and the breeze blew back my hair

heya


every now and then (not often) i like to briefly indulge the (whimsical) thought or one or two of you, look you see, being here looking at this blog due to some curious interest in me. mostly (predominantly) (as in likely over 99%) i would imagine what draws readers / viewers here relates to the fairly generic, if frequently random, subjects which feature.

to this end, then, yeah, this is one of those posts that all blog posts are supposed to be like, or about' a me! me! me! thing. should this be of no interest, well, thanks for reading thus far, and now might be a good time for you to look at something else. although you may wish to look at the first couple of pictures to see what my new glasses (spectacles) are all about.

anyway, on i go. i suppose this kind of post is the one i should be doing more frequently, what with my curious, unsolicited and baffling status of being some sort of "influencer" on social media, whatever that actually is. for normal people, here are some pictures of some lovely places, blemished somewhat (to what degree you decide) by my presence.

in stating the obvious, here i am, by a particularly pleasing element of the Yorkshire coastline. a most grand and sunny a day it was too, with a gentle wind tempering the heat of it all. hence the title of this post.

these are my new "D Fens" glasses. i have no idea what the proper name is for them, i just call them that because they are like the ones what Michael Douglas wore when he was the character D Fens out of the film Falling Down. one i should perhaps watch again. i just really like these half frame (rimless?) ones, and am appreciating a pair of them again after not having such for a couple of years.

yes, it might be that these frames are slightly too big for me, looking at the above. however, they were the nearest closest to what i like in frames that the eye mender shop had.

another splendid day out and about in Yorkshire, then. not quite so much wind or hint of a breeze, hence my hair not doing much of interest. just sitting there, contemplating moving from gradually going grey to rapidly going grey, it feels.

these are the other ones i quite like. massive 70s assassin or hitman style ones. yes, to be clear, it is the glasses or spectacle frames i speak of. the eye menders offered to get these ones tinted for me, or made into sunglasses. i declined, but perhaps i should have taken them up on it. a bit tinted and they would have looked even more like assassin or hitman ones, or perhaps even like them ones what The King, Elvis Presley wore from time to time.

for the breeze to really blow back my hair i suppose i should let it grow somewhat longer. this is something i give a speculative try to every now and then, but get bored or lose patience and so i go to the hair menders to get it trimmed. rare it is that it has ever gone beyond, say, "collar length", which i am led to believe is a valid measurement.

now these ones were not necessarily my choice, but i can disclose no more than that. reasonably smart, they are, and they most certainly serve the purpose for which i have them.

just what style are these glasses? hard to say, really. looking at them now, in this picture, which is the first time i have seen them properly (normally i am at the business end), i suppose they are quite like the oversized, "power frame", flamboyant, extroverted ones what mid-to-large East End cockney gangster types would wear. or Michael Caine, for that matter. it would be lazy to suggest Elton John, for he has worn every style of glasses ever invented, so far as i am aware.

where was this particular picture taken? oh, still in Yorkshire. one tries not to leave the place too often, unless really quite essential. says he who has left the place often, but anyway. this is from one of the more southern aspects of Yorkshire, and as you can see is not really anywhere near the coast.

unlike the above picture, which was indeed taken by the Yorkshire coast. a little further south than the previous, and on a most decidedly (but not entirely disagreeably so) less sunny day. a bit of a breeze, though, hence my hair doing some interesting things.

i quite like this picture, and yes indeed i am "rocking" the D Fens frames in it. normally i am not at all comfortable looking at pictures of myself, and i have always suspected i am in a possibly slight majority to feel this way. still, the poor lighting, the obscuring of details makes it most agreeable for me. if any of you happen to like it, or me, well then so much the better.

and so another one in which i am seemingly lurking in the shadows, but this time on a much sunnier day. yes, indeed, they are them boss 70s assassin / hitman glasses i have on.

this was out in a particularly lovely, friendly and most beautiful of picturesque places in Yorkshire. for some reason the locals, and i use the term affectionately, seem to promote their place in the world purely with trains and sheep. i found it to be most wonderful without really experiencing either of those to any great length.

final one, then, of me out somewhere in Yorkshire with a bit of a breeze and some overcast weather conditions. again i find myself thinking i look "not so bad" in this one, bar the stray hair off of the breeze, and i suspect that is to do with this all being shadow related.

well, i think that's this post done. if for some reason you have a weirdly specific interest in just me, and that's why you visit this blog, nice one. for everyone else, who i presume to be a majority, no doubt normal service will resume with the next post, or soon thereafter.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

popular in the unknown

hi


one of those posts which could (reasonably) be interpreted as "blowing my own trumpet", look you see. but it really isn't, and even if it was, i am quite aware that its not all that a big of a trumpet to be blowing, to be sure.

every now and then the stats for this blog throw up some interesting points. questions, perhaps, rather than answers about who exactly reads all of this what i do, or done.

here, for example, is a "live" shot at from where it is that people reading my stuff are coming from.

yes, indeed, it is the "unknown region" one which fascinates me the most. i am not clever enough at computers and that to understand the above at anything beyond face value. but still, this "unknown region" one fascinates me.

with many seeing all things on the internet as devious, maybe them unknown region readers are just ones that "cloak" or "hide" their location. as i have said before, though, my understanding is that (quite like the movies) when someone does that, it reflects a different place in the world, rather than just plain "unknown".

my best guess is that it is sailors, who are out at sea, that are reading it. if we are honest about it, a good deal of the content here would appeal to sailors, whether it is rough fags that i have smoked and suggested that they are the ones what salty sea dogs would prefer or the adventures of Spiros.

would i like a life on the seas? there are many appealing factors to this. i would not be overtly keen on the idea of getting bummed off of a rough, brutal, salty sea dog, but i suppose such things are part and parcel of the unwritten ways of life on the waves. also, i think things are a bit stricter on boats these days, and after one or two incidents in particular i am almost certain that they have probably banned smoking on commercial vessels, oil tankers in particular.

just some of the search terms what people have used to find this blog, and in turn search terms that google, or similar, lesser used search engines, have opted to see me as an authoritative source of information on. the "walking with lovebeads" one is probably a complete misunderstanding of certain toothpaste related posts i have done, and the mind boggles on the "barbra s...." one.

the space shuttle search term is an interesting one. whilst i am no expert on the subject, for i never read what i write (hence does not every now and then appearing as doe snot), i do not recall making too many mentions of space shuttles here, ever. either i must have, or something i wrote sounded like it was all to do with that gone but not forgotten means of smart space travel.

