Visible Monsters

Visible Monsters: March 02, 2002 - March 20, 2006

2006-03-20T01:58:00.000Z

Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse. That blog was our last hope. No... There is another [Music: off / Website: off / Lights: on]

Do you know what the chain of command is?

2006-03-17T22:19:00.000Z

It's the chain I beat you with until you remember I'm in charge... Jamie arrived and, as expected, is very cool. She got back from sightseeing to find Jess, Corran and I knee deep in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. That lead to a long unwieldy discussion about computer games, animated movies and general asskickery. Jamie went to bed thinking she's landed among NERDS. Which of course we're not. It was just bad timing is all. And the fact that Corran and I are now watching the entire run of Firefly, followed by Serenity is just a coincidence. The great thing about Corran is that he always brings something to the conversation. Like how he and Kaylee used to work together back in the day. And the great thing about rewatching a series as rich as Firefly is that there's always something new to get a kick out of. Like I only just realised (maybe because I am slow) that Jayne is Chewie to Mal's Han. Seriously. I'll never be able to watch Star Wars again without fansubbing the Wookie:

Damn Han, that Princess is all lubed up for you. Maybe you could double-team her with the farmboy...

[Music: off]

Joinnnnnn ussssssss...

2006-03-16T17:10:00.000Z

The lurgy that has sent Jess scrambling for her security blanket and a lagoon of hot herbal tea has been working on my kidneys like a dwarf with a hammer. I was so numb by midday yesterday that I couldn't even crawl away from the horror that was Ben Afleck. Corran has better news - a new place with his name on it. A hefty deposit and a threat of bodily harm at any rate... If it all falls into place we'll be neighbours and can borrow sugar from each other. All that good stuff. Aaron's been over a couple of times - throwing his goddamn Canadian health in our faces. Is there anything sadder than sick British people? He's here now, the pair of them have terraformed the dining table into some kind of Miramax forward listening post. Very interesting to be a fly on the wall. How they work through Jess watching Buffy is beyond me. I'm hoping that we're both going to be better by 10am tomorrow because that's when Jamie gets in from DC. I'll be meeting her off the plane and as we've never met I just told her to look for the guy sweating like a terrorist. Jamie is one of those smart Americans who writes about what's going on in the rest of the world and gets into arguments with the President's security detail because she doesn't cheerlead with the rest of the crowd when the idiot stumbles into a room. Should be fun having her here if we can just shake this damn plague. We'll be able to eat popcorn and watch all those snazzy helicopters pick off those pesky insurgents. Is Peter Jackson directing the war now? I've lost count of how many endings it's had. Kitten update: Sandwich has taken to pulling all the paper from the recycling tub in the kitchen - whatever she's building is complicated and looks messy, but I'm a layman so what do I know? Right know she's making these strange warbling noises to a huge empty cornflakes box that stands monolith like on the floor. She's spent a week playing inside it, but it's new vertical configuration has her pausing for thought... We spent a portion of this morning watching dumb as dirt American documentaries - we had no TV at all for most of last week and it was great - now I'm forming a band called 9/11 WIDOW. You can all be backing vocalists. Oh yeah, Jess got a new job... now she's handed in her notice I'm allowed to speak of it but I guess she'll have more to say about it over on her site. The best bit from my point of view is she only starts at 10am so with a little luck I'll never have to look at 7am ever again. The best bit from her point of view is perhaps the foreign travel and fighting robots and stuff. [Music: The Shatner]

Bah...

2006-03-13T19:45:00.000Z

I've officially given up on Mondays. Right now I should have been at the Steve Bell/David Lloyd V for Vendetta talk up at the Guardian Newsroom. One signal failure later and I'm back home. Does anything work in this stupid city? Barter Town had a better infrastructure. I had some sickeningly bad news at the weekend - someone I hadn't seen or even thought about in years, but whose influence still pushes me on, died suddenly in his sleep. Now all I can think of are all the times I should have picked the up the phone. Jess is still ill - under a blanket watching Romeo & Juliet. She had some great news, but that gag is still in place. Maybe tomorrow. Our friend Corran had an unscrupulous landlord pull the rug from under him and the roof from over him and is now working out of our spare room. One minute he's hanging with Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, the next he's suffering my cock-jokes over a veggie breakfast. Such is life. I missed a deadline at the end of last week which is something of a first - just too many things piled up. And then I had to apologise to a couple of people which is also very out of character. Maybe I'm growing up. Then again maybe not as this was my favourite:

I'm sorry I suggested you put your mum through a wood chipper

Sorry Mrs Dawson. But hey, it's only 8pm and I have vodka... PS I finally got around to watching The Unit and yeah it's fucking vile. Someone needs to send Mamet a copy of Team America on DVD. [Music: off]

Red mist...

2006-03-10T11:38:00.000Z

I'm in one of those moods today. Jess finished We Love Katamari last night. I'm not sure how many hours of gameplay that is, but it seemed short. There's still a lot of replay fun to be had and we haven't done much on the two player side of things, but still... Plus after the week I've had, I'd like to DESTROY things in a much more satisfying manner than merely rolling them up. I wonder how long I'll have to wait for this. I watched Daywatch for the second time last night, which helped fill in some of the gaps. Such a good fucking movie. The Yanks are still insisting on calling Nightwatch part one of a trilogy - that coupled with the rumours of an English speaking conclusion make me worry that Fox plans to re-edit Daywatch, lop the ending off and then hire a hack to make a third movie filled with Buffy references.... I guess we'll see. I tried to watch David Mamet's The Unit this morning. Only got as far as the credits. It amuses me to keep calling it David Mamet's The Unit because it's such a far cry from anything you'd normally associate with Mamet. If it had been Grover the Muppet's The Unit I would have stuck with it. But seriously, all that gung ho special ops bullshit while the pretty women folk go shopping and have babies back at home - in the land their Action Man/GI Joe sexy scarred hubbies are protecting by shooting animals in the head - What a bag of shit. Of course, I'll get around to watching it all later and may decide it's the best TV show ever. We'll see. If they wanted realism though that missile would have slammed into the market, killed all those pretty little Afghan kids and blown the heroic idiot's arms and legs off. Then we could have had 40 minutes of his wife getting bored feeding him soup with a tube and leaving to fuck one of the neighbours while he tries to kill himself by swallowing his own macho tongue. It's TV for people who can't accept that Starbuck is a woman. You know based on the five minutes I saw anyway... Oh and I dreamt about zombies last night. I have a better time in this city when I'm unconscious. [Music: Clutch - Pure Rock Fury]

Oh you fucking bastards...

2006-03-09T11:23:00.000Z

I knew there would be a gap between this week's BSG season two extended finale and season three, but this is a real pisser:

Production on the third season will commence in April in Vancouver, Canada. But the word is that it will not begin airing until October, four months behind the usual schedule. There are mutterings that one reason could be that parent network NBC is considering lifting the critically acclaimed show from the smaller niche channel to NBC proper, as there's a dearth of promising new shows in the pipeline, according to SyFy Portal. NBC has already tried to rebroadcast specific episodes, including an abbreviated version of the pilot, of the show to expectedly low-ratings results. Of course, those were expected because the episodes already aired. But given the mainstream critical acclaim of the series, as well as its tremendous popularity in iTunes downloads (as well as continued illegal downloads), there is some chatter that NBC Universal -- which owns both SciFi Channel and NBC -- could be considering moving the series to NBC.

The fuck? If a show isn't popular enough some bunch of cunts cancel it. If it gets too popular they fuck with it. The sooner this stuff gets released STRAIGHT to DVD the better. Every time I catch a few seconds of advertising on an American sourced torrent I shudder in horror at the thought of all those poor bastards that have to sit through some quality TV with advertising breaking it up every other fucking minute. I caught the 'teaser' at the end of this week's House and the bastards are only putting it back three weeks... and then have the audacity to fill the ad with spoliers. Fuck's sake. Now we have to wait a fucking lifetime for BSG to come back and hope that the attention deficit mainstream American viewers remember what the fuck it is, because if the ratings drop because of fuckwit interference... the same interfering fuckwits will cancel it. Maybe John can adopt me, take me into work on Father & Son day and then I'll be in crushing distance of these morons... [Music: more 'Thrax]

Free for all...

2006-03-09T11:09:00.000Z

OK, the YouTube thing. I'm pretty good at tracking down obscure TV shows via bittorrent, but YouTube makes a whole bunch of stuff that I hadn't even thought to look for immediately watchable. The worry is that as more copyrighted crap gets loaded up the quicker they'll become Napster and fold. That will leave a lot of holes on a lot of blogs, but more importantly it'll cut off stuff I NEED to watch. It's also annoying to have to watch the damn thing via the website although I do love the easy way you can port the flash videos onto a blog and provide entertaining filler on a slow day or simply share a cool music video with your readers. If only there was an easy way to download and save the content... Well now there is. That should help me shore up a few days worth of fan subbed Japanese television for a rainy day. And Jess gets to keep a hold of Mysterious Cities of Gold. Win/Win. Only a matter of time before someone spoils the fun though, so grab what you can before people who enjoy wearing ties step in... [Music: Anthrax - We've Come For You All]

Framed...

2006-03-09T09:28:00.000Z

If you see something like this plastered on lamposts up North I am not to blame. It's got to be better than the BNP stickers that crop up in SE1 occasionally though. And it may well explain the extra traffic coming through from gay Scottish websites. Boag told me he'd been plastering my name and URL on takeaway wrappers throughout Glasgow, but I didn't pay it much heed. How much greasy food can one man eat? Then I remembered they live on deep fried pizza and mars bars up that way and I got chills. Moving swiftly on... The YouTube version of Rocked By Rape still seems to be up and got 215 views overnight. You can grab the MP3, the video and a bunch of other cool stuff from here. Today is a s l o w start. Need stronger coffee. It's always a weird start to the day when you see your friends have been busy uploading themselves and/or their significant others onto Flickr either starky naked or in a state of undress. Before the internets people must have had to actually search through bedrooms, while pretending to go to the bathroom during dinner parties, to find this kind of thing. Time to bug out... [Music: Anthrax - The Greater of Two Evils]

Doc's Music Meme...

2006-03-08T20:16:00.000Z

This was Doc's suggestion:

From your playlist at the moment (ie. whatever's on your iPod, CD changer, HD, etc. and which you have listened to fairly recently), recommend me a song for each of the 10 categories, answering with the artist, song title, album and a brief anecdotal explanation if you feel so inclined. It'll give you a nice insight into how eclectic (or not) your current playlist is and you might even have to use google for a couple of your answers. Post your recommendations as a comment and cross post it to your own journal to receive recommendations from others. There are no right or wrong answers, the only criteria is that these come from your own playlist!

His questions / my answers (and as a bonus I've linked up the MP3s): 1) Impressive - recommend a song which has a high level of musicianship in it, doesn't matter whether it be instrument, vocals or composition. Just something which makes you think "Wow... that guy is good." I Hung My Head by Johnny Cash. That voice. Completely, utterly unfuckable with. I have no idea what Joaquin Phoenix was thinking in Walk the Line. Sure he's pretty good, but as soon as the real voice comes through over the end credits you realise that what you've been listening to is as weak as something that ran down your mother's leg five minutes after you were conceived. This song is just perfect - conveys a story that is so simple yet so stunning that it makes you wonder why people didn't just stop making music the second this track was laid down. 2) Old - recommend a song which is as old as you are or older. Yeah right, because I'd be spoiled for choice finding a good new song. The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (WMA not MP3).

Paul Simon : The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run - I like that sound, it's very soothing to me - and I'd play. In the dark. "Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again". Playboy : Is that where The Sounds Of Silence came from ? Paul Simon : Well, that's the first line. Then it drifts off into some other things. I've always believed that you need a truthful first line to kick you off into a song. You have to say something emotionally true before you can let your imagination wander.

3) Instrumental - recommend something which has no vocal parts. The Prologue to Battlestar Galactica - this signals a giant happy because I know the next 42 minutes are going to be awesome. But it's very short so I'll break the rules and add Happy Land by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis from The Proposition. It's so fucking melancholy it hurts. 4) Unconventional - recommend a track with is something other than the typical "bass/guitar/drums/vocals" lineup. It can be an interesting solo artist, electronic music, an odd two piece, or even orchestral. Rocked by Rape - The Evolution Control committee You can Google the MP3, but I wanted to put up the video. Couldn't find it on YouTube so I upped it myself. Not sure how long it'll stay up, but for now here it is: 5) Embarrassing - recommend a song which you find slightly embarrassing to listen to but really like the track anyway. One Way Or Another by Kristen Bell. Fuck you. It's a Veronica Mars thing. 6) Live - recommend a track by a band you have seen live. Detroit Rock City by KISS. You wanted the best, you GOT the best. This is taken from the Japanese version of Alive II because a) it's better than the regular release and b) Japanese crowds are insane at the best of times, but stick KISS in front of them in 1977 and you have a SHOW. 7) Long - a piece of music which is over 6 minutes in length. Drowning Witch by Frank Zappa - a whopping 12 minutes and 11 seconds and not a single second wasted. Perfect. 8) Sleepy - a track which you can happily fall asleep to. Straight Outta Compton by Nina Gordon - I love loud angry songs turned into beautiful lullabys... 9) Nostalgic - a song which reminds you of when you were younger. Doc - when you get to my age everything is nostalgic. Where Eagles Dare by The Misfits. The only anthem worth living by. No matter how old you get this is the one song that never ages. 10) Shit - recommend a song to be avoided on an otherwise good album! The horrible cover of Stand by Me by The Ducky Boys on Three Chords and the Truth. Just horrible. Even if I was drunk and the band were drunk this would be unacceptable. I won't subject you to it. Instead this is Scars from the same album. NOTE: Any MP3 files hosted on Visible Monsters are posted for evaluation purposes only and removed after seven days. [Music: off]

The Quotable Sidebar...

2006-03-08T14:05:00.000Z

Still, we all ended up agreeing that, man and woman alike, if we had to be stuck for eternity on a desert island with no man to screw but one, we'd all pick George Clooney.

Assistant Atlas on the Oscars

I may have to fly to New York and kidnap Stephin Merrit's brain and keep it in a jar on my desk.

Ben on someone I have never heard of

We started our Japanese lessons. So far, I can't say much more than "My name is Dan" and "I am not an American"

Dan in and on Tokyo

I'd welcome him with open arms...if you know what I mean! I mean sexually. I was basically trying to say that I want to have sex with him. Why? Because he wasn't in Crash.

Michael Schaub on Macaulay Culkin

Der Norris, der Chuck in einem Beat �em up Flash-Game mit Ragdoll-Physik. Special-Moves: Roundhousekick, Heartripper, Brainstomper!

