Not funny.

I thought I’d post a quick little list of things/shows/movies/people that are unquestionably not funny in the slightest. This list is definitive and not open for debate (although I’m sure someone will pipe in with their two pennies worth). Soon, I’ll post the opposite list comprising of things that unquestionably are funny.

• Little Britain.
• Martin Lawrence comedies involving him dressing up, going back in time or being a cop.
• Jim Davidson.
• Bernard Manning.
• Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown.
• Swearing pensioners
• Cats/Dogs in clothes
• Me.
• The sit-com starring, Ardal O’ Hanlon – “My Hero”.
• Heroin.
• That fucker from the Halifax commercials.
• Scary Movie 1-4 and any of its affiliates.
• Reese Witherspoon.
• Jethro.
• Homoerotic recreations of Transformers episodes.
• Jesus (too droll).
• Period Pain – don’t make jokes about it; they’re not well received.
• Jihad
• This list.

Thanks for the time you’ve taken to view this post. Feel free to pop a few of your own on the list.

Solaris.

Wow, I really do appear to have been bitten by the devilish bug of writing once again. Two posts in the same day? That’s preposterous!

This entry is going to focus on the Steven Soderbergh flick, Solaris. 

The space-station orbiting Solaris.

I’ve never had the pleasure of watching the original movie, or reading the novel from which the remake has taken its inspiration and the former of the two is certainly something I intend to rectify as the original is widely regarded as a classic of science fiction up there with the greats such as Alien or 2001.  

However, I really love this version.

The premise centres on a mysterious planet named Solaris that transforms the deepest desires, fears and fantasies of man into reality. The ever-dependable, George Clooney – of whom I’m an unabashed fan – plays Dr. Chris Kelvin, a psychologist sent to board a lonely, deserted space-station orbiting Solaris having received a message asking him to come from an old friend.  The crew members on board are experiencing a host of strange phenomena including resurrections of people from their past. Klein is charged with the task of rescuing the mission and returning the crew home.

The plot itself is hardly convoluted and difficult to follow.

The real joy I got from the movie is the subtle, still way in which it’s filmed. I love cinema that’s engaging and visual. I’ve always been a fan of Soderbergh’s direction, but amongst his plethora of excellent work, it’s always been Solaris more so than any other I’ve enjoyed.  I just find it to be utterly beautiful to look at. It may not be the most visually arresting piece of cinema made, or the most well-received or revered, but for me it has a quality to it that I find visceral and haunting, yet am unable to quite put my finger on for a definition.  

I also enjoyed Clooney’s subtle, nuanced performance in the lead role. The part could easily have been ham-fisted and over-blown in another, less capable actor’s hands. Clooney conveys the perfect amount of emotion and inner-angst as a man whose shut himself of from all of mankind following the suicide of his wife.. His performance is helped further by quality support from Natasha McElhone, Jeremy Davies and Viola Davis.

Solaris is one of those films that I find I can watch from beginning to end a limitless amount of times and always enjoy.

Troubled times at the Emirates.

I haven’t written anything about football in quite a long while. The emblem on the sidebar of my page shows you where my allegiances lie, I’m a Gooner.

Fabregas sums things up perfectly.

I’ve always had faith in Arsene Wenger and our (that’s always sounded funny to me; using ‘our’ or ‘us’ to describe a team as if supporting them gives me some right of ownership and unity with all the other supporters.) policy of promoting young talent.  

That faith is currently being severely tested.

A week ago we had all our frailties exposed. Manchester United didn’t just beat us; they did so without ever really being involved in a contest. The single-most glaring exposure I took from that game is how flimsy and lightweight our players appear. Back in the glory days of 2004 we had a central midfield comprising of Gilberto and Patrick Vieira; two imposing figures that couldn’t be bullied off the ball and gave as good as they got. Today we have Denilson, Alex Song and Cesc Fabregas. No one could deny that Fabregas is a mercurial talent and would walk into most teams across Europe, but an imposing figure he is not. He needs to have a bit of protection and he doesn’t get it. It’s a damning incitement to the midfield of any team with title aspirations when someone as thoroughly mediocre as Darren Fletcher is able to boss the midfield.  Denilson regularly flatters to deceive in midfield and his selection over Aaron Ramsey – a player with real desire and talent – in Abou Diaby’s absence is a constant source of bemusement.  Alex Song is actually greatly improved and he has become more affective in the holding role. Is he good enough to sustain his performances in that position across a season and against the big guns? That’s a point very open to debate.

Thomas Vermaelen - money well spent.

