The Da Vinci Code
May 31st, 2006 at 16:52

Shortly before winning big on an ItBox the other day (£5!), JD, Fundar and myself went to see The Da Vinci Code film. It was good because it was like a book, but I didn’t have to make an effort to read words to understand the plot.

Do I really need to put in a spoiler warning? No, I won’t. I think I’ll enjoy receieving angry messages saying “WTF u ruined it” after, instead.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, what with the apparent bad reviews the film has recieved, and that fact that I’m not a London taxi-driver, and indeed, I like to think I can cope with things that are a little more, erm, taxing, that what a cabbie would read. I’m aware this assertion falls apart when you consider that I didn’t actually read it, but merely watched a scarecrow playing Tom Hanks playing the man who knows about old symbols and that.

It was quite good though- Magneto/Gandalf being typecast as the old, powerful and respected man was good, as he suited the role, and the romantic subplot (between Hanks and the woman, not Jesus and his wife) was heavily underplayed- hooray!

It was a bit odd that the bloke who was murdered at the start had time to wander around the Louvre thinking up hidden messages and putting them on the paintings- if I were him, I’d have spent most of the time shouting, “Ouch! My stomach really hurts, where I’ve been shot. I’m going to slouch forwards in agony for a bit.”. It was also strange how Tom Hanks spent his time worrying about solving some crackpot’s puzzle rather than the fact that he was being hunted down for murder.

I daresay the “backstory” flashbacks about the whole “Jesus got married and that” were better than the actual story- much like how in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Goldstein’s “Book” is the best part, rather than the whole “Look at what Winston does” stuff. I can certainly see why the church hates the Code. Despite being someone who considers themselves quite knowledgable when it comes to history, the lines between fact and “Dan Brown filling in the blanks” was quite blurred. For example, there’s some Templar Knights who lead one of the crusades. The crusades happend- but did this order of knights actually exist? The stuff hidden in “The Last Supper”, that was explained by Magneto, was interesting, but could well be bollocks. I’m too lazy to actually research this, so I’m going to take Dan Brown’s word as, erm, gospel.

I also think Doctor Octopus should have retained his metal arms for his role as a churchy-man (that’s a technical term) who needs to protect the big secret.

Overall, I enjoyed the film- it’s certainly no Matrix or Downfall- they’re two of my favourite films that act as a comparison on the Kelkoo in my mind. I like the Matrix more than Downfall, but I thought if I mention a foreign language film it’ll make me sound more intelligent. The Da Vinci Code is much better than the other book-to-film adaption I’ve seen (assuming the Lord of the Rings books were novelisations of the films), Harry Potter 2. As far as I’m concerned, Warner Brother owe me two and a half hours of my life back.

Ten out of eight. (That’s an anagram of eight out of ten).

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Morissey
May 30th, 2006 at 18:11

I went to a Morissey concert on Saturday night. No, really, I did. Worse still, it was in Kings Lynn, of all places.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand Morissey-I was keeping my dad company, because being the obsessive fan that he is, even his wife is bored of Morissey concerts. This was the second time this tour he’s been to see Morissey, and he was in London last night to see him again.

Lots of people in the audience were wearing Morissey t-shirts- I’m not entirely sure why as I doubt it’s going to impress Morissey if he sees his face on the chests of the people who are watching him ponce. My contempt for the audience only increased when they began chanting “Mozzie, Mozzie, Mozzie!” to the tune of well known primate football noise “Here we go, Here we go, Here we go”. The thing that baffled me the most was why they were shortening his name to “Mozzie”, when “Morissey” has the correct number of syllables for the chant to work, thus creating a de-facto completed bingo. (That phrase is an in-joke I’ve put in to make this blog seem sickeningly inclusive).

After what seemed like a lifetime, and witnessing my dad speak to a couple of were essentially a carbon copy of my parents, Mozzie finally came on stage with the song of his that was played every 15 minutes in the hardware store where I used to work… for six months. The crowd went mental. They were jumping up and down, crowd surfing and so on to the extent that the floor beneath us was actually moving. It was a wooden floor, and I could feel it shifting up and down, left and right by a few centimetres, constantly. My only concern whilst the rest of the audience were capitavated by Morissey’s dreary charm was that they might have to pay a lot of money to resurface it.

My dad’s reaction to Morissey being on stage was priceless. He looked like he was having a religious experience- his head was tilted and looking slightly upwards, his mouth had fallen half open and his eyes lit up as if he had just found God. This profound moment was soured slightly when he started screaming like a little school-girl.

I felt like Jew in a Christian Church. Everything that was happening around me, was nearly right- the old testament is there, as were the guitars and drums, but it wasn’t perfect, as for some reason they were worshiping a carpenter’s son from Bethlehem and the music created was dull and depressing. The rest of the congregation couldn’t get enough of him, though.

It was particularly bemusing how Morissey made a great show of taking his shirt off no less than three times, and throwing it into the audience. He didn’t get it thrown back- he went off stage for a few seconds to get a new shirt. Yes, he was visibly sweating an awful lot, but I really don’t understand why he did it. I can’t think of anything worse than having a sweaty middle-aged man’s shirt thrown at me.

His audience banter wasn’t upto much- extending as far as “Is there such a thing as pre-history? I hope there is as I just made that word up”, before launching into what I assume was a cover of a Smiths song. I’ll be honest, this banter does make me think that he’s a creationist. A miserable creationist at that.

At the end, my dad dragged me (figuratively- I just didn’t want to sit in the car on my own) to the back of the venue to do the following: watch a man walk from the back exit of a building into a bus with darkened windows. The giddy school-girl in my dad came alive again when Morissey eventually walked those perilous five metres into the bus, as my dad ran to the front of the crowd to catch a glimpse of Mozzie. And I havn’t seen him run in years.

As there were about 30 people standing around waiting, and as there was no music playing, I loudly remarked on what a pointless exercise waiting around was- it’s not like Morissey is going to suddenly say, “Oh no! My bassist has just been killed in a freak contractually-worshipping-me accident and I won’t be able to play my show tomorrow… can you please join my band and help me out?!”.

In terms of trying to insult Morissey, I tried shouting “You’re a twat!” between songs but I don’t think he heard me. When his blacked-out bus drove off, I stuck up my middle finger at the bus for a few minutes- hopefully Mozzie was looking out the window at the time.

Yeah, so, in conclusion. Morissey and that.

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A fete worse than death?
May 26th, 2006 at 19:06

I’ll be honest- the title doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m going to write about, I just think it sounds funny. I’ll probably try and repeat it in context in due course.

On Saturday though it looks as if I’m destined to be accompanying my father in what will be a fate worse than death. I’m going to have to go to a Morissey concert. Only Morissey himself strangling me whilst remaining in the physically-difficult position of being up his own arse, would make death worse than a Morissey concert.

I know I said “I’m going to have to go”- it’s a horrible phrase. I hate it when people say “I was forced”, or “I have to” when trying to justify doing something embarassing. For example, in the past I’ve had friends admit knowledge of something they shouldn’t know, like being able to name the Teletubbies. “I have to watch it with my sister”, they cry. Yeah, I’m sure they were tied down, kicking and screaming.

But my reasoning for having to go to see Captain Arrogant’s Ambiguous Sexuality Extravaganza is that my mum has put me into the awkward situation: No one else can go, and if I don’t go, my dad will have to go on his own, and will be lonely.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Morissey because he’s a closet homosexual- I hate him because he’s an arrogant twunt who’s so full of himself he thinks that his dreary tunes are insightful. My hatred of homosexuals is a completely seperate issue - how dare they be slightly different to me in a way that doesn’t affect me at all?!

