Rob – Page 104 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Talking Balls

Me, every single time I'm confronted with a football.

In 2006, I made my position absolutely clear about the World Cup. I wasn’t interested. I was aggressively uninterested. I actually walked away from a couple of conversations when they started to vector in towards discussions of Beckham’s metatarsals. I posted a big sign on the door of my suite at work, a long screed in florid prose. I considered myself the geek equivalent of Martin Luther, birthing a new and radical third way through my protest.

The end result was pretty much what you’d expect. People thought that I’d either flipped out, or that this was the first sign of a new anti-football policy at the lab. My sign seemed a little too official for it’s own good. I was approached by several colleagues, concerned that this was the thin edge of a wedge that would cut internet privileges and outside phone calls. I tried to explain that this was my way of protesting about the pervasive nature of the game, and the way it just got into everything. I was told to get a grip, find a spine and stop whining. This was for one month every four years, after all.

My arguments withered on dry ground. I gave up, took down my sign, and in a gesture of goodwill donated a pound to the office sweepstakes. Taking myself down a peg. A little monetary sacrifice.

I drew Italy, and won £50.

A lesser person would have crowed and flaunted this, celebrating the victory of the geek over the footy-loving majority. But I’d made enough of an arsehole of myself by then. I quietly donated the cash to Sport Relief, and walked away from the whole experience, treating it as a lesson learnt. I had been a passive-aggressive jerk, and I got what I deserved.

Consequently, I’m staying quiet this year. I nod and smile at the work conversations on the state of the teams before gently steering them back towards a subject in which I have an opinion. I embrace the cheap beer and grub offers, and remember to stay away from the pubs with the big screen tellys (actually, this is a rule of thumb that works well at all times of year for me).

The World Cup becomes a month-long retreat for people like me. It’s a time to catch up on your reading, on those DVDs you always meant to watch but are still on the shelf in their cellophane. It’s a time to write, to think, to keep the telly off. The choices offered by the mainstream media seem to be either the footie or the chick-flick/reality show equivalent. I do not identify as a World Cup Widow, I’m afraid.

That’s fine, though. I’m happy to be ignored. It just gives me more time to watch, and think, and write.

Coming up: football, fandom and why sports geeks are still geeks.

Fight The Sleep, But Not The Dream

There are some bands who I will never miss whenever they play the UK. It becomes something of a duty. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Some of the bands I really love have become so huge that they will only play either tiny fan club gigs that only the message board fanatic has a chance of getting into, or bloated ugly stadium gigs. Which explains how I missed REM’s appearances last year. Glastonbury? No, thanks.

Crowded House still manage to get the balance right. They’re doing Hyde Park later this summer, supporting Thumbs-Aloft McCartney, but are ramping up for that enormo-gig with a romp through the sort of comfortably sized venues that really suit their approach to the material and the fan base.

To Oxford, then, and the charming New Theatre. TLC and I had seen the Finn Brothers here a few years back, and missed the encore to catch the last train. This time round, we drove. Well, TLC drove. I enjoyed the ride. We didn’t want to miss a minute of this one.

Support came from Connan Mockasin, a quirky New Zealander with a blonde mop (mirrored cutely by his band, which included Neil’s youngest son Elroy, all wearing Deirdre Barlow wigs), a Strat cut down to look like a Vox Teardrop and a great line in angular surrealist psych-pop. It was a brave choice of support, and could have gone down like a cup of cold sick. I’m reminded of Goldfrapp in full horse-headed dancer mode opening for Duran Duran on their last stadium tour, a move that lead to much consternation amidst the Lambrini brigade that had come along for nostalgia and ended up with songs about sex on ghost trains. But Connan’s wit and charm, as well as the skill of everyone concerned in switching between squalls and whoops of noise and locked-in motorik groove, won the day. I recommend checking out Forever Dolphin Love if nothing else.

Crowded House are on a roll at the moment. Neil Finn reformed the band in 2006 with the clear intention of writing and playing new songs. This is no greatest hits package. They’re in the UK touring Intriguer, the second album of new material, and to my mind they’ve never sounded better. Even though Intriguer isn’t out till next week (clearly a fubar by the record company, and a bit of a sore subject for Neil, who made the point that you could buy the support act’s record at the merch stand, but not the headliners) the new songs have a warmth and instant familiarity to them. There’s no radical change in direction here, but thought and care has been taken to update the sound while hanging onto the hooks and harmonies that make you smile. Intriguer is full of songs that will sneak into your thoughts and curl up, purring gently.