Soilworker on this

It made no sense.

Sam on Nightwatch

Sweet Christmas. So, so good.

Sean on Nightwatch

A quick glance over some of the most viewed photos involve anywhere from three to ten people with often only one woman among them, which is pretty slutty on everybody�s part.

Jackson on UltraSlut

SY asked out one of my friends, KJ! She obviously said 'no' and, apparently, he nearly cried! I can't help feeling sorry for that guy sometimes.

Laura in her diary when she was 13

I have yet to decide which is cooler: The fact that there's an International Time Capsule Society, or that they compiled a list of the top nine most wanted time capsules that are currently missing.

Jeff on... time capsules

A daughter caught in the act by Daddy! He goes to kill her boyfriend, but things don't quite work out that way . . . ZAK! As if that weren't bad enough, the girl is almost instantly consumed by a fire . . . all except her hand...

Curt on The Severed Hand (with pictures!)

But while I'm ecstatic that Bolivia has elected Morales, Venezuela has elected Chavez and Brazil has elected de Silva, the key word there is 'elected'. While the policies and politics of those governments might be similar to those of Cuba (although far from identical), the point is they have been given a proper mandate from the people. And if they screw up, they can be booted out.

Jess on the date movie we saw over the weekend

At this point the conversation took a hard right-hand turn as Michael Caine walked past me and sat down at the same table as Anjelica Huston. I tried to hear what they were talking about but it soon occurred to me that the chances they'd read my blog were quite slim. So I returned to my food.

Josh on being a dumb motherfucker

A one-hour heating and pressuring process teases out vanillin, the main component of vanilla-bean extract, from the feces.

Anne on vanilla extracted from cow shit

Frances McDormand: Just Hollywood-ugly enough to play blue collar... And should Morgan Freeman really get credit for a voiceover that was added because they thought the movie would confuse Americans?

Jackson again, this time on the Oscars

But when one of these "What does America think about culture" pieces comes on, do I ever see a mid-30's software engineer onscreen bitching about having to download BitTorrents of "The IT Crowd"? Fuck and no.

John on the average American

Anybody who says that �however much I am in favor of the right to freely express one�s opinion, one cannot allow the denial of the Holocaust to hide behind overly generous freedom of expression� ought to take a similarly stringent line with the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And anybody who defends (as I do) that newspaper�s right to publish its scurrilous trash ought similarly to defend David Irving�s right to publish his scurrilous trash.

Shaviro on free speech

once, whilst queueing for chips at work, I heard one student nudge another and furtively whisper: 'See?, I told you.... Wolverine..'

Psychbloke on haircuts

authorities in Palo Alto are warning everyone to be on the lookout for counterfeit $100 bills. They then give a detailed description on how to make one yourself: basically, soak a $5 in bleach and then print a $100 design on top of it.

Rita on making money

From your playlist at the moment (ie. whatever's on your iPod, CD changer, HD, etc. and which you have listened to fairly recently), recommend me a song for each of the 10 categories, answering with the artist, song title, album and a brief anecdotal explanation if you feel so inclined.

Doc creating a new meme

For those interested, leave a comment below, and the two that interest or amuse me the most will receive a banzuke. Given sumo�s traditional nature however, all comments should be made in the form of a haiku, which if nothing else will help give proceedings the air of a real competition � or at least a dodgy fairground tombola.

Lee's latest Sumo giveaway

From behind the camera, I smiled and flapped my hands in what I thought was a gesture conveying happiness and fun in an attempt to get her to do something - anything - other than stand there, stock still and dead silent with a horrified look on her face, clutching a very expensive dildo.

Peggy on the dangers of shooting with sex toys

Our intern from Singapore; Wu Jia Wei, is documenting his stay in Sweden. Newsletter/Sverige #04 has just been released

Jesper puts the boy to work

Or, maybe I'll do what I normally do and head down to Starbucks for a venti mocha and some crumble coffee cake, followed by my normal filching of the NY Times, and then a visit to my sofa to read both the NY and LA papers while watching Arena Football, all in the hopes of not being driven mad by the University of Fucktards which attend and inhabit Parade Magazine.

Tod on the daily grind

Kelly and I have a new place to live. We move in beginning of March. It's a cute place, close to Kelly's work. She promises to walk around naked in it a lot so I'm happy.

Arran is too busy to blog for obvious reasons

Insert "I Don�t Know How To Quit You, George Clooney Batman" Joke Here

Warren uncovers Batman porn

I�ve used all my mad JavaScript skills to create the rollover effect and I seriously hope that I didn�t completely fuck up your browser and/or nuke your motherboard.

Suzanne springs eternal [Music: Misfits - Static Age]

Beat Lobster...

2006-03-08T09:12:00.000Z

When I read about the new crustacean this morning I was struck by two things. 1. Comparing it to the size of a salad plate is a really bad idea. 2. It's blonde and blind and they didn't think to name it Zatoichi? [Music: Balzac]

The Silence of the Crows...

2006-03-08T08:02:00.000Z

If you felt a tremor when you came online this morning it was probably the after effects of Johnny setting up his new blog. His last one was directly responsible for the death of Diana, Princess of ~~Wales~~ Hearts (you can see why she rebranded) and at least fifteen new holes in the ozone layer. Now he's had military training I fear for us all. Him off to see The Misfits soon brought back memories of being trapped backstage at the Camden Underworld with these guys: Somewhere in my vast and messy archive I have some video that Jess shot of me interviewing the lead singer. Our translator was German so the resulting to and fro was bizarre to say the least. If I can dig it out I'll put it up here somewhere. There's loads of Balzac up on YouTube, but the quality isn't great. These guys are a LOT of fun and if you get the chance you should really check them out live... [Music: off]

Take On Me...

2006-03-06T17:00:00.000Z

I meant to post this ages ago, because it tickled me and then I forgot all about it because I suck. Laura playing bass with Aha on Top of the Pops: Laura - remind me to play you the Take on Me scene from Family Guy the next time you come over if you haven't already seen it :) Update: Never mind. Here it is: [Music: off]

Meanwhile in Beijing....

2006-03-06T16:20:00.000Z

Li Gongjian's adopted four year old daughter was murdered in October 2000. Her killer was found guilty and faced the death sentence, but after other crimes (including property damage) were taken into account he received the more lenient sentence of ten years. Li Gongjian was not pleased at this turn of events and refused to hand the girl's body over for cremation, opting instead to hang onto it himself. A few days ago he tied the corpse to the top of a billboard to protest against the injustice of it all... via Shanghaiist. [Music - Nick Cave]

In God We Hide...

2006-03-06T11:12:00.000Z

The Final Incredible Truth So many gods to choose from and he picks the one voted most likely to pussy out... [Music: The Ramones]

There goes the weekend...

2006-03-04T10:41:00.000Z

Jess has been playing this for something like 18 hours straight... [Music: Katamari]

Daywatch...

2006-03-04T01:42:00.000Z

Just saw the Nightwatch sequel, Daywatch, and I'm more confused than ever. Not about the plot (I just about kept my head above water there. Years of following badly translated Hong Kong films have put me in good stead with very literal Russian subtitles), but with what comes next. If anything. Even before I saw Nightwatch I had heard that Fox had interfered to an extent that the proposed third movie had been pulled. Since the first two films had been shot back to back a lot more extra footage was shot to give the second film a definite conclusion. The film I just saw had just such an ending in that it satisfactorily tied everything up and left little room to take the story further given the conclusion. But prior to me seeing Daywatch I had heard that there was indeed going to be a third movie, partially shot in the States and with a now English speaking cast. I have no idea if that's just interweb rumour at this point... To make matters more complicated the books that the films are based on (that still remain annoyingly untranslated) form a nine volume sequence. Maybe. The first three books form the Nightwatch trilogy, the middle books form the Daywatch trilogy and the final three books are the rather less snappy sounding Twilightwatch. But then where does Finalwatch fit in? And from what I hear, despite the title of the film I just watched, that was actually only the second part of the first trilogy and the real Daywatch remains unfilmed. This leads some viewers to disown the title and simply call it Nightwatch II. Now my head hurts. I need a new Russian friend to tell me what the hell is going on. Someone at Fox will know of course, but all they want you to do is look at the new subtitles and make you forget that they cut thirty minutes out of the damn thing... This is made more annoying because I love these films and don't want them to stop. Ever. [Music: off]

Mirrormask...

2006-03-03T09:37:00.000Z

Ok, let's get this out of the way first: Dave McKean is prettier: Mirrormask then. Jess loved it. It's a girl's film. I avoided it on the festival circuit last year because nothing about it appealed. It just looked hokey. Gilliam's been here before and done it much better and with an edge. Mirrormask has no balls. The kids may get a kick out of it, but I dare say that this is for diehard Gaiman fans only - the kind that think Terry Pratchett is a genius and collect Nightmare Before Christmas memorabilia. It's a shame because Dave McKean is a top bloke. Very funny, cordial and full of stories. Just a pity the one he chose to being to the screen was such a stinker. That's a little harsh... there's nothing 'wrong' with it except it feels like the kind of thing that you'd see on a Christmas afternoon on BBC circa 1984. Very Box of Delights. Or if you really want to give it a kicking, it's a little like the video for Aha's 'Take on Me', but much too long. And with worse music. I remember watching this kind of thing as a kid and it was always very hohum. Then I saw Time Bandits and the best bit, the very best bit in a film full of spectacle is right at the end when Kevin's parents get killed by a left over piece of David Warner. All the kid gets is a pat on the head from Sean Connery and is then left all alone. He gets exactly what he wanted - freedom from his soul crushing mediocre parents. It's a happy ending because his parents get killed. And that's how you make a kid's movie. Fuck this saving the parent from cancer when you don't even have the bottle to use the big C word in the film. Besides which Stephen King & Peter Straub did it better years ago too. I have one thing to say to everyone who comes out of Mirrormask with a warm glow - RELAPSE. [Music: off]

Hobosexual...

2006-02-28T18:33:00.000Z

Considering a haircut. Thursday I think. Jess has been thinking about my haircut for at least a month. I know this because every single time we go out the door she reminds me that my hair is mentally ill. I've been putting it off under the delusion that I was a pioneer in crazy creative type hairstyling, until yesterday when I sat down on the tube and the guy next to me had exactly the same hairstyle. Fine, I thought, a fellow traveller... another genius about to wow the world with whatever he's about to pull out of that unwieldy backpack. It was of course a copy of a magazine called TRACTOR. I share a haircut with combine machinery enthusiasts. Agricultural chic, less metrosexual and more hobosexual. The Japanese girl that cuts my hair and is in a constant gloom over how I fail to keep my follicles in check will no doubt have more to say on the subject... My life would be simpler if I just gave in and listened to the pretty girls... [Music: off]

Scar...

2006-02-27T21:28:00.000Z

Just tidying up some loose ends. Go watch The Proposition. Stephen King's Cell is worth a read, but John Bennett's Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf is much better and has more fingering in it. London is still filled with nightmares. Go look. And when BSG finally comes to the end of season two (only a two-parter left I believe) I want to dedicate some space to an overview of the whole shebang as it's been damn important tv as well as constantly entertaining. I just want to dump a few thoughts here from a few weeks ago before I lose them. If that sounds dull go look at naked people. Spolilers for BSG: S02E15 - if you don't have torrent capabilities look away now and give my regards to the 20th century- here be spoilers. I started this a while back so at least one prediction (the return to Caprica) has come to pass, although I wasn't prepared for the direction that THAT episode would take us. The point is, I guess, that on the surface SCAR was a pretty simple episode - Starbuck bangs heads with what is perhaps her Cylon opposite (in terms of flying at least) and lives to fight another day - but it was completely character driven, whacked a hell of a punch and underlined exactly why Starbuck is BSG while Apollo is still a pussy. The implication that perhaps Scar is the reincarnation of the Raider that Starbuck wounded, killed, climbed inside the guts of and flew back to the fleet was a tremendous idea. Need a better reason for holding a grudge? It's a pity he was smeared across a lump of rock by the end of the episode... we could do with more recurring villainy. The only real cliche was not remembering the dead pilots' faces/names as that gets dragged out in way too many 'war is hell' type movies and TV shows, but the rest of the episode was first rate. That Starbuck now has something to live for was not only endearing as there's only so many times you can excuse her reckless behaviour, it has the subsequent effect of making her take less risks as a pilot. She not only loses her Top Gun status, but also her feeling of being indestructible. Seeing as the theme of BSG so far seems to be 'kick 'em when they're down' I don't see much hope for a happy ending here. They can't lose Starbuck, but her freedom fighting boyfriend's days are numbered for sure. That should bring back an even darker and more troubled Starbuck in season three. Let's raise a glass to misery. The details in that episode were perfect - the shot of Scar leaving his hiding place in the asteroid field, the worn surface of his hide screaming SHARK. That was the best sfx shot of the year. They love the flashback framework in this show and it gets old when centred around Lee (his 'won't someone think of the children... and whores' episode was a low point this year), but having Starbuck's epiphany slowly unfold during that face off was inspired. Each jump increasing the reasons why this may well have been her last flight. The previous episode - Apollo getting his balls back was weak, because Apollo is such an annoying character - my heart goes out to Jamie Bamber as he does a great job, but really does anyone care about him? I'm not overwhelmed by the fact that he shot a gangster in the head. Starbuck would have killed everyone in the room, bitchslapped the whore and warned the kid that her life was already fracked before grabbing a bottle from behind the bar as the camera bobs around behind her arse. During the hostage episode of course she shot him - it does nothing to help Apollo's character develop as he's just a whipping post, but Starbuck has to live with almost killing him. Great stuff. The revelation that the Raiders can resurrect too was nicely done and something I hadn't considered. I love this show mostly because they always outfox me. And Boomer's perfect explanation:

"Makes sense doesn't it? It takes months for you to train a nugget into an effective viper pilot. And then they get killed. And then you lose their experience their knowledge their skill sets. It's gone forever. So if you could bring them back give them a brand new body wouldn't you do it? Death then becomes a learning experience"

And if that wasn't enough we have a 'moment' between Boomer and Starbuck. "You know there are times when I look at you and I forget who you are. All I see is that kid..." She leans forward, "You were like a big sister..." Only to be cut off by the Marines cocking their weapons in her face. Of course this all plays out on a different level during the Caprica episode...

"You remember me don't you? You want my ass so bad you can taste it. Well keep coming because I guaranfrackintee that I will put you down, this time for good."

See, that's how you write action dialogue. Oh yeah - and now they HAVE to go back to Caprica. Should be a hell of a finale... [Music: Loudness]

Yeah yeah yeah wow...

2006-02-27T18:52:00.000Z

If you couldn't care less about Spidey's new black suit (raised web stitching or not), but still worry that Sam Raimi missed a trick by not having Spidey fight giant robots then you'll want to watch this: That's the full first episode of the 1978 Japanese Spiderman. The costume and powers are familiar, but this guy is more interested in his motorcycle than photography. His 'Uncle Ben' gets killed by an alien toy dinosaur robot thing before he inherits his suit from some old dying warrior in a nearby cave. Still with me? His costume by the way seems to be kept in an ungainly bracelet that when pressed sends the thing shooting across the room before it dangles mysteriously in front of our hero. One quick ZIP and he's all set to kick the living crap out of any nearby duckbeaked ninja. It's not subtitled, but it doesn't really matter. If you think you can't be arsed watching the whole 24 minutes then you'll miss the bit when he's up against the wall and has no option but to call for the help of his handy transforming lion robot. That doubles as a garage for his flying Spidermobile... Oh yeah and the end credits feature a whistling ballad theme tune. [Music: off]

Ahhhh...

2006-02-26T04:19:00.000Z

So this is why they invented insomnia: Every single episode of The IT Crowd streamed straight into your traitorous eyes. [Music: off]

Got a police problem?

2006-02-26T02:30:00.000Z

Don't even ask how to complain in Florida. And forget about the ID card problem in the UK. I read today that thanks to a change in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act earlier in the year that the police now are well within their rights to arrest you for anything. Before 2006 you had to have carried out a serious offence to be arrested, but now say you get pulled over for speeding and the police don't like the look of you they can arrest you. All offences are now arrestable. This seems to be an upgrade to the already disgusting Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Once you're in a police station you are automatically fingerprinted, photographed and DNA sampled. All that crap goes into a national database even if you aren't eventually charged. I suspect that it's a little like tagging wildlife... PS Don't roller blade in Dallas either [Music: off]

Marathon runners have nothing on us...

2006-02-25T16:26:00.000Z

This man has a lot to answer for: We got through the first two seasons of BSG in two days - with the 3 hour 'pilot' mini series thrown in that adds up to a LOT of TV. The schedule didn't allow for much else. We had a quick wander around the Tate Modern and along the Thames, but I see that crap every day and art is just too distracting when you have the ragtag Colonial Fleet on your mind. Of course we spent a lot of time discussing the finer points of Viper deployment, what resurrection meant for both human and Cylon, the subtle ways the new series drops in elements of the old school show and then just twists them off in elegant and sometimes brutal new directions... and we may have obsessed over Starbuck just a tad: Once the marathon was over we kicked back with the likes of Bad Santa (still incredibly funny), The Descent (still incredibly boring) and trying our best not too upset Jess too much. We failed miserably and there's at least one Chinese restaurant that we won't be going back to... The problem with only seeing each other properly every couple of years is that we have a LOT of idiotic conversations to catch up on... bystanders usually get caught up a in a whirlwind of the most offensive drivel and then spat out bloodied and worn. It's not pretty, but we're done for another year or so and it helps recharge my batteries being able to talk to someone who is just impossible to annoy. Speaking of not pretty I'm listening to Geoff Tate trying to keep up with Ronnie James Dio... And it's been ages since I copied a full Bad Signal onto the blog, but this one is just too good not to:

What is that thing in the sky? It's the sun. We haven't seen that since November. There are blinded people all over Southend today. I will never understand why they televise motor racing. It's duller to watch even than golf. A dozen highly-trained charisma-free planks in high-powered darts that handle like vacuum cleaners drawing a best-fitting line through a boring racetrack fifty times and the same three blokes always win. Give me the cross-country rally any day. I remember watching one where the driver was killing his navigator. The suspension had gone, and the driver was bracing himself against the steering wheel over the bumps and ditches and jumps. But the navigator had nothing to brace against. There was an in-car camera with mic, and you could hear the guy screaming every time the car hit the dirt, until he lost the power of speech entirely, and just laid there, jerking. He had to be carried out of the car by medics at the next stop -- because god forbid the driver should pull over or anything. I have a feeling that was the navigator who later died when the driver rolled his car. Bring back Christians vs Lions, that's what I say. That'd be some television. Don't lie to me. You only watch the Winter Olympics to see the skiers wipe out on the downhill slopes. I'd wear that shirt and go to the sports bar. "I'm a Lions fan!" "Me too!" "Have you ever met a Christians fan?" "Only in Oklahoma and South Dakota. But they say God invented lions anyway, so they're kind of torn. Which is funny, really, because that's what happens to the Christians on a Saturday afternoon anyway..." I should be running a TV network. I would crush the opposition. Also, see them driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women. "Les Moonves, what is best in life?" "To crush Jeff Zucker, see him driven before me, and hear the lamentation of his women." Now that'd be a press conference worth attending. Les Moonves in a loincloth, collar and tie, waving a broadsword stained with the blood of failed sitcoms. Standing on a pile of dead ugly middle-aged Italian guys with inexplicably hot wives. Send me all the money now.

You can subscribe to Warren Ellis' Bad Signal right here. [Music: Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime II ]

Almost 5am...

2006-02-21T04:49:00.000Z

And I'm still not asleep? I should have had more to drink. Then again, maybe not. Later today Stu arrives from the cold damp North and will be here for the rest of the week. Send your whippet and pie related questions to the usual address and I'll pass them on. We are going to try and watch as much BSG as possible... I may have to look into getting Jess a Colonial Viper Pilot's uniform. You know for the sake of realism. [Music: off]

Miles ahead...

2006-02-20T09:47:00.000Z

I've been trying to work out for a while now exactly what it was about Capote that underwhelmed me and then yesterday there was a full page ad for the movie in the paper and I realised that I'd been subconsciously hoping for a very different movie:

Sex and death - two things that come once in a lifetime... but at least after death, you're not nauseous...

Capote wishes he could have written that... [Music: 14 Year Old Girls - Zombies In Robots Out]

Crapola II...

2006-02-19T00:09:00.000Z

Fuck pilot error. That last post wiped out the previous four. For. No. Good. Reason. Blogger is giving up my posts to the �ther faster than the SS got a hold of Anne Frank. This is the powers that be telling me to move over to MT isn't it? [Music: Iggy Pop]

Lock up your squirrels...

2006-02-18T23:38:00.000Z

Suzanne is back: Looks like I'll have to start hanging around the temple again. It also looks like we both had Fuseli on our minds at around the same time. I love random synchronicity. Of course I'm merely an observer, while Ms Wurzeltod tends to take that slice of life directly by the tentacles and proceeds to squeeze the living ink out of it. Tomorrow I have an interview to transcribe... send me distracting links. [Music: The Killers - Hot Fuss]

Crapola...

2006-02-18T18:13:00.000Z

I lost a post somewhere... I'll blame Blogger, but seeing as the last thing I wrote also ended up on Blottered for a few minutes it was probably pilot error. Fuck and jerky. Now I have to remember what the hell it was I had to say - and if I do it makes this post irrelevant. Now I remember why I didn't miss blogging this week... [Music: Fugazi - End Hits]

This just in...

2006-02-18T17:15:00.000Z

Via my Channel Four News email thingy...

A careless blunder meant that a LETHAL beam of radiation was emitted from highly radioactive waste for three-and-a-half-hours out of a lorry driving across the North of England. Apparently it was "pure good fortune" no one was dangerously contaminated when a plug was left off a specially built container. The leak was only discovered the next day after the lorry had been parked overnight at Windscale in Cumbria. How often is dangerous radioactive material moved around like this? And why are there not more stringent safety checks?

Good questions. Like living in the North isn't bad enough without risking being irradiated... then again it would explain some of the things I saw being wheeled around by proud parents the last time I was back 'home'. And trust me, drivers do not need an even lower sperm count to justify buying a 4x4... Damn country's going to hell. I'm thinking about Bolivia. Would six months in South America help me focus? Maybe... if not it's still pretty good odds that it'd be a blast though. And we just got invited to Nick and Erika's wedding out in Manila in November. Now that's a bit of the world I'd like to see first hand... [Music: Stevie Vai's Flex-Able Leftovers]

That was the week that was...

2006-02-18T16:17:00.000Z

Pretty hectic: I blame Jess. She took 3 days off and almost killed me. Taking a leaf from Baltar's book I've been trying to conjure up a new confident/advisor/fluffbunny for when Jess is not around. Unfortunately while he has no trouble at all taking advice from the one on the left all I can muster is the one on the right: As soon as I open my mouth he pulls a gun on me and chases me around the building... Rats [Music: Stevie Vai's Flex- Able]

Jason's rape...

2006-02-11T17:11:00.000Z

This is the part of a conversation I overheard this afternoon:

I haven't seen Jason in ages. He's coming to the Arctic Monkeys. Did you hear about his rape? No. Well you know he was going through that rough patch? You mean when no one would sleep with him? Yeah, well he fucked this bird and she only turned around afterwards and said she didn't want it...

That's what I get for deciding to nip out to buy a copy of The Times just so I could have the Woody Allen DVD. [Music: Not the Arctic Monkeys]

Nuj Nuj wink wink...

2006-02-11T10:57:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday at the NUJ offices. All part of my plan to earn more money this year and finally be able to afford the next bit of William Shatner to fall off and end up on eBay. Today Jess is up at Westminster leaving me to my own devices... like Gene Simmons in Runaway my devices tend to be very bulky acid injecting robots that are useless at killing Thomas Magnum. Not sure what to do with myself really... tomorrow is all stitched up and then Jess is home for three days which will be fun, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do on a Saturday on my own. Alex undoubtedly would suggest some kind of sporting activity. Maybe I should watch Rollerball. Oh and as promised here's my stuff for Firecracker this month: Lady Vengeance Beautiful Boxer One Night in Mongkok Divergence Ashura The first three are all first rate. One Night in Mongkok is especially good as I wasn't expecting much. The nice thing about getting a pile of preview DVDs is that I usually watch them in the early hours of the morning or late afternoon - either way Jess isn't around which means now I have the excuse to sit down with her and watch the really good ones again. Of course, sometimes you don't need an excuse. I've seen Lady Vengeance five times now I think... [Music: off]

Heads up...

2006-02-08T14:04:00.000Z

This is how the all seeing Google perceives me right now: Even as I type I am sat under one of those little grey squares. Once they make a more recent sweep and with slightly better resolution it's going to be too tempting to stick something interesting on the roof. [Music: off]

Really Invisible...

2006-02-08T13:03:00.000Z

Damn, took me 8 days to get back here, which has to be some kind of record for this blog especially when you consider I hardly left this seat. Part of that was due to me having to write for a bunch of other places - there was a deadline pile-up at the end of the month that just kept getting slammed into. Thanks for email etc though... glad to know that people begin to worry that I have been CRUSHED under a pile of DVDs whenever I drop off the radar like that. Although the pace on Londonist picked up somewhat last week so you could always have kept an eye on me from there. No real news. Things are pretty good and Jess recently broke through yet another stress barrier to arrive bouncing on the other side declaring "Lets watch a film where things get fucked up!" after being heads down and crammed into work for like two weeks. Film wise I've been busy after revisiting George Romero's The Crazies to refresh my memory on all the ways the remake is going to suck. Capote was so-so, Munich was better than expected, but still didn't have much to say apart from that killing hot Dutch assassins with bicycle pump pistols was WRONG. Something I've known for years. I've also seen a bunch of Korean, Hong Kong and Japanese flicks that will end up on Firecracker so I'll skip over them for now. TV wise I'm behind on Life on Mars. I'll catch up this evening. BSG just had it's best episode this season following close on the heels of the worst episode. One was resting with Apollo while the other was all about Starbuck. No prizes for guessing which outfucked the other. More on that later as I want to rewatch it this afternoon. And yes, there will be spoilers. I'm almost done with Stephen King's 'Cell'. I was tricked into reading it by Dan who used the golden phrase "hybrid of I Am Legend and Night Of The Living Dead" which made my happy explode. It funnily enough has a touch of The Crazies about it too and suffers from a killer opening that all too quickly gives way to trademark King survival stuff. Much better than all that mystical gunslinging horsecrap though. Again more detail on that later. Dan of course is a complete bastard. He just moved to Japan. Fuck. He's currently blogging earthquakes for dog's sake while I am left here to write about clowns. And other dead things. Time and time again people I thought were friends choose their wives over me. Goddamnit I can cook! Duncan is also having a whale of a time and annoying me no end by sending text messages instead of starting a new blog:

There's been this mad and beautiful phenomenon here over the last couple of days. It looks like it is not snowing, but then if you look up into a sunbeam the air is sparking and glittering with thousands of tiny crystals. The Canadians call it diamond dust. Wild.

Don't you think he should share this kind of thing? Oh and if you see God or any of the other 'powers that be' please try and fuck him/them in the eyesocket from me. There's a slim chance that Sandwich may have a heart murmur. We'll know more in three weeks and there's not a lot to worry about right now, but it doesn't stop Jess worrying and me wanting to punch invisible forces in the throat. I can think of fifteen people I met in just the last week that I'd love to inflict health problems on, but by all means focus the life isn't fair beam on a fucking kitten. If you see me atop Centre Point trying to drop biplanes onto Oxford Street don't be too surprised. [Music: Disturbed]

Get well soon, Rick...

2006-01-31T11:23:00.000Z

Dark, But Shining is a great blog that I've mentioned on here more than once and I should read it every day, but I don't because I'm an idiot. This means I only just found out that one if its contributors, Rick Geerling, has been in hospital:

I was released from the hospital this afternoon. I ended up there Thursday night after I was mugged and shot three times in the leg. Seriously. I'm doing good. The first two bullets went straight through my leg below the knee, but the third shattered my thigh bone...

My own attempted mugging story suddenly seems like very small potatoes. It's been quiet on Dark, But Shining for a while now, but I hope that has more to do with them all beginning to earn mega bucks from their writing in the 'real world' and not so much to so with the gunshot wounds. [Music: The Taking of Pelham 123 soundtrack]

Back in the saddle...

2006-01-30T17:09:00.000Z

So yeah I'm back. And of course my tongue was firmly in cheek for that last post (although that story is perfectly adaptable as a horror flick...) so don't bother pointing out where my 'theory' doesn't quite hold water. It's much more fun to watch and note all the things that back it up anyway... Last week ended on a high which was a nice change. The day at Westminster was great as we got to go 'off tour' and snap a few shots in places we weren't strictly supposed to be.

