Autumn Cinema

Films to watch this autumn, after such a drole summer of rubbish

Everything is Illuminated – Elijah wood in amusing jewish comedy
Flightplan – Jodie Foster designs jumbo and flies on it!
Jarhead – Jake Gyllenhaal directed by the guy who did American Beauty –strange inside look at Gulf War 1
Elizabethtown – has Kirsten Dunst who soul mates the Elf from Lord Of the Rings, so im biased anyway
Pink Panther (great duo with Steve Martin and Jean Reno)
Corpse and Bride (Tim burton using same style as Nightmare Before Xmas – of course with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter again)
In her Shoes – non predictable chick flick with Toni Collette (Muriel in Muriels wedding) and Cameron Diaz

Disabled badge anyone?

Now this is wonderful - take the smallest car you can find and do this with it.



And then this



You saw it here first, and i must apologise to the guest who left it there!

The Lull Before the Storm

Well here i am - its a thursday lunchtime, ive had brekkie and read the newspaper in a cafe, ive washed the car with a jet wash that doesnt work (hence scratches on the paintwork - yes Shelley! real scratches not cobwebs:)) and i have little else to amuse me until i get 2 work tomorrow night. (* i have a week of night shifts). In my last job you used to work the thursday and just get the friday morning off but due to working time directives i have to have the day off before....the lull before the storm bit of course used to refer to a job where there was lots to do on nights, but apparently there will be little for me here - perhaps i can do some revision for that awful exam in march?

I did get my hair cut today so those exciting sidies you see in the piccie below have been banished for fear of scaring the horses. I also look about 17 apparently...without the need for face cream and all those other metrosexual bits required in sex and the city.

This week has been full of obituraries (can you tell i REALLY have nothing to do today), none more notable than either Slipper of the Yard (the one who tracked Ronnie Biggs from the great train robbery to Brazil) but possibly more sadly, Robert Moog, without whose synthesizers the 60's and 70's iconic bands would have had tunes more blase, less colourful.

The Beatles used them on Abbey Road to get more stoned sounds, as well as the Byrds, the Doors and others who could afford enough roadies to roll the 800 odd kilos of boxes and wires onto the stage for live gigs. (The advent of the Mini Moog led to the downfall of hernia repair specialists everywhere) For those who arent tempted to raid daddies cupbard full of vinyl you can hear a good Mini Moog on some of the White Stripes songs, and those of Oasis if you are getting the large multi-tasking barrel-scraper out. For those with a leaning towards American sounds then try nine inch nails, Pearl Jam, Sonic youth and WideSpread Panic.

Speaking of music Juliette Lewis has turned from Deniro-finger sucking vampy 16 year old dick tease in Cape Fear to rock chick and will be appearing as Juliette and the Licks at Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend.

For the more esoteric of you I shall leave you with this url to be seen only when about to prepare food - it comes of course in the wake of the strike by BA's catering services. Most interesting is the section on 1960's and 70's meals served by Aeroflot . (jesus i have got to get a life)

http://www.airlinemeals.net

an amusing aside from an old friend...

In response to the London bombings , AP and UPI reported that the French
Government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert
level from Run to Hide.
The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate.
The rise was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white
flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

The right brain

The following website i like www.therightbrain.co.uk - its an outlet for medics otherwise starved of non scientific interaction - im at the bottom in the music section with a piece called Kermit on Coke - the gif is like the one below - enjoy

The week continues - a short story and some thoughts

my new job continues fine

this week i have been supervised in performing two operations both laparascopic, one is a sterilisation and the other the removal of an ectopic (born outside the womb and life-threatening) pregnancy. Both went well and im hooked on surgery now. Ive already booked a surgical skills course next month and will be sitting my first exams in march (it takes 3 goes on average to pass them but ill try and make it 2 as they cost 320 quid a go.) What does this all mean - im continuing with my career and its heading in an exciting direction with no distractions (well no serious ones anyway)

In the mean time heres a short story i wrote a few years ago which one night find amusing/interesting/dull as dishwater.

You’re sitting in the end carriage of the Inter-City train, stomach already burning from the second cup of black coffee, the first bought at Bristol Temple Meads and the second from the buffet car, just getting juiced up for the night.

The book is interesting but not enough to stop you noting the girl a few seats down tapping things into one of those electronic diaries, looking occasionally puzzled and writing something into a ledger. You can only see her between the head reats of the seats in front, but the view is enough.

“I’m not getting on a bus”’ you suddenly hear from the Welsh-Lass in the corner. The train’s going to Paddington you see, and you know as you hear the odd word, ‘Camberwell’, that she’s meeting someone that night in London.

You guess judging by the look: late teens, centre-parted-straight-down-to-the-shoulder-blades, blonde hair that she’s either meeting her mum or a bloke. Of course, being male yourself you bet it’s the boyfriend, and you play over in your mind what her night in London will be like. No, not the sex, but the arguments, the recriminations… she’ll be angry at him for dragging her up there. But you know when she first sees him that she’ll be all smiles and laughter. No, the first bitching will start in the taxi from the station. He’ll have forgotten to do something or will mention that he went out the other night, something he forgot to mention in his most recent ten-minutes-nightly, half-interested phone-call from the pub. She’s touching up her makeup now…maybe she’s getting off at Reading.

