11.15 17.09.2012
Went to bed at Midnight but was up at 3am and stayed up writing until 6am drafting a letter. Tried to continue to use sleep apnoea machine with nose mask but this failed. Fortunately machine worked well on return to bed and using face mask went to sleep waking after 8.
11.20 Completed Payments re Credit cards £500 for month. The amount outstanding has gone up over the year rather than decreased but the plan is still to clear all debts other than monthly add addition and commence to save during 2014. Unblocked Argos Card from log on problems last night. New problem with AA card which I will sort out later or start to use another as I am well ahead with cinema tickets for the year.
11.24 Interesting interview with Tony Blair earlier Today Programme on need to stand firm against reaction religious extremism and intolerance. He appeared optimistic that the good people in the regimes would bring about change over the coming generation. Wish I was that optimistic, especially in Afghanistan when Taliban are massing in North Pakistan to return to their former roles. The present corrupt regime will be a disaster in terms of combating this force.
11.25 Completed yesterday‘s Diary and published and did some carrying upstairs and other work processing. Going to have an early curry with brown rice which takes longer to cook.
11.30 I enjoyed watching Gorky Park, the whole film since watching in theatre and watching parts on TV. The film has a great cast with William Hurt, Lee Marvin as one of the villains with Ian Bannen, Richard Griffiths and Michael Elphick, Ian Mc Diarmid and Alexei Sayle. A Russian policeman becomes concerned when the KGB refuse to investigate the case of three young people murdered near a skating rink whose facial features have been removed. He also clashes with an American detective who is trying to find out what happened to his brother, eventually identified as one of the three murdered people through facial reconstruction and they work together until the latter in also killed. He discovers that the three were involved in creating a chest for Sable fur exporter (Marvin) at a time when Sables were only found in parts of Russia. The chest is to secretly move six animals worth millions to the West where he has a remote located farm in Sweden.
The police officer is able to discover the extent of official corruption involved with the help or a young Russian woman, Irina, played by Joanna Pacula who was nominated for a Gold Globe. She was/becomes the girl friend of the Marvin the exporter because of a promise to get her to the West and the policeman after exposing the corrupt officials back home is allowed to go to Sweden to do a deal to have the Sables killed. He agrees to return home after this as part of a deal to allow Marvin and Irina who is with him to stay in the West, He and Irina are nearly killed by Marvin as more corruption is exposed. Marvin is defeated and the policeman releases to the wild the six other Sables found to be held at the farm. He returns home to duty hoping that one day it will be possible for Irina to return home or he to feel able to join her in the west. The film is always enjoyable and engaging to experience.
13.50 I enjoyed the chicken curry and then watched the Home Affairs Committee, the G4 contract, the international company with 660000 employees some 50000 in the UK and the largest outsourcing security and other services in the UK. They are taking an estimated £50 million contract loss from this high profile one off activity where that had 16000 personnel forming 60% of the total security at the Olympic Games. They are also not tendering for the Rio games as a consequence. They are being punished more because of the impact on the good of capitalist free enterprise failure than what they were able to achieve on this one off contract.
13.55 I also watched again Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Back at the end of 2011 (posting 2010) I did an over view of the series of eight films which is essential to understand and appreciate the final film.
The second film especially opens where the Part one concluded as the Heroic Trio have secreted themselves and Harry determines that they must break into the vault of Bellatrix where the second foundation Horcrux is thought to be held. It is the destruction of these objects which will lead to the end of the great baddie Voldermort who has taken power over the World of Magic and the Education academy of Hogwarts.
Hermione uses a shape shifting potion to appear as Bellatrix and they taken along the Goblin Griphook. The vault is in the bowels of earth involving a dangerous helter-skelter ride and although they enter the vault they encounter a problem as everything they touch multiplies exponentially. Griphook tries to turn the tables when exchanging the Horcrux for the sword but the trio manage to escape on the back of a dragon similar to a prehistoric flying creature.
