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! Continue reading →

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!