My local Pub

Just had a Saturday morning session at my 'local'. It's a great thing to be able to say that you have your own 'local'. The phrase refers to the pub that's about two minutes from your front door, and even though it's probably tacky as hell, and the seating is moth eaten, there's a sense of pride you wear each time you go in there.

I can only imagine it's a bit different in America. If you don't live in a big city, they seem to have a problem putting drinking holes on every street corner in the suburbs. It must have something to do with their kids having such lovely white teeth.

To say "i'm off to the local" has three great implications:

1. It officially means you have your own abode, a place where you live, with neighbours and some annoying lady who peeps through her curtain. It's your area, your home, and that's great.

2. This sense of ownership is a step up on the adult ladder. You're no longer 12 years old and saying "i'm just off to my local....street corner to hang out on my bike". Now you can drink beer and not orangeade.

3. It's nice to go somewhere that's not your home, but that you still feel at home when you go there. If that makes sense?

A proper old man's pub, named after an American wooden-hulled ship - the oldest commissioned ship in the world today. The clientel is bizarre. Some bloke goes in with a sort of silver chain wig on and wears a leather jacket, but seems completely normal. A bloke with a pony tail runs a poker game on Sundays and Mondays in the upstairs bit. There's no quiz machine, no jukebox, none of that post-modern drinking apparatus that seems to be the habit of a new generation of young hedonists. Just simplicity.

Plad chairs. A straightforward selection of lagers and bitters. A few mixers, and the classic triumvirate of crisps - ready salted, cheese and onion and salt and vinegar. People go there to enjoy a drink and maybe if they see someone they recognise, they exchange a few words.

Greeks have something similar with the Taverna - the Hellenic "local". In the villages and suburbs, you'll see men playing backgammon, sipping away on a mythos, gossipping in between dice rolls.

The local is a great way to tie together a community, and a fantastic excuse to go drinking on your own. If you have a local - get in touch and i'll come round for a pint.

To Do: Visit the Local more often.

The Darkness - what a band. Remember? Just me?

I love music, but i'd never clearly say that my tastes were ever consistent, refined or educated. I like what I like, and tend not to listen to anything which might reasonably be caught in a grey genre area. I'm not a genre person either - I like bits of lots of different things.

Basically - like religion - my taste in music is one of life's great mysteries. Faith is required.

And it is with great faith that in around year 2002, I devoted myself to the most cringeworthy band ever to have topped the charts - The Darkness.

They were a sort of mock 70s guitar-worshipping band that produced an album of pure mock-rock. A sheep could have written better lyrics, and the riffs (???) were so unnervingly tacky that the whole mixture, when combined and strapped with leather jeans and tatoos of snakes, produced a result that was not far short of a miracle.

I loved it like i've never loved any band before - one jam after another. I bought two t-shirts at two gigs I went to. The first time I saw them live was with my friend Chris Parrott. It was a dank, cold December night in Manchester, and Chris and I met up at the pub around the corner from the Carling Apollo, for our little music man-date. If we hadn't been so clearly obsessed by The Darkness, we'd have been ashamed that we were the only two people amongst our friends that saw a bizarre attraction in these jokers.

They enjoyed their fifteen minutes of the fame, and i'm glad that I was at the front to watch it unfold and then fold back up again.

Strangely, I'm sat in a coffee shop and one of their heroic ballads came on, so I just had to sit down and write myself a little trip down memory lane.

This blog post is to all those people who like a band for some very bizarre and unexplainable reason. Nobody else gets it, even though you wish they really did. Many years later, when you've matured and lost the t-shirt, you might look back on that obsession with a smile, knowing that you loved a band nobody else did - they were yours and they were brilliant.

A treat for all of you. Ladies and Gentlemen - The Darkness. RIP.

Doubt (Film Review)

You probably wouldn't be convinced to see this film by the trailer. Words like 'depressing', 'blue', 'want', 'to', 'kill' and 'myself' would be conjured in your mind. And you can't be blamed. Here's the logline: An embittered battle between a Priest and a the Principal Nun of a Catholic school in 1960s America rages amidst allegations of the Priest's sordid relationship with one of the boys.

Woopee. Who's in that one? Jim Carrey?

No. In fact it's Big Phil 'Serious Face' Hoffman and Meryl 'Give Me Any Role' Streep. Two big names, and the expectations of their performances are high. It's with little surprise and much annoyance that the release of this film coincides with Oscar season. But then again - given the subject matter - I would hardly expect a June release - summertime movie this ain't.

So what's the scoop? Does it deliver? It doesn't i'm afraid.

