"FUCKIN' DANTE... POETRY-WRITING FAGGOT! PIECE OF SHIT, MOTHERFUCKER!" Yesterday we went up to the Prince Charles and saw The Count of Monte Cristo. I know, I know... we should have known better. Jess wanted to see something 'fun' and this was the best of a bad bunch. I thought the whole thing looked terrible from the trailer but the film is much much worse - I knew we were in trouble when I saw all the single girlies going into the cinema, the posters didn't carry the necessary 'chick-flick' warnings.... they did however say "A Kevin Reynolds Film" and "From the maker of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" Fuck. But then again it did have Guy Pearce in who was great in LA Confidential and Memento (I should have been thinking The Time Machine and Neighbours) and Luis Guzman from Traffic, Out of Sight, Carlito's Way etc... Unfortunately he is delegated to the sidekick role that Nick Cravat had to Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate. The leading man, James Caviezel, was no Burt Lancaster though. Its too easy a target to go into detail on but suffice to say it was a big pile of crap. The most interesting thing was seeing Guy Pearce snivel and sneer all the way through the movie. This is interesting because as soon as he sneers he becomes a dead ringer for Kenneth Williams. I enjoyed the second half of the movie more because I just pretended I was watching 'Carry On Fencing' but was disappointed that no one resembled Sid James and commented on the Countess' assets. Frank came over last night and we watched Unbreakable after a couple of hours of 'Grand Theft Auto III' - I have nothing to say in that game's defence - its an abomination but its also fucking funny. Ok - Mailart - I have a pretty big list of people now but would still like more. I've been talking to Danny today and I think we are ready to get this kicked off tomorrow. I'll update the page accordingly - I'm sure the whole thing will take several months to complete but we will be tracking the book and its contents and putting up updates along the way. As well as a digital version up online we will be trying to make physical copies of the book available to everyone who takes part. Should be good fun. I just got the best email I�ve had for a while. Those that have known me long enough will know I used to frequent the London poetry circuit a few years ago... well every now and again the silly shit I used to write comes back to haunt me - check this out: "Dear Mike, I would like to inform you of your nomination as Poet of the Year for 2002, and to personally invite you to read your poetry at the single largest gathering of poets in history, where you will be formally inducted as an International Poet of Merit and Honored Member of our Society for 2002. Your induction will take place Friday evening, August 23rd, in the United States Capital, Washington, D.C., during the International Society of Poets Summer 2002 Convention and Symposium. You will also be honored with two separate and very special awards for your poetic achievement at special ceremonies throughout the weekend..." It goes on and on... all I have to do is cough up the entry fee and make my way to Washington... ha! "The single largest gathering of poets in history" Sounds fucking scary. So I'm working up at the cinema for the first time this evening - should be fun. Mike is blogging to: the sound of Jess beating up weird monsters on Final Fantasy X

"SCOOBY DOO - WHERE ARE YOU?" I now have a one evening a week cinema job up at the Clapham Picture House. Lousy money in exchange for as many movies as I can eat - seems fair enough to me. The manager seems very cool and there's the option of more work if I want it - pretty sweet. Loads of people have emailed me about the mailart project but I'd still like a few more people on board before we kick it off, hopefully on Monday. Check it out and drop me a line if you are interested - looks like Claire will be kicking off the US side of things from Texas but I need more yanks to get in touch about it. I'm in town for most of today but will be updating the mailart page later this evening. Scooby-Doo - What can I say? It�s about as good as you'd expect... Its been carelessly updated and with too little respect for the original show. The CGI Scooby is pretty good and Matthew Lillard as Shaggy is pretty spot on. Velma is ok with plenty of "I lost my glasses moments" but its dumb to put her in a low cut top half way through just to show - hey 'Velma is actually a babe'. Daphne as played by Buffy is just fucking annoying, as is the dumb as a bag of spanners Fred. At times the film-makers seem to be bordering on the kind of savvy reinvention that worked for The Brady Bunch but they don't have the balls to run with it... it seems the fatal flaw of most cartoon conversions is that they take a perfectly acceptable winning formula and then fuck around with it - so in the terrible Flintstones movie we get Fred taken out of his job and familiar garb and transformed into 'business man' Fred who is now at odds with chum Barney - fucking stupid idea... here we have a nice opening sequence that pushes all the right Scooby buttons - dumb plan that goes wrong with Scooby and Shaggy getting in the way and inadvertently capturing the 'ghost' who turns out to be the spooky old janitor guy... nice. But then we find out that Fred is an egomaniac who takes all the credit for the gang's success - the gang splits up and never speak to each other again for 2 years giving Fred time to update his haircut and for Daphne to take martial arts lessons so she can have a dumb Charlies Angels scene later in the movie... Velma seems the same until they throw in a half-written love interest for her (after cutting out a few pseudo lesbian scenes with Daphne)... its only Scooby and Shaggy who remain true to the original show... until Shaggy falls in love and briefly neglects Scooby... lets get this clear... that would never happen in real life. Everyone knows that Scoob and Shaggy are pals for life and that a little bit of pussy would never come between them - they'd probably share like they do with those unfeasibly long sandwiches... I'm not even going to mention Rowan Atkinson. The worst thing about the movie is that its supposed to be a hit (and was in the States and will be here) so every shitty little pop song that needs some promoting gets thrown into the mix... the music in this movie is fucking terrible... that horrible pop punk smiley sunshine shit all the way through followed by the usual sub standard rap song... fuck its annoying. Still, most people probably won't get as offended as me as its 'only a dumb cartoon anyway' - well you can think that but if you do you're a fucking moron. Scooby Doo was an essential part of my childhood and I hate to see it fucked around with this way. It�s fucking sacrilegious. Stu - you need to go see this movie being the Scooby expert that you are... despite all I've said you will love the scene when Velma has her flashback to the good old days and we get a little cameo of "Puppy Power!". Check it out in about 2 weeks in the UK but if you like the idea of Buffy dressed in a mini skirt and kicking a wrestler in the head then be warned that the good old BBFC have cut the scene slightly to get it a PG rating. Also gone are the Velma wants to shag Daphne scenes and some of the more overt Shaggy is a stoner references - that doesn't really bother me as the original got by fine without them - the simple fact that the script writers thought they needed a naked Daphne running down a tunnel in the 1st draft script should really show what fucking idiots were responsible for this movie. Mike has been ranting to: Minor Threat

