In case you haven’t seen The Prestige allow me to save you the effort. After dealing with some aggro provided by the childish region coding of this legitimately purchased DVD (you don’t get all of that crap if you get a pirate copy) we settled down with a curry and watched the “epic”. It took me half an hour before I could distinguish between the two leading male actors and three leading female actors as they all looked identical. Well the blokes looked like each other and the womean look…you know what I meant. It’s like Hollywood has a production line that turns them out by the truckload.
In a nutshell, you can think of this as a remake of The Strike but with magicians instead of miners. Instead of Al Pacino playing Arthur “Scarface” Scargill they have David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla (seriously) and so forth. Despite the film being set in impoverished areas of Victorian London, the actors either speak with American or posh accents; it’s clear that Hollywood voice coaches still don’t understand about regional British accents. Still, as the fictional Hollywood producer in Strike observed:

“Nobody in Wyoming gives a god-damn shit about that.”

There were two exceptions to the accent rule:

1. Michael Caine. He sounded like a pastiche of all his earlier roles. They even got him to say “you bloody fool!” Pity.
2. The protagonist employed a mockney accent that made him sound like a poor ring-tone voice double for Ross Kemp. He also had a distinctly 21st century haircut.

Using some cutting-edge techniques in pretentious filmography they tell a ludicrous story with some skull-crackingly predictable plot-twists. Worse still, at one point there’s a dead bird involved, which was enough to immediately put Michele off. The suspense conjured by the plot wasn’t enough to make us abandon it in favour of the TISWAS nostalgiafest on ITV. Although, in fairness, not much would have kept me away from that.
The curry was good though.

Michele has started a blog!

Did you know that for as little as 30 quid you could own a pair of unbelievably fashionable pieces of cheap moulded plastic that you could, if you so desired and didn’t have functional sweat glands, put on your feet ?

A company called “Crocs” (not at all a contraction of “crock of shit”) has managed to do what I’ve always wanted to do and sell massively overpriced crap to gullible people whilst taking the piss out of them.

See those holes in the front of the shoe ? Aha! Fooled you! They’re not holes at all! According to the Crocs website, these are an “advanced toe-box ventilation system!” I’m not making that up BTW – check it out.

During an after-work drink on Friday my boss, and benefactor, was talking a lot about the ever-increasing state power in the UK. He remarked that after the fall of the iron curtain, the familiar surveillance cameras, that were widespread throughout eastern Europe, were systematically turned off and removed; a “free” country obviously doesn’t need them. But meanwhile in western Europe, especially in the UK, they were being thrown-up with gusto. In fact the UK now has one of the highest levels of state controlled cameras in the world, with up to one CCTV camera for every 14 people. Yet we still think we’re “free”. In fact, the government would have us believe that they’re being put there to “protect our freedom”. And this is just a small example of “New Freedom”.
The same government is successfully implementing laws that would surely cause a revolution in countries where the population aren’t such fat, ignorant, arseholes, who are too worried about their personal finances to care about politics. Yes, I am including myself in that description.

Meanwhile, over the Atlantic, things are just as bad. People often ask me, in baffled tones, why I would even consider going to live in America when it’s clearly a proto-fascist country. They clearly haven’t looked in the papers recently…well to be honest they probably have, but got bored by all of the stuff about celebrity cokeheads and Prince William’s nob. Britain is almost as bad, if not worse!

On saturday we started watching a film about WalMart, and how it’s ruining the world. After 20 minutes of rifle-waving rednecks whinging about their towns getting destroyed by out of town Wal Marts we gave up and watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (which made more laugh more in 90 minutes than I have laughed in several years BTW).

One thing the republican rednecks were consistently banging on about can be paraphrased thus:

“Now, I hate communism and socialism. I love America and the American way and most of all FREEDOM. But I wish the government would step in and try to control Wal Mart.”

That’s socialism you stupid arseholes!* And what do you mean by “Freedom” ?

Meanwhile they continue supporting Bush, neo-conservatism and may as well turn their heavy weaponry on themselves.

*I know that technically it isn’t Socialism, but it’s exactly the sort of “Socialism” that the capitalist countries bang on about.

OK Nubiana. Normally this sort of this sort of viral thing scares me but I’ll call it. Here are the rules:

1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com/Music
2. Pick the year you turned 18.
3. Get yourself nostalgic over 5 of the songs of the year.
4. Write something about how the songs affected you.
5. Pass it on to 5 friends.

