Hell's Kitchen, food and Harry Potter Year 1 & 2

We started our day off with the new season of Hell's Kitchen. This year they've filled the crew up with contestants from previous seasons (especially people who didn't get on with other). Looks like this one has the potential to be quite incendiary as things go on. It will be interesting to see how things transpire over the next few episodes.

Watching a programme about food is always fatal first thing in the morning as it made us hungry. Toni and I then popped out and enjoyed a nice breakfast at DeLicious before doing a Sainsbury's run then headed home.

We then embarked on a Harry Potter marathon as we decided to plough our way through all eight films.

Year 1 - Philosopher's Stone

Year 2 - Chamber Of Secrets

It's been quite nice watching them through fresh eyes since we did the Studio Tour. I have a whole new appreciation for all things Harry Potter now and enjoyed the films much more

Manic morning, Rannah and TV catch up

I had a manic morning at work today trying to fit in as much as I could before having an afternoon off. The time off was most welcome so Toni and I got to spend some extra time together.

Dinner was a take away treat courtesy of Rannah (formerly Rishta). The first episode of the latest The Big Bang Theory season kicked off our evening of entertainment. It was excellent as usual.

Next we finished off the final two episodes of Midnight, Texas that we'd not seen yet. It's a pretty good show so hopefully it will get renewed for another season. Some shows have their renewals announced almost immediately but NBC have been strangely silent on this one so far. It was no True Blood (despite the original books also being written by Charlaine Harris) so fingers crossed there was enough in this to let things continue.

Last but by no means last was the latest instalment of The Blacklist. I really missed watching this show so am very glad that it's back again for another season. The show continues with new weekly plots plus a continuing underlying story arc. If you've not seen it before then you only have four seasons to catch up before this one LOL.

The Toxic Avenger The Musical @ Arts Theatre

Tonight Sam and I hit the Arts Theatre in the West End to go and see The Toxic Avenger The Musical.

This is the musical the nobody wanted but everybody needed. Based on Troma's cult movie classic The Toxic Avenger this musical packs all the punches in script, comedy and music (all songs written by Bon Jovi keyboard player David Bryan).

It was a lovely small theatre that even had leg room! We were in stalls and had a great view of the stage.

There was a slight technical hitch ten minutes in that all the cast dealt with perfectly that made the audience warm to them all even more (like that was even possible)

There was a well deserved standing ovation at the end. I don't think I've ever clapped so much for a theatre performance. I think this is probably my second favourite musical after The Phantom Of The Opera and it just narrowly squeeze Rocky Horror into third place.

If you get a chance to go and see this show please do, we'll be going back for at least one more before the limited run ends.

Here's the trailer for the Arts Theatre show

Star Wars Battle Front II - new trailer

The latest trailer for Star Wars Battlefront II has now been released with The Force Awakens star John Boyega getting involved.

Looong day, productive and a Drag Race finale

Today was a LOOOOONG day. After all the fun and games of Harry Potter yesterday it was a real struggle to get back into reality. That said I did manage to get loads done

A lovely dinner was accompanied by the remaining episodes of Season 9 of RuPaul's Drag Race. That was the best season so far and it got better and better every season. Now we are all caught up and have to wait until next year for Season 10, BOO!

Harry Potter Studio Tour

Today we were up early for a Sunday as we headed off to Watford Junction to meet friends to embark on the Harry Potter Studio Tour.

Once we'd all met up we waited on the bus to the studio. It's a shame it wasn't a Knight Bus that turned up to get us LOL.

It wasn't long before we arrived

As we started the tour we popped onto pottermore.com and signed up to be sorted into our houses. I was sorted into Ravenclaw, my patronus is a Red Squirrel and my wand is Chestnut wood with a phoenix feather core:

The tour was amazing, I took so many photos and we had great fun

It appears I am now a fully certified Harry Potter fan so it's time to actually read the books.

If you like the world of Harry Potter then you will LOVE the studio tour. I can't recommend it highly enough and we are definitely going to back for another visit.

A day of chill

Today was a day of chill. We didn't actually get up until gone 12 which hasn't happened for a while. There were a number of things that we had planned to do but these were all suspended in favour of taking it easy. The things can wait for another day....

There was food, there was RuPaul's Drag Race and a whole bucket of relax.

We have a busy day tomorrow so the rest was good!

Working from home, tracking, iPhone 8 Plus and tidying

Well today I decided to work from home as I was expecting a package and Toni was out so there would be novody home to receive it. I didn’t want the hassle of rearranging delivery. I got a text message saying it would arrive between 12:30 and 14:30 with a link to a tracking page. Usually these things just say something like 0700 collected from depot, 0715 out for delivery. This one however told me that I was delivery number 93 and the tracker worked in real time updating with each delivery number as it went along. It was quite interesting to watch.

Slap bang in the middle of my allocated slot I took delivery of my shiny new iPhone 8 Plus. Yes I know I could have waited for the iPhone X but the plus had everything that I needed. I did the unwrapping and charged it up before securing it into its lovely new case. I’m not 100% sure about this case but it can easily be changed if needs be. The wireless charging works perfectly and before long everything was restored and up and running. That’s me one happy bunny.

Work was just mental with things going wrong left, right and centre. It was just one of those days where I never really got to come up for air. It was such a relief when 17:30 came around. Toni was still out and Sam was working late so I had a chance to play with my new phone before deciding I was going to tidy up the bedroom and sort some stuff out.

It was the time for some more RuPaul’s Drag Race to complete my chill out.

Olympic wasteland and Magic Madhouse EXP

After work today Sam and I set out for Stratford to go and visit Magic Madhouse EXP to see if we could pick up some Star Wars Destiny: Empire At Wat booster boxes. We arrived to a wet and miserable Stratford and head to walk quite a way through the Olympic wasteland to get to our destination. It's crazy to think how much money was spent on all of this stuff just for it to be desolate now.

After much frustration and Google Maps failure we got desperate and resorted to Apple Maps to try and get to our destination. Turned out that Apple Maps was our saviour and we got there in the end. We rocked up at Magic Madhouse EXP and asked if they had any Star Wars Destiny: Empire At War booster boxes only to be told that they only sold single packs as they hadn't thought there would be any demand. We were gutted having made a bit of a trek to get there only to think we would have to leave empty handed.

Seeing how dejected we looked the assistant (Gav) told us to hang on a second and he made phone call. Turned out their warehouse was only ten minutes away and the guy there was about to leave for the day but hadn't so Gav asked him to fly by the store bringing two boxes of boosters with him. We were delighted at this act of kindness. We ended up waiting for nearly two hours but had a great time looking around the store and talking to Gav and Tim until our goodies arrived. Very thankful we said our goodbyes and then jumped in an Uber to get home with our spoils.

It was our first visit to Magic Madhouse EXP and we can't rate them highly enough for going that extra mile to make us happy. We'll definitely be making a return trip at some point.

...and while we were waiting for out Uber we saw this marvellous sight:

Herding geese and banging nails

Every now and then something interesting happens outside The Gherkin. We aren't talking overpriced sculptures here, we are talking real live action events. Today we were treated to an awesome display of herding geese. There was real turf laid down, fences put up and dogs in effect to round up the birds.

That wasn't all though, oh no. They were really pushing the boat out today. We also had a competition to bang in nails to a piece of wood in a race against the accordian player.

I have no idea what it was all in aid of but it was very surreal and mildly amusing. All hail whoever decided that this was the sort of entertainment that we should be putting outside one of London's most prestigious buildings LOL.

Funghi fun, manic Monday, Død Snø 2 and New York Rangers

While walking to the station this morning I noticed some amazing funghi growing on the side of a tree. It looked like somebody had stuffed a bicycle saddle into the bark.

The working day was definitely a manic Monday. Still I guess it beats sitting around with nothing to do LOL.

Toni was out tonight so Sam and I had horror night. We opted for Dead Snow 2. Normally sequels in the nazi zombie genre just get worse bur this one was amazing. So funny and a weird mashup of Norwegian and English. If you liked the first one you'll love the second one!

