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.

I've been expecting you, Mister Bond, but you didn't bloody show up!

Like I said before, I've not been posting much because I've been drawing. None of it is paid work, but I'm trying to build up a portfolio of new stuff. I've nearly finished page three of a self-penned strip which will be a four or five pager eventually, I'll show you that stuff when it's all done. I've also spent some of my time doing the picture below, as I was going to the Memorabilia show at the NEC and I heard George Lazenby was going to be there, and I was going to get him to sign it and it would've been a nice geeky thing to add to my collection of Bond stuff. He wasn't there. He might've been hiding (he is a master spy, after all) but I don't think he was there. Anyway, I'll let you know what else was at the show in another post (when I've got time!), but I wanted to share the On Her Majesty's Secrety Service pic with you, because I'm quite proud of it. Here it is (click on it for a larger image):

MICK TRIMBLE WILL RETURN IN

'A FOUL MOOD'

What A Way To Go! part one.

Bit of a change of tack, this post. Because I've been off work with my crippled shoulder, I've been watching quite a lot of movies, more often than not, big dumb action movies. And one of the things I like about big dumb action movies (especially the ones from the '80s, I've found) are the big ridiculous deaths that happen in them. I likes me an inventive death! (Only in movies, you understand. Seeing anything at all like this in real life would almost definitely disturb me!) So I've decided to make an open-ended list of what I think are the best deaths in movies. It's pointless sticking to a 'top-ten' or 'best 100' because I might think of more good 'uns, or get bored and never post about it again, or some new good 'uns might come along and grab my attention.
Each post will feature one of these gruesome demises, and hopefuly, a clip, if YouTube has them. And there's no particular order of merit, I like them all equally for different reasons. So, enough waffling. Here's What A Way To Go-part one:

Kananga (Live and Let Die, 1973)

as you all know by now, I'm a Bond nerd, so I thought I'd start with a Bond death. Gruesome and inventive dispatches of bad guys have been part and parcel of the Bond franchise from day one. Dr. No was boiled alive in super-heated water (in the novel, however, he was buried alive in a mountain of bird shit; much more inventive!). Goldfinger was sucked out of one of Air Force One's windows. Hugo Drax was shot with a tranquiliser dart then shot out into outer space. Elliot Carver was chopped up by a giant industrial drill, and so on.
(The thing I've noticed about the Bond films is that, generally the henchmen get the cooler deaths and the head honcho just gets quickly offed. I recently watched Licence To Kill (probably the most extreme 007 movie in that respect) again and the henchmen are killed in many unusual ways, eaten to death by maggots, electrocution by eel, head exploded in a decompression chamber, chopped up in a grinding machine, which all make the main bad guy's demise, being burned alive, seem a bit of a let down.)
However, by far and away the most memorable demise in a 007 movie is indeed that of the main villain in Live And Let Die. What makes it so great is the sheer ridiculousness of it. He is forced to swallow a compressed air bullet which makes him expand like a big balloon until he flies up into the air and bursts into a million pieces. Fantastic.
Since when have compressed air bullets been practical? The film says the gun is designed to kill sharks. Surely normal bullets would do the trick just as well? How is blowing them up with compressed air more practical? Especially when you consider Bond is trying to sneak onto the island without raising alarm. Surely sharks suddenly flying into the air and then exploding is going to surprise even the most stupid henchman into action. This is a Bond movie, more importantly, this is a Roger Moore Bond movie, so a certain amount of disbelief-suspension is required. Maybe nearly being eaten by a shark in Thunderball back when he was Sean Connery traumatised Bond so much that he went back to Q branch and asked them to come up with something that would absolutely obliterate the pointy-nosed fuckers.
What also makes Kananga's death so great is how badly it's done. It looks rubbish. I'm sure that even back in 1973 it looked shit, but that adds to its charm. Also there's not a drop of blood to be seen, or no flying guts. This was as gruesome as they allowed PG-rated (or it's equivalent back then) films to get back then. Even the obligatory post-kill quip is a bit rubbish; 'He always did have an inflated opinion of himself' is an awful joke, but that adds to its charm too. ( I reckon 'I think he got the point' from Thunderball is the best death quip in the entire series.)All this, as well as the fart sound effect all add up to you laughing at someone's horrible and undignified death!
It's a ridiculous, fun, tongue-in-cheek demise that suited the tone of the movie. Roger Moore wasn't the best Bond, and LALD certainly isn't the best movie of his tenure, but it still had a sense of fun that was severely lacking in Quantum Of Solace. (don't get me wrong, I liked QoS, but it wasn't 'Bond' enough for me.)
Anyway, enough of me waffling on. Watch and enjoy:



WHAT A WAY TO GO WILL RETURN

What I'll probably be watching this summer.

