My Cultural Life - The Questions We Need Answering

What Been Up? 

A friend of mine posted something up on their Facebook page the other day that made me realise that perhaps we're going about trying to stop racism the wrong way. We must know now that there's no point in trying to reason with arseholes; I've been wanging on about belief politics for a decade now and it's not like peoples beliefs have wavered. If Joe Wanker thinks migrants and brown people are stealing their jobs then all the sensible arguments under the sun isn't going to change that belief. If a racist is a racist then they are racist - simples.

However, while it might be difficult to try and persuade anti-Muslim zealots and economic migrant haters that the country isn't being sold out to Allah and his gang rape buddies, there is something you can do, even if it has to be done on line, for fear of having some kind of bad confrontation...

If we're allowing Muslims to overthrow the country and introduce whatever faction of their laws, then obviously we're in danger of being turfed out of our own country, facing the same hurdles as all these refugees? I mean, if we really are being overrun by brown and black people, stealing our jobs and raping our women and children then it won't be long before all these 'ragheads' are sticking us in dinghies and pushing us towards Calais, isn't it? What would we do then? How would we cope? What would we expect of our new French hosts? Will they be accommodating because you know, we're neighbours and helped them in the war, or will they just turn the boats around and send us back to Quran hell - like what Reform will do?

What would the newly displaced gammons think of that? How would they cope without busting several blood vessels and having aneurysms? I mean, even if that doesn't happen, we're still getting all these evil brown people coming here and stealing jobs, phones, TVs, council housing, hotels, doctors appointments, in fact anything that our poor entitled Brits need is being stolen from under our noses while the political parties ignore it (well, all of them apart from good ol' Nige, who is one of us).

I mean, what if we could fulfil the wishes of the racists and get rid of every foreign person who has come here in the last 200 years and stolen what is rightfully ours? How would that work exactly? Well, I usually write my own copy, but here is something I copied and pasted - see what you think?

What if white racists' dreams came true and all the overseas workers they accuse of "coming over here and taking our jobs" suddenly left the UK? "Our jobs", as they saw them, would suddenly become available to them: 325,000 in the NHS and 235,000 in the wider healthcare sector. [Plus about 700,000 'other' jobs that your average white bloke doesn't want to do.]

Imagine the queues of racists, clad in the flag of St George, jostling to apply for minimum-wage jobs that involve wiping other people's arses, cutting elderly men's toenails, emptying overflowing bedpans, comforting dementia patients, changing the nappies of the doubly incontinent, showing infinite patience to those recovering from strokes, changing stoma bags, fitting catheters, taking blood, spoon-feeding the incapable, and doing a hundred other things that most of us would run a mile from if we had the chance.

Because all those tasks would still need doing, around the clock, with all the people who'd been happy to do that no longer there to do it. And when the racists referred to "our jobs", no doubt they included the brain surgeons, the neurologists, the cardio-vascular specialists, the senior registrars, the theatre nurses, the crash teams and all the rest who save the lives of others on a daily basis, regardless of the skin colour, ethnicity or beliefs of the patient in front of them.

With all those medical-school places suddenly vacated, would those racists turn up with their strings of A* grades and be prepared to spend five or six years training to be doctors, including those unenviable days in the dissecting rooms learning anatomy in the most hands-on way possible? [Or working 72 hour shifts and still be treated like scumbags?]

How many of them would be willing to devote even more years of intensive and rigorous study to replace the brain surgeons and other world-class professionals that make the NHS as great as it is?

Or would what the racists had regarded as "our jobs" suddenly become jobs that they want "other people" to do because they're either not up to it academically themselves (imagine!) or never wanted to do those jobs in the first place?

This is the way forward. When someone tells you that 'our jobs are being stolen by foreigners' ask them who is going to do these jobs if there were no more foreigners? Ask them if they would be happy for some feckless teenager to wipe their mother's arse, especially if they didn't want to do it, when there are kind-hearted brown people out there who will do it with good grace and a smile on their face? Are they happy to pay even more money for their fruit and veg because all farmers can get is wankers who don't treat your food with the respect you want it to be treated with and demand more money? Are these racists happy that lots of things won't get done because there's no one who wants to do them? Cleaning toilets. Sweeping streets. Mopping up sick. 

What about going to the convenience store at 10pm at night? How many English people are going to want to stay open all hours to ensure you get your vape refill or four cans of Tenants? How about your Chinese takeaway or your Chicken Tikka Masala? Who's going to cook them? These are all the questions you need to ask these fucking slopeheads, who want so many things but have no idea what happens when they finally achieve it. 

And when they start getting angry at you for putting obstacles in their white supremacist way, just point out that all you're doing is asking them who is going to do all those jobs - the way they want them to be done - when all those black, brown and foreign people have been sent back to where they came from? You're not being funny, you genuinely need to know and if these people have a solution, then what's the answer?

Yelena's Story

In many ways, Thunderbolts* is probably the best MCU film of the last seven years; it's probably better than the FF film that followed it. The reason for this is because of the neat way it ties lots of past and future things together and I apologise in advance, because I'm going to spend some time exploring these things. First off, this is a Black Widow movie; Yelena Belova, who replaced her sister Natasha as the MCU's new Black Widow, is possibly one of the best new heroes introduced post Endgame and Florence Pugh has grown into the part to become almost as important as Scarlett Johansson. Given the 'history' of Sentry and the desire by the MCU to introduce this character into its pantheon of heroes - originally introduced around the turn of the century as the most powerful hero on Earth (and friend of the savage Hulk). As something that is immensely powerful and on a par with the strongest of original Avengers, it was always going to require someone to act as a calming influence on 'Bob'; Natasha was Bruce Banner's and Yelena is Bob's. This is the first important factor in this film because it establishes parallels.

We know Sentry is going to play a part in Doomsday and like Captain Marvel was introduced - almost as a deus ex machina character between Infinity Wars and Endgame, Sentry has been introduced in a similar fashion. The Thunderbolts* is a vehicle; it isn't really about the New Avengers, it's about Bob and the fact he offers a powerful defence against Dr Doom and also a problem; a hero who is also quite capable of being corrupted and used as a weapon against heroes. I think this is why he was introduced when he was, because, frankly, there wasn't really any point in introducing him the way they did and concluding the story the way they did if he wasn't going to play a part in the future.

