title

hi there


not much, look you see, except for a request for help in finding out the title of a "song" and the "artist" behind it, please.

but first, in the glory of Commodore 64 mode, a last selfie for the year. presumably, for i cannot see me taking any further in the next three or so hours

right, with that unpleasantness out of the way, let's see if any of you can help me identify this song. and no, i do not have a phone that can have that thing on it which identifies songs for you, hence me asking.

it's on one of them "you tube" videos that people make for the kids and that to watch. James seems to think that this particular song is most bangin', and thus would like to hear it in full. i do wish the people who make these videos would have the decency to list which songs they've used on their videos.

anyway, cheers in advance for your help!




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

best

hello there


well, that's nearly another year done then, look you see. remarkably i've managed to conjure up things to write here throughout the last twelve months that have seen people come and read - thank you for doing so.

it is one of them traditional trap things to compose or compile a list of the best of the year. let me fall headlong into that trap. most magazines do these sort of awards on the basis of who gives them the most advertising, or the tastiest interview, gets the gong. i have no such arrangement in place, alas, so what you get here is what i saw as being the best of reading, listening and watching during 2015. mindful, of course, of the fact that i have not seen, read or heard much released within the year.

to start off with cinematic endeavours, selecting the best film of the year is very, very easy indeed. i am going to go right ahead and agree with most that Mad Max Fury Road was peerless.

as per my review in the link on the title there, i should in theory have absolutely hated this film. leaving aside the understandable need to replace Mel Gibson in the titular role, the film took apart all that was loved of the Max character and constructed a new one - the fastest, most lethal survivor of the wasteland was now slow, easy to capture and a poor shot. the loner who wants nothing more to belong yet always ends up abandoned now willingly walks away from the chance to be at peace.

and yet, damn it, it works. certainly it's a very different Max than what we are used to, but from a story telling perspective they got it spot on - Max is more of an antagonist than a protagonist, in that he finds himself in circumstances rather than creating them, and his battle through them sees him mostly as a secondary character. this is what made Mad Max 2 and to an extent Beyond Thunderdome work so well. that said, as outstanding as Tom Hardy was in taking on the titular role, applause and praise must go to Charlize Theron for the portrayal of the character who basically carried the entire film.

cinematic success beyond Mad Max Fury Road? i expected Ant Man to be rubbish, a super hero film too far. it was in fact superb. as was Avengers Age Of Ultron. both of them bode well for Space Battles Episode VII, also off of Disney, as and when i get to see it. on that note, The Good Dinosaur wasn't half bad, although why Disney marketed it for a year and a half and then released it a week before their Star Wars thing is a bit of a mystery; surely that killed the box office. finally, Child 44 was ok.

i think this was published in 2015. at the least, i read it very early on in the year, which means maybe it actually came out in late 2014. but anyway i am having it as a 2015 book.

it's not so much that The Girl On The Train is one of the best novels i have read this year as it is that it's one of the finest i have ever read. it had me at the first few chapters, where some brilliant writing expertly captures the psyche, the psychology and the general being of just what it is to be a commuter.

of course, it's far from being a novel about how a girl on a train passes the time whilst going to and from work. i am reluctant to give away spoilers, but it can safely be said that it's quite a surprising, shocking and, overall, thoroughly enjoyable story which follows.

it really is, or if you like was, one of the most finely written works that i have encountered. to my knowledge the novel has not fallen out of the top ten on sale lists all year - bravo, Ms Paula Hawkins, i trust you are sat on a huge sum of coins of money reward for this most magnificent novel. i am really, really looking forward to getting my hands on your next one, but i imagine for the moment you're just taking in the astonishing success this one has had.

yep, there is the inevitable film version of The Girl On The Train on the way. i am sure the filmable elements of the novel will make for a most excellent movie, but i do fear the psychology of the narrative will be lost. leave nothing to chance - get and enjoy the novel, then appreciate the film later for however it turns out.

the rather poor state of modern music is reflected in the fact that for the best pop record release of 2015 i am left with little or no choice but to further celebrate the most splendid Classic Quadrophenia CD. i mean, it is brilliant, but that yet another re-imagining of a record which is as old as i am was the best that a year in music could do is a concern.

or, maybe not. perhaps, at last, every great pop or rock record that can be made has been made, and from here on out we should just remake, remodel and celebrate what we have rather than regret no further seems likely to come.

as for the best in new music, i can look, or if you like, listen no further than Rod Stewart's magnificent Another Country album. the deluxe one is the one to get - not sure why the four or so songs on it were held off for a "limited edition" thing, but there you go, each of them is worth the extra money. Long Lost Suitcase by Tom Jones, look you see, is also well worth a listen. and if you're a big, big fan of unobtrusive, middle of the road soft rock music designed mostly to be the soundtrack to Volvo adverts, Chasing Yesterday by Noel Gallagher gives you that and not very much more else than that.

beyond that lot in the world of music, it was all once again sticking with what we know - The Beatles' 1 set got released again with an excellent DVD to go with it, The Stone Roses announced more chances to see them do their debut, one or two songs off of Second Coming and no new ones, rumours abound that the "original" line up of Guns N Roses will be with us in 2016 and Derek Bowie is issuing more recordings.

what will 2016 bring? a relatively new Space Battles film called Rogue One, hopefully the most recent John Grisham novel in paperback and all the music bits i mentioned above. nothing much that one would suggest as being groundbreaking planned, then, but the sheer beauty of groundbreaking stuff is that you don't get to see it coming. let's hope that's the case.

if for some reason this has been of any interest or use to you then nice one. for now, then, on the off chance that i do not bother to post once more until Friday, many thanks to you for reading throughout this year and i look forward to seeing you here during the next.




