The Crayfish Diaries: Rude News & Ill Thinking

Past Effort Reward

2011-12-20T19:51:00.002Z

Dear Friend,

I am happy to inform you about my success in getting your winning funds under
the cooperation of a new partner from South Africa. Presently I'm in South
Africa for investment projects with my own share of the total sum. Meanwhile, I
did not forget your past efforts and attempts to get your winnings despite that
failed somehow.

I have made a deposit of $500.000.00 (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS)in
addition to your lottery winnings of $5.5m now amounting to $6,000,000.00(Six
million United States Dollars) I have authorized the finance house to issue out
to you your international certified bank draft cashable at your bank and any
bank of your choice find below there contact information.

LICUTION DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION & FINANCE.
NAME: MR.LARRY BEN
E-MAIL:belary@rogers.com
TEL:+234-807-391-0249

Ask him to send you the total $6,000,000.00 (SIX MILLION US DOLLARS)certified
bank draft Cheque, which I raised in your favour for your compensation for all
the past efforts and attempt in this matter.I really appreciated your efforts at
that time very much.

Secondly,you are hereby advised to stop dealing with some non-officials in the
bank as this is an illegal act and will have to stop if you so wish to receive
your payment immediately.After the board meeting held at our headquarters,we
have resolved in finding a solution to your last uncliamed problem.

So feel free and get in touch with the finance house(Mr.Larry Ben) and give
him your address where to send the draft to you or rather inform him about a-
telegraphic wire transfer if you like. Please do let me know immediately you
receive the Cheque to enable us share the joy after all the sufferness at that
time. In the moment, I'm very busy here because of the investment projects,
which the new partner and me are having at hand,finally,remember that I had
forwarded instruction to MR.LARRY BEN without any delay.

Best regards,
Mr.Jerry Pardi

This one is actually pretty good. "Jerry Pardi" has used constant run-on sentences to cleverly disguise the old "you've won a lottery scam". Of course, most people will realise that since they never purchased a ticket for a South African lottery, they will probably not be fooled. However, there are a few that might be taken in. The email also tells you not to talk to your bank officials, because it might be illegal. I have to say, the amount offered is quite hard to believe. Next time they might want to make it a little lower, say $50,000. I'd be more inclined to believe some random South African investor was going to give me $50K than $6m.

Dream, starring Ewan MacGregor, Cate Blanchett, Stanley Tucci and Will Ferrell

2011-12-10T16:06:00.005Z

What the hell do you want with us, Will Ferrell's hologram?

I am part of a large group of people living in a strange, arcology-like tower, locked up from the outside world. However, looking out of the window of the tower, we can see the city around us crumbling and turning orange, as if the buildings themselves were rotting away.

All I know about the tower is that it is rehab for some kind of addiction or condition, and that I, until recently, suffered from it. This is the reason that myself and the other inhabitants of the tower are kept separate from other people.

In this dream I am played by Ewan MacGregor, using his fake Southern accent from the movies Big Fish and I Love You Philip Morris. I'm not sure why this is. In one dream I had some time ago I was played by John Leguizamo, which is possibly slightly more accurate. Among my compatriots was a slightly debauched woman, played by Cate Blanchett, who was sexually excited by the thought of society disintegrating. And since society was disintegrating, she spent most of her time in a heightened state of arousal. Our other companion was a German athiest cop played by Stanley Tucci.

The overseer of this facility was our psychiatrist, played by Will Ferrell. He was only present in the form of a hologram. In addition to giving one-on-one counselling sessions to the inhabitants of the tower, he also gave daily pep talks in which he told us nice things, such as we were all progressing well, and our reintegration into society would take place soon.

Stanley Tucci and me, and a couple of others would get together and have drinks. Stanley Tucci kept bemoaning "the Christers" who required religion to help them get over their terrible affliction. He liked me because he thought I shared his beliefs. Together we hung out at the tower's rooftop swimming pool. We watched in severe shock as Cate Blanchett, floating on a lilo in the water and looking out at the decomposing landscape, could contain herself no longer and began gratifying herself with escalating fury.

OK, I started to think. Maybe people here are, in fact, crazy.

The next morning, we gathered for another of Will Ferrell's pep talks. We all gathered in the spotless kitchen, where his hologram appeared and began speaking in tones pleasing to our ears. But this morning I could hear something beind his words. I navigated myself into the corner of the room, and it was like I was peering behind his hologram. There was another projection behind it, and it was telling us we were useless, and dirty, and we were never going to get out. Ferrell was messing with our heads. What sort of freakish experiment were we living in? This moment of chilling realisation was when I woke up.

This dream is exceptional for a few reasons:
1) It is the first entirely Hollwood-cast dream I have ever had.
2) There appears to be some pretty significant backstory in it. In that respect it is similar to my vampire dream a few weeks back. Has given me an idea for a short story.
3) Stanley Tucci's performance was rock-solid.
4) Not many people can say they've seen Cate Blanchett vigorously pleasing herself. In a way, I have come closer than most. Let's face it though, if this dream was a real movie, then she would never have signed up in the first place.
5) Will Ferrell was actually quite frightening as the tyrannical shrink. If only he had that sort of depth in real life.

Help make 2012 No Remakes Year

2011-12-04T21:25:00.003Z

Starship Troopers, now with added Gungans.

Dear Hollywood,

As much as I love Paul Verhoeven's classic Starship Troopers (1997) I have no idea why you feel it needs to be remade. It's perfectly good as it is, the special effects have dated well and the hilarious social commentary scenes are even more incisive than they were when it was first released. But why do you need to use your vast resources to provide we, the moviegoing public with a movie we've already seen? If I want to see Starship Troopers, I will simply pop in a DVD and watch it. I don't need to shell out $15 to see a movie I've already seen. This has been going on for far too long.

It was bad enough throughout the Naughties, but in the Tweens it seems to have got just so much worse. For instance, the Amazing Spider-man (2012). This is a reboot of a film franchise that was begun in 2002. That's just ten years. Is that how long it takes now for you to sell us the same shit that we already have? I loved the three Sam Raimi Spider-man movies. They were awesome. I can see why you might want to make a sequel to these immensely popular and successful pictures. But why, oh why, do you want to start the franchise again? The special effects look basically the same and the plot is virtually identical. The only difference is there are a bunch of new actors. I just don't get it. I don't get you, Hollywood.

I understand, that in some cases a remake is necessary, like for instance next year's Judge Dredd movie. This necessary to fix the horrors that you visited on us with the iredeemable nonsense that was the Stallone/Schneider Dredd back in the 90s. Even Star Trek - people liked the old characters and wanted to bring them back. It's been the 80s since they were all together. I can see why your people, Hollywood, might consider that a good idea from a creative standpoint.

However, my main issue with remakes is this: There is an enormous wealth of material out there that has never been adapted for the screen. William Gibson's Neuromancer still hasn't been made into a movie, although one has been in development for 800 million years and might well star the godawful Hayden Christensen. Why don't you finally film one of the most influential sci-fi works of the last 30 years? Think about it - It would be our generation's Blade Runner. That means you need to take it out of the hands of a music video director and give it to someone who isn't a complete hack. Also, what about that Preacher movie that we've been hearing might happen for god knows how long? Although I think it would be better making an HBO drama out of it, it could quite easily be condensed into a bankable trilogy, provided you don't fuck it up, Hollywood, like you did Constantine. I've always personally thought that Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix would make an excellent movie, although the title would probably have to be changed, lest idiots shamble in expecting yet another Matrix sequel. How about the Difference Engine? That would be an outstanding film? How about a good alternative history film, perhaps adapting a book by Harry Turtledove?

There is, of course, another idea. You could just come up with something original. If you gave me, or most of the other writers with whom I associate the sort of budget you have, we could create something amazing. Of course, you won't, will you, you'll keep selling us the same crap over and over.

Yours in hope

A very bored moviegoer

Dream

2011-11-27T18:47:00.003Z

Totally inequipped to deal with vampires.

Last night I dreamed that I was a suspended sheriff's deputy in a small town in the Unites States. Kaki, who was still my wife in the dream worked in publishing. I found out that she had been receiving mail from a serial killer in the hope of turning it into an exclusive book and making enough money for us to leave the one-horse small town once and for all. I persuaded her that we had to go to the shitkicking sheriff, and share all our information with him. Unfortunately, it was too late. We'd attracted the attention of the serial killer, and he'd come to town to make our acquaintance. Also, turns out he's a vampire.

People started going crazy and eating one another, but I still didn't quite realise what was going on. Not until the sheriff started screaming and driving his squad car around town, sirens on. I tried to wave him off the road, but he just powered towards me. I dodged him and landed in a pile of snow, and the squadcar plunged into a frozen lake. I dived in to try and save the sheriff, but when I got him out, I looked into his face and saw that he had changed. Suddenly he leapt up and started tearing at my flesh. A bunch of other townspeople joined in and started to devour me. So, I died. Cherry-coloured blood started flowing everywhere.

Apparently, when you die in one of my dreams, you float above your body and look down, while god tells you which of the beliefs that you had in life were misheld. The only thing I can remember god telling me was "William Blake is a liar". And then I woke up.

Several disturbing things about this dream:
1) I haven't had an "everybody is turning into vampires except you" dream since I was around 11 and snuck down to watch Salem's Lot. I attribute this to the fact I recently read Salem's Lot, and also Enter, Night by Michael Rowe, which is in many ways similar.
2) In this dream, the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians is basically my wife's fault.
3) My dream is trope central. From the shitkicker sheriff, the less experienced deputy, the one literary person in town, is basically ripped off from every small-town isolation horror that has ever existed. I bet the snow was playing havoc with cellphone reception in my dream, too. I can't believe my subconscious is so unoriginal. Must do better.

The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Agriculture

2011-11-22T16:15:00.003Z

Dear Sir,

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria intends to buy 2000 (Two- Thousand) units of Tractors.With my very good and strong contacts in the ministry, I can introduce your company to the procurement committee of the ministry for the supply. Payment is by 100% Telegraphic Transfer in advance before delivery upon contract sign. Delivery period is 9 months, where partial delivery will be allowed Therefore if you are interested and agree to pay me an agreed commission after you received your contract payment, contact me as soon as possible for further details to recommend you to the Contract Awarding Committee of the ministry to handle the supply.DIRECT RESPONSE FROM THE CEO,OWNER OR PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY WILL BE TREATED AS SERIOUS

Sincerely,
Danladi Mustapha
Salimu Consults
No 67 Danubi Cresent
Maitama, Abuja
Nigeria

Now the problem with this scam is that unless the recipient owns a company that supplies tractors, they will not respond. Does this guy think that everyone in the west owns a tractor company? Was he trying to send the email to John Deere and it got sidetracked? We will never know. To top this off, there are no bold claims or references to Jesus in this one. Must try harder.

Hopelessly flawed: 0/5

Another videogame review

2011-11-16T17:00:00.003Z

Fallout 3

Yes, I'm aware that while I'm playing this you are all playing Skyrim. Most of you were finished with this game in 2009. But I spent two years in the mid-naughties as a globe-trotting transient and three after that refusing to buy an Xbox because I was only going to move to Canada and leave it. Well, I'm here now, dammit, and I'm catching up. So: Fallout 3. For a start, I love the atmosphere of the game, and the desolate Mad Max-esque environments. I have had a wonderful time building my character - who I tried to make look like me but has ended up looking almost exactly like Gordon Freeman - and going round interacting with the different NPCs, getting information on the game world etc. So far, so RPG.

Fallout 3's best point is that its a fully realised, detailed world that sucks you in. The side quests are interesting, if a little silly sometimes, and just roaming around the world discovering things is very diverting.

Then there are the bad points. The graphics are, even for a game of this vintage, a little bit basic. The models look rather cartoonish, a far cry from the realist models we're used to seeing today. This could be a symptom of "You Just Played LA Noire" syndrome, but I'm not so sure.

The AI in the game is unmistakably rubbish, with most enemies running straight towards you ready to have their heads taken off in the VATS aiming system. It's this system that actually provides most of the combat-based fun.

For instance, my character is a gun freak who specialises in rifles. My two favourite weapons are currently a backwater rifle that I stole from some hillbillies in Point Lookout, and the other is Lincoln's Repeater, which I stole from, well, Abraham Lincoln. It's a long story. The VATS targeting system allows me to deliberately shoot a slaver in the torso to see if I can make him do a backflip. If you must know, I can. The slow motion kicks in and you follow the bullet as it fires home, in a manner reminiscent of old-school Max Payne. Most of the time though, you'll just find yourself shooting people's heads off and watching them fly off with slightly confused expressions. It's great, but it doesn't stop the game feeling slightly old fashioned.

Other bad points about the game include the fact that its buggy as all hell. Frequently weird things will happen, for instance robots will spawn high up in the sky and then drop to their deaths. I have no idea why this happens. NPCs that are meant to be temporary companions will disappear for no apparent reason. And that's not to mention the fact that the game (this game only) seems to overload my TV and make it switch itself off. I have no idea why this happens. Other, more graphically intense games play fine on my system.

I have the game of the year edition, which features a bunch of DLC. I haven't played the Pitt yet, but from what I hear its a hell of a lot better than Mothership Zeta. That was a lot of dungeon crawling, with repetative enemies, for not much reward. Point Lookout, on the other hand, was much better. Interesting missions, different enemies, new weapons, a whole new map to traverse, good times. I would be hacked off if I'd shelled out money for Mothership Zeta though.

I know I'm complaining a lot, but this really is a good game. It's immersive and fun. I just wish I had played it three years ago when it first came out. In three years time, I'm sure I will enjoy Skyrim in the same way.

Hey!

2011-09-05T22:44:00.008+01:00

I'm still alive, god dammit.

Haven't posted in a long time. It's because I've been busy with numerous writing projects, playing xbox and being a tourist.

I'm gainfully employeed by the cabal of magnates and bankers that secretly run the world, have been sampling a lot of local brewers and restaurants, so generally things are good.

Here are some things I've learned since moving to Toronto:
1. Toronto drivers are throughly irate people
2. Key lime pie gelato from Gelato and chocolate amaretto with chips from Marble Slab are the best ice creams in town
3. Street crazies are everywhere - Mr Peru, the Punching Man, Street Jesus, "They Shot Me Bro" and Man Who Thinks The Police Are Poisoning His Food are some of the best
4. Cufflinks are awesome
5. Mopeds are deathtraps
6. The two guys who work at the pet store on Yonge Street will let you bet on chihuaha fights

I also finally got an Xbox, so here are some reviews:

1. LA Noire

I'm enjoying this one. I like the interrogation aspect of the game, and looking for clues, but I feel the game gets bogged down in some of the action scenes, such as the boring chase scenes in which you just grab the controller and press forward to run after a perp. Also, there's nothing worse than accepting a street crime mission and then having to drive the whole way across the map - which must take at least ten minutes - to get there. There are also bits I noticed where the scripting is off - characters will refer to clues that I never found or allude to pieces of information I was never able to worm out of the suspects. Also, I don't really get how an LAPD detective is just allowed to drive around town stealing cars and persecuting the universally criminal denizens of 1940's LA. Maybe it's because Phelps is such a massive jerk. It's true, he is. A total tool. I was pleased that I guessed who the Black Dahlia killer was before the big reveal though.

2. Mortal Kombat

Check out that screenshot from one of the minigames in Mortal Kombat 9, when Scorpion, Subzero, Smoke and Reptile are forced on pain of disembowelment to play sub-par pub-rock for the amusement of Shao Kahn. The graphics are so lifelike. Mortal Kombat is, obviously, about blood and boobs. And you'll get plenty of that. The violence is - and I don't say this very often - almost sickening in places, but if you play it for long enough you get desensitised to it and probably then start disassembling neighbourhood pets in your garden shed before angrily shivving pedestrians with a screwdriver on your way to work. The game is, as expected, excellent in versus mode, and includes lots of challenges, but the story mode is a victim of the easy-easy-easy-hard syndrome. It's like a Nirvana song: quiet-quiet-quiet-loud. Except you sprint through the rounds kicking crap out of useless characters like Sektor and Kitana, but then coming up against - to pick two names out of a ridiculously irritating hat - Shao Kahn or Quan Chi. Especially given that the latter seems always to be equipped with a character in tow to add as henchman, if his unblockable attacks weren't difficult enough as it is. The only thing to do is turn the difficulty down to beginner, just get through it and move on.

Finally finished watching Game of Thrones

2011-07-08T03:52:00.003+01:00

Warning, contains very mild spoilers. Not nearly as bad as the one I got from Stuart "Pot" Clark, though. Thanks for that, by the way.

Yes I did. And I enjoyed it very much. The only thing I didn't enjoy about it is that it is in a number of ways very similar to the novel I have been writing since 2007. So, that means I basically have to change it or risk being accused of plagiarism. I mean, if you're writing a political fantasy novel, there's obviously going to be a bit of subject matter overlap, right? No one will nail me to the wall for this, will they? This is worse than the time Graham wrote 1984 and it turned out George Orwell had written it already.

Oh well.

I enjoyed Game of Thrones greatly, and I feel I must give special mention to the actor Peter Dinklage for his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister. I'm sure he knows how fortunate he is to have landed what is probably the best role ever for an actor with dwarfism, and he injects it with so much quality, so much sadness, bravado and pithy humour that you can't help but be drawn into his story. Tyrion is by far my favourite of the characters in the series, mainly because he's out for his own interests, and unlike his brother Jaime, who pretends he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about him, genuinely doesn't. He is quite simply past that. He is a hugely contradictory character, seeking his father's approval on one hand and hating him on the other, revelling in his own ghastliness but capable of acts of unselfconscious kindness. Best Tyrion bits? Well, when he gives that little ingrate Joffrey a well-deserved clip round the ear for starters. I could watch that all day. His "trial" at the Eyrie, with his complete lack of respect for his captors and his punk rock curtsey as he walks out a free man. When he helps out Bran - "I have a tender spot in my heart for bastards, cripples and broken things". Basically, Tyrion is best on account that he gets the best lines, and in general gets with the hottest ladies on the show. I therefore confer upon him the title of badass. Can't wait for the next series.

Dropping eaves

2011-07-05T22:21:00.001+01:00

Overheard snippet of conversation a while back:

"Maybe this time I get a lawyer and SUE Brown Sanjay."

Because you hate news

2011-06-27T21:35:00.002+01:00

As Chuck D once told you what time it was, I will tell you what the news is:

Here

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

2011-06-22T19:44:00.002+01:00

Galliano blames Jewish alcohol for anti-Semitic outburst

E-mail to Inside Edition

2011-06-21T03:22:00.001+01:00

Hi there,
Just thought you might like to know that in the 'foreign language syndrome' story on tonight's show, you made a glaring error when you showed your map of the United Kingdom or 'Ireland' and 'England' as you described it. The island of Ireland is divided into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Mainland Britain is divided into Scotland in the north and England in the south, with Wales in the west. Scotland and Wales are not part of England, but are part of the United Kingdom. Please consult an atlas next time you decide to show a map. With television like this it's easy to see why Americans have such a reputation for knowing absolutely nothing about the rest of the world.
Regards
David Blackwood.

Mr Peru

2011-06-09T03:41:00.003+01:00

Mr Peru plays chess in the street on a giant, homemade board. He is the only chess player I have ever seen with a gimmick. Mr Peru's gimmick is that he is an Inca, which he illustrates thusly: he wears a fedora with 'Inca' written on it, and adorns his neck with gold. I wonder if there are other chess players wandering around with similar gimmicks.

Mr Peru's story is written out in slightly imperfect English on the ground beside him. It says "Chess genius, Mr Peru beated his father when he was four years old." and then in larger writing, it inexplicably says "Mr Peru, Chess Genius, Actor, Dancer, 8-year-old boy." Mr Peru may have been an 8-year-old prodigy, but he's pushing 60 now. When I went by he wasn't playing chess, he was attempting with some difficulty to change the batteries on his CD player. I wonder what music he listens to when he plays? I shall never know, unless I chance to see him again.

I would quite like to see him face off in a street chess match against a voodoo chess witch doctor, or perhaps a man claiming to be an android.

Just remember the old Italian proverb: After the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

Do you SUFFER from the HORRENDOUS SYMPTOMS of BRAIN SICKNESS?

2011-05-26T03:40:00.006+01:00

...Then why not try Crebb’s BRAIN LINIMENT?
Patent cure for ENNUI, HYSTERIA & PSYCHOSIS.
Merely massage a generous dollop of CREBB’S BRAIN LINIMENT into the temples thrice daily and within ONE WEEK, we GUARANTEE a PLEASANT return to RELATIVE NORMALITY.
MRS E SNIFDOR, Castle Gait, Amberlon, used to suffer from ANXIOUS TREMORS, TERROR and a shocking LACK OF CONTINENCE.
“I was crippled by ghastly thoughts and sickening paranoia,” she tells us “as well as the physical ailments of BRAIN SICKNESS including rheumatisms, bloodened stools, jawing and rickets. My husband was at his wit’s end with my WHINING and NAGGING! But now I no longer worry about money, my appearance, impending social change or catastrophic world events! Thank you, Dr Crebb!”
Crebb’s BRAIN LINIMENT may look like an ordinary white cream to the untrained eye, but take a look under a MAGICAL MICROSCOPE. The liniment is full of TINY PIXIES who go to work on the cerebellum, killing the EVIL SPIRITS with swords of MYSTICAL STEEL.
Based on a secret ancient Cathenian recipe, Dr Crebb is the only physician in the land able to recreate CREBB’S PATENT BRAIN LINIMENT. Accept no substitutes.
Available from all good apothecaries, herbalists and tinker warlocks.

2011-04-25T20:34:00.012+01:00

I give my endorsement to a sign for *my* art exhibit.

Here's a picture, as promised, of the Ontario School of Art and Design. Look at it. Look at it. What on earth was the designer trying to say? It looks like some sort of extra-terrestrial pixellated insect is trying to couple with the normal building next to it. I think the red blocky thing might be its genitals. Since the other building doesn't have any genitals the red blocky thing seems just to be busting through a wall, possibly into an atrium full of astounded students, which it would fill with its outer space sex-goop. Disgusting.

In other news, I also shaved off my beard. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I fear I have made a terrible mistake. It was wiry, curly and uncomfortable, and a Hasidic Jew did give me a nod the other day, but now i just look like any other norm.

Here's how it happened:

The way a beard should be worn.

The Shitkicker: Which crime has he committed? A prize for the winner.

The Cavalier

The Edwardian Gentleman: I am off to the Great War.

Der Fuhrer: The inevitable, tastless Hitler 'tache.

Beard all gone. Weep.

Forget it, Jack. It's Chinatown

2011-04-19T21:44:00.005+01:00

Because I forgot Kaki's camera today, I didn't get any amazing pictures of the stuff I saw. Instead here's a screenshot from Capcom VS SNK which I aim to play at the dirt arcade soon. Here yoga-pyromania expert Dhalsim takes on Mai (or Ridiculous Big-Tits as she is known in some circles).

Another fine day. I took the streetcar down to Chinatown and walked around basically looking at stuff. I went into the weird Chinese malls and located an underground arcade full of retro SNK games that will be coming back to at some point with a friend (when I get some friends). Then I did some shopping, picking up some kimchi and miso paste, things I have been without for some time. I also found some nice looking restaurants and noodle bars which I shall have to return to. I further took a walk up Kensington Avenue and located somewhere to bulk-buy Jamaican patties, which pleased me no end. I road tested them, of course, just to make sure they were good.

After that I wandered in the direction of downtown, taking in the weird archi-turd of the Ontario College of Art and Design - big speckled block on multicoloured stilts. Weird. Found some nice looking Indian restaurants, gaped at the CN tower in all of its inexplicably pointy glory, before walking up past the Rogers Centre and the Steam Whistle Brewery (located in an old trainyard, and actually sporting a working steam whistle), before going under the Gardiner Exressway and walking around the waterfront for a while, which is more or less abandoned at this time of year. I'll come back in summer, whenever the hell that starts.

