last.fm charts

Last.FM - The social Music revolution, as it refers to itself, has a nice wee tool that allows you to keep your own charts of the song/artists that you have been listening to over the last week. This is my chart from the last week.

I would prefer to put it on my Bebo, or the sidebar of this page - but I don't understand very much HTML, so I can't. Waah!

Join up and get one yourself.

Britain's latest serial killer.

Ipswich police are warning the two-dozen or so prostitutes in the Ipswich area to remain vigilant as suspicions are growing of a Jack the Ripper-style serial killer is at large.
Of course, the real issue for the tabloids is much more serious than that.
Who's gonna come up with the witty pun?
Rip-swich...Ipswich ripper...Kill the 'Swich... are some bad examples that they've probably already scrapped.
Although the guy does seem to be pretty effective, the BBC reports that police are worried about a fifth woman already - after less than a week. So they better hurry up - as everyone knows, its not a serial killer unless he has some jingoist name.

Update: 22 December: It seems the term "Suffolk Strangler" is emerging as the jingle-of-choice for the Redhead (and other shit - the link is to the Daily Mail) Newspapers. However, the fact that the prime suspect has been nicknaming himself the Bishop, should help the cause if it turns out he is guilty. Having said all that, the Scum insists on referring to the Ipswich killer as the "Ipswich Ripper" (which I had already debunked - see above) - even though he is not 'ripping' them, as it were.

BBC - Royal Ass Lickers...

I don't know whether it's (yet another) example of the deficiency of democracy, or whether the BBC is angling for a complete return to the monarchical despottery days of yore, but a fucking royal has won Sports Personality of the Year - for the second time.
Anyone who watches BBC News, knows that every time any royal buttons their own shirt, the BBC has their top man on the scene within seconds, cooing with the delight of a young mother of the school bully, who has just claimed two-desserts-worth of dinner money.
And of course, when the issue of taxpayer's expenses crop up to explain how a seven-year-old Zara is able to buy a horse, the BBC laughs it off with something like - it's only 98p per person goes to the royals. That 98p would be better served funding a few dozen nurses salaries.
How many people would have heard of (or cared about) her winning the Toff's parade that is showjumping, if the BBC had not plugged it at every available opportunity - (for example, in the promo ads for the event, it was a clip of her that was always shown first).
Now, I am not going to start any rumours about match-fixing on the BBC's part - (I'll leave that to Biased-BBC to pick up (hopefully), but I will enquire as to what type of dickhead voted for the royal?
I'd have imagined the majority of the country went for the sympathy vote, and went with Darren Clarke (although this may have been offset by the fact that the royal had a friend die mere days before the broadcast). Unless they are viciously xenophobic, cricket fans would have went for Monty Panesar (who was my second choice - just cause I like his name), and tennis fans would have went for Andy Murray, who has had a spectacular year, ending it with a top twenty ranking... I don't know who the other person was... some gymnast...she came third.
All I can imagine is that the Daily Mail pooled all its readers in the backwards religious town dotted across the home counties to vote for the royal in an attempt to coax the BBC back to what it was in the fifties - they way they liked it.
Either way, democracy is fucked... we should do what I say in my other blog, and Give Saddam The Keys

Armageddon Approaches Part 3

Further to my previous posts about the armageddon (here and, lesserly, here), it appears that now, the animal Kingdom is turning on itself.

The BBC today reports on how a snake swallowed an entire alligator - whole - in the Florida Everglades. Only to succumb to the annoying side-effect of exploding.













Add to this the report of the pelican in St. James' Park, London, who ate a live pigeon whole.

I'm sure some Jesus freak will be able to point me to a passage in the book of Revelations about the 'beasts eating themselves, and Christmas will be the lapdog of the corporations' (or something to that effect) that signifies the end of the world as we know it.

Or R.E.M. could make a sequel to their hit record of the same name.

Critiquing the Critics

Last night I watched the original version of 'The Manchurian Candidate,' and was fascinated by the story of brainwashed POWs trying to piece together what they are not supposed to remember. Frank Sinatra was brilliant as one of the two leads (which I was surprised about, I assumed he was just cast because of his fame; similar to Britney Spears being cast in 'Crossroads'). The other lead actor, I thought, was as wooden as a lead tree, but I was willing to overlook that because of how intriguing, and crucially, entertaining the story was.
However, this optimism, to what I thought was shaping up to be one of the best films I had ever seen, was ripped away from with the vitriol of Liam Gallagher on a speedball with a stupid 'inside man' twist.

I hate 'inside man' twists, which is why I haven't watched 24 since it was declared that Nina was the inside man in the first series.
The 'inside man' twist in The Da Vinci Code (the book, not the film, I am avoiding that on principle that I will not pay to see films I expect to be shit), cemented the books increasing crappiness in one (page-or-so-long) chapter.
The first Saw film was built on an interesting premise of the killer who never really kills his victims. The low-budget gorefest was entertaining as well, and did have an intelligent twist in the plot, which was fascinating - until they ruined it with the 'inside man' angle.

Having ranted at length, I shall go back to my original point. Roger Ebert, one of the most distinguished critics in America, considers 'The Manchurian Candidate' to be one of the finest films in America, despite the fact, that he cheerfully acknowledges that the plot is pure hokum;
"Do not look for logic here."

Ebert, in my opinion is of that category of film reviewers who think that because a film is old, it means its automatically better than anything released today of the same caliber.

Consider Phillip French, the writer for the Observer. He can barely write a review without name-checking half a doaen films from throughout the history of cinema, to conclude that they were all better than that which he is currently writing about. This is the entire copy of his review of Sixty Six;

"Very briefly, Sixty Six is a likable Jewish comedy about a London lad whose bar mitzvah coincides with the 1966 World Cup final. As his father, Eddie Marsan is too convincingly sad and pathetic to raise laughs, and the film is not quite in the class of Jack Rosenthal's classic TV movie, Bar Mitzvah Boy."

Anyone who can point me in the direction of a critic who doesn't employ such hypocrisies would be most thanked. I've heard that Mark Kermode maintains a certain continuity in his critical style (for example, giving Basic Instinct 2 a good review, because it stuck to it's genre's formula).