So I was at a birthday party at the weekend and I got talking to this girl about films. She listed a few of her favourites (like The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and some others) and then I mentioned one of my all-time favourites Groundhog Day. She said she’d seen it but hadn’t really thought much about it which I took as an opportunity to spend the next 10 minutes telling her how great a film it is, why it’s such a great film and why it gets better the more times you see it. And now it’s your turn…

The basic premise of the film is a rather unsavoury weather man - Phil Connors played masterfully by Bill Murray - finds himself and a film crew in a town called Punxsutawney to report on the tradition that if a groundhog (we call them marmots in Europe) emerges from its lair and sees its shadow then the Winter will last a few weeks longer - otherwise it’s hello Spring! Phil is completely unenthused about the whole thing and is rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious, sexist and a real jerk. He then wakes up the next day to find that it is once again Groundhog day and he’s reliving it. Rather confused he goes through the motions, does his report again and goes to bed. But he wakes up once again on Groundhog day.

What I love about Groundhog Day is that as you watch him stuck living the same day over and over again you feel the same thoughts and feelings as him. First of all you’re wondering “what the hell is going on?”. Then he starts to use it to his advantage to chat up women and pull them. He realises he can do anything he likes without consequence and enjoys that for a while. He takes the time to learn to play the piano and carve ice sculptures, amongst other things. But then he starts to get sick of the whole thing and you feel his pain. Each morning he’s awoken by the song “I got you babe” by Sonny and Cher and after a while you start to hate hearing it yourself - he throws the radio against the wall, breaks it and you know you’d do the same yourself.

So he tries killing himself but just wakes up and the day starts over. He becomes desperate and just wants out - but he’s stuck living the same day over and over again. His producer Rita - played by Andie MacDowell - takes his fancy but while attempting to get her into bed in a single day (she hates him at the start of the day so it’s a tall order), he manages to fall in love with her. The night ends with her slapping him in the face but he can try it again and again and again - or so he thinks. No matter how he tries to perfect the day he just can’t reproduce the spark that made him fall for her and eventually he just gives up.

There’s a beautiful scene that you’d miss if you watched it for the first time (I know I did). While trying to woo Rita for the first time he gets in a snowball fight with some kids and they end up falling in the snow together in just such a way that they catch each other’s eye and that’s when he falls for her. In subsequent nights he tries to make that random moment happen again but he just doesn’t fall in the right position and it just never happens again. Phil starts to realise he can’t make things happen just because he wants them to to suit his own ends.

So eventually he resigns himself to being stuck on the same day by revelling in it. He gets to know everybody, manages to synchronise his day so that he can catch a kid who falls out of a tree, replace a flat tyre for some old ladies who break down, perform the Heimlich Maneuver on a man choking in a restaurant and by doing all that becomes a changed me. An old homeless man dies over and over again and Phil tries his best to save him but eventually realises he can’t - he’s not God. In the end Rita falls for the new Phil and he finds tomorrow finally comes.

It’s a brilliant film and has a great deal of subtle undertones that only become apparent the more you watch it. When he goes bowling with some of the locals and tells them that he’s living the same day over and over one of them replies with something like “I know exactly what you mean”. We all drift through the same day over and over again and feel like we’re in Groundhog Day, but Phil broke the cycle by stopping worrying about it and trying to make the best of each day and making those around him happy (even though he only actually had one of them). So if you haven’t seen it then I recommend you sit down and watch it. Laugh along and have Sonny and Cher too - but look beneath the surface and see if it makes you think.

Oh, and if you don’t and you’re ever unlucky enough to talk films with me you’ll get this whole lecture and I’ll keep going on at you until you promise me you’ll watch it. Or maybe you’ll promise me you’ll watch it and mentally cross me off your “speak to again” list - which is probably what that poor girl on Saturday night did!

Since I got Sky+ I very rarely see adverts on TV (it records the entire series of any programs I actually watch and I skip all the breaks) but when I sit down to watch something live, like the rugby world cup match last night, I have to sit through the things. Like most people I tune them out and treat them as background noise. It takes something really special to get my attention.

Then my eye was caught by a scene of some buildings in a city and a couple of drops of clay that turned into rabbits and started bouncing around what could easily have been New York (turns out it was). And then some more appeared. And more and more, all to the sound of the Rolling Stones and all in a busy city full of people. It was incredible, and the more the advert went on the more incredible it became. Here, see for yourself.

