*giggles*

History repeats itself: 11 Decembers ago, Universal had the season's strongest movie: a downbeat sci-fi flick freely adapted from a well-known source by a name director. With a bare minimum of advance screenings and a total absence of hype, the studio dumped it. This year, they've done it again.

The 1995 castoff was 12 Monkeys, this year's victim is Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron's dank, hallucinated, shockingly immediate version of P.D. James's novel. Never mind that Cuaron saved the Harry Potter franchise and, with Y Tu Mama Tambien, directed the highest-grossing Spanish-language movie ever released in America (or that Children of Men was respectfully received at the Venice Film Festival and topped the British box office the week that it opened), this superbly crafted action thriller is being treated like a communicable disease.

Ever sensitive to buzz, critics have gotten the message and are steering clear. When the New York Film Critics Circle met last week, Children of Men got only a handful of votes, mainly for Emmanuel Lubezki's sensational cinematography. Earlier this month, The New York Times imagined Academy members in surgical scrubs, with a "news analysis" noting the unusual goriness of the year's Oscar contenders: The Departed, Flags of Our Fathers, Blood Diamond, Apocalypto, and The Last King of Scotland. A more resonant and gripping movie than any of these, Children of Men wasn't even mentioned.

It's really really good. Go watch it.

Here's the fancy monthly update. Actually, I have a valid excuse because of course, I have been in England yay!

My immigration medical seemed to go without any hitches. Except perhaps the fact that I spent $250 on a guy prodding my stomach, an x-ray and a urine test. In all honesty I can think of better ways.

The flight to England was as horrendous as ever, actually, since I've never flown back from Canada I am simply comparing it to any flight ever. I hate flying, not for the traditional "oh god the wings are going to fall off" reasons either. Here's why:

1. It costs a fortune, there is no way of saving money.
2. You are invariably stuck for any number of hours in an uncomfortable cramped position next to a fat stinky dude.
3. THEY BLOODY CHARGE FOR EXTRA LEG ROOM! Bear with me and try to consider any other situation where that sort of charge is accepted. Answer: NEVER. "Hi welcome to The Bear Pub, would you like to sit by the window?", "Yes please!", "Okay that will be an extra $50", "...".
4. The food is generally appalling.
5. The entertainment is appalling.
6. They fully expect you to check in approximately a month before you flight. "Oh great! I can spend some quality time in the fascinating departure lounge and go into WHSmiths!"
7. I really could go on but I'll not.

So anyway, the lesson learnt here is don't fly budget. Ever.

After getting over the jetlag we made a trip to Oxford to see Joel, a few drinks and a bout of unpleasant toilet trips later and we went home ready for Christmas via Woodstock and Blenheim Palace, which is as beautiful as ever.

Christmas Day and its following activities blew by as quick as one might expect, over-consumption of chocolate, mince pies, jigsaw puzzles and all the usual festivities. Most notable moment was Dad consuming an entire block of butter that he believed to be a piece of soft cheese.

After all the fun and eating was over we went to London to stay in my sisters new apartment in Richmond which an only be described using obscenities so I'll refrain and tell you that it's beautiful and I am jealous. Usual quick-fire tourist stuff, Tate Modern (we didn't get to do the slides, boo), walk along the South Bank, Covent Garden, a brief and upsetting visit to Oxford St and then the much more pleasant Carnaby Street then back home for New Years.

New Years was spent at home, I cooked a rather rushed and odd Moroccan meal and we lazed about.

The last few days of the trip were spent at home being lazy and it was thoroughly enjoyable after what felt like an entire trip of rushing about. The flight home was memorable as a kick in the teeth, 25 hours door to door, bliss.

That's about it. Whistler is blanketed under feet of snow, Sarah arrives on Wednesday and I guess I have to go back to work at some point because they will be undoubtedly missing me.

Buy my stuff: Ebay

Oh I added a bunch of photos to Flickr in the link above.

The opening gala was excellent, the whole event was really nicely laid out, free drinks, free turkey sandwiches then the advanced screening world premiere of "Let it Ride" a documentary, or biography (auto or not, I always forget which) about Craig Kelly, who I guess can only be described as the Lord of snowboarding, or Glen Plake of boarding. The movie was great, highly recommended viewing for anyone into their snow sports.

Tonight I watched Candy, a bleak somewhat Requiem look at drug abuse, relationships, family and self destruction. Thoroughly depressing, amazing advertising for anti-drug campaigners and very entertaining. Followed immediately by Shortbus which is summed up perfectly on IMDB by "Like a gory car wreck, you try and look away but keep looking...". I would describe it as porn, comedy, porn followed by gay porn. I think it got a general release but I wouldn't say it was everyone's cup of tea.

