Thanks For Sharing - Review

Now this is how you make a movie about sex addiction. A swift digression brought on by a little scene at the start of the movie: one big difference between the 12 Step Fellowships in the USA and in the UK is that the American courts do order attendance at 12 Step Meetings, and it's clearly been the conscience of those groups to co-operate. I was the joint secretary of a reasonably large meeting for a year, I've done committee service and I've read the manual (yes, there's a manual) and I have never been approached by anyone asking to have me sign their card, nor have I heard of it, or even read about it in the manual. I think this is because the Courts here don't regard 12 Step Fellowships as suitably official enough, but I have a feeling that UK AA and others wouldn't co-operate even if it was asked. Can you see the headlines? "Driver who killed Annie (4) pronounced cured of alcoholism by AA". That's the British press for you. Nah. I don't think I'm voting to put anyone in the way of that.

Hollywood portrays 12 Step Fellowships sympathetically - a LOT of industry people are in it, and it's worked for them. But this movie isn't cute about it. Okay, so none of the guys will ever look like Mark Ruffalo, nor will any of the gals look like Pink (who appears as Alecia Moore and is Jolly Good Too). And I doubt there are as many slim good-looking women in New York as there were in the movie: America is the land of the obese. And of course, nobody her age looks like Gwyneth Paltrow. Not even her. 

There was just one scene that had me muttering "yeah, right, as if", when the Tim Robbins character has a row with his son after presumptuously and falsely, as it will turn out, accusing him of stealing some Percocet. Robbins goes into a Korean grocer and can't take his eyes off a black girl with hot pants and an afro who clearly time-warped in from the early Seventies, while he orders a bunch of lottery tickets and a fifth of bourbon. Just in time, his mobile rings and he's saved by the call for help from a fellow addict. My problem is that his character was a gajillion years sober, and while YMMV, mine tells me that I couldn't make that much sobriety if I reacted that strongly to anything. The people with long-term sobriety I know are nice enough and polite enough and they do their duty when called on, but they are pretty frikkin emotionally stable. After my friend's funeral, I blew off the rest of the afternoon, went home, ate some cake and chocolate (but not stuffing it), watched Rent and burst into tears over the "Will I lose my dignity / Will someone care" song. (As indeed any human being with feeling would.)  That was it. It didn't occur to me to take a drink or light a cigarette. However, I've heard people with fifteen years talking about their slips, so…

I'm not going to talk about the rest of the movie: it's full of scenes that ring true, or are true, because I've been there. The writers clearly know what they are talking about. And if you've ever worried that maybe you look at too much porn, or think about what some random woman would be like in bed too often, or your partner thinks you want sex too often, then go see this movie, and watch the scene where Josh Gan rubs himself up against a Chinese girl on the train. Yeah. You don't do that and nor do I. But those guys do.

Oh, and there was a killer line about triggers. "Anxiety, that's a big one". 

Identify? Moi? Meme pas!

Grey Skies, Colurful Town, Lisbon

More than any other town I've seen outside Italy, Lisbon is about colour. And just like the title says, even when the sky is grey, the place is still in colour. 

Real Towns Have Narrow Sidestreets Where People Live: Lisbon

The title says it all.

The Tree in The Jardim do Principe Real, Barrio Alto, Lisbon

At the top of the hill from where we were stating was the Jardim do Principe Real. In the middle is a pond and this amazing tree, held up by ornate metal scaffolding.

There's a neat little cafe kiosk on one corner with seats and tables. I liked the hot chocolate and vanilla cake. And the girl running it.

Off the Rua do Jasmim, Barrio Alto, Lisbon

So there are going to be a heap of posts with photographs from my second visit to Lisbon with the gang this year. This is the first, for no special reason.

Walk down the Rua do Jasmim from the Jardin de Principe Real, and this is half-way down on the right. One little alley, so many images.

And those 3.5" diskettes? Who even knew there were any left in the whole of Europe?

