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 Archives 
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Thursday, September 30, 2004
I keep telling people that I feel like the guy in Rear Window, although I haven't witnessed any murders yet. I did, however, just see a man looking at posters of naked women in his car, which is quite shocking for Tunbridge Wells. I think I might phone the council. Anyway, I don't really feel like Jimmy Stewart - I feel more like some Dr Evil-esque madman locked in a secret bunker, which just happens to be on the first floor and is therefore not a very good bunker. My computer has become my control centre from which I can plan world domination. This website, Villain Supply, just might help me achieve my megalomaniacal aims. But really - my Mac is my window on the world. I use it to do all my work, shopping and socialising, and have now joined the ranks of people getting sent bruised fruit and wilted veg by Tesco.com. I've also signed up to an excellent DVD service called Video Island - my first rental was Cabin Fever*. Last night, my friend Darren introduced me to a truly brilliant site called Skype which lets you make phone calls over the net - for free. Very highly recommended. I was convinced yesterday that I had become a junkie and was suffering from heroin withdrawal - oh, okay, codeine withdrawal. They are related, aren't they? I had to call the BUPA healthline (Butter's company pays) where a nice nurse talked to me in a gentle voice. Hmm - I wonder what ailment I'll be suffering when I call her today... *Cabin Fever - Deeply silly comedy horror in which a group of kids go into the woods and get attacked by a deadly, flesh-devouring virus. Well, it makes a change from crazed rednecks (although there are a few of those here too.) I usually like teens-in-peril horror flicks but Cabin Fever - did they come up with the title first? - isn't even scary. There are some interesting minor characters, like the party-obsessed deputy, and there's some nice sick humour in here, but otherwise you should avoid this like the (deadly, flesh-devouring) plague. Not quite bad enough to be on the Worst Film Of All Time list though. Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Sunday, September 26, 2004
I haven't blogged for a few days because it's been too painful to sit at my desk. I know, it's sad, isn't it? Frankly, the last few days have been bloody awful and I've run out of decent painkillers. The doctors wouldn't give me any more in case I get addicted to codeine. I should have told them I'm a wannabe writer and that a glamorous addiction to a low-level opiate might help my career. Oh well. Anyway, time heals better than drugs (so just say no, kids) and I'm happy to report that I'm over the worst. Though it's still a bit awkward sitting at my desk (so this will be brief). I went up the hospital on Thursday to have my comfortable back-board cast replaced with a lightweight cast that's made out of some kind of magical plastic substance. My leg now sticks out straight, hence the hurt. The consultant told me that my journey home (see below) was "incredible" - that's right, an incredible journey, akin to the time that cat and those dogs crossed America looking for their master. Somehow, in my addled state, I forgot to put my shoes on and went to the hospital in my socks. The nurse told me this was very dangerous due to the slipperiness of the hospital corridors and gave me a 'special' shoe to wear, a kind of invalid sandal that I wish I'd taken a photo of. This embarrassment was compounded by the discovery that the rats had chewed a small hole in the bum of my trousers, thus exposing my pants to my fellow wounded walkers. I'm going to be in the cast for 5 weeks, then on crutches for a further 2-3 weeks, undergoing "quite a lot" of physio. I'm going to hobble back to my warm spot on the sofa now. Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Thank fcuk for that! French Connection are retiring their fcuk slogan. That's such good news. I used to really like fcuk but came to hate them. It became a label for yobs and witless townies. it was also very depressing seeing butt ugly idiots walking around wearing slogans like 'guaranteed fcuk'. It just went too far. Right, back to work... Tuesday, September 21, 2004
My review of Goldie Lookin Chain's album is on Stylus now. Harsh but fair, I think. In case anyone was wondering what was going on with Sayonara Baby, I've decided, after some feedback, that the current draft needs a lot of work. However, I can't face it at the moment. I'm working on Killing Cupid again - that's the one LV and I sold to the Beeb, who are still interested and it's currently being pitched to BBC Films. Working collaboratively is so much easier and more enjoyable than doing it solo. And once KC is finished we're going to start on a new one. We've come up with a killer idea. Watched Frida last night, with Salma Hayek and her amazing monobrow. It was excellent: Latin spirit, gruesome accidents and lots of sex, with some arty interludes. We also watched Japanese Story, with Toni 'You're Terrible Muriel' Collette, which is quite slow and has an amazing twist two-thirds of the way through. Finally, we watched Wrong Turn, a generic kids-get-chased-through-the-woods-by-deformed-psychopaths movie, which is only 70 minutes long. That's all I can think to say about it. Monday, September 20, 2004
