Cyberclogs

Its been a while since I posted up anything as quite alot has been going on so thought I'd post about it just now. Well we are a few weeks into rehearsals for Abigail's Party the Patter Merchants next venture and so far its going pretty well, the cast (which includes Susan (who plays Sue funnily enough) and Gill (who plays Beverly) from our last PM show and a couple of newcomers Tessa (as Angela) and Martin (as Tony) have all been excellent so far and we've been doing the usual bonding, warm ups, getting to know one another. We've also been lucky to get a very good director, Richard, who has a good understanding of the play and has already worked out some of the blocking. As I'm playing the character of Laurence, I've got a fair bit of dialogue to learn so its been a challenge but I'm getting there slowly. So there will be alotta work ahead over the forthcoming weeks before Abigail is ready for public consumption, which hopefully will be in September at the venue Stereo soon!

Anywayss onto other things my redudancy at Clydebank College is looming ever closer, to be honest I'll be glad to get out the place at the end of the month, as I need a change, although given the current climate, I don't think they chosen the best time to let me go!! So its difficult job hunting and trying find something when theres a hundred odd people applying for the same post, but that's the way it goes. It is a pain trying to find something though! It will be good to get a break but I'll need to find something fairly soon.

On a film review note I went and saw Public Enemies at the weekend there, to be honest I did enjoy it but I felt it was a bit overlong and lacking in places. Johnny Depp played the part of John Dillinger really well, and Michael Mann provides some excellent action scenes, but overall the film fell a bit flat at times. Hollywood licence no doubt would be taken with certain scenes (I can't imagine John Dillinger walking into the FBI headquarters in disguise while they were all looking for him!). Nevertheless it is an entertaining film and worth a watch.

On another review note I recently bought a Doctor Who DVD The War Games, which was Patrick Troughton's final story. This story is worth mention as for one it is an epic 10 part show, which does drag occassionally but overall holds the attention, but more importantly it is the first story that introduced the Doctor's own people, the Time Lords. The Doctor with his companions Jame and Zoe at the start end up in what appears to be the trenches during World War I but as it goes on they end up in different in wars from different time zones, such as the Roman times, the American Civil War, and others, pretty soon they discover they are part of a grand scheme controlled by aliens called War Lords, and one of the Doctor's own people, The War Chief. Despite its remarkable length (over 4 hours!) The War Games is a great send off for Patrick Troughton and he is great throughout the story. The introduction of the Time Lords is also really well done and the final episode has got to rank as one of the best, not to mention one of the most dark and downbeat endings for a Doctor (with the Doctor's trail resulting in his exile to Earth and being forced to regenerate, which leaves the Doctor spinning throughout space, helpless). The supporting cast are also really good too, with Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury as fine as ever, and Edward Brayshaw providing some good panto villainary, and Philip Madoc providing some chilling underplayed Welsh villainary. Anyway its a good DVD so if you are a fan of the show, buy it!

And on that note that's enough for now.

OK in reverse order.... I might as well announce on this blog if not anywhere else that next month I'm going to be made redundant at Clydebank College. To quite honest it will be a relief to get out of the place as the management have took it upon themselves to do a restructure of the collge, which means cutting back on budget, which inevitably means jobs will be cut and the old redundancies rears their ugly heads. To be fair its not been a bad place to work, although there have been some days I definitely wished I was elsewhere and the odd member of staff that has made things rather annoying and difficult! (I won't say who!). So I'm now hunting for another job, its great fun of course, not! Applying for anything on the go really, especially in the Admin field, mainly cos I don't have much experience in any other work area (sadly!). But anyway hopefully I will get something, somehow.

Now onto Terminator Salvation, which I went and saw last night. I think it probably is fair to say it is the weakest film of the four but having said that, Salvation is far from a disaster. In fact TS is quite entertaining, my only real problem with it is that it takes itself way too seriously, and it sorely lacks the humour of the previous 3 films. Just imagine the start of T3 and the dreary voice over from Nick Stahl, well its kind of like that tone wise throughout. However the action scenes are actually really good and quite visceral, finally getting to see the human wasteland of the future fully visualised is something of a thrill. The terminator machines manage to keep their menace and are quite scary in places (watch for the "Arnie" cameo). Characters wise everyone is of course deadly serious but the supporting cast do well in their roles especially Anton Yelchin as the young teenage Kyle Reese who is helped by ex-inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and Moon Bloodgood (yep now there's a name!) is not bad as the spunky, saucy Blair. But I have to say Christian Bale as John Connor just didn't really work for me, he is the weak link in the cast, Christian just seems to have taken playing the part straight just a little too literally, he certainly doesn't have the humanity or vulnerability that Nick Stahl brought to the role. So I think Christian Bale to be honest was mis-cast, perhaps with the right actor in the role, TS could have been even better, but instead I was kind of waiting for some more explosions and action when he was on screen.