One hell of a place and we'll be singing its praises over on Londonist in a day or two. I threw up a little something on the awfulness that is Lost up there earlier today. We also played host to a lot of cool people over the weekend which is always nice and best of all Jess' grandmother seems to be coping pretty well. Dare I suggest that now she's out of Bill's shadow there's a whole new person there to get to know? If you've been checking up on us via Flickr you'll have seen lots of kitten pics and not much else - I fear the extra strain we put on Google with all those photos of Sandwich sent them straight into the arms of China. Jess is out with her M.A. this evening leaving me with a pizza menu and a stack of horror flicks... I'll try and not to reread them as gay westerns. Promise. Just time to point you in the direction of Ben. We've been chatting for a little while now and he's certainly one of the good guys. And by that I mean he'd make a fine CAG on the last surviving Battlestar. [Music: Johnny Cash]

Invisible Monsters...

2006-01-30T16:24:00.000Z

I loved Brokeback Mountain and was surprised to hear that Crash beat it at the Screen Actors Guild awards. Then again maybe the award 'best ensemble cast' didn't quite fit Brokeback. It after all being a two man show with some great supporting work, but it's a far superior movie to Crash which was problematic and predictable in places (although Matt Dillon in this and Factotum was incredible...) Anyway let's get back to the mountain. Ang Lee's film was breathtaking in both scope and look and while it's garnered enough praise to award it instant classic status, the critics are overlooking one thing. It's a love story, it's a Western, but (and bare with me here) it's a hell of a werewolf movie too. "Where was the werewolf?" one of my editors asked me a few nights ago as I put this to him over a glass of wine. "There's no werewolf...". "Exactly," I said. "Exactly". Let's go back to Spartacus for a moment. Cast your mind back to the following exchange between Crassus and Antoninus:

Do you eat oysters? When I have them, master. Do you eat snails? No, master. Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral? No, master. Of course not. It is all a matter of taste, isn't it? Yes, master. And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals. It could be argued so, master. My robe, Antoninus. My taste includes both snails and oysters.

If you do remember that scene it's because you saw the restored version. The original cut expelled it - in fact although it was shot the sound was lost (perhaps never recorded at all) and it was left to Anthony Hopkins to voice Laurence Olivier's lines while the much older Tony Curtis repeated his own some thirty years on. Hollywood has never rested easy with onscreen tom-on-tomfoolery. The only way for a savvy director and/or writer to get something similar on screen was to hide it - not that you had to be particularly subtle as not much fuss was kicked up by Peter Lorre stroking his walking stick in front of Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. Try and watch it now without spotting the homoerotic overtones. For my sins I can't watch Brokeback Mountain without seeing similar lycanthropic undertones. But don't listen to me, here's the most important line in the film straight from the horse rider's mouth. Ladies and gentleman, Mr Ennis Del Mar:

"The bottom line is... we're around each other and this thing grabs hold of us again in the wrong place and the wrong time then we're dead."

Now you may want to read that as Ennis simply talking about the love that he feels for Jack that binds and ultimately breaks him. That's cool, if a little simplistic, because they sure do have a heap of feelings to work through over the years, but I put it to you that "this thing" up there on Brokeback is hairier than both of them put together. While the rest of the audience was crying softly over the tragic love story I was on the edge of my seat as each year the two men set off again to try and finally bring the werewolf down. Of course they never had a use for the fishing tackle... who has time to fish when you're fighting tooth and claw with a moon cursed monster? They barely had time to fuck. It's no wonder they sought solace in each others arms. Who else would understand or even believe in the thing that they were facing up there? I mean I can tell I'm already losing a few of you... So why would Ang Lee hide the 'star' of his film? Well for one thing arthouse cinema isn't known for its all embracing love of horror mythology so he obviously thought it best to squirrel away the beast and infer its presence instead. This is beautiful as never revealing the monster leaves it up to the audience's imagination rather than rendering it with soon outdated CGI (sheep are easier to animate realistically than werewolves) or putting Randy Quaid in a wolf suit. There's also the stigma of his last genre outing, Hulk, for which he was burned badly. I expect one day for him to oversee a director's cut of that film in which all visual evidence of Bruce Banner's alter ego is similarly erased. Finally the film can then reach a larger arthouse audience as simply a story about a man battling with his id. No wonder after his dalliance with monsters he preferred to keep them offscreen this time out.* Whatever the reason though it's a hell of a horror flick. Been a while since I saw two men so determined to face down the unspeakable and perhaps sacrifice themselves for an uncaring community that knows nothing of their heroism:

Ennis: It's a one-shot thing we got goin' on here. Jack: Ain't nobody's business but ours.

Maybe with time and a change in attitudes we can look forward to the liberal arthouse community allowing those of us who have a need for bloodthirsty lycanthropy in our movies to get to see our kind of action on the big screen bathed in falling moon light. Until then we're forced to sit in the dark interpreting the shadows, but when it's done as well as Brokeback I won't complain too much. * although I did hear a rumour that he asked Nick Nolte to stay overnight on the mountain to get into character. Nolte being Nolte immediately turned feral leaving Lee with no choice but to go with Randy Quaid. Nolte is still up there living on backpackers and his own urine. [Music: At the Drive In]

Inky Circus...

2006-01-27T08:50:00.000Z

Been a busy week with more to come so I won't get a chance to return to norm on here until Monday I guess. Yesterday I hooked up with the girls from Inky Circus: Their combined IQ threatened to crush me like a bug until we got onto safer ground with dumb TV references. Thank god for Joss Whedon. Been a while since I did the cross-blogging meetup thing. More of that in the next couple of months I hope... Later this morning I've been invited around the Palace of Westminster and tonight I'm having a bit of a shindig - although it's 'work' related so had to put the dancing girls on hold. What I'd really like to do right now is crawl back into bed. I hate 6am. [Music: Zappa]

8 July 1915 � 21 January 2006

2006-01-25T14:28:00.000Z

Still dividing my time between here and Cockfosters, but slowly getting back into the swing of things. Thanks to all for the text messages, emails and phonecalls. Much appreciated. We buried Bill on Monday. Something very final about being one of the people dropping shovelfulls of clay down onto a coffin. Time to get back to a little irrelevant blogging... [Music: Johnny Cash - American IV]

Bill...

2006-01-21T23:59:00.000Z

Jess' grandfather died today. The last time we saw him he was sat up in his hospital bed, quoting Shakespeare and being stubborn with his doctor. He was a doctor himself for many years, (hell, he never stopped being a doctor from what I saw) and he was sure he knew those charts and numbers better than any of the staff in the hospital. He went past 90 a while back and I honestly would not have been surprised a jot if he'd hit a 100 before calling it a day. Even from that damn bed he was full of advice. "Pain is the great leveler," he said and as sorry as I am to see him go I'm glad he's above that shit now. Tomorrow we'll be spending the day with Jess' grandmother and I guess we'll be back to getting on come Monday. If you have the number then send me or Jess a text message. I'm sure she'd appreciate it. It's been a rough time for her and again we're in the position where we'd normally be looking around for Carol. Jess said to me earlier tonight that she can't believe that Bill's gone. His grandson Jackie, who turned ten earlier this month, can quote more Shakespeare than I could when I was studying it. Even in that simple way Bill will be around for a very long time. This was one of his favourites (excuse any mistakes as this is from memory and mine is not a patch on Bill's)

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts...

Off to the flicks this weekend?

2006-01-20T00:27:00.000Z

Shopgirl vs A Cock and Bull Story. My money's on Coogan. Hyperdrive is still not doing it for me - it needed to be more like this I think. Lost is slowly improving though... Have 11th Hour saved for the morning. Still got my fingers crossed for that one. Should be back to something like normality tomorrow after I catch up with email. [Music: off]

Chewsday...

2006-01-17T15:39:00.000Z

I'm back on the coffee. Two weeks without it was quite an achievement, but seeing as I was still staying up all hours and just missing the taste I decided to cave in. Maybe I'll try the decaf stuff when I run out. The downside is that now I'm addicted to chai as well... Was out last night watching a strange mix of swordplay, kabuki and demon slaying and forgot all about Life on Mars. Homechoice saved the day by 'recording' it for me - great application for people like me who stopped paying attention to TV schedules years ago. I meant to mention the last episode of BSG over the weekend, but both the kitten and Jess proved too distracting. Every single episode has a couple of killer lines, but Edward James Olmos seems to get the best. Maybe it's just his delivery... ("see if he had time to eject...") great great stuff. I'm concerned that they really will allow Mary McDonnell's character to die - as much as I relish the thought of a presidential Baltar I'd swallow any hokey 'cure' the writers can come up with to keep her on board. Not being American I have no idea if TV Guide is still considered a big thing or if Matt Roush is a decent critic, but I do agree with him when he says:

No disrespect to Farscape or Firefly (which should be obvious if you've ever read me before), but Battlestar is hardly comparable to those more fanciful sci-fi/fantasy series.

BSG is head and shoulders better than both shows - mostly due to the gritty realism it brings to space opera. That said the contribution that Firefly's effects and feel for 'shooting in space' gave should not be overlooked. And the Baltar/6 relationship is nothing but a straight take from the Crichton/Harvey scenes from Farscape. I just realised that I still haven't seen the Farscape finale. I must have had it for over a year or so now, but still don't really want to see the thing conclude... [Music: Greenlight the Bombers]

Oh man! Look at those cavemen go...

2006-01-17T14:00:00.000Z

Have you read the lyrics to a certain Bowie song recently? Pretty loaded stuff if you're already hooked on the Beeb's new show. The second episode of Life on Mars was good... not quite as good as the first one, but it played up the comedy rather well. That said the Guantanamo Bay gag fell so flat that it was stunning. I'm not mad keen on the way the events happening to the comatose Tyler have a knock on effect in 1973. I like the odd radio picking up a voice, but the lights out in the hospital* was too much as it's making the setting less real for the viewer as well as the protagonist. Besides which I prefer having multiple theories of why an event has happened (something they played to the max in say Shaun of the Dead) rather than the cut and dried answer that the writers are giving us here. And the test card girl was just silly. What next... midnight visits by a Womble? The tiny flashbacks to the small feet and woman in red rushing through the woods... not so good either. I'm guessing that three year old Sam witnessed some kind of trauma as a nipper and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the boys in blue circa 1973 sorted it out - that's why he joined the force and that's why he's stuck where he is now. Maybe. Although it wouldn't surprise me if the final revelation is Hunt being a badass in front of toddler Sam while Annie gently leads him away by the hand. We'll see. One thing that is bothering me more than anything else is the lack of racism. Let me rephrase that. I'm more bothered by the easy use of sexism, but not by the characters as much as the writers. Last night's episode had one scene with breast gags aplenty that were not out of place given the setting - watch a British TV show made in the seventies for prime time and you'll see the same and worse. BUT it's becoming obvious that the writers are more at home with this kind of thing than the racism which should be going hand in hand. Again watch an old episode of Man About The House and right along with the chesty comments you'll get a gag about 'blacking ' up (or as in the case of a recent repeat I saw a line about Pele "whiting up" - mind boggling stuff). Maybe the writers think the viewers will be more acceptable of tit jokes than jungle bunny jibes, but I guarantee that kind of shit would be flying around. I was only one year old in 1973, but by the time I was up and walking Lancashire was a xenophobe's paradise. So far we've had a lot of Carry-On style humour and a fairly typical reaction to the deaf character in last night's episode (I have a deaf uncle and he was treated much worse than that every day of his life), but it seems very 2005 to avoid the racial slurs that would have simply been seen as no big deal - part and parcel of life at the time. So far the only featured black character has managed to avoid any of this despite running the boozer frequented by the coppers. It may be he's deemed as part of their circle, but it wouldn't stop some 'friendly' gags at his expense (and I can't help wondering if his character is based on the bartender in the final episode of Quantum Leap). Not that I expect a show that goes out at 9pm on BBC1 to be Deadwood, but perhaps it says a lot that it's somehow easier to accept the regular "fanny" references than it is something deemed 'more' offensive. Perhaps deep down we're not supposed to treat sexism as as big a problem as racism? Early days yet though... * I wonder if the girl in the 1973 coma is running around in 1940 wondering where all the lava lamps have gone [Music: off]

Alex St Claire...