September 2013 Review

September usually goes by in a flash.

Swimming after work is now part of the routine. I'd been thinking about doing that for a while, but it took the insomnia thing to kick me into it. My swimming has rapidly improved, and I aim for fifteen minutes of fairly serious exertion, rather than long marathons. I graduated to proper dead-lifts on the Big Wheels, and am now at 3x10x60 kgs. Stop sniggering: you don't have my curved lower spine, which means I have to be super-careful about style, and need I remind you, you're way younger than me. Pull-ups are still a sticking-point: I'm doing more reps, but at levels of support that are truly embarrassing.

Sometimes the little things make a difference. I replaced the XL tee-shirts I've been wearing for years under my blue office shirts with some L Autographs from M&S, and though those hug my abs in a non-flattering way, my office shirts now fit a lot better.

One lunchtime I went down to Byron near Spitalfields Market and ordered a Classic-no-onions to take away, and haven't looked back. One big dose of cow at half-one or so sets me up for the rest of the day. I don't feel drowsy at 15:00 and I don't feel sugar-crashed at 16:30 either. It's not the cheapest lunch, but what use is a snack that sends me to sleep and bounces my blood-sugar?

Sis and I had supper at Marco Pierre White's Steak and Alehouse on Middlesex Street, which is not as expensive as you might think and a solid meal, and was given a little drama by the Central Line halting for long enough to make me think that catching a bus in the rain at Holborn would be a good idea, which lasted for as long as it took to find out on Tube Checker that the line was running again, and so I jumped off at the next stop and went back to Chancery Lane.
Taking Krauser's comment about not listening to "Woe is me my girl walked out I hate everybody" music, I started to put more instrumentals on the phone for travel-to-work music. Much though I like Seether's Holding On To Strings Better Left To Fray, it does have a negative emotional load I don't need. So as I write, I have Digweed's Structures 2, Bedrock and Live In London, Maya Jane Cole's Heaven, DJ Kicks and Comfort, Sasha's Airdrawndagger, Renaissance's The Mix Collection: The Tale of Us, and a bunch of post rock from Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai.

I saw Upstream Colour and Rush - I'm just less and less captivated by the movies at the moment; and I read a bunch of stuff, including Sandy Nairn's Art Theft, about recovering the Turners for the Tate, the first volume of Transmetropolitan (Back On The Streets)  and short studies on the history of Pop Art, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns and Nan Goldin, as well as Fight Club, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist ….. Nick and Norah is way better than the movie and it's genre as a "teen novel" suggests, and I was struck by how much the Manosphere makes more sense after I read Fight Club (the movies isn't quite enough).

The end of the month was Lisbon with side trips to Caiscas and Sintra. What can I say? Amazing food, Bar Baia and Urban Beach Friday night to Saturday morning, hanging out with the guys, dodging the rain, the Paula Rego museum and Atlantic waves in Caiscas, a Sunday morning stroll round the Botanical Gardens, and generally chilling in Barrio Alto cafes and squares while the rest of the gang slept off their hangovers. There are going to be a whole bunch of posts on it.

And I finally found a decent explanation of what a twisting sheaf is and why - props to Andreas Gathmann. So the slow crawl to Riemann-Roch just speeded up a lot.

Sao Domingos, Lisbon

Nothing can prepare you for being inside Sao Domingos Church in Lisbon. It burned down in 1954, was re-built it, but not re-prettified. Instead it has been left with cracked pillars, burnt rock, and a blood-red interior. This is a serious church, in which life is in danger and under threat, and God is not smiling on us and protecting us. This church reminds us that we die in accidents and earthquakes and fires, and that there is dark side to life which is God's as well. I'm a heathen, and it connects with me. Visit it, but don't do the tourist one-lap-and-out. Stay. Absorb. Take photographs because that will make you look. Notice the old women praying and sitting in silence. And still people light candles in hope, because there is hope in this blood-red darkness.