Now, there are some other parallels that need to be taken into consideration - links to the past and ones to the future - Yelena fighting Yelena and we know from trailers, the same thing happens in Doomsday, albeit with Mystique. We know that this team will be meeting the Fantastic Four when they arrive; the post credit scene 14 months after the final scene of the main film is pretty much going to be the opening sequence of Doomsday. Thunderbolts* is vitally essential to what is going to happen next and with all of that out of the way, you have to appreciate this movie for being so good. It might have bombed at the box office, but the critics and those who watched it knew they were seeing something special. In many ways this doesn't really follow the pattern of any previous MCU film; it's almost like a series of set pieces leading us the the post credit scene, but it's done in such a clever way it not only feels like a very good feature, it is one of the best. I don't think the story is important, it's what they're all moving towards and who they are becoming and that might be why it bombed at the box office; it is a means to an end and a very clever one at that. This is so much better than the people who didn't go to the cinema to see it realised, because it's about the two important heroes in Doomsday - Yelena and Bob, the rest, even Bucky, are just collateral. 8/10

Life's A Lottery

The general feeling you get from Jerry and Marge Go Large is what an average movie it is. It feels as though it should be more than it is and while it's a very pleasant, even heart-warming, tale of two retirees working out how to win at the lottery, it felt slight and literally like it was based on a newspaper article - which, apparently it was. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening play Jerry and Marge; he's a retired production line manager and a bit of a maths genius, she's his long suffering wife, because Jerry is better with numbers than he is with people. They don't have a huge amount of money to see them through retirement, so he takes a gamble on the lottery, because he's managed to work out that there's a flaw in it. They then go out of their way to rope in and help as many people in their small town as possible to rejuvenate it. Along the way, some arseholes from Harvard try and get in their way and the Boston Globe starts to write an article about them. The lottery stops the game they're winning - the end. 5/10

Not This Week's Recommendations

I was thinking that perhaps instead of doing individual sub stories about things we've watched that we gave up on, maybe I should just list them all in one place; so that's what I'm going to trial this week...

* Watch the Skies (or UFO Sweden as it was originally called) is a film quite famous for being originally in Swedish but was run through an AI simulation which converted all the Swedish into English while changing the mouth movements of the actors to fit with the new language. We gave it 20 minutes, decided it felt like we were watching one of those Children's Film Foundation movies from the 1970s. It was made in 2022, but the AI'd version was released in 2024, when I downloaded it the IMDB rating was 6.6, but since it has been more widely seen over the last few months, it's now down to 6.2. It feels like it deserves to be lower.

* Pineapple Express is a movie I managed to go 18 years without watching and when I finally decided that perhaps it was time to see if I was right to avoid it, I absolutely was - 100%. This is an 'old fashioned' stoner 'comedy' with Seth Rogan and James Franco. We managed about 18 minutes of it before we turned it off.

* Margo's Got Money Troubles is a TV show about a student who falls pregnant and ends up having money troubles. It's obviously set in the USA because, you know, you can be made bankrupt for just having a baby. It was all right; we managed an entire episode, but there wasn't really anything that reached out a shook us and it was a bit rude as well...

The Ick Factor

I mentioned the fact that Furious had a real ick feel to it a few weeks ago, but I never saw this coming. This is a really unsettling and awkward TV show; it deals with subjects that I'm not really sure I want TV drama shows to deal with, despite the need for them to do so. What makes this so... nasty... is how it's playing out and who is complicit and the levels at which they are involved. There's also a number of secrets to be revealed in next week's finale. Alice discovers her own nasty side and stuff happens that you really didn't see coming, especially as she has Catherine in her clutches a second time and facilitates something totally unexpected. Plus, just how is Nora's boss involved in this and has he done something stupid by trying to coerce Danny? This is exhilaratingly good television while not being at all enjoyable.

Hal Zero Percent

Last week I mentioned how I had a soft spot for the Green Lantern comics of the 1960s and 70s; the reason for this, apart from some excellent artwork, was its propensity to be very strange, weird even. Because the Green Lantern Corps were all aliens, there had to be something not of earth about them and therefore it often went in directions you would never have guessed, especially for a DC comic. Lanterns kind of taps into that without ever really having that 'way out there' feel, in fact, episode two feels almost like it was trying too hard to be funny. Last week it was all about angst and anger, this week, despite some strong signals and the introduction of a couple of very serious subplots, there seemed to be an emphasis on the surreal and the, dare I say it, silly. From the unusual banter between Hal and the sheriff to the fact the ring needs to be recharged (something it always needed but feels a little archaic in the 21st century). My biggest gripe with this episode was the fact it felt, at times, like it was treading some water and this early in the series that feels a bit worrying.

Super Fly Guy

I've pretty much run out of superhero movies to watch. The decision to sit through Superman again, only a year after it first came out, was not a bad one. It is an entertaining film, the problem - as you can guess, because there's always 'a problem' - is it is a movie that actually feels like the extended season finale of a TV series you didn't know was on and can't find the missing parts. Kicking off a new DC universe with a story that involves characters you're familiar with and a bunch of other characters you don't really know - unless you're a comics fan - is a bold move and James Gunn's reboot of the Man of Steel is great fun but terribly disjointed; there's this element of expectation from the director that people watching the film are going to get it and fill in all the necessary blanks.

There are a lot of tips of the hat to the original Superman movies; Lex Luthor - played excellently by Nicholas Hoult - is a psychotic (and bald) version of Gene Hackman and there's even a Ms Teschmacher. There's an underlying comedic feel that fits in nicely with Christopher Reeve's Big Red and while Mrs Maisel is okay as Lois Lane, there's something a little too grubby about her. Ed Gethegi as Mr Terrific is... well... terrific. I don't know the character but he's a welcome addition. I just felt that making Ma and Pa Kent a couple of hicks didn't work; Wendell Pierce, who was in Thunderbolts* also appeared, this time as Perry White and while I really like the movie I just see faults, in the lazy storytelling, problems on the horizon, the need to fill in blanks and that's never a great way to kick off a franchise. 7/10

The Hit List

The discovery there's a second season of The Terminal List is slightly confusing, given that the entire story was wrapped up by the end of the eight parts, but it doesn't surprise me. This was an entertaining exercise in ramping up the body count with loads of people dying in every episode bar the sixth, when you expect loads of people to die and no one does. This was about a Navy Seal gaining revenge for the deaths of his platoon and his family at the hands of a chain of interrelated people leading all the way to the top and it used a number of ingenious ways of achieving this. It dragged at times; Chris Pratt isn't the world's greatest actor and I guessed the twist after three episodes, but it was still entertaining and while I doubt I'll watch the spin-off series that came out last year, I might watch the sequel in October. 

Female Bonding

I dunno... I can't even call Ted Lasso a Marmite show because it isn't. It's just that sometimes it's just a load of old shite and this week was one of those weeks. Except, not all of this week's episode was; the bits with Roy Kent were, as usual, extremely good and I'm amazed he hasn't been given his own TV show because he's the funniest thing about this and all the other series. Lasso is a conduit where others are allowed to show their worth; it's like a perverse sporting Ally McBeal, in that the most annoying thing about that series was the title character and everyone else was great. This week was all about team bonding, a pub quiz, an annoying cameo from Tracey Ulman and Juno Temple squeezing into even smaller and tighter clothes. Someone I know described this show as 'having an angry wank' and while I don't know what that means at all, I totally get it...

