Come to New Zealand! Where all those Hobbits and Orcs died and shit

It was hard to sympathise with those New Zealanders protesting against the possibility that The Hobbit might be filmed elsewhere because after all I didn’t really like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before the films came out I tried reading the books, well the first and it was essentially a directory of hobbits for the first thirty pages and I gave up shortly after that. As epic was the journey the fellowship took I feel watching all three films was an almightier task. For a guy who likes the occasional sunshine and lollipop fest the Rings trilogy was too dark, too bleak, and just too damn shitting long.
It’s certainly not something I could watch again, just thinking about it makes me shudder. Despite having more gay overtones than Top Gun it’s still depressingly dark and probably the reason why so many franchises are compelled to have a dark turn. Harry Potter could have been a glorious camp adventure but it’s been molested by bleak shades of blue and grey, can’t we just have a little bit of sun? I don’t mind if Ron burns like a mother fucker. This overt gloominess isn’t good for your health, you watch films to escape, why would you want to escape your own depressing life for someone else’s? Yes there is always light at the end of the tunnel and these films end by the protagonist saving the world from a terrible threat but it’s always at the cost of many lives and everyone involved will be mentally scarred until they die, is that really a happy ending?
So why were these New Zealanders getting so worked up? Why would you want your country to be synonymous with death and destruction? Come to New Zealand! Where all those Hobbits and Orcs died and shit. I presume many fanboys go to New Zealand for that sole purpose but there must be more to a country than some fields where Elijah Wood once stood on. Of course the filming of The Hobbit will provide many jobs but that begs the question, have these protestors been sitting about since 2003 waiting for Peter Jackson to give them another job? The answer is no, plenty of films have been made in New Zealand since the Rings and it is somewhat arrogant to say where a film should and shouldn’t be made, that’s up to the filmmakers.
The protest worked though and The Hobbit will be filmed in New Zealand, but come on, where else were they going to make it? The only other place in the world that looks like Middle Earth is Wales and that would be shit, even if Newport is identical to Mordor. While the film may be important to many Kiwis (is that racist?) I have been less than excited about its release…until Martin Freeman was announced as Bilbo Baggins that is. Because of The Office and Sherlock I will probably watch anything that has Freeman in it, even The Hobbit, and not just that, I’m excited about it. Martin Freeman is one of those rare actors who comes across as a normal pleasant human being and as a result is instantly likeable in everything he does, which will be pivotal in The Hobbit’s success. The audience will be able to connect with Freeman immediately or at least I will be able to and without this connection the film will not work. That said protests will start soon to get Rhys Darby to play Baggins, something I will be equally excited to see.

Science, not just for geeks!

