London's Burning

And so my fifth day of unwanted self-unemployment begins, and the sky is no longer on fire. And I’ve got yet another day of fruitless job-hunting ahead of me.

I haven’t had the chance to do any writing of any kind for the last week, and I fear this may turn into a permanent state of play until I start carving my day into immutable chunks: family time, job-hunting time, writing time, etc. At the moment, it’s just a huge lump of shapeless hours that disappear quickly and before I know it, the sun is setting again and I haven’t got anything done.

I’ve been battling a particularly virulent bout of hayfever for the last week, trying to get stuff done with my head swollen, a neverending supply of mucus clogging up my nostrils, strangling my brain, coagulating on mountains of tissues strewn all over the house. Lovely.

On top of that, London has been melting for the last week, a wall of heat pushing down from above, not a breeze in the air to take the edge off the fire. Yesterday, on the hottest day of the year, with temperatures topping out at around 31 degrees C, I bravely / stupidly (delete as applicable) ventured into the heart of London for a press screening. Which meant tackling the horrors of the unventilated subterranean inferno that is the London Underground, drowning in the sweat of a thousand commuters, my skin permanently slick with a sheen of bubbling perspiration, rapidly darkening with the grime of the Big Smoke clinging to me like a black membrane of ash.

And to make it worse, the air-conditioning at the cinema was broken…so there was a room full of film critics pumping out acrid heat, listlessly fanning themselves with press notes, swilling warm water that was supplied to try and keep us from passing out.

After the movie, there was a bit of a party thing going on, so I grabbed a couple of ice-cold beers and propped up the bar, with the beer turning into steam the second it touched my lips. I didn’t stay for long: I didn’t recognise anybody I knew there, so I headed for the exit soon after.

What else? The last week has included my leaving drinks from my last job; Father’s Day; Batman Begins…but I haven’t got time to get into all that now. There are jobs to find, writing deadlines to meet, facial hair to shave. Otherwise, before I know it, the demands of family life will interrupt my already fractured flow, and it will be the weekend again.

I’m busier now than when I had a full-time job! Where the hell has that 40 hours a week gone?

Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear

What can I tell you to stop the blood pouring from my eyes and the brains oozing out of my ears? The last hours of my current employment are dying away minute by interminable minute, and I’ve become so bored and disconnected from it all that I’m tempted to get up and head for the exit now, rather than wait for the hollow good wishes and back-slapping sure to be spewed onto me tomorrow morning.

Can’t wait to see the back of the lot of them, to be honest. Having these fucknuts pollute my life for the last ten months was quite a steep price to pay to watch my little girl grow up. A little girl that I am on the verge of renaming “Mad Monkey Kung Fu” by deed poll. My body seems to be the most exciting climbing frame she has ever seen, and her little legs flail around like fleshy nunchakus.

That is all. The next time you hear from me, I will have rejoined the ranks of the unemployed. Again.

Oh yes. One last thing. Stop reading this now. Find the nearest cinema and go and see Sin City. Go. Run. Now. Film of the Year so far (if you got the stones for it). A world where a film like this exists seems to me to be a world worth tolerating just a little bit longer.

Dumb Shit I've Heard

More in the occasional series of stupidity my ears are assaulted with. And, yes, I really did overhear someone saying this:

“I was watching that Pulp Fiction the other night. I didn’t understand it. Halfway through that John Travolta gets killed, right? And then later on, he’s alive again! What’s that all about?”

Pucker Up

Today, the company that I resigned from last year is carrying a story on their news site about the events that will lead to me being made redundant from the company that I left them for.

Oh, Sweet Irony, let me suckle on your barbed and bitter teats.

The Last Laugh

Could this week possibly suck more??

On top of my ongoing work travails comes something far more grave and depressing. Frank Gorshin, the one and ONLY Riddler, has died at the age of 72. But first, a little AKA history lesson.

By all accounts, I was a very placid and peaceful baby. Hardly ever cried, always smiling, never shouting. However, according to my Mum, once a week I would freak out. My younger self, despite having absolutely no concept of time, always, always, always instinctively knew when Batman was coming on TV. (And, I know it goes without saying, but I mean the Adam West / Burt Ward pop classic). Undoubtedly, they must have been reruns by this point. I was far too young to have seen them the first time round

Barely one year old, I would spend the entire morning bouncing around the house going, “Nana nana nana nana, nana nana nana nana, BATMAN!”, driving everyone nuts. And once the show came on, I would sit in complete and utter silence, in an almost trancelike state, gazing at the TV in wonder and awe. The show was a revelation to me. It was my first Favourite Show Ever.

And so, to me, Batman can never be Michael Keaton or Christian Bale. He’s always Adam West. And he’s not a Dark Knight or a vengeful borderline psychotic. He’s Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, living with his young ward Dick Grayson and his unflappable butler Alfred, with that cool red phone patching him directly through to Commissioner Gordon, and that kickass car!

