If like me, the gentle strains of Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile and Songs of Praise are so synonymous with a Sunday afternoon/evening, that they fill you with that sense of dread for the working week ahead, the best thing to do is crack open a bottle of wine, grab a few Wotsits, some lovely comforting food, pop on a Western, and drift into #WWWSI inspired escapism.
Never before has finding a film to watch been such as struggle. Normally, I download it on Amazon TV (the third of the price of watching a Covid Hull City special) or failing that, get the DVD which normally comes within a week.
THREE films in my list failed me, before Appaloosa came good. But was it only available because no one liked it?
39th in the list sounded pretty decent, but the audience rating of 55% is the fifth lowest in the top 100. Worrying! But we'd see if it'd be more 'loosa' than winner (sorry).
The Wotsit roll upset me further. Another '5'! I love Wotsits as much as any man/woman/transwotsitlover but you can have too much of a good thing. And the WWWSI statisticians tell me that in the last 6 weeks including tonight, I've consumed a mind boggling 31 bags out of a maximum 36 (6 x 6). Will I ever roll a 1, 2, even a 3 would do?!
Maybe opening the wine would improve my mood. Screw cap, I didn't spill it, so far so good, but then my Red Wine book told me it needed chilling in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Red wine in the fridge? Was Jeremy Beadle about to jump out of a dark corner of my flat? Oh well, if the books says jump, I do it. Cinsault was the grape, and I chose one recommended by the guys in my book, Percheron Old Vine from South Africa. Named after a horse breed, just like Appaloosa. I hadn't planned it.
So after twenty minutes of prancing around to stuff like the Rawhide and Bonanza themes and preparing the buffet, the wine was finally 20 mins chilled and good to drink. The palest red wine ever. This, I'm told, is due to low tannin levels. Whatever they are. It still came out pretty dark the other end though, I'm telling ya! Whether you want to know or not.
The buffet was pretty much the same line up as last week. The continental meats were slightly on the turn, so I didn't pursue them for long, some crackers gave a bit of crunch, and a freshly bought bread roll added a bit of much needed errrm freshness! The Somerset Brie tasted more like normal Brie this week, and less like Crusty Wensleydale this week, which was a bit of a shame, but perhaps the wine was the influence.
The Cinsault/Cinsaut, for all its lightness (my book claims you should drink it on a boat surrounded by rich people, and I can't tell if it is joking) was challenging enough to be enjoyable, the hangover was mild but more marked than last week, and being the final 'C' not including 'blends', something to celebrate I guess!
About 40 minutes later than planned, and pitch black what with the clocks going back the previous day, it was finally time to settle down to Appaloosa.
Whilst the story was decent, easy enough to follow, and yes, enjoyable, I kept spotting these plot holes / weird character behaviour which were just so infuriating throughout.
Two blokes, Viggo Mortensen who sounds like a hybrid of 50's Hull City players Viggo Jensen and Stan Mortensen, and a guy called Ed Harris, came into this town as crime fighters, and although they claimed to be on the right side of the law, they just shot anyone dead they didn't agree with.
Then they both fancied Renee Zelwegger, who I kept expecting to get a giant pair of pants out of her handbag, and when Ed Harris kicks the shit out this rowdy bloke for blocking the pump clips, she looks horrified. But in the next scene, they're a happy couple. No explanation. I even rewound it to see what I was missing!
I don't wanna slut shame her but she was a slut throughout. She tried it on with Viggo, then when she got kidnapped, she went naked swimming with that Lance Henriksen guy who was in Near Dark which we watched many weeks back, and then she finally got together with the absolute villain of the whole film Jeremy Irons. I didn't understand her behaviour, nothing was explained too well, so I cared less about what happened to the characters.
The pub was reminiscent of a good London Antic, probably Leyton Technical was the closest. The train felt very Northern rail en route to Elsecar.
A bit like last week's GBG 2021 news distracting me as the film reached a meandering conclusion, this week had sister's boyfriend rush to hospital with worsening Covid (he's out now) so again, I got a bit distracted, and when my sister video called me, she looked perplexed cos I had my crazy hat and jacket on, was three glasses in, hiccupping, and it probably didn't look in keeping with the serious situation!
Week 17 I'm hoping will run a bit more smoothly. At least one of the three DVD's in the pipeline have to arrive by Sunday. Surely Wotsit wise, I'm gonna roll less than a 4. And my Dolcetto (wine, thought it was ice cream or pizza) arrived today, so join me Sunday for the WWWSI Hallowe'en Special. I've even been kindly sent a new mixtape of Western and Hallowe'eny hits! Can't wait.
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