General havers

I'd like to apologise to my reader for not posting in the last fortnight as I've been no well I'm afraid. Since I've been off work not much happening here so I'm just generally blethering about what's been entertaining me.

In order to avoid the whole Valentines Day nonsense Rosa and I went to see Hot Fuzz the new film from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and it was truly laugh out loud funny in it's satire of English village life mixed with as many Hollywood action movie cliches as can possible be put in. A special note has to go to Timothy Dalton who is clearly having the time of his life playing the manager of the local Somerfield. This is a must see if you enjoyed Shaun of the Dead and Spaced and live in South Africa. Everybody else should go too.

I've also been watching the old Channel 4 six-parter Ultraviolet this week. For those who never came across it Jack Davenport plays a police detective whose partner is turned into a vampire which leads him to joining a shadowy organisation that hunts the vamps. It's a silly idea that works because it's done completely straight making it quite reminiscent of television espionage or police dramas. Good stuff then which is only slightly let down by Davenport who never quite convinces in his role. How on earth do we end up with Torchwood when stuff like this isn't continued?

I also got an XBox 360 from the girl at Christmas and it is absolutely fantastic. Currently I've been sucked into Oblivion which is an incredibly large first-person rpg in which you can go anywhere. My character Gadje McNed has turned out to be a right nasty piece of work who will literally steal anything not nailed down. Good stuff. I got Splinter Cell Double Agent with the machine and whilst I love this and all the other games in this sneaking stylee series it reminds me of the first one in which I took six months trying to get around a corner due to it's rather extreme difficulty, I still love it though. And the last game I'm sucked into is Gears of War the big shooter from last Christmas. The single player game is everything promised with cover being vital and this is improved with a fantastic online co-op game. Unfortunately once you go into an online versus game the cover mechanic is thrown out of the window leaving you with a disappointing run around and shoot peeps game. You still get to shoot your mates in the face though so it's not a complete waste.