Archive for December, 2006

“Our intelligence said that he was crazy and a pervert. He’s not crazy.”

One of the excellent quotes of 2006 from The Observer, which includes an entire Paris Hilton section. But who was referring to whom?

  1. Colin Powell on Osama bin Laden?
  2. Madeleine Albright on Kim Jong-Il?
  3. Donald Rumsfeld on Saddam Hussein?
  4. Paris Hilton on John Prescott?

Find out here.

The Blogrot Worst of 2006 Film Quiz!

Some of my greatest pleasure in life comes from the 1- and 2-star reviews of the Guardian film critic, Peter Bradshaw. The man’s inventiveness in the field of destructive criticism appears to know no bounds. I am therefore delighted to present the Blogrot Worst of 2006 Film Quiz. The object is quite simple: match the exquisite put down to the film at which it was aimed. There’s one 3-starrer in there too for good luck. All excerpts are taken from Peter Bradshaw’s reviews of 2006.

Excerpts

  1. It is the biggest case of miscasting in history. Anyone, anyone, would have been better in this part. Steven Seagal would have been better. Janette Krankie would have been better.
  2. This story could go on for 104 minutes or 104 aeons and it would make no difference.
  3. One of the funniest and most astringent books of recent times has been turned into a film so embarrassingly awful I felt like putting a brown paper bag over my head and emitting a high-pitched keening sound.
  4. Her final moments in this film are so hammy that any vegetarians present will come out in a rash. The prefix “over-” in “over-acting” doesn’t quite cover it. Her shriekingly tragic fate was something that I certainly won’t forget in a hurry. Many people in the audience had to be helped out of the auditorium, given a cup of hot, sweet tea and covered with those Bacofoil blankets. I myself will need years of therapy to get over it.
  5. This treacly second world war drama is the sort of flaccid silliness that you’d expect to see on television with “ITV4″ in the corner of the screen.
  6. There are some films so awful, of such insidious dishonesty and mediocrity, that their existence is a kind of scandal. [...] Just thinking about it gives me a headache.
  7. These thesps look like the most terrifying water-based situation they have ever actually faced is when the Jacuzzi isn’t warm enough in their suite at the Four Seasons. XXXX, in particular, could do with a pair of waterwings, and he gives us every reason to suspect that his tummy scrapes the bottom of the pool when he assumes a horizontal position.
  8. Chased for days and days, they do not need to eat or sleep or use sentences that ordinary human beings would use.
  9. As the film continued, I personally began to bow my head in humility and self-knowledge. My pen slipped from my nerveless fingers and hot teardrops fell on my notepad, like a pure and cleansing rain, blurring the vindictive remarks I had scribbled. I was ashamed … ashamed … that I had ever given this incredible idiot anything approaching a good review.
  10. One per cent of your time watching this may be spent being startled by some vivid and disturbing images. The other 99% will be spent thinking: what the hell is going on?
  11. Never has a title been more horribly at odds with the way you’re actually going to feel while watching the movie.
  12. Embarrassingly, she is made to say “loo” to show off some real limeyspeak. Perhaps she can be grateful she wasn’t given bad teeth.
  13. Enough to make me want to put a brown paper bag over my head and whinny like a tormented pony.
  14. As Sigmund Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a film with the silly but entertaining title of Snakes on a Plane, is just a silly but entertaining film about snakes on a plane.

Films

  1. The Aryan Couple
  2. Atomised
  3. The Black Dahlia
  4. The Da Vinci Code
  5. The Devil Wears Prada
  6. Eragon
  7. A Good Year
  8. The Grudge 2
  9. The Guardian
  10. Lady In The Water
  11. Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
  12. Stay Alive
  13. World Trade Center
  14. Snakes On A Plane

There are no prizes, obviously. It’s the taking part that counts. For answers see the first comment.

Harry Potter and the Internet Fruitcakes

Harry Potter and the Internet FruitcakesAmazon should ban people from leaving comments and ratings before a product is actually available. This would seem to me to be plain common sense. I mean honestly, just look at some of this crap:

5 stars It’ll be amazingness unrivalled!
It’ll be impossible for it to be bad – this is Harry Potter we’re talking about, guys, haha … it’s going to be GREAT! No question.

5 stars of course its going to be good
I know of many other people who are sure that Harry Potter and the ???????? will deserve five stars, to find them just type “harry potter fan fiction” into google. I got 1,950,000 results and its probably still growing. click on any harry potter fan fiction site, an look at the lists of authors. Probably every single person there is of the opinion that book 7 will deserve 5 stars and will rate it accordingly as and when it comes out.