I like science and I bet you immediately think I’m a geek (you’re right). Science is cool but the people who get their kicks from it usually aren’t, not by conventional standards anyhow. You mention science and you conjure images of Einstein, Hawking, Doc Brown and Professor Frink, or on a generic basis, nerdy guys with glasses and lab coats. In fiction scientists have become frequently portrayed in this way, if not they are almost always of the mad and evil kind, either way they’re not cool. You go beyond that and science is just something these weird people like, this mysterious entity that only a select few know about and will inevitably use to cause Armageddon like Pinky and The Brain.
There appears to be something of a little science boom at the moment, perhaps the media coverage of the Large Hadron Collider initiated it or maybe it’s because TV shows like Fringe and The Big Bang Theory and sci-fi films such as Star Trek, Avatar and District 9 have brought science into the mainstream. Science documentaries have become much easier to find this year especially on the BBC and their latest project Secrets of the Universe indicates that the stigma towards science is fading and it is ready to reach a wider audience.
Secrets of the Universe started on BBC3 last night, a science programme on BBC3, you heard me right. It’s aim is pretty clear, to make science accessible, simple, and not just for geeks. To make it easy to understand it is formatted in the same way as every other BBC3 documentary, bright colours, popular music and a typically cool presenter. The show promises to explain the concepts of the universe without stepping inside a lab and just using everyday objects and the great outdoors.
What the first hour of this series explained was the Big Bang theory, red shift, waves, gravity and stars. It did this by exploding a water melon, playing guitar in a moving car, surfing, and making toast with mirrors. This all seems to be smoke and mirrors (har har) though and in one hour not very much has been explained. I understand it’s effectively science for simpletons but a GCSE student would find it patronising. If you took out all the gratuitous “WACKY!” stunts the show would last twenty minutes, which I think would be a good thing.
Presenter Greg Foot just comes across as a colossal twat, he’s sort of like science’s Jamie Oliver. He’s the archetype of BBC3 presenters in that he’s young, conventional, brightly dressed and absolutely determined to come across all trendy. In fact I got the feeling that this hour was more an attempt at showing us how cool he was than explaining how the universe works. He introduces himself as 27 (who the fuck does that?) in front of a backdrop of photos of himself in various outdoor pursuits as if to say look what I do (YOU‘RE A PRICK!). He continually uses his wealth of many mates to demonstrate the concepts and also to show us how many mates he has. There is one totally pointless scene in which he explains something in a pub while he has a pint with just a few of his many mates so we can see how frickin’ damn cool he is. He says “shit” a few times as well so we can relate to him and as an extension, science itself. Don’t say fuck though that’s going too far. What annoyed me the most was when he explained waves by surfing. He clearly bought some “WACKY!” board shorts just for the show and was so intent on wearing them he put them on over a wet suit, what a cunt.
This format fits perfectly into the ideals of BBC3 and I wouldn’t be surprised if the producers just cut the documentary so he came across this way, he’s probably a really nice guy and just wants to tell us about science. That said the show would be far more effective if it wasn’t trying so hard and just told us about some science. Wonders of the Solar System was detailed yet simple and focused on the wonders (obviously) of science rather than how gnarly it is. Brian Cox shows that you don’t have to jump around with your mates drinking beer and saying shit to make science cool. People who watch BBC3 get distracted approximately every 3 seconds though and maybe giving them just a little bit of scientific knowledge between every “shit” may eventually lead to an influx of more in depth programming as science becomes more popular.
The thing is though that the BBC already has a regular science programme, Bang goes the Theory, which works so much better. Finding a balance between simplicity and detail, the show is never patronising nor too complex and often relates science to current affairs. It does suffer from being a little too “Blue Peter” which doesn’t do anything for the cool, and it’s hard to attract a wide audience when your clear intention is to educate.
The Big Bang Theory on the other hand is primarily a comedy but as it references scientific concepts it is subversively educating the audience. The show is Leonard and Sheldon and we the audience are Penny, as she learns so do we. The current Sci-fi boom in film should ignite interest in science but it also might deter interest as well. Leaving the cinema after watching Inception I overheard someone saying that his brain had never worked so hard in all his life, probably true but Inception is hardly String theory, in fact it’s hardly science.
Secrets of the Universe is important in that in its own BBC3 way, can change the attitude that many people have towards science. Along with other programmes and indeed films, it can become accessible, popular and ultimately cool, and nerdy will be the new sexy.

