One of my favourite bloke facts, the kind you trawl out down the pub after a round or two is, “Did you know that the area of the human bowel has the same area as a tennis court?” Now the area of a tennis court is approximately 196 metres square which is pretty big, but nothing compared to the size of your average football pitch.
Unfortunately, unlike the LTA, the governing body of tennis in the UK, the FA thought that having a defined size for every football pitch would be fool-hardy so they’ve got a rough estimate. An official FA pitch can be anywhere between 90 and 120 metres long and the width between 45 and 90 wide. This means that at it’s maximum a pitch can be 10,800 metres square dwarfing a tennis court. In fact a tennis court would go into a pitch that size 55 times. Meaning you’d have to watch the end of Braveheart 55 times to get the same amount of implied human bowel.
The reason I make this distinction is that at Wimbledon they have 3 line court judges at both ends plus a base line judge at both ends and an umpire to over see it all. Add to that Cyclops and Hawkeye and you’ve got a hell of a lot of fail safes to make sure the correct decision is made. That’s 9 people officiating on an area 55 times smaller than a foot ball pitch. It gets worse when comparisons are made with other sports. In Olympic boxing and taekwondo officials are on every-side of the field of play and for a point to be scored at least 2 officials have to award the point within a second of each other.
And these are just three sports that come to mind. Minority sports at that. Wimbledon is only once a year and only really important to middle-aged middle class women suffering hot flushes. The Olympics are every four with athletes who will be forgotten as soon as the next football season kicks off.
The question I ask then is this: If sports that bear no real importance or relation to us on a weekly basis can go to such great extents to ensure the correct decision is made why can’t football? For the past ten years people more important and informed than myself have argued for goal line technology. If that’s too hard to figure out, why not just have two officials sat at either corner flag who must both raise their flags to signify a goal is a goal. That would have surely resolved the situation last Saturday at Vicarage Road?!
That’s not even getting into the issue of linesmen. We’re always hearing from pundits how, “if the linesman had been on the other side he’d have given that offside.” So why not have two both having to agree within a second of each other it’s offside.
If sports that mean nothing to us except for two weeks at the beginning of each summer and two weeks every four years can do it why can’t football? Football owes it to us to go that extra mile to get things right. It means more than most things in our life, in fact “football’s not a matter of life and death… it’s more important than that.”
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Monday, 8 September 2008
Above Fifty
Like anyone, Matthew Vargas wanted more for his life when he was growing up, he had dreams: to play football, become a movie star, play Wembley Stadium. Unfortunately for Matthew he wasn’t blessed with much athletic ability and in reality had no real interest in acting and could play no instrument of any kind. No, Matthew was an ordinary guy living a rather ordinary life, unfulfilled and mundane.
By his mid twenties he had ticked several of the boxes that modernity asks of you, lost virginity – at the age of 19 in a drunken fumble with a girl he would never see again, it would be four years before his next sexual flirtation. Went to university earning a 2:2 in communications and business studies; a combination of subjects that were made all the more pointless together than apart. He was now living in an over priced single bed flat paid for by a sales job that in reality did not require a degree to accomplish well.
Every day at half past six Matthew would wake up to the sound of his alarm and whilst still getting dressed find some kind of breakfast and leave his flat by ten to seven. Walk the five minute walk to the bus stop to catch the 7.01 bus and everyday listen to a man that constantly pointed out the futility of a bus time table accurate to the minute when in all the time he had ridden the bus it had never been on time. Everyday Matthew would smile politely as though he had never heard this astonishing revelation. From here Matthew would ride the bus for twenty minutes passing four stops and getting off, nearly always, in time to catch his 7.34 train to work. At the station he would invariably see the same people he saw everyday, including a man who insisted on pointing out the futility of having a train time table accurate to the minute when, in all the time he had ridden the train, he had never known it to be on time. This was a different man to the man at the bus stop. Matthew would then rush to find a seat, during the cumulated hours of commuting Matthew had roughly calculated that he managed to get a seat little more than fifty percent of the time. Ever since he had this revelation Matthew had been even more determined to get a seat and prevent his own private seating statistic dropping beneath fifty percent. On the surface he felt this was just a little game to play with himself to pass the time and make the dull monotony of the daily commute more palatable, but deep down, in places he didn’t like to dwell in, Matthew knew that if it ever dropped below fifty percent it would be the final straw and soon after he would be sucking the air out of the end of a shotgun barrel.
During the hour train journey Matthew would more than not try and sleep. He had for a brief time played the flirtation game of eye contact with an attractive professional woman, who he believed to be younger than him, though he had never spoken to her. This game was brought to an abrupt halt one summer morning when he noticed an engagement ring on her finger. This small sight, insignificant to everyone else on the train except the girl crushed Matthew. It left him feeling contempt for her, for getting married so young, though for the months previous he had fantasised about doing just that with her. Since then the only thing keeping Matthew going was his necessity to keep above fifty, to keeping above fifty by any means, even if that did mean getting terrible looks from fellow passengers when he knocked an elderly man to the ground on one occasion. Staying above fifty was all that mattered in Matthew’s life, the only thing keeping him alive.
Matthew would finally arrive at work – Baines Recruitment Services – just in time to see Dave Middleton, Matthew’s manager, pull into his reserved parking space in his Audi TT. Dave Middleton was in his mid thirties impeccably dressed in Yves Saint Lauren and had all the self awareness of a man who drove an Audi TT and insisted on being called Dave, “It’s on my birth certificate, my father insisted.” And so, as Matthew noted to himself the first time he heard Dave say this, was that Dave was not the first in the line of twatish Middletons. The first time Matthew had heard this was in actuality the very first time he met Dave, when he went for his interview. Dave ushered Matthew into his office with a handshake so firm it would have made him the alpha male in an enclosure of gorillas and proceeded to begin to talk in anacranims,
“Hey Matty, would you like a DC?”
“Err, sorry David what’s a DC?”
“Actually Matty it’s Dave. It’s on my birth certificate, my father insisted; and a DC is a diet coke.”
“Oh, okay, sorry Dave, no thanks I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? How about an OJ?”
Matthew hesitated for a second before replying, “Orange Juice?”
“That’s right Matty, an OJ?”
“Err, no thanks I’m fine.”
“Sure? Not even a DP?”
For a split second Matthew’s extensive knowledge of pornography took hold and a cold sweat swept over him, for the only thing Matthew knew to be a DP was a double penetration and the thought of he and Dave Middleton and one of Dave’s lady friends attempting a DP was horrifying. However, Matthew realised almost the instant he had had this thought that even for an alpha male such as Dave Middleton, this would be slightly out of context and so asked tentatively, “A DP?”
“A Doctor Pepper of course.”
Matthew sighed heavily and smiled in relief, “No David, sorry Dave, I’m fine seriously, thank you though.”
The interview went along in a similar vein for another twenty minutes with Dave not asking any sort of relevant questions to the job, focusing rather on what Matthew thought would be the ideal car for a middle manager. Matthew didn’t believe he was very helpful, though Dave, who had been spent the entire interview perched on the edge of his desk, did and offered Matthew the job on the spot. Being taken aback by the proposal and the interview in general Matthew accepted, shook Dave’s hand and regretted the decision as soon as he had left the building. He had regretted everyday of his life since then.
Matthew’s seven and a half hour paid work day with half an hour unpaid lunch was split into several small units of time that Matthew had developed during his time at BRS. The first of the units was the post commute comedown which consisted of Matthew being the first member of the office to get a tea or coffee and then deleting the tens of spam emails he had received since logging off at 5pm prompt the night before. On any given morning this would take approximately five to ten minutes but Matthew would stretch this activity out for as long as possible averaging out at about twenty minutes. In doing so Matthew had already used four percent of his day on essentially nothing. He would often extend this time further by opening one of the spam emails and showing the contents to his colleague Dan Wichell. Dan, christened Daniel, had joined the company a week before Matthew and so believed himself to be Matthew’s immediate superior a belief that was not true but which Dave didn’t correct as Dan had been more than happy to be called by his one syllable moniker, something that Matthew had refused to go along with. This was not the only thing that separated Matthew from Dave and Dan; neither Dave or Dan had attended university and Dave saw fit to mould Dan into a copy of himself. None of this concerned Matthew, though he allowed Dan to believe it did as to reassure his fragile masculine ego, rather Matthew enjoyed it as it enabled him to slip into the cracks of the day and do just the bare minimum to get by. On the days when he would show Dan an “amusing” spam email, perhaps about erectile dysfunction in men between the ages of 49 and 65, Dan and Dave would drop their guard and allow Matthew into their clique for that brief time and all three of them would be happy about it. Dave for the fact he believed his people management skills were working on Matthew, Dan for the fact it reassured him of his place in Dave’s eyes and Matthew for the fact it extend his post commute comedown to over half an hour and there by pass five percent of his working day.
