Clauses (stretching back to the original St Nicholas) manages the entire process through a combination of space age high tech and an army of highly dedicated elven assistants. The tension generated amongst the males of the family is around the succession to the role and the movie's theme is that the clumsy loser, Arthur, our eponymous hero, despite his lack of technology savvy and tummy possesses the true heart of Santa Claus risking all to ensure that one little girl gets her present, that no child is missed out.

There's a lot to like in this movie, the characters are well conceived, it's fast and fun,there's a rich roster of quality actors supplying mostly British voices and the animation is fine. The presence of hundreds of elves allows the animators to indulge in many almost-glimpsed amusing jokes in the background of each scene.
The story and it's inevitable conclusion (I'll probably not spoil it by telling you it has a happy ending) are well told and thre are enough twists and turns along the way to make it watchable throughout.

It's not going to be a classic Xmas movie, it's no "Wonderful Life" or "Snowman" but it's an enjoyable evening out for a party of many generations.

A HO-HO-Ho haiku

Santa and his kin
Fill each and every stocking
To miss one, shocking.

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Things we learnt this week

2011-11-13T16:39:00.001Z

Things we learnt this week

1. Don't put that box of old fireworks on the bonfire

2. The Land Rover front axle is considerable more complex (and expensive to repair) than appearances might suggest.

3. It's taking a long time for the invitation to Silvio Berlusconi's leaving do to get to Surrey

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It's Health and Safety gone mad I tell you ...

2011-11-11T11:40:00.001Z

It's Health and Safety gone mad I tell you ...

I'd always believed that BT had a very low opinion of the general public, ie: customers

I was out plugging through the mud on the mountain bike on Saturday when I came upon a little area of greenery, close to a tiny private road but remote from anything one might conceivably consider to be foot traffic, there was a BT van parked nearby, complete with hard-working engineers enjoying a cuppa after, presumably,digging a hole and complying with all the relevant health and safety regulations. I was so impressed by what I saw that I stopped and took a photo...

One can't help wondering, in these circumstances what evil befalls those who choose to walk the path less travelled ...

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Movie Review -The Ides of March

2011-11-08T19:46:00.000Z

Movie Review -The Ides of March

Let's face it, sometimes you need a break, you've had your fill of mindless violence, glamorous locations, gratuitous sexual content and exquisite computer generated graphics. You'd like something that involves you, that makes you think, an intelligent movie.

So, just me then?

Never mind, at my suggestion the lovely Mrs Stuffy booked seats for us to enjoy 'The Ides of March', George Clooney's directorial debut, and I was looking forward to an involving exploration of the personalities, politics and intrigue surrounding the fictional race for the democratic candidate nominations in the US presidential contest.

I'm a fan, as my regular reader will recall, of american politics as portrayed in the sublime West Wing and based on the reviews and publicity I'd seen, I was hoping for more of the same. I wasn't disappointed, this is a well-crafted tale adapted from a stage play, a low-key piece of nicely structured exposition, essentially a series of dialogues gradually expounding the story and with each conversation, changing ones view of the characters.

It's not a film full of fireworks, it's a slow-burn narrative of ambition, pride, intrigue, deceit, disappointment and dismay. Nobody comes out of this story well with the exception of the cast, writers and director. Clooney has chosen a very manageable story for his first attempt at directing but truthfully, everybody on screen deserves praise although Phillip Seymour-Hoffman and Paul Giametti earn particular note for pitch-perfect portrayal of competing, bright,perceptive, ambitious but very human political animals.

It's a simple tale, told extremely well and I commend it to anyone who is happy to watch a film that rewards a little attention and a little thinking.

In other news Mrs Stuffy dozed off 20 minutes in and resurfaced as the credits rolled.

A hustings-related haiku

Intrigued and enthused
Whilst her ladyship snoozed
politicos used

To Bee, or, maybe not, ... sorry

2011-11-05T16:11:00.000Z

To Bee, or, maybe not, ... sorry

Once again, the bee season (our second) draws to a close, the hardworking little ladies of the Oakwood Apiary prepare for the winter so I thought I'd share a brief review of the season, our successes and as trendy educationalists would have it, not our failures but our learning points (which coincidentally, I've discovered through failing).

Things we've achieved, me and the girls

We've split the original hive into two and grown new queens, one of whom promptly and a little unkindly in my view, took half the second hive off on an adventure. Uncle David thinks he's discovered their new home, there's a colony in a hole in an oak in the wood, now that's not necessarily a bad thing, certainly for the planet, but did make it a bit touch and go for hive two (the plastic Beehaus) as it meant that we had to grow yet another queen to take over the management of the remaining 1/4 of the population, this meant that the Beehaus colony has been pretty much in recovery mode for most of the summer but they're now looking healthy and numerous enough to make it through the winter with a little bit of help from me, (sugar syrup to supplement their honey stores) and a bit of luck. The weakness of this hive results from two contributory factors, both my fault, I split them too early and then they swarmed, which I didn't see coming, this means that there was no surplus of honey from the Beehaus team but hopefully next year will be better, healthier, stronger and fruitful.

The original wooden-hived colony had a very strong year and produced a good crop of honey, but, (and we always knew there'd be a 'but' didn't we?), there are two types of beeswax foundation the beekeeper can supply to his or her bees. The bees build cells on the foundation and fill them with new bees, honey, nectar, pollen, depending on the need. Now, of the two types of foundation used for honey one has thin wire running through it which makes it robust enough to spin the heavy frames full of honeycomb and thus expel the honey, the other, unwired, is too fragile and is intended for the creation of cut-comb. As a novice beekeeper, I was unaware of the bees apparent preference for unwired foundation and gave them a choice, so although very productive I've only gleaned 4 jars of liquid honey, (enough, to be honest, to easily see the Barn through to next autumn) and around 15 pieces of cut comb, honey still in the comb, great on toast or with yoghurt. So another lesson learned and they'll not get the choice next year.

In the meantime, despite their evident reluctance, friends and family will be receiving little gift boxes of goldenly oozing honeycomb, if you can cope with the tiny amounts of wax, the honey is, to my taste, delightful.

So, as November commences the bees are making the most of late warmish weather and topping up their stores for the winter. I've treated both hives for varroa, a nasty parasitic mite that destroys colonies and I've put guards in place to prevent naughty mice from taking up residence in a nice warm winter retreat with a constant supply of sweet comestibles. I suffered a lot of mice damage to the frames in the wooden hive last winter and that's partly why one of my winter projects is the building of another wooden beehive, to which I'll transfer the strong colony next spring. That will free up the old wooden hive for cleaning and enable me to do some much needed housekeeping. I'll then transfer the Beehaus bees to the refreshed old hive and fit the upgrades supplied by the manufacturers to the Beehaus. Honestly it's worse than software (Windows, not Mac obv) Anyway, beekeeping wisdom is that one always needs a spare hive to address the swarming problem and I'm not keen to have more than two active colonies.

Right, that's enough for now, I'm in desperate need of a cup of tea, toast and honey. Definitely time to enjoy the fruits of my (and the bees) labours.

Movie Review - Real Steel

2011-10-27T22:33:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - Real Steel

Here's a confession, I really don't like boxing films, actually, I really don't like boxing, I've never seen a Rocky, not 1,not 2, not 3,you get the idea, I've never managed to get through Raging Bull and Fight Club is a mystery to me. I did manage to make it through Million Dollar Baby and deeply regretted it, it was a great film but I really don't like boxing.
The obvious question is why? I have no aversion to violence, cinematic or real, I enjoy the occasional martial arts movies and had no problem learning aikido and karate as a young man, I suspect it's not the fighting per se, I'm a fan of violence as a quick way to resolve arguments and unlike dialogue it avoids the need to look interested in the other party's point of view. I'm deeply impressed by the fitness needed for the sport of kings (how many kings were boxers?) but I don't like the percussive, keep-slugging-away element. That discomfort, not mine, more generally, the whole hitting another human in the face thing, is the back story to Real Steel where remote controlled robots beat seven bells out of each other for the vicarious pleasure of the screaming hordes.

Hugh Jackman plays a trainer/operator of fighting robots, a one-time boxer himself, a multiple loser, who "could have been a contender" but has made a series of bad decisions.
He's introduced early through a series of cliches, all signposting the imminent arrival of standard movie plot line number four... to whit, down at heel one-time shining hope is retrieved from a tragic downward spiral by either 'a winningly cute and trusting kid' or a 'despite herself ever-loving lady' (both in this one) and he ends the film as the redeemed hero we all secretly want him to be.

So, it's a predictable, schmaltzy redemption tale with cgi boxing robots, heavily troweled-on moral and ethical issues, stereotypical nasties and equally stereotypical goodies. Surprise! I really enjoyed it, despite everything I've just said this is a really likeable movie, the acting is great, the music works a treat, the cast seem to be having fun, the effects (which make the film) are genuinely excellent, believable, well thought-through, seamlessly integrated and visually stunning.
It is very, very, very rare for me to laugh at a film and this was no exception but I did catch myself smiling with genuine pleasure and Her LadyStuffyness not only stayed awake and attentive throughout but joined me in finding this a really enjoyable movie. It's fun, it's not heavy, it's impressive, you care about the people, heck you even care about the robot. It's a great night out.

I still don't like boxing though.

A haiku for the ring

Box clever, box wise
Beware, beseeching eyes that
Melt a heart of steel

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Things we've learnt this week

2011-10-21T17:55:00.000+01:00

Things we've learnt this week

Skyline, the movie. We, ChaCha and I, watched the film Skyline on Sky last night, don't ever do that, it's 90 minutes wasted and there's no way of getting it back, if you want to spend the time more profitably, almost any activity would be better, spend the time practising holding your breath, or trying to push string, or counting your toes, really! more fun.
Seaweed salt, I've got a grinder that produces a mixture of sea salt and dried seaweed, which is fine and adds a pleasant twist to many dishes, (lightly steamed shredded cabbage for example), but don't ever use it to help make pork crackling crunchy and crispy, 'cos pork that tastes of the sea is not a great thing.
Sangrita, thanks to a delightful afternoon at Wahaca in Covent Garden I'm now an evangelist for quality sipping Tequila, with a slug of Sangrita. What's sangrita ? Glad you asked, it's a bit like a mexican virgin mary and is alternated in sips with good quality blanco and reposado Tequilas. The recipe? there are many but after three attempts my preferred version, tried, tested and tasted goes like this...

500ml of tomato juice
100ml of orange juice
juice of a lime
1 tbsp of Lea and Perrins
2 tsp of grenadine
tablespoonful of soy sauce
dessertspoonful of tabasco,
optional - a big pinch of Fajta seasoning, (mix of 1 tsp each, all ground - dried chillis, garlic salt, paprika,cumin, smoked paprika, coriander and cinnamon).(dont put a teaspoonful of each in the Sangrita, make up the fajita mix, then put a generous pinch of the mixture in the Sangrita, use the rest of the Fajita seasoning for, oh I don't know, seasoning Fajitas ?
salt and black pepper to taste

mix, and put in a clean bottle, chill (ideally for a couple of days), shaking a couple of times. Viva Sangrita

Movie review - Midnight in Paris

2011-10-13T12:25:00.000+01:00

Movie review - Midnight in Paris

I've mentioned my admiration for the works of Mr Woody Allen before, and despite his somewhat repellant views on step-parental care I stand by that judgement. In a rare moment of solidarity the very lovely Mrs Stuffy counts his delightful Vicky Christina Barcelona as one of her favourite films of all time. Mrs S is particularly fond of the way he portrays a place in such a way that even cities one knows well are presented in a very natural but effortlessly romantic and attractive way. I adore his wordplay but I'm also with her on the scenery thing, one of my abiding movie memories is the Gershwin sound track that accompanied the opening monochrome views of his Manhattan.

In many ways, Paris is one of the stars of this movie, presented lovingly by Allen in an opening montage of beguiling images and then throughout the film and the years in such an idealised and alluring way that it had me planning to move there within minutes.

Following the travelogue opening, the arrival of the actors is compromised somewhat by the unnerving realisation that Owen Wilson is actually playing his part 'in the style of Woody Allen" close your eyes and you could be listening to a slightly more laid back but no less nasal and staccato version of a young Mr Allen. It very quickly starts to feel natural and works surprisingly well with Wilson's diffident charm.
His gentle style and the well-crafted unlikeability of every other American character makes Owen Wilson a sympathetic and attractive lead player and there seems to be a subtlety in his performance not evident in previous outings with such great film presences as Jennifer Aniston, Jackie Chan and Ben Stiller, he obviously needed a quality story and quality direction to shine. (the previous statement may be found to contain traces of sarcasm)

The essence of the story is his nightly transition, (which is very nicely handled) from the Paris of today to the 1920's version populated by Stein, Hemingway, Dali and Picasso, not to mention the lovely (apparently, she does nothing for me I'm afraid) Marion Cottillard as passing muse to most of the artists of the time. It's a lovely tale and well managed and I'm sure I picked up very few of the artistic and literate in-jokes that peppered the dialogue. It may be that this is a film which rewards a second viewing with easy access to Wikipedia.

I found little to dislike in this movie, and much to enjoy, it is beautifully shot, cleverly written and, in these troubled times a very welcome 'happy movie', For me this is a proud addition to Woody's portfolio and pleased me on many levels, if you're an Allen fan, a Francophile, a supporter of intelligent cinema or you just fancy a quality, pleasant movie experience you will, like Mrs Stuffy and I, come out having a conversation, an animated conversation, an enthusiastic, engaged animated conversation rather than,as with so many films, "did you enjoy that?" followed by "s'all right".

A Parisian haiku (with apologies to my many francophone chums, and an anticipation of at least three corrections)

L'ecriveur pensant
Cherches le siècle d'or
Mais, c'est maintenant,

2011-09-01T07:00:00.003+01:00

Effervescent depths and dispiriting heights...

So, back to the fray following a delightful week with four lovely ladies in the idyllic Hellenic island of Kos, too much food, too much wine, lots of sun and a few nice dives.
As always one finds a minimal amount of pretty fish in the Med but led by a really good Divemaster and with only three of us diving from a small Rib (Rigid/inflatable/boat) it made for a really friendly and relaxed set of dives.
I also enjoyed discovering the curious phenomenon of a sulphur bubble area, diving over underground (and underwater) volcanic areas we swam through great swathes of tiny gas bubbles, emerging in fine streams from the sand and creating curtains, jacuzzis and veritable snowstorms of bubbly fizz, a very beautiful thing when the light is right and it made for a new, and welcome experience, click on the terrified starfish on the left to link to the video... and if you're in Kos and fancy a nice dive or two may I commend George Chrisopoulos to you, a class diver and a fine, fun, fellow.

The downside of this trip, as is often the case,was the return trip. I've long since lost the childlike joy I'm sure I once felt when clambering into the great silver bird but this was a charter flight from a pretty pricey holiday resort, even by the ever-declining quality of experience of cut-price commercial flights it was pretty annoying.

A couple of hours of assorted lingering and queuing at Kos to check in was followed by a delayed, cramped, 4 hour flight with nothing but one glass of water, one cup of revolting instant coffee or one cup of tea to sustain 180 folk who've spent at least a week eating and drinking to excess. This, frankly, seems to be an unnecessary, gratuitous slap in the face of the departing guest and it must surely undo much of the good stuff that Mark Warner achieved to that point with a well structured, well run and enjoyable (especially for the young 'uns) holiday experience.

The explanation given by the flight staff (graduates of the ('Couldn't care less' school of customer service) was that "nobody had ordered refreshments" rubbing the "we think you're stupid" salt into the "and we still don't care" wound.

A wise chef who worked in a hotel once explained to me why he always supervised breakfast, " hotels are different from restaurants", he opined, wisely, "breakfast is the final experience save paying the bill, if it's a great experience the bill seems reasonable and the memories positive."

So, Mark Warner take heed, you can, and do, undo much goodness with the final act, arriving home starving, dehydrated, irritable and tired after a holiday is little bit of a let-down, don't make it your fault.

2011-08-18T19:16:00.005+01:00

Movie Review - Cowboys and Aliens, what the heck could that be about ?

There are certain criteria that Mrs Stuffy looks for when selecting a film that she thinks she will enjoy, for a start it helps if it has Daniel Craig in it, that's it really, she's not too bothered about the artistic lineage of the director, the quality of the remaining cast, the writing, direction or production. She is pretty definitive about the presence of Daniel Craig, so she enjoyed this, as long as Daniel Craig was on-screen. She didn't like the aliens which were, to be honest pretty scary, very yucky and surprisingly bad, (as galaxy-crossing alien warriors with awesome super weapons tend to be) at killing plucky earthlings.

The film started well for me, a bit of mystery (you have to imagine you haven't seen the trailer, or read the title come to that) some atmospheric cowboy stuff, classic western main street hero confrontation, etched deep in our psyche from High Noon, through the Magnificent Seven, everything Sergio Leone did, Silverado and the Outlaw Josie Wales. Credit to John Favreau, (the director) for a very nicely shot movie, the scenery and the action scenes were excellent and the little characterisation he squeezed into the limited time between the all-action alien mayhem was well, but briefly, done. Sam Rockwell deserves an honourable mention and it would have been nice to see Harrison Ford and the exalted Daniel spending more screen time together. It would also have been nice to see Walton Goggins, (great name, fine actor), get a bigger part.

Actors who can make you believe in them are rare and this cast list had many of them, however, this movie was full of incomplete storylines, ludicrous concepts and there were multiple hole-riddled plots to expound so, inevitably, too little time for exploring the people and their stories.

It sounds simple, cowboys versus aliens, "two genres, two sets of conventions, let's mash them up " but if there is one thing that I came away from this film with it's that there were too many different threads to keep track of, the Olivia Wilde character was (obviously very, very attractive) but poorly explained, despite a lot of clues, they didn't add up, I'm not sure about the humming bird, I still don't understand what the aliens were really after, gold ? scouting for an invasion? cow-tipping? fresh bipedal snack items?
Who can tell... Not me and not Mrs Stuffy, obviously.

Good things, well (Daniel Craig apparently) and despite the telegraphed inevitability of each scary moment they still managed to make Mrs S jump each time, so precious little snoozing occurred.
And for me, an entertaining romp, not a coherent story but some ok action, a wasted first-class cast, a little humour, (could have done with more) but let's face it, if you go to see a film called Cowboys and Aliens with high expectations you're asking to be let down.
I had set a lower bar and this was, by no means, a disappointment.

A hybrid haiku

After aeons of
conquest, the aliens
never learnt to shoot?

2011-08-12T07:00:00.001+01:00

Movie Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Well if you'd ever wondered what possible, albeit improbable, sequence of events could have lead to an Earth populated by horse-riding, Roman-inspired, English-speaking, tactically-aware chimpanzees and gorillas, look no further.

Proposing that a combination of greed, compassion, corporate callousness, cruelty and carelessness combine to deliver a world-changing situation to our tree-dwelling kin this is an interesting and deeply enjoyable movie.

The phrase which kept leaping into my mind as I watched the excellent Andy Serkis playing Caeser the lead simian was 'a very human film' not in a soppy way but nicely contrasting many of the aspects of both good and bad of our species but then holding up a chimp-shaped mirror to those same strengths and weaknesses.

There is no doubt that the lessons and tricks that Serkis and the CGI team learned with Gollum and King Kong are beautifully played back in this film, no-one overacts, the performances, both ape and human, (John Lithgow and David Oyelowo deserve mention and Frieda Pinto is very pretty) are very nicely judged and the pace is ideal. The storyline, whilst well structured and (as with all prequels) predictable delivers a few surprises and some feelgood and feelbad moments.

