Day 819

Aka Monday 29^th April 2019

I finished work early today, as I had worked through all the forms, so there was literally nothing for me to do. We should be getting more forms tomorrow afternoon, so it was agreed that I’d take Tuesday as leave and come back in on Wednesday, when the forms would be there and I could actually do some work…so I sent the rest of the afternoon in the garden...

...and in the evening I watched:

‘The Hustler’ and ‘The Color Of Money’ are both about "Fast Eddie" Felson, played by Paul Newman. In ‘The Hustler’ focuses on Eddie’s early days of pool hustling, as he tries to become a big-time hustler by playing, and beating, Minnesota Fats, a world class pool player and hustler. Capturing the highs and lows of hustling and how they affect Edie.

While in ‘The Color Of Money’ we see Edie twenty-five years after ‘The Hustler’ and it has been a long time since he has played pool, but one day he says a very talented player, Vincent, played by Tom Cruise, who he takes under his wing and tries to teach him the art of pool hustling. This in turn gets Edie back to playing pool and he ends up playing in a 9-ball tournament and playing against Vincent.

In ‘The Hustler’ we see the cockiness and idealism of youth, with Edie deciding to give up his shot at the big-time to make a stand, to make a point and get symbolic revenge. And in ‘The Color Of Money’ we see the aftermath of this decision, an Edie who has lost his hunger for playing pool and has become a kinda Bert. Bert was a professional gambler who stakes Fats his money and is kinda responsible for the death of Edie’s girlfriend in ‘The Hustler’. But through spending time with Vincent, we see him get his fire back and returning to his glory days and back to playing pool. 

We also get to see Vincent go through a slightly similar journey that Edie did in ‘The Hustler’, but with Edie there to guide and teach him, an influence that Edie didn’t listen top when he was young. At times it feels like the ‘The Color Of Money’ is a redemption story for Edie and at other times it feels like Edie may be playing a long con on Vincent. And in both film’s we get to see some excellent pool being played, which spurs one on to find out the nearest local pool hall to get a few games in 😊. 7/10 for both films.

…and I did the G2 Crossword:

…which got the week off to an okay start as I only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25) and I think that’s because I had more time to think about the clues, because I got to leave work early, as there wasn’t anything for me to do, which is a shame for a temp as we only get paid when working! So, I got some extra time in the sunshine, but back to crossword business and I should have gotten ‘radish’, but I went for ‘tomato’, and ‘on the doorstep’, but I did learn that a ‘lurcher’ is a ‘crossbred hunting dog’.