Stained Pants

It was reported this morning that councillors of Staines Town are considering changing the name to Staines-on-Thames as they believe this will make the town seem more attractive to investors. Residents of Staines will no doubt be donning their “this is an outrage” caps and furiously tutting and shaking their heads at such a notion while the rest of the nation, world and universe couldn’t give a shit.
If the theory that adding “-on-Thames” to a name increases the attractiveness why not add it to more things? Newport-on-Thames, Baghdad-on-Thames, and what about Susan Boyle-on-Thames? They are probably employing “style consultants” as we speak (I bet some prick has given himself that title), charging thousands of pounds to make Staines sexy with every idea inevitably being absolutely terrible yet costing unspeakable amounts of money.
Slough is going through something similar and is failing miserably. People may remember a few years ago the programme “Make Slough happy” and if you watched it and are wondering if it worked the answer is a resounding no. Slough is of course famous for The Office which gave the town quite a bad name yet it would benefit greatly if people like David Brent and Gareth Keenan actually lived there.
In the past year banners have been put up everywhere in Slough with slogans like “Proud to be Slough”. There are a few meanings of the word slough in the dictionary, my favourite being “A state of deep despair or moral degradation “ which sums Slough up perfectly. So does “Proud to be in a state of deep despair” really make Slough seem like a better place? Another banner simply says “The heart of Slough is beating”, I always read this as “The heart of Slough is beating you up and stealing your phone”. You can plaster every slogan thinkable over Slough but you will never make it sexy because it is a massive slab of concrete with a permanent grey cloud hanging over it not to dissimilar to my stereotypical image of Eastern Europe which I believe is what England looked like in the 70’s.
The landmark feature in Slough is Brunel Bus station which is currently having the Gok Wan treatment done to it and if true to the plans will end up looking like a giant chrome piece of abstract art.
Of course the simple solution is to change the name. Slough is a horrible name and not even Slough-on-Thames would improve it, maybe Rape-on-Thames but that’s not going far enough. My suggestion is to change it to something like Unicorn, or Ribbons, you know, something nice that doesn’t say despair.
Staines will still have a horrible name if it changes to Staines-on-Thames because the word Staines conjures connotations of dirt and mess and uncleanliness. Keep the -on-Thames bit, just change Staines to something nicer, or what about just naming it Stainless? That sounds better already.
Certain people are arguing that Staines has been given a bad name as the fictional character Ali G resided there but I’m sure that real people who are like Ali G do actually live in Staines. Ali G mentioned my home town a few times and like every place he mentioned it’s a shit hole so maybe he has given it a bad name. If Staines isn’t a very nice place then would changing the name make it a better place? No, of course it wouldn’t.

Awkward Situations #1

I’m not the most outgoing of guys, lets be truthful and say that I’m pretty shy. I like the idea of conversation and company but in action I am often flustered and either say very little or come off as a colossal knob. I don’t mean to be, you know me, read the 30 odd posts below and you’ll know that I’m not mean or angry and that I’m actually a lovely guy and by no means a knob (alright I’m clearly a bit of a knob).
I am totally fine around people I know, we have a rapport and we all get along, you think I‘m a bit of a knob but it‘s all ok and it to me it really is. If I don’t know you I will be stiff (that’s what she said), nervous, have very little to say and what I will say is a misjudged joke in an attempt to break the ice which will inevitably offend the new acquaintance. I am totally aware of this and like a domino effect it only makes me more nervous and a lot of the time I will remain totally silent, contemplating the worst possible situation. If I was to speak I might make a fool of myself, someone could be filming this and put it on youtube and I become an international phenomenon overnight I mean even the Queen sees it and decrees that I am the nation’s jester and I have to dance for everyone who demands it while they throw rotten tomatoes and used condoms (the modern day equivalent of rotten tomatoes) at me while the whole world points and laughs at me (even my cats).
So I don’t talk much. Where a normal person will meet another normal person and immediately have a relaxed conversation it will take me several meetings before I can have that relaxed conversation. It starts with “hello“, then “hello how are you?” Eventually “did you see that ludicrous display last night?” And before you know it a fully blown conversation. This process usually takes around three years providing I see you on a daily basis.
Unfortunately this effect isn’t permanent and with time wears off. Recently I have been bumping (quite regularly) into old friends. I managed to get to this point of conversing with them like a normal person and due to a prolonged absence have withered back into this little shy creature. I know I can talk to them, but there’s this additional pressure that I should have something to say and I should be able to talk to them but it’s like I’ve never met them and it’s even more awkward than talking to a total stranger!
Picture the scene, you’re walking down a high street, someone says “Dave!” (or whatever your name is (I don’t assume everyone is called Dave)), you turn around and it’s Dave! You know, you worked with him two years ago, you were never that close but you used to enjoy the conversations you had but that was when you had nothing else to do but talk to him, you’re on your way to KFC, you can’t have one of your hilarious banterations (it’s a word!) about the football nor can you really extract any detailed information to how he is doing in life nor can he with you. With your mind’s eye fixed on KFC and his on Subway you say hello as you’re still walking, but one of you stops, so the other has to stop as well and you are now locked into a verbal exchange but you know it can only last so long (unlike previous conversations which to be honest took a while to get going) so you don’t want to get into too much detail, just the basics and then you don’t want to seem like a dick and walk away and neither does he so you just stand in front of each other in total silence staring at each other, it’s fucking torture and then one of you says you’re really busy and the other says “yeah me too” and then you leave grateful that it didn’t last any longer.
To prevent this I have created the following formula:

Step one: You recognise an old friend/colleague/acquittance. If they recognise you go to step two, if they don't go to step four before they do.

