absinthe friends

The Last Act?

2010-04-04T18:18:00.003+02:00

To those that still read this blog,

My pitiful attempts to re-start the blogging have thus far come to naught. Fundamentally, I just cannot motivate myself and to a great extent this lack of motivation springs from the fiddly nature of Blogger and the rubbish template/layout that I presently have. For some time I have been considering migrating to Wordpress or Tumblr but far more interesting things have cropped up, like eating and learning how to play mah jong. Thankfully a nerdlinger friend came to me with a blogging offer I was too lazy and ambivalent to refuse. So from now on this blog will continue here.

And once again for those who prefer links written out fully.

http://mevorama.com/wordpress/author/abidrahman/

As you can see, the layout is infinitely better, cleaner, higher, faster, stronger. Like a velvet panther. There are also a few other people writing things so I won't feel as compelled to update as frequently for my audience of 2 readers (that's what Google Analytics is telling me, to think I was hitting three figures a day at one point...sad face).

The entire archive of posts from this blog have been imported over to the new Wordpress platform so you can still read things from the past, which I have done recently and I have come to the realisation that...

1. I went blog crazy in November 2008 and its all been downhill since.
2. I really really really love football.
3. I really really really love lists.
4. I have made at least 6 attempts to blog again with subsequent failure.
5. I am not even half as funny as I like to think I am and twice as pretentious.

So that's it. Any and all new posts will be on the Wordpress blog, but I will keep this blog open so the more indolent amongst us can use this post as link to the new one (yes I am usually too lazy to bookmark new things as well). See you on the new page for the same old hackneyed attempts at being funny and my precious insights on football.

I remain your humble internet diarist,

AR

Very interesting reading

2010-03-23T07:33:00.001+01:00

Taken from the Sporting Intelligence website, which is brilliant.

Mind the drop: former Premier League clubs

Barnsley – last relegation 1998 (one season in EPL in one spell), now in Championship. Went into administration after EPL drop.

Bradford City – last relegation 2001 (two seasons in EPL in one spell), now in League Two. Went into administration after EPL drop.

Charlton Atheltic – last relegation 2007 (eight seasons in EPL in two spells), now in League One.

Coventry City – last relegation 2001 (nine seasons in EPL in one spell), now in Championship. Narrowly avoided administration in 2007.

Crystal Palace – last relegation 2005 (four seasons in EPL in four spells), now in Championship. Went into administration after 1999 EPL drop. And again in January 2010.

Derby County – last relegation 2008 (seven seasons in EPL in two spells), now in Championship.

Ipswich Town – last relegation 2002 (five seasons in EPL in two spells), now in Championship. Went into administration after 2002 EPL drop.

Leeds United – last relegation 2004 (12 seasons in EPL in one spell), now in League One. Went into administration after EPL drop.

Leicester City – last relegation 2004 (eight seasons in EPL in three spells), now in League One. Went into administration after 2002 EPL drop.

Middlesbrough – last relegation 2009 (14 seasons in EPL in three spells), now in Championship.

Newcastle United – last relegation 2009 (16 seasons in EPL in one spell), now in Championship.

Norwich City – last relegation 2005 (four seasons in EPL in two spells), now in League One.

Nottingham Forest - last relegation 1999 (five seasons in EPL in threes spell), now in Championship.

Oldham Athletic – last relegation 1994 (two seasons in EPL in one spell), now in League One. Went into administration after EPL drop.

QPR – last relegation 1996 (four seasons in EPL in one spell), now in Championship. Went into administration after EPL drop.

Reading – last relegation 2008 (two seasons in EPL in one spell), now in Championship.

Sheffield United – last relegation 2007 (three seasons in EPL in two spells), now in Championship.

Sheffield Wednesday – last relegation 2000 (eight seasons in EPL in one spell), now in Championship.

Southampton – last relegation 2005 (13 seasons in EPL in one spell), now in League One. Went into administration after EPL drop.

Swindon Town – last relegation 1994 (one season in EPL in one spell), now in League One. Went into administration twice after EPL drop.

Watford – last relegation 2007 (two seasons in EPL in two spells), now in Championship. Have been close to administration more than once.

West Bromwich Albion – last relegation 2009 (four seasons in EPL in three spells), now in Championship.

Wimbledon (now MK Dons) – last relegation 2000 (eight seasons in EPL in one spell). MK Dons now in League One. Went into administration after EPL drop.

The Big Pink

2010-03-17T09:37:00.001+01:00

Yes I did think Brief History of Love was brilliant. However, it is a bit too fashionable to list it as one of my favourite albums of last year especially I went for The xx as well. When was a Best of...list ever about what one actually liked and not about what one wants others to think they liked within accepted socio-cultural paradigms of cool? Exactly.

Isn't nature great?

2010-03-16T08:05:00.001+01:00

From the BBC, a zebra puts it's head inside the mouth of a hippo. Brilliant.

Why do I love Andrei Arshavin?

2010-03-16T07:25:00.001+01:00

From hating something immensely to someone I love unconditionally. Why do I love him so? Because Andrei answers any and all questions sent to him by his fans, including questions about love, marriage, laughter and make-up....check out this weeks first question and answer....

Andrey, what do you think people need pain for?
Arshavin: For people not to forget that they are mere mortals. Some people say that suffering purifies the soul.

Genius.

Why I hate Stoke City

2010-03-16T07:23:00.001+01:00

From the Guardian...

Rory Delap took 19 long throws during Stoke City's goalless draw with Aston Villa on Saturday. This is one long throw every 4.7 minutes. Given that Delap takes on average between 20 and 30 seconds to wipe down, wind up and let go, this adds up to at least nine minutes spent watching a man do a long throw. It also represents up to half a kilometre of ball-throwing in one match by one man, surely some kind of record.

How exactly is that football? And how is he allowed to waste 9 bloody minutes? It's a disgrace. The faster we have a European Super League the better.

The Best Story In Ages

2010-03-14T08:43:00.001+01:00

While flying Ryanair, a man ate his winning €10,000 scratchcard because he couldn't wait until he landed to collect his winnings....and I for one am totally behind this man. If you have ever experienced or suffered the appalling service from Ryanair than you too would be eating lottery tickets in disgust.

Liztomania! Top 10 of 2009

2010-03-13T07:57:00.001+01:00

I am still struggling to motivate myself to blog, partly because I have been busy but mainly because I am extremely lazy. I suppose the lack of an audience is probably another mitigating factor. However, the lack of an audience never put off Thomas Chatterton or Van Gogh did it? Although they did both take their own lives. Let's not dwell on this.

So I have been terribly remiss in not listing my top albums of 2009. It's probably painfully obvious as my 2008 Top 10, betraying my slavish devotion to certain musical media sources (yes our tastes are shaped and spoon fed to us, stop kidding yourself that you 'discover' things organically) and also my preference for acts ignored by the hoi polloi and that don't sell more than 1000 copies. To spice things up and attempt to be as gimmicky as possible, I will link the albums with the city where I first heard them and will always associate them with. Gay.

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor (Hong Kong)

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Athens)

Real Estate - Real Estate (Ho Chi Minh City)

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles (Macau - yes it was released in 2008 but I only heard it in 2009)

The xx - The xx (London - possibly my number 1, this album is brilliant!)

Raekwon - Cuban Linx 2 (Dhaka)

Passion Pit - Manners (Amsterdam)

Dan Deacon - Bromst (New York)

Fever Ray - Fever Ray (Berlin)

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport (Shanghai)

I also thought the Yeah Yeah Yeah's album was excellent. The jj and The Field album were both wicked but I haven't really listened to them after the initial burst of enthusiasm. Although, I was nonplussed by Animal Collective. I am starting to think that they are extremely overrated; not bad per se but not as good as everyone makes out.

While I am at it, I may as well as list my top gigs of 2009, which to be brutally honest was shocking in terms of the quality and also the number. In fact, I am going to struggle to remember the gigs that I went to, and immediately only the Dan Deacon gig at the Bowery springs to mind as one that I can remember and one that I actually enjoyed. Of course I saw Depeche Mode in Berlin last summer and that was brilliant despite it being in a cathedral type stadium with bad acoustics. I remember seeing Familjen in Berlin which was all right. Um. I saw Pet Conspiracy (a Chinese band) and they were pretty good I guess. Ellen Allien DJ in Berlin. Jesus I am really struggling and 2010 has been pretty poor thus far having only seen OK Go (who are, lets be honest only interesting for their videos). Bah!

The law is an ass

2010-02-24T01:31:00.002+01:00

I probably spend far too much time on wikipedia than I should but I came across this article on Mr Loophole aka Nick Freeman.

I love his justification of what he does.

"Morally, I can't [justify it], but ethically, I can.", "My job is to give my clients the best defence I can. That is the job of every defence lawyer. I can't pick and choose who I defend based on my opinion; that would mean I was judging them, and that would be a dereliction of my duty. If I repeatedly identify shortcomings in police procedures, then perhaps we will end up with better standards in policing and then we will all be safer on the roads because people will not take chances. Until then, it is my job to identify inadequate policing and procedures."

My particular favourites amongst his many celebrated cases include...

A motorcyclist was acquitted of a 132 mph speeding charge when Freeman quoted case law from 1922.

Andrew Flintoff - caught on camera doing 87mph (140km/h) in a temporary 50mph (80km/h) zone, Freeman pointed out that the prosecution notice was sent two days later than the law allows. Flintoff only had to turn up at Liverpool Magistrates Court to confirm his name, age and address to be completely let off.

Ronnie O'Sullivan - Freeman accused the magistrate of winking at a journalist. The magistrate replied: "Why would I wink at anybody? Do you think I'm gay or something?" Freeman subsequently had the trial stopped. At the retrial, the court accepted the explanation that O'Sullivan was "too depressed" to provide a urine sample.

Genius.

John Terry. The Man. The Legend.

2010-02-05T09:17:00.003+01:00

I absolutely love the John Terry scandal. Love it. Love it almost as much as I hate John Terry. Which is a lot. I love it because what he's done is so unbelievably brazen (cheating on his wife by sleeping with his best mates girlfriend, who lives next door) that he thought he could get away from it. I also love it as finally he will get his comeuppance for being the white trash fool he is. Let's elucidate his previous misdemeanours

- Cheating on his girlfriend then wife and mother of his kids with a succession of 'busty' lasses, including a Page 3 Model, a FHM High Street Honey, a pornstar and a 17 year old well endowed in the chest area. These girls definitely got to see Daddie's Sauce Daddy of Year's Sauce. Saucy. And there are more revelations to come!

- Relieving himself in beer glasses in nightclubs. Fights in nightclubs.

- Getting drunk and abusing American tourists stuck at Heathrow on 9/11

- Gambling almost £40,000 a month on the nags.

- Soliciting £10,000 in cash from people who wanted tours around Chelsea's training ground.

- Parking in disabled bays.

- Trying to whore the position of England captain by fleecing as many sponsors as possible

- Openly flirting with Manchester City to get a better contract at Chelsea. Serial badge kissing to re-emphasise he is Mr Chelsea.

- Taking the last penalty in the Champions League final so he can claim all the glory by 'winning the cup' for Chelsea even though he doesn't take penalties and wasn't supposed to.

- Getting Mourinho fired after he questioned his fitness.

- Mum gets arrested for shoplifting £800 worth of goods from Tesco and Marks & Spencers. Tesco is an England team sponsor. Terry earns £170,000 a week basic salary.

- Dad is caught dealing 'great gear' in an Essex toilet.

So hopefully all his chickens will come home to roost today when he is potentially going to be sacked as England captain (which is meaningless anyway as a role).

I also love the Terry scandal for sheer amount of stupid opinions people have offered. This from former manager Dave Bassett in the Guardian...

"The problem is John Terry's a wrong-un. He's masquerading as one of the chaps but he ain't because this shouldn't happen," the former Wimbledon and Sheffield United manager said. "Of course you have players misbehaving when they're married. But they aren't doing it to a team-mate's missus. That's off bounds.

"It sticks in the throat. There's an unwritten rule that you don't start messing with players' missuses. I've had players who have left their missus or had bits and pieces on the side but they've not gone off with a team-mate's bird. That's crossing a line and where it comes unstuck with Terry. I don't recollect it in all my years in football.

"The trouble with this is that it could become a problem in the dressing room. A lot of the England players will look at him in a different light."

So according to Dave, it is all right to be a philanderer, in fact it is quite manly after all, but not on your team mate! That's where Terry went wrong. And of course there have been countless more. This story will run and run and run...I can't get enough!

6 Nations

2010-02-05T09:12:00.001+01:00

I have just realised that I really really hate statistics and maths...which is a worry because that's what I do...I have also just realised that the 6 Nations start tomorrow and utilising counting and statistics that the 36 man Welsh squad for the game against England this weekend contains...

5 Jones

3 Roberts

3 Williams

2 Rees

2 Davies

2 Philips (if you count Mike Philips)

2 James

We, the Welsh, could be more imaginative with our surnames don't you think? The French have one guy called Picamoles and another called Bastareaud. And the Italians have gone one better and have a player called Gower or Gywr as it would be in Welsh. Need I say more?

Football and lists. The two greatest things in the world.

2010-01-18T15:42:00.002+01:00

Found this on a Portuguese football site called Futebolfinance.com (I really need to get out more, I know)...this is the all time 25 most expensive football transfers in history adjusted for inflation and set in the Euros. Just look at how much Mendieta cost! And Saviola! Dear Lord. Apologies the formatting is a bit rubbish.

Player Nat From To Year Value
1 C. Ronaldo POR Man Utd Madrid 2009 €94000000
2 Zidane FRA Juve Madrid 2001 €73500000
3 Kaka BRA Milan Madrid 2009 €65000000
4 Figo POR Barca Madrid 2000 €61500000
5 Crespo ARG Parma Lazio 2000 €51200000
6 Buffon ITA Parma Juve 2001 €46800000
7 Ferdinand ENG Leeds Man Utd 2002 €46000000
8 Vieri ITA Lazio Inter 1999 €45300000
9 Shevchenko UKR Milan Chelsea 2006 €45000000
10 Mendieta ESP Valen Lazio 2001 €44900000
11 Ronaldo BRA Inter Madrid 2002 €43900000
12 Robinho BRA Madrid M. City 2008 €43000000
13 Veron ARG Lazio Man Utd 2001 €42600000
14 Essien GHA Lyon Chelsea 2005 €38000000
15 Berbatov BUL Spurs Man Utd 2008 €38000000
16 Beckham ENG Man Utd Madrid 2003 €37500000
17 Rooney ENG Everton Man Utd 2004 €37000000
18 Nedved CZE Lazio Juve 2001 €36600000
19 Rui Costa POR Fior Milan 2001 €36600000
20 Drogba CM Mars Chelsea 2004 €36000000
21 Robben HOL Chelsea Madrid 2007 €36000000
22 Torres ESP Atleti Liv 2007 €36000000
23 Saviola ARG R Plate Barca 2001 €35900000
24 Anelka FRA Arsenal Madrid 1999 €34400000
25 Thuram FRA Parma Juve 2001 €34400000

The list below shows which players have broken the world transfer record and again it is adjusted for inflation and set in euros. Lentini at €25m is enough to make your eyes water.

