Picture of the day

So, the football season has begun in earnest - Aston Villa drew against Odense in the intertoto cup. Not the most exciting of occasions, but it highlights that there is under a month until the start of the new season proper... anyway, I was delight to note that Steve Sidwell's first act of note for Villa was to score an own goal, resulting in this fabulous piece of photo journalism:

Sidwell (middle) seems to have developed a look of angry incredulity (previously thought impossible by face scientists), while Petrov (right) is trying his hardest to see if he can actually kill a man by looking at him. Meanwhile, Martin Laursen (left) clearly longs for the days of Gordon Cowans - the impression he does is uncanny.

Tee hee hee...

While watching a documentary on the Spanish Civil War (fuck me, it's crazy around my flat at this time of year, you never know what's going to happen next), this chap popped onto the screen. The name was funny enough in a juvenile kind of way, but the caption below makes it work on all levels ever created. But it's the juvenile aspect I like best...

The picture definition of 'bullied at school'.

Amazon #18: Brabantia 135x45 Raindrops Ironing Board

3 stars.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with R. Patel "Bush4ever" from Texas (otherwise known as the "backwards state") - while the price is certainly competitive, I'm unsure that this really is an ironing board.

The measurements of 135x45 certainly seem accurate on the surface, but if you look at the picture, you'll see how far the legs stick out either side - such sturdiness goes far above what you'd expect from an average ironing board, and I suspect this has more sinister uses that the manufacturers know all about - after having done some research I'm certain it involves Portugal's nuclear capabilities, David Shayler and several capybaras. Watch this space world!

ps - it actually works quite well as an ironing board too. Alas! I have no iron, so I've only used it in an imaginary capacity so far - but it didn't disappoint.

The Osmonds - gnarlier than Kyuss.

I don't need to say much about this - if you've ever visited my flat, then I've inflicted this on you. I was tipped off to it's majesty by my good friend and walking library, Chris Fowler - and I swear, this is the speed that this song was meant to be played at. I can't listen to the regular version anymore (not that I'd do so through choice anyway) - it sounds too fast and cartoonish now that this has entered my consciousness.

Enough wittering - ladies and gentlemen, this proves that the Osmonds are heavier than Kyuss, even if it's unintentional.

The Osmonds - Crazy Horses (33 RPM version - MP3)

Animal Facts #2: The Frog

It's time to get animal facted. Prepare thyselves...

• Although usually perceived to be some kind of "landfish" (Charles Darwin once described them as "the hovercraft of the animal kingdom", which showed a remarkable degree of foresight, even for him), frogs are actually what is known as an 'amffibeon'.
  
• The incredibly over-used analogy of the boiling frog goes thus: "A frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out." This is of course, utter fucking nonsense and whoever uses it should be ashamed of themselves. If you put a frog in boiling water, IT WILL DIE. If you put a frog in cold water that you then heat to boiling point, IT WILL JUMP OUT AT SOME POINT BECAUSE IT ISN'T AS DUMB AS THE VAPID TWAT THAT'S DOING 'EXPERIMENTS' WITH THE FROG IN THE FIRST COCKING PLACE.
• Even though frog rhymes with dog, these two species are actually vastly different. For example, a frog cannot be trained to lead the blind, and dogs have an intense dislike of being contained in small glass tanks.
  
• 'Frogman!' was a shortlived Marvel comic that lasted for 5 issues in the early 1960s. Although initially promising, fans of comics were repelled by Frogman's unusual super power of being able to emit his young from his mouth, and in the final issue that decided the comics fate, through holes in his skin - a record number of complaints were received, and still arrive in the Marvel offices to this day.
  
• Frogs are evolving at a terrifying exponential rate, and it is predicted by a scientist I met in a pub that they will be able to dominate humanity by the year 2026. However, according to his philosopher friend who was also in the same pub, they are gentle souls by nature so it is unclear whether they will actually do this.

In this photograph, we can see that frogs have already evolved to the point that they resemble Peter Crouch going on a date.

