The Grande Tour part 2

So! This time I'm on the train home. It's gonna be a long trip, I can tell you that: not only is the original arrival time at TRU 20:10, but we're 4 minutes behind. Four minutes?! Maybe we'll make the time back, I dunno.

Friday and Saturday has been a lot packed into two days as well. More organ playing, wandering around Ealing, Cider, Cards Against Humanity, Oafs on tour, and finally, Worcester! Don't worry, I actually took lots of pictures this time, which will all go up in the fullness of time, which might even be after Sweden because of how long messing about with Facebook will take... Anyway, even though I've had an excellent time, it really is all right and good to go home now. I've got a week long tour to Truro's link Diocese to prepare for, and also actually moving out of the Scholary itself yet to come. I'm going to need all the suitcases to pack my clothes up, I just hope my future wardrobe (possibly still in flatpack form at the time of writing) is enough to hold my great variety of suits and shirts. When I actually step back into the house, I hope that Ireland's finest export will be there to greet me, before reporting to the bar for pints of soy sauce.  

Last night's drinking was completely different, finding myself enjoying the taste of a pint of Thatchers Cider in Ealing's fabulous local JD Wetherspoons establishment, the Sir Michael Balcon. There I reposed and finally took the weight of my feet after a long afternoon of traipsing round the Ealing Broadway Centre. Even though there was the sheer novelty of there being a Primark(!), I couldn't find anything that really suited my purpose. Something I've noticed recently is the arrival of the 26” waistline in men's departments (what women's size equates to a 26, I wonder...). It's been a good few years since I was a 26” on the waist, and it's now no use to me at all! Not only could I not find any vests, but all the shorts were far too small. I was distraught (no not really). I also found myself in TK Maxx, which is just about as exciting as you would expect, and almost bought a pair of shorts that had a waxed appearance, which I then rejected as they had no back pockets. Huh! Surprisingly picky.

That was yesterday evening, however. The morning was once again taken up by much Organ playing on the fine T.C Lewis and company instrument that St. Mary's on the Hill is so lucky to have. The devastation provided by the pedal Trombone was excellent: Thursday's Buxtehude and yesterday's Piece d'Orgue were well serviced by the foundational character and sheer power of the pedal, which, in finest Neo-Classical registering tradition, remained uncoupled throughout. Over the past few days having the Grand Piano to practice on and visiting the Church for hours at a time have made me feel much better about the state of my keyboard skills. I might even hazard that I feel confident! The choir Tierce, though distant in comparison to the Great chorus (aided by a hefty mixture), still made its presence felt, that characteristically reedy tang just there in the background. After a lunch composed primarily of the worst pre-packed Stressco's sandwich, with added donuts, the day progressed quietly until I ended up in Ealing Broadway, dealt with previously. Let us progress to the barely remembered night...

Yes, of course there was booze. Quite a lot. As I mentioned earlier, I opened my bidding with the relatively novel taste of apple Cider, Bulmers then Thatchers, before toddling off to meet my chum at the Wheatsheaf. The Wheatsheaf, Ealing, is a fine public house tended to by Fullers, itself none too far away. In the fridge, bottles of Pride, ESB, Honeydew and London Porter; on the taps, Pride, ESB and Chiswick Bitter. Wot, no Guinness? The hell am I paying for Guinness in London. Pints of Pride and ESB set me back £3.65 a piece, and that's more than bloody enough. It's becoming more and more expensive to drink almost everywhere now, sadly. I'm just looking for a chemical barrier between reality and my senses that might end up in irreversible liver damage... Is that too much to ask for? Honestly. Anyway, like I was saying, the Wheatsheaf was a pretty nice place, actually. Critically, it felt like a pub. It didn't have any sort of quirky theme or anything, but it was as rammed as hell. I met my chumrade at the bar, and there the journey to inebriation and beyond began.

We were joined by an ex-scholar of Worcester, and then, at some length by the Chief himself. After his abort on coming down to me last week, it was at long last that we met again, and in such fine surrounding. The party started, we moved on to the main event: Cards Against Humanity. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this game, allow me to describe:

• Each participant takes 10 'answer' cards.
• A 'question' card is drawn, and placed in the centre of proceedings
• From the 10 answers, the funniest and/or most inappropriate is chosen
• A vote is taken (nothing formal, like), and the winner is appointed!
• Continue until you reach a natural end. (Death not necessary)

It became clear that the Chief had the most wicked eye, and won the good majority of the rounds. The only answer card I can remember is “pooping back and forth endlessly”, which even out of context should give you an idea of how ridiculous it is. 10/10, will play again. After wrapping up, we drank even more, and I think we left at closing time, to walk through Ealing back to base. Here, Kebab was both sought and enjoyed, and I made some friends in the shape of two very lovely girls, one of whom was having her very first kebab! I was gifted the name “Mr. Kebab”, and they even took my picture. God knows what they'll do with that though. We three oafish characters, stumbling through the Broadway, made a huge racket singing the opening of the Vierne Messe Sollenelle Kyrie (because obviously it would have to be the Vierne), which appreciably utterly wrecked our voices.

Once morning had broken after a short slumber, we sprang into action and departed in peace from the Ealing Mansion. Making a short detour to pick up our other comrade, elect of the LSE, we began our road trip to Worcester! Hurrah! The Chief's car, an exceptionally comfortable vehicle, served us with speed and stability, as it ferried our loathsome corpses across the country. I became more and more aware of how hungry I was, which alongside the developing headache, proved to be quite a challenge to my patience. My hunger went unsatisfied until about half past two this afternoon, and we must have only left London at around 11am. In those frustrating hours, everything became a problem, and I became remarkably more grumpy than usual. A trip to Phat Nancy's, a top-class sandwich joint solved that thankfully, and I remain convinced that Horseradish Mayonnaise is proof that God exists and he loves us. Of course, no trip to Worcester is complete without visiting the Cathedral, and many pictures were taken: the new organ cases, what's left of the Hope-Jones with its magnificent painted pipes and full length 32's, the choir screen, various tombs and memorials... What a fine place it is! I am of course spoiled by the Neo-Gothic of Truro, and the understated Baroque of Derby, but the Norman fabric made quite an impact with the nave completely devoid of chairs. It is here that my friends will attend the wedding of a University friend of theirs tomorrow. Mazel Tov!

Now, I still have just under three hours left on the rails. In fact, just pulling into Tiverton Parkway right now. I'm aware of being rather worn out, actually, but home isn't that far away! Pulling away from the station at Taunton, Gothic church towers rise from the town, before passing into the mist. In a few short hours, the Three Spires will rise to greet me, as I remind myself that “I can see my house from here”. Only three whole days until the 4am departure for Strangnas once I'm back, and we get to go all over again... But by coach, this time. And then by plane (how exciting). Once that's all done and dusted, the final steps of moving out before I can start the new year in a new place, with a new title.

Not that it's in any way indicative of a “new me” or some other such rubbish. Thank God.

Comfortably Disturbed

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted”.  Discuss.

What a great phrase, huh?  An excellent tent pole for discussion about what art really is, and what its purpose may be.  More and more I feel that art should have the capacity to challenge, an opinion I have discovered not so much by sitting and thinking that it ought to be that way, but more as a retrospective of what art I prefer, and how I engage with it.

My shelves are full of dystopian fiction, be that in print or on film (well, DVD) and I champion the works of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick.  While the latter author may not be strictly dystopian per se, his neatly written and sharply witty science fiction is far more preferable than the reams of ponderous teen-fiction trilogies that are cropping up in response to the sudden boom created by the wild success of the Hunger Games trilogy, itself seeming to borrow heavily from the genre-defining Battle Royale.  In truth, it seems that it’s a case of convergent evolution rather than direct imitation, but for the record I prefer BR.  The premise seems more intriguing to me; rather than being set in some sort of near future post-apocalyptic world where society has been restructured to a kind of neo-feudalism with televised death matches (cf. The Running Man), but where the death game is actually part of a contemporary society (although in an alternate timeline) in 1997.  There are slight cultural barriers (although the fine translations make light work of these), and I suppose that the fact that names in the Hunger Games being in English (if deliberately slightly unfamiliar to heighten the sense of societal breakdown as we know it) makes it easier for the general trilogy reading public to engage with.  Hot on the heels of Hunger Games races the Divergent trilogy, or whatever its series’ name will eventually become, on course for a film adaption of its own (and also another source of my constant gripes about everything having to be a trilogy these days).  Books of this particular genre all continue an underlying theme of current and familiar societal rules and regulations breaking down as we join our cast in the aftermath of the apocalypse.  In all truth and honesty, I’m not particularly excited by this genre.  I know plenty of you are, and God forbid I should express any sort of alternative.  There’s a sort of “identikit” feel to these: not too far in the future, modern democratic practice has ceased as we know it, with teenaged protagonists who are the agents of change.  I doubt that there would have been much to say about this particular style a decade ago: BR is almost 15 years old now, and we’re almost at the stage now (and not then) where these dystopias are becoming believable.

I much prefer the political fables of 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell, while we’re still on the subject of dystopias, and I’m sure Philip K. Dick will feature sooner rather than later.  Another issue I take with the previously discussed trilogies and their ilk (although not with BR, but also 1984) is their ‘after-the-fact’ settings.  The revolution has already been and gone, but it still hangs heavy in the air.  Star Trek, even though it is utopian fiction, is set many years into the future after their universe’s revolution, where war ravaged the planet (particularly the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s with my good chum Khan Noonien Singh) before humanity pulled together out of the ashes, the dust having settled.  Here, Orwell differs with Animal Farm, which has the reader follow the action of the ‘revolutionaries’ and the creation and degradation of a new regime.  In fact, when you look at the two together from a slightly side on angle, Animal Farm shows a precursory environment that could indeed lead to a 1984 situation, mostly in the use of propaganda to keep the other farm animals from asking too many questions, and the ‘vaporisation’ of animals within the farm who have become considered dangerous by the Farmer’s dogs as raised by Napoleon. 

Dick’s work, on the other hand, feels much more contemporary.  As I’ve said before, A Scanner Darkly is one of my favourite films, and in comparison to the text is almost page for page just put on screen, a refreshingly excellent production.  The peculiar rotoscoping used gives the film a unique aesthetic.  Perhaps the familiarity is due to it being semi-autobiographical, and relatable to almost anyone who lives in shared accommodation at any time in their lives (although particularly student accommodation in the UK), and the particularly dystopian aspect found in the relationship between “Substance D” and the “New Path” clinics.  Over the course of the narrative, not much is as it seems, and Robert Downey Jnr.’s casting as a substance addict surprising nobody (truly, the world’s greatest method actor) particularly gifted delivery as Barris being a true highlight of the film.  The death of Charles Freck is completely the same in both book and motion picture, which is something that pleased me greatly.  Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, with a plot too complicated to reduce to a few pithy lines is worth a read.  It encapsulates one of my favourite things about dystopian fiction – a lack of a typically ‘happy’ ending.

Another thing that I enjoy about dystopian fiction that works so well for me is the lack of hope.  On a day to day basis I often genuinely feel that there sometimes... there is no way anything can improve, and having lived through dreadful times where there has been little to no resolution, it’s nice to see that there are fictional characters saddled with much the same yoke as well.  Let’s put another favourite piece of dystopia under the spotlight: V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd.  All we know about the title character is that he dresses up as Guy Fawkes in order to maintain his anonymity, and performs acts that undermine, destabilise and expose the nature of a Government that subjugates the people by fear and brutality, and also having run genetic experiments in concentration camps known as “resettlement camps” after a brief nuclear war.  The themes presented by this work are vast, and are a reflection of the political environment they came from, but the fascist government sets a stage for racial segregation, institutionalised sexual discrimination, the manipulation of populace through media control... You know, the usual sort of dystopian checklist.  As we reach the conclusion of the story, sacrifices are made, allegiances questioned and chaos embraced – not a traditional happy ending by any standard; in fact; the last few frames of the book show just one man walking down a darkened motorway, having turned his back on everything that has gone before.  I don’t want to put any sort of spoilers in, because it’s so bloody good and if you’re remotely interested in reading it (and I do mean reading it, because while the film is good it just doesn’t quite measure up in the same way, even though it is rather good), just do.  The anti-heroic protagonist’s intellectualism and cultural knowledge stands in stark opposition to the fascist Government’s strict control on art and any form of self-expression.  When we reach the end, the country is in total chaos.  Rather than reach a resolution, we witness the next step in the journey.

