This lunchtime, I had Meetup, for once! The first in over a month.. I finally joined 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners, for a Swinging 60s Experience - a Live Online Interactive Tour in a Psychedelic Minibus! Also running with their sister group, Carpe Diem. Their last event that I attended was terrifically organised, and I was sure this one would be, too - it's great to see a group running something during the daytime at the weekend, again!
I was ever so slightly late in joining - but he hadn't started off yet. And, of course, the advantage of this over a regular tour was that you could join at any point! as a couple of people did. Now, this is a real tour bus that travels the streets of London - apparently attracts attention, brightly painted as it is. And the advantage of doing it this way, from the guide's point of view - is that he can pack more people in! We had 18 on the call - and I doubt he could have squashed that many into his minibus. So, it's good to see someone doing well from the pandemic.
He travels through West London, stopping at sundry points of interest - musicians' houses, mainly. He did stop at The Troubadour - which I know from when I lived out that way, been there a few times. Unfortunately, it looked quite desolate, shut down as it is. And he finishes at the Albert Hall, which I do know quite well..
To be honest, I wasn't massively interested in who lived where, or ate where, or partied where. But the photos he shared from the 60s were cool - and mainly, what I got from it was a chance to be driven through the streets of London, which hasn't happened for a very long time. Looked as grey there as here, but still brought a wave of nostalgia - I could just imagine myself going on a trip like this, on a grey weekend afternoon, and while I was still on it, plotting where to go afterwards for a nice meal. Plenty of options, around West London - hope they're still there when I get another chance! Sadly, no chat afterwards..
Well now, tv today was truly woeful - nothing on for hours after my tour ended. So I turned to the old reliable. I got another advertising email from Amazon Prime last weekend, which had some interesting options. So I've been watching Upload, a comedy sci-fi series about a world, not too far in the future, where people's memories, personalities etc. can be uploaded to a program they subscribe to, so that they can have - essentially - the afterlife of their choice, which they can experience as themselves, in simulated bodies.
To recap, we follow the story of a young man (Robbie Amell, doing a good impression of a young Tom Cruise), whose life is cut tragically short in a freak accident. However, he doesn't die straight away - and his high-maintenance, upper-crust girlfriend has a pretty high-class subscription to the upload service, where all her family plan to spend the afterlife. So she badgers him into being uploaded, on her subscription, so they can (eventually) spend the afterlife together, in genteel luxury.
Anyway, I've been dying to get a chance to continue with the story. So off I went and watched more of that - the rest of Season 1, in fact. And it's simultaneously clever, engaging, and absolutely hilarious. In the last two episodes of the season, we learn a little more about our hero's past, following an upgrade to the system, which restores some of his memories, which were mysteriously wiped during upload. The plot definitely thickens - and wow, you want to see what happens when he decides to break free from his girlfriend's influence, and downgrade to a prepaid plan. :-) True, you can't do very much online without using bandwidth..
After that, I had yet more time to kill - and wouldn't you know it, Season 2 hasn't been released yet! In fact, it only started filming last month.. Damn! Plenty of speculation about who's going to be kept on, and where the story is going to go. But (sob) it'll be the latter half of the year, at the earliest, before I get an update! Nuts.. Will definitely keep an eye on that one.
And so, finally, it was back to Sands Films, who've had some good offerings lately. To end the afternoon, I watched Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria), a Fellini film from the 50s, about a fiesty prostitute in Rome, played by his wife, who has a hopeful heart, but never seems to be able to find true love.
For once, there's no lead-in - the video begins straight away with the mc's introduction! Lasts about 12 minutes. And demonstrating Fellini's typical energy, this is a compelling and unexpected film to watch, as she wins our hearts with her truly poignant portrayal. A right mixture of blokes she meets.. few of which encounters do her any good at all. Enjoyed it. And there's another brief chat with the mc at the end..
While I was watching the film, yet another Amazon Prime email! And so it is that my plan for tomorrow is to try Undone, an animated series about a young woman who, after a car crash, experiences a weird new reality.. Animation, of course, makes it a lot easier for the creators to realise their vision, here.
And next Saturday - the Crick Crack Club is back! with a show for Valentine's Day, entitled This Thing Called Love, where a bunch of performers will entertain us with stories appropriate to the weekend's theme! Great - it's been months since I had any storytelling..
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