Plutonian Shores

I revisited Black House for the third, maybe even the fourth, time this week. The reason is because in the autumn the final part of this trilogy comes out, years after the death of the great Peter Straub, but promising to have many of his words. The Jack Sawyer story, which started in The Talisman and continued in this excellent but deeply flawed second instalment, probably deserves to be finished and there have been few books I've anticipated with such fierce expectation. King has written many of my favourite books, Straub two of my absolute favourites - Ghost Story and Floating Dragon - and this tale of a supernatural child murderer flitting between existences has the now very dead writer's hand throughout. Sadly, this book also tied into King's flawed and bloated Dark Tower opus and apart from some really sloppy editing at the start, this is probably the only thing that stops this from being a real classic. The Dark Tower ended up being a shit stain on King's oeuvre and if you could take out the thousand or so words that tie this in directly and rework the other related bits, this would be a superb addition to the Talisman's horror adventure. This has great characters, a truly creeping dread and the usual trademark portents of doom to make it a great horror novel. If you can get past the fucking Dark Tower I'd recommend it to anyone...

The Slurry

I don't think I've ever ranked a film 0/10. I think it's because if you decide to rank a film, a 0/10 rating isn't really a rating. I went to see this at the cinema, with my brother, in 1978. Brian De Palma's The Fury was his first movie after making Carrie, which, for all of its faults, was a classic compared to this nonsensical load of rotting intestines. It literally made no sense at all - from the opening scenes in the Middle East when 'terrorists' attacked Kirk Douglas and his son at a holiday resort to the introduction of Amy Irving's telekinetic schoolgirl and the Poundshop Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters institute she somehow ended up in. There was no narrative, no explanation, no reason for the movie to exist as a story; it mixed poor comedy with ridiculous ideas, had lots of running around and lots of words which might have been written in the form of a script, but I'm not sure anyone bothered to read it to see if it made any sense. It had something to do with blood and it also involved a shady government agency, but what they were doing and why they were doing it was never explained. There were some Arabs in it, on a Ferris Wheel and people died, but no one told us why. It was extraordinarily disturbing in a really undisturbing way and at the end I wondered why it had been made, why we watched it and how... It most definitely was a film, but I'm not sure why. 0/10

Careless Whisper

If ever a movie felt like it didn't know what it was then it's The Whisper Man. On the face of it the film is essentially about the reappearance of a serial killer, 30 years behind bars, but it also tries to be something else; maybe a ghost story, maybe a psychological thriller and ultimately it kind of defeats its intentions by never seeming to fit into any category. That's not to say it isn't quite good, the problem with it is the denouement - the ending pretty much stinks the rest of the film out. Robert De Niro plays Pete Miller, a retired cop and the person who put the original Whisper Man behind bars; Adam Scott plays his estranged son, whose own son is the victim of a copycat killer - is this a coincidence or is there something nefarious going on? There are lots of contrived plot points, which may be intentional, but the way it's put together they're not obvious and it comes out feeling slightly half baked. 6/10

I've Waited So Long...

13 years ago I discovered a musician called Edgaras Žakevičius - a Lithuanian who went under the name of Stellardrone. All of his music was free and much of it was simply sublime (he even released an album called Sublime). I have always loved electronica, from Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre to modern techno equivalents, electronic music has always been my go to genre. 

13 years ago Edgaras released Light Years which is quite simply my most played and probably my third favourite album of the 21st century. I don't think I've gone more than a month without playing it and over this summer I've played it like it was a new album again - always on in the background while I potter around doing other things - reading, writing, browsing, it's there washing over me like an old friend...

Nine years ago, Stellardrone released the Between the Rings EP, which was a great teaser, but after that pretty much all fell quiet. There were hints and teasers of a new album, but every year came and went without a sign and even when Edgaras said it was coming, nothing arrived. Then this morning there was an announcement - Kosmos had finally been released on Bandcamp and I was all over it like a rash. The opening track literally moved me to tears - it was big, bold and brash and made up for the years of waiting. I know several of the tracks on the new album, because there have been unpolished versions released sporadically, but that didn't take anything away from it. One hour and 14 minutes of new Stellardrone material for me to play to death over the coming months. The nights might be drawing in and the days will get colder and wetter, but I will have this to keep me warm. 10/10

What's Up Next?

Who can say? Certainly not me as I don't know what I'm doing in three hours. Films and TV, maybe another book review. Something political or maybe something frivolous or humorous. Whatever happens I will be listening to Stellardrone. 😍 

My Cultural Life - Sturm und Drang

 What's Been Up? 

I've never felt the need to be careful with what I say in my blogs. Anyone who knows me knows that I speak my mind; it often gets me into trouble but equally a lot of people are pleased that someone says things that they feel. However, I'm properly torn at the moment, because I want to relay an incident that happened to me the other day, but I'm concerned because it involves someone some people up here in Galloway might know* and I really have been trying very hard not to ruffle too many feathers in my home...

I was somewhere local, walking the dogs, when I engaged in a conversation with someone I've known for almost all the time I've lived here. We might not be called friends, but we have always chatted and our mutual love of dogs has meant there's common ground between us. This person is not heterosexual and I say that not to be provocative, but to compound a point. Several years ago, someone I'd known since I was at school, a friend, expressed extreme opinions of a right wing nature and that pretty much ended that friendship as I was not going to associate with a person with such extreme opinions given they were gay and had invariably suffered from a specific kind of discrimination throughout their life.

I tend to think of people who fall into the LGBT+ category as people who have probably seen some form of hatred, usually by ignorant bigots, aimed at them. I expect if there are any people out there who fall into the LGBT+ category who haven't experienced some form of discrimination or hate speech then they are lucky people. So the last thing I would expect is to meet someone from that demographic who could be so rabidly bigoted about foreigners and equally so dismissive of arguments contrary of their radicalised beliefs, but that is what happened. I listened to someone I've known for almost a decade spew hatred about Muslims, about refugees, about Africans, about anyone they didn't perceive as British. They were careful to say they weren't racist because black, brown and Asian British people who were born here and are patriotic are okay, but it's the raping, murdering, thieving immigrants who get more than our own poor people who should be drowned in the channel, who are responsible for ALL of the UK's ills.

I tried to argue that economic migrants come here because we have unscrupulous employers who would rather pay an illegal migrant £5 an hour to do a job rather than pay ordinary people the living wage, so some of the blame has to be directed at these people. But, apparently, that's been happening for years and isn't the reason. I said that asylum seekers get barely anything from the government, something like £9 a day to live on. But no, they get hotels, mobile phones, cars, free health care, carte blanche to rape and pillage without consequence. I said that the people complaining and vilifying migrants were responsible for this mess by lying about Brexit; that once we were out of the Dublin Agreement we were screwed by the people who told us Brexit would bring us 'are cuntry back'. And I was told that is it was snivelling shits like the new PM who won't make deals with Europe because they want our Christian-based country to be torn apart so that Muslims can take it over. That our king is now a radicalised Islam follower. That Brexit would have worked if the right people had been in control of it. That nowhere is safe to live now because we have rape gangs patrolling the streets targeting our children...