so, where is this "unknown region" that i attract readers from? oil rigs is a possibility, but one i doubt. they do tend to be stagnant in the seas and so i would assume that anyone on a rig reading this (hello!) would register as being in the country to which the seas ostensibly belong.

on a similar note, it has occurred to me that the unknown region readers might be beneath the sea, in a submarine, or well above it, in a plane. what would be quite class is if astronauts in space were reading this, but i am not sure that the reach of google (or whoever) to produce these stats reaches all that far into the galaxy just yet.

for a look at the last four weeks, we can see that Unknown Region has attracted more readers than Ireland, which makes sense, for it has been a while that i have mentioned Bono or similar in this post. yes, there is much more to Ireland than Bono, but as far as i am aware he's the only Irish person i mention from time to time.

if you were to ask me why so many people from Italy, or France for that matter, have clicked on my blog, my answer would be that i do not have a f*****g clue, but all are welcome. presumably our friends in the United States and Russia are dropping by to learn of the English way of doing things, and your guess would be as good as mine (if not better) on the rest.

well, anyway. it has been a long day, and there is only so much i can write about what has been read. similar is probably true for you in terms of how much of it you can read.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we live as we dream, alone

hey there


since you are here, why not take a moment, look you see, to take a break from the very tortures or pains of existence? this post exists purely to give some respite, or if you like a moment of calm. some meditation, perhaps, maybe, if that is what you like to do or refer to it as.

it was fairly recently (as opposed to some point in the future that shall happen after i have written this) that my travels took me to a most splendid area of the country. yes, of course this means it was in Yorkshire. everything, as you would expect, hope, imagine or even be so brave to dare to expect, was splendid and lovely.

anyway, what with all that is going on, that which has passed and that which is to come, i was quite taken with how smoothing and calming this aspect of a river was. perhaps it was just my "mood" or state of mind calling out for any such remotely available nurturing, but also maybe not.

on the off chance that such might be of interest, or something either wanted or needed, i felt it best to take an image, then. let the above bring you some relaxation and inner peace, if but for a moment.

most, however, would associate a river - indeed, even a stream - with movement. of all the things such bodies of water are known for, being still is not one. a relative stillness would, i suppose, turn a river or stream into some sort of pond or similar. but even then, there is movement, there is motion.

with this in mind, then, i was indeed mindful enough to capture a few seconds of this most splendid, ripple like movement and motion of water on video. and, here it is.

to my mind few, if any, would consider this blog a natural stop off point for something soothing. generally it's all just a lot of noise, i am aware, with very little of it being anything much other than disposable or to be discarded. well, one can only write of what they know, or who the are. all the same, even if this is a change of pace from the usual, may it be of benefit and beauty to all who see it.

let me try not to tarnish or otherwise spoil the lovely image and video with too many more words. on the off chance that i do not get to say such again, or if this is simply the last time you intend to make a visit to this blog, once again many thanks indeed for reading.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

putting on some clothes i made my way to school

g'day pop pickers


and so it would appear that i cannot go a month without some sort of Bowie post here. further, look you see, it would seem that i am not quite prepared to let Tonight go just quite yet. well, it all too easily and (for me) lazily gets dismissed as "rubbish", etc, when that frankly or rather to be frankie, is not the case at all.

following on from my recent look at the mysteries surrounding at least one aspect of the Loving The Alien video, be it elements of controversy and censorship, time then for Blue Jean. well, actually, to be specific, Jazzin For Blue Jean, for this is somewhat different to "just" the standard pop video. those who know will, er, know. oh.

believe it or not (and it's not that i don't care which, i am just not interested), this quasi "follow up" post wasn't all my idea. it has (accidentally) been prompted by a good friend, but we shall get to that in a couple of pictures.

there it is, "my" tape copy of Bowie's Tonight album. as it happens, or actually, this was my Dad's. he presumably bought it for his car for his travels. somehow i ended up "borrowing" it, he never quibbled or requested a return, and so it became "mine". much more, this tape was my childhood friend. well, most of it. some of it. usually i listened to Loving The Alien, which was the first track on side one, then turned it over, rewound a bit, then listened to Blue Jean. every now and then, i suppose, i would give the titular song, Tonight, a spin. quite a soothing lullaby on this album, it is, to be sure, despite the original intention of the song being rather different.

was this the tape, the moment, the experience which turned me into a Bowie fan? yes, probably, for convenience. at this precise moment, no, i was not a "Bowiephile" or fanatic, or even aware of all that much of his work. thanks to a famously misunderstood joke on The Young Ones, here, at the age of 11 or so, i was one of those ones not entirely sure if Bowie was indeed Australian.

musically, then, i was at that crossroads which most who approached their teens from the 60s onwards face, where your tastes and passions change and tend to be set for life. no, i doubt anyone is interested in this too, but here we are. at this point i would say that i was coming to accept Adam Ant was fading fast, i was resisting the patent genius of Duran Duran for i was insanely jealous of how they, John Taylor in particular, looked better than i ever could, Frankie Goes To Hollywood were coming to be the be all and end all of everything, it was a struggle to know if Depeche Mode were really smart or really twats, i loved The Stones and The Who more than i could ever take to The Beatles, and this bloke called Bowie would not go away.

two of the above came together, then, in Jazzin' For Blue Jean. it was something i felt compelled to watch the "world premiere" of on Channel 4, as Channel 4 kept promoting it and advertising it during shows such as The Tube. and so i watched. yes, at the time, considering my age and lack of knowledge about Bowie, i was mostly confused to the point of boredom by it, bar of course the absolutely magnificent song at the heart of it all.

would i say my musical tastes led to my having a keen, or acute, sense of solitude, isolation and loneliness, or were they somewhat self-imposed because of my interests? both, i guess, and many other reasons. on top of the musical comments above, at this time i was only recently (in the grand scheme of thing) extracted from Australia and returned home. i did so filled with the music of that faraway land, and was most confused that none of England appeared to have (in 1984) extensive knowledge of the works of Split Enz and Mental As Anything, or even be aware of how something called the Starstruck soundtrack even existed. hey, we live as we dream; alone.

at the time of Jazzin' For Blue Jean it is worth noting that we are mid-1984. this is pre Band Aid and pre Live Aid love ins. whereas the music world mostly went quite tame and friendly after that, before such musical rivals could be a bit off with each other. this is kind of what happens in the video, although not dramatically nasty. at once Bowie bestows a great, virtually peerless in value blessing on Frankie Goes To Hollywood by simply acknowledging they exist, but in doing so has a bit of a dig.....

