Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

We went to the cinema to celebrate today, because it was my dad’s birthday. And it really was rather nice. Nice because it was a sort of throwback, wonderful time. Nice because all the family were together. And nice, too, because there has been a new cinema complex built nearby, and it meant we didn’t have to travel very far.

The film of choice was Solomon Kane, which I hadn’t even heard of before today. But apparently it’s based on some fantastic stories by Robert E. Howard. I don’t think things often work like this, but I’m certainly going to check out the fiction after having seen the movie. It was a brilliantly dark, gothic tale of retribution and love, with some really striking imagery.

Of course, I won’t spoil it for anyone who has yet to see it, but I will say that the scene with the Devils Reaper was particularly effective.

And yet, one of the best moments wasn’t even the film itself. It was before the film, while we were watching trailers. For the most part the adverts were dull, or gruesome. The films weren’t particularly appealing. But then came an advert for Clash of the Titans, and, instantly, I was hooked.

The music pounded out of the speakers, a booming, rock soundtrack that somehow seemed fitting.

A bearded Liam Neeson portrayed Zeus, and the actor who plays Lord Voldemort was Hades. That alone had me interested. The monsters, the action, the mythical tale and setting solidified it in my mind as something to watch out for.

It’s the sort of film that’s right up my street. I loved the original, and that only really got by on its special effects – in its time, probably revolutionary, and now almost a source of comedy. So I’m not overly concerned that this remake will be ruined by any lack of story that seems a common theme among modern cinema.

I’m doing my post-graduate course at what is essentially a college. And this, in one way at least, is a good thing: I get all the school holidays, when they roll around. There are plenty of downsides, of course, but the holidays, at least, are brilliant.

Last week, I had a week off for half-term, despite only having been at college for two weeks.

Of course it went by altogether too quickly. But it also gave me a taste of freedom that I haven’t really had since university. I went zorbing, which was insane. And it’s made me incredibly excited for the Easter holiday, and the Summer holiday especially. In fact, I’m determined to make this summer as adrenaline-filled as possible.

My friends recently went to Go Ape, which sounds good fun, and they are apparently already planning to go again. I might hop on the bandwagon.

But more so than that, I’m keen to go paintballing. Like monkeying around at Go Ape, I’ve never actually been paintballing before: but there is a certain something about running around with friends and toy guns that is more appealing.

I pitched the idea to my brother, who also threw in the go-karting notion. There is a track nearby that is offering half-price deals on races, so long as you bring enough people. I doubt whether that will still be going in a few months time, but racing itself is certainly brilliant fun.

It will be nice, I think, to celebrate in such a fashion once all the work is done.

I thought I would do one more blog before bed (and boy, am I looking forward to bed after last night). Because I had a few friends round for drinks this evening, and, strangely, they were very complimentary about my phones. Which is an odd thing to be complimentary about, I think, but there you go.

At least they were complimentary about something. But it’s one of those things that just sort of caught me; made me smile. And so here I am, rambling about it.

I told them I was with BT. And that BT are pretty rubbish. But then I suppose when you live out in the middle of nowhere, most phone and broadband services will be pretty bad. Still, it was more the handsets that they liked; what, with their fancy (though unused) buttons, and a look about them that says: I do more than ring people. They are those fancy dect cordless phones.

They had never considered buying telephones online before, which is where I got my ones from. There is a phone shop in our local town, and it’s usually well-stocked, and pretty good for whatever you need. But the possibilities with online are limitless. You can browse tonnes of phones, and eventually find that extra special hub or handset.

Sometimes, they even throw in deals. Discounts on business and ADSL lease lines, and that sort of thing. And, of course, the big ones to look out for are internet deals, because there are so many bargains to be had that save you money. Certain UK ISP’s, like Zen, are often good for that.
But when I go into a shop… I don’t know. If there are no deals advertised, I don’t feel confident enough to ask for a discount or to haggle or barter. Which is why, often, online is the way forward – for me, at least.

I saw the new year in last night with family, and with friends. And I ended up watching Glastonbury highlights at three in the morning, too tired to go to bed.

But now that I’ve slept, and now that things have settled in a little bit, I find it quite strange to sit back and think that today is the first day of a new decade. I remember seeing in the new year in 2000, but back then there were other things taking the headlines: there was the threat of the millennium bug, an air of paranoia around the potential collapse of computers and electronics. I was young, in the 90’s, a kid, and I didn’t look back on it, or think about it much – the year 2000 was just another new year.

