Most of the human race have been killed off by a virus. The survivors have been killed off by Vampires. And Will Smith is alone in New York city, struggling to survive. Its a festive frolic for all the family!
I am Legend is basically 28 Days Later set in America. Its also a tale of one man and his dog. But rather than mow a meadow, or whatever it is that men and dogs do in a post-agrarian economy, they sort of faff about a bit in the deserted streets of New York without much narrative for about the first hour. The plot doesn’t really go anywhere and dialogue is largely superfluous - its just Will Smith talking to his dog and letting the audience make an emotional investment in the dog character, setting us up for a horrible twist.
The dog’s screen hogging isn’t necessarily a bad thing - the dog should be in line to win Best Supporting Actor at the next Oscars, as there are literally no other major characters. Unfortunately though, about half way through, the film decides to mess with the sacred unwritten rules of cinema - and kills off the dog.
Will Smith is good in it though, and until the religious overtones kick in towards then end, its pretty good. 28 Days Later is still better.
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Yeah, 2000 called. A handful of pretty good visual gags (amusing signage in the background, that sort of thing), as well as Kenan & Kel make a bad film vaguely tolerable. The best gag is when a cop, played by John Goodman arrests the female FBI agent for impersonating an FBI agent: “But I am an FBI agent”, “Yeah, and I’m John Goodman”.
Après Vous (with English subtitles)
A French comedy film, that would have been shit if it were made in English. Its more or less a “romantic comedy”, but because its in French, you can call it art house and get away with watching it, with all of your manliness intact.
Long story short, a bloke (Antoine) saves another bloke (Louis) from committing suicide, and then has many hilarious japes whilst taking on the task of rehabilitating him and helping him get over his ex-girlfriend. The best bit of the film is without doubt towards the beginning when Antoine goes to meet Louis’s blind grandmother, to intercept a now-redundant suicide note that he had posted before she gets a chance to read it. Antoine has to read the letter to her changing all of the suicide-esque things to happy things on the fly, and ends up giving the grandmother a lift in his car (with Louis hidden on the back seat) - where the grandmother explains to Antoine it was her who suggested his girlfriend dump him. It was better than The Office at that sort of “awkward scenario” comedy.
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
Delightful. Even after fourteen years, Wallace and Gromit are still excellent. Which goes without saying, I guess.
War of the Worlds
My indifference towards this film is only matched by my disdain towards its star’s religion. I watched it a few days ago now, and thinking back, I can’t remember anything of note, other than the basic gist of the plot. Sure, the special effects were pretty good, but they’re ten-a-penny in this day and age. So, er, watch Wallace and Gromit instead. That’s my advice.
My family seem to have reacted moderately positively towards their gifts. My sister enjoyed looking at her Top Shop voucher, my dad seemed pleased with the book he told me to buy him, and my mum better enjoy her kettle-with-built-in-water-filter, given the price.
I got another excellent present too: my sister got me a tiny remote controlled helicopter (made of polystyrene or something) - so expect the inevitable video of it landing on my dad’s bald head to follow shortly.
Christmas is excellent. Merry Christmas everyone, again.
At risk of stating the obvious, I think its pretty clear that we’re getting close to Christmas. There’s explicably decorations up all over the place, I honestly couldn’t tell you what day of the week it is in absolute terms (only in terms of the number of days until Christmas. You could say that we’re current at tree-minus1 day until Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.), and perhaps the most obvious indicator: my propensity towards watching terrible films has increased.
Its almost become a festive tradition of mine to watch Small Soldiers again, as it is invariably shown at some point during week 51 or 52 (in TV industry terms). After scanning the Radio Times website though, it looks as though I won’t be enjoying Kenan & Kel’s seminal classic Good Burger this year, as it doesn’t appear to be scheduled anywhere.
Earlier this evening I watched a film which is more or less the antithesis of a cinematic classic: Tommy Lee Jones starring in Volcano. I’ve seen it a couple of times before (much like nearly everything else you watch at Christmas) and repeat viewings don’t unravel more layers of a cinematic onion - there’s no subtle allegory about humanity’s fragile place in the universe - you know what happens just by reading the title.
One particularly dire bit was towards the end when (spoiler!) they’d stopped the volcano and a rescue bloke asks a kid what his mum looks like. The kid looks up to see everyone covered in volcanic ash and remarks “Look at everybody… they all look the same” - which seemed a bit unnecessary as the film wasn’t about race relations. And it was undermined immediately afterwards when it rained, the ash was washed off and the apparent apartheid returned.
