Snow as a Fashion Statement

Hasn't summer been good so far?

Had a birthday this week. It was the 49th in an annual succession of them.

I sometimes astound myself at time and the way it meanders along at such a constant and unforgiving way. The way it allows your mind to stay sprightly while buggering up your body in an insidious way that never ends well.

People who say the Seventies was the decade that fashion and music forgot obviously were comatose during the Eighties.

I found it quite ironic while sorting through some work stuff yesterday that the one time I appear in the newspaper, during my 6 years at this current employer, should have the headline: Silver surfers can get tips from youngsters.

I need beer. I need to OD on beer, then go on a diet. I need to do this because I am FAT.

My Own Bellicose Jesus

Bloody hell! Have I had one of those weeks.

Got official notice yesterday that I will be unemployed on 21st May 2011. I think my boss and the HR department probably have never had an easier redundancy notice to give; there was laughs, jokes and one really nice compliment handed to me by our head of service.

Also on Friday, but half a day earlier, I played with Microsoft Video Maker and 'created' my first video - although to be fair it was just a series of still photos. 36 hours I'd deleted it and replaced it with something even better. The video - a bit of free PR for my friend Steve Messina's band Blow Up Hollywood could be the beginning of something new and exciting to keep me occupied while I try and find a new job. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0BWFIdPyw to check it out; share it with your friends; post it on your social networking site and better than all of that go and buy stuff from www.blowuphollywood.com. No, they're not broke, but they are considering taking on a UK and European agent/representative... This is why I'm trying to boost their profile in Europe. My argument is that most people I've played BUH's music to have liked it; several have gone and bought stuff; heck, even muso friends have stated the band are much better than their modest successes, thus far. I mean, they have 6 albums out, another in the pipes, so it's not like they're some flash in the pan, fly by night, bunch of chancers now, is it?

Wednesday night was fun. I went round Hippie Dez's to watch Spurs' last Champions League game (probably for a year or so unless results and form start to side with them) and as usual had a laugh and a joke and couldn't care less about Gomez's howler that meant the Spanish side won a game they were always second best in. Dez is a Chelsea fan, so we both went out of the competition this week; he was a lot less happy than I.

Tuesday we won the pub quiz for the 4th time in 5 weeks and yet still failed to win the jackpot that is sitting at around £150 now and would, seriously, be a nice fillip for Team Squonk (as quizmeister One Ell affectionately refers to us as). It's nice to see something with Squonk attached that isn't crashing and burning! However, despite an evening of fun, frolics, bad ponytails and beer, it was marred by a strange chemical smell emanating from where we were sitting. it wasn't as I first suspected, someone's arse, but it did give me a blinding headache and said headache has lasted with me right up until today. If I die, someone sue The Vic for me please!

As I stated in a previous blog, the early part of the week was spent marvelling at the amount of beer I drank last Friday, the lack of a hangover on Saturday and the exceptionally grand day spent with my old pal Pat Fish aka the Jazz Butcher! Plus, for much of the week the weather wasn't as bad as it could have been!

***

Let's, in fact, talk about the weather, especially as it is a stock favourite of mine.

Are we turning into India?

Not the massively hot days and fourteen feet of rain in 20 minutes, but the fact we seem to get all of our rain now mainly at the time of year when we want it least. I put my spuds in last week and I've been having to water them - something that you don't expect to have to do in April - you know the saying - April Showers. Well, springs in this country have been getting drier and finer, autumns are like slightly warmer versions of spring and the summer just tends to be masses of clouds and rain avoidance. A couple of weeks ago, during that really nice spell (the one I said would be the end of summer), the skies were blue and big and clear of clouds - skies I remember from summers like 1976. I can't remember a day in the last 10 years between June and August where it has been clear blue sky from dawn till dusk - it just doesn't happen any more.

And I heard it for the first time on Friday afternoon. The utterly stupid words, "We've got to have a good summer because we deserve it!" I deserve to get a decent job or win the lottery or have Karen Gillen profess her undying love and desire to get naked with me - but it aint going to happen. Is it? I've banged on about people thinking that the weather is dictated by what people deserve for as long as I can remember - time to move along; nothing new to be seen there, just wishful thinking wankers...

