Sweet Nothings

I put this on my Facebook but figured it deserved the widest possible audience  to be put on here too. Just imagine if these allegations turned out to be true. You heard it here first.

I couldn't let this one go without passing comment, as it is truly the most baffling managerial appointment that I can remember. It was all going so well for Aston Villa - finally rid of Deadly Doug (but not before his parting gift of a fantastic manager), and guided by what seemed that rarest of creatures, a sensible foreign owner. Then it all began to unravel: the departure of O'Neill (who has a fondness for litigation, so let's not speculate about any of that), followed by the appointment of an ageing Frenchman possessing the archetypal "dickey ticker". Houllier's enforced exit should have been a blessing in disguise though - now the club could appoint a decent (and more importantly, healthy) manager who'd have the whole summer to build a team and bed them in. I can't imagine even the most masochistic Villa fan ever dreamed it would come to this. First of all Mark Hughes looked like the obvious choice, but apparently the abrupt manner of his ...

Block-age My relationship with Adam and Joe has been a bit rocky so far. Several different people whose opinions I respect had recommended their 6 Music show to me, but for whatever reason I never jumped in. Then when I finally popped my podcast cherry in South Africa, my expectations had built up to such extreme levels that they were always going to disappoint. Worse, the postmodernism, silly voices and absence of any sort of heart made me furious. I  hated  this self-indulgent crap! Oh well, to cut a long story short I've been listening to the new batch of podcasts from the start and I like them now. Sorry about that. The one quality that helped them to crowbar their way into my affections was how media-literate they are, and it's this that makes Attack the Block  a qualified success. The general consensus seems to be that this is a 7 out of 10 film and I'd have to agree. It's a great concept, and as Cornish has pointed out comparisons to Shaun of the Dead ...

[NOTE: Grr... Blogger went down on Thursday evening and I lost half of this post. What you see below is partly re-written from memory, so if it's rubbish then clearly that's the reason.] I've not really blogged about The Apprentice before, but after checking the whole internet it appears that nobody else has ever written about it, so here we go! We're into series 7 now and the format has passed the well-established stage and is lurching perilously close to "tired". It's nobody's fault, for this is just the way of TV shows in general and reality shows in particular. These tend to peak in their first series when the format is new and fresh, any cynicism about possible match-fixing hasn't had time to set in, and the contestants aren't all hyper-aware thanks to viewings of previous series. This rule certainly applies to the majority of UK reality shows from the last decade or so - Big Brother , Pop Idol , I'm A Celeb ... The exception is T...

They do say that the best way to see Venice is not to plan a proper route and just explore the maze of narrow streets, canals and alleyways not knowing what you're about to stumble upon. My problem is that I'm not very good at aimless wandering. For example, upon exiting the station on day 1, I resolved to follow the Grand Canal as it looped around to the Rialto bridge before heading down to the main Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square to you); within 10 minutes I was frantically breaking out the guidebook after following the wrong canal. On day 2, after a few minutes of making my casual way through the sidestreets towards the Accademia gallery, I got antsy that I didn't know exactly where I was and ended up following the ubiquitous signs down to the Rialto instead. Even though going via there was a much longer route. Sigh. Still, you're never entirely sure what's what in Venice, wherein lies its charm. Away from San Marco and the obvious tourist traps (and t...

What a curious business this AV referendum is turning out to be. Britain's first referendum in 30-odd years should be a huge deal. Unfortunately, the Great British Public's general disillusionment with politics in general combined with the relative complexity of the AV system is threatening to reduce the whole thing to a sideshow. The ever-increasing tetchiness between the coalition partners makes it a rather entertaining one, admittedly - these kind of spirited exchanges of views are exactly what should have been happening from day one of this Government, at least from a Lib Dem point of view. But the sight of High Tories standing side by side with Labour grandees will confuse many voters, probably making them less likely to vote than they already were. Anyone who's even thinking of voting should be compelled BY LAW to read this briefing paper  which gives as fair and unbiased an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system compared with the cur...

