Our Days As A Zombie

We turned up at the Regal about 9.30am as requested but found only two people outside and all the doors boarded up and locked but after 5 minutes the door was opened and we went in to the darkended foyer which was crammed now full of old posters, film memorobilia etc. Everythin g had "lot" numbers on it, even the radiators and the light fittings.
Some "zombies" were being made-up in the back of the foyer by the old popcorn and coke kiosk and wires and lights and film acoutrements littered the floor and trailed through into the theatre.

About 30 "extras" had voluteered for this "no budget" film shoot. Most had answered a request in the local paper like we did. No pay but a chance for out names to be on the titles and the fun of being a zombie for a day!
Hazel had asked some of her colleagues at work to come but only John showed any interest as his son Saul was a big zombie film fan. They looked great in their make-up. Ours was pretty good too though Hazel's was very subtle and soon rubbed off.

The tedious bit was in between takes but thankfully there was a lot to see and explore. The old projection rooms crammed full of ancient projectors and reels of film were fascinating and we felt priveleged to have the chance to look round them.

The filming stopped for lunch and we had some tortilla wraps we bought from Aldi, crisps and orange juice.
We finished about 5pm. They were doing some action shots later but we decided to go home as being a zombie is quite tiring - all that moaning and staggering about takes it out of you!

The can read more about the film "Dead City" and see a short folm about it HERE.

Electric Fish

Last night I dreamed of electric fish - in the mouths of prisoners and their teeth were chattering with the shocking haddock they were getting!
Over the last couple of days its been the usual blogging and collaging ( see above - for Scrapiteria ) and walks into town to get shopping and mooch around the charity shops. Found a strange LP of songs fashioned from the poems in "Alice In Wonderland" - slightly disturbingly operatic. Not really my cup of tea but I was intrigued enough to fork out two quid mainly for the nice sleeve art and I wondered how they would sing "Jabberwocky". I expect it will turn up at Boot Sale Sounds soon.

A middle aged man hailed me as I walked home , "Hello George, How are you??" . eh? "I'm not George " I hastily replied and walked on . He just looked at me with a puzzled expression. Weird eh? Maybe I have a doppelganger? I used to get mistaken for people when I was younger but it hasn't happened for a while.

Archie wasn't in the local paper this week. Surely some mistake?

Hazel is happy now that eventually the local council have finally agreed a white line in the road outside will deter idiots from parking in front of her parking space and dropped kerb. The local window cleaner did it yesterday despite a huge gap the other side in which to park. It was odd though as Hazel had just phoned them to see what the delay was ( she wrote last October !) and when she put the phone down a letter from the council saying she had been granted a line plopped on the doormat! How's that for coincidence and serendipity?!

Jean Pierre- Jeunet

Brilliant short film by extraordinairy French director who made Amelie, Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children etc. just found on You Tube.

Windy Weekend

Heres Archie looking very tiny at school when they had to interview the Tory MP "Ozzy" Osborne, who managed to keep his foul mouth in check the whole time for which he must be congratulated.
Gale force winds last week took a few tiles off the neighbours roof and a bit of guttering. Luckliy we managed to escape unscathed. Have I said all this before?
Hazel and Archie were coughing and sneezing all weekend but were well enough today to return to college and school.
I went down town this morning for my daily constitutional. I found some old 78's in the Help The Aged. All 50p each. Worth buying for the lovely sleeve art. Especially glad to find the Uncle Mac Nursery Rhymes- a three disc set in special fold out sleeve ( mostly disintegrated ). Also a Spike Jones and a yodeller I'd never heard of. Soon to be fetaured on Boot Sale Sounds.

Thankfully the winds have subsided and it's a nice sunny if nippy day. Just been watching the news of the container ship run aground off the Devon coast and the wreckage on the beach. Lots of beachcombers with BMW bikes, exhaust pipes, engines, wine casks and other flotsam, etc. wheeling their finds away , looking very pleased with themselves.

