A Great New Radio Station Playing A Better Music Variety Of The Music You Love
I was tuning around the other day, when I stumbled across this station. It was on loads of FM frequencies, and to be honest, I found it quite depressing. Not entertaining, just maudlin.
Anyway, I got home and found they’d been leafletting the area. Click the scan, and you’ll see why I was depressed.
This Is Hearse
The Snowman – This Programme Has Been Edited For Online Viewing
Click For Fullsize
A few months ago, b3ta invited their loyal readers to submit censored images of the most mundane things.
Suitably inspired, and this site not being up in any meaningful form at the time, I obliged with a couple of things. The main one being the edit of various images from The Snowman, which is revealed in fullsize glory if you click on the thumbnail to the left of this.
There was also the slightly less successful edit of a tub of Horlicks, which I post here simply for completeness.
Click For Fullsize
In fact, it is VASTLY less successful, almost embarrassingly so.
And you wonder why nobody wondered why I kept this site offline for over a year.
Die Hard – A 1980s anti-feminist diatribe
This is a “Classic” article dating from 2007. As ever, the definition of “classic” is used mainly in its “old” sense, rather than indicating quality.
Bruce's Bear
It’s a sad fact but a testament to the clever construction of Bruce Willis and John McTiernan’s classic 1987 action blockbuster that the millions of people who have seen and loved Die Hard rarely understood that the film really is a rallying cry from the production team. A call to disband the already well-advanced feminist movement.
To the casual viewer this viewpoint may seem nonsensical, ludicrous even, but the evidence is all there if you’re willing to examine the film in some detail. Indeed, examining a big spectacle movie in detail for hidden motives is itself often a waste of time; the entire aim of the big action franchises is to wilfully ignore all but the most basic motivation and plot points; in it’s most basic form, the hero must rescue someone or something from the antagonist and in the case of the Hollywood action films, with as many big explosions and special effects as is possible to fit into the standard one hundred minutes. It is true that some films may pretend to have a higher purpose – The Day After Tomorrow, for instance, with it’s pseudo-factual environmental plot pretends to be showing damning evidence to the filmgoer of what will happen if they continue to destroy the planet. What it instead provides is a standard action-bollocks affair, with ludicrous plotting and terrific effects. Not exactly high-brow, but definitely entertaining.
Surely Die Hard is the most basic of all of the 1980s action films. It’s credited with starting the whole cycle of films in which a lone protagonist defeats all of the odds in order to defeat the bad guys and preserve some semblance of an American ideal after a terrifying situation. So what makes it different? Where does the anti-feminism undercurrent come from?
Not the star of Play School
None of the events of the Die Hard film would have taken place were it not for the feminism movement of previous years.
John McClane, the protagonist is portrayed by Bruce Willis as the ultimate American family man. He’s a loving father in a difficult job; he’s a detective with the NYPD, strong willed and fair, but he’s found the time to buy great gifts for his children’s Christmas presents. But his family has been torn apart, not by him. Nor by his job putting pressure on the family, but by his wife.
His wife went and got a job.
And for John McClane’s wife, she wasn’t content to just work in the supermarket like the wives of his friends down the precinct. Holly is ambitious, the ultimate embodiment of the 1980s padded-shouldered businesswoman, born of the feminist movement. She’s got herself a high-ranking role within the Nakatomi corporation, and she was willing to end her relationship with John to take the job, tearing the family apart in the process.
Too many eggs results in this face, even for celebrities
Twenty years earlier, this would never have happened. John and Holly would have lived a happy existence in New York. She may have had a job, but it would probably have been in a florists, or a bakers.
If only Holly hadn’t taken the Nakatomi job. That one, selfish decision on her part directly results in the deaths of several innocent people. She doesn’t ever show any regret for this, maybe she didn’t even consider that her taking a job above her station was the cause of unnecessary suffering. But it was. The stupid, selfish cow.
It is probably helpful to elaborate a bit here. I’m assuming that most of you are familiar with the plot; Alan Rickman portrays Hans Gruber, leader of a group of German terrorists who have taken over the Nakatomi Plaza, pretending that they’re campaigning for the release of some of their fellow terrorists, but really aiming to steal millions of dollars of bonds from the company. His henchmen are well equipped with powerful and efficient weapons, and largely seem keen to avoid a mass slaughter. Early on in the film, they do kill the chairman of the Nakatomi Corporation as he refuses to open the safe for them, but immediately after this, realising the seriousness of the situation, his direct subordinate agrees to the terrorist demands and starts the process of opening the safe to release the bonds.
- That Guy
It’s at this point that Holly’s decision starts to affect the plot; if she was not a part of the Nakatomi Corporation, the gang would probably have escaped with all of the bonds. The Corporation would be in ruins, but the cost to human life would have remained at only one man. A huge cost in itself, but relatively small when compared to how the film eventually plays out.
Because of her presence there, John McClane is in town. And he’s pissed off, and despite the fact that his wife has left him, to him there is a hope of reconciliation. So he’s going to have to save her, and in an American action film that can only mean one thing.
It’s one-man-crusade time.
From the very point that McClane turns up at the building, all of Gruber’s meticulous plans are torn apart. Instead of just one killing, a demonstration of will, the viewer is now witness to death after death as McClane acquires guns and weapons in order to save his wife and their marriage. Villains and good guys alike die unnecessarily as a result, all to McClane’s damaged war-cry of “Yippee-kai-ay, motherfucker”, his mind now in tatters, distraught at the thought of losing his family from the possible reconcilation his Christmas trip had suggested to him.
It’s an American movie, so the resolution is inevitable; McClane wins out, and the bad guys are all taken out. Some will have died at his hands, some at the hands of their comrades, some by just dropping off a building very slowly, but McClane wins. He’s battle-scarred, he’s had a hard day and like any man he’s entitled to go home to his loving wife.
And there she is. Holly and John are reconciled, and drive off into the sunset. But at what cost?
"I have hair at the back of my head"
If only Holly had been like the other police wives. Stayed in that bakery, worked in that florist. She’d never have been aware of the Nakatomi Corporation. And if that had been her life, John McClane would never have had cause to be at the Nakatomi Plaza in the first place. The terrorists would probably have completed their plot successfully. Only one man would have died. A corporation may have been destroyed, but no corporation is worth more than human life.
And all because of the feminist movement.
Die Hard lays it’s cards firmly on the table, and mourns the loss of the male-dominated society on a grand, explosive scale.
Or maybe I’m just talking bollocks.
I Do A Lot Of Work For Charidee, Mate, But I Don’t Like To Talk About It
Contrary to popular myth, MacGowan still has all his own teeth. He keeps them in a jar next to his bed.
The last person that I thought I would ever see and hear organising a benefit single in aid of the earthquake in Haiti was Shane MacGowan. Partly because, by rights, he should have died years ago; that’s by his own admission, and to the no-doubt eternal shock of his doctors.
But he has. And it’s terrific; it’s nothing like Simon Cowell’s (equally worthy) REM cover; it shares only the common cause, and that it is a cover with a Band Aid-style lineup of celebs singing each line.
Johnny Depp is one of the celebs in the lineup.
It’s tremendous, isn’t it? It’s entirely worth buying, so buy it.
Not Quite
This is not a finished site by any means. It’s a trick. It’s a clever ruse.
It’s a trick which I am playing on myself.
You see, just over a year ago, I decided to redesign this site. I took it offline for a week to facilitate the things which I anticipated I’d need to do.
I just never got around to it.
So now I’ve got this temporary thing together, and over the next week or so, I’ll be putting stuff back online, and adding new stuff.
So it’s not finished. It IS just a trick.
There are bits missing. The design is not quite “there” yet, even though I am using a rather nice template, the link to which is at the bottom of ever page.
I really dislike the default image for posts which do not have images, for one thing. It makes me cross. Especially as there’s one for this post. Ugh.
