I'm moving this blog

I have finally got sick of Blogger's general ugliness and clunkiness and lack of customizability(-ness), and so I am moving this blog as of today.

My new blog will be Wordpress-powered, and will have its own web address. Unfortunately I was unable to register www.superlative.co.uk because some bastard has already taken it, so I have instead had to settle for:

www.superlativity.co.uk

Which isn't a real word, I know, but it will have to do. In the future I plan to develop the site to be more than just a blog of my life, but to have some of the other things that I work on or that interest me on it as well.

So, for the three or four of you that actually read this blog, if you have it bookmarked anywhere, please update the link to the one above. The RSS feed, if you subscribe that way, is www.superlativity.co.uk/?feed=rss2.

I'm not planning on making any more posts on this Blogger address, unless I have an absolute disaster with Wordpress, so hopefully this will be the last one here. I'll see you soon at the new site!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, it really does mean a lot to me.

Iron Man 2 and The Reader

I have seen and enjoyed two films recently. Some people might say they are quite different, but I think they have a lot in common: one is about a 40-year old superhero in a robot suit; the other is about a young boy's relationship with a semi-paedophile former Nazi. You can see why I might get the two confused in my mind, so just because it's easier I shall review them in one post.

Iron Man 2

Some people would call this a flagrant and needless attempt to extract more money from the Iron Man franchise after an initially successful film. Indeed, when watching the sequel I did find an awful lot of similarities with the first film that made me think "was there really any point in making this?"

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is once again challenged by someone using a hijacked version of his own design and must battle it out and prove his suit is better than the other guy's. There is a vague plot slung around the whole thing, and in this second film Scarlett Johansson prances about in a skin-tight outfit to distract you from the obvious similarities with the first one.

Originality aside though, I did enjoy it, and it was a perfectly acceptable means of being entertained for a couple of hours. The fight scenes are quite cool, the special effects are polished, and Gwyneth Paltrow is reasonably amusing as the unfortunately-named Pepper Potts. Oh and that funny arm-robot that's a bit like a scutter is back too.

It's not amazing cinema, but it's better than being stabbed in the face. I even quite liked Robert Downey Jr in it, despite him not being my favourite actor, as he plays the smug richboy character of Tony Stark quite accurately.

My verdict: B- (not a disaster, but could do better )

The Reader

The Reader, on the other hand, was really really good, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone. It's not very often that I find myself transfixed by a film, and then left pondering it for ages afterwards.

I'll try not to give too much away, but it is essentially the story of a 15-year old German boy who embarks on an affair with an older woman. They lose contact, and years later while at Law School, he finds that his former lover is a defendant in a trial brought against Nazi war criminals.

The story is well-written and the acting is superb. I found Kate Winslet's character Hanna believable, and quite disturbingly touching when you realise what she is accused of. I think that the conflict the audience feels towards her is a testament to the cleverness of the story and her quality as an actress, and the answers that the film doesn't give you allow you room to ponder and interpret it as you wish. In a way you're drawn into the mindset of the male character, who experiences the same mixture of emotions as he tries to reconcile the woman he thought he knew with the woman he encounters later in life.

Quite rightly, Kate Winslet won an Oscar for it, and I also enjoyed the performance of David Kross, her gratuitously naked young lover. And before you say "doesn't that make you a bit of a paedo?", the actor wasn't actually 15 when he made it, he was about 18, so that makes it alright if I had a bit of a look.

My verdict: A (polished and intriguing)

Birthday booze and 30 looms

I had a really nice birthday weekend and seemed to pack loads into it. I also managed to avoid any particularly bad hangovers, which for me is a massive success and meant I could actually attend my whole birthday weekend and not spend it with a cushion over my head on the sofa.

I came home on Friday to find that Chris had stuck balloons up in our building's front passage, on our front door, and then around the living room, and had laid out my cards and presents all nicely for me, which was lovely. He's much better at making a fuss of me on my birthday than I am of him. I opened all my stuff with a nice glass of wine, and then we had dinner WITHOUT THE TELLY ON because it was that much of a special occasion.

Our friends joined us later on in the evening for some drinkies and some Singstar, which was a nice easy thing to do and meant I didn't have to leave the house. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, there were about nine of us in the end, which is good because I know Singstar isn't everyone's cup of tea. It was unfortunately rather loud though and we ended up with the neighbours banging on the wall at about 11.45pm. Well, in fact it was mostly one friend who was rather loud because he has the loudest voice ever and thinks that singing means shouting, so giving him a microphone to do it into was possibly not the best idea.

I actually felt really bad, as the neighbours have never banged on the wall before in the six years we've lived there, and I know how tetchy I am about other people making noise. I did turn it down after that though, and most people went off home about 45 minutes later anyway. It left me slightly concerned that our Eurovision party in four weeks might not go down very well with them, but that's normally a bit quieter because it's watching telly (not shouting into a sound system) and it's much earlier in the evening.

I had to get up a reasonable time on Saturday to go to the Children's Parade and take photos for Chris. He's a teacher and he was in the parade, I should point out, it's not that he just likes photos of children. Anyway, the combination of my slight hangover headache and 2,000 children with drums and whistles did not mix very well, but apart from that the parade was quite fun.

And on Saturday night, as planned we went to Pop Kraft at the Hanbury. We took a couple of friends with us who haven't been before, and I'm always a bit nervous when we do that because Boogaloo Stu's nights have a rather.... unusual feel to them. They're fabulous, obviously, and I love them to bits, but the very first time you go you can't help thinking "What the fuck is going on?"

Our friends really enjoyed it anyway, so that was good. I made a cake:

And Chris made a balloon dog:

And then on Sunday, as if all that weren't enough, we had the most GORGEOUS Sunday lunch at the PV. They do a great roast there, and it's just what you need when you're a bit hungover and can't be bothered to cook.

So that was my birthday weekend, and it was great. I've also seen Iron Man 2 and The Reader this weekend, but I might have to write about those separately. They were both good, but obviously in very different ways.

Now that the dust has settled though, I actually have to consider the notion that I am 29 and have entered my last year before I'm 30. How the fuck did that happen?? 29, at least when I was 10 years younger, has always sounded so OLD. But now that I'm there, I don't feel old remotely, and it makes my age feel rather inappropriate.

I don't feel any different to how I felt when I left uni really. When I look back on my university years, yes I was much younger in my mind then, but since I left and started work I feel like I've psychologically stayed the same. Yet somehow nearly seven years have drifted past, which is actually almost twice the length of my whole degree, and that just sounds insane. I know I sound like I'm 60, but where the hell does the time go??

Oh well, it could be worse. I have a nice life, and a job that pays pretty well, and a lovely flat, and I can go out clubbing and go on holiday and drink booze and more or less do whatever I want. So I'm not complaining; I know I'm very lucky. But I'd be even luckier if my stupid age had stopped at 24 instead of stubbornly marching onwards.

It has made me think a little though that maybe there are things I would like to have done before I'm 30, and if that's the case I really ought to get on and do them. I don't know what they are of course, but I'm going to have a think about it. And then procrastinate and not do them, and pretend I never really wanted to do them anyway.