tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2009-11-09:/Yes, I know, I know: it's supposed to be 'hear me roar', not 'here me roar'. Thanks for all the lovely tags telling me just that. But, you know, I'm roaring right here, so here me roar...MokoFeed2009-11-09T01:26:58+01:00tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2007-01-22:/2007/01/22/you_gotta_keep_the_devil_way_down_in_the~1597661/mikeyboy2007-01-22T01:56:22+01:002007-01-22T01:56:22+01:00 <p>So, back at Castle Anderson, and never a better time for an extended metaphor. </p> <p>London is fast receding in the rearview mirror as I drive inexorably toward that vast horizon: the future, and all the bounteous joys it doubtless holds. I am on cruise control. In fact, I am being chauffeur driven. I am reclining in the passenger seat, my feet on the dashboard, and I've got my MP3 player plugged into the hi-fi using an adaptor I found at the market for a fiver. I'm listening to the first two minutes of lots of very good songs. A few friends are asleep in the back and there's a wodge of twenty pound notes in the glove compartment, along with a bottle of whiskey and a bag of Cheese and Onion McCoys with lots of bits of flavour collected between the ridges. We stop to pick up a hitcher. It's Billie Piper. She turns out to be a complete bitch so we kick her out at the next exit, while the car is still in motion. My friends laugh and go back to sleep. The adaptor breaks, and the crisps turn out to be a multipack bag, 15g lighter than I had first thought. No ice for the whiskey. My chauffeur has started telling bad jokes, and we're running low on petrol.</p> <p>I kinda lost control over it after the cruise control bit, but you get the general idea. Or maybe you don't. I've just re-read it and I don't really get it, and it's supposed to be my metaphor. Hmmmm. As far as I can work out it fits together like this: my MP3 player is all my wordly possessions, my adaptor is the useful but basically quite cheap part of me that allows me to define myself by them, Billie is the unattainable, idealised femme, the chauffeur is my id, and the whiskey is booze and drugs. My friends are my friends, and I'm 99% sure that the crisps are crisps.</p> <p>That sorts that out, then.</p> <p>(My adaptor isn't really broken by the way, I really love all my things.)<br> (No I don't, I hate them.)<br> (No, I love them.)<br> (No, I hate them.)</p> <p>Join me next time when I climb the hill of great expectation to drink from the well of unfulfilled potential. And then roll back down the hill laughing.</p> <p><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/061/1116061_3c30341c34_m.jpg" alt="Me laughing on my way down the hill" vspace="5" hspace="5"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2007/01/22/you_gotta_keep_the_devil_way_down_in_the~1597661/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-30:/2006/09/30/~1174813/mikeyboy2006-09-30T15:06:33+02:002006-09-30T15:06:33+02:00 <p>I just don't really feel the need to post anymore. Like I said back in the beginning, this is a diary, and diaries (of mine at least) rarely live beyond a 6 to 8 month lifespan.... basically, until whatever prompted my starting the diary has disappeared, been solved, stopped causing me transcribable grief or pleasure. I started this thing with the last year of uni hanging over me, all manner of issues to be resolved.... not that I can think of any now, mind. Maybe I should go back and check..... but, y'know, uni is finished, and this would surely be the point where I put the diary under my bed and forget about it for a year or so.</p> <p>I reckon over the course of the next year or so I will feel like getting on here and writing again - if I do my masters next year then I could effectively write some sort of sequel, I don't know. But until January at least I am going to be a bit of a pleb with nothing much to write about, and little time or desire to do so anyhow. I don't want to use my blog to write about how fucking menial day-to-day working life is... not yet, anyway. </p> <p>So this is goodbye, dear diary, for the time being at least.</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=856074"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/074/856074_ceb1443d33_m.jpg" alt="Plastics...." title="Plastics...." vspace="5" hspace="5"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/30/~1174813/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-18:/2006/09/18/grand_slam_sunday~1137322/mikeyboy2006-09-18T15:15:04+02:002006-09-18T15:15:04+02:00 <p>... or that's what Sky insisted on calling it - the Sports News channel wouldn't shut up about it all week. The clash of the titans! North vs South x 2! Championship deciders in September! Etc etc...</p> <p>I made it through work without finding out any of the scores, which I was pretty proud of. Then headed straight over to K/H/R's flat for a cracking Sunday roast of three courses: Hawys's justifiably famed tomato soup; lots of gorgeous roast vegetables and stuffing and gravy you could drink and chicken and everything; and the crumbliest crumble I've ever had. Absolutely lovely meal, and hit the spot perfectly after a weekend on my feet cleaning up after kids and their shithead parents. But, despite its magnificance, 'twas but the preamble to the evening's main course: Match of the Day 2.</p> <p>Hansen in the studio with Chiles, always a good sight - and while Alan's "A Beautiful Mind" quip was painfully preordained (acting as a cunning advert for BBC1), he showed Lee up as the painted-eyebrows amateur he is. And the football! Well, neither of the big matches were amazing - but two results I wanted, so not really complaining. Arsenal played very very well (because, as Joel and Hansen pointed out, they were allowed to) although it looked as though they were going to really miss Henry before the excellent Fabregas played in Adebeyor. And it was Ronaldo's fault too, the bell-end. </p> <p>Then Didier Drogba scored the best goal I've ever seen him score - no contest, really, it really was a brilliant finish - to win the next match 1-0 to Chelski. Ballack sent off! Apparently for the first time in his career... I thought he was something of a bad-boy? Guess not. Anyway Jose wasn't too pissed off because he knows this means he doesn't have to fit Ballack and Lampard into his team for the next three league games, and can give the team some WIDTH again as a result - which will no doubt help.</p> <p>Oh shit look at the time. I am meant to be at the bus stop soon to go to the cinema with Katie. But first, Blackburn's David Bentley as you've never seen him before:</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=828306"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/306/828306_05d8439ca5_s.jpg" alt="David Bentley" title="David Bentley" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=828307"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/307/828307_ceb1d3e6a3_s.jpg" alt="The Earl of Essex" title="The Earl of Essex" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Yes, I always said he belonged in a ruff, and now I've finally taken the two minutes out of my life to make it clear. I can rest easy tonight. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/18/grand_slam_sunday~1137322/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-13:/2006/09/13/don_t_let_the_bedbugs_bite~1122888/mikeyboy2006-09-13T17:14:54+02:002006-09-13T17:14:54+02:00 <p>Been a good week, I reckon. </p> <p>Baz - me old mucker from high school - came down to visit from Liverpool from Saturday until today, so when I wasn't at work then we were invariably in the pub or a park or playing Pro Evo and catching up. It was really good to see him, it had been a while, and he was on good form. Monday was my day off, and also a day of glorious weather here in the capital, a day which saw summer kicking and screaming on its way out of the door... so we headed to Hampstead Heath with Joel and Rory and took a dip in the pond. Fucking cold, and no one had the bollocks to properly undertake a diving-board dive, but great fun - sitting in a ring in a pond and relaxing in the sun, it felt like anywhere but the middle of a huge city. And that was a good thing.</p> <p>Back to the pub in Stokey last night for the pub quiz again - this time Film and Entertainment. Hopes high, we raced through the opening photo round with a flawless score.... and 'twas all downhill from there. We just scraped into the prize rankings, winning a Fosters t-shirt to split five ways. Not exactly 90 quid but once again, you know, taking part that counts, as long as we had fun along the way, etc etc. </p> <p>Also managed to keep an eye on the Liverpool game out of the corner of my eye - what the hell was Rafa thinking, leaving Gerrard out? Chelsea on Sunday? That's not til Sunday! He's a professional footballer for fuck's sake, he can play twice in six days! Mental decision. Pennant looked alright but Fabio Aurelio looks a bit pish. I've been sticking up for Benitez against Joel's anti-Liverpool diatribes but maybe he really doesn't know what he's doing. Pepe Reina throwing the ball onto Johnson's head on Saturday didn't help... their newfound defensive foibles are purely grounded in the fact that Reina is in my fantasy football team and is thus not allowed to keep a clean sheet before I substitute him.</p> <p>Going to apply for a few jobs from the Media section this week but my heart's not really in it. Dunno why. Borders remains alright, but I am beginning to think that the fact that time goes quickly should not be the best thing about a job. Which, um, it is - except for the attendant 5-a-side matches, of course. Last week was great fun, although I almost vomited all over the pitch. Tonight I aim to pace myself a bit more so I can still be running around after 15 whole minutes have elapsed.</p> <p>Oh yeah and one more thing. On Monday night, for the first time in ages and ages, I was unable to sleep a single second of the night. I was on an early shift on Tuesday morning so went to bed at around midnight - I'd had neither drink nor spliff, and was ready for a good long sleep. </p> <p>So. </p> <p>My watch beeped for 1am, and I thought "hmmmmm". </p> <p>Soon afterwards it beeped for 2am, and I thought "shit I need some sleep". </p> <p>Then it beeped for 3am and I got really angry with myself for essentially forgetting how to fall asleep - I really did not know how to do it, and started working out what the transition is like. Is it just awake and then sleep, or what? On certain occasions when I'm really tired but can't let myself fall asleep for whatever reason - at work, on a bus, whatever - I can consciously feel my mind begin to wander from my own train of thought and into something else, before I do a classic dropping-off-on-public-transport full-body spasm (did anyone see? have I drooled all over myself again?) and am fully awake. On Monday night not once did I experience this! For fuck's sake. </p> <p>So - 3am, I was angry, but it started really pissing it down. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, I thought - I can fall asleep to the rain. Instead, I lay in bed listening to rain, tossing and turning, until I heard Dan get up and have a bath. Then my alarm went off and it was one of the most horrible sounds I've ever heard - even worse than when I'm actually asleep. Like a confirmation of failure, or something.</p> <p>Anyway, somehow I made it through yesterday at work and the pub, and slept like a baby through the night. Thank fuck. Off back to the flat now for a quick power-nap to recharge my batteries before footy later. Yes indeed. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/13/don_t_let_the_bedbugs_bite~1122888/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-07:/2006/09/07/how_many_u_s_states_does_lake_michigan_t~1105577/mikeyboy2006-09-07T17:04:16+02:002006-09-07T17:04:16+02:00 <p>I think I've hit my comfort zone at work before a full week has elapsed. Today was an early shift (half 7 - the morning was gorgeous, really clear and crisp - as, indeed, all mornings are when I happen to be up that early) and after the store opened at 9 I just zoned out, without really meaning too... stared at the carpet, at my bottle of water, at the Gruffalo. Just stared.</p> <p>However, I have made a colon-inducing deduction: time goes quicker at this job than at other full-time things I've had in the past. I mean, this afternoon really properly flew by - I finished lunch, and then suddenly I was going home. Weird. Like that bit in the Jerk where Steve Martin talks to his girlfriend while she lies asleep next to him. In fact, just thinking about that speech is making me giggle like a lunatic so I shall visit IMDB and copy and paste the whole thing for posterity. If you've seen the film then it should make you laugh. If not then, well, you should really see the film: it's freakin' funny.</p> <p>"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it."</p> <p>Gareth is back in Britain, and the country is a better place for it. He bravely fought the jet-lag on Tuesday as we traipsed around London (I making full use of my day off) - from Kentish Town to Leicester Square, a nice walk. We went to the Photographer's Gallery to check out the London Firefighter's exhibition and it was really good - check it out if you're down in the West End sometime. I'm basically a sucker for any old picture of London, really, and some of these were great - from the funny to the slightly disturbing. Also a few of the famous 7/7 photos as you enter, mainly from the guy who took a load on his phone... citizen journalism, etc. All duly noted. Apparently one of the major photos used was mediated by the BBC and newspapers to remove body and gore, which is plain stupid on their part. If you want a gore-less photo then choose one - no need to mess with one. Like photoshopping Kate Winslet's ass for that magazine that time (Vanity Fair? can't remember), only a bit more insulting, I think. Oh well.</p> <p>Then in the evening me and G and Joel and Katie went to a pub quiz up in Stoke Newington. I thought it was just film and entertainment when in fact it was general knowledge.... needless to say, it didn't go too well. In fact in my mind it's just a blur of wrong answers and minor arguments. Anyway, about four teams were called The Stingrays or something along those lines (pub quizzers are clearly tapped into the zeitgeist) and we all got a bit drunk so everything turned out alright. Then we continued the tradition of drinking Gareth's bottle of duty free whiskey on his first day back in the country. A good day, and an excellent day off for myself.</p> <p>Other than that..... just work, really. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/07/how_many_u_s_states_does_lake_michigan_t~1105577/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-04:/2006/09/04/lemon_juice_on_a_paper_cut~1097193/mikeyboy2006-09-04T20:14:41+02:002006-09-04T20:14:41+02:00 <p>Well, at last I have found something which truly pisses me off about my job at Borders: James fucking Morrison, one of the several albums on rotation. Twice a day, I hear that. Twice. A. Day.</p> <p>Music execs were clearly sitting around a penthouse doing copious amounts of cocaine, verbally masturbating and pontificating about the musical success stories of the past year, ever vigilant in their quest for the Next Big Thing. One name stood out above all else; a man with hit singles, a hit album and - gasp! - subsequent success in the uncrackable US market: James Blunt.<br> "What we need to do" said one filthy rich bigwig "is take the essential inherent blandness of Blunt's records and multiply it by itself; we need to create Blunt squared".<br> "Great idea" said another "I know this lad who knows how to play guitar and can sing in tune. And his name doesn't rhyme with cunt!"