an overture for a day of release post, maybe

hey


quite a bit of a throwback today, being a friday, look you see, is as much as i was able to go right ahead and buy a new record (in CD form) on its actual day of release down at HMV. an unusual period of availability to do so cropped up, so i did.

what, exactly, got released today, as in friday the thirtieth of august 2019, or if you will (2019)? some solo album by Serge out of Kasabian, with the album called The S.L.P.

no, i have not yet actually played the album, hence this being an "overture" post. perhaps a full review, or some form of comment, shall come along later, when i have heard it.

if, indeed, i do hear it. there is a niggling suspicion i have, or possibly just a distracted thought, that buying it is sufficient; that i must never actually play it. no, i have not heard a single moment of the record, or at least am not aware of doing so. yes, i purchased it on the basis that it is Serge out of Kasabian, and, well, because it was a day of release opportunity.

also, i really like the new 10p bags what HMV now do, which is probably why that is so dominant in the image above. well, it can only be the image above, for i am adding none below.

right, well, let me give some further consideration as to whether or not i actually give this album a spin. keep on groovin', and of course,



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

write a poem in a letter

howdy pop pickers


phew.  quite nearly, then, i almost went an entire month without doing a post in some way related to bowie, look you see. whereas i consider that perhaps such so frequently is not required, wanted or needed, it just does not feel right not to do so.

it was with good fortune, then, that our most recent (as opposed to one in the future) trip to london facilitated me popping in to a most prestigious rock and roll shop down (or up) on baker street, just over the road from the museum for a celebrated sleuth whose name escapes me momentarily.

they had, indeed have, many many wonderful and splendid things available for sale. most of these have a pricing which is pretty much correct in terms of value but also very much in excess of what i might have funding for. signed items by such rock luminaries as the Stones and Oasis feature quite prominently in this respect. but they did have items for the more modest budget.

yes, postcards featuring select, or if you wish to go needlessly posh, curated artwork from key david bowie albums. or, if you will, david bowie tm postcards, for those "tm" letters signifying a trademarked thing would appear to accompany his name now. oh.

also yes, there are some images of the five (5) available below in non Commodore 64 mode. this is for those of you who for some reason prefer to see art, or items, "as intended", rather than beautified so.

here they are, then, in "alphabetical as i scanned them" order, rather than in chronological, or any other shape or way.

it is entirely possible that i am not supposed to have scanned and shared these here, even if i am just a humble fan doing so in a very much not for profit way to share with any fellow fans out there. should someone get in touch and tell me that i have been naughty then i shall of course say sorry.

cost of these postcards? a mere 40p each. from what i recall that is not far off the cost what Royal Mail imposed for their "stamp cards" of key, select or otherwise curated album covers. many of which were, of course, the same selected here.

whilst, or whereas, a quite fair comment would be that i am easily pleased, i am rather taken with the aesthetics of these cards. narrowing down a work of art from a square shape to a more rectangular "portrait" style is probably a doddle for arty people, i am rather taken by how well they have been done here. nice one, and well done.

any complaints or issues from me with regards to the five selected? not really. of course i would have rather liked a Station To Station one, but not to be. further, i understand that i am in a limited group who really likes Tonight, so didn't expect to find one of that.

yes, i am keeping the writing to a minimum, to be sure, as i would speculate that it is reasonable that most of you are just looking at the images. and why not.

if i am quite happy with the front of the postcards, then the back of each proves to be just as pleasing. absolutely no way am i showing off or putting here the reversed of each card, but here's the back of the "heroes" card so you can get the general idea.

again, that is probably something easy enough for an artsy person to do, but i love the attention to detail. well, they could have left it blank, but that black and white, sketch like, background watermark image of the album cover has just really taken my fancy. and i have just had a huge sense of deja vu as i wrote that, leaving me quite dizzy. have i, i wonder, encountered such cards before, and had such thoughts shared here? probably, but i am not going to look.

which side, exactly, or exactly which side of a postcard is the one which someone would consider to be the "business end" of it? hard to say. for most i suppose it would be the front, for that is the image being sent. the absence of the stuff on the reverse, however, would mean that delivering such to the intended or ostensibly proposed recipient could be difficult or tricky to the point of impossible.

i get why they have felt obliged to add a "tm" to his name, but it really does not look right. kind of distracting, i suppose, and suggesting that they (fair and understandable) protection of his name is of more value to the estate than leaving the artwork as it was and how it was intended. hey ho, such is the world we live in, such is the world we made this way.

yes, but of course that most specific and perhaps most of iconic albums was included in the select range of postcards. and here it is.

do i send out a lot of postcards? yes, as it happens. they are quick and easy to write, and usually rather pleasing for those who you send them to, so long as the image on the front is appropriate and something they like. also, quite expensive, for at the time of writing it costs £1.35 to send one of them somewhere outside of the uk. usually worth it.

as for concerns about "no privacy" in respect of what you write on a postcard, well, does such exist anymore? for some reason the government, and other, similar (invariably shady) organisations seem keen to monitor, read and file absolutely everything we send via electronic methods (the "internet"), should they wish to do the same with postcards, well then good luck with my handwriting.

right, well, there you go. i would imagine that this has been of some interest to fellow bowie fans. yes, even though one may have seen these album covers hundreds of times, i would speculate with confidence that they are always well worth a few hundred more looks.



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

renewing a south african passport in the uk

howzit


one of those posts i do from time to time to try and help people out, look you see. so, please be kind and understanding if this post - on the trials and tribulations of renewing a south african passport whilst in england or the wider uk - is loaded with them "keyword" things that "seo" types get all excited about.

we recently had reason to go right ahead and renew the sa passport for my (considerably) better half. this was whilst she is in her new home of the uk, as in many (thousands) of miles away from her place of birth, namely sa. to work out how to do this we took to the internet, and discovered the South African High Commission In London website. yes, you can visit the site by clicking the different coloured words there. and like us you can marvel at the "minimalist", hardly there level of help and information. hence this post, really, in the hope of giving some help to others.

the information we had suggested a trip to london was an essential part of getting an sa passport renewed. so off we went, then. yes, plenty of pictures and stories to follow, but i thought i had best do the important, hopefully (possibly) helpful stuff first. and so here we go, after a picture (or two) inside the High Commission that a sign suggested i should not take. but look how close they came to hanging the pictures straight.