Here we go:

• Funky Cold Medina – Tone Loc – This track, and the whole album in fact, was exactly what I was looking for in the musical misery of the “Madchester” era. While everyone else was talking in a mock-manc accent and waving their arms about to a bunch of lame, derivative, half-arsed, psychedlia-lite claptrap, I was funking my 18-year-old (skinny at the time) arse off to this in Planet-X in Liverpool: the only club I’ve ever really liked. There’s not a dud on this album.
• Wild Thing – Tone Loc – See above. Same album.
• Buffalo Stance – Nenah Cherry – This is too easy. The catchiest Tim Simenon tune ever, fronted by someone with a superb voice and a body that did bad things with my excitable teenage hormones. My girlfriend at the time reluctantly bought me the album after a lot of pestering.
• Back to Life – Soul II Soul – This track and “Jazzie B’s theme” really helped provide a window of sanity in the jingle-jangle claptrap that I was trying, so hard, to avoid at the time. I was in Liverpool, and it was so London and so, so good.
• Me, Myself and I – De la Soul – I really don’t have to explain this one do I ? Come on. It’s a daisy age…

Oh shit – that’s my five! Runners up were Tom Petty and the Beastie Boys. Why weren’t Sonic Youth on the list ?

The fellow bloggers I tag:

• Dr K
• Netty
• Daddy Mention
• Ange
• El Miño

On Sunday afternoon ITV were showing the original Ocean’s Eleven. Neither Michele nor I were particularly interested and continued our net scraping activities until a character in the film, singing in some sort of casino/nightclub with a heavy Brooklyn accent, sang a lyric that astounded us. We simultaneously sat bolt upright, looked at each other, and asked in unison:

“Did he just say ‘I’m going to feel my cock’ ?”

In fact Michele heard it as “peel” but that’s too scary to contemplate. We’ve been giggling ever since but neither of us is any the wiser to the real lyrics; maybe he really was so excited about the prospect that he needed to sing it out of his system. Michele’s reaction was “alright mate, no need to sing about it!”

If you know what he was really singing about then please let us know.

There could be a number of reasons why I’ve been so uptight, tired, and stroppy over the last week but I think the real reason is all of them combined. So, this evening Michele and I decided that we should treat ourselves to a nice meal out. Over the years this technique has proved so effective that we named it “anti-sad treatment.” The restaurant doesn’t matter as long as it serves food we like, red wine, and has a nice atmosphere. Tonight we chose a local Thai restaurant, noted for its excellent food, but it didn’t quite pan out in the way we’d hoped. The food was superb as usual and the intense humidity of the place was mitigated by their agreement to open the door; personally I prefer the intense heat to the perpetual stream of sirens shooting past but each to his own. They even gave us some complimentary drinks!
So it was all going nicely until I tried to pay and the card machine rejected my card with a surly “NOT AUTHORISED”. This surprised me, but was just about feasible, so I tried another card that I knew was ok: a credit card with zero balance and a 5 grand limit. This too was rejected. By now, all of the other punters had spotted the prospect of a commotion and were staring over with morbid interest. The waitress would not entertain the possibility of a technical fault in the device and was looking annoyed which, in turn, annyoed me. So I gave in and ran over to the nearest cash machine which, of course, happily delivered my cash without argument. Incidentally, the last time I had a row with someone over a problem with a card reader was in a small Costcutter over the princely sum of 3 quid. The shop manager was so confident that I was trying to rob them that he and his wig went out to the back of the shop to fetch a bag of rubbish containing evidence, in the form of other till receipts that would prove him right. His apology was so pathetic that he used to run out of the shop every time I came in from that day forward. The point I’m trying to make here is that I’ll usually blame myself for this sort of error, unless I’m utterly sure it’s not.
When I returned and handed over the cash, they accepted it eagerly and then stiffed me for a tenner on top of the tip. They had the till out with a calculator and everything and still claimed I’d given them ten quid less than I had. Now, it could be my mistake…but it wasn’t. It could have been deliberate on their part, right down to nobbling the machine so that I had to pay cash, but I doubt it. But whatever the reason, the garlic, coconut, chili and spices couldn’t get the overpowering bad taste out of my mouth.
Look, I know this is a really stupid thing to get annoyed about, but it ruined our anti-sad treatment and thus ruined our day…and I paid for it. It also made us look like a couple of low-level crooks in front of everyone in the restaurant.

Standing on TV like a flesh and blood Guy Smiley with his gormless, vapid grin, ludicrous hairstyle, and wacky posturing, you’d think that Vernon Kaye was a completely expendable moron. But please don’t be fooled, he’s not what he seems. You’d even be forgiven for thinking that he could fuck right off and stuff his slimy repartee up his arse…but it’s just a clever ruse.
The sinister truth is that he was created, Steve Austin-style, from the remains of a car crash involving the bastard son of Roger Moore and a fresh leg of New Zealand lamb. They reconstructed his body using a new type of plastic resin and then replaced his brain with that of a cretinous dog, wired into the main circuit board of an unwanted BigTrak. The result is the distilled form of Saturday-night ITV “personality” that the commercial stations have been searching for since the birth of television.
It’s perfect. He has that bizarre, hollow expression combined with a lantern-jawed, gormless countenance which, when combined with spray-on-tan, gets the ladies of ITV’s target audience moist. But at the same time he has the powerful ability to spew a perpetual stream of saucy trifling drivel that the male members of the audience – and I mean “members” – can enjoy. Those in the audience with some sort of vestigial brain may also enjoy Vern’s televisual presence by convincing themselves that his camp twattery is all “ironic”.

