fast buck freddie's

Key West literally lives on the edge. It's also at a point of balance between its uniqueness and its need to thrive.

The imminent closure of Duval Street's large department store is an example. I believe it was founded back in the 1970s and has a slightly ramshackle history of location, expansion and recent demise.

Called Fast Buck Freddie's (after a Jefferson Starship track), it occupies a prime location but now looks quite sad as it sells off its fixture and fittings.

There's also a feisty set of descriptions of its history draped along the length of its windows. It exemplifies the difficult balance of progress in a once very free-thinking environment.

Other areas around Duval have already become more corporate and there's extensive manicuring in parts of the central area, where apparently up to 600 cruise ships now arrive per year. Tourism drives the Keys and Key West in particular. That business need also affects the balance between uniqueness and surviving without becoming over ticky-tacky.

As Grace Slick might have sung it:

Now it's hard to get serious when the joker 
Is laughing 
And by now the joker is wild 
It's hard to keep laughing when a rich man's 
Reflection 
Looks like a gun that's gonna smile 

What's going on,  I ask you 
What's going on,  can you see? 
What's going on, I ask you and 
Who's coming on, is it you or me? 

conch republic

They say a lot of places in one's memory can seem smaller if one returns, but I'm finding the opposite with Key West.

Take Duval Street, which runs from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico. It's always done that but somehow it seems longer and with more restaurants and shops than I remember. It's also changed a gear or two in some parts.

There was a bohemian edge to most of the properties and not so many well-know chains.

Now there's a prominent Hard Rock Cafe and even a Starbucks, which suggests a certain adjustment. I can remember some of the other places still present, which were sort of 'one-offs' but the extra harborside area seems to have grown beyond my recognition.

Step a few feet from the beaten track and there's still plenty of people wearing sandals instead of trainers, if you know what I mean.

I guess that's part of the fun of Key West. It's the area of Florida that seceded to the US, where others failed and it proudly wears the message on its Conch Republic flag.
There's the whole story about how it declared war on the USA, fought the Naval Base with stale Cuban breadsticks and then surrendered requesting $2 billion reparations. Of course, what they really wanted (and got) was that the tourist route remained open and not subject to a US Border blockade. And all of that happened in the last thirty or so years - in fact they've just celebrated the anniversary.

Today I've been out to the reefs, looking at the stripy fish and the enchanting coral. It's a long, long way from the mainland.

cafecito jolts

The cockerel has crowed enough times today. He's a protected species around here and takes care of the scorpions. At 4am its a reminder of day and later becomes part of the soundtrack.

A shorter sound burst was two F21 Raptors above us in very close formation at low altitude. We had the roof down and there was no mistaking their proximity before they broke and looped away across the sea.

And now it's the US Coastguard checking out the Gulf of Mexico. We'll be out there on a boat tomorrow but tonight we'll be drinking Cuban coffee.

the iguana made a much better job of hiding in the car park

I know it's nearly Wednesday (it is already in the UK) and I still haven't unpacked, though I do plan to tomorrow.

Today has been meandering through a few more beaches and then eventually re-linking with the US1 and heading south towards the Keys.

I'm pretty used to driving on the wrong side of the road in Europe and America, but must admit that the bright blue car I'm using seems to attract unusual behaviours from some other road users.

Aside from that aspect, everything continues to go well and there was that magic phrase as we checked into a hotel right on Mallory Square in Key West, when they said,"We've upgraded you."

"Thank you very much" because our suite now has a view across the square, to the Gulf and the Atlantic, to the spot where the sun sets and across to where all the jugglers, fire eaters and musicians perform.

It made sense to have supper in the room this evening, sitting on the balcony and watching the sun set.

I'm liking this short break in Florida.

the plugs and wires are still packed

I'm travelling relatively light at the moment, although there's still a few clothes that seem overpacked. To be truthful, I'm living out of a case again, rather than unpacking although that will probably change in the next day or so.

It means I'm mostly reliant on iPhone uploads for blogging too, until I can sort out the relevant connectors to make things work.

