Hello Oslo, this is London Calling...

Well, it was Eurovision on Saturday a festival of bland/bizarre/irritating (delete as appropriate) Europop. Some highlights included a pitch invasion during Spain's entry and a Russian entry apparently loosely based on Flight of the Conchord's 'Petrov, Yelyena and Me'.

Anyway seeing as I am now on holiday (normal blog service will resume on Thursday) here's what watching Eurovision with me would have been like. (I know, I'm a hoot)

SERBIA

I never realised that Limahl was Serbian...
Anyone fancy explaining to me what the fuck just happened? Nope? No takers?

SPAIN

Spain get ANOTHER go? This could be like Dante's 7th Circle of Hell...

GREECE

Greece might have done alright these last 6 years, but I mean, they can't have spent much on this years, can they?
I think they blew all the Euros on hiring Billy Ray Cyrus to perform the customary 'traditional Greek instrument' solo.

UK

Right, so Josh is the same age as me, eh? Is that in the same way that Tim from #juniorapprentice is 17?!
Interesting. Usually it's the backing singers in tune and the lead hopeless. This appears to be the other way round.
Encouraging clapping with all the enthusiasm of a barracked substitute teacher.

GEORGIA

I'm starting to see the point of Russian occupation.

ICELAND

Here's Iceland. And it is all over! #eurovision #fatladysingsjoke

(I was first with the fat lady sings joke. It was then endlessly repeated by other people who got the credit. That's what Twitter is basically - more popular people stealing your jokes)

ARMENIA

Yuri and the Giant Apricot? (Referring to another's joke about James and the Giant Peach)
Massive apricot and a buggering key change, plus a rousing Communist chorus. How can this not win? (This one was retweeted by the Red Scare Bot - E-McCarthysim)

ISRAEL

Am I correct in thinking that we have to listen to this from right to left?
If you're wondering, that last joke was about it being in Hebrew. Because it so much funnier when you explain these things...
(During the voting clips) That was definitely the best clip of Israel's entry to show, wasn't it(?) Anti-Semitic conspiracy?

DENMARK

I hope Andy, Stuart and Sting are suing the fuck out of these guys. (Patent plagiarism of opening bars of 'Every Breath You Take')

VOTING JOKES

Wait, don't tell me, it's David Laws to deliver our voting results, right?
8 point to Greece? (from Germany) Is that instead of bailing them out with Euros?
If Greece win, does the rest of the Eurozone have to pay for them hosting it next year?
10 points to Georgia from Russia. Is that to apologise for all the invasion business last year?
I'll have what the Azerbaijani lady's having.
And, Malta. After everything we've done for you!
I'm not sure people should be allowed to enter songs that have achieved commercial success. It's hardly in the spirit of #eurovision...
Oh no, is that woman going to do her Dick van Dyke again? (referring to German winner Lena and her awful Mockney accent ((again, people with more influence later made this joke to much applause and back-slapping. Don't you just hate being a nobody?)))

Again. Least convincing German woman I've ever seen. Ever.

Friday Pictorial the Seventeenth: Football

Well, World Cup fever is taking hold and everyone's been putting out their songs to spur on England. I can't help but feel, however, that many of them aren't looking at it in the right way.
To that end here is the Friday Pictorial unofficial World Cup song...

Bite Me Again: Staring Through Windows at Teenage Vampires - Part Deux

If you cast your minds back to February you might remember me giving the 'Or So I Thought...' treatment to 'Twilight'. Well, yesterday I had the dubious honour of watching the sequel. 'The Twiglet Saga: New Volvo' (or something like that anyway).

So after a dramatic opening we arrive with Mary Sue and Cedric enthralled by each other in school. Cedric has a new Volvo (hence the title, I suppose - I'm looking forward to this year's 'The Twiglet Saga: Another Year, Another Volvo'...). They're supposed to be paying attention in class and aren't. Who'da thunk it?

Did I mention it's Mary Sue's birthday? Well it is. Her Dad (very much still the only sympathetic character in the entire thing) gives her a camera and Mary Sue does her impression of what she thinks teenage gratitude looks like and wobbles her chin a little. Time to go and see the Cullens as a birthday treat. Woops, Mary Sue's got a papercut... oh and Twisty Smile Vampire has gone apeshit fucking mental. To remedy this, Cedric throws her into a glass table (he's an all-round stand-up guy, ya see?). Coop/Dr. Acula stitches her up and sends her on her way.

Cedric informs Mary Sue that he's leaving. The reason? Coop looks ten years younger than he's supposed to be apparently (go him!). Cue Mary Sue sitting in her room crying for literally 3 months (I'm serious here, they even put the months up on the screen as she stares out of the window). She suffers from nightmares, from which her put-upon father has to wake her and comfort her (clearly thinking "What the fuck is wrong with you?! Anymore of this and you can go live with your mom and that baseball gigolo of hers..."). In the end she learns that danger allows her to see Cedric again. To that end, while walking with a friend she challenges a group of bikers and proceeds to receive a backie. She returns to her friend (who inexplicably remained rooted to the spot, the mug). "I thought I saw something." Explains Mary Sue. "Which is naturally why I rode on the back of a strangers bike for 10 minutes and left you waiting there" (not verbatim).

Danger. That''s the key. She promptly takes some bikes to Rafa Nadal, who has apparently turned into Geoff Capes (readers under the age of 30, see here). Together they rebuild some bikes. Mary Sue crashes her bike and injures her head. Rafa quickly runs over to her, noticing the tiny drip of blood on her forehead, he promptly rips off his t-shirt (which she doesn't even tie around her head to staunch the bleeding or anything). "You're, like, kind of beautiful" blurts Mary Sue in one of the films numerous facepalm moments. More stuff happened and for reasons which I can't fully remember, Mary Sue decided to accost some of Rafa's shirtless comrades (she didn't catch them off-guard, they're just always shirtless). When one turns into a wolf and charges towards her, Rafa (now with a tattoo and haircut) bounds out from the house and leaps, transforming into a werewolf, to Mary Sue's amazement. Amazement? Did she not even watch the trailers? Everyone knows he's a fucking werewolf.

