Why Top 5? Why not a Top 10? As a lapsed Discordian I was going to knock out a rather elaborate, mind-bending explanation based on the 'Law of Fives' (which, according to Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, claims that everything in the universe can be connected to the number five if you try hard enough), but that looked too much like hard work.Instead, I'll just tell you the truth: I opted for a Top 5 because I didn't go to very many gigs in 2008.Five of 'em, though, were fucking awesome...5. Bearsuit, Latitude Festival 2008 - Pete [...]
It's embarrassing to admit this, but we're into the third week of January and I still haven't cobbled together one of those obligatory end-of-the-year lists for 2008. I can't begin to explain how bad this makes me feel.These lists have become such a staple of the blogosphere that each and every one of us feels obliged to complete one each and every year. You know the sort of thing: My Top 10 Albums of 2008, My Top 10 Films of 2008, My Top 10 Bloody Top 10s of 2008... each one a highly subjective attempt to reduce the year's cultural [...]
I have a confession to make.It's not an easy thing to admit to. In these rheumy-eyed, cynical times it can be considered dreadfully unfashionable, politically naïve and more than a tad suspicious. In certain circles it is regarded as an early indicator of the onset of water on the brain. However, at the risk of losing my friends, my credibility and even my credit rating I have to come clean:While listening to President Barack Obama's inaugural address today I found myself experiencing an overpowering sense of optimism.There. That wasn't so difficult to say.
How bizarre.The Seinfeld season 8 DVD boxset came through the post this morning. I'm a big fan of Seinfeld, and used to avidly watch it on BBC2 during the 90s, but I never saw much of the last two seasons due in no small part to erratic BBC scheduling. This evening Clare and I watched the first disc worth of episodes including season 8 opener - The Foundation - which I'd never seen before.By way of a set-up, the fiancée of self-proclaimed 'Lord of the Idiots' George Costanza died at the end of season 7 in a rather tasteless manner. [...]
Lils has joined an after-school golf club at her infant school where she and her five year old pals will soon be learning the arcane arts of pitching, putting and wearing a Pringle v-neck. She's tremendously excited about it. Lils was talking to Clare and me about this, and I said, quite innocently: "Wow, Lils - at the age of five you're learning to do something that I've spent thirty-eight years trying to avoid.""What's that?" said Lils. "Work?"The line was delivered with precision comic timing. I was never that good.
Oh God, not again.Only a day after I wrote a post about the late Patrick McGoohan, I now find myself writing about another cherished actor who has sadly passed away. Like most unrepentant fanboys, I'll always remember Ricardo Montalbán for his portrayal of my favourite screen villain, Khan Noonien Singh. However disillusioned I might have become with the franchise over time, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan remains one of my favourite guilty pleasure movies, and that is due in no small part to Montalbán's incendiary performance.Montalbán played Khan on two occasions, in the 1982 movie and in the [...]
