Last.fm [Takes a moment to populate]
Donate! If you enjoy the site or find any of the information useful, a small donation would be hugely appreciated.
£12.50 or US$30 upwards will get you a postcard from wherever I am as a thank you!
Wishlists Feeling generous and don't want to give me cash? Then buy me some shit!
- T-shirt Hell - NOTE Please check current import duty restrictions for sending stuff to the UK. Order too many and the bastards will charge me!
- Amazon UK - mainly books, but some other stuff, too.
- ThinkGeek - got to love weird geeky stuff. Again, please note import restrictions - and the postage from here is ridiculous.
|
March 17, 2013, 2:56 pm  Grab those tracks (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Yes, it’s possible. The instructions are buried on one help page amongst dozens and you’re limited to downloading one at a time… but you can do it. Personally I’m just loathe to install a piece of software just to download one album every third blue moon, which is as often as I buy music from Amazon. One of the reasons for this is their insistence on making you install crapware just to get at the items you’ve legally purchased.
So, go to Amazon and purchase your album. Click the option to go to the Cloud Player not the one to download.
Locate and select one track to download by ticking its checkbox in the left hand column.
Click on the “Download (1)” button and you’re presented with the usual “Click this huge button to install the crappy download software” popup. Down at the bottom of this box is a little link to “Skip installation”. Click this instead.
You’ll now get your usual download dialogue allowing you to actually gain possession of the media you paid money for.
You can download more than one track at a time if you’re quick enough to uncheck one box, check the next one and click “Download (1)” again. This time you won’t get the annoying popup, instead just being presented with your web browser’s standard download dialogue.
Why Amazon have to make thing so bloody awkward, I don’t know. A simple “click to download ZIP” or similar would do the job. Regardless, I now have my free Nuclear Blast album downloaded so I can pop it on my phone and listen in the car. Happy now.
March 2, 2013, 2:40 pm  A very swift review more for me to record the fact that I’ve seen it than anything else. I’m reaching that age where I’m looking at a film’s title – or even a trailer – and wondering whether I’ve already seen it or not. Argh.
Man On A Ledge
“That’s what’s great about this county. If you want it bad enough, you can make it back. Hmm? In this city, on this island, we don’t go to work, we go to war! And if somebody takes something from you, you take it back. And more.”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Ex-cop banged up for a diamond heist stands on a window ledge 21 floors up to help prove his innocence.
See it if you like: Crime thrillers and heist movies
Fairly enjoyable if nothing new, some nice moments and ideas and a truly nasty bad guy. It’s not going to blow your socks off, but on the other hand it’s not a waste of an evening. A perfectly slightly above-average heist movie.
Trivia point – the guy who plays the hotel valet also played the Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey!
February 15, 2013, 1:57 pm  These days we need an excuse to get to the cinema, so with Valentine’s Day popping its ugly head over the Hallmark parapet we grabbed a nice dinner at the new ASK Italian then over the road to Cineworld to see the newest rom-zom-com:
Warm Bodies
“They’re not curing themselves. We’re their food source. They are not becoming vegan.”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: walking dead becomes walking slightly-less-undead when he falls for a survivor
See it if you like: Funny horror films, basically. And cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.
While Shaun of the Dead couldn’t really be held responsible for a “slew” of spin-off comedy zombie films, there have been a few kicking around over the last few years and the success of Pegg’s film is bound to have had some effect. This one is based on a novel and one I do want to read if it’s as good as its adaptation.
The tale definitely owes a nod to Romeo and Juliet as our “hero” zombie R (he can’t remember the rest of his name, played by Nicholas Hoult) hooks up with Julie (Teresa Palmer), a survivor of a plague that turned most of the world’s population into shambling brain-eaters. Those which go even further down the infected line lose all their skin and turn into skeleton-like “Bonies”. Fast-moving, fierce and not-very-well-CGI‘d, these are the real bad guys in this piece.
As well as this “stages of zombieness” idea is a nice twist where it’s explained why zombies eat brains in the first place. I won’t spoil it though!