<br> "Get him in here yesterday."<br> [sniiifffff]</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=797676"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/676/797676_882f5f7a69_m.jpg" alt="Look out for him on Top of the.... oh." title="Look out for him on Top of the.... oh." vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>And thus, James Morrison came to be (pictured above).</p> <p>Truly, a singer so offensively, mind-numbingly bland that he makes James Blunt sound.... well, I was gonna say Marvin Gaye, but that ain't true. I'll settle with this: he makes James Blunt sound marginally more charismatic than he is - which I always thought was impossible. If this trend continues then by around 2009 the public will be buying music so bland that it technically doesn't exist, and this cannot be a good thing, either for the public or for the very fabric of reality.</p> <p>Morrison's album is called Undiscovered. Please, for God's sake, help it stay that way. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/04/lemon_juice_on_a_paper_cut~1097193/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-09-01:/2006/09/01/blogging_is_really_really_difficult~1089656/mikeyboy2006-09-01T20:54:20+02:002006-09-01T20:54:20+02:00 <p>......when you're also working a full-time job; this is the lesson I have learned this week. How the hell do so many of you people do it?! I've been finishing work this week at 7 and have been knackered. Just knackered. I s'pose not having t'internet at home doesn't help... but still. I can see that entries are going to become few and far between now. Perhaps this will lead to an upturn in the general quality? Or perhaps not. Probably not.</p> <p>As it is, I am truly knackered now and have got work tomorrow morning again. Borders is turning out ok, to be truthful. People are nice - and most of the time not nice in the Uniformly Nice So You'll Please Love Our Shop way, which is a bonus - and the banter is of a higher quality than I have been used to in previous retail jobs; always a crucial factor. I'm working in the kids section, although I haven't started because training doesn't finish til tomorrow - looking forward to it, kids are nice enough, and the other two members of the kids section both seem sound as a dollarpound. Also, the boss has let me book my holiday to Wales at the end of September, and there's a weekly 5-a-side, so it all seems good.... if a bit, I don't know, soulless. But maybe that will improve with time.</p> <p>I really want to go on about my weekend at Greenbelt, where I attended numerous seminars and discussions, both religious and non-religious. In fact the better talks were the latter, which appealed massively to the remnants of my lefty/liberal student values (which I suppose will be eroded by the day once ensconced in Borders's corporate bosom) - e.g. is Fairtrade really fair or is it now just a booster for brands? And some interesting talks on the death penalty worldwide, including an interview with a guy who was wrongly placed on Death Row from 1981 to 2004 - fucking insane, man. He escaped in 1985, almost by accident, but handed himself in after 25 days on the FBI most wanted list. And then went through another 19 years! Eventually new DNA technology led to a retrial and he was exonerated... but what a way to spend 23 years. He didn't seem too bitter which I find incredibly hard to believe. I'd be fucking livid, all the time...... but then I guess I can't say that til I've been there. Anyway, I digress: the weekend was great, just what I wanted/needed. I am now all stoked up in an altruistic kinda way and want to find Nice Helpful Things to do for people I don't know in the near future - be it weekly, or in the form of a big trip away somewhere. I dunno... at the moment I've got a lot of nice sentiments floating around my head, a vague desire to do something I'd call good, but it's in no way focused. Time will tell; hopefully this feeling won't just evaporate (see "corporate bosom").</p> <p>Football: Tevez and Mascherano - weeeeeeee-ird. Very very weird, even. Something fishy. Nothing fishy about Sibierski to Newcastle; that's just plain odd.</p> <p>Tennis: well, Henman did better against the Fed than he did at Wimbledon. Scant consolation, but, well, it's something....... Murray, meanwhile. What a guy! 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 - when Henman and Rusedski were in their pomp, I do not recollect them ever winning so comprehensively, be it in a slam or in some lesser event. Murray lost 7 points in the first set. Seven points! Wow, bloody hell. He's up against Fernando Gonzalez next, who if I remember correctly tends to hit the ball bloody hard - so I'd expect our Andy to use his sliced backhand a lot, slow the points down, hope Gonzalez fucks up... maybe come to the net and see how he is at passing. I'm sure Brad Gilbert has 101 clever things up his sleeve. Anyway, Gonzalez is seeded 10th and Murray only 17th, so this is technically as far as he's 'supposed' to progress. Not sure if that'll stop him, however, as he seems to be shit-hot at the moment. I never did place that fiver bet so if he wins the whole shebang I'm going to be crying through my joy.</p> <p>Right. I am tired and I want a PINT really badly. I have lagged recently in my correspondance with other people on here, sorry - I'll make amends soon. But not now. Now, I want a pint... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/09/01/blogging_is_really_really_difficult~1089656/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-25:/2006/08/25/bordering_on_the_insane~1068388/mikeyboy2006-08-25T13:42:26+02:002006-08-25T13:42:26+02:00 <p>Well I feel like I should write something mainly because I haven't done for a few days, and I won't be able to until Tuesday after this afternoon.</p> <p>My job situation has sorted itself out; the dust settled on several interviews, a few voicemail messages, and the odd rambling conversation/monologue with/to various friends, and I decided to take the job at Borders in Islington rather than the one at 6am every morning down at Waterloo. Convenience won out over some romanticised notion that wearing a fluorescent jacket and brandishing a walkie-talkie would be, like, <strong>totally real, man</strong> - an idea that probably would not have lasted beyond the first week of 5am alaram calls. So...... Borders it is. Books! People have told me that working in a bookshop is great, great fun. These people have, to a man, never worked in any such establishment, and on what evidence they base such deductions I have no idea. I am guessing that it's along the lines of "all you do is sit around and read books". Well, bollocks to that idea. This is Borders. The Starbucks of the book world. Do people working at Starbucks sit around and drink coffee all day? Do they bollocks. </p> <p>I am consoling myself with the fact that previous experiences on the shop floor have been relatively enjoyable, until I remember said experiences and realise that, in fact, they haven't been; Gap was one of the more depressing three months of my life, and Party Bizniz led to helium-induced headaches and far too many 'dust the stock-room' shifts, probably to stop me dressing up as Gladiator and talking to customers via an awful Russell Crowe impression. (Well, not that awful. But pretty bad.) (No, who am I kidding, it was shit.) (Really, really shit.)</p> <p>So...... that job starts on Tuesday. That freed up the rest of my week and my bank holiday weekend. I decided that my spiritual batteries have been empty for too long and that, to continue the metaphor, they need recharging. Luckily, Christian/liberal/spiritual types (I do not tick every box) are recharging en masse this weekend at Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham. Ah, Greenbelt. Unheard of music acts (often with one or two 'names', of the Polyphonic Spree or Lambchop variety) along with seminar upon seminar of either a Christian or non-denominational but decidedly left-wing theme, and all the usual festival stalls and eateries and tiny tea tents. Always a great weekend, and although it will not be the same this year as it was when I was a teenager and there were 25 of us camping together every year from the church youth group, it will still be an excellent place to relax and do very little, while occasionally getting all deep and meaningful. I am going with only one mate, but my mum will be around somewhere doing her volunteering thing, and I think other old friends will be around somewhere, a text message away...</p> <p>So, I have been in Worcester for a few days, desperately avoiding spending any money. I have been watching a lot of Sky TV, as is my wont on such journeys home. Quantum Leap has been of a high quality this week on ITV3. First of all there was the Lee Harvey Oswald two-parter; then the one where he's on the island with the heiress; and then yesterday the one with Jennifer Aniston in, where he is the Vietnam vet stuck in hospital having had his legs amputated. Around these episodes I have been watching the ever-endearing That 70's Show, which seems to be on about seven different Sky channels at various points of the day. For those of you with a passing interest in both Premiership strikers and That 70's Show/high-profile Hollywood relationships, here is a lookalike somewhat hindered by the lack of decent photos on googleimage; rest assured that they look alike. This has been bugging me for a while as no one agrees with me whenever I bring it up (possibly because I'm never with someone who knows who both of them are)</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=775421"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/421/775421_5fee2d3a68_s.jpg" alt="Manchester City striker Georgios Samaras" title="Manchester City striker Georgios Samaras" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=775422"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/422/775422_456a33875e_s.jpg" alt="And Mr Demi Moore" title="And Mr Demi Moore" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Yeah? Alright, no. Anyway.<br> And on top of QL and T70'sS, I've been watching old episodes of The Wonder Years. Yes, surrounded by all my old books and clothes and whatever, I've been immersed in three shows almost wholly predicated on nostalgia. With Quantum Leap and The Wonder Years it's effectively been nostalgia squared, since I've been nostalgising about watching the shows back in the early-90s, when I was first caught up in their misty-eyed nostalgia for simpler times... I see QL has recently made the leap to DVD and hope The Wonder Years follows suit sooner rather than later.</p> <p>Yesterday I went to see Snakes On A Plane. There has been so much written about this film all over t'internet that it is literally impossible for me to add anything new. It was pretty good. The best bit was, er, when the snakes first got on the plane and it's chaos for about ten minutes. Lots of snakes. Everywhere. Also saw a trailer for the new Jason Statham film, Clunk (or is it Clank? I can't remeber. It may be Crank actually) - I wish they'd drop the 'Jason' from his ads and just go with 'Statham'. Like 'Schwarzenegger' or 'Stallone', he just doesn't need a first name.</p> <p>Ok, when I start talking about Jason Statham it's time to go. I don't feel I've really done much here so I am going to paste in a link - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329561464-103390,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329561464-103390,00.html</a> - which is really quite funny, if you didn't happen to read the back of G2 this morning.</p> <p>Hope everyone enjoys the last bank holiday of the year. (Except for Boxing Day and Christmas but they don't count, do they? I don't think so.) </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/25/bordering_on_the_insane~1068388/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-19:/2006/08/19/the_best_sport_in_the_world~1051523/mikeyboy2006-08-19T10:50:55+02:002006-08-19T10:50:55+02:00 <p>Not much time. </p> <p>I just really wanted to convey my excitement at the start of the Premiership season today, and the concomitant return to our (well, my) Saturday evening schedule of Match of the Day. I am very, very excited. Almost unspeakably so. About as excited as I was for the beginning of the second series of Dr. Who - and, unless they've replaced Gary 'Eccleston' Lineker with Ray 'Tennant' Stubbs, my expectations of greatness are sure to be realised. (Possibly unfair on Tennant, that. At least I didn't say Mark Pougatch.) The pundit line-up will doubtless represent the BBC's strongest possible pairing to send out a message of intent for the season ahead... this will propably be Hansen and Lawrenson, although maybe Mark's morose meanderings over the course of the summer will have seen him deposed by... er... no, it'll definitely be those two. Lee Dixon's stock dropped considerably after he couldn't name the capital of Germany while reporting there for the World Cup, O'Neill teases us all with his greatness every two years but will never be a permanent fixture, Ian Wright is a one-trick pony... that said, I look forward to seeing the return of Lee Sharpe and, hopefully, Brad Friedel on Match of the Day 2 - which will, after all, generally feature matches of a higher ilk than its Saturday counterpart.</p> <p>So: yes, I am excited excited excited. Like a wee lad on Christmas morning who knows exactly what he's getting from Santa and likes the sound of it very very much. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh roll on 10.30.</p> <p>My week of cinema-going to conserve money finished yesterday with the rather good A Scanner Darkly. Sadly I had Match of the Day-like expectations but it was hardly a bad film. Not one of Linklater's best. I find Robert Downey Jr almost unspeakably irritating although, as Joel said, that's probably the point. (But does that make it alright? Does it? Does it?) This week I've also seen Miami Vice, The Notorious Bettie Page (confused, although it looked great), Little Fish (relentless drab with a shit ending), Innocent Voices (good performance, great moments, but violently sentimental) and then A Scanner Darkly. I still have a list of things I wish to see and, since it saves me money, I expect a few more double-bills next week. Free films and football.... simple, simple pleasures. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/19/the_best_sport_in_the_world~1051523/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-16:/2006/08/16/wanted_dead_or_alive~1044730/mikeyboy2006-08-16T18:59:28+02:002006-08-16T18:59:28+02:00 <p>Murray vs the Fed: come on Murray! At least win a set, man - then I'll put a fiver on you for the US Open and you can win me a few weeks' rent.</p> <p>My Big Interview today, 2pm sharp down in Clapham, for a position as a customer services rep for Southwestern Trains or whatever that Waterloo company is called... Made it just in time, despite giving myself a half-hour cushion - the bus took freakin' ages, I read loads of The Corrections on the top deck of a 35. Alighted, and it promptly started chucking it down, so I arrived at the interview feeling both dry and smug (at having brought an umbrella despite it being sunny when I left the flat). It all went well, I filled in the forms, crossed the ts, dotted the lower case js, had a brief interview with a man with prematurely gray hair who insisted on using the word "dude" at least once or twice every sentence, to everyone in the room. 'Dude' this and 'dude' that. Like an uncle trying really hard. Bugged the hell out of me. Anyway, the interview bit went well and he said that I've Got The Job (not officially; I get the official call this week sometime).