"YOU WERE MY LAST PATIENT" I just put up a handful of new book reviews with more to follow. I'll also be updating the movie stuff this weekend. Speaking of movies - I just saw The Sum of All Fears. Its not out in the UK for a while but its been a big hit in the States. It's the new Jack Ryan movie - remember Patriot Games and Clear and present Danger with harrison Ford? Ford took over the Ryan role from Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October) and now the new Ryan is played by Ben Affleck.Nothing wrong in keeping a franchise alive by putting in new blood I suppose - fuck - look at Bond and I even have a soft spot for the author of the books Tom Clancy but (you knew there was a 'but' coming huh?) The Sum of All Fears is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, its also one of the stupidest. Its hard who to blame for it really, Affleck does what he normally does in that he can't really act but he's got this playful 'mugging fro the camera' thing that he does instead, the writing is typically big budget Hollywood crap so you expect it to be dumb. But the movie is also very arrogant and lazy - the Russians are all shown to be old school cold war morons while the real bad guys are nazis - its always a safe bet to have nazi villians because you're not going to get a large group of pro-nazi demonstrators boycotting cinemas. In the original book the bad guys were Islamic extremists - no fucker in Hollywood wants to touch that particular topic at the moment. It's depressing that this movie was so successful in the States - it features a nuclear explosion going off in Baltimore and lots of big budget carnage... its as if the film-makers are saying 'hey, sure September 11th was bad but we can still imagine the worse and unlike the real world the bad guys are nazis and we have a good looking CIA agent to round them up in 90 minutes or so. Fuck. There's a laughable scene where the US President decided that action must be taken against Russia and then it cuts to the news that NATO froces are on their way in. Its hard to work out whether the script-writers are being satirical in saying that NATO is just a lapdog for the US or whether they actually belive that the rest of the world should simply do as its told when America is wearing its 'peacekeeping' hat. Laughable. I'm guessing it'll be a big hit here too but then again most shit is. Its also sad to see Morgan Freeman playing his older mentor figure yet again - does the guy love being typecasted? Anyway, go see it if you must. I'm going to watch the Scooby-Doo movie this afternoon and I'm trying to keep an open mind... but Rowan Atkinson? For fucks sake... Still on the topic of cinema... I'm popping into the Clapham Picture House this afternoon for a chat about a weekend job. I hadn't really considered working in a cinema until Daisy told me how much fun it could be - she works in one in central London. So I'll go along and see what the score is and fill you guys in later. I've been watching E.R. since it started and i still think its one of the best pieces of popular entertainment I've ever seen. We saw Mark's last day on the job last night and I was fucking gutted. I know he's back for his Hawaiian swan song in a few weeks but it's going to be a different show without him. A lot of crap was said about it changing when Clooney left but for my money Anthony Edwards was always the best thing about the programme... pretty pissed to see him go. Check out the original cast: And then there was one... Let's hope Carter doesn't quit anytime soon. By the way - does anyone remember Miracle Mile? It was the best thing that Anthony Edwards did outside of ER... what are the odds that he goes back to cool stuff like that? Sheesh - enough with the talk about American TV already... Mike is blogging to: The Rollins Band - Get some Go Again

"HE LOVES TO RUN THE BATTERIES ON THIS FLASHLIGHT DOWN" The shower broke so my day kind of went out the window - electrician is fitting a new one as we speak. �45 per half hour. Fuck. I just put up a page about the mailart project - so check it out and get in touch if you want to take part or just have a general moan. That's all for now. I'll be blogging later tonight but I've got a pile of email to get through first. Mike is blogging to: Family Man by Black Flag - shut up Henry, I'm trying to type

