"Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like f**king Shaft!"

I read somewhere the other day that it's been ten years since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out. And this got me thinking;those prequels were a load of old shit, weren't they? I was so excited, at the time, being a child of the original Star Wars generation, and the trailer got me all excited, but then I went to see it. It was shit. You think I might've been warned by the 'fix it 'til it's broke' original trilogy special editions. You might be arguing with me in your head now, but read on, and I'll prove to you the prequels were shit:

The Baddies in Episode I are a Trade Federation. Yeah, the bad guys are a corporation! Stick it to the man, multi-billionaire George Lucas!

The aliens in the trade federation talk in rubbish 'We So Velly Solly' Japanese accents. You see, all evil businessmen are Japanese! Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!!

The bad guy droids are all linked to a central computer, so why do they talk to each other? And why do they say 'Roger roger' all the bloody time?

The Gungans all talk in rubbish 'Yaaa mon' Jamaican accents. Giant rasta frogs must've sounded brilliant in the scripting stages. They're basically just spacey Uncle Toms. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Having Brian Blessed as their leader must've also sounded brilliant in the planning stages. Didn't turn out that way, did it?

Jar Jar Binks. Everything he says and does. He was the first major CGI 'synthespian'. What a missed opportunity.

Watto, the owner of the Skywalker slaves, talks in a rubbish 'Oy Vey' New York Jewish accent. He's a corrupt businessman. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Queen Amidala's scary voice when she addresses anyone important.

Jake Lloyd as Anakin. I can't imagine the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe ever said 'yippee!'

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe built C-3PO, either.

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the universe is called 'Annie' by his friends and family.

I used to think Jedis had some special ability that made them be able to use the Force, but no, it's because they have Midichlorians in their bloodstream. I hate the whole notion of Midichlorians. If they could make a clone army, why not clone midichlorian infested blood too and have yourself an army of thousands of soldiers with Jedi-like abilities?

Anakin didn't have a dad. He was a virgin birth, apparently. Eh?! Is it a Christ allegory? Only, in this version of the New Testament, Jesus goes bad and throttles his pregnant missus? Nope, it's those pesky Midichlorians again, fertilising poor old Shmi Skywalker. I reckon Lucas just couldn't be arsed to write about Anakin's dad, he was too busy fucking about with rasta frogs.

That two-headed alien that commentates on the podrace is one of the crappiest-designed aliens I've ever seen.

The best characters, Qui-Gon Jinn, Sebulba (Yeah, I know he's an essentially one-dimensional cartoon bully, but I think he was a fantastically designed and realised alien) and especially Darth Maul (the best thing about the prequels, in my opinion) all die in the first episode, leaving all the shit ones behind to try and hold our interest.

Darth Maul's two bladed lightsabre might've been a cool surprise, if only they'd left it out of the sodding trailer!

Ewan MacGregor's piss-poor vocal impersonation of Sir Alec Guinness.

How come all the technology on show is much more advanced than the stuff we saw in the original trilogy? This is suppose to be set before those. Also, the people in Star Wars' past were far more equal opportunities, with more women being fighter pilots, etc. I can't remember any female fighter pilots in A New Hope. That's not a criticism, though.

The casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin for Episode II. He's possibly the worst actor in the world after that bloke who plays Nick Cotton. Not unfairly is he referred to as 'Mannequin Skywalker' in Clerks 2.

Episode II is supposed to be ten years after Episode I?! Nobody looks ten years older, except Anakin, and if it is ten years after the first one, this makes Padmé a bit of a cradle-snatcher, doesn't it? Aren't there any Jedis her own age she can fall in love with and make them turn to the Dark Side?

I liked it when we didn't know that much about Boba Fett. It made him a much cooler character. Now we know he looks like that bloke from Shortland Street and Barb Wire under his helmet.
Jango Fett was a cool character, though, but like all the best characters in the prequels, he gets killed.