They return to Hogwarts and oust Severus Snape the important link with Harry‘s parents, especially his mother, and the double game he has played all along. Ron and Hermione go to the Chamber of Secrets and destroy what had been hoped was the remaining Horcrux. However they have worked out there is another Horcrux after Harry has confronted the spirit Rowena Ravenclaw and this is a diadem in the Room of Requirement. Malfoy their constant adversary and former fellow pupil and two others attempt to foil Harry who is rescued by Ron and Hermione but then find themselves engulfed in the flames of a fiend. They only escape using broomsticks, with Harry deciding to rescue Malfoy. Ron makes one of the few jokes that he will kill Harry if they die rescuing their adversary. The remaining Horcrux is destroyed leaving just the snake familiar.
The Death Eaters and Voldermort besiege Hogwarts, while Harry, Ron, Hermione, their allies, and various
magical creatures defend the school. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Fred Weasley. Voldermort has pleaded with the school to give up Harry or be killed.
Voldermort then kills Severus Snape because he believes doing so will make him the Elder Wand's true master. Harry finds him dying and uses a utensil to capture the tears of Severus who urges Harry to use them to discover the truth about the overall story and its outcome by consulting one of the devices which has enabled Harry to see back as well as to the future.
There are two revelations which astound Harry and turn everything on its head. The first is while Harry’s father was not the hero that been assumed it was Severus who had adored Harry’s mother and attempted to save and then Harry. He had been a double agent throughout pretending to be on the side of the Dark Lord as a means of guarding Harry and had done this with the full knowledge of head of school Professor Dumbledore.
It was Dumbledore with only a year to live who had asked Snape to kill him as a means of saving the soul of Draco Malfoy who throughout had acted under the influence of his parents who were servants of Voldermort.
However the main and most challenging revelation is that when Voldermort had attacked the one year old Harry he had made the boy into a Horcrux which means that Harry had first kill the snake and then let Voldermort kill him so the dark Lord would be destroyed by his own hands. This presents Harry with his greatest test.
After using the Resurrection Stone to bring back his deceased loved ones for a short while and to ask them about the moment of death and to be with him as he surrenders himself to death at Voldermort hand. Voldermort casts the
Killing Curse at him, sending Harry to a limbo-like state between life and death. There, Dumbledore explains that when Voldermort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, it protected Harry from Voldermort harming him; the Horcrux inside Harry has been destroyed, and Harry can return to his body despite being hit by the Killing Curse. Dumbledore also explains that Harry became the true master of the Deathly Hallows by facing Death, not by seeking to avoid or conquer it.
Harry returns to his body, feigning death, and Voldermort marches victorious into the castle with his body. However, he shows that he is still alive while
Neville Longbottom kills Nagini, the last Horcrux, with the Sword of Gryffindor. The battle resumes, and Bellatrix Lestrange is killed by Molly Weasley.
Harry and Voldermort engage in a final climactic duel. Harry reveals that because he willingly sacrificed himself to death by Voldermort hand, his act of love would protect the Wizarding community from Voldermort in the same way the sacrifice Harry's mother made protected Harry. Harry also reveals that Snape was never loyal to Voldermort and did not murder Dumbledore Voldermort, who murdered Snape, was never the master of the Elder Wand. Draco was the master of the Elder Wand after disarming Dumbledore, but Harry disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor, making Harry the true master of the Elder Wand.
The wand refused to kill the one to whom it had allegiance, further protecting Harry. During the duel, Harry refuses to use the killing curse and even encourages Voldermort to feel remorse, one known way to restore Voldermort shattered soul. Voldermort dies when his own killing curse backfires; he and his Death Eaters are finally defeated. The
wizarding world is able to live in peace once more. Harry breaks the wand and throws it into the deep.
There is a splendid epilogue some nineteen years later and once again the train departs from platform nine and three quarters for Hogwarts. But this time Harry is there as a parent to see a son off to school for the first time. There he meets Ron and Hermione who are married and are also there to see one of their children off to the school. For a moment the trio stand together as the train moves out. Also present at the departure is Draco Malfoy and his family seeing off their son Scorpius
Harry and
(I watched New tricks and the second half of the match before going to bed around 23.20).
Ginny Weasley have named their three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, is found kissing Bill and Fleur Weasley's daughter Victoire in a train carriage. Harry tells his son Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin, that one of his namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account, like it did for Harry.
