Great escapes, shopping and a movie

We went to the Imperial War Museum yesterday (Saturday) which was cool. Lots of tanks and planes on the ground floor which were heaven for all the boys and men there (and there weren't that many girlies there!), but we spent our time in a special exhibition - Great Escapes. It was really interesting - about POWs escaping from different prisons, but focused mainly on the famous ones - Colditz and Stalag Luft III (the Wooden Horse escape and the tunnel - made famous by the movie The Great Escape). Quite fascinating to read how POWs saw it as their duty to try and escape, and how the Germans expected them to. And also how as they had signed the Geneva Convention they weren't meant to punish them too horrendously (which didn't work for the tunnel escape where 50 of the 76 men who escaped were shot by the SS on the orders of Hitler).

I learnt from Kevin that after the war when his dad was a lawyer down in London one of his clients was Oliver Philpott - one of the three men to escape through the wooden horse! I thought that was pretty cool. And also that New Zealanders were involved in the tunnel attempt - two men escaped through the tunnel but were caught and shot by the SS and a third was captured at the mouth of the tunnel and survived. I think two of them were flying in the RAF. Both websites I've linked to above have good information on the escape attempts, along with the names of the survivors and victims if you're interested...

Then we went and did a bit of shopping and then went to watch Jarhead - just to keep the war theme going. Thought it was very very good. Has been criticised apparently for not focusing too much on the futility of war, but I thought it conveyed that pretty well. And the details about the soldiers lives in Iraq were interesting as well - a Wall of Shame where photos of wives and girlfriends who had cheated on them or dumped them were put up... Definitely a film I'd recommend.

Memoirs of a Geisha + Walk The Line

Went to see Memoirs of a Geisha last night - quite good, but a bit too long. Could have easily cut 20 mins out of it without weakening the story.

But it was great to see Gong Li in a film again - I love all her older Chinese films like 'Raise the Red Lantern', 'Farewell My Concubine' etc.

But my hot film tip of the moment is Walk The Line - go and see this. It is really great. Superb acting (they should both get Oscars for their performances) and the music is fab too.

Dentists and doctors

Well poor old Kevin had a very uncomfortable weekend last weekend suffering from toothache - really badly... Not having a dentist down in London there wasn't much he could do except quaff painkillers until he could get to one on Monday. But what I thought was interesting was that on Sunday I thought we could go to an emergency doctor to get some painkillers - nothing is ever that easy over here tho!

Rang my doctor's surgery which had a recorded number for emergencies. So rang that number and said what I wanted. The guy on the end of the phone told me to a) Go and ask my neighbours who their dentist was and ring them, b) Call NHS Direct to get names of dentists in my area (which I'd already done over the internet) c) Gave me a 'Dentist Line' number to call. So I rang them and they said they were having an emergency surgery in Slough, and could we get there. Well even if I could drive Slough is in no way handy to Surbs. So we went to Boots and Kevin just kept quaffing those pills...

My memory of things like that in NZ tho is that there is always an emergency doctor on duty? Or has that changed? Anyhow, Kevin went to the dentist on Monday who gave him some more pills and told him to come back in a couple of weeks! So still no real resolution...

Hicksville and a whale

Just finished a really good graphic novel by Dylan Horrocks - check out his website at Hicksville. I'm not sure if I enjoyed it so much because of the NZ elements to it, or because it was about comics generally, but I would really recommend it. Definitely something I will go back to and re-read.

The whole of London has been buzzing about the whale swimming up the Thames as well. As suspected though it did not have a happy ending. We tried to see it yesterday from the top floor of our office (we've just moved back to Waterloo and overlook Westminster) but there were too many buildings in the way. It will be interesting now to see if people start to blame organisations etc for not trying to rescue it yesterday...

More band emails...

Am currently listening to and greatly enjoying the Breaks Co-op cd at the moment - a fab xmas pressie from my sister after I raved about Fat Freddy's Drop last year.

But the label has copy-protected it... :-( Means that I can't put it on my Ipod - very very frustrating.

So I thought I'd email them and tell them that! Will be interesting to see how they respond! But I did also see on their website that they will be touring over here later this year so that is something else to look forward to!

Comedy and a cold

We went to see Lee Mack on Friday night - I hadn't heard of him before we went but he was very very funny. Language was fairly strong at times, but still good. Great audience participation - I was pleased that we were sat in the back row of the stalls so well out of any areas where I could be spotted or picked on!

Since then I've been sat at home feeling very sorry for myself with a raging head cold. I was supposed to be walking on Saturday but I just couldn't have done it. Took all my energy to lug myself around to Kevin's place. So I'm plowing through the tissues and waiting to feel more like a human being again!

Feeling happy

Got back to my flat to a Christmas card from an old friend (it took a long time to get from NZ to these shores...). And it had a letter in it which was lovely :-). It happens so rarely that I get post so it is an extra special treat when I get 'real mail'!! Of course perhaps if I wrote more letters I might get more... Then I had a belated happy new year text from another old friend, rang my Mum and had a lovely long chat to her, checked my email and had two emails from two other old friends. (I use 'old' here purely in the sense that we have known each other for a long time, not in relation to our age!).

So all is good and lovely with me this evening.

And I have 9x68p stamps for the christmas cards I never sent to NZ so watch those letter boxes - you just never know what might land in them one day!!

Cold snap and plumbing work - not a good mix...

Well we are in the midst of another cold snap (apparently it is freezing out today, although I haven't ventured out yet...) and Kevin is having lots of plumbing work done (new radiators installed, new boiler, radiators getting flushed through, shower installed). Which means no heating... not great timing! It was supposed to be done by Thursday, then we got back to the house on Friday and the plumbers were still here saying that there were problems getting the boiler going so it would be Monday before the work was done. So a quick jaunt was undertaken back to my flat to get my heater so we could survive over the weekend! We could have just gone back to mine, but Kev's got a much better sofa and tv - not to mention the dvd player - just what you need for a cold weekend! So with my heater in the lounge and a newly purchased fan heater being moved between the bedroom and the bathroom we are getting by. But roll on Monday (hopefully) when normal service will be resumed!! Still - at least Villa beat Hull and are through to the next round of the FA Cup so the weekend hasn't been all bad :-).

Happy New Year!

Little bit late but here is a 'happy new year' entry... We had a very quiet New Year's but it was good. Kevin cooked a delish lamb roast from the Moro cookbook and we had a lovely bottle of NZ wine from our mixed crate we bought from the NZ House of Wine. All very civilised and lovely!

On New Year's Day we went to see King Kong which I thought was just fab. Really really enjoyed it, although the scene with the creepy crawlies had me squirming for a long time afterwards - those big wetas were just a bit too realistic for me! And I cried at the end... Can't beat a sad ending...