The fact that the prequels were filmed in Australia, and so have lots of people that used to be in Neighbours are in it. Except for Jim Robinson, who appears in every other American movie.

Obi-Wan and his 'You're going to be the death me' jokes/predictions when talking to Anakin.

That whole sequence when C-3PO heads gets swapped with a federation droid just isn't funny.

R2-D2 can fly?! Does he forget he can do it by the time he meets up with Luke and Leia?

The whole sequence when Anakin spends time with Padmé on Naboo and tries to chat her up by saying she's not like sand, is clichéd and awful, and illustrates something that's wrong with all the prequels; the god-awful dialogue.

The same old cliché; Anakin gets to his mother the very moment before she snuffs it.

The Death Star was designed by cock-roach people? Eh?

The Clone Wars sounded cool when they were referred to in the older films, but they were a bit of a letdown when we actually got to see them.

Yoda in Episode II doesn't look anything like the Yoda from Episode I, and even though he can't walk without the aid of a stick, as soon as he gets his lightsabre out he starts whizzing about like a giant bluebottle?

In fact, Yoda's cut-and-paste way of talking gets on my tits. In the original ones it was cute, you could explain it by the fact he was very old and he's talking in a second language and he has trouble with sentence structure when he's saying what he's thinking when he's thinking it, but in the prequels, even when he makes a bloody speech he still does it. And the original muppet in Empire still has far more personality than his CGI replacement in Episodes II & III.

Sorry to dwell on him, but Yoda was mates with Chewbacca when he was younger? Did he used to babysit for Han Solo's mum and dad too?

Christopher Lee's Count Dooku is a cool character, as it's Christopher fucking Lee, but again, his character gets killed way too soon.

Padmé dies because her husband tried to force-strangle her when she's heavily pregnant, but even though she's dealing with that and the colossal pain of childbirth, she still knows exactly what to call the babies, even the one she didn't know she was carrying? And even though most Jedis can see into the future, know-one knew she was carrying twins?

I still don't know why the Emperor's face went all lumpy.

The emergence of the black-helmeted Darth Vader should have been the highlight of the prequels, seeing as that was what we were all waiting for, but instead, we got this:


NoooOOOOOooooOOOOO! It's almost Shatneresque.

If you're going to hide a baby from the biggest baddest bastard in the universe, letting him keep the name Skywalker and giving him to his stepbrother on the planet he grew up on isn't really the best plan. It worked, though, so what do I know?

And finally, in A New Hope, Obi-Wan clearly states that he doesn't remember owning a droid. That droid is R2-D2. Surely you'd remember that robot that was by your side when all the bad stuff was happening?

And so I rest my case. the Star Wars prequels were shit. They weren't all bad, the lightsabre duels were much more exciting, the podrace was cool (a bit overlong) and some of the scenes in Revenge Of The Sith (the death of the younglings; the Jedis getting wiped out; Owen and Beru getting baby Luke) pack a dramatic wallop that equals anything in the other films, but there wasn't enough of those to save it from the overall dreck.

Oh, and thanks to Tim Bisley for the title.

Memorabilia.

Last weekend, our good friends Jamie and Theresa travelled up from Southend-On-Sea to come and stay at our home here in The People's Republic Of The West Midlands. (If you read my blog regularly, you'll know Jamie, as he's the only one who leaves me any comments!)

It was Jamie's birthday on the Saturday (and might I say, he doesn't look bad for fifty! Only kidding, Jamie!), and after he opened his cards and presents, and still feeling the effects of the alcohol and Moroccan cuisine from the night before, Jamie and I headed out to the National Exhibition Centre for the Memorabilia show. His other half decided her time would be better spent mooching around Brum's shops, whilst my other half was at the theatre watching His Dark Materials with my eldest daughter.

