Movie Review - The Guard

One of my favourite movies of recent years was In Bruges, in which Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two feckless Irish hitmen laying low in Belgium after a job gone wrong. I haven't laughed so much at the cinema since the Dude and Walter went bowling. So I was excited by the prospect of The Guard which sees Gleeson back on familiar territory (and back in his Irish homeland) in a story from the same stable: writer / director John Michael McDonagh is the brother of Martin, who performed those same duties on In Bruges.

Gleeson plays an Irish Garda (police man) with a cynical, anti-establishment attitude and no time whatsoever for the American FBI Agent (a wonderfully deadpan Don Cheadle) invading his patch to investigate a billion dollar drug-smuggling operation. Gleeson is the sort of cop who steals drugs from the pockets of dead joyriders and books prostitutes for the weekend, while also caring for a terminally ill mother (a wry, sly, bone-dry Fionnula Flanagan). It's a tremendous, multi-layered performance and Gleeson gets all the best lines (unlike In Bruges, where Colin Farrell stole the show). Sometimes the western Irish accents were a little too thick for my cloth ears to catch every joke, but there's more than enough to go round and entertaining support from Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot and Mark Strong (who you might imagine would be too big for this sort of villainous bit-part nowadays - but I'm glad he's not).

It's a shame The Guard will suffer in comparison to In Bruges because set against any other recent comedy, it'd come out on top. It's good to see that the first McDonagh brother didn't nab all the movie-making talent... I'll be following them both from now on. Excellent use of John Denver in the closing credits too.

Alphabetical Meme

Because I've not done one of these for a while...

Stolen from Sunday Stealing.


A. Age: 39 and a half. For the rest of my life.

B. Bed size: Daddy bear.

C. Chore that you hate: All of them.

D. Dogs: Bollocks.

E. Essential start to your day: Green Tea.

F. Favorite colour: I wear black on the outside...

G. Gold or Silver: Not even bronze.

H. Height: 6'1".

I. Instruments you play: Piano, tenor horn, record, harmonica. But I haven't played any of them for years so probably none.

J. Job title: Word Wrestler.

K. Kids: My favourite Indelicates song.

L. Live: Slow, Die Old, Wear a Seatbelt.

M. Mother's name: Mary.

N. Nicknames: See You Next Tuesday.

O. Overnight hospital stays: No, thanks.

P. Pet peeve: Cleaning out the cat's litter tray. (See also 'C'.)

Q. Quote from a movie: Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!

R. Right or left handed: Right.

S. Siblings: 1 sister, 1 brother.

T. Time you wake up: 7am. I've kissed 6am goodbye!

U. Underwear: Yes.

V. Vegetable you hate: Tom Hanks.

W. What makes you run late: Louise. (Ouch - joking!)

X. X-Rays you've had: When I broke my arm; plus an MRI for my dodgy back.

Y. Yummy food that you make: I can boil a kettle and make nice Cup-A-Soup.

Z. Zoo animal: Monkeys!

Book Review - Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Anyone who's read John Ajvide Lindqvist's previous novels, Handling The Undead and Let The Right One In will know that he's an author hugely influenced by Stephen King at his best. We see this again in the opening chapters of Harbour as Lindqvist introduces us to a strange community who make their home on Domarö, a haunted island in the Stockholm archipelago. There's Anders, whose six year old daughter disappears into thin air on a walk to the lighthouse. There's Simon, an old magician and escapologist who keeps a spooky insect in a box that gives him supernatural abilities. There's Anna-Greta, Anders' grandma, a former smuggler who knows far more about the terrible history of Domarö than she's letting on. And there's Elin, a former Reality TV beauty who's determined to make herself ugly. All great characters, given plenty of back-story while the mystery of Domarö deepens, long before the horror begins.

Anders' daughter Maja isn't the first person to disappear on Domarö, and she won't be the last. But what happens when the missing start coming back? Harbour builds to an exciting and shocking first act climax involving two old ghosts called Henrik and Bjorn, homicidal Smiths fans who ride the island on a spooky moped, quoting Morissey lyrics and causing panic wherever they go. Unfortunately, the novel loses much of its momentum in the second half and drags towards an unsatisfyingly metaphysical ending. It's just like Stephen King... at his worst. But don't let that put you off. Harbour remains a fascinating, engrossing and emotionally gripping read, and you may have more time for the climax than I did. It's worth reading for page 347 alone, where Anders breaks down while listening to a cassette of an old Swedish comedian. Lindqvist has a powerful understanding of how pop culture affects us even at the lowest points of our life, and how sometimes it's all that keeps us going.