I was originally in two minds about this movie, but I'm glad that both Mrs Stuffy and I chose to go, we are, unusually, as one on this, damn fine film, very much worth the trip, the tickets and the fact that it was my turn to sit next to the wierdo.

An heroic haiku, a poem of primates...?

Apes taking over?
You almost feel they deserve
The chance to have a go

2011-08-01T07:00:00.002+01:00

Movie Review - Captain America, he's no Captain Jack Sparrow but engaging nonetheless

The linking together of comic book hero movies continues apace with the latest in the Marvel franchise the story of the original Avenger, played by a digitally skinnifieded (then digitally musclified) Chris Evans (he was the most rubbishy one in the rubbishy Fantastic four).

As with the recent X-men movie one of the most attractive things about this film is the representation of the style, the look, of the era and this movie captured the 1930's feel very nicely.

It's a silly film, of course, but very well made and doesn't worry too much about believability, focusing instead on a series of episodes of frantic comic book action interspersed with vignettes of folksy moralising. Chris Evans is likeable but undemanding, Stanley Tucci (who I always thought deserved an oscar for Julie and Julia) briefly impresses as the good (and wryly amusing), Doktor and Hugo Weaving makes an impressive baddy but never really convinces one that the good guy won't win in the end.

Nicely played end sequence by the way with (Samuel L Jackson) which sets up the scenario for Avengers film which will hit the screens next year.

Would you like a hell-bound haiku?

Power corrupts so
Give it to the nice chap,
not a nasty nazi

2011-07-25T19:00:00.001+01:00

New Chooks at the Barn

As you'll recall from this post we've now doubled the poultry population at the Barn with three new joiners to the existing flock. We've chosen chickens this time on the basis of their ability to deliver interesting coloured eggs, We've a Skyline, (the pale multi-hued lass on the right of the photo) which allegedly will deliver blue/green eggs and a White Ranger which should produce really white ones. There's also a Red Ranger to keep up the numbers.
I'm trying to avoid any naming of the birds to prevent the repetition of the anthropomorphism and resultant emotional response when I suggested, (now that their productivity is dropping off) serving the existing birds for lunch.

A couple of weekends ago Her ladyship and I ambled down to Leatherhead to collect our new recruits. What the nice lady at www.southmeadpoultry.com who supplied my chickens conveniently forgot to mention is that we'd chosen three of the fastest breeds, both on foot (where they make the roadrunner look sluggish) and despite clipped wings they're all pretty good at getting airborne resulting in one very exhausted chicken wrangler and three deeply traumatised chickens on their first night in their new home.
Despite the obvious advantages they enthusiastically resisted the safety of their new coop and tried to go and play in the wood with their new chums Mr and Mrs Fox and their ravenous brood.

Hey ho, it keeps me fit and I'm sure they'll stop shaking (with laughter maybe?) in a week or so.

The older generation of 'diminishing returns' poultry are pretty miffed about the territorial implications of younger, more productive, neighbours and have a adopted a traditional British Trades Union approach of non-co-operation with the management and hysterical pecking and squawking at the competition.

I'm sure it will all work out in time, if not there's still the option of a "coq au vin pour encourage les autres".

2011-07-13T12:52:00.003+01:00

Apiary, it's not all glamorous white suits and prodigious amounts of honey you know, it's also the occasional searing pain in the ear.

For the benefit of Mark who must find it frustrating sitting next to his Puglian trulli watching little Italian bees raiding his copiuous Italian lavender and then buzzing off to make Italian lavender honey, (for someone else) here we are with the latest Bees from the Barn update.

It's been an interesting summer for the (mostly) ladies of the hive thus far, those of you who've been paying attention will both remember that at the start of the season I split my existing colony in two thus creating a pair of smaller and (because I made the split too early according to my beekeeping mentor Ian) weaker colonies. Fortunately the fine weather has meant that my poor timing was not been fatal to my little chums. Ian did an inspection with me a month or so ago and identified a couple of things I should do including treating both hives for Varroa (Varroa is the parasite often held responsible for the devastation of the bee population in recent years). He also suggested limiting the amount of space in both hives to make it easier for the bees to keep warm and build up population. That all worked well and both hives now have healthy queens, loads of workers and ChaCha and I added supers to the hives last weekend.

Supers are the additional layers we add to the hive in the hope that the bees will fill them with honeycomb and (hopefully) much more honey than they need for the winter. That's the honey we greedy humans take for our own culinary purposes having calculated how much the bees need and extracting the surplus. So far they've built good stores in their bit of the hive and I'm hoping that they'll be thinking of my needs now and making the most of this warm weather and what seems to be a good summer for blossom.

ChaCha captured some video and photos of the latest inspection in between squealing and swatting the air ineffectually and there's a little video if you click on the photo.

2011-06-28T13:21:00.003+01:00

Movie review-Green Lantern, shining a little light on good versus evil, sorry not evil, really, really ugly

I was never a great reader of comic books, well that's not strictly true, my father was not a great fan of comic books so they were to a large extent one of many, oh so many, forbidden pleasures, indeed I still remember the pity shown to me by the Amish kids at school who thought that my father's position on suitable entertainment for a teenager was a little old fashioned.
Any road up, on the occasions when I was wriggling through the chimneys in the big houses owned by the posh folk (who had a more liberal approach to the graphic novel) I did manage to sneak a look at the occasional comic.

I was always impressed by Green Lantern, I liked the idea of the corps, a league of defenders of the galaxy, it seemed nice to me, as a socially inept, introverted and imaginative kid that, rather than the loneliness of a spider/super or bat there was a hero support mechanism that spanned the galaxy.

I therefore had high hopes for this movie but was quite prepared to put up with a lot for old times sake. Mrs Stuffy, contrari-wise had low expectations, which were well met. The special effects are impressive but these days that's a given, special effects aren't really all that special, the alien worlds were well realised and thoughtful although with the prevalence of the colour green I wasn't surprised to read that they'd replaced traditional green-screen cgi with a blue based version.

Without exception the characters are not deep and the storyline is immensely predictable. There's a troubled and very unattractive villain with father issues. There's a troubled hero with father issues, (no wonder I related to it) courage issues ( no wonder I related to it) and commitment issues (you get the picture) who saves the Earth (and probably the Universe) thanks to some deeply insightful advice (basically "you have father, courage and commitment issues!") from probably the most insipid and unenthusiastic love interest ever.

Miss Lively (a clear example of inappropriate naming) should take some lessons in acting from the talented Ms Dunst for Spiderman, and Ms Portman in Thor, who have set the bar high for those who aim to love a superhero. That said I enjoyed the film, Ryan Reynolds is not a great screen presence but he's amusing and likeable, the story, although silly ( if there's 3600 superhero Green Lanterns available, letting the new, troubled and semi-articulate raw recruit take on the mega-baddie and his very unattractive minion seems to be an odd command decision, and frankly if you're many centuries old and the guardians of the universe, I expect you to have worked out that two wrongs don't make a right, making a ring out of fear? that's not a bright move chaps!

Hey ho, they needed to set up the next film in the series, hope it works out.

A haiku produced through the power of pure will... (which is green by the way)

On Earth, jet and plot
in space, no one can hear you
asking "you did what?"

2011-06-18T22:11:00.003+01:00

Chicken update, what becomes of the post menopausal hen?

For the benefits of those who've been mail-bombing me with demands for updates on the chicken situation here at the Barn I felt is appropriate to pen this update. As you'll remember if you've been paying attention over the years about two years ago we bought a purple Eglu, (a plastic wipe-clean chicken coop) and subsequently three hens , a brown,stupid chicken Bessie, a white stupid chicken and a black stupid chicken (Cassie). They were quickly joined by a the sole survivor from a fox attack on a neighbour's flock, another stupid (but lucky) brown one, Choclit.

We lost Jessie, the white, quite traumatically, to a sudden localised outbreak of dog, and as a result built a compound, 'the velociraptor cage', to give them a relatively safe roaming area. It's been the target of a series of unprovoked incursions by the local fox population, so far without any serious damage beyond constant hole and tunnel filling by yours truly, Farmer Grumpy.

So now, two years on, what's afoot? well chickens live for 4-5 years but only lay eggs for two, which means the yield of eggy goodness has started to noticeably drop and the girls look a little apprehensive whenever I roam the woods with an an axe or roasting dish. They need not worry, I'm informed by "The Women of the Barn" that it will be very poorly received if I offer up 'Bessie in a White wine sauce', or anything similar. So it appears that the purple eglu will now become a poultry retirement home and I've purchased a new Eglu, (not available in Purple alas) and today assembled it in anticipation of the new wave of Oakwood chickens, scheduled to arrive in a couple of weeks. Click the photo to watch the exploits of an acknowledged king of botched DIY making the easy look difficult.

I'll keep you posted when the new girls arrive.

2011-06-13T19:47:00.001+01:00

Movie Review - X Men First class, second thoughts, third rate ?

Now I am, as you'll know my loyal follower, not averse to a comic book superhero movie so I dragged Mrs Stuffy, kicking and screaming, to the local magic picture house to enjoy or (in her case) tolerate the prequel to X-men, Xmen 2 and Wolverine, all, to my mind, fine films, (X-men final stand, hmm, not so much).

The latest in the franchise is produced by the team behind the excellent Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughan and Jane Goldman. Although it's a pleasant enough movie it felt, to me, to be lacking something and I spent a sleepless night trying to work out what was wrong with it.

The issue, I suspect, is the prequel trap, George Lucas fell into it big-time and now Matthew Vaughan has too.

We know what's going to happen, we know the outcomes, who these folk will turn into and we're looking for clues, pivotal predictable moments, we don't, almost by definition get surprises. In addition it's the tale of young superheroes, therefore mostly played by young actors, as a result the characters feel thin, unformed, unimpressive. The look of the movie, early James Bond, works fine, it's nicely judged as a period piece but it's the actors who should make it more than a style statement, for me the screen only really lit up when Hugh Jackman made a 10 second cameo appearance, the rest of the movie was pleasant enough fare but, sadly, too shallow, too weak, too lacking in surprise, passion and spice, to engage this very particular reviewer.

I had to rouse Her Ladyship from well deserved slumber to discover her views, I'll not share them if you don't mind.

A first class Haiku ?

So, unlike revenge
Superhero movies are
A dish best served hot

2011-06-08T19:00:00.001+01:00

Movie reviews, Spring special offer, two for the price of one
Fantasy double bill, Thor and Pirates of the Carib, the Fourth.

Thor - a surprise for those expecting the life-story of Miss Aherd

I'm fairly sure that I wouldn't want to spend an evening in the company of Kenneth Branagh. There, I said it. I'm not sure why, there's just something about him that doesn't appeal but I do have to admit the lad can make a damn fine movie.
I was initially sceptical about Thor, like the aforementioned Ken, he was never one of my favourites. As comic book heroes, go I always lumped Thor with characters like the Hulk and the Thing, dependent on brute force and lacking the elegance and subtlety of Batman, Green Lantern or the Silver Surfer.

I was reluctantly swayed by a couple of positive reviews and I'm now very glad that her ladyship and I girded our heroic loins, polished our breastplates and battled the frost giants of Camberley to make it to the multiplex. I'm not going to bang on about the special effects, or the well structured story, or the over the top-ness of those playing the Asgardians, let's face it, this is a story that cries out for 'over the top', but the engaging part of the film is some fine performances, from Natalie Portman, as the very understated love interest, by Stellan Skarsård as 'the explainer of all things Nordic' and crucially from Chris Hemsworth as Thor, presumably chosen for his looks, (the ladies seemed impressed), he nuances the classic tale of fallen ego, discovery of humility, self deprecating humour, and inevitable redemption very, very nicely.

Skaal for a frostbitten haiku

Frost giants and wars
For better or for Norse, Thor
Wins the day, of course...

and a brief excursion to the neverending pirate saga - Pirates of the Caribean Four - on Stranger tides

The fourth instalment in this never-ending story swaps Ian Mcshane for Bill Nighy as chief baddy, swaps Penelope Cruz for Kiera Knightley, (an enormous improvement) and drops Orlando Bloom (no great loss, sorry ladies) from the team.

The movie is of course absolutely dependent on Johnny Depp's predictable but engaging performance to make it watchable.

Apart from that this is a really easy film to critique.

Did you like Pirates of the Carribean 1?
Did you like Pirates of the Carribean 2?
Did you like Pirates of the Carribean 3?
Then you'll almost certainly like this one ...

A haiku from the high seas, why ever not?

What kind of pirate
'spite penchant for violence, leaves
Cruz on an island?

Thankee shipmates...

2011-05-31T07:00:00.001+01:00

Avoiding Limoncello, an Amalfi weekend

Mrs Stuffy (a woman for whom the phrase 'impulse shopping' implies way too much planning) was tempted by an offer from trip-advisor.com to buy us a long weekend on the Amalfi coast.
It's the start of the season, she got accommodation, flights and car hire for a very silly price and cunningly avoided any potential criticism by giving the trip to me last Yuletide as a Christmas present, she wasn't aware that I'd been there before in a past life but no worries, it is a very pretty part of the world and we both needed to relax for a few days.

The only concern we had was that so soon after her Marathon effort she might find hobbling up and down the picturesque but near vertical streets of cliffside villages a little demanding but the trip was booked and we needed a break.
Inevitably there are always a few tiny niggles that surface around any trip that Her ladyship and I take, on this occasion an email advising us of a change of transfer airport was the first intimation of "not having read the small print" syndrome, transfer airport? On a weekend trip, to Italy? (It appears that this is quite common practice for the splendid folk at Alitalia according to my amico Marco, who has a lovely, rentable trulli in Puglia and consequently spends much of his life in transit lounges throughout Il Bella Italia.)

So, we were no longer to change planes In Milan but in Rome, which delivered an interesting journey profile best summed up as:

Get up at 4 am, chuckle at Sophie driving us to Heathrow in pyjamas, robe and slippers,
Join the biggest queue in the world as Alitalia's IT chaps were three days into a " no I don't know why the online check-in system doesn't do anything" state of play,
Fly to Rome 70 minutes, sit around in Rome airport for two and a half hours,
Belatedly discover that the gate is 30 minutes panicky hobbling away (some 20 minutes before the flight is due to leave)
Hobble and panic (respectively) for 30 minutes, then wait on a bus for an unexplained 30 minutes,
Get on the plane, take off, attain cruising height in 10 minutes, start to descend.
Find the rental car
Realise that it's thirty years since I drove in Italy and that the Italian motorist's killer instinct and total lack of regard for life, limb or property is a something that atrophies without daily use.

We escaped from Napoli with our lives and headed into the hills, the drive was long, the views spectacular, the enemy (everyone else) relentless and despite our Amalfi hotel not being in Amalfi, or even very near Amalfi some 2 hours after touching down I was wrapped around a bottle of vino and had pretty much stopped shaking.

We dined in the hotel, la Conca Azzura which is a very pleasant building invisible from the serpentine road, situated about halfway twixt Positano and Amalfi beneath a ceramic showroom and gelato shop which (we discovered next morning, after a delightful sun-kissed terrazzo breakfast) was a regular stop for busloads of elderly Germans and English on tour buses, offering free toilet facilities in return for 30 minutes browsing the knick-knacks and Limoncello. There's a lot of fun to be gleaned from watching two waiters trying to marshal 6 huge buses into parking spaces suitable for about 5 fiat 500s on the edge of a cliffside road where every other driver believes himself to be Fangio reincarnate. Still traumatised by spending day-one of our break effectively in transit, I opted not to spend the whole day trying to park the hire car and we hopped on a bus and clung to it, white-knuckled all the way to Sorrento.

Mostly when she and I do touristing we're much happier just ambling around with a very vague sense of objective, enjoying the sights, scoffing at all the other tourists doing exactly the same thing and generating endless riffs on the "that looks nice" - "no it isn't, don't buy it!" scenario. We had a kind of plan that involved avoiding the Limoncello stores and taking the ferry to Capri but through some masterful backstreet navigation ended up in the wrong port so, bowing to serendipity, we settled down for an enjoyable lunch and a glass or two before heading back up the cobbled lanes and onto the bus for Positano. Yet another picturesque town, apparently just flung onto the cliffs, I'd love to sit in on a town planning meeting where every decision must consider all three dimensions and the fact that pretty much everyone has a sea view.

A lazy afternoon of browsing Limoncello, clothes and shoe shops, a glass of beer or several, some stunning ice cream, a glass of wine, some coffee, and a lot of very fine art galleries with some lovely, and v.expensive, paintings and some really arresting sculpture, it's rare for me to wish I was very rich but a good gallery does sometimes bring on the "ooh, I wish I could just buy that" moment. So, enough art-driven frustration and back to the beachfront restaurants, just great for people watching and with each glass I could gradually feel the stress levels of the preceding months subsiding just a little.
We caught the last bus back to the hotel and, there's something very restful about sleeping by the sea, off to a dreamworld of bikinis, bold brush strokes, bronzes and wild strawberry ice cream.

Sunday was more of the same but this time in Amalfi, heaving with reverential residents and irreverent visitors, an imposing cathedral and a enormous choice of places to buy Limoncello. The bustling square, a series of espressos, yet another terrific pizza and a delightful day of avoiding any sense of urgency and enjoying the chilling and each other.

Those of you who've (unlike us), made it to Capri may have enjoyed the tours of the blue cave, imagine our delight on discovering, not 20 yards from our hotel entrance a lift, dropping 50 metres to sea level and the world famous "Grotta Di Smerelda" (emerald grotto).

Here's how it works, there's a sea cave, discovered by a fisherman many years ago and the light coming into the cave from outside, through the water, makes the water a very pretty shade of green, and you pay 5 euros and get into a small boat, which takes you on a tour of the cave, an area nearly the size of a tennis court, while the grizzled Charon in the stern points out various bits of rock that look nothing like anything, until you're happy to tip him another 5 euros just to get away.

So that was nice...

Our last evening we decided to eat in the hotel and I ordered my dinner in keeping with my ongoing campaign to keep trying things I think I don't like in the hope that my taste buds may have matured (or degraded) to the point where I can enjoy them.

So, the chef's fish special, I was a little discomfited to find four lumps of piscine produce, a slab of swordfish, edible but bland, pretty much an entire squid, too intimidating and too much like trying to ingest a malevolent shoe, a thing made entirely of fishbones and a sea bream that had seen better days. I've had more delightful meals, but it was nice to watch Mrs Stuffy enjoying my discomfiture.

Returning to the UK on the Monday was less painful than our journey out, I'd got my head around the Italian approach to driving and managed to overtake many vehicles on the route to Naples, one or two I could actually see that it was safe to do so.

Our flight was timely and our transfer (at Milan this time) made at a run. Back to Heathrow and to business as usual, but a pleasant break, a bit of winding down, and some nice memories of a beautiful place, spoiled, inevitably, as always, by people like us, tourists.

Ciao

2011-05-20T08:00:00.001+01:00

Movie reviews, Two (too many?) for the price of none, Source Code and Hanna

It's been pointed out by one of the blogerati (thanks to a super-injunction I'm not allowed to tell you it was Isabel, click here for her views on food, life, Singapore, and food) that I've become a little over-reliant on film reviews to fill these pages and I have to admit there's more than a trace of truth in that pithy observation.
To be honest I've been a bit busy business-wise and a weekly trip with my lovely lady to cinema-ville is one of the few breaks I've been enjoying, but, the point is well made and duly noted.

Her Ladyship and I were in sunny Italy last week and I'll jot down some thoughts on that trip this weekend. Here's a question, why do we jot things down but write things up?

In the meantime may I offer a couple of write-ups of a couple of excellent films?

I may? oh thank you...

