Whatever the situation, 3DS owners can download the 18 rated demo right now.  18 rated?  It feels rather strange writing that about a Nintendo handheld.  Lucky I enabled parental controls on Joseph’s

To whet the appetite, here’s a video :

Less than a week now!  I can’t wait.

However, it soon became clear that I was not going to be able to keep this goal so from today I am gonna do things a little differently.  You’re not interested in reading 1000 word reviews of movies, so I am going to expand my diaries very slightly (up to about 500 words) and rate the movies properly.  You will also note there is now a list of actors and the director.  These are all clickable – do so and you will be taken to all the other entries that feature them.  Each film is also classed by genre – click on the genre and all other films are listed from that genre.

Of course, you can still browse per month should you wish.

I hope this makes the site look a little cooler and also helps you find other films that may be of interest.

What a fucking palaver.  There are three different versions of The Inbetweeners Movie.  The DVD has the original, cut, 15 certificate cinema version.  The Blu-ray has two different versions – the original 18 rated cut that the makers originally gave to the BBFC, and an extended version.  I obviously went for the latter.  Or tried to.

The first half hour of the film was driving me mad.  The audio sync was about 1.5 secs behind the picture.  I tried altering the delay on my Blu-ray player, then the delay on the amp, then a different HDMI lead.  Nothing bloody worked.  I gave up, packed the disc back in the envelope for return faulty and then for some reason googled it.  Turns out that all Blu-ray releases were faulty and has this audio glitch.  The 18 rated cut is fine (and apparently much stronger than the cinema release – there is very little different between that and the extended version).

So out came the disc and I started again.

The film is actually very enjoyable, without ever seeming quite as shocking as the TV show.  Maybe it’s the familiarity, it’s difficult to tell but it never quite seems to make you cringe and laugh at the same time, unlike the TV.  Lines like “She’s so wet for me I can hear waves breaking in her fanny” still make you laugh but they are just derivative of what we have heard before.  The magic of the TV show is despite everything the boys are somehow likeable (or at least to me).  This seems lacking for the first half hour – they just seem nasty.

Things do pick up greatly though once the plot gets going.  They meet some girls, and suddenly the humour has a more grounded base to work against.  The last hour is much much better, not quite as laugh out loud funny as the show but still keeps your interest high.

Well worth a watch if you like the show, then – but just not as consistent as the source inspiration.  Kid in the pool made me wet myself though

I wasn’t expecting this to be that good.  But I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be this BAD.  Especially after a pretty good opening sequence.

If you’re ever planning to watch this, do yourself a favour.  Scratch you eyes out with a rusty nail.  It’ll be more entertaining.

When I left you last time, I had just been told that the chances of saving my sight was around 30%.  The consultant went into panic mode, which is quite strange as I’m not used to seeing them move quite so fast.  But it was only weeks later (last night, when researching to be exact) I found out that the muscle starts dying the moment it detaches.  If you aren’t quick then it simply can’t be saved.  Whatever anyone does.  I asked him what was involved and basically he told me that they would inject a local anaesthetic into my eye and then they would insert a slighter blunter instrument which would work around the back of the eye.  They would then use a lazer, before finally injecting a gas bubble into the eye.  This gas would replace the jelly like substance that holds the retina in place.  They said it wouldn’t hurt but that I would be able to see a light only.  My head would have to be held in place though.  I asked them whether I could have a general anaesthetic.  I was told “yes” but most people don’t.

He then asked me if I could get to London as he didn’t think they could get a surgeon in so quickly on a Saturday.  I said that I probably could (I was obviously not allowed to drive, so it would be expensive) – I asked if I could make some phone calls which he said was ok ’cause he needed to make some too.

I went outside, still pretty much unable to see due to the pupil dilation.  Everything was a complete blur.  I couldn’t dial any numbers as they just merged into another, but luckily the “recents” section on my iPhone came to my rescue and I could find numbers (just) through that.  So I called Victoria and told her, and she said she would head up.  I then phoned Marie to let her know, and then Tanya my friend from work to ask her to leave a message with my boss on Monday morning.

I then went back in and in the meantime someone else had been diagnosed with the same condition which was a blessing (obviously not for them) as it meant that the surgery team could be called in.  They were called, an operating theatre was booked, and I was told they were going ahead and I could have the general I asked for.

By that time Victoria had arrived and had already called Keith as his car may have been needed to get me to London (I was planning the train).  Dad was uncontactable as he was diving and hadn’t taken his mobile with him.  I was confident that Victoria and Marie got on well, and had each others numbers so I knew Victoria would keep Marie informed.  It was then a matter of waiting.  They wanted me to get in straight away but I told them I had eaten breakfast at 9:30am and this made them think twice about when they were going to do it.  In the meantime they stuck me on a ward.  Victoria, Keith and the kids headed off and it was just me to settle in and try not to get bored (I couldn’t read anything).