having given the subject some thought, and mindful of me wanting people looking to find information on renewing an sa passport in the uk, a sort of "questions and answers" thing strikes me as being best. will it work? well, if you are looking for information on the subject and are reading this, there you go.

do i have to go to London and renew my SA passport in person?

sadly the answer to this is "yes", "no", "maybe". when the staff at the high commission (eventually) saw us, they implied that we could have simply posted the renewal stuff down. quite upsetting when we spent so much time there (i shall get to that), but i dispute the advice.

for a start, absolutely nothing on the website says you can do it via post, instead saying you need to use their "walk in service". also, the service is strictly cash only - would you post cash to a south african official or government body? thought not. finally, in disputing this option, my understanding is due to the double whammy of how easy an SA passport is to forge and how heavily involved SA is in child trafficking, both parents have to be present with the child (or children) when applying for or renewing an SA passport. we opted to renew the boys at the same time, since they were eligible.

basically, you are welcome to call them and ask if you can just post your renewal from somewhere in the UK to them, but everything about my (our) experience says do not bother to do so. come to terms with the fact that you have to go and head to London.

what forms do i need to take with me?

the link above (here you go here it is again for you) gives you the details of them. most of them are ones they say you have to send them an SAE (stamped addressed envelope) for them to post back to you. we did this, and they surprisingly posted back the forms very quickly. alas, our request for three sets of forms for three passport applications were ignored, so we had to write and send three times to get the copies we needed. i strongly suggest you send them an A4 sized envelope and place a large letter stamp on. they make it clear they will not fold forms, and will not accept folded forms when you get there.

please take this part of advice with caution. going on our experiences, should you for some reason be unable to obtain the forms in advance, fear not. they were handing them out freely all the time we were there. i cannot, however, state that they do this every day or for everyone. there is no reason to think not, i suppose. maybe the advice (if this is advice) here is that if for some reason you can't or won't get the forms before you go, it should be possible to get them there. and trust me it is likely you shall have plenty of time to fill them out.

oh, yes. if i put this in bold it should show you how important it is. make sure you complete the forms in black ink and in black ink only. no, the forms don't (i think) say that you have to, but apparently this is expected. we did anyway, someone there at the same time did not and yes, they made them complete all new forms.

so far i have hinted at some of the nightmare that awaits you when you head off to renew an sa passport in the uk. please take heed of the following points.

do i need to take anything else other than the forms?

oh yes, you do. everything. and i do mean everything. no matter what it is, if it is an official SA document you must have it with you. do not go without it, if you are missing anything they will not accept your application.

we took unabridged birth certificates, an unabridged marriage certificate, ID books, current passports and for good measure my british passport. if you are renewing a passport or applying for your first you need all of these. should you be short one, then you can go to the same place to order them. just make sure you have the right forms and all of the other documents.

anything else i need to take?

photocopies. lots and lots of photocopies. no, absolutely nowhere does it say on the website that you have to take photocopies. actually, i stand corrected as it does - here is the link, buried away. confusingly it says that they must be certified copies, then that they will be certified whilst there.  they also don't tell you this as you queue (for a while) outside, and also the person at the front desk who "vets" your application does not check for them or tell you that you need them. it is only when you think you are done that they tell you that you are not if you don't have photocopies.

myself and several others had to keep dashing down to a money exchange shop to get photocopies done, at 50p a time. i spent somewhere north of twenty pounds on photocopies. yes, then, it will be cheaper to get them done before you turn up.

exactly what do you photocopy and how many of each? all of the official, unabridged documents quoted above, and at least 2 (two) of each one per application. seriously, to avoid the cost and hassle, just take 3, 4 or 5 photocopies of each document. no, they don't have to be certified, just so long as you have the originals. besides which, on what i saw and heard, they won't accept certified copies in place of originals, so again - make sure you have all the original documents and a load of photocopies.

yes, that is my (considerably) better half with a (splendid) wax statue of Madiba. no, this was not in the High Commission (see first picture), rather at Madame Tussaud's. more on that in a later post, but for now back to the "action" of renewing an sa passport in the uk.

how do i pay to renew my sa passport in the uk?

as mentioned above, they are cash only. this is very important, so to enlist the importance of bold once more, you can only pay for your sa passport renewal in the UK with cash, and by cash it means British Pounds. yes, at least one person there was taken quite by surprise by this and had to dash for cash. on this note, interestingly the cashier lady on duty whilst we were there felt the best thing to do was to "shout" for people to pay, whilst she was behind a bulletproof, soundproof piece of thick glass, so no one could hear her, no matter how angry she got when no one came when she called.

why cash only? a member of staff there said it was to fund Cyril's (as in the incumbent president) pensions. this was only partially in jest. an ambition and aim of all third world countries (or "emerging economies" or "developing nations") to harvest as much hard currency from the first world as possible. by this i mean the British Pound Sterling and the US Dollar. i have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the cash i handed over will be placed in a diplomatic bag, flown to SA and placed in a safe under the care and protection of the ANC. further, i am confident that this shall happen a good deal faster than the passport applications.

yes, it is quite interesting that the likes of Bono, Jim Kerr, etc have remained very, very, very quiet about how the ANC has gone about things. strange and peculiar that, considering they selflessly made pop records demanding that the ANC be given the power they have.

how long does the passport take to be issued?

i have no idea. the website says the turnaround time is 6 months. when we asked at the high commission, they said it can take "from four weeks to six months". so we are going to go right ahead and work on the assumption that it will indeed take six months.

now the big question, with the answer that you do not want

is renewing your sa passport in the uk a painful, time consuming test of endurance that will break your spirit and dampen your desire to live?

yes it is, sadly. whereas the website makes it sound all nice and simple by saying it is a "walk in service", the reality is that it is a good deal of standing around then sitting around then being told that you haven't done something you had no idea you needed to do so running around too.

one piece of advice we got from the staff after we had been there all day - don't go during school holidays. whilst it makes sense to, especially if you have children, the glorious and industrious inefficiency associated with south african governmental bodies has a panic attack at such times. seriously, if you are going to go with children or need to renew a child sa passport, risk the fine off of a school and go during term time.

how long does it take? your entire day. six or seven hours for us. this was some 3 (three) hours queuing in the first queue outside, then some 2 (two) hours queuing in the queue inside, then an hour or so of trying to get it all done.

the high commission opens at 8:45am. one chap said he arrived at 7:30am and found a queue of 40 (forty) people already waiting, so it was as bad as he had feared and worse than we hoped it would not be. make no plans for the day that you are going to do this, assume that you will be there the whole day.

