Dreams, Exploitation Films and Tinplate Trains

Well, I tried taking a long sleep, but when I woke up, everything was as shitty as it was before.  The sleep itself was very enjoyable.  Sleeping usually is these days - as I've mentioned before, the medication I take for my blood pressure results in some very vivid dreams.  Indeed, it is getting to the stage that I'd rather stay in bed and enjoy the dreams than get up and face my real life.  Which is a dangerous situation to be in - I really need to break the cycle.  But the dreams are getting ever more seductive: I was the captain of a ship in a recent one, for instance, a far more interesting job than my actual one.  Speaking of which, I think I've finally come to a decision about the job, but I need a little more time to turn it all over in my head.  Anyway, I'm thinking of going to a model train fair this weekend in an attempt to lift my spirits - I'm still undecided, but I'll see how I feel on Saturday morning.  I'm finding a lot of solace in model railways these days - I'm sure that it's a variation of retreating into the past that many people find comforting as they grow older.  The things that made us happy in childhood seem ever more attractive: they take us back to simpler times, when life seemed far less complicated.  Which it was, of course.  As children we had no responsibilities - all of those were borne by our parents who, no doubt, spent their time nostalgically thinking back to their childhoods.

So, yes, I'm in full retreat these days: if it isn't model railways, it is the old films I remember from childhood.  Not to mention the films which intrigued me, but I wasn't allowed to watch: I've caught up with so many of those now!  Another category of old movie I'm fascinated by are the ones I used to read about in movie books I borrowed from the library when I first started getting interested in horror and fantasy films, but could never get to see.  These were the titles too obscure or just downright unsuitable, to turn up on TV.  Reading about them led me even further afield, from unobtainable foreign horror films to slasher flicks to smut and every form of exploitation known to man.  Now, slowly but surely, I'm tracking them all down as I regress back to my misspent youth.  And you know something?  When I retreat back into this world of childhood passions, I'm happy.  It's got to the stage now that looking longingly at pictures of lovingly restored Hornby Dublo locomotives has supplanted pornography as my top online guilty pleasure.  Which is odd, as most of the restored Dublo you see is three-rail, while I'm most definitely a Triang two-rail man, (most first encounter with model railways was an older brother's Triang train set).  But hey, they are exquisitely beautiful.  Clearly, I'm going to have to make every effort to get to that model train fair...