Cyberclogs

I went and saw Quantum of Solace the latest bond film on Friday and I have to say I rather enjoyed it, it turned out a lot better than I thought it would as I had heard mixed things about it. But its is actually a much tauter film that Casino Royale which was very good but overran a little and was a bit flabby in places.

Daniel Craig does a fine job as the irrevocably cold secret agent James Bond, in fact the only thing that kind of leaves me cold about Daniel Craig's Bond is that he is almost like a human version of the Terminator (or inhuman) as he kills ruthlessly throughout the movie, piling bodies thicker and faster than any previous Bond. His Bond does of course have little moments of kindness but they are of course few and far between, nonetheless it is good to see a grittier Bond on screen rather than the overly tongue in cheek ones that went before. The action in the movie is really good and it comes very fast, in fact this movie feels more reminiscent of a Jason Bourne movie, except with some moments of humour in there to relieve the drama. The bond villain was also very effective Mathieu Amalric who played a very creepy Dominic Greene, in fact that has been a good strength of Craig bond movies, the villains have been very sinister. Oh and Olga Kurylenko is pretty hot as the Bond girl.

However when I saw Quantum I had to leave the cinema about 20 minutes before the end to catch a train to Edinburgh so I'll need to go back and see it again to catch the rest of it! Bah! (Mainly thanks to Cineworld putting on 30 minutes worth of trailers and adds which we could all do without!). But I will look forward to see it all so I might go back tomorrow to my local cinema and view it again.

Oh and I went through to Edinburgh to see my fellow Patter Merchant Judith's band play, and they were pretty good so it was a good night, even though there was some crazy drunken women stoating the stage area trying to hump or dance with everyone in sight! (quite funny really). The band played well and their music was kind of reminiscent of Pavement, the drummer was really good, he had the energy of Keith Moon and Danny Goffey of Supergrass (although he moved around more like Keith!).

So all in all quite a good day yesterday, and its nice to have a chilled weekend for a change.

So the long awaited (well two months wait anyway) Patter Merchants follow up I'm glad to say went very well and everyone in the group performed great. This time round we had 12 scenes to go through, which was split up into two halves, so we had a good variety of scenes, in fact we had a fair bit more comedy this time round than last, although there were still some dramatic scenes too.

Some highlights included Scott and Miriam's hilarious scene from Damsels in Distress (complete with Scott acting as a supposed former SAS man and a rubber bat). The Odd Couple with Judith and Miriam was also very funny as it was female version of course (taken from a re-written version for women) and they both had great New Yoirk accents. Teresa and Hilde were also great in their scene from Angels in America, Teresa really got into her bizzare character in this one, it was great to watch. Top Girls with Wilma and Arlene was also pretty powerful stuff and the heaviest scene of the collection as Arlene played a young runaway girl and Wilma played her enstranged mother. My scenes went down quite well too, He Who Gets Slapped, where I play a clown and Fliss plays an acrobat, and I gave her a scary palm reading, and A Laughing Matter where I played a pompous arrogant theatre director and Wilma played an ex-mistress and theatre star (both replete in period dress). On both nights we had really good audiences so it was a good boost to get such a response from the crowds.

Anyways that's the Patter Merchants over for the year, perhaps next year more will follow, not sure when or what will happen, but we'll wait and see.

Its already been a bit of a mad weekend so far. I've just come home from a rather busy day out in the town, in the afternoon I went up to the RSAMD where Bill our tutor who takes us for the Patter Merchants group to rehearse our scenes. Being my first experience of the RSAMD, I must admit I quite enjoyed looking around the building, even though I was a bit infuriated by its long winding corridors and less than helpfully marked door signs!! I had a bit of bother trying to find Bill's room only to find he wasn't actually in it but in a different room altogether! So good start. But thankfully we sussed it out and got on with some rehearsing. One bit of advice if you are ever thinking of buying a cup of tea from the RSAMD, don't bother as you will just end up trying to pull the cover off and spraying hot tea all over yourself!! (If you are me that is!).

Anyway I'll be back in again tomorrow for some more rehearsing with my other scene partner Wilma, which so far it has been going fine (although we await more scene "tweakage" tomorrow!).

After that I went home and went back up in the evening to see electronica melancholica band Cinephile do their stuff up at the Gilmore G12 building, which is a very nice venue, and they were very good indeed, Susan their singer put in a great vocal performance and Kenny Inglis (the songwriter and deckman) expertly chruned out the samples and keyboard work. So I look forward to the next time they play, G12 is a great venue too, would like to see another gig there sometime.

Oh and a quick note on my Radio Theatre Group play during the week which I played the eponymous Hitch Hiker (which involved a fair bit more than my first role, mainly me scribbling down many notes on when to appear as the Hitch Hiker and how to do it), it was good fun up at the Ramshorn Theatre again. It was a good show and Derek MacDonald's main performance as Ronald Adams was in my opnion very good and everyone I have to say did a fine job. So that's me finished with the RTG for now, I might have a small part coming up for their Festive Fear season (in December of course) so we'll see how it goes. I have to say I've enjoyed working with Bruce Downie, as the direction he does give you can be quite creative, incisive and provides a good end product. So I'll look forward to getting involved again.

That'ss enough for now, more soon, in the meantime I'll get on with more Patter rehearsals! But for right now.... time for bed!