Shoot All The Clowns

DVD: Hunt To Kill

2010-10-25T00:52:00.002+01:00

Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

Directed by Keoni Waxman
Written by Frank Hannah
Starring Steve Austin, Gil Bellows, Gary Daniels, Michael Eklund, Emilie Ullerup, Marie Avgeropoulos

Much like most of the movies starring American wrestling superstar "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, although you might expect otherwise, his acting skill is not the biggest problem.

The movie follows a well-worn plot that has been the subject of many actions movies before this one. The star is made to guide a group of criminals through rough terrain because they are dragging his daughter along for the journey at gunpoint. Simple enough and everyone knows it's only a matter of time (approximately 75% of the movie's length) before he starts killing them one by one in imaginative ways which befit his character (if we're lucky).

And it plays out more or less as you would expect, right down to people who we're meant to assume are dead getting back up for another round. Why throw out one action movie tradition when you've touched upon all of the rest. At least there's no token love interest.

And so to the acting, such that it is. Eric Roberts make an all-too-brief cameo in the opening few minute which sadly stands as the best turn of the movie. Emilie Ullerup somehow manages to be worse as one of the criminals than she is as Ashley in sci-fi series 'Sanctuary', Marie Avgeropoulos is so obviously too old to be playing Austin's teenage daughter Kim that she can never make "Daddy" ring true, and why British-born kick boxer-turned-action star Gary Daniels quite feels the need to over-do his English accent is a mystery. Presumably director Keoni Waxman his normal voice was too subtle for American audiences to realise he was English.

One thing Austin can never be faulted for in his acting is his effort. He always seems to try hard despite being in a string of low-budget, badly scripted action-by-numbers DVD releases. Besides Austin's admirable efforts the only real acting going on comes from Gil Bellows as murderous leader Banks, but his script is truly dreadful at times, and the ever-eccentric Michael Eklund as tech geek Geary. In both cases though they're forced to over act in the majority of their scenes, especially Bellows.

Like Austin's other recent DVD release 'The Stranger', 'Hunt To Kill' is watchable on one of those lazy evenings when you just want to watch something without having to think too hard, and since no one involved in writing this movie did, it stands to reason that you don't have to either. There better, there are worse, take it for what it is.

“ low-budget, badly scripted action-by-numbers ”

Special Features: None.

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: October 11, 2010
Studio: NGN Productions
Feature Running Time: 93 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): Blu-Ray

Chasing Time

2010-10-14T18:24:00.007+01:00

Following the usual well-publicised disasters on the current Guns N' Roses European tour, including leaving the stage after only a handful of songs when fans threw bottles at the band in Dublin, the band's outstanding UK comeback show at the O2 Arena in London on October 13 highlighted yet another fickle habit of the British public: invalidating their own reason to complain, then feeling they're entitled to complain anyway.

There's no denying, even for the most ardent fan of the band, that leader Axl Rose's continued disrespectful attitude towards fans regarding the time of his arrival on stage and subsequent end time of the show is the biggest problem with trying to see the band play live. And those who attend the shows, although for the most part in no way condoning his behaviour, accept that there is the very likely possibility that the show will finish after local public transport has ceased for the night, and there may be a substantial waiting period between the end of the support act's set and GN'R's.

Venues try their best to accommodate the situation, in the O2's case including publishing a three-page document outlining the additional contingency travel arrangements they had put in place for the benefit of ticket holders should the show inevitably over-run the planned schedule. There's not much more they can do beyond contractually obligating Axl to arrive on time and play to the show times they've outlined. On the surface that would seem like the most prudent option, but in reality I think it's almost a certainty Rose would never sign such an agreement and would simply play a venue where he isn't so restricted.

What it basically comes down to, from the fans point of view, is common sense. As most things tend to. The band will start late and end late. That is the only assumption it is safe working with when planning attendance at a show. With that in mind, you either buy a ticket knowing that's going to happen and plan accordingly, or you don't go. By attending, knowing full well it's going to be a late night, you have absolutely no right to complain when it turns out to actually be a late night.

There's an argument put forward by the most accepting fans along the lines "if you're worried about getting home you're in the wrong place", which is obviously nonsense; it doesn't matter how much you love the band, you still don't want to be wandering the streets until 5am when you can get a train home again. In actual fact if you're worried about getting home, sort yourself out a back-up plan that doesn't rely on leaving early for the last train, or don't come. It's a hard decision to have to make if you do want to see the band, but the only way the band will learn is if no one shows up for the show, so turning up anyway and then complaining about it is ridiculous.

But this is just another example of so many people's attitudes to this kind of thing. When artists like Madonna charge over £100 for tickets people complain, but the concert still sells out. As far as Madonna and her people are concerned, they can get away with charging £100 for a ticket. So next time she's going to do exactly the same thing.

It would seem that England in 2010 can't bear to vote with their feet. Apparently nothing in entertainment is unacceptable, because we're all going to turn up anyway. We might moan about it on the radio or the internet afterwards, but only after the damage has been done and the people responsible have not only gotten away with exploiting the paying public's good will, they've done it with the belief they'll be able to do it again because as far as they can tell we were all happy to show up.

This generally only happens with large-scale events, and the large contingent of people who aren't really fans but want to be able to say "I was there" whenever the subject of any major event is raised doesn't help matters. This was evident last night when thousands of people in the capacity crowd barely got involved in the show at all apart from during radio hits 'Sweet Child O' Mine' and 'Paradise City'. Enjoyment of the new material versus the old material aside, if there are people there who don't even know the other songs from the album those two singles come from, or even the other singles, then those are the people who are in the wrong place. But they can now say "I was there" and feel they have the right to complain about Axl's behaviour. They're a bigger problem than the fans who do that. At least the fans turned up because they wanted to see their favourite band. At least their reason for putting up with it was valid.

We want it both ways all the time and have lost sight of the fact that we simply can't have it. All the complainers are achieving nothing now. We will all win if we don't buy the tickets to these things. But once we've bought them, we lost long before the show even took place.

DVD: The Stranger

2010-09-11T00:33:00.005+01:00

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Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

Directed by Robert Lieberman
Written by Quinn Scott
Starring Steve Austin, Adam Beach, Erica Cerra, Ron Lea

It's very easy to start 'The Stranger' with the assumption that it will be low-budget-terrible. Firstly, it's a straight-to-DVD action movie, and good ones of those are very rare. Secondly the lead is professional wrestling star "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Again, an actor who has crossed over from another entertainment profession who can actually act is rare. Lastly, no other actor is mentioned on the cover, meaning there's no one in the movie significant enough to be noted alongside Austin.

However, basing assessment of the quality of this movie on Austin's ability is grossly unfair. Given a dreadful script, appalling supporting actors (particularly Adam Beach) and cinematography reminiscent of a student film club project, Austin's performance is remarkable. He holds his own amongst a legion of amateurs behind and in front of the camera and although the plot isn't as original as it tries to claim it is watchable, building to the inevitable conclusion seen hundreds of times before.

There's not enough here to give the movie a good rating, which Austin almost deserves for holding the whole thing together against the odds, and it's therefore difficult to recommend this to anyone except Austin fans who will enjoy seeing him put in a good turn. It has to be said though, if you're looking for a bit of no-brain action entertainment, there are better movies out there.

“ a legion of amateurs behind and in front of the camera ”

Special Features: The Stranger: Behind The Scenes / Trailer

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: August 9, 2010
Studio: NGN Productions
Feature Running Time: 87 mins
Special Features Running Time: 7 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): Blu-Ray

Alan Pearce - Who's Side Are They On?

2010-05-22T15:58:00.003+01:00

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Gibson Square Books Ltd.

For Alan Pearce to say he wrote this book could be a case for trading standards. All this is, really, all this is, is a collection of Daily Mail-worthy sidebars about things that have happened to people. All one-off, all unusual in some way, and all collected with the blatant attempt to try to prove that Government and authority are against us rather than with us.

There's no doubt that in certain areas the police, the government, and so on do things to benefit themselves, but this book challenges none of them. Nothing in here indicates a trend in behaviour, any particular policies, or holds any other semblance of proof or integrity. One person, in one small local area, wronged by one police officer does not mean the entire force is crooked. Amusing little anecdote it may be, but the point of this book was meant to be to demonstrate the PC-fueled decline of the country, and it doesn't do that any better than the Daily Star does.

And if it weren't bad enough that none of the material here is at all indicative of the state of the nation, the "author" hasn't even bothered writing anything. Everything here has been lifted from other sources. Maybe re-edited a little, but all the same it's a collection of clippings, not a book.

No political, social or economic commentary, no analysis, not even any satire. Just a cut-and-paste job of dumbed-down, lowest-common-denomenator stuff at its most blatant... and one look at the Amazon product page for this book will demonstrate all the people it's fooled so far. At least the author and publisher can collectively claim their little con-job worked!

“ a collection of clippings, not a book ”

PUBLICATION DETAILS
First Hardback Publication Date: November 3, 2009
First Paperback Publication Date: N/A
Publisher: Gibson Square Books Ltd.
Pages: 224
Language(s): English

Shallow Life

2009-12-14T01:03:00.006Z

A friend of mine is in love with rock singer Lauren Harris. He has actually spent quite a bit of time with her, so that's not as shallow and pathetic as most peoples' celebrity crushes (hello 'Twilight' fans). Another friend of mine attended a metal festival with me this past Summer, where she played, and so the subject of his childish infatuation came up. When I told him about the guy who loved her and how excited he'd been when I'd told him she had reportedly posed and interviewed for English lads' rag FHM he said "actually, I have that!", claiming to have bought it on a whim and promising to hand it over to be sent to the other guy.

It's now six months later and while digging through his stuff in preparation for moving home he found it and dutifully passed it on.

I can honestly say I have never "read" a magazine like FHM, and frankly I can't really understand the people who do with any regularity, but since this one has, temporarily at least, found its way into my possession, I had a flick through. Guys, if you want to look at photos of semi-naked or naked women, grow up and buy porn, otherwise grow the balls necessary to develop an interest even slightly off the mainstream and buy the specialist magazine for that.

Magazines like FHM are the glossy print equivalent of combination home electronics. Combi VHS/DVD players, men's grooming devices that claim to be able to cut every hair on your body closer than a wet shave, washer-driers, that kind of thing. Vacuum cleaners that make the tea. Several functions in one unit and no good at any of them. They make a terrible brew and leave the dirt on the floor. Everyone who just thought "like my wife/husband", no. Just no.

Most of it, when not concerned with glamorous photos of young celebrity women in their underwear, seems to be novelty stories aimed at the kind of people who think Seth Rogen movies are the height of sophisticated comedy. Or pages of trendy products no one has any use for, but buys anyway just in case all the other readers did the same thing. On this score the issue in question had one page each on: glow-in-the-dark shoes, desks, shoulder bags - seriously - sleeping bags, phones, and over-priced skincare products.

Nothing goes in to any depth whatsoever. There are token efforts at cars, technology, music, sport, interviews with E-list celebrities (including a surprisingly bulky Steve Guttenburg), computer games, films, and the usual top 10 this, that or the other nonsense. Almost all with more pictures than words on every page and more innuendo than an Alan Carr show. And just to prove it really is a magazine for Men, they seem to be doing a monthly sexual position tip, complete with diagrams. Classy.

There are even dinner recipes, pages on clothes, and diet plans (don't be so lazy and eat less unhealthy food, were the revelations revealed on those ten pages, by the way).