"ALL THE WORLD LIKES AN OUTLAW" Apologies first. I let my phone run down last week and just left the fucker off all week � thought it had been quiet � anyway I turned the damn thing on this evening and it was just loaded with messages... If any of you guys sent me a text then I� m sorry I didn�t get back to you. I�ll give everyone a call first thing tomorrow. Mark and Phil � if you read this before I call the shop then I�ll be passing through around lunchtime if you wanna catch up. So what did I do this weekend? Watched The Hudsucker Proxy again which grows on me each time I see it � still think its more of a Sam Raimi movie than a Coen Brothers one. Last night I watched Road Games with Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis � I remember seeing that one years ago (maybe on Moviedrome?) and loving it � now it plays as more of a curio but its not a bad little film � I�ve always had a soft spot for Stacy Keach since The Long Riders and used to love his Mike Hammer TV show when I was a kid � everyone in this country remembers him for drug smuggling if they remember him at all. Most of the weekend got wasted on the Playstation 2. We picked up Grand Theft Auto III and it�s hard to leave alone � nasty game. Stu is back in circulation � I forgot he�d been on holiday. Now he�s gone and bought himself a horse... the mind boggles. A new friend of mine is trying to track down a copy of the late eighties horror movie Parents. The one with Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hunt as suburban cannibals in a 1950�s setting. If anyone has a copy or knows where there is one lying around please drop me a line. Same for Malcolm McDowell�s Britannia Hospital and Get Crazy. This place is getting to be like Swap Shop, which is disappointing, as I�ve been going for more of a Tiswas feel. I�ve been writing some new bits and pieces for the site but it�ll take a while for me to get it all up � pile of new book and movie reviews mostly. Should be kicking the mailart thing off soon too. Busy busy. And what the fuck is that new car advert with Ed Harris? Damn, I�ve always had a lot of admiration for the guy as one of the most underrated actors of his generation but now he's doing fucking car ads? Nice beard though. Speaking of facial hair � I�m clean shaven again but its a limited offer, only happens once every blue moon so grab the chin while you can... I can feel the thing growing back already... Mike is blogging to: nothing � all is still - all is calm

"CALIFORNIA DREAMING ON SUCH A WINTER'S DAY..." Watched Lady from Shanghai this morning (I'd forgotten how bad Orson Welles' Irish accent was) and Mike was happy. Watched Chunking Express this evening after forcing a vegan meal on Duncan. Serves him bloody right for moving in here. Busy day tomorrow but I'll be around the junction on Saturday to grab some lunch with Phil and Mark and anyone else who fancies it. I'm staying up late so I can sleep through the England game. All we need now is the team plane to crash on the way home and I'll have to live with the fuckers as martyrs... Turns out that Danny already knows Doc - small world. Couple of people from the States are interested in the mailart thing so far - hopefully I'll have a real outline ready and up over the weekend. I just penned about 800 words off the top of my head to maybe work my own contribution out of. If I remember I'll stick that up online tomorrow. If you wanna join in you need to start thinking about doors... I updated the links section of the main site - hadn't done that in bloody ages. I'll be adding new content to the rest of the site daily from now on and I'll be looking for help. Are you listening Mr Earle? I want some other fucker to put some stuff on here. I watched Spider-man again and 3rd time round its simply a Sam Raimi movie - bags of fun. My new fave bit is when the Goblin's hand shoots out of the rubble in Evil Dead style. I may re-watch it again in the morning before shooting off into town. Mike is blogging to: Maybe I'll Catch Fire by The Alkaline Trio

"WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO COME BLUNDERING IN HERE LIKE THIS? COULD IT BE AN OVERPOWERING INTEREST IN ART?" Can I be the only one left who still thinks that Assault on Precinct 13 is a fucking classic? No one except me seems to enjoy that movie anymore. Thankfully everyone still loves Jackie Chan � Frank insisted on shouting �Ripper!� of �Beauty!� every time someone got kicked in the throat. I like Australians. We didn�t get through all the movies (no surprise there) but we did have some fine food � you should all come over next time. AudioGalaxy finally folded. Its been expected for a while but its still a little numbing to see it go. I�m using Grokster now for all my music and movie downloads but its not a patch on AG. My new friend Danny wants to kick off some mailart and we�re still bashing out the details. It�ll be in the form of some kind of journal with a very flexible framework for contributors. Basically Danny or myself will start it off with a single entry and then we snailmail it to the next interested party who adds to it. The kind of thing you add is entirely up to you � paste something in it, draw, paint write, smear bodily fluids all over it � whatever. I�m trying to get some friends in the States to start one off too and then when we get enough hits on this side of the Atlantic we can swap the books over. Obviously the whole thing is open to failure as we are in the hands of the postal service and are trusting everyone involved to mail it on � plus its obviously a long term plan as the whole thing will take fucking forever but if we can get enough people having a go at it the end result should be pretty interesting. Once we declare the thing �finished� we�ll reproduce it digitally and stick it up online. Anyway, like I say I�m still knocking out the framework with Danny but as soon as we agree on something I�ll post info here and all you artistic bastards can have a pop at it. Doc � your name is already on the table so don�t try and wriggle out of it. I just started the new Paul Auster � Duncan gave it to me yesterday and I stayed up late to get a good start on it � and its fucking good. The Book of Illusions due out in hardback in October, go and reserve a copy now. Need to hook up with Daisy some time in the next week and also swing around to Ottakar�s and catch up with the underpaid. Oh, and finding a fucking job may be an idea... Quick note � whoever invented vegan cheese is a sick fuck � that shit could only have originated in some nazi death camp �Give me the gas just keep that fucking cheese away from me...� I�m happy to say that all my other vegan efforts have been pretty cool but vegan cheese should be shot off into deep space where it belongs... I'm rewatching Spider-Man as I type this and once you leave all the fan-boy baggage at the door it grows on you a lot... Oh and where the fuck has Stu got to? Email me. Mike is blogging to Jets to Brazil again despite Jess complaining about overkill

"GNOSSIENNE NO 1" Bit of a last minute thing this. Tomorrow there will be a shitload of movies on over here. Its a kind of reaction against the hot weather... I'll be blacking out the windows and putting up a few dozen fans so I can ignore nature and all its beauty so as to better appreciate the following movies: Assault on Precinct 13 - John Carpenter classic Deliverance - redneck buggery with Burt Reynolds The Frighteners - Peter Jackson before he did LOTR and Michael J Fox before he started shaking The Seven Samurai - Kurosawa and Mifune for 3 hours, what more could you want? Violent Cop - 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano shumbles along shooting people in the head Boogie Nights - naked roller girls and a very large cock Race with the Devil - devil worshippers chase Peter Fonda and Warren Oates across 70's America Shanghai Noon - Jackie Chan comedy western that rocks Unbreakable - great comic book movie with Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson Requiem for a Dream - drugs and double dildo fun So if you have wednesday off work or are a complete slacker like my good self come on over and watch some flicks. Kick off is at 10am! Mike is blogging to: D4

"IN THE SPRING WE'D MAKE MEAT HELMETS" Ok so maybe that last line was a little confusing... I'm now a vegan - so no dairy products and still no meat. So you can stop sending me your bloodfueled recipies and jokes about how much I must be looking forward to getting my mouth around some meat again. Sheesh. Mike is blogging to: Four Cornered Night by Jets To Brazil

SHOP SMART, SHOP S-MART! Julia and Kelly are back in the States. Julia left me her beautiful 60�s lampshade that I will be selling on ebay and she took back memories of the best of British culture � namely, naked women in the newspapers and Big Brother. Kelly seemed to have a lot of fun despite the extra long travelling involved. Julia called me a freak a lot and thought I had way too much time on my hands after seeing my �Rocket Mike� helmet � there was also the usual arguments over her poor taste in music as opposed to my own exceptional choices. I also probably came over as something of a conspiracy nut whenever we got onto American politics but it was interesting to see London through American eyes. So what else is new? We are off to Stockholm at the end of August � the Jess n Mike European Tour continues. Jess found return tickets online for �5 each so you can�t really argue with that. We will be flying into an airport the size of this room but that�s all part of the fun. Began to relax yesterday with the house to ourselves as Duncan was away for the weekend and then Frank turned up on the doorstep. No complaints though as he cooked up a storm and then we watched The Terminator, which was as good as ever. I am slowly weaning Jess off the Hives by playing a lot of Iggy and the Stooges � no reason to settle for a cheap shoddy copy when you can have the original. I think we just got some tickets to see The Get Up Kids too but I still need to sort out the Fugazi tickets. My friend Doc got mugged at knifepoint the other night and although he�s ok that bit of news pissed me off more than anything else has in a while. Lets hope the fucker responsible goes down with one of the more excruciatingly slow and painful cancers... This is some of the stuff that I�m getting excited about at the moment: 1. 'Lullaby' by Chuck Palahniuk published in September � the first part of his horror trilogy. I�m reading the new Clive Barker at the moment � his first foray into writing for kids and its pretty good although its no 'His Dark Materials'. 2. Kill Bill � martial arts directed by Tarantino with a fucking great cast including Sonny Chiba. Ask me who Sonny Chiba is and I�ll have to slap you. 3. Bubba Ho-Tep: A mummy movie with Bruce Campbell as a 68 year old Elvis kicking undead arse in a Texas rest home with the help of JFK � who is black. I thought they didn�t make these kind of films anymore and although I�d be very surprised if it got a cinema release anywhere it should pop up on DVD and the festival circuit... its only just started shooting but I�m already counting the days. Is Final Fantasy X any good? It has an OVERKILL option in its battle system and some dodgy death-metal music when the future-sport kicks in... what else do you need to know? Is the Playstation II a lot better than the Playstation? Only in the same way that having sex with a real woman is better than sticking your cock between the bed and the mattress and using your imagination. Andy � still using a Nintendo? Damn � that�s like sticking your cock in the dog�s mouth � feels good initially but something somewhere just isn�t quite right. The biggest news I guess is that I�m not vegetarian anymore... I finally gave in to the pressure around me everyday... all that meat, all those animal products... So from the time that you read this I am officially vegan. Feel free to come at me with all your lame arguments as to why that�s a mistake and I have a few thousand reasons to make you feel ill about any and all dairy products... Mike is blogging to: Raw Power by Iggy and The Stooges

"THE TELEVISION SCREEN IS THE RETINA OF THE MIND'S EYE" "Let's go into town and see a movie!" "OK" "There's nothing I want to see at the moment. Lets buy a DVD and go home and watch it." "OK" "Damn, we already own all the good DVDs. Lets go home and watch a Wong Kar-wai movie." "OK" "Hey, why don't we just buy a Playstation II and a copy of Final Fantasy X and then we'll never have to leave the house and make these stupid kind of decisions ever again!" "OK" Mike is blogging to: the hum of the strange monolith like black plynth that seems to be calling to him from the foot of the TV....

