Itagi

Proper web writers have “elsewhere” posts, where they put links to stuff they’ve been asked to write elsewhere.

Finally I get to do that (Warning, contains nothing but poker content)

We are holding our second Production Meeting next week, Wednesday 18th June at the Maypole Centre, Idminston Croft, Druids Heath from 7 - 9pm.

This will be a chance to view (from the outside) the building that we are hoping to use to broadcast from, as this is next door.

Please bring programme ideas with you, they should describe the talk and music content that you would like to make.

Woot! Be there and that!

Come along!!! I’m cross posting this from the sbcradio.blogspot.com because that’s not working…

PRODUCTION MEETING
Do you want to be involved in a 28-day F.M. radio broadcast this summer?

We are looking for :

Presenters
News Readers
Sports Reporters
Journalists
Producers
Engineers
Administrators
DJ’s
Story Tellers
Actors
Musicians

7 – 9pm
Thursday 5th June
at
Bishop Challenor Sports Centre
Kings Heath

All welcome, just turn up!

I’ve started twittering more. It may or may not last, but in case it does, and in case you’re interested, www.twitter.com/peacefulpaul

I really like the shape of my house key - the yale lock, not the chubb lock. I wonder whether I like the shape for its own merits, or because it means home. Also, I think I’d still recognise the shape of the keys of the house I grew up in.

I highly recommend this podcast - The Bugle. It’s political comedy of the highest order.

I also highly recommend this video, which was recommended to me by the ever excellent Graham. Rolfmao

It occurs to me that there would be a lot less coverage of the US Presidential Primaries here in the UK if the West Wing hadn’t been so widely watched by the kind of people responsible for deciding what political things get coverage.

Being an enormous fan of the West Wing, if not actual real life US Politics, I’m quite glad. New Hampshire’s all about handshake politics donchaknow. And in Iowa you have to say something about ethanol, apparently. Sadly the primaries are leaving my sphere of extensive knowledge now. Good luck to all involved.

So, can anyone think of any kind of football related tournament
happening next summer? No? Me neither.

Oh, alright, there is one - Euro 2008 will be an England-free-zone.
Rejoice Austrian Policefolk, weep sellers of little car flags and cheap
multipack lager. Steve McClaren blew the whole fandango. It’s not his
fault though, really - he was hired for a job he wasn’t cut out for. The
Peter Principle suggests that people are promoted to their level of
incompetence and thus the England job was entrusted to an average
Premiership manager. He’d had been a very successful number 2 at
Manchester United and an apparently OK number 2 at England during a
management era that felt at the time like continuous unrelenting dull
underachievement and now glows in the light of hindsight like a beacon
of sporting success. McClaren’s one major achievement as England manager
was to make Sven look really really good.

So Steve went, and it was time to get a successor in. The “he’s gotta be
English cos that’s what’s wrong with this game all these foreigners
comin’ over ‘ere and takin’ our jobs and makin’ us look bad with their
work ethic and higher technical ability” voice that screamed so loudly
after Sven went has been almost completely silenced by the McClaren era.
Which, come to think about it, is another major achievement. Well done
there Steve. This means that we weren’t faced with another the choice
between the least worst English candidates (incidentally, the FA got
that badly wrong. is there ANYONE who doesn’t think Alan Curbishley
would have done a better job than McClaren? Maybe even Big Sam’s 4-5-1
would have been better, but that seems marginal to me). So most of us
wanted Jose - he’d be fun, he’s been wildly successful, but he
definitely wouldn’t want the job. Then, suddenly, two articles appeared
in the Guardian suggesting that he’d done loads of work on how he would
run England and actually maybe he WOULD want the job after all.

England had mastered a new trick. Raising expectations, only to dash
them into the rocks, has been the order of business for England my whole
life. But even they had never managed to do that outside of the context
of actual football matches. In the space of one day they did just that:
the mini-saga of Mourinho and the “Club England” he promised. By the end
of that day, he’d ruled himself out, and once again, expectations
crashed. Impressive work, England.

Then in the space of about 3 days, the man who’d announced his desire
for the job on the day McClaren had been sacked over breakfast was given
the job. Fabio Capello is going to be the new England manager. He’s one
of the most successful football managers in the modern game. 4 Scudettos
in charge of AC Milan, one with serial underachievers Roma, 2 with
Juventus, although one of them didn’t count because of all the cheating
and that and a
Champions League win with AC Milan - 4-0 against Barca in the most one
sided final I’ve ever seen (ok, Champions League final - otherwise you
have to include United’s recent cup glories against Wigan and Milwall.)