***

Despite the fact that I'm now (rushes into the bathroom to stand on the scales)... 16 stone, it appears that many friends, colleagues and acquaintances are ignoring my MASSIVE gut and rushing to tell me how healthy I'm looking. Just on Friday, a good, long-standing colleague of mine said how well she thought I was looking. Mentally I'm feeling better too. In general, I'm feeling better than I have for at least 6 months and it must all be down to my latest medication. Heck, I even ran after the ball with one of the dogs yesterday. it did look like a whale trying to dance a waltz with a dingo, but it wasn't a sedentary stroll.

If I want to be slightly conceited for a second - I think I'm getting my mojo back. It's come out of hibernation and is working its magic again. This calls for a woo and a hoo!

***

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2486213913/ is a clip for a new film starring David Hyde Pierce, better known as Niles Crane in Frazer. it looks rather brilliant, especially if you always wondered if Niles had any balls!

***

Off for an early birthday meal with the wife and RnB tonight. It might be one of the last times I go to the mighty Pooja for a while - treating my impending redundancy seriously for as second. But it was slightly odd and also quite good to be sitting in the pub on Thursday and hearing two people discussing the finer points and merits of Pooja. I couldn't help butting in to their conversation, because that's me. but we all agreed that the food is great, the service is ... patchy and it is the best Indian restaurant in the vicinity.

Have I ever mentioned that while me and t'wife are good friends with the guys that run the place - they think (and have done for years now) that my name is Poll...

***

I'm happy with the serialisation of my comics autobiography so far. It's proving to be a little harder work than I envisaged because I'm editing it again before it goes up and I'm adding bits to an extra chapter I've included that will appear near the end - all the bits I forgot to put in or forgot about. But I've been pleased that so many people who aren't really interested in comics have been reading it - hopefully, if they don't get bored to death, they might learn something from the first half at least; all the juicy stuff doesn't start until August, so hopefully perseverance will be the order of the day!

Now, all I have to say is: F.O.T

whale oil beef hooked

[There are no spelling or grammatical mistakes in the following vignette]

A colleague has been working with a graffiti artist. He's sitting doodling on scrap paper and has spelled, in flowing and ornate letters, the word DEBE. My colleague looks at it and says, "What's that, then?"

"Girlfriend's name, innit."

"Her name is Debe [pronounced Deeb]?

"No man, her name is Debbie. You know," pointing at the graffiti, "Deb. E."

"Does she spell her name like that?"

"I dunno. Probly. That's how is spelt, yeah?"

I can rest easy in the knowledge that our language and the young people wielding it are in good hands...

But that said... Are we breeding (I except myself from that generalisation) a future generation of incompetent nincompoops? A female friend, who is in a long term relationship with one of my relatives, posts on her Facebook page that she had had a really bad day which was horrible, stressful, painful and unfair and to top it all off she had really sore eyes from crying. Probably a little too much info for a Facebook status/what she is thinking update, but each to their own and all that. A number of her friends replied and all of them seemed to ask the same questions: is something wrong? Is she okay? and the remarkable - have you had a horrible day? It isn't even stating the bleeding rhetorically obvious, it's just totally DUH!!! I was just itching for her to post a follow-up saying - Have had a really horrible day, discovered that a lot of my friends were mentally deficient or have the compassion of a piranha fish.

***

Nostalgia bloomed yesterday afternoon as I spent a very enjoyable afternoon in the company of ye olde Jazz Butcher, in his courtyard garden, supping coffee, chewing le fat and reminiscing wistfully about the 1980s, friends we have known and loved and wankers. We also discussed football, but that's because we both share a passion for the mighty Tottingham Hotspurs.

I'd gone to see Pat to pick his well pickled brains about how I'd go about representing bands in the UK and to be honest none of the information he gave me made me want to rush out and start a new career as a music representative in 2011; but it was enlightening listening to a musician who sampled some interesting times in the indie world at a time when indie wasn't necessarily a recognised thing. The business has changed so much that he envisages a time when the album will become as important as vinyl is in the 21st century and there won't be new record shops.

