Sunset Over Slawit

Two Much Sex & Violence

2012-01-28T16:18:00.000Z

See what I did there?

Issue #2 of my new comic TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE is finally available to buy, in print and digital formats. It's written by me, with top notch artwork from Stephen Prestwood, Neil Cavenham, Dave Metcalfe-Carr, Nige Lowrey, Mark Renhard, Ryan Taylor, Rob Wells and Tony McGee - thanks, gents!

Return to the seaside town they ought to close down and catch up with dodgy Dermot Kaye, horrible Harry Hall, kinky Kathy Marr, garrulous Gary Gore and suspicious Sam Kamara. Plus, meet Frank Epstein, Becky Corvida, Piers Doughtery... and Serena, the shocking Sister of Mercy. If you dare...

Issue #2 is available for just £2.50 (print) or 99p (digital) - go here to buy it.

Thanks also to Dad Who Writes for joining the ever-growing TMSAV Reviewers club...

Now, this isn’t your Avengers-type comic. This is more Garth-Ennis -writes-Adrian-Tomine-in-Grimsby with a touch of early Ramsay Campbell. It’s funny, twisted, sharp, not a little bitter and full of tight characterisation.

Check out the full review here.

Movie Review: Shame

2012-01-26T20:39:00.000Z

Michael Fassbender's cock. Carey Mulligan's muff. Let's get them out of the way to begin with, since both take a starring role in Steve (not that one) McQueen's grim new critic's fave and potential Oscar-botherer Shame. I'm sure both genital organs are very nice if you like that sort of thing. Maybe I'm getting old.

For a movie about a predatory sex addict, Shame is a curiously cold and unerotic affair. Of course, that's the point. There's nothing remotely sexy about Brandon Sullivan's addiction. It's mundane and grey, much like the rest of his life. Porn viruses infecting his work pc, crafty wanks in the office toilets, nameless couplings with strangers in grubby car parks. The one time he does come close to a genuine relationship with an actual human being (Nicole Beharie's charming Marianne), he can't even get it up. Ironically, this is the only remotely erotic scene in the movie. And yes, that's the point.

When Brandon's crazy sister Sissy (Mulligan) moves in, she threatens his life of monotonous depravity. Brandon, meanwhile, threatens her plans for drinking, self-abusing, and shagging his oaf of a boss. And they should both learn to lock the bathroom door. There's probably a point in that too.

Shame isn't a bad movie: it's engrossing, atmospherically shot and features some top notch performances (Mulligan is very annoying... but she's supposed to be). My only complaint was that it felt a little too much like a film that was trying to make a point... and it didn't offer much in the way of resolution either. Kinda like this review...

Top Ten Seabird Songs

2012-01-25T08:03:00.000Z

The only reason is just because.

I really wanted to find room for Half Man Half Biscuit's 'National Shite Day' which features a guest appearance from a dead wading bird, parcelled up and posted to the "rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool / With a note inside which read(s): 'Is this your Sanderling?'". I have no idea what the story is behind that gag, but it always makes me smile.

Anyway...

10. Bad Company - Seagull

Here is a man asking the question
Is this really the end of the world?
Seagull, you must have known for a long time
The shape of things to come.

Chris Packham tells me there's no such thing as "seagulls". There's just different types of gulls, many of which live by the sea. So there.

9. A Flock Of Seagulls - Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)

Unfairly remembered more for their ridiculous haircuts than their music, this band actually took their name from a lyric in the song Toiler On The Sea by The Stranglers.

8. Engelburt Humperdinck - Lesbian Seagull

If you've never heard this before, you probably think I'm making it up. Written by Tom Wilson Weinberg "in response to a government study of long term monogamous lesbian behaviour in seagulls" (thank you, wikipedia, please don't close down for good). The Engelburt version was recorded for the end credits of the movie Beavis & Butthead Do America. It's all true, I swear!

7. British Sea Power - The Great Skua

Seabirds often seem to inspire instrumentals, and this is a wonderfully atmospheric one from BSP about a bird that's also known as The Bonxie.

6. Ooberman - Goodbye, Gadfly

Another evocative and romantic song from the mighty Ooberman, a band no longer with us, but whose entire back catalogue (including this track) can be downloaded free from their website at the link above. Well worth your download allowance.

5. The Shins - New Slang

No, Slang isn't a seabird. Neither are Shins. However, the chorus goes like this...

And if you took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well

4. Guillemots - Redwings

No, Redwings aren't seabirds either. Guillemots are though - and Guillemots are cool. Not quite as cool as Penguins or Puffins, but I couldn't find a song about either of those. Sadly.

3. Rialto - Summer's Over

Kamikaze seagull planes
Fighting over chip-shop take-away remains
And when you’re walking on the cliff
You can’t help thinking of how far down the sea is
And what if they should give...

My favourite seaside song that isn't Everyday Is Like Sunday, and this one has a kamikaze seagull too!

2. Fleetwood Mac - Albatross

Undoubtedly the most famous seabird instrumental, spoiled slightly by its ubiquitous use in TV holiday show soundtracks, it's still one of the most relaxing records ever recorded.

1. The Maccabees - Pelican

A new entry at the top of the chart, this earworm from the Maccabees has been circling my harbour incessantly for the last few weeks. I have no idea why it's called Pelican... and I'm not sure I want to know.

Book Review: The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith

2012-01-24T08:30:00.000Z

The sequel to my second favourite novel of 2011 is almost as gripping as its predecessor. Almost, because although for the most part I found the pages of The Secret Speech turning just as fast as Child 44, there were a couple of sequences I would have happily left out in the cold.

Set a few years after the first book and shortly after the death of Josef Stalin, The Secret Speech finds Leo Demidov facing a very different Soviet Union. New leader Nikita Khrushchev issues a tacit apology for years of terror and oppression and the ensuing recriminations threaten to tear the country apart. Leo finds his past "crimes" coming back to haunt him, endangering the new family he's struggling to hold together. Forced into a desperate mission that finds him imprisoned in a Siberian Gulag then fighting for his life amidst the Hungarian uprising, Leo discovers redemption is hard to come by. Much of this is as breathlessly exciting as the first novel, though a couple of sections (notably the sequence about a sinking prison ship) seem tacked on with an eye to Hollywood. As with the second of Stieg Larsson's Millennium books, there's much less mystery and detective work here and far more action. A worthy sequel, nevertheless, and I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into the final book of the trilogy soon.

Full Cream Comicy Goodness

2012-01-22T20:18:00.000Z

Like Robots? Like Vikings? Like Ninjas? Like Pirates? Then check out the new comic from my old Thoughtballoons compatriot, MK Strangeland. Robot Viking Ninja Pirates #0 is just as much fun as the title sounds and it's available now from graphic.ly for just $1 (about 60p, by my reckoning). Here's the full blurb...

Robot Viking Ninja Pirates #0 (22 Pages) – What are Robot Viking Ninja Pirates? Exactly what they sound like. Looking for an origin story? You won’t find it here. What will you find? How about a runaway dinosaur that’s part spider getting punched in the face by a robot. And best of all, you can get it all for just ONE DOLLAR!

Meanwhile, new thoughtballooner Dan Hill shared this beautifully observed tale based on the premise of what might happen if the human race suddenly discovered the ability to fly... then focused on just two characters who use their newfound powers to re-enact a terrible moment from their own tragic back story. Really nicely paced, with excellent artwork from Cale Ajioka. Click Eagles High to enjoy.

Speaking of Thoughtballoons, we're just embarking on Harry Osborn week, so get yourself over there for some Gobliny goodness. My story goes up later today (or might already be there, depending when you read this), but in the meantime check out what the other guys bring to the slightly-less-crazy-than-his-Dad Osborn lad.

And while we're on the subject of comics, yes, it's true, the wait is almost over. TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE #2 will be available by the end of the week. Here's the official unveiling of the cover to whet your appetites...

Whatever you're imagining right now... believe me, it's worse. Much, much worse. Heh.

Movie Review: The Artist

2012-01-20T18:00:00.000Z

Michel Hazanavicius's homage to the era of black and white silent movies has been lauded as a brave, funny and moving piece of film-making. It tells the story of George Valentin (a star-making performance from Jean Dujardin), a silent movie actor who finds himself dinosaured when the talkies start making a big noise in Hollywood. George's career is on the slide, his marriage is failing and his fortune is dwindling - but he's not without friends, notably his dog (a canine-Oscar worthy performance from "Uggie") and his former butler, Clifton (the always excellent James Cromwell). Then there's Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo, another name to watch), an up-and-coming starlet whose career follows the opposite path to George's as she becomes the first genuine star of the talkies. Will she remember the silent star who gave her big break... and will George's wounded pride allow him to accept her help?

The Artist arrives on a huge wave of hype and it's certainly unlike any other film I've seen in a long time. It took a while for my brain to adjust to watching a movie with no dialogue, but one pivotal scene where George faces up to the fact that sound is the future (and he's the past) made it all click. Although there's nothing revolutionary about the plot, the way it's told should be celebrated as a lesson to film-makers and storytellers everywhere. It certainly made me realise how lazy a lot of contemporary directors have become with regards telling (via dialogue) rather than showing (via visuals). In the bloated 3D SFX era, The Artist was a breath of fresh air... and a must-see movie for writers everywhere, particularly those working in any kind of visual media (not just film or TV - but comics too). No one's a bigger fan of well-crafted dialogue than me - but at risk of paraphrasing Ronan Keating (or Alison Krauss, to maintain some semblance of cred), sometimes you do say it best... when you say nothing at all.

Top Ten Comparison Songs

2012-01-19T09:29:00.002Z

Nothing Compares 2 U, sang Sinead O'Connor (with a little help from Prince)... but that was before the internet came along and gave us the chance to weigh life's many options without ever leaving the house. Whether we want to compare car insurance quotes, phone plans, holiday destinations or even potential soulmates... we're now just a few clicks from the right answer. Even rock stars are it. Here's ten examples of popular musicians scratching their heads, wondering which way to go...

10. Ian Brown - Destiny Or Circumstance

When contemplating that lucrative Stone Roses reunion, which of the above drove Ian Brown to make his final decision?

9. Otis Redding - Trick Or Treat

Otis finds himself torn to pieces by a lady who can't make up her mind: does she love him, does she like him... or is she just leading him on?

8. B.A. Robertson - To Be Or Not To Be

Brian Alexander Robertson wonders whether Hamlet's fateful decision would have been easier if he'd had an internet chatroom to moan about his uncle in? "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

7. Fionn Regan - Bunker Or Basement

Location, Location, Location must have seen Fionn Regan coming.

6. Adam Ant - Friend Or Foe

Adam Ant wants those who get to know him to become either admirers or enemies. The worst reaction is no reaction. He will forever be the Marmite of popstars.

5. The Delagados - Sink Or Swim

The Delgados don't give us much of a choice, but as long as Emma Pollock keeps singing, I'll keep swimming towards the sound of her voice.

4. Nina Simone - Love Me Or Leave Me

Tough love from Nina - you might not believe her, but she'd rather be lonely than be with somebody else.

3. Michael Jackson - Black Or White

It was the question that dogged Michael Jackson for years - and this was his answer.

Yay! Norm from Cheers is in the video. Boo! So is McCauley Culkin.

2. Blondie - One Way Or Another

...she's gonna get you, get you, get you, get you. You have no choice but to co-operate once Debbie Harry has you in her sights.

1. The Clash - Death Or Glory

A song about growing up and leaving youthful rebellion behind... or growing old disgracefully. A young Joe Strummer seems undecided which is the better option. Should he stay or should he go? Either way, it's just another story.

Time to compare the songs above and decide which one's best for you...

The Mixtape Lives On... Somewhere Else

2012-01-18T08:36:00.001Z

Keeping two separate blogs running was a nice idea, but much as I've enjoyed writing about my favourite music over at The Mixtapes Lives On, I've had to knock that blog on the head. Which means I'll be writing about my favourite new (and old) musical discoveries here at Sunset Over Slawit again (and bringing back the Top Tens, which should please some of you). But if you want to know what else I'm listening to, you could do a whole lot worse than follow me over at This Is My Jam.

Davey introduced me to this site last week and it's already my favourite social networking thingy on the interweb. It's such a simple idea, I can't believe nobody thought of it already. You just choose your favourite song and make it your current Jam... then follow a bunch of friends and other interesting weirdoes you've met online... and voila, you instantly have a radio station programmed by people of discerning taste with an ever-changing, always fascinating playlist of wonders.

The site has already introduced me to some great new music, beginning with Pris, a spiky, punky two girl band from London who list among their major influences Kenickie, Angelica, The Waitresses, Deborah Harry and "Madonna When She Was Young". You can hear it all in their debut single...

...and better still, you can get a free copy of that single (a double A-side with The Better You Look The More You See) from the Pris website. And no, I don't mean a free download... I mean a free CD! Gotta like their style...

A Good Weekend For Photographs

2012-01-17T08:23:00.001Z

After weeks of endless rain, we're having some proper winter weather (though thankfully no snow). This has provided some excellent photo opportunities... beginning with Saturday morning's sunrise...

(A little blurry because it was taken through the window and I'd just woken up.)

On Sunday, we had a proper frosty Sherlock Holmes style fog...

I love the way the mist flattens the landscape, making it seem like layers on layers...

Then yesterday, the sky was so clear I had to take a stroll up to the highest point around: West Nab...

Look at that blue...!

And that view...!

Sadly, I didn't meet Simon Armitage up there... but you can see why this is one of his favourite inspirational places. It even got me feeling poetic... but I'll spare you.

And finally... this is where we hold the sacrifices.

Book Review: An Idiot Abroad - The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

2012-01-16T13:20:00.000Z

If Karl Pilkington didn't exist, I'd probably have to invent him... then any time anyone ever calls me a "miserable northern bastard", I can refer them to Karl. Compared to him, I'm a children's TV presenter.

Karl isn't a great writer, he'd probably be the first to tell you that. Yet the diaries he kept while filming the first series of An Idiot Abroad make for amusing and, at times, enlightening reading. Unlike many other travel writers, he's not afraid to tell you about the grotty parts of the world's most famous destinations. In fact, most of the time, that's all he tells you about. He's like a more cynical, far less erudite Bill Bryson.

Every time I hear about Israel on the news it's normally something bad. It's never a story about a man who's grown the world's biggest melon, is it? Its problems are normally related to religion and seeing as I'm not into religion in the slightest, I don't understand the situation in Israel and if it's too complicated to learn overnight, I'd rather leave it. It's the same reason I've never bothered learning chess.

Karl Pilkington: travelling the world with a frown, so you don't have to bother.

Movie Review - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2012-01-13T18:10:00.000Z

I'm certainly no Tom Cruise fan and although I didn't mind the first one, I hated MI2 so much that wild horses couldn't drag me to watch the third. Louise twisted my arm into going to see Ghost Protocol though... and it turned out to be a mission I didn't mind accepting.

Possibly because I watched it shortly after the shockingly awful Sherock Holmes, and probably because I had very low expectations to begin with, MI4 proved a pleasant surprise. Cruise is as wooden and hard-to-like as always, but he's thoughtfully drafted in Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton and Simon Pegg to provide all the stuff he can't: the charm, the wit and the sex appeal. (That Simon Pegg, eh? Phwoarr.) Not to mention Lost's Josh Holloway, who, frankly, I would have happily watched doing Cruise's secret agent stuff for the whole film rather than just 5 minutes at the beginning. Maybe one day.

Like Sherlock Holmes, the film also manages to throw away one of the original Dragon Tattoo stars, giving Michael Nyqvist very little to chew on as the baddy - and a Take Over The World plot so ridiculous even Dr. Evil would have thought twice. But what MI4 gets right is the action - notably that already infamous set piece atop the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, breathlessly exciting for two good reasons. Firstly, the vertiginous height. Secondly, who wouldn't want to see Tom Cruise fall 2723 feet and go splat? The whole cinema was on the edge of its seat... but not for the reason Tom imagined.

The MI series seems unlikely to self-destruct any time soon, but there are definitely worse ways to waste your time, money and braincells at the multiplex.

The Neverending Meme

2012-01-12T13:35:00.001Z

Happy New Meme! Stolen, as these things usually are, from Sunday Stealing.

1. Song that always makes you sad?

I've mentioned this many times before, but it never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

2. Last thing you bought?

The "new" single from the reborn Ultrasound.

3. Last person you argued with?

Probably Louise. I'm sure I was in the wrong.

