You sir are the grand-daddy of all liars…

When I say you I actually mean me. I posted at the end of July and said that normal service would be resumed and then managed to post nothing to this blog since then. That was a bit shit wasn’t it.

What say we take another run at this….

Normal service has now been resumed (hopefully).

the eloquent page

The real reason I haven’t posted anything this month is that my book review site, www.theeloquentpage.co.uk pluggy plug plug, has been up and running for just over a month now. I’ve had some nice feed back.  I’ve even managed to snag a couple of advance review copies of some books. Its an interesting process and I find I have to be a bit more structured when it comes to my reading. If I want to add new content on a weekly basis I have to make a concerted effort to read regularly every night. Not a complaint there more of an observation.

500K Trek

As of today – 351 kilometres down 149 to go. All things remaining equal I should finish hit my target around the end of November. I’m quite chuffed really. I really feel like I am in the home straight now.

Edwin Morgan

I went a bit misty eyed for Glasgow when I heard of Edwin Morgan’s passing. I remember reading ‘In the Snackbar’ as part of my English standard grade. We used think it was hysterical to call the poem ‘Innes Nackbar’. Teenagers really are arsehats aren’t they. It also got me thinking about all the other great things I read at school. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon was a pretty epic read as I recall. Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfrid Owen is still firmly lodged in my brain as well. Ironically I studied Latin for two years and the Latin in this poem is one of the few things I remember. When I left school I had the lowest ever recorded score for a Latin exam – 2% in case your wondering. In hindsight I should have tried harder. Defining the word tandem as a bike for two people in the vocabulary test probably wasn’t a crash hot idea.

Till next time, Valete

Pablo Cheesecake

 

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Random bits and pieces from my head to the interweb…

Been a while since I wrote anything non book related. I am still reading daily but needed to flex my blogging muscles about something else for a bit of change of pace. I also get to waffle a bit more here than on the website.

Comic Con

Out of the new info that has been released at SDCC I am starting to get just a little bit excited about all the superhero films that are in development. I still have everything crossed that the Green Lantern will rock my socks. In my opinion if Whedon can get it right The Avengers will be a fanboy’s wet dream. Thor looks suitably shouty (still missing The Blessed but we cant have everything).

Mrs Cheesecake is wetting herself about Tron Legacy. I’ve seen the new footage and I have to agree.

British TV

Wasn’t Sherlock Holmes absolutely kick ass! The chemistry between Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman was just great. Some people have accused Mark Gatiss of being to hammy as Mycroft but personally I thought he managed to make him appear just the right side of eccentric.

It’s brilliant programming like this that proves how top-notch Aunty Beeb can be. I tell you what the current government better leave well enough alone.

While we’re on the subject of TV I have to admit another growing excitement. I follow George R. R. Martin’s blog and I have heard nothing but good things when it comes to the casting for A Game of Thrones. Sean Bean and now today Charles Dance. Epic stuff. I will read the books before the show starts I promise.

Fantasy Con 2010

Not long to go until Fantasy Con. Mrs Cheesecake and I are attending the full Con this year. Looking forward to it. Last year we just managed the Saturday but this year we have planned a bit better. If your attending please do say hello. Can’t miss me 6ft 2, bright red hair, goatee beard  and slightly maniacal look in my eye. As a disclaimer I am a lot less frightening once you get to know me. Mrs Cheesecake however is a nutter. It’s ok I told her I was going to write that.

A fat man cycles

At the beginning of the year I set myself a challenge. Cycle 500KM in 2010. This weekend I hit another milestone,the 300KM mark. Why the lunacy you may ask? Two reasons really. I’ve never been very good at finishing things. I thought if I set myself a grand epic task I could prove to myself I could accomplish something for once. Secondly ever since I broke my back I have not been able to exercise as much as I used to so. So far so good. I have a horrible feeling if I do manage this I’m going to have to increase the distance for next year. Oh dear.

Till next time

Mr C

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Normal service will now be resumed…

I’ve been on holiday for the last seven days and decided it would be a good idea to take a short break from the internet. I have glanced occasionally at Twitter and checked my e-mail but apart from that I have enjoyed a much needed internet free week.

In our extensive free time Mrs Cheesecake and I  have managed to refurbish our living room. I have reclaimed my DVD and book collections from the boxes in which they have dwelt for years. The living room is now ours. We have managed to stamp our own mark on it. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste but it works for us.

Needless to say the cats offered their own unique brand of assistance.

Bookshelf Cats

Mrs Cheesecake also managed to find something that she thought she had lost years ago.

Balls in a box

I also had the opportunity to see Inception last Saturday. What a fantastic movie. If someone had told me that it was possible to pull off a heist movie set in a character’s mind I would have been sceptical by Christopher Nolan has done just that. The cast were superb. I particularly liked Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I read the latest Batman 3 rumours with interest.

