Top Ten Boring Songs

"We're so sick of your Top Tens, Rol - they're so BORING!Boring...!? I'll show you boring!10. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Boring Fountain ( From Pershing)The name of this band is Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. There song may be boring - but with a name like that, who cares?9. Cracker - My Life Is Totally Boring Without You ( From Cracker - Gentleman's Blues [Us Import])Aw, you're...

Department of the Peculiar

To celebrate the 1st Anniversary of thoughtballoons, all the contributing writers are allowed to write a 1-page script featuring a character or characters of their own invention this week.I chose to showcase a page from the new book I'm working on with Rob Wells (to be honest, Rob is doing most of the work), Department of the Peculiar. Pop over to thoughtballoons to read the 1-page preview n...

Room

Don't let anyone tell you different - Room is a horror story. Other reviewers may talk about the life-affirming drama of hope triumphing over despair, or of the way the author takes us by the hand and shows us our world from a perspective we've never before seen it, but despite its happy ending and warmer second half, the sensation that stuck with me was of the overwhelming horror and sadness of the...

THE LOST BLADESMAN (GUAN YUN CHANG) (2011)

MyRating: YYYY1/2Written and Directed by: Alan Mak & Felix ChongCast: Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Sun Li, Andy On, Chin Siu-ho, Alex Fong, Wang Po-chieh, Wang XuebingRomance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo Yan Yi), the popular Chinese historical epic novel written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, besides Water Margin (Shui...

Bad Day At Work?

Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats y...

The Apple

Just before the recent TV adaptation aired, I reviewed Michel Faber's excellent novel The Crimson Petal And The White and predicted..."For all its excellent cast (including the always watchable Chris O'Dowd, Richard E. Grant and - yay! - Scully), sparkling script, grubby period detail, kinky costume drama romping and acres of naked flesh and naughtiness... it's not a patch on the novel."Well, I couldn't...

Blogger Ate My Hamster

So I had all sorts of exciting blog posts planned for you this week, then The Great Blogger Crash of Friday the 13th happened and blogger ate the posts I'd been lovingly constructing on Thursday... including my Top Ten Mother-Funster* songs and my review of Essential Super-Villain Team-Up over at Comics On The Ration. It also ate the comments left by Vicus and RB on the Rabbit, Run post. Sorry, guys!I...

Rabbit, Run

I had no idea when reading John Updike's Rabbit Run that it was the first in a series of novels chronicling the life of Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom. I do hope his life gets a little more cheerful in subsequent books.The novel commences when Rabbit, feeling trapped in his failing marriage to an alcoholic wife, gets in his car and drives... and carries on driving, all through the night, trying to get as...

Lo! A Beast Is Born!

Geek-post alert!I don't see why I need to apologise for that, since the five of you regularly reading this blog have surely by now proved either your geek credentials - or at the very least your geek tolerance.Anyway, I discovered this rather cool website, Mike's Amazing World of Marvel Comics where you can check out the Marvel comics that were out on the day you born. (It's kind of like checking...

Limitless

So why haven't you written your review of Limitless yet?Not sure I can be bothered.Was it rubbish?No. Not really. Then, I'd have had more to say about it.Well, was it ace-stuff then?Not ace-stuff either.So... average?Probably the averagest film I've seen this year. There wasn't anything wrong with it per se...Please don't call me Percy....there just weren't any surprises. Limitless did EXACTLY what...

Chuck Klosterman's 23 Question Meme

I'm currently reading another hilarious and thought-provoking collection of Chuck Klosterman articles called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. Full review to follow, but one of the chapters struck me that it'd make an excellent meme. Wait - don't surf away just yet! Give me a second!If, like me, you're getting tired of all those "What's your favourite colour?" and "When did you...

No Ball Games

Summer's here and the time is right for playing ball games in the street. Am I the only one who feels suddenly intimidated?I have two major concerns when it comes to ball games in the street, and they have little to do with broken windows. They go a little something like this...1) I have limited sporting ability. While I could occasionally, in my youth, catch a cricket ball if pressed to do so, this...

More Things I Have Been Listening To...

It's been a while since I bored you all with a new music post... so here's a sampling of the hot wax that's recently been trickling, like the poison that killed Hamlet's dad, into my eager ear canals...I'd almost written off Noah & The Whale as quirky one-hit-wonders after Five Years Time drilled itself into the nation's consciousness a while back, going one of my favourite songs of the year to...