</p> <p>So, huzzah. However, soon after leaving I was called by Borders requesting an interview this weekend, which I duly granted. The customer services beins 6am in the morning if I want to have any part of my day free, which is a bit shit - and Borders is just down the road. It really looks like I'm prepared to be paid £1.25-ish less per hour in order to have a much smaller distance to travel, and to work sociable hours. Which, now I've written it down, makes perfect sense - especially as this isn't a long-term job search but merely a stop-gap until the end of September... so I figure I only stand to lose (or rather, not gain) about, er, £200. Hmmmmmmmmm. Would I pay £200 for six weeks of lie-ins and the odd night in the pub? Rhetorical, that.</p> <p>Ah, today my life of thriftiness drifted ever-so-close to a life of crime. First of all, my lurking on the bendy 149 paid dividends as I swiped my Oyster card just prior to a ticket inspector, visible through the door, boarding - saved myself a hefty fine there, and had a brief surge of adrelinaline, before receiving a few dirty looks from some rather pious 149 patrons (incidentally, it's officially the 7th most dangerous route in London). </p> <p>Then later on I transgressed consumer societal norms in a way I haven't since my brother and I got hammered in Munich and nicked a few postcards. Wandering central London listening to music, wondering whether or not to catch a film, and I waited a few moments by the Starbucks inside the Trocadero, idly flicking through some albums looking for a fresh soundtrack to my life. To my left stood the drinks counter, where green-aproned servants leave all finished drinks to be collected by the customer. No one was anywhere near said counter, and in the middle stood a large iced chocolate frappucino with oodles of whipped cream, net value maybe about 3 quid, looking all forlorn - in need of a friend, a consumer. I waited for about twenty seconds, and nobody came to collect it - no one was even looking at it - while the staff were busy doing whatever it is Starbucks staff do... so I settled on Saturday Looks Good To Me, picked the drink up and walked off quickly. More adrenaline! Aaaahhhhhh, the adrenaline was far more satisfying than the 149 evasion, and somewhat ironically far more satisfying the drink itself.</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=756343"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/343/756343_4c7758a289_s.jpg" alt="So inviting..." title="So inviting..." vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Now I see why whenever My Anonymous Kleptomaniac Friend steals something, he can't wait to tell people about it afterwards; it actually felt quite good, I briefly felt powerful - once my heart-rate had resumed normal speed, at least. My residual guilt is minimal to say the least (Starbucks can probably afford it) but, somehow, I feel a little... unclean. Like the bit in Home Alone where Macauley Culkin steals a toothbrush and walks home with his head bowed and spirits deflated. I think I like to paint a self-image of a guy who's pretty set in his values of right/wrong - e.g. stealing = wrong - and today I completely blew those away. I don't like blowing away pieces of my self-image when other people do it anyway. Luckily for me, my values are backed up by a relatively strong fear of being caught doing <em>anything</em> wrong (which I today just about circumvented by checking two or three times that the coast was as clear as day) and an even stronger fear of confrontations... so, that is my crime gene sated for another few years. (Um, except for the fare dodging.)</p> <p>In fact transcribing my wrong-doings make me feel stupid. I don't like feeling stupid. In fact I hate it. So, I am going to buy a few beers and relax by watching England's Bright New Dawn splutter towards a rather soggy mid-morning via a dull and dreary 0-0 draw. (Poor Dean Ashton.) </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/16/wanted_dead_or_alive~1044730/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-15:/2006/08/15/i_am_not_a_beautiful_and_unique_snowflak~1041073/mikeyboy2006-08-15T12:53:08+02:002006-08-15T12:53:08+02:00 <p>So, to continue from yesterday's meanderings with my job-hunting... The plan was simplicity in itself really, and a week's worth of exercise to boot. All I did was print out lots of CVs and march through Stoke Newington, down to Newington Green, on down Essex Road, hit Angel, turned around, back up Upper Street, all the way to Highbury and Islington tube, then back along that road with nice houses to the top of Essex Road again. Visited basically every pub, cinema and coffee shop, each time wandering in with a smile and a good first impression waiting to happen, asking as to the availability of any gainful employment... and being met, 98% of the time, with (often sympathetic) rejection. Shiiiiiit. </p> <p>I say 98%; the people at Borders insisted that a full-time job had recently become available and fairly snatched my CV from me, while at two Starbucks I was given an application form and told that yes, they were looking for people. Hurrah for Borders and Starbucks! Hurrah for global capitalism! This way, if and when I quit my job in a few months, it won't be the act of a petulant graduate who wants to go on holiday for a week, it will be the act of a vicious Tyler Durden-esque individual vainly railing against The Man. I tell you, oh yes, that if I end up at Starbucks, <em>don't buy the Orange Mocha Frappucino...!</em> That is, of course, bollocks: I can barely piss at urinals so fuck knows how I'd get on trying to contaminate a refreshingly fruit-based caffeinated beverage. No, I'd clearly be Ed Norton, eaten away by the system until I flip out and create an alter ego who is remarkably similar to me but with the restraining bolts taken off. (Note to self: ask Joel if he's real.)</p> <p>Anyway, yeah, that's the gist of the grist of job-hunting. I've just this second been on Gumtree and applied for a reading thing down at Tower Hill - night shifts, 7 on then 7 off, reading media and creating packs for clients. Something like that anyway. I've never worked nights, and I think in my mind I've romanticised it all a bit too much - fuck knows how or why - I think it's because it'd be like being a member of some kind of inverted everyday society. Yeah. I remember going to see Late Night Shopping at the cinema when I was in VIth form, and while in hindsight it probably wasn't that good (although James Lance was funny) it certainly made me think "I want to find some random friends and hang out in a 24-hour cafe for an hour every night". Is it easy to become a night-porter at a hospital? Maybe I should look for that instead. Or maybe I should simply not try to live my life quite so much through films.</p> <p>Borders and Starbucks would surround me with things which have made my life tick by of late: books and coffee. Finally I've started reading again, thank fuck, without having to force myself - going on holiday and the necessary six-hour drives with my parents kinda drove me to take cover behind Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years Of Solitude (at Vicky and Adam's behest)... and it's a fucking great book. Hard to keep track of all the characters, but I remember liking Aureliano Segundo the most - more than all the rest of the Buendias he seemed like a properly nice guy, and I liked that. It's brilliantly written, I like the way the chapters overlap and how the characters are all developed with hardly any dialogue. And when it all descends into a study of nostalgia as the book goes on... well, me and nostalgia are never too far away and I just loved it. Brilliant book. </p> <p>From that I read Goldfinger - I'd read some Bond short stories before (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, I think) but never a full-length novel. For some reason, despite having seen the film several times, I imagined Brosnan as Bond in my mind - is that a generational thing or my sub-conscious politely telling me that I think he's the best Bond? I dunno. Anyway, it's a good book but not great - runs out of steam far too early and is both misogynistic and homophobic in ways which now make me laugh, but, well, I'm pretty sure that's not the reaction Fleming was aiming for.... the gist of one theme seemed to be that all lesbians need is some 007 dick for them to be converted, and if they reject it then they die. Charming. Oh, and there are also two chapters devoted to a fucking golf match. Interminable. But other than those gripes - top quality holiday reading.</p> <p>Now I'm over half-way through Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The characters are great, I laugh out loud a fair amount because it's so cleverly written, and a lot of the longer paragraphs concern themselves with the relationship of objects and images and words... all very interesting stuff for me. It reminds me of White Noise quite a lot in the way it's written, but is either less prone to spells of pretension than DeLillo's, or is being read three years and a humanities degree after I read WN and so I no longer think the pretentious bits are pretentious. Probably that one. Anyway, it's a great book so far and, were I a Hollywood producer, I would snap up the rights, get it adapted, wave it under a few 40-something stars' noses and get the film out by the end of 2008. But.... it probably won't be as good as the book. Unlike Goldfinger. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/15/i_am_not_a_beautiful_and_unique_snowflak~1041073/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-14:/2006/08/14/it_does_mean_changing_the_bulb~1040009/mikeyboy2006-08-14T22:36:05+02:002006-08-14T22:38:47+02:00 <p>My God, it feels fucking great to be back on a good old qwerty keyboard again. Don't know what you've got til it's gone, etc. I am feeling thirsty and unattentive so I don't know where this is going. My guess is all over the place.</p> <p>France was a good laugh. The village we stayed in was a little place called La Garde Frenais, or something like that - near St Tropez and Cannes. Really pretty, great scenery (I shall endeavour to upload some photographs when my brother gives me my laptop back), international editions of the English papers, and camembert so cheap it made me want to fill a big black back with masses of the stuff to bring back with me. The obvious downside to such a nefarious scheme was that it would all have melted into one pongy, gooey, messy mass... but then I could have simply bought a baguette or three, and dipped, dipped til my stomach's content. Or just tipped it over my head and wallowed in an empty fountain somewhere. An orgy of camembert. I could even have used the word smorgasbord. But I didn't, and you'll not catch me paying 2 quid for a circle of the stuff in Sainsburys. (Ditto Yop. And decent wine. And Nutella.) </p> <p>Bizarrely, on my last (scheduled) night, last Wednesday, the quaint little town of a few thousand people was overrun by a portable rave in its town centre. Completely incongruous and a joy to behold... complete with foam machine, superstar DJ spinninb techno and electro, glo-sticks, crazy lights, and a few screens providing visuals in the form of a few pieces of ker-azy Euro-iconoclasm (the tower of Pisa... leaning too far!!! The Eiffel Tower... shooting off into space!! Beefeaters.... being fellated by the Queen!! - I made that one up of course, there were a fair few Brits around so it probably wouldn't have gone down too well. Pun as intended as ever.) Little kids ran amok, and emerged from 6-ft-deep oceans of foam with smiles on their faces and, presumably, their sense of direction completely screwed; teenagers got hammered and ran around with glo-sticks, wondering what the hell had happened to their town; and the village elders looked bemused by it all. Truly, a bizarre evening.</p> <p>Then on Thursday, with bags packed and coffee drunk, my dad happened upon News 24 and we saw all the hulabaloo regarding the terror alert, and the fact that Britain's new level was apparently 'CRITICAL'. (Which made me think cynically of Don DeLillo's SimuVac from White Noise, and 'Purple alert, purple alert' from some old Red Dwarf episode - I wanna say mauve....) Anyway, flight cancelled, and to cut a long story short I ended up flying from Marseille to Bristol on Saturday afternoon instead.... a day of delays. Good King Wenceslas: "Delay had fallen, delay on delay, delay on delay". Kind of.</p> <p>So, from Bristol I decided to nip over the channel (Bristol, not English) to Cardiff and spend a few days in the company of Ed and Bardell and their new house - they've not wasted any time in moving from Student Digs to Young, Upwardly Mobile Professional Accomodation. Apparently it costs less, too... Now all they need are the jobs to go with it. Great to see them both.</p> <p>We went to see Miami Vice last night, and had I walked straight from the cinema into a web page such as this then I had a ream of insightful analysis and pithy one-liners regarding Jamie Foxx... but, such is the nature of the film, all such cinematicity has disappeared from my head, leaving traces of well-formed opinion. I remember sporadic violence - impressive in a gritty, DV way, with muted gunshots and heavy breathing - but I also remember wishing that they'd just shown us the last hour and a half of Heat instead. I remember absolutely no character development - moreover, I remember not remembering any character development, so they really must not have done much. Colin Farrell gets a raw deal a lot of the time but he's not up to much here, especially since the last time I saw him he was unbe-fucking-lievable in The New World... apparently he finished the shoot and checked into rehab, and sure enough, he does have that Chandler-in-series-6 aura about him. </p> <p>Jamie Foxx, meanwhile... well, I could not successfully watch him without cracking up; the interviews he gave to promote his recent album, "Jamie Gonna Make Love To You Nice And Smooooth, Uh Huh Huh" portrayed a slick lurve-machine with nary modicum of self-awareness - he doubtless played "Jamie Gonne Make Love To You Nice And Smooooth, Uh Huh Huh" in his trailer on-set while romancing whichever Miami floozy he'd picked up that night. All this meant that seeing him just made see Jamie Foxx, writer and performer of drops of lyrical perfection as "...in silk Chanel sheets, and it feel good baby, she looked back at me and said "you so craaazy"<br> After that she played me, I asked her who's pussy is this? And she screamed out 'Jamie's'", or "I can feel the mist everytime we kissed,<br> just didn't know a downpour like this, There's a flash flood warning,<br> Till we wake up in the morning, There'll be puddles in the bed" (I am not making these up - click this link if you want more Foxx lyrics: <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/j/jamiefoxx.html">http://www.azlyrics.com/j/jamiefoxx.html</a> - they're consistently amusing.) - rather than Jamie Foxx, Oscar-winning actor and Hollywood megastar. Which, now I think about it, probably made me enjoy the film more - especially his sex scene. Was it Foxx playing Foxx? An essay waiting to happen.</p> <p>Mr. Foxx wasn't helped by some (intentionally?) cheesy scenes and soundtrack moments from Michael Mann. He plays the whole thing completely straight, which helps the film 80% of the time and hinders it the other 20. 80s revival without a hint of irony! Go get down with your bad pastel self.</p> <p>Good film. But not great.