4. Do you put butter on before putting peanut butter on?

No, I stop at the butter. Peanut butter is the work of the devil.

5. One of your stuffed animals’ names as a kid?

Huggy Bear.

6. Did you ever at one time own a Barenaked Ladies CD?

Still do.

7. Favourite day of the week?

Saturday looks good to me.

8. Favourite sundae topping?

I'm pretty happy with just the ice cream, but I like a splash of raspberry vinegar on my 99.

9. Did you take piano lessons?

Yes. For about ten years. Can I play the piano? Sadly, not.

10. Most frequent song played?

Impossible to answer. At the moment, I'm rather taken by Vermillion by Guillemots.

11. T.V. show you secretly enjoy?

Deal Or No Deal. At one point I watched it every day. I'm on the wagon now though, I haven't touched a drop in 4 or 5 years, and I'm staying away from the boxes.

12. Would you rather play basketball or hockey?

I'd like a hockey stick for everyday use.

13. Date someone older or younger?

Louise is my younger woman.

14. One place you could travel right now?

Anywhere warm, quiet and green.

15. Do you use umbrellas?

No. I'm a hard northerner.

16. Do you know all the words to the Canadian national anthem?

Eh?

17. Favourite cheese?

Can't beat a nice bit of Cheddar.

18. The Smiths or The Cure?

Sorry, Bob.

19. Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?

Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes.

20. Best job you ever had?

All the ones that never paid me any money. As soon as you start earning money for a job, you know it's gonna be a pain in the arse.

Book Review: A Long,Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

2012-01-11T15:20:00.000Z

Anna Sheehan's novel retells the Sleeping Beauty fairytale in a futuristic setting. Rosalinda Fitzroy wakes up after 62 years in "stass sleep" (a suspended animation chamber) to find herself sole heir to her parents' empire, a freak in the eyes of her schoolmates and contemporaries, and pursued by an unstoppable robot killing machine to boot. She's missed out on an awful lot during her years of slumber, including "The Dark Times" (a global apocalypse) and the life and times of her original childhood sweetheart Xavier. There's also big questions to be asked about why Rosalinda was ever in stass to begin with... and dark secrets to be revealed from her own past and her parents'.

A Long, Long Sleep is certainly a page turner. It rattles along at a fair old pace with strong characters and plenty of twists. I suspect I'm not the book's target audience, it's probably aimed at younger female readers BUT it's a hell of a lot better written than the Twilight books and though the internalised teen romance seemed a little twee at times (to a cynical old grouch like me), for the most part I was hooked. There's no edge to it, which I'd have preferred, but neither is there a great deal of the sci-fi gobbledygook that spoils many a futuristic thriller. Immensely readable, give it a go if it sounds like your kind of jazz.

Movie Review: Sherlock Homes - A Game Of Shadows

2012-01-10T08:22:00.000Z

Let's not dwell too much on Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows. I didn't like the first one, and despite all the reviewers (Steve included) telling me the sequel was an improvement, I found it... sedimentary, my dear Watson.

Guy Ritchie's freezeframe-the-action-sequences direction is completely lacking in excitement (God, I'm sick of bullet time). Robert Downey Jr. is wasted... again... though not as much as the original Dragon Tattoo girl, Noomi Rapace, utterly thrown away in her debut Hollywood role. Worst of all, there's no mystery whatsoever. The world's greatest detective is given nothing tougher than a mild Sudoko to puzzle over. The crime even Sherlock Holmes can't solve... what happened to all the mystery?

As for gags... even Stephen Fry struggles to raise a smile, getting his kit off as a last resort. Mad Man Jared Harris as Moriarty is the film's sole redeeming feature, but he's fighting an uphill struggle all the way to the Reichenback Falls. Speaking of death-defying escapes... just count yourself lucky, Guy Ritchie. If I'd seen this film one week earlier, it would have crashed into my Top Five Worst Movies of 2011 right behind Transformers 2.

Thank god for the REAL Sherlock... now that's the way to do it!

See What Happens When I Take A Week Off...

2012-01-09T14:35:00.000Z

...my hits go through the roof. The stats are in, and I had more visitors last week than Sunset Over Slawit has ever seen before. And I only bloody posted once! (Thanks for all the votes, by the way.) Maybe it's time I sat back and let this blog take care of itself...

Nah. Sorry.

Watch the visits go down now I've actually got something to witter on about again...

Too Much Sex & Violence Needs Your Vote!

2012-01-04T20:02:00.001Z

The longlists for the Eagle Awards 2012 are being compiled - and Too Much Sex & Violence is nominated in 4 categories!

Category 1 - Favourite New Writer (me!)

Category 9 - Favourite Letterer (David Metcalfe-Carr)

Category 15 - Favourite British Comic (B&W)

Category 16 - Favourite New Comic

We've been kind of tacked onto the end of each list so you won't find us in the main alphabetical listing... but if you scroll down to the bottom, we're pretty easy to spot among the late additions.

Being realistic, I don't think we stand a chance (there's some pretty steep competition in all the categories) - but it would be nice to at least make a shortlist. So if you can spare 5 minutes, why not pop over to the voting booth and cast your votes today.

Too Much Sex & Violence #2 is coming soon... get a sneak preview here!

2011 - Albums of the Year

2011-12-30T14:00:00.000Z

And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain...

What an excellent year it's been for music. As well as great new records from old favourites like Luke Haines, Elbow and PJ Harvey, I've also made some incredible new discoveries from the likes of Skint & Demoralised, The King Blues and Cosmo Jarvis. Many of the artists I've been championing don't get a lot of attention from the radio or music press, yet they have strong fanbases and if the winds of taste were blowing in the right direction for a change, they'd be topping the charts. Not that topping the charts means anything to anyone but the X-Factor idiots these days.

Anyway, it's been a hard fought battle on my own chart of the year. Will my favourite band of the 21st Century clinch a hat-trick of number one albums... or has someone else beaten them to the top spot?

Click the links to hear a selection of my favourite tracks from each of the albums.

My Top 20 Albums of 2011

20. Glen Campbell - Ghost On The Canvas

19. Art Brut - Brilliant! Tragic!

18. Half Man Half Biscuit - 90 Bisodol (Crimond)

17. Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See

16. Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What?

15. 8in8 - Nighty Night

14. Skint & Demoralised - This Sporting Life

13. The Airborne Toxic Event - All At Once

12. Luke Haines - 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970's And Early 1980's

11. Shirley Lee - Winter Autumn Summer Spring

10. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full Of Holes

9. The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?

8. The King Blues - Punk & Poetry

7. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

6. Cosmo Jarvis - Is The World Strange Or Am I Strange?

5. Elbow - Build A Rocket, Boys!

4. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

3. Noah & The Whale - Last Night On Earth

2. The Indelicates - David Koresh, Superstar

1. Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones

Apologies to The Indelicates then, it would have been nice to let them win three albums in a row, but brutal honesty must give the award to Frank Turner this year. Truth is, any one of the albums in the Top Five would have been a worthy victor in less exciting years. There's not an album there I wouldn't fight to see gain more recognition. Cosmo Jarvis asks, Is The World Strange Or Am I Strange...? And FRank Turner replies...

Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut
Not everyone was born to be a king
Not everyone can be Freddie Mercury
Everyone can raise a glass and sing
Well, I haven't always been a perfect person
I haven't done what mum and dad had dreamed

But on the day I die I'll say
"At least I fucking tried!"
That's the only eulogy I need
That's the only eulogy I need.

Happy New Year, thanks for wasting some of the old one reading this silly little blog. Despite everything, it's been fun.

2011 - Movies of the Year

2011-12-29T12:43:00.005Z

Let's start with the turkeys... click the links if you want to know just how much I hated them.

Worst Five Movies of 2011

5. The Thing (2011)

4. Immortals

3. Season Of The Witch

2. Transformers 3

1. Green Lantern

Despite those, it's actually been a really good year at the cinema and I could easily have filled a Top 20 with runners up including Never Let Me Go, The Adjustment Bureau, The Skin I Live In, X-Men: First Class and The Guard. But if I have to pick 10...

My Top Ten Movies of 2011

10. The Inbetweeners

9. Thor

8. Another Earth

7. The Big Picture

6. The King's Speech

5. We Need To Talk About Kevin

4. 127 Hours

3. Source Code

2. True Grit

1. Super 8

Super 8 might not be the best film of the year, but it's the one which gave me the warmest glow - nostalgia for the kind of movie I grew up loving, like Back To The Future with aliens. The long awaited Coens / Bridges reunion was a shoe-in, but Super 8 had more twinkly eyed magic than I'd expected and deserves its place at the top... though I'm sure many would disagree.

What was your favourite movie of the year?

2011 - Books of the Year

2011-12-28T10:40:00.000Z

The Best of 2010 Countdown continues with the best books I've read this year. No attempts to categorise them into books that were published in 2010 or not... instead, a short countdown of my favourite non-fiction reads before we get onto the main event.

Click the links to read my full reviews. If you can be bothered.

My Top Five Non-Fiction Books of 2010

5. Adventures On The High Teas - Stuart Maconie

4. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman

3. The Progressive Patriot - Billy Bragg

2. Good Morning Nantwich - Phil Jupitus

1. How I Escaped My Certain Fate - Stewart Lee

My Top Ten Fiction Books of 2011

10. World War Z - Max Brooks

9. Furnace - Muriel Gray

8. Room - Emma Donoghue

7. Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson

6. The Hollow Man - John Dickson Carr

5. The Passage - Justin Cronin

4. Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King

3. Seeing Stars - Simon Armitage

2. Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith

1. The Crimson Petal And The White - Michel Faber

It was a difficult list to judge this year, largely due to a couple of my favourite books suffering from huge flaws in their final acts. Justin Cronin's The Passage is prime example - in many ways, it's the most engrossing novel I've read this year... but it just doesn't know when to end. Child 44 was not so all-consuming, yet it was far more balanced and satisfying on conclusion. The top prize had to go to Michel Faber though, combining a cracking genre plot (a genre I'm usually not that interested in) with beautiful, witty and imaginative prose. The TV adaptation was fun, but not a patch on the source material.

What's the best book you read this year?

2011 - TV of the Year

2011-12-27T08:08:00.005Z

My annual countdown looking back on the best bits of the dying year begins here... with the magical tellybox. This year I've had to suffer the loss of Lost and 365 days without 24. So what's taken their places? Not The Walking Dead (or The Treading Water as we've renamed the lacklustre second series; inspired mid-season climax not withstanding) or True Blood (though the camp monstrosity of Denis O'Hare's Russell Edgington almost brought it home, we did have to balance that with the whole "Sookie is a Faerie" nonsense, and not enough Jason or Lafayette). Speaking of O'Hare, I'm still undecided about American Horror Story. The more ridiculous and implausible it becomes, the more I find it a guilty pleasure, and there are some great performances from O'Hare, Jessica Lange and Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy (slumming it). But... I can't help but feel they're making it up as they go along. And as for Smallville...

As usual, I've probably forgotten some shows that ran earlier in the year. Special runner's up prize goes to Fresh Meat, which is probably a better show than half the ones listed below, but hasn't yet wormed its way into my subconscious. Next year, it could well be Top Ten. For anyone who's read these lists in years gone by, the Top Fifteen will contain few surprises...

15. Castle

Occupying the same slot it did on last year's countdown, Castle continues to be a great example of comfort food telly, thanks largely to the charming Nathan Fillion. That said, they did shake up the formula somewhat at the end of Season 3, so I'm intrigued to see where it goes from here.

14. The Hour

Dominic West comes home from Baltimore for a show that's about as far away from The Wire as possible. He's still got that devilish twinkle in his eye as 50s newscaster Hector Madden and, along with Ben Whishshaw and Romola Garai, West helped make this show more than just a British Mad Men.

13. Rev.

A rarity in sitcom world, Tom Hollander's Rev is both witty and thought-provoking. It's not afraid to swerve away from the obvious laugh in favour of deeper, sadder, yet more honest resolutions. And it has genuine character development. Excellent cast (particularly Simon McBurney as Archdeacon Robert) and some top draw cameos from the likes of Sylvia Sims and Richard E. Grant. Even Dawkins would be swayed by the Reverend Adam Smallbone.

12. Monk

Farewell, then, Adrian Monk. More comfort food telly, Tony Shalhoub's OCDetective always reminded me of the kind of show I'd have watched when I was a kid... the kind I didn't think they made anymore. Despite its formulaic nature, Monk managed to make me laugh out loud and cry real tears on more than one occasion. I'm glad they gave him a happy ending.

11. Nurse Jackie

Sadly stolen from our screens by the Evil Murdoch Empire, I've no idea when I'll get to watch the third and fourth seasons, but Season 2 had me itching for more of Edie Falco's self-destructive uber-nurse. Guess I'll be waiting for the DVD...

10. Fringe

No idea where Fringe is going this season, but as long as John Noble continues to give us his alternately hilarious and heartbreaking portrayal of Dr. Walter Bishop, I'll not miss an episode.

9. Psychoville

Not now, Silent Singer!

8. Justified

Come season 2, Walton Goggins got some serious competition in the sneaky scenery chewing stakes from Margo Martindale as malicious matriarch Mags Bennet. Together, they even encouraged Timothy Olyphant to raise his game. A sly, witty show not afraid to break with formula: Elmore Leonard must be proud.

7. This Is England '88

More merry misery from Shane Meadows. I just love Woody's banter...

6. Mad Men

Another one stolen by Murdoch's Evil Sky Atlantic. Don Draper would not approve...

5. Luther

Told he probably wasn't getting a third series, Luther creator Neil Cross went all out to make the second as grim and nihilistic as possible. With random hammer-killing twins and a violent, clown-masked psycho it made Silence of the Lambs look like Playschool. And somehow granted the show a reprieve: season 3 is currently being filmed. Idris Elba: another member of the Wire alumni come home and made good.

4. Doctor Who

The Stephen Moffat Renaissance continues. Matt Smith cements his place as Best 21st Century Doctor. And Who finally became a show about Time Travel!

3. Frozen Planet

Who cares if they faked the baby polar bear scene? This was still jaw-dropping, eye-popping TV that finally justified the invention of HD and made us all fall in love with penguins. Again.

2. Forbrydlesen / Forbrydelsen II (The Killing)

Like a Danish Jack Bauer, Sarah Lund scowled her way into our hearts with a selection of chunky jumpers (which she even wears when visiting Afghanistan) and a single-minded, self-sacrificing determination to crack the case... even if it takes 20 episodes to do so. Roll on season 3... sadly planned to be the last.

1. House

Cuddy and Thirteen both walked out on him, but House survives (even prison couldn't reform him!), with a couple of new assistants to torment and a new boss (the best choice) to aggravate. As long as he's got Wilson, he'll be OK. But will this be the last series of House too? Hugh - no!

Christmas Card From A Loser In Huddersfield...

2011-12-23T13:02:00.000Z

...as opposed to a hooker in Minneapolis.

Over at Nige's Page of Rage, Nigel is discussing the thorny subject of Christmas cards, specifically the quandary of wanting to send a card to some of your work colleagues... but not wanting to wee on the rest of them even if their Santa hats are on fire. Not a problem for me this year as I don't officially have any work colleagues. I did receive a card from one person on my course (who thoughtfully sent one to each of us), then watched amusingly as another student spent half the lesson frantically scribbling out cards of her own... not to be outdone.

This is our third Christmas in this home. It's in a terrace row of five houses, and though we know our neighbours to say "hello" to, we don't know most of their names and we've never exchanged Christmas cards. Until this year... when the nice couple in the end house (our immediate neighbours) decided to send one to each house in the row. Within a week, the psychological pressure had boiled over and the cards were flying. In the end, we received one from every other neighbour (some just addressed to our house number with an apology for not knowing our names). Finally, Louise had to crack and return the gesture. Me, I quite liked the idea of being the only miserable bastards in the row... but it is Christmas, after all.

Beyond that, I've not sent a great deal of cards this year. Hey - I'm unemployed, give me a break! So, apologies if you've sent me one and not had one in return. Take this and like it...

I'll be back after the big day with my annual countdown on the best stuff of the year. In the meantime, peace and goodwill to you and your families... here's hoping 2012's a better year than '11 (apocalypse permitting).

Comic Review: West - Confederate Dead

2011-12-21T17:34:00.000Z

I've been looking forward to this latest Jerusalem West adventure ever since the book began. Seeing how well Andrew Cheverton and Tim Keable mixed Deadwood-style Western with Romero-esque horror in the book's first few issues, and knowing what a fan of zombie films Chev is, a West / zombies face-off has always been inevitable. And here it is, every bit as juicy and dramatic and bloody and beautiful as I'd hoped... in many ways the most accomplished single issue West story yet.

Plotwise, it's probably also the most straightforward. A young West and his bounty hunter pal Wilton Frohickie (I'm not sure if Chev stole that name from my own favourite Frohickie, but it's a great name nevertheless) are chasing down a ruthless gang of outlaws. Their pursuit leads them to Black Salt Island on a dark and stormy night, and then...

So not only is this the West adventure I've been dying to see Chev write - it's also the most amazing piece of comic art I've yet seen Tim deliver. From the gorgeous wraparound cover to the stylish and dramatic interiors, this is a comic you just can't take your eyes off. A truly gorgeous piece of work. If you like westerns, if you like zombies, if you like comics... if you like breathing: buy this book.

Comfort & Joy

2011-12-20T14:30:00.000Z

I won't lie to you: it's been a rough year here at SOS Towers. Losing my job, crashing my car, having to watch Green Lantern, Transformers 3 and Season Of The Witch... that'll take the spring out of your step and right. I've had stress, sleepless nights and moments where I've just plain broken down and sobbed into my porridge. But no matter how miserable I've felt, there are some things which always give me comfort. This post is a tribute to those...

1. Coffee Shops.

Obviously, the coffee itself is important here, but there's also something hugely comforting about taking time out from your day to sit in a coffee shop and watch the world go by. It feels like a special treat and makes me feel sophisticated and adult: something I'm especially grateful for after sitting in an anonymous cattle queue at the Job Centre. Coffee Shop Culture gets a lot of stick, but I think it's one of the true advances in our society. When I was a student first time round, our only options were pubs and grubby cafes. The rise of coffee shops make me think there's hope for civilization after all.

2. Alex Lester on Radio 2.

I tend to sleep with headphones on, tuned to Radio 2. It helps me gets to sleep and if I wake during the night it helps me get back to sleep. It gives me something to think about and distract my mind in the wee small hours when problems always seem far worse than they might actually be. 3am is the worst time to find yourself lying away with an over-active imagination, so thank god for Alex Lester on Radio 2. An amusing, genuine and inoffensive jock who plays a good variety of music and helps keep me from despair. See also Huey Morgan, Bob Harris and Richard Allison on a weekend. And Chris Evans for making me want to switch off the radio and get up as soon as it's morning.

3. Mum & Dad

They say you appreciate your parents more as you get older. I appreciate mine more every time I see them.

4. Comics

Though I can't afford as many of them as I once did, the ones I do buy, take from the library or re-read from my rapidly dwindling collection in the attic continue to give me solace. From the wonderful, warm nostalgia buzz of rediscovering comics from my youth to the rare examples of uncynical mainstream books (thank god for Dan Slott's Amazing Spider-Man!) to all the wonderful home-made small press books I continue to discover and champion. I still love reading novels and listening to music, even watching TV... but nothing calms my mind last thing at night like a good comic.

5. Writing

It's still there. Whenever I get the chance. Not as often as I might wish, but writing has always helped me sort out my thoughts and put things in perspective. Even blogging helps, but the real peace comes from writing fiction. Hopefully I'll continue to be able to steal time to write, whatever else life throws at me, it's the only thing that keeps me sane.

What gives you comfort no matter what...?

Movie Review: The Thing (2011)

2011-12-19T08:24:00.000Z

John Carpenter's The Thing is one of my favourite movies. It's the perfect horror film, full of isolation, paranoia, dread, shocks and a truly great monster. Well crafted characters, top note performances and a classic stalemate ending. Any sequel, prequel or remake was doomed to failure in my eyes then... and yet, I found myself inexplicably drawn to The Thing 2011. In truth, it was much less of a car crash than I expected, but that's not to say I enjoyed it. The best I can say is that it's utterly, utterly pointless. Put that on your poster!

Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s movie is slavishly devoted to Carpenter's. It sticks rigidly to the plot template it established (taking into account the debt Carpenter owed to John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" and the original 1951 movie Thing From Another World). It's basically a 2 hour love letter to the Carpenter movie, to the point that it makes tremendous efforts in the final credits sequence to set up that film's opening scene. The problem is, it adds very little to the mythology - and take away many of the elements that made Carpenter's version so successful. The scenes aboard The Thing's spacecraft go nowhere and the "Who's got fillings?" inquisition isn't a patch on Carpenter's hot wire in the blood sample sequence. Worse still, it jettisons Carpenter's creepy synthesiser soundtrack in favour of orchestral overkill... something that's brought home in the epilogue when they finally dig out the synths to evoke the original. The CGI, meanwhile, could have been a whole lot more gratuitous... but it still couldn't hold a candle to Stan Winston.

The cast do their best, yet cute and spunky as Mary Elizabeth Winstead may well be, she's no Kurt Russell. Hey, I don't know, maybe if you've never seen the Carpenter version then the 2011 Thing might have something for you. It's not a bad movie... it just doesn't make any effort to justify its own existence. It may be a carbon copy, but it ain't nothing like the real Thing...

Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

2011-12-17T11:20:00.000Z

Subtitled 'An Oral History of the Zombie War', Max Brooks' novel offers a unique perspective - or many different perspectives - on what is becoming a well told tale. While zombie holocausts are ten a penny these days, Brooks gives us something I hadn't seen before: the global picture. There are no recurring characters here (except the unseen narrator), just a series of interviews which tell the story of a terrifying zombie plague from first bite to final (?) victory. From China to Texas, Finland to South Korea, India to Sydney, Barbados to the Federated States of Micronesia, we see a truly worldwide catastrophe, from the point of view of arrogant soldiers, terrified civilians, vain movie directors, failing politicians and horrified relief workers. It's tirelessly researched with clever insights into warfare, science, technology and society as a whole, though Brooks also manages to find time for moments of breathtaking excitement, terror and even the odd laugh. It doesn't take you on the same kind of emotional journey as The Passage, yet it's more plausible and knows when to call it a day. A fascinating novel - though God only knows how Brad Pitt thinks he's going to turn it into a movie...

I met one gentleman on a coastal ferry from Portland to Seattle. He had worked in the licensing department for an advertising agency, specifically in charge of procuring the rights to classic rock songs for television commercials. Now he was a chimney sweep. Given that most homes in Seattle had lost their central heating and the winters were now longer and colder, he was seldom idle. "I help keep my neighbours warm," he said proudly. I know it sounds a little Norman Rockwell, but I hear stories like that all the time.

Comic Review: Verity Fair #3

2011-12-15T11:40:00.000Z

The latest issue of Terry Wiley's Verity Fair is another hugely entertaining slice of comedy and chaos in which Verity visits her psychiatrist to talk recurring nightmares, appears (twice) on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, shares curry with a cat and reminisces about a youthful romance with Billy Bragg (or is it?). It's just as crazy and funny and beautifully drawn as you'd expect from the wonderful Mr. Wiley and it's available now at all good comic shows... or by emailing Terry direct at verityfair@oglanut.org.uk, price £2 plus postage for a black & white copy (with colour cover), £4 plus postage for the full colour special edition.

Warning though: it may contain bottoms and swearies. Gosh, that's almost as bad as a comic featuring Too Much Sex & Violence!

My Ronnie Corbett Story (minus any funny bits)

2011-12-13T11:50:00.000Z

So I went to the bank...

I went to the bank to pay in the cheque the insurance company had finally sent me in compensation for my written-off car. Getting that money has been a long and drawn-out process involving many phone calls of the "what's going on?" variety. I do hope I get the chance to score this company on their customer service at some point down the line because I'll happily rip them a new one. They were constantly telling me "you'll get a call tomorrow" but no call was ever forthcoming. After chasing them for a week to find out when the car was going to be valued ("mañana") I finally got someone to tell me, last Thursday, that the valuation would be in by the "end of the day".

"So you'll call me either this afternoon or tomorrow morning to tell me how much you'll be offering me?"

"No. We'll be calling you next Tuesday."

"TUESDAY? Why TUESDAY!?"

"Because that's when it's been diarised by the computer."

"OK, what if I call you back in the morning?"

"Oh, if you call us, we'll be able to tell you then. But if you don't call us, expect a call on Tuesday."

Unsurprisingly, then, I was ready for a fight when I actually got the quote. Yet it turned out to be more than I'd expected. They actually offered me the old car's market value (minus my excess), which, coincidentally, was exactly what I'd paid for my new car. I snapped their hands off because I was sick of dealing with them. Which was probably their plan all along.

Anyway, I went to the bank with my cheque. The bank is just across the road from the university where I have my teacher training lessons. Not the college where I do my placement... which is proving an eye-opening experience, I can tell you. If you ever want to feel old... talk to a class of young adults. Last week, the subject of Princess Diana's funeral came up. "What do you remember about that?" I asked them. "We don't," they replied. It was only at this point that I did a rough calculation and worked out... most of them weren't even born.

But I told the producer I wouldn't digress so much in telling this story, so let's get back to the bank where I took my insurance cheque. There's one woman in front of me in the queue and as she approaches the counter to make a payment of her own, she's pounced upon by an overzealous bank employee who wants to talk to her about her account.

"If you could just spare me a few moments, I think I can get you on a much better account."

"Well, I can't really... I've only ten minutes left on the parking meter."

"It won't take any longer than that."

She squirmed, made more excuses, but the vulture wouldn't let her alone. Finally she relented and agreed to follow him back to his desk for the hard sell. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least while he was tied up with her, I could make my payment and escape before he had chance to get his claws into me. And so I did...

I arrived at the university about ten minutes early for my lesson, so I joined a group of my fellow trainees in the coffee shop. I sat down for a chat and Americano... and that's when my phone started ringing. "I better turn that off before the lesson," I thought, but even though I didn't recognise the caller's number, I took the chance of answering it.

"Mr. Hirst? This is Bob Vulture from the bank? You were here a few minutes ago to pay in a cheque?"

"Erm... yes... is there a problem?"

"Oh, no problem with your cheque, Mr. Hirst. That's gone in fine. No, it's just that I noticed the current account you were using is quite an old one..."

(I didn't even pay the cheque into my current account - I paid it into my savings account. He had no reason to even look at my current account.)

"I wondered, if you were still nearby, if you wouldn't mind popping back in to see if I can't help you onto a better account for..."

I won't bore you with the rest, but yes, you guessed it, the "better account" was going to end up costing me more money... and yes, he rather lost interest in "helping me" once he discovered I was currently unemployed.

Here's an appropriate song in lieu of a punchline...

Movie Review: Another Earth

2011-12-12T08:35:00.011Z

I knew very little about Another Earth as I walked into the cinema, only that it was a low budget movie about the discovery of an identical earth in orbit around our own. I was intrigued enough to give it a go, and I'm glad I did. Hidden away, with no stars and a limited release, this proved to be one of the year's most engrossing pictures.

As with all the best sci fi, the big ideas here take a back seat to the characters. Essentially this is a story about two people: a reckless young student (Brit Marling) with a promising career ahead of her and a successful composer and family man (Lost bit-parter William Mapother, cursed forever to be known as as "Tom Cruise's cousin", proving himself here to a far more interesting actor). Both their lives are changed on the night the second earth appears in the sky, and what follows is the story of how they rebuild themselves while a terrible secret lurks behind their every encounter. It's a doomed love story, beautifully observed, with strong performances from both leads. The film, written by Marling and director Mike Cahill, grips from the start and leads to an enigmatic, emotional and hugely satisfying conclusion. If you get a chance to catch it on the big screen, grab it.

My Week On The Web

2011-12-09T19:23:00.001Z

Over at The Mixtape Lives On, we're gearing up for 2012 with my favourite songs about the End of the World. This week, that's included classic offerings from Johnny Cash, The Clash, The Handsome Family and Barry Maguire. We also played another great List Song by The Jim Carroll Band (about all his dead friends), new music from Low Roar - with the sublime title of "Friends Make Garbage, True Friends Take It Out" and continued my countdown of the best albums of 2011 with Noah & The Whale.

Elsewhere on the web this week, Dan from All That Comes With It broke his vow to never blog again by setting up a rival Slawit blog. Hey, I'm not worried - I can stand the competition!

Ryan and James Lindsay, my brothers from down under began their appeal to gather financing for their short film Soap - the story of a man who must wash his hands every hour, on the hour. Being a little bit OCD myself, I can sympathise...

Sam Johnson began teasing his new comic book...

And I discovered this year's heaviest Christmas record from Krashkarma...

...the music may not be to your liking, but the video's worth watching to see what happens when McCauley Culkin meets Freddie Krueger.

That was my week on the web - how was yours?

Book Review: The Courage Consort by Michel Faber

2011-12-08T13:20:00.000Z

The Courage Consort, "possibly the seventh best-known a cappella vocal ensemble in Britain", are holed up in a rural Belgian château to rehearse the most complicated piece they've ever had to perform: Partitum Mutante. Forced to co-exist under the same roof for the first time, egos begin to clash and minds begin to fray. Relationship break down, strange allegiances form and... is that a ghost wailing in the woods?

Michel Faber's wonderfully observed satirical novella does for avant-garde classical music what Spinal Tap did for heavy rock. Although it's a short book, every sentence is a gem.

As for Dagmar, the most recent addition to the group, she'd stuck with the Courage Consort because they gave her fewer hassles than any of her many previous liaisons. After walking out on the Staatsoper because the directors seemed to think she was too sexually immoral to sing opera (her last role for them was Berg's prostitute Lulu, for God's sake!) she'd been a bit wary of these smiling English people, but it had turned out OK. They allowed her to get away with tempestuous love affairs, even illegitimate pregnancy, as long as she showed up on time, and this she had no trouble with. For nine months of ballooning belly she'd never missed a rehearsal: she'd given birth, prudently, during the lull between Ligeti's Aventures in Basle and the 'Carols Sacred and Profane' Christmas concert in Huddersfield. That was good enough for Roger Courage, who had sent her a tasteful congratulations card without enquiring after the baby's name or sex.

Extra marks for mentioning Huddersfield: we're proud of our Choral Society.

It's All About Meme

2011-12-07T08:01:00.001Z

Stolen from Sunday Stealing...

1) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Buy my comic.

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Today, I feel like saying Stan Lee.

3) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Los Angeles circa 1940, when Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe walked those streets.

4) What do you think about most?

Stories.

5) You have the opportunity to spend a romantic night with the music celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

If you'd asked me this when I was 16, I'd have replied Carol Decker. Today though...?

Amanda Palmer. Not because I fancy her, just to piss Neil Gaiman off.

6) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

What doesn't kill you just makes you stronger. Most of the horrible experiences in my past have proved inspirational fodder for stories...

7) What's your strangest talent?

Being able to sleep with headphones on.

8) What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

Where did you bury the body?

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Of course. Morrissey just doesn't realise it.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?

The last time I heard this...

11) Do you have any strange phobias?

Gumpophobia: The Fear of Tom Hanks.

12) What's your religion?

True believer (see question 2).

13) What is your current desktop picture?

14) When you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Walking.

15) What's the last song you listened to?

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Not at all simple. The obvious answer would be The Smiths... but a more contemporary answer would be The Indelicates.

17) What was the last lie you told?

"No, I don't want to go home."

18) Do you believe in karma?

I'm scared to say no, just in case...

19) What is a saying you say a lot?

"Hey, man, this is a private residence!"

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

i) Being rubbish at everything.

ii) Fooling people into believing I'm not.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?

Kate Winslet's restraining order has barred me from answering this question.

22) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.

Tragically, it was 'beat'. I must be a closet Nick Berry fan. I claim Buddy Holly.

23) How do you vent your anger?

With a silent scream.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?

Comics, though it's rapidly dwindling. Music. Books.

25) What is your favorite word?

Coffee. Hmm, coffee...

Comic Review: The Abnormals

2011-12-05T18:37:00.000Z

When people talk about the most influential comics of the last 30 years, they often namecheck Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns. Yet if the UK small press scene is anything to go by, I'd put Grant Morrison's seminal run on Doom Patrol high up on that list as well. That book certainly had a huge impact on me and I know Spandex's Martin Eden rates it highly as well. Now here comes Grant Springford, writer/artist of The Abnormals, a book which wears its Doom Patrol influence shamelessly on its sleeve - and that's no bad thing for fans of kooky, off-kilter super-hero fun.