Anyway regardless of all that, Terminator Salvation is definitely entertaining, yeah sure its deadly serious but its got non stop action and its action is great and that's enough to reward its place in the Terminator series.

Guess what? Yep, I have the cold again! Well it is the summer (well just about) so guess I was bound to get it at some point, my immune system hasn't had much luck of late over the past couple of months, but I am at least starting to get over (although I am still a bit blocked up) it. So its been sneezing, runny nose, achey limbs, the usual cold joys. But I'm on the mend anyways, so enough of my health worries...

Thought I would blog on the the last two episodes of the Apprentice since I haven't done so since they've been on. A quick recap of episode 11 saw the remaining 5 candidates go through the usual tough interviews stage, most of the candidates faired well except for James who got all flustered in the interview especially with Claude. Claude also read out some crass comments from James's CV one which was a classic said "I put a leash on people who spunk their money up the wall!". It just makes you wonder what kind of idiot puts this sort of thing in a CV and how they could think it would make a good impression! Anyways however the other candidates were not without flaws either, Yasmina was pulled by Claude for not knowing what the term "turnover" actually meant and she didn't know the difference between net and gross profit. Kate was also pulled up for her alleged robotic and efficient manner as well as griping about working within teams comprised totally of women since they she felt they bitch and moan alot (not to sounds sexist or anything but I totally know what she means!). Anyways in the boardroom Sir Alan made his decision and he finally fired James, which to be honest he should have done weeks ago, as James's presence in the show up to Week 11 was a miracle if nothing else, or mainly just cause he made for good TV. Then followed Lorraine and Debra, leaving Yasmina and Kate in the finale, at least Sir Alan got it right in the end.

For the final episode the two finalists Kate and Yasmina had to come up with an idea for a brand new box of chocolates to sell to a certain market and pitch them in front of industry experts. Kate and Yasmina both did very well at this task in different areas although Kate over priced her chocolates while Yasmina's chocolates tasted poor (Strawberry and Basil choccie anyone?! No I didn't think so!). But in the end in the boardroom after much deliberation and cogitation Sir Alan chose Yasmina as his winner and I think once again he chose the right person. To be fair I think it was a real tough call between the two of them but overall I think Yasmina had the right amount of friendly personality, get-up and go, ambition and determination to be the winner. So that's another Apprentice over and done with, and I'll look forward to next year's when we have another 12 weeks of fun again.

Didn't get a chance to write up on ep 9 of the Apprentice so a quick recap, it was selling baby products at a baby show, to which saw the end of the arrogant and cocky Ben, to be fair he did struggle in this episode and he did let go of some of his attitude somewhat. Seems a shame and in fact I'm surprised James who PM'd this task and failed it didn't GET fired for it, he really is the cat of this series, how many more lives can he have! Anyway....

Just been watching episode 10 of the Apprentice, and I really enjoyed it as its the usual QVC one, where the remaining candidates have to pitch products live on TV and yep its great fun to watch them make a tit of it!

To be fair I think both teams did very well in these tasks and it was a very close call on the decision. The ever efficient and excellent Yasmina managed Empire whilst the ever efficient and also excellent Howard lead Ignite. For Empire's team James and Yasmina pitched together and not surprisingly James made a bit of a tit of himself (forgive him for being nervous of course) as he stumbled to begin with. But Debra did a very good job presenting live and in the secured alot of sales. On the Ignite team Howard and Lorraine presented together and they also did a good job and chose more expensive products (as Empire chose cheaper products) while Kate did an OK presentation of some pretty poor products (an air guitar "head!" and some cat pin thing!).

In the boardroom though it was decided that Empire were the winners as they sold the most, with Debra selling the bulk of their sales with over £900 out of about £1500. This came as a real shock as I thought Ignite would definitely win with their choice of products being more expensive, such as the deep fat frier which would be a dead cert surely. However in the boardroom Sir Alan had to make a decision and regretfully he chose to fire Howard, which I felt was a mistake, as Howard is definitely one of the strongest candidates in the entire show, even Margaret felt Sir Alan was wrong. But Sir Alan felt he didn't take enough risks, a point which the clairvoyant Lorraine raised early on in the episode, and sadly Howard didn't listen to Lorraine on taking a risk on one of the choice of products, pity, another one underestimates Lorraine! So that means James has escaped the firing line once again and he is the only remaining man in the competition! (a real surprise considering!).

So I'm really looking to next week's episode which features the interviews, where the remaining contestants get shredded in the interview process by some of Sir Alan's toughest interviewer experts (so bring on the bulldogs Claude, possilby Paul, and the ever shrewd Borden if that's his name).

Right this is going to be a big one:

OK, I'm feeling better now, this week actually has been good for me as I've got the place to myself while the folks are away on holiday, so its the usual fend for oneself and try to remember to all the household chores (ok not that many really!). Last night though I was pleased cos I managed to finally get to cook for myself as I've been out at nights quite a bit this week so last night was a night in, made some sausage pasta, yum yum! The week to myself however could have been better if didn't have that viral bug come back on me like it did last Friday night as I felt a bit crap for half the week, but thankfully its cleared up for now (for now! or for a good while I hope!).

Anyways as I said its been a busy week, on Monday managed to get a couple of DVD/Blu-ray discs, so I was chuffed to finally get Doctor Who: The Deadly Assassin on DVD (OK nerdy mode on!) which was really good, hardly forgotten how good it was and it showed Tom Baker effortlessly holding his own without a companion to assist him (he basically needs someone to spout out the exposition to!). The story is a wonderful mix of suspense, thrills, high drama and there's some comedy too of course (I love the line where Cardinal Borusa says to the Doctor "You will never amount to anything in the galaxy as long as you retain your propensity for vulgar fascetiousness!"). The story is about the Doctor returning to his home planet Gallifrey to try and prevent the assassination of the President of the Time Lords only to find himself framed for the crime himself.

The cast are all great in the show with excellent performances from George Pravda as Castellan Spandrell, Angus MacKay as Cardinal Borusa and Bernard Horsfall as Chancellor Goth. The only thing that slightly let it down for me was that the Master albeit played excellently by the late Peter Pratt was perhaps a little too dramatic all the time with too much emphasis on high drama and hardly anything in the way of wit and humour. In short it didn't remind of the Master as he should be, but I guess as the character was dying he would be highly melodramatic. All the same The Deadly Assassin is a classic from a time when Doctor Who was at its absolute peak, and its a real reminder of just how good the show can be, as this show certainly stands miles above the current Russell T Davies ressurected campathon, much as I enjoy it, it'll never scale those heights again.

Now onto The Apprentice episode 8 which was once again very entertaining and had me shaking my head at the screen at certain points going "Why? Why? Why, Debra??!". But anyway this week's ep saw the two teams having to come up with an idea to rebrand Margate, Empire chose a theme of the gay community while Ignite's theme was family. From the get go Ignite's campaign showed much more promise mainly because the team worked as a team, apart from some resistance from ever gobby Lorraine always having her say. But Yasmina proved herself to be an excellent project manager again as she kept a level head and just got on with it. The Empire team however was a different story, with Debra bulldozing her way into being the project manager despite Howard initially stepping to do the job. Howard despite not getting to be project manager did manage to supervise the creative side of the task and he did an excellent job. However I think their task was let down by a lack of support from Mona, and James to be fair did his best to pitch in despite making the odd off colour comment (to the guy models pretending to be a gay couple he said "OK guys we're not making a porno!"). Their posters were frankly awful and their leaflet for their campaign left a lot of blank space in it, too, this was mainly Debra's fault as he spent so much time mucking about not making a decision. Another important point here was that Debra doesn't listen to anyone, or rather she is unable to as it goes in one ear and out the other! Howard while trying to make a good point about the poster having too many words just fell on deaf ears while Debra was supposedly listening, and their posters ended up with too many words. During the pitches by the teams, both pitches were well received but it was Empire who fell short of the mark as people thought their posters were dreadful and confusing.

In the boardroom Sir Alan told them that of the two teams Ignite were the winners as the Local residents and Industry experts gave them 7/10 while Empire only got 4/10. After that in the boardroom Debra who came back in with James and Mond, showed a bit more restraint this time probably because of her verbal warning from Sir Alan about her attitude towards Nick last time. But in the end Sir Alan had to chalk it up to how people had peformed in the past weeks and he decided to fire Mona because of her lack of creativity (although he did fire her "with regret"). To be honest though I thought Sir Alan was wrong to fire Mona too, as she herself said, if anyone should have been fired it should have been Debra, she mis-managed the task badly and didn't listen to anyone. James was also skating a bit on thin ice as his contribution wasn't major from what I'd seen Mona took more to the asking the questions, James seem to hang around the background. I'm also not so sure about James in the show now as I think he seems to be watching his own back and try and not get himself fired as well as being a bit of a grass by dobbing on other people (namely Mona). So out of the remaining contestants so far, the ones I'd like to see with a chance of winning and getting into the final would be Yasmina, who has really proved herself as a manager and has a good positive way of working with everyone, and Howard, who really stepped up in this episode and also is very level headed and Kate, who is very capable although she does appear to be a bit icy at times.

