On Thursday evening I had one of those evenings when I didn't feel like doing anything apart from stare at the television. It might have had something to do with the two pints of beer I had at lunchtime.
Now this is something new for me as I rarely feel like just staring at the television. But what to watch? I fancied a film but the one I would have liked to have seen was The Fabelmens. I've already seen it at the cinema and it's shortly coming on at Hethersett Village Screen so I thought three times might be excessive although it is a very entertaining film about the early life of Stephen Spielberg.
So I eventually decided to watch an old Sherlock Holmes and decided on the 1939 film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which starred Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson.
Rathbone is by far and away my favourite Holmes, bringing just the right amount of gravitas to the part. Not sure about Bruce's depiction of Watson as a bumbling fool though. That's not how Watson comes over to me in the Conan Doyle books and it's certainly not how Martin Freeman plays him in modern depictions.
Interestingly Rathbone and Bruce played the detective and his sidekick in no less than 14 films. This one was set in the Victorian era in 1894. For the rest of the series they shifted forward to the 1940s which I guess made them easier to make as they could depict the modern day London rather than having to imagine it of some 40 years earlier. Of course despite moving it forward Holmes and Watson didn't age a year.
Mind you the language used may seem a little corny to us today and the scenes rather old fashioned but they were probably closer to the reality of the time than some of the more modern depictions.
After watching that I turned to the Netflix documentary about David Beckham. It was very entertaining even if you don't like football. I might say I like football but some would disagree as I support Norwich City.
The documentary has received good reviews and it's easy to see why. It skilfully mixes old footage with new but never gets confusing. So far I've got through his early years growing up, his years as a great footballer and poster boy, his relationship with Alex Ferguson which soured and his sending off in an England game which started a hate campaign towards him.
It will be interesting to see how that hatred eventually disappeared and he turned into the British icon that we have today. Special mention for former teammate and Sky TV presenter Gary Neville who is very funny and as charismatic as ever. Gary is as good off the field as he was on it and you can take that whichever way you like.
Sometimes you just have to recharge the batteries. On Thursday evening I got home from Dereham to find a number of emails asking me to sort various things out. I could have worked through those until about 10 o clock but for once decided I needed a break and they could wait until Friday morning when the weather was likely to be so yucky that staying in was the only real option.
Mind you it's all too easy to get into the retired person's daytime television rut of knowing what time it is by the programmes on TV.
Bargain Hunt and it's 12.15, the news and it's 1 pm, Doctors and it's 1.45, Tenable and it's around 3. Tipping Point and it's 4 pm. The Chase and it's 5 pm, Richard Osman's House of Games and it's 6 pm, The not so local news and it's 6.30 and so on.
Now you thought that I didn't watch a lot of television, but now can you be so sure?
I was preparing to celebrate on December 23rd the fact that I have been writing a daily diary for 50 years only to find out yesterday that this year I will complete 51 years. I suppose I will have to put the champagne on ice as I don't think you can backdate it.
Has anyone else been hit by bouts of sneezing over the past few days? I have had three or four and my eyes have been running as well. Might be something to do with the rain.