'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

...though at times it still didn't feel all that massive. Saturday night, for instance, seemed to have nothing much doing so we just ended up down the local, where a possibly misguided attempt was made to embiggen proceedings via the medium of pink vodka. And on Sunday, walking down through Islington to see the Deptford Beach Babes, every pub I passed was Sunday quiet not Bank Holiday Sunday busy, and most other venues seemed to be shut. The DBB were playing the Cock Tavern in Smithfield, of which I'd heard but never before had cause to visit. And if I ever do again it won't be in anything like peak time, because as a man who should know observed, the bar staff seemed to be on ketamine. Weird place even beyond that, feeling like it should be hosting a provincial wedding reception rather than a suave rockabilly crowd. The Babes were excellent, and for the first time I was in a position to see their drummer, who can only be described as real horrorshow - not just fun to watch but a proper performer, miming ennui, possession and craze as appropriate. The only other acts I caught, given the dearth of service, were two burlesque girls. I have seen burlesque performers who did something a bit different, every now and then, but these were more at the 'striptease except it's classy because there's no fake tan' end of the bracket. Not that they didn't have nice breasts, but it's still not really art, is it?
(Also: bad form of the promoters to say the night was £6.66 and then actually charge seven quid. Yes, I was wondering what the Hell their float must look like, so I'd brought sixpence in coppers because I'm thoughtful like that. Charge what you like for your night, but stick to what you said, no matter what. There was also a terribly intrusive photographer, but I'm not sure whether he was theirs or an independent)

Before that - Friday, with a trip to see Don Juan in Love at the Scoop. The comedy and the horror worked a lot better than the romance, though I may have been slightly distracted at times by certain people giggling at "an impoverished and corrupt nobleman" comparing himself to Alexander*. Then on to Cheeze & Whine, of which what I remember includes 'Rhythm Is A Dancer'. Oh yes. And on Monday, off to Devil's End (which for security reasons goes by a different name on most maps) for a pint at the Cloven Hoof, titting around Mr Magister's church in a fez and general hijinks, culminating in a small child on the village green getting mouthy about the crack in time and space which could be mistaken for a tear in steve586's trousers. Good times. Especially given we were out of there by sundown.

The weekend was especially welcome because last week had been so thoroughly quiet and wet and dreary. Spent most of it watching films, many from another DVD rental free trial but one I'd taped years back (and the property show trailer beforehand was more of a blast from the past than any of the wartime setting). Contraband was an early Powell & Pressburger which initially seems like a forgettable flag-waver about how important the decency of neutrals can be. But then their strangeness and charm take hold, especially once we hit blackout London, and like everything else they did, it becomes very special. Not something one can say of another war/espionage film, GI Joe - The Rise of Cobra, which I watched mainly to see prima donna prick Christopher "too good for Who" Eccleston as Destro. Also with tax bills due when they got the call were Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Jonathan Pryce, and Adebisi from Oz who at least gets to cradle a bazooka in each arm and be a hardass. It's really not very good, but I am of the demographic that is always going to find some appeal in a film where ninjas Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fight in a pulse cannon generator in an undersea base beneath a polar ice cap. Oh, and the Team America comparisons you may have heard are unfair - well, except in the Paris scenes.

Sillier still is Frank Miller's take on The Spirit. This is not the charming action-adventure strip which is about the only early comic I can read with enjoyment; instead we get a brooding Central City which looks uncannily like Sin City, a Spirit who wear's Dwight's Converse and is generally somewhere between Miller's Batman and Looney Tunes. So yes, it's Miller's spirit not Eisner's, but what are the alternatives? Another unnecessary panel-to-screen transition of a comic which, even more than Watchmen, was designed to work precisely as a comic? Or another Spirit comic in which Miller does his take? At least this way we kill two birds with one stone, and probably up the sales of the Eisner collections into the bargain. And one thing Miller and Eisner do have in common: they like the girls. So Sand Saref is here, out for "the shiny thing to end all shiny things", and Silken Floss is Scarlett Johansson in a Nazi uniform, smoking, which excuses a lot in a film (and makes a Hell of a lot more sense than Samuel L Jackson in a Nazi uniform) "Is every goddamn woman in this goddamn Hellhole out of her goddamn mind?" asks a very Frank Miller take on Commissioner Dolan. Well, yes, but that's what Frank Miller does.