�WHAT I LIKE AND WHAT I NEED ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS� The problem with trying to find a job in central London is that the places someone like me would want to work are all quite small because they tend to be independent. They have a small staff who generally seem to love working there so its rare that a vacancy comes up and it does they tend to get filled pretty fast. I dropped off a pile of CVs at places like the Prince Charles, the Cinema Store and Forbidden Planet but I guess I'll be treading water for a while before anyone gets back to me. Today I'll be looking around online for anything new and try and squeeze some writing work out of some websites that I like. None of the jobs that I fancy doing pay a lot but at this point I really don't care about that - I just want to find something that�s going to hold my interest. Plus we can always put up Duncan's rent :) A couple of months back when I was stuck in an office again I'd wander into bookstores and get a nostalgia kick but walking around them in the past couple of days didn't do a lot for me really. All the people that I spoke to seemed really nice and it's be interesting to see how a big central bookstore runs but I'm guessing that I'd lose interest working somewhere that�s too big - the larger stores seem to lose touch pretty quickly. Most of those large stores seem very removed from what I did at Ottakar's. I did find a small and totally independent bookstore that seemed like a cool place to work but as I was chatting to one of the guys that worked there a customer interrupted to ask for a copy of 'L.I.E.' by David Hollander. The guy I'd been chatting to had never heard of it - not too surprising - but I jumped in and gave a rundown on Hollander, his book and why tracking down an American copy would be a better bet than trying to pick up the UK version - this led to a quick discussion of new American authors and we swapped notes on Nersesian which she had read and Brautigan which she hadn't. All the time we were chatting I could see my bookseller friend getting a little pissed off - especially when I gave the woman a bunch of websites where she could pick up cheap books rather than ordering them there and then - oops. Oh well, fuck him for not being as well read. Damn, I like being arrogant. Penniless but arrogant - kind of suits me. The last time I was in this position was around three years ago - I remember sitting in the Poetry Cafe trying to work out my next career move when I got into a conversation with one of the girls who worked there. It was she who suggested that I should take a job in a bookstore telling me it was fun and that I�d love it. She was right. So figuring how well that worked out last time I struck up a conversation with a waitress in the coffee shop I was hanging in while waiting for Jess, Julia and Kelly to arrive. I asked her what kind of job I should be looking for and she looked me up and down and said with all apparent seriousness "you should be an actor - you have presence" Ha. So I point out that I've never acted in my life and she just shrugged and said it didn't matter as I would make a great character actor no matter what - "like Warren Oates" - ok, so now I'm stuck in a Murakami novel - I keep looking around for the guy dressed as a sheep to walk in. I go for a couple of months without meeting an interesting person and then up pops a Warren Oates fan serving coffee - turns out she not only likes The Wild Bunch but is also a big fan of Two Lane Blacktop and Ride with the Devil. What are the odds? So her shift ended and off she went - I really like kooky people... I need to start up more conversations with absolute strangers. The rest of the week I've been watching movies and wasting time on the Playstation. Still umming and ahhing over the Playstation 2. Final Fantasy X will probably push that one. Jess just finished IX and that was pretty stunning... So Duncan has moved in and that�s going pretty well. His room is all set up now and we got him a phoneline so I guess I'll get to piss around with his Mac in the next couple of weeks. Julia and Kelly are in the final throes of their trip. Kelly leaves late this evening for Manchester and Julie flies back sometime tomorrow. I dragged them to see Dog Soldiers and got trounced but some Texan who probably got pissed at me for giving America a good kicking within his earshot. I was slagging off Nickelback and he pointed out that they were actually Canadian... I can�t complain about the guy too much because 1. its rare that people score points off me and 2. he was in the cinema to see Dog Soldiers so he couldn't have been too inbred. The movie rocked even more second time round... good stuff. I need to work out what I�m doing with the rest of today so that�s it for now... more extra long blogging later. Mike is blogging to: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy by Jawbreaker

"I TRUST MY BARBER" Saw Spiderman today... It lived up to all my expectations and because of that I wasn't too excited by it. I enjoyed it - a lot in fact - and it worked really well with hardly a single thing I can complain about but... I think seeing Dog Soldiers last week though spoiled it for me. I love Sam Raimi - always have - and there was a lot here that could have gone wrong but it all fell into place. The casting was perfect, the alterations made to the comicbook actually worked and James Cameron's addition of the organic webshooters actually made more sense than the originals. The CGI was very cool and much better than in other similar high budget flicks and at no time did I feel that the CGI Spidey was out of place or badly rendered. The script was pretty damn cool and I even (after many doubts) appreciated the 'look' of the Goblin. The Superman gag was good as were references to 'The Thing' and overall it was better than The Ultimate Spiderman reboot and I love that comic... My only real gripe was some of the music. Danny Elfman is a fucking genius and usually I love his scores but here I think he's too dark - Spiderman is a much lighter character than Batman but at times Elfman's score was too reminiscent of his earlier Tim Burton score... the best thing about Spidey is that he's a wisecracking care-free teenager more worried about paying the rent than vengeance - the whole theme of 'Power and responsibility' translates well here but it didn't need the overkill of Elfman's sombre score. Plus he should have taken MJ up on her offer at the end of the movie and got laid. The idea that his power is also a curse belongs to other superheroes - the real Spidey was the guy who kept 'whooping' every time he took a swing. Cool to see Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell in the mix as usual along with Stan Lee and I'm eager to see the second one. Harry taking up the Goblin's guise would be cool to see and is well set up and I guess we'll probably see Doc Oc - personally I wanna see the black costume but maybe that's for the 3rd instalment. So yeah I fucking loved it but not a single thing really surprised me about it... shame. After much discussion online about the back alley scene I must admit its pretty damn good... here's how I saw it: MJ gets all wet and her nipples go hard - enter her fantasy guy in costume - she peels back his (fore)skin, plants one on him and out spurts all this sticky white stuff leaving MJ all frustrated but wet and excited... Complaints to the usual address please. There's a certain amount of 'I Love NYC' in the movie but that's to be expected especially after September 11 - Spidey is after all a New Yorker and personally I think the crowd on the bridge sticking up for the city and the footage of real New Yorkers being interviewed about the web-slinger work well. Plus if you've got really sharp eyes you'll see the WTC standing proud in at least one shot... I'm glad Julie told me to stick around through the credits for the 'original' theme tune too and I'm glad to say the dire soundtrack is not used at all over the movie. Would have been nice to have the Ramones blasting out through some of the fight sequences though. Oh, and its very fucking cool when the Goblin really kicks Parker�s arse... Mike is blogging to: the sound of the cat trying to get his gay collar off