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

dracula

hello there


yes, this post here is, as the title says look you see, about Dracula. not actually Dracula as such, but Dracula. well, a film that i watched - as indeed, sort of, did my (considerably) better half - which had a Dracula character in it. but it's somewhat quite fairly far removed from the notion of Dracula in the Bram Stoker sense.

whilst wandering the wastelands of what remains of the world wide web i stumbled upon a film title that sounded quite smart. that title was Dracula Blows His Cool. a quick investigation revealed that the film behind the title, or at the least a DVD of it, could be mine for an all in fee of £5.08. guess what happened.

indeed that is the DVD next to one of the most smart Christmas presents i got; a very handsome desk tidy made by the boys and my (considerably) better half. more on that later, or at some point in the future, though - for now your attention should be firmly, so to speak, on the DVD you also see in the picture. well, box of the DVD, but you know what i mean.

a search for Dracula Blows His Cool on IMDB suggests that the original German, for it is evidently a German film, title of the movie is Graf Dracula in Oberbayern. attempts to search for the movie on IMDB also suggest that people interested in this film are actually trying to find information on that whole new Space Battles film.

yes, as you can sort of see in the above, two of the four suggestions for searched on Dracula Blows His Cool are for people who are in all that Star Battles Episode VII film. i suspect they were not born at the time of the film i was looking for was made. bonus points, however, for IMDB suggesting that what i might be looking for instead is that new film in which him off of Titanic gets bummed off of a bear or something.

the technical specifications of the DVD i bought? a single layer DVD, with the film taking up about 3.49GB of the disc. quality wise it's not bad - the picture is OK, the sound leaves a lot to be desired. pretty much a case of a semi-decent VHS print being shoved on a disc and sold to the people.

here's a quick look at the DVD menu for you, but be warned, sensitive types - there are brief flashes of fragments of people in less clothes than the conventions of society prefer. it is, as we shall discuss later, very much one of them kind of films.

yes, there's a little bit more of that boss soundtrack coming up for you in a bit.

is there any sort of plot or general story for Dracula Blows His Cool? sort of. i mean, things happen in it that sort of connect and tell a tale, but there's no overriding story arc and there is most certainly little or no connection to anything what Bram Stoker did beyond the name of the title character.

Dracula is not the protagonist of the piece. well, he is, but isn't. the main character is Stan, apparently a great grandchild of Dracula (no, no explanation given), is living in a family castle and for a living takes some saucy pictures to sell for calendars and magazines. here he is in a later stage of the film, using an absolutely smart looking phone to make a call from the offices of Playboy, no less.

i at the least assume it was the office of Playboy, as there were loads of covers of that magazine of the wall in the office which he was in. well, one of the walls of the office.

to clarify that is the protagonist but isn't thing, the actor who plays Stan - Gianni Garko - also plays Dracula. except he isn't called Dracula; he's called Count Stanislaus. which sounds like a Game Of Thrones character and makes one wonder why Dracula appears in the title, but anyway.

back to the plot, and apparently taking saucy pictures does not pay as many bills as it could. Stan is looking into, along with an Italian business partner imaginatively named Mario,  turning the family castle into a sort of disco and hotel thing. a lady in the village - Mrs Nutcracker or something - takes exception to this. in an effort to stop it happening, she steals a saucy item from the castle and plans to take it to the mayor, or if you like Bürgermeister, as evidence that the castle development must be stopped. 

no, the gnome is not the saucy item - what that is and where it ends up, so to speak, are things i shall not reveal here in case you for some reason decide to watch the film and do not want spoilers.

indeed, the film is a comedy. i know there are those out there who believe the idea of a "German comedy" is like that of a "French war hero" - possible, but unlikely. in both cases this is unfair. well, at the least, Germans are renowned for their sense of humour, believe it or not. Germany, as a whole, has a healthy love of Monty Python, at the least. and i don't think David Hasselhoff  sold all them records in the country for any reason beyond a joke gone too far.

any favourite characters of mine in the film? yes, Chubby. here he is, with a lady character whose name escapes me - i think she was another relative or if you like descendant off of Dracula, or whoever the vampire in the film is or is supposed to be.

Chubby is class. what a bloody shame that the conventions of the time did not allow it to be so that he could have been called Chunky instead, as that would have been even more ace. yes, that is a Superman t-shirt he has on, and yes, they are yellow strides he has on too.

why is Chubby, or if you like Chunky, a favourite? you will see in a bit. if you carry on reading, at the least. in the mean time, though, the sauce of the film for you.

that right there are some of the girls that Stan takes pictures of, running around in a disrobed state as, for a laugh, Chubby or if you like Chunky has stolen all of their threads and attire.  and yes, the image was taken in Commodore 64 mode mostly for censorship purposes, as this is not that type of site or blog.

it is, i can only presume, because of the huge amount of nudity in the film that Dracula Blows His Cool has an 18 certificate. it's really rather tame - little or no violence beyond vampire bites, and even then the bites are tame, hardly seen things. English, or if you like British, film censors have always, always and always been very prudish and uptight - a bit of flesh and they are quick to slam an 18 on it. the high level of full frontal female nudity which features in this film means that the BBFC, who would order all piano legs to be covered if they had their way, must have been close to just banning it all together.

oh yeah, the plot. Dracula, or whatever, and his partner, Olivia, live in the basement in coffins. their houseboy, Boris, usually gets them blood what he has stolen off of a bloodbank, with weirdly the mayor seeming to be the chief donor. anyway, Boris keeps spilling the blood before they get to have it. in this respect Dracula, or whatever, and Olivia are actually thus quite keen on the whole nightclub / hotel thing, as it means they can have access to blood from guests that Boris cannot drop.

a look at the actor who plays Stan instead playing Dracula, along with the imaginatively named Mario? sure.

was there any particular or major highlights for me in the film? what, you mean other than the copious and most splendid levels of nudies? why, yes. one of the actors, a character who seems to go around with Mrs Cockbreaker or whatever she was called, looks a lot like John Beck. here, have a gander.

who is John Beck? oh, you fickle and forgetful people. he was in the original Rollerball with Sonny off of Godfather, and he was drafted in to be Pam's primary love interest in Dallas when Patrick Duffy quit playing Bobby for a bit.

one of the main reasons that i pursued watching Dracula Blows His Cool to the end - other than to justify the £5.08 i had shelled out for it and the nudies - was to see if this was in fact the real John Beck. i couldn't work out if it was, and for some reason the film was bereft of end credits.

speaking of credits, there was an interesting decision made in that regard, but here you go - a snippet of the celebrated "disco sequence" out of Dracula Blows His Cool and again my apologies if you click on the video and see a bit more flesh than you can handle.

smart that soundtrack is. as far as i can work out the soundtrack for the film was never released, although it does not really matter as my (considerably) better half says that i cannot buy it if it does exist. the closest i can find is this track which says it is off of the film.

back to credits. the screenplay is credited to Grünbach and Rosenthal. i quite like the way that they just use their surnames. i like to imagine that they wrote the script, right, and said "well, people say Kubrick and know exactly which Kubrick you are talking about. we have just written a script as good as he would have done, so let us just use our last names too".

