Returning to work this morning after being away last week, I expected to be immersed once again in the serious business of Intranets and Virtual Learning Environments, and I was. But not without being wrong footed by the slightly surreal atmosphere… Apart from the odd member of staff missing due to their being stranded in far flung locations, ranging from Dubai to Greece, I was struck by the eccentric nature of the e-mails that were sent last week. Certainly during the previous week of the Easter break the college was largely desserted and some members of staff might have found they weren’t experiencing the usual number of demands made of them, but I had no idea that this had lead in some cases to extreme paranoia and schizophrenia…

The first in an epic and gloriously irreverent thread began simply with the plaintive “Just sending an email in the hope of a response and confirmation that I am not the only person working today?”

The sender turned out to be having issues with the college’s lighting which is designed to sense movement and so remain on (to allow work to be possible in the windowless bowells of college), except that last week there was no movement so they would periodically be plunged into darkness. Someone else suggested that they had heard “Reports of Gremlins in [the] new building going around switching off lights“. When it was suggested that the weekly badminton session be observed (despite only about three people working last week) it was someone else’s inspired comment “Maybe the gremlins would fancy a game too, you never know?!” that prompted this superb announcement and piece of photoshoppery:

“Security have just informed us that the surveillance cameras in the main sports hall were mysteriously vandalised last night sometime after midnight. In an attempt to identify the culprits, security have released the following screenshots from the time of the attack“:

So far so daft. Quality use of time – morale is boosted. This was apparently not an isolated instance of slight madness and excessive creativity. A new member of staff made the questionable descision to ask a colleague for my whereabouts so that I could carry out a spot of training for the software I help maintain (Microsoft’s SharePoint) before receiving this rather curt reply:

“I am glad that you are… ready to seek the ways of the enlightened.

Raise thy hands to the stars and speak clearly ‘I seek the ways of Sharepoint!’ and he will set you free.”

Does volcanic ash have properties akin to opium? Possibly. It’s just excessively pleasing to return to work and yet, return to nothing like the standard day you were expecting. Thank you colleagues for brightening my day… You absolute weirdos

Read two very depressing articles today. Both concerned domestic recreational viewing habits. Each made blundering attempts to identify trends by gender stereotyping and failed to identify the main problem: 90% of TV is shite.

The first was a lazily written slice of home life where the writer explained about the “war” he regularly has with his daughter over what to watch. He is apparently so in love with football that it’s the only thing he’ll watch. I find most televised sport so mind-numbingly dull that I can see why his daughter might make a case for not watching it every evening. He then goes on to say that his daughter only seems to want to watch Britain’s Top Model which is a show that sounds so uncompromisingly unbearable that I can understand the father’s complaints about being subjected to the show’s narcissistic, self-promoting characters each time he wants to spend time in the living room (although he must see a few of those whilst watching the footie). Why can’t these people develop an imagination? They’re shows that exist on TV that are actually interesting, entertaining, informative, stimulating, involving and an absolute joy to behold. You might have to spend a bit of time reading a TV guide or the previews of coming shows but they’re out there. The writer might benefit from realising men are allowed to watch stuff other than football – and that’s O.K. (Mad Men, for example, is probably not made with a solely female audience in mind).

Because of the infrequent good programming, services like iPlayer or 4oD are very much the way forward (I found out recently you don’t need a TV license for anything that’s not being broadcast live) and DVD boxsets of the genuinely good stuff are really good value now. It’s just depressing that father and daughter have to undergo constant feuds over which is the lesser of two painful viewing experiences. Not to mention the other half of the family who can’t even bear to experience either!

The second article banged on about 57% of men between 18 and 44 preferring surfing the internet compared to 46% preferring TV and that “…the relevance of television is fading.”

I don’t think this comes as any shock.

“Some 73% of young males between 18 and 44 watch video-on-demand at least once a week, with nearly half watching full-length TV programmes.” – Now that anyone (women included) need not watch programmes at a regimented time slot we are free to plan our time better and an evening doesn’t have to revolve around a particular show. Also watching stuff on-line cuts out the majority of TV advertising which is often so loud and annoying that it can distract you from what you were trying to concentrate on.