</p> <p>Football! Shit, there was the charity shield yesterday too - and I was in Cardiff, so walking around town I saw red shirt after red shirt after red shirt... but not a blue in sight. Was it because the M4 has been closed recently, or did the Chelski fans simply not give a shit? Hard to tell. No time to go into the match in any great detail, but I will say: Sissoko was good, and Essien was great, and Shevchenko is brilliant, and Gonzalez and Pennant looked fast if little else, and none of the Chelsea players seemed to know what they were doing after the first substitution. What formation were they playing at the end? Did anyone know? Did Mourinho know? Hmmmmmmmmmmm. So - maybe they won't win the league! here's hoping, anyway.</p> <p>All this bally-hoo, and I haven't even touched upon my job-searching today. So, to be continued. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/14/it_does_mean_changing_the_bulb~1040009/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-08-05:/2006/08/05/stupid_keyboqrds_qnd_nqrroa_minded_engli~1015957/mikeyboy2006-08-05T15:54:20+02:002006-08-05T15:55:08+02:00 <p>In Cannes. It has been a while since I have typed in a French internet cafe. It's a bit weird to be honest - you need to press shift to get a full stop or a number and several keys are simply in the wrong place. I am right and all of france is wrong seems the gist of how I'm feeling right now. The next paragraph shall be typed rapidly without pausing to look at the keys. Have fun translating, or just skip the whole thing if you prefer. I would. Here goes:</p> <p>Itùs been q good holidqy so fqr: The drive dozn fro, Pqris zqs greqt; ze successfully ,et ,y sister qt Lyon qnd explored the city the next dqy. Itùs nice but qlqs no sign of qny fqke footbqll tops; Finqlly qrrived qt the villq lqst night qfter q fez ,ore stops (one of which hqd ,e thinking: "Switchblqde Ro,qnce" becquse the fqrner looked q bit unhinged qt dinner) during zhich ti,e ,y French hqs grqduqlly i,proved. Still shit; ,ind;</p> <p>Christ that was painful to type. This whole thing is too stop-start and too da,n frustrating. My parents are driving slowly back from Italy where they have gone to collect Ben and George and Zak - apparently it's the first weekend of the Italian school holidays so all roads are rammed, looks like we're stranded in Cannes until late tonight. Back to the beach then - there are worse plqces to be stranded - where earlier I felt very much like a cross betzeen F Scott Fitzgerald and Alain Delon circa 1962 (...until I breathed out and then I moved a bit closer to Gerard Depardeiu.) Seriously this keyboard is a fucking nightmare, I've had enough. I only came on here to check the cocking cricket, too.... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/08/05/stupid_keyboqrds_qnd_nqrroa_minded_engli~1015957/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-31:/2006/07/31/pretentious_moi~1004007/mikeyboy2006-07-31T22:38:33+02:002006-07-31T22:39:39+02:00 <p>D'accord. J'ai pensé que je peut écrire en francais parce que j'y suis avec ma famille... but it's taken me five minutes to write that in all its mis-spelt, mis-conjugated, 'B'-at-AS-Level glory - plus the keyboard has insufficent accents, I only known how to do é or á... so I reckon I'll stick with good old English.</p> <p>Yep, France - to quote Alan Partridge, the "home of French people". I can confirm that this is indeed true, as myself, my mum and my pops are shacked up for a night with some old family friends just outside Paris. We're making our way down to some kind of villa down on the south coast, via Versailles tomorrow (where my A-Level history is sure to come flooding back - I remember the decentralisation of French government following some Parisian riots, and lots of mirrors) and Lyon where we have to pick up my sister and, I hope, a fake football top. We're meeting Ben, George and the lil' nephew Zak in the villa. All in all, it's a pretty comprehensive family gathering, and I'm looking forward to it. This four-day drive down through France, however, is being regarded from the back seat with headphones in and sunglasses on as much more of a means to an end...</p> <p>It's interesting to see my parents in different situations than I am accustomed to. Yesterday we stayed in Folkestone so that we could make our early tunnel thing this morning, at the house of Michael, an old school friend of my pops, and his wife Monica. Is that how I am going to be with my old school friends when I'm 63? Awkward silences galore, I tell you. I just hid behind a newspaper. </p> <p>Admittedly, pops and Michael's respective conditions are hardly conducive to flowing conversation. I'm sure I must have previously detailed in this blog my dad's MS-like condition which affects his motor skills quite badly, meaning he walks very slowly with the aid of two sticks and the occasional proffered arm, and speaks equally slowly at a low volume. Michael, meanwhile, has grown progressively deaf (this is beside the point, but he has also grown progressively bald, a condition he attempts to rectify with an Elvis impersonator-style toupé (that accent again) - my Dad's gone for the Zidane-eque dignified shaven pate. Respeck). This means that my dad will say something that Michael simply can't hear, and so a few loud "yes yes of course"s are thrown out there to hopefully bridge the gap between entirely unconnected subjects. I think my dad was trying hard not to laugh at some points. </p> <p>Lynn, meanwhile, was engaging Monica with the usual catch-up spiel - kids, houses, grandkids, jobs, etc - and occasionally looking longingly at the open window, clearly contemplating the friendship-ending spontaneous leap-and-run; through the window were visible trees, hills, <em>life</em>. Of course, my father's condition meant that the leap-and-run was simply not a viable option, so she gritted her teeth and continued - took one for the team. I continued to observe from behind my Observer.</p> <p>The thing is, Michael and Monica remain very dear friends of my parents - and as Lynn pointed out as we pulled out of the driveway at half past nine this morning, at least it meant we didn't need to get up at 4 in the bloody morning. That's what friends are for, etc... such conversations and stop-overs simply represent the direction many friendships go - Geoff seemed pleased to see Michael, misunderstandings or not. They shared a few spontaneous chuckles which hinted at what once was, and made me think: in 40 years I could see Joel, or Ed, or Adam, or G, or whoever, having seen them once every 3 or 4 years, and it'd be ok. I like that thought a lot. Plus, y'know, in the era of emails and texts and blogs and all the rest of it, it's easier and easier to stay in touch, even if fleetingly... me and Ed text each other maybe once a week and it feels like contact is successfully maintained. Is this a sham? I don't know, and to be honest I don't care - the odd phone call thrown into the mix, and it's definitely a friendship.</p> <p>Anyway. The friends of the family this side of the channel seem to have a greater knack of the gabble - French stereotype, is it? I don't know - and so today's Chinese buffet was a great time. The husband is a Chinese immigrant and we had a decent conversation about recent Chinese cinema while my dad tried in vain to remember a single Chinese film he'd seen recently.<br> "I've got one!! That one with the monk on the island... Autumn Winter Spring Summer, or something"<br> "That's Korean, dad"<br> "Bollocks. Eat Drink Man Woman?"<br> "Taiwanese"<br> It was like John Motson trying to present Jonathan Ross's Asian Invasion.</p> <p>Ok, I am being usurped from my position at the computer (l'ordinateur) so that my parents might get some sleep and thus not doze off at the wheel tomorrow. Probably won't get on here again until I'm back in England sometime around the 10th. So I sincerely hope that all the lovely weather disappears and I have timed the holiday to perfection. Yes I do, I'm that selfish. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/31/pretentious_moi~1004007/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-26:/2006/07/26/i_love_the_smell_of_keyboards_in_the_mor~989588/mikeyboy2006-07-26T10:59:06+02:002006-07-26T10:59:06+02:00 <p>Nothing like a bit of blogging just after waking up, is there? This is the first time I've ever tried it and so far the whole thing is going quite well. My faculties are not yet fully functioning, the screen seems to be wobbling around within itself, and I keep pressing the wrong keys. I may still be asleep, I'm not sure.</p> <p>The length of this post is contingent on several factors beyond my control: 1) how soon Naomi gets out of the shower, and 2) how soon Pete finishes with the sport section.</p> <p>I'm back at my parents' home in Worcester for a week, cunningly coinciding my visit with those of brother, sis-in-law, niece, and sister - 'tis a veritable family reunion of sorts, with everyone seeming to eat and drink for the day's duration, and a game of Hearts never too far away. </p> <p>I've been doing my Uncle Mike stuff, and it's been as good as ever - wandering around the garden with Eve on my shoulder until she falls alseep and makes these odd, contented gurgling sounds. This week she has just discovered her hands - apparently that's what happens after a couple of months, I had no idea - so seems to love just stuffing them in her mouth whenever she can. Occasionally she has trouble finding her mouth and ends up poking herself in the eye, which doesn't end well.</p> <p>A drawback with being at home with numerous family members is that I have been asked the "what next?" question on more occasions than I'd care to remember. "So, Mike, what next?" - it all just emphasises how clueless I am about, well, what next. There's too much choice, so I'll probably end up doing nothing. I spent a while on t'interweb yesterday flicking around places to visit and travel to and lay my head.... as a result, I now have an almost insatiable urge to get to Truth Or Consequences as soon as possible and just sit in the hot springs for six months, reading books and occasionally getting dressed to do some karaoke across the road.</p> <p>But the city remains... intoxicating.</p> <p>It's all so confusing. Both of my brothers got married the summer after graduating so they didn't have this kind of shit to put up with. Sure, they had big choices to make, but they had to make them with someone they planned on spending the rest of their lives with, which is a wee bit different. Do I go nuts now trying to break into journalism and really go for it? Dick around for a year before doing a Masters? Up and leave for somewhere far away and come back goodness knows when? Sell out somehow? </p> <p>Actually, the concept of 'selling out' is alien to me. Lots of humanities grads recently have been talking about 'selling out', and the fear they have of it. But no one actually talks about what selling out actually entails. Is there some market stall down by Bank where you go and sell out for a lucrative some of money? See, even if I decided that I want to sell out, I'd have no fucking idea what it meant, or how to do it. </p> <p>I've been thinking a lot recently about my faith, or lack thereof - I think perhaps I can feel some kind of intangible religious belief slowly creep into my life. I don't know why or how, I guess that's the whole point of it. Anyway I'm planning to go on a retreat in the autumn to a place in France previously visited (and raved about) my my sister, and a frequent getaway for my mum throughout her career as a priest. BAsically involves sitting around for a week, not saying anything, and helping some monks with their chores. Sounds a bit full-on, but even if I come back with my little faith completely quashed, it sounds like a worthwile experience.</p> <p>Ok Naomi has been out of the shower now for about five minutes. Before I go, though: Damien Duff for £5m? Chelsea are stupid, plain stupid. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/26/i_love_the_smell_of_keyboards_in_the_mor~989588/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-23:/2006/07/23/right_on_brighton_or_brighton_rocks~982754/mikeyboy2006-07-23T20:58:14+02:002006-07-23T20:58:14+02:00 <p>So. The end of the weekend is upon us, although I'm not exactly living the lifestyle in which weekends mean anything more than closed shops and bigger newspapers. Soon, perhaps, I will be. But not now.</p> <p>Enjoyed a three-day jaunt to Brighton at the tail of last week, with lovey-dovey couple <em>du jour</em>, Joel and Hawys. Went down on Thursday afternoon, although we cunningly conspired to miss our 3pm coach (the 38 took literally 1 hr 15 mins to get us to Victoria; insane) in order to get any exasperation and tedium out of the way early. It worked, kind of, and the 5pm coach got us there just as efficiently - in fact it was easily the plushest National Express coach I've been on - very good imitation leather seats which recline until your head is in the lap of the person behind you. And great air-conditioning.</p> <p>The trip served several purposes. Got us out of London for a few days was the main thing - felt like a proper little holiday. Accommodation was free (although difficult to spell) courtesy of Joel's lesbian surrogate mother's (long story) empty pad on a hill somewhere. We also all had people to visit who live or happened to be in Brighton that weekend - boxes to tick in some cases, and genuinely glad-to-see-you meetings in others - in my case Becca, who was on fine form and showed us how to part-ay old skool Brighton-styleeee (cider under the pier, apparently).</p> <p>Did some proper seaside holiday stuff, too: </p> <p>(To every anecdote that follows, please add: "...and Joel and Hawys were all over each other like some kind of sexed-up rash, it was lovely/funny/sickly and made me want to smile/laugh/cry" - delete as appropriate, depending on how long we'd been there.) </p> <p>Friday's weather was lush so we spent the afternoon on the beach, reading the paper and swimming in the sea - it had been ages since I'd swum in the sea and it felt great. Very very salty, too, obviously - felt saltier than normal, and I found it much easier to float in it so maybe I'm not talking shit. A shame that Brighton's beach is covered in stones, however... no-one seems to mention it, it's the town's very own elephant in the corner. In fact, the tourism industry at large seems to be somewhat deluded - all the shops along the sea-front sell buckets and spades, just in case some young kids want to, erm, fill a bucket with some stones. I did try to spark a conversation with a local about how it would be better all sandy and stuff, but he began throwing stones at me... in fairness, if it was sandy then it would probably just be that shitty grey sand which is generally quite depressing. I'd much rather hurt myself every time I walk from the sea back to my towel, thank you very much.</p> <p>That evening we gorged ourselves on the produce of a local fish'n'chip emporium - the chips and battered sausage and fishcake I had were all top notch (and I consider myself something of an authority on such cuisine) but the mushy peas weren't really up to scratch; they weren't mushy, which is a cardinal sin for mushy peas. They were just peas in a green sauce. Still, the green sauce had plenty of salt in it so they went down a treat.</p> <p>Stomachs filled and belts duly loosened, we moseyed on into town for the aforementioned cider on the beach. Big bottles of cider always get you really drunk, don't they? I always seem to forget. This summer has seen a rejuvenation of big-bottles-of-cider-drinking amongst myself and my friends, no doubt reflecting our increasingly impoverished lifestyles. I'm glad, then, that I really really like the stuff. It's just hard to quaff a bottle with any real sense of dignity, especially when it dribbles down your chin and all over your top.