All the time I was filled with a tremendous feeling of wellbeing, like I was actually doing something I should be proud of doing. I feel more stimulated than I have been in a long time. When I was away in Japan, I always used to wonder what people would think if they were able to see through my eyes, and see the places I was and the people I was with, the things I was doing. Maybe I'm just the product of too much television but even in my own brain I somehow expect there to be an audience. I know other people who have the same problem, one way or another, chief amongst them being Mr Graham "Feathro" Neale. I always feel like I'm being watched, by somebody, maybe someone I went to school with or used to work with, not necessarily even someone I know very well or even like. I feel like somewhere, the audience is flicking channels, idley, looking through people's eyes. And while I was in Kirkcaldy, I always felt like when they came to me they would be bored, somehow disappointed. But when I was in Japan, I felt like they would be envious and impressed, and feel like I was somewhere remote from them, living life to the fullest. Maybe that's the crux of it - I just want people who have previously thought themselves better than me to be jealous. To spite those who would judge me by experiencing things that they never will. If that's it then I probably am a very sick man. Well, at least I'm having a good time.

Burrito

2011-04-17T22:01:00.003+01:00

If you are looking for a thoroughly good and cheap burrito experience, you could do a lot worse than Quesada at Yonge and Eglinton. I got a coupon through my door and we thought "why not?". I was not disappointed. For five dollars I got a big fat chipotle spicy chicken burrito with all of the trimmings. I asked the guy for more jalapenos and he seemed to take this as some sort of disparagement on the spice level of his burritos, so he insisted that I take extra hot salsa and then made me a special hot mayo sauce of his own concoction in some sort of attempt to bring me low for being so bold as to assume straight off the bat that I could handle anything he could offer me. My god that was a fine burrito. I slopped the hot mayo sauce all over it and devoured it hungrily. Two thumbs up.

We also had a first rate Korean barbecue last night downtown. The place was called Korean Grill House and is opposite the Brass Rail Tavern, certainly the most shamelessly constructed strip club I have ever seen (European style "interactive" lap dances from FULLY NUDE strippers!). For the princely sum of 17 bucks each we received more meat than we could conceivably barbecue. I also had a number of Molson Canadians, which aren't considered a premium beer, but I found quite crisp and refreshing. Later on, we went out to a couple of bars and I had Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale from the Flying Monkey Brewery in Barrie, Ontario. It was pretty dark, floral with a hint of grapefruit. Interesting stuff.

Big giant truck

2011-04-14T21:42:00.006+01:00

The Dodge Ram 1500. Not actual size.

I'm a basically liberal European who cares about the environment and civil liberties, so why do I want one of these? It's about the most unnecessary and impractical vehicle I have ever seen. It's big and huge and must burn at least one diplodocus every time you take it down to the supermarket. How would you park? Would it even fit in the space? It's surely a car for red state Americans who say the Civil War was about states' rights and pronounce 'Iraq' 'Eye-Rack'. Yet quite a lot of urban Canadians also have them. Strange. Maybe it's the chrome. Delicious chrome.

Economic migrant

2011-04-06T13:18:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm here. I arrived yesterday morning after a delayed flight on which I seem to have picked up some form of lurgee. A shame, but some self-medication and I will be good as new. I digress, I had to go through immigration where a few disinterested people asked me rudimentary questions and then sent me to a desk where I was issued with an immigrant bag and a bunch of materials to help me settle in Canada. Pretty useful I suppose. Two magazines 'Canadian Immigrant' and 'Canadian Newcomer', an organiser that reminds me to get a job and a calendar with Canada facts on it. To be honest, I was just surprised that my beard had not singled me out for a stripsearch or anal finger-raping, and gladly disappeared to the baggage reclaim. There I found the axle of my mighty rolly suitcase had been broken in the flight. Perhaps I can get some money back from the airline...

Kaki picked me up, and it was so good to see her after so long. She's looking hot. I think having less of a couch potato lifestyle like we did back in KDY is treating her nicely. She says she's out doing stuff every other night, so that's pretty good. We went back to our "flapartment" (a new word I have coined in the spirit of compromise) for a smoked meat sandwich, which even though it wasn't quite on a par with the mighty Schwartz's it was still warmly appreciated. The flapartment is brilliant, fully great and there's absolutely heaps of space for having people over. The thing I like best is the dining area where I'm sitting now. Good dinner party space. The table is nice and I will require to buy coasters. So, after nipping to our local mall (5 minutes away, and complete with cinema) and picking up the few inevitable items I forgot, we went to pick Bridget up from work and give her the car back. As I have possibly mentioned before, Bridget works in TV, so I got to have a snoop around a TV station as well. Unfortunately, by this point I was more or less crashing, so it was basically time to go home. Tomorrow I get a bank account, arrange insurance, buy exotic cheeses and eat a curry in Little India.

Reviews from the B-Movie Death Dungeon

2011-03-30T21:15:00.010+01:00

CyberTracker: Absolutely chock-full of explodium

The following was completed with me at least slightly drunk and Blair “Dream Eater” MacDougall under the influence of Orange Concoction.

Project Vampire (1993) – Blair says 2/5, Dave says 1/5
A vampire scientist attempts to cure vampires' aversion to sunlight. Only some goober with the unlikely moniker of 'Victor Hunter' can stop him, with the help of the most stereotypical asian ever and some woman. Not even a reasonably pleasing pair of breasts can salvage this. Note the looped, speeded up car chase footage. Very Mitchellesque.
Blair: "So bad it gave me diabetes."
Dave: "Worst fighting in any film, ever. It makes Shatner look like Bruce Lee."

CyberTracker (1994) – Blair says 5/5, Dave says 5/5
Eric Philips (Don 'The Dragon' Wilson) is a secret service agent who has no friends, gets drunk with his computer and takes a lot of unnecessary showers. He is hired to protect a senator who advocates the use of large, bald cyborgs to apprehend criminals. Unfortunately, he turns out to be a lunatic and when Philips shops him for murder, he ends up with the CyberTrackers on his tail, as well as a weak, Australian version of Steven Seagal. There is literally nothing in this film that doesn't explode.
Dave: "A masterpiece. Don The Dragon’s facial expressions tell all."
Blair: "Cybertracker is a vision of the future where everything spontaneously blows up. That’s a future I can get behind."

Break for munchy boxes courtesy of our sponsor, Seven Spices.

The cover of the DVD case for Plankton. It's important to note that this girl is not in the film.
<---------------

Octopus (2000) – Blair says 4/5, Dave says 4/5
Radiation creates a giant monster Octopus. It attacks a submarine carrying a rookie FBI agent and a deadly terrorist. Private Frost from Aliens is on board. CGI hell breaks loose. Octopus gets hold of an ocean liner full of passengers and it's Shark Attack III all over again.
Blair: "Having Han Solo playing the character of Captain Shaw was an astute piece of casting. I have a feeling that no-one involved in this film has any idea what an octopus actually is."
Dave: "Also, did you notice that everyone involved in the making of this film had an ‘ov’ at the end of their name? The look-alikes of Keanu Reeves, Rutger Hauer, Viggo Mortensen and Amanda Seyfried all did a commendable job, but Ricco Ross deserves an Oscar."

The Klansman – Blair says 2/5, Dave says 2/5
This was a mistake. From a trailer I saw, I believed it to be an action movie in which Richard Burton takes on the Ku Klux Klan. Actually it's a Faulkneresque psychodrama. There is a little bit of laughable drunken karate from Burton, and OJ Simpson does kill off loads of racists, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Apparently all people do in the south is rape one another and set crosses on fire. It makes me not ever want to go there. Weirdly, the town's Klan-supporting mayor is played by David Huddleston of Santa Claus: The Movie fame.
Blair: "The Klansman is a film. The moral of that film is 'Don’t fuck with the Juice'."
Dave: "It’s no Where Eagles Dare. Burton is still a powerful force, despite his pitiful attempts at a southern accent."

Creatures from the Abyss AKA Plankton (1994)
I have lost the sheet for this one,and Blair had to get the bus halfway through. So this review is incomplete. I for one give it 5/5 for the scene in which a mutant fish has sex with a woman, and then its eyeball falls out and goes down her throat. The plot concerns five teenagers who get washed out to sea in a dingy and climb aboard a deserted yacht, only to find that they have been infected with an evil fish-sex disease which starts turning them into monsters. Crudely dubbed from the original Italian.
Blair: (Mutters something about dubbing before leaving)
Dave: Fishsploitation at its finest. Worth watching for the bizarre moment at the end when the last living teen arrives on the bridge of the yacht and sees his fish-infected former best friend unlocking a glowing panel on the wall before yelling: "OH NO, WHO OPENED THE RADIOACTIVE CORE!" whereupon the yacht explodes. At no point is it explained why the yacht is nuclear.

Twattery

2011-03-22T22:41:00.003Z

THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY POWER ANIMAL.

Here I am. You see, I am the media. I have a twitter now. Seek me out, cadres! If I express this incorrectly remember it is because I am basically a bumpkin:
@orange_marmoset

I aim to beat Ashton Kutcher by at least next week. I already have Tyra Banks, Peewee Herman, The Onion, John Cusack and Charlie Sheen, not to mention at least three members of obscure 90s metal act Bugmonkey!. It's like collecting these old Panini sticker albums except, y'know, with people. Which is a lot more sinister than it sounds when you think about it. I already have one follower. I have no idea who the hell she is.

Two more weeks in Scotland from today. People from the old country, get your fill now. Those of you in the new world, get ready. The British are coming!

Snowdonia Amber Mist

2010-12-06T22:44:00.003Z

I feel I must take this opportunity to recommend Snowdonia Cheese Company's Amber Mist. It's a strong, crumbly mature cheddar with whiskey in it. It tastes exceptionally decadent, very full and sweet, good with oat cakes or apple. I had the Pickle Power cheese from the same company a while back and I wasn't too keen on that, but they have really hit the nail on the head here. Good stuff, will have to get some more in.

Reviews from the B-Movie Death-Dungeon

2010-11-12T18:04:00.002Z

Spent an enjoyable evening with Blair "Dream Stealer" MacDougall examining some of the finest B-movie titles in history, that have been cruelly neglected by the filmgoing public at large. These particular titles were apparently left in Blair's house by an ex-girlfriend of Pot's, and never reclaimed. Well, we certainly found out why. As part of our continuing mission to trawl the depths of B-movie hell in the forlorn hope of dredging some kind of deeper meaning out of them, we watched them. God help us.

Cyclone (1987)

Rick Davenport (Jeffrey 'Re-animator' Combs) is a scientist charged with the inexplicable task of designing a motorbike armed with lasers and missiles for the US government. However, on a night out dancing with his girlfriend Teri (Heather 'BJ and The Bear','The Love Boat','TJ Hooker','Co-ed Fever' Thomas) some punk sticks a screwdriver into Rick's skull. Turns out that Martin Landau, playing Martin Landau, has sent a pair of killer assassins to whack Rick and take his bike. Unfortunately for them, Teri, who is also a barefist fighting master and motorcycle stunt rider, gets her hands on Cyclone - the ultimate motorcycle - first. Featuring laughable dialogue, and a synth led soundtrack that utterly embodies 80s naffness, 'Cyclone' is truly hilarious. It's got stunts, mostly done by girls on bikes, however, Blair and I had a good time pointing out when the stunts were obviously done by men dressed up. This was quite obvious since one of the riders simply had massive tits in one shot, and then no tits and hairy arms in the other. That wasn't the best thing about 'Cyclone' though. In the finale, when Teri finally unleashes pure motorcycle-based destruction on her tormentors, the scene in which she incinerates the lead assassin to death with Cyclone's lasers (tragically, just after his one moment of actual 'acting') is truly worth waiting the one hour and twenty minutes of the film to see. It is an absolute fucking masterpiece.

She (1982)

Starring 'Conan The Barbarian' lead actress Sandahl Bergman as the eponymous heroine, we had high hopes for 'She'. The DVD case made wild boasts about beautiful women and brutal violence. The film begins in a post-apocalyptic landscape that looks a lot somewhere in Europe with a good exchange rate, and a bunch of nazi knights laying poorly choreographed waste to a village, to the sound of utterly pumping heavy metal. This is without a doubt the most intrusive soundtrack to anything I have ever heard. It sounds like it was written for another film.
The plot: two brothers who look absolutely nothing like one another have to rescue their sister from the evil "Norks". I'm not kidding. Anyway, on the way they end up in a violent female dominated society where She is the goddess. She seems to spend most of her time essentially raping and murdering men, although this is never referenced after about the first 20 minutes. Anyway, our heroes kidnap her and force her to take them to the Norks lair. On the way they meet werewolves (read actors with large, fake eyebrows and plastic fangs), a bunch of monks and another supposed 'god' who can make things fly about on string when he uses his god power. He also has the most astonishingly hairy arms. They also meet a tranny giant with an astonishingly hairy back. I surmise the last two are brothers, although this can't be corroborated. They then meet an obnoxious sailor who multiplies as he is cut into pieces. At no time is it explained how this is possible. Anyway, they defeat the Norks, get their sister back, one of the blokes falls in love with She (forgetting she's a murdering rapist) and that's the end of the film. Holy fuck.

Sulwath Brewery

2010-11-12T17:49:00.004Z

A cloudy and crisp wheat beer from Sulwath Brewers in Dumfriesshire. A very strong one at 5.5%, but very full-bodied and flavourful. Lots of sediment that requires rolling the bottle to get the last of it in. Pleasing picture of flying geese on the front. Bought this from a couple of pleasant guys at the Good Food Show who dug ice hockey. Very nice. I also had the Black Douglas, which is the same brewery's porter, and that was effing gorgeous. Very raisiny and Christmassy. Would recommend both of these.

The five greatest comic books of all time.

2010-11-08T20:40:00.010Z

Because I am an enormous geek, I have taken great delight from the news that Judge Dredd is to be rebooted for another film. I am even more delighted that scripting duties are falling to Alex Garland, who in addition to being a great writer, is an avowed Dredd fan. Casting gives us even more to be happy about, with Karl Urban coming out of leftfield, and although I would never have considered him for the part in a million years, it actually makes perfect sense. And he's a 2000 AD fan as well, so he'll try and do the character justice rather than just shouting a lot like Stallone did. Man, as much as I try to like Stallone's Dredd I just can't. That film was an abomination. Stallone's performance was a little bit too reminiscent of Rocky V, and as for Rob Schneider being in it, whose idea was that? Armand Assante was the worst choice ever for Rico, and he should have been a mangled, twisted, anarchic version of Dredd, more like he was in the comics. About the only good thing in it is Hammerstein, and he's technically not even a Dredd character.

Anyway, in celebration of the 2012 Dredd film, here is a top five run down of the greatest comics of all time. I know. Poor segue.

5. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Following self-imposed retirement after the death of Robin, a middle-aged Batman returns to the fray to rid Gotham of gang violence and a couple of old enemies. The book that changed the tone of Batman forever from camp and colourful to dark and gritty, Frank Miller fills the book with questions about the rights of superheroes, much in the same vein that Alan Moore would with The Watchmen. Although you root for Batman all the way through, in some places he actually becomes something of a terrifying character. By the close, you don't know whether it's him or the Joker who's crazier. The book ends with a showdown between Bats and Superman, who has been brought in to stop him getting out of hand. But the real reveal is the twist that comes after that. Amazing, and actually quite chilling.

4. Superman - Red Son

Mark Millar, the man with the best job in the world, asks: What if Superman had landed in the Ukraine instead of Kansas? An amazing take on how the Cold War might have gone differently if Superman had been a commie pinko instead of a filthy capitalist. Featuring an anarchist Batman with quite an amazing hat.

3. Judge Dredd - The Cursed Earth

The best Dredd story by a long shot. When Mega City Two is infected with a deadly virus, Dredd leads a rescue mission into the Cursed Earth to bring in the antidote. Accompanied by Spikes Harvey Rotten, the criminal biker that he brought along with him out of what seemed to be an act of perverse cruelty, and Tweek, and enslaved alien that they free along the way, Dredd fights his way through the mental denizens of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, including Satanus the Tyrannosaurus Rex, robot vampires, and the feared Angel Gang. Starting off in an armoured tank and with an army of sidekicks, by the end of the storyline Dredd was alone, crawling on his hands and knees through the desert, everybody else having been killed along the way. And you know what? He made it. Because Dredd is that drokking hard.

2. Preacher - Alamo

The final Preacher book is all about settling scores. Jesse has a score to settle with Cassidy, and the two former best friends finally beat the shit into one another in a largely indecisive duel at the Alamo. Herr Starr, on the other hand, blames Jesse for the loss of a number of his body parts, and having eschewed his plan to install the titular clergyman as a puppet messiah, is now hell-bent on revenge. The Saint of Killers finally has a word with God Almighty, and it doesn't end well for the big guy.

1. The Watchmen

The Watchmen is the best, because from start to finish it is pure brilliance. The dialogue, characterisation, the art, are all perfect. And the unsettling questions that Alan Moore asks have never been more eloquently put. Don't worry though, superheroes aren't all fascists and homosexuals. Not really.

Underrated Rock Albums #1. Therapy? - Infernal Love

2010-10-04T20:24:00.011+01:00

Therapy?: These men are about to rape you.

Everybody knows that I love Therapy?. I love big-boned Cairnsy and his greasy hair and incessant self-deprecation. I love mad little Michael McKeegan and his happy little smile. I even love, poor, wayward Fyfe Ewing. But even at the height of my Therapy? worship in the mid to late 90s. I had a hard time explaining Infernal Love. "It's not as good as Troublegum" people would tell me "It's only got two or three good songs on it". These are fair observations. But you have to think about the context. Infernal Love was released a year after Troublegum, their first album that hit the big time, and expectations were high. Tensions in the band were growing too, and Fyfe Ewing would soon depart the fold permanently. It was the first album that they really spent money on, and it shows in the production. It is a monster. If ever there was an album that was overproduced, this is it. It's like they went loose in the studio and just mucked about with everything. There are countless samples of helicopter noises, two-minute long keyboard intros, sequencers mucking around with the riffs at the beginning of songs, and at least one song where somebody got up and shouted "Fuck it! Horns." It probably adds about 15 minutes to the run time. It doesn't have the singles that Troublegum had either - there's not a Screamager or a Die Laughing on this album. And I think that is probably what disappointed fans most, the lack of catchier, more poppy tunes that turned on legions of new fans to Therapy? after Troublegum came out.

Despite all this, I could never really reconcile the idea that Infernal Love is a wholly bad album. It contains some of their best songs. The opener, Epilepsy, is a riff-led rocker that wouldn't sound out of place on their earlier offerings like Babyteeth or Pleasure Death. Pure rock. The riff is great and Cairnsy howls his guts out. Immediately following this, Stories provides a brief hope for the Troublegum fan of another catchy hit, but cruelly dashes it half a minute in by going all mental with a brass section that seems utterly out of place. And then there's Moment of Clarity. As a teenager, I thought this was - in its own scarily intense fashion - a brilliant love song, with very deep and expressive lyrics. But as an adult you realise that lyrically speaking, it's one of the most cringeworthy songs ever written. It's full of nonsense like the quite laughable line "lips like bruised vulva / your ass like Jesus' feet / worth kissing". It's the sort of borderline rapey bedroom poetry that has never got anybody laid. The opposite in fact. All Therapy? songs that aren't about rocking are about desire for an unattainable woman. The thing is, in Moment of Clarity, the desire just seeps through the music. The angst-riven riffing, straight and true, and balls to the wall, laying it all on the line. It's like a hopeless love note that will inevitably humiliate the writer utterly, and the they know this, but they write it and post it anyway. The song sounds like it is trying to climb down your earhole and make clumsy love to your brain. For the fourth track the band kick it down a notch for Jude the Obscene, one of the albums better songs. Lyrically, it's a bit duff and doesn't really have any memorable refrains, but the "Now you're here, they can't shut you down" bit is quite good and there's a chilled guitar solo. By this time on the album you can tell that they're phoning it in, and the cello-led Bowels of Love is beautifully arranged and has so much promise, except it's only about a minute long. It's like the band couldn't be bothered finishing it. Oh and the lyrics are also nonsense: "And you took me / naive and ugly / into your festering heart / and you poured Eros maggots down my throat / until I choked" OK, Cairnsy, I get it! A woman has wronged you! Just calm down bro, have a Jager Bomb and kiss my friend Rob on the lips (which he did the one time I met him incidentally). Track 6: Misery. No, that's just the name of the song. Despite the title it's a punchy rocker and probably on of the best songs on the album, and the mid section ("Fuck you waste my time ...") is one of Infernal Love's high points. It's imediately followed up with the lacklustre Bad Mother and the even-more-rapey-than-Moment-of-Clarity Me Vs You with its sinister vocals and eerie strings, backed up by a grief-maddened chorus. What immediately follows is the album's biggest anomaly, Loose, a straightforward punk pop song about good times and hilarity. What the fuck is it doing on an album about soured love, loss and self-loathing? Don't worry, there's a song about rape coming up. Diane is a string led ballad that manages to be affecting despite its schoolyard rhyming couplets. It's actually a cover of a Hüsker Dü song, so we can't blame Cairnsy for the lyrics this time. The final song on the album, 30 Seconds, is another lacklustre effort, and the final refrain "There is a light at the end of the tunnel", looped endlessly by sequencers, is virtually unlistenable.

So apologies if I'm not really selling this. It has some truly high points like Misery and Moment of Clarity, but it also has some truly excrutiating moments. In a way I think it's the most honest album Therapy? have ever produced because it is so utterly uncompromising in its music and the lyrics. Compared to some of their later, more polished efforts, you feel like you are getting into Cairnsy's sick, sick head. It's like you're in his dank little bedroom, watching VHS 90s porn with him, drinking tramp-juice and harbouring simmering resentment for the happy, shiny little bastard people outside. It really does lay them bare as a band, frailties and all, and that's why I always keep coming back to it, at least as often as I do Troublegum or Semi-Detached. And that is why Infernal Love has the dubious honour of being the first opus in my Underrated Rock Albums list.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It occurs to me that no North American reader will have any idea who Therapy? are, not having been privy to some of the lesser known acts of what is occassionally referred to by NME readers as the "90s Britrock Explosion". Let me break it down for you. Imagine if somebody kidnapped U2 at birth and held them prisoner in a Belfast basement letting them listen to nothing except Joy Division, Motörhead, telling them that all women are teases and whores, and feeding them pies. Then you get Therapy?. More or less.

Column for 17 06 10

2010-07-27T16:47:00.000+01:00

IT’S that magical time again, when the pubs pack full of football fans and English people forget how many syllables are in the word “England”. Yes, the World Cup is here again. As I said last week, I am an honorary Argentinean for the next month, due to my picking that side in our legally dubious office sweepstake. I sincerely hope that they win, because that will net me £33. However, I have a confession to make. Beyond my selfish desire to win cash money, I have no interest in the World Cup at all. Indeed, I have no interest in football at all.
I am an otherwise normal man with many other manly interests, such as videogames, kebabs, and beautiful ladies, though not necessarily in that order. Yet I don’t understand what my manly brethren find so interesting about football. The way I see it, every game is essentially the same. A lot of running and kicking, the occasional swear, ball goes in one goal or the other. The end.
Think about it. If you had a choice between watching football or the movie ‘Die Hard’ which would you choose? I would choose ‘Die Hard’. Does this make me less of a man?
I can’t understand how something as trivial as a game where 22 guys kick a ball around a field for 90 and a bit minutes can reduce a grown man sitting in his own living room to tears. It’s not you’re kicking the ball, if your team lose you haven’t personally been defeated, so who cares? Likewise, if they win, what exactly did you contribute to the victory? Why should the result of a game played by 22 other people have an effect on your own feelings of self worth? It’s only a game, and after all, surely there are more important things in the world to get worked up about.
There. I’ve said it. I don’t like football. Now why is it that every time I say that to another bloke they look at me with like I’m some kind of tragic lunatic suffered to live by a hateful God, then slowly turn away and start talking to someone else...
I must say, having no interest in the sport has been a huge disadvantage for as long as I can remember. In any situation in which you find yourself meeting guys you’ve never met before, the talk inevitably turns to football. It’s as if it’s one of the “safe” topics that men in such uncomfortable situations can fall back on, and if you kill the conversation before it starts, we don’t know where to go. It’s a huge social faux pas and it makes everybody really uneasy.
It got to the stage that I was actually genuinely ashamed of not liking football, like it was some kind of deficiency that I myself possessed, as opposed to football’s fault for being basically boring. I attempted to muster a cursory interest when people talked to me, and even attempted to learn some facts. This didn’t help though, as I became convinced people would be able to see through my ploy and condemn me as the faker I was.
Nowadays, of course, I don’t really care. I have a big bushy beard with which to assert my manly credentials, and I will quite freely admit to not liking football. If you can’t hold a conversation with another man about anything except football then that’s your problem, not mine.

