Normal service is resumed:

i.e, I've had an enjoyable but not particularly noteworthy week. Let us enumerate said fun but eminently normal events:

Jez hosted a mini dinner party round at his flat. We came, we saw, we ate, and it was good. Jeff said something about sausages that almost reduced me to tears of laughter, but my long-term memory is a cruel mistress and I have absolutely no recollection of what it was. Off to the pub afterwards for some top-up boozing, and a mostly sensible night. That I remember. O terrible memory! Thou dost add mystery and excise knowledge in equal measures.

It's been a bit of a filmic week for the first time in months; Ash and I went to see both M:I:III (if ever there was a time to use arabic numerals, this was it) and The Da Vinci Code. Am I the only person who thinks it's hilarious to just call it Da Vinci Code in a Mockney accent? Someone help me out here.

I'm a bit of a misanthrope when it comes to mainstream Hollywood films, and MI3 didn't do much to disabuse me of that feeling. Bizarrely though, The Da Vinci Code completely hit the spot. The book is so badly written I wanted to set it (and Dan Brown) on fire, but it is a page turner par excellence. I can't quite put my finger on why I enjoyed the film so much: it's adequately acted for the most part; the plot is an entertaining enough conspiracy theory to a Godless heathen like me and it clearly had plenty of money spent on it, but no single element is outstanding is any particular way. Maybe it was the spectacle of Hollywood being so openly anti-religion (at least until the obligatory fudge at the end) that warmed the cockles of my black, secular heart. Regardless, I thought it was rather good.

Post monkeycide, it's all been very quiet on the musical front. On Saturday though, Coba Fynn (or at least the three fifths of it that don't live in another country or on another continent) got together for a practice/jam on Saturday. I've only played CF stuff a couple of times before, but blues rock is rewarding for a self-taught and self-confessed bad musician like your correspondent and we had a couple of CF originals up and running in short order. I thought it was an excellent session: with Davis capably in charge, all I had to worry about was coming up with vaguely acceptable bass lines and keeping mostly in time with Doug. Done and done, with enjoyable results.

Lastly, I watched the awful majesty of the Eurovision song contest from the comfort of the Arcade Bar on Cockburn Street with Ash, Austen and Maria. Only this time, a glittering rock jewel rose from the tawdry pop ashes and wiped the floor with the lot of them. The entire place was cheering for Finland, and I almost wept with joy when they won. ROCK!