Amazon #2a: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - STUPIDITY UPDATE

I've just about learned to live with all the stupidity in the world - when I was younger, stupidity was my enemy, along with the people who I considered stupid, and it made me genuinely angry. But with a bit of age, maturity, and the occasional ill-tempered beating, I've finally understood that stupidity is inescapable - we're all capable of it at various times, and as long we can understand and appreciate that then I believe it to be more of a virtue than a curse. But even trying to identify stupidity in other people is a dangerous road to go down - an unavoidable byproduct of that is that you identify yourself as superior somehow, and elitism of that kind is still capable of making me REALLY angry. (that said, identifying and mocking stupidity is tremendous fun, and should be encouraged at all times - ladies and gentlemen, boneddigion a boneddigednigadi, I am walking hypocrisy.)

I digress - the number of comments my amazon review of Lord of the Rings has attracted is enough to make me despair of humanity all over again - these people are total fucking idiots, and I pity them so much that I even mock their grammar (which is dangerous for someone who uses commas as liberally as I do without, much of an understanding of where they should, actually go). I wouldn't mind so much, but I don't even think it was that subtle an attempt at humour... Anyway, here they are:

"Mr. S. N. Macpherson says:
do you comment on every film where something from fantasy was in it?

did u comment on the terminator movies and say that it is rubbish becuase you have never seen a robot fire a gun?

this movie was fantasy so dont say its bad because you have never seen an orc"

Have you seen Terminator 3? Utter cunge. I can say it's rubbish while giving any reason I choose.

"A. Seneviratne says:
You realy need to live a little.
you've probablry just put forward the worst argument in film history.
you don't dserve to write reviews."

Maybe not; but you sir, do not deserve hands.

"Mandy says:
I understand that everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but i honestly can't understand why you would watch a film well known to be a "fantasy" movie and then proclaim its plot to be ridiculous. Secondly, the characters that are featured in the book/film aren't an affront to your intelligence, they're just what the film's about, which would be why they are "endlessly paraded" in front of you. Why, if you know you think fantasy plots to be "ridiculous", would you watch all ten hours of the films and then complain about doing so? Philistine."

Mandy/Mandrew is notable for being the only person to have responded to my further 'comic' outbursts on amazon - I replied with: "Mandrew - I'd love to "reply" to your thoughtfully considered "comments", but I'm afraid that life is too "short". Canaanite". This resulted in:

Mandrew says: If life is too short, why waste ten hours of it watching something you don't like? "Jackass".

I was distraught with salty tears. What else could I say? Nothing but the truth: "That was mean and you made me cry."

So, I thought that was that. Between my attempts to lampoon the individuals involved, my friend Katy joining in the fun and with a few other people saying that they thought the review was funny, I really didn't think that anyone else could fall into the trap that I never intended to lay in the first place. My friends - I did a very dangerous and inadvisable thing. I overestimated the internet. Today, I found this:

"Buyer from UK says:

I don't know why people are bothering to argue with this narrow minded person. It's obvious he can't see past his own nose! If he wants to "waste his precious little life" and walk around with his eyes closed, let him! He obviously just doesn't get it and never will! Put it this way, there's always one isnt there?"

My response: "I wish. As the comments have proved - in this case, there are 4 and counting." Buyer from UK, the rapier-witted son of a gun countered with:

"Buyer from UK says:
It's not a case of comments. It's the content and "stupidity" of your comment, which is why "you" have 14 replies to it!"

My response: "MY COMMENT WAS NOT STUPID. I still fail to see why 10 hours of seriously far-too-extreme-fiction is hailed as a masterpiece, when it's something that my 3 year old could have drawn. I'd far prefer a 3 film treatment of the agonising dullness of the human condition, mainly conducted by arguing on the internet - you know, something with some relevance to our lives."

I would be incredibly surprised if another comment that took me seriously landed on that review - I think it has been put to bed now. But hey, I've been wrong before...

NB: My genuine opinion on Lord of the Rings - it's worth watching once, though I don't think it really stands up to repeat viewings... I don't care for it that much at all though. Even though the second film is the best, I think the whole trilogy seems to get worse as it goes along - the final hour is seriously excruciating. I was almost tempted to shit myself to try and relieve the tedium. I now regret that I didn't.

My case for why Wild by the Butterflies of Love is the best guitar pop song ever written.

