I thought this was the sort of thing that only happens to other people.

I went to a cash machine at lunchtime to get some money to buy sandwiches. While performing this transaction I decided to check my balance - something I don’t normally do but I had the urge to break my routine for some reason. I noticed to my surprise that I had quite a bit more money in my account than I was expecting. I looked at my watch that correctly pointed out that it was the 21st of June and therefore nowhere near pay day. I took my money, bought my sandwiches and walked back to the office (I had a lovely coronation egg salad sandwich from Pret A Manger if you must know).

So I went on-line and checked my bank statement and lo-and-behold, there was a bank transfer of £1629.72 into my account with the mysterious description of “BANK CREDIT SA.”. Normally, when my salary goes into my account the description gives the name of my company so I knew it wasn’t that. I called my bank to ask them.

When I inquired about the transfer the guy said “That’s strange, it only has the text SA, normally there’s more than that”. He then read off the transaction number which meant nothing to me (something like 686960404596001X) and cross-referenced the code with all my direct debits - to no avail. He said he couldn’t find out who it was from. Weird. I was advised to not spend the money and if it was transferred erroneously it normally takes people about a week to realise and then they’ll be in touch - although he finds it a bit unlikely as they’d need to know my sort code and my 8-digit account code. He said if I heard nothing by then to ring back and they can do some more investigating.

I’m a bit perplexed. To my knowledge nobody owes me any money. I’ve spoken to anyone who’ll listen and they deny all knowledge. I sent in my tax return a while ago and even calculated it myself (I was bored) and reckon I’m owed about £30 so it can’t be from the Inland Revenue.

So if anyone out there knows who it’s from, let me know (although you’re not getting it back)! But should a big nasty company contact me and ask for it back I’ll say yes, as long as they give me a free coffee mug with their logo on it so I can add it to my collection. Or maybe I should ask for more?

Update (1/2/2005): It turned out that the deposit was from the Inland Revenue for overpaid tax. A couple of weeks later I got a letter confirming that fact so I got to keep the cash!

Eh, the footpath is that way.

I’ve had injuries before. I’ve sprained my ankle, broken my big toe, damaged the ligaments around my shoulder after falling on it, had shin splints, more blisters than I’ve had hot dinners, been bruised on almost every inch of my body, I’ve got scars on me that I have no recollection of getting, I’ve even ripped my face open [slight exaggeration] when I fell off my bike (I wasn’t wearing a helmet) and my face landed on a wall. And all that after one night out in Dundee!

Okay, just kidding. But I’ve had all those injuries over time and none of them has come close to my knee injury I mentioned the other month. To recap, I woke up one morning with a bit of stiffness in the back of my knee that I put down to walking to the train in the morning (it’s harder work than you think). That night I played football on it and that made it hurt some more. I played again the next night and that really made it hurt - I twisted around and heard / felt some rather nasty cracking noises coming from my knee. My game was over and so began my current injury lay-off.

At first I had to sit around with an ice pack on my knee (I have used that thing for so many hours it’s like a security blanket now). Then I’d hobble around, limping from place to place with a grimace never far from my face. Eventually it started to improve and loosen off until I thought I could start exercising it again. I took it easy on the weights deciding to gradually build up the strength again until I felt ready to do some running. Idiot. That just made it worse and put me back a few weeks. So I carried on taking it easy and it’s been very gradually improving. Almost imperceptibly. It’s been over two months since I had the injury and I’ve not felt any closer to being able to run with it (or even do 20 rep squat sets with a proper weight) so I thought it was high time I saw a physio to see if I’ll ever play football again. That was on Monday.

So according to the physio I managed to stretch one of my cruciate ligaments as well as one of the collateral ligaments. Nice. As they have such a low blood supply, ligaments take an age to heal which explains the long layoff. What I didn’t realise is that your brain decides to protect the injured area even after it heals and modifies how you move the joint. He demonstrated this by telling me to relax my leg and he pushed the knee so as to bend my leg in the wrong direction. Despite trying to relax the knee it keep tensing up of its own accord - i.e. my brain was taking over to protect the knee. Weird. So I’ve got to re-learn how to use my knee properly and get my brain to break the new habit. If I don’t do it then I’m just asking for a repeat injury.

None of this is helped by the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having. I can’t go out and enjoy it on the bike, or out running or playing football. All the things I love doing! So if you were wondering why I’ve been posting so infrequently lately - it’s because I’ve not been doing anything interesting enough to write about. And before you ask - no - I don’t think writing about my knee is interesting but I felt I owed you an explanation.

