One Deadly Sin

I've done another one of those online quiz things, exploring which way Kevin Spacey is likely to kill me. No-one who knows me will be surprised at the result:

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Very High
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Medium

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

h/t: James

Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking - Mad

I wonder if our politicians have ever been to the Royal Albert Hall of a summer evening. You'd think people in certain positions should have:

The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, will today criticise the Prom concerts as one of many British cultural events that fail to engender new common values or attract more than a narrow unrepresentative audience.

I doubt she'd know culture if it bit her on the bottom. And what on earth are "new common values"? She hasn't made the speech yet, but here is the money quote:

"The audiences for many of our greatest cultural events - I'm thinking in particular of the Proms - is (sic) still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this.

"I know this is not about making every audience completely representative, but if we claim great things for our sectors in terms of their power to bring people together, then we have a right to expect they will do that wherever they can."

Aside from the hideous jargon of "sectors", you have to wonder what she's on.

I'll accept that the Proms are probably still dominated by a white middle-class audience, and the Last Night is a jingoistic horror show with Union Jack-toting public school arses at their worst, but over the past decade or so there has been a real effort by the organisers of the concerts to make them more diverse and inclusive. Most observers would actually say the Proms are trying to bring people together wherever they can.

Although traditional classical music still dominates the Proms' programme each summer - quite rightly I might add, it is the world's premier classical music festival - there are also several late night proms which feature all types of world music. These regularly attract a more representative (read: less white) audience, as well as introducing the white middle-classes to a broader range of music. In addition to this, there are concerts for young people, such as the Blue Peter Prom, which help spread interest in classical music to a new generation of fans.

Furthermore, the Proms are very accessible in terms of price. Whereas many will associate classical concerts with the ballet or opera and tickets of £40-50 and up, you can get into the Proms and enjoy the concert for about a fiver, much less than some traditionally proletarian pastimes such as watching football. Finally, the Proms are now shared around the country, through the Proms in the Park initiative. There are simultaneous outdoor concerts for the Last Night in places as far-flung from London as Glasgow, Belfast and Swansea.

So, if Margaret Hodge had half a brain, she would see the Proms are not just accessible to an elitist, white, middle-class, elderly, south-east-based audience. If people from any background want to see they Proms, they can, without prejudice. Her ignorance really winds me up, as it aims at a (wrong) target merely to play to stereotypes some of those on the left have about classical music. From the so-called culture minister, that's pretty unforgivable.

Pilgrim's Non-Progress

Happy Leap Day!

I know it's wrong to have an Eric Cartman-esque reaction to hippies, but even I couldn't help finding this story hilarious:

A man who planned to walk from Bristol to India without any money has quit, after getting as far as Calais, France.

Mark Boyle, 28, who set out four weeks ago with only T-shirts, a bandage and sandals, hoped to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and lodging.

But, because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker.

It doesn't say if Mr Boyle is an educated man, but even I would have been able to tell him his project was unlikely to succeed. I like the way it says "thought he was free-loading". What else would you call it?

Mr Boyle, a former organic food company boss, belongs to the Freeconomy movement which wants to get rid of money altogether.

In his online diary at the start of his journey to Porbander, Gandhi's birthplace, he said he was given two free dinners on his first evening away in Glastonbury.

Later, he was joined in Dover by two companions, and the three managed to get to Calais.

But in one of his last entries, he wrote: "...not only did no one not speak the language, they had also seen us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers, which is the complete opposite of what the pilgrimage is really about.

"That really scared us and given that we now were pretty much out of food, hadn't slept in days and were really cold, we had to reassess the whole situation."

Mr Boyle said he could not explain in words the disappointment he felt at abandoning the journey and he apologised to his supporters.

I certainly can't explain in words the size of the grin I had on my face when reading this. You can imagine the conversation with his mates:

-What are you doing next week, Mark?
-I'm off to India.
-Wow, great, but how can you afford it?
-I'm walking.
-Er, isn't it rather a long way. And how will you carry your luggage?
-Oh, I'm sure people will help me out as I go.
-Ok, well, good luck with that, then.

