Chain Reaction.

Take the simply amazing Diana Ross, add some squeaky voice Bee-Gees fabulousness, then play it over possibly the gayest video ever made.

Instant pop perfection. Only blighted by that abortion of a cover by Steps.

My week summarised.

I have many things to say. A bullet pointed dash through is the way forward. It's the future.

-Holiday.
Africa is booked. 1st - 23rd March. Aha! Ahahahaha!!! Cannit wait. Really can't. Mustn't get too excited though, more to the point I mustn't go mad in the shops and spend loads of money on Africa gear so I end up looking like Indiana Jone's retarded brother. (Then again I already did that at New Year.)


-Bendy.
Back to earth (or Newcastle) though, I did Yoga on Monday, either I'm very out of practice or the teacher was really bad (probably both to be honest) but the next day I was so stiff I found it hard to move my arms. Funny, I don't remember it being like that before. The presence of several cuties shall ensure my return however, that and the fact it's free.


Oh dear.
Dave's plundering of the BBC comedy archives continues by them commissioning a new two part Red Dwarf special, and if that's not a terrible enough idea (does no-one remember the Allo Allo reunion for God's sake?) it's accompanied by the even more perplexing Red Dwarf: Unplugged. It's over, let it die with some dignity, don't turn it into Only Fools & Horses please!


-Superpop.
Guess what, B*Witched played at Powerhouse the other night. B*frigging*Witched. And I found out too late to go. Gutted doesn't even cover it. There was something quite spectacular about the particular combination of nineties pop and Irish jigs.


David Attenborough, gent that he is, has been receiving death threats from Christians because he doesn't mention God in his programs. His response, a spot on explanation of just why they're so woefully wrong.

They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator...


Daft Bint.
Michelle Hanson's column (borderline dreadful at the best of times) particularly irritated me this week. Just read it, and wonder what it is about a game like Brain Training (essentially a mini-game collection designed, admittedly on spurious evidence, to keep your mind active) that so offends this most luddite of scribblers. Her sneering condescension at Nintendo might be a little better if she didn't mention watching Casualty, 'why not play a musical instrument?' you daft titwitch.


Wesley Crusher.
I just joined twitter (see to the right), you can follow people's twitters. Aside from the obvious (Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman straight off) I found Will Wheaton on there, that's right, Weill Wheaton. Go on, I dare you to try and find someone lower on the celebrity chain.

Frost / Nixon.

This is a good film, exceptionally good in fact, but two things kept bugging me all the way through. The first being that I know Michael Sheen for playing Tony Blair, the reasons for him being cast in the role seemingly his physically resemblance and similar grin, so I was half seeing frost and half seeing Blair. What made this worse was that in the moments when I saw Frost, all I could think of was the Dead Ringer's impersonation, with him sitting in a comfy chair, wrapped in a tartan blanket, doing his knitting on Breakfast With Frost.

But it was an ace film all the same, Langella's Nixon is uncanny, and those last moments of the interview, the camera capturing ever crease in his craggy face, are astonishing. Moreso because neither he nor Sheen seem to be replicating someone else's words and gestures during the interview moments, which must actually be an exceptionally difficult feat to pull off. If I can come up with a criticism it's the film's insistence that it was Frost's knowledge of television which made that crucial difference in the interview, but even in their own showing it doesn't come through (we are told it often enough, but not much shows us). Watching this film (and I admit my only knowledge of the interviews and the people behind them is sketchy) it more appears that some in depth research is the more creditable reason.

Alternative Duck Tails.

It's an odd thing when someone can make you laugh until you're almost crying, and destroy something from your childhood you fondly remember at the same time.

But it is possible...



And at the same time can bring your attention to the J-Pop version. Youtube truely is the best thing since internet porn.

Line of the film - 'I see you kept my bagpipes'.

Well, it's over, and I'm happy, but I have to know, what kind of cunt is called 'Sky' anyway?

Still, you've got to admire a film where a sass filled Christine Baranski is batting away young, gorgeous black teenagers at every turn; not to mention Meryl Streep having her pick of Bond (James Bond!), Mr Darcy, and some other bloke no-one's ever heard of. Mind they do play it a bit drunken aunty, but it works, mostly, particularly the moment of Spice Girls lite feminism where they cajole the various housewives of the island to leave their husbands and dance around the island for no real reason.

Colin Firth is an utter legend for doing this film by the way, I think he's the only male member of the cast who actually gets what kind of film Mamma Mia is meant to be. I particularly like the choice of a boyfriend for him, they couldn't have found a truer image of the gay British male's dream of a Mediterranean toy boy if they'd tried (which they clearly did). And of course he brings us the brilliance of the final, supposedly deeply erotic kiss between the irritating yank and the irritating Brit being eclipsed Firth's pale, flabby gut as it bounces in the pouring water.