It’s apparent from the start that “R” is a little different, holing up in an aircraft with a collection of stuff that makes him appear like a shambling WALL-E. A lot of the dialogue is voice-over material as we get to share his thoughts, a novel idea for a zombie flick where we normally assume that they don’t have any.
Soon enough, he rescues Julie and the two start to bond. She, of course, is the daughter of the leader of the anti-zombie forces (Grigio, played by John Malkovich) which is bound to cause some problems should she try to take her new boyfriend home to meet daddy.
The film follows their development as a couple, the changes it makes to “R” and also the other zombies. This is definitely not a fast-paced, taught zombie fest. This rom-zom-com focusses heavily on the “rom”, has novel ideas about the “zom” and manages very well with the “com”. The audience in the cinema (sold out) were very vocal with their laughter around a lot of the dialogue – deservedly so.
Simply, it’s a nice film. Not excessively gory, though the Bonies would likely give younger viewers a few nightmares. It doesn’t run too long, it’s a clever idea, the cast work well and the jokes don’t fall flat.
Gillian really liked it, I enjoyed it and we’d both recommend it.
February 15, 2013, 1:31 pm 
The Sleep Room by F.R.Tallis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
First up, just to say that I got this book for free after winning a competition on Tor’s facebook page. This won’t influence my review other than that I’d probably not have picked this particular book up on a whim, nor read it as quickly! It’s actually not due for release until May 2013, and it’s always nice to get something before everyone else.
The book’s set in the late 1950′s, predominantly in a psychiatric hospital in the middle of nowhere where experiments are taking place with new techniques to alleviate illness. Nothing particularly gory, but old-fashioned by our viewpoint today. It’s written in the first person from the point of view of a new staff member, Dr James Richardson, as he tried to unravel the mysteries surrounding the patients while getting on with his job (and getting off with one of the nursing staff).
Imagine something along the lines of Shutter Island for the feel of things. Not quite “Gothic”, but just that dark, historic feel.
The medical talk all sounds pretty convincing, and indeed in the acknowledgements quite a few professionals are credited. It’s surprising to realise that some of the techniques mentioned were still pretty commonplace towards the end of the last century – or at least well past the halfway mark.
As time progresses in his new job, “things” start to happen. Some explainable, others less so. The story gently strays from medical thriller into horror as the pages turn.
If I’m honest, I found the ending a little predictable but the story on the way there was always enjoyable with a couple of particularly spooky sequences that had me looking over my shoulder as I read on my own at 2am! The fact that I managed to get through the whole thing in a couple of days is a definite indication that I was engrossed.
Well written, well-paced and with good characters. I loved the language and the viewpoint of the protagonist, which I thought sat very well with the era in which the story was set.
As I said, not something I would have picked up myself but I’m very glad I ended up with it in my hands. If you like spooky horror rather than gross-out slash-fests, this could well be something you’d like.
View all my reviews
February 5, 2013, 8:17 pm  The _real_ EDL! That’s right. I’m fully behind the English Disco Lovers, a small organisation which has set out to undermine the English Defence League (a bunch of Neanderthal racists) by stealing their initials and – instead – promoting togetherness and harmony through the power of disco!
Their first aim was to gain more “likes” on Facebook than the knuckle-draggers, something they succeeded in doing today. Pretty impressive given that they only set up the facebook page around the new year. At the time of writing, Disco is winning on the “likes” with 18,075 against the low-lifes’ paltry 15,112 or 18,050 depending on which if their two pages you look at. The latter, with the higher score, is a Wikipedia page whereas the former is the “active / official” one.
Anything that gives racists (especially those with very dodgy criminal records) one in the eye is worth supporting, especially when it’s done with no real malice, a sense of humour and D-I-S-C-O!
For more information, check out the real EDL’s page  With luck, the more links and the more clicks, the higher up Google’s rankings they’ll get as well!
UPDATE (6th Feb): There is an EDL (skinhead bottomfeeder version) “community” on facebook as well, with around 38,605 likes. EDL (disco) has 19,982 as I write this. Get liking!
|
Where Am I? If I'm in the UK, then this will be updated very regularly.
If I'm elsewhere in the world, this is more likely to be correct.
|
RSS Feed
Feedback Form
My MSN ID is my email address, so 
Recent Comments