This summer is going to be exciting for a nerd like me. There are a few comics-based movies out I'm desperate to see. Saying that, though, I need to curb this sort of behaviour as more than a few comics-based movies have left me bitterly disappointed in the past. I'll live, though. (Actually,that sounded a bit dramatic.Don't be too concerned. I'm not going to slash my wrists because of the treatment Galactus got in that last Fantastic Four movie.)

Anyway, I'm a sharing, caring kinda guy, so I thought I'd put some of the trailers up so you can get excited about them too.

First up is Iron Man. This is Marvel's first self-financed film, and that makes me hopeful that the source material will be treated respectfully. I hope so, because I love Iron Man. The old Iron Man, anyway, before he got turned into basically a villain in Civil War. I've got a load of '70s Gene Colan Iron Man (when his helmet had a nose on it) comics that I love to bits. The trailer looks great, anyway. Robert Downey Jr. looks just the part as Tony Stark (not so sure about Gwyneth Paltrow as 'Pepper' Potts, though. I'm allergic to Ms. Paltrow and her whingey husband, and all) and having Brummie metal legends Black Sabbath on the soundtrack is both bleedin' obvious and utterly fantastic. The Audioslave and AC/DC songs used are alright, as well:


Right. The second in my trailer roundup is Guillermo Del Toro's follow up to the generally well-received by everyone Pan's Labyrinth. Yep, it's Hellboy 2. This film looks great. I'm a big fan of Del Toro anyway, and I liked the first one, but this one looks like it might be a cracker, a giant monster mash-up, with Lovecraftian tentacled creatures and Luke Goss' bad guy looking a lot like Moorcroft's Elric.
Also, there's a nice bit of Rammstein on the soundtrack at the end. What is it with heavy metal and comic-book movie trailers? I seem to remember Dimmu Borgir being on the trailer for the first Hellboy movie. God, I am such a geek, remembering stuff like that! Anyway, have a butchers:


Next up is Marvel's second self-financed movie, a reboot of the Hulk. Ang Lee's version of the Green Goliath has its fans, but I'm not one of them. It was an interesting attempt, but ultimately flawed. This new one has a great cast, and looks like there might be a bit more 'Hulk Smash!' than the Ang Lee one. Also, there's rumours of a crossover with the Iron Man film, creating a silver screen mini-Marvel Universe. However, I'm disappointed that there's no heavy metal in this trailer, and I'm also disappointed that Ed Norton doesn't seem to wear the purple trousers that the comics Bruce Banner is fond of wearing. (While I'm on the subject of the Hulk's pants, I hate it when people who think they're being clever ask 'How come the Hulk's trousers never rip ?' when the answer is bloody obvious: You can't have the Hulk's big green cock swinging about in a kid's comic, or for that matter, in a movie. It gives a new meaning to the term 'tentpole blockbuster', though.)



Next up is the one I'm probably looking forward to the most. It's a small independent film based on a little known character called 'Batman'. Yes, it's The Dark Knight, In which Christian Bale's funny jaw will be overshadowed by the tragic untimely death of his co-star. Besides Heath Ledger's Joker, the Scarecrow makes a comeback, and Two-Face also turns up (his appearance is still a mystery at the moment) and usually, lots of villains makes a rubbish movie (Spider-man 3, both of the Schumacher Batman movies) but I loved Batman Begins, and I reckon Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. And, also, Katie Holmes is gone! In my opinion, she was the weak link in the first one, Maggie Gyllenhaal can only be an improvement. No metal on the soundtrack of this one either. Don't these people know that you need heavy metal to sell you a comic book movie?! Honestly!


And last, but not least, is a bit of a Secret Identity exclusive. It's the first look at Matthew Vaughn's upcoming Thor movie:

(Not really. It's an old Thor cartoon from the '60s dubbed with Derek and Clive. I felt the need to tell you this because I've found out recently that a few people who read this blog do so at work, and this clip has VERY strong language and I wouldn't want any of you to get into trouble. So, I can sleep easy now, because I did warn you!)

Also must-see this year, from my nerd's point of view, anyway, are Indy 4 (the trailer for that can be found elsewhere on this blog) , and Bond 22 , but those aren't comicky enough to be included, and besides, Quantum Of Solace hasn't got a trailer out yet.