However, he is undeterred by this setback:

He now plans to walk around the coast of Britain instead, learning French as he goes, so he can try again next year.

"Whilst walking in the UK, I intend to learn French and to hit the continent again as soon as we feel we are ready."

I'm not sure of his intended route, but let's hope he has time to pick up some Italian, Serbo-Croat, Greek, Turkish, Persian, Farsi and Punjabi before he sets off.

E17? SL6 actually...

News from the home front:

Religiously (well, semi-religiously) I check the Maidenhead Advertiser - "Berkshire's Best-Selling Paid-For Weekly" - on a Thursday to get the latest updates from my home town. Usually a post office is under threat of closure, despite the fact no-one realised it was still open anyway, or a car has been driven into a bollard, causing a traffic jam, or Maidenhead United have lost at home again.

Today, however, the paper carries a revealing report of that rare musical event: an East 17 concert. In a rather sad imitation of their erstwhile boyband rivals Take That's recent comeback tour (which sold out massive venues nationwide), the boys from Walthamstow gave a performance the town centre:

Chicago Rock Cafe heaved with a throng of hundreds who turned up to witness the comeback of East 17. Crooner Brian Harvey, roofer John Hendy and Terry Coldwell appeared, minus original songwriter Tony Mortimer, last Thursday to a crowd of fans and the just plain curious.

Although the talented one was absent, the others apparently tried their best. Fair enough, they've hit a few lows since the records stopped selling. I guess there's not much roofing work in February.

Walthamstow’s finest were set to perform at 10pm but did not take to the stage until after 11.30pm, and played a set of seven songs. Brian Harvey said: “I was late ‘cos I been having trouble at home. This scar on my face is from my girlfriend throwing the telly remote at me in a row.”

I thought rock stars were supposed to throw tellies at things, or at least out of hotel windows, not be on the receiving end. Bonus points to anyone who can name seven East 17 songs, though.

After the gig Brian said: “We couldn’t hear ourselves singing because the sound wasn’t proper so it wasn’t the best gig we’ve ever done.”

What is he, Frank Spencer? So much bad fortune. By some accounts though, not being able to hear themselves sing made the band the lucky ones:

One anonymous audience member said: “Brian sounded like a hyena – it was atrocious.”

I'm not sure, but that might be unfair to hyenas. However, it seems Harvey's night wasn't all bad:

"...whatever anyone says about Tony, that Stay Another Day is a great song and it was enjoyable that someone threw their knickers at me.”

The best bit of the whole concert report came at the end though - a scoop the Advertiser reporter might not have realised she had:

Brian Harvey cryptically revealed that his talents are soon to be spread further afield before heading back home to London. “I’m doing a six-part television documentary about how the world is going to end in four years when a planet called Nebula hits us,” he claimed.

If this is true, we surely have a right to know, don't we? All this kerfuffle over global warming and sharia law pales into insignificance against this. Of course it's nonsense, but can you give us a tip from the inside, Brian?

“If you’re going to get married and have kids you’d better do it now,” Walthamstow’s warbler advised.

Erm, if the world's going to end in four years, you don't want to be bringing children into it only to condemn them to a fiery grave, do you? Slightly flawed thinking, I feel. Still, maybe that's what the record company told them all those years ago - "No point signing a new contract boys, Nebula's gonna wipe us out before you even get into the studio. Go off and start a family or something..."

Local papers. Don't you just love 'em?

Dia dos namorados

Happy Valentine's Day all!

(I hope I'm not the only person giving you that greeting this morning)

If you had forgotten that today was the, ahem, most romantic day of the year, I offer a couple of cards that you might want to send to that special someone.

Keen fans of the Simpsons will recognse them straight away, from the episode where Ralph Wiggum falls hopelessly in love with Lisa, before she breaks his heart and then they both make up at the end.

The card which stirred little Ralph's ardour was this one, which Lisa sent to him out of pity because he didn't get any from anyone else:



If there's a person in your life who loves trains, they'll surely want this card.

However, sometimes the path of true love doesn't run smoothly, and as I said above, Lisa didn't really feel the same way about Ralph as he did about her (are there any guys out there who can't relate to that situation?). She dumped him live on TV, which broke his little heart.

Feeling an immense amount of guilt, Lisa made things up to Ralph with a second card, and it seems an amicable way of letting someone down gently:



If you don't requite the affection, send this one instead.

N.B. I got both the pics from this website, where you can download images to print and make your own cards.

Bloody. Marvellous.

When I woke up this morning I had a short mental list of things to do on my day off:

Number one was to get my hair cut.
Number two was to find a nice meat pie for dinner.
Number three was to take advantage of cut-price Mondays and go to the cinema.

Being a naturally perverse individual I started at the multiplex. Unfortunately for the other things on my to do list, the film I chose to see was Tim Burton's new adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the musical story of the barber who turns his customers into piping hot snacks.

I've decided I'll leave the trim till next week, and, well, you can't get proper pies in Portugal anyway.

Fortunately for me, the film was excellent. I've never seen the original stage production so I can't make a direct comparison with that, but the movie is fantastically darkly comic and gruesome (think Theatre of Blood) and the songs bind the whole thing together very well, moving the plot along, rather than interrupting it with contrived set-pieces (the problem with so many musicals). Johnny Depp sings Sweeney in the style of Spitting Image doing David Bowie (if you can imagine such a thing) and Helena Bonham Carter has a surprisingly good voice as Mrs Lovett, the pie-shop proprietress. The supporting cast is great too: Alan Rickman (who else?) as the villainous Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as the seedy Beadle, a cameo from Sacha Baron Cohen as a technicolor rival barber and an even briefer appearance by Anthony "Gold Blend-Buffy-Little Britain" Head which you'll miss if you blink.

As you would expect with a Burton effort, the film has terrific visuals, reminding me if not of my own misspent youth in the grimy backstreets of London (I'm not from London), at least of Oliver!, from which several cues (market stalls, street urchins...) have obviously been taken. The majority of the film is coloured in greys, with the exceptions of flashbacks and forwards to happier times, which are in full rainbow-vision, and of course the blood, which is ruddily and liberally splattered throughout.

I'd recommend this film to anyone who likes a bit of claret, a bit of Johnny Depp or a bit of pie. Or indeed a bit of good cinema. For that is what it is. Just be careful if your barber starts referring to the cutthroat razor as "his friend".

Carnie departs

Hi All,

Back from Carnaval. This picture sums it up. I'm the Lady in Red. Now, off to work.

The King of Schadenfreude

People say there are only two types of joke.

The first involves someone coming home and finding workmen from the council digging up their garden.



The second features someone on their first day at work in an utterly improbable situation.



Both types feature a rotund man with a beard, cleverly disguised with a bigger beard.

RIP Mr Beadle

Carnie approaches

It's that time of year again, when the men dress as women, water bombs are filled and chucked and no-one sleeps for six days. Yes, Carnaval in Torres Vedras begins on Friday, and already the town is girding its loins for the big celebration.

As with the Father Christmas marionette, Carnaval gives a chance for the local plastic moulding company to show off its considerable skills and so far this year's efforts are amazing. I'm not sure what the floats for the parades will look like, but the main square has been turned into a comic book heaven in celebration of this year's theme, and I personally can't wait for next week.

Here's some pictures:

You dance like Zizi Jeanmaire

Gratuitous videoage aujourd'hui I'm afraid. I went to see Wes Anderson's Indian train film, The Darjeeling Limited, yesterday, and although it hadn't had great reviews compared to some of his previous work (specifically Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), I thought it was pretty good. Dunno if it's still on anywhere outside Portugal, but it only opened here this week. Go and have a look if you get the chance.

One highlight is the short, Hotel Chevalier, which accompanies the main picture. Set in a Paris hotel room, it uses this song and Natalie Portman's arse superbly, to the extent I've now got both stuck in my head...

Now Smelling a Darker Glove

A breakthrough:

The "darkest ever" substance known to science has been made in a US laboratory.

The material was created from carbon nanotubes - sheets of carbon just one atom thick rolled up into cylinders.

Researchers say it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material, which absorbs light perfectly at all angles and over all wavelengths.

Applications of the technology are expected in electronics, solar energy and, as this video shows, music:

Charlie Wilson's War

So I went to see the new Tom Hanks film on Monday: good reviews, amusing trailer, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffmann - what more could you want?

Well, although the film is good, I'm not sure it's deserving of all the plaudits it has received and I'd be very surprised if it were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (of course, with the strike, there's no guarantee the Oscars will run normally this year, but that's another story).

To sum up the plot, CWW tells the true (although as it was top secret, I guess we have to take his word for it) story of the eponymous Texas Congressman who organised the covert US funding of the mujahadin (sp?) against the Soviets in Afghanistan through the 1980s. As with Titanic, we all know it finishes in disaster ("We fucked up the end game" is the line that closes the film) but the actors clearly have fun telling the story on the way. Hanks plays Wilson, the whiskey-glugging good ol' boy, Roberts his evangelical muse and sponsor, while Hoffmann steals every scene (natch) as a Greek CIA fixer.

I suppose my main criticism of the movie is that it feels more like the first half of a big budget miniseries than a proper cinematic piece. Perhaps this isn't surprising, with it being written by the West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, but it left me a little disappointed. The story of how one man defeated the Red Army is fine, and we can whoop and holler a bit at the downfall of those pesky communists, but it would be nice to have a clearer exploration of how the Afghan situation moved on post-1989, via the rise of the Taliban, Al-Quaeda and 9/11 to where we are today.

I don't often say this, but I'd like a sequel please, Mr Nichols.

Are you an accomplished reader?

Here's a little tool that might intrigue one or two of you. Essentially it's a test to find out how good a reader you are, based on the speed you read and how much you recall from a particular text.

Apparently my reading speed is about 350 wpm on screen, which is something over 400 wpm on paper, making me an "auditory" reader. I reckon I could have gone a bit quicker, but wanted to make sure I took in as much info as possible for the comprehension test. Fortunately I got 100%.

via Norm

Worth a read

If you're interested in what some of the blogosphere's smaller contibutor's have to say on a wide range of topics, you could do much worse than head over to Blogpower's Best of 2007 round-up.



I should warn you that many of the posts are well-written, cogently argued, and powerful enough to restore your faith in the little person being able to say something worthwhile. Topics include politics, snowboarding and the death of Harry Potter.

There's even a piece by me.

Lists Lists Lists Lists Lists Again

Right, becoming a bit of an annual event here this one. Let's hope we soon get the good news about Suharto, i.e. that the old bastard is the first name ticked off this year's Deathlist.

For the uninitiated, the Deathlist is an annual prediction game where the 50 celebrities most likely to die during the course of a year are named and we all have that extra incentive to look at the obit pages.

Last year was slightly disappointing by recent DL standards, with only 10 departures and proven survivors such as Fidel Castro hanging on to fight another year (if not another election). However, I can see 2008 being a different story, perhaps a record-breaker (only need 15 deaths for that), even if it does mean saying a final ta-ta to such diverse luminaries as Charlton Heston, JD Salinger and Vera Lynn.