Sure, with a back catalouge of such range and quality there’s going to be a lot of sing-along moments. That is kind of the point to a Crowdie gig. Calling it audience participation doesn’t really do the feeling justice. There’s a real sense of communication between the band and the room, and the moments of polka, the banter (what happened to the goose?) and the point where Neil had the whole audience humming a perfect E minor are par for the course. The balance of new to familiar material was perfectly judged, and even the oldies were played around with enough to keep them interesting without doing the Dylan thing of rendering them unrecognisable. But the most important thing about a Crowded House gig is a sense of community, of communion. I know fans of any band will say the same, but I can’t think of any big names connecting with an audience in the same way that Crowded House manage so effortlessly. An audience united in a love of songs set in a private universe where dreams and reality blur and merge, and where sex is a primary, almost religious force.

We drove back from Oxford through dark and winding roads, voices hoarse from an evening of hollering along with some of our favourite songs. The skies ahead of us glowed, matching our contentment.

Crowded House are touring the UK through June. The new album Intriguer is out on June 11th, and is available for preorder now through all the usual outlets. Go get.

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten About You

Busy week, is all. Tell you what, let me tell you a little story.

A guy saves up a small fortune to fulfill his girlfriend’s desire to go on a long cruise. The day before they’re supposed to set sail, she tells him that she’s been cheating on him for the last six months and it’s over between them and she’s moving out.

Well, figures the guy, the tickets are non-refundable. Even though I hate cruises, I might as well go, maybe I’ll meet someone.

About three days into the cruise, the vessel strikes a piece of giant coral which somehow knocks a hole in the hull. Everyone drowns but the guy, who manages to wash ashore on a deserted island.

Months go by. Day by day he learns more about the island: what to eat, which plants are poisonous and which plants are useful, when the best time to catch the fish is, etc. He spends his evenings on the beach watching the sunset, and if it’s an ultimately lonely life, he feels like, for the first time ever, he’s been given the opportunity for honest self-reflection, and he finds that somewhat rewarding.

One night, as he’s watching the sun set, he sees a ship in the distance. Using the tools he’s constructed while on the island, he fires off a flare. As the boat comes closer he starts to think about how much he’s changed in his time alone, and how difficult it might be to return to society. As all this goes through his head, the boat strikes the same piece of giant coral that his own boat struck so many months ago. Every passenger drowns, except one who washes ashore on the island.

Amazingly, it’s Scarlett Johannsen.

She’s beat up as hell, but the guy already knows all the healing properties of the fauna on the island. Slowly but steadily he nurses her back to health, until she’s fully recovered. As the months go by, nature takes its course, and they become intimate with each other. The first flush of new love is so strong that they often talk about how lucky they are to be all alone in this beautiful remote paradise.

One night, as they’re sitting by fire, finishing dinner, the guy looks up at Scarlett, somewhat sheepishly.

“Red,” he says, “I’m going to ask you to do something for me. It’s very important to me, but I understand if it might make you feel strange or uncomfortable and you don’t want to do it.”

“Are you kidding?” she responds. “You saved my life. Everything I’ve done since I’ve been here has been completely of my own volition. I love the life we’ve built together. There’s nothing you could ask me that I’d say no to.”

The guy pulls out a fake moustache he’s fashioned from palm fronds and the fur of one of the island’s rodents.

“Could you every now and then put this moustache on?” he asks shyly.

Scarlett’s a little apprehensive, but after everything she’s just said, she feels like she owes it to him. She takes it and sticks it on her upper lip.

“One other thing,” says the guy.

“Okay…” says Scarlett.

“Could I every now and then call you Dave?”

Now she’s starting to get a little freaked out, but it’s just the two of them on the island, and what’s she going to do? She grudgingly nods.

The guy lets out a huge sigh of satisfaction, and looks straight at her.

“Dave,” he says, “you’re not gonna believe who I’m fucking.”

via Alex Balk, who did all the heavy lifting. Normal service will be resumed yaddayaddayadda.

