URTwitter

NEILL says:

As should be now be apparent, there is a lot of Stuff in the world, and the business of systematically reviewing it all and assigning marks out of 10 is time-consuming, difficult and highly dangerous. A top URT think-tank of scientists, mathematicians and cheese connoisseurs was recently convened to assess the situation, and its findings are summarised in the following formula.

x(S+N)
_________
U

S represents the amount of Stuff in the world.
N represents New Stuff.
x is the rate of increase in the amount of Stuff.
U is the rate at which Unified Review Theory is actually managing to Review Stuff.

The implications are clear and terrifying. Not only is Unified Review Theory not currently making any significant progress in reviewing the Stuff backlog, but the exponential increase in Stuff means that we are actually, in real terms, moving backwards.

Clearly this situation cannot be allowed to stand. To increase our efficiency and Stuff Turnover Rate we are pleased to announce the introduction of URT on Twitter, whereby your faithful reviewers Neill and James will continue to review everything, but in manageable and convenient 140-character chunks.

You can follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/urtheory

Unified Review Theory - Reviewing Stuff For Today's Busy Lifestyle!

Unified Review Theory - the PODCAST

Yes, we have recorded a podcast! In this first-ever episode of Unified Review Theory, join your hosts Neill and James as we continue our ongoing mission to Review Everything. Only this time, you know, by TALKING. In this packed episode, we take it back to the 90's with a review of beloved time-travel TV series Quantum Leap, and get in touch with our highland roots with a frank and full discussion of the Cameron Family Motto.

Just click the above image , or follow this link:

http://www.archive.org/download/NeillandJamesCameronUnifiedReviewTheory-Podcast01_0/URT_podcast_00196kbps.mp3

We will put it on iTunes and stuff if we ever figure out how. Also, if we ever record another.

Your thoughts, comments and feedback would be very welcome, as would be suggestions of stuff for us to review in future episodes! Just leave comments below, or on our Facebook page.

Enjoy!

A Slight Return

Many years ago two naive and insightful young men started a website, with nothing more than a domain name, a pirated copy of Photoshop and a burning desire to categorise the relative merits of every single one of God's creations. Thus was born Unified Review Theory, and it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Assuming their wildest dreams were that not even their wives would read it.

Which they weren't.

Eventually, however, these brave young arbiters of taste reached a stage in their career where they no longer had enough spare time at work to trawl the internet for pictures of Luke Cage, Power Man. Loathe to waste their own free time on the site, it eventually petered out in a whimper of mediocre guest reviewers and lazy one liners. And, for a while, silence.

Seasons past, mortgages were arranged and babies were born. But the reviewing urge, once awakened, is not so easy to put back in the box. With no legitimate outlet for these tendencies they found themselves furtively giving their co-workers marks out of 10, debating the finer points of each new wave of McDonalds limited edition burgers into the small hours and being overly critical of their own children's achievements. Eventually they could fight it no longer, they must resurrect URT.

So, prepare yourself to have your opinions belittled as Neill and James return in...

Unified Review Theory II: The Harrowing

URT REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2004

Everyone else has one, why can't we? Merry Christmas everybody!

BEST ALBUM

NEILL says: White People - Handsome Boy Modelling School. Handsome music for handsome people! Everyone should buy this record, but unfortunately not everyone is good-looking enough. 8.7/10

Runners-up: The College Dropout - Kanye West (8.2/10), The Concretes - The Concretes (8/10)

BEST SINGLE

JAMES says: 'Take Me Out' by Franz Ferdinand. Although it has been out for about a year and I did start to get sick of it around August, when it first came out it was a stomping busting piece of nonsensical greatness. 8.6/10

BEST OTHERWISE GREAT HIP-HOP ALBUM RUINED BY AN ENTIRELY UNNECCESSARY FINAL TRACK WHERE THE RAPPER BANGS ON FOR TWENTY MINUTES ABOUT EVERY BLOODY THING THAT EVER HAPPENED IN THEIR CAREER IN A FRENZY OF GRATUIITOUS SELF-AGGRANDISEMENT

NEILL says: The College Dropout - Kanye West. 8.2/10

Runner-up: Speakerboxx - Outkast (6.6/10)


BEST GIG

NEILL says: An Evening with Jurassic 5, LIVE at the Kentish Town Forum (July)- I don't know when I have ever experienced a moment of such pure and complete happiness as when they launched into 'A Day at the Races'. 9/10

BEST CRISP

NEILL says: Walkers' Sensations Peking Spare Rib flavour. Innovatively, they actually taste like the thing it says on the packet. And that thing is Ribs! 7.2/10

JAMES says: 'Tesco Great British Roast Pork and Apple Sauce flavour crisps'. While all focus is on Walkers, the actual breakthroughs in crisp flavour technology is occurring at the smaller Tesco lab. These crisps are twice as good because they actually taste like two different things, distinctively. 7.7/10