Here's the list in full, and may they all go out with smiles on their faces:

Charlton Heston, Sydney Pollack, Albert Hofmann, Ronnie Biggs, Oscar Niemeyer, Claude Levi-Strauss, Norman Wisdom, Michael Foot, Fidel Castro, Chapman Pincher, Karl Malden, Eli Wallach, Yitzhak Shamir, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mark Felt, Kirk Douglas, Arthur C Clarke, Fats Domino, Herbert Lom, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Vera Lynn, Betty Ford, Ariel Sharon, Billy Graham, Dino de Laurentiis, Russell Watson, Edmund Hilary, Richard Widmark, JD Salinger, Elizabeth Edwards, Jake Lamotta, Hamed Karzai, John Demjanjuk, Jesse Helms, Suharto, Blake Edwards, Francis Pym, Jack Klugman, Eric Sykes, Patrick Moore, Bo Diddley, Cyril Smith, Harold Pinter, Basil D'Oliveira, Elizabeth Taylor, Bobby Robson, Levi Stubbs, Captain Beefheart , Charles Taylor, Clive Dunn

Lists Lists Lists Lists Lists

OK, here's one to start the year. I know a thing or two about old lesbians, so I chuckled a little at this of 25 mildly famous men who look like them, from Cracked.com.

An example:

#22.
Robert Redford



He Is:
Actor. Director.

Looks Like:
The head of Women's Studies at Community College of Denver.

#3's a doozy. See the whole list here.

Those Resolutions in Full

Happy New Year!

Yes, I know I'm a few days late, but it always seems to take a while to get the turkey and mince pie-driven lethargy out of the system at this time of the annum.

Of course, everyone else has been up and running for days,and why not, with such a lot of things to look forward to in 2008. Aside from the Olympics and the US Presidential Election, it's also 30 years since Boney M took the charts by storm with Rivers of Babylon and 60 since Prince Charles was born. Will he be the oldest person to ascend to the throne? We may never know.

Moving on, it is by now a tradition amongst the lazy and feckless to aim for self-improvement at the start of January with so-called New Year's Resolutions. It is also a sign of their lazy fecklessness that by the start of February, these promises are, if not broken, largely forgotten. Being of such a disposition, I hereby list my own resolutions:

1. Blog more frequently. Or at least better. Easy to say this, but I do enjoy this whole process of writing my own nonsense and reading and responding to other people's, so I'm going to try and make more time for it.

2. Learn more Portuguese. I spend my working life helping people get their heads round my native language, and yet I haven't really made any structured effort to get mine round theirs. This must change!

3. Read more Russian literature. Or Soviet literature - however you want to describe it. I don't think I need to explain this, for of course, dear reader, were you the sort to make resolutions (you're far too good for that, I know), you would doubtless say the same.

4. Visit some new countries. I don't mean newly designated countries like Eritrea, East Timor and Montenegro, although I'd be happy to visit them, but any that I haven't been to yet. I'll never get round the whole planet if I don't keep ticking them off steadily.

I'd say that's probably enough for now, although there is undoubtedly a large chance the same things will be trotted out next year. Have a good one!

Zebra in Hot Tub

Does anyone else get that frustrating feeling when you can't respond to major news events beyond making anagrams of the names of people involved?

No? Maybe it's just me then.

Christmas Songs 8 - Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

What's Christmas all about then? Is it a message of peace and hope for the New Year? Is it a time for religious reflection? Is it a chance to spend all our leftover money before it expires at the end of December?

Of course it's all of these and much more, but the most important thing we should remember at this time of unusual night visitors is that elderly relatives and too many glasses of eggnog can be a dangerous combination, so effectively summed up by this Dr Elmo song:

Christmas Songs 7 - Sleigh Ride

I was looking on YouTube for the hilarious version of Sleigh Ride by the Three Tenors, but unfortunately it's not on there. Presumably since the passing of Pavarotti, attempts are being made to erase his more embarrassing recordings from the public consciousness.

That was a shame, but short-lived, because I found this version instead, by Dennis Weaver! Anyone, who like me, loves Spielberg's early classic, Duel, starring Weaver as a man being chased by a nasty, noisy truck, will surely appreciate this duet with Amy Grant. If you look and listen closely during the video, you'll see our Dennis looking nervously over his shoulder and just about make out the sound of a growling artic in pursuit:



p.s. If you want an even better version, try this (no embedding - booo!).