Julie Walters is a halfway point, who irritates me for a large part of this movie (because she's a great actress who seems to spend half of her career acting like your Grandma after a few gins on karaoke night at the home), absolutely redeems herself with her man hungry, borderline cock-crazed performance of Take A Chance On Me (climaxing in possibly the most perplexing head banging session ever filmed).



Right, a little too much musing on Mamma Mia here, I'd best hurry, Wonder Boys is starting soon (wahey) which is frankly the only reason I'm not in bed right now. Somewhat tired because I stayed up later finishing American Gods (gripped, absolutely gripped right until the end), making plans for going to Africa (looks like Sierra Leone is on the cards) and pondering if I should book up on one of the Arvon courses (frustratingly one of the options is absolutely perfect, but it isn't on until frigging November).

I got a little excited by a hint of winter sun today, decided it was clearly warm enough to sit outside and read the paper, went in ten minutes later when it was beginning to hurt me to move my fingers. Silly me, eh.

My, there's a lot of talk about Obama on Newsnight, hardly surprising of course, but why is everybody just stating the bloody obvious? I think I preferred Schama when he was drunk on Newsnight. Ooh, they've just done a very Lord of the Rings shot of the White House, and I have to say, Obama looks very good in that coat.

Ain't it sad.

I had plans for this evening, linked to reading, writing, maybe watching Obama's inauguration. However then I had a very long day, so fuck it I'm watching Mamma Mia. Not quite as easy an option as it may sound, because it leads to much musing on that most tricky of questions; just how much exactly does the Scottish girl despise the irritating Yank and English best friends she's been lumbered with.

But bloody hell, Meryl Streep hasn't half got a pair of lungs on her, even if Dominic Cooper has all the acting range of a coffee table. Just like the girl who plays Sophie. He's got better tits than her though, even if his accent makes me think of longingly for strong chemicals . And Does Your Mother Know? rocks my world.



I will watch the inauguration of course, will be interesting, feel a bit sorry for the poor bloke. The headline of today's Guardian reads Magical spell that will open new American era. So no pressure then.

I'm Coming Out...

I've never seen the video for Get The party Started (Shirley Bassey version) before, but I like it, I really really do.

Mr Kipling Apple Pies.

Now come in boxes of eight.

When did this happen? I feel some fundamental rule of confectionery / nature / the occult has been broken here.

But before I actually go to bed,

Stevie Wonder, Sir Duke live!

In the end.

A compromise won out. American Gods in bed, glorious. Almost as good as actually taking Neil Gaiman to bed with me.

Kiru ryuu, Shisa!

Some alarm bells started ringing when I went over some dissertation work last night as I realised just how far I've let myself slip. So, some proper elbow grease this afternoon and I'm a little bit back on track.

Thing is though, I decided I was going to stay in Wylam library until it shut, so at 7.30 I called Dad as arranged to find out which pub he was in. The bastard had forgotten I was there and buggered off, and now declared himself to have had too many to drive back. So, off to the pub myself until Mum could give me a lift and it was quite nice actually. It was empty, I had a comfortable seat, I had a rum and coke, and I had Seamus Heaney's Death of a Naturalist. So far so good, I sat there for a while and was in utter bliss until some dozy, thick and mardy cow decided that what The Black Bull needed that night was for her to drag her fat ass to that ridiculous fucking juke box and put on, wait for it, Snow Patrol.

Luckily Youtube has lightened my day with a double whammy of Japanese OST goodness. First we have this little beauty taken from the very first Mechagodzilla film where some princess / priestess / long forgotten Soho starlet wakes a sacred monster in that time honoured tradition, a J-Pop number. It takes King Caesar a very long time to wake, while Mechagodzilla seeming stands around and listens instead of pumping the bunny eared shit full of rockets from the word go.



(There was a better, none squashed version but some daft twat has put a block on it being embedded.)

Then, much further down the scale, we have this.



This is Jet Jaguar, and this is his song. I must say, I never noticed how creepy Jet Jaguar was before, and I watched this film many times as a child. Even if he had just helped Godzilla fight off the evil space monsters, you would not allow your child to ride on the shoulders of anything with such a sinister, creepy face. That's the kind of face serial killers wear as masks.

And finally, here's the original Godzilla pop stars The Peanuts singing... well, something. Got no idea what it it, but it sure is ace.



