One item off the list of things to do.....

Today, I got to play a round of golf on the (in)famous West Course at Wentworth Golf Club. 6839 yards of absolute hell and joy combined. Tortuously undulating fairways with no even lie that I could find. Tons of mature trees with their ball catching branches wide apart. Greens that would put a brand new Axminster carpet to shame with their smoothness and feel. With the added advantage of no carpet burns! Blimey if I could grow this grass like this in my house I would.

I scored 28 points which is 8 off my handicap, but the leap of difficulty between this and my normal course, or the ones I played last week, is like the gulf between walking up Box Hill and Mount Everest. 28 points is not too shabby for my level of ability and I was only beaten by a 12 handicapper (thats pretty fucking good for the non-golfers). We teed off at 08:00, the air temperature being around 25 at the time,. but the humidity level was not far off Rainforest level. Probably because of the large number of trees and bushes all over the place there. Within one hole I was soaked in sweat with the stuf pouring off my brow. But it was worth it.

To the non-golfers all I can say is this is the equivalent of playing your mates at tennis on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Or playing 5 a side footie with mates at Wembley. Or driving your car at full belt around the Nurburgring. It is hallowed turf.

Wentworth itself is also the closest thing to Beverly Hills in the UK, with the rich and famous, though not necessarily the beautiful all living around it , with huge palatial houses and equally huge gardens backing onto the fairways and greens. The clubhouse and car parks drip money. More Aston Martins on show than on the Aston Martin production line. When I parked my rather nice 2003 registered Volvo S60 (well I think it's nice!) in the car park they probably thought I was the bin-man. The clubhouse oozes cash and earned wealth, whether morally or immorally. The hallway leading to the main bar is festooned with golf clubs donated by Tournament winners there over the year. A Driver from Tony Jacklin, a 3-wood from Nick Faldo, several clubs from the imperious Ernie Els. The place is a veritable golfing Hall of Fame. On the course we played a group through who were behind us. They were a group of 4, but only 2 were playing, the others being Coach and Caddy respectively. One of the players was vaguely familar although although we couldn't name him. A film director, or producer we thought. The other was....Kenneth Branagh. A fine actor (watch him in the excellent Conspiracy....chilling) and also a throroughly decent and chatty geezer. We talked as they went through and prepared to tee off. He even offered to "buy" the shot I'd just played straight onto the green. I declined politely ....his last comment was "You lot just want to see a crap shot"....and he duly played one " There you are" he laughed and off they went discussing and negotiating some sort of deal (we heard bits of their conversation as we followed them around the course).

And yes, this may be boring to you , but to me this game, on this course is very much one of the highlights of my life to date. My thanks to my Corporate supplier who set this "jolly" up . They give a another go, and business will fly to them because I am that fucking shallow.

And so, to cap this fortnight or so off, with 144 holes of golf last week, a round on the West Course at Wentworth today, on Sunday I play The Belfry PGA National course in the The Company's annual Charidee golf bash mate. The real competition round is on Monday on the same course, but a few of us (around 30) will play the competition round on Sunday because on Monday we play the equally reknowned (compared to Wentworth) Brabazon course. The course was the scene of the last Ryder Cup triumph for Europe when it was played in the UK. Another one steeped in golfing history. Another thing to tick off the list.

What a fucking brilliant week.

Sometimes the corporate gobbledygook bollocks and Management-WankSpeak I have to endure really is worth it.

Later, GolferJack

Back

I'm back.

Yes it was a good holiday.

Yes it was fucking hot

Yes the golf from me was good (the plan for golf is working)

Yes, I'm back at work

Yes, my life is full of muppets to work with

No, I'm not recharged and not glad to be back.

....but I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Later, GrocerJack

Blankey Blank

No posts this week. Simple reason. My mind is blank. It's like some sort of machine from an episode of the avengers has taken my mind over and wiped it clean of any thoughts. It is a blank tableau. I'm not annoyed sufficiently by anything to comment on it, nothing has made me laugh, nothing has frustrated me.

I have resistsed the urge to comment on the simply fantastic episode of the best TV programme ever (take a bow Doctor Who) because it is a two parter and doesn't conclude until this week.

And so, I'm off on hols for a week to play golf, drink beer, watch TV and errrrrrr.......yeah that'd be about the lot really.

Later, Grocerjack

Killing Bill again...

Yep, watched both films again last night. These are going to be like Pulp Fiction where every viewing reveals something else missed from the previous. Last nights viewing revealed to me that Budd and Bill were in fact brothers. How the fuck I missed that I'll never know.

Not that I'm becoming obsessed or anything......

後で、ジャック食料商人

Like I said.....

There's always a few bleeding heart, hair shirt, sandal wearing twats ready to criticise the motives of others. So, joining the anti-Live 8 fray is chief weirdo freak knobber and (former?) lead singer of Blur, Damon Albarn sticking his tuppence worth in. Of course, I don't suppose the politics of envy are being played out here by virtue of the very fact he wasn't asked to perform and that wouldn't have anything to do with this little toy-chucking rant?

