Too Good To Turn Down

I’m on the bus as its cold and icy again. In fact the pavements are so icy it could be hard work for Doggo on his walk. L is off work today and she delays their trip out to give things time to thaw out.

After work L comes over to join me in Derby Arena’s gym.

It’s the World Cup draw tonight and England find out that they will face Belgium, Panama and Tunisia. That’s us out then, although it couldn’t really be any easier. Not that it matters, it’s in Russia so you know who’s going to win.

One of FIFA's greatest critics, Gary Lineker, is in Moscow helping with the draw. Presumably the money was just too good to turn down. Come to think of it, why is anyone in the land of state sponsored doping working for an organisation that is on trial in New York on corruption charges. As yes, the money was just too good to turn down. 

(Friday 1^st December)

Life Is Cheap

Parkrun, a Full English and an afternoon siesta before heading over to Derby on the Red Arrow. Tonight we’re at Quad to see Child 44.

Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) is a Ukrainian orphan, a survivor of the great famine which killed millions in the early 1930s. He is adopted by a Russian officer, becoming a soldier in WWII where he helps storm the Reichstag and hoists the Soviet flag on the roof. 

Post-war Leo becomes a MGB investigator in Soviet Russia. Working for a government that takes a dim (and deadly) view of any one who expresses a point of view contrary to their own. This is a country where everyone is looking over their shoulder and with good reason. Life is very cheap if you rub the wrong person up the wrong way.

Leo is appalled when the young son of his friend and fellow agent Alexi (Fares Fares) is brutally murdered but his death is labelled ‘a railway accident’ by the MGB. According to Stalin murder is a capitalist disease and officially there are no crimes in the Soviet paradise. Leo is given the unpleasant task of presenting the police report to the family.

During another MGB investigation, an alleged ‘spy’ reveals under torture the names of seven ‘contacts’ and among them is Raisa (Noomi Rapace), Leo’s wife. Now Leo has to investigate her.

For once he takes a stand and refuses to toe the party line. For which he is demoted and the pair of them are exiled to a small Siberian town. It could have been so much worse.

Still working for the MGB in Siberia, Leo gets involved in investigating another child murder and this time he manages to convinces his superior, General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman), that a serial killer is killing them. Together they discover that there have been a total of 43 similar murders in the region or 44, if you include Alexi’s son.

Leo and Raisa go well outside normal procedures in an effort to catch the killer and it all ends in a good punch up.

The film effectively conjures up the grim, grey and disturbing reality of Stalinist era Russia. Presumably this is why it was banned in Russia. The film highlights a system which victimized its own people while at the same time allowing many criminals to go unpunished.

The film does struggle to decide whether that is its purpose or whether the murder investigation is its purpose. The result is a slightly unsatisfying mixture of both with some dodgy accents and a good punch up or two. Nicely depressing though.

Afterwards we head for a few beers in the Brunswick and the Alexandra.

 

(Saturday 23^rd May)

A Torturous Journey

Dogging tonight may take place amidst thunder and lightning according to the forecast, interspersed with sunny spells. Sounds entertaining. I will pack a sun hat and some rubber soled wellies along with my new Sochi 2014 t-shirt which has finally arrived.

It was a torturous journey. It’s taken months. Then last week the shirts got seized at customs as they arrived from Moscow. Seized that is by people intent on making even more money out of us. The delivery cost from Russia had doubled the price of the shirts as it was. Now they were asking for £42 to release them from customs. This apparently is made up of search fees, admin charges and forward postage. I refused to pay and the company ‘contracted’ by customs instead said they’d email the Sochi Shop to see if they’d pay. Good luck with that I thought, response time there is about a month per email.

However the next day the package was mysteriously paid for and released to us, so I can ‘dog’ tonight in my new shirt.

(Monday 9^th June)

Winter Paralympics Games

I’ve not caught a lot of it but I have to say the Winter Paralympics looks awesome, particularly the skiing. The almost blind downhill is amazing with the skier having to follow a guide down. It’s really edge of your seat stuff, as is the sit-skiing for those without the use of their legs where they’re sat on a sort of mono-ski thing. It all puts the real skiing well into the shade and we getting medals in it.

Swimming tonight, in the continued absence of Monday night dogging. The aim is 60 lengths and I stop when the watch tells me I’ve got there. Whether it’s telling the truth or not, who knows.

(Monday 10^th March)

Many Moons Ago

To say that our Visa applications for our trip to Russia for the Sochi Olympics are proving a headache would be an understatement. They want full education details since school, details of your last three employers, even though I haven’t moved jobs in 18 years. Along with details of your parents and in L’s case of her ex-husband, who she divorced approximately 100 years ago. Bizarre. It’s enough to put you off going and I guess it normally does but are they likely to turn anyone down for the Olympics? Doubt it, as long as we don’t mention that bank job we did.

We also need new photos for it and L goes out to get hers in the howling gale that seems to have been forever and that has prevented me cycling at all over Christmas. Her photos will therefore be a bit windswept but I’m all for that.

We've had the usual debate about where to spend New Year’s Eve which we usually spend having a meal with my parents. After a few failed enquiries we settle on a place in Sandiacre that we went to many moons ago when Daughter had a thing about one of her infant school teachers. Yes it was a while ago. It’s had two name changes since then and has now metamorphasised from a Chinese into a Thai or should I say upgraded.

We go there via the Horse and Jockey in Stapleford. I head there straight from work and meet L there. It is packed. After probably too many pints but not actually an outstanding one, we wobble up the road to the Thai Legend where we meet my parents.

After an excellent meal, more beer/wine and a complementary liquor coffee we wobble out again, flag down one of the rare buses and head home to see in midnight with the dogs and a Sandemans port.

(Tuesday 31^st December)