During the current celebrations of “DOCTOR WHO” many people (including current show supremo Stephen Moffat) have taken you to task over your role in canceling the series that they loved. They have identified you in many ways as enemy number one in its demise (along with producer John Nathan Turner) and you have come in for so much stick it would seem in poor taste for a lifelong “DOCTOR WHO” fan like myself to add to your woes by ripping the hell out of you in an open letter like this
...So I won’t.
In fact, actually I would like to thank you for cancelling “DOCTOR WHO” when you did. You see with the Doctor riding the crest of a wave in terms of popularity at the minute it seems crazy to thank someone for getting rid of such a hit show, but this is because history tends to be written by the winners and as such is usually wrong. Let’s cast our minds back to where it all began, where it started to go wrong and why your decision was ultimately the right one.
Back in the heady days of 1963 BBC head of drama, Sydney Newman had an idea, not for a kid’s show, but for a drama, a sci-fi drama about a time-traveller that the entire family could watch.
Giving his idea to newly promoted producer Verity Lambert (no relation ...as far as I’m aware. ???) they enlisted a great actor to play the role and from 1963 through to 1979 the show was a runaway smash. It may have been scary at times, and blighted by special effects that were never really that special, but it was undeniably a success (if you don’t think of all the times that the Fourth version on the Doctor has appeared in “THE SIMPSONS”.) But then came an after effect, a ripple through time, of something that was so gargantuan that even “DOCTOR WHO” could not help but be affected, it was an after-shock from “STAR WARS”.
In 1980 ITV showed a big-budget sci-fi show called “BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY” which, before the big embarkation of the video age, caused a massive reduction in the Doctor’s viewing figures. It had the big-effects of “STAR WARS” (well, cheap versions anyway) and so dragged some of the “STAR WARS” fans away (for only one season anyway as the second season of “BUCK ROGERS” was cack!) but this caused ripples at the BBC who replaced their tired old Doctor with a younger man (actually this was a good move as he was top!) and a new producer but apart from the new man at the helm this was the temporary end for the good Doctor as standards slid, the high-standards of writing slid and the show descended from Drama where it’s greatest moments always came from into the realm of being a mere kid’s show.
So history lesson over for those people who aren’t au fait with the show, this is why it left the screens, not because you were vindictive or had no vision to see what the show could be, it’s because it descended into farce. The Irony is that over the other side of the pond around the time that our “DOCTOR WHO” was facing cancellation paramount television was starting its own big budget sci-fi show “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” and learnt something after the first two seasons, that the key to success is in the writing rather than the effects. It was arguably this shift in quality in season 3 that not only kept “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” on our screens but also created 3 further “STAR TREK” spin-off series that lasted in total a staggering 24 seasons, including “NEXT GEN” itself (the image below is from what it is probably the highlight of all seven seasons of NEXT GEN, season five's THE INNER LIGHT.)
If the show hadn’t died temporarily in 1989 it may not have been brought back when it was in 2005 with TV standards in this country reaching a point where both effects costs had reduced sufficiently but writing standards had increased sufficiently. Now we have “DOCTOR WHO” back to where it should be, as a drama, occasionally comedic, but usually terrifying, and amazingly it’s all down to you, MIchael Grade, the man who saved “DOCTOR WHO” by killing it.
So unusual as it seems, from all the official Whovians out there, who love the show, and all the unofficial ones who do but don’t admit to it, I say, thank you. Your contribution to the series has been noted, well, by one fan at least.
MY TRIBUTE TO THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DOCTOR WHO CELEBRATIONS.
Hello all. Having seen all the bits and bobs floating around the internet and recognising it was a great time to do something a bit special I came up with this very short tail. It was inspired by a recent titbit I saw on You-Tube where Sylvester McCoy was reading out Matt Smith’s speech to the assembled throng of baddies from the episode “THE PANDORICA OPENS” and doing a mighty fine job of it, if I do say so myself. And it got me thinking about words and speeches and how one sentence can have two meanings ...Anyway I’m probably giving too much away here all I’ll say is, here’s the clip and I hope you like the story.
BLOODLESS COUP
The TARDIS whirred disapprovingly as it hurled itself through the time vortex. The internal workings of the gargantuan force of a black-hole pushed and pulled against themselves in order to propel the impossible vehicle through time and space. Right now the internal workings of the Doctor where pushing equally hard against themselves as he weighed up all the different moments and different experiences of his life and hoped to resolve those different forces and move forward. He had dropped off Sabine at Space Disney and left her there for a week while evaluating just what he wanted to do and what he wanted to be. His attire was something he hadn’t worn before, the black suit, black tie and black shirt were items he needed to wear but in the past had avoided. He was in mourning. Now, perhaps more than any other time before, he had a small decision to make that could have massive implications, not just on time and space but for the unique individuals it concerned.