Right. Now. I have three options. Bed (sensible as I'm tired, but no). Dissertation (sensible if I'm going to stay up anyway, but no). Or that Roman polanski box set (Cul de Sac, here we come!)

Tonight.

I have a stotty, some raspberry jam, a bottle of coke and an Ang Lee film.

Good night in methinks.

A whoop of gorillas and a flange of baboons.

This is a rather glorious little tale,

The video clip below is from the long gone BBC comedy sketch show Not The Nine O'CLock News. In it the phrase a flange of baboons was invented as part of the joke, it has since drifted onto the net and now started being used in academia as a collective noun.

Go Richard Curtis!

It is also a very funny piece of television, as you will see...

Annoyingly enough...

Death Note is somewhat rubbish.

My God.

Holy Island has a website.

That's so many shades of wrong I can barely believe it.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Our recent (and probably now over) walking spree has solved my dilemma about upcoming readings. We went to the Harthope Valley in the Cheviot Hills for a bit of a walk yesterday (we being myself, my brother Michael, his girlfriend Chloe, my friend Jon and out piglet resembling Jack Russel, Maggie) and things went a bit, well, wrong. We forgot how to get there, we reached Wooler fine but then found ourselves in circles, directions off some very League of Gentlemen weird locals (including a robust lady at a petrol station whose lacklustre oral hygiene earned her the nickname Jenny Greenteeth) combined with a bit more getting lost eventually allowed us to find the place.

But my it was windy. It was very windy. it was so windy that when we reached the crest of the particular hill we climbed when you stood at the very pinnacle of the large rock we had to scale you could full on lean into the wind at points and it would support your weight. We had to keep a firm hold of Maggie otherwise she's have been away with the wind. Coming back we stopped at innumerable places (well, two) for food and ended up stopping at Alnwich where we, of course, paid a visit to the absolutely magnificent Barter Books (sadly it was too late in the day and too dark to visit the castle, which is truely Zelda worthy). My purchases there included a couple of research books on local folklore, Ted Hughes' first published volume of poetry The Hawk in the Rain and a hardcover of Neil Gaiman's mammoth American Gods (the author's preferred edition too, so longer and hopefully better).

So that's me reading for the next week or so. Add to that the copy of Beowolf I picked up recently, not to mention the Seamus Heaney (Death of a Naturalist) and Claire Tomlin's collection of John Milton poems to add to my growing poetry shelf (my last sales purchases for now, I swear) and I've got an impressive word horde to plough through.

I have a good number of photos I need to get off my camera and onto my laptop (not to mention here and Facebook), the vast bulk of which are from recent walks. A combination of bemused relatives/friends, random shots of the dog, and sub-standard landscape shots. Everything a self-satisfied amateur photographer could want. Trust me, now I'm armed with an Ixus the less-unique-than-I-think shots should be coming in fast and furious.

Twas Grandma's birthday today, and she's better thankfully. The cough is less chainsawing trees in tone, which has been a feature of the past few weeks, so she should be out and about soon. I bought her an audio-book of Brideshead Revisited, read by Jeremy irons no less, all eleven hours of that should keep her going for the time. I think audiobooks may well end up becoming the gift of choice for her, she is not an easy woman to buy for.

Was listening to Chris Evans on Radio 2 (not my choice, believe me) on the way home and they played My! My! Time Flies! at the very end of the show, so I'm assuming that's the new single. Not that surprising since it's one of only two decent song on the entire And Winter Came album, I trust there will be a video. Mind, the ginger twunt (Evans, not Enya) truely boiled my piss by starting talking halfway through the song and then not shutting up for the rest of it. Good God, we sensibly put that man in effective celebrity exile for long enough, why let him back now. He's nearing Edmunds in my Comebacks that can only be stopped by monks with knives list.

And finally, from one dilemma to another. The first Death Note film finally arrived and I very much want to watch it, but I also very much want to go to bed. Now there's a halfway point, watch it on my laptop, but dodgy speakers and a screen fading from use will somewhat diminish the experience. What to do, what to do... Whatever I decide the absolutely divine Tatsuya Fujiwara will be adequate recompense for any missed sleep I may happen to suffer.

Children Of Men.

I've just been forced, almost at gunpoint, to watch Children Of Men by my brother. Very good it was too, a couple of slips into over-sentimentality were more than compensated for by everything else. Took me some time to recognise, among the various hippy/thuggy types, Pam Ferris, Michael Caine and Charlie Hunman playing impressively against type. Third Alfonso Cuarón film I've seen, and all of them had been ace. Less impressive, earlier today, was Kill Bill 2; considering Kill Bill is essentially one film split in two, that the second is so inferior is very surprising. But it is, it really really is.

