h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just had a lovely weekend. On Friday night I had a long hard workout at the gym. As I said, I’m racing three times in August (including one race called the Conkwell Killer!) so I need to get some exercise otherwise I might die.

On Saturday my girlfriend and I had a really lazy day. We got up late and wandered into town, did a little shopping and then went for tea and cake in a nice little place called the Metropolitan Café. Their ginger and walnut cake was so good that we had to ask for the recipe when we left. Unfortunately they didn’t have it (apparently a dear old lady bakes all their cakes for them to closely guarded recipes) so we’re going to have to do some experimentation.

In the evening we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was great fun. Johnny Depp was wonderful as Willy Wonka, just exactly the right mixture of zany and sinister. The film remained largely true to the book (as far as I can remember, it must have been more than fifteen years ago when I last read it) and (dare I say it) the few differences made for a better story anyway. It doesn’t really spoil anything to say that they’ve given Willy a father, an overbearing dentist played by Christopher Lee, which adds a lot of depth to the character. There were a few other additions, such as the references to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Psycho which made me laugh. But for me the best part of the film was the Oompa Lopas, all of whom were brilliantly played by a guy called Deep Roy. Not only does he have an incredibly cool name (I’m thinking of calling my first son Deep), but apparently he was also in Return of the Jedi (though I imagine he was wearing his own body weight in makeup) and a number of other films requiring midgets.

I went for a long run on Sunday morning and then watched the Hungarian Grand Prix with my girlfriend. It was unfortunately quite a dull race, the Hungaroring is a poor track for overtaking and is often likened to a go-kart track for this reason. Kimi Räikkönen won the race in the end which I suppose is good for the championship because it keeps him (just) within reach of Fernando Alonso. But because Alonso was in an accident and broke his front wing on the opening lap, we still didn’t get a chance to see the McLaren and the Renault racing each other properly.

I haven’t really been up to much this week. I think we might go to Ceroc tomorrow; we haven’t been for a couple of weeks now, what with the trip to Geneva and so on and I kind of miss it. Other than that I have no real plans, but I think my parents are coming to Bath to spend the weekend. It’s been a while since I last saw them and it’s been an age since they’ve been here, so I’m quite looking forward to it.