The Mixtape Lives On...

...is the name of my new music blog which launches today. I've been writing about music here on Sunset Over Slawit since the very second post but lately those posts have become longer and longer and taken up a much bigger part of the blog than is healthy. Things like my musically themed Top Tens and the What I'm Listening To posts take ages to write and are probably of limited interest to many regular SOS readers. So I decided to set up a blog where I can write about music to my heart's content. Hopefully this will give me the outlet I want but also take up a little less of my time. I'm only allowing myself to write about one song per post... not ten!

There will be new music. There will be old music. There will be cracking cover versions and free downloads. There will be songs linked by a theme, starting with Songs About Mixtapes. When I've got enough of them, I'll compile a Top Ten here, but if you pop over to The Mixtape Lives On, you'll get to vote on that beforehand.

I'd love it if you'd join me, bookmark me, give me a plug or a link, or add me to your blogroll (particularly if you're a music blogger yourself). If music's not your thing, rest assured Sunset Over Slawit will continue to bring you all the other rubbish from my life. And if you only want the music, now I've filtered that out for you.

How can writing two blogs take less time than writing one? Stick around, I intend to show you...

Sunset Over Slawit

The Mixtape Lives On

Going South (2): Monkey World

When we first arrived at Monkey World, we were worried a better name for the place might be "Spot The Monkey World". It was a windy, chilly day and despite having large enclosures full of climbing frames, nets and other exciting outdoor toys, most of the chimps were huddled up inside. Fortunately the sun soon came out, and so did the monkeys.

Monkey World is an Ape Rescue Centre dedicated to combating worldwide monkey smuggling and offering rehabilitation to rescued primates. Some of the monkeys here have health problems due to neglect or abuse they suffered in previous captivity and probably wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anymore. At Monkey World they're encouraged to live in natural social groups to aid in their recovery. The centre was founded by the late Jim Cronin who dedicated his life to the conservation and welfare of monkeys everywhere.

Our favourites were the orangutans, particularly Oshine, an older female who suffered weight problems having been fed on a human diet of junk food while being raised illegally as a pet by a family in South Africa. Oshine's social group also a included a younger female orangutan and a tiny toddler. These two squabbled and play-fought like human children, but when the older girl got a little too rough with her young step-brother, Oshine stepped in, took the little one's hand, and walked him away like a mother walking her child to school. I don't really do "sweet", but that was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

Slightly less sweet was the moment when the young female orangutan hung spread-eagled before us with her ladybits pressed up against the window. We might have found her innocence charming had not the assorted apes on our side of the glass not started clicking away with their camera phones to capture this image for perverted posterity. Still, we can't blame the monkeys for our own vile and disgusting ways. It's at times like these you realise the human race really doesn't deserve this planet... maybe it is time to give it back to the apes.

Movie Review - Jane Eyre

So there's another Jane Eyre adaption doing the rounds and it's really not bad. Certainly better than that awful TV version of Wuthering Heights we had to suffer through a few years back. (I was going to write "last year" until I checked the post and discovered I'd written it in 2009... which scared me a little, to be honest.)

If I had to pick a Brontë sister to lock up in my attic, it'd have to be poor, messed-up Emily. But I'd settle for Charlotte at a pinch. Jane Eyre is a terrific story, filled with passion, tragedy, dark secrets and lashings of wild, windswept moors. Mia Wasikowska's Jane is a spunky heroine, Michael Fassbender walks a fine balance between mutton-chopped he-babe and arrogant cad, Judi Dench turns up and wipes the floor with everybody (well, she is the housekeeper). The lack of comedy Yorkshire accents (remember Tom Hardy's Heathcliff?) was a definite plus too. Almost perfect vowel-sounds from both leads.