We went to the NEC by train from the lovely, awe-inspiring New St. station, mostly because it's probably the quickest way of getting there, as it's only one stop, and the fact that parking at the NEC would cost at least eight quid. The problem with going to the NEC by train is that after you get off at Birmingham International, you think you're nearly there, but you're not. You're in a building that says it's the NEC, but it's a bloody long walk to the exhibition halls. You go up escalators, down escalators, down endless corridors, along several moving walkways until, about a week later (okay, I'm exaggerating slightly) you get to the exhibition halls. But that's not the end. The Memorabilia show was in hall 12, we were outside hall one, so we walk for another three days (I exaggerate again) until we get to our destination. If we weren't sure if it was the right place, the shitloads of blokes dressed up as stormtroopers and a couple of Jedi outside confirmed that this was indeed the Memorabilia show.

After being allowed to jump the queue because we were paying for our tickets with cash (Ten quid! Each! Bloody Nora!) we went into what was frankly a massive room stuffed to the gills with all sorts of cool stuff. One of the first things we saw was a toy stall, selling lots of stuff similar to the things I had as a kid for shocking amounts of money. All of it was still boxed, and you weren't allowed to pick any of it up. I might've mentioned before that I collect models of the Batmobile (I know, it's a sickness, but they make the windowsill in my sketching room look a lot cooler) and I saw a Batmobile I'd quite like. It was from the 70s, made by the Mego company for their 7" action figures of Batman and Robin (not included) to sit in. We asked how much it was, because none of the items had prices on them. Probably because a little sticky price tag might damage the precious packaging. Anyway, the stallholder gets out a little folder that had all the prices in it, looks it up and then tells us that the batmobile would cost me £195. That was about £190 over my limit, so we thanked him and moved along.

We also saw, from the side looking in, Robert Vaughn doing a Q&A session, and he's a lot smaller than I thought he would be. Quite old, too. It's amazing, though, how he's kept his hair colour even though he's well into his seventies. More on him later.

One of the things that bugs me about this kind of event (comics conventions included), and it's only a recent phenomena, is the amount of cosplayers that turn up. I hate cosplayers. I know they're essentially harmless and they're only having a bit of fun but they do my head in. I reckon they give the rest of us nerds a bad name. People look at them and think 'what a bunch of sad bastards', and think all of us geeks are like that. There was a group of about ten teenage boys all dressed up as Doctor Who. All of them were the David Tennant Doctor, except for one who must have read the email incorrectly and turned up as William Hartnell. A fat, Asian, William Hartnell. Still, at least he was the only one who stood out. I saw all those young lads, with their brown full length coats, brown suits, Converse trainers and their hair all spiked up and I was reminded of the crowd scene from Life Of Brian; "Yes, we're ALL individual!"

There were also quite a few very young teenage girls dressed in not much, including one girl of about fifteen wearing a revealing corset, and this kind of thing brings out the dad in me. I say things like 'I bet her dad doesn't know she's wearing that' and 'there's no way any of my kids are going out looking like that!' even though I know, deep down, that if my girls did want to go out like that, there's not really that much I could do to stop them. There is such a thing as freedom of expression in this country, despite all of my objections!

Also, it's very stupid going to these things dressing up as the thing you love. If you're dressed up as Anakin Skywalker, a Star Wars memorabilia dealer knows he can charge you a bit more because he know's you're a Star Wars nut and you'll pay it. I bet all the dealers with Doctor Who stuff rubbed their hands with glee the moment they saw the ten Tennants approaching them. Only under tens and the Fathers 4 Justice and those people who are paid to walk around these conventions dressed up are allowed to wear superhero or sci-fi costumes (I might make allowances for people press-ganged into going to a fancy dress party. I'm not a big fan of those, either!) the rest of you should stop. Really. Especially the ones that make their own costume out of bits of egg boxes and Lego. Honestly, it's like Paris Fashion Week for the blind and stupid.

Rant over.