The particularly shocking hypocrisy of it all is, these are all the things women's glossy magazines are ridiculed for. Everything in here could be in a women's mag, except maybe the bits on computer games and cars.. Just like women's mags there isn't a single shred of value in anything printed within its pages. And there wasn't even a free gift on the cover!

And none of that "feminine side" insecurity drivel, please. There is no "feminine side". The things men consider or do that deem them to be "in touch with their feminine side" are nothing of the kind. They're just being nice, normal people. Note that last word there: people. It's just common sense half the time. Knowing which colours go together when picking paint for the lounge is not being in touch with the "feminine side". It just means they aren't entirely stupid and isn't even remotely linked to being male or female. Do stop stereotyping everything.

Diet, clothes, skincare products and so forth, despite macho bravado, are as necessary for men as they are for women. They're also as obvious. A £4 magazine is not necessary to tell us these things. And if you're really stuck, use the internet for free. Glossy magazines like this have become a multi-million pound industry because scores of people are stupid enough to buy them. They don't even have to try anymore. Just get a different celebrity of the opposite sex to pose on the front cover and they'll meet their copy quota for the month. The rest is dumbed-down, half-hearted and badly written; aimed at the simplest audience.

And then once a year they fill the whole thing with under-dressed celebrities (usually soap opera stars or pop singers - so readers can feel they're lusting after someone that's at least close to their league) and don't have to put the effort into the other stuff. Although for all the worth of the other stuff, they might just as well do this in every issue.

There is one plus point on their side though. At least they only do it once a month. Tabloid newspapers pull the same trick every day.

Seb Hunter - How To Be A Better Person

2009-11-16T01:01:00.002Z

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Atlantic Books

The basic upshot of Seb Hunter's latest project was to spend two years volunteering for various organisations in his local area in an effort to better himself as a person, or rather to answer the question "does volunteering make you a better person?"

The resultant book is essentially a diary of these two years, detailing the various jobs and tasks he undertook, the people he worked with, and people he helped, with short conclusions from time to time on whether or not each job really did make him feel like a better person.

Hunter's semi-autobiographical humourist approach is consistently easy to read and his tone is always warm and friendly. He describes infuriating situations not with venom and malice but in the manner of an old friend reminiscing the ridiculous, or a dinner party guest relating a story for comedic effect. It's easy to relate if not to his exact situations, then to the people he encountered as many of them are either the kinds of people we've all encountered (embittered Oxfam shop worker Gladys in particular), or can imagine from Hunter's descriptions, and would probably see ourselves behaving in the same ways he did towards them.

Some of the entries are clearly chosen more for their comedy merits than their contribution to his story, but at no point do you get the feeling he's undertaken this whole charade simply to produce a funny book, even if that is in fact what he did, to offer a cynical view. He never lets go of the serious aspect to his adventures in favour of a cheap laugh, adding a level of sincerity that a lot of humour writing lacks.

While writing this book it's clear many afterthoughts struck Hunter, which he dispenses via footnotes so as not to disrupt the sense of "now" in the main narrative, which works well and in actual fact there's almost as much humour in these short asides as there is in the text. The thought of these might seem irritating on the surface, and when one or two of the footnotes take up half a page to themselves, they can be, but most of them are single, sharp sentences that often show more of Hunter's cynical side than the paragraphs they're attached to.

'How To Be A Better Person' is not hilarious. Instances of laughing out loud are likely to be rare, if they occur at all, but it is amusing more or less all the way through, and while it probably isn't going to inspire many people to spend a Summer behind the counter at Oxfam, it may provide some food for thought on the whole volunteering thing and what good the various avenues of volunteering actually do for people in need.

“ easy to relate ”

PUBLICATION DETAILS
First Hardback Publication Date: N/A
First Paperback Publication Date: April 1, 2009
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Pages: 304
Language(s): English

George Carlin - It's Bad For Ya

2009-11-12T22:05:00.000Z

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Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

Directed by Rocco Urbisci
Written by George Carlin
Starring George Carlin

A year behind the US with this release, this is George Carlin's final HBO comedy special before his death at the age of 71 in 2008; his 14th HBO special in total, which is currently the record for a comedian. And, remarkably, it's only the second of his stand-up DVDs to get a commercial release in the UK, the other one being 'Complaints And Grievances' from 2001 (not released until 2003). 2005's 'Life Is Worth Losing' will finally be released in February 2010.

On his final tour Carlin delivered a typically vitriolic tirade tackling topics like death, children, old age and parents, and the original show was nominated for an Emmy. After release the CD equivalent won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album. How much his death contributed to this would probably be a valid question, but compared to most comedians' output, this is amongst the best. Against the formidable measuring stick of Carlin's own output however, it isn't his best.

Easily the funniest section is his closing rant about rights, where every one of his observations is on the nail when some of his previous ones in this show, like some of the ones about children, aren't. In some instances he is intentionally making silly arguments (like saying babies are ugly because their heads are too big), but some are just a little off the mark.

Other particularly funny segments are his observations on boring conversations, professional parents, swearing on the bible, and "the self-esteem movement", mostly concluded by the phrase which gave the show its name "It's all bulls**t folks and it's bad for ya."

If you're a Carlin fan, get this. We have precious little of his material available in this country and this is a good example of his work. The filming, sound and picture quality is of course first class as you'd expect for a show recorded as recently as March 2008, and George was still as sharp as ever, even at 70.

Hopefully this, February's release, and the two forthcoming books, will at some point be followed up by the 'All My Stuff' box set, which contains all 12 HBO specials from 1977's 'George Carlin At USC' through to 'Life Is Worth Losing' (the 1997 special was a kind of "best of" and isn't included).

“ a typically vitriolic tirade ”

Special Features: Too Hip for the Room* Carlin on December 17, 2007: Selections from the Archive of American Television s 3-hour interview with George Carlin /
Carlin on The Jackie Gleason Show - January 25, 1969

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: October 26, 2009
Studio: HBO
Feature Running Time: 69 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): Blu-Ray / CD

Hate Crew Deathroll

2009-09-14T19:56:00.003+01:00

While I enjoy having a good stab at someone who deserves it, this time I'm not going to. I'm going to let the below say it all. This priceless work of literary genius is all over the internet at the moment, and I'm not being sarcastic, this is the classiest response to a celebrity's slow and public mental deterioration I've ever read. It comes from some anonymous members of director Michael Bay's crew on the second movie in the 'Transformers' franchise, 'Revenge of The Fallen', and it's directed at female co-star Megan Fox. Behold.

This is an open letter to all Michael Bay fans. We are three crew members that have worked with Michael for the past ten years. Last week we read the terrible article with inflammatory, truly trashing quotes by the Ms. Fox about Michael Bay. This letter is to set a few things straight.

Yes, Megan has great eyes, a tight stomach we spray with glycerin, and an awful silly Marilyn Monroe tattoo plastered on her arm that we cover up to keep the moms happy.

Michael found this shy, inexperienced girl, plucked her out of total obscurity thus giving her the biggest shot of any young actresses' life. He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice. He granted her the starring role in Transformers, a franchise that forever changed her life; she became one of the most googled and oogled women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina – second thought – she's no Angelina. You see, Angelia is a professional.

We know this quite intimately because we've had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies. We've spent a total of 12 months on set making these two movies.

We are in different departments; we can't give our names because sadly doing so in Hollywood could lead to being banished from future Paramount work. One of us touches Megan's panties, the other has the often shitty job of pulling Ms. Sourpants out of her trailer, while another is near the Panaflex camera that helps to memorialize the valley girl on film.

Megan has the press fooled. When we read those magazines we wish we worked with that woman. Megan knows how to work her smile for the press. Those writers should try being on set for two movies, sadly she never smiles. The cast, crew and director make Transformers a really fun and energetic set. We've traveled around the world together, so we have never understood why Megan was always such the grump of the set?

When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we've had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it's very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!

So when the three of us caught wind of Ms Fox, pontificating yet again in some publication (like she actually has something interesting to say) blabbing her trash mouth about a director whom we three have grown to really like. She compared working with Michael, to “working with Hitler”. We actually don't think she knows who Hitler is by the way. But we wondered how she doesn't realize what a disgusting, fully uneducated comment this was? Well, here let's get some facts straight.

Say what you want about Michael – yes at times he can be hard, but he's also fun, and he challenges everyone for a reason – he simply wants people to bring their ‘A' game. He comes very prepared, knows exactly what he wants, involves the crew and expects everyone to follow through with his or her best, and that includes the actors. He's one of the hardest working directors out there.

He gets the best from his crews, many of whom have worked with him for 15 years. And yes, he's loyal, one of the few directors we've encountered who lowered his fee by millions to keep Transformers in the United States and California, so he could work with his own crew.

Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don't insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we've all worked around. She's as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom. She shows little interest in the crew members around her. We work to make her look good in every way, but she's absolutely never appreciative of anyone's hard work. Never a thank you. All the crewmembers have stopped saying hi to Ms. Princess because she never says hello back. It gets tiring. Many think she just really hates the process of being an actress.

Megan has been late to the sets many times. She goes through the motions that make her exude this sense of misery. We've heard the A.D's piped over the radio that Megan won't walk from her trailer until John Turturro walks first! John's done seventy-five movies and she's made two!

Never expect Megan to attend any of the 15 or so crew parties like all the other actors have. And then there's the classless night she blew off The Royal Prince of Jordan who made a special dinner for all the actors. She doesn't know that one of the grips' daughters wanted to visit their daddy's work to meet Megan, but he wouldn't let them come because he told them “she is not nice."

The press certainly doesn't know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn't let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, "I can't believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!" I guess this is the “Hitler guy” she is referring to.

So this is the Megan Fox you don't get to see. Maybe she will learn, but we figure if she can sling insults, then she can take them too. Megan really is a thankless, classless, graceless, and shall we say unfriendly bitch. It's sad how fame can twist people, and even sadder that young girls look up to her. If only they knew who they're really looking up to.

But ‘fame' is fleeting. We, being behind the scenes, seen em' come and go. Hopefully Michael will have Megatron squish her character in the first ten minutes of Transformers 3. We can tell you that will make the crew happy!

-Loyal Transformers Crew

Simply magnificent.

Thieving From The House of God

2009-09-13T00:49:00.006+01:00

I use a movie rating community called Criticker to rate all the movies I've seen and thereby get recommendations for movies I haven't seen based on what people who like the same ones as me think. This is similar in principle to the rating of films on sites like movie oracle IMdB, but with fewer additional features beyond rating and recommendation based on those ratings.

I've just watched the original 1974 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three' starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw which has recently been remade with John Travolta and Denzel Washington. So I logged in to rate both versions as I saw the new one at the cinema a month or so ago but wanted to wait until I'd watched the original before I gave it a fair score. For those interested I gave the 1974 version 55/100 and the new one 70/100 (yes, a sequel that's better than the original) and after doing so I had a quick browse through the ratings other users have given the new one (which doesn't take that long; Criticker has far fewer users than IMdB).

What I stumbled across amongst the baseless figures (most users, myself included, rarely comment on why they have given the rating they have) is a comment from a user who is very clearly a Christian. He rated it very highly, giving it 94/100, and obviously enjoyed it, calling it "an excellent, suspensful thriller", which is perfectly accurate, but went on to say "with a strong Christian, redemptive worldview, but it is marred by a whole lot of strong foul language and some intense, very strong depicted violence where people are shot multiple times".