Are there any films on in the next week that I should watch, readers? Let me know, as we can make this blog interactive, and I could, like, comment on your recommendations, and you could make me endure watching crap for your own sick amusement, or something?
Being a blogger, I sit on the periphery of the media village. Whilst I still toil away, churning out a few hundred words here, a stupid video there, I’m still one of the normal proles because I lack three key ingredients of being a proper media personality: credibility, popularity, and respect. This doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t fall into the lazy journalistic trap of filling up the end of the last couple of weeks of the year with a look back at what happened. So, er, here’s look back at my 2007.
Yes, this is the most self-indulgent video ever made. And yes, I did spend time making a musical montage consisting of clips of me. That’s how egocentric I am.
To set the scene, on Saturday night, I was on the last train heading back from London, when I realised that my phone battery had run flat. It was annoying because it was a new mobile phone – a posh one that does everything too: internet, satellite navigation, plays music, takes photographs. I think it even makes phone calls. The only drawback with it is that if you decide that you actually need to use one of its many exciting features, it drains the battery in a matter of minutes.
The trouble was that I needed to ring my parents to let them know that I hadn’t been murdered in London – they worry like that. When it got to about half past eleven, an hour after I told them I’d be home I realised that if I left it any longer, they’d probably start kicking up a fuss and have most of London’s emergency services looking for my battered corpse, so I had to think of something.
I knew I’d have to ask another passenger on the train if I could borrow their mobile phone – which is a ridiculous request. The most you should ask of a fellow train passenger is if you can sit on the empty seat next to them – asking for anything more is breaking a big social taboo. What I wanted was far, far beyond the call of duty.
So I decided to ask an older couple on the train if I could borrow their mobile phone, to call my mum. The difficult thing was the phrasing of the question – I’m not very astute at the best of times, as I tend to just let the key words in a sentence fall out of my mouth in a jumbled order when talking to people. I needed to convey the genuine nature of my problem so that I didn’t sound like I was euphemistically saying “Hello, I’m a scruffy looking bloke and I’m going to mug you for your expensive mobile phone, so I can sell it in a pub and buy drugs with the proceedsâ€Â.
Eventually, I plucked up the courage to ask, and amazingly, these complete strangers let me use their phone – even though I could have been, say, a murderer, or something for all they knew (I’m not).
I’m dead impressed by this – I’d previously assumed that everyone who didn’t know me, especially those I encounter on public transport, are just out to get me, in some way, but it turns out strangers are really nice people.
So what’s the moral of this story? Er… could it be the complete opposite of what we’re taught growing up? “Talk to strangers more�
On Saturday, I went down to London to go to the pub with some of the people from my other website who are old enough to get into pubs. It was most excellent, because it means I’ve got 90 photos on Facebook like this, which make me look really like a really popular and easily likeable person:
Adam, Rex, Shark’s hand, Me, Dan, Steffan and Sam. Not pictured: Katy, Matt, Chris, Barney, the ghost of Christmas past.
It was also excellent because I got to meet my friend Matt for the first time - after knowing him online for very nearly seven years:
Despite being in London, we didn’t do anything particularly touristy - we just went to three pubs and a Pizza Express like locals may do, largely ignoring the spectacular views of central London around us.
As the day went on, things got progressively louder, culminating in a drinking game in the last pub (which didn’t really work on me, as I wasn’t drinking alcohol), and Barney, Dan, and Sam getting approximately very, very, drunk. They’d been drinking since 11am, having gone to a pub at Liverpool Street Station before meeting the rest of us, so by 9pm, weren’t walking in a straight line. This meant that me, being sober (I’m straight-edge), and Katy (who I’d dragged along for the day), who was only tipsy, had to try and guide them back to their train stations so they could get home.
I bet you can see where this is going, can’t you? I’ve made the above image because I’m sort of anticipating me complaining about mobile phone companies being a recurring theme if the past couple of days are anything to go by. Yeah, “S-H-I-T Mobile” is the best pun I could come up with. If I was still with my old network it could be OPoo. Its just a good job I’m not on Orange, as nothing rhymes with that.
The other day, I got my first bill, where I was mortified to see that I was for some reason being charged £32.50 a month, rather than the agreed £27.50. At first, I thought that they’d lied to me about VAT being included and had whacked it on top, but after ringing up customer services, it turned out that the woman in the shop had put me on the wrong “Web & Walk” tariff - the bonus money they extort from you for “unlimited” internet (in reality, capped at a gig a month). I thought I’d be paying £7.50 a month for it, but I was mistakenly being charged £12.50 a month for “Web & Walk Plus”.
“This should be easy to fix”, I foolishly thought. So, on the phone to customer services, I ask if they could correct the error. I was told that the people at customer services didn’t have the authorisation to do that, and I’d have to go into the shop I bought the phone from today and they’d sort it all out - customer services even promised to ring me today to check it had all been resolved (they didn’t; it hadn’t).
Act 2: Back in the shop
So back in the shop today, where I’d previously lost two and a half hours of my life, I spent another 90 minutes faffing about. The woman who originally sold me the phone and made the error was there, which made life slightly easier. What she did was explain that the stores aren’t able to change contracts, so she phoned customer services. The same customer services I’d been speaking to myself - on the same number. She explained the same thing as I did, but had the added authority of working for T-Mobile or something. They put her through to a call centre that was apparently in Manila, where apparently the operator didn’t speak very good English. This strikes me as a bit odd, as you’d think the first question you’d ask if employing someone to work in a call centre that will serve Britain is “can you speak English?”.
The person on the other end of the phone kept telling her that you can’t change the contract for eleven months. She kept telling them that it was because of a mistake and not out of choice. But they wouldn’t budge.
By now it was getting pretty desperate, so a workaround solution was looked for. Apparently I could cancel my contract, and take out a new one, as I’m still within the fourteen day “you can still back out now” period. I’d have to give back my phone, which I’ve already filled with numbers, texts and personalised only to be given an identical new handset. And worse still, I’d lose my number - which was my old O2 number I’ve had for the last five or more years, as I’d had it transferred over.
It got to a point where the staff member decided it might be easier to try and convince me that the more expensive internet tariff is the better option, by explaining how I can get streaming TV channels on my phone. This made me think of the old Jack Dee observation: Why do I want a TV on my phone? I have a TV. “Not a chance in hell”, I said slightly less succinctly than the quote I’m attributing to myself.
I ended up leaving saying I’d ring customer services again myself and threaten to kick up a fuss if they couldn’t do it.
Act 3: Ringing Customer Services (again)
So I phoned customer services again on the way home, where I once again explained this whole tedious story, and was then told that they’re not authorised to fix it. The operator on the phone then put me on hold whilst she rang the store I was just in, only to be told the same thing. After a lengthy wait listening to the T-Mobile approved sellouts who’s music is used on their TV adverts, the operator informed me that she’d just spoken to the manager, who said if I go in tomorrow, he’ll be able to change it.
Act 4: Ringing the shop
Sceptical of this, I ring the shop directly to check. The manager informs me that he still couldn’t - he merely was offering to terminate my contract and give me a whole new one, complete with new handset and number. “For fucks sake”, I thought.
Eventually, he seemed to just give up and want to buy my silence, and offered me fifty quid in one lump sum, to cancel out 10 months of £5 a month more than what I should be paying. He did point out that its only after eleven months that you can change your contract - so I was still losing a fiver because of T-Mobile’s ineptitude. He tried to justify this by explaining that it’d probably cost me a fiver anyway to drive to the shop and get a brand new phone and contract because I’d have to pay for parking and so on… but why would I be doing that? To sort my fucking phone out after they fucked up!
Act 5: Soliloquy
So it now, finally, seems just about sorted. Technically I’m still on the more expensive web & walk tariff, so I can use up to 3gb a month and Skype away to my heart’s content. So I sort of win, I guess.
I’m still a bit pissed off though, because of all the faff. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve no problem with the staff in the shop I bought the phone from, as everyone makes mistakes. Its just the inept response to solving what should be a simple problem. I just wanted to rant about it on the internet, where someone might see it and decide not to go with T-Mobile. Which would stick it to them properly.
Inexplicably, my family have put the Christmas decorations up really early this year. They thought they’d got it all done, with much of the living room caked in tinsel, and the tree put into place. Me though, being the most predictable person alive, decided to add a finishing touch to the tree:
Its Christmas soon, which means that the “War on Christmas†has begun once again, as secularists, atheists and non-Christians are all attending secret meetings around the country to plot against middle England, and try to abolish Christmas once and for all.
That’s right, we’re the same secret organisation that made wheelchair access mandatory and gave women the vote: we’re the political correctness mafia. Our next big target after Christmas will be really sticking it to the stuffy traditionalists by getting cravats banned and demanding that pets seeking asylum shouldn’t be quarantined.
It really winds me up to see people complain about Christmas being “banned†and political correctness going mad – because from my vantage, perched atop my high horse, it looks like political correctness has stayed the same, and its just the people who complain about it who have gone even more insane.
Nobody is trying to destroy Christmas – it is just there are people joining in who don’t believe that two thousand years ago there was a bloke with magic powers who said and did some pretty weird stuff that, by David Blaine standards, is pretty tame.
I don’t think secularising Christmas is a bad idea at all – everyone loves receiving presents, so why don’t we extend this so that everyone, regardless of religion or cultural background can join in? If we’re feeling mischievous we could call it “Wintervalâ€Â.
It could still retain all of the good parts of Christmas – the presents, the Doctor Who special, the family stuff and the peace and good will to all men thing – basically the important bits. We could even keep Winterval crackers containing crappy toys and worse jokes, I mean, if you really want to.
It’d be an improvement on the Christmas we have at the moment, as schools could choose to do a production of stories that actually have a compelling narrative, rather than the Nativity. A school production of Lord of the Rings would be much better – if not a little agonisingly long.
One of the big events at Winterval could be a worldwide “Secret Santa†that includes everyone in the world, and this would do more to encourage peace and love in the world than, say, a billion prayers or approximately ten thousand John Lennons. It’s hard to hate someone who’s just given you a present – even if it is something you didn’t really want. Like one of those interactive DVD games hosted by an aging TV relic who’s trying to squeeze the last remaining drops out of their career.
Countries should also have to give each other Winterval presents. Not only would they have to put on a brave face around the table at the United Nations as America claims that socks are “just what we always wanted†when unwrapping Iran’s gift, but the whole system of world affairs might shift from “who can build the best weapons?†to “who can come up with the nicest gift?â€Â, and there’d be competition to see who can be nicest to each other rather than most horrible.
I think building a gigantic cake is the sort of “war effort†I could get behind.
I noticed something peculiar earlier - Facebook network pages have lots of statistics about the people in the network - percentage male and female, a breakdown of political leanings, that sort of the thing, but there is one obvious statistical breakdown they’ve missed though, which strikes me as odd considering they collect the data in a regimented, easily counted way: religion.
I find it slightly perplexing that at a glance I can discover that 8% of my university colleagues define themselves as liberal, and 3% of them are married, but not find out which strand of bullshit most of them believe. I’m actually tempted to play the “political correctness gone mad” card.
So given that I love facebook, pie charts and slagging off religion, I took it upon myself to generate the statistics myself. As I am a man of science, I don’t want to create the impression that this pie-chart is at all accurate, fair, or representative. There’s the usual caveats of this is only made up of the 1126 people who are less feckless than the 5359 other people at my university who have neglected to enter a religion in the religion box on their profile.
This basically means that the people (women) who have it listed that they’re “spiritual” because they occasionally buy scented candles don’t count. Likewise entries like “none” and misspellings haven’t been counted because I’m not willing to count this manually. The benefit of this though is that the people who do count have clearly at least thought about their religious position enough to fill it in with something coherent, so they can probably explain their beliefs (but probably not justify them in the case of the theists… zing).
Can I name this pie-chart “Muhammed”? Will that piss anyone off?
As you’d expect, the big religions - Christianity, Islam and Hinduism have the largest market share of the theists, with 38%, 14%, and 18% respectively. Excellently though, it appears that there are lots of Atheists and Agnostics (and Pastafarians) - about 29% of people are going to be predisposed towards acting rationally in all situations. This probably isn’t surprising unless like me, you spend your free time on YouTube getting annoyed at creationist videos, though.
What I find slightly surprising is that considering there’s five Jews, which is a sort of proper religion, there’s 5 “Wiccan” people. Or to give them their proper name “attention seekers who used to be goths when they were teenagers”. Similarly, there’s four “pagan” people, which is slightly bewildering, as they can’t even use the theist, cough, “reasoning”, cough, that loads of people believe what they believe, “so it must be true”.
So there you have it - a breakdown of the religions at my university, as derived from some unreliable statistics.
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