This book was a present (thanks, Jess), and a darned good one at that.
The story’s simple enough, really, dealing with the relationship between Amir and Hassan, two young boys growing up together in Afghanistan in the 1970s.
And yet it’s really much more complex than that, dealing with children’s friendships and the complex emotions underlying them. The prose is almost sparse, but this is definitely an asset – in order to make you understand what a character’s feeling or thinking, Hosseini provides the bare bones, allowing the reader to draw on their own experience to flesh it out, and this sense of reader-involvement makes it more affecting.
There are one or two slightly contrived plot occurrences – though you could say the same about ‘Candide’(and indeed I did) and that’s held in high regard – but the general pacing and emotional resonance of the book is strong enough to make these forgivable, and there are some passages which seem so perfectly crafted it’s hard to believe this is a first novel.
Very good stuff indeed, and definitely recommended.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Filthy Beast
Whilst I appreciate that the perfectly-voice-cast Kelsey Grammer might well be a little more senior in years than one might expect Henry ‘the Beast’ McCoy to be, what with his athleticism and whatnot, I’d say that it was rather ungallant of the makers of X-Men 3 to license the toy pictured here.
As I say, age notwithstanding, there’s no need for Hank to be wearing such obvious and voluminous incontinence pants, surely?
The next stage in human evolution, and he can’t even hold it in. I mean, really…
Don’t sweat the Stray Thoughts (they’re all Stray Thoughts)
- In case I haven’t made it clear, I’m going to stop apologising for the infrequency of updates, and reassure you it’s the decent craftsman justifiably blaming his tools. In an effort to promote Broadband, my ISP appears to be letting the dial-up facilities just rot where they sit. I frequently get a connection speed of 4.8kps instead of 56K, and for some reason I can’t possibly fathom this makes updating the webstuff tricky. Not to mention trying to sign up online to the Broadband packages which now look so much more convenient…
- Mission Impossible 3 is a perfectly capable action thriller, and you could do worse than watch it. Not as much Hoffmann or Pegg as perhaps one might hope for, but JJ Abrams does a bot-kick job of the action sequences, and the plot’s suitably twisty.
- It’s been pointed out to me that I often refer to not doing certain things because they’d be a waste of time. Perhaps I do indeed have an overdeveloped sense of time’s winged chariot drawing up outside and throbbing and waiting, or it may be an attempt on my part to recherche tous les temps perdu, but it’s true; I do see the passing of time as something not to be piddled away. Which makes the fact that I’m expending both words and moments, two of the things I value most, on this, all the more special, doesn’t it?
- I saw an episode of QI being filmed last week – Fry, Davies, Jupitus, Bremner and Ancona, which will allegedly be the last episode of series 4. Impressively entertaining, and informative, and I pity you poor folks who won’t get to see it in its unedited two-hour-long live glory…
- Speaking of things I saw, I appear to be collecting Pythons: saw John Cleese in Soho a few years ago, and Michael Palin on the South Bank the other week. Didn’t approach either of them, but hope to complete my Python set over time, though I guess Gilliam and Chapman might prove challenging.
- Speaking of the Pythons, I can’t help but think that the three whose humour was/is more verbally based (Chapman, Cleese and Idle) generally seem to be less content with their lot than those who delighted in the surreal and just plain silly (Palin, Jones and Gilliam). A terrible oversimplification, to be sure, but I wonder if there’s something about essentially verbal comedy which leads its practitioners to analyse words for their comedic potential to a negative extent. I think it was WC Fields who said ‘I know what makes an audience laugh, but I don’t know why’, and I wonder if seeking to find out ‘why’ is a path down which melancholy lurks…
Monday, May 22, 2006
“Do it to Julia!”
As you may have heard – or even seen – the National Lottery show on Saturday night was beset by protesters who jumped onto the stage and disrupted the programme. The picture here illustrates it – and also demonstrates what I thought I’d seen in the playback: that Sarah ‘I got my start in the Girlie Show’ Cawood kept doing her bit like a professional, whereas Eamon ‘I’m a serious journalist with years of experience’ Holmes ran across the stage and cowered behind her like the big brave man he is.I certainly wouldn’t want to be a member of the crew if Holmes is ever sent to cover a war zone, that’s for sure.
Reports of my death have been much exaggerated…
… as have the suggestions that I’m in hiding, waiting to be a surprise housemate on Big Brother; technical problems are continuing to prevent me making entries as often as I’d like, I’m afraid.
Will try to sort them out, but in the meantime, let me just dangle this virtual carrot: www.johnsoanes.co.uk v2.0 is coming soon.
Will try to sort them out, but in the meantime, let me just dangle this virtual carrot: www.johnsoanes.co.uk v2.0 is coming soon.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
REVIEW: Bill Mason – Nine Lives: Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief
The autobiography of Mason, as per the subtitle, contains confessions – he’s craftily waited until the (US) statute of limitations has passed on a number of jewel thefts before admitting to them in this book.
Mason stole large numbers of jewels over a number of decades, though invariably from the rich (mainly American celebrities who are less well known here), and he was strict about not using guns or other violence, making the opening sections of this book read like a real-life Raffles or Fantomas. Many of Mason’s thefts are accomplished appallingly easily, as he frequently points out that people have elaborate security systems which they don’t turn on, or heavily-reinforced sliding doors which they don’t lock. If nothing else, the book acts as a reminder to lock up after you go out.