It doesn't have a particularly religious view at all, so this is way off the mark, but in particular, it is not a very violent movie. Many movies, intending to shock or excite, are very over-the-top with their violent depictions, but this is not one of them. It is simply realistic, showing a small number of people getting shot in desperate situations involving armed criminals. It happens every day (at least in America) and regardless of whether or not it's right or wrong (clearly wrong), it's true, and the movie has made no attempt to portray otherwise.

Reading the other reviews (9) this user has written reveals every one to have been labelled "extreme caution", including candyfloss romantic comedy 'The Proposal' for its "sexual innuendo, some near nude scenes and a mixed pagan worldview with positive references to pagan beliefs" (while still giving it 65/100) and comically 'The Stoning of Soraya M.' about an innocent wife being stoned to death in Iran, which he generalises as "what occurs all too often in some Islamic countries" while handing out a 94 rating.

And herein lies the real problem (or one of them) with fundamentalist Christians. They think everything and everyone must follow their way of thinking at all times or be damned. So, besides being an incredibly hypocritical individual who watches these thoroughly un-Christian movies under the pretence of doing so to warn others, putting himself at risk so they don't have to so to speak, like that makes a difference, he genuinely pretends to believe that every movie made should portray Christian beliefs, while rating movies that very clearly don't quite highly.

This is a guy who clearly enjoys his films, but apparently shouldn't, and so hides behind the reviews, like the writers of ridiculous websites like Kids In Mind (blatant liars who review movies with R/18 certificates pretending to be warning parents about showing these movies to their children) and Christianity Today Movies (the movie reviewing arm of Christianity Today, a Christian publication who don't want everything to conform because then they'd have nothing to bitch about), so that he can pretend he's watching them with good intentions in mind.

What is it you all think movie certificates are for? We all know they're probably too low for the content (i.e. movies rated 12A are generally too violent for a 12 year old, accompanied by a parent or not), but seriously, when you watch a movie rated 18 or R, do you honestly think some of them might conform to all of the Christian values? Do you really expect to ever be able to tell any of your readers that a film rated 18 can be watched without the slightest bit of caution? If you do, you're as delusional as the alien conspiracy theorist with the tin foil hat. But you don't do you? You know full well every highly rated movie is as likely to offend fundamentalist believers as a Catholic priest at a boarding school, but you watch anyway because you LIKE IT. Then you write your report so everyone thinks you've done it for their benefit.

The reality, it is my indescribable pleasure to inform you, is that you are no better/worse than everyone else who watches these movies and enjoys them. If it turns out watching them really is a sin and all the viewers are going to Hell, that's going to include you. You watched it and loved it. You are as culpable as everyone else. Stop pretending otherwise. You are the guy who shoots the gun then goes around telling everyone "I shot the gun, it killed someone, so be warned, guns are dangerous", before going off to test the next model.

And to the writers on the Christian movie reviewing websites who think absolutely everything in every movie is a metaphor for something from the bible, or for something entirely non-Christian in an attempt to cover their tracks: no, it isn't. Everything really isn't about you. Get over yourselves.

It's A Wonderful Lie

2009-09-12T13:19:00.004+01:00

In one of the most spectacularly pathetic pieces of music journalism I've seen in a long time, which given the average quality of the field is quite hard to achieve, London-based music blog Gigwise (a meaningless collection of unrevealing articles and reviews about artists everyone already know inside out) have issued their list of the top 50 Worst Albums of The Decade, topped by the UK's favourite media targets Katie Price and Peter Andre.

Of course almost all "best ever in the World" style lists compiled by any mainstream media are nonsense, usually headed by whoever is currently getting the most public attention at the time, but when you're talking about the best, having the most popular at the top, although perhaps not entirely accurate, is reasonably easy to justify on the basis that their popularity must be due in no small part to their talent.

So by the same token, it stands to reason that in the majority of cases, the least popular bands must be making the worst music? Apparently not the case as Gigwise go ahead and name 50 high-profile and wildly popular artists in their list, including Nickelback, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis, James Blunt, Hard-Fi, Queen and Razorlight.

While some might readily agree that any or all of the artists on the list are not worth the adulation they normally receive, or that the specifically named records are not their respective best works, it seems ridiculous to claim that all 50 are worse albums than the hordes of no-talent nobodies and copycats who have tried and failed to "make it" several times over.

This list is a carefully constructed ploy to achieve two specific but closely related aims. Firstly, to garner attention by claiming genuinely widely-liked records and artists are misconceived and in reality poor; trying to suggest they are a worthy musical voice and know better than everyone else. And secondly to incite the kind of petty bickering regularly present in the comments section of most blog-based websites. To make statements so contentious that readers can't resist commenting, unwittingly clocking up the hit counter.

Right up there with estate agents advertising properties they've already sold, chain stores putting products they never had in stock in the first place in their flagship sale sections, and magazines putting the most talked-about faces on their front covers, this was a deliberate attempt to haul in the punters, and flies in the face of true journalism with such offensive disregard that it makes Rupert Murdoch look like 'X-Files' daredevil truth-finder Fox Mulder.

This would normally be where Gigwise are told they should be ashamed of themselves, but it's their total lack of shame that allowed the publication of this farce to begin with.

DVD: Mark Steel - Viva La Revolution

2009-07-19T21:36:00.003+01:00

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Brian Productions

Directed by Cal Barton
Written by Mark Steel
Starring Mark Steel

Recorded at the Black Heath Halls on his 'Viva La Revolution' tour, comedian Mark Steel's first live DVD, based on his book of the same name, focuses predominantly on the French Revolution, a period of time Mark believes is one of the most significant in World history.

So his aim was to guide the audience through the main events of the revolution, picking up on the humour of the things the main participants said and did at the time while being historically accurate at the same time. In reality he relates all of the main events to England. Not in the historic sense, just parallels that can be drawn with the way people behaved then, and society now, mostly by making jokes about working class English people (his mock accents are very good) trying the same thing.

So in actual fact most of the jokes ended up being about things like British public transport, posh people, racism and teenagers, and mostly not about the French Revolution at all. Mark has two of the things which make the funniest comedians as appealing as they are. A working class background and intelligence. This means that during these tangents his social observations are astute and very funny. And like some of his peers he carries a certain amount of well-directed anger towards certain subjects and factions of society which makes his mini-rages all the more funny.

His approach was probably the best he could have taken. Let's be honest, if he'd spent two hours purely talking about the French Revolution, most audiences would likely have lost interest pretty quickly. By spinning off into short spells of UK-derision he keeps people interested and amused long enough to fit everything to his historical reminiscence.

On the extras front there is another 13 minutes of outakes from the show (generally where his tangents got too far away from the subject at hand), a half-hour chat with Jeremy Hardy on a park bench (fairly amusing, but really just two comics sharing annecdotes) and extracts from the Mark Steel Lectures series, in which there's very little humour, more a historical documentary.

Whether or not this show is quite what it claims on the tin, or as sharp as his writing can be, it is still a very funny (and at two hours, good value) show and Mark's delivery is the right mix of low and high brow to appeal to everyone.

“ social observations are astute and very funny ”

Special Features: Two Men On A Bench (with Jeremy Hardy) / Viva La Revolution Outakes / Extracts From The Lectures

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: September 29, 2009
Studio: Brian Productions
Feature Running Time: 112 mins
Special Features Running Time: 58 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): None

DVD: My Name Is Bruce

2009-05-30T21:36:00.003+01:00

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Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

Directed by Bruce Campbell
Written by Mark Verheiden
Starring Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Grace Thorsen, Taylor Sharpe, Ellen Sandweiss, Dan Hicks, Ben L. McCain, James J. Peck

Bruce Campbell has made a career out of being Bruce Campbell. So it's only fair he makes a film about himself. Although it may perhaps be considered an egotistical move on one hand, Bruce spends near enough the entire film mocking himself, his career path, and his movies.

The general storyline of 'My Name Is Bruce' revolves around a small town named Gold Lick which befalls the wrath of the Chinese God of War following the reckless behaviour of a group of teenagers. A much used, and here intentionally mimicked, horror B-movie device. One of the teenagers is an avid fan of Bruce Campbell and his movies, and convinces the town that Campbell can be their only saviour, kidnapping him to be such.

What this movie is essentially aiming at is a tongue-in-cheek take-off of not just Campbell's own movies, but action/horror movies in general, with intentionally-ham-fisted performances, less-than-serious dialogue and a script for Campbell that only Campbell could write. But it's not for Bruce's fans only, although being one does help.

Indeed if approached with the expectation that anything low-budget or corny is meant to be that way, the performances of most involved can be recognised and the good turns that they are. Campbell is obviously perfect playing his movie self, and has written a script to match the general behaviour of the characters he's known for, while Ted Raimi (acting brother of Sam Raimi, director of the 'Evil Dead' trilogy, Campbell's most notable films) appears in three ridiculous but highly amusing roles as Campbell's agent, Wing the aging Chinaman and the handyman responsible for adjusting the population count on Gold Lick's town sign.

The movie plays out mostly as viewers would expect, with Campbell filling the majority of his scenes with over-confident one-liners and the monster involved picking off several bit-part characters and extras until the final showdown. There's a small amount of faux-moral here and there, but it's mostly a well-executed exercise in self-derision for the purposes of humour.

Campbell really doesn't make enough movies anymore, and several references to his generally good performances in otherwise bad productions are both true, and hint that Campbell truly recognises his place.

“ a well-executed exercise in self-derision ”

Special Features: Commentary with Bruce Campbell / Heart of Dorkness - The Making of 'My Name is Bruce' / Awkward Moments with Kif / Bruce on... / Kif's Corner – The Making of Real Fake Posters / 'Cavealien 2' Trailer / Beyond Inside the Cave: The Making of 'Cavealien 2' / Poster art gallery / Prop gallery / Photo gallery / The Hard Truth News From Hollywood – The REAL Bruce Campbell / Love Birds / Trailer / Easter Eggs

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: February 13, 2009
DVD Release Date: March 2, 2009
Studio: Dark Horse Entertainment
Feature Running Time: 81 mins
Special Features Running Time: 147 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Other Format(s): Blu-Ray

DVD: Triangle

2009-05-30T21:15:00.004+01:00

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Manga Home Entertainment

Directed by Johnny To, Hark Tsui, Ringo Lam
Written by Sharon Chong, Kin-Yee Au, Tin-Shing Yip, Kenny Kan, Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring Simon Yam, Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, Kelly Lin, Ka Tung Lam

All of the hype surrounding 'Triangle' has nothing to do with the actual quality of the film or its storyline, but instead the coming together of three of Hong Kong's biggest and most respected action directors Ringo Lam, Johnny To and Hark Tsui, famously responsible for films like 'City On Fire', 'Election' and 'Once Upon A Time In China' respectively.

That kind of hype can often be an indicator that the movie itself isn't up to much, and in this case that was true. The idea was that each director would get 30 minutes of the 90-minute movie each, but the story itself was so disjointed anyway, that really had no effect at all, good or bad.

No aspect of the story moved with any real pace and the acting was, for the most part, the kind of ham-fisted overacting Hong Kong cinema is, sometimes unfairly, mocked for in the West. This is particular true of the segments where the main protagonists, a trio of friends who are trying to retrieve a buried treasure, are on the run from the various people after them; slapstick gags left, right and centre.