The amount of stuff available here was amazing. If spare cash and spare space wasn't a problem I would've come home with shitloads of geeky stuff. Honestly, if you're a nerd like me, you would have had a field day looking at this cool stuff. There was some crappy junk as well, but it was mostly cool. Less cool, however, was the 'celebrities' charging you at least fifteen pounds for an autograph. Some of them are people the non-nerd has heard of (Stephanie Beacham, Robert Vaughn, Richard Briers-who was a bit of a weird choice, I can't really see loads of obsessed cosplaying fans turning up dressed in tweed and kilts asking him to sign their VHS copies of Monarch of The Glen, can you?) but a lot of them were 'third alien on the left' types from Star Wars and I don't think having the autograph from the guy who was 'Yak-Face' is worth fifteen quid, frankly. I'm not really sure whether these are actually who they say they are, anyway, considering that these people spent their moment of fame under shitloads of prosthetics. He could be lying and pretending he was Yak-Face, for all I know, just to get his hands on fifteen quid from a Star Wars freak who really should be old enough to know better.
Don't get me wrong, there were people there I would have liked to get autographs from. There were a few Bond alumni there, for example. There was Richard Kiel, the man mountain who played Jaws, who is absolutely fucking huge- he's probably wider across the shoulders than I am tall. It was sad to see his mobility scooter, though. I also would've liked Guy Hamilton's signature, as he directed Goldfinger, the quintessential 007 movie. (Interesting fact about Guy Hamilton: In the movie The Third Man, that famous shot where you see Harry Lime's shadow running away, that shadow actually belongs to Hamilton- who was Carol Reed's assistant director, because Orson Welles didn't bother showing up for filming that day, because he was a notorious pain in the arse and probably because the only running Welles ever did was away from the salad counter.) The thing is, if you ever happened to bump into these people in the pub, they'd probably give you an autograph for free (although it's unlikely Jaws ever drinks in Moseley, there are a few Yak-faces, though.) and that's the main reason I refuse to pay for it. The other main reason is I don't have that many spare fifteen quids at the moment! I was going to get George Lazenby to sign my picture (see last post) but he wasn't there, so stuff the lot of them.
Saying that, one of us did pay for an autograph, and it wasn't me. Jamie saw the bloke who plays PC Stamp from The Bill walk past us, and had a brainstorm. His dad is a big fan of the show, apparently, so Jamie thought it would be nice if he could get PC Stamp (don't know his real name, and I can't be arsed to Google it, either) to talk to his dad on the phone. Which he did, fair play to him, but the trouble is, he might be a well-known face on British TV, but he doesn't really have a distinctive voice like, for instance, Sean Connery, John Hurt or Michael Caine does. Jamie's dad didn't have a clue who it was that had phoned him up so the first five minutes of that phone call were really awkward. I don't know what was said on the other end, but I can imagine it was along the lines of 'Who the fuck is this?'
Anyway, when Jamie's dad realised who it was, the conversation went a bit more smoothly, but at one point, PC Stamp said to Jamie's dad something along the lines of 'Well, your son is going to buy you a nice signed photo for you' and from that moment on, Jamie felt obliged to buy a signed photo of a bloke from The Bill for fifteen pounds. He didn't really mind, it was a nice gift for his old man, after all, but I think Jamie, being a rabid Star Wars fan, would rather have spent that money on Yak-Face's autograph. I think I upset PC Stamp though, he asked if I'd got everything I'd came for, if I was enjoying it, the usual smalltalk, then for some reason, he sort of accused me of being a cosplayer. Probably on the basis that I was wearing a Silver Surfer T-shirt. Not only did he accuse me of being one of the things I hate most in the world, he suggested that I probably dress up as a superhero when I'm having sex with my girlfriend. I know he was only trying to be blokey and have a joke, but fucking hell, that's a bit much isn't it? I replied by asking him whether they let him keep his uniform (for sexual purposes) when he left The Bill.