However, from about the halfway point onwards, Mason spends a lot of time writing about his attempts to stay out of jail, and this is far less interesting. Perhaps it’s because the exact nature of legal wrangles is pretty alien to a limey like me, or because Mason becomes less sympathetic when he’s out on the town drinking with his lawyers and leaving his wife and kids at home, but I found this section pretty uninteresting. When he gets sent to jail – and he does, despite some fairly insane courtroom machinations – he writes well about this, providing some good insights into life behind bars and dispelling a lot of myths.
Overall, not a bad read, but I found myself plodding a bit through the legal stuff which dominates the middle and onwards. It’s well written on the whole, with Mason coming off as pretty likeable despite his open admissions of being a criminal, and it’s refreshingly down to earth, unlike most crime-based TV or films. You might want to check this out – it’s an American book, but it’s been published by Bantam Press in the UK, so though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you buy it, your local library might have a copy.
Mason stole large numbers of jewels over a number of decades, though invariably from the rich (mainly American celebrities who are less well known here), and he was strict about not using guns or other violence, making the opening sections of this book read like a real-life Raffles or Fantomas. Many of Mason’s thefts are accomplished appallingly easily, as he frequently points out that people have elaborate security systems which they don’t turn on, or heavily-reinforced sliding doors which they don’t lock. If nothing else, the book acts as a reminder to lock up after you go out.
However, from about the halfway point onwards, Mason spends a lot of time writing about his attempts to stay out of jail, and this is far less interesting. Perhaps it’s because the exact nature of legal wrangles is pretty alien to a limey like me, or because Mason becomes less sympathetic when he’s out on the town drinking with his lawyers and leaving his wife and kids at home, but I found this section pretty uninteresting. When he gets sent to jail – and he does, despite some fairly insane courtroom machinations – he writes well about this, providing some good insights into life behind bars and dispelling a lot of myths.
Overall, not a bad read, but I found myself plodding a bit through the legal stuff which dominates the middle and onwards. It’s well written on the whole, with Mason coming off as pretty likeable despite his open admissions of being a criminal, and it’s refreshingly down to earth, unlike most crime-based TV or films. You might want to check this out – it’s an American book, but it’s been published by Bantam Press in the UK, so though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you buy it, your local library might have a copy.
When I was thinking Stray Thoughts, it was a very good year…
- I have won four tickets to see The Charlatans in Birmingham on May 14, and am unlikely to be able to use them. If you can use them, let me know, and they’re yours – quickly, though, as I can always eBay them…
- Speaking of music and freebies, there’s a wonderfully perverse CD of cover versions free with the latest issue of Q magazine, which I commend to you. I particularly like the Nick Cave version of ‘Disco 2000’ and the Travis cover of ‘…Baby One More Time’. I kid you not.
- There are moves afoot, I gather, to standardise the timing and sound of the muezzin (or call to prayer) in Cairo. I can understand the desire to make it sound the same (because some are definitely more melodious better than others), but I have to say that I positively like the sound – it’s a wonderful reminder when I’m on holiday that I really am far away from the usual routine.
- Very amusing week in politics - as I hope is very clear by now, I’m not party political, but I do think it was funny to see the PM supporting various ministers in recent times, then retracting that support when the party got a serious kicking at the local elections, and kicking the same ministers out or stripping them of their power. Fair weather friend indeed, and it all has the feel of 1993 to me, when the government seemed to be staggering from one embarrassment or crisis to the next…
TRAVEL: A Frank admission (reduced rates for groups)
I’ve never been one for holidays which are all about lying on a beach.
I don’t tan (when exposed to heat and light, my paper-white English skin responds like something out of Fahrenheit 451) and my boredom threshold is pretty low: I once spent a couple of weeks holidaying in a French beach resort with some friends, and after about three days of lying in the sun, I felt as if my higher brain functions were shutting down – I may have been in the land that brought us the work of Rimbaud, but by the end of the fortnight, I was intellectually more suited to the oeuvre of Rambo.
So: I prefer to take breaks which involve a few sights, a bit of activity, and some kind of exposure to foreign languages and culture, at the very least.
An example of this was when I went to Amsterdam – and don’t get your hopes up, this won’t be the tale of how my wander down the walletjes led to me being exposed to the kind of foreign culture which you normally see on Petri dish or microscope slide – a few years ago.
Amsterdam is a beautiful city, and there’s something very relaxed about the general atmosphere (insert inevitable dope-smoking joke here), and generally laid-back (ditto a legalised prostitution gag here). That, though, was all overshadowed for me by the visit I made to the Anne Frank House.
Located at 263-265 Prinsengracht, the Anne Frank House is just that – the house where the Franks and van Pels hid between 1942 and 1944, when their hiding-place was betrayed. If you don’t know the story – and I’d be surprised if that’s the case – I strongly urge you to read the Definitive Edition of Anne’s diary (which contains a lot of material expunged from previous editions), which was published about a decade ago. And then, when you’ve read it, do visit the House and Museum if you can.
