HOME/DiY: Blue Room Storage, Pt II

More plaster in the right corner came away.

Today I started on repairing the area ‘twixt walls and ceiling, where formerly there was coving. But before I could start on that I had to clean the areas where I would be applying the plaster.

These voids are massive!

I’m doing so yet more plaster crumbled away from the brickwork. In the picture above I’m talking about the left half of the image. What had initially been a single course of exposed bricks – or one and a half, to be precise (as on the right) – suddenly became to courses.

Some of the new post-cleanup debris.

Having already swept and hoovered yesterday, this new crumblage requires another tidy up.

Endless clearing up!
Working in very cramped conditions.

I’m working in a very tiny space, in a small room, that’s filled with stuff. Not ideal. Still, you gots to do what you gots to do!

This morning we were at B&Q, in Wisbech, getting stuff for this job. So back home, I mixed me up a bucket o’ mud, and slathered it on. ‘Twas far from easy. Esp’ where the gaps were very large. But I built up lots of thick goopy layers, and gradually got there.

It ain’t pretty!

And presto! The bulk of the plastering is now done. Tomorrow I’ll go over it all, and try to neaten it up. The main thing is that all the various planes now meet. The next step is to try and make them flat and 90°, etc.

LATER ON…

Oh my Lourde…

After an evening delivering for Amazon, I finally got home, and this was how my work was looking… the floor’s a right mess.

Oh my Gourd…

The walls are a right mess…

Oh my, oh my…

And my ‘work’ is itself, a mess! But it is at least still up. And, although I didn’t test it, for solidity, I reckon tomorrow I’ll be able to do some sanding and a second coat, to beaten things up a bit. Or a lot, even?

FiLM REViEW: Little Shop of Horrors, 1986

I’m not a big fan of musicals. But this one is bonkers. Based on a film made by Roger Corman, which in turn was made into a musical, and directed by Muppeteer Frank Oz, it’s truly gonzo.

Audrey II is an amazing piece of work (requiring a team of twenty-two puppeteers!), voiced wonderfully by head honcho of The Four Tops, Levi Stubbs.

Levi Stubbs, bottom left.
Audrey II menaces his namesake, Audrey.

And not only is Audrey II a mighty (pre-CGI) achievement, so too is the entire Skid Row set, which was constructed as an indoor studio environment, at Pinewood Studios, in England.

There are some terrific cameos. My favourites being Steve Martin’s sadistic rockabilly biker dentist, Orin Scrivello (DDS!), addicted to laughing gas, and his Planes Trains & Automobiles co-star, John Candy, as manic DJ ‘Weird’ Wink Wilkinson.

Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, DDS.

The movie was produced by music mogul David Geffen, subject of Joni Mitchell’s terrific song Free Man Paris.

A bonkers thing, and one of the few musicals I can bear – though enduring the ‘numbers’ is an issue – to watch all the way through.

FiLM REViEW: Planes, Trains & Automobiles, 1987

Of course I’ve seen this movie before. It’s one of those they put on every Xmas. But you can really see why. It’s a lovely film. Schmaltzy? Hell, yes!

The moment the odd couple first meet.

Steve Martin is city slicker ad exec Neal Page, who winds up sharing an adventurous road trip with larger than life curtain-ring salesman Del Griffith, played by John Candy. Director John Hughes is very good at this sort of thing. And Martin and Candy are perfect in their roles.

Travelling by bus…

Themes that it touches upon are friendship, family, and coping with adversity. What relation it has to any form of reality, who knows? But it’s a pitch-perfect Holiday Season movie, a Hollywood dream-machine confection par excellence.

Funny, moving, it’s a real pleasure to watch.