nice one Matt!!

hey everyone

thanks to Matt, another oddity of the world of cinema is in my collection! i have not watched it yet, but thanks for the loan of
Salo!!! it looks ace!!

otherwise, my fathers' day gift from James arrived at last!! thank you very much indeed to James (and Mummy) for the Revenge Of The Nerds set, as well as Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), the latter featuring the ever impressive comic talents of Vic 'n Bob, so it is presumably smart!

i will endeavour to bring in new pics of James to upload for all to see next week!

be excellent to each other!!

enough!!!

i was browsing the web today and have discovered that yet another Saw movie is being released!!

the poster looks tasty (hee hee), but i fear that an original, creative film is about to have its reputation knackered by a series of sequels.

you never know, it may be good.

be excellent to each other, which means do not chain people to metal poles and give them a hack saw to sort it out with.

Mani The Cat - a larger image

hello hello hello

same post as before, really, but just testing to see if i can publish a larger, better copy of the story.

by all means click on and download the pic to have a proper look!

cute cat story

hey everyone

well, cute and sweet stories about cats are a dime a dozen, but it is rare that one features a cat named Mani. i presume the cat is named Mani as a tribute to the most excellent bass player formerly with The Stone Roses, now with Primal Scream.

enjoy!!

be excellent to each other!!

The 21st Of The Spiros

hey everyone

my good friend, or, if you will, "bum chum" Spiros has very kindly scanned a range of vintage images and passed them on to me. here you can see me, several years ago, dressed as the construction worker out of the Village People as part of the celebrations of his 21st birthday. i must say i do believe i look rather smart in the pics!

right right right, it seems that verk has some interesting challenges at 7 in the morning, so let me tackle them with aplomb.

be excellent to each other!!

Standing Tall and Proud!!

heya

we had a number of visitors over the weekend, but only thought to get the camera out on Sunday when Katie came to see cousin James! sorry Spiros and Linda, one day we shall remember to get a pic of James and Robbie together to put up here!!

as you can see, the pair of them are coming along very nicely indeed!!

thanks Grant for fixing up the cabinet thing for the TV and all that stuff!!

James had quite a lucky weekend, as it happens, as he got to see Grandma on both days of it!

remain being excellent to each other!

James at 27 weeks

hey everyone

well, still no connection to the oracle at home, but i can still upload these most excellent pics from verk. at least i do not need a telephone line to transfer the pics from the camera to the the pc to a cd!!

here is young Napoleon at 27 weeks - growing fast, as you can see!!

otherwise, unless you want a lot of moaning and complaining about not having a telephone line at home, not a great deal to report on!!

be excellent to each other!!

James and the Giant Ribs

hello

when not chewing on items like the War Of The Worlds soundtrack CD, James will try and demolish pretty much anything he can get his hands on as part of his quest to attain equilibrium with his teeth popping out. here he is busy with some rib bones after dinner last week. it would seem that James will very much be a meat man!!

otherwise, we had a long weekend down here in South Africa, which meant more unpacking. i unpacked some books. i can confim conclusively that i need a consiserable amount of new bookcases to finish that particular job.

Sunday was also my first ever father's day. i got a most excellent range of confectionaries, as well as a smart card from James, featuring a red hand print from the man himself. i look forward to the further exploits of his Mummy as he attempts to get the remains of that red paint off his hands!

righty-right, i am back at verk, and i seem to have some four days worth of reports to shift through to check that all the money is in the right place. have a more excellent day than i will be having, then!!

most importantly, be excellent to each other!!

James at 26 weeks (six months exact!!!)

hi everyone

well, the battle continues for connection, and it still looks like weeks, if not months, before i am online at home. i am debating a wireless connection in the interim, but that leaves me with a rather large bill and a 24 month contract. ho hum.

here is young Napoleon at exactly six months. those rosy red cheeks should tell you that he is going onwards with his teething! actually, his teething is coming along ever so well, and i believe James as a consequence reccomends the soundtrack for War Of The Worlds, as he spent a considerable amount of time on Sunday chewing that very box.

be excellent to each other!!

communication breakdown

hey everyone

just a quick one to let you know that, apparently, it will be another 6 to 8 weeks at the least before i have my telephone line back at home, which means no regular updates here!!

it's quite annoying, but what can one do??

James turns 6 months tomorrow!! i will do my best to upload the regularly irregular pics as soon as possible.

be excellent to each other!!

a most excellent album

a trend seems to be forming, and it is an excellent trend. more and more tv shows seem to be using music from Mezzanine by Massive Attack. in particular i was impressed by the usage of a sample of teardrop in a recent episode of Prison Break, the song that was also used and changed for the even more excellent series House.

if you do not have this album, or if you will "cd", you could do a lot worse than go and get it!!

