alteredego

Has anybody stayed at Fraser Place in Makati recently? Is it still girl friendly?

A few movies I would recommend (in no particular order):

Unforgiven (the Clint Eastwood cowboy movie)

Memento (The one where the guy has got no retentive memory)

Fargo (note: a lot of people I know haven't seen this movie... It appears that from the title they assume it's going to be a cowboy movie, and some people don't like cowboy movies. But of course it isn't a cowboy movie. It's quite well known because the director's played a joke and included a title saying 'this is based on a true story' when in fact they made the whole thing up)

Hard Eight (a nice little movie from the director of Boogie Nights)

Point Blank (Lee Marvin movie).

Get Carter(Michael Caine movie)

"Spent my days with a woman unkind, Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine"

('Going to California', Led Zeppelin, 'Four Symbols' album)

English Premiership

From a non-partisan spectator's viewpoint, I'm kind of hoping that Liverpool can hold Chelsea in the early kick-off tomorrow (New Year's Day). Assuming Arsenal beat Charlton, the gap at the top will be down to only three points.

Realistically however I think Chelsea are favourites to beat Liverpool. Robben is in awesome form - I reckon there's nobody in the world playing better right now. But the Anfield crowd might have a part to play....

I heard the news baby

All about your disease

Yeah you may have all you want, baby

But I got somethin' you need

('Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love', Van Halen, from Van Halen I)

'Feel' - Robbie Williams

When we were kids my brother woke up in the middle of the night and saw a figure sitting at the bottom of my bed (we used to share a room). It was quite dark so he assumed this figure was me and asked me what I was doing. At the sound of his voice I woke up and said 'what?' (or whatever). This made him glance away from the figure. When he looked back it was gone.

English football: predictions for this season:

Premiership winners: Chelsea

Runners-up: Arsenal

FA Cup: Man United

Championship winners: Wigan

Runners-up: Ipswich

I lost quite a lot of weight (3 notches on my belt) about a year ago. I have managed to keep this weight off. In my case a couple of things have helped:

1. Joined a gym. A lot of people are discouraged from joining a gym because they think that if they don't go neary every day it's a waste of money. But even if you only go once a week it's better than not going at all. In my case I to do mostly muscle-building exercises with weights, and less running. This was after I read that it is muscle that burns calories - I know that this is obvious really - so if you build (and maintain) a bit of muscle, you are able to burn off more calories even when you are idle.

2. Ate a lot of apples (or similar hard fruit). I find that these really do fill you up. A lot of people think 'Oh I've eaten ONE apple (or whatever) today, so I won't have any more'. I find if you have say 3 apples a day it helps to stop you from eating so much junk food. Also apples are very good for the digestion - they contain some acid, but the overall balance of an apple is alkaline....

IMHO this one is a no brainer, it's Led Zep.

Tomorrow never knows

In my life

Eleanor Rigby

Has anybody mentioned the theme from 'Alfie', the 1960s film with Michael Caine? Not sure if the same song was used in the recent remake which starred Jude Law...

If anyone is interested (yawn), the recognised 'definitive' version of 'Alfie' is sung by Cilla Black, but this version was not actually used in the original film because Cilla's record company wouldn't allow it. The version on the soundtrack is sung by Millicent Martin, who also appeared in the film....

I really must get out more.

Aside from novels I like short stories. Here are some short story writers whose work I have enjoyed:

Mark Poirier

Tobias Wolff

Elmore Leonard (I think the book I read was called something like 'When the women come out to dance')

Ethan Canin

Ethan Coen (no relation)

And of course you get lots of good SciFi short stories, and horror stories, and also those 'twist in the tail' stories from Roald Dahl....

Here's some novelists I like. Most of these are very old, though:

Raymond Chandler

Graham Greene

Martin Amis

Michel Faber (but I didn't bother with 'the Crimson Petal and the White')

Saul Bellow (people say the early books are the best)

Not a new book but I liked 'Tomato Red' by Daniel Woodrell.