Not being talked about

Morning world. My, you look virile.

Anyway, today I finally got around to replying to an important email, so this blog is number two on my 'List Of Things To Do - Urgent!' Number three is to phone a solicitor, so I'm not looking forward to that, and number four is to phone the council and shout at them for ignoring my bins.

To digress temporarily, the council thing is really annoying. They keep not taking our recycling. So I emailed them and said "Oy, bitches. You know you sent me a letter the other week demanding we leave our bins out at very specific times and in very specific places, and how you;d be really cross if we didn't, and oooh, the penalties? Well, I did what you said and look - it's still there, and still full of cardboard. You dicks.'

Well, this made me feel all victorious. And then they emailed back, saying 'Well, we came the next day to take it and it wasn't there! So what can we possibly do? Yours sincerely, Some Moron'. So I did a dance of rage, because, right, they'd told us not to leave it out except on the day of collection! So why were they surprised it wasn't there on the day after? Why? Why, reader? Why?

So anyway, I have to phone the cretins and explain their own system to them. Which I'm not looking forward to. I might make that number five on my 'List Of Things To Do - Urgent', and make number four 'Have another cup of tea'.

So. This important email, which was important thing number one, and which is what I'm really here to talk about. A few weeks ago someone I used to know emailed me to apologise for all the times he'd talked about me behind my back. He said that some of these were probably justified, but some weren't, and he wanted to get it off his chest.

I was - well, am - quite touched by this. I would never have found out that he'd been doing this, and I'm unlikely to ever see this person again. So it was a totally honest, redemptive act. And it makes me feel better about this person, and for some reason about myself. I think maybe because it restores my faith - a little - in the ability of humans to be candid, and fair, and decent.

For various reasons I do appear to be one of those people who get talked about a lot. Occasionally the most frightful lies get back to me, and occasionally, more worryingly, frightful truths. The part of my brain devoted to making me feel bad spends hours inventing the terrible things people might be saying about me, and whispers them constantly into my mind. It imagines scenarious akin to the following:

Person A:  I say, do you hear what that ghastly Rob Reed has done now?

Person B:  Something lewd and blasphemous no doubt?

Person C: Oh, do tell!

A:   Well, people do say he keeps the company of several midget ladyboys, whom he beats and abuses for his vile entertainment.

B:   That is the kind of thing he'd do.

C:    I hear he is often to be seen in the town's most disreputable places, smoking tobacco and pleasuring himself with intoxicants.

A:    Whilst shouting 'All hail Bealzebub! For you are mighty!'

B:     This would explain many things I also hear.

C:    Namely?

B:    It is said he stands atop the churches of Wakefield on a nightly basis, naked and urinating!

A:    Yes! Urinating the fires of Hell themselves! So that Satan might be manifest upon the Earth and rip asunder the Holy Kingdom of the Lord God!

C:    Ooh! And! And, do you hear who he might be going out with?

B:    Do tell!

Enter Rob

Rob:    Hello good friends whom I trust!

A, B and C:    Hi buddy!


So that's probably what happens. In my mind. Which, as I said, is hell bent on making me feel inadequate, pathetic and villified. And so all the actual horrible, selfish, nasty things that do manifest themselves in my life, become amplified by guilt and suspicion. And I find it just that bit harder to believe in myself as good, or worthy, or redeemable. Or forgivable.

Or - worse - I get superior. And I think "Everyone except me is an idiot and a liar! I've never once summoned Satan while urninating, naked, atop a church! I am totally justified in ignoring any criticism anyone ever makes of me, for clearly I am the misunderstood hero of this age. Where are my whores, my heroin and my lubricant? There's work to be done!"

Both these equally unhelpful responses are partly the fault of my stupid, over-imaginative brain. But not entirely. No, I reserve some blame for you. And me. For we make all this possible by our unreserved embrace of character assassination.

We talk about each other, all the time. We spread nonsense and lies, or distorted truths, for the sake of amusement, or maybe to make ourselves feel superior. We invent moral scales that suit the context of our gossipy conversations and that  - conveniently - leave us untouchable and situated on some mythical moral high ground. And we destroy those we talk about by doing so, in ways we can't imagine.

I have never stood atop a church, urinating the fire of Satan. But I have sat among friends and subtly spread false ideas about those not present through my hilarious and unassailable wit. I'll try and stop. You need to stop too.

Truth and nonsense, 24 times a second

My recent filmwatching, summed up briefly so as to give you more time for other activities, such as listening to improvisational jazz, mastering the art of self pleasure or perhaps preparing a fine and noteworthy sandwich.

The Day After Tomorrow

Not-so-dreadful-as-people-said apocalypseathon, set in a world where character comes a poor second to great big tidal waves smashing everything to pieces. Good for talking through and occasionally shouting "Go Donnie Darko! Save the world!" Also features wolves!

