Singing For No Apparent Reason

I spend the morning at work, then when we are dismissed at lunchtime I get bus back over to Nottingham.

I have made a rash promise to L to take her to see this year's Christmas offering from Disney which is entitled Frozen. L does like a bit of Christmas tat and it does have a cute reindeer in it, so here we are or not as the showing at Broadway is sold out. Phew.

Never fear it’s on at Cineworld. We book tickets then settle down for a pint of Hobgoblin’s Christmas Ale in Langtrys and to wait for Daughter to arrive. After a decadent lunch at Subway... we go in about 20 minutes late, missing the adverts. Hurrah.

After a Mickey Mouse short cartoon thing, Frozen starts. As a young child I was really put off a lot of cartoons, especially Disney ones, by the overabundance of singing for no apparent reason that they padded them out with. I now realise that this has left me traumatised to this very day as I suffer intense flashbacks throughout the film. It has an awful lot of singing in it, really bad head shredding singing for no reason. Those of us expecting a remake of Frosty the Snowman were a tad disappointed. 
  

The story concerns two sisters called Elsa (long hair, big chest, blonde) and Anna (long hair, big chest, brunette), who are placed under house arrest by their parents for their entire childhood when it is revealed (by trolls of course) that Elsa has hidden powers which will be set off by ‘fear’.

However when the parents die the two sisters, now more fearful that ever after being locked up for years, are expected to rule the kingdom... straight away you know that this is going to go t*ts up.

So the blonde one (Elsa) becomes Queen and at her coronation party her dippy sister the brunette (Anna) gets a huge crush on one of the guests, Prince Hans, and agrees to marry him approximately five minutes later. 

Queen Elsa isn’t terribly impressed, refuses to condone their impetuous relationship and it’s immediately handbags at dawn between the two girls. During which Elsa accidentally reveals her hidden powers, which freezes the kingdom over, shrouding it in eternal winter.

Another party guest, a meddling foreign dignitary known as the Duke of Weselton, orders Elsa’s own soldiers to arrest and kill their own queen. Perhaps the solders might like to consult with somebody more senior in their own kingdom first? No? Oh ok.

Amidst such madness Elsa legs it, leaving Anna in power until she legs it too in pursuit of her sister. Before she goes she appoints the dashing guy she'd just met, Prince whatshisname, to rule in her place. Now there's a diplomatic incident in waiting you'd think but no one disputes it, not even the meddling Duke.

Out in the frozen wilds, Anna is aided by a bloke named Kristoff, his reindeer Sven and a snowman named Olaf. Consequently, thanks to the latter two, things pick up a touch particularly when the snowman’s carrot is involved.

When they track down Elsa she has fully embraced her new bad girl image and also has a much bigger snowman than her little sister. The girls talk but things don't go well and Anna ends up with ice in her heart, although this isn’t uncommon with girls of her age. This ice can only be thawed by an act of true love, although that never worked in my day.

All the same Anna races back to Prince Hans to get one. The dutiful Kristoff takes her all the way home but then gets the door slammed in his face, not even being offered a cup of tea for his trouble.

Hans though only has eyes for the throne and locks Anna in a room to freeze to death. He then tells everyone she’s dead but that they got married first, so he’s now king. QED. You got proof of that mate? e.g. witnesses, marriage certificate etc etc. Thought not, but still the new king is welcomed with open arms.

Then it gets complicated... as the dippy brunette one belatedly realises that true love might come Kristoff shaped, Elsa reappears and Prince Hans tries to murder her. When the dippy one intervenes, Elsa is saved, her sister's assistance being an act of true love.

At this point the curse of eternal winter is somehow lifted. I’m not sure how. Just ‘love’ I suppose, the implication being that Elsa never loved either her sister or her kingdom before?

Clearly they had no clue where they were going with this one when they started making it and just winged it. So ten out of ten for nerve at least. I'd love to be fly on the wall as a host of inquisitive seven year olds ask their parents 'why did so and so do that Mummy?'

I guess the advice is don’t think about the plot, it did give me a headache, just enjoy the snowman.

Afterwards Daughter heads over for a Christmas meal with her father whilst L and I head to the Vat and Fiddle, where they have Lincoln Green Stout, Midnight Owl and Red Hart. All decent beers but after a couple we move on to try the Fellows, which has Tuck. It also shuts on us but we've probably had enough by then and head home, where we order the traditional Christmas Eve takeaway. This year Indian.

Eighth Straight Win

The first thing to note is that the new settee turns up and so does the floor man, at the third attempt. Naturally they both turn up at the same time.

Still it’s early enough to get the boys on the park afterwards and then get to the match for the 1pm kick off where Derby record an eighth straight win against Leeds. Ta da. Very satisfying.

In the evening we head down to the Navigation on Meadow Lane for food, which is normally our post squash bolt hole. We would have stayed longer were it not for the bands they had on, which repelled our custom rather than attracted it.

Instead we embark on a not terribly exciting pub crawl. There’s still not any Midnight Owl on at the Vat & Fiddle, so we head across town to where the Ropewalk are running out of beer and the Borlase is totally out. The Hand & Heart may have had beer but lacked space, it didn’t even have standing room. So we wind up at the Blue Monkey pub, which I think is ok but L isn’t a fan of their beer.

(Saturday 8th December)

The Logical Place To Start Looking

Today the oddly named ‘Not The Roman IX’. The name came from the original sponsors back in 1968, Roman Motors, and when the race was over nine miles. Eight years ago the host venue was changed to the Sports and Social Club of NFU Mutual in Tiddington, which is just outside Stratford upon Avon. The change to the start and finish meant a new distance of 12k. So at least we’re both guaranteed a PB as neither of us have done a 12k before. It’s also going to be a frosty one, its -3 when we leave home. Time for long sleeves I think.

The race organisation was pretty faultless, they was also chip timing and a nice cotton t-shirt at the end. I, for one, am getting a bit sick of technical ones. I have to go for a run four times a day now just to use all the ones I have acquired.

The start was a km down the road which made for a nice little workout for my father who had come to support. Route wise, it was hardly exciting but that’s fine by me. They said there was one climb just before half-way, although I’m sure the road started going upwards at about 3.5k. Then it was downhill into the only civilisation on route, the village of Loxley. It was quite a steep downhill section which they had thoughtfully gritted. Around there was the first of two water stations, not that I partook at either.

There was a final short kick upwards near the end followed by a slightly downhill run over the last km to the finish. Out of just over 600 entrants, I come in 148th or something like that. My time is nothing special but is at the right pace to break my Half Marathon PB, should I be able to maintain it for 13 miles. Which is my project at the moment.

When we drop my father off, my mother offers us Sunday lunch. Which is great and very welcome. Unfortunately this stuffs up our plans of a film and meal at Broadway this evening on the grounds (a) we’re now running late and (b) we’re stuffed, but all in a nice way and you can’t have everything.

Instead we head to the South Side of Nottingham, continuing the quest perhaps for the Midnight Owl. The Canalhouse would have been a good place to start, if it wasn’t shut. So we head to the Vat & Fiddle, which being effectively the brewery tap you would have thought might have been the logical place to start looking. We certainly could have saved ourselves some shoe leather because there it was on the bar.

A very pleasant night ensues and it’s just one of several decent ales on the bar tonight. We ought to come here more than once every couple of years.

(Sunday 15th January)