Column for 22/07/10

2010-07-23T18:52:00.000+01:00

WHEN radio presenter Jon Gaunt called an interviewee a Nazi for suggesting couples who smoked shouldn’t be allowed to be foster carers, he was immediately accused of trivialising Nazi atrocities and sacked. But in many corners of the world it was seen as a confirmation of a little known law, known as Godwin’s Law, which states that if any discussion or argument goes on sufficiently long, one party will compare the other to Hitler or the Nazis. The law was first termed 20 years ago by US lawyer Mike Godwin, after observing participants in early internet chat forums. That got me thinking: what other laws govern our lives? Obviously the laws of motion, gravity, thermodynamics, and other brain-boxy science stuff that I don’t completely understand, but there are a whole bunch more.
We all know about Murphy’s Law, the old adage that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, which is attributed to the American aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy, Jr. You might even be aware of Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives, which further states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.
In fact there are a whole slew of laws for various things that actually have practical relevance in our lives. For instance, there’s the Peter Principle, a law formulated by Dr Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull that states that in a hierarchy, people are promoted until they reach their ‘level of incompetence’ i.e. where they are no longer competent at doing their jobs and therefore unable to gain another promotion. This is countered by the cartoonist Scott Adams’ Dilbert Principle which states that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place they can do least damage: management. Then there’s Gall’s Law, from the author John Gall, which tells us that a complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works, and states the inverse that a complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work; you have to start over again, using a simple, working system. Now if that isn’t a pertinent statement that many people would do well remembering in modern society, I’m not sure what is.
There are specific laws for any number of areas, including politics. For instance, the US democrat politician Pat Moynihan coined Moynihan’s Law, which states that the amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the number of complaints about human rights violations heard from there, i.e. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.
There are also laws for journalism. My particular favourite law is the one set out by the Australian editor John Bagsund which says that if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be an error of some kind in what you have written. This law is referred to, in tongue in cheek fashion, as Muphry’s Law.
While I doubt the idea that these celestial laws in some way govern our lives, they are worth sticking to. Many old laws and adages offer sage advice that can help us in our everyday existences. However, with all this clever advice flying around, it can be easy to get confused. After all, to paraphrase Clarke’s fourth law: “For each and every law, there is an equal and opposite law.”

Democracy

2010-05-03T20:03:00.001+01:00

On Thursday Fifers will join voters across the country in going to the polls in what is sure to be one of the most closely fought general elections in recent history. And the people of Kirkcaldy have been put in an unusual position of power. If it was the will of the people to do so, it would be us and only us that would have the power to instantly topple the Prime Minister, our MP. Even if Labour won outright across the country, hypothetically, we could still force a change in leadership by voting out Gordon Brown. That is, if the people of Kirkcaldy decide that is the right thing to do.

Indeed, some might say it is a slim chance that Kirkcaldy will vote any other way than Labour, regardless of anyone’s opinions on Gordon Brown himself, the Lang Toun having been a stronghold for the party since time immemorial. In general, the vast majority of voters don’t float, they simply vote for the party they have voted for their entire lives, vote for the party of their parents. Change is a slow process.

But it does happen. Just look at the surge in popularity of the SNP in the last Scottish elections, or even the nationwide rise in support for the Liberal Democrats on the back of Nick Clegg’s surprisingly masterful performances in the TV debates. Could either John Mainland or Douglas Chapman unseat the PM? Of course, the Liberal Democrats will want to capitalise on the sudden popularity of their leader, but it has to be said the real threat to Labour in these parts comes from the SNP. True, the Nats have taken a risk in fielding a candidate such as Councillor Chapman. He has no connection to Kirkcaldy, and may well be best known in the town for the way in which Fife Council’s education committee, of which he is chairman, relegated plans by the previous administration for a much-needed new school at Viewforth to the back burner while prioritising Dunfermline High School, which serves his own ward. However the SNP’s status as a vote against the perceived London-based “old politics” can’t be ignored.

And while the Conservatives are expected to make gains across the UK, nobody is betting on them taking too many seats in Scotland.

For the first time in the political history of the constituency, commentators (well, me anyway) genuinely couldn’t tell you with any authority who is going to come out on top. All that we know is, for good or ill, our votes matter this time more than ever. We are sitting with our fingers on a button which if pressed could change the face of British politics for the next five years, and beyond. Oh God, I can’t watch.

The pen is shiteyer than the sword

2010-04-09T18:20:00.006+01:00

As many of you will know, I aspire to one day to write a novel. I reckon I am currently one fifth of the way there (80 pages, 30,000 words or thereabouts) by my own standards, which consisted of taking a book from my bookshelf which looked about the right size (Catch 22 - Joseph Heller) and looking up how many words are in it (150,000 odd). Writing a novel requires dedication and tenacity, because in most cases it doesn't write itself. You need to persevere, and perseverence is one of the qualities that I respect most in people. That is why it is safe to say, that if you are a published author, you have my respect. As much as I deride "train station literature", the simple act of completing a novel, whether it is a masterpiece or tripe, means you are undoubtedly a reasonably clever and accomplished person.

Sometimes I get down on myself because it takes me so long to write. I am very poorly disciplined and often find excuses not to write. Sometimes I read what I have written and think "Well, that's just shit, isn't it." But yesterday I read a few things that made me very happy about what I have achieved so far.

Let me explain. Yesterday I was at work, and happened to be leafing through the order book from Simon and Schuster, looking for books to order for review. And then it hit me. They were all terrible. Terrible, terrible books. The vast majority of them were about CIA agents, most whom were on the trail of deadly viruses, third-rate tartan noir or sub-Dan Brown codswallop. And then I thought: "Holy shit, if this nonsense can get published, then I could definitely publish Legend of Stegalodon: Dinosaur Secret Agent, Stabber or Dr Jake Solid: Nazi Hunter." Seriously, read these synopsises, they are all real. I promise.

Joan Brady - Venom
Recently released from prison, David Marion doesn't expect to find a hitman at his door. Their meeting is lethal - for the hitman. Warned that a powerful secret organisation is after him, David disappears until the moment comes for him to strike back.
Physicist Helen Freyl owns a colonly of bees with unique venom. When her lover dies, she accepts a job offer from a giant pharmaceutical company who are close to finding a cure for radiation poisoning. But when the mysteriously sudden death of a colleague is followed by another, Helen begins to doubt her employers' motives and realises that her own life is in danger, too.
Venom brings David and Helen together as they fight for their lives against a backdrop of indusrial espionage, corporate greed and human tragedy.

What? Huh? What do bees have to do with curing radiation sickness? And why would a physicist be working with bees? Are they special physics bees? That's the stupidist thing I have ever heard. And what is it with evil pharmaceutical companies? First they test make up on little bunnies, and now they're assassinating people? Not on David Marion's watch, motherfucker! What's the bet that there's an awkwardly written sex scene between David and Helen exactly half way through? Well, if you think that's daft, check this out:

Jodi Compton - Hailey's War
Twenty-four-year-old Hailey Cain has dropped out of the US Military Academy for reasons she won't reveal. She has had to leave Los Angeles and it would be too big a risk for her to return. Now working as a bike messenger in San Francisco, Hailey keeps a low profile, until her high school best friend Serena Delgadillo makes a call that will turn her whole life upside down.
Serena is the head of an all-female gang on the rough streets of LA. She wants Hailey to escort the cousin of a recently murdered gang member across the border to Mexico. It's a mission that will nearly cost Hailey her life, causing her to choose more than once between loyalty and lawlessness, and forcing her to confront two very big secrets in her past...

RING RING RING RING
"Hello, Hailey Cain, formerly of the US military here."
"Hey girfrieeeend! Serena Delgadillo here!"
"Heeeey!"
"Ohmigod! I haven't talked to you in like so long!"
"Oh. My. God. Are you still the leader of that girl gang?"
"Like, yeah! And I totally need you to escort the cousin of a murdered gang member to Mexico!"
"Oh my god! This is going to be so fun!"
What is the bet that it won't be? Where the hell do they come up with this nonsense? Sounds like a poorly thought out excuse to engineer some sapphic erotica to get the commuters riled up on the tube. And a bit of girl on girl violence! Exploitationtastic!

Here's another one I like. Try and count how many tired fantasy cliches you can find here:

Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler
After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring...
An army is gathering: giants, ogres and other creatures joining forces from across the Desolate Lands, united for the first time in history under one black banner. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of Avendoom by spring.
Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows professional thief Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic horn that will restore peace to the Kingdom of Siala. Accompanied by an elfin princess, ten royal fighters, and the King's court jester, Harold must outwit angry demons, escape the clutches of a band of hired murderers, survive ten bloody skirmishes ... and reach the burial grounds before dark.

Just for the record, the author of this one has a fantastic Freddy Mercury moustache. But that doesn't excuse him from falling out of the cliche tree and hitting every bullshit branch on the way down. First thing, why is the baddy always the Nameless One? He should be called the Can't-be-bothered-thinking-of-a-name-for-him One. Monsters uniting under one black banner for the first time in history? Don't you mean for the first time since every fantasy novel ever written? Master thief? Check. Elfin princess? Check. Magic horn? Check. THE FIRST IN A TRILOGY? Checkmageddon.

If that isn't cliche ridden enough for you, see how many horror cliches you can spot in this literary abortion:

Sarah Rayne - House of the Lost
When novelist Theo Kendal inherits the remote Norfolk house in which his cousin was murdered, he believed it will lead him closer to the truth about her death. It will also be the ideal place to finish his new book.
But the bleak Fenn House is an uncomfortable place to spend the winter. And the strange thing is that Theo's novel is heading in an unplanned direction. He finds himself writing about a young boy called Matthew who inhabits a terrifying world where people die in macabre circumstances, where they can be imprisoned without trial or reason, their identities wiped from the world forever.
And then Theo discovers that Matthew and his family really existed, part of a dark and violent segment of recent history that threatens to reach out across the years to tear his life apart. And somehow it all connects to the death of his cousin...

Tip for writers: Never, ever go to an isolated house to finish your latest novel. Haven't you ever read The Shining, Secret Window, Secret Garden or Into the Mouth of Madness? And the whole blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality thing has been done so many times. So boring.

OK, OK one more:

Michael Byrnes - The Genesis Plague
At the dawn of civilisation...
An exotic stranger appears in a Mesopotamian village and is venerated as a goddess... until she unleashes a horror beyond anything humankind has ever known.
At the sunset of civilisation...
A mercenary unit in northern Iraq, led by Sergeant Jason Yaeger, has trapped radical Islam's most wanted target in a mysterious cave that sits at the heart of the Genesis story. When a Marine platoon seeks to control the extraction mission, a threat far more ominous is found lurking beneath the mountains.
Meanwhile in Boston, Massachusetts, Agent Thomas Flaherty helps archaeologist Brooke Thompson escape assassination by a Las Vegas televangeslist intent on using the cave's deepest secret to bring the Middle East to its knees.

Love it. Tom Clancy meets Dan Brown. Mercenary units and FBI agents are the staple of train station literature. Beautiful female academics in danger from assassins? Classic. The most bizarre thing about this is the writer's bio:

Michael Byrnes is the founder and CEO of a highly successful multi-million dollar insurance brokerage firm. He lives in Florida with his wife and two daughters.

Right. So not a writer then? If I was an insurance broker, I'd definitely use my business nowse to force myself upon a hapless publisher to print my stuff.

No particular reason for me posting this, I just thought it does show that ANYONE can get published. I didn't even write about the new Jackie Collins book.

How Not To Die

2010-03-27T11:32:00.013Z

If you are currently running up stairs, you are probably fucked.

I watched Zombieland last night, and I really quite enjoyed it. Funny, good characters, a few pretty good kills, Bill Murray, you can't really ask for much more. But the thing I liked best about the film was how Columbus, played by Michael Cera's Jewish cousin Jesse Eisenberg, seemed to survive simply because his OCD prevented him from putting himself at risk. A lot of his rules are common sense things that would help anyone survive a horror movie if the vast majority of characters in these films didn't just ignore them pretty much constantly. I am one of these people who will often find themselves screaming at the characters on the screen for being so stupid, and I can spot a potential kill situation from a mile off. So for the benefit of anyone who might find themselves facing down slavering zombie hordes, or trapped in an isolated farmhouse with werewolves on the prowl, or on a distant outer space colony where something absolutely frightful has devoured everybody, here are my cast-iron, never-to-be-ignored rules for surviving a horror movie. I have incorporated the most important of the principles that Professor Eisenberg has set out in Zombieland, but for the most part these will take the form of my own list, built up from years of horror movie buffery. Enjoy.

Rule 1) Cardio
Some idiots will waste their time building up muscles and trying to get strong. This is a waste of time. 100 per cent of the time, any fool that tries to go toe to toe with a monster will get slain. Look at Billy in Predator and that lunatic Geordie guy in Dog Soldiers. This ceases to matter at all if you are just really good at running away. This is why my top half looks like a burlap sack filled with jelly, but my legs are made of wrought iron - I am a genetic coward, built by God to very effectively flee any dangerous situation. As Prof. Eisenberg quite rightly points out, the first people to die in any zombie apocalypse will be the fatties. This goes for nearly any horror film. Would a fatty have been able to flee Leatherface, or Jason Voorhees? There is a reason there are no fatties in the Colonial Marines. In fact, it might even be useful to keep a fatty around just so you will have extra fleeing time while the fiends of hell are devouring him.

Rule 2) The Double Tap
More essential knowledge from Prof. Eisenberg. If you do kill a monster, make sure it is dead. And by that I don't mean poke it with your toe. I mean shoot it again. In the head. Either that or chop off its head. Fire is good also. While these methods don't necessarily work for every monster, you'd be surprised how close beheading and fire are to a monster cure-all. Note: Dracula always comes back twice. Be ready.

Rule 3) Don't Be A Hero
Being a hero never helped anybody. Make sure you always let some other foolhardy and/or brave person be the first to enter a haunted house, dark forest or derelict spacecraft. Just tell them you have their back and get ready to run away if something comes down from the roof and scoops them screaming up into a hole in the ceiling. A sub rule to this one is never go back for anybody. This includes all forms of rescue. If someone is lost, seperated and/or captured, you must NEVER go back for them. I'm talking to you, Ripley.

Rule 4) When in Doubt, Know Your Way Out
This one is self explanatory. Know your exits. Any building will have a back door, or at very least a window. If you find yourself in a bind, leave your colleagues to fight it out and flee. Note that this doesn't always work, for example, when Paul Reiser gets it in Aliens.

Rule 5) Check the Back Seats
One horror movie rule, of course, is that if something can jump up from the back seat and attack you, then it will. Always check to make sure this doesn't happen. The likelihood of the back seat attacker depends on whether or not you lock your doors. Keeping them unlocked is better for fleeing, negating that awkward moment when you have to scrabble to get the keys out of your pocket while the Hellbeast closes in on you, but will maximise the chances of you driving off thinking that you're safe, only to look in the mirror and see slavering jaws. It's a trade-off, really. There are, however, two things you can do to avoid a horrid death in this manner, the first is get a remote car key, so you can unlock the car while you are running towards it without breaking too much pace, and be safe in the knowledge that there probably isn't a vaguely humiliating death waiting for you inside your vehicle, the second is simply to get a two seater car.

Rule 6) Middle is Safest
Or to put it another way, never take point or bring up the rear. Being in front or behind is most likely to get you killed. Being in the middle gives you time to assess your situation while your friends or squadmates are being massacred, and in addition you will be surrounded by people who know how to do the fighting, or at very least present an alternative target to yourself. Also, if you're part of a military unit, it's likely the command element of the group will be somewhere in the middle enabling you to hear the order to bug out better when it inevitably comes.

Being an expert in something useful will help you survive, even if you're an obnoxious dick that nobody likes.

Rule 7) Categorise
When you're in a horror movie situation, you have to be very careful about who you hang around with. Divide your companions into two categories: 'assets' and 'liabilities'. The assets are the people with useful skills, such as combat abilities, medical expertise, monster lore, mechanical skills, telekinesis etc, whereas the liabilities will be people such as children, fatties, klutzes, the wounded and people who have lost their bottle and been reduced to quivering wrecks. Any 'carrier', that is, person who has been infected by the monsters, bitten by a zombie or a vampire or impregnated by an alien immediately becomes a liability regardless of any skills they have. When the shit goes down, you will want to stick close to the assets, and if possible ditch the liabilities. The only use a liability has is to take the heat off you by getting murdered in a lengthy and graphic fashion while you are running away. Note: while it is extremely common for an asset to turn into a liability, it is rare but not unheard of that a liability turns into an asset. Two examples I can think of offhand are Private Hudson in Aliens, who starts off as a quivering wuss but gradually gets more and more apeshit as the aliens begin to piss him off more and more, and Francine in Dawn of the Dead, who successfully made the leap from liability to asset by learning to pilot a helicopter. Which leads us to...

Rule 8) Every Day is a School Day
Of course, it is also vitally important that you are seen as an asset by your peers. If you aren't strong, you'd better be smart. Hang around with some of the assets and get them to teach you their skills. That way if the helicopter pilot gets killed, you're the next best thing. Any quiet moment you get you should be practising shooting at shit with the beefy guy in the cowboy hat or learning how to make thermite.

Rule 9) Use the Back Door, Not the Stairs
Again, this should be obvious. If you are assailed by monsters or a giant, silent serial killer and you happen to be in a house, you need to get out the back door and run like fuck. What you don't want to do is run up the stairs. There is no escape up there, and if you are lucky enough to get out the window, the chances are you will just fall and busticate an ankle anyway, rendering you basically useless.

Rule 10) Basements are Deathtraps
Don't listen to anyone who says that a basement is a safe place. A basement is a place to wait to die. You are somewhere enclosed, with usually only one exit. And there is probably the slavering reanimated corpse of a foul-mouthed old lady buried down there anyway. Fair enough, the chances are there are a lot of weapons in the basement, but if anything it's just a place for a heroic last stand. If it has got to the stage where the basement is the only safe part of the building you should have already obeyed rule 9 and pissed off out the back door anyway. Basements are not good places. See Night of the Living Dead, I Am Legend and any other horror film with a basement in it.

Rule 11) Tool Up
This should probably be higher on the list. Never ever miss an opportunity to get a weapon. How many times have you watched somebody, usually a promiscuous but not very bright teenage girl (liability), walk past a perfectly good garden strimmer and not pick it up for use on the killer that is inevitably lurking elsewhere in the shed with a pair of shears? Tool up and stay tooled up. Chainsaws, shotguns, machetes, axes, anything you can get your hands on. Don't be afraid to build your own weapons if you have time - sometimes the most effective weapon is a homemade flame-thrower.

Rule 12) Country Life
If there's been an invasion of zombies, vampires, cyborgs or alien parasites, the chances are that they are busy eating people in the large population centres. So it makes sense to get out of the city, right? On the other hand, if you're facing werewolves or Jason Voorhees, maybe it's better to stay in town. Depends really.

Rule 13) Keep Moving
Staying in the same place for too long is a death sentence in a horror film. Keeping on the move will probably stop the creeps from getting you. Probably. If you have to hole up somewhere for a while, it had better be somewhere secure, with several exits, a good field of vision, food and weapons. And no basements. God dammit.

Don't. Go. In. The. Water.

Rule 14) Avoid Water
This one is just common sense, really. If you can't see under the water, don't step in it. Sharks, crocodiles, anacondas, aliens and zombies can all swim. Vampires probably can as well, if they weren't bothered about getting their capes wet. In addition, water makes you slower, it makes noises and ripples that all allow you to be detected. Anyone who stands waist deep in water and then disappears gurgling under the surface probably deserved everything they got for going in there in the first place. See Aliens, Alien Resurrection, nearly every Friday the 13th movie, Crocodile, Jaws, Piranha and Piranha 2: The Spawning. Note: water is actually a pretty good shout when facing Terminators, as they tend to sink. Otherwise just avoid like the plague.

Rule 15) Science is Bad
Don't do science. That's probably how this mess started in the first place. And if you think science is going to make it better again, the chances are you're wrong. Also, don't waste your time looking for a cure to vampirism or a zombie virus. Science is bad. Naughty, science, naughty!

Rule 16) Have a Plan and Stick to it
Never change the plan. If you're on your way somewhere, don't stop off to get some erroneous item of supplies, like insulin for instance. Too dangerous. That diabetic is just going to have to tough renal failure out. If you meet up with someone else who needs your help, the answer is no. If the plan is to stay put until dawn in a spooky old house, you don't need to go back and get anything that you left in the car. If someone tells you there is a cure for zombies, tell them to go get it themselves. You've got a plan and you're sticking to it. And if that evil American bitch who shagged your man and then did a runner when he got impaled on flying metal spike suggests going potholing, I suggest you kill her immediately. Trust me, you'd be saving yourself a lot of trouble.

Rule 17) Don't Get Sentimental
Friends, family, lovers. If the body snatchers get them, you'd be best to gun them down just like anyone else. Likewise, dragging a buddy round who has been bitten by a zombie is foolish. You'd be best to give them one in the back of the head when they're not looking. You'd be doing them a favour. Since the chances are nine times out of ten when you're stranded in a life or death situation its with a disparate group of strangers that you don't give two shits about anyway. But if it is your buddies or your family, you might have to make some difficult decisions to survive. It really is up to you.

That concludes my rules of how to survive any horror situation. If you have read these, you are probably safer already.

Spendrups Old Gold

2010-01-07T18:49:00.002Z

Yes, from Sweden! Home of flat pack furniture, snow and sexually ambiguous pre-teen vampires. This is the classic pilsner version of the standard Spendrups. It is light gold in colour, quite robust in flavour, but nothing to shout about. It has quite a suddy aftertaste. I'm struggling to think of anything to say about it. It's OK, but kind of unexceptional. It's nothing like the fruity-nutty Christmas Spendrups I had the other week. Maybe it's just because it's after the festive season and I'm just sick of beer. But then again, maybe not.

Spendrups julbrygd, from progressive Sweden

2009-12-23T19:23:00.003Z

Obviously, when I said I wouldn't review another beer for a while, I was lying out of my arse. A recent trip to IKEA provided the opportunity to purchase some Swedish beers. And why not? Spendrups Julbrygd is strong dark lager that is as black as pitch, with a sugary molasses flavour. The taste and smell are quite walnutty. Despite the richness of the flavour it is quite easy going down, and while it would take me longer to drink than a pint of lighter lager, it still isn't sufficiently aley to take a significant time to drink.

This is a Christmas lager, and with the nutty and almost fruity texture, it almost reminds me of Christmas cake, except drinkable.

I was pleasantly surprised at this one because I bought the regular Spendrups last time I was in IKEA, and I wasn't too impressed. Good for a change, but not the sort of thing I would drink every day.

Quilmes - Argentina's favourite beer

2009-12-12T17:40:00.003Z

A robust and slightly acidic, almost citrusy tasting 4.9 per cent brew from Argentina. Orange in colour, and very crisp, it is actually pretty good, despite having read several duff reviews online describing it as "watery" I don't think it is watery at all. It's golden and quite strong tasting. It sort of reminds me of Sleeman's, which my Canadian readers, if there are any, will probably like. It was tempted to compare it to Cruzcampo, the Spanish beer I reviewed last week, but it's not really a fair comparison. Quilmes goes down way easier than Cruzcampo. Definitely a beer for a sunny day.

This will be the last beer review I do for a while, before I get another crate in. I intend to order another one online and hopefully will be able to keep this section of my blog going. As for the other beers I bought from that speciality shop in York, Tusker will be getting drank alongside some jalof I am sure at some point in the future, and Brooklyn is being saved for Superbowl Sunday. Bring it on.

Scarily productive

2009-12-10T17:49:00.003Z

I don't usually talk about my writing projects, mostly because I don't want people to think I'm a pretentious wanker, but some of you will know I am currently writing, or at least trying to write, two novels. I suffer from writer's block something horrible, and I regularly come up with an idea that I think is absolutely brilliant, is all I can think about, then start writing it and give up. This often happens when I hit a hump like introducing a new character and not being able to get them right, or hitting a particularly difficult piece of dialogue (I hate writing dialogue).