yes, indeed, it would probably be best for you to seek out the whole of the Jazzin' For Blue Jean video and watch it properly, but the above snippet shall hopefully do, since we are here now. in answer to Bowie's comment, about "not promoting Frankie until they tell us who Frankie is", well, as is widely known, the band (it is claimed) took their name from a Variety newspaper article about Mr Sinatra making the move into movies, headlined Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

no, that is not a genuine Frankie Goes To Hollywood t-shirt. the real ones said things like Frankie Say Relax, or Frankie Say War, or Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed and so on. bootlegs either just had Relax on them, or a grammatical error, namely Frankie Says not Frankie Say. Frankie was a collective group of (magnificent) people, not one person, so Say is right. personally, i like to think of Bowie buying this t-shirt off a dodgy market stall or barrow boy in Brixton, Camden, Bexley or similar. in reality, he probably paid one of his many designer friends, such as Vivienne and Jean-Paul, many thousands of pounds to "specially create" it for him.

how is that this, all of this, well no just bits of it, came to mind and now here we are, either writing or reading this? that is down to the adventures of Spiros. he was roaming around London, presumably looking to meet gentleman for short term yet mutually beneficial friendships, or maybe to fight a taxi driver or two, when he spotted this and very kindly sent me an image.

i have absolutely no reason at all to doubt the veracity and provenance of the above, for what reason would it not be the "real deal", the one worn by the gentleman himself. what saddens me is the fact that he gave it away, or had it pinched, rather than keeping it as part of his impressive and undoubtedly lavish wardrobe.

the manner of my departure, if we are honest, is most likely going to be a torturous, painful and agonizing one, brought about from my expressed interest in cigarettes. sympathy shall neither be supplied nor sought. it is something that shall undoubtedly bring a measured level of pleasure to more than a few, and it shall be a pleasure that is far more understandable in nature than it is sadistic. failing that, i have every confidence that some clever or inventive type shall construct a way to dispose of me in a way that prompts no questions beyond accidental or natural, or abide by the law which says that of there is no body then there is no crime. given the unexpected luxury of choice, then i think i would like to just drift away, with a tape of Blue Jean and Loving The Alien on repeat playing away. perhaps this happened some 34 or 35 years ago, and this is all some really strange existential awareness.

looking back at Jazzin' For Blue Jean reveals a lot more than was acknowledged at the time, and further makes a mockery of this idea that everything associated with the Tonight album is a complete write-off. superficially one could say yes, Jazzin' probably got green lighted to be made because of the insane success of "extended music video" Thriller a year or so before, with "success" meaning "it led to millions of record sales". but, let us not forget that Bowie started off as an actor, and continued to be an actor "on the side".  he very much used the "freedom" of the music video format to act and do all sorts of things, ones which we maybe did not pick up on a the time.

if we, as i believe was the intention (the climax of the video certainly suggests so), set aside the characters he is playing in the video, this scene is a clumsy, overbearing, over eager David Bowie confronting a fragile, frail, withdrawn David Bowie who happens to be watching the public, second to none performing David Bowie on tv. words such as "meta" and "existential" don't really quite cover it, and it's extraordinary for a mid-80s pop video. fort those who clamoured for a Bowie autobiography, or wished that he would reveal more of himself, he never really hid it. just when he dropped in aspects of how he felt, what he believed it, how he viewed himself, we all somehow merrily overlooked it.

anything i took away in particular from the Jazzin' For Blue Jean video? yes. what turned out to be a wildly inaccurate, fanciful and overtly optimistic idea of what going to pubs, clubs and concerts might be all like. bear in mind (if you will), please, that i was 11, so had no real idea and certainly did not know better.

in the video, whether it be the pub at the start of the nightclub where Blue Jean is performed by Screaming Lord Byron, there's a hip, cool, trendy, avant garde, sophisticated feel. there is also a sense of unity, of belonging, of being as one. so, then, yes, it was something of a frustration, and a great disappointment, by the time that i got to (merely three years before) the legal age where i may go to such places, they were nothing at all like the Blue Jean video. at least not the ones i went to.

perhaps it is just me (or i), but surely life would be much, much better if pubs, clubs and concerts were all as flamboyantly fabulous as presented in Jazzin' For Blue Jean. not to be, i guess, what with the world at large preferring much lower class and unpleasant things.

it feels like i have defended Tonight "more than once", but since we are here let me do it again. to dismiss the album entirely is just folly. for a start Loving The Alien is, musically and lyrically, astonishingly ambitious and complex. it would neither look nor sound out of place on any of his greatest works, in particular Station To Station or The Buddha Of Suburbia. equally Blue Jean is a superb, outstanding flat out pop single. it's brilliant. it is absolutely the case that this album is very much worth the time of any music lover.

some video of this much fabled "club scene" off of the Blue Jean video that i expected to encounter as i grew up? why not. look quite carefully at the band in the background, one of "musicians" kind of went on to be quite famous some seven years after the video was made. or, if you like, 28 or so years ago from now, when this was written. blimey.

yes, you are quite right. sort of semi clearly visible (Bowie was meant to be the focus, after all), and unusually resplendent with hair, is indeed Richard Fairbrass. on the bass, i believe. had you answered with words along the lines of "one of them bald twats off of f*****g Right Said Fred", technically you would have been correct but also quite mean. they were just a happy go lucky band, man, singing their songs and making people happy. get over yourself if you have the free time to think bad things about Right Said Fred.

earlier (as opposed to later on) i mentioned how concepts of "meta" and "existential" or what have you came to the for at the conclusion, or if you like climax, of the Jazzin' For Blue Jean film. we get treated to a moment of David Bowie jeering and hurling abuse at David Bowie, with one of the highlights of this being the dig that "your album artwork is more interesting that your music". no, it most certainly was not common in the mid-80s, in jest or for real, for any musician to rubbish their own work, least of all someone as famous as Bowie. as point of fact, the nearest closest i can think of anyone else doing something like this was Mick and Charlie off of the Stones, when they delightfully mocked their own age as part of an advert for the Monty Python "not all dead" reunion.

possibly due to lacking any sort of other coherent conclusion, the final scene of the film has a subversion of the fourth wall breaker, with a distant shot of David Bowie very much as David Bowie berating director Julien Temple for the film not ending as he had planned it. yes, this sort of thing was very much an 80s device, quite popular with The Comic Strip and others, from what i remember. or perhaps i am wrong.

