I mean, she always sounds likes she's wiping a knife clean of blood whilst drinking a cup of Earl Grey, but that's part of her charm…
PETER BAYNHAM HAS BON JOVI HAIR.
Also: James Cameron. Didn't you watch the start of Titanic?! Remember what happened to Geraldo!
Penelope Cruz has killed every ostrich in California for her dress.
Why must The Winslet be spoiled by Gervais? Why? WHYYY?
Leo's long sulk is over! He's king of the world! Or something. I am on very little sleep, I warn you.
PETER BAYHNAM ALL OVER ABC! Take that, Lee, Herring, and the Armistice!
ATTACK OF TEH CUET! The kids are soooooo sweet. BUT! IT'S HAPPINESS, CHILD!
Apologies for not trailing it in advance, but it was touch and go whether I would be again to go this week. Still, I will be back sometime in March to raid the BFI for Audrey Hepburn clips!
And Lucky Soul are very, very good.
Forest! I am failing preconditions! I know I'm a filthy Mac user, but is that really so bad? :)
One of the lesser-publicised petitions on the rather pointless petitions.pm.gov.uk site (or: "Ask for whatever you want! Then we'll send you a patronising email about why Uncle Tony knows best!") was a protest against Digital Rights Management controls on digital media. The response is predictable: "Big businesses love it! Suck it up!", but this caught my eye:
In particular, the independent Gowers Review of Intellectual Property commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, published its report on 6th December 2006 as part of the Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report. Recommendations include introducing a limited private copying exception by 2008 for format shifting for works published after the date that the law comes into effect.
So, we'll be able to encode the latest drivel by Razorlight, but not allowed to make copies of Technique? That seems incredibly wrong, somehow…
(The Government has yet to respond to the greatest petition currently on the site. GOLD!)
To think that if this does go ahead, it should really happen while Ian Paisley is still alive?
(I thought the news source was appropriate!)
(Also, if anybody does read my Brit Award report - I'm sorry about the Oasis part. I was distracted during that bit, so wasn't able to point out just how bad they were after Liam started singing Morning Glory)
Tonight sees the premier episode of Fox News's answer to The Daily Show, the Half Hour News Hour. Two clips have been leaked onto the Internet; the first is a segment on much love Barack Obama gets from the press, while the second is the programme's opening, an imagined 2009 where Rush Limbaugh is President is President and Ann Coulter is the VP.
The Obama piece is a little odd; you wonder just how something so stilted and, well, unfunny could be considered a good idea for their first broadcast. To make it worse, it's not even all that funny. The second clip is just horrifying. Although I did get a chuckle out of Limbaugh's line about 'how the country's standing in the international community lies in ruins after two years of a Democrat Congress', though sadly, I don't think he was being ironic. Coulter somehow manages to be even worse.
I think the problem here is that the show's creators, 24's Joel Surnow and Enterprise's Manny Coto don't understand what The Daily Show is really about. It's true that the show leans a little to the left, but its purpose in life is to mock the news rather than to promote any pinko-commie agenda. And to say that The Daily Show doesn't mock Democrats shows that Surnow has never actually watched it (indeed, the recent Obanmania segments on TDS have all been much funnier than the sad attempt linked above). However, as it's a political satire show, you do expect it to attack those who actually have power rather than those who don't. But it spares no punches for Democrats, regularly has conservative guests on, and bears no resemblance to the show that Fox News seems to think is broadcast at 11pm on Comedy Central.
Regardless, I'll probably watch the whole thing tomorrow on YouTube just to see how bad it was…
Well, I suppose that the last twenty minutes of the Brits were a good warning not to see Oasis when they next go on tour (as if most of us needed persuading…)
In honour of all of today's lovely couples, I have decided to be self-pitying and retreat to my snake-cave. But before I head off to cheer myself up by watching the Brit Awards (really, I should just go to bed now. But it's work-related, sp I have to suffer), here's a set of heartbreak records to go with your day. Just to bring you down. Muahahaha.
Billy Bragg — A New England
It's a cliché by now of course, but Billy was always better at songs like this than he was at his political stuff. A wonderful song that seems to depress me more every year now that I've past the age of 22. And it gave us one of the most silly but poignant lines in the history of music: "I saw two shooting satellites last night / but they were only satellites / Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? / I wish, I wish you'd care". A touch of class, there, as two Northern blokes were often found of saying.