Dead Man

Black and white Jim Jarmusch film that has languished unopened on my shelves for many months, waiting for 'the right mood'. Surprisingly funny, visually gorgeous and featuring Johnny Depp exercising his 'subtle' brand of weird, as opposed to the 'annoying-twat-on-a-stick' brand he has favoured of late.

District 13

Exciting and unusual French thriller-come-jumparound, featuring amazing stunts, sharp dialogue and brutal political commentary. Extra points for the confusion it will cause if District 9 ever gets to its fourth sequel.

The A-Team

By no means great, but still vigorously enjoyable update of 80s playground fodder. My childhood analogue Murdoch superbly playedy upcoming and brilliant Sharlto Copley.

Down With Love:

An entertaining script and great actors don't quite pull off the intended homage, but it passes the time in much the same way that stroking one's own thigh does. Why isn't Ewan McGregor quite the star he should be?

Lolita ('97):

Well acted, slightly overlong adaptation of dodgy paedo novel I haven't read. Moral: don't have relationships with under age girls - they are really irritating.

Donkey Punch:

Effective Brit thriller where almost believable characters get naked and then accidentally kill each other in a variety of sexy ways.


Hope this has been of help. You may now resume your life.

Eclipsed

Well by Jimminy, Toy Story 3 is good, isn't it? I mean, really, properly, moving and beautiful and made with love. Two great films in two weeks (the other being the mighty Inception): what is the world coming to? Sadly, I have doubts that The A-Team will complete the trilogy of cinematic joy, but I intend to watch it anyway.

Anyway, I still need to see Inception again, I think, though I have lots of ideas about it. But I want to do a spoilery review, so I think I want to wait. Anyway, that's not really why I'm here. I'm here because... well, ultimately because of the folowing factors:

i) My parents met, while working at a brewery. The close proximity of alcohol clearly invested my conception with some mystical power, meaning that the more I drink, the funnier and cleverer I become.

ii) My attempts to escape my hometown of Bradford to somewhere good, like Cambridge, Cardiff or anywhere else at all, were thwarted by my ultimate lack of intelligence. So I was banished to Wakefield, where they let anyone in.

iii) Despite occasionally pretending I'm going to leave Wakefield, it has proved impossible, due to a bizarre collection of very good friends. Also the fear of finding another town with such a close wine shop.

iv) I've found a leaflet I want to share with you.

While doing my big clearout last week I found many things. My odd pictures from the past you have already seen. This is a cinema programme I have kept, for whatever reason, since 1995. Normally this would have been destined for the 'why did I keep that?' pile, and thrown away, but I decided not to.

Just recently I was bemoaning the paucity of choices available to the modern cinema goer. Currently, at Wakefield Cineworld, with its 9 screens, you can see all of the following:

Toy Story 3
Twilight: Eclipse
Inception
Shrek 4
The Rebound

That's your lot. And if you look at the Showcase up the road, which has seven more screens, you can add just six more films.

It's not a massive selection, by any standards. The tendency to fill the screens with the most obvious hits leaves out any room for smaller, more interesting films. Of the 41 screenings today at Cineworld, 17 are accounted for by Toy Story. Much as I liked the film, I'm not sure it needs to be shown 17 times in one day, at the expense of... well, virtually everything else. The only non blockbuster here is The Rebound and that gets a massive 2 screenings.

Now, back to my leaflet. If you went to the Showcase that same week as me in 1995, not only would you have seen my cool pony tail, you could have watched any of the following films:

Natural Born Killers
Star Trek: Generations
Leon
Pulp Fiction
Interview the the Vampire
Shallow Grave
The Lion King
Forrest Gump
The River Wild
Andre and Stayout
The Jungle Book
Black Beauty
The Road to Welville
The Specialist
Stargate
Time Cop
Pagemaster

Unbelievable, isn't it? I would easily put 3 of those in my top films ever, and there's some good solid smaler stuff too. And some crap.

The cinema is doing fairly well in Britain, despite the recession. But it really saddens me to compare what is on offer today with what we could see fifteen years ago. It's not that films have got worse - they are probably better, if anything. It's just that cinemas have given up being adventurous or interesting.

Anyway. If you haven't seen Inception or Toy Story 3 yet, go do so. I also have high hopes for Scott Pilgrim. See you soon.

I was so much older then

There is nothing quite so cathartic, I believe, as going through your things and throwing stuff out. Sorry - one's things. Not your things. I haven't been throwing your things out. I've been rooting around under my bed, for this is where I keep my folders.

I have one folder of 'stuff' for each year of my life, from 1987 onwards. 1987 is when I started to have something resembling a real life, and accumulate letters, postcards, concert stubs and tiny mementos of the little things I wanted to remember. Things I might otherwise forget, or that have some nostalgic value. For example, I have a to-do list in the '1998' folder which reads as follows:

Write to Anna
Write to Mike and send him that tape
Clean up the white powdery stuff from behind the sofa
Write two songs for the Big If
Plan Monday worship
Buy a house
Go walking heroically

I like this list. I remember it being blu-tacked to my door for ages, and crossing bits off as I did them. (Interestingly, the one that remains un-crossed is the one about the powdery white stuff. I wonder what that was?) I like the little snapshot of my life it provides.