After the post commute comedown Matthew would begin his working day proper, the majority of his working day was spent on the phone or emailing clients. His job was to set up unemployed graduates with a job, in Dave’s words, “Any job!” Matthew had taken the job for the altruistic nature of the work in that he believed he was helping people find work. In reality his job was in sales and therefore target orientated, so Matthew’s job was ostensibly to fit anyone with any job, this was something Matthew found problematic and so was far behind Dan in his monthly, quarterly and yearly sales targets. The year previous he had only earned two percent above his basic salary compared to Dan’s 18 percent, a fact Dan was happy to remind Matthew about. Matthew tried his best to find suitable work for his clients, this was generally at the beginning of a month, by the final week of a month Matthew would pick his least favourite clients and set them up with anything, someone with a sports science degree would perhaps be offered an interview with a sports clothing company in sales. Any tenuous link would do by the end of the month. One of the few things that kept Matthew in the job were the small victories in actually matching a suitable candidate with a suitable job. These victories were few and far between and Matthew had not had one for four months, the longest period of time Matthew had gone without such a victory. The last client to make Matthew feel even remotely fulfilled in his job was a young looking graduate called Robert Parker who had gained a third in social science. Although initially Matthew had the normal level of contempt he had for all his clients when meeting Robert because of his poor choice in degree subject and his poor grade he quickly warmed to him. This was in no small part to Robert, lacking all self awareness, remarking on the terrible smell of au de cologne hanging in the air when first entering the office. A smell that was almost all the fault of Dan who made a sneering glance up at Robert as Matthew choked back a laugh. From this point on Matthew had done his hardest to talk up poor young Robert Parker to various companies and institutions. He would try his hardest to talk over the poor degree and focus on the personal attributes of Mr Parker, which in reality were not especially significant. After nine interviews in which the interviewers had all realised that Matthew had sold them a lemon in Mr Parker, Robert Parker finally succeeded in finding employment with a local authority, planning new amenities based on demographic testing. It was the gratitude in Robert’s face when he thanked Matthew for finding him the job that was the last good memory at Baines Recruitment Services and it was fading, gradually being replaced with the bitterness of finding a better job for a man less capable himself.
After a lunch, that consisted of a sealed sandwich, packet of crisps and a cold drink. Sat more often than not on a bench opposite a baked potato stall and a twenty minute cue of professionals for what Matthew could only think was a front for a cocaine dealer. No sane person would cue that long for a baked potato. Matthew would begin the afternoon in a similar vein to the way he had finished his morning, on the phone to companies attempting to line up wrongly qualified graduates with unsuitable jobs. The final period to Matthew’s working day was dependant on the success of the early afternoon but would often begin by about four o’clock. This period of time was spent on the internet, using his work email address to respond to as many internet adverts as he could find and always ticking the boxes, “May we send you information on any offers we may have?” and “May we share your information with third parties?” When Matthew had completed this invaluable part of the day, he would be ready for his commute home and to ensure that he didn’t drop beneath his private seating statistic of fifty percent.
By his mid twenties he had ticked several of the boxes that modernity asks of you, lost virginity – at the age of 19 in a drunken fumble with a girl he would never see again, it would be four years before his next sexual flirtation. Went to university earning a 2:2 in communications and business studies; a combination of subjects that were made all the more pointless together than apart. He was now living in an over priced single bed flat paid for by a sales job that in reality did not require a degree to accomplish well.
Every day at half past six Matthew would wake up to the sound of his alarm and whilst still getting dressed find some kind of breakfast and leave his flat by ten to seven. Walk the five minute walk to the bus stop to catch the 7.01 bus and everyday listen to a man that constantly pointed out the futility of a bus time table accurate to the minute when in all the time he had ridden the bus it had never been on time. Everyday Matthew would smile politely as though he had never heard this astonishing revelation. From here Matthew would ride the bus for twenty minutes passing four stops and getting off, nearly always, in time to catch his 7.34 train to work. At the station he would invariably see the same people he saw everyday, including a man who insisted on pointing out the futility of having a train time table accurate to the minute when, in all the time he had ridden the train, he had never known it to be on time. This was a different man to the man at the bus stop. Matthew would then rush to find a seat, during the cumulated hours of commuting Matthew had roughly calculated that he managed to get a seat little more than fifty percent of the time. Ever since he had this revelation Matthew had been even more determined to get a seat and prevent his own private seating statistic dropping beneath fifty percent. On the surface he felt this was just a little game to play with himself to pass the time and make the dull monotony of the daily commute more palatable, but deep down, in places he didn’t like to dwell in, Matthew knew that if it ever dropped below fifty percent it would be the final straw and soon after he would be sucking the air out of the end of a shotgun barrel.