Lack of (Euro)Vision

After last night’s debacle, I was going to post a long rant about what the UK is doing wrong with Eurovision, and how we can fix it. And then I dug back through my archives, and found a post I wrote back in 2008 which addresses the self same points.

Apart from the names, nothing has changed. We don’t bloody learn, do we?

Here’s the post in question.

25 Minutes

Another in my series of short-short films about – well, whatever I’m doing at the time. This one focusses on that strange, fuzzy mood that descends on the train trip home after a long day at work. Sometimes, that journey can seem to take no time at all. Flashes of sunlight punctuate the time. Moments blur into each other. I drop into a fugue state, and the world spins past the train window.

I did the soundtrack for this too. I wouldn’t say I wrote it. It formed itself out of a similar fog of unfocussed activity, and took about an hour in Garageband. Overmodulation is my FRIEND.

PoPcorn

I have a review of Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time up at MovieBrit, in which I am not entirely complimentary. Not at all complimentary, in fact. As WDW, who runs the site, is a massive Gyllenhaalic, it’s good of her to run it uncut (although she couldn’t resist the temptation to adorn it with lots of pics of the man with his shirt off. I guess that’s what you call editorial input). Anyhow, go read. It’s one of your five-a-day of snark, bile, angst, over-reaction and humbug.

The fun starts here.

More fun here – a reminder of why Prince of Persia was the most frustrating game I’ve ever played!

Padded Out

the wonders of nature.jpg — Rampaging elephants couldn't tear me away from this article on how technology is disssociating us from the wonders of nature.

The time has finally arrived. This Friday, the 28th, the iPad will finally be on sale in the UK. I can already, with a sinking heart, report some of the things that will happen on that day.

There will be photos in all the papers of Steve Jobs holding up the iPad in his keynote at the Macworld conference back in January. You will recognise this photo, as it’s the only one the papers have been using to illustrate news about the device since its announcement.

There will be a sad and slightly droopy queue of obsessives outside the Apple Store in Regent Street, who just have to be there to pick up the iPads they preordered, rather then have the devices FedExed to their front door like a normal person.

There will be live-blogging. Dear gods, there will be live-blogging. Each and every one of these will include the phrase “The queue is starting to move. No, wait, false alarm.”

These people will be interviewed by BBC Breakfast. They will look slightly desperate, and a little crazy. They will be condescended at by an over-styled moron who has to get his eight-year-old daughter to sync his iPod. There will be an in-studio interview with an advocate like Rory Cellan-Jones, or Hugo Rifkind of the Times, who will gush like a perfumed faucet about the device. The phrase “game-changing” will be used to excess. This will be followed for balance by a spokesman from Sony, whining that it’s really just a big iPod Touch.

The queuers will be applauded by Apple staff when they finally pick up their iPads. They will feel the urge to hold their newly-purchased devices above their heads as if it’s the World Cup. They will look a little desperate, and slightly crazy.

Any coffee shops with wifi in the immediate area around Regent Street will be absolutely fucking unbearable until about 4PM, when purchasers get bored with the novelty of reading the Times or watching Star Trek on their new toys and go home to irritate their partners instead. There will be much discussion of the on-screen keyboard, and everyone will be insanely jealous of the smug git in the corner with the venti macchiato who splurged on the keyboard dock. He will merrily spend the afternoon whooping it up on Twitter instead of doing any actual writing.

Meanwhile, those of us in the know will be patiently waiting for June the 8th, and the moment at WWDC when Steve Jobs digs in his pocket.

A Dreddful Observation

I have a certain hind-brain, illogical attraction to the new Renault Megane. No idea where it came from. I hadn’t been a fan of the marque since they did that weird thing with the boot that turned it into a shelf, and ran advertising that claimed that made it sexy. To my mind butt-heavy is good, but not in cars.

But there was something about the Megane that gave me pause. And it’s only today that I’ve sussed what that something might be.

Behold, the front end of the Megane.

Aaaand…

I am SUCH a fanboy.