But this, this is strange. A lot has happened in the 00’s. I’ve gone through secondary school, sixth form, and university. I finished my education, and strode out into the big wide world. It was a period in time where I realised what I wanted to do, and set about making it happen.

Here, at the outset of 2010, at the beginning of a new decade, I’m in position to live my dream. I’m in a position to write, and to tell stories, whether it’s fiction, or journalism, or any other form of writing – I just need to start getting down to it.

The naughties was a wonderful decade, a really important decade for me, personally. It has established this new decade as one for the taking, and I’m looking forward to taking it and making the most of it, if that makes sense.

I hope everyone had a terrific time celebrating, wherever you might be, whatever you might have been doing. I did, and although I’m still feeling particularly tired, I’m feeling very satisfied and happy.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas wherever you are, if you celebrate it. Here, with my family, it has been wonderful for me – perhaps the best I can remember in recent years. We’ve been playing games, and watching the delights that are put on television especially for this handful of days surrounding the 25th of December.

One delight in particular, I think, will stick with me; one that really struck a cord, that I will remember this Christmas by, and remember it fondly. It was a little animated movie adaptation of The Gruffalo (about 30 minutes long), voiced by an all-star cast that included Helena Bonham-Carter as the narrator. It’s based on a book for children – a picture book, I beliebe – and the animation was wonderful, the characters cute, wide-eyed, and very much alive on the screen. And the voice acting was superb.

I think what was best about it was the simple beauty of the storytelling. It was not a very complicated plot: a mouse walks through the woods, and encounters dangers, and sees them off. But it used rhyme, and it used simple words, and it all came together to tremendous effect. A fantastic fable for Christmas time, with its audience huddled around a crackling fire.

It just brought home that you don’t need to use the widest vocabulary to achieve a powerful or compelling effect; you just need the right words for the right situation. You don’t need endless description; you just need the right words for the right situation. Here, with the Gruffalo, it came together perfectly, and I would recommend watching it on iPlayer if it’s possible for you to do so.

Christmas shopping has to be right up there with the most pleasurable, enjoyable things in the world. For me, at least, I know that shopping for things to give to your friends and your family is a lot of fun. I love the thrill of knowing you are surprising someone, and wondering whether they will like it or not.

A lot of people complain about the process, though. Moan about it, moan about the problems of buying for people. Not huge problems, but worrying over what to get: gifts for women, usually, can be particularly troublesome for men. It seems to me to be the case, anyway. And of course it then follows that if you’re a woman, it is often hard to buy gifts for men.

As a general rule, I just try not to worry about it too much. Isn’t it the thought that counts, more than anything? It is for me, but I suppose often people might not think that way. Personally, I often like something even more because it is something that a friend, or a brother, or a sister has picked out and chosen with me in mind. It’s that, often more so than the gift itself, that means the most.

Of course, if you really are worrying about something, there are guides out there: “Great Presents for Men”, and that sort of thing. And if you go shopping on websites like Amazon, there are tags and sections and labels which help break down every aspect of it.

To begin with, though, the best place is probably Google; from there you can search for anything from Christmas presents for kids, to obscure books, or old video games, to technical presents like USB devices and gifts & gadgets.

And then, once you have got something, you wait, and you wonder, and you hope that they like it. And there’s a magic even in that.

My friend called earlier today to tell me about a car crash he had suffered earlier in the week. He wants to claim whiplash insurance compensation before the weekend. Essentially, it sounds as though someone drove into the back of his car at the traffic lights in town. He was slowing to a halt, and the car behind somehow hadn’t realised the lights had turned red, and just trundled into the back of him.

Thankfully it looks like everything is in place for the insurance stuff to be sorted out. The man who crashed into him was more than helpful, which is good to hear. But that reminds me, there is an article here that claims a significant amount of people don’t realise their options when it comes to things like this. I stumbled across it the other day, and I must remember to send it over to my friend – he would hate it if I informed him afterwards that he missed out on an accident claim or something.

I’m not entirely sure when I’ll get to see him next, though, because he was going to come to the NFL game at Wembley this week, but he has just dropped out. When people live all over the country, the problem is that you rarely get to see each other face to face. I’ll have to have a dig around to see if I can find his email address, I suppose, although I can’t remember ever getting it off him.