If I had to quibble (and sometimes I'm contractually obliged), I'd say the love story could have followed a smoother curve. One minute Jane's simmering with resentment for her brutish master, the next she's throwing herself into his tragic arms. Still, it could have been worse. She might have changed her mind and married the dull preacher (Billy Elliott). If Hollywood gets any more puritanical, that'll be bound to happen one day.

The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

So here we go with the next step of my master plan: teacher training.

What, you say? Rol, you say? Are you insane, you say? Putting you in a classroom with a mob of cheeky young oiks... that's a recipe for disaster!

Fortunately, I'm not training to teach young people. That job lost its appeal since they abolished corporal punishment. If I could have been Bullet Baxter in Grange Hill, I might have been interested... though knowing me I'd probably have been more like Scruffy McDuffy.

Sleep easy tonight, I'm not training to teach kids, I won't be terrorising your offspring anytime soon. Unless they decide to stick around for some post-compulsory, 16+ education... after which point, I can't promise you anything.

Sadly, I can't write about my teaching experiences here - or even my teacher training experiences. Confidentiality and all that. Maybe I'll set up an anonymous blog and write about it there. Let me know if you'd like the link.

Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools... so I reckon I'm a shoe-in for a job there sometime in the future.

Going South (1) Avebury Vs. Stonehenge

We were heading for Dorset, but our first stop was in Wiltshire at the huge prehistoric henge monument that dominates and defines the village of Avebury. It includes one of the largest stone circles in the world, well over 1000 feet in diameter, built over a period of a thousand years by 40 generations of Neolithic Britons. Long before the Parthenon, the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China were even rough sketches on a slate, the ancient Aveburians were heaving stones so big you'd struggle to lift them with a JCB today across vast distances to create this strange monument to the unknown.

Nobody knows why they did it or what it was for, it all happened so very long ago that no written record exists; we can only guess at its purpose or significance. Later residents would demolish and dispose of much of the monument, believing it to be the work of the devil, but fortunately large sections were saved and re-erected in the 1930s by a dedicated archaeologist named Alexander Keiller. The Avebury museum is dedicated to Keiller and his work and features a collection of Stone Age relics such as axeheads, flints and - most impressive of all - calcified dog excrement, proving both that man's best friend was a loyal companion even five millennia ago, and that white dog shit wasn't purely a phenomenon of the 1970s.

The best thing about Avebury is the open access for everyone. You can walk the ancient circles and lay hands on the monolithic stones, getting a real sense of the history and mysticism of the place. Sheep graze amid the henge itself and it's all refreshingly uncommercialised. You can't help but be dwarfed by the scale of the place - in size and age. Avebury made me feel like a gnat flitting about the vast forest of history. But it also made me feel connected to something larger and older, as though its ancient architects were reaching out and communicating to me across the years. My life would be just as unimaginable to them as theirs is to me. There's something oddly reassuring about that.

By contrast, Avebury's far more famous yet smaller and younger cousin left me cold. Perhaps I'd been spoiled earlier in the day, but everything about Stonehenge proved a disappointment. From its featureless moorland location on the junction of two busy A-roads to the armies of tourists queuing up for the expensive luxury of a guided tour around its outer border, this iconic symbol of the British Isles might well have been a polystyrene film set. I wondered how many of those visitors would drive away commenting that it didn't look like it does on the telly or that it really was nothing more than a huge pile of carefully arranged rocks. There was no magic to be felt here, Stonehenge couldn't ever live up to its own legend.

Music I Haven't Been Listening To This Week

I haven't actually been here this week. I've gone south... quite a long way, but not quite as far as France. This may also explain why I haven't popped over to your blog to be as abusive as I usually am. I've been elsewhere. All this week's posts were written last week and posted by the SOS Rol-bot.

That's why there isn't a Music I've Been Listening To feature today. I'm stopping writing about music... in fact, I'm going to be writing about it more than ever.

The Mixtape Lives On...

I'll tell you more about that, and where I've been this week, very soon.

Here's an appropriate song to fill the gap...