Finally, the catalyst for all this: Fight Club.  The film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s 1997 novel has had all sorts of labels slapped on to it: neo-noir, slumming tragedy, black comedy... It’s even been analysed as what happens when Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes grows up – the comparative points are both very amusing and worryingly believable.  I love Fight Club though.  It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s completely ridiculous, and the final revelation is a real stunner that lets you know just how steeped in madness the whole operation really is.  The unreliable narrator struggles with his own identity in a culture given over more and more to consumerism, surrounded by the deeper issue of masculine identity in the service trade (blue or ‘gray’ collar workers).  Tyler Durden, the dark reflection of, well, almost all of us, pontificates wildly on the subject of what freedom really is in this day and age, where the American Dream became a nightmare, where economic status is the real measure of class and from which people now draw their self-worth.  Conforming to society for the sake of acceptance is completely worthless.  Tyler’s Devil may Cry attitude is something I particularly enjoy – nihilistic yet engaging.  My anarchist tendencies tell me that there is always another way, always, and here is one, portrayed by Brad Pitt.  His continual popping up and witty monologues remind me of another force of cynicism in fiction: Travis Bell.  While Travis’s role in Killer7 is ever so slightly different that Tyler’s, they serve a similar purpose in showing the audience that there is something else happening behind the main players, and both exhibit a keen knowledge of the fourth wall (cf. Tyler’s Cigarette burns and Travis’s intimate knowledge of the Smiths’ abilities).  Tyler also bears resemblance to Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes fame, and although it’s widely publicised that Touchdown’s appearance is based on Johnny Knoxville, you can’t help but feel that SUDA51 is inspired by more things than first thought. 

What really got me about Fight Club was how it relates to one of my more worrying catchphrases, “I only find validation in self-destruction”.  It’s simple.  Direct.  I like to say it to point out the hopelessness of trying to play by the rules of a social environment that doesn’t work out for me.  Why bother seeking group acceptance if the effort makes me feel ill when I can just have a drink?  Maybe some answers are found at the end of a bottle, but you have to ask the right questions.  The original version of one of Tyler’s most Travis-esque statements “Self-improvement is masturbation.  Now, self-destruction...” bears an even more fatal resemblance to my outlook, after a year of trying to fit in and work with attitudes and approaches so violently removed from my own, faced by total ignorance and apathy, manipulation and more commonly, excuses... I mean honestly, “Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer.  Maybe self-destruction is the answer.”  I can’t help but draw parallels between SUDA51’s ‘Kill the Past’ movement, where the protagonists must leave their pasts behind in order to move forward.  After all, “it’s only after we’ve lost everything are we free to do anything”, right?  Even our identities?  That’s quite enough to leave you with for the weekend, isn’t it?

Oh well.  We’re all mad here, Smith.  Straight up.

Are you there God? It's me, Khan.

Okay okay I knew there was something else that I was supposed to complain about last week.  I've just been reminded by happening upon a short review of the new Superman picture, Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill in the eponymous role.  Another serious, gritty reboot of a franchise that's decades old just as a film series, let alone the original appearance if the character in the 1930s.  Let's get things straight, I haven't seen Man of Steel, but I think I will.  I might even...

...No, I couldn't.  Anyway. 

It hasn't taken me long following a few links to find out that a sequel has already been fast-tracked.  What?  Already?  What the hell you guys.  This is the heart of my final problem with Star Trek Into Darkness, and I'm so glad that I remembered it because I knew that when they killed Kirk...thay couldn't really kill him.  The main cast for the new Trek have signed on for three movies.  Three movies!  Another Trilogy!  This wasn't like the early 80s and the original cast, where tensions between the studio and Leonard Nimoy in particular had grown to a fever pitch.  To begin with, Nimoy wanted an out, which is why they kill Spock off within the first ten minutes of Wrath of Khan.  It survives from an early draft where it was permanent.  Of course, it became the bait-and-switch we know and love and weep over, but really...we could have seen the true 'end' of Spock right there and then.  Nimoy pulled the eternal "I'll come back if you let me do whatever I want" card, took a pay rise and ended up directing the next two films: The Search for Spock and The Journey Home (or Star Trek: Save the Whales).  The relationship between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner played a big part in all this, which you can find exposited at some length in Shatner's book, Star Trek Movie Memories.  It's the companion piece to Star Trek Memories, the latter of the two detailing his experiences on set in the Original Series, and touching on his acting career before being flung into space.  I really like Bill Shatner anyway, and these informative, amusing and highly illuminating books (alongside Get a Life! and Up til Now, his autobiographies) are firm favourites.  

I'm getting away from the point though.  The final reason why basically Kirk's death in Star Trek Into Darkness is completely empty is because of the widely publicised fact that the cast had signed on for a three picture deal.  They can't kill off the Captain!  Not if he still has another film to star in!  It's a no sweat operation.  As soon as I realised this, sat there like some sort of hot mess, I immediately got what little shit I have together and rationalised that they would find some sort of magic McGuffin to...oh yes there it is KHAN'S BLOOD YOU KNOW THE STUFF THAT RESURRECTED THE TRIBBLE (nice reference to The Trouble with Tribbles, huh?  Almost as good as the DS9 episode where they go back in time and Benjamin Sisko becomes the first black man in space and meets Kirk with some top-notch editing).  This is it, the final key.  Not content with playing the pivotal moment almost beat for beat, we have already been cheated out of the consequences.  When they killed Spock, you had to wait two years for the next film, and even then his character only remembers himself at the very end of the film, none of this ten minutes rubbish.

The whole sequence is bereft of the emotional weight and significance of the original.  Everything will be fine, because if they killed him for keeps what would the third film be?  The Search for Kirk?  It is illuminating, finding vox-pop style quotes from not just William Shatner but also George Takei about the difference between this 'Nu-Trek' and their Star Trek.  It seems that a lot of heart has simply gotten lost.  Of course, things are different now we have the internet and the sheer size of the film industry the world over is much larger than it was in the 80s - the budget for Star Trek II was a mere 11.2 million dollars, comapred to the $190 million for Into Darkness.  This isn't hitting out so much, but merely commenting on how much easier it is to get hold of information about any film these days if you have an internet connection.  I myself used to scour one particular site for news on the Transformers sequels daily for anything I could possibly learn.  The upshot of this was that I had discovered enough clues to piece together enough of the plot to Dark of the Moon, along with the very spoiler-heavy TV spots to basically predict what would happen.