No, I haven't gone blog-crazy, but I've just heard the very sad news that one of my heroes, Brian Clough, has died. I started supporting Nottingham Forest in the seventies when I was a wee nipper and they were running aamok in Division One, setting records and preparing to win two European Cups. As the song of the time went, Nottingham Forest were magic. Even when things went a bit wobbly in the eighties it was still a joy being a Forest fan because we had the most charismatic, interesting manager in the league. He should have been England manager but the FA were too gutless. RIP Brian - you're a legend. Most people haven't understood that the picture below was meant to be funny! Well, it made me laugh anyway. It wasn't me trying to get sympathy. Oh well - pictorial irony clearly doesn't work. I am finally a published rock journo. My first review, on the excellent Stylus Magazine site, is here I'll post more links and details about Stylus later, but if you're interested in music it's worth reading - the standard of writing is as good as, if not better than, most music mags on the newsstands. And I'm not talking about myself, by the way. Reviews written by a guy called Nick Southall are particularly good. Sunday, September 19, 2004
Sigh... look at the poor chap above, stranded on the sofa, gazing longingly out at the big wide world, trying to remember what it feels like to walk in the sunshine, to feel the breeze on his skin, the rain on his hair, the squish of dogpoo underfoot. I haven't been outdoors since Wednesday and I'm feeling a bit stir crazy. Fortunately Butter is proving to be an excellent nurse, fetching me food, drinks, magazines, DVDs and dancing naked for me in the name of entertainment. Um, actually, the last bit was more of a fantasy than reality - I blame the codeine. I hope this picture doesn't end up on one of those weird broken-limb fetish sites. Yes, such things really do exist. So I've heard anyway. The pain isn't as bad now and I've managed to cut down on the painkillers - so no smack required, thanks, Maggie. Super-strength ibuprofen pretty much does the trick. I'm still immobile though. I've been doing circuits of the coffee table in an attempt to stay fit, with Syd and Nancy hitching a ratty ride. I was immensely cheered up earlier by the good news about the Embrace album. Number 1, number 1, number 1. Woo-hoo! What a vindication. Danny McNamara says we're the best fans in the world. That's because we are. Friday, September 17, 2004
I had an accident on Wednesday - I tripped over the kerb outside my office and landed hard on my right kneecap. Bang. I limped up to my desk and told my colleagues who found the whole thing hilarious. Various people told me to put ice on it and that they'd see me tomorrow. How wrong they were... I discovered later that I had broken my kneecap in two. I had to get home from central London to Tunbridge Wells. The first leg of this journey was by bus. I had to get the old lady I was sitting beside to swap places because I needed to stretch my leg out in the aisle. She told me all about her own falls and told me I might have fractured my knee bone. Then I limped onto the train at Waterloo East and made my way to Tonbridge where I had to change. By this point I could tell something was badly wrong. My knee had swollen up like Simon Cowell's head and I felt like The Little Mermaid at the end of the orginal fairy-tale: every step was a world of pain. And, of course, I was at the very end of the platform. I dragged myself to the bridge - yes, I had to cross a footbridge. I stood and looked at the steps for a while, gathering courage, then grabbed the rails and used my arms to pull myself up the steps then down the other side. On the next train I called the doctor and made an appointment to go straight in. Again, at Tunbridge Wells I was at the wrong end of the platform. I slowly limped along and climbed into a taxi driven by the world's least sympathetic taxi driver. 'I've waited an hour for a fare and you just want to go round the corner...' Butter met me outside the doctor's surgery and helped me inside. The locum squeezed my knee and said it probably wasn't fractured - he was a bit crap - but that I should go up the hospital for an x-ray just in case. At the hospital I had my first ever ride in a wheelchair and, to cut a long and painful story short, I was told that I had fractured my patella, strapped up and sent home with some painkillers. I have to go back to have a cylinder cast put on it next Thursday. Apparently I'll be on crutches for about 6 weeks and will then need physio. I don't know how long I'll be off work for - the toilets in the office are all up and down flights of stairs and the journey itself is gruelling at the best of times. The worst thing is the pain at night - lying on my back trying to ignore the pain so I can sleep. The painkillers aren't strong enough. So if anyone has any drugs/knockout drops/herbal remedies they can send me... Tuesday, September 14, 2004