Wanker

Later, GrocerJack

The Big Blogger House.....

....is my new virtual home for the next 7 weeks (well depending on how quickly people see through my thin mask of deciet and grumpiness and then vote me out). The other lucky contestants are listed on the Big Blogger site linked above. So, I'm off to determine the present that the winner will get from me, some thong style pants, lose about 3 stone in weight to replace my Party 7 with a six-pack, get some "zany" lessons in so I can prove my "wackiness" and generally learn how to express my innermost feelings to all and sundry. Here are the others

Girl (blimey I'm glad this is virtual, just knowing what she writes would stop my 43 year old ticker)
Mike
Vicus Scurra
Gordon Maclean
Jonny B
Miss Mish
Mr Hair
Vitriolica
Clair
NML
Peter
Zoe
Nick Barlow
Dr Rob

I'll keep you posted.

Later, BlogmateJack

The Tarantino Effect

GMD is not due back until Friday and my week so far has been spent drinking, playing golf, catching up on my DVD’s. The Plan surrounding my golf has started to show some benefits and my game is improving, but I can’t say more because it is tempting the Gods of Golf to intervene in a negative way.

So on Monday night I finally managed to sit down and watch a film from my (thus far) favourite film maker, Quentin Tarantino. Regular readers will know that I consider Reservoir Dogs the single best debut film from anybody, ever. They will also know that I consider Pulp Fiction to be the single greatest movie ever made in the history of the world. So good do I think Pulp Fiction is that I do not believe any other film that is made in my lifetime will ever surpass it in terms of screenplay, scripting, story, acting and staying power. It is a modern day masterpiece.

He followed this up with a role in From Dusk Till Dawn which he produced and acted in but didn’t direct. It still had his touches though and was a surprisingly enjoyable film exposing a hitherto unforeseen acting ability in George Clooney. He then followed this up with Jackie Brown, his own homage to the blaxploitation movies of the 70’s. This was a good film but not as ground breaking as the previous stuff, concentrating on characters in favour of the plot. It still had its classic moments though.

The film(s) I watched were of course, Kill Bill, Volumes 1 and 2). In fact I watched the first on Monday and the second on Tuesday. What can I say? If Jackie Brown was the equivalent of the difficult “third album” syndrome suffered by so many recording artists, then this was the triumphant return to form. Both films were fantastic in every way. Both were stylish, well plotted, with great acting, wonderful dialogue, screenplay and photography. Tarantino takes the Martial Arts (volume 1) and Spaghetti Western (volume 2) genres to new heights with these films. Uma Thurman is simply stunning, both visually (in her own understated beauty) and in her physical prowess and her acting ability. But to be fair there isn’t a bad acting job in the film. David Carradine (yes, Grasshopper from Kung Fu) must be undergoing the same kind of career revival as Travolta got from Pulp Fiction. He is both genuinely menacing and calming in equal amounts.

Both films are a credit to Tarantino who is close to being a god of film in my view. Even the interviews with him are interesting and although he is an uber-geek of the highest order, he is also childlike in his excitiable enthusiasm for his films and the whole art form in general. Mr Star Wars George Lucas should take a look at Tarantino to see what it means to someone to make films with heart and soul in spades. But as he sold his soul to the devil of special effects in a trade for plot and characterization I guess he couldn't give a shit (obviously not if Attack of the Clones is anything to go by).

In all the films run to about 4 hours in total, but they are 4 hours well spent in my view. Do yourself a favour and spend a night watching them.

Top moments from each film – from Volume 1 through to Volume 2

1.) The House of Blue Leaves fight, featuring Black Mamba (Thurman) fighting The Crazy 88’s, Gogo and O-Ren Ishii (aka Cottonmouth). Over the top, yes. Stylish, yes. Beautifully filmed, yes. Breathtakingly exciting, yes.

2.) The Origin of O-Ren Ishii anime sequence

3.) The death of Buck the Fuck and the hospital porter, both indulging in decidedly shady sexual practices whilst the hero(ine) is in a coma.

4.) Nancy Sinatra’s hauntingly brilliant rendition of “Bang Bang”

5.) Wu Tan Clan score for the House of Blue Leaves fight.

6.) The degrading living conditions of Budd, a former colleague of Thurman when she was also in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Michael Madsen showing just what a wonderful actor he is. The man oozes sleaze, vulgarity and menace.

6a) The lonely grave of Paula Schultz scene - not for the claustrophobic.

7.) The fight with and demise of Elle Driver in a completely different role for “Mermaid” Darryl Hannah.

8.) The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei chapter

9.) The pain of Thurman seeing a daughter she assumed dead actually alive

10.)The final showdown with Bill, including the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique.

These films are straight into my Top Ten of all time great movies………….now which film are they going to displace?

Later, DeadlyViperJack