Enough of that, though; this was a year or so ago and isn’t relevant. This is just the prologue, the There and Back Again to the main article’s Fellowship of the Ring. There’s a period after my first visit where the place closed down and the premises were taken over by squatters but, like those bits in Rings where five pages are devoted to an Elvish poem or some shit, it’s safe to skip over this period without worrying about missing anything.

So anyway, The Bull re-opened a few months ago without the squatters and the Stepford Staff and became a much more attractive proposition. Spread out over two floors with some open fires and sofas the place doesn’t ever get too claustrophobic or uncomfortably crowded (admittedly that’s coming from someone who’s ideal pub has a patronage of just one, i.e., himself). It’s airy yet atmospheric though if you get sat by the fire then you will be in danger of combusting as it gets pretty enthusiastic some times.

Every meal I’ve had so far has been a success; rib-eyed steak with beer-glazed onions and chips; stuffed chicken breast with mash; pulled pork with jalapeños and pineapple. Starters tend to be interesting, with raw tuna tacos, smoked lamb’s tongues and breaded sweetbreads on the menu; it takes a brave pub to serve up the thymus gland but The Bull managed to pull it off. There’s also starters for the normals; ribs and wings and whatnot.

Special mention must go to a bourbon-glazed fillet steak, perfectly cooked and accompanied by a wedge of blue cheese bread and butter pudding, which I didn’t realise was a thing that could even exist. Basically a plate of pure umami, and as such it nearly brought me to tears.

Normally I wouldn’t mention the beer, because, you know, pubs, they serve beer generally and it’s an unremarkable thing to comment on. There’ll be a couple of ales by Fullers or Shepherd Neame and the rest will be all, I don’t know, Fosters and Stella Artois or something else that normally gets bought by the crate in Sainsbury’s to be consumed in front of the TV while the sport is on.

The Bull is different; in addition to a wide range of beers from Bavarian trappist monks and Brooklyn breweries, The Bull brews their own under the name of The London Brewing Company. My standard choice is their Best Bitter, but I’ve since enjoyed their Galena Red, their dark Winter Ale and a Christmas ale brewed with mince pies and brandy and officially named ‘π-eyed’, bringing some much-needed mathematical constancy to the micro-brewing world. There’s also a lighter ale named ‘Golden Mean’, which makes me think someone there has at least a polytechnic education behind them.

I can’t explain what they’re like in more detail as any conversation about the hoppiness of a beer, or lack thereof, makes me fall asleep faster than the drink itself. Sorry about that. They’re all pretty good though.

So, I hadn’t planned to see the Spielberg-directed The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn but after a cold stomp across the Heath it seemed like a good way to calm myself down after becoming enraged at the entire grasping, over-priviledged population of Hampstead getting in my face, and it was going to be that or a documentary on Joyce Vincent which probably wasn’t going to help my mood.

Tintin turned out to be excellent. I can’t tell you how well it stands as an adaptation of the comics — it’s possible that Tintinologists will watch the whole thing spluttering with rage at clothing inaccuracies and not enough racism — but as a film in its own right it had pretty much everything I’d hoped for. With its c1940s setting it’s all machine guns, motorbikes and globe-trotting for clues; Secret of the Unicorn ends up feeling more like a good Indiana Jones film than most Indiana Jones films. The action is thrilling and a Steven Moffat-drafted script subsequently polished by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish sparkles.

Everything looks and sounds great. The almost-photorealistic nature of the animation, usually used to generate nightmarish images of Tom Hanks, is pretty good here because the characters tend to have facial hair and long noses and whatnot and look like the exaggerated cartoon caricatures that they are. The only one letting the side down is Tintin himself; by lacking any distinguishing features besides his quiff he’s left with a blank, doughy face and looks like he’d be happier leaning against a shack, playing a banjo. It doesn’t spoil the film, but it takes some getting used to.

No, the actual Nintendo e-reader was an official product from Nintendo, a device that plugged into your GBA and allowed you to swipe cards with barcodes on and load various games. The device was a bulky thing, almost as big as the GBA itself and bigger entirely than the Game Boy Advance SP model that came later. Using it was about as exciting as that sounds; someone at Nintendo obviously saw how much fun it was to swipe your own items at the supermarket checkout and thought “We need to get in on that action”. Presumably the same department that came up with, say, the Wii Vitality Sensor rather than the excellent GameCube bongos. I don’t think the e-reader was ever officially released in Europe but then I’m someone who ended up getting a Japanese SwanCrystal so regional difficulties don’t seem to bother me.

