There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice

A guy posted this on a internet message board that I frequent. The topic was about the funniest scenes in film. I really want to see this now. It made me spit out my tea at the computer screen. It is from a Woody Allan Film, where he's chatting up a girl at an art gallery.

Allan: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollack, isn't it?

Girl: Yes, it is.

Allan: What does it say to you?

Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?

Girl: Committing suicide.

Allan: What about Friday night?


Brownsville Girl

Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus.

I went to see Superman Returns at the weekend. It was OK, nice special effects and an enjoyable action film. The trouble is that he is too strong, the only thing that gets him is Kryptonite so every film/comic/cartoon has featured the radioactive rock/crystal as the key to the story. Gets a bit boring after a while.

Otherwise he is so strong that it gets dull - even the Terminator would loose in a fight against the Superman. And probably the Alien, Predator, Spiderman, Batman, Catwoman - All of them would die in a fight against Superman.

I prefer Batman. What he's achieved is down to hard work, engineering, the gym and a very big inheritance (probably that is the key factor here - even in Superhero world money is a driving force). Superman just has it all - it is far too easy.

Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread

When the devil calls your cards

Hello there. I've been sorry that I haven't been updating this website as much as i'd like to recently. This is because I was in France for a friend's wedding (congratulations). It was a good weekend. And i've been super-busy at work and the sun has beating down on this non-airconditioned, glass-roofed office for too long now. By the end of the day (when I usually write this drivel) I'm so brain dead I can't write.

You may have noticed that i've added a banner to the right of my blog. This takes you through to the campaign site of a group against the introduction of ID cards in Britain. I'm not paranoid, not a freak, not some weirdo, I'm just afraid of what this will mean. As a French citizen I have to carry an ID card, but it is so far removed from the proposed UK scheme.

The UK scheme means that the government will be able to know 49 key personal characteristics about me (including biometric data such as my fingerprints). There will be a database which will cross reference existing databases so a complete picture of my life can (and will) be formed. I will be forced to use my card when I go to the doctor, take out a credit card, borrow from the library, go on holiday. All of this will allow the government to know more and more about me and you. I will have to have an interview with a government representative when I eventually am forced into obtaining a card which to be frank disgusts me. And what happens when the government makes a mistake (which they will) and i'm stopped by the police because the database says that i'm evil yet i've done nothing wrong. No, no, no, with the government's record in computer projects (see NHS, DCA computer projects running years behind or when they put thousands of innocent people on the criminal register by mistake) it has the potential to be horrible.

Plus there is the fact that this is going to cost billions and billions of pounds which would be better spent on providing air conditioning on the tube, better health care, better schools, more social housing, more international aid - basically anything but this. Even the home office thinks that the scheme will cost £200 per tax-payer (and they are likely to be conservative in their estimates).

This scares me because I thought everyone had read George Orwell, yet I hear few dissenting voices. I'm scared that we're sleepwalking into a police state, it seems that there are few people discussing this out in the open...we need a national debate surrounding this issue. Let's not let the government tell us about the terrorist threat, id fraud and all that bollocks. It is just propaganda so that we can accept the most intrusive personal relationship that any state has ever had with its people. Even Kim Jong-Ill doesn't know as much about his people, and he's a lunatic.

Don't believe me, think i'm crazier than a loon? Please read the facts then get back to me. This is more than left/right politics. It is about my freedom as a human being and a fundamental shift in the relationship between the government and myself.

Watcha Gonna Do?

Lord, she took it away to Italy

Well done to Italy on their World Cup win. I think that on balance they were the team that most deserved this victory. Their play in the knock-out stages has been exceptional. Boo-hiss to Zidane who is quite obviously retarded. If you get so wound up that you have to headbutt someone then something is terribly wrong. I mean at any level of football there are people winding you up - it is part of the game. What an idiot. And people keep saying how it is so out of character and they may be right but I remember that in the World Cup of 1998 he stamped on the chest of a Saudi Arabian player and was sent off but I seem to be the only one who remembers that... People have selective memories - especially French people.

So back to the domestic league soon. In a way it is always nice to get back to the normality of a domestic league after a world cup or euro competition. You may remeber that I support Southampton FC and you may remember that I wrote a post on Rupert Lowe, the most inept chief executive of a football club since records began. Well he left his post a few days ago and we've got new management and one of the first things they did was to buy Sean Wright Phillips' younger brother Bradley. This is a good move and I wish him the best. Let's hope that it marks a new beginning for the club. First match is August 6 2006 (only 3 and a bit weeks away) against Derby (away). Let's hope that we can play better than England did and return to our rightful place in the Premiership.

Read this review of Primal Scream's Riot City Blues. Its a rock and roll record and it is great.

Down the Highway

I shook his hand and said goodbye

Yo! I've been in mourning because England were complete and utter rubbish. This is despite the fact that I secretly had a feeling that the England team were going to flop. Goodbye Sven. I'm glad to see the back of you, not because you're a foreign coach, not because you were payed too much, not because you were always looking out for better paid jobs but because you, quite simply, were not good enough for the job.

I wish you luck in your new job with Jamaica or South Africa or whoever offers you a job. Laters. I think that Italy will win the World Cup (in fact they will wipe the floor with France). But my predictions have been rubbish (I came 2nd from bottom in our office prediciton game), so don't listen to me.

Rockbeatstone is back up and running and we've been adding some new stuff. Firstly we've improved the newsblog with a new gig guide section. Secondly, I've had these articles added: a review of the Triffids rerelease, Born Sandy Devotional (good names, less than good music), a live review of Hope of the States at Koko in Camden and two video playlists (with a world cup special).

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream