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2002-06-06 Entry: "Monday Distractions"

I was fully intending to make valid progress on Cupid episodes (which happened to be next on the stack), but with parents out househunting, and sister so bored she was resorting to watching people make beds (Big Brother), she roped me into watching a variety of alternatives.

It started with Space Cowboys (which, to be fair, I wanted to watch anyway). This proved to be an entertaining film (and the acting was at least up to par, what with the cast all having been in the business forever), and other than some of the preposterousness (them not spotting that Donald Sutherland wasn't ever going to be able to read that chart when his glasses were an inch thick, the idea that you could learn to pilot a space shuttle in less than a month) it kept you gripped throughout.

Unfortunately, the movie watching didn't end there. After escaping to do one of the remaining episodes (I started the day with 3 to go on the first tape (of 2)), I got dragged back to watch Speed. Now, lets be fair, you can't really go wrong with Speed. It has Sandra Bullock as suitable eye candy, and it's reasonably tense (even when you've seen it thirty times). There are obvious holes in the plot (like the bus taking off when crossing the gap in the freeway rather than plunging into the hole in standard ballistic fashion, or the fact that they can't get Sandra Bullock off of the pole in the train when they've got a bomb and a bomb disposal expert... blow up the pole people...), but you can ignore them amidst the action. And Dennis Hopper plays a suitably over the top villain, hamming it up as badly as Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

Finishing the Cupid episodes, I was then forced to watch the Queen's jubilee concert - for some unknown reason, she'd decided that the Jubilee deserved a huge concert with lots of people - the Mall was packed with people and there was no trouble whatsoever, so large crowds of people can be well behaved. The concert itself was a bit weak. Queen appeared and then struggled to find someone who could actually sing until they dragged the guy out who leads the new stage production to do Bohemian Rhapsody. It was certainly a better choice than Brian May or Will Young, as you could actually hear him (unlike Brian May) and he was in tune (unlike Will Young).

The concert finished with enough fireworks to sink the Bismark, although where they put them all I've no idea...