He flicked a switch, latched onto the relevant time stream and set forth on the precise location. Space Disney was a matter of minutes away. The consoles displays reflected in those tired sad eyes of The Doctor and he prepared his mind for all he had to say to the new stray who had decided to travel with him. As the TARDIS veered through the relevant stream and slowed the Doctor could feel it, he could detect the strain on this massive beast of a ship as it moved through a vortex the like of which had never been known before the time-lords came along.
The TARDIS bucked and swerved a few more times before making a flawless landing (ish!) in Space Disney at the agreed designated area. The Doctor flicked on the monitor and could see Sabine awaiting with childlike glee, chewing on her self-replenishing blue candy-floss while watching the magic-box appear. The Doctor swallowed a lump in his throat as he flicked the switch and allowed the doors to open. He flicked the console back to read-outs and smiled half-heartedly as Sabine ran inside.
“Doctor! I had the most amazing time, you have got to see this place!” Sabine exclaimed, joyfully.
“I already have, actually,” The Doctor countered before closing the doors. “Probably too many times.”
“Are you all right?” Sabine asked as she detected his sombre mood. “What’s happened?”
“We need to talk,” The old Doctor said as he allowed the TARDIS to dematerialise back into the time stream before setting co-ordinates on the console for a new location in time and space.
“That sounds serious,” said Sabine looking worried. “Where are we going?”
“Home,” advised the Doctor.
“Your home?” she asked.
“No. Yours,” said the Doctor, hitting a switch and causing the enormous, tiny blue box to lurch to the right before beginning it’s journey back to the planet Kurl. “Let’s take a seat ….and a chat.”
They went into the ante room just off the TARDIS console room. It housed four comfy chairs around a coffee table, laid on a silver tray were two cups and a pot of tea. The Doctor poured out the liquid before sitting back, cup in hand and preparing his words.
“People come aboard this vessel and they don’t know me,” he began before taking a sip of drink. “And I think if you’re going to be putting yourself in harms way across the galaxy you should know just who you’re traveling with. Don’t you?”
Sabine nodded, almost scared to have a drink.
“I am a time-traveler and I have lived for over a thousand of your years and in that time I have had many faces, and many lives. As people of course you change as time goes by, but while you’re face changes slightly mine changes completely. When I die, when my cells are reaching the end of their living tenure, my body does this thing called regenerating, it means my whole physical being changes, the only thing that remains are my experiences.”
Sabine furrowed her brow.
“I started out as quite a pompous man, full of bluster and armed with a vast array of knowledge that I shared with my grand-daughter as we left home to explore the universe, my longest life saw me take six hundred years of steps through the stars, as my body regenerated it re-invigorated my desire to travel again and I took this opportunity with gay abandon until I was forced to regenerate by my fellow time-lords and banished to Earth. With my ability to travel gone I grew restless, aggressive and dictatorial, until I had to face my great fear, which actually killed me, but with no fear came freedom and with my friends I explored the universe. Boy, that was a great time. I thought it would never end, but with the universe at stake I had no choice but to surrender my existence, but the upside was something I never expected ...I finally became the man I always hoped to be. I was calm, at peace and completely rational, able to weigh up all pro’s and cons and appreciate everyone I met for who they were, good or bad, until the universe went mad and I was poisoned.”
“You were poisoned?” asked Sabine.
“Yes. Spectrox. It was either myself of my companion who survived and I did not want to see another of my traveling companions die.”
“ANOTHER companion?” Sabine asked.
“Another companion,” the Doctor replied solemnly. “The poison affected my regenerations and my outlook, it took me two more lives to get back to get back to the man I wanted to be and the poison finally left my system, but then came the war.”
“What war?” Sabine continued. The man who saved her suddenly seemed less appealing and slightly horrifying.
“The Great Time War,” the Doctor began. “Ever since then I have run through the cosmos not looking back, almost afraid to, but time catches up with you. I have to face who I am and what it means to be me. Have a drink.”
Sabine sucked on her tea and the Doctor pressed on.
“I have blood on my hands, the blood of a thousand races and I don’t want that. I am a threat to my friends as well as my foes and I can’t live like that any more, I want no more blood on these hands and no more deaths on my conscience so I say this to you now. Turn back and run. Whatever you think is the right thing to do, whatever you believe is the right path for you, leave it now. Run as far as you can because that is the only way I can guarantee your safety.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Sabine.
“If you don’t the only thing I can do now is apologise, I can only say sorry for what is about to happen,” said the Doctor, his eyes filled with remorse as he pushed himself off the chair and headed back to the console.
“Here...” began the Doctor as he flicked a switch for location.
“We...” he continued as he turned the dial for location.
“Go!” he concluded as he hit the button to set the TARDIS off on another mission.
The Doctor and Sabine crashed against the metal, slightly warm, floor of the Obliteration chamber as the Cybermen hurled them inside and slammed the door shut. The Doctor get up and pushed at the door as the Cyber-leader raised his hand to signal to his soldiers.
“WAIT!” yelled the Doctor. “You don’t have to do this!”
“Yes we do,” said the Cyber-Leader in his monotone cynthi-voice. “We have tried to kill you and failed due to your regenerations, we cannot turn you into us as that has failed and you have beaten us too many times for us to ignore you, therefore in order for the Cybermen to survive you have to be destroyed utterly as the force that holds your molecules together will be removed causing everything you are to be literally torn apart.”
The Doctor swallowed hard before responding.
“Cyber-leader, I have blood on my hands, the blood of a thousand races and I don’t want that. I am a threat to my foes as well as my friends and I can’t live like that any more, I want no more blood on these hands and no more deaths on my conscience, so I say this to you now. Turn back and run. Whatever you think is the right thing to do, whatever you believe is the right path for you, leave it now. Run as far as you can because that is the only way I can guarantee your safety.”
“Goodbye, Doctor,” said the Cyber-leader, with neither joy nor remorse in his voice.
“If you don’t the only thing I can do now is apologise, I can only say sorry for what is about to happen,” said the Doctor, his eyes burning with hatred, his voice tinged with anger, not for the Cyber-leader, but for the actions that had been forced on him. He moved his arm slightly and the sleek sonic screwdriver slipped into his right-hand.
“Here...” he said softly as he flicked a switch on the tiny, yet powerful, device.
“We...” he whispered as he flicked another switch and a faint hum escaped from the most adaptable weapon in the cosmos.
“Go!” the Doctor concluded as the Cyber-leader dropped his hand and the chamber was activated. The Doctor aimed the device at the control panel housing, the screwdriver emitting a powerful blast of anti-protons attempting to reverse the polarity of the Obliteration chamber. For a few second the Doctor could feel the outer dermis moving, tingling as the cells started to disentangle themselves. The molecules in his face began to vibrate and pull as they threatened to rip apart everything that he was and everything that he would ever be. The Doctor held his nerve as his assistant screamed, a blinding light encompassed his vision and then the Doctor phased out.
The Doctor opened his eyes and could see a darkness outside the chamber. The door that was sealed shut was now open.
“Sabine?” he said before moving to check on his companion. “SABINE!”
“Ugh!” a low moan behind him removed his fears and he turned to face her. She had passed out to under the shock but his shout had roused her. “What happened?”
“I reversed the polarity of the Obliteration chamber,” the Doctor explained. “It meant it cocooned us from the Obliteration rays.”
“And the Cybermen?” asked Sabine, anxiously.
“They did not fare so well,” said the Doctor as he left the housing. All around on the floor fizzed the empty suits of the Cyberman as all manner of biological material had been turned to dust by the Obliteration rays, leaving nothing inside but burnt out husks. The two time-travellers stepped past the fizzing suits to exit.
“Are they dead?” asked Sabine.
“For now,” replied the Doctor, cautiously. “The Cybermen’s suits have emergency protocol’s if the neural paths aren’t reignited after ten minutes to try and detect the nearest host body, so I suggest leaving at speed is still the best option.”
Sabine and the Doctor quickly stepped through the sleeping armour and ran through the corridors where the Cybermen had fallen like broken statues as the emotionless minds that had controlled them span through the air.
“On the upside,” said Sabine, sensing the Doctor’s black mood. “At least this way their’s no blood on your hands.”
“Oh it’s their all right,” the Doctor replied without looking back, his gaze merely falling on his fingers. “You just can’t see it. That’s all.”
The end.
Nods to Peter Capaldi’s eyes for being such a perfect image to match this story and Steven Moffat who has taken the series to new heights with his Doctor Matt Smith.
Arsene Wenger is, so far, having a decent season. His team still have their beloved Champions League football, they are still in the FA Cup as it hasn’t started for the top teams yet, and also the are top of the Premier League heading into November. Life is good if you’re an Arsenal fan.
BUT
Their game today comes on the back of two home defeats, as all the pundits are pointing out. Big Woo! Teams lose all the time and come back, look at United recently. They may be struggling but are still close enough to the top for it to be less of a concern (Or are they?) The big reason why the match today is so much bigger than in previous seasons is because Arsenal’s last defeat was a defeat by design rather than by chance.
