As well as being Week Of Roooooock, it is week of excessive cinema going! In addition to the four films I saw between Friday and Monday, last night I saw "Elephant", a school-shooting-related film. This was not an enjoyable use of a couple of hours, as it was very arty and unsettling, but interesting nonetheless. And tonight me and online friend Ellie are going to see "Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban"!


Friday 11 June 2004

Last year, when Nightwish played in the UK, the day I decided I'd go and see them was the day on which tickets sold out. This year, Nightwish have joined the 23470234 bands I want to see who are playing in convenient venues in the UK while I'm in Australia.

I shouldn't feel too hard done by though, because guess who's playing in Melbourne tonight? Justin Timberlake! Although I concede that this is an improvement on Daniel O'Donnell, who was here earlier this week, for some reason, I've decided to go and see some random metal bands in St Kilda instead.


Saturday 12 June 2004

The random metal bands were good, despite two of them having lead singers who insisted on showing too much of their underwear. Sadly, band #5 had to stop half way through their set, when a guy passed out. Before they got going again, I left to check when the last tram back to the city centre went, and found there was little point in returning, so I missed the rest of their set and the final band. But nevermind. The bands I saw were more than worth the $12 entrance fee and I saved $13 on a taxi.

I wanted to stay out until the morning trams home started running, so I headed for a goth night. What a mistake. It was much further away than I'd anticipated and the streets quickly became deserted, but I thought it as well to continue as to turn back. The venue - some underground bank vaults - was funchie, the lighting was excellent, and the music, while not being anything like that advertised, was at a pleasant half-way point between downstairs at Slimelight and upstairs at Wendyhouse: a mezzanine in Nottingham bleepy but dark, and not without the odd oddity. ("Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap played in all seriousness?)

Sadly, there were about ten people there and nobody danced, and then the night came to an end at 3.30. 3.30! What use is that? As Saturday morning trams don't start running until 5, I had to head for the nearest taxi rank, which wasn't very near at all and meant more risk of attack from evil muggers. Gah! I'm not going back there any time soon!


Sunday 13 June 2004

Yesterday saw a new record for my failure to get out of bed. We're talking fourteen hours here. Well, it was incredibly cold and my head was swimming with inspiration and I was having mad dreams, in which Mark o UKC burnt down a monastery, three people got shrunk and spent a weekend in a fridge, and I was fighting a policeman, using a dressing gown belt as a weapon, but gah, *slaps self* stop thinking your life away, you geen!

I'd said I would go and see Exhumed (a death metal band from the USA), but I couldn't be bothered. I did convert the first quarter of The Evil Novel (which I've been working on off and on since January 2000) into half an hour of film script, in the hope that it would take less time to finish that way, though.

I then dreamed I acquired the funchiest pair of cyber trousers ever, and completely failed to get up again. Alas. *beats self with birch branches*


Monday 14 June 2004

Last night, I saw Mortal Sin and some other metal bands, and I saw that they were good. I also saw various acquaintances and made new ones, which was also good. And, despite it being only a week away from winter solstice, when I walked home afterwards, at 1am, I got too hot and had to take my coat off! If only the summer here weren't so hot, I think I could quite happily emigrate, oh yes. Especially since today was a bank holiday we don't have in England. I probably should have spent it doing some work anyway, as I'm supposed to do seventeen weeks regular labour, but the possibility of going shopping and spending the rest of the day in bed, reading and listening to my purchases, was too tempting to resist.

For the record: Nikki Gemmell books: great! Children Of Bodom albums: also! Morrissey's latest album: ohhhh God, why? It got such good reviews, but it huuuuurt! Slushy tunes (makes me realise what a Johnny Marr fan I always was - what ever happened to him anyway?) and lyrics seemingly complete devoid of the biting wit and painful truth of the glory days! Thank Mykos for Amazon marketplace, for thanks to its glory, my death metal collection need not suffer too much from the folly of this purchase!


Tuesday 17 June 2004

The house where I'm staying appears to be haunted. My landlady's handbag keeps moving around on its own accord. And I don't mean that in a "vanishing" sense: I've seen it shift position, hours after it was last touched and without any urging from gravity.