on the one side i do not wish to speak ill off the staff, as they were reasonably polite. but, as with anything official in South Africa, they are woefully inefficient. something wrong with forms is easy to understand considering the lack of support, information and help on the website. what makes this worse is that the people at the high commission will stop at one error, make you spend 30 minutes or so fixing it, then tell you of another error you have to deal with - normally one that could have been done at the same time. a lady there at the same time as us was driven to tears and on the verge of breaking down by it.

anyone who has memories of dealing with anything official in SA - be it Home Affairs or the Traffic Department - will not be surprised at how slow and inefficient it is. from what i could tell they were "flat out" with 10 (ten) desks open and working. going on their numbering system, it took them around 5 hours to assist 40 applications. not a great deal for me to say but you have been warned......

well, anyway, i think that is all i can offer for help, assistance and guidance. should you be needing to head off that way to do any of this, my best wishes for good fortune for you.





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

a calvin and hobbs christmas special

heya


quite recently (in the past, look you see) i observed a promotional trailer for a motion picture which looked like it might well be entertaining. i am now at that stage of life where i am content to hear something, half recognize it and thus forever associate it with some memory. so, i was under the impression that i had seen a trailer for a film called A Calvin and Hobb(e)s Christmas Special, although it did not immediately appear to concern a young boy and his (possibly imaginary) tiger chum.

as it turns out, what i saw a trailer for was in fact Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw, which it seems is a much more sensible title for a film not featuring a young lad and his tiger. that, or this, then, is the film which we all went off to the movies to see, and so here shall be a quasi sort of kind of review of it, for your consideration.

the best thing i could do at this stage, i guess, is a quick overview sort of thing. having not (so far as i am aware) ever seen a single Fast & Furious film (i believe there are at least 8), in no way did i feel disadvantaged watching this. it was all easy enough to follow, and apparently nothing obvious or essential requires you to have seen a single one. well, i was able to enjoy it.

enjoy it i did. this was wonderful stuff - very funny, exceptionally well paced (impressive in itself since the film runs north of two hours) and reasonably engaging. much of this is down to what they call the "chemistry" between the ostensible two leads, Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson. they are rather good - if not quite De Niro / Grodin in Midnight Run good, but nothing ever shall be so - and yes, i could watch any number of films in which they call each other "w@nker" and beat others, each other and themselves up in the future.

plot? not sure it is relevant, but something something supervirus, something something terminator style robot human baddie, something something sister, something something save the world. it's like the intention of the film is just to entertain against the backdrop of a reasonably coherent gesture of an idea of a story; should you insist on a film you watch having a substantial well structured plot behind it then give this a miss.

trailers? quite interesting really. it felt very much like the film industry, or if you will hollywood, has decidedly gone back to the 80s. to this end we had trailers for a new Terminator film (looks awful), a new Rambo film (actually looks good but also it seems like it doesn't reasonably or logically follow on in the style of the titular character), a new (kind of) Batman film (as in Joker, and it looks like at the least a great performance off of Mr Phoenix) and a new Star Wars film (it surely cannot be all that much worse than Last Jedi or Solo).

yes, that's the receipt from the concessions stand. sure, everything is overpriced, etc, but i have just put it in to give you an extra picture rather than go over the usual, global complaints.

something of interest to me was seeing this Idris Elba bloke. it is only recently that i have gotten around to watching that whole Luther series, and it was quite good. now i get the clamour for him to be both the "next" and "first black" James Bond; it is all down to how he just acts exactly the same in everything he is in, so is the perfect tribute act to Roger Moore.

anyway, i could bore you with trivia such as how this was the first time i have seen a Jason Statham film at the cinema which did not co-star Vinnie Jones, but that would just bore you. for what such an insight or observation is worth, i and the rest of the family really enjoyed this movie, whatever the correct title of it happens to be.



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

the top ten items of merchandising for neil shipperley available from online retailers and market places or similar

hello there


usually i am quite loathe, look you see, to do any sort of "top ten" list thing here. generally speaking they are intended as "clickbait" (i believe the term is), designed to be quite deliberately provocative and upsetting, so that keyboard in their warriors may click in anger, share in anger, complain and generate traffic for adverts and other such sh!t. with this in mind, then, i tend only to do this sort of thing at the end of the year as a sort of "best" thing, or when something or other comes to mind.

as i have resisted the suggestion of "monetizing" this blog (Codename Magic in particular has suggested i do so), there is no advertising here (at time of writing). so, i am confident that when i do a list like this, it is for pure interest reasons.

on the off chance, to upset the likes of Jacob Rees Mogg by commencing a third paragraph in succession with a word that begins with a genuine vowel. someone was searching for this, i have then or thus decided to look at the wonderful world of neil shipperley merchandising.

i, to start an unprecedented fourth paragraph with a vowel, really don't need to say much about Neil Shipperley (to use capitals correctly) as an introduction. that is because he is a man who probably needs no introduction to anyone who would be reading this. but, if you wish for such, he was a quite class "striker" which is a prominent position in a football team. for comparison, as some of you like this sort of thing, think of him as being like a "90s Wayne Rooney", except of course unlike Rooney it cannot be said that Neil Shipperley was a complete and utter [TEXT OBSCURED ON LEGAL ADVICE], nor was he [TEXT OBSCURED ON LEGAL ADVICE], and he most certainly never ever [TEXT OBSCURED ON LEGAL ADVICE], at least twice and probably more than that.

everyone (there's a fifth) who is interested in the subject knows how to spell Shipperley correctly. however, the magic of the internet, and a brief forgetting of the spelling, can lead one into unknown, hidden treasures in terms of merchandising. if you go on to that ebay place, for example, and deliberately (so i am claiming) miss one "e" out of his name, you can get some absolute bargains in respect of Neil Shipperley merchandising.

you (there's the sixth unofficial vowel for you) can, then, with some deft spelling, get two reasonably rare and fairly obscure (but all the same partially desirable) items of Neil Shipperely merchandising and have change from a fiver. i have long argued that proper spelling is an irrelevance in the modern world, and the above is something that i see as proof of this.

the (out of vowels) problem, or issue if you will, with the above is that those items of merchandising pertain or relate to "Chelsea era Neil Shipperley". it's from a time when a lot of lifelong Chelsea fans were unaware that they were so, because they only became aware of how it existed around 2003 or 2004, whenever it was that a combination of a Russian and a Portuguese fellow "invented" football. but, Neil Shipperely merchandising is Neil Shipperley merchandising, and so these represent both bargains and shrewd investments.

