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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.
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�
Last night I went to see the new Fantastic 4 film with my dad, because of father’s day. I think my verdict is similar to what I thought about the first film: it’s pretty good, as long as you don’t think about it too much. It has all of the action scenes and superpowers that you’d expect from a superheroes film and is entertaining to watch. Just don’t go in there expecting to see a Spiderman calibre film.
The unfortunate thing is that since seeing it last night, I have been thinking about it too much and have come to the conclusion that the film contains more holes than a Swiss cheese with a termite infestation.
For example, throughout the film the Fantastic 4 travel around the world in pursuit of the Silver Surfer - this takes them to central London and the Black Forest in Germany - bizarrely though, they’re under the command of an American General. Despite this explaining why the real life London Eye currently has a big picture of the Surfer in the middle of it, it doesn’t explain why the London Eye wants to promote a film in which it gets nearly destroyed and its passengers put in significant peril.
Even more confusingly, (spoiler alert!) when the Silver Surfer is captured, he is taken to an American military base in… (wait for it)… SIBERIA. Seriously, wtf?
Also, what I imagine is a more of a proper film-critic criticism: the characterisation of the Silver Surfer seemed a little bit too human for someone who was supposedly an alien. Ignoring the other character’s blind acceptance of the existence of alien life, the silver surfer had some distinctively human characteristics to his personality, not to mention that he looked like a human and spoke English.
The way in which he (major spoiler alert) changes his mind and decides to fight of Galactus (and easily defeat him?!) was a bit too quick too. It seems a thirty second conversation between the Invisible Woman and an alien who has spent a career destroying planets is all it took for him to change his entire world-view.
I think it goes without saying that science in the film is completely implausible. But as I’ve said time and time again, I like my sci-fi to have some plausible pseudo-science to explain it - otherwise accepting the plot is a bit like accepting creationism.
Reed Richards, or “Mr Fantastic”, as he’s modestly known is set up to be this amazing scientist - but I think the film makes him appear just too fantastic. He seems to be an expert at everything. In the film you see him build and analyse some sort of cosmic ray machine - as well as the “Fantasti-car”, a flying car that has no wings or wheels and is inexplicably is capable of separating into four separate flying machines mid-flight.
Considering an alien had just popped up on earth, Reed certainly knew how to deal with them - apparently a Tachyon field will stop the surfer. Alright then, if you say so.
One of the key plot points in the film was The Human Torch gaining the ability to swap powers with the other three - this is set up throughout the film with a few power swaps. What bothers me about this is that the finale hinges on (spoiler alert!) the Human Torch getting all four powers at once simply by touching the other three people at the same time - something that was previously untested. Why would this even work? Even if he had gained the powers of his three team-mates, surely they’d all have his original power? Yet the final fight clearly showed him being a human torch.
But anyway, this is getting a bit sad. It was a good film, really. I enjoyed watching it. And that’s what its all about. Probably.
Merry Christmas everyone! As you might expect, today has been the most fantastic of days. I’m not entirely sure how they managed it, but my excellent parents managed to get me a Wii. Yes, a Wii - ending a story arc that’s lasted at least ten days.
I’m pleased to say that it lives up to expectations. Here’s a badly produced video of me boxing:
I think one of the best things about it is that my entire family have been having a go (despite only having the one controller). We’ve been playing Wii Sports all day- and I think its pretty clear that Nintendo have created a revolution in video games when I’m getting thrashed at virtual ten-pin bowling and and virtual golf by my parents and even my 75 year old grandad. It was interesting because today was the first time I’ve played “golf” since I smashed my grandad around the head with a golf club in Cromer when I was about twelve. Luckily history didn’t repeat itself today. Here’s an exciting video of my grandad having a go at Wii boxing… and winning:
Yeah, he now joins the ranks of the hundreds of other “old people playing computer games” videos on YouTube.
Other present highlights include the atlas I got my sister. The hilarious family in-joke is that she wants to study Geography at University, yet she can’t find Germany on a map. In something a pre-empted retaliation, she got me a book on the worst multi-storey car parks in the country.
Yeah, its been a good day. An excellent day. Merry Christmas everyone!
Er, despite what I promised in the video, there’s no more video than that. Well, there is, but I can’t post it because most of my family read this blog. Long story short: yeah, it was alright, really.
Last week, my mum had some sort of medical scare. Long story short, she’s perfectly fine and it was nothing, but that didn’t stop the family from collectively bricking it for a few days. The vaguely interesting thing about it, aside from, er, my mother’s health, was that she got the scan done privately.
This meant that it got done (that’s a medical term) within five days, rather than twenty-something, as what would have happened had she had it done on the NHS. I’m sure regular blog readers have by now figured out the moral dilemma this creates and the direction in which this is going: private healthcare? Wtf?
I think the NHS is bitchin’- the second greatest institution this country has (after the BBC), and I’ll always cite it as a reason why Britain is better than America, (and that’s about as patriotic as I’ll get).
In fact, I’ve always assumed my opinion is “Private healthcare shouldn’t be allowed, everyone should use the NHS”. I think this has turned out to be one of those high-principled altruistic things you support until you realise that siding with the baddies helps you in your own personal circumstances. Like how you’d be against animal testing until you need to grow a new ear on your back. Or like how you’d be in favour of making murder illegal, up until the point when you’re on the run after killing five prostitutes.
Don’t get me wrong- I don’t think that we should privatise the NHS - that’d be awful. The idea of having to remember your chip & pin number whilst you have a saucepan stuck on your head or whatever is ridiculous. At risk of sounding like Hitler: I dare say private health care has its place. And poor people can go fuck themselves.
Having this all new opinion worries me slightly: are all of my other opinions as flexible? Are all of my opinions motivated by self interest? And I called myself something of a lefty? I’m terrible.
At the moment I think that student loans are awful, and students should get grants. Big fat grants too. Do I think this because I believe that education should be free for all who want it, and that it will enrich society as a whole, creating an educated and flexible workforce ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century workplace? (I assume that the 21st century workplace needs more media studies graduates, and that the challenges involve analysing a Bond film for instances of “dramatic tension”).
Or do I really believe the student loans thing because I am an awful student, who wants to contribute nothing to society and just get some free money to buy some consumer electronics with?
I’ve always said that I’m in favour of taxing the wealthy in order to redistribute wealth to help the poor. For the past three months, since I started at work, I’ve been taxed at basic rate (or “BR”, as its known in the trade), and I was taxed about £300 overall… and I felt robbed. All I could think about was what I could have bought with the money that had been stolen from me by those bastards at the tax office, rather than that the money was helping to finance hospitals, schools and illegal wars. It is until I get my massive tax rebate, anyway.
I think at this rate of moral decline I’ll be looking at a career in either BAE Systems’ marketing department, or as the Conservative Party’s chief fund raiser and honour nominator.
Is my life one long party or what? Last night I went all the way to Bournemouth Opera House to see Less Than Jake in concert, supported by Capdown and Jesse James. This means that I’ve seen approximately 35 bands live since May.
How did I get all the way to Bournemouth? Somehow, I managed to convince my family to take a one day holiday, as all of my “punk” friends are either at festivals or celebrating anniversaries.
The trip wasn’t without its problems. When we reached the ‘travel tavern’ (and briefly making life even closer to that of Alan Partridge), it turns out that we had booked two double rooms. This presents a problem, because although I was planning to share a room with my sister Lucy, I wasn’t willing to share a bed. In the end we turned one double bed into two makeshift beds, by moving a matress about and reconfiguring some sheets (I’m not entirely sure how, mind, because I’m male).
Yesterday afternoon, we went to find the venue, just so we knew where it was. Bizarrely, there was already a group of people queueing outside. As there was another five hours to go until the gig, they’d taken with them a jigsaw of a German or Polish looking castle, and were piecing it together on the street outside the Opera House. When we returned later in the evening, disappointly it had been destroyed and scattered all over the pedestrianised area. I was hoping it would have been completed.
As you might have read in previous blog updates, I thought I was going to have to go to a gig with my dad. Thankfully, I eventually managed to coerce my marginally-cooler and 32 years younger sister to come with me instead, although she made no firm decision until ten minutes before, leaving me wondering if my style would be cramped or not.
This new arrangement actually worked out better- when LTJ were on stage, they asked everyone who is over 30 to put their hands up… about four people did, and they all looked as if they were in their early thirties.
It turned out that Bournemouth Opera House is in fact in Boscombe- the latter piggy-backing on the name of its more successful neighbour, to try and disguise the fact that its a shit hole. Just like ‘London Luton’ Airport. when queueing outside, the guy in the queue behind us remarked “What a lovely family outing in Bos-Vegas… the mother with a can of special brew and the two daughters with a fag on each”.
We finally got in after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, and much to my distress and Lucy’s indifference, the first band had already started.
Jesse James were excellent, to the extent that I bought their album at the end. Next up were the incredible Capdown, who I last saw in June. They played a similar set to last time- opening on what I believe was An A-Political Stand for Reasons, ending on Ska Wars, as well as Cousin Cleotis. They also played a bit of Dub #1, before launching into another song. If you’re not a Capdown fan, then this will understandably mean nothing to you. Annoyingly, like in the Milton Keynes gig, they insisted on playing a couple of new as-yet unreleased songs, which didn’t get the crowd going as well as they didn’t know them. Still excellent though.
I think it was at this point that Lucy looked most terrified, as we were on the periphery of the mosh pit, and occasionally a large crowd of people came running towards us. Hilariously, she gestured much like how Wallace from Wallace & Gromit does when he is scared: she raised her palms at me, curled her fingers around, and shook her hands a bit, whilst making her mouth wider than her face.
Less Than Jake came on stage at about 10pm. 24 hours beforehand, they’d played at the Reading Festival, which I’d watched on the interactive on BBC Three. They opened the same way both times- a medley of Look What Happend and Gainsville, Rock City. I can’t really remember that many specific details about what they played and so on, suffice to say that it was incredible. From what I can remember, the setlist was, in no particular order:
Look What Happend/Gainsville Rock City medley
The Science of Selling Yourself Short
Plastic Cup Politics
Ghosts of Me and You (I think)
How’s my driving Doug Hastings?
History of a Boring Town
Overrated (everything is)
A Still Life Franchise (after getting the audience to choose between this and Don’t Fall Asleep on the Subway)
Automatic
Johnny Quest thinks we’re sellouts
My very own flag
All my best friends are Metalheads (Encore)
Suburban Myth (Encore)
Amazing. Although they didn’t play one of my favourite songs, 9th at Pine.
Before the “proper” songs of the encore kicked in, vocalist and guitarist Chris, came back on stage on his own, and played a short solo song about how he hates his band and how he “quits”. I think that it might be a cover, as it sounds like something NOFX would do, but I can’t remember any of the lyrics in order to Google it and find out. Damn.
Unusually, they seemed to admit that their latest album is slightly underwhelming (read: too emo)- Chris referred to it as “our shitty new record”, and claimed that they had to play a song from it for “contractual reasons”.
At one point during the gig, I felt a sudden pain in the side of my head, and then my shoulder. Suddenly I felt slightly dazed and confused as to what had caused the pain… Lucy and I looked down at the same time and saw a shoe on the floor. Someone has thrown a shoe at me! The bastard. A shoe was thrown at Chris a few minutes beforehand, and he dealt with it in a much more effective way… he caught it with one hand, and shouted “Fuck you, cock-sucker“.
But other than the shoe thing, it was an incredible gig. I can’t wait until I go to see them again in November- they’re co-gigging with the Dropkick Murphys. Its going to be excellent.
It’s my birthday today, hooray! And before you pedants tell me that my own birthday is in fact on June 2nd… I’m writing this after midnight.
I’m trying my best to stretch this out into a fully-fledged blog update, but this year has been much more low-key than last year. Most of the action happend last night at the [spunge] gig (see below). I’ve spent today mostly recovering for getting in so late last night (aka: this morning).
The most surprising thing today has been how on the ball my mum is with regard to presents: she got me Less Than Jake’s new album, as well as the DVD of the last Rage Against the Machine concert. Impressive. Still a dull anecdote though.
Getting old is boring now, I think. I don’t have any new powers- like being able to smoke, learn to drive, or x-ray vision. I got socks as a present.
I think the only point I’m trying to make here is that it’s my birthday: hooray for me!
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.
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.
