A Waiting Game

Well, we got back from Scotland on Tuesday and were greeted by the FOR SALE sign attached to the front gatepost. So now we've got to sit back and wait for the potential buyers to beat a path to the door and make us an offer we can't refuse. However, I've decided not to discuss viewings or negotiations on here until we've exchanged contracts as I don't want to do anything that could jeopardise a sale - you never know who's looking with the internet. So that's all about the house for now although I will regularly post the link to the estate agent's details to keep interest as high as possible.

We treated ourselves to one of our days out in Liverpool yesterday and things could not have got off to a better start when we popped into Waterstone's for a cup of coffee to find that we were just in time for a short lecture on the life of Edgar Allan Poe followed by a reading of his short story The Tell-Tale Heart. It was a great innovation by Waterstone's and the young man who did the excellent reading said that he has got a series of such events planned right into summer. We'll certainly try another.

Such a gothic tale put us nicely in the mood for our first film choice of the day at FACT. The Cabin In  The Woods has mixed reviews but The Times gave it four stars so we thought that we'd give it a go. It opens with a couple of middle aged blokes in lab coats discussing some sort of event that they're overseeing in some large institutional building and then cuts to the five stereotypical characters you'll find in any teenage scary movie or slasher pic - the jock, the studious type, the stoner, the nympho and her respectable friend and off they go in the camper van a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre meeting the bog standard Deliverance style hillbilly before arriving on the set of The Evil Dead. So far so much going through the motions but we mustn't forget the two blokes in lab coats who provide a twist to the usual goings on in the cabin. Sad to say, in our opinion, the twist wasn't worth the effort as the film degenerated into farce long before the final credits rolled. For the Times' critic to give this four stars I can only imagine that he or she watched the film whilst smoking one of the stoner character's giant spliffs.


We went on to have a meal at Salt House Tapas but this was sadly spoilt by an incident that put a dampener on the day (nothing to do with the restaurant) and we headed back to FACT without finishing. As we walked back to the cinema "dampener" was certainly appropriate as the heavens opened with a deluge of biblical proportions leaving us to watch the documentary Marley looking like a pair of drowned rats.

We weren't really in the best frame of mind to watch Marley but it told his life story in a thorough manner although I didn't learn a great deal that I didn't already know. I love his music and would have liked to hear more of it and to have seen more footage of him performing rather than listen to talk over a collection of (very good) photographs. The film showed us what a beautiful country Jamaica is and broke the shock news that Bob smoked a lot of weed. It taught me a lot about his politicisation and his success with the ladies but I don't feel that, despite in depth interviews with those closest to him, I really know him as a man any better after watching it. I think that, unlike Senna (which could be enjoyed by anyone with no interest whatsoever in F1) this documentary is one for serious Marley fans only.


I would have preferred to see more of this.


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