Ooh, just remembered some stuff. Anyone remember token black, French vampire from the first film? Nope, me neither, but he got savaged by some werewolves earlier. Where was I? Um. Mary Sue leaps off a cliff. Blah, blah, blah... she's saved by Rafa. Blah, blah, blah. Cassandra Vampire turns up at the Cullen place and talks to Mary Sue, explaining that she saw a premonition of Mary Sue jumping off the cliff and came to check she was alright. Rafa arrives in the house and answers the phone. It's Cedric. Rafa hangs up (we've all had phone convos like that...). Cassandra says that Cedric now intends to get himself executed by the Vampire Pope by revealing himself in public.

Mary Sue and Cassandra board a flight to Italy (Virgin Atlantic - kerching- see what they did there? Kill me, kill me now...). They then drive a bright yellow Porsche through the streets of a generic Italian town. Mary Sue runs through a crowd of people in red capes (it's National People Wear Red Capes Day in Italy, see?) and hugs Cedric back through the doors before he can be compromised. However Mary Sue gets taken to the Vampire Pope (Tony Blair/Brian Clough) who says that they must either kill her or turn her into a vampire. Cedric then has the shit kicked out of him (again for reasons which I don't fully understand). Note - this scene would be much more entertaining with a song like, say, Alive and Kicking by Simple Minds in the background.

Back in Forks, some other stuff happened. I won't lie, I wasn't really paying attention and, in all honesty, the film should have finished about 30 minutes ago. Urm, I think Mary Sue has to become a vampire or something. Rafa's pissed anyhow... oh that's right, Cedric had to go and see Rafa and they had an argument. Cedric pushed Rafa who promptly turned into a wolf. "Bring it, fuckface!" (again, not verbatim) Cedric said. "Stop it!" Mary Sue said, interposing herself between the two. Rafa had a weepy look in his wolfy eye and retreated. Then there was some stuff (token appearances by Plastic Whore Vampire and Fuck-off Massive Vampire) and it finished.

Well, that was basically it anyway...

All in all, it's more preposterous than the first but not quite as enjoyably bad. Swings and roundabouts.

Eurovision...

This is a very, very brief one to discuss the imminent arrival (as Ken Bruce keeps reminding me) of the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year us Twitter folk had a jolly excellent time ribbing the contestants and getting drunk, I can only hope the same will happen this year.

I can't say I'm a font of all knowledge for Eurovision, but handily this article from the Guardian gives you the 'Ones to Watch' (not necessarily because they're good). My favourite bit from it concerns Belgian entry 'Me and My Guitar'

'Me And My Guitar is so relentlessly insipid that it would probably struggle to soundtrack a John Lewis advert. Tom Dice's acoustic wimpery doesn't stand a hope of winning Eurovision, but all's not lost - if he enters the Song Played Over The Final Scene Of An Episode Of Scrubs Contest, he'll probably walk it.'

I quite like that one really (compared to the other Eurovision songs, that is) but then for me the fun of Eurovision is just taking the piss out of it really. You don't want the acts to be any good. You want the Russian woman with a green screen that ages her as much as you've aged over the course of the dirge, or a Latvian woman crossing a bridge of midgets while extolling the virtues of the Balkan oil reserves. That's why Wogan was so brilliant at voicing the whole affair, because he said what you were thinking, namely "what the fuck is this?!" Norton put up a decent effort last year, to be fair, slipping in the odd wry remark, but the only way to watch, in my view, is beverage in hand with thousands of fellow tweeps hurling abuse at the equally drunk presenters and the poor fellows foolish enough to carry the weight of national expectation with song titles like 'What For? (Only Mr. God Knows Why)', probably a phrase that could be applied to the contest itself.

Redemption...

Ok, time for another review (sorry about all this serious academia, I'll be funny again later... promise).

'Hype' is a word that dominates the game industry and few games have generated so much of it in recent memory as the latest offering from Free-Roam innovators and creators of the GTA series, Rockstar Games. With Red Dead Redemption, the team attempts to bring the thrill of the great Westerns to your living room/bedroom/wherever you happen to stash your console. This is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and you're The Man With No Name. Well, that's not strictly true, you're John Marston, reformed outlaw attempting to bring his former brother in arms to justice.

The opening cinematic and the mission that follows is worthy of any Western and sets the scene wonderfully. In Exodus in America, Marston arrives in Blackwater on a steamer as melancholic minor chords play out the dying heartbeat of the West and dramatic guitar stings build the tension. A Ford Model T is lowered from the boat by crane and Marston, accompanied by two agents from 'The Bureau' strolls to the station, past streetlights and shop fronts. This is 1911. This is the swansong of the West. This is Red Dead Redemption.

Needless to say, there are plenty of stylistic nods to the greats. The slow-motion 'Dead-Eye' (one of the very few elements retained from its 2003 predecessor 'Red Dead Revolver') gives a Peckinpah-like quality as stylised viscera bursts forth from whichever fools were unlucky enough to cross John Marston, Bill Elm and Woody Jackson do their very best impression of Morricone for the game's excellent original score and the duels and cinematics could be straight from Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. That said, one comparison that I haven't seen drawn so often is with John Ford. Ford understood that it was the West itself that was the star of any picture. When riding on one of the game's specially mo-capped horses to a location like Manteca Falls, one gets the breathtaking, awe-inspiring views that Ford so loved. Every time you decide to break from the trails and have a look around you'll find another picturesque spot. From Ojo del Diablo to Tall Trees, each location could be straight from an Ansel Adams book. In the way that Adams' photography made me hunger for the dusty trails and the whitewashed missions, so Red Dead Redemption's sumptuous landscapes make me wish the scrub of New Austin and the rocks of Nuevo Paraiso were real.


