Blogs

I set out to change the world, but ended up watching Coronation Street. I’m sure God would have understood and if there was an angel on my shoulder he’d have been watching too. I didn’t actually see the programme, but I read about it. 50 years of Coronation Street. The programme’s older than me. But soaps never get old. They harvest birth, deaths and marriages in the same way that hairstyles change; you just don’t notice at the time. Coronation...

Shutter (2008) is an American horror set in Japan, or a Japanese horror setting about the Americans (which is no bad thing). Rachel Taylor blond bright and beautiful is on honeymoon. They’re driving- and Joshua Jacksoning about -when she hits a Japanese girl standing in the middle of the road, which is no place to be, even though it is snowing and I did that very thing this morning. Both honeymooners are a bit bashed up, but she is first to...

Funeral today. If history lived it wasn’t with Ian Betty. I don’t know if I’ll go. He was the broccoli of the human race; people said they liked him. A heart attack. He lives on in Facebook, which is worse than death. Shame not in the death, but the fact they’ve got to sell football cards in the pub to pay for the £500 deposit so that the funeral parlour will take him. They can be a bit sniffy. With Ian Betty that is understandable. He’d red...

The Accused. It’s half time and 2-1 to the prosecution so far. Other results are just in. J’Accuse and the Dreyfus affair: with Zola popping up in the box to leave it wide open. And there are obvious parallels between in the beginning was the word (GOD) and, every …had a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order (Godard) and Waiting for Godot: a dull 0-0 draw. Jimmy McGovern also left it late. Helen played by Julie...

The first in a projected series of Omnibus editions of ABCtales Magazine is now available to buy or download: http://stores.lulu.com/abctales Collecting issues 1-3, cover dated 2006. Featuring: Hazel McSporran, Pete Allen, Hayley Webster, Liana Hemmett, Tim Clare, Kirsten Irving, John Thomson, Kevin Marman, Colin Tuff, Dan Derrett, Swep Lovitt, Jon Stone, Joe Dunthorne, Foster Trecost, Scharlie Meeuws, Alison Dunne, Jayne Dunsmuir and Nigel...

Genova (2008) Michael Winterbourne starring Colin Firth. Two children. Two Adults. One car. You know somebody is going to die, especially as there was a bit of rough-housing going on in the back. The children were putting their hands over each other’s eyes. Inevitably, the younger of the two, did the same thing with mummy. Instead of telling her off and giving her youngest a good old fashioned thrashing (this is for picking your nose in the back...

Interview with Sir Donald Akenbourgh. Beatrice Foster (anthropologist), BF: Sir Donald what are your views can the human population keep growing in the same way. Donald Akenbourgh (DA): Yes. I’m optimistic that men and women will continue to have sex. BF: The Oogonyu tribe have a dream culture in which certain totemic animals come to them to teach them specific lessons. What kind of spirit animal do you think would come to you? DA: An apple. BF...

The Accused. Anyone that ever dogged school in the 1970s knows from Crown Court that two-scaled- justice is a fickly bitch. That’s two accused in Jimmy Mc Govern’s stable so far and 2-0 to the prosecution. There’s only four programmes to go so I’m hoping for a late run of not-guiltys so that we are left with a cliff-hanger finish. Monday nights was the better of the two shows so far. Two lads, best mates, join the same regiment and get posted to...

The old imperishables, distinguished looking books of a certain era, scratched and tried to jump into my hand and sit on my lap. They know well my habits. ‘Where have you been?’they cried in unison. ‘I’ve been trying on another life. But they didn’t believe I’d neglect them just because of that. ‘It didn’t fit’. They believed that. The dusty crones waited for me to talk more man-soiled rubbish; every page an invitation. ‘There’s always somebody...

Into the Wild (2007) is Sean Penn’s baby. He got the money together to make a film about Chris McCandless who gave everything away, even his Giro, and went to live in the great American wildness and find himself. At almost three hours long he must have got lost a few times, or my eyes kept opening and shutting. I gave up. Even my early training in watching Lassie and Skippy the Bush kangaroo wasn’t enough. I mounted the stairs a broken and tired...