Defensively we regularly appear at sixes and sevens. On paper, our back four is pretty good, but with the exception of Thomas Vermaelen, none of them appear to know the basics and are all blessed with a propensity for calamitous blunders – Clichy and Sagna especially have gone off the boil. While Gallas is a good defender, he appears more concerned with trying to be a centre forward most of the time. The 4 of them just don’t add up to a good defensive unit at present. If you couple that with the lack of protection coming from midfield and problems begin to arise.

It’s just so frustrating to see us not spend a bit of money and invest in some established players. We are not short of a bob or two by all accounts, yet our only business in the January window was the recruitment of another 16 year old with ‘potential’ and a former player well past his prime. We don’t need to go the Manchester City route and spend vast, over-the-top amounts on above average players, but surely we can get in some real quality. We need a new keeper – I’m sure I’m not the only Gooner to have no faith in both our No. 1 and his understudy – , we need a ball-winning defensive midfielde, a rock of a centre back to play alongside Vermaelen (the one excellent signing we have made) and we need a new striker.  Our attacking options are first-class; Arshavin, van Persie, Diaby,  Rosicky, Nasri, Fabregas, Walcott, Bendtner and Eduardo are all good options but without the suitable players to mix into the side we will continue to be left exposed.

Today we travel to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea and the questionable morals of their captain. Even with a cloud of infidelity hanging over the club, Chelsea will start as favourites to win and justifiably so. We certainly have the potential and ability in our team to beat them, but we can’t rely upon our footballing ability alone, because if we become embroiled in a physical battle then we’ll be in grave danger of being well and out of the title race. I hope to see us select both Abou Diaby and Nicklas Bendtner to give us a bit of power and strength.

It’s fair to say, however, that I’m not 100% optimistic about our chances given Didier Drogba’s record for tearing us to pieces.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping.

#Place interesting title here#

Ahgggh. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!

Writer’s block is a real pain in the arse. (Blathering dickhead’s block is the more accurate term. ‘Writer’ is a bit of a stretch)

Ordinarily, when it comes to the stuff that I write, I just spew out the first things that come into my head about whatever may be on my mind at that particular moment. Whether it is serious or asinine; I’ve never really had any problems getting it out onto the page. Up until now, that is.

So I’ve decided to (yet again) make a little deviation in the content of my blog. It’ll be the same thing essentially, but more of a diary type of affair.

I’ve noticed this week that some people find attributes in others they don’t possess themselves as very threatening. I think that my use of words and vocabulary is something my colleagues and peers pass off as faux-erudite or pretentious because it threatens them. I use words because I adore them, I will look up in the dictionary the moment I hear a word that I don’t know the meaning of so I can familiarise with it and use it myself. My heroes have always been well-spoken and articulate; Russell Brand, Kevin Smith, Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard to name but a few. I believe that it’s in people’s nature to gravitate to performers and artists with whom they draw similarities to themselves.  I don’t pretend to be considered in the same brackets as any of the aforementioned celebrities, but I do see elements of my own personality in them. They’re my heroes because I can relate to them, even if that’s in the smallest way.

I use vocabulary because it’s how I speak. Yes, I will use it to my advantage in the heat of debate in order to belittle anyone I’m arguing with, but on the whole it’s just who I am. It’s always been a source of aggravation when I get accused of ‘copying’. I aspire to being as brilliant with words as Russell Brand; because that’s the reason I like him. I don’t want to be him. I don’t try to use his humour and eloquence and pass it off as my own. I try to learn from him. That’s what makes him a hero of mine.

Some people just need to deflect like that. They don’t like anyone appearing better than themselves because they have the ability to do something that they do not. It’s idiotic. There are plenty of people I know and consider friends that are quite simply better than I am at a lot of things. My best friend, Chris for example is far superior to me at maths. I’m totally numerically inept where he has an innate ability for it. This doesn’t threaten me; it just means he is more adept at something.  He’s knowledge of food and the catering industry is also far more comprehensive than mine. The people I’m referring to would, in my position as his second in command/proxy, feel compelled to constantly dig at whatever he does in order to project the image of themselves being either superior or on an equal par. I just try to learn something from him, even if I spend most of my time mocking him and being childish because he is my friend doesn’t mean I don’t fully respect that his ability is far advanced than my own. If quizzed, I’d be the first to admit that.

Intelligence and ability has always been something I consider subjective. People possess a wide variety of abilities and impressive traits.  We’re all intelligent in our own way, and we all are idiotic in the same manner. I think that accepting that is the best way to appreciate what you are good at and focus on it. After all, treating life as a competition is futile, as they’ll always be someone better than you at some point, regardless of how good you might be.