Thank you for watching.

Update.

Art update time! It's that time again when I tell you how little my comics art career has progressed. The bods behind Jonas Moore (see pic, left) want me to do more pics for them, ones they can 'meld with live action' ( Not sure what this entails, exactly but I think they're going to take my pics and animate them) and it's a paying gig. And now I'm big pals with Colin Salmon,(not really, I just draw pictures of him. He might have heard of me!) he might put my name forward as the next 007, as that Craig bloke is clearly unsuitable. Yes, he was brilliant, yes, he's got the charisma and the sex appeal, and yes, he can handle the fight scenes and the love scenes with equal aplomb. But at least my hair is the right colour!

Anyway, the whole Jonas Moore thing is getting loads of coverage, all over the net (my name was mentioned on the Forbidden Planet comics blog. Us Trimbles get everywhere, like dogshit!) and the print media as well. Apparently, it got the whole of page three in the Metro on Monday (the free paper I never pick up when I'm on the bus, so I missed it. ) and it's been featured in MarieClaire, as well. Another one I missed, for some strange reason. There's trailers for it , starring Colin Salmon and Adolf Hitler (What is it with me? everything I'm drawing tends to have Nazis in it!) on You Tube as well.It just feels weird that this project is all so 21st Century and they want me to beaver away with my pencil and ink brush, their little anachronistic pet pencil monkey!

Also, still beavering away at Septic Isle. At the moment, I'm drawing a page that involves a lot of research into London's council estate high rise flats, which is depressing, as they're not the nicest things to look at , and it's reminding me of a big chunk of my childhood spent in such a dog hole. (That's the problem with stories set in the present day in a city you don't live in. Stories set in the future or in a fantasy world are easier for me to do as I can just make up a building, vehicle or a weapon, but for this story I'm referencing everything including mundane stuff like bus stops to make it at least look like it's supposed to be London in the present day.) Here's some panels from the last two pages I've done: One of Jacob Marley and one of his partner, Maggie Firestone.

That's this update finished. I have to do them, it's kinda why I started having a blog in the first place, but don't worry, I'll get back on to the bodily functions, whingeing and sick jokes soon enough!

Are You Thirsty For Moore?

Remember that 'Cavemen Vs. Werewolves' strip I posted about a few weeks back? Well, it's now part of the multimedia launch of
The Many Worlds Of Jonas Moore, a computer game (and soon to be a next generation graphic novel, whatever one of them is.) starring the actor Colin Salmon (Him from Prime Suspect and Party Animals on TV, and he was also Robinson from the Brosnan Bond movies, as well as Resident Evil and Aliens Vs. Predator [don't hold those movies against him, though.])
Click on the link, go to the gallery, and see me on there. They call me Mick Trimble Mick Trimble though (so good they named him twice), but they link to my ComicSpace, so it might lead to some work. Might. Also, you can download the strip as a PDF (I'm not sure if I want to be a PDF file, I might end up on the Sex Offenders Register!) from the 'downloads' section. It's kinda exciting to be involved in a major project like this, and it's also exciting, being a 007 geek, that someone from the Bond movies (apparently he also plays 007 in screen tests for auditioning Bond girls)has now heard of me, as he was one of the judges. Maybe he'll introduce me to Halle Berry or Eva Green. I am back on the market now, after all! Knowing my luck, I'll end up with Honor Blackman.

Morris day. (but not the Time.)

It's been over a week since my last post, but I've been busy working, drawing, shouting and drinking. I've nearly finished page three of Septic Isle, which has a panel on it that shows the blown up bus from the 7/7 attacks. Most of last week was spent drawing an exploding mosque, which is all fairly heavy, and doing research (ie. finding pictures on Google images I can copy!) was kinda harrowing, with the internet not being afraid to show you the bits (of people) that the telly leaves out of its reports of these atrocities.
Also, I had to draw the MI5 building, which is a really difficult thing to draw. It looks like it was made out of Lego and it has about twenty-eight thousand windows. I couldn't find the bit of the building where Pierce Brosnan launches armoured speedboats from in any of my research. I'm beginning to think that those Bond movies are made-up stories! Still, it's done now and it looks good, but all this intricate stuff is slowing me down a bit. It seems strange though that the Secret Service decided to put itself in a very famous, immediately recognisable building.

