Category: Review

Immobilise

I can’t remember if I’ve posted about this site before, but it’s been updated and revamped so it deserves a mention regardless.

Immobilise (Immobilize.net in the U.S.) is an initiative to help track down all your stuff if it gets nicked. You enter the make, model, serial number and upload photos. If you get robbed, you can use it to block your phone and also inform the police and second hand trade of the items stolen.

It is free, and it’s recommended by everyone from the Home Office to the BBC. Yeah, it’ll take you a while to whack everything in, but think how much easier it’ll make things than having to dig out all the information if your stuff gets pinched. They even tell you how to find serial numbers on many common models of electronic goods.

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Backlash by Rod Duncan

I don’t often do book reviews, but I really want to recommend this one. I picked up the “sequel” in New Zealand a couple of years ago and loved it, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this in a bookshop in Bali.

Backlash is Rod Duncan‘s first novel and it’s part of a very loosely connected trilogy set in Leicester. The location is really the only thing that connects them so they can be read in any order.

It’s a crime novel set against a backdrop of racial tension with a healthy dose of corruption and personal drama thrown in. The pace is tight, it’s very easy to read and the plot wraps up well at the end.

I’m even impressed by the computery bits – somewhere so many authors fall down. It’s always uncomfortable when a novel (or film) includes details of a subject you know well, and you spend time cursing the author’s over-simplification of just plain inaccuracy. Duncan hasn’t made this mistake and the IT side of it gets my tick of approval.

The other reason I’m writing this review is simply that Duncan seems like a great guy. He’s not a massive author with a million sales of every book (yet!) but this means that he seems to answer every email and blog comment personally. He’s enthusiastic about his choice of career and in helping anyone else follow in his footsteps.

Oh, he’s also dyslexic. Which I suppose makes writing a whole novel that bit more of a challenge for him than for a non-sufferer.

I have to say I did prefer Breakbeat, the next novel in the series, but I assume this just means that every successive book will just be better than the last.

Now I just need to keep my eyes open for his other stuff.

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Review: Deception

Ewan McGregor at the Stormbreaker London premiere.

Saw this in Kuala Lumpur today, so mildly censored as ever. A bit strange as quite a few “****”s were left in while others were dubbed. Also at least one really obvious cut around 1/2 way through. Silly censors.

Anyhoo, it’s a half-decent thriller with about four changes in pace. Ewan McGregor plays a geeky accountant and Hugh Jackman‘s a chartismatic ladies’ man who takes him under his wing and introduces him to an exclusive sex club. Which I would like membership of, please, if anyone’s listening.

Of course, there are ulterior motives involved and soon enough McGregor finds himself in trouble with a sword hanging over his head. Oh, there’s some chick in the film as well but I have no idea who she is.

The plot unwinds quite well, and at a reasonable pace. I also quite liked the way certain clues were given at just the right time. I managed to put things together around the same time as the central characters, which held my interest.

The ending, however, is a bit weak. I don’t want to give anything away so I’ll word this carefully! The violent part has been done a million times in other films, so came as no surprise. The police officer’s discovery right at the close created a new thread instead of tying one up. And the suitcases… why leave them?

But I enjoyed it. A clever premise even if the whole thing degenerates into play-by-numbers towards the end.

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Review: Babylon A.D.

Babylon A.D.

First off, note the abbreviaton for Babylon A.D. is “B.A.D.” which is ******* apt, believe me. Brief review: this film sucks.

In fairness, I did expect it to be **** before I saw it. I checked out the reviews and they universally panned it (except the red-tops in the UK which seem incapable of giving any film with explosions in it less than three out of five), but I had an afternoon to kill and cinema tickets are less than two quid in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately they also only do “caramel” and “sweet” popcorn. Ick.

The film fails on so many points. The direction is atrocious. Cuts are in bad places (and I’m not talking about the ludicrous hatchet-jobs done by the Malaysian censors). The fight sequences are the most confusing and least watchable I’ve endured since Daredevil.

The dialogue us utterly, utterly ******* awful. It’s so trite. And the way the little travelling group turn from suspicious to best of buds in the space of a couple of hours is nonsensical. The “near sex” scene… what a crock. The mawkish ending… sick-making. Then the next stage of the pointless ending, even more so.

And let’s not forget some of the acting. ****’s sake. OK, Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel. Nobody expects anything else from him. Monotone, face like a slapped monkey, punches things. Not too hard. But Charlotte Rampling? The last time I heard such an overacted voice it was from a child actor. I’d have expected better from her.

It was a surprise to hear some decent music in the soundtrack – Sepultura’s Dead Embryonic Cells turns up in a fight scene. And – lo – but it is butchered about as badly as any of the rest of the film. Amusingly, though, the Malaysian authorities didn’t seem to notice the word “****” in the lyrics so that has, at least, been left unmolested. A shame the director (or whoever’s to blame since he withdrew his name from the film) did such an atrocious job of the sound mix it sounds like a broken tape.

Overall? No redeeming features what-so-*******-ever. If you fancy Vin Diesel, download some pictures and have a ****. Or wait for Fast & Furious to come out next year.

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Raffles and The Match-Fixing Syndicate by Adam Corres

I know the guy who wrote this, and he gave me a free copy to review so it seems fair that I give it as much coverage as I can. The original review is up on Amazon and you can get the book there as well.

Let’s be honest about two things before I start this review:

1) I know the author. Not well, more through other people than first hand but I do know the chap.
2) I hate cricket. Which is a shame as that’s what the novel is focussed around. However, it does mean that I wasn’t expecting to like the book from the off.

Thing is, I did like the book. It almost makes cricket sound like an interesting sport until you get to the end realising that you still understand nothing about it and it’s all just terminology designed to confuse the layman. I’ll stick to rounders (that’s baseball to you lot in North Am) and football (that’s football to you lot in North Am – you’ve got the name wrong).

Corres starts off with what seems like a few short stories, which don’t seem linked until the book gets past the halfway point. Almost like anecdotes, but enough to introduce the two main characters. The tales themselves are just on the right side of ridiculous (or maybe incredulous), but like the great Frank Carson “it’s the way he tells them”.

The language can take a little to get your head around, but it’s just right given the subject matter. Our storyteller (and other side characters) are often twisted in mwental spirals by Raffles. Raffles, on the other hand, never seems to break linguistic sweat. Which is how it should be. For fans of old novels (or like me, old-ish TV series) imagine the likes of Jeeves and Wooster. “Bunny”, the narrator, is a far cry from the blustering and useless Wooster but Raffles is very close to Jeeves. Always knowing what to do and manipulating people into doing things that we’re not even aware need doing as yet. And when confronted, acting as if he was aware that everyone must have known what he was up to all along.

It just reads well. Despite the frivolous use of a thesaurus in it’s making, the story is never hard to follow. There are many genuine “laugh out loud” moments – a couple of people nearby when I was reading certain episodes will attest to that fact.

I like a book that makes good use of language – it’s why I love the likes of Adams and Pratchett. Raffles and the Match Fixing Syndicate certainly fits into that camp. The story isn’t on a par with either of those authors’ best, but this is only Corres’ second outing. In honesty, I found the very last chapter (the Postscript) didn’t fit well with the rest of the book. The story ends well, but this last tiny chapter just seemed tacked on.

It didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the rest of the book, though. I’ll certainly try and dig out a copy of Corres’ previous novel and keep my eyes out for anything he does next.

I just hope it’s not about cricket.