The Sound Of War

Conflict on a global scale. Neighbour supporting neighbour, neighbour turning on neighbour. An assault of sound and light upon the senses. Terror, fear, the unknown and plenty of sequins. Yes, it’s time once for that most baffling of singing competitions - the Eurovision Song Contest.

It’s such an odd phenomenon and my reaction to it is probably representative of the generally schizophrenic way in which it is regarded. Initially, I started watching it as a student when the enjoyment was entirely irony-based (I know, surprising for a student to be enjoying something naff in an ironic fashion) and largely prompted by the excellent and gently mocking commentary provided by the late great Terry Wogan (who seemed to be as baffled and fascinated by it as we were). To be honest, that ironic enjoyment of something camp and ludicrous is still there but, over the years, I’ve become fascinated by the competition element of it too.

It’s basically war with music - a chance for countries to subtly air grievances or reaffirm alliances without all that tedious business of politics mucking about in the middle of it. People vote for their neighbours because they love them or vote against their neighbours because they hate them. Admittedly this had reached such ludicrous levels that basically the result ended becoming a foregone conclusion long before the (extremely long) results section completed so a change up in the voting structure came into effect a few years. Still, the old rivalries and alliances are still there.

So, what exactly is a Eurovision song? Well, there’s no real one answer to that. That’s generally what happens when you take a continent (plus a fair few extras - Israel and Australia’s claims to be in Europe strike me as somewhat tenuous at best) and try and impose a contest that crosses the many cultural divides and styles for those countries. It can provoke genuine oddness (such as a collection of Russian grandmas or overly costumed Finnish metallers) but, more often than not, it creates a sort of oddly bland, middle-of-the-road, generic “Euro” song - and it is inevitably these bland ones that always seem to win. I’m often baffled by the popularity of the winning song each year and have never managed to accurately predict the winner (I like the weird ones anyway).

I would imagine that other countries take it seriously but I feel like our reaction is peculiarly English to it. We’re part of it, sure, but we don’t take it completely seriously (as evidenced by Terry Wogan successor Graham Norton’s commentary). If you’ve not experienced the unique delights of Eurovision before, get yourself some beers, strap yourself in and embrace the naff cheesiness of the whole thing. We won't win but it feels like that’s not really the point anymore...

WatchSeeLookView - Film Style Vol 01

While I do like to look at words on a page, I also frequently like someone else to prepare the pictures for me and then run them together one after the other very quickly to give the appearance of motion (I like a good film, they’re cracking). Here are some things what I have watched or rewatched recently and the very mild theme is “they’re a bit odd”. (As always, I’m only really going to talk about that I’ve mostly or entirely enjoyed - this here blog is generally about spreading the word on things what I like. There’s plenty of actual film critics out there if you want to hear about all the bad stuff.)

Enemy
In a nutshell:- Man discovers doppelganger and begins to unravel
Why it’s good:- Denis Villeneuve has directed some films which I went into with no (or even low expectations) recently - Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 - so I was keen to go back and view one of his earlier works. There’s an odd sense of doom that seems to hang over the film, in a way that is similar to David Lynch’s films - that feeling that something horrible is lurking just around the corner. I think it’s down to the look and use of sound - like David Lynch, Denis Villeneuve also uses sound in way that creates menace and even terror. Jake Gyllenhaal also gives a strong dual performance and convincing portrays the two separate characters. Definitely one to watch.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America
In a nutshell:- Oddball Siberian band go on a deadpan US road trip
Why it’s good:- What’s not to like a bunch of Finnish men with cartoonish quiffs and equally cartoonish Winklepicker shoes pretending to be a Siberian rock and roll band on a road trip across America to play at a wedding in Mexico? Did I mention they’ve also got the corpse of a fellow frozen band mate (whose quiff and shoes poke through his coffin) along for the ride? Nothing really happens but that’s not the point - it’s the deadpan way in which nothing that’s the point. This was very much my sort of thing and I’m surprised that it’s taken me this long to get around to watching it. I’ll definitely check out more of director Aki Kaurismaki’s films after this (there’s a sequel so I’ll probably start with that...).