Totally unrelated, yesterday I went to the City Centre (or 'town' if you're Brummie) to get a birthday gift for my old friend Pete, who was 33 this week. Walking along New Street, I heard a distinct jingling behind me. I was thinking that it might be Santa, on his sleigh, and his schedule was all confused, or maybe it was a band of medieval lepers, or it might even be a game of blind football. I was wrong on all counts. It was a troupe of Morris dancers. Town was full of them. There were Morris dancers in the Bullring (all one word, these days) they were in Victoria Square, there were hundreds of them on New Street, all different colours and shapes. There were Morris dancers dressed up in yellow, black and red strips, being cheered on by a gang of pissed up Watford supporters (who were up in Brum for the semi-final at Villa Park) because they were wearing their team's colours. There were the traditional looking ones with the straw hats on, and there appeared to be a troupe of blacked-up Morris dancers, which I don't think you should be able to do these days, tradition or not. What the black people who saw them thought I can't imagine. What I was wondering is why April 14th? Isn't May Day the official time to put this shit on? Why the middle of Birmingham? Was it a countryside alliance demo?
I think they should bring back full-contact Morris Dancing. Either that or ban it altogether, like smoking. If I can't smoke then they shouldn't be able to pollute my atmosphere with that shite.

The Name's Trimble...Mick Trimble

Me and my offspring went to see Casino Royale today. After an argument with the wanker behind the counter over whether 11-year-olds are allowed in when accompanied by an adult (which I won) we sat down to watch what is probably the best 007 film since On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Even though I'm kind of the right age, look the part and have dark hair, I'm still waiting for Dana Broccoli to get in touch and offer me the part. Their loss. While I wait for my stint in the tuxedo, Daniel Craig can keep it warm for me. He is excellent as 007. The fact that he is not physically the stereotypical Bond means that you don't automatically compare him to Sean Connery, as you do with every other actor who has wielded the Walther.(Like the hair colour was that important anyway. Roger Moore's hair was a kind of sandy brown and Connery's hair depended on what shop he bought it from.) Craig has an edge to him, you think he can and will kill if he has to, something missing from Moore's Bond. He has the haircut an ex-military man would have, not the cut and blow dry Brosnan had. Craig's 007 is a come-and-have-a-go Bond, an aggressive hard bastard, who is not the indestructible superspy yet, but vulnerable emotionally, and is always bleeding and bruised when he has a fight. This is a Bond film with a heart, but this doesn't mean the action is lacking. The Parkour sequence in Madagascar is ridiculously exciting. The chase to stop a terrorist bomber in Miami's airport is breathtaking. The 'sinking house' scene in Venice is also very well done. The fights are very violent and make you wince sometimes. Speaking of wincing, the famous 'knacker smacking' torture scene from the novel has survived the adaptation to the silver screen. Casino Royale isn't flawless, however. The bad guy, Le Chiffre, isn't up there with the likes of Goldfinger or Blofeld, as he's a bit of a wimp, and his ability to weep blood is creepy. The film has a lot of plot, so it's too long, and the theme song isn't very good. And the whole continuity thing has gone out the window (007's just starting out, but M's the same one he has in the last film, it's contemporary setting, etc.,etc.) . But as an attempt to drag Bond into the 21st century, it succeeds admirably.

Didn't you used to be Chris Cornell?

The new and final mix of the theme song for 'Casino Royale' is now online. Every thing else about this film looks brilliant(although, I may be biased as I am a Bond geek), but this song You Know My Name is shit. Saying that though, it's better than Sheryl Crow's caterwauling, or that aural diarrhoea that the man-armed baby thief that is Madonna threw up at us for Die Another Day. Tina Turner's was crap as well. I take it back, then, Chris Cornell is just following in the tradition of modern 007 movies. He must've done a brilliant one first, but then the producers came in and said 'Chris, it's for a Bond Movie! Make it shit!!'
What the hell has happened to Chris Cornell? Soundgarden were brilliant. His post break-up solo album was also good, if a little morose. Then came Audioslave, the band he formed with the remaining members of Rage Against The Machine. Their first album was passable, the second terrible, and I can't comment on the third one because I've refused to buy it. His is one of the most formidable and unique singing voices in rock music, yet he's wasting it on shitty Led Zep rip-offs and crappy Bond themes. Sort it out, Chris!
Oh, and tell Tom Morello to try a different guitar solo.

Invincible.