I will keep this brief, I will simply list all the elements of why this is so so so great, and ticks every single box for what makes a great indie-pop* song. Just listen to it and agree with me.

The Butterflies of Love - Wild (MP3)

• Reverb and tremolo soaked guitar that sounds like it was recorded in a warehouse? Check.
• Dreamy ooh-aah backing vocals? Check.
• The imperfect yet so-so-so right lead vocal that sounds like a Neil Young imitation? Check.
• Lyrics vaguely dealing with love, but really you have no idea what he means? Check.
• A maximum cap of 4 chords in the whole song? Check.
• A swirling organ sound that sounds like it was recorded in an even bigger warehouse? Check.
  
• A slight breakdown in the middle, where nothing seems too different but when it kicks back in you KNOW that this song will be with you forever? Check.
• A bizarre, somehow inappropriate but yet totally fitting synth noise coming from nowhere and then immediately vanishing a few seconds after it begun? Check.
  
• The closing guitar and drum noise at the very end, that spells out "hey, we're in a band, we're in a room, so let's prove it"? Check.

I could listen to this song all day - I believe it to be perfect. It's catchy without being irritating, memorable without being cliched, it's just so..... right.


*I'm sorry for using that genre name. I'm no music journalist, and I don't work in Zavvi, so I have no need for genre names usually. Just bear with me on this...

Animal Facts#1: The Octopus

Fun Octopus facts! Some are more true than others! Did you know that...

• The Octopus is the only animal in the world with 8 knees?
• An Octopus invented the fountain pen! George Safford Parker was an octopus fanatic, and regularly discarded his failed fountain pen prototypes into their tanks. One day, he saw his favourite pet, Caesar the Cephalopod, filling the barrel with it's own ink, and George realised that this worked much better than his own ink concoction, which mainly consisted of water, gravel and sunlight.
• Live Octopus is considered a delicacy in South Korea? Bunch o' twats.
  
• The newly discovered 6-tentacled 'Hexapus' isn't a freaky Octopus at all! It's merely the latest hatchling from the Kraken's 5000 year breeding circle, and it indicates carnage, terror, pestilence for all ocean-dwelling men everywhere.
  
• Octopus wrestling was the most popular sport in the USA for a period of time in the 1960s, until it was declared unconstitutional and revealed as a communist ploy to steal US salt water by Republican senator Mark Hatfield?
  

Here we can see a young Dennis Wise, John Terry and Frank Lampard taking part in some recreational animal torture.

And now, for some non amazon content

And also because France have gone crashing out of Euro 2008, and I drew them in a sweepstake. They deserve to be mocked.

Amazon#17: The Karate Kid Part III (novelisation)

"Make his knuckles bleed"

Link - 5 stars.

John G. Avildsen's existentialist melodrama is given a surprisingly coherent treatment in this novelisation by B.B. Hiller - like all good novelisations, it's enough to make you doubt if the film really came first, or whether the film was an adapted screenplay of this dense, symbolist tome.

The third episode is far bleaker than the previous installments, and communicates this with ease. Here, there are no silky 'soccer' skills from Daniel-san - and no hilarious ice-smashing contest taking place in America's idea of what Okinawa should be like - they return to find their apartment complex being torn down, symbolising their return to a USA that is deformed, stark, and with an almost prophetic sense of the looming spectre of terrorism that will soon be visited upon it's shores and mountains.

The main difference in the book is the wealth of material on the character of Noel Gardner, surprisingly cut from the film itself - he is more deity than man, and his narrative takes up the first third of the book. It's him that's concerned about the way the world is heading, it's him that organises the repeat karate tournament, and he is responsible for giving Daniel-san a bye into the final for being a previous champion (incidentally, I've written to the FA about incorporating this into the FA Cup - I've had no reply so far) in a desperate attempt to halt the decline of Western civilisation that is symbolised so eloquently by Mike "The Bad Boy of Karate" Barnes. For some insane reason, he was not featured in the film, and is replaced by a bizarre love interest that seems to disappear without anyone noticing.

I believe that it's these bizarre ideas that has stopped this trilogy being recognised as a modern classic - and it so nearly could have been. However, because the novel gambles and succeeds, it is rightly regarded as a triumph.