Sorry.  I just get a little animated about how everything gets turned into trilogies at the moment.  Don't think I'm detracting from the performances on screen as well: not only were they highly enjoyable, but critically very convincing and believable.  Once you can get the audience to believe in your performance, of course, they are in the palm of your hand.  The little domestic sequence in the flying Hamburger really zings back and forth, before Spock ends it with what basically amounts to a Holocaust-style reference to the death of Vulcan.  It's tense, and importantly, it's emotional.  I'm getting away from the point again though!  Let's face it though, three is a good number.  Even though I'm a gently lapsing gamer, I can still name a few trilogies off the top of my head - Metroid Prime, Halo (now moving into a second trilogy), the Batman Arkham series, Fallout... Also Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy... And Michael Bay's Transformers (also moving into a second trilogy)!  Having a trilogy is fashionable, it seems.  Of course, the original trilogy is and always will be Star Wars, the epic saga of the Skywalkers, which is itself set to become a trilogy of trilogies (a meta trilogy?), the first new film of which is to be released into the wild in 2015, directed than none other than Mr. Lens Flare himself, J. J. Abrams. 

There's just something inevitable and slightly disappointing now every time I see that a trilogy is planned or optioned or whatever... Like film makers see it as a no-fuss ticket to big bucks.  A license to print money.  I suppose it's also connected to the subject of rebooting film franchises, especially comic book movies: the first film deals with the new interpretation of the origin story, and then a story arc is started, picked up in the second film and concluded in the last of the three.  But sometimes, it seems like a trilogy for the sake of it.  Like The Hobbit!  Yeah.  The fact that that's been spun out into a trilogy is kind of... Well, it almost seems like a waste.  Sure Lord of The Rings (especially the extended cuts) makes a hefty trilogy, where each film is worth two books.  But where three films is one book, especially a book that's much smaller?  Hmm.  I'm almost kind of glad that Hellboy never made it into a third film...

Is this the end of my Wrath of Wrath of Khan?  I doubt it.  I haven't even approached the issue of 'whitewashing' Khan, because that has no real impact on what I have to say.  I'm sure there'll be another one of these posts once I've seen Man of Steel, although from what I've read already it doesn't quite slavishly homage the older films with the inimitable Christopher Reeve.  Don't forget guys that 2006's Superman Returns, as deep into homage territory as it went was also a kind of sequel to the older film series as a whole.  Who knows whether Man of Steel will be spun out into a trilogy, or perhaps the third film of its lineage will be the first act of the Justice League idea that's been floating about even before The Avengers (Jesus there were so many different titles for wherever that film was released I can't even be bothered picking one)? 

To finally conclude, I obviously feel pretty passionately that a huge oppourtunity was missed here.  Rather than go for the 'go-to' sequel idea of the most lauded Star Trek Villian ever, they could have done something completely different.  Heavens, they could have brought V'Ger back instead!  The lack of imagination is... Disappointing.  You know, they could have left Khan out of it until the third film, where the Botany Bay went undiscovered, crash landed on a planet (killing 9 of the augments), leaving Khan and the surviving 72 on board to conquer the planet and be discovered by the Federation in the future - with wildly different consequences.  Oh well.  I suppose I can wait for the next reboot.

...Khan?

Since first seeing it some... Oh I dunno, thee weeks ago, I've gradually been coming to terms with Star Trek Into Darkness.  Of course, this amazing summer movie has been nothing short of an event, whether you liked it or not.  The thing is, I absolutely fucking loved it.  Went to the cinema, saw it in 3D, waved my arms about, probably shouted out loud a few times, and cried at the appropriate moments.  I did say I was going to see it again and take notes on all the 'Old Trek' universe references, but the time has been and gone and it's now no longer on at The Plaza on the cheap night.  What I did do however, was track down the classic 1967 episode of The Original Series Space Seed.  I don't really need to watch Star Trek II Wrath of Khan again (it's not a necessity at least), because various parts of that film are BURNED INTO MY MIND AND WILL NEVER GO AWAY.  Because of being steeped in Trek history, I basically have three major problems with the film:

• The emotional crux of the film is essentially empty
• Not only is it empty, but it becomes a race for the McGuffin
• It is one reference after another and cherry picks elements from the above mentioned Khan stories
  

 Also a really funny thing I came across in one of trawls through the internet is that this film is like the John Harrison Ford action movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the film opens with the protagonist being chased by angry natives, and closes with the superweapon being safely locked away... Who says Hollywood has run out of plots?  Anyway.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Are you ready to hate me, possibly yourself and maybe everything you know already?  Let's go then.  Don't worry though!  Because I hate absolutely everything already, so I am way ahead of you.  DID I MENTION I WILL SPOIL LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE FILM JESUS CHRIST YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN READ THE TITLE.
 We open to a brilliantly shot set-piece with Bones and Kirk pegging it through a jungle away from spear-toting natives, cut with Sulu and Uhura in a shuttle, about to dangle Spock (dressed as a disco ball) into a Volcano.  Turns out the Enterprise has been sat in the sea for the best part of two days, on a self-ordained mission to rescue the planet from the cataclysmic eruption of said volcano, by dropping a cold fusion bomb that freezes the eruption.  The one important moment in this section is where we end up with Spock stranded in the volcano READYING HIMSELF TO DIE after the immortal line 

• "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... Or the one."
  

FORESHADOWING no?  Anyway, it wouldn't be much of a film (seeing as this is an impersonation of Wrath of Khan rather than The Search for Spock) if they killed Spock off before the opening titles, so of course, they raise the leviathan from the waves and rescue the green blooded son of a bitch.  We know that this isn't the only Star Trek sequel that does the old bait-and-switch on Spock dying.  For once we get to see the great and mighty ship in the atmosphere, which is something I really liked!  I remember that they put landing gear on the crate in Voyager, but I only saw the one episode where they landed the big ship?  There may be more, I didn't see every single one.