And Jack Nicholson is not the Joker. The phenomenal Cesar Romero holds the undisputed title as the Clown Prince of Crime. And, of course, Jim Carrey is not the Riddler…

Frank Gorshin was amazing. That incredible cackling laugh. That wiry, manic physical presence and boundless energy. A frenzied emerald dervish whirling in a blur of question marks. A voice that could effortlessly slip from playful trickster to chilling menace. It was, and remains, perfection.

Frank’s final screen performance is in Tarantino’s feature-length season finale of CSI airing in the UK in a couple of months. I was looking forward to it anyway, but now it’s become unmissable.

And I’ve just ordered the 1966 feature-length Batman movie on DVD, so I can reclaim that part of me that remembers how to sit in wonder and awe, hypnotised by the blisterlingly bright primary colours of the heroes and villains of Gotham City.

And as for Frank? I can picture him right now: “Hey, St. Peter, riddle me this…”

Six of one, half-dozen of the other

OK. Now the shock of impending unemployment has subsided somewhat, let’s take a mean, sneering look at What Happens Next, and stare at the implications until they flinch:

Good News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.
Bad News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.

If you live and / or work in London, the dichotomy there will need no further explanation.

Good News: I’ll be out of this backwards-looking little parochial burg with its unevolved fuckheaded denizens, and I’ll return to the spiky embrace of the seething metropolis known as the 21st Century. At Last. I’m Coming Home.

Bad News: Less sleep. Longer and more expensive commutes. Less time watching my little girl growing up (which was always one of the main aims of my experiment in working here).

What else? It’s difficult to get into specifics, because at the moment there aren’t any. I don’t know when I’ll find another job. I don’t know what that job will entail. Will it be another I.T. role? Will it be an Editorial position? How much money will I be taking home every month? I’ve got variables seeping out of my ass, so there’s not too much point in playing a speculative “What If?” game. That’s just a bit too frustrating.

I can tell you this much, though. The next six weeks until the axe swings are going to be pretty damn uncomfortable. I’d much rather they take me round the back of the building right now and give me a double-tap to my brainpan, get this shit done quick. As long as there’s a juicy severance package thrown in, of course.

Up for the Down Stroke

This isn’t going to be an easy post to write, but I need to get all this stuff out of my head. This is also going to be a bit joke-light. Sorry about that.

The short version first: I am almost certain that I’m about to lose my job. Here’s the long version:

My company currently employs 54 people (I just checked). Around the middle of June, it is highly likely that there are going to be redundancies reducing the number of staff to only 30.

The company is about to sell off around a third of its assets. If the sale goes through, the staff cuts go-ahead. If the sale falls apart, the staff cuts will be scrapped. But let’s work with the worst-case scenario here.

In about six weeks, it looks very, very likely that I will lose my job. Yes, it is possible that they will want to keep me, and it is possible that the sale might collapse. Possible, but not very probable.

The third of the assets up for sale is the shit-end of the company assets. The remaining assets are the good stuff. Which makes the company portfolio attractive to prospective buyers. Which leads me to believe that the rest of the company will be up for sale within the next couple of months anyway. Everyone’s a loser, baby! (Unless you are one of the company directors, in which case you’ve got a hell of a payday coming up.)

I could go into more detail, but at the moment I just can’t be fucking bothered. To say that I am hugely demotivated right now is a massive understatement. Time to polish up the ol’ C.V., get on the phone to bother recruitment agencies, and all that fun shit.

When this has all shaken out and everybody knows where they stand, I’m sure that the future will hold bigger and better things. Right now, though, this is a messy and unpleasant transition stage.

I will return with my regular bouts of nonsense and vitriol shortly, once I have figured out a way to reignite my sense of humour.

Labour Pains

So…Election Day. What can I tell you?

I went to vote this morning and, despite being convinced that I was going to vote Labour, at the last minute I spontaneously decided to go for LibDem. And here’s why…

Labour, in all probability, is going to win. And I think that’s OK. We can live with that. I decided not to vote for them as a Conscientious Objector to what has become known as “The Complete Fucking Mess in Iraq”. Too many people dying for too little reason. So, consider my floating vote a petulant bitchslap for Blair. The other reason that I decided note to vote Labour is Alastair Campbell. What an utter cunt. He’s spent years bullying the media and kicking them around, leading to forced resignations at the BBC and the Mirror over minor factual mistakes, even though the general thrust of what they were saying was, by and large, absolutely true. I vividly remember Alastair Campbell storming onto the set of Channel 4 News unplanned in the summer of 2003 to rant and scream about the media in the face of a powerless Jon Snow. Funny stuff, but you could see the foam-flecked bile flicking onto the camera from his raging, angular face. He really, really does need to go fuck himself.

And the hypocrisy of Campbell is mind-boggling. Blair deliberately mislead the British Public. Fact. So he really is in no position to question the veracity of any news that goes against his party line.