inevitably the conclusion here is that never again shall we see the likes of Jazzin' For Blue Jean. whilst it would be easy to say this is because we simply lack anyone of the talent, vision and ability of David Bowie, that's perhaps not true. you have to think that out there is someone very much as talented. we have, in this era of free for all, dismantled all the standard filters for quality. also, with no money whatsoever to be made in just the music alone, you would not have a record label invest time and money in an artist to let them develop. i would be quite surprised if ever again someone got to make an avant garde, confusing, self subverting twenty minute video for a three minute pop song.

well, that's about that for this, then. i would say that i am fairly confident i've exhausted all possible things to write of Bowie for a while, but then it would not be a surprise to see me do something else in a month or so. and why not.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

crimson tonight

hello


more adventures in personal and sentimental hygiene, then, look you see. although i am partially happy to advise that i've found a product which, generally, i am most (and unexpectedly) happy with. so, if for some reason, be it obscure or obtuse, you are interested in what sort of shampoo i have been using of late, please do read on.

i had gotten to a stage, quite recently (as opposed to soon or in the near future) where i felt that it was time to purchase some more shampoo. a bottle of wheat based one that i was using (very unsatisfactory) was about to finish, and i had just the one tube of that most splendid frizz busting one left. experience of being in countries facing impending uncertainty tells me that invariably haircare products are the first victim, so i find it prudent if not wise to have a few weeks of hair washing potential available to me.

off i went to Poundland, then. without doubt they have become the supreme shampoo suppliers to the nation. other than their varied, exciting ranges, the cost is at a constant, if not the size of bottle or tube one buys. it is highly unlikely that i shall ever buy shampoo from any other place, except the other shops that sell them.

this is what i found, then. as you can no doubt see very clearly in Commodore 64 mode, it's a crimson orange and mint "blend" shampoo off of someone called herbal essences or something. no Timotei, then, for that seems to now truly be almost as much of a relic of the past as i probably am.

what, other than pricing, appealed to me about this? a couple of things. firstly, it is following the current trend of non-coloured, or if you will transparent, hygiene liquids. quite a few shower gels these days are just straight see through, and now shampoo is doing the same. probably something to do with reducing plastics or similar, whatever products are used to make the colours in such products that end up in the ocean and silly dolphins keep eating. secondly was the name. if an audible aesthetic is actually a thing, then one cannot help but to be pleased with how "crimson" sounds.

should those two factors not have been enough, the "win" is that the shampoo is superb, as in the finest non-citrus infused one that i have ever used, except the for the blueberry and kale one linked above. but, for now, time to address the title of this post.

yes, i have indeed borrowed the title from the obscure, badly thought out, ill-conceived, barely released and generally flawed when not plain disappointing Crimson Tonight "live" EP off of The Stone Roses. many of you, i suspect, will have noted this anyway, or maybe been drawn to this by one of them google things. well done if so.

what was Crimson Tonight? a better question might be what was the point of it all. this was, presumably, an attempt by Geffen to push and generate interest in Second Coming, the second album off of The Stone Roses and one that Geffen had invested considerable money in. to do that it might have been an idea to showcase the best four songs off of the album. instead, it include Tightrope plus three songs which are not even in the best 50% of the album. also, releasing it in places other than Japan and Australia, for only those two nations got it, might have helped interest.

back, for now, then, to the shampoo. the thing which impressed me the most was the scent, or if you are more hardcore and can handle direct speak the smell. it is very difficult to capture the sense of a colour with smell alone, but my word this does it. it has a distinct smell of darkly roasted blood orange; one which immediately evokes a sense of the colour crimson. well, for me, anyway. nice one.

look, there you go, it says "free from silicone". well, a plural of that, one which my spell checking thing here says does not exist. presumably this silicone business is bad, either for we people or them dolphins or whatever it is that people are getting all excited about being stupid and eating things that they should not.

smelling splendid is all well and good, of course, but how does it function as a shampoo in terms of cleaning and maintaining hair? excellently so, dear reader. when i have completed showering and washing hair (and various other parts of the anatomy), occasionally my eyes make contact with my own in the mirror. i do not like what i see, of course, and do wonder for what reason i am compelled to continue with this inane, stagnant existence, bereft of point or purpose, and curse the natural instinct which appears to make all living forms believe - tacitly - that existing is worthwhile. other thoughts come to mind, certainly, in particular the subtle subconscious sounds of You Belong In Rock And Roll, for one cannot look in a mirror and not think of Bowie doing the same and shaving in the promotional video for the song.

ever since using this shampoo, however, my thoughts have been a bit different. normally it is a contemplation of adding some gel or other such "product" to my hair to give it style, meaning or at the least a decent appearance. not so. this shampoo makes my hair feel as good as it smells, and so i just leave it be, and try to get on with things as best as i can.

should you bother trying to locate a copy of Crimson Tonight? not really. whereas the live version of Tightrope really is superb, it is not like the album version does not do the job. true, this is one of the few rare official live recordings of The Stone Roses. if that is what you seek or what you crave, then i would point out that the (usually cheaper) I Wanna Be Adored CD single has a splendid live cut of Sally Cinnamon on it.

but, now that i think on, there is of course a weirdly specific faction of Stone Roses fans who would consider Crimson Tonight to be an essential purchase. this is of course the percentage of the fanbase who believe the group actually only really started - and ended - with Robbie Maddix on drums. i have no problem at all with Robbie, but also i am not in the extremist "f*** Reni" camp, far from it. so, anyway, this is but one of two (that i am aware of) "official" recordings to feature Robbie; the other being the hastily put together three (and a bit) minute version of Love Spreads on the Help! charity CD.

the shampoo, however, is a definite oh yes. as strange as it feels, recommending a shampoo over a Stone Roses recording, well, here we are. whilst in no way, shape or form being able to detect the mint which it is claimed is in the mix, i say go for this shampoo. or, at the least, it works for me.

anyway, then, that's that for this. off i go, possibly to wash my hair once more, bathing it with the crimson.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

some more reading, then

hello reader


and so i have read a couple more novels. two, look you see, not three or one or five. actually, in total over the years i have read loads, but here i mean that i have read a further two (not three or just one or six) since the last time i posted about how many novels i had read (two). now is the time, then, to reflect on this triumph.

to stick with how i would normally do this sort of thing, a look at the books (two) that i read, followed by a spoiler free comment. you know, a kind of "yay or nay" opinion on them, for those in a rush or wish to remain as spoiler free as possible. if, for some reason, anyone uses my musings as some sort of guide to their own reading adventures.

