6 September 2009 (Sunday) - Chokey Revisted

Yesterday evening, following a rather physically strenuous day, I thought I’d take it easy. I did something I rarely do - I settled down to watch a film. “Brideshead Revisted” has always been a favourite book of mine. If you’ve never read it, I can thoroughly recommend it. It’s a smashing read, and in the 80s there was a twelve part TV adaptation of it starring Jeremy Irons, Antony Andrews and Lawrence Oliver among others. Recently there was a film made of the book, and I’d been looking forward to seeing this remake for some time.

What a load of tripe!! It had been made by someone who had overheard someone else describing his mate’s friend’s auntie’s cat’s opinion of the book. Some of the names of the characters were there, and some of the locations used in the book were featured. But the film was wrong. Oh so wrong. The lead characters in the book weren’t gay. Sebastian wasn’t camp. Charles wasn’t sniffing after brother and sister at the same time. The sister never went to Venice. And that bit on the cruise ship – what was that all about? And the army scenes? I suppose if (like most of humanity) you’ve never read the book, this rant means nothing. But it wound me up.

This morning I ached somewhat. But as always I had two choices. I could sit and bemoan my lot, or I could get on with it. I carried on with the tidying. Today’s plan was to do something with the two spare PCs I unearthed last week. That was easily done. One wasn’t a PC at all, merely an empty case. And the other when switched on tried (and failed) to boot up Windows ME. I shall take those two up to the tip tomorrow morning before work.

And so to the chokey for a family visit. Together with ‘er indoors ^TM and “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” I went on a visit. Pausing only briefly for a spot of “Crackwatch” (see Facebook) in McDonalds, we were soon at the prison. I was expecting the place to be really busy today, because it was the weekend. It was actually the quietest I’ve ever seen the place. I turned up as usual and… that place winds me up. I’ve now visited five times, and every time the process has been different. Book in somewhere different, get quizzed differently, search done here or there or anywhere. This time I had an Alsatian sniffing round me.

“Normal Stanley” seemed in good spirits. We fed him up with far too much chocolate and crisps and assorted drinks. He’s got a new inmate on his wing called “Stephanie”. “Stephanie” apparently has a rather epic chest, but was sentenced before the surgeons could remove his/her/its meat & two veg. Since Her Majesty’s Prison Service doesn’t cater for “inbetweenies” someone in authority has declared that choppers trump chesticles, and that “Stephanie” is technically male and so goes to a male prison. However he/she/it gets released from lock up earlier than the other convicts every morning so’s it can shower without attracting undue attention. It’s a funny old world, really. I would have thought that having gone to the trouble to swap your junk for wazzo jugs, “undue attention” would be exactly what you would be after. But what do I know?

And as always the two and a half hours flew by, and again we had to leave him behind. And then home. We’ve now finally emptied the bucket of fish food I bought in March. Eighty quid for the summer’s feeding wasn’t bad. They can rough it on bread until I get back to the Koi shop…