Whee

I'm a bit pissed, as I have been the last few nights. I've been a bit busy to get around to updating this bollocksing thing, but here goes.

News update: I got a rejection phone call from the old job appo I put in late last week - didn't take them long to decide they didn't even want to shortlist me, the bastards. On top of this I lost track of the days and completely failed to get my Wallace application in. Damnit, I would've been keen to see how one of the Skeleton Guys got on.

Apart from that the last week's memorable perhaps only for work bullshit. It's the first time since I've started this job that I've got really seriously pissed off with it. Up until now the dreadful unprofessionalism of the place has been more funny than anything else. But now the novelty's worn off and it's beginning to get me down.

(Hmm, now that I'm a bit pissed and uninhibited I wonder whether I should spill some of the great PCO gossip I've got? Unfortunately I can't be fucked.)

We've finally got paintings up on the walls. Rose got this guy round to do it, and he did a really good job. They look really good. In previous houses, I haven't put my own stuff up on to the walls, but this time I thought I would - see how they look next to other people's.

Off into the ether

Well, the old job appo is off into the ether, come what may. It'd be really good if I got it. The old Corro School is lots of fun, but it's only till the end of the year. A permanent part-time gig would suit me much better. There's certain aspects of the job that'd be really interesting as well.

I haven't done my Wallace thing yet. That's next.

Sick

I've been home sick yesterday and today, lying around on various bits of furniture, feeling crappy, and reading The Prehistory of the Mind. I'd been out both Monday and Tuesdsay evenings. There was an opening at Chris Moore's (Ans Westra photos) and Bowen (Paul Rayner) on Monday night. Tuesday was a John Walsh opening at Janne's followed by a Krazy Lounge interlude before Michael's birthday drinks at the Matterhorn. I think I was feeling run down on Tuesday night, and getting to work in the howling wind and rain on Wednesday morning put me over the edge.

It's a bit of a bastard cos I've got a couple of appos to put together: one's for a boring job and the other's Wallace time again. I've put something in the last couple of years, so I might as well again, even though they'll just tell me where to go once more.

Classic Onion

CIA asks Bush to discontinue blog.

Clayton's weekend

It's been a been a bit of Clayton's weekend, spent recovering from a hangover and doing my tax. I didn't think I'd drunk too much on Friday night - three beers at the pub before going off to dinner and then about three-quarters of a bottle of wine with dinner. I might have to give it a bit of a rest for a while.

I've been buying some Tintin books this week, since seeing the film about it. We used to have them all (and the Asterix books) when I was a kid, but I've no idea what's happened to them. Collecting them again seems like a pretty good project. I might even be able to get some paintings out of it.

I've also got to update my website. I've been thinking of having a bit of a redesign, but am not yet sure quite what that'll involve. I've got some photos from the Shane Cotton opening at Hamish McKay's to slap up (lifeless and inert stuff mostly), but, as one of the main things I want to do with the website redesign is nix the endlessly proliferating amount of pages and the constant stream of phonecam photos are a principal cause of this, I'm not going to do it just yet. Main thing is to get some new fucking paintings up there, which means making some.

And more films

Well, it's all over for another year. A quick run down before I forget it all:

Thursday: Tintin and I
Friday: The Stroll and Ramones: End of the Century
Saturday: The Battle of Algiers, Hollywood Respliced, Ong Bak
Sunday: Checkpoint.

Checkpoint was a good one to finish on. Pretty much all the political documentaries (and there were a few of them) were sold out. It was a record year for ticket sales, which is particularly good considering there are fewer seats in the Embassy since the renovations. The only kind of empty ones I went to were A Page of Madness, Cowards Bend the Knee, and Hollywood Respliced. I particularly liked the Kurosawa one of the Hollywood Respliced flicks - Papillon d'amour. It had been filmed off a screen with a mirror down the middle showing a guy sitting with his robes making butterfly/Rorschach-type shapes. As the guy moved and bowed and stuff, his head would appear and disappear. It was groovy. The only one I didn't like was the first one - Cowboys and Indians.

The Ramones one was well worth it, if only to see what an asshole Johnny Ramone is. The onstage fight about which song to play next was pretty good too. Tintin and I was pretty interesting. I went out and bought Tintin in Tibet (which deals with the breakdown he had after divorcing his utra-right-wing-Catholic wife) and The Castiafore Emerald (which features a caricature of said wife). He had this weird boy scout ideal thing going on his entire life. The Battle of Algiers is well worth digging out on DVD or something.

Went to a couple of openings last night and caught up with Mr Couper. He had treats from his overseas exploits.