On Friday night, I did something I ought to have done sooner. I was effectively bullied into it by several friends and one member of my family. I went to see Back to the Future.
I was told beforehand that, never having seen it before, I would be incapable of appreciating all the remastering blah that it had undergone before being re-released in cinemas. Whoever said this was completely right. Generally, picture quality is lost on me. Most of the time, I don't know where I am, let alone what's going on and how many hours all the little people at the end of the credits put in.
I can however, find Tesco. It's more useful than it sounds.
Anyway. Back to Back to the Future. Despite the incredulity of a certain individual, I did actually enjoy it. Marty McFly, despite being a kid in a film, wasn't excessively annoying, and though the ridiculously caricatured characters grated to begin with, it was important to portray them in this fashion so that the changes could be made clearer.
I didn't entirely approve of the film's take on time travel, and though this is apparently resolved in the second film it feels like a bit of an afterthought. The way I see it, if you go back in time, you are prevented from doing anything differently because it was never done differently. You can only do things that you always did. So Marty can't go back and prevent his parents from falling in love because they already fell in love.
Overall however, it was an entertaining film, especially at the end when everything kept going horribly wrong. I actually enjoyed that bit, except my genuinely-surprised face and my taking-the-piss face are quite similar. Four stars.
I watched something else, the next morning, what was that? Oh yeah, I remember. High Fidelity. It's one of those films that's taken me a while to get through, and I think it might be because I watched it on my own. I reckon, if I'd watched it with someone else earlier, I might have been able to follow it better.
As it was, I think I got it more this time. Things seemed funnier, to be honest, and the wicked delight I felt at his disregard of all his exes pleased me more because I could tell someone about how it was my favourite bit in the film. There's no point having a favourite bit of a film if you're on your own.
High Fidelity's quite real. It disregards a lot of the Disney magic surrounding film romances and just focuses on the things that real people do. Real people are awkward, they hang around with people they don't really like, they get into relationships with completely unsuitable people just, well, because. Also, people panic about things they have no right to panic about. It won't help or change anything.
And do you know why it's so real? The book it was based on was written by Nick Hornby. He's good. He always has a main character with a real emotional detachment from the world. So do I when I write*, except my characters are usually a lot more flawed and a lot less real. I give High Fidelity four stars.
That was on the way to London for a friend's 18th. Had an interesting time. It was interesting to see who had changed for the better, who had changed for the worse and who had not changed at all. It reinforced in my mind who my real friends were, and if you're reading this, it's most likely you. Or you're stalking me; hi.
I thoroughly enjoyed karaoke. Everyone who was there with me knows how much I enjoyed karaoke. So what if I can't sing? I can shout louder than everyone, with or without a microphone. I even had to "sing" Michael Buble, because it was just damn disappointing without me.
I reckon that I misunderstand the concept of karaoke. It was my first time doing the thing properly, and nobody outlined the protocol beforehand. I reckon though, that the people holding the microphones are supposed to sing, and take it in turns to do so. I prefer the football-crowd style roar that we had going on though. It was invigorating.
Food was nice too. I could have probably eaten more, if the spicy food hadn't run out. As it was, it did, and quickly. Delicious! If I knew what any of the dishes were called, I'd certainly have them again.
The club, though not my style, was fun. I had a brief conversation with an Irishman who guessed that I wasn't local. When I said that I guessed he wasn't either, he told me never to lose my accent. Ohoho. If only you knew. I have been having the Michael taken out of me by hmm... everyone. To some, I'm too northern. To others, I'm not northern enough. Despite "reassurances" that my accent is going to get stronger, I think it's about as bad as it's going to get. The vocabulary will be the next thing to go though.
I can speak without the accent, but it's only when I've thought of what I'm going to say before I say it. Yes, if you ever needed convincing of how infrequently that happens, the evidence is before your very ears.
Journey home was exciting as well. On the train from Liverpool I sat near a pair of fairly inebriated gentlemen. The first wanted to know if I had a boyfriend. I said no. He asked why. Any response I made from then on was met with the question "Why aren't you courting?" I was midway between explaining that we don't call it that anymore and sitting him down and explaining fully that I've only just arrived in Liverpool and give me time.
The other was very taken by my interest in nuclear power, and told me that what power stations were producing was actually steam and that the electricity was a by-product. I explained that the electricity was the whole point of the exercise. He said that in Sweden they use the steam to heat houses. I haven't researched this, but short of building houses on top of Didcot's coal-fired power station, I'm not sure what we can do. Thermal energy is incredibly difficult to do anything useful with. That's why it's often called "degraded".
It turns out that you can't explain this, nor that your primary interest is in nuclear power, more specifically nuclear fusion "like what happens in the Sun". They couldn't even grasp that concept. I said that we were going to move on from fission, to which one's response was "but it should all be 'fficient". Sigh. He then suggested burning wood "injected with oil". I suggested just burning the oil. He then replied that we needed a way to get rid of the wood. Touché. What we are all suffering from is an absolute glut of wood.
Thankfully, the train journey was only ten minutes, and I was able to disembark with my sanity intact.
*Hardly anybody has read any of my fiction. There is one story currently being edited for length, style and to separate it from Twilight (the original predates Twilight, and sickly teenage girl romance aside, there are parallels. Apparently. Though my "Edward" is brilliant.) and I'd say more, but for the spoilers. I'm very excited. As long as uni and life don't get in the way, it should be done within a year. It's hit a bit of a hitch in that I've met someone with the same name as one of the characters, and because I absolutely refuse to change his name again, I'm going to have to be careful to separate real L and fictional L in my mind. As long as real L doesn't behave like fictional L, this should be fine.