It has a very strong feel of small-time about it. The scale of the drama and the setting (the camera hardly steps outside three or four locations in the school) restrict this film from producing any truly engaging and worthwhile emotional reaction. There are a few scenes of considerable length which clearly are devoted to the actor's talents as performers. But this is an adaptation from an original stage production - and it feels very much as if that is where it should have remained.

This is very much an actor's film, with Hoffman and Streep (and to a lesser extent Amy Adams) commanding all our attention. And when they make their appearances, the film begins to feel bulky and the story is apprehended at the precise moments it should be moving forward. This is a feature of the stage play, where the time and space is given to the actor to stop the action for a few minutes to marvel us with his airs and graces. It is not, unfortunately, a luxury of the cinema.

And this is my main problem with 'Doubt'. And it was my main problem with 'Capote' also. I can admire and applaud the skill and profession of the screen actor, but I hold some reservations about whether or not the film works.

Plus, "Priest accused of molesting a small child, Nun takes offense, big shouting match occurs" - is this not an episode of Eastenders?

To Do:

Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona (Film Review)

What a wonderful film this is. And isn't.

The short and tall of it for you - Vicky and Cristina, two young Americans (early 20s) escape for a summer in Barcelona, staying (as we all do) with wealthy ex-patriots who now own wonderful villas on the city's outskirts. Sexual and emotional exploration abounds, most prominently for Vicky and Cristina (although not at the same time) with sultry Catalan artist Juan. Juan's ex-wife, Marie-Elena (Pen Cruz) joins the fray, resulting in more sexual exploration for Cristina (this time, at the same time).

Not even in Almodovar have I seen a director who can handle the Spanish scenery so beautifully. The easy, siesta lifestyle of the people in Barcelona and Oviedo is brought to life to such a great extent, that I left the cinema feeling very jealous of the various lunches and dinners and balmy summer evenings the characters enjoyed. At times, perhaps I felt as if the director was so enamoured by the locations that he filmed a travel documentary rather than a movie - but even so, it's nice to see Woody Allen getting out of New York for once.

His neuroses didn't travel with him - which i'm grateful for. Normally, in Woody Allen films, one character is set up as the neurotic, self-analysing protagonist who fails at almost everything until the last five minutes of the film - normally, Allen is rather good at this caricature himself. With 'Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona', there is a set of characters altogether more composed. Scarlett Johannson's character, Cristina, is so aloof that if the aeroplane had landed in Russia, I doubt she'd have noticed or minded.

Javier Bardem's character is artistic to the extent of being a bit fucking annoying, and despite his rip-roaring and sultry attitude (he looks as if he's acting whilst sleeping) - I can't help but think his character to be one-dimensional.

Penelope Cruz - the little firecracker extraordinaire - puts in a blinding performace (the only one) as ex-wife turned lunatic Marie-Elena. Darting between Spanish and English like bullets from a gun, she is charged and energetic, a true emblem of a fiery Spanish culture where the heat and the passion mix like gunpowder and the naked flame.

This is a film about love. But not in the typical rom-com sense, nor love in the sense of that poor Indian girl Kevin Costner grows to love in 'Dances with Wolves', not love like email love between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in 'You've Got Mail'. This is pure Dionysian love, ripping the heart in pieces, the type of thing that Greek poets talk about and Greek Gods fought about. We can't really put our fingers on it, it's nothing tangible. But somehow - Woody Allen has tried to, and only those that know about it will really know what he's talking about.

For the rest, it's a great video about Spanish culture - with some pretty attractive people in it.

See it.

To Do: Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona.

Tropic Thunder (Film Review)

Various people have told me this film is "funny as shit", a phrase loaded with ambiguity, which i've regularly used without thinking anything of it. Back in the day (another phrase I use casually as if I fought in a war or something) - I used to watch any film - good, crap, funny as shit, shit as funny - absolutely anything. Now, time is precious, and so when I sit down to watch a film, I want some slim hope that this comes well recommended and i'm almost certain to like some of it.

Tropic Thunder certainly fits that bracket. Big coveted names star in this film (Black, Stiller and Downey-Junior). A stock of comedy talent that, despite a few hiccups along the way, have at some point in their career delivered with some great laughs. Why can't they do it again?

Well they do. Sort of. A few gems. A few hiccups. It's all the same and it all cancels itself out.

Jack Black is perhaps the funniest of the three, giving a frantic performance as a heroin-addict star with the sort of tourettes comedy that can offer be startling and genius. Stiller is standardly good, even though he carries a few jokes a bit further than they can be stretched. I think its baffling that Robert Downey Jnr should get an Oscar nomination for his role, it's funny for a bit, but he goes overboard on the accent and becomes at times a bit of a blur.

I could go on about how the concept of this film is really interesting and could have been taken a lot further. And how the film treads a little to close to the line of out-and-out parody (i.e. Scary Movie et al). But I won't because there's only one more thing I need mention.

