Day 536: Film 2005

It's a question of sport
but not real sport - only in thought (sung to the theme tune for film 87)

So I haven't seen a huge number of films recently, but here are the in depth reviews of those I remember:

Secret window: I've been meaning to watch this for ages and finally saw this on tuesday night. It was pretty good to watch, but I wasn't too impressed with the ending.
Hide and Seek: I saw this before watching Secret Window. They have similar twists to them, but I got the twist in this one much earlier than I got the twist in Secret Window. Both films were pretty enjoyable though.
The Life Aquatic: I rented this last weekend and from the cover and the cast it looked like it would be really funny, however the humour is pretty subtle and seemed mainly to be take offs of the old Jacques Cousteau films. If you hadn't seen any of those you would be struggling to find the humour (and even if you had, you still have to work at finding the funny bits). I admit that I got bored around half way through and switched off. Maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I was in a different frame of mind.
Dodgeball: Waited ages to see this as I wasn't expecting it to be that good, but it was better than I expected. The story line was pretty obvious, but I think it was meant to be.
Gothika: I really enjoyed this - it is a tip top top of the range film.
Mannen som log: This is the third in the series of these films based on the Henning Mankel books. It was the first one I had seen without reading the book first - I haven't even noticed this book as being available. It was shorter and less dark and forboding than the previous two (or at least shorter than the second). It seemed, therefore, to be more commercial and user friendly that the others. I still enjoyed it though. I did cheat a bit by putting the english subtitles on, which wasn't an option with the previous 2 films in the series.
Meet the Fockers: I enjoyed this film alot, but I still prefer Meet the Parents (Släkten är värst) which is one of my all time favourate films of all time.

I have Mulholland Drive and Spirited Away waiting in the wings to be watched (both bought on my last trip to Stockholm), but the time hasn't seemed right for either of those just yet. Spirited Away is a Japanese film which is dubbed into english (if you bought it in the UK), but my copy is dubbed into swedish so I have to wait until my brain is in need of a good work out before watching it.

Dag 535 - music was my first love

and coming up with crap blog headings was my second.
OK, normally my titles are pretty reasonable, but as I thought I would ramble on about some of the key albums I have bought over the years, and I couldn't think of anything better, I thought I might go for something really cheesy instead. In fact you could almost say this is the story of my life through music.

So I began my life musically deprived as my parents didn't have a record player. This was eventually rectified when they sent off for one from an advert in a newspaper. I can't remember how much it cost, but I know it was cheap and I remember thinking it looked really cheap and nasty when it arrived. It was stereo, but it had very thin speakers and the record deck itself was very plasticy. Also all the wires were firmly attached, there were no connectors here.

The first lp records I remember having were a tuffty club lp and the soundtrack of chitty chitty bang bang. I also had some Thomas the tank engine singles with stories read by Johnny Morris (at least I think that was his name - he used to do the voices on animal magic). I used to listen to chitty chitty bang bang a lot (of course in those days there were no videos or dvds, so you only got to see films when they were shown on TV or at the cinema). Nowadays I hate musicals in all forms so would rather eat my own feet than listen to anything like that again.

So, up to now I had had limited exposure to any music, and what music I did have was pretty dire - so what happened to get me on the right path?

I remember one day my Dad came home from work saying he had been at Leeds University sorting out some scaffolding requirements for the stage there for a concert by David Bowie. It seems he had met with Mr Bowie to discuss what was needed and had been asked if he wanted any free tickets for the show. He asked me if I wanted him to take me to it and my reply was along the lines of "why would I want to go and see him, isn't he the pop star that wears make up?". So I didn't go and see it - I guess you can imagine how many times I have kicked my self since.
Anyway once the concert had passed David Bowie kept popping up, not in person, but I kept hearing him on the radio and remember seeing lost of posters of him in shops and started noticing his records in record shops.
I also began to start liking other pop records I heard on the radio and I started saving up my pocket money to buy singles. I can't remember the first one I bought, but I know I had Tiger Feet by Mud, Ballroom Blitz by Sweet and various singles by Wizard, David Bowie, Status Quo and others.
I then noticed the album Hunky Dory in my local record shop so I decided to save up for that. I finally bought it for the sum of 3 pounds and 60 pence which was a huge sum in those days. I thought it was fantastic and started listening to more and more of that type of music (my chitty chitty bang bang record was put to the back of the pile, never to be played again).
I used to play Hunky Dory a lot and I remember our neighbour telling my parents that their daughter you to listen to it when I played it by holding a glass up to the wall between our houses.
I remember buying seeing and album for not much more than the price of a single which contained loads of songs that I liked including Jean Jeannie by David Bowie so I bought it with my hard saved pocket money only to feel completely ripped off when I played it because the songs didn't sound right - they were played by different people! I could not believe that it was possible for some group to make an album of other peoples songs - I felt I had been ripped off and never played it again.
I came across this phenomenon on a number of other occasions because various relatives knew I liked pop music and bought me Top of the Pops albums for my birthday and Christmas presents. They never got played, and if I had them now they would probably be worth a bit.
So I couldn't really afford many albums so I spent most of my pocket money on singles and when I was alone I would get my trusty tennis racket and tie a bit of cotton to it and then tie the other end to an electric plug and hay presto I had an electric guitar which I could use to strum along to all my records.
When I bought the single of Dance with the Devil by cozy Powell my electric tennis racket just wouldn't do, so I got a pair of my Mums thickest knitting needles and used these on the sofa. In the end I could play the sofa just as well as cozy Powell could play the drums.

