Picture from Snip View

We watched Iron Man 2 and Thor last night which I assume almost finishes my introduction to Marvel superheroes in film, (I can't wait for Bananaman) although we stopped Thor as I was too preoccupied to concentrate properly. My Nana was taken to hospital yesterday and at the age of 91 this can't be anything other than worrying. It was actually thanks to the fact that my dad watches Holby City (where soap stars disappear to now that The Bill isn't on any more) and recognised her symptoms that she is safe and sound in hospital when things could have been worse. 

My nana is a fairly resilient woman who compared to the other people who live in her complex hasn't allowed getting old to become an obstacle. Up until recently she was still going to town on her own and doing her shopping, whereas most of her fellow residents have simply given up on life and stopped bothering to even get dressed in the morning. It is only in recent weeks that she hasn't had the motivation to go out as often, although she is still going to my dad's house for Sunday lunch. Today however we didn't have our usual lunch at dad's, as we were all in the hospital. 

This wasn't our conventional Sunday but at least we spent it together I suppose. Last night I went through the usual feelings of guilt associated with not having made the most of grandparents, my nana only lives down the road but I only see her on Sunday. We used to all go round on Wednesdays but it was when I started presenting NottinghamLIVE and didn't have time anymore that this weekly meeting tailed off and by the time I finish work and get home for tea or have to go to a gig then one week becomes two and before you know it weeks have passed. 

I felt better once I had seen her and although she will be in hospital for a few days I can tell that she will be leaving of her own accord. We had dinner and watched Calamity Jane this evening, I haven't seen it before but we went to watch a stage production of it at the Theatre Royal last year. This is the second time (off the top of my head) that I have seen the film version of a musical after watching it on stage (Hello Dolly being the other one that springs to mind) and it is the preferable way round to do it. Had I seen the film first with its huge set and location then I would spend all the time I should have been enjoying the show picking holes but at least this way round I appreciate the ingenuity of the directors who manage to get an entire musical performed in one setting. 

The Sunday Alternative will return soon.

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June housekeeping

The audio book of Bowie Day (a short story inspired by A Christmas Carol) will be released on August 31st. In the meantime the book can be downloaded to your Kindle from here.

All donations made using the PayPal button will go towards making podcasts, comedy sketches, live video sessions, documentaries, short films and more that will be made available online for free.

The Sunday Alternative bag and t-shirt (and other products) can be purchased from my shop page. All money raised will go into the fund to create free content.

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76

I didn't realise that it was February when I first kept the fork from the chip shop in Bulwell in protest at paying 10p. Today was my chance because we went to Bulwell for the afternoon to do a bit of shopping and I had a bag of chips and peas and saved myself having to buy another fork. In fact we were at the end of our road when I remembered that I should have taken it and went back home for it, they were not going to get the better of me. As I queued up I knew that I was the cleverest person in Bulwell, although I had already achieved that goal by being able to tie my own shoes and walk upright. Mandi was a bit annoyed with me because I didn't want to get out of bed but we soon got over it and I took Jack for a walk before getting ready. It was a nice day so we walked along a footpath beside the River Lean to get there and back and pulled in a slightly good although not classic charity shop haul (Calamity Jane and both series of I'm Alan Partridge to watch, and a book called Mrs Slocombe's Pussy: Growing Up In Front of the Telly by Stuart Jeffries for me), with no records or clowns this time. 

As it is apparently four months since we did this, or at least without checking the blog it is certainly the first time I have had chips from there, my evil plan to eventually get a free bag of chips will take me until February 2023 to make this worth it. I will be 46 years old and there's no guarantee that the shop will even be there in eight years time so I will have to transfer my plan to another chip shop. This doesn't seem fair as I will be doing the new chip shop out of an income stream by not buying a plastic fork, and there's also the possibility that the present chip shop might get a rates bill and they'll be 10p short and the shop will be repossessed and it will be my fault. I also have to consider the very real possibility that the price of a bag of chips with mushy peas will increase before February 2023, so my quest to beat the system might drag into 2024 or beyond. Maybe I will never catch up and although I save myself 10p with every visit to this shop (I'll only carry this scheme out with this one shop, I'm not some obsessive lunatic who enjoys a pointless project you know) I will never be in credit. To make this work I could of course go every weekend to have a chippy lunch here, but to be totally honest, it isn't that great a chip shop. It is only because there are no proper fish and chip shops in Nottingham that this one stands out.

I might have been a bit hasty there, if you know of a proper fish and chip shop in Nottingham then please let me know. If they sell kebabs, pizza, or anything other than a traditional fish and chip menu then I don't want to know. Maybe I will add it to my consumer champion duties alongside breakfast and crisps. , or maybe I won't.

The Sunday Alternative will return soon.

===

June housekeeping

The audio book of Bowie Day (a short story inspired by A Christmas Carol) will be released on August 31st. In the meantime the book can be downloaded to your Kindle from here.

All donations made using the PayPal button will go towards making podcasts, comedy sketches, live video sessions, documentaries, short films and more that will be made available online for free.

The Sunday Alternative bag and t-shirt (and other products) can be purchased from my shop page. All money raised will go into the fund to create free content.

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76

©Warner Brothers

The show last night was the lead review in the paper which meant that I had to write 500 words, the longest review I have written (to my knowledge without checking) and as such I was up far too late last night. Before the show I had a pint of Guinness and during the interval I had a glass of red wine and as only a moderate drinker this duo of drinks somehow affected my concentration. I had put in a late night writing session the night before and followed that by spending the day in court so I was flagging by the time I got round to trying to turn my notes into action. Reviews have to be in by nine o’clock in the morning to go online so I’m guessing that most of us write them before bed. The trouble is that by the time I’d finished my concentration was suffering to the point that I accidentally deleted the first draft version (slightly longer, I deliberately send an ‘online version’ and a ‘print version’ to avoid too much interference from scissor happy sub-editors) so I could only send in the final 500 word one.

At the back of my mind until Monday was the fact that I might not even be writing reviews for the paper anymore. Somebody had told me that they had heard about them getting rid of me as a result of my tweeting about the James Blunt support act competition being fixed. As nobody had told me about it I just assumed that someone was shit-stirring but decided to deal with it in a subtle manner. Rather than email to ask if it was true and why wasn’t I told, which would have made me look needy, I waited until Monday to email to ask for the word counts. I was informed of the wordage for yesterday’s Calamity Jane review and tomorrow’s Tom Stade gig at Glee, and no mention was made of the tweets. It wouldn’t have been right anyway to dump me for that as I wasn’t representing the paper at the time.

In my tiredness I had made a couple of errors, in particular using the same word or a variant twice in the same sentence which I’m glad was picked up on. There’s always a bit of editing going on for some reason, but I was amused by the fact that my reference to the wedding scene finale had been removed so as not to spoil the ending. Given that the musical is based on a film that came out in 1953 I would go so far as to assume that if you haven’t seen it or don’t know the ending, you probably don’t want to.

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