During the hour train journey Matthew would more than not try and sleep. He had for a brief time played the flirtation game of eye contact with an attractive professional woman, who he believed to be younger than him, though he had never spoken to her. This game was brought to an abrupt halt one summer morning when he noticed an engagement ring on her finger. This small sight, insignificant to everyone else on the train except the girl crushed Matthew. It left him feeling contempt for her, for getting married so young, though for the months previous he had fantasised about doing just that with her. Since then the only thing keeping Matthew going was his necessity to keep above fifty, to keeping above fifty by any means, even if that did mean getting terrible looks from fellow passengers when he knocked an elderly man to the ground on one occasion. Staying above fifty was all that mattered in Matthew’s life, the only thing keeping him alive.
Matthew would finally arrive at work – Baines Recruitment Services – just in time to see Dave Middleton, Matthew’s manager, pull into his reserved parking space in his Audi TT. Dave Middleton was in his mid thirties impeccably dressed in Yves Saint Lauren and had all the self awareness of a man who drove an Audi TT and insisted on being called Dave, “It’s on my birth certificate, my father insisted.” And so, as Matthew noted to himself the first time he heard Dave say this, was that Dave was not the first in the line of twatish Middletons. The first time Matthew had heard this was in actuality the very first time he met Dave, when he went for his interview. Dave ushered Matthew into his office with a handshake so firm it would have made him the alpha male in an enclosure of gorillas and proceeded to begin to talk in anacranims,
“Hey Matty, would you like a DC?”
“Err, sorry David what’s a DC?”
“Actually Matty it’s Dave. It’s on my birth certificate, my father insisted; and a DC is a diet coke.”
“Oh, okay, sorry Dave, no thanks I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? How about an OJ?”
Matthew hesitated for a second before replying, “Orange Juice?”
“That’s right Matty, an OJ?”
“Err, no thanks I’m fine.”
“Sure? Not even a DP?”
For a split second Matthew’s extensive knowledge of pornography took hold and a cold sweat swept over him, for the only thing Matthew knew to be a DP was a double penetration and the thought of he and Dave Middleton and one of Dave’s lady friends attempting a DP was horrifying. However, Matthew realised almost the instant he had had this thought that even for an alpha male such as Dave Middleton, this would be slightly out of context and so asked tentatively, “A DP?”
“A Doctor Pepper of course.”
Matthew sighed heavily and smiled in relief, “No David, sorry Dave, I’m fine seriously, thank you though.”
The interview went along in a similar vein for another twenty minutes with Dave not asking any sort of relevant questions to the job, focusing rather on what Matthew thought would be the ideal car for a middle manager. Matthew didn’t believe he was very helpful, though Dave, who had been spent the entire interview perched on the edge of his desk, did and offered Matthew the job on the spot. Being taken aback by the proposal and the interview in general Matthew accepted, shook Dave’s hand and regretted the decision as soon as he had left the building. He had regretted everyday of his life since then.
Matthew’s seven and a half hour paid work day with half an hour unpaid lunch was split into several small units of time that Matthew had developed during his time at BRS. The first of the units was the post commute comedown which consisted of Matthew being the first member of the office to get a tea or coffee and then deleting the tens of spam emails he had received since logging off at 5pm prompt the night before. On any given morning this would take approximately five to ten minutes but Matthew would stretch this activity out for as long as possible averaging out at about twenty minutes. In doing so Matthew had already used four percent of his day on essentially nothing. He would often extend this time further by opening one of the spam emails and showing the contents to his colleague Dan Wichell. Dan, christened Daniel, had joined the company a week before Matthew and so believed himself to be Matthew’s immediate superior a belief that was not true but which Dave didn’t correct as Dan had been more than happy to be called by his one syllable moniker, something that Matthew had refused to go along with. This was not the only thing that separated Matthew from Dave and Dan; neither Dave or Dan had attended university and Dave saw fit to mould Dan into a copy of himself. None of this concerned Matthew, though he allowed Dan to believe it did as to reassure his fragile masculine ego, rather Matthew enjoyed it as it enabled him to slip into the cracks of the day and do just the bare minimum to get by. On the days when he would show Dan an “amusing” spam email, perhaps about erectile dysfunction in men between the ages of 49 and 65, Dan and Dave would drop their guard and allow Matthew into their clique for that brief time and all three of them would be happy about it. Dave for the fact he believed his people management skills were working on Matthew, Dan for the fact it reassured him of his place in Dave’s eyes and Matthew for the fact it extend his post commute comedown to over half an hour and there by pass five percent of his working day.