Given the reputation attached to the three big-name directors working on this movie, it was a disappointingly boring effort with very few saving graces. The basic story was weak, the acting poor and the pace inadequate. A shame, in a sense, because the three segments idea could have been a good one.

“ ham-fisted overacting ”

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: August 29, 2008
DVD Release Date: October 20, 2008
Studio: Media Asia Films
Feature Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 12
Language(s): Cantonese, English
Subtitles: English
Other Format(s): None

DVD: Tim Vine - So I Said To This Bloke

2009-05-30T00:41:00.005+01:00

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Starz Home Entertainment

Directed by Steve Kemsley
Written by Tim Vine
Starring Tim Vine

Tim Vine's entire stand-up routine is one-liners and puns and he brings a completely new set of them to his second live DVD. It's literally non-stop puns, many fuelled by cheap props, split up by the occasional song. Unfortunately for Tim, despite having been in the game a lot longer, this kind of comedy is rather overshadowed by the strangely popular Jimmy Carr at the moment, but the capacity crowd at London's Bloomsbury Theatre for this recording does show that he still has a substantial following.

Vine's puns range from the genuinely sublime to the simply moronic (the "pen behind the ear" segment was both stupid and far too long). The major problem is the distribution between these two extremes is not even (or to use the correct terminology, 'normal'). He is admittedly better with the one-line jokes. Most of the ones that go on any longer than that end up being very disappointing; usually either blatantly obvious or simply weak.

But the main problem with his one-liners, aside from many of them just not being very good, is that they are completely unlinked. If he could have woven several of them together into a story of some kind this could have been and absolute riot. As it is this ends up being like watching someone read out Christmas cracker jokes for an hour. He actually makes several gags about the quality of his own show, which is a tell-tale sign that he knows where the problems are and is trying to pre-empt any criticism.

On top of all of this Vine makes the biggest mistake a comedian can make; he finds his own jokes far too funny, even to the point where he pauses for too long with a slightly goofy look on his face after some jokes to make sure everyone's laughing along with him.

On the extras, there are plenty of them, and none of them are funny. Well, that's not quite true, an outtake from the main show where Tim's dad Guy gets on stage to tell the first joke he told Tim as a child is quite good and should probably have been left in the show. The rest, particularly the over-long sketch featuring Tim slapsticking his way through several sports, are terrible.

Even for fans of this style of comedy, I don't really see how this can be considered a good example. So many of the jokes are simply not funny, and the composition of the act borders on amateurish. While Vine is a perfectly charismatic and likeable performer that just isn't enough to save what is otherwise a surprisingly disjointed show.

“ like watching someone read out Christmas cracker jokes ”

Special Features: 'Tim's Dad Tells A Joke' / 'Family Holiday On The Piano' / 'Paranamasiac' / 'Parade of Sport' / 'Jukebox Pop Video' / 'Flag Hippo In Love' / Deleted Scenes / Tim's Panto Snapshot / Tim Vine In Conversation

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: October 27, 2008
Studio: Feel Anime Studios
Feature Running Time: 64 mins
Special Features Running Time: 56 mins
Certificate: PG
Language(s): English
Subtitles: English
Other Format(s): None

DVD: Everyone's Hero

2009-05-30T00:21:00.003+01:00

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Starz Home Entertainment

Directed by Christopher Reeve, Dan St. Pierre, Colin Brady
Written by Robert Kurtz (screenplay), Jeff Hand (screenplay), Howard Jones (story)
Starring William H. Macy, Whoopi Goldberg, Jake T. Austin, Robin Williams, Rob Reiner, Brian Dennehy

The core subject matter of 'Everyone's Hero' somewhat precluded it from both recognition and popularity in the UK and Europe, meaning until now it was only available in the US, and only saw cinematic release there as well. That subject matter is baseball, a sport only played in North America and of very little interest elsewhere.

So, despite an all-star cast of internationally popular actors including William H. Macy, Whoopi Goldberg, Rob Reiner and an uncredited Robin Williams, plus fleeting appearances by Forrest Whittaker, Robert Wagner and Richard Kind, it has taken two years to finally see DVD release here. The film began life under the directorial eye of 'Superman' legend Christopher Reeve, who died of a heart attack in 2004, and it would be another two years before Colin Brady and Dan St. Pierre would complete the movie with Reeve's wife Dana, amongst others, serving as Executive Producer. Dana also died, from lung cancer, in 2006 and the movie is dedicated to both her and Christopher.

A CGi animation in the style of Gil Kenan's 'Monster House', released in the same year, 'Everyone's Hero' revolves around Yankee Irving, a New York Yankees fan who idolises star player George 'Babe' Ruth. Ahead of the World Series against Napoleon Cross' (Williams) Chicago, Ruth's famous bat Darlin' (Goldberg) is stolen by Chicago pitcher Lefty Maginnis (Macy) and Yankee sets off across America to get the bat back and return it to Ruth in time for the final, deciding game of the Series, with the help of Screwy (Reiner), a talking foul ball.

Definitely one for the kids, the idea of a talking ball and a talking bat is probably enough to put most adults off (it certainly strikes as an unexpected turn of silliness), and while there are a few well-timed one-liners, mostly from Reiner, the majority of the humour is centred around the mishaps which befall Macy's Maginnis (usually getting hit by things or falling over).

The animation is smooth, if a little cartoon-like and unrealistic, but since the movie is squarely aimed at children, that's not much of an issue, and the script is pretty stock children's adventure stuff, with a slightly predictable ending, but this is all from the point of view of an adult watching the movie with other adults and no target-audience-children. It has all of the necessary, if somewhat standard, elements of an enjoyable children's movie, so while it doesn't set itself apart from the rest of the field, it does fit in without causing offense.

And finally a small point of trivia: additional children's voices were provided by Tyler James Williams, now most famous for playing a young Chris Rock in 'Everybody Hates Chris'.

“ Definitely one for the kids ”

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: September 15, 2006 (USA)
DVD Release Date: August 4, 2008
Studio: Feel Anime Studios
Feature Running Time: 88 mins
Certificate: U
Language(s): English
Subtitles: English
Other Format(s): None

DVD: Strait-Jacket

2009-05-29T22:25:00.004+01:00

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Manga Entertainment

Directed by Shinji Ushiro
Written by Ichirö Sakaki (novel)
Starring Steven Blum (English), Lara Jill Miller (English), Bridget Hoffman (English), Shinichiro Miki (Japanese), Kei Shindou (Japanese), Ai Maeda (Japanese), Crispin Freeman (English), Akira Sasanuma (Japanese)

Originally a three-episode series 'Strait Jacket' revolves around a society that has incorporated the use of magic into everyday life. The side-effect for those with the ability to use magic is that, through over-use, they turn from humans to demons, killing indiscriminantly. An agency to control the use of magic, and an elite force of "scorcerists", work to battle and destroy demons, while a terrorist group stages attacks by creating them.

The story had a lot of potential, but ends up being rather tiresome. Although only 85 minutes long the story doesn't move along at a rate you would expect something that short to have. For at least the first 40 minutes or so nothing much happens. A demon appears, main subject and rogue scorcerist Leiot (not Rayotte) Steinberg dispatches it in an unorthodox way, stepping on the toes of the legal scorcerists in the process, throws a couple of one-liners at lead female character Nerin Simmons, and disappears into the night with largely unexplained sidekick Kapelteta Fernandez. This happens three or four times before any advancement in the story is made.

And when the plot twists come they are contrived and feel very predictable. Without wishing to spoil the story for wouldbe viewers, there's a corrupt official, a guy wronged as a child who goes a little off the rails when he finds out the truth and a shady side to Steinberg's past etc. etc.

It is also somewhat disappointing that, after all these years of dubbing manga for the Western market, the English side of the studios are getting no better at English dubbing. Or scripts - in particular here the Nerin Simmons script, voiced by Bridget Hoffman, is awful. Alex Von David, previously responsible for English scripts on 'Mars Daybreak', 'Lucky Star' and 'Rozen Maiden', is to blame, although his scripting for other characters, particularly Leiot Steinberg (Steven Blum), is excellent.

There was potential here, and while not revolutionary, the animation was strong enough not to let it down. Unfortunately the under-developed story and contrived characters don't give it much chance at all.

“ ends up being rather tiresome ”

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: November 25, 2007 (Japan)
DVD Release Date: October 27, 2008
Studio: Feel Anime Studios
Feature Running Time: 80 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English / Japanese
Subtitles: English
Other Format(s): None

DVD: Brooklyn Rules

2009-05-29T21:59:00.002+01:00

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Icon Home Entertainment

Directed by Michael Corrente
Written by Terence Winter
Starring Alec Baldwin, Freddie Prinze Jr., Scott Caan, Mena Suvari, Jerry Ferrara

Although the initial feel of 'Brooklyn Rules' is a seemingly derivative teenager-caught-up-in-the-mob tale, the intended message is a much more wholesome one (without being too "rom-com" about it) with very little emphasis on graphic violence (only one truly violent scene, and nothing much is shown) and greater weight put on character definition and the bond of friendship.

Indeed 'Brooklyn Rules' is a story of childhood friends much more than it is a gangster movie, but with enough grit that it's not going to end up being Sunday afternoon TV fodder. What makes the movie so enjoyable is the flawless and often very funny constant banter between the trio of fast-talking friends at the heart of the story played by Freddie Prinze Jr. (who needn't have gone so heavy on the cliché Brooklyn accent), Scott Caan and the ever-so-Sean-Astin Jerry Ferrara. Mena Suvari doesn't have much to do but Alec Baldwin is near-perfect in his role as wise guy Caesar, doing an excellent job of making the viewer see the good side of his character.

The movie received some heavy criticism upon its cinematic release in the US for trying too hard to be like other famous mob movies. To be honest, a point was missed here. This movie isn't trying to be a mob movie. It's set in the classic New York mob era, and certainly the story has a lot of mob elements which drive it on, but these are just the background to the main story about the three friends. The causes of most of their problems, and the events in the film, could have been set against any backdrop where one of the trio starts to get involved in crime. This could have been set around a modern-day criminal gang in any major US city and it wouldn't have altered the movie in the slightest, aside from some of the period-specific dialogue and clothing etc.

'Brooklyn Rules' doesn't revolutionise anything. Very little about the movie is markedly different to what already exists, but the story is good, the acting is strong and the motif clear. If approached with an open mind viewers should find themselves caring enough about the characters to be suitably affected by some of the key events while watching, and although the ending feels ever-so-slightly rushed, it's a satisfying if untaxing viewing experience.

“ very funny constant banter ”

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: May 18, 2007 (USA)
DVD Release Date: August 11, 2008
Studio: Southpaw Entertainment
Feature Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): None

DVD: The Man From Earth

2009-05-29T19:15:00.012+01:00

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Anchor Bay Entertainment

Directed by Richard Schenkman
Executive Producers Emerson Bixby and Mark Pellington
Starring David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, William Katt, Richard Riehle, Alexis Thorpe, Annika Peterson

This is one of those rare movies which relies entirely on its dialogue and intrinsic ability to tell its own story without the need for special effects and overblown action scenes. For the most part, it's success. But not entirely.

It doesn't really have a point, and therein lies the majority of its beauty. Stories don't have to have a point to be good stories. Just like science fiction movies don't have to have hordes of aliens, fleets of space ships and more explosions than an episode of 'A-Team' to actually be science fiction movies. But they do need a little more depth of characters if they're going to completely hold interest. Viewers are likely to find themselves only caring about one out of eight of them. It's the central one of course, but the other seven are merely foils, posing key questions to further the tale.

