So my cheapo Currys DVD player seems to have died on me. Or rather it’s dead when it’s in the setup with my TV; every time I move it out to have a look at it, it works faultlessly. Now obviously, if I hadn’t spent as little as £29.99 then this might not have happened.
Fortunately, my replacement is even cheaper. Yup, I’ve found a DVD player from Argos that’s going for £24.99, and after failing to secure one in their West End branch, I reserved one at another branch via the internet, only to arrive at the store fifteen minutes after they’d closed last night. So I picked it up this morning, and instead of listening to Arsenal only get a draw against West Brom, I watched DVDs instead. Run Lola Run is a film that I’ve had kicking around for years without ever finding the right time to watch it. This afternoon was that time finally. Franka Potente’s great in it, and both she and the director have made another film, The Princess and the Warrior, which is on BBC4 later this evening. After watching the film, I watched it again with the director’s commentary.
I followed this with Lost in Translation which I still love – probably more so now then when I wrote this. The only disappointment with this disc is that Sofia Coppola hasn’t done a commentary, but this is made up for to a large extent by a great behind the scenes documentary which is cobbled together from camcorder footage on the shoot, some of which seems to have been shot by Spike Jonze. It’s far better than the EPK fare that’s usually included maskerading as a “making of” documentary.
Must go and listen to the soundtrack again.
But before I do that I have one other observation for today. The local Enfield branch of Starbucks is closed for refitting at the moment. But as is the way with chain stores, it has a notice in the window letting you know where your nearest alternative Starbucks can be found. It’s about five miles from the Enfield one! What’s the point of that?
“I fancy a coffee, so I’ll pop in Starbucks…. Oh no, it’s closed. Never mind, instead of going to another coffee shop locally, I’ll jump in my car and drive several miles for a coffee…”
We don’t live in the Australian outback here. We wouldn’t drive for three hours just to get a pizza or something. If I was an electrical retailer who’d shut down and might have customers with faulty goods that needed help, then of course the sometimes distant next-nearest branch makes complete sense. But tea and coffee are instant gratification snacks. Putting a notice like that would be like my local newsagent shutting down for a bit, but letting me know that he has a cousin in Fulham who also has a newsagent, so why don’t I pop in there to get a copy of The Guardian?