Source Code - It's Groundhog Day, with explosions

If there's one thing , recently, that convinces me of the splendid diversity of the human race it's the expressions of my beloved wife and our three chums after a showing of Duncan Jones time-traveling thriller Source Code, without exception they were wearing "what was that all about?" faces whereas I was delighted to explore the possibilities, ramifications, consequences and unresolved anomalies inherent in this thoughtful "Groundhog day on steroids" movie.

Unlike my lovely but linear companions I do like a movie that makes one think, that builds without long-winded explanatory dialogue, that demands the effort to work out what's happening. It's this aspect of building the story in my own mind which, I think, made me much more appreciative of this "solve the mystery in eight minutes, failed? try again!" tale than I was of Inception which despite some stunning cgi and action relied overmuch on the actors telling the audience what was going to happen, a good technique for a presentation, less involving for entertainment.

I like to be challenged and within Source Code I found myself repeatedly surprised that the sensible and logical assumptions I'd made were sensibly and logically overturned. There were some serious flaws in the story, if any of my readers can explain the original rationale for the bomb on the train (apart from the need to provide the core of the film) I'd genuinely appreciate it. The acting was effective, mature and believable, Jake Gyllenhall was a fine leading man and I'm going public with a 'bit of thing' for Vera Farmiga who was (to my mind) very sexy in "Up in the air" and doesn't become less so in a tight USAF uniform.

A haiku in eight minutes

Solve the mystery
Win the girl, save the people
You've only got eight min...

And here are some trenchant (hopefully) thoughts on Hanna

Diligent readers may recall my lack of enthusiasm for the relatively recently released Salt which attempted to "do a Bourne" with the lovely Angelina but failed. There are some similarities in this tale of a young girl, raised in the wilderness ( a real wilderness, not Slough) by Eric Bana and not meeting any other human being until unleashed to exact vengeance upon, inevitably, the CIA woman who killed her mum and monkeyed around with her DNA.

The film opens beautifully with a stunning Arctic scene and the filming and locations are superb throughout, transitions between scenes are through sunsets, the filming of the open spaces is excellent but the more intimate scenes are absolutely a feast for the eyes and ears, I was delighted with the Spanish fireside flamenco scene, a real joy.

This is a rare thing, a genuine thriller, one that thrills through the excellence of the story and the acting, it's powerful and involving and kept myself and Mrs Stuffy awake and intrigued throughout. There's a theme running through around Grimms fairy-tales and those of you who are "spotters of references" (yes I mean you Isabel and Mark) will delight in the number and subtlety of the fairytales links and many references to (or thefts from) other films from Fifth Element, through Wizard of Oz to Gladiator.

So, the writing is great, the direction is clever, the cinematography stunning, what of the casting? Erik Bana is under-utilised but effective, Cate Blanchet and Tom Hollander make good baddies and the unfortunate English family with whom Hanna falls in play it very well but this, make no mistake is Siorse Ronan's film, she makes the vulnerability of the invulnerable huntress believable and sympathetic and for one so young and with such unusual looks will, I'm sure be very busy for some time to come.

If you're looking for a damn fine thriller, look no further.

A haiku for Hanna...

White snow, wild white hair, .
We willingly will the wild one
"whack the wicked witch"

2011-05-10T09:00:00.004+01:00

She Ran, He Ran, They Ran ... a marathon effort from team Twelve Oaks

My lovely wife,(following the tragic helicopter accident which took her brother Ian from us) wanted to do something to thank the brave folk who make up the Mourne Mountain rescue team, they were first on the scene of the accident and are as courageous and caring a group of unpaid volunteers who regularly risk life and limb as one could ever hope to meet. Accordingly she decided to run the Belfast marathon to raise money for this great cause and pay a personal tribute to her much loved brother.

She was joined in this effort by Ian's widow Thandi and our chums Winston and Anna. Our dashing darling daughters, Sophie and ChaCha, along with Rhett, Daisy and Tatjana all signed up for a 3k fun run at the same time.

The commitment made, Mrs Stuffy spent some three months of training with Julian Goater, the ladies did the Reading half-marathon to warm up, Thandi put together a Justgiving site and many, many people including some of the loyal readership of this blog contributed generously to the more than £26k raised so far.

Those of you familiar with my own athletic prowess will not be at all surprised that I felt unable to compete but in fairness we can't all be heroes and some of us are genetically designed to be rubbish at running. It's a while since Mrs Stuffy and I went for a run together but she's never really got over the shock of seeing her soulmate on his knees crying like a breathless babe after 300 metres of moderate effort.

So, the clan decamped to Belfast last weekend and enjoyed the hospitality of the Fitzwilliam hotel, it's been some 30 years since I was there and this modern and slightly trendy hotel was a far cry from the bullet-scarred Travel Lodge lookalike which was my home from home last time I ventured to the province.

Our dining experience on the night of our arrival was less than sparkling as we decided to visit a local eatery Bourbon and found ourselves split into two groups, variously, ignored, avoided, delayed and deceived and eventually fed around 10:30 some two and a half hours after our arrival. The front of house staff were distraught,well meaning and pretty much taking punches for the inability of the kitchen to do its job properly. The dining and hospitality experience throughout our stay in Northern Ireland is best summed up in a conversation her ladyship and I had around the apparent inability of the hotel waiters to cope with two tables both needing something at the same time, she observed that the staff were "very nice, very good" she was half right. Without exception, the people we met were really very nice, absolutely lovely and well meaning, however not good, poorly trained and badly managed seemed to be the norm.

The Team

Race day dawned and a substantial but nervous breakfast for the assorted athletes, liberal intakes of ibuprofen, immodium, and porage promised an exciting time for all. Off to City Hall, (a stunning building by the way) and the massed start. Having bellowed the fantastic four off the start and then got the fun runners away it was hot-foot to the 6 mile mark to watch our gallant team crossing the river with a scant 20 miles to go.

Thandi was the first to appear, looking very comfortable and relaxed followed a little later by Anna and my lovely wife, looking for all the world as cool, calm and collected as they do on their weekly trots around Virginia Water. Winston, nursing some fairly significant injuries had set our expectation that he'd probably do no more than 6 or 7 miles but he certainly looked as if he had another mile or two in him as he passed us.

We were rejoined by the fun runners who'd trailed behind Rhett over the finish line after 35 minutes of effort and, according to plan we severally set off for the finish line, intending to be there to meet our heroes as they staggered in after (at best, we estimated) four and a half hours of sheer pluck and determination.
Well, Thandi spoilt that by hitting the finish line after an astonishing run of only 4:11 getting there some ten minutes before any of us were there to greet her. When the lithe, limber and lissome Mrs S loped across the line at 5:12 we'd all turned up and were thus able to give her the massive roar of applause she so richly deserved as she completed her first (and hopefully) last marathon.
I've never felt more proud of my wife as she completed the bravest, and possibly most foolish thing I've seen her do since she agreed to spend the rest of her life with me. Mrs Stuffy was a few minutes ahead of Anna who despite some recent injury niggles delivered a very credible performance and was followed (after a respectful pause) over the line by Winston, demonstrating that within the chest of the top class chef beats the heart of a man too flipping stubborn to give up.

I'm very proud, very proud of the five fun-runners and extraordinarily proud of her ladyship, Thandi, Anna and Win, all of them delivered an awesome performance for a great cause and a fitting tribute to a bright, bold and very special man. This is the last time I'll mention it but it's not too late to make a difference, put a couple of quid in memory of Ian on the just giving page - Click Here

Thank you.

2011-04-03T19:16:00.004+01:00

"You're only limited by your imagination, and the budget" - Movie Review - Limitless

As myriad hordes of my regular readers know well the ability of Mrs Stuffy to remain awake is a universal standard of "not a boring film" and you should all be aware that she remained alert throughout this movie, a tale of an apparent loser, a failing writer, a scruffy waster played by Bradley Cooper (who shone in The Hangover and was only one of the many,many,many things wrong with the A team).

This is an interesting movie which tells of his deliberate use of a consciousness-expanding drug to build the life he aspires to despite a series of obstacles, issues, challenges and threats. The intriguing thing for me was the lack of a moral sense to the movie, everything was dealt with at face-value, the protagonists dealing with the practical consequences of the drug and its effects and limitations with no-one in the film ever querying whether right or wrong. This, for me made it an unusual and fairly engaging movie.

Her exalted drowsiness, Mrs Stuffy however found the storyline confusing( although she was happy that it seemed to end positively) contrari-wise (a little nod there to a past master of hallucinogenic writing) I thought the ending ill-thought-through and unconvincing but enjoyed the plot twists and turns which led up to it.

I also enjoyed the effects of motion, colour and tone used to identify, flag and separate the various stages of the drug related experience, delivered by good direction, camerawork and effects. Of the cast, Abbie Cornish was there but might as well not have been, likewise Anna Friel, briefly on screen but added little value.
Robert de Niro appears and has received scant credit from less charitable reviewers for his performance but I have to say that it's all about context.
If you consider the de Niro of Stardust or the Focker series this was a towering tour de force from a powerful actor.
So, Limitless, worth a trip to the movies, probably, although we, for a number of logistical reasons saw a very poorly attended early-evening showing.
You know, I think I've just worked out why Mrs S stayed alert throughout.

There are no limits to my haiku-bility

No way ethical
Drug hypothetical, frees
him to get it all

2011-03-27T14:05:00.003+01:00

Movie review - Unknown - or (and here be spoilers) generic amnesiac assassin movie no 7

Once upon a time there was a movie about a highly skilled assassin who'd been brainwashed and this was called the Manchurian Candidate, it was remade, not terribly well with Denzel Washington, and then, once upon another time Geena Davis and Samuel l Jackson made a movie called the Long Kiss Goodnight, (which I enjoyed) about a highly skilled assassin who got a bump on the head and lost her memory and then Matt Damon made the Bourne Identity based on a really good novel about, (and you might need to brace yourself here if you're hard of thinking), a highly skilled assassin who lost his memory.

Now I hope I'm not going to spoil Unknown for you but I am a bit curious as to why someone felt it necessary to remake the Bourne Identity but did not feel the need to do such a good job. This is an OK thriller and has some good moments, Liam Neeson is fine for the role and it's always nice to see Frank Langella, don't know why, it just is. Although the film starts sluggishly and builds to a lumber the real issue is the story.

There are a heck of a lot of inconsistencies, where does he get the money from? Why don't the forces of evil spirit him away from the hospital while he's lying in a four-day coma, or just kill him, that's got to be easier than waiting for him to wake up? If they've been planning this for a year what's stopping the noble scientist from producing his results earlier, the baddies know about it, what's he waiting for?

Hang on, they spent a year planning a data heist that hinged upon a scientist agreeing to hang his laptop on a coat rack for 5 minutes? They've had a year, is that the best they could do? It just doesn't make sense.

Sadly for me this sense of not hanging together-ness is pervasive and un-ignorable, and of course, it prevented the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy the movie. It did feel like a tribute movie to the excellent Bourne films, and inevitably it failed to measure up, the characterisation was worse, the plot riddled with holes, the car chase good but not good enough.

In a thriller where you're supposed to feel for the central character you need scary villains, the baddies in this work were, however, not competent enough to be menacing, the master spy and his henchman dismissed by a poor bit of parking by the lady taxi driver, the villainess negated through a textbook bomb-disposal error, (hint - don't use the keypad, cut the red wire, or maybe the blue) the climax was rushed through and the final fight predictable and weak. Could we see our hero and heroine going off together, of course we could, we've seen the Bourne Identity.

I almost forget to craft a haiku

You could see this film
or re-watch Matt or Geena
and save the petrol

2011-03-21T10:08:00.003Z

A supremely silly way to spend the Sabbath.

Yesterday, Sunday, was quite a challenge for the blessed Mrs Stuffy. Instead of a leisurely breakfast and a desperate hunt through the Sunday papers to find something of substance she embarked upon her first half-marathon. She's always been a recreational runner but around 5 miles has been her comfort zone, in preparation for the Belfast Marathon in May she's been steadily building up her mileage and the Reading half-marathon was timely as part of that process.

So up early, a cup of tea and a jelly baby and I ferried her and Thandi off to join 18,000 other nutters. They both did very well, Thandi hitting 2.05 and her ladyship sprinting for the finish line for a respectable 2.24 pretty much as planned. She's a little stiff this morning but was up at 6:00 today as usual and off to (enjoy?) a spin class with me.

I'm very, very proud of the current Mrs Stuffy.

For those friends and family who haven't been email-bombed by the team Julie and Thandi are running the Belfast Marathon in May in Memory of Ian, (Thandi's husband, Julie's brother and a man I was proud to call a friend) and to support the Mourne Mountain Rescue team. If you can take a minute to check out the justgiving sponsorship site click here

I'd really appreciate it.

2011-03-08T19:00:00.000Z

Movie review - the adjustment bureau

Well this is a tough one, it's rare for me to come out of a cinema without a firm opinion on the value of the previous 90 minutes of precious life. But I did find myself less than definitive as Mrs Stuffy sleepily (tiny clue there) demanded my opinion. Is this film, as promoted, " a mix of Bourne and Inception"? Well, not Inception for sure, the story is simpler, less layered, less rooted in faux science and more studded with cod theology. Not Bourne either, the studied realism of the Bourne action was notably absent as magic and old-school mystery held sway.

Was it a thriller? Not really, as it played to it's finale it was pretty apparent how it would end, and the fact that I found myself hoping that I was right and that it would be all right for Damon and Blunt and that they would live happily ever after made it clear, it's a love story.

It's not a deep and meaningful love story, it's not a sad love story, like er, Love Story, there's no real sense of tragedy, no real sense of risk and no real risk of tears at the end. It's not a frothy chick flick either, you have to pay attention and you have to stay awake, and it helps if you've read the Phillip K Dick short story on which it's based, although not much.

So who's it aimed at? Scarily it might be me, I enjoyed it, I loved, (and frankly found vaguely desirable) the Emily Blunt character and I resonated with the Matt Damon politico, I enjoyed their interplay, the wordplay, the humour and I delighted in a brief visit by the blessed Terence Stamp doing angelic menacing thug, inevitably though, there's a but.
You knew there would be didn't you? I think it's lazy to use God, however framed, as an off-screen character.
If you're going to offer a story based around an omniscient,omnipotent being served by minions who obey unquestioningly, you can't get away with making the final twist, "oh well, God got it wrong, but he's still there making sure we're all OK"...
Woah there, he got it wrong!, ,you can't have your deity having his (angel) cake and eating it.
Not fair.

So I guess that's spoiled it for you, never mind, it's not a bad movie, but don't expect miracles.

Adjust this Haiku until it works...

What rhymes with bureau?
Emily and her fine beau
But Destiny? poor show

2011-03-01T19:37:00.002Z

Movie Review - True Grit and our heroic critic gets a little heretical

So, the blessed John Wayne won a well deserved Oscar for his Rooster Cogburn back in 1969 and Jeff Bridges didn't for his reprise of the role in the Coen Brothers remake in 2011. Is that fair. probably not, does it matter? Not to me, but it did set me a'thinking.

Not about individual performances but about the evolution of film-making. The fact is that, as with so many things, improved technology and technique have made today's movie makers better, by and large than their forebears. It makes sense, people evolve, we learn, we adapt, we improve, indeed we strive to improve, and very few films from 40 years ago (if we're honest) truly stand the test of time.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the original True Grit but I'm not scared to utter this heretical thought, I think I enjoyed this one more. The camera work is better, the characterisation is better, my expectations are higher, the lass playing Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld) is truly excellent and Matt Damon is in a role which could have gone very badly for him, however, he plays it really well.

The Coen brothers make great movies, they're better directors than Henry Hathawey, not necessarily through natural talent but because they've 40 years and many thousands of movie man-hours of experience to tap into and use. Technology is better too. We look with affection and nostalgia at the cars, planes and trains of 40 years ago but we'd not really want to go far in them, stuff is generally better today and, in my humble opinion, this film is better.

There, I said it, and I enjoyed it. I used to enjoy the clean and shiny cowboy world of Rawhide, the Virginian, the High Chaparaal, the Big Country, the Magnificent Seven and High Noon but the gritty, smelly,grubby, snaggle-toothed, brutal, violent and unpleasant representation of a frontier reality (which peaked with Unforgiven) is very real here and absolutely works for me.

To be fair though, it's not for everyone and the delightfully dozy somnambulist who claims the role of current Mrs Stuffy did drift off during one of the critical scenes but if you like a classic western set in beautiful scenery and you like good writing and you enjoy great direction and you appreciate talented acting then...

1. You're not my wife, (lucky you) and
2. You'll enjoy True Grit

A gritty, grubby,grimy, grand haiku

Oscar also-ran
But Stuffy's a Coen fan
So "Ned, fill your hand"

2011-02-22T22:48:00.000Z

Movie review-Boldly go to the Cinema, you'll enjoy Paul

I'm one of those very lucky people who gets to do what they really enjoy doing for a living, and if I had to offer career advice to our two beautiful girls, (as I often do whether requested or not) I'd suggest as a good rule, "find something you enjoy and then work out how to make money from it".

Simon Pegg seems to have taken my advice to heart, you can't help feeling that the making of every film he's been involved in, particularly when accompanied by Nick Frost, is just a barrel of laughs for those making the film, now some movies where you get that sense, (I'm thinking, RED, Oceans 12 to name but two) the audience (well, this bit of it anyway) don't get nearly as much out of it as the cast. That's not the case with Paul.

Pegg and Frost are obviously serious comic book buffs and fans of science fiction and the characters they play don't seem too far from playing themselves, yes it is a bit chock-full of movie nods and references, it sometimes feels like an extended spot-the-link exercise, that's great fun for the sci-fi trivia nerds amongst us, (yes, me) but I saw this with 5 non-geeks and they all enjoyed it very much.

It's an undemanding tale which skips over many things that could have been explored in a little more depth, (I'd have liked the fundamentalist Christian theme to have been given a harder time) but as a lighthearted comic romp, with like-able characters, some great gags, a coherent story, enough twists to make it intriguing and a nice approach to not taking itself too seriously it really worked for me and my chums.
By the way, a word of caution, in the UK it's a 15 certificate, my fifteen year old went in already equipped with the vocabulary of a blasphemous oil-rig worker but yours may still have some sensibilities left.
Enjoy...

A sci-fi movie buff haiku...

Did they miss any
nerdy movie, quote or show?
"I don't think so Dave"*

*Did you see what I did there?

2011-02-15T19:00:00.001Z

St Valentines Day, A meal? a melee ? amore ?

I was inspired to today's posting by a twitter conversation with the lovely Juliette Foster, (check out her blog here) as I prepared to venture out with the fragrant Mrs Stuffy on the eve of St Valentines day.

We exchanged 140 character views on the amusement value of relationship tolerances stretched to industrial level by the commercial cheek-by-jowl table arrangements, heart shaped desserts, confections, table decorations, menus etc. but most critically by the pressure to be seen to be doing the Valentines thing, from the media, the greetings card and floral industries, spousal expectation and of course peer pressure. If everyone else in the restaurant is gazing lovingly into each others eyes and mumbling sweet nothings it probably feels very uncomfortable bottling up the anger generated by discovering yet another pair of expensive new shoes hidden in the wardrobe and dismissed as "those old things, had 'em for ages". (to choose a non-specific, arbitrary, nothing to do with Mrs Stuffy at all, example at random).

We, her well-shod ladyship and I, have observed some tremendous Valentines day events, I fondly recall a superb demonstration of almost sub-audible invective, a lovely young couple in a Thai restaurant having a blazing row, in a hushed whisper, conducted at a table situated so adjacent that I could see the foam-flecked drops of spittle and bile flying from the lady's lips hitting the aromatic herbs adorning my Gai Pad Khiaowan.