It's been far too long since I sat down with my old buddy and just chilled - probably getting on for 20 years. Back in those days, Pat used to refer to me as 'Snapper Disgusto - world famous Russian cosmonaut' and claimed I'd make a living out of scaring children. His vision of my future sounds terribly exciting...

***

On Friday, I did something I haven't done for a long time. I had, I believe, 8 pints of beer. Two at lunch, on a sunny and warm afternoon with One El and a further 6 up at one of my favourite pubs - the Queen Adelaide, in the evening, with my good friends the Lloyd Brothers.

Jesus, I was drunk when I got in.

***

I've embarked on a new medicinal treatment for my back pain, my leg numbness and my general pissed off-ness at my, at times, raging bones and musculature. My gut feeling is that it's having a positive effect. I've been following this new set of drugs and relaxation processes for just over two weeks. I shall know if it has been a success by the end of May.

***

I should probably do this over on my politics blog, but...

It would appear that some of the LibDems have grown a pair. It's not necessarily going to do them any favours or win them much support back. The leader of Liverpool City Council - who just happens to be a powerful Liberal - claims his party are lower than snake shit and will be destroyed at the local elections at the start of next month. Good call - the man is right. Tories would normally get the backlash of a protest vote, but I think the general populace want to punish the coalition; the problem is they can't punish both of them; so Clegg's boys are going to take one helluva beating on May 5.

Now, interestingly (for me, anyway) is that the referendum on AV is the same day as the council elections. I've been sitting firmly in the NO camp since Clegg's tie-dyed yellow shirt was caught out in the rain and became a very deep blue. The main reasoning behind this is because it's what he wants and because of his allowance of this Tory leadership to do some shitty things to the country - without any resistance - when there were clearly better alternatives.

However, I'm not so sure now. The AV system might be complicated and will in some places allow the person who finishes 3rd to win (and can you imagine the test case lawsuits that we'll see if that actually happened?), but it also allows us all to place the Tory and Lib Dem candidates as 8th and 9th choices, so they literally disappear from parts of the country. I've always felt that tactical voting was the best ally of both Liberal and Labour in the FPTP process, because it allowed collusion to oust some snobby wanker, sorry, I meant Conservative, from getting into power. But this new AV system, which in some quarters is being claimed it prevents direct tactical voting actually allows tactical voting en masse to wipe out politicians and the evil, Tory hating bastard that I am sees this as a perfect way of screwing with Westminster.

You see, I think convincing non Tory voting individuals to put the Tory candidate lower down the ballot would be a damned sight easier than convincing them to vote for who you want to win. Arguably it can work the other way around, but in general individuals with moderate incomes and in work view Labour, in general, as a party of stability, while look to the Tory's for scary depression inducing periods followed by boom times for people who already have more than all of us put together. Even people who inherently aren't Labour supporters must see that Tory's aren't actually the slightest bit interested in you; they're just interested in your money and as indirectly as possible, because they like long, complicated paper trails. That's why I think you could convince Mr Average that putting Lord Snooty 'I Hate Chavs' Pervey-Cholmondley below the Monster Raving Loony Party will have all the girls at the office laughing at his sense of political humour, while leaving the Tory with no deposit - not that its going to be a drop in the ocean, but the humiliation should keep us all happy for a week or two.

Radioactive Sushi

General bleats...

I've zero problem with the Japanese except the way they seem to think that they have the divine right to eat any endangered species in the world. Such an unusual race and an amazing culture, yet they do like to eat some fucking strange things.

Japan and the way they eat cropped up twice this week in dispatches. The first was the knowledge the Japanese government or Nuclear Power commission or whoever is in charge of the Fukushima nuclear power plant intend (and apparently have just) to release 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water into the sea. They 'think' it shouldn't have any serious effects. Serious effects? Oh good.

Japanese gave us the love of eating raw fish. This might be revenge.

I wasn't in the office much last week; I have more important things to do like sunbathe and dig potato trenches; but while getting involved in one of my usual conversations, young colleague attempted to convince me that sushi is probably the best thing in the world and how Japanese cuisine is basically better than sex. Now, I know people who live in Japan; I know people who eat sushi and I know Japanophiles and most of them claim that Japan is better than God; but I don't like their food. I've had it before and didn't like it. I have no intention of eating raw fish, rice, vine leaves, sake, vinegar laced rice products, strange poisonous fish swim bladders or anything else like that. So, I don't care how much I'd love it; I wouldn't. Honestly and really, I won't like it. I won't eat it again and fuck off and stop telling me how it's like orgasms in food form. Twat.