I am told the book ends with these final words: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."
But is it really the end? I enjoyed seeing the author at the Olympic Games opening ceremony as well as her appearance at the Leveson Inquiry. I have come to appreciate the series more with several viewings, not have read the books and found the individual films difficult to understand without an appreciation of the overview.
14.35 Completed two box transfers to the top.
14.36 I was interested in the film Kings of South Beach because it featured the action Donnie Wahlberg who plays the elder brother detective in the NYPD police series Blue Bloods, New York’s Finest. The film is loosely based on a true story of a man who moved to South Beach Florida from New York where he was part of the Mafia and the Bonanno and Colombo crime families. At South Beach he attempted to create a legitimate club to entertain celebrities including Madonna while continuing an involvement in a number of crime rackets. Wahlberg plays an undercover officer who becomes a best friend. He persuades Chris Paciello to testify against the families after being charged with murder and other crimes. Wahlberg reprise many aspects of his Blue Bloods character although the in fairness the film was released in 2007 before the series.
14.45. I was very impressed by the film The Dark Knight Rides which I saw in theatre. This is the final part of the trio of new films about the Batman comic hero. This in my view is the best of all the Superhero films with some predictable outcomes but also some surprises. The film combines great action sequences with a serious and depth exploration of human issues
Christian Bale plays the superhero and as Bruce Wayne the wealthy businessman and socialite supported by his factotum played by Michael Caine, The film links back to Wayne’s departure from Gotham City to find himself which led to the Tibet style inner truth and physical development and the League of Shadows. Since the death of the woman who sacrificed herself for him he has become a recluse delegating his business affairs and leaving the city under the control of the Mayor and the official forces of Law and Order. Batman has been disgraced with a warrant for his arrest for death of the cities new Hero who was in reality the baddie.
At work and building an underground force of miscreants is Tom Hardy intent on destroying Gotham City as the excommunicated leader of the League of Shadows previously defeated by Batman. With the help of a city official he has gained building contracts where the cement used for structure has been laced with an explosive mixture which he triggers to bring the city under his control, using a Batman created Energy source as a nuclear type bomb which he threatens to explode if Batman does not surrender to him. He plans the city destruction anyway but uses the threat to prevent people leaving the city or attempting to enter it. He also releases criminals from the jails to help control the city and imposes martial law and instant trials and executions.
Two women play crucial roles in the film. The first is Anne Hathaway a clever Cat Burglar who takes a job at the home Batman’s Castle to steal his finger prints on contract to frame and discredit. She has been promised that her criminal record will be erased so she can start a new life. Although the two are drawn to each other it she that eventually betrays Batman into the hands of his enemy, leaving the city defenceless. Batman is removed to a prison in at the base of a great well in a far oriental land which is the only means of exist. The prisoners are provided with food and water via baskets and ropes removed to the top.
Only one person is known to have escaped a young person born the prison and who is believed to be Tom Hardy as the villain. However as the film ends this is shown not to be so but Wayne’s partner in the environmental Energy Project played by Marion Cotillard. It emerges that she was the child prisoner in the prison. Tom Conti plays another prisoner who advises Wayne that the only way out was by the child not using safety ropes. Wayne has to recover from several failed attempts and regain his strength and fear. He has lost his fear in effect wanting to die because of the loss and building up of pressures from all that has happened to him.
At one point he dismisses Caine who in turn threatens to leave because he fears Wayne has a death wish. After escaping and returning although we are not shown how Wayne achieves the return, he attempts to gain the help of Hathaway who at first refuses but then agrees. He is also supported by Morgan Freeman who has run Wayne Enterprises for him and helped create the secret weapons and Energy machine. This works but has been stopped by Wayne because he feared its misuse. He is also helped by Gary Oldman as the Police Commissioner but who has been taken out of action and in hospital and by a young police man John Blake (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who presses Wane to become the Batman Hero again.
In the final long action sequence the struggle is to defuse the bomb with the trigger held by Cotillard and just when it looks as if the combined efforts are successful the countdown continues and Wayne is forced to fly the bomb onto the Ocean where it explodes and where it is assumed he has given up his life as the auto pilot system has not worked.