I didn't feel like blogging on Sunday so here's a quick catch-up on what's been going down on the MarkCity streets. 1. I've been trying to organise the 'worst film of all time' poll - see the comments on the last post - and will be sticking the results on here soon. Your breath is baited, I can tell. Please leave a comment with your suggestions. Votes for 'Dude Where's My Car' will not be accepted. 2. After dreaming for years of being a rock critic, I'm about to become a contributor to an online magazine called Stylus. It's unpaid so I'm just doing it for fun. And because I never miss an opportunity to give my opinion when it comes to music. I hope it doesn't mean I get even less time to update this blog. 3. The Embrace album, Out of Nothing, is currently No.2 in the midweek album charts, just behind Paul 'Shouldn't he be dead by now?' Weller with his collection of covers of his favourite songs. I can't believe people are actually going into shops and handing over money for Weller's karaoke album. It's shocking. Embrace have to be No.1 on Sunday... ooh, STOP PRESS, an ad for the album just came on Channel 4. That should bring a few more sales. I'm going to go round all the shops tomorrow and hide all the Weller albums. 4. I have a book recommendation for you: Out by Natsuo Kirino. It's about these women who work the night shift in a bento factory in Tokyo. They have miserable lives, cut adrift from society; alienated from their families; riddled with debt. Then one of them kills her husband and the others help her cover it up by dismembering the body and distributing him around the city. After that, everything goes horribly wrong... It's one of the best books I've read in a long time. 5. I went to the Groucho on Friday night. Apparently, just before I arrived, John Lydon, David Walliams and Patrick Stuart from Star Trek left. I'm not sure if they left together. I wouldn't like to start any scurrilous rumours. Sunday, September 05, 2004
I just watched Battle Royale II. The first BR is one of my favourite films, so imagine my disappointment when BR2 turned out to be... crap. The director died halfway through making it. I'm not surprised. I lost the will to live halfway through watching it. While the first film was darkly funny, inventive and exciting, this one is boring and offensive, and the acting... my god. I've seen better acting in primary school plays. It starts with a group of terrorists blowing up some twin towers in Tokyo, has a weird, out-of-place rant about all the countries the US has bombed in the middle, and includes some odd stock footage of smiling children in Afghanistan, all wrapped up in an 'ain't terrorism great and America evil' message. Nasty. Watching it a couple of days after the atrocities in Russia has left me with a really nasty taste in my gob. So the moral is 'don't rent this film'. Even if you loved the original. Another week, another Embrace gig. Or rather, a pair of Embrace gigs - two for the price of one. Before their massive show at the Shepherds Bush Empire, the shaggy-haired ones played another free gig, this time on Shepherds Bush Green, which I assume is the site of the original shepherd's bush. Anyway, this secret gig was a lot better than the Leicester Square event because a) I could actually hear them and b) the cops didn't break it up, although Danny McNamara spent most of the gig looking nervously around, worried that he was going to be languishing in a cell when he was supposed to be playing his big comeback show. Actually, if I were their press officer, I'd have tipped off the police. Imagine the publicity. After the secret gig, I wandered around Shepherd's Bush for an hour waiting for Butter and Ali, my littlest sister. I must have walked up and down the high street five times - with a white balloon in tow. We weren't allowed to release them because we were under a flight path. The locals must have thought I was on a blind date - 'You'll know me because I'll be holding a balloon with Gravity written on it.' I felt pretty dumb. Finally, the girls turned up and, after snacking on a sarnie on the grass, we joined the throng inside the Empire. Because of my horrific tinnitus problems (yeah, I know, I'm old) I wore my new earplugs. To try to make said items seem cooler, I always describe them as musicians earplugs - the kind that Pete Townsend should have worn if he didn't want to go deaf. These plugs reduce the decibel level of the music without affecting the quality of the sound. That's what it says on the packaging, anyway. It was difficult to tell because the sound in the Empire is muddier than the Reading Festival. The band were great, although the gig was slightly marred by a large contingent of morons among the audience who were more interesting in chucking beer than drinking it. What a waste. Two neanderthals next to me were holding full pints - which they'd just been singing to, lovingly (I'm not making this up) - when Embrace started playing an upbeat 'number'. The beer-lovers immediately started pogoing and the beer ended up in my trousers. (We had winos following us home afterwards.) Plastic glasses were flying overhead, even landing on the stage. Butter nearly got crushed to death during one particularly violent mosh, with me trying to protect her and getting bashed myself. There was a hell of a lot of male-bonding going on around us. I realise that all this makes me sound like a miserable fart who should have got seated tickets - and I know I've complained before about immobile Belle & Sebastian audiences - but it was really was OTT, and we weren't even in the moshpit. I still love Embrace, though, and will be going to see them again in November. Butter's not coming. It was the Butter-birthday yesterday. I bought her a running top plus everything you need to make an Apple Martini: sour apple schnapps, vodka, martini glasses, a shaker and cocktail sticks. Sue and Darren joined us in our crib for a very sophisticated pre-dinner drink. I got quite pissed. Then we joined the nation's other Saturday night binge-drinkers and went out for a ruck. Er...except we didn't really - we went for a yummy meal at Casa Vecchio, a posh restaurant in the Pantiles. We almost ended up in the jazz club upstairs, after a mix-up when I rang to book. We escaped that horror, though. Jazz, as everyone knows, is musical wanking. I'm going to get my ears syringed tomorrow. Can't wait. |