"I haven't left, actually, but thanks for paying attention."
And that was the end of that conversation. Next to him was the German guy from Raiders Of The Lost Ark (another favourite movie of mine, but surely it's a favourite movie of everyone's.)whose face melted at the end, and I wanted to ask him about his appearance in the Ferrero Rocher 'Ambassador, you are spoiling us' advert, but I didn't have the courage so we went away and watched some wrestling instead.
Well, I say wrestling. It was a bit like wrestling. There was a ring, a referee and wrestlers, but it was all a bit, well, rubbish. For some reason, the wrestlers kept trying to get the crowd to clap along, but they didn't seem to realise that us Brummies don't really do audience participation. We have the attitude of 'I paid ten quid of my hard-earned cash to get in here, and you want me
to do your job for you? You entertain me! I don't ask you to come to my factory and polish my power press, do I?'
So there wasn't much clapping. Anyone who did clap along were either children, idiots or interlopers from beyond the Black Country. It was a bit like like wrestling used to be when I was a nipper- you know, World Of Sport and Kendo Nagasaki and Johnny Two Rivers and fat blokes with a woman's bathing costume on worn back to front, before we got slick, polished American wrestling shows imported to show us how it could be done if we could be bothered to put the effort in. To be fair, they were going for the American style of wrestling, the 'good guy' wrestlers had washboard stomachs and muscles (something the World Of Sport bunch couldn't be arsed with, they just bounced off ropes and belly-barged into someone with their beer guts) but the 'bad guy' was a bit weedy-looking and the actual bouts were unconvincing. I know wrestling is fixed, but you don't make it obvious. They were stamping on the floor when they 'punched' someone, for God's sake! I wanted one of them to slash his face with a razor, Mickey Rourke-style, that'd be cool, and it would really freak out all the five year olds watching. To be fair to them, though, they did throw themselves around with gusto, and their backs looked all red and sore, so it must hurt, and it's something I'd never do (probably because the sight of me running around in swimming trunks and bright green knee-high boots would turn the Memorabilia Show into the Projectile Vomit-Con 2009) so, my hat goes off to them. If I ever wore one. Which I don't.
At the end of the show, Jamie went up to one of the guys who organises the show and congratulated him on how good it was (Despite all my moaning above, I did have a good time. Moaning's just what I do.) and on the table in front of him was a load of large glossy prints of various people sitting next to Robert Vaughn. They apparently had a scheme where you pay to have your picture taken with the former Man from U.N.C.L.E. and you pick it up at the end, like you do when you get off a rollercoaster at Alton Towers. The weird thing was that the ex-Napoleon Solo (another intersting fact- Ian Fleming came up with that name. Also, my dad was such a big fan of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that I was nearly given the name Napoleon Trimble. I'm glad he saw sense) had exactly the same facial expression in all of them. They might as well have taken one picture of him and photoshopped him next to all of those other people.
(Actually, I read in the Birmingham Mail the other day, that the next series of Hustle is being filmed up here in Brum, and that Robert Vaughn is looking for an apartment in this very city. Hopefully I'll bump into him and get an autograph and save myself twenty quid!)
And so, after about three hours of looking at cool stuff, and after trying and failing to get our picture taken with a bloke dressed as Iron Man, Jamie and I headed on the long, long walk back to the train station with our freshly-bought junk weighing us down. I got a few books and a few more batmobiles (one of which Jamie bought for me, bless him) and we'd had a good time. I'd definitely go again. It's a good laugh.

