Restaurant: An Teach China

Well, I flew back to Ireland today. Amazingly, considering the appalling treatment we got - and I don't know whether to blame Stansted or Ryanair. At the airport, several announcements were made to the effect that the Ryanair app shouldn't be trusted! Later, these were amended to be more specific - apparently, it had incorrectly said that some were cancelled. However, the gate number given was correct - and hallelujah, for once it was accessible by the transit! as opposed to the slog through the airport I normally have.

Yep, and then there was a massive queue at the gate. And then, we had a situation at the bottom of the escalator that was actually dangerous, where people kept being sent down, but the door we were supposed to access was closed, and there was nowhere to go. Which was dangerous. No recognition of that by staff, though, no control. When I made my way through, I ended up in the Tunnel of Doom - where we were stuck in stifling conditions for 40 minutes, all crammed in together. No bus to take us to the plane - because, not that there were any announcements to tell us, but on the plane afterwards, made on a virtually incomprehensible tannoy, we were told (I think) that the plane coming over had something wrong with it and had to be changed, which was the cause of the delay. So there had been no plane to put us on. Yeah, back to cattle class with Ryanair at Stansted.

Oh, and for almost the whole flight, I had a kid kicking my seat. Arriving at last (an hour late), I headed for a takeaway at An Teach China. Decided to have something different - sorry I did. "Crispy General Chicken" is reminiscent of my favourite dish, but they just don't do it very well, and I don't think I'll have it again. Not very tasty. Also seems to be less food in it than in my regular fillet beef szechuan. Well, nothing ventured..

Now, the cinema listings are finally out for Ireland for the next week. Four films I might be interested in, and only one showing in the Omniplex in the afternoon. So I've booked that one for Sunday - it's The Lost City, and stars Channing Tatum, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, and Daniel Radcliffe in another of those lost-city-in-the-jungle capers.

The other three only have afternoon showings in Ennis - so, it's there I'm bound. They charge for booking, so I haven't. I have six days in which to see them - watch this space as to when that'll be. In descending order of rating, they are:

The Northman, a Viking caper about a young prince whose father, the King, is murdered, so it falls to the lad to avenge him. Nicole Kidman is the Queen, and it also stars Alexander Skarsgård, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Björk.

Operation Mincemeat stars the ever-dependable Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, and Penelope Wilton in a comedy based on the true story of how, during WWII, they put the Nazis off the scent by handcuffing a case of fake "secret" papers to a corpse, and letting it be found. They've made a play about this too, you know!

Finally, Morbius is another of those superhero things - an antihero, rather. Jared Leto is the hapless biochemist who accidentally turns himself into a vampire - with all the powers that entails. Also stars Michael Keaton.

Well, my friend got back to me - they're away in the middle of next week, back on the 21st, so the most sensible thing to do seemed to be to visit on the 22nd, which I've now arranged with her. Happily, my boss was also fine with me taking that week as holiday. Anyway, I'll fly back to London on the 24th. And on the 25th, I'm off to The Corn is Green, at the National.