Day: 19 January 2025

Weeknotes #104: a quiz, a leaving do and a lingering sense Christmas

A fun and eventful week with social events.

Week commencing Monday, 13 January 2025

A night-time photo of a Christmas tree on Shepherd's Bush Green in London, taken in mid-January. The tree is decorated with bright white LED lights and is surrounded by temporary metal barriers. The scene captures that particular post-Christmas period in London when some festive decorations remain up into the new year, creating a lingering sense of the holiday season even as winter properly sets in.
A lingering sense of Christmas

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 4/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 38,460

Life

  • Got the quote from one of the big London firms to fix the rotten wood around the door. I am not sure what else we can do with £5,000, but it won’t be this. I assume they don’t want the work. Alternatives are being searched for.
  • Pub quiz is back. It was great fun, as always. Most frustrated I could not remember Carl Douglas’ name (the singer of Kung Fu Fighting). Somewhere in the middle again!
  • Big corporate thing on Wednesday. I watched it remotely. It was very well done, but it took most of the afternoon.
  • Thursday to the office, followed by a leaving do. Fun evening that ended up in a pub where the karaoke accompaniment was a live guitarist. We watched. Nice to see MB over from Japan.
  • Related, a very jolly member of Shepherd’s Bush station staff told me I’d missed the last train. I don’t think the big smiles were due to my predicament. Uber to the rescue.
  • Relatedly related, talked football all the way home. Felt vaguely knowledgeable because the family WhatsApp keeps me up to date on events at Goodison Park.
  • Relatedly, the Christmas tree is still up— and illuminated— in the middle of Shepherd’s Bush Green. Do they need to leave it up all year now?
  • A mainly quiet weekend, a decluttering of books went to charity. The weather has been terrible. Sunday, friends for dinner. A lovely afternoon.

Media

  • Watched the first episode of The White Lotus. The plot is based on new guests arriving at the White Lotus resort, bringing their own set of problems. They felt disconnected. But not a lot happens, and it’s slow going and felt like hard work. The characters, however, are fascinating but not likeable at all.
  • Randomly watched a YouTube video about the end of Southern Television, the ITV franchise for the south of England, and one about a man who lives in a tiny house on wheels, hidden inside a truck. It looked quite smart.
  • Also went back to one of my pre-pandemic favourite channels, The Endless Adventure, and discovered I’m five years behind on their adventures.
  • Tried to listen to Tim Cook on the Table Manners podcast, but found I couldn’t quite stick with it. I think it was too long for my liking.

Film: 8 Mile

I have no idea if this in any way reflects real life in downtown Detroit. I have no clue if rap culture is, in any way, well served by his film but it is a great movie which I thoroughly recommend.

I walked out of the Odeon loving Eminem’s 8 Mile. On reflection, I still think this is a great movie. Who cares if it’s Saturday Night Fever or Karate Kid for a new generation? Does Eminem’s apparent turn around about all things gay worry me? Not at all. This is an excellent film. I do, however, have one question, where are all the guns?

I have never visited Detroit nor any of its downtown neighbourhoods. Fortunately, I’ve never been in the middle of any kind of big gang culture. But in this movie, there were two guns (three if you count the paint-ball). One is pulled on Jimmy (Eminem) and one is waved around by Cheddar Bob, who promptly shoots himself while those involved in the gang fight around him look on like they’d never seen a gun. If I were to believe the news media, this place would have been crawling with weapons and Jimmy would have probably pulled several on his attackers. A movie for nice liberal sensibilities? It just struck me as odd. Perhaps it’s real, but it seemed wrong.

That is, however, but a small gripe. Like yesterday’s film, The Good Girl, we have a central character with an apparently dead-end life but dreams of something better. This time, the lead is surrounded by people who believe in him although he doesn’t believe in himself. The final battle, where Jimmy – or Rabbit – proves himself to be great, is a freestyle rap event that is so far removed from anything in my life or frame of reference that I have no idea if it’s believable, amusing or insulting. Having said that, it is a great conclusion to the movie and had me hooked.

Surprisingly, Eminem’s music doesn’t dominate the movie. I was slightly disappointed there wasn’t more. We first hear his musical talents when he sings a lullaby to his sister. A repositioning of man whose music has been the centre of controversy for years? So, if we don’t get to hear much of his music, how does he stand up as an actor? Pretty well, I would have said. His baseball-cap (and hood) mask much of him revealing only a cool, moody, brooding man writing rap lyrics on scraps of paper to music pumped into his head through headphones. As the movies is apparently based on some of his own life, I suspect this wasn’t a great leap for him to play. He does pull it off with conviction and you can take the journey into Jimmy’s world and lose sight of Eminem. I’d be interested to see if he acts again and with the huge box office takings predicted, most will bet he will.

I have no idea if this in any way reflects real life in downtown Detroit. I have no clue if rap culture is, in any way, well served by this film but it is a great movie which I thoroughly recommend even if you are asked to believe that, when life hits rock bottom, you’ll win on the bingo.