back to Chubby, or Chunky, and sort of back to the plot. for some reason Stan, Mario and a few others think that making the castle into a disco / hotel would go better if there were not vampires wandering around in it. to this end Chubby, or if like me you prefer Chunky, appoints himself Chief Vampire Slayer.

yeah, that's garlic he has around his neck, and indeed a cross on his back. he also has some wooden stakes on him, presumably to smack through the heart of the vampires. the flask does not contain holy water, though - that's vodka for his nerves as he goes off to kill them.

my first thought when i saw Chubby / Chunky in this outfit was "f*** The Frog Brothers, man". you either get that reference or you don't; but if you don't i assure you it is worth investigating. Chunky's efforts at being Chief Vampire Slayer are not all they could be, but again let me leave you to watch the film. although lots of this post, in particular the next few bits, are pretty much spoileriffic, i guess.

as it turns out, it is just as well that Chunky fails in his efforts. guest apparently really, really like the idea of getting bitten off of a vampire. to this end, Dracula or whatever gets to bite the ladies, whilst his partner, Olivia i think, bites the gentry. although there is a bit of a curveball in German comedy when a flamboyant gay gentleman of the homosexual variety checks in and expresses a wish for a gent bite. 

this goes along quite well for a bit, but eventually Olivia and Dracula or whatever get a bit bored of it. they elect to return to Transylvania, with no reason ever being given that i noticed as to why they left, but leave the means in place for vampires to still service the guests, so to speak.

yes, the above picture is included purely because i had got too busy taking images of Chunky that i forgot to include one of Olivia earlier. 

for what reason is it that i watch stuff like Dracula Blows His Cool, other than the nudies? i mean, i do have easy access to some of the greatest films ever made, and i have still yet to watch things like Inception and No Country For Old Men. it's a fair question.

the answer is perhaps not so straightforward. once upon a time, i suppose as a start to an answer, it was very difficult to make a film - it was an expensive and lengthy process. to go through it to deliver something which was effectively tosh is, to me, exciting.

there's also the chance that by watching something like this you find one of those "so bad it's good" films.

alas, in respect of the above, i am not at all convinced that Dracula Blows His Cool is either actually a decent film or meets the criteria for consideration as a film that is "so bad it is good". yes, i was entertained by it, but that was more from the stack of nudies in it, and my adding commentary about The Frog Brothers and, indeed, bit part actors who looked a lot like bit part actors out of Dallas. nothing in the film beyond all of the lovely, wonderful nudies - not even Chunky, alas - proved to be all that brilliant or engaging in itself.

would i recommend this film? difficult to say, really. i would imagine that Dracula purists, such as my (considerably) better half, would not like it. people who really, really like nudies in films can probably find more of it than is on offer here in other films on the net. enthusiasts about German nudie comedies of the early 80s have probably already seen it. for anyone else, then, that happens to stumble on the title and gets as curious as i did, yeah, go for it, but hopefully you can find it for cheaper than i did. but no, in answer to the obvious question, the soundtrack does not get better than the snippets featured.

hope this has been of some use to someone somewhere!



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

ticket

hello there

yes, a "best" thing of the year is coming, look you see. however, for now what comes to mind is that one moment of pure comedy gold from 2015. i speak, of course, of that moment where that kanye west fellow declared himself to be "the world's greatest living rock star".  the humour - hopefully deliberate and intended - in this was derived from the fact that, of course, it is the case that he is patently the least qualified to make such a claim. it was all a bit like when Frank Spencer took on jobs he was ill-prepared for in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, allowing for the fact that, as a wife, that Ching CardCashIAm woman does not hold a candle to Betty.

some jokes, of course, get analysed and taken a part so that we may understand them all the more. such conduct reveals that in order for it to be the case that the kanye claim is true and not funny, some five hundred or so deaths within the world of rock and roll would need to happen. sadly, we had one of those required deaths on the day today.

we, the world, lost Lemmy today. it is with interest that i note that the machines which now automate and edit the NME see this as being no barrier to encouraging people to purchase tickets for Motorhead gigs, as you can sort of make out in this picture.

my introduction to Lemmy was via the world of comedy. i think the first time i will have seen him and his class band in action would be when they guested on The Young Ones, being the band booked for a party, if i recall the episode. after that, it would have been via Bad News that i learned of his greatness.

just as i dug in and explored all of the cultural references which Frankie Goes To Hollywood laced their records with, so too did i do that with Bad News. that's how i came to discover the boss, awesome and, if you will forgive the obvious play on words, ace music of Motorhead. i have a fair few albums of theirs on vinyl, from what i remember his eminence Norman B'stard borrowed my CDs of them several years ago and has not had reason to return them. 

the legends of Lemmy are, perhaps, as interesting and as impressive as his music. legend has it, for instance, that he holds the record for the highest number of sisters from The Nolans slept with. he's also responsible for what i consider to be the greatest bootleg story of all time.

i suspect that we won't see a mad rush of people buying Ace Of Spades or Orgasmatron as a tribute in order to make Motorhead number one as a tribute - Lemmy was, after all, no Cilla Black. from my perspective, i suspect i will remember him as much for his eloquent, intelligent and insightful intellect in interviews as much as i shall the awesome, hard hitting rock he gave.

hard rock, or if you like heavy metal, has a curious relationship with England. for the most part society generally frowns upon it, yet around the world i see British metal bands being celebrated and loved. in this regard, Lemmy was right up there with Ozzy Osborne and Billy Idol in being embraced by, in particular, America more than ever was the case at home. not that there was an absence of fans at home, of course - far from it, and we're all very sad to see this day come.

in mourning Lemmy, spare a moment to think of the plight of kanye west. he was already ahead of Sammy Hagar in his quest to be the world's greatest living rock star; now he just needs to patiently wait for another 498 deaths as sad as this one to happen.