Year Player Country From To Value
2009 Ronaldo POR Man Utd Madrid € 94,000,000.00
2001 Zidane FRA Juve Madrid € 73,500,000.00
2000 Figo POR Barca Madrid € 61,500,000.00
1999 Vieri ITA Lazio Inter € 45,300,000.00
1998 Denilso BRA SPaulo Betis € 30,000,000.00
1997 Ronaldo BRA Barca Inter € 27,000,000.00
1993 Shearer ENG Black Newc € 25,300,000.00
1992 Lentini ITA Torino Milan € 25,000,000.00
1990 Baggio ITA Fior Juve € 13,100,000.00
1987 Gullit HOL PSV Milan € 10,900,000.00
1984 Diego ARG Barca Napoli € 7,300,000.00
1982 Diego ARG Boca Barca € 7,200,000.00
1975 Savoldi ITA Bologna Napoli € 865,000.00
1973 Cruiff HOL Ajax Barca € 360,000.00

I will get bored of this in a minute, don't worry...

2010-01-18T15:15:00.001+01:00

A lot has happened since October. I could go into it, but that would involve thinking, writing and posting. All of which is making me slightly nauseous and strangely sleepy too.

I may get back on the blog saddle as I am currently looking for ways to not do work which doesn't involve video games, listening to experimental Austrian electro and, well, other things. Ahem. Then again I may get distracted by shiny colours and penny whistles once more. Life is a lottery.

Still, I suppose I could post some lists. I love lists. Right, I will do that. Not right now though. Football Manager is calling me...

What the blazes!

2010-01-18T14:53:00.001+01:00

It only bally works! You can text in a blog post too. Good Lord! What is the world coming to?

Is this the beginning of new blog epoch? Will I win my audience back with my wit, guile and deliciously vulgar turn of phrase?

Probably not.

Bah!

Test - blogs are such an effort

2010-01-18T14:49:00.001+01:00

Right it seems you can now email in a blog post from Gmail. So here is me testing it....

I doubt it will fire any enthusiasm to start blogging again as I am becoming chronically lazy and really nowadays no one reads it. Those halcyon times of 100 hits per day are but a distant memory. Unless, of course this blogging lark is content driven? No, that cannot be....

Maradona: The Wrath of God

2009-10-20T06:52:00.003+02:00

In a press conference after the victory over Uruguay which sealed Argentina's qualification for the World Cup, El Diego had this salvo for the unbelievers, doubters, heretics and infidels within the Argentine press corps....

"They [the press pack] can suck it and carry on sucking it (whilst grabbing genitals). This is for all Argentines, minus the journalists.

I want to thank my players for qualifying because they played like men and today they consecrated me as a coach.

You lot take it up the arse, if the ladies will pardon the expression."

The chivalry at the end is a real touch of divine class. I also found this transcript of another interview from March 2009, what wordplay!

When The Natural Order Goes A Bit Wrong

2009-10-17T08:25:00.003+02:00

You will not believe how big these two were.

God Lives To Fight Another Day

2009-10-13T06:10:00.005+02:00

El Diego may be the Greatest person to ever kick a ball...but he can't coach a team to save his life...however a 91st minute goal kept Argentina in with a chance of going to the World Cup next summer...you can see how much it means to him...you've got to love him!

Hamburg: Random Pictures

2009-10-11T12:00:00.004+02:00

Yes this is padding of sorts. I did take a lot of pictures.

Hamburg Architecture

2009-10-11T11:48:00.003+02:00

Hamburg Graffiti

2009-10-11T11:44:00.003+02:00

Hamburg

2009-10-11T11:43:00.001+02:00

Given that I lived in Germany, sort of, I should really talk about the place shouldn't I? That isn't a rhetorical question but the deafening silence answers the question. So, now I will recount my visit to Hamburg in June, the first stop on my mini tour of Germany. So here is a photo essay, or something, that gives you an idea of the place.

If I was to say Hamburg to you what would be the first things that popped into your head? Well the things that I associated with Hamburg before I went there were; The Beatles, Kevin Keegan, the port, St. Pauli, the Hanseatic League (I read History at university remember) and most definitely prostitution. Lots and lots of prostitution. Lashings of lasciviousness.

The Beatles are everywhere!

Although the link is a bit tenuous if you ask me. If you don't know, Hamburg was where The Beatles first toured and perfected their schtick, including the mop-top haircuts.

Don't fear the Reeperbahn. Or rather, if you are prudish, you probably should. The Reeperbahn is a very long road that runs through the St Pauli district. The Reeperbahn is also where Hamburg's notorious sex industry is located. Strip clubs, sex shops, saunas, brothels, cinemas it's all here and all accepted and pretty normal to the people who live here.

In fact, prostitution is so normal in Hamburg that you will see things you will never see in other cities...the sight of fat ugly old men being chased down the street by pretty young working girls trying to sell their wares...outside the Reeperbahn police station! There are quite curiously a lot of disabled men milling around this area, men in wheel chairs.

However, Hamburg is more than the Beatles and sex. It's Germany's richest city and you can definitely see that wealth in the town centre and its environs.

The town centre is very pretty, but in that boring European old town sense.

The maritime heritage is also quite evident around the city. (Is this boring? Can you tell I am padding?)

Overall, Hamburg is worth a visit for a couple of days. No more. The most interesting bits of Hamburg are in the St Pauli district which has some really cool bars and pubs as well as art spaces. The general atmosphere in St Pauli is also quite rebellious, perhaps a link to the infamously left wing football club. This post is well boring and for that I apologise but it is tough to sell Hamburg beyond St Pauli really. Unless you have a fetish for port cities or enjoy identikit European old towns.

Mong Kok

2009-10-11T10:21:00.004+02:00

Mong Kok is what I think I may have called David O'Brien once in school when I was 12. It also happens to be a region of Hong Kong! What are the odds eh?

Though I haven't been here long, Mong Kok is definitely my favourite place thus far. Not only are there less ghastly foreigners than you get in Central, but the whole place exudes a dynamic, chaotic atmosphere which I love. And more importantly, Mong Kok is home to some of the sickest sneakers I have seen outside of Fulton in Brooklyn.

Not only that, Mong Kok also seems to have shops that stock absolutely ludicrous varieties of Casio watches. All sorts of designs, shapes, colours. I was literally priapic with delight.

Mong Kok is one of the older working class districts of Hong kong and has maintained some of that character. However, I am told and I have read that the place is being gentrified and sanitized....is nothing sacred? And really how many shiny 6-storey malls does one city need? It's enough to make you cry.

Now do you believe me?

2009-10-11T10:09:00.004+02:00

I have been telling people for years that the French, the supposed high priests of gastronomy, love McDonald's. Absolutely love it. This BBC article on a McDonald's opening near the Louvre neatly outlines the French obsession with le Big Mac.

Not only are there more McDonald's in France than the UK and Germany but France is also the second most profitable market for the company. In the world. That's France, the land of crepes, cheese and baguettes.

In fact, the most remarkable thing about Paris (by far and away the most overhyped and boring big city in the world) is the number of fast food burger restaurants and not just McDonald's but Quick Burger, Burger King and a few others. Mon dieu!

The back-slapping continues...

2009-10-11T10:03:00.002+02:00

The Guardian editorial in praise of UCL's position as 'fourth' best university in the world....

It was established to break the stranglehold of Oxford and Cambridge, and today it is doing so once again. University College London was set up at a time when varsity was the exclusive preserve of wealthy Anglicans. Inspired by the great rationalist Jeremy Bentham – whose clothed skeleton is still, bizarrely, displayed by the South Cloisters – the great Scots liberal James Mill (father of the greater John Stuart) founded a seat of secular learning where nonconformists could study. Initially named simply as London University, UCL became known as such only after federating with King's to form the University of London in 1836. It has survived and sometimes thrived over 17 decades since, along the way becoming the first university to throw open its doors to women on the same terms as men. Rarely, however, has it been in finer fettle than it is today – at least if Times Higher Education's new world rankings are to be believed. It outperforms Oxford as well as Princeton and Columbia to sit just below Cambridge, Harvard and Yale in fourth place in the mortar board premiership. Its rise has been extraordinarily swift – it did not even make the top 30 a few years back – and some grumble that a cash-driven focus on foreign students has bankrolled the success. But there can be no disputing that UCL produces great research which reaches into the real world. From the Constitution Unit to the wizardly economics department, the stress on practical application would have delighted its utilitarian fathers.

Really? I should stop going on about this, as in actuality this whole business makes me look much cleverer too. Well...

Eric Gill at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

2009-10-11T09:29:00.004+02:00

Hmmmmmm.....let's hope his daughter wasn't the inspiration.

Gill, Polanski, Lewis Carroll, Cellini, Caravaggio, Wagner...can you really separate art from the person who created it?

Nobel poppycock

2009-10-09T18:57:00.003+02:00

Actually I don't know what is more ridiculous, UCL being ranked the 4th best university in the world or Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize for getting elected. Wait it is still UCL ranked at number 4.

Neo-colonial poppycock

2009-10-09T14:31:00.004+02:00

The THES via The Guardian has just published it's global university rankings and what utter nonsense it is! There are 4 UK universities in the Top 10. What the devil? The whole list is an Anglo-American conspiracy surely?

My own alma mater is ranked 4th. In the world. I went to UCL for both undergraduate and graduate school and I think I am in an eminently qualified position to state that there is no way on Allah's green earth that UCL is better than MIT, Princeton, Stanford etc by whichever metric one chooses to measure it by. Except for maybe convincing people you are better than you actually are.

Regarding Berlusconi

2009-10-09T10:41:00.003+02:00

It appears Berlusconi is pretty much screwed as the Italian judiciary overturned the prime ministerial immunity he brought in a few years ago to save his own neck. This latest reversal caps off what is amounting to be a frightfully awful year for Silvio. Which is a shame as Berlusconi is entertainment par excellence. Just check out these three videos...

1. Berlusconi the ladies man

2. Berlusconi annoys the Queen

3. Berlusconi fobs off Merkel, and quite right she is far too old and frumpy for his tastes.

Heightened Tensions

2009-10-09T10:01:00.006+02:00

France currently seems to be embroiled in a rent boy scandal surrounding culture minister Frederic Mitterand (the former president's nephew), after he was rather too vociferous in defending convicted child abuser Roman Polanski (remember he admitted the charge) and thus left himself open to criticism over his 2005 autobiography in which he professed his love for young Thai rent boys (who were definitely not underage I must add...).

That's all well and good but I think the real scandal in France is Sarkozy's attempts to manipulate the media, and downright lie to the French people. About his height. Yes, Nicholas Sarkozy has been spinning untruths of the most heinous kind. Not content with wearing Cuban heels and 'demanding' his wife Carla Bruni wear flats, and further not satisfied with uplit photography and standing on raised platforms, Sarkozy's secret police are nefariously manipulating the news agenda in France to protect the President's liliputian sensitivities. Zut-a-bloody-lors!

The BBC graphic also shows that I am not only taller than Sarkozy but Berlusconi and Medvedev and the same height as Napoleon. To those who cruelly teased me about my stunted height (including my parents) I am the equal of Napoleon and a much bigger man than the leaders of three of the world's largest and most powerful countries. Obviously.

New City New Theme

2009-10-07T09:02:00.002+02:00

I find myself in Hong Kong. Yes, that Hong Kong. Don't ask me why. Why not eh? So to mark the occasion of, well, relocation I suppose, I have decided to tweak the old interweb journal. I will confess I know nothing of HTML, XML, AFL, UFC, BOB, SWF, NSA, and whilst looking for a new template I did get interminably bored. I settled on this one purely because I got tired of looking. I don't particularly like it so it may change.

I also have an enormous backblog of things that I couldn't be bothered to write about before but I guess I might be more motivated now. Unlikely, but you never know. So watch this space. Or rather what ever is posted above this one.

Sans Serif, Sans Shame

2009-09-23T17:06:00.002+02:00

A friend related the story of Eric Gill to me yesterday, the man behind some of the most recognised and utilised typefaces still in use today, Gill Sans being the most famous.

Unfortunately, Mr Gill's artistic output is not what interested me most about his life. Nor was it his Catholic fervour. No, it seems Mr Gill was what the Daily Mail would describe as a Sex Monster of the very lowest and depraved kind. It appears that Gill kept meticulous diaries of his sexual proclivities which extended to not only relations with both his sisters but also abusing two of his three daughters. And just to amp up the depravity all the way to 11, Gill also indulged in 'experimental connections with his dog'.

The most curious aspect of this sordid tale is that today Gill's art and influence is more lauded than ever despite the public knowledge of his unholy indiscretions.

Polizei Sniffing Out Crime

2009-09-19T15:10:00.002+02:00

Taken this summer....oh dear...

Kanye West is still a wanker

2009-09-16T15:26:00.003+02:00

So the self proclaimed Louis Vuitton Don is at it again. That's right being a dick. I don't know who this Taylor Swift woman is and I am almost 100% certain that I will dislike her music intensely but really she didn't deserve to upstaged like that by Superdick Kanye.

I will admit he has made a couple of brilliant albums and more than a handful of classic songs but he is still a monumental wanker.

Food in Berlin

2009-09-15T19:02:00.003+02:00

Is pretty awful. I am not talking about the street or cafe food; your sandwiches, your bagels, your kebabs, durums, pizza etc. which is in the main excellent and a cut above on-the-go food in most other major cities. No, I am talking about sit down restaurant food. Over the last year I must have been to at least 30 different restaurants in Berlin and I can only recall one that was any good, that restaurant being the little known and hardly patronised L'escargot in Wedding. Indeed, one of the more celebrated eateries Ganymed, where apparently Bowie and Stasi high command used to eat, was terribly expensive but also just plain terrible.