for the purists, though, Niel Shipperley is most fondly associated with Southampton. interestingly, Southampton is a team rarely ever called by their name. usually they just get called the Saints, or the South, or the Hamptons, or the Dukes of the Dell. such is the affection they are held in it is rare their actual name is used, for fear of not having enough reverence in one's voice when the hallowed name is spoken.

as you can sort of see in the above (amazon is not particularly user friendly for grabbing screenshots), using the rather more conventional spelling of Neil Shipperley's name brings up a whole plethora of prospective merchandising. lots of it, and a good deal relating to his time at Southampton.

what made Neil Shipperley's time at Southampton so iconic, indelible and celebrated? you would probably have to ask a Southampton fan, really. all i know is that, after some reasonably extensive research into the subject (i sat and thought about it for a moment), the 12 career goals he scored for the Saints are both considered and regarded as being the "best and most important goals ever scored for Southampton", excluding ones scored by the likes of Benali, Le Tiss, etc.

so as best to celebrate aspects of the previous (the one above) paragraph, here is some really smart Commodore 64 style footage of Shipperley of Neil smacking in a goal for Crystal Palace.

looking at the above, which is smart, really does wonder why they don't make all football highlights available in Commodore 64 mode. i mean, that really does look quite class. at a guess they don't because them what do the football for the tele just look to make it all as cheap as possible, whilst charge as much as they can get away with, so as to rake in better profits. probably the case that they do not care much for the quality, so long as money rolls in.

what happens if you go back to ebay and type in the name Neil Shipperely "properly", or rather how it is conventionally written? quite a lot, actually. at present the market for such merchandise would seem to be furious and vibrant.

indeed, wow might well be the reaction you have to the above. despite it being class that you can access a hidden world of Neil Shipperely stuff by typing the name in a non-traditional way and searching, the generally accepted spelling of his name brings forth a pretty formidable range of items to choose from, and purchase.

but of these items which, considering or mindful of the title this post has, feature in the ostensible "top ten" of ones you can get? that is quite a tricky question to answer, except for the aspects which are not. in truth i am no expert on the subject of Nial Shipperly merchandise; further i wouldn't say that i am particularly knowledgeable. should for some reason my views or thoughts on the subject count, then i would say that the top ten are ten what stem from his celebrated Southampton era.

do i plan to produce further insightful, informative pieces like this in the future? well, as opposed to in the past, yes, but no. i never really plan anything for here, things just kind of come to mind. all the same, i trust this has been of use or interest to someone.



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

provocative

heya


one thing that i endeavour to do is try and keep this blog as "suitable for all" as possible, look you see. beyond the fact that one gets knacked for putting overt or if you like explicit content on these free sites, and in doing so i would risk some 15 years of my musings being deleted, i would suggest (argue, perhaps) that there is plenty of filth out there on the internet. simply put, there is no need for me to add more.

every now and then, though, something crops up which i feel compelled, or in some instances obliged, to share here. this is despite it all being something meant for a most decidedly mature audience. although not specifically sophisticated to. it is such, or so, that this is an example of this kind of occasion.

so that i may be fair to all reading this that would not wish to see anything what might upset them, know now that all below the rather splendid image off that boss barman and dancer out of The Love Boat should be read with caution, and entirely at your own risk. all on you, then, so please complain not if you pursue browsing here.

yes, indeed, i would love to pull off having a most smart moustache like that, but i fear my face is entirely the wrong shape. if i attempted such a facial hair styling i dare say that the end product would be me looking like some sort of reject from the blue oyster bar. no, don't bother leaving a message, i know full well some of you would say i look as such anyway.

right, then, on to the point of this. or, if you like, the "good stuff". quite often Spiros and i shall discuss and indeed disseminate matters of world news and current affairs. generally we shall do this in a way which shuns or ignores the "mainstream" or widely consulted media and news outlets, for we both tire of their hidden agendas and fake news.

for us it is far better to consult the more dangerous, braver and decidedly off the beaten track providers of news. they tend to, without fear, show the stories that others do not, with their opting not to born of a fear of upsetting advertisers and losing political influence. in respect of this, here is a story that is a classic example of an important story being overlooked by all but one news outlet.

indeed, credit and thanks to the final bastion of journalistic truth which is the Sunday Sport for shedding light on this well buried story. shame on you, other news sources (and in particular the bbc, who should know better) for not having the courage to spread word of this important victory in the presumably ongoing "war on terror".

a major point of discourse for me and Spiros, or Spiros and i, prompted by this story is just how often similar things to this happen. well, according to the Sunday Sport. we have not put any extensive research in, but it does feel as though once a month the Sport reports on someone, usually a gentleman, being "bummed to death" by a beast of the field, a bovine creature, a herbivore, a thoroughbred or wild member of the equine family or some source of aquatic based life. apparently this is a fairly routine, everyday thing to happen, yet no other newspaper ever seems to report on it.

the editorial decision to conceal the identity of the goat in this story was a perfectly understandable and wonderfully noble one. if Bin Laden's son was really too weak, too slow and just too stupid to outrun, outwit or outfight a goat, well then he got what he deserved and it is not the fault of the goat for doing what apparently comes naturally.

strictly speaking the above, out of Viz, is not a relatively new current affairs matter. it is, however, an excellent reference point for understanding some aspects of our current society, namely the guardian of language and morals that is Jacob Rees "mothaf*****g" Mogg. the above puzzle is quite an abstract form of stimulation for the mind, with the scenario presented being sort of like a metaphor for present day events. ergo, if one can solve the above, then one can also easily resolve the many ills and misfortunes of current society by applying the same logic to it. probably.

do i know how to solve the problem. yes, i do, and that is because the answer was printed on another page in the Viz, and i read it. doing so, sadly, robbed me of a potential learning experience and meant that i could not flex my lateral thinking, or whatever. to ensure you do not suffer so i shall not post any answers here, but may do later if there is interest, and indeed if i can be bothered.

an animated thing of that most righteous dude from The Love Boat to finish off? sure.

many thanks to whoever made that, it is proper smart, it is, to be sure.

right, well, that will do. hopefully this hasn't upset anyone, but if it has, well, then they probably should not have read it.