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

two

hey there

it's temping, look you see, to say that i am not all that much of a one for milestones and so forth, but as it happens it would seem that i am. and there's nothing wrong with that. the calendar, and indeed the measurement of time, is a made up thing which we could ditch or alter at any stage we choose to do so; celebrating the completion of a cycle of it as it is from a specific date is a means to ensure it retains value.

that introduction is far more elaborate than i intended. sorry, these things kind of just happen whenever i sit down to compose something. anyway, in getting to the point, we have now celebrated two years of me being home and the 75% of my family you all actually like more than me being at home with me.

the passing stranger who has somehow stumbled upon this post might be a bit confused about the above statement, if not the picture. well, if that's you, read around this blog, or otherwise exercise greater caution as to which corners of the internet you visit.

apologies for the poor quality image, or indeed images for more follow, by the way. oddly this time it is not blueberry at fault - these were taken with your so-called iApple iPhone thing. yeah, brilliant, woo hoo, you go, Apple, let's see what you invent next.

how that the two years been? predominantly good, but before i delve into that sort of sentimental hygiene, i know that you want to see a group picture in Commodore 64 mode so here you go.

in what ways could things have gone better, or if you like more better, over the last two years? well, i suppose i could have been awarded a peerage, or perhaps just a knighthood, in regards of my services, to something or other. also, someone could have given me an absolutely enormous pile of money and said "here, do what you like with this". those things have yet to happen; if by chance they do in the years ahead then that would be very nice indeed.

dwelling, then, on real and actual things, all is most splendid. the boys love life here, be it at school or at play, my (considerably) better half loves the time she has with our dear children and has a position of verk which allows here to feel as though she does good for society.

me? my one regret would be that the pressures of modern life mean that i have not, as such, had the free hand of time to go twatting about seeing dear old friends, or those that have a really ragged notion of vaguely remembering me and tolerating seeing me once more so long as the purchase of coffee is not so much on but very much on me.

otherwise, all splendid. for verk i get to do a job i love doing (as in it's predominantly writing) and get to do it along with some truly amazing people. my family are all happy, and i can be at ease knowing that they are in a safe and splendid part of the world. i am very almost, dear reader, able to feel relaxed.

yeah,. this iForward iFacing iCamera on the iPhone is not all that it iCould be; using it would appear to mar if not diminish the quality of Commodre 64 mode some.

to my friends and family around the world, i would say do not take the above, or any aspect of this post, as a sign that i do not miss you all dearly. i do find myself thinking of you frequently; yes indeed all of you crazy guys at my former verk. if you're reading this i can only assume it means that the bank firewall has lifted the block on my blog, which is very nice. getting somewhat back on point, know, though, that as much as i miss the many of you i have been lucky to know over the years and around the world, i am very much in the only place that my heart and mind have ever felt truly at one in a sense of being at home in the way i imagine that "home" is supposed to feel. or something like that.

anyway, onwards or if you like towards the years ahead. except that in the next couple of days, if not hours, i will be doing one of those "year in review" things.




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

return

hey there

just bringing a touch of balance, look you see, or perhaps equality if such a term is one that causes you delight to see being used.

earlier on not so much this year as this month i took William on a grand tour of the centre of our fine, fine metroploistic like area. whilst there he witnessed the single greatest engineering construction of all time, or at least that which is described as such by his Grandad. it was only fair, then, that i took James along to see it too. it would have been something amiss for me not to, no?

all that i could think to say of the magnificence of the Transporter was probably covered in the post i have linked to in the text earlier. yes, rest of world, yes - you may look upon it here in awe if you want. do not, however, be jealous - we are a friendly bunch, you can visit and see any time you like.

what did James make of it? general awe, really, i suppose, with an increased sense of enthusiasm and interest when i mentioned to him his Grandad's love of the structure. a love shared, surely, by all who have seen it.

anyway, i shall take my leave of you here for now, and return when i have other pictures or thoughts of interest to trouble you with.



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

ritual

hi there


one thing that i am aware of being absent from this blog during the course of the year - outside of any obvious talent in writing or things of interest to say, look you see you cheeky things - is a distinct lack of Grant updates for the several Grant enthusiasts who read this blog purely, if not exclusively, for Grant updates. for some reason sending pictures out of New Zealand digitally is frowned upon, which is presumably why i don't get too many sent to me. no matter, some have sneaked their way to me, and here they are for you too. on that note, let me put a nice bit of U2 on the stereo as i write.

something which may well make this particular post all the more exciting for you is that there is also a Spiros update included within it. in regards of this, though, i must warn you, dear reader, to brace yourself, for it is of a nature that includes crass and coarse language.

but first, for your viewing pleasure and so that your mind may be at rest, here's Grant.

yes, i know quite a number of you will have simply scrolled down past the text to see the images. if for some reason you are reading this, however, i can only say thanks for doing so.

as you can see, or perhaps as this image permits you to gauge and conclude, Grant seems to be doing very well indeed in the health and well stakes. indeed yes, he is still a staunch advocate of that Sharks franchise.

what, other than maintaining the appearance and sense of health and well, has Grant been up to? for the most part i can only guess or speculate this, which of course is precisely what i am going to do here and what i would do if i knew anyhow but felt that the truth needed to be "jazzed" some.

in this image, for instance, it might seem that Grant is cooking up some food of the meat variety which has been purchased from a shopping concern, presuming that they do indeed have such shops south of the equator. this is not quite the case. well, actually, it is, but it isn't.

for several years, as some of you may well know, Grant has been trying to become a member of the fabled Buwlawalayi Assandi clan, or if you like tribe. for those somewhat unfamiliar with the Buwlawalayi Assandi, they are in many respects similar to the Masinawinyi Baringya clan, just not quite bogged down with the same sense of ceremony or protocol. for those of you who are well aware of the Buwlawalayi Assandi, i know what you are thinking - assuming, of course, that what you are thinking is that surely it is impossible for one born outside of the Buwlawalayi Assandi to become one. evidently this is not the case, otherwise why then would Grant ritualistically, with his bare hands, kill several animals, ritualistically carve them up, ritualistically dispose of the carcasses and then conventionally cook the bits he retained?

what are my thoughts, feelings, concerns and wishes in regards of Grant's efforts to become one with the people of the Buwlawalayi Assandi? it's not something that i have given a great deal of thought to, really. overall, if quizzed, i suppose i would just hope that joining them does not prevent him listening to the album off of that guy off the radio in South Africa which i buy and send every year.

if you think that Grant and his ambitions in regards of attaining Buwlawalayi Assandi status are the most controversial thing you will see in this particular blog post, then you are forgetting the warnings i put out there in regards of Spiros and his appearance here. to that end, once more i warn you of the content you are about to see, and off we go with it.

Spiros sort of tries to lead a simple, peaceful sort of life, with only London black cab drivers usually being the people to make  him angry, and angry they make him simply by being there. it is not his fault, then, when people pick fights with him, and he responds.

weirdly, or perhaps strangely or by a sheer stroke of the fluke of look of co-incidence, earlier today i had an issue in which i could have parked a lot better than i ended up doing if only other motorists had been somewhat considerate with the way in which they parked. that said, i just got on with it, and certainly did not consider or contemplate leaving any sort of note or message for fellow drivers about how they should park in the future. as you can see in this picture, however, someone did not take that approach when they observed how Spiros had parked.

oh yes, the date on that letter which someone put on the car of Spiros - and the letter to which Spiros, as you can see, so eloquently replied to - is correct. someone elected to spend their Christmas Day typing and printing a note about how someone had parked. a terrible waste of resources, really. it is a well known fact, after all, that the emergency services love nothing more than being called about things like this or other matters of an entirely trivial nature.

i have no doubt that a lot of you have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of Spiros in respect of the above incident, and hope that soon you will be able to buy some sort of charity record, with the funds being diverted to making Spiros feel better. such a record may well get recorded and released by any number of the major pop stars that undoubtedly read this blog, but for now let us return to Grant and his quest for total assimilation into the ways of the Buwlawalayi Assandi.

as part of the trials, or if you like initiations, that one must complete in order to be considered to become part of the Buwlawalayi Assandi, the ritual of standing on the trash is the one where a few fall short. not so with Grant, who apparently does this kind of thing anyway, whether or not it, if you will excuse the play on words, grants him access to some sort of community.

for what reason is it that the Buwlawalayi Assandi have a ritual which involves standing on trash? for what reason is it that Grant is of a mind, or has a proclivity, to do this anyway? i do not have answers for you. i try to lead a simple, straightforward life, grounded if not based on certain morals and standards. i would not say that i always succeed in this approach, but i would say that it means i do not ask any questions about this sort of thing. sure, it leaves me ignorant, but also it leaves me untroubled and unburdened by any knowledge of what is going on here - knowledge that may well upset me.

right, then, that's some partial insight into how Grant and indeed Spiros spent elements of their Christmas. i trust that this has been of some interest to all them Grant and Spiros enthusiasts that read this blog for updates on them.



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

resurrection

hello there


i would imagine that the idea, concept, notion and tales of resurrection are very much at the forefront of the minds of those who think of such things at this time of year. this post, look you see, doesn't relate to any tales of actual resurrection, though. it's another rare instance of me getting the chance of watching a film on a night, and for some reason feeling the need to write of it.

throughout this year - and yes, a sort of  "best of" thing of the year is likely to come along here on this blog - Poundland has provided me with several films on blu-ray for no more and no less than £1 a go. i have before commented on just how staggered i am that society has allowed the highest quality (presently available) means to watch films to have its stock fall so cheap, but far be it from me to argue.

in the course of the last week, then, they had Alien Resurrection on the shelf for £1. my reaction was, of course, disappointment at the fact that it was not Alien or Aliens. i wasn't, as it happens, going to bother getting this, but then it occurred to me that i, despite owning the VHS and the DVD, had not actually gotten around to watching this from start to finish.

with the above being the case, and indeed it coming to mind that the bits i had seen over the years were, on the whole, what one might say as being "not bad", it seemed like not much of a gamble to simply give Poundland the £1 which they commanded in exchange for this disc, so that i may watch it in high definition. also, as it happens, they had something called Eastern Promises on blu ray for the same price. i bought that too, but it looks like a f*****g dark and heavy film so i will leave that for a bit.

the above is about the only part of this post which could be safely read by someone that has no wish to have any details of this 18 or so year old film revealed to them, so.....

**** SPOILER WARNING NOW IN PLACE ****

don't say you've not been warned if you read on.....

plot? ok, let's sort of try that.....

the biggest problem most had at the time with Alien Resurrection was that it was going to feature who had emerged as the protagonist of the first three, Ripley. that was a problem as, for as dearly loved as this character is, she was killed by death at the end of Alien 3, making, you would think, a 4th film with her tricky.

how did they get around that? by hoying the film 200 years into the future after Alien 3 when, via means never bothered to be elaborated on, they have clocked how to clone whatever was left of Ripley after being killed by death in T2 stolen motlen lava metal stuff and extract from her the alien which she was infected with.

it's actually quite smart that they did that bit above. i mean, they could have spent an hour explaining how they got her DNA or whatever, and how they worked out how to do some fancy cloning, but that would have been dull, dry and boring. the makers, to their credit, had an appreciation for the fact that audiences of the 4th film in a series were there for a very specific thing, and that specific thing was classy Alien vs Human action. cutting out on elaborate, lengthy explanations and trusting an audience to take a leap of faith is, at the least, something that many people making films today could learn from. well, use, really. i don't care if they learn from it or not.

in continuing the leap above, clone Ripley has ended up with some super duper special Alien powers blended in with her, that not nobody had ever been aware of the Aliens even having. clone Ripley, or if you like 8, has a super fast healing capability, ace hearing, the ability to smell out aliens and, as displayed in this snippet right here below, some fancy fighting skills.

allowing for the fact that the above is made with the iPhone what Spiros gave to me and isn't the best quality, that scene does show a major problem with the film. even at its worst - hello, Alien 3 - the atmospherics of the visuals in the Alien films have always been smart. Alien Resurrection suffers from some clunky camerawork and some very poor framing decisions. this is really baffling as they went to all the trouble of getting some stylish French dude, off of Franceland, to make the film.