Graphically it is stunning, no doubt about it. The character models themselves suffer a little in comparison to those in exclusive titles such as Uncharted 2 and God of War III but are raised enough from GTA to keep us satisfied. The gunplay is weighty enough to give a sheen of authenticity without hampering its enjoyability, although this leads me to another point. One of the things that sets Rockstar titles apart from the rest of the sandbox market is its dedication to the creation of a fully fleshed-out world. RDR's world is one in which wolves and coyotes howl at night, scampering along the road looking for unwary travellers, in which men bump into each other in the street and a heated exchange follows and in which you're called out in the street to face the challenge of any two-bit bandit who wants you to make 'em famous. You don't have to follow Marston's plotline. Instead you can hunt game for meat and pelts, gamble in a number of inventive and original ways, all with fairly intuitive controls, hunt for treasure or simply explore the vast landscape.

It's the polished free-roam experience that is the Rockstar trademark, I remember purchasing GTAIV and completing the nannying introductory missions and watching the in-game TV channel for a good half an hour, it was that good. Similarly in RDR I played Horseshoes against a ranch-hand for a good 20 minutes and was rewarded with $2. I was ecstatic. Similarly, Rockstar always delivers a cast of colourful characters, here we have everyone from reluctant US Marshal Leigh Johnson to hard-drinking stereotype Irish, via Snake-Oil hucksters, retired gunfighters, shady government agents, feminists and revolutionaries. The script has some clever exchanges and witty dialogue though can on occasion appear a little bloated. It's not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but it's pretty good.

In a game like this it is about providing an experience, wish fulfillment, if you will. It certainly fulfilled my wishes. When it hit me was in a mission in the first area which, not to give too much away, involves the use of a gatling gun in a fort. In that moment I was Pike from The Wild Bunch. In fact The Wild Bunch is another excellent point of reference for this game and shares a number of characteristics, not least timeframe but also weaponry and personnel (you'll see what I mean when you reach Mexico).

All in all the experience is nothing short of epic. In fact, it delivers the definitive Western gaming experience and raises the bar for open-world games yet further. Terrific.

Ashes to Ashes, Eighties to Eighties...

Feeling a bit nostalgic? The beeb certainly is and their 80s Season is in full swing (it's like they knew the Tories were going to be in power...) which means adaptations of classic 80s literature such as Martin Amis' 'Money' starring the terrific Nick Frost, 80s films like Terry Gilliam's masterpiece 'Brazil' and the finale of Ashes to Ashes. George Osborne's doing his bit too by trying to get the levels of unemployment back up to their 1983 levels in celebration (satire *pumps fist*)...

Anyway, Friday saw 'the end of an era'. A complex, mythos shattering goodbye to Gene Hunt et al. So what did we all make of it? (This is a genuine question - I know a fair few of you followers did watch it, so leave some comments and we can brainstorm everything). Also, if you haven't seen it and intend to do so, this will ruin everything for you, so, you know, SPOILERS and all that.

Ever since the arrival of the wonderfully original 'Life on Mars', fans have agonised over the truth. Mixing nostalgia, surrealism, humour and action, Life on Mars went on to achieve both critical acclaim and enormous popularity (in no small part down to Phillip Glenister's marvellously un-PC DCI Gene Hunt), but despite all this it left the fans mulling over exactly what was happening. Both Life on Mars' Sam Tyler and Ashes to Ashes' Alex Drake wondered after their separate accidents if they were "mad, in a coma or back in time" and as it would happens they weren't really any of these things. In the finale of Life on Mars, Tyler found his way back to the 'real world' only to find that the bureaucracy and boredom of modern life made him hunger for his new (or rather really old) friends and colleagues, leading him to leap from the roof of the police headquarters and arrive back in 1973 in time to save the day. A hugely satisfying ending, but not one that cracked the secrets of the show's lore.

In Ashes to Ashes we followed Alex Drake frantically search for a way back to her daughter Molly, all the while creating preposterous sexual chemistry and tension with Hunt and scoffing at his uncouthness and approach to policing. The end of the second series saw her inadvertently shot by Hunt during an operation and at the beginning of the third she finds herself in a hospital bed still very much in the 80s and now haunted by a mysterious young police officer with half a face. Series 3 also saw the arrival of Jim Keats from Discipline and Complaints (well it was bound to happen to Hunt at some point). From the moment of his arrival a wee voice in my head piped up "there's a wrong'un, if ever I saw one" and, as it would happen I would be vindicated in my assertion.

There were a number of elements over which us fans had been attemption to fathom the significance of. The number 6620 was revealed to be the number on the epaulets of the copper with half a face, but what was the strange house about? Why were Chris, Ray and Shaz seeing stars? What's the significance of the time 9.06? Did Gene kill Sam Tyler? Hunt maintained that his last words to Tyler involved taking him to the pub. Drake decided that she would have to go to the spooky house in Lancashire and approached the scarecrow on the hill which happened to be wearing a jacket with the number 6620 on the shoulder. She began to dig under the scarecrow and Hunt begged her not to. She found the shallow grave of the copper with half a face and reached into the journal buried with him. Opening it she was greeted with "6620, Gene Hunt".

Cue an excellent, excellent revelation that changed the face of all 5 series. Gene Hunt had had half of his face blown off by a shotgun toting farmer on Coronation Day, his first day on the beat. Keats emerged from the shadows of the house and began taunting him. Not only was Hunt dead, but so were Chris, Ray and Shaz. Chris, a uniform copper, gunned down; Ray, distraught at his father's disproval and failure in the Army (referenced earlier in the series) hanged himself and Shaz was stabbed by a would-be car thief. It was all beginning to come together. Keats returned to Fenchurch East with a dejected Hunt and Drake in tow and proceeded to smash up the office, revealing that the entire world is a lie, effectively breaking apart Hunt's universe.