While I have no intention of buying a Sony Bravia TV (I’ve happily got a Toshiba LCD TV thanks), I have to say that their three adverts are a cut above pretty much any other ads I can think of. The first was of quarter of a million rubber bouncy balls bouncing down a street in San Francisco and the second was of a fireworks display set on a council estate in Glasgow - except instead of fireworks it used exploding paint! Have a look at their website where you can see how they made these ads, as well as the ads themselves in full.

While the point of advertising is ultimately about making money, it’s really nice to see ads like these that show the creative talent of people out there (and particularly heartening to hear the high number of British accents on the ‘making of’ video). And to see an advert that actually brings a smile to my face and makes me gaze in wonder is a rare thing indeed. I’ll be interested to see how they manage to top this one!

While flicking through our local free paper - The Target - my friend (who’s staying with us this week) came across the following bargain-of-a-lifetime advert:

Normally I wouldn’t pay any attention to a sale on a cooker but my eagle-eyed friend is a Scotsman too and was drawn to the paltry £1 discount. I wonder if anybody reading it was stupid enough to think “wow - at that price I’m ready to splash out on a new Rangemaster!”. I mean, this is Yorkshire - they’re even more canny with their money than us Scots!

My good lady and I visited our friends in Kent (which is a lovely place by the way, I'd never have guessed there was such a nice area so close to London - although it's a little out of my price bracket) and spent a good 3 hours of our Saturday night watching the stage version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If nothing else I wanted to see how they could fit 3 novels worth of story (the standard films of course totalled around 9 hours - 11 for the extended version). In short, they cut rather a lot out!

I'll start with the positives. The effects really were amazing - like nothing I've seen on stage before - from making Bilbo disappear at the start (I'm sure it was something to do with mirrors - but it was very impressive) to the stage itself (which was composed of several sections that could move up and down independently) to the Balrog (big fiery demon bloke), the giant spider (which produced rather a lot of gasps from people in the theatre). It was clear that a hell of a lot of money had been spent on the production and the result was astonishing.

The athleticism and acrobatics are worth a mention too. The orcs were somersaulting around on springy stilts as though they were on wires (they weren't) and the physicality of the dancing was really impressive. Plus, the guy playing Gollam was really good too. Aside from playing the split personality well, his movement, flexibility and the way he leaped around the stage in a manner no human should be able to was incredible - his body's going to be wrecked when he hits his 40s!

So all in all it was a really impressive visual experience. Which brings me onto the negatives. Firstly, the music didn't really hit the high drama levels you'd expect from a play such as this. To suck you into the plot you need those bits of music that just send tingles down your spine but that wasn't the case here. Also, some of the singing wasn't of the standard you'd expect from the west end. To give you an example, during the first song by the hobbits I thought to myself "I can sing about as well as that" which if you've ever had the misfortune to hear my singing tells you all you need to know!

There was one scene with the Elves leaving middle earth near the start that was excellent. Strong music, strong and powerful singing along with strong emotions. Sadly the rest of the play didn't measure up to that level. Next was some of the acting. The guy playing Aragorn just didn't sound convincing at all. I don't know if he was the understudy or not but his performance lacked any authority or passion. Likewise the wizards were a bit light on the authority front. Hearing Gandalf giggling like a schoolgirl when the decision was made to create the fellowship of the ring at the start just wasn't what I'd expect. Still, it could have been worse, Gandalf could have had a solo! (Actually, that would have been funny).

As for the story itself, the way they fitted it into 3 hours was to cut out a hell of a lot of the original story. This had the effect that if you hadn't read the books or seen the film you wouldn't have had the slightest clue what the hell was going on. It seemed from scene one that they were trying to rush through the dialogue, but then they'd linger for ages on an irrelevant scene like at Lothlorian which is a minor diversion from the plot at best. 

So like the curate's egg, the show was good in parts. Well worth seeing for the incredible effects and stage. But if you're going for the singing or the acting or as a diehard fan of the trilogy, then you might be a bit disappointed.

You see, you don’t need to queue outside a book shop at 1am on a Saturday morning to pick up your copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you can just have a lie in, walk to your local village supermarket and pick a copy up there!

Of course, I won’t be reading it, although my good lady will. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the fascination and wonder these books give to children - I read all about magic and wizards as a 9 year old when I read the Wizard of Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Le Guin. These books really captured my imagination and the plot lines bear a striking similarity to the Harry Potter books (a kid with magical powers, a nemesis that you just know the protagonist is going to have a battle with at the end, a school for wizards, not playing by the rules, the character growing up through the series and developing in much the same way as Mr Potter and so forth). But of course the stories are quite different.

However as an adult I find that mere escapism or fantasy in a book isn’t enough to keep my interest. I like to read a book that makes me think, challenges my brain and keeps me guessing up until the end, maybe even makes me learn something along the way. I want to relate to the characters, get into their heads - but I don’t particularly want to get into the head of children half my age!

Having seen the films and heard my good lady talking about the books I find the Potter tales a bit too predictable and obvious. However that’s just me. Many millions of adults have enjoyed reading these books and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s great to see people reading books (most of the adults I know don’t read books at all). Not to mention all the children that have had their imagination inspired and their minds opened to new and exciting possibilities in ways that only captivating books can.

I notice - ironically - that Ms Le Guin has now written a further 3 books since the trilogy I read was written. I’d be half tempted to buy the 6 and read them all the way through. Either it’d recapture some of the wonder I had as a child or I’d be disappointed that the wisdom of growing older has dampened that spirit in me. I hope it would be the former but sadly I suspect it would actually be the latter. Just like Harry Potter himself, once you grow up and lose that innocence and wonder at the world, you can never get it back.

Last year I mentioned how after years in the wilderness I finally became an ABBA fan. Well, I spent this weekend in London with some good friends and went to a show called Mamma Mia.

To digress slightly, when I saw Quentin Tarrantino's classic Pulp Fiction for the first time in the cinema, I knew absolutely nothing about it. I hadn't seen a single trailer, didn't know anything of the plot and didn't even know who was in it (I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw then-time has-been John Travolta in it). And you know what? Not knowing anything about it and having no idea what to expect made the film 10 times better. As a result I try not to watch trailers for films - I prefer to go in with a clean slate and an open mind.

And so it was with Mamma Mia. I suspected it might be the story of ABBA in the format of a musical (I did at least know it was something to do with ABBA). I pictured scenes like the band trying to get a record deal and bursting into "Money money money…" at the drop of a hat. My preconceptions turned out to be quite wrong. It was in fact a story completely unrelated to the history of iconic band ABBA, it was about a girl living in Greece with her mother, about to get married, trying to figure out who her father is. And of course, the cast kept bursting into song and - you guessed it - every song was an ABBA classic!

It really was excellent. It was funny, emotional, entertaining, the dancing was excellent, the singing, the acting spot on, I really had a great time and thought it was superb. I'm the world's worst celebrity spotter so I couldn't tell you who was who (although I gather a good portion of the cast have been in The Bill* at some point) but they did a great job. If you're even the slightest ABBA fan - which you will be, everybody loves ABBA - I'd highly recommend you go if you get the chance. I haven't been able to stop their songs floating around my head since and that's the way I intend keeping it!

* - Interesting note about the classic long-running British TV show The Bill. I used to watch it back in the 80's and 90's in the day of DI Burnside (or was it Sideburns?) and Tosh Lines and loved it. When I went to Australia last year imagine my surprise when it turns out that The Bill is extremely popular over there! They brought us Neighbours and we return the favour with the Bill - it's a strange world.

Like most people of my age I grew up with terrorism on my doorstep. “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland started long before I was born and while I won’t go into the history now it was something I never thought I’d see the end of.

Since my father was in the army at the time (the Territorial Army thankfully), he’d tell me about people he knew murdered at the hands of the IRA and I’d feel anger and fear. I’d hear about bombings, knee-cappings and the terrible things humans can do to other humans in the name of ideology. The hunger strikers in the Maze prison sacrificing their lives for what they believed in. British soldiers under such incredible stress that events like Bloody Sunday happened.

The problem was that both sides firmly believed they were in the right and nobody was ever going to back down. The hard line of the British Government back in the 80’s - who believed they were neutral in the conflict and were simply trying to maintain law and order in Northern Ireland and protect the people’s right to democratic self-determination - just served to bolster the IRA’s views. And likewise the actions of the IRA (and other republican movements) - who saw the British army as the enemy, colluding with the state forces and loyalist paramilitaries (it later turned out they were absolutely correct about the collusion) - such as the Brighton Bombing just polarised the British Government further.

The thing is, I could understand both points of view. If a foreign army was occupying my country, walking the streets of my town arresting people that I knew, beating them and intimidating my family I’m damn sure I’d stand up and fight them. But likewise, as a Briton we had to do something about the sectarian violence on people who considered themselves British - you couldn’t just turn a blind eye.