Anyway, these cards. They came in foil packets containing up to five cards per game, so immediately they triggered my forgiving nostalgia gland because it was a bit like buying Panini stickers from the newsagent, back when ‘panini’ was a sticker manufacturer and not an Italian bread product. On the downside, they didn’t come with a stick of low-quality chewing gum, nor was there the frisson of excitement that came from not knowing what was in the packet. At no point was anybody buying these things going to end up with another Pokémon Battle-e card instead of the highly-coveted Mario VS. Donkey Kong.

The scanning process was slow, tedious and prone to error, taking all of the worst aspects of the self-checkout process and dropping all of the best. A typical NES game came on five cards, each of which had to be swiped twice, and you had to do it slowly, like swiping a debit card that has a visible crack on it when you know you’re not getting a replacement for at least two weeks and if you fuck this up then your guest is going to have to pay and then no WAY is she spending the night with you, you cheap fuck. The swiping process could take longer than expected, particularly as some cards would have read errors and you’d have to have a few goes.

Fortunately for Nintendo, this tickled my nostalgia gland again because I’m from an era when games would take up to 10 minutes to load from a tape and could fail at any point. When swipe nine of 10 failed, I think I enjoyed that feeling of despair more than playing the game itself.

2009′s Sherlock Holmes was a pleasant surprise considering it was from Guy Ritchie, who’s recent output had been dire to middling. This exaggerated, pugalistic take on the character felt refreshing and the camaraderie between Downey Jr.’s Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson was enjoyable and sparky. Ultimately the film didn’t have much in common with the source text but it was forgivable for being an enjoyable action romp with an above-average script and performances.

Game of Shadows is largely more of the same, but if there’s anything missing, it’s the brains. Holmes doesn’t seem to do much in the way of actual detecting or deducing, or at least not any that’s above and beyond what Watson manages. The disguises Holmes uses are weak to the point of absurdity and it’s hard to believe anyone, least of all Moriarty, would have been fooled by them.

With Moriarty in the mix there was an opportunity for a story of fiendish complexity but instead Holmes veers too far towards being a drunken, unshaven shadow of what the character ought to be. There are few, if any, piercing moments of genius, no “ah-HA!” moments where the audience, having been several steps behind for the whole time, finally catch up.

So, it’s not much of a Sherlock Holmes film, which is a shame. This isn’t to say it’s not a good film in its own right. The dynamic between Holmes and Watson is firmly in place, and the extra tension between Holmes and Moriarty, plus the presence of a rogue sniper throughout the film makes for an agreeably tense environment. As with the previous film, both script and cast are above and beyond what you might expect from a blockbuster action film.

As for the action, it’s hard to shake the sense that Guy Ritchie is behind the camera with a dial or lever or something, slowing down the action to a glacial pace and furiously masturbating as a bullet slices through a tree and you see EVERY GODDAMNED SPLINTER in glorious high-definition. In fairness to these moments of obvious onanism, it’s a pretty good effect and helps lend the film’s action an Inception-level of class despite feeling a little gratuitious. Aside from that, action sequences are solid and enjoyable.

Overall then, Game of Shadows is pretty good. It may not be as smart as it could have been but with some great acting face-offs, a witty script and action sequences not hampered by having to appeal to a tragic 3D market, there’s plenty here to enjoy.

Bunraku is an interesting one. I stumbled upon it via The Art of the Title, featured there thanks to its beautiful opening credits that explain the film’s premise via the Japanese puppetry art of the same name. Going in entirely on that, I wasn’t disappointed. Though the puppetry doesn’t last beyond the introduction, the visual style of the film alone kept me transfixed.

Keeping my attention with looks alone isn’t usually a trick that works on me; other films that sold themselves largely on their looks lately include 300, The Spirit and Sucker Punch and all turned out to have no substance underneath the glaze. It seems rare to find a film that’s both visually heavily stylised and also any good.

Bunraku isn’t like those others, all awkwardly-placed actors jiving before a green screen like they mean it. With its real sets, theatrical tricks and kinetic style, Bunraku has a physicality and weight that the others lack; watching the film is more like watching a play, without the tedium of going to an actual theatre.