Zen Gardening

The last time I bought a video camera was in 1999. It was to document our first trip to America, a two centre run round Boston and New York. It was an amazing trip, and one that I won’t forget any time soon. New York in those edgy, pre-millenial days was some place to be, and the red moon I captured rising over 666 Broadway seemed to sum up the weird feeling perfectly. I’d promised that I would cut those shots down to a short film in time for the New Year. Needless to say, those tapes are still in my store at home, untouched in ten years. It’s always going to be a thing to do when I have more time. And don’t get me started about the Australia footage that’s sitting in boxes beside it.

I love that camera. It’s a Sony MiniDV, and it cost us a fortune at the time – getting on for a grand. I blanch at the thought of spending that much dosh even now. But it’s earned it’s keep. It’s been to the States, Oz, Africa and Europe, and still gets used as a back-up camera for interview shoots. It’s small enough to tuck unobtrusively into a corner, and works brilliantly for cutaways and closeups. It’s got a decent lens and a good optical zoom. And the big battery I bought for it still gives nearly 4 hours recording time. And of course, plugged into the Mac it still does the business as a transfer dock for the Super 8 transfers I get done for films like Code Grey and the upcoming Time Out.

But of course it’s been ten years. So I’ve been humming and harring about getting a new camera. Clare’s Panasonic shoots HD video, and that’s fine, but it’s not MY camera. And much as I believe in the “what’s yours is mine” ethos, there are some boundaries that it’s uncomfortable to cross. I don’t touch her laptop, for example. It would be like going through her knicker drawer. There needs to be some respect for privacy. The Panny is hers, and she’s doing great work with it. And video is my field, after all.

I have therefore been mooning around Currys and Comet, eyeing up the camcorders, astonished by the drop in size and price. £350 would seem to get a hand-filling, sexy little number with a decent hard drive that would stow in a bag nicely.

But at the same time… they’re still consumer machines. And I’ve had my head turned by Dom’s lovely Sony cam, a professional piece of kit that he uses for paid gigs. If I ever needed it, he would let me borrow it without question. So really, I have no need of another video camera. The arguments go round and in my head, distilling down to the simple phrase, “Don’t need. WANT.”

Then I came across an Amazon link for the Kodak Zx1, an example of the “good enough” school of basic pick up and play vidcams that have none of the frills or functionality that I was used to. But it shoots HD video to an SD card, runs off a couple of rechargable AA batteries, has stills capability, and is small enough to go in a pocket. It’s the same size as my first-gen iPod. It was on sale.

£50.

Readership, I bought one. I very nearly bought two.

The picture quality is redonkulously good for something of this form factor. It’s fixed lens is sharp and clear. It won’t do macro, and barely has a zoom worth talking about, but so what? It’s the complete opposite to the kind of thing I wanted, and all the better for it. It will be used this summer for a short film mixing HD video and Super 8, and in the meantime for filmlets and squibs that I can shoot, cut and upload while an idea’s still fresh. I’m excited all over again.

Here’s the first fruit of my labours. Clare wanted documentary proof that I’d done the mowing on a day off. So that’s what I did.

Companion Piece

I loves me a bit of old school Doctor Who on a weekend morning, especially when Tom Baker lurches on screen and gives me that classic wide, wild-eyed grin. I watched a few stories back to back recently, cherry-picked from different points in the run, and something struck me (TLC, persuading me to do the hoovering, but that’s another story). In each, the companions served a specific and carefully maintained position. Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela, Adric, Tegan and Nyssa were on the show to ask questions and get themselves into trouble. Maybe hold up a hatch while the Doctor went at whatever was inside with the old sonic screwdriver. That was pretty much it.

Compare and contrast this with the companions in the new shiny version. Frequently the show will be about these characters. We will find out about their home life and their love life. We’ll meet their family. If you’re Martha Jones, you’ll get your own theme tune.

More importantly, they are on an equal footing with the Doctor. They will become part of the solution to the problem of the week. They can no longer be seen as bumblers or screamers. Sometimes, they will save the day after the Doctor has given up. Rose Tyler, I’m looking at you and your bonding with the Tardis here.

And then there’s the sex. The days when the Doctor would have entirely chaste relationships with the ever-changing panoply of pultrichude that swanned through the Tardis control room are long gone. He either falls for his companion, or the companion falls for him, hard. Martha’s unrequited pash for the Doctor became a defining part of her time on the show.

Image the offspring of a union between Karen and Conan O'Brien. — Oh, you lanky ginger sexpot.