In short it was a horrible situation and I could never see peace because there was never going to be a solution that satisfied everybody. And it was clear that no amount of military might or firepower could quell a sustained guerrilla campaign of terrorism. The Russians couldn’t do it in Afghanistan and the British couldn’t do it in Northern Ireland.

And yet here we are, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams (whose voice used to not be allowed on BBC TV so an actor had to do voice-overs if you can believe it) sitting side by side declaring peace. How did that happen?

Well it wasn’t by “bombing them back to the stone-age”, it wasn’t by sending in more troops. It was by bringing the troops home. By letting terrorists go free from prison. By politics and diplomacy. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for the families of the thousands of people who lost their lives over The Troubles seeing murderers walking the streets. But the reality is that if you want to have lasting peace this is a sacrifice that people have to make.

I can’t imagine the peace after the first and second world wars would have been easy to take for those who lost loved ones, but it was a price that had to be paid because the alternative is much worse. And that was the case here. It’s easy to look back in the history books, see when the second world war ended and imagine that someone flicked a switch and life went back to normal. What you don’t see written about is how people got over their bitterness (most didn’t, they just had to bury it and carry on with their lives). The difference for me and people of this time is we’ve lived through it and can see how hard it was and the tremendous loss of life. Generations from now when the Troubles are summarised in history books peace will have seemed inevitable and quick in coming and a picture like the one above will no doubt be in the chapter headed “Lasting Peace Declared” or something similar.

But we should never forget how hard peace is to come by, and how precious it is. It saddens me greatly to see the same mistakes being made by the Americans in Iraq. My definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. I guess that’s the insanity of war.

I’ve never been on holiday to Ireland and it’s a place I’ve deliberately avoided on principle for many years. I think it’s about time I booked a trip over soon. And I never thought I’d say that.

I haven’t bought a CD in ages. I’m one of these old fashioned sorts who likes to actually buy real CDs that I can put in my CD rack and play on my real CD player (especially the one in the car). I know I can download everything off the net, play it on my iPod and computer, but I still like actually having the real thing with a nicely printed inlay! But over the last few months I haven’t seen anything I want to buy, it’s just been a quiet period for good music.

All this has changed with the release of albums from Bloc Party, The Shins, The Kaiser Chiefs, Arcade Fire, Maximo Park and Idlewild - all bands I’m a big fan of. However it’s Idlewild’s album I’ve been waiting for with the most anticipation.

As I mentioned in My Top Albums of 2005, their previous offering Warnings and Promises was and remains one of my favourite albums. For anybody “lucky” enough to have been in my car while this album’s been playing (which it has done pretty solidly for the last 2 years) they’ll be able to testify how much I like it. I love to deliberately throw in the odd off-key note and really give it everything on the high notes just to keep them on their toes!

Their latest effort, Make Another World, has all the making of another classic for me, I’m learning the words already! Most of the time when I really love an album, the follow-up tend to disappointment me. I’ll keep comparing it to the previous one which is on a pedestal and therefore can’t be matched - unfair I know but hey, that’s what most women do with men! But I’m liking this one so much I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to sit it up on that pedestal alongside and hit those high-notes with frightening irregularity while driving to work! I pity the fool who has to hear it…

A couple of months ago I bought a new TV that happened to have an integrated digital decoder. This meant that I could receive Freeview which is, perhaps not surprisingly, free. I've had a Sky Digital subscription for the past 6 years and at £40 a month it occurred to me that if I could live without it, I'd have paid for the TV in two years.

On thinking about it some more I realised that the only things I actually watch on Sky (which contains several hundred channels of mostly rubbish) are The Simpsons, some Spanish football and the odd Premiership match. Oh, and a couple of series like Stargate SG-1 and it's cousin Stargate Atlantis (well, we've got to get our sci-fi fix). Since The Simpsons and things like Stargate can be downloaded from file sharing networks for free (as we did with Lost Season 2 - we devoted an entire weekend watching all the episodes back to back - I only wish the ending was worth it!).

Freeview has 30 or so channels including Sky Sports News which meant I could still watch Soccer Saturday from my sofa when I was feeling lazy. So I decided I'd cancel Sky and see how I got on without it. Now that's not as easy as it sounds.