Arsenal fielded a weakened team for the Milk/Rumblelows/Carling/Capital-One/League cup and this in turn means that the winning streak that was stopped due to Dortmund being the better side has been exacerbated by the manager himself. Usually in the past whenever he has done this it has lead to a loss of form that then affects the rest of the performances from here on in, until they regain form later in the season but not before the traffic bump has slowed things down so much that it then becomes impossible to win a trophy.
Admittedly this is probably the first time that Wenger has had a player who is capable of turning a game on it’s head in the shape of Mesut Ozil since Henry (No offence, Cesc!) and that may well be the key today to the Arsenal conundrum that has been going on for the best part of eight years. How do you stop your own winning streak without stopping your own winning streak? Mesut Ozil may well be the missing piece to solving this puzzle once and for all. We will see.
Monday, 28 October 2013
MOYES AND MAN UNITED: THE PROBLEM THAT NO-ONE HAS YET LOOKED AT.
Much in the press is being written about David Moyes current reign as the Manchester United manager, with many people already speculating that the reign will be short and who else may find themselves in the United hot-seat when, rather than if, he goes. Even the rescuing of points by messrs Rooney and Hernandez will have done little to please or persuade the growing army of malcontent fans who feel that this merger of man and club must come to an end sooner rather than later. However, the appointment of David Moyes has meant that when, sorry, if this happens, any change in management will be far more difficult that anyone has yet anticipated. Let's look at the evidence. When Sir Alex Ferguson left the other key-man at United also left, namely Chief Executive David Gill, this meant that the the two key men were leaving in one go. This would have been tough for an organisation that may have been in transition or was struggling, but united won the league at a canter and have always been challenging for trophies. How do you replace this team of winners? Unfortunately Ed Woodward was given the job of Chief Executive (and has acquitted himself not too well so far with his disastrous transfer window antics) and David Moyes has come in and replaced United's back-room staff with his own team (although sometimes when you don't do that it leads to more problem like those encountered by Brian Clough at Leeds when he went without his long-term compatriot, Peter Taylor). Herein lies the problem for United going forward. With David Moyes wholesale dismantling of United's successful back-room team and replacing it with his own people it means that any changes at the top to remove Moyes would not stop there. There would need to be three or four dramatic firings and rehirings in order to bring about the dramatic changes in fortunes that would be required. Would the people who knew the set-up previously come-back, if not who would they get to replace them? All these questions have not yet been addressed in the popular press and yet they all require a serious amount of probing. United's success on the pitch may have seemingly been down to the hard work of one man, but in reality a number of people had a hand in United's utter dominance of the English game, and it is this collective departure that has metaphorically torn a hole through United. BUT Before I cannot leave this blog today without reminding myself of the axiom that I came up with a few years ago and every years has remained true ever since, bar no exceptions. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW YOU START THE SEASON, WHAT MATTERS IS HOW YOU FINISH IT. If the signings that eluded them in May are made good by January then it is entirely possible that United and Moyes could shock us all with an amazing mid-season turnaround. We shall see. http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Clubs/Club_Home/2013/9/30/1380556131545/David-Moyes-008.jpg
Thursday, 30 May 2013
MEMORIES ARE SHORT BUT REALITY ALWAYS WINS OUT IN THE END, CHRIS WADDLE.
When one reads the reviews for the film “JACK REACHER” one would think Tom Cruise had made a film where he rips each page out of the novel and wipes his arse with it. Of course many critics rip into the height difference between Cruise and Reacher, hell even the hair colour is different. I mean why doesn’t Cruise portray characters more like his own height like Humphrey Bogart did in the old days, right?
WRONG!!!
Bogart played Sam Spade in the classic movie “THE MALTESE FALCON” but in the novel Sam Spade is blonde and 6 feet tall. You see that’s the thing about memory, it tends to let people down, people rewrite history until it fits what they think it is and very rarely do we see things as they are until way after the fact.
For example, in the seventies ABBA were regarded as good, in the late eighties crap and from the nineties onward, good. The same is true of The Bee Gees and now David Beckham, in a sporting capacity, is going through what ABBA and The Bee Gees went through earlier with Chris Waddle stating that Beckham wouldn’t be considered in the top 1000 Premiership players or players of the last fifty years, or twenty years (Jesus, Chris, talk about moving the goalposts, just pick one!) a bandwagon that many people have also jumped on, no doubt while burning ABBA and Bee Gees records while stating why The Arctic Monkeys will have far more cultural significance than either of those groups in twenty years time. Many people reluctantly point out that he made the most of what he had, that all he could do was cross the ball, had some dead-ball skills, but that was it and the rest was all just PR, hype and branding.