"THIS IS THE REASON BALD HEADED MEN ARE UPTIGHT" Yesterday was pretty good... Went into town with the wimmin - spent a lot of time outside shoe shops like a dog in the rain. This is when I found out that Stu is buying a horse. Best not to ask... Found out I missed some comics while I was on holiday so now I gotta try and track em down - bit of a pisser. Ate at a well dodgy indian place but later in the day ate at the Bugbar and that kind of redeemed things. Although I did insult a doorman when he asked me for a fiver to get in and I accused him of being a scam merchant. I like to live dangerously in Brixton but I did get introduced to a fashion designer. Best bit of the day was going to see Shockheaded Peter. Hard to describe but if I was a kid I would have shat myself. As it was I loved seeing puppets bleed to death on stage and rabbits commit suicide with shotguns. The music was lyrically like Nick Cave but sounded like the Pixies. If you're in London you should check it out. Its on at the Albery Theatre. Came back here pretty late and watched Withnail and I which actually seems to get funnier each time I see it. Maybe its the fact that I've finally accepted I have more in common with Withnail than I. Kelly and Julie should be having fun in Paris about now. Be back here on Tuesday I think. Big hello to Daisy if she's dropped by to check this crap out. She's a film-maker who I'm trying to convince needs me to record her artistic endeavours... hell, wouldn't most people who read this love to have me follow them around with a notebook for a few days? I'm behind with my emails again... and yes I still haven't put up the Amsterdam and Greece stuff or any of the other crap I've been meaning to. Tomorrow after Spider-man and a job-trawl I'll be doing some major FTPing to the site so you can all get off my back after that... Going to stay up late to get some 'stuff' done. I like 'stuff'. As someone else pointed out today about poor old Dee Dee - why can't that shit happen to Mick Jagger? Just filled another hard disk with MP3s - damn I need to do some burning over the weekend. Ch4 had a documentary on tonight about a woman who decided to dye her hair blonde. That was it. I don't really have a lot to say about that... Mike is blogging to Shellac

"WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY" Just booked tickets for Spiderman on Saturday - excited but with reservations. Julie tells me that it rocks but we will see,,, Been spending a lot of time on the Punk Planet forums the last couple of days. Nice bunch of freaks post there. Doc - you should check it out and give the yanks some shit :) Threads range from veggie food arguments to a lot of political angst and some silliness about who the best bass player in the world is (Lemmy). Nice sense of community though. Still no news on the Fugazi rescheduling - damn Life with Julie and Kelly is fun. Haven't seen too much of them as they've been out most days and I've been stuck in. They go off to paris on the eurostar tomorrow for four days so maybe we'll hang with them today and then do some more fun stuff when they get back. I think we're off to the theatre tonight. No one tells me anything. Nasty letter from bank means I'll be looking for a regular job again from today... booked tickets for Spiderman and asked the friendly voice on the phone were they hiring? The person I spoke to, Red, informed me that it was a fun job but paid shit - hey just like the bookstore... Not too sure if I could spend 8 hours standing next to such a large quantity of M&Ms though... Did I hear right? Matt is back at Ott? Fantastic - place was never the same without him. I need to get over there and do lunch with those guys. What else? Duncan moves in here on Monday I think so I guess I need to pull all my bits of busted computer equipment out of his room. Also need to take the cat to the vets and get him boosted. Merry v.2.1 Not too sure how today is going to pan out - off to lunch with the Americans i think and then something cultural in the evening... bet we don't get to see the werewolves again... Just heard about a new aussie zombie film that sounds good - I'll put a link up later when I find the site. Mike is blogging to: The Mulholland Drive Soundtrack