The argument ended when the gentleman popped to the loo and his lovely lady paid the bill and drove off, his expression as he returned from his ablutions still brings a cruel but welcome smile to my grizzled old visage as I pen these words.

I think paying the bill was a nice touch.

Closer to home I recall a phone call from a chum one 14th of Feb along the lines of " got any plans tonight Stuffy?"
"Well yes old buddy", I replied "what with it being Valentines day and all that I'm dining a deux with my lovely lady,"
"I don't suppose" he asked, with the wheedling whine of a man in desperate straits, "that you'd fancy making that a double header, I forgot to book anywhere and I'm in so much trouble".

Dear reader, what would you do, what could I do? With gritted teeth I rang the restaurant, exercised all my charm and expanded the table. My amnesiac chum had, as recompense, arranged for a car and driver but my lady and I were disconcerted as we drifted meal-wards by the stony silence between our dining companions, if only that had continued, the food was fine, the wine flowed like, well, really fast-flowing wine and the painful and (it subsequently turned out) irreconcilable differences between their respective views of the world, and each other, were laid out for dissection, critique and dismissal, all at a volume that would barely disturb a dormant dormouse but, alas, was well audible to us, their unfortunate hosts, we couldn't even make our excuses and leave, as the driver and car were on a schedule.

I guess that, as the Valentines day formula, once described by a chef pal as "set menus, no appreciation of the food, cram 'em in, no buzz, no atmosphere and stingy tipping" continues we should be glad of those fellow diners who've made the experience memorable over the years. Perhaps our own relationship is strengthened by the occasional dose of Schadenfreude?

On a positive note, and as a thank you for this years Valentine experience I should heap praise upon the estimable Gerry and Ann Price and the team at "the Inn@West End" Her ladyship and I enjoyed fine food and (for herself, wine, I'm a non drinker through Feb) the packed restaurant of adoring couples seemed to be capable of making it through three courses without trauma or traducing and a fine time was had by all, still, never mind, maybe next year...

2011-02-07T10:00:00.001Z

Movie review - the mechanic, let's have some kicking and banging and shooting shall we?

As my legion of dedicated fan will observe the last couple of movies to grace these ephemeral digital pages have been, well, a little worthy, a little 'arty' maybe, a little bit 'girls films' and although I'm always more than happy to exercise my artistic and emotional muscles if I'm honest I'd probably tend toward films giving some bad-ass dude a well-deserved kicking rather than exploring the emotional and artistic dissonance involved in the brutal world of interpretive dance.

Many, many moons ago I saw a compelling film called the Mechanic, made by Michael Winner and fronted by the expressive Charles Bronson. There were, to my 16 year old mind two things that stood out in that movie, a stunning dirt bike chase through the California scrubland and the astonishment when the seemingly invincible Chuckles Bronson was bested by his ambitious young protege, immediately followed by the twist when the mentor reached out post-mortem to teach one last incendiary lesson.

This remake, playing to Jason Stathams strengths and positioning him as an executioner of bad folk, (which raises some moral issues that, obviously the film never explored) lacks a few things. It lacks the dirt-bike chase, it lacks the mutual destruction of both protagonists, (probably to allow for a sequel) and thankfully it lacks any trace of Michael Winner's deft touch. It does have some nice stuff, a controlled and athletic performance from both leads, a brief but powerful performance from Donald Sutherland, (I've been a big fan since MASH, Klute and Animal House). There's tons of kicking and fighting and shooting and explosions. The setting in Louisiana is different and attractively portrayed and if one was going to choose the lonely life of a hitman this seemed to be the one to choose.

This is not a movie that will challenge your emotions or intellect, it's no Leon but it's exciting, well acted, great stuntwork, well filmed and fun. Mrs Stuffy did drift off briefly but she may have well have been in transient catatonic shock from discovering that four sweets from the pic'n'mix came to 44 pennies, that's 11p for about 2cc's of fudge!

Now there's a case for justifiable homicide

A hitman haiku
Statham's mechanic
Dispatches without panic
No Winner? winner!

2011-01-28T17:27:00.003Z

Movie Review - Black swan, a bit of a turkey, and not a nice turkey, a very unpleasant month old rotting turkey...

There are some things I don't understand (but keep trying to) and some things I don't understand and am pretty sure that I never shall, I don't understand people who drive in the middle lane of a motorway with no regard for other traffic, I don't understand why some people will hate other people simply because they have a different imaginary friend and I've never understood ballet.

It may have been a little naive of me to expect that I'd come away from this movie with a better understanding of the challenges and triumphs of the corps but my naivety is one of the things that keeps me so fresh-faced and cheerful. So, what have we learnt from Black Swan? There appears to be no-one in or around this story who has a single redeeming characteristic, it paintsa bleak and tragic picture of narcissism, pettiness, insecurity, and obsession.

Mrs S loves the whole dancing thing and even she joined me in bewailing the loss of a couple of hours of our lives which could have been spent infinitely more pleasurably sitting in a tub of rotting fish and occasionally jabbing each other with spiny sea urchins.

It's unclear what sort of film this aspires to be, it's not a psychological thriller, there's little psychology and it's not thrilling, it tends to shuffle toward generating shock but by the time the horror element drifts in your humble reviewer was already bored witless and wishing he'd not caved in and insisted instead on seeing the green hornet.

A dear chum face-booked that she was aghast at the amount of sex involved, to be honest she should get out more, this was as sexy as watching a very ugly person cleaning out the drains. Are you getting the idea that I was disappointed? You're spot on, I was very disappointed.

Let me be clear, if you like ballet, there's very little of it in this movie, if you like people you won't like anyone in this movie, if you like movies, go and see something, anything, else.

A haiku, are you kidding ?

Oh, very well... just for you

The point of ballet?
They may be up on points
But it's so pointless

2011-01-14T13:11:00.003Z

Movie Review - The Kings Speech

As my regular reader will have surmised our choice of movie typically involves a compromise between myself and the slumbering goddess I'm delighted to call my lovely wife. This week the choice was very much her ladyship's call, her fondness for Colin Firth based apparently on his ability to act his way out of a pond, myself, well I don't find Mr Firth thigh-quiveringly attractive but this is a film that's had very good reviews and sometimes it's good to take the advice of other, lesser, film critics.

The story of the stammering Duke of York being thrust into the role of king just as the wireless becomes the principal method of communication is an interesting one and much has been made of the development of the friendship between the antipodean voice coach played with delicate and subtle skill by Geoffrey Rush and the troubled princeling, a role which seems likely to generate a (well-earned) Oscar for the aforementioned damp Darcy.

Personally I found their relationship, as portrayed, amusing, nicely judged, predictable but engaging, however, for me, the real pleasure of the film was the nice observation of the distance between royalty and the real world, which still seems to me to be a huge gulf despite the British public's dilemma around the diminishing desire to maintain the unique mystique of the monarchy and the increasing inability of anyone in the public eye to maintain any kind of real privacy in the face of information overload, persistent public prying and the bundling of all things royal into the increasingly poorly-named cult of celebrity.

Right, enough ranting, back to the film, good things, a great sense of the history, the look and feel of the period, the manners, the language and the sense of a country on the cusp of dramatic and drastic change. A delight to see Helena Bonham-Carte playing someone who isn't screaming and cackling, a lovely performance delivered with lightness and humour. bad things, well nothing really.

So to sum up, it was a packed cinema, who all appreciated a very fine film, as did her ladyship and as did I.
I'd recommend it to all my lovely readership.

A regal p'p'p'p'poem in the Haiku style

As hesitance ends
to find a cure, and a friend
For competent king

2011-01-06T11:00:00.002Z

Welcome, my untold legions of dearly beloved loyal readers, to 2011, apologies for the Yuletide hiatus and let's kick off a most excellent new year (power of positive thinking) with a review of an epic movie of an epic journey 'The Way Back'

There are very few absolute rules in selecting my movies experiences, truths seldom stand the test of time and surprises can happen (maybe Will Ferrell will one day be as funny as he thinks he is) however some things just seem to be absolutes: Russell Crowe is a very good actor, Ridley Scott and Peter Weir are very good directors, Angelina is not a great actor but so what? and, critically for our choice of movie last night, Ed Harris is a sure-fire, 100%, dependable class act. I've been a fan since the Abyss and so far never been disappointed.

'The Way Back' is the tale of a mismatched bunch of escapees from a Siberian Gulag and their harrowing trek all the way to India, it's a long walk, a long movie and crucially one of the producers is National Geographic, so if you'd like to see how awesome our planet can look this is a relatively easy way to do so, it's a beautifully shot travelogue with frequent breaks for the human story.

The story, true or not, (there seem to be doubts) is an impressive tale, the characters in the film are very human, the tension is well managed. It's tough to get into it in the early stages, in the grimy horror of the early days in the camp and the ensuing escape it's confusing when everyone is equally beardy and weatherproofed it's hard to track the characters but it does get clearer.

The estimable Mr Harris makes it for me, sagacity, sadness and strength portrayed in an almost imperceptible nod. Colin Farrel is workmanlike as a hardened criminal and Jim Sturgess very good in the lead role as the competent and driven leader of the band of refugees. There's humour, it's not a heavy or preachy film but, it's not a film for everyone, the delightful Mrs Stuffy made an apposite observation, it's very interesting but not really entertaining ... Wise words spoken during one of her less drowsy moments.

A haiku from the tundra ?

Four thousand k walk
If true it's impressive, but
If not, still awesome

2010-11-21T09:04:00.004Z

Catch up Movie reviews - Despicable me and The Social Network

Firstly my apologies for the delay, as you'll know if you've seen this it has been a little stressful here at the Barn and I'd forgotten these two brief reviews were sitting on my iPad so here's a little weekend catch up ... normalish service will be resumed toot sweet.
Movie review - Despicable me

Cha cha was eagerly anticipating this film, which we both found, predictably, to be well made and mildly amusing, sadly,as is far too often the case, all the best gags were in the trailer, this is a highly formulaic animated tale with no surprises, it's classic half-term fodder.

It does make small kids laugh, I know this because I heard them, it will make world-weary adults and teenagers smile a little , I know this because we did, a few times.

A despicable haiku

no surprises but
no disappointments either,
Just fun (and fart gun)

Movie review The social Network

The fragrant Mrs Stuffy booked this movie because she thought I'd like it, I was unsure, couldn't really see how the subject, the creation of Facebook could make an entertaining film.

I know the story which helped, I'd heard a serialization of the story on Radio 4 recently and I'm a big fan of Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing and a superb purveyor of fast witty sharp intelligent dialogue.
There is plenty of such stuff in this film, in fact there's little else but if you liked the West Wing and you understand what Facebook is you'll really enjoy this film.
If neither of these apply, you will, like Mrs Stuffy, be catching up on some nap time.

Witty bitty tale
Start, start up, legal carve up
Better to win? or lose friends ?

Like this haiku - poke this haiku- share this haiku - comment ?

2010-11-03T14:00:00.002Z

Tropical, topical paradoxical, paradisaical

A few years ago, Mrs S and I talked ourselves into taking a holiday that we couldn't really afford on Kuramathi Island in the Maldives, ("the Maldives ?, it's a group of atoll-based islands in the Indian ocean, the Indian ocean ? a big lump of sea near India, India? yes, that's right, where the curry comes from" for anyone who's been educated more recently than 30 years ago).

To our surprise, we didn't regret it for a moment and this year, caught out by a combination of accumulated Air miles and a companion ticket with a shelf life of 'October' we were prompted to jet off once more to the other side of the globe, this time to Komandoo Island for a week of lazing around reading books (for Mrs Stuffy) and jumping off boats and scaring the life out of thousands of beautiful fish (Me)

Beach holidays are rarely my thing, I get restless very quickly but there's something about the Maldives that makes it work for me, I've found the staff, a mix of Maldivian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi folk to be, (despite recent quite amusing tourist-baiting reports), without exception, lovely.

The dive school was exceptionally good, the food, on this island was very, very good and unusually for me, and despite my best intentions, I found myself being sociable, meeting interesting folk and quite enjoying the experience.

There's a little touch of the unreal about these jewels scattered in an azure sea, and if you grew up watching Robinson Crusoe in black and white and you're the sort of person who enjoys feeling spoilt rotten occasionally (and who isn't ?) it should be very high on your to-do list.

There was one tiny cause for grumpiness and it's directly related to the lack of stunning underwater photography accompanying this missive. Whilst snorkeling around the beautiful house reef with her ladyship I was treated to the shocking sight of the "waterproof to 40m" case of my dive camera gradually filling with seawater, apparently not an ideal environment for the delicate electronics within.

Once home I, naturally, took the camera apart to repair it.

The replacement should arrive shortly.

I'm told by the insurance company that there's no recompense as "the item was being used as it should be" and further informed by the dive-camera folk that a single hair or grain of sand can (and obviously did) break the seal. Great news for those of us who need reading glasses to count on our fingers!

So, to summarise, here's a link to Komandoo Island where we stayed, if you get the chance, sell some family silver, go there.

2010-10-26T09:26:00.004+01:00

Sometimes really, really, bad things happen to good people.

We're all a bit devastated at the moment, Ian, Julie's brother was killed on Saturday in a helicopter crash flying home from Ireland. I don't want to, indeed don't feel that I can or should express my own pain here but I'd like my gentle readers to bear with me for a week or so.

Ian was one of those very rare people that I genuinely liked and respected and his untimely death will leave a hell of a hole in all our lives.
If there are people in your life that matter to you, and you've not told them how much recently, I urge you to do so, now.

Steve

2010-09-12T14:50:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - Scott Pilgrim versus the World

This is an odd one, Michael Cena (who seems to turn up in anything where there's a need for a dorky skinny lad) plays a bit of a teenage waster, a bassist in a wannabe rock band in a world which is a curious mix of snowy Canadian urban limbo, teenage rock fantasy, comic book and video game.

I understand that this is not a genre that will appeal to everyone and the reviews and opinions that I've heard have been pretty polarized. Again as is so often the case, there was a bit of a split in StuffyWorld. The blessed Mrs S took the "what was the point of that" position and the fifteen year old Charlie found it great fun.

The deciding vote then goes to the fifty+ year old, ageing rock-god with a penchant for comic book heroes and a passing familiarity with the computer game sub culture. Well, I found it an amusing diversion, not as full of laughs as one might hope but with a whimsical sense of humour that, as Mrs S pointedly pointed out, "you either get or you don't". (she didn't)

Best advice that I can offer is that if you are quite happy spending 2 hours in front of a computer screen and achieving little more than beating that tricky boss on level 19 you'll like it and if you're not that sort of person, you won't.
Interestingly for such a lightweight film I somehow found myself really caring about a happy ending for Scott and the love interest, a delightful Mary Elisabeth Winstead, so, a qualified win for the overgrown child that hides within the cynical and embittered film critic,

A haiku v the world

Comic book antics
In computer game story
Winsome and wins some

2010-09-05T18:00:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - The Expendables - better title, the Incomprehensibles

Well it's a nice idea, half a dozen 80's action heroes sending themselves up in a good-natured romp, but that's not what this is. You'd expect from the billing that Schwarzenegger and Willis might appear for more than a 3 minute chat in a church, you might expect Mickey Rourke to be involved in the movie rather than delivering his dialogue in the form of a mumbling soliloquy to a mirror. Realistically you're never going to expect Dolph Lundgren to act but it would have been nice if someone had told him what to do.

If you were a bit of a movie buff, you might hope that Sylvester Stallone who, many years ago wrote a good movie (Paradise Alley since you ask) would opt for the route of amusing send-up, when poor plot, unbelievable and interminable action scenes and very silly characterisation would actually add value, but most of the time he seems to be trying to play it straight, as if we're going to go along with it out of pity maybe?

There's a lot of shooting, much exploding, tons of fighting, of the relatively younger folk Jet Li is wasted in this supercharged mobility scooter of a vehicle although Jason Statham stood out playing pretty much the same character that he usually does.

As previously mentioned the only value Arnold and Bruce bring is to make the cast list both more impressive and very close to an offence under the trades descriptions act.

I really, really, wanted to like this movie, I found myself barely tolerating it.

What a shame

Geriatric Sly
Too Botox'd to move an eye
Fight and fly, but why?

2010-09-02T11:31:00.003+01:00

Movie review - Toy Story 3

I can't believe it. That I took my little girl to watch the first Toy Story nearly 5 years ago, last weekend she took me and the missus to see the latest in the canon, Toy Story 3 in all enveloping 3D.

It's a real tribute I guess, to Pixar that they can turn out a movie, an animated movie that actually moves people, almost every one who's mentioned seeing it and most (proper) reviews of this film mention tears or emotional lumps in throats.

This seems to be a uniquely Pixar skill and a still developing one, I still get emotional watching Cars, Monsters inc is a very moving story and the love and affection portrayed in the early stages of Up is a powerful piece of movie-making. It takes real skill to make you identify with, and care about a cartoon character no matter how well they're drawn or cgi'd. Remember Bambi ?

Incidentally Rick Astley popped round to borrow my Pixar movies last week, I told him" Rick, you can borrow Cars, the Incredibles and Monsters inc but I'm never gonna give you Up".

So apart from the emotional content what's new in TS3? well, not a lot, it's a great formula, Woody bangs the loyalty drum, Andy grows up, Buzz gets rebooted in Spanish, and the Ken and Barbie thing works very well. To be honest, it's hard to criticise, it just works well, lots of good gags, some genuine moments of tension, good moral sense and just enough sweetness and light tinged with pathos to generate that throaty lumpiness, (I didn't cry).

I, my (very resistant to emotional manipulation) lovely wife and my rapidly adult-heading baby girl all enjoyed it, and that's a very good endorsement.

An animated and cryptic haiku ?

Would we leave Woody
Would Andy, Buzz off? No way!
But what do hugs hide?

2010-08-19T19:00:00.001+01:00

Movie Review - SALT - An unprovoked assault on the intelligence of the audience

Apparently Tom Cruise turned this role down, which may mean that I have to revise my opinion of his intelligence, (actually his Scientology stance massively outweighs his slight display of good judgement in turning this down). I'm guessing that, unlike the lovely Angelina, Tom actually read the script (which may well have been written by a less than infinite number of monkeys, using crayons)

This was a very second, sorry third, no, make that fourth-rate attempt to "do a Bourne" without doing more than paying lip-service to all the things that make a Bourne film work, there's a heck of a lot more to making a good action film that having a continuous barrage of shooting, crashing, exploding,kicking and (badly speeded up) running .

If you want the film to work, you need a character that the audience might care a little bit about and frankly after thirty minutes I didn't care about anything or anybody in this very poorly structured, desperately predictable mess. I'm quite happy with unbelievable characters as long as I can care about them.

Now I will yield to no-one in my conviction that Ms Jolie is a damned attractive lass and in most cases I'd be blissfully happy sitting through a rubbish film simply to enjoy her getting out of the bath, (eg: Wanted) but in this sorry case even I found myself wishing someone would shoot her and put us all out of our misery.

So, let's summarise...

Salt, tale full of holes,
Who is Evelyn? neither
Ange, nor I, could care

2010-08-14T14:00:00.002+01:00

Movie review - Shrek4 - the final chapter... that's far enough people, step away from the sequel, there's nothing to see here...

Meant to post this a week or so agone but tootled off to France and forgot, apologies gentle reader, I crave your forgiveness.

There's no doubt that the first Shrek film changed the rules for animated movies, a fantasy world, engaging characters, real grown-up humour and all very nicely judged. The second in the franchise was pretty good too, full of gags and oblique references although, for me the third was disappointing (actually I can't think of anything where Rupert Everett has been a key player that wasn't disappointing).