</p> <p>Cider drunk, we found ourselves in a club inside what looked suspiciously like someone's house - thankfully this bizarre locale did not reflect the music of choice, although the name did: Funky Fish. Does exactly what it says on the tin, really: plays funky music all night, and smells vaguely of fish. The DJ was good actually - my lack of experience in funk clubs probably stood him in good stead as I can't really tell a good funk mix from a bad funk mix, but some of the bits between songs were better than the songs themselves. All very.... funky. Heard a cracking remix/cover (dunno) of the Radiohead masturbation song from The Bends, and witnessed a Brightonian smackdown of epic proportions: a couple torn asunder, she slapping him and then he retaliating in a way I didn't really expect, by punching her across the room. Bouncers stepped in and all hell broke loose - all in the time it took me to get a pint of XXXX (yeah, XXXX, I know - but remember my impoverished lifestyle, and they weren't selling big plastic bottles of cider over the bar).</p> <p>After the club closed we had a spliff down by the beach as the rain came crashing down and one hell of a storm raged - I absolutely loved it. The lightning was proper lightning, and was stretching from sky to horizon out on the sea... and then it was all around us, humid as hell, hardly raining, but the atmosphere crackling with electricity. Brought to mind, as any minor amount of rain does, the line she screams in The Perfect Storm trailer: "YOU'RE HEADING RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE MONSTER!!!" - something like that anyway. That's where we were headed, and it was damn fun. From there it was back to a friend of Hawys's flat for music and very very strong cider, and then home for a long, well-deserved sleep.</p> <p>Saturday dawned at about 3 in the afternoon, which didn't leave me much time for ambling and rambling around Brighton before my coach in the evening. The weather wasn't too great anyway, so the three of us headed determinedly into town to find a cafe where we might chow down on the food of the retired: cream teas. And, my goodness, did we find a place... just gorgeous. Just as I tend to forget that a bottle of cider gets you drunk, I also forget just how <strong>fucking gorgeous</strong> scones and cream and jam are in between my infrequent visits to the South Coast and Devon. Just perfectly made..... melts and crumbles and dissolves in your mouth, and the jam and the cream and the butter are all there too.... ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh my goodness me, I am causing myself to salivate wildly all over the keyboard. Allow me a moment to sit here with my tongue lolling to one side.</p> <p>...</p> <p>Ah.</p> <p>So. That was Brighton. </p> <p>Today, I had a big portion of scrambled eggs and went to the cinema to see Superman Returns with Katie. Not much time to go on about it too much, but my reaction for the most part was positive. Certainly, the opening hour and 15 minutes had me smiling like the comic-loving teenager I was, cheering when he caught the shuttle, "aaaaahhhhing" when he talks to Lois, and laughing at Clark's geeky ways.</p> <p>But... it was just so long. Why does it have to be that way? 2 and a half hours is simply excessive for a film of this nature. Brian Singer is a very canny fellow who knows how to put together a svelte, stream-lined superhero blockbuster; his X-Men was little over 90 minutes and felt great, while its sequel was a bit longer but still barely two hours. With this he seems to have BLOATED a bit, and stuck in about 25 minutes worth of unnecessary crap throughout an otherwise damn-fine film.</p> <p>Brandon Routh, as Clark/Superman, <em>looks and acts just like Christopher Reeve</em>, especially as Clark. I'd read as much in various reviews, but it's so true that it's worth repeating there, italicised, and here, in bold: <strong>he looks and acts just like Christopher Reeve</strong>. I consider this a good thing, as Christopher Reeve was great as Superman. Other pieces of casting are less successful, however... </p> <p>Kate Bosworth as Lois. Well. I think she's gorgeous, and her eyes are different colours which I also think is gorgeous. But she looks my age, and not a day older. This is Lois Lane, the cynical, world-weary reporter of Superman lore? No. No, it clearly isn't. This is some attractive post-grad intern who has wrangled a job at the Daily Planet by shacking up with the editor's nephew. I found it totally implausible, and as such did not really like Bosworth's performance... her kid, for example, was supposed to be five years old, but she looked more like his big sister, or babysitter, or whatever. Not his mum.</p> <p>James Marsden as Lois's Generic Bland Love Interest White. Actually he was alright, didn't have too much to do - essentially exactly the same character arc as his role as Cyclops in Singer's X-Men films; instead of Wolverine slowly stealing his girl it's Superman. Plus he doesn't have to wear a stupid visor so we can see his eyes and his performance seems a million times better.</p> <p>Kevin Spacey was good as Lex Luthor.</p> <p>But it was just... too... long. </p> <p>Kinda like this entry, really. That's me done. Hope everyone's had a good weekend. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/23/right_on_brighton_or_brighton_rocks~982754/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-19:/2006/07/19/boggis_bunce_and_bean~972465/mikeyboy2006-07-19T19:35:20+02:002006-07-19T19:35:20+02:00 <p>Well, today was Graduation Day for my year. Cost over 100 quid to attend and then another 30 to hire the gown and morar-board. I cunningly refused to play ball, to avoid my parents paying shitloads of moolah to sit through some piss-poor speeches and numerous references to Desmond bloody Tutu - the only King's alumnus worth remembering, apparently. Thus, I feel guilt-free when suggesting/demanding a meal In My Honour during the mini-family holiday at the start of August. 1-0 to Mike. Kind of.</p> <p>Even more cunningly, I turned up to the graduation anyway, just after it had finished. It was in the Barbican and I strolled in just as people were filing out of the presentation hall, and just in time for bucketloads of free wine and nibbles. As I had suspected, the event was a veritable social minefield - I nimbly manouevred (spelling?) my way through several people I hadn't seen in a few years, all of whom were polite enough for our brief conversation, but all of whom also found time to demonstrate just why I hadn't seen them in a few years (spittle while talking, over-enthusiastic handshake, 20-second attention span, gout, etc). I daresay I did likewise (obnoxious). Still, I had a bottle's worth of wine and saw some people I genuinely wanted to see - admittedly, one of whom I live with.</p> <p>Anyone notice the weather today? It was really really hot. Really hot. I can't be more accurate, but my God I am caked in sweat right now. (Luckily our shower has been fixed.) I walked from Victoria to the Barbican, stopping in a lot of parks and outside museums and frollicking in fountains (Somerset House) and even spending money in Starbucks (Caramel Frappacino - it's a fucking meal, I tell you, and it's gorgeous).</p> <p>OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhh it's so hot. I want to do some TV schtick - to go on about Dr Who's last episode and spout some more reasons why the first season was superior. I also want to sing the praises of Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, which is the best new BBC comedy in absolutely ages by a country mile. They should buy the rights to The Larry Sanders Show off ITV4 and screen it straight after - the perfect double-bill. A bit of postmodernism is nice in sitcoms, and this is done very, very cleverly - with the celebrities who send themselves up allowing far more shit to be flung at them than those who appeared on Sanders did. Dominic Diamond took an absolute battering, very funny. Apparently it's Russell Brand next week, which I look forward to.</p> <p>I want to do all that, but I'm so hot all I'm going to do is buy some cider and go home to catch the end of Lois and Clark on ITV2.</p> <p>Won't feel so rotten as soon as you've gotten some cider inside your insde - Roald Dahl, you're a genius. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/19/boggis_bunce_and_bean~972465/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-18:/2006/07/18/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz~968818/mikeyboy2006-07-18T14:45:43+02:002006-07-18T14:45:43+02:00 <p>Ooooh I just awoke from a 15-hour slumber: absolutely amazing, I was dead to the world as soon as my head hit the pillow - had a number of bizarre, bizarre dreams, bringing together all sorts of people from my life in a variety of weird and occasionally wonderful ways.</p> <p>The reason for my hibernation was the fact that I spent Thursday to Monday frequently dancing like a man possessed at The Glade festival somewhere near Reading. It was a fabulous weekend in practically every way, and had I longer than five minutes to spend on this post I'd surely go on and on and on about it. </p> <p>The music was generally very, very good - highlights were Vitalic, !!! and Radioactive Man - although I would say that there seemed to be a disproportionately large amount of breaks at the festival, when breaks often sound quite similar, especially after eight hours of them. Some more d'n'b wouldn't have gone amiss (and I don't say that very often) - a random conversation at a bar had someone explaining to me that they thought the Glade was traditionally a hippie/middle-class festival, and thus the organisers looked down on dirty d'n'b. Seemed pretty insightful at the time, I can tell you.</p> <p>I hadn't camped in AGES (since Bestival last year) although it wasn't possible to spend too much time in the tent - if you tried to get to sleep in it at about 5 or 6ish then the sun would rise soon after and the tent would transform into some godforsaken canvas oven. But the other bits that go with camping - the warm bread, the melted butter, the pot noodles, the cheap cider and whiskey, sitting around between the tents and making merry - were all present and correct. It was great to see Adam again, and to make the acquaintance of several of his friends. Dan and Rob both found ways to get inside for free, the lucky bastards, and it was great to have them both. Dan used his grindcore connections to get in as a roadie with a band he's recently been on tour with - he got a different colour wristband and everything - while Rob drove to about a mile away from the site with an ordinance survey map of the area and bushwhacked it until he found a perimeter fence, which he climbed over. </p> <p>And the hammocks - oh, the hammocks. Just divine. I think the hammock gods were smiling on me all weekend, as, with about ten hammocks for the entire festival to share, I found my way into one no less than five times.... a great way to spend early afternoon, or early morning, or early evening, or anytime - just floating languidly from side to side, perhaps with a pain au chocolat for company, with music to be listened to and people to be people-watched (better at a festival than almost anywhere else).</p> <p>Yes, in short: what a fucking brilliant weekend.</p> <p>Returning home to find <strong>NO RUNNING WATER</strong> was significantly less brilliant, however - no shower for either me or Joel, it's bad news, with both absolutely reek. And no flushing toilet either. The plumber is apparently on his way but we've heard that one before.... so, no shower and no toilet.... kinda like a festival then. Except no camping and no music either. D'oh. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/18/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz~968818/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-07-11:/2006/07/11/they_think_it_s_all_over~951179/mikeyboy2006-07-11T13:24:59+02:002006-07-11T13:24:59+02:00 <p>...it is now.</p> <p>The World Cup is over, and thus, so is my World Cup blog. I don't know quite how I'm going to fill the aching void in my life - some may suggest getting a job - but nothing will quite be the same as a month of football, with some tennis chucked in for good measure...</p> <p>All this World Cup watching has kept me pretty constantly exposed to television so I've a few somewhat inane things to get this ball (not a football, sadly) rolling once again. I feel like a bit of a ramble and TV often affords me the opportunity to explore a number of tangents.</p> <p>And lo! Another blast from the past is resurrected by the digital TV machine, I see. Just as More4 began showing old hospital drama St. Elsewhere the very same month that Gnarls Barkley released an album of the same name, ITV2 have tried a similar ride-someone-else's-publicity stunt by bringing back The New Adventures of Superman at around the same time the Man of Steel is cinematically resurrected for the masses. The first half of the first episode was screened last night (7pm for those of you with a digibox and in need of something to fill the World Cup space every weeknight) with the FX having aged quite badly, and Teri Hatcher looking pretty much the same age as she has done on recent episodes of Desperate Housewives. Will my pre-teen crush return? I hope not. Anyway, as the final credits rolled, the voiceover lady actually said "Superman returns... (lengthy gap) ...tomorrow night" - Warner Brothers must have paid them for that. Must have.</p> <p>Meanwhile, over in BBC land, and Sports Relief is approaching - apparently. I vaguely remember being caught up in Comic Relief while a wee lad, primarily because it meant no school uniform and a cake sale at break time. I also remember my mum completely defeating the purpose of the day - and further demonstrating our family's unbelievable (and retrospectively admirable) thriftiness - by insisting on making me my own red nose from cardboard and red felt-tip. So, no money to charity, and lil' Mikey gets laughed out of the cake sale. I think this was the year that the nose was just a little smiley face with two little hands poking out - pretty basic, so I wasn't missing out on much - but I still looked like a bell-end. Anyway, I digress: Sport Relief is here, or is almost here, or has been here for a while, I don't know. I don't want to get into the day itself, as I'm not too sure what happens and would only end up slagging off an apparently worthwhile cause. I would like to note a few attendant details, however:</p> <p>- David Walliams swam the channel. This means I can no longer dislike him quite as much as I did before. Fair play.</p> <p>- Over the adverts on BBC, the Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now" is used. This is an undisputably classic song to soundtrack BBC sports clips, and was particularly an ever-present throughout Stephen Hendry-era world snooker championships' post-tournament "let's look back at the highlights" montages, where you'd see Tony Drago's wry smile at going out in the second round again despite being a really good pool player, and Jimmy looking a little bit more depressed than last year (this was prior to his late-90s renaissance when he, er, made a few semi-finals). I seem to have digressed again: my quibble with the whole thing is, they don't use the original Queen song, but some kind of carbon copy cover. What's the point? Take away Queen from Don't Stop Me Now - in fact, take away Queen from any Queen song - and you're left with a lifeless husk of a karaoke classic. Soundtracking our sports events! It's like a pale facsimile of previous sporting memories and I don't like it one bit. It cropped up a few times towards the end of the World Cup and I tried to ignore it... now it's happening between every freakin' show on the Beeb and I can no longer stifle my ire: either cough up the extra moolah to buy back the original song, or pick from a number of post-80s motivational/sports-worthy classics. But be warned: if you even so much as look at 'I Like The Way You Move' by The Bodyrockers, I am going to find the person who chose not to renew the rights to Queen's entire back catalogue, and I am going to hurt them - emotionally, physically, and spiritually.