Movie Review: The Hangover Part 2

This week’s film was The Hangover Part 2, when the original Hangover film came out I was not particularly interested as it seemed to be the kind of brainless humour that I really struggle to get into so I decided not to watch it. As everyone I knew then started to watch it and constantly tell me that it was the funniest film they had ever seen I started to become curious, I tried on several occasions to rent it when it was out on DVD but it was always fully booked out which only seemed to further suggest that it really was as good as people had claimed. I was obviously very disappointed then when I finally got hold of a copy only to find out that it was exactly the film I thought it was and with the exceptions of a few scenes was the lowest form of base humour. I therefore made no plans to watch The Hangover Part 2 when I saw it was advertised however there was nothing else on this week so we went to see it.

Now before I start I should say that this film is not bad, but it is not good either, in fact The Hangover Part 2 could quite easily be a far east remake of the original, there is really nothing that would set this film apart from the original and it sticks to nearly the same structure but then as it is a widely acclaimed film it makes sense not to change it. As I left the cinema I would have said that I preferred this film to the original but on reflection I think that this was simply a difference in expectations, in the original I was expecting to laugh the entire time and didn’t – This time I was expecting not to laugh and did (a couple of times). Overall I found the expectation that I would find humour in the idiosyncrasy of two of the characters funny seemed a little too much like bullying for my liking, The main “comedy” character Alan is designed to be the but of the jokes however the fact that he clearly has a special outlook on life is not, for me, enough to laugh at.

As I say the film follows basically the same plot as the original; Alan, Phil and Stu phone Sasha to say they will not make it to the wedding, Then we see the start of the story up to the guys starting to drink before we cut to the “Next Morning” and see the three guys waking up and trying to piece their story back together. The baby from the original is now exchanged for a baby and they are also joined by Leslie Chow the oriental gangster from the original who was also out with them. The majority of the laughs are supposed to come from Zach Galifianakis (Alan) and Ken Jeong (Chow) who are extreme caricatures of their characters with Alan’s simpleness and Chow’s shock value expected to carry the film. But unfortunately for me, it doesn’t. Bradley Cooper (Phil) and Ed Helms (Stu) seem quite incidental to the scenes that are set up although as the uptight victim of a couple of the set pieces Ed Helms does force a few cringes, however the relationship between his fiance and him is beyond comprehension as I doubt there is any woman alive as forgiving. Overall this film is simply a darker more unpleasant version of the first which really didn’t add anything and made some of the characters just a little more unlikable.

Where does Personal become Racist?

A Newspaper article caught my eye yesterday, it is something I really shouldn’t be worried about writing about but I find that I have to very carefully form the sentences in my mind before typing them such is the fear of offending on such a delicate matter. The Article that took my attention is about Racism and as a White Male I am time and time again told that I have no way of being able to comment on this issue – An Irony that my race would make me ineligible to speak on racism. (In my life I have been on the receiving end of racist taunts and a few racist attacks, I attended a predominantly Asian college and calls of Gora (An Indian term meaning white skinned) were common and unfortunately often accompanied by spitting and on a few occasions violence.)

I think my views on racism are probably that which are held by most rational thinking people, That racism is wrong, not just morally but intellectually, it really doesn’t take much brain power that to group together the Hundreds of Millions/Billions of each race into one group and judge them all on that basis is clearly insane. Surely logic dictates that if you take a million Caucasians and a million Afro-Caribbeans then you will get a very wide mix of experiences and life stories and similarities will come across the groups just as surely as differences must occur within them. Therefore if you are to discount a large proportion of the worlds population on the basis of Colour, just like on sex or education or wealth or any division for that matter, you will be severely limiting your scope.

Anyway back to the actual article, this article was about a dispute with Naomi Campbell and Cadbury’s chocolate, in their latest advert Cadbury’s displayed a picture of their new chocolate bar alongside the slogan “Move over Naomi, There’s a new Diva in town.” Naomi Campbell then came straight out and attacked Cadburys for racism. When I first heard that I was not sure on what grounds but as Naomi says herself “I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black people.” So her issue is with being described as chocolate which I can kind of agree with as this is a playground racial slur and if we are to ever beat racism the battle needs to start on the playground. However the advert does not compare Naomi to a chocolate but rather it compares a chocolate to Naomi which is a very important difference.

In essence the Advert takes one element of her personality and assigns it to the chocolate bar in this case her reputation as a diva. Now you could argue if this is bordering on an attack on her by accusing her of being a diva (Even if it does then it would clearly be personal and not racially motivated.) however by her own admission their reflection on her personality must be correct, After all the advert does not say “Move over Naomi Campbell” it only says Naomi it is the usage of Naomi and diva in the same sentence that she has taken as being a clear indication that it is her, if it said “Move over Naomi – there’s a new astrophysicist in town.” It is unlikely anyone would be thinking of Naomi Campbell.

So as she is clearly being mentioned in this advert due to her personality trait and not her race then clearly the only think that is holding up her claims of racism is that chocolate is brown, following this complaint through to it’s natural conclusion therefore would basically be stating that no Afro-Caribbean people could advertise chocolate or for that matter anything that is brown – Assumingly this would be a real headache for Hagen-Daz who would have to carefully monitor that they don’t have the wrong people advertising their chocolate ice cream or heaven forbid a white woman selling vanilla. So in Naomi Campbell’s ideal world the jobs people could do would be dictated to by their colour – Thank god she is fighting against racism!

Quite unbelievably when looking up a few facts for this post (I know it is hard to believe but I do occasionally check the facts I am writing about.) I came across calls from “Black Civil Rights Groups” calling for a boycott of all Kraft goods and a quote from Lee Jasper (Controversial Former equalities aide to Ken Livingstone when he was mayor) who has said “Part of the problem is that [These companies] don’t see it as offensive.” Perhaps the problem is that this isn’t offensive unless you look for it, perhaps the fact is that Naomi’s race didn’t come into the equation at all they simply asked who was the biggest Diva they could mention and Naomi’s name was at the top, so in fact it is just possible that despite Mr. Jasper’s claims this incident is a symptom of a less racist world, but for that to happen we must all leave behind the hang ups of the past.

Movie Review: On Stranger Tides

Next trip to the moving picture house was to see the latest in the Pirates of the Caribbean Movie, On Stranger Tides. The movie is a bit of a step back for the franchise returning to the more compact stand alone format rather than the connected stories of Dead Man’s Chest and At Worlds End. The original trilogy has always put me in mind of the Matrix trilogy (A good first film followed by two linked pieces of pap) so I was glad that they decided to go back to a simpler plot line. The plot is based on the book by Tim Powers simply updated to fit into the Pirates of the Caribbean universe to enable Jack Sparrow to be the hero. The Director is now Rob Marshall who has a background in dance and musical numbers (including winning an Oscar for Chicago) and this is quite evident in some of the fight scenes. So Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom are out and Penelope Cruz is in as Depp’s love interest. Ian “Lovejoy” McShane comes in as the infamous pirate Blackbeard, for those of us who grew up with 90’s BBC programming it is very difficult to think of him as anything else than the antiques dealer but for American audiences he is probably better known for his role in Deadwood which paints an altogether less PG interpretation.

The film itself has Jack Sparrow searching for the fountain of youth and being pressed into service of the supernatural Blackbeard, at the same time Geoffory Rush returns as Captain Barbosa (Hasn’t he been killed several times now?) who has crossed the legality divide to claim the fountain for the British Government whilst trying to stay ahead of the Spanish party. (Basically the story is three groups trying to get to the fountain.) Along the way there are mermaids to capture, treasures to uncover and all of the usual pirates fare. Overall the cast give a good performance and with the exception of one particularly frivolous sword fight (It is a Pirates movie after all) the plot clips along with a decent tempo. Depp is always very committed to the role he clearly enjoys and McShane and Cruz work very well alongside him to make this movie, whilst not a classic, a couple of hours of harmless fun and a welcome change from the last two films in the franchise.

New Phone Time Again

It has been 12 months since my last phone upgrade and so my mind once again starts to look at the various options out there that may appeal, Since getting the HTC Advantage 6 years ago (Probably why I did not think the iPad was particularly groundbreaking) I have only had one handset from a different manufacturer (The Samsung Omnia) however each upgrade I look at all of the handsets available so I am not tied to a particular brand.

