On sidling back in...

This weekend I watched Star Wars IV and V.

Nearly half a century old and I’d never seen a single Star Wars film until last December when Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens came out. I wish I could say that I loved it so much I had to watch the rest of the films, but alas, no. I actually fell asleep in VII and woke up at a pivotal moment on a bridge! (No spoilers, here.) I went because I got infected by the excitement and I had a massive dose of FOMO.

So Fear of Missing out caused my cinema trip in December and - look away hardcore fans - I wasn’t really converted… so what made me watch IV and V this weekend?

I’ve signed up for Robert McKee’s STORY seminar in London in May and as a result I’ve been sent a list of films that he discusses in the seminars. If you haven’t done your homework you’ll miss out. Alarmingly for me, the homework reads like a list of films I’ve been refusing to see since Husband and I have known each other… Star Wars, Terminator, Alien: Yep, they’re all there. (For many years I had a blanket refusal in place to see any film containing guns, dinosaurs or outer space. I've been seriously ground down by the old bloke and I've had to change all that! Hmmm: note to self, I don't see him watching any more bonnet films...)

The first homework film I braved was The Godfather and yeah, I quite enjoyed it. Next one was Terminator. Actually I think I saw this way back when because I remember being really cheesed off that he kept getting up (yes, yes, I know that's the whole point…) but, you know what? In spite of said irritation, I quite enjoyed it too and have even considered watching the next one which isn’t even on my homework list.

So the plan was made by Son and Husband that this weekend we’d do Star Wars IV on Saturday and Star Wars V on Sunday; both are on my homework list. I was reluctant after falling asleep during VII back in December but I was persuaded by the prospect of a young Harrison Ford.

It was gutting… Star Wars IV just didn’t really do it for me. I really wanted to like it; something in the films clearly moves the men in my life and I didn't want to be the killjoy that couldn't see the magic. It's not that it's for children - thought it clearly is - because I loved Toy Story and Shrek but I've an inkling I know what annoyed me. I can almost forgive the plethora of silly sounds made by various creatures and droids but the humans…. Crumbs I find it tough to forgive them: Luke Skywalker is so whiney. I know he has to have a character arc, but really? Such a whinge bag? And as for the pleasant anticipation of a young Harrison Ford. Ugh; bloody patronising shit. If I were Princess Leia and he called me ‘sweetheart’ again in that patronising tone, I’d’ve shot him in the groin.

I tried to get out of watching V on Sunday by putting it off to the next week and then I realised it might be better to just get it out the way. My homework list is my homework list and Son seems to be particularly enjoying the power to wield it in my face in some horrifying and ironic reversal in our situation. So I watched it... but *sigh* Luke Skywalker, despite finding a passion in life, was still brattish and Han Solo is still a sexist jerk; C3PO (such a misery) and Chewbacca (screechy man in gorilla suit) were still kind of annoying. Only R2D2 was quite cute.

Then we met Yoda.

OMG Yoda. Did we make Jedi a religion yet? I want to join.

Maybe, maybe I will try another Star Wars after all…

I love Yoda. So wise, he is.

What I read in 2015

According to Yes by Dawn French

Capital by John Lanchester

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz*

The Sisterhood by Emily Barr

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

The Bees by Laline Paull

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

After You by Joyo Moyes

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey by Rachel Joyce

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Out of My Depth by Emily Barr

Backpack by Emily Barr

Where Love Lies by Julie Cohen

We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers*

Us by David Nicholls

The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes

The Lie by CL Taylor

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

H is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald*

Mothers & Daughters by Kate Long

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton*

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth*

Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters

Hello From The Gillespies by Monica Mcinnerney

Balancing Act by Joanna Trollope

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang

*Book Club choices

What I read in 2014

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters*

Her by Harriet Lane

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

A Cornish Affair by Liz Fenwick

The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Public Battles, Private Wars by Laura Wilkinson

The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster

The Friday Gospels by Jenn Ashworth

Life Drawing by Robin Black

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson*

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

Strength in Strangers by Lauren Britton

The Land of Decoration by Grace McLeen

Erosion by S A Hemmings

The Memory Book by Rowan Coleman

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain*

Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

The Accident by CL Taylor

Secrets and Rain by Cally Taylor

The White Cuckoo by Annie Ireson

The Diary of The Lady by Rachel Johnson

Out of The Ruins by Sue Guiney

The Moment by Claire Dyer

The Rosie Project by Graeme C Simsion

Wake by Anna Hope

The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall by Paul Torday

All Change for Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton

Woman Walks into a Bar by Rowan Coleman

Call Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

The Lewis Man by Peter May

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriaty

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood

Longbourn by Jo Baker

*Book Club choices

A tiny flaw in the plan...

