Cloverfield! a shameless 9.5 out of 10

Director Matt Reeves and producer J. J. Abrams, obviously love their horror and monster films. They have shamelessly stolen ideas from a whole host of the better movies in the genres and have dovetailed them into a cracking film that pays direct homage to the likes of The Host,,The Blair Witch Project,War of the Worlds and even Escape from New York (see pic below), The Blair Witch Project I remember created the shakey,hand held point of view "amateur" footage that was so innovative in the 1990's and Cloverfield. uses this style well adding to the mix a post 9/11 sense of tv disaster to create a truely frightening and exciting visual experience.

I won't spoil the plot too much, but the jist of the story lies around 6 twenty somethings in downtown New York and their efforts to save one of their group when a huge monster literally destroys the city. We have panic in the streets, a sphincter clenching chase sequence through the subways,( the best part of the film) and even a crazily leaning skyscraper with a rooftop rescue scene reminiscent of The Towering Inferno. Coupled to all that, The Brooklyn Bridge crammed to the seams with refugees gets the disaster treatment,the monster (and thousands of parasitic mini-spider like monsters which it sheds) trashes every bit of Manhattan in a rather too realistic a style and the rather likable set of characters get picked off one by one in typically upsetting set pieces.

I loved the movie, but of course I knew I would ten minutes into the film.It is what it is..........a monster film rollercoaster ride which delivers exactly what it says on the tin.

Owner Training

Janet ( with all legs Ruby) and me (with the benign William) went to our first dog training class this evening, and the experience lends itself wonderfully for today's blog entry.

There were two "experts"on hand to give us direction and support. One, middle aged and rather morose, had a small psychotic toy dog, who surprisingly savaged the intimidating Ruby with several hysterical bites up the arse as soon as we had entered the hall- which was a little worrying in itself!. The other "senior" teacher looked and sounded in the latter stages of left ventricular heart failure to me, but was friendly enough in a wheezy,wet, critically ill sort of way, and he soon had the 18 dogs and owners marching up and down the village hall, weaving in and out of each other and showing the megre audience of hangers on that it is the pet owners that need all the training rather than the dogs.

Apart from the the 6 die hard regulars, most of us were newbies and I was pleased that Ruby and William didn't show themselves up and for that matter nor did me and Janet, and at least we could have a laugh at certain situations some of the over zelous members found themselves in. One rather large guy with clunky jewelry, a paroxide girlfriend and a dog called satan (or was the girlfriend called Satan?) spent most of the time yelling so loudly at his pet when he did anything "wrong", that William kept sitting down in surprise to watch and listen! with a shocked kindo of interest.

The whole experience was 2£- a bargin for an interesting night out.

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Sunday 10.30pm

Trelawnyd seems to be under seige tonight when I finalluy got home after the usual Sunday 12 hour shift. Lorry after lorry is thundering through the village, spraying the pavements with dirty water and noise. I knew the reason for the traffic, as we on ITU have been coping with a effects of a multiple car RTA on the now closed A55.The diverted cars have been snaking through our "minor road" all evening. It has been a particulary sad shift.
Had a slight hangover from a birthday dinner with Janet,Ned , Ed and Lucy last night, and we had a nice evening of excess, but I think I am far too old to be roughing it at work after a hard saturday night.
Planning a great deal of allotment stuff and organisation this week, I hope the weather holds up. Off to bed now, very tired. Have to smile to myself just a little though as Maddie has stuffed herself behind me on the couch and is farting merrily to herself whist asleep.

Early Morning photos

The photo of the mini daffodil is ever so slightly out of focus, but it looks pretty enough. The lane outside the cottage is lethal and as usual has never been gritted ( or will ever!)

but looks pretty.

