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Life Spent some of this afternoon at Liverpool University listening to John, my old film philosophy tutor give a talk about (and I think I understood this) the extent to which Ingmar Bergman viewed religion as having about as much use as a rabbit's foot in terms of how praying can actually help your situation in life. Somehow managed to get into a lively 'discussion' with some bloke about whether religious people can debate philosophy dispassionately. I say it was a debate -- I was basically being lectured at, but my few interjections, which basically contradicted what he was saying, seemed to rattle him a bit so I think I won the argument (in my own head anyway). The fact that I understood any of this anyway seems like a victory to me.

Afterwards, birthday dinner with my friend Chris at the Everyman Bistro -- I discovered the vagaries of their Nut Roast with Red Pepper and Cheddar Cheese which I think needed more salt. Then we ended up in the FAB Bar, which I discover, six months after it opened is a cult sci-fi fans mecca. It's on Hope Street underneath Road Kill near The Phil pub and through a doorway past a fairly nondescript sign is are stairs downwards, the walls covered in movie posters (mark gained for Serenity, marks lost for Little Britain). At the bottom is a basement bar and it didn't take long to see that this was nothing like anywhere else in the city, what with the screen showing Trap Door (remember that?) and a giant wall behind the bar featuring a range of comic and cartoon characters from the Clone Wars animated version of Yoda to a more than prominent Wonder Woman.

The bottom end of the bar to the floor level is a model TARDIS with lights behind its windows flashing in and out. To the side of this is a late-sixties era Cyberman breaking from an ice chamber, with a K9 looking slightly drunk. A raised stage area is modeled the transporter pad from Classic Trek and on another wall lights flashing over a sphere which I think is meant to be Zen from Blakes Seven. The rest of the walls are covered in film posters, and signed photographs of over a hundred genre actors from Sylv and Sophie through Harrison Ford to George Lazenby to the cast of Buffy. There's also a display cabinet filled with merchandise, the most exciting being a Metal Mickey piggy bank. I'd really like to see what this place is like at the weekend -- I can't imagine it being filled with the not-we.