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Chrissie

God is Dead

I must admit, all the hooey over The Passion of the Christ is quite amusing. I might consider myself a spiritual person—if someone could offer me a coherent definition of the term—but I’m basically an atheist, and feel wholly detached from all this heated baloney.

One argument seems to be that the film might provoke anti-semitism. I’m sad people might take it seriously enough to come away which such a ridiculous feeling. I thought Jesus’ crucifixion was a pre-ordaned inevitability, reducing all involved to mere pawns… but do I even care?
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Expensive Trip!

It was nice to get down to London and catch up with Paul again, but there’s always a reluctance to come home! Let’s face it, this is a pretty dismal area. Birmingham, the city, is okay enough, but the rest? Pah!

Paul and I went into the British Museum for a while and looked at a lot of old Egyptian thingies. He tried to take a couple of snaps, but neither came out very well. The last time I went in the place was a school trip back in 1981; it brought back a lot of memories, even though it’s changed a lot since then. The main memory, alas, is of me dying of thirst and not being allowed to go to the canteen for a drink until we’d looked at everything we were supposed to see. School trips simply aren’t designed to be enjoyed.

Expensive Trip!
Horrible, weird, blurry pic in the British Museum. Better luck next time, Paul!
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Random Music Comments

Still on music: finally picked up the last Blur album, Think Tank, the other day. Blur used to be my fave band a few years ago, but the fact that it took me almost a year—and HMV selling it off for £7.99—to get this one says a lot for my expectations. I wish I could say I was wrong; three listens later, I’m still waiting for one of the tunes to stay in my head. This, from a band whose melodies were always so memorable.

I will persist, though, and give it a few more tries. So far, it seems a huge disappointment.
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Quite Notable, at Least

So we watched Hitckcock’s Notorious last night, which I hadn’t seen for years. Fine stuff from the same era as the brilliant Shadow of a Doubt (wherein Joseph Cotten positively rocks). It’s a classic, it’s all been said already… most of the praise is entirely deserved.

The acting? Cary Grant is Cary Grant. I like him fine, so what the hell. But the real plaudits go to Ingrid Bergman and the inimitable Claude Rains (who, let’s face it, thoroughly stole the show in Casablanca).
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The Office

I did buy some office-friendly clothes today, including a shirt. The venue was H&M. I usually buy stuff from M&S, since we have food from there, but they’re pricey. H&M are cheaper, although their displays are appallingly untidy and disordered. And the clothes are quite dirty in some cases; they had a pale blue shirt I might have bought had they not all been mingingly filthy and creased… okay, they can be washed and ironed, but that’s not the point.

If this sounds like I’m planning to get an office job, well, I’m not. Not really. It would entirely upset my long-term image as an arty-farty anarchist. I’m merely being… pragmatic.
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Fit to Print

About writing: I’ve just completed a 1,000-word review of Mr. D. Boyle’s 28 Days Later, for the next issue of Van Helsing’s Journal (no URL, as far as I’m aware). I’m currently working on a slightly longer piece on The Wicker Man for the issue after that, and I’ve agreed to do something on Italian horror that I haven’t started yet. (VHJ covers non-American horror/fantasy genre films.)
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