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30th May I watched the worst film I've seen since "Love Actually" on Monday night. It may be the worst film ever made (since "Love Actually"). Despite having the best young British comedy actors not to have become really successful, I'm not actually sure whether it was meant to be a comedy or not. True, it was too absurd to have been meant as drama but the complete lack of understanding as to how comedy works makes me wonder. Take the nudists - is there any reason to have nudists in a comedy film unless something humorous is done with their nudism? Possibly the old just-when-you-think-you'll-see-something-they-put-something-in-front-of-the-camera gag or maybe something a touch more original. What you don't want is Robert Webb and Olivia Coleman just standing round in the buff. Robert Webb - funny man. Robert Webb's cock - not funny. I know Jimmy Carr divides people but (having only seen his stand up work) I think he is hilarious. Sadly, he hadn't written his own script here and he did absolutely nothing. He was on camera a lot and had lots of lines but you could've hired Mick Higgins to play the part and no one would've noticed the difference. Even the style of the film was pointless - why do what appeared to be a fly on the wall documentary if you don't use that technique to drive out some laughs? There have been numerous examples of the genre over the past twenty years and the one thing the successful ones never did was just forget that it is a film within a film except when they needed a character to address the camera and give a bit of exposition. The characters were extremely bland - in a competition style movie you need heels and faces. Goodies and baddies. You need to basically care who wins. Here you had a mildly unpleasant pair who had enough sympathy time to make you sort of like them, a bland couple of naturists and a plain couple who had a vague interest in musicals. It was sixty minutes of mumbling and meandering and nothing, then thirty minutes of choreographed wedding "wackiness". One of the three wedding sketches tried to make tennis funny (they had one good joke - the surprise appearance of a Cliff Richard look-a-like - but it was telegraphed ten minutes earlier when someone TOLD US IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN). The second wedding was mushy pap WITH NUDITY. And the third was a straight song and dance number. As in an old style song and dance routine not in any way played for any laughs. The sort of thing that died out in the 50s and which Eric and Ernie spoofed for many happy years. A total waste of time. But - having looked it up on IMDb - I see why.
So nothing happened and none of the characters had personalities because no one wrote a fucking script. "Anything could happen" but it didn't. As Robert Webb has subsequently said,
Too fucking right. I've seen your cock, Rob, but I still respect your opinion. Sarah Silverman on the other hand is startlingly original and funny. She's an incredibly good looking young woman who does the most offensive material in vaguely mainstream American comedy and does it with a deadpan delivery and then just a hint of a cute smile.
Today's insight into m'colleagues and their existence beyond the confines of a block of 1980s architecture runs like this.
29th May It's here. After two and a half months of pilots, the daily show has arrived. Ahoy hoy...
27th May You'll have to forgive the recent lack of updates - it's been one of those lifeless weeks which happens from time to time. I've been generally unable/unwilling to move and have just sat around listening to Danny Baker or watching Peep Show. What little energy I've had has gone on finding cool things to do with my SmartPhone (I think I've finally worked out where to put MP3 files so Windows recognises them as potential event sounds). I've also been playing with Google Calendar and getting it to send text messages to remind me of events. There is a whole world of Web 2.0 services (according to an article I'm flipping through in PC Utilities magazine) and most of them appear to be (a) backed by reputable companies (if one considers AOL and their ilk to be reputable that is) and (b) too good to be true. I nearly didn't get the magazine though - there was a cockmuncher stood right in front of the computer magazines in WHS who kept being there every time I walked past. He had one of those beards which makes you want to scrub his face with Veet. He wouldn't go away. The only time he changed position over the course of twenty minutes was when he started leaning on the shelf to make himself more comfortable. He literally could not have been any more in the way if he'd tried. Not that I'm suggesting he wasn't trying - he looked like the sort who would consider the chance to read a magazine for nothing to be further enriched only if he could inconvenience other people while doing it. Eventually, after I'd procrastinated enough, wandered round the store and found where they were hiding the Spiderman 3 stickers (for my nephew before you ask), I gave up and tried to reach round him. Needless to say he moved not a muscle. Either Veet or acid now I come to think of it. What a prick. Hasn't it gone cold all of a sudden? Listening to Danny Baker on Beebeeceeradiolondonninetyfourpointnine (as the station's dutiful employees call it every single time) has reminded me how obnoxious London's local news is. I know local news is always a bit weird but it is usually charming. London news isn't charming. I can't quite put my finger on why but it really annoys me. If I could be arsed I suppose I'd edit it all out of the MP3s so I could forget all about it but I won't. The only thing worse than the news is the trailers for the "Anthem for London 2012" competition which they are (or were) running. A cockney wanker inviting people to write a song for the Olympics (that's one of things that annoys me actually - they're already banging on about the Games on a daily basis and they are FIVE YEARS away). They played some of the finalists. They were shite. Speaking of trailers, I noticed yesterday that there were SIX items between the end of the previous programme and the start of Doctor Who. Four trailers for other programmes, one clip-fest of things to come later in the evening (including Doctor Who which would already have started if they weren't banging on about stuff) and one advert for a BBC digital channel. Add to that a twenty second station ident (men on motorbikes or people arsing around with kites - something that serves only to remind the television watcher that they are missing out on virtually everything life has to offer) and you pretty much have a commercial break on an ad-free station. But the episode was very good and I could fast forward through the detritus so it was fine really. We are three seasons in now and the pattern is clear - each series has three two-part stories. One of which is really awesomely good (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances in series 1, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit in series 2 and now Human Nature/Part 2 of Human Nature in series 3), one of which is insultingly bad drivel (the Slitheen one, the Cybermen one and this year the Dalek one) and the big finale which gets you all excited but which is ultimately shallow and disappointing. Human Nature had everything you'd want really - an intriguing premise, a well chosen cast, a bit of humour, solid pacing, Martha looking cute and probably the best in-joke we're had so far in the New Series. All good stuff. Jessica Stevenson has changed her name. Who knew? It's the (latest) Big Fight tonight. Well, last night but only for those paying forty dollars for the privilege. Chuck vs Rampage. On the one hand, Chuck is pretty much unbeatable. On the other hand, this is the year of the upset and Rampage isn't as much of an outsider as Serra, Henderson or Gonzaga. On the other hand, Chuck only lost to Rampage in 2005 because he was fighting with a torn quad. On the other hand, some of Chuck's recent media appearances have suggested he's living life a little large for a professional athlete in his late 30s. I seem to have too many hands but at least it means the fight has some intrigue about it. But so did Chuck vs Babaloo and we all know how that turned out. I hope Rampage wins - not only because I've never really liked Liddell but also because it gives us so many fresh matches. I'm picking Chuck inside the first round. Another update, another adorable picture.
20th May I blame the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not for last night's Doctor Who (with its Adams-inspired (possibly) or at least Adams-esque title) because I haven't watched it yet. But because it introduced the concept of having a MASSIVE amount of information in a hand held gadget. So it was only a matter of time before the potential of my SmartPhone became clear. I could hold the sum total of human knowledge (give or take a few measly facts that no one really cares about) in the palm of my hand. With a 2Gb micro SD card (which is so unfathomably small that I can't quite believe it isn't a shard of plastic that came loose in the post and that they forgot to put the real memory card in the little plastic box), the Concise OED and Thesaurus and an application which places the whole of Wiki (off line rather than expensively online) at my thumb-tip, I'm now as close to realising my childhood goal as I could possibly be. Maybe I should edit the HHGTTG radio series so I can add Peter Jones's voice to the whole tragic ensemble. Of course, something had to go wrong and that something is the singular lack of an unlock code for the encyclopaedia. It was supposed to come "within two minutes" of the transaction but it has been four hours now and nothing has appeared. Ok so I'm getting a bit cross with the garage now. I left a message on Monday for them to send me my FUCKING cheque and they promised they'd call back by the end of the week. For all I know, they may have done so but using the wrong number. Over the months I've been dealing with them I've given them home, work, old mobile and new mobile and I feel confident that if they have been calling at all, they have been picking the wrong number every time. I'm not a massively hard person to track down so it takes some doing. I've still got the "Customer Experience" questionnaire to fill in and - because I can be hard as nails when I wanna be - I'm considering a couple of "fairs" or maybe even a "fairly dissatisfied" or two. Fear me. So that is a pain in the backside. Although I would barely notice it as my back has been killing me this week. From the symptoms it feels like sciatica. Agony in the lower back, shooting pains down both legs (mainly the left) and the hips of someone who has taken an awful lot of bumps. Add to that the brain shivers and recent borderline narcolepsy and you find your correspondent not in the best of states. I have been explaining Doctor Who to m'lil nephew. It started when he kept calling Martha "The new Rose" - not because she was a character filling the Rose slot but because he really believed that Rose had regenerated into Martha. That took several weeks (and Virgin Media's on demand repeats) to take hold. Today we got on to the thorny problem of the character not actually being called "Doctor Who". Since this is something the media, the general public and most of the acting profession have never quite understood it would be a feat and a half if I got it into the mind of a six year old. But I am always (sometimes) up for a challenge and I think he sort of more or less understands it now. Not that he is alone when it comes to believing common misconceptions. His mother and father both work for Virgin Media and they mentioned in passing how everyone at the company hates Richard Branson and "he must be regretting buying it now". I was too busy on the aforementioned serious questions to set them straight but Branson didn't buy ntl: - it was actually the other way around. They bought Virgin Mobile and paid him in shares. So he's now got the largest single shareholding in VM and they licence the name from him. All of which is entirely irrelevant except that I think he is a great man (having read a couple of his books which may not necessarily count as objective sources) and compared with just about every other corporate executive in, say, the entire world he is someone who actually gives a damn about his staff and doesn't just see them as numbers, resources, headcount or any of the other dehumanising terms which those at the top blindly use when referring to anyone who would lose out when management fucks up rather than profiting from it. But enough of that sub-leftist rhetoric, I'll leave you with an anecdote which was retold at our last pizza nigh. There is a strange little man - we'll call him Bobby because his parents didn't - who works on one of the customer services teams. For his birthday, his team mates clubbed together and got him a present - a nice, leather belt. Bobby said he liked it and would wear it the next day. Sure enough he came in with his new belt round his waist. Only he hadn't put it through the loops on his trousers. Over the course of the day, the belt got higher and higher up his torso until it was wrapped around his chest like a heart monitor. No one had the heart to tell him and he didn't seem to notice. His mother must've said something that evening and he never wore his new belt again. I don't know if there is a similar tie story but he is the only person I ever see with a buttoned up shirt and no tie. Maybe he tried one once and by lunchtime it made him look like Rambo.
12th May The car experience gets better and better. Having waited four weeks for the car, I've since waited three weeks for the "cash back" cheque they owe me. This morning it finally arrived and was FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS short. I rang the showroom, the guy said the other guy would call me back and, nine hours later, he hasn't. I've decided that the only thing to do is lie on the porch with "WELCOME" painted on my face. Not that Ford are alone in being useless - I myself have moments. I realised yesterday that I'd had one when I tried to fit my new mini SD card into my new phone. It looked too big when I took it from the box. It looked too big when I tried to work out where to put it. It was, to be brief, too big. Because what I actually need is a MICRO SD card. Who knew? Mini is apparently the middle sized memory card. So I've had to order another card and will have to wait another week to have gigabytes of storage in my phone. I did manage to do something vaguely clever this week - the BBC website has a "listen again" player which lets you (quite literally) listen to things, possibly again. It won't however let you download the shows to keep forever. Since I am a hoarder and cannot bear the ephemeral delights of only hearing or seeing something once, I wanted a way around this act of restriction. It took me until gone 1am to unravel the thing but I think I have finally cracked it and can now download and keep Danny Baker's BBC London show. They are in .ra format but I have a converter (listed here) so should be able to listen to them in iTunes and on m'pod. And finally, thanks to The Internet, I bring you the greatest phone call in the history of the Baker and Kelly partnership. Possibly radio as a whole. It was 1996 and I've not heard it for many, many years but I remembered it almost word-for-word.
9th May We got some bad - but not entirely unexpected - news on Tuesday. KFD is moving to Canada with his fiancé. He's only been with us since January and he fits in well. We don't know if he'll be replaced but part of me hopes he won't. There isn't anyone who stands out as being suitable and the risk of getting a twat is too great. M'self and TheArtist worked well as a duo (some say pair) for five months and can do so again if necessary. With luck we could turn it to our advantage and get the business to accept more responsibility for things. And at least it keeps up the streak - in the eighteen months that our department has been together, three people have left us and all three have done so to move to other countries (Scotland counts as another country doesn't it?) So we can't be that bad if no where else in England can compete. My new phone continues to please me. I found a page of tech specs and it turns out it has a slightly faster processor than my first PC had back in 1998. The only drawbacks I've found are (a) I can't get it to synch with Outlook, (b) it doesn't have wifi support (which I wasn't expecting as they make money from overpriced WAP so why would they let you use your own wireless internet connection for nothing?) and (c) Windows Mobile 5.0 doesn't come with a built in text editor. So you can read text files but you can't create or edit them. Which isn't great so I bought my first mobile app - a well featured editor which means I can jot down those vital thoughts without using the calendar or to-do lists. On the one hand it is slightly galling to pay ten dollars for Notepad but on the other it is only ten dollars for something that will be extremely useful. Probably. Now all I need is for my 1gb memory card to arrive and I can start doing more stuff. Not sure what but "stuff" probably covers it. Oh and I need to find Maplin so I can get s 2.5mm / 3.5mm adapter plug. That'll be useful too. Oh go on then - here is another picture of Banana. This time an action shot - licking the remains of a Jaffa Cake from her cheek.
I think we can all agree that the Premiership has been won by the right team this season. Whatever you may think of Chelsea - funded as they are by a man who raped the post Soviet economy during a turbulent spell when the greed of a few crippled the largest country on earth and left it in the hands of organised crime and untouchable oligarchs for generations to come - United have played the best football this season and deserve to be at the top o' the mountain. Ronaldo has been the most exciting player since Henry was at his best, Giggs and Scholes have proven that class is forever and Wayne Rooney has reminded us that not all footballers are only in it for the money - some just genuinely want to play football. Here is something for football fans, straight ladies and gay gentlemen to enjoy.
Yes - it's Paul Scholes, Darren Fletcher and Rio Ferdinand with some nekkid bloke in the way. And I leave you with a story from a Danny Baker show I found on a torrent site. It features Chris Evans recounting a tale about his former wife Billie Piper.
6th May I'm not - as you probably know - a mobile phone person. I can see the usefulness of them as devices but loathe the "culture" which surrounds them. Stupid people using them while driving. Stupid people paying a fortune for stupid ringtones which they then let play in full before answering it because they think they're great. Stupid people who walk out of work with their noses buried in their phones because the messages that follow may be vital to the future of us all. Stupid people having stupid conversations in otherwise quiet places. Stupid people paying three quid for stupid wallpapers which could be knocked up in ten seconds with even the most basic of image editors. I hate that absolutely everything to do with mobiles is a rip off. I find conversations about them boring, I find looking at other people's boring. I have one because it occasionally comes in useful. But it is a means to an end and nothing more. Except that I got a new one this week. It was too good to miss - a combination Microsoft PDA, camera, video, digital radio and media player. I like m'gadgets and found mobiles were too dull to be interesting. They concentrated too much on pointless aesthetics and not enough on useful stuff. My Lobster - for it has a stupid name - does everything a phone needs to do, lets me ignore all the pointless flippery that others obsess over and gives me lots of useful things to play with. Here is a picture of it displaying the TV guide.
And here is why I wanted a digital camera that I'd always have with me - it's a picture of mother's sofa with someone standing in front of it. Or, comical banter aside, it is a picture of my lovely little Banana playing with a pair of earphones.
She's not known as Banana because she's always dressed in yellow. Honest. I've decided - not for the first time in my life - to stop taking my medication. I've been taking this stuff for six months now and the overall effect hasn't been positive. I've been dopey, bordering on the incoherent at times and prone to worrying bouts of confusion. I can fall asleep almost anywhere (and do), it hasn't even dented the anxiety attacks, I have plenty of fresh scars and there was the small matter of a suicide attempt. So on the whole I don't think they're doing any good. Hopefully, the effects of a clearer head, less car anxiety, more daylight and a new Omega 3 supplement will give some positive results over the next six months. And I'll have lots of photos and videos of Banana and m'little nephew to carry around with me to remind me that not everything is horrible. |
 
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