I started having piano lessons at school at some point and I liked Life on Mars so much that I was determined to learn how to play it on the piano. I even went as far as inviting someone who was really good at the piano from school around to my house so he could work out how to play it and teach it to me. He came round but once he knew what I wanted from him he became completely uninterested. He had never listened to any David Bowie before and had no interntion of starting at my request.

I'm unsure of the exact dates and even order of events, but this was all based around the early 1970s.
The only reference I can find to a gig at Leeds University was June 2nd 1973, so that would have made me 9 years old, so I must have been 9 or 10 when I bought Hunky Dory (for some reason I'd always thought I was 7 when I bought it). I suppose it is always possible that my memory is so hazy that I had already bought it before my Dad asked if I wanted to go to that gig. Also according to David Bowies website the Leeds University gig was cancelled, so I guess I wouldn't have got to see it even if I had wanted to.

My next stage in my musical apreciation was around 1976. I had spent a fair bit of time with my uncle who was into music in a big way and I remember him having albums by King Crimson, Genesis and John call, amused others. I heard a song by Genesis called A Trick of the Tale and this sounded, in some way, much more advanced than what I had been listening to so I remember shortly after getting a portable tape recorder for my birthday I bought the cassette of A Trick of the Tale. This was played constantly and I remember my Dad telling me to turn the music off many times. Because it was portable I would take it round with me from room to room.
I remember visiting a friends house whose Dad was playing an ABBA album. I thought that was great so I thought I would tape it on my new tape recorder. When he had left the room I put the record on, pressed record on the tape recorder and sat in silence while it taped. I remember he came back in the room after a few songs and I put my finger to my mouth in the hope he wouldn't say anything, but he asked why he needed to be quiet. I told him I was taping the record and he then showed me that with the use of a certain type of cable you could tape an lp over the cable and therefore you could talk while you taped it. It also had the added advantage that the recording would be much higher quality.
I never did learn how to play Life on Mars on the piano, but the Dad who taught me about recording also taught me how to play Sailing by Rod Stewart on the piano. I never really liked that song, but I feel like I am better at the piano that I really am when I play it, so it still gets blasted out from time to time.
By now I had also started buying NME and Melody maker every week and had also bought myself a cheap second hand electric guitar complete with buzzing frets and was spending my time listening to David Bowie, Abba and Genesis. I should stress that at no time had I bought the song that shares the title with this blog entry.

This is enough for now, so part 2 will follow in the near future.

