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
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:
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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:
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!).
Posting this from the airport, will soon be home in chilly England again. Hurrah!
Today's song is a bit smoother and more gentle than some I've posted so far. The video is taken from that holiday classic, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) fantasising about how he'll spend that year's bonus. The singer, I think, is Bing Crosby, and the song title is the Hawaiian way of saying, "Merry Christmas".
For many people of a certain age in the UK, Christmas comedy is summed up by a particular double act who would entertain the festive TV viewers in their millions. Whether accompanied by Angela Rippon's improbably fine legs or Andre Previn's gurning at the pianoforte, Morecambe and Wise were the undisputed kings of their trade.
Across the pond, though, the comedy duo schtick has always been a bit more competitive - one thinks of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Bob and Bing, Martin and Lewis almost immediately.
However, despite the fame of the aforementioned, I think no-one can come close to the antics of these two, who supply today's Christmas track (What have you been smoking? - ed.). Not really singing, but hey, it's Cheech and Chong:
As an interesting footnote, Cheech Marin is now a major patron of Mexican artists in the USA. Whodathunkit?
Going south for today's Yuletide selection folks, and what dichotomous treat it is.
First up is Aussie legend and adopted Maidonian, Rolf Harris, with his touching (and catchy) tale of the "Six White Boomers" (old man kangaroos) who pull Father Christmas' sleigh when he visits the lucky country.
In complete contrast, I also offer Aussie legend, Kevin "Bloody" Wilson and his, er, paean to the lost innocence of Christmas, wistfully reflecting in his inimitable unprintable way on the greed that dominates young people's thinking these days. NSFW, of course (indeed, not really suitable for anyone - Mum, please don't watch this), it's "Hey Santa":
The second in a seasonal series. Following the sublime (2000 Miles), we come to the ridiculous.
You don't see this on TV or hear it on the radio much these days. I wonder why?
All Wierd Al Yankovic was doing when he recorded this in 1986 was wondering what Christmas would be like after the bomb had been dropped (remember in those days a nuclear war was our biggest fear):
In the absence of anything better to blog about, here's a seasonal tune that I like. Probably to be followed by others over the next few days.
The best thing about Portugal, at least a definite advantage it has over several countries, is that imported TV shows are subtitled, rather than dubbed.
This is a huge boon for the Brit abroad, as all he has to do is open his ears to the telly, while he can focus the rest of his mind on something else (such as writing a blog post). It's also a useful way of picking up some Portuguese - I'm always intrigued by the way things are translated and learning while watching TV is always to be encouraged.
However, I am a little worried that corners are being cut in the subtitling programme and that the Portuguese viewer is not always getting the real message. The occasional rephrasing for reasons of brevity can be excused, with unnecessary details omitted so that the main message can be conveyed quickly on the screen. Some things, though, ought really to be universally recognised with no difficulty.
I ask you, in a documentary about the Beatles, can this really be excused?
"Lionel Rigby"
What's the definition of a mid-life crisis? Dancing with dachsunds has got to be pretty close.
Thanks to Michael.