In what seems to be a bit of audacious casting, Robert Downey Jr. has been cast as industrialist inventor Tony Stark in the upcoming Iron Man movie. Casting an ex-everything-addict as the alcoholic Iron Man is either extremely brilliant or extremely risky. I just hope they put cold tea in the decanters and not real whisky. Downey is a great actor, though. That's if they mention the alcoholism at all in the flick. I've got high hopes for this film: It's the first one Marvel have funded themselves, and it's directed by Jon Favreau, who has previous-he played Foggy Nelson in Daredevil. I've been let down before, though.

Totally unrelated: In the comments for my last post, there was atiny debate concerning Sir Roger Moore's talents and suitability in the role of James Bond 007. I will conclusively prove that Connery was best. Watch his "gunbarrel" sequence from Diamonds Are Forever:



Now watch Moore from Moonraker:



Point proved.

How was your weekend, Mick?

I had a fairly eventful weekend, thanks for asking. I've been on the brink of death since Friday, when I had to leave work because of the debilitating illness known as 'manflu'. Standing in the pissing rain for what seemed like years whilst waiting for my youngest daughter to get out of her school didn't aid my recovery, either.
It was also my eldest daughter's thirteenth birthday last week, so, as a treat, I took her to Villa Park to watch us stuff Charlton Pathetic two-nil. On the way, a nasty soap-dodging bluenose bastard called us 'scum', probably because we were wearing claret and blue paraphernalia, which was lovely of him. The fucking germ. This was kind of balanced out about five minutes later when a bunch of Special Brew chugging paraffin lamps shouted 'Up The Villa!' at us. Oh, the joys of Birmingham city centre on matchdays!
At the match itself, something remarkable happened. As I'd gone to the match with my good friend Pete, there was beer drinking involved (well, I was poorly and had climbed up about six thousand, four hundred and seventy-eight stairs to get to the section of the ground we were sitting at, so I needed refreshment!) so at half-time my bladder was about the size of a baby elephant. So I went to relieve myself. I was so full of urine my usual shy-bladder syndrome was disabled; Sing Hosanna! I could piss freely at the urinal! Whilst I was there, a man (well it was the Gents') was making really wet noises. My curiousity was piqued. I had to look. This man had a penis at least twice the length of mine ( so it must've been at least 20" long!) and instead of shaking it like the rest of us, he was spin drying his with a kind of helicopter-type motion. It was like he was trying to throw a grapple hook. But it was the sound that got me, it was like the wet, slapping noises a fish might make if it's flying against a wall. Anyway, that's enough talking about a stranger's penis.
Another weird thing happened on the evening. Another friend of mine whose Birthday it is soon tried to tell me Moonraker was the best Bond movie! I had to verbally slap him down. That film has a pigeon doing a double-take in it! For fuck's sake.

Blasted Heath.

Apparently, fanboys who weren't already up in arms about the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight are now moaning because he said "I actually hate comic book movies, like fucking hate them, they just bore me shitless and they’re just dumb." Ledger goes on to say how brilliant Batman Begins was, and that was the reason he signed on for the sequel.
What these fanboys don't like about Ledger, judging from the message board comments I've seen, is that they think he's gay. He's not. He played a gay character. It's called acting. And if playing a gay character disqualifies you from playing any character in the next Batman film, why don't we also get rid of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine, who have all played gay men in the past. And didn't Frank Miller portray the Joker as gay in The Dark Knight Returns? (Well, that's the impression I got!)
I think we should give Ledger a chance, as he is a good actor, an interesting choice, and judging by Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. There's a similar uproar with Daniel Craig's casting as 007, but apparently he is excellent in Casino Royale. I hope so, because there's nothing better than a unreasonably upset fanboy being shown up.
My second point is, for the most part, I agree with Heath. Most comic book films are fucking dumb. The amount of times I've been genuinely excited about a comic-book film only to be disappointed considerably is ridiculous; I mean, just off the top of my head I can think of:
Howard The Duck, Fantastic Four, Elektra, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, From Hell, Constantine, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, X Men:The Last Stand, Steel, Hulk, Swamp Thing (and its sequel), Judge Dredd, Superman III & IV, Supergirl, Catwoman, and Nick Fury (Which had David Fucking Hasselhoff as Col. Fury!)
I'm sure there are a myriad more I've forgotten about, or more likely, blanked from my memory, but the best comic-based films are the ones that stay truest to their source material and are good films in their own right as well as being good comic book films: X Men 2, Superman: The Movie, Batman Begins, Spiderman 1&2, and Sin City are amongst the better adaptations. Why does Hollywood need to fuck about so much with the source material?
I've just realised I'm a hypocrite. I go off on one complaining about upset fanboys then I myself rant on about Hollywood adaptations! I know the original comics are still there, and if I need the goods, I can read them, but , generally, the public's perception of these books is based on what they've seen on screen, and, for the most part, they will come away nonplussed. Why can't the major publishers realise that crappy adaptations of their comicbooks will eventually damage sales? Why can't they insist their property is treated with respect?