But that isn’t to say the film is stagey; Bunraku is fast and frenetic, its kung-fu fight scenes playing out more like dances than fights. Mixed in with this mixture of stage and cinema is a strong videogame tone, as this homage to ’80s side-scrollers shows. Anyone who played and enjoyed the recent game Bastion should be comfortable with this film as the dystopian, Western feel to that is very similar to the world set up in Bunraku.

The range of influences could be messy, but it all hangs together on top of some decent noir-ish performances (and nice to see Josh Hartnett finally becoming credible in this sort of role after a career spent being too young for them), a slightly tongue-in-cheek script and a classy soundtrack. Perhaps the story is a little hackneyed, and the elaborate set-up of a world in which guns are banned and the city divided into oppressive factions is never fully realised, but if you can get over that and enjoy the ride, you’ll hopefully find something unique.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVabHVw4dMc

So, I’ve been giving Pan Am the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not sure how long I can keep going for because fundamentally the show is just terrible, and if I’m being honest with myself the only reason I’m still watching is because I fancy the ginger one.

Purportedly a series about a gaggle of stewardesses working during the ’60s for contemporary hipster icon Pan Am, what we probably wanted was a Mad Men-style mixture of panache and grit coupled with a deeper social commentary. What we get is a weirdly saccharine, smokeless view of that time. What social commentary there is is insultingly asinine at times, delivered with a lumpen “Racism is WRONG. Sexism is WRONG.” tone, and nobody’s character ever seems to develop much when exposed to any of this.

The four female leads tick all the important demographic boxes: brunette, blonde, ginger and Christina Ricci. Ricci is very distracting because she’s CHRISTINA RICCI and every time she’s on screen I think “Hey, what the hell? What’s Christina Ricci doing there?”, as, I imagine, does she.

The female characters range from weak and ditzy to hot-tempered and ditzy, and even Ricci’s character — supposedly the feisty, political one — seems to appear only to moon hopelessly over male politicians. There are male characters as well, but they’re as empty and bland as the women. I don’t remember anybody’s name.

Stories are routinely absurd. My favourite so far has been one of the stewardesses insisting they take an illegal immigrant back to the US while at the same time leaving the corpse of a US citizen on the runway to make the space for her (it works out ok; mysteriously nobody is fired or jailed and one call to a friend results in a green card for the immigrant, no questions asked), but the long-running side story with a stewardess improbably doubling as a CIA operative, seducing diplomats and obtaining wine glasses from KGB agents for the fingerprints comes a close second.

This, then, is what you get from Pan Am: a bright and cheery bit of froth that, if you’re not in the mood for anything with any depth or intelligence, might fill a gap in your schedule but isn’t likely to change your world.

Playing late at night is tricky because a day spent in front of a computer followed by an evening spent in front of a different computer means that by 10pm my eyes have dried up and I feel like I’ve just been through a few sessions of the Ludovico technique. So, any game that has a night time vibe to it ends up languishing on my shelves steadily depreciating in value and the few times I do play it I always have to start from the beginning as I’ve forgotten what all the buttons do.

Any game that’s trying to scare me needs to be played at night with headphones, otherwise it isn’t going to work. It’s the same with films; I tried watching Spanish zombie horror [REC] once; watched half of it at night and nearly had palpitations, then watched the second half in broad daylight and ended up doing a bit of laundry while it was on. If something wants to scare me, I generally have to help it along a bit with an appropriate mise-en-scène.

Just as a horror film isn’t scary by day, a horror game lacks something if you’re trying to play it with sunlight in. So, I never completed Resident Evil 4; didn’t even make it past the opening village. Every few weeks when I found myself able to play at night without needing eyedrops, I’d stealthily head into the village, reach the point at which my presence was discovered and then I’d run around like a frightened, screaming child shooting uselessly at the chests instead of the heads until I ran out of ammunition and the guy with a bag over his head and a chainsaw found me. Every. Single. Time.

I’ve heard that there’s an entire game to play if you can get past that point, but I wouldn’t know about it. Similarly, the entire Ravenholm chapter of Half-Life 2 nearly prevented me from ever completing the game. Ravenholm is by far the most oppressive part of any game I’ve ever played, and the psychological pressure of it all was almost too much. Zombies, man. They creep me out.

It’s not all about the shlock horror though. Rez took me ages to finish because it felt like a game you should only play after you’d been out clubbing or if you had a girlfriend you could plug the second controller into, and, well, as I said…long time to finish that one.