Someone is going to read this and go, "He really doesn't know what he's missing..."

FUCK OFF AND DIE!!!!

***

Tits appear to be the new Sopranos (or something like that). I've noticed that Spartacus - the new Starz TV show is wall to wall clunge and actors who have never got them out for the lads ever are queuing up to flop them out for all and sunder. This new Camelot series seems to have women whose clothes just fall off, revealing that Dark Ages women were not short, hairy, sagging, ugly and with rotten teeth, but gorgeous blondes with fabulous norks with nipples that point to the North Star and teeth that a dentist would willingly buy advertising space to claim he can get yours looking as good.

Apparently that BBC drama Crimson Petal and the White Knickers or whatever it's called is also wall to wall nudity - with all the women owning perfect teeth and none of them suffering from stinky minge or pubic lice (that's crabs to you and me) - both common in Victorian London, allegedly.

Of course, I think it's all shocking and we should be watching Songs of Praise or Countdown...

***

Can you tell if Peter Crouch is in form?

***

Well, that's it. Summer's over. Hope you got your sun tan because that's the last decent weather we're going to see until September 7th. You read it here first...

Gig Guide 7: Blackfield/Pineapple Thief at The Assembly Rooms, Leamington Spa; 6th April, 2011

Of Steven Wilson's 26 side projects away from Porcupine Tree, Blackfield is pretty much the one I'm the most ambivalent about - if, indeed, you can be 'most ambivalent' about anything apart from measuring one's own ambivalence. I like the first two Blackfield albums, but there's a couple of things about both of them that, you know, almost leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth. The newly released third album - Welcome to my DNA - is pleasant enough. It's not got a lot of weight, dark autobiographical pop, and a bit Porcupine Tree Lite musically!

Aviv Geffen, Wilson's cohort in Blackfield, is a kind of cross between Robbie Williams, Bob Dylan and Daniel O'Donnell - he's essentially a very popular protest singer in a country that still finds the need for protest singers and worthy causes. For an Israeli, Geffen is a peacenik. Musically, a lot of his stuff... you'd sell organs to avoid.

The two of them - Wilson and Geffen - and their band - a drummer (who annoyed Roger), bass player and a keyboardist had to wait for the warm-up act to do their 30 minutes first and my companions this evening - Mr Walker and Mr T - are both much bigger fans of this band than me. Pineapple Thief are a kind of hybrid of Porcupine Tree and Radiohead. They're what Radiohead might have been like had they just come out and admitted they liked prog. I don't dislike this particular PT, I just find them a bit ... meh. They've done some great songs and I'm unlikely to ever see any of them played live (one of them is 29½ minutes long) and if any of the nu prog bands of the last 10 years were going to make it, you'd probably have a few quid of Pineapple Thief.

They were accomplished. Played a tight 30 minute set with some tracks I knew and didn't steal any thunder or get wig-out with it. Roger said the band were quite reserved from the last time he saw them. If all Pineapple Thief gigs were that long I'd be happier and might play them a bit more.

Blackfield came on. Played a 1 hour 20 minute long set, including encore. They focused on 75% of the songs Geffen wrote and like the other PT supporting them, they were accomplished; the sound was good. There were the familial touches you want like Wilson with no shoes on. The venue was very nice and you could imagine Porcupine Tree kicking off a tour here.

At 10.30, we left the venue and returned to the car... The journey home was uneventful...

Huh?

Yeah, that was the sum of it. Watched the band and had a safe journey home (to the delight of Mr Walker). Nothing spectacular. No leaving the venue extolling the virtues of Israeli power pop/prog. With retrospect, Leamington was probably more exciting. It looks like a well weird 'town'. It looks more like a city than some cities I've been to yet it's about the size - population wise - of Wellingborough and neighbours with Warwick, which, despite its castle and university, is a bit of an idiot cousin in terms of appearance. The accent is a bit odd too.

And that's what the gig was like in many ways - a review that turned into a geography lesson; a horse that became a biscuit; lamb flavoured cider...