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

lynx unity under review

heya


time for another deodorant review, look you see. well, perhaps not review as such, for that implies something definitive, practical and useful. i am uncertain that my experimentation with scented antiperspirants meets such criteria, but then again if you are still reading it then perhaps it does. but if perhaps not translates into does not, or "doe snot" as i am prone to make a typo of, well, then the title is all wrong.

once again, then, those chaps (and ladies) of lynx (axe in some provinces and territories) have got busy. whenever they make a decent scented deodorant it appears they take it as a call to arms, to mess about, to interfere, to needlessly conjure up further when no more are (or is) required. and once more i have opted, actually fiscally elected in a financial sense, to give it a go.

what have they unleashed this time? if you missed the fairly innocuous (is that right? i tried my spelling which i was confident in and that word came up, which doesn't seem like the one i want to use, but f*** it there it is) clue in the title . lynx unity it is, then.

it would, i suspect, be reasonable to speculate that this is lynx yet again naming a deodorant as a homage to a weirdly specific treasured mid 80s song lyric. previously they of course named one of their finest deodorants, black night, after one of the most celebrated songs by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Black Night White Light. for unity, they have (perhaps wisely) turned to Paul Weller and The Style Council, abridging the one line out of Walls Come Tumbling Down, "governments crack and systems fall because unity is powerful", to "unity".  as someone who really likes The Style Council, i was impressed with the obvious tribute and thus had high hopes for this.

how, to dispense with some of the usual waffle and get to the point (except to state that), does this unity deodorant smell? quite peachy, as it happens. as in, well, peach smelling peach like. but, this is lynx so not just "regular" peach. no, instead it has a musky, macho male, testosterone laden musk to it, evoking vivid images of how peaches might smell if they were being enjoyed by men in a Turkish prison or Turkish bath.

fair, serves its purpose and quite reasonable, then, are ways of describing lynx unity. i am being unduly critical, really, as it turns out that i quite like it. maybe they, them what do the lynx (axe), have just worn me down and made me accept that smelling like some burly bloke with a big bushy moustache, sat with men in a Turkish bath sweating for a variety of reasons, is how i and everyone else, we all, should be.

a lingering question is this "for everyone" subtitle the deodorant has. no, i was not aware of any sort of ban or restriction on purchasing the stuff. yes, true, lynx (axe) is aimed predominantly at feral teenager types, so that they may attract each other for the unspeakable and sordid things that feral teenagers do when suitably aroused, but i am also proof that anyone can go and buy it. maybe this is just them making some sort of political statement once again, then, or otherwise for some reason they are confused by their own marketing and think that some people who they want to buy it are presently not for fear of being refused. well, something like that.

exactly how has Paul Weller taken to one of his most celebrated lyrics being used on lynx deodorant? i have no idea. some extensive research - typing "paul weller lynx deodorant" into google - suggests no comment has been made. although i now know that some barber in london went to school with Paul Weller's son, and promptly bragged about it on the lynx website. also, someone selling tickets for a Paul Weller gig also has some lynx deodorant that he wants to swap with someone for some lynx shower gel, or so the ad says on whatever "gumtree" is. should Paul Weller read this, then perhaps he will be kind enough to leave a comment. actually, it is more likely that Mick Talbot will read it, so maybe he could express an opinion if he can be bothered, or ask Paul to.

right, well, in the absence of any comment off of Paul or Mick i suppose there is little sense in me saying much of anything else here. should this have been of any use to anyone out there, well, then, nice one.




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

devaluation

hey there


just another (or if you like the dramatic another) look at the baffling devaluation we let happen on things that we once held dear, look you see. and this devaluation is not just financial, to be sure. no, in our stripped of filters, everything available all the time to sate the sense of entitlement and the want of instant gratification, i get the sense we are losing all variations of how we understand "value".

so i was browsing the "entertainment section" of Poundland, as i am so prone to do. this was to inspect the CDs they had there, see if anything took my fancy to have a listen to on my travels around or across the lands. whereas no tunes took my fancy, i could not but help notice a surprising DVD on the shelf.

yes, that is Star Wars The Force Awakens being sold for all of £1. despite having no practical or fanciful reason for owning it in this format, i did indeed go ahead and purchase it.

needless to say i was rather surprised to see the film being sold for that price. if for some reason you have not heard of the motion picture, in this era of Disney owned Star Wars, it is very safe to say that The Force Awakens is comfortably in the top 50% of them made. this and Rogue One were excellent. interestingly, The Last Jedi was an expensive experiment to show what happens when you let someone that clearly does not like Star Wars make a Star Wars film, and Solo was just plain terrible. but, this one had a great more quality and charm than it did have faults.

why the surprise? because i would have thought Disney would have valued the film far more than to let it be sold at this price. sure, true, it is currently being broadcast on one of the channels here in the UK, i think ITV, "frequently". further, i have no doubt that it will all of a sudden be, for streaming fans, only exclusively available on this "Disney+" Netflix rival being launched later this year. but there is more than this to value.

once it was so that Disney really placed value, in every sense, on their films. true, yes, a lot of this was financial value, starting with them being one of several studios in the 70s to launch legal efforts to block home VCRs. but the value went further.

it seems fanciful now, and i am not necessarily saying it was better, but there was a time when we didn't (reasonably) instantly have access to films. the usual was for a film to turn up on home video, or TV broadcast, three years after the cinema release. quite a wait. ostensibly this was done to "protect the box office income" of the film (in some countries it was not unusual to re-release blockbusters the year after release), but also to preserve a sense of value for it. allowing something of a widespread free for all in terms of availability of a product is convenient, but also tends to let them all become disposable. think of just how dire and disposable music has become in this filter free world of "streaming" being of more value than owning an actual record.