I had been expecting the choice to be made between three handsets – The HTC Desire S, An update on the HTC Desire which I still think is a great handset. – The Samsung Galaxy S, currently the fastest selling Android device. – The Motorola Atrix, Which would be my first Motorola since the graphite around the start of the millennium. This all changed around January when I had a quick turn on a friends HTC 7 this windows 7 device was a bit of a game changer as I had considered Windows to be too far behind the other OS’s and have not had a windows phone since the Advantage. The question is could I be bothered to switch OS? Obviously if I switched to a Windows phone I would need to reload and repurchase all of my apps, also the interconnectivity between my google powered life and the phone would be lost possibly bring in all of the interconnectivity limitations of the iPhone. I think I have therefore decided that changing OS is just too much of a hassle and therefore I think I will need to stick to an Android device – In fact I guess if none of the OS’s come up with an easy way to transfer your programmes then there will likely be a situation where movements between Operating Systems become less and less common.

So the HTC 7 out I am left again with the first three, of the three The HTC Desire S is obviously a good well known model and simply being an update to my current HTC Desire a phone I know I will like, question is, Is it so close to the Desire that I will lose that “New Phone” buzz? If so I may as well just keep my Desire. So I started to look at the other two Android leaders, the Samsung Galaxy S is a fast phone with great features and has the clearer screen resolution but the Atrix comes with a dual core processor and an amazing array of accessories which can turn your phone into just about anything you require – but these come at a cost equal to that of the phone itself. The camera is 5MP in the Atrix and 8MP in the Galaxy with the Galaxy also being lighter and larger.

Looking at it I am starting to think that I will need to go for the Galaxy S II however I struggle to get away from the Atrix’s finger print reader for unlocking that ensures that only you can open the phone – and despite the fact that this is not a real necessity and because as a human being I am entitled to go against even my own logic I decided I would be getting the Motorola Atrix.

Decision made it was perhaps foolish of me to look at the “Coming Soon” section of the website where I found the HTC Sensation, combining the Dual Core of the Atrix to the 8MP camera of the Galaxy with a host of new features such as HTC’s new Video on demand service and a four app locked screen to give quicker access to you favourite apps (A must for anyone who has ever whipped out a camera only to miss the moment as you mess about trying to open the application.) So it may not have a finger print scanner but it does contain enough exciting new features for me to delay getting the new phone until I get to check it out.

Another Season Comes to an End

Well the Premiership is over for another year, Tottenham could not match last season by qualifying for the Champions League but their fifth place is only the 22nd time the club have finished in the top 5 in their history and the fourth since I started to support them so I am happy. It was always going to be a tough ask as although we have several players with Champions League experience they had never played at that level as a team, in the end I think we were simply suffering from a few injuries at the wrong points and in the end the team just ran out of steam. (Not to mention the Ref in the Chelsea game who cost us three points.)

Question is can Tottenham get back in the top four next season? I hope so but I think if it is to happen it will need to be at the expense of Arsenal and probably with a harder challenge from Liverpool. Obviously it would be slightly pointless to try and work out the strengths of the teams next year before we see the effect of the transfer window but I would fully expect the champions to come from one of Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea - And Chelsea are my least favoured team - This will leave Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool to fight over the final Champions League space and I think a lot of this will come down to how the teams strengthen and the effect that Arsenal and Tottenham competing in Europe will have.

Movie Review: Beastly

Whilst it is true that I have a very low opinion of this film I would suggest that I am not part of the target audience (I am guessing 12 year old girls)

The film starts with I am Number 4 star Alex Pettyfer working out without a shirt on (A look he would continue throughout the film.) He plays Kyle Who is the son of a famous News Anchor, He is young, rich and good looking, in the first big scene he is running for Green Committee President with a speech which I would translate as "You're all ugly, I am rich and handsome so do as you're told and vote for me." I think this is called doing a Blair or style over substance. He then tells his pugly classmates to "Embrace the Suck" and vote for him – I admit I had to look up Embrace the Suck which I am reliably informed by the Urban Dictionary is a military term for having to do a job that you feel is pointless, I guess the US are letting too many 12 year olds into the military.

Anyway his speech angers the school "Witch" who it turns out is an actual witch so after deciding to set her up for some public humiliation he is turned into a beast (The beast make up is possibly the one thing that this film does correctly as it is quite a gruesome look including several slashes with metal pins visible inside them which left me wishing someone would stitch them up. The look however isn't really added to by the addition of several tattoos which being a life choice rather than a disfigurement don't really add to any sympathy but rather make you think – You already had your entire face tattooed so why should we care that there are cuts on top. But that aside the effect is still off putting a few skin graphs however would have been a bit better for some real disfigurement. The witch played by Mary Kate Olson (Still trying to throw off the Olson Twin persona) is more an excuse to dress up in Neo-Gothic club wear than a cogent part of the film. The actors in this film however are the one saving grace as they struggle under the weight of a ridiculously repeated story with nothing new added at all and the terrible script mostly held by Pettyfer who must have really started to regret his choices.

The beauty to Pettyfer's beast is Lindy, played by Vanessa Hudgens (Who is starting to become more famous for leaked "personal" images than for her High School Musical role) She acted well enough however the fact that her character who is working to keep her place at the exclusive academy and spends her evenings (after school and work) taking food to the homeless – assumingly all to prove that she is a lot deeper than the usual shallow high school girl – falls for the Rich kid long before he has even an ounce of humility during the two times they spoke prior to his transformation is quite out of keeping with the character they are building, after his transformation Kyle Starts to stalk Lindy in what did start to feel a little bit disturbing, how far do you go to show that you like someone? following them home? following them out in the evening? knocking them out and keeping them in a small cage? He did all of these – Ok, not the last one but it felt like he was getting close. He did however blackmail her father into sending her to his house.

Star act goes to the always good Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Howser to those of us over 30, who plays Ryan's? blind tutor however he is not on the screen nearly enough to make his part contribute to the enjoyability of the movie.

Overall this film takes an unlikeable looks obsessed boy and shows that he has changed by making him fall for Vanessa Hudgens (Ranked the 54th most beautiful woman in the world by Maxim) guess that will really make him learn his lesson. But the holes are almost entirely related to the weak story and laughable script, the cast should really only been criticised for one thing – agreeing to be in the film in the first place.

Scottish Independence a few figures

Also in the vote the SNP got a majority government in the Scottish Parliament so I am greatly looking forward to the referendum on Scottish Independence which I personally should extend to the entire UK so we can all get a chance, I will in fact be calling on my MP that in the case of a “No” result that the rest of the UK get a vote on if we still want them.

Over the next few years I am sure I will blog extensively on this topic as it would be the biggest political change in a few hundred years (I guess since 1707) however first I wanted to post a few facts and figures (Taken from the Scottish Office research) just to put it into some context.

• Scotland's public finances exhibit a structural fiscal deficit, having not been in surplus since 1980-81.
• Even adding all tax revenues from oil and gas production for all of the UK reduces but does not eliminate this deficit over time. For the period 1980-81 to 2007-08, the cumulative net deficit, after adding tax receipts from all UK offshore oil and gas production, amounts to £23.5 billion.
• Notwithstanding the success of devolution, the UK Government retains a large and direct role in the provision of public services in Scotland. Spending by the UK Government on reserved matters, either directly in Scotland (such as on pensions, tax credits or research council funding) or on behalf of Scotland at the UK level (for example defence and overseas representation) amounts to 40% of the total of all Government expenditures in or on behalf of Scotland.
• The largest single item of expenditure in Scotland each year by either the UK or Scottish Governments is on social protection -such spending by the UK Government amounted to £12,647m in 2007-08.
• The scale and importance of UK Government social protection expenditure to Scotland is emphasised by comparing it to the total expenditure by the Scottish Parliament. In the past 6 years, UK Govt social protection expenditure corresponds to between 45% and 39% of the total expenditure by the Scottish Parliament.
• Total spending by the UK and Scottish Governments in Scotland currently amounts to 145% of the total of Scottish tax receipts. Hence a fiscally autonomous Scotland would be dependant on the continuance of a fiscal transfer from the UK to maintain current levels of public spending. Equally, a fiscally autonomous Scotland could not make any contribution towards the provision of goods provided at the national level, such as defence, the regulation of markets or overseas representation whilst maintaining current levels of public expenditure.
• The deficit between Scottish tax receipts and the sum of UK Government expenditure on social protection payments plus the entire budget of the Scottish Parliament was around £6.2 billion on 2007-8, equivalent to around £2,700 per household.

