Riccione to Milan trouble

this post has nothing to do with the rest of my 'blog', but todays situation inspired me to at least try and help the odd person trying to get the Euroline bus from Rimini or Riccione to Milan.

Basically I buggered about trying to find where the stop "Bar il Trovatore" was for ages online, and ended going to Riccione tourist information to ask. THE EUROLINES BUS GOES FROM THE BLOODY MOTORWAY., and its miles away, so you need a taxi to get there. Unless you have a car, and want to leave it near a motorway- Give up on it. Get the regional trains- they are the same price(ish) and are much easier (they dont appear on the Tren Italia website I know, as they want to charge you more for their high speed routes, but they exist- ask a tourist info, or plan your route including stops- Parma is probably the stop if your going Milan way). We saved about 50 euros using regional trains rather than the normal Tren Italia trains.

hopefully this helps someone- it would have helped me.

The Departed

Firstly, dont miss the start of this. I missed the first hour, and if it weren't for Sky's info panel thing, I wouldn't have had a clue who was a gangster and who was a cop. Thats basically the story, Di Caprio and Mattt Daaamon (always to be said in a Team America voice) are infiltrators- Di Caprio is a cop in the gangsters, Damon is a gangster in the cops. Jack Nicholson plays The Joker. A whole load of farcical situations come up (both shagging the same woman for example), but who cares about that?, its still full of Scorcese's gangster action scenes (he could make 300 of these kind of films, and they would all be good), and theres lots of shooting and scowling and people annoyed with other people, and everyone gets shot. end.
Funny, the film takes over 2 1/2 hours, the review takes under 2 1/2 minutes.

Deline and Fall- Evelyn Waugh

After a few whoppers of books, I decided to read this, as its thin, and having not read Brideshead, or whatever else Waugh had done, I had no expectations.
Paul Pennyfeather is expelled from Oxford College, and turns to teaching at Llanabba Castle meets a friend Beste-Chetwynde. But Margot, Beste-Chetwynde's mother, introduces him to the questionable delights of high society. and is promptly whisked to jail on white slave trafficking charges.
It reminded me of a Tom Sharpe novel, but without the jokes. Full of satire for the higher classes, and filled with highly improbably events, I found this a nice read, full of humour and comic events, but I'll probably forget it shortly.

The Beat that my heart skipped

Finally got round to watching this, a DVD lent to me ages ago by Hamish. There must be a million films that are 'typically French'- and this is one. Whether its just that a film is shot in France and all the people speak French that makes it this way, or there is something subtler in the way its shot or whatever, being 'typically French' is one of those things that puts a little 'oh that might be good then, because they know how to do stuff like make films' thoughts in your head.

Its pretty good, its not great, but its pretty good. The story actually was a bit shit- a real-estate guy tries to play piano, fails....and thats about it. He shags some women and stabs some blokes along the way, but all in all its about him trying to play the piano, and although unwittingly I did start to care if he could play the piano, its still not an amazing story, and not one I will remember long.

Shantaram

This is another breeze-block of a book this year- at 929 pages, its my third longest to date. It should be as well, because Roberts manages to escape from an Australian prison, become a doctor in a Mumbai slum, go to war in Afghanistan, join the Indian mafia, be a smackhead and fall in love.
I got this as the 'tricky third book' in Waterstones's never-ending 3 for 2 deal (that third book decision always takes 4 times longer than the other two)- I'd recently read Papillion, and it seemed in the same vein- it is, but less focus on trying to escape, more on what Roberts does after his wall-jump.

"you think its ironic they dress us as Where's Wally?"

For a book this size, it races along and doesn't allow you to get bored in any of his activities, because a new activity starts up, and new characters develop, and a whole new adventure is underway. The sections when he lives in a Mumbai slum are the best for me- its pretty much the exact opposite of my life (well, since I moved from Edge Hill, prior to that it was almost identical), and Roberts, a former armed robber becomes a doctor for the poorest people ever. I had to check on his website to see how much was real - apparently most of it is. 

Imagine the Crocodile Dundee guy in Slumdog Millionaire - thats it.

Uranium, and opinions on nuclear power

Running a bookshop occasionally means I see a new book, order it, and completely forget about it for 3 months until it arrives. This happened with Uranium by Tom Zoellner. 
Pretty interesting stuff Uranium, and as Zoellner travels to loads of countries trying to exploit it (mostly its sought to sell to the mad countries for bombs), and you get the sense it screws up a country as much as it helps them financially.
Not only does it make the surrounding area radioactive, and therefore full of tumorous Elephantmen, it becomes The Place for the locals to work (as in Niger)- so other jobs and stuff aren't done. Economically worthless countries like Niger are/were foreign owned too (France in their case) so all the money from Uranium goes to France, whilst Niger, and other places like it, are absolutely shit.

Unlike The Gold Rush, there was no Charlie Chaplin film about The Uranium Rush (that would have probably been like Dawn of the Dead),

mmm, shoes for tea.

but The Uranium Rush was a huge thing in USA, with prospectors running around trying to find radioactive rocks- some of whom succeeded and became mega-rich. USA still holds secret bunkers that are stuffed with radioactive waste that no-one knows what to do with. The USA was the primary country buying up Uranium, and has spent $10 trillion - 5/6ths of the current national debt on making bombs out of it, or its by-product, Plutionium. Morons.

Although theres explosions like Chernobyl, it causes radioactive cancers, and it produces waste we'll never get rid of, its got to play a big part in our energy future. Coal has fucked up a lot more of the world than Nuclear-  but because of Chernobyl and the waste element, everyone hates nuclear power.
The supply of Uranium has barely been touched, and it produces no C02, we can store waste in glass in the ocean, and not have Homer Simpsons working at the power stations. So shut up- if you want toast in 2050- you need Nuclear power.

Although any information about uranium I just learnt will disappear within a few months, I was pretty happy knowing about a rock that far exceeds the price of gold, and has seen an unthinkable amount of resources devoted to its enrichment. Uranium was unquestionably the mineral of the twentieth century- and with both Nuclear power set to become more prominent, and rouge states continued desire to produce bombs, it will be the mineral of the foreseeable future too.

Death of a salesman

Arthur Millers play is currently showing at Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse, and I went to see 5/6ths of it last Saturday (we arrived late due to neanderthal train and bus drivers). Fortunately it was over 3 hours long, so it was easy to catch up. Williy Loman (the salesman) was played by the guy from Poirot- Philip Jackson, and someone else looked like Patrick Stewart- exactly like Patrick Stewart, it took over an hour for me to realise it wasn't Patrick Stewart. 

 Not me

Loman is on stage for almost all the play- an massive achivement to remember that much, and he really steals the show- theres a whole host of other people (12 all together, a record I think for a play i've seen), but its difficult to take your eyes or ears from Loman. Basically he has two sons, both a bit losers, but he wants them to make loads of money selling stuff- something he never really did, and continues to fail at. He's getting older, times are changing, and his kids dont want to travel around selling socks. The best bits are when Loman goes a bit mad when things aren't going his way, and he natters to himself and has imaginary friends (Patrick Stewart). Imagine that, having an imaginary Patrick Stewart as a friend. haha. In truth I never worked out if Patrick Stewart was imaginary- he seemed to be some of the time, but not others- I assume this was explained whilst I was trapseing around trying to find the bloody theatre.

I always enjoy the theatre- I don't think i've been to a bad play, so as usual, my verdict is 'it was ace'- it reminded me too much of The Glass Menagerie- mostly because of the accents, but I enjoyed that too, so that was fine.

Good end bit- I would say I'm not telling you what happens- but as its called 'The Death of a Salesman'- I guess you can figure it out