We Had A Bit Of A Quiet Day,

Mark called round for a tea and a chat,

in the afternoon I watched a film but more of that later, then in the evening we were off for our night out, to Ali Baba,

 along with Mr. Tony,

 after poppadoms and condiments we had prawn puri, chicken samosa and chicken chat,

followed by chicken tika massala, bar-b-qed king prawns in a sauce, chicken jalfrezi, aloo gobi and peas palow rice, naturally with a supply of medicinal red wine, then home to 388,

going back to the afternoon I watched Russian Ark, the word masterpiece does not give justice to this film, I will copy and paste this from the storyline, 'an unseen man regains consciousness, not knowing who or where he is, no one seems to be able to see him, except the mysterious man dressed in black', you are the unseen man,


it is if you are walking through the halls and rooms of the Winter Palace of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, being ignored, not seen except by the mysterious man, as you walk through each room time changes, in one room you are in the 1700s, next some young modern day sailors are being addresses by the man in black in the next room as you walk in you are in the early 1900s, stunning cinematography, it is all of course in Russian but with English subtitles, but what a film!


think on this, 2000 cast members, 3 orchestras, 33 rooms, 300 years, ALL IN ONE TAKE, yes no director yelling 'cut', all in one take, all 99 minuets of it, the preparation for this unforgettable night took almost four years, it was seamless, in fact I thought it was so good I put it on to show Mr. Tony when we returned from the restaurant, after a few minuets I was going to take it off and put another movie on, but like me when I first watched it, he was spellbound, so we watched it till the end,

 also in the afternoon we watched the Penguins of Madagascar King Julien Day, which was several shorts from the series, great fun,

in Safari 3D 'Emmy Award-winning host Hunter Ellis takes viewers on an unforgettable safari that puts them up-close and personal with the wonders of Africa', well it was highly sanitised, totally unlike the excellent BBC/Attenbrough documentaries we have seen before, although killing prey is not to every ones taste it is a part of life, but in this film it is not shown, it is almost as if the animals have gone to the shops to buy some thing to eat, typically, 'the lion/leopard/cheetah is hunting', shot of crouching animal, next scene 'it returns with its kill', no hide and seek, no chase, no indication of the speed of say a cheetah turning on a dime to catch its quarry, just a picture of the now consumed prey, apart from that it was a OK type of movie, but not one of the greats of a safari, then with that Mr. Tony left and we were of to bed.