After the post commute comedown Matthew would begin his working day proper, the majority of his working day was spent on the phone or emailing clients. His job was to set up unemployed graduates with a job, in Dave’s words, “Any job!” Matthew had taken the job for the altruistic nature of the work in that he believed he was helping people find work. In reality his job was in sales and therefore target orientated, so Matthew’s job was ostensibly to fit anyone with any job, this was something Matthew found problematic and so was far behind Dan in his monthly, quarterly and yearly sales targets. The year previous he had only earned two percent above his basic salary compared to Dan’s 18 percent, a fact Dan was happy to remind Matthew about. Matthew tried his best to find suitable work for his clients, this was generally at the beginning of a month, by the final week of a month Matthew would pick his least favourite clients and set them up with anything, someone with a sports science degree would perhaps be offered an interview with a sports clothing company in sales. Any tenuous link would do by the end of the month. One of the few things that kept Matthew in the job were the small victories in actually matching a suitable candidate with a suitable job. These victories were few and far between and Matthew had not had one for four months, the longest period of time Matthew had gone without such a victory. The last client to make Matthew feel even remotely fulfilled in his job was a young looking graduate called Robert Parker who had gained a third in social science. Although initially Matthew had the normal level of contempt he had for all his clients when meeting Robert because of his poor choice in degree subject and his poor grade he quickly warmed to him. This was in no small part to Robert, lacking all self awareness, remarking on the terrible smell of au de cologne hanging in the air when first entering the office. A smell that was almost all the fault of Dan who made a sneering glance up at Robert as Matthew choked back a laugh. From this point on Matthew had done his hardest to talk up poor young Robert Parker to various companies and institutions. He would try his hardest to talk over the poor degree and focus on the personal attributes of Mr Parker, which in reality were not especially significant. After nine interviews in which the interviewers had all realised that Matthew had sold them a lemon in Mr Parker, Robert Parker finally succeeded in finding employment with a local authority, planning new amenities based on demographic testing. It was the gratitude in Robert’s face when he thanked Matthew for finding him the job that was the last good memory at Baines Recruitment Services and it was fading, gradually being replaced with the bitterness of finding a better job for a man less capable himself.
After a lunch, that consisted of a sealed sandwich, packet of crisps and a cold drink. Sat more often than not on a bench opposite a baked potato stall and a twenty minute cue of professionals for what Matthew could only think was a front for a cocaine dealer. No sane person would cue that long for a baked potato. Matthew would begin the afternoon in a similar vein to the way he had finished his morning, on the phone to companies attempting to line up wrongly qualified graduates with unsuitable jobs. The final period to Matthew’s working day was dependant on the success of the early afternoon but would often begin by about four o’clock. This period of time was spent on the internet, using his work email address to respond to as many internet adverts as he could find and always ticking the boxes, “May we send you information on any offers we may have?” and “May we share your information with third parties?” When Matthew had completed this invaluable part of the day, he would be ready for his commute home and to ensure that he didn’t drop beneath his private seating statistic of fifty percent.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
The Double Look.
I coined the term, "The Double Look" this weekend, though it is nothing new to me or for that matter you and you may already know it by another name.
This weekend I was darn sarf, in the big smoke that is London visiting my old mate Dave and catching up after five or so years of only phone and email contact. An awesome weekend was had, even though Rock N Rolla and Bangkok Dangerous were involved; I loved London, mainly because of the South Bank. If I lived in London I'd spend most of my time and money in the BFI watching films such as Unforgiven as we did on Saturday night which more than made up for the other two.
Anyway along with the South Bank, The Double Look was a major part of my weekend. It's something that you will have experienced also, is a great ego boost and if you had as many as I did this weekend would help you ride the ego wave for a long long time.
