In the catacombs that spread like cancer beneath the big house at the bottom of The Mall, the lizards stir. They are by nature nocturnal, but have trained themselves to emulate the primates they have learned to impersonate so convincingly. Night hunts are saved for very special occasions. After sunset tonight, the lizards will be at their dreadful sport in the streets of London, celebrating their final, long-sought victory.
Author: Rob
Writer. Film-maker. Cartoonist. Cook. Lover.
The Fursday Foto: First Stage Ignition
This is The Shard, a gigantic new building going up in South London that will dwarf just about everything else in the capital. Seeing it for the first time was a bit of a shock, as to my eyes the thing looks like a giant Soviet booster rocket going up in plain sight. As if the Soyuz program had relocated in space and time to sunny Southwark.
As if a Bond villain had hidden his doomsday weapon in plain sight, and one day it would flower open with a bass-drone of hydraulics to reveal a laser weapon or warhead.
Our architecture correspondent Rich Betts writes about The Shard on his website – and comes up with another comparison that I hadn’t seen.
AV: Excuses And Half Truths Sez Yes
It’s time to put my cards on the table, to put up or shut up, to stick my money where my mouth is. It’s time to make a stand, stake my claim, state my position.
Yeah, the headline kind of gave it away, but with just over a week to go, it’s time to add my voice to the debate, and explain why X&HT supports the Alternative Vote.
Five Horror Films You’ll Never See In A Horror Festival
An interesting discussion on the Frightfest forums about the nature of the genre – and more specifically, when is a horror film not a horror film – led me into a bit of a muse last night. Frightfest was one of the first venues in the country to show The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. A strange but somehow logical place to show a film about a woman-hating serial killer. The curators have frequently shown movies that stretch the bounds of what you or I would call horror.
Which films, I thought, would be out of bounds to most horror festivals? I’ve come up with a list of five films that I reckon really wouldn’t fit the bill. You might not agree, but that’s part of the exercise. I’d love to know if you think I’m wrong, or which films you’d put on instead.
Continue reading Five Horror Films You’ll Never See In A Horror Festival
Dyngus Day
Easter Monday. Traditionally in England, the last day of a four day jolly-off-work, in which people can no longer stand being indoors with their relatives and rush to the shops for a dose of that old-tyme retail therapy.
In Poland and some other Central European countries, it’s called Dyngus Day. It’s a commingling of Christian tradition with other, more ancient pagan rites, especially relating to fertility. Think for a minute about the eggs and rabbit imagery plastered all over our Easter celebrations. This time of year is about birth and growth – and the happy funtime activities involved in getting that process started.
Dyngus Day seems to have that idea a little mixed up, though. Traditionally, it mashes up aspects of purification and baptism – the splashing of water, scouring with reeds – with a courting ritual. Therefore, on Dyngus day, young male Poles and Czechs sneak into the bedroom of the girl they wish to wed, sling buckets of water over her, and thrash her about the legs with reeds. Often with the parents’ consent. Throughout the day, girls find themselves targets of soakings and reed-beatings. To be spared this fate labels a young woman as unmarryable or unattractive. I wish I was making this up.
Imagine trying this on someone you have your heart set on. How well do you think it would work? I’m pleased to note that in these enlightened times the practice has become co-ed, and girls will attack their paramours with equal viciousness. Somehow, though, I can’t see a bucket of water to the face and a thrashing taking over from a nice Hotel Chocolat egg any time soon. Or maybe I’m just an old softy.
The Sunday Lao Tzu: Worship
I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.
For a large proportion of the world’s population, today is a day of special significance, of worship and celebration. For many, it’s an excuse to eat chocolate. For everyone else, it’s just another day. I, like master Lao, choose not to ally myself to any deity or higher ruling power (prayers to the Gods of the London Orbital for safe passage not withstanding). This makes me no more or less right than those of you who will be in church today, or facing east, or lighting insence.
Faith is an essential part of the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, and it would be churlish of me to sneer at them for their beliefs. If worship gives your life structure, a sense of significance and meaning, then so be it. Religion can give explanation, community, and comfort. I fully understand that. All I would ask is that you treat my worldset with the same respect. It’s an unfortunate fact that the simple inability of one religious group to respect the bounds and traditions of another has caused more strife and bloodshed then any other factor in the history of conflict on our angry little planet. That should not be the case.
The right to choose how you worship should never be subject to another’s opprobrium. If you choose not to be bound to any particular god, that too is a choice that is yours, yours alone, and one that should be universally respected. We live in a world too filled with wonders to be bogged down in petty disputes over liturgy, ritual or methods of prayer.
However you’re spending this glorious April day, may your gods be with you.
Free Fallin’ – Spotify And The End Of The Free Era
Spotify changed my life. I listen to more music now, from a wider range of artists than at any other point in my life. Everything from brand new releases to obscure back catalogue jazz and spookytronica, Norwegian death metal to Arvo Part. I even use it to play my iTunes library – the clean, simple interface is quicker to load and easier to use than Apple’s own bloated monster. I’m not alone. Over a million people across Europe use the service. It’s a serious alternative to piracy, and one that puts a pay-to-play model in place that is of direct (if, as some would have it, limited) benefit to the artists.
But clearly, Spotify need to expand. America is the place to be for this expansion, and in order to do that Spotify needs to play nice with the big American labels. This is always a bad move. The big American labels think nice is a type of biscuit. Compromises have had to be made, and Spotify have ended up honking off a significant chunk of their core audience – the listeners that use Spotify Free, the ad-supported service.
Continue reading Free Fallin’ – Spotify And The End Of The Free Era
The Wednesday Foto: The Power
Round the back of Carnaby Street in the swingingest part of London. The secret power source of all things groovy. If it’s ever unplugged, we’ll be back to trad jazz and spam fritters for tea before you can say Alma Cogan.
A Sort Of Anniversary, I Suppose
I don’t know what drew me back to Blogger last night. I changed this place over to WordPress in 2007, pulling over most of the archive over in the process, and have had little cause for complaint. I barely even consider the early years. Nonetheless, I logged in, to find a surprise.
According to the Dashboard, I joined Blogger back in April 2001. Which makes this my tenth year of writing and publishing online. Good grief.
The problem is, I have no way of proving it. In a dick move that I could only ever pull on myself, The Ugly Truth is open to invited readers only. I am not on that select list. I’ve somehow managed to lock myself out of my own blog.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that I joined Blogger and began writing straight away. I have vague recollections of a couple of false starts, vague entreaties of impressive future content followed by months of silence. The Ugly Truth (named after a Matthew Sweet song, not the godawful Katherine Heigl/Gerard Butler romcom) was my first serious attempt at a blog, and was closer to a Tumblr than the polished new-content machine you enjoy today. There were a lot of links, and the occasional stab at something heartfelt. It was intermittently updated at best, and no different to a thousand other sites out there. It was, of all things, a post by Warren Ellis on the need for original content that inspired me to ditch that approach and, once Blogger no longer suited my needs, the move to WordPress under a new name.
I have no record of any of this. The earliest post in my archives dates to December 2004, which means my early attempts are lost to the aether. I’m content in this. It’s no great loss to the world of blogs.
But the Blogger years were a start, and they led me here. I think all I can say with any certainty is that April 2011 marks the ten-year anniversary of my intention to blog. And that’s got to be worth something. I suppose. Hasn’t it?
Fodderblog: The Stuff Of Life
I couldn’t do the Atkins Diet (or, as it’s being rehashed for a new era, the Caveman Diet). I’d be miserable in a day, and off it in two. There’s one simple reason for that. I love my carbs too much.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 