Just a couple there but those’ll keep you going for now, I reckon.

Is Top Of The Pops Still On?

It seems a little like the theme this week may well be “cliched musings on age and the passage on time”. Well, I never claimed to be original. 
*does quick scan through last four hundred-odd posts* 
Nope, no originality here.

I love music. It’s great. While I do admittedly spend quite a bit of time on my standard commute listening to podcast/audio plays/etc., I still switch back to spending time just filling my ears with the sound of music*. My music tastes are varied and pretty hard to pin down but I probably default more to rock/indie, 60s soul or 70s funk most of the time (with plenty of other stuff thrown in too). Used to be that I was on top of the latest bands and knew most stuff that was out. A lot of this can be laid at the hands of MTV, back in the days when MTV was a music channel that played music videos.

I never really listened to the radio a huge amount but I devour music videos. As a youth, I could easily lose hours sucked into the rabbit hole of various music-based channels. I hesitate to use fusty old grandpa-ish saying like “golden age” (so I won't) but a number of the video directors I grew up watching went on to be the more interesting film  directors’ Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze were too of the real favourites (I defy you to watch Jonze’s Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage” and not want to fling yourself around dressed like the star of a cheesy 70s cop show).

Fast forward about twenty years and the way that I consume music is totally different. For the most part, I am the stereotypical middle-aged person who’s is no longer in touch with the music scene. I don’t listen to the radio at all anymore and, while I do listen to plenty on Spotify, it tends to be all music I’ve heard before. Occasionally, on their tailored daily mixes, freakishly and disturbingly accurately based on my music tastes, will suggest something new that I like but that is a rare occurrence.

I don’t even listen to albums the way that I used to anymore. Much like with having everything at your fingertips in the video streaming world, the availability of pretty much all the music I used to own within the one app means that I don’t have to sit through that whole album anymore. Get bored of a song? On to something else.

Is is a good or a bad thing? Musicians naturally would, I’m sure, argue that it’s a bad thing, that the art of curating the tracks on to an album in an order that presents a specific flow for the listener is no longer being adhered to. Consumers would, of course, argue that they are now in control of what they want to listen to, how and when. 

Me? I don’t know. All I know is that I’d like to find a way to get into new music again. Before I started ranting at youths about it not being music anymore and it all used to be better in my day….

*Although curiously not The Sound Of Music. I love a good musical (and often, sometimes even more so, a bad musical too) but that is one that leaves me cold. Just doesn’t do it for me. Oh, and Annie can fuck right off too.

Memory Like An… Errr, Ummm…

(True Fact:- I came up with the bare bones of this while walking in to work - often the way with these things - and completely forgot most of it by the time I got in. Ah, sweet, sweet irony…)

Memory’s a funny old stick, isn’t it? There are the obvious impediments to it, of course - copious amounts of alcohol generally leave me with a sliding scale of memory from “slight fuzziness” to “how the hell did I get home…. and where is this anyway?” - but it’s the more ordinary stuff that seems to be vague, nebulous and without a set of standardised operating rules. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday (being a creature, it was probably the same thing as the day before) but I remember sitting in a pub garden with a mate and drinking champagne with a selection of random builders we met that day (seemingly in contravention of the whole alcohol/memory dynamic). It’s clear what’s going on there - breakfast is everyday routine and your brain tunes it out while champagne with builders is distinctive enough to mark it self out (unless you’re a builder with a champagne habit, in which case, into Column A).

It’s my usual nerdy knowledge that comes and goes. Books, for example, and a prime one at that. I read quite a lot - I probably get through quite a few books a year (at least 8 or 9 while on holiday for two weeks) but my memory for them is atrocious. I know that I’ve read them and I’ll retain some basic key elements of the plot but there are many books which I have re-read and, barring a sort of vaguely familiar feeling, it’s almost as if I’m reading them for the first time. Case in point - I’ve currently read The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter again and had no idea how it was going to end, couldn’t remember in the slightest. 