James at 25 weeks (most recently)

hey everyone

well, here you go with the first pics of James in the new house, not that you can see much of the new house in them!! i promise i will upload pics of the house soon!

a bit of a scare yesterday - James had a high temperature, and so it was off to the doctor. it seems that he has a bit of a cold/flu thing. oh dear! anyway, he seems a bit better at the moment, and no doubt he will be fully fit soon!!

be excellent to each other!!

James at 24 weeks

here he is, in what i think is the last pic of him at our old house!!

the move, all things considered, went pretty well!!!!!

no access......James at 23 weeks

hi everyone

well, as a number of you will be aware, we have moved house recently. as a consequence, we have no telephone line installed as of yet, and thus i have no access to the oracle, so to speak.

we are rather busy at verk, but will try and give some belated updates, like this pic of James at 23 weeks.

will put the rest up now now!!

be excellent to each other!!

a blast from the past.........

i am sure you have had a good look at the poster for The Descent. now have a close look at the poster for the silence of the lambs. closer, to quote Dr Lector, closer. have a very, very close look at the moths. don't kick yourselves too hard, most people missed the exquisite detail on the skulls at the time aswell!

at last, America gets The Descent!!

hello

as many of you will recall, and if you don't see previous posts, i spent a good chunk of last year ranting and raving about a film called The Descent, the second best film of the year, right after my beloved Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

believe it or not, our American friends only get to see this "officially" now!! i should not have a dig, as thus far South Africa has not had an official release for either this or Dog Soldiers, but come on! America not having such a major movie released??? well, i hope they enjoy it!!

i am not too sure how i feel about this poster - borrows heavily from the classic Silence Of The Lambs design for the more observant, and doesn't really warn you of the sheer horror on the way.

rumour has it that they have changed the ending for the American audience......

as for other rumours, it seems that, AT LAST, a decent DVD release for Blade Runner looms. someone called is busy, erm, reporting on a Warner Bros release. a "jazzed" director's cut will get a brief cinema run (AGAIN), and then a multi-disc mega release on DVD. hopefully, all those deleted scenes, workprint footage and so on will be available.

be excellent to each other!!!

myself on South Park, apparently

Michele has very kindly done me South Park style. nice one, i like it!! it seems to capture all of my important elements - chainsaw, vibes, reni hat, cigarettes and of course Butters on the shirt!!

i know there have been no pics of James for a (comparative) while, but we are busy packing!! sorry, a massive update as soon as we are moved, and of course as soon as i have a telephone line!!

be excellent to each other!!

James and Michele - South Park style

hey everyone

sorry for the brief lack of updates, in particular with some most excellent news to share. the first thing would, perhaps obviously, be that i have been given a link to a web page that allows you to create your own South Park characters!! here are James and Michele for you!!

James has begun a life of school or creche or whatever you want to call it! he seems to be really enjoying playing with the other babies and learning this, that and the other (eating Marie biscuits, indeed), but Mummy is a trifle heartsore every time she drops him off there. oh well, she will get over it in 20 or 30 years :)

otherwise, it was Michele's birthday yesterday. she got many, many excellent gifts, and i am sure is looking forward to wacthing Batman vs Dracula.

we are on the move!! the houses are all a done deal, and next weekend we shall be moving to the new place. if there is a break in transmission, fear not, i am sure i will be putting updates here as soon as i can!!

be excellent to each other!!!

The Other Cousins of James

heya

sorry for the delay in posting this pic, also from 13 May! say hello to Skyla and Jade, the lovely twins who James can proudly call cousins!! these two lovely little ladies are from Natasha, Michele's sister.

you try telling them apart!!

for the Star Wars cry babies....

Hi

on the left are the new DVD covers for the release of the original versions of Star Wars. on the right are the old posters and/or video covers from their original release. notice any major similarities??

just buy the films and watch them, you bunch of whingers!!

not a great deal else to report on this side of the world at the moment!

be excellent to each other!!!!

James and the Vampire Teeth

hello everyone

James says thank you very much to Auntie Erika and Uncle Richard for his excellent vampire teeth, pictured here bringing fear and terror to Erika!!

oddly, his top two fangs, if you will "Vampire Teeth", are well on their way to popping out, which causes Michele much joy.

be excellent to each other!!

James at 22 weeks

hey everyone

here's James and Michele watching something or other as i take the regular weekly pics!!

5 months old, can you believe!! actually, if you have been following this blog, yes, you can believe it!!

i took the day off verk today to go and look at some school/creche type places for James to hang and chill at whilst Michele returns to work. we have found one that we are very happy with, so quite a successful day! i scored a class Wimpy mixed grill as part of the deal, so a winner all around!

sorry if some pics are duplicating themselves, no idea what i am doing with the uploading!!

be excellent to each other!!!!!

