RoyII

This weekend, my social plans for Saturday were dealt a near fatal blow. The traditional crawl of the pubs on the Broadway in Wimbledon was cruelly put paid to by a plague of flu - all my mates went down with it, leaving me left with nothing to do and no where to go. As is usually the case when this scenario occurs, a last minute cinema trip was rapidly improvised, so once more I found myself bound for the Rotunda in Kingston upon Thames, though this time it was to see this film:

On purchasing my ticket, I found I had a few minutes to spare before the start of the film, so I decided to have a swift pint in one of the bars in the Rotunda complex. Not really being an aficionado of solo drinking, I was sort of banking on no one being around who would recognise me, as from an image point of view, being on your own on a Saturday night does look kind of sad. Needless to say, on entering the pub, I immediately saw a girl who I know by sight from a pub in Surbiton, who happened to be with several friends. She smiled, and we exchanged greetings as I passed her on my way to the bar, feeling like a bit of a loser.

After a much needed pint, I headed off to the Odeon lobby to find the screen showing 'Tropic Thunder'. I was in the queue for the obligatory ticket check when I heard my name being called. I turned to see a guy I know from a pub where I play pool. He was there with his girlfriend seeing a film called 'Death Race', which struck me as not the most romantic of films to see on a date.

'On your own then?'

His question was obviously meant kindly, but I felt that old paranoid feeling of all eyes upon me as I nodded in agreement.

The rest of the evening went without incident, and the film turned out to be really funny and entertaining, which made up in part for the slight discomfort earlier. I didn't realise before that my life was so compartmentalised!

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Posted by: Roy2    in: My entries

Modified on September 28, 2008 at 7:51 PM

I can't really claim that my most recent obsession is particularly new - in fact I am pretty late on the scene compared to everyone else, as this has been around for a few years now:

When YouTube originally burst onto the scene I tended to give it a wide birth, as I thought that the need to spend hour upon hour trawling through other peoples cobbled together video footage demonstrated a very severe need to get out more, but one night I eventually succumbed to it's charms. I am sure you all know the scenario - late one Saturday night I returned from the pub where lot's of K T Tunstall's stuff was played on the duke box. At the time she had just bought out the 'Drastic Fantastic' album, and being a bit of a fan, I googled one of its tracks, called 'Hold On' on the PC. One of the links returned led to the YouTube site where the video was featured, which in turn led to other YouTube sites...and so on. I was firmly caught in the virtual video loop.

Having an enquiring mind, there is always the potential to spend hours on the site. The bulk of the time is spent looking into shamelessly retro stuff. Music videos featuring the red headed 1980's temptress Carol Decker (of Tau'Pau fame), the opening credits of the 'Banana Splits' show, the rather cheesy sounding theme to the childrens TV series 'The Flashing Blade' - all are out there on YouTube somewhere in the ether. Going off at tangents is very easy - one song reminds you of others, which in turn causes more memories to unravel. I remember one site showing a video of Terry Wogan doing a very tongue in cheek rendition of 'The Floral Dance', so the end result can be pretty questionable!

 Carol Decker...out there

As well as old pulp TV shows and ancient pop songs, places are also featured on YouTube. I was surprised that there were so many entries for New Malden, which lets face it, is not the most happening of places. Items covered are shots of the flooding under the railway bridge, footage of the high street, and there are many little vignettes from the proud residents, including a video of three New Maldenites whistling. This bought home how much people want their fifteen minutes of fame, and if you think about it, with all the videos published on YouTube, literally anyone could be on there with out their knowledge or consent. The ultimate YouTube experience would be to unexpectedly discover a site which includes footage of yourself! So far it hasn't happened to me yet but I think it is only a matter of time...

»12:40 AM    »2 comments (0 )     »Send entry    

Posted by: Roy2    in: My entries

Modified on September 22, 2008 at 1:00 AM