Hungry, Hungry Hobos

Today I had an idea for a game show:

..."Hungry, hungry Hobos" (alternative idea: Hungry, Hippie hobos)

This game show would be much like the classic plastic-hippo-based board game, except it’d be televised and have genuine hobos and food.

Seems pretty logical to me

The more I thought about this idea, the less it seemed like the mad Monday morning ramblings of an office-worker losing the plot, and the more it started to seem like the work of a mildly deranged genius (if I do say so myself … and I did!)

I started considering the basic setup for the show. I settled (for now at least) upon the idea of having four contestants (none hobos*) who would have to answer some kind of question based round, the results of which would indicate who could choose a hobo first. Once each contestant had selected a hobo, a large circular pit in the centre of the stage would be unveiled (possibly using some kind of sliding floor mechanism (see, the volcano base in “You only Live Twice”), the four hobos would then be released into the pit together with, say, one burger. They’d then fight over said burger (or half eaten pasta salad, whatever takes your fancy really, they’re unlikely to be picky). Whoever manages to get and ingest the food, wins the show for the contestant who chose them. There’d have to be some kind of prize for the contestant, the hobos ought to be happy enough with somewhere to sleep and the possibility of some food. The winning hobo could also perhaps win some drugs or a new jumper or something, to add a further incentive to win.

"Here, have some almost new boots, you've earned them, hobo!"

After this I got to thinking who would host such a show, and that’s when one name sprang to mind, and when it did, I realised my plan had legs, and that, put in the right hands it could run far. The name that sprang to mind was Noel Edmonds. I think that needs no explanation, it was a job that he was practically born for; he’d be perfect for it.

I rest my case

There could also be a section which showed a bio for each hobo, with stats and a catchy name, so that people could get to know them and have favourites etc. (see, Gladiators or Robot Wars) …. Imagine if you will, A steely grey background with bolts around the edge and perhaps some rusting/discolouration. On the left side of the screen appears a super-imposed picture of a hobo, slowly revolving in a 3D fashion, a name plate slams down above his head “TOOTHY JOE” (or some such name, can work on that later). Then, on the right hand side of the screen, further plates of metal with information about “Toothy Joe”, his age, height, weight, significant medical details (alcoholic, addicted to Crack etc.) and finally a short paragraph about his life, where he used to live, favourite sleeping spots, any interesting facts really.

"Hi, welcome to the show, I hope you're as hungry as you look!"

And that was my idea, and I maintain that it could work … especially if I can get Noel Edmonds to agree to it … if not, I’ll need to find someone else I guess ….. Perhaps Brian Blessed.

*… Ok, just typing this up I’ve thought up a new variation that could be done for charity, as a Christmas special or just for the amusement of the masses … Celebrity episodes, where, the hobos take the place of the contestants and pick celebrities to fight for something, maybe some airtime, maybe some cocaine or crack ...that part needs thinking about ……… Maybe I could just look them in a cell for a week with minimal food and just have them fight over a tube of stale Pringles, while the vacuous studio audience cheer and bay for their blood like a pack of ravenous wolves!

……. Either way it’d make brilliant T.V.

Ah, the life of a spy...

"Is it like they it is?" you ask. Or would ask, if you knew what it is I do for a living, and you'll never until I retire (or am retired). Is it like they say it is? They say it's about adventure, and action, and daring, and heroism. They say it's about man slipping through the defenses to strike a blow for his nation - an expert, an ace, a triumphant example of individual cunning over the blindness of a lumbering enemy institution. A tribute to just how skilled and intelligent and charming one man can be. A special one, prone to excess, living outside the meaningless rules that confine the rest of you, hiding in plain sight or rarely needing to hide at all. Gun in hand, heart on sleeve, girl on arm - who wouldn't want to be spy material? But of course, it's not really like that at all.

It might look like that from where you're sitting, but you'd be mistaken. I might appear confident when spoken to, but in this job the fight against paranoia is constant and draining, because if you become paranoid then you're finished. I might be alone this evening, but I'm always just one piece of the machinery, because you can't accomplish a thing by yourself in this business. I might get to enjoy fine dining sometimes, but it's purely incidental. I might be highly skilled, but the skills I possess aren't exciting or glamorous. I've never thrown a punch in my life. I don't blow things up. I just acquire information.