Winona Ryder, off of The Wonder Years or whatever (she looks a bit like one of them, i think), is in the film. weirdly, this is about the only think that i can think of which she has been in that she was not awful. prior to this, right, her crowning glory was the fact that she actually made Keanu Reeves not be the worst thing in Dracula. yes, she was that bad. anyway, Ms Ryder (no relation to Shaun that i know of) plays a lady android of the female variety, following in the footsteps of (you saw the spoiler warning above) Ash and Bishop. Call, or Cali or something, is her robot name.

despite the fact that Winona Ryder is sort of slightly OK and watchable in this film, the makers really did miss a trick with the character. you saw the spoilers, yeah? in Alien the robot android tried to kill Ripley and the whole crew. which is why in Aliens she had total dislike and distrust of the robot, only to be given reason to believe. in Alien 3, which i watched earlier in the year, she actually misses him/it and brings it back to life. in this one, Ripley is clinging to the echoes of memories of the life from which she was cloned. she remembers a girl that she once looked after, fondly (there's a beautiful silent bit of acting when she sees a picture of a girl that looks like her), but can't remember her name (Newt, i know). the combination of memories of robots, memories of a girl that made her feel human and being presented with a girl robot could and perhaps should have been played on a bit more than it was; allowing the Clone Ripley to develop slightly more humanity.

as for the rest of the cast, mostly it provides some "hey, isn't that?" moments. you can watch the film and go "look, it's the black dude out of CSI that wasn't in Apocalypse Now", "hey, far out, it's Hellboy out of Hellboy and Hellboy 2" and "wow, it's the bad dude off of The Crow and he was probably in a series of 24 or something like that too". weirdly, this somehow makes it better - not unlike as was the case when i watched Alien 3 for the first time in 20 or so years earlier this year and noted how many of the actors went on to be in all that Game Of Dragon Thrones thing.

back to the plot, and the film. if this review seems haphazard and all over the place, by the way, then that reflects the film perfectly. both, i think, are well intentioned, at the least. anyway, just as Clone Ripley has some super special Alien powers, so too it turns out that the Alien DNA has some super special human powers in it now, like being able to give birth.

 

if the newly created clone Queen Alien can all of a sudden give birth to aliens, as sort of shown in the slightly graphic scene above that i maybe should have given a warning about beforehand, right, then why does she also still lay eggs that facehuggers pop out of? strange.

alas, blogger and apple have had a falling out about how i may rotate pictures to show off here, so please bear with this one of the "born Alien" being sideways.

that the picture of the born Alien is sideways is the least of the problems with born Alien. in fact, i would say that it is this creature that's behind no one being particularly fond or impressive with the film.

every element of born Alien, right, is complete crap. it looks rubbish, it moves rubbish, it's silly not scary. also, it rejects it's actual mother, the clone Queen Alien, for Clone Ripley, which it for some reason feels closer to.

there is never an explanation for this. there's also no explanation given as to how exactly clone Queen Alien got pregnant in such a way that she would in fact give birth to a human (assuming that is the intention) looking born Alien, although maybe the bonkers Brad Dourif character could answer this point in a scene that, quite frankly, i would not wish to see.

the film kind of ends with the door open for another sequel, but no one was all that interested in it. it's all done now, bar Ridley Scott's Prometheus prequel things.

in no way at all is Alien Resurrection an overlooked or lost classic, but it is also in no way at all as bad as i thought it was going to turn out. it's a decent, solid enough 100 minute sci-fi film that was very easily worth the £1 i threw at it.

it's a touch like Jurassic Park III, i suppose - it trusts an audience to know the deal and just gets on with delivering what they want. as a consequence, there's nothing groundbreaking in it. that might be why people tend to not remember it fondly, but then find "oh yeah, this is pretty decent" when they sit to watch it. besides, just as Jurassic Park III has loads of the dinosaurs people wanted, Alien Resurrection has these dudes on the go. a fair bit.

i will watch any film that has an Alien out of the Alien films or a Predator out of a Predator film in it. they are awesome. i actually liked the Alien vs Predator film that most seem to moan and wail about as if they were Star Wars fanboys.

well, there you go. if for some reason you have easy and affordable access to Alien Resurrection and are not sure whether or not to watch it, go for it. you don't get bored, but you also don't get overwhelmed with awesomeness. you pretty much get entertained, though, which is all a movie is supposed to do.




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

christmas

hey there


i find it quite a challenge to grasp, look you see, the idea of someone being all that interest in the stuff that i write here that a level of disappointment they have at nothing new here for a few days requires some sort of apology for the lack. should i be exceptionally mistaken in this respect, then this serves as the apology you seek.

it's been Christmas and that, dear readers. it means a time too busy to do too many updates. as point of fact i suspect i should be busy with other such stuffs of stuff right at this moment, but i felt it best to have a go at a quick post to give you insights into what he, the one in red that is not The King, Elvis Presley in a smart red jumpsuit brought along for the boys. well, highlights of what he brought.

that is indeed young William, at not too early an hour to his credit, going into the lounge to discover that, yet again, this Santa bloke has somehow ninja stealthed his way into our home to deliver presents. his elder brother, James, has suspicions that someone else other than Santa brings forth these gifts, but when i pointed out to him that if that were the case then he must surely expect no gifts from Santa he soon revised his suspicions and elected to confirm to the belief of what we had told him.

getting back on track to where that last paragraph started, i believe it was not much beyond 8am when the boys woke up. well, William did. James needed rousing from his bed.

the photographic evidence probably covers this point already, but in case you missed it, yes, Santa did indeed get in and leave a substantial amount of quality presents for the boys. with, but of course, quality being a subjective term, depending on how you value or regard certain things. i say that all of them made both of them very happy, so quality is the word i shall stick with.

yeah, that is the latest kit shirt what Manchester United wear. call it a failing as a parent in me if you so wish, but James loves the team and wanted to wear their shirt more than anything else this Christmas. i am sure he would be delighted to learn that i, er Santa, was happy to get it off of that nice Mike Ashley at Sports Direct, who is somehow selling the Manchester United kit for cheaper than what Manchester United sell it for.

i suppose in certain respects nothing says Christmas quite like Manchester United merchandise does. that is, of course, the case if it's when you think Christmas, you think primarily an English concern, now ruthlessly owned by the Americans, lumbered with unnecessary and impossible to service debt and being fannyed about with by a bonkers Dutchman. more than one person i know thinks of Christmas in such terms.
 

what's that video of? it's William playing his super mega boss Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine, which Ouma very kindly arranged to have Santa bring. smart it is too. i am not sure if it comes across too well in that clip, but it has an always on, if you like perpetual, ultra-rave sound vibe bangin' beat to it.