While Ellen Crawford's Edith is somewhat irritating it's only her, and Richard Riehle's Dr. Gruber, who are given any kind of fleeting emotional substance. Alexis Thorpe's student Linda is suitably wide-eyed-inquisitive, William Katt's Art disbelieving, and Tony Todd's Dan enthusiastic, but ultimately they are all only their to enable David Lee Smith as leading character John Oldman to explain the story of his seemingly immortal existence.

And this explanation is, for the most part, enthralling, trying its best to root itself in scientific fact and the extrapolation of our scientific knowledge to date. How accurate or credible some of the science is could be debated, but throughout it maintains a comfortable level of plausibility such that at no time does the story slip entirely into the realms of complete fiction; rather those of possibility. The religious parts of the story are perhaps even less credible, but thoroughly entertaining if the viewer is open to a little "blasphemy".

'The Man From Earth' requires some effort to watch. It is not Saturday-night-with-a-beer material. Viewers are required to listen to what's being said and digest the ideas being put forward. This is not a throw-away movie or a high-impact movie. It's perhaps not as intelligent as it would like to be, lacking as it does any real characterisation in the smaller parts, but is certainly more intelligent than most science fiction which finds its way onto our screens, and is well worth the patience it demands.

“ enthralling ”

Special Features: Audio Commentary with producer/director Richard Schenkman and actor John Billinglsey / Audio Commentary with executive producer Emerson Bixby and author/sci-fi scholar Gary Westfahl / 'From Script To Screen' featurette / 'Star Trek: Jerome Bixby's Sci Fi Legacy' featurette / 'On The Set' featurette / 'The Story of The Story' featurette

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Release Date: November 13, 2007 (USA)
DVD Release Date: July 7, 2008
Studio: Falling Sky Entertainment
Feature Running Time: 87 mins
Special Features Running Time: 188 mins
Certificate: 12
Language(s): English
Subtitles: None
Other Format(s): None

Victim of The System

2009-05-10T02:11:00.010+01:00

Unbelievable. Amidst the recent news stories of politicians' fraudulant expenses claims, several places have already tried using the term 'Expenses-gate' and someone has even bought expensesgate.com.

One site did admittedly follow up their use of the 'Expenses-gate' term with "for want of a better term for it", but really, using no term at all would have been for the benefit of the situation. Don't try to pretend you aren't playing along with the more mainstream media.

Now don't get me wrong, there is a genuine scandal going on here; a status the majority of the previous mis-monikered 'gates' couldn't aspire to. But this is an example of journalism so lazy even the Daily Star has yet to stoop so low.

As for the scandal itself, there are several ways in which various politicians have duped the system (not that it is apparently particularly difficult to do so), but the recurring theme seems to be that of the 'second home', a rule which has been highly controversial for years.

Officially, Members of Parliament can live either in their constituencies, i.e. the area of the country they were elected to govern, or in London, as they are required to divide their time between the two. Because it is necessary for them to effectively 'live' in two different places, they can designate either their London or constituency property as their 'second home' and are afforded an allowance, from public money, for where costs are "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred from the purpose of performing your Parliamentary duties". The maximum yearly amount stands at between £23,000 and £24,000.

What seems to have been going on in a large number of cases, is changing the official designation they give their homes in order to make the best personal use of the free money from the tax-payers. Examples are not hard to find.

Labour MP Margaret Moran switched her 'second home' designation to her seaside house (100 miles from her consituency, incidentally) such that days later she could spend £22,500 of tax-payers' money treating dry rot.

Home Affairs Select Committee Chairman Keith Vaz spent his allowance on a flat in London despite his £1.15m constituency home being just 12 miles away.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith nominated her Redditch family home as her 'second home', while claiming her sister's property in London, where she stays some weeknights, is her primary residence. She has reportedly spent over £152,000 of public money on kitchen appliances, home entertainment equipment including televisions and DVD players, dining furniture, and even pay-per-view movies. Probably very little of which were necessary for performing of her parlimentary duties.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears switched her 'second home' three times in the same year, and claimed an allowance against all of them.

The list goes on as many others are known to have 'flipped' their home designation in order to refurbish more than one property at the public's expense. This is without claims for chauffeurs (Michael Martin), gardening (Peter Mandelson, David Milliband) and personal security (Barbara Folletts).

The most comical part of all of this is comments from Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, who has basically said it is not the responsibility of MPs to make legitimate claims, but of the Fees Office, who grant the claims, to reject them. That may technically be the case, but what she's really saying is MPs can be as dishonest as they like, provided no one catches them out.

Which is, of course, absolutely no surprise at all. Hasn't that more or less been the motto for all politics since THE DAWN OF TIME? You have a problem though, Harriet. You have been caught out. So now what? Carry on blaming the Fees Office? They're not going to take the rap, overseen as they are by Speaker Michael Martin, who has one or two less-than-moral expense claims of his own. And the calls for those found out to pay back the money are obviously not going to be answered.

I suppose it's easy enough to publicly claim it isn't your fault when party leader Rab C. Nesbitt is largely doing the same. He has, bless his tatty string vest, at least called for a vote on changing the rules so that the 'second home' allowance only applies to MPs living beyond "travelling distance" from Westminster. That only solves part of the problem though, as many of the blatant cash-ins for property refurbishment and furnishing are actually within the rules.

As Alastair Campbell recently said (one of the few sensible things the Jonathan Ross of politics has ever said), MPs should not be allowed to change their second home disignation once they nominated the property. And (he didn't say this) they should not be allowed to claim for furnishing the place. Let's not forget these people are paid huge wages, have more perks than a California nudist beach, and have such a large network of underlings working on their behalves to cover-up any wrong-doings they make Tony Soprano look like Joey Tribbiani.

So OK, maybe give them some money towards a second property because their job requires them to have the two residences (we all know if our own jobs required something similar we'd be in the manager's office with our hand out quicker than a Chelsea player to a referree) but almost all of the other things the leaked receipts have shown, absolutely not. They can afford those themselves. And they can afford mine too.

The Big Dirty

2009-05-08T18:33:00.006+01:00

Following the positively elating news that 'Big Brother' is to finally meet its long overdue end, and daytime chat show gruesome twosome Richard and Judy are to quit, Irish budget airline RyanAir have let the World down by bailing out of their plans to introduce a "fat tax" for larger passengers.

As the problem of obesity continues to get bigger (excuse the pun) people have been calling for measures such as charging for two seats on trains and buses, and charging extra for flights for several years. Until now barely any company had publicly entertained the idea, but RyanAir said they were planning to bring in some form of additional tax, with the most popular method being to charge per kilogram over 130kg (20.5 stone) for men and 100kg (15.7 stone) for women, and additionally for ever inch in waistline over 45" for men and over 40" for women (which is a little unfair, but that's besides the point).

Now, citing potential check-in delays, they've buckled under the media spotlight and scrapped the plans, despite having to admit that over 30,000 passengers surveyed were in favour of the move. They've claimed that because they're moving the majority of their check-in process to the internet, they will have no way of collecting the "fat tax" fairly without making passengers go through manual check-in at the airport and thereby slowing down the whole process.

This feels like a pretty weak excuse for an airline who have even considered charging people to use the on-board toilets. They've clearly pulled out to avoid the controversy.

But the fact remains a measure such as this, which has to be pioneered by someone, is needed. Currently, the only deterrents to over-eating (the cause of 99% of obesity, let's be honest) are health warnings, which most lack the will-power to avoid, and social stigma. But on the social side it's becoming more acceptable. Which is fine, do what you want, until such time as it impacts the people around you. Then it's a problem. Obese people using public transport do not fit in the seats. There's no point getting offended by that, it's simple physics. But, most of them will force themselves in anyway, regardless of the discomfort it causes for the people sitting either side of them. So they're clearly not put off by social awkwardness or potentially upsetting other people.

The only thing which is really guaranteed to motivate people is money. If these people were to be charged extra because they take up a well-above-average amount of space, or in cases like flying, where weight is an issue (we pay excess luggage charges, for example) weigh an excessive amount, there should be deterrents in place. Just like it's perfectly OK to take over-sized luggage on a plane, provided you pay for it, it should be OK to take up extra space, provided you pay for it.

Perhaps larger seats need to be brought in, which cost more than standard seats. Basically, there should be consequences to everyone's actions, and if people want to over-eat and be overweight then they should pay the consequences for that. Just as people who drive larger cars have to pay extra in tax.

It's time to quit being so sensitive over this and someone, RyanAir, has got to go first.

Beyond The Gates

2009-04-29T22:52:00.006+01:00

Everything is apparently some kind of 'gate' these days. Every bit of controversial gossip gets branded by one newspaper or another desperate to be responsible for the next buzzword to go down in media history as a 'gate'.

Take for example the incident last year with Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand leaving unpleasant phone messages for actor Andrew Sachs. 'Sachsgate', that was called. More recently the emails sent by one of Gordon Brown's right-hand men, Damian McBride, aimed at spreading dirt on various senior Conservative party members: Smeargate. And today, the worst of the bunch. Following the ruling by the FIA to issue a suspended three-race ban to McClaren in the Formula 1 World Championships for misleading officials at the Australian and Malaysian grand prix: Liargate. Seriously, 'Liargate'.

Not only are these incredibly feeble-minded attempts at trying to originate new catchphrases, the events themselves bear very little (at best) resemblance to the original 'gate', which wasn't even cleverly named as such by anyone.

To bring anyone unaware briefly up to speed, the original 'gate' was the Watergate conspiracy, which involved several high-ranking members of US President Richard Nixon's staff and included political espionage, sabotage, campaign fraud, money laundering and other major crimes, and led to the indictment and conviction of several of Nixon's closest advisors way back in 1974. It was dubbed 'Watergate' because the entire investigate started following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. This break-in was revealed to have been orchestrated by cabinet members and this led to the discovery of the whole conspiracy.

So no clever journo coining a phrase and it catching on, which is what today's limp-wristed scribes are attempting at every turn, just the name of the building.

These recent issues are hardly on the same scale. Presumably if the plan to store the nation's emails hadn't been scrapped this week and something had ever gone wrong with that we'd have ended up with something as witty as 'Emailgate'. And it can only be a matter of time before we get 'Fergiegate' amidst the eternal accusations of Premier League referees favouring Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United when making crucial decisions.

But while The Sun continue to feel the need to make sure everyone's aware of just how clever they are by highlighting the pun words in their headlines in red, I doubt we've seen the end of it. Journalism really doesn't seem to be getting any less lazy as the years go on.

Just Push Play

2009-04-16T00:20:00.006+01:00

You know what really gets my goat? As Homer would say. People who say they listen to all types of music, or similar statements. That's either a lie, or abject naiivity. Or straight up stupidity, of course. Something which increasingly can never be ruled out of any situation.

What these people are apparently trying to say is they're just as happy listening to Immortal as they are Barry Manilow. Possible, I'm sure, but unlikely. Equally Miley Cyrus, The Smiths, Dragonforce, LTJ Bukem, Style Council, Robert Johnson, James Blunt, Destruction, Abba and Busta Rhymes are equally enjoyed.

House music alongside instrumental drone metal, traditional Irish folk, rockabilly country and rap. It just doesn't add up, and is more than likely down to complete ignorance of what music actually exists beyond the confines of MTV and Radio 1.