And I don't hide in plain sight. I don't hide at all. I just live in the blind spots that everyone has - the places you would never look because you assume - you KNOW - nothing could be there. You can fit quite the little career in a blind spot. We all operate on the reasonable notion that we can make at least a small set of very basic assumptions about people based on their outward appearance, and we live our lives based on this, and this is exactly what I exploit. There is nothing observable about a good spy. There will always be people you can't make any accurate assumptions about at all, not even the most basic ones, because their exterior and interior simply do not connect in a familiar manner. There will always be freaks, existing outside the visible spectrum, and I will always be one of them (and it will always make me good at what I do). But we're only freaks if you find out about us, and you won't find out because we appear normal and nobody ever looks twice.

I cannot be found, even if you know exactly what to look for. How do you look for someone you would never notice? You don't - you just don't notice them. It's fundamental.

And it's not glamorous, despite what you may assume. You can't assume. A man in a suit is probably roughly what you'd think he is, but there's a chance he isn't - there's a chance he's almost anything, and that is what I have to be because that's how the world works. The people who get things done are the ones who slip past while everyone is staring at a cliche. But being a freak isn't for everyone. To permanently be half in the shadows, to never truly find that sense of community that we all inherently crave. To keep family and friends (if you even have any) at arm's length. To sacrifice so much of value in service to a career.

Who wouldn't want to be spy material?

You probably wouldn't.

I mean, if you're at all qualified it's almost impossible for you to get the attention of a waitress in a restaurant...

My Theory of Infinite Fridays

Hangovers and coffee lead me to ponder strange concepts, here's an example:

Firstly, we must accept, as an axiom, that: Thursday is the new Friday

If this is the case, then Wednesday is the new Thursday, Tuesday the new Wednesday, Monday the new Tuesday etc etc.

However, considering that Thursday is the new Friday, it follows that, Wednesday is Thursday and Friday, Tuesday is Wednesday and Thursday, Monday is Tuesday and Wednesday, Sunday is Monday and Tuesday, Saturday is Sunday and Monday, Friday is Saturday and Sunday, and, Thursday is Friday and Saturday.

Following this process through to its logical conclusion, every day of the week is simultaneously every other day of the week, in short, every day is Friday.

… Furthermore, this means that every day is Saturday as well, which leads me to question why I'm at work on the weekend.

Me, pondering

I am an inherently unhappy person...that's why I'm so happy...

I will never die fully fulfilled...

I will never fly in a SR-71 Blackbird.

I will never see Cash, Hendrix or Muddy Waters live.

I will never hang out with Sinatra, Martin and Davis Jnr. in  a dive bar in Vegas.

I probably will never own a '67 Dodge Challenger R/T Hemi , let alone drive one. I will never be in an episode of House, never play harmonica on stage with Dylan, never play for London Irish or spar with Rocky Marciano.

I am also inherently dispositioned  to be unhappy because I will never meet "that special someone", statistically speaking. I will never have enough money, statistically speaking. I will never "find my perfect career", statistically speaking, or even find a lager I can fall in love with, "statistically speaking".

I'm never going to score the winning touchdown at the super bowl, the winning try at the Rugby world cup, or the winning goal at the Fifa world cup. I'm never going to meet Steve McQueen, Bob Marley or Bruce Lee. I will never sleep with Monica Belucci, Dita Von Teese or Zdenka Podkapová. I wont win Le Mans, see the Earth from space or rugby-tackle the Pope.

These are all things that I that if I had one wish, just ONE, I would think about asking for.

But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

That's why I'm a happy person.

There are loads of photos and pictures and shit dotted around the net, sporting "inspirational" quotes, from the likes of Muhammed Ali, Bruce Lee, Marilyn Monroe and so forth, spouting crap like "As long as you have a dream, you can reach it" and "The only thing stopping you from reaching your number one wish is yourself."

Bollocks.

Chances are, your dreams are unobtainable, hate to be a kill-joy but it's true. I know my dreams and wishes are, I can never reach that peak, so I don't go chasing ghosts and shadows to try and get there.

That's why I'm always happy, I'll never do any of the above, so I don't have any over-arcing benediction with which to hold myself against, I never achieve something worth being proud of, but then turn-around and think to myself "But yeah, you still haven't got that yacht yet."