Disney used to take this valuation more seriously than others. they used to place a "moratorium" on films, locking them away for 5 to 10 years and re-releasing for the benefit of other generations. a good, long term marketing gimmick, perhaps, but also an effective and important way of making sure some movies remained memorable. this would seem to have gone out the window.

that is indeed the playing surface of this disc picture above. for a "replay" or "pre-owned" disc, that sure looks like it has never ever seen the insides of a player.

no, i am not saying we should go back to having to wait for 3 years after a cinema release to get films on video or TV. that said, yes, i suspect i am not alone in missing the aesthetic, tactile and social elements of going to a video rental store, but we between us have destroyed it. i suppose what i am saying is that i am quite surprised Disney has allowed this devaluation. realistically i would have expected them to withdraw from sale all unsold copies (for this "replay" disc has clearly never been used) so as to protect the value of the film in every sense.

it does seem rather unlikely that the Disney version of Star Wars shall ever come to be as treasured as the original films, or the prequels for that matter. yes, in respect of the latter, they were really very good films. what Disney started off well with The Force Awakens and Rogue One went downhill very, very fast indeed with Last Jedi and Solo, but enough has been said on how dire they are already.

or maybe that's that. just like how music has given up and accepted anything made these days shall be disposable and forgotten, so too for cinema. i find it hard to believe, but perhaps the industry as a whole just feels no films made in the last couple of decades has any chance of being as memorable as those made in the second half of the last century, and so are happy to see them devalued. we, the audience, with our appetite and demands for everything instantly, are also at fault.

what exactly shall i do with my rather cheap DVD copy of The Force Awakens? no idea. every now and then we end up going away somewhere that the accommodation has a DVD player. if i remember to do so maybe i shall take it with us on such a trip. otherwise, it shall probably just sit on a shelf. but, as i said, there was no way i was leaving something of that quality to pass me by so cheap. as wrong as that low value strikes me.




live long and prosper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

snowman melting from the inside

hello there


now then. i have to be quite careful here, to be sure. whereas many of you old school readers will, look you see, be delighted to see an update on my choice in quality footwear, i must be mindful of the others. the others are, of course, the many tens of thousands of "new" readers who come here due to my new(ish) found, perplexing and confusing status as a "social media influencer". care must be taken not to explicitly endorse any personal purchases, especially when i have not been paid to do so.

so yes, then, i have procured or if you will purchased some new shoes. owing to the disproportionate number of pictures i have taken in relation to how much i have to say on this subject, here you go, an early doors image of the box what they came in. well, an aspect of the box, yes in Commodore 64 mode.

quite, indeed, it is Adidas, or if you will "adidas" since as for some obscure reason it seems they care not for capital letters, who produced the shoes what i have.

usually when people go and purchase shoes matters such as who made the footwear being bought matters. also, things like style, design, comfort and purpose are of consequence. but this is no ordinary shoe purchasing adventure. no. if we all, to some extent, have a cross to bear, mine is that i have size 13 (apparently this translates to 14 in the USA) (49 in France, but who on earth would buy Frenchie shoes) (an exciting size 320 in somewhere called J, which i shall take as meaning Japan) feet.

basically, then, whenever i go into a shoe shop, or shop what sells shoes, seldom and rare is it that i have a choice. frequently places do not carry my size, and when they do it is usually just one pair and one pair alone that they have available, on the off chance a freak of nature such as (apparently) myself strays in.

what did i end up with this time, then? to be honest, i did not even look at the name of them in the shop, and was really only vaguely aware of them being adidas anyway. once home, an inspection of the box revealed that they are called "falcon".

i have mixed feelings on this. on the one side, falcon is a really cool, excellent sounding name. the kind of name which makes these shoes probably the most hip, down with the kids and with it item of clothing i have had in a long time. quite a long time, really - i suspect the last time such was true it would have been possible, if admittedly improbable, to have dinner or something with 75% of the classic line up of The Beatles. but at the same time, why would anyone name a predominantly ground based item after a beast of the sky? was no land based creature available as a name? you might as well have called them osprey, or swallow, or hammerhead shark as falcon, and it would still be of relevance. actually hammerhead shark shoes would be smart.

oh, yes, the "cultural divide". these adidas falcon (actually with a marker pen i can make these adidas falco, hang on) are running shoes. but they do not get called such. no. here in the UK they are referred to as trainers, over in the USA they get called "sneakers", in Australia they are "not sandals", in South Africa they are "takkies" and as you may have ascertained earlier no i have no interest whatsoever in what the French might call them, or anything, just so long as they do it quietly and among themselves.

does the fact that i now have a pair or running shoes or "trainers" mean that i am to engage in a spot of running or some sort of sporting endeavour that might benefit from them? no. as mentioned earlier, they were the only ones in the shop what fitted, so these they are. in fairness i do try and do a fair bit of walking, mind. even if it is only down to a suitably and most agreeably located Royal Mail postbox, so as to dispatch various correspondence in which i have engaged.

as you can see in the above, then, these falcon shoes are black. not quite the "none more black" shade of black that once excited Nigel Tufnel so, but "black enough". is a falcon naturally black? perhaps that is where the name comes from. anyway, i do not believe or think there are actually shades of black, so i guess these are "black and off black" in colour, or perhaps even (maybe) black and grey. that i am happy with the colour and appearance is quite accidental and incidental, but true.

from where did i purchase these? i mean, provenance? Sports Direct, off of that nice Mike Ashley chap, who all agree is a thoroughly decent fellow and seldom mentioned in any sort of negative way. as it happens, whilst at his store he presented me with quite an interesting and rather more tempting than it should have been proposition.

wowee. a (for now) (possibly and realistically likely to be valid until the business end of March 2020) premier league football team shirt for £20. that is, give or take, about £40 (or so) less than the cost of any other premier league team shirt, or for that matter at least one (far superior) north east based side who happen to be chilling in the champion(ship) league momentarily. in purely financial, or fiscal, terms, it kind of makes economic sense to buy this shirt and support them, rather than an actual, proper football team.

exactly how big are my feet? that is, in real terms, rather than me just saying "13" to you? well, here's a comparison picture thing, so you may have a decent visual record and some sort of idea what we are speaking of here. most shoe shops cannot grasp this, hence them not stocking up on my peculiar requirements.

as you can see, one DVD spine + one standard CD jewel case spine = length of my foot. although it is the width which tends to be problematic. well, sort of almost kind of, they were the only items within reach which appeared to give some sort of universal measurement idea. yes, in retrospect i could have gone and fetched a tape measure, but no i did not.

this runs the risk of distracting from the point, if any, of this post, but yes, indeed that is a DVD of The Octagon, starring Chuck Norris and Lee Van Cleef. provenance is 50p off a shop called CEX, review is that Chuck does indeed knack quite a few people in it but not nearly as many as he has knacked in other fims. the CD is the recent first time on CD issue of Now That's What I Call Music 3, provenance £8 off of Morrisons at the same time i spent £10 on that The Edge DVD. review is that it is ok, except that they have rewritten history by omitting two songs off it, and have used the wrong version of Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood when compared to the original vinyl and tape. in all honesty i only purchased this, like Now 2, so as to encourage them to keep going so that i can get my two favourite volumes, 4 and 6, on CD too.

well, back to the shoes. modesty prevents me from sharing with you a picture of me wearing them. also, on previous experience with similar posts, images of me wearing shoes or similar footwear tends to lure out all sorts of scoundrels and sexual deviants, and they tend to perform unspeakable acts which disgrace themselves when looking at them. let me try and stop such.

there can be no harm in one final Commodore 64 mode image of them, though, so there it is above.

my understanding is that traditionally adidas items have three stripes on them, for that is their logo, or tag, or iconic image, or whatever. as best i can work out such is limited to the stripey diagonal bits on the side of each shoe, but perhaps this is me just reading far too much into it all.

oh, yes, the shoes are quite comfortable, a reasonable fit and serve the purpose for which they were purchased.

right, well, that's that, then.