</p> <p>Ok, I am meant to be off to the cinema this afternoon with Katie so I'll finish this shortly. My life hasn't really changed too much since before the World Cup, except that I now have another sporting catastrophe hanging over my head. I got my results back and found I got a first, hurrah, I assume I just scraped it but don't care either way... sadly, though, I found out on the morning of the Portugal match. For a few short hours that Saturday was shaping up to be one of the best ever. Then it went horribly, horribly wrong, and I forgot about my first until the Tuesday, by which time I couldn't be arsed to celebrate it. Bit of an anticlimax, really - hopefully once the World Cup is out of my system I can celebrate properly. Or maybe not. Anyway, now it just raises the question... what can you do with a first that you can't do with a 2.1? The answer is probably "more education", so I'm still hoping to procure funding for a masters after a year out.</p> <p>What else has happened..... Joel (flatmate) and Hawys (mate) are now together. I could meekly claim to have 'set them up', as they met through me and on a few nights out I made drunken attempts to, y'know, match-make - but as Rob pointed out, I met Hawys through him, so he must have set them up, too. All a bit of a pointless road to go down. Anyway, I was pleased when they got together and I'm even more pleased now as it means Hawys is around a lot, and Joel is infinitely happier with a girlfriend.</p> <p>Going to the Glade this weekend, with Joel, Adam and Dan and maybe Rob. It is going to be lots and lots of fun, I can't wait.</p> <p>Now I'm off. But it feels good to be back, writing about nothing, once again. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/07/11/they_think_it_s_all_over~951179/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-06-16:/2006/06/16/jack_diddly_squat~885960/mikeyboy2006-06-16T13:45:56+02:002006-06-16T13:45:56+02:00 <p>At this point in my life I don't exist outside the World Cup.</p> <p>It's fun.</p> <p>Except for when England play.</p> <p>Then it isn't fun. Not at all.</p> <p>Other than that? Nothing. No cinematicity, no hilarious escapades or hi-jinks in London town, nothing.</p> <p>Oh, actually, I got a haircut at a very funny place in Angel - little English spoken by the barber, which in itself is not funny, but when you're trying to describe how you want your hair cut, and all you're being answered with is a blank stare... well... I chuckled, anyway. I even had to pick up the thinning scissors to show that I wanted him to use them. Still, only a fiver.</p> <p>Also developing wanderlust on quite a scale, mainly because I think it has finally struck me: university is over, and I am now free. I can do whatever I want. So what's to stop me, eh?</p> <p>Well, the World Cup, of course. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/06/16/jack_diddly_squat~885960/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-06-08:/2006/06/08/feeling_groovy~864234/mikeyboy2006-06-08T22:40:28+02:002006-06-08T22:40:28+02:00 <p>So it all kicks off tomorrow: my summer holiday, that which I have been anticipating for a goodly long time. The World Cup. Ahhhhhhhhh.</p> <p>Been playing football a fair amount this week, actually - proper, real football too, not Pro Evo, not Champ Man - a group of friends and a few crucial plus-ones and randomers, running around a lot and sweating shitloads. Obviously, I am more than prepared to go to great detail to fully illuminate the joyous highs and agonising lows of the matches on Monday and Wednesday - I've done so before - but choose not to. Suffice to say, on Monday I played like a tosser, and yesterday my first touch was a joy to behold (relatively speaking, anyway.) Both games were exhausting, dehydrating, and insanely satisfying.</p> <p>Joel and me also had a bit of a barbecue last night on the roof - the most people we've had up there (so far), about 14 I think. It went really well, it had been ages since I'd hosted more than a dinner party but it felt really good to see lots of different conversations going on and people laughing and what-not - pleasure from other people's pleasure and all that. I made some homemade burgers, which always seem to take people aback because they generally taste really, really good - not because of any great culinary prowess of my own, you understand, but because they're a piece of piss to make, but no one ever does. Yesterday I threw in some red onions and blue cheese and, going on the one I had myself, it worked a treat. </p> <p>We also had a variety of posh sausages (award-winning, apparently - courtesy of Rosie) and Effie dazzled once again with some mini, make-your-own pavlovas (individual meringues, then help yourself to liberal doses of cream and a few strawberries. Lovely). Adam brought his firestaff, which I'll post some photos of if I can because I got some great ones of him, myself and Dan having fun with it. (Myself and Dan are strictly amateurs. Adam, on the other hand, is really really good - he can make it go over his shoulders, under his legs, all over the place - I think he's taking it to the Glade, along with his spare... I'm very excited.)</p> <p>In short, it felt like <strong>summer</strong>. Friends and rooftops and sunsets and fun things and barbecues and the smoke making your eyes water and working hard on a way to get music onto the roof before finally finding a massive speaker wire and looping it out of my bedroom window and <strong>friends</strong> and <strong>sunshine</strong> and <strong>laughter</strong>. Since my shit-I've-got-cancer episode on Tuesday, I genuinely have a newfound respect for life... and it really is little moments and stuff that make it all ok. Leaving the flat each morning/afternoon, you turn your face to the sun and close your eyes and bask, briefly, in the middle of the road... and it. Feels. Great. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/06/08/feeling_groovy~864234/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-06-06:/2006/06/06/hypochondria_and_serendipitous_health_wa~857860/mikeyboy2006-06-06T14:45:36+02:002006-06-06T14:45:36+02:00 <p>Damn, it's a nice day today. Today I'm going to literally be talking bollocks, so if you're not interested in them, then steer clear....</p> <p>Yes, hypochondria. I have never really considered myself a hypochondriac in any way, shape or form - I think certain friends and family have shown me the folly in expecting the worst every time you cough twice in a day. However, I've tried to be much more wary and health-conscious since my rather unpleasant bout of mumps, early last year (during which my left bollock alone would have made fine blogging material, swelling as it did to the size of a tennis ball. If I can write a paragraph on a zit, then I'm sure this could have been stretched to novella length. Opportunity missed.) </p> <p>Since the mumps I've tried, without putting too fine a point on it, to keep up-to-date with the state of my gonads... which made the discovery yesterday of an unmistakeable lump, on the underside of the one-time tennis ball, a bit of a worrying moment (although, rather perversely, also a moment of vindication: ha! I've been on the look-out, and not for no good reason.) Late last night there was a "check your testicles" advert on TV, the like of which I hadn't seen for quite a while. And, you know, in much the same way that you read a word that you've never seen or heard in ages and then see/hear it again that very same day, the coincidence struck me - only rather than just thinking "how odd it is that I have gone several years without hearing 'fructiferous' and then I see it twice in a day!", I quite urgently thought "maybe I should mosey, <em>sans</em> underwear, down to the GP, stand on the waiting room table with a slightly crazed look in my eye, and just whip my belt off so they can check me out". This initial plan was quickly refined to "ring up the medical centre and see if you can make an appointment", which I duly did this morning.</p> <p>And on the bus down, the hypochondria really kicked in: shit! I am going to find out what this lump is on my bollocks! Shit! I have to say, I was a bit of a nervous wreck, taking my air in short breaths while my mind raced through, well, everything - with a mind as convoluted as I consider mine to be, every possibility had been considered by the time the bus had even reached Old Street, with only one conclusion ever really reached: I must have cancer.</p> <p>Which just goes to show, you know, I'm no doctor - never have been, never will be. I saw the very nice Dr. Heath, who was the same doctor who'd checked me out back in the tennis ball days - if you're going to have to drop your trousers to a doctor, I suppose, you may as well try and restrict it to just one doctor - for their sake as much as for my own... Anyway, she was very kind, we enjoyed some banter (well, not banter, we just talked about the date being 6/6/06 - she remarked that it's just like the jazz club, and I countered with "yes, and it's also the sign of the devil", which led onto a brief discussion about the Church of England. As per most middle-class agnostics she seems to prefer the romanticised notion of old ladies and coffee mornings, rather than the Church as an actual spiritual body performing an important role in the lives of many. I didn't say this, mind, as I was half-naked and thus quite preoccupied with not blushing) and she is quite certain that the lump is a cyst of some kind. I actually have the name of the cyst written down but her handwriting is, quite frankly, appalling - surely this is a problem as a doctor? Anyway, it begins "epi" and has definitely got a "di" in the middle of it. Not cancer, though - apparently cancerous lumps are rock hard and, Dr. Heath said, "coal-like", which I think is a rather bizarre adjective here. My cyst is apparently smooth and squidgy. Which is the best news I'd heard in a long, long time, even though I'm still faced with the highly unpleasant prospect of having a cyst on my bollocks - but it's all relative, and thus I am properly happy right now. I'm going for an ultrasound scan next week, which I had several times with my mumps - it's the same thing pregnant women have, and is a very odd sensation indeed, as you have to cover the area to be scanned in quite liberal quantities of a very very cold, gelatinous substance which is freakin' impossible to get off at the end. And as I said, it's <strong>very very cold</strong>.</p> <p>So I suppose the moral of the story is: check yourself regularly, and if you find something, <em>don't freak out</em>. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/06/06/hypochondria_and_serendipitous_health_wa~857860/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-06-01:/2006/06/01/of_nieces_and_doctors~847526/mikeyboy2006-06-01T22:32:27+02:002006-06-01T22:32:27+02:00 <p>I saw my niece today for the first time. Eve is six days old, and she is very small, and she is very pink, and she is very cute. ....."aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"......</p> <p>Seeing Pete and Naomi with a baby is a bit of a peculiar sight, though. It's Pete! With a baby! It's Naomi! With a baby! It's Pete and Naomi! With their baby! Shit. It's not that I feel much older now than I did this morning (I think the "I'm an uncle: shit" age barrier is a one-time thing, and obviously that happened with Zak back in October) but rather that Pete used to be my best mate, and me, P & N have on several occasions formed a perfectly-balanced(-ish) travelling trio in our jaunts around USA and Canada... and now - in the most beautiful, life-affirming way possible - those carefree days have been firmly consigned to the past. End of an era, etc... </p> <p>...and, more importantly, the beginning of a new one. Refreshing to see that parenthood is apparently filtered through the same unique lens that Pete has been using for the previous 27 years of his life (his marcupial-derived, baby-holding pouch makes him "look like Uncle Owen", while Proud Father-like cries of "who is it, Eve? it's Uncle Mike!" were tempered by "even if you can only see 25cm in front of you") although I don't see any obvious reason why having a kid necessarily forces one to become a boring bastard. Naomi, meanwhile, looks great: positively radiant, even - all aglow with some kind of post-natal lust for life, and understandably chuffed to be back in her favourite pair of jeans once again. Encore: "aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh".....</p> <p>Yep, I'm in Sheffield right now, typing away in Ben and George's spare room. Earlier this week I went up to Leeds to visit (high school friend) Tom, who's just graduated, where we were joined by Andrew, likewise - so, the three of us shared some drunken reminiscing (of course), trawled a few charity shops, enjoyed the cheap Gregg's, and yelled at Jamie Carragher (for a full match report - less boring than it sounds - please see my other blog, of course. Is it wrong to keep bringing it up? I look upon it as a natural extension of this one, so I don't think so.) It was a fun few days, even if the general conclusion was "shit, where did all that time go?" - hardly original sentiments as post-graduation reunions go, but valid nonetheless.</p> <p>Time for some sports, I think. It's been a while.</p> <p><u>French Open tennis guff:</u> the less said the better with regards to the British 'hopes'. Murray's hopes continue to be blighted by recurring injuries, intrusive media, and bad sportsmanship (from both himself and his opponents), while Henman and Rusedski are both hurtling towards oblivion (at least Rusedski has the grace to do so with a smile on his face. Probably because he's not British.) Beyond the usual Brit failure, I'd just like to say: come on Roger! I think Nadal is great, but Federer is so graceful across the court, and is so clearly the best player playing today, that it would be a shame for him to not hold all four slams at once. He's five matches away from doing so! His only hope, it seems, is for Nadal to lose to someone else en route to the final - unlikely. Either way, another Federer/Nadal final is not to be sniffed at, and the sense of a genuine rivalry in tennis after the tepid Roddick/Federer feud of recent years (did Roddick actually win a match?) is a great preamble to Wimbledon. Over in the women's draw, and I'm not going to pay much attention until the quarter finals, when I anticipate the eight survivors to be comprised entirely of players from the top 12 seeds (such is the startling depth in the women's game). In any case, come on Martina - nicer than the Belgians, and everyone loves a good comeback.</p> <p><u>Non-World Cup football guff:</u> Chelski Allstars XI go from strength to galactico strength, with the signing of Ukrainian goal-machine Andriy Shevchenko. Honestly, they're just taking the piss now, surely? Ballack and Shevchenko as their two big post-season signings? Shiiiiiit... And of course, this is before Mourinho/Kenyon/Abramovich watches the World Cup at home/on a plane/on his private yacht and spots an unearthed gem with a decent first touch and team ethic/global marketing potential/vaguely Slavic demeanour, before making a frustratingly unassailable bid for their talent... and all for 6 starts and 17 subsitute appearances next season. And then loaning them to Birmingham. (Actually, now that Birmingham have <em>finally</em> got themselves relegated, where will the Chelski rejects flock to? My guess is that Wayne Bridge has paved the way; expect to see Salomon Kalou/Lassana Diarra/Damien Duff at Fulham from January next season.)