I was all set for writing a wonderful piece about the similarities between the symbolism of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain and brutal French cinema classic ‘La Haine’ when it dawned on me that I’ve had a pretty busy month and that perhaps I should take it easy for this last post.
I was tidying up the living room and came across a collection of 1000 record covers Mr. Merry gave me about 5 years ago. You know the type, a coffee table book with very little merit other than something to flick through when you’re waiting for a takeaway or someone to drop round. I had previously gone through it and put bookmarks in on certain pages, no doubt some genius plan to make a post in the future, so I did what I always do and made a collage to wow you all with.
The curious thing about ‘Last Kiss’ is that on the first pressing the girl had fake blood dripping from the girl’s face but there must have been some controversy about that and it was removed. So the rumour goes anyway.
I still can’t understand the logistics of Bobby Bland’s hair.
I can’t fathom why Hall and Oats would choose to call their album ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’.
Guys, there comes a time when it’s time to move on. It’s time to grow up. You have a choice: you can grow up, move on, move up or you can grow on. I have chosen to grow on.
During lockdown 1.0, to keep my spirits up and add a little structure to the meaningless days of worrying where i would buy rice, pasta and toilet paper from, I drew a drawing of something every day. It was usually some cartoon from my childhood or things Reuben and I would watch when he was younger. It was fun to begin with, I would put some music on and spend an hour drafting whatever that came to mind.
Four years have now passed. Whilst I am proud of my graphical efforts, some of the corners have started curling and the ones closest to the windows have faded due to sun damage. They’re not the vibrant illustrations they once were. I keep noticing the errors I made too, such as the extra line on the side of Dangermouse’s face, the awful hands of Steven Universe’s dad and the terrible pencil effects for Kermit the Frog. It is time to take them down and send them to the great recycling unit in the sky.
I will be keeping some of my favourites. The rest will be on sale at Sotheby’s in May. Bidding for each starts at £30,000 and plenty of interest has already been noted so you may want to register your own as soon as you can. Each one will be personally signed and framed by myself, and come with a free signed first edition of my new book, ‘Mind sorting: are you the you-est you that ever was?’ Available in stores now.
A children’s film, well as long as it’s not Watership Down (see previous post), is usually heartfelt, charming and full of whimsy and wonder. Japan’s Studio Ghibli has been making films for over forty years and they’re still going strong even if their last film was a beautiful mess and their best director is in his eighties. Play to your strengths I can understand, coming out of retirement because your company can’t work properly without you less so.
Studio Ghibli started off making marvellous fairytales before moving into stories more grounded in reality. ‘Whisper of the Heart’ is about a boy and a girl trying to encourage each other’s gifts, the former a violin-maker and the latter a writer. Shizuku discovers a figurine in an antique store called the Baron, an anthropomorphic cat dressed in a snazzy white suit, and decides to write a story about him.
As a statue he looks mischievous and playful. When he’s later animated in her dreams, he’s suave and has the benefit of being voiced by Cary Elwes.
I recently learned that a live action version of the film had been made a few years ago. When I caught a glimpse of the front of the blu ray I almost choked on my sandwich. The statue of the Baron has unfortunately been upgraded from mischievous to downright murderous.
He now has the look of a psychopath and, yes, he will cut your fingers off for a laugh and mail them to you at work.
You may look upon the eldest and mightiest member of the beans as some kind of god-like being. Whilst he displays the kind of chin that women weep over and hair that would soften the heart of any miserable grandma, there is a darkness lurking within. It is only now that we can exclusively reveal a secret that has remained hidden for all these years.
You cannot judge a book by its cover and similarly you cannot judge a person for what they’re scared of. Phobias come in all shapes and sizes. You could be scared of balloons, clowns, Mensa or the touch of a crimson glove and that’s it, you can’t do anything about it, that’s you for life until you accidentally pass a circus and come across a super smart clown holding a helium balloon wearing red latex and throw yourself into the Thames. This doesn’t scare Ian; he’s afraid of Michael Buble.