WORST ADVERT

JAMES says: So many to choose from, but I'd have to go for William Shatner's Bran Flakes radio adverts. Partly because they're on at the moment, and annoyance diminishes with time, but mainly because of the way he pronounces 'yoghurty'. I implore all readers to join me in boycotting bran flakes while these adverts continue. 0.3/10

Runner-up: Those ones for Argos or whatever it is with that cunt Richard E Grant. 1/10

BEST YEAR

JAMES says: 2004 was clearly the year of the year. Everyone was talking about 2004 this year. 8.2/10

BEST SATIRE

JAMES says: My satire of end of year reviews, just then. 2.3/10


BEST RESTARAUNT (FISH)

NEILL says: The Seafood Cafe, St Ives. A fiercely contested category, to be sure, but I would have to say this edged out any other Restaraunts (Fish) I have been to this year. 8.6/10

www.seafoodcafe.co.uk


BEST RESTAURANT (MEAT, BIG JUIICY PILES OF MEAT)

JAMES says: Bodean's BBQ, Soho. As previously mentioned, Bodean's is still so the place to go for big juicy piles of meat. Wouldn't you agree, Neill? 8.8/10

NEILL says: Mmmmshrggrrrmmmpphhm.


WORST BEDINGFIELD

JAMES says: Daniel. Fighting off unusually stiff competition, Daniel maintained his worst Bedingfield crown for 2004. How's he gonna get thru this? 0.7/10

WORST HUMAN BEING

NEILL says: My ex-housemate Kate. Evil, psychotic, hateful and just generally not the sort of person one would want to go for pretzels with. Mentally and physically repulsive in equal terms, her stunted social skills and freakish appearance earned her many affectionate nicknames such as 'Grandma Death', 'Skeletor' and 'That Fucking Mental Bitch'. Still, at least she'll die alone and unhappy. Hurrah! 0.1/10

Runners-up: Dick Cheney, Daniel Bedingfield, me...

BEST THING

JAMES says: My iPod, not just this year but ever. By crikey but I love music piracy. In a detached, aesthetic way. 9.4/10

NEILL says: The Portfolio Review session at the London Comics Festival, October 2004. By crikey but I love having my ego massaged. 9.4/10

WORST THING

NEILL says: Same as it ever was: Having a Rubbish Job. 0.2/10


...did we miss anything?

Being too busy to update this site

(Regrettable State of Affairs)



NEILL says:

I would just like to humbly apologise to our loyal, charming and uncommonly attractive reader base for the shocking lack of activity going on around URT manors lately. James is very busy at the moment learning to be an accountant, and I am similarly busy learning to be a comic book artist. Wow, I win that one, huh? All this career-focussed busy-ness is of course very commendable and sensible and all, but the regrettable side-effect is that you poor chaps end up staring at my review of 'Sense and Sensibility' for a full month. And, you know, it's funny, but it's not THAT funny.

Who am I kidding? It really IS that funny. But, um, sorry anyway.

To tide y'all over until things calm down a bit and we can get back 'on project' (likely to be around end of November), why not amuse yourself with some CLASSIC REVIEWS from the archives... scroll down the right hand side of the page, it's all there, every single bit of trivial blithering we ever saw fit to clog up the internet with. Or alternatively, here are a few of my personal favourites, in a little feature I like to call...

URT GOLD!!!

Ahem.

NEILL's favourite reviews by JAMES:

• Brainiac


• Just Between Us, by Cathy Kelly


• Dawson's Creek


• Comparitive Review: Violet Berlin vs. Sir Isaiah Berlin


• Minced Beef

JAMES' favourite Reviews by NEILL:

• Having a Giant Robot


• Comparitive Review: Hulk vs. Thing


• Xander off Buffy


• Death by Daiquiri


• Premature Baldness

Look, we promise not to do this again. Um, for a while.

2.5/10

Neill and James review Neill and James

Neill Cameron
(Person)



NEILL says:

Reviewing oneself; amusing gimmick or soul-crushing excercise in humiliation that could have been lifted from page one of 'Scientology for Beginners'? That may have been a slightly loaded question. I suppose it's really just a question of verbalising what I in fact spend most minutes of most days doing, in one way or another. If there is one source of more misery and human suffering in our society than anything else, I dare say it is the regrettably widespread practise of comparing oneself to others. That or 'Hollyoaks', anyway. Or maybe I'm just comparing myself to the wrong people; I spend a lot of time berating myself for not being a walking combination of Bertrand Russell, Brad Pitt and Oscar Wilde, whereas in fact perhaps I should try to focus more on feeling thankful that I am not a walking combination of Herman Goering and Bernard Matthews. Actually, that was probably a bad example.

The goal of course is to put an end to such comparisons altogether; to eliminate the endless cravings of the unquiet 'I' through genuine self-knowledge and acceptance. The only problem with this plan is that, unfortunately, I'm not actually Buddha. I just look a bit like him.

Neill Cameron: nice guy, quite polite, makes a mean Hawaiian Omelette.

