it’s autumn already!

It’s been a while! Man, it’s bloody cold.

Apologies for the radio silence, but after spending the best part of three weeks in the summertime rebuilding the blog and latterly the website (or about half of it at least), a screen break was needed. If I sat in front of the keyboard all the time I’d have nothing to write about, apart from anything else.

Many, many new films have been watched and some more then once; this week alone I have headed for the IMAX twice, firstly to see One Battle After Another again (and check out Leonardo Di Caprio and Paul Thomas Anderson in person; sadly no Benicio Del Toro) and then again to join in with a Wicked double bill on Thursday evening. Both worth every penny, and both leaving me wondering how big a screen I could feasibly fit in my flat. The London Film Festival has been and gone (Roofman and No Other Choice being personal highlights), Ryan Coogler has visited for a Sinners chat, and with awards season gathering pace I’m as grateful as ever to have a cinema around the corner, even if my back hasn’t come round to the idea.

By way of Christmas preparation, I decided to make a bit more of a concerted effort (and being from Scotland via Northern England means it’s far less effort for me than most) to keep the costs down. This is after having recently booked not one but two Prodigy tickets for next April plus Underworld at Brixton in February, my annual New Years’ Eve ballet, New Years Day proms and various other mini trips including the vintage tube ride from last time, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (again, but at the lovely New Wimbledon Theatre), and Wendy & Peter Pan at the Barbican (in about an hour!) Plus Lord alone knows how many cinema tickets – even without the LFF and a long awaited Final Destination Marathon at the PCC last month, I’ve long since lost count.

There comes a point where such profligacy has to stop, at least until Christmas is out of the way although Tree (or rather Tree 2, since I missed a year) is on the way back to brighten up the place – yay! Unfortunately not being somebody who enjoys sitting around at home day and night (bearing in mind I do this most work days far more than I’d like to), solutions are needed; whilst a day or two or three of quiet R&R is fine and Pokémon Go – my main source of activity – is largely free, the onset of the cold weather means less time outdoors and more indoor events.

So far I have rediscovered Too Good To Go, where a box of six Krispy Kreme doughnuts RRP £14.95 can be had for under a fiver – they’re not Crosstown but we can’t have everything – and a bag of pastries from Starbucks (hideous coffee; top notch cinnamon buns) for £2.50. The annual Black Friday sales have restocked the bits of the wardrobe that were lacking (jeans and socks) and all trips and holidays are paid for apart from one. And that’s a while away yet.

Back to the here and now, and the most pressing event to report is that as per the frontpage, I will be heading off for a mini break/skive back in the boondocks at my favourite spa as of tomorrow and my work phone will not be coming with me; since I don’t use email, I’ll next see messages upon my return on Wednesday evening. After that it’s full steam ahead to Christmas, and the annual Christmas availability page will be up just as soon as I can find a way to fit the well worn template into this new theme. Hopefully next weekend, when I’m also baking the Christmas cake and going to see the Cinderella ballet; business as usual before that!

Song of the Week could have come from any one of the soundtracks currently on my Spotify rotation, but given that Weapons – like George Harrison – got a little overlooked among the big hitters (a good friend and I argued his position as the most talented Beatle for almost half an hour in a pub many years ago and I’ll still die on that hill – the man wrote Here Comes The Sun, for fucks sake), it richly deserves a corner of it’s own. It would have been better still a month ago, but you can’t have everything.

I’m off to spend a few days moving between sauna, steam and big cushions while somebody else does all the cooking and cleaning, and that is fine by me. Before all that, ticking crocodiles await over at the Barbican and I need to get dressed.

More soon!