This wasn't just a tirade, this was an almost apoplectic rage rant containing so much anger and hatred and denial that I felt so uncomfortable I wanted to walk away. My wife said, "Why the hell didn't you do what you always do and argue with them? Why didn't you put them right with facts? Why did you stand there and let this person say such vile things?" And I said, I see this person at least once a week, maybe not to talk to, but they are around. They are friends with people I call friends and while our mutual friends might not be born again Nazis, they might have similar thoughts and beliefs. I simply don't want that kind of confrontation, because trying to be reasonable got an even more rabid response. This person isn't interested in the truth, this person has let hatred consume them to the point that they sound like lunatics when they rant... but lunatics who more and more people seem to agree with and what's the point of trying to be some kind of left wing woke King Canute, trying to stop the unstoppable tide of hatred when people are no longer interested in facts?

One positive thing happened. Just before we went about our own business, I think this person saw the sheer and utter shock on my face. The fact that I was appalled at what I was hearing, because they made their excuses and continued on their way. It left me mentally exhausted and writing this up 24 hours later, I'm still shocked. It was one of the most unpleasant 20 minutes of my time in Galloway; listening in disbelief to the mad rantings of someone overtaken by hatred and lies; who believes everything the right wing press say and worse. I felt violated and a mixture of very sad and unbelievably angry. Yes, the UK, like many other European countries is struggling on so many levels and I acknowledge that some tough choices will end up being made to appease these nutters. It bothers me considerably that people will always point the finger of blame at mostly innocent people without seeing or understanding why, but we're now living in a period of time where reason is not a way to counter hatred and maybe staying quiet, keeping our heads down and avoiding making these lunatics think we're part of their problem is probably the best way forward at this moment in time... 

* Do not ask me who this person is, I'm not saying.

Green Lights

I know I have a bug up my arse about The Guardian newspaper's reviews (among other things), but over the last 12 months they have stopped the comments sections on these reviews and I wonder if that's because they don't want people making comments like 'How come you're the only people in the world who like this shit?' or "Why do you give bad reviews for things everyone else likes?' Or maybe they just don't want people calling them out and accusing them of making reviews a paid for content part of the paper. You know, production companies pay the paper to write favourable reviews of shit things and the companies that don't pay them get crap reviews? This is just a theory, but there have been so many 'this is great' reviews when clearly they weren't and almost as many 'this is crap' reviews when they're not. I read the extremely negative review of Lanterns on Monday and it really hyped me up for what was likely to be an excellent debut...

Lanterns episode one was cracking TV. I obviously watched something completely different than the Guardian because this was everything I wanted from a superhero TV show. It helps that in the 1970s the only DC comic I had any time for was Green Lantern and Hal Jordan was a hero you could aspire to. This TV show casts Kyle Chandler as Hal and what an inspired bit of casting that is. Aaron Pierre as Jon Stewart is almost as good as the guy who the Guardians of the Universe chose to be Hal's replacement, but this is more than that. Almost from the opening scenes this drew you in and left you wanting more. It also wasn't like a superhero show, more like a neo-western with an extra-terrestrial twist; a kind of post modern Cowboys and Aliens but without Daniel Craig. The Green Lantern and his trainee are drawn to Nebraska where Hal believes aliens have been killed in a mass shooting (in 2016) and they walk into a ready made conspiracy theory where a local landowner and militia leader - Gareth Dillahunt - believes the earth is being primed for an alien invasion and it seems he might be right. Just enough was given away in this opener to make you want to come back for more. This is a great start.

** A Guardian Aside... Last December, I reviewed an indie film called It Ends, I gave it a score of 3/10. IMDB gives it a rating of 5.6, which is slightly better than my rating. The movie is getting a limited theatre run in the USA, Australia and the UK and the good old Guardian reviewed it this week and gave it a 4/5 rating and talked about it like it was some work of Gen-Z genius. 

I feel compelled to point this out to all of you, despite very few of you probably reading this neo-liberal sell-out and fewer giving a shit. The thing is, there an element of comedy in there now. It actually works really well for me - bad review is 90% likely to be a good film; good review, check IMDB and then don't watch. It is so contrary it's funny.

The Road to Armageddon

We watched another movie we thought we'd seen before, but if we had it must have been erased from our memories. The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic road movie starring Denzel Washington as a man on a very long mission to take a trusted book out west. He is a man capable of looking after himself in a dangerous Mad Maxian styled landscape in the aftermath of a war that has destroyed humanity and left it in ruins. Along the way he runs into Gary Oldman's Carnegie, a man who is after the book that Eli is transporting. Mila Kunis is the girl that Eli takes under his wing and there are a number of colourful survivors they meet on the way. It's a grim film with an uplifting message of hope and while I don't remember any of it, it was entertaining and not at all preachy despite its biblical implications. 7/10

Trailer Trash

A double bill from the MCU this weekend just gone. First there was a special Avengers: Doomsday trailer, which displaced and proved wrong so many You Tube know-alls and secondly there was a trailer for VisionQuest, the third and final part of a trilogy you never knew existed...

All those ITK [In The Know] Tube of You channels claiming that the twist in Avengers: Doomsday is going to be that Doc Doom isn't the villain in this film will be quietly hoping that the collective memories of people who tuned into their usually bullshit channels will have forgotten what was said. This is because the second trailer for the December blockbuster makes it absolutely clear that Doom is the villain of the piece. The new trail is essentially Sue Richards starting by saying that Victor was a decent man, the cleverest in the room, but some tragedy turned him into a monster. Then we have a bit more of RDJ's dodgy Latverian accent, interspersed with Reed Richards shouting at Doom, asking him if all of this was his doing. There's headshots of various heroes, but this time it's all about Doom (and the Sentinels he raises from the ground). It doesn't have the impact that the trailer from a fortnight ago had, because there's no end cameo from you-know-who and Doom naturally has Tony Stark's eyes. It's not floating my boat as much mainly because I'm struggling to see how a man in grey armour and a green hoodie is going to be the scariest thing Thor has ever faced...

The VisionQuest trailer does look very interesting. It's pretty much taking place inside the new Vision's head, as he seems to be coming to terms with who he is now that Wanda's influence (and power) no longer has any effect on him. This ties into the Agatha All Along series, which loosely continued on from WandaVision and has Paul Bettany reprising his role as Vision and James Spader as Ultron. It's out in October and feels like it could be one of the better series from the Disney/MCU stable.

