Burger King's NEW Winter Whopper!

(Burger)



NEILL says:

There has been much furore in the press recently over the issue of junk food and its negative effects on the health of the nation's youth. Concerned cultural commentators have suggested that the television advertising of fatty snacks, drinks and fast food should be restricted or banned altogether during childrens programming. This seems to me an example of the worst sort of insidious pseudo-liberal fascism and as such I am, predictably, entirely for it. The one caveat I would offer is that the proposals do not go far enough; okay, fine, protect the children, but what about that other group in society who are far more vulnerable and susceptible to these evils? I speak of course of the hungover. Over the duration of the Sunday morning 'Hollyoaks' omnibus, I estimate that one would see the Burger King 'Winter Whopper' advert at least 170,000 times. (This figure presupposes the viewer having the mental fortitude and lack of discrimination to watch said omnibus in its entirety, which is of course absurd, but the point remains.) Who among us has the strength to resist target marketing of such persistence and cynical ninja precision? Well, obviously not me. Anyway, the Winter Whopper: quite nice really, in an artery-clogging self-loathing creeping-sense-of-dread-for-western-civilisation kind of way. Possibly a bit too much mustard.

5.3/10

The NME

(Music newspaper)



JAMES says:

The problem with being a zeitgeist surfing publication is that most of the time you just end up looking smug or past it. Such is the case with the NME. While periodically it is ‘where it’s at’, such as during the mid-1990’s and I’m sure other times that I’m too young to know, most of the time it isn’t. It’s at its most sad immediately after such a lime-light hogging experience, desperately trying to predict the next big thing. Especially when the next big thing does come along and it’s something the powers that be at the NME actively despise eg. no guitars involved. At the moment there’s a bit of a mini-revival going on, as a couple of bands that the NME ‘championed’ are actually played on Radio 1 (and in one very disturbing incident on Radio 4. John Humphreys having to talk about the new rock revival, very odd), but the way they go on you’d think the Strokes/White Stripes/Darkness etc. had been made kings of the world and all that is in it. They haven’t even got a #1 single between them furchrissakes.

There are 2 main problems with the NME. Firstly it’s written by music journalists. People with names like Johnny Cigarettes. People who can neither play music nor even write very well, yet still feel they can appoint themselves judge and arbiters of all culture. Unlike this website obviously. Ahem. But, anyway, these people are invariably assholes. Their need to feel special makes them believe that only they and a select few can see what music is good and everyone else is just plain wrong. Actually, I think I would’ve made a great music journalist.

Anyway, point 2 is that there just isn’t enough stuff to fill a weekly newspaper. Hence any minor news featuring certain bands gets splashed on the front page, eg. ‘Radiohead new haircut’ or ‘Coldplay slaughter Travis in bizarre ritual murder, full pictures inside.’ The rest of the rag is stuffed full of repetitive drivel about bands you’ve never heard of and will never hear of again. Plus you have the intrinsic difficulty of describing music by bands people haven’t heard, leading to a thousand variations of ‘Nick Drake meets the Monkees’ style cliché. And can it really be any other way? When it’s at its best music journalism can impart some of the feeling of excitement that listening to music can, but otherwise writing about music is like designing buildings about dance. Or something.

Only worth buying if it has a free CD.

2.4/10

The First Pint after Work on a Friday

(Pint)



JAMES says:

Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this for some time, so cold, so chilled. It slips down nicely. I tell you, it’s almost worth going to work for this. Mmmm… Oh, it’s gone. Better get another.

8.8/10

The Eighth Pint after Work on a Friday

(Pint)



JAMES says:

What? Hmm… No, she shouldn’t have said that. Are they talking about me? Hang on, my phones going… No, no love, no I’m still in the pub, no you’d better just eat alone, no I know what I said but I’ve just got a round in so I can’t leave now. Aw, Guns’n’Roses, I love this song. Ohhhh, Sweet Child of Myyyynnnee.. Who’s for shooters next?

3.2/10

Xander off Buffy

(Fictional Character)



NEILL says:

"The aim of art", said Camus, "the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it." Albert Camus died in 1960, so it seems contingently unlikely that he was familiar with popular US TV import 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', which any way you look at it is a tremendous shame. Buffy, taken as a work, espouses an ethic of personal responsibility, moral freedom and fraternal loyalty that is thoroughly commendable and not a million miles away from the ideas which drive Camus' own The Plague. What's more, there are kung-fu vampires. At the heart of Buffy (the show) is the character of Xander Harris. In a chaotic sea of supernatural evil, demonic warfare and lesbian empowerment, he is a point of viewer identification par excellence; the everyman's everyman. We laugh as he makes obscure Jimmy Olsen jokes. We sympathise as he gets beaten up by every monster-of-the-week for seven straight years. And, crucially, we cheer as he notches up intimate relations with (to name but a few, to date) Alyson Hannigan, Emma Caulfield and Eliza Dukshu; this is a show that understands audience wish-fulfilment alarmingly well.

Surrounded by his more colourful and dramatically interesting castmates, the hapless, geeky Xander rarely gets a chance to truly shine. He hangs out with witches, warriors and werewolves, yet his own powers stretch only so far as the well-timed sarcastic quip (to wit: "mix in a little rectal surgery and its my best day ever", "just because you're better than us doesn`t mean you can be all superior", and the classic "I laugh in the face of danger, then I hide till it goes away"). However, when get he does get a show to himself, it's a goody and then some. The one time Buffy has run with a wholly and unreservedly Xander-centric episode, Season 3's formally experimental zombiefest 'The Zeppo', is renowned amongst true connoisseurs of the arts the world over as, well, pretty much the Best Thing Ever. Seriously - it's a total cultural barometer. Try applying this simple rule yourself, on meeting a new person: do they dig 'The Zeppo'? If yes: this is a person it is worth getting to know better. If not... well, I leave it to your judgement.