That, in so far as I have been able to ascertain is the secret to being happy. It's all about the here and now, fuck 2 years down the line, you might be dead by then. If your life right here, right now, is worth being happy about, if that joke you just heard made you chuckle, if that picture of a midget uppercutting a tranny made you smile, if tramp on a bus just said something funny, if a creationist just made a fundamental scientific error and you laughed about it,  if you just had a glorious shit, wank or game of solitaire, that's it. You're happy.

The 10 Drinking Commandments...

I know this makes it two drinking related posts on the trot, but sod it, drinking is something close to my heart, and something I have a vested interest in. Guys, I hate to say it…but a lot of you are letting me down. More importantly, you’re letting yourselves and your gender down. Every time I go out to a bar and I see a guy with a purple or pink shot in their hand, a small part of Burt Reynolds’s mustache dies.

When I venture out to a bar or restaurant and I see a man with a martini that is any other color than clear, I am forced to say a small weeping prayer for the future of mankind. Now I don’t mean to turn this into a post strictly directed at guys, because ladies, this is of the utmost importance to you too. What a person drinks says quite a bit about who they are, and if the man at your side prefers drinks with umbrellas over ones with whiskey, well…you’ve got some serious decisions to make. So without further ado, I present:

1. Thou Shalt Learn to Enjoy Whisk(e)y - Irish, Scotch, Bourbon, Sour Mash, Tennessee, Welsh and every other form of the drink shall heretofore be your best friend. You can start by mixing with coke, soda or ginger ale at first to ween yourself into it if you need to (Jamesons and Dry Ginger Ale (James and Dry) is a perfectly acceptable manly drink), but at some point you’re going to have to learn to drink the stuff on its own. It’s a complex, mysterious and brooding spirit, which are not coincidentally three things you as a man should also strive to be. This commandment is the most important, and the hardest to get through, which is why it’s first. If you can master the ways of Makers Mark, Drumguish, Jameson and Glenlivet…the rest of this should be a piece of piss.

2. There is No Such Thing as a “Chocolate Martini” - This has been said elsewhere many a time before, but it bears repeating. The only things that should be in a martini are gin (and/or a quality vodka), vermouth, and garnish like an olive or onion. Anything else, and you’ve made a grave mistake punishable by a lifetime of Desperate Housewives repeats.

3. Thou Shalt Not Drink a Frozen Drink - The ONLY exception to this is if you’re at the beach or on a cruise ship. Otherwise, stick to hunks of ice or chilled mugs to cool your drink. Alcohol is not meant to be drunk in smoothie form.

4. Thou Shalt Not Consume Drinks With Idiotic Gimmicky Names Meant to Cover Up How Girly They Are - So help me Vishnu, if I see any of you jackasses out there with a Sex on the Beach or a Screw Me Blue in your hands, I’ll slap it to the ground and eat your worthless soul so fast you’ll truly come to appreciate the phrase “life flashed before my eyes” like never before. You’re not fooling anyone. Just because peach schnapps has some alcohol in it does not qualify it as an alcoholic beverage. It has its place in the great wide world of booze, but mixed up with 18 other fruit-flavored alcohols and garnished with a paper umbrella and stupid name ain’t it.

5. Thou Shalt Learn to Appreciate All Forms of Beer - If Budweiser, Carlsberg and Corona are your idea of what beer is and is meant to be (there's nothing wrong with them, but it's a much wider world out there), you’re living your drinking-life like that of a child in sub-Saharan Africa. Bring that inner impoverished child into the “civilized” world and open your dry crusty wind-chapped eyes to the world of ambers, stouts, saisons, hefeweissens and the multitude of heavenly hops-angels just waiting to surround you and give you a glimpse of the Promised Land. While you’re still getting over your silly stigma that Guinness is a “heavy” beer and cringing at the thought of a slice of lemon in your Hoegaarden, the rest of us will be happily melting our brains away into oblivion. With the superhot hops-angels, of course.

6. No Worthwhile Woman Will Ever Be Impressed With How Much You Can Drink - Being able to funnel six beers at once or taking down an entire fifth of rum in one night may impress the shit out of your mates, but no quality woman on earth will give a damn about how much you can drink. For that matter it’s really not worth even trying, as trying and failing will produce far more disgusting consequences than you ever bargained on. Let it be known: while some refer to alcohol as “Liquid Knickers Remover”, puke is far better known as “Liquid Loneliness”.