In an earlier sequence Caine has said that during the years when Wayne was previously away he had pent his time at European city dining at the same street table in the same restaurant, hoping that he would see Wayne eating there one day happy with a wife and family enjoying life and freed from his role and the demons which haunted. They will not speak but just acknowledge and indeed this is what happens at the end of the film after it is revealed that the auto pilot mechanism had been repaired. The woman is Anne Hathaway. There is also the suggestion of a new series, perhaps with the young policeman whose real name is Robin and who once met and was influenced by Batman as a child. It he is who appears to have inherited the secret Batman technology as the film closes.
The film grossed just under a billion dollars two to three times its expenditure. It is suggested part of the falling off from the expected billion plus turnover was because of the city of Aurora Colorado horror when 12 mainly young people were gunned down and another 58 were wounded shootings at a midnight film premier. The film has led to another debate about gun culture in the USA and also the role of film violence in triggering the minds and emotions of individuals. I went to see the film more because of this and also from having seen the previous film in the trilogy as well as the original film series. I was engaged, moved surprised and impressed by this film.
16.00 Two boxes completed for work transfers. I was engaged by the concept of the Planet of the Apes although several of the sequels failed to live up to the original.
16.10 The Rise of the Planet of Apes measured well against the original and I cannot now remember why I did not go and experience in the large screen theatre.
The star of the film is the Ape Caesar brilliantly played by Andy Serkis. Brian Cox plays a keeper of rogue Apes and Baboons ordered into state captivity although that such a number should be held in this way is surprising as are the number of Apes who eventually make their way and home to the Red Wood trees at the end of the film. Apart from these challenges to credulity the rest of the film is excellent and features an obsessed research scientist using the creature to test a new medication which could repair the damaged brain cells as in his father who in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s.
On the day of the great demonstration to shareholders and financial backers the show Ape, showing human levels of intelligence, runs amok. The trial is ended and the scientist ordered to put down the chimps. The scientist then discovers the reason for the aggressive outburst was that she had given birth and was protecting the new born. Unable to execute the baby he is taken home and it is quickly realised that the creature possesses great human powers of understanding and communication. The medication is used on the father who shows remarkable recovery for a time however there is a serious relapse and during this the Ape goes to the defence of the father and is ordered to the sanctuary by a court.
Meanwhile the scientist having disclosed that his discovery could lead to the improve of abilities in the able bodied as well as repairing the damaged is given great resources but following the deterioration in his father he want to suspend clinical trials pending further investigation of side effects and consequences. This is refused and he walks away from the research.
In the sanctuary Caesar is bullied as are other creatures by the son of the owner. He is progressing in in his development and yearns to live free in the Red Wood having been taken there by the scientist and his partner. He becomes the secret leader of those incarcerated and breaking out raids his former home for the medication held there and then into the research centre where he also releases the other apes there as well as from the City Zoo. The full forces of the authorities are assembled against the Apes leaving the City across the Bridge and into the Wood.
It becomes evident that Caesar has learned to imitate the human voice. The scientist having previously brined the Cox to release the Ape was shocked to find that Caesar chose to stay to free his friends and deal with those who had bullied and tortured. The scientist attempts to stop the fighting that breaks out but eventually realises they had reached a point of no return and wishes Caesar well in his new free life.
Meanwhile his former research assistant had been contaminated by the medication in the form of a gas and dies. It appears that virus has been unleashed to cause havoc among the human population although this aspect is not developed other than to suggest a global pandemic! The film has been widely acclaimed winning several awards as well as nominations including an Oscar nomination for Visual effects. The performance of Serkis was also highlighted with several nominations as Best Support Actor including by associations who have not recognised performance capture as real acting. I look forward to the Dawn of the Planet of Apes in May 2014.
16.50 Two more boxes completed with transferred work.
One Day
is not an enjoyable film as there is too much sadness and missed opportunities although it is a good film. On my most recent visit to the Olympic Park while in a queue for the Orbit and again when visiting the lower platform area those waiting were entertained a group of singing and playing Mexicans who did not take their music seriously and enjoyed being photographed and having fun. On return home I have seen them several times in the Doritos advert and then again during the film one day when they perform at a Mexican restaurant where the female lead character is waiting at tables.