However, I have been ridiculously productive with my writing projects over the last two weeks, so I am just writing this blog to congratulate myself. Taking into account I only really find the time to write three nights out of the week and very often I'm too tired to do it, and when I do sit down to do it, I either get stuck or am so disgusted by how rubbish something I have written previously is I close everything down and give up. I am pleased to report, that in the last two weeks, I have not done that. I have made real progress on one of the novels, writing myself out of a massive corner, and I have even started on a short story - the first non-novel project I have done in a year or so.

Ernest Hemingway said "The first draft is always shit" and I think that has really helped me, because now I don't feel I have to make every sentence perfect before I move on. The other phrase which is helping me I can't attribute to anyone in particular, and it is "write through the shite". I can always go back and fix it later, and I will have to do a second and maybe even third draft in any case. Anyway, if I can just keep up this rash of productivity then I will one day be able to sell some books, quit my job and live on a yacht.

Spain's Cruzcampo

2009-12-05T18:09:00.004Z

(Pictured: The jolly little Spaniard couldn't give two shits whether you like his beer or not.)

Although I'm still officially suffering from Threebola (like Ebola, but three times worse) but I'm now off tenecilin (like penicilin but ten times more powerful) so I can enjoy a cerveza or two again. This time, it's Spain's Cruzcampo that is under scrutiny. I must confess, this is not the first time I have had a Cruzcampo - they have it on draft at the Hub in Edinburgh, and the pint I had was decidedly minging. However, I'm not one to deny a beer a second chance, so I am sitting down with one just now. It's the type of beer, I think, that really needs to be got out of a bottle - it's a pilsner with a sharp taste that just seems soapy and kind of acrid out of the tap. Or maybe I just got a bad pint, I don't know. Using my complimentary Cruzcampo glass (complete with a picture of a smiling raffish early-modern chap with a feathered cap leaning jauntily on a barrel and drunkenly raising a flagon of beer, always a winner), it's a much more pleasant drinking experience. It has a deep, wholemeal-bready flavour, and just a bit of an aftertaste. It's another 5 per center, but it still tastes pretty light, and in colour it's a very light yellow. I would draw comparisons with San Miguel, or even Kronenbourg 1664, while keeping in mind that Cruzcampo is probably a superior beverage to both. Not bad at all, and I will give the Hub's pints another try.

On another beer related note, I found a specialty beer store in York last week and came away with a few bottles of my old friends Brooklyn, Tusker and Keo. I polished off the Keo last night while watching True Blood, but I'm waiting for some sort of sporting event with hot dogs before I touch the Brooklyn. Man, I love beer.

Columns from last while...

2009-11-26T13:41:00.003Z

(Meades: "Somewhere on the spectrum" according to my ever politically correct mother.)

NOBODY happened to catch that ‘Jonathan Meades: Off-Kilter’ documentary on BBC4 last week, did they? Of course not, it was on BBC4. But if you had watched it, you might have been a little bit offended. Have a look on BBC iplayer and you’ll see what I mean. The show featured the verbose Mr Meades driving around what he calls “the football pools towns” - towns only known in southern England from playing the football pools, which are however quite familiar to you and I, since we live in them - all the while displaying a smug sense of intellectual superiority.
While Meades, who has presented programmes on architecture and written restaurant reviews for The Times, is often funny and a great deal of the comments he makes about the bleakness of Scottish towns are quite accurate, I feel he is a little bit uncharitable.
In his brief visit to Kirkcaldy, for instance, Meades describes Raith Rovers as “up and down like a barmaid’s knickers, not that barmaids are reputed to wear that particular garment in these parts”. While it would not be appropriate for me to pass comment on the underwear habits of female members of staff in Kirkcaldy’s many drinking establishments, I have to say that it is awful presumptuous of someone whose sole experience of the town is driving past Stark’s Park, filming a 30 second piece to camera and then retreating to a four-star Edinburgh hotel at the licence-payer’s expense.
Elsewhere in the show he suggests that Fifers and Scots in general are workshy drunks who sustain themselves on a diet of deep fried Mars Bars. He tosses us accolades like “highest teen pregnancy in western Europe” “highest rate of alcohol related brain damage in western Europe” and “more likely to get assaulted in Scotland than anywhere else in western Europe”. I would suggest that if Mr Meades ever returns to Fife, I don’t much fancy his chances. He even goes so far to say that the fact we have “the lowest life expectancy in western Europe” is sweet release from all the post-industrial ghastliness that we have to put up with on a daily basis.
This is, I think, unfair. I have often been surprised by this tendency, undeniably southern English and very specifically London based, to see not only Scotland, but northern parts of England as well, as if they were parts of the third world. The British media, which sees London as the centre of the universe and anything past the Watford Gap typified as ‘north’, makes programmes for a southern audience, never for one minute considering what it must be like for a Scot watching it. I would like to see how they would react if I made a programme in which I went down to London and essentially poked fun at their culture, food and architecture. If I provoked the stereotype that all Londoners are wishy washy new media types or crooked bankers, all of whom are privately educated and seemingly allergic to graft, I wonder how it would be perceived there?
Speaking as someone who has lived in both Scotland and England, I can with confidence say that the problems that my home country experiences are exactly the same as the ones experienced down south, and that if I had a choice between facing a generic Scottish ned or a London chav, I would face off against the ned any day. At least you know you aren’t going to get shot.

MICROSOFT’S decision to block Xbox users who have modded their console to play illegal copied games will no doubt be seen by most as a strike against ne’er-do-wells who broke the rules and are getting what they deserve. However, this is undoubtedly a watershed moment in the battle against computer piracy, that most hard to prosecute of crimes.
Indeed it might seem unnerving to some people, who spend there time and a significant portion of their bandwidth downloading games, movies and music from the internet. These are the people who should be watching out now that Microsoft have taken a stand.
Earlier this year, the founders of peer-to-peer file sharing website The Pirate Bay were jailed for a year in Sweden in another swoop against piracy, which ended up achieving absolutely nothing since the site, now owned by a Seychelles-based company, is still online and its users are still distributing files willy-nilly with no fear of the authorities. But, I think, things soon may change. In this current climate, even profit generating industries like video games need to guard every penny jealously, and with the industry losing as much as $750m a year, Microsoft’s decision, however unpopular it may make it with users, makes sound business sense.
The argument against piracy has been around for ages, ever since music companies first kicked up a stink about people taping their records (remember them?) and swapping them with their friends. One copy means one less record/CD/DVD/game/cinema seat sold, so less money for the industry, less money for the artists and people who actually produce the entertainment that we consume, therefore a decline of quality all round.
Except this hasn’t happened, not to any great extent. The film, music and game industries still make huge revenues, largely for the suits in charge rather than for the artists. The film industry will never be taken down by illegal downloads, mainly due to the fact that watching a film on a 15” laptop screen is mince. People tend still to go and see the movies they would have on the big screen, and reserve the small - or very small - screen for films they weren’t significantly curious about to go and see in the cinema. The music industry has been hit worst by downloading, because the experience of listening to an album can be easily replicated on a computer, provided it has decent enough speakers. You can even download the album art to go along with the tunes. However, this is offset by the way the music industry has used the internet to market and promote bands. In fact, many music acts even rely on the free distribution that file-sharing provides to get their songs out in the first place. Games are the most difficult thing to pirate, because of the specialised knowledge required to download the right files, get a crack for the game, and burn or mount .iso files. This ensures, at least for the moment, a dependence on retail to buy games.
In the future, when we look at the early days of the internet, they’ll look at it as the biggest free-for-all in history, a sort of electronic equivalent of the gold rush. The powers that be have made huge steps in the regulation of file-sharing and it won’t be long before they develop a fool-proof method of policing and punishing persistent offenders. Maybe it won’t be legal punishment, but broadband providers have been kicking around the idea of banning the IPs of file sharers for good. So if any of you sneaky people have been trying to get your entertainment without paying for it, shame on you, but watch out, because you could live to regret it.

Fatties

2009-09-24T19:17:00.002+01:00

THE OTHER day I was walking down the High Street and I happened upon a mother pushing her child in a pram. The kid couldn’t have been more than a year old, but believe it or not, he was sitting there in the pram with his greasy, chubby chops wrapped round a Gregg's sausage roll. And we wonder why there is this upsurge in children too obese to toddle. The stuff that some parents feed their kids is absolutely appalling. I was told an apocryphal tale by a health professional once, involving a mother feeding her baby blended Big Macs instead of baby food. Parents should definitely know better than to encourage children to eat unhealthy fast food at a young age. We already have a huge problem with obesity without them starting the next generation down the path to an early heart attack.
We reported last week that something like 149,000 great British pounds was spent on providing giant-sized hospital beds and winches for obese patients at Fife hospitals. Does anyone else think that that is totally outrageous? Think of the amount of equipment that they could have bought with that money, from x-ray machines to incubators for premature babies. Of course, I would never suggest that we don’t have a responsibility to treat obese people on the NHS, but I have to say I find it very hard to be sympathetic for people who allow their bodies to get into that condition. And by “that condition”, I don’t mean people who are a bit tubby. Most of the foods and drinks that taste good make us a little bit plump and that is fine - all it shows is that you enjoy life. What I am talking about is the people who are let themselves get so abnormally giant that they can’t move and claim they have “mobility difficulties”.
OK, so there’s a fat gene, but you can’t all have it. I think people just need to take better care of themselves. After all, we all know what we can and can’t eat to stay healthy, and we know that we need to exercise. This is a well published scientific fact. If people choose to ignore it, they will have to pay the price.
I hate that they give these overly fat people mobility scooters to drive around on. Having to walk around would do these people some good. I disapprove of people trying to legitimise being overweight by turning it into a disability. A disability is something you’re stuck with, not something you can sweat out with a couple of trips to the gym and a few less burgers. To me it’s all part of the sad victim mentality that so many people in this country seem to have that they use to excuse themselves from working. It’s just unfair on all the people who through no fault of their own find themselves unable to move around.
People who are obese should be forced to run in a treadmill like a hamster and generate energy for the rest of us. We could dangle a steak bake in front of them and let them go. We could cure our obesity problem and our rising energy problem in one go. There we go, job done. No need to thank me.

Zambia's Mosi

2009-09-11T18:20:00.003+01:00

I get to experience this beer courtesy of Drew Johnston's healthy professional interest in maintaining my rampant alcoholism. Not unlike Tusker, this cheeky little number from the banks of the Zambezi is 4% and goes down real easy. Like its Kenyan cousin it definitely assumes "thirst quencher" status. Pale yellow in colour, and light, crisp and breezy to the taste, it is a really refreshing beer.My favourite thing about it is the way it manages to balance fizziness and gassiness, if you know what I mean. I can't see myself ever getting gassy from drinking this. I have to say, from my experiences of both Tusker and Mosi, I'm actually really impressed with the quality of African brewing I've sampled so far. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on some more. Man, I love beer.

Kenya's Tusker and France's Desperados

2009-08-15T19:24:00.007+01:00

Yes, you are in luck today. I'm also going to do a couple of beer reviews. I mean, I may as well, I'm drinking anyway. This is Tusker, the national beer of Kenya. This is the first African beer I've ever drank, and it's not bad at all. At 4.2% it's not the strongest lager in the world, but it's got a surprisingly robust flavour for how light it is. It's a pleasant dim amber colour and probably fits heavily into the 'thirst-quencher' category that a lot of beers from warmer climes tend to abide to. In a way, its quite similar to Keo, although I think that Cypriot beer may well be quite a bit stronger. Anyway. I like it a lot. Good fact about Tusker that I learned by reading the back of the bottle: Did you know that Tusker was the name the elephant that killed George Hurst, one of the founders of the brewery. And for some reason they saw fit to immortalise the homicidal pachyderm by naming the beer after it.

Let's be honest. Desperados is a girl's drink. I don't care if it's 5.9%, has tequila in it, or has a tough, Mexican wanted poster typeface on the bottle. El Mariachi or even Inspector Yuen from Hard Boiled would probably spit it out if they drank it. It tastes like Babycham. It pretends to be Mexican, when it's not, and it pretends to be a guy's drink, when it's not. It's a girl's drink. Fact. I'm just telling you this to put the review in context. I don't dislike it, the limeyness is pleasant, and it goes down very easily. It is very noticably intoxicating though, even though you can't really taste the tequila in it. There's also something very dry about it, putting it firmly in the 'drink to get pissed' rather than 'thirst quencher' category, which is what I like about Corona and Sol, the beers that Desperados seems desperate to ape, albeit in a much stronger way. Put it this way - I would buy a crate of this if I was trying to get blazing, but not just for the pleasure of drinking. Having said that, I gave one of the bottles to my wife and she said it was the best beer she had ever tasted. Ergo: girl's drink.

Cook Like A Bastard - Episode 2: Singapore Noodles

2009-08-15T18:24:00.002+01:00

Ni hao, motherfuckers. You know, helping people is my game. I like to help people make delicious dishes to eat and enjoy alone and in company. I like to help share my knowledge and help show the poor, gastronomically retarded people who shop at Iceland and eat the same food all the time that it is easy to cook a decent meal from scratch for a decent price. And if you fuck with me, I will help you in another way. I will help you to die.

It's not just Ramsay I dislike, weak and ineffectual Jamie Oliver also ires me. Middle-aged women may love you, Jamie, but I can see through you. Jamie Oliver wouldn't last two seconds in the joint, unless he shaved his ass and became somebody's man-wife. He'd turn punk in a second, no doubt.

Enough of this sorry shit, Oliver.

This episode, I intend to show you how to make Singapore noodles, a curry-based noodle recipe that is the ultimate collision between Indian and Chinese cuisines. Quite how the Chinese got hold of curry, I don't know, but they certainly put it to good use in this spicy, savoury and deeply delicious dish. All qualities are relative. Feel free to jack up the chili rating if you so desire. Something that I didn't do, but would probably work well, is to add ground peanuts or cashews to the mix. Maybe next time.

What you need:
Noodles (rice noodles if you have them)
Mushrooms, chopped
Mangetout or petit pois
3 tablespoons groundnut oil
1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
2 chilis, chopped
Water chestnuts, chopped
3 spring onions

And for the curry sauce element:
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 tablespoons store bought madras curry paste
2 tablespoons Chinkiang vinegar or Shaoxing rice wine
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
Half a can of coconut milk
175 ml of chicken or beef stock

For the egg element:
Couple of eggs
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper

For the meat element:
Pork, ham, chorizo, prawns, chicken, or whatever meat you want to put in it

I find it helps to split this recipe into five phases: meat, spice, vegetable, curry, and egg. This recipe is actually unbelievably quick to put into practice, you will find that it's all the chopping and mixing that takes all the time. Prepare all the materials above before you start, mixing the curry and egg elements in separate bowls. First things first, boil your noodles for 3 to 5 minutes, then sieve it out. Then pour through some cold water and toss with a little sesame oil. This will stop the noodles from congealing in an unpleasant manner.

Put the noodles to one side and heat the wok. Always heat the wok before adding oil. Not quite sure why this is but I am reliably informed that it is good practice. If you are using pork or chicken add it now and stir fry until sealed. For chicken, give it a little longer. You don't want to mess with chicken. It can be a most unforgiving meat. When you don't see any pink left, pop in the garlic, ginger, chillis, onions, and stir fry that sucker until the meat is coated in its goodness. Then add the mushrooms, water chestnuts, mangetout or petit pois and spring onions. Stir fry until the mixture shrinks.

Now comes the moment of truth: dump in the noodles and stir like a maniac. Make sure it doesn't stick. You should add your curry mixture - which should be a thin and oily sauce - now. Continue to stir, making sure it doesn't stick. Give up around five minutes until the moisture has evaporated off. Then add the egg mixture and stir until the egg sets. Garnish with coriander leaves, or don't bother if you're a pleb, and serve with Tsingtao beer. Job done.

Give me a show, BBC.

Update

2009-07-29T17:49:00.002+01:00

Hello peeps. As most, if not all of you will know, Kaki and I got married nearly three weeks ago, and this is the reason for my lapse in blogging. Since most of my readership were probably at the wedding, I will scrimp a bit on the details and say it was a thoroughly enjoyable day for all concerned, not least the people who drank themselves into comas.

Feeling pretty good to be a married man, though in reality I think it doesn't actually feel that different. I have pretty much considered Kaki and I "married" since we first started seeing one another 4 years ago, but there you go. So same old Dave, if anyone was worried about me up and changing on them.

In other news: met Gordon Brown this week, at Kinghorn Ecological Centre. I was allowed around 60 seconds to ask him whatever questions I wanted, so long as they were about Kinghorn Ecological Centre. So I asked "How do you like Kinghorn Ecological Centre?" He said he approved of it. It's not like I had any barbed questions up my sleeve, but it wasn't great to have people telling me what he would and would not talk about. Anyway, he seemed all right, looking perhaps a little pale, but certainly like he would rather be mucking around with ducks in Kinghorn than being spit-roasted by Cameron and Clegg on the floor of the House of Commons. Urgh, actually that is a truly horrible image. I meant metaphorically spit-roasted. You're sick in the head.

Had a bottle of this while I was on my holidays: Black Isle Organic blonde. It's a natural tasting, wholesome and full-flavoured lager that has made me vow never to drink Tennants again. That is it. Never again. Why should I? I deserve better.

FACT OF THE DAY

2009-07-01T21:47:00.001+01:00

Men Without Hats are by far the best musical group consisting of a man, a woman, a dwarf and a dog that has ever existed.

Brooklyn Lager - USA

2009-06-27T18:45:00.003+01:00

This is a first for me. An American beer that isn't like making love in a canoe ("Fucking close to water!"). Brooklyn Lager boasts that it's the "pre-prohibition beer" which may or may not be true. Still, there is something distinctly classic tasting about this reddy-ambery, malty, yeasty, floral and quite strong lager. Drinking it makes me think about hot dogs and baseball, and I delight in the idea that depression era pissheads might have sipped this while looking nervously over their shoulders in damp basements and wearing fingerless gloves. I think I will be having a bit more of this in the future. Probably Americans look down on this stuff derisively but it is still quite a novelty for me. Like it.

Cook Like A Bastard - Episode 1: Lamb Saag

2009-06-24T18:53:00.005+01:00

(From the rather crap picture, this looks quite minging, but I assure you it is not. God dammit, I'm celebrity-journalist-chef, not a photographer)

Konichiwa, bitches. I read an article not long ago that said that precisely one quarter of Britons (that's a metric quarter, not Imperial) can't cook a meal from scratch, and the other 75 per cent have trouble with anything more complicated than spag bol. "Holy shit!" I thought "Can my countrymen really be that dense? I bet the French don't have this problem."

Contrary to popular belief, cooking is easy. In fact, it can be piss-easy. All you really have to be able to do is follow a simple set of instructions. In essence, as a wise but crude man once said, and I paraphrase: "All you have to do to succeed is not be a mong." Are you a mong? Yes? Well, Cook Like A Mong is next door. This is Cook Like A Bastard.

Cook Like A Bastard is the most important event in culinary history. Gordon Ramsay can swear, sure, but can he swear as well as me? Gordon Ramsay makes talk that we do not care to understand. I will give it to you straight, idiot-style, and thereby drag you kicking and screaming out of the gastronomic muck.

I remember a time when also when I couldn't rustle up grub to save my life, and was content to eat Chicken Mcnuggets morning noon and night. I called it "childhood". Now that I am a grown up however, I must be able to prepare my own food.

As a man, there are only really two types of meals that you need to be able to make:
1) Meals to seduce.
2) Meals that you make because you want to eat them.
Today's recipe falls firmly into the latter category.

I pretty much learned to cook so I could cook curry. Curry is, as has been observed often by rational men around the globe, the greatest foodstuff in existence. It comes in many forms, but my current favourite is this delicious Saag Gosht (literally, spinach lamb). It is minty, herby, and leafy. "But hey!" I hear you cry. "Minty, herby and leafy! That sounds like the sort of pretentious shit that celebrity chefs always spin! I thought you were going to give it to us straight, Dee Oh Double Gee!" Well, listen up suckers, I am giving you this straight. The main ingredients are mint, herbs and leaves, therefore it is minty, herby and leafy. I speak the truth, straight into your mind-sponge.

So if you want to make a curry fit for Lenin himself, just follow these simple steps. Go ahead, it's not rocket surgery!

INGREDIENTS: Many chefs will start a recipe by saying "I only work with the finest ingredients". Good for you, shitbird, but until the book people give me the money I'm due, I will have to make do with the cheapest. Anyhoo, all you need is:

500g Lamb fillets (or chicken, if you are poor or unimaginative)
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 bunch of spinach leaves, roughly chopped
1 tub of fresh cream, 300ml ought to do it
Ghee if you can find it anywhere, otherwise oil

FOR THE MARINADE: chop up the lamb and stick it in a tupperware container overnight with the following:
2 tsp of garam masala
1 tsp of cumin powder
1 tsp of turmeric powder
Pinch of salt
2 green chilis, or more if you are an ultimate badass
1/2 cup of mint leaves
1/2 cup of coriander leaves
4 cloves of garlic, mashed
1" piece of ginger, chopped or ground
1 cinnamon stick

1) When working with meat, it is imperative that you start the night before so you can leave it to marinade for exactly 24 hours. Anything less will not give you a complete food experience. White people, with the exceptions of the ostentatious French and the Fascism-prone Italians, never marinade anything. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. This is why the British have a reputation for bland food. So take all the stuff for the marinade, chop it up together with the lamb and leave that bad boy in the fridge. If you possibly can, mortar and pestle spices and leaves into a paste, if not, roughly chop everything, chances are it will dissolve during cooking anyway.

2) Heat the ghee, or more probably oil, in a wide, flat bottomed pan. Some people like to add the meat first, but I tend to always start with the onions, because I like mine crispy. I'm a barbarian that way. So slam the onions in with the garlic and fry them for a minute or two.

3) Add the meat and marinade. Stir fry until the meat is sealed, and then some. Should be about 5 minutes (that's metric minutes, not Imperial).

4) Now it's time to plop in that cream and shortly thereafter, the spinach. Drop the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

5) When the spinach has broken down and dissolved, the sauce is a thick and luxuriant green, and the lamb dark and enticing SERVE THAT FUCKER RIGHT THE FUCK UP with pilau rice and naan bread. Drink a fine Indian beer with it, or if pressed, shit domestic piss.

6) I am king.

I hope you have enjoyed this introductory session of Cook Like A Bastard. That will be £50 please.

If Gordon Ramsay comes around here, I will choke-slam him through a table and put him in the beast choker until his balls burst and his eyes pop out his fucking skull.

Deathmatch of the Day

2009-06-14T21:16:00.001+01:00

Who would win in a battle of looking like a nazi? Udo Keir or Jurgen Proktnow?

Keo Premium Beer - Cyprus

2009-05-30T20:37:00.002+01:00

For my birthday I was gifted with a crate of international beers, so I thought I would enlighten you to the relative merits of a few of them. I have in my hand at this moment a cold glass of Keo Premium Beer, brewed on the island of Cyprus, and fiercely proud of the fact. It's a light, crisp tasting beer that's damn good if you are drinking because you are thirsty. It's not gritty or synthetic tasting like a lot of other beverages I can name, in fact it's refreshingly natural tasting. The blurb on the back of the bottle says it is unpasteurised, but this makes no sense, because how can beer be pasteurised? Surely that's only milk and cheese? Nevermind, its a good beer that goes down easy with a bit of a wheaty aftertaste. Give it a go next time you're in Cyprus.

Column for Dec 4 2008

2009-05-18T19:47:00.002+01:00

Johnston Press owns this shit. Reprint it and I will cut you.