7. It’s More Than Okay to Drink Wine - Knowing the name of a few good Sancerres, Cabernets and Pinot Noirs is a highly valuable thing. Inevitably in your life you’ll need to go to expensive restaurants for anniversaries, birthdays, and pet funerals… and knowing what’s good vs. what tastes like grape-flavored vinegar not only makes you look smart and sophisticated, but saves you from drinking grapes that taste like they were fermented in horseshit. Become familiar with the ins-and-outs of a few wines, and the impression you’ll make will be well worth it. Being labeled as “cultured” is never a bad thing…being labeled as “ignorant” always is.

8. It’s Worth it to Learn the Rules and Traditions of the Drinking World Before You Go Out Into the Wild (and Make an Ass Out of Yourself) - Pro Tip: When drinking one of the aforementioned obligatory wines at one of the aforementioned stuffy and overpriced restaurants, do not sniff the cork. Check it for mold or odd discoloration, and then put it down…but do not sniff it like a damned country bumpkin. Pro Tip 2: Do not make a big show of popping the cork off a bottle of champagne. Hold a cloth or towel over the cork and catch it before it shoots into the ceiling. It’s the grown-up thing to do. There are a thousand small rules like these (or maybe “customs” is a better word?) surrounding the booze-life that knowing can be the difference between you looking like a showboating know-nothing spanner, or a refined gentleman of great taste and culture. The two mentioned here are a start, but take the time to learn what separates grown men from the forever-alcopop-swilling-park-bench-loitering-chav-boys and you’ll be more than a few steps ahead.

9. The Way You Treat Bar Staff and Waiters/waitresses Says More About You Than You Know - I don’t mean to get all Jesus-y on you guys, but as the Good Book says, “That which you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me.” And I can tell you, that’s exactly how a woman or prospective business associate will see it. Snapping, clapping, yelling, whistling or just general rudeness to someone waiting on you are a sure sign to anyone in your company that if they spend enough time around you, you’ll eventually treat them with the same selfish nonchalance and disdain that you treat those who are paid to be nice to you, just stand there. At most, stand there with a note in your hand. And for crying out loud, TIP WELL. You have no idea how far this can take you.

10. Any Free Drink is a Good Drink - I know, this seemingly negates some of the previous rules, but hear me out. Not even mentioning the many economical reasons that you should never ever in your life turn down a free drink when offered to you (which essentially boil down to: YOU’RE NOT BUYING IT AND IT’S NOT POISON, SO WHO CARES!?!), it’s just plain RUDE to turn down a shot or drink purchased by someone else for you (unless it is, in fact, poison). They’ve not only put down their hard-earned cash to buy you a taste of the good life, but they’ve also taken the social gamble of saying “Hey, this is a person who deserves a drink for saving babies/stopping (evil) moving trains/kicking my ass in Guitar Hero, and by golly…I’m going to buy them a beverage in public to show the world how noteworthy their accomplishment is!” That’s quite simply a proposition you can’t say no to. If you do, you’re a prick.

Much like the Bible, there are many more minor rules to the world of drinking, but these are the Big 10, the ones that in a general sense should guide you throughout your journey through this magical world of booze and keep you from temptation and harm. It’s a cold and frightening world out there, but by following these simple rules you definitely have a better chance of emerging unscathed.

What your drink says about you...

Staropramen drinker - likely to spend most of the evening texting some other girl.

Stella drinker - likely to spend most of the evening pretending to text some other girl.

Budweiser drinker - likely to spend most of the evening showing you porn on his camera phone in a bid to impress you. Has never had a text from a girl.

Real Ale drinker, bearded - someone's divorced uncle Tim.

Real Ale drinker, semibearded (facial topiary) - secretly despises the taste, feels he 'ought' to drink it.

Real Ale drinker, unbearded - socially inept computing student.

Guinness drinker, Irish - will break your heart.

Guinness drinker, non-Irish - nursing broken heart.

Guinness drinker, American - Great Grandad had a half brother with an Irish 2nd cousin twice removed, aka has Irish "Heritage".

London Pride drinker - not from London.

Trappist brew drinker, under 50 - fussy type with an excess of both spare time and self-regard.

Trappist brew drinker, over 50 - monk.

Cider drinker, teenager - made an impulse decision when he couldn't spot the alcopops.

Cider drinker, adult - from Norfolk.


Vodka Martini – Sophisticated. You’re classy, old school or a James Bond wannabe. I've been known to drink these, make of that what you will...