Dag 533 - and that's traitorous

"Wallop!" said the yellow sad eyed wombat to the mother of plenty. Oh yes that's fine for at least 20 different strokes when the rain flows in freely from several apertures but suddenly I heard a flux bird digging the mushrooms from underneath our perforated veruccae with silver pots covering them and died.
The greenfinch that flew past my window yesterday burped as it flew away backwards down the upwards facing slope because never had it once eaten any blue opal fruits. "Well!" said Grobblegott "That's tasty" as bird-shit, which was not yellow anyway, slid through his carpet slippers while he was not wearing them on his tree house garden chair with flowers on the left chair arm.
Anyway, two or black fishes with spotty fins swept out their kitchens without heed of the rotten consequences to life in hospital teaching wards.
The often upset shrew who knew Grobblegott went sick 3 or 7 times but never coughed because he was hermaphroditic - "At least that's a true story" said Fluxbird.
Suddenly, without flybutton, police-tree Shrubbery burst forth or fifth branches in his attempt to fly backwards inconsequentially. Mother of plenty appeared massaging the greenfinch in its entirety. "Gosh! I would think that that's a thrilling non-entity" yelled Wombat through all mouseholes having purple doors which rattled. "Taht!" squealed police-tree Shrubbery. "Are Dungheep's armpits found available locally?". That is unusual to speak of in Gromboland because armpits are never found very near the mountainous lake steamer.
Flicknife Fryingpan called across the gangway to his brother's fiancee, whilst three hot happy buns stole butter from the tapeworm's auntie. "Oy fatso where's Fluxbird's armpit cleaner? I've dropped mine off the edge of Grobblegott's big bulbous midwife".
Finding no jam jars, I decided that it would explode the others wives if something or someone risked breaking them all.
"Wallop!" said the yellow sad nosed wombat. "Is that preferential to repeat such trivia? - Not really cricket what ho? is it?"
Flik flopped over garden zones at midnight screaming 'Blue curtains'. Why this phenomenon occurred wasn't exactly explicable, but he felt normal when he did it.
Amyway, back to the story which was happening simultaneously with this story as might well be expected.
While sniffing uncertainly, Dungheep washed Greenfinch twice in seven bath tubs at Waterloo Bridge Tunnel, Neptune. The clock ticked and the Mother of Plenty watched and waited for something to happen.
Suddenly in a blinding flash a creature strolled invisibly on. "Quack" wasn't said ever so it clipped itself away.
As foretold by the storytellers the jelly mold didn't work on butter because Bekorz wasn't helping the mind make sandwiches.
"Fazoom!" cautioned the, now, spirangulated Police-Tree Shrubbery, as copies of Crass News crassly crassed open baked bean plants stems. The news quickly traveled away from the scene of a crime, not anything to speak silently of, but neither Crass News nor itself were able to withstand the unhappy plight they found Police-Tree Shrubbery not in - slowly, quickly and inbetween.
Wellington boot hill is quite steep and slippery and awfully muddy in several bushes armpits but not herbitualy speaking. Incidentally, cosmic badges.
"Skies biscuits!" whispered Greenfinch. "I have already sold myself 15 hours worth of chewing tape under false eyelashes." psychedelic possums ran round Grobblegott backwards extremely stoned (quartz) concourse (digital) kaleidoscope (watched). Follow you and follow others.
This only philosophy shows Dungheep's intense oneness in life.
hepatitis epidemics had already got 16 of the cousin's sweets before they had been introduced to Grobblegott, who was against any participation, political or otherwise indirectly by noon.
"My God!" spoke Said, "I've just realised that I'm not really supposed to be in this story at all, so I'd better get myself lost."
The thigh high sky fell flying to the clouds (pink and fluffy, but not at all light). Police-Tree Shrubbery gasped at the sight as the pink high clouds rushed to bed with their buxom birds feather and sickle.
They left Corny Marks house in a cataclysmic cosmic pickup of a mess tin, It was soon, I think mostly yesterday, maybe sheltered sooner by squeezey tops of no liquid of no fixed aberration, but plenty later it backwards rained.
Oh, I will sniff for stories untold because I shan't care what happens to our story unless you know what the answer is.
Blue stew, barley and gruel upset, dribbled and dropped.
And of fairies, there was pixies of mice drowned under water through grey hollow slabs, come more slabs. Pavements.
I wouldn't - oh well that'll find some nicely rounded kneecaps of shrew often jellied. Right wing flapping shirtflaps open, Greenfinch crashed into Flicknife Fryingpan as soon as possible.
"Wallop!" said the sad mouthed wombat.
"Titter titter titter" tittered Dungheep, "that was humorous, titter titter titter".
Greenfinch didn't kill Flicknife Fryingpan, but he walloped Dungheep on his interior flybuttons twice.
Sadness filled Dungheep quickly, "boo hoo hoo" swallowed he.
After much consideration and merriment, heart searching and floorcleaning, Dungheep slept all morning, except between break waters and piers. Analysing his situation, he followed, basically, the principles already layed aside by others, especially Tart Taht who hated beauty so much she became beautiful every full moon.
The grey hollow slabs were not moving because they weren't alive or kicking, but they were often non-existent.
(c) PL, MG and DB.