So basically Scotland operates at around a £6b deficit and this does not include spending on military and other “Nation” expenditure. Now I am not actually of the opinion that England subsidises Scotland anymore than I accept that England is subsidised by Scotland, what we have is a Union where everyone works together and both sides benefit however if the SNP want independence then I fully support them, it is a Union that was entered into as Scotland was bankrupt and England feared they would enter a union with France to pay of their debts. We are no longer at war with France so there is no fear from Scotland being bankrupt again so why not let them go and see how they get on. And after all just think of all the money we would get from the 2.5 Million people of Scottish decent having to apply for working visas or losing their rights to state benefits/the NHS.

The AV Vote - The Country Says No

Well another years elections have been concluded, Unfortunately my wife was not successful in her campaign to represent Langley Green on Crawley Borough Council but it was otherwise a good night for the Conservatives with their share of the vote holding up well possibly indicating that while people are unhappy at the cuts that the coalition are doing the electorate do not have as short a memory as Labour would like them to have.

The AV referendum when all said and done wasn’t much of an event with the public rejecting thoroughly the concept of electoral reform. (Backing up the No2AV camps claims that the only thing the vote did was waste money, but hopefully we can put this to bed for a while now.) Only a few hours after the result became clear a “Yes” supporter said to me that this result showed that the British Electorate were clearly stupid and wanted to hand over power to an unaccountable elite – nothing like being a bad loser! However I read a different message into the win for the No vote. Clearly there have been a great deal of problems with the entire political environment in the last few years (and longer) and a great deal of the trust that is needed for a democracy to continue has been lost. What this says however is that the electorate do not think that the problem sits with the system but rather the politicians themselves.

I was unable at any point to fully understand what AV would offer, I was told that it would

“Make MP’s work harder for your vote!” – How? In a safe seat AV makes no difference and in a marginal they take nothing for granted.
“Help the smaller parties to get more votes!” – But would not help the BNP and wouldn’t actually change the results as the likely winner would still be one of the big three.
“Give us a real democracy!” – Again, what does this mean?

In the end I think that the Yes campaign was simply too disjointed and too unsure about what they were offering and what it offered, that said the Yes people I spoke to were passionate and thoughtful and in local politics this can make a very pleasant change.

Movie Review: Thor

Back to the Cinema after missing a week due to the installation of our new bathroom and we went to see Thor, This is a film based on the Marvel Comic based on the Norse (And old Saxon) God of Thunder. The film is in itself as you would expect very formulaic. Thor is a young (A few Thousand Years old) and foolish Prince, Blah Blah, Cast out, Blah Blah, Lands on Earth, Blah Blah, Learns his Lesson.

This is not to say that I found the film bad as in actuality I did enjoy it but then I am a sucker for a bit of Marvel escapism, This film is the fourth set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (A shared setting for several Marvel films where they are free to cross over – The previous ones were Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Hulk with Captain America and The Avengers in the pipeline.)
Thor is played by New Zealander Chris Hemsworth who whilst he has the look of Thor it does lead to a few questions such as why would Thor have an antipodean accent (I would have imagined a Scandinavian/German tone to be more expected) or why when expelled back to earth he was expelled into the heart of the American desert a place where belief in the old gods or Germanic/Norse cultures has never been extensively practiced. That said the only member of the cast of Scandinavian decent (Stellan Skarsgard – Born in Sweden) has claimed to have never even heard of Thor.

Natalie Portman played Thor’s human love interest Jane Foster who has been updated from her comic book Nurses job to an astrophysicist, however thankfully she didn’t do any ballet or descend into any kind of madness so the entire film was a lot more uplifting than January’s Black Swan. The other supporting cast include Anthony Hopkins as Odin a pert which seems to suit him well and Tom Hiddleston as Loki who in Marvel’s telling of the Norse mythology is Thor’s brother and the Son of Odin, Although you will get no points from guessing who is the main antagonist between the tall blond god of Thunder and the Smaller dark haired god of Mischief.

Updating our Bathroom

Been quiet for the last couple of weeks as been a bit snowed under with lost of things happening at once, Firstly I took a week off to update our bathroom. I have never particularly been a keen DIYer but when received quotes for changing our Bathroom of £3000+ I decided to give it a go, firstly I took a basic plumbing course and armed with all the education that £35 will get you from West Sussex Adult Education we got started.

It would be fair to say that just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong but I think for the most part these elements can be easily broken down between “lack of Experience” and “Strange Installation of the old suite” To be honest for me the plumbing was the easy part however most of the problems came from removing and then replacing the tiles and flooring, That said although we were surprised by how hard that was it was actually accomplished in a reasonably quick time and the entire bathroom took seven days which I don’t think was too bad as we really had zero experience.

I have no intention of doing it again in a hurry but I have to admit to a large amount of pride at having actually managed it at least once.

Congratulations to Everyone at Crawley Town

Despite Tottenham losing 4-0 to Real Madrid I do have something to celebrate in the football world as Crawley Town have secured the Blue Square Premier Championship and in so doing also guaranteed their place in the Football League next year for the first time in their history. Not just that but Crawley now need just 3 wins to beat the highest points total ever in the Nationwide Conference (Currently 102) Obviously next year will be a tougher test for the reborn Crawley Town but the fact that it was in the end very comfortable (Winning with 5 games remaining) should take nothing away from the fans who have been there through all the hard times (Not just got interested after the Crawley- Man Utd game – in case your wondering I don’t include myself in either group as I maintain a consistent interest in Crawley Town which is well below the level of fan regardless of how they do.) Whatever is written about Crawley it should not at any point take away from the fact that they have had an impressive turn around, in fact their history has been quite remarkable ever since I started following them after moving to Crawley, First they won the last ever Southern League to enter the conference during the start of the big shake up of non league football, the first year they did really well but fell into mid table by the end of the season, this was followed by years of repeated financial instability which brought the club to the brink of extension on many occasions – in fact as I was a councillor on Crawley Council during this time I actually got to see at very close quarters how close this came, something many commentators do not seem to realise, now within a couple of seasons the team are heading to League 2, Next season may be a struggle, may be a season of mid table performances or it may be another blinding success as Crawley continue racing up the league pyramid the fact it is unknown, what we do know is that the Crawley Town are the best Non-League team in the country and that with a great squad and finally a stable management structure the future has never looked brighter for the red devils.

Movie Review: Source Code (Spoilers)

Another Science Fiction film this week, this time it was Source Code. Staring Jake Gyllenhaal as an Air Force Pilot (Captain Colter Stevens) who awakes on a train bound to Chicago eight minutes before the train explodes killing everyone on board. Cpt Stevens is confused suffering from amnesia and facing an image in the mirror that is not his own – If it sounds like quantum leap that is understandable but this is more like quantum leap on steroids, there is a very nerd pleasing cameo by Scott Bakula as Stevens’ father – After the train explodes he is transported to an Air Force facility where it is explained that he is part of a project called the “Source Code”, The project places his consciousness into the mind of one of the victims and Stevens is tasked to find the bomber and thereby prevent another more catastrophic attack later in the day. Throughout the many trips back Stevens gets close to his bodies travelling companion Christina Played by Michelle Monaghan and starts to dream of not just finding the bomber but also saving everyone on the train, This is a good film which is well written and acted, obviously the technology behind it takes a leap of imagination and the form of time travel may not be consistent with your own beliefs (See below Spoilers for more information) and as with all time travel/repetition of events films there are necessary holes in the time lines that he experiences but hopefully these wont detract from the film.

Spoilers

Spoilers

Although I always try and avoid giving away too much about the films I review for this film I wanted to speak about the films take on time travel which is really focused at the end of the film, basically anyone who has an interest in time travel (More the fiction and theoretical side than actually trying it) will have heard of the Grandfather Paradox as beautifully exampled by the disappearing Marty McFly in Back to the Future, it goes that if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather would you cease to exist, or for that matter would the universe implode with the impossibleness of it.