I’m being forced to go out of guilt- if I don’t go, my dad’ll have to go by himself. I wouldn’t mind as much if it was the one time he could see his favourite musician, but fact is, he’s already been to see Morissey once on this tour in Wales last March, and is going to see him again down in London the day after this one. Yes, THREE Morissey concerts. If I’d committed a crime, I’d consider accompanying deluded nutters to concerts an act of community service.

I’ve been trying to talk my dad out of it- on the basis that The Queen is Dead is apparently David Cameron’s favourite album (as opposed to policy). I’ve been telling him that supporting Morissey is tacit support for the Conservative party and their shadow-cabinet of evil (it’s made out of a particularly evil tree and coated in the most evil finish). He’s having none of it, though.

It’s going to be awful. I’ve been trying to come up with a silver lining- the best silver lining I can think of is that I’ll “get a blog entry out of it”. That’s right- I’m going to endure a Morissey concert so that you bastards can read about what an awful time I’ve had on Sunday. No doubt they’ll be a socially awkward moment involving a Morissey fan trying to talk to me about how wonderful Mr Goatse: The Musical (Morissey) is.

Help.

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X-Men 3
May 26th, 2006 at 00:08

I’ve got an important exam tomorrow that accounts for 50% of a module mark, and 12.5% of my final mark for the year. In order to prepare for this important exam, this evening I went to see X-Men 3.

It was X-cellent (see what I did there?). I’m not sure if it’s as good as the first two films in the franchise, but it was very enjoyable, if very, very short. (About an hour and a half).

I think the worst thing about it was that on the way to the cinema, my dad decided to spoil the film for me. For some reason, he has a compulsive urge to look up spoilers up on the internet before he watches anything- films, TV shows, even 24. Seriously. I can’t quite understand this, as surely the best part of 24 is not knowing that right at the end of the episode that Jack is going to go rogue and torture someone? He (my dad, not Jack Bauer) got surprisingly annoyed when I questioned his motivations in doing this.

But the film itself was ace. Hopefully I’ll be able to use the film to draw some parallels with reality in my politics exam in nine hours time. It tackled ethical issues and all sorts. Well, just ethical issues. One ethical issue. About people with superpowers.

But yeah, I really enjoyed it. If I were a proper film reviewer, like Jonathan Ross or his brother Paul, or one of the Newsnight Review team, I’d probably have something a bit more insightful to say than “It was good, I enjoyed it”, but alas, I’m not Paul Ross (”THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER. I LOVE EVERYTHING! 11/10!”) or Germaine Greer (”The themes of good vs evil are reflective of society today and I’m going to tenuously link it to an obscure philosopher”).

Nine on Ten.

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Political Brown Out
May 24th, 2006 at 14:53

If I ever become some sort of important politician, aside from selling out on my principles thanks to free gifts from big companies, I’d like to think I’d be a bit “cooler” than the current bunch of MPs who periodically try their best to be “down with the kids”, and fail dramatically every time.

Gordon Brown has become the latest politican to do this. In an interview with “New Woman” magazine, a man with a hideously bland name- “Brown” - admits to, cough, liking hideously bland pop music in the form of James Blunt and the Arctic Monkeys. I believe Gordon’s neighbour, Tony Blair, claimed to like The Kaiser Chiefs, or whoever was flavour of the month a few years ago.

“Mr Brown, however, shows off his eclectic taste in TV and Music, by disclosing that he is a fan of X-Factor and has the Arctic Monkeys, Beethoven, Bach, the Beatles, Coldplay, U2 and James Blunt on his iPod.”

That’s the proles, indie-kids, the middle classes, kids of the 60s, and their wives pleased, then. Could Brown have listed a less offensive list of favourite musicians? I mean, think of the storm that listening to Marilyn Manson would cause. How about a “nod” to Lordi, the Finnish metal band that won Eurovision? We gave them twelve points so they must be popular too, surely?

““The Arctic Monkeys really wake you up in the morning,” he said.”

When does Brown get a chance to listen to them? On the tube on the way to work? Unless I’m mistaken, doesn’t he live in his workplace?