But even as you’re thinking this, your eye’s flitting over to the other girl – she’s older, perhaps, 29,32. She’s lot easier to watch as she doesn’t notice you looking at her, so engrossed is she in her clumsy-whole-handed grip writing, scribbling in her ledger. (Welsh-Lass is now brushing her hair, a trial run perhaps for if and when she gets off in London.)

The other woman is more tomboyish, cargo-pants instead of spray-on black polyester, surrounded by what look like fragments of a manuscript – well there’s writing on them …you aren’t sure if it’s hers or someone elses.

She’s wearing a green/white t-shirt. Again not the usual cheap cotton worn by Rhianne (let’s call our Welsh lass that shall we?) but looser than a crop top, with the slightly fuller breast of an older woman. She’s got shortish blonde/brown hair you see more than her face, she, still poring over the fragments, and when you do see her face, it’s there frozen, locken in concentration.

Scenario 1: – she’s tanned, and her style is that of a smartish, older student world traveller – so she’s kept a diary of her experiences on the electronic-thingy (which she still keep s referring to and seems now to be transcribing the contents onto patterned paper, to friends and unknowns like…all the sights and sounds and sensations she recorded whilst in the Outback, or taking those can’t-fail-but-be-natural haunting photographs of the orphaned Penomh Penh/ Calcutta/ Mbabane children, clutching the biro given to them to make them smile.) But she seems a little more pensive than that – something more creative perhaps?

Scenario 2: she’s been travelling, but is writing a book on her experiences (Welsh-Lass is now listening to dance music on her personal stereo, but keeps rewinding and fast-forwarding, the tiny sounds on the edge of hearing like a mosquito on the inside of the bed-net.) The intensity with which she looks at those pieces of paper suggest this, even though some of them are folded over, as if taken out of a small envelope – perhaps a secret correspondent…but why has she pulled out the electro-gizmo again?

Scenario 3: - she’s in fact a modern-day female Indiana Jones, small-time archaeologist decrypting the scribbles on the papers, hastily copied down from outside a tomb in Ulan Bator.

As the train pulls into Reading she prepares to get off, and all the time all you want to to do is to ask, to know what she was writing…but this is England…random approaches to solitary women on a night train will turn some heads, get unnecessary questions asked. You almost get the courage up to slip you email address into the top of her rucksack as you bump into them, but before the chance arises she is off the train, down the platform and off into the night…you never bothered whether Welsh-Lass got off the train.

iTunes

For those of you who look at the iTunes store - i just noticed that you can log into stores all round the world - theres even a greek one with the top ten hit by the Armageddon Dildos - some punk german technoband - i wonder if dildo translated into greek properly or do they think its really shit hot stuff anyway?

Jx

A couple of jokes

What do you call an Aardvark who wont fight?


A vark

There was an explosion at a car part factory - the newsheadlines said it was raining Datsun cogs

For amusement please look at this site and read it to the bottom http://www.venganza.org/

The high life

Have just woken up after a few post shift pints - the new job is lovely and its a very different feeling being an SHO - you no longer feel like a mule in the job like a houseman. I am now fully registered to practise in this country in any capacity...its almost like graduating again.

This week has been mainly clinics but fun all the same - have decided to go for MRCOG (college exams for Obs and Gynae) as i can either stay in the speciality, go for radiology with the same exam or become a GP - however after chatting to a couple of Mumbles Colleagues today i might also jump over to new zealand for a bit before settling into my career.

In the meantime i have been voted to become social rep for the O&G lot so will have to think of original things outside the Philly (medics pub) in town - i think the next stop should be the Glee Club in the bay.

The house is taking shape- i keep going to tescos and sainsbury's to buy new quilt covers (3 double bedroom), and things for the kitchen.

Its a nice little sun trap out the back (ok there isnt a trillion tonne ball of gas in my back yard but you know what i mean)

Tara

Jamie x

The rules of divorce

1. The next person you sleep with will not be your life partner - you will be getting over the last. If you're not then you either have good compartmentalisation of feelings (which will eventually rear their ulgy head again when you least expect it) or you didnt love them in the first place. If you feel happy about never seeing them again then maybe you werent in it in the first place. You have to however try to imagine this as a single person to ensure your next encounter isnt blurring the feelings of the last. Of course its much easier to go out on a sexathon and eminiently more enjoyable than sat at home hugging a pillow in the corner of a pitch black room, your tears smudging the ink of the till receipt they bought you a toothbrush with. A very close friend did well on casual acquaintances when he said to every next girl "im not mr right but im mr right now". Why so many went for it is up to debate but probably the challenge, if not the no-ties sex.

2. Any songs/films/coffee brand you used to share will remind you of your ex - when they stop reminding you then you have moved on, but you may also find that you dont ever enjoy the songs again, as the shared feelings they invoked were intregral to the enjoyment. Of course if your ex used to listen to such pap that you only tolerated it through the rosy tinted specs of love then this transition will probably be very quick. I have found a transitional song by Thom Yorke and PJ Harvey "This Mess Were In"...one of them is the new and one of them is the old. In fact its worth trying on its merits alone.

3. All attempts to speed the moving on process by obliterating the old with new experiences dont really speed it up they just cushion the transition.

4. You will wake up one morning where the occasional twinge of regret will be completely replaced by a new found love of new opportunities and freedom. It is ok to feel both for a while.

5. Live life fast die young, ever upwards and onwards etc

Love j xx