Okay.  We get introduced to 'John Harrison', the man with the magic blood (remember that).  The ultimate expression of Sherlock Holmes - cold, calculating, intellectually superior, misanthrophic, a gifted tactician and a talented combatant.  Just say if you know any old Star Trek, just say, who else do you know fits all those categories?  No... It can't be him?  Anyway.  He orchestrates the explosion of some super-secret research facility in the basement of London, not a stone's throw from Wren's St. Paul's OF COURSE IT'S STILL THERE Seriously guys they still have red buses.  Sherlock also performs a daring assault on Starfleet high command (only seconds after the comedy block-head Kirk works out why they've all been gathered there on that day ahead of everyone else in Starfleet including Spock) before beaming off to the Klingon Homeworld when Captain First Officer Kirk knackers up his snub-nose starfighter (transworld beaming because Starfleet pinched the transwarp equation without crediting Scotty - some sort of satire on Intellectual Property rights I think), only moments before Kirk swears REVENGE.  The Wrath of Kirk!  After a tense meeting with Admiral Marcus, as portrayed by Robocop (check the desk out for yet more classic references), Kirk gets his Captaincy restored, his Spock returned, the Enterprise given back... and orders to kill 'John Harrison'.  Further to this, the Enterprise is armed with 72 super-secret long range proton photon torpedoes (does that number mean anything?).  When this magic missile payload appears in the engineering section, Scotty won't sign for them!  Not at this address mate!  He's not happy because they won't let him look at the secret ingredients.  The upshot of this is that Scotty gets kicked off the Enterprise, complete with his little wee Ugnaut man.  This frees him up to advance the plot later on after being absent for at least an... hour?  In his place, Eastern European stereotype Chekov stands in.  Alongside the torpedoes arrives Carol Wallace, who occupies the 'fit bird eyecandy' character archetype, that all Sci-Fi must have.  When they reach Qo'noS, holding position miles out with the magic missiles pointing at 'Harrison' Ford, while Kirk, Spock and Uhura (with two redshirts) dress up as smugglers and fly the Kessel Run in a prototype for the Millennium Falcon.  Spock and Uhura have a full on domestic in the flying Hamburger. While all this is happening, Sulu is sat in the captain's chair (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, anybody?  Sure, it's no Excelsior...)


Another high-speed fight scene gets cut, with the mirror universe Klingons... who look just like their Prime Universe (thankfully.  Right?) counterparts, which starts to get pretty hairy...until Sherlock appears and literally just kills the shit out of everybody who isn't in the principal cast.  He surrenders instantly after a grueling battle once he learns the exact number of torpedoes pointed at him.  Why?  Why would such a furious badass simply yield in a heartbeat like that?  What importance does the number 72 have?  And then Kirk punches him alllllllllllllllllllll day without Holmes even flinching.  They drag him back to the Enterprise where it is finally revealed that yes, Sherlock Holmes IS Peter Guillam!  Ho ho!  Of course, he is Khan Noonien Singh, the most dangerous of all the despotic genetically modified human beings from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s in the Star Trek Universe (multiverse?).  Remember, the timeline only split when the Kelvin was destroyed at the start of the first film of this franchise.  Literally everything else up until that point was exactly the same - First Contact and even Enterprise is still canon at this point.  I hope you remember the models on the desk?  Not just another nod, for once. After the underplayed reveal, he soothingly rumbles about the torpedoes, what's inside them?  What's inside is a game changer, and explains why the SS Botany Bay  isn't in the film, because we discover that as well as a highly explosive payload, they each contain a cryo-stasis pod with Khan's crew safely tucked away!  Before this we see Carol Marcus Wallace in her underwear.  Phwoar.  It serves no narrative purpose.  Around this time, Khan gives Kirk a space postcode, which moves James Tiberius to call his friend and now free agent... Montgomery Scott!  Who is drinking whisky in a club.  He drives a shuttle craft over and discover a huge shipyard and manages to infiltrate... Dr. McCoy also takes a sample of Khan's blood.  Keep hold of that.

But it seems that this Khan is not a bad Khan?  It transpires that the Botany Bay was found in space, just like it was in the 'real' universe, but this time by Admiral "Robocop" Marcus.  Khan was awoken and used, used I say, to create weapons of mass destruction for space war (this is most unlike Khan Prime) with the Klingons.  Khan's crew are used as leverage by Marcus, and are included in the payload of each and every torpedo that was supplied to the Enterprise.  All of a sudden, loyalties are compromised.  A new ship appears, the USS Vengeance.  The captain is none other than Admiral Marcus, who is hunting down Khan as well.  Marcus orders that Khan be transferred aboard the Vengeance, as he is a war criminal and must be executed.  I've missed out part of the debate here (most of which happened before the torpedoes' cargo was discovered) but basically Kirk, rather than follow the orders of his Admiral, follows Spock's suggestion of bringing Khan to trial on Earth, a deeply legalistically ethical suggestion.  It's what Kant would have done.  Marcus, of course, doesn't like this one bit.  The Enterprise escapes at warp speed... But is chased down and fired upon!  This is a real surprise to see one ship not only caught up on but attacked while in hyperspace at warp.  It's really amazing on screen, make no mistake.  The Vengeance makes a fearsome noise.  Still, it adds up to make this Khan almost a sympathetic enemy at the least - yes, he may be the Khan of the Eugenics Wars, but so far he hasn't seemed to be trying to take control of the Enterprise and his crew are in danger and he has been kept prisoner and taken advantage of.  All things that can be sympathised with. 

Okay, let's relax on the whole plot synopsis here.  There's one point I haven't yet addressed which I'll get to, but I'm sure if you've seen it already you know what's happening, if you haven't seen it but don't mind finding out there are several, less cynical and more detailed synopses, and if you want to see it but haven't WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU GOT THIS FAR.  Let's get to the cut and thrust of this...review?  I dunno, but the climactic death scene.  As I said earlier, this film oscillates between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, and by now it's definitely swung into the latter.  However, this is the mirror universe so it's not going to play out quite as you expect.  Or quite as you remember.  The Enterprise is wrecked, barely holding together in Earth's upper atmosphere.  The power's out, because the warp core is misaligned due to the preceding battle, and time is running out before the ship crashes and the crew liquidised by the force.  Thing is, Bones is in the Medical Bay, and Spock is strapped into the Captain's chair as per the space jump that Khan and Kirk did in order to infiltrate the USS Vengeance.  Scotty and Kirk are in Engineering.  So the usual "you can't go in it'll kill you!" happens, and Kirk... Punches Scotty out.  That's it.  Sits him in a chair, and puts his seatbelt on... and goes in the reactor chamber.  What.  Seriously.  Kirk goes off to his death.  Let's cut here.