Oh, and the guy who plays PC Stamp's name is Graham Cole, apparently.

More Bale.

It's going to be a low content couple of weeks, so this post is a quickie, as I've got some drawing to do. Sticking with the Christian Bale theme instigated by the last post, I've found the new trailer for the upcoming Terminator movie, and despite my misgivings (mostly concerning the stupidly-named director's previous output) it looks kinda cool. Let's face it, it can't be any worse than T3, which was just a retread of T2, but with a lady robot as the antagonist and a bleak ending instead of a hopeful one. Also cool is the use of Nine Inch Nails' track The Day The World Went Away. I love that band.
And never mind Bale's well-publicised rant. I think it looks very well lit indeed.


I'm not sure about the title either. Terminator Salvation instead of T4. I suppose it's because it's a prequel and therefore should be T-zero, or it might be because calling it T4 might make people think it's a film about Channel Four's endless repeats of Friends and The Simpsons linked together with inane chat from Steve Jones (the bland Welsh bloke, not the Pistols' guitarist) and Miquita Oliver.

A Weekend In Winchester.

Last weekend, I went away for a bit. My girlfriend lives in the historical city of Winchester, and I thought it was about time I went and visited her flat for a change. (I won't go into the ins and outs of how I ended up going out with someone who lives a hundred miles away. It's probably not a very interesting story to the innocent bystander.)
Seeing as I can't drive, going to Winchester means putting myself through the delights of train travel. Ooops! I typed the word 'delights' when I meant 'pure fucking misery'! That always happens! So, last Friday, I packed my bag and headed for the Pritzker award-winning New Street Station.
Anyway, as usual, the train was delayed, but only by about fifteen minutes, which, these days, is seen as a bit of a result. I got on, and some cheeky mare was in my reserved seat. At first, I felt bad about getting a fairly attractive young lady to stand up for me to sit down (it goes against all the rules of public transport etiquette my mother installed in me) but then I had a change of heart because a) I had paid good money for that exact seat and b) I'd been at work all day and my legs were aching so bollocks to feeling bad about turfing a young woman out of my seat. I might have felt differently about it if she was pregnant, but she wasn't up for that so she had to stand, I'm afraid.
At the next stop, Birmingham International, a bunch of ladies got on who had heard of the notion of private conversation but decided it wasn't for them and proceeded to talk very loudly to each other. It was some kind of hen party, but they seemed a bit too posh for 'L' plates and inflatable penises. They instead had decided to go for a professional bra fitting, and then go back home to drink wine and eat 'mature cheddar and red onion' flavour crisps. See, I know all this because they said all of this very loudly. Posh people tend to talk loudly, I've found. Even their crisps were posh. Can't have boring old 'Cheese and Onion' like the plebs, oh no! 'Mature Cheddar and Red Onion' for us! Hooray!!
Anyway. I'd normally find posh women talking about bras and breasts and being felt up by other ladies quite arousing, but one of them had a slight Northern Irish accent, and this reminded me of Gloria Hunniford, and the thought of the Open House presenter being felt up by a 'butch dyke' (my fellow traveller's words, not mine!) put me right off. They all got off (oh, hang on, maybe I should put 'disembarked' in case I get accused of having a one-track mind!) at lovely Leamington Spa, the foot bath of the Midlands. The rest of the trip was fairly quiet and incident-free and I managed to finally finish the 700-page George R. R. Martin novel I've been reading on-and-off for about a year, and disembarked myself at Winchester, where I met up with my lovely new ladyfriend (I get brownie points for calling her 'lovely' on my blog, she does read it, so that's eight readers I've got now!) unloaded my bag at her flat (that's not a euphemism, by the way.) and went out on the town.
Now, we have historical buildings here in Brum. There's Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, and Soho House to name three. But Winchester has them everywhere. You just have to throw a stone and you break the window of somewhere historical. Not that I did that. I realised that I was no longer in Birmingham and throwing stones at windows is not considered polite in the civilised south. Anyway, that Friday, we had a couple of drinks in the Royal Oak, which claims to be the oldest bar in England, it being there since 1002 ad, although I had my suspicions that the fag machine wasn't the original. Still, having a couple of pints in a thousand year old pub is cool. In fact, the whole High Street is cool, every building looks old, spoiled slightly by the modern shop signs stuck to them, but you do need to know if it's Boot's the chemist and not another museum, I suppose. Later on, we ended up in that very old and traditional boozer called O'Neills where there was a band on that consisted of four mid-life crises playing cover versions. Still, it was a good laugh. We played 'Celebrity lookalikes' and drinking with us were Paul Bettany, Owen Wilson and the Dairy Milk Gorilla.