One Day
is based on a novel of the same name written by David Nicholls and involves the lives of two young people completing their university Education in Edinburgh on July 15th 1988 and follows how their lives interact on the same day over the subsequent twenty years. The Day is St Swithins with the myth that the weather on the day will last for 40 days and which some also take as good and bad events.
In the film two people spend a night together after a graduation party but without sex although according to the end of the film they go for a countryside walk the following morning and return intending to have sex but run into his parents who have arrived earlier than expected. Thus sets the tone of much else in the film in terms of what might have been and nearly were but always something intervenes. They remain close friends having an intimacy of openness which would threaten other relationships and does; she lives with an unsuccessful stand up comic and works in the restaurant because her poetry is not a success. In the books she writes and performs in plays.
In both film and book the young man Dexter had numerous girl friends, drinks a lot and presents a low level TV show much the distaste of his parents. His mother dies of cancer declaring that she does not like the person he has become. The two have a holiday together which in the films includes an unintentional visit to a Nudist beach where she refuses to participate but in a late night skinny dip which she does. She becomes a teacher. They drift apart having less in common although she retains loving feelings for him
He loses his job and drifts. In the book she has an affair with her headmaster which if it was in the film I missed. He establishes a relationship with a new woman and they have a child together and get married, She published a comic novel which is a great success and goes to Paris where they meet Up. She begins relationship there with a Frenchman jazz pianist just when the man wants to have a relationship with her. His marriage breaks down with his wife‘s infidelity with his employer and former school/university friend. In the book the woman becomes a children‘s author and he manages a deli restaurant which is also successful. They get together and then she is killed while riding her bike. He goes to where they walked on the morning after the met with his daughter from his previous marriage and the film ends with his flashback about what happened don that day
Although one of the themes is the difference between being alone and being lonely, there is more emphasis on being lonely, within and outside of intimate relationships. The other is way events seemingly at random, the juxtapositions of circumstances, can have dramatic effects on lives and in this instance they have more than their fair share, or do they. I did not enjoy the film apart from seeing the Mexican hombres again!
19 50 Preparing to watch Newcastle United at Everton in 3D. Have washed up after evening food of cuppa soup, three pieces of smoked mackerel, red grapes and bowl of cereal. Made supermarket visit by car for stir fry mushroom veg for the rest of the chicken tomorrow, some tomatoes, mushrooms and razors plus a packet of liquorice twists
20.15 Match is not going well. There was a moving standing clapping support Justice for the 96 solidarity three minutes against the song he is my brother.
One more film to remember the awful amoral Killer Elite. A group of professional assassins with the implication of former military/ security service experience/connections are involved in a killing in Mexico. One of the group (Jason Statham) is shocked to find a child in the car with his father who has just been assassinated. Because of the situation Jason is wounded and after the group get away, the man decides to return to Australia, give up the work and live with his girl friend who at that point appears to know nothing about his work.
When he learns that his former partner played by Robert De Niro, has been captured, he agrees to commit several murders in order to free his former leader as well as obtain $6 million. The task is to kill the former members of an Official SAS operation in Oman which led to the killing of three sons of the wealthy Sheik who orders the revenge. His remaining son is not interested in his father mission or in the oil contract which is being negotiated with the British,
In the UK aware that members of the former mission are being attacked and killed a secret group of former SAS agents employ Clive Owen to protect the remaining members of the Oman group and find out and stop those behind what is happening. It is only late on that Clive realises he is being used and that he and the Oman group are expendable with the priority the oil contract.
The Father figure, family man De Niro protects the girl friend of the man who rescued him as the situation becomes bloodier. At the end the three men and the girl friend survive takes shares in the money and go their separate ways. The Sheik is killed and the son decides not to bother the oil contract believing that the contract was carried out. And the moral is? You tell me?
20.49 Everton have score one of their many chances but as half time approaches Newcastle have had two good chances but both not taken. Playing badly they could have been 2 .1 up at this point.
(I watched New tricks and the second half of the match before going to bed around 23.20).
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