Step two: Say hello, exchange pleasantries

Step three: Say goodbye

Step four: Walk away

With this universally put into place these awkward situations will be eradicated and I won't have to feel like such a knob, no one will. 

                                                                   

A Belated Breakfast

I think I’ve said this a few times before and like a broken record I’ll say it again, I’m not the most up-to-date kind of guy in the terms of, well everything. It takes me longer to do things than everyone else, much much longer. For a while during the first year of school I couldn’t pronounce my y’s and l’s and while every other kid said yellow I said nellow. If I’m honest I still don’t know if I’m pronouncing failure and volume correctly and I‘m too scared to ask for fear of looking like an idiot. I couldn’t swim until I was sixteen, I didn’t have a mobile phone until I was seventeen (I didn’t receive a phone call until I was eighteen), I didn’t pass my driving test until I was nineteen, I still throw like a girl (one who can’t throw very well), and until yesterday I had never seen The Breakfast Club.
I’m never the first in line for anything other than a party which I will always be unfashionably early to, so it’s perhaps no surprise that it’s taken this long to see The Breakfast Club. You might think that I’m prioritising the wrong things in life and you would be exactly right, I have a research report to write and my absolute hatred of it has led me to write about a 25 year old film, thus proving I cannot do anything on time. I couldn’t even grow punctually, I was one of the smallest people in my school year, and while I’m not hobbit size I’m by no means Andre the Giant.
I have avoided John Hughes films ever since I saw Ferris Bueller’s day off (about five years ago), a film I absolutely hated. To me Ferris Bueller was a total prick, he was obnoxious and annoying, was awful to his friends, he got away with everything and we’re supposed to think “yeah, what a cool guy”, and if you don’t then you’re the real prick. Maybe I just didn’t get it, or the film was making fun of squares like me, but I judged John Hughes’ career on this film.
It wasn’t until I got into the films (and comics) of Kevin Smith (again quite late) that I started to realise the importance of John Hughes in the world of film and literature. Just as most bands I like today were influenced by The Smiths, many films I like have been influenced by Hughes. I am sure that if it weren’t for my unpleasant Ferris Bueller experience I would have already seen most John Hughes films like I already love so many Smiths songs.
It’s not as if I thought John Hughes was shit, I just thought I wouldn’t like his films, I still might not like the rest of them for that matter. With my casual fanboyism of Kevin Smith, indie films and even Dawson’s Creek I have learned a lot about John Hughes, and it has become more evident over the past year that the kind of films I like have been influenced by Hughes. So it was time to finally see the film they all talk about when they mention John Hughes, no not Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club.
Since the Bueller-incident I have gone on to garner a love for 80’s movies, the whole decade encapsulates everything I love about film, from Back to the Future, to Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Stand by Me, The Goonies, The Karate Kid, Rain Man, it goes on. Films often reflect the eras they were made in, and while I’m no expert on American history (someone help me out here) I’m guessing the 80’s was a much better decade to live in than the 70’s (which saw such films as The Godfather and Taxi Driver).
This love of all things 80’s warmed me to The Breakfast Club, had I not seen so many 80’s movies this year I might not have been able to stomach it, it would have been too cheesy, too sentimental, too damn 80’s. It was all this but I didn’t mind, in fact it made it more enjoyable, these kind of films are almost a kind of escapism for me such is the difference in style between them and contemporary films. Aspects may be dated now but the themes are still relevant, and this would have no doubt been a film I would relate to and perhaps watch every day when I was still at school.