We also prefer to get our news on-line as the internet allows stories to be updated as events develop. A good friend of mine says she doesn’t like to watch the news because most of the features are presented in a way that suits the (often limited) footage they have.

“More than 25% of young males living with their partners watch TV on a computer in the living room while their other half uses the main TV set.” This might well be true. My housemate watches TV in the living room and I escape to watch an episode of this or that. Anymore than 5 minutes of something that’s not well made or really holding my attention and I have to complain bitterly or (for better relations in the flat) just leave the room. A lot of people who complain to broadcasting standards groups or Points of View should follow suit: just change the channel or be brave and switch the TV off and do something else – if viewing figures were down on poor shows, they wouldn’t be able to justify making them. Although a season of Monkey Tennis might have achieved cult status…

Have been getting to the pictures quite a lot recently. Managed a staggering three trips to different cinemas last week which I don’t think I’ve managed since I was living in Brum and was known to see multiple movies in a day. Spoilers lay in wait so beware.

This time last week I took in Babel. What an absolute hoot of a movie that was. I realised I’d made a terrible mistake several minutes after the thing had started when all the performances were sickeningly noticeable because everyone was trying so hard to be understated. It was a wearisomely earnest and melodramatic affair that was so utterly devoid of humour (except in several bizarre and inexplicable moments) that I did almost burst out laughing at points because I was aware I was half expecting characters to become sudden victims of ridiculously exaggerated bursts of violence just because their impending (real or mataphysical) doom was being thrust down my throat ALL THE BLOODY TIME. The stars, all of which have given very decent performances in other things, were uniformly awful and indiscriminately wasted in what must have been literally minutes of screen time (which was probably for the best as they were the least interesting things in the movie) and the piece built to a kind of anti-climax where the director stole his main piece of score from a real movie made nearly ten years ago and whose memory sustained me to the end of this overstretched tower of nothing more than utter wank. I had been very interested to see this because I still haven’t caught Amores perros and 21 Grams but I’m suddenly not so keen now.

Wednesday saw me weave through the couples to my seat for Hot Fuzz. This wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting and did slightly smack of trying too hard but was nonetheless tremendous fun. The sheer amount of talent being displayed was almost unseen in a British comedy in years and year and years (including Shaun). The amount of original jokes and puns and affectionate references that were actually laugh-out loud funny was staggering as was the pacing of the substantial narrative which still gave time for the great performances and boat loads of cameos which added to the effect rather than stole the show. It left me feeling quite dizzy and I was still chucking for many days afterwards. I saw a trailer for Run, Fat Boy, Run also starring Pegg. The trailer makes the film look great fun so I hope it follows in the footsteps of Hot Fuzz rather than last year’s Big Nothing which I haven’t actually seen but didn’t have to to tell that it’s a bit lacking in, well, everything really…

Friday night and to Tewkesbury for Pan’s Labyrinth. You know that I really want to see something when I have to resort to travelling to the next county because nowhere near here is showing it! I’d been a fan of Hellboy and so had a vague idea of what to expect and appreciated the ingredients here but not the blend. It reminded me of The Road To Perdition and The Cell (don’t laugh). The Cell is actually not a bad film and, despite having Ms Lopez in it, is a very striking and visually stunning adventure that thrusts its use of stylized visuals to the fore to play out the battle of wills between a sort-of psychotherapist and a serial killer with the twist being that it plays out in the mind of the killer (the scene in Pan’s Labyrinth with the banquet table was particularly reminiscent of the representation of the killer’s id in The Cell). In The Road to Perdition Tom Hank’s murderous father manages to rescue his son’s soul from eternal damnation by slaying Jude Law’s assasin before the son, who is actually prepared to do it, has the chance (you can tell Law’s supposed to be evil because he has bad teeth). The similarity of the themes in Pan’s Labyrinth to those in Mende’s story are perhaps more obvious but I mention these two films because they do what they say on the tin. With Pan’s Labyrinth it’s the classic problem of using certain elements in the promotion of the movie to make it more appealing (in this case to draw in lovers of that delicious brand of dark fantasy) and although these elements are very much present, this film gets the mix wrong and the result is too much missed opportunity and left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth. Not only is it a deeply unhappy ending but there’s the feeling that the fantasy world, far from being helpful, has actually contributed to the outcome and the heroine has only been hiding from reality (or using it to cope) rather than learning and using her world to achieve anything. For me this story was how The Shining might have ended if Nicholson hadn’t perished in the blizzard and how La Vita è bella might have ended if little Giosué had been discovered by the Nazis, i.e. all that gone before had been in vain.

Series 2 of Life on Mars kicks off tonight and I’m actually quite looking forward to it. This is surprising because I hardly watch any TV (let alone get excited about it) and also because I said I wouldn’t bother with any more because they didn’t wrap it up at the end of the first series when they had the chance and I hate those TV shaggy dog stories that drag on and ultimately disappear up their own behinds. The first series was excellent. The scripts were mustard, the casting inspired and the performances and direction much better than anything else around. Besides this the early seventies were so well realised and the amount of nostalgia and loving in-jokes was perfectly balanced with the story and the issues raised. That and the soundtrack was awesome. This is promised to be the last series and so I’m going to absorb myself once more in the Manchester of 1973 and the masterly partnering of John Simm and an “…overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding”.

I really love this time of year. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s so much better than Summer. When the sun does shine the light is so much crisper and clearer and the air quality is a lot better (especially here in the middle of nowhere). It’s also the time of year where everything happens. For me there’s never been a December that’s dragged because I have my birthday, Xmas and New Year lined up (at least one of which is guaranteed to be good). January and February are a different matter and should, of course, be cancelled

In the meantime I’m getting ready for Xmas and trying to compile a list of festive music. So far I’ve got a bunch of classics including The Pogues’ “Fairy Tale of New York”, John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and “Let it Snow!” by Dean Martin. But it seems like I’m missing things. Any other suggestions?

We had Rae at home with us last week. Having just gotten home from a month in Thailand and Cambodia visiting temples, attending weddings and island hopping she was understandably exhausted. So when Bill came over to the house over the weekend Rae wasn’t really up for entertaining despite a few beers on offer and my breaking out the miraculous Falling Tower Game. A poor substitute for Jenga, this collection of wooden bricks is remarkable if only because it was conceived with no thought of proportions or dynamics or even basic physics. When you arrange one row of bricks you notice that they do not measure the same as the side of bricks above or below which creates a structure that is not so much a tower as a pile of delicately-poised rubble. In Jenga the handicap is dictated by how much you’ve had to drink but here it’s the game itself. Attempts to improve our evening’s entertainment with Trivial Pursuit were shortlived after we remembered (as we do every time we play) that we weren’t born in the US in the early seventies and were unlikely to know to many of the answers. The plan of going to the pub was hit upon and after Rae made her excuses Bill and I were left to go on our Man Date (I think Courtney may have coined that one – Liam?).

The Pheasant in Welland is awful. Armed with this irrefutable piece of knowledge we marched up the road to The Marlbank which has undergone a new lease of life and these days regularly plays host to all manor or cavorting and merriment on a Saturday evening. Acknowledging that we were done messing about on the board game scene, Bill and I got on with the serious business of getting drunk. After a few rounds we hit on the dazzingly original idea of crashing the 21st birthday party in the marquee outside. This was easy enough but due to the party being comprised of family rather than friends of the birthday girl and the party lacking those high-octane thrills necessary for the craic (and it having been altogether too easy to gain access), we suspected that it might not really be the place to be. It was about this time that we found out that the Birthday Party Party had requested karaoke in the lounge. Now we were both pretty wrecked at this stage and it so happens that this is the optimum condition for wanting to sing appalling songs at the top of your voice to a room full of people you’ve never met before in your life. Amazingly we picked a half decent song first and belted out a passable rendition of “Baggy Trousers” by Madness. Somehow our standards then sank to “Lady In Red” by Chris de Burgh and culminated with Diana Ross’s “Chain Reaction”. We were just about able to remain standing for each but I think we may have been unable to read the words on the screen because I have a vague memory of us singing anything that came into out heads in a tune that in no way resembled either of those songs. We certainly substituted the verses for long drawn out reinterpretations of the choruses. In a way we had achieved the challenge that someone relishes in a game of Jenga; we were drunk and trying to keep the structures of our bodies upright despite the overwhelming absence of balance or co-ordination.