For the fourth in the series, (hopefully the last), the level of imagination is back as Shrek finds himself, in an alternate universe, my use of "finds himself" is, by the way, a clever double entendre in that we revisit the same themes of middle-aged parental angst, selfishness v family responsibility and "what really matters".

The alternate world aspect gives the Dreamworks animators the chance to play around with existing characters in unfamiliar ways and to introduce us to new, although less well rounded) characters and opposing armies of ogres and witches, but it was really the believability, the consistency and the depth of characterization of the key players that made the first two films such a hit, along with the unexpected, oddball moments. Think of the Riverdancing Robin Hood, the interrogation of the gingerbread man,("not my gumdrop buttons"), Puss-in-Boots' disarming eyes, the swamp full of fairytale creatures, Shrek as a handsome chap.

Despite the alternate universe aspect this effort doesn't really have the novelty factor, we now know the rules of Far-far-away, far far too well.

I'm sure it won't spoil it for anyone if I mention that it's not a sad ending and there are more than enough fun moments to make it worth the trip, but, really, not enough to justify Shrek the Fifth.

(And it's not worth paying the premium for 3D either)

A Haiku ?

From far far away
our Ogres come 4th 4 2 play
Let's call it a day

2010-07-29T12:29:00.000+01:00

It's a hive of activity

I'm very aware that it's been a while since I mentioned my apiary efforts and since I know the lovely Mark is looking for beekeeping tips to help him decide whether to become a honey producer in the Trullo Azzuro, it's probably time for an update.

The story so far, I've a lovely polycarbonate hive which currently has no bees in it, I also have a traditional wooden hive, with a queen, a number of useless drones (male) and around 50,000 hard-at-it workers. I've been migrating the colony onto a new set of frames, (wooden structures that the bees can build honeycomb on) that will fit into the new hive. So far they've done a great job and I was thinking of splitting the bees between the old and new hives but beekeeping chum Ian has suggested that (since it's looking like a great summer for bees) we postpone the split for a while, harvest some honey "on the comb" and enjoy the fruits of our (their) labours.

I check the hive weekly, looking for signs that the current queen is of a mood to bugger off with half of the workforce, which apparently happens quite often, fortunately they seem happy in situ at the moment and I've made and installed a super, a rectangular box containing frames of very thin beeswax, this sits on top of the hive, and the bees have spent a hectic few weeks turning it into honeycomb and harvesting nectar and these frames are now pretty much full of honey.

We've gone for the simplest possible way of producing honey, simply cutting the whole thing, the honeycomb and all the honey straight out of the frame and into jars. last weekend saw Charlie and I, togged up in full protective gear, adding another twelve frames of challenge for the bees and then lumbering away giggling like white-clad thieving grizzly bears with the first full frame of honey. It looks right, it tastes like honey and it was very delicious on some greek yoghurt with fresh raspberries.

So, the beekeeping thing seems to be working, It's looking good so far but if there's one thing I've learnt about beekeeping it's that there are a heck of a lot of things to learn about beekeeping,

watch this space...

2010-07-22T12:13:00.005+01:00

Movie review - and then Mrs Stuffy woke up and ... It was all a dream - Inception

There have been many films over the years which have addressed the challenge of the world of dreams. Perhaps it's because I very rarely remember my own dreams that I've always found these efforts to be less than satisfying. Although "The Matrix" did it well "What dreams may come" did it amazingly appallingly, "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" was, for me, dull and "The Cell" was quite silly and quite unpleasant.

I do like Christopher Nolan films, thus far without exception, and judging by the packed cinema there was a high expectation that this movie would be very entertaining. Sadly I found Inception a little curates-eggy, I enjoyed the visuals, I liked the cityscape folding on itself, the Escher staircases, the arrival of the freight train but I didn't enjoy the vast amount of explanatory dialogue, the unnecessary levels of complexity, the overlong action scenes.

The ski section would be great in a James Bond, but it was too long and and felt too indulgent, by contrast the weightless section in the hotel was genuinely novel and masterful movie making. The cast was impressive, Cotillard, Watanabe and Di Caprio, were workmanlike and although this role was wrong for Ellen Page both Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were outstanding and engaging.

The problem was the tale, the structure, the storyboard, it's a story, it should unfold, we don't need to have everything explained in advance, but, it should be a story that's followable. Dream's and the psychology of dreaming are complicated things.
When the world was much, much younger I remember spending hours with my English teacher, Mr Webb, known to the class as Caliban, who encouraged us to spend entire lessons arguing the idea that this world, the mundane, might be the dream and the night-time world the reality, it's not a new idea and I didn't feel that Inception adds anything to the genre that hasn't been explored before.

I've heard that people have been confused by this film, I can only assume that, like Mrs Stuffy, they slept through the bits where interminable (and flawed) explanations and expositions were delivered...

Oops, nearly forgot the Haiku

Woke from endless dream
but to find the dream went on,
on, and on, and on...

2010-06-22T19:00:00.000+01:00

Final report on the London to Brighton Cycle ride 2010

The weeks of dedication and training finally came to fruition on Sunday as Richard, Graham and your humble correspondent tumbled, blinking like Lycra-clad moles into the hazy Clapham sunshine, hoist our liberally creamed buttocks onto the saddle and set off for Brighton.

Graham, a master of expectation setting, despite all his, "not sure I'll be able to keep up with you chaps" disappeared the instant the traffic bunched up and he spied a tiny gap on the pavement, riding his mountain bike he could afford to be a bit more cavalier than those of us atop the delicate filigree of carbon, alloy and wishful thinking that is the modern road bike.

The ride is huge, thousands of folk, leaving Clapham at 30 minute intervals means that congestion and near collision are the order of the day, it's also astonishing to me the number of people I heard advising their companions how to ride a bike, use gears, how to use the brakes!

You need to be fairly silly to take your first cycling lesson on busy roads for 54 miles surrounded by 26,000 others, some of them trying to go quite quickly, but apparently there's a lot of very silly people out there. Richard's view is that the ride is less about raising funds for the British Heart Foundation and more about targeting donors.

The first 20 miles or so is quite frustrating as tight lanes, and occasional hills mean that too much time is spent trudging pedal to ankle with your co-trudgers. As the field thins out a little and the slow, the halt and the soon-to-be-lame fall back it's possible to put on some pace but there are still many slow-moving wobblers from the earlier start batches. Starting at 7:30 was immeasurably better than last years 8:30 but a 6:00 or 6:30 would be needed to deliver a sub 4 hour time for myself, although young Graham (by dint of cycling through the fields, farms, gardens and hedges to avoid congestion) sailed into Brighton seafront in 3:56, well ridden that man.

With the exception of three or four traffic induced hold-ups we didn't stop (apart from a pee-pee apiece and a quick adjustment of my saddle which suddenly developed a very uncomfortable desire to be vertical) and we sailed past refreshment stops, beautiful Sussex villages and waiting ambulances whilst munching on power bars, by halfway we were enjoying some decent riding.

All too soon The South Downs appeared, looming large on the horizon and we trundled through the village of Ditchling and started the infamous ascent of Ditchling Beacon. I confess that last year I failed to cycle all the way to the top, the pressure of pedestrians and the puffing and panting of myself stopped my climb some 400 metres from the summit but this year with a little encouragement from Richard and with most of those who'd failed to make it keeping out of the way I was delighted to get to the top without putting foot to tarmac.

The remaining 6 miles were an exhilarating dash on Richard's back wheel to bring us to the finish line in four and a half hours, knocking 30 minutes off my time last year. Demonstrating my lack of integrity I secretly planned a last minute sneaky sprint to the finish leaving Richard off-guard in my tracks, However, demonstrating my total lack of cycling skills I failed miserably to out-pace my teammate to the finish line and ran out of puff about halfway down the final straight, my sprint evaporated as the Waterlooville Rocket flashed past me to the medals and the enormous crowd gathered to cheer us home were, in the circumstances, very kind and resisted the opportunity to jeer.

SO..
In summary

My miles 54
My time 4:32
My top speed 46mph (eek!)
My top heart-rate 175 bpm (eek!)
My Sponsors, bless you, who made it impossible for me to wimp out by raising £1,295 for the British Heart Foundation (they're all listed on the website click here to see or to add a late contribution)
My thanks to Graham and Richard for company, support and coaching,to Glenn, Richard, Jim, Sheila and Jack for training rides, to Lee for the loan of his (unused) "scary triathlon bike" thanks to Rob for the gym sessions and to Vicky and Sophie our angels of transport.
My sympathy to the family of Gary Allen who sadly, collapsed on the Beacon and died later in hospital.

My plans for next year... We'll see

2010-06-16T19:25:00.001+01:00

The Crucible - a reluctant theatregoer recants.

It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of "the theatre darling". I dread sitting for a couple of hours in seats designed for the skinny post-war bottom watching a load of self-indulgent luvvies on a stage shouting at each other. Thus,it was with mixed emotions and a very real sense of self-sacrifice that I discovered that ChaCha's set coursework piece, Arthur Miller's The Crucible was playing at the Regents Park open air theatre and receiving very good reviews, so, despite my misgivings, I leapt straight on the web and purchased a couple of tickets.

Saturday dawned, a lovely day, I went for a vigorous bike ride, came home, cleaned the chickens, fed the cats, checked the bees, did the washing, ironing and cleaning, (Lady Stuffy is currently in Greece trying to resolve the financial crisis by personally injecting huge amounts of cash into the retailers and barkeeps of Santorini) then aroused Cha from her hard earned slumber. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast then changed and hied ourselves up to town on one of Network SouthEast's finest railway engines for a delightful lunch at Le Pain Quotidien on the South Bank (a favourite stopping off spot for a coffee and comestibles break).

The gardens of Regents Park were delightful on this warm summers day with an eclectic mix of London's finest enjoying the sunshine, two wedding parties, a riot of colour and fun, readers, writers, jugglers, joggers, ipodders, parents, children,picknickers, lovers and strollers, a glorious feast for the people watcher, it's a mystery to me why, within 100 metres of the kaleidoscopic reality of the occasionally delightful melange that London can offer there was a huge queue at Madame Tussauds as sweaty tourists lined up to view plastic replicas of, mostly, plastic people.

We arrived at the open air theatre in plenty of time, I suffer from a condition which means I'd rather be an hour early than a minute late. (notably this is one of the many areas of disconnect with my lovely wife who operates in a parallel universe where time is apparently elastic and punctuality a fictional construct, sadly this doesn't help when she has to interact with deadlines in the real (my) world).

With time to kill we enjoyed glasses of a refreshing beverage called 'pepsi' and drank in the the sylvan atmosphere of the theatre and then, as the crowd swelled, took our distinctly uncomfortable seats for the performance.

Dear reader I was captivated, I've never seen the film but I've read the play and understood the story, and I've read the analysis and can relate to the messages around McCarthyism, (indeed I've had to, simply to avoid my daughter thinking her dad's an ignoramus) but now, I 'get it', really! Great writing, very ingenious staging, some powerful but not OTT performances and a simple but effective presentation in a truly lovely setting mean that I have to, reluctantly, revise my blanket classification that "everything theatrical that doesn't involve attractive ladies in black lingerie (e.g. Chicago) is rubbish.

So, in summary, ChaCha is assured a great result in her exams, I'm less of a thespian philistine than I was and I do heartily commend the Regents Park Theatre of a summer evening to you my gentle readers.

If you need someone to share a jug of Pimms, let me know.

2010-06-13T14:36:00.002+01:00

Training update - London to Brighton Bike Ride only one week away

Only a week now until Fathers Day and my second attempt on the epic cycle event that is the London to Brighton ride for the British Heart Foundation.
Most of you have been very kind and rather than just sniggering and muttering “silly old fool”
you’ve, sniggered, muttered “silly old fool” AND donated money to a very worthwhile cause,
for this I thank you.

We’re only a few of your English pounds away from £900:00 and that’s really impressive in these times of financial constraint so I and everyone helped by the BHF do thank you all.
If you haven’t felt the need to unload some cash in this very worthwhile direction please feel free to visit my website at

http://original.justgiving.com/stevethomas5

And make a small gesture.

For those who’ve wondered about my training regime, it’s mostly cake but I am allowed one unit of wine per day, the unit I’ve chosen is the standard French 75cl bottle.

I have been getting out on the bike and my thanks to my on-the-day-pace-setter Richard and his unnaturally skinny offspring Jack for destroying the tiny amount of self esteem I’d managed to cling to prior struggling back into the saddle.

One week to go, I’ll let you know how it goes on the day but, really, thank you all for your support...

2010-05-26T19:00:00.001+01:00

"Maximus Decimus, Maximus Decimus, riding through the glen" - Movie Review of Robin Hood

It's a little like the "which James Bond?" or "which Doctor Who did you grow up with?" questions, (Connery and Troughton since you ask) and my default Robin Hood was always ITV's Richard Greene, a stiff upper lip outlaw, a Robin with a very British sense of fair play, I recall lots of tights and jerkins, fairly un-dastardly villains and, incongruously, the William Tell overture as theme tune. Most other Robins have left me, at best, neutral, Errol Flynn was far too pantomime, Disney's fox, don't get me started, Costner was usurped and upstaged both by Morgan Freeman as his sagacious blackamoor cohort and memorably by the excessively over the top Sheriff of Rickman.

Robin and Marion with Sean Connery also worked for me, I think I responded to the painful exposition of middle-aged reality hitting idealistic fantasy. I'm sure we all remember what it feels like to wake up in a forest, (no matter how splendid the revels of the preceding eve), unkempt, unwashed, stiff, a gritty, uncomfortable, grubby experience, no? oh, just me then?

So, Gladiator in tights. Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe together to tell an epic historical(ish) tale. I really liked it, Yes it was redolent of Gladiator, humble lad, (chock full of integrity and honour), does good, effete scheming monarchy, venerable and noble father substitute, feisty female love interest, slow motion action and butchery, monochrome flashbacks and intermittent Enya.

However, Gladiator was a big film, visually, in scale and scope, this offering, whilst the action scenes are stunning, is on a more local scale, more embraceable, a scaled down saga for an imaginary England where Nottingham is little more than a couple of pigsties and taverns. (insert your own sarcastic jibe here). This movie delivers something that Gladiator didn't and couldn't, a little gentle humour, and that along with a faultless performance from Crowe (whose much decried accent seemed fine to me) makes it a real winner in my book (or blog). Cate Blanchett, was perfect as Marion despite being made to do a little silliness in the final battle, the villains, Mark Strong and Oscar Isaac were exceedingly evil but blessed with some delicious lines, as you'd hope. For those of you who use the Mrs Stuffy pillow-ometer as a guide to watchability you'll be delighted to hear that she remained snore-free throughout the movie.

Sorry Richard Greene, you're usurped, I have a new favourite Robin Hood, and I really do hope that they do get to make the planned sequel.

A medieval Haiku

Lambs become Lions
in England's Lincoln green and
pleasant, peasant land

2010-05-12T19:00:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - Iron Man 2

Apologies to my legion of Twitter followers (@stvtomas) for the delay in posting this review, I've no real excuse but I wanted to wait until the political situation stabilised.

So, Iron Man 2, long awaited and teased by a tremendous trailer I was really looking forward to this. There are, (as some real film reviewers have pointed out) many turny, twisty plot-lines going on but, for me, they don't really get in the way of the important stuff, some great action scenes, stunning CGI, Mickey Rourke being awesome (essentially as Mickey Rourke with a cod Russian accent). Robert Downey Jr does the Tony Stark thing very well and I really like Gwyneth Paltrow in the Pepper Potts role (although Mrs S is not a fan).
As a bonus, I've always found Scarlett Johansson pleasurable to watch and I thought she looked very natural, accomplished and comfortable both in tight black leather and as an action hero.

As both my loyal readers will know I do like comic book based films (obviously the Fantastic 4 and Daredevil excepted) and I enjoyed this outing immensely, let us not however ignore the rigorous and incisive analysis of Mrs Stuffy to wit "too much shooting and zipping about!"

Sometimes dear reader, I despair

Haiku time

Rourke roar, Scarlett pout

Robert shooting, zipping about

When's number 3 out ?

2010-05-04T14:53:00.001+01:00

A rustic idyll, bucolic enterprise abounds at the Barn

It was a very exciting time over the Bank holiday weekend.
Mrs Stuffy has decided she'd like to "do some gardening". Now neither of us are blessed with green fingers which historically means that the eminently sensible approach of a mix of woodland (occasional chainsawing), lawn (occasional mowing) and hedgerow (occasional berry-picking) works for us.

But alas, no longer, egged on by Sister-in-law Jo, the fragrant Mrs S has decided that she fancies growing some fruit'n'veg, which I'm happy with in principle but I couldn't help noticing that their effort consisted mostly of shopping, for trowels, dibbers, seed labels and a "scarecrow kit" (a broom handle and some sacking before you ask, by that definition a toilet-roll tube and a box of matches would be "a firework kit", a bunch of grapes and an empty bottle "a vintners kit").

So they did shopping and I "helped out" by sewing the bloody scarecrow together, building two raised beds, manhandling massive railway sleepers, turning over the sod, driving in a dozen fence posts and knocking up a rabbit and deer-proof fenced enclosure.

Meanwhile her Ladyship, Cha-Cha (the scarecrow decorator) and glamorous assistant Jo prodded the mud with sticks, inserted millions of pounds-worth of fresh young seedlings before collapsing, exhausted and demanding that I "rustle up some Margaritas".

I feel like an overworked Mellors (without the perks).

The weekend was made even more agricultural and rural,by the long awaited arrival of my bees, they're now installed in the wood, well away from people and are presently working their way upward in this traditional hive,building honeycomb and storing nectar, pollen, honey and thousands of baby bees and gradually moving from their current home in the black bit at the bottom up into the green section from where I'll transport them to their new home in the stunning purple polycarbonate "latest thing in beehives", the BeeHaus defined by my beekeeping chum Ian as "HOW MUCH ?"

Watch this space...

2010-04-08T22:00:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - Comic Book Mayhem - Kick Ass

I've a grown-up attitude to comics, I don't try and rationalise or justify , I don't wax lyrical about 'graphic novels' or 'anime as an art form'. I used to enjoy the occasional Batman or Spiderman comic and nowadays I enjoy the cinematic reinterpretation of most of them. I don't like junk food but I do like trashy entertainment and the current must see in that genre is Kick-Ass (kick arse as my beautifully articulated spouse pronounced it). It's a film that has been highly hyped and well trailed on the magical interweb, twitter and almost every other media channel. It's mentioned in almost every other breath by Mr J.Ross, inevitably as his wife scripted it and since, in my view she did a pretty good job, why not?

It's a comic book made real, a heady mix of teen angst, engaging characterisation (from the film-stealing Hit Girl to the smooth but explosive villain) everyone has a clearly defined and well structured personality. The fight scenes are stunning and the dialogue clever and for those of us with a passion for movies and trivia it's simply loaded with quotes, tributes and references to many, many movies from the Joker in the Dark Knight, the Layer Cake Range Rover to Gene Hackman's blind hermit in Young Frankenstein.

Partly because of this I was captivated, I enjoyed it enormously, a foul-mouthed, bloody, cynical, fast-paced black comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously, Tarantino and John Woo should be flattered by the attention that Matthew Vaughn has shown to mimicking their use of music and the choreography of martial arts. Those of my readers who enjoyed Kill Bill or are happy leafing through a graphic novel in Waterstones should be hot-footing it to the multiplex. Enjoy

Haiku time ?