Star Wars "purists" = cry babies of note!!

heya

pictured here are the covers for the original versions of the Star Wars films, due in September 2006. the most excellent Star Wars box set was released last year (or the year before), but as you may be aware, a lot of people cried about the fact that they were the "Special Editions" and not the original cinematic versions. after a lot of crying and whingeing (some people claiming that George Lucas had "destroyed their childhood" and worse), they have released the original versions. and people are still not happy!!

OK, i am quite the fan of different versions of films; for that see my comments in regards of Apocalypse Now. i am delighted to be able to buy these versions of Star Wars. you would have thought that these "purists" would be too. nope.

first off, some of them are complaining about the covers. yes, the covers!!!! how sad is that? like you are not going to buy a film or cd or whatever because of the cover?? get real??

following on from that, there seems to be a great deal of crying over the lack of a 5.1, DTS or whatever they are soundtracks, and then this whole "anamorphic" transfer to DVD either happening or not happening. oh, grow up!!!

if you want the "original" experience of Star Wars beyond these releases, go buy yourself a feal-bitten old cinema and run a print of the film that has been scratched and fixed from here to eternity. failing that, go get a BETAMAX or V2000 and watch them on that. this is the 21st Century, you know!

from my side, not that they will read this, cheers to George Lucas and 20th Century Fox for making these releases possible. if nothing else it will kill off the horrid bootleg market for these versions.

Hoff vs Chuck

oh dear.

ahem, thanks to Sarah for forwarding this pic on!!

don't fight it, feel it

undefined

PRIMAL SCREAM return to the world, and with a great welcome indeed, on June 5 2006, with Riot City Blues.

i was somewhat dubious about this return at first, as the indication from the boys was that it would be a return to the days of Give Out But Don't Give Up, hardly my favourite album by them, although the joyful Rocks is off that one.

all fears are banished, however, when one hears the lead single, Country Girl. it is an outstanding track, and one can only hope that the rest of it sounds as smart.

count down the days and buy it when it lands!!

Batman. The Movie. The 1966 Movie.

ahem.

i should have known better, but i now own the 1966 interpretation of Batman. it is good fun, i suppose, which is why i bought it. but there are some curious elements to it.

like, for instance, if by some miracle something called "bat shark repellant" even existed, what would the odds be on you having it handily attached to your belt when you needed it? and just don't get me started on the plot for this thing!!

Spiros, your copy of it awaits you mate.

for those interested in the TV series, click on the link hidden in the title of this post.......


be excellent to each other. holy cowabunga, etc...

one year later......

hey everyone


well, sort of one year later. these pics were taken on May 13 2006, a year after we learned that young James/Napoleon was on his way to us. i still remember the shock of the news over the phone, as i was walking off out of the office for a cigarette!!

quite a pleasant shock, of course, and we cannot imagine life before him, let alone without him :)

these pics were from Michele's brother Dylan's 8th birthday party. yes, there is something of a gap between them!! thanks very much to Monica for the gap and indeed organizing the party!!

as well as Grandma Monica, James got to see Grandma Rena for the first time in a while, since she has been in England (refer to the Robbo pic!!). they had quite obviously missed each other a great deal!!

nice one to Mum for the class stuff she brought back. i now have the original version of Apocalypse Now on DVD, to go with the Redux version. Redux was quite the mythical beast; for it contained some of the footage that had been about on bootlegs, but Copolla denied ever existed. as a curiosity it was good to see, but overall i see why the original edit of the film was left alone for so long, hence me getting the disc. i kind of fell out of love and was not quite so awe inspired with Redux when you started seeing Kurtz in daylight, and, quite frankly, the "interesting sounding" Scott Glenn stuff still never made it in. ho hum.

be excellent to each other!!!

nice one Pebbles!!

hello

Mum, Gillian and Katie are in the UK at the moment, and look at who they happened to bump into - Bryan Robson, one of the all time greats and someone who just about all of us from Middlesbrough hold dear and have fond memories of.

lucky Katie!!!

James at 21 weeks

hey everyone

well, here's the usual update of the little fella. he seems to be on a mission to bounce at every opportunity, and thus some of the pics might be blurred :)

oh dear, 4 - 0 defeat in the U E F A Cup. oh well, it was an excellent journey to get there and has left us all with memories we will cherish forever.

otherwise, we have seen the saved kitten running around and he/she/it seems to be fine!!

be excellent to each other!!!

an unusual weekend

hey everyone

here's a couple more pictures of young James for you to check out - quite a personality he is developing!

a quiet, peaceful weekend was just not to be. somehow a kitten got stuck in our guttering going down from the roof to the ground, and thus a rescue operation was required. the only way we could figure out how to do it was by sawing off the reverse "L" bend at one end, and have Michele's narrow arm grab the thing and pull it out. well, that's what happened. as a consequence, a cute black fluffy kitten is roaming free, and i have a most excellent hack saw. i had every intention of just taking some cold/flu medication and staying in bed, but it clearly was not meant to be!

not a lot else to report on, really. hope your weekend was fun!!

be excellent to each other!!