AFTER watching Channel 4’s ‘Cutting Edge: The Fun Police’ last week, I’ve started thinking seriously about health and safety. We are, we are told, all in a significant amount of danger at any given time, in any given location, especially at work.
My own workplace is no different. The Fife Free Press office has wheens of posters (well, three) telling us of ways we could come a cropper. You know the sort. Pictures of people with haircuts from 20 years ago tripping over conspicuous cables, or slipping in spilt coffee with looks of shocked stupidity on their faces. We were recently handed a risk assessment checklist that basically asked us to assess the risks of sitting at a desk and using a phone. It’s as if they think the phone cord might leap up and garotte me, or that the chair might throw me off and roll all over me with its little plastic wheels. About the biggest danger I’m in is the danger of a coronary from my increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Then there’s fire. In the event of a fire, as we know, we should proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest fire exit (usually just the door you normally use). But if there really was a fire in the building, would you honestly go in an orderly fashion, or would you run full-pelt towards the door, shoving over co-workers and leaving them to fend for themselves? That, I think is the purpose of all of these fire drills - so that when a real fire actually happens we just won’t believe it and tramp out miserably like usual.
Whenever you get a new job, of course, you have to go through the bother of learning how to survive in the jungle that is the modern workplace all over again. You will be sat down, and usually shown a video containing all the common sense things that we really ought to know anyway. Things like: don’t stick your extremities into machinery, and don’t try to reach things on high shelves by standing on top of a swivel chair in high heels. Since I myself don’t wear high heels, this isn’t a problem for me, but it does make me wonder what sort of a person would do that sort of thing in the first place. I mean, for that to appear in a health and safety video it would have to have happened to someone at least once, correct? I would like to meet that woman. I bet that every time she and her colleagues are called for refresher health and safety training she hangs her head in shame as she is taunted with great vigour.
One thing the video will always tell you is the correct way to lift a box, even if your job does not actually require you to lift boxes. I have absolutely no idea why this is. One thing I do know is the apocryphal tale that once a weight lifter lifted a heavy dumbell wrong and their bowels fell out. Maybe this is the same principle. We couldn’t have someone’s bowels falling out of them at work, could we? I can hear it now: “Where’s Jimmy?” shouts the manager. “His bowels have fallen out!” comes the reply. “Well then,” the manager tuts, “he should have lifted that box with his knees, not his back!” That’s you telt, Jimmy.
I suppose that health and safety videos, in the end do offer some sage advice, even if in an emergency it tends to go out the window. My own dad, the scientific genius that he is, once nearly crispy fried himself trying to put out an electrical fire with a water fire extinguisher. This is something I would avoid, firstly because I saw a health and safety video that explained to me that water plus electricity equalled death, and secondly because my own keen sense of self-preservation (cowardice, to some) would not allow me to do something as dangerous as fighting a fire.
To be perfectly honest, with the amount of training in health and safety I’ve had I must be a black belt at avoiding injuries and/or death by now. Even from primary school it was instilled in us. We had visits from policemen, telling us how to cross the road properly, visits from firemen, who gave us little cartoon pictures of homes in which we had to circle every fire hazard we saw. Let me tell you there were an awful lot of hazards about. In fact probably only reason some of us go out now is because there are so many things that can kill us in our own homes. Thanks for nothing, school! I know virtually zero about science or mathematics, but I do know an awful lot about fire safety. I’m just another member of the mollycoddled, paranoid health and safety generation.

Column for April 2

2009-05-18T19:40:00.002+01:00

This is property of Johnston Press. Reprint at your legal peril.

LAST week’s FFP story about KHS pupils boycotting Council-enforced healthy school lunches got a bit of discussion started in the office the other day. I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t really blame the pupils. I was the same when I was in school, nipping off to the shops to buy chip butties, pot noodles, and most importantly pies. Is there really anything better than a decent steak pie? I spent a couple of years living abroad (for work rather than legal reasons, in case you ask) eating rice and fish almost exclusively and sometimes I would wake up in the night clawing at the air, trying to grasp the beautiful, crusty steak pie that I saw in my dreams. Have I ever had dreams about salad? No.
There are two things teenagers hate more than anything else - healthy food and being told what to do. Imposing a healthy menu on them from above has only made them recoil further from the idea of healthy eating. Personally, if I was in charge I’d just let them have the standard school menu, because surely its better to have them eating a hot meal in school - even if its not the healthiest in the world - than going out and eating absolute junk. That way the school could covertly control what goes into the food without them knowing. Clever, eh?

THE Jacqui Smith porn expenses claim scandal has certainly not portrayed the Home Secretary or her hubby Richard Timney in a particularly good light. In addition to finding out a little too much about Mr Timney’s leisure activities, we’ve also learned that the pair have a chronically bad taste in films. What sort of person would need to watch ‘Ocean’s 13’ twice? As for ‘Surf’s Up’, the surfing penguin epic, I hope that one was for the kids.

THIS week I also watched the G20 with interest. The thing that interests me most is that the two world leaders who always seem to be having most fun are Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy. In every picture they appear to be grinning like loons or laughing maniacally. I also worry about how orange Berlusconi is. He looks like he is made of plastic and almost certainly has doll’s hair.
Sarah Broon also hosted a girl’s night in for the other halves of the leaders. I’ll tell you who I feel sorry for: quantum chemist Joachim Sauer, husband of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Who did he have to hang about with? He couldn’t go to the G20 or the girl’s night in. At least Richard Timney was probably free.

THIS weekend I intend to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. This was my plan last week but I was cruelly suckered by unplanned appearances from friends and various other obligations. On Saturday night I intend to drink beer and watch ‘Mad Max’. I will not leave the flat unless absolutely necessary, and by that I mean if it catches fire is subject to some other catastrophe. I think I will have a pretty good time.

THIS WEEK ... tried to persuade fashion columnist that what women really need are utility belts ... cooked pad thai, peri-peri chicken and rice and peas ... played ‘Call of Duty 2’ on the ancient Xbox

Not blogging

2009-05-18T19:35:00.003+01:00

Wow! I've been a lazy asshole! It's been nearly three months since I have posted anything at all on this blog. Perhaps it's because I know have a newspaper to write every week, and blogging seems less fun. I promise I will do better.
I'm going to reprint some of my columns here, and hopefully that will keep my adoring public sated. If there is still anybody out there. Maybe nobody reads this at all... Maybe I'm just talking to myself... Ooh, scary. Comment so I know I'm not going ga-ga.

Holy Hell! Aren't you a lucky bunch! Two scoops of vintage Blackwood, coming up!

Misadventures in journalism

2009-03-05T17:46:00.002Z

Apparently the following is too close to libel to print in an actual newspaper, so here is an unpublished column. This is my opinion, and it's fair comment so don't bother suing me. I haven't got any money anyway.

Lewis Moonie has been taking up a disproportionate amount of my time the
past few weeks. He has been keeping a low profile, which is not
surprising considering the myriad of transgressions that the media have
been accusing him of. Being a reporter in the local paper of the area he
served for so long, it falls to myself to obtain a quote from Lord
Moonie. Just one quote, I think, and I will go away. Sadly, all attempts
to contact the peer and erstwhile Kirkcaldy MP have all failed. I have
phoned, phoned and phoned again, but to no avail. I have left dozens of
messages. In a fit of blind panic, I even went to his house to post a
letter through his door politely requesting an interview. This attempt
also did not bear fruit.
It seems, however, that I am not the only one suffering from Lord
Moonie's reluctance to speak to the press. Huffy reporters have been
plopping phrases like "Lord Moonie was unwilling to comment" and "Lord
Moonie did not return our phone calls" into their articles all over.
Some reporters from a publication that will remain nameless even went to
his house to ask him for an interview there. Apparently, he yelled at
them to get off his land and threatened to summon the polis. It strikes
me that by releasing even one press statement, he could stop the press
hounding him. I know this for a fact. We are a lazy bunch - why bother
interviewing someone yourself when you have a juicy press release? After
all, the other three peers all commented, Lord Taylor even apologised in
the Lords for any ills he may have committed, and nobody is bothering
them.

I was disturbed to read that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA) had sent a letter to the owner of the famous Anstruther Fish Bar
urging them to change their establishment's name to the Anstruther Sea
Kitten Bar. Presumably, this is to point out the hypocrisy of carnivores
eating some types of animals and not others, and to tastelessly try to
put us off our food. First and foremost, this parallel is nonsensical,
because kittens and fish are nothing alike. Fish aren't even cute and
you can stroke or play with them, so why not eat them? Even kittens eat
fish. The fish deserve it.
I would also like to state categorically to PETA, right now, that if I
was hungry enough, I would eat a kitten. I know, I know. I consider
myself a cat lover, but if there was no other meat on offer, then I
would be forced to get my proteins somewhere. Animals are animals, and
provided I had formed no emotional bond with said cat, I would have no
problem devouring kitty burger or even cat curry.
I honestly think there are things more pressing in the world than
complaining about people eating animals. Another thing that annoys me is
when people raise money for animal charities. I say we sort out the
ethical treatment of animals once we have attained ethical treatment for
people. People in some parts of the world live in worse conditions than
most animals in this country, in crippling poverty or under threat of
violence and torture. I say give money to charities that would help
them, and forget about the animals.
When was the last time a fish did anything for you, anyway?

This Week: Got stuck into series 3 of The Wire... Re-read Watchmen
comics in anticipation of next month's movie release ... got down to
cooking some serious cuisine in my new flat's spacious kitchen

Hair Don't

2008-11-23T15:54:00.004Z

I feel I must share this all with you.

I am a man who has, for as long as I can remember, hated getting haircuts. As child I would wail incessantly and flail like I was having a seizure to avoid the barber even touching my hair. For years as a teenager I decided to cope with this problem by simply not going to the hairdresser. It was only after people started calling me "rat fink" that I decided I needed a certain amount of care in that department. Since then I have regarded haircuts as a necessary evil.

I don't know what it is, but you can't seem to get a decent haircut for a decent price these days. Last year in Nottingham I had to get my hair cut regularly by students for 3 bucks a pop, because all the barbers in the city centre were charging £16 or over, which, quite frankly, I am not willing to pay for just a trim.

In KDY I have always gone to the same place. It used to cost me £4.50 and I was always happy with the service I got. No-frills haircut: never great, but cheap and once I murder it with product no-one would notice anyway. Recently however, this place has been getting a lot worse. The people who used to work there have moved on and been replaced. There are three guys who work there now and none of them are that good.

This time though, they really, really fucked up. I went in and sat down, and told the guy what I wanted. Which is short back and sides, just a trim, and don't get creative. All was going well, until for no apparent reason, he reached up with the clippers and cut a square centimetre chunk out of my hairline at the temple. I wasn't happy but thought I would trust the guy to know what he was doing. Strangely, having done this to one side of my head, he then left the other side untouched, giving me an asymmetrical look, as if I had mange on one side of my head only. I mentioned it to him, but he told me he had "just squared it off a bit". I wasn't happy but bit my tongue.

I went home and looked at myself in the mirror. I thought I looked like I had been shaved ready for surgery. It looked terrible. He had plainly made a mistake and cut off too much hair, and I think he knew that he had done that because he didn't do the other side as well. I also discovered that I had a mole I didn't know about before on the pale, virginal skin of my skull, which has not seen the sun since I first grew hair in the mid-eighties. This should be a good indication that he went too far. So I marched back up to the barbershop to start some shit. At this point I didn't care that I had been going to that barbershop for years, and if I alienated them there would be nobody left to cut my hair.

I went in and told them I wasn't happy with the haircut. I explained that he had cut off too much hair and I was now asymmetrical. He offered to do the other side. I told him I didn't want him to do the other side, I wanted my money back. He kept saying that he had just squared it off, and I had had a full haircut so couldn't have my money back. I think the barber (who shall remain nameless as shall his shop) knew he had done me wrong, but it pained him to admit it. I could see I was close to getting my money back.

One thing you must know about Fife, is that no matter where you are, if you are having an altercation of any sort in a public place, some random tosspot will always pitch in his two cents. In this case it was one of the customers who waiting to be served. He was that sort of guy who always blunders into any discussion and gives you his totally unasked-for opinion. You know the sort of guy I mean. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but the barbershop is quite close to Smeaton, and the customer to whom I am referring was reading The Sun.

"I've never heard of someone asking for their money back after a haircut" He tutted, like that was a good enough reason for someone not to do it. Well, you have now pal. I explained to the gentleman that while this was none of his business in the first instance, I was not going to pay for a haircut that I was not satisfied with, and that I had been coming to the barbershop for years and had always been happy (lies) with the result. But then they had never shaved a huge chunk out of my head either. At this point I was given my money and I left. I didn't even have to threaten never to come to the barbershop again (although take it as a given that I won't be going back) or even threaten to destroy them, which as a journalist it would be well within my power to do. I have a column coming up, and I could easily use that to bitch about being given a shit haircut.

Anyway, I left, never to return. That is the last time I will ever pay for a haircut. I have had it. I'm buying clippers and I'm just going to do it myself from now on. I'm not going to do it right now because the shaved-out chunk is literally to the skin, and I think it would look weirder if I shaved it shorter all over. In fact the only thing I could do to make it even is to go completely skinhead, which I would only do if I joined the army or if pattern baldness set in. So I'm just going to have to cope with looking like I've escaped from some kind of laboratory. Which sucks because I have to meet with some important people this week. Bollocks.

Hot Damn!

2008-09-29T18:57:00.003+01:00

Somebody actually died of eating chilli peppers this week. It's true. He engaged in a manful competition to see who could devour most of the scorching peppers with a bowl of Dolmio sauce and then had a heart attack. Apparently he was complaining of itching all over so maybe he also had a stroke or some kind of brain embolism. This scares the bejesus out of me, because frankly, if someone bet me to eat a bowl of chillis with cooling Dolmio sauce I probably would. That dead guy might as well be me.

I'm a sucker for hot food. I come from the school that believes if a food doesn't make you sweat then it's probably not worth eating. I like a food that bites back. Anyone who has sampled my jerk chicken will tell you I have a tendency to overseason things. I like food to be so hot you'll shit your pants just to cool down.

I am also a sucker for extreme marketing, and am known to purchase any condiment that has either of the following things printed on the label:
1) the word "death".
2) a picture of a flaming skull.

This leads me to hope that any autopsy on this bold, bold gentleman will reveal some other cause of death, because although he died chasing the ultimate chilli high, if it turns out that I'm playing Russian roulette every time I eat a meal and chillis actually contain some kind of secret carcinogen, then it's going to take some of the enjoyment out of it for me.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

2008-09-28T18:34:00.002+01:00

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Meryl Streep?
Do Androids Dream of Quantum Leap?
Do Androids Dream of Little Bo Peep?
Do Androids Dream of The Big Sleep?
Do Androids Dream of Ryan Phillipe?
Do Androids Dream of Uriah Heep?
Do Androids Dream While my Guitar Gently Weeps?
Do Androids Dream of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap?
Do Androids Dream of Creep?
Do Androids Dream of the Battle of Ypres?
Do Androids Dream of owning a jeep?
Do Androids Dream of Gormley Keep?
Do Androids Dream of Haggis and Neeps?
Do Androids Dream of Helm's Deep?
Do Androids Dream of the Wild Eep?
Do Androids Dream of Beep Beep, Richie, Beep Beep?

Snakes on a Plane

2008-09-26T16:45:00.004+01:00

Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on Dean Cain
Snakes on Bahrain
Snakes on Robbie Coltrane
Snakes on Singing in the Rain
Snakes on Nathan Lane
Snakes on Max Payne
Snakes on Peter Hain
Snakes on Dara O'Briain
Snakes on Insane in the Membrane
Snakes on He Got Game
Snakes on John McCain
Snakes on Bloodrayne
Snakes on Tom Jane
Snakes on Drury Lane
Snakes on Citizen Caine
Snakes on Purple Rain
Snakes on Kurt Cobain
Snakes on Slaine
Snakes on John Wayne
Snakes on Come Back Shane
Snakes on John McClane
Snakes on David Blaine
Snakes on Big Daddy Kane

New job

2008-09-17T21:56:00.001+01:00

I start a new job on Monday as a proper journalist. This is good news, and I will write about it in greater detail soon.

Just remember, if you want to dine with the devil, you need a long spoon.

Fact of the Day

2008-09-13T09:52:00.004+01:00

CAUSE OF DEATH: Robots

The first human fatality due to robots was recorded in 1979. One Robert Williams, a factory worker in a Ford plant in Michigan, was killed when the arm of a robot designed to retrieve parts from storage struck him in the head.

Urada Kenji, a Kawasaki engineer who died in 1981, is often cited as the first person to be killed by robot attack. While performing maintenance on a robot, he was pushed into a grinding machine by the robot's arm. Some idiot had forgot to deactivate it while it was been tinkered with, and it clearly didn't take too kindly to some flesh-bag interfering with it.

Robots are a threat, I tell you. I pray to Metal Jesus that he shows us mercy.

Spin-offs Suck

2008-09-11T20:21:00.006+01:00

(pictured: Torchwood - only one of them is all in the way straight, and they all look ridiculous walking in slow motion.)

I've recently been watching BBC 3's Torchwood - which I previously avoided like the plague - due to an intense feeling of having missed something in the series finale of Comrade-General Who the other month. There was so much that I felt I didn't understand full about Russell T. Davies' reconstructed Whoniverse, that I resorted to watching what I knew to be an utterly awful spin-off show to plug the gaps. Let me tell you I have not been disappointed. It is the worst sci-fi show I have ever seen in my life. By far. I have watched most of the first season and every episode has been like pulling teeth.

Partly it's the script, which is beyond lousy, and the characterisation, which makes no sense at all, and seems to actually change from episode to episode. Is it the acting? Maybe. John Barrowman is reasonably good in Doctor Who as a comedy sidekick with a penchant for armaments and buggery, but as a brooding hero type? It doesn't really figure. And it's not because he's gay, it's just because there's a rotten script to go along with the concept of having a gay hero, because apart from his sexuality the character is so poorly drawn, and because at the end of the day Barrowman just isn't that watchable as an actor.

The other characters are unfeasibly dull as well. Eve Myles' character bores me to tears. Her dilemma about her affair with Owen (Burn Gorman)is an utterly unnecessary attempt to sex up the show and leaves the viewer - frankly - not giving a shit whether she chooses a boring chud or an obnoxious wee nyaff. Elsewhere the characterisation makes no sense. Throughout the first season they try to build up this impression that Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) harbours all this utter despair and a burning hatred for Jack, who whacked his cyber-lady G-friend in the fourth episode. Surprisingly, within a few episodes, he seems to get over it, and mysteriously changes sexuality as well. And I believe he and Jack also get it on in the second series? Whatever, Russel T. Davies.

I was actually going to watch Torchwood tonight, but I was so put off by the idea of sitting through another episode that I actually decided to write this blog saying how crap it is instead. What I don't understand whenever they try to bring in a more adult tone to TV shows, they do it by inserting pointless sex scenes and the word "fuck" every now and then to remind we're watching a show for grown-ups. TV's Angel, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off went a similar way some times. The second episodes of both Torchwood and Angel are in fact exactly the same - an alien/demon transfers itself from person to person by having sex with them, and then gets killed by someone in a long coat. Truly rubbish, although Angel did have its moments.

Other miscellaneous things I hate about Torchwood: 1)Way too much walking in slow motion and trying to look cool. When will people learn that walking in slow motion to a pumping bass-heavy soundtrack just makes you look like a knob. That goes double if you are wearing a long coat. 2)I cannot take anyone speaking in a Welsh accent seriously, especially if you are trying to be scary, talking dirty or speaking in technobabble. It's hard enough if they're English for Christ's sake.

Why are we even talking about this? I should go and read a book or something.

I will not be coming to live in London after all.

2008-09-11T19:58:00.004+01:00

As many of you may know, I was recently down in our nation's capital for a job interview with a fairly prominent media organisation. Of course, being the Bond-like individual I am, I aced the interview, but I had a few misgivings about it being a fixed term contract. I was also thinking that I couldn't afford the exorbitant rates in London town. We need to be saving money for the wedding - and eventually for a house at the moment - and I have a feeling we wouldn't be able to do that there. So when they called me up on Monday to tell me I'd got the job I said I was sorry but it just wasn't enough security for me at this point. The next day they rang me up and offered me a permanent position, which I said I had to think about. After a lot of humming and hawing I was eventually decided that although it was a tremendous opportunity, and that I may well have a huge difficulty in finding a job in media in Edinburgh, it's just too risky at the moment financially. I have a feeling it would have screwed us indefinitely. So I once again turned the very generous offer down.

It's rubbish really, because I have been looking for a job like this for ages and when one finally comes around I'm not in a position to take it. It was an incredibly difficult decision to make. I sort of wished I had a magic telescope with which I could look into my possible futures. I think if I had taken the job I would have ended up a jaded, power mad media executive, like Bill Murray in Scrooged.

Oh well, what's done is done. No point in regretting it now. I have no doubt we could have made it but it would have meant a long time of financial hardship, and probably me having to turn some tricks on the old main drag. And I don't want to do that again.

I'm still waiting to hear about a reporting job in Fife, and that might still pan out for me. And if it doesn't, I will break in somehow. And if it doesn't, I will rob a bank. I will become the new John Dillinger.

Spaghetti Cat Redux

2008-09-11T19:52:00.002+01:00

The second chapter in the Spaghetti Cat legend.

Spaghetti Cat is Lord of us All

2008-08-27T21:17:00.002+01:00

If you haven't already seen this, check it out.

I like the idea of Spaghetti Cat appearing at random in an unexplained context. The story was much funnier before I found out the somewhat prosaic explanation for his presence, so I won't go into it here.

I think I'm going to start leaving pictures of Spaghetti Cat in seemingly arbitrary locations, just to see what happens. I hope I am able to start a cult.

Rant about the TV Licence

2008-08-26T21:10:00.005+01:00

I like to pick my battles carefully. I am what could be described as a tactical coward, engaging in conflict only when I am absolutely sure that I will win. This strategy has served me well for years, but as you all know, I occasionally have moments in which bloody-minded rage overcomes my powerful sense of reason and I lose it completely. It usually involves money in some capacity. Those of you who are aware of my long standing legal dispute with Royal Bank of Scotland Plc (or thieving, godless swine as they are known) will know exactly what I mean. Perhaps I will be on the phone, talking to some low-level customer service serf, arguing that I shouldn't have to pay a £12 late fee, since they persist in sending my statements to the wrong address, even though I have phoned to inform them of this several times already, meaning I don't actually get the statement until long past due date. Then a change will occur in me. My normally placid and spiritual demeanour will be shaken and I will start to swear and tremble with barely contained rage. The vein on my head will bulge. I will beat the phone receiver off the wall and scream ruefully.

RBS is not the source of my troubles today, however. Today I have totally different enemy. It is the TV Licensing Authority (or penny-grubbing, shafting bastards as they are known). The TV Licensing Authority, for the benefit of our transatlantic cousins, is the organisation from whom you buy a TV Licence. This is what subsidises the BBC and even if you don't watch the BBC you can't have a TV in the UK and not pay it. They will send the heavy mob to break down your door. It's not like in Japan where you could just grin and pretend not to speak Japanese when the NHK man came around. You can end up with a rather hefty £1000 fine, or even imprisonment.

My gripe with the Licensing Authority began earlier this month when I received a letter telling me it was time to renew my licence at the end of August. I was initially confused because I had paid for the licence up front for a year at the end of September last year. My supposedly logical brain saw it like this: 1 year = 12 months. Apparently, according to the TV Licensing Authority, this is not the case. No, it seems that without realising it I had paid retrospectively for the month of September, a month for which the most part of I didn't even own a TV. I bought my licence on the 26th of September 2007, foolishly expecting it to run until the 26th of September 2008. Now, perhaps I should have known that, but this is the first time I have actually ever paid for a TV licence, and they don't make it very clear at all on the literature. This is because they want to scam you out of as much money as possible, because they are the devil.

So I phoned up to try and get the thing sorted. All I wanted, I told them, was to have my TV Licence for a year like I was I was getting when I signed up. After two conversations with slow, reptile-minded urban youths I was able to get on the phone with a manager who said he couldn't do anything, but if I wrote to customer services they would be able to change it for me.

That lying fuck.

So, nearly a month on and nothing has changed at all. I'm still in the same position. So I rang up today and offered to pay one month's worth of TV licence just so I'm covered up until we leave the flat on the 20th. Guess what? "We can't do short term contracts." Thanks a lot, you fucking drone. Apparently you have to pay an entire other year, then cancel the contract and arrange to claim the money back from the Authority. Oh, and I forgot to mention, you can only claim nine months worth of money back, meaning as well as my extra month they would be confiscating two extra months worth of dough for me for absolutely fuck all. Well, fuck you, TV Licensing Authority. I am not paying you a shitting cent.

