DIDDLY SQUAT

I've liked Ridley Scott as a director ever since watching the excellent Alien and the outstanding Blade Runner. Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Thelma & Louise a were OK too so I was looking forward to seeing Exodus: Gods and Kings which I saw today.

Boy was I disappointed.

This film is pedestrian. Sure there is some spectacle and the Red Sea sequences are in fact gob-smacking but you'd think that a story that has plagues, massacres, divine vengeance and the biggest escape in history would be a bit more exciting.

The 10 plagues of Egypt were there. Check off the crocodiles, the red Nile, the locusts, the Angel of Death amongst the others but they were limp. Limp. As a viewer it was a case of "ho um, what's next".

I don't know what Scott was thinking. The vengeful God is portrayed as a young boy. OK, I admit it'd be a bloody cliche if he'd been portrayed as a mad old man with severe eye-brows but really. He could have got his old collaborator Hans Giger who created the alien to knock up a god-like character which would have been better..

In the credits Ridley attributes the film to his brother Tony who died recently. Maybe that's why.


There was Diddly Squat to be had at Q wine bar as well.

Today is The Old Girl's and my 27th anniversary of living together in unmarried bliss.

The problem is that for this anniversary she is in Canada and I'm here. Before she went back a few weeks ago I bought her a half bottle of Pol Roger (one of her favourite Champagnes) to open on the day and I said I'd have a couple of glasses of a Champagne or decent Methode Champenoise at one of our local watering holes. I discovered that one of the closest, Q bar by the Town Hall has Deutz Blanc de Blanc by the glass so earmarked that. I went to the 3PM screening of Exodus: Gods and Kings and at 5.40 (it's a long film) toddled off across Aotea Square to Q. The bar was closed! A receptionist said that all the staff were "in a meeting" which is usually jargon for "we have a major problem and might close soon". I hope not as it is one of the few places in the nearby area that serve a decent drink.

Bugger!

I came home to the apartment and went down to our newly rented lock-up and retrieved a bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne congratulating myself on renting the lock-up as it's much cooler in the basement area that in the apartment so the wine is slightly cool. I've jammed it in the freezer to give it a blast before opening.

I hadn't intended to drink the Roederer as The Old Girl and I normally share a bottle of Champagne but - needs must.

I can always drink the second half of the bottle tomorrow (using that old teaspoon in the bottle trick which does work) as, in Canada time tomorrow is Tuesday the 3rd February.