Sam and I then indulged in a little Samurai Warriors 4 on the PS4 for some over the top craziness.

The evening played out with a little more RuPaul's Drag Race to kill of some time before the first New York Rangers preseason game. The plan wasn't to stay up all night and watch this which was just as well as I was knackered and had to go to bed at some point LOL

Guardians Day, Capitals webcast and more Magicians

There had been plans to go and do moot stuff today but to a low amount of people wanting to attend we decided to postpone it. Instead we decided to make today Guardians Day. Tara had never seen Guardians Of The Galaxy so we decided to educate her :)

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 1 was followed by Vol. 2 so that she didn't miss out on any of the fun. It was a real hardship having to watch both of them again LOL. They are both excellent movies but for Vol. 2 just edges it as the better one plus we have the Adam Warlock tease in the credits.

Sadly the NHL weren't streaming the Flyers v Islanders game in the afternoon so I decided to watch the Edinburgh Capitals v Belfast Giants game instead. It's not quite the same but it was an enjoyable game nonetheless with the Capitals coming back from a 2-5 deficit to lose 5-6 LOL.

There was also some more The Magicians to be watched so we burned our way through to the end of Season 1. It's a series that gets better and better as it goes on with some nice twists and turns with a fantastic finale. Next stop, Season 2........

The Magicians, Gatwick road trip, PS VR and NHL

I had hoped for a long sleep this morning but that wasn't to be but I guess getting up after 9 isn't really a bad thing LOL. Tea and breakfast was followed by a couple of episodes of The Magicians.

At midday Toni and I jumped in the car for a road trip to Gatwick to go and pick up Aaron and his friend Amy from the airport. Despite the M25 being quite busy we made it in plenty of time. Flight was on time so it was a smooth pick up and then back round the M25 to drop Amy off in Deptford and Aaron back in Sidcup. It was still almost five hours so not an insignificant outing LOL.

Sam picked up a PlayStation PS VR set cheap on eBay and we had a little dabble on it. I have to say that the Star Wars Battlefront PS VR mission is absolutely superb. VR is not something I'm that interested in but seeing a VR Star Wars universe is a whole different ball game. Colour me impressed!

The only slight downside of PS VR versus Occulus was that I felt a little seasick afterwards.

Tonight was the first of the NHL preseason games so we decided to indulge as we hadn't watched any ice hockey for quite some time. Vancouver Canucks v LA Kings was the first match in the preseason series. I'm not really a fan of either team as such but boy it was good to have some hockey back!

Crazy day, South Park, Hellboy and more Drag Race

Today was a crazy day. It started well and went at a good pace and then emergencies started popping up left right and centre. Just as I was thinking about going home, boom, it felt like the sky was falling in. Thankfully I managed to get on top of everything by the end but it was nuts.

Much later than planned I headed on home looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. I started off with the first episode of Season 21 of South Park with the crew taking an irreverent swipe at 'smart home' devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, Apple's Siri got off light LOL.

Recently I had a good old grumble about the new Hellboy film that is being made without Ron Perlman. I'm pretty sure there has been plenty of negative feedback about this as both Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman have been very public over the years about wanting to do a third film. Sadly this is not happening and I guess in an effort to try and move things on and generate some positive responses we have just been given our first look at Stranger Things actor David Harbor as Hellboy!

He certainly looks the part, it will be interesting to see if he can play the role in a way that is akin to what has gone before.

The rest of the evening wound down with a couple of episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Star Wars updates

Time for a few Star Wars things

Abrams is back in and now we are seeing some changes. The release date of Episode IX has now been bumped from May 2019 to December 2019. This is fine with me as it gets it all back in line with the December release schedule that The Force Awakens and Rogue One shared. I wasn't happy that they wanted to switch to May fro the Han Solo movie onward. It also give JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio some extra time to get their script sorted out!

In disappointing news the novelisation of Episode IX is not due to be released until March 2018 so not in sync with the movie releases for a change. This was disappointing.