2½ out of 5 (or 5 out of 10 if you're scoring in 10s)

The Poor State of the Televisual Treat

I remember when the phrase, 'there's nothing any good on the telly' was theoretically easier to comprehend. Today, with 99 channels of shit and nothing on, you should struggle not to find something to watch.

I'm amazed that almost 50% of my allotted channels seems to be documentary based - which sort of pooh-poohs the idea that with the plethora of channels the death of the documentary can't be far off. I'm equally amazed at how little of this plethora I either haven't already seen or have any faintest hint of a desire to watch. The thing is even the 'special', the Pay Per View or Subscription channels don't offer anything that sets my pulse racing. I'd argue that I don't even need a set top box; I could survive on Freeview and my PC...

Is watching a TV programme theft? It's a complicated question because it doesn't offer any hints to what exactly I mean by theft in this context. I'm also not getting all existential on your arses, this is to do with when and how you watch it rather than when and how. I shall explain that. You watch, I dunno, Coronation Street either live, on one of the digital stations or plus 1 channels, or via your set top recorder and it is totally legal. But, what if you download an episode from a Torrents site? Is that as legal, or has that episode of Corry just become a little warm? I feel that the law about torrents and file sharing must have a very hazy middle bit; a big grey area that probably helps pirates rather than a company seeking to protect its interests.

I could also argue that I might never have watched Coronation Street but decide on a whim to download an episode, love it to bits, start watching ITV1 (how wrong is that name even now?) and leave myself open to be targeted by whoever's sponsoring the soap now and add one more viewer to ITV's audience share.

TV therefore is not music - because not all copyright theft leads to buying the album from Amazon. TV is also not film because of the obvious DVD spin offs; but hold on a second,Coronation Street doesn't (to my knowledge) have DVD Boxed sets of entire year's worth of stories (yet), but TV series like, oh, I dunno, Waking the Dead or The Killing or Martin Clunes: Up An Aardvark's Arse Hole in a Hot Air Balloon 3D, are going to have DVD or box set releases. So, is downloading the third part of a four part drama theft? The owners could argue that if you really desperately want to know what happened in the penultimate episode of the thriller you should buy the box set. But you'd think they were a bunch of pricks and they'd know you were thinking that and entertainments companies are empathic with their customer base; how else would they know what to force feed the masses with? Or something.

So you probably wouldn't get prosecuted if you downloaded the news every day off of a Torrents site, but if you download an entire season of Xena: Warrior Princess or X Files then it probably is illegal. See what I mean about grey areas? Equally, you could argue that with all these channels, whoever buys a potential hit TV series will want the best possible exposure and audience; so FX that runs first view True Blood will want people to watch their station and they can sell advertising for more money, etc etc. So, watching an avi file downloaded off the Internet and watched anything up to a year before its actual UK TV showing is also a no-no. What if it is for a TV series that isn't shown on UK TV by anyone?

That is just a long winded defence in case anyone from the CPS reads this. I tend to download any TV that isn't British rather than wait for it to be shown or not on one of the subscription channels such as Sky Atlantic that I don't subscribe to. I don't distribute the content or sell it, I just watch the TV that interests me. If I couldn't download it, I'd go without because I can't afford to have 199 channels of shit on my TV. I might get one or two of the things I miss on DVD, but it would have to be from a relative as a gift because I feel the price of individual seasons is ridiculous and I wouldn't pay the price, I'd rather go without. That's why I watch some of the shit I watch because I tend to take a risk when it's free. Very little of what I've watched - a small percentage compared to the overall list - is persevered with; I therefore view it as an exercise in quality control. My argument is simple; if I buy a DVD box set of something and I think it's un-entertaining and therefore a waste of my money, no shop is going to give me a full refund after watching it all - they would say 'tough' and we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. This is me doing it the other way, kind of.

Anyhow, stuff that was watched legitimately appears to have all but finished, with the exception of the final series of Waking the Dead and as we hurtle towards summer there will be less and less wanna see and much more meh. This leaves the burden on the USA and if the current crop is anything to go by then I will be spending more time outside on warm summer nights.