Keats, in full Satan mode (the only bit that I actually worked out before the final episode) proceeds to take Chris, Ray and Shaz to his hedonistice, oh so tempting division of CID and, in a brilliant twist on the usual image of Hell, asks them to take the lift down. Meanwhile, Alex convinces Hunt to get his act together and stop the Dutch gang that they had been attempting to foil before the revelations started coming thick and fast. Hunt dragged Shaz from the jaws of Hell with the aid of a walkie talkie but Chris and Ray were apparently left to their doom. At the raid, things went a bit awry. An undercover Shaz was found out and Hunt and Alex were left pinned down behind a decidely sorry-looking, bullet-ridden Quattro. As the 'Hollandaise' (as Chris called them earlier, before being corrected) gang made their escape, their car was t-boned by Ray's and Skelton and Carling gunned down the criminals as Vangelis' triumphant Chariots of Fire theme played. It was a beautiful moment. I was practically welling up by now. "He's killed the Quattro." Gene lamented. "He's killed my car!"

Lovely. Where to go from there then, well, as referenced earlier, the only place to go after a successful operation is 'the pub'. But this wasn't any pub, this was The Railway Arms from Life on Mars, complete with Nelson the barman. As Tyler had done it would seem that 'going to the pub' was a way of passing on from this 'Policeman's Purgatory'. Ray, Chris and Shaz walked in but Alex stopped, making a horrible realisation. That she couldn't go back to the real world, she couldn't see her Molly again. Hunt comforted her as a serpentine Keats, who had been lurking behind the pair, chose his moment to strike. Drake asked him the time, but he was reluctant to show her his watch. As it happened the time was, yep, you guessed it, 9.06, the time when Alex Drake died in her hospital bed, with her daughter at her side. Hunt punched out Keats and left Drake to enter the pub after an embrace and a kiss. But Keats wasn't done yet, he launched a maniacal tirade at a lonesome Hunt, who ignored him as he slithered away.

Back in Fenchurch, Hunt poured himself a well-earned glass of Scotch and leafed through a Mercedes 190D catalogue, when a man burst through the office doors yelling about iPhones and demanding to know what had happened to his office. A wry smile crept onto Hunt's face as he rose from his chair to the door and addressed him in the manner that we have all come to love and will no doubt miss greatly. "A word in you shell-like, pal?"

And there we have it. Enought revelations to wrap up the plot with enough left open for the fans to discuss. For the creators of the show this is the culmination of a work started in 1998 and an ending kept underwraps since the writing of Life on Mars. Just terrific. We learnt that Hunt had been a skinny, young rookie "head swimming with machismo", bursting into the farmhouse like John Wayne only to have his life cruelly snatched from him and had in purgatory been able to become everything he had wanted to be. He was John Wayne, he was Gary Cooper, he was Gene Hunt and he was a hero, herding the lost souls of troubled policemen to a better place. It was Paradise Lost with New Romantics, 'Paradise Lost in the Eighties', perhaps. Hunt wasn't so much a God as a man making up for lost potential and battling the demonic Keats.

Of course, we don't know everything. There are still a few boxes left unchecked. What about the other coppers? Viv and the rest, are they all dead too? Was Annie dead in Life on Mars? Gene maintained that he had forgotten what the truth of the world was exactly, so he knew at some point? Did Chris, Ray and Shaz have the Sam/Alex experience? Did Sam Tyler forget the 'real world' before he went to 'the pub'? Was DCI Lytton dead or a figure from Hunt's mind - the Jack Palance to his Alan Ladd? We may never know for sure, but what we do know, is that Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes' place in the pantheon of great drama is now assured.


Things that also ended this week...

Lost - From what I can tell, the ending was basically the same as Ashes to Ashes, except that Ashes to Ashes didn't fuck around with Polar Bears (Noah's Island rip-off much?) and ridiculous Black Smoke creatures. Yeah, I gave up when the Polar Bear turned up in the first series, didn't really get Lost... just a quick vent there...

Friday Pictorial the Sixteenth: Music

It's fair to say that I don't often receive requests for the Friday Pictorial, but in this case I did. In a past life I used to create little musical comedy numbers and it just so happens that one of you lovely followers asked for a Pictorial based around one of those. As ever, I aim to please, so here you are.



Just to clarify again. The statements in the video are just for comedic purposes and in no way should anyone alert lawyers/release hounds etc.

You're All Fired, You Tiny Freaks...

It surely cannot have escaped your notice that last night saw the second episode of Junior Apprentice, in which Lord Sugar (worst paedophile nickname ever) tasks a group of under 18s (and one 27 year old) with various 'business' exercises. Last week's involved the wholesale flogging of a cooler full of cheese and saw miniature Michael Gove impersonator Jordan de Courcy fired the hell out of.

Ok, pressing issues first, if that's what Tim thinks 17 year olds look like, he is way off the mark. Right, now that's out of the way, let's get down to business. There were some more clips of the contestants saying "I'm a tosser, I'm a tosser, I'm a tosser/I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch" (delete as applicable) repeatedly to a camera with a trendy London backdrop. Here's a funny thing - Rhys, Arjun and Tim are all the same age... and Tim opens the envelope and it's 'BLUFF' written in big letters. It's the television business-based reality show equivalent of an odd one out round. I can only hope that Tim is secretly an undercover journalist.

This week's task - design a piece of camping equipment. Easy, right? Right. So why the fuck did Adam think it would be a good idea to create the FlexnSave? As Zoe pointed out, this product sells itself, which is great... apart from the simple fact that it doesn't. It's a cardboard box with some flimsy chessboards on top of it. Even a tramp who was contemplating as using it for accomodation let alone storage would give it a kick and say "I'm not impressed by the structural integrity of this." Adam meanwhile was obsessed with shoes and shoe storage, like a really boring business episode of Sex and the City (probably, I don't really know what happens in that show, other than stereotyping...).

In the other camp, Tim, doing his best impression of a teacher charged with supervising the contestants, brainstormed some ideas and came up with a sledge. Yeah, not great, but then infinitely less shit than a cardboard box with 'shoe-storage space'. Arjun blagged his way through the pitch and somehow convinced Argos to purchase several thousand units. As a reward they were given a fireworks display, laid on for them especially (yeah, just think about that sentence and work out why fireworks are never ideal as a personal present when you let them off in the middle of fucking Kew Gardens).

The cardboard team were relegated to the greasy spoon where they played backgammon on the FlexnSave and the loser, Adam, was forced to eat the product and his own bodyweight in shoes (this is a lie). Adam inexplicably brought Zoe back into the boardroom (the equivalent of smearing yourself in stolen honey and locking yourself in a room with a swarm of killer bees) along with Hibah and the bitching and backstabbing began. For reasons which I don't fully understand, Hibah ended up 'fired'. Zoe later pointed out that Lord Sugar 'sees himself in' Adam. Let's not dwell on that...

The Horne Section...

Comedy and music. Two towering forms of entertainment, inextricably linked. One may point to opera, operetta, silent comedy piano scores or even Music Hall as testament to the enduring relationship between the two. Musical comedy has once again found acclaim and success with superstars such as Tim Minchin, Tom Basden and Flight of the Conchords. But to have live comedy married with a live band to create an unpredictable fusion is something that I had not encountered before.

Last night I had the enormous honour of attending the first outing of 'The Horne Section' at the Canal Cafe Theatre in London's picturesque Little Venice. Hosted by Alex Horne (hence Horne Section, see what they did there?) and backed by a selection of jazz musicians, The Horne Section aims to bring a unique experience to its audience. What I witnessed was not simply the marriage of music and comedy, but also of poetry, film, live action 'Battleships' and the supernatural. Sound exciting? Well, it really bloody was. Tremendously so.

The line-up was equally stellar, with the Edinburgh award-winning Tim Key and his Cowards comrade Lloyd Woolf. All in all it was a mouth-watering prospect and when Alex Horne emerged and broke into song, joined by his 'Sidemen' I knew innately that it would live up to my expectations. As an ice-breaker Horne announced that we, as an audience, were to play Battleships. The explanation of the game was vintage Horne and the band broke into the terrific theme tune (which has been stuck in my head for the last 24 or so hours), before the audience were split in two (as in one side versus the other, not some appalling macabre dance of death) and two team captains were elected with the task of finding a member of the opposition that matched the criteria displayed on the screen. I was called into action twice, both on name-related criteria. My first name was apparently cool (on the off chance you ever read this, thanks for that, Alex), though when it came to interesting surnames, I delivered my response with a hefty degree of trepidation and the 'quite right' hand gesture. My doubts clearly had grounding, but, to bastardise Meat Loaf, 1 outta 2 ain't bad... well, I mean, it's not great... it's... well, it's 50%, it's 50%.

It was then time to bring out the first act of the evening. I should point out that I am an enormous Key fan, all he need do is pull the 'look' (if you're already a Key fan, I hope you know to what I'm referring) and I would collapse with laughter. He gave us a quick burst of his poetry, written on the back of playing cards and recipe for 'Raspberry's Pie' (alternatively - strawberries, apples, spuds). Each of his poems is gold dust and never fail to deliver hilarity. His delivery is ace and his timing faultless, he used the band to great effect.

The second act of the night was Lloyd Woolf, in a rare gigging appearance. Again, he can do no wrong for me, I cannot understate how big of an impact Cowards had on my comedy, changing the way I thought about the conventions of sketch-writing and delivery. He talked about celebrity rumours, one which is absolutely true and you should all repeat to your friends is that, in a bid to save his ailing marriage, Sir Paul McCartney attempting to grow a new leg for Heather Mills, using the DNA of his dead wife Linda. That's one's legit... almost certainly. Woolf also treated us to a seance in which we attempted to prove the existence of ghosts by summoning the spirit of Buster Merryfield. As it happens, ghosts don't exist.

We were also treated to a stunning display of musical virtuosity in 'The Stilgoe Section', in which the band's pianist and his Ro-land keyboard asked for requests for five songs. He was given, Telstar, Beauty and the Beast, Poker Face, Dogtanian and the Three Muskerhounds and Ring My Bell. An eclectic mix but he summarily proceeded to play all five in a vast medley encompassing a number of musical styles. I was stunned by his undoubted ability and the ease at which he reeled off the numbers. Only one word can describe it - talent.

We were also treated to a short film by Tim Key, scored by the band and a humorous musical number from the band themselves, 'The Sidemen'. The Horne Section is a triumph, perhaps the best way I can think to describe it, is that it goes some way towards bringing the tone and anarchic aspects of We Need Answers into a comedy gig. There are songs, there are games and it's all jolly good fun. Alex Horne watches over proceedings with his trademark use of technology and his unique brand of stand-up, Key and Woolf were both excellent and the band added a whole new dimension to things. In short, The Horne Section is a triumph. You need to see it.

Lost (Then Found) In La Mancha...

Here's a snippet for film fans. Terry Gilliam announced a couple of years ago that he would be attempting to reshoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and now it would appear that things are being stepped up, as he announced in Cannes that Ewan MacGregor would be taking the role of Toby (a modern businessman who finds himself in 17th-century Spain and mistaken for Sancho Panza by the legendary Don) from Johnny Depp who is unable to work with Gilliam once more due to scheduling conflicts. Robert Duvall takes over from Jean Rochefort as the titular would-be knight hero.

The film, in which a advertising executive finds himself transported to the 17th century where he becomes embroiled in the misadventures of the legendary literary figure, has of course been attempted once before, when a unseasonable Spanish storm laid waste to the set, bringing an end to filming in 1999, all famously chronicled in the documentary Lost in La Mancha.

The documentary went on to enjoy a good deal of success in its own right. Drawing parallels between Gilliam and Quixote himself, it also alludes to the curse of 'The Man of La Mancha' referencing how even Orson Welles failed to bring his Don Quixote to fruition, not to mention the curse of Gilliam's movies themselves. While Gilliam is a visionary, an auteur, he has suffered some rotten bad luck in the production of several of his films.