Back briefly to Avengers: Doomsday, there is a trailer - released by Disneyworld Vacationer (a Tube of You channel) where Huge Ackman - on screen - and Ryan Reynolds - off screen - petition Kevin Feige for a role in the above film. This suggests to me that both of them are indeed going to feature. The other short trailer, also from Disneyworld Vacationer, is Adam Driver announcing that he is going to be Marvel's Mr Sinister (albeit obliquely). There is also a video with other casting decisions for the new X-Men movie, which might be in pre-production - these people include Sadie Sink and Nat O'Connor - I was massively underwhelmed by all of it. The same Tube of You channel also announced a third Incredibles film...

A Fine Tribute

The wife summed it up perfectly, "This is like an Australian Local Hero." I'm not sure the comparison works in terms of story, but the sentiment and gentle comedy in this is comparable to that great 1983 movie. We watched The Dish as a sort of tribute to the great Sam Neill, who died a few weeks ago. It is the story of the space telescope in the town of Parks, in New South Wales, which NASA used to transmit the television footage of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk. It's a quirky but thoroughly wonderful film that tells the story of the three Australian men who man the telescope and the American, from NASA, who joins them to be the vital cog in the wheel, to allow the rest of the world to see probably the greatest achievement of mankind, so far. It is a superb film, full of great humour, a fantastic soundtrack (this was 1969 after all) and if you ever get the chance you should track it down and watch it. 9/10

Men Bad

Well... It took me nine years to get around to reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King, but I finally did and here are my thoughts... I had never really wanted to read this book because of the cover blurb. I know that sounds almost trite, but it really didn't sell me. Sometimes the short synopsis on the inside of the dust jacket cover does exactly what it needs to, but this sells it short, in my never humble opinion. What this book is pretty much encapsulates what I love about King - it has an apocalypse (of sorts), it's set in a small town, it has a vast array of characters - all of whom play a significant part in the story and most of all, it's bloody brilliant. It took me about five days to read - it's over 700 pages long - and is about a strange event where mostly all the women of the world fall asleep and are cocooned inside a substance not unlike cobwebs. it is essentially a modern day fantasy novel, but it's considerably more visceral and pulls absolutely no punches. The main thrust of the book is how the males of the species pretty much fall apart in the face of this unknown phenomena and how the fate of the entire world centres around the town of Dooling. I would probably say it's one of the best books - of this nature - I have ever read; it draws you in and never really lets you go. It doesn't really have a happy ending, but equally it doesn't have a bad one either; it has a logical ending, if such a thing is possible with such a fantastical premise. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of fiction; you really don't know what's going to happen with every page turn.

Oh Spider-Man

Ouch. I'd forgotten what an absolute heap of shit this was. To give it some credit, the opening 10 minutes or so were mildly interesting and then it went downhill very very fast. This is the much maligned Spider-Man 3, a movie that is pretty much despised everywhere on the planet and not just because it has a script and plot that could have been written by a deaf, dumb and blind imbecile but also for the 10 minutes about 90 minutes into it when Peter Parker becomes a really annoying 'hip and trendy dude' because of the symbiote that has attached itself to him. The 'Venom' character was a massive contradiction in terms during its stint hitchhiking around on Peter - was it living in/on him or did it live in his newly blackened costume in the suitcase in his cupboard? What did that even mean and how did it happen? Add to this an occasionally excellent Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko aka The Sandman and also James Franco as the flip flopping around new Green Goblin and you have a film where MJ probably sleeps with yet another person - other than Peter - and still looks like she hasn't had her gingivitis cured. I think Sam Raimi - who I don't rate as a filmmaker anyhow - tried far too hard to try and make this a brilliant movie but instead turned in a half-baked turd. 2/10 

Musical Youth

We occasionally watch The Hit List on BBC1 on a Saturday and the new series started last Saturday and it was one of those quiz show episodes that blew us away. There were two (out of three) teams - a couple of young girls from Merseyside and a blind guy with his father-in-law - whose musical knowledge was unbelievable. The speed and accuracy of these players was almost faultless and the two girls, who eventually won £9.6K plus a £500 bonus for getting five out of five on the opening round, were phenomenal. They had a musical knowledge of the last 50 years that was mind blowing. It's on iPlayer, you should watch it just to be astounded.

Very Angry

This week's Furious was a mixture of comedy - yes, really - and things falling apart. Alice's boss thinks she's got her own boss trapped in her clever plan, but she doesn't and that ends up putting Alice in serious trouble. Meanwhile, Alice's former partner in the NYPD is getting a break with Alden (the serial killer's disabled fiancé), who has been giving the FBI a bit of a run around, in what is the episode's second comedy section and Alice's former boyfriend has not just gone off the rails, he's catapulted away from them like a shit from a cow and that can only mean one thing and it doesn't end well for him. This episode seemed like it was going to be the end of Catherine and I was suspecting the series would take a different direction for the remaining two parts, but FBI cover-ups and incompetence has now made it considerably more complicated.

Dead Ends

The most interesting thing about the second half of Ride or Die was how it stopped being a slightly frivolous comedy about an assassin and her suburban housewife bestie and become something very dark and twisted with a lot of things happening that firmly placed it in the nasty category. Things happened in the concluding parts that you could see coming a mile off, but some other things happened that really were not expected as Hannah Waddingham's Whiptail finally brought this to something of a conclusion. The thing is it also sets itself up for a sequel with Bill Nighy's Jack now on Interpol's radar and Judith and Deborah on a train surrounded by assassins from other agencies. It was fun at times, but also slightly excruciating at others with some of the humour feeling forced, but overall it was considerably better than either of us expected.

Faaaaark

When Brett Goldstein was in Shrinking he was a bit namby-pamby, but in Ted Lasso he is the absolute dog's bollocks. His Roy Kent is essentially a Rottweiler with a heart of gold and he always makes this show so much better than it is whenever he's in it. The latest instalment is essentially the usual bollocks as Richmond Ladies play their first friendly, in the face of hostility and a lack of belief. There's lot of swearing and crap set ups, but that's part of the charm, having set pieces that would seem quaint in a 1970s sitcom. There's the usual cod philosophy and borderline sexism, but it has found its feet since that woeful season opener.