Saturday was spent doing sightseeing properly, by daylight. I had a butcher's at the outside of the Cathedral. I didn't go inside, as they were charging people a fiver. Bollocks to that. Round the back of the cathedral was, you guessed it, more historical buildings. There was the Deanery, which is a history mishmash-it has a 13th century Norman vaulted porch, with a 15th century hall on the left of it, and a 17th century Long gallery on its right. Across from this are the ruins of the Norman Chapter House, and the Garnier garden, which is supposed to be a tranquil place, but had three very loud American women in it when we visited it. It is a nice place though, but there was no sign of the Laboratoire Garnier. Maybe it's a secret lab buried underground, like in a Bond movie, and Dean Garnier is down there sitting in a plastic egg-chair stroking a persian cat whilst overseeing the construction of a Doomsday machine that will aid him in his scheme to take over the world. Probably not, as the Dean's been dead for over a hundred years. That'd be ace though, wouldn't it?
Also, we looked at the Cheyney Court, a 16th century building that the bishop used to live in, apparently, and nothing to do with the current Vice-President of the United States.(I know it's spelled differently, never let that get in the way of a joke, however low-quality it is.) Then, we had a lunchtime pint in an old pub called the Wykeham Arms, which has a sign outside asking you to turn off your mobile phone. It's full of old desks and other memorabilia from the nearby Winchester college and had the type of old men drinking in there that you can imagine own blazers with masonic badges on them. After that, we looked at an old-fashioned bookshop and then we decided to get some lunch. Whilst walking back past the cathedral, my lovely (more brownie points) new girlfriend asked what I'd like for lunch. Now, those of you who know me personally know that I hate making decisions and tend to be fairly non-commital. I like to think of it as 'going with the flow' but the people around me think of it as 'fucking annoying'. So, I replied by just saying 'food'. An old man walked past us and said 'Good choice!' to me. So, I thanked him and he smiled. We ended up going for a pasty. I was starving and it was just the ticket. Haute cuisine or what? We saw more lookalikes passing by the pasty shop, Vinnie Jones, Julie Walters and that bloke with the curly hair from The Blue Lagoon.
After that, we looked at really extortionately priced organic chocolates at a shop called Montezumas, where we tried some free samples that were fucking disgusting. Then we went to look at the statue of King Alfred the Great (the Saxon king who basically united all of England, fought off the invading Vikings, but is most famous for letting some sponges overcook.) but you can't have your picture taken in front it, as there's a bit of road there. There's a little bit of paving behind it, so if you want to say to people whilst showing them your photos 'There's me by King Alfred's arse', you'll be in your element. It's an impressive statue, though, a lot bigger than I thought it was. We then went to the park opposite, which had a playground and a sundial that doubled up as a fountain. After that, we noticed there was a book fair on at the Guildhall (another impressive historical building that has all these heraldic shields on the outside of it. It also has a sign telling you that noon is actually five minutes and sixteen seconds later than Greenwich says it is), and no romantic weekend is complete unless you've been to a book fair, so we went in. I paid for us both, to which the man in charge of the entrance said 'ah, a gentleman, eh?' with a conspiratorial wink which seemed to say 'you're in there, now, mate!' So, if you're single, take a lady to Winchester and spend fifty pee on her, that seems to be the way to get some action, apparently. As usual, I was looking for comic-related stuff, and there was a few old Beano and Eagle annuals, a big book on Dan Dare, and a book on the history of comics that they wanted £17 for (no way!). There were some graphic novel anthologies based on the work of SF great Ray Bradbury, that were limited editions, signed by Bradbury and all the artists that had done the strips, all of them very famous artists, but there were four of them, and they were thirty quid each, a bit out of my price range, I'm afraid. There were also quite a lot of books on the occult, including The Book Of Magick by Aleister Crowley which seemed a bit out-of-keeping with the generally Christian vibe of the city of Winchester. We left without purchasing anything. What a waste of fifty pee. After another pint a watching a bit of the England-Ireland rugby match, we went back to the flat and had a lovely evening, interrupted by my constant journeys up and down five flights of stairs to go and have a cigarette outside, and once managing to lock myself out of the building in the pissing rain, because of the fiddly keys.