British Academy Fellow Gilliam has claimed that the infamous storm 'saved his ass' as the film was almost certain to run dramatically over-budget and I'm not sure that he even need make the movie. Lost in La Mancha is all the more dramatic for the fact that it did end in total tragedy and disaster, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is its Nation's Pride or The Orchid Thief. That said, Gilliam never fails to deliver a unique visual experience and should production avoid any rain dances, then The Man Who Killed Don Quixote could well be genius.

Diversification...

No, I'm not a farm, but it would seem that diversification was something that took up this weekend. (Don't hate me for it, I'm simply trying all avenues to make a living before Cameron takes all my money/job prospects).

Essentially, it involved uploading all of the (non-copyright infringing - sorry Lambing Live, you're just for this blog) videos to the brand spanking new Youtube channel and thanks to you folks out there I'm the 85th most viewed comedian on Youtube today and the 58th most subscribed to this week (with a massive 4 subscribers...).

Next came the leap of faith, the election video uploaded to Funny or Die, where it holds a pretty tasty 91% funny rating (which I know is mostly down to you lovely people who read this or follow me on Twitter). So here are a few simpler ways to enjoy the previous Friday Pictorials (should you want to, I imagine once is enough for some of them...) .

Anyhow, that's just a bit of shameless self-promotion, what I actually came here to talk about, if you'll let me get a word in edgeways, was the issue of the new 55% majority required to dissolve parliament (no, not taking a vat of sulphuric acid to Bootsie Collins and George Clinton, but calling an election), something that the Con-Dems call 'fixed-term parliament'. This struck me as odd, as only the coalition is capable of dissolving parliament, meaning that they can be in power for as long as they want. 'Democracy', don't you just love it(?) My first thought on this was that it seeked to make the other parties powerless and obsolescent (if not obsolete) in the way the notorious Enabling Act of the Nazi government. Naturally I don't propose that the Con-Dems are on par with the Nazis, it was simply what flagged up in my head after first hearing about this '55%' majority business. It was surely blatant disregard for both the constitution and the electorate.

I feel somewhat vindicated in my feelings after reading Charlie Brooker's column in today's Guardian in which he bemoans the coalition for not being the hateful Tory government that would have at least allowed us to mourn instead of this... thing, whatever it is. In the column he too makes reference to the Enabling Act, albeit in exaggerated jest with a brief caveat. That said, at least the thought must have crossed his mind, so I can't be completely crazy, can I?

Alright, I can...

Alright, I am...

Friday Pictorial the Fifteenth: Election

Well, as few of you will have failed to notice, we've had a change of government, which has been less than popular in its formation on this site.

A little known fact is that in my constituency, following the success of the televised leaders debates, the Electoral Commission trialled a new voting system involving touch screen and voice recognition technology. Here are the results.




Booya! Satire *fist pump*!

Riding Through the Glen...

Sorry that this is likely to be shorter than anticipated. I've had one of those days where the world says 'hey, you know what, you're just not fucking busy enough already. Have a whole load of shit to sort out'. Nevertheless I shall attempt to give you a brief review of the latest Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe endeavour 'Robin Hood'.

Rather apt for the current situation, Robin Hood: Origins, as it could easily be called, depicts a country in turmoil. On one level it's a tale of kings - the popular, bellowing warrior, Richard the Lionheart (as apparently played by David Coverdale); Amoral, preening tosser, King John (as portrayed by any South American tennis player you care to imagine); and pantomime villian, Frenchy type, Phillip II (as gurned by Jay Rayner). Alright, so that's all in jest but there are a number of curious casting decisions, be they Scott Grimes (perhaps best known to English viewers as Morris from ER) as Will Scarlett, Canadian hardman Kevin Durand as Little John or Danny Huston as the aforementioned Coer de Lion. Cue a mix of rather interesting accents.

I should point out however that this in no way detracts from the quality of the performances. Crowe is in full shouty warrior mode (see: Gladiator) as Robin Longstride (of the Hood - I know, gangsta...), Mark Strong is (in the most predictable piece of casting) the villain of the piece and performs to his customary high standard. Veteran Swedish screen legend Max von Sydow gives a compelling performance as Sir Walter Loxley and Cate Blanchett makes the most of a beefed up Marion role.

The best scenes are those which recreate the magic of Gladiator (which Robin Hood has the unfortunate task of standing in the shadow of) that is to say the battle scenes. Scott's control over the noise, whirling limbs and charging horses is masterful and while some of the middle scenes are perhaps a touch tame for hardcore Ridley Scott fans, the piece as a whole provides an original and highly entertaining take on the story behind one of the biggest figures in English folklore.

Four Stars

Best Line: KING JOHN (to ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE): Spare me your farmyard memories.

(You probably had to be there...)

Back in Time...

This is no fun Huey Lewis and the News song, this is what likely faces us in the immediate future. It's frighteningly appropriate that last night's Heston Blumenthal feast was 80s themed, because that's pretty much where we headed again. To borrow a theme from Supernatural, yesterday Clegg said 'yes' to Lucifer and we are now ConDem-ned as a country.

"What's the problem?" You may say. "You voted for this." But that's just it. We didn't. 64% of the electorate didn't vote for Cameron and certainly none of the Liberal voters that I know put down their x with the expectation that we would be handing the keys to ShamCam. We didn't vote for Cable's fiscal policy so that Osborne can be let loose in the treasury like a hyperactive child in a sweet shop. It seems as though the wool has been well and truly pulled over our eyes as a nation. We voted Clegg and got Cameron. The Lib Dems protest that the decision was preferable to the stigma attached to 'propping up' the ailing Labour government, but this isn't about 'stigma' or personal damned popularity. We had one simple aim, to keep a dangerous, pudge-faced toff out of Number 10 and we failed.