ABC — All of My Heart
To be honest, you could take almost any track from Lexicon of Love and it'd fit in here rather well. Martin Fry's quiet, tragic desperation set against Trevor Horn's heartbreaking production? Yes, that'll do. There's a wonderful ILM thread which goes into considerable detail explaining just why this is a fabulous record; I'd link to it, but ILM is on kitten-mode just right now. Suffice it to say that the final plea of " That maybe someday / You’ll walk in the room with my heart" has a lot to do with it.
Spiritualized — Broken Heart
Fun Fact: I bought Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space during my first semester at Manchester, the day after I was mugged, punched around and shoved through a hedge. I know how to cheer myself up. The full record is a depressing 70+ minute breakup between Jason Pierce and Kate Radley (the latter, funnily enough, declined to tour the album and left the band afterwards), and Broken Heart is one of its lowest ebbs, a mournful dirge of despair. Hurrah!
Smokey Robinson — The Tracks of My Tears
I don't have to explain this one, do I? Thought not.
Sleater-Kinney — A Quarter To Three
Now, this. You'll find this at the end of another break-up album, The Hot Rock, sadly over-looked by many S-K fans (it's my favourite of all of theirs, I think, with One Beat sliding in behind because of memories attached to it). It's about the moment just before finally giving up and going to bed, wondering 'where are you?'; sad guitars harshy brushing up alongside Carrie Brownstein's lament. Cheer up!
Life Without Buildings — Sorrow
Heh. I apologise. Now, I love this song. But I can definitely understand if it makes you want to run for the hills. Like most Life Without Buildings songs, Sue Tompkins's lyrics meander and loop around, dancing around the point, straying into nonsense before suddenly coming into sharp focus, and back again. I love it for "but i'm mostly English, mostly English" and "Eyes like lotus leaves, no not even like". As well as "e fade", which somehow means so much, despite being gibberish.
You should all be grateful that I didn't stick I Trawl The Megahertz on here as well.
Dexy's Midnight Runners — This Is What She's Like
"Eh!?" I hear some cry. "This is not a sad song!" And you'd be right. There needs to be some sort of release, I think, and what could be better than this, possibly one of the greatest love songs ever written? It has comedy! Interludes! It's eleven minutes long and yet he never actually tells us What She's Like! Well, not in so many words, but I think you'll get the picture. The Italians have a word for it, you know. I could go on and on about this, but my family would probably shoot me, considering their hatred of all things Dexy. The greatest commercial suicide in the history of pop, is all I'll say.
The Flaming Lips — Fight Test / Do You Realize?
Okay, this is strictly cheating, but they're from the same album, after all. And they are connected, I think; Fight Test tells you that you're an idiot, while Do You Realize follows it up by pointing out that nothing lasts and everybody you know will die. I can normally only make it halfway through the latter song before I have to skip on to something else or start blubbing in the street. Enjoy!
New Order — Regret
There always has to be New Order. Well, I almost picked Electronic's Getting Away With It, so you can swap that one in if you want things to be a touch more Smiths-tinged. And I almost stumped for Joy Division so I could talk about how the synths on Love Will Tear Us Apart still sound unique - cold, stark, isolated, totally alone. But I didn't. I chose this. It's fairly jaunty at first, shot through with a quiet defiance. But then, just at the end, Barney has one of his lyrical flashes of genius, proving that when he's not mistaking major mistakes about the relative worth of honey, he can rival his ex-bandmate. "Just wait till tomorrow / I guess that's what they all say / Just before they fall apart". And like that, the song deflates, no more words to be said, just Regret writ large as Peter Hook plays us out.
(Let's hope Tony Wilson gets well soon, too)
Saturday Looks Good To Me — Typing
I am always a sucker for somewhat twee and sad songs. This is no exception, and always brings back memories of my last few Sunday walks around Chapel Hill before I left in 2003. The album it coems from, All Your Summer Songs is well worth tracking down, too.
Hope you're all having a good day! I am Mr. Heckles, and I'll be here all week!
(YSI link up later this evening, if you bear it)
Spiritualized's Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space. It's the only appropriate action, I think…
John Barrowman and Ruby Wax presenting the Red Carpet live before the BAFTA awards on E!.