Unsurprisingly I related to Brian Johnson the most (we have the same birthday! OMGSPASM!), I was never a “brain” but I was most certainly a “dork”. The strength of this film is that while the characters are all archetypes of the typical school groups, everyone can relate to at least one character, if not all of them. What this film shows is that no matter where you stand in the school hierarchy, you all feel the same insecurities, the same pressure, and the same loneliness, and that the stereotypes of the social groups hide these feelings.
I’ve never seen a film so candid about adolescence, I grew up watching films like American Pie where the problem was not getting laid which seemed so far removed from my life at the time I couldn’t really relate to it, and when I did, it was something you could easily talk about. The problems the breakfast club have are ones you never usually talk about it, this makes their temporary friendship in the film the more significant, and one you can connect with.
Most films based in school are often skewed and don’t represent the true essence of what it’s like, take Twilight for example, a superficial smorgasbord of bullshit that is as believable as the concept of vampires. Other light hearted affairs show school to be this kooky balls out fun filled party and The Breakfast Club shows it as it really is, lonely.
It’s not all bad though, and as Judd Nelson pumps his fist it gives you the magical hope that you might just get the…oh wait I’m 23. Still, I loved this film, it’s my kind of thing, it’s not Back to the Future but what is? I suppose the moniker “better than Teen Wolf” will do. So now I begin a voyage of other John Hughes films, treading ever so carefully on the most treacherous of them all, Ferris Bueller’s day off. Expect a post soon about how freaking awesome I thought it was.

Sick in my mouth

This: http://music.uk.msn.com/features/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=150812425&ocid=today, is FUCKING DISGUSTING, the most vile piece of SHIT I have ever read!

“Built by Shanks, Raped by Yanks”

I don’t write much about football, in fact only one post has been about football thus far and that was the World Cup, which if you think about it, doesn’t really count. I have decided to break this tradition however, as the last week has shown that not only is football a waste of everyone’s time, but so is 24 hour news coverage.
We all know that football has become a business, if you didn’t, you do now, and it’s a shitting awful business, no club seems to be making a profit and even the biggest of them are in millions of pounds of debt. Footballers are often criticised for their stupidity, but evidently it’s the owners of the clubs that are the real morons, if there is one thing you don’t want to invest in, it’s football.
Only earlier today did Portsmouth announce that it’s very unlikely that they will still exist next week, and this makes you think, where is the money coming from? The general goal in running a football club is not making a profit from being thrifty and frugal, but through success and the riches it brings. Portsmouth are a perfect example that success doesn’t bring money so why even bother? Perhaps it’s easy running a football club, it’s just that the people doing it aren’t very good at it, or what’s more likely, is that you just simply can’t.
There is a lot of talk about the much dreaded player power, and how the players are ruining the game with their ridiculous wage demands and how they won’t go out on the pitch until they’ve fucked at least three prostitutes. While this is true, they only have as much power as you give them, and it’s the owners of the clubs who are enabling them to be such colossal cunts, and in Portsmouth’s case, putting a lot of ordinary workers at the club, out of a job.
The most recent example of player power comes from Wayne Rooney. Claiming Manchester United not to be as ambitious as he was, demanded a transfer, obviously forgetting he wouldn’t be able to leave until January and any such public statement would make him a hate figure until he left, and even then he would still be hated. Earlier today he signed a new contract, stating his rejuvenated love for the club, which definitely didn’t have anything to do with a pay rise.
How far will this go? If it works for one player, it will work for another, they kick up a fuss and get a pay rise, or, they move clubs and get a pay rise, it’s a win win situation, never mind that you’re team mates hate you, you’ve got loads of money, and you certainly didn’t have enough before.  
Its often noted that “the kids” are the future, and a lot of kids look up to the likes of Wayne Rooney, and when they see him pulling a despicable stunt like this, or repeatedly cheating on his wife (a well respected journalist!) with prostitutes, they will think that this is the right thing to do, and in fifteen years time we could have a scary number of Wayne Rooney type adults littering the country. Would it hurt if he was photographed reading a book every now and again? He wouldn’t have to read it, just pretend. Or he could be photographed in a children’s ward, pretending to treat a cancer stricken child. It might be a lie, but it’s certainly better than being sucked off by a prostitute in the back of a 4X4 in broad daylight (that was Jermaine Defoe), and by the way footballers, a “high class hooker” does not make it acceptable.