Then the consultant came up and put a felt tip marker above the affected eye.  I asked him to write “cut here” with an arrow pointing down but he wouldn’t.  Consultants – no sense of humour.  Then the anaesthetist came to see me, and we discussed generals.  He wanted to know if I’d ever had one – I told him that I had loads of times, and he asked me if I’d ever had any problems and I said only once – when I was 17 and had a circumcision that went wrong.  They over anaesthetised me and I was under for way longer than I should have been and sick for days.  He assured me that couldn’t happen today and I told him I wasn’t worried.  He then said that if it was ok with me I needed to get the operation started even though I was technically still unable because of the food.  The risks were explained, I signed and he tootled off.  He was a really nice bloke.

Then the head nurse came to do some obs on me – a really burly bloke with a fantastic sense of humour and a really good ability to make me at ease.  He had to do an unpleasant swab for MRSI which involved sticking an extra long Q tip up so far up my nose it went into the cavity.  He said it would be horrible but it wasn’t that bad to be honest.  The second swab (from between my testicle and my thigh) was my responsibility thankfully.  I asked for a nice female nurse to do it but there weren’t any available.

Finally another doctor came and gave me morphine and other meds, which was great as it killed my terrible tooth ache (which I had been more worried about than my eye) stone dead, and I was wheeled down to the theatre.  Oh and I was wearing socks to stop me getting a DVT which added to the sexy look of the gown.

I got down to the theatre and met the surgeon.  I hope she doesn’t ever read this, ’cause she was just about the sexiest surgeon I have ever seen.  A young Greek lady.  She insisted on talking me through exactly what she was going to do.  I said I would rather she didn’t but apparently these days they have to, because I have to sign “informed consent”.  She told me it would take about an hour.  I signed, and was then wheeled in to the pre op room.

After some argument over which way I should be lying (they couldn’t remember where the monitoring machines were in the main room and I had to rotate positions twice, we eventually got it sorted and I lay down.  The surgeon had trouble finding my vein with the catheter and apologised profusely as he had to take the needle out and put it back in five times and he apologised for the pain he was causing.  I pointed out that I had been given morphine and he should feel free to prod away as I genuinely couldn’t feel a thing.  The next bit, for anyone who hasn’t had a general before, I find fascinating.  They inject you, and you can literally feel it rushing round your veins.  If that is what injecting coke even remotely feels like then I can see what they mean.  You become aware of your whole body in a way that you not normally are, if that makes sense?  I felt the rush, remember saying “woah, that’s a rush!”.

Then everything was gone.

So, ever since just before Christmas when I was knocked out by what I thought was a migraine and couldn’t go to the staff party, I was suffering from weird kinds of migraines.  I got the same sight disturbance in my left eye as I always got before migraines.  Strobing, blind spots, etc etc.  Yet the weird thing was if I lay down for a few hours the migraine wouldn’t develop into a headache.  It was most peculiar and I went to the docs a few times but what could I say?  I’m getting increased migraines.  What could they do??

So anyway, about two and a half weeks ago the sight disturbance became pretty much constant.  Moving from light to inside was really horrible and I found work really difficult.  Trouble was I was already having a lot of time of work with a bad tooth ache so I didn’t want to take any more time off.  I eventually rang the optician as work had given me a free eye test which I hadn’t optioned and booked a test for Friday after work.  It soon became abundently clear I had a quite serious problem.  When you have to look at a screen for the peripheral vision test I couldn’t even see the dot in the centre that you have to focus on.  They produced a diagram that showed three quarters of my eye was completely blind.  But they could find no reason for it.  They produced a referral letter for the GP and told me to see them asap.  By now it was 5:45pm but I knew the GP was still open so I went round there.

I asked them if they just wanted to send the letter on to the hospital or if they wanted to see me.  They said they wanted to see me at 8:45am the next morning, Saturday, so I turned up.  The GP immediately banned me from driving (I had asked the optician and he had said it was ok) so I was stranded and rang the hospital where they apparently have an eye casualty.  He booked me in for 10:45am.

I borrowed £2.50 off the receptionist for the bus fare as there was no time to walk and get there in time and I had left my wallet at home, and headed up to the hospital.  I got there to find that eye casualty (I had anticipated one old bloke and his dog) was absolutely rammed and I settled in for a long wait.  Barely had I got my iPad out of my bag that I was called in and the start of my experience was not good.

