The ones that got away

There's an article in today's Guardian detailing the books which British adults have failed to finish reading. Amongst their ranks are such worthy tomes as the fourth Harry Potter book, David Blunkett's memoirs and Celebrity Racist Jade Goody's autobiography. Being neither a child nor an idiot, my own list is a little bit different.
There are the books which have been hiding at the back of a bookshelf for years, as yet unopened (Messrs Proust and James, pay attention at the back). There's the "never going to read" gang (Dickens and Melville spring to mind), and there's a few where a cursory glance confirmed that I would not be disturbing the contents any further (Mr Joyce, take your Ulysses and shove it where the sun don't shine; Mr Tolkein, I don't "do" elves thanks very much).
And then there's the poor souls who were abandoned somewhere mid-journey.


Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

I made it past the 250 page mark with Anna Karenina, but it suffered from my habit of having multiple books on the go at any one time. I didn't much care for the main characters in any case, so when unnecessarily convoluted descriptions of Russian farming equipment made an appearance, it went back on the bookshelf.. Doesn't bode too well for War and Peace, frankly, with this supposedly being the simpler of the two.

Jack Kerouac - On The Road

Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I'd rather read some well-crafted prose, where the author has painstakingly chosen every word for maximum impact. There is power in concision and precision. But try telling that to Mr Keroauc and his "oh look at us, we're so rebellious and free with our doing exactly what every generation before us did but with worse haircuts and more verbiage" friends. Bollocks, the lot of 'em.

James Kelman - A Chancer

I tried, god knows I tried. For those not in the know, James Kelman conveys the gritty reality of working-class Glasgow by eschewing the use of punctuation. I've started this book about ten times, but it's just too painful.

James Ellroy - American Tabloid

I've not given up on this yet. There was just too much information coming at me at once in the opening chapters, next time I'm taking notes...

Annie Proulx - The Shipping News

I was getting along just fine with this one, and reasonably enjoying it, and then I just.... stopped. I blame Kevin Spacey.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

I should like this book. I love the 1920s. I think Fitzgerald himself was a fascinating person, though less so than his formidable wife. I should be able to connect with the writing, and finally finish reading it, but something just won't let me. I really don't get it.

Danny Wallace - Yes Man

Now with this, on the other hand, I know exactly what the problem is. Had this not been a Christmas present, it would not be taking up space in my house. For starters, there are the glowing testimonials: Davina McCall declares "The man's a genius". Richard Madeley tells us "This book is a treat". Then of course, there's the fact that I've seen the guy on TV and been thoroughly underwhelmed. But hey! It's a life-affirming tale of positivity! Written in a painfully convoluted, childish fashion, with every gag stretched out for a good two pages more than it can possibly stand, each new paragraph revealing more layers of smug hatefulness until I just want to get a big knife and stab stab stab Mr Wallace through his self-satisfied little heart. But he's not there, so I just throw the book across the room instead.

Antonia Fraser - Mary Queen of Scots

This seemed like a good bet. Before she got her head chopped off, Mary Queen of Scots had a eventful and dramatic life, rich in material for a biography. But while this is well enough crafted, the writer herself leaves me cold. Unfortunately I had already bought another two hefty tomes (one of them a biography of Marie Antoinette) by the same author before I made that discovery. I can always dip into them when need be, but I won't be reading them from cover to cover.

And finally, a special case: the book I did read, but wish that I hadn't:

Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea

Or as I like to call it, "I read The Old Man and the Sea, and all I got was this lousy allegory". My heroine, Dorothy Parker, said that Hemingway "has an unerring sense of selection. He discards details with a magnificent lavishness; he keeps his words to their short path"*. By that criterion, I should be a big fan. I don't like to disappoint Dotty P if I can help it. However, this particular work, while only around 100 pages long, feels much, much longer. Maybe it's just too concise, perhaps it's the load which each phrase is made to carry that makes it such hard work. Or maybe its me.




Nah....

*From a review of "Men Without Women", published in The New Yorker, October 29th, 1927

It's My Blog And I'll Read If I Want To

Good old insomnia, my faithful friend, keeping me up past the dawn chorus...

So: things to do in cyberspace when you're half dead
1. Fire up Pandora, and press skip when it repeatedly tries to convince me that I like Country music

2. Read old stuff on this here blog. Yeah, yeah, mock all you like, I care not a jot. You know what? I happen to quite like some of the gubbins wot I wrote, so nyah! I particularly like this little vignette here - yay me and my half-decent turns of phrase...

And I've found myself a lovely little advertising slogan -

Heavens to Betsie: calling Jimmy Carr a smug, snide, fat-face cunt since 2005

I'm so proud...

What the....?

Well this sounds like a must-see:

Killing Brigitte Nielsen Monday 19 March 2007, Sky Travel – Reality show in which six people are flown to Greece and conned into thinking model Brigitte Nielsen has been murdered.
(Description courtesy of thecustard.tv)

Well, that sounds just thrilling doesn't it? Some people go on holiday, someone tells them a past it celebrity has died, they shrug their shoulders, The End. Still, maybe it'll inspire a new television sub-genre - Celebrity Homicide. Each week, viewers phone in to choose which irritating has-been faces a firing squad, as their fading fame goes out with a bang rather than a whimper. We can but hope...

Stasis

We apologise for this interruption to programming, normal service will resume shortly...

(fyi: my blogger account has been blocked, after someone somewhere (or possibly some software, but I have my theories) decided that this was a spam blog. I had been planning a post on a TV advert for spam fritters, but I think I'll avoid that one now...)

Simon Mayo is a tease

So I tune into 5 Live, arriving in the middle of a debate about Margaret Thatcher's legacy, and I think to myself "Yes! She's dead!"

But no. There's only a crappy statue of her being unveiled. Boo.

(I don't normally wish ill upon people, but to every rule there's an exception)

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Mountain out of a molehill

So there's a none-more-laddish, testosterone-fuelled car-based show on the BBC called Top Gear, presented by annoying twat in stonewashed denim Jeremy Clarkson and "oops I nearly killed myself with this silly driving fast malarkey" Richard Hammond. All right-thinking people know that nothing which comes out of this show is meant to be serious, or have any illusions of depth.



Then they pull a stupid stunt involving painting provocative slogans on the side of some vehicles and take them for a ride through Hickville USA, looking for a fight. When a clip of said stunt ends up on Youtube, it's posted to the popular website Metafilter, and an almighty stushie breaks loose. Not exactly uncommon there (for every interesting set of links, there's another circular debate and heavy Godwinisation), but really - it's Jeremy Clarkson! It doesn't matter!

Sheesh...

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File under "Bad Hair Day"

Blimmin' goth...

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Bargain Corner

Today's Oxfam book shop bargain - The Thurber Carnival, a collection of pieces by my second-favourite mid-20th century American humorist (Robert Benchley is number one, fact fans), James Thurber. It's a 1959 Penguin Books imprint, and the potted biography on the cover bears repeating here in full:

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, where so many awful things happened to him, on 8th December, 1894. He was unable to keep anything on his stomach until he was seven years old, but grew to 6 feet 1 1/2 inches tall and to weigh a hundred and fifty-four lb. fully dressed for winter. He began to write when he was ten years old ('Horse Sandusky, the Intrepid Scout') and to draw when he was fourteen. He has not worked as a cow-puncher, ranch-hand, stevedore, short-order book, lumberjack, or preliminary prize-fighter. Quick to arouse, he is very hard to quiet and people often just go away. Fond of rifle shooting but unable to concentrate, he usually fires off into the air when handing it to the next marksman. He was recently blackballed when brought up for membership in the Fairfield County (Conn.) Skeet Shooting Club. At Buckeye Lake, Ohio, in 1923, he won a canary bird throwing baseballs at dolls. He can hold a grand slam hand in contract and be set six, but he has never been taken at fan-tan. He uses the Thurber over-bidding convention and even the most skilled partners have no chance with him. He never listens when anybody else is talking, preferring to keep his mind a blank until they get through so he can talk. His favourite book is The Great Gatsby. His favourite author is Henry James. He wears excellent clothes very badly and can never find his hat. Two overcoats which he left in the New Yorker office were stolen, or else he left them some place else. He is Sagittarius with the moon in Aries and gets along fine with persons born between the 20th and the 24th of August.

Now that's class.

We just write what we like and if anyone else likes it it's a bonus

A long time ago, in a land far far away, I used to read the music press. Yes, there actually was one once, and some people thought it was vaguely important. Most of those people wrote for it.

In time honoured tradition, it all began with Smash Hits (RIP). I had a break for a while, due both to a lack of interest on my part, and the serious dearth in anything remotely interesting happening musically in the early 1990s. Then along came Britpop, and there went my spare cash.

In monthly magazines, there was the somewhat staid and dull Q (still around I believe, but I haven't read it for years - if you've read one Bono/Chris Martin/ insert dull Dad rocker of your choice here interview, you've more than likely read one too many), the "NME in monthly form" Vox, and the far better written Select (featuring the marvellous David Quantick/Andrew Collins/Stuart Macaroni* triumvirate which also livened up Radio One for a brief period in the 1990s), home of all your Britpop needs. Remember it? Ask your granddad...

Then there were the weekly mags. Dating myself terribly here, I can reveal that the first NME I bought had Damon All-bran* on the cover, and came with a flexi-disc preview of Suede's Dog Man Star. The NME, for those who don't know, is a British institution, famed in the past for some of its writers (they launched the god-awful Julie Burchill on the world, the bastards, and her "made for each other" in atrociousness partner in love/hate, Tony Parsons. Thanks for that, NME, thanks a bunch), but as much for their spurious "there's three bands who play similar instruments, let's bundle them together and call it a movement!" tactics.

Rather better, of course, was Melody Maker, triumphing by a cunning ruse called "having better writers". Sneaky, that. Mid-1990s NME was pedestrian, and often a rather dull read. At least the writers at Melody Maker seemed capable of bringing some sort of life to the publication. It all went horribly wrong before petering out in 2000, but for a while, it was actually a pretty good read.

So why did I read these magazines? Well, before the internet was the all-conquering hero it is today, that was often the first chance one had of finding out about new music. The problem, of course, was that this first impression was inevitably filtered through the preferences, and prejudices, of the writers and editors. The trick to working out if you would like something or not often lay in previous knowledge of the tastes of the scribe you were currently reading (thus generally speaking, if, for instance, Everett True hated someone, they probably had some merit).

These days, if you want to know what a new band sounds like, you don't need to rely on negotiating your way through the personal history of the journo talking about them; you just go to their website, or one of the many excellent music blogs, or even, if you must (I'm far too old for such things myself), visit their page on Myspace, and you can hear and make up your mind for yourself. It's no coincidence that most of the music mags still surviving peddle a line in music as nostalgia. Led Zeppelin! Cream! Queen! The Beatles! Read about them all in Mojo while sipping on your Horlicks!

So, imagine my surprise when, post-Decemberists gig I did a little internet searching and found out that there's still at least one music journalist out there who thinks that the old "opinion piece in place of actual concert review" is still a viable career option. Why I almost got all nostalgic - shame the guy can't write for toffee and gets his facts embarrassingly wrong, but let's hear it for the last cry of the opinionated music journalist!

*Do you see what I did there? Hilarious, no?

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Davina McCall is a cloth-eared fool.

That is all.

Well, she's also a gurning, joyless, idiotic, terrible presenter, come to think of it.

Dreadful woman...



(I am currently watching a Room 101 repeat where she has just claimed that Frank Sinatra, the greatest interpreter of a song the 20th century had, couldn't sing. And Paul Merton damaged his liking-good-stuff reputation by letting her have her way. Grrrr...)

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Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce 'n' Beckett

Are they trying to tell me something?

I collected a repeat prescription yesterday, but I got a surprise at bedtime when I opened the pack to take my medication. Instead of normal pills, there was a blister pack of coin size tablets. And a fruity smell.



Yes, that's right, I'm now taking, fizzy, melt-in-the-mouth, orange-flavoured anti-depressants.

Refreshing!

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Comedy Gold

Celebrity Big Brother continues to make headlines even now it's over, but let's leave aside the racism and bullying allegations, and remember the moment when a tiny little man with a ludicrously inflated ego made a break for freedom. With hilarious consequences...

Call me a heartless fiend if you like, but, were I to set up a website commemorating a murdered relative, I'd probably do a spell check on the text first...

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Woe is me part 15671

I am obese. I already weighed too much before Christmas, but the season of excess, and an increased appetite resulting from a change in medication have seen me balloon.

I was first really aware of it on Christmas Day. I'd bought a new top for the occasion a few months previously, but now it was suddenly too tight. Then the huge mirror in the kitchen in my mother's new house mocked me with its hideous display.

I feel sluggish, like I'm walking through treacle. Going slowly up a hill to catch the bus leaves me painfully breathless. More than about half an hour's walking in a day leaves my feet aching and my muscles stiff with the exertion of shifting my excess weight around.

Only my baggiest, most shapeless clothes fit any more - and there aren't very many of them. I look and feel like an unfit, frumpy, repulsive slob.



Still, mustn't grumble.

Yeah right.

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300 years and counting...

Happy Birthday, Act of Union(zip file, complete original text)

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Reality TV will eat itself

Like a circle in a spiral,

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning

On an ever spinning reel



(humblest apologies to Michel Legrand)

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He's singing in the rain...

The question of the day: what on earth is Ken Russell, the man responsible for this film (amongst many others), doing in the Celebrity Big Brother house? And why is he dressed like it's mid-1974?

I'm sure Grace Dent will provide the answer shortly...

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Have something to say? He doesn't care

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Merry Crimbo

Make-A-Flake

Old dictators don't die..

..the gold on their statues just tarnishes



I'm heartbroken. Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who I blogged about here, has died.



Music and beard lovers are said to be "rejoicing". No, not really. Or at least not in public.

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Ah, the good old Lib Dems know how to keep the public amused...

Stereotypes-a-go-go

You'll never guess what - according to someone who vaguely knew him, as just shown on Channel 4 News, the guy arrested today for the Suffolk murders "kept himself to himself".

And the chap already arrested, as reported in The Guardian, was a quiet fellow too:

"He was an ordinary tenant," said Stuart Kantor, the estate manager. "He never held parties, he was never noisy. We are all amazed that anyone like that could be arrested."

Meanwhile, on the victims of crime/early deaths side of things, West Yorkshire's acting chief constable said of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, "People talked about her lively, bubbly personality".

Why, the caretaker/fairground owner/etc would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pesky kids...

Not Waving But Drowning
Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

message to self

Nasty scumbag dies, world celebrates

Good riddance

No Christmas Cheer This Year

As the more observant and long-standing reader may have worked out, unlike last year, I'm not doing a Christmas links countdown this time.
There are several reasons for this -

• I can't be arsed
• I probably exhausted the topic last time
• I'm decidedly less than full of the festive spirit
• I really, really can't be arsed

Last year, Little Miss Grumpy here managed to ruin the big day for the family, so I'm keeping more detached from it this time round. I might make some food if I'm feeling ambitious, but that's about it (I just acquired my Mum's old cooker and bid a thankful farewell to The Oven From Hell - a hideous beast with a dodgy thermostat which burnt everything that entered it - so I'm enjoying the novelty of having a contraption which actually works properly)

It's going to be a cash-strapped Christmas too (sounds like a C&W song...). I shall be indulging in some gift recycling I reckon, and if I'm very clever, I'll even manage to avoid giving someone back some of the useless crap they gave me the previous year...

On a poor at Christmas theme, the thing which has amazed me the most about the whole Farepak to-do is the amount of money people throw at one day of the year. Maybe I'm just a Scrooge (okay, no maybe about it), but it's all a bit of a waste. And just as I was wondering what sort of idiot trusts a private company with no financial protection scheme in place with all their dosh, it turns out my thick-as-pigshit sister got stung. Well whaddaya know...

and another thing...

...the words "Pringles" and "Gourmet" do not belong together

Oh for fuck's sake...

The X Factor.

The MacDonald Brothers.

Committing a massacre so horrendous that The Proclaimers were temporarily transported to a parallel world in which they are dead just so they could turn in their graves.

Jesus fucking wept.

STOP IT!

STOP IT NOW!!

A Warning

To anyone who has been prescribed Effexor (venlafaxine) by their doctor - if you haven't yet started on this drug, please talk to your doctor and see if there is an alternative you can take instead. I've been completely off it for a whole three days now, with a week-long withdrawal period beforehand, and trust me, the process of quitting it makes you question any good it may have done in the first place.

Worst.Withdrawal.Ever.

I'd say more, but frankly my brain is too damned addled to manage at the minute - as is often the case, Google is your friend.

This had better get better soon, or I'm going on a killing spree. Well, I would if I could leave the house...

That's what happens when you interrupt the washed-up comedian...

Cue slap bass...

Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Genealogy is a funny thing: it likes to mess with your preconceptions and cast new light on things you thought you knew. Who do you think you are indeed.
My great-grandmother was a lady called Rebecca Hunter Little. She married a fellow named Charles McDade in 1901. They had a family, and on the outbreak of what was to become the Great War, Charles enlisted. He died in the aftermath of the Battle of Loos, on 10th November 1915. In January 1919, Rebecca remarried, to a miner named Henry McKenna (though he was dead by the end of 1920) and they had a son named Samuel - my grandfather.

So if it hadn't been for the utterly pointless waste of millions of young men's lives and the near-ruination of a continent, I would never have been born. Not much of a silver lining really...



Notes:
The image above is from the film All Quiet On The Wetsern Front, adapted from the book by Erich Maria Remarque.

A radio adaptation of the play Not About Heroes, which documents the relationship between Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon can be heard for the remainder of this week at the BBC 7 listen again page (not sure whether or not this service works outside the UK)

Blimey...

Woo hoo with bells on!

...it was a very good day

Woo hoo!

Even woo hoo-er!

Some more woo hoo-ness!

A little bit of ha ha!

Adrienne Shelly 1966-2006

Sad, sad news...

*Update*
She was murdered...

A teenage Ecuadorean construction worker has admitted killing Adrienne Shelly, an actor who made her mark in films by Hal Hartley, in an angry exchange over noisy building renovations. Shelly, 40, who made her last appearance alongside Matt Dillon in last year's Factotum, was found dead last week in the Manhattan apartment that she used as an office.

Diego Pillco, 19, confessed under questioning that he fought with Shelly, tied a sheet around her neck, dragged her to the bathroom and hung her from the shower rod.

Beautifully Put

A review of the smug annoying presence that is Ray from the X Factor, courtesy of Talent in a Previous Life:

"This week is my week", he proclaimed smugly, as he slurred and mumbled his way through Ain't That a Kick in the Head with all the charm and grace of a tramp whose head kick has arrived thanks mainly to downing half a crate of babycham. Perhaps the problem was that he couldn't connect well enough with the song, maybe not understanding fully what a kick in the head would actually feel like. We urge anyone who passes him in the street to help him out by demonstrating to him exactly what it feels like. Feel free to do it as many times as you like if you don't feel he's quite got it yet.

There's no arguing with that really, is there?

Those wacky Russians..

Feeling down? Planning to end it all? Well stop right there, for the marvellous scientists of Siberia have the answer to your problems - all you need is a good whipping

"The absence of the will to live is caused with decreasing production of endorphins - the substance, which is known as the hormone of happiness. If a depressed individual receives a physical punishment, whipping that is, it will stir up endorphin receptors, activate the “production of happiness” and eventually remove depressive feelings."

Or, you know, you could go for a walk, that should get the endorphins going too...

More US Politics for ya

Wacky Adventures in Depression Part One

I definitely need to get out more...

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Blimey

No, not at all misleading and insulting...

I WILL become my mother...

OKCupid! The Would You Be A Great Avon Rep Test


Wahoo!!

You scored 79% greatness!

You rock, would be a great rep, and would probably have a blast doing it. There's no sense in selling something if you don't have fun, but I think you'd have great fun! Congrats on your greatness! :)

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 33% on greatness

Link: The Would You Be A Great Avon Rep Test written by kittybaby on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Well, that's handy, I apparently have the ability to follow in my mother's footsteps and flog toiletries to unsuspecting suburban housewives...
My maternal unit was an Avon Lady (I suspect they're less gender-specific these days) in the early 1980s, and my youthful make-up experiments were carried out utilising tiny lipstick samples and horrendous cream blusher sticks*.
Come to think of it, mother dearest still had some of her old samples kicking about in her bathroom last time I looked, together with her "hotel room toiletries of the world" collection, and stuff I left behind 6 years ago - the saying "it might come in handy" has a positively religious status with her.
There was also an Avon song at that time, which was issued on a red flexi-disk. Unfortunately I can't remember the words or tune, and it went mysteriously missing some years ago. Boo hiss.



*I also had some of the delightful Toyah make-up range, which retailed through the What Everyone Wants chain, and mainly seemed to feature the colour purple. No, not the book. I often wondered if Ms Wilcox actually had anything to do with it, or whether it was all a dreadful con. It's A Mystery indeed...

A snippet from the radio

The Scottish National Party are in the middle of their national conference at Perth Concert Hall. It sounds like a exciting event - according to a news report on Radio Scotland, one of the delegates accompanied a speech with a "thrilling Powerpoint presentation". Well I never...

Super Soaraway Pun

They may be evil (The Sun, that is - Kim Jong-Il is, of course, just Ronery), but they do have a way with a headline...

once more with feeling

How I suffer for you, dear readers. There I was last night, happily typing away, putting together words, links and pretty pictures to make up a new post when, several hours into the procedure, the blimmin' computer throws a tantrum, and my browser crashed. And I can't even blame Bill Gates, what with it being Firefox and all. I'm semi-convinced the PC can tell when I'm writing something that I've neglected to save, and does it all just to spite me. But never mind, what follows is a cobbled together version of what that post would have been....

The scenario is thus: despite being financially embarrassed I spent a whole ten pounds on some DVDs from a local Bargain Books store. The fabulous three for a tenner offer still left a lot of decision-making to do, as the selection included the following titles.

The Giant Gila Monster

A horrific tale of a giant lizard-like creature terrorising a small town. Cutting edge special effects really bring home the terror of the tale, as this review shows:

This is accomplished by showing the person, then the normal sized lizard on a scale model table, then the person screaming, and finally a clawed foot descending on the camera.

Also available was the same director's The Killer Shrews, the titular monsters played by dogs dressed up in carpet cut-offs, and the Roger Corman produced Attack of the Giant Leeches.

Mr Wong in Chinatown

Leaving the monsters behind, a fine selection of detective movies also put in an appearance. There were a few of Boris Karloff's Mr Wong films (yes of course a British actor can play a Chinese-American character, it's 1939! Some make-up here, some tape there - what do you mean it's racist... If it's any consolation, by the end of the series our hero was being played by Keye Luke, perhaps best known to you as Charlie Chan's number one son. Or perhaps not, your mileage may vary)

Naturally, Sherlock Holmes, in the form of the marvellous Basil Rathbone, was available, both in single DVDs and in a box-set, and a Warren-Beatty-and-Madonna-less Dick Tracy was quite tempting...


Gorilla Nabonga

But who needs a detective when you've got a gorilla? And not just any gorilla, but one played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, fondly remembered, by me at least, for the serial Undersea Kingdom? It gets even better - the star is Larry "Buster" Crabbe, famous for playing Tarzan, Flash Gordon, AND Buck Rogers! Exciting, no? But having said that, the film itself appears to be the standard jungle romp, and once you've seen one action hero wrestle with a toy lion, you've seen them all really...





The Ape Man

No, if a gorilla movie is to pass muster, it needs another important feature too - the mad scientist. If possible the deranged anti-hero should be played by a down-on-his-luck legend of Hollywood horror like, say, Bela Lugosi. By 1943, the silver screen's first Dracula (if you don't count Max Schreck in Nosferatu, that is) was reduced to parodying his earlier successes in low-budget features for the likes of Monogram Studios. Worse was still to come for Lugosi, but as this review at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting puts it:

The Ape Man is too forthright about its "ah, who cares - it's only a horror movie" attitude to elicit the same species of awed wonder from an audience as Bride of the Monster or Glen or Glenda, but in its mercenary way, it is no less crappy than either of those films, and no fan of Bela Lugosi at his most debased should miss it.

The Ape

Unlikely as it sounds, The Ape Man wasn't the best gorilla film on offer. It wasn't even the best mad scientist with a gorilla movie. And even more specific, it was trumped on the "mad scientist starts killing people to get access to human spinal fluid, utilising a gorilla to do so" stakes. Now what were the chances? The Ape appeared three years before The Ape Man, and stars Boris Karloff. Even in his lowliest features, Karloff always somehow brought a quiet dignity to his parts, so that alone would have elevated this film over the competition in my eyes. And as an extra bonus, the gorilla is once again portrayed by Ray Corrigan

The Secret Agent

This one was pretty much a no-brainer. 1. It's Hitchcock 2. I didn't already have it, and, indeed, haven't even seen it. 3.It's Hitch does spies! See also The 39 Steps for why this is a Good Thing 4. Peter Lorre is in it. Possibly my very favourite screen villain (undoubtedly my favourite portrayer of a German child-killer), Lorre is never anything less than mesmerising on screen.

Keystone Comedies

A selection of short films from Mack Sennett's studio, starring two of the premier comedic talents of the teens, Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. I still haven't seen any of Mabel's films, so this should help get me on track a little more. As is often the way these days, we know more about the lives of the silent stars than we (in most cases) have the opportunity to view their work. Arbuckle is perhaps served the worst of all by this - nowadays his name is mainly remembered in relation to a trumped up charge of which he was wholly innocent, but thanks to the likes of a certain Mr Anger, gossip and rumour has more life than do the facts.

Woo! Extras!

Stop the presses, I bought some more. My sources told me to check out a secret chamber deep within a local DVD rental store, whereupon untold treasure would thrill and delight me... or something like that, anyway. So, for the bargain sum of £1.99, I am now the proud owner of a 3-film disc with Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood (described here as "a crazy comedic beatnik slasher flick" - sold to the lady in the hat!), Vincent Price and his moustache hamming it up in House on Haunted Hill, and Mr Karloff once more in the long-thought-lost The Ghoul.

Ooh, spooky....

Can you tell what it is yet?

On TV at the minute:

Back and to the left...

Back and to the left...

Back and to the left...

Fear The Groke

Jarvis Cocker wants to know your nominations for top scary music. My suggestion? Why, The Moomins, of course. And now one can buy the DVD at long last, how delightful...

I'm going, honest...

But first, I simply must share this masterpiece



I know it's by schoolkids, and it's a bit cruel to mock and all...

But!

Look! The evil turrists made the eagle cry!!!!!!!!11111

Bad girl, naughty girl...

I'm sure I can't be the only one who, upon seeing a headline Top Gear presenter seriously hurt in crash crossed their fingers and thought "let it be Clarkson"?

Anyway, off to bed I go, having spent a large portion of the day in the Kingdom of Loathing. Eight new zones! And Porktober 8th! All on one day! It's all just too too exciting...

Smother me in Vicks and pour me a Benylin

As you may or may not have worked out from the post title, I'm nae weel. I have a cold. Or the flu. Or a raging fever which is almost certainly leading to my imminent death, depending on the level of hypochondria present at any given moment.

The one good thing about my tragic affliction is that I've now gotten around to finishing a couple of books I've been "reading" (i.e. started, got distracted, in danger of forgetting what had gone before - a short attention span is a terrible thing) for a while: Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats. Possibly my favourite bit in the latter goes as follows:

I'm not sure at what stage during the day we spent together Guy decided that I wasn't an Islamic terrorist. Perhaps it was when I discovered that his daughter danced with Richard Gere in the movie Chicago and I screeched, 'Catherine Zeta-Jones was brilliant in it!'
Even a deep-cover al-Qaeda terrorist wouldn't think to go that fey.

A less-than good side-effect of the sniffles is that my sleep patterns are now totally awry. I was already heading for a direct day-for-night swap in any case, so I'm not sure what I'll end up with now. But never mind, as long as I actually get some sleep, the hour at which it chooses to bless me is not that important.

I usually drift off to sleep with the radio on - which reminds me, I've got a rant overdue regarding a certain hokey American fellow who befouls Saturdays on BBC7 - and I hope that Sunday evening on Radio 4 had some feature or other relating to Eastern Europe, itchy wool, beds, and/or tin baths. Though come to think of it, I've had the tin bath section of that dream before.

It's a real thriller: I'm shopping with my parents, and I spot some cheap tin baths. The cheapest of the lot is shaped like a shell, higher at one side than the other, but when I try it out for size, it has so many awkward contours that it's pretty much impossible to use. The other bath to catch my attention is a lovely blue colour, and has a semi-hooded top, kind of like an old fashioned pram shape. Unfortunately, this design is peculiarly short, meaning that you have to sit with knees bent, all the while risking bumping your head on the hood. Fascinating, no?

And just in case anyone is wondering (well, you never know), the shopping trip then extended to a series of beds made by assorted Eastern European firms, all of which were extremely uncomfortable. Espscially the ones made with rough Bulgarian wool. One of these days I'll have a dream where something exciting actually happens...

I always suspected that Thunderbirds were evil...

The Thick Of It

Here at heavens to betsie, we're not afraid to tackle the big issues, risking controversy and opprobrium in search of the major stories. And today is no different, for this is one of the most contentious subjects in the world today -




Yes, that's right, it's the thorny matter of sliced bread thickness.

I may as well begin by stating that I personally favour a substantial slice, a preference which has only been intensified by, on recent shopping trips, facing near-empty shelves with only the dreaded so-called "medium" sliced loaves remaining.

The main problems with this dubious product seem to me to be as follows:

1. When preparing a sandwich, anything more than the lightest of touches with the spread and/or filling of your choice results in the bread ripping apart. As the whole point of the average sandwich is to contain other ingredients within the outer bread layer, this is clearly a fatal flaw. Medium sliced bread just isn't sturdy enough to cope.

2. Toast, that perennial breakfast favourite and student/cheapskate staple food, is at it's best when the crunchy outer layer contrasts with the soft fluffy texture of the bread's interior. With medium slices, this effect is minimised, leaving a tougher, less satisfying snack. Not only that, but the damn stuff takes less time to toast, what with there being less of it and all, so unless you're a cleverclogs genius who remembers to turn down the setting, you'll end up with too-brown toast. Hard, burnt bread. Yum.

3. Toastie making can become a health hazard, as, when making any variety involving cheese (and as all right-thinking people know, you can never have enough cheese), the flimsy medium slice has the bizarre habit of leaking cheese not just at the edges, but right through the bread itself. Third degree burns are definitely Not a Good Thing.

And yet, people buy the darned stuff - according to this site, three of the top five selling brands in the UK are medium sliced. So have I got it all wrong? Is bread meant to fall apart when you try to use it for anything? Am I just a nutcase with bizarre taste? Even more than normal, that is?

Answers on a (suitably sturdy) postcard please...

RIP Vladimir Tretchikoff

How to...

Mmm, salmony, beetrooty goodness...

Monkeying Around

I'd be recommending this Spiegel article on title alone - The Two Apes within Us: Hippy Sex Fiends and Brutal Machiavellians - but it turns out it's actually interesting too. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's chimptastic (yeah, yeah, I'll just go shoot myself now...)

Ryanair have acquired a sense of humour...

You know it makes sense...

Don't be so mean to poor Aisleyne

So, Big Brother. If you want to know what I think about the whole former housemates coming back twist, just go and read this post from Grace Dent's Big Brother blog. In fact, read the whole thing from Day One onwards, she's amazingly spot-on about most things BB-related. Her only bad point is that she shares a first name with the water-throwing hypocritical bully in the House Next Door.

The Big Brother producers like every series to have a cast of stereotypical characters for us to variously love and loathe: there's the Funny Camp Man (Brian, Marco, Richard); the Person On A "Journey" (Nadia, to acceptance, Glyn, to adulthood); the Thick But Lovable Blonde (Helen, Jade, Nikki); and of course, the Villain (Nick, Stuart, Victor and Jason, Makosi). It is this latter role that has been assigned to Aisleyne. Highlights show edits, the prejudices of the various spin-off show hosts, and the barbed, self-serving comments of former housemates have all demonstrated this. The Digital Spy forum has descended into its usual name-calling state of war on the subject, and I'm not braving the txtspk of the Channel 4 forums to check, but I'm guess there's a whole heap of bile to be found therein.

Unfortunately for them all, the target just isn't evil enough for the label given to her. As far as I can tell, Aisleyne's main crimes seem to be that she looks a bit rough first thing in the morning, that she has had different moods throughout her time in the house, and she expresses her opinions, which she is capable of changing. These last two apparently make her "fake" and "two-faced". Or, as most rational people would call it, having a multi-faceted personality, doubting your own decisions, and showing some vague degree of depth. How awful of her, she must be publicly humiliated a la Makosi last year! Oh, and I almost forgot, some people dislike her choice of underwear. Clearly a case for a lynch mob then...

As for the show presenters, I've been of the opinion that Davina McCall is a liablility since at least BB4 (the Federico interview springs to mind). Gurning for the camera and asking such cutting-edge questions of the evictees as "where did you buy your boots", bizarrely feting some dull-as-ditchwater housemates while displaying open hostility towards others - these are Davina's trademarks, and by golly, do they make for an irritating show. Give the main show to a clearly bored and disillusioned Dermot O'Leary, and send McCall off to do more marvellous hair dye adverts (watermelon red, that's her favourite). And as for Russell Brand, Big Brother's Big Mouth isn't so much about the Endemol encampment as an excuse for his increasingly tired routines. For thsoe who haven't seen the show, here's a condensed version -

such-as-such's opinions are so whatever - pulled down my trousers and pants - cut off guest mid sentence - quick spin - ballbags - sit on someone's knee - little Paul Scholes - bwye luvoo luvoo - nice to condescend the audience, 'citing - the swines!

But never mind, there's not long to go now, and hopefully the Fickle British Public will realise that Aisleyne is a nice person and a damn good BB contestant, Davina will have an extended career break after her latest pregnancy, and Mr Brand will work out some new schtick for next year.

The End Is Nigh?

Is it National Take The Grandkids To The Park Day, or are there just a large number of pensioner IVF couples and/or kidnapping geriatric paedophiles round my way?

On the subject of old folks, I had a birthday on Sunday, and my age is starting to catch up with me. Not so very long ago, I was being accused of looking 19 (and I was only 18 at the time as well, boom tish), but I think it's safe to say those days are past. Nasty little lines are starting to appear around my eyes, and years of retail fake-smiling have resulted in creases around the mouth (not on a Billie Piper scale, but then I don't have hamster cheeks and a gob the size of a small country either...). I think I'd better hunt out the moisturiser again.

So I'm doomed, but what about humanity? That's what Stephen Hawking wanted to know, and he's given his own solution now too: in summary, "er, I don't know, let's all go to space!". Yep, that's a good idea, if you make one planet uninhabitable, just bugger off to another one. Naughty humans, if you don't stop polluting, there'll be no pudding for you! Personally I rather liked the solution a listener to BBC Five Live's Drive show yesterday came up with - the way to save humankind is via a Blue Peter Appeal (and perhaps sticky-backed plastic could be utilised to patch the ozone layer together).

to dope or not to dope

Back in a previous life, when watching it on British TV didn't involve rabid insomnia and a satellite dish, I used to follow the Tour de France. Which means that the mixed fortunes of Floyd Landis are no huge surprise (well, would you go through that most gruelling of physical challenges without some kind of chemical support?)
Maybe the organisers could take a hint from the 1988 race when the winner faced a similar problem.
Or perhaps they should just bite the bullet and let the cyclists use whatever they want - after all there have been enough fatalities, health scares and unusually young deaths over the years for the current crop of riders to know the possible risks they face. The debate goes on...

Making "Oi'd do everyting to you" look like a work of genius...

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

And what exactly are these "12-10s" that Aisleyne has anyway?

*STOP THE PRESSES*
Apparently Spoiral was merely admiring Aisleyne's fancy slide rule thingummy. So now we know...

A rhetorical question

Would conducting a Rorschach inkblot test using menstrual blood tell you more than the results ever possibly could?

According to Tickle, this is me:

Your subconscious mind is driven most by Reserve

You approach the world with reserve because unconsciously, and perhaps consciously, you like to be in control. You keep your emotions to yourself and you may seem mysterious or enigmatic to others.

You're often very cautious about truly expressing yourself. Even people who have known you for some time may find it hard to get close to you.

Your psyche is very deep and rich; the more you learn about it, the more you will understand who you really are.

I'd tell you if it was accurate or not, but that wouldn't be very enigmatic, would it?

Baha'i You scored 25 Angst, 30 Weirdness, and 37 Freedom!

As religious sects go, the Baha'i are very benign. They believe that all of the main prophets of the major world religions were sent by the same God, and that their prophet, Baha'u'llah, was only the most recent. Members of this faith promote racial harmony, ecumenicalism, and world peace. Their desire for harmony means that they abhore debate, however, and questioning doctrine is generally frowned upon. http://www.bahai.org/

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 26% on Angst You scored higher than 33% on Weirdness You scored higher than 8% on Freedom

Link: The Which Cult Should You Join? Test written by MyPoMoLife on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Grrrrrrr

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I consider the following behaviour to be Bad Form:

When at the supermarket checkout, leaning on the belt thingy behind your own shopping, thus preventing the next person from unloading their stuff;

Once your goods have been rung up, standing examining the receipt then realising that you were too damn stupid to pick up the right buy one get one free offer, requiring an assistant to run around and do your shopping for you properly and holding up the queue;

Waiting until all this time has passed to fumble around counting out all your loose change.

Some of us were in a hurry, you feckin eejit....

RIP Syd....

You know what?

I should get up early more often, it seems to agree with me.

Although, technically speaking, I didn't get up, I'm still up. Near as...

Desperately Seeking...

Are you an England footlball fan?
Were you at the game against Portugal?
Are you the owner of the flag positioned near the corner, proudly emblazoned with the words MINGE and TWAT?
If so, any chance of a photo of said item?
It certainly livened up the game, that's for sure...

Not waving but...

I appear to have fallen off the planet somewhat of late - 2/10, must try harder...

Normal service will be resumed shortly, but in the meantime, here's a picture of the world's most ugly shoes. Just because.

Scotland's World Cup Hero

So there's some football tournament going on in Germany, Ing-ger-land are there, and they're obsessed with someone called Rue Knee (or something like that). But we don't care about that up here in Scotland, because we're there too!



This young gent is Jason Scotland, St Johnstone striker and Trinidad and Tobago squad member, and he's the latest cult hero north of the border. Because, right, his surname is Scotland, so it's as if the country is at the World Cup, geddit?!?!?!?!?!? Yes, I know, but when your national team is as dismal as ours, straw-clutching is as good as it gets.

It's all rather amusing though. He's currently starring in an advertising campaign for Scotland's other national drink, Irn Bru, and has even been immortalised in song by the Trinidad and Tobago Tartan Army (you can hear it via the Scottish Quest "How Scottish Are You" Quiz). The fact that T&T are lining up against England today doesn't hurt of course, what with the traditional teams supported by many being Scotland, and whoever England are playing (it's all the meeja's fault, honestly, the overkill can be downright unbearable).

Right, back to the football, after all there's important England team talk and English-based player discussion to listen to while watching Costa Rica play Ecuador...