Why hello there my little Slights-of-Hand.
Yesteryesterday I went to Manchester. It was a pretty impulsive thing to do. I like doing impulsive things. Indeed, I often feel like I have a duty to do impulsive things when I consider all the people in the world who are stuck with loads of committments and responsibilities and all that lame stuff, surely if I have the ability shake off all my plans and head over to Manchester with little over an hours notice, then I should. Otherwise I'd be like one of those flightless birds, being envied for my possession of wings yet never actually bringing myself to use them.
So off I popped, over to Manchester. I was the honoured guest of a certain Mr Luke McLeod, (whom I had very recently deleted as a friend from Facebook on account of I couldn't remember the last time I spoke/saw/remembered him - which made me feel a peculiarly 21st Century style of guilt). We went to see films, (me, Luke and his other honoured guestette, and loyal commentee of this blog, Sarah), the first film we went to watch was Be Kind Rewind, directed by the super-fun Michel Gondry, and starring the coolly-stagenamed Mos Def and the overrated Jack Black. This was a really good film, especially the scenes showing them reenacting classic films, ('what's this turning thing? huh? what? how is that supposed to be Men in Black? oh-OH! I see... that's clever!). The film was smile-enducing, yet not schmultzy, which equals a win in my books! The viewing was somewhat ruined however by the gaggle of dump-faced shitscapaders right behind us who would just not shut the fuck up - they eventually got thrown out but not before we missed what were probably some very important plot points.
The second film we saw was Jumper, now, I know I have a tendency to be quite lenient in my reviews of things, but Jumper was absolutely terrible and I have no reservations in stressing that point. Firstly, the origins of the powers were never really explained, which they should have been - that's one of the essential rules of the Superhero genre - all it says is that there have been Jumpers around since the Middle Ages, (as you would expect, it was pretty cold back then and people wanted to keep themselves warm! A word of advice, if you see this film, take the piss everytime someone uses the word 'jumper'), and that every since they emerged they had been hunted by rapid Papists... seeing as the Jumpers only weakness, as it happens, is huge amounts of electricity, I do wonder how 14th Century monks managed to kill any of them...
Ultimately, the film suffers from Captain Scarlet-syndrome, i.e. the inability to convince you that any of the characters are actually in any kind of palpable danger. Scarlet was completely industructible, and no matter how many times an episode would cliffhang with someone would point a gun at him, everyone but the most moronic of idiots would know that he would be perfectly fine by next week - the same with this film, the Jumpers always see the Paladins, (that's what the baddies are called... I know, its stupid...), coming, and its always cockiness on their part that stops them from disappearing at the first sign of danger.
Which led to another problem. You want the heroes dead. They're all a bunch of annoying twats, swanning around having all the fun in the world... they're not even antiheroic, they're just annoying. It almost makes me wish that Hollywood's recent vogue for casting Catholics as sinister murderous conspirators were true... as far as I see it, the Papacy is clearly the lesser of two evils here.
So, went back to Luke's flat, watched Ricky Gervais' new stand-up, (its not very good), and I went to sleep on an erotically hard floor. The next day I went to go take the train back home. Alas, my platform at the station was closed, so I had to go ask the Mancunians how to get home - unfortunately, all Mancunians are rude little tosspots and told me in their snarly little nasal voices to go get on the wrong rail replacement bus. So then I was stuck at the Airport, where another gobshite told me to wait for another half hour for another bus.
Anyway, I eventually got onto my train and decided to put my Open Return to good use: by stopping off at every station of interest. So yesterday I had a quick wander-round both Bolton and Chorely, ('Comin' In Your Ears', it alarmed me to learn, is actually the town of Chorley's unofficial motto).
Bolton was alright. There was a gay bar right by the train station, but it was shut. Further into the town they had a working replica of the first steam-driven machine ever run in Bolton, I stopped to look at it for a bit and read the plaques. While I was doing so, a group of 14ish-year old girls accumulated around me and their leader asked me, "Why are you looking at that wheel?"
I replied, (and this is a reply I'm actually quite proud of), "Because I've never seen it before."
The girls then went on to request shaggings. It was at that point when I politely made my exit.
Chorely was also alright. Its actually quite beorgeois, especially by Northern standards. I found a bar that was completely empty - not just slightly empty, but completely empty.
If I had to chose where was best, (which I do), I guess I probably would pick Bolton...
Monday 25 February 2008
Tuesday 19 February 2008
A Man What's Bin A Beenman...