I have no memory after that point. Despite our bad behaviour and complete disregard for anyone else in the pub that night, and being blind drunk, I can tell you that the birthday girl was called Michelle and she appeared to have good time. Whether her family did or not I can’t say but it may be some time before I can go back to the only acceptable pub within a mile of my house. Blast.

Having now had a chance to catch the latest brace of blockbusters I feel it necessary to say that I enjoyed them all. Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest delivered a good yarn full of weird and wonderful characters – Bill Nighy and his crew were so grisly and entertaining that you couldn’t help find them riveting (especially Nighy’s accent which sounded French at first). Orlando and Keira are still positively inert in comparison but perhaps necessary to the story, which I read somewhere managed to create an equivalent character for each persona in Star Wars even down to Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg as R2-D2 and C-3PO who just seem to haplessly turn up in the right place at the wrong time. Depp is obviously great but I was also delighted to find that Geoffrey Rush will be in the third one as he’s such good value. Great fun!

After the opening few seconds of Superman Returns I was able to relax the hugely tensed muscles that were causing my face to contort with trepidation and start to really enjoy myself (a bit like when you’re dreading an embarrassing relative making a speech at your wedding and them turning out to say generous, warm and funny things). This epic, trapped in development hell for ages which had more directors attached to it than probably anything else has ever (even Batman Begins) managed to be really very good. Apparently we’re meant to disregard a few of the latter Superman films but since I couldn’t remember them anyway that didn’t matter. The story with the crystals was very watchable and Spacey was superb as Luther. Most surprising of all was Brandon Routh who made a really good Clarke Kent and Superman respectively. What I found refreshing was that the producers didn’t cop out and go back to do a roots story which is what is done with every superhero movie, largely because they can’t seem to find a way to develope a good story once the hero has become established and triumphed over their first big nemesis (and it’s easy to see how attempts at these developments fail when you see something like Spiderman 2 which apart from the great action sequences was like watching an expensive soap opera). Kelvin might be able to help me out with why, or more likely find me a dozen examples of why I’m talking tosh

Last night I popped along to see Michael Mann’s latest, Miami Vice which duly kicked ass. I think I enjoyed it so much because there is actually nothing like it around at the moment and hasn’t been for quite some time. All recent action movies are aimed at kids like Stormbreaker or for prepubescent teens like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift or else they’ve felt that they have to be more than they actually are in the case of M:I:3 and other so called event movies (and usually end up being much less than the sum of their parts). Miami Vice was a no nonsense, stylish and fast paced cop picture that managed to be both authentic and visceral whilst at the same time having its heroes pulling ridiculously ostentatious heroics with speedboats, ludicrously powerful guns, and surveillance technology. Because of the beautiful locations and consistently intriguing array of characters, even two hander conversations were suspenseful and establishing shots were an event in themselves. The final shoot out was very reminiscent of the superb gun battle in Heat except here the stakes were higher with a more traditional good guys versus bad guys. So good! Even if Colin Farrell looked a bit like one of the village people.

