Author: John Page 69 of 121

It May Be Mere Coincidence That It Appeared To Have Been Taken Down Several Hours After I Took This Picture

On 02/06/2008

This picture, then, is of an advert for the new Chris Ryan novel, which I spotted at an Underground station in central London. Two things about it that make me go hmm:

1. Isn’t that first rule of engagement suspiciously similar to the line in David Mamet’s screenplay for ‘The Untouchables’, wherein Sean Connery’s character says “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun”?

2. Given the current concern about people (especially teenagers) stabbing and killing each other in London, are the references to carrying guns and knives entirely appropriate for tube ads? I mean, I don’t want to sound all newspaper editorial, but…

Model Citizen … Of The Future?

By John

On 02/06/2008

In Pictures, Twins, Uncategorized

I’ll be honest – having only seen the film once, I don’t know which character in Metropolis is featured on the poster, but I doubt Erin O’Connor portrayed her (unless she’s startlingly well preserved for a centenarian).

“You’re Meddling With Powers You Cannot Possibly Comprehend.”

By John

On 30/05/2008

In Link, Uncategorized

Look, I know it’s several different kinds of wrong, and the vast majority of me revolts at the very idea, but there is a certain shameless and questionable part of me that really, really, likes the idea of owning these items.

Am I alone in this, or does anyone else feel it too?

Against The ‘graine

By John

On 29/05/2008

In Migraines, Personal, Uncategorized

About five or six times a year, I get migraine headaches.

Migraines are all a bit of a mystery on a medical level – the triggers and symptoms vary from person to person, and the exact cause of them is still not quite clear – but they’re also rather oddly viewed on a social level; a lot of people seem to equate a migraine with a very bad headache, so people will say ‘I think I’m getting a migraine’ when it’s really not the case.

‘Classic migraines’ are preceded by what’s known as an ‘aura’ – a period of blurry or otherwise distorted vision; in many cases (and in mine) what’s called a scotoma appears as a metallic-looking disturbance within the field of vision, shimmering as if moving or reflecting light. It’s an odd thing, but to be honest since a lot of migraines are accompanied by feelings of nausea or active vomiting, it’s only one of many things that a person with a migraine has to go through.

In a lesser number of cases (again, including me), the onset of a migraine is accompanied by pins and needles in the hands and face, difficulty with speech, and a general sense of confusion. It’s always nice to feel special or part of a limited group, but on this occasion I’d rather not, as this is a profoundly weird stage when a migraine hits – before now, I’ve been lying down in the dark, and though I’ve been able to think ‘My name is John’, there’s some sort of scrambling going on in the language centres of my head, rendering any attempt to say the phrase more like something you’d expect to hear from Joseph ‘John’ Merrick.

Having a migraine is a strange experience, and it’s far from pleasant. There are a number of tablets available which treat migraines (though I’m not aware of any which prevent them), and I’ve tried the herb feverfew, but for me it seems the best cure is just to lie in a darkened room, away from light or noise or strong smells, until it passes.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I recently read a ‘beginner’s guide’-type booklet on the subject (you can get a copy of the booklet here). If you or someone you care about does have the misfortune to have migraines, it might be useful. If you’re a more seasoned migraine sufferer, or just keen to learn more about this strange phenomenon, you could do far worse than to read Oliver Sacks’s book on the subject, though a ‘learned reflex’ on my part means that the illustrations of the scotoma make me feel slightly as if I’m going to be unwell.

There was one bit of the booklet which I thought was rather misjudged, though; page three refers to famous people who suffered from migraines, and by way of historic examples, they offer Julius Caesar, Vincent van Gogh, and Elvis Presley. High-profile chaps, all three, but let’s just take a moment to examine their fates, shall we?

– Caesar died after being stabbed repeatedly by people he’d thought were his allies.
– Van Gogh suffered depression for much of his life before fatally wounding himself with a gunshot to the chest
– Presley died on the toilet with what appears to have been a violent heart attack, amongst other medical conditions

Rather a running theme of tragic, painful death there – hardly makes a ‘migraineur’ feel as if their story’s going to end happily, does it?

In The Event Of Them Just Adding Another Blade Like They Usually Do, All Entries Will Be Null And Void

By John

On 28/05/2008

In Fish In A Barrel, Pictures, Uncategorized

Fusion! Power! Stealth!

Manly words! Grr! Words dripping with testosterone and sweat, words which could render women pregnant by reading them individually, but when they’re put together in a row like that… well, we’re clearly talking about a product used by hairy-chested sex gods.