2006-01-14T10:59:00.000Z

Just archiving this here before it disappears behind The Independent's stupid 'pay for old news' system. Alexis Clair Snouffer (Alex St Clair), guitarist: born 1941; married; died Lancaster, California c5 January 2006. Despite the fact that he retired from music in the mid-Eighties and has been concentrating on painting for the last 20 years, Captain Beefheart remains a major influence on the likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Fall, David Byrne, Kate Bush, John Lydon and a host of other groups and singers. A genuinely original and arresting performer with a growly voice, a multi-octave range and something of a reputation as a hard taskmaster, Beefheart - n� Don Van Vliet - defined alternative rock when he recorded the Safe as Milk album with the Magic Band in 1967. Alex St Clair (sometimes spelt St Claire) - real name Alex Snouffer - was one of the original guitarists with the group and helped shape their sound from their inception in 1964 via their deranged cover of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy" single released in 1966 and on to the groundbreaking Safe as Milk. St Clair left at the end of the following year, after completing work on the Strictly Personal album, but stayed on speaking terms with Beefheart. Indeed, he rejoined the Magic Band in 1972, touring with them the following year and contributing to Unconditionally Guaranteed, their 1974 album for Richard Branson's Virgin Records. Born in 1941, Alexis Clair Snouffer grew up in Lancaster, California, and played trumpet in the Antelope Valley High School band, where he met Frank Zappa, who was on drums. By the late Fifties, both Snouffer and Zappa had moved on to guitar, were playing rhythm'n'blues covers in various bands and hanging out with their friend Don Van Vliet. Before going on to worldwide notoriety with the Mothers of Invention in the late Sixties, Zappa recorded soundtracks for a couple of B-movies. In 1963, he used the proceeds to open his own Studio Z in neighbouring Cucamonga. Snouffer frequently visited and jammed with various musicians in between odd jobs collecting money from slot machines in Lake Tahoe and playing in cover bands. Determined to create more challenging and original music, Snouffer came back to Lancaster in 1964 and recruited the guitarist Doug Moon, the bassist Jerry Handley and the drummer Paul Blakely. As Van Vliet recalled in a 1973 interview: "Alex St Clair called me - you know, the fellow who was on Safe as Milk. He had a great influence on Jimi Hendrix when he was in England. Anyway, he calls me and says: "I'm putting a group together and we're gonna play tonight. You're gonna sing, Van Vliet." He's a real Prussian, you know? I said, "Give me a minute, will you? I never sang anything. I don't know anything about music", and he says, "Tonight, you're going to sing." I must have sounded like a burro or something. And he says: "That's horrible, man." I say: "I told you." But he says: "We're gonna do it anyway, and it'll get better." Things didn't so much get better as weirder for the group now calling themselves Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band after the talented frontman considered making a film called Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People. Snouffer embraced the idea of using aliases and creating stage characters and took up the moniker Alex St Clair. In 1965, the freaky group appeared at Hollywood's Fourth Annual Teenage Fair and won a new Fender guitar. Bizarrely, St Clair briefly switched to drums when Blakely left and the guitarist Rich Hepner and then Jeff Cotton (Antennae Jim Semens) stepped in but, by the time they recorded their two singles for A&M - "Do Wah Diddy", produced by David Gates of Bread fame, and "Moonchild" - in 1966, John French (a.k.a. Drumbo) had joined and he was back on guitar. However, the A&M bosses Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss passed on the original version of Safe as Milk which the Magic Band had cut and the group signed to Buddah in 1967. They set about re-recording the material with Richard Perry and Bob Krasnow producing. Perry added the up-and-coming guitarist Ry Cooder - then in the Rising Sons with Taj Mahal - to the mix and the combination of his slide and St Clair's and Cotton's staccato interplay formed the perfect accompaniment to Beefheart's mighty growls on "Sure 'Nuff'n' Yes I Do" and the stomping "Electricity". But Cooder's tenure proved short-lived and his departure forced the group to cancel a planned appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Now married, Alex St Clair felt increasingly uncomfortable as Beefheart's approach grew ever more dictatorial. The guitarist eventually left the Magic Band at the end of 1968, after two European visits which included a showcase at the Miden music conference in Cannes filmed for French television and two John Peel sessions, as well as shows at the hip London club Middle Earth. He also played on the sessions for both Strictly Personal and Mirror Man, an album which wasn't released by Buddah until May 1971. St Clair backed Denny King on the Evil Wind is Blowing album but returned to the Magic Band at the tail-end of 1972, joining a line-up which featured the guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo, the bassist Rockette Morton and the drummer Art Tripp III. He played on the Unconditionally Guaranteed album but left again in 1974 as matters came to a head between Beefheart and the Magic Band, who left en masse. Rollo and Morton formed Mallard and signed to Virgin while Beefheart recruited a completely new Magic Band and St Clair opted to go back to the US. In the Eighties and Nineties, he had a succession of odd jobs, from bartending to gardening, and spent some time in rehab. He was found dead in his apartment earlier this month. In 1978, Beefheart recorded a song entitled "Owed T'Alex" on the Shiny Beast (Batchain Puller) album. Co-written in the Sixties with the poet Herb Bermann, the impressionistic lyrics depicted St Clair's motorbike visits to his mother in Carson City. - Pierre Perrone No prizes for guessing who I'm listening to today (and no I have no idea who Franz Ferdinand are/is...) [Music: see above]

Gun fu & broadswords...

2006-01-14T00:56:00.000Z

Nothing to do with vampires in my fair city, but everything to do with upping the ante after the sublime Equilibrium. Now I know that that film wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but that's because people are idiots. Judging from the trailer Kurt Wimmer has improved on the gun kata and gone one better than all those exploding faceplates by suiting up the guys in black this time round in full body armour that makes for a satisfying SMASH whenever Milla Jovovich gets feisty. No Sean Bean and no puppy rescue, but it looks nice and stark like Equilibrium. Although even a slimmed down Christian Bale couldn't pull this look off: Now if only Wimmer would agree to helm a remake of Blakes 7... The only thing better than girls in tight leather smashing things up are large men in longships smashing things up. Check out the trailer for Beowulf & Grendel. Of course it's been done before - sort of - with The 13th Warrior (aka Eaters of the Dead), but that was very much the hair metal version. This looks more like the thrash metal version... Speaking of which... best use of Anthrax in a trailer ever? [Music: Megadeth - Rust in Peace]

I used to have smarts...

2006-01-14T00:04:00.000Z

That intertextuality thing keeps coming up in my referrer logs. It's a sad reminder that too much TV and the Interweb rots your brain faster than any returning Venus probe can revive it. [Music: something loud and stupid]

Spooky...

2006-01-13T19:35:00.000Z

'Overheard' in a group email I was part of today:

I'm sure we live parallel lives. It's already spooky that we're both marrying neurobiologists within a week of each other.

[Music: off]

Hyperdrive...

2006-01-12T22:52:00.000Z

Hmmm bit of a mixed bag. Too much emphasis on The Office style comedy, at least two characters that are just annoying and forget the Red Dwarf comparisons - if you've ever watched Dark Star twice in a single sitting there there's no need to lose sleep over missing Hyperdrive. I'll stick with it though because the 'reboot to factory settings' scene made me laugh and there aren't enough fat beardy blokes leading the way on TV. All eyes are now on Stewart and Eleventh Hour. I bet it's not a patch on his bit in Lifeforce (or indeed the nonsense-sounding Mysterious Island). Of course all the British people really need is a new series of Quatermass. [Music: off]

Sandwich...

2006-01-11T16:50:00.000Z

Jess has wanted a new kitten for ages now. I'm still very a dog guy, but with this flat and our forever-in-the-air plans it's just not fair or feasible. Both Todd and Stuart beat me to the puppy line too. Bastards. Anyway... we started looking for a kitten only a few weeks ago. We went to see one little guy, but he was way too small to be taken from his mother so we passed. We actually had an appointment to go see another litter tonight and the idea was to give one of those little guys a new home. But then Jess got an email a few nights back and asked me to take a look at the attached photo. Not the best snap in the world and I got the feeling that Jess was going to pass and stay on plan, but then I pointed out that this small blur in the photo was a little soul too and maybe deserved some more of our attention. Jess melted. One quick trip to Vauxhall and we were 'parents' again. We met Pedro and his flatmate (top chaps) and the kitten's parents (top cats - although one seemed convinced that he was a dog) and we hit it off right away. We promised to keep them updated so you can bitch all you like about the number of cat photos already on the internets, but at least we have a reason for adding to the digital fur mountain. The name 'Sandwich' was my idea... I think it suits her PS A kitten in a carrier is date bait. I never get this much female attention when carrying I Want To Fuck You tucked under my arm. UPDATE: Sandwich got the all clear from the vet and she and Merry are due to meet sometime this evening... [Music: off]

Do you always get what you want?

2006-01-11T15:53:00.000Z

BSG is back (albeit via the dark web) and while I'd guessed that the Mexican standoff mid-season cliffhanger wasn't going to go anywhere, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard the line "you've got to kill her" from the mouth of the one person least likely to utter such a thing. If you're tired of shows and movies being predictable and stupid (hello Wolf Creek - yeah don't bother shooting the maniac in the head when you have the chance because it's much more fun to let him get up and chase you for the next twenty minutes - and yet you still find time to check out some home movies... silly cow deserved to have her spine severed) then BSG is the show for you. How refreshing for a character to voice what you know to be the only course of action. You usually just shrug, expecting no one to actually suggest it because they exist within the narrow parameters of TV land. I may just explode when Deadwood returns. Anyway if the above fails to wet your appetite then there's always that certain chemistry between Starbuck and Cain*. Yowsers. *if I'd been referring to the original series that would have been a radical show right there [Music: off]

Hello world...

2006-01-10T23:51:00.000Z

World meet Sandwich: She's 11 weeks old and pretty much the last word in kittens... We are now a family of four. Groovy. And forget everything I said previously about Life on Mars. We just watched BSG and that's how you make television [Music: Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying]

Life on Mars...

2006-01-10T14:54:00.000Z

I tried to hate this. I don't have enough time to get through all the shows I'm already hooked into without adding to the pile, but despite the new Battlestar 1 sat on my desktop we settled ourselves down last night to see what the Beeb had been spending our money on this time out. I almost gave up five minutes in. John Simm as Sam Tyler in 2006 was just awful - he looked like a 12 year old playing dress up in a suit that was a couple of sizes too big for him. The 'drama' was heavy handed, obvious and dull with some horrible supporting moments - Archie Panjabi was so wooden as to be flammable. But then Tyler gets himself run over and things immediately picked up. Half-watching the trailers over Christmas I had wondered how they were going to pull off the dilapidated seventies landscape, but someone had a brainwave and set the thing in the North. Genius. In fact they probably had to spruce up some of the locations to get them back to their 70's sheen 2. If you didn't see Life on Mars 3 you'll be a bit lost at this point. It's the new BBC frontrunner, a blend of sci-fi and police drama from the makers of Spooks (aka MI-5) and Hustle (aka 'Robert Vaughn is still alive?') both of which I've managed to avoid. This year I'm trying to sample a little more home grown product, slightly buoyed by the dizzy heights of The Thick of It and Waking the Dead 4. So Sam Tyler's girlfriend/colleague/moron gets herself caught by a serial killer who keeps his victim alive for 24 hours. At a loss at how to proceed Tyler takes a breather from his car and is promptly knocked into the middle of last week - 1973 to be precise. Cue lots of obvious gags ("I need my mobile..." "Mobile what?") and a couple of great ones ("There was a PC console here..." "PC who?"). As luck would have it the fates have decreed that Tyler is a copper no matter how wide his collars so before you can say Ford Granada he's on a case that mirrors the one back (forward?) in 2006. The plotting is a tad hokey, but the whole concept is more good dumb fun than simply dumb and what's INTERESTING is Tyler's reaction to what has happened. Me? I'd be on the first plane to New York to catch The Getaway on a big screen, but Tyler sticks around and tries to get a handle on things. It's a well trodden path to pop someone from an earlier age into ours and play fish out of water (Time After Time being the best example as Malcolm McDowell's HG Wells chases David Warner's Jack the Ripper around seventies San Francisco) or to drop a protagonist further back where his or her knowledge of the future helps a lot, but relatively recent time travel is much more interesting. I guess that's what Quantum Leap was all about as that Sam could only jump around within his own lifetime - overall that show hedged its bets and handled even the most important issues very lightly because of the format. There's some room here for the BBC to do something a lot more interesting, but we'll see how that goes... At first Tyler is simply out of his depth and pretty much a dead ringer for Martin Freeman's Arthur Dent in the recent big budget Hitchhiker's Guide, but when he begins to interact with his new colleagues things get much better. Liz White as WPC Annie Cartright is great and although she simply believes that Tyler is suffering from a concussion she's his rock in an increasingly unsettling world as she does her best to get him to come to terms with the 'reality' of where he is 5. The real star of the thing though is Philip Glenister as DCI Gene Hunt, Tyler's new boss. That Tyler is so shocked and bewildered by Hunt's methods and behaviour just means he's never seen an episode of The Sweeney (the main touchstone for this program). I'm keen to watch Tyler try and hang onto his 21st century sensibilities while everyone around him gets the job done while eating over the evidence, slapping people around and drinking six pints before lunchtime. By the end of the first episode Tyler has already done one wrong thing for what he believes is the right reason so to see how he navigates that slippery slope should be part of the arc of the next seven episodes. I hope. Early on Tyler is reminded that he used to rely on his instincts more and he replies that that was before things got so complicated that you could get yourself sued for harassment so easily. During the 2006 interrogation scene the suspect has a lawyer, a doctor and a social worker present in direct contrast to the '70's sequence. Back then a female witness is intimidated (and perhaps worse) in a Lost & Found office with no representation at all. And that seems to be what the series is really about. Tyler has a very understandable superiority complex, but I 'm guessing that that will slowly give way to a grudging respect as he comes to realise that these Neanderthals get the job done without technology or the complications of red tape. Of course the danger there is how much you can respect someone who is a good copper, but also a racist, sexist homophobe. It's an interesting problem and I'll keep watching just to see them dance around the issues. Guessing ahead and as Tyler was three in '73 there's also a good chance for him to run into family and perhaps his toddler self - let's pray it's handled better than the Who episode 'Father's Day'. The time crossed love interests could also take us into dreary Goodnight Sweetheart territory but let's hope not. I think we're supposed to be hooked on the mystery of what exactly has happened to our hero - he himself asks aloud whether he's there to change something and later Annie points out that maybe he's here for a reason, but to hell with that. The whole reason to stay glued to the first episode (and I suspect the best part for the actors and writers) was to build up to the scene where Tyler and Hunt vault the desk at the same time on their way to rescue the girl. It was a BIG STUPID MOMENT and it made the show. Jess and I both laughed out loud and it's the best bit of TV I've seen so far this year. I have no idea what kind of legs the show has got but as everyone (in the UK at least) seems to love cop shows it could run for a while. The concept does walk a thin line between great and terrible, but bravo to the Beeb for giving it a go. With BBC2's Hyperdrive on the horizon, ITV giving us Patrick Stewart in Eleventh Hour (I wonder if he gets to "see everything" in that) and the face-lifted dinosaur of Doctor Who complete with its ominous lump ~~Hot Rod Cow~~ Torchwood, at the very least I'll have plenty to mouth off about over the next few months. Life on Mars was very British though. Be interesting to see what the Yanks make of it... 1 I still haven't decided if it's better to shorten it to 'Battlestar' or 'Galactica' yet. What are the hip kids calling it? Is it ok to refer to both the old and new versions as the Bee Gees? 2 Like Doctor Who I expect a lot of this was filmed in Wales as it's a BBC Wales production - they�ve dodged the problem of having to make a backwater look like the capital by playing to the strengths of Wales and the North being crap-pits. Torchwood in contrast is actually SET in Cardiff. Be interesting to see a high tech team investigate alien artifacts in a locale where the inhabitants have yet to master the can opener 3 The title comes from the David Bowie track playing on Tyler's iPod just before he hits 1973. The same song is playing on his 8-track when he 'arrives'. Nice 4 The last season of Waking the Dead funnily enough had a great episode partly set in the seventies 5 The character of Annie's ex boyfriend is much more clumsily handled and seems shoehorned in. That particular revelation would have been better handled over a couple of episodes. But I like the unintentional horror that suggests that every coma victim could be running around the North of England wearing a kipper tie. Pull those feeding tubes NOW [Music: Zappa]

Pantsu...

2006-01-09T09:45:00.000Z

Almost a week offline. Well, teetering on the edge of being offline, but in reality having to spend time away from blogging and my usual haunts to concentrate on finding new ways of getting PAID in 2006. Suffice to say I'm still here - a few more rocks to sniff under and then some proper catch up posting to get on with. In the meantime... Eyes of Crystal & Tears of Kali A Bittersweet Life Iron Monkey, Wing Chun & Tai Chi Boxer R-Point Wishing Stairs And something to get your teeth into: PANTSU Gotta catch 'em all... [Music: Van Halen]

Real life is something to do...

2006-01-03T07:02:00.000Z

...when you're tired of watching movies. Go grab the trailer for 5-25-77 now. It may not be up there forever. Read about it here. Careful! You're bleeding on Moonbase Alpha [Music: off]

Caffeine patch?