I was treated by a very Brusque staff nurse who kept complaining at me that she couldn’t do proper tests.  This may be something to with the fact that she had my head wedged into a vice and she was sticking things into my eye without even warning me what she was going to do.  Sometimes it was a horrible needle type thing that I thought she was going to stick in my eye only for her to stop and me to find it was a light – other times she wedged my eye open without telling me, and stuck drops in there without telling me.  By now I was utterly miserable and the whole experience was capped when she stuck some drops in both eyes which made me completely blind.  Everything was blurred and horrible.  Turns out they were pupil dilaters.  But she hadn’t warned me.

From here, though, everything improved.  I was immediately ushered in to see a consultant whose manner was so much nicer.  He told me what he was going to do before he did it, and performed loads of tests.  It very quickly became clear I was as blind as anything in my left eye.

He started his sentence with “I’m afraid, Mr.  Mogford…….” and when a consultant used those words at the start of the sentence it is worrying.

Apparently, one retinal tear is bad enough to lose your sight permanently if not caught within three days.  I had six and my retina had detached.  They couldn’t tell how long it had been but they estimated weeks.  The chances of saving my sight was estimated at about 30%

I was pretty upset……..

When you actually analyse it though, the series had been conciously moving away from this dynamic for the last series and a half opening the story up from the story of two people struggling to come to terms with their condition and how to relate to humanity.  The focus has moved to more being about the relationship between vampires and werewolves in general, using the three main characters as a way of illiustrating this.  With this in mind, maybe the creator Toby Whithouse always knew he would lose the two up and coming stars sooner rather than later and was already making plans to move the series in a new direction.

And this, unarguably, he achieved with the first episode of the new series.  Rebooting a franchise is all the rage in Hollywood at the moment but to reboot a series midway through is certainly a brave move.  But this is what Whithouse has done.  Lenore Critchlow (Annie) is now the only original cast member left – and although she is the weakest of the three this quite possibly is not going to matter.

For now the focus is on the war between the vampires and the werewolves, and the destiny of Nina and George’s baby.  As such, it is true that the series has lost it’s originality.  The battle between species is lifted straight from Underworld and the protection of a special baby is straight out of Battlestar Galactica.  What Whithouse has to do is make sure he doesn’t recycle plots in the same way he has recycled ideas.

And the early signs are that he will achieve this.  The blood and gore quotient was back (a fantastic non-cgi werewolf transformation and a great decapitation was included), and also the humour.  ”Squidge” for example.  But what Whithouse has seemingly done is take a leaf out of Moffets book, and use multiple time frames to set up a complex story.  It’s too early to tell for sure, but my cynicism about this new series may have been misplaced.  It is darker, nastier, and more complex.  But great drama does push the boundaries, and does need to change and evolve.  Maybe Being Human has done this.

I certainly look forward to finding out.  Perhaps, we are still on this side of the shark.

Dad had come round to do my evening and night eye drops and needed to kill a couple of hours so I asked him to choose a movie.  He initially chose Moon but I didn’t really fancy something too cerebral as I was still feeling delicate.  I had picked the Terminator 2 : Judgment Day  Blu ray from ASDA earlier in the week for a bargain £7 so suggested that.  He had never seen a terminator movie before.  I chose the Extended special edition version (instead of the cinematic version, or the special editions which are also included) and we sat down to watch.

Even with all the familiarity I now have for this film it is only to the movie’s credit that I can still sit through it despite knowing every line of dialogue.  It is simply fantastic and on Blu it looks and sounds like a new movie.  Add in all the extra features and it becomes an essetial disc.

One work of advice – the extended special edition may have some superb scenes which aren’t in any other version and are near esssential but the ending just sucks balls.  This almost ruins the whole film and I really dunno what the answer is.  Of course you need all the scenes from the extended special edition but with the original ending.  But you can’t have that.  On balance I would always, therefore, suggest the special edition.

I see, in my job, over and over again people who have made the effort to go out to work and then suffer simply because they are actually better off on benefits.  How can we live in a society where this can be the case?  How can a government be defeated over their attempts to change it?  I know people who are on benefits who think about how much they get – but they never factor into account their rent and council tax which gets paid by housing and council tax benefit.  They don’t have to pay rent, they don’t even consider it or think about it.  Yet it is part of the income they are getting.

It is an obscene amount of money.  An absolute disgrace.  No-one should be getting that amount of money on benefit.  It is just simply wrong.  Housing Benefit, Council Tax benefit, JSA, Tax Credits.  How can it ever be right that someone living on benefits gets more money than someone who makes an effort to go out and work, even if that job is a menial one in McDonalds or similar?  Where is the incentive to work?  And why should the taxed I pay be used to give a benefit family that much money?

This is a truly fucked up country.