Looking at that tiny baby-faced Canadian you may think how could such a thing happen? How could anyone have a fear of Buble? A Fuble? That’s not a thing. Whenever he hears anything by Buble on the radio he almost crashes his car trying to turn it off. Whenever he has a new album out and he’s promoting it like mad, Ian has to place himself in a hyperbolic chamber, sealed off from the rest of the world, until Buble disappears back to his mansion with all his grubby money. When Asda hired Buble last year for their Christmas adverts Ian nearly bit off his own tongue and collapsed in a corner. It was too much, the stress of Christmas combined with a swingly Buble ad campaign? It was clearly too much. Many a TV was smashed in December.
So why is he so afraid of him? We can only put together little pieces of information given how secretive the boy is and how you can’t say the man’s name without Ian filling a bowl with custard and plunging his head into it. It seems to trace back to one of two instances: either a two hour drive with his dad with a broken stereo and the same Buble song on repeat the entire time or a dream, a very vivid dream of Buble on all fours like a dog chasing Ian down the street and when he finally catches up to him, cornered in an alleyway, Buble opens his mouth and another Buble, dressed like Worzel Gummidge, climbs out and beats him over the head with a pez dispenser.
All very weird if you ask me. Still, it’s a little more interesting than yet another person who’s afraid of heights or confined spaces. Yawn-a-reeno!
There’s a time and a place for ideas and innovation. That time is not 75 minutes before the end of the month and that place is definitely not on the sofa I’m sitting on.
Sometimes all you need is a little something something to get you through. Sometimes, however, you can’t even muster up that. It’s at moments like this you need Placeholder UK.
We’ve been filling in the blanks successfully for the last 20 years and we’ll continue to do so as long as people either can’t be bothered or aren’t ready to do so yet. It’s why we’re here, to buy you a little extra time to sort that exclusive award-winning website feature or perhaps a little picture of a funny duck.
To celebrate how well we’re doing, here’s a picture of a fist.
Devastating news for Chris Crimz aka Chris Marshall solo fans as artist claims he is still no closer to finishing his epic trilogy of songs.
Crimz rose to fame with the now stone cold classic ‘Wasting your life!” which was written prior to but only saw a formal release through the Papples debut album of the same name. He then cemented the popular but not quite as good, ‘That’s your life!’ which despite constant demands from the fans is still waiting for a formal release. Tapes of the demo have been trading hands for astronomical amounts of money on Ebay, sometimes reaching up to ten whole English pounds. There was a recent bidding war between two diehard fans, Polin Clodbrook and Rolio Chaffinch, for a very rare tape which, if the rumours are to be true, claimed to be a duet between Crimz and Kelly Clarkson during their short-lived romance at the tail end of 2009.
Newsboost reached out to Mr Marshall for an exclusive interview and eventually, once he stopped repeatedly slamming the door into my foot, we were granted one.
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” said Crimz, partially through a crack in the door between his dining room and kitchen, “I seem to remember I once attempted a third part but it wasn’t very successful. The lesson is that you can’t rush genius.”
When asked what the composition was like and what kind of arrangement it was (joyous possibly or further leaning into the sad melody of the second part), Mr. Marshall changed the subject to a future release in 2024. “I’ll be putting out another greatest hits album shortly. I want the fans to know that I am listening and that I do care. It’ll be jam-packed with exclusive b-sides, live tracks and the odd Pet Shop Boys remix. Guaranteed to put a smile on their faces. The CD edition will come in a gold coloured cardboard sleeve with a commemorative booklet. A premium product.”
That sounds like something we can all enjoy. At least if the epic closer of his musical journey isn’t coming any time soon then we’ll all have a piece of the pie to chew on. You really can’t rush genius.