Phew! That was a long un. That's all for now.

Well well well (3 wells!) just when you thought it was safe to go out into the world again low and behold I've been feeling bugsy again over the weekend, its not the same viral symptoms as last time, weak arms and legs with rash on my tongue, no its morely upset tummy and muzzy head and slightly weak limbs. To be honest I think I've just been feeling run down after all my hectic activity of late with my acting classes/group work and going out etc. That's the only downside to my acting is that after all the rehearsing for a show and after you perform you usually feel pretty drained once its over, especially after doing the Tom Stoppard double bill in February I was totally done in! (as was Scott who did it the other show then too). So I've actually decided to stop being a couch potato so much and have ordered myself an exercise bike, so that way I can actually try and build up some energy after work nights so that way I'm not so zombied at nights, we'll see how that works out!

Anyway on another subject having watched Apprentice episode 7, thought I'd post up about it. It was another very enjoyable episode, this time the two teams had to travel North to Liverpool and sell two chosen products to stores. The task had mixed success as Empire lead by Mona did very well on their sales with over £4000, while Ignite lead by Lorraine did rather poorly with only sales of over £1400. In the boardroom Lorraine received a bashing not only from Sir Alan but also from Philip and Kate who were on her team who didn't sell a single thing (Lorraine was actually responsible for most of the sales in her team!). But after much slinging and slagging Sir Alan finally made up his mind and fired Philip because of his arrogant cocky attitude, which I think was the most deserved firing yet, Philip didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, he didn't listen to criticism and most of all he didn't listen to Lorraine. Lorraine was Philip's nemesis all along, but he really did bring it upon himself by purely being arrogant and thinking he was better than everyone else (which he wasn't!). Lorraine was skating on thin ice as well though as she clearly alienated the other people in her team apart from Ben and Yasmina (although they did have a run in over who would take control of the sales pitch). But she did sell well and she has the weird sixth sense of being right especially when other people are wrong. Kate on the other hand also showed no loyalties toward anyone, as she even went as far as going against her seemed ally Philip by criticising his performance in the task, as well as denying that they had a relationship (which is debatable based on the footage). So even though she's pretty effective lady (and pretty of course!) we'll need to watch out for her. Ah wellie well!

Anyways look forward to the next one.....

Last night's episode of the Apprentice was once again very entertaining and it always starts to really get going when it reaches the halfway mark (hard to believe we're already there eh??).

This time the two teams had to sell a lot of bric-a-brac on the streets of London at a profit (that means Ben, that you sell it for more than its valued at!). The two teams were lead by Ben lead Empire while Philip lead Ignite, now while this may sound like two of the most assertive and competent candidates were leading this time round, things still managed to go way off course. For starters Ben decided to unevenly split up the selling of the items, by given half his team 3 and his other half (that he would sell) 7! Surely as Debra pointed out a 50/50 divide would have been much better. To top things off Ben drastically kept underselling every item, he seemed to completely miss the point of the task, sell at a proift not a loss, Ben! On the Ignite team, Philip was no genius either mind, because of his previous clashes with Lorraine he once again completely chose to ignore her advice on valuing the Indiain carpet item (which turned out to be the most valued item on the list at over £200!) so they ended up wandering round trying to get it rid of it last without even valuing the carpet in the first place since Philip seemed to think it was nothing but old tat!

But at the end of the day (its a cliche I know) Philip's team managed to win the task because they at least took more of a profit than Ben's team did (albeit both teams still made a loss, Philip's team just made less of a loss). In the boardroom Ben after some hesitancy decided to bring back in Noorul and Debra for the failure of the task, and after a little show of fire and self defence from Noorul, and some rather lippy words from Debra to Nick (shame on her! She got a well deserved warning from Sir Alan) no to mention a flustered Ben trying to defend himself, Sir Alan made the decision we have all been waiting for, and fired Noorul. Let's face it Noorul was probably the weakest contestant in the show, Majid even showed more interest and passion than he did on the odd task but Noorul either through TV show editing or a pure simple lack of contribution, didn't show us anything, so it was time for him to go.

Anyways that's it for now, time for some work.... blueeghhh!!