Likewise the recent follow-up, Child of Eden. Clearly a chill-out game, all lovely flowery levels with translucent neon space whales and a Genki Rockets’ soundtrack, I bought it about six months ago and have so far managed to half-heartedly play two levels.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that the game just isn’t very good, but it’s hard to tell. If you only watched five minutes a week of a Seth Rogen film, you might not be able to accurately gauge the quality of that either.

I once tried an IHT subscription, one of these “we’ll give you our paper for free for six weeks, please love us in return” deals. For several weeks, the paper was delivered to my door every day before dawn just in time for the servants to iron it. I’d usually have enough time in the morning to read about half of it, and I’d try and read the rest in the evening.

Then I started falling behind. All it took was missing a few hours and the papers started mounting up. Before long I was throwing away stacks of papers that had never even been opened. This generous free trial only proved to me one thing: that, much like most people these days, I was not the sort of person who read a daily newspaper cover to cover.

The IHT is my newspaper of choice and yet on average, I buy it only a couple of times a month.

Reading an entire newspaper can be a surprisingly time-consuming affair, and there’s a lot out there competing for our time now. On an iPad alone, I could be reading the paper or I could be reading something from Instapaper, or I could be playing Angry Birds, or watching a film, or checking Facebook or Twitter or whatever the fuck Google’s social network of the month is called. Certainly this paints a picture of us all as ADHD-affected children dosed up on blue Smarties and kittens but you know what? That’s basically what we are now so we’re just going to have to work with that.

Nobody denies that newspaper sales are in terminal decline, but an iPad edition of your daily newspaper is just targeting that same declining market. There’s a moderate amount of added convenience in having the edition downloaded — but let’s be realistic, people aren’t giving up newspapers because of distribution issues — and the visible amount of waste is reduced to nothing, but only offering a monthly subscription means that you’re also only targeting the hardcore news junkies and perhaps some people on long, regular train journeys.

So I expect the same will happen for most people as happened to me with my IHT subscription; once people start falling behind, they’ll start feeling guilty about spending money on something that they’re not using, even if it’s only £10 a month.

And then they’ll cancel; just as they cancel gym memberships when they realise they haven’t been for weeks, and as they cancel DVD rental subscriptions when the LoveFilm envelopes have been sat on their TV unopened for a month.

I used to use the IHT iPad app while it was all free, but I’m not going to spend £10 a month on a paper I only read once or twice during that period. If they had provided a way of buying a single issue, I’d have bought one on the spot. As it was, I read something else.

The food is excellent, large portions and great value for money. Three fat venison sausages on a hefty portion of mashed potato went down well with a pint of Sharp’s Doom Bar, and scallops with black pudding were SCALLOPS WITH BLACK PUDDING WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT. Grilled chicken supreme, also on mashed potato which I think might be a bit of a theme for the place as the scallop/black pudding combos were also perched atop small discs of the stuff, came with a perfect crispy skin, green beans and a mushroom sauce. None of this is particularly sexy food to write about apart from maybe SCALLOPS but that’s fine; it’s solid and good quality with a home-cooked feel to it despite the slightly pretentious tendency to stack the ingredients in a sort of Devil’s Tower fashion.

The only aspect that might be a problem for people is the atmosphere; both times I’ve been the place has been a ghost town, and I’ve started to wonder how they stay afloat when their only customers appear to be me and a pair of elderly women who moaned about how they didn’t receive any milk with their black coffees.

Not that the emptiness is a problem for me! Quite the opposite; for me it’s a selling point, but I’m not so self-absorbed that I don’t recognise that other people might prefer to have a little buzz in the room, a bit of bustle, a soupçon of vibe. Perhaps things are better on weekends, which is when I understand most normals actually go out and thus I stay in. I did walk past there one Sunday lunchtime and didn’t go in because it was so full, which I guess is a good sign if you don’t find people to be utterly disgusting and beyond redemption.

There’s a piano there, so I assume live music is something that happens, but they don’t seem to have a website so I can’t check that. Some other reviews on the web suggest that they have live jazz on Wednesday nights. People generally like live jazz, right? So go along on a Wednesday night to see if they have live jazz and you can enjoy some live jazz if live jazz is a thing that you enjoy.

Seriously, if you own a restaurant, have a website. A real one made by genuine web developers, not one that’s a juddering Flash movie that just fronts a few links to some PDFs and some images of your address that can’t be selected and pasted into a Map application. It’s not that difficult.