The Abnormals Special #1 introduces us to a weird bunch of characters such as Meena Malhotra, Angie Gray (she's not an alien), Throwback, The Link, Nasty (Nastiorumbalokey) the imp and Jack Patch... and now I'm itching to read more. There's a good bit of set-up and foreshadowing as you'd expect from a first issue, but there's also a full story featuring a spooky threat on the London underground, savage poltergeists made up of lost property and despair. Grant's art is striking and vividly coloured and the script is sharp and intriguing.

Feeling Abnormal? Find out more here.

What's Another Year?

2011-12-03T08:53:00.000Z

Sunset Over Slawit is five today, and it's been a pretty tumultuous year here at SOS-towers. This was the year I lost my job, crashed my car and fell foul of the local nutter.

On the plus side, I began training for a new profession, launched a successful comic and started a new music blog.

That last one seems a pretty crazy thing to do as the blogosphere itself continues to shrink (we said goodbye to RB and Dan this year, among others) and my own available blogging time decreases (it's amazing how much more free time there was in the day when I had a full time job). But The Mixtape Lives On is a fast-fix for my blogging cravings and I've always preferred writing about music to just about any other subject. Makes you wonder whether this blog will see a sixth birthday... I guess only time will tell. With the exception of Steve, I doubt anybody would really miss it.

Yay! Happy blogbirthday, me! Anyone for cake?

Top Ten Breakdown Songs

2011-11-29T19:14:00.000Z

Ten pop and rock stars stuck on the hard shoulder (or, like me, in a hedge) waiting for a tow truck. Let’s hope they all have Breakdown Cover.

10. Dale Watson - Flat Tire

If Johnny Cash had driven a truck, he might have sounded like Dale Watson.

9. Radiohead - Blow Out

Radiohead don't have a lot of luck on the road. First a blow out, then they crash their fast German car and only an airbag saves their life. They should stick to public transport.

8. The Handsome Family - Stalled

Brett Sparks stalls his pickup truck in the snow, far from town... then just sits there in the dark. As stories go, it's not a great one. There's no serial killer with a hook on his arm or anything. But it still sounds real good.

7. Tool - Lost Keys

Tool also appear to have lost the lyrics sheet.

6. Jesse Malin & Bruce Springsteen - Broken Radio

You probably wouldn't be too popular if you called up breakdown recovery with a problem like this... but if you ask me, the radio is possibly the most essential component of any automotive vehicle. Driving without due musical entertainment should be outlawed.

5. Paul Westerberg - Dirty Diesel

Dirty Diesel causes Paul Westerberg all manner of problems... particularly as his car takes unleaded. He's going to need a Replacement.

4. Adam & The Ants - Car Trouble

In which Adam Ant ends up having to push, push, push his light blue car all the way home. Serves him right for being a dandy highwayman.

3. Jackson Browne - Running On Empty

Jackson Browne runs out of gas, but not when it comes to songwriting.

2. Elbow - Puncture Repair

You could probably fix this one yourself with a just bit of Elbow grease, Guy.

1. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Breakdown

There were enough songs with ‘breakdown’ in the title to fill a Top Ten all by themselves. Tom Petty's debut single was the best.

Gig Review: Frank Turner Live In Manchester

2011-11-28T19:16:00.000Z

I only discovered Frank Turner last year but he's rapidly become one of my favourite artists. His songs are passionate, witty, outspoken and, at times, intensely personal. He mixes heartfelt rock 'n' roll with barnstorming folk like Bruce, Billy and Richard Thompson before him. He's the real deal.

I've been wanting to see Frank live for ages but the last time he played Manchester the tickets sold out immediately. It was obviously time for him to move up and play somewhere bigger... sadly this turned out to be my least favourite venue: the dreaded Apollo. It's a sign of how desperate I was to see this performer live that (still carless) I caught a bus, a train and then took a long walk through one of the dodgiest parts of Manchester... thankfully, Frank didn't let me down.

It was heartening to find myself alongside a great number of Frank-ophiles, many of whom proved all the more devoted with their word perfect singalongs to even the most obscure tracks from the Turner back pages. This is obviously an artist who touches and inspires a great many people and he's surely now on the verge of a tipping point from cult sensation to arena-filling rock star. I missed my chance to see him in the smaller venues but I'll certainly follow him to the larger ones... as long as he doesn't hurry back to the Apollo.

God, that place just goes out of its way to grab my goat. Saturday's annoyance was the heat - turned up so high I almost passed out (no exaggeration for effect). Completely unnecessary... unless it was all a scam to sell more beers. Insert your own Apollo / sun god / surface of the sun gag here; for me it's just one more reason to never set foot in the place again. Please, Frank, make it The Academy next time... or the MEN. Anywhere but the bloody Apollo!

Even More Sex & Violence

2011-11-25T17:47:00.001Z

Many thanks to Andy Oliver over at Broken Frontier for helping promote my new comic, TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE. I've never been interviewed before... it makes me feel like a proper writer - at last!

Read the Broken Frontier interview here.

Meanwhile, feedback and reviews on the first issue continue to pour in... here's another selection of opinions...

"If you are a fan of League of Gentlemen, then Too Much Sex & Violence is the comic for you. A gloriously depraved and quirky selection of vignettes all settled around the 'not so quiet' seaside town of Fathomsby. Rol Hirst writes and corrals the assorted artists together to make this one of the more interesting reads this year."

(Gary Erskine: artist, Hellblazer, The Filth, Dan Dare.)

"Reminds me of Gary Spencer Millidge's Strangehaven on a bad drug trip! If you like the dark humour of the League of Gentlemen then you'll like this comic!" (Selina Lock: writer/editor, The Girly Comic.)

"Hail to Fathomsby!" (James Lindsay: writer, filmmaker, A Pessimist Darkly.)

"...superbly paced and dramatically rendered... you can never have to much of a good thing, and Too Much Sex & Violence is a very good thing." (Dan Powell: award-winning writer.:)

"...delectably macabre..." Andy Oliver: writer/editor, Broken Frontier.

"...beautifully overdone stuff." Al Ewing: writer, Travelling Man.

"There are some great lines in it too... It made me chuckle anyway." Michael Barnes aka El Blondino, artist.

And if you missed the first batch of reviews, click here.

If you've not yet got enough Sex & Violence in your life... get yourself a copy today.

Movie Review: Immortals

2011-11-23T18:00:00.001Z

I do so hate it when someone whose opinion I value and respect gets to review a movie on their blog before I do. Especially if they like it and I think it sucks wet ass through a straw. Who am I to disagree with Steve? His opinion is, I'm sure you'll agree, far more worthy than mine. He has the wisdom of age behind him, for one thing. Look, if you think Immortals is your kind of movie, stop reading this review now and go read Steve's. But if you want to hear someone have a good old moan...

I think I may have a problem with director Tarsem Singh. I didn't notice his name in the credits, I hadn't read it in any reviews, yet I soon recognised his style from the last time I was forced to sit through one of his films: The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughan (from way back in 2000). Like that film, Immortals is visually stunning. Both will stick in my mind as being two of the most picturesque movies I've ever seen. Tarsem certainly puts the money up there on the screen and has a painter's eyes for detail. Every shot is like Michelangelo meets Salvador Dali. It's almost more than the human eye can contain. And this one was in 3D too... you know what a colossal waste of space I consider 3D to be, an affront to right-thinking cinema audience everywhere... and yet good old Tarsem made it work. The 3D actually looked good. No, screw that, the 3D took my breath away.

It's a shame then that, as with The Cell, all Tarsem's attention goes on the visuals. Certainly none of it goes on securing a decent script to work from. You can't blame the plot - that's as old as the hills, but the script... man, this script was bad. Can we say "style over substance"? Can we tattoo it on Tasem's forehead so he'll see it every morning when he washes his face? Can we talk about the actors now?

The star of the movie is Henry Cavill, about who I knew very little beforehand except that he's been cast as the new Superman. You know what? I can see that. He did a pretty good job of pitching his Theseus somewhere between the big blue boyscout and his speccy, stuttering alter ego. Doesn't mean I gave a monkeys what happened to him, or the impossibly beautiful Freida Pinto who plays his oracle. Beyond them, John Hurt plays John Hurt (his default position these days) and Mickey Rourke plays the old Avengers baddie Orka The Killer Whale. Seriously. Compare the photo above with the cover below and you'll see what I mean.

Beyond that, I have little else to add. Immortals gives lie to the old maxim that you can't polish a turd. It seems, after all, you can. You can paint it up to be the most spectacular, sparkly, devastatingly beautiful turds anyone has ever seen - in 3D too! At the end of the day though, it's still a bum radish.

On the other hand...

My Top Twenty Teacher Songs

2011-11-22T10:49:00.000Z

One of the things I've been doing over at The Mixtape Lives On for the past few weeks is playing songs about teachers. In preparation for my new job, it seemed wise to find out what my favourite singers and songwriters thought about their teachers. Most of them concluded they were a bunch of lecherous pervs, bullying ghouls or sexually frustrated stalkers. Still, what do pop stars know about anything? They don't live in the real world...

Here's my full Top 20, click the links to listen to and read more about each song...

20. Paul Simon - The Teacher

19. The Talks - Teachers

18. Super Furry Animals - The Teacher

17. Leonard Cohen - The Teacher

16. Big Country - The Teacher

15. Pet Shop Boys - Hey, Headmaster!

14. Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Teach Your Children Well

12. Van Halen - Hot For Teacher

11. Belle & Sebastian - Expectations

10. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

9. Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

8. Morrissey - The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

7. Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

6. The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me

5. Madness - Baggy Trousers

4. The Trashcan Sinatras - To Sir, With Love

3. Pulp - PTA

2. The Smiths - The Headmaster Ritual

1. Black Box Recorder - The School Song

Discover a new song every day at The Mixtape Lives On...

The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 2)

2011-11-21T10:40:00.000Z

So (as reported in my previous post) my car is in a ditch / hedgerow at the side of the road and I'm required to crawl out of the passenger door to call for assistance. I phone the police first: they're not that interested as I haven't hurt anybody else or damaged any property beyond my own. Next I call the roadside recovery people. "Someone will be with you within the hour." So all I have to do now is wait. Wait, and thank / reassure the people who stop to ask after my well-being.

I'm heartened by the amount of people who do stop. "Are you all right, lad?" "Do you need to borrow a phone to call for help?" "What happened?" Their mix of concern and curiosity gives me hope for the human race. At first. There's an edgy moment when the farmer whose field I'm encroaching stops by to check on the well-being of his fence, but he seems satisfied I've not done more damage and thankfully doesn't begin demanding reparations.

Then, after a while, my inner Larry David starts to take hold. It's a sad fact that even good will gets annoying after a while. By the time the 10th person has pulled over to check me out and hear the story ("I don't know what happened - the steering just went"), I start making a conscious effort to look unapproachable. Blasé or uncommunicative or stern or scary... whatever will keep them driving so I don't have to answer any more questions. Where is that bloody tow truck? How the hell can people get on my nerves even when they're just being kind? OK: I'm shaken, I'm fed up, I'm seriously worried about how this accident will affect my finances... but that's still no reason to be so grumpy, is it?

"You all right, lad?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

Sigh. I really must try to be a better person.

The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 1)

2011-11-19T17:20:00.002Z

Driving to Barnsley yesterday morning to do my teacher training, my car decided it'd had enough of boring, conventional, "square" roads and would much rather drive off into the hedgerow. For reasons yet to be ascertained, taking a sharp bend on a narrow country lane the steering wheel refused to respond and rather than continuing in the direction I was supposed to be travelling, I ended up crossing the road and driving down into a ditch, at a 45 degree angle, stopped only by a thick, spiky hedge and a farmer's barb wire fence. It wasn't that I skidded taking the bend, I've done that on icy or wet roads before and what generally happens when you try to correct the skid is that the back end of the car spins round and you end up facing back in the opposite direction. But there was no skid here: the road conditions were good and my tyres had plenty of tread. What happened instead was that the steering simply ceased to work and the car carried on forwards rather than completing its turn.

Thankfully I wasn't going particularly fast so the brakes and the hedge were sufficient to stop me from rolling the car over onto its roof. I'm just glad there was nobody else on the road or that I wasn't travelling in a built up area or on a motorway. I can't help thinking I've had a lucky escape: for all that my car is scratched and crumpled and broken, this could have been a far worse accident.

However, this is the final straw. I've had enough of this car now. It's one problem after another. I can hardly afford another one, but I can't afford to keep paying to have it fixed either... and I don't trust it any more. When the trust is gone, the relationship is over. If I can't even rely on it to stay on the road, it's time to say goodbye. When your car starts trying to kill you, put it out of its misery before it has another go.

Apologies to the poor roadside recovery man who had to crawl through a spiky hedge to attach the tow rope to pull the bloody thing out of the hedgerow - his arms were lacerated. And to the farmer whose fence I damaged, who was decent enough to show more concern for my welfare than the state of his field. I promise you both: that bloody car will see justice.

I Quite Fancy Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse, Actually...

2011-11-16T13:00:00.003Z

The Walking Dead is back on TV, though the latest season might be better called 'The Treading Water'. Still, it got me thinking about why I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much. And the truth is, no matter how grim they try and make it appear, I still quite fancy being a survivor of some kind of global catastrophe.

Now, obviously, it all depends on the kind of apocalypse. Nuclear Armageddon is out, because even if you did survive... chances are you'd be living on borrowed time while hideous cancers grew inside you like sea monkeys. Plus you'd constantly be worrying about drinking irradiated water or eating a mutated turnip. Or you might end up in The Road, the most depressing of all post-apocalyptic futures, fending off cannibals and wishing you were dead because everything is so relentlessly grey.

Societal breakdown is a no-no too. Frankly, society's broken down enough for me as it is. Living in Mad Max world with marauding biker gangs raping and pillaging everything in sight would be too much like this summer's yoof riots. I parked in Manchester a couple of weekends ago and returned to find some mindless savage had snapped the windscreen wiper off my car for no reason at all. If the yobs ever do take over, I'm going to live on a mountain.

And you can forget your killer viruses too because even if I was immune, I'm such a hypochondriac I wouldn't be able to leave the house for fear of a wayward sneeze. I currently have a terrible case of Man Flu I'm certain I caught when I went to see Contagion. It was inevitable really.

The best kind of apocalypse would be one like in the movie Night Of The Comet where pretty much the entire human race just conveniently disappears (and there's no stinking corpses to clean up) and you could spend all your time dancing to Cyndi Lauper songs at the mall. But as the chances of that happening appear slim, I'll settle instead for a nice zombie apocalypse. As long as it's one where the zombies can only shuffle about slowly and are rubbish at running. Not the speed-freak 28 Days Later zombies. Those guys are no fun at all.

Top Ten Reasons I Wouldn't Mind Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse...

1. Even though society's fallen apart, there's still loads to eat. Zombies aren't interested in human food (only brains) so you'd never go hungry again. Well, until all the cans in the supermarket were past their sell-by dates. You'd have to start growing stuff then.

2. You get to shoot people you don't like (i.e. zombies) in the head.

3. Once you find yourself a nice generator you can sit back, watch some DVDs, play some computer games... read books to your heart's content. Just don't break your reading glasses like Burgess Meredith did in that famous Twilight Zone episode.

4. You get to shoot people in the head. Don't look at me like that, you know you want to.

5. You don't have to go to work any more.

6. You get to shoot your boss in the head. Because, let's face it, he or she is already part zombie. It's for their own good.

7. No more wasting your time on the internet. The internet has closed down. Maybe you can go out for a nice walk instead. You know, like we used to, before the 90s.

8. Did I mention shooting people in the head?

9. You can go wherever you want. Into all those behind-the-scenes parts of buildings you never see unless you work there. Or into other people's houses. Have a nice snoop about. Rummage to your heart's content. As long as you don't bump into any remaining zombie residents, you'll be fine. Go on, admit it, you fancy having a good nose.

10. Shooting. People. In. The. Head.

Now, give me one good reason we shouldn't have a zombie apocalypse tomorrow...?