The closing movie for the festival was Snow Cake, a humorous drama based on the friendship of Alan Rickman and an excellent autistic Sigourney Weaver. It's hard to explain without giving much away but excellent performances from all, touching story line and some hilarious lines made it my pick of the bunch. I can only assume it will get a global release pretty soon.

Here's to next year!

Time to organise a immigration party!

Get this, ski out to the village in November! Peak chair opens on Whistler tomorrow should my legs be able to take it.

I posted some photos of my snowboard and Montreal in the link up top.

I went to Montreal! The trip down was a nightmare, I found out that it's basically impossible to get to Vancouver airport for 9am using public transport, which is when my flight departed of course. So I decided I would splash out at the Holiday Inn Richmond, travel down the night before on the Greyhound and utilise the hotels shuttle facilities in the morning. Some tool then decided to have an accident on the Sea to Sky highway. This 1-lane super highway (they're working a LOT to widen it for the olympics) is a veritable death trap, even more so in the Winter and it's not unusual for a crash to close the entire road for several hours. Good if it happens early in the day and you want a Vancouverite-free day on the mountain not so if you want to actually travel.

I'm dubious as to the extent of the accident on this occasion but Greyhound decided it would be better if they took us back to Whistler (after getting to Squamish, an hour away) and tried again later. We did that and drove straight through, no sign of any accident, now you see why the scepticism. I got into Vancouver at about 11pm, on Halloween, itself an interesting experience, navigated the public transport system and got to the airport at 1am, it seems Vancouver airport isn't much of a 24-hour sort of place, infact the only flights that go out between 1am and 7am are to Hong Kong so the place is deserted, everything is closed, and it's a pretty depressing place. I managed to grab a couple of hours of drool fueled sleep on a sofa in the freezing cold international departure lounge.

Initial sleepy opinions of Montreal weren't good, rudely greeted by a taxi driver trying to charge us $10 for a 2 minute (awkward to walk) cab ride, and generally the abundance of French people didn't do much to fix things. Anyway, the primary reason for going was all I really needed and after catching up on some sleep and being shown round I started to enjoy things a bit more, so much so I am undecided as to whether I like it more than Vancouver, which is a pretty big thing to say. It has lots of culture, pretty buildings, a fun young vibe, great food and it's literally massive.

While there we went to a couple of shows; Final Fantasy w/ Bell Orchestre and The Album Leaf, both of which were excellent, it bites not seeing any live music at all. Various other events included but were not limited to; eating, shopping, watching the entirity of season one Prison Break, eating, working, lounging around, eating. The highlight was of course the company, I always enjoy hanging out with myself... things continue to go excellently with Robyn, I can spend days on end without getting sick of her, continually be entertained by her quirks and it helps that I can convince her to eat as often as I find the need (which is often).

I partook of the famous Montreal smoked meat sandwich, which I have to say, is terribly overrated. It was good but I honestly expected someone to come and put the greatest meaty delight ever in my mouth *cough* but it was only really comparable to the awesome salt beef bagels from Brick Lane. Again, the poutine was nothing to write home on your blog about but they do know how to make a good breakfast.

All in all the trip was great, spending time with Robyn was as much fun as ever, her housemates were fun, Montreal was above all expectations, I spent an absolute fortune replenishing my tiny wardrobe, ate massive amounts (you may have noticed the several food comments so far in this entry) and generally relaxed. Another 3 weeks of sheer awesome that I'd never of experienced had I not come out here, a move which is continually being looked upon as the greatest idea ever conceived, after giraffes.

A rather familiar tale occured on the way home. Apparently it's impossible to get public transport from an international airport, to a world-renowned ski resort after 8pm. That is, they decided not to run any buses to Whistler after 8pm because of road closures for the aforementioned upgrades (despite the fact that the closures happen betwen 2am and 5am). It is literally the most ridiculous thing ever encountered, after giraffes. Anyway, another dozy night on my favorite homeless, should that be travel-less, sofa in Vancouver was all I needed to put me in a great mood for work the next day. Actually I didn't go to work so it didn't make much difference but still...

Additionally, my Mac came which excited Robyn no end, well, as soon as she realised how awesome it was at least. I'm still in the process of getting everything set up so I can stop using my PC but I must say I absolutely love it. The ability to run Windows helps, there's not limits on the software availability like I thought there would be and it's just so intuitive.

My snowboard is also in my presence. I shall take a few photos and upload them shortly. It's as pretty as a pony even though my bindings don't quite match the colour as well as I'd hoped. Still, I'm going to use the old rock board for a few more weeks while the base builds up.

The house is getting a little more set up. Ron acquired some furniture while I was away and set up a Christmas tree and lights which makes the place seem a lot more homely, I'm slowly getting used to living here which is odd since I've paid 2 rent cheques already! We still need to sort out a bit of stuff but we'll get fully settled sometime in the new year.

Whistler opened last Saturday to a absolutely collosal snowfall, a huge storm hit from Alaska dumping 10 feet on us over the course of 2 weeks, making the snowiest November on record, it's apparently awesome conditions, not that I'd know because I still haven't picked up (note: paid for) my pass. Hopefully I will resolve this minor concern this week and go up at the weekend. Blackcomb opens tomorrow but I'm simply too far behind with work to take any time off at the moment. I'll grab some photos of the lovely piles of snow outside the house sometime too.

It's still snowing...

The movie actually manages (and I'm sure it was on purpose) to really make you think how someone with such responsibility, education and the correct political balance was beaten by Bush. Good on Al Gore he's showing everyone who voted against him up, and in the right way.

Whistler is in a unique situation where it could easily become a Summer only resort within 5-10 years, sustainability programmes are in full effect but without sounding like a hippy Greenpeace weirdo, everyone can do more.

I strongly recommend everyone tries to watch the film, if not, you can't ignore the science.

Oh incidentally, it's snowing at last!

Lost - 3rd (and difficult season), it's only 3 episodes in but I'm finding myself increasingly uninterested in what's going on, it's really slow and the upcoming 14 week break is just enough to make me disconnect.

Heroes - A trashy superheroes living in the present day sort of affair where the story follows a few people who are discovering their "superpowers" and an undercover secret government sort of style coverup. Relatively entertaining but I doubt I'll stay interested past this season.

Jericho - Started out kind of slow and the acting/dialogue is both cheesy and poor but the story is quite compelling, nukes have fallen on the US and this small town remains dispite fallout, lack of power and all the other scenarios that go along with post apocolypse. Again it has a couple of secret stories of government officials and other such nonesense that is just beginning to be explained. Probably the best of the new shows.

Prison Break - I missed the first season but it's hardly a complex plot involving pretty interesting romp through a, surprise!, prison break.

Vanished - One episode and I was done, I actually think I read that the series is going to vanish after the first.

Veronica Mars - Entertaining and funny as always, easy on the eyes and brain and still going strong on the same formula after 2 seasons.

Extras - Excellent, I kind of lost interest in the first season of this after a few episodes, maybe I didn't give it enough chance because this, the last in the series, was hilarious.

Mitchell and Webb - Disappointing trashy sketch show from Peep Show lords Mark and Jez, it didn't quite survive the transition from an apparently amusing radio show.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - I take it back, this is the best new show of the year and infact up there with the original seasons of ER and the like. Matthew Perry puts his attachment to his Chandler mold in a superbly entertaining peek behind the filming of a weekly comedy show.

I should become a short column TV critic.

With that over we're onto the Mark news. I'm off to Montreal on the 1st to see Robyn, I'm there until the 20th then I finally might stay a night in the new house! Having already paid $1500 in rent.

I've taken up position working in the office on a pretty much daily basis and am really enjoying the routine, especially getting out of the apartment and the generic office banter, work is flowing in pretty steadily which is also pretty nice.

The snow still hasn't come, infact it's only rained maybe 5 days in the last month, a little worrying as this time last year it didn't stop raining, and by rain I mean proper West coast Canada style rain, unrelenting torrential downpour. Anyway, we've had none of that and there's more sun forecast. It's cooled down to a touch of frost (not the TV show) in the mornings and hoodie + jacket weather but we need some snow! The mountain opened the 5th November last year, we'll be lucky if there's enough for the scheduled 23rd this year.

Keith comes back into town this weekend which is excellent news as one of the original bunch of people to hang out with is highly appreciated.

I'll undoubtedly have a big amount of photos to share when I get back from Montreal.

Boxes!

Also thank you for the weather, 25c+ all this week, it's like Summer again...

Things Robyn likes:

• Me


• Her dog, "Taffy"


• Photographs


• Arthur (the kids TV show)


• Buying clothes


• Hugging me while I am fetching something heavy and hot from the oven


• Mario


• Pizza, specifically my home-made type ;-)


• Americanos from Gone Bakery and cookies from Moguls

Things Robyn doesn't like:

• Cats, specifically Zoe


• Lying on my sofa bored while I work


• Meat

The above are not exhaustive lists, Robyn is a very complex girl and indeed holds very well educated, informed and strong opinions on most subjects.

I had a wonderful time during Robyns last visit and am very grateful that she took the time out to come visit it, I can only apologise that I had to work quite a bit and was not able to spend all the time I would of liked with her. I also hopes she accepts this public apology for my rather hasty descent down Sproatt mountain, leaving her trailing behind with a very sore blister, that was not nice of me and I am very sorry.