I've never realised just what a 22 or 23 episode series is like for someone who doesn't live in the USA or has no concept of the way they watch television. It's stop, start, stop, stop, start, stop so that when a series starts in September it will be May by the time it finishes just leaving the 3 high summer months void. A bunch of favourites come back in the middle of April for straight run throughs till season end, but at the moment we're in lull land and it makes you wonder how people actually manage to stick with series. Why don't they just do what we do and show the bloody thing from start to finish? But that's an aside I just wanted to throw in somewhere.

What, apart from The Killing, is happening? Is the next Sopranos out there or another No Ordinary Family?

I mention The Killing because Roger and his missus have been avidly watching this like plumbers and the US version has just started on AMC - the station that brought you The Walking Egg or Egg of the Dead, depending on what side of the street you live. I did the stupid thing and watched this version first. I don't know how close it is to the original, but nothing grabbed me by the gonads and threatened to immolate me. It was... okay.

Speaking of okay, Camelot fits into that category. It's full of semi-authenticities, has the new black in US TV dramas - lots of full on nudity, and appears to have been scheduled to usurp HBO's Game of Thrones, which I've been told, nay almost ordered, to like when it appears. My belief is that anything with Sean Bean is stretching it. Camelot has a mixture of dodgy acting and women with drop dead gorgeous bodies; one of the Ffiennes boys is in it, the one that failed with Flarsh Forwards!

Harry's Law is David E Kelley doing his quirky lawyer thang to usual good affect. Kathy Bates looks old and battered, she's surrounded by mad people and a teenage ex-coke head in a shoe shop. What's not to like?

I am punished, weekly, for watching Off The Map because it is a bit shit. The problem is I can't put it down; I keep going back to it. It's shit; I must have more to my life than this? Probably crack or heroin... God, I'm so out of the loop for hard drugs now...

I've been trying to think of what I'm watching on terrestrial TV and apart from the aforementioned Waking the Dead, I'm struggling. I'm giving White Van Man a try because it has a strangely surreal feel about it; like Brush Strokes had for a while. Um... I'm struggling to believe there isn't actually anything I'll sit down and watch live - apart from football - this spring. Obviously Doctor Who, but that's being spoiled somewhat by associates all speculating as to some subliminal message placed in an advert for the next series. Part of me is hoping that they're all clutching at imaginary straws. Besides, what makes them think that producers are going to hide subliminal messages aimed at 14 people and an intelligent goat in adverts. That's just pious.

Arguably, I should be more concerned about stuff I have waiting to be watched. The list of things I've got to watch is more frightening than anything Wes Craven does now. I have 5 seasons of Boston Legal, a couple of seasons of Dollhouse, the final season of The Dead Zone, three series of Breaking Bad, a series of Rubicon, two series of Bored to Death, three series of Mad Men, then there's The Wire - it would be silly to forget that. I've got Nurse Jackie to watch, and Spartacus. Then there's going to be stuff that I want to catch back up with - I have all of the Kricfalusi Ren & Stimpy series, to remind me how good cartoons were in the 1990s. I have two thirds of the old Fry and Laurie to get through, I downloaded the 6 episodes of Police Squad because I felt it was important to watch again. I've finished downloading Denmark's The Killing and I'm pretty sure there's at least two or three other series I've forgotten to mention; probably hidden away in a DVD case, in the cabinet, by the electric meter... Plus there's stupid stuff like all of Tex Avery's Droopy cartoons; that SF series made for $40 called Pioneer One and DVDs packed full of things like Carnivale, The Tick and Firefly which I might get around to watching between now and the end of all life as we know it.

You could say that I could get rid of my TV package altogether and just watch DVDs for the foreseeable future and if the wife didn't like all the bollocks she likes, I'd probably go for that idea straight off.

Madness.

Actually, I'll tell you what real madness is. Real madness is having a list of films as long as a donkey's swollen member to watch. It appears that very few films that come out now are really worth watching. 90% of the films I've seen in the last couple of years have left an anticlimactic taste in my mouth. It seems that the duff ones are extremely pooh and the much-vaunted ones are a slightly lesser grade of pooh.