Cosmopolitan – Prissy, over ordered and passé. Favored by Manolo Blahnik wearing Candace Bushnell devotees who spend all their money on shoes but live in rathole apartments. Rapidly becoming an old lady drink.

Sidecar – The last time you got laid was 1932.

Chardonnay – You know what you like. Boring. Predictable. The Missionary Position of White Wine. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Pinot Grigio – You’re pretentious or don’t know what you like. You follow the herd. The Circle Jerk of White Wine

Beer – Just beer, sod the label, just good old fashioned ice cold brewski...Blue collar, simple, and an old standby.

Chocolate Martini – You’re immature or have a sweet tooth. Good for masking the taste of Roofies...or so I hear...

Vodka on the Rocks – You want to get drunk as fast as possible.

Malibu Bay Breeze – A gay man’s drink. Again, not that there's anything wrong with that, red is red, up is up, and this is a gay man's drink...

Sloe Gin Fizz – Same as above.

Gin neat – Only for mad dogs and Englishmen.

Sour Apple Martini – You have a sense of fun but overindulgence might cause dancing on tables and bad karaoke singing.

Campari and Soda – You’re a gourmand. A good aperitif. A bitter drink for bitter people.

Manhattan – Old fogey drink. Stuffy. Where did I put the bitters?

Sweet Vermouth on the Rocks – You’re so old that if you’re not already in the grave you soon will be.

Pinot Noir – You’ve seen Sideways. Nuff said.

Sex on the Beach – You’ve been to Club Hedonism haven’t you?

Sex up Against the Wall – You own shares in Club Hedonism don’t you?

Galliano –You’re a waterbed, lava lamp, reel to reel, gold chain wearing, wall to wall shag carpet loving, swinging 70’s disco fool.

Gimlets – You’re old fashioned and like to drink. Usually the provenance of classy cerebral babes.

Rob Roy – You’re an alcoholic...bloody good drink 'tho...

Margarita – You’re fun and naughty with a sense of style. If you don’t have it with salt you’re a wimp.

Shirley Temple – What? Are you five years old? On the wagon? Get the fuck outta here...

Bloody Mary – You need an excuse to start drinking before lunch.

Gin and Tonic – You’re kinda boring but an excellent drink when it’s hot outside.

Mint Julep – You’re a hospitable Southern guy/gal. Good stuff. Rarely ordered.

Tequila – You’re not afraid of spending a little time in jail. (Little known fact, tequila isn't actually a drink, it's just a way to get the police to turn up without using a phone...)

Champagne – You’re reserved and classy...or a stripper.

Vodka Red Bull - Party person, young, possible cokehead.

Southern Comfort –Where’d you put the Lynyrd Skynyrd eight tracks? I know I saw ‘em around here somewhere.

Southern Comford, Lemonade and Lime – The line between "Fussy Cocktail" and "No-nonsense drinker" is a line you enjoy tapdancing on reguarly...

Mojito – You’re not afraid to try new things, have low frustration tolerance and are prone to wild rages. I may not agree with what you drink, but I will defend to my death your right to drink it...

Rum and Coke – You’ve been arrested for assault once or twice.

Whisky Sour – Have another one Grandma.

Alabama Slammer – You’ve read the “Have a Cocktail” placemat at the diner once too often.

Jamesons Irish Whisky – You’re a sexual athlete. Women want you and men want to be like you. You have class, talent, wit, and brains.

Caffeinated ramblings

Over a cup of coffee or two at 9.30am today, my team leader and I had a conversation about Hugh Laurie...

Hugh Laurie ... looking dangerous, because he is

It all started after I watched “Later with Jools Holland” last night and saw him, playing the piano with Jools. When I got into work I felt the need to discuss this with my boss (who also likes Boogie/swing/jazz piano). During this conversation I made the observation that Hugh Laurie, was an amazing comedic actor, a brilliant serious actor and that he seemed pretty bloody good at piano too (three observations I will vehemently stand by).

And then I casually posed the question that sparked it all off:

“Is there nothing he can’t do?”

… There was a few seconds silence as I pondered whether I had just asked a stupid question and whether or not that stupid, potentially illogical, question had included a double negative.

Clearly, my boss had been thinking the same thing, she turned and stated that she wasn’t really sure whether that counted as a double negative or not. We discussed this in vague terms for a minute or so before deciding that it was going to need some real thought… and so we decided to put some real thinking into it.

