A Decade Under The Influence

Being a cack handed attempt to do something other than swear & moan online.
Don't worry, I'll still do swearing.







Those individuals unfortunate enough to know me in "Real Life" will know that occasionally (for occasionally read: Quite A Lot) my foul mouthed energy is directed towards things I like rather than things I don't like. It's just that like any sane individual the internet makes me quite cross so blogging is done about being cross and things that make me cross. Makes sense. So consider this an experiment.







A Song of Ice & Fire
George R R Martin


By any sensible individuals reckoning A Song of Ice & Fire (by chubbsy bearded peacenik George R R Martin) should be utterly & irredeemably shite. At the time of "writing" (cos let's be honest this isn't "writing" it's "ranting", actually that't way better anyways), sorry, at time of ranting it consists of four weighty (600 odd pages, series highlight A Storm of Swords is over 900 pages) books of what might be best termed High Fantasy. That is to say castles, kings, dragons and shameless Tolkien plaigarism. Borrrrringgggg.

Except... except it's not. Not at all. ASOI&F only bears a superficial comparison to LOTR , coming across like a mash up of Tolkeins Medieval Europe Rip Off, Lost (each chapter is viewed from the perspective of a core cast of about a dozen characters to ground the grand sweep of the plot to a more human level) and one of those daytime soaps if the violence and shagging was up front rather than just hinted at to titilate elderly ladies. More than anything it's the characters that make this story, Martin has a real knack for writing complicated human beings whilst remembering to keep things readable (there's no needless pages of info dump, Martin understands filling in the blanks yourself as you go along is far more engaging than a chapter long lecture on a made up world). No one is nessecarily Good or Bad, they're human, as flawed, relatable and complicated as that entails. Foul mouthed, whore loving, wall eyed midget Tyrion Lannister is the series undoubted star (my mum hearts him). And if you've read the preceding sentence & aren't at least tempted to give the series a go then you're simply not the person I fell in love with anymore. Sorry.

To delve too deeply into what makes the books worth reading will only wind up spoiling much of the fun, it's a testament to the series that it frequently blindsides you. Perhaps the best recommendation I can give is that my old mobile contained a series of texts from one of my best mates on his first read through of the series charting his reactions to specific events (musn't... spoil... plot....*choke*..). The only other writers who illicited this response were China Mieville & Mike Mignola, high praise indeed for anyone who knows my pop-eyed enthusiasm for those two.

Fair warning though: Song of Ice & Fire is STILL an ongoing series (& I'm not shitting you with that decade under the influence bit), essentially GRRM has lost momentum & it's increasingly unlikely he'll regain it. This does nothing to dissolve my love of the four books (I've re-visited them about six or seven times now) that have been published but several years ago I shrugged my shoulders & wandered away from any expectation of ever reading a final volume. My mother has asked that if this unlikely event occurs after she has passed away my sister & I burn any further books so she can read them in The Next Life. Really.
Then again Neil Gaiman release a solid gold book every other year, not everyone can.

I can really only reiterate my opening remark as a final recommendation: This sort of thing is almost always shit. This time it really isn't. Hell if that's not enough I'll give you the four quid you need to buy Game of Thrones on amazon myself (no I won't).

sjs

Make Your Own: This week Make Your Own Torchwood Script

You will need:

One cat posessed of a nervous disposition (ideally should have been enthusiastically violated by a bull terrier made entirely of fireworks as a kitten).

One bucket PVA glue

One bucket full of cliches & lazy, hackneyed dialogue.

One box lined with sheets of A4 paper

A quantity of cheap speed (ideally cut with Warfarin or similar)

Step One: Dose cat with your speed.

Step two: Just to be sure clap hands loudly at cat several times.

Step three: Immerse cat in bucket PVA glue

Step four: Remove cat & immerse in bucket cliches.

Step five: Remove cat from bucket and place in box. Shake box vigorously.

Step six: Remove cat from box. Discard (or if feeling merciful administer single bullet to skull. Cat has suffered enough by this point)

Step seven: Remove paper lining box & put in any old order (I watched Torchwood on tuesday, trust me it won't matter). Submit to BBC. Wait for vast numbers of viewers to turn in. Whilst weeping softly.