The problem comes from the fact that if you go back in time and kill your grandfather you would “poof” out of existence, you could therefore not kill your grandfather so “Bang” he’s still alive so you are born as the time line is unaltered, but if you are born you will go back and kill him and the causality loop eventually destroys the universe whilst trying to reconcile these two events. Personally this has never seemed very likely to me as surely if you have been born then you have been born and the fact that you will not be born in future does not exclude your existence now – Basically as I see it as you travel through time you become detached from the time line, you will then exist out of time, if you then kill your grandfather as this current timeline moves forward you would then cease to exist, therefore after making the adjustment you can never return to your own time but you do in fact exist as a biological entity. Ironically this multi lane time line was also shown in the Back to the Future Trilogy when Biff goes back and alters the timeline in Back to the Future 2, mixing up their time travel visions as obviously in the world run by Biff then Marty would not have gone into the future to take the Delorian there at all.

Anyway this film uses the “trousers of time” theory enabling Stevens to live another life in his new body whilst his old body and mind sit in the army base, assumingly the source code project will eventually be used in this new reality and he will be sent back in time again, conceivably he will prevent whatever disaster is presented to him, fall in love with another person and live happily ever after again, Hopefully the project will be scrapped (ironically Due to lack of use) before he takes over everyone in the world. Perhaps a good sequel could be where he has to team up with himself to prevent another disaster! Obviously this is assuming that each person he jumps into dies at least 8 minutes after a previous incarnation has prevented whatever disaster he was sent back for. Otherwise I am not sure I can even be bothered to think about what that means.

My Thoughts on Alternative Vote

I have been engaging people in several discussions recently on the AV referendum and my stance on it so I thought I would write an entry on AV (Alternative vote also known as Instantly Transferable Vote) just to give a bit of background on a) What it is, b) What it isn’t and c) why I am against it.

I will start as I do with each article I write which is to declare my bias, I am not saying that I will not try and be fair in my summery but it is important when reading my post to realise that I am against AV and there is a chance that this will colour my view, although I will endeavour to make sure it doesn’t until the final section (Why I am against it.)

WHAT IS AV?

AV or Alternative Vote is a system of polling where the voter lists the candidates in order of the preference in which they want them to be elected. So assuming we have 5 candidates

Mrs C Tory Conservative Party, Mr A Socialist Labour Party Miss B Eco Green Party Mr R Racist British National Party Mr A Comrade Communist Party of Britain

Now when people vote they will list the order of anyone they want to vote for, and leave blank whoever they don’t want to. So someone may list their votes as: 1 - British National Party/2 – Communist Party/3 – Labour Party/4 – Green Party/Blank – Conservative Party

Now if after the first round of counting (Votes numbered 1) we have the following results 10,000 Conservatives; 8,000 Labour; 1,500 Green Party; 600 Communist Party; 490 British National Party

With a total amount of 20,590 voters no one would have a majority (Over 50% of the votes) therefore the lowest amount of the votes is disregarded and they get their second choice so with the BNP being out the votes are recounted (Our fictional voters vote will therefore now be for the communist party)

After the second round then the votes sit at 10,010 Conservatives; 8,300 Labour; 1,550 Green Party; 730 Communist Party

Still no one would have hit 50% of the vote so the votes of the Communist Party are now disregarded and the votes are counted again. Our Voter is now classed as a Labour Voter 10,010 Conservative Party; 9,000 Labour; 1,580 Green Party

Still no clear winner so the Green party are kicked out and their votes are now rolled down to the next level.

Our final round of voting therefore will end up 10,200 Conservative Party; 10,390 Labour Party and the Labour Party candidate would become the winner.

Obviously this is a very simplistic view but that is intentional as I want to clarify the system more than show a true representation of what could happen.

WHAT AV ISN’T

I just wanted to write a quick piece on what AV isn’t just to try and stop any misconceptions, Alternative Vote is not Proportional Representation (PR), PR is a system where everyone votes and then the results are added up and each party receives the percentage of seats in keeping with that percentage of votes, PR is the system that we currently use to decide the European Elections.

Under PR you would no longer vote for a person but rather for a party and they would decide who gets to be elected. PR is considered, by voting reformers, the fairest way of deciding an election. However what it does is drastically remove the loyalty of an elected official to the electorate. Already in our system it is actually more important that you are popular inside your party than with the voters as an MP who is in good standing in his party will be given an easy seat, and if that fails there is always the unelected Lords (Peter Mendelson for example, who was unelected by the voters and then last year was actually placed in charge of the country during Gordon Brown’s holiday.)

Switching to PR will force a system where an elected official will owe everything to the party list (The only way of getting a seat will be to prioritise your party over your constituents) If you want an example of this I suggest you see how many people around you know can name your MP, and then try with your Euro MP – I would predict that the amount of people who can your name your MP is pathetically low but will be huge compared to your Euro MP.

WHY I AM AGAINST AV

Now I wanted to say why I am going to be voting No on May 5th obviously this is just my opinion and I don’t claim that this is the view of anyone but me, simply my reasons for voting no.

1) One Person, one Vote My main reason for being against AV is that it is a core principle of our democracy that there should be 1 person 1 vote, under the example I gave above as a Conservative voter I would have 1 vote, however the BNP voter was instead allowed 3 attempts to vote. Apparently this is fair but I personally do not want my vote to be worth the same as a BNP supporter’s third choice.

2) Doesn’t achieve its goals We are told that AV will break up the dominance of the Main 2 Parties however I really do not think that this will be the case, I can not see a time where the BNP or Communist Party receive over 50% of the vote (At least I hope not) so it will simply be an aggregation result – effectively what you are saying is “We know you want to vote for a smaller party, but which of the big two do you really want to vote for.” In fact using my home county of Sussex (East and West) as an example we can see that only Crawley and Brighton would have needed recounts the rest all going to Conservative with 1 Lib Dem. Also there is a very real chance that Caroline Lucas the Green Partys only MP would have lost her seat on subsequent recounts actually strengthening the hold of the main parties.

3) Time Spent Counting On a personal note, I really enjoy election night, I love watching the votes come in and I love seeing the situation unfolding, already there are often some votes which spill over to the next day but in any constituency where there is not a 50% winner (So obviously not too much of an issue in Sussex) in the first round this will start to necessitate second rounds, combine this with recounts (Possibly even recounts of the smaller parties to see who get removed next) and it is not uncommon for AV systems to still be counting a few days later.

4) Stepping Stone to PR Above I outlined my problems with PR, even the people I have met who are out actively campaigning for AV have suggested that it is a stepping stone to a “fully representative system” what they mean is PR, This is a very dangerous road as although PR may be in their eyes fully representative as I stated above it actually removes representation as people are no longer answerable to the people. It also encourages “Inertia Voting” This is where people vote the same way they always have regardless of what they are voting for. You would be shocked if you knew how many people are voting based on what they believe parties stand for and how few of them can actually say what that is or which policies back up their beliefs.

5) Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister The final point that should not just make you vote no but to wake you up in fear every night is that under AV it is widely predicted that Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister, Labour left office with the country bankrupted, debts piling up and millions deliberately trapped in poverty. After having spent all of our money, then borrowing billions more the outgoing Labour government still pledged millions they didn’t have on projects that were not necessities. Losing the election was the best thing to happen to Labour (and the country for that matter) as five more years would most likely have brought the country to its knees and ensured that Labour would have endured many years out of government. For the Conservative Party allowing Labour to hang themselves would have been preferable to taking the tough decisions of repairing the country, but unfortunately it is unlikely the country could have made it.