Several months ago, we sat down and watched the totally bonkers film Skyline; we did this under advisement from various sources that this film was utter shit and we should wait for the film it was ripping off because that would be so much better. I thought Skyline suffered from having Eric Balfour in it, a host of other B-grade TV 'stars' and it went a bit uber-fucked up during the last 20 minutes. It didn't make a huge amount of sense but by God it was several buckets of shit loads better than Battle: LA, the movie it apparently knocked off.

Battle: LA was just 90 odd minutes of gung-ho Americanisms and offered the thing that Skyline didn't - a happy ending. It was a film that offered so much and delivered a massive fake orgasm. Aaron Ekhart would make a good Sgt Rock though... It's a crap movie with about a fifth of the special effects that Skyline has and you want everyone to die by the end of it!

The celebrated return of Wes Craven arrived with My Soul to Keep which was a big bag of wombat's vomit. Seriously bad teen slasher movie with no redeeming features and it could have been a PG-13. On the other hand, Hammer's US remake of Let The Right One In is a great film, full of atmospheric images and the distinct feeling that you're witnessing the birth of a sociopath - in many ways it was creepier than the Swedish film. Let Me In stars the girl from Kick Ass and the boy from The Road and it pisses over other horror movies by massive arcs of urine!

Husk is supposed to be a return to the traditions of 1970s and 80s horror films. It was an interesting idea poorly executed and for all of it's attempts to be post-post modern really needed a script editor to give the thing a sense of making sense.

Finally saw the new Harry Potter film and wondered if the movies were now just being made for aficionados of the books. I found there were some things in the film that needed explaining to me. It was like it should come with an explanatory documentary called So Far in Harry Potter. I definitely felt like I needed a Hoggwarts refresher and the old school was nowhere to be seen.

I currently have 36 films to watch, 39 if you count the three I have on the TV hard drive; that's going to be at least 60 hours of my life I may never see again. Some of these films I actually want to see: L'Illusioniste, Belleville Rendezvous, Mr Nice, Voyage of the Dawntreader, then there's about half of them that I'll maybe get around to watching and half a dozen that I'll be watching on my own because the wife wouldn't give them house room - things like Bad Biology, The Human Centipede, Rubber and Sanctum.

The point is, barring a couple, none of these films would I have a) gone to the cinema and seen or b) rented or bought the DVD. I believe we all have a right to enjoyment and we shouldn't be expected to pay for something that don't like and not have the same rights as other retail services. Fuck me, the price of going to the cinema is now so expensive you'd be better off (and have more fun) if you bought a top class prostitute who doesn't mind wardrobes, jelly and ooh is that the time?

Let's Moan About the Weather

It's been a strange week. It has been filled with endings or the beginnings of endings; but I did buy a rhubarb crown so there was something beginning. The circumstances behind the purchase of the rhubarb is worth repeating. It was Thursday, I was sitting at my desk at work, doing nothing and with the prospect of doing some more nothing for at least 4½ more hours. So I emailed my line manager and said I was bored, I had some seed potatoes to get and I was going home. I received a reply pretty quickly saying, yeah that's fine, see you next week. Job done. So I went to the garden centre, bought some Golden Wonder and a rhubarb crown, came home, sat in the sun and dozed off for a while*. It was a damned sight more positive than sitting at work.

I have suggested 'gardening leave' mainly because I have very little intention of helping out. My argument will be, "I won't be here in 5 weeks so here's a good opportunity to see what life will be like without me." I might then flick them the Vs or go and wee up the side of one of their cars...

Suffice it to say, I've been a touch discombobulated this week. What to do... What to do...

Well, I need to go on a diet and shed at least 2 stone or 30lbs of fat that seems to have taken residence in my stomach. I need to exert myself a little more, because it isn't that bad the next day and apart from finding a job there are probably dozens of things I could do or should do or have to do, if only to remain sane-ish.

*I say sat in the sun and dozed; the reality was I was awoken by the sun going behind a big sod off cloud and the temperature dropping by about 5 degrees. I really shouldn't moan about the weather because it is only just April, but all the threats of high temperatures and spring sunshine obviously, like most of the snow, happened somewhere else. I think Northampton has its own eco-system because it's not in any way related to other places' weather patterns.

I have to go shopping to Chavsco's because we need some cheap junk food...

This is how exciting my life is going to get!!!