End of the Summer...

It clearly is the end of the summer, despite a nice day yesterday. I can feel it in the mornings, the flat is really cold! But I don't mind too much as we are off on holiday to Majorca on Saturday for a week, yay!

Have had a good few weeks since the last exepod post, had a fun game of Poker at the Double Locks (I lost), have been watching a lot of motor racing, F1, BTCC and even some of the ALMS series from the states. I have also rediscovered my GT Pro Series game on the Wii, and am excited at the launch of an official F1 game for the wii next month.

We also went to a fun walk to Turf Locks one evening...

Will try and blog after the holiday with some pictures, and if anyone has any ideas for the next exepod, or wants to help in recording it let me know, would be nice to have more than my voice on it.

(Steam train whizzing past Powderam)

10 Things

There has been a lot of work this month, but it has not all been work. Here are 10 other things I have done this month so far.

1. Played poker at the City Gate. I toyed with the idea of giving poker a break as I had not played well since the new year. Last week though I came third (out of about 12) so that has boosted my confidence. Although 3rd is still a wasted fiver it is a lot closer to the elusive tenner and the even more elusive first prize than my previous 3 performances of being last out!

2. Pub quiz at Newton St Cyres. Now that Dennis lives out that way we have been going to the pub quiz each month at the Crown and Sceptre. It is a really friendly, traditional pub. The first Tuesday of each month is Curry and Quiz night. The Curry costs about £6, the quiz about a pound, and drinks bring the total cost up to about a tenner. Both times we have been our team has won a bottle of wine. I will try and get out there with my camera and do a Pub Guide on the place.

3. Met up with ex-SPCK employees. Great to see them all again, and pretty much all the staff (apart from one) came along. Great to see everyone is doing well and planning fun trips and getting new jobs and just generally getting on with life. We referred to the situation with the shops maybe once or twice, but mostly we were just catching up with each other, which was great!

4. Played Mario Kart and unlocked the Mirror Cup. To any non-players this means nothing, but was an exciting event in my life!

5. Went to see the film Milk. It was great to see the story of Harvey Milk told in such a high profile way, and the story is a very important and interesting one, but I could not help feel it rather brushed over some of the interesting themes of the way he approached his politics and a documentary would have told the story in a clearer way (in fact there was a documentary out last year which I must seek out). Still a worthwhile watch though.

6. Watched the original Frost/Nixon Watergate interviews on DVD. After watching the film we were interested to see what they were really like when broadcast, and Dave lent us a DVD of them he bought at the stage show a few years ago. Seeing Frost back then made me realise how great Sheens portrayal of him was, and some of the extras on the DVD confirmed that many of the incidents in the film actually happened.

7. Went out to The Orange Elephant farm shop to get some nice food in the shop and some coffee in the cafe. The newly built shop is really good, but I hope it never becomes as big as Darts Farm which is a bit posh and a bit soulless!

8. Decided I do actually really like the sitcom Not Going Out, and despite thinking it is formulaic and often stupid I still end up laughing loads the whole way through.

9. Booked a holiday cottage in Cornwall. In March we will get getting away for a week in a village near Looe. The plan is to get away from computers and work and Exeter and just slow down and relax. We hope to go to the Eden project at some point too.

10. Took some photos of Exeter today. Needed a bit of air and a wander so took my camera out and wondered about taking random photos.

The first two are peering through the window at the newly restored Mint Priory, I was quite astonished when I looked in, as last time it was an empty shell!





I wont caption these, but see if you know where they are!

Snow, Toad and Working hard

Well it's been over 2 weeks since I last updated this blog, so what has happened in my life in Exeter?

Well the most exciting thing was the snow. It is great how at the darkest most miserable part of the year nature decides to throw down a nice clean white sheet of snow to reflect the light and make things feel cheery again. Anyone who knows me knows that I love snow. Hours spend gazing out the window and checking the BBC Weather website.

In all the excitement I forgot to take any pictures, so it was starting to melt away by the time I took these. As you can see in fact it was glorious blue sky!





The snow did mean that a few people did not make it into work over the last few weeks, making an already busy time doubly as busy. A combination of factors has made it very stressful and manic at work, but I know it is only a phase and we will pass through it - which makes it a little more bearable!

I have been finding time to relax though, mostly either in the form of ploughing through an Ian Rankin book while sat with a pint of Black Prince (St Austell Ales) in the Mill on the Exe, or trying to complete all the levels of Mario Kart Wii (as trusty Toad, pictured!)

The Wave

Sorry for the delay in updates, Ivonne has been away for a week, and other than playing on my new Wii game, GT Pro Series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT_Pro_Series) which is basic, but fun (and very cheap!), having the occasional pint at the pub, reading about Quantum physics (I kid you not), and coming third in poker, I have not done a lot.

But last night we went to the Picturehouse and watched "The Wave", a recent German film about an experiment carried out in the 60's at an American college. The story is retold in modern Germany, and although based on real events has a much more shocking conclusion than the real experiment.



The story of the film, in brief, is a high school teacher wants to teach his pupils about autocracy, but some of his pupils say that it is a waste of time, nothing like fascism could ever thrive again in Germany. The teacher (brilliantly played by Jürgen Vogel) decides to try an experiment, and through small things (getting pupils to stand when talking, adopting a uniform and name) slowly the pupils get drawn into "The Wave" and it takes on a life of its own.

The film not only shows how easy fascist regimes can take hold, and the strange comfort some personality types take from it, but also the difficulty of resistance against these kind of groups, the main character for me in the film is Karo (Jennifer Ulrich), who, despite liking the teacher taking the class simply cannot take part in the experiment (despite initially being keen), she and a friend become the sole resistance against the class, and immediately see the dangers of what is happening. The got me thinking, are some people more immune to fascist or cultic movements, and if so why?

Certainly a lot to think about in this film, and if you are interested then it is on again tonight and tomorrow night at 6.15pm at the Exeter Picturehouse.