The media doesn’t help the situation, and any seemingly irrelevant piece of sports news is seen as IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS! The 24/7 news channels have covered nothing but Rooneygate for the last two days, Sky News literally running the story again and again, showing the same footage over and over, it’s not even news! Wayne Rooney isn’t going to play football for a different team, surely that can be said once and we all get over it.
Perhaps there was no other news today, but we had a football story running non stop last week, the buyout of Liverpool football club. With the coverage it received you would think that it would have at the very least a tiny consequence to the world, but no, a football club was sold. Liverpool fans took it seriously though, as if it was some kind of anti-war march. Hundreds of fans (clearly unemployed) were stood outside the stadium shouting at the American owners to shit the fuck off. There were banners that said things like “Thanks but no Yanks” and “Built by Shanks, Raped by Yanks” (or something like that). There were celebrations when the club was finally sold, though none of the fans seemed to mind that another American had bought the club, they probably didn’t notice the link.
It’s this 24/7 news coverage which is annoying, there is never enough news to be spread out over 24 minutes, let alone 24 hours, and as a result the same news is repeated every ten minutes, and this brand new trend of football dominating the news channels is turning the news (remember its aim is to be informative) into a 24/7 reality show starring Wayne Rooney. And why does all news have to be breaking news now? Surely it’s only breaking news for the first ten minutes and then it’s just normal news?
If football is to become even more prominent in the news then maybe we should incorporate actual important things into it. If we want to go to war with Iraq again we will play them at football. The next election will be decided with a football tournament, or more realistically, how many prostitutes Cameron and Milliband can fuck in 90 minutes.

Pomp and Circumstance

I wasn’t going to write about The X-Factor because, well, I wasn’t going to watch it. I have watched it in previous years, mainly because I was unaware of its turdness and didn’t want to be left out of a hundred conversations. How foolish of me! How could I not know it was the work of the devil? We are only a few weeks into the new series and I’m sad to report that I didn’t learn from my mistakes of yesteryear and I watched Sunday’s programme.

Well I watched 20 minutes, it’s all I could take. You see I had a lapse in concentration, I lost my focus, and I thought that if I am going to be irritated by a thousand conversations and arguments about the series then it might be slightly less irritating if I knew what they were on about. HOW WRONG I WAS.
My gripe with The X-Factor isn’t that it’s a talent show, and the fact that talent shows are ten a penny (or a dime a dozen, or even yen a ten (does that work?)), and are all the exact same thing whichever way they spin it. No, that’s a reason to hate ALL talent shows for sure, but there’s something about X-Factor that makes it more detestable than any other show, and that’s the whole pomp and circumstance of it all, like it’s the epitome of class and culture.

We are made to believe that the “judges” are these all powerful sentient beings who we have to kneel before and lavish them with whoops and gushes and “boy wouldn’t it be swell if we could be like them?”. It’s not the whole talentless pricks judging talent thing, I don’t mind that because it doesn’t take a talented person to tell if someone is talented. A lot of people do take offence to this though, seemingly forgetting that they are also talentless and yet still phone up every week voting for the contestant who they “judged” to be best.

What I find offensive is the fake personas the four of them have adopted. It worked for Gordon Ramsey and Alan Sugar, yes they are wankers in reality, but on screen they really wank it up an extra notch, kind of like a pantomime villain, but one who would punch a child in the audience. Simon Cowell’s head is so far up his own arsehole it’s on his shoulders. He’s not as mean as he used to be, and every so often he realises this and insults someone just to stay consistent with the persona. “That was the best performance of the night and err…actually you’re a cunt and I fucked your mother”. Louis Walsh and Dannniii Minogue talk a hell of a lot for people who have absolutely nothing to say, and there really is nothing left to say about them.

And then there’s Cheryl Cole. Revered by the nation like a goddess. Driven by her own ego her one goal is to be more popular than Cowell. She disagrees with absolutely everything he says, if he were ever to say that rape is wrong, she would say it’s right. If he were to say that Nigerian toilet attendants are great, she would punch one. The only thing more irritating than her is the people who idolise her. She has had a successful solo career despite releasing songs that can only be described as fuck awful, all because these people have bought into this horrible concept of the celebrity. Why would you want to be like her? She has nothing interesting to say, looks really aren’t everything.