Capello also boasts my favourite achievement ever in European football.
2 stints with Real Madrid. 2 La Liga championships, 2 sackings at the
end of the season. Honestly Real - what’re you like eh? Tchh…Those crazy
Madridistas and their rampant footballing irrationalism!

So far, so wildly successful. During an email dialogue earlier today, my
friend Phill also awarded Capello the much sought after title of “Best
Glasses in World Football.” Capello is a 4 time recipient of this award,
and has had a long running feud with Edgar Davids (5 time winner of the
award.) Capello claims that Davids’ wins lack moral authority, as some
of his wins came whilst he was using Nandralone, so the award was as
tainted as Davids’ glasses were tinted.

There has been ridiculous talk of Capello’s lack of international
experience. International management isn’t like club management - most
of the really successful international coaches were inexperienced at
that level when they got the job. Capello played 32 times for Italy, so
has some experience of the international game. He’s been successful at
the highest level of European Club competition as a manager, and is now
61 - that’s how international managers are supposed to be forged.

Much has been made of Capello’s inability to speak English. By the time
qualification for South Africa 2010 rolls around next autumn, I reckon
he’ll speak English just fine.

There are downsides to his appointment - he is devoted to results rather
than style. His pragmatism is the reason he lost his Madrid job both
times, and grinding out the 1-0 wins won’t endear him to all sections of
the British press - a tricky bunch (actually, does anyone want to start
the speculation about what vegetable will be assigned to him should he
fall short of winning the world cup?). In the aforementioned
conversation with Phill he told me the story of “a Madrid pre-season
friendly in China when 1-0 up with 30 minutes left he [Capello] put
everyone behind the ball to protect their lead and get the win.” I think
there might be a lot of happy Owen Hargreaves fans out there!

Anyway, it’ll be fascinating to watch it all play out. One thing he
definitely has going for him is that he can’t be any worse than the last
chap. And as for Euro 2008 - allez Les Bleus!

So, having not really been able to type, my stated intention of going to the movies, that being to write about it here, has kind of fallen by the wayside. However, I have seen many of Summer 07’s bounteous offerings of threequels and blockbusters, and its one potential entry to the pantheon of the greatest movies of all time, and so I thought I might do a quick mini review thing of everything I’ve seen since Spidey 3.

Oceans 13

So, just so everyone’s on the same page, original Rat Pack Oceans 11, a bit rubbish, remake brilliant apart from Don Cheadle’s accent (but he beat Phil Ivey heads up, so let’s cut him some slack), Oceans 12 only OK at best, expectations for Oceans 13 lowered. It certainly exceeded those expectations for me - funny, clever, set around one caper, meaning that the lack of focus that 12 really suffered from was nowhere in evidence.

The Good:

Matt Damon and his false nose, and his father’s insistence that it’s an unnecessary prop, and his insistence that it “plays”.

Brad Pitt’s Don’t You Want Me Baby ringtone.

The fact that the audience is just expected to play along with all the jargon and terminology, and pick it up as it goes along.

All the stuff in the Mexican dice factory, where the two brothers organise a worker’s revolt.

Eddie Izzard

The Only Ok:

Clooney and Pitt finishing each other’s sentences felt a little forced to me this time around.

Pacino underused question mark…

Was there ever the slightest iota of doubt that they’d pull off the caper?

The Bad:

COR LUV A DUCK GEEZAH OI’M A COCKERNEY SO I AM.

Die Hard 4.0

DIE HARD!!!! The greatest action movie franchise of all time comes back in its fifties…Well, OK, the franchise isn’t in its fifties but its star is, and he’s still kicking bottom and taking names. Die Hard 4 Pointless, as some unkind critics have dubbed it, was some of the most fun its possible to have watching a middle age man run around, and it had Kevin Smith in it which can only be a good thing.

The Good:

Bruce Willis, obv…

Justin Long as the hacker finding his inner hero, whilst worrying about losing his inhaler.

The tunnel set piece, ending with the ingenious use of car to take out helicopter. They really shouldn’t have put the “You killed a helicopter with a car.” “I was out of bullets.” bit in the trailer though.

Bad guys doing parkour is still cool in my book.

Kevin Smith

Excellent dialogue writing, I thought.

The one use of the Yipeekayay was thoroughly effective, and worth the wait.

The Only Ok:

The CG heavy jet fighter vs Articulated Lorry fight. I was pulled out of the movie by the change in textures brought on by the CG.