A comical ask

Tarantinoesque task

The winners wear masks

2010-03-23T18:17:00.001Z

Movie Review - Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland,

I have, for many, many years been a fan of Lewis Carroll, as a kid I was captivated by the books, the madness of the tales, the intricate beauty of Tenniel's drawings, I found the Disney film just about acceptable (unlike the Jungle Book which I loathed, as a well read and pedantic 11 year old I felt it was a travesty of Kipling's fine work).

I'm also a bit of a Tim Burton aficionado so I found myself forced to brutally browbeat Mrs Stuffy into a visit to the magical multi-dimensional electric picture house to see how well Tim had put his vision of the reverend Dodgson's acid trip onto the silver screen.

As is often the case in the House of Stuffy, opinion on this movie was divided, there was quite a lot of snoozing on the distaff side but I loved the tale. I enjoyed playing 'spot the voice', I was desperately sorry for Johnny Depp as the bipolar hatter and delighted by Helena Bonham-Carter who channeled the spirit of Miranda Richardson's Queenie in Blackadder and stole the show.

Wonderland, is a world ideal for CGI and I loved the way that it was portrayed, the 3D worked a treat and I found myself involuntarily avoiding a spear thrust and fighting the urge to reach out and touch a butterfly, 'tis a delightful, beautiful, painful and poignant wonderland and I commend it to you , my gentle reader.

a Hatterish Haiku

I'm rarely so certain

that i've gone for a Burton

poor Johnny is hurtin'

2010-03-02T13:59:00.000Z

... a gustatory jaunt around the Land of My Fathers,

I felt that Mrs Stuffy deserved a bit of indulgence and we do like an occasional weekend away, I was looking for alternatives to Burgh Island which has garnered a bit of negative press recently and came across one of "Britains most romantic hotels", the Bodysgallen hotel and spa near lovely Llandudno, it sounded ideal and having negotiated a special "Spa weekend" rate it occurred to me that a long weekend in Wales could involve introducing the lovely Mrs Stuffy to some very special places that mattered a lot to me as a youngster and, after twelve years of marriage, an opportunity to meet my father for the first time, (he chose not to attend our wedding).

So Thursday afternoon and we're away to our first venue, I discovered the Carlton Riverside by chance last year, it's a restaurant with rooms in Llanwrtyd Wells and I was blown away by the quality of the food and the award winning cooking. It sits on the river Irfon in a tiny village in the midst of some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK, (if you like your countryside, rugged, wet and windswept, luckily I do). It turned out that on Thursday evening we were the only guests and despite not being 100% health-wise the chef, Mary Ann delivered three courses of delightful, flavoursome eating and easily the equal of any meal I've enjoyed anywhere.
Mary Ann is quite a character, must be a dynamo in the kitchen and if the food she prepares was served anywhere other than the middle of nowhere you'd wait ages for a table. It's the basics that make the difference, really high quality meat and vegetables, all locally sourced, clean fresh and powerful flavours.
And so to bed replete, mellow, to the sound of the river and very little else...

Breakfast was another delight, local bacon, local sausage, mushrooms, fresh eggs, simple and practically perfect and to be honest I'd have made the 200 mile trip just for the whisky flavoured home-made marmalade. (By the way Lyn, the little black bird under the bridge was a dipper).

So, off to Haverfordwest for a lunch with my dear Papa and his lady wife. The weather was kind, bright spring sun and we made our way to "The Georges" for an introductory luncheon and historic first meeting of Mrs Stuffy and the sire of her hubby.

The venue was a curious melange of coffee shop, pub, restaurant, vendor of alternate therapy objects, bits of rock, Buddhas, bijou artifacts and crystals, and ornaments and crockery and small items of furniture and skin & beauty products. In addition it featured a style of ordering of food and service which the management would probably describe as "quirky" and I would describe as "bloody irritating". The food was pretty average pub grub and although one of the staff was amiable, witty and engaging that wasn't really enough. So, having been filial and familial it was onto the coast road to the North.

Bodysgallen Hall is owned by the National Trust, the place is lovely, an ancient house chock full of sofas, fires, flowers,tapestries and indulgent couples talking in hushed tones. Our room was very nice and the gardens, parkland and (as we discovered during a post breakfast ramble) the woods, hills and views of Anglesey and the Isle of Man were superb.

Dinner in the bistro was lacklustre on the Friday night and we resolved to sample the much vaunted main restaurant on Saturday following a few hours indulgence in the Spa.

Those of you as naive as I would assume that if a client booked a "Spa weekend" you'd see an opportunity to sell them various treatments in advance of their stay, or, at the very least reserve a couple of slots to allow them to enjoy their treatments, luckily someone else cancelled their booking so we were, at the last minute, offered the treatments we desired, pedi- and mani- curing for her ladyship and the vigorous rubbing of scented oils into my hirsute torso by an unlucky young lady.

The spa was ok, the treatments were ok and the interminable waiting, (obviously we couldn't expect helpful scheduling) made bearable by my possession of a good book and my discovery that wine was available.

Mrs S has a view of the experience based on a recent trip to the Sanctuary which "makes one feel spoilt and privileged", whereas the North Walian version was more "like a golfer's wife from the Wirral.

Dinner was quite formal for this day and age, but the room was busy and agreeably buzzy, the food beautifully presented and perfectly cooked but despite the care and attention lavished upon it lacked the sense of clarity of taste, of the perfectly judged flavour that we'd enjoyed at the Carlton. It was fine dining, very well done but not worth making a 400 mile trip for.

The whole experience of the Bodysgallen was, just a little, sub-optimal, it may be the National Trust ownership that generates a lack of commercial awareness of the importance of the client.
The service was a case in point, acceptable but lacking the edge, the extra thought, or training or attitude that makes the difference between people doing their jobs and people taking personal responsibility for making your expensive weekend a truly enjoyable experience.

I like an argument but I don't want to have one (with a jobsworth waiter who assumes we're non-residents but doesn't think to ask) just to get some afternoon tea and scones. And even if we were non residents, it's a spoiled opportunity to impress, to serve a customer, to get money.

I like driving but if I've just spent 4 hours on the road I'd like you to make it easy for me to find the overspill car park, don't just stand there, looking at a CCTV monitor and telling me there's room, that young man standing there is doing nothing except waiting for me to park and bring my bags in, send him with me, direct me to the car park and carry the bloody bags.

There that's better...

2010-02-22T12:33:00.006Z

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind ...

You may be aware (it was in all the papers) that last year I foolishly talked myself into doing the London to Brighton Bike Ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation, sacrificing:-

quite a large chunk of Fathers Day,
several pints of manly perspiration and
most of my remaining self-esteem...

... as the chortling villagers of Southern England giggled and pointed at the portly gent wrapped in brightly coloured lycra swearing his way up gentle inclines.

So I thought I’d do it again,

If you’d like to help me make it worthwhile, follow the link below

http://original.justgiving.com/stevethomas5

and commit a few pennies to a worthwhile cause, I’d appreciate it and so would those who’ll benefit from your kindness and my saddle rash.

Thanks in anticipation

2010-01-18T14:00:00.000Z

Movie Review - Up in the air

I was a big fan of Juno, a quirky, unconventional film that tickled my funny bone and made me think, (not very much but enough to enjoy the novel sensation). Up in the air is an award winning offering from Juno director Jason Reitman, it was a 'must see' for me and Mrs Stuffy was easy to convince with the "well it's got George Clooney in it" argument.

It's an interesting and (for me) engaging movie, mixing some smart dialogue, great characterisation, gentle twists and turns of plot in an attractive but low impact story. I liked the subtle way that Clooney played his role, an intelligent (and surprisingly) sensitive man who'd made some major life choices and was very happy with the results of those choices. Inevitably throwing a couple of female spanners into his works raised (and presented in a very balanced way) real issues around relationships, responsibility and commitment. The way he deals with these issues is what brings the drama to the story.

Mrs Stuffy found it much less engaging than I and she chose to take a little power-nap mid-way, she pronounced it as belonging to the "Lost in translation" school of cinema, ie: it works for middle-aged, middle-class men who empathize with the challenges inherent in balancing "relationships" against independence and the cost of the compromises inevitable in such choices.

Well, I'm a fan, of the movie, of the skillful direction and subtle writing. I'm a big fan of the love(lust?) interest, Vera Farmiga, although I'm a little distressed to find she used a body double for the nude+necktie scene. She presented her character as an intriguing, fun, charismatic and sexy lady, what's not to like?

I'd recommend this as a fine film for those who occasionally enjoy a warm chuckle and a little thinking with their popcorn.

Haiku time ?

Pursuing miles not
chasing smiles brings little joy
to hollow solo

2010-01-07T13:01:00.003Z

A man of letters, a jaundiced old hack, a published writer forsooth...

One of our business associates is a major fitness fan, gym, training, kung fu and recently climbing. She's just launched a new venture, a magazine and blog aimed at the family fitness market, she asked me to proof read a couple of articles which I was more than happy to do.

I also knocked up a piece about the joys of mountain biking with a fourteen year old.
It's just been published so if you fancy reading the article there's a link here. Even if you don't fancy reading it, click the link as the more activity on the site the better it is in terms of selling advertising.

Thanks :)

2010-01-06T13:44:00.006Z

Snow trouble

Since there was a tiny dusting of snow last night, (well around 25cms to be fair), the infrastructure of Surrey ground to a shivering, shuddering halt.

As an experienced homeworker I'm aware that getting distracted is a really bad idea when you have stuff to do so I only took an hour out with Rhett to make our snow-sculptures,

for Rhett, naturally, a Tyrannosaurus

and for myself, a snowy supermodel, I call her Skate Moss.

Now, back to work...

2009-12-24T06:00:00.000Z

Movie Review ...... Avatar in 3D

It has taken director James Cameron some 13 years to bring this much anticipated movie to the screen, it's involved the invention of new filming techniques, new cgi technologies and radically different blending of live and cgi animated characters. 13 years well spent in my opinion, it's hardly an original tale but it is nearly 3 hours of an immersive, engaging, entertaining adventure. Cameron makes some fairly obvious points, for those in doubt, war, corporate greed and exploitation of the natives are all bad things, being in tune with nature is pretty much a good thing. To be honest even those of us bought up with the Cowboys and Indians concept have learnt to avoid the trap of assuming that possession of the cap pistol confers automatic superiority so that's ok. Surely there are predictable and heavy messages but it's not preachy, it's by turns, sad, amusing, exciting but always a thing of immense visual beauty, those of my readership who can still recall Roger Dean's magical album covers for Yes with mountains and lakes suspended in mid-air will be delighted to see this realisation of those dreams and the walk through the bio-luminescent forest is a joy.

I loved it, I think it's probably less attractive to those without the sci-fi appreciation gene but I'd recommend anyone with a passion for cinema to make the effort to see it on a big screen, I'm still not convinced that 3D makes that much difference. There's an obvious plot problem which is dealt with cleverly and Cameron has made much of the way they've captured the real expressions of the live actors in the virtual characters, I think he's being modest, it works a treat, the big blue folk seem real, enjoy, I commend it to you.

An Avatar haiku...

Audience arrives
engage in bright blue lives,
storytelling thrives

2009-12-10T17:52:00.003Z

Paying pennies for convenience, not what you think...

I occasionally park in a car park in the lovely Mediterranean city paradise that is Woking, There was a simple and convenient system for parking in the council owned car parks...

Of a moonlit winters morning, I'd drive, in the deep,dark gloom into the car park, park the car then:

stick a credit card into a machine
press a button to indicate the number of hours I was parking for
put the ticket in the car
that's it, simple, dare i say convenient.

There's a new system now, the credit card slot has been disabled by the skilled application of some duct tape, so,
the first time I tried to park I had to:

dial a telephone number on my mobile
dictate my registration number 7 digits
confirm the description of my car 1 digit
input a code for the particular car park 4 digits
input the number of hours I wanted to stay 1 digit
Input my credit card number 16 digits
the expiry date, 4 digits
the validation number 3 digits
Then, adding injury to insult, listen to the voice of the machine informing me that, (over and above the cost of the call) there would be a 20p convenience charge

Admittedly all my credit card details are now recorded on a database somewhere which makes it easy and convenient for Them to take my money in future, and admittedly there's value and convenience to Them in centralising and outsourcing the management of their parking facilities.
What I'm annoyed by is that I'm being charged 20 english pennies and paying for a phone call and being told how convenient that is, to me?

I don't see it.

2009-12-01T12:07:00.004Z

One of life's little Pheasantries

A while ago my lovely wife booked us a romantic weekend in the Lake District, those of you with good memories will recall the awful tale, those of you with strong stomachs may revisit our Windermere hell here. You may be sure, my gentle readers that it was with no small amount of trepidation that we bravely entered the Lake District, en-route to a shooting weekend in Bonnie Scotland, our nervousness heightened by the fact that our hostelry of choice was a scant eight miles from Cockermouth recently featured on the national news as a scene of flood-wrought doom and destruction.

The Pheasant, much to our delight turned out to be an ancient inn, apparently a haunt of John Peel, (you do ken John Peel don't you?). The Inn boasts a large amount of beams, history,woodsmoke, oak and pine furniture, creaks, odd passages and hooty owls which deliver just the right amount of Olde English quaintness.

The staff are mostly young, mostly antipodean and without exception very good, there's a great winelist and an ambitious and inventive, (mostly successfully) chef.
It sits alongside Bassenthwaite Lake and I honestly can't think of a good reason why one wouldn't visit for a quiet Cumbrian weekend, a gustatory and bibulous stop on a northward trek or a base for a climbing or rambling break.

Gentle reader, I commend it to you

2009-11-22T16:50:00.000Z

Movie Review - The Fantastic Mr Fox

There's an old chum of mine (let's call him Charles, that being his name), who would go to a multiplex and just go into the next film that was showing, no matter what it was, believing that this random selection process presented him, sometimes, with quality movie offerings he'd otherwise have missed. His delight with random selection was less obvious when forced to live with some of my bidding decisions at bridge but that's a whole different bed of nails. Anyway, I prefer to make my own movie choices, Mrs Stuffy permitting (obviously).

Howsoever, ChaCha and I found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill recently and thus ambled, with no particular aim in mind, into the new Vue cinema in Newbury. The first movie that met our timescales was the Fantastic Mr Fox and having waited for the noisome swarm of baffled and bewildered in-bred halfwits to clear from the amazingly simple self-service booking machines we purchased a couple of seats, some revolting nachos and settled down, with few expectations, to watch this adaption of the Roald Dahl story.

It is a fantastic film in many senses, it's not, in my view, a kids film although ChaCha did enjoy it enormously, it is a very grown up, quite surreal approach to telling a very silly story in a captivating, engaging and totally different way. Using stop-action animation in a jerky, yet wierdly slick way puts it in a very different place to the, now commonplace, smoothly animated CGI offerings and the sharp edges of the story, the sharp edges of the script and the sharpness and detail of the model-making puts it miles away from Aardman's smoother, softer productions.

It was for me , a delight, a very different delight, a "we've a couple of hours let's go see a movie" surprising delight, go see it, then see it again to see the stuff you missed, and if you can explain how the wolf fits in I'll be eternally grateful to you.

A fantastic haiku ?

Fur and feathers fight
sharp surreal story takes flight
a delight, with bite

2009-11-17T20:00:00.000Z

Beyonce at the O2 Arena

It's been a while since Lady Stuffy and I went to a concert featuring one of the current crop of popular beat combos or songsters, it's tough to identify performers who bridge our wildly divergent musical tastes, (from Barry White and Michael Jackson to Led Zep and Colin Hay). We agreed that Beyonce fit the spec, Mrs S liked her 'Destinys Child' stuff and adored the movie 'Dreamgirls', I however admire her magnificent bottom and the video for 'Single ladies'.

So off we hied to East London, the magical O2 Arena, (recommended by fellow blogger, passionate imbiber and knowledgeable gigger, Mark) It was an evening of contrast, the venue is amazing and seemed very well run, I'd forgottent that as an O2 subscriber I've got blueroom access but the normal catering seems fine.

The support acts were tedious, the audience was largely female, (good) and very high pitched, (not good). The less-than-thrilling support acts were followed by a 60 minute interval, which (with my legendary tolerance for hanging about) was not appreciated.

Eventually the lass herself finally deigned to step onto the boards in a stunningly lit and choreographed show.

There were a few clues that suggest that Mrs S and I are either a little rusty in the gig glands or may just be "so over it". No doubt that Beyonce has a great voice but the amplification or the acoustics of the dome made it, for me, a noise, without clarity, without personality.

The band looked fabulous and seemed very skilled but I couldn't really be sure because of the poor acoustics. Beyonce does have tons of energy and a great botttom which translated well to the massive screens, indeed the whole visual side of the show was really slick and imaginative.

To summarise, it was an experience but your aged correspondents left before the finale rather than face 20,000 squealing women trying to get on the tube.

I am Haiku fierce ???

Too many people
Too much noise, too long to wait
that's the bottom line

2009-11-10T11:00:00.000Z

Movie review........ ................. the men who stare at goats .....

Well, it's a great title isn't it ? andd a heck of a cast, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges trotting out his Big Leibowski routine. It's an attempt to bring the book by Jon Ronson to the screen and it works, to an extent. Clooney plays the sparkly-eyed psychic psycho and works well enough with young Obi Wan McGregor to deliver a film that, for me, was amusing throughout, a series of knowing chuckles rather than lots of laughs.

The intended criticism of war and the corporate feeding frenzy that accompanies and follows conflict got a little lost in the flashbacks and Mrs Stuffy found it necessary to grab a little nap throughout the mid section. So, two fluffy pillows on the Mrs S tediumometer and a recommendation from me of "not bad, catch it on Sky when it turns up"

Haiku time ?
Why not

Stare at the screen, stare
at the men, who stare at goats
and chuckle, or doze

2009-11-08T13:00:00.001Z

The festive season starts here

Just made my first Mince pie of the season, and it's a biggie, had some puff pastry to use up, lattice cutter for the crust, mixed slightly caramelized eating apples (sugar and a dash of Calvados) with rich mincemeat, worked well,good feedback.

into the recipe book with that one...

2009-11-06T11:37:00.002Z

The day after Bonfire night and I'm a fun guy - Sorry

Nine different varieties of eukaryotic organism discovered in the wood this morning, if there are no further posts would someone call Antonio Carluccio and tell him his book is wrong,

Thank you

Good news, parasols, wood blewits and amethyst deceivers, all good eating, might be a couple of others but they fall into the "just not quite sure enough" category.

2009-10-12T19:40:00.000+01:00

Movie review - UP - finally, a kids movie for grumpy old men

I was looking forward to this latest Disney/Pixar animated tale and I'm delighted to say my anticipation was justified. It's quite usual these days for such movies to aim at multiple levels, knockabout fun and games for the kids and grown-up story elements, in-jokes and adult references for mum and dad.

I wasn't surprised to hear young voices expressing confusion around the cinema in the first 20 minutes, a beautifully structured account of the lives, love, joys and disappointments of our protagonist Carl and his departed love, Ellie. It's not the first time I've been moved by an animated film, (Wall-E was beautiful in parts and there's a scene in Cars, no, don't get me started, damn, I'm welling up just writing this...) .... anyway ... this was a very lovely piece of cinema.

The film moves back into junior territory as the balloons burst from the chimney and there is real beauty as the house takes to the sky and the tale unfolds, great human and animal characters (the dogs as house staff were very neatly done), it's a continual visual joy and despite the more frantic pace of the latter stages enough senior moments to keep mum and dad as involved as the young 'uns. I was particularly amused by the fight between the two old men punctuated by moments of simultaneous arthritic paralysis.

It's not just a very fine animated film, It's a very fine film, clever, moving and beautiful. If you can find a handy kid, grab them and go see it, if you can't find a kid, go anyway, you'll love it.

