The Lair

crazed and probably drunken motorbicycle rider rear-ending your shiny car.

Yeah, so it has been an eventful yesterday – my luggage got misplaced somewhere in the bowels of Heathrow airport, so I have now added to that particular statistic. I am less annoyed about this than I should be, I suppose. The law of averages was going to catch up sooner or later – and I prefer such demonstrations of statistical probability (or divine indifference, if you’re that way inclined) to happen with innocuous and replaceable things like clothes.

Of course, my USB cable for the camera was also in that bag and I need that back or there will be hell to pay.

I have also seen, firsthand, that even having a large logistics department does not make a corporation immune from screwups – my ticket was cancelled because no one thought to reconfirm. Fortunately, a previous gig had left me with a frequent flyer membership for this particular airline. I was then in a state to observe that I got the first seat off the standby list; while there were other people milling around waiting for a ticket. Then again, someone in the airline may have made a call that I looked too dangerous to be allowed to roam the country a day longer – and I should be put on the plane toot sweet, as it were. Either is entirely possible.

Fly back (interesting flights on both legs); feel hungry, go out for dinner and have a motorbike guy welcome me back to Colombo. Scratches on bumper (*sob* shiny paintwork ruined, dammit). So this is what? the third time that some random idiot has taken a violent vehicular fancy to the nether regions of my transport. I suspect a trend. At least two of those times, I was stationary. Do I have some sort of flashing neon sign that says “hit me?!” What happened to the bumper stickers that urged fellow drivers to honk supporting their favourite cause?

No, I’m not going to tell you. Wait, I will. I mean The Watchmen, of course.

No spoilers. Well, it’s spoilers in the same sense that the Star Wars prequels would be spoilers. Nonetheless, a few fleeting impressions.

Firstly, I will treat the internet reviews with an appropriate amount of respect from now on. Which is to say, not very much at all. In the interests of being well informed, I read reviews (yes, even ones which slated the film) and kept my eyes and ears peeled for the jarring notes that the reviewers kept harping about.

Didn’t see it.

Well, ok – horrifyingly bad sex scene, made worse by the choice of song in the background. Leonard Cohen. *cringe*. I did a gigantic facepalm (audible smack on forehead and all) when it started.

Choice of music there was more than made up by Tears for Fears in the background while Ozy waxes lyrical about his powers. That was beautifully done. Liked the opening credits a lot (as did most people who watched the movie, I gather). I thought the choice of Jimi Hendrix was apt too.

See people. This is a rarity for me. I recognized ALL the music on the soundtrack. Every single song.

Overall – I liked the movie a great deal. Would see again A+++ etc. I didn’t think the gore was overdone (much). The change in the ending was probably for the best, since most of the superhero mockery was lost.

Of course, the writing is on the wall. In the UK, at least, this movie is unlikely to do well. Cinema wasn’t particularly full for the screening that I went to and this is the opening weekend. It’s 18+ cert here. Titanic or Harry Potter this isn’t. Then again, I felt reasonably meh about the Martian clock palace and a few of the other special effects scenes; so maybe a lower budget may have helped. Dunno. I still liked the movie. Just a pity that many people who haven’t read the comics probably won’t have the patience (or stomach) to sit through it.

The Freakonomics blog dissects arcana and tells us, among other things, that this whole economic thing is deceptively easy. Since everyone is a self-described economics expert these days, let me offer my anecdotal nugget of not-really-economic-wisdom.

Based on approximately the same time last year, London is doing anything between 66% and 80% worse, in an economic sense at least.

You totally didn’t see that one coming, I can tell. But here’s why …

Walking along a deserted Hounslow high street on a Saturday night (not all that late, either!), I was offered drugs by far fewer people (literally, a “pssst, mah brother. You want some [insert colloquial phrase here]“) than at the same time last year. It’s hard times when even drug dealing seems to have been affected by the credit crunch. Or maybe the druggies have moved elsewhere, I don’t know.

In other news, the number of people offering entertainment of other varieties (the so-called recreational category of pills and so on) went down from 2 to 0. Clearly, this means I have now crossed into the old-fart-probably-doesnt-have-use-for-party-drugs threshold in the last year. I sob silently for these visible signals of my advancing years.

But no – the high street is deserted early, shops are shuttered, plenty of stores are announcing gigantic clearout sales. It all looks like doom and gloom from here.