Ouma was indeed thoughtful enough to ensure that Santa brought something for James, seeing as how James had elected if not opted to follow the party line on who exactly brings smart gifts on December 25th.

isn't that, you might well be asking, a statue or ornament of a little naked boy riding on a skateboard to the delight or displeasure of two little grey girls? yes, indeed it is. i believe this is something to do with The Simpsons, or some sort of film they made of that tv show. whatever it is made perfect sense to James, and he was delighted to get this. perhaps, methinks, we should take something of a closer look at what films it is exactly that he is watching.

another video clip? surely. with some more banging vibes on the go? it is decidedly so.

what did William's little heart want more than anything else for Christmas? a ukulele. he is mad keen to go to lessons at school but is, alas, a year too young at the least for the classes. that did not, as you can see and hear, stop Santa from granting his wish.

 
young William's interest in the ukulele as a form of expression is i am sure, in part at the least, inspired by that Minions film. however, he has always had a song in his heart, so we, er Santa, was delighted to let him have the means to let it burst out for all the world to hear. there is some delight in our house, make no mistake, that it was not a trombone or drums that he wished to have.

sorry, alas no i did not take any video of James doing much with his stuff, but here you go, here's a picture of him celebrating the spirit of Christmas with a gift that is something of a tradition across our family. or through our family. or within our family. just pick which is the right way of saying it from one of them and move on.

yes, the Beano annual. for years and years i used to get it, and i would imagine that my Dad was also given it for years and years. and now it is the turn of James to receive this once a year; hence the name "annual" being bestowed upon it, i suppose.

oh indeed yes, i will be having a borrow and a read, thank you. and his Grandad would be too, if he were on this side of the equator.

there are dozens more pictures and quite a few more stories. will they feature here? perhaps. i would hope, in my heart and in my mind, though, that all of you reading this had a wonderful, splendid Christmas, full of your own stories. i am sure, however, that friends and family around the world will take delight in seeing that all was so in our corner of the world.




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

celebrations

hey there


December, look you see, is about more than Christmas. there's all that New Year stuff, for a start, and in some countries there are other dates of significance. also, there are birthdays.

there is, i know, one very special birthday in New Zealand during the month that is December, but as no one has sent along pictures of celebrations of that one you, or if you like we, shall simply have to make do with a look at how the boys here marked the passing of another year.

indeed it is, as it remains the case, that William and James, in that order but not in that order depending on how you want to look at it, celebrate their birthday during the month. oh yes indeed that does mean we have an extra special time with our finances. never mind, what else would we do with the money.

i would have thought that friends and family around the world would like to see moments from the celebrations of their respective birthdays, so here you go with some pictures. for those of you who for some reason come to this blog for my writing, rather than the 75% of my family that people actually like, i will try my best to do some decent and proper scribe work.

let's start off with young William, then, who was quite chuffed with the haul of cards he got. this one from Grandma & Grandad featuring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tattoos was, as i think you can see, quite well received indeed.

no, he has not put the tattoos on yet. actually i think he has momentarily forgotten about them, but i bet he decides to remember them and apply them to himself, possibly around the face, mere moments before he returns to school after the Christmas break.
 

cards are, of course, always a very welcome and very excellent part of birthdays. as too, i hear you, are presents.

balancing out presents between birthdays and Christmas has always been a bit of a challenge, but one we have so far met OK. it's tricky to make sure that you do not either over or under do it for one of them. with James, however, it was pretty simple - Fifa 16 was what he wanted as soon as possible, and so as his birthday lands before Christmas, that was done and dusted.

not, if you will excuse me going off on one during this post, just any copy of Fifa 16, as you may well have already observed. no. this is the Australian edition of the game, featuring legends of the Socceroos on the cover, along side that Spaniard, or whatever he is, that's the poster boy for that highly respected footballing governing body.

did i in any sort of deliberate or explicit way go and for some reason make sure that i got him the Australian edition of Fifa 16? not at all. i placed an order with the UK division of the global empire that is Amazon, with, like totes obvs, a UK address for delivery. i in good faith expected the English edition, with some sort of legend of Liverpool on the cover alongside the tax efficient chap from Paraguay or wherever, to arrive.

hey ho, it's the same game inside, and plays just as it should. as it happens James is quite delighted to have the Legends of Socceroos version of the cover, i think he prefers them to Liverpool anyhow.

William also got what his heart wished for the most for his birthday rather than waiting to see if Father Christmas, or if you like Santa Clause, turned up with it. here he is, in a larger form to show off those wild wide eyes, with the gift that pleased him the most.

yep, that's a Star Lord off of Guardians Of The Galaxy smart space mask and blaster. he has been after one for over a year now, so it was with delight that we were able to get him one.

to go off on one again, i really do hope that Disney develop Guardians Of The Galaxy properly. i really believe it will be a series of films that are to the kids of today what Star Wars was to people of or around my age. well, except hopefully in 30 years time the kids of today won't grow up to b!tch and whine as much as Star Wars fans have.

cake, specifically birthday cake, is of course and indeed another important element, or if you like aspect, of birthday celebrations. hence it being called "birthday cake". it does not, alas, seem to be all that important to google and blogger, for once again they have elected to rotate a picture so that it appears sideways.

James made a request for either a WWE themed cake, or failing that a football one. in respect of his first expressed wish, Tesco let him down somewhat, as they for some reason consider selling Space Wars and other such cakes as being better than WWE. they did, however, agree to sell this most splendid football shaped one, so his secondary wish was met. and yes, it did taste most splendid.

as indeed was the case with William and his birthday cake, or if you like the cake that we had as part of the celebration of his birthday.

yes, good fortune smiled on me at Tesco that time, as they happened to do a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. he had made no actual or specific requests about what sort of cake, he just wished to be permitted to put the candles in. and, as you may well be able to work out in the above, the first thing he did was ram a candle holder into each of the two eyes that this Turtle cake has. sometimes i do believe we should have called him Hannibal.

as an extra special bonus for both of them on their birthday, the day happened to be a school day too. that meant, as you can see in this next picture, that James still had homework to do, despite the reason for festivity and celebration. that's how the world works, son. we have indeed built the world all wrong, but welcome to it.

a big thank you from both to my (considerably) better half, also known as their Mummy, in regards of school. both decided that the best celebration they could have would be to take some "cake pops" into school to share with their classmates. this saw my (considerably) better half making somewhere substantially north of 100 of them.

i would not be at all surprised if pictures and tales of the other reason to celebrate this December comes along on this blog in the not too distant future. whether you happen to celebrate that yourself or not, may i take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful and peaceful time. and, above everything else,




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

one

hi there


before we, as it were, begin proper, let me sort of make at least one thing partially clear. although you might, during the course of reading this, detect what you suspect as being sarcasm, snide comment or ill-informed opinion, i really don't have any problem, look you see, with the band at the heart of this post. they are out there, man, doing their thing, making stacks of cash and making a tremendous amount of people happy. nice one, that's what it is supposed to be all about.