But! Having already plonked two manly words after ‘Fusion’, have Gillette backed themselves into a corner? Are there any remaining words which are so butch they have a Y chromosome? That, my bloggy pals, is the question in today’s competition*, and you – yes, YOU – could win yourself a fantastic prize**!

So, what word or words should Gillette slap on their razors the next time they re-brand? Here are a few of my ideas, but I want to hear from you!

– War
– Goal
– Bomb
– Rottweiler
– Tackle
– Pint
– Geezer
– Transit
– Cock

Post your entry as a Comment, and you could win a very special prize indeed!***

Enter now! This minute! Please enter now! Oh god, I can’t stop using exclamation marks! Help me! Someone! Please!

ENTER NOW!

*It’s not a competition. There is no prize.
**No you couldn’t. He’s lying to you.
***He’s lying again. Frankly, he’s as trustworthy as an ITV phone-in quiz.

This Said, I Am Painfully Aware There’s A Paucity Of Decent Roles For Non-White And/Or Non-Male Actors In Many Films And TV Programmes

By John

On 27/05/2008

In Pictures, Twins, Uncategorized, Writing

I’m not really posting this as one of my ongoing ‘Twins’ series of posts, as the Denzil film came out a good five years before the Dalton film (1984 and 1989, film fans). But instead it reminded me of a topic which I’d been intending to post about for a while, and which is partly triggered by the fact that tomorrow is the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth.

When they were talking about the search for a new actor to portray Bond in the films, one thing which I heard several times was ‘they should do a black Bond’ or ‘they should do a female Bond’. Indeed, some folks suggested Colin Salmon should play Bond (he seems a pretty good actor, though having appeared in the films as another character might be seen as making this a bit weird, though then again it didn’t stop Joe Don Baker or Maud Adams), though offhand I can’t recall any casting suggestions being made for a woman to play Bond.

My feelings on this sort of thing (and this applies to suggestions of a female Doctor Who as well, really, though the regeneration aspect at least gives this a slight increase in story logic, if nothing else) are slightly mixed, but I think they tend to boil down to one word: why?

I can see the thinking behind it, and agree with it completely, that there aren’t really that many high-profile non-white or female characters in English-language films (or, indeed, other media), but taking an established character and making them black or female just doesn’t seem the way to remedy this, to my mind.

Taking a comic-based example, I think it’s probably fair to say that the best-known female superhero is Wonder Woman, who was created without reference to existing male superheroes. There are a number of female superheroes who are, effectively, female versions of well-known characters (for example, Spider-Woman or She-Hulk – and no, non-comic readers, I’m not making those up), but they’ve never really taken off, and I rather suspect that’s because their rather derivative origins are all too obvious. Wonder Woman, conversely, is a distinct character, not just a transparent copy.

And in the same way, just ‘making Bond a woman’ seems to be a pretty cheap way to try to make a character popular, as does making him black (similarly, I’m not quite sure if the ‘Ultimate’ Marvel comics version of Nick Fury is really that much more interesting by the change in his race, though I gather it did make the post-credits scene of ‘Iron Man’ inevitable).

Surely the right thing to do is to try to create a female or non-white characters who have their own appeal to an audience? It would certainly seem the more creative way to go about it.

It’s not necessarily easy to do that, sure, but I genuinely believe that characters like Jane Tennison or Blade are much more memorable for not just being knock-offs of existing figures. The origin of a character – in a story and also a more meta- sense – is always likely to be far more interesting if it’s not simply something like “Well, The Fall Guy was popular, so we just made Colt Seavers female and called her Stephanie Plum” (because I’m pretty sure that’s not what Janet Evanovich did, and her novels are wildly popular).

People seem to be pretty good at sussing out when stuff is calculated or even tokenistic, and so I think that trying to make characters popular or appealing by simply tweaking one aspect of a previous hit to re-sell to a different section of your perceived audience is a bit obvious, and will be spotted pretty quickly.

At least, I like to think it’s the case that audiences are smarter than they’re often assumed to be; on a purely selfish level, I’d like to think that because it’ll mean that there will be drama and comedy features that need scripts from people like me, and not just a never-ending slew of reality TV or makeover shows.

You May Have Seen This Already…

By John

On 26/05/2008

In Fish In A Barrel, Link, Uncategorized

… but it’s worth sharing, I think; just to give the background; Barack Obama suggested it might be quite a good thing to talk to the USA’s enemies, and various people – including, I gather, Bush – accused him of appeasement, and referred to Neville Chamberlain.

Cue one of Bush’s supporters repeating this sentiment, and then demonstrating the perils of swallowing the party line and not actually knowing what you’re talking about.