Movie Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

2011-11-15T10:45:00.002Z

Ever since I heard of the plans to film Lionel Shriver's novel about the tumultuous relationship between a mother and her high school massacring son, I've been eager to see the movie. It's an excellent book and the combination of director Lynne Ramsay and actress Tilda Swinton seemed the ideal choice to deliver a unsensationalised, dramatically non-Hollywood conversion. The distributors didn't make it easy though. For such a high profile, well-reviewed adaptation of a bestselling, prize winning novel, the film's UK release has been shoddily handled. Most of the multiplexes dropped it after one week while even the arthouses seem reluctant to give it much time. Curious then that the showing I finally managed to attend on Sunday night at the Hebden Bridge Picture House was sold out. Audiences do apparently want to see this movie... but I guess it's just not glamorous, star-studded or CGI-encrusted enough to devote mainstream cinema space to. In decades gone by, this would have been a major release. Can we say dumbing down?

It's even more galling then that Ramsay's movie proved to be one of the best pieces of moviemaking I've seen in a long, long time. Perhaps not the most enjoyable and certainly not the easiest to watch, but as an example of cinematic storytelling: damned hard to beat. Shriver's novel is a long and detailed account of the relationship between Eva Khatchadourian and her troubled son Kevin, and this could so easily have been a wordy, staged adaptation. Instead, the screenplay by Ramsay and Rory Kinnear is a textbook example of how to show rather than tell, using the medium of film to its full extent and respecting the intelligence of the audience, allowing them to fill in the gaps. It's a haunting, nightmarish translation that eschews meaty exposition in favour of dramatic visuals, shocking symbolism, taut-yet-restrained performances, a smart soundtrack and some of the meanest stares ever committed to screen. Clint Eastwood would lose a staring contest against any of the three young actors playing Kevin, and the permanently fraught Swinton gives as good as she gets.

If you've read the book, you'll know what to expect from the movie... but that won't stop you being devastated. If you haven't: prepare yourself for a genuinely shocking, provocative and challenging film that will remain with you long after the drive home. If you can find a cinema that's actually showing it in the first place...

Spandex Goes Crossover Crazy

2011-11-14T10:55:00.000Z

The fifth issue of Martin Eden's excellent "gay superheroes" comic SPANDEX dropped on my doormat last week and it's yet another multicoloured masterpiece. This time, Martin set his sights on the dirge of MEGA-CROSSOVERS that are miring the comics industry, almost as bad as they were back in the late 90s. He sets his sights, he takes aim, and he blows those crappy crossovers to kingdom come. Suffering "event fatigue"? This is the comic for you.

But, as always, Spandex is much more than just a masterly spoof of current comic book trends with twinkly gay bits on top. There's also real depth of characterisation as we learn the secret origins of Spandex leader, Liberty. Great jokes, inventive character ideas, guest stars aplenty (including the return of The O Men - slightly different than we remember them, but longtime fans will be glad to learn Miss Scarlet is still one helluva pistol packing mama!), action, shock plot twists... if every MEGA-CROSSOVER was as much fun as this, the mainstream comics industry would be in a much healthier state.

Buy the latest SPANDEX and you'll also get a free mini-manga featuring Japanese superheroes The J-Team (I can't believe I only just spotted the pun in their name) plus a cool Spandex trading card. And anyone who thinks that tight pair of swimming trunks shown on the penultimate page of Too Much Sex & Violence #1 was TOO MUCH... wait till you see the final page of this comic. It ain't for your granny. (Unless your granny's into... no, let's not go there.)

Go here: Buy Spandex now. That's all.

Evil Advertising McMonsters Hollywoodise My Hometown

2011-11-11T16:28:00.000Z

I realise that by embedding the above video into my blog, I could be seen to be promoting the company in question... but they're such a ubiquitous Big Evil Corporation that I doubt one extra blogpost will affect their fortunes and if you're daft enough to read this post and go out and buy one of their "cooked meat" in "bread" products as a result... well, more fool you.

Anyway, the new McDimbulbs advert was filmed in Huddersfield. I'm not sure I'd have recognised this had someone not pointed it out to me. If you haven't seen it on your telly-box (I had to youtube it), it involves a young man (they all look young to me these days) singing the old Lerner & Loewe classic 'On The Street Where You Live' while he walks through town to get his McBreakfast. Except this guy has the worst sense of direction - he is in serious need of a SatNav. He begins his journey just outside Big Evil Corporation II, Tesco (ours is The Tesco Time Forgot - the only thing that's changed since it opened in the 80s is the prices). Conveniently though, The TTF has been edited out of the opening shot; we wouldn't want to promote a competitor, would we, McLads?

Anyway, our hero then walks under the grim Northern viaducts, heading in the correct direction (his goal is now about 30 seconds away) before he turns and starts walking back where he just came from. Next he finds himself a few blocks downtown by the Adult Cinema (also conveniently airbrushed out of existence) before walking past a launderette... in Fartown*. Which is a five minute bus ride away. Suddenly, he's on Cross Church Street, and heading in the right direction once again. Someone's even conveniently built an Abbey Road style zebra crossing to help him find his way. I'm surprised they didn't paint arrows on the shop windows too. Once again, he almost reaches his destination... when he detours along a side street packed with market stalls (which must have been blown a couple of blocks north by the strong Pennine winds). He takes time to flirt with a random woman (she's humouring him; she's already seen him walk past three times that morning)... and finally, he's there! Just in time to sink his choppers into one of those infamous "cooked meat" in "bread" combos before the men in the white van arrive to speed him back to the happy place.

It's all filmed in glorious HD technicolour supervision so golden and sunshiny it makes my home town look like Narnia. Now don't get me wrong, Huddersfield is a very nice place (I won't hear a word said against it... unless it's by me). But these aren't the streets where I live. It's Hollywood Huddersfield. I'm surprised he doesn't bump into Tom Hanks on his journey. (Maybe Tom finally heard about my sniper rifle.) Like the majority of advertising, it's one big, fat lie after another. Still... it's better than another repeat of Last of the Summer Wine. Just.

Has Television, Cinema or Evil Advertising ever distorted your hometown beyond all recognition?

(*I should point out to non-locals, this is pronounced "Far-town". Just as the nearby Penistone is pronounced "Penn-is-ton". Sorry.)

Book Review: The Lost Lions by Edward Gorey

2011-11-09T21:47:00.000Z

Edward Gorey was an American writer / artist who published a number of bizarre, surreal and yet deeply affecting illustrated story books in the latter half of the 20th Century. Many of these have been out of print from a number of years, but new life has been breathed into them by independent publisher Pomegranate.

The Lost Lions (or, Having Opened The Wrong Envelope) tells the story of Hamish, a handsome young man who one day opens the wrong envelope and ends up in the movie business. Suddenly wealthy, he begins to raise lions. But fate has other plans for him...

If you were just to read the text, Hamish's story could take you little more than a minute to get through. Gorey's writing is sparse, a single sentence a page, yet there's much more to his stories than words. The gorgeous pen and ink illustrations that accomplish each sentence contain more depth and emotion than many full-length novels and Gorey draws the cutest lions you ever did see. The ending is enigmatic and thought-provoking and it's the kind of book you'll want to take your time over, savouring every wonderful crosshatched line.

Find out more about Edward Gorey and his newly republished books at the Pomegranate website.

Farewell, Smallville

2011-11-08T13:59:00.000Z

And so I say goodbye to a TV show I've been watching for one whole quarter of my life... though I really don't know why. Unlike the final episodes of Cheers, NYPD Blue and The X-Files which left me in buckets of tears at the loss of an old friend, the overriding sensation at the departure of Smallville was a huge sigh of relief. I can't tell you why I've stuck with this show as long as I have, particularly as what little prime it had was past about five seasons ago. You might think it's because I'm a comics nerd, but I haven't read the DC Universe in years and I've always found Superman the least interesting superhero anywhere. Far too powerful, far too pious, far too meh.

It certainly wasn't the writing that kept me watching either. With a few brilliant exceptions (mostly in the earlier seasons, mostly revolving around the long departed Lex Luthor) pedestrian plotting and preachy, clichéd scripting have been the name of the game for far too long. They could have made it much more interesting had they injected a little edge and - dare I say it - humour, but I guess they didn't think the target audience had much of a funnybone. Not that I'm entirely sure who the target audience was. Smallville began as a teen show but (like the cast) those original viewers would now be in their mid-20s... which I guess goes some way to explain how it evolved into a superhero Gossip Girl.

Strangely enough, I think it might actually be the cast who kept me. Although the show's best actor (Michael Rosenbaum, our AWOL Lex) departed three seasons ago (although he was dragged back kicking and screaming for the preposterous and nonsensical finale) and the show's best character (Allison Mack's divine Chloe Sullivan) has been woefully wasted in recent years... at least they had the good sense to jettison the horrible, ghastly, Queen of Whinge that was Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang). Late replacements Justin Hartley (Green Arrow, a gormless Bruce Wayne substitute) and Cassidy Freeman (the ludicrously monickered Lu-'Tess'-a Luthor) breathed faint gasps of life into the show's sagging lungs while the final season wisely resurrected the better actors from the longterm supporting cast: Lionel Luthor (a demented John Glover) and Jonathan Kent (Bo Duke).

Most of all though, the two people who kept me watching longer than I ever stuck with Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain... were Lois and Clark. Erica Durance gave Margot Kidder a run for her money as the funniest, spunkiest, karate kicking-est Lois Lane ever... although I never saw Margot Kidder jump out of a cake wearing a bunny girl outfit*. And while Christopher Reeve (who had a recurring cameo on the show before his tragic death in 2004) will always be the one and only screen Superman for me, Tom Welling might well be my Clark Kent. Considering how much mawkish, pretentious, sentimental twaddle he was forced to spew week in and week out, it's a wonder I'm not up in a book depository loading a shotgun right now... and yet, incredibly, Welling pulled it off. He convinced me he was a nice guy. Which you might think is a basic necessity for playing Superman... but you'd be amazed how difficult it can be. I don't suffer me no fools, gladly or otherwise. Plus, the scenes with the ghost of his late father in the final season contained genuine emotion. I was filling up despite myself.

So farewell, Tom and Erica, Allison and Justin, John, Michael and Cassidy, Terence (Stamp!), Annette and Bo Duke. I still don't know why I watched your show as long as I did, but I reckon it must be down to you guys. I hope you all find gainful employment in the future and that your writers have been sent off to read Robert McKee and rue the day they ever set fingers to typewriter. Farewell, Smallville. That's 217 hours of my life (minus fast-forwarded commercial breaks) I'm not getting back...

*Plus, Michael Ironside played her dad. Extra points for that, obviously. Though points are deducted for Teri Hatcher as the late Mrs. Lane.

Too Much Sex & Violence... It's A Hit!

2011-11-07T08:22:00.002Z

Welcome to the northern seaside town of Fathomsby; home to retired super-heroes, monster DJs, mutant prostitutes, pier-owning gangsters, disgruntled policemen and a woman who knows exactly what you're thinking about, whenever you're thinking about...S-E-X.

The reviews are in and the first issue of my new comic, TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE, is a hit! Not an unqualified hit, but I expected a few rough waters because of the comic's ever-changing roster of artists, its at-times dubious subject matter, and the fact that first issues (story set-ups) are a notoriously difficult sell. Still, I think enough people are intrigued by #1 to come back for #2... and that's where we really blow the doors off.

Here's some of the comments I've had so far...

"This may be a freakshow, but it’s a freakshow you can’t take your eyes off... one of those first issues of a series that you finish and immediately want to reread, just to make sure you got everything." (Richard Bruton: writer, Forbidden Planet International.)

"A most enjoyable read... reminded me of Worthing, nicely weird and gripping."

(Glyn Dillon: artist, Deadline; Shade, The Changing Man)

"I quickly forgot I was reading a comic. I was simply reading something well written and expertly put together - there's a lot of talent contained within these 28 pages."

(Martin Pond: writer, Dark Steps)

"...a really engaging and unusual first issue..." (Nicolas Papaconstantinou: writer, Monkey On My Back)

"...extreme shocking for shocks sake is not the purpose of this book but there is at least one eyeball shooting out of its socket to keep it interesting." (Lee Sargent: artist, Quit Your Day Job)

TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE #1 is available to buy for just £2.50 (printed) or £0.99 (pdf download) from this place here. Go buy it now. Or tell your friends to. Then write about it all over the interweb. Go on, I insist.

Comic Review: It's A Man's Life In The Ice Cream Business

2011-11-04T18:14:00.001Z

Ah, the good old days of photocopied, folded and stapled small press comics... I remember them with enormous fondness. One man keeping the tradition alive is Rob Jackson, whose latest title (the rather long one above, henceforth abbreviated as '...Ice Cream...') proved a wonderful surprise as I tucked into it the other night. I had no idea selling ice cream could be so interesting.

Rob's autobiographical comic tells how he, his brother and his dad set up their own business selling homemade ice cream at local farmers' markets, fayres and fêtes. The ups and downs of running your own ice cream business proved fascinating to me - from the sunny days where everything sells out in an hour to the windy days when your tent keeps blowing away to the markets where local competition means you don't sell a thing. There's intrigue as Rob and family attempt to diversify into cheese and black peas, there's drama as Rob eats leftover cheese on toast for a week rather than let it go to waste and there's recipes aplenty - including some of their more interesting flavours such as Sweet Potato & Pecan, the curiously unpopular Beer Ice Cream and the ever-popular Whinberry (I think they call 'em bilberries in my neck of the woods).

There's a genuine charm to Rob's storytelling - you really feel for him and his family on the tough days and you cheer when they sell out. Rob's art is also deceptively simple. At first glance it seems childlike and unrefined, and yet the more you look at it the more you realise Rob has all the art and storytelling basics sorted (composition, perspective etc.) and the style is complementing the story rather than holding it back. I can't help but feel that more polished artwork would take away some of the warmth from Rob's comics. I can't imagine them drawn any other way.

'...Ice Cream...' is available to buy from Rob's website shop for the eminently reasonable price of just £1.50. Like delicious ice cream on a hot summer's day, I can't recommend it enough.

Movie Review: Contagion

2011-11-03T08:59:00.001Z

For years, I didn't like Gwyneth Paltrow very much. I found her whiny. 'Whiny, whiny, whiny boots of leather', I used to sing whenever she whined her way onto my cinema screen. Followed by a chorus of '6ix' by the Lemonheads, based on her unfortunate fate in the movie Se7en, notable for its refrain, "Here comes Gwyneth's head in a box". I was thrown out of many a Gwyneth Paltrow film for doing this, but it was worth it.

Yet in recent years, particularly following her standout performances in Iron Man and Country Strong, I've grown a grudging appreciation of Gwyneth's talents. Thank god then for Steven Soderberg, here in the nick of time to confirm what a skanky, disease ridden strumpet Chris Martin's missus really is. If you don't like Gwyneth, that's one damn good reason to watch Contagion right there. Nasty things do happen to her.

Nasty things happening to famous, pretty people is basically what Contagion is all about. But while I could happily sit through Gwyneth foaming at the mouth, I had less time for the unfortunate fates of Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard. The women do most of the suffering in Soderberg's H1N1 disaster movie while the blokes do most of the whining. Matt Damon's most upset about losing his wife and child to the virus, though the worst his own symptoms get are a fat face and a bad mullet. Meanwhile, Lawrence Fishburne thinks he's still in CSI and Jude Law plays cinema's most hateful nerd, giving a bad name to bloggers everywhere. When Elliot Gould tells him "blogging's not journalism - it's just graffiti with punctuation", I almost considered hanging up my keyboard. Thank god then for Jennifer Ehle, not just the film's one true hero but also it's only brief moment of sex appeal. Even when the world's going to hell in a hand basket, it's good to know our top scientists still wear hold-up stockings.

I didn't enjoy Contagion as much as the critics. It was a competent, plausible, at times unnerving thriller that followed exactly the path you'd expect with few surprises. If you've seen Outbreak, you know exactly what's coming. That the human race is almost doomed by a pig, a bat and Gwyneth Paltrow was curiously satisfying to the misanthrope in me... but my hypochondriac side hated watching it in a packed cinema with people coughing and spluttering all around. I'd suggest watching it from inside a Jacko-style isolation tent... or the comfort of your own home. Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone. Especially Gwyneth.

Book Review - Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

2011-11-01T18:20:00.000Z

So here we go with yet another handsome, photogenic, gifted young author whose debut novel has become a worldwide sensation, voted one of the 100 best thrillers of all time. Yes, I hate Tom Rob Smith... but it's impossible to hate Child 44. It's just too damned good.

Earlier this year I reviewed Sam Eastland's pre-WWII Soviet Union thriller, The Red Coffin, and confessed to my ignorance of Russian history. At the same time, I found the USSR made a fascinating setting for a thriller, a place where a climate of fear and paranoia exists even before any crime is committed and where every detective takes risks no westerner would ever face.