The downside to viewer identification this strong is that it cuts both ways, and later seasons of Buffy became increasingly uncomfortable to watch due to Nicholas Brendon's ever-puffier jowels and intangible but accumulating air of 'angry bitter failure'. One has to feel some slight concern for the actor's future, as well - once upon a time he was a fresh-faced young man with a nice line in teen-Chandler-Bing schtick, and was even hotly tipped for the role of Peter Parker in the then-proposed cinematic version of Spider-Man. That was a long time ago. But, hey, screw it. I wish him nothing but the best. Xander, we salute you. Through you we have had seven years of absorbing good-hearted escapist entertainment, which I dare say has probably added something to the inner freedom of at least some of those who have known and loved it.

7.7/10

JAMES Says:

I dig 'the Zeppo'! Although I always identified more strongly with Buffy.

7.3/10

Finance Leases

(Fiscal arrangement)



JAMES says:

A finance lease is a form of raising capital for an expensive asset. Rather than paying rent to simply use the asset (an operating lease), the company takes on the risks, such as maintenance, and rewards of the item, and the payments made are treated as the servicing of finance. This can often be cheaper than using a bank loan or other type of finance to buy the equipment, though the company cannot then raise further finance using the asset as collateral. Finance leases obviously aren’t appropriate in all circumstances, but if the asset is needed in the long-term they are certainly worth keeping in mind.

6.2/10

Sideswipe

(Heroic Autobot)



JAMES says:

If the Fonz was a transformer he’s be Sideswipe. He was a bit of a rebel (his motto is ‘I don’t break rules but I bend them a lot), though his rash actions sometimes led to injuries to himself, his headstrong recklessness acted as a useful balance to Optimus Prime’s overly-thought out tactics. Though his firepower rating was only 3, he still had a courage level of 10. He was so much less annoying than his brother Sunstreaker and best of all he turned into a red sports car. Though it was never shown in the cartoon, Sideswipe undoubtedly scored with all the transformer babes (e.g. Arcee). Either that or he was just a bit sad and going through a mid-life crisis. Like all the cool transformers Sidesipe got killed/injured fairly early on in the game to make way for stories about pretendercons and headmasters, but if there was any justice he would’ve got his own spin off series. Where he moves to San Francisco and has comedy adventures with his gay neighbour (played by Kevin ‘Hercules’ Sorbo).

8.8/10

Humble Boy

By Charlotte Jones, Dir: John Caird
Royal National Theatre production – Oxford Playhouse, 29 October
(Play)



Guest Reviewer of the Week SHEILA CAMERON says:

An ‘award winning play’, - the Daily Telegraph ’cannot recommend this lovely play too highly’. Reviews in the Guardian, Times and Sunday Times produced similarly fulsome word-bites. Even the Financial Times said you should ‘not miss this’.

If ever there was proof that you should not believe the press, this week in Oxford was it. Everyone I spoke to considered leaving at the interval and felt at the end that they took the wrong decision. (I didn’t get to talk to those who actually left.) OK, there were highlights. The set was ‘sumptuously designed’ (Guardian) – a riot of waist high grass dotted with roses. And the ‘Boy’s’ trousers were a joy to behold. Tight on waist and thigh, crotch almost to the knees, and over-long in leg. Overall effect of elephant in cricket whites was classic. But you can only appreciate fat boy in the long grass for so long, and appreciation is shortened if the cast are haranguing each other in voices painfully loud for the size of theatre in pursuit of a plot that totally escaped me. Yes there were jokes, but they were tied on as loosely as the gratuitous soliloquies on superstring theory. Example: Mrs Humble (Hayley Mills, looking younger than her supposed son) is engaged to Mr Pie. (Gerrit? In case not, it was firmly pointed out that they would become the Humble Pies….) And more of this ilk. Not, in my view ‘funny, very, very, funny’ (Sunday Times). Guess their critic likes banana skins too. Overall a night in with a good book would have been preferable. And even in hardback, probably cheaper.

3/10

The Matrix Revolutions

Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski
(FIlm)



NEILL says:

Because I'm having something of a zen day, and so as not to reveal any explicit plot spoilers for my hapless co-reviewer, who has failed to see it yet, I'd like to review this film in the form of a haiku:

Superman Kung Fu,
Think that's air you're not breathing?
Our Lord, Thou Art Ted.


6.9/10

Kid Koala

Live in Borders, Magdalen St, Nov 11th
(Like, happening, cat)



NEILL says:

Kid Koala is a phenomenally talented Canadian scratch DJ who, amongst many other notable achievements, has supplied a couple of the finest moments on one of the finest albums ever recorded (Nathaniel Merriweather Presents... Lovage: Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By, in case you're interested), and has also written and illustrated a highly successful graphic novel (Nufonia Must Fall, in case you're interested). Clearly, this guy is just taking the piss. I am starting to suspect his very existence a complicated scheme to piss me off and make me jealous, engineered by my nefarious all-powerful nemesis (Dermot Hill, in case you're interested).

Anyway, the boy Koala done well at his very entertaining if regrettably brief in-store personal appearance come DJ set come slideshow come bingo game, in the coffee shop in Borders this Tuesday. He made us laugh, he dazzled us with a virtuoso scratch-heavy reworking of a Louis Armstrong instrumental, he made 'Moon River' sound like it's never sounded before, and he confused all hell out of the old ladies who were trying to have a quiet chat over a latte. Over far too soon, but still worth skiving night-school for.

7/10