Because it makes it all seem even more real; I always feel that things like the Holocaust are so vast and terrible that the mind often shuts out the scale of them, but the Diary of Anne Frank makes it all seem so human, and the up-and-downs of despair and hope which she writes about are so relatable, that if you read the diary and then think that those feelings were shared by millions of people whose names many of us will never know, then … well, it’s not a nice thing to know and read about or understand, but it’s an insight into the depths to which humanity can sink, and it’s as sobering as it is a warning.
And if Anne’s diary makes it feel real and relatable, then actually walking in the house where it all happened brings it home; you walk up the stairs and pass behind the hinged bookcase that separated the families from the outside world, and seeing the size of the rooms where a total of eight people hid for two years, it’s hard to imagine how they coped; I’ve been in shared houses where people have started to get a bit stir crazy if they’ve stayed in over a weekend working on an essay or whatever, but ultimately they had the choice, as we so often do now. The Franks had no such choice.
I was with someone when I went to the Frank House, but it’s not the kind of place you go round in pairs – you take your time, looking at bits of it and lingering as the mood or the moment takes you – so she and I were separated, and we met up again at the top of the house, in the Front-House Attic. I was standing at the window, looking out at the view, and feeling a sense of stepping into someone else’s space, like sitting on a chair still-warm from it’s previous occupant, at the realisation that Anne Frank (and the others in hiding) must have stood in exactly the same spot at various points, looking out at a city whose streets they might never walk again. I was feeling vague and kind of weird, rather overwhelmed by the way the Franks’ story had been made so concrete and real to me, and thankfully she didn’t try to jolly me along or make a joke or anything, just left me there to look out of the window for a minute or so.
As well as the house, there’s a bookshop (understandably), and also some exhibition rooms, one of which contains the original diary. Impressively, the museum doesn’t try to pretend that the obvious lessons of World War II have necessarily been learned – there’s a photo on the wall of a statue of Anne Frank on which someone has spray-painted a swastika, and an accompanying caption discusses the threat of neo-nazism. Henry Jones was right – goose-stepping morons would be better off reading books, instead of just burning them.
And nowhere is that sentiment more clear than the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Definitely worth your time.
I don’t tan (when exposed to heat and light, my paper-white English skin responds like something out of Fahrenheit 451) and my boredom threshold is pretty low: I once spent a couple of weeks holidaying in a French beach resort with some friends, and after about three days of lying in the sun, I felt as if my higher brain functions were shutting down – I may have been in the land that brought us the work of Rimbaud, but by the end of the fortnight, I was intellectually more suited to the oeuvre of Rambo.
So: I prefer to take breaks which involve a few sights, a bit of activity, and some kind of exposure to foreign languages and culture, at the very least.
An example of this was when I went to Amsterdam – and don’t get your hopes up, this won’t be the tale of how my wander down the walletjes led to me being exposed to the kind of foreign culture which you normally see on Petri dish or microscope slide – a few years ago.
Amsterdam is a beautiful city, and there’s something very relaxed about the general atmosphere (insert inevitable dope-smoking joke here), and generally laid-back (ditto a legalised prostitution gag here). That, though, was all overshadowed for me by the visit I made to the Anne Frank House.
Located at 263-265 Prinsengracht, the Anne Frank House is just that – the house where the Franks and van Pels hid between 1942 and 1944, when their hiding-place was betrayed. If you don’t know the story – and I’d be surprised if that’s the case – I strongly urge you to read the Definitive Edition of Anne’s diary (which contains a lot of material expunged from previous editions), which was published about a decade ago. And then, when you’ve read it, do visit the House and Museum if you can.
Because it makes it all seem even more real; I always feel that things like the Holocaust are so vast and terrible that the mind often shuts out the scale of them, but the Diary of Anne Frank makes it all seem so human, and the up-and-downs of despair and hope which she writes about are so relatable, that if you read the diary and then think that those feelings were shared by millions of people whose names many of us will never know, then … well, it’s not a nice thing to know and read about or understand, but it’s an insight into the depths to which humanity can sink, and it’s as sobering as it is a warning.
And if Anne’s diary makes it feel real and relatable, then actually walking in the house where it all happened brings it home; you walk up the stairs and pass behind the hinged bookcase that separated the families from the outside world, and seeing the size of the rooms where a total of eight people hid for two years, it’s hard to imagine how they coped; I’ve been in shared houses where people have started to get a bit stir crazy if they’ve stayed in over a weekend working on an essay or whatever, but ultimately they had the choice, as we so often do now. The Franks had no such choice.
I was with someone when I went to the Frank House, but it’s not the kind of place you go round in pairs – you take your time, looking at bits of it and lingering as the mood or the moment takes you – so she and I were separated, and we met up again at the top of the house, in the Front-House Attic. I was standing at the window, looking out at the view, and feeling a sense of stepping into someone else’s space, like sitting on a chair still-warm from it’s previous occupant, at the realisation that Anne Frank (and the others in hiding) must have stood in exactly the same spot at various points, looking out at a city whose streets they might never walk again. I was feeling vague and kind of weird, rather overwhelmed by the way the Franks’ story had been made so concrete and real to me, and thankfully she didn’t try to jolly me along or make a joke or anything, just left me there to look out of the window for a minute or so.