Sweaty.

It's too hot. I'm dripping like a fucked fridge. I'm like a grizzly with a migraine who can't find the nurofen on "normal" summer days, so you can imagine what I'm like today, the hottest one on record. I'm kind of like the Hulk mixed with Modern Toss' Barney. If this carries on, I'll be just a pink puddle by the end of the week.
My day job generally consists of standing by very hot metal things all day, so today was less than pleasant. I have to keep doing Tom Jones-style hip wriggles, to loosen the testicles that are welded to the inside of my leg. I have to put up with colleagues who do that blowing-out-of-cheeks thing, before they tell me that it's hot. I KNOW IT'S FUCKING HOT! SEE THIS FLUID ON MY FOREHEAD?
The company I work for have sort of heard of air-conditioning, but they think of it as something from the future; an impossible dream from the age of bacofoil jumpsuits, personal jetpacks and meal pills.
Also, getting the bus home is about as much fun as french kissing a particularly pungent parrafin-lamp. I reckon the EU should do something about the conditions humans are transported around in. If I was a veal being moved around in cramped conditions in a container that was hotter than 90 degress fahrenheit, people would protest about it. (Yeah, I know veal is calf-meat. I'm being hot!)
I can't take my shirt off to cool down for health reasons. Other people will get sick if they see my pale chubby midriff.
The most annoying thing about hot weather for me, though, is the fact that my nose gets sweaty. Being a spectacle wearer (I wasn't born that way; years of self-abuse finally took their toll {told you I was a comics nerd}, so I started wearing them all the time when I was about twenty-four), this means that my glasses keep sliding down my face. So I have to keep pushing them up, Chris Reeve-Clark Kent style. The lenses keep getting grubby because of my sweaty fingers, so I have to keep cleaning the fucking things. I hate being a four-eyed bastard. I think I should try contacts. I picked up a contact magazine the other day, to gauge consumers' opinions on wearing contacts, but it didn't help, it was just pictures of greying chubby men with their cocks out. I can get that just by looking in the mirror after a bath! I'm not certain about contact lenses, so I need your opinions. I'll post two pictures, one with specs, the other one without, and I want you to tell me which one is better. Cheers. No, scratch that, apparently Blogger's too hot to do any work and won't upload any bleeding pictures. Maybe tomorrow. Oh no, it's working again now, so here goes:
With specs. (halfway down my nose, as usual.)

Without specs.

Blonde hair and a face like a boxer.

I read today that some James Bond fans are mounting a campaign to get people to boycott the upcoming Casino Royale movie. They don't like the casting of Daniel Craig as 007, apparently, saying that he has 'blonde hair and a face like a boxer', and therefore not able to realistically portray the stylish, suave super-spy.
Their argument kind of falls down when they say 'realistically'. Nothing about the modern Bond film is remotely realistic. 007 keeps changing his face, staying almost the same age for forty years (except for the Roger Moore era, more on that later) whilst Q , once the same age as Bond, got older and older. MI6 keep asking just this one man to sort out the world's problems? What happened to the SAS? Are you telling me Roger Moore with his magnetic watch is better than a crack troop of commandos?
Ah. Roger Moore. Now that was shitty casting. Connery had the lot; he was suave, he could handle the fistfights as well as the women, he was equally adept with the humour as he was with his Walther PPK. Roger Moore was shite at fighting. He never looked at ease. His 007 films relied too much on overt slapstick and sight gags. I could never for one second believe that Moore could actually kill someone. I could believe it of Connery (I've met a few Scots!). Moore also stayed in the role too long. People don't like seeing old men copping off with young women, and in Octopussy and A View To A Kill there was far too much of that. I mean, Roger Moore with Grace Jones? Who the fuck thought that one up?
Daniel Craig might be bad as Bond, but give him a chance. He's a good actor, and he's more like the literary Bond than Moore ever was. Compared with the other candidates (Julian McMahon? For Fuck's sake! Have you seen Fantastic Four?) he was the only choice.