Book Review - How To Leave Twitter

How To Leave Twitter is a hugely pointless book. But then, it's a book about a hugely pointless subject. Grace Dent makes you realise what an enormous waste of your life twitter really is (as if you didn't already know) but despite the title, she has no intention of actually leaving. She's a twitter addict. And like any addict, she's tried to quit, gone cold turkey, sometimes actually managed to walk away... but she always ends up falling off the wagon and going back to twitter's safe, comfortable, welcoming womb. Twitter is her castle and she is its queen. Why would she ever want to go back to being a lowly commoner?

My own relationship with twitter followed a similar trajectory to Dent's. Longterm readers of this blog will know that I, like most people, went from mocking anyone who ever tweeted to being sucked into its gaping, Sarlacc Pit maw. For a while there I was an addict too, though never quite to the level of Dent... because a) at the end of the day, I'm just an ordinary Joe, not a celebrity journalist whose followers number the tens of thousands; and b) I just don't have the time or energy to devote myself to it like some people do. Nor would I want to. That's not to mock anyone who does. Twitter's great for multi-taskers (if I tweeted while watching TV, I'd miss half the show) and those who thrive on a sense of community.

I found myself nodding in agreement at many of Dent's amusing and pithy insights into the society that spawned social networking...

It puzzles me how many people still believe 'friendship' or at least bonhomie conducted in cyberspace isn't a valid form of social contact, but, say, being thrown together at an NCT group, or in halls of residence, or because your desks at work face each other, is. Or that anodyne small talk with a neighbour is 'genuine social stimulation', whereas chatting with twitter with someone 6000 miles away who loves Top Gun and Jefferson Airplane as much as you do is just lonely, dysfunctional nerds clashing in cyberspace.

Given the nature of this blog, I could hardly argue with that... and I've been online long enough to recognise the horrible truth of this...

...arguing on the internet is like pulling a drunk's trousers back up for him in public.

In the end though, I wonder how long it'll be before the twitter bubble bursts and the site becomes as forgotten as myspace? Grace Dent is surfing the zeitgeist here, but will she too look back in five years time and wonder what all the fuss was about? And what will she - and the rest of us - be doing to waste our time on the internet then? The mind boggles...

Posters On My Wall

Looking through some old photographs, I came across these pictures of my bedroom wall when I was a young boy. As you can see, my heroes back then weren't pop stars or sporting heroes like you'd find on a lot of boy's walls, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) the same comic book characters who still provide me entertainment and reassurance thirty years later. If I couldn't get to sleep, I could always glance across at my four-colour friends for comfort in the night.

Look - I even had a Spider-Man lampshade... how cool is that?

Most of these posters came from Marvel UK comics of the time which usually had a full-colour pull-out in their centre pages, even when the rest of the comic was printed in black and white. I also recall a Marvel Poster book which gave me some of the better quality images on the wall below. You can even see my own sorry attempts at being a comic artist pinned to the lower wall - just above my young scalp as I hold the camera up high behind me to get this picture.

As I grew older, I took the posters from my bedroom wall and pinned them up in the box room at the top of the stairs. My teenage bedroom wall gave fewer clues to my comics addiction, although the duvet cover, headboard full of stickers and box of comics at the side of the bed show that I'd hardly left my heroes behind.

Looking back at these photos now, I feel a warm sense of nostalgia for my childhood bedroom. I was happy there, safe, and always had something to keep me entertained. Part of me wishes I could go back, to simpler times, when life wasn't so damned complicated. Of course, I'd probably hate it... but it'd be nice to take a few days holiday there at least.

What did your teenage bedroom look like? Who were the heroes on your walls? Do you have photographs? Consider this a meme challenge... do you accept?

Movie Review - Cowboys & Aliens

Hey - you like westerns, right?

How about sci-fi films?

Yeah?

What about Daniel Craig? Harrison Ford? Thirteen from House? Sam Rockwell? The Kurgan? Walton freaking Goggins?

Imagine them all in the same movie - wouldn't that be incredible?

Erm...

I had high hopes for Cowboys & Aliens, but it just didn't work. The two genres mixed like oil and water, with the western floating about on top only to be spoiled every time an unimaginative CGI alien flashed its jaws across the surface.