Now, there are three critical things that raise Wrath of Khan above other Star Trek films primarily, and these are as follows:

• Ricardo Montalban straight up OWNING every line (the performance of a God)
• The Enterprise and the Reliant playing Battleships in 3 dimensions
• The death of Spock

Aside from this, the scenario where the crew are beginning to age (Kirk gets reading glasses for his birthday!) and the stirring faux-naval score really help the sort of campy atmosphere.  You will notice that Into Darkness has none of these things.  The 18 year gap between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan is almost exactly mirrored in real time, the episode coming from 1967 and the film from 1982. 

As noted earlier, this Khan does not think in three dimensions.  The superbly played and brilliantly tense final shootout between the Reliant and the Enterprise is at a stalemate...until Kirk remembers that unlike the sea, space operates in three dimensions (with which Khan is not experienced), and uses this to his advantage.  As a final act of bitterness, Khan, shattered and dying, makes one last-ditch attempt to vanquish his enemy by setting off the Genesis device before expiring.  The Enterprise limps away, but can't break into the run that Warp speed is because the warp core is misaligned.  Engineering is cut off due to the inhuman amounts of radiation pouring out of the warp core, and there's no way to get in... Or is there?  Not all of the crew are human, remember.  It is at this point that I start weeping with no sense of regret.  The only crew member who could biologically withstand the radiation is... Mr. Spock. 

Spock's self-sacrifice is the emotional climax of the movie.  It is Spock's Kobayashi Maru test - by his own admission.  He slips off quietly while everyone else is panicking, and gets it done.  Bones tries to stop him, but Spock nerve pinches him and then mind melds.  "Remember".  Of course, he manages to fix the vital component of the reactor in time for the Enterprise to escape, but fatally irradiates himself in the process.  His final breath is so touching not because it's Spock and Kirk, or the fact that they're in space or anything... It's seeing a man watch his best friend of almost twenty years die in front of him, totally unreachable.  The one person he needs, he can rely on is... just slipping away behind the glass.  Just give me a minute you guys.  I'll be okay.

This is where Wrath of Khan pulls ahead, because it's also about the way that their lives have changed through time.  This theme continues through all the original cast films, as the surviving cast of Star Trek TOS have a combined age that is greater than the Rolling Stones.  These guys in the mirror universe haven't even gone on their 5 year mission, they've known each other for all of 5 minutes, so the death of Kirk is deeply unfortunate and still pretty sad - rather than deliberately choose himself, he is the one man who makes the choice.  The emotional hook in this is remembering Spock's death, and, rather than the Captain being trapped inside the planet, it is in fact the mirror Spock who utters the famous scream before chasing Khan down on foot, so that famous Vulcan physiology gets referenced after all... After a fraught punch-up on aerial platform vehicles, Uhura gets beamed down and stuns the living shit out of Khan with a phaser.  They need him alive for (drum roll yes that's right it's McGuffin time) his magic blood!  If it can resurrect a tribble, it can resurrect a Kirk!  I have another problem with this, that I realised even in the cinema was there are 72 frozen supermen on board in Medical who have the same genetically superior blood.  They even turf one of the Botany Bay crew out of their cryo-pod in order to preserve the gradually decaying body of Kirk, so they can pump him full of Khan's blood... Whaaaaaat?  Why can't they use that one?  IT ALWAYS HAS TO BE KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

And look at that.  Ten minutes later, (two weeks in the movie time) and we cut to Kirk in bed.  Laid up with a case of the Khans, he has miraculously recovered from being dead (just like that tribble earlier), and Khan himself is safely locked in his chiller cabinet with the rest of the surviving Botany Bay, who knows how long for this time.  The one thing I said I was going to come back to was when Kirk and Khan do their space jump (in which Khan saves Kirk's life no less!), he rings calls Spock Prime on Space Skype in order to ask him about Khan.  Khan is a bad man, and was only defeated "at great cost" (although this cost is not elaborated on).  Spock to Spock, we finally hear what we knew about Mr. Noonien Singh all along, "He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you".  This brutality was seen on Qo'noS, and also in the corridors of the Vengeance, where Khan, Kirk and Scotty work their way up to the bridge where Khan has his showdown with Admiral Marcus.  During the course of this Mexican stand-off, it is finally revealed that Carol Wallace is in fact Carol Marcus, the Admiral's daughter and another classic Trek reference.  That's not terribly exciting, sorry. 

Even though I found the experience of watching Into Darkness deeply enjoyable and very exciting, I ultimately feel a little disappointed.  A plot jammed with elements from two old stories (one of which is a feature length resolution of the first), laced with top of the line special effects and visual set pieces, then mixed in with more references to classic Star Trek than  you can shake a stick at to keep it all together.  Lens flare does not replace character development.  Disappointed is the wrong term, too strong perhaps.  Underwhelmed?  Now I've had the time to think about it (and write it all out) especially.  I'll definitely watch it again, buy the DVD you know it, but still.  Having split the timeline in 2233, and planet Vulcan being destroyed in 2258, the alternate universe is different enough already, without comparing how much more emotional this particular Spock is: we see him and Uhura conduct a relationship in public, something that Nimoy's Spock would never do.  Chronologically speaking, there was no need to make Khan the villain of the piece, seeing as the film is set 8 years before the Prime crew discover The Botany Bay (or perhaps this is another repercussion of being on an altered timeline?) anyway.  I feel that it was a bit of a cheap shot using the exact same plot device in the shape of the damaged warp core.  Even down to the critical use of the word "friend".  By making Khan's blood the only thing that can save Kirk, they make the baddy into the source of their deus ex machina, and also make sure the other augmented humans are left inhuman by leaving them as the cryo-pods, basically.  However, the memorial presided over by Captain Kirk at the end of the film rededicates Starfleet's purpose: rather than prepare for war either in secret or openly, and the famous five year mission is finally launched.

A reboot like this would always be tough.  Imagine if they rebooted Star Wars like this, where perhaps... I dunno, Qui-Gon Jinn survives the lightsaber duel but Anakin Skywalker still becomes Darth Vader in a series of very strange but similar events?  Maybe it was some sort of attempt on the writers' and director's parts to make a statement that these characters are 'destined' to interact in this sort of way, regardless of where we find them.  Or maybe they wanted to put their spin on an established part of Trek history.  Or... I don't know.  Even though Wrath of Khan's no world beater itself, I think Into Darkness can't even dream of touching it.  Sorry, but Montalban beats Cumberbatch any day.