When details were released of simultaneous talks with Labour, the right wing press practically fell over itself calling the Lib Dems untrustworthy, Adam Boulton stopped seconds short of a cerebral aneurysm, Nick Robinson saw his masterplan momentarily falter. Hours later they were handing them junior cabinet roles. There were claims over the Labour talks that the Lib Dems were turning Judas, but rather it is what has happened that feels like the betrayal. The selling out on policies on electoral reform and ideology for simply immediate power. It's cheap, it won't work and it feels very wrong indeed.

In a speech in the early hours of this morning Clegg promised a diverse government and one need only cast an eye across the cabinet posts to see the diversity of this new government - Liam Fox, George Osborne, William Hague, murmurings of Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. About as fucking diverse as they come: middle aged, white, male right wing politicians. This is indeed a betrayal and a number of Lib Dem voters have defected to Labour in the wake of it. I am not surprised in the least. The worst part is that we voted for the Lib Dems... we voted for what has just happened, but we didn't know it and they have the gall to call it democracy.

All I can hope for is for some of the more left leaning Liberals - the Cables of the party- to see that this isn't that way. No electoral reform means that this weak coalition won't last and the Lib Dems will struggle to get back into a position of stability in the future. If the commitments to the core ideologies and electoral reform hadn't been traded for the magic beans of government positions, it could have been a very different story indeed. Instead we will wake up in Tory Britain to see Pudge-Face and his trophy wife smirking in front of the infamous black door.

It's going to be a long and painful four years, but I'll be here for you. Maybe if we all stick together we can actually try and effect some real change in this world.

Hang tough, followers. We're not beaten down just yet.

The Legacy...

Well, we could be literally hours away from going to Hell in a hand cart and despite that most news outlets seem to have devoted a proportion of their airtime to the discussion of that all important phrase for former PMs- the legacy and attempting to shit all over it.

"What is Brown's legacy?" They ask - cue media bitching and everyone talking over each other. Fortunately thanks to the internet, no-one can talk over me so here's the definitive Or So I Thought... view of the legacy. Essentially Brown was one of the unluckiest power figures in history, taking charge at a time when the entire world decided to turn into a massive political shitstorm for 3 years or so. I should make clear now that I'm not an apologist for Brown, but here was a man, a pioneer of New Labour, a man who lost an eye in a tragic rugby accident and was fortunate not to lose the other a few years later, a man whose first few weeks of office saw a flaming terrorist kicked in the testicles by a drunk Glaswegian, whose holiday was cut short by Foot and Mouth.

Now I'm not here to deny that the man has made mistakes, even he's admitted the error of the 10p tax debacle and more recently the massively blown out of proportion 'bigotgate'. If anything I liked the man more for what he said. It was typical of the hack media to jump on his back, pretending that they're somehow different, that Cameron doesn't have to wipe his hands on an aide after meeting and greeting his 'friends' in Plymouth, as if Clegg doesn't moan about the general lying of the electorate after the televised debates. We are none of us perfect. If Pitt the Younger or Gladstone had been forced to muddle through the sheer bog of crap that Brown had to, I doubt they would have come out smelling of roses either. Perhaps the legacy should be a hard, old-school fiscal politician who managed to reign in what seemed a near unassailable Tory lead in the polls to prevent a majority Cameron government and fell on his sword to stay true to his moral compass.

So now we are stuck, waiting to see if the world will end, it could do. An argument foisted upon me seemingly constantly is that the Tories won the election. While they did recieve the most votes, their percentage of vote share was one of the lowest in the history of the Conservatives, not to mention that they didn't achieve the majority. It strikes me that in the 10,000 metres, if all three competitors die before the finish then there are no winners, no medals are awarded to anyone. Perhaps the real winner here is the Green Party for overcoming the preposterous electoral system to gain their first seat in the Commons.

Political rant over and out.

It's the End of the World As We Know It...

Well, here we are, a country in turmoil. With no government, Gordon stepping down, both Nick Robinson and Kay Burley still inexplicably employed and a horrible likelihood of ending up CONDEM-ned, it seems suitably demoralising that I don't have much of a blog for today. Sometimes I have to do real things too, you know how it is. Also Twitter's been playing up again, cheeky so-and-so that it is.

Basically, on this black day for humanity the less said the better... probably. Never mind, maybe something amusing and newsworthy will happen tomorrow like Ken Clarke punching a pregnant woman outside Morrisons (I don't condone this) or Gordon Brown releasing an album of Jackson Browne covers (it's in the name, you see)... could happen.

Friday Pictorial the Fourteenth: Art

Right, here's the FriPic. Are we all in need of cheering up? I thought so. Fortunately this isn't about the election and happily there wasn't a result so it doesn't matter that this particular piece of satire is aimed at the art world and not the political world. Yes, the shortlist for this year's Turner Prize was unveiled last week and here I lampoon modern art.



Yeah, modern artists are going to have to take a long, hard look at themselves after this.

The Ghost of Elections Past...

Well, here we are - Election Day 2010! But, like Chris Tarrant cruelly snatching the cheque back, I'm not going to talk to you about that, but instead begin my tenure as a reviewer by reviewing the not un-topical The Ghost which I viewed yesterday.

Based on the 2007 novel (which caused somewhat of a stir at the time) by Robert Harris, The Ghost follows a ghost writer hired to add a touch of sheen the memoirs of a former PM, but of course things are never so simple and the mysterious death of the writer's predecessor and an extradition order placed on the head of ex-PM Adam Lang to face war crimes charges in the Hague for the handing over of terror suspects to the CIA through extraordinary rendition (ringing a few bells?) quickly make the writer's position an unenviable one.

In the film adaptation (co-written by Harris and, rather portentously, Roman Polanski who also directed), Ewan McGregor plays the titular ghost and Pierce Brosnan plays pseudo-Blair Adam Lang. Of course I am by no means the first point out the parallels between Lang's situation and the director's own. Polanski was arrested en route to the Zurich Film Festival on a 30 year old charge of unlawful intercourse and completed the post production of the film under house arrest.