Final Thoughts on Russia

The Church or Christ The Redeemer

Back from Russia now and after a very tiring journey home including a nightmare stop off in Munich, I will no longer listen to people saying the UK is inefficient after being told at Munich that we had to hurry to our departure gate for our connecting flight to Heathrow we had our passports checked twice and then had to go through security – Even scanning the soles of my feet with a metal detector, when I was barefoot – and get our bags scanned, seemed like a lot of security as we were never actually going to be landside of security. Only to get to the gate and find there was a two hour delay on the flight. Needless to say we were not best pleased, particularly as we had no Euros eventually we got onto the flight and added Lufthansa to the list of airlines I will never fly with again (Not a massive list, just Lufthansa and Easy Jet to be honest.) Anyway, Trouble getting back to the UK aside I wanted to write a quick summery of our Russian adventure focusing more on the experience than what we actually did (On the final day our visit to the heart of Moscow was at the same time as the visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister so it was a bit of a wasted day as everything was shut down pretty tight, but we walked around and enjoyed the relatively police free areas away from the Kremlin. If I had to pick five words to sum up the holiday they would be; Cold, Rude, Intimidating, Pricey and frustrating – I understand that these may not seem like very glowing words and I would agree, Russia is not for the casual tourist, I would recommend going to Prague first and getting around without using any English as a way to break you in slowly. But to fill in a bit more detail: Cold – Speaks for itself, it was -10 everyday we were there and there was constant heavy snowfalls, This was not too much of a problem when in the centre of Moscow but the walk to/from the Metro station was often a killer after a long day – Try to visit in Summer or stay next to a metro station. Rude – When I say rude I mean more as a generalisation rather than for individuals, Pretty much all of the individual Russians I was actually able to talk to were friendly, some would simply blank you when they heard English but the others would happily struggle through a bit of conversation in half English half Russian (My only contribution to the Russian part was Spasiba (Thank You) and Niet (No)) However the problem is that I am particularly obsessed with manners even for an Englishman and so the Russian approach was a severe culture shock, If you were to queue up in Russia you would soon find yourself at the front of one of several queues as the Russians would start to queue either side and slowly push you out of the way. Intimidating – This is the police rather than anything else, We were told that the Police supplement their income by fining tourists and as a result we went out of our way to avoid them, or looking like tourists, annoyingly this means I can not confirm this piece of advise for myself as we did not speak to a policeman at any point whilst we were there. People in Uniform however were everywhere and the stress of trying to not look like tourists was quite draining, it really made me appreciate the UK Police who I am very confident would gladly help a lost tourist if needed – obviously if they weren’t busy chasing criminals. In fact at any time when I was younger and needed help I always sought out a policeman and was rarely disappointed, so it was a real struggle to get out of this way of thinking. Pricey – The Pricing issue was an incredible juxtaposition of the very cheap and the very expensive, it seemed to work mostly along class lines where if it was used by the ordinary Muscovites or a necessity (or was handmade) it was very cheap, if it was for the very well off or imported then it was very expensive. Vodka was less than a £1 a litre where as Mineral Water was up to £3, you could pick up a packet of cigarettes for £0.30 but Strawberries would set you back £30 (for about £2 worth in the UK.) Perhaps the most telling example of how people were cheaper then goods an advert for a Lap Dancing Club advertised Lap Dances for 50 Roubles or £1.10, these went up through a Private Dance (£8) up to a VIP Dance for £11 I dread to imagine what that involves. For the most part though everything cost as much if not more than in other world cities so if you are going (Unless it is on a Stag Night) take lots of cash. Frustrating – The frustration was mainly caused as I am very keen on photographing architecture and Russia has a lot of wonderful buildings combining old churches (Both original and reconstruction) with very ambitious Soviet building projects and minimalist design blocks – however not being able to be seen as tourists and the fact that many of the buildings are illegal to photograph (And unless you can speak Russian it can be very hard to know if you are outside a hotel or a government building) I missed out on hundreds of good shots that I would have happily taken if I had been back in London.

Movie Review: Limitless

This week’s cine-visual treat was Limitless staring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, The A-Team) as a failing writer; It is never really explained how he actually managed to get a book contract when he had never even managed to write a single word – I would love the name of his literary agent, or the publisher who is handing out advances based on concepts for that matter – His life is changed for ever after a chance encounter with his Ex-Brother in Law (Brother of his Ex Wife rather than his Sisters Ex Husband) who offers him a pill. The Ex-Brother in Law having given up drug dealing in order to work in selling pharmaceuticals, This pill he explains is the answer to the fact that we only use 20% of our brains and can open up the other 80% - Obviously at this point I have to point out that this is not true and in fact all of our brain is used just for reasons of controlling electrical output our minds do not all fire at once as this would over heat our receptors. – Anyway he decided he has nothing to lose so tries the pill and instantly becomes alert focused and seemingly has total memory recall. A few days later he has finished his book, started trading shares and started to learn new languages, although his first priority does seem to get as many women into bed (Or bathroom cubicle) as possible. Obviously there is a catch, would be a pretty boring film if not :- “Here’s a Pill” “Thanks, here’s a book” “Thanks” So the film starts with Bradley contemplating suicide as a gang of murder intent criminals are breaking down his door, and then tracks back to see how he gets there (Always a bit annoying to me to know where a certain point in the film will be as it then locks the possibilities into a certain point, and this film didn’t really throw up any shocks on how he got there.) The only really annoying points for me were that 1) He had an advanced intellect and thought through all possibilities and yet never once considered the possible side effects, surely as a genius this should have been a consideration. 2) The criminal “mastermind” that he was pitted against (Not Robert De Nero who was very good as his boss/adversary) did not seem a worthy opponent, if we were to believe that he did in fact have all the skills that he had received from this pill then he should instead have been a minor inconvenience. 3) too many questions were simply ignored, I don’t want to ruin anything with spoilers but I left with a great deal of unanswered questions, and it isn’t one of those “Imagine your own ending” films (Which also annoy me – I pay you to tell me a story, I can easily stay at home and tell myself one.) the questions are simply ignored entirely. The film is based on the book “The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn and rather unusually for a Science Fiction film a book I had never read, so it was quite unknown territory for me which probably led to me liking the film a little more than if I had known the story. However I do think this is a good film, and a good concept so well worth watching if you get a chance. Finally a quick bit of trivia, Bradley Cooper attended the Actors Studio New York, If you watch the series Inside the Actors Studio in which stars are interviewed in front of students Bradley Cooper was in the audience which interviewed Robert De Nero, must be quite a good feeling to think that De Nero is now supporting him in a movie.

Day two in Moscow

For our second day we started off by travelling on the Metro, unlike the tube which is a means to an end i.e. to get around, the Moscow metro is a series of interconnected museums to Russian history, many show statues to Soviet heroes (farmers, soldiers etc..) others have mosaics of scenes from before the revolution. And best of all as you only pay for entrance there is no more cost for jumping around than there is making a single journey. (The best stations we saw were Belorusskaya, Kievskaya, Park Kultury and Ploshchad Revolyutsii)

One of Moscow's Metro Station

Several stations later we came out at Gorkey Park and looked around the several miles - at least it felt like it - of artists selling their paintings.

Statues at Gorkey Park

For dinner we went to Maki Cafe (Glinishchevskiy Pereulok 3) for Stroganoff which we washed down with a very reasonable bottle of "Soviet Champagne" - we thought it might be something strange but it was just a very nice sparkling wine. - only £10 a bottle which is half the cost of most wine here (they don't grow grapes so all wine is imported) The food was of a good quality and at just over 1000 roubles (£22) not a bad price. Of cause it does take some time to get used to people smoking around you whilst you eat, although it has not been that long since it was banned in the UK the practice seems particularly alien when you first walk into an establishment - and when you arrive back at the hotel and wonder how the smell followed you, usually as your hair and clothes stink of it.

First day thoughts on Russia

Today was our first full day in Moscow, we visited Red Square, the Kremlin and because it is a tradition McDonald's.

Now I know it can seem a little common or unadventurous to visit McDonald's however we always visit in each country as it is the one constant and shows better than anything else the difference between countries - the food is (nearly) always the same and yet there are always differences. Anyway this McDonald's was very much a Russian version, in place of the queue there was a scrum! That is the way with Russia, if you queue behind someone within a few seconds you are standing at the front of one of three queues, and if you're not forceful it will be the slowest moving one too.

Red square was a good day out and after the fight for tickets and The fight to get in the Cathedral of St Basil was very interesting, the other end of the square was the museum of history which gave a strange symmetry of a church followed by an exhibit on evolution.

