Sweeping Strings

Yeah, I doubt anyone believes he'll spring something like THX-1138 on us now.

Think I saw something on the news about how infection rates in Spain and Italy have slowed?

Executive Decision - mid-90s action-thriller with intelligence analyst Kurt Russell swept up in the attempt to regain control of a hijacked-by-terrorists (led by Poirot himself, David Suchet) passenger plane (with the intention of wiping out the Eastern Seaboard via their onboard nerve-toxin bomb). Solidly entertaining with the likes of Halle Berry, Oliver Platt and Steven Seagal (in what amounts to an extended cameo) also amongst the cast.

Never thought I'd hear a world leader quote the Terminator franchise, but there was the Republic Of Ireland's Leo Varadkar saying 'There is no fate other than the one we make for ourselves' during his speech about the ROI's latest measures a couple of days ago.

This Is Spinal Tap/Goldmember/Hot Fuzz ... trying times call for a Saturday night comedy triple-bill. Tap will always be brilliant, Goldmember is funny if a bit self-indulgent and Hot Fuzz is excellent (but I nodded off towards the end because I'm 49 and there'd been wine consumption).

They actually still stand up reasonably well today ... them supposedly being robots as opposed to organic alien creatures kinda removes some of that 'bloke in a costume' thing from them, which is good.

Thank you, gentlemen . It was an out-of-the-ordinary one, in that it had to be entirely spent at home for obvious reasons ... nonetheless I ate well, watched 2 episodes of 2nd Doctor adventure 'The Web Of Fear' (because Patrick Troughton's birthday was the 25th of March too), Skyfall (by far my favourite of Craig's Bonds to date and one of the series' best overall, for me) and then last night's viewing choices were Bohemian Rhapsody (hadn't seen this cracking biopic since the cinema release) and Mindhorn (chucklesome Britcom flick from 2016 which I was watching for the first time). These were accompanied by enough beer to have me a little unsteady on my feet when I went to bed, hehehe.

I went in to work yesterday, but that was it until I'm told to go in again whenever that might be ... I'm type 2 diabetic, and 'Your health is more important' to quote the boss-people I spoke to yesterday (plus it's expected by the end of this week that virtually everyone there will be working from home). Thing is, MY work doesn't really lend itself to being done from home so I'm not doing any. I was reassured that my salary and holiday allocation won't be affected. This isn't a triumphal post ... I realise I'm lucky, trust me. Was amused to hear that the definition of 'essential' stores over in Canada includes the liquor and cannabis ones .

COBRA meeting today, Boris to address the nation at 8:30. Tighter restrictions (at the very least) on the likes of public transport travelling expected.

In The Line Of Fire - classy thriller with Clint Eastwood's veteran Secret Service agent (haunted by the fact that he failed to protect JFK from assassination) taunted by John Malkovich's wackjob, who is threatening to assassinate the current President. Eastwood and Malkovich are both great, and the high-calibre supporting cast includes Rene Russo, John Mahoney, Dylan McDermott and Gary Cole.

Well, quite. My birthday celebrations next week have taken on a distinct 'drinking in the house' shape as of last night (thank Christ non-draught alcohol is still available).

Members of your curious profession are few in number.

'I'm leaving because I don't like how the people behind the show treated those who worked on it'. Fast-forward 8 years to the prepping of the 50th anniversary special. The show is once again one of the BBC's most popular, and the production team are now all different people including showrunner Steven Moffat who reaches out to Eccleston about appearing in a scene in which John Hurt's War Doctor will regenerate into him ... and he says no.

Moonraker - a mixed bag, it's fair to say ... for all the good (Lonsdale, the centrifuge bit, Corinne's eerie death-by-Dobermann, the score, the still-excellent effects, sets and modelwork) there's bad to undercut it (some truly rotten back-projection, the cringeworthy attempts at humour with Jaws (and his 'conversion' to the side of good), the 'Bondola' (and That Bloody Pigeon) ).

Cole alternated between not too bad and wooden as hell, but somehow he's landed a 2-season part in a US drama. I'll miss Walsh, he was a safe pair of hands even in the shoddier episodes.