Local news!

Had a cool fun time this past weekend with much fun and frollicks with Chris and his American friend, and Ally and a few old school kids.

There's nothing that makes me laugh much more than local newspapers. Lancaster's The Citizen, especially, is an utterly beautiful work of journalism. Take a look at the piece below from last week's.

If I understand the article correctly, then two men knocked on the door of a pensioner's house and asked for a glass of water, but they did it in such a fashion as to deceive this poor guy into giving them £25 instead of just a glass of water. How they did it seems unclear, but bloody hell they must be devious.



That was from a week ago. It's pretty poorly written, but at least it's sort of news worthy. I'd want people to know I was peeved if some guys robbed me of £25, but some weeks they really have to scrape the barrel, like the week before.

I'm sure James Stroud is a very nice guy, and I'm sure he, his family and friends are all pleased that he got a promotion. But does the whole of the Lancaster and Morecambe area need to know that badly? They even sent a photographer especially to get a picture of Lancaster's golden boy of banking. Maybe he is much more popular than I realise, I mean he sure does look friendly. If I see him about I will be sure to shake his hand and wish him luck in his next game of pool.

And the second article is just reporting the fact that there was a typo in a newsletter, at least they had an angle, football referees shouldn't be making mistakes like that! I'm sure James Stroud would be shocked (he enjoys football). Well at least it was accompanied with a good punning headline.

Like a real man

300 (again)

Well, 300, of course it was amazing. Definitely the greatest film ever, kicks every other film ever down a well. But I'm getting bothered by all these film critics and their complaining about it. With comments such as:

...pompous interpretations and one-dimensional characters.

...about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid,

At present, though, its muscle-bound, grunting self-seriousness is more tiresome than entertaining.

And people complaining that it is a racist or facist film. But Zack Snyder is damn right when he says:

You know, when I see that, when I see someone use words like "neocon," "homophobic," "homoerotic" or "racist" in their review, I kind of just think they don't get the movie and don't understand. It's a graphic novel movie about a bunch of guys that are stomping the snot out of each other. As soon as you start to frame it like that, it becomes clear that you've missed the point entirely.

It just a comic book film about a load of really hard men shouting a lot and kicking the crap out of people. What more do you want in a film? And if it's got an underlying moral then it's probably that most battles can be won by shouting a lot.

In fact it's probably true that most things can be achieved by shouting a lot. Profound.

300

Tomorrow is finally the day that 300 makes its way to Britain, and I am in utterly no doubt it is going to be the most astonishingly brilliant film I've ever seen. Even better I'm giong to go see it at an IMAX cinema. The IMAX screen is about 6 times bigger than an ordinary screen, and I'm pretty sure that means that the film is going to be about 6 times better than if I saw it in a normal cinema. Though perhaps that will only be true if the volume is 6 times louder as well. God I hope it is.

It's already my favorite film of all time, despite only having two trailers to go on. It's just bound to be the most exciting, epic and generally bloody good film ever made. And there's going to be loads of big men shouting about stuff and then fighting, what more could you want in a film? If I'm honest I would be happy just seeing the scene where King Leonidas yells "This is Sparta!" at the persian messenger and then kicks him down the well, on the big screen. I think the whole rest of the day after the film will be taken up by yelling "This is Sparta!" at every opportunity. I think people will give up on trying to talk to me pretty quickly, but then I'll just kick them down the nearest well. And if I can't find a well I'll wait till they're sat on the crapper and then I'll bust in, yell "This is Sparta!", kick them down the toilet and then stand about feeling really, really manly, and maybe take my top off for a bit too.

It is going to be amazing.