(Hope this works out all right, my first time embedding a Youtube video…)

Review: ‘Born Standing Up’ by Steve Martin

By John

On 23/05/2008

In Link, Pictures, Review, Uncategorized

Again, it was one year ago today when I suggested Steve Martin’s skill now seems to lie in his precisely-written novels, and this non-fiction memoir of his experiences doing stand-up comedy seems to suggest this is still, or indeed, the case.

As noted in m’colleague’s mini-review, there was a time when Steve Martin’s stand-up talent was such that he could well have been voted the funniest man in the world; he filled huge venues and sold vast numbers of LPs (yes, it was back in the days before CDs and downloads), and in this book he tells you how he did it.

Well, not exactly, as his comedy was far more fragmented and intuitive than that, so it’s not like it worked to a formula which you could learn from this book and then copy – unless the lack of a formula could be seen as an approach in itself, much like I often fear that the ‘ethical relativist’ stance is, in its way, a positive position. But in this book, Steve talks about how his stage act gradually developed, what worked and what didn’t, and how he felt about his success.

If you’re interested in comedy, both the jokes at the front of it and the process that goes into their creation, this book will almost certainly be of interest; his writing is very precise and easy to understand, and the book’s short and to the point – given that it’s a small-sized hardback (a format I really like), the phrase that kept coming to mind as I read it was that it’s ‘a bonsai book’ – there’s not a lot of it, but everything that’s there is there for a reason.

I’ve read a few books purporting to tell you how to write and/or perform comedy, but they’re usually written by people I’ve never heard of, which hardly inspires confidence; this book, though, is written by a man who rose to the very top of the comedy ladder, and who honed his act carefully and thoughtfully for some time before finding success. A great read, and most definitely recommended – but if you have any lingering doubts about whether it’d be for you, you can read the first chapter here.

Startling Candour At A Time When The Property Market’s Supposed To Be In Trouble

By John

On 23/05/2008

In Link, Uncategorized

I know it’s a bit cheap of me just to post links to things, but I like to think that doing so twice in one day is offset by the fact I’m posting some more meaty content in the form of two reviews…

Anyway, honesty from an estate agent is both rare and welcome, so I felt I had to share this from Normandy.

(Link swiped from this week’s B3ta newsletter, which I heartily recommend you subscribe to. It’s free, and there’s always something of interest in it.)

Review: ‘Blind Faith’ by Ben Elton

By John

On 23/05/2008

In Pictures, Review, Uncategorized

Exactly one year ago, I wrote about how Ben Elton seems to do more interesting work in his books than his stage and screen work (‘Get A Grip’, his most recent TV work, was pretty weak, though I think that was partly due to the format and his co-host; Alexa Chung may be popular with the papers and fashion magazines, but her presenting skills are, I feel, doubtful – compare her to, say, Mikita Oliver, and it’s all too obvious who’s most comfortable and natural on-camera. But I digress).

And lo and behold, here I am 365 days on, reviewing his most recent novel, ‘Blind Faith’. As you could guess from the cover and the title, it’s very much a novel about belief.

Set in a future London after a disastrous flood (which, now I think of it, links with several religious stories), the book features a man called Trafford who starts to have doubts about the society he lives in – everyone shares everything (literally – sex and childbirth are public events) on constantly-streamed websites, people walk the streets barely-clothed, and there are vast religious events which have more in common with a political rally than, say, a charismatic gathering.

Science and reason are actively frowned upon and punished, meaning that vaccination is outlawed, and Trafford begins to wonder if all this is right, especially after his wife gives birth to their daughter. His wondering turns into active doubt, and he begins to seek people who, like him, think that things could be different.

As you’ve probably guessed, there are definite parallels with Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, but to be honest this is almost impossible to avoid in a dystopian novel, as Orwell’s book casts a long shadow. Elton’s take on these things, though, is more acute in its attacks on what he sees as being wrong in the present day (the current obsessions with ‘sharing’, public emoting, celebrity and the like), and as a result is, to my mind, more satirical.

And it’s not toothless satire or restrained prose, either – here’s an example from one of the book’s key scenes:
“… no society based on nothing more constructive than fear and brutish ignorance could survive for ever. No people who raised up the least inventive, the least challenging, the least interesting of their number while crushing individual curiosity and endeavour could prosper for long.”
… those are meant to be Trafford’s thoughts, but I think it’s not too much of a reach to imagine that it’s what Ben Elton thinks too.

This isn’t a gut-bustingly laugh-out-loud gagfest, but is certainly one of Elton’s stronger books, and the points it makes are, to my mind, solid ones, and it’s well-written. It just came out in paperback last week, and I heartily recommend it to you as a good read, and one which might well set you thinking about some of the issues it raises.