Source Code is the second film from Duncan Jones, who previously brought us Moon  and who was brought to us in part by David Bowie, him being his dad and all [/obligatory Bowie mention]. Firstly, I enjoyed this much more than Moon , but then I took the slightly heretical position of not enjoying that movie all that much. In fact, the same applies to pretty much all of the bona fide, classic dialogue-based sci-fi movies that I've seen - 2001, Solaris, Silent Running ... I've clearly been raised on an unhealthy diet of space opera, action and blockbuster FX, for which I can only apologise. Anyway, Source Code on the surface is a big leap into the mainstream by Jones - big budget, A-list star, plenty of explosions (well, technically the same explosion but it does happen LOADS of times). But even from the opening titles, sweeping aerial cityscapes accompanied by pleasingly old-school bombastic music, you get the feeling that this is a filmmaker who cares. Jake Gyllenhaal helps...

I can't decide on one specific thing to write about, but feel I ought to make some sort of entry in order to avoid getting featured on one of those " blog graveyard " sites. So here are a few random bullet points. Feeling Gravity's Pull  - Wonders of the Universe doesn't mess with a winning formula, meaning lucky old Brian Cox once again gets to visit spectacular landscapes the world over from where he delivers his enthusiastic musings on life, the universe and everything. It's very slow and clearly designed to appeal to the lowest common audience denominator, but let's be clear - any attempt to get people watching hard science on prime time TV is worthwhile, and especially when the quality of the visuals is this good. Even better, last night's episode featured Brian in a gravity simulator, and when it sped up to 4 Gs and beyond, and the immense downward forces made his jowls sag and his forehead crease, for once he looked his actual age. Mind yo...

A couple of years back, the FX channel showed an Australian drama called Underbelly . It was a pretty graphic portrayal of Melbourne's real-life gangland wars, events which were indeed so recent as to render the show unbroadcastable in the state of Victoria for fear of it prejudicing trials which were still taking place. Gruesome as some of the events it covered were, the tone of Underbelly  was rather odd - light and comical in places, and shot in bright, welcoming colours. Pretty much  Neighbours with guns and swearing, as the Guardian noted at the time. The effect, intentional or not, was to make these true events seem somewhat fantastical. Animal Kingdom  does not have this problem. David Michod's film (his name has an accent in it which I don't know how to add in Blogger - apols, mate) is a fictional but extremely down-and-dirty portrayal of the same Melbourne netherworld. It also differs from Underbelly by focussing on one family rather than dealing with an e...

I know I go on about the Sound of... polls and how pernicious they are, but the 2011 edition has become a real tipping point for me. Consider first Jessie J (if that is indeed her real name): the video to demented debut single  Do It Like A Dude  succeeds in being simultaneously provocative and terrifying. The tired old chestnut of whether white middle-class kids should really be singing "do it like the mandem" like Yardies doesn't really concern me; that boat sailed long ago. But this tune, to borrow a phrase, is some next level shit. It seems designed to repel adults completely. Well that's fine, if this is what "the kids" are listening to nowadays then I'm happy to admit defeat - I hereby declare myself Old, and utterly baffled by a piece of popular music. It's actually something of a relief. (Having said that, the follow-up  Price Tag  is a harmless bit of R&B, so perhaps Jessie's not so hardcore and is - gasp - just another major labe...

I love the fact that the government has just revoked export licences for arms to Bahrain, because they're worried that any weapons sold might end up being used for slightly unsavoury purposes, like, oh I don't know, the gunning down of anti-government protesters perhaps. I'm sure up until now all munitions purchased by the Bahrainis (Bahrainers? Baha Men?) from ourselves have been put to nice, friendly uses. The revolutionary events taking place in the Arab world have been quite an eye-opener really. Before this year I didn't really have a clue as to the political situation in these countries. Having read a lot more about Mr Mubarak and his ilk lately, it's easy to see why the Western powers had been quite happy for folk to remain in the dark. Egypt, for example, was regarded as a tourist hot spot who were nice to our friends the Israelis - not like those nasty other Arab types in Lebanon, Iran and suchlike. Now we know that it was a repressive dictatorship all...

