What a busy weekend.. On Saturday Owen and I went to the reception for Angus and Clive's Civil Partnership at the sprauncy Little Ship Club in the City by the Thames. I have just checked... it's SIXTEEN YEARS since the last time I was invited to a wedding and/or reception! What does that say about me or friends? There was the usual guessing games as to how the combined guests fitted into the lives of our Civil Partners - why do receptions always appear to be full of the same cast of people? Dawn and Kevin high-tailed it to Duckie around 10 and despite saying that I didn't want a late night.... 1am found us flagging down a cab! It was good to shake my moneymaker with O, Stephen and Gerald (above) tho'.

Sunday afternoon brought my first visit to the London Film Festival this year.
Owen and I went to see STRANGER THAN FICTION starring Will Ferrall, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman. It's directed by Marc Forster who directed the hugely enjoyable FINDING NEVERLAND. Annoyingly our screening was subtitled for the hard of hearing which was really distracting, you can't help but read them and it totally throws a comedy off-kilter when the audience is laughing ahead of the punchline. However the film was an absolute delight and will definately warrent a second screening. Harold Crick (Ferrall) is a total blank. An IRS worker, he lives alone, has one friend who is a geeky co-worker and lives a life governed by his hours at work, the hours he sleeps, the minutes to the bus stop etc. Suddenly his life is turned upside down by two women. He is sent to audit Ana (Gyllenhaal) a baker who has been withholding a percentage of her returns as a protest against the government and finds himself falling for her liberated free-spirit - despite her antipathy towards him. The other woman is more tricky. It's a voice in his head, describing his every move before he does it and knows all about him.. a voice that is driving him to distraction.

What we know is that the voice is that of Karen Eiffel (Thompson) a well-known novellist who is writing a novel with a character called Harold Crick... an IRS worker who lives alone etc. etc. Kay is going through her own trauma with crippling writer's block so her publisher has sent her an assistant Penny (Latifah) to help sort out her problem... how to end her novel with the death of Harold Crick! Harold is now desperate to find who the woman is and enlists the help of Jules Hilbert (Hoffman), a professor of English to find out whether he's living a comedy or a tragedy. The film twists and turns until the author and character meet - but that's far from the end of the story. The film took a bit of time to engage me but it soon had me hooked with it's inventive story-telling and in particular the fine performances - Gyllenhaal in particular in her role of the feisty baker. Emma again shines as the depressed and moody author and who delivers an off-screen narration at the end which had me quite moist-eyed.

Then it was on to see the New York Dolls at the Forum with O and Dawn. It was great to see David and Syl again and they certainly ripped through a set which included the classics and new solid songs from the new cd but I felt a bit outside it all. As usual there was the usual dozey twats in the audience whose spatial awareness was shot to shit leaving me bruised to buggery by the bloke next to me who wanted to dance like a monkey even though everyone else standing where we were realised that there was no room to dance and O left the Forum with a soaking jacket after having a pint of beer knocked by some clown. It's a shame they aren't playing a second night really. Maybe I was a bit spoiled by seeing them at the Royal Festival Hall last time. Would hate to think this was the last time I might see them though! How happy was I though that played GOTTA GET AWAY FROM TOMMY!