On Sunday, after a nice full English at a subterranean cafe, they weren't charging anyone to go into the Cathedral, so we went in and had a nose. Apparently, the big stained glass window of the cathedral got smashed by Parliamentarians, but the parishioners of Winchester collected all the bits and put them back in, albeit in a haphazard manner, so the window is now like a giant abstract collage, which is cool. The cathedral is an impressive building, even to a dyed-in-the-wool atheist like me, and it always strikes me as amazing what was achieved in the name of faith in times gone by. The thing that strikes me about the cathedral, though, was how obsessed by death it all was. There's a few tomb-effigies, gravestones in the floor, and lists of those lost in wars engraved into the walls. There's also boxes, that look like treasure chests dotted about, that contain the remains of holy men. There's also Jane Austen's grave, on the north side of the nave, which makes no mention of her writing at all! This is rectified by a big brass plaque telling us all about her literary work on the wall next to her final resting place. So, all in all, an impressive place, a bit morbid, but hey, it's a church!

We get to the train station later that Sunday afternoon, and guess what? Yep, my train is delayed! This is because of vital repairs on the line to Southampton. that's what the announcements said, anyway. Every five minutes. Eventually, I'm told that my train will come in as soon as the (heavily delayed)train that's at the platform now buggers off. Thing is, this train isn't moving. It's staying there for ages. Then, two British transport policemen turn up. They go on the train. They come off again. Two other coppers turn up. They all go back on the train and they all come off the train wrestling a large pissed-up Scotsman to the platform floor. He starts shouting obscenities at the coppers. The residents of Winchester looked shocked. I don't think they've heard the term 'fucking English copper cunts' before. They bring him into the waiting room where we were standing, and the arrested man keeps shouting at me 'Hey! Big yin! Take a fuckin' photo! This is abuse! Abuse! Assault!!' and so on. Also, because of the fracas, his trousers had slipped down round his arse, which he had cut in the fight, and was bleeding profusely. Not really the image you want to take away with you from a weekend away with your girlfriend. Anyway, after another mental episode when the police had taken off his hat; "Gies ma hat back!! See when these cuffs come aff, yous cunts are all deid!! Big yin! Take a photo! Cunt's got ma hat!!", they managed to take him away, and move the train on, so my one could come in. Lovely. The weekend had ended on just the right note!

Anyway, Winchester is a lovely place, and I recommend it. Just don't go by train.

Dirty Doctor.

I've found this very interesting deleted scene from the last series of Doctor Who. It makes what was subtext before simply text.

Star Trekkers, Inc.

Check this link out. It's a fan video for Nine Inch Nails' Closer, made with old Star Trek clips, and it's brilliant. Much better than Mark Romanek's load of old pretentious wankiness. (Guess what the phrase of the day is today, folks!) It takes what was subtext and makes it simply text.
I tried to embed it, but the waste of plastic and glass that pretends to be my computer won't have it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PwpcUawjK0&eurl=

Klytus, I'm bored!

This post is for Clive. He suggests he's not heard of the magnificent actor Peter Wyngarde. He is probably best known for his (shamefully ignored by the Academy) portrayal of Ming the Merciless' ruthless right hand man Klytus in Flash Gordon (above). He was also ladies' man Jason King in the gritty, hard-hitting TV shows Department S and the spin-off Jason King. His career was virtually finished overnight when he was caught by police having sex with a truck driver in a public toilet. This was back in the dark ages of 1975; It caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst his legions of female fans. His image did not give any clues to his sexual proclivities at all!(see below.)
Also not helping his career was an LP he released, titled When Sex Leers It's Inquisitive Head, which contained the controversial track Rape.

It's about time this leviathan of stage and screen was re-remembered and given the credit he's due.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~waynedavidson/jkhome.htm