Yesterday I went for Mexican food here in Mitte. Unsurprisingly, it was bland. Surprisingly, the food was made by a Bengali chef. How did I know he was Bengali? Well, he came out from the kitchen to talk to the Bengali waiter in Bengali, I put two and two together. Oh I should say I understand Bengali. I digress. So I had bad Mexican in Germany, served by a Polish waitress made by a Bengali chef. I can't put my finger on why it is so hard to get authentic cuisine here...Although the schweine haxe is superb!

I just remembered, Monsieur Vuong on Alte Schönhauser Strasse isn't bad either. Still 2 out of 30 isn't a good ratio.

District 9

2009-09-14T13:58:00.002+02:00

Director Neill Blomkamp
IMDB 8.6 #56 in the Top 250
Rotten Tomatoes 90%

I am always wary of films presented by 'name' directors as usually they are terrible (Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino being the most obvious culprits in whoring their names). However, the Peter Jackson presented, Blomkamp directed District 9 is the exception that breaks the rule.

Enough has been written about District 9 that I don't really need to go into the ins and outs of the story and if you have any interest in taking part in smug middle class dinner party conversation you should toddle along and definitely see it for yourself. Suffice to say this is a wickedly smart, technically superb and thoroughly well made film which amazingly has a lot of heart (which isn't cloying or mawkish). Yes the subtext is pretty obvious but still it's important and also makes you wonder about the so called Rainbow Nation...I mean, am I more interested in visiting South Africa after watching District 9? No is the unfortunate answer...Dear God! I had an inkling at what a savage wasteland South Africa was but no idea it was a lawless, scarred country populated by scavengers, pimps, rapists, cut throats, feral alien orphans, Nigerian cannibals and Prawns.

I have always wondered why so many young South Africans leave the land of their birth to work in dingy London pubs for less than minimum wage and to live in rat infested houses, 10 to a room in South London with only binge drinking to numb the pain. Now I know why. Surely something should be done to help the Prawns in South Africa? Why isn’t this more on the news? Where is the telethon? Where is bloody Mandela?!?!?! Tutu you coward, where are you??!? Isn’t South Africa in the Commonwealth? Shouldn’t Britain do something? Sanctions are needed. Cricket, rugby, football we should boycott the lot. Is Barclays still trading in South Africa?

How can South Africans ever hope to civilise themselves if we leave them to wallow in their own filth and let them kill each other in dangerous slum based shoot em ups? While we sit here in our Western opulence drinking Sunny D from golden jewel encrusted cups there are Prawns eating catfood and the more smart talking visitors getting brutally beaten to death for wanting to work and vote. Can you just sit there and do nothing?

Vacuous Hipster; a slight reprise

2009-09-14T13:31:00.004+02:00

Hmmmm, well some, I guess they are friends, still believe that I am a straight up vacuous hipster and cite the following as evidence...

- I only moved to Berlin because it's cool;

- Though I doth protest too much, I tend to glory in loitering in hipster areas such as East London, Kreuzberg, Williamsburg;

- I am a bona fide skinny jeans and plimsolls wearing ponce;

- I have a great number of contrived affectations;

- I only like bands that no one has heard of and as soon as they are popular I dislike them intensely;

- I actively go out to mooch free drinks at gallery openings;

- I like thick girls. Girls that like bright colours, dancing and soft fabrics.

Bollocks, you've got me there...Well aside from the last one...I am not really THAT vacuous...What is a bloody hipster anyway????

The Inbetweeners

2009-09-12T20:26:00.004+02:00

What an absolutely brilliant show! I came to this late despite everyone telling me to watch it for over a year. Friends kept saying that "you would really like this" and it's so "your sort of thing", which instantly put me off as you can't pigeon hole me. And because I am one of those annoyingly predictable contrary sort of, well, dicks.

Well it turns out I did really really like this show and it really is my sort of thing. This award winning show concerns four boys at an average comprehensive school in the few years before university. Doesn't sound all that exciting but the writing, plot lines and acting is all fantastic. Genuinely it was like watching, an admittedly funnier, version of my adolescence. All the talk is about scoring with girls, girls anatomy, mum jokes, dad jokes, masturbation, making fun of each other, girls, girls and girls. Trust me it is a lot funnier than I am making it sound. I still can't believe how well the writers have captured the banter between adolescent males and lets be honest university, mid 20s, late 20s and beyond males too.

The Will character who narrates the show is someone I have particular sympathy for as his experience of comprehensive (state) school life was a bit like mine. I too was called a posh twat for having a sonorous lilt, excellent diction and received pronounciation. Obviously, I wasn't as big a loser as him. Obviously... Quite simply this is the best comedy show I have seen since Peep Show. And wouldn't you know it, the guys who created The Inbetweeners also had a hand in making Peep Show as well as Flight of the Conchords, so even more reason to watch this.

The L Word

2009-09-11T17:44:00.004+02:00

Stands for lady. And lesbian. Lesbian lady. The L word seems also to stand for British music at the moment from the looks of what's on the music picturebox and the sounds of the wireless. Every act seems to begin with an L and is fronted by a lady. I am not necessarily saying they are lesbians too, but logically speaking, ipso facto, join the dots... From La Roux, Little Boots, Ladyhawke, Leona Lewis (two Ls!), Laura Marling, Lily Allen, um, Lady Gaga, er, Lykki Li and Lashes for Bats (go with me on this) the wireless is awash with saucy strumpets with catchy tunes. OK Lady Gaga, Ladyhawke and Lykki Li aren't British, but if we include the other British lady luminaries in the music charts and garnering press attention such as Zarif, M.I.A, Florence & The Machine, Micachu & Shapes then it appears we have a pattern developing here....genuinely I am not trying to be patronizing...no really.

Actually, I am not saying anything new here as over the last few years British music, at least the music that sells and is exported abroad has been all about the ladies. Of the top 10 best selling albums globally in 2008, Duffy was number 4, Leona Lewis number 6 and Amy Winehouse number 7. Amy MacDonald, Adele, Estelle, Dido, KT Tunstall, Joss Stone and others have also, amazingly in some cases, found success. Whereas the first wave of ladies, in a metaphorical sense this isn't a Lynx/Axe advert, was painfully dull outside of Winehouse, the 2009 variety are actually not bad. Not bad at all.

I really like the Florence & The Machine album Lungs and Dog Days Are Over and also the cover of You've Got The Love are both brilliant songs. The La Roux album is also pretty bloody good too, Bulletproof is obviously superb but I really like the song Cover My Eyes. Zarif, who I have never met, is wicked, Little Boots isn't bad, Micachu & The Shapes are really really good live and all the rest of the stuff isn't offensive. Despite all this, I still think Bats for Lashes is rubbish. Come on love you're not Bjork and you never will be. And I don't hate her music because she is a lesbian either.

Maximum Madness

2009-09-11T17:34:00.001+02:00

An untenable level of ennui has driven me to revisit cult movies from the 70s and 80s. Well I say revisit, as really in order to revisit one must have visited somewhere in the first place. I digress. I decided to watch the Mad Max Trilogy as I have never seen them before and never had the time or been moved to do so previously. Now that I have more time than I know what to do with and moreover, I spent half an hour watching a wasp continually fly into a window; I figured the bar of things that can distract me had been sufficiently lowered to give this saga a go.

To quickly summarise (as really the plots to all three are so paper thin there isn’t much to say), Mad Max, all of them, are three of the most incoherent, nonsensical and God-awful films I have ever had the misfortune of watching. I couldn’t enjoy them on any level. The saga is camp but not very good camp, it’s kitsch but not particularly likeable kitsch, it’s fast paced action but the sort that soothes higher functioning morons and Australians clearly.

What I did learn from Mad Max is that I never ever want to visit Australia. Dear God! I had an inkling at what a savage wasteland it was but no idea it was a lawless, scarred country populated by scavengers, rapists, cut throats, feral orphans, toothless barbarians and Mel Gibson. Sugar tits.

I have always wondered why so many young Australians leave the land of their birth to work in dingy London pubs for less than minimum wage and to live in rat infested houses, 10 to a room in South London with only binge drinking to numb the pain. Now I know why. Surely something should be done to help Australia? Why isn’t this more on the news? Where is the telethon? Isn’t Australia in the Commonwealth? Shouldn’t Britain do something? Our Queen is their Queen no?

How can Australians ever hope to civilise themselves if we leave them to wallow in their own filth and let them kill each other in dangerous yet exciting highway chases? While we sit here in our Western opulence drinking Sunny D from golden jewel encrusted cups there are dingoes eating Australian babies and smart talking Sheila’s getting brutally beaten to death with ‘tinnies’ and ‘stubbies’ for wanting to work and vote. Can you just sit there and do nothing?

Skittlebrau

2009-09-10T14:06:00.004+02:00

When one is bored one does silly things. I remember once setting fire to my underarm hair. We won't talk about that. Anyway, after recently watching an episode of The Simpsons (from The Golden Era), a particular scene caught my attention...

Homer: "I'm feelin' low, Apu. You got any of that beer that has candy floating in it, you know, Skittlebrau?"

Apu: "Such a product does not exist, sir. You must have dreamed it."

Homer: "Oh. Well then just gimme a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles."

So out of curiosity I decided to try this concoction of Skittles with some Hofbrau. And actually it isn't all that bad! It is quite difficult to drink without choking yourself every now and then but once you master the art it is quite refreshing and a brew packed full of chewy goodness. You can get drunk and taste the rainbow all at once. Oh and the sugar rush is unbelievable...

5 Reasons Why I Love Natasha Bedingfield

2009-09-09T18:45:00.004+02:00

Right I am really bored so I may as well reveal some dark secrets. From the rather subtle post title you are now aware of my deep fondness for one Natasha Bedingfield. Yes we are talking about the horsey faced chanteuse, sister of Daniel, the very same toothy temptress who has become rather popular in the US.

Leaving aside the glaring fact that I fancy her rotten despite her equine features and over developed dentures, I am most taken, well, quite taken, okay, I am mildly distracted by her musical oeuvre. Well into her oeuvre. Anyway, genuinely I do like some of her songs, not necessarily for the complex musical soundscapes or the thought provoking and socially and emotionally insightful lyrics, and it isn't her quite annoying and limited voice. It is, well, everything. Natasha, as I like to call her and not because that is her name, is a flawed character but keeps on trying and eventually she comes out with a gem. And thus far, in my opinion there have been five gems which make up for the musical holocaust that is the rest of Natasha's output. And what are these hallowed five gems?

1. These Words from Unwritten (2004)

An absolute classic. No really. This was the first song I think she released and still the best. Come on, just listen or better read the bloody lyrics!

Read some Byron, Shelly and Keats
Recited it over a Hip-Hop beat
I'm having trouble saying what I mean
With dead poets and drum machines
I know I had some studio time booked
But I couldn't find a killer hook
Now you've gone & raised the bar right up
Nothing I write is ever good enough

She shoehorned all three giants of the Romantic movement! Dead poets and drum machines! If that doesn't sell her 'unique' talent nothing will.

2. Unwritten from Unwritten (2004)

I just like this song. So what. It's good power pop with a great chorus. What have you done with your life? Yes I imagine women and young women in particular will find this inspiring. Also, if ever I was allowed anywhere near a recording studio I would insist on a gospel choir in every track even in my electro opus tentatively titled 'Voiceless 2.0'.

3. I Want To Have Your Babies from NB (2006)

This is genius. Natasha is telling it like it is, although the video is extremely misleading. From the video we realise that Natasha is a bit loose and in an interracial sense. She also seems amazingly fertile. I am Asian and willing.

4. Love Like This from Pocket Full of Sunshine (2008)

A great piece of cultural appropriation from very white, very British, very middle class and lets be honest very boring Natasha. With this song and the video Natasha very expertly convinces us that she was raised in the States, went to high school where presumably she learnt how to sing like a black woman. And just to reinforce the authentic retelling of the American high school experience, a Jamaican rapper is there to keep it real. Great stuff.

5. I Bruise Easily from Unwritten (2004)

Firstly this is ace as the video is completely ridiculous. Who thought it was a good idea to dress her up like the Queen of Naboo? Secondly, this is a song about either domestic violence or working in the fruit aisle in Tesco. I can't work it out, is it about getting smacked about by a brutish boyfriend? Or the crippling emotional pain we all suffer at the hands of a loved one, otherwise known as a relationship. If the latter, well Natasha it's time to man up and strap on a pair.

I know what I did this summer....

2009-09-09T18:27:00.003+02:00

....but you probably have only a vague idea. Anyway, to cut a very long story short I went on a European tour of sorts with a friend which lasted around 6 weeks and took in 10 countries. Once I have gathered my thoughts, which may never happen, I will relay my oh so precious thoughts on the places I visited and in some cases desecrated.

While I am still trying to motivate myself to write this epic series of monographs on those European countries that have only recently tasted democracy, and in the case of Italy have yet to (zing!), that I visited this summer I will leave you with a list of all the countries I have visited in my life. (That was a needlessly long and convoluted sentence.) Why don't you play at home?

My Country List*

1. Germany obviously
2. Spain
3. USA
4. Italy
5. Belgium
6. Sweden
7. Denmark
8. Poland
9. Hungary
10. Serbia
11. Greece
12. Bosnia
13. Croatia
14. Turkey
15. France
16. Czech Republic
17. UAE
18. Bangladesh

*Rules. Your country of birth doesn't count. Only UN recognised countries count, so the UK is one entity you cheats and don't try the old trick of slipping in two Cyprus's (or is Cyprusii?). You have to spend at least one night in a country for it to be eligible, so no through visits on trains, planes, buses or automobiles. Even if it was through the night.

So a paltry 18 countries in 28 years. Pretty rubbish I have to say as I know a couple of people who are knocking on the door of 50. If you're really bored try doing this for cities...

Vacuous Hipster

2009-09-09T12:26:00.003+02:00

I have been called many things in my time; a powdered popinjay, an errant reprobate, a louche blusterer, a bombastic pipsqueak and my personal favourite a rum cove. However, such insults have had little or no effect on my overall demeanour (even if they have added to my crippling hidden emotional issues) as I like to wrongly think I have a thick skin.

This verisimilitude of thick skin was pierced quite easily a week ago when someone accused me of being a vacuous hipster. Rarely am I stuck for words but in this instance I was. I took umbrage not only with the vacuous accusation but the hipster bit too as in my eyes the word hipster is rather pejorative and the person who set forth the slings and arrows certainly meant it that way. I would just like to say I am deep like a baby seal however being shallow like a chaffinch makes life eminently easier especially with stupid people. And in the hipster stakes I am not even close as my last visit to Williamsburg in Brooklyn clearly illustrated. That is....

I don't have any stupid tattoos of circuit boards or the chemical symbol for amyl nitrate,

I don't wear glasses without lenses (strangely popular in East London and Berlin too),

I don't ride around on a penny farthing (not joking),

I don't wear all in one body suits,

or dress like the guy from Buggles,

I don't wear clothes that clash 'deliberately',

I believe in grooming and daily, if not bi-daily washing,

ironed clothing is a must,

I don't have a trust fund but a real job that isn't one of the following; a Graphic Designer, a DJ, an artist/photographer or professionally unemployed.

So there.

Another reason, if one was needed, why The Economist is brrrrrrilliant!

2009-09-08T20:30:00.002+02:00

The Economist is, along with the Guardian, the only thing I read regularly outside of the BBC website. I have eulogised at length previously as to why The Economist is so good and why we should all read it. One of my favourite features in The Economist is the letters page which always has one or two absolute gems from pretentious pedants pointing out the grammatical peccadilloes of other pretentious pedants...observe...

SIR – You criticised Timothy Garton Ash’s editor for lapsing into “self-indulgence” because he allowed the use of the word “proleptic” twice within one book (“Mightier than the sword”, August 22nd). You could level the same criticism at yourselves for using the word “Swiftian” twice, in the review and then within three pages of the same section (“Prawns and other illegal aliens”, August 22nd).

Richard Kelly
London

Mr Kelly with a proleptic use of Swiftian wit there. Zing!

Plane Jane

2009-09-08T12:26:00.003+02:00

Actually, I am being slightly unfair on the aeroplane, not all my journeys have been awful, indeed, every time I take British Airways, it is always a delight. A free copy of the FT, at least the offer of food (politely declined), friendly staff and free liquid refreshments make flying with the World's Favourite Airline painless. Only British Airways care.

My high opinion of British Airways is further strengthened by the fact that the only time I have managed to 'pull' anyone in mid air was on a transatlantic BA flight from New York to London earlier on this year. I found myself sitting next to a young lady called Jane (actually her name was something else but the innocent must be protected) who was attending one of those liberal arts colleges that Brett Easton Ellis is always going on about. Jane was on her way to Rwanda as part of her studies or something and we got chatting out of boredom. Indeed, she was reading a book about the genocide which piqued my interest and the inevitable cheery conversation about the massacre ensued. Jane was a bookish young lady but with boyish good looks and seemed very smart. And she thought I was hilarious. A keeper in my book. So 7 hours of conversation and sickly charm later, as we got off the flight I lean in to give her kiss on the cheek to wish her goodbye and good luck and she turns her face and lays the smooch on. I was completely shocked. What the devil is the world coming to? Women today just take don't they? Not that I am suggesting that the smooch was unwelcome or that I didn't respond, as who doesn't like a smooch every now and again...but really!

The woman sitting next to me yesterday wasn't much of a looker. I think that makes me painfully shallow...

Plane ridiculous

2009-09-08T10:40:00.004+02:00

As befits my status as an international playboy, I have just flown back to Berlin from a weekend or two in London where I spent my time lunching at Claridges, quaffing Lafite at the Garrick and being whipped by a dominatrix dressed as Jessica Rabbit in a Soho dungeon. Quite.

Yet my decadent pursuits are not the point of this post, although having got this far, and on second thoughts, perhaps it should be. Wait, I am getting sidetracked. So yes the point of it all. Well I can't remember. Ah yes, aeroplanes and aeroports and how much I have come to despise these man-made birds and their unholy nests. To save coppers, as Lafite isn't cheap you know, nor are dominatrixes for that matter, so yes to save money I decided to take a flight with one of those bally budget aerolines, Ryanair in this instance. Why oh why do I persist with this glorified cattle transporter? The flight was awful, pungent, uncomfortable, scary and not actually that cheap.

As if that wasn't enough, once again, as always happens, I was held up by a completely 'random' police check. I don't mind being stopped for security reasons but why bother calling it random as we all know it is because of my dusky complexion, profuse sweating, heavy breathing, shifty eyes and my Levantian name. At Berlin Schoenfeld, a rather curious pattern has emerged where I will be pulled aside for 'random' checks twice after leaving passport control. The first time is a few metres from the passport control booth and then barely 20 metres further along, but crucially around a corner, I will get the second hand on my shoulder and the now all to familiar "Federal Police passport check sir." And always they try The Great Escape trick of trying to catch you out with questions about where you have come from, although unfortunately they don't end the conversation with "Good Luck." As if I would fall for that old chestnut! The Bosch would have to wake up pretty early in the morning to catch me out, or at least after last orders and before elevenses.

Berlin aeroport security of course is nowhere near as much of a trial for yours truly as the aeroports of America. I often find myself in the Former Colonies, as I am quite partial to the Hooters chain of eateries and also because Americans seem to like me for some reason, and like all people I want to be liked. However, Uncle Sam is also very fond of the randomness of 'random' checks and every time I arrive in a modern day Ellis Island, instead of declaring to the flatfooted customs officials that I have nothing to declare aside from my genius (a la Oscar) and the bushel of apples in my baggage, I am interred for about an hour while my papers are double checked with the British High Commission in Rangoon, the FCO in London and the Imperial Consulate in German East Africa. Or so one would presume from the amount of time it invariably takes. On one occasion, I attempted to convince the passport people at JFK of my estrangement from the followers of Muhammed by brandishing two bottles of Tanqueray in front of them hoping they would take the hint that I was only in their country to see friends, bother the womenfolk and ponce about in Williamsburg. Alas, to no avail. Still they always let me in eventually so I suppose I shouldn't grumble too much and just in case anyone important is reading this, particularly anyone at the Imperial Consulate in German East Africa, America's passport agency is doing a first rate job in protecting freedom. Whatever that is.

This didn't happen to me....

2009-09-07T15:18:00.003+02:00

As with all new beginnings, it is good to start with a bang, to wit, below is a story a 'friend' sent to me about his first and only experience with a lady of the night. I only reprint it here as it is thoroughly amusing and of course has absolutely nothing to do with me. Nothing. The names are all fictional...

So at the beginning of the summer I went to an indie club here in Berlin and had a tipple or two. Yes I was rather away with the fairies but in a happy drunk sense. A kind of drunk that one often finds oneself on birthdays. A splendid night. Anyway, after the club, the real hilarity began as my friend Matt and I were heading home. We stopped to get some chips (not as classy as a kebab admittedly) and the street we were on is famous for ladies of the night.

It's around 4am and freezing cold and we are both completely inebriated so as drunken fools do we went and asked a painted lady how much it would cost as neither of us knew and I was genuinely curious. Also a prostitute experience was something I was curious about, just the once, to see what it was like. The painted lady, lets call her Helga, tell us its €100 for a little bit of mouth love (extortion), so we try to haggle her down by starting at €50 and some chips...no...€65.50 and half the chips? No. €93 and all of the chips? No. €100 or nothing. Needless to say Helga didn't find us amusing in the slightest and didn't seem to be very hungry either. Then Helga's friend comes over, lets go with Gertrude, a much larger mean looking painted lady with stone wash jeans and the worst fake tan I have ever seen. She was glowing in the dark. Like the sun. This larger lady was not putting up with our drunken antics and kindly asks us whether we are buying or not. At which point my friend Matt slurs its my birthday and says he was paying for me. The ladies take that as a verbal contract and tell us to follow them before we know what's going on. Honestly, I was having trouble walking in a straight line and my vision was all over the place. We say to the two ladies that we don't have cash (I said do you accept visa as a joke, but they weren't in the mood for laughter) so they frog march us to an ATM. In the end I pay €50 and Matt pays €50.

Then they take us to this wasteland area a few metres from the ATM and both of them take me into this corner covered by bushes. The ground is covered in, ahem, the paraphernalia of the night trade, and it is really really cold. Not the most romantic of love dens. I should say at this point that both of these painted ladies were not in the least bit attractive and both were wearing corsets over their winter jackets with white PVC stripper boots. Again not the most alluring visage. So it's cold, dank, unsexy and unattractive, I am up to my ankles in old used condoms and I am cornered by two seasoned and very professional working women and my friend Matt standing around the corner enjoying the chips and laughing out loud. I really wanted to bail at this point even though I had given them the money but they undid my trousers and quick as you can say 'what no foreplay?' one was stroking my lovespuds while the other had put a sheath on my rapidly shrivelling manhood (because of the cold!) and was pumping her hand furiously but totally mechanically with a bored look on her face. I tell them or rather slur this is really unsexy, and I can hear my friend laughing from around the corner. They then start to talk to each other, as in having a conversation in a really bored manner, and from the few German words I could make out they were talking about what they were doing Sunday!

I am seriously thinking at this point that this could be the single lowest point of my life, but I was really too drunk and cold to be thinking about anything apart from sleep and the chips. I was so hungry! Of course, the drunkeness, the cold, the unsexy nature of everything all means that the Colonel was not coming out for the parade and after 10 minutes of yanking they give up and say in broken english 'sorry honey' and walk off without another word or a backward glance. So I had my gloves on but I didn't even throw a punch, never mind actually knocking one out! Matt comes around the corner laughing with tears in his eyes. As I do up my trousers I am in a confused, vulnerable, still drunk and very cold state and thinking to myself 'I don't understand, I spend most of the day with an erection, I can look at furniture catalogues and get wood (if you pardon the pun), a formerly 400 pound woman can even make me climax three times in one night and I couldn't perform for a professional sex worker????? What the devil is going on!?!?!?'. And to add insult to injury, Matt has finished all the chips!

So we go home and along the way, so Matt tells me, I lament loudly into the night 'I just want to be hard!' When we get back to my apartment I wake up my ex girlfriend Alex who I live with (who left the club a few hours earlier) and tell her what just happened and that I was confused why I couldn't get it up and she starts laughing hysterically until she is crying. I should say she was laughing at me. It gets to 9am and I am still very drunk and determined to see if my plumbing is still in working order so I announce to Alex and Matt that I will be in bathroom for the next hour with some erotica. Tasteful stuff of course. Well amazingly I managed to deliver the goods four times in an hour (no really I was amazed too) and if there were any couples looking for donors this morning they would have had plenty of Rahman magic to make 10 kids. So my manly credibility was slightly restored. Sort of.

Mourning has broken

2009-09-07T15:06:00.003+02:00

It took a while but I am finally over the death of MJ...oh and I finally got my bally refund! Still all is well that ends well. Actually, that isn't strictly true as Michael is very much dead. I can't win here can I?

Anyway, so now that I am fully emotionally recovered and more importantly, phenomenally bored I thought I would give this blog another go. Yes this is probably the sixth comeback but really I think you get more out of this than I do and this is free so lets not be judgemental shall we?

To kick things off, again, some changes to the subjects that will be blogged about. I won't be, to the glee of some and to the disdain of others, talking that much about football for the simple reasons that not everybody shares my forensic passion for soccerball and crucially it turns off the ladies and as I am all about the ladies (in a clean wholesome sense) then the sports talk will be kept to a humorous minimum. Second, I suppose I should start talking about what I get up to, as this was supposed to be a journal for friends back at home. Alas, I fear it will be difficult to relay the goings on in my so called life as I really don't do anything. So with those new guidelines in place I shall endeavour to 'keep it real' as much as possible and at the same time maximise the whimsy. Well at least until I get bored or get distracted by bright colours and shiny fabrics or something.

Hugs not drugs.

AR

Death is such sweet sorrow

2009-07-10T10:14:00.000+02:00

I won't dwell on or expand on THE tragic news of 2009, the pain is still too raw. Suffice to say I have been wearing black along with one spangly glove since it happened. Which is tough, believe me. And awfully impractical too.

I did have tickets to see Him in London, indeed, for the second show of the 50. And tickets to other shows. So on the one hand I am suddenly hundreds of pounds richer from getting a refund and on the other hand...well it's a spangly glove isn't it. So sad.

There have been curious outpourings of grief and strange tributes around the world. Including the rather bizarre tribute concert where His 'daughter' was almost forced into saying something, which I found quite weird and something bordering on sick. Here in Berlin a makeshift shrine has popped up in Alexanderplatz under the world clock which is manned at all hours by German Jacko fans, who actually look quite menacing.

Odd though He was, and mentally unstable undoubtedly, nevertheless, let us remember Him fondly for his talents and his gifts. History always looks kindly on the flaws of Great Men; I mean does anyone really care that Caligula made his horse a senator or that Phol Phot didn't like nerds with glasses, oh wait that doesn't work. Bah! When a man can do what he does below, he can't be all bad.

Jacko and Swedes...my two great loves

2009-07-09T19:56:00.003+02:00

Jacko tribute to come...the pain is still too raw...in the meantime check this out...genius, the man would have been proud...

Now 2009: That's What I Call Music!

2009-06-25T12:18:00.001+02:00

Go and see Jon Hopkins live if you get the chance, especially if he brings his light show. Henmania!

One Track Lover

2009-06-23T16:15:00.001+02:00

This is a clip from another brilliant British comedy Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Again, a show I cannot recommend enough.

Barcelona Graffiti

2009-06-21T00:03:00.002+02:00

German Pop Music

2009-06-20T22:50:00.007+02:00

I am sure we have all noticed this H&M advert. It is everywhere; I have seen it in New York, London, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin. I am also sure that most us have wondered just who the devil Tokio Hotel are. Well it turns out they are, as their God-awful-I-hate-my-parents-sixth-form-poetry-writing attire would suggest, a teen pop band part of the emo or screamo 'genre' (yes I am fully aware of what real emo is). Turns out, despite the Southern European haircuts, Tokio Hotel are German and phenomenally popular here and it seems in other places too. I don't understand either.

The huge success of Tokio Hotel has made me wonder about German chart music in general. I do like a lot of German music but it is more niche obscure electro, ambient, IDM stuff, the mainstream pop music I know absolutely nothing about. From living here and noticing what's played in shops and from gig posters, I am guessing Rosenstolz are quite big, but I couldn't comment on how good they are as I am far too lazy to give them a listen and judge. Lets assume they are terrible. Prejudging is the only way forward to a just and fair society.

One act that I know for certain is rather big and actually genuinely quite good, at least for a cheeky listen, is Mr Peter Fox from the Berlin band Seeed. I really like the song Alles Neu and the video is pretty good too. And no, Peter Fox is nowhere near as popular as David Hasselhoff in the Fatherland...