Meetings.

“Too many chiefs, not enough indians”.

There’s a saying that’s the perfect summation of my work place.

Today was one of those days interupted by the interminable predictability of fucking meetings. Luckily enough for me I’m not high enough in the chain of command to be forced into attending, but being in the position I am it means that I’m left to pick up the slack. That I don’t mind – it’s par for the course – what I do mind is the fact that meetings where I work consist of the same thing; – people of a bloated sense of self-importance sit around and blather endlessly about minor irritations and petty squabbles and absolutely fuck all gets done about solving problems of any relevance.

It’s just so damn frustrating

Now, I’m sure that anyone reading may think I’m getting above my station and should perhaps pipe down a little and do as I’m told. To those people I say: fuck you, fuck you sideways. It’s in my nature to suffer with maladies and one of those is an incredible disdain for authority and management as the greatest appear simply as sinecures to me.  I utterly loathe the extents indolence breeds within the company I work. I do not pretend I’m the shining light of professionalism as I’m more concerned with thoughts of writing and my new lady friend than I am anything work related – I’m a bit of a day dreamer and I’m lazy too. What I’m not however is dishonest and false. I’m find myself surrounded by people who hide behind status and use power to disguise the frailties of their performance. The real work gets done by the menial force and the supervisory element takes all the kudos in success and pass the buck immediately when an error occurs.  To be a manager where I works requires an innate ability to bullshit your way through with fantastical notions you don’t have the ability to carry out if you shared the front line with the people beneath you.

I guess this is just the way of the world as the old adage goes, but I’m not much for the way of the world myself.

2010

Hello everyone and a happy new year to you all.

I know, I know – making an extraordinarily belated gesture of good will some 18 days into the new year may seem a pointless thing for me to do, but it’s much better to arrive late than not at all, isn’t it? There are reasons aplenty for my prolonged absence and I won’t bore you into an early grave with any of those, but you can all rest assured that I’m not only here to stay this time, but I return with a new sense of vigour.

So what does 2010 hold? Well hopefully many exciting elements. I’ve decided that I shouldn’t hold back with my writing. I do have a very peculiar train of thought for the most part – anyone who knows me in person will regail you with tales of my opprobrious and surreal sense of humour – but most of all, I want to but a lot more effort into writing, because I love it. Bristol has a competition for a short story that I’m going to have a go at entering and I’ll be actively pursuing get something I write published (That may require a little more editorial tinkering on my part).

That’s the basics…

With baited breath you should await what is to come…

Road Rage

Ordinarily, I’m a fairly placid and laid-back kind of guy.

However there is an instance that occurs very rarely and when it does my normally calm persona takes a drastic turn for the worse and I explode into mindless fury. That instance is ‘road rage’.

I looked exactly like this..

What follows is pretty much verbatim of what came out of my mouth during an altercation with an incredibly annoying fat man who apparently had singled me out to show just how bad a driver he was. After being cut-up 3 times and tail-gated this was my reaction when we stopped at the lights together:

Hey you, HEY!! Where the fuck did you learn to drive? Are you fucking retarded and unable to learn something as simple as common courtesy? Look at me you fat greasy fuck! What’s the rush?, are you late for another of your anti-molestation meetings? STOP FUCKING CUTTING ME UP AND FLASHING YOUR LIGHTS!!! OKAY??

The guys face was one of absolute shock. Before he had a chance to reply the lights had turned green and we both shot off in our own separate directions.  I was half satisfied and the other half totally shocked at myself and glad that he didn’t get out of his executive fuck-mobile and beat me to a pulp and leave me in the boot with the murdered hookers.

When I got to my destination I turned off the engine and had a little chuckle to myself. I felt I had struck a blow for the simple, common man in the eternal struggle against fat, annoying, pin-stripe motherfuckers who assume to world spins on its axis for them, and them alone.

The Watcher – Part 2.

People are fucking strange.

There are times I feel myself slipping into a cauldron of misanthropy as I constantly encounter attributes, traits or idiosyncracies in people I find irritating or down-right bizarre. These moments appear from time to time and I dispel them the same way: – we’re all human, and with that comes an almost insatiable thirst for making stupid mistakes and peculiar behaviour.

That I don’t have a problem with in the slightest. To believe that another person possesses only the most virtuous characteristics would be akin to thinking that it would be possible for all of mankind to live in harmony. Nothing exits without its opposite. The thing I do find irksome is falsity.