The Hitman and Him

There are very few Ryan Reynolds films we haven't seen now and most of those we wouldn't touch with a barge pole, however The Hitman's Bodyguard has never fallen onto my radar, mainly because I expected it to be a load of shite and oddly enough it isn't. It is an entertaining buddy movie about an assassin and the man charged with protecting him when Interpol realises they have a dangerous leak in their ranks who might be working for the former Belarussian president - Gary Oldman - who is a very very nasty man. This is one of the better Samuel L Jackson movies of recent years, but this is essentially both Reynolds and Jackson playing characters [read: themselves] we've come to know and love. It switches between serious and silly with ease and is actually a lot of fun. 7/10

The Shitman, Him and Her

Oh my dear God... The original was a semi-serious action film with some laughs in it, this was a full blown comedy with very few funny bits in it. In fact, the funniest scene in the film ended up on the cutting room floor (and that was the reason I ended up watching the films only to be disappointed when the scene I was so impressed with wasn't in the finished product). This reunited Reynolds, Jackson and Salma Hayek in a movie that seemed to forget large swathes of the original, but that wasn't the worst thing; the worst thing was thinking that you could just make a overwhelmingly stupid film because the first one was funny. This was a fucking disgrace and if Ryan Reynolds has a problem with The Proposal why the fuck hasn't he disowned this steaming heap of shit? I'm not going to bother telling you what it was about because it doesn't matter; if you fall into a bath full of excrement, you do not start sifting through it to see what the people who filled the bath ate for their dinner. 2/10

Spewtiny

Oh come on. Seriously? This week's blog is brought to you by the people who do reviews for the Guardian and the fact they're either morons or, as I've already alluded, get paid for their content. I mean this newspaper has to find funding from somewhere, so why not get paid for content and then not say it's being paid... The latest Jaysun Stayfum 'action adventure' (and I use that term loosely) has landed and my favourite newspaper gave it a 3/5 rating, which considering the number of one and two star ratings it gives, is a real hallmark of excellence, at least in the eyes of the people who may or may not have actually watched this dung heap of sweaty arsehole debris. IMDB has it at 5.7 after less than a day of ratings, I expect that will fall hugely over the next week and the reason is because this is an appalling load of tripe. The best thing in it is Stayfum's stubble in a jeopardy-free, incoherent load of dog's cock. He plays a body guard who fails at protecting his boss - Ramon Tikaram - and then gets on a ship to find out who paid for the hit. From this point on it's about as exciting as constipation and as tense as some ancient knickers with slack elastic. It all seems to hinge on people trafficking, but what it really does is showcase the lack of talent available to make half-arsed wank like this. It's not even fun; one-man army films are essentially comedies, this was about as funny as dying of dysentery. 1/10

Conspiracies

We watched the opening two episodes of the Chris Pratt vehicle The Terminal List, from 2023, about a Navy Seal whose entire team is killed in an ambush in Syria and comes back to the USA and gets embroiled in a plot to have him killed, by unknown but hostile members of his own government. Is he suffering from PTSD and imagining it all or is there something trying to stop him from finding the truth? In the opening two episodes, those after Pratt's Reece have already brutally killed his wife, his daughter and his best friend and have successfully made it out to look like Reece is a loose cannon gone off the deep end. This is the latest in our search for TV series we have missed first time around which have good IMDB ratings and this is pretty good so far, if a little badly lit - it's like the cameraman is always in the dark. It is worth sticking with, so far.

What's Up Next?

There's been a lot in this week's blog; more than I thought the week would bring. sadly a lot of it has been worse than the drippings of my arse and my week was rocked by the story I told in the opening section. It's also been fucked about by the return of the chest infection - which may never have gone away - and feeling like shit for half the week, with an ongoing headache that has veered between nasty and full blown migraine. I could do without having a repeat of this week, which has had barely any high points and some of them were ruined by the fucking Guardian newspaper, which I have had a serious bug up my arse about all week.

Next week, I'm hoping I have more to be happy about. We're due a more tolerable return of summer and I'm reading another book; actually rereading one I've read twice already, I'll explain why next week. Until then, try not to kill each other and whatever happens in the next seven days, you're probably going to hear about it.

Up the Spurs!

My Cultural Life - Running Hot and Cold

What's Been Up? 

* William Orbit died in July. His family kept it quiet from the press until the first week of August. Like so many of my musical heroes, he had done little of note for quite some time. His 2022 album - The Painter - wasn't bad, but as an artist he peaked in the mid 1990s and as a producer his time was between the late 1990s and early 200s, when he produced the likes of Madonna, Blur, All Saints and a few others, all with thunderous success. He released a number of albums after his Strange Cargo peak and each one had echoes of his former brilliance, but nothing will ever top Hinterland, one of the most played CDs in my collection. I often say it's an album that perfectly sums up my life - but don't ask my how or why...

* With the heatwave over and the threat of some rain on the horizon, it has been, even here in south west Scotland, a memorable summer, especially after what was a forgettable spring. There are signs that we might be in for an encore before the end of August, with the Met Office suggesting that the last week in August and maybe the first week in September might see us have another spell of warm/hot and dry weather and, of course, we'll then enter the autumn and winter months where we'll have unprecedented rainfall, replenishing the rivers and reservoirs before we probably rinse and repeat next year.

* My faith in dentists has all but disappeared. I've never trusted them and despite being a good patient for the last nine years, I have run out of patience with them and I will attend my check up in January but refuse any work that's recommended unless I believe I need it. My experience with them over the summer has been horrendous and I haven't enjoyed the good weather as much as I should because of problems with that early summer extraction and subsequent infections and revisits - which they had the audacity to charge me for despite it having been their fault. It seems to me that becoming a dentist is a sure fire way of making a shit load of money...

* I've been shit on by birds THREE times this summer, that's almost more times than I've been shit on by birds in the last 50 years. Apparently it's supposed to be good luck, but given that I haven't seen any good luck anywhere that's one old wives tale I think was created by a dryly humorous old wife...

* I know I appear to be having a thing about Facebook at the moment, but I figured I'd share something with you. I run a couple of things on the social media platform; a page for my football team (with 23,000+ followers) and a group for wild mushroom foraging (with just over 6,000 members). Last week (well most weeks actually), I was offered the chance of setting the controls to automatically allow comments to be deleted without being published if they contained certain words. At first this sounded innocuous but then something happened that made it sound quite insidious...

I got suckered into buying some mullein extract from a company called Origin Drops, which claimed, in lots of places, that the extract of the verbascum flower was a reliever for COPD. They made a lot of claims, which seemed to be backed up by lots of unconfirmed sources. I took the plunge, ended up with a couple of bottles of bright green sugar syrup that was fit for fuck all. So when I saw an advert pop up on Facebook for them, I looked at the thousands of positive comments* and didn't see one single negative one, so I left my own comment. It involved the word 'scam' and almost as soon as I hit enter, the page refreshed and I no longer was allowed to post on the page, my comment had been deleted and I was effectively banned.

A couple of days later, friends of mine opted to share that bloody 'a 17 year old won this motor home but is too young to claim the prize, so like and share this to stand a chance of winning it yourself' bullshit, scam and phishing post. I went onto the - newly created - page and told people it was a scam and instantly I was ejected from the page and I couldn't find it again; I had been blocked from it. So I went back into my own pages and looked again at this new feature Facebook was pushing and it essentially said that I could block anyone who says anything I didn't like - it could block people alerting others as to whether I was a scammer! This is the same company that doesn't want regulation of their platform; a company that is happy to allow children to be influenced and corrupted by hideous and malevolent content and now have made it easier for nefarious, illegal and harmful content creators to block anyone calling it out for what it is...