Posh spaz

2009-06-20T17:41:00.003+02:00

As we all know, or will come to realise, Peep Show is perhaps the greatest British comedy of the last decade. Fact. If you haven't already seen it then sort it out and get involved. The link below is one of my favourite scenes which out of context may not seem that outstandingly funny but is still brilliant. Apologies for not embedding but it seems Youtube are cracking down on copyrighted material or something.

Posh Spaz

Bad hair in Barcelona

2009-06-20T14:55:00.007+02:00

Right I am going to flip back to my trip to Barcelona which anyone who is paying attention will know was before NYC and after Madrid. I will get on to how amazing I think Barcelona is as a city, more so in comparison to Madrid, in another post. However, with this post I want to discuss the Southern European disease (Italy, Spain and Greece) for atrocious hair. This 'style', or I think craze would be more apt, manifests itself in one of three distinct styles which can overlap and create even more horrific consequences.

1. Bad dreadlocks. On white folk. Why? Not only does it look terrible but I am pretty certain is creeping towards being racially insensitive....like Homer wearing that rasta hat...

2. The shaved side mullet/rat tail/ponytail. Why? Why? Why?

3. The Hybrid. The shaved side dreaded mullet/rat tail/ponytail. By the Great Kings of Babylon, for all that is holy, for the innocence of children, what the devil possesses anyone to think that this is a great look?????

Actually, there maybe a fourth type but I don't really know how to classify this. What you are about to see is not only a balding man with shaved side mullet/ponytail but also a coiffed fringe combover. 5 distinct 'styles' on one head... Crossing the Rubicon...

I am off to Athens in a few weeks and Italy later in the summer; I imagine I will have plenty more examples.

AlifeNYC

2009-06-20T14:30:00.005+02:00

The greatest front garden in the world ever.

2009-06-20T14:19:00.003+02:00

This 'display' can be found in Brooklyn on 17th Street between 4th and 5th Avenue. Needs to be seen to be believed.

Commoditising Hope

2009-06-20T13:43:00.004+02:00

Union Square in Manhattan. This picture is also a rather convenient link to a current exhibition in Berlin of the work of noted street artist Shepard Fairey, the guy who came up the Obey thing and also the Obama Hope poster. The exhibition is on at the Merry Karnowsky gallery on Torstrasse and is rather good actually.

Berlin Graffiti

2009-06-20T13:30:00.001+02:00

Come on this may as well be graffiti. I am disgusted.

Depeche Mode, Olympiastadion, Berlin

2009-06-11T14:25:00.002+02:00

The Mode in Berlin. What could be better? Germans love The Mode. A very particular type of German. Germans who have hair like this. Yes that is a woman with a gelled spiked flat top and long, conditioned, mullet. She was also wearing all black, leather trousers, a gillet and black cowboy boots. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't the most colourfully dressed person attending this gig.

A picture of a rainbow....no unicorns in sight.

The gig itself was amazing. 2 hours, 25 songs, 2 encores and all the hits. It's Depeche Mode, I don't really need to add anything else.

Cristiano Ronaldo

2009-06-11T11:27:00.003+02:00

I know this is another football post but again this is quite important given the current economic situation. So it looks like Ronaldo is off to Real Madrid too for an unconditional £80m transfer fee (€93m, god knows how many millions of dollars). That is just the transfer fee, that doesn't include signing bonus for the players, wages, agent commissions etc etc.

Is Ronaldo, the 'style' icon, worth it? I would say yes, he will shift enough thousands of replica shirts and he is actually an awesome player so any team will improve with him in the side and at 24 Real should get Ronaldo in his prime years. Still £80m...

Real have now spent €160m on two players in the space of a week. And they are still after Ribery! Madness. So the transfer merry-go-round has started with Manchester United having a £80m budget to blow on players, Milan with a hefty chunk of change too, Barcelona looking to spend some and lets not forget the billions that Manchester City and Chelsea have burning a hole in their pockets. For what it is worth here are my player movement predictions...

- Madrid and Bayern swap Ribery for Sneijder, Robben plus cash
- Pato moves to Chelsea from Milan
- Benzema moves to Manchester United from Lyon
- Adebayor moves to Milan from Arsenal
- Ibrahimovic moves to Barcelona from Inter
- Eto'o moves to Manchester City from Barcelona
- Santa Cruz moves to Manchester City from Blackburn
- Aguero moves to Chelsea from Atletico Madrid
- Tevez moves to Manchester City from Manchester United
- Silva moves to Liverpool from Valencia
- Villa moves to Real Madrid from Valencia
- Pirlo moves to Chelsea from Milan
- Mexes moves to Milan from Roma
- Gourcuff moves to Manchester United from Bordeaux
- Valencia moves to Manchester United from Wigan

And my big surprise move of the summer which will ultimately fail is Manchester United offering ludicrous amounts of money for Andres Iniesta of Barcelona...

Kaka

2009-06-10T02:00:00.005+02:00

I am going to try and talk less about soccerball if I can, as my obsession is bordering on weird, however, the big news that everybody is talking about (and thus a topical news issue) is the world record transfer of Kaka from Milan to Real Madrid for €67.2m. I think he is probably, just about worth it, or put another way, he is exactly 5 times better than the €13m Dutchman Rafael Van der Vaart he is replacing in the Madrid midfield.

One thing that concerns me about this deal though; Kaka is forever telling everyone he belongs to Jesus, so really the transfer fee should go to JC and not AC (Milan), no? Yes, I know I have done this lame joke before, but some people haven't had the misfortune of enjoying it.

Finally, for those of us who like data presented in tables and graphs, here is a nice graphic showing the history of the world record transfer fee. Denilson or Lentini as the biggest waste of money?

New York Graffiti

2009-06-10T01:49:00.002+02:00

This is all over Williamsburg. I have no idea either...

Marcus & Abid Go To White Castle

2009-06-10T00:57:00.004+02:00

I spent the whole of May in New York. Just because. Anyway, there were many notable moments during my time there and one of the funniest was a night out with my Swedish friend Marcus. We had ventured out to see Eli Escobar DJ somewhere in Williamsburg. Apparently I spoke to Mr Escobar towards the end of the evening. I say apparently as I can't actually remember as I was three sheets to the wind. I hope to God I didn't hurl abuse at him like I used to in my young hooligan days. I was a rough diamond I tells ya!

I digress, after Eli, Marcus and I did what any red-blooded males would do; we went on the pull. Off to Union Pool, which if you know Williamsburg, and I don't really, it is the meat market extraordinaire! There are bowls of condoms on the bar...apparently...I don't recall seeing any of this or talking to anyone but 'apparently' I did...after coming up empty handed, yep we couldn't even score some free condoms, Marcus and I did what any red blooded males would do when they have failed to pull; we went to get some fast food.

There were legends that there was a White Castle in Brooklyn and we went looking for this burger utopia or burtopia. Finally, at some ungodly hour in the morning, we found our salvation and promptly walked up to the drive-thru section to order. There was literally no one about, no cars, no one. So we ordered but a rather stern voice responded that we had to be in a car to order at a drive-thru. We countered that there was no one around, the voice came back 'sir, you need a car'. What difference does it make? 'Sir, you need a car'. It would be our secret? 'Sir, you need a car'. After some hard nosed negotiation we caved in and walked to the sidewalk outside and did the only thing red blooded males would do in a battle of wits with drive-thru attendants; we hailed a cab to take us through. In your face General Franco!

Finally, after all the years of wondering I have experienced White Castle. And it is awful. The burgers aren't great but I am intrigued by their small size, but what really turned my stomach was the chickenrings, onion rings made out of chicken. Quite possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

NB. I would just like to point out that despite being a fully red blooded male, Marcus is a happily married man and was playing Goose to my Maverick for the evening. Despite all this no one ended getting goosed in a maverick sense or otherwise.

AVE maria

2009-06-10T00:22:00.004+02:00

OK I have thought of a way to catch up which won't completely bore me. I am going to go for a fractured narrative, a chopped up timeline. So I may talk about today, and then bang I am talking about Barcelona or something over two months ago, and then bang before you know it I am on to something else. Yep, I agree it is pretty lame but I really don't have the time or inclination to just go linear and follow the arrow of time. So try to keep up.

So after Madrid came Barcelona and to get from A to B I took the AVE fast train. And what a delight it was. I am not a train geek or anything, as in I have been with girls and I don't live with my parents, but I was mightily impressed by the AVE system. OK, the in-train (can you say that? In-flight works but somehow in-train doesn't) movie was Meet Dave which was horrific in Spanish so I can't imagine how bad it was in English. Really why is Eddie Murphy prostituting himself these days? Has he lost his funny bone? Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Spain and want to travel between the major cities take the AVE; if you look in advance on the website (which is pretty terrible) there are some dirt cheap prices too. My ticket cost €47 euros! In your face General Franco!

By the way the pictures above are from Madrid Atocha train station, which, for some reason, has a rain forest inside it. Go figure.

Top Albums of 2009...thus far

2009-06-09T21:34:00.003+02:00

Yes, this is blog filler as I have a bit of mental block or writers blog or bloggers blog or something about how best to catch up with the last few months. I could just skip everything and pretend the last two months didn't happen, but I would have to give up some killer blog material. So, while I try to work out how best to get up to date, here is a list! 2009 is six months old so what better time to list my top 5 albums of the year so far.

5. Depeche Mode - Sounds of the Universe (not just because I am going to see them at the Olympiastadion tomorrow and so have been frenetically trying to familiarise myself with the songs, ok maybe a little)

4. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - bit obvious really

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Its Blitz - I like it, so what?

2. J Dilla - Jay Stay Paid - If I could have one dead person back, Jesus or Dilla....Dilla.

1. Dan Deacon - Bromst - simply superb.

So there is my top 5 of 2009.5. Yes I am aware that it was completely lame to tag on the .5 there. Completely aware.

Back to procrastinating.

Update - I haven't heard the new Isis album yet so can't comment although I have been told it is the record of the year. Whatevs.

Why do I find this funny?

2009-06-08T16:16:00.002+02:00

The story of David Blunkett getting injured by a cow, I am ashamed to say, has had me giggling like an idiot. OK the thought of a blind man being trampled by a rampaging cow isn't something we should laugh about, but the way the article is written, you are left wondering whether the author isn't taking the piss....

"It is believed the cow ran at the dog and while trying to protect her, the blind MP fell and was trampled."

And, the needless, yet comical quote and advice from a farmer...

Alison Pratt, from the National Farmers' Union, gave the following advice to others should they find themselves in a similar position.

"The best thing to do is to let the dog off the lead so it can run away because obviously a dog can run faster than you," she said.

"The next thing to do is to get quite quickly to the edge of the field, collect the dog and leave."

....I think this is where I left off...

2009-06-05T23:27:00.002+02:00

So I left you all in Madrid. Not literally of course as I couldn't imagine anything worse. Well trapped in Paris perhaps. Or Bolton. Yes, Madrid. The Paris of the South, or Paris with sunshine. You may have picked up that I don't like Paris. No, I am not some grumpy loveless cynic. I have drunk from the frothy cup of love, and I hope to do so again, however, Paris sucks plain and simple. If I was 55, enjoyed sitting outside cafes in a black turtleneck sweater, talking with my mouth full of crepes and gesticulating wildly with my arms then Paris might have its charms. But I am not, so it sucks. I could go on but I don't want to get bogged down in Paris, because Paris is a bog, a swamp of the mind. OK that was overly dramatic, but I really need to move this along. So Madrid.

In one sentence, I didn't like it much. It was very pretty, the weather was nice, the food was ok and it seems to have an intriguing nightlife, but overall I found the place self-important and dull. Madrid certainly has some of the best galleries and museums I have been to. The Prado really is as good as everyone says it is, the Thyssen is excellent if run by retards and Reina Sofia is very distracting for a few hours, and the Madrid Card is simply the best value tourist card thing in any city ever (free entrance to Prado, Thyssen, Reina Sofia, the Royal Palace, Real Madrid Museum and tour, Atletico Museum and tour, the Botanical Gardens and hundreds more for €30 something euros!). However, I still had this overriding impression that Madrid lacked energy, that intangible verve. Sounds terribly pretentious, but then again I am terribly pretentious. Madrid just didn't have that certain something and in the end I just got thoroughly bored by the prettiness, the tourists, the museums, the galleries. There was no sense of mischief, no scent of adventure. Perhaps one cannot know the essence of a city in a few days, well I say that's complete poppycock! Of course one can get the bally essence of a place within the first twenty minutes and the onward journey to Barcelona was to reinforce and validate my propensity to make snap judgements. Bah! Lets move this along shall we?

Change has come to blogging

2009-06-05T23:06:00.005+02:00

With PCD's 'When I Grow Up' blaring in the background I return to the blog. Where I have been is not important, what I have been doing even less so. Wait actually, that is crucial to this blog business, so very briefly, as I will elaborate later, I have been away for pretty much the last two months on an extended 'holiday'. I am loathe to say travelling as only insufferably smug children of architects and doctors go travelling to find themselves, invariably in South East Asia. 'Oh you didn't have a gap year?' No, my parents were working down the mine and I had to be the man of the house for my sixteen brothers and sisters, we had to eat the disable brother. That is completely true. These shoulders are broad and these eyes have seen some things.

I digress. So yes I have been away but now I am back and with a bit of loose end I thought I might try to see if we can give this blog thing another go. We have so much history together it would be a shame to throw it all away. I am sure you have all been playing away and reading other blogs, and that does hurt me deep inside my darkplace, but I am big enough to accept that was the past and we can be great again as long as you come back to me. Will you come back to me?

Lottery

2009-04-10T11:08:00.005+02:00

I know it is a bit of stereotype that Spaniards love the lottery, but it is really true. This is the land of El Gordo after all and in both Madrid and Barcelona there are hundreds of little kiosks like this selling just lottery tickets and scratchcards. It is most curious but then with a "global economic catastrophe" darkening all our doors perhaps we should all be taking Lady Luck out for recession busting bucket of chicken and fries at KFC.

Madrid Graffiti

2009-04-10T11:05:00.004+02:00

In case you can't make out what it says, it exclaims "Hip Hop¡¡Don't Stop!!". Vanilla baby.