As well as the house, there’s a bookshop (understandably), and also some exhibition rooms, one of which contains the original diary. Impressively, the museum doesn’t try to pretend that the obvious lessons of World War II have necessarily been learned – there’s a photo on the wall of a statue of Anne Frank on which someone has spray-painted a swastika, and an accompanying caption discusses the threat of neo-nazism. Henry Jones was right – goose-stepping morons would be better off reading books, instead of just burning them.
And nowhere is that sentiment more clear than the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Definitely worth your time.
Resumption of Service
Back again, after a long radio silence caused mainly by technical issues (that is, I need to get Broadband sorted out at home; don’t worry, it’s in hand). Still, I have some things for your perusal, so without further ado…
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Vision On
For those of you who feel that the pictures of me on this blog just aren’t enough eye candy, you’ll be pleased to know that the website of the radio station where I ply my aural trade on Tuesday evenings now has a webcam; visit http://www.radioforest.co.uk and follow the link.
I’m there between 8 and 10pm most Tuesdays, but a number of other people with faces which are suited only to the medium of radio will be visible throughout the week, and all of a sudden we’ll have to remember not to pick our noses whilst in the studio.
I’m there between 8 and 10pm most Tuesdays, but a number of other people with faces which are suited only to the medium of radio will be visible throughout the week, and all of a sudden we’ll have to remember not to pick our noses whilst in the studio.
REVIEW: The Descent
This horror film is, pun inevitable and intended, pretty decent. A friend recommended I watch it late at night with as few lights on as possible to get the best effect, and I can see why.
It’s a simple enough tale – a group of female potholers find themselves in a perilous situation underground, and as they struggle to get back on course, come to realise that they may not be alone in the caves. The film’s got a good number of jolts in it, there’s some good dialogue, and the characters are all fairly well-written and acted.
My only gripe would be that though the film doesn’t outstay its welcome (the running time, according to the box, is 95 minutes), I found the supernatural threat element of it, coming so late in the film, was almost superfluous; there are some genuinely tense scenes of people in very claustrophobic situations, and they’re well acted and directed to the extent that when we start to get the idea there are creepy things in the darkened corners of the caves, it’s almost unnecessary, as the environment itself is threatening enough.
But it was worth a view, and if you do watch it at home, I’d echo the recommendation that you do so at night with little lighting, so as to emphasis the disorienting effect of events onscreen being illuminated solely by headtorches and emergency flares.
It’s a simple enough tale – a group of female potholers find themselves in a perilous situation underground, and as they struggle to get back on course, come to realise that they may not be alone in the caves. The film’s got a good number of jolts in it, there’s some good dialogue, and the characters are all fairly well-written and acted.
My only gripe would be that though the film doesn’t outstay its welcome (the running time, according to the box, is 95 minutes), I found the supernatural threat element of it, coming so late in the film, was almost superfluous; there are some genuinely tense scenes of people in very claustrophobic situations, and they’re well acted and directed to the extent that when we start to get the idea there are creepy things in the darkened corners of the caves, it’s almost unnecessary, as the environment itself is threatening enough.
But it was worth a view, and if you do watch it at home, I’d echo the recommendation that you do so at night with little lighting, so as to emphasis the disorienting effect of events onscreen being illuminated solely by headtorches and emergency flares.
Names have been removed to protect the innocent (and to protect me from the litigious)
Some years ago, I was attending a wedding – of an ex-girlfriend, no less, and before the big day came round, I was talking about it to a female friend, who was also going to be attending.
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” I said idly, “if, when they get to that bit about ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’, someone cleared their throat?”
This wasn’t, I hasten to point out, said with any kind of malice. It was just one of those what-if things.
“I suppose so,” she said, sounding less than convinced.
"I mean, I wouldn’t do it,” I said quickly. “It’d be kind of funny, I suppose, but it would take the attention off the bride and groom, and that’s not fair - it’s their day, after all.”
As cheesy as it may sound, this is actually the way my mind works – for this very same reason, several years later, I refused to get into a slanging match with an ex who was attending a wedding; it wasn’t about us, it was the couple’s day.
Anyway, the conversation moved on, and I didn’t think about this again, until the day of the wedding, when at the appointed time, my friend – sitting behind me in the church – did indeed cough as if she was just about to say something.
I looked round at her, and I wasn’t the only one in the surrounding pews to do so.
She didn’t say anything further, though, and the wedding ceremony was completed, and as far as I know, the bride and groom (and, perhaps more importantly, the vicar) never even heard her cough. But I had, and at the reception, I spoke to her about it.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said, meaning it.
“What are you talking about?” She looked genuinely bemused. “You dared me to!”
“I didn’t dare you! I said it would be funny if, not that I thought you should do it!”
…it was probably at this point in my life that I first became interested in how people’s memories of events can vary, or be malleable or just plain wrong. It’s something that fascinates me still; how we rewrite events, often to meet the emotional or intellectual needs of the present as opposed to reflecting the past. I do, I know, and have a sneaking suspicion that I’m partly doing it even in this retelling… though I like to think the facts are as reported.
But of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I ?
(She may have been right to clear her throat, mind; they’re no longer married.)