</p> <p>(Now, for whatever reason, I feel the need to devote a good portion of this entry to a discussion on the relative pros and cons of the current series of Doctor Who. I write this parenthetical introduction/warning - thanks to The Wonders of Technology - having already written the following paragraph, which goes on for a lot longer than I thought it would when I started writing it. As per usual.)</p> <p>That Dr. Who episode on Saturday - the one set around the coronation - good episode, I enjoyed it a lot. However, this series needs to go through two or three <strong>undeniably brilliant</strong> episodes over the next month or so for the "which is better - series one or two?" debate to last longer than two words: BAD WOLF. The Cybermen two-parter, after its breathtaking opening episode and tantalising cliffhanger, had the chance to bring this series up to speed with a conclusion of devastating mayhem and carnage, splattered on the sci-fi blank slate provided by a parallel (parrallel? parralel? they should have a spell-check on this thing) universe. Instead, however, Part Two effectively had its conclusion half way through the episode, paving the way for an unnecessarily sentimentalised (even by Dr. Who standards) and interminably protracted departure for Mickey, a character few people seem to even like, let alone care about (myself excluded). We didn't need all that bollocks just so Noel Clarke can go off and write another Kidulthood without worrying that the Beeb will call him back to shoot another pish scene with Billie. Mickey's departure was not the only black spot against the episode, however. The supporting characters - usually so important to the plot and, even more importantly, usually so funny - were simply shit: a middle-aged woman with 'DEAD' written on her forehead in massive letters and a dying message for her relatives; and a very annoying, very badly performed Geordie sidekick who was, possibly, in Byker Grove. (Joel thought so anyway.) No no no - and thus, in dropping the ball so spectacularly, Part One's brilliance was undone. (See also: Descent.)</p> <p>David Tennant did very well on Saturday, and my initial feeling that series two's shortcomings owe much to Eccleston's absence now rings somewhat hollow. Instead, I would point to a decline in the quality of the scripts; Russell T. Davies is apparently less of an influence this year, and given how - on all accounts - he was almost single-handedly responsible for just how ruddy successful The Doctor's regeneration was, this is a shame. Even overlooking the occasionally jarring switches from melodrama to horror to very funny comedy (which, admittedly, Eccleston often made smoother than his successor), the allegories which underpin Dr. Who (and indeed all good sci-fi) now seem somewhat monotonous. The abovementioned Cybermen double-episode, pointing out the dehumanising potential of media-controlled thought processes and 'daily downloads' resulting from humanity's enduring fascination with new technologies, was followed by an unavoidably similar parable, set in the 1950s and showing the new television fad as, potentially, little more than a destructive medium capable of turning the human race into mindless, thoughtless proles. (Excellent scheduling, however, to see it broadcast only 20 minutes after Deal Or No Deal goes out on C4.)</p> <p>All that said, however, and I must say that Dr. Who remains far and away one of the best shows on television: a slice of entertainment to be enjoyed with lights off and not the slightest sense of irony (although, admittedly, that occasionally helps for the weaker episodes). I will continue to watch this series as avidly as I have done thus far, and am fair-to-middling in my confidence that a momentum shall gather leading to an earth-shattering conclusion. Hopefully scripted by Davies. And hopefully involving Bad Wolf again...</p> <p>...speaking of which, all this Dr. Who talk is surely reason enough to put up another photo of Rose Tyler on this here blog. (Again, I re-iterate that the attraction is to the character and not to Billie. I can tell you don't believe me. Well, google image billie + dr who and all manner of scantily clad photos come up - so why did I choose this one, eh?</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=589801"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/801/589801_6ea062e966_m.jpg" align="" alt="hello pretty lady" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>because it's all about Rose!)</p> <p>I'm in Sheffield for another few days - I'm watching the Jamaica friendly with Pete, which I'm really looking forward to as we'll not be able to see any of the World Cup together. Then it's back down to London on Saturday for a cheap week of football (real-life and computerised) in preparation for an intensive month of, er, more football (televised).</p> <p>In a bit, then. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/06/01/of_nieces_and_doctors~847526/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-27:/2006/05/27/i_always_wanted_to_pretend_to_be_an_arch~833469/mikeyboy2006-05-27T17:22:45+02:002006-05-27T17:22:45+02:00 <p>Hey hey hey - I'm excited - at last, something to properly roar about beyond all the usual pish solipsism and movie guff:</p> <p class="center"><strong>I AM AN UNCLE FOR THE SECOND TIME!</strong></p> <p>Hell yes. Pete and Naomi (rhymes with Amy), my brother and sister-in-law, are now the proud parents of Eve Anderson (with a middle name from a French flower, which I've forgotten but which also begins with a vowel and sounds very nice). And I'm the proud uncle! Again. So I've got a nephew and a niece - the complete set - in less than a year..... apparently she's got lots of hair. Naomi had a successful, hitch-free home birth, which must have been nice as she could just chill in her own bed immediately afterwards...</p> <p>Yep, great news. I am off up to Leeds to visit a mate early this week, and hopefully will be able to swing by Sheffield after in order to pay my dues and go "aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" a lot, before shaking my head and wondering where all the time has gone.</p> <p>Me and Joel had a murder mystery evening last night from one of those boxed games you often receive under the tree or in your stocking. Effie, Adam, Gareth and Kathryn made up the rest of the guests/suspects.... and it was a lot of fun. Effie went all-out in her costume as a fitness instructor, complete with bright pink pants over black leggins, and a headband. Adam topped off his lifeguard outfit with a suspiciously genuine-looking orange whistle. As a gardener, G's costume amounted to little more than some scruffy clothes and a hat - but crucially, the hat made him look like one shifty mo-fo, and consequently when at last came the time to point fingers, four of the group's six fingers were pointing squarely at G/Moe Lawns. When of course, we should have know, it was Adam/Juan Hunkyguy all along - no one suspected him because he's such a nice fellow, you see. Which, in hindsight, should have been our first clue.....</p> <p>...anyway, it was a really different way of spending a Friday night with friends, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, even if (because?) I had to wear a skirt for half of the evening. It's such a liberating item of clothing, makes me long for the sarong of my year out (worn primarly to induce the pun "whatsarong with that?"). Back to jeans today though, which is for the best as Dalston is enduring a particularly windy Saturday.</p> <p>This morning my mum surprised me by turning up on my doorstep at about noon. We had breakfast at the local cafe and then wandered through the wind and rain to Argos, to buy some cat accessories (catcessories) for Katie, whose kitten (Dr. Van Nostrum) is being collected tomorrow. Then we chilled in some French place on Newington Green with the paper and a big hot chocolate for the afternoon while the rain... kept... </p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=576784"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/784/576784_7447a7e752_m.jpg" align="" alt="cryings not for me" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>...falling... It was nice to hang out with her for a while, we're supposed to be going on a walking holiday this week for a few days in the Peaks. Hopefully the rain will have fucked off by then.</p> <p>Off to Turnmills tonight for a friend's 21st party, quite excited, and it'll probably set tomorrow up as a (hopefully rainy) Sunday in the flat with orange juice and lots of DVDs and a newspaper. A simple way to negate a rainy Bank Holiday weekend.</p> <p>This week I have been listening to some funny Spank Rock and the Diplo remix of Gold Digger. Very, very good.</p> <p>The rain appears to have eased a bit, so I'm going to make an optimistic dash for the flat. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/27/i_always_wanted_to_pretend_to_be_an_arch~833469/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-24:/2006/05/24/rats_shiiiiiit~826454/mikeyboy2006-05-24T18:54:03+02:002006-05-24T18:54:03+02:00 <p>Well I am feeling a bit less cynical now than I did during my last post. </p> <p>But only a bit. </p> <p>I'm not sure that Orwell had the 21st century connotations of 1984's final line in mind when he wrote it, but the amount of people recently who have told me that they "love Big Brother" makes me think, well, maybe the dystopia is now. Then I get on a bus and there's a tv screen in front of me with some indistinguishable stains on it. Then I go to Sainsburys and there's a TV there, too. Soon there will be daily exercises for us all to follow, and there will be nowhere to hide.... except, as I've said many times before, for Finsbury Park. It's a shame that we seem to be heading towards the Orwellian dystopia of grottiness and weary, resigned subordination - I'd be far more open to the idea of a Brave New World (a Huxleyan dystopia? He's never really been big enough to warrant his own adjective) where they keep you pretty high on soma and basically force you into mass orgies every day or so. Yes, it's a completely hollow existence, but, well, ignorance is bliss..... ("...but you're so ignorant you may even be ignorant of this" - it's from a song. Wish I could remember which. I think it's Aesop Rock.)</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=569724"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/724/569724_d4ec313387_m.jpg" align="" alt="He is watching, you know" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Not much time, actually, in fact I'm not entirely sure why I bothered writing that paragraph - my main reason for being on here is to paste a link, thus:</p> <p><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=z1iUMeQ4USA">http://youtube.com/watch?v=z1iUMeQ4USA</a></p> <p>to an online commercial an old mate of mine just made in Baltimore. It's pretty funny, and even if you don't think so then it's soundtracked by a classic RJD2 track anyway so you can't really lose....</p> <p>Also I would like to Big Up my other blog - worldcupandthat/Joe Cole, etc - which I'm co-doing with robmartinique (now, presumably, roboval). It's a World Cup blog and it does pretty much the same thing as the BBC equivalent, except without the careful editing process or the exclusive interviews, and with a bit more swearing. I am determined to get its readership into double figures by the start of the tournament, and so am resorting to rather pathetic self-promotion: go on, give it a try.</p> <p>Just played football again. This time, however, I <strong>warmed up</strong> - all the stretches of my Sunday League days came flooding back to me, although I still struggled with the quad one that involves standing on one leg. The rain once again gave the occasion an unexpectedly epic feel, although in reality it meant that I just slipped over a lot. Not too many Magic Moments to relate in painstaking detail, I'm afraid, except for a header from miles out which took advantage of the stranded goalkeeper. Also displayed a decent first touch for abotu 15 minutes again. And then fell over some more. Still - at least my legs don't feel like shit. Bravo. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/24/rats_shiiiiiit~826454/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-21:/2006/05/21/juice_by_sarah_juice_by_sarah~817518/mikeyboy2006-05-21T17:02:32+02:002006-05-21T17:02:32+02:00 <p>I don't really have a great deal to roar about at the moment. A life of doing essentially nothing, relaxing as it unquestionably is, does not great blog material make. I like to think that this blog takes its lead from my life, rather than vice versa - so rather than find things to do in order to write cracking entries about this, that and the other, I'm content to just leave massive gaps between very sparse entries. Beyond that I'd be a few short paragraphs away from transcripts of a few recent (and admittedly epic) Pro Evo matches.</p> <p>My legs have just about recovered from the football marathon of Wednesday; I can stand up and walk around, without any pain. Miracle. It's only when I break into a brisk walk/trot/jog/sprint that I'm reminded of my pish physical condition. I am really into the idea of forming some kind of 5-a-side team and taking the lowest possible division of entry by storm. How long are 5-a-side halves? About 6 or 7 minutes I reckon. I think I could run around like a nutter with a decent first touch for about 4 or 5 minutes of the first half, and then 2 or 3 of the second. Which would be alright, then I could just sit at the back and mop up the opposition's sporadic attacks. </p> <p>I suppose that it'd be all about assembling a crack team capable of going toe-to-toe with any other 5 people in the city for the full 12/14 minutes, with first touches to die for, impeccable vision, and biting tackles - and this assembly is the hard part, because I wouldn't make the grade. Standards must understandably be set somewhat lower: er, who fancies a game of football? Rob and Jamie for sure, and Joel would be an ideal impact substitute (with the impact reserved for the opposition's legs rather than the state of the game as a whole). I'd shout 'man on' a lot, and bring a few bottles of water. Which leaves a 'keeper and a few more squad members needed. And, crucially, a team name - a make-or-break factor for any amateur team, from pub quiz to 5-a-side leagues on a Monday night. But, you know, the season won't be starting until September or October, so there's no rush.</p> <p>Some cinematicity: I saw 'Brick' last week, I can't really remember if I've mentioned it already. </p> <p>It was really enjoyable, especially after last year's Film Noir unit. The dialogue was great, really rat-a-tat-tat, and the use of noir-style slang seemed to transcend its initially gimmicky feel because teenagers talk in their own parlance anyway. The film also made full use of the usual roster of American high school social groups, from the stoners to the nerds, and demonstrated the difficulty flitting between them (which most teen films suggest can be overcome through romance or sports). Joseph Gordon-Levitt was really, really good in the lead role, just like he was in last year's Mysterious Skin though in a completely different role. (It's a shame, though, that he doesn't seem to have aged since the third season of Third Rock From The Sun - the fact that he still looks like Tommy will probably not help his career in the future. </p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=561103"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/103/561103_26ee312a67_s.jpg" align="" alt="Joseph G-L, 2006" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=561104"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/104/561104_0f076e8f92_s.jpg" align="" alt="Joseph G-L, 1997" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>For no good reason, I reckon he'll be in some kind of big-FX blockbuster sooner rather than later, like Elijah Wood in Deep Impact and Jake Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tomorrow - and thenceforth slide back to relative obscurity.) Unfortuntately, the young femme fatale was not in the least bit threatening (a big no-no for any self-respecting noir) and the plot's myriad convolutions could not hide the fact that in the end the film was a bit hollow.... </p> <p>...which, now I've typed it, seems like a pointless accusation to level at a film that demonstrates the vacuousness of upper-middle-class American teen existence. It's set in San Clemente, which is very much O.C. country, just south of L.A. (in fact I know the town pretty well, having spent several months there in my year out living with an aunt and uncle. It's pretty vacant, next to a freeway, not much personality to it.) and the film contains more emotion and teen problems in its trim running time than The O.C. has managed in however many hour-long episodes. So, go and see it.