"THERE IS NO SPOON" I did something very patriotic yesterday. While the rest of the country seemed obsessed with the Queen's jubilee and football matches in Japan I did something much more meaningful than waving a plastic flag or cheering on men in shorts. I watched a group of soldiers get ripped apart by werewolves. I didn't post at all yesterday because I was still shell-shocked. I wanted a little bit of time to pass so I could get some of the silly thoughts out of my head but here I am twenty four hours later and I�m still thinking the same thing. Dog Soldiers is the best British film I have ever seen. It could well be the best horror movie I have ever seen and I actually believe it's the best werewolf movie that I've ever seen. Let me put this in some kind of perspective. Dog Soldiers is a low budget British horror movie set in Scotland but filmed in Luxembourg. The film's total budget was probably the same as the catering costs for a days shooting on Attack of the Clones. It stars Sean Pertwee (the best thing in Event Horizon and son of Dr Who), Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting) and a small group of actors you�ll recognise from TV. It was directed and written by Neil Marshall and it was his first film. It�s better than An American Werewolf in London. If you know me at all you would know that I�d probably hit anyone else who said such an outrageous thing but Dog Soldiers is quite simply stunning and is the dogs bollocks of celluloid lycanthropy. It�s about a group of soldiers on manoeuvres in Scotland that come across the remains of a special forces team � they tend to stand in what�s left of them. They themselves are attacked and the survivors hold up in a house fifty miles from anywhere with dwindling ammunition and a full moon overhead. Oh - and they're missing the footy. It features a falling cow, guts being superglued back into stomachs, very impressive firefights and a heavy dose of football themed humour. I fucking hate football and I laughed out loud. I also jumped and swore a lot. The characters are well developed and the acting is great � Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd are exceptional. I read that when Pertwee told mates like Ewan McGregor the kind of film he was making they were jealous. Well maybe you shouldn�t have fucked off to the States to play cowboys and jedis then. It is low budget and in places a little rough round the edges but to be frank the only problem this movie has is perhaps being a little too ambitious and I would never criticise anyone for that. It�s full of jokes too � obvious ones like the name of one of the soldiers to less obvious ones like the piano piece that is played during the movie. It pays homage to The Matrix, Night of the Living Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, Southern Comfort, Aliens and others. Despite its hybrid list of influences it�s actually a lot better than most of those movies and I fucking love those movies. I can�t believe I left it so long to watch this movie. Phil told me that he knows Emma Cleasby who plays Megan in the movie � Phil you need to ring the girl up and tell her that she�s a fucking genius for taking this part... the whole cast and crew should be knighted for showing up not only the tattered remains of the British film industry but also the goliath American industry for the piece of fat shit that it is. People need to pay attention to this film and see what can be achieved if you love and believe in what you are doing. I got the same buzz watching this as I did the first time I saw The Evil Dead and I never thought I�d find a director to match Raimi in this country but Marshall is a fucking genius. Less money and more passion, less specail effects and more imagaination. Not a single CGI shot was used from what I could make out. The werewolves are kept off camera for a while and when we finally see them... well I was expecting to be disappointed but these wolves are pretty fucking cool. Ginger Snaps was marred by bad Buffy makeup and CGI in the final 15 minutes while An American Werewolf in Paris was a fucking abomination � especially the terrible CGI monsters. Blade II suffered from it � as does Spiderman from what I�ve seen and don�t get me started on the new Star Wars... CGI just isn�t there yet � and Dog Soldiers proves that it doesn�t matter. Who gives a fuck if you can create anything on a computer if it looks just like something that was created on a computer when you watch it. Give me a stomach of ill-bandaged guts and a curious border colley anytime. Have you noticed that I�m going on a little about this one? Its because you need to see it. I�ll be talking about this movie for the rest of the year. Feel free to disagree with me but you�ll be wrong... Mike is blogging to: Bitchin� Summer by The Bangs

"PERHAPS YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE SECOND LARGEST BALL OF TWINE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, WHICH IS ONLY FOUR SHORT HOURS AWAY?" Julia and Kelly arrived safe and sound after some pretty long haul flying - yesterday we just hung around the house and took it easy, Jess cooked and we all caught up. Its fun to have them here - only ever spoken to Kelly on the phone before so it was great to finally meet her and I guess it must be three years now since Julia and I last saw each other. Damn. So today we gotta sort out some Eurostar tickets so the girlies can shoot off to Paris for a few days - last night it was going to be Edinburgh but I think we're pretty settled on Paris again now - lots of aggravation trying to get the right tickets though... Today - no real plans as of yet. Everyone else is still asleep - just me and the cat prowling the house. Its an interesting time to come visit here I guess, the whole Jubilee thing, extra-long bank holiday and all the football crap. I need to get some work done today so I�ll probably hang around the house - Wednesday is a double deadline for me - I gotta get some writing in for Aruna and get something prepared for the talk up at Goldsmiths on Wednesday night. Need to ring Alex and confirm that that is still on... So Aruna sent me some of the now published work that I did last year for her and it was nice to see it there in black and white. I totally forgot that I wrote some of the pieces under a pseudonym and when I first opened the envelope I was all "Who the fuck is Fay Merryfield and why is she getting credit for my stuff?" Then I remembered I had invented her - ha - 'Fay' came from the little cat we had that died and 'Merryfield' from the cat that is sat looking at me right now... Ok so I need to have a word with Paula and Laura (hey that rhymes) - I love getting email from people who enjoy the site/blog whatever and its cool to hear that someone has been reading the nonsense that I stick up here and enjoying it. It was cool to find out that you guys found me through Diarist.Net who registered my site a while back (forgot to mention that) and my ego really enjoys all the compliments that you heaped at me but can I make one simple request? If you are going to send me photographs (and this is to everyone out there - especially the guys) please try and leave your fucking clothes on. I never thought I'd be asking young women to do that - damn I must be getting old... but 1. I don't find it too titillating and 2. you're gonna get Jess coming after you with a fucking axe. Keep the mail coming but lose the bath towels - preferably after you've put on your cheerleader outfits or something... just not the whole nude/semi-nude thing... sheesh! I never thought running a tiny website and blog like mine could be so much fun and so much hassle all at the same time... I know a friend of mine is being watched a little too closely at work because of his own blog... sigh... as I said to him wouldn't it be nice for employer to respect creativity (or in a fantasy world actually reward it) rather than coming down hard on people... but then again I don't really have a boss at the moment so maybe that says a lot too... Gotta go ring Eurostar... Mike is blogging to: Play More Music by Consolidated