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” I said idly, “if, when they get to that bit about ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’, someone cleared their throat?”
This wasn’t, I hasten to point out, said with any kind of malice. It was just one of those what-if things.
“I suppose so,” she said, sounding less than convinced.
"I mean, I wouldn’t do it,” I said quickly. “It’d be kind of funny, I suppose, but it would take the attention off the bride and groom, and that’s not fair - it’s their day, after all.”
As cheesy as it may sound, this is actually the way my mind works – for this very same reason, several years later, I refused to get into a slanging match with an ex who was attending a wedding; it wasn’t about us, it was the couple’s day.
Anyway, the conversation moved on, and I didn’t think about this again, until the day of the wedding, when at the appointed time, my friend – sitting behind me in the church – did indeed cough as if she was just about to say something.
I looked round at her, and I wasn’t the only one in the surrounding pews to do so.
She didn’t say anything further, though, and the wedding ceremony was completed, and as far as I know, the bride and groom (and, perhaps more importantly, the vicar) never even heard her cough. But I had, and at the reception, I spoke to her about it.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said, meaning it.
“What are you talking about?” She looked genuinely bemused. “You dared me to!”
“I didn’t dare you! I said it would be funny if, not that I thought you should do it!”
…it was probably at this point in my life that I first became interested in how people’s memories of events can vary, or be malleable or just plain wrong. It’s something that fascinates me still; how we rewrite events, often to meet the emotional or intellectual needs of the present as opposed to reflecting the past. I do, I know, and have a sneaking suspicion that I’m partly doing it even in this retelling… though I like to think the facts are as reported.
But of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I ?
(She may have been right to clear her throat, mind; they’re no longer married.)
REVIEW : Rude Kids – The Unfeasible Story of Viz by Chris Donald
(At least, that’s what the title page of the book says; the spine and front cover, oddly enough, call it ‘The Inside Story of Viz’. No idea why.)
This is the story of how Viz went from being a photocopied comic sold by Chris Donald in Newcastle pubs to the one of the best-selling publications in the UK (beaten only by far less funny magazines like the Reader’s Digest and Radio Times).
Donald’s prose style is conversational and witty, and he manages to make topics such as distribution and merchandising deals seem almost interesting. I felt the book was at its best, though, when he was describing the thought processes behind the actual creation of characters, and thus later chapters – after his involvement in the comic has reduced, and he enjoys his early retirement on the proceeds of its success – were less engaging; I wish him well, and he’s certainly earned his money, but I found it harder to relate to the problems he was having with the restaurant he set up than the earlier descriptions of trying to come up with something funny. In all fairness, though, even those chapters aren’t dull, thanks to the generally affable nature of the writing (and, one can’t help but conclude, his general outlook on life).
On a purely personal note, I was amused to see the coverage of the launch party for the Viz competitor/copycat ‘Oink!’, to which Donald and other Viz creators were invited (and where they stole the cake which had been made for the occasion – shades of Malcolm Hardee’s ‘I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake’, I thought). I wrote a couple of items for Oink in my teens (as, more significantly, did Charlie Brooker), and Donald’s assessment of that comic, as well as the other competitors which sprang up as Viz approached sales figures nearing a million per issue, was interesting to see.
Definitely recommended if you’ve ever laughed at anything in Viz, and if you’re interested in how comics or cartoons are made, as well as providing another example of how acclaim and being paid very well for doing something you love don’t necessarily bring you happiness. Though I guess most of us will never actually get to find out if that’s truly the case, and so would probably be willing to find out the hard way rather than taking other people’s word for it.
This is the story of how Viz went from being a photocopied comic sold by Chris Donald in Newcastle pubs to the one of the best-selling publications in the UK (beaten only by far less funny magazines like the Reader’s Digest and Radio Times).
Donald’s prose style is conversational and witty, and he manages to make topics such as distribution and merchandising deals seem almost interesting. I felt the book was at its best, though, when he was describing the thought processes behind the actual creation of characters, and thus later chapters – after his involvement in the comic has reduced, and he enjoys his early retirement on the proceeds of its success – were less engaging; I wish him well, and he’s certainly earned his money, but I found it harder to relate to the problems he was having with the restaurant he set up than the earlier descriptions of trying to come up with something funny. In all fairness, though, even those chapters aren’t dull, thanks to the generally affable nature of the writing (and, one can’t help but conclude, his general outlook on life).
On a purely personal note, I was amused to see the coverage of the launch party for the Viz competitor/copycat ‘Oink!’, to which Donald and other Viz creators were invited (and where they stole the cake which had been made for the occasion – shades of Malcolm Hardee’s ‘I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake’, I thought). I wrote a couple of items for Oink in my teens (as, more significantly, did Charlie Brooker), and Donald’s assessment of that comic, as well as the other competitors which sprang up as Viz approached sales figures nearing a million per issue, was interesting to see.
Definitely recommended if you’ve ever laughed at anything in Viz, and if you’re interested in how comics or cartoons are made, as well as providing another example of how acclaim and being paid very well for doing something you love don’t necessarily bring you happiness. Though I guess most of us will never actually get to find out if that’s truly the case, and so would probably be willing to find out the hard way rather than taking other people’s word for it.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
This is the news. God, I wish it wasn’t…
Tonight’s Evening Standard headline board there.