San Diego Comic Con is on at the moment. Man I wish I was there. I am such a geek it would be like achieving some sort of Nerd-vana if I got to attend. Maybe another time (in fairness though you would have to drug me to get me on a plane for a flight that long. I can hardly manage East Midlands to Glasgow so Trans Atlantic would probably cause me to wet myself repeatedly).

Really pleased with the initial responses regarding the launch of The Eloquent Page. It’s early days and I know I have to be more regular with new content but I’m still learning. I’m still quite new to this whole running a website malarkey so be patient. I promise I will get better.

Anywho back to reading. Need to get another review up on the site.

Later Peoples

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Mobile Bloggage

Trying out another mobile blog client. It’s an interesting experience. All of the functionality from a full web client appears to be here but it is quite compressed.

I guess it’s good for doing small blogs rather than writing epic essays. It appears I can auto-tweet/post to Facebook. Well it says I can. We’ll find out shortly.

I’ll have to take a look and see what it looks like once posted. Hmmm trippy interweb shennanigans.

– Posted using BlogPress from my mobile t’interwebs

Pablo Cheesecake v Man v Food

As with most things I have eclectic tastes when it comes to food. I will try just about anything once. As an example I was recently in Wales on holiday and got the opportunity to try ‘laver bread’ which is made from seaweed and looks a bit like black/green snot. It’s really unusual to taste (tastes a bit like the sea) and not as unpleasant as it sounds. My convoluted point being that I enjoy trying new things when it comes to my gastronomic adventures.

Ensuring that I am kept bang up to date with all the latest taste sensations I have been doing my due diligence. I recently discovered the TV show Man v Food from the Travel Channel in the US of States. Check this out.

Adam Richman, the host, is a legend. He’s even on Twitter as well (@adamrichman). He dares go where other’s fear to tread. I want his job. Travelling from city to city trying out all the food challenges that the US has to offer. If they ever do a UK version of this I am going to apply for the job. Cheesecake v Food – I like the sound of that!

Mrs Cheesecake has been flexing her gastronomic muscles as well. She is has been working through the recipes on the Pioneer Woman website. This is gradually making me a larger but more contented Cheesecake. We haven’t had a bad recipe from this site. Please note butter and cream are your friend.

If that’s not enough Mrs Cheesecake has also started growing her own fruit & vegetables. Before you ask: apples, pears, strawberries, rhubarb, onions, carrots, potatoes and about a dozen different herbs. Damn we’re even reducing our carbon footprint by growing out own.

What’s next for this intrepid couple of gastronomes? Who knows. Stick around and you might find out.

Adios
Pablo Cheesecake

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Wild Target

I consider Bill Nighy to be a masterful actor. Yesterday I sat down to view his latest film, Wild Target. Nighy plays Victor, a professional hitman whose life is turned upside down with the arrival of his latest victim a con-woman called Rose, played by Emily Blunt.

Trained in the art of murder since his 7th birthday Victor is a ghost. So good at his job that his peers are in awe of him even though they have no idea who he actually is. Privately he lives a lonely existence in a roomy house where the vast majority of the furniture is unused and covered with plastic sheets. He is so non-descript you would walk past him in the street without a second glance.

WildTarget2

Enter Rose, a flighty con-woman who has duped Ferguson (Rupert Everett) into purchasing a fake Rembrandt. Keen for revenge Ferguson hires Victor to take Rose out. Victor follows Rose and as he tries, in vain,to murder her he is slowly charmed by her free spirit. In the spur of the moment he saves Rose, and stoner Tony (Rupert Grint), from a second hitman and ends up becoming their protector.

The rest of the film deals with the unlikely trio and their escape from Ferguson and his cronies. Victor comes to realise he is missing out and is just existing rather than living.

Wild Target is one of those comedy films that doesn’t make you laugh out loud very often but does ensure you are always smiling. It sort of reminded me of Saving Grace in that respect. As an aside if you haven’t seen Saving Grace seek it out it’s brilliant. I left the cinema feeling amused and up beat.

Bill Nighy is great at showing the inner conflict of this character. He lets Victor’s emotions dance across his face. Emily Blunt is quirky and Rupert Grint likeable. Rupert Everett is as sleazy as ever while Gregor Fisher and Martin Freeman get some nice screen time.

Check it out. You never know you might like. It’s ok I won’t tell.

