The Shower Of Snot

I saw The Simpsons Movie yesterday, which involved a ridiculously long trek to the cinema in Greenwich just because, in Boris's opinion, "the seats are more comfortable". (Which is balls. They're very ordinary seats.) I was worried that it would be a really bad film and completely destroy my faith in the show or whatever, but actually it was good - it basically felt like watching three episodes of The Simpsons back-to-back, so that at some point I did start to feel like I'd had a bit of a Simpsons overload, but overall - highly recommended. There was a trailer before the film that was practically wetting itself over "2007 -THE SUMMER OF CINEMA!!!!!" and showing clips from films I frankly didn't want to watch. Shrek 3? Transformers? John Travolta as a woman? Hmm.

It was very very hot yesterday, so everything felt vague and dream-like. I had to guide Dom and Alex B to the cinema, since they didn't know the way and apparently had never heard of streetmap.co.uk. Sorry, I have to stop grumbling. I wasn't really sure of the way either (Greenwich is a BITCH to get to anyway) and had to concentrate quite hard to try and remember where it was we were meant to be going, which meant that I was walking in front scratching my head and going, "Er, right...Westcombe Hill...that's...familiar...BLACKWALL TUNNEL!!...YES!!!..OK..." while they argued about something behind me. Alex B has written a new novel. THE HORROR, THE HORROR. It's not nice to slag off people's efforts, and I do like Alex although he's not exactly my closest friend, and it's good that he's creative and he doesn't just play violent video games or spend his time happy-slapping people or whatever, but...I've read his first one...Well, when someone takes basically ALL their inspiration from fantasy novels, manga and Greek mythology, I think the result can only be either absolutely amazing or terrible. And this...this is not amazing.

Anyway, he says he's now working on a trilogy about the Trojan war. He's prolific, at least.

Nothing much else to report. Seeing Dom a lot. His postcard from Cyprus just never came; we think it might have gone to Estonia instead of England. Also, Immy is moving out of her house, having finally had enough of her egotistical wanker of a dad. She seems pretty chirpy about it - from everything she's told us, the past few years of living with him and his crazy girlfriend have been awful, and she's going to live with her mum. I almost had a heart attack when I heard this because her mum lives in Milton Keynes, but then she told me they're getting a flat in Honor Oak which is practically next door to the school, so that's OK.

This is yet another example of how Everything Lately Has Been Changing.

Dad has come back from Russia, but my brother is still there, at my grandparents' dacha. Until this year, the dacha had no shower, and we basically had to wash about once a week out of a tub (primitive living, it's what the Russian countryside's all about). This summer, however, my grandad decided to build a brand spanking new shower; he made it his Big Project, and built a really sturdy shower which he then painted a brilliant white, all in time for Misha's arrival.

On Misha's second morning at the dacha, he got up very early, went exploring around the house, and found a tin of green paint.

The shower now apparently looks like it's been splattered with giant snot. My grandad is actually devastated.