Overall my view of Moscow after one day is that it is functional, there is the old joke about the US spending millions on developing a space pen to use in zero gravity and the Russians took a pencil, although I know both are false - a ball point will work in zero gravity - I do now see what they mean, as we arrived in Moscow there was heavy snow fall and several of the passengers remarked that in the UK the airport would be closed, the fact it wasn't in Moscow was due to a fleet of snow clearer's in ancient tractors and men walking along with large bundles of sticks knocking the snow off the tarmac. Clearly a low cost solution but one that works, in the UK however it would be a matter of hours before the unions were in the management offices screaming about health and safety - the result we can't afford the solution so we don't get one - this practical attitude is probably most clearly felt in the Metro system which is quite remarkable, the stations are like palaces and the trains are like trains, they are not new, not comfortable and very crowded. However they are rarely out of commission - no upgrades means limited closures - they run every two minutes and they are very cheap (55p per journey no matter how far) the Russians do not seem to ask for new carriages, and they don't get any, the staff are paid an average wage (tube drivers get nearly double the national average) and as a result prices stay low. In short the Metro like Russia is functional.

Tomorrow we are going to Gorky Park, the Zoo and on a tour of the most palatial metro stations.

When will Crawley be a league team?

Waiting for the Champions League Quarter Final Draw starring Tottenham I thought I would spend five minutes running some calculations on Crawley Town and their push for League Status. Crawley currently sit top of the Blue Square Premier with 77 pts ahead of AFC Wimbledon with 71 but having played 5 less games and facing them on Friday night at home so things are looking very good, what I have decided to look at however is when Crawley can have the title wrapped up. With Crawley, Wimbledon and Luton (Currently in 4th) having 12, 8 and 11 games remaining respectively they each have a maximum possible points score this season of:
Crawley Town 113 (Previous Highest is 101 Aldershot 07/08 Season)
Luton Town 102 (Hence why I have included them in analysis)
AFC Wimbledon 95

Obviously anything can happen in football and so far all Crawley are guaranteed is to finish above 9th but that would take not just a catastrophic loss of form but also an incredibly unlikely turn of events that would see the worst case scenario coming up for Crawley in every match. But onto more optimistic matters.
Going forward if things go Crawley’s way then the following scenario can see the title (and by extension promotion) being secured in two weeks time.
Crawley are playing 5 games in the next two weeks (Actually 2 weeks and 2 days)
Home – AFC Wimbledon
Away – Eastbourne
Away - Gateshead
Home – Mansfield
Home – Darlington
Obviously a very challenging schedule however if they win all the games they will sit on 92 Points with only AFC Wimbledon (92), Luton (102) and Wrexham (93) able to beat them and AFC only on GD.
Wrexham’s next game is away to Fleetwood Town which is not an easy fixture but all they need is one loss from their 4 games in the next two weeks and their maximum will be 91, If AFC Wimbledon drop a single point (Assuming they lose to Crawley Tomorrow Night ) they will also be mathematically prevented from beating Crawley.
The least likely turn of events however is that for Crawley to wrap up the title on the 2nd April Luton will need to lose all 4 of their matches between now and then which is more of a stretch than Wrexham and Wimbledon losing one, or for my money Crawley winning the next five.
If Luton and Crawley both continue to win however then the title could instead be clinched 10 days later on the 12th April when Crawley Host Luton, perhaps this would be a better turn of events as it would make that one hell of a match.

And the Oscar goes too...

Well we have finished another awards season with the 83rd Academy Awards.

There are 24 awards presented in the Ceremony which was presented by Anne Hathaway (Not Shakespeares Wife) and James Franco who seemed quite nervous throughout, but who cares about that as after all what we are watching for are the winners.

The Main Awards went to:

Best Picture: The Kings Speech

Best Director: Tom Hooper - The Kings Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth - The Kings Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale - The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo - The Fighter

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler - The Kings Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network

Along with four technical awards for Inception which was definitely the most original idea of the year, The social network also picked up awards for Editing and Original Score, perhaps a sympathy vote for the film that was very widely tipped to clean up before the Kings Speech came out.

Overall I think there were no particular surprises I said after watching The Kings Speech that it was my pick to win and I think it was well deserved, Similarly Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan was one of the best solo performances I have seen in a film for years. Christian Bale is one of those actors who however you feel about him as a person, and there is a lot that happens in his personal life, he always gives 100% to any role he takes and so rightly got recognised, I doubt it will be his last.

I think the star of the awards however has to be Tom Hooper who made the rarely made transition from Eastenders to Best Director Actor, and finishes a fast transition to hollywood elite.

Movie Review: I Am Number Four

Big Shock at the cinema this week, We went to see I am Number Four and it wasn't all that bad, I know what your thinking how can there be anything good about it when it is produced by Michael Bay, and normally I would agree that as soon as Michael Bay gets involved in any project it is normally by nature a bad film, but this was not all bad.

The story is the current photo fit young adult movie that is doing the rounds.

Alien/Werewolf/Witch/Vampire loner and has to keep to himself but falls in love as his enemies are closing in.

The Outsider this time is the eponymous Number 4 played by Alex Pettyfer (The Kid from Stormbreaker) with the Love interest played by Glee's Dianna Agron. It very much reminded me of a cheaper version of 2008's Jumper, cheaper in cast rather than budget which I believe was actually more.

I had been expecting the film to be very poor as in Empire magazine it said that the premise was a group of Nine Alien children who each had a number and had to be killed off in the correct order, obviously this made me simply wonder why they don't get number 1, lock him away somewhere and then all protect him knowing that until they get him the rest are safe, but it appears that Empire are wrong (Not for the first time) although they are being killed in order by the Magodorions - it must get hard to come up with names, at least this is better than unobtainium! The Magodorions are quite funny with gills on their cheeks and sharp teeth they have mastered interplanetary space travel but seem to lack the ability to set a decent trap, and for some reason they decided to cut the power to try and slow down someone who has in built torches in his hands.

The best supporting character is Callan McAuliffe who plays the geeky friend and UFO hunter who has some good comic lines, and gives everyone who is sitting at home on the Xbox a good excuse to play on.

Overall I have started to think that perhaps the only reason the film is not all that bad is because being a Michael Bay I was expecting so much worse!

There are apparently going to be six films in this series (although apparently the books are not written yet.) and I will happily go and see the next one although the series really could go south very quickly.

King Alfred the Great: My Great x29 Grandfather

It’s always a good day when you discover that one of your ancestors was a King, I have only just discovered that I am descended from Alfred the Great (and as it happens Charlemagne) and in so being I am related to every member of the European dynasties all the way down to Elizabeth II, along with David Cameron and David Beckham. Now before I start brushing off my Tuxedo for April 29th (My Invite to Cousin Wills’ Wedding.) perhaps I should explain (For those of you not already in the know that is – apparently this is quite well known, and i'm just a bit behind with this one.)

Basically I have worked this out using maths which work as follows.

1) Alfred The Great existed over 1000 years ago (I have used 1000 as a simple number to ease the calculations)
2) Since Alfred the Great became the first King of England there have been at least 33 Generations (Again simplified to have 30 years generations.)
3) As I had two parents – who each had two parents if I was to fill out a 33 Generation family tree 1000 years ago I had 8.5 Billion ancestors
4) There were only 30 Million people in Europe at the time (It is unlikely that I had many ancestors from outside Europe as travel was not exactly common.)

So the chances of me not being descended from Alfred The Great in any way is very minute obviously the probability isn’t 0 but it is very close. With Charlemagne who is the most used example of this theory and lived over 40 generations ago relating to 1 Trillion ancestors there is actually a 12,000,000,000,000,000 (12 Quadrillion?) to 1 chance that everyone living today with Primarily European descent is not descended from the Holy Roman Emperor. A similar effect is witnessed for other figures from around the world i.e. Confucius.

Of cause despite the knowledge that Alfred the Great sits on my Family Tree (Actually over 33 Generations I should have an average of 281 connections) I actually think that perhaps a much more interesting fact is that I will also have an average of 281 connections to every other person who was alive and had an exponential family tree at that time. I wonder if Alfred ever thought that as he went around on his mission to free England from the Danes that everyone he met that had children would at some point interact with his own children from Kings to Peasants so that at one point in the future in the England he worked so hard to achieve (Albeit a more Normanised version than he had planned.) The data held by electricity companies would be complete and without errors – Surely that is what it was all about.

Love Never Dies - But Perhaps it Should Have

The film review this week is a bit different in that it is not about a film.

