Aidan Williams - High Acuity

I had a cold throughout most of the bank holiday weekend and my girlfriend kept me indoors – not the ideal way to spend a long weekend! But at least I’ve recovered now and we spent time together.

I saw Spiderman 3 with a friend on bank holiday Monday last week. We bought tickets in the royal circle of the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square where it premiered. I’ve heard lots of mixed reviews of the film, but I really enjoyed it. It’s identical in style to the first two, so if you enjoyed them, you’ll enjoy this one. Definitely worth seeing in my opinion.

My company gave me my Above & Beyond Award gift at the end of last month - thank you! – a 30Gb black iPod video with a dock. I love this thing! Finally I can store and listen to all my music on a single device, as opposed to having to pick and choose a few songs with my iPod nano. Although it has made me realise that I have 10Gb of music and since I buy most of my music on iTunes, I’m a little concerned about how much money I’ve spent on tracks over the last couple of years. I converted a couple of movies and TV series to iPod format, too and the quality is fantastic. The battery life isn’t brilliant when you watch videos, but since I recharge it with the dock at work, it’s fine.

Both Groove Armada and The Cinematic Orchestra released new albums last week – I haven’t had the chance to listen to either properly yet, but I’ve heard a couple of brilliant tracks on each album – ‘What’s Your Version?’, ‘Paris’, ‘Love Sweet Sound’ and ‘From The Rooftops’ are standout tracks for me on Groove Armada’s ‘Soundboy Rock’. ‘Breathe’ and ‘Familiar Ground’ are my favourites so far on The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Ma Fleur’.

It doesn’t update too often, but the Central Google Webmaster Blog is a good site to bookmark if you’re into SEO.

A gallery, a theatre, a restaurant - very civilised.

I haven’t seen my girlfriend in three weeks for many reasons and it definitely has been taking its toll on me and even started affecting my work – not very professional I know.

All I’ve ever needed is someone to love – it just so happens I was lucky enough to find someone absolutely incredible to fall in love with and take care of. She’s also one of the only people who can keep me in check.

Unfortunately she hates my work ethic with a passion – understandably – since it keeps us apart for most of the week and the fact that we don’t live together right now doesn’t help either.

We met early this Saturday afternoon and began walking around central London. We stopped at a gallery in New Bond Street exhibiting works by Graeme Wilcox – a Scottish Artist who paints incredible portraits. I wish I could find some pictures online that accurately represent his latest collection – it’s a lot more dark, intense and impressive than any of his previous works. Unfortunately I can’t personally afford the £2K – £7K price tag for one of his paintings just yet.

We had a quick lunch near Piccadilly Circus before going to the London Comedy Theatre where I booked tickets for my girlfriend and myself to see Boeing Boeing – A 1960s French Comedy originally by Marc Camoletti. I decided to pick something different that neither of us had heard of or knew anything about. It’s a brilliant play with a stunning cast and, well – I think TimeOut’s review says it best:

“… Matthew Warchus’s stylish revival of ‘Boeing-Boeing’, a creaky old French comedy recreated as something approaching sublime thanks to a crack cast on tip-top form.

The premise is deliciously reprehensible. Bernard is three-timing a trio of air hostesses, and meticulously plotting their comings, goings and near-misses with the help of the air-traffic timetable. Then one night his country bumpkin comes to stay, and Bernard’s scheme starts to veer off its flight path.”

It’s a fantastically enjoyable piece of light comedy that spans across a single day in the lives of the characters. It’s so fast-paced that it really does feel as though they’ve crammed a full day into two and a half (with intermission) and the storyline is a lot of fun.

After the play, my girlfriend and I went to Café Apogee in Leicester Square, where she had this week’s special: lamb with saffron rice, and I had the Apogee Special – lamb, chicken, beef, salmon and king prawns, also with saffron rice. The décor of the restaurant was interesting – interesting in the respect that we couldn’t quite place it, or fully decipher whether we were in a French restaurant or not – it seems a few of the online restaurant listings are a little confused as well. Never the less, the food was excellent and we will be going back there.

After a short evening walk around central’s back-streets close to St James’ Place, we headed home. It was a great day and just what we needed.

It’s such a beautiful experience to have a baby fall asleep in your arms… but maybe that’s the severely feminine side of me talking.

My sister handed my niece to me pretty much as soon as I entered the door and she immediately started crying… “It’s fine! Just move around a bit and she’ll be fine.”. So I started doing my hip hop thang and bouncing up and down and she soon calmed down and quickly fell asleep on my shoulder – the girl likes Snoop Dogg! Who knew! (Drop It Like It’s Hot was playing on TV)

She’s seven weeks old now; so beautiful and so cute… I got to see her smile for the first time today by looking at her, widening my eyes and smiling. So cute! I want one…

Aaanywaaay… I also saw The Prestige this weekend – Awesome film starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale – dark, disturbing and brilliant. Go see it!

Right now I’m watching Russel Peters: Outsourced on DVD. This Canadian comedian isn’t nearly as famous as he should be. He makes hilarious observations of all races and manages to (equally insult and) amuse everyone of any age from any background and any country.