This is the actual process used for writing the episodes of Torchwood you have seen (& if you have any decency been baffled by) on your telly. The single difference is that instead of making noise at the cat Russell T. Davies wanks in it's ears.

Why not try it at home. Remember to get a grown up to help you administer the drugs to the cat.

Michael Jackson vs. Transformers

I'll do a "young black man transforms into elderly white woman" joke in a bit, ok? And in my defense it'll be a hell of a lot more tasteful than a lot of the stuff surrounding Jackson's death. Don't believe me? Go read OK magazine. Full photo spread of grieving children. Classy.

What a long, strange ride it's been. How can we even begin to take stock of a life like Jacko's. An individual who has been one of the most famous human being's on the planet for the entirity of my twenty seven years? Well one way would be this: *robbed from comments on Charlie Brooker's piece about Jackson's death*

long enough for them to play a bit of Billie Jean and Beat It and Smooth Criminal and Blame it on the Boogie and so on, reminding me that he was a bona fide musical genius, I went to bed.

Hopefully to wake up sane the next morning, 'musical genius' Charlie?

Stravinsky was a musical genius without whom we'd never have had (besides his own wonderful work) John Williams ripping him off giving us the themes for Stars wars, Raiders of the lost Arc...etc.

Michael Jackson was a freak obsessed with grasping his own groin and squealing without whom we'd never have had Five Star.

Some perspective here please, especially from you Mr Brooker.

And don't give me the record sales bullshit or I'll fire the Spice girls at you, one by one from a Trebuchet, a zigazig ha'ing as they arc sort of towards your general vicinity (Yeah have you ever calibrated a giant medieval catapult for the added effect of girl power?).

Yeah fair enough Jackson got Black music onto MTV but the best thing he ever accomplished besides that was to entice a certain Mr Cocker to pretend to waft his farts.

Right. I'll hold my hands up. I'm a massive shit for picking on one particular poster (who of course I have never met) & using their words & opinion (which of course they are entirely entitled to hold & put on the interweb) to illustrate whatever point I was attempting to make when I started typing two minutes ago but really? Really?

Boil this down to bare bones and it reads: "Look I am referring to Stravinsky! I am a class act. Even though I am kicking the corpse of a seriously disturbed man online. Whoo!" I don't pretend to know an awful lot about music but:
1) Think comparing Michael Jackson to Stravinsky might be missing the point a bit
2) Stravinsky would definitely have moon walked to Smooth Criminal after he'd had a few.

Still, we all love the giddy vicarious thrill of a celebrity death (the Actual Problem that rears it's multitudinous, poison belching heads again & again), so I'll stop being a spoilsport & sign off with two points:

1) In roughly a fortnight it will get Very Bad, for now it is possible to dodge a lot of the unpleasant voyeurism & gleeful speculation that inevitably follows the death of any public figure & simply wander around in the sunshine accompanied by a backing track of storming pop songs from your childhood blasting from Every Radio. It's quite nice. I walked down Oxford Street on sunday & was too busy enjoying MJ's greatest hits to notice no bastard on that street seems to remember how to walk. A minor miracle.
2) Jackson Definitely touched those kids. Once he's in the ground various hair raising scare stories will shoot from the woodwork like a plague of Lovecraftian maggots bulleting from the walls of a decaying New England pile. No one will bother to consider that (and don't get me wrong, I am in No Way condoning what happened in these instances) he was not a man in his right mind (in many ways a child himself) and much of the blame for what happened lies with people around Jackson and perhaps some of the families involved. Right mind or not, if I ever have children the suspicion that something untoward might happen to them would probably be enough to prevent me letting them go & sleep over at a reclusive millionaires fairground/fortified compound. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

For now much of this seems to be overlooked because now he is gone Jackson can be filed away mentally (rightly or wrongly) as a fond memory of growing up. In the same way I will doubtless go and see Transformers 2 despite the fact I know it will be shite but am willing to overlook that because when I was six years old those robots meant so much to me, even though it was all just a heartless corporate way to flog toys & the cartoon frequently looked like it had been drawn using hammers. Perhaps when you are as famous as Jackson that is the best you can hope for anymore?

Oh & Lest We Forget if it weren't for MJ Joe Pesci would have gotten every kid in the world hooked on drugs and then blanketed the earth in tarantulas. Think about that coffin kickers. Not the tarantulas. That would have been fucking ace.