The Haiku was hard

multi coloured tale
gleeful and thoughtful, truly
a moving picture

2009-10-09T09:11:00.003+01:00

Medical update ........................ there's more dirty work afoot

So after two weeks of crutch-work, limping, cursing and hobbling I was summoned to see the surgeon for an extended session of tutting and sharp in-taking of breath. "Did you get the wound wet at all?" he asked. Gentle reader here's the rub,I'd not had a bath for about 3 years, I'm a two-shower-a-day-man and after ten days of occasionally lying in a bath with an outrigger foot I'd got to the end of my tether, so, the cunning application of two layers of plastic carrier bag and prodigious amounts of duct tape (not sure why you ladies spend so much on Veet when duct tape is so cheap by the way) and I was able to take my first proper shower.

I stepped out, scrubbed, refreshed, smelling pleasantly of tea-tree, spearmint and lime and with about two litres of water trapped in the bags around my "never,ever get this wet" dressing.

Anyway sent off with a flea in my ear (apparently some form of homeopathy) and a course of antibiotics.

It's now Friday the 9th, nearly a month into my 2 week recuperation period and I'm hoping to be signed off on Wednesday next to start taking exercise again, I've never enjoyed exercise but I certainly miss it when I can't do it.

Here's hopping, sorry, hoping.

2009-10-02T08:50:00.000+01:00

Movie review => District 9 ... and it turns out I've an allergy to analogy

Apologies, gentle reader, I've been a little tardy in posting my response to this movie and I suspect that is partly because I was not sure about it, not whether I liked it, I didn't really, but more about whether it was a good movie.

It has that trendy hand-held faux documentary look to it, it sets up the situation well and it tells the story well, albeit with a heavy hand on the yuck! button. The yuckiness and the motion-sickness-inducing camera effect made Mrs S less than comfortable but for me it was the vast number of gaps, holes, inconsistencies, illogicality's and implausibilities that the film generated.

I've a resistance to being forcibly subjected to continual beating with the analogy stick and the combination of that and the repeated reliance on "just accept it" stretched my ability to allow the film makers license well past my tolerance point.

It's a clear case of 'emperors new clothes' for me and I found the emperor to be skinny, lacking in substance and generally unappealing once the (admitted) finery of CGI was stripped away.

2009-09-14T15:42:00.001+01:00

There's mischief afoot .....................................................

There is a tiny nerve that takes messages from your toes and rushes them to your brain for processing. That's in your foot, in my left foot apparently the nerve is some 14 times bigger than it should be, this means one thing and one thing only PAIN!!!!

There is a school of thought (informed medical opinion) that attributes this condition (Morton's Neuroma by name) to my fondness for toe-deforming Oliver Sweeney footwear or possibly cheap cycling shoes but whatever the cause the diagnosis was clear, slice, dice and hobble for a fortnight.

I've gone through repeated consultancy sessions, an MRI (and that's a lot less fun if you've ever watched an episode of House) and protracted negotiations with BUPA insurance (known to medical professionals apparently as, those bloody idiots) So with a song on my lips it was off to the deepest Hampshire countryside for the scheduled operation.

Going without food or water on the morning following Sophie's birthday lunch was an inspired idea, after all nobody ever got a hangover from eating prodigious amounts of chili washed down by prodigiouser amounts of alcohol. Arrived at the crack of lark rise I was shown to my lovely room, nothing to do but surreptitiously twitter and read the hospital mission statement. I'd just finished the bit about how strongly they felt about maintaining my dignity when my Angel of Mercy returned with a skimpy arse-exposing backless gown and my lovely surgical stockings. The hobble to the operating theatre in my one-size-doesn't-really-fit-all fluffy slippers was a little surreal as the nursing, cleaning and indeed catering staff gathered and tried to stifle barely concealed gasps of lust (or, just possibly, the effort of wresting with the conflicting emotions of hysterical laughter, tinged with pity) inspired by my shamble through their brightly lit corridors.

Once in the killing zone, all was affable efficiency, only my second time under anesthetic but still very disturbing to a recumbent control freak to wake and find out just how much can happen to you in 30 minutes under the gas, with no record in ones consciousness, it's so quick to take one out of the world and so disorientating to come around and find oneself plugged back into the matrix and all apparently (superficially) normal.

This may explain my lifelong avoidance (mostly:) of recreational drugs, I can't think of anything less likely to make me feel good than a horse tranquilizer. I'm writing this now having been fed and watered and waiting for the physio to come and teach me the joy of crutch-based mobility. Then it's home for a few days recuperation, fortunately I've a comprehensive admin, legal, financial and editorial to-do list so it's a week of mac-based work ahead.

Likely posts might include:

I'm so bored
Off come the bandages Yeuuuch!
How does a two-shower a day man cope with an ablution ban?
on-line shopping, even more addictive when it's the only option?

and last but by no means least,

Oh my (insert your chosen deity or profanity here) look at that scar !

An endorsement, which may well be retracted if convalescence proves traumatic, Spire park hospital and staff.

2009-09-05T17:26:00.001+01:00

Celebration, Jubilation, Photos and fun...

Sophie and her cousin Charlie celebrated their joint 21st with a party at the end of August, along with a couple of hundred of their friends, exceptionally stunning young ladies and far too skinny young men with silly hair.
I did my verybest to make Sophie and Mrs Stuffy proud and blend in by wearing my slimmingest suit and a frankly inappropriate amount of hair gel.

It was a fun evening and I observed that the attendees fell mostly into one of three groups:-

Young, comfortable with immense noise , inside with the disco. "I've a theory that the increasing tendency of the young to communicate through thumbs and text may be an evolutionary response to DJ -induced deafness"
Older, incompatible with 120decibels, outside in the marquee.
"I'm having a fag"mostly young, fit-looking lads and lasses along with occasional examples of "this is what you'll look like if you don't stop soon", out in the "fresh air".

Best find of the night was the 'Groovy photo booth' This is the rent-able digital offspring of the old Photo-me and a compulsive draw to all as can be seen by from the little collation available by clicking on the image.

Mrs Stuffy has oft observed that at most social functions I (as a classic introvert) tend to stand around behind her looking cross, this time however I was much more "he's in the queue for the photo booth again, with yet more glamorous assistants!"

and why not ?

2009-08-21T19:00:00.002+01:00

Sun Sea, Sand, Surf .... The Stuffys sample Sugar Hill

Mr and Mrs Stuffy and ChaCha (now a fully fledged member of the Jetski appreciation society) are back from an internet-free but joyful week in sunny Barbados, staying with exceedingly hospitable friends, (many, many thanks to Sally and Martin) and enjoying some lovely beaches, great diving and superb food both from our delightful hosts and a couple of very impressive restaurants.

Lone Star, languorous dining in a beach-side setting, great food, relaxed service and a meal which went on well past nightfall.
Click on the picture for some nice holiday shots.

The Cliff is reputedly the best restaurant on the island, fine food in a dramatic and stunning location, fine wines and a dramatic and stunning bill, an experience to savour, (possibly once).

I enjoyed some really great diving over a couple of days, courtesy of West Side Scuba, I'd heartily recommend Peter, Gee and Captain Dave to anyone looking for a really good dive operation, they were great fun, delivered lots of laughs and initiated me into the the perils and pleasures of wreck penetration, diving through a torpedo hole, experiencing air pockets many metres down on classic dives in Carlyle Bay and the Stavronikitas, exploring an engine room encrusted in coral, negotiating spiral staircases and never, never ever, not for a moment, forgetting the massive moray from The Deep.

Click on the portly neoprene clad chap above for a few photos from the diving.

We're back now, we've had a great break, had a superb time, met some lovely people (and experienced the terrible consequences of failing to advise Lloyds Bank of our travel plans). We're relaxed, refreshed, invigorated and enjoying the real world with a spring in our steps and a song on our lips and, gentle reader, we've missed you.

2009-08-07T18:00:00.001+01:00

A record of high achievement

Craggy Island is a company running a couple of indoor climbing centres, Charlie and I have been climbing at the Guildford one for a year or two, well, because of the multi-kilo difference in our weights and her relative inexperience, she has been climbing and I've been the heavy thing belaying at the other end of the rope preventing her falling to the floor with a sickening thud. So, her skill and fitness has increased whilst my (already meagre) scaling skills have stagnated.

That's all going to change now, at 14 years of age she became eligible to be tested for technical competency, if successful she'd be allowed to climb and belay unsupervised, (albeit tethered to a very large sandbag when trying to keep her portly papa from plummeting to the pavement.

I'm delighted to report that she passed the hour-long exam with flying colours and I'll just point out that included restraining 95 kilos of father repeatedly throwing himself bodily off a 30 foot drop with all the suicidal passion of a lemming on a bungee, a true test of parental trust.

Well done ChaCha

2009-07-31T05:00:00.003+01:00

I should be so clucky, clucky, clucky, clucky.

I've been reminded by my legions of fans that I've not updated those of you with a penchant for poultry about the tragic demise of one of our flock.

Only joking, they're all fine but I know how journalism works, nobody wants to read about everything going well.

So, having alienated my audience here's the scoop. You will recall, Oh best beloveds, how the latest recruit to the Oak Wood Eggery, the ill-named Chocolate Thunder was taken into the flock following the tragic slaughter of her coop-mates. She was initially very henpecked and lost a big chunk of thin feathers on the back of the neck, (very exposed when feeding) however as time passed, Choclit (abbreviated from her original pedigree nomenclature) has recovered both confidence and plumage and gradually worked her way up to nearly equal footing with Dolly the other ginger nut in our little peckery.

This has, naturally, resulted in a reversion to subordinate roles for Cassie (dense black chicken) and Jessie (very stupid white chicken) but since the level of inter-avian violence has diminished overall they seem to be taking it in good stead.

An average day now generates little aggression, either 3 or 4 eggs and loads of poo. The new girl does have a penchant for stretching her legs and led the girls jogging off through the wood the other day during exercise, (the warders were apparently distracted by a staged stabbing in the showers). The plucky escapees were eventually discovered in the stables where they'd cornered 3 horses and an Alektorophobiac groom.

Further feathery fun is sure to follow ...

2009-07-26T07:30:00.001+01:00

Movie review - Harry Potter and the bloody half-prince

Mrs Stuffy informs me that the reason I'm less than enamoured with this latest Potter fable is that I'm "not a fan", she is, unusually, wrong. I enjoyed the first couple of books, I loved the first couple of films, I just feel I'm suffering from repetitive wand syndrome, it's a little bit too much more of the same.

In the first few films I enjoyed the original and stunning mix of architecture, graphics and landscape around Hogwarts, I was gripped by dragons, enthused by the realisation of Quidditch and delighted by the way the whole arcane magical boarding school concept was pictured on screen.

Nowadays, not so much.

There's a real focus on the relationship element and frankly teen angst is just teen angst and the addition of cloaks and broomsticks makes it no less irritating and silly to those who've been there ourselves and subsequently "enjoyed" the experience with our own little darlings.
So, too much snogging, too much setting things up for the next movie, insipid baddies, the relentless similarity of each story to it's forebears which meant that I kept encountering characters I believed had already been extinguished or immolated.

All in all, for me, it was, at best, OK, for Mrs Stuffy (who is you will remember a fan), an enjoyable experience and a welcome chance to contribute again to the Rowling pension fund.

A sorcerous haiku ?

The ~~Hogwarts~~ Rowling express,

Acne and anguish afflict

Potter pabulum.

2009-07-14T08:00:00.002+01:00

Another 3D experience - Movie Review - Ice Age 3

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the first Ice Age movie, I was still kicking and screaming when I left but only because I wanted to watch it all over again.
The second of the series was also delightful, larded with quite subtle and sophisticated humour to keep the elderly entertained. I'm delighted to report that Ice Age 3 has broken little new ground, doing pretty much what the predecessors did and doing it very well.

The graphics delight, the characterisation is consistent and engaging, the writing sharp and the jokes, visual and verbal are a treasure trove for reference spotters and movie buffs. It's a great film for little ones (we took three, ranging from tiny to middling) and a very good film for big ones.

One thing troubles me, (actually, many things trouble me but I'll spare you the details) Anyway, in the context of this movie one thing troubles me, I was pretty impressed by the strides the 3D technology had taken when I looked through the specs a year ago but I've since enjoyed Bolt, Coraline and this offering through the magic lenses and I'm by no means convinced that those three very good movies were much enhanced by the 3D aspect. We'll see if "Up", (which has a great trailer) can convince me.

An antediluvian haiku

Engaging and fun
dinosaurs versus mammals
the film makers won

2009-07-06T13:42:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - Public Enemies ...

Here's the thing, Mrs Stuffy thinks that Johnny Depp walks on water and I admire the virtuosity of director Michael Mann so you'd think that we'd be on a surefire winner toddling along to the megaplex to watch this romanticised version of the pursuit and termination of John Dillinger, (sorry if that spoils it for anyone expecting a happy ending).

I'd read that it was shot using hand-held cameras and digital (rather than film) high definition and every shaky but beautifully multi-faceted snowflake, the individual pores of the skin of the cast, every beautifully captured colour of hat, sheen of rain on sleek shiny coachwork, all speak volumes for the technical skills and the technology involved.

The acting is beyond reproach, I rate Johnny Depp, I think Christian Bale is good at the acting thing, Mlle Cotillard is super but here's the problem. It's dull, really dull, tedious, confusing, poorly structured and I didn't really care what happened to anyone (even though it was always very obvious what was going to happen next). Dull, dull, dull, not quite dull enough to send Mrs S off to Slumberland but it was a very close run thing.

Hard to come up with a haiku without using the word dull but here goes...

Technically hot but
lukewarm Bonny and Clyde tale
thug and moll, sadly fail

2009-06-30T08:00:00.001+01:00

High drama at the Barn, plucky feathered survivor joins the Woodland Eggery

Chums from a neighbouring village joined us for a little supper recently and during the conversation mentioned a moonlit raid on their chicken coop. The suspect, possibly something stoatish, left but one survivor, "Dead Hen Squawking" amid a scene of poultry carnage.

Well, one bottle led to another, and another and another and before I knew it I'd offered to bring the bereft hen into our little flock. Before the hangover had faded "Chocolate Thunder" was introduced to Jessie, Cassie and Dollie, cultural mismatch seemed inevitable.

Our three hens, already proven to be very stupid now showed their very unkind side making the bereaved newcomer as welcome as a Mexican pig in outpatients.

Matters weren't improved, for me at least, when, displaying many of the attributes of a feathery Steve McQueen, the new girl made a break for it and engaged me in a forty minute game of hide and beak as she avoided capture. Luckily carnivore cunning won out and a momentary lapse of attention allowed the supreme hunter gatherer to grab her scrawny neck (not the approved method of chicken wrangling). It was very nearly a "one for the pot" moment but she's obviously tougher than she appears and surviving involuntary throttling, was restored to the run and the (frankly brutal) ministrations of her sisters-in-lay.

Hopefully she'll make peace with the other inmates and settle in, I hope so but I've a suspicion that one more attempted escape might result in her being, as the poultry mafiosa so quaintly term it "being left to play wid de foxes".

2009-06-23T08:00:00.004+01:00

London to Brighton - A heartfelt thank you

Thank you to all those who sponsored me in the London to Brighton Bike Ride on Sunday. It was a lovely day, a super ride and between us Graham and I raised over £1,500 for the British Heart Foundation.

It took me a mere 5 hours of blood, sweat and cursing to cover the 54 miles, stopping for nothing but the 4 or 5 places where sheer weight of cyclists made trudging inescapable, my moving average was nigh on 15 mph so I was pretty chuffed with that.

It should be noted that Graham had time for a sandwich, a drink, a full body massage and a quick flick through the Sunday papers before I Hove :) into view in Brighton.

Special thanks to Graham, for talking me into it, to Vicky and Craig for transport and to Jim and Richard for their invaluable coaching and encouragement.
It was a great way to spend Fathers Day and I really appreciate all those of you who put your hands in your pockets to make a difference.

Heart and circulatory disease is the number one killer in the UK and whilst trying very, very hard to get up Ditchling Beacon under pedal power I felt very close to the cause.

If you'd still like to contribute, please feel free to click here

Thanks again

2009-06-18T23:11:00.003+01:00

Movie Review - The Hangover........................ yes, of course there's a haiku !!!

There are, oh my gentle readers, some films where, having seen the trailer, you find yourself thinking, "that's probably all the good bits mashed together to entice us to part with our hard earned pennies".

I confess I had The Hangover pegged as one of those films, superficial laddish toilet humour with a couple of good gags, telegraphed remorselessly in the ads and the trailers. However, encouraged by an enthusiastic review in the FT (ooh get him! film reviews in the Financial Times forsooth!) Mrs Stuffy and I gave it a chance, and I'm so glad we did.

A very funny, constantly surprising movie, great acting from a largely unknown but ever-so-well-casted cast, good writing and a cleverly directed story.

Despite appearances and marketing it's not just a boy's flick, Mrs Stuffy laughed out loud, the first time in a cinema, she assures me, since Life of Brian.

Me? I chuckled, quite a lot.

As Basho might have said...

Unexpected fun
This film is one, long, chuckle...
surprises abound

2009-06-05T20:00:00.003+01:00

A request for your support ...

I've just been emailed by the British Heart foundation to tell me that I've picked up a late place for the London to Brighton Charity ride in two weeks, apparently someone came to their senses and wimped out so I get to take their place.

The more folk who sponsor me the harder it will be for me to make excuses so I'd appreciate it if you could find it in your hearts to ...

Click here ---> to Sponsor me

Thanks a million (or however much you can afford)

2009-06-02T09:00:00.000+01:00

Movie Review - A 3D walk in a very odd world - Coraline

I've long been a fan of Neil Gaiman (@Neilhimself for the twitterers amongst you) who wrote Coraline and of Henry Selick (who directed the Nightmare before Christmas) so it was with a joyful spring in my step that I, Mrs Stuffy, ChaCHa and Tatty toddled off on the hottest day of the year to sit in the air conditioned dark and enjoy Coraline 3D.

Bowing (as always) to Mr's Stuffy's bullying I'd not only taken the hit of a couple of quid extra per ticket for the 3D experience but she also cajoled me into an extra six of your English pounds to sit in the "superior seating" (colloquially, fat folk seats). This was a pointless expense in my humble opinion, skinny as they are Tatty and ChaCha could fit comfortably into one of the standard seats in the Vue at Camberley and still have room for all their popcorn, drinks,sweets and probably Mrs Stuffy as well. Hey ho, £48 out of pocket before they'd even hit the pic'n'mix like a swarm of sugar seeking locusts, but enough of my parsimony, on with the show.

Opinion, as so often, was divided, I loved the look and feel, the colours and action, the delightful details, the jumping mice, the constant need to shift gear, finding yourself accepting the weird and wondrous world on the screen and adjusting to it's rules.

Mrs Stuffy, (to select another opinion at random) found it visually attractive and very clever but not one to rush to see again. The girls found themselves, (I was going to say very,very scared but I've been corrected) "seriously disturbed and weirded out". either way, not one for the teeny weenies.

There were a few strong messages that came through, notably, parenting is tough,
if it looks too good to be true it probably is,
kids have lives too and
cats are the very best thing to have on your side when it gets seriously weird.

a tricksy one to haiku but ...

Henry, Neil create
spindly, spooky, spiky state
a web of beauty

2009-05-24T12:00:00.003+01:00

The Lake District, a beautiful place but .

Mrs Stuffy is a black belt in the arranging of short breaks, brief respites to boldly go, to discover strange new lands and cultures ... you get the idea. She has, in the past, scored notable success with the delightful Riad Meriem in Marrakech and the superb Bourgondich Cruyces in Bruges.