Now I’m not an advocate of swearing by any means, but this is a DIE HARD movie, for goodness sake. In the quest for a PG13 rating, much of the dialogue was toned down.

The bad guys that didn’t do parkour.

I don’t think viruses normally say “uploading virus” when you’re uploading them. And also, you can’t actually put bombs in viruses yet. Well, maybe the CIA can… (See also, Transformers).

The Bad:

This is related to the PG13 thing, but there’s a scene in the power plant where Justin Long is in soft focus at the back of the frame, and is clearly not saying the same words as we are hearing.

Transformers

The film I was the second most excited about all summer long. The kurkuhkuhkerkuh noise in the trailer when Shia LaBeouf meets
Optimus Prime for the first time quite literally gave me goosebumps. There was also the massive potential for it to be a completely rubbish action movie. But I don’t think it was.

The Good:

Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Oh hang on, wait, this isn’t just supposed to be a list of who’s an Autobot and who’s a Decepticon.

Optimus Prime. He’s great. And they used the real voice from the cartoon. And he’s great. I like noble self sacrificing heroes.

The CG. Or rather, the fact that they abandoned CG in favour of just filming robots fighting, as far as I could tell.

The comedy. I really did find this genuinely funny - especially all the stuff with the autobots getting Shia LaBoeuf in trouble with his parents by stepping on their lawn.

The little spy decepticon.

The Only Ok:

The plot. But, you know, who cares, right? They’re ROBOTS THAT TURN INTO THINGS, that’s all you need to know.

I couldn’t quite tell which were autobots and which were decepticons in the climactic battle scenes. Is that a spoiler? Or did you already guess there’d be climactic battle scenes?

The Decepticons apart from the little spy one.

The Bad:

Only that no one said “Mormons be decepticons.” But you can’t have everything.

Hairspray
Movie turns broadway musical turns movie of the broadway musical. Since it worked so well with The Producers, why not try it again? NB, this is sarcasm. The movie of the musical of the Producers was terrible. This, on the other hand, had me grinning from ear to ear from start to finish. I went to see it with people who were not particularly keen, but I think they were both converted by the sheer joy of the thing.

The Good:

Christopher Walken, John Travolta, best married couple eva.

The songs! The joyous songs!

The dancing! The joyous dancing!

Once again Queen Latifa is back. And this time not in a really terrible movie.

Civil Rights

Alison Janey as crazy evil lady.

Michelle Pfeiffer as other crazy evil lady.

The Michelle Pfieffer tries to seduce Christopher Walken in a joke shop to no avail sequence.

The Only OK:

The lead character’s perfomance left a couple of people I know a bit cold. I thought she was fine though.

The Bad:

So long as you don’t hate musicals, nothing!

The Simpsons Movie
I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this. Surely some of the best joke writing in the whole history of cinema. Like a really long, brilliant episode of the Simpsons, written by all the people who wrote it at its finest. Wil Wheaton described it as being “like an above average episode from season seven.” and I know what he means but I’d definitely elevate it above above average. (Maybe I should have rewritten that sentence a bit.)

The Good:

The quality of the jokes. All of them. But especially; Spider Pig, the Bart’s willy joke, Rock and a Hard Place, “What does a rich man do at my time of life, he wants to give back. Not the money, no, not the money…” and many many more. The jokes are sometimes just jokes, but sometimes they’re more than that, sometimes they are an insight into societies views and values and hypocracies, and tendencies both helpful and unhelpful. So much comedy makes fun of humanities weakness, but the Simpsons have always combined that with a dose of glorifying humanities goodness…

The density of the jokes. Surely the most really brilliant jokes in one film in the history of cinema?

The quality of the animation direction. Not so much the big set pieces as the smaller more intimate scenes.

The quality of the voice acting. Goes without saying, but these guys are the best in the business…

The opening sequence. From the moment Ralph Wiggum appears in the 20th Century Fox logo, to the moment Green Day sink into Lake Springfield. Just absolute perfection.

More. Lots more.

The Only OK

The plot. But I cared even less about that than I did about the plot of the transformers. You’re not made to think by the plots in the Simpsons. Even though the plot was a bit of an allegory, the real subtext is in the jokes.

The Bad

Nothing. At all.

