Mark Kermode live as a birthday surprise

Hey peeps, I hope you are all doing well.

I am going to rewind to last week- I had a very busy week at work including a very important meeting on Friday morning (also my birthday, but that was not in the forefront of my mind!)- I had arranged to go to The Waffle House after work with some friends (if only they did a loyalty card) and then Andy sent me a text at lunchtime to tell me I had to be home by 7. I checked that we weren’t going out for dinner, as I wanted to have a waffle, but he would not tell me any more. At the end of the day I found out that the meeting had gone well, so I was in the mood to celebrate and finally enjoy my birthday.

The waffle of course was delicious- I went for a banana flapjack waffle, which is basically a waffle covered in sliced banana, a sort of granola (meant to be crumbled flapjack but I don’t think it is quite like that) and toffee sauce. The waffles there by the way are not like american waffles, and they are not like Belgium gauffres either- the waffles themselves aren’t sweet or rich, which is why they work with savoury toppings too.

I got home just before 7, and we then started walking. At first I thought we might be going to the cinema (as we can walk up to our local one, although that is not the one that Andy is a member of as they don’t do those cards) but then we got to the Uni – it was only when we got to the entrance hall that I saw a sign saying “Mark Kermode- this way”.

We listen to the film podcast from radio 5 (Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode) every Friday- and we take old ones with us on long car journeys, so it was great to see him live.

We went into a very fancy auditorium (it is a new campus, not the same as when I was there!) and relaxed. The evening was raising money for various local projects, and so we heard someone talk about The Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted- I grew up there and it used to be a cinema, then it was left vacant for ages, and then a group of people got together and converted it into an amazing cinema. In St Albans there used to be a cinema, but again that was left empty (I think the cinema company moved to an out of town development) and the same group are now converting it into a new cinema called The Odyssey (opening in the Autumn).

Anyway, after they talked about it a bit, it was over to Mark. He was talking about his new book:

Which was all about how no press is bad press, and how you remember a bad review (his rant about Sex and the city 2 is rather legendary- and funnier because he didn’t want to talk about it because he knew that even if he ranted people would see it just to see why it was so bad).

I like films, but I am no film buff so there were films mentioned that I had not heard of, but that didn’t matter as he explained about them and was very engaging and humorous. Then he did a Q&A session with people from the audience which was great- he would go into great depth for each question and the evening flew by.

Then we queued up to have our book signed. I was a bit nervous- I get so easily star struck (Andy loves to tease me about when I met Minnie Mouse at DisneyWorld- yes I was an adult and yes I was star struck) but Andy said that he would get it signed. Anyway, the queue was long and slow moving, and he then mentioned that it would be a great present for my Dad, who also loves Mark Kermode, so I then went to buy another book to have it signed for my Dad. Good, but this meant that I would have to say something.

When we got to the front he was very friendly indeed- I can’t even remember what we said but he chatted for a bit (and Andy thanked him for coming to Hatfield as we don’t get much here)- it was amazing really that he had talked all evening, and then was spending time talking to every person in the queue too.

I have not read the book yet- I am half way through a Martin Beck story at the moment so will start it after that. But it was a great evening, a great surprise, a lovely souvenir and also fab that we could just walk home.

Do you get star struck easily? I loved reading Anna’s recap of the Marathon Talk running weekend but I think I would be so self conscious I am not sure I would end up saying anything!