Last week we went to the Adelphi to see “Love Never Dies” the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, although it is apparently not a sequel – just a musical featuring the same characters, set a few years afterwards and based on a novel that is listed as a sequel to the original show, Not sure how something qualifies as a sequel these days.

Anyway, I have seen the Phantom of the Opera a few times and enjoyed the original novel by Leroux, so I was really hoping that this would be good, unfortunately it put me in mind of the continuing story of the Phantoms slightly simple brother, the most interesting thing in the entire show was actually the concise history of Coney Island - and that was in the programme.

The original, despite being by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Not sure how anyone sat through Stairlight express and didn't wonder how Webber has come to dominate the west end.) was based on a very good story and had some decent songs, The sequel (I'm still going to call it that.) is based on the book the Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth which whilst being a good novel in its self has had all of the depth and it often felt like common sense removed to be replaced by unrememborable songs and the word "hindmost" definitely the show I have seen with this word repeated the most often.

There is no mystery to me at all that the Broadway show has been indefinitely delayed, I kind of wish that the West End show had been as well. Perhaps the clue should have been when I saw that Ben Elton had become involved in the project.

For a real sense of the feelings that this production elicits try checking out the protest group Love Should Die

Updated Premier League Predictions

I have re-evaluated the stats on my league table prediction programme (Replaced the predicted values with the real values and increased the Co-Eff of the new values by .2 to weight reality over predictions)

There have been big changes at the top since last time, Mainly for a Tottenham point of view that Chelsea will swap places with Man City but that Tottenham will still qualify for the Champions League – perhaps more remarkable however is that Arsenal will win the League overtaking Man Utd on the 30^th April after victory at the Emirates stadium and not looking back from there.

Sunderland still sit in a highly likely Europa League place just needing either Arsenal to win the League Cup Final against Birmingham or Arsenal/Man Utd to play Man City in the FA Cup final and they will feature in the Europa League for the first time.

Liverpool's recent improvement in form is not enough to lift them above Sunderland, so if things go the way I predict then Liverpool will miss out on European Football next season unless both of the above come true.

The other big changes are at the bottom where Fulham are no longer predicted in the drop zone and West Ham end up getting relegated along with Blackpool and Wigan.

So here's the latest table

I must again preface this with the acknowledgement that I know that this is all rubbish and will still quite likely bear no resemblance to the final league position – especially as I have so far managed just 46% of correct results.

Movie Review: Tangled

Tangled is based on Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm, like with a lot of Disney stories it has been given a more modern make over, the Princess this time being more Mr Miagi than Damsel in distress, The Hair has almost been given a life of it’s own with Rapunzel using it like Indian Jones handles a whip to be both a source of transportation and a weapon – although for obvious reasons of plausibility the hair does seem to be of differing lengths throughout the film. The story is very much Disney and from the very start you work out what is going to happen but then it is a Disney so it doesn’t take away from the charm. As with most child based releases these days there is obviously a “cute” character, this time a Chameleon called Pascal – coming to a lunchbox near you soon. However this Pascal is actually quite funny so not just another JarJar Binks.

Disney have once again foregone the star packed voice lists of Dreamworks and Fox choosing instead lesser known stars (Although not to take anything away from them.) Mandy Moore – More known as a singer than an actor and Zachary Levi – The guy from Chuck. The singing therefore sounds much more natural to the stars and in keeping with the traditional Disney animations feature as set pieces throughout the film. Supporting talent is provided by Ron Pearlman and Brad Garratt (The brother from “Everybody loves Raymond”, although to me he will always be Trypticon from Transformers.)

The film is fun enough to keep children amused but funny enough to entertain adults, and when your sitting down for a half term movie is there anything else you require?

Crawley Vs Manchester United

I tend to follow lots of teams usually due to geographical location, obviously Tottenham are my first team as I support them over any other team but I also keenly follow Crawley (My closet club), Brighton (The closest league side – until next year), Uxbridge (Home Town Team after Ruislip Manor Folded), Hayes and Yeading (From Working at Hayes), Reading (Just always liked the club), Sutton United (My Old Bosses favourite team), Brentford (Because it means a lot to my friends Dad) and Arsenal (Shocking to admit as a Spurs fan but as my Dad, Brother, Sister, Brothers in Law, Sister In Law and Nephews – Except Archie who is a Spurs fan!!! – Are all Arsenal fans it is hard to not like success that will bring happiness to so many people who matter to me, although I still love it when we beat them.)

But this year apart from Spurs it has all been about Crawley and their visit this Saturday to Old Trafford to face Manchester United, now the Manchester United message boards are full of talk of Alex Fergusson resting players and putting out a reserve side which I am sure will happen but I am sure you can expect to see the United bench full of Talent who can be brought on in case of the shock goal by Tubbs. Personally I hope that United do start with a weakened side as although I am sure for the Crawley Town players the dream is to meet Berbatov and Rooney on the field but if they are underestimated by United there is a real chance of an upset, well maybe real chance is a bit of a stretch but in the FA cup you never know. Win or lose this is Crawley’s year, the FA Cup tends to throw up one of these teams every couple of years who go on a cup run much further than their league position suggests and although Wembley is a long way off the effect that this tie has had on the club financially (This one game could easily make the club more money than it has made in some previous seasons.) and on the Town in general, suddenly everyone is proud to be from Crawley and come Saturday at 17:15 the entire town will be either in Manchester or Inside watching the game – Obviously this will not be true I know for a fact my Wife has no interest in watching it but it feels like it at the moment.

Sunday there is a very real chance that we will be waking up to just see the reality that although Crawley are favourites to end the year as a League Team even the most optimistic fan knows there is a massive gulf between the countries best League and Non-League team but that will not stop us dreaming.

Champions League Dream Continues

This has been a great time for football in the last few weeks; well it has for me anyway. Obviously if this is not your first visit to this blog then you know that my first footballing love are Tottenham Hotspur, And The fact that this year I have seen Tottenham triumph over both Milan giants makes this the best season since I started to support Spurs back in the early 90’s. Obviously the AC Milan vs Spurs match is only half over but we must be favourites to go through and even if we crash out at this stage I think we have proved that we deserved our place in the European Elite competition, there is every chance that we will be muscled out by the Money men at Man City and Chelsea but at least we proved that a club built on sound financial management and slow improvement can operate at the highest level, and unlike when Leeds gatecrashed the party built on speculation that it would be a recurring invite Tottenham can survive not playing in next years Champions League (Although if we can keep Bale and Van Der Vaart is another question.) And unlike Everton’s brief soirée a few years later we have also proven that we can match some of the best that Europe has to offer – Although in fairness with our recent records against Arsenal and Chelsea I think we already knew that.

It is a great bit of justification for Spurs fans, when Tottenham qualified last season I was told by many fans of Champions League teams (Mostly Chelsea but this is because I was working in South London and they were everywhere.) that we would not make it through qualification, Then after the draw for the groups was announced it was exclaimed happily that We were doomed and could never beat Inter Milan, then after the last draw I was confidently told, albeit at a lesser volume than the start, that AC Milan would humiliate us at the San Siro. I am happy to report that they are wrong once more, despite this and possibly due to the immense disappointment I have had over the years I am still cautious about declaring Tottenham the victors as it is only a one goal lead and anything can happen however we are in control of our own destiny and the Lane has been an intimidating fortress over the last few years so things are looking very bright.

The match itself was notable for the Attack of Gattuso on Joe Jordan our 60 year old first team coach (And voted number 34 in the list of 100 hardest footballers) This really was a game of two halves, in the first half Tottenham dominated, had most of the good attacks and looked set to dominate the AC Milan team who simply couldn’t find any rhythm the second half however Milan came out in a different move and seemed determined that if they could not out play Tottenham they would try and out muscle them, this also proved problematic however as Milan’s five footers struggled to muscle 6ft 7In Peter Crouch, they decided instead to rely on Cheating and unsportsmanlike behaviour. The main talking points (Other than the diminutive Hair Ball (Gattuso) attacking the Bald Giant (Jordon)) were the tackle by Flamini on Corluka which will hopefully not cause any serious injuries but shockingly did not result in a Red Card and the Tottenham Goal where Spurs particularly Aaron Lennon, Luka Modric and Crouch demonstrated that along with the flair and patient build up play we demonstrated in the first half there is also a killer counter attacking element to the team, one they must be fearful off when they visit the Lane

Of cause we need NHS reform?