Set slightly later, in the early days of the Cold War, Child 44 tells the story of MGB State Security Office Leo Demidov, a man whose training tells him to make his heart cruel...

"Cruelty was enshrined in their working code. Cruelty was a virtue. Cruelty was necessary. Aspire to cruelty! Cruelty held the keys that would unlock the gates to the perfect State."

Leo believes in the work he does, believes the traitors and spies he hunts deserve everything they get for threatening the Communist way of life. Although not a heartless man, he has no choice but to accept that torture, exile, even execution is an everyday part of his job... though he is starting to wonder. His doubts grow when he finds himself on the trail of a serial killer whose long list of murders is being denied by his superiors. If Leo is to catch this killer, he must risk everything - his life, his wife, his parents, his freedom - but dark secrets from his own past compel him, and the murderer is the last person he would ever expect.

Thoroughly researched, Tom Rob Smith's novel creates a terrifying scenario of Cold War paranoia, poverty and brutality. There are times when the misery and hardship reach almost Dickensian extremes, such as the opening scene in which two starving children chase a scrawny cat, the first meat they've seen in months. Or Leo's first experience of a State orphanage...

"...the entire floor was covered with children all sitting cross-legged, pressed up against each other and trying to eat. Every child clutched a wooden bowl filled with what appeared to be a watery cabbage soup. However, it seemed only the eldest children had spoons. The rest either sat waiting for a spoon or drank straight from the bowl. Once a child had finished, they licked the spoon from top to bottom before passing it onto the next child."

...yet such descriptions only succeed in cranking up the tension and trepidation, making the pages turn even faster. I'm pleased to see a second novel featuring Leo Demidov is already in the shops and I'm looking forward to returning to his world. It's a cool place to visit from the comfort and safety of your armchair... but I'd bloody hate to live there.

Going South (6): Miscellanea

2011-10-31T08:01:00.002Z

A final collection of photos from our incredible journey to Wiltshire, Dorset and The South, a land where dogs drive 4x4s...

Where the Bastard Brothers are kind to their sisters...

Where black sheep graze a giant chalk penis...

Where owls and vultures prowl...

Where you always have to keep an eye out for tanks crossing....

And where the sparrows pose for photos.

Thanks to everyone in The South for welcoming us during our holiday and not shooting us for being ignorant northerners.

My Week On The Web

2011-10-29T11:25:00.001Z

On The Mixtape Lives On this week I played more songs about teachers from The Smiths, Leonard Cohen, The Trashcan Sinatras and Madness. I was also Keeping It Peel with Billy Bragg and agreed with Half Man Half Biscuit that Hell Is Other People (in French). I also saluted one of my favourite albums of the year and the greatest recorded ever recorded.

Over at Thoughtballoons, I chose this week's character: my ultimate cartoon hero, Wile E. Coyote. Read my 1-page story here.

Elsewhere on the web this week...

There's a nasty Halloween story from Steve Green's Twisted Quill...

Rob started making Halloween masks (collect them all!)...

Larissa from Condemned To Rock & Roll returned to the blogosphere and launched a new music blog with her friend Laura, From A High Horse.

Nobody wants to play paintball with The Punisher...

Two legends of the music blogosphere finally meet face to face...

The Sagittarian snaps flying teddies in NZ...

And Chris meets some interesting people on the bus.

Anyone Can Be An Olympic Hero

2011-10-28T06:49:00.002Z

So the Olympic Games are coming to the UK (in case you hadn't heard) and the Olympic Torch is currently touring the British Isles, held aloft by the great and good, sportsmen and women of the highest calibre... and even those who were always rubbish at games.

Yep, that's me holding the actual Olympic Torch following its arrival in Huddersfield on Thursday for the University of Huddersfield Open Day where I was working as a social media rep for the day. Sadly the torch wasn't lit, which may have been down to health & safety considerations (let's face it, if anyone was likely to burn themselves on the Olympic Torch, it'd be me); may have been because of the miserable Huddersfield rain; or may just have been because the official "lit torch" tour doesn't begin till next year. Still, it's the real deal - the one held by Seb Coe, Daley Thompson... all the famous athletes (including the ones from after the 1980s), even that kid out of This Is England.

If only my old games teacher could see me now. And he said I couldn't even kick a ball straight! He was right, but maybe that's what the Olympic spirit is all about... for five seconds, holding that torch, anyone can be a sporting hero. Eat your heart out, David Beckham. No, please. I'd pay Man U ticket prices to watch you do that. I'd even provide the fork.

(Update - and now, thanks to Chev, one with the torch actually aflame...)

Book Review: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

2011-10-26T16:21:00.002Z

Police Constable Peter Grant responds to an incident involving a headless corpse in Covent Garden and finds himself taking a witness statement from an 18th century ghost. As soon as Grant's 6th sense becomes apparent to his superiors, the hapless plod finds himself paired with Detective Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the Met's only remaining wizard. Together they investigate a mystery that connects the dark origins of Punch & Judy to the warring sprites in charge of the capital's waterways.

Magical realism is obviously big business in the publishing world these days, but it's always a tricky proposition for me as a reader. Aaronovitch is pitching this novel to the adult end of the Harry Potter audience, there's a little too much horror and bad language for kids, yet personally I'd have preferred Rivers Of London to have even more edge. There are some great ideas here, the best of which wouldn't have been out of place in Vertigo's Hellblazer - though John Constantine would have made short work out of this rambling mystery. The author's attempts to portray magic as a pseudo-science also left me cold. Attempting to explain wizardry as a dark cousin of physics or chemistry just seemed to take away the magic.

I'm probably not the target audience though. I was never much of a JK Rowling fan and I prefer my horror a little more visceral. And real. If fantasy's more your thing, you might want to give Rivers Of London a go. Because Peter Grant and Thomas Nightingale will definitely be back...

Keeping It Peel: My Top Ten John Peel Songs

2011-10-25T06:45:00.000Z

Today is the day we celebrate the great John Peel, without whom all our record collections would be much the sadder. Find out more about Keeping It Peel here. Over on The Mixtape Lives On, I'm playing one of my favourite Peel sessions. And here at SOS... it's my Top Ten Songs About John Peel.

10. CLSM - John Peel Is Not Enough

9. Jeffrey Lewis - The Legend Of The Fall

DJ John Peel says they're his favourite band
Because they're always different and always the same.

8. James - Ten Below

I'm at the bottom of my bed
Headphones on my head
John Peel's show
Feels like ten below

7. Television Personalities - Part-Time Punks

Then they go to Rough Trade to buy Siouxsie & the Banshees
They heard John Peel play it just the other night

6. Helen Love - John Peel Roadshow

And I gotta give my demo to John Peel
I hope he loves my band
And I gotta give my demo to John Peel
I hope he understands

5. Carter USM - Rubbish

"What do you think of the programme so far?"

4. Mitch Benn - A Minute's Noise For John

He soundtracked all our misspent youths
From Teenage Kicks to Home Truths...

3. Bis - We Love John Peel

2. Paul Burch - John Peel

Now he spent time in Dallas
And he told a tall tale
Met John & Jackie on the campaign trail
And he was there in the room
When Oswald was led away
Newsreel footage, taken at the scene
Oswald and Peel 11/24/63

It's time to fold the tent
The empire's no more
Tell your majesty it's over
John Peel sailed on

1. Shirley Lee - An Old Cricketer

Live Review: Glen Campbell's Farewell Tour

2011-10-24T08:01:00.000Z

It's long been my dream to see my all time favourite song performed live by the singer who made it famous. Friday at the Salford Lowry was my last chance to make that dream a reality. Unlike many "Farewell Tours" where you suspect the artist may well be "quitting" only to sell more tickets (before next year's inevitable "reunion tour"), Glen Campbell really will be hanging up his mike and guitar once this tour is done. You may have read how the 75 year-old star, famous in his younger days for his baby-faced looks and country choirboy vocals, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's late last year. His return to the road is seen by many as not just a farewell to fans but also a brave effort to publicise a disease which celebrities rarely make public.

It's clear when Campbell takes to the stage that this is not a man in the prime of health. Although joyful and enthusiastic, he does at times appear confused and his legendary guitar playing is no longer at its flawless best. Fortunately he's supported by a band that includes three of his kids: Cal, Ashley and Shannon (Instant People) who help keep him focused throughout the show. And what a show... all the hits that made him famous (many composed by the divine Jimmy Webb), topped off by a showstopping, standing ovation double bill of Wichita Lineman and Rhinestone Cowboy. It was impossible not to be moved to tears by the former, a song that's meant so much to me for so many years and now sounds more bittersweet than ever.

I've added Wichita Lineman to The Mixtape today, but here's the opening single from Glen's final album, a track which echoes the soaring string arrangements of his greatest hit yet also speaks movingly of his current condition. Be well, Glen Campbell. Thank you for the music.

Movie Review - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

2011-10-21T07:06:00.001Z

Do you remember that old 70s TV sketch (I thought it was The Two Ronnies, but the internet is letting me down) where two spies meet on a park bench and speak in ever-more ridiculous code phrases? "The cuckoo flies backwards over the windmill at midnight." Despite the absence of such corny tropes, I couldn't quite take the latest adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy seriously. Everyone involved tried very hard to convince me, but the cuckoo got lost in the dark.

I've never read John Le Carre's classic spy novel, nor do I remember the 70s TV version starring Alec Guinness. I can't help but imagine both told this story with less clunk. Characters forced to spout whole chapters of exposition in one speech, flashbacks upon flashbacks upon flashbacks, a myriad of meaningful glances from the top drawer of scenery chewing thesps... and still I had little clue what was actually going on.

And though the cast is undeniably talented, hardly anyone stands out. In the central role as retired master spy George Smiley, Gary Oldman gives Ewan McGregor a run for his money in the "Who can do the best Alec Guinness impersonation?" stakes. Mark Strong gives good hangdog. Tom Hardy looks like Terry from Minder. Colin Firth is way too slimy to be trusted. Toby Jones barks in Scottish. Benedict Cumberbatch tones down the Holmesian kookiness. John Hurt is John Hurt. Only Kathy Burke really impresses as a former secretary denied access to her secrets and missing the bad old days. The period detail is excellent though, I definitely felt like I'd been transported back to 1973. What a grey, dismal and depressing year that was. I'm glad I was only 1.

Going South (5): Dorchester Dinosaur Musem

2011-10-20T06:30:00.000Z

Have you noticed how high tech a lot of museums and tourist attractions are becoming these days. They're not content unless they're bursting to the seems with 3D computer simulations, interactive holograms, teleporters and Hadron Colliders. Not like when I were a lad when museums were all "Do Not Touch" signs, plastic replicas of squirrel droppings and dusty fossils. Having said that, sometimes I long for the simple times. It's like Doctor Who. The modern day monsters might be impressively realistic CGI creations but there's still nothing as scary as a dustbin with a sink plunger on top. Maybe our imaginations worked a little harder back in them days...

All of which brings us to the next stop on our journey south, the Dorchester Dinosaur Museum - where the ancient relics are more than just the skulls of sabre toothed tigers and woolly mammoth tusks. Many of the exhibits here transported me back in time not just to the Jurassic Age, but to the museums of my youth, before everything came with bells, whistles and flashing lights to grab our attention deficient youth. (What a fogey I must sound. Isn't it ace?)

That's not to say this museum was entirely without audio visual or interactive elements. For the former, there was a video of Jurassic Park on continuous loop. And for the latter... who needs computer games when you've got red plastic plates? Simply press the "button" to reveal the answer...

They certainly kept me entertained. Well, them and the huge plastic dinosaur that greeted us as we arrived...

Bard On A Wire: Othello vs. McNulty

2011-10-18T15:50:00.001Z

As a big fan of The Wire, the chance to see Jimmy McNulty take on Lester Freamon in the Crucible's recently concluded production of Othello was one I couldn't miss. But much as Lester was my favourite character in that show and Clarke Peters' Othello was convincingly regal, it was Dominic West's Iago who stole this show, bringing a much-needed levity to one of Shakespeare's darkest tragedies.

The Wire gave us ample evidence that nobody plays the lovable rogue as well as Dominic West, an actor who even managed to make serial killer Fred West frighteningly likable in ITV's recent drama, Appropriate Adult. Those two roles also demonstrated West's versatile voice: from a pitch perfect Irish Baltimore cop to a demonically charming West Country bumpkin-psychopath (not to mention his public school RP 50s newsreader in The Hour): this guy does accents better than most. Back in his native Sheffield though, West chose to play Iago for the hometown crowd as a conniving Yorkshireman. This was Iago for the Full Monty generation, a hilarious portrayal that won the audience's affiliation early on, leaving little sympathy for Othello. It didn't help that Peters chose to distance the Moor further by playing him as an increasingly pompous Spanish Jack Sparrow, with an accent straight off the Fast Show's Chanel Neus. It may just be my poor hearing, but many key lines were lost to the acento.

Nevertheless, this was still a powerful and hugely entertaining performance. Strong support was given by Alexandra Gilbreath as Iago's conflicted wife, Emilia, and Lily James as Desdemona. Thanks to West, this was one of the funniest Shakespeares I've ever seen, showing just how much room for interpretation there is in these texts. That said, I was left wondering if a better title for this production might actually have been 'Iago'. Everybody loves a rotter.

Top Ten Mixtape Songs

2011-10-17T08:00:00.001Z

To launch my new music blog, The Mixtape Lives On, I've been counting down my favourite songs about mixtapes. Here's the Top Ten...

(Click the links to hear the songs and read more about them.)

10. Mixtape by Tift Merritt.

9. Song For A Mixtape by The Ataris

8. Mixtape by Jamie Cullum (yes, I said Jamie Cullum)

7. Erase & Rewind by The Cardigans

6. Mixtape by Brand New

5. I Believe (When I Fall In Love) by Stevie Wonder

4. It Started With A Mixx by Los Campesinos!

3. Dedicated To The One I Love by The Mamas & The Papas

2. On Tape by The Pooh Sticks

1. C30 C60 C90 Go! By Bow Wow Wow

Next up - songs about teachers. Go to the top of the class at The Mixtape Lives On.

My Week On The Web

2011-10-15T11:30:00.000Z

My new comic Too Much Sex & Violence #1 is out now. I'll be giving it an official launch here on SOS soon, but if you'd like to pick up a copy before then, go here now.

Over on The Mixtape Lives On this week, I finished up my list of songs about mixtapes. I'll be counting down the top ten here shortly. I also discovered an excellent new record by Cosmo Jarvis, unearthed a free download EP from LaFaro, The Plea and Ash, and dedicated a song to my right hand man, Davey Metcalfe.

Elsewhere on the web...

The Poet-Laura-eate went slamming in Cheltenham...

Shocked at the news that the next series of Doctor Who won't start till Autumn 2012, TimeWarden considers chucking out his telly...

Kippers was annoyed that nobody laughed at his twitter jokes (I did).

The Weekly Themed Art Blog boldly went where no artists have gone before (well, apart from the ones who have)...

Swiss Toni took on the latest trends in women's footwear (brave man)...

There was a nasty knife accident in Kelloggsville (not for the squeamish)....

...and this week's thoughtballoons choice (from Max) was Static Shock. Read my 1 page story here.

That was my week on the web... how was yours?

Technology Is The Thief Of Time

2011-10-13T19:55:00.000Z

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. It's supposed to save our time and allow us to accomplish more with the time we have available. But lately, I'm finding it does exactly the opposite. I sit down at my computer to do what I think will be a simple ten minute job... and two hours later, I haven't even started on that job because I've had to do some urgent software update... or an urgent software update I haven't even chosen to do at that time has started anyway, slowing my computer down to a snail's crawl. Why does software have to update so frequently? Half the time it updates and you don't even notice a difference. It's just stolen 20 minutes of your life for no reason at all. Not to speak ill of the recently departed, but the absolute worst culprit here was iTunes... which is why I removed that service from my computer and refused to ever use it again.

Or I log onto a website I haven't used in a while to carry out a simple task... and suddenly it wants to know my password. Now I know you're not supposed to use the same password for every site you visit... but you're not supposed to write your passwords down either. How can I remember all those different passwords when I can barely remember to put my socks on in the morning? So I click 'Forgotten Password'. And then it asks me a security question. Can I remember the answer I chose when I set that security question? Can I heck. So then I have to call the helpline... and don't even start me on helplines.