I hate PR, I don’t particularly like hype and I goddamn hate branding!
I would not buy a perfume because some over-paid star had their fisog on it, I detest the way celebs are used to get people to part with their hard-earned cash.
So therefore if I was to offer a different opinion on the issue to the learned Mister Waddle I would have to feel pretty confident in that opinion. Chris is, or was, a highly-rated pundit and I do not wish to pour scorn on his view-point as he is far better placed than me, Mister Chatable, to know what does and does not make a great, or even, world-class player. But, as I said, memory can be affected by many things, I have seen it myself with footballers over the last twenty years, as pundits and newspapermen come up with stuff that now seems like madness. In fact it wasn’t that long ago that various bods in the press were saying the Alan Shearer shouldn’t be playing and that Andy Cole should take his place on a regular basis. Of course now, with what we know looking back, we recognise this for the bollocks it was, but often people’s judgement gets clouded, by a desire for instant results at the time, and later also plain old dislike and jealousy.
The haters all look at why he shouldn’t be included as one of the top players, BUT, let’s do the opposite, let’s look at why he should?
Let’s analyze what makes a great player, but wait, we can’t, because on that pitch their are 11 players and each one needs different skills to be good at their job. For example, Chris Waddle would probably say that Zinedine Zidane was a better player than Claude Makelele. Zidane had a bucketful of tricks up his sleeve and was one of the most skillful players the game has even seen and probably the best I have seen in my lifetime. But without Makelele at Madrid, the trophies dried-up for Zidane. Makelele wasn’t a trickster or a wizard and he wasn’t particularly pacey BUT, he could really pass the ball and he had vision.
Vision is something that most of the great players have, the ability to see what will happen before it does. Beckham had that.
The ability to pass the ball and dead-ball skills are things that Waddle mentions glibly, almost as though they should be ignored and forgotten, the great thing about this as far as Beckham is concerned is that the England team in his absence proved just how much of a skill this is as a largely Beckham-less England forgot how to pass a ball, seemed to lose the ability to take corners and made free-kicks seem like something from the other team to take the ball back and score from. MacLaren may have wanted to show the press he was his own man by dropping Beckham (and after a couple of easy wins the press where certainly all “David Who? A-ha ha ha!) but that was arguably the decision that came back to bite Stevie MacDutch in his short tenure as England manager.
If the England team proved anything without David Beckham it was that passing and dead-ball skills were skills in themselves (even though in pictures he looks a right spanner when performing one of those free kicks, as you can see!)
And now for the last, you see, as I said at the beginning, people tend to have short memories and the one thing that I cannot forget that a lot of people have is just how intimidating he was on the pitch to the oppostion, because, like all great players, not GOOD ones, GREAT ones, they are a threat everywhere on the pitch and this was what Beckham, at the height of his skills, was and I can say this hand on heart because I just watched what was probably one of his greatest games, Germany 1 England 5. At his best this was what made him a great player because it didn’t matter where he was, he could be a threat anywhere on the pitch almost and launch defense into attack, differently to Makelele, but just as effective.
If you’re looking at a top England eleven in terms of positions then Becks would be in most people’s on the right of the pitch (Sorry Chris!) and if he wasn’t (in favour of sir Stan, of course!) then he would be in most people’s England top 22 for sure.
I was going to conclude this by pointing out that memory tends to be comprisable and that time would show us what was real, stripped of both PR and branding AND also the similarities between Bryan Robson and Beckham in that Robson was probably unappreciated to some degree when he was playing for England and that time would show us what we’ve missed. Thankfully I don’t need to do that. Last night’s friendly did that for me. Since those heady days of 2001 we have lost far more than we’ve gained both in terms of Premiership quality and also National ability, but I’ll save that rant for another post.
I’m Mister Chatable, I’ve been unappreciated and hated today and will certainly be so tomorrow.
A tribute to the greatest living Englishman: Chris Waddle!
PERFECT MOVIE MOMENTS PART 2: ONE THAT EVERYONE I KNOW WILL PROBABLY BE SICK OF HEARING ABOUT.
I know to those people who are close to me this choice will be one they will no doubt be rolling their eyes at as it is one that I have before now. It is the first scene after the legendary credits of a seventies blockbuster and it features one of the cleverest first lines of dialogue ever created. It made everyone in the cinema sit up and pay attention and it was arguably the first Superhero blockbuster and eventually (VERY eventually in fact) it became the blueprint for most of the superhero films that came after. It is of course SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE.