Poorly Peeps

The wind is whistling down the chimney like a thing possessed. I can't quite catch the tune. Hazel and Archie are both off college and school today dues to bad colds, sore throats, coughs, wheezes, sneezles etc. Thankfully I haven't caught it yet. I'm up and down the stairs like a fiddler's yo-yo.
Yesterday I went to local shops to get the paper. Archie managed to wheedle himself into it again. There he is on page 12 next to the Tory MP for Tatton who I can never remember. A selected group from all years had to interview him. I think Archie's question was " What do you think of the school league tables?" when all we really wanted to ask was "Why are you making such a hash of being the opposition party?"

Flo had to go and have her bum scraped and her nails trimmed as they were beginning to curl up and look like talons. She wasn't a happy bunny! Still traumatised by her ordeal she glowers at us from the deepest recesses of her hutch.
I went to the dentist for bi-annual inspection and scrape. Thankfully nothing serious showed up on x-rays. Arggh! The old water jet torture! Glub glub! Nasty weather for the time of year. Glub glub! A lot milder though. Glub glub!

Made some more "headers" for my copious blogs. Made salad and baked spuds and leftover lasagne. Yum!

New Header's For Old

Thanks to Madeline I have been able to do away with a few old "headers" on my blogs and made my own from bits lying about on the floor of my room. It really is quite easy once you know how. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. Hazel wants one now for her blog. I can see this will keep me busy for a while. I can change them when I get sick of them too which will be nice.

Went into town yesterday and got my ear bent in the bank by an officious woman, determined to sell me insurance and other stuff I didn't want! I came out feeling rather depressed by it all. Thankfully soon cheered up when I found a great inter-active CD-ROM in a charity shop for one-fifty. Its the Ceremony Of Innocence on the Real World label from 1997. Despite being an ancient 10 years old it still worked and is like an inter-active story based on the Griffin and Sabine Trilogy by Nick Bantock. It's full of surprises and visual delights - the cursor turns into butterflies and lizards etc. and the correspondence beteen Griffin and Sabine ( mostly postcards ) come to life in all kinds of clever and intriguing ways.

It's raining today so staying in to continue with collage making and "header" uploading.

Unlucky For Some

Spot The Edam N0. 2
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.

It's been a windy and wet few days. Thursday I chased a neighbour's recycling bin down the road after it had been emptied by the dustmen and thrown carelessly on the pavement. The wind dragged it into the road and as I bent down to grab it another gust caused it to skid along the tarmac for about 100 yards with me chasing it trying to avoid cars coming down the road! I'd learned my lesson and didn't bother to rescue anybody else's bins as they blew along - banging into wheelie bins and lamp-posts etc. Some front gardens ended up with several bins from their neighbours so imagine the confusion when they came home from work.

Yesterday I stayed in to start the collaged assembling project that I had promised some friends. It's called Issue 13 so was looking for scraps with a superstitious angle - ladders, magpies, four leaf clovers, that kind of thing. Needless to say I was unlucky in not finding any!
I did make a start though and have the bare bones of the pages worked out and some initial layers glued down.

Archie was part of the group interview the local tory MP at the school yesterday. He had his photo taken again for the local paper. Thats 4 weeks in a row now almost! Last week we were on the front page in the last audience of the Regal , but you can just about make out our faces - about five pixels each! I meant to ask about an enlargement at the papers offices today but completely forgot. It would be a nice souvenir to have.

Today is the 13th so more bad luck in the shape of a headache thats lasted all day. I went to town this morning for a walk but didn't find much. The Guardian with DVD of "Gilbert Grape" with Johnny Depp in it and some postage stamps I bought at Woolworths.

Hazel and Archie have been in the garden - burning the Xmas tree branches and making lots of smoke. They have saved the stump/stalk with all the others. We have a fine collection of old xmas tree stumps now - all lined up in a row!

Now I'm going to make a veg. curry as we have enough yoghurt and dug out some Bombay Potatoes and Nan bread from the freezer.
It's windy again and the trees are thrashing about outside in the garden like things possessed!