2006-01-03T03:42:00.000Z

Not so much a resolution but rather an experiment - I'm on my third day without a drop of coffee. I figured the internal caffeine reservoir would have run dry by now and yet here I am heading towards 4am bright eyed and bushy faced... Getting things done though and I guess that's the important thing. And patching your crappy operating system. [Music: Twisted Forever - A Twisted Sister tribute album]

Waking soon...

2006-01-02T01:34:00.000Z

Almost time to get my game face on. And by 'game' I mean unfashionably huge Deadwood style facial hair. Jess has one more day off which we intend to make the most of and then it's back to work for both of us. 'Work' is complicated as we both have plans in that area. I enjoyed 2005 a lot and yet here I am in the same place with a lot of water treaded. I'm like the dumb fuck from Open Water without the dumb blonde for company... No, hang on... I'm smarter than that because I don't go scuba diving. It would be nice not to be here this time next year though. So no end of year rundowns or promises for 2006. A large portion of my time will be spent dealing with the head down stuff that probably wouldn't make for the most riveting blog reading so I'll skip over that. Let's see where the Bank Holiday takes us and then we'll have something fresh on Tuesday. If 2006 sucks I'll blame you and then it'll be Hello Kitty Handguns at 20 paces... [Music: Peter Criss Solo Album]

Safe...

2006-01-01T20:45:00.000Z

I spotted this over on TSiG:

It is reported that 50% of people in London are worried about security and sleep with some form of self-defence to hand, for use against intruders. The 'Safe Bedside Table' has a removable leg that acts as a club and a top that doubles as a shield for self-defence. This is for people who are willing to take on an intruder, providing an extra sense of security whilst in bed.

Fuck the bedside. They should have these in Starbucks... Jess kicked off 2006 by watching the whole of Bleak House in two sittings. As John pointed out, the Beeb made the whole thing nice and digestible in 30 minute chunks, but Jess is greedy for bonnets. I watched bits of it, but I think an over familiarity with the novel stopped me from enjoying it. Seemed pretty good though... I have a low tolerance for literary adaptations. If they can't get Judge Dredd right (and all they really had to do there was keep the helmet on) I'm not going to trust them with Dickens. As good as it was (and as hot as Gillian Anderson is) it just doesn't get any better than this:

As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

I've quoted that more than once here before, but it never gets dull right? [Music: Paul Stanley Solo Album]

New Year Resolutions...

2006-01-01T02:23:00.000Z

#1 ~~Get more sleep~~ fuck it Happy 2006! Back in the saddle tomorrow... [Music: The Evens]

I will never be as cold now...

2005-12-28T00:23:00.000Z

This will only hit a nerve if you've seen and enjoyed Proof

Let x equal the quantity of all quantities of x Let x equal the cold It is cold in December The month of cold equal November through February There are four months of cold and four of heat Leaving four months of indeterminate temperature In February it snows In March the lake is a lake of ice In September the students come back and the bookstores are full Let x equal the month full bookstores The number of books approaches infinity As the number of months of cold approaches four I will never be as cold now as I will in the future The future of cold is infinite The future of heat is the future of cold The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September

The thing with people who love the numbers is that they never see the beauty of the words even when they're right in front of them... [Music: off]

Well this sucks...

2005-12-27T02:01:00.000Z

ROME (Dec. 26) - Character actor Vincent Schiavelli, who appeared in scores of movies, including "One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest" and "Ghost," died Monday at his home in Sicily. He was 57. He died of lung cancer, said Salvatore Glorioso, mayor of Polizzi Generosa, the Sicilian village where Schiavelli resided. Schiavelli, whose gloomy, droopy-eyed look made him perfect to play creepy or eccentric characters, made appearances in some 150 film and television productions, according to the Internet Movie Database. Among the movies: "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Amadeus," "Batman Returns," and "The People vs. Larry Flint." He was selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of America�s best character actors. Schiavelli, who was born and raised in New York, studied acting at New York University�s School of the Arts. He also wrote three cookbooks and many food articles for magazines and newspapers, possibly inheriting his love for cooking from his grandfather, who had been a cook for an Italian baron before moving to the United States, according to IMDB. "He was a great friend, a great chef and a great talker," Glorioso, who has known Schiavelli for almost four years, said in a telephone interview. "With a smooth, witty conversation, he would make everything look more colorful. I�ve lost a brother," he said. Schiavelli also had worked in Italy, including in 2001 when he directed a theater piece in Sicily based on nine fables. A funeral service will be held Tuesday in Polizzi Generosa, Glorioso said. [Music: Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists]

Christmas recap...

2005-12-27T01:36:00.000Z

Jess has already covered this, but I'd be a heel not to mention how much fun it was to have Laura here to help Make War on Christmas. Good conversation on a day when we are usually cut off from the rest of the world thanks to London grinding to a halt was a pleasant change. Jess being awesome knew exactly which films I needed which is a tricky task seeing as I watch so many of the blasted things. The restored Big Red One and A Fistful of Dynamite (along with the extended cut of Donnie Darko and a decent copy of Shaolin Soccer) are waiting for me tomorrow... how many girls buy Lee Marvin movies? We watched Proof which I'd already seen but like a lot, Bad Santa which always kills me, Shopgirl which I thought was a damn good port of a great book and assorted other bits and bobs. Doctor Who aside we didn't watch any regular TV so survived the holiday over-stuffed but with all our brain matter intact. The meal was fantastic - all I did was chop a few spuds so I can't take any credit. The slow nod to 2006 begins here... I was hoping to be asleep by now, but insomnia fucking loves me. Slowly moving off the coffee and onto green tea. We'll see if that helps. Hardly took any photos at all this year, but I've thrown a few up on Flickr including this one of Kelly, Corran and Arran who were nice enough to put up with us today and allowed me to drink all their wine and smiled at my usual rapier wit and jokes about fisting: Maybe I should watch a film right now... [Music: Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists]

The Christmas Invasion

2005-12-26T23:04:00.000Z

After a good preemptive moan in November a couple of emails have already started coming in asking me if I enjoyed yesterday's festive Doctor Who episode - the first one for new Time Lord David Tennant and one that seems to have been widely enjoyed. At least it sent John into a quivering mess. Humbug. Letting the new Doc lie around in a coma for most of the episode was always going to be a big mistake, but worse it also lets the halfwit supporting cast take centre stage. Not good. Watching the wooden Mickey take on a badly rendered killer Christmas tree... not a highlight. The annoying thing is that when the new chap actually woke up he was a lot of fun - it's just a pity he woke up in a RTD penned episode complete with silly Santa assassins and a hidden UNIT base that I can see from my window. Watching it was a little like letting your 12 year old Niece play GTA for the first time - having to sit on your hands and bite your lip as she repeatedly guides the character into the same wall before stumbling into some exceptional cut scenes that only betray how good the whole thing could have been. All those "Big Damn Moments and Speeches" were nothing more than a dying episode's white light for you to follow - the dying brain firing off a feel happy lightshow as it shuts down, the cancer patient having a day of remission before the body gives up. The odd thing is that RTD can write some excellent dialogue for those HERO moments that would look great on a trailer and would make your mouth water as long as you believed that there was something tangible holding the thing together. As it stood it was a lot of very quotable lines stuck up on cheap post-it notes. It'd be much easier to ignore if it was all bad, but there's just enough great moments in there to keep you watching. Which means I'll watch the whole next season and complain about that too. And Torchwood. What I thought was clever wasn't the British PM giving the US Pres a slap across the chops (that was too similar to the 45 second thing in the last season), but rather the fact that Harriet Jones once in power felt obliged to do what she knew was wrong for what she thought was the right reason - that's Blair in a nutshell right there. That's why I was annoyed when seconds later the Doctor crippled her with a single sentence. It would have been interesting to see her downward spiral played out over the season (if indeed they continue to keep visiting the same planet and timezone every other fucking episode) but maybe we'll see more of that in Torchwood. I do hope that Anthony Head is The Master though... he's my second choice after Christopher Eccleston. [Music: off]

Happy Holidays...

2005-12-24T00:02:00.000Z

[Music: off]

The sea urchin it is audible...

2005-12-22T18:07:00.000Z

Jackson just pointed out that the thing I wrote for SFist a little while ago got itself translated into Japanese... pretty cool. I just ran it back through the Babel Fish and it came out the other side like this:

Not to doubt, as for one of the most splendid web application, It is Flickr. And, it loves also Google simultaneously. But, Picasa is the Imai ?. The London people, the individual release the Matinami straw raincoat photograph to "the pool". And, by the fact that that badge is registered to ???, As for ??? it is possible always to be able to charm to fresh. By the fact that due to the purchase of Yahoo, rumor of several censorship was heard. But, if you look at the recent free account and the extra space, it is problem improbable. So something problem? Flickr sends the mail vis-a-vis the user. Way tag is attached to the photograph of several private. Is this probably problem? In many parts, this is not new thing. Always, there are times when the photograph is marked when "private" is. Those the friend and it makes the photograph which the family only is visible. Or, you do not want, it is something where charm to random the adult with the photograph. Vis-a-vis this, the other person can raise Flag, "unpleasantness". This way, the self sensor ship will have been secure. As for us, the friend is. They the lith key take the shot, Those are designated as private. (And, that is always good ones) But, of, as for problem of the common opinion whether something it is permitted in the public, Something "unpleasantness?" it catches. And, opinion of the business partner of Flickr is this way. "Became now, we the portion of Yahoo. And, it probably becomes more liberal. Vis-a-vis strict photograph policy and the like. The photograph once more At back of the safe search, it probably becomes search possible. Applying the restriction of 18 years old or more, " This is good, the sea urchin it is audible. But, this still has not answered to doubt.

You may call me Sensei. [Music: off - Jess is back and kicking all sorts of arse on Prince of Persia]

Dare I say it?

2005-12-21T23:38:00.000Z

That was a blast... Jess rang me a few times between the live updates and she also managed to find time to blog (and read Boing Boing by the looks of it). I made a quick n dirty Flickr screengrab gallery of the launch so make with the clicky: [Music: off]

The Eagle has Landed...

2005-12-21T15:38:00.000Z

In the time it took me to crawl underground from Heathrow to central London Jess managed to make it to another country. She just called to say she landed ok and is on her way to the hotel and first press conference. I meanwhile am struggling to find the pizza menu and have a headache. I did find the official site for the launch complete with live feed of the main attraction: MSG-2 Launch All systems are green - t minus four hours until my pizza arrives with the rocket thing going up sometime after that. Maybe. ~~I have no idea what time the bloody thing blasts off...~~ Ah ok - the launch is scheduled for 23:33 German time so that'll be 10.33pm here. Of course that may change at any time if the weather moves in, something goes POP or the Martians get wind of what we're up to... [Music - off]

Thunderbirds are GO...

2005-12-20T21:58:00.000Z

Jess is packing. No, she hasn't finally come to her senses, but she is off to Germany tomorrow. She's been invited to tour the European Space Agency followed by a live transmission of the MSG-2 launch from Kourou, French Guiana. That's right - an actual satellite launch and she gets to press buttons in mission control... Kind of puts the few perks of my gig into perspective. Free movies as opposed to playing Quatermass... man. She's been too busy to get too excited yet, but for a major space geek like Jess this is quite an early Christmas present. With some of her dad's work in orbit right now and a lifetime of Asimov under her belt she'll get a hell of a kick out of this. This is the MSG2 and the launch of its predecessor: Not sure if there'll be a live web feed, but if I find one I'll chuck it up here. [Music: Frank Black & the Catholics]

From the depths of Hell's ocean...

2005-12-20T11:09:00.000Z

Jess rolled in around 2am, about as steady on her legs as my income and splashing water everywhere while telling me about her altercation with a cab driver after spending the evening with retrobates: This left me time to catch up with Peter Cushing and the Toten Corps. Not quite as terrifying as I remember and still something of a lost opportunity, but it certainly has its moments. Cushing and John Carradine aside it's mostly about Brooke Adams and that yellow bikini - this is my favourite film of hers after the '78 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. With the current vogue for remaking old horror flicks it's surprising that no one's stumbled on this - maybe it's a good thing. The world doesn't need any more Paris Hilton movies. Any more Paris Hilton anything actually. I still need to find me a pair of those goggles. I saw a pair very similar on eBay, but I was outbid... Speaking of the fatherland - Jess is off to Germany tomorrow. I can't reveal all the details yet, but I guess she'll mention it on her own blog later. She'll be back on Thursday which leaves me another 24 hours to dig out a couple of films that she'd shake her head at if she were here. Anyone wants to come over for pizza and Dario Argento tomorrow night just drop me a line. [Music: Loudness - The Best of Reunion]

Some things are worth repeating...

2005-12-19T15:39:00.000Z

I first posted that in May 2003, but I got an email from Mike this morning that made me want to dig that photo out:

Heya folks! I just wanted to drop you all a line and let you know that I will be hosting a new internet radio show at www.agroradio.com on Tues and Thurs nights from 12:00 midnight until 1:00am EST. Most of you know me and my eclectic taste in music, so you'll know what to expect. Hope you tune in!

Mike has truly awesome taste in music. I loved getting into a car with him simply because of the stuff he'd pull out to listen to - now thanks to the power of the inturweb I can listen from the safety of my laptop. You know a guy means business when he pulls this outfit on to fuck around in Baltimore graveyards (that was the day we almost fell victim to gang related crime, met Alan Rickman and I got to speak to the FBI): So tune in, drop out etc... 1. DCMike is very photogenic. 2. He wishes he were here. 3. Facial hair being the only hair on your body is a trifle weird. 4. The only mullet at a Murphy's Law gig must be worth a prize. [Music: Loudness]

Curious genitals...

2005-12-18T23:50:00.000Z

We just got back in from a little wintry stroll along the Thames. It's easy to take the city for granted, but there are worse places to be stuck in December. And the damn place refuses to stand still. I swear this was empty sky before we went to Sweden: When we got back from our 3 month USA/Mexico/Australia/Japan trek whole portions of the city had transformed, but SE1 just never stops throwing up new buildings like a small child coughing up lego. Speaking of small children: Do you remember when you were that curious? [Music: DKs]

Idiot Boxing...