Spanish TV and the Klan’s Spring Break

2009-04-10T10:59:00.002+02:00

Having watched quite a bit of Spanish TV over the last few days I have noticed that the major free-to-air terrestrial channels tend to stick to a few keys staples for their programming. News, celebrity gossip, football, football gossip, soaps, soap gossip, more gossip and it appears anything remotely religious. The last one could be because it is Easter right now and the Spanish take Easter seriously. So seriously that everything stops and everyone joins in a procession through their towns holding candles, crucifixes and the more robust ones giant, ornate figures from the bible. I sort of avoided the one in Madrid as I can't trust myself in crowds following incidents in most of the major European capitals...I really don't want to talk about.

The TV was full of people wearing things like this. At first I was shocked that the Klan had found a home in Europe, but I don’t think this lot are into stringin’ up Jews and coloreds. I haven’t asked I am just making an assumption.

What a Messi!

2009-04-09T13:43:00.004+02:00

By the Great Kings of Babylon! Uefa may as well start engraving Barcelona’s name on the European Cup as I can’t see anyone beating them. I saw them maul, toy, batter, spank, smash, pummel and then thrash Bayern Munich last night in the first leg of the quarterfinal at the Camp Nou. Genuinely, in the first half Barcelona were frightening, they scored four in forty-five minutes but it should have been ten. Barcelona eased off in the second half but the game ended with the Catalan’s having 67% of ball possession during the game. 67%! That’s computer game stats. With yesterday’s results, I have a feeling it may be a Arsenal versus Barcelona final once more, which I don’t think my dicky ticker could handle a second time around.

Messi! Messi! Messi! Dear Lord!v He is 21 years old. If he’s this good now how good can he be in the next few years? Can he get better? Is it possible to top perfection? Messi is pretty much unplayable, unstoppable and unfathomable on current form; here he scored two, made two, hit the crossbar and made countless runs, chances and should have had a penalty. Staying on the video game theme, Messi is most definitely a Playstation footballer. The sort of footballer who can pick up the ball in his own penalty box and dribble it around everyone twice and walk it into the net, but actually do that for real unlike Patrick Mboma who is awesome in some the early Pro Evolution Soccer games but is or was gash in reality.

And what of Bayern? After conceding 9 goals in two games their season is over. This Bayern team are finished. Too many over the hill and mediocre players. Van Bommel, Luca Toni, Ze Roberto, Oddo, Altintop are past it and DeMichelis, Lell, Breno, Rensing, Sosa, Schweinsteiger are just not good enough to win the Bundesliga never mind the Champions League. The only Bayern players that are any good are Lahm and Ribery and you get the impression they will move on this summer. The question though is do Bayern have the money to fund such a massive squad overhaul? If they sell Ribery perhaps they can raise €40m and then with selling off other deadwood raise another €20-30m but it will cost a fortune to replace Ribery and really today it costs a minimum o f €20m for just one world class player. Bleak times ahead in Bavaria methinks.

Regarding Spanish television coverage, perhaps it is me, but the guy who commentates on Canal+ has the most annoying nasal accent, I really couldn’t deal with it by the end. Presumably it isn’t annoying to Spanish speakers? Spanish is quite nasal I have noticed.

More curiously, Joan Laporta was interviewed straight after the game as if he took part or was somehow key to the victory and you get the impression that he is interviewed immediately after games on a regular basis. It was quite a telling insight into the importance and power of club presidents in Spain, as that just wouldn’t happen in England. Although Beckenbauer holds similar sway I suppose, so perhaps it is just a continental thing. Also Henry’s Spanish seems flawless. He was interviewed after the game, and although I didn’t understand a word of it, he seemed completely at ease as he is with his English. What a guy.

Madrid, Spain - live blog

2009-04-08T17:32:00.004+02:00

I find myself in Madrid. No really, I am in Madrid, I don't mean in a psychogeography kind of way, but in a longitude and latitude sense. I arrived this morning and having slept for the first few hours I have been out and about trying to form a first impression of the city. I am staying in downtown Madrid, near Sol metro where many of the major/touristy areas of the city are located. Utilising my, by now legendary powers of observation and knack for lazy generalisations my first impressions of Madrid can be neatly summed up in the following bullet points.

- Barajas is a rubbish airport, almost on a par with Gatwick.
- Madrid is hot. It's 6pm and I have already had 3 showers.
- The city is geared towards tourists, that is, it is very easy to get around and find things if you don't speak Spanish (which is handy as hardly anyone seems to speak English - which isn't a criticism)
- There are loads of old people here. Every other person is elderly, frail and walks with the assistance of something whether it be a cane a frame another person or an animal (I did see the world's smallest woman being propped up by a large dog). I have never, ever, seen so many old people. Ever. It is a shock as in Britain we lock old people up and perform medical experiments on them to further our understanding of the universe.
- The main shopping district of Madrid (Gran Via and the roads that come off it) is depressingly familiar. It has all the shops you will find in any European city from Macclesfield to Mainz.
- Madrid is pretty dirty. There is a smell that hangs in the air that can only be described as Eau d'Alexanderplatz (think sulphurous with a dash of essence of kebab) which I expected as it is so hot here and there is no wind. It was bound to smell.
- Gran Via is just as awful as Oxford Street.
- Most people seem to be reading either AS or Marca which is quite surreal. If you don't know what AS and Marca are, well they are newspapers 95% dedicated to football. Daily newspapers. Think about it, daily newspapers just about football and in this city they devote most of their column inches to Real Madrid. There surely are not that many things happening in the world of Real Madrid and football that you could dedicate not one but two daily newspapers (there are loads more around the country). However, flicking through AS I realised that most of it is pictures and bad photoshopped montages and the rest is 'transfer news' which is complete and utter bullshit. Today, AS says that Kaka has told President-elect Florentino Perez he will join Madrid for €60-70m this summer and demand €9m in wages. An exclusive, of course. Marca also has an exclusive, Villa and Silva will leave Valencia for a combined €60m. Who is right? Who cares?

Tomorrow will be the big tourist trawl although I am not really feeling the vibe here I have to confess. Before I came here I imagined Madrid would be Paris with sunshine, that is, pretty to look at but quite dull. It is pretty to look at. I will wait till I leave to decide whether the second part is true.

Songs of Sweden

2009-04-06T14:28:00.002+02:00

OK this is absolutely the last time I blog about Sweden and my disgustingly tawdry love for all things Swedish. Any way, being a male obsessed with lists, organising and themes I found myself making a musical playlist from Sweden. So here is my audio guide to the land that gave the world Rednex and Dr Alban.

1. The Field - Everday
2. The Knife - Heartbeats
3. The Hives - Hate To Say I Told You So
4. Robyn - Show Me Love
5. Robyn - Handle Me
6. Roxette - Joyride (awesome song)
7. Eric Prydz - Call On Me (I do actually quite like this one)
8. The Cardigans - Erase/Rewind
9. The (International) Noise Conspiracy - The (First) Conspiracy (actually everthing by this band and Refused)
10. Ace of Base - The Sign
11. Familjen - Det snurrar i min skale
12. Familjen - Huvudet i sanden
13. Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks
14. Razorlight - Golden Touch
15. Europe - The Final Countdown
16. Dungen - Panda
17. Jose Gonzalez - Put Your Hand On Your Heart
18. Jens Lekman - Black Cab
19. Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me
20. Jens Lekman - Opposite Of Hallelujah
21. Eagle-Eye Cherry - Save Tonight!!!!!

No ABBA as really I think I speak for all when I say that although I don't mind them I am pretty sick of hearing their songs everywhere. Even Fernando.

God I am bored.

My Head Is Spinning

2009-04-05T16:18:00.002+02:00

A revelation. A Damascene moment. A friend who is studying Swedish, introduced me to the genius of Familjen. This is now officially my favourite song which will be played at both my wedding and my funeral and any other function of joyous celebration or morbid reflection.

Familjen hail from the Skane area of the country and I am told sing in the southern Swedish dialect. Their debut album Det snurrar i min skalle which is also title of the lead single above is full to the brim with great electropop tunes. Check out this song Huvudet i sanden too. I am ashamed of myself that this album has been out for 2 years and yet only now have I heard about it. I am losing touch.

I know I am quite brazen in my love for Sweden and all things Swedish but I am continually amazed by the musical talents of the natives. If it wasn't so bloody cold and expensive there I would seriously consider relocating.

Hertha BSC 1 - 3 Borussia Dortmund

2009-04-05T16:04:00.003+02:00

Hertha lose again and it looks like dream of winning the title, well was just that a dream. A very poor performance against a very average Dortmund team seriously jeopardises the prospects of Champions League football too as Hertha slip from first to third as Hamburg and Wolfsburg win.

A sense of reality has finally descended on Berlin and not just for Hertha but for some of their players too. This week, Andrey Voronin almost fooled everyone in the Premier League into forgetting how bad he really is and talking up his chances of returning to Liverpool to play alongside the world class striking talents of Fernando Torres. Well despite his James Beattiesque purple patch of scoring in successive games, Voronin's play was depressingly back to type. Running around, not doing much and losing possession. In fact, much of the Hertha midfield was useless on Saturday. And the defence, well let's not even talk about that, it was a complete farce.

I think everyone should forget about the title and aim for a Champions League spot which will be tough but if the home form comes back then it is entirely possible.

LESSER BRAZILIANS

The big news of the day was at Wolfsburg where Bayern were spanked 5-1. I saw the highlights and there was a great shot of Klinsy sitting next to Uli Hoeness as the fifth Wolfsburg goal went in. Talk about awkward! Expect Jurgen to be fired.

Der Auto-Club Wolfsburg are the Bundesliga’s top scorers a position they owe to the much sought after (if you read the NOTW) strike pair of Bosnian Eden Dzeko and Brazilian Grafite. Dzeko does actually look really good, Grafite though, he is symptomatic of the other Brazilians in Germany much like Rafaelle and Cicero at Hertha. I know I have criticised the second-grade freshness of the Bundesliga’s Brazilians, but both Rafaelle and Grafite scored absolutely brilliant individual goals this weekend; Rafaelle managing to dribble around three Dortmund players for his and Grafite’s, well probably the goal of the season where dribbled around two defenders, the goalkeeper then backheeled it past two more defenders. Youtube it.

Zarif

2009-04-02T23:00:00.004+02:00

Finding myself at a loose end the other day, I decided to scan the wireless to pick up any Axis communiqués about possible bombing sorties over the Midlands . Although my attempts to ascertain whether the rumoured threats to bomb Coventry back to the stone age were credible or not proved ultimately futile, which may or may not be a bad thing, I did stumble upon a popular music show on the BBC.

This music show, I forget the name, was presented by rather ghastly twenty something oiks fond of dropping consonants and sounding suspiciously provincial and no doubt were schooled at one of the polytechnics. The BBC really has gone to the dogs it must be said. They even have Northerners on the Today programme these days. Egads! Alas, I digress. This popular music show was showcasing the leading talents of today and what one can look forward to hearing in the dance halls and variety shows across Europe this summer. Foremost amongst these was a young lady by the name of Zahreef or something similarly foreign sounding from the Levant. This rather distracting Levantine (can one say that anymore?) had no surname but plenty of chutzpah.

Although I have never met this exotic and extremely talented songstress from the Near East (which isn’t far from Harrow according to her Who’s Who entry) or spoken to her, or even been in her company or anything, I can tell she has star quality and more charisma than a biologically unsound yet deliciously louche amalgamation of Cary Grant and David Niven.

I must confess that musically speaking nothing has moved me since Callas played Violetta at La Scala but young Zarif has a voice that can slice bread and then toast and butter it, and even serve it to you with a piping hot cup of Earl Grey too. After entering the correct instructions into the Google box I was able to retrieve these co-ordinates for further information on the new Callas (but obviously hundred times less fat, Greek and dead), so click here, here, here and here to be enlightened. I also found some broadsheet clippings that may interest those with musical taste, and they are here and here. My man-servant Tanaki was able to transmogrify some moving images set to music for your audio/visual pleasure.

Mein Tasche: The Hirsute Improbability Of German History On The Face Of A Raffish Auslander

2009-03-31T20:00:00.000+02:00

I present to you the artist as art or a portrait of an artist as a piece of art. This art shit is deep. So for my first piece I have decided to represent German history through my facial hair. It's a hair raising narrative, that isn't exactly linear or at first glance thematic. However, if one was to look beyond the whiskers, push past the bush, dance around the fur and read between the bristles you will see the greater truth and the sublime. Or something.

My piece, as the title suggests is the exploration of German history, its sonderweg if you will, through the shifting vagaries of my oberlippenbart and how that moustache came to dominate its era and what lessons we can learn from it today. The four figures from German history I have chosen, or rather the four pillars that hold up this edifice known as Deustchland, are Kaiser Wilhelm II, Prince Otto von Bismarck, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sir Charles Chaplin.

The Kaiser or Der Kaiser (that's one for the natives to show that I am culturally sensitive with my attempts to shock and provoke) is the first icon of German history into the barber's chair with what can only be described as an imperially magnificent waxed number. This hairy ode to joy exudes power and confidence and also a cultured and more cosmopolitan outlook on life. You would never guess that old Wilhelm had a withered hand that put Jeremy Beadle to shame and was quite possibly a closet homosexual with serious mental problems arising from years of incestuous inbreeding....trust me I studied history for four years and hold two degrees on the subject and yes I firmly believe that Catherine the Great was bummed to death by a horse and that Rasputin had a 15 inch penis. Historical fact. I should know.

The next stage in my facial plummage (it is taking bloody ages) will be Otto von Bismarck. The Dark Prussian Prince, has given his name to ships and strangely two American cities but his greatest triumph was smashing the French in a not so delicate game of qu'est-ce que vient de se passer? Along with Metternich and Disraeli, Bismarck is one of my favourite European statesmen and his moustache should be honoured as such. This particular bouquet suggests a paternalistic strength, apt as Bismarck to many, I presume those obsessed with the military, is the father of the nation for his key role in unification of the German states. This moustache is also indicative of the might of the Prussian War Machine and I shall be waxing my whiskers with engine oil to illustrate this.

Ah Nietzsche! What a mind, what ideas, what a moustache! The ideas flow out of him much like his facial flowed out of his nose and from the looks of it from the back of his throat and what looks like his eyes too. This picture or painting was from later in life when he had quite literally gone bonkers. This stage of the hirsute of German history is the most resonant for today as by wearing this hairy badge I will be striking a blow against organised religion of the folly of so-called representative democracy, both of which Nietzsche, in a retarded and bastardised reading of his ideas, despised. This moustache will also represent the various wars that are raging in the world including the War on Terrorism, the War on Want, the War on Aids, the War on Drugs and the World of Warcraft. I am declaring a War on Concepts with the Nietzsche moustache and I am sure Friedrich would have been proud. The War on Conceptual Art is next week before you ask.