Anyway, there will probably be lots of me ruminating on this in the next few weeks, as Summer is when I tend to take stock of what's going on and get all self obsessed. All right - more self obsessed than usual. I have thrown a lot of stuff out - stuff that is no longer really significant to me and holds no real memory - and it feels good. But it also induces a state of reflection and, in some cases, realisation.

For now, please enjoy/despise these pictures I found. For some reason I have kept most of the ID cards I have owned over the years - Student Union passes, work IDs, buss passes etc. I think they present a fascinating study of a young man succumbing to the ravages of time.

I think I'm about 16 here. I am clearly contemplating a career in stabbing people and stealing their things.

Here we find me embarking upon my time at University. Clearly taking things very seriously. Little realising that being the cleverest person at a school in Bradford was not, actually, the same as being clever anywhere else.

A couple of years at university turns me into this grinning idiot, who clearly believes himself to be 'zany'. If I ever get to travel in time, I hope I don't meet this version of me, as he is an idiot and I would have to punch him in his stupid face.

My next foray into student life, this time on a PGCE. You can't quite tell, but my hair here is tied back in some kind of weird pony tail. Sorry, hair.  I do still appear to have the eyes of a violent killer. Which I'm really not, at all.

This is probably around the same time. Look at my lovely hair! And look at me, taking it for granted. Stroke it, man! Tell it you love it! Plead with it not to go.

At this stage I have become a teacher, and thus look startled and quite close to crying. I maintained this look for about three years.

 

I know, I know. I pierced my ear, dyed my hair blonde and grew an evil beard. But look - I've clearly gone mad. You can see it in my eyes. I believe this was about the point when I was really looking forward to the Phantom Menace. So you can see, I hadn't yet really experienced tragedy.

A few years later, post Phantom Menace, post 9/11, and look - I'm auditioning to be the guy who programs the evil computer in a Bond film. Looking at these, I'm starting to understand why my hair left.

Ah - wrinkles, receding hair and a clear sense of drinking too much. This is the me I start to recognise, seen here in a ID card for Dewsbury College. I taught there for a year, and quite enjoyed it. Especially Friday mornings, when I got paid to hang about with fashion student girls and chat to them while drinking hot chocolate.

And this brings us more or less up to date - my student card for my MA. Compare with the first photo and see the terrible toll the years can take. Still, at least I don't look quite so much like a heroin addict now.

 Anyway, that's the kind of self obsessed nonsense you can look forward to for a while. Though I'll probably review Inception in a bit, as by then hopefully enough people will have seen it to understand what I'm on about. And maybe even some more Star Wars stuff.

Hope you're not too miffed. Byeee.

Fett, Boba

Some more of my astonishingly enlightening Star Wars encyclopedia.

F

Fett, Boba.


Once upon a time, ‘Fett’ was an exotic, space age sounding name with no definable meaning. Now, sadly, it has been revealed that ‘Fett’ is simply his last name, thanks to the presence of his dad, Jango. So now he’s just mundane old ‘Mr Fett’. Boo! Similar indignities were heaped upon Jabba the Hutt, where apparently ‘the Hutt’ is a surname of sorts, rather than a mysterious title. How dull. Now I can imagine them getting bank statements, or filling in council tax exemption forms. I want my villains to remain inscrutable, Lucas!!!!


G

Girth.


As in weight. As in size. As in fatness. If there’s one thing that will mark you for death in Star Wars, it’s being a fatty. Lucasfilm’s anti-fatty agenda is first noticeable in A New Hope when one of the first casualties of the Battle of Yavin is the aptly named ‘Porkins’. I mean, what kind of a name is that? Is it his real name? Surely fate cannot have been that cruel. But why would the rebels use a nickname – and a highly derogatory one at that – to communicate with the very men who stand between them and having their planet blown into eighty million pieces? It would hardly be good for morale. Anyway, I digress. Porkins buys it for being fat. And then we get Jabba. Fattest man-thing in the universe, and thus evil. Looking at the test footage, it is clear that Lucas always wanted the Hutt to be a porker. And then kill him. Because being fat is clearly the same as being evil.

I had another example but I’ve forgotten it.

 

 

General Grievous (an acrostic)

Get me, I’ve got
Ever so many lightsabres
Nicked ‘em from Jedi, I did
‘Elped myself to ‘em when they was dead
Rifled through their pockets for loose change too
And then scarpered
Legged it, or wheeled it rather, into the distance


Got a right terrible cough, I ‘ave
Reminding me constantly of that time
‘Im with the shiny head
Exploded my lungs with ‘is force powers
Vowed revenge that very day
On every living creature that could breathe easily
Unlikely I’ll be able to kill all of ‘em
So I guess I’ll jut ponce around in an inferior film achieving
                         relatively little until someone kills me in a
                                                 manner so banal I’ve forgotten it