righty-ho, with that what i feel to be a very lawyer appeasing disclaimer all done and dusted, let's get on with what has brought me to type here. i obtained yet another blu ray off of Poundland for £1. actually, i have obtained quite a few of late, but i am talking about one specific one. well, one specific one that, as point of fact, i bought three copies of, but more on that later.

yes. oh yes, indeed, yes it is. Poundland were, until very recently, selling the Ultimate Fan Edition of the film One Direction In One Direction This Is Us Starring One Direction, which hereafter we shall refer to purely as This Is Us to save me on either typing or copying & pasting.

what's that in the background? my smart One Direction "messenger" style bag. weirdly, i also paid £1 for that, but it was off of The Entertainer, not Poundland. At Discount World, or similar, i also paid £1 for my classy One Direction mug (images of which are on this blog somewhere), and indeed £1 for my absolutely massive One Direction pencil case. let it not be said that i am not prepared to spend £1 on any One Direction merchandise which so happens to meet my requirements.

a look at the inside of this blu ray set? and, by the way, it is a blu-ray set. for £1! deal!

if your eyes are considerably better than mine, which should not be too problematic, you could probably steal the "download code" off of that image so you can sneakily have my digital copy of this presumably magnificent film.

indeed the set does contain two blu ray discs; one with the enhanced 3D version of the motion picture and one standard 2D version of it for peasants. in terms of watching i am, alas, in the peasant bracket. whereas i have a blu ray player capable of 3D playback, i do not have a 3D TV set. i, as i have pointed out somewhere, consider 3D TV to be a pile of sh!t, and just got the 3D capable player for a negligible price differential on the off chance that at some point certain extras i might want featured on a 3D only disc. it has not happened yet, but you never know.

a look at the screen from when the blu ray loads up? certainly. it's a fancy thing which sees the band logo, or if you like emblem, transform from a solid state into a fancy thing made out of, presumably, spotlights.

 

of the three copies i purchased, one was posted to Payney. Payney is a man, as many of you will be aware, that has three core passions - masturbation, quality music and motion pictures presented in the highest definition possible. with that in mind, i would have been nothing short of a disgrace if i didn't get a copy for him.

i like to imagine, but most certainly not picture, him "appreciating" one of those three core passions i mentioned there in a state of excitement at the sight of the 1D logo forming from spotlights.

if, like Payney, you are impatient and aroused by the prospect of seeing something from the actual film, here you go. this is a snippet of one of the songs off of the motion picture, called It Only Takes A Minute, Girl or probably something like that.

yeah, i know it's only ten or so seconds of the magic of the band, but i am not sure what the law says about "fair use" of music clips. that Simon Cowell fella, who i believe to this day owns the arses of all of the band, looks pretty much like he can afford better lawyers than me - although Spiros does his best - so forgive me if i am being overtly cautious in just including a short clip.

speaking of the band, would you like a look at them as they appear on the blu ray menu? you would? how about a look at them in Commodore 64 mode with scan lines on? done.

what's really good about the This Is Who We Are film is that it features all five of the trio that make up the band One Direction, or if you like 1D. there they are, from left to right, something like Desmond, Danny, Dave, Dumisani and OJ. it is probably, now that i think about it, the fact that all, or most, of their names probably start with a "D" that they are called "1D". that's quite clever, that is.
 

what's the film actually about? i mean, what happens in it, you mean? well, from what i could ascertain as i skipped through it in order to get pictures and video at random, it's a combination of three things.

firstly, it features a lot of fans, like you can see in a picture near this text, holding up banners about how great One Direction are, and indeed the fans back this up by saying how great they are. secondly, you get footage of One Direction themselves, saying how great it is to be in One Direction and how great the fans are.

thirdly, and indeed finally if you wish to see things in such a way and hold me to task over my claim that it is constructed as a film from three elements, you get footage of the band performing songs which seem to wildly contradict the assertions and statements made in  the first and second parts which compose the film.

where exactly did the third copy of Remember Me This Way on blu ray end up? Sharpy, or if you like Sharpie, of course. he is very big on music memorabilia, to the extent that he has on display in his home a framed bus timetable that technically belonged to Bono for a short while. i had no doubt at all that he would love to have this, and i imagine that he does.

further, actually, i like to imagine that he also made a special celebratory banner about One Direction, much like their other fans seem to do, and waved it about as he watched the film.

blu ray discs, as you probably don't need me to tell you, usually feature a whole whack of extras. the Ultimate Fan Edition of One Direction's Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am is absolutely no different to the usual. here's a look at one of the extras.

that right there is a snippet from the promotional music video for the One Direction song which is called Best Song Ever. so long as i have breath enough to smoke, and so long as my arse faces south, i shall fight the fight to argue that this is the single most optimistically named song in the history of recorded music. but hey, each to their own.

a look at the menu image of the five member of the 21st Century's most successful quartet to date in non-Commodore 64 mode? sure. 

which is my most favourite member of the band? it's really hard to narrow it down to just one, to be honest.  they are all just so awesome and excellent. if i had to narrow it down, i suppose it would probably be, of the five i named, Winston. or maybe Lionel.
 

oh, go on then, you crazy Commodore 64 mode fans, here is a look at the blu ray disc of One Direction's That Was Then This Is Now in the mode of image you like. it really does enhance the look of it, i think.

now that i have gotten around to loading the disc up to take some pictures - and a bit of video (cheers for the tacit permission, Pete Waterman or whoever) - what are the chances of this disc ever being put in one of my blu ray players again? slim to none, dear reader. there can only be a first time once, and a second or subsequent viewing of this would not live up to the excitement of the first time.

how often do i imagine Payney or Sharpy will watch it? well, more than me, for a start. i would expect that Payney will watch it every time he has the house to himself, or when everyone else has gone to bed, and be comfortable in doing so by loosening his strides as he sits and watches. Sharpy, on the other hand, is a f*****g mentallist. he has probably taken a blowtorch or something out and welded closed the snazzy tray compartment of his blu ray player so that no one may ever watch anything in his house other than this film. which is admirable, but could be unfortunate for him if the band releases a Super Ultimate Fan Edition called More Of This Is Us or something like that.

it is, of course, total bullsh!t that we live in a world where artists like Spanga and Falco don't even get a 10 minute documentary made about them, yet one cannot move in Poundland without finding some film or other about One Direction. but hey, it's a crazy, unjust world we live in, just dig it man.



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