Tom Cruise. What the hell was he thinking? He gives a fantastic cameo as a hotshot Producer, and dons a bald head and the most ridiculous fake chest rug i've ever seen. They must have shaved the coat of a grizzly bear to match this up.

If anything, this movie shows Tom Cruise in a light which he's never seen in all his dark days as scientologist and Spielberg's action lovechild - I'd recommend seeing the move purely for this reason. To be honest with you, it's funny as shit. Make of that what you will.

Haircut Saturday

There's a lot of stuff I need to blog about right now, so expect a fair few posts over the next couple of days.

Firstly though, it's Saturday morning and first on my To-Do list was a hair-cut. The foppish, Hugh Grant look just doesn't suit me, and if I don't have it short enough to scruff it up with some product, then I look at least 30 years older than I am.

Secretly (or not so - this is a blog after all), i've been looking forward to this haircut all week. Why? Ben - the new hairdresser that I chanced upon when I first moved into my new flat in Pimlico.

Let's just clear something up from the start - i'm using the term Hairdresser - when in fact this is the most ridiculous term ever. Ben doesn't dress my hair, he doesn't arrange clothes for it, or select a hat to cover it up - he cuts it.

Nor is Ben a Barber. This term crosses the line between some Chavtastic shop with a revolving Red and White beacon on the shopfront and an old-style boutique where they do wet foam shaves. I'm no chav and i'm no Gentleman. I am a man, and Ben - good at what he does - he cuts my hair. He is my Haircutter.

So - Ben, such a great guy. I knew i'd found my best haircutter ever, because he's a massive football fan. I'm really paying him for a half-hour chat about football, and that's probably what he is charging me for. He's such a nice guy that he'd probably cut my hair for free.

Ben has some really insightful stuff to say about football. He reckons that the time has past when there was a real stock of Galactico players - the Kluiverts, Davids, Romario, Bergkamp - the great Nike school of players. They've all disappeared, and Ben is right. He also has some interesting stuff to say about Arsene Wenger's managerial style (Ben is an Arsenal fan), and we laughed together about hapless Spanish fool Rafa Benitez.

The time passes effortlessly, and before I know it, my hair is shorter and I feel great for having chatted about football for half an hour.

You see - this is what Cristina would call a Bromance, a slightly unorthodox case because it also transcends a professional boundary. Two guys, get together to chat about things which women might not understand. It's a wonderful thing. I can't talk to Cristina about football, but I can pick from various other topics (moisturiser, celebrity gossip, dolly parton and booty heels). So I need this mano-a-mano bond. And I don't mind paying for it if I have to. Even if it is with my hairdresser, or haircutter, or...well, whatever.

To Do: Grow hair quicker.

The Times on a Saturday - read this if you read that!

Every Saturday, absolute top of my "To-Do" list is to buy The Times newspaper, maybe cook up a bit of breakfast, sit back with a glass of pulped orange juice, or tropicana, and read the paper and associated magazines.
Pure English.
Pure Saturday.
Pure bliss.

And for all of those of us that are not lefty or righty enough, but like our news given to us roughly somewhere in the middle - are we not all aggrieved at the new layout of The Times on a Saturday?

Is this protest of one or have I got a following?

The Times has a beautiful paper on a Saturday, which I consider to be far better than the famed Sunday Times. The latter is a bulky, overwrought waste of paper with sections for every walk of life (Travel, Driving!!, Money, Life & Style!!!, Country Walking, Origami). We don't need all of these things and we certainly don't read them. Instead, we need all of the best bits condensed into one easy newspaper, giving us a slice of the news pie which we haven't been able to scoff during the week. That's what a Saturday paper is. Or at least, should be.

The Times had a great thing going on with their Saturday magazine. ALL of my favorite columnists - Giles Coren, Bob Crampton, Kate Muir - they were the super team or journalists - the J-MEN if you will. And it was all so cool - great words with great pictures backed up by sublime art direction.

Now it's all gone, and my Saturday morning newspaper pleasure has gone into the shredder with it. They've changed the font and the layout completely - giving it an overall stench of (cough cough) Guardian. A lot of my friends and their families are Guardian readers - there's something wonderful and hippy about the liberal fonts of a Guardian arts & film supplement. There's nothing wrong with it - it's just an acquired read. Instead, I need something in between the stoic Telegraph and the whimsy Observer, something serious but which doesn't take itself seriously.

That was The Times. But all it takes is a font change, a three-column layout preferred over a two-column, and black and white portrait pictures for each journalist so we know just how they artsy they look. Not even Coren and the J-MEN can save this mess.

Does anyone know what i'm talking about? I feel as if i'm on my own with this one.