There has been quite a vast amount of discussion in the last couple of days around NHS reform with the government’s critics and multiple “self-interest” groups attacking the coalition’s plans to reform the NHS. It would have been very funny were it not such a potential danger that the opposition party can not see any need to reform our health system despite the fact that the NHS is the worlds third largest employer and that the budget for the NHS actually accounts for more of the nations tax income than any other service (I seem to remember reading somewhere that the NHS actually costs more than is collected via Income Tax, but I can’t remember where so it’s just here say.) Anyway to have the Shadow Health Secretary claim that plans to reform the NHS are driven by ideology is a chilling indictment that Nu Layb’r seem to think that all of the issue caused by their incompetence are now all forgotten, There seems to be from these people a denial of the problems that they have caused which does not just extend to their usual trick of “Not our fault gov.” and start to point towards an actual policy of “Let’s prevent anyone from trying to improve it.” A policy which could well end up being Labour’s greatest legacy to the anarchic state formally known as the UK.

Anyway the reasons for the reform for the NHS are simple so I will not spend to long labouring the point.
1) It’s too Big
2) It Costs too much
3) It does too much
4) It wastes too much
Now as a resident of the United Kingdom I love the NHS, I think deep down so do most of us, however it IS unsustainable, if you as an individual were in as much debt as the Country is and you were renting a Lamborghini at £2000 a month, it would not be considered very prudent for you to cut your £10 a month newspaper bill (Although I would advise that you also cut out the non-essential items.) instead you would be suggesting that this imaginary person got rid of the Lamborghini and got something more reasonable like an Astra. The problem faced by the UK however is that we are paying for the Lamborghini and have got an Astra, albeit an Astra that is staffed by a professional driver but the hard work of the dedicated workforce still can’t make the Astra a Lamborghini.

So if the problem is not the money going in why would Labour think that the solution is to keep adding more money, if it hasn’t worked for the last 13 years I am at a complete loss to see why they think it would work now – but I guess that kind of thinking is how they got us into this mess in the first place! – The time has not just come to reform the NHS, but has come and passed several times, and if the NHS is to be reformed isn’t it infinitely better that it is driven by local medical professionals based on the needs that they see everyday rather than going the “Labour” way and bringing in another level of management to help push the decisions back into the centre where a Bureaucrat can sit with his medical insurance plan and decide that an old lady in Lancashire doesn’t need access to a drug as it will only extend her life by five years!

Another Record Transfer Window

Well the Transfer Window slams shut for another January and for the first time I can remember Spurs failed to buy anyone on the last day, The big news was the Chelsea – Liverpool – Newcastle switch around in which Liverpool swapped one of Europe’s best strikers for an injured Geordie, not that I think that Andy Carroll is a particularly bad signing, it is simply that he is no Torres.

For me as a Spurs fan the transfer window was for the main a disappointment, we purchased Steven Pienaar and failed to buy Charlie Adam on the last day of the window, personally I am very glad that we failed to buy Adam, again I think he is a quality player and I understand why Blackpool are so keen to keep him, but again he is not what is needed. If you look at Tottenham this season one thing you would not say is that we have looked lacking in midfield, I see a fully fit Tottenham squad as consisting of Lennon – Modric – Van Der Vaart – Bale so I am not really sure the part that Pienaar can play and I definitely do not see a place for the Blackpool skipper. Apparently we also spent our time looking for a striker, this I do agree with a little bit more as Peter Crouch and Roman Pavleychenko still do not seem to have what it takes when the chips are down and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that Jermaine Defoe is not firing at his best.

If I was to name all of the players that I believed Tottenham had that were of a Champions League standard i.e. Able to play consistently at the highest level. I would have to say we have Defoe (When fully fit again) Van Der Vaart, Modric, Bale, Lennon (Again when at peak performance) and finally I would include Woodgate although with his injuries he can’t really be counted. We then have several of what I would call Europa League level players who would be at home at any second level European Club – Huddlestone, Dawson, Bassong, Corluka, Gomes, Gallas (Although he has obviously been a first tier player previously.) King, Benoit and Hutton. As you can see from this list what I am trying to get at is that it is our defence that needs the work, all of our defensive players are either highly injury prone, or struggle to keep up a “Champions League” level of performance. I was very disappointed therefore to not see a decent stabilising defender coming into the squad over this window. Still it could be worse, we could be Liverpool!

Movie Review: Black Swan

The Second film I will be reviewing, or the first if you are reading the blog from the top down is Black Swan, Black Swan is the third film I have seen this week and it would not be a lie to suggest that that in most years this would be the film of the year, however up against the Kings Speech, for me it comes in second. With the Oscar buzz around both of these movies they are often mentioned together however they really couldn’t be more different. Where as the Kings Speech took someone who was well known, humanized them and let us into their inner struggles; the Black Swan takes an area which is less known to the majority of people and through the eyes of one dancer shows the stresses and strains that push against her and cause her to not just question her own abilities but also her own mind. Make no mistake that this film is not an easy watch, it is difficult viewing at times with the occasional flash of an image suddenly forcing you to reassess a lot of what you thought to be true.

Natalie Portman would be a deserving recipient of the Best Actress Oscar as the Israeli actor really nails the role and has you desperately searching for the truth as she responds to what is happening and what isn’t happening, The end is a cascade of emotions as you finally realise what has happened and what is imaginary only to suddenly be thrown back the other way and realise that the opposite is true.

Mila Kunis is very good as Portman’s friend/Rival and Winona Ryder is great (As usual) as the ageing prima ballerina who is replaced by Portman showing the cycle and fear that stalks the main dancers as, just when they are achieving their goals they are seemingly already looking over their shoulder to see who is coming up behind them, Perhaps this is how it felt to be a medieval king?

The film has several shocking moments; one that really got me was when a finger nail was ripped off (Something which always freaks me out.) but although there were many not looking at the screen moments they were very important to the plot and feel of the movie, refreshing in today’s torture porn cinema offerings.

I have never been to the ballet before and after watching this film feel I could never go in the future; if this is the toll it takes on the psyche of the dancers there is probably a very good case to be made for getting ballet banned.

Movie Review: Season of the Witch

Missed a few weeks of blogging again, leaving me with a backlog of Movies to review, The first one is Season of the Witch which I have to admit I have thought about not reviewing as I would much rather get straight into the second review I will be putting up today Black Swan, But if I miss Season of the Witch I am worried I would never come back to it.

I don’t want you to get the impression from this that Season of the Witch is a bad movie (It is, but you should pick that up from the review instead.) To be honest to call it a bad movie would probably be unfair, it was not supposed to be an Oscar winner but coming sandwiched between Oscar favourite The Kings Speech and the very well made Black Swan the inadequacies of this medieval adventure are only too obvious.

The story starts with a demonstration of the persecution of some witches, obviously much to the surprise of the priest carrying out the execution one of them turns out to be a real witch, we then cut to our two heroes (Nick Cage and Ron Pearlman) they are knights in the crusades, which seem to stretch from the Arctic to the Equator as they follow the commands of a clearly insane religious leader, they wake up and realise that they may not be doing gods work and walk away from the army.

This is all essential set up for the actual story which sees the two Heroes disillusioned with the Church finding themselves once again serving them as they escort the witch to a monastery where she can be put on trial for witch craft, there is the usual assortment of escorts along with the two main stars – The Older War Haggard Guard, The Young Inexperienced yet expert Swordsman and the cowardly conman forced to help in return for release from the stocks. The script and storylines are no more original than their choice of companions.

For me this story is made by Ron Pearlman, I should admit that I am a massive Ron Pearlman fan so this was always a bit of a given, but he is great in this film playing the usual “Pearlman” role (The Hard guy who is never endingly loyal.) Cage on the other hand whose acting talent is often unfairly questioned once again plays the same role this could easily be a scene from a flash back in the Sorcerers Apprentice or Ghost Rider the characters are ostensibly the same in each.

All that said the film is not really bad until the end when everything goes very over the top, but if by the time it arrives you are surprised then you really must not have been paying attention.