William has seemed to have left some of his annoying puppy behaviours in the past, and is slowly developing some of his own personality traits. Caught him this morning curled up with his nemisis George in the kitchen basket

San Fairy Ann

I am sat at my dining table in the cold early morning thinking of family phrases that are handed down throughtout the generations. These "sayings" unfortunately often die away when individuals pass on, and I think that is such a sad thing when the phrase is indicative of an era or place in time.
My Grandmother and mother always used the phrase San Fairy Ann when referring to something of no consequance. It was always used in a rather dissmissive way and I wondered this morning ( when giving the hens some cooked pasta and special K as a treat against the cold) where it actually came from.
Thank god for the internet, for,after two minutes of google-ing I found the following:-

[A] When the British Tommy arrived in France to fight in the First World War, he was presented with a language he struggled to make sense of. What he did to the pronunciation of French and Belgian place names is a wonder, such as turning Ypres into Wipers. He picked up a lot of French expressions, but he changed them into something that sounded English. This was the fate of ça ne fait rien, “it does not matter”, which became a British Army catchphrase in that war as an expression of resigned — or cynical — acceptance of some state of affairs, usually brought about by bungling officers. One English version of it was the one you quote, others were san fairy anna and even send for Mary Ann, though perhaps san fairy ann was the most common. It largely fell out of use after the War, and seems not to have been taken up by servicemen in the Second World War.

I wondered if Gran's nickname of "Scalabine" could be found on google, but apart from one chaps surname I could not find a thing.
Listening to Steve Allen on LBC this morning, I heard him say another of my mother's waspish comments
"I want I want!...doesn't get!" he was shouting, berating the modern culture of getting everything that you see in the shops. My mother always used it when we were asking for sweets in the 1960's. Not one her nicer phrases

We are going out to dinner later with Janet, Ned and Ned's son, so I will ask her if she remembers any "family sayings"

Hello to Aunt Judy's sister

My blog has another fan! in the shape of my Aunt's sister! I think loggers on may be approaching double figures by now! I am very honoured as very little of note happens here!
Apparantly my latest fan likes it when I swear and rant about things.
so all I can say to that is " P*ss off!!!!!!!!"

Thanks to Jeni Barnett

Thanks to new LBC presenter Jeni Barnett we now have a usable dining table.
I was listening to her the other day banging on about nothing too important, when her hysterical laughing caught my attention. Actually, I had to stop what I was doing (humping black bin bags of rubbish to be precise) to listen to her phone in about Londoners' embarrassing stories. The one about a stewardess mistaking Cofe Annan for Morgan Freeman sent her into lengthy cackles, and her obvious enjoyment of the subject matter warmed me to her. Anyhow I digress. This in turn made me listen to her later phone in about the importance of eating at a family table, and she was so passionate about it, I was inspired to clear our own table of clutter (which included seed potatos,coats,paperwork,allotment books a battery charger and various vegetable catalogues).
Before taking Chris to the station this morning, I caught him sitting at the table with a cup of tea, enjoying the feeling of fomality, a table gives you! I am at this moment enjoying the same sensation, but with a filter coffee and a bagel!


The photo on the right is the nearly completed Church wall, at the back of my field. The first of the fence posts are going in (you can just see it lying against the stone wall) and I can almost "taste" my boundary fence being finished . For those remotely bothered about such things, the churchyard is open to the back of my field, so when the odd chicken escapes (generally it is Stanley) they wander freely amongst the gravestones.
When the boundary goes in, another hundred square yards of "pasture" will be free for me to use.

Bert and the first snow storm!

It's strange how history repeats itself. Called in to wish Uncle Bert a happy 80th Birthday with a card and flowers and found myself photographing him in exactly the same place and pose as my grandmother ( his mother) did some 30 years ago.I still have the poleroid of her somewhere in a box and the similarity between her and Bert is striking.

Bert and his wife Margaret are two of the oldest surviving members of the Gray family ( Judy being the other), and he is the middle son of three boys with my father being older and Tom being the baby.Strange to think that I remember my mother saying that she and Bert went to see King Kong together (THE ORIGINAL!!) in Prestatyn Scala.....so many years ago!

The weather has been bitterly cold today and some of the older hens like Robina have not even left the warmth of the coops. To keep my hands warm, there is nothing better than wrapping them around a newly laid egg-an organic hotwaterbottle! We have had snow, blusterly winds and rain, and the hills near Caerwys (5 miles away) and Denbigh (8 miles or so) are dusted with snow this evening, as is the field (see pic)

My bean closhes have been whisked away by the winds this morning. Pippa (The Doctor's wife) brought back one from the vicarage gardens, but the other two have dissapeared
With the weather so bad, I have spent a gay old day shopping,and rearranging the kitchen. The dogs have had their usual run on the beach with Janet's Ruby, but I think I will limit Meg's participation as Ruby bullies her terribly. Taking William to a dog training class on monday with Janet and an overactive Ruby which should be fun.