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

more reading

hello reader


that's a couple of more books (novels) what i have read, then. which would make it time, look you see, to reflect on them, passing some comments that may well be interpreted as reviews or judgements, the latter being to various levels of scathing, scorn or praise.

yes, that's right, with the style and flair i have used them thus far i have, clearly, elected to not follow the newly (recently) installed laws of the land with respect to, but not exclusively, commas. should the lawmaker who impose the rules object, and let us not hide away from it being Lord Rees-Mogg of Jacob, well he can simply stop reading, i guess.

anyway, getting back on track, here's a look at the two (not three, not one, not four) novels i have most recently completed, followed by some overall observations for those of you in a rush.

a quite frequently invoked quote, both here on this blog and in the greater world, is that of "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". that feels reasonably appropriate here. in that order, really, for An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena was excellent, Careless Love by Peter Robinson not so much. at all. to help you out, or clarify, i would say that An Unwanted Guest is reading that i would say has immediate appeal (go find it instead of reading this) and Careless Love, much like certain Australian table wines, is a book you are far better off simply laying down and avoiding.

right, with sufficient but all the same limited advice given on either title, time to move on. but, before we do, know now that a celebrated *** SPOILER WARNING *** is alive, well, and in place for the remainder of this post. as much care as possible shall be used, but don't say i didn't tell you.

there are, or is, a suspicious and peculiar number of you who would simply not read any of this if i did not provide the provenance of the copies of my novels. very well. in this first instance, so far as i am aware and so far as the sticker on the cover reminds me, An Unwanted Guest was purchased at Tesco. from what i recall, it was one of the £3.50 "books of the week", for it has been some time since i indulged their 2 for £8 deal.  as point of fact i don't think i ever have, me still feeling annoyed that it was increased by one hundred pennies.

plot? a number of people make their way to a remote(ish) hotel for a weekend away. to various degrees they all bring baggage which is not limited to their luggage. disagreeable weather conditions and geography means that the guests huddle and bond more on the first night that you might imagine hotel users usually would. everything is going quite well despite the circumstances. until guests wake the next day to find one of the patrons dead, and on closer inspection not really dead via what at first seemed to be an unfortunate accident. are they misreading the situation, or is there a killer in their group.......

quite a few comments i have seen of this book have compared it to Agatha Christie, with the book either being "in the style of" or it being described as some sort of "homage". well, i have really not read enough of her work to comment. what i will say, though, was that this was superb. brilliant. an engaging, enjoyable, keeps you guessing and all is rather plausible novel. for any mystery /  thriller lover this is essential reading, and if that genre is not your usual thing i dare to say that oh, but it soon very much shall be once you have read this.

saying anything further about An Unwanted Guest feels as though it would be wrong and something of a betrayal. let me leave it at that, then.

oh, dear. i probably have a good deal more that i am prepared to say of the latest DCI Banks "adventure" off of Peter Robinson. not much of it shall be good. actually, that is not true. let me confess that it is rather well written, and does make for (at times) (and in this case conditional) good reading. even if Careless Love generally strides from preposterous to ridiculous via the lane called "there never was a novel in this premise but let us go with it".

provenance? as it happens this was a well intentioned Father's Day gift. but, that said, i also happen to know it was just 1p south of £3 at Sainsbury's, which for those of you who do not know the place is sort of a bit like a Tesco for posh people. or people who wish to be seen as posh.

the plot? well, let me try. the bodies of two people are found. it seems there is absolutely no connection between the two, except for the bizarre, peculiar and seemingly impossible nature of where they are found and what condition their bodies are in. everything suggests not murder, but all circumstances say that this was more than likely so. when another body, similar but not quite so bizarre, peculiar or impossible, is found, off DCI Banks and his merry band of coppers go to investigate and bring the scoundrels responsible to book.

it's just poor, really. even the title makes little sense. there is not much of a story here in terms of a full novel, and this would seem to be exemplified by just how frequently the same information is repeated during the first 150 or so pages of the novel. and reading them is made all the harder by Peter Robinson's peculiar decision to punish readers with needlessly long chapters, some of them exceeding 25-30 pages. not good for those of us who do not like placing a novel down mid-chapter.

you all saw that spoiler warning, yeah? good. because this novel does indeed follow the standard pattern of Peter Robinson's DCI Banks novels. this would be - crime happens, Banks called out, Banks a bit flummoxed, Banks sits in pub and has a little think, then in the last few pages, under the accepted rules of the English way of doing things, the villain takes actions which sees them give themselves up for no apparent reason, for the coppers were nowhere close to an arrest.

one cannot but help wonder if Peter Robinson was under some nasty contractual obligation based pressure to deliver this novel, as surely he himself must have known it was all rather flimsy. perhaps he just isn't that interested, confident that it shall sell anyway. more fool me for reading, i guess, but then i suspect the next one will be bought, as the hints at the plot to come were somewhat interesting.

yes, indeed, i am all too aware of how i have spent more time writing of the novel which i liked the least. that would be normal, though, no? if there's a really good novel there is not a great deal for me to say beyond go ahead and read it. alternatively, should one not be quite so good, then best be fair and explain why not.

right, well, fine. that's just about that for this post. as ever, most happy day and nice one if this has been of some use to anyone out there somewhere!