TAKE THAT DRESS OFF. I CAN SEE YOUR DIRTY PILLOWS. Watched the werewolf movie, which was every bit as good (and bad) as I remember. Best bits: Peter Cushing slapping hysterical girlie and the actor playing the pilot having to cling to an alsatian dog while he is 'attacked'. This is the kind of movie that should be remade with Denzel Washington... did I mention yet that I saw John Q while we were away? Should be called John Spew... fucking retarded. Jess put this half bottle of strawberry and cranberry smoothie in her bag that exploded some time during the night and totally destroyed everything in it... I was being the good boyfriend and helping to clean out all the yuck when I found a tampon at the bottom of the bag that had made a valiant but doomed attempt to soak up all the red liquid... Set me off in Rik Mayal mode much to Jess' non-amusement... a nice insight into life in the house huh? Still waiting on Frank to arrive and have finally caught up with most of my email... After watching the movie last night I read through all the stuff on this link from the Guardian. It's from the New York Times and puts together a minute by minute timeline of what was happening in the top floors of the WTC before the buildings fell. The American journalism is kind of rough in places but the accounts of phone messages and emails from the trapped people are very powerful. I was pretty wasted after the movie at around 4.30 but reading this kept me awake until around 6am... who needs coffee. damn - Frank has arrived and caught me mid-blog... - Ok so now its like a few hours later and I've got back to this after a gigantic plate of Aussie style pasta... Gotta go relax in front of an odd movie for a couple of hours... Mike is blogging to: Frank Zappa

ROADS? WHERE WE�RE GOING WE DON�T NEED ROADS Got back from Amsterdam yesterday but had a pile of stuff to get through before I could get online. The PC is still misbehaving so I�m having a major dig around in its innards over the weekend. Glad to be back? Kind of... The holiday was very cool � even the crappy Greek bit. I�ll spend sometime tomorrow tidying up the journal that I wrote while we were away and getting it up elsewhere on the site. Overall I was blown away by how relaxed Amsterdam is... I hate the morons who go there blindly for the drugs and sex and especially hate the British louts that were around but even with all that its a place I could easily spend a lot of time in. We have been thinking of taking a few months out before the big move to San Francisco next year and Jess was edging towards maybe finding a place in Scandinavia but after the fun we had here we may consider spending that time in Amsterdam � 3 to 6 months just cycling round the canals, hanging out in the comic shops and watching odd Dutch punk bands... sounds like a plan. No matter what though we need to get out of London for a while. Yesterday we just hung out and watched some TV but tonight we had a lot of fun. Went up to the Astoria to see 'Le Tigre'. The first support band 'The Kills' were damn good, 'Slumber party' were annoying but well named and 'Le Tigre' did their thing... being lectured to as a potential rapist wore a little bit thin towards the end but it was fun to be in Ghost World for a couple of hours. I�ll put up a more detailed review and some pics (maybe even some video) over the weekend. The next exciting adventure is imminent: Julia and Kelly fly in from the USA on Sunday and will be hanging out here for about 2 weeks. Spoke to Kelly a little while ago and she sounds pretty excited despite the nasty flight (getting here via Holland and Manchester!) and coach trip. It�s her first time in London so we should have a blast. Julia�s flight is almost direct so she�ll arrive here earlier and be able to bag the best room... Tomorrow we were gonna go see 'Slumber Party' but decided no knock that idea on the head after seeing them tonight (a smile at the audience wouldn�t kill you sour faced wenches) so we may go catch a film � Dog Soldiers maybe... speaking of werewolves I�m gonna be up late watching The Beast Must Die on Ch4. Another of my all time favourite movies � Big game hunter invites a bunch of hammy actors (Peter Cushing, Charles Gray, Michael Gambon etc) to his state of the art (for 1974) mansion knowing that one of his guests is a werewolf. Guests start dying and he runs around with a bloody big gun leaving the audience to guess who the hairy one is by means of a �Werewolf Break� in which the movies pauses to give the audience time to shout out who the critter is.... I can�t believe they buried this in the schedule at 3am... Gotta go over to the post office early morning to pick up the 'Fugazi' tickets. Bit of a pain in the arse as 'Fugazi' have cancelled the gigs but I need to grab the tickets so I can get a refund in case they don�t reschedule soonish. I was annoyed when I got the email this morning but after checking out their website it seems one of the guys has had a close family member die so its understandable they won�t be coming over next month. I got an email asking me �what the fuck a fugazi was� last week... sheesh � check out this link for info on one of the best bands to ever make a lot of fucking noise but the word itself is the Vietnam equivalent of Fubar (fucked up beyond all recognition � see Saving Private Ryan) and stands for fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in (as in a bodybag)... see � this site is educational too! After the ticket run we are playing host to Frank � our favourite decadent Aussie � he�s coming over to cook in return for watching some �fucked up Japanese smut movie�. Have to pull something interesting out of the video pile... This blog is getting a little long huh? Oh I almost forgot, after leaving Richard in the lurch he got his website up on time anyway... I was pissed at myself for not finishing it before the trip and he was pissy with me for running for the airport and rightly so - but with a little help from Hamish its up and running so check it out and let him know how it looks. I�ve also got to finish some writing for Aruna so I�ll have quite a hectic weekend... regardless I�ll get another blog up tomorrow and hopefully some Greece/Amsterdam stuff as well. Sorry if I haven�t got around to emailing you yet... my inbox was stuffed and I�m still going through it... Maggs - I�ll drop a line to you in the morning but the rest of you can wait �til the afternoon. Thanks to Duncan for cat sitting... Merry just clawed the hell out of my back for not feeding him so I guess he got used to the good life in our absence. That�s all for now... Mike is blogging to: Suicidal Tendencies � who are touring again... life is good