The view from the room and a quick snap on the walk to the beach are just about all I can manage until I get organised.

Unsurprisingly, if it were work, I'd probably have it more under control like the last two weeks when I stayed away for work. In those circumstances the electronics and connections are part of the main survival kit and I routinely plug everything in as soon as I get to a hotel room.

So my current chaos is more a feature of this being a break and that therefore the techno stuff can jolly well wait until after I've located the sun cream.

adjusting to a different time

We seem to be well positioned on the main drag. We can fall out onto the sidewalk straight into a bustle of restaurants all along the Ocean Drive.

It's quite a while since I was in this part of Miami and it seems to have raised its game from the sometimes razor edges between the good areas and the others.

It was still difficult to find a parking space and I had visions of the freshly hired Mustang being towed to a corral somewhere within the first few hours in town.

Fortunately, the sheriff put in a good word and everything is fine.

And I've worked out that this is a town for the night owls. I don't think Sunday really stopped until about 4am on Monday.

red white and blue with an occasional white star

There's a sort of time warp occurring at the moment. Scratchy monochrome television adverts. Re-instatements of old corporate logos. Bunting. Today's newspaper arriving with an old picture of the Queen on the front.

Yesterday I snapped a B-17 flying overhead. I know, I might have expected a Lancaster, but it was definitely an American plane, sporting a big star on the side.

I'm guessing it's preparing for a fly-by somewhere, although the artists' impressions for the Flotilla parade and the Mall fly-past only seem to show British planes.

Around here we're fairly unadorned. The television version of Britain is crammed with street parties and central London areas like the Mall, the bridges and Covent Garden are very flag enriched.

But later on, I'll be on another type of plane, and so will have to see London's events unfold from afar.

prometheus looks for a beginning

I couldn't hear anyone screaming but maybe that's because we were in space.

Since Alien, there's been a couple of other sci-fi movies that add to my enjoyment of the genre. One was The Fifth Element with its quirkiness (obv.) and another I'll quietly admit was Riddick.

They both added flashes of orange, some humour and massive landscapes to their stories, so I wondered what Ridley Scott would do with his Alien prequel.

There's a fair amount of the Alien styling in this one, conveyed on a sweeping scale. A corporation sponsored science cruiser in deep space with a numerous and slightly randomly assembled crew which hints at early reel expendability.

Then there's a far planet and a deserted cave system. Traces in the torchlight of organic glop.

Sound familiar?

I guess that's part of the formula - although this one adds references to Erich von Däniken, Darwinism, some edges of religion and the first discovery of fire. Some good and potentially conspiratorial ideas are floated but in the second half the action takes over.

We also get an android channeling Peter O'Toole as one of the most characterful performances and a spaceship that looks quite like 2001's Discovery One on the inside.

It's a 3D movie, and uses a big screen format immersively without overdoing the tinkerbell effects. That's not to say there aren't some suspenseful and splattery moments and a pretty cool soundstage that was good enough to convince me that I was getting sprayed with liquids and pelted with rocks. I actually thought this would be good to see on those D-Box wobble seats. I wasn't quite so sure about the space buggies they drive around in, which looked a bit hastily assembled.

I won't include a spoiler here, I guess it's one of those films that plenty will see at the cinema. It's too early to talk about 'that' scene let alone 'that other one'. In any case, Ridley Scott's already got two other landmark movies with Bladerunner and Alien.

This one hasn't given me quite the wow of the others, partly because of how much it tips its all-round gorilla glass space helmet to the earlier works. I'd rather have seen it develop some of its specific ideas and spin away from the Hollywood meets Weyland-Yutani financial need to link all the franchises together.

I still enjoyed it but it's got me thinking about other movies I now want to view again.

Here's the Ridley Scott prequel to the prequel, which isn't in the movie - and a link to the stylishly designed Weyland Industries (est. 2023), which also includes the David 8 brochure and video.

online booking is temporarily suspended

One of my favourite scary space movies is Alien. I can still enjoy watching it in the dark and being prepared to jump out of my skin at the right moments.