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

deny its history

heya


some possibly predictable but usually unexpected viewing, then, look you see. whereas it would not, for those who know me, be entirely strange to learn of me watching something cricket related, in truth i had neither the ambition or interest in watching a (fairly) recently released documentary on the subject called The Edge. however, my Dad expressed "an interest" (as in "please get this and post it to me, son") in the tape (disc) of it, so i figured it would be best to watch before sending it on.

for those of you looking for a quick, fuss free answer as to whether or not The Edge is worth getting and giving a gander, that would be "yes". this is on the basis that some of the interviews in it are rather good, and the charities supported by sales of the disc. with that said, let me put a perhaps unnecessary *** SPOILER WARNING *** in place for the rest of this.  although i would have thought that anyone wishing to watch this would be quite aware of the events, history and so forth contained within it.

ultimately, The Edge is a frustrating and flawed viewing experience. it kind of misses the entire point it seems to be trying to make. the main part it misses out is why, considering the (at face value) astonishing achievements of the England cricket team in the period covered, it was necessary to make a documentary about relatively recent history. for that it would have to ask why exactly no one, in the great numbers we saw then, was particularly interested after 2005. yes, there is an obvious answer, but we shall get to it. well, we if you continue reading.

a quite short summary of this era of cricket, and the documentary itself, is that England were poor at cricket, a new brutal, no-nonsense coach in the form of Andy Flower came in, he bullied and broke them into "world beaters", England becomes "the number one Test team in the world" but oopsie, look at the psychological damage we have done to the players. along the way time is given (once or if you will yet again) for Kevin Pietersen to confess his sins and faults, but of course no one else involved in his troubles or if you like "downfall" is prepared to admit their part.

early on there is a quite telling part of the problem overlooked by this documentary, or if you like film. there is some footage of Sir Ian Botham, lambasting and bashing the ECB for "not building" on the Ashes triumph of 2005, thus English cricket circa 2009 is "a mess" or shambolic". yes, well, the fact that his comments were (at the time) exclusive to Sky TV pay customers was a lot of the answer. cricket had never ever been more popular, in England at least, than during the 2005 Ashes series. for some bizarre reason the ECB decided the best way to "build" on that was to dramatically and significantly cut the audience for cricket by putting the sport out of sight behind what is now called a "paywall". with no easy or sensibly affordable way to watch cricket, people soon lost interest, quickly and in big numbers.

why exactly this documentary would happily skip that important contextual background is a puzzle i do not know. but, then again, it is far from the only point of context that it skips merrily over.

superficially the documentary suggests, or outright implies, that Andy Flower managed to take good players with some talent and mould them into a great team simply by taking them on a "bonding Bavarian boot camp". to suggest this in isolation made England the "number one Test team in the world" overlooks a rather important aspect - the quality of opposition. yes, England at this stage played better, but no mention is made of how victories were "helped" by the alarming decline of Australian cricket, total disarray and political meddling with the South African side, and India being "out of sorts".

another thing skipped over is possibly more controversial, but so be it. the makers of The Edge seem to make no reference whatsoever that the radical change in character of the English cricket team came about from bringing in what felt at the time (and still does, looking back) a disproportionate number of non-English players and staff. it is rather disingenuous (or plain wrong) to ignore and overlook the fact that England achieved what the documentary proclaims as being "the greatest ever period of success" with a Zimbabwean coach, a South African captain and, for good measure, two of our best batsmen (including the superstar of the team) being South African too.

the radical change in world cricket is also all but overlooked by The Edge. during this era, cricket had pretty much all of a sudden become an every day of the year, around the clock thing. this was down to the IPL, certainly, but also the ICC's demands for specific numbers of Tests being played between countries. all of a sudden a tour, or Test series, was not something to relish and remember, it all just became a set of fixtures one was obliged to fulfill. never again shall we see an Ashes quite like 2005, partially because of it no longer being broadcast to a maximum potential audience but mostly because the ICC will not allow a Test series to cover such a lengthy period of time again.

but, as i said earlier before the airing of the grievances (or whines),  there are some lovely moments in the interviews, and the whole thing would seem to benefit noteworthy charities.

i don't regret watching The Edge so much as it is that i simply do not understand, or "get", what point (if any) was trying to be made by it. the documentary doesn't really serve as a souvenir of this era of English cricket, since results of Tests, or even the "final score" of series, are rarely even mentioned. if the point was to show how England did so well, then it is superficial in the way that it does show some aspects and ignores far too many others.

perhaps a lot of the problem is the quite recent obsession with "Test rankings and ratings". indeed cricket has always been about statistics, facts and figures. but that was on a player by player, Test by Test level. it was always far more fun, enjoyable and entertaining to discuss, debate and converse on who, or which team, was "the best" than it was to simply look at a league table then move on.



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

low art on a high bridge

hi there


i am not so sure the title is correct for this post, look you see. would one describe a bridge as being high, i wonder? perhaps a more accurate description is that it is tall, i don't know. but i do like the technical aspects, or semantics, or even "aesthetics" maybe, of how this title looks and sounds.

which makes it all the more of a bit of a pity that it is a title for a post that, mostly, is junk. not worth the time of anyone in itself, really. although perhaps that is just me being judgemental. here, have a look.

that, as i trust you could see for yourself, is quite a high (tall) bridge. bloody big, one might say, if one was of a mind to use such crass vulgarities in a descriptive way. and why not. the focus, though, is not on how big and massive the bridge is, or what would be the best way to describe it, but the graffiti which has sullied, tarnished and ruined it.

yes, graffiti is a scourge in our society, a menace, it should be wiped out, perpetrators of it should be arrested and sent to penal colonies to break rocks, etc. moving on from that, well, some of it is most impressive, i suppose, in terms of artistic merit, striking style, etc. this example is very much an example or instance of this being decidedly not the case.

i mean, that is just rubbish, isn't it? all that mess painted on the side of the bridge does is disgrace and tarnish the name of the "artist". the only thing anyone who sees that is going to do is go "ha ha ha, what a w@nker", and then move on with their lives. low art sort of covers it, but also insults actual proper low art.

so why have i bothered you with it? because of the height of the bridge. i mean, presumably, the "artist" had to climb over and stand on a rather thin ledge to paint this. why on earth would you risk falling, either totally knacking yourself to death or being like totes sore and probably wheelchair bound from then onwards, just to paint that rubbish? as far as i can see there isn't even a decent obscenity included in the scrawl.

right, well, that's more than enough on this subject i would think. there's some sort of saying from one of the Caesar dudes about how if you must break the law do it to seize power, in all other cases observe it. it's fair to suggest that this drivel painted on a high bridge gives much credit to that saying, is it not?




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