as Carly Simon sang

Although the local video rental shop (a corner of the newsagent) had a fairishly large proportion of its shelfery devoted to what passed for gore/horror/comedy in the late eighties it never contained a film often recommended to me during the mid-late nineties named The Toxic Avenger. I lost touch with the people who recommended it before high-speed internet and internet-based DVD-rental became popular so it never made it onto my rent-out-or-download list. It popped up on the Cameo's newsletter a couple of weeks back as part of a double-bill with another Troma flick. Again, despite the relatively large amount of schlocky cheapo-horror on Forbuoy's shelves I hadn't heard of the accompanying film but had heard of Troma so chanced a ticket on the grounds that Nicky was out at a work do all evening and that I haven't been to the cinema much since the film festival finished. They both turned out to be bad, but obviously intentionally funnily bad (though the funny bits made the bloke behind me laugh really obviously too loudly and falsely, though only during the first film as he buggered off during the interval) and reasonably entertaining, though sticking a half-hour interval between films in a lateish-starting double-bill already lengthened by a Q&A was a bit daft. Surprisingly it was perhaps the most audience-question-rich Q&A I've seen for a while, and whilst the directorbloke was slightly iffy on a few non-film subjects he redeemed his dodgy science with a put-down of the bloke behind me's pal when he asked a twatty question. I didn't hear the second Q&A as it was already quite late enough for a schoolnight as the credits rolled, though I was far from alone in jumping out and heading off as soon as the film finished despite the alternativer-than-thou garb of most of the rest of the audience. It was a bit like the time when (shortly after moving up here) I popped to see a band in a pub on the basis of having seen then supporting Fish (when he (for some strange and unknown reason) popped to Lincoln on a tour) only to find that their native target demographic made my clothing-choice of dark brown and dark green stick out as being far too bright and colourful.

At either sixteen minutes past six this morning or yesterday evening my watch suffered some sort of severe trauma which caused the little knurled knob which adjusts the hands to leap from the casing and disappear. I assume it was yesterday evening as I wasn't wearing it at sixteen minutes past six this morning and would probably have noticed during the day. With the knob absent the hands do not move, though the digital bit still works. I'd not noticed in the morning when leaving the house as I thought it was about a quarter past eight, had glanced at the minute hand, seen it to be at about a quarter past and looked away without noticing the different hour. The missing piece is possibly too small to be able to reasonably expect to find it, though whilst the remainder of the watch still functions I shall not rush to replace it. At over three years it's lasted reasonably well; I go for long periods of not bothering to wear a wristwatch but only resumed when my right hand started holding a camera, making it unable to retrieve my phone from my right hip pocket to see what the time was. A slightly different model briefly tried before that used currently was returned to the shop when the time-adjusting knob broke off in my fingers when first setting the correct time but this one had seemed reasonably sturdy considering that I usually manage to inadvertently destroy anything attached to my wrist, especially when a peculiarity of the strap prevents the face being worn facing inwards where it seems to be slightly safer. £15 for three years' use isn't too bad, and the original strap is still in full working order (another relative rarity)leaving a potential spare for the replacement.