Strange drinks policies

I went to a wedding in Nokia yesterday. Despite me falling comically on the snow afterwards it was a good party. It's possible that my fall added to the general fun. The stand up comedian seemed to be quite funny but it was a bit wasted on me. Maybe my Finnish needs a bit more work before I can watch a comedy show!

After the party we all headed to Tampere and went to Hotel Ilves to go to the disco.



When we got in, I went to the bar to order drinks for myself and Ulriikka. "Two beers," I said. "Who is the other drink for?" the barmaid asked. "Me and my girlfriend," I said. "Where is she?" the barmaid said. "Somewhere over there," I say pointing vaguely towards the rest of the bar. "I can only sell you the drinks if you are both standing here," she said... At around the same time, one of our friends was being made to drink the shot he had ordered before he could have the beer he had ordered at the same time. It was all very bizarre and nobody had ever known it to happen before. Aside from that it was a really bad nightclub so we left and had some pizza at home.

After waking up after only 5 hours sleep I drifted in and out of sleep for most of today. I was finally able to call myself hangover free after a Trafalgar Burger from Soho whilst watching Manchester City finally play well away from home - I didn't go for beer though so maybe I wasn't completely over the excess. I'm off to buy some falafel-pitas now to chase away the last remnants of roughness.

Is it ever too cold for an ice cream?

As I was leaving the nursery school where I'm currently doing my work practice I heard an ice cream van doing the rounds. To me it all seems to be a bit early in the year for ice cream. He must be a pretty optimistic ice cream van driver. Especially since as I carried on my way home I saw this at the bottom of a drain pipe.

Oscar Polishing

I've now seen all of the Best Picture nominations I can "legally" see before February 22nd. Benjamin Button, Frost / Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire and Milk down; just The Reader to go. Unfortunately due to the fools who schedule release dates in New Zealand, I'll have to wait until the end of April to see The Reader. Grrr.

The verdict so far: of the 4 I've seen, Milk is the better film , with Frost/Nixon a distant second. So many of Gus van Sant's projects have been hit and miss in the past, but here he delivers with a biopic of the 1970s Gay Rights activist, Harvey Milk. Not only is Sean Penn a joy to watch but his co-stars James Franco and Josh Brolin also deserve a mention, and the film - and Milk's passion - effectively does for San Fransisco what Woody Allen did for New York.

In Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella dazzle in front of a stellar cast. Not to everybody's taste (a 2-hour film about an interview), the only criticism I have of the film is that the talking-head sections - where the supporting characters explain away their motives - feels as unnecessary as Harrison Ford's voiceover in Blade Runner.

Although Benjamin Button is a great film, it is in no-way Oscar-material and not a patch on Fincher's previous film, Zodiac - completely ignored by the Oscars last year (probably due to an early release more than anything else). I still find it difficult to accept that Benjamin Button and David Fincher received Best Picture and Best Directing nominations whilst The Dark Knight and Christopher Nolan were snubbed.

Slumdog Millionaire - while as visually stunning as all Danny Boyle's work - is the victim of a forced, childlike narrative. It's worth watching just to see the transition between Boyle's previous film and this. The very fact that this director can effortlessly go from Sunshine, one of the finest British science-fiction films ever, to a feelgood knockabout drama set in Mumbai should see him earn the directing award at the very least.

I found it amusing that Indians apparently don't pronounce the penultimate syllable in the word 'millionaire', so when the guy playing the presenter of the game show kept saying the word, it sounded like a Frenchman saying the word 'milliner'. Bizarrely, this made the game show sound like "Who wants to be a Hat Maker".

All of this is in sharp contrast to a film I watched last week - Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeeman and Angelina Jolie. Although it's always nice to see Terence Stamp, even his appearance couldn't save this film - a mixture of Matrix-style sci-fi, Star Wars-style mythology and LOUD MUSIC. Bad? It plumbed new depths of shit. Can we please have no more films - ever - where the lead character is 'the one', 'the chosen one', or some other such calling? I'll take the shot of Angelina Jolie in a state of undress though. Always.