““And reality TV - Pop Idol, X Factor, Fame Academy, there’s so much talent out there. It’s great to see people getting the chance to show their potential.””

This statement terrifies me - the man in charge of the economy is wasting his time watching shit.

Of course, this could be the truth. There could be WMD in Iraq. Maybe Gordon Brown really is Captain Average?

He says he’d like George Clooney to play him in a film of his life. Is this like how Clooney played Batman in the awful “Batman & Robin”, sequel to the much better Batman Forever? Surely Brown wouldn’t want his predecessor to hog the limelight? Or something. I don’t really know where this is going with this. Essentially this is supposed to be a comment on the Blair/Brown relationship humourously compared to Batman films. Make your own jokes in the comments section below.

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Duke Special
May 23rd, 2006 at 20:10

I went to see a band on Sunday evening, with JD, at his suggestion. Neither of us had heard of the band, I think we just wanted to see what the venue was like, as well as pay over the odds for CocaCola (£1.70 for approximately 330ml).

The band were Duke Special- who at time of writing, I keep typo-ing to “Duck Special”. It’s hard to describe what their music was like because not only am I deaf, but I have a vocabulary of adjectives that only extends as far as “alright” and “loud”. There was a bloke on a piano and a bloke on a massive drum. For some songs, the latter changed to playing a cheese-grater and whisk. Seriously. I think it’s their gimmick- like how Rage Against the Machine have their politics and Gary Glitter has his paedophilia.

I can’t remember any of the songs they did, and I’d be “at a loss” if you asked me to whistle one of their tunes right now (and presumably invoiced me for doing so). I wouldn’t say that they’re really my sort of thing- they were more “Feelings and that” than “Fuck you, I won’t do what you told me”. This said, the support act, who didn’t seem to actually play the guitar that was hanging from his neck, came perilously close to a Rage classic, opening one song with “You’ve got to know your enemy”- unfortunately, this wasn’t followed up by posing the question “What? Land of the free?”.

The support was really quite odd though. It was just one bloke on his own, and a tape player. We could hear guitars and voices coming from the stage, but he was either standing there pretending to pick at the strings, or singing something every few seconds, with no visible link between when he chose to sing and the tune on the tape. He may as well have stood on the stage trying to fit his entire hand into his mouth- he didn’t need to sing or strum, and that would have been more impressive, and given the audience something more to look at.

All in all: “not bad” out of ten. Hopefully I’ll be going to the same place again on the 30th, when four punk bands are on.

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Featured in The Demon
May 22nd, 2006 at 15:14

A few months ago I wrote an exposé of MPs Coke habits. Well, “exposé” is perhaps too strong and foreign a word- I e-mailed all of the members of Parliament and asked them if they like CocaCola or Pepsi for a cheap gag.

Excitingly, this attracted some attention, being featured in the popular B3ta newsletter, as well real proper newspaper ‘Wales on Sunday‘- and now my media whoring has got it featured in another publication: my University’s newspaper.

Amazingly, it’s been featured in the right hand column on page three- the first thing you’d see when you open the paper. I’ve run some tests by opening the paper 500 times and seeing where my eyes go, in order to validate this assertion. Incredibly, it also gets a frontpage plug directly underneath the main banner. The only thing that really upstages me an interview with Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary.

I’m somewhat proud that I’ve probably managed to knock an insightful piece about the election of Hamas the implications for the Palestinians back a couple of pages- just so I can talk rubbish. Unlike Wales on Sunday, my words have been pasted in, my name on the byline, prefixed by the word “Columnist”. Excellent.

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Racist Profiling
May 20th, 2006 at 16:31

Being a heterosexual, white male, race issues concern me a lot. I suppose that in theory, I should be an “armchair racist” with my copy of the Daily Mail in one hand and waving my finger in an authoritive manner in the other, warning of the dangers of immigration and people who’s skin colour is slightly different from my own. In actual fact, I’m one of those weird left wing types who because of my race, sexuality and gender have nothing but free time in which to complain about the treatment of everyone else. It’s for this reason I listen to angry white men playing guitars.