Ahhh, so there was something of a weakness in my plan, wasn't there? On Sunday, did I not say something along the lines of "there were some good things in 2013 and I shall come and tell you about them"? No, no, it's not exactly that I've forgotten what they were; I do have photographic evidence to remind me what I did last year. I've, errrm, just forgotten the precise details. It transpires that I can only come here and tell you, er, vaguely what happened at the beginning of last year.

At the end of February last year I joined an excursion to a mozzarella making Buffalo farm outside of Bangkok. I have no idea now where it was but it didn't take long to get there. I expect if you wanted to know and Google couldn't tell you, I could find out. It was fascinating. I think. I learned lots about making mozzarella. I took lots of pictures. And I DO remember thinking you'd be as fascinated by the process as I was... Only beyond hot and cold water to shape the mozzarella into those rotund yummy balls, I'm all of a blank.

Still, I don't suppose there are many people who come to Tea Stains to learn anything... So, sorry and all that; apart from one picture that illustrates I DID actually see mozzarella being made, instead of any details whatsoever about the process, here are some pictures of the lovely, milk yielding buffalo:

LOOK! This is something to do with making mozzarella.

This is my best side.

Well, we ARE water buffalo...

Check out those eyelashes. 

What? It's mud; mud's good for the skin.

Hmmm, I'm a tiny bit freaked out by their cloven hooves.

Gorgeous girls

And my favourite picture of all....

My wonky New Year

Has all that overt New Year optimism gone? Is it safe to come out now? 

I felt unaccountably low on New Year’s Eve, which Husband and I spent on our sofa watching the last series of Luther. Rock and Roll we're not.

I say unaccountably because yes, it had been a rotten year, but I couldn’t see why, on this random date, I should feel sadder than I had, I don’t know, the week before… (I know how arbitrary the notion of New Year is: here in Thailand we celebrate three New Years: 31 December, the Chinese one in Jan/Feb time and the Thai one in April. Useful, huh? Plenty of opportunity to reassert broken resolutions!)

We can’t breathe for ‘looking back and looking forward’ articles/statuses/programmes at that time of year and so perhaps, however reluctant, I’m hardwired to do some assessing of my own, whether I wanted to or not.

I didn't want. But yes, 2013 was a pretty crappy year for us lot. The Grim Reaper has been stepping out of the shadows, flicking his black robe menacingly and doing his stuff before sashaying back into the recesses. I am really glad to see the back of it.

But you know what was good? Ha! I laugh in the face of being out, drinking too much Prosecco… I woke up on 1 January feeling positive and ready for a new start: I’m either a cliché, or that’s genetically determined too. And life never is only awful, is it? There are always positives to see even if they are teeny weeny ones. Or sometimes, things need looking at from a different perspective.  I stood on my balcony at midnight this year, taking pictures of the fabulous fireworks display so that I could post them here, and look, they are probably the worst set of photos anyone’s ever produced. Almost every single one is out of focus and yet… I still love them - for this was my wonky New Year.

And that’s what I’m going to start the year blogging with: documenting those little tiny good things from last year and some of the GREAT BIG BLOODY amazing things too because  they were there and I missed writing them down on my blog.  If this year’s pitiful attempt at blogging counts, then Tea Stains has been here for seven years and it seems to me to be worth something.

So before I get more Pollyanna on you, I shall go. But I’ll be back.

What I read in 2013

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Benedict's Brother by Tricia Walker

The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday

The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday

The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers by Paul Torday

Light Shining in the Forest by Paul Torday

The Twins by Saskia Sarginson

Something Beginning With by Sarah Salway

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

Stoner by John Williams*

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards

The Other Half Lives by Sophie Hannah

Summer of '76 by Isabel Ashdown

Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Diary of a Provincial Lesbian by VG Lee

Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman

Build a Man by Talli Roland

What The Grown-Ups Were Doing by Michele Hanson

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

The Silver Locket by Margaret James

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles 1) by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Catching the Sun by Tony Parsons

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

White Cargo by Felicity Kendal

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada*

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

Restless by William Boyd

The Knot by Mark Watson

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest

My Future Husband by Karen Clarke

Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd

My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary by Rae Earl

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Winter Games by Rachel Johnson

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins*

You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

Jubilee by Shelley Harris

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

*Book Club choices

Wednesday's Window: a little bit of drama

 

I love love love these. I'm not sure of my facts because they were taken a few months ago and I didn't label them but I think they were in the Siam Centre. (If anyone knows differently, please let me know and I will happily credit them.)

I love the drama and the sense of the macabre they've created by playing with illusion. (Do you see the half hat?) It's that dolls with scary faces thing (Magic, anyone?) They terrify me and make me laugh in equal measure.