Clarity

Well, it was an experience. A film that we've been looking forward to for some time, continuing a character from "Pitch Black" which was cheesy in the "Blade" sense, but fun and with some admirable qualities, supported by some very good actors and actresses.... we thought we were in for a real treat. The film was:



Having now seen it, accompanied by Ian's sister and her husband Jon, and a lot of Haagen-Daz, I cannot impress upon you enough what a bad idea it would be to go and see this film. I so wish I had managed to speak to someone who had already seen it before frittering away two hours of not just my life, but Ian's and Ruth's and Jon's too!!

Where do I start? The dodgy (well, truthfully, almost non-existent) plot? The cheesy-beyond-belief catchphrases? The painfully retarded dialogue?

Ian said that its only redeeming features were a few superb CG sequences (and although I agree that they were superb, I don't think anything could have redeemed this film - the sequences were about all that stopped me from starting to throw things around, bounce obnoxiously in my seat, pinch my neighbours, or start to tickle them to relieve the boredom).

I think it's not too much to say that this was possibly the worst film that either of us have ever seen. We had quite high expectations, as we liked the character and the trailers looked quite exciting, but the reality was so crushingly bad that we could hardly stop ourselves from giggling hysterically on the way home when Ian gravely attempted to discuss the plot with me.

This film has an awful lot to answer for. I predicted that all it would be was a w*nk, and I was right!! But hey, don't just take my word for it, click on the image above to see the Internet Movie Database's review of this dreadful waste of money.

I was marvelling again at the weekend about what a hard life cats have (especially mine), but more on the theory of learned response over genetic or limbic memory. Consider my cat:



He has never, in his whole life, lived in a house with a real fire. He has never, to the best of my knowledge, even seen a real fire. We have a hearth, yes, but it has a (rather nice) electric fire in it that has never been turned on, so he has never even experienced a hearth that radiates heat.

Yet still, he stretches out in front of it at every opportunity, looking like he's blissfully toasting his belly. Have we as a species had cats around now for so long that the memory of fires and comfy fireplaces are recognised by them by instinct?

Instead of ignoring the situation as I have for the last 2 years (!) I have decided to get out and tackle the piece of imported field which I pretend is a garden. Before this weekend, it had a knee-length "lawn", a thriving wasp population, a slug metropolis and many other unsavoury cat by-products hidden in the grass. But now, the grass is no more!



You can actually see the paving slab that the chimenia is stood on, and the brick path that long-since vanished beneath clover and grass has re-appeared, so I can walk from patio to patio without fear. There is an issue though. Look closely at the grass on the following:



There is very little green and a lot of thatch. I raked and raked whilst being chased by wasps (and I mean chased - a few of them actually hit the window in the back door quite hard as I hurredly closed it behind me!!!) and tried to get as much of the cuttings up as possible, but I'm worried now that there is not enough left to survive this heat. They've forecast heavy showers and thunder for today though, so I'm hoping that it will be all right. The good thing is that the weeds will grow quicker than the grass, so I can spot and dig them out fairly easily.

For you nature people out there, I rescued many spiders and waited for the crickets to move and made sure that the carnage was minimised. I didn't even swat any wasps.

If the grass does die, then I have some good paving plans, and if it doesn't, I have made an oath to actually keep on top of it from now on, as I want to be able to use my garden, for relaxation, entertaining, and peaceful reflection rather than have it lurk out there being a constant source of guilt! Watch this space - next instalment is Border Control!!!