Celebrity spotting

Did I neglect to tell you that we had a brief brush with fame last Sunday as we stood in the queue for ice creams in the cinema? Right behind me was Bill Nighy, star of many British films, including Love Actually, Shaun of the Dead and The Boat That Rocked, and he had roles in Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nighy.

Anyway, he looks exactly like the miserable, slightly decadent person that he usually portrays on film. He's impatient too - he couldn't wait for the staff to come back to the ice cream counter to serve us and flounced off to the screen.

On a slightly more surreal note, I almost literally bumped in to somebody that shocked me to the core as she/they said "sorry", almost in unison, but definitely as 2 separate voices. I've never seen anything like it in my life and Dave, Malcolm and I still can't quite believe what we saw. She/they was a small, slightly built two headed woman. Since the incident, we've been scratching our heads wondering how it could have happened. We obviously considered it was some kind of stunt - particularly as we were in theatre land - but all three of us believe it was absolutely real. I've done some research and it is possible that this was what we saw:

Abigail and Brittany Hensel – check http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/shared-body.html

Scary.

'Snow more

The white stuff is disappearing fast - there's none on the coast now and, inland, it's starting to thin out. We've now got that horrible dark, cloudy, wet weather - I much prefer the brightness and the snow - as long as the roads are OK.

Nothing much doing - footy tonight and hopefully some squash tomorrow. Not so sure about golf on Sunday, though - we'd probably have to travel to the coast and the prospect of a warm house plus golf and cricket in the sun on TV may be a bit too much of a temptation.

Kelly will be heading down to one of our time share exchanges tomorrow - http://www.accorvacationclub.com.au/book-now/?offerId=3&resort=grand-mercure-links-lady-bay. Hope she has a nice break there - not that we're jealous. It's only 5 weeks now until I head off to Marrakech for some golf - looking forward to it. Then it's only 3 weeks after I come back that we're off to the States.

We're heading down to Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon. The Celtic Connections festival starts today and we're going to see Way to Blue: Songs of Nick Drake - http://www.celticconnections.com/whatson/event/90201-Way-to-Blue:-Songs-of-Nick-Drake

The only problem is, however, that Jo's just realised she is due back at the Cardio clinic in Stonehaven first thing on Thursday morning. We had originally planned to stay over, but we'll now have to come back the same evening. Still, at least it looks like it's getting milder and, hopefully we should be OK to drive there and back on Wednesday.

What can I say about the Wedding of the Year? We're really pleased and looking forward to it. In some ways, I'm now glad that FlyGlobespan went bust as I was supposed to be in Spain then, not returning until the day after the wedding! I'll now hopefully be able to re-organise this trip for a more suitable time - that is if another operator comes in to take on the routes.

Did you realise I've been on this earth for 22,231 days now? Jo - who, of course, is from a different planet - has been around for 21,487 days. Carole is just a month past her 15,000th day and Ross has another year to go until he's in 5 figures. Isn't this a more discreet way of revealing people's ages?

The rest of the weekend in London

Just a quick post - I've still to bring the football blog up to date after the weekend.

On Sunday, Dave, Malcolm and I went back in to Central London. First stop was the National Portrait Gallery (http://www.npg.org.uk/), just behind Trafalgar Square, where there was an exhibition on:

I had wanted to go and see this and, with the West Ham match having been prematurely and unnecessarily postponed, this gave us the opportunity. It was pretty good - although perhaps you have to be an old f**t like me to fully appreciate it. Lots of great old photos and some original album covers, souvenirs and old magazine covers. We all thought that there should have been a background of loud 60's music, but it was all very discreet and low volume.

From there, we walked to Covent Garden, took in some of the sights there and eventually plumped for lunch at the Porterhouse (http://www.porterhousebrewco.com/coventgarden.html). This is a sister pub to the one in Dublin that we visited years ago - lots of little nooks and crannies - super place. Here's Dave and I waiting for our lunch with a couple of pints (Oyster Stout and Sierra Nevada on draught if you must know):

After lunch it was off to the movies to see the brand new Ian Dury biopic, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (http://www.sex-drugs-rock-roll-thefilm.com/). There was music in it - and lots of swearing - Jo wouldn't have liked either - but, a bit like the John Lennon film, Nowhere Boy, that we saw on Boxing Day, it was largely about his relationship with his son, with flashbacks to his childhood. There wasn't anything at all about his life from his teens until his mid thirties, when he decided to pursue a career in music.

After that, Malcolm and I headed off to Heathrow and Dave went back to his flat in Reading. We were back home, after only a short delay, about 11 pm. Sod's law, Colin could easily have come with us - he had cancelled at the last minute on Friday night after seeing the weekend weather forecast, which had been for heavy snow in London and major transport disruption on Sunday - but it all came to nowt.

Monday was Fraserburgh again, followed by some much needed exercise - squash at Findrack - it was freezing, and guess who forgot his track suit?

On Tuesday, I had a meeting up town with our lawyers, when I managed to get one of their Notaries Public to certify the copies of Kelly's latest certificates - good old Grampian Police had refused to do what Cornwall Police had done with her previous certificates - no reason given, but perhaps they, like everybody else, seems to be running scared of responsibility/litigation/insurance - delete as appropriate. As I was up town and going to be finished early, I phoned Jo to see if she fancied going to the movies? Yes - OK - the Belmont then - The Road (http://www.theroad-movie.com/). I'd just finished the audiobook (abridged) version of Cormac McCarthy's Pullitzer Prize winning novel and was intrigued to see what they did with it on film. It's pretty bleak but still enjoyable. Again, I thought it was largely about the Man's relationship with his son (The Boy), but Jo's interpretation was different - as usual!

Three movies in less than 3 weeks - I don't think I'd been to the cinema for well over a year before that.

I also finished No Mean City - a pretty gruesome tale of life in Glasgow's slums in the 30's - and written in an unusual and old fashioned style. I remembered only bits of it from when I last read it over 40 years ago.

I've now started on the first in the Milennium trilogy of novels by Stieg Larsson (http://www.stieglarsson.com/) - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. So far, so good. Not so sure about my current audiobook choice, however - The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill - I didn't realise it was Dalziel and Pascoe (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/dalziel/) - remember them?

What started off as a quick update has stretched a bit - best do some work now.

Shivering in the south east

Greetings from freezing Reading. Our flight down was OK yesterday - only delayed by 20 mins or so - so we were down in plenty of time for the Arsenal match in the afternoon. I don't think I've ever been so cold at a match, however - even at Pittodrie!

The match we were planning to see this afternoon has been postponed, however, so we're now planning alternative pursuits.

Slept at Dave Williamson's flat last night - on an air bed. It was ok until it started to slowly deflate and I awoke when I began to feel the floor underneath me!

All a bit different from Kelly's heatwave in Oz!