The show treats its audience like they’re idiots, and they must be idiots if they’re still watching. The format of the show has been exactly the same year after year save for a few superficial tweaks. Nothing is surprising anymore, if you hear some sombre piano in the background you know a sob story about a woman who was eaten by a dog is coming. If anything new does occur, the producers make sure it is repeated, because hey, if the audience liked it first time round, why wouldn’t they like it a second time? And they do like it. Jedward were the new thing last year, an obviously shit entity whose only saving grace was the “comedy” of it all. This year of course we have a gay version of Jedward, and in future series there will now always be a terrible duo who provide some comic relief.

I said I watched 20 minutes of Sunday’s episode, and like all of the Sunday episodes from last year, it featured a musician who had a tour to promote. Clearly people will have bought tickets to see Usher upon seeing his performance, despite it consisting of him haphazardly shouting “Yeah” and “Come on” every now and again while dancing like he’s being attacked by a wasp.

The format of the Sunday show has already come under some hyperbolic criticism from The News of the World, where the headline “what the X is going on?” was used in reaction to that whore everyone seems to hate not going out. What the fuck is going on indeed. For this inconsequential event to make the front page of a national newspaper with such an aggressive headline is to suggest that this show is the only thing us Brits have to live for. People are throwing themselves off buildings in protest! If only!

Clungens and Dragons

A list of TV shows that at one time I rather liked:

Heroes
Prison Break
24
CSI
Family Guy
Scrubs
The O.C
Chucklevision
Joanie Loves Chachi

And now I fear that The Inbetweeners will soon be added to that list. When The Inbetweeners hit our screens in 2008 is was a breath of fresh air, kind of like Skins but good. I say that but I only watched Skins the one time and it felt like an expensive episode of Hollyoaks trying too hard to be cool and not capturing anything remotely realistic about my adolescence. We can’t all have grown up making films with Hugh Grant.
The Inbetweeners on the other hand wasn’t trying to be cool, it was trying to be funny, and it succeeded. It wasn’t totally akin to how I remember school but that didn’t really matter because the interaction between the four protagonists was often amusing and to an extent a realistic depiction of four teenage boys. Mix that with some embarrassing situations and you have quite an entertaining show.
Unfortunately the sharpness and wit of the first series (at least I remember there being some sharp wit) was mostly gone by the start of the second, replaced by a relentless barrage of crude obscenities. Saying clunge the tenth time is not as funny as the first time. The embarrassing situations are still there however, but they seem to be relying on them more and more as the series progresses, and if these situations don’t work, the episode generally fails. They don’t always have to be vulgar and disgusting either, Frank Spencer never got his dick out in public.
I was part of a four strong group of “inbetweeners” at school, the geekiest part though, and I no doubt dramatically lowered the coolness of the other three. Looking back I was punching above my weight, I still am. School was endlessly awkward for me, and usually consisted of trying not to get an erection, inevitably getting an erection, being too shy and embarrassed to talk to anyone, mocked for being shit at football (wasn‘t even that bad), bullied for being small and quiet, and insulted by my own friends. It was never about really embarrassing situations you could base a sitcom around, it was a culmination of all the little awkward things that made school so hard and humiliating, and maybe this is just me, but I spent most of my time narrowly avoiding embarrassing situations every day, possibly even every hour, rather than actually having them.
The Inbetweeners should in my opinion focus on the smaller things that make adolescence such a nightmare because the bigger things like shitting yourself in an exam or exposing a testicle in front of an audience don’t happen in real life, if they did you would never go back to school, you’d probably jump off a bridge.
The characters in The Inbetweeners have become very two dimensional. Jay, against all odds is the most realistic character in the show, there were dozens of people like him at school endlessly talking about sex, overcompensating for the fact that they weren’t having sex, as if everyone expects a 13 year old to be “knee deep in clunge” and you've failed at life if you're still a virgin before your SATS. I never understood that need to show off your (fake) sexual affluence. I remember one time in year 9 maths that someone said that a tit wank is better from a woman with small tits. Totally useless information for a 14 year old like me, or for the cunt who said it, I don’t even know if he was right either (answers on a postcard please). Another time in what must have been year 7, someone said that a woman should never be at the bottom of a 69 because they would choke. I absolutely hated these people, who wouldn’t?
Simon has the neurotic sensibilities that I assume a lot of people once had, or still have, which in a way helps you empathise with him and makes his experiences totally relatable. Will and Neil are probably the weakest of the four. Once you get that Will is intelligent, a square, and hates idiots, and that Neil is just an idiot, there’s not much comedy to come from them, and while Jay might be realistic, he says the same thing over and over, and it’s getting pretty tiresome now.
With the interactions between the four protagonists becoming much weaker and repetitive, it’s a shame there is such a little ensemble to mix things up, it’s like they go to the world’s smallest school. Any recurring characters are also quite two dimensional often showing only one personality trait, Donovan for example is supposedly hard, and every time he’s on screen we know exactly what he’s going to say.
Of course I’m the minority here, the show’s popularity seems to be at an all time high, probably because it’s so crude and Jay says minge and clunge a lot. It will only get more popular the more it uses mindless profanities because there are so many people who talk like that out there. Peep Show proves that you can be rude and intelligent at the same time and make something as small and simple as walking down a street or dancing as one of the most embarrassing things in the world. The problem with The Inbetweeners is that it’s sinking too low too fast, how is it going to get worse for them? Awkward moment after awkward moment only numbs the whole experience until it no longer seems that awkward. And we find things embarrassing because of what people will think of us, and as the cast of the show is so small, we cannot see the repercussions of their actions to the fully embarrassing extent that would happen in real life.
While the show may still have its moments now and again, the direction it is taking is not ftw (as geeks would say), maybe not for its audience, but for me certainly. With two dimensional characters, clunge, clunge, fucking clunge, and relying on the sit rather than the com, The Inbetweeners is not the show it used to be.