The other day I was thinking about what to do with myself if I actually do manage to graduate from this hellhole.
I'm thinking of taking a job as a binman. Down in That London. The 'being in That London'-bit is due to several factors: 1) that's where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office lives, and if I want to get a job from them, it would help if I lived within pestering distance, 2) fun people live there, and after three years of perpetual loneliness, I figure it'd be fun to have a social life again and 3) That London is cool.
'Shut up Tom', I hear you all saying, 'we may be idiots, but we can at least understand why you'd want to live in That London, (why do you keep calling it that?), but you better give us a rational reason why you want to be a binman, or we'll send you to Bedlam!'
Well. Um. Err. Binmanry, I feel, would be a very rewarding vocation to vocate upon whilst waiting to get my better, dream job. I would imagine rubbish collection would be a very humble job, and honestly, I feel the human race could do with a bit more humbleness, so I'll lead by example! Secondly, I think I'd be alright at it: so far in my working life I've fumbled around in offices and worked behind a bar, both of these, if I'm being objective, were things I was shit at, so I think it'd be nice to do a job that I may actually have a chance of being alright at, and where I don't have to pretend to be nice to douchefaced customers or twatty employers.
But, the main reason is that I would really like to able to say at some point a decade down the line that I, Tom Deery, used to be a binman. It'd really boost my proletarian street-cred and make younger people feel uncomfortable around me. Both deserve yays.
I'm thinking of taking a job as a binman. Down in That London. The 'being in That London'-bit is due to several factors: 1) that's where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office lives, and if I want to get a job from them, it would help if I lived within pestering distance, 2) fun people live there, and after three years of perpetual loneliness, I figure it'd be fun to have a social life again and 3) That London is cool.
'Shut up Tom', I hear you all saying, 'we may be idiots, but we can at least understand why you'd want to live in That London, (why do you keep calling it that?), but you better give us a rational reason why you want to be a binman, or we'll send you to Bedlam!'
Well. Um. Err. Binmanry, I feel, would be a very rewarding vocation to vocate upon whilst waiting to get my better, dream job. I would imagine rubbish collection would be a very humble job, and honestly, I feel the human race could do with a bit more humbleness, so I'll lead by example! Secondly, I think I'd be alright at it: so far in my working life I've fumbled around in offices and worked behind a bar, both of these, if I'm being objective, were things I was shit at, so I think it'd be nice to do a job that I may actually have a chance of being alright at, and where I don't have to pretend to be nice to douchefaced customers or twatty employers.
But, the main reason is that I would really like to able to say at some point a decade down the line that I, Tom Deery, used to be a binman. It'd really boost my proletarian street-cred and make younger people feel uncomfortable around me. Both deserve yays.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Fairwell yon Blobs, we hardly knew ye...
BBC3 did a bit of a relaunch last night. Seeing as I have no life, this was a relatively big deal for me.
One thing that was on was a thing called 'Phoo Action', I'm going to talk about it for a bit: Phoo Action is like what a cop drama would be like if Noel Fielding scribbled all over it with crayons. Its set in 2012, (officially the most futuristic sounding year since 1996), and it follows the mutant-fighting 'sploits of Terry Phoo and Whitey Action (see, there names are the show's title, as the genre would demand). It was... alright, I guess. The BBC kind of has a problem where it seems completely unable to assign a coherent tone to its dramas, case in point, Torchwood. Phoo Action looks and feels like it belongs on CBBC, the main bad guys are a bunch of mutants and, while I'm sure their design looked good on paper, in real life they really only look acceptable to the eyes of children.
However, the female lead frequently wears very small pants, and sits with her legs wide open - the show is basically worth watching just for that. That, and pretty colours and what may turn out to be a decent double act, (hopefully).
Another thing that was on was 'Lily Allen and Friends'. This was as pleasantly surprising as the 'Charlotte Church Show' when that was first aired, and will probably get old just as fast. The twist with the show is that its content is in-part decided by Lily Allen's MySpace friends, which is 'interesting', if by 'interesting' I mean, 'I fucking hate young people'.
And this concludes the portion of the blog where I talk about Telly.
Tonight I'm going to go see the Subhumans. It will probably be the oldschooliest punk show I have ever attended. Yippee.
In other news. My laptop is still broke, and will continue to be broke for a long while and, when it finally does undergo the transition from broke back to not-broke, it will probably end up costing me around £200. Stupid technology...
One thing that was on was a thing called 'Phoo Action', I'm going to talk about it for a bit: Phoo Action is like what a cop drama would be like if Noel Fielding scribbled all over it with crayons. Its set in 2012, (officially the most futuristic sounding year since 1996), and it follows the mutant-fighting 'sploits of Terry Phoo and Whitey Action (see, there names are the show's title, as the genre would demand). It was... alright, I guess. The BBC kind of has a problem where it seems completely unable to assign a coherent tone to its dramas, case in point, Torchwood. Phoo Action looks and feels like it belongs on CBBC, the main bad guys are a bunch of mutants and, while I'm sure their design looked good on paper, in real life they really only look acceptable to the eyes of children.
However, the female lead frequently wears very small pants, and sits with her legs wide open - the show is basically worth watching just for that. That, and pretty colours and what may turn out to be a decent double act, (hopefully).
Another thing that was on was 'Lily Allen and Friends'. This was as pleasantly surprising as the 'Charlotte Church Show' when that was first aired, and will probably get old just as fast. The twist with the show is that its content is in-part decided by Lily Allen's MySpace friends, which is 'interesting', if by 'interesting' I mean, 'I fucking hate young people'.
And this concludes the portion of the blog where I talk about Telly.
Tonight I'm going to go see the Subhumans. It will probably be the oldschooliest punk show I have ever attended. Yippee.
In other news. My laptop is still broke, and will continue to be broke for a long while and, when it finally does undergo the transition from broke back to not-broke, it will probably end up costing me around £200. Stupid technology...
Saturday 2 February 2008
"All the time the ladies be asking me: 'Tom D, what's one of your favourite things on the web?', and I say, 'Ladies! Ladies...'"
I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk service.
Its completely brilliant.
Basically, for those not in The Know, the Reference Desk is a big ol' wiki page, where passers-by can ask a question, and wait for Wikipedia's most knowledgable contributors to turn up and spill their brains over their query.
The Reference Desk is split into 8(-ish?) subsections: the Language Desk, (probably the single best free translation service on the entire interwebs, while far from instantaneous, it will always translate exactly what you want it to); the Computers and Shit Desk, for computers and shit; the... um, I don't know, the Pie Desk... for like... questions about pie; about a handful of others, and, my favourite, the Humanities Desk.
The Humanities Desk is there for questions relating to Art, History, Politics and et cetera, so already its piqued my interests. Its a great place to learn. Its home to the kind of people who manage to appear charasmatic via a textual medium, (I don't know how that's done... probably witchcraft...), and who are thus quite entertaining when they start typin' on about 18th Century Scotland, or the kinky exploits of Mao Zedong.
In addition, seeing as its a wiki page, its completely editable. So often, if I'm feeling in a brain-boxxy mood, I'll edit it. Help out some 14-year old Californian on their obvious questions, its pretty rewarding. But mostly, I like submitting replies that are slightly obtuse and sardonic - not unhelpful mind!, with some skill, it is possible to be obtuse without being unhelpful.
So yes. That's why I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk. In other news, the title is a HomestarRunner.com reference.
Its completely brilliant.
Basically, for those not in The Know, the Reference Desk is a big ol' wiki page, where passers-by can ask a question, and wait for Wikipedia's most knowledgable contributors to turn up and spill their brains over their query.
The Reference Desk is split into 8(-ish?) subsections: the Language Desk, (probably the single best free translation service on the entire interwebs, while far from instantaneous, it will always translate exactly what you want it to); the Computers and Shit Desk, for computers and shit; the... um, I don't know, the Pie Desk... for like... questions about pie; about a handful of others, and, my favourite, the Humanities Desk.
The Humanities Desk is there for questions relating to Art, History, Politics and et cetera, so already its piqued my interests. Its a great place to learn. Its home to the kind of people who manage to appear charasmatic via a textual medium, (I don't know how that's done... probably witchcraft...), and who are thus quite entertaining when they start typin' on about 18th Century Scotland, or the kinky exploits of Mao Zedong.
In addition, seeing as its a wiki page, its completely editable. So often, if I'm feeling in a brain-boxxy mood, I'll edit it. Help out some 14-year old Californian on their obvious questions, its pretty rewarding. But mostly, I like submitting replies that are slightly obtuse and sardonic - not unhelpful mind!, with some skill, it is possible to be obtuse without being unhelpful.
So yes. That's why I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk. In other news, the title is a HomestarRunner.com reference.
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