You can be as open-minded (or claim to be) about music as you like, but there is simply no way you listen to all kinds, because music is a much wider spectrum than most people realise, with so many wildly different styles and sounds, they can't all appeal to one person.

That's without considering the artistic value, or lack thereof, and the respect for an artist, song or style you derive from that, assuming it even registers as a consideration.

I'm sure the people who say things like that either believe it because they don't know any better, or are just trying to appear broad-minded. Unfortunately, for them at least, it has the opposite effect and highlights a lack of knowledge and understanding.

At least the radio will helpfully tell us what to enjoy next, so we don't have to put much thought into it.

Redefine

2009-04-11T01:20:00.007+01:00

It has recently come to my attention that the term 'mixed race', for people born of parents from different ethnic backgrounds, is no longer correct. Dual Heritage is now the correct term. Leaving aside the fact that Dual Heritage is an incredibly pretentious-sounding term, this brings to light the subject of giving groups these titles to begin with.

By giving groups these titles you (the do-gooders intent on making an unnecessary fuss over this kind of thing) are placing white people in an upper echelon of society. You are saying other ethnic backgrounds require their own title to separate them from white people. You are segregating them in their own societies. The very thing you've been fighting all these years to prevent.

This stretches, as mentioned in a previous article, to the job market and even now into schools. The very idea of a race-specific hiring campaign, intended to bring minority ethnic groups onto a level playing field with white people, is broadcasting to the World, like the parent who sits in their child's class making sure everyone is aware that they are 'special', that these groups need to be handed an unfair advantage because they can't achieve that level by themselves. Because on their own merit they are not good enough. Surely the right thing to do is allow them the same opportunities as every else, do not advertise the fact that they are in any way different, because they aren't, to let them apply for jobs as part of the same group as everyone else, "people", I suggest, and instead focus your efforts on cases where there is blatant discrimination against them.

At least then you wouldn't be taking away their pride.

Viva Los Violence

2009-04-04T16:05:00.003+01:00

And there it was, gone. Two days of peaceful protest against banks and climate change which resulted in several bloody clashes between protestors and police, one death, and the storming of Royal Bank of Scotland.

While in some of these incidents the protestors do not appear to be to blame, rather some heavy-handedness on the part of the law enforcement, others as expected were the result of a mob mentality serving no purpose other than to cause the most damage and disruption possible. Until protests can take place without this kind of occurrence, no one is going to listen.

And even when people do listen, what they hear either makes no sense, or hasn't been entirely thought through. Indeed many protestors simply join in for the sake of it. Short-sightedness gets the better of them and they join in any publicised large-scale event so they can say they were part of it afterwards. The reasons for the event occurring in the first place don't mean a thing to them.

The examples of the lunacy of some of the protests were many. A hugely imaginative reworking of Bob Marley's One Love by one protestor went along the lines of "One love, one heart, let's drop the debt and it'll be alright". So the point you're making there, Billy Bragg, is that it's OK to borrow more money than any idiot could tell you you won't be able to pay back, but when it all goes wrong and you're in trouble, just pretend it never happened and that will fix it? What a wonderful idea. That way, everyone gets their houses for free. Utopia! Or, to put it another more accurate way, the banks will own everyone's houses because they paid for it and you didn't. Is it any wonder no one takes these protests seriously?

One woman was quoted in the Guardian as saying "We've just come on a peaceful protest. We've got fire in our belly and we want to say something and be heard". A noble notion if ever there was one, but given that protests, peaceful or otherwise, only ultimately annoy people, who do you think is listening to what you have to say? After all, we all know most of you aren't there for the right reasons anyway. Take away the minority groups bent on causing trouble, the trendy hangers-on, and the brainless soap-watchers who just want to be a part of anything popular and you're left with a small core of genuine protestors who actually understand and believe the causes the event is meant to be in the name of. "I can understand protesting for jobs, but how many of them really want jobs?" Well said that man; a random suit watching the pointlessness from the sidelines, just about summing up everyone else's opinion of your average protest.

And what were they really saying? Job cuts are bad? Pollution is bad? War is bad? You're not making points that are beyond pure common sense. We know all these things. We don't need you forcing the closure of stations to tell us. Regardless of your actions everyone else is going to carry on just as they always do, and if anything they're simply going to be slightly less sympathetic to you because you've spent a couple of days irritating them.

Meanwhile the G20 had their summit, oblivious to the pointless goings on around the city and, as with every crisis which befalls the World, regardless of its nature, have come up with the standard two responses they always do. To throw money at it until it goes away, and to set up one or more new regulatory bodies to stop it happening again. We are soon to have the Financial Stability Board, an expansion of the Financial Stability Forum, chaired by Bank of Italy governor Mario Draghi, set up in 1999 to "promote international financial stability through better information exchange and international cooperation." The new body will conduct "early warning exercises" and reviews to spot potential problems in the international economy and work with Washington's International Monetary Fund (IMF), who oversee international finances, lending money where necessary.

A nice idea, but there isn't much genuine strength in there. Lots of reviewing (post-problem), information exchange and other such soft actions with very little hint of powers or strategies which could alleviate financial issues ahead of time. It's main aim is to make sure all "systemically important" financial institutions have appropriate contingency planning in place for economic crisis. But by the very nature of a crisis it is something which is largely unpredictable, so just what good such planning can have is uncertain. Not that the current 'crisis' was unpredictable at all, given that it is entirely the product of idiocy on the part of a large number of people, but in general a genuine financial disaster probably can't be foreseen.

In the mean time the plan is to pump $1.1trillion into the international economy, increasing the funds of the IMF from an estimated $250bn to around $700bn, with $40bn coming from China and further amounts expected from Saudi Arabia. This was no doubt an attempt to over-shadow the fact that China were reportedly the biggest opposer to 'green language' in the finalised communique outlining the new financial deal which saw all climate change issues relegated to two paragraphs at the end. Losing their status as the biggest polluters of the World would be too much to ask, presumably.

"A crazy man's utopia"

March Or Die

2009-04-01T00:41:00.010+01:00

Only a four-and-a-half month gap in writing this time. I'm getting more prolific. And I am indeed back, which can only mean one thing: something's up! As the last post and this one show, I've changed the angle of this blog somewhat. It's now a jaunty 37 degrees. It's also not (so much) music-related any more. I've even stripped some of the day-to-day magazine commentary out of some of the older posts. More or less all of my music goings on can be seen at Jukebox:Metal, so there's very little need, since the demise of Burn, to cover similar ground here.

So, more precisely, something's up which has annoyed me, and therein lies the new (in terms of writing only) direction. This time it's the G20 meeting in London. Although not the meeting itself, but the schedule (yes, schedule, more on this later) of protests taking place over the course of two days against a variety of topics, some related to the topics of discussion the G20 are entertaining and some, it would seem, purely for the sake of protesting.

Of course the first thing to hit the newspapers last week was the predicted travel disruption the protestors would cause on April 1 and 2. Only once we'd all digested that (and come to the natural conclusion that those two days would therefore be barely different to any other day of the week) did the anti-protest feelings start to emerge.

While residents of Belfast are probably sitting there thinking "what a bunch of whiners" (again, no different to normal), and most of the city will doubtful lift their faces far enough out of the cocktail pitcher to notice anything different is going on, several people are missing the point entirely, brandishing protestors "thugs" and similar amidst rumours that a minority group of "anarchists" plan to use the otherwise peaceful protests as a cover to storm banks.

That kind of behaviour is of course unconscionable, but it's also moronic, as is almost every other protest subject on the table this week. Which brings me to the schedule. There are no timings involved, which will make it very difficult for the multi-directional protestors to manoeuvre between the events, but planned action mostly against banks and the use of fossil fuels has been carefully laid out and advertised so that all interested jobless hippies, parentally-financed students and every other Campaigner For A Better World can leave their gas-heated studio flats for a day in the sun.

The banks and the stock market are a big target. And rightly so in the case of the twitchy traders who panicked the country into recession, but to simply aim a few placards at "capitalism" doesn't really get that point across. After all, if every one of the protestors doesn't have a bank account, Mummy and Daddy certainly do. They're certainly not going home and counting the notes under their mattress. They're part of the system just like everyone else, and they need that system to get by, just like everyone else. The existence of banks isn't the problem. People, as always, are the problem, and this entire crisis, if it can be called such, is the fault of mistakes made by people.

Yes, the banks and therefore ultimately their CEOs are at fault in a big way as well. Lending the mortgages and so forth they lent (people needed 110% mortgages and no financial genius foresaw a problem with getting repayments?) were ridiculous, but the people who took those loans are equally to blame. It isn't the system which caused this, it was the people responsible for its workings.

And the other main point of complaint, fossil fuels and BP in particular, is equally ridiculous. Not the fossil fuel problem itself, which is well-documented and a genuine concern, but the very fact that it is well-documented. Everyone with an IQ over 23 knows of the problems around fossil fuel consumption, and yes perhaps BP aren't behaving as ethically as they could, but protesting about it now isn't going to suddenly open the eyes of the populace. This is without the Stop The War Coalition continuing to protest about a war which finished two years ago and is only a continuing issue because of militant groups who persist in causing trouble. It was relevant at the time. I agree we should never have gotten involved. But once that decision was made and the protests were falling on deaf ears, give it up. You tried, bless your little cotton socks, but you failed. The time came to switch your protests to getting our soldiers out of the war zone quickly. The soldiers were never to blame; they were doing as they're told because it's their job.

So these protests are going to have two, and only two, effects. Neither of them positive and neither of them will achieve any kind of worthwhile outcome. Firstly, they are probably going to disrupt and generally annoy thousands of people who really only wanted to go to work and earn their wages. Ordinary people quite willing to perform whichever service it is they perform and earn their own way in the World. Secondly, it will cost all of those same tax-paying people thousands, possibly even millions, in policing, probably damages to public property, and other associated costs. All so those taking part can talk about how they made a difference at their next dinner party. Food and wine bought from non-profit making, anti-capitalist supermarkets, with money from under the mattress, in a flat bought outright with no requirement for a loan, by candle-light, of course.

"I guess some things never change"

Resurrector

2008-11-08T14:00:00.010Z

It's been nearly two years between this and the last post here. I guess I could have waited until it was exact, but for some reason I'm in The Mood.

Things move on, things change, and we don't always want them to. Change is inevitable, but sometimes it's so sudden the act of changing can leave a more lasting impression than either the before or after state. Sometimes it takes so long to realise a change is necessary that the journey to get there starts to weigh heavily, making the ultimate change a moment of great relief. With any important change it can be hard to know what the right choice is until it has been made and any repercussions have made themselves known.

But, I did always say I never wanted to be one of those people on the internet who thinks their life is so important everyone needs to read about it, and I still don't. So that's quite enough of that. But it is all part of why I'm back in The Mood, so call it background. There are other reasons too.

Jeff Lindsay's magnificent 'Dexter' novels have re-ignited my desire to be a bit more creative/meaningful with my writing, and the recent Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross saga (ends justify the means if you ask me) and America voting Barack Obama in as President are both things which have seemed worthy of comment. Both might hold some form of creative reference at least.