“Windows 8, you’re a dick if you don’t buy it”

I’m a PC. I’m a Mac. Windows 7 was my idea. The iPhone 4 changes everything, again. Yes, I have a problem with how Microsoft and Apple market their products. I was fine with it but I’ve come to realise that these annoying Windows 7 adverts aren’t going away. The first annoyingly smug bastard actor telling me that Windows 7 was his idea grinded my gears, and the latest one with the even more annoyingly smug bitch actor telling me in a way that couldn’t be more smug that Windows 7 was her fucking idea has annoyed me to the point of sitting at my laptop (using Windows 7) to write about how annoyed I am at it.
I have Windows 7. I have not used any of the “genius” ideas mentioned in all of the adverts, I haven’t even seen an opportunity where I can do something new. The whole point of this ad campaign and many like it are to say to the world how easy computers are to use, but these features haven’t changed how I use a computer one bit other than I have a nice looking green taskbar.
As if we don’t know how to use a computer anyway, it’s all a bit patronising, and adding irrelevant features nobody uses won’t help at all, nor will annoying adverts. The Windows 8 ad campaign will have the slogan “Windows 8, you’re a dick if you don’t buy it” which is pretty much Apple’s slogan for the iPhone.

"Fracking Machines"

True the iPhone did change the world of phones, but the slogan for the iPhone 4: “Changes everything again” is just calling all of us cunts, yes cunts, big hairy cunts. The iPhone 4 is just a newer iPhone, just like the iPad was a bigger iPhone that wasn’t actually a phone, it hasn’t changed anything. The big new feature for the iPhone 4 was its new sleek metal design, which actually stopped the phone from working well. Apple’s response was that if you buy a phone cover (from Apple of course) the problem would stop. Yes, the whole point of the metal rim was because it looked good and now you have to cover it up for the phone to work. Apple call us cunts, again.
They know we’re going to buy their shit anyway, we want it, it’s all new and shiny and does stuff, so why put us through this painful marketing? Maybe they think it works but if you show us an iPhone in dog shit we would still want it, it doesn’t mean you have to. Nor do you have to make Mitchell and Webb sell out and sell your product. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs already own our souls, they could at least make us feel good about it.