If you try to cancel Sky they'll put the pressure on to try and keep you thereby lowering their churn rate. It's a well known fact that you can get Sky for half price by threatening to cancel, getting offered it at half price for three months, then doing the same in three months time. Oh, call during the week if you want to try it out! But if you really want to cancel then you have to battle through a half-hour gauntlet of hard-sell. I didn't want that because I knew I could be tempted to keep it. So I did the decent thing…

…I told them I was moving to New Zealand! Within 3 minutes it was cancelled and they were wishing me good luck. Although it would be 4 weeks before they actually turned it off. And that happened to be Monday of last week.

So I've had over a week without Sky and it's been tough going cold turkey. I've missed the sound of Homer Simpson saying "D'Oh!". I've missed several good football matches. And I've missed randomly flicking through the music channels. Initially I wanted to pick up the phone and be re-connected, but now I'm realising that there are plenty of other decent things to watch, and more importantly there are many more interesting things to do than watch TV!

Of course it could be that I'm in such a good mood that finally the vastly under-rated yet hilarious Garth Marenghi's Darkplace has been released on DVD that I'm pretending life without Sky will be okay. Only time will tell…

Back in 1998 I had the pleasure of spending a couple of weeks travelling around Lebanon:

I have to say it was one of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring and friendly places I've ever been. The scenery can be breath-taking, from sandy beaches to mountains to forests to deserts, it's got the lot. There are ancient ruins built at the height of the Roman empire (which means they're the biggest) including the largest standing columns on earth. My jaw was on the floor looking at some of these monuments in Baalbek. And the people were not what I'd expected at all. After years of war I thought I'd find people with their heads down, battle-hardened and bitter. But I found people young and old with a bright, optimistic outlook on life who were amazingly friendly and more westernised than me! In fact I'd rate the people I met above New Zealanders on the friendliness scale - and that's saying something.

But the one thing I took away from the trip was that the picture I had in my head before going of what Lebanon was going to be like, especially with the friction with Israel over the border (which I went to - quite an intimidating area with all the razor wire and UN troops) from the western media was completely different to what I actually saw. Up until then I assumed that people like the BBC would bring you the truth but there's no such thing as the truth, just someone's opinion on a series of events. And they won't necessarily be your opinions if you're there on the ground. Plus the media have to watch what they say, they can't go taking sides - even if they're right - especially against large, powerful nations, so they take the middle ground. It was eye opening to see things first-hand without the media bias. Don't believe all you hear!

However the fact that Lebanon was no longer a place to be feared and looked to have a bright future with Israel pulling their troops out, peace throughout the country and Beirut being rebuilt made me happy. Lebanon deserved a break from once being the Paris of the Middle East to a war-torn nation. The people deserved it.

So it won't surprise you to learn how sad I was to see it all kicking off again. I'm not going to take sides and say Israel are wrong for bombing Lebanon (which they are - Hezbollah having munitions in civilian areas? ask yourself who's telling you that's the truth and if it's just an excuse), and I'm not going to say it's wrong for Hezbollah to launch rocket attacks at Israel (which they are - what do you expect to happen if you do that?). The time for saying who's to blame is long passed. After decades of terrorism in Northern Ireland it was abundantly clear that at some stage or another people were going to have to just stop fighting and move on. No amount of bombing, military presence, arrests or anything was going to stop it. You can't make one side give up by intimidating them - especially when it's on their home soil.

It doesn't matter who throws the first stone. If someone gets hurt, then retaliates and someone gets hurt on the other side, then it just goes on from there from one side to the other. For every civilian that gets killed in an Israeli bombing raid you're creating more Lebanese who hate Israelis. For every rocket that kills an Israeli you're going to create more Israelis who want blood spilled to even the score. It's human nature. And it's completely self-defeating.

It's disappointing to see the international might of countries like the USA and UK just standing by watching without attempting to intervene. Although to be fair, Israel is a nuclear power who don't have to listen to people like the USA if they don't want to. But if Israel end up occupying Lebanon again then you can expect many more years of war - and it's so obvious that's the outcome it amazes me the Israeli leaders think it's the best approach to meet their goals.

I just feel badly for the people. It's always the innocent civilians that get caught in the crossfire in situations like this. If someone was bombing my town and my family was killed, you can bet I'll pick up arms against them. And I won't care if what they're doing is just in their eyes, my hurt and pain will motivate my revenge plenty. And since violence begets violence, it'll never end. And if I can think that way, then so can anybody, no matter how friendly, positive and hospitable they are. War is easy. Peace is very very hard. Never take the easy option.