Oh yes, and I finally saw The Hurt Locker - accidentally good timing given this was the weekend of America's withdrawal from Iraq. The basic idea is brilliant; so often the climax of a film is a ticking time-bomb, so why not make a film about bomb disposal teams where the whole damn film is like that? And Kathryn Bigelow films violence like Oliver Stone on a good day, than which I can offer few higher compliments. A rare film to win big Oscars without being preachy middlebrow dreck.

*Finally watching Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes the next day, I am amused to see that film also mentions a performance of the tale, albeit in its Don Giovanni version, as Holmes and Watson pass Tower Bridge, or at least its beginnings. It's heartening that, when either Guy Ritchie's version or the BBC's could so easily have become Sherlock Holmes in Miami, neither did, both Cumberbatch and Downey sharing an essential Holmes-ness with Brett and Rathbone. Also - age suits Downey a lot better than I'd ever have thought.

On Wednesday I went to Catch, which has changed a lot in the past few years, to see a show headlined by Tim Ten Yen, who hasn't. The bill also featured a band called Hot Beds, who had a song about how Christmas now starts in October which worked both as a critique of festival creep and a big overwrought festive ballad which they can get away with playing outside December because it's about precisely that. Good work. I was, however, primarily there for the 18 Carat Love Affair who, as well as the usual delights, deployed a top hat and ace new track 'Dominoes'.
Catch might not be quite as typically, terribly East London as it used to be, but Friday found me in an even more atypical East London venue, in that it was seven storeys up (I think that's even higher than Collide-A-Scope) and done up like some kind of voodoo surf kitchen. Even before I started drinking, I saw a pink elephant trot past; fortunately, investigation confirmed that others could see it too and it was in fact a small child wearing a pink elephant head. Probably. It says a lot about The Deptford Beach Babes that they find places like this to play. That's a compliment, by the way.

As Peep Show bows out (and was this series the best extended advertisement for contraception ever aired?*), the comedy baton is handed over and The Thick of It returns. The new choice of minister interests me; Chris Langham having been, shall we say, rather too open-minded about acceptable sexual behaviour, they've this time opted for Rebecca Front, who if anything has the opposite problem; we should probably expect a Jan Moir cameo before season's end.

"Parents who think the new film of Maurice Sendak's picture book Where the Wild Things Are is too frightening for children can "go to hell", the author has said." It's a long time since I read the book, I'm not sure if I'm even that bothered about the film, but this piece gives me massive respect for the man.

Like most people, my first Nabokov was Lolita; for my second I took a recommendation and tried Despair, which almost finished him for me, but last week I finally had a third try and plumped for Pale Fire and, well, he's not a one-hit wonder. ( sufficiently pretentious that I felt a cut was in order )
Also, the last king of Kinbote's distant homeland, Zembla, is called Charles Xavier. The book came out one year before the debut of the X-Men, but somehow I can't picture Stan or Jack coping with Nabokov's prose.

*Though I have just found the perfect childcare solution.
**Well, the third canto has some moments of beauty, but otherwise we're in the authentically bathetic territory of the sort of sub-Frost American poet who gets good reviews of their collected works in the Guardian, but in which reviews the quoted excerpts convince you never, ever to read any of the work in question.
***OK, there's Angie Bowie's autobiography, but even that involved a ghostwriter whom I suspect of setting her up for a fall. Certainly, spending that much time in her company would make me want to do the same.

Just once, could we maybe have a season of Skins without ( spoilers )?

So anyway, I finally cracked and went to see ( Watchmen )

Realised last night that I've not been further than walking distance in a week. Now, given I live in London's Fashionable North London and walk fast, that covers a lot of territory - for instance, Wednesday's New Royal Fam gig was well within it. And very good too, in spite of inexplicable attacks of self-doubt from certain parties. I even managed the 'Rules OK' dance routine, kind of. Local Girls sounded OK so far as I could tell but I had people to talk to down the back, and the inaugural Charley's Classic Covers set as opener kicked arse. After charleston did 'I'm Straight' I could only wonder if it would be followed by a song about being really tall, possibly 'Empire State Human'. Wrong song but right act - she finished with a storming 'Love Action' guest-sung by exliontamer who has a surprisingly majestic voice.
But yes, walking distance. I'm on Oyster PAYG at present so it's not like I'm wasting anything, but I still feel I should maybe have an explore further afield today.

edit: In fairness, I've just seen the expanded list of 'After Watchmen' recommendations and more of it is good than not.