And finally, the nub of German history. The great counterfactual conundrum. What if Charlie Chaplin had never existed? Would the course of German and by extension World history in the twentieth century have been any different? Think about it. I am an conceptual artist I am not spoon feeding you the truth.

Back to Blog

2009-03-31T17:53:00.002+02:00

I have been away for a long time. Why? I cannot say. Where? I cannot say. Doing what? I cannot say. No, really it isn't that interesting despite my singular ability as a writer to engender a sense of mystery. If you must know I was in London for a short while tending to some affairs and some business interests I have in the Western Cape as well as selling my remaining stock in Conglomerated Spatz. What is important though, is that I am back in Berlin and crucially that I have decided to become a conceptual artist to fit in.

Living in Berlin, one quickly realises that most people here are one of five professions.

1. An electro DJ
2. A graphic/web designer
3. A conceptual artist
4. A musician (struggling of course)
5. Professionally unemployed (and believe me it is a job and they really work hard at it)

For those living in East London, Hackney way to be precise or the environs of Williamsburg in Brooklyn those five professions may sound painfully familiar such has been the globalisation of indolence. So yes I chose number three, the life of the conceptual artist, as I can't play any instruments, I know next to nothing of HTML and I don't have enough 'good' electro to DJ for more than 20 mins and given that these dance events can last for 3 days I think I would be doing my audience a disservice if I just looped that magical 20.

I could of course have pursued the life of professional unemployment as there is nothing better I like doing than, well, nothing. Those lucky few who are familiar with my habits know that I am a man of simple needs and simple pleasures and I have this curious ability to slow down all my basic body functions; my brain, my heart, my metabolism; a waking coma if you will, to expend the least amount of energy cutting down the need for costly things such as food and drink. However, even I, an experienced and cultured had at the art of rien, would find it difficult to function in Berlin, speaking little German, sitting at home staring at the rapidly crumbling walls living of a diet of budget kebabs and numbing the pain of existence with 40 cents bottles of beer (that's 40 cents for 500ml and apparently you can get it cheaper...).

I must also add that my chosen profession of conceptual artist has been somewhat influenced by my immediate environment. A sort of nurture over nature thing. Wait, that isn't right. A better analogy would be getting cancer from living near electricity pylons. Any way, I live on Brunnenstrasse, in the Mitte district of Berlin. To the uninitiated, like me, Brunnenstrasse happens to be the art gallery epicentre of Berlin and possibly the world, I don't know I haven't checked. There are 30 galleries, yes 3 and 0, on this street alone. That number goes up to over 50 galleries in the immediate vicinity, that is the roads that come off Brunnenstrasse. Sounds ludicrous doesn't it? Well here is the list. They are forever opening and closing. When I say there is a gallery opening seemingly every other night, well I might be exaggerating slightly but it must be one a week. So living in the white hot, I am going to say soup of art in Berlin and being fond of loafing free drinks and canapes at gallery openings I was destined to become an artist. As I couldn't draw, paint, stencil or use crayons and I am banned from using scissors for safety reasons, conceptual art was the only way I could express the pain within.

And that pain was a fire so I decided to utilise fire as a theme and as a material. Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought things through and after setting many, many things on fire I was no further along on the now charred path to creation. Then the answer was literally staring me in the face....literally, as in it was my face. The face was my canvas. Next!

Perfidious Albion

2009-03-10T17:31:00.003+01:00

Tonight, the second legs of the first knockout stage of Champions League begin. On Thursday morning 16 teams will be reduced to 8. If the first legs were anything to go by, in theory there could be 4 English teams in the quarter finals along with 1 German, 1 Spanish, 1 Portuguese and 1 Greek. Or not. There quite as easily be no English teams in the next round.

However, before a ball has even been kicked the number of articles, the number of ex-players and managers, the sheer number of football people lamenting the dominance or supposed dominance of the English teams is getting quite frankly ludicrous. Why so negative? And is the English teams dominating such a bad thing?

Jonathan Wilson has written are rather good article in the Guardian about the Premier League's current supremacy. Wilson notes that it is quite unprecedented that 9 of the last 16 semi-finalists in the Champions League have been English. However, that is only a product of four teams being allowed in the Champions League these days and the current cycle of dominance being in England. If four teams had been allowed in the 90s, then Italians would have completely dominated the tournament more than they did. And that's the point, this dominance thing is cyclical and fleeting just like the money is cyclical as Wilson also points out. The Italians were the richest and dominated, followed by the Spanish, followed by the English.

So who's next? Well I think it will be the Bundesliga. Why? Well if you think about it, all the ingredients are there. The Bundesliga has the highest average attendances in Europe, great stadiums following the World Cup upgrade and passionate, nay fanatical support (the sort that like to wear 18 scarves and all sorts of other club merchandise on their person, think about it, that would never happen in Italy). Crucially, the next few years will see the money flooding into the Bundesliga.

The Bundesliga has just agreed a new TV deal with Premiere which when other rights are taken in gives the teams €415 million annually for four years. That is a huge amount of money in the middle of a recession. On top of that the Bundesliga is already outdoing the Premier League in shirt sponsorship deals, and attendance is going up along with prices in Germany whereas prices are being cut in England and crowds are still falling.

Hold on! Isn't the Premier League TV deal just agreed worth even more? Of course it is, but where the Premier League will fall down is the excruciating level of debt the English clubs carry. Bundesliga clubs are by law prevented from running up huge debts and now, given the Great Depression that we are in, look best equipped to ride out the storm.

Platini has already indicated that clubs carrying debt may not be allowed to compete at European level. That might be an idle threat from Uefa, but the reality is the banks might actually do Platini's job for him, just look at what is happening at Valencia. What would happen to Chelsea if Roman wants his money back? Or to Liverpool if they can't find a rich Arab oil baron to pay off their bank loan by the summer? It could all end in tears before bedtime.

Despite the emergence of Hoppenheim (see what I did there?) Bundesliga clubs are stable entities run by responsible people (apart from Schalke, who I didn't realise were such an utter joke). The smarter people in football can already see that it is only a matter of time before Deutschland will be uber alles. Bayern chairman Karl Heinz Rummenigge can already taste the fruits of the promised land. And it is not just Bayern who are upbeat, I saw this article in the FT a few months ago, and the future scenario seemed entirely plausible to me.

Before anyone says it, no, I haven't gone native. I still think the quality of the Bundesliga presently is absolutely shocking. And yes I am a sucker for star names rather than high scoring games between two provincial teams from Bavaria. However, with economies collapsing, banks going bust, the good times will come to an end in England very soon. Transfer fees will come down, salaries will fall. When that happens, there will be only one league in Europe with strong enough foundations to capitalise and at the moment that looks like the Bundesliga.

Update 23:15 - Liverpool and Chelsea through. Arsenal and United tomorrow? Looks good.

Diego

2009-03-09T14:37:00.004+01:00

Decadence

2009-03-09T13:28:00.003+01:00

Breakfast today consisted of pancakes, crispy bacon and maple syrup, washed down with a magnum of champagne... I am becoming quite corpulent it must be said. My man breasts are quite unspeakably pert.

Time to join the gym methinks.

Polish Losers Club

2009-03-08T19:49:00.004+01:00

Staying on the Polish theme (this is all seamless isn't it?) one of the better bars I have been to in my time in Berlin is the Club der polnischen Versager, which literally translated from the German is Club of Polish Failure, or rather losers. Located on Ackerstrasse, this place is where Berlin's hipster Poles hang out. It's pretty cool and they show Polish avant garde films and put on music which is dangerously advertised as Polish 'free jazz'.

Of course, anyone who knows me, will know that I am Johnny Hates Jazz, so I was a bit apprehensive about going to see Polish jazz band Spejs or Space. Well it wasn't jazzy in the slightest and not bad actually. Once again they had some great visuals. It is a must these days.

Tomasz Partyka

2009-03-08T19:22:00.003+01:00

So yes the exhibition from the previous post. Well, it was an exhibition of work by the young Polish artist Tomasz Partyka at the Galerie Zero in Kreuzberg.

Partyka work, at least the work in the current exhibition, is inspired by Dutch art from 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Partyka is quite highly rated in Poland and his stuff I have to say is rather good, and ironically it is quite refreshing to see an artist actually painting in this age of conceptual art. What a dreadfully reactionary thing to say!

Great Danes

2009-03-08T18:40:00.002+01:00

A rather curious, well, event, occurred the other evening, Friday to be precise, whilst I was out and about in Berlin. I was heading to a gallery opening (yep, look at me) in Kreuzberg, but before I got there, I stopped off to have some drinks with a friend who worked in a rather plush hostel in the centre of the city.

Whilst we were drinking and laughing merrily at my outstanding bon mots and my oberlippenbart (more on that later) my friend was confronted with the news that someone had decided to use their own faeces to redecorate the ladies toilet. I cannot describe the mess someone had created, as they wouldn't let me see it was so grotesque, but I have it on good authority that it really wasn't human or logical. Unless it was conceptual art or something. With this city, you never know.

The time was creeping up to midnight when a coach party of Danish teenagers arrived at the hostel. My friend, who was still on the clock, then had the unenviable task of dealing with this gang of rowdy whippersnappers who were screaming for their rooms. My friend looked particularly stressed but he seemed to be on top of things and sorting it out.

20 minutes later, 2 of the Danish girls come running down screaming like a pair of banshees, and exclaiming in shouty English that there was a man sleeping in their bed. My friend, was at this point losing his will to live, and attempted to calm them down. Next, one of the boys in the group came down to the lobby wearing just his boxers (Guitar Hero boxers), he was visibly aroused. Yes he had an erection. We couldn't work out whether this was the boy the girls found in their room or just some extremely excitable fellow. So these two girls, and if I was to describe them as blonde, pretty, wealthy looking and precious I hope it won't make you think ill of them, were now in a serious strop and refusing to take their room and demanding their money back. I am not embellishing anything when I they were stomping about and screaming.

Next, another pair of girls were similarly getting stroppy and threatening to withdraw their business (I really don't know how that would have worked or where they would have gone) because they realised they would have had to share bathroom facilities. So now we had 4, blonde, pretty princesses, fuming and screaming in the lobby.

That is not all, another group of girls in this party then pulled an even bigger hissy fit when they were told that they could not share a room of 4 plain singles as originally they asked for, but instead would get two better and more expensive double rooms. It transpires the hostel staff had decided to give the room for 4 to a disabled boy, with cerebral palsy, his parents and his brother. But not just any disabled boy, no, a disabled boy who was their classmate. A boy they knew, who had travelled ahead of the coach in a special minibus and had checked in a few hours before because of his condition and special needs. So now we had an additional four, blonde, pretty, princesses screaming and shouting at their teachers and the hostel staff to kick out the disabled boy (who was sleeping at the time) and give them room for 4. The teachers did nothing. So unbelievably, there were eight Danish teenage girls in the lobby, getting more and more hysterical, two of them wanting to call the police to deal with the man in their room, two of them demanding their money with menaces and four of them wanting throw out their sleeping disabled classmate out of his room.

Of course, the hostel staff then had no choice but to go and wake the disabled boy and his family up and relocate them to the double rooms. I didn't stick around long enough to find out if the other girls were placated as it was nearing 1 in the morning and we were supposed to be elsewhere. I later found out that the group of 'teenagers' were in fact 18 and 19 years old.

Oy vey!

Eduardo!!!!!!!

2009-03-08T17:54:00.003+01:00

Back with a bang! Arsenal win 3-0 today to reach the quarterfinals of the FA Cup, but today was all about Eduardo's goal. "What a goal!" is what I found myself screaming in a pub full of strangers and believe me it was brilliant. A left footed volley with his ankle, sort of, bah! I can't do it justice, you will just have to seek it out on Youtube or something. Phenomenal.

So Eduardo is back and gets his third goal in two games. And it's been a long road to recovery since he broke his leg and dislocated his ankle last February. It's a miracle to see him walk never mind play football again.

Eduardo is everything Arsenal lack at the moment, that instinctive finisher in the last third of the pitch, able to conjure something out of nothing like he did today or score the simple ones that Bendtner in particular just doesn't seem able to score.

It's going to be an interesting end to the season for Arsenal with all the players coming back. If we manage to overcome Roma on Wednesday then, objectively looking at things we will be in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and the FA Cup (with a game against Hull at home one presumes we will win) and looking good to take fourth. Although Eduardo stole all the headlines today, I think the return of Walcott for the last 30 minutes of the game was just as significant. If Walcott finishes this season the way he did the last then we are on for winning something, surely? And there's Cesc to come back too...I should look into booking flights for Rome....

Berlin Graffiti

2009-03-07T23:18:00.001+01:00

Frank Lampard Jnr, 150 IQ

2009-03-07T23:02:00.003+01:00

I almost choked on my tongue when I saw this. Fat Frank with an IQ of 150? Lampard a genius? What the devil?

To be Totally Frank, for a moment, I feel slightly ill. And what's this John Terry has the third highest IQ at Chelsea? I need to lie down.

Jon Hopkins

2009-03-07T21:59:00.003+01:00

I saw Jon Hopkins at the CTM festival and he was definitely amongst the better performers. I didn't really know who he was before I saw him but I was quite taken with his 'performance'. What I mean is that his live show was excellent with great visuals to match the music. Usually, going to gigs put on by the laptop brigade can be quite dull and you end up fixating on the Apple logo on the ubiquitous Macs that all these nerdlingers use. Hopkins show was different and I have come to the opinion that all good gigs now must have a visual element otherwise my eyes and very quickly my brain will get bored.

Hopkins is about to release his first major album, Insides, in May and I am told there are copies floating about already on the interweb. Ahem. A 'friend' has told me that Insides, is rather good overall, with only a couple of ropey and dangerously Chemical Brothers sort of tunes on there. My 'friend' remarked that Light Through The Veins was particularly good and I can confirm that the song was indeed awesome live.

Hopkins is supporting Coldplay of all people at the moment (he did some production for them or something), which may put some people off. However, he is definitely worth checking out live and you could do a lot worse than get his album when it is released in May.

And the music? Well, it's ambient schmambient isn't it. Not much one could pick over really, there are elements of micro-techno in there, a few classical piano numbers and one tune that M83 would have been proud of...my eyes are bored and I can feel my brain following suit...Go see him live, he is worth it.

