Cinema

Live Out Loud!

| Richard

Well since I last updated this blog, a lot has happened. Obviously the main event was my trip along Route 66 on an Electra Glide (posts syndicated below and on my Big Trip Blog). Breathtaking!

A week back in the UK – missing the States a lot – and I was off to Paris for a couple of days again with one of our Clients.

Back in London and the weather was wonderful at last, making walking home from work lovely if challenging – trying to avoid pubs!

Silhouette
Silhouette

Paralympics were on, bringing with it the Mayor’s fun: a big screen on Potters Field between County Hall and Tower Bridge with stalls selling all sorts of food and a bar. Made walking home and indeed lunchtimes different and bringing out the crowds.

Tower Bridge Adornment
Tower Bridge Adornment

GT got us tickets for the weekend’s Paralympics so off we went for a look around and to be awestruck.

Coca-Cola "Bubbles"
Coca-Cola “Bubbles”

I think GT’s favourite part of the Olympic Park was probably the champagne and seafood restaurant where we spent a pleasant hour or two!

Then the following week, it was my daughter’s 21st birthday, so she came down to stay at mine for the weekend, with a trip to the West End shops for a dress and a champagne afternoon tea at Harrods’ Georgian Restaurant (after we’d had the Best Milkshakes Ever!).

Shake It Baby!
Shake It Baby!
'Arrods
‘Arrods

My 21st birthday present to her was a vanity plate for her car: 1991 AM (her birth year and initials). This was the end of the weekend that I’d spent with GT shopping in Kingston for an LBD for a do coming up with a lovely vegetarian meal on the Thames.

The following week saw more meals out plus a trip and stay in the Midlands to train a client’s staff. Great fun as always, but hard work.

Last week was fun: GT came with me to a champagne drinks reception at the Spencer House in St James Place, hence the new Karen Millen dress and Jimmy Choo killer heels! Driving in the back of a cab over Waterloo Bridge, we saw a huge ride at the Southbank that we decided we had to go on, so plans were hatched for coming back last weekend to ride on Priceless London Wonderground’s high-spinning swing ride, the Star Flyer, the tallest travelling ride in the country at 60m tall, with amazing views of London (especially when we went back later, after dark.

That was a weekend of film too, seeing “Killing Them Softly” (slow-paced but well done) on the Friday night and “The Sweeney” (which was an enjoyable romp if paying only lip service to the original series) on the wet Sunday afternoon.

Quite pleased too, recently, with the release of iOS6 and the iPhone 5 which is a lovely shiny thing!

And finally, Esther, I’ll leave you with my favourite track during this period which sums up a lot of things (more of which later):

Quality Time

| Richard

Well that was another good weekend!

Friday saw Jack coming down First Class as usual with me meeting him at Stratford and then heading to Surrey Quays for dinner at Frankie & Benny’s before heading over to watch Prometheus in 3D – neither great nor disappointing – before heading back to the apartment for a late night.

Mid-morning and we headed off to Surrey Docks Farm for their fabulous Farmhouse Breakfasts and then off to Oxford Street to go suit shopping for Jack. He wasn’t taken with the more expensive suits even on offer at Lewin or Tyrwhitt and Ted Baker, so we settled on the suit he’d seen at Top Man as well as a new pair of shoes. Then back home for Papa John’s pizzas and Euro 2012 on the telly.

This morning, we got up late and then headed off to Liverpool Street for Jack to head back up to Norwich whilst I went off to Spitalfields to buy some Doc Martens for the USA trip.

Now enjoying the television and catching up as always.

Skydive Fail Redux

| Richard

Another great weekend: an early-ish start for me, as I had another photoshoot planned with the fab Anita De Bauch at her home in North London. She’s a great hostess as well as model: knowing I’m watching my weight and love my coffee, she’d laid on decent coffee and some very low calorie snacks to munch on during the shoot, which was on a Hollywood/Film Noir/Boudoir theme.

Some great results already despite my not really having much if any time for edits on Saturday afternoon before I headed over to Epsom for Dinner and a film: the really rather dull “Paranormal Activity 2”.

Sunday morning and off we went over towards Swindon for  our second attempt at skydiving … and our second postponement, again due to weather. Grr! Trying again in October.

Back to Epsom before heading out for an 11.5 miles bike ride over the downs and country parks accompanying GT who’s doing another half marathon in a couple of weeks and hasn’t really trained. Trained? Trust me, she doesn’t need to: she treated it with disdain like a stroll to the shops. Awesome, as they say…

Arthur

| Richard

So Warner Brothers decided to remake “Arthur“, the 1981 hit film,  and then try to sell it to the public (according to an interview I saw on Sky) as having a novel twist: instead of a butler, the new film has Arthur’s Nanny!

Wow! What a fabulous comic turn that is! This is sarcasm, by the way, for the hard of understanding and Hollywood movie moguls.

To make matters worse, they decided to use that completely over-hyped and under-talented Russell Brand for the lead role and trout-lipped cardboard ‘actress’ Jennifer Garner for one of the other roles. Two more reasons to avoid this like the plague.

I wish this would be a complete flop at the box office but I never underestimate the stupidity of the (particularly US) cinema-going public and I expect it to do fine and encourage the studios to make more piss-poor attempts at remaking classics, like they did with Psycho, The Italian Job, Get Carter, Taxi, The Wicker Man, et al.

What Happens in Vegas

| Richard

We went as a family to watch this film last night; I wanted to see either Sex and the City (being teh gayer) or Iron Man, but was outvoted. Having seen the trailer, the story was going to be entirely predictable and just like all the rest of the “hate them then love them” romcoms ever made:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/whathappensinvegas/

Yes, it was as I had thought. But yes, I did enjoy it after all and I laughed out loud a number of times. Oh and did Cameron Diaz and Steve Martin stand in the same line when God was handing out mouths?