Original Pirate Material: DocoBanksy at the Portobello Film Festival

“What do you mean, I have to introduce the film?”

Here we are, in my front room. DocoBanksy, calmly sipping on a cup of my finest espresso. Next to him, Lady Dem, his soulmate, muse and sounding board. She looks at me sympathetically, but she knows the score as well as I. What Doco wants, Doco gets. It turns out Doco doesn’t want to introduce his own damn film at the opening night of the Portobello Film Festival. Which can only mean one thing.

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Learn To Love Again: The Foo Fighters and The Reading Festival 2012

It’s the end of the 2012 Reading Festival. Past midnight, after an epic 2-and-a-half hour show by the Foo Fighters that was one of the finest gigs I had ever seen. We (for the purposes of clarity, we are TLC, DocoDom, new chum Groovy Geoff and yr. humble author) are backstage, sipping cocktails and hanging with the band.

An old Talking Heads song passes unbidden through my head as Geoff jumps up to get a picture with Dave Grohl and Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs. I ask myself; well, how did I get here?

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Reading The Signs At The Reading Festival

The August Bank Holiday weekend offers up an almost unrivalled set of distractions and attractions for the discerning punter, and always presents yr. humble writer with something of a dilemma. London offers both the UK’s biggest free festival, the Notting Hill Carnival, and the country’s largest gathering of horror fans, Frightfest (more on this from our embedded correspondents on the ground, fear fans). 

And then there’s the Reading and Leeds Festival, the climax of the music, mud and over-priced lager season. For the first time in three years, X&HT will be on site. 

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The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome

This weekend is one of the most important in the horror calendar. The August Bank Holiday is home to Frightfest, the five-day smorgasbord of shivers, the feast of fear, the cornucopia of chills that sits at the bleeding heart of London’s Leicester Square.  

Frightfest the 13th is bigger than ever, with nearly 100 films spread over five days and three screens. So the question is, how by all the nether gods do you navigate all that? What’s your gameplan, pilgrim?

Fret not, fear fan. There is a way.

Continue reading The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome

The Death Of The Dandy

It was sad, but not really surprising, to read about DC Thomson’s decision to finally shutter The Dandy. It must have been a decision that the normally pragmatic Scottish publisher was putting off, knowing just how unpopular it would be. Was it coincidental that the announcement came out the day after the end of the Olympics, when everyone was still in hangover mode? No, I like to think they chose their moment well.

The sad thing is, of course, that with the exception of a small core of comics nerds and nostalgists, it’s unlikely anyone really cared. As for The Dandy’s target audience–the ugly truth is that they moved on years ago.

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Our Revels Now Are Ended: Considerations on The Olympic Games

The Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics is still nine hours away, and I’m already starting to feel tearful. I have surprised myself by the wholehearted way I’ve embraced these Games. The TV has barely been away from the Olympic channels, and TLC and I have been glued to the BBC’s outstanding coverage. That is, when we haven’t been out watching events. What the hell’s happened to me? I don’t like sport. I’ve never liked sport. And yet, here I am, feeling emotional about the fact that it’s coming to a close.

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Happy Families: X&HT Saw Splice

Coincidence fascinates me. I mean, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. It’s clearly just my brain mapping meaning and pattern onto unrelated events. But it’s still fun when it happens.

As a serial procrastinator, it’s taken me the best part of six months to get engineers out to look at the stuttery HD playback on our plusbox. When I finally did so, it took less than five minutes to sort, and I was left with a more open schedule for my day than I’d planned. So, I had a bit of a browse on our newly sprightly V+ feed, and found a block of free movies, including one I’d missed on its limited UK release–Vincenzo Natali’s bio-sci-horror Splice.

The coincidence kicked in as the credits rolled and I realise that the film starred Sarah Polley, director of the most excellent Take This Waltz that I raved about earlier in the week. The two films could not be more different. Take This Waltz is a delicate, precise parody of chick flick clichés. Splice is… Well, it’s bugshit crazy, in a very good way indeed.

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This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz

In a lot of ways, romantic fiction is all about making excuses for infidelity. There are no end of stories out there that feature a main character trapped in a loveless marriage, only to be swept off her feet and out of the door by a dashing hero archetype. The spineless schlub of a husband shrugs, smiles and lets her go, content to let the caged bird fly. She's a free spirit and she deserves more than he can offer because… because she's the heroine, OK?

Sarah Polley's amazing new film Take This Waltz applies an overdue stress-test to the cliches, with a simplicity and honesty that's rare in the chick-flick world.

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A Golden Day: X&HT Went To The Olympic Time Trials

Sometimes, you just get lucky. Fate, which so often conspires against you, shifts the balance in your favour. Just for a little while. As long as you’re aware of it, then fate can give you a moment that you will treasure for a very long time.

Yesterday, fate put me close enough to the legendary Bradley Wiggins to feel the slipstream as he rocketed past. And that was just one part of an amazing, dizzying day.

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