Energie Cottbus 1 Andrey Voronin 3

2009-03-07T21:07:00.004+01:00

What is going on???? Hertha win again and stay top of the Bundesliga, four points ahead of Bayern, Hoffenheim, Hamburg and Wolfsburg. Hertha still top with 11 games to go? And what's this? Andrey Voronin scores a hat-trick???? That's 7 goals in 5 games now, I think, for Voronin. Egads! Even I will have to admit that he is on fire. I still can't fathom it and the only logical explanation I can muster is that Bundesliga defences are so bad that even an inept player such as Voronin can still make a name for himself.

11 more games. Forget about qualifying for the Champions League, Hertha winning the title for the first time since 1931 is a very real possibility. Surreal possibility. Hertha's march to the title is obviously brilliant but I just realised having looked at the fixture list that I will miss large parts of the run-in due to travel commitments, indeed, I will miss the whole of the last month of the season and a possible victory parade in the city. I am genuinely disappointed.

Alas, let us not dwell on the negatives, instead let us glory in Andrey and the family Voronin and their singular take on sartorial elegance.

Andrey Junior, for that is his name, is wearing a tasteful number from Baby Dior...

Wife, Yulia Voronin sports the Chelmsford shop girl look.

???? Did they get these 'suits' at Next?

Good Lord! The Daily Mail, Britain's foremost penny dreadful, seems to really have it in for poor Yulia judging by this article. I feel quite sorry for her now.

Michael Sheen: Everyman

2009-03-06T21:24:00.003+01:00

I have just noticed that Michael Sheen has made a career of playing other people...of course, that is what actors do, but what I mean is that Michael Sheen has played real people on screen more than he has fictional characters, in fact you could say it is his speciality. Sheen's cast of real characters includes...

- Tony Blair twice and possibly three times (The Deal, The Queen and the follow on from The Queen)

- David Frost (Frost/Nixon)

- HG Wells (HG Wells: War of the Worlds)

- Kenneth Williams (Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!)

- Nero (Ancient Rome)

- Robbie Ross (Wilde)

- Jeremy Dyson (League of Gentlemen Apocalypse)

- Art Honeyman (Music Within)

- Brian Clough (The Damned United)

That's 10 possibly 11 roles where Sheen has depicted a real person and attempted to recreate them, rather than creating a character from scratch. It is merely coincidence of course, but still curious. Sheen is in danger of being typecast as Tony Blair, but the role I think he was born to play is Brian Clough from the initial trailers I have seen of The Damned United, which I am confident will be one of my favourite films of 2009.

This is it!

2009-03-06T17:01:00.002+01:00

So the rumours are true and Michael Jackson is going to play the o2 Arena in London this summer for an initial 10 dates! I have to admit I am deliriously excited, not just because it is Michael Jackson, not just because it will probably the last time he performs and finally not just because it promises to be an amazing live show. I am excited because of the circus the surrounds this guy. Despite all the things he is or he isn't, the things he has done and may have done, he is still an extraordinary person, totally compelling. Yes you could call it a freak show, but a freak show with the greatest soundtrack ever. As with Prince, so much interest and excitement has been generated already which makes a pleasant change from all the gloom and doom and horrible weather.

It is easy to be cynical about the whole thing and I am sure many people will be put off by MJ's past or the whole corporate nature of this. However, we all know when the lights go off and the opening beats of Billie Jean fill the arena, and when that spotlight falls on MJ with his hat and that one sparkly glove and he pulls out the moonwalk, we are all, everyone of us going to be screaming like little girls.

My dog ate my homework so my Dad ate my dog

2009-03-06T16:17:00.005+01:00

An absolutely telling, yet tragic, part of the shaggy dog story of pedigree boxer Manny Pacquiao was revealed this week by his trainer/handler Freddie Roach. It is widely known that as young pup Manny grew up in the slums of Manilla. This littlest hobo was eking out an existence on table scraps until he was discovered, trained and fought his way to the top. But why was Manny the stray on the streets in the first place?

It transpires, unless Roach is barking up the wrong tree, that Manny ran away from home after his father had quite literally made a dogs dinner of his canine friend. Yes Manny's Dad had eaten his dog, his best friend. Even though dog eating is still quite widely prevalent in the Philippines, that has got to put a dampner on father-son relations.

Anyway, Manny perservered, overcame the familial doggycide, channeled all his energies on becoming as fit as a butchers dog and the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world. What a story, what a character! It is stories like this that make Manny the much loved fighter, and possible future President of the Philippines he is today.

All The Presidents Films

2009-03-05T16:47:00.007+01:00

W

Director Oliver Stone

IMDB 6.8
Rotten Tomatoes 59%

Don't ask me why but for some reason, coincidence I hope, I have recently watched three films about former US presidents. One was a biopic, or something that would like to be classed as one, one was a dramatic retelling of a seminal moment in history and the other, well I have no idea what the other one was.

Let's begin with W. Cynically released in October 2008, at the height of the Presidential election campaign, W is the first film to deal with the Bush Presidency and Bush the man. And what utter cobblers it is! W was so dull, pointless and gutless. I am all for fair and balanced (like Fox News), but this pulled so many punches it was embarrassing. I mean you don't need to make a polemical film and hammer Bush, and I think everyone is quite tired of Michael Moore, but really, watching this you learn absolutely nothing about what motivated the decision to begin the largest and most significant war in my lifetime. The whole dramatisation of the Bush family was really melodramatic, Brazilian soap opera stuff. We are led to believe that one of the primary reasons, if not the most important, was that Bush went to war because he wanted Poppy Bush's acceptance. Oy vey!

Although Josh Brolin is pretty good at portraying Bush the swaggering Texan most of the rest of the rogues gallery of the Bush administration are just caricatures. Rumsfield is an emotionless technocrat, George Tenet the buck passing mandarin, Condoleeza Rice the toadying apparatchik, Blair as a weak ditherer, Powell as the noble voice of dissent and finally Dick Cheney as the Dark Lord himself. Honestly, Cheney was put together in such a hammy way and with Richard Dreyfuss adding the extra bacon that you half expected, no wanted, the music from Star Wars that always accompanied Darth Vader's entrance to play when Cheney was on screen. There is one scene in particular, where Cheney, in front of a world map showing US bases, outlines, in a low and sombre way, half in shadow, his plans for Empire, his plans to rule the world! And Powell, Good Lord! Why suddenly is everyone attempting to rehabilitate Colin Powell? Yes he may be an honourable man, a bloody fine chap and I am sure if I ever met him I would buy him a pint, but the guy went to the world and lied to justify a war of conquest. Lied plain and simple when he knew it was complete bullshit. Total and utter bullshit.

W, as I expected, 'history' for retards, if you really wanted to know what went on or an accurate analysis of the Bush presidency then there are countless books out there that are far better informed and based on fact. But the fast and loose use of fact and history isn't really my problem with this film, more I have a real cinematic, or rather dramatic issue in that W is really really boring. I struggled to be interested in this and I had to sit down four times to finish it. It is only 2 hours but it feels like 6. Given the juicy relevancy of the source material you would think it would be tough to make this so tedious but I think that is everything to do with Oliver Stone. Following the debacle that was Alexander, World Trade Center and now W, why does Oliver Stone still have opportunities to make films?

Bobby

Director Emilio Estefez

IMDB 7.2
Rotten Tomatoes 45%

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, what about Bobby? What is this film about? Nothing. What is the point? I couldn't tell you. Why was it made? No idea.

I have to confess that I dislike ensemble films where part of viewing experiencing is spent spotting different actors, but that is the only thing that Bobby has going for it. Emilio Estefez, yes of Mighty Ducks fame, wrote and directed this confused jumble which fictionally portrays the night of Robert Kennedy's assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Emilio has got all his friends involved, including his dad, President Bartlet, his ex Demi Moore and every single teen star you can think of who would like to have an 'independent' serious film on their CV. The film follows lots of disparate characters and their disparate lives and their disparate backgrounds in the hours leading up to the assassination and rather obviously, and I mean with a sledgehammer, tries to link each character's hopes to the potential of a Bobby Kennedy presidency. So we have the Angry Young Black Guy, the Idealistic Black Guy who sees an end to division, the 'communist' journalist from Eastern Europe who hopes RFK will bring down the Iron Curtain or something, the potential Vietnam draftee (Frodo Baggins) and the list of paint-by-numbers characters goes on.

Much like W, Bobby fails on the entertainment side, it meanders and it bores. The characters, two dimensional as they are, never get enough screen time for one to care, aside from Freddie Rodriguez who acts his little heart out. I hate to say it but Emilio should stick to acting or whatever it is he calls it. Perhaps its time for another Mighty Ducks, or Young Guns 3 or even better, genuinely, Free Jack 2: Mick Jagger's Revenge.

Frost/Nixon

Director Ron Howard

IMDB 8.1
Rotten Tomatoes 92%

The final presidential film, and the best of the lot by light years is Frost/Nixon. I am doing Frost/Nixon a great disservice by reviewing it last as I doubt anyone can be bothered to read all the way to the end after the way ripped into the W and Bobby, but this is an excellent film. Ron Howard, for once, doesn't ruin proceedings with his singular cack-handedness and instead lets the strong script come to the fore and great actors, well, act.

To sum up briefly, Frost/Nixon is a dramatic re-telling of the series of interviews that David Frost, a British 'journalist' in the loosest sense of the word managed to get with disgraced President Richard Nixon. Frost, in the face of accusations of cheque book journalism, had coughed up an enormous amount of money to convince Nixon to do an interview. It was fully expected that Nixon would run rings around Frost, not just by Nixon's aides and advisers but by Frost's friends and colleagues too and to a large extent Tricky Dicky had the upper hand. However, in the end Frost amazingly, dramatically and completely unexpectedly gets Nixon to admit that he broke the law and apologise for Watergate and the surrounding constitutional and legal crisis.

The contents of the film are widely known and I am not giving anything away so don't worry. This film is all about tension and drama and despite knowing what happens you are hooked all the way. Moreover, it doesn't spoon feed the audience background information or bits of history like W does but assumes that one is au fait with Watergate etc. The characters feel like real people, with real motivations and real fears and that includes Nixon. This isn't sympathetic to Nixon, nor is it another attempt to bash him, but it shows that things are always more complicated than that.

The acting is first class with Langella awfully good as Nixon but I think Michael Sheen steals it for me. Sheen, who lets be honest stole The Queen as Tony Blair, is great as Frost and is fast becoming one of my favourite actors. The rest of the cast is great too, Sam Rockwell in particular. Frost/Nixon is by far one of the best political films to have been made in the last few years and definitely Richie Cunningham's best film and that includes Willow.

Lange time in coming

2009-03-04T22:00:00.000+01:00

I am horrendously behind on my blogging exploits, but I'll slip this in, hopefully without anyone noticing...alas, over a month ago, on the 31st of January to be precise, Berlin held the first of the two Lange Nacht der Museen or long night of museums which happen every year. As the title indicates, the Lange Nacht, is a night Berlin's museums, galleries and public buildings are open from 6pm to 2am and a single ticket gives one access and transportation to all, well almost all, the cultural delights of the city.

These long nights of museums are quite ubiquitous now, with Paris' Nuit Blanche perhaps the most famous. Indeed, I rather fortuitously stumbled upon the Antwerp version last August and rather good it was too. Apparently Berlin was the first city to try one of these things and in theory, given the great number of galleries and museums, this was set up to be a thoroughly enjoyable night.

Trouble was, it is absolutely freezing and not weather to be traipsing about building to building. Also, all the most interesting museums, galleries like the DDR museum were completely packed with long queues outside, in the freezing cold. Still I did get to see some interesting things, well mainly the many domes or doms that dot the city.

This is Berlin Mayor, Klaus Wowereit's office at Berlin's city hall. Old Klaus is an interesting fellow, openly gay and touted for higher office in the future, he is famous for uttering "Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so," that is, "I am queer, and that’s how it should be." Word.

This is the dome of the Deutscher Dom, which is a rather ornate, completely reconstructed building off Friedrichstrasse. There is a rather excellent museum of German politics inside. The French Dom, is opposite the Deutscher Dom on the same square.

This model was on the top floor of the Deutscher Dom. It is a scale model of the planned dome Hitler planned for Berlin, designed by Albert Speer. Yep it is to, scale, and that is the Brandenburg Gate dwarfed in the foreground. Absolutely, mind-bogglingly large.

This the dome of Berliner Dom.

I can't even remember this dom...

Doms everywhere. OK I did start to take pictures of anything dom related but I was tired and cold and towards the end a little bored. I can't even find the picture of the Planetarium dome. By the by, the Berlin planetarium was terrible, not the science bit which was great even though it was in German and I didn't understand a word of it, no they decided to have a laser show, with fog etc, all to italdisco. It was like being in that Sonique video.

The next Lange Nachte is in August which should be infinitely better and warmer and with a little planning, less crowded and dom free. Perhaps.

At last!

2009-03-04T12:25:00.003+01:00

West Brom 1 Arsenal 3 Yes 3! After 6 hours of league football and following 5 consecutive draws we finally manage to score a goal! And win a game! And Bendtner aka Nicklas 'End of Move' Bendtner, aka Nicklas 'First touch, last touch' Bendtner scored two! Saints be praised. The win couldn't come quick enough with games running out and the Champions League looking as likely as a potato in a fruit salad.

Aston Villa play tonight, but I would like to think Man City will win at home, purely because they can't seem to win or even play football outside of Manchester. So, inshallah, the gap will be 3 points between Arsenal and Villa with 10 to play and more importantly, Arsenal having all their injured players returning and Villa running out of steam. Lest we forget Arsenal are on a 14 game unbeaten run in the league, 16 games unbeaten overall and the momentum is with them surely.

This might sound like the blind optimism of the average football fan, but really, if you look who is coming back from injury for the Gunners, you have Eduardo, Walcott, Adebayor, Gallas, Rosicky and most importantly Cesc. Now, I don't know any team in the world that wouldn't miss 6 players as good as that. With Arshavin starting to integrate and look really dangerous, the returning players can only strengthen Arsenal in the last 10 games. And not just the Premier League, these players will help in the Champions League and the FA Cup too. I wouldn't be surprised if Arsenal go all the way in both of the cups and win one too....and then go and win the lot next season and go on to cement a hegemony on both the Premier League and the Champions League for the next decade...or we could balls it all up again and lose against Blackburn at home in the next league game and end up with jack at the end of the season. The margin between success and failure is so thin...

Shit art!

2009-03-03T15:35:00.002+01:00