2005-12-17T00:05:00.000Z

I mentioned in the comments that I would still be watching Lost if the Big Bad had turned out to be a polar bear eating dragon instead of a crappy column of smoke and I got two text messages. The first called me a fucker for "ruining the ending" of Lost and of course came from one of my fellow Brits who is still being spoon fed season one of the show on Channel Four instead of torrenting it like a grown up. I'm sure if I mentioned who it was that shot JR in Dallas back in 1980* I'd get angry email from some fan in Siberia complaining that I ruined the surprise. For the record Lost has no ending - that's the point. Nothing will ever be satisfactorily resolved in case the battery hens stop pecking away at the corn for even a moment (and peck away they do). I stopped watching it because I want them ALL to die. Just not this slowly. The second text message asked me what I was watching instead. Good question. Bad answer: Here's what I'm not watching anymore. Threshold - started great but tripped up badly early on and I bailed before it was put out of its misery so as not to get blood on my shoes. Invasion - I simply didn't care about any of those people and I know a bad bodysnatchers concept when I see one. Surface - Too cutesy. How do you fuck up big monsters that eat whales? Even the teenage girls in bikinis couldn't stop me from wanting to hit the moany heroine across the head with the annoying kid and then use their corpses to weigh down the body of the big dumb one. Prison Break - I know a lot of people rate this one quite highly, but people... it's utter bollocks. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? I've stayed clear of Triangle because the same people telling me it's good are the same people telling me I have to see past that idiot's magic picture tattoos until I see the beauty of the intricately structured sailboat beneath. Fuck. That. So what am I watching? House, of course. Hugh Laurie is riveting and it still makes me laugh even though it's not doing anything quite as special as it did in season one. Veronica Mars. Still one of the best things on TV, but season 2 is flagging alarmingly. Dare I say I'd like less of Ms Mars and more of her dad? Season one though - unfuckable with. But the best show on TV at the moment, head and shoulders above the competition?

Bones.

I was slow to warm to it, but it sucked me in because of the dialogue, the characters and at least one killer scene in every single episode. I had Boreanaz down as a one joke lunk, but he's very good in this and he and Emily Deschanel are perfect together (please God never let them get together). The squints that surround them are like a little geek family and even though I thought Jonathan Adam's character was forced in a little late his turn in the Christmas episode was maybe the best bit in the best episode of the season so far. High fucking bar that. And yeah I still watch the two bad CSIs, but that's like the porn you download not to jerk off to, but simply to say what the fuck did I just see?* That keeps me more than busy until 2006 offers up more Galactica and Deadwood. Notes: * It was Sue Ellen's Sister ** You just saw David Caruso aging with every step like the bad guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, forcing the wooden dialogue from dead lips while his supporting cast of mannequins push and pull until the whole thing lies still born in it's own blood before being stamped with the Bruckheimer boot. Excellent. And no I haven't forgotten Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's not simply a show so it doesn't get name checked above - it's more a way of life - a spiritual thing. Feel free to argue with me but that would just mean you have an unfeasibly large vagina. [Music: Henry Rollins - Twas the Night Before Christmas]

What would Quetzlcoatl do?

2005-12-16T12:36:00.000Z

The last time I was excited about a dragon movie I was eventually disappointed although I did get some interesting emails:

"Dragons can be battled with swords, bowie knives, khukiries, guns, bolo nets, and bombs, but the most important weapon of any dragon-slayer is his intellect and flame retardant gel."

Quite. So I wasn't about to get all excited about D-War when I first heard about it. Then I saw the posters and got a little more dragon happy... Than again it was the poster of dragons fucking up London and other cities that got my happy on last time: Robert Forster though... I was starting to feel a little Q-The Winged Serpent nostalgia. Then I found out the director was responsible for more than one other dragon movie and figured that this was going to be a whole lot more fun than Reign of Fire. After watching the trailer it seems I was right: The fx are just dodgy enough to lend it some charm and the trailer edit is hilarious. Two minutes of dragons coiled around skyscrapers, attacking attack helicopters and also being ridden into battle and I can't help think the best part is when the guy collects the girl from the cafe. That and the elephant being spat out... My Korean is a little rusty, but I think the guy at the beginning is saying "Christopher Lee protect us! Dragons!" Could be the film of 2006... but I think it's only fair to once again refer you here for a military perspective on the whole dragon thing

I won't bother with the math, but I'm pretty sure the kinetic energy of a supersonic missile, warheaded or not, would be sufficient to dispatch a dragon.

[Music: Transvision Vamp]

I'll be always there, fighting the ancient sin...

2005-12-16T08:15:00.000Z

This just made my weekend. I got a few interesting emails - turns out more people than I imagined love a little Orson Welles with their metal for breakfast. I don't think I'll try and run a dedicated MP3 blog again, but I will share some of the more interesting tracks I have lying around right here on VM in the new year. Sebastian who runs the awesome The Crime in your Coffee (been on the sidebar for a while now) pointed out that Lee pulled from the Manowar gig at the last moment due to filming commitments and then like an early Christmas gift pulls more metal goodness out of his bag. You want Christopher Lee singing about being a wizard with an "Italian epic metal band"? Of course you fucking do: Rhapsody (feat. Christopher Lee) - The Magic of the Wizard's Dream The song is pretty much what you'd expect, but the video is fantastic. The accompanying notes are a hoot too. Turns out that Lee had concerns about simply narrating so he and the band got together again so he could do the duet - in English, Italian, German and French.

It would not be an overstatement to call the new version of "The Magic Of The Wizard's Dream" a grand and epic piece of work in the style of Disney movies or world class sports events...

Oh I totally agree. I'd be a lot more excited about London hosting the Olympics if there was a series of events based around Michael Caine singing with Motorhead. You've gotta love the banner pic that runs across the website - the lead singer looking in sudden confusion to his right and obviously thinking Holy mother of fuck! That's Christopher Lee... These guys are a Film Score Metal band... and of course I pulled ten people from my email address book at random and signed them up for the Rhapsody news letter. You're welcome. [Music: 50FootWave]

These words are all that's left...

2005-12-15T18:05:00.000Z

Think Orson Welles and if you have a shred of respect you think of his War of the Worlds broadcast and of course Citizen Kane along with the fine body of work he left behind (especially the sublime F For Fake), but eventually your mind wanders to his final role as the voice of Unicron in Transformers: The Movie. I like to think of it less of a step down and more of a step sideways... of course you could always take it as a damning indictment of the American film industry that had turned its back on him so brutally. Aside from a variety of dodgy television adverts that I grew up with he also found time to do some interesting voice work (he was the original choice for Darth Vader no less) but it seems that not many people seem to talk too much about his work with these guys: I wonder why. That's Manowar signing their record contract in blood. And yes, that is a loincloth. You'd prefer he was naked? Don't answer that. For a while back in the day you could go see these guys play the loudest heavy metal in the world (official) and each and every night they'd be introduced by the then dead, but unmistakable voice of Orson Welles:

"Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America, all hail Manowar!"

Man oh man. Good times. As a teenager 'Fighting the World' was just one of those albums that I never tired of listening to - it's ridiculousness beat Spinal Tap into submission with a large studded fist and yet the band took it all so seriously... which again was part of the charm. Welles, mostly ignored in the US at the time, was more than happy to accommodate this over the top metal band and sadly it turned out to be one of his final gigs. Perhaps he saw something kindred in their unashamed ego or maybe he just wanted the money. But how much could these guys and their label have paid Welles for his time? Motorcycles, gym equipment and animal fur don't come cheap. The story goes that Welles was so huge at this point that he had to take the freight elevator to the recording studio... he also took along a dog. Maybe a pet, maybe lunch. Who knows... Some of the words in question can be heard on the first Manowar album 'Battle Hymns' on the track 'Dark Avenger'. It's not their best song, but it is priceless to hear Welles come out with lines like this:

"... And they placed in his hands a sword made for him called VENGEANCE forged in brimstone and tempered by the woeful tears of the Unavenged".

If you need one Manowar song on your MP3 player though (and who doesn't?) then it's got to be 'Defender'. It's mostly Welles playing the role of fallen hero/father bequeathing his task to his son in the form of a letter. I dread to think how often I listened to this when I was a teenager. I even wrote a story based on the song. You can download the track right here - I'll keep it up for a week or until one of the band throws an axe at me. The kicker is that earlier this year Manowar played some over the top metal fest in Europe and along with their hundred strong choir and orchestra managed to persuade Christopher Lee to step into Orson's shoes to recreate that song and the other spoken word parts live. Now I'm guessing that that was for the money. Jess is out tonight for her last MA class of the year. I'm going to sit back with a glass of something strong and listen to some old Mercury Theater plays... I may even rewatch Transformers... Any MP3 files hosted on Visible Monsters are posted for evaluation purposes only and removed after seven days. [Music: off - I think I blew my speakers...]

Firecracker December Issue...

2005-12-13T22:02:00.000Z

The stuff with my name on it: Crying Fist The Hidden Blade Steamboy The Little Norse Prince Memento Mori Swordsman II & Swordsman III: The East is Red [Music: Texas is the Reason - Do you know who you are?]

Gothenburg / G�teborg...

2005-12-13T16:55:00.000Z

It's taken me until now to get back on top of things. Still a lot of email to sort. In the meantime if you want photos you can have 181 of the fuckers... Special thanks to Jesper (below) and Ola for extending the hand of blogship above and beyond the call of duty. Loading us up with coffee, adding fine detail to our crappy tourist map, inviting us to secret parties and generally being the best kind of ambassadors that Gothenburg could ask for. It wouldn't have been half as much fun without these guys. More later... [Music: Pretty Girls Make Graves]

All change...

2005-12-13T16:25:00.000Z

Things will feel a little new in places and a little old in others. A little like rubbing your salt wound against a raw Joan Rivers. [Music: Jets to Brazil]

Still here II...

2005-12-12T16:18:00.000Z

Just killing time in the hotel lobby before we haul ourselves to the airport. Jess filled in some quick detail over on her blog already and you can always click HERE if you want to see one of the cool things we got up to... Make with the clicky on the Firecracker thingy to the right and there should be a bunch of new reviews up for you to snuggle with until I get all the photos Flickred... Can hardly contain myself at the thought of being back in London. I'll try and grab a windowseat for the flight back... perhaps if the wind changes I can see a portion of the city go up in flames. �Music� It's a hotel lobby... and the keyboard is fucked �

Still here... just...

2005-12-09T01:43:00.000Z

Jess has crashed out for a few hours... I'll have to wake her in just over an hour so there's not much point in me trying to sleep. Just finished Figures in a Landscape by Barry England - stunning novel and something I've had on my shelves unread and unloved for as long as I can remember. It's a second edition from 1969 and I think it belonged to my dad... not that I ever saw him read anything. He did collect these ridiculous red bound hardback Dennis Wheatley novels - I think the full set is still safe and sound up north - but I was never allowed to touch them. God forbid anyone should actually want to read a book in that house... not when they looked so nice and neat simply stood on display. I brought back a small pile of quite old hardbacks from the last trip so I guess I'll go pick one to start off as my holiday read. Still having withdrawal symptoms from the double whammy of Paul Auster and Cormac McCarthy. Looking around for blogs on Gothenberg I stumbled across Tokyo Style in Gothenberg - it's a great duel site dealing with both the city we're flying to and the city I want to return to the most. Great mix of culture and design bits and bobs and quite reminiscent of Jean Snow - not surprising as he used to blog there too. There is a related store (Kid Robot-ish I think) that I intend to visit... It's also where I nabbed the cool pic of the police car from a few posts back. Time to pull out that book and relax until we start panicking over where we put the passports... [Music: Lovage]

Speaking of gun-fu...

2005-12-08T14:46:00.000Z

John has a great post on action scenes over on the Monkey. Not sure how he manages to blog so often while holding down so many pies and fingering the hell out of them until they spurge warm gooey goodness all over every type of media going. I will have to send him a distracting postcard... Speaking of which - I need snail mail addresses. Email me your hideouts and I'll drop you a line or two from the land of snow. Not sure if I'll be online up there so the sooner you mail me the better. Consider me off the grid from tomorrow until Tuesday. I now have some unwatched Takashi Miike movies to attend to. [Music: Maiden]

2009: Lost Memories...

2005-12-08T13:53:00.000Z

Loved this film. It's a big budget action fest that puts most Hollywood drivel to shame. It looks stunning throughout and while it loses its way a little towards the end that's mostly down to the limitations of the running time. In a perfect world they would have cut it off at the 2 hour mark and then made a sequel. The rush job ending really deserves 90 minutes or so of its own to do justice to the characters involved and to tie up the plot neatly. I don't want to get too involved in the actual plot as I feel too much is given away in both the marketing campaign and the reviews - it would be nice if people could go into this blind and try and unravel the plot in the same way that Jang Dong-Gun's detective has to. What I will say is that it's set in the year 2009 in an alternate Korea where history took a decisive turn from our own. Japan sided with the Americans during WW2 and the atom bomb was dropped on Berlin. Korea is now all but a lost nation completely subjugated by Japan. There is a tiny underground movement trying it's best to fight the system, but most Koreans have forgotten their culture and are happy living in a prosperous Seoul under the Japanese flag. Masayuki Sakamoto (Jang Dong-Gun) is one such Korean - working for the Japanese Bureau of Investigation he and his Japanese partner do their best to stop the Hureisenjin terrorists and retain the status quo. As the film unfolds following a spectacular insurgent attack Sakamoto is drawn into an investigation that his superiors would prefer he left well alone... It's a long film that takes its time to develop the friendship between Sakamoto and his partner Shojiro Saigo (Toru Nakamura) and also drops in a mystery woman, Hye (Seo Jin-Ho) who seems to have a connection with Sakamoto that he doesn't understand. Add what the cop feels was a betrayal by his father and you get a choice plot filled with good old fashioned melodrama that wears John Woo's name on it's sleeve. The shoot outs, of which there are a fair few, are well done with a nice signature touch where a person will get hit with a single bullet (preferably in slow motion) before another six or seven guns are trained and let loose. The central shoot out in a Hureisenjin hideout seems to have been influenced by the 'over the rainbow' sequence in Face/Off and if anything tops it. I haven't actually seen a decent action flick in ages... I was obviously looking in the wrong country. [Music: Maiden]

2005-12-07T22:44:00.000Z

Countdown begins in three, two... Up at 7ish feeling a little brighter. Dead to the world by 8, crashed on the sofa with a cat and a book that sent my brain into a spasm. It's almost noon when I wake up. I was a wreck last night - so much so that I didn't even try and get into town for the Londonist bash. I missed out on a lot of free Mexican food... for shame. I hate being ill. Still things are looking up now that I remembered how to breathe. Jess is still fit as a fiddle so we seem to be all systems go for Friday's plane ride. This was supposed to be the Christmas trip, but Jess has the possibility of a solo flight just this side of Christmas that kind of tops this one. Can't say much now and it's her scoop anyway... it's not right when you're jealous of your fiance. Maybe I should get a real job... one with international travel. And leggy Russian spies. Even though I was pretty fucked today I got all my stuff in - whether it's any good remains to be seen. Didn't leave much time for blogging or reading though. Merry is going to get fed and watered by our neighbours, Chris and Jen. It's nice to live somewhere again where you actually know the people on the other side of the walls. Tomorrow I intend to relax... probably won't happen but it's a nice thought. [Music: yet more Throwing Muses - I am on a kick]