My mistake was trying to play by rules. What I should have done when I bought the TV was just use it illegally for a week until the start of October, then got the licence. Then I would be covered until October 31st instead of August 31st. I should have known and tried to fuck them, because they would sure as hell try to fuck me if they got the chance. This is really just reinforcing my opinion that there are no rewards in this life for doing the right thing. It pisses me off that I have to give virtually everything I earn to some poisonous London turd born with a silver spoon up his arse and my licence fee/late payment fee/tax paying his six figure salary so he can twat about eating croissants and drinking bottled water that costs more than my suit. One day I'm going to defenestrate those motherfuckers. I am going to beat every last one of them senseless with nine iron. I am going to chop off their heads and stump-fuck them.

ENDS

Live every week like it's Shark Week

2008-08-18T21:53:00.002+01:00

I was looking back at a post Gen wrote about the bit in Jaws II when Jaws leaps out of the water to eat a helicopter. It made me think about sharks, and how awesome they are. Sharks are the fuckest uppest. FACT OF THE DAY: Sharks have only one natural predator. Can you guess what it is? You can find the answer here in this very rare bit of documentary footage shot for Animal Planet. The late Steve Irwin just out of shot. Or maybe he isn't out of shot at all...

Premature Regeneration

2008-07-03T22:11:00.004+01:00

(pictured: Who MD and Mad Woman - like it or not one or both of them is worm food)

SPOILERS - Do not read this if you did not watch last week's exciting episode of Who MD, starring Dr Donald Who as Himself and Catherine Tate as Mad Woman.

Premature regeneration - no, it's not some kind of humiliating complaint that you have to go and see a sex professional for, it's what happens when ratings-hungry TV execs decide to kill off the latest incarnation of everyone's favourite Time Lord.

While I agree that every incarnation of the Doctor has his time to go, I think that the Doctor (or the BBC at least) is using up his lives too fast. In 2005 we were treated to Christopher Eccleston's Doctor - created of about equal parts stoicism and buffoonery, with perhaps a dash of carmudgeonliness - and following his demise next year we got David Tennant with his silly quiff, weasel face and trainers. But despite my early reservations that Tennant was totally wrong for the role the man has grown on me, and now I find it hard to imagine anybody else playing the Doctor. Tennant's Doctor so balances the qualities that we expect from Planet Britain's top time-travelling physician. He fluctuates between a sort of wounded loneliness and a near-psychotic joye de vivre. So much so that you occasionally wonder if the Doctor is having fun, or just trying really hard to have fun to cope with the utter horror he seems to live with on a daily basis (planet blew up, keeps getting people killed, main squeeze trapped in alternative dimension etc). The moments that work best with Tennant's Doctor are the ones where you see the cracks appearing - when he is forced to confront the human cost of his temporal galavanting, like Peter Davison's Doctor did when he realised that he had inadvertently allowed the death of one of his companions.

In the old days, incarnations of the Doctor lasted for years. Or did it just seem that way? Tom Baker did the job for seven years continuously. But most of the rest only lasted about three years. Either way, I don't think it's time to wax Tennant just yet - he has proven a very popular Doctor. It's possible that a poorly thought out regeneration could shaft the shows popularity (Step forth from the shadows, Colin Baker!) and in any case such a formidable Doctor as Tennant's shouldn't out like a wuss having been zapped by a puny Dalek's death ray. In addition to that, he needs the opportunity for one last quip before he dies: "It's too late, I'm regenerating!" doesn't really cut it.

Doctor Who is essentially a tramp - he never changes his clothes, he hasn't got a job and he lives in a phone box. To top that off he seems to be a pervert as well - flying round the galaxy abducting any fine young fillies he desires (and for some reason gurning Catherine Tate). To play the Doctor well you need to have a somewhat whimsical aspect to you, and I think Tennant has that down to a tee. All the others who have been mentioned in connection with the role of the Eleventh Doctor - Robert Carlyle, John Hannah and James Nesbitt (Begbie, Rebus and Parlabane) - I can't really see any of them doing it properly, apart from maybe Nesbitt. But who knows? I've been wrong in the past. Gah, it's getting late and I have to go to work tomorrow. I am a businessman you see. I have no time to finish this meditation. Just rest assured I will be watching on Saturday with bated breath (or possibly on iplayer later on with bated breath) to see what they come up with. I will have my fingers crossed for a not-dead Tennant.

Stan Winston dies

2008-06-17T14:42:00.000+01:00

Shit a brick.

Old person moan of the week

2008-06-16T16:35:00.004+01:00

(Pictured: A first class stamp - worth "fuck all" these days)

Is it just me or is a first class stamp not worth the paper it is printed on these days? Last week I spent nearly all of my free time filling in countless application forms, printing out CVs, covering letters, personal statements, photocopying documents and articles from times gone by, before folding them nicely into several big friendly brown A4 envelopes to be sent to prospective employers. I dropped them in the post box, listening to them hit the mountain of post with a satisfying rustle. "Good job!" I thought and ran around the park in celebration.

When I got back, I learned that apparently, there are now special stamps for letters over 240 x165 mm and anything over 100g in weight. I was flabbergasted. By the time I realised my error the postie had been, and there was no chance of getting my letters back. All of my work was undone. I might as well have flushed them down the bog. I called Ma Blackwood in the hope of an explanation.

"What's the deal with this?" I demanded.
"Didn't you get the leaflet?" She said, before casting the phone to the ground to brutally discipline one of my many siblings.

No, I did not get the leaflet. After a quick investigation I discovered that the system had been changed while I was in Japan on Her Majesty's secret service. I wailed in affront.

I remember the days when a single first class stamp would allow you to send even a large parcel containing generous amounts of pornography, a pound of raw sausage meat, Gentleman's Relish and a brick anywhere in the UK and it would be there the next day. Guaranteed.

Not so today. It more or less defies the point of even having ordinary first class stamps if you can't even send most birthday cards with them. As for the 100g rule, who has a set of scales just sitting around to weigh an envelope? Women, probably, but not I. I have to rely on guesstimation.

Even worse is the dawning realisation that Royal Mail may have delivered my letters anyway and charged the editors of ten regional newspapers that I want to work for a surcharge of £1.60 plus the postage to read my CV. This will probably not get me a job anywhere.

I know this is a bit of an old person style moan, and you might think that at 25 I've turned a corner into carmudgeonhood, but come on - Big long stamps? Rubbish!

Busy

2008-06-03T17:20:00.003+01:00

(Picture: me, Kaki and Uncle Chuck share a couple of laffs)

You know I'd just love to write a big steaming blog for you all to read but sadly things aren't shaping up that way for old Blackwood. I've got so much crap on at the moment it actually hurts. The NCTJ only have a few more flaming hoops for me to jump through before I can get round to actually being employed (properly) as a journalist. I aim to start soliciting myself for a desk sometime this week - I only hope finding a job in journalism isn't as impossible as everybody I have ever talked to says it is.

I've also been busy writing a novel. It's looking more and more like it might eventually get done. I have finally hit two completed chapters which means that it is no longer a short story and it is time to get someone more qualified than myself to look over it and tell me how to make it readable. I will post more on this when there is more to say.

I hit a quarter-century old last week. So much for all you haters who thought I'd have choked to death in a horrific pie-eating accident by now or even been suffocated by my own beard (which I have now shaved off to due cleanliness issues, and the fact it interfered with various mouth related tasks, such as eating and breathing).

No more right now.

Science Question of the Week

2008-04-23T14:22:00.001+01:00

At what point does a milkshake become a cake?

No.

2008-04-22T22:59:00.002+01:00

Treachery!

Hard Bastard of the Week

2008-04-17T19:48:00.003+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7353025.stm

You got stabbed? Seeking medical treatment? No, just have a sausage and a bit of a kip and everything will be just dandy.

Mental.

Engaged

2008-04-03T21:51:00.004+01:00

It has been a while since I have updated, indeed some time since I have done anything not related to my course. In the first week of so-called "Holidays" I was up in Newcastle enjoying the hospitality of Amy Hunt and Fergus Mackinnon while working as a hired goon for a certain daily in the area. As usual got a lot done, had a few laughs, voxpopped a few unintelligible Geordies, got some primo ideas and advice and left with a slightly better idea of what I'm meant to be doing than before. This is good and it should be encouraged.

In addition to that I have found myself gainfully employed again. I am now a bar. man at a respected club/venue in Nottingham's centre. I like this because they pay me money to sling drinks to metallers, although it does suck that I can't drink any myself. Tantalus, one sympathises. The sheer amount of stuff vis a vis weird customers and characters that hang about would take ages to summarise, so I'll just say that I will get to that some other time.

The big news this month, however, is that Kaki and I are engaged. Apologies to my vast legion of female fans and admirers, but I'm off the market for good. I'd be lying like a mofo if I said it went down exactly the way I'd planned it, but she graciously accepted my offer and now we're betrothed. Next thing is planning how we're going to cope with the immense logistical difficulties of importing either her family from Canada to the UK for the wedding or visa versa. Perhaps we'll have it on some neutral spot in the middle of the Atlantic so nobody can complain. I hear Reykjavik is nice this time of year. We're just going to enjoy being engaged for a time though, before the nerve-spackering stress of planning takes hold.

So this is how it happened: I bought the ring some time ago with the assistance of co-conspirator Salma Conway who agreed to take me to Birmingham's jewellery quarter to make my purchase. I sort of expected the jewellery quarter to look like a Warsaw ghetto in about 1879, but actual it looked a lot like Glenrothes. Nevertheless, we got down to business and after a little while found the perfect one. It was a classy little platinum number with a slim, tapering band ideal for a lass with skinny fingers. In the centre was a gleaming diamond sitting there like the most expensive carbon allotrope you've ever seen. I got a sort of jittery feeling like being tasered by a mall security guard but being too drunk to really feel it - so I bought it and left.

All was well. I hid the ring in a secret place where Kaki would never find it. Occasionally when she was out of the house I would get the ring out and fondle it like a domesticated Gollum. Unfortunately, when you love someone you have to do this thing called "sharing". And sharing also means that you have to tell your other half things, for instance when you buy an expensive engagement ring and then cock up budgeting for it so you run out of money four days before you were supposed to go to Rome, ironically enough where you had planned to present said ring.

I am, by all accounts, a fabulous liar and deceiver, but Kaki has this way of getting through my fibs like some Orwellian interrogator. Anyway, she succeeded in catching me in a lie about my financial situation (much better now since I got paid btw) and went about tearing me apart with a combination of awkward questioning, ranting obscenities and feminine doublespeak. Kaki does have a bit of a temper, and I confess I pushed one of her major buttons by lying to her, but I can honestly say I had never seen her that angry. No - not angry - crazy. Shithouse rat, Grace Jones crazy. She was knocking plates around in the kitchen with a wild-eyed expression and cussing me out when I realised I couldn't put up with the deception any more, went through to the other room, removed my precious from its hiding place and prepared to hand it over. I walked back through to the kitchen and said I could explain everything.

So I whipped it out in our crappy little kitchen, got on one knee and asked her to marry me. Ten minutes of crying later, she agreed. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster. Anyway, everything got resolved in the end, I was vindicated and it was established that I would only lie to Kaki in special situations where it was in her own interest. Like this one.

So there it is, the arse-backwards, clod-like and awkward way I proposed to my soon-to-be wife. It's not the least smooth thing I've ever done but it comes close. Still, she's happy and that's what matters. The way we did it was a lot more real than if I'd performed some big showpiece proposal in Rome anyway. I'm pretty sure she'd have figured it out when I put my good shirt on in any case.

Cloverfiend

2008-02-04T15:42:00.000Z

Don't read this and then bitch to me about spoilers.

This weekend I went to see Cloverfield at the big cinema in town. I was pretty pumped up about finding out what Cloverfield was after the viral marketing campaign and teaser trailers. I was a little disappointed that Cloverfield didn't turn out to be quite as iconic a monster as the likes of Godzilla or Mecha-Bingo but it was still a gripping and well-made film. Essentially what they did was turn the monster movie concept on its head - rather than focussing on the scientists, politicians and soldiers who normally are tasked with eliminating the beast it concentrates on the monster-bait civilians whose lot it usually is to be stomped, chomped or incinerated with atom breath. This means that the sudden appearance of a Cloverfield in the middle of New York goes more or less unexplained. Plot elements such as the inevitable nuking of Manhattan by the desperate military (of course anything called "Operation Hammer Down" is going to be a nuclear strike. If anyone told me they were going to initiate "Operation Hammer Down" I'd get the fuck hence) are told through either peripheral characters or through the news coverage of the events that the characters occasionally stop to gawk at.

Contrary to what a lot of reviewers have said, I actually liked the characterisation and thought it worked pretty well. Dedicating the first half hour of a film about a giant monster levelling a large metropolitan centre to watching a bunch twenty-somethings knobbing around at a party was a risky move on behalf of 'Ol JJ and his directer Matt Reeves but it honestly paid off, because throughout the film you do actually find yourself caring about certain characters. Granted, you hate them to a certain extent for not doing the smart thing and bugging out when they get several opportunities to do so, but you do genuinely hope they make it out OK and there are a couple of extremely shocking moments when characters that have been prominent throughout the first portion of the film get unexpectedly ground into a fine paste by the monster's blood-lust.

Another complaint a lot of people seem to have with the film is the 9/11 parallels are too obvious and that seven years is frankly too soon for a film about 9/11. They accuse the film of simply glorying in the destruction of New York and not actually saying anything. I can sort of see the point of these critics, but it's worth remembering that Gojira (Godzilla to you), which was a thinly-veiled allegory of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings was released in 1954, only nine years after. Besides, the horror and carnage created by both these cinematic brutes was sort of the point, wasn't it? Gojira was a safe way to pass commentary on the pain Japan still felt about the war without irking it's new "ally" the US. Surely New Yorkers deserve the same catharsis? Transferring all the anxieties of this terrible age into something tangible, rather than just a couple of pointless wars against an inscrutable enemy that doesn't deliver the sense of triumph that it should.

Here's a good point though: How many times has New York been destroyed in movies? Fucking loads! Don't ever go there!

Anyway, I digress. I suggested to Kaki (read 'forced her') that we draw how we thought Cloverfield might manifest itself. So here, without further ado are our artists impressions of Cloverfield:
Well, here is my interpretation of Cloverfield. Predictably, I went for a giant hamster design, of the kind I have been drawing for years. The monsterous hamster stomps through New York and swats a jet plane out of the sky. Observe the plane dropping an H-bomb on the rodent scourge. Like all hamsters, it has giant, square bollocks.

Not quite sure what this is. It seems to be a sort of facially-malformed cat/rat monster with a lizard tail. Note also atom breath. I also like the embryonic Death-Chicken design that has been scribbled out.

So who is closer? I won't tell you because it will spoil the surprise of seeing for yourself.

You are in for a mental beasting.

2008-01-24T19:59:00.000Z

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=5484697431

Hilarious in a terrible, guilty way.

Slow News Day

2008-01-19T14:23:00.000Z

(Pictured: Heathrow crash - not quite as bad as we'd have you believe)
I have to admit to feeling slightly underwhelmed by the coverage of the BA 777 crash at Heathrow on Thursday. Fair enough, it could have been disastrous and people could have been killed, only saved by the actions of the skilled air crew (just doing their jobs, surely?), but I can't help thinking that the news media have blown the whole thing a little out of proportion. In an instant after they heard the news on the BBC News they were on the phone to Political Editor Nick Robinson, who happened to be grounded at Heathrow on the Prime Minister's flight to China. For his part, Robinson seemed to be quite annoyed with the whole affair. I suspect they might even have woken him up, or interrupted his reading of a particularly interesting article in the in-flight rag. They asked him what he could tell them about the incident, which happened to be very little, apart from that he told them he could see some fire engines. Soon enough they seem to have got a chopper in the air and took some pictures of the crash, clearly somewhat disappointed at the lack of flames and wounded at what was clearly the aeronautical equivalent of scraping a bollard in the car park at Asda. Long and short of it, I can think of worse plane crashes to be in. Soon the news that everybody had been evacuated safely reached the Beeb and they left it alone after that.

The next day the papers did their level best to make it sound a lot more dramatic than it really was. Metro, the only paper I have time to accommodate into my busy Friday schedule ran with the slightly ill-conceived headline "WE THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A BUMPY LANDING: Air crash passengers oblivious to their brush with death". That does tend to play down the seriousness of the situation. If it had been me I would have focussed on the pilots rather than the passengers, unless they were spacking out in the cabin and foaming at the mouth in pant-shitting terror. The best part about the article was the fact that it described the passengers as "survivors". Of course they were survivors! Nobody died! I mean, technically you could say the were survivors of a plane crash but that does sort of imply that some people didn't survive.

Well, at least it beats reading another article about the Diana inquest.

Journalism: it's a funny old game.

No to 2008

2008-01-13T15:15:00.000Z

I know, I know I haven't blogged in a while. I've been horribly negligent. It's because I have a tendency to take on more than I can handle. Take for instance last year's poor career choice of journalism and supermarket shelf stacking at the same time. I walked around for weeks like a 1970's "slow" variety zombie (as opposed to a modern "fast" zombie) and have generally fallen behind with things. It's not good. This isn't even a proper blog either. Just a note to remind everyone that I'm still alive, and as soon as I can think of something witty or incisive to say and find coincidentally that I actually have the energy to write it then you can be assured I will. Quality guaranteed.

New Model Army

2007-11-25T14:07:00.000Z

(Pictured: 'Evil' Tyrant Banks lords over all)

It’s funny how many women complain about being treated as objects, but yet so many of them aspire to work in modelling. How did this ever become the pinnacle of ambition for a generation of females? Being dressed up, posed, photographed in compromising positions wearing ludicrous outfits, then criticized for not being pretty enough by men who have (let’s be honest here) absolutely no interest in women beyond the academic. Who would want a life like that? I suppose the vast heaps of money might help.

Which is presumably why Oprah-in-waiting Tyrant Banks invented America’s Next Top Model. To give young women the opportunity to make a living in the competitive game of standing, walking, looking at things and very occasionally (but not often) talking.

With only six hopefuls left, this week Tyra whisks them off to Shanghai for a “posing challenge”, a make-up advert and photo shoot, and some more of that feminine cure-all, shopping. To the credit of the shows makers they do actually relent from the filming of female flesh to show a little bit of local colour. The shots of the city are glorious, and you almost feel a little jealousy for the girls who’ve been plucked out obscurity for a shot at a jet-setting life in the big time. But only almost, because by the end, one of them has to go.

At the hotel, they find that there are only five beds in their hotel room, obviously to foster yet more tension between Asperger’s sufferer Heather and bitchy hood-rat Bianca, who feels – perhaps rightly – that the show’s judges are carrying Heather because she has “a disability or whatever”.

After a nights kip the girls do their challenge which involves apparently learning “karate” (it’s not) and posing while flying through the air on a rope. Bianca throws a hissy fit and refuses to do it, putting her in the running for the boot.

Luckily for her, Amazonian Lisa screws up the shoot for her advert and Heather gurns all the way through hers. So who’s going to get shitcanned? I’ll give you a hint – it’s not Heather, because she “has something”. What it is that she has, I’m not entirely sure. But what do I know? I’m only a straight guy.

Fact of the Day

2007-11-14T22:42:00.000Z

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine is an expert in Taekwondo, and can crush a man's skull in the palm of his hand.

In this picture, Dave has done just that, and as such is proclaimed the winner.

TV: A Minor Diversion on the Road to the Grave

2007-11-05T19:19:00.000Z

(Pictured: Mulder literally does not give a fuck)

I watched a fine program on the telly last night. Mulder is back in X-Files Nights and is more raucous than ever. In this x-rated spin-off of the seminal 90's conspiracy documentary we follow Mulder in his sexcapades around the borough of LA and watch him lament his inability to pen his memoirs, but not that much because it's all about the sex really. In this episode Mulder drove around town in a fine car, drank liquor out of a bottle in a brown paper bag, insulted environmentalists, harrassed his ex-wife, traumatised his daughter slightly, suckerpunched an asshole and took advantage of a drunken girl. He also said the words "holy fucknuts" which should be all the reason you need to watch X-Files Nights, if you aren't frantically downloading already.

I also watched the American feature film Ghost starring Jed Eckert from Red Dawn as the eponymous anti-hero. Let me tell you that is a truly horrific film. It all starts when a crooked banker pays a latino thug to murder Ghost in order to steal money (or something). Unfortunately, Ghost doesn't stay dead and then all hell breaks loose. He vows to take revenge on his killers and tracks them down with the aid of Sister Act. Ghost finally finds his murderers and mounts a campaign of psychological torture on them, driving them half-way mad before brutally slaying them with his ghost-powers. Then - in a twist that isn't particularly well explained - despite having committed two murders himself, Ghost gets to go to heaven. God must not be particularly picky.

Not been there, but I bought the t-shirt anyway.

2007-10-25T16:44:00.001+01:00

(Pictured: impossible lies)

You know what's been annoying me recently. The seemingly endless amount of guys who go around in t-shirts with OSAKA 07 and NAGOYA 12 on them. Do they think they are part of a Japanese sports team? Having passed two years of actual adult life in Japan and having visited most of the places that these t-shirts name I can't help but feel a great of annoyance. It's such a feeble trend. I quite want to ask them to name which island of Japan the city is on, or if they've ever been there. See, they don't know. They don't know why they're even wearing that shirt. Probably, they even own a pink shirt for going out in. Of course, they don't like pink, and they'd never say if you asked them "Hey dude, what's your favourite colour?"- "Pink!" That would lose them a few dozen masculinity points, and even where I come from earn them a 'kick-in'. Why are they so popular then? Why do people mindlessly follow trends? A few years ago Top Shop started a 'Rock Chick' fad that lasted a couple of months, whereby girls would become 'Rock Chicks' by buying a Motorhead (sorry, don't know how to get an umlaut on this keyboard) t-shirt and maybe a dog collar or something. I remember being surprised and delighted that so many pretty girls seemed to be into Motorhead, and then immediately dejected and sick when I realised that it was all a commercial sham and these foolish girls didn't actually know who Motorhead were. I wanted to grab them and scream in their faces, spittle arcing out of my mouth in slimy threads: "MOTORHEAD IS NOT FOR YOU! MOTORHEAD BELONGS TO UGLY, HAIRY BOYS! LEMMY HAS WARTS! REAL FUCKING WARTS! THEY DON'T EVEN ALLOW HIM ON THE TELLY ANYMORE, SO HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF HIM! NOT ON TOP OF THE FUCKING POPS THAT'S FOR SURE!" Then, probably after someone had bailed me and I'd been forced to apologise to everyone involved, the girls would abandon the t-shirts in favour of some other stupid fad, big surprise there. Anyway, that's sort of how I feel about the OSAKA and NAGOYA t-shirts. Being that my knowledge of the places is so intimate, I just feel sad that these poseurs are wearing them, unaware of what they might mean to other people. How would you feel if some douche was walking around with YOUR hometown written across his chest because it had somehow become fashionable? Getting status by associating himself with YOUR background, YOUR personal history, YOUR heritage, or whatever? Could you find in your heart to say "Hey, nice KDY t-shirt, even though you're from Derbyshire." Maybe. But there's an equal chance you'd go Eazy fucking E and bash the twunt's head in with a rock.

Cohabiting

2007-09-29T17:05:00.001+01:00

So I live in England now, with a girl. As my grandmother would say “in sin”. What can you do? Living with your girlfriend is quite like living with a flatmate, except that they are generally cleaner, much fussier, and require more to make them comfortable. Bath mats, for instance.

Living with a girl is not like living with a pal, because you can’t say things like “Dude! Look at this video I found on Youtube of a dog having sex with a cat!” If you do, it’s more likely that they will ask you why you are wasting your time looking at videos of interspecies sex on Youtube rather than working on that novel you’ve supposedly been writing for the last two years? Which is, of course, a good point.

You also have to watch what you eat around them. If they knew the full extent of the foul takeaway foods that students and other idle young males indulge in on a daily basis, the chances are she’d run a mile. Your best bet is just to eat what they eat and sneak out for a kebab when they’re not looking. Also it’s important not to drink too much in their presence, especially not in your boxer shorts in front of the TV or videogames console, lest you risk being called a “scrub”. This is a girl word for bon vivant.