I’m quite happy with this - means that I can read books again and enjoy them almost as much as first time round. Sometimes with a series as well, I won't remember the details and can enjoy a rewatch but that’s rarer. When it comes to films and television, I tend to remember much more in terms of the details. Presumably that would be because two of the senses are involved (sight and, yes, you guessed it, sound) but also because the sheer amount of information you’re taking in with a book isn’t comparable to the amount you get from the screen.

Has it decreased with age? I would say yes. I used to be one of those people who would always remember faces and names. The other day, I passed someone that I’d worked with intermittently a few years back and could not for the life of me remember his name. Not a clue. It came back to me eventually but that was after repeatedly seeing over a period of about four weeks. Also, I’m pretty sure that there’s an inversion proportion of decrease in memory versus increase in sight problems / unwanted hair in unwanted places / body creaks.

I did have a point to all of this when I started writing… but I’ve forgotten what it was. Hey, come on, like there was any other way I was going to end this one. I mean, really.

Super Smash Bros The Movie

So I went to the cinema the other day (I know, I shouldn't brag but there you go). I’ve discovered a new cinema that I really like. It’s the Genesis over in Whitechapel and it’s one of those ones where you get either an armchair or a double sofa, footrest and little table. The best part? If you go on a weekday, it’s only a tenner. Bobby bargain! There’s something immensely satisfying about sitting in the cinema with your legs stretched out and a bit of space around you. I am an tall man so that has been off-putting in terms of going to the cinema - the thought of spending a couple of hours (or more) with my knees wedged up in front of me while I’m conscious not to jostle the people either side for arm space does not make the cinema a desirable experience for me. This one is right up my alley. "So, what did I go to see?", I hear you ask. Alright, bloody hell, hold your horses, I’m getting to that. Just giving you a bit of scene-setting. I went to see:-

Super Hero Smash Punch Up Explode-A-Thon Pt 1
Avengers: Infinity War

I’m conscious that this one is still relatively fresh to the cinema and I’m alos conscious that people nowadays are worried about spoilers so I’ll be careful to censor anything too explicit. So, Avengers: Infinity war which opens with [REDACTED] before moving on to [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], really ups its game when [REDACTED] happens. It’s not until [REDACTED], however, that you really [REDACTED], culminating in [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] with a large slice of watermelon. Really didn’t see that coming.

Ha ha, jokes are funny things!

It’s not a film that’s going to break any new ground and it’s not a film that’s going to draw in new viewers to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you’ve been watching since the start, though, this is the beginning of the payoff to ten years and eighteen films worth of build up and it is relentless, action-packed, quite funny in places and satisfying in a nerdy, fanboy sort of a way. If you’re into Marvel’s films, you’ll want to watch this one. If you’re not, well, this isn’t the one that’s going to convert you (I recommend either of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, Thor Ragnarok or Black Panther for that).

Just gotta wait a year now to see how it all plays out….

They Seek Him Here, They Seek Him There...

As a small person, young of age, dirty of face and hairy of head, I had some fairly obvious ambitions. The first one was never going to be achievable but I wasn’t going to let something like scientific possibility stand in the way of my deeply held desire to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Similarly, it was not a serious obstacle to holding a secondary ambition of becoming a Time Lord with his own TARDIS. There was, however, one ambition that was not totally outside the realms of possibility; it’s not a path that I chose to follow but it could well have been. For you see, for a brief time when I was about 8 years old, I wanted to be a spy.

I know what you’re thinking - I’d been bitten by the James Bond bug. Not a bit of it, I have to say. Sure, I liked Bond films (still do) but I wasn’t an obsessive fan as a youth. No, I had been prompted into becoming a spy by two books - The Spy’s Guidebook and The Detective’s Handbook by Usbourne books. Usbourne books were a big part of my childhood (the Puzzle Adventures and Mysteries Of The Unknown, with its horrific and terrifying illustrations, were both favourites). There was something about these two that spoke to my tiny childy mind, though.