7.4/10



James Cameron
(Person)



JAMES says:

What to say about me that hasn't been said before? I certainly have my good points. I'm reasonably trustworthy and thoughtful. I'm great at accountancy exams. Really, absolutely top notch. I also bow to no man in my table football skills, though only if I'm allowed to play in defence. Actual football is another story, but anyway. I like to think I'm quite a creative person. My major weakness, other than kryptonite, is a complete lack of motivation. If it's a choice between getting off my arse and actually doing something, or watching an episode of the Simpsons I've seen 50 times, 60% of the time it's Simpsons. I'm also vain, as you might come to realise, and yet not overly concerned with my manner of dress. Also, for a number of years in the nineties I had a goatee and played in a metal band. Still, when it comes to thinking of a mark you've really got to consider the rest of humanity. They are by and large ignorant scum. I would certainly put myself in the upper 20%. Therefore my mark is going to have to be a whopping

8/10

URT Mission Statement

We’ve all had the same thoughts – ‘What is better, Norway or Swivel Chairs’, ‘Should I buy the Dolph Lungren box-set or spend the money on fried chicken?’ Well, wonder no more! In this ongoing project (estimated completion date – 2106) Government appointed arbiters of taste Neill and James Cameron, and their descendents, will review everything in the world, and give it a score out of ten.

Thus, we will finally get the answer to the question what is the best thing in the world, ever (it’s swivel chairs).

To aid in the easy dissemination of our findings, we have prepared a handy table of results so far, which throws up such fascinating insights as the fact that Cartesian Dualism is worse than 'Varsity Blues', but they're both better than Julie Burchill. That's a scientific FACT!

Our Readers

(uh, that would be you)



NEILL says:

I happened the other day to look at some statistics on who is using this site, and I was frightened to the very core of my soul. By way of explanation, allow me to share with you the top ten list of search terms that have led people to this our humble pages…

1 byker grove spuggy
2 chart of the aristotle's doctrine of the mean
3 destiny's nightclub watford
4 freud egotist
5 geoff spuggy byker
6 greer grant nelson stories
7 hundred monkey theory
8 sigmund freud egotist
9 spuggy byker
10 spuggy geoff byker sex

The first thing that shocked me upon seeing this list was the idea that there is someone else in the world besides James sad enough to know who the hell 'Greer Grant Nelson' is (don't ask, you don't want to know). However, this soon paled into nothingness besides the frankly horrifying realisation that there are people out there searching the internet for information pertaining to SPUGGY FROM BYKER GROVE. And… I'm reading between the lines here, and the thought is almost too awful to put into words, but… it can't be true, can it… in a…. sexual context? Gah! My whole body shuddered as I typed that sentence! What is wrong with you people? And why the HELL are you ending up at our site? I am stunned and more than a little depressed. Here we are, doing our best for you, trying to provide a public service in a way that is entertaining and informative, but is that enough for you people? No, you don't care about that, you want to read about Geoff from Byker Grove FUCKING SPUGGY. You sick freaks! You monsters! Is this what we have to do to get readers nowadays? Will we see a sudden spike in hits if I start talking about P.J. FISTING DUNCAN??!! I bet we will, too! Jesus Christ.

I thought this was the most disturbing concept my addled brain was capable of grasping; that the internet could be populated by creepy subnormals obsessed with the idea of underage ginger-headed bushpigs performing VILE SEX ACTS with fat moustachioed Geordies. But no, there was worse to come! What if the person hounding Google for such abberant information wasn't simply some spectacularly misguided pervert? What if it was someone with a more personal interest, someone trawling the internet for some evidence of their long-past, all-but-forgotten taste of glory? What if… it was Spuggy?

If you're out there and you're reading this, Spuggy… uh, please go away.

3/10

Trying to ignore the presence of Unified Review Theory Website whilst at work

(Displacement activity)



Guest Reviewer DEBBIE says:

Have you any idea how difficult this is? Once again, I have a stack of work to do, a stack of reports that I unforgivably demanded someone gave me so I could process them as a matter of urgency and almost immediately after I had taken those reports with that efficient smile that only a really responsible Office Manager can muster, I could feel your website beckoning.

"Come to me...you know you want to...you know you haven't visited me for a while...you know that this precise moment in time is more appropriate than tomorrow's lunch break or a period when you aren't so busy..come on, they might have had time to review that superb Murder Mystery party you threw
last weekend.."

"So what if people need these reports" thought I, "James and Neill's website it much more important. One little peek would be alright, wouldn't it?"

To be honest I was only there for 10 minutes but that was enough. It is now twenty to five and the chances of me doing any more work have now been ruined. I used to be such a disciplined young lady - a thoroughly reliable worker. Now your evil, seductive website has turned me into a URT-junkie.
What are you going to do about this, James and Neill?

Well, I'll tell you what I am going to do; there are only 50 minutes left of my working day, no point in starting anything new, I'm going to write another review.

Bad, bad all bad.

3/10