Toilet etiquette: girls get funny about toilet seats for some reason. They have invented some kind of weird equation which states that since all women-doings are done sitting down, while one of a man’s doings is done standing, the duty of putting the toilet seat down is the man’s responsibility. Why the seat needs to be put down at all is a mystery to me. The solution? Leave the seat down and do your business anyway, pretty soon she’ll be the one putting the seat up after she’s used the crapper. Slambango!

Girl bidie-ins do have their benefits though. You are far more likely eat at least one good, hot meal a day and will often find that when you come home your underwear has been de-loused and smells of flowers. Nothing a man ever washes, no matter how many expensive powders he uses, will ever smell of flowers. Your general health and physical appearance will improve. You will find yourself becoming respectable pretty fast. Possibly, you now also think the bath mats were a good idea.

To top it off, girls are soft and smell pretty good, and every day you get to pet and cajole one another in the way that if you tried with your old flatmate, you’d probably have to have a quite serious talk about personal boundaries. As much as I have fond memories of my old flatmates, the idea of having tickle fights with them does not really have much appeal.

So, my conclusions: girls = good; cohabiting = not evil like the bible says. It’s a pretty sweet deal all round I think. Women are something of a civilizing influence on us dudes. I know many people will call me “domesticated” and “house-dude”, but it is true. Living with a girl gives us reasons to do things like clean our bodies and wash dishes. In the olden days, dirty dishes would pile up and pile up until we were eating beans with a pencil out of an old boot. For want of kitchen roll, I would wipe up all spillages with a slice of bread so I could save it for later. That sort of shit won’t wash with a woman in the house. No sir. Thank you, womankind, for saving us from ourselves and implementing domestic equilibrium.

I am on my own in the flat now. My sweetheart has gone down the street to buy some kind of kitchen implement that I have no knowledge of, or perhaps a vegetable that I would be unable to identify. That leaves nothing for me to do except watch that video of a monkey flagellating itself on Youtube. I am, after all, still a dude.

Death Poof

2007-09-29T16:53:00.000+01:00

(pictured: Death Proof may look like a tough guy, but in reality he is a big pussy)

SPOILER ALERT! DON’T READ THIS AND THEN BITCH TO ME LATER ABOUT ME HAVING SPOILED QUENTIN TARANTINO’S DEATH PROOF FOR YOU! THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING!

I went to see Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof the other night. I found it to be something of a mixed bag. It was very much a game of two halves, the first half being Death Proof stalking, perving on and then murdering a group of chicks by driving his stunt car into their automobile, and the second him stalking, perving on, and then being murdered by a similar group of chicks. The first half is definitely the best, as QT gives full time to character development, and although you don’t really ever get to like the lassies particularly, you at least get a good sense of their characters before the lot of them are slaughtered. Also, Kurt Russell as Death Proof plays a far more prominent role, actual interacting with his prey and generally creeping the shit out of them. By contrast the second half seems a bit rushed, the characters less definitively drawn, the lovely Rosario Dawson is a bit of a princess, the Kiwi girl is an adrenaline junkie, the black girl says “nigger” a lot but in terms of character development you get left feeling a little short changed.

The dialogue is Quentintino’s usual fare of snappy back-forth hipper-than-thou repartee, although it must be said a great deal less quotable than the likes of Pulp Fiction, for instance, or even Kill Bill. Q-Tip has been praised for being able to write convincingly from a female perspective in this movie. About 50% of women I know who have seen the film agree with this, but the other 50% have said “bullshit! We don’t talk like that!” Since I have no idea how girls talk when they’re alone I can’t possibly comment, except to say that it sounds OK to me. More or less. They talk about boys a lot, which at least sounds about right.

My final real complaint about the movie is that after being tough and scary in the first half of the movie, in the second half Death Proof turns into a massive pussy. He is woefully ineffective at killing those girls. You sort of expect him to come back for one more scare, but pretty much after he gets wounded in the arm by the black girl (who is, of course, packing heat) he turns into a big wuss and tries to get away. It’s sad to see, that Death Proof’s weakness is in fact bullets. After that he gets beaten savagely by the girls and the credits roll. That’s pretty much it, apart from Rosie Dawson landing an impressive stiletto kick into Death Proof’s surprised looking face.

Death Proof is a good film, and pretty entertaining, but it isn’t a great film. And that’s what the Quentinator is supposed to be famed for. Hopefully, whatever he comes up with next, be it Inglorious Bastards or the Vega Brothers movie, fits that bill.

Personal Life Update

2007-09-15T17:05:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know: got back from Englandshire a week ago, after spending a further two weeks plying yon trade. Saw some more whacked out things - the crown court gets way scarier felons than the Magistrate's court, a couple of paedos and rapists, was happy to see them go down - and also wrote some more stories. I tend to get a lot of kids-who-have-terminal-diseases-and-do-sports-with-cuddly-animals stories, which is fine. When I was up north they had me running around looking for 'attractive females' to photograph 'standing side on' for a piece on plastic surgery.
"Attractive females? In this town?" quoth I. So I went up to every vaguely attractive girl I saw and tried to entice them with my charms to be in my photo. Surprisingly, there were actually a few attractive girls out, but they were nearly all either English or some other kind of foreigner. The majority of them just thought I was a wandering pervert anyway. Eventually I got a few who fit the bill and was able to go home.

Tomorrow Kaki comes over from Canada. I will pick her up first thing in the morning and bring her home. I'm going to spend the next week playing the tour guide and then we'll move down to Nottingham next Saturday. I will keep you posted on events as they occur.

Shot to the Heart

2007-09-15T16:41:00.000+01:00

(pictured: Shoot 'Em Up does what he does best) Went to see Clive Owen Is Shoot 'Em Up last night. Shoot 'Em Up lives up to his name by shooting everything in sight. I don't think he even lets up for 30 seconds in the whole film. He shoots while standing still, running, jumping, having sex with Monica Bellucci, parachuting and delivering a baby. It has a hilariously mixed message on gun control too, it seems to advocate stronger gun control measures while glorying in an almost unparalleled level of bloody violence and almost pornographic gun fetishism. It's hard to work out if the movie was even meant to be serious in the first place. It's almost like they tried and then halfway through got ripped and decided it would be funny to let Shoot 'Em Up kill someone with a carrot. He does - he kills about 8 people with this unobtrusive orange vegetable, the highest amount of carrot-based fatalities in any movie in history. Stupid as it may be, it's still a hugely entertaining film, with Clive Owen's Shoot 'Em Up proving an eminently watchable character. He is essentially a heartless misanthrope who several times commits random acts of violence for reasons which are largely gratuitous - he runs people's cars off the road for not signalling and mercilessly beats a woman who he deems to be a poor parent. If you don't take yourself too seriously, and you like your action fast, silly and with a very low BDQ then take yourself off to see the filmed version of Shoot 'Em Up's autobiography, stat.

Back in the saddle

2007-08-23T16:14:00.000+01:00

Well, my disciples, it’s been nearly a month since my last post, and even that was just a list of things I liked about Die Hard 4. I make no excuses. I have been busy getting my shit together for the big move south and plying my trade (journalism, not prostitution) down in Englandshire.

Last week I was on a week’s placement at a popular regional evening paper (shan’t disclose which one). Being in a newsroom again was a great feeling. There’s a tension in newspaper offices not found anywhere else in the world – the feverish, desperate tapping of keys, the seething resentment & general desire for a better job coupled paradoxically with the knowledge that you are totally unqualified & unwilling to do anything else, and that you will almost certainly die aged 53 totally alone and unappreciated of a sudden brain embolism brought on by stress, long hours and a high salt diet. The office is filled with people who would be thin if they had time to exercise and would be fat if they had time to eat. Everyone smokes. Actually, it’s nothing like that at all, but the image of drunken cynical hacks in their dingy offices is the one that journalists like to sell in order to romanticize themselves, make the process of creating news stories seem somehow torturous and Byronic. Your average modern-day newspaper office is generally very clean and full of bright, upwardly mobile young professionals, at least some of whom have principles.

All things considered I had a successful week. I got a few things in the paper, which is always nice, did a couple of interviews, shook hands with a government minister and ambushed a paedophile.

A few things didn’t sit right with me though. For instance, I hate writing up deaths. I called an old woman whose husband had just died and started asking her questions about him. Predictably she started to weep and wail, and I felt like shit. Then I had to ask her to send pictures in to the paper as well (which she did, bless her). So I wrote an article about the man’s life and tried to make it tasteful and inoffensive. I think I did OK, although I haven't seen what the subeditors have done to it yet. If this depresses me so much, how am I going to deal with talking to the families of children killed in car accidents, people incinerated in gas fires, victims of sex attacks and terrorism? Amy “The Huntress” Hunt told me she had to do a death article every week for a year and a half.

Also, we ran a story about a man who was convicted of filming women in changing rooms, and his wife rang up and begged us not to run the story. Of course, we still ran it. We’re legally entitled to. If he’s convicted then he’s fair game. And now thanks to us the sordid details are out in the public eye for all to read. What about his wife and kids? That’s a family ruined. I sometimes worry about the lack of conscience in the newspaper industry. On the other hand though, the guy is a pervert and possibly a threat to others. What can you do? Answer: shut up and do your God damn job.

I even felt a little bad about the paedophile, because he was 75 years old and so frail he couldn’t even run away when we photographed him coming out of court. He also had sad, watery eyes. He was knocked out by the 16 year old he tried to molest and couldn’t even get up to run away.

So my worry right now is: am I hard-hearted enough to do this job? I’ve always prided myself of being something of a bastard so these feelings are unusual to me. I suppose I’ll have to do some extra cruelty exercises to make up for it: I’d better go kick some puppies or something.

Die Hard 4 is so good.

2007-08-01T12:27:00.000+01:00

Some reasons to watch Die Hard 4:
1. In Die Hard 4 there is a face-off between a fighter jet and a truck.
2. In Die Hard 4 a French guy gets chewed up in a fan.
3. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard is racist about Asians.
4. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard sustains multiple injuries but laughs them off like people did in the 80s.
5. In Die Hard 4 there is no slow-motion and very little kung fu.
6. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard beats on a woman.
7. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard is revealed to be a fan of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
8. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard drives an SUV down a lift shaft for shits and giggles.
9. In Die Hard 4, Die Hard shoots a computer nerd on general principle.
10. At the end of Die Hard 4, Die Hard gets to be president.

Why Dr Who is great...

2007-06-19T13:24:00.000+01:00

... because I find it reassuring that no matter where you go in time or space, everybody you meet will be British. It's a bit like going caravanning really.

The Celebrity Look-alikes Widget

2007-06-14T15:24:00.000+01:00

I use the internet a lot, primarily for cheap thrills and to distract me from the knowledge that every moment is a step closer to Final Death. I tend to go in for those personality tests that ask you a bunch of esoteric questions and then tell you which character from "Lost" you are (Apparently I'm badass Sawyer, so screw you all). But these tests are easy to manipulate and if you know your subject matter well enough you can usually sway the results, for instance, if you want to declare yourself the ideological successor to Wolverine or the Punisher, and lets face it who wouldn't? But one thing does not lie... the face! Which is why in some kind of contrived effort to "know myself" I fed my face into the Celebrity Look-alike Widget.

I used a handsome picture of myself. My hair, dark and lustrous, stands proudly erect above my noble brow, and my eyes are glimmering with mirth. I wear my most devilishly charming smile. The picture was taken from that particular angle from which my double-chin is at its least obtrusive. It should have been perfect.

While I haven't always been pleased with my face, I feel I've really been growing into it lately and have to come to consider myself something of a handsome boy. If I had to guess which celebrities the Widget would pull out of thin air I would probably expect maybe Bill Shatner or Bruce Campbell, some lantern-jawed heroic type.

Which is why I was shocked to discover that the widget gave me as 4 of my 8 closest matches older females - bisexual author Susan Sontag, first African American Nobel literature prize winner Toni Morrison, anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel literature prize winner Nadine Gordimer, and matronly actress Kathy Bates. My main male match is Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, who is the only one of the group I consider to look even a bit like me in that he is male, sports a pair of spectacles and has dark hair. There the resemblance ends. In addition to that, I have been somewhat insultingly matched to fat Jack Osbourne. Also weak and innefectual Aki Hakala from the band the Rasmus. Finally, there is Mark David Chapman, celebrity assassin and J.D. Salinger advocate. Many new-age hippy types believe that you can tell a person's personality from their face. So is this me? Four old women, three motherly and one terrifying half-gay spinster? Two of them are Jewish and two hold Nobel Literature prizes. Is this indicative of anything? Does this mean it is my destiny to convert to Judaism and win a Nobel Literature prize? What of the Bollywood actor, and the drummer from a lousy European rock band? And the lone, gun-weilding nutter? It's too terrifying to even think about. I hope the hippies are wrong.

To make sure I wasn't being ganked I decided to upload Kaki's photo. I had assumed the thing was on the fritz, but depressingly Kaki's matches yeilded with one exception a bunch of hot chicks. The first one is Beyonce, which of course is very complimentary, then former Neighbour Natalie Umbruglia, Dominican bombshell Maria Montez, Japanese idoru Kyoko Fukada, R & B legend Lauryn Hill, Brazilian supermodel Isabeli Fontana, hot Vulcan chick Jolene Blalock, and androgynous Canadian songstress K.D. Lang. So she's about 60% pop star, and 40% attractive actress.

Compare this to my 50% old woman, 12.5% murderer, 12.5% fat asshole, 12.5% rubbish drummer, 12.5% obscure Bollywood star. Actually that does actually sound like me, more or less. I do fuss like an old woman sometimes, and I am prone to assassinating recording artists. I am a fat asshole (and fiercly proud of it), and I can't hit a drum for shit. Not sure about the Bollywood star thing, but you can't be right all the time, even if you're a computer. Anyway you can see this daftness for yourself at

http://www.bebo.com/Weirzbowski
(or http://Weirzbowski.bebo.com)

There is no real point to this post.

CENTRAL COMPUTER STRIKES AGAIN

2007-06-09T02:53:00.000+01:00

Central Computer has launched another onslaught on my home PC. He has given it his best viruses. It is being fixed. There will be no posts until then. Good luck and Godspeed.

My name is your dad.

2007-05-15T10:39:00.000+01:00

For all you Blackwoodphiles out there (I’m sure I still have fans, right?). I’ve put a rather extensive update to my bebo account. Last Thursday I uploaded about 170 pictures of my trip around South East Asia last Christmas. It was a mammoth task, uploading five pictures at a time, but I completed it in one night. I hope you all take a look at them and enjoy them. Just remember, the time that you spend looking at my photos now is time you won’t spend watching slideshows when I get back to KDY and Aberdoom. And please, please comment.

In other news, Crabu-Sama has started a blog. And it’s in English! After two years of avoiding this crustacean menace on the streets of Gifu, you can now keep yourself up to date on his movements via the interweb. Maybe it will be useful to you, maybe not. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Crabu-Sama’s work, he’s essentially a giant crab that has been killing and maiming more or less at random for about 90 years. This blog, written by the beast himself provides some insight into his comings, goings, and butcherings. It can be found at
http://www.myspace.com/crabu_sama
Please everybody add him as a friend.

Also, this Saturday Kaki and I are off to Okinawa to reward ourselves for surviving another dour winter in cold buildings made of slabs. We are visiting Miyako-jima, an island which has a reputation for harbouring the worst drunks Japan has to offer. I hope to see if this is true. I expect to be eating a lot of swine and turning impossibly red, swimming in the ocean and attempting to instruct Kaki further in the art of not sinking like a stone to the bottom of any body of water you happen to find yourself in. Just kidding, she’s getting much better. Every time we go swimming now, I’m at least 60% sure that she isn’t going to take on water. I am, after all, in the Business of Education, at least for now.

I have hit a small snag though, my fabled Union Jack swimmies shrunk a bit in the wash, and I now have trouble pulling them up past my ample buttocks. So, at the weekend I decided to go and buy another pair. Unfortunately, it turns out that nowhere stocks them right now, because it isn’t swimming season yet. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I would say that right now it’s not yet quite warm enough for a dip in the sea, but surely, with the abundance of indoor heated swimming pools, swimming is an all-year round activity? Am I right? Do you mean to tell me that swimming shorts can only be bought from June to August every year? What if I go off the diving board wrong at the municipal pool in January, and end up dangling from my grotesquely stretched swimmies? I’d be fucked, that’s what I’d be. I mean, what if I sit down to fast and bust a hole in them? Do you mean to say I can’t replace them until it’s the official swimming season? Is this the whole of Japan or is it just the malls near me that are fucked up?

This sort of links in to something that really gets on my nerves about Japan. However, other people have told me how much they love the same phenomenon so there you go. But anyway, my particular problem is the fact that everything has its own particular season. Japan is a country that is extremely proud of its four distinct seasons (some people to the extent that they don’t believe spring and autumn exist in other countries) and has some very important traditions that rely on seasons. Cherry blossom viewing or Hanami parties, for instance can only take place for one week in springtime when the cherry blossoms are blooming. This of course is a beautiful tradition. But there are other things that I don’t think need to be seasonal, take fruit for instance. Japan doesn’t import much fruit, and relies largely on domestic stock which costs a bomb, and is largely seasonal. This means that you will eat persimmons in autumn and oranges in winter, because that’s when they are plentiful. What if I want to do this in summer? You can’t, or at any rate you can’t without paying through the nose. There are even seasonal menus in restaurants. For instance, what would happen if I wanted a summer vegetable curry from Coco Ichibanya in February? OK, not that I ever would while there is still a manly beef katsu curry on offer, but what if? Answer: I couldn’t do it. I would ask, and the waiter would smile benevolently and think “Silly foreigner! February isn’t for summer vegetables!” Well get this asshole, buy the vegetables from somewhere it is summer or just freeze the motherfuckers in July. We have the technology. In Japan, beer gardens close on pretty much the first of September. It doesn’t matter if it’s roasting and people are still thirsty, it’s just what is done. It’s what they call “atarimae”. I’ve heard it translated as “common sense” but it really means doing things in the manner that they have always been done and sticking to routine at all costs.

I know, I know I’m moaning. And I love Japan really. I should let it be known that I’m letting the whines out here so I am able to remain positive and not cripple my students, teachers and innocent passersby who invoke my ire. Thank you for your patience.

UPDATE

2007-05-07T12:21:00.000+01:00

(Pictured: the Genbaku dome; the floating torii at Miyajima at sunset; General Kuroki)
Good day to you, friends. It has been a while since I have updated you on my progress. Last week was Golden Week, the special week that people are allowed to go on holiday if they take vacation time. We have two long weekends, separated by two days of work, and if you can get those two days off, you can have a whole week to go wherever you want. This is really the best Japan has to offer, holiday-wise, the country where teachers have to stay in school all summer despite a distinct lack of work and people are too ashamed of looking like they aren’t gambarre-ing to ask for a day off. And even if they did they wouldn’t know what to use it for. None of my students, or even teachers did anything with their time. They think that traveling anywhere further away than Nagoya is hugely risky and expensive. So effectively we live in a state without vacations. What do I care? I’m leaving in two months. Then I can get a job where I’m not just pretending to work half the time, or go back to uni and do a qualification in a subject I’m interested in. But I digress:

I, David L. Blackwood, unlike the majority of my compatriots, do know how to have a good holiday. I estimate that I have seen more of the country than many Japanese have. And now I have added two new prefectures to my list of conquests: Hiroshima and Ishikawa. Now I will tell you about my delightful holiday.

I took a trip to Hiroshima, famous for having been the site of the first ever nuclear strike on a civilian population, and of course seafood. On the first day I took a trip out to the island of Miyajima, with its famous floating torii gate. The weather was clement and I took a long walk around the island which was very peaceful and had many secluded nooks and crannies away from the tourists where a body could enjoy solitude and listen to the many noises of nature. It was enough to make me feel a renewal of enjoyment of Japan. It was low tide when I arrived, so I walked out and examined the trunks of the gate. Its sides were pitted with barnacles and it loomed a bit. Later at high tide I observed that it was still looming except that I felt better now that there was a body of water between me and it. How I hate being loomed at. I took some photographs of the gate and enjoyed a light snack and a beer before getting back on the ferry. On my return to Hiroshima I went to find my capsule hotel. For those of you unaware of what a capsule hotel is, it’s a hotel where they put you in a sci-fi looking capsule which is stacked on top of other capsules. They are generally very small and cheap and no good at all for those with claustrophobia. In any case, it’s nearly possible to have a comfortable night in them. I went out for dinner with a book to read and somehow ended up getting entirely pissed on my own. This left me slightly ill-equipped to perform the important duties I had to perform the next day, notably my visit to the A-Bomb Dome and the Peace Memorial Museum. The dome itself is strange, like looking through some kind of lens at the past, untouched as it has been since 1945. The cracked concrete and the skeletal bubble of the roof give it a haunted look, and in the tidy, orderly city of Hiroshima it seems as out of place as if Dracula’s castle were somehow transported to the centre of Manhattan. After that I went to the Cenotaph, the Children’s Memorial and the Museum. The Memorials are a bit underwhelming – tiny, modern, hard to connect with the mass slaughter that went on 60 years ago - except the one that is underneath the ground with a 360 degree view of the devastation and fountain in the shape of a clock permanently frozen at 8:15 in memory of those who died begging for water. They also had a database of the victims there where people could look for their deceased relatives, which I played with for a while, discovering that not only Japanese, but Koreans, Chinese and American POWs where amongst the casualties. In the Peace Memorial Museum I was able to observe artifacts from that time, such as stopped watches, burned clothes and melted glass. I saw the stone steps which have a person’s shadow burned onto them, as well as some macabre pictures of horribly burned people. Very sobering. Slept long that night but kept worrying that when I awoke I would have somehow gone back in time to 1945 and be forced to find my way out of the conflagration to come. I think I would have run through the streets trying to explain in my bad Japanese to people and yelling あぶないよ! The next day I decided to take a trip to a different time period altogether and went to Hiroshima castle (not the original, obviously) where I learned about samurai, Japanese history and looked at ornate weapons and armour. I even was allowed to wear a suit of armour and ran around like a child with behavioural issues scaring old women.

Following that me and a few like minded individuals took a trip up the coast of Ishikawa-ken where we camped and barbequed and hung out. It was quite a fine drive, up through the remote fishing villages and past the recently earthquake-damaged Wajima. Highlights were Kaki and Shiloh being attacked by a hawk, and later being terrified of any bird-type noise that came from the treeline, the pleasant scenery on the drive along the coast, and generally socialising around the barbeque. Anyway, if anything else interesting happens I’ll be sure to update. I am aware this post is not funny. This is because it is a Monday and I am at work on the first day after my holiday and I do not feel funny. I am a broken man.

Ghost Guyz International

2007-04-20T08:06:00.000+01:00

Another sure-as-shit hit from the degenerates who brought you Scotch Bonnet, Columboat, Bedshitter, and Escape From Bitchmeat Island. Watch and be amazed.

http://blip.tv/file/203446

The Chicken Thing

2007-04-04T07:38:00.001+01:00

... happened again. Glory be!

Living in the Age of the Remake and Genre Saturation: Solutions for Modern Cinema by David L. Blackwood

2007-03-29T08:08:00.000+01:00

(pictured: Assault on Precinct 13 = bullshit)

The state of the movie industry has never been so weak. As you are probably aware, we are living in the age of the remake. Creativity and inventiveness are stagnating in favour of a tendency to churn out remakes by the dozen. The Italian Job, Get Carter, Assault on Precinct 13, The Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Wicker Man, to name a few fairly recent ones that shouldn’t ever have been made. Why can’t people think of good new concepts anymore? I think of like a dozen a day. Why can’t I work in Hollywood? They seem bent on cutting corners at any cost. If something looks like it’ll make money they will jump on a bandwagon, regardless of if there are 15 other films like it being released that week. For every Lord of the Rings, there’s an Eragon or a Chronicles of Narnia, and for every X-men there’s a Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider. Despite the fact these are “new” films, I place them alongside remakes in their sheer lack of inventiveness. Every title I have mentioned of course, comes from a book or a comic, which does sort of negate any creativity on the part of the director, because obviously you don’t want to mess with it or the fans will go banjax. And nobody wants that. The movie industry exploits geeks with quick fixes – hastily put together assembly line movies based on “what the fans want” ie the whims of a totally insane public. I honestly believe that every time some foolish housebound nerd says online “WOULDN’T AN ANTMAN MOVIE BE TOTALLY AWESOME LOOOOOL” there’s some Satanist producer there with a clipboard and pen going “hmmm, Antman, you say?” To top it off, they seem to reviving franchises that have been dead for years in order to squeeze some money out of people’s nostalgia – at 65 Harrison Ford should not be playing Indy. They should let it go. Likewise at 61, Stallone should give up on the Rocky franchise. Their lack of inventiveness knows no bounds. It reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip in which Calvin, designing a snowman purposely builds it to be as pedestrian-looking as possible, remarking that “people don’t want anything new, they just want more of what they already know they like”.