In other news, Film Four, true to their word of showing great movies, are showing a season of Hayao Miyazaki films all this week. On Tuesday I caught “My Neighbor Totoro” which managed to be both utterly daft and a really affecting story of two young girls moving to a remote rural location with their well-meaning father whilst they worry about whether or not their hospitalised mother is ever going to recover. They make friends with a huge cuddly tree spirit who might not be able to make everything alright but does introduce them to a flying cat-bus. Yesterday I saw the epic “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds” which was a very involved parable about mankind’s struggles to utilise early 20th century technology (and space age sleds) and harness the winds whilst surviving threats like toxic forests and huge insect armies in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. Tonight’s film is Porco Rosso (about a dashing pilot who seems to have had his face altered to resemble a pigs) and tomorrow is Princess Mononoke which I’ve seen before and loved. Catch them if you can!

Thanks for the interest, it was truly a blinder! As if I wasn’t going to say something… Alex, Soni and Harry duly whisked me off to Eastnor on Thursday afternoon for a weekend of sun, beautiful surroundings and a tonne of superb food. Oh yeah, there was plenty of helpings of great music too! (more…)

Anyone catch Steve Coogan’s new comedy “Saxondale” last night? I quite enjoyed it, recognising aspects of the new persona from people I’ve met, especially the ex-roadie element! Although not laugh-out-loud funny and deeply cringe-worthy in places, this character felt more real and tragic than Alan Partridge or indeed any of Coogan’s past gallery of characters and I think that this series will grow on me. It must have been the ultimate challenge for Coogan trying to get over AP and come up with something different that can be judged on its own merits and certainly he’s been living in the shadow of the Norwich-based ex-chat-show host ever since. His adventures in Hollywood haven’t done him justice either (“Around the World In 80 Days” anyone?). I think that Tommy is one to invest in.

Live music is great. There’s no two ways about it. Naomi and I popped up to that fine establishment The Lamb last Wednesday for a catch up and happened upon an open mike night which was superb. Although all the acts were just person + guitar they all managed to find their own sound within the same acoustics and as well as someone dropping in a predictable (yet comforting) Levellers tune (“15 Years”) someone did a great cover of “Sleazy Bed Track” by the Bluetones.

On Friday, after a wee snifter of absinth, I caught a bus from Welland into Worcester (yes, you did read that right) to see Marc and his band The Steaming Heads play a set at the fabled Marrs Bar. Marc had mentioned that he’d be on stage from 9:00pm in his heads-up e-mail and the bus got me in to Worcester at nearer twenty past so I was annoyed that I’d missed a brace of ditties. I needn’t have worried as I came in to find an electro/rock/funk act in full throw, sounding somewhere between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cooper Temple Clause, and they were really going for it. By ten Marc showed up, having been absent up until now because he’d been watching the football in the pub. Marc had a few seconds spare to say hi before he clambered into some dungarees and a beret, grabbed his bass and began plucking the familiar chords of the Cajun/bluegrass version of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. This has to be heard to be believed. I stayed until I had to run for the last bus from Crowngate back to Welland (yes, you did read that right) which meant that I had to miss the second half of the set. It also meant that I got home though so that was alright. Unfortunately, shortly after selecting my White Stripes playlist on my iPod for the journey home (fitting I thought) and getting on the bus, my three pints caught up with me and the resulting need for the toilet tortured me for the entire journey home (a full forty minutes due to the bus going via Hanley Swan AND Upton). I leapt from the bus at my stop and vaulted over the church wall. Had I realised that the ground on the other side was considerably lower than the pavement I probably wouldn’t have jumped with quite so much urgency. After picking myself up I was able to relieve myself against the wall. Unfortunately a couple of giggling girls chose that exact moment to walk past along the pavement and catching the sight of the top of my head and a pair of furtive eyes beneath it, they squealed and ran off. I would forever be known to them as that guy who likes to hide out in church yards and pee. The graveyard was much harder to leave than it had been to enter and I had to contend with brambles, branches and other nasties and after emerging I looked like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards; the fact that I’d dragged myself through the hedge in question didn’t make any difference. Despite the unusual finish to the evening it had been a good night though. My next adventure will be a night out with Dom. Wish me luck!