I'm sure I had some things to mention on here but I can't remember what, it happens a lot that something happens, or I read / see something (or whatever) and I think, hmm, I could write a blog about that and it would be all relevant and shit. I really should carry a notebook I suppose.

I have however just finished a couple more books. Breakfast At Tiffany's grew on me, but I don't think it was a great story (it's too short for me to think of as a novel to be honest) but in parts I enjoyed it. Ajincourt was a nice little read, though it was very much Bernard Cornwell treading familiar ground.

Ah yes, I've remembered one of those things, I did some online digging and found a couple of Daniel Craig snaps in all his Tomb Raider magnificence (best when naked in that film, because then he wasn't wearing those hideous shorts).




Phwoarr, eh.

We're off to the Cheviots tomorrow, should be a nice little outing, definitely myself, Michael, Chloe and our tag along hound Maggie, also likely to have Jon, Sarah and David too, which should be nice. Lunch in the Percy Arms beckons for afters, happy childhood memories are a beckoning.

I have a hard choice ahead. Just what do I read next? Stardust is begging for a second read, A Kestral For A Knave is begging for a first, and I still haven't read Dragon Under The Hill yet. I'll see what grabs me.

Ooh, Roy Orbison's playing on BBC 4, very nice!


EDIT: How bad is this? Not only did I misspell Alfonso Cuarón's name above (now corrected of course) but I've actually seen four of his films. He also directed the (rather fab) mid nineties adaption of A Little Princess.

Daniel Craig Takes A Shower.

Caught the second half of the Tomb Raider film this evening, it isn't the best, and Angelina Jolie's digitally enhanced breasts look ridiculous, but I highly approve of the naked Daniel Craig content. He wasn't the only one who needed a cold shower. Just a little bit leaner than in Bond, and the better for it. I'm very much looking forward to his next film (Defiance). Though whether he'll be sans pants again is as of yet undetermined (and sadly unlikely). Jamie Bell's in it too, bonus!

Had an enjoyable spot of book browsing at lunch and being tempted by various sale items (and in the process found Grandma's birthday present without even needing to try, which must be a first for her). Tempted by allsorts but ended up taking a copy of Seamus Heaney's adaption of Beowolf, and also a cheery little number called Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd.

Had a date on Monday, went to see The Spirit, the film was awful, date not brilliant either. Only two decent things in the film, an early shot of the protagonist in not very many clothes (before he decided to dress up as the love child of Dick Tracy and Franz Ferdinand - the band not the World War starter) and some of Samuel L Jackson's funnier scenes. Like Sin City without the amusing cross of girl power and misogyny.

The Princess Bride.

Oof, now there's a film. As quotable as Withnail & I, not to mention with more drama than Casino Royale and even more attractive men ruined by unfortunate facial hair than Excalibur.

Top notch, can't believe it's taken me this long to see it.



I do not envy you the headache you will have when you wake. But in the meantime rest well and dream of large women.

A Poem.

The below poem ranks among my personal favourites, read it and enjoy. One of the beauties of poetry anthologies (even in the slightly iffy form of a BBC Nation's Favourite volume) is those wonderful moments when you turn to a random page and discover something astonishing.

(My preferable way to read it is to hear the words annunciated in a deep and sombre tone, something like Hugo Weaving reading it in his Elrond voice.)


Ducks
by FW Harvey

(To E.M., Who drew them in Holzminden Prison)

I

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left! Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway ...
When night is fallen you creep
Upstairs, but drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars.
Moonbeams and shadow bars,
And water-lilies:
Fearful too much to sleep
Since they've no locks
To click against the teeth
Of weasel and fox.
And warm beneath
Are eggs of cloudy green
Whence hungry rats and lean
Would stealthily suck
New life, but for the mien
The hold ferocious mien
Of the mother-duck.

II

Yes, ducks are valiant things
On nests of twigs and straws,
And ducks are soothy things
And lovely on the lake
When that the sunlight draws
Thereon their pictures dim
In colours cool.
And when beneath the pool
They dabble, and when they swim
And make their rippling rings,
0 ducks are beautiful things!
But ducks are comical things:-
As comical as you.
Quack!
They waddle round, they do.
They eat all sorts of things,
And then they quack.
By barn and stable and stack
They wander at their will,
But if you go too near
They look at you through black
Small topaz-tinted eyes
And wish you ill.
Triangular and clear
They leave their curious track
In mud at the water's edge,
And there amid the sedge
And slime they gobble and peer
Saying 'Quack! quack!'

III

When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves - quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good - even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, 1 think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!