I recently rediscovered this amazing toy, that was probably featured in the B3ta newsletter or something ages ago- it allows you to upload a photo of yourself and see what you’d look like if you were a different ethnicity, age, or gender. Or a monkey. After “doing” myself, I wondered to myself how I can give this a needlessly political slant. So I’ve put through arguably the world’s most famous racist through the transformer, to see what Prince Philip, aka the Duke of Edinburgh aka the Queen’s husband, would look like if he were the people he’s insulted.

First off, here’s what he looks like normally:

In 1986, he said to a British student in China “If you stay here much longer you’ll all get slitty eyed.”. So here’s Phil if he were east-asian.

“You look like you’re ready for bed!”, he said to the President of Nigeria, who was wearing traditional robes. Here’s Phil if he were black and of African decent.

And just in case he goes to a zoo in the near future and insults the animals, here’s Phil if he were a monkey.

Terrifying.

But what about other famous racists? What about Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party? Here he is normally (although I’ve edited out the penis on his forehead, hoho!), then if he were asian, then if he were black.

And what about my old nemesis, Robert Kilroy Silk? What if he were asian, black or a chimp?

I think monkey Kilroy is particularly disturbing because of slightly wry smile.

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Eurovision Cataclysm
May 19th, 2006 at 22:44

I’m getting slightly worried about my taste in music, and what better time is there to talk about music than when every other blog on the internet will be doing the same?

Publically, I claim that my musical disposition extends as far as punk (Bad Religion, Propagandhi etc) and “whatever Rage Against the Machine are”.

As regular readers of this blog may know, and what new readers won’t care about is that I seem to grudgingly like the awful RATM-sans-politics-and-rap Audioslave. Worse still, I like Hip-Hop. Previously, I’ve tried to pass this off as liking hip-hop in the pseudo-ironic “comedy” sense. In other words, DJ Format. I’ve also tried to disguise the fact I look hip-hop by calling it Jazz-Funk, which Warsawpack just about fall into. Unfortunately, this guise sort of falls apart because I also like the bitchin’ hip-hop “beats” of Sage Francis.

This worries me as not only is it a continuation of a cycle that’s happend before- I used to say “bitchin’” and “ace” in an ironic sense but they’ve worked their way into my everyday vocabulary. Aside from the risk of adopting hip-hop language like referring to my (mum’s) car as my “ride” and calling my friends “homies”, what unnerves me is that I currently like EUROVISION in an “ironic” way.

No, not the network of European broadcasters who share common resources and pool satellite feeds and so on- I hate that. I mean the annual song contest!

My current reasoning for like the Eurovision song contest is this:

• I like seeing the different European broadcasters work together, and seeing how poor the East European chromakey is.
• Some of the songs are so bad that they’re hilarious.
• I get to talk to my dutch friend on MSN about a TV event we can enjoy together, live.

I don’t think I’m old enough to cite enjoying Terry Wogan’s commentary yet, although I remember last years being quite good. Watching, erm, the semi-final on BBC Three last night (the remote, erm, fell on the floor and the channel changed, honest), I did enjoy Paddy O’Connell’s commentary- and he’s just about cool enough for me to admit to this.

The danger as I see it is that I might gradually go from enjoying the crappiness of the entries and the slightly-xenophobic “laughing at those stupid foreigners” angle, to genuinely enjoying the music. The Turkish entry a few years ago was a ska/punk song, and it was surprisingly good (by Eurovision standards)- I think I was vaguely tempted to vote for it. This year, two entries have particularly stood out for me. And yes, it’s the predictable ones. Finland’s heavy metal song and Lithuania’s “We are the winners of Eurovision” song. The Finnish song is disturbingly close to something I might consider possibly listening to out of choice maybe. And I like the Lithuanian entry for reasons I can’t articulate. They’re certainly better than Ian Huntley and his schoolgirl sidekicks.