My friends took to making secret maps with secret headquarters (clearly labelled with SECRET HEADQUARTERS in large capital letter naturally) of the playground. We would also leave in secret drop locations for each other to find - basically next to the tree or behind the bin (you’d be surprised at the lack of decent spy-style dead drops on your average 1980s playground). These rapidly came to a stop when we discovered passing secret maps by the map and embarrassingly called out in front of the class.

At one point, I desperately wanted to cut animal tracks into the soles of my shoes in order to be able to fool anyone who may be tracking me (being followed by wilderness trackers being one of the major concerns for a seven year old from Lewisham). I’m fully aware that you used to be able to get those Clarks shoes with all the different animal tracks on the bottom but, frankly, those were a joke. Who’s going to believe that all those different animals, some of which were natural predators of the others, would be walking together side by side in perfect harmony (like keys on my piano keyboard)? Pull the other one. Fortunately for my parents, this plan did not come to fruition...

As with all childhood fads (like obsessive yo-yo-ing, M.U.S.C.L.E wrestling figures and Panini sticker albums), these things faded from popularity after a brief period of obsessiveness. It’s probably for the best as, if I’d followed the page on signs for people who were suspicious, a lot of innocent but unfortunate looking people may well have ended up being harassed (especially as half of them are things that I do now).

Time Flies By When You're A Rider On A Train...

Rules. Who doesn’t love arbitrary restrictions designed to cater for the broadest possible set of circumstances in a generalised and often frustrating manner? Exactly, they’re great and I think that there need to be some more imposed upon the everyday activity of commuting. No, no, hear me out, if you’ve ever had to squeeze yourself on to a hot metal box full of objectionable germ factories stationed mere inches away from your face (or “go to work” as some of you may refer to it), then these may well float your boat.

The Spot

Everyone has a spot. You know the spot. Yeah, it’s that place where you stand on the platform to wait for the exact door you need in order to either a) provide you with the speediest possible exit at your desired destination; or b) provide you with the slim possibility of getting that mythical object, A Seat. 

New Rule:- A commuter’s spot is inviolate. Once a spot has been claimed, any other commuter attempting to take that spot may be subject to glaring and tutting.

Standing Trumps All*

Yes, we all want to remove ourselves from the infernal confines of the moving misery box as soon as we reach our final destination. Who would want to spend a single second more than is necessary in the ludicrously overpriced, railbound Bastille upon which we are forced to depend day in and day out? No one, naturally. But I tell you what, matey, if I’ve been stood up for the entire journey and you’ve been sat down in a nice comfy seat, you can bloody well wait for me to get off first instead of barging your way past.

New Rule:- All standees have priority in terms of exiting the vehicle. Anyone caught violating this rule will be kneecapped.

Headphones Are An Invention

It is true that phones have built in speakers in them and that technically those can be used for playing either crappy dance music via Spotify or whatever dreadful YouTube video you happen to be gawking at. It is also true that headphones are an invention that are issued as standard with every phone and that you should bloody well use them.

New Rule:- Anyone caught inflicting their audio upon other commuters will be forced to me listening to a single Chas and Dave song out loud on a loop.

Go Away and Be Ill Somewhere Else

This doesn’t just apply to the commuting part of the day (although it is at its worst at that point in the day) but to working life in general. If you are ill, if you are spreading germs, if you are essentially a walking delivery system for mucus, stay at home. I don’t want your germs. No one on the train wants your germs. No one in the office wants your germs. Go away.

New rule:- Just don’t.

If this post seems somewhat grumpy and ill-tempered, good. That’s pretty much the tone I was going for there to accurately capture the whole commuting experience in a nutshell. A crowded, noisy, stinking, angry nutshell. You’re welcome.

* I can’t even use the word “trump” anymore without conjuring up visions of the Tango’d Chuckle Brother who is bafflingly the leader of the free world. Although it is appropriate when being used in the farty sense, of course.