indeed, Transcription by Kate Atkinson is probably not the sort of thing that i would usually read. with no idea what it would be like and few expectations, my conclusion is basically "not that bad". for more standard fare for me, Girl On Fire is the latest (in paperback) "Max Wolfe" novel off of Tony Parsons. it gives and does precisely what all the other ones in this series delivers, only with a trifle more of the "soap opera" side of it thrown in, presumably in the hope that it helps lure in someone to buy the filming rights.

right. be alert, be aware. whilst care shall be taken, do please note that from here on out a splendid, colourful and quite loud *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place. and it is one very much meant in this instance, for it shall be all but impossible to discuss the first without giving some of it all away. so, you have been warned.

with that in mind, then, the first of the two what i read was, or very much is, Transcription by Kate Atkinson. as i mentioned earlier, of course, and as is pictured here, in glorious Commodore 64 mode, which has done wonders for the "kind of almost makes sense" image of a flamingo on the cover.

provenance of my copy? Tesco, but of course. it was on offer as one of their £3 or even £3.50 "books of the week". having heard of the author, and being fairly pretty sure one of my friends (i don't have too many) had spoken quite highly of her. so i gave it a go.

the plot? one not easy to describe. the protagonist kind of has a few names, but let us simplify it by referring to her here as Juliet Armstrong, served in World War II as a transcriber for MI5 set up meetings luring in and capturing fifth columnists and traitors. she is eventually drawn into being more involved with this, with (in the interests of trying to keep spoilers out of this) "consequences". the story is told in a bit of a "Tarantino style" (not that he invented it) backwards and forwards way, with chunks set in the 1940s and then the 1950s being bookended by "reflective" sections from 1980.

did i enjoy this novel? yes, no, maybe. without actually knowing anything about Kate Atkinson or her usual style, the best way i can describe this is how Jane Austen might have written a John le Carre novel, if women were allowed to speak of or express an interest in thingie (sex) in the era of Ms Austen. to this end, there are some genuinely funny and witty parts, an awful lot of dull dragging and a fair bit of assuming that you were supposed to know something that you did not, but just pretend and read on anyway hoping it will make some sense.

one aspect i did very much like was the third person narrator's description of the protagonist's thoughts as she achieved some level of sexual awakening. having her thoughts described as seeing herself as "an apple, ripened and ready to be plucked" or "ready for her fields to be ploughed" were both delightful and charming. assuming that this was how ladies would actually speak, since it was a lady writer, i did indeed on one instance ask my (considerably) better half if she felt either of those metaphors (or whatever) applied to her. it did not go down well.

a big frustration, and i would remind you of the spoiler warning, is how it all ends. the use of an unreliable narrator is a splendid literary device, if, and i want to make this clear, you are using a first or second person narrator. when you pull this stunt with a third person narrator, it is simply cheating. yes, true, all fiction writing is basically "making it up as you go along", but you are kind of expected to do it in a consistent way. to just wildly throw in things at the end which the reader could not possibly have anticipated or realistically expected screams "let's put this in to make an interesting ending, even if it makes little sense".

there was certainly enough in Transcription to say that i would totes try reading another novel by Kate Atkinson. as point of fact, a good friend (one of the few, yes, i know i am generally not too well liked) has already recommended one or two. but if it turns out to have the same frustrations and disappointments as this one, the next one i read of hers shall also be the last, then.


far more simplistic reading adventures, then, with the next book. yes, Tony Parson "returns", although he never really goes away i suppose, with the latest jolly adventure for London super copper Max Wolfe. Girl On Fire, this one is called.

what of the provenance of my copy? quite an interesting story, even more so than usual for those of you who for some reason find this aspect interesting. i was accidentally in a branch (or chapter, if you will) of WH Smith an noticed it was being sold, as the sticker says, for "half price". as WH Smith are notorious for overpricing everything, i was at once amazed and wary, but went ahead and bought it. yes, of course, after the fact i discovered that absolutely everywhere else was selling it for between 66% and 75% off the standard price. oh well. i have come to terms, and reached some inner peace, with my rush to purchase judgement by for some reason convincing myself that buying a novel from WH Smith is in fact a "very Tony Parsons" thing to do.

plot? DCI (or whatever) Max Wolfe gets caught up in a massive, very deadly terrorist attack in London. he is involved in the hunt for the perpetrators, which turns to tragedy. boiling tensions are escalating as Wolfe and the rest of the coppers try to capture both those further involved in the terrorist attack and those who are for some reason using the events as a blanket or masquerade for murder. whilst all of this is going on, Wolfe's personal life goes uber soap opera, with every aspect in turmoil and facing upheaval.

is it any good? well, yes, if you either like fast paced thrillers and are grown up enough to have a sense of perspective with regards to the preposterous parts, or indeed if you are a fan of the traditional Frederick Forsyth perspective, in which "simple" problems have "straightforward" solutions and good shall always triumph, with a little bit of cost attached.

let us be honest here. Tony Parsons is one of them ones that has a "locked in" audience. me telling you whether you should or should not read one of his novels is in no way going to influence anyone. good luck to him, them, all, everyone. but one sad thing i noticed was the "by the same author" list inside the book. for some reason all non-Max Wolfe novels, which is to say them he wrote before he had this idea, have been removed. quite peculiar.

so, then, that is that for this post. my thanks again for reading, and hopefully you read only the parts relevant to you in light of the fab spoiler warning what i did.

will i be reading any further books? i would hope so. at some stage one book i read shall be the last that i do, but i am not sure i am prepared to let that final one be a Tony Parsons work.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also

hello


so, another month. this would usually mean a gander, look you see, at the calendars i have spread around the home. not so much this for the month of July, as it happens. just to "mix things up", or if you like for fun, instead we will be having a look at some weirdly specific to the month magnetic calendars what i made for some friends, associates and contemporaries of mine.

but first, fantastic facts concerning the origins of July. except, well, there are none, really. even if you knew nothing of why some months are what they are - length, when they happen and name - chances are that you are aware of July being named after Julius Caesar from the days or if you like era of the Roman Empire.

why did they name the month after him? well, for practical considerations it was during this month in the Roman way of measuring time that he was born. in respect of for what reason would one name a month after him, they thought he was excellent, great, f*****g marvellous, etc, for doing stuff like wars, conquests, and transforming Rome from a Republic to an Empire. they got a bit carried away, then, as he was nowt special. i mean, as a comparison, basically anybody could have done what he did, and indeed they did in his wake. compare that to, for instance, Jim Bowen, where it is so that absolutely no one could do what he did, as illustrated by the rather disastrous and particularly heathen, unpleasant attempt to make Bullseye without him.