There are some fine actors at work here, struggling with a humourless script that attempts to cram in as many cliches from the two genres as possible. The plot takes some ridiculous leaps that would stretch credibility even if this were pure sci-fi. In A western, they just seem crass. The opening half hour is the best, but we'd seen virtually that whole story sequence already in the trailer. There were no surprises to be had and precious little fun. I grew increasingly fidgety towards the end, and that's the worst crime of all for a film featuring both Cowboys and Aliens. No way should I have been bored.

Dull.

Music I'm Listening To This Week

The Countryside make a mellow, mournful, haunting sound on their debut album, Beggars On Horseback. It's the brainchild of Irish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Graeme Slattery (former guitarist with The Devlins) and charts his journey from city dweller to his new home in a converted 17th century stable in the countryside of County Wicklow. As someone who's lived most of his life staring out across misty moorland and rainswept pastures, I found the album hugely evocative - and it helps that Graeme counts among his influences Paddy McAloon, Roddy Frame and The Blue Nile.

You can hear listen to the full album here. It's available to download from evil iTunes and other digital retailers (I'd recommend the latter).



Good on PJ Harvey for her victory at this year's Mercury Music Prize with a record that's actually about something. Let England Shake isn't her most immediate record, but persevere and you'll soon be clasping it to your bosom. A brave, thought-provoking and majestically sad record that proves award ceremonies don't have to be all about the bling.







And finally, this. The soundtrack to Super 8 breathes new life into a number of early 80s gems. It's great to see some love given to My Sharona by The Knack... but I rarely need an excuse to dig out the ELO. Their records never fail to brighten up a movie score. Don't bring me down.





The Mixtape Lives On... is coming.

Book Review - Dark Steps

Dark Steps is a short anthology of stories from fellow blogger and writer Martin Pond, available to download or read on old-fashioned dead trees, if you're a traditionalist like me.

The collection opens with The Waiting Room, a scary slice of future-shock spiced with sharp ideas and a chilling, utterly unexpected, denouement. It's probably my favourite story here, but that's not to detract from the delights that lie ahead.

Dream Feed will surely raise hairs on the necks of new parents everywhere as a spooky voice is heard over the baby monitor by a sleep-deprived father.

Near-Death Experience, which I've read before on Martin's blog, reminds me of M. Knight Shyamalan's Unbreakable - and there's no finer comparison in this genre.

The longest story here is The Inheritance, a clever piece of writing in which a son visits his dying police man father in hospital only to face some shocking revelations. The twist is obvious to the reader long before it hits the protagonist, but there's much worse to come. In his foreword, Martin claims it's his least favourite story in the collection, yet it lingered in my mind long after I set the book aside.

Three other stories and an extract from Martin's work-in-progress novel, Drawn To The Deep End, complete the anthology. It's an excellent collection of unexpected tales told in everyday surroundings with a vein of dark humour running just below the surface.

To find out more, visit Martin's writing blog or Pip's Pages, his original home on the web.

There's A Huge Spot On Daniel Craig's Neck

So we're watching the film Defiance on DVD the other night. It's not the greatest thing Daniel Craig's ever done, but it's a hell of a lot better than Cowboys & Aliens*. It's the tale of three Jewish brothers who escape the Nazis in WWII and build a community of exiles in the Belarussian forest where they survive for years until the end of the war. It's based on a true story, one of those "triumph of the human spirit" gems that Hollywood adores. It's all very worthy and dramatic, with fine performances from Craig, Liev Schreiber and Billy Elliott. However, the image it scored into my mind was not of valiant heroes fighting against all odds in dire circumstances... but of the huge spot on Daniel Craig's neck.

You can't see it on the image above, because Bond is wearing a big woolly scarf to hide it from the photographer... but it's a belter. The sort of zit that makes you think you're growing an extra head. I should know, I spent most of my teenage years caked in Clearasil, unsuccessfully fighting the damned things off. Still, you don't expect to find one of the neck of a celebrity beefcake noted for his washboard chest, solid sixpack, sandpaper stubble and piercing blue eyes... even if he's been living in a forest for three years.

Digital film stock and HD TV make it easier than ever to see the pimples, wrinkles, cellulite and saggy bits of our favourite actors and actresses in crystal clear quality. (It's only because I'm a gentleman that I haven't mentioned the crimson carbuncle on Sarah Lund's nose in one episode of The Killing last week. You can forgive her the skincare neglect: she works long hours in a permanently dark city and eats all her meals straight from the pan.)

Cinema's come a long way since the grand dames of Hollywood only ever allowed themselves to be filmed with a heavy gauze or thick layer of petroleum jelly smeared over the camera lens to mask their imperfections. We should cherish these days of scabby stars and spotty starlets though... how long before they insist on CGI-airbrushing away their every blemish? It's already a staple of magazine shoots, and if you ask me it makes our idols far less human... and less attractive... with each Photoshopped brushstroke. And don't even start me on plastic surgery!




*Review to follow, once I can bring myself to face up to the awfulness of it.

Comic Reviews - Verity Fair, The Grinning Mask & Thunder Brother: Soap Division

It's great to have Terry Wiley back on the small press scene, after far too long away. On my recent trip to Caption, I was lucky enough to catch up with the first two episodes of his new comic Verity Fair, and to meet Terry in the flesh for the first time.

Verity Fair follows the hilarious and slightly creepy adventures of out-of-work actress Verity Bourneville, a woman of a certain age with no off-switch and dark secrets haunting her subconscious. It's all illustrated in Terry's famously quirky style - he really is one of the best cartoonists on the scene - and available in two formats, cheap black and white or luscious full colour. Sad to say I could only afford the cheap version (though it's still pretty spectacular) but the colour work is a feast for the eyes... as can be seen in the strip's regular serialisation over at The Girly Comic Online.

Verity Fair issues #1 and 2 are available to buy from Terry's website... issue #3 is on its way soon.

One comic I didn't pick up in Oxford, though I understood it made its debut at the recent Birmingham Comic Con, was the second chapter of Ryan Taylor's wonderfully atmospheric EC tribute The Grinning Mask. That pesky mask has been stolen from High Town church and now all manner of eerie, spooky and downright horrific occurrences are plaguing the cottages, coppices and churchyards of this otherwise quaint English village. Ryan ratchets up the tension and has loads of fun with his witty, monsterrific tales, while his art becomes more confident and striking with each page. Looking forward to issue #3!

Go hunting for The Grinning Mask over at Ryan's blog.

Finally, I must mention my old pal Paul Rainey, whose new strip Thunder Brother: Soap Division began its weekly serialisation on Monday. Having been fortunate enough to have read the first few chapters of this excellent comic, I can highly recommend you get on board now... because the story of young soap opera addict Sally Timmins is heading off in some incredible, unpredictable and downright hilarious directions. Even if you don't read comics, if you've ever found yourself overly obsessed with the fictional world of a soap, this strip is a must-read. Add Thunder Brother: Soap Division to your blog-list or RSS-feed now and don't miss an episode.

Movie Review - The Skin I Live In

Rol's first rule about promoting movies with plots that hinge on a huge, monkey frightening twist: don't. Don't mention the twist at all. Don't let reviewers mention the twist at all. Shoot every audience member as soon as they've watched the film so they don't tell anyone else about the twist. This is the only way your movie will ever be enjoyed as you intended it.

There's nothing worse than going into a movie knowing there's a twist coming. You spend half the film looking under your seat, round the back of the projector, under the lead actor's wig... anywhere the twist might be hidden. Chances are you'll stumble across it before the big reveal because twists only really shock if you don't know they're coming.

The frustrating thing about The Skin I Live In is that, although I knew there was a twist coming, and I was scouring the cinema to find it... I don't think I'd have rumbled it quite so soon if Pedro Almodovar hadn't helped me along. There's a clunking great clue in his choice of a specific narrative device about halfway through the movie that points a big fat finger at the twist and goes "hey, senors and senoritas, check THEESE out!" which kind of ruined the surprise for me. I don't think device in question was necessary and I think the movie would have worked much better without it... but other than that, The Skin I Live In is a stylish and engrossing piece of film-making.