And now there are only a couple of days to go before the game. I’m beginning to look forward to it quite a lot. There was an article in The Times about Tom Brady, and it just reinforced that he and top target Randy Moss will be two players who it will be pretty fantastic to have seen play, after they have retired. Yes, I’m looking forward to it quite a lot!

I have not had the best of days today, and it was made worse by a phone call I’ve just had from BT. Let me just say that it really annoys me when you get called by your service provider about deals and offers. When I was at uni, it was Virgin – they called me on a number of occasions about some sort of package where I could get television and phone included, whereas I only had the broadband. The thing is, it is rather easy to cancel broadband when you finish the year and move out – but the phone, and the TV is another matter. And then you have to consider the fact that there is always a minimum contract agreement, which would go on far longer than my tenancy.

It might sound pathetic, but it just annoys me. Being called by BT, with them offering me some supposedly fantastic deals on their new BT home phones, it annoys me. I have been using BT here for a while now, and they have been okay. The internet is sometimes quite slow, we sometimes get stung on the occasional phone bill, but for the most part they have been okay. But that doesn’t mean I want to get called about new phones. If I want new phones, I can shop around for them myself.

There are so many specialists and websites, and shops out there – places like this telephone system website – that make it so easy to get that sort of thing anyway, that now more than ever you don’t need people selling you things down the phone. It’s the same with internet. You have telecoms and the like, but more than that, you have television adverts, you have the internet in general: you can use the internet to research the internet, and find the deals you want. If you want sdsl internet, you can research and get sdsl internet.

So rather than go through the process of turning them down, I simply hung up. And after the day I’ve had today, it felt quite good, too!

At work today, our office was abuzz. For weeks now, we knew that today would be the main sprucing up day, the day of replacing, of cleaning, of freshening. But I don’t think anyone expected it to be as hectic as it was. Not only have we been changing things around, moving things, selling things, updating things. Needless to say it has been a hectic day. People have been running in and out, speeding around sorting things out and taking things from one place to another, and it has been difficult to find time to breathe, really. Some of the people I don’t think even work with us … they were brought in, I suppose, to help out, because someone cleverly anticipated the madness.

I think I can live with the madness, though. It was much needed. The fax machines have gone, and new models will be brought in to replace them.

The computers have gone, too, and they, will be replaced. Indeed, the computers were most in need of replacing. They were not only big and bulky, but incredibly slow; sometimes so slow that you couldn’t very easily run Word, or other such programs, without a tremendous amount of waiting around.

Our very dated phones have already been replaced by cordless phones that, in my opinion, are pretty swish.

Yes, everything has been updated, or changed, or replaced. The only thing that hasn’t are the desks and the shelves … even the folders, I think, are new. Most of the office equipment is new. And already, even though the revamping project isn’t complete just yet, it’s making a difference. It’s certainly a lot nicer working in an environment that isn’t painstakingly slow, or loud, or untidy.

I forget, now, how it happened, but earlier today I was eating lunch in our local pub – they do an excellent Sunday lunch, and thankfully it’s very reasonable too – but the topic turned from watching ospreys fishing, to teleportation. And it was quite an interesting discussion.

Someone thought that they thought that the very idea of teleportation was first seen in Star Trek, which, at its beginning was a very low budget science fiction show. In order to cut costs, they apparently just thought that it would be incredibly convenient to have some form of travel where you could move from one place to the next without having to do anything. It was simple, quite brilliant, and you didn’t have to spend money on anything more than a little device and a fancy sound effect.

And now, because of this, we have scientists dedicated to researching teleportation; scientists investigating it and partaking in tests to try and move molecules a certain distance across a river, and all sorts. Whether it’s true or not, it’s quite interesting to think about: it’s the notion that it’s not really science fiction, but science fact. Science fiction has created something that could potentially be very real, and might not have been were it not for its sci fi origins.

But, as I understand it (or perhaps I’m mistaking it for some form of hyper-jump space travel) isn’t teleportation merely deconstructing your body into its constituent, base parts – transferring them, and then reassembling them like lego? It rings bells. And that’s true, then even if teleportation was possible in today’s world, I’m not sure I would want to even try it. I don’t think I could trust a machine to construct me back to a fully functioning, fully working person.