* I spent ten minutes looking at a bunch of the positive comments made by people on this page and every single one of them looked fake; many had only been in existence for less than a year, most had no information or history of people posting, 50% of them had their profiles blocked (a sure sign they're actually bots) and none of them had any interaction with whatever friends they have. Elaborate scams backed up with fake IDs designed to make you think they are genuine. Facebook is dangerous, don't let anyone try to make you think otherwise.

Like Sugar

Some websites are talking about how the season finale of Sugar sets it up for the next series, but I don't think it does. I think it might be the end of the coolest guy on television, in one of the craziest TV shows ever to land on this odd planet of ours. Yes, there's some dangling plot threads, but hey... life; to continue would probably mean more sci-fi and this is a show that keeps its extra-terrestrial roots parked - usually - at the back of the viewing room. In an episode that starts off as an epilogue to the previous seven, something I've been forecasting happens and suddenly this noirish homage to Hollywood with its hardboiled detective stories becomes the one thing it has tried very hard to not be over its 16 episodes - it finally becomes a science fiction story. I'm quite torn, because this finale tied everything up from the start of season one to the end of season two, everything was given a chance and some air to breath and we learned about the mysteries that seemed to be unexplained throughout this strange, compelling and wonderfully shot TV show.

Sugar has effectively been about John trying to find out what happened to his sister, Djen; it's always been the underlying reason this show exists, whether he was tracking down a serial killer or exposing high level corruption from the police all the way up to high office, the thing that has been driving John has been why his friend might have possibly killed Djen - the sister we only ever saw in alien form. The thing I didn't expect was that it would all tie together, especially as the second season ended the way the first one started, with Colin Farrell talking to James Cromwell, except this time the latter knows more about John than he did at the start. I really liked this season finale, because while there is some open ended things in it, it also felt like the perfect place to stop; to leave John Sugar with his mysteries solved - for now - with his dog back in his life and in the knowledge that his superpower is being a really nice man. I think I might miss this series more than I realise and unlike other shows, if it does come back I won't be disappointed. That's the mark of something truly special. 

Oh My Good God...

Last week, I said we might watch The Last House despite a 5.7 rating on IMDB. By the time we watched it on Sunday night - less than two days after the last blog went live - it had dropped to 5.5, so I didn't tell the wife we were about to watch a heap of shit. The thing is it started reasonably weirdly and felt like it might be something a bit different, but then the levels of far fetched came and then the preposterously absurd until we were introduced to the creatures and... I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain...

Wagner Moura and Greta Lee play parents to two kids; he's unemployed and their house is falling down. An unexpected storm arrives and the rain appears to cement everyone into their houses; the doors don't open, windows don't break and even drilling holes in walls and doors soon get plugged up by the water - there is no explanation for this. No one can escape; they are all locked in. People stuck outside can't get in etc etc etc. After a while, as the food runs out people start to die, but the family in The Last House have a DVD of Annie to watch, grow hydroponic tomatoes, eat their dog and manage to survive for FIVE FUCKING YEARS while the rest of the world gets on without humans. Oh and there appears to be a monster outside who hadn't bothered showing up for the first few years, but now appears to be menacing the remaining living humans. There's elements of Cthulhu at work, even a suggestion this might be a cosmic horror, but in the end, these horrid sea creatures (for that is what they were) just needed a human to show an act of kindness towards them and they packed up, went back to sea and were never seen again, ever. The end. Jesus wept salt water... 3/10

Unjustified

With a dwindling amount of movies on the Mystery Stick, I spent Sunday morning trawling IMDB for TV series rated higher than 8.0 that we had never watched, in the hope of finding something - a kernel of sweetcorn in the vast arrays of shite - that we could watch. and with a rating of 8.6 and some pretty good reviews, we settled on the 2010 series Justified with Timothy Olyphant as a US Marshal. With that kind of rating it looked nailed on to be a winner, but there was an element of reservation, especially as The Guardian rated it extremely highly. By the time we finished the pilot episode we'd seen enough. It felt almost ridiculous that a TV series from 2010 can feel dated, but this did. The acting was very good ol' boy redneck with a hint of tongue in cheek and long before the end of the opening episode I was thinking there was no way we are going to watch one season, let along six and a sequel, so we're not.  

King of Tales

This summer has been one for doing a lot of reading. I usually read between two and four books during the summer, mainly because I like sitting in the garden reading - I like the light. This summer I've read five novels already and am about to embark on the sixth. All but one of them have been Stephen King novels; the reason for this was I decided in the spring that I should read the King books I've never read, plus the latest one, which ended up being the most disappointing of the five. They were: Never Flinch - the latest Holly Gibney crime thriller; Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch - the three Bill Hodges stories, which introduced Holly Gibney - the slightly autistic private detective with a nose for the weird and Billy Summers - King's take on the life of a hitman and the overriding theme behind these five books are that none of them appear to be supernatural, although the last in the Bill Hodges trilogy is and there's a chapter in Billy Summers that places it squarely in the King Universe.

I'm pretty clear on which one is my favourite, that would be the last one. Billy Summers didn't float my boat. I couldn't bring myself to read it in 2021 when it came out; my supernatural snobbery not allowing me to touch it because I didn't think I'd enjoy it; so I was quite surprised when it turned out to be an absolute blockbuster of a tale and one of the best stories I think King has ever written. It goes in strange directions and while the premise is quite light, the execution (if you'll pardon the obvious pun) is perfect. It's an archetypal 'last job' story, which has a number of curveballs thrown in and I devoured it in three days. The Bill Hodges trilogy really is summer reading and the last two books are nothing like the television adaptations - nothing at all like them, so it was like reading something totally new. All three stories are set over a short period of time, the last one literally takes place over a week. Never Flinch was an absolute let down of a story, which even the wife was on the same page as me; it was almost a why bother book...

The sixth book was the concluding part of Philip Pullman's Book of Dust trilogy, which I reviewed in these pages about six or seven weeks ago and was baffling and felt something like an anti-climax. I am about to embark on Sleeping Beauties - another King book, this time written with his son Owen. I've had the books for yonks, but never felt like reading it, but as it is the only thing the near 80-year-old writer has written that I haven't read, I figured I'd better get it out of the way. I'm going to sit down with it today (Monday) and I might finish it by the weekend, despite its 700+ pages. 

