Posts filed under 'Chris'
It’s been pretty quiet round here lately, so what better to stoke up the discussion than another ever-popular Week of the Week? The last Week of the Week was, you might remember, slightly controversial because it discussed such a very well-known week. Well, as promised, this week’s Week of the Week will be a real undiscovered gem: a true prize week, but not as well known as most other weeks are.
This week’s Week of the Week is 20-26 November 1932.
Sunday 20 November 1932 – Wilbur A. Sawyer writes to his wife Margaret from Cape Town, saying: “The weather has been fine, cool except for a few hours in the afternoon.”
Monday 21 November 1932 – Following an explosion at Cardowan Colliery, Glasgow, on the 16th, the Scotsman reports that Shettleston Co-operative Society has donated £50 towards relief work.
Tuesday 22 November 1932 – T.E. Lawrence warns that “celibacy has its dangers!” in correspondence with G.W.M. Dunn.
Wednesday 23 November 1932 – In the Irish Dáil, Mr Anthony asks whether Mr Derrig is aware that the appointment of Mr Cornelius McGiff as school attendance officer has caused “a good deal of discussion in Cork City”.
Thursday 24 November 1932 – The FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory opens in Washington, D.C.
Friday 25 November 1932 – Melbourne Cricket Club gives Tate his first outing. He bowls out New South Wales, scoring 4-63.
Saturday 26 November 1932 – There is a small amount of restrained celebration to mark the tenth anniversary of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
A bracing whirlwind of a week, I’m sure you will all agree – obscure but by no means dull.
April 9th, 2008
Time for a communal poem. It’s dead easy. I will provide the start of this epic poem detailing epic events, and you write another verse for it to continue the story. It’s like Jackanory, but with rhyming and on a website.
Pie
Jurgen van Hoolen had pie on his head
He didn’t know why and it made him quite red
He woke up one morning and it was just there
Sticky and crusty and fixed to his hair
From that day to this he travelled the land
He rubbed it with solvent, he rubbed it with sand
Try as he might to shake off the pie
The pie would not budge and he let out a sigh
He went to a doctor, a witch and a priest
Who promised him cure with faith or with yeast
But no-one could fix it, not one of the men
Poor Jurgen gave up. But suddenly, then…
March 17th, 2008
I think we need to liven up this mo’ fo’ because ‘da beans hasn’t seen much action recently. We need another project to do, either a book or some more photos or something else. We can’t languish here whilst other websites (possibly) gain the ground to find the bigger audience.
Start shaking those loins for answers.
March 4th, 2008
Mr. Cockall interviews tomorrow’s geniuses (using song)
Who are you? Wimbly Wednesday
What’s the Idea? Inky Drinky, the thirst-quenching pigment.
What is it? It’s the only luxury fountain pen fuel that can save your life in a drought.
What does it do? For many years mankind has faced a dilemma. When heading off to trek across an arid desert, travelling with only the items you can carry in your right hand, it makes enormous sense to choose a fountain pen as one of your precious few companions. But what to fill it with? A few drops of life-saving water to stave off dehydration and death? Or an emerald blue ink with which to sketch abstract landscapes depicting your emotions as you stride among the dunes?
Now you don’t have to make that choice any longer! Inky Drinky is the ink you can drink. Charge up your Saharan scribbler with Inky Drinky, in a choice of four alluring hues. Put pen to paper with pride, and in an emergency situation, crack open the ink well and enjoy the refreshing taste of Inky Drinky. Now available in black (liquorice), blue (bilberry), red (roast beef) or green (Salad Niçoise).
So what are you gonna do about it? Nothing (!) Mr. Cockall, it’s all in my head >:)
February 21st, 2008
Here I present the first (and possibly only, who knows) two comics in the thrilling and stupidly-longly-named comic series…
The Exciting Adventures of Chris in the Mighty Metropolis (where Chris is played by a cheese in a top hat)
 
February 16th, 2008
Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements, even if they lead nowhere?
This is the question posed by up-and-coming much-hyped London-based soul-diva-to-be cliché-strewn Silly Bint, Adele, in one of her stupid songs. In it, she is asking a rhetorical question to do with some sort of nonsense about chasing pavements.
You see, I understand that, in this post-Amy Winehouse world, record companies are looking at the success of the drug-addled bint who we spurned and decked last month and are searching for more acts who sound like 60s motown/soul singers. I understand that once you have one thing that is a bit different and very successful, there will soon be many more copying the style.
Adele’s binthood is not based on that fact alone (though believe me, it contributes to it). No, what I object to is the fact that she has to be one of them. Her voice is bad. For gods sake, get some Lemsip down you love, your vocal chords are cracking up and at this rate you’ll lose your voice. That’s not nice to listen to. Her songs all sound like they’ve been factory-produced by a record company too, carefully designed to make that old-style-soul sound and way over-produced. I have had enough of this kind of shite filling the world with its meaningless noise. Chasing pavements? What is that, anyway?
This month I nearly selected Duffy, who is much the same, and who was in the same year as me at university. One of the key things that annoys me about her is that most of the people I went to uni with remember her, and I don’t think I met her. But her voice isn’t as annoying as Adele’s.
Also, why don’t these people have surnames? How are you supposed to look them up in the phone book? Mm, that’ll do for now. And relax.
February 11th, 2008
Weeks and weeks have gone by since the last Week of the Week, leaving many Week of the Week fans feeling quite weak. So this week I present another historic week as our Week of the Week.
This week’s Week of the Week is 22-28 July 1923.
Sunday 22 July 1923 – Charles Hoff of Norway sets a new pole vault world record of 4.21m.
Monday 23 July 1923 – Michael Melvin dies of chronic nephritis in east St Louis, USA, aged 72 years, 6 months and 11 days.
Tuesday 24 July 1923 – the Treaty of Lausanne is signed, creating modern Turkey.
Wednesday 25 July 1923 – Cathal O’Shannon speaks in the Irish parliament, asking about provision for an Officer of Communications.
Thursday 26 July 1923 – The Observer prints a photograph of “music by wireless”.
Friday 27 July 1923 – Science journal publishes vol. 58 issue 1491, including an article on “Paleontological Finds in Moravia” by A. Hrdlicka.
Saturday 28 July 1923 – Major Thomas Arthur Hughes (son of Patrick Hughes, of course) marries Kathleen Byles.
Of course, there are very few of us who couldn’t have recited those historic events from this unforgettable week off by heart. It is probably one of the best-known weeks ever.Â
February 8th, 2008
Make way, Jonathan Ross, I’m coming after you.
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) dir. George Roy Hill
Starring: Michael Sacks, Valerie Perrine, Ron Leibman
Adapted from the novel ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut
Rating 4/5
    
Here’s an interesting one. I bought this DVD as part of a box set, without having seen it, because the book had been described for several years as “unfilmable”, and then they made a film of it. It had come top of some ‘top ten’ kind of listing of such films. Then I forgot about it for a couple of years. Then I read the book and, some time later still, watched the film.
We should start with why it’s unfilmable. Aside from the fact that a good quarter of the book involves the author speaking directly to the reader, often about the process of writing the book itself, it is one of the most disjointed storylines imaginable. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, has an unusual affliction where his conscious mind is able to slide in and out of any moment in his life. He skids backwards and forward as the fancy takes him, revisiting the bits he likes. His connection to the ‘present’, whatever that means, is tenuous.
Billy Pilgrim’s life is not an easy one. Drafted into the US Army while still relatively young, he is taken hostage by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. After the war he marries a woman he hates and watches his children grow up, working as an orthodontist. He is abducted by aliens who force him to mate with his favourite B-movie actress. The various events that take place in these three very different phases of his life are muddled around in the book as Billy slides around between them. You are probably starting to see why this was described as ‘unfilmable’.
So what of the film? Made from a book like this it could easily be messy, but it flows remarkably well. But it’s hard to tell how much of it would still have made sense if I hadn’t read the book first. Certainly the film would not have made so much sense if it hadn’t come from such a well-written novel, and even then, some of the rougher edges have been carefully smoothed off to shoehorn its strange plotline onto the screen.
As a film, it’s certainly not comfortable viewing all the way through, but its various depictions of the firebombing of Dresden and alien worlds work remarkably well, and the occasional shot of a naked young actress is also quite welcome. But the real wonder here is the performance from the various lead actors – the lead three or four characters are remarkably well played, understated to offset the rather outlandish plot line, and it’s strange that the people playing them have sunk into relative obscurity.
All in all, a brave and largely successful attempt at some pretty bizarre subject matter. Funny and surprising, it’s definitely worth a shot and another easy four jams.
This film on IMDB
January 29th, 2008
Shortest post on PB?
January 21st, 2008
So I had a dream last night and I went with Friya to visit Ian.
We were surprised when we got there, because he hadn’t mentioned to us that he actually lived in a big blue prison in New York. So Friya went shopping and I went back to his cell (it was obviously quite a slack prison because they let him out for long walks) and I looked through all his drawers.
Then we went out again and on the way back in there was a wheelbarrow full of corn on the cob sitting in the corridor. Ian didn’t want to steal one, because it’s generally frowned upon for prisoners to do that, but I really wanted one so I stuck it in my trousers and we went back to the room. But Ian didn’t know I’d done it. Then I thought it would get him into trouble, so I went up a spiral staircase to a different floor (it was a boys floor -Â every other one was a girls floor – but luckily the spiral staircase I went up missed a floor on the way) and casually dropped the corn cob on the floor.
When I got back to the cell, it was full of prison wardens, and one evil woman (who was English despite this being a New York jail) was telling us off for laughing too much and reminding Ian that it was a five-strikes and you’re out policy. She pointed above the door, where someone had painted (in elaborate lettering) “One and a half strikes”.
Then I woke up.
January 14th, 2008
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