5 starsthe end…
I’m very tempted to give five stars to it, because it’s bound to be great, but it wouldn’t be ABSOLUTELY honest, would it? So i tried just not to rate it, but that’s not allowed. SO, i have to resort to giving it 5 stars…

And just for balance:

3 starsdont get me wrong
the book will get five stars from me it will be awsome but the title will get zero

Grade-A nuts, the lot of them. They should be taken out and shot, or at least taught how to spell and punctuate.

Update: More Potter lunacy, this time from Royal Mail. Don’t be surprised when you hear your local post office is closing down this spring. The postal services have spending priorities just like everyone else, it’s just that theirs are informed by the logic of a madman.

It will take more than an bunch of embittered Trotskyists to ruin our Boxing Day traditions

Spent an exhilarating day out on the rob today. Boxing Day is traditionally a great day for breaking and entering, as houses are chock full of brand new gear and people are out visiting relatives. Technically, of course, burgling with crowbars is now illegal, outlawed by a control-freak government as part of its risible class war. But the law is an ass, and far too blunt a tool for killing a passion handed down over generations from man to boy. Loopholes will always be found and exploited. Blair will never understand our ancient city ways.

A Happy Boxing Day to you all!

foxhunt.jpg

Just part of the magnificent haul we liberated from an end terrace in West Kirby today.

Has severe weather affected your journey?

Has severe weather affected your journey? the BBC wants to know.

Well yes, actually. I was going to pop round the corner for a Twix earlier but it was freezing out there so I didn’t bother.

Feel free to use the comment feature to share your severe weather stories.

Nothing comes between this guy and a Double Decker

Photo: The guy next door bravely heads out for a Double Decker earlier this afternoon

Mince pie round-up

Blogrot favourite NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown continues to deliver on its public service remit with a penetrating round-up of mince pie offerings from the major UK retailers.

The attention to detail is, as ever, quite staggering:

The reflections in the silver foil put me in mind of Terminator 2.

Mince pie

A Merry Christmas to both our readers!

Lembit Öpik has left Siân Lloyd for one of the Cheeky Girls

No seriously. Lembit Öpik has left Siân Lloyd for one of the Cheeky Girls.

We do know each other from two months, but didn’t actually go out together only from two weeks now.

said the Cheeky Girl.

I was going to do a picture or a joke to go with it but then I thought, why should I? Think up your own joke for a change. Go on, piss off.

Books by repeat offenders

YOU PONCEI’ve just finished reading You Ponce by Lenny ‘The Fuckles’ Maguire. I’ve always poo-pooed those books by gangsters in the past but that was clearly snobbery on my part as it’s actually surprisingly well written. The guy has a peerless grasp of metaphor, for example often using the word ‘machete’ where you or I might say bon mot.

He was clearly trying it on so without further ado I cut him down to size with a well-chosen machete.

I thoroughly recommend the book to anyone as it’s a jolly good read. Next up: ‘Ave That You Twat by Jimmy the Hatchet.

Bosh, Barnet, Wonky-Donkey

Genius movie director Guy Ritchie discusses his complex masterpiece Snatch on YouTube, giving us all a rare insight into his high-IQ world:

King Kong Merrily On High

Went to see the infant school Christmas play this morning. The director was clearly a classic surrealist in the tradition of Dali. Anyone who can introduce Mr Incredible and a team of scorpions into the Christmas story without so much as flinching has to be some kind of genius.

Not that I’m taking anything away from the performances, mind. The guy who played Scooby Doo really made the role his own.

Ho Ho Hobgoblin!

Ho Ho Hobgoblin! Santa on his sleigh as re-imagined by Year 2

The Four Faces of Sharon Osbourne

A day of looking at Mrs Osbourne’s evil witchy face (or even just half of it) was too much for me yesterday. Something had to be done.

The Four Faces of Sharon Osbourne

The girls were more interested in watching last night’s Strictly Come Dancing and were pretty resistant to coercion, but once I hinted that Father Christmas might get involved I soon got some cooperation.

Emergency Conversation Topic #2

ECT #2: “Have your test results come back yet?”

This one works best in a large group of people. Wait for a lull in the conversation, preferably with minimal background noise, and then deploy the ECT at an indiscreet volume to someone sitting near you. With a bit of luck the atmosphere will instantly shift to the setting marked “ball-shrivellingly awkward”. Your subject should then reply with a nervous smile and something along the lines of “What test results?” At this point, glance around the rest of the group and then suddenly, as if you’ve just caught someone else’s eye, look down and mutter, “Oh God, sorry, it was… someone else…”

Honestly, it’ll keep them going for ages. When you’ve had your fun, do the standard mime for Suddenly Remembering Something and reveal that it was your dad’s MOT you were thinking of.

Smallprint: be aware that this ECT can backfire badly if your initial subject has in fact just got some test results back. If they respond with something like “Yes, I’ve got 3 months” you may want to bail out at the earliest opportunity.

More ECTs here.