I could write about how my mother died two years ago today. I could explain how shit it is and how it doesn’t get any easier. But instead I’ve decided to write about Steven Seagal and why I love his films so much.

Now I like a good film. I like nothing more than a complex, multi-plot yarn that keeps you guessing up until the end. I like to have to think about what’s going on, try to guess the outcome. Or in films like Mulholland Drive - try and figure out just what the hell is going on. I appreciate intelligent film-making, cunning and sharp dialog, good acting and original directing. Oh, how I love films. But as I just said, I still love Steven Seagal films. Why?

For those of you (surely there can’t be many) who’ve never seen a Steven Seagal film, I’ll describe the storyline to the one that really made him famous - Under Siege. In this film he’s a cook on a US Navy battleship. It’s the captain’s birthday party and spirits are high. Entertainment has been flown aboard in the form of a band, caterers and a stripper. But all is not as it seems. The entertainment turn out to be a highly trained bunch of ex-CIA bad guys and they take control of the ship, kill the captain and imprison the crew. They want to steal the nukes on board. Seagal’s character (who has been locked up in the walk-in fridge in the galley by the XO who turns out to be a bad guy too) just happens to be an ex-Navy SEAL who manages to kill the bad guys, free the crew and rescues the day (oh, and also rescues the stripper). It’s an entertaining film with a good bit of violence, a little bit of character development (we’re back to the stripper again I’m afraid), and a whole lot more violence.

Now you’ve probably seen a hundred action films with similar plots but Seagal does things in a unique and - if I may say - audaciously cheesy way. First, he inevitably plays an ex-Special Forces guy who’s in a tame environment. Say, he’s on a train with his niece, or he’s an oil worker who used to be in the CIA, or he’s an ex-FBI agent (probably the counter-terrorist team) who is tracking down toxic waste dumping, or he’s a super-tough plays-by-his-own-rules cop combating crime. The list goes on. You get the picture. Less of a fish out of water - more of a tiger in the sea.

Next, he speaks through the entire film in a low, almost whispering voice. I suppose the intention is you think he’s really tough and tough guys don’t need to shout. Instead it makes him seem like he’s trying to appear like a tough guy who doesn’t need to shout - just not very well.

Then there’s always a scene when he’s in a bar, or a kitchen, or an oil pumping station where a room full of guys decided to engage in hand-to-hand combat with him. Big mistake. He beats them all up in such a mockingly superior way that it looks as though somebody’s pressing fast forward for Seagal but super slow-mo for the bad guys.

And then there’s my absolute favourite scene - the real reason I love Seagal’s movies. Picture this: Seagal’s making a bomb out of some items lying around (in true A-Team style) but while he’s doing this the scene cuts to the bad guys. They tend to be a bunch of mercenaries: crew cuts, square jaws and roll-neck sweaters. Anyway, they’ve just found out from their contact at Langley who Seagal’s character is. Then it cuts back to Seagal concentrating on his bomb. Then it cuts back to the bad guys and the leader will say something like: “Do you know who this guy is? He’s an ex-SEAL/Green Beret/CIA operator/Ninja/Special Forces Major/Instructor of Counter-Terrorism at Fort Bragg*”. The bad guys all look scared. There’s a quick cut back to Seagal doing some more bomb making. Back to the bad guys, one of whom says “Oh no, we’re all dead, that’s it, I’m out of here boss”, the boss then stabs him or cuts his throat and says ”Anybody else want to leave? Good”. But you can see that the boss is terrified too. Brilliant. And it must feed Seagal’s ego no end!

[* - Delete where applicable.]

Obviously, towards the end of the film there’s a knife fight with the bad guy boss (oh, forgot to mention that Seagal’s already dispatched with all the henchmen in a variety of violent ways). Seagal toys with the boss for a while before taking him out.

Then it’s cut to the final scene where he’s getting all the plaudits for his bravery, standing in the pose you see at the top of this article. Fantastic.

You see the thing is that all Steven Seagal films are the same. No, I mean exactly the same. You can watch them and each one of the scenes I’ve described above will come up. And that’s what I love about his films. They’re all ego trips for the man himself and the cheesiness he expertly manages to convey makes it all the more entertaining. They’re more formulaic than a book of advanced calculus. You can just sit down, disengage your brain and let Seagal do the talking.

And you know what? My mother liked Steven Seagal films too, much for the same reasons I do. And so should you.