Oh, Khan.  For Hate's sake, I type my last words at thee.

Newsflash

I don't tend to keep up with the news.  In fact, ever since moving into Halls way back in 2008, my relationship with the News has grown increasingly sketchy - usually due to not having a television.  So lazy!  Useless boy.

Whenever I do get a whiff of the news, it's usually dreadful - the continuing state of the economy, the perilous state of examination in this country... I dunno.  I don't get excited thinking about the news at all, as much as that makes me the root cause of moral decrepitude.  Mother used to (and still does) have the television on permanently at home, often more so there's a noise in the background so she doesn't feel quite so lonely now she lives on her own, but ultimately always watches the news, which is how I ended up watching it all the time when I was there, and indeed, every time I come back.  I guess that's yet another tradition I forgot about yesterday, but there it is: Mother always watches the news.  Having no live television in Halls, and also in The Scholary, it's completely different: instead of being an always-available resource, I have to seek it out deliberately.  Far too much like hard work.

Whenever I go to Janet's though, her television is on as well.  Mid-morning BBC repeats and trashy American TV, yes, but also the local and national news (and weather).  Seeing as I'm definitely not in the East Midlands anymore, I have a dim view towards BBC South West (or whatever it's called), and don't really think of it as 'real news'.  I have no idea where half of these places are, probably more so!  I often feel completely unaffected, geographically and emotionally (unless it's about something happening in Truro that day), whereas even if I go home for a day, a quick update from East Midlands Today can tell me things about places that I know, from a news team that I remember and actually quite like (lol following them on the twitters lol), and it all comes flooding back.  Even know, miles away and separated from the next bulletin by about 6 hours, I can take an open guess at things that may be happening...Let's see.

• DERBY: Heavy Industry OR something about the Philpotts (still)
• LEICESTER: Local Business OR something about racism in Schools
• NOTTINGHAM: Gun Crime
• LINCOLN: Something about Farmers

Heavy stereotyping I know, but answers on a postcard to the Asylum South West if it turns out to be true.  I spent three years in Norwich as well, remember, and BBC Look East felt anything but relevant whenever I saw it.  I might come under criticism for saying things like this, but suppose you become completely disconnected from reality like I have and still do sometimes?  True, I'm still bothered about Derby, but I was born there and have still spent the majority of my life there.  It still matters.  I'm sure that there are natives of, let's say Cornwall, who upon moving away and watching 'foreign' news feel exactly the same, whose ears perk up as soon as any local town name is mentioned.  

However, I stay up-to-date on other sorts of things.  I have resigned myself to the fact that the economy isn't going to really pick up, and watching endless ponderous visual effects laden reports on the matter isn't going to change anything.  I don't read the Newspapers these days either.  When I was younger, when my dad still lived with us, we used to get the Daily Express in for him (bless his primary reading level), and from time to time we got the Derby Evening Telegraph delivered to the house.  But nowadays, a newspaper is another expense that I don't get to eat or drink.  Hell, at least Newspapers are lactose free...

I use my twitter feed to follow news that I want, usually.  If I'm working at the Cathedral Office, I'll keep a tab open on BBC news for as long as I'm there.  Normally I'll write a post while I'm there as well, which is pretty annoying as all this BEDM will have finished by the time I'm working there next.  Perhaps I will find new and exciting things to write about daily by then?  Or perhaps just the usual possibly offensive, deeply embittered work that I usually write?  KEEP TUNING IN IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO FIND OUT.  While we're still here though, let's check out what's been happening in my world over the past day...

THE NEW DAFT PUNK ALBUM IS HERE ASDFGHJKL ARGH After months of speculation, the single "Get Lucky (Feat. Pharrell Williams)", and of course the day it streamed on the internet for free, Random Access Memories is finally here.  As quite a lot of people who know me in real life know, I am a massive Daft Punk fan to the point of frothing gently at the mouth for the past few weeks, steaming away with anticipation for the retro-futurist duo's latest long player.  I think it's absolutely straight up incredible.  Daft Punk have seemingly spared no expense imaginable in hiring studio musicians of the highest calibre.  Musically, it harks back to the 'Golden Age' of Disco, the 70's and perhaps early 80's.  Stylistically, it follows a path that begins with their third studio album, Human After All, which itself was a sharp contrast to the amazing exuberance of 2001's Discovery, which is what people think of Daft Punk's 'characteristic' sound.  The change in style can also be felt from the TRON: Legacy Soundtrack they composed.  I've had their entire discography on heavy rotation (except for Alive! 2007, because you can't shuffle those tracks really), so I've noticed these things way more than somebody who hasn't.  The development of the material is quite complex and well-developed, feeling a little more like high-concept than a Electro-House-Opera-Disco style LP like Discovery.  Don't get me wrong!  Discovery is brilliant, and I play it a hell of a lot of the time.  RAM is different though, which has disappointed some people, but that very difference is where its strength lies.  To have made another Discovery, or even another Homework would have been a regression, and this is part of an ongoing movement that they're making; whether or not we agree with it is another question.  They are doing what they want to do, because they choose to do it their way.

Phew.  Anything else?  Well, of course today was also the day that Microsoft announced the successor to their extremely successful home videogame console Xbox 360... The XBox One.  Yes, if marketing were ar Snakes and Ladders board they found the one snake that takes you back to the start of the field and decided to cut their losses there.  Of course, the console war rages on for it's... 8th Generation (Jesus Christ guys seriously even the cold war ended eventually what the hell) now, with the Nintendo Wii U already released, the Sony PlayStation 4 on the way, and now the Xbox One from the 'big three'.  This time, Microsoft are taking a slightly different tack though, and I think it's no accident that the unit is both functionally and aesthetically similar to Sony's ill-fated PSX that was released in Japan in 2003, as a media centre... which is the direction that Microsoft seem to be pulling into.  The 'Zune' software brand was renamed 'Xbox Music' not long ago, and the 'Xbox Smart Glass' functionality that allows you to control your Xbox wirelessly using touchscreen devices such as Windows Phones and Surface portable computers show that Microsoft is putting it's entertainment eggs into one big Xbox basket.  The userbase for 360s is very high, but the new One won't be backwards compatible (annoying but not terribly vital), but there's concerns about the 'always online' functionality and the fact that Microsoft seem pretty keen about blocking the use of second-hand games - of course a lifeline to retrogamers and those without enough disposable income to buy brand new titles (both of which categories I champion, my Gamecube and its library downstairs being more of a collector's item these days).  Today was only the reveal, but the facts so far illustrate a device for which games are a core but not the feature - an improved 'Kinect 2.0' will come with every box that will allow for voice control and Skype calls as standard, and the stats reveal an 8 core processor, 500 GB HDD, Blu-Ray disc drive... The works.  Microsoft have called in the big guns to make a serious home entertainment centre choice under the Xbox brand name. 