</p> <p>Watford are 3-0 up on Leeds in the Championship Play-Off Final - shame, that, I quite wanted Leeds to go up, a bit of Yorkshire solidarity (no such solidarity for Sheff U, mind - they're a bunch of bell-ends.)</p> <p>Dr. Who: the worst episode of either series last night, I think. Big, big disappointment after such a fantastic set-up last week. In fact I'm so disappointed by it I can't really go into it. I was gutted. Totally gutted.</p> <p>Deal Or No Deal: one of the oddest shows on TV. No skill to it, no possible strategy, no tactics - it's all about luck, all about luck. Does Noel realise it? Do the contestants realise it? I don't know. People win 10p and go away overjoyed at the experience of being on the show, which is quite a depressing thought.... </p> <p>....in our celebrity-crazed age, we've finally reached a game show in which the game itself is almost entirely superfluous to the 15 minutes (well, 45 minutes) of 'fame' bestowed upon the lucky contestant. Young or old, male or female, they really do form the focal point for a room filled to brimming with mass hysteria: an audience 'thinking positively' to help the random selection of random boxes; clapping hands and looking somewhat frantic in between phone calls from The Banker; and generally revelling the spotlight for as long as Noel will allow. Anyone familiar with Darren Aranofsky's fucking brilliant and fucking harrowing 2000 film 'Requiem For A Dream' probably remembers Ellen Burstyn's characer trying to dye her hair (it turns orange) and more seriously becoming addicted to diet pills in order to make it onto a similarly empty game show in which the audience yells "JUICE" (join us in creating excellence) in a slightly hysterical way.</p> <p>I'm not saying that Deal Or No Deal participants are diet pill addicts, or totally freakin' obsessed with making it onto TV... but if you told me that some of them were, I'd probably believe you. After a week in which the head of Endemol (Big Brother's parent company) said that if a weekly TV show existed in which 10 lucky people are flown into the air with 9 parachutes and the promise of £1,000,000 on a safe landing then more than enough contestants would volunteer, it's just sometimes time to stop and wonder.... what the fuck is happening to our culture.</p> <p>Shit, time's up. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/21/juice_by_sarah_juice_by_sarah~817518/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-18:/2006/05/18/footy_footy_footy_ball_ball_ball~809624/mikeyboy2006-05-18T15:59:04+02:002006-05-18T15:59:04+02:00 <p>I have 8 minutes to sum up my day of football yesterday.</p> <p>Proper kickaround in the afternoon on a bona fide Astroturf pitch down in Southwark - I wore my Wednesday shirt with pride. I even ran around a lot for about 10 minutes. My energy levels dropped pretty steeply after that, so I had to rely on my killer first touch (dead after an hour) and Sheringham-esque 'extra three yards in my head' (still going now - walking down the street, I'm seeing passes left, right and centre - it's a curse as well as a gift, you see). It was a great game, football always is - brings to mind Ron Manager for the first time in a while - jumpers for goalposts, small boys in a park, isn't it? The turf was painful for sliding (something Joel didn't seem entirely aware of - literally his first touch was a reckless sliding tackle, which he somehow performed on his knees, thus removing a fair portion of skin from his right leg) but lovely for quick, precise one-touch football - something few of the players seemed consider. </p> <p>Rob provided a few Hargreaves moments, while Jamie could not only control the ball on his chest (which pretty much earned you a hot girlfriend at my old school) but also had a supernatural ability to expel any air from my lungs whenever I ran into him. He'd just wander off with the ball and I'd be wheezing and semi-vomming. My only brief victory came with a nut-meg. If we were in a nickname situation (e.g. 5-a-side team - which has been mooted for the autumn) then he'd be The Wall. Rob would probably be The Cement (which is a good thing).</p> <p>Off up to Euston to watch The Match. Ref ruined it as a contest. Joel looked depressed. I felt a bit shit. Everyone's legs ached to high heaven. Joel looked a bit more depressed. Barca scored twice in 6 minutes. Joel looked like he would cry.</p> <p>Shit my time is almost up. Great day, shame about the result and my fitness. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/18/footy_footy_footy_ball_ball_ball~809624/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-12:/2006/05/12/i_spent_the_summer_wasting_the_time_woul~794387/mikeyboy2006-05-12T16:40:57+02:002006-05-12T16:40:57+02:00 <p>Summer seems to be kicking off quite nicely.</p> <p>Wednesday I went to see Effie's play at Goldsmith's, and it was properly one of the best student productions I've seen. It took me an hour and a half to get to New Cross from central London which was quite weird, like a megabus ride where you don't really go anywhere. Adam was there too, good of him to turn up to his ladyfriend's big night despite having his final exam the next morning.... I guess he didn't really have much choice in the matter, and he didn't seem to mind anyway.</p> <p>Finally, me and Joel are not the only people to be free. Adam finished his exams yesterday, so the three of us grabbed big bottles of Strongbow and sat in Russell Square for the whole afternoon, basking in the sunshine and people-watching. Effie joined us about half-way through which meant I could congratulate her in person for the theatrical triumph of the night before. It was great fun, the cider slowly gets to your head over the course of the day, so that by the time you stand up at 6ish, you almost fall over.</p> <p>Luckily we didn't fall over, and instead headed south to meet birthday girl Hawys for some pints outside a cheap Sam Smiths pub. From there even further south to her house for outside drinks and socialising - and, in a stroke of blogging intertextuality, the return of robmartinique from, er, martinique, complete with a big bottle of rum. I suppose his arrival couldn't help but overshadow Hawys's birthday on some level (kinda like when my brother and his girlfriend announced their engagement in the middle of my sister's birthday meal ages ago), but there was a kid's birthday cake with some candles and we sang happy birthday, and drank champagne, so it wasn't completely forgotten. She seemed happy, and their garden is really nice, with overgrown plants and everything. Will be great in the summer.</p> <p>And summer albums are dominating the stereo, both in my headphones and in the living room. The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest is very laid-back afternoon music gracing me ears at this very minute, and both albums by The Bees have recently been played very loudly. I also downloaded the new album by The Concretes, called In Colour, and it is lovely, lovely, lovely: she's got a gorgeous voice, and the music is beautifully arranged behind it, very harmonious. The middle song, Fiction, is superb..... yes, summer music, grand... I don't know where I'd be without it.</p> <p>Truly, truly relaxed. Nothing to fret about. Full cupboard. Full fridge. Hoovered carpet. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/12/i_spent_the_summer_wasting_the_time_woul~794387/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-09:/2006/05/09/are_you_entirely_motivated_by_hatred~787119/mikeyboy2006-05-09T16:57:48+02:002006-05-09T16:59:04+02:00 <p>Back in the library. Great to be here with nothing important to do with lots of stressed students milling about.... I'm here to wrap up some CV shizzle. </p> <p>I've also been righting wrongs, just like Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap, not playwright dude)... just had a minor altercation with a member of staff regarding my apparently 'overdue' copy of Robert Frank's 'The Americans'. Emails and the computer all said that I hadn't returned it; I knew that I had. I said as much, in no uncertain terms, and the lass behind the desk was rather disdainful: you are a student, you are scum, you've obviously been using this book for toilet paper.</p> <p>Well, I showed her alright, simply by walking to the book's shelfmark, finding it, and taking it back down to the desk and asking if it was my 'unreturned' copy. It was. I was very close to doing a Partridge - "put your words on a plate, and eat them" - but decided that I was probably being a dick, and satisfied myself with the knowledge that I'd saved a few quid in fines and a shitload of hassle.</p> <p>Now sending off for work experience at a number of film publications (fingers crossed, about a million times - a reply by Christmas will be a result) and applying for a subbing job at the Daily Mail. This involves photocopying a lot of my articles from last year, re-reading them, realising they're not as good as I remember, and applying anyway. Oh well.</p> <p>The rest of my Sheffield break was sweet as a nut - more gorgeous food, a few beers, a trip into the city centre to rummage through a few charity shops (with minor success) and enjoy cheap Greggs (74p for a cheese and ham slice! incredible), and a visit to the Showcase to watch 'The Squid and the Whale', starring Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney - it was really, really good, the best American independent film I've seen in a long while (I was unsurprised to see Wes Anderson credited as producer.) Jeff Daniels and his beard were consistently hilarious, and I'd really recommend this film to pretty much anyone who's ever been in a family and anyone with a sense of humour. Funny stuff.</p> <p>Theo Walcott!!! Not often am I speechless, but, well.... holy shit! Time for me to change blogs, I think. Walcott!! Insane. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/09/are_you_entirely_motivated_by_hatred~787119/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk,2006-05-06:/2006/05/07/grease_my_cockney_palm~780817/mikeyboy2006-05-07T00:09:48+02:002006-05-07T00:29:14+02:00 <p>Sitting on my brother's very deep sofa in Sheffield. All the shit Hollywood films and three straight hours of That 70s Show in Worcester finally drove me a little bit insane so I've sought refuge a wee bit further north. And how have we just passed two hours of Saturday evening.....? With a shit Hollywood film, of course.</p> <p><strong>How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days</strong>: I'm not going to go on about this very much. But it's shit. Matthew McConaughey (can anyone in the whole world spell his surname?) pushes his undoubted likeability to the limit, not helped by a dire script, while Kate Hudson takes her irritating sub-Goldie Hawn schtick to phenomenal new heights/depths. And it's really sexist... she ends up giving up her career and high-powered job in Washington to be with him. He doesn't even have to apologise, the blame seems squarely on her shoulders and it's all because she pursues a career - perhaps she shouldn't bother, should just dote on Matthew lovingly. Shit film.</p> <p>That film apart, however, it's been a fucking brilliant break-within-a-break so far. Drove up last night with mum (gorgeous sunset from the car, glad I wasn't behind the wheel so I could watch it) (also glad I wasn't behind the wheel as I can't drive, and we were on the M1) in time for last orders and several ludicrously cheap frames of pool with Pete (50p!) </p> <p>Today dawned bright and early so me, brother 1, pregnant sister-in-law, brother 2, sister-in-law, wee baby nephew (what a guy) and mother/grandmother all moseyed into the Peaks for a picnic (along with half of Sheffield). This being Britain, however, the sun was gone by two-ish (good job I borrowed some shorts), the clouds were black by three-ish, and it was just beginning to piss it down by the time we scampered back to the cars about half an hour later. The heatwave was officially over. However, the food was <strong>gorgeous</strong> (Waitrose!), always good to see the Sheffield family, and the nephew (8 months) is still able to occupy my attention for as long as he wants. I know that everyone thinks their son/nephew/daughter/niece/grandchild is sooooo cute, but, well, it doesn't change the fact that I think he's soooo cute. What. A. Dude.</p> <p>Dr. Who wasn't amazing today was it? Not bad, of course - never bad. But not great... it felt a bit, I don't know, insubstantial. It played to David Tennant's strengths which was good I suppose - more romantic than anything Christopher Eccleston ever had to deal with, which is fitting for Casanova. Also had Tennant's girlfriend in (apparently she didn't even have to audition) as that French woman whose name escapes me when it shouldn't do as she's, y'know, historical. Billie was marginalised, her boyfriend was mercifully marginalised (I missed last week's episode, is he now in it for the long haul? I hope he progresses on some level, then), but Tennant coped quite well with the frivolity of it all, and then the 'tragic' end. Eccleston would have treated the whole thing infinitely more seriously, and probably doesn't have quite as attractive a girlfriend to have cast opposite him. But - I initially feared that this series would be shit, but it's not, not at all. Well done Tennant, Billie (ah, Billie) and particularly the writers. I know that the final episode of the series will probably make me cry, and that's a good thing...</p> <p>I've even sent of CVs to a few publications, with optimistic cover letters. And Pete's got a job for me to apply for at the Daily Mail. It's go-go-go in my life. Oh yes it is.... I still don't know where it's go-go-going, though. But then no-one does. And if they do, they're either lying or very annoying.</p> <p>Now I've got the last hour of An American Werewolf In London to enjoy - Jenny Agutter, aaaahhhhhhh - although if it were made now there's no way they'd have the downbeat ending they have. (Actually, the sequel - ends happy. Bollocks to it, shit film, except for the ethereal Julie Delpy.) Also I feel I should plug my other blog - yes, I am Pro, and I feel much the better for it, although I'm not getting paid for it so I don't see what's Pro about it - but as I've only written one entry for it there's not really much to plug. There will be though. Soon enough.</p> <p>Happy weekend everyone, let's hope that weather gets its ass back here for the rest of the summer. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://iammikehearmeroar.blog.co.uk/2006/05/07/grease_my_cockney_palm~780817/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>