So let’s look at Amy Pond. A girl who grew up with an image of the man in the box that gradually twisted and mutated, developing a crush which turned into – something else. I have no idea exactly what it is Amy feels for the Doctor, but it sure as hell ain’t healthy. In the new series, Bow-Tie Doctor (I’m sorry, but the easiest way to refer to them is by costume. Long Scarf Doctor. Dandy Doctor. Cricketing Doctor. Which makes Christopher Eccleston Leather Doctor, and there’s an image that’ll be with me for days) has to struggle with a companion that has developed some very strange ideas about the nature of love. Dropping everything to run away the day before your wedding with a figure you built childhood shrines to is not normal behaviour.

The love triangle that’s emerged as Amy’s fiancee Rory has joined the crew brings Doctor Who closer to soap opera than it’s ever been. The most recent episode, Amy’s Choice, in which she’s forced to choose between which of “her boys” survives is genuinely new territory for telly Who, and it’s telling that no punches are pulled in the acting or writing. The villainous Dream Lord is played by Toby Jones, one of the finest actors of our generation. It’s written by Simon Nye, a new name to Who but an enormously respected name in the industry, and a man who can track the path of the dysfunctional heart with more sytle and aplomb than most. This is hardly the Doctor Who of memory and archive.

You can track this change in direction to Doctor Who’s most interesting period – that 15 year chunk when there was no televised Who at all. The franchise lived on in audio dramas and books, and explored new and strange directions, unencumbered by budgetary constraints or duff special effects. The lives of the supporting cast could be explored at whim. The main players in TV Who nowadays, Russell T, current show-runner Steven Moffat and writers like Paul Cornell all come out of this explosion in creativity, and their influence is clear. It was a time of tacitly endorsed fanfic, with all the strangeness and charm that comes out of that arena. These were new stories told by writers that had no agenda other than a love of the show, and a wish to see it done right. And of course, the sexual tension that’s now a part of the show is a big feature of the fanfic scene.

While I’m on the subject of sex and Who, I found the whole furore about Amy Pond being a “sexed-up companion” to be Daily Fail over-reaction. Not only was Moffat veeery careful with the definition of Amy’s day job – kissagram, not strippergram – but there was an almost deliberate blindness to the fact that feamle companions have always been eye candy in the show. Consider Louise Jameson in her torn chamois leather. Peri Brown in her bikini. Wendy Padbury in the skin-tight sparkly catsuit. THAT picture of Katy Manning. Something for the dads, although that ignores the fact that boys of a certain age would also discover that funny feeling in their tummy while watching supposedly innoculous Saturday afternoon telly. I know I did.

The companions are key to the success of the new Doctor, not just because they are avatars for the watching audience. Their role has changed, and they are now interesting and involving characters with their own motivations and needs. You would never see Sarah Jane Smith throwing herself at the Doctor the way that Amy does, largely because she was never written to be anything more than the standard bit of fluff. I never really thought the episode where she and Rose bumped up against each other rang true, because I never really saw her having those kind of feelings for the Doctor. Or indeed any real feelings whatsoever. The focus of the show was simply not on her. She screamed, asked questions, and got loomed at by a tall bloke in spray-painted bubblewrap. That was it. Curiously, it’s only in her starring role in kid’s show The Sarah Jane Adventures that she comes across as a grown-up with feelings and responsibilities. Once again, the show-runners of Who always understood that you could sneak adult stuff into kids shows as long as you were ever so slightly subtle. Look at Moffat’s Press Gang – to my mind still one of the best TV shows out there. No-one could ever accuse that show of lazy writing or characterisation.

Doctor Who has expanded it’s remit. It’s a central part of the BBC schedules, which is exceedingly sweet to fans like me who could always see the charm in the wonky sets and air of slight silliness, and could enjoy the stories and writing. The fact that Who is now so very writer-driven, despite the Mill’s endearingly cheap special effects, is the reason it’s doing so well. It’s never been a cold show, and wears it’s faith in humanity boldly and without irony. By turning the focus a little away from the ancient alien in the blue box, and towards the boys and girls who share his life however briefly, that faith and warmth have only become more obvious.

But you do have to wonder about what’s going on with The Doctor and Captain Jack…