It is just like you imagine. Jake Gyllenhaal telling Sir Ian McKellen how to deal with jellyfish stings, Helen Mirren holding her head in her hands after her interview with Ruby Wax, John asking random passers-by who they're wearing…you don't get this at the Oscars, do you?
Kieron talks about Chaos over at The Escapist. A game that swallowed up so many summer holidays, both days and nights, and two different groups of friends. The second group never seemed to accept the Gentlemen's Rule, though: that player-killing only begins after all the computer players are dead.
Oh, for a days of 'a stupid' King Cobra…
Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
Also, the movement to get Lauren back in the studio starts HERE! Or something. It's ten years since At The Club in 2007, which is a little depressing…
In EXCITING PRE-RELEASE ROUND-UP: New Low album is a bit of a disappointment, Arcade Fire is a little murky, but oooh, Electrelane…
In 1986, there was an easy way to show how cool you were; it revolved around the size, and the particular content of your Transformers collection. It was a complex affair; you needed to have the right balance of Mini-Autobots, Decepticon fighter jets, and mid-size Autobot vehicles. Bonus points were awarded for the gimmick-based robots that were beginning to appear (tripe-changers were good, but it needed to be an Autobot tripe-changer for proper Wreckers bragging rights). And everybody seemed to have Optimus Prime.
There were two main ways to get your collection declared the best. Firstly, if somehow (an uncle or aunt overseas, or plain dumb luck), you managed to get hold of a toy that was never officially on sale in Britain (e.g. Swoop, Reflector, the Deluxe Insecticons, I could go on, but you'd probably think less of me), your collection instantly rocketed up the list. However, the easiest way of making yourself king of the castle was Jetfire.
Jetfire was a little odd, as Transformers go. The toy didn't look anything like the character in the cartoon. By itself, that wasn't too weird; you only need to look at Ironhide and Ratchet to see how often the cartoon deviated from how the toys really looked (in most cases because the toy was hideous), but Jetfire was even given a different name: Skyfire. The reasons for this may never be fully known, but it was probably a legal hang-over from the creation of the Transformer toyline. For the first few years of Transformers, Hasbro/Takara took toys from various different Japanese lines (this is why many of the first toys have cockpits and seats, as they originally came with figures to sit inside them). Jetfire was originally a Valkyrie fighter from the Japanese anime series Macross and was made by Takara's main Japanese rival, Bandai. As Takara couldn't sell the Jetfire toy in Japan, they got the animation model and name changed to Skyfire. In the rest of the world, Hasbro sold Jetfire for a short time, before the distribution rights to the Valkyrie toy got increasingly murky.
But the real appeal was the toy. Now, the sad fact about the early years of Transformers is that most of the toys were rubbish. Giant lumps of metal that, if you were lucky, you could move the arms up and down. And perhaps to the side on very rare occasions. Jetfire, though, was different. Knee and elbow joints, full arm movement, and a moveable head made him the most posable Transformer toy until the advent of Beast Wars over ten years later. Plus, he came with clip-on armour to make him even cooler. All the kids wanted him.
I didn't have Jetfire when I was seven, although I bought him off my friend about eight years later when he wanted to get rid of his toys. However, when I turned eight, I discovered Smash Hits via one of my aunts (we had fights on the playground over the lyrics of Heaven Is A Place On Earth, for goodness sake. Belinda Carlisle would have been proud of us), so it didn't matter much really.
Recently, Hasbro launched a mini-line called Transformers: Classics. It's a small assortment of figures designed to keep fans happy until the film toys come out later in 2007, the idea being that they've used the toy technology of the 21st century to remake some of the original characters of the 1984 line. So yes, we get an Optimus Prime and a Megatron, but also new versions of Starscream, Mirage, Grimlock, Astrotrain, Hot Rod, Bumblebee, and…Jetfire.
The new version is quite impressive, merging the Macross and the cartoon versions of the character into one toy. It has the full range of movement of the original, includes armour (with movable booster rockets!), but the best bit is that it comes with a removable helmet, so you can choose whether you want the cartoon or the original face! Awesome. I'm off to be seven. Tomorrow, it's Tiffany and The Reynolds Girls. Consider yourselves warned…