yes, we probably should take a leaf from the Roman way and rename a month in honour of Jim Bowen, but nobody cares about such any more. it would be just all moans and groans and complaints about having to get stuff reprinted, or computers reprogrammed. respect has long since departed society.

one or two of you might assume, in keeping with a decidedly Roman way of doing things frame of mind, that the above calendar was created as inevitably July simply must be "homoerotic awareness month". not quite, dear reader, not quite. it is in fact awareness of homoerotic awareness month", or at the very least it is now.

the image selected highlights one of several barriers we need to break down in achieving a much more better awareness of homoerotic awareness. when people think of the motion picture Top Gun, they tend to associate it all with the (rightly) celebrated "volleyball scene", a moment in film history which really gave impetus to drive as many gay men to military service as possible. yes, that was a beautifully homoerotic sequence, but it overshadowed the uber homoerotic sequence in the same film, namely the locker room scene. so there it is, being celebrated.

something which is almost as important in the modern world (for July) (and beyond) as an awareness of homoerotic awareness is to ensure that the crops do not fail, lest the people of the villages and hamlets starve. this can lead to all sorts of unpleasantness, such as poisoning of wells and so forth. best to avoid it all, then, by making sure (or ensuring) that the right blood sacrifices are made, so as to please and/or appease the relevant gods.

yes, that is one of the more poignant moments from the excellent 1973 documentary The Wicker Man, a highly informative (and inspirational) instructional film showing how isolated communities can avoid the plight of crop failure. strictly speaking one does not have to make the relevant sacrifices in July per se, but why not?

any important dates or anniversaries or such in July? yes, lots. here are some of them

1 - on this day in 1984 a nation gathered around their radios on the afternoon and were most pleased to learn that Frankie Goes To Hollywood were at number one (with Two Tribes) and number two (with Relax) in the singles chart, back when the singles chart both meant something and was important.

3 - it was a tale of two Joes on this day in 1974, as Fraizer vs Bugner very much happened.

6 - 50 Cent, or at current exchange rates 39p, born on this day in 1975.

9 - the film Tron was released on this day in 1982. not a film i have ever liked, but it is quite trendy to mention it, so there you go.

13 - Live Aid happened on this day in 1985. whatever the fallout, whatever went wrong after that, and no matter how much of a twat Bob Geldof has become, never let it be forgotten what a remarkable, amazing day that was; one where it really did feel as though the world came together.

15 - the anti-Live Aid sentiment, Twitter, unleashed on this day in 2006. never has the world felt so at odds with itself, or filled with so much fleeting hatred, since people could spew their bile over this nonsense.

19 - much beloved English comedian and talented director Mel Smith passed away on this day in 2013. he was a timely reminder that not all cockneys are bad.

23 - first ever sale of a Ford motor car happened on this day in 1903. the first of many, you would think.

30 - a very happy birthday to Christopher "Chris" Nolan, one of the most remarkable film directors ever to grace screens with his art. nice one mate, keep it going.

indeed the above is a still from the much celebrated - vaunted, perhaps - "laundrette" scene off of The Young Ones. this image was selected as, historically, it was only in July under the English way of doing things that we could actually do laundry and dry it via the sun.

right, well, anyway, let me let you get one step closer to getting on with your month by ending this now. it is highly unlikely that i will go to the trouble of making calendars for August, so normal service should resume. but you never know.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

roadkill

g'day

it is widely recognised that each and every one of us, look you see, harbours a dream of one day waking up and finding themselves in the apocalyptic adventure wastelands of Mad Max 2. well, not quite, for if you are American you for some reason know this as The Road Warrior. not a bad title, just the wrong one. perhaps this shall come to be, either via some splendid yet as limited as it can be nuclear skirmish with the Russians, perhaps, or by some unforeseen complexities with the spectacular success thus far that is Brexit.

the problem with this, and maybe i state the obvious here, is that everyone has visions of being the same person. many of course assume they will be Max. others would fancy themselves as Wez, or the Great Humungus, or even the Feral Kid or the Gyro Captain. alas, sadly, we cannot all be them. a few of us - the majority, perhaps - will be them what get symbolically crucified by the Great Humungus, or twatted off of the razor boomerang of the Feral Kid, or indeed bummed off of Wez. no, it will not all be the great utopia which the film tacitly promised.

one of the biggest challenges to some of us - me, certainly - in this brave and bold new world shall be how to obtain cigarettes. you would have to guess that every is going to be far too busy avoiding getting knacked or bummed to work in factories, and so the production of fags will inevitably cease. fear not for me, dear reader. for opportunity allowed me to get some practice in for how i will cope.

should the above strike you as looking like a rather battered pack of fags, resplendent in lame plain packaging, some sort of warning and the all important "Excessive UK Duty Paid" stamp, well good, for that is precisely what this is. during my travels i spotted it laid on the road somewhere, or if you want to be specific in a car park.

it is quite often that i see discarded fag packets on my travels, just as i see all sorts of rubbish and waste. no matter how much effort many of us put in to keep the country tidy we, apparently, have aspects of our society that believe litter is their right. yes, indeed, twats they are. this is, however, the first time i have noticed a quite nearly full, if somewhat squashed and worse for wear, packet being discarded.

oh, absolutely i picked them up. the cost of fags here in England, indeed the wider UK (although it would be no shock to learn that we subsidise much cheaper ones in Scotland), is unfair and astronomical. despite being a posh twat the former chancellor, Osborne something, at least kept the tax low(ish) and left plenty of loopholes allowing fag makers to sell them cheap. not so the incumbent, and hopefully soon to be gone chancellor. he taxes fags with gay abandon, presumably to make himself feel better about the ill-fitting and generally misguided suits he insists on wearing.

quite flattened, or more appropriately crushed, as you can see above. the evidence suggested that this packet of fags had been driven over, at least the once. what is of interest here, however, is that there were 19 of the standard 20 in the packet. this makes me suspect that they were deliberately discarded rather than accidentally dropped. it is, alas, the case that these fags are them horrible "crush ball" ones, the ones what start off as reasonably normal fags but needlessly transform into terrible menthol ones when you squeeze the mint ball in the filter. something of a paradox, or whatever the right posh and clever word is, then, for at once they are the worst fags in the world for they are menthol, and yet still the best, for they were "free".

am i looking forward to the wonders of the world of Mad Max 2 coming to be, something that would presumably see me have to obtain all future fags this way? partially. you would think that avoiding the Wez and Great Humungus type figures would be a priority, and stuff like food and water looks difficult to obtain. but, then again, these scavenged fags are free, so that's a win.

