Pages

Subscribe: Subscribe to me on YouTube

Friday, May 06, 2005

Having conducted in-depth discussions on the Richard & Judy Forum with a shadowy figure with an inpenetrable pseudonym, and a bloke who looks like a burger, I've now seen the error of my ways. So I'd just like to apologise to King Nicholas for calling him a berk. It wasn't big, it wasn't clever, and most importantly, it didn't increase my web traffic. So in the words of Tony Blair, let's move on...

I was awoken at 6am this morning by Lisa, who kindly informed me that she'd seen the news and the Conservatives had won the election. Which was clearly ridiculous. Not the Conservatives winning the election, but Lisa watching the news. I didn't fall for it for one moment.

Sadly though, my vote for street-dweller Kathy Pollard failed to sweep her to victory. Tim Yeo held on to South Suffolk with a comfortable majority. We had a very high turnout though - 71.8% compared to the national average of 60%, which I put down to the galvanising effect of my 'can-you-spell-peninsula' campaign.

Oh, and the Greens came third in Brighton, so that's ten quid down the drain for Lisa's friend.

But anyhoo, having already voted by post, I spent yesterday afternoon playing Star Wars with a Tumbling Monkey. I'm not sure I could fully explain the rules, but it essentially involved taking one boxed Tumbling Monkeys game (which is a blatant rip-off of Kerplunk if you ask me), waving the plastic sticks around like light sabres, letting Lisa's 18 month old nephew eat the dice, and then playing out the age-old struggle of good against evil across the sprawling backdrop of Lisa's sofa, using nothing but a plastic monkey and the imagination of a six year old.

But on the bright side (or should that be the dark side?) I was able to use the force to rescue some jam tarts from the fridge. So it wasn't all bad.

The highlight of the day, however, was the masterpiece which is Tarnation. I have to say it was very good. Though of the three words I mentioned yesterday, 'heartbreaking' is definitely the one to go for. It's a cheery tale of child abuse, mental illness, drugs, rape, violence and death. With very few car chases. It's worth seeing for a three minute segment alone, where the 11 year old Jonathan Caouette does a dramatic piece to camera dressed as a woman. The kid could act, there's no doubt about it. It's very impressive.

I have to say though, I thought the film went right off the rails in the last 30 seconds. Having avoided sentimentality for the whole 90 minutes, he went for a completely contrived ending involving angels and septums (septa?), which no doubt will have gone down a storm in America, but completely jarred for me. You can't have everything though, and for the most part it was excellent. I'd recommend it to anyone. If it hadn't just closed.

0 comments: