Haiku Review

Holy Smokes! It's the third installment of everybody's favourite Haiku reviewing format on the internet. This week, I went to a fully booked picture house to witness one of the most anticipated films of the year, The Lorax. I kid, I kid, I saw The Dark Knight Rises and it was flipping spectacular.

Nolan's Batman gone
But what a way to do it
A perfect farewell



Joel

An Olympic Breakfast

This morning, over toast, I was maddened. Maddened listening to the radio and hearing further complaints about the Olympics. There seems to be an endless queue of people desperate to air their views on how disastrous the Olympics is definitely, without question, going to be. The most recent of these 'scandals' is, of course, the G4S debacle, I must state now that I do not like the Conservative government one jot, but Jeremy Hunt has clearly stated time and time again since it became apparent that G4S could not deliver the numbers of security staff promised, that there was a contingency plan, a very thorough contingency plan that would insure members of the armed forces or police would plug the gap that the private company was unable to fill.

Cynicism is the biggest threat to the Olympics. Had Al Qaeda or any other two-bit terrorist organisation wanted to truly ruin the games in London, leafleting campaigns, exaggerated figures regarding cost and immigration coupled with dangerously high levels of tutting and sighing would be far more effective than a nail bomb. Sighs do not appear on security scanners. They are an almost silent killer.

The Olympic Games is without doubt, the greatest sporting event on earth, there will be drama, medals, heartache and a country unified in it's support for athletes who have trained their entire lives to reach this level. At the very least, it will replace inane daytime television for a few weeks, I welcome this with open arms. The Olympics can be fantastic, if everyone would just fucking cheer up.


Joel

A Sticky Situation

I’m not ashamed to say it, I’m a football sticker collector. Whenever a World or Euro cup comes around, I can’t wait to get myself a sticker book, and spend far too much money purchasing packs upon packs of stickers. Normally my quest to finish these books ends with uncompleted pages, and copious amounts of swaps’ that I ultimately find I have no use for, in fact, this year was absolutely no different, plenty of money spent, over a hundred stickers remain unfound. A result which no doubt will only encourage me to spend even more money in two years time, and all for what?!

Anyway, when putting my latest unfinished work away with the others, I seemed to remember one that I did complete! I dived into my cupboards and searched vigorously for Japan/Korea 2002... My potential masterpiece. Ten minutes later, I held in my hands that exact sticker book. It was dustier and more worn than I remembered, but it was beautiful. I began turning the pages, happily looking at the faces staring back at me. But it wasn’t long before my happiness had turned to desperation, and the word ‘unfinished’ came straight back to me. Sticker number 203, the Turkish striker and legend Arif Erdem still remained to be found, and subsequently meant like the rest, this sticker book was not completed, and I feel that has to be resolved.

Without his sticker in my possession, I feel like his career now amounts to nothing. Over 400 club appearances with 121 goals, and 11 goals in 60 international matches. It seemed like it never happened, all because he was missing from that sticker book, and I feel that needs to change. So, if any reader of this could help me in any way to source this sticker, or even source the man himself just to get some closure on the whole situation, would be a massive help! Until then, this issue will continue to sit with the rest of the unfinished books.

Thom                                                                                                                                                                         

Haiku Review

I think it's hugely important to keep this blog relevant to keep all of you out there coming back for more of this ace content. So this weeks Haiku Review is of Shallow Grave, a film that's almost 20 years old, that I've only just seen for the first time. It's got Doctor Who and a Jedi in it in their younger and more vulnerable years and I thought it was pretty entertaining:

Ewan Mcgregor
An unexpected plot twist
And long flowing locks



Joel

The list, better than Kiss.

A work colleague of mine a few nights ago made an awful, awful admission. Whilst sitting down after closing time, the conversation turned to music and said colleague's love of the band KISS. You read that correctly, the band KISS, I was outraged, really I was. Of all the bands to openly declare admiration for he chose four make-up wearing buffoons. A band that always cared far too much about image and marketing and merchandise than improving upon their meaningless, vacuous music. The ensuing diatribe left my colleague stunned. I then assured him that I could easily produce a list of 100 guitar based bands that are better than KISS. Here, reader, is that list:

1. The Beatles                            
2. The Rolling Stones                       
3. The Kinks                            
4. The Byrds                           
5. The Yardbirds
6. Buddy Holly and The Crickets               
7. The Jimi Hendrix Experience               
8. Weezer                           
9. The Cure                           
10. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band           
11. MGMT                           
12. Bloc Party                               
13. Lynyrd Skynyrd                       
14. Jefferson Airplane                       
15. Foreigner                           
16. The Strokes                       
17. The Smiths                   
18. Nirvana                           
19. The Ramones                       
20. U2                               
21. Velvet Underground                   
22. Bob Marley and The Wailers           
23. The Stooges                       
24. Led Zeppelin                   
25. The Clash                           
26. Deep Purple                       
27. The Pixies                           
28. Aerosmith                           
29. Metallica                           
30. Blue Oyster Cult                       
31. The Police                           
32. The Verve                           
33. REM                           
34. Radiohead                           
35. Pink Floyd                       
36. The Doors                           
37. Television                           
38. The Who                           
39. Queen                           
40. The Animals                       
41. The Patti Smith Band                   
42. The Jam                           
43. Blondie                           
44. Ash                           
45. The Zombies                   
46. The White Stripes                       
47. New York Dolls                       
48. Sweet                           
49. Cream                           
50. The Coward Brothers   
51. Squeeze
52. AC/DC
53. Mott The Hoople
54. Black Sabbath
55. Beach Boys
56. New Order
57. Booker T and The MGs
58. Joy Division
59. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
60. Creedence Clearwater Revival
61. Van Halen
62. Boston
63. Steppenwolf
64. Fleetwood Mac
65. Supertramp
66. T-Rex
67. Rush
68. The Mamas and The Papas
69. Rage Against The Machine
70. Red Hot Chilli Peppers
71. Iron Maiden
72. Sex Pistols
73. The Eagles
74. The Cribs
75. The Arctic Monkeys
76. Foals
77. Kings of Leon
78. Franz Ferdinand
79. Linkin Park
80. The Libertines
81. The La’s
82. Thin Lizzy
83. Biffy Clyro
84. Arcade Fire
85. Muse
86. The Undertones
87. Mumford and Sons
88. Kasabian
89. Vampire Weekend
90. Supergrass
91. Dire Straits
92. Coldplay
93. Blur
94. Oasis
95. Pulp
96. Modest Mouse
97. Simple Minds
98. Journey
99. Cliff Richard and The Shadows
100. Manic Street Preachers               

This list is not in any order of preference, just the order in which they occurred to me. I am sure there are many glaring omissions, feel free to let me know the error of my ways.

Joel

The town that's almost dead.

On Thursday I managed to catch the second half of the two parter 'The town that never retired'. Firstly, that is a misleading title to say the least. I was excited, I envisioned a screen adaptation of  Jose Saramago's Death with Interruptions. I tuned in, anxiously, I don't get to watch very much television and this looked promising.

Then the camera panned. I was greeted with those two, you know them, they both used to sneer and judge on The Apprentice and now only one of them does, the Nick half. Alas, This was a programme with a simple premise, can those very nearly dead still be effective in the work place, the answer was largely, no. Lack of dexterity and speed meant that, sadly, pensioners aren't cut out for manual labour or factory work. But the elderly have kind faces and we must therefore, be incredibly sympathetic towards them. Their work ethic was unquestionably brilliant, just their ability had dwindled. So we the viewer, were forced to watch a generation in decline. Which is of course bitterly sad and a frightening glimpse of the future.


But fear not, those old timers may be over the hill and unable to uncork a bottle of wine, but there is a new generation isn't there? The young ones who are desperate for jobs we all read about all the time. Well Nick and Margaret succeeded in recruiting a great cross-section of the 18-25 year olds that are currently unemployed and not just 5 feckless morons who we would be invited to laugh at in a 'huh, kids these days' kind of way. Wait, no, hang on, that's exactly what the BBC did do, instead of perhaps, using some of the very many graduates currently out of work, eloquent or intelligent young types the likes of which I know exist. I've seen them. Spoken to a few of them, even. So instead, we were forced into comparisons between well spoken, hard working pensioners and idiots (all bar one, the plumber one, he was pretty good). They were utterly, utterly useless and unsympathetic and did not stand one chance of winning any of the viewers over in their hooded coats when compared to those kind wrinkled faces.

The BBC has thereby greatly assisted in confirming far too many Daily Mail assertions about, 'the youth today'.


Joel

The Amazing Spiderman- Amazing...

Yesterday, I did something I have never done before in my life. I went to the cinema to watch a film I’d already seen at the cinema, just a couple of days before. To be honest, it wasn’t my choice. My endless quest to be sociable saw me agree to it while I couldn’t turn down my brothers offer to watch it earlier in the week, but to be honest, I really didn’t mind. The truth is, I would probably go and watch it again out of choice.

From start to finish, I genuinely enjoyed every minute of it, both times through. In fact, the only disappointing thing about the experience was the £12 it cost me second time round to watch it in 3D, which was no real difference to 2D in my opinion. But in regards to the film itself, everything from a strangely wonderful skateboarding montage to a Coldplay song, to one of the cheesiest closing lines in any film I’ve ever seen, had me riveted, in fact, it would be worth going for that latter point alone.

This is a film I would highly recommend to anyone, even if just to watch Emma Stone for 136 minutes (or Andrew Garfield, let’s face it, hes a good looking lad). So if you get the chance, go watch it! If not, you could watch the 5 Year Engagement instead, but let’s face it, who would want to sit through that?!

Thom.