SUPERMAN (1978)
Now while the intro is stunning, and probably on it’s own deserves to classed as a perfect movie moment (fancy that ...Credits, as a perfect moment) with an opening musical score that is one of John Williams finest. The score at the beginning sounds as if the Director’s notes on the opening intro just said “Go nuts!” But it’s not my perfect movie moment, oh no, that distinction falls to the first scene past the credits which for a superhero movie was incredibly bold for this was the first time anyone had really tried to take the idea of a Superhero film seriously and so it needed to launch itself in a way that the audience would as well. But how?
In the casting of course for Jor-El and Lex Luthor the producers cast 2 oscar-winning giant thespians in the shape of Marlon Brando (who is very good) and the Gene Hackman (who is AMAZING as Luthor in an absolute acting masterclass that is criminally under-rated!) These two actors ground the work and take it seriously so that we take it seriously. But that alone would not be enough, in order for the film to work the opening scene needed to have a statement of intent that the film-makers were taking the idea seriously also.
So we start with the trial of the three super-villains, Non, Ursa and General Zod, with Jor-El acting as the prosecution to the council of wise-men who govern Krypton. All of the council, Jor-El included banish the villains to the phantom zone and send them spinning into space to be trapped forever (or so it seems). It is a great scene and both Brando as the implacable Jor-El and Terence Stamp as General Zod give their all as both captor and captive.
But it is the opening piece of dialogue that makes this a perfect movie moment. The writers, director and producer clearly wanted a way to tell the audience that this wasn’t just a comic book for kids, but a serious movie idea, so how best to say that? why, do it in the first line of course. When Jor-El states...
“THIS IS NO FANTASY, NO CARELESS PRODUCT OF WILD IMAGINATION!”
He may be referring to the trial, but his is also saying this to us the viewer. What we are about to witness is “SUPERMAN” as if real. As if the world of the comic-book and ours had truly combined, it is not subtle, it is unashamedly direct and it is brilliant for it.
So without further ado or analysis, my second perfect movie moment made real.
Enjoy and please feel free to check out my other posts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIieHxfF3o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTiTh6ViNLY
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
RANDOMNESS OF THE LOTTERY OR RATHER IT’S LACK OF RANDOMNESS, SEEMINGLY!
So the £80 million plus jackpot slipped through my fingers again, sadly. Of all the seven numbers to come up at this Tuesday’s jackpot I was only seven numbers away from having the right combination to have my life changed irreparably forever, just seven numbers away from bitching about how much money ruined my life on some crappy show that is a godsend for the flatscreen industry as there must be literally thousands of people up and down the land hurling bottles at their TV’s while these lucky bastards whinge about just how much their lives have been spoiled by the cash (Boo fucking hoo!)
But this did get me thinking, you see, while I did put my regular numbers on as usual I had little hope of winning this time for one simple reason, it wasn’t my time yet. Now before everyone starts to think “IT’S NOT MY TIME EVERY WEEK!” that isn’t what I mean. You see every now and then I’ll win a little bit. Every few months the numbers offer a glimmer of hope and during a window of a few weeks I seem to get a few glimmers. It seems like luck is smiling on me and over a few weeks I may win 3 times or so, and then nothing for ages.
Now, we are told the lottery is random and that it’s all luck, hell the same numbers could come out each week, exactly the same, but of course, they don’t, but they do seem to (for a few weeks anyway) and I wondered if anyone else appears to go through this oddly synchronous shading of fortune. Was it just me who suffered these massive dry patches where even getting one number was problematic before hitting a mini-lucrative purple patch?
If you know what I’m talking about please feel free to comment in the box below as I would like to know if I’m alone in this.
SOME GREAT MOVIE MOMENTS AREN’T WRITTEN ON THE PAGE - THEY HAPPEN DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCE.
As anyone who knows me knows I love movies. I adore these stories, often revisited and enjoyed so many times over the decades that I have lost count of the amounts of times I have watched some of them, but like anything movies can be broken down further, and very often it can be one scene in particular that pulses like the beating heart of the movie or captivates audiences in a way that in some cases wasn’t expected at first, like as an off-the-cuff example, the sword scene in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, a scene borne out of Harrison Ford’s need to recover from being ill that, for many people, in spite of all the other class stuff in there, is probably the most memorable moment as it embodies Indiana so well as you can see...
BUT that isn’t the moment I want to talk about, oh no, that is a mere example of what I want to discuss. You see, the perfect movie moment I want to share with you all today is from an absolute classic, it’s a best picture winner that, I feel at least, needed to win to let America heal from the sullying of the American dream after Watergate, it propelled Sylvester Stallone to stardom and created an Iconic movie character and amazingly enough, in spite of all the great lines, the one line it is most remembered for is “Yo, Adrian!”