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Flash Ahh-Ahh – Another Old Skool movie blog

If Brian Blessed were a cake he would be fruit and nut. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t mean that in a nasty way. He’s is as mad as a bag of snakes and I love him for it. More on the King of Bellowing later, I just had to get that off my chest from the get-go.
Cheesecakes Alive???
There have been a number of attempts to bring Alex Raymond‘s creation to life. From the Buster Crabbe film serials, via Defenders of the Earth, right up to recent abysmal TV series (oh come on…it was shit and you know it). Hell there is even a 3D version in development right now. What I’m really interested in though is the 1980 film.

The Mike Hodges vision of Flash is deliciously camp. Rightly so in my opinion. Look at this example below of one of the original strips. Strewth he’s got no strides on! That’s right Flash is all about no pants action.
No Pants Gordon
With this as the source material there is really no surprise we ended up here. Actually it’s quite tame in comparison isn’t it.
Flash...Ahh....Ahh

The Cast

Everyone is great in this. Max Von Sydow is the worlds greatest pantomime villain as Ming the Merciless. Having Peter Wyngarde as Klytus is inspired as well. I understand why he had to wear a mask though. Can’t have Jason King stealing all the limelight now can we.

The Sex
(As an aside. When I grow up I want to look like this)

Topol, Melody Anderson, Timothy Dalton, Richard O’Brien, The dude from Blue Peter (yes I know it was Peter Duncan. It was a joke) they are all perfect. Damn shame Flash, Sam Jones, got dubbed but them as they say is the breaks. Even spotted a young Robbie Coltrane as a baggage handler near the beginning of the film. Though if you blink you will miss him.

Brian Blessed is brilliant as Vultan, King of the Hawkmen. His subtly nuanced shouting makes the film for me. He wanders around wearing a strange leather nappy/S&M outfit as though it is the most natural thing in the world. Why he is not playing Odin in Thor I will never know. He was robbed dammit.

The Music

It’s Queen people. Come on with this and Highlander they rocked the 80s movie soundtrack scene. Ok I’m not sure if there was actually a scene but lets just imagine there was. Just sit back and enjoy. Go to your happy place and let this nonsense just wash over you.

The film never did particularly well it the box office. Sam Jones even won a Golden Raspberry for his acting but personally I think this masterpiece needs your love. This is a pulp hero made flesh in the campiest manner available and it rocks.

All together now, FLASH….AHH…AHH…He’ll save everyone of us.

Flash Cheesecake

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Pablo Cheesecake v The Internet Connection of Much Crapness

I think it’s fair to say that everyone that reads this blog will be connecting to it via the technological wonder that is the Internet. I think it’s also fair to say that the speed at which you are able to access this content plays a large part in your enjoyment of said content. Recently my home interweb connection and specifically the ISP that provided it have been fucking me about in a grand old fashion.

Wait I’m getting ahead of myself here. Lets go back in time and I can explain from the beginning.

Since I have been using the internet at home, roughly since the mid 1990s, I have been using BT as my internet service provider. They have proven to be historically reliable and based on that I started to grow ever complacent with their diminishing service. Recently I checked the contract I had with them. It read something like this

Dear Complacent Ass we have promised you up to 20MB broadband speed. We are now sat in our ivory tower quaffing champers and laughing at you. You are only getting 1.5MB. Ignoring your existence love and hugs BT”  (I may have paraphrased slightly there).

Turns out you can only mess me about for a few years before I finally get the hint. Another well known ISP *cough* Virgin Media *cough* were able to offer me up 50MB for an additional fiver a month. The best part about it is, and this is the kicker, I’ve run a speed test a couple of times since changing supplier and I am getting at minimum 30MB. So even at worst the connection speed it is still nearly 30x faster than before.

**SPLUT** Sorry that was the sound of my head exploding like a ripe melon as I try to get my brain around that number.

If the story has an moral, and I’m not sure it has, its that BT can take a long jump of a short pier. I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. They relied on my customer loyalty and when it came the the punch provided to little to late. I called them today to cancel my account. First question I was asked
“Is there anything we can do to stop you cancelling your account?”
“Can you provide up to 50MB broadband speeds?”
“Erm…..no”
“Then I guess there is nothing you can do”
*resigned sigh* at other end of phone.

Gosh I feel better I’ve go that rant of my chest.

Later Peoples

Pablo VirginMediacake

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Testing, Testing, 123…is this thing on?

I have been messing about with a MacBook for the last week and I thought it might be a good idea if I tried a blog to see how to experience compares against blogging on my PC. I’ve downloaded a trial version of the bit of software called Blogo and thought I would give that a whirl.

I have to say I am suitably impressed. The user interface is very clean and simple to use. There is no great difficulty figuring out all the formatting options. I should stress that I am still finding may way a bit when it comes to using the MacBook but I am sure this was exactly the same back in the day when I first started using PCs.

Hmmm not a long blog but I like to think at least a little bit educational.

I am curious to see what this looks like when it’s posted.

Laters
Pablo MacCheesecake