Polanski and Harris have crafted a film that is both an often witty politcial satire and a tense thriller. McGregor's (appropriately) anonymous ghost writer develops from lowbrow, jobbing hack to terrified investigator as he sets out to discover the circumstances of his predecessor's tragic drowning and finds a little more than he bargained for, delving deeper into a world of exile, Machiavellian political canniving and genuine threat.

Veteran director Polanski has the experience to understand the difference between a ponderous and a slow pace. The Ghost is ponderous but to accuse it of not moving quickly enough is to miss the point somewhat, I feel. It is a slow-burner compared to the standard modern thriller but it has a depth and subtext to it that have a far greater impact when unveiled gradually. The entire sequence in which McGregor follows the final Sat-nav directions of the original ghost writer is masterful, heart-pounding stuff and the final Hitchcockian moments are testament to Polanski's skill, including the marvellous, blackly comic final shot.

The piece is elevated by it's classy cast. The standout performance for me was Olivia Williams as Lang's wife Ruth. She had an edge of both hard sarcasm and layered vulnerability that made the character highly engaging. Brosnan gives a well-judged performance as the pastiche of the 'cool politician' Lang and Tom Wilkinson is, as ever, on form as a former Cambridge chum of Lang's. McGregor's accent is perhaps a trifle suspect (though not quite on a par with Kim Cattrall's) but his overall performance is bang on.

Four Stars.

Play Nice, Kids...

While this is actually a rather apt title for the upcoming election and the fall out from it, it is in fact the subject of today's quickie, referring to something I spotted while constructing some Lego.

This particular piece has firing harpoons, but not without a caveat. 'Do not fire projectiles at crying ball-children!' it seems to say. As good a moral as any.

In case you were wondering, here's what the finished article looked like.

Yeah, I've still got the magic. You never lose it, it's like riding a bike, except for it's not like riding a bike, it's more like assembling a model out of tiny, fiddly, interconnecting parts.

Election Countdown...!

Well, it's two days until the General Election... but we're not going to talk about that, instead I'm going to talk about this. Yup tonight sees the start of new detective drama 'Luther' starring Idris Elba of 'The Wire' fame. Well, it's exciting, isn't it? Already heralded as the best detective drama since Wallander by all of the one previews that I've read of it, it has to be worth a look.

DCI John Luther is a brilliant but maverick detective

That's very much the point, isn't it? All TV detectives are brilliant but maverick/tortured/drug dependent/Obsessive Compulsive... or at least all the good ones are.

and that's pretty much all there is about that.

So, will it be any good? Well, probably, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it will probably be quite good. Will Luther be McNulty good character-wise? I'm going to guess no. No fault of Elba's that though. I imagine it will go for the gritty angle as opposed to say, what I like to call, the 'Christie angle' in which busybodies or Belgian sleuths stick their nose in in attractive locations. The 'Christie angle' has been popular with British murder mysteries with trite, implausible example after trite, implausible example. Rosemary and Thyme, for instance. "Oh someone's fallen down a well with garden shears plunged into their neck." "Oh, have they? Hand me that trowel and get bloody going with those Azaleas, it's none of our fecking business." (I imagine that's how most episodes go) or Midsomer Murders (Bergerac relocates to pleasant rural idyll populated by stereotypes which inexplicably has the highest homes bought:murder rate ratio in Europe).

Here's hoping that it isn't one of those and is more Robbie Coltrane drinking heavily and shouting than John Nettles asking the vicar if he wants more tea. With a bit of luck there'll be a few 'kickings in the head' from Elba to a maniacal perp or something. I don't know, I'm not a real reviewer so I don't get handy advanced copies of these things, but then we all love some wild speculation, don't we. Who loves ya, baby?




One more thing... feel free to leave comments about the show if any of you decide to watch it after this glowing (if uninformed) recommendation.

TYSIC - Older and Wiser...?

Well there were two celebrations over the weekend, one was Or So I Thought...'s hundredth post and the other was my birthday. So over the course of 100 (hopefully) funny ramblings, the blog has evolved from a few random points to structured culture moral toss arguing with the occasional bit of improvised comedy. Which is probably more than I can say for myself.

As for me, do I feel older? Not especially. My neck hurts a bit more than usual, but I'm still too skinny, I'm still rubbish at eating in public (there's pressure, I get nervous, that makes me feel sick and not exactly hungry... I digress), I've still achieved very, very little and now I have an extra year to tag onto that legacy of procrastination and failure. That said, I hope that I have at least provided some entertainment in my time and that is why it's as good a time as any for a TYSIC update.

Ok, I'm not going to lie, not a whole lot of progress has been made. I'm part way through a rewrite of the sitcom script, first draft of a co-authored miniseries project is nearly finished, I've arsed about with a few chords and some lyrics and the closest I've been to Ireland is Liverpool. As you can see, not a whole lot of progress, but then this is the 10 Year Self Improvement Challenge and seeing as that's a fairly heft percentage of my life so far, I'm still hopeful of achieving things come 2020 (which incidentally is what I hope my vision will still be by the end of the challenge).

I shall endeavour to add a few reviews onto the blog (by which I mean reviews of films or TV shows... or other people's reviews a la my character assassination of Christopher Tookey from a few weeks ago, as opposed to just reviewing my posts, I might be a touch egotistical, but that be a trifle too much, I suspect) over the coming weeks (I have hopes of being able to actually make some manner of living out of being cynical and loquacious at some point and will need some manner of experience and portfolio to present to an employer, instead of just turning up to the interview and ranting until they inevitably give the job to someone who they already know or who is already rich and famous - not that I'm still bitter about recent events or anything...) so I hope at least to steer you towards the classics and push you away from the turkeys before it's too late. That means having to go out and watch films, watch TV and listen to music so you don't have to... it's a hard life, I know...

Have a good Bank Holiday Monday (yeah, that's right, I still blog on bank holidays. Take that, banking sector!) and thanks to all the followers who sent me birthday messages, lovely people that you are.