The film of course is
ROCKY (1976)
And the scene is this one from 3:33 onwards.
To me the second scene, “Alone in the Ring” is a pivotal moment in the film. It’s the heartbreaking moment when Rocky realises that although he has trained hard to shake off the feeling he is nothing, that he had tried to become the fighter that his trainer always believed he could be, his opponent and their entire camp think of him as nothing, they regard him as a distraction until better fighters can come along. After Jurgens tells him it to "Try and get some rest, kid!" Rokcy tries to speak but can't and merely nods, disconsolately. It is a heartbreaking moment in the film and leads to the scene with Adrian where he talks about what he’s going to do and why?
The direction, the writing, the performances and the music in this moment in the ring all sync to create this incredible mood and powerful counterpoint to the film as it drags us back into reality of this no-hoper fighting the champ. It is truly an excellent scene.
BUT ...More importantly as I found out today, it was also not in the original script.
The scene was apparently written after the art for Rocky was done and they had “Got the shorts wrong”. Being a low-budget picture they couldn’t afford to have the artwork redone and so created this scene, which to me is amazing. What was in its place within the script at this point? How was the pathos before the fight created? WTF, man?
Now I am a big fan of movie writing and this blew my mind. Most of my favourite comedies are from scripts that are so tightly constructed and gag-packed that you cannot imagine that any of it was improvised when they went to the filming stage (examples being “DUCK SOUP’, “PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM”, “BLAZING SADDLES” and “AIRPLANE”) and so for the beating heart from “ROCKY” just to be created because someone had done the painting wrong made me re-think this.
You see that’s the thing about Movies, like all writing, like all creative thinking in fact, it’s all improvised, from the first tap of the keys to the first-brush stroke, to the first smashing of the chisel against the marble. The writer is a collaborative tool in the process of the creation of a movie, and, as it is a collaborative effort, it is only fitting that sometimes, just sometimes, it is circumstances and happenstance that create these perfect movie moments and not a writer sitting in a darkened room happily smashing away at the keys.
WHY WE TRAIN? A QUESTION ASKED AND AN ANSWER GIVEN.
Most people that weight train know that the best time to build muscle is between 18 to 35, after that you still can but it gets harder and you’re more prone to injury and trust me I know how that feels.
The other Sunday I had what can only be described as a monster training session, at the end of which my muscles were rippling and the vein’s popping down my arm, by the end of the workout I felt like THOR after a combined total lifts of over 8oolbs! (I use the combined weights as they sound more impressive than the weights per exercise, and I also use lbs instead of kgs for the same reason!) However only a few hours after watching Chelsea and Man U play one of the most dismal games of the season I found myself seizing up as if I was IRON MAN in a rusty suit. The only word to adequately describe the pain I was in is “OW!”
And at the end of all this I asked myself the question, knowing what I know about the best years to train and how much more at risk of injury I am these days, why do it? Why do I train still, especially as I’m never gonna be huge; my muscle insertion points and tendons prevent that to some degree and also the fact that I have work and a family and other minor distractions to contend with from becoming a full-time weight-lifter. So why train?
I guess when I asked that I had to face some pretty awkward answers, the first reason that sprang to mind certainly was one I didn’t really want to look at “Vanity”. I have to admit there is a definite massive enjoyment out of what I would class as “THE LOOK” immediately after training, combined with the endorphins and testosterone buzzing around yourself it is a kick that’s hard to beat.
To some degree I’d also say “Fear”. I remember how it felt to look in the mirror at some skinny bloke when I stopped training and that feeling constantly not of what could have been but what already was. I remember how awful that felt and I do not want to live with that again.
But there is one thing that keeps me going more than those things, a driving force that motivates me more than anything else to whether the storm of pain that greets me after a particularly hard session in the gym and that’s the viewpoints of two of the most important people in my life.
You see when my youngest boy says to me that I’m strong, I know he’s not saying it to swell my head, he’s saying it because he knows it’s true, and likewise when my eldest asks me to train him it’s not because he thinks I’m crap (although he might say that) it’s because deep down he knows that what I have built is pretty decent and he’d like to have the same if not better (when he becomes 18 I will bestow upon him the training secrets that built my frame!)
I don’t know how many more good training years I have left in me and how long I can keep pounding the gym and straining my body without doing some terrible damage, but as long as they think highly of me I will keep moving those weights until my tendons pop and muscles seize up.
WOULD THE WRONG TYPE OF PASSENGER PLEASE LEAVE THE TRAIN? BRITAIN’S RAIL NETWORK SINKS TO A NEW LOW AND IN TURN GETS ME VERY ANGRY!