Dragon Ballz

The biggest problem with all three seasons of House of the Dragon has been the middle six episodes. Every season has started and ended well, but has been marred by six boring stinkers in between. The season finale was a tour de force of battles, set-ups and double crosses, but ultimately it was all about the next series, because every fucking season end has been about next year. It's why I'm unsure whether I can bear another eight weeks of dull medieval nonsense that doesn't go anywhere until the final season is given the go ahead. This time around some minor characters died; one of the dragon riders goes rogue; Matt Smith almost carks its and the queen has a bad day all round; plus the rebel brothers Targaryen make up and plot for season four. Largely it's just a borefest, but I might have to tune in next year just to see how it will set up, then I can take six weeks off and watch the finale...

Livid

Despite finding Furious great TV there's a couple of things about it. The first is that it is uncomfortable television; it's got an edge to it that gives you a little bit of the ick. The second is how it can always seem to end in a situation where you wonder how they're going to string it out and this fifth part was no exception. Last week we were left wondering how Alice can play any future part in the investigation and this week we were left with her sitting in a room next to the killer and knowing it. Emmy Rossum is a fantastic actress; one of two brilliant break out stars of the old Shameless (US) - the other being Jeremy Allen White - and in this she's playing a blinder. The problem is, without wishing to sound like I'm repeating myself, this is just really uncomfortable because it's dealing with all manner of things that just don't feel like the usual thing you would find in a drama. It's difficult to explain, but the overtly sexual opening couple of episodes have been replaced by the deeply disturbing and unusual. 

Pulverised

When Fox made X-Men Origins: Wolverine did they even bother taking into account the three earlier X-Men films, to the point of were they even aware that much of this movie makes no sense at all? The reason I say this is because there were so many things wrong that it felt like it could well have been part of the current MCU's Multiverse nonsense. Not only did this movie give Wolverine - Huge Ackman - an origin, which seemed incongruous to everything we've ever known about the character, it also introduced other characters that made little or no sense and were substantially different when they reappeared in later films.

Take Wade Wilson for starters. In this he was already a mutant wielding a katana before he was transformed into a Deadpool that didn't resemble any rendition of the character in later films or comic book. Then there was the addition of Remy Labeau or Gambit, who this time around was played by Taylor Kitsch and the least said about him the better. Then there was Scott Summers, who it seems was conveniently unable to see when he was in scenes with Logan, so doesn't remember him when they meet again later in their lives... Then there was Sabretooth, who unlike Logan didn't lose his memory yet manages to forget he's Logan's 'brother' between this film and the first X-Men movie when they met again (or for the first time depending on stuff). There is so much wrong with this film that I could write a thesis on it but the worst thing is the complete lack of any continuity - which, as we know, was never really a thing in the first place with X-Men movies. I suppose the biggest problem I have with this is despite it being pretty much a load of shite, the scattergun approach to writing mutants in the 2000s was never more pronounced than with this. 4/10

Pickett Up

The TV series with good ratings we've never watched list arrived at Joe Pickett, a couple of series about a game warden, played by Michael Dorman, which came recommended. This time it was a show from 2023 which featured on Paramount+ and because I'm a bit of a Dorman fan I had some hopes this would be okay. We managed 25 minutes and to be honest I'm surprised I gave it that long. It started with some bad CGI - which was surprising given it styles itself as a 'modern western' - before descending into a kind of soap opera format inside the next few minutes as Joe discovers his wife is pregnant. The following scene, with Joe, his wife and two existing kids at a kind of car boot sale thing wouldn't have been so bad if his wife didn't already look about six months pregnant, but this was just a couple of days after the opening scene when he stopped a hillbilly from butchering two big deer - which had already been killed. Everything about this screamed 'shite' and we put it out of its misery very quickly, vowing to never return to it again. I've come to the conclusion that ratings for TV shows on IMDB are about as reliable as a Nigel Farage MPs surgery for residents of Clacton...

A Return to Form?

Did you like the footballing analogy I used there? I wouldn't have used it if this week's Ted Lasso hadn't felt like it had rediscovered how to be a half decent comedy show. The problem with last week was it was all wrong, but this week we were back in Richmond and back at the training ground with recognisable characters and a familiar feel to things. This is never going to be a brilliant show, but it can, at least, try and rediscover its instinct for scoring goals... [ahem]... This week Ted is finding his feet again, meeting his new team, reacquainting himself with old friends and making some new ones. There were some LOL moments - which is always a bonus - and I have high hopes the following six or so weeks will not have me reaching (or wretching) for the sick bucket again.

A Massive Wadd, Missus

Hannah Waddingham has been all over my TV this week and that is not some kind of bizarre euphemism. Not only is she back as the chairperson of Richmond FC, she's also the hired assassin Whiptail in the miniseries Ride or Die, the latest TV series on the mystery stick we've decided to give a go to. This time we're halfway through it and while it is a wee bit silly and Waddingham essentially plays herself in everything I've ever seen her in (this and Ted Lasso), she's good value for money and team her up with Octavia Spencer and you have an interesting show about best friends with a twist. One doesn't know the other is a hired assassin despite them having been friends for 25 years. This has some cringe moments, but it's actually good fun and Waddingham is convincing - in a TV show kind of way. It might be a keeper, however we're going to finish it next week, so I might change my mind.

The Pulveriser

The first thing, almost the very first thing, you notice about James Mangold's The Wolverine is the opening sequence has Logan stuck in a makeshift well/prison just outside Nagasaki, despite him also being at the D-Day landings in Europe - with his brother Sabretooth - about a year earlier. Now, it is possible that he might have gone and done a solo mission after helping defeat the Nazis or equally it might have simply been forgotten about so they could do a loose adaptation of the Frank Miller four-part comicbook mini-series based in Japan. I'm going for the forgetting excuse, because, you know, as mentioned above, Wolverine and X-Men continuity is as dependable as my memory. Anyhow, this pits Logan against the Yakuza (after a fashion) and the Yashida family, of which half like him and the other half want him dead.

By and large it is a better film than his first solo outing, but that isn't difficult. The story is relatively slight, despite it's two hour run time and while the Viper is a strange villain, some of her 'achievements' weren't easily explainable and the man Logan saved the life of at Nagasaki turned out to be a bit of a twat; but this was also a film that was a bit all over the place at times. Huge Ackman seemed a little more like Wolverine from the comics - for pretty much the first time - but the cameo from Famke Janson as Jean Grey felt shoehorned in. There's a post-credit scene which sets up X-Men: Days of Future Past but overall it felt a little bit pointless. 6/10 

What's Up Next?

The big thing this coming week surely has to be Lanterns - the Green Lantern reboot. It's less superhero more neo-western, in what seems to be an oblique nod to Sugar - less extra and more terrestrial. I've found a few movies to add to the Mystery Stick (but I'm not too hopeful) and the usual other stuff. We're heading towards autumn and that usually means longer nights with more stuff to fill them - oh and the football season starts properly next Saturday - woo and indeed hoo!