Since there’s no mention of anyone else, I can only conclude that Mr Cruise has a fully functioning uterus. I guess this story’ll be covered in more detail in the New Scientist, so keep an eye out for that.
REVIEW: Kyro – Dingwalls, Camden, 18 April 2006
Yes, I’m writing this within a couple of hours of seeing the gig. Creative and prolific, and on a school night no less.Anyway: the third Kyro gig I’ve been to in recent months ( does this make me a groupie? I rather hope not) and I think this was probably the best yet. There was a real sense of energy and enthusiasm about the set, with singer Ian charging around the stage and singing as if his life depended on it during the opening number ‘Killer’, but then slowing down by the time they got to the third track ‘Crazy’. The other band members, I noticed, were grinning to each other at various stages during the set, and the sense of fun was infectious; the music’s really strong, and the band and the audience alike were having a good time.
There was a great lull towards the end of their closing track ‘Rockstar’, where it seemed that they were almost done, and Ian thanked the audience for coming, but then the guitars and drums crashed in again and the chorus was back, and it all felt natural and unforced, and most importantly it sounded damned good.
As I’ve said before – and I hope I’ll soon have little need to say many more times, as events really should make it unnecessary – Kyro are very good indeed. There’s not a weak link in the band, and all the songs have something to savour about them. If you haven’t already done so, go to Napster and download their recent EP, so that when they make it big (as they rightly should), you can irritate your friends by saying you were into them before everyone else.
Monday, April 17, 2006
TRAVEL: Oh, water night
Several years ago, in a tent high in the Himalayas, I woke to the sound of running water.
In itself, this wasn't strange, as my party of trekkers had camped next to a fast-flowing river. But this wasn't the gentle white-noise background of the river; it was something else.
I lay there in my sleeping bag, not moving, trying to figure out what it was... and realised what it reminded me of: the sound of a milk bottle being filled from a tap. You know that noise ? It's a kind of flat, glassy note, and as the bottle fills higher, so the note goes up the scale..
I opened my eyes and saw a vague, hunched form to my left, and guessed what it must be.
The man I was sharing a tent with was urinating into a bottle.
In the mountains, altitude sickness is a very real danger, and can make you do strange things.
As you get higher up and the oxygen level in the air around you decreases, so your lungs have to work harder to compensate, and red blood cell levels drop, and all sorts of other unpleasantness can hit you; sleepless nights due to a tightness in the chest or nightmares, headaches like a band of metal shrinking round your temples, constipation or diarrhoea, and of course the fatigue born of the fact that you're trekking for six or seven hours per day.
And this, in theory, is a holiday. Yes, yes, I know, why would a person do this when they could be a on a beach somewhere, sunning themself and reading chunky novels like everyone else ? Well, if you know me, you'll know that the idea of being like everyone else invariably makes me leap the other way. It's a kind of predictable rebellion, and I'm sure it's this belief that I'm so very different which makes me exactly the same as anyone else.
But I digress; we'd flown from Kathmandu to the small mountain town of Lukla late that morning. The small plane looked like the one from the start of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (though to be fair, the nice folks from Yeti Airlines [no, I'm not kidding] did lay on barley sugars to help us keep our ears from popping as we flew into the mountains), but I have to say the landing was better than in the film. We touched down into the small Himalayan town of Lukla, essentially several dozen shops and lodges gathered around the landing strip which literally brings in most of the town's trade and tourism, and after receiving a warning about the dangers of altitude sickness (the importance of taking things at our own pace, not overdoing it and drinking at least four litres of water a day), we set off trekking.
We stopped and camped about four hours later, around teatime, and I was allocated a tent with a chap in his sixties. He was a nice chap, decent and friendly, and I admired the fact that he'd chosen to do this as a holiday - trekking for over a week in the mountains, to be rewarded with a fairly long-distance view of the peak of Everest, isn't everyone's cup of tea, after all.
Speaking of cups of tea, they were plentiful at the nearby lodge where we ate our evening meal before retiring to our tents; weak and milky and sugary, but the tea was always available, and the Sherpas would grin as they said the word 'tea' to us, perhaps knowing of my feelings towards it.
So we'd drunk several litres of water that day, and several cups of tea. I guess I can see why my tentmate decided to pee into a bottle instead of going out into the cold at 2am or so to the toilet tent. But it wasn't the way I would have chosen to be woken, and thinking about it now, the sound that woke me was more like a glass or metal bottle being filled than a plastic one, though I can only hope he wasn't caught so short that he decided to pee into his Sigg water bottle or similar... no, as I say, he was a decent chap, and I'm sure he wouldn't have lowered himself to do that... would he ?
As I say, altitude can make you do strange things.
In itself, this wasn't strange, as my party of trekkers had camped next to a fast-flowing river. But this wasn't the gentle white-noise background of the river; it was something else.
I lay there in my sleeping bag, not moving, trying to figure out what it was... and realised what it reminded me of: the sound of a milk bottle being filled from a tap. You know that noise ? It's a kind of flat, glassy note, and as the bottle fills higher, so the note goes up the scale..
I opened my eyes and saw a vague, hunched form to my left, and guessed what it must be.