I could go on, but you get the point. I have no witty observations to make about this subject, nor do I have any radical solutions (other than smashing the looms and going back to writing on slate with chalk). I just needed to get this off my chest. I spent three hours last night trying to fix my Blackberry which had stopped receiving emails. I rebooted the device, I went on the Blackberry website (which told me nothing), in the end I called my service provider... who informed me I wasn't alone. "Didn't you hear?" the woman at the call centre asked (after I'd wasted 25 minutes listening to recorded messages and pressing the right combination of keys that wins you a real human being). "It's been on the news and on the BBC website and everything." "No," I told her. "I haven't had time to watch the news or surf the web... I've been trying to fix this @%&#! computer!"

Going South (4): Lulworth Cove & Durdle Door

2011-10-12T13:30:00.000Z

The best weather we had during our visit to Dorset came on the day of our visit to Lulworth Cove, a stunning horseshoe cove backed by white chalk cliffs. Sitting there on the beach, watching the waves lap on the shore and the pesky seagulls bobbing on the water, we experienced a moment of rare tranquility. (Well, rare for me and Louise.) Next time I'm faced with one of those relaxation exercises involving visualisation, this is the place I will picture.

Just a few minute's drive up the coast (or one heck of a hike if you've brought the right shoes) we found another famous Dorset landmark.

Durdle Door is a naturally formed limestone archway through which the sea crashes daily. I know bugger all about geology, but I do know that Durdle Door was the location for the video shoot of 'Shout' by Tears For Fears. I wore my bright red socks, rolled up above the top of my boots, in tribute to Roland and Curt.

You might also recognise it from the videos to Tears Of The Dragon by Bruce Dickinson and Savior's Day by Cliff Richard. Truly a location frequented by both God and The Antichrist. Louise and I fit in perfectly.

Book Review - Apples by Richard Milward

2011-10-10T20:35:00.000Z

Of course I hate Richard Milward. I mean, let's get that out of the way right now. He's young, cool, good-looking and a twice-published novelist with rave reviews. What's not to hate? But give him his due: dude can write.

Apples, Milward's debut novel (first published in 2007) tells the story of two Middlesbrough teenagers, Adam and Eve, and their non-love story. Adam is an OCD geek who has to close the door ten times before leaving the house, gets caught masturbating to his Dad's porno mags and obsesses over Beatles albums (a very teenage thing to do). Eve is a mouthy pretty-girl with a body for sin and a head for getting mortalled whose mum has just been diagnosed with cancer. She has no idea what she wants out of life, but like so many girls her age she thinks she could well end up a super-model.

As is the law for every coming of age novel written since the 50s, Apples has been compared to Catcher In The Rye ("...meets the Arctic Monkeys", said The Times) though personally I found it closer to a British Less Than Zero. There's far more Bret Easton Ellis to Milward's writing than there is Salinger, along with lashings of his hero Irving Welsh (he names Trainspotting as the book that inspired him to write). I enjoyed it, despite the depression and self-loathing I always feel when I discover yet another writer both younger and more talented than I am... but despite how short the book is (only 200 pages) I almost wish it had been shorter still. The scenes told from Adam or Eve's perspectives are gripping, hilarious and heartbreaking. Every now and then, though, Milward goes off on a tangent with chapters written from the perspective of a butterfly, a streetlamp or an unborn foetus. These felt a little too much like creative writing exercises for my tastes, though the foetus did at least make me smile.

Keenly observed, very funny and shamelessly un-pc, Milward captures the voice of contemporary disaffected youth better than anyone I've read in a while. Look away if you're easily offended, because here's the line that convinced me I was going to enjoy this book...

She had that sort of Drew Barrymore look; innocent and pretty, but from the wrong angle you could accuse her of being a mong.

My Week On The Web

2011-10-08T20:38:00.000Z

The Mixtape Lives On... with new music from Fountains of Wayne, a free download of an entire Nirvana tribute album, plus loads more songs about mixtapes from The Cardigans, Tift Merritt, The Pooh Sticks and The Mamas & The Papas. I also dedicated a song to Steve from Bloggertropolis... from another hard luck Steven. (Congrats also to Steve on his first paying gig... which he used to talk about penises.)

Over at thoughtballoons it was Jimmy Olsen week, as suggested by Grant. You can read my one-page post-no-more-Crisis story right here.

I feel bad that I've not had any time to review any Comics On The Ration lately... but Rob keeps on fighting the good fight. Read what he thought about Jonah Hex: The Six Gun War here.

Elsewhere...

Brian Bolland joins the blogosphere...

Adam began a countdown of 31 of his favourite songs...

Rob began betting on the X-Factor... (I hate the X-Factor, but I like Rob)...

Martin took to the radio to promote his book...

The excitement continued in Thunder Brother: Soap Division as Sally and Jake arrive in Westenders...

Lee looked at the treatment of women in the new look DC Comics...

And Tom discovered this excellent trailer for the maddest Batman flick yet...

And finally... Too Much Sex & Violence #1 is coming. A little later than scheduled, but all good things etc. Watch this space.

Going South (3) Shaftesbury

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000Z

The only thing I knew of Shaftesbury was its famous Gold Hill: the location of "Britain's favourite TV advert", as directed by Sir Ridley Scott in 1973.

It doesn't look much different today, though you're lucky if you can take pictures like the ones here... I had to wait 20 minutes for a break in the tourists. Bloody tourists.

Worst are the ones who insist on re-enacting the Hovis ad for their own amusement. Without even bothering to bring a bike...

What I didn't know about Shaftesbury is something even more breathtakingly picturesque - Park Walk, a long, tree-lined promenade looking out across Blackmore Vale and towards Glastonbury Tor. Unusually for the area, Shaftesbury is a town built on top of a great hill, and as such it's one of the highest towns in England (not to mention one of the oldest). The view from Park Walk is stunning... photos, I'm sad to say, don't do it justice. Go there on a day of big clouds like these for the ultimate spectacle.

Diamonds Are Forever

2011-10-06T07:15:00.001Z

Sixty years ago today, Leslie Hirst married Mary Hoyle at Slawit Church. And they're still bickering away like only a couple who have been together for more than half a century could. I'm so proud of them both; I owe them everything. Even the Queen sent her congratulations.

Happy Diamond Anniversary, Mum and Dad. Here's to the next sixty!

How To Make Red Traffic Lights Turn Green

2011-10-05T13:58:00.000Z

File this one under The Universe Hates Me.

And no, this isn't a post about flashing temporary traffic lights to get them to change green because that's what ambulance drivers do in times of emergency. Does that ever work? This is a post about how even traffic lights are out to get me. And probably you too: you just don't realise it yet.

You know how it goes. You're on your way somewhere, probably in a hurry because you got way too distracted by something utterly pointless* or really quite life-changing on the internet before setting off. And every traffic light is either stuck on red or changes to crimson as you approach.

Well, here's how to get them to change to green. It's simple. And it virtually always works for me.

Start doing something else.

It can't be just anything, mind you. It can't be something you could also do while driving. (Sorry - picking your nose is out.) It has to be something you could only do (safely) while stationary.

Tying your shoelace.

Writing down an idea for a short story.

Checking a message on your phone.

Fetching that pork pie which rolled out of your shopping bag and underneath the passenger seat.

Reading an exciting poster about how to get free things in a shop window.

Getting a different CD out of the glove compartment.

Something that could easily fall into the category of "while I'm waiting here, unable to do anything else, and it's now safe to do so, why don't I...?"

Because the second you start doing something like that... often the very moment you even decide to do it in the first place... that's when the traffic lights will turn back to green. If you hadn't decided to do that thing, if you'd just sat there glaring at the red light, willing it to change, wishing your life was a Housemartins song, you'd still be sat there now. Because life's like that.

The universe hates us.

(*Only joking, Steve.)

Movie Review - Drive

2011-10-04T12:25:00.000Z

Imagine you're listening to a piece of classical music performed by a string quartet. The music is slow and leisurely. There's rarely more than one instrument playing at a time and long moments of silence punctuate the pianissimo. You're enjoying this music. It's warm, comforting, hypnotic. You could listen to it all day.

And then, from nowhere, THE TRUMPETS burst in. An electric guitar SHRIEKS power chords. A drummer goes CHAOTIC. The bagpipes BLAST. It's AWFUL. SHOCKING. BRUTAL. But that's the point.

Drive is a very strange movie. It stars Ryan Gosling, a genetic hybrid of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, as a cool, detached getaway driver cum mechanic who begins a shy, reserved relationship with his neighbour, Carey Mulligan. The opening scene is a tense car chase (or non-chase) that sets you up for more of the same, then wrongfoots the audience by steering them into a romantic cul de sac. When Mulligan's ex turns up, you suspect things are going to go bad for our hero: just how bad you'll never guess.

Drive is a movie where bad people do bad things, and good people do worse. It has moments of horrific violence which might have passed unnoticed in an action movie yet stand out like the aforementioned bagpipes here. It has Christina Hendricks, like you've never seen her before. It has a magnetic performance from Mulligan and a mumbling intensity from Gosling that recalls Brando at his white-vested best. It has a weird soundtrack made up of 80s synth bands. It feels like it could be happening right now or any time in the last five decades. It might be one of the best films I've seen this year... but I'm still not sure I actually enjoyed it.

Calling All Botanists...

2011-10-03T08:00:00.002Z

Name that flower!

Back in the spring, we bought a cheap packet of bulbs from the supermarket in the hope of bringing a little diversity to our garden. We've seen little from them all summer apart from a few might-be-weeds / might-be-leaves and had pretty much given up on any explosions of colour... until now, in our Autumn heatwave (hottest day of the year on Saturday - and they say the climate's not messed up)...

Of course, we long ago threw away the bulb packet so have no idea just what it was that we planted... but it's the most beautiful and exotic flower we've had in our garden all year. And it lived just one day before closing up and dying.

Any ideas?

My Week On The Web

2011-10-01T08:55:00.000Z

This was the week I started my new music blog, The Mixtape Lives On. One song a post, one post a day, endlessly surprising, always something new. So far we've had a free download from Billy Bragg; songs about mixtapes from Bow Wow Wow and Los Campesinos!; new music from The Slow Readers Club; and a cracking cover version of Sexual Healing by The Hot 8 Brass Band.

We also wished a very happy 5th blog-birthday to my favourite music blogger: JC, The Vinyl Villain.

Over at thoughtballoons, Danial chose H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu as the character we all had to write a 1-page comic script about this week. I looked for horror in the most everyday scenario imaginable... because that's always where it's worst. Read my story here.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere this week...

Scott Pilgrim met Ramona's 8th boyfriend...

An old pal launched a new blog full of drunken misanthropy (and believe me: he isn't joking)...

Nota Bene had a lucky escape...

Dad Who Writes considered whether we want to read more toilet breaks and menstruation in our fiction...

Steve made the ludicrous assertion that Big Bird would win against Octavia The Ostrich in a cage fight (he couldn't be more wrong)...

...and Rob relaunched The Negative Channel... because what the internet really needs right now is more negativity.

(If I haven't mentioned you or your blog this week, it's not that I didn't find it interesting or entertaining. I'll get to you in weeks to come. Honest.)

That was my week on the web. How was yours?

Movie Review - The Guard

2011-09-29T12:10:00.000Z

One of my favourite movies of recent years was In Bruges, in which Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two feckless Irish hitmen laying low in Belgium after a job gone wrong. I haven't laughed so much at the cinema since the Dude and Walter went bowling. So I was excited by the prospect of The Guard which sees Gleeson back on familiar territory (and back in his Irish homeland) in a story from the same stable: writer / director John Michael McDonagh is the brother of Martin, who performed those same duties on In Bruges.

Gleeson plays an Irish Garda (police man) with a cynical, anti-establishment attitude and no time whatsoever for the American FBI Agent (a wonderfully deadpan Don Cheadle) invading his patch to investigate a billion dollar drug-smuggling operation. Gleeson is the sort of cop who steals drugs from the pockets of dead joyriders and books prostitutes for the weekend, while also caring for a terminally ill mother (a wry, sly, bone-dry Fionnula Flanagan). It's a tremendous, multi-layered performance and Gleeson gets all the best lines (unlike In Bruges, where Colin Farrell stole the show). Sometimes the western Irish accents were a little too thick for my cloth ears to catch every joke, but there's more than enough to go round and entertaining support from Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot and Mark Strong (who you might imagine would be too big for this sort of villainous bit-part nowadays - but I'm glad he's not).

It's a shame The Guard will suffer in comparison to In Bruges because set against any other recent comedy, it'd come out on top. It's good to see that the first McDonagh brother didn't nab all the movie-making talent... I'll be following them both from now on. Excellent use of John Denver in the closing credits too.

Alphabetical Meme

2011-09-28T09:49:00.002Z

Because I've not done one of these for a while...

Stolen from Sunday Stealing.

A. Age: 39 and a half. For the rest of my life.

B. Bed size: Daddy bear.

C. Chore that you hate: All of them.

D. Dogs: Bollocks.

E. Essential start to your day: Green Tea.

F. Favorite colour: I wear black on the outside...

G. Gold or Silver: Not even bronze.

H. Height: 6'1".

I. Instruments you play: Piano, tenor horn, record, harmonica. But I haven't played any of them for years so probably none.

J. Job title: Word Wrestler.

K. Kids: My favourite Indelicates song.

L. Live: Slow, Die Old, Wear a Seatbelt.

M. Mother's name: Mary.

N. Nicknames: See You Next Tuesday.

O. Overnight hospital stays: No, thanks.

P. Pet peeve: Cleaning out the cat's litter tray. (See also 'C'.)

Q. Quote from a movie: Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!

R. Right or left handed: Right.

S. Siblings: 1 sister, 1 brother.

T. Time you wake up: 7am. I've kissed 6am goodbye!

U. Underwear: Yes.

V. Vegetable you hate: Tom Hanks.

W. What makes you run late: Louise. (Ouch - joking!)

X. X-Rays you've had: When I broke my arm; plus an MRI for my dodgy back.

Y. Yummy food that you make: I can boil a kettle and make nice Cup-A-Soup.

Z. Zoo animal: Monkeys!

Book Review - Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist

2011-09-27T11:10:00.000Z

Anyone who's read John Ajvide Lindqvist's previous novels, Handling The Undead and Let The Right One In will know that he's an author hugely influenced by Stephen King at his best. We see this again in the opening chapters of Harbour as Lindqvist introduces us to a strange community who make their home on Domarö, a haunted island in the Stockholm archipelago. There's Anders, whose six year old daughter disappears into thin air on a walk to the lighthouse. There's Simon, an old magician and escapologist who keeps a spooky insect in a box that gives him supernatural abilities. There's Anna-Greta, Anders' grandma, a former smuggler who knows far more about the terrible history of Domarö than she's letting on. And there's Elin, a former Reality TV beauty who's determined to make herself ugly. All great characters, given plenty of back-story while the mystery of Domarö deepens, long before the horror begins.

Anders' daughter Maja isn't the first person to disappear on Domarö, and she won't be the last. But what happens when the missing start coming back? Harbour builds to an exciting and shocking first act climax involving two old ghosts called Henrik and Bjorn, homicidal Smiths fans who ride the island on a spooky moped, quoting Morissey lyrics and causing panic wherever they go. Unfortunately, the novel loses much of its momentum in the second half and drags towards an unsatisfyingly metaphysical ending. It's just like Stephen King... at his worst. But don't let that put you off. Harbour remains a fascinating, engrossing and emotionally gripping read, and you may have more time for the climax than I did. It's worth reading for page 347 alone, where Anders breaks down while listening to a cassette of an old Swedish comedian. Lindqvist has a powerful understanding of how pop culture affects us even at the lowest points of our life, and how sometimes it's all that keeps us going.

The Mixtape Lives On...

2011-09-26T11:30:00.000Z

...is the name of my new music blog which launches today. I've been writing about music here on Sunset Over Slawit since the very second post but lately those posts have become longer and longer and taken up a much bigger part of the blog than is healthy. Things like my musically themed Top Tens and the What I'm Listening To posts take ages to write and are probably of limited interest to many regular SOS readers. So I decided to set up a blog where I can write about music to my heart's content. Hopefully this will give me the outlet I want but also take up a little less of my time. I'm only allowing myself to write about one song per post... not ten!