(And of the three iPhone games reviews which are here, they all may reference links to places which I have not added in, as they’re really only test posts pasted from www.sotalkaboutgames.com, and as such will be expanded somewhat. Soon.)
Public Louse
Famously, I dislike the general public. Having sold my car, I am now resigned to having no choice but to deal with them day after day on public transport, whereas previously I got to pretend that I was doing it out of some misplaced social and environmental conscience; I was using the bus to work because it was cheaper, because it was better for the environment, because I’m just that kind of nice guy.
"Grrruueghghf...shpare any change, mishter?"
Now I have to put up with them, I don’t have to pretend that I am that nice guy anymore. I really find them quite irritating.
The most important thing to note is that for some reason a significant proportion of the general public seemingly are allergic to soap. All of the scientific work the good people at the Dove laboratories has been for nought; even the gentlest of soaps is too harsh for Mr & Mrs Warty, who stink variously of urine, of faeces, of salt and vinegar crisps, of sweat which their glands secreted three years previously.
I assume they’re allergic anyway. I’d be even more appalled if they were simply too lazy to be washing, or if the demands on their money were so strong that they could not even spend a single pound for a five-pack of generic soap from their local Single Price Retailer.
I find that they’re often drunk. Drunk at wildly inappropriate times of day; the gentleman who was supping from a three litre plastic bottle of cider of the White Lightning ilk at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning was clearly a happy chap. He must have been; he sat there supping and singing, while I must have cut a thoroughly miserable figure as I sat there futilely attempting to block out his crooning through cunning deployment of an ever-louder selection of my own tunes on my iPod.
I’ve also got a lot of time for Mrs Tesco Value Lager, a famous local character who travels the buses all day with two carrier bags full of Tesco’s budget dizzyade, and slowly, impossibly gets drunk on this weakest of all alcoholic drinks. Her face no longer has any expression, her eyes blackened and blank, giving away no emotion. Other than when she often slips when trying to get off the bus, tripping over an inconveniently placed seat to the left of her, spilling booze all the way through the bus; she’ll yelp slightly, almost imperceptibly, and then sit there until she is carried off by the driver.
She then gets on the next bus, and the saga repeats itself.
Giant Metal Robot
I used to wake up at night in a cold sweat, having dreamed that I was a small girl trapped atop the roof of a building, with a small dog, while being inexplicably chased by skeletons.
"Gagagagagagaga" etc.
While I lay there awake, too terrified to go back to sleep, I’d often hope that in just one of those dreams there would be something that could protect me, should I go back to that place.
There never was.
As I grew older, the dreams became less frequent, but they’d still come. It would become embarrassing; in a shared house, screaming that I was a small terrified little girl is somewhat frowned upon.
A few weeks ago, I was browsing the App Store and I found this game, and it appears my prayers have been answered, for some enterprising soul has clearly been afflicted in exactly the same ways as I have, and made this game as the solution to our mutual problem.
Through the medium of charming 8-bit inspired graphics, and bleepy-bloopy sound effects, the game sees you in the role of a small girl who for some reason finds herself trapped atop a building while being inexplicably chased by skeletons.
Luckily for her, the skeletons don’t actually harm her; she’s just scared. Unluckily for her, they will keep chasing her, and the tilt-left and right to move controls making use of literally lots of inertia, meaning move too sharply, and the girl will fall from the building. Bah.
Unlike in my dream though, she has a saviour in the titular Giant Metal Robot, who with a swipe of your finger will slam down his Giant Metal Fists on the skeletons, exterminating them forever, until the next level. For on the next level, there will be more skeletons, and they will run faster, and in groups, or they will split up. Either way, the Giant Metal Robot has more work to do.
The assistance of the Giant Metal Robot, though valuable, is not without consequences; the almighty force of his Giant Metal Fists is such that the girl is flung into the air with the impact, and can be thrown from the building as such. And that inertia means his fists can occasionally crush her as by accident.
It’s frustrating, and addictive. I hope the Giant Metal Robot joins me in my dreams, but that his Giant Metal Fists are more controlled.
