I think it was Father's Day 2020 when I bought Daddy Wotsit a DVD box set of five classic Westerns. All in my top 100. Bit cheeky of Past Si, looking back, he (I) must've known that (he'd) I'd end up saying "Daddy W., you know those Westerns I bought you, can I borrow them (for ever)?"
I guess the only surprise is that is has taken until Week 48 of #WWWSI nights for me to finally 'land' on one of the five, the famous and well respected classic that is The Searchers. Eighth best western of all time, according to my spreadsheet:
Although it is fair to say I've fine tuned the 'challenge' over the past three years, one thing I've never quite achieved is the benefit of an early start time. 7pm would be acceptable. I barely ever even make 8pm.
My thinking is, the sooner I start, the sooner I drink all that lovely red wine, the sooner I am in bed, and the sooner it is out of my system the following morning, meaning I can wake up at say 9am, rather than 11:50am, spring in my step, ready for a hearty breakfast and cleaning Wotsit Towers from top to bottom.
Never happens! Ill disciplined, like a naughty Comanche.
So, as the clock ticked past 8:30pm, the strains of Coronation Street finishing in the background, only then was I getting down to business.
This week's wine was a Xinomavro grape variety from Greece. Made me nervous. The only wine I've really hated to date was from Turkey, and Greece & Turkey are basically the same country aren't they? Don't tell them I said that. Or that Cyprus has a nicer flag than both.
I was surprised to find it readily available at Majestic, who I never expect to have the more 'unusual' grapes, but they came good not just with this one, but my next forthcoming two Z'ers as well:
Let's see what I'm supposed to think about it:
Hmmm, cork rather than screw top. Always like that. Feels like you've earned your first glass. I'm surprised how light it pours, considering my book has 'tannin' on the high end of the scale. Looks darker below though. Didn't think it was particularly full bodied either. Very moreish though, like crack cocaine, probably. Very dry when it hits your mouth, but I was almost two glasses in before the pizza came out 16 minutes later .... ooops.
Can you see the change in me from glass one to glass two?
Weirdly, once I got on the food, I found the wine a more challenging drink. Or maybe I'd just gone too hard, too early?
Pizza-wise, I continued to plough through the Sainsbury's Thin & Crispy range. Chicken & Pesto was one I was particularly looking forward to, and it didn't disappoint.
I did a few olives, feta and tomato bits for balance:
And whilst post-lockdown, I'm not brave enough to roll a dice for the number of bags of Wotsits in 2023, I managed two bags from the ongoing multi-pack from last week ..... ignore the eggs!
A bit of music courtesy of Uncle Matt's cassette tapes .... I decided this week to dig around for one I'd not played in a while and was in the mood for a bit of Herb Alpert:
In particular, the underrated Side B and I was trying to work out whether this was a deliberate attempt to recreate the Bobby Moore 1966 World Cup winning lift, or whether I've just stumbled upon a clever comparison?
Before long, the oven pinged and it was time to go through for the film.
The DVD menu had more language options than I've ever seen in my life, and tempted as I was to see what an Irish John Wayne would sound like, I played it safe and finally located 'United Kingdom' on page 4 of 4. Insane!
Right, can we finally get started?
I found The Searchers a good film, but not a great film. I'd probably been expecting too much from the rave reviews and 8th place standing.
At 1 hr 59 mins, I'd even go as far as to say it became a bit of a slog at times, the endless 'searching' for a lass who didn't necessarily want to be found was exhausting, especially with the lack of mobile phones in those days meaning that one letter sent home every five years was a good as it got in terms of updates!
If John Wayne learned to speak a bit faster, I reckon we could've been done within 90 minutes.
His character was called Ethan, like all L**ds chav kids circa 2003, and for a so called hero of the piece, he was a bit of an arsehole really. Critics say he goes on a metaphorical journey as well as a physical one, but when he leaves the homestead alone at the end of the film, having finally brought the lass home, I think it was doubtful whether he'd 'grown' as a human being.
It starts with him dropping in to see his brother's family:
But the Comanche's, especially this bloke called Scar, torch the family home, murder three of them, murder and rape the older lass (not necessarily in that order), and kidnap the young lass they went looking for.
John Ethan Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter (who J.Wayne is a dick to througout), with a bit of help from this bald simpleton, finally find her .....
But by now, she's grown up to be Natalie Wood (wonder that happened to her, eh?) and she's happy to be a Native American so John Wayne tries to kill her, but Jeff blocks him. Then the next time they all bump into each other, Nat's had a change of heart and wants to come home, so John Ethan Wayne doesn't kill her and brings her back - her family were all killed of course, but the next door neighbours are a decent substitute.
So yes, a decent film but it wasn't without its holes, I thought. Oh, and it took them ages to get to a boozer, and when they did, it was ESB thirds in a decent mash-up of Deal's Freed Man and Ship Inn.
So there we go.
I'm going to do two more Wine Western Wotsits nights over the next few weeks, and get the two Z wines drunk up.
Then, as May becomes June, we'll have a return to #SiFiPieFri for the summer season except it won't be on a Fri but a Wed (SiFiPieWed?), and it'll be a proper 'cost of living crisis' Poundshop special as I look to save even more money so look out for cheap craft cans and pies! Oh, and Space Raiders - can't believe I never thought of this snack first time round. Nothing very Sci-fi about Pom Bears or Scampi fries was there?
Oh, and Wix are being bastards and reckoning my photo storage allowance is running out and I'll need to pay to upgrade like I did over on my BRAPA account, but no way I'm doing this here so I might just end up deleting some less important photos off my very early blogs.
Join me for Week 49 in a fortnight - we'll be watching 'No Country for Old Men' which is apparently hollow and self defeating in a post-Peckinpah kinda way, so that's something to look forward to! We'll be drinking a South African wine from errm California, and the pizza is TBC cos my freezer needs a good defrost first!
See you then, Si