The man I was sharing a tent with was urinating into a bottle.
In the mountains, altitude sickness is a very real danger, and can make you do strange things.
As you get higher up and the oxygen level in the air around you decreases, so your lungs have to work harder to compensate, and red blood cell levels drop, and all sorts of other unpleasantness can hit you; sleepless nights due to a tightness in the chest or nightmares, headaches like a band of metal shrinking round your temples, constipation or diarrhoea, and of course the fatigue born of the fact that you're trekking for six or seven hours per day.
And this, in theory, is a holiday. Yes, yes, I know, why would a person do this when they could be a on a beach somewhere, sunning themself and reading chunky novels like everyone else ? Well, if you know me, you'll know that the idea of being like everyone else invariably makes me leap the other way. It's a kind of predictable rebellion, and I'm sure it's this belief that I'm so very different which makes me exactly the same as anyone else.
But I digress; we'd flown from Kathmandu to the small mountain town of Lukla late that morning. The small plane looked like the one from the start of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (though to be fair, the nice folks from Yeti Airlines [no, I'm not kidding] did lay on barley sugars to help us keep our ears from popping as we flew into the mountains), but I have to say the landing was better than in the film. We touched down into the small Himalayan town of Lukla, essentially several dozen shops and lodges gathered around the landing strip which literally brings in most of the town's trade and tourism, and after receiving a warning about the dangers of altitude sickness (the importance of taking things at our own pace, not overdoing it and drinking at least four litres of water a day), we set off trekking.
We stopped and camped about four hours later, around teatime, and I was allocated a tent with a chap in his sixties. He was a nice chap, decent and friendly, and I admired the fact that he'd chosen to do this as a holiday - trekking for over a week in the mountains, to be rewarded with a fairly long-distance view of the peak of Everest, isn't everyone's cup of tea, after all.
Speaking of cups of tea, they were plentiful at the nearby lodge where we ate our evening meal before retiring to our tents; weak and milky and sugary, but the tea was always available, and the Sherpas would grin as they said the word 'tea' to us, perhaps knowing of my feelings towards it.
So we'd drunk several litres of water that day, and several cups of tea. I guess I can see why my tentmate decided to pee into a bottle instead of going out into the cold at 2am or so to the toilet tent. But it wasn't the way I would have chosen to be woken, and thinking about it now, the sound that woke me was more like a glass or metal bottle being filled than a plastic one, though I can only hope he wasn't caught so short that he decided to pee into his Sigg water bottle or similar... no, as I say, he was a decent chap, and I'm sure he wouldn't have lowered himself to do that... would he ?
As I say, altitude can make you do strange things.
Anti-Sceptic
I consider myself a rational, intelligent type, not given to flights of insane fancy or making decisions based on spurious notions or beliefs.
And yet... I've read about Chaos Magick and sigilwork and dabbled in them to an extent, infrequently do tarot card readings on the deck I own, have a couple of different translations of the I Ching which I consult now and then, and was grateful to receive a Solar Return Reading which a good friend of mine, an astrologer, recently gave me as a birthday present.
Occasionally, these things influence the way I think and act, and I could (with little notice) provide tales of precognitive dreams or other experiences I've had, deja vu moments, and the like; most people I know are similarly sceptical, and yet could tell tales of things which have happened to them which fall in such categories, and which defy satisfactory explanation using logical or scientific method.
What, then, is the explanation for this ? Is it that the experience of living is just the tip of a vast iceberg of things which we don't yet have abilities to grasp, and that there is indeed 'something more' out there? Or is it that even the most rational of minds will occasionally fall prey to the belief that there is something paranormal or supernatural going on because, for whatever reason, there's a part of their mind that wants to think such things could be true, and is on occasion willing to over-estimate the evidence to make it appear so ? Or something else ?
I genuinely have no idea, and - as ever - invite your suggestions...
And yet... I've read about Chaos Magick and sigilwork and dabbled in them to an extent, infrequently do tarot card readings on the deck I own, have a couple of different translations of the I Ching which I consult now and then, and was grateful to receive a Solar Return Reading which a good friend of mine, an astrologer, recently gave me as a birthday present.
Occasionally, these things influence the way I think and act, and I could (with little notice) provide tales of precognitive dreams or other experiences I've had, deja vu moments, and the like; most people I know are similarly sceptical, and yet could tell tales of things which have happened to them which fall in such categories, and which defy satisfactory explanation using logical or scientific method.
What, then, is the explanation for this ? Is it that the experience of living is just the tip of a vast iceberg of things which we don't yet have abilities to grasp, and that there is indeed 'something more' out there? Or is it that even the most rational of minds will occasionally fall prey to the belief that there is something paranormal or supernatural going on because, for whatever reason, there's a part of their mind that wants to think such things could be true, and is on occasion willing to over-estimate the evidence to make it appear so ? Or something else ?
I genuinely have no idea, and - as ever - invite your suggestions...
REVIEW: V For Vendetta (original comic)
This graphic novel (aka big chunky comic) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, despite being over a decade old, remains a perfect example of why anyone who maintains all comics are for children is, quite simply, wrong.
It's complex in its story and ideas, the art and colouring is a million miles from simple linework cartooning, and some of it is deeply moving (the Valerie chapter, for instance).