our friends in America are, of course, ahead of the game here. under the English way of doing things, as and when we see something of interest by the side of the road - a slain sheep, for example, or cash - we are expected to pretend we did not notice and just carry on as if nothing had happened. not so for our Yankee chums, who will pull over, make some smart "whooping" noises, wave their splendid cowboy hats in the air, and then strap that dead beast of the field to their car, driving home with it in triumph, firing off shotguns in celebration of their result. i would suggest that those who mock this are simply jealous of it.

do please take time to heed the warning presented on this packet above, even in the battered state of it i presume it remains valid. also valid is the proud declaration of how much tax one usually gets nailed with on these.

was i not concerned that someone had deliberately left these fags behind, which is to say that maybe someone, an anti-smoker of quasi vegan outlook, had tampered or somehow interfered with them? partially, yes, i suppose. but then you have to remember that some of the warnings claim that no less than 70 suspiciously unidentified chemicals are added anyway. what is it that someone could add which would make it worse, exactly?

how are, or were, they to smoke? the best of times, the worst of times. again, free, or scavenged, so great. but they are them menthol "crushball" ones. i have probably smoked worse, but seldom is it i have had the satisfaction of cheaper.

every now and then one hears, in celebratory terms, of someone getting bust on a plane, trying to smuggle drugs. whereas the authorities triumph this, everyone knows that really all they did was collar the obvious stooge put there to get caught. on that same flight you can guarantee four, five or more others had substantially more drugs, and they just sailed through thanks to the obvious distraction. this must be true of "illegal" cigarettes here in the UK. knowing the efficiency of certain bodies, whenever there is a report of "thousands" of tax free, sensibly priced fags being seized, you just know that means there are many millions of them which are not. yes, ideally, i would indeed appreciate doing business with some of these entrepreneurs.

am i hopeful of further finds such as this? kind of, i suppose. it is realistically unlikely that i will ever find a pack of, say, my beloved Marlboro Red discarded in such a way. one never knows, though, perhaps i shall get lucky.

well, anyway, we are done here. i would say "if you are reading this as the world has gone all Mad Max 2", but that would be pointless, for the internet is probably one of the first things to just stop working in those circumstances.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

muted celebrations

heya


it was (fairly) recently so that my (considerably) better half, look you see, had reason for much merriment and celebration. no, not that, for if i am typing this then such could not be so. what i speak of is that instance of joy which most (unless they elect not to) would commemorate once a year, or if you like a birthday.

the coming of this event prompted many (several) actions of homage and adulation, with wishes both good and kind being forwarded. one such example of this is the lovely card my sister sent on. it was to be, however, a case of not judging a book by its cover. or, you know, whatever the saying is.

what was the issue? well, brace yourself, but have a look......

yes. in the clarity of Commodore 64 mode, you are seeing something of a horror. for some reason, again i know you can see this perfectly but for the sake of completeness, a Christmas themed stamp was used a number of months after the festive or if you will yuletide period had been traditionally considered at an end, or finished. compounding this is the fact that the stamp has been slapped on the envelope in a rather haphazard way, which is to say not straight.

i knew of this before it arrived in the post. my sister was absolutely horrified at what the employee of the postal service in an unspecified nation (Gillian asked me not to slam the whole of the New Zealand post office so i have kept the country name out of it) (oh) did. she remonstrated with the staff member immediately, asking her what she thought she was playing at and demanding that it be peeled off, replaced with a proper stamp placed correctly.

with tears in her eyes, the employee gave a heartfelt apology, for they were aware of the folly they had committed. she further said sorry about not being able to fix it, for to remove the stamp would be to damage the envelope. fearing - perhaps rightly - that this faux pas might cause a family rift, Gillian wrote to me after the episode, explaining the above mostly word for word (mostly), and asking me to pass on my apologies to my (considerably) better half for the certainly not intended insult.

although i did do this, as you can see above when it landed through the letterbox she was not quite prepared for the true scale of the horror. my (considerably) better half gasped, did one of them shocked "shriek" things and then passed out. fear not on the latter, for i fetched the smelling salts and managed to more or less resuscitate her. but my sister is forgiven, for eventually i was able to convince my (considerably) better half that the sin was of another.

my (considerably) better half tells the above in a slightly different way. in her version she simply found the story mildly amusing, and mentioned that unless i, and my sister, had brought what had happened to her attention then in all probability she would not have noticed. how exceedingly brave and giving of her to conjure up such a whimsical cover story.

did any other intrusions on celebrations happen? yes. well, sort of. i had an idea to make some sort of merry, jolly video, celebrating both the birthday of my (considerably) better half and celebrating the fact that she is not that bad to have around. on the basis that it shall play ok here, well, here it is below.

hopefully that plays ok, and indeed i trust that you liked some of the pictures. possibly, too, that you enjoyed the most splendid music. i look forward with some small measure of significant interest to learning if you can actually hear it. well, hear it whilst you have the sound switched on.

the most natural place to showcase this video in the first instance was over on that "social media" business, or if you like facebook. mostly this went ok, right up until the point at which that i got this notification, or if you will warning, or if you like telling off......

oh. quite clever, them facebook lot, to identify the fact that no, i do not "own" You're My Best Friend off of Queen. to my mind i didn't really think Brian May of the hair, Roger Taylor (not the Duran Duran one), John of the Deacon or the memory of Freddie would have much of an issue with it, but it would seem that facebook did on their behalf. apologies, then, to friends in Andorra and Antigua, and in particular to the several revolutionary sisters united in the cause my (considerably) better half has in Afghanistan and the UAE, for not being able to hear this.

something of particular interest is the claim that something called Hot In Cleveland appears on the soundtrack. if it does, then i do not know how. this is a piece of music i have not heard of, never mind put anywhere. perhaps it sounds a bit like the song i actually used, or vice versa, depending on which one came first.

want another look at the unseasonal misplaced stamp? i cannot think of why one would wish to subject themselves to such profanity by choice, but not for me to stop you reaching for the dream.

anyway, as is customary for my musings here, the final image usually cues the fact that i have exhausted all possible words to use.

right then, probably best for me to sign off here, that being the case.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

continuing commodore 64 car wash celebrations

hello


well, i am baffled. that's a pretty general statement, look you see, and one that i suppose is generally true of my regular state of mind in this brave new world i find myself in. but, to be specific, i am unsure as to why my presentations of the car wash experience in Commodore 64 mode are so popular. let me set aside my confusion and just merrily give you more of what you wish for.