We established that:

“something” is the opposite of “nothing” because surely, “nothing” or “no thing” is the lack of “something” … as such:

nothing = not something

This, in itself, means that:

“nothing he can’t do” = “not something he can’t do”

However, if:

“nothing he can’t do” = “he can’t do nothing”

And:

“doing nothing” = “resting”

Then:

Hugh Laurie can’t rest

On the face of things, we had just established that Hugh Laurie had some kind of super-human ability to survive without rest…. However, there was a further problem; What if “resting” is something? It certainly seems like a something in its own right. We thought….

If:

“resting” = “something”

And if there’s:

“nothing he can’t do”

Then:

He can rest because there’s “nothing he can’t do”, but similarly he can’t rest because resting is doing nothing and we know that “he can’t do nothing”

There was consensus that this turns Hugh Laurie into a human paradox. After some discussion on the potential consequences of a human paradox, it was agreed that no one would be able to survive being a paradox, it would just be an impossibility and as such Hugh Laurie would simply cease to exist within reality.

However, what further effects would this have? Surely you cannot simply erase one person from reality as we know it without further, wider reaching side-effects … thus, reality unravels and logic crumbles out of existence, ending everything.

… THE END

[x] rules for my unborn son...

#27 "Hold doors, pull out chairs, hold the swears" - Fresh Prince

#44 If you're good at something, never do it for free

#7 If you have to lie, be specific

#13 Never, ever, involve a lawyer

#39 There's no such thing as a coincidence

#3 Never be afraid to ask out the prettiest girl in the room

-You'd be surprised how often it works

#62 "Alot" is not a word, and while we're at it, you probably don't know what irony is yet...

#11 When the job is done, just walk away

#484 Never own a pet you can't take out for a walk (Exception: Falconry)

#26 Request the late check-in

#25 Take her to Paris

#4 Don't screw over a buddy

#16 If a street performer makes you stop in the street, you owe them a couple of quid

#11 If I can't see your shirt cuffs, your suit jacket doesn't fit properly

Prologue to a novel I will probably never write...

(Two in one day, thought I'd liven it up a bit. Wrote this many moons ago, as the prologue to a novella I was planning on writing, didn't happen but I kept hold of it 'cause I liked it...)

This is the beginning.

And the end.

It’s where my story culminates, being a high point I figured it’s as good a point as any to start, only problem is it’s also probably where it ends.

I’m twenty four, I’ve been living what a lot of people in my age group would consider the high life for going on a year now. And I got here quite by accident.

See, I was just a normal twenty three year old, I didn’t know I was normal, but I was. I didn’t have a fucking clue what I wanted to do with myself. Apparently I should have. I should have known where I was aiming, I should be training for something, I should know where I wanted to be ten years from now and I should be trying to get there. So I went along with the motions, I had a part time job to tide me over while I found a “career” that fit in with the “qualifications” I’d earned in school and college, which of course I’d decided on three or four years prior to me having any fucking clue on how the world actually works, not to mention what was actually going on in said world.

To me it felt like catch twenty-two, you needed to decide what you wanted to be, four years prior to actually deciding what you wanted to be. This may or may not have just been a product of the times, when I was ejected from the education system the whole country, nay, the whole world was in an economic downturn, there were five workers for two jobs, if you was lucky, and this was coming, seemingly, just after an economic and cultural boom where anyone could be anyone, or anything, the world was anyone and everyone’s oyster, companies were even training people for jobs that didn’t even exist yet. So people acted like the world was their oyster, they trained to be anything and everything, to do with the digital world mostly, me included, but when the analogue infrastructure that held the digital world up crumbled, they were left prospectless...

Not to mention the whole idea of “Being” irked me. Why couldn’t you just “Be”, you needed a tag, you needed to be a stock broker, or an IT consultant, or a trading standards officer, a cable joiner, plumber or electrician. Why couldn’t you just be someone? Why couldn’t you just be you and your job was a means to make that happen, instead of your job being a means of you happening...

C’est la vie I guess.

5 films most people haven't seen but should be considered required viewing...

Brick

Straight in at the top with Brick, a 2005 film written and directed by the not commonly known Rian Johnson, starring a young Jason Gordon-Levitt, which won the Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, for Originality of Vision at the Sundance Film Festival of the same year. It's a neo-noir film (although in my opinion it shows aspects of subtle surrealism too) set largely around a US high-school campus, with a stark lack of adults and an unusual yet easy to grasp language of slang used by most of the characters which kinda reminds me of something from either a Shakespeare play, or something from the Sprawl trilogy of books by William Gibson.


The story is quite twisty and turny, so it's hard to talk about without giving much away, but saying that, it's not hard to follow. If I had to sum this movie up in one line, it'd be: The Maltese Falcon meets Bullitt set in a somewhat surreal American high school. Gordon-Levitt is by far the star of the show, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the film that helped spring-board him to where he seems to be going, as well as securing him as one of my favourite current actors.


If you liked Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Laura or any other of the 40's Noir epics, you're going to love this. It really is the only truly epic, classic Noir film that has been made since Bogart walked off into the fog and Welles got shot in a sewer.




London

Another film from 2005, that didn't seem to do too well at the box-office, over here in the UK atleast, which is strange if you look at it's all star cast, which I guess wasn't as "all star" in 2005 as they would be, currently, six years later. In the lead we have Chris Evans (who will probably go down in history now more for Captain America), with Jason Statham in the supporting role,and Jessica Biel as the love interest, with a few other familiar faces cropping up.


Again, it's slightly neo-noir, but not as classically so as the above Brick, and without any of the detective/sleuth aspects. At it's core it's a break-up/get-the-girl-back movie, but without any of the sappy romantic crap that tends to be the vestige of the genre. The vast majority of the film centres around Evan's "Syd" and Statham's "Bateman" (the former's drug dealer) spending the night waxing philosophically, whilst doing Scarface amounts of coke, in the bathroom of the farewell party being thrown for Syd's Ex, "London", played by Biel. The film revolves around Syd trying to pluck up the courage to go downstairs and talk to London, whilst other characters drop in, partake of their coke, offer anecdotes and suggestions, then leave, and that's pretty much it, apart from the odd flash-back to when Syd and London were still together, punctuating the stream.


Keep an eye out for Statham going all "Lock-Stock" / "Transporter" nearer the end of the film, well worth the wait even if you didn't like the 98% of the film before the scene...


Kidulthood & Adulthood

I'm not 100% sure these two belong here, because quite a few people have actually seen them (in the UK at least), but they're here because a lot of people haven't seen them for entirely the wrong reasons. In my opinion you need to talk about them both together, they don't really work as well apart. Quite a few people seem to have been put off by them because of the "chav" culture (if you want to give it that moniker) the films revolve around, but if you can get past that, what you get is a gritty, dark, brooding pair of movies that just don't hold any blows and cut deep into the subject matter they partake of.


They're both written by Noel Clarke, in my opinion a shining star of British movie culture, but only the latter was directed by him, his first step into directing, which kind of shows. It's a bit more choppy, doesn't kind of gel as well as the first, but it still doesn't sell it's self short.


These are both two films that any cinephile needs to have under their belt, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they could, and hopefully will, go down as some of the greatest movies that looked into and explored a certain culture at a certain time.


Push

So you've got "movers", people with telekinesis, and you've got "watchers", people who can see glances of the future, and you've got "pushers", people who can force a thought into someone else's mind, "shifters" who can change how people perceive objects in the mundane world...I'm going to stop there, because there's quite a few more, "Bleeders", "Sniffers", "Wipers"...


Pretty much it's the real world, but you've got a few, rare and select individuals that exhibit one of the above skills. The basis of the story line is that the main character is trying to uncover the history of what happened to his father, with the help of a young girl who is trying to save her mother, whilst both being hounded by a secret government organisation. Old hat, I know...


But what makes this a great film is the execution of the storyline. None of the powers any of these people posses are known to the public, so you get into a mindset of thinking were the good con-artists good, or were they "shifters"? Are good gamblers good gamblers or are they "movers"? On top of that there's a great interaction between the cast, they each work well in the role, and work together well in a way that's believable as their characters.


And any Neuromancer  (/sprawl trilogy) fans out there should definitely watch this film, it feels like it's set in the sprawl, except with hacking and implant skills replaced with supernatural abilities...

What to expect from Stuff, Things and General Eclecticisms...

Well, what can you expect from Stuff, Things and General Eclecticisms? Well, stuff, things and general eclecticisms (which is actually a word funnily enough) to put it bluntly. This blog is going to have a little bit of everything, from different authors, maybe a review of a band, a rant on public transport, a recipe for the perfect meatball, tips and tricks, how-to guides, you name it...