And is this a slippery slope? If I’m identifying with popular culture in so much as being able to make light conversation about music, could I end up being enthusiastic about Big Brother and having some social skillz? Could I end up posting blog entries speculating on which two celebrities are going to win Celebrity Love Island? (I assume that two people must win… I mean, surely? Love Island suggests a couple?)

I think I’m going to enjoy Saturday night’s TV. Christ, even Doctor Who’s populist so I can’t act elitist by liking sci-fi. I’m clearly just a prole like the rest of you scum.

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My Favourite Dictator II
May 18th, 2006 at 14:34

You might remember that a few weeks ago I revealed the favourite 20th century dictators of a couple of celebrities- well, like the best American TV executives, I’m going to drag this format out until it’s no longer funny. That’s right- I’ve e-mailed even more celebrities, and had some exciting replies!

Adam Hart-Davis

Who?

Y’know- the man from the tax return adverts, and various science and history programmes like “What the [historical era] did for us”. He’s an excellent celebrity- and he readily endorses Barometer World- claiming it has a better collection (of Barometers) than the Science Museum. So who was his favourite dictator?

“Tito; he held the fractious Balkans together for decades”

A good choice, I think. At least it wasn’t Hitler. Good justification too.

Maggie Philbin

I daresay she might be a bit to old for most readers of my blog to remember (including myself), but she used to present Saturday Morning kids show Swapshop, and is Keith Chegwin’s ex-wife. Yeah, that’s right. Now nobody can say I don’t know who Cheggers’ ex-wife’s favourite 20th century dictator is.

“My daughter Rose. She was born in 1989 and my life hasn’t been my own since then.”

An interesting twist on a mean question- clever choice, Maggie.

Jon Bentley

One of the presenters of Channel 5’s The Gadget Show. Like Maggie, he twisted my question into something that he could answer without sounding like a monster. I feel a bit guilty as he’s taken his time to give me a fascinatingly well detailed answer.

“I’m not sure what I’m doing in a survey of “Britain’s most prominent people” but thanks for the email all the same.

One’s instinctive reaction is that I dislike all dictators. However I would find them more tolerable in an industrial rather than a political context - where their subjects at least have the opportunity to leave if it all becomes too much. In business a dictator’s tyrannical means might more easily be justified by their achievements.

My first thought in terms of a favourite dictator is therefore Harley Earl, the man who created some of the most stunning American cars of the 1950s - think ‘59 Cadillac - and indeed the whole idea of automotive design. His 1938 Buick “Y-job” is generally considered the first concept car.

To get an idea of his management style here’s a quote from Stephen Bayley’s book on the man:

“Earl conducted the design process with a mixture of discretion, emotional violence and bizarrerie.” He once suggested to executives of US Steel that they should develop a transparent metal. Occasionally, upon making such outlandish suggestions, Earl would look around the room at his design team and state, “If you disagree stand up so we can all get a look at the son of a bitch.” ”

A great response- I daresay the best yet. Aside from these three who dared to give an answer, I got “out of office” autoreplies from BBC News 24 presenter Kate Silverton (away filming for Panorama, apparently- she suggests I ring her PA… and “she” gave me a number!) and BBC Weatherman Alex Deakin, who appears to be having some time off. Let’s hope he scheduled the weather to be sunny for his break.

Declan Curry, possibly the world’s most cheerful business reporter personally e-mailed me explaining that he couldn’t answer.

“Thanks for your email, and for getting in touch with me. It’s nice to hear from you.

I’m very sorry but I’m not allowed to answer any questions like this.But thank you for thinking of me - hope you’re getting better luck elsewhere.”

I think he made a smart move- “BBC Presenter loves Suharto” wouldn’t be a good headline, and “he opened up Indonesian markets!” wouldn’t be a very good defence.

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