The Double Look is something fleeting, that leaves as soon as it arrives , leaving you feeling at once a character in your own Lynx advert and also a coward for not having the balls to do anything about it. Whenever you're in public you may make eye contact with tens if not hundreds of people, The Double Look is when, after making eye contact with a woman that instantly registers subconsciously as stunning you look back; now nine times out of ten she won't look back, but if she does.... well, if she does, she's just had that same instant subconscious register as you did.
And that's The Double Look, and as I say it makes you feel fucking brilliant and this past weekend I've had a shit load. I don't know why it happened in London, perhaps because there's just so many people there the odds are more in my favour or maybe there's something about me that Southern women just like. My ego (albeit riding the ego wave) makes me think its more the odds thing but hey I still feel great.
A deviation on The Double Look can be found when the mate you're with, acting as your wing-man, tells you about a woman checking you out that you didn't even notice. This also happened and is just as awesome.
I am putting serious thought to moving there.
This weekend I was darn sarf, in the big smoke that is London visiting my old mate Dave and catching up after five or so years of only phone and email contact. An awesome weekend was had, even though Rock N Rolla and Bangkok Dangerous were involved; I loved London, mainly because of the South Bank. If I lived in London I'd spend most of my time and money in the BFI watching films such as Unforgiven as we did on Saturday night which more than made up for the other two.
Anyway along with the South Bank, The Double Look was a major part of my weekend. It's something that you will have experienced also, is a great ego boost and if you had as many as I did this weekend would help you ride the ego wave for a long long time.
The Double Look is something fleeting, that leaves as soon as it arrives , leaving you feeling at once a character in your own Lynx advert and also a coward for not having the balls to do anything about it. Whenever you're in public you may make eye contact with tens if not hundreds of people, The Double Look is when, after making eye contact with a woman that instantly registers subconsciously as stunning you look back; now nine times out of ten she won't look back, but if she does.... well, if she does, she's just had that same instant subconscious register as you did.
And that's The Double Look, and as I say it makes you feel fucking brilliant and this past weekend I've had a shit load. I don't know why it happened in London, perhaps because there's just so many people there the odds are more in my favour or maybe there's something about me that Southern women just like. My ego (albeit riding the ego wave) makes me think its more the odds thing but hey I still feel great.
A deviation on The Double Look can be found when the mate you're with, acting as your wing-man, tells you about a woman checking you out that you didn't even notice. This also happened and is just as awesome.
I am putting serious thought to moving there.
Friday, 8 August 2008
George Bush Should Have Worn a Cowl.
In the past eight years of George Bush's Presidency America has tortured and kidnapped people from all around the world, breaking more international laws than most organised crime. The solution they found to this problem was to rename things, just like genocide was renamed in the 90s during The Yugoslavian conflict to Ethnic Cleansing; which I always thought made it sound like a Chinese Laundrette. They have gone to great legal lengths to argue that they don't use torture but rather "enhanced interrogation" and don't kidnap but rather use "extraordinary rendition". However, no-one with an ounce of intelligence believes it.
In the past month The Dark Knight has broken all box office records to date, best opening weekend, quickest film to $400 million etc and I'm sure it's going to continue breaking records. Hopefully it will break the record Set by Titanic so a film with actual ideas becomes the most popular film of all time.
The thing about the Dark Knight is, when James Gordon's voice over at the end says "he's more than our hero... He's our Dark Knight" We feel a little better, and walk just a little taller as we leave the Cinema. Even though for the past two and a half hours Batman has embodied everything that George Bush has done for since 9/11.
If extraordinary rendition in reality is anything near as cool as the way he gets Lau back to Gotham, I'm tempted to start browsing Islamic websites just so they have an excuse to come and get me. And if I had a choice between water boarding and how he knocks the Joker about, I'd go for water boarding (though that may say more about me than the film).
So yeah, in short: George Bush Should Have Worn a Cowl, Christ according to my, admittedly, rather simplistic equation, if he had done not only would we have cheered when we found out he was torturing people in Guantanamo Bay, we'd have paid him $400 million dollars with in the first month.
In the past month The Dark Knight has broken all box office records to date, best opening weekend, quickest film to $400 million etc and I'm sure it's going to continue breaking records. Hopefully it will break the record Set by Titanic so a film with actual ideas becomes the most popular film of all time.
The thing about the Dark Knight is, when James Gordon's voice over at the end says "he's more than our hero... He's our Dark Knight" We feel a little better, and walk just a little taller as we leave the Cinema. Even though for the past two and a half hours Batman has embodied everything that George Bush has done for since 9/11.
