Writer's Block

Every time I contemplate getting rid of my Netflix subscription, they reel me back in. This time, it's the return of the terrific House of Cards for season 3. It opens with now President Frank Underwood urinating on his father's grave. As my father pointed out, you wouldn't have seen Ian Richardson doing that in the British version. Episode 1 was nonetheless a solid start, largely focusing on Doug Stamper's recovery (having been presumed dead at the end of Season 2), Claire Underwood's political ambitions and the president's dwindling approval ratings. Netflix's content distribution encourages binge watching, but I'll have to try and find a more leisurely viewing schedule. In late 2013 I watched all five seasons of Breaking Bad in two weeks. That was unwise. In other news, Mark Watson is currently in the process of a 27 hour comedy show for Comic Relief . Watson is the pioneer of these marathon efforts, having previously performed 24 hour shows in Ed...

After a stressful but ultimately successful exam day, I took a long overdue trip to Peckham Plex (which basically looks like a cinema that the characters of Saved By The Bell would attend) to see Selma. The film's title refers to Selma, Alabama, the town in which Martin Luther King Jr and the supporters of the civil rights movement organised a march to Montgomery to highlight the continued disenfranchisement of black Americans in 1965. It's a flawed but important film. Selma excels at demonstrating the sheer level of brutality towards the black population by the white southern establishment, first with a truly shocking depiction of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, then with the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson and finally with the breakup of the first attempted march, broadcast live on TV. David Oyelowo's nuanced performance as Dr King is truly impressive. What he lacks in physical resemblance is more than compensated for vocally and he shines when replicating King...

The past four days have pretty much exclusively been about readying myself for my accountancy exam tomorrow. It's the most challenging of my five modules (for reasons that are too boring to go into) and if I can pass it, it'll be a big step forward. A positive result tomorrow would set myself up nicely for an eclectic weekend. On Saturday, I'm heading to The Valley for Charlton vs Huddersfield where I hope not to see the scenes described here . Then it's off to the Islington Assembly Hall to witness the musical joys of Andrew McMahon and his piano. Sunday is my first working day of the National Trust season which starts this weekend and therefore I anticipate being swamped by heritage hungry visitors. FIFA have announced this week what everyone in the world of football has long suspected. The 2022 World Cup awarded to Qatar will be moved from the summer to winter with the prospect of the final being held on 23rd December. Everyone apart from the powers that be had a...

I started online dating in 2012, through Plenty of Fish and OKCupid. Last year, I also moved onto Tinder where there has been nothing of note to report, save for a couple of curiously explicit messages. But I always considered that an idle distraction. POF was always a waste of time, largely populated by the illiterate and people with profiles so brief as to be completely pointless. I had held out rather more hope for OKCupid. In the past three years, I have dated five woman. I'm still in contact with only one of them on a friendly basis, having ended a long and turbulent association with another a little while ago. I'm not sure why I'm saying all this. Without going into specifics, I've been single for a very long time. Not really through choice, but I've come to accept that I'm the sort of person who it doesn't happen for. I had assumed that something would have just naturally happened for me by now or that I would have found an easy mutual connec...

Another busy day of preparing for my next accountancy exam. I've done three mocks today, I badly failed the first one, improved with the second and passed with the third, so I guess that's progress. I belatedly caught up with the results of the Oscars on Sunday, as my prolonged period of underemployment has resulted in me becoming a semi movie buff over the past couple of years. I was pleased that The Grand Budapest Hotel was acknowledged with four gongs. It was the film I most enjoyed watching last year at the excellent Phoenix Cinema in Finchley. Ralph Fiennes is terrific in it, it's visually fantastic and it's genuinely very funny in places too. A well deserved best actress nod for Patricia Arquette was the only award for Boyhood which some people have described as a snub. I enjoyed Boyhood very much but wouldn't say it was the out and out best film of the year. Shot in various spells over a twelve year period, it's a remarkable achievement from Richard L...

 Previous Weight: 20 stone, 9 pounds. New Weight: 20 stone, 8.5 pounds . Weight Loss: 0.5 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 8.5 pounds . WOO. HALF A POUND. I can scarcely contain my joy. There is very little reason for me to continue to post my weight up here. I'm still making a lot of poor eating choices. In particular I have been consuming more than five doughnuts a week because I am apparently a stereotype of a fat person. Hopefully I can get back on track, blah blah blah. I don't even believe myself any more. In other news, I passed my second AAT exam today. So things are tentatively on track for the moment. I've also been catching up on a few podcasts. Last week saw the sudden passing of Harris Wittels at the age of 30, a comedy writer and producer on hugely successful sitcoms like Parks and Recreation and Eastbound and Down. I listened to his episode of You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, during which he revealed that he started using drugs at the age of 12 and...

I'm grateful that for the most part recently I've been able to handle my mental health issues. It's also roughly three years now since my last mental breakdown. There are nights where my depression rears its ugly head though and last night was one of them. Laying in bed for three hours, willing yourself to sleep while your brain hurls variations of "You're a fat useless cunt" at you isn't a great deal of fun.  It was my dad's 67th birthday today, many happy returns to him. Obviously I don't really need to mention that here. I offered said returns in person, on the basis that we both continue to live under the same roof. Which if I recall correctly, was another theme that my brain persisted in returning to last night. We celebrated in the time honoured fashion of watching three football matches back to back, with a good win for Liverpool at Southampton and a couple of Desmonds (2-2) elsewhere. I've got a challenging week coming up, with asse...