Hot rumour at the moment is that we will be getting a new The Last Jedi trailer in October at some point! There are some spoilers out there as to new reveals that we will see due to a leak but I have NOT looked into those as I want to see for myself.

Here's the latest edition of The Star Wars Show:


....and last but by no means least, two more blips!

WWE Mae Young Classic finals

So tonight we finished off the semi-finals and finals of the Mae Young Classic tournament.

Brilliant is all I have to say. Like the Cruiserweight Tournament that preceded it we got to see top notch talent from around the world compete with lots of unexpected surprises along the way. This tournament was very refreshing in that most of the wrestlers were not what could be described as typical WWE Divas as most of them could actually wrestle properly. 

It's always been a bugbear for me to see the majority of women chosen based on their looks rather than ability to wrestle. I don't want to see a load of barbie dolls doing a pseudo pillow fight, I want to see woman of all shapes and sizes knocking seven bells of shite out of each other.

The Mae Young Classic certainly delivered on that front!

I won't post any spoilers as the final was only this week but it's great entertainment if that's your thing.

Check out the whole tournament on the WWE Network.

JJ Abrams strikes back

Following the uncertainty of who is going to direct Star Wars Episode IX after Colin Trevorrow was fired from the project, starwars.com have now cleared things up. It has been revealed that JJ Abrams will be returning to the franchise to direct and co-write the, as yet untitled, sequel to The Last Jedi.

Abrams got a fair bit of flack for sugar coating The Force Awakens and making it too much like A New Hope in places. Despite this I think he did a really good job and I think now that he'll have to follow plot leads from The Last Jedi and with the story group having true focus and direction sorted out he'll be able to turn in a winning finale to the final trilogy. It might all still be (in a galaxy far) far away but it's certainly got me fired up for it.

Fuzzy day, candy sticks and a Star Wars parody

Today was a bit of a fuzzy day. Despite getting a reasonable amount of sleep I felt tired and lethargic when I woke up and it was difficult to find any motivation. To make matters worse I got to the office to find that my lactose free milk had been thrown away from the fridge. The clean out of the fridge is done on a Friday afternoon but I was using my milk AFTER that scheduled event. They are only supposed to ditch things that weren't labelled to keep or that had an expiry date issue. My milk had my name plastered all over it and also had another week to go on it's date. I bought a new carton and will have to monitor the situation going forward. *grumble grumble*.

Just to add insult to injury to my day I then started feeling all emotional for no reason that I could identify. I just felt a bit sad and lost and felt like I could burst into tears at any moment.

The day was made better to find that David had left a packet of candy sticks on my desk. It was like being a kid all over again.

Sugary goodness!

Gotta love the Superman tattoo!

Following the announcement that Star Wars Episode IX has lost it's director Colin Trevorrow the rumour mill has been hot with who the replacement might be. This parody though, is a work of genius!

Kitchen Nightmares and totally chilled

It was a lazy day today. Toni and I chilled out and enjoyed a Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA marathon from the start of Season 1. I do love his shows and this one is great seeing him step in to help people try and save their restaurant businesses. It's people watching at it's finest with so many attitudes and slices of humble pie being eaten.

It's so nice to head towards the end of a weekend feeling thoroughly chilled and relaxed and ready to face the ongoing week.

Black Flag, Mae Young Classic and Guardians 2

Toni was out for a large chunk of the day so I was back in PS4 mode and trying racking up a few more percent on Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I made some progress but not quite as much as I would have liked due to getting stuck fighting a particularly difficult Man Of War.

We cracked out the WWE Network app and caught the first few episodes of the Mae Young Classic show that they are currently running. Similar to the recent Cruiserweight show the Mae Young Classic features 32 female wrestlers from all around the world competing in a tournament to be crowned winner. It was a good strong showing for a new show and it was great to have Jim Ross back doing the announcing alongside Lita. If you like wrestling it's well worth checking out.

We finished the evening off with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 now that it's arrived on Bluray. Love this film so much.