It's about ten or twelve quid to buy, but it's well worth the money, being the sort of thing you can return to over and over again, and find something new.
Recommended for anyone who says they like a good story, and isn't hidebound by limited notions of genre and/or medium limitations. Which, I would hope, is anyone reading these words.
It's complex in its story and ideas, the art and colouring is a million miles from simple linework cartooning, and some of it is deeply moving (the Valerie chapter, for instance).
It's about ten or twelve quid to buy, but it's well worth the money, being the sort of thing you can return to over and over again, and find something new.
Recommended for anyone who says they like a good story, and isn't hidebound by limited notions of genre and/or medium limitations. Which, I would hope, is anyone reading these words.
REVIEW : V For Vendetta (film)
It's been a few weeks since I saw this film, and I've been mulling over my reaction since. It's very much a mixed bag, really, and my feelings towards it are rather coloured by the fact that Alan Moore (the co-creator of the comic) has strongly expressed his distaste for the changes made in the transition between the page and the screen. It's tempting to make this review into a 'the good/the bad' semi-list, but I won't.
Oh, and here be spoilers, so look away now if you don't want to know the results.
There are fundamental problems in the film, many of them inevitable given that a comic of something like 200+ very dense pages has been reduced to a film of about two hours. There are huge leaps in the action which don't necessarily make sense, the character of Finch has been horribly reduced (would have loved to see his Larksmere visit filmed), and the character of V has been changes, as has Evey.
But... there are some bits of the film which work surprisingly well; the Valerie sequence is about as well filmed as it could be, and is really rather moving, and Stephen Fry's character, whilst very reliant on the likability that Fry as a person brings as welcome baggage to the screen, is effective in both plot terms and as a performance.
Speaking of performances, Weaving as V is pretty good, though the problem with having heard V's voice on and off in my head for nearly two decades inevitably means that that his voice isn't quite what I was expecting (oh yes, that sentence looks mad out of context, but you know what I mean). Natalie Portman's not bad as Evey either, though she's slightly less sympathetic as a result of plot changes such as during the scene with the Bishop where she tries to betray V.
The general consensus about the film is that the bits which are faithful to the comic work well, and that the newly invented bits don't, and whilst the former aspect of that is certainly true, the latter isn't entirely the case; the end sequence wiht the crowd and the barricades - despite its mob tendencies going rather against the anarchist principles of the original story - is quite effective, and the threaded together bits with the dominoes works pretty well. To my amusement, as well, I actually thought that it was Christopher Hitchens playing Lewis Protheroe, though I was (unsurprisingly) wrong (it was Roger Allam).
So, a not-bad film, though certainly not a great one, and for people who haven't read the original work it'll probably be pretty entertaining, though viewers familiar with the original will almost certainly spend a lot of time missing what's not there, and umm-ing and ahh-ing about the new material. And some of the ideas in the film remain timely, such as the line about how governments should be afraid of the people, and not vice versa...
Is this a cautious recommendation? I think it is. Maybe wait for it on rental if you're not sure.
Oh, and here be spoilers, so look away now if you don't want to know the results.
There are fundamental problems in the film, many of them inevitable given that a comic of something like 200+ very dense pages has been reduced to a film of about two hours. There are huge leaps in the action which don't necessarily make sense, the character of Finch has been horribly reduced (would have loved to see his Larksmere visit filmed), and the character of V has been changes, as has Evey.
But... there are some bits of the film which work surprisingly well; the Valerie sequence is about as well filmed as it could be, and is really rather moving, and Stephen Fry's character, whilst very reliant on the likability that Fry as a person brings as welcome baggage to the screen, is effective in both plot terms and as a performance.
Speaking of performances, Weaving as V is pretty good, though the problem with having heard V's voice on and off in my head for nearly two decades inevitably means that that his voice isn't quite what I was expecting (oh yes, that sentence looks mad out of context, but you know what I mean). Natalie Portman's not bad as Evey either, though she's slightly less sympathetic as a result of plot changes such as during the scene with the Bishop where she tries to betray V.
The general consensus about the film is that the bits which are faithful to the comic work well, and that the newly invented bits don't, and whilst the former aspect of that is certainly true, the latter isn't entirely the case; the end sequence wiht the crowd and the barricades - despite its mob tendencies going rather against the anarchist principles of the original story - is quite effective, and the threaded together bits with the dominoes works pretty well. To my amusement, as well, I actually thought that it was Christopher Hitchens playing Lewis Protheroe, though I was (unsurprisingly) wrong (it was Roger Allam).
So, a not-bad film, though certainly not a great one, and for people who haven't read the original work it'll probably be pretty entertaining, though viewers familiar with the original will almost certainly spend a lot of time missing what's not there, and umm-ing and ahh-ing about the new material. And some of the ideas in the film remain timely, such as the line about how governments should be afraid of the people, and not vice versa...
Is this a cautious recommendation? I think it is. Maybe wait for it on rental if you're not sure.
The bold and the beautiful
Came across a quote recently (attributed to Goethe, but I have the feeling it may originate elsewhere):
“Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Has been running through my mind recently - in a good way.
“Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Has been running through my mind recently - in a good way.
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