I know quite a considerable amount of people who live there lives wearing a constant veneer almost as if projecting a warped and idealistic image upon others will enable them to belive that it’s their true nature themselves. Now, we all want a little bit of recognition from others, it’s in our nature, but I don’t personally understand why one would go about obtaining such a thing by what is essentially a pantomime. You can pretend you’re something you’re not until you turn blue in the face, people will see through it eventually. Failings and issues of personality don’t equate to weakness. It means that you’re a human being and as far as I’m concerned it takes a far stronger character to admit to these failings and embrace them. Accept you have weakness and you can appreciate your strengths.

I don’t intend for any of my posts to sound as if I preaching myself as the one voice of sanity amidst a world gone completely bat-shit, as I’m as fucked up and idiotic as the rest of you. I just like to pour out the farrago of thoughts that bombard my mind and get them down in print for the vain hope of them making a little sense.

I always say that when the chips are down, people will show you who they really are. Through a few drops of adversity into the melting pot of life and you’ll see people’s inner-most truths come right out. World War 2 showed us the potential of human spirit and togetherness in much the same way the September 11th attacks did. They also showed us the kind of mindless violence and extremism human beings are capable of – and I don’t just mean the people the history books will recall as the villainous ones. People are capable of bad and good – I prefer to think of things in that way as opposed to placing people in either category. It’s merely a case of the extents they will go in either of the two.

Wow, I’m actually getting a little deep and philosophical, aren’t I? I almost feel compelled to making some sort of inane, stupid remark in order to balance the equation before the universe blinks out of existence.

They’ll be plenty more of those to come.

I guess the best way to summarise what I’m saying that the key to happiness is accepting that you have no power over what you are. You just are what you are, my friends.

The Watcher.

Things just ain’t the same fo Gangsta’s…….

Okay, I’m not Dr. Dre but I thought it was a humorous way to start things. The real purpose behind the posts title – other than my woeful attempt at a hip-hop tie-in and the hilarity that ensues – is to write about the things I observe from simply watching.

Let’s take things that happen in the movies.

Recently I watched the acclaimed, ‘Closer’. In the film there is a scene with Julia Roberts taking some photos of failed writer, Jude Law. The pair casually flirt and I assume that they are not that well-known to one another. Jude Law then utters the line ‘Come here’ and of course the delightful Ms. Roberts saunters over and they engage in some mild petting. This got me to thinking what the outcome would be were I to try the same thing in my personal life. I’m fairly certain that it would involve the phrase ‘fuck off’ and a generous dose of pepper spray and/or a kick into the jewels. Movies constantly provide us with scenarios that we would just love to be true, and even though in our hearts we know that it isn’t likely, it remains a welcome distraction we chose to believe in because it represents a version of how things could be. Make it would work if I tried it in a charming, ironic kind of way.

I would say that personally I’m something of an aloof character. Watching others over the years have really made me appreciate myself. A lot of people have lamented the way I am. I regularly get called immature, wasteful or irresponsible and I’d be the first to admit that those are all true. However, I don’t any longer view myself against what I call ‘The Invisible Standard’. This is a set criteria for what people should do, and they things they should accomplish that’s drummed into people.. It’s also something I loathe. I’d rather be a happy fuck-up than a miserable success.  Besides, I judge success in life only on happiness. Anything else, whether it be monetary, career based or perception, is simply just extraneous as far as I’m concerned. A lot of people I know live their lives solely by how what they accomplish will be perceived by their peers. Why? It’s so fucking pointless to me. A friend of mine recently told me that a girl he knows once told him “I’ve never done anything without people telling me I should first”.

That is comfortably the single-most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that watching people out there scramble for the things they feel they should covet seems futile and ill-advised. I like my life, I like being me and I like not really knowing why I do things or for what reason. I just enjoy the fun of doing them I like to live in my own dream world because, like the movies, it’s my own version of the way I’d like things to be.

Christmas Madness.

Christmas in the Catering industry is fucking bedlam.

Ordinarily my working life does take up a lot of my time – due the the nature of the unsocianle hours and duration required – but the moment you hit December all and sundry start showing up for their office/workplace parties and make my life a royal pain in the arse. The last few weeks have been unusually busy and hectic. I’ve found myself working 16 hours a day and whilst I appreciate the overtime pay, I lose the time I put aside to enjoy my little hobbies.

Blogging unfortunatley has been paramount amongst those affected.

That’s the explanations aside. Tomorrow I’ll post something substantial, but first I’m off to read around the sites I enjoy.