A while back I mentioned a passing interest in Morse code (or CW as the hams call it), but since then it has escalated to a significant interest, bordering on the obsessive. As obsessions go it’s not such a bad one I suppose, although the reaction of most people when I tell them is a combination confusion and pity. But it’s got to the stage where Suzanne (my CW co-conspirator) and I are planning to get a ham licence each. Do we really need this much geekiness in our lives ? Too late really, we both now own brand new morse keys and can happily recognise the alphabet. Oh dear.

Some good things from this week:

• Meeting up with an old friend/colleague at a pub in the west-end that served Thatcher’s Heritage cider.
• On the way home getting a legendary, cow-sized salt-beef sarny from Gaby’s Deli together with a latke, a pickled cucumber, and a complimentary falafel and sweet….as I say, it’s the little things.
• Someone from Yahoo contacted me to ask if they could use one of my pictures for a feature article.
• Managing to fix my parents Freeview PVR by replacing the knackered 80G hard drive (Maxtor) with a 200G Seagate. This is the first time I’ve bought a drive that wasn’t OEM; it’s amazing, you get a shiny box, a manual, a five year guarantee and everything!
• Some nice evenings in the pub.
• Long weekend ahead…

Yesterday was the annual Nunhead Cemetery open-day, which sounds a lot more weird than it actually is. In reality it’s a chance for the middle classes throughout South-East London to spend a day in a beautiful Victorian cemetery, swap leaflets and entertain their kids. Michele is always keen to attend because there are frequently exhibits with birds of prey and owls, so we went along with Dave and took some pictures. As we started to walk along the verdant paths, flanked with the intricate, ornate monuments Michele commented that it was surprising the place wasn’t choc-full with goths. We turned the corner and bugger-me there were millions of them, all dressed up in OTT pastiches of Victorian mourning costumes, taking pictures of each other by the monuments.

In all it was a lovely couple of hours but marred at the end, for me anyway, by the presence of a smug stall of neo-Christians who were there trying to indoctrinate children. Apart from referring to non-believers as “fools” in their posters, the thing that really pissed me off was this smug, simple-looking guy’s t-shirt that said “The secret of life is the Bible. Believe it.”
This angered me so much; it encompasses everything I hate about religion and everything I hate about the world. In one snappy phrase they not only push their point of view without explanation, but also try and encourage you not to question it or anything else for that matter; don’t question what we say, just believe it! It’s got about as much validity as saying “The moon is made of cheese. Believe it.”

So last night I joined the National Secular Society and ordered an “Atheist and proud” t-shirt. I encourage everyone to question the wisdom of that decision.

Like every other aspect of the NHS, our GPs’ surgery has recently been “modernised” with the magic of PFI. This basically means that they’ve given up their old building in return for a newly jerry-built, impressive-looking, totally unfit for purpose building, and a commitment to pour huge amounts of public money into the pockets of a private building company for the next 25 years.

The day came where I needed to see the quack and so I wandered in and staggered through the sweltering heat (glass building – no aircon – nuff said) up to the receptionists to let them know I was here.
“Have you tried using the automated system ?” the receptionist asked.
“Eh ?”
“Over there” she said impatiently, gesturing towards a line of bewildered looking pensioners who were staring blankly at the screen of a kiosk PC over by the door.

It turns out that these systems are cropping up in many GP surgeries these days. After you identify yourself by selecting your gender and date of birth, you are presented with a list of names and addresses of people that match that criteria…cough…data protection…cough… Once you select your details you are presented with a button labelled:

Arrive Me

What ? What does that mean ? What language is that ? Are you supposed to press it ? The biggest problem I have with it is not knowing what is technically incorrect with that phrase; it just seems so, so wrong. Perhaps someone who was lucky enough to be taught English at school could explain it to me.

This system streamlines the entire process of checking in, or “arriving yourself”, by

• Scaring and confusing old people.
• Giving away personal details of other patients.
• Changing the receptionists job from someone who acknowledges your presence, to an application support person who ends up having to explain the whole concept to each and every patient that walks through the door.

No wonder that every time I visit the place the same pantomime is performed:

• Punter walks in and over to reception.
• Receptionist wearily directs them to the PC.
• Depending on the patients level of skill with English and computers they either “arrive themselves” or pathetically stab the screen until they’re forced to go back to the receptionist.
• Rather than capitulate and just “arrive” the patient themselves, they invariably try to explain the procedure and send them back across to the evil device.
• This procedure can continue for three or four cycles until the patient either twigs it or loses the will to live.

Where would we be without such amazing advances in technology ? In with the doctor probably.
[Update: K8 was kind enough to point out that “arrive” is intransitive and therefore should not have an object. Thanks K8, your poshness pays off again 😉 ]