After seeing The Fighter  the other day, I realised I've now seen nine of the ten Best Picture nominees for the upcoming Oscars, which has given me a thoroughly undeserved sense of smugness. Six of these have been covered in one form or another in earlier ramblings - ok, technically five and a half due to the Winter's Bone  fiasco . And I have no intention of seeing the tenth, True Grit , because - CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT - I'm not a fan of the Coens. But still - check me out, eh? Herewith some thoughts on the other three: 127 Hours has done pretty good box office considering the tough-sell subject matter, all of which is down to the tremendous reserves of public goodwill for Danny Boyle. These lay somewhat dormant for a while, perhaps down to his restless flitting between genres and consequent diminishing returns. Even so, it sounds incredible now that Slumdog nearly didn't get a theatrical release. It's much easier to see why Boyle didn't stay on the e...

I have something of a love/hate relationship with Sky . Hardware-wise, it's streets ahead of its great competitor Virgin Media, whose unresponsive and utterly frustrating EPG and V+ system I currently wrestle with on a daily basis. If it had been my choice to switch from Sky when I moved away from my smoke-infested Crouch End flat (making a fresh start and all that) then I wouldn't have much cause for complaint. The galling thing is that I was told specifically by my new landlady that the building management people did not like to see dishes on their walls. I have pathetically acquiesced to these demands despite half the people in this block brazenly using dishes in spite of several sternly-worded (but alas empty) threatening letters, thereby advancing the idea that cheating gets you ahead and reinforcing the old maxim of nice guys always finishing last. That certainly applies to poor old Vince Cable, slapped down and humiliated after being stitched up by the Torygraph as par...

I seem to listen to less and less music as the years go by. In 2010 I’ve watched loads of sport , and been to more movies and radio recordings (mostly free, coincidentally) than gigs. Even my iPod listening is increasingly dominated by podcasts. Nonetheless, here follows some brief musings on music from this year. Hopefully all these Sound Of... polls of “tastemakers” and Critics Choice awards won’t go on for too much longer. This year’s HOT TIP~! was Ellie Goulding , who’s only really made the cultural impact that all the breathless hyperbole suggested she would now she's done a seasonally-friendly cover and stuck it on an advert. The problem is that everything about her betrays her origins as a marketing project, artificially born out of target market analyses and box-checking exercises. Take her singing voice: with someone like Bjork, for example, you don't have trouble believing that it's her natural voice because she's such a bonkers character. Goulding seems li...

Apparently there was a World Cup this year. I know, me neither. They kept that one quiet didn’t they? Meanwhile, domestic football has reached the point where success or failure is dictated more by the global economy than anything else. The recession was blamed for the English clubs’ lack of success in last season’s Champions League, Man Utd and Chelsea’s owners now unwilling or unable to spunk huge sums on the new players needed to keep them dominant. This season’s bonkers Premier League is further proof of this, although you’d have thought Chelsea already had it sewn up by October judging from the media’s over-reacting to their successful negotiation of what was a pitifully easy opening schedule. Finance dictates everything – the most dramatic events of this season so far have been Liverpool’s tortuous courtroom ownership battle, the ridiculous sackings of two perfectly good managers because of the unrealistic expectations of their chairmen, and the shock exit of another just bef...

One thing that’s really hit home this year is that expectations can be a real killer for movies. Take The Social Network   I adore The West Wing and most of Aaron Sorkin’s other work (stepping gingerly around Studio 60), and therefore I was almost indecently excited when I heard he’d written a tale about the creation of Facebook and even more so when I heard early reviews. It’s a highly accomplished film for sure, but I found myself constantly thinking “this isn't quite as good as the West Wing”, or “not sure about that sequence”, or “this cinematography is too darn dark!”, thereby ensuring that my colossal expectations were never likely to be met. Conversely, I went to see Toy Story 3 in Durban after a month in South Africa during which I’d been largely cut off from movie hype. Even though I expected it to be good, there was always a feeling that surely Pixar were milking the franchise slightly, as the third film of any series is wont to do (assuming a trilogy wasn’t the ...