So that’s it, the movie summer so far, as I’ve seen it. It’s been entertaing fare, fluffy and pointless for the most part, incredible and profound in the case of the Simpsons. Plans are afoot to see the Bourne Ultimatum, and I’m super excited about Surf’s Up - CG animated Penguin Surfing Mockumentary! Now THAT’S high concept, and hopefully I’ll be writing about that. I’m also planning to do some tv writing. I’ve been watching The Wire, and it’s unbelievably good, so I’d like to do some analysis of that. I’d love to hear from folks about what they thought about these films…

So, I’ve finished the first draft of another movie screenplay. This is exciting. I’m gonna start work today on a new idea for a tv programme I’ve had. This is exciting too. All of this, combined with a weird shoulder ailment which has spread into my left arm meaning typing kind of hurts has meant that itagi has been quiet. I do have big writing plans though, so don’t delete that RSS feed just yet : )

So how have you been?

Hello! I’ve been off having a cold, then going to London - it’s been either busy or feverish. I went to London to see the faaahmly (pronounced with a thoroughly inappropriate Mitchell brothers accent), but also because me and David had tickets to see Eddie Izzard, who was trying out a bunch of new material on a three day run at the Arts Theatre, which is just off Leicester Square. The trip happened because I happened to be on the phone to David when the email announcing the dates arrived in my inbox. He immediately got two tickets, and after umming and ahing for a bit, I decided to take the second one. There’s something very exciting about being in an audience of 500 or so people, at 11.30pm watching your, and everyone else there’s, favourite stand up comedian.

I first discovered Eddie Izzard, like so many good things in my cultural life, through my friend Bob. She is a person of excellent taste, and way before he was a massive comedy icon, she had his “live at the ambassadors” video (video! Ol’ skool!). I was on board from the first viewing. Steve the Dalek and Kev the Dalek and their plungers and inability to walk up stairs…ah memories. However, the sudden realisation that he was a world class and mindblowingly good stand up came later, the day I first saw Definite Article. I was at university at the time, and watched it with two friends (at least one of whom has been known to visit itagi, hello!), and could not believe how good it was. I also remember being amazed by how long it was…I still drank at the time, and remember being quite drunk, and laughing hysterically.

I’ve since seen Definite Article approximately 800,000,000 times. There are lines and moments of mime in it which have become part of the shorthand language of shared cultural heritage that have bonded and cemented the friendships that are most important to me. I’ve laughed at the same jokes countless times, and occasionally whilst thinking about something else, they’ve come back to me and made me laugh, or just shake my head in general comedic awe. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every video and dvd he’s ever put out, although none of them blew me away as much as Definite Article, mostly because I’ve had very high expectations each time since.

But neither time I’d seen him live had lived up to that. The first time was on a tour called “Circle” which sadly was almost all material from the “Dress to Kill” video, which was something of a disappointment, because of the differently named tour. The second time was on the “Sexie” tour - the material was great, but stand up comedy really doesn’t lend itself to 15,000 seater arenas. We were sitting not only right at the back of the NIA, but also right at the back on the side, so we could barely see him, and there’s something odd about the rhythm of comedy in an environment like that.

Last Wednesday night though more than made up for those evenings. The material was almost all brand new, except for a couple of old lines thrown in in a greatest hits kind of a way. It may have been a work in progress, but lots of it seemed polished, and look out for the giraffes playing charades, and the latin backwards, massive, hairless squirrel elephant if you get a chance to see this show or the show it becomes…

He gave short shrift to hecklers, one of whom was just making odd noises at him. “Is this your first time heckling? You will need to say actual words.” was quite a good line I thought. One of the most interesting things to me about the evening was not directly related to the comedy though. When he came out on stage, it was as if the texture of the air in the room had changed - there was just an outpouring of love and appreciation from the crowd. It must be incredibly addictive to be hit by that whenever you walk out on stage. I’ve heard many stand ups discussing their art form, and love and attention seems to be a pretty common thread for peoples’ reasons for wanting to stand up making strangers laugh.

I’ve just spoken to David, who said that he thought that Izzard was a bit loose and flappy compared to the tightness of his earlier work, and I’m not sure I agree. I mean, there were definitely moments where the act wasn’t polished yet, and he played with the microphone stand for a solid 2 minutes, but I really liked that stuff. I like the idea of seeing, as the show was called, a “work in progress” from one of the world’s great creative minds. As well as the fantastic material, there’s an insight into the way it comes about which I found really valuable. I also got to feel all clever when I got a joke about 30 seconds before the rest of the audience. He also said “Jam” without any irony a few times, which was nice. The show comes highly recommended by me, and if you like stand up comedy and for some reason aren’t familiar with Eddie Izzard, you should rush out and get Definite Article to correct that…