How lucky are you? I’d say that my luck varies as I’m more likely to get to work through a series of green lights than win a million quid on the lottery. You have to take it as it comes and be patient, luck will eventually come your way.
I was idling through Twitter a few days ago and came across the usual shit post of ‘like this post and you could win a something’ and normally I would scroll past it without giving it a second thought but this time I figured I would give it a go. Click. Done. I look forward to be 57,987th in line to win. More chance of being hit by a falling cow? Great stuff.
A few hours later my phone blips and I’m faced with this:
I have a single moment of elation. One of those, “No way! Me?” moments where you believe all the stars are in alignment and it’s finally happened. Click my heels, oh me oh my, and so on. Then I take a closer look at the message.
It could be a scam. The company has over 86 thousand followers on Twitter. They surely couldn’t get away with doing this every week without someone dragging their name through the mud and kicking them off the platform. Send them 60 bucks and get a free PS5? Sure. It sounds too good to be true. Are they generous? What does it all mean?!?
If I was in the US then I may have considered it, however due to the geographical limitations of being 3000 miles away I had to message them to decline their generous offer. A day or so later I’m scrolling again and they’re at it again; more messages about free PS5s. There’s another the following day. I feel as though I did win, I was the winner, it’s my win and nobody can take it away from me. That said, I am also glad I didn’t send anyone any money. I don’t even need a PS5.
Where were you on 4 August 2022? It was a Thursday so you were probably doing nothing. Nobody does anything on a Thursday except wait for the incoming Friday so they can start planning how many Jägerbombs they’re planning to neck before starting on the pints.
I do not remember what I was doing on this very important date. A Thursday? Probably playing some video game nonsense, eating a soufflé and had a shower before going to bed. I do love a soufflé on a Thursday. The Thursday soufflé I call it. Sometimes I eat it in the shower to feel like a king. I think we’re getting off the point here though.
This is a very important date in history and I know this not just because I’m writing this post and it’s my idea to do so. A legion of children, both young and old, cried into the stars on this day because after forty-four years the children’s animated film ‘Watership Down’ was finally reclassified as a PG.
You might think this is not a big deal, especially if you’ve never seen it. Last year I read the book and I can tell you that it is just as harrowing as the film. When I was a kid I taped a copy off the TV because that’s what you did. “This sounds interesting,” I told myself as I loaded the VHS in and pressed record. Back in 1978 when it was originally made, it was classed as a ‘U’ for universal meaning anyone with two eyes and a pair of legs could watch it. You could watch it as much as you wanted. For those not in the know, ‘Watership Down’ tells the story of a group of rabbits who move away from their home just as the evil humans destroy it to make space to build more houses. They then go on an adventure to find a safe place to live out in the wilderness of the English countryside. What could be so scary about that? The author, Richard Adams, did not shy away from presenting nature in its original format i.e. brutal as fuck.
One rabbit gets caught in a trap and almost chokes to death on its own vomit and blood. They are hunted by all manner of predators, get shot at by humans and ripped apart from other rabbits. The main antagonist is called General Woundwort who treats his burrow as a dictatorship and kills anyone or anything that gets in his way. One of the main characters has terrifying visions of the future and goes into a kind of seizure whenever this happens; the reason the rabbits escape at the start is because of him and his nightmarish precognitive abilities. Towards the end of the film a dog gets loose and… well, you get the picture.
Tiny baby Ian watched all of this and always wondered why it was that the BBFC would let anyone see this when it was clearly meant for older audiences. I found a copy in the charity shop recently and I am going to force Reuben to watch it because it’s important. Is it a timeless story of heroism, adventure, friendship and not giving up despite the odds? Yes. Does it look a bit ropey but still have a lot of nicely animated bits? Yes. Does it have the voices of John Hurt and Richard Briers? Yes. These, however, are not the reasons why I’m making him watch it. He has to know the trauma that I felt because then he will thank me for not subjecting it to him as a child. I think it’s about time I got some recognition.