So, I reckon the ideal scenario would be something like this: both Labour and Conservative parties shrink in this election, and LibDem grow slightly. Ultimately, if the LibDems became the party of Opposition, and the Conservatives got shunted to the side as the lame duck third party, the next General Election should be a doozy, with those two parties upping their game somewhat, whilst Howard and the Conservatives can go and crawl into a corner somewhere, rename themselves the Neo-Conservative Party in a rare moment of insightful honesty, and then they can be ripped to shreds by wild dogs in the middle of a fox hunt. Sound good?

I’m also concerned about Voter Apathy, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of shit. All I’ll say is this: You know the end of the world is coming when people make more of an effort to vote for contestants in reality TV shows than they do for the Leader of their Nation. And you have to pay to vote for the dipshits on Big Brother too!

One, final politics-related note before I wrap up. Just finished reading Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris. Imagine The West Wing with the trappings of science-fiction and superhero fiction. Absolutely stunning stuff, and the finest first issue of a series I’ve read in years. And you lot, you lucky people, can read the first issue absolutely free if you follow this link.

Day of the Dense

“Stupidity is replicating itself at an astonishing rate. It breeds easily and is self-financing.” Frank Zappa

I’m too goddamn tired to deal with these fucking morons today. I was up late last night fiddling around with my new iPod, and my eyes are as red and raw as my temper today.

Today’s inane question that I really have absolutely no idea how to answer:

”How come you’re so good at spelling?”

And If I hear one more person say “May the 4th be with you”, I’m going to slap the shit out of them.

Any suggestions on how to deal with the overabundance of fuckwittery I have to battle on a daily basis are greatly appreciated.

This blog entry was brought to you by the letters ASS and HOLE, and the number .357.

Twist and Shout

Be unafraid. Everything I write here will remain Spoiler Free to avoid ruining your enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the shit discussed below.

One of the most hackneyed plot devices in modern cinema appears to be The Twist. You know, where everything you’ve just seen is A Lie! Or an Elaborate Hoax! Or Deliberately Misleading! Where everything exists solely for a punchline, invalidating the complex shenanigans of the previous ninety minutes or, alternatively, validating a huge slab of tedious build-up. Far too many films exist today purely for The Twist. And I don’t want to sit in a cinema for two hours just to watch someone do a variation on screaming “Not really! It was all a dream!” at my head.

Just to be absolutely clear, twist endings don’t constitute a last minute re-write because the filmmakers have no idea how to wrap things up, or because a test screening of two hundred morons in a mall in the asshole of nowhere didn’t like the original ending. Twist Ending, using my definition, is deliberate. The whole film deliberately builds towards it. Most films should still be able to stand tall without the twist. Sadly, more and more, it has become the movie’s raison d’être, and everything else is just subterfuge and window-dressing.

Man, I am so damn bored of the Twist. Granted, there are fine examples of The Twist. Off the top of my head, I can think of The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Fight Club, and Memento. All fine films enhanced by their closing moments. Significantly, they would still all be fine movies without the twist.

But here is where the problems start. I guessed the twist of The Others about half an hour into the movie, and I was disappointed to find my guess was spot-on at the end of the movie. Tim Burton was never going to be able to top the twist of the original Planet of the Apes, so he sidestepped the problem with an illogical swerve that, whilst entertainingly maddening, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. One of the worst twists in recent years, for me, was at the end of Basic, the much-touted reuniting of Pulp Hitmen John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. Manipulative bullshit fakery that screams contempt for every single person in the audience.

Nowadays, it seems that M. Night Shyamalan has rummaged through Chubby Checker’s wardrobe to steal the crown and make himself King of the Twist. But with each subsequent movie, the twist becomes more and more important, and the actual meat of the film, the damn story, is merely a tool to get you there.

The Sixth Sense – Pretty good twist if you don’t spot it in advance. Unbreakable – My personal favourite of his films, because it’s the only film that doesn’t live-or-die by the twist at the end. Without the twist, the film would still hold up. Signs – Ugh. The rot is starting to set in now. Crop circles and glasses of water. Just silly.

But what really prompted this tirade was The Village, a film I had the deep misfortune to suffer through over the weekend. Easily snags a high place in the Worst Films I’ve Ever Seen List (and I think you all know how many films I see. And I also have a pretty good tolerance level for crap. So, this film must stink pretty badly, right?)

The Twist here renders everything that comes before it utterly meaningless. To keep myself entertained during the movie, I tried to think of the worst possible twist ending. Shyamalan duly delivered, and gave me my Worst Case Scenario Twist.

NOTHING in this movie makes sense. I lost count of the number of plot holes and inconsistencies. None of the build-up justifies the ending and the absurd contrivances needed to get you there. The ridiculous “Those We Don’t Speak Of” are spoken of in Every Bloody Scene! At one point, Sigourney Weaver proclaims: “What nonsense are you saying?”, a charge she would have been better off levelling at the writer-director of this cinematic atrocity.