A Little Bit Of Jean Tinguely For Hazel

Le Cyclop 1/4
Uploaded by David_Reverchon

Drizzle!

Stayed in today to finish off some collages including this one and do some blogging. I went out briefly to post letters and bought the new snazzy Beatles stamps. Archie got a nice clipping in the post from the Cornerhouse with review in a teacher's mag. called "In The Picture" which says nice things about Archie's animation "Kenkeneb" which is on the Cornerhouse DVD.
Archie came home very tired after running round the park a couple of times. Too much trifle over Xmas hols.!
I made some cauliflower cheese, baked spuds, green soya beans and carrots for dinner. Now too full for mince pie and cream. It's a good job I don't have to run round the park as I fear I wouldn't get very far!

SWAPATORIUM: The Blue Lyres

Regal - 60 Years

Found this short film from Granada TV on the Regal website. Transferred it here before they sell it on e-bay! Rather compressed so quality is a bit iffy.

Last Night At The Regal

A joyous celebration of cinema but a sad end to a fine old family business last night at the Regal. "Grease" was the final film by popular demand just beating "Gone With The Wind" apparently. I was a little miffed at the choice whn I first heard but as it turned out it was perfect as loads of people dressed up in 50's clothes for the occassion (not us) and the atmostphere was fantastic - clapping and community singing through all the songs and jiving in the isles and on stage at certain key points in the film. At the end it was pandemonium with people dancing on stage in front of the closing credits and calls for the manager to make a speech. The ice cream ladies took an ovation and Hazel shook the managers hand as we left ( I went out the back way ). Hazel took loads of photos which you can see at Flickr.
We got to the cinema quite early and luckliy found a good seat for the sell out charity show. It was nice to soak up the atmostphere and watch all the "T - Birds" and "Pink Ladies" milling about . A nice mixed crowd from children to senior citizens. Some very posh people from Cuddington sitting behind us discussing the merits of pub food and lack of any decent resturants in the area. Delightful short films at the beginning with clips of iconic moments in films throughout the history of cinema.

Very sad though that we won't be able to go here again to see films and must travel to Knutsford or Chester. Nobody is sure what will happen to the site which does flood quite badly when the river overflows - which happened a couple of years ago.

Penultimate show at Regal

Went to see the penultimate show at the Regal tonight - Ben Stiller etc. in "Night In The Museum" which was rather dull and disapointing. It's a shame all those stars had such rubbish lines to read. Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke, Robin Williams etc. All the money, like most Hollywood fodder these days was spent on special effects and hardly anything on the script. The Regal was featured on the TV regional news too for about 2 minutes this evening. I managed to record it and will try and make a Quicktime version for the blog.
Here's my 4th collage of the year. I made a couple more today. We took all the decorations down and packed them away for another year. The tree left it's usual wake of needles which will no doubt be around for a few months until they are all hoovered up. The boxes of tinsel and lights all neatly packed away in the wardrobe.
Archie is in the local paper again - a smaller photo of the first which reminds everyone how to see his animations on the paper's website. It's a shame the sound doesn't work though , at least not on our computer.

Sales Time!

This is my third collage of the year so doing well so far. Hazel found some plastic folders with clear pockets for my collages so no excuses now. The sales have started and besides the collage folders we found some other bargains including a facsimile copy of the first Dandy for eight quid ( reduced from 16 ) so Archie was pleased with that. Hazel also bought some disc shooters which look like blue plastic egg beaters but they fire fleuorescent corn pads out of a slit in the front at high speed with an annoying sc-fi "Weeeeeeeh!" noise. ( batteries not included )

I havent found much yet but keep looking. Most of the shops are full of half price Xmas stuff. Annuals are 99p now so it's worth waiting until after Xmas to buy them.
The weather has been pretty awful so have stayed inside most of the time. Managed to do some collages and aiming for one a day to fill these folders up.
Archie has added to the Wilfred maze of boxes that pile up. They all slot together and give Wilf several hamster miles of tunnels to explore!