Now, on my blog I rarely rant. I tell stories, I list favourite things and I give the occasional political and financial view on what is happening in the world but I rarely vent my rage here. I leave that for other people, but every now and then something happens that means I can’t let something go, that I have to be enraged, that I have to let go of a fury that is tearing apart my insides and today is one of those days, “but why?” I hear you ask. Well let’s find out.
Now as part of my daily commute from Manchester to Preston I have to endure the connecting train from Bolton to Salford Central, a journey that always suffers from overcrowding and you rarely get a seat. In the mornings the services provided NORTHERN RAIL is, shall we say, a tad over-subscribed and on the return journey home yesterday the train at Salford Central was more packed than usual. Of course it doesn’t help when the rush hour trains are only what I would class as 2-carriage catastrophes, some of these trains are so bad that in the past I have struggled to put a sufficient bad description for them. I would call them buses on tracks but this would be unfair to bus travel which can be far comfier, I would label them as cattle cars with seats but of course their are legal limits on the numbers of cattle one can have in cattle cars, not so with human beings on todays rail network.
So with this in mind we go from Central to Crescent to take on the last load of passengers before proceeding to Bolton. It is here when people start to load in that the train gets really packed. It is so full people at the station are struggling to board and it is then that an announcement is made that I have never heard before.
“WOULD CUSTOMERS GOING TO BOTLON LEAVE THE TRAIN AND GET THE NEXT ONE SO THAT PASSENGERS FOR BLACKPOOL CAN GET ON THE TRAIN?”
Yes, we Bolton travellers were the WRONG type of passenger and our journey requirements classed as, what they call in management groups, “Low Priority”. I have little doubt that it is these self-same management groups that when having such meetings come up with such ideas. I imagine the conversation goes something like this.
“Boss, we can’t fit everyone on our trains, what should we do?”
“Take some off so you can fit more on, Stupid. Duh!”
“But then won’t those passengers then be left on the station?”
“Yeah, but they are low-priority, they can get the next train, idiot!”
“But what if that one’s full?”
“Then we’ll take some passengers off that one. Do I have to do all the thinking round here?!”
Now with such fiendish intellects in charge of our rail networks it’s no wonder that the service is going swimmingly but in reality there were a couple of things that prevented this plan being the idea of genius, firstly take a look at these pictures.
HOW THE FUCK WAS ANYONE MEANT TO GET OFF THIS TRAIN? Look at the state of it. JUST LOOK AT IT! In this train which supposedly holds around 103 passengers seated I counted at least 34 standing in this carriage alone and that’s the people in my line of sight, there may have been others I couldn’t see but this meant that if the same story was repeated in the next carriage that the train was over-subscribed by up to 62%.
That’s the first thing the management team may wish to look at, the next being this.
PASSENGERS DO NOT LIVE AT FUCKING TRAIN STATIONS!!! In a board room hundreds of miles away from reality it must seem like if your train is delayed by 5 minutes then you are only delayed by 5 minutes but of course for anyone who commutes we all know that this is not true. Many people who commute have to make a second journey either by another train or by another mode of transport like a bus which is what I endure. If I had elected to get off here I would have missed the bus I should have been on and had to catch the next one and they are every 10 minutes.
“You only had to wait 10 minutes for the next bus? Big deal” I hear you say, BUT WAIT, that night as I managed to catch the bus I should have been on (Just!) I noticed that as I left Bolton 2 busses turned up at once meaning that this “DELAY OF ONLY A FEW MINUTES” would have transformed into a delay of 20 minutes (My bus ten minutes later being delayed by another 10 minutes. 10 + 10 = 20!)
And the worst thing about all of this is that in spite of me having a damn good bitch on here about the terrible state of the network nothing will change. Northern Rail have supposedly hit their targets set and the franchise has been extended. Comfort, customer satisfaction, overcrowding and safety are just the few things I wonder are included in such surveys. Safety no doubt will be included but only in terms of deaths and serious injury (In the large standing areas when the trains are overcrowded there’s often nothing to hold onto except other passengers and when these buckets take a corner. GULP!)
So in honour of our lousy network, that sees the company with the highest customer satisfaction level attempted to be replaced on the Great Western Line by the newtork at the bottom of the same surveys. See below for just how satisfied FIRST rail passengers look!
Please see some of my favourite photo’s which really do show an insider view of our clapped-out dilapidated private rail network.
I’m Mr Chatable and you’ve really pissed me off! http://www.buzzpatrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Samuel-L-Jackson-in-Pulp-Fiction.jpg