There will be new music. There will be old music. There will be cracking cover versions and free downloads. There will be songs linked by a theme, starting with Songs About Mixtapes. When I've got enough of them, I'll compile a Top Ten here, but if you pop over to The Mixtape Lives On, you'll get to vote on that beforehand.

I'd love it if you'd join me, bookmark me, give me a plug or a link, or add me to your blogroll (particularly if you're a music blogger yourself). If music's not your thing, rest assured Sunset Over Slawit will continue to bring you all the other rubbish from my life. And if you only want the music, now I've filtered that out for you.

How can writing two blogs take less time than writing one? Stick around, I intend to show you...

Sunset Over Slawit

The Mixtape Lives On

Going South (2): Monkey World

2011-09-24T10:47:00.000Z

When we first arrived at Monkey World, we were worried a better name for the place might be "Spot The Monkey World". It was a windy, chilly day and despite having large enclosures full of climbing frames, nets and other exciting outdoor toys, most of the chimps were huddled up inside. Fortunately the sun soon came out, and so did the monkeys.

Monkey World is an Ape Rescue Centre dedicated to combating worldwide monkey smuggling and offering rehabilitation to rescued primates. Some of the monkeys here have health problems due to neglect or abuse they suffered in previous captivity and probably wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anymore. At Monkey World they're encouraged to live in natural social groups to aid in their recovery. The centre was founded by the late Jim Cronin who dedicated his life to the conservation and welfare of monkeys everywhere.

Our favourites were the orangutans, particularly Oshine, an older female who suffered weight problems having been fed on a human diet of junk food while being raised illegally as a pet by a family in South Africa. Oshine's social group also a included a younger female orangutan and a tiny toddler. These two squabbled and play-fought like human children, but when the older girl got a little too rough with her young step-brother, Oshine stepped in, took the little one's hand, and walked him away like a mother walking her child to school. I don't really do "sweet", but that was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

Slightly less sweet was the moment when the young female orangutan hung spread-eagled before us with her ladybits pressed up against the window. We might have found her innocence charming had not the assorted apes on our side of the glass not started clicking away with their camera phones to capture this image for perverted posterity. Still, we can't blame the monkeys for our own vile and disgusting ways. It's at times like these you realise the human race really doesn't deserve this planet... maybe it is time to give it back to the apes.

Movie Review - Jane Eyre

2011-09-21T13:05:00.000Z

So there's another Jane Eyre adaption doing the rounds and it's really not bad. Certainly better than that awful TV version of Wuthering Heights we had to suffer through a few years back. (I was going to write "last year" until I checked the post and discovered I'd written it in 2009... which scared me a little, to be honest.)

If I had to pick a Brontë sister to lock up in my attic, it'd have to be poor, messed-up Emily. But I'd settle for Charlotte at a pinch. Jane Eyre is a terrific story, filled with passion, tragedy, dark secrets and lashings of wild, windswept moors. Mia Wasikowska's Jane is a spunky heroine, Michael Fassbender walks a fine balance between mutton-chopped he-babe and arrogant cad, Judi Dench turns up and wipes the floor with everybody (well, she is the housekeeper). The lack of comedy Yorkshire accents (remember Tom Hardy's Heathcliff?) was a definite plus too. Almost perfect vowel-sounds from both leads.

If I had to quibble (and sometimes I'm contractually obliged), I'd say the love story could have followed a smoother curve. One minute Jane's simmering with resentment for her brutish master, the next she's throwing herself into his tragic arms. Still, it could have been worse. She might have changed her mind and married the dull preacher (Billy Elliott). If Hollywood gets any more puritanical, that'll be bound to happen one day.

The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

2011-09-20T09:30:00.000Z

So here we go with the next step of my master plan: teacher training.

What, you say? Rol, you say? Are you insane, you say? Putting you in a classroom with a mob of cheeky young oiks... that's a recipe for disaster!

Fortunately, I'm not training to teach young people. That job lost its appeal since they abolished corporal punishment. If I could have been Bullet Baxter in Grange Hill, I might have been interested... though knowing me I'd probably have been more like Scruffy McDuffy.

Sleep easy tonight, I'm not training to teach kids, I won't be terrorising your offspring anytime soon. Unless they decide to stick around for some post-compulsory, 16+ education... after which point, I can't promise you anything.

Sadly, I can't write about my teaching experiences here - or even my teacher training experiences. Confidentiality and all that. Maybe I'll set up an anonymous blog and write about it there. Let me know if you'd like the link.

Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools... so I reckon I'm a shoe-in for a job there sometime in the future.

Going South (1) Avebury Vs. Stonehenge

2011-09-19T08:00:00.001Z

We were heading for Dorset, but our first stop was in Wiltshire at the huge prehistoric henge monument that dominates and defines the village of Avebury. It includes one of the largest stone circles in the world, well over 1000 feet in diameter, built over a period of a thousand years by 40 generations of Neolithic Britons. Long before the Parthenon, the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China were even rough sketches on a slate, the ancient Aveburians were heaving stones so big you'd struggle to lift them with a JCB today across vast distances to create this strange monument to the unknown.

Nobody knows why they did it or what it was for, it all happened so very long ago that no written record exists; we can only guess at its purpose or significance. Later residents would demolish and dispose of much of the monument, believing it to be the work of the devil, but fortunately large sections were saved and re-erected in the 1930s by a dedicated archaeologist named Alexander Keiller. The Avebury museum is dedicated to Keiller and his work and features a collection of Stone Age relics such as axeheads, flints and - most impressive of all - calcified dog excrement, proving both that man's best friend was a loyal companion even five millennia ago, and that white dog shit wasn't purely a phenomenon of the 1970s.

The best thing about Avebury is the open access for everyone. You can walk the ancient circles and lay hands on the monolithic stones, getting a real sense of the history and mysticism of the place. Sheep graze amid the henge itself and it's all refreshingly uncommercialised. You can't help but be dwarfed by the scale of the place - in size and age. Avebury made me feel like a gnat flitting about the vast forest of history. But it also made me feel connected to something larger and older, as though its ancient architects were reaching out and communicating to me across the years. My life would be just as unimaginable to them as theirs is to me. There's something oddly reassuring about that.

By contrast, Avebury's far more famous yet smaller and younger cousin left me cold. Perhaps I'd been spoiled earlier in the day, but everything about Stonehenge proved a disappointment. From its featureless moorland location on the junction of two busy A-roads to the armies of tourists queuing up for the expensive luxury of a guided tour around its outer border, this iconic symbol of the British Isles might well have been a polystyrene film set. I wondered how many of those visitors would drive away commenting that it didn't look like it does on the telly or that it really was nothing more than a huge pile of carefully arranged rocks. There was no magic to be felt here, Stonehenge couldn't ever live up to its own legend.

Music I Haven't Been Listening To This Week

2011-09-16T17:25:00.003Z

I haven't actually been here this week. I've gone south... quite a long way, but not quite as far as France. This may also explain why I haven't popped over to your blog to be as abusive as I usually am. I've been elsewhere. All this week's posts were written last week and posted by the SOS Rol-bot.

That's why there isn't a Music I've Been Listening To feature today. I'm stopping writing about music... in fact, I'm going to be writing about it more than ever.

The Mixtape Lives On...

I'll tell you more about that, and where I've been this week, very soon.

Here's an appropriate song to fill the gap...

Book Review - How To Leave Twitter

2011-09-15T18:55:00.001Z

How To Leave Twitter is a hugely pointless book. But then, it's a book about a hugely pointless subject. Grace Dent makes you realise what an enormous waste of your life twitter really is (as if you didn't already know) but despite the title, she has no intention of actually leaving. She's a twitter addict. And like any addict, she's tried to quit, gone cold turkey, sometimes actually managed to walk away... but she always ends up falling off the wagon and going back to twitter's safe, comfortable, welcoming womb. Twitter is her castle and she is its queen. Why would she ever want to go back to being a lowly commoner?

My own relationship with twitter followed a similar trajectory to Dent's. Longterm readers of this blog will know that I, like most people, went from mocking anyone who ever tweeted to being sucked into its gaping, Sarlacc Pit maw. For a while there I was an addict too, though never quite to the level of Dent... because a) at the end of the day, I'm just an ordinary Joe, not a celebrity journalist whose followers number the tens of thousands; and b) I just don't have the time or energy to devote myself to it like some people do. Nor would I want to. That's not to mock anyone who does. Twitter's great for multi-taskers (if I tweeted while watching TV, I'd miss half the show) and those who thrive on a sense of community.

I found myself nodding in agreement at many of Dent's amusing and pithy insights into the society that spawned social networking...

It puzzles me how many people still believe 'friendship' or at least bonhomie conducted in cyberspace isn't a valid form of social contact, but, say, being thrown together at an NCT group, or in halls of residence, or because your desks at work face each other, is. Or that anodyne small talk with a neighbour is 'genuine social stimulation', whereas chatting with twitter with someone 6000 miles away who loves Top Gun and Jefferson Airplane as much as you do is just lonely, dysfunctional nerds clashing in cyberspace.

Given the nature of this blog, I could hardly argue with that... and I've been online long enough to recognise the horrible truth of this...

...arguing on the internet is like pulling a drunk's trousers back up for him in public.

In the end though, I wonder how long it'll be before the twitter bubble bursts and the site becomes as forgotten as myspace? Grace Dent is surfing the zeitgeist here, but will she too look back in five years time and wonder what all the fuss was about? And what will she - and the rest of us - be doing to waste our time on the internet then? The mind boggles...

Posters On My Wall

2011-09-14T08:53:00.003Z

Looking through some old photographs, I came across these pictures of my bedroom wall when I was a young boy. As you can see, my heroes back then weren't pop stars or sporting heroes like you'd find on a lot of boy's walls, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) the same comic book characters who still provide me entertainment and reassurance thirty years later. If I couldn't get to sleep, I could always glance across at my four-colour friends for comfort in the night.

Look - I even had a Spider-Man lampshade... how cool is that?

Most of these posters came from Marvel UK comics of the time which usually had a full-colour pull-out in their centre pages, even when the rest of the comic was printed in black and white. I also recall a Marvel Poster book which gave me some of the better quality images on the wall below. You can even see my own sorry attempts at being a comic artist pinned to the lower wall - just above my young scalp as I hold the camera up high behind me to get this picture.

As I grew older, I took the posters from my bedroom wall and pinned them up in the box room at the top of the stairs. My teenage bedroom wall gave fewer clues to my comics addiction, although the duvet cover, headboard full of stickers and box of comics at the side of the bed show that I'd hardly left my heroes behind.

Looking back at these photos now, I feel a warm sense of nostalgia for my childhood bedroom. I was happy there, safe, and always had something to keep me entertained. Part of me wishes I could go back, to simpler times, when life wasn't so damned complicated. Of course, I'd probably hate it... but it'd be nice to take a few days holiday there at least.

What did your teenage bedroom look like? Who were the heroes on your walls? Do you have photographs? Consider this a meme challenge... do you accept?

Movie Review - Cowboys & Aliens

2011-09-12T09:31:00.000Z

Hey - you like westerns, right?

How about sci-fi films?

Yeah?

What about Daniel Craig? Harrison Ford? Thirteen from House? Sam Rockwell? The Kurgan? Walton freaking Goggins?

Imagine them all in the same movie - wouldn't that be incredible?

Erm...

I had high hopes for Cowboys & Aliens, but it just didn't work. The two genres mixed like oil and water, with the western floating about on top only to be spoiled every time an unimaginative CGI alien flashed its jaws across the surface.

There are some fine actors at work here, struggling with a humourless script that attempts to cram in as many cliches from the two genres as possible. The plot takes some ridiculous leaps that would stretch credibility even if this were pure sci-fi. In A western, they just seem crass. The opening half hour is the best, but we'd seen virtually that whole story sequence already in the trailer. There were no surprises to be had and precious little fun. I grew increasingly fidgety towards the end, and that's the worst crime of all for a film featuring both Cowboys and Aliens. No way should I have been bored.

Dull.

Music I'm Listening To This Week

2011-09-09T15:00:00.001Z

The Countryside make a mellow, mournful, haunting sound on their debut album, Beggars On Horseback. It's the brainchild of Irish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Graeme Slattery (former guitarist with The Devlins) and charts his journey from city dweller to his new home in a converted 17th century stable in the countryside of County Wicklow. As someone who's lived most of his life staring out across misty moorland and rainswept pastures, I found the album hugely evocative - and it helps that Graeme counts among his influences Paddy McAloon, Roddy Frame and The Blue Nile.

You can hear listen to the full album here. It's available to download from evil iTunes and other digital retailers (I'd recommend the latter).

Good on PJ Harvey for her victory at this year's Mercury Music Prize with a record that's actually about something. Let England Shake isn't her most immediate record, but persevere and you'll soon be clasping it to your bosom. A brave, thought-provoking and majestically sad record that proves award ceremonies don't have to be all about the bling.

And finally, this. The soundtrack to Super 8 breathes new life into a number of early 80s gems. It's great to see some love given to My Sharona by The Knack... but I rarely need an excuse to dig out the ELO. Their records never fail to brighten up a movie score. Don't bring me down.

The Mixtape Lives On... is coming.

Book Review - Dark Steps

2011-09-08T14:30:00.003Z

Dark Steps is a short anthology of stories from fellow blogger and writer Martin Pond, available to download or read on old-fashioned dead trees, if you're a traditionalist like me.

The collection opens with The Waiting Room, a scary slice of future-shock spiced with sharp ideas and a chilling, utterly unexpected, denouement. It's probably my favourite story here, but that's not to detract from the delights that lie ahead.

Dream Feed will surely raise hairs on the necks of new parents everywhere as a spooky voice is heard over the baby monitor by a sleep-deprived father.

Near-Death Experience, which I've read before on Martin's blog, reminds me of M. Knight Shyamalan's Unbreakable - and there's no finer comparison in this genre.

The longest story here is The Inheritance, a clever piece of writing in which a son visits his dying police man father in hospital only to face some shocking revelations. The twist is obvious to the reader long before it hits the protagonist, but there's much worse to come. In his foreword, Martin claims it's his least favourite story in the collection, yet it lingered in my mind long after I set the book aside.

Three other stories and an extract from Martin's work-in-progress novel, Drawn To The Deep End, complete the anthology. It's an excellent collection of unexpected tales told in everyday surroundings with a vein of dark humour running just below the surface.

To find out more, visit Martin's writing blog or Pip's Pages, his original home on the web.

There's A Huge Spot On Daniel Craig's Neck

2011-09-07T13:39:00.000Z

So we're watching the film Defiance on DVD the other night. It's not the greatest thing Daniel Craig's ever done, but it's a hell of a lot better than Cowboys & Aliens*. It's the tale of three Jewish brothers who escape the Nazis in WWII and build a community of exiles in the Belarussian forest where they survive for years until the end of the war. It's based on a true story, one of those "triumph of the human spirit" gems that Hollywood adores. It's all very worthy and dramatic, with fine performances from Craig, Liev Schreiber and Billy Elliott. However, the image it scored into my mind was not of valiant heroes fighting against all odds in dire circumstances... but of the huge spot on Daniel Craig's neck.

You can't see it on the image above, because Bond is wearing a big woolly scarf to hide it from the photographer... but it's a belter. The sort of zit that makes you think you're growing an extra head. I should know, I spent most of my teenage years caked in Clearasil, unsuccessfully fighting the damned things off. Still, you don't expect to find one of the neck of a celebrity beefcake noted for his washboard chest, solid sixpack, sandpaper stubble and piercing blue eyes... even if he's been living in a forest for three years.

Digital film stock and HD TV make it easier than ever to see the pimples, wrinkles, cellulite and saggy bits of our favourite actors and actresses in crystal clear quality. (It's only because I'm a gentleman that I haven't mentioned the crimson carbuncle on Sarah Lund's nose in one episode of The Killing last week. You can forgive her the skincare neglect: she works long hours in a permanently dark city and eats all her meals straight from the pan.)

Cinema's come a long way since the grand dames of Hollywood only ever allowed themselves to be filmed with a heavy gauze or thick layer of petroleum jelly smeared over the camera lens to mask their imperfections. We should cherish these days of scabby stars and spotty starlets though... how long before they insist on CGI-airbrushing away their every blemish? It's already a staple of magazine shoots, and if you ask me it makes our idols far less human... and less attractive... with each Photoshopped brushstroke. And don't even start me on plastic surgery!

*Review to follow, once I can bring myself to face up to the awfulness of it.