And that scene where they see the unexplained 'space jockey' has to be one of the longest 'elapsed time to prequel' moments ever.

So when I got to see the trailer for Prometheus at the cinema a few weeks ago I was mightily intrigued to know what Ridley Scott would do with this story set earlier than Alien but with more high tech effects.

The trailer I saw was the American version (below), which cranks up the action faster than the English one (above), which starts in what appears to be the Scottish highlands.

What I liked was that there are still proper references to the earlier filmic style, but with an almost casual use of modern effects. It also has a stunning soundtrack with deep bass in deep space to help the skin propulsion and spiky frequency oscillators to add creep.

But don't you just wonder about the people who name the space craft? Prometheus may steal the fire but also gets his liver plucked out by an eagle every day. Quite a portent, but then I guess it's another ship in Scott's Joseph Conrad fleet along with Nostromo and Sulaco? I'm guessing at Heart of Darkness somewhere in all of this?

I seriously contemplated the Curzon 00:01 showing this morning, but I guess I'll have to wait in line instead. "Online Booking is temporarily suspended".

impactful* ups and downs of an enquiry

I've been watching some of the Leveson enquiry today, with Jeremy Hunt in the hot seat.

I can't help thinking that there's an extended code used on some of the interactions being discussed, a bit like the way 'Yes, Minister' works.

Also trying to spot the bits where there's been some preparations of responses (i.e. "I'm glad you asked that question etc." vs the pieces where its genuine question and answer.

Also trying to work out which extracts refer 'upwards' vs 'downwards'. Along the lines of whether to push things towards junior special advisor Mr Smith or ever closer towards Prime Minister Cameron.

I can't help thinking that they fired Vince Cable who was against the merger and then Cameron appointed a declared pro-merger politician to run the independent quasi-judicial process.

There was an dryly humourous part about Rebekah Brooks resigning because of partisan interest during the review of News International and Hunt without noticing the irony saying 'its about time.'

And some impactful* phrases:

• Looks on the surface like a strong UIL
• No idea that Mr Smith was getting so many messages from Mr Michel
• I didn't know about these discussions between Mr Smith and Mr Michel
• Almost game over for the opposition
• Satisfy media plurality concerns
• JH believes we are in a good place tonight
• JH does not mean Jeremy Hunt
• We just need space (not a JH statement)
• No legal wriggle room
• Lets see what the morning coverage brings
• What we see here {...in these dozens of messages...} does not reflect your opinion?
• Keen to get to the same outcome
• I can't remember

* I know, impactful isn't a real word

cycling towards targets

Maybe a little unstructured cycling this afternoon, in this hot sunshine.

I see I'm close to a couple of my targets, which I'd originally set for the whole year. I deliberately made them achievable, but I've slightly surprised myself that there's still more than 200 days to go on each.

I'm pretty sure I can hit the mileage one this afternoon, but the calories will take a little longer, even if I head out towards a couple of the little hills around here.

Update: I did 17.x miles which has cleared the mileage target, but the Calories will have to wait.

ticky tacky time

It's a sort of guilty pleasure to be viewing my way through early season Weeds on Netflix catchup.

To the extent that if I've had it on the main telly there have been occasional comments along the lines - "Is this a real show; are they allowed to say that kind of thing on American television?"

The section I've been watching is set in 2006, but I'm only on the early seasons which are set somewhere a bit like my own one-time American home in a gated community. All little boxes made of ticky-tacky plus in Weeds a mom who is also the local cannabis dealer.

It's got a single-camera look to production, some whip smart dialogue and a good smattering of brilliant one liners. It seems wrong on oh so many levels, but usually with a sparkle in the eyes.

These whole series time-shifts fix the dilemma of missing the first few episodes of a series and having to either join part way through or wait for the DVD.

I'm not so fussed about the ownership of these things, but the access to the back catalogue is very useful and makes this type of 'watch all the episodes' project very convenient.

Whether it's addictive is a whole other discussion.