indeed it was quite an overcast day on this visit to the car wash facility. rain was most decidedly in the offing, and soon came. my vehicle of choice, however, had become something of a magnet for dirt, filth and so forth. going through the car wash machine was a requirement rather than a lifestyle choice.

to be honest i am quite sure that i've taken more images and video (for there is a clip to follow in this post) of such adventures but have failed to put them here. sorry for that, i have them all saved somewhere but do not recall where. even if i did find them, i would find it difficult to recall which of the images i had already posted. under no circumstances do i read my own writing, so it's not like i can go back and work it out.

a selfie? why not. i have been meaning to post one or two, but again this is not something i have gotten around to.

no you are not mistaken, and yes that is why i have been meaning to do some. indeed i have a couple (two) new pairs of glasses ("spectacles") and shall show them off eventually. of the new sets these are my favourites, for that is worth.

whilst i never have any idea which of my post will prove to be popular, as said the enthusiasm you seem to have for a car wash in Commodore 64 mode is rather curious. the previous two on this very subject have had more reads, or "hits" than a couple of the random bowie posts what i have done for your pleasure. each to their own.

oh, yes, the "video" or "animated gif" i mentioned. do you call it an "animated gif", though? not sure what "gif" stands for but i believe the implication is movement.

yes, sure, as and when i next have reason to visit a car wash i will grab some images, and some more outrageous video / gif action like the above. even better, i suppose, would be remembering to post it here for all you enthusiasts of such stuff.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

three films

hello there


so yeah, i have watched a couple more films. well, three, look you see, hence the title of this post. no, nothing "new" or fresh at the cinema. yes, some 66% of them were ones that i had seen before. but, if for some reason anyone is interested, i thought i would post some thoughts, comments and observations here.

a look, in a rare non-Commodore 64 mode, at what i watched, followed by the obligatory or if you like standard comments? sure, why not.

yes, indeed, i did knock up the above image - "collage" via the magic of the print screen button on my keyboard, and the most excellent of excellence in useful programs on a computer known affectionately, and accurately, as MS Paint.

if you are able to look at the above image and name all three films that i watched, what i would say is that is most smart, that is, to be sure. well done you, and nice one that for some reason someone else has my peculiar taste in how to spend some quality watching time.

to start with the some 33% what i had never ever seen before, that i could recall, would then be to commence all of this proper with a film called D.C. Cab, but that i shall call DC Cab just to make it easier on the typing.

it is a film also sometimes called Street Fleet, and i do not recall ever seeing it for rent down at a video store in the UK. truthfully, all information i have to hand says that this never got a release here. undoubtedly it did get a "direct to video" thing, though, as there are too many well known actors in it. probably just that none of my video stores of choice, which is to say within range of my bike, ever opted to have it on the shelf.

anyway, yes, there is "sort of" a plot. basically a mishmash of comedy vignettes featuring some rather poor cab drivers, sellotaped together with a basic plot of them trying to all get a taxi company to survive, and then a "kidnap and rescue" plot hastily thrown in at the end so as to give the film some sort of conclusion.

was it any good? Joel Schumacher went on to make better films, put it that way. not many of the cast did, with the possible exception being Adam Baldwin, who of course a mere four years after this played Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket. anyway, the film starts off with a stack of nudies, presumably to lure the target market (me) in, but that soon fades away. you get left with a few hit and miss jokes, and some tasty racial jokes of a quasi Blazing Saddles nature.

if you are looking for motivation to find the film, there's stacks of Mr T without his trademark gold necklaces and with a decidedly ahead of its time gay pride march wardrobe. also, Gary Busey on one of the faster sections of his career slide, shouting a lot.

for some reason the film Starflight One came to my mind. not sure why, as i do not consider the works of Lee Majors as often as you might think. anyway, unsure of if i had ever seen it, i decided to watch it. soon in, yes, i discovered i had indeed seen it before, and had something of a total recall of memories of renting it.

we in the UK had to rent it, to be sure. from what i gather, or remember, it was a "made for TV" movie for the American audience, but such was the box office clout of Lee Majors internationally during the 80s (think prototype Tom Cruise), the motion picture was blessed with a full blown theatrical release and premium rate video rental fee.

plot? Lee Majors is the best pilot in the galaxy, so but of course he is chosen to captain (or whatever) the maiden flight of Starflight One, the first plane to "kind of" go into space, so as to make the trip from the USA to Australia only two hours long or something. no, no idea how long it normally would. but of course everything that could go wrong does go wrong. will the passengers and crew survive?

any good? it's one of those weird films that is decidedly underwhelming at practically every level (but with particular emphasis on the acting) yet proves to be strangely compelling viewing. yes, indeed, it echoes the great craze for the "disaster movies" of the 70s, and has proven to be peculiarly influential. more than a little, for instance, of Armageddon would appear to have been "borrowed" off of this film. except Bruce Willis is no Lee Majors. and neither is Ben Affleck. Steve Buschemi, maybe.

would i say it would be worth your time to find Starflight One for viewing pleasure, assuming you don't have a VHS, Beta or laserdisc of it kicking around? strangely, perhaps, yes. it seems the DVD is only out in Germany, and costs a fair bit. worth it, perhaps, for some simple, fuss free entertainment.

one that i was totes certain that i had seen before but wished to watch again was Night Patrol. an early to mid 80s "parody" film which is sort of like a Police Academy for grown ups. well, grown ups with a peculiar sense of humour.

plot? a mishap prone copper moonlights as a standup comedian, The Unknown Comic, to rave reviews and glowing adulation. things get complicated when someone steals the idea of the look of the unknown comic (a brown paper bag over the head) and starts doing robberies and all that sort of stuff.

the humour is lewd, crude, rude and at times "offensive". 12 or 13 or 14 year old me thought it was wondrously funny. north of 45 me cannot decide if i still found some of it funny, or if i was just fondly recalling how i found it funny at the time. undoubtedly, though, the midget, farting, ill tempered police chief is very funny indeed.

any value in you watching it? well, if you wish to see how absolutely any subject could be used for humour, off you go. also, it has Linda Blair in it, and for some reason her presence in a non Exorcist motion picture locks in a weirdly specific audience. further, Andrew "Dice" Clay appears, as Andy Clay. it may amuse one or two of you to see him before he briefly became well known (if not popular or successful) (but Adventures Of Ford Fairlane was smart) before drifting back into relative obscurity.

well, anyway, that's that. no idea if this is of any use to anyone. perhaps someone else out there got all nostalgic for one of these, and has stumbled on this by the magic of one of them search things. nice one, if so.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!