Imagine my joy then, on receiving, for my recent birthday, a pair of hiking boots and a couple of days accommodation (with my lovely spouse) a rambling break in the Lake District, an area I'm pretty fond of, resulting from a childhood passion for the works of Arthur Ransome and from my climbing days when, living in Yorkshire, it was easy-peasy to pop across the Pennines with Mountain-Mate-Mike and scare ourselves nigh to death on the lovely Cumbrian crags (as opposed to scaring ourselves nigh to death on more familiar Yorkshire crags).

Our drive up was only marred by

the need for every inbred bottom feeder in creation to sit in the middle lane of the M3,M25,M40,M42 and M6 having a fag, sending a text and discussing Coronation Street with their ugly halfwit passengers
Knutsford
a large chunk of the M6 disappearing into a hole and being replaced by all the cones in the world

Still, we eventually got to Windermere and the Hillthwaite House Hotel, billed on t'interweb as overlooking the lake, which it did, in much the same way that The Great Wall of China is overlooked from space. There was a definite hint of Fawlty Towers about our lodging, faded 60's decor, elderly clientele and staffed entirely by well meaning and enthusiastic East European teenagers with no evident catering experience.

We arrived, thanks to the Great British Transport Infrastructure only 2 hours later than we planned so a quick grimace, a G&T and we were whisked into the dining room.

Dinner, (included in the not inconsiderable price) was a 5 course affair best summarised as beautifully presented blandness. Someone, possibly the Head Chef,"award winning John Kelly" or one of his brigade of highly skilled drizzlers of jus and coulis had a good eye for a stack of raspberries but it appeared that, tragically, no-one in the kitchen had a taste bud. Mrs Stuffy's "Goat cheese on Mediterranean couscous with new potatoes and carrots" still causes her to leap up in the night weeping with the sheer beige horror of it all.

We retired to bed, it wasn't the least comfortable bed I've ever slept in, it was pretty close though.

Up and at 'em the next morning. The bathroom was, evidently, recently refurbished and all the fixture and fittings were new and of a very reasonable quality, sadly the water pressure was such that I effectively put in a 5 mile run jogging around the rink-like surface in an attempt to catch enough precious but desperately scarce water to get wet enough to ablute.

I got off lightly, Mrs S still bears the technicolor bruises caused by a reckless attempt to walk across the slightly moist tiles to open the bedroom door. She's a little prone to opening hotel doors in a state of undress, I'm in favour of it, saves tipping and the staff always seem to enjoy it.

Breakfast was a revelation, whoever does the breakfast should be put on the evening shift at once, great ingredients, well cooked and delicious. Refreshed, reinvigorated and fortified we donned our new hiking boots and set off for the first leg of our trek, from the hotel to Lake Windermere.

To be honest, once we'd got that far we'd pretty much broken the back of it and the next few hours passed in a cordial blur of boat, trek, beer, boat,trek, ice cream (30p for a flake !) trek,beer, yomp, boat and the fruitless search for a pleasant pub or restaurant.

Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside all seemed to be a little bit "lowest common denominator touristy" if you know what I mean, and if you don't then I heartily recommend that you take a weekend at the Hillthwaite Hotel, you'll love it.

Me, I'd rather gouge my own eyes out with a spoon,
a blunt one.

2009-05-20T15:36:00.003+01:00

Signs of the times.====================== whatever are they thinking ?

Driving through the delightful lush tropical paradise that is Bracknell today I spotted a couple of high-visibility jacketed gents strimming the verge, that made sense, grass grows, men from the council come along with mowers on a regular basis and cut it down.

Simple's yes ?
No, I was taken aback to see that the van belonging to these fluorescent green-fingered civil servants was boldly labelled " Incident response vehicle"

Which raise the obvious questions:-

If grass growing qualifies as an incident, what the heck doesn't? and
Who reported it ?

2009-05-15T10:11:00.001+01:00

Movie review - Boldly going where many have boldly gone, boldly ...

It's a little known fact that Mrs Stuffy is a bit of a trekkie, not in a sad dressing-up way, but she is a fan and thanks to her astounding memory will happily watch the same episodes over and over again. I also have to admit to a certain affection for the franchise (in all it's incarnations) so it was with high hopes that we transported ourselves to the moving picture palace.

The new Star Trek movie is directed by JJ Abrams director of Lost, (Mrs S and I hold diametrically opposing views on Lost, she thinks it's great). The Star Trek movie is, let's be honest, a delight, a fast furious (not entirely logical) special effects roller-coaster interleaved with some fine acting, (also some less fine acting but Leonard Nimoy is 167).

Particularly impressive were the Spock and McCoy characters, they've really nailed the mannerisms and mindset of the originals and that, along with some super set design made it work as a believable prequel. (obviously I don't literally mean believable, you know what i mean)

There's just enough humour, plot and characterisation to to stop it being purely a special effects extravaganza but make no mistake it is a special effects extravaganza, we liked it a lot !

And a haiku version ...

Ten series and films
but this makes me say, "Star Trek
live long and prosper"

would you like that in Klingon ? of course you would ...

wa'maH series je films

ach vam chen jIH jatlh Hov Trek 

yIn tIq je chep

2009-05-03T12:00:00.001+01:00

Movie Review ... State of Play

A visit to the magical moving picture emporium to enjoy this remake of a BBC production (which I've not seen, for television is the devil's own idiot box and will suck out your immortal soul with it's drivel and mind numbing soporific apologies for entertainment, oooooh that's better).

Anyway, sound acting, as ever, from Russel Crowe (who has apparently been filming locally and done nothing to diminish his arrogant git reputation), but the boy can act and that's his job.

Unlike Ben Affleck. I've no idea why Ben Affleck gets work, he's the movie equivalent of tofu, bland, unsatisfying and pointless.

Mrs Stuffy liked Helen Mirren's sweary editor but the rest of the cast seemed to have been coached by Affleck in advanced drabness. The story is very twisty and requires attention, it's well told but I was interested, not involved and we lost Mrs Stuffy to the arms of Morpheus a couple of time s in the last 20 minutes.

Still, a haiku review might look a little like this...

State of play

Makes one think and doubt
Working the connections out
passionless puzzle.

2009-04-26T19:46:00.004+01:00

Yet more flippin poultry related drivel ...

Sorry to keep blathering on about the newest arrivals at the barn but I promised ChaCha I'd post this.
One of our three hens (now named, see the photo for the nom(h)enclature) has been laying increasingly larger eggs for a week now, yesterday it became evident that one of her sisters had joined the productive workforce with her own teeny weeny offering, I'm thinking a little salad with a lightly boiled egg is called for, Oh the gourmet joys of the gentleman poulterer.

My initial intent was, you may recall, to be able to produce perfectly poached eggs and I have to say that the freshness does indeed make all the difference. In other news I observed a fox sitting outside the run with a cunning expression on his face yesterday. (To be fair, in his defence, that expression does really come with the face, ... if you're a fox)

2009-04-21T17:30:00.001+01:00

Chicken update ....

They all laughed when I said we could be self sufficient in eggs but, great news, here we are, after only three weeks, a small fortune spent on accommodation, chickens, food, medicines, accessories and with a compost bin full of poo and it's already starting to pay off.

We have an egg!,

tiny, perfectly formed and delicious.

PS:- and the stupid black one is now officially named "Cassie", thanks Rhett.

2009-04-17T14:00:00.001+01:00

Now I be officially a farmer... so get off moi laaaaand

Amongst the many wonderful things with which I was blessed on my recent Birthday was a huge cardboard box containing an Eglu and chicken run. I've long harboured a desire to join the poultry keeping classes (mostly driven by a realisation that the road to perfect poaching is a very fresh egg).
My lovely in-laws therefore decided to make it happen and Good Friday saw Mrs Stuffy and myself selecting three pullets from hundreds of identical birds and transporting them to their new home. We selected three different breeds, there's a real need for muticulturalism in Surrey and it does make them easier to tell apart having them colour coded.

Naming is officially on hold since Mrs S promised Rhett (Currently away on business in the Caribbean) that he will get to choose and name the first one but they seem to be bearing up under the strain of anonymity and are affectionally known as the stupid white one, the stupid black one and the stupid brown one. By the way, they're not bright.

So far they've appeared to settle in well. Despite sharing the wood with the incumbent family of foxes, (3 new cubs) my strict regime (defined by repeated viewings of Shawshank) of supervised exercise and an enforced dusk lock-down along with the cunning design of their polycarbonate coop has resulted in happy chucks and vulpine disappointment.

The design of the coop is really very clever and makes it easy to collect and compost the prodigious amounts of poo they produce pretty much constantly.
Guano is the only output so far, I'm assured that eggs will arrive soon, to encourage this I've pinned a recipe for coq au vin up in the run, "p0ur encourager les ouefs"

2009-03-25T20:00:00.000Z

A taste of the 50s ..

There can be few experiences as downright unpleasant as stopping to eat or drink at a motorway or trunk road service area (Heston Blumenthal's A303 Little Chef experiment is, I'm assured, an exception). Whilst making my regular cross-country treks taking ChaCha from paternal to maternal custody I've been tempted, (but never succumbed) by the retro attractions of Nelsons, an American style diner at Kingsclere on the A339 twixt Basingstoke and Newbury. Recently ChaCha and I, both peckish and with time to kill decided to check it out.

There's something deeply attractive for me, (a huge fan of American Graffiti and Happy Days) in the deep red of the leatherette booths, the pastel blues and pinks, the jukebox soundtrack and the idea of pulling up in a white T'bird and ordering a $5 shake.

The experience at Nelsons didn't really stack up to my dreams, (how could it?) but it was kitsch retro fun, good food, well and visibly cooked, smiles with the service and a really pleasant alternative to the drab conglomerate ubiquitous corporate pitstop.

It must be tough to make a living out of somewhere like Nelson's Diner, it's been through 4 incarnations since I first noticed it and I suspect that reflects ownership. If you get the chance to break a journey there I'd recommend it.

2009-03-20T18:00:00.001Z

Watching the watchmen................................ Movie Review

It's fair to say that Mrs Stuffy did not share my enthusiasm for sitting through 3 hours of dystopian Sci Fi, based on a comic (I refuse to play the "graphic novel" card, it's a comic!).

The first few bone-crunching minutes did little to reassure her but, as the tale unfolded both of us were neatly lassoed and drawn into the very human world of the Watchmen. It's a tough tale to tell and the story skips around in time and place like a time-travelling skippy thing but despite this and (contrary to the opinions of some other reviewers) we had no problem keeping on track, and intrigued.
I was astounded by the visual impact, (shades of Blade Runner in the city-scapes) and captivated by the dialogue, particularly the Rorshach segments, painfully well played by Jackie Earle Haley (with echoes of Bogart's Phillip Marlowe, or Marv in Sin City).

The acting was good throughout and occasionally great, Billy Crudup deserves a mention as does the aforementioned Jackie Earle Haley who, on losing his mask, turned in a compelling performance. I loved the cruel humour of the prison scenes, the sheer imagination and beauty of the CGI on Mars, the wit and twists of the montage showing how history moved away from our own familiar timeline.

It's a hell of a story, beautifully told with a sad inevitability about it's resolution. I understand that the author, Alan Moore, has distanced himself from the film, that's a shame, based on our reaction it's his loss.
I commend it to your eyes and minds.

Would you like a haiku?

A tale for dark times
Sweeping, brave and intense
black, bloody and bold

2009-03-11T19:27:00.000Z

A fine example of growing old gracefully, Clint Eastwood does it again

Clinton Eastwood Jr is now 79 years old and based on Gran Torino is still right at the top of his game. This is a well-crafted film, Clint's iconic performance is compelling and thought provoking, the supporting cast, mostly unknown to me, play it perfectly, Thao vang lor in particular shines.

I'm not sure why I found myself identifying so strongly with a misanthropic old bloke with an aptitude for self-righteous violence but I enjoyed it muchly. It's a moving film, it made me laugh and it made me think. It's rumoured that this is Clint's last film, if so he's taking his final bow to a very well deserved standing ovation, (and a tear or two from Mrs S)

A Haiku you say ?
oh very well

The man with no name
has made a film with no flaws
sweet, sour, tour de force

NB: For the benefit of Angelica who does pick me up on the occasional discrepancy with the syllable count in these efforts, I should perhaps explain that I compose them in Japanese then translate the Kanji into English, my apologies for any errors, for Angelica's delectation here's the original.

名前無しの人欠
陥の甘く酸っぱい離れ業無
しでフィルムを作った

2009-03-11T12:20:00.004Z

Signs of the times - on understanding the customer

I spotted this the other day, methinks someone needs a little help in understanding either the meaning of the word loyalty or the meaning of the word customer.

Yes, it was in a Costa Coffee outlet.

...

2009-02-28T18:00:00.000Z

Movie review ....... will she? won't she? did he? should she? Woody - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

There are times, admittedly few, when even a simplistic chap like myself desires a little more from the movie experience than gratuitous nudity, spectacular stunts, more gratuitous nudity and pic'n'mix.

I found myself delighted by this film, a subtle and intelligent movie which will surprise anyone who thinks that Woody Allen has forgotten how to write superb dialogue and direct clever films.
I've been to Barcelona, it was beautifully portrayed, and I fell in love with it all over again.
As the male lead, Javier Bardem was just right and his three leading ladies beautiful, perfectly cast, well acted and intriguing. It's a rare joy to sit, smiling, occasionally chuckling and find that for once Mrs Stuffy and I are as one.

A must see.

Would you like the haiku ?

Captivating tale
Woody reminds us why we
once thought him so good

2009-02-28T17:49:00.006Z

There'll be Bluebird over ...

The Bluebird, a restaurant created in an art-deco racing garage in that there London's trendy Kings Road, an iconic Conran creation as I recall. You'd expect this to be an ideal Stuffy venue, fine food and wines, in an historic building for me and for herself, a plethora of bijou boutiques and purveyors of expensive clothes. We were the guests of chef and cycling chum Winston and the lovely Anna, keen to check out the offerings from the Bluebird chef Mark Block.

It's an attractive building in a super location, albeit, as I breathlessly discovered, a fair old hike from Sloane Square tube. The building is now a curious mix of late sixties furnishings (rarely a good idea) in an Art deco building. Opinion was divided, much to my surprise I thought it worked well, howsoever, as no-one agreed with me we must assume that once again my sense of style is something I fondly imagine that I possess rather than a real thing.

The food? well, the food was very well cooked, very nicely presented and very pleasant, but, (you knew that was coming didn't you) for me it didn't quite get to where it wanted to be, it was just missing a little extra something, the flair, the tang, the secret ingredient. ( In fairness it should be noted that Mrs Stuffy was so delighted with her blood-orange jelly that I spent the next three evenings, skinning citrus and squelching gelatine until I was able to replicate it at a dinner for her school chums).

All in all a very pleasant place for a relaxed supper with good friends, groovy place, nice unobjectionable food, great service.

An agreeable blast from the past and worth a visit.

2009-02-23T11:00:00.003Z

21st Century 3D movies, it's like a Bolt from the red and green ...

It's been a long while since I saw a 3D film (with the exception of the "in your face' experiences at assorted Disney resorts in LA, Florida and Paris).
My last cinematic recollection was "Spacehunter-adventures in the forbidden zone " back in '83 which still makes me extremely nervous when anyone suggests flying through an asteroid field.

The headache caused by that film has finally subsided so it seemed appropriate to take Rhett and Mrs Stuffy and see what the technology can do now. The answer is that the technology has come a long way and now works very well but I was more impressed by the use of it in the trailers for forthcoming attractions than in the main feature itself.

The 3D in Bolt is used in a very understated way. It's possibly too subtle, I felt that the film really needed something a little more over the top. It's an OK film, don't get me wrong, Rhett enjoyed it and CHaCHa thinks it's great but after the initial frenzied 10 minutes it became very predictable.I didn't feel particularly involved (although I did quite like the pigeons).

I fnd myself looking forward to the upcoming Coraline, (Neil Gaiman's writing and a surreal world that looks like it's perfect for 3D silliness), Ice-age3 (1 and 2 were superb) and Monsters v Aliens (Not sure about that one).

I know what you're thinking, "that's all fine and dandy chum but where's the Haiku?"

Here

Incredible Journey
for three D cartoon critters
this one wonders why?

2009-02-19T10:00:00.000Z

A sadness

My apologies gentle readers for the lack of posting, it's been a weird couple of weeks, and I debated the value of sharing this with you, but, you're all (barring the occasional wandering blog tourist) people I know and care about, so indulge me if you will.

A friend of mine chose to end his days a couple of weeks ago, I was going to say an old friend but tragically he was five years my junior, a lovely man full of laughs, full of life, full of energy. I'm at a loss. The funeral service was astonishing, so many people, standing room only, I couldn't help wondering, if he could have seen all the people who cared for him, in one place, at one time, of one mind then maybe ...

So, indulge me in this rare moment of seriousness. if there are people in your life who matter to you, take a moment, let them know.
Thanks.

The blog continues

Forthcoming attractions-watch this space

Movie reviews - Bolt 3D and Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Restaurant opinions - Bluebird in the Kings Road

2009-02-02T09:53:00.003Z

Winter wonderlandy

As the country grinds to a halt and the UK infrastructure collapses under one of the less typical symptoms of global warming the barn is wrapped in snowy loveliness.

The fire is lit and the coffee machine is primed and perky, today I shall mostly be working from home.

2009-01-28T15:23:00.004Z

Slumdog Millionaire, the definitive haiku movie review
It's been a little while my loyal army of blogees, my apologies. It appears that our political Laurel and Hardy, (Messrs Darling and Brown) have decided to pay banks for incompetence which means sadly that I've had to do lots of work to generate the tax income to fund this farcical exercise.

However it's not all bad news

Slumdog Millionaire, the definitive haiku movie review .

From rags to riches ?
a tale told, so very well
I'm lost, for once, for ...

2009-01-07T11:16:00.002Z

A happy new year to all my readers .

A splendid (and thanks to the strength of the Euro vis-a-vis the pound, nice one Gordon and Alistair, hardly horrendously expensive at all) break in Val D'Isere for family Stuffy over the new year has set me up for a splendid kick off to 2009, encouraged by the general air of optimism and well-being I find as I peruse the media and chat with the shakers and movers of our booming economy.

Sadly it's not all cheer and positivity, one of my most forthright and erudite critics, let's call her Angelica (for that is one of the many things I call her) has taken me to task over my glowing haiku review of Wall-E. She was, she assures me so irritated by the movie that she spent a large part of it composing a Haiku rebuttal of my praise. In the interests of balance and free expression I'm delighted to share her thoughts with you.

This Disney movie
Is pure Green propaganda
Brainwashing by stealth
copyright Angelica 2009

Hey kids, don't take the word of two emotionally-opposed, pedantic, smart-ass, cynics for it, go see it, and judge for yourselves.

2008-12-16T23:00:00.000Z

The Christmas traditions ............... No 1 ............... Trial by Ice

Robert Frost wrote

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

And ice can be an awesome thing to behold, especially when it's under an inch or two of torrential rainwater and littered with the wobbling, unstoppable carnage of 50 or so of West London's finest flashing blades...

Every year, as Christmas approaches, the Yuletide fairy (Mrs S) drags us all, kicking and screaming, in the rain and the sleet, to the Cromwell Road in lovely London Town.

The Natural History Museum erects a skating rink in the forecourt, a festive rain-drenched "Xmas Fayre" springs up in the drizzle and we all enjoy the nice ice followed by a choice slice of seasonal pizza. Click the pic for the video experience.