I really like this film which is fun, irreverent and at
times over the top but I wish it had just been a bit shorter and slightly less
scattershot. It begins in terrific fashion with a sequence based around a taxi
that is as thrilling as anything in a Bond movie. It would be enough for the climax of a
film yet is only the beginning setting the tone for what is a whirlwind of
action, gadgets, kinetic peril and mayhem.
A blog about new and old culture + photo posts and more. Also visit my alt blog : thiswayupzinealt.blogspot.com / Website: www.johnconnorswriter.com / Instagram: johnconnors100 / X (aka Twitter) @JohnConnors100
22/09/2017
18/09/2017
The future of coffee shops
A
recent report reckoned that the UK is near saturation point when it comes to
coffee shops. Short of opening one on every corner and despite the fact that
they always seem to be crowded, the theory is we won’t need any more within
three years. However this means that the sector will have to evolve. They could
get bigger- how long before they start calling them Coffee Hubs? Just as some
fast food outlets have hundreds of seats, perhaps some coffee shops will grow
in a similar way.
17/09/2017
Top of the Pops 12 August 1982
Reviewed by Chris
Arnsby: John Peel: "Hello and welcome to Top of the Pops. Who's sold
out then? To start the programme yet another one of those ensembles that has a
funny foreign name."
[34] Toto Coelo: I Eat Cannibals. Toto Coelo -or, if
you are more cynical, someone in Toto Coelo's record company- has done a lot of
thinking about how to look good on Top of the Pops. The group is
distinctively dressed in multi-coloured bin bags, and they've worked out a
dance routine which works well on camera. There's a lot of hip-swaying and
stamping on the spot but not too much moving around which allows for shots to
be well framed, and makes life much easier for Vision Mixer Carol Abbot when
she wants to cut between cameras. Toto Coelo's second and last Top of the Pops
appearance is available on YouTube (it's embargoed on BBC4, D*v* L** Tr*v*s), along with the official
video, and it turns out Toto Coelo only have one dance routine for this song.
This reminds me of The Brotherhood of Man who also used to devise one cringy
routine per song and then plod through it on multiple Top of the Pops (sample
example: Angelo, where the band assumed Flamenco-like positions while singing
the ANGELO! bit of their cheery song about teen suicide). It should be noted
that I Eat Cannibals is infinitely more fun than anything by The Brotherhood of
Man. Toto Coelo won't be seen again. Their follow-up single Dracula's Tango
(Sucker For Your Love) reached 54 in the chart. This is something of a relief
for me as I'm finding their name very hard to type. My fingers keep rendering
it as Toto Coleo. Oddly enough The Brotherhood of Man gives me the same
problem; it keeps coming out as The Brotherhood of Mann.
Toto Coelo fail to spell their name |
15/09/2017
What is Futsal?
We’ve all heard of football but
what is futsal? I was thinking that it was just a word for football in another
language but it turns out to be a different sport altogether. By no means new
it seems to be increasing in popularity yet there are a lot of people who’ve never
heard of it. The word roughly translates from Spanish as “mini football” and is
played mostly indoors on a hard pitch or court that is smaller than a football
pitch. It has been growing in popularity
since many top name footballers credit futsal with helping them develop playing
skills.
Futsal in full effect |
08/09/2017
Online shopping predicted in 1971
You might think online shopping is newish but in fact it was predicted 46 years ago by Peter Fairley who was the science editor for ITV’s version of `Radio Times` which was called `TV Times`. He didn’t call it online shopping of course but he did pen the article when many were lamenting the demise of small family shops as supermarkets started to take over. What he describes may sound a bit odd but essentially he is talking- in 1971- about what a lot of us do now which is order shopping in a device from the comfort of our homes.
"Now what's trending on Twitter?" |
06/09/2017
Top of the Pops 5 August 1982
Reviewed by Chris
Arnsby. David "Kid" Jensen: "Live from the Television Centre
in London welcome to another Top of the Pops and we have a tremendous line-up
of live acts for you tonight kicking off with Madness at number four with
Driving In My Car."
[4] Madness: Driving In My Car. If you asked someone
to describe an idealised Madness performance it would resemble this one.
There's staccato dancing, loads of mucking around with props -a ventriloquist
dummy, a skeleton used for percussion, a Policeman with a blue light on his
hat, playing two saxophones at once- and a general sense that the song is
considerably less important than having fun. There's also a dirty great car
parked in the middle of the main studio performance area. How are Cecila
Brereton and her army of scene shifters going to cope with that in a live
programme? The answer is disappointingly simple, you can spot the moment Suggs
releases the handbrake and then the boys push the Maddiemobile out of the
studio. Only one question remains, what happens to the hat with the blue light
on it? It disappears without a trace during a change of camera.
01/09/2017
How posh was my school? (and did it have a Resident Swan?)
A survey to find out how posh your school is was posted a couple of years ago somewhere and still
zooming around online like a speedster. My alma mater scored a mere 28 out of
50 which is sort of half posh. Of course poshness does have different connotations
depending on whereabouts in the UK you live. In Liverpool being posh is using a
knife and a fork (ha- just kidding scousers) whereas in Surrey it involves
someone specifically employed to cut up your carrots with gold plated knives.
Anyhow I thought I’d examine some of the criteria this survey associates with
posh schools and see how it fits in with my experiences. You have to
tick off the things your school had and there’s a nice picture for those people
who don’t know what they are because you can be posh and simple of course. Here
we go then-
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