2005-12-06T15:34:00.000Z

Reasons to break the law in Sweden #8762... You get chased by cops in Automan/Tron mashup mobiles: Meanwhile Jess over on the FWord reports why it's best not to try and rape Swedish girls (unless you're really good at Rubik's Cube). [Music: Throwing Muses]

2005-12-06T07:35:00.000Z

Ick and ack... My cold suddenly became a lot more progressive... Another day of sneezing Lovecraftian slime out of my head and I should feel a lot better. Jess let loose a volley of Captain Trips style sneezes this morning... not good. I'd hate to be stuck in a hotel room having to be waited on hand and foot by Swedish Viking wenches, only strong enough to crawl and empty the mini-bar. Needless to say I still have a couple of films to watch today, but my eyeballs feel slightly shaved and not at all up to the experience. A quick soak in coffee and a vodka rinse should do the trick. More later... [Music: Throwing Muses]

2005-12-06T01:38:00.000Z

Homecoming... I had decided not to track down the 'Masters of Horror' series for a couple of reasons. Mostly I just figured I'd be underwhelmed. I love most of the people involved in this series and have watched their work in film religiously (the original Night of the Living Dead is the one movie I've seen more than any other) and yet I wasn't excited to hear that the likes of Romero and Carpenter had been brought on board a new anthology television series. I never really got over the original 'Twilight Zone' and 'Outer Limits' episodes and have had very little truck with shows in a similar vein over the years since. What I do love about more regular television programming is when they touch upon horror themes and imagery in an unexpected way. 'Twin Peaks' was not a horror show, but had some real horror jump out at you amidst all the other head fuckery going on in there. Frank Silva's Bob is still ridiculously scary and the onscreen murder of Laura's cousin, Madeleine (again played by Sheryl Lee), is just gruesome and still hard to watch. 'The X Files' had it's moments in the first couple of seasons and closer to home 'Jam' of all things was simply terrifying because of some of the visuals that escaped from the mind of Chris Morris. Remember the mother with the dead baby who calls in the plumber to fix a Gilliamesque series of pipes to reanimate the tiny corpse in its crib? You don't actually see that much, but it's always stayed with me... So the idea of an actual horror themed TV show was never that exciting to me plus I figured it was always going to watered down Argento as opposed to the full on crimson spectacular that I can watch anytime by loading up a DVD. Then a day or so ago I saw this post over on Boing Boing about the sixth episode of 'Masters of Horror' - a Joe Dante directed political zombie story. I'm queer for the undead so I forgot all the above and torrented it. Now I'll probably go back and catch up with the other five. Not that Homecoming was fantastic horror TV or anything - it sagged in places, had a hokey postscript and was never ever remotely scary - but it was (it seems to me, stuck on a little island well away from Washington) beautifully political. Enough so for Reuters to pick up on it too. I loved the Ann Coulter clone blasting away on the edge of the road and would have thought her right-wing shrew a little overdone if I hadn't seen way too much footage of the real life bitter blonde that the character was based on. I enjoyed the political spin that the Republicans tried to put on the left wing dead before sending them off to internment camps. All that stuff was VERY broad satire but done well enough to raise a smile. What really got me though were two scenes. One is captured in the screengrab over on Boing Boing showing one of the few vocal dead soldiers decrying the lies that cost him his life. The other scene was earlier when the first batch of corpses come back to life. It's set inside the kind of hangar we've all now seen inside but were never meant to - flag draped coffins fill the screen. Now it wasn't too long ago that these very images were being kept from us and now they're being used as set dressing (and in a much better way than say the Abu Ghraib inspired images that have popped up on satirical comedy shows). As the first coffin bursts apart (and I took their flimsy nature to be yet another comment on the fact that these troops were given inadequate supplies while at war and continued to be given makeshift equipment in death) the first returning soldier is hidden from view by the flag that rested over his coffin. A dead American soldier shrouded in the American flag was a ballsy shot and made the whole show for me. I also liked the little touch of the coerced undead detainee putting on his glasses to reveal a bullet hole through the left lense to match the wounded eye socket. So now I'm interested to see if the previous directors can take the limitation of 60 minute TV and come up with something as interesting... On a slightly related note I got an early Christmas gift today in the shape of a DVD boxset from Jess' cousin out in NYC. We spoke a little about TV while she was here and in particular some of the American staples that never made it to these shores. Carol now reinforces how much she rocks by sending me 32 episodes of classic comedies, detective shows and westerns from the 1950s. Once the other stuff I have to watch is out the way I can sit down and relax with the likes of Andy Griffith, Bob Cummings, Jack Benny, 'The Lone Wolf', 'Man with a Camera', 'Death Valley Days' and 'Bat Masterson' for the very first time. That's not mentioning the stuff on here that I am familiar with like 'Dragnet' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies'... Jess tells me it just started snowing in Gothenburg. Doesn't get much better than that. Tomorrow I'll be mad busy in the day followed by the Londonist Christmas meal so it may be a while before I get back to emails etc... [Music: Throwing Muses]

2005-12-05T07:06:00.000Z

The Gavle Goat goes up again... Feel slightly more human this morning... fucking cold though. Can't wait to relax in the sun on one of Sweden's more exclusive beaches... we're going to die up there aren't we? By the Sunday Jess and I will be sat with just a single flare left between us as John Carpenter plays us out. Some Swedish goat burning news made the BBC. More here:

The strange history of the G�vle Goat began in 1966. A man named Stig Gavl�n came up with the idea of making a giant version of the traditional Swedish Yule goat of straw and placing it on (Slottstorget) Castle Square in central G�vle. On 1 December the 13-metre tall, 7-metre long, 3 tonne goat stood on the square. At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, the goat went up in smoke...

As Johnny pointed out in the previous comment, there's a lot of interesting music escaping from that part of the world... Once I've got these films out of the way I'll have to work out if anyone insane is playing Gothenburg while we're there... [Music: off]

2005-12-04T23:45:00.000Z

Throat go owey... Spent a large portion of the day asleep - or trying to sleep with a throat rawer than a face donor's forehead. I need to kick this before getting on the plane on Friday. Lounging around in a semi-medicated haze, eating horrible Korean sweets and listening to just about everything that The Misfits ever recorded has given me a lot of time to think. There's a list of things that I need to get done in 2006 which means there's a list of things that I need to stop doing to free up some time. I like making big sweeping decisions while drinking coffee laced with vodka. Somehow I always have time to fit in a Rutger Haur movie*. Tomorrow I have to watch one Japanese horror film, one Korean horror film, two Japanese animated films, two Chinese swordplay films and if I have time (yeah right) one German and one Italian horror film. In between I'll try and blog and then of course have to write them all up before Wednesday. What I'm saying is don't ring me. *Split Second - first time I've seen it since it's initial release and it hasn't aged well, but was still highly enjoyable. [Music - off]

2005-12-04T00:52:00.000Z

Brace yourself, Bats... I love that this post by Donavan over on Creamsicle starts with a French girl pissing all over her floorboards then moves on to point out a few things that are actually wrong with the world before coming back to state that French people having sex is beautiful. Good stuff, funny stuff and the fact that it's filled with nudity doesn't hurt. This isn't related at all, but I found this little flash animation showing how to use a condom funny because it's hard to watch without thinking of a Predator having safe sex.[Music: Pulp - This is Hardcore]

2005-12-04T00:38:00.000Z

All The President's Bloggers... I'm getting a lot of email about this, but in all honesty I don't have a whole lot to say about it as it wasn't my post so it's not my place to comment in detail. What I will say is that I did see the lists in question and nothing I've heard from the NME makes me second guess that what was posted on Londonist was not written in good faith or indeed wrong. There are reasons that the whole thing couldn't be pulled out for everyone to have a look at in detail, but none of them were about covering Londonist's back or it's writers - which was why the spreadsheet in question was passed onto The Guardian. That the original post has now been taken down annoys me, but aside from that I don't have much more to say on the subject. The important thing now is that I added a splash of colour... 'go-faster' stripes to detract from the fact that I don't use this space quite as well as I should. We'll have to see about that when I get back from Sweden. [Music: Pulp - This is Hardcore]

2005-12-02T05:26:00.000Z

Insomnia from the other side... Figured I'd try getting up early and see how that works out. Not enough hours in the day and all that... Had a good meeting last night - always nice to know you're on the right wavelength and have some sort of plan for the new year. Jess is back in the blogging saddle again - she's prolific with The F Word (I am an inverterate slob...), but let her own page slip a little. I'm constantly amazed she fits it all in - work, college, library etc... I get tired just trying to keep up. Nick and Erika got engaged yesterday :) very very cool. All our friends are slowly heading towards that real grown up thing. About time I made an honest woman out of Jess perhaps... [Music: The Bee Gees]

2005-12-01T01:52:00.000Z

Kill Will... Yep that's Alyson Hannigan spoofing The Bride in her new movie, erm, Date Movie - a spoof of romantic comedies... just the kind of film that Hollywood needs to produce to get us back inside the multiplex. After seeing the first few episodes of How I Met Your Mother which is very drab and uninspired, but will probably run for years I wonder why no one has cast her in anything awesome since Buffy... If anyone had the balls to film 'No Country For Old Men' she'd make a perfect Carla Jean. December 1st already? The last wheeze of the year is always a slow one, but I have a few things up my sleeve to stop this month from slipping into a persistent vegetative state. Tomorrow is a little more hectic than I'd like. Out early (so why am I still awake? Oh yeah because I'm an idiot) to pick up some new clothes for the Gothenburg trip then back to London Bridge to pick up some screeners and catch up with Nick and Erika. I'll be in and out for the rest of the day before being tempted with pizza to attend an editorial meeting. I noticed that the Londonist thing also got picked up on Metafilter. It's not something I feel qualified to weigh in on because I don't think I've ever bought a single issue of NME - I may have glanced at the occasional copy over the years, but actually pay it enough attention to care what they consider the best music of the year? I don't think so... At some point it'd be nice to get a handle on my email - which is why I'm still up and yet here I am talking to you guys... Send me to bed already. [Music: Ennio Morricone]

2005-11-30T23:17:00.000Z

Still not quite as news worthy as a girl's chest... But a Londonist mention on Gawker is pretty good going methinks... [Music: Dio - The Last in Line]

2005-11-29T17:18:00.000Z

Busy busy... In the meantime there's a public health warning here. Jess has plans to force me to watch werewolf movies tonight so it may be a while before I get round to updating stuff on here... [Music: just a big pile of this]

2005-11-26T03:04:00.000Z

And we're back in 5, 4, 3... 3am... all that cold fresh air up north obviously didn't make me tired. Damn good to be back in London although I did get the opportunity to catch up with Andy and Stuart while I was up there. Highlight of the trip was just relaxing and talking bollocks again with the only two people who understand the true horror of Worm Warfare. I miss those guys. The family stuff was pretty much as I expected, but I scored an unexpected bonus by unearthing a pile of stuff that I hadn't seen in years and then slipping it back here like a modern day Oscar Schindler. Check out my loot: Having all these to reread goes some way to make up for missing the Zarjaz! launch. I thought this was lost and as dead as Laura Palmer. Wow, Bob wow. I'll begin rereading all the old books I brought back first thing tomorrow. All in all it was a much more enjoyable trip than I thought it was going to be... Now I can finally organise the Twin Peaks/2000AD/pulp scifi party that I've been promising everyone for years... [Music: growls and guitars]

2005-11-23T10:45:00.000Z

This time tomorrow I won't be here... At some point today I'll begin to get my affairs in order. Tidy up the blog roll and all that. Must remember to add Pandagon to the mix. As John puts it:

... it's always nice to see someone so empowered in their sexuality. The only person I can think of who trumps Margaret Cho is Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon. Marcotte is so sexually empowered, I walked out of my office yesterday to find her vagina had stolen my parking space.

Then I need to get ready for my little excursion... supplies will be needed to get me there and back safely. [Music: Sahara Hotnights]

2005-11-22T14:15:00.000Z

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done... This morning I was invited to the launch of the 2000AD Zarjaz! exhibition in December by the good folks over at Rebellion. The chance to shake the green green hand of Tharg and perhaps meet Judge Dredd... such things as fanboy dreams are made of. Alas I'll be in Sweden. While it would be awesome to chat to the creative people behind the one comic that had such an effect on me as a kid and still influences me a lot, it's not as much fun as hanging out in Scandinavia with Jess so I had to decline. Don't start emailing me - I already passed the invite along to one of the Londonist mob with the assurance that they promise to have no fun whatsoever. Fingers crossed though as I'll hopefully be sorting out a competition for some 2000AD goodies. Watch this space.... [Music: Frank Zappa vs Radio One 1982]

2005-11-22T04:06:00.000Z

Ack II... Not much point in even trying to sleep once it's gone 4am. I've been sniffing round the edges of an idea and I was wondering if anyone out there can think of any TV shows that instead of jumping the shark reversed their fortunes and had the shark eat Fonzie. I don't mean shows that got off to a shaky start and eventually pulled through into something decent. What I'm after is a show so bad that everyone gave up on it, that no one took it seriously and then suddenly the thing just switched direction and gears and became must-watch-TV. Think Hollyoaks suddenly morphing into a Japanese pink zombie series with the original cast and sets retained only to be eaten through by half-naked zombie cheerleaders. A change in direction is what I'm after - something in which the original concept was just thrown to the wolves and not simply left to die like when the close in Brookside was quarantined by the army. Think an established (but so established it's predictable drivel) show suddenly switching into a genre piece. Like if the Eastenders Christmas Special had the inhabitants of Albert Square struck down with an alien pathogen and a handful of the uninfected struggling to come to terms with their crappy soap lives changing into Quatermass. Think a character with a twenty year lowest common denominated back story suddenly dropped into a David Cronenberg flick... It's no wonder I can't sleep. Watching TV that doesn't exist is not like counting sheep. [Music: off]

2005-11-22T03:16:00.000Z

Ack... You can tell I'm back on real coffee. 3am. Fuck. It's at this time of morning I remember important things like plugging secret gigs: I would love to go to this but I'm going to be freezing to death in Sweden. For full details make with the clicky on the above photo. [Music: off]

2005-11-21T15:37:00.000Z

Catching up with the Flickred... Or should that be Flickrd? Swiped from my Flickr friends and created with fd's Flickr Toys. [Music: 'Thrax]