Why should I pay my hard-earned cash-money to go and see some shitty Hollywood remake of a Japanese horror film, in which the horror is invariably provided by a “scary” unkempt ghost child. Or indeed watch a carelessly constructed movie-version of some third-tier Marvel comics character hopelessly miscast and devoid of any of the depth that made you love the comic in the first place?

The last movie I saw in the theatre was Ghost Rider, which to be fair I didn’t have very high expectations of. And I wasn’t disappointed. Nick Cage plays Nick Cage who accidentally sells his soul to Mephistopheles, played by Peter Fonda - who is without a doubt the most overtly obvious devil since Robert De Niro played Louis Cyphre in Angel Heart - and is forced to become Old Nick’s bounty hunter and face off against four demons led by a bullshit version of Blackheart who in no way resembles the one seen in the comics. The whole thing is put together in a rather shoddy fashion, with only minimal attentions paid to plot. The four elemental demons Ghost Rider faces go out like pussies (The air demon he blows away with a fan made of chains, the earth demon he also kills with a chain, and the water demon he kills I think by boiling him with the hot fire on his head. I’m not sure) and the whole thing is resolved so quickly you wouldn’t believe. Ghost Rider’s motives are also unexplained, he seems to just power around town on his flaming motorcycle committing random acts of cruelty. Despite the fact that this was a terrible movie, I can’t honestly say though that I wasn’t entertained – most of the enjoyment and indeed humour came from my disbelief that I was watching something so retarded. Also starring Eva Mendes’s bosoms. I am really, really glad that I was never a regular reader of Ghost Rider though, otherwise I’d surely be feeling pretty jipped right now. The next title this director is supposed to be massacring is Preacher. God save us.

That’s another thing. The two most awaited comic book movies in history, Watchmen and Preacher, are being handled by people who I don’t really believe are up to the job. The dude who did the Dawn of the Dead remake and 300 is doing Watchmen – while DOTD version 2.0 was reasonable I haven’t seen 300 yet so couldn’t possibly judge. Please, please, please, don’t destroy this for me, I’ve been waiting for this movie since the 80s. Likewise Preacher, is being handled by the schmoe responsible for both Ghost Rider and Daredevil. Not a lot of faith there then. I heard actually that Preacher was going to be a TV series on ABC, which strikes me as a much better way to do it than as a movie, because it has a very definite plot progression, over the course of 9 volumes. There are no standalone episodes that could easily be made into an hour and a half movie. There could be a trilogy, but it would all depend on the strength of the first movie, which could end up being a massive dud anyway. If they make one movie, they’ll have to cut tons of stuff out and end up destroying the plot, ruining the characters, and crushing the dreams of fanboys everywhere. One day I swear we’ll take no more.

While the genre movie seems to be alive and unwell, one has to wonder whatever happened to other genres. Like when was the last time you saw a good cop movie? The formula is simple – take two mismatched cops, usually from different ethnic, educational, and class backgrounds, with differing personality types, put them in a car together and watch the race humour, vague homosexual overtones, bad driving, gunplay, maltreatment of women and poorly-conceived plot take over. For instance I watched 48 Hours last night. How good is that movie? Nick Nolte as a racist, sexist, drunkard cop forced to escort racist, sexist, mouthy convict Eddie Murphy around town in search of a cop-killer and bag of stolen ducats. The terrible things that Nolte is able to say in that movie and still somehow retain our sympathy is mind-blowing. He kicks off the day by taking a swig of rotgut, emotionally torturing his girlfriend for a while before busting in on someone else’s case and causing the deaths of two detectives. Nolte doesn’t care - he has lost his gun and wants it back. He enlists the help of Murphy, who he racially abuses at every turn and the two engage in a madcap two-day rampage of morally sketchy law enforcement, which culminates - of course - in the shooting rather than arrest of the suspects. Nobody cares about this. This is how cops operate in movies. They shoot roughly twice as many people as they arrest, if they even bother to arrest anyone at all. I can't recall. Indeed, Nolte and Murphy cause so much trouble that on two occasions beat cops try to stop them but are sent packing because Nolte outranks them. He can literally do anything he pleases. On one occasion Nolte drunkenly attacks Murphy and the two ruthlessly batter each other for a while until the cops intervene. Is this good police work? Murphy uses almost any opportunity he can to cruise for pros and at one point attempts to seduce two lesbians whose house they have broken into. How are they even allowed on the streets? They should both be locked up. My favourite scene is where Murphy hassles a gang of shitkickers at a barn dance proclaiming that he doesn’t like white people and he hates rednecks. Then he beats them up and vandalises the joint. They can’t do anything about it, because he is with the cops. How is this legal? I can’t believe it. Why is there even a barn dance happening in the middle of San Francisco? In the end of course, Murphy and Nolte settle their differences and become allies, like in every cop movie. Nolte agrees to stop being racist and, as a peace offering, buys Murphy a prostitute. Pure popcorn, but you have to love the cop genre. They just don’t do movies like that anymore. Movies like Lethal Weapon, Red Heat, Tango and Cash, or even Turner and Hooch and Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. The only recent one I can think of is Starsky & Hutch, and that’s a remake of a 70’s TV show. Of course there is always Hot Fuzz...

The action movie in general is dying a death. It was killed by the Matrix, bullet time and wire work. Now every single action movie that is released has the protagonist pirouetting around on strings in slow motion to a nu-metal soundtrack while dodging slow bullets. It’s like when that movie - glorious though it was – came out everybody dropped several IQ points. Also its influence has permeated and ruined other genres. For instance, the vampire movie.

Vampire movies have stank for a long time, I think maybe the last good one was John Carpenter’s Vampires, preceded by Interview With The Vampire and before that Near Dark and Lost Boys. When did vampire and gay man in big black coat become synonymous? Seriously? If you want to look at bad vampire movies, take a look at Queen of the Damned, perhaps the worst movie ever. A bunch of fruity looking, twatty vampires, one of whom has obvious man-boobs (fair enough, the vampires in the book were slightly gay, but in the book that was acceptable because they didn’t fly around kung-fu fighting one another at lightspeed) a terrible cast, a rotten nu-metal soundtrack, and the single poorest script ever shat into creation. And for another example, let’s take Underworld – that has the distinction of being both a bad vampire movie and a bad werewolf movie. Lots of big black coats in that, yes sir. To top it off, I’m not exactly what the difference between the vampires and the werewolves are in that movie is. The vampires are gaybo-looking European male-model types, while the werewolves are gaybo-looking European male-model types too. The only thing I can think of is that the latter group generally sport beards.

Well what improvements could be made? Apart from a decent buddy-cop movie, something else I’d like to see a lot more of is “versus” movies, like Freddy Versus Jason and Alien Versus Predator. While FvJ offered exactly what was expected – sexually promiscuous teenagers being slaughtered, dream-murder, machete-hackings and a final battle in which the horrors fillet one another with their blades – AvP was, I felt, a huge disappointment. The studio could have made Aliens 5, which was going to be directed by James Cameron and written by Ridley Scott (or maybe they other way around) but instead chose to make AvP, directed by some pot-smoking teenager who has only directed the abominable Resident Evil and thought it would be “rad” to have a face-hugger jumping in slow motion while Slipknot played and the camera panned round dramatically. Good choice, 20th Century Fox. A pairing I’d quite like to see would be Robocop Versus Terminator, like in the classic videogame, or even in a stirring break from tradition, Robocop & Terminator, where the pair are forced to collaborate to fight crime in Delta City. That would be something to observe. Probably it would follow the same rough plot as 48 Hours, Robocop would bust Terminator out of jail because he needs him to fight - I don’t know - the Cylons, or something.

It’s a sorry state of affairs really. At the end of the day we just have to remember that it is an industry, and these are the kind of things that make money nowadays. Your average cinemagoer hardly ever knows he is watching a remake, just like he has never read the comic on which the movie he is watching is based. This allows the directors to do a half-assed job because while the fans do dictate what gets made, it’s the popcorn munching masses that bring the box office count up, and they must be appeased. Well-meaning folks who really do want to make a good movie that true fans will enjoy find themselves pandering to a disinterested and generally desensitised audience with a high tolerance for shit. So this is all the fault of you, the viewer. Good night.

Bear - 1, Germany - 0

2007-03-28T08:25:00.000+01:00

(Pictured left - living bear; right - dead bear)

It doesn’t need to be said that Germany and the bear have a chequered history. Only last year, Bruno – bear and father of six - was gunned down in a revenge attack by a group of Bavarian huntsmen for crimes against humanity. But as we well know one man’s war criminal is another bear’s freedom fighter. Germany has been widely criticised for it’s stance on bears, having killed 100% of wild bears found on German soil since 1835.

Nevertheless, a great victory was won for bears this week when Berlin Zoo vowed not to execute Knut, an abandoned polar bear cub, despite calls from animal rights activists that he be killed for his own good. It was feared that Knut would become too reliant on his trainer, and eventually, in a fit of barely contained animal madness, devour every creature in the zoo including staff and patrons. But the public rallied around the adorable bearling and the zoo vowed to keep him until he is old enough to cope with being moved, and then ship him off to another zoo, obviously keen to avoid a potential massacre. Knut, for his own part seemed oblivious to this and merely looked on with murder in his eyes.

Why were ze Germans so willing to spare Knut when they so easily eliminated Bruno? The answer seems to lie in the power of cute. Knut is a very photogenic animal. Small, skinny, with milky white fur, he looks more like a lamb than a bear, while by contrast Bruno was a huge, stinking, filthy brute who would sooner slay you than look at you. In addition to this, the fact that Knut is a white bear surely appeals to the German’s barely-concealed Aryan pride.

What’s my policy on bears? Positive obviously. Anything that can eat a bus full of schoolchildren whole and makes a dump the size of a cat is good in my mind. Germany, by sparing Knut has a ticking time-bomb on its hands. When Knut is old enough, he will escape in a maelstrom of death, and take his deadly revenge on the German people for the martyrdom of his forebear (ho ho ho). The streets will run red with Teutonic blood and once again will the bear’s supremacy be asserted. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

God Revealed Himself to Me through the Medium of Chicken

2007-03-14T09:09:00.000Z

No, it’s not a new KFC slogan, it’s an anecdote about something that happened to me about ten minutes before the time of writing.

First I shall explain some background. I am a secular boy. I was raised with little or no particular religion but, was fairly well guided in terms of moral and social education. I know the difference between right and wrong, which was taught to me through true life examples and the odd beating rather than through the medium of bible teaching. I graduated through various stages of scoffing at Christians, complaining that the reformation ruined Scottish literature for almost 200 years, and sitting in the back of Mr “Ned Flanders” Jameson’s Religious Education class and going “Satan Satan Satan!”. On the few occasions I was actually in church, I found the thing to be horribly false, and the act of prayer terribly redundant. The religion of the bible, which I considered to have been corrupted over centuries of rewrites and edits seemed to me to be of hopelessly flawed logic. How can a tract that teaches peace and unity be used to justify so much hatred and killing throughout history? How can there be a loving God when so much pain exists in the world? If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he just turn Satan into a pillar of salt? The answer to all of these questions, from a Christian point of view, is undoubtedly that it’s all our own fault, and God likes to smugly watch us destroy ourselves, and that he wouldn’t need to smoke Satan if mankind could just stop yielding to temptation for five seconds. I hate this image of God testing us, making us jump through hoops for salvation. It makes no sense to me and it never will. The idea of a heaven for the winners and hell for the losers of God’s little game is fundamentally unfair. And, since the Christian God is the only true God all the followers of Allah, Buddha, L Ron Hubbard and Shiva will go to hell regardless of whether or not they live the lives of saints. Of course though, all the other religions say the same thing. Place your bets now.
Suffice to say, from an early age I decided, if there is a God, the church is not his microphone.

Nevertheless over the course of my life I have gained some sort of internal spirituality. I don’t mean a belief in God. I don’t like talking about God. I prefer to talk about the Universe, which is a much less stigmatized synonym. I believe that there’s a deeper and more profound meaning behind things, and very often feel a spiritual connection to the world around me. Staring up at the stars, for instance, has always filled me with these conflicting feelings of simultaneous significance and insignificance. On one hand I feel incomparably small, and on the other profoundly connected. I think of scales – the distance from star to star, the distance between me and those stars, the speed of the light traveling from these distant specks meaning that most of them will already have grown full and powerful then exploded in celestial combustion, or declined slowly and burned out over the course of billions of years. Looking up at the sky, you can see the Universe in its sum totality, and know that you are a part of it. The very matter that makes up your body is the very same matter that makes up those stars. The same matter is in animals, plants, the planet Earth itself. There’s a litttle bit of open brackets god close brackets in every one of us, and everything around us. It’s this type of god I believe in, the Emersonian transcendental god in nature. I’m the great transparent eye-ball that sees all and perceives all, part and particle. Observing things and the relationships between them is the path to understanding.

This isn’t really something I talk about much. I don’t feel particularly strongly about ramming my point down people’s throat. I’m willing to accommodate other people’s beliefs, after all among my friends I can count dedicated Christians, die-before-compromise Atheists, a bunch of homosexuals and substance abusers, and a couple of Wiccans. Whatever, I don’t care, so long as you’re good people and don’t try and indoctrinate me into your way of thinking. I’m fairly laid back about it.

Which is strange, because last night I somehow ended up arguing with my girlfriend about it - even though neither of us is religious. How did this come about? Well, I’ll tell you. A Japanese friend of mine, a pastors wife (Yes, they have the Christ here too now) were chatting, and I mentioned I thought I was coming down with the flu, and she said “Oh, I’ll pray for you”. Later on I mentioned this to my girlfriend and said it made me feel a little uncomfortable. She said “So does it make you uncomfortable when I pray for you?” I didn’t even know she prayed, but I had to confess to myself, yes it does. But why? For one, I don’t think anybody has ever prayed for me before in my life, not even good old secular Mama and Papa Blackwood. Secondly, that’s just not how I relate my own experience to the world. I believe we make our own destiny, not accept handouts from the big guy. In short, why pray for a Cadillac when you could be trading stocks in order to buy one? True, sometimes there’s nothing you can do to influence events, but even in those cases I don’t think it would cross my mind to pray. You see, I don’t believe in god as a conscious organism, and I certainly don’t believe he speaks back to us. Of course the theory goes that he does all the time we just don’t hear him, but if that’s the case I think a man of his position could afford to yell a little louder.

Today though, something strange happened to me. I had direct contact with Our Lord. It was nearly bento time and I was hungry. People, my bento is not a bountiful harvest. Usually it contains a few varieties of sukemono and some piss-tasting seaweeds, and a croquette, with all the dry white rice I can eat on the side. Sometimes though, it is even worse and I am served things which no man should be forced to eat. Today as I gathered my bento close to me I looked down and thought. “Please don’t be pregnant fish again.” Then as an afterthought, I thought “I hope it is fried chicken”. Bearing in mind we have had fried chicken for bento on one other occasion since I began eating it every day 18 months ago. The chances of fried chicken were infinitesimal.

And yet, I opened up the bento lid and there it lay. A large slice of fried chicken in breadcrumbs, with two potato wedges sitting beside it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. And then it occurred to me… Holy Shit! I prayed a little! I prayed for chicken and it came true!” God was telling me I was wrong! Praise Jesus!

When I came down after my gratefully consuming my miracle-chicken, I considered things a little more objectively. What if it was really God telling me He exists? Then why would he do it through chicken? Must be these mysterious ways I’ve heard so much about. Perhaps God merely decided that in order to show me up he would answer the next prayer I made regardless of what it was. In that case, I’m upset because I should have prayed for something like INFINITE POWER or a million Great British Pounds. Or conversely, maybe God can only answer prayers regarding chicken. Why? I don’t know. The Ways of the Halls of Heaven are not for you to comprehend, mortal! Even more terrifying, the impossible miracle of the chicken had proven God’s existence, and since proof denies faith and without faith He is nothing, what if I had inadvertently killed God by believing in Him? Nietzsche was unavailable for comment due to a slight case of death.

So, after praying for more chicken and not being rewarded, and faced with either the prospect of having accidentally bumped off the Holy Father or a strange God who speaks to his children through processed poultry, I decided to resume my previous beliefs. I think the thing with the chicken was a coincidence. To my Christian friends, sorry guys, I still need proof. To my Atheist friends, don’t worry, I’m still down.

But, in my ten minutes as a dedicated Christian, I think I learned something. Maybe we don’t all share the same beliefs, or live or lives in the same way, but the best thing we can do is accommodate the beliefs of others and respect them. I believe now more than ever that we are all part of the same cosmic mechanism, all connected, part of the same matter. And you bet your sweet ass that if there is a God he would surely enjoy a megabucket from KFC.

Eureka! Moment of the Week

2007-03-12T07:26:00.000Z

Don't you hate it when you have to defrost chickenmeat in the microwave, and it cooks they outside a bit while leaving the inside frozen and hard? Instead, why not simply try placing the chicken in a bowl beside a kerosene heater for 10-15 minutes. I guarantee you'll find it completely thawed and not even the least bit cooked.

Click Comments to thank me for this pearl of wisdom.

EDIT: Actually, I screwed up. I stuck some beef down there about fifteen minutes ago, and when I came back I found it had become jerky. I can't curry jerky, it would be inhumane.

Drinks that should probably be on the prohibited substances list

2007-03-09T06:41:00.000Z

(Pictured: This colour appears nowhere in nature. But is approved by some guy named Dave, and he says it is bitchin')

I watched this Chappelle routine the other week the premise of which was that white kids drink “juice” and black kids drink “drink”. The “juice” refers to the fresh juices that come out of fruit when you squeeze it or pierce it with a knife, whereas the “drink” refers to the chemical compounds released when a drunken scientist adds sugar, preservatives and colouring to a bucket of water. Chappelle’s favourite flavour of drink was “purple”. Anyway, he uses this technique to judge a person’s wealth, whether they got juice or drink. For the UK, it was quite different – we didn’t have “drink”, we had either juice or squash. Squash, for those of you of the American/Canadian persuasion, is sort of concentrated orange fluid to which you add water in order to create liquid nourishment. Once when I was a kid I drank the concentrate with no water in and felt a dark dreamless sleep come over me. It was like the blood of Kali. Fortunately, my cereal had so much adrenaline in it that I got a burst of energy, ran around the garden and thereby negated the effects of the sick-maker. Squash is sold in very big, very cheap bottles, and therefore was popular. I was usually a squash boy, because my mother was always trying to save money, although we got one cup of juice every morning with our vitamins to keep us strong and healthy. It was Asda own-brand juice though, which costs about a sixpence.

There are a lot of drinks which are frankly unnatural though. At least Squash uses as its basis a fruit. Take Coca Cola, for instance. Does anybody actually know what goes into Coca Cola? No. Of course you don’t. Because it’s a secret formula. For all we know the Coca Cola production room could just be a kid filling bottles with ditch-water and grass (like those bottles of “drink” you used to make in your garden as a kid. Why did they always have grass?).

Scotland’s own Irn-Bru, as well. What the hell is that made from? “Made in Scotland from girders” the television commercial boldly proclaims. Although this is probably untrue, why would anybody think that this would be a good advert? Did they think that it would make people want to drink it? “Wow, there’s a drink made of girders, I HAVE to try it” You’d probably just get tetanus or something. You’d have to go to the doctors because you’d be shitting iron filings. Did they think people would do it to look tough? Like smoking? “Fuck you man, because I can drink a girder. That’s how fucking hard I am. Oh, did you want something? That’s right girly-man, cower and weep!” On top of that, the drink is utterly narcotic. Take one sip and I dare anyone to stop right there. When I moved to Japan I suffered withdrawal symptoms for at least three months. The ingredients to Irn-Bru are probably water, orange colouring No. 5 and opium.

Also, has anybody ever tried that blue Bubblegum Soda that they sell? There’s a drink that should be on some kind of banned substances list. I have never before that drank a soft drink that was so full of chemicals that I actually experienced paranoia. I became convinced people living in my building were trying to kill me. Then, I became convinced that the drink was giving me cancer.

I suppose I could drink water. But then the amount of chemicals that find their way into tap water these days are outrageous. In Japan, the developed country with probably the least regulations regarding chemical dumping, toxic waste burial and emissions, the chances of you ingesting some kind of industrial waste is very high. I can’t win really can I? Unless I drink bottled water. Or just alcohol, at least that’s sterile. Maybe that’s the only hope. Yeah.

Skiing is Awful

2007-03-05T07:32:00.000Z

Well, here’s another sport I have no affinity for. Took a skiing lesson on Saturday up in Hida. Met with an accident. First of all, me and my instructor, a taciturn gentleman of around fifty took to the “snow bunny slopes” for me to receive the basics of skiing. Seeing that I was the only person on that slope over the age of ten, and having been separated from my peers I considered that my learning the basics may have been slightly overdue. So I practiced turning left and right for two hours while my instructor yelled “Bend! Bend!” at me in English. All in all we spent more time doing the crab walk up the hill than actually skiing. Eventually I harangued him into allowing me onto the grown up slope with the others. The second I got up there I knew it was a bad idea, but by the time I realized this I had no choice but to go, as I couldn’t work out how to get back onto the ski lift again. The top part was obscenely steep, and no sooner than I had put my skis over the edge, I fell over and started rolling down the hill. I eventually stopped, and got up. I started again, and with some assistance made it half way down the hill. Then, trying to make it down to the bottom, I shot off the run entirely, went through a barrier and before I knew it I was skiing on mud, caused by the melting of the snow. I toppled and fell into the mucky bog. Shocked and frantic, I felt the mud seeping through my trousers as I struggled to free myself. But I was powerless. I couldn’t stand up in the slime, but I also couldn’t get my skis off. I had no option but to lie there, squelching in the muck while I waited for help to arrive. People going past on the ski lift pointed and jibed at me. Even my taciturn instructor laughed a low, dead, laugh. I was humiliated. When the instructor eventually unfastened my skis for me, I crawled out of the bog and onto the snow, groaning with displeasure. My soiled form stained the white snow a dark brown. I lay on my back writhing and moaning in defeated agony. It somewhat resembled the scene in Star Wars Episode III when a dismembered Anakin Skywalker flails helplessly by the banks of that lava river howling in a hopeless frenzy.
I hate skiing.

Objectives:

2007-03-05T07:27:00.000Z

A man who made more than a million quid with an HR business told me to set myself goals. Then he went off about how great his house, motor vehicles and bikini wife are. Despite how horrible the man was, I think he may have had a point. So, here are my goals:
1. By the end of 2007, I will have some decent experience on a newspaper and a serious portfolio. None of these articles will have the words “fuck” “assholes” or “lies” in them. This will be real journalism – no more kid stuff.
2. Also by the end of 2007, I will be moved in with Kaki, in a city were it is likely that we will stay for at least a year.
3. By the end of 2008 and I will have at least half of an NCTJ diploma. I will also have completed courses in shorthand and quark xpress. Hopefully, by then I will also have a proper job.
4. By the end of 2009 I would like to be living in Canada, hopefully with some kind of UK experience and qualifications that would be transferable over there. Get a job on a newspaper. Get a nice new place. Perhaps a car.
5. 2014: First book published. Win literary awards of some kind, either that or sell millions of copies of poorly-written but well-marketed crap targeted at people who don’t usually read..
6. 2015: Sell film rights for book to Hollywood. Make a mint. Sell out totally, but be very comfortable with that.
7. 2020: Ferrari, Cadillac, Aston Martin, personal hovercraft, flying lessons. Second novel should be published around this time.
8. 2025: Move out of the city, buy some kind of ranch. Buy guns.
9: 2030: Build large walls. Fortify ranch.
10: 2030 - ?: Shoot any intruder.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

2007-02-16T08:13:00.000Z

Why the hell wasn't there a Tango & Cash 2?