If extraordinary rendition in reality is anything near as cool as the way he gets Lau back to Gotham, I'm tempted to start browsing Islamic websites just so they have an excuse to come and get me. And if I had a choice between water boarding and how he knocks the Joker about, I'd go for water boarding (though that may say more about me than the film).
So yeah, in short: George Bush Should Have Worn a Cowl, Christ according to my, admittedly, rather simplistic equation, if he had done not only would we have cheered when we found out he was torturing people in Guantanamo Bay, we'd have paid him $400 million dollars with in the first month.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
My Dark Knight Review!
I recently watched a film that has changed the way I will think about Cinema for the rest of my life. I had heard and read all the hype about the film and was unsure when I began watching the film whether it would affect my judgement too much. Not too long into the film I realised that it hadn’t affected me, that although I was agreeing whole heartedly with everything I had heard about the film, I too was coming to the conclusion that it was one of, if not the worst films ever made.
The film in question was The Lake House and happened to have just started as I was channel hoping so I decided to see how bad it was. Nothing had prepared me for the irredeemable awfulness of the film. The initial setup, that a mailbox outside a lake house somehow has flux capacitor abilities that allows Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock to communicate is bad enough. This is forgettable however when the dialogue begins; Many films have poor dialogue, Star Wars being one but how this got past the editing process is either because of a lazy writer or retarded one. Listening to the words being spoken was like trying to swallow custard made with rotten eggs. The premise and writing were not the only bad things; the direction was terrible too, not in a Michael Bay way but bad all the same. There were numerous two shots of Reeves and Bullock in conversation that had no cutaways to close up that you would expect in a Hollywood film, instead the director held the two shot for entire scenes. This is often the sign of a confident director (see Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s Big Night) and clearly must have convinced Reeves and Bullock they were making a good film:
Director: Cut! That’ll do for the day.
Reeves: Don’t we need coverage?
Director: No, the scene was perfect as it was!
Bullock: I told you we were making a good film K.
But they weren’t making a good film they were making a Turkey and those scenes just added to the custard like dialogue to make it feel like I was watching a film that would never end! The film did end not after I’d forced myself to watch to the bitter end past the contrived terrible happy ending.
The fact that this film was given funding goes to show how many idiots work in films and also irritates as there are thousands if not millions of people who clearly have more talent as writers than David Auburn who adapted the screenplay.
The Dark Knight was good, but I preferred Batman Begins.
The film in question was The Lake House and happened to have just started as I was channel hoping so I decided to see how bad it was. Nothing had prepared me for the irredeemable awfulness of the film. The initial setup, that a mailbox outside a lake house somehow has flux capacitor abilities that allows Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock to communicate is bad enough. This is forgettable however when the dialogue begins; Many films have poor dialogue, Star Wars being one but how this got past the editing process is either because of a lazy writer or retarded one. Listening to the words being spoken was like trying to swallow custard made with rotten eggs. The premise and writing were not the only bad things; the direction was terrible too, not in a Michael Bay way but bad all the same. There were numerous two shots of Reeves and Bullock in conversation that had no cutaways to close up that you would expect in a Hollywood film, instead the director held the two shot for entire scenes. This is often the sign of a confident director (see Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s Big Night) and clearly must have convinced Reeves and Bullock they were making a good film:
Director: Cut! That’ll do for the day.
Reeves: Don’t we need coverage?
Director: No, the scene was perfect as it was!
Bullock: I told you we were making a good film K.
But they weren’t making a good film they were making a Turkey and those scenes just added to the custard like dialogue to make it feel like I was watching a film that would never end! The film did end not after I’d forced myself to watch to the bitter end past the contrived terrible happy ending.
The fact that this film was given funding goes to show how many idiots work in films and also irritates as there are thousands if not millions of people who clearly have more talent as writers than David Auburn who adapted the screenplay.
The Dark Knight was good, but I preferred Batman Begins.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Done Up The Gary!
Hey, have you ever been fucked up the arse? No, neither have I, but I feel like I have. I just rang up o2 to query some weird text charges I received this month and apparently some fucking company got hold of my number and started texting me a chargeable service for the past 3 months which was apparently ringtones or celebrity voices or something. Anyhoo, I'm out of pocket by about 20 quid. So if you start getting wap messages for no reason, get onto your mobile company quick sharp or you too will have a gapping anus just like me.
Monday, 21 April 2008
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