Re-uniting with the director who made him famous, Antonio Banderas gives his strongest performance in years as a cool and Clooney-esque plastic surgeon with a dark secret locked up in his spare bedroom: Elena Anaya, an actress so impossibly beautiful you think she must have been poured from a mould herself. But did Banderas create this vision of loveliness out of spare parts lying round his plastic surgery clinic? How much does she resemble his long deceased wife? And why is he keeping her prisoner? To say anything else would spoil the surprise more than Almodovar himself seems willing to do, but I guarantee you'll have fun learning the answers.

Oh, and you know you're watching a Pedro Almodovar film when a man turns up in a tiger costume for no reason at all. Anywhere else, this might seem odd...

Title Fight - Drive - And the winner is...

Thanks to everybody who voted in last week's inaugural Title Fight post to find your favourite 'Drive' song. There were six very different songs to choose from, all with the exact same title - by The Cars, REM, Incubus, Rialto, Alan Jackson and The Gaslight Anthem.

As expected, it was a tightly fought battle between the first two artists, with some support for Incubus and token votes for Rialto and The Gaslight Anthem. Sadly, poor old Alan Jackson was left out in the cold... though Mark did ask me if he was married to Carol in Eastenders.

REM led the way most of the week before a sudden surge of Cars fans closed the gap at the last minute... leading to a steward's enquiry... before the result was finally declared.

The Cars & REM - joint winners.

It was a fun little exercise and I hope to bring it back soon as part of my new Music Blog 'The Mixtape Lives On'. More on that soon. Bet you can hardly wait.

Music I'm Listening To This Week

I was intrigued by the promo email for the debut single by new American band Dreamers of the Ghetto because it screamed BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN all over my inbox. These PR people, they know how to get my attention. Lead singer Luke James certainly has a classic hoarse power rock voice, but that's where the Springsteen comparison ends for me. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, Tether builds like a bastard and must sound fantastic live - all seven and a half minutes of it. Plus, if you like songs about space travel - or getting spaced out in general, I seriously recommend you press play now...



The band's debut album, Enemy/Lover,is released October 4th.

Another American band who owe a sizable debt to the Boss are The Airborne Toxic Event. Their second album, All At Once,received a somewhat low-key release earlier this year. I caught them live while they were touring their first and I felt certain they were on their way up so I'm surprised there hasn't been more fanfare for the follow-up. I guess it's not a great time to be selling literate guitar music, not in the UK music market anyway. Pity.



One British band hoping to buck that sad trend are Littlehampton's The Indicators who are bringing back the spirit of punk - and channeling Jilted John if their debut single is anything to go by. A sorry tale of the dire consequences of eating too many fast food £1.99 meal deals... we've all been there.

Went to the Wimpy, had a 1-99, but it didn't fill me up...

I heard this song on Lamacq last week but I'm having a devil of a job finding out if or when the band have a album out. I'll keep trying to find out.



Finally, this week's golden oldie comes from January of 1977 when it made the heights of #31 in the UK singles chart. It's still a blinder, a lyrically intriguing story in the vein of Billy Joel or Randy Newman. As opening lyrics go, these take some beating...

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

Book Review - The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr

I've been on the look out for a copy of The Hollow Man (or The Three Coffins, to give it its alternative US title) for some time now. I'd heard it described as "the greatest locked room mystery ever" and as I'm a sucker for whodunits I was particularly interested in reading chapter 17, "The Locked Room Lecture" in which Carr's legendary detective hero, Dr. Gideon Fell, lays out his treatise on how to commit an impossible crime... and how to solve the seemingly unsolvable.

The Hollow Man tells of two such murders that take place on the same winter's night in London. In the first, the killer appears to not only disappear from the locked room where his victim dies but also escape the scene of the crime without leaving any footprints in the heavy snow outside. In the second, a man falls dead in the middle of an empty street while witnesses look on - yet his mortal wound shows he was shot at close range by a seemingly invisible killer.

While the police scratch their heads and become embroiled in a years old mystery that might even involve vampires or zombies, Dr. Fell pursues a far more down-to-earth solution. The final revelation is incredible yet cunningly plausible - a combination of fiendish planning and bizarre happenstance that prove Dickson Carr a master of the genre.

Originally published in 1935, The Hollow Man remains a fresh, fascinating and outrageously foxing mystery with a charismatic detective hero at its centre. The book's currently out of print in the UK so I'm glad I finally discovered an affordable copy.