Amused

Walking down the muddy tractor path between two fields that is my walk to work in the morning I could hear some faint rustling behind me on the right hand side. Usually I’m quite aware of the sounds around me when I’m walking through the countryside, having spent the majority of my childhood in Norfolk. Distracted by the noise, I kept turning to have a look, thinking it was someone walking behind me, until I heard the sound immediately above my head.

Quickly I looked up and there sitting on the tree branch that towered over my head was a little grey squirrel. I wasn’t really surprised to see it there; we used to see squirrels in the graveyard across from our old flat all the time. In fact I used to watch the neighbouring cats try to catch them for hours, normally when I should have been doing some work. The weirdest noise I’ve ever heard is a squirrel screaming at a cat.

After smiling to myself about seeing the squirrel I kept walking. As I kept going I could here the rustling in the trees following me down the path and as I got towards the main road, I turned to see where the squirrel was. Just as I made eye contact with it, it darted quickly behind a tree… then popped its head around a second later to look at me.

Seeing the squirrel try to hide from me was such a funny sight that I laughed at the thought that it would make a terrible spy: it was noisy, I had heard it all the way down the path; it was obvious and it didn’t blend into the trees at all. Turning away back towards the road, I saw the squirrel scamper off, almost embarrassed out of the corner of my eye and I chuckled the rest of my journey into work...

Watchmen (Movie)

I knew before I went to see the film that the reviews were divided for Watchmen, ranging from 20 to 100 on Metacritic, so I didn't really know what to expect. All I really knew about the comic was that it had a huge fan base and was considered the 'best comic-book of all time'. My expectations were raised only by the knowledge that it was directed by Zack Synder, who also directed The 300.

I loved The 300 and I should really have known that I would love Watchmen, it looked amazing and I was captivated by it the whole time. The problem is I'm not sure why... The characters themselves were unlikeable (apart from Nightowl II) and the conotations of the film were depressing and left me feeling genuinily disheartened. I wonder if that is why I liked it so much though: it bothered me, alot. The characters were extremely troubled, the structure was complicated and sometimes a bit boring, yet the plot and the implications of the comic were not dumbed down as much as I expected to suit a wider audience: I understood the humour, the cynicism and the brutality.

The negative reviews that I finally read this morning left me angry and confused... the references to the new Batman films annoyed me especially - if Watchmen had been made first, the comments would be redundant and the fact they are both based on comics that were produced at the same time indicates that they were both a product of the times, rather than a copy or imitation of each other. I found myself arguing with the reviewers in my head on behalf of the film and getting frustrated when things that confused people seemed obvious to me.

Even though I really enjoyed it, I think the thing that upsets me the most is that it makes too much sense to me - people who want to save the world and think they can alone must have personality disorders, there may never be peace as there would be nothing to write about in the news and maybe, like Jon, God left us for a galaxy less complicated...