And both relate to the subject of change. For the BBC it was a bold move suspending Ross. Sacking him would have been bolder, of course, and it might have been nice for a corporation who would so dearly love to be the most respected of its kind in the World to have shown that kind of strength, but it would have been a slight over-reaction to a situation that ultimately was the fault of whoever in the BBC (not necessarily Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas) listened to the proposed messages Ross and Brand planned to leave for Andrew Sachs and allowed them to go ahead with the prank. But, the whole situation has seen the resignation (only from Radio 2, not from anything else) of Brand, which can only be a good thing. The less Brand the better. Of course, the pair, who increasingly have little more than outrageous comments in their entertainment repertoire, made a grave error in judgment by targeting someone who is so well loved by the British public. If they'd chosen someone we don't particularly like, or at least someone we all quite enjoy seeing on the unfortunate end of things, this might not have happened. Georgina Bailie, let's not forget, is a burlesque dancer in the 'Satanic Sluts' dance troupe. I really don't think the British public cared about her being ridiculed. But we all love Manuel. And rightly so.

For America they have the first black President. Well, they don't really. They have the first mixed-race President. But that is a step in the right direction at least. Not that Barack Obama was elected because of his policies or plans for the country. Plans which can, no doubt, be read about in great detail in the library of books he had the audacity to write about himself BEFORE becoming President. I wonder if any voters read them. They can't rely on their media, apparently. Many Americans will say they'll trust our BBC before they will any of their own media. Although finding entertainment value in distressing people with prank calls puts the BBC closer to American media than it has ever been before. No, apparently the media are all politically motivated and can't be trusted.

One American certainly thinks so, and he's one for which I have a great deal of respect. Steven Duren, better known as Blackie Lawless. Just before the election took place last week Blackie issued a statement detailing why, although not being a supporter by any means, he was going to vote for John McCain. Although not one of his best tirades, and getting a little fanatical in places, it is a good read and highlights a few points about Obama, which I haven't looked into to verify, that are more than a little concerning. It can be read here: Read In Case of National Emergency (PDF format).

Until Axl Rose comments on things, which he probably won't, this is by far the most interesting point of view on the election I've read so far. Not that Axl will necessarily have a particularly noteworthy view of things, but whatever he says, it is normally interesting to read.

"You'll find out for yourself"

Show No Mercy

2006-11-02T23:46:00.001Z

Equal opportunities and discrimination policy has gone over board. And yes, I mean that how it initially sounds, that there is such a thing as a discrimination policy. Obviously everyone should be afforded the same opportunities and treatment regardless of such unimportant things as gender, age or race, but it's become apparent to me that being an idiot doesn't mean you're out of the running for jobs with decent organisations. Particularly if, as well as being an idiot, you happen to be of a Black or Ethnic Minority (yes, that is the politically correct term), female or Polish. As such, the policy seems to be "let 'em in anyway, we'll look like we're handling diversity". That's been going on everywhere for years. Now we're getting specific recruitment drives for particular ethnic backgrounds. Automatically discrimating against all the others, just because some study or other has shown that the percentage of employees from that particular group is lower than some others. What if that's the percentage of applicants that were actually capable of doing the job? So now we're going to recruit sub-standard employess just to fill a quota?

If that weren't bad enough, now they're talking about bringing in some sort of ethnic quotas for our schools, meaning there are going to be targets for schools who must enrole a certain percentage of pupils from a defined set of ethnic backgrounds. Even being dead doesn't rule you out, given the number of zombies that seem to be employed in London after leaving school.

Isn't all this just completely wrong? Why doesn't employment selection just come down to the best candidate, who is qualified and capable of doing the job and who can string a few sentences together without sending the listener into a coma. And for schools, it's the best and most academic pupils, if it's a school with selection criteria. The rest have to go to the schools that don't select the best pupils. Simple as that. If you're not good enough, you don't get in. Kids need to get used to this concept earlier than they do, otherwise adult life is going to come a tremendous shock to them, especially given the phenomenal lack of social skills and wider-World knowledge many of them seem to have as a direct result of little-to-no parenting.

Then there's the whole asylum-seekers/immigrants issue. We're considering a block on unskilled immigrants now, after we've been flooded with unskilled immigrants. Go England! Isn't that always the way we do things? Change the rules after something's happened instead of forseeing the problem and preventing it? This, of course, has the potentially-freeloading Romanians and Bulgarians up in arms. With their respective countries joining the EU next year they were rubbing their hands together at the prospect of leeching the English system in the same way that the Polish have done in the last couple of years. Apparently, we're not being fair. Because coming to our country, putting thousands of our skilled workers out of work by undercutting their salary and claiming free English lessons at our expense in the process is perfectly fair.

I stand by my long-held belief that we need sentry towers at all of our ports and we need to shoot illegal immigrants on site. That'd begin to solve the problem.

"They come to your country and think they'll do as they please"

Tormentor

2006-10-09T14:29:00.000+01:00

I thought today was going to be a pretty run of the mill day. Having made my usual journey to work, listening on this occasion to the latest three Nevermore albums (how downright amazing is this band?) on shuffle and arrived in the office as normal. First thing's first, check emails for lame queries from stupid people. None. Not bad. What I did have was something I wasn't expecting at all. An email forwarded from Vikki.

You might not think this particularly strange. We are, after all, partners at Jukebox. And on the face of it, no, a forwarded email from Vikki isn't something to bring the Earth to a standstill. But the contents took a second read before I could fully comprehend what was going on. The message was from someone at Fire Records, regarding Vikki's latest review of the new CD by Virgin Passages. Apparently this person, who we believe to actually be a member of Virgin Passages, doesn't feel we have the right to give something a negative write-up. And as such the one-star review Mandalay received didn't go down especially well. His chosen method of expressing his disappointment was to email Vikki explaining that he felt that people who don't understand music and don't like a CD shouldn't review it. Where he got the idea that reviewers don't publish bad reviews escapes me at this point. Equally how he came to the conclusion that we don't understand music, given the frankly unparalleled range of styles we tackle on Jukebox, is equally bemusing. Apparently, "no sense of timing or key" and "barely tuneful" aren't accurate because, and I quote, "it's about deconstruction". So perhaps what she should have said was "it sounds like crap, but it's OK because they meant it to". Dress it up as pretentiously as you like, but if it sounds like disjointed rubbish, reviewers are going to say so.

This clearly came as quite the shock to him. He evidently isn't prepared for bad reviews. Yep, you read it right; he's sending CDs to reviewers and isn't prepared for bad reviews. Genius, huh? He even offered a quote regarding the music from someone else. It came from a website I've never heard of and went "it's like a constant LSD trip". I am assuming for the sake of argument that this was a compliment and that is why he quoted it. To me, that statement suggests incoherent nonsense. I've not heard the CD, but that would certainly seem to fit with Vikki's analysis.

One of the (many) things Vikki pointed out about the album was that the vocals are almost indistinguishable from the music, meaning the whole thing may as well have been instrumental. The guy in question replied "we can't do that?" Well, yes, of course you can, it just sounds pointless and boring, so why would you want to?

I can only imagine what the future holds if he is going to react to every bad review he receives in the same manner. He's in for a very stressful time in the music industry if he's going to cry over every negative word journalists have to say. Apparently, everyone who doesn't like this guy's music is an "idiot". What a pro.

"Don't damn me when I speak a piece of my mind"

Running Wild In The Streets

2006-10-08T18:25:00.001+01:00

Paying to get into a club is a situation that completely bemuses me. A gig, yes, that makes sense. A band or two are putting on a show to entertain. Theatre, yes. Cinema, yes. Although in the case of the latter two we shouldn't be paying anywhere near as much as we are. But a club, no. No one is doing anything more to entertain you than every pub and bar in the country. And we don't pay to get into those. There's music playing and a bar selling drinks. That's everything. In fact, it's less than most pubs and bars. Pubs and bars generally serve food, don't turn the music up so loud you can't converse with anyone and allow you to sit down. All clubs do is take most of the seats out to provide a dance-floor and provide less of a service. So what are we paying for?

And what's triggered this? Spending Friday evening in Covent Garden's Gardening Club, basically. Although it's an attitude I've held for many years. In this instance we seemed to be paying for an utterly pathetic DJ who's mixing ability consisted entirely of pressing 'stop' on one CD and pressing 'play' on another, and who's track selection was erratic at best, veering wildly from James Brown to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Generic Pop Dance Song to Michael Jackson to Reef. This left me reasonably certain that I have grandparents with a comparable level of dance-floor management skill. A thoroughly disjointed and wholly unsatisfying experience. It's now two days later and I've yet to work out why we all paid our £5 each to enter this cellar of tedium, gaining us no more than the right to pay a bare minimum of 25% more than normal for all of our drinks, and losing our right to have a conversation in the process.

Equally bemusing are the people that do this every week and consider the "club scene" a life. How is it that more people don't see that there's something fundamentally wrong with paying to get into somewhere purely so you're allowed to then pay over-the-odds for alcohol? Many go for the dancing. Well, aside from the fact that you can dance in many infinitely more pleasant places for free, I've seen dancing, and flapping about like a rubber band in the wind to a string of songs that have each stolen the bass-line from Another One Bites The Dust ain't it.

It should come as no surprise then that Saturday evening was a thoroughly more entertaining and enjoyable period of time. And I didn't even do anything remarkable. I stayed at home and watched V For Vendetta on DVD, the movie based on the DC Comics story created by writer Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd and starring Hugo "Mr Smith" Weaving, Natalie Portman, John Hurt, Stephen Rea and Stephen Frye. Despite the negative press, low viewing figures in England and denouncement by Alan Moore, it's an awesome movie. Aside from a small amount of unconvincing portrayal from Portman in the slightly more demanding scenes, it is flawlessly acted, written and generally executed. The script for main character "V" (Weaving) is mesmerising on its own. Undeniably worth my £6 outlay.

"This city life is one big pain"

Damnation Angels

2006-10-03T16:10:00.002+01:00

I've often wondered, do hardcore Christians understand how unutterably lame they are? We're talking the real fundamentalists here. Regardless of agreement on the grounds of belief, the way they go about... everything, is so incredibly kitsch. They also seem oblivious to the things they do that to a regular person would be on a Monty Python level of mockery. It could perhaps be said that they do it on purpose to pre-empt such ridicule, but I highly doubt that. For example, I was recently forwarded an email that was circulated to the members of the Christian association at work (by the line-manager of someone who has left and whose mail is forwarded to him). Aside from this months focus being on the "fundamental truths" of a core part of the bible (I don't think the stupidity and ignorance of that statement needs highlighting), they are also running the next meetings of the Bible reading group and the prayer group.

These groups are obviously something that most Christian associations etc have, but it's the names - names chosen by themselves - for these groups that, were they to appear in a Python sketch, would not seem out of place and would likely be regarded as genius level comedy. The reading groups is called B.I.B.L.E. This raises a slight chuckle in itself, but isn't particularly riotous. The prayer group is called P.U.S.H. Which isn't funny at all, apart from the obvious connotations of indoctrination.

But when, further down the email, these acronyms are expanded, I am left to wonder if those responsible fully comprehend the level of self-derision they've achieved. Apparently, B.I.B.L.E. stands for Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. Surely this needs to be the name of a book mocking the Bible. My personal favourite however is the definition of P.U.S.H., which stands for Pray Until Something Happens, like it's some kind of distant hope that God, who we're so often told sees everything that goes on around here, will actually get off his lazy, non-existant backside and do something.

I'm not tarnishing all Christians collectively at this point. Some are very cool people. After all, we all know a good 50% of the people that claim to be Christian aren't really. If you don't go to Church, don't pray, don't read the Bible and don't follow all the other parts of the belief then you aren't Christian. Attending the carol service every Christmas just doesn't cut it. But this really highlights the farcical nature of a religion that allows people who don't follow the faith in any way to still claim "membership".

How is it, while I'm here, that preachers and so forth that sit on street corners raving about how great God is, and the ones who come knocking on your door in an attempt to convert you are exempt from the same disrespect as door-to-door salemen etc? Jahovah's Witnesses go knocking on doors and no one bats an eye-lid. Cleaning product sales people start doing it too often and suddenly we have a problem. Why does the fact that they hide under the impenetrable umbrella of "religion" make what they're doing so different? We seem to have this predefined set of people for which it is acceptable to go around bothering everyone, and all others are firmly in the wrong if they do the same thing for other reasons/causes.

At least most double-glazing sales people have the common decency to accept "I'm not interested, thank you" as a signal to go away. The door-to-door God Squad seem to hear that as a call to arms.

I'm looking forward to reading Rich Hall's Things Snowball even more now.

"we're lost in the Garden of Eden"

The Torture Never Stops

2006-10-02T01:24:00.001+01:00

So, Saturday night which, after my obligatory catch-up of sleep in the morning/early afternoon, was spent at The Comedy Store with my brother. A night of pure hilarity courtesy of Americans Rich Hall and particularly Dave Fulton, MC for the evening Alun Cochran and headlined but the always-outstanding Simon Evans. The disappointment of Marcus Brigstocke's cancellation was washed away by Evans' and Fulton's brilliance, Cochran's expert hosting and all the comics' ability to destroy the 50% of the crowd too stupid to understand the majority of the gags. Evans' "that was just a noise, please articulate your arguments better or be quiet" was priceless.

The night was to bring more middle-class English idiocy our way before it was over. It has to be said, of all the useless phrases modern society has currently latched on to, "at the end of the day" has got to be the most pointless. Coming back from the Comedy Store, we're waiting for the next train home, and a train going in the opposite direction pulls in on the other side of the platform. At the same time about eight police officers, with a dog, come running up the steps from the underpass onto the platform and tell the driver to hold the train. They then go marching down to look for some group of youngsters they'd obviously had some report or other about, and some bright-spark says to her boyfriend, "that's not what you need, at the end of the day". Really? Presumably at the start of the day it would have been fine. In the middle of the day, perhaps a mild irritation. But at the end of the day it's very definitely not what you need.

Boarding our train when it arrives a couple of minutes later leads to a whole new league of irritations. We carefully select a carriage away from the lanky nerd who's been pacing the edge of our platform mumbling to himself for the last 15 minutes and find ourselves some free seats. As per the usual layout of seats on trains in our part of the World, one side of the aisle has a set of six seats in rows of three facing each other, the other side has four in rows of two. I take the end seat of a row of three, next to a middle-aged couple, with another middle aged couple opposite them. They don't appear to be travelling together. My brother takes the end seat of a row of two, next to the male half of a young couple. The female half sits opposite. Yeah, weird huh?

It turns out the couple I'm sitting next to are each a pair of hicks short of a line-dance, and numerous repetitions of phrases like "ooh, it's raining now!" begin to wrangle. After a short while the women, who I'm sitting directly next to, sneezes. Fair enough. Ten seconds later she sneezes again. And again. And again, every 10 seconds for the next 15 minutes. I'm starting to think my jacket is made of cats' hair or pollen or something.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the train, the young couple sitting oddly opposite each other are being suitably affectionate leant across the gap in the middle. Not something that in itself is particularly annoying, but the stupidity of the situation certainly is. A few stops (and sneezes) down the line one particular town seems to be the popular one at our end of the carriage, and every bastard in the vicinity elects to be as awkward as they possibly can, squeezing past everyone else to get to the door furthest from their seat.

At least they've all gotten off, leaving us in peace. Or so we thought. It turns out the incessant squeaking from the pair on my side had been drowning out the loud group of drunks discussing football at the far end of the carriage. Their favourite phrase proving to be: "at the end of the day".

Makes me proud to be a southerner.

"I think you're one big joke"

Lake of Fools

2006-09-27T02:35:00.001+01:00

I love power metal. I think we all know that. And that now includes Blind Guardian, after last night's awesome show at the Koko in London with Astral Doors, who I already knew I liked. But, power metal fans seem to be the biggest collection of nerds and losers I've come across since the flute-playing, ballroom-dancing, church-going supernerd student that recently left the office at my day job.

Seriously, if you go to concerts brandishing plastic swords and axes you've got to start asking yourself serious questions. Have you ever spotted someone in the street that looks like a reject from an '80s b-movie and wondered what these people do? I can tell you now, ladies and gentlemen, they were all at last night's Blind Guardian show, including that one guy who doesn't realise the '80s really did end quite some time ago and still has his perm. David Hasselhoff would look like a contemporary trend-setter amongst this lot.

Sometimes there are those surreal moments that not only cause you to double-take, but confuse you for the rest of the day. Many of the losers at the gig last night could account for several such moments, but today, I had one that topped them all. I'm sitting in a meeting to discuss data quality with about 13 other people. It was thrilling, let me tell you. But half way through, and I think only a couple of us noticed it, a procession of people, walking single file, trooped past the door and into one of the meeting rooms next door each carrying a life-size, naked, plastic baby. Some carrying them vaguely as you would carry a real baby, others just by their side by a foot, as you would carry a sliced loaf. Then they all trudged back to whence they came, sans dolls. I still can't begin to imagine what kind of training was going on in there. We don't employ many infants.

Back in the office one of the guys in my team asks "are you sure they were plastic?" Now, I'm no expert, having no children of my own to compare to, but I am fairly sure that if you carried a real child at your side by one foot it would be reasonably likely to complain in one form or another. Or at the very least move a little and not quite reflect the light so much. Perhaps he wanted to clarify they weren't made of porcelain, or potato or something.

"the devil hates a loser and you thought you had it all"

The Last Command

2006-09-20T17:35:00.002+01:00

Ok you guys, let's keep the energy levels up, and not lose focus. We'll have a meeting tomorrow, informal, just to discuss having a brief wash-up on Friday, to share our thoughts on how this is going and suggest some development points for the future. I've been getting lots of positive feedback from everyone, and what I'm picking up is that something needs to move forward. In the mean time can we all please make sure we deliver all the points discussed to those that haven't seen all of this yet and make sure that handshake goes smoothly. Thanks.

What did I just say and what did it have to do with anything? Fuck all in both cases. This is what I've come to term "new-age" management. This pretty much consists of over-use of briefings, directionless meetings that cover nothing more than the obvious and constant references to the workforce as "you guys". It's a type of management that's all talk; lots of snappy phrases and buzz words, and very little action, and generally the people in these positions create an awful lot of the unnecessary work and meetings to give people the illusion that they're doing something pro-active.

It's almost like the politically correct form of management. You get a lot of "tying in with the point you just made..." before they say something either completely unrelated to the point you just made, or the complete opposite of the point you just made. But they made sure you were aware that they'd taken your views on board. If you get asked to design/come up with something, the chances are that, unbeknownst to you, the decisions have already actually been made and they're just making you feel like you've been part of the process. Of course when the end result is nothing like what you came up with, their cover is kind of blown, but it's too late by that point. It's covert management, is what it is.

"Old at heart but I musn't hesitate"

Inside The Electric Circus

2006-09-14T23:13:00.000+01:00

Somehow it's been a long day already. It's 11am. The new Burn (12) hasn't even gone to print yet and I'm already planning and working on stuff for the next one (yes, 13, well done). I always thought with a monthly publication there'd at least be a week off between completing one issue and starting on the next, but that's becoming less and less realistic the bigger we get.

The work proper begins tonight. Swedish power metallers Hammerfall need talking to on Saturday afternoon, so questions need writing. "What the hell is with the outfits?" isn't going to fly, so what do you ask a band that's done nothing more remarkable than make their next album? I might open with that. "What should I ask you about?" That'd throw 'em.

I might ask them why everyone's so bothered about the new iPod range that's just been announced. The big one's got a little bigger and now you can download movies and games for it. The small ones have gotten physically smaller, but expanded in capacity. That's it. Hang on a second. Back the monopoly truck up. Downloadable movies? Yes indeed. Apple have struck a deal with Miramax, Disney, Pixar and Touchstone to sell download versions of their DVD releases for playback on computers (in iTunes, presumably), the new iPod and ultimately the iTV box they're bringing out.

The big question is, what in God's underwhelmingly short name is the point? The films are set to be priced at $12.99 when pre-ordered and $14.99 thereafter. They come out on the same day as the DVD equivalent, are unlikely to include all the DVD special features, and you can watch them on a device already capable of playing DVDs (computer), a device that is essentially a set-top box that plays through a TV (like a DVD player) or a 2.5" screen with earphones. If anyone can spot an advantage in any of this, please do let me know. Can you say "gimmick"?

There are too many gimmicks around now. They're squeezing out anything of genuine worth, and it's happening in pretty much every facet of life. There are no decent TV shows anymore because all the studios are too preoccupied with the reality TV thing. Finding decent music is getting harder and harder as well. We're alright because labels are only too keen to send the stuff that won't sell. But for your average consumer it's getting near enough impossible to find out about the good stuff. We're drowning in a deluge of shite and there's very little we seem to be able to do about it.

Of course, if the act of actually looking for things wasn't such a challenge to most people it might be possible to overcome all of this. But who goes looking for a new band these days, picks up a new mag or goes to see a new film that's not been trumpeted by the mass media? Or even tries different mp3 players? No one. The one that's been pushed down our throats must be the best. We're far too content to wait for these things to drop into our laps, or allow people on the TV and radio to force their way upon us. When TV Evangelists do it we get annoyed. How is this different?

There must be a solution. And Hammerfall will know what it is. After that much conversing with wizards and kings, some of the wisdom of the ages must have rubbed off.

"I only wanted you to see things for yourself"

The Big Welcome

2006-09-14T01:53:00.001+01:00

So, with the boss starting up a Burn Magazine blog, and turning into a full-blown internet nerd over night, he suggested all the editors start one. Unfortunately he only suggested this to me, so the other editors may not catch on just yet.

Something I've never been able to understand is the point in having a blog when you've got nothing to say. Let's face it, your average web-surfing pleb has nothing to say. No one cares what you had for breakfast this morning, what you watched on TV last night, what your mate at school did today or what tid-bit of utterly useless nonsense you found on some back-water gossip site. Seriously, no one.

Does this mean there are worthwhile blogs? Well of course. There's a worthwhile version of everything (except TV soaps). For instance, a band or musician's blog about the progress of a new album. A technical faults and fixes blog for a new piece of software. A tour/travel blog by someone people actually care about. All good stuff.

This of course begs the further question, why are Burn Magazine editors' blogs worthwhile? Well, I can't speak for all of them, because most of them don't know this is on the table yet, but for myself and Sion: I guess people read our stuff. What they get to read however, is the finished, (mostly) polished front-line stuff. They don't get the reasoning behind things, they don't get to know what we left out or elected not to cover in favour of the bits we did do and they certainly don't get to know what else we're up to that isn't directly related to the published content of the mag.

So that's what these are for. Potentially interested readers. Does that put us above the internet plebs? Well, probably not. But there's actually a chance people might care about what we have to say. It's not much of a chance, but it's a tangible possibility.

"I ain't got time for this game"