See?  I tend to keep away from "real" news, in case reality gets near me... reality is much like nuclear waste: you can see it's terrible effects even from a distance and if you touch it that's game over.  Twitter itself is actually a pretty decent tool for what's happening - rightfully so it has been capsized by the news of the Oklahoma tornado that struck, bearing down destruction on...well, everything.  If there's something big happening that I get wind of, I'll deliberately seek it out, usually through the BBC News website as a starting point.  Perhaps I will change my ways and return to watching news should I ever get a television and pay the license fee, hell I might even buy a newspaper from time to time, but for now, the false limits of my own that I apply to news is what I'm satisfied with.

That's all.  For now.

Collecting

Let's start with a confession: I'm a bit of a hoarder.  I like...things.  I like to think I'm not materialistic (a shopping trip will often end with me either returning empty handed, or having spent out on food), but I do like things.


When I was very very little, maybe only 3 or 4, I used to collect frogs.  I think my collection is still at mother's house.  It wasn't exactly a huge collection by any stretch of the imagination, but it was mine.  Not living ones!  Woah no.  Plastic, porcelain, metal or clay frogs, the centrepieces being two frogs from the pottery in Denby; one decorated by yours truly, and the other an official piece of Denby merchandise, glazed and all.  When I was a little bit older, I started to collect dragons instead, a collection that lasted for years before I stopped adding to it.  Thinking back I'm not sure if there's just one reason why I stopped... The one that comes to mind first is having to pack them all up to move house.  There isn't much in this world that I hate more than having to pack everything up and move house, even though I've done it four times since I was 18, and will probably do so again by the time we reach the summer.  Hate hate hate h a t e it.  

I don't have particularly large collections, more that I have several small ones that run at the same time.  At one point I even thought about actually putting effort into collecting wooden animals, but since I found Wilbur (my taciturn chum), I have no need.  I can't improve upon perfection, after all, can I?  I suppose my largest and longest lasting collection is almost anything to do with  Transformers.  Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah.

The overwhelming majority of my collection are 'Generation 1' toys, that were initially released in the 1980s.  I inherited a small number (mostly mini Autobots but also a Ratchet!) from my brother (along with his collection of star wars toys that had survived his childhood), and supplemented these by usually making a number of great finds in charity shops.  Yes!  A surprising number of Transformers used to turn up regularly in charity shops and car boot sales, both of which I sought out regularly when I was younger and had pocket money to spare (disposable income?!  A far cry from these distracted times).  I even managed to pick up an original Metroplex for 50p from a school bric-a-brac sale and, on the other end of the price spectrum, found a G1 Jetfire (although minus the tail fins and cowling armour) for £20 at a boot sale.  G1 toys are getting thin on the ground though, as people may be less likely to let go of them especially now we are in the grip of Michael Bay's Film dynasty.  One great purchase was made with a former coursemate at University, who was selling two boxes - one of Transformers, and one of Star Wars toys.  My brother cut a deal with gentleman, and we ended up with a box each.  I also bought an almost-complete Ultra Magnus from eBay, which was supposed to come with a Galvatron as well, but didn't (as the seller had lost it, or some bullshitty excuse?), so got sent the king of all baddasses, Grimlock, a few days later.  There's a Grimlock toy in the Natural History Museum as well, fact fans!  I once found a beat up Optimus Prime (with no arms, sadly - the plastic had long before been snapped off from the die-cast chest...) in Oxfam when I worked there, and gifted it to my brother, many years ago now.

Funnily enough, then next largest generation represented in my collection is the first part of the so-called Unicron Trilogy, Transformers Armarda toys (I'll get onto Beast Wars in a minute).  These brightly coloured and tactile toys were available in the early part of the 2000s, funnily enough coinciding perfectly with e broadcast of the cartoon series.  Whatever.  This particular toy line has been named the 'Pokeformers' line, with the arrival of 'Minicons' as a concept.  These tiny transformers could be linked up with the larger toys (known in the continuity as 'bulks'), which unlocked a new feature - flip out weaponry, moving gears &c &c.  They also came in packs, usually of three, some of which could combine to create either a gestalt robot themselves or a huge weapon (which was a major macguffin in the accompanying fiction).  Whatever, I don't really care too much, the point it they are Transformers and I like them because of that.  All the Minicons I own live in a metal lunch box, and all but two out of... say 8 or 9(?) of the larger toys I bought brand new from the Traveling Man shop that lived on top of the local Gamestation.  I bought the race team minicons when on the infamous 24hr round trip to Ypres and back with school as well AREN'T I THE COOLEST GUY EVER.

Three of the biggest toys are from the previous generation: Robots in Disguise.  This was the "missing" generation in between Beast Machines (more on that later) and Armarda.  I bought two toys (Sideburn and Megatron) from Traveling Man (what a great place that was), and also received the Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus as Christmas presents one year after the other.  These are also great toys - detailed alt-modes and pretty decent robot modes, but cursed/blessed with super-fiddly transformations.  I'm often not too bothered about the surrounding fictional universe too much, but love the toys.  They're like little puzzles, and I like that a lot.  Outside of the RiD cars, I also have a Sky-Byte, who is pretty rad when you think about it (especially seeing as his characterisation is that of a sensitive poet LOL what a great baddy.)

Other than that, there's some ephemera too.  I can only recall one Beast Wars toy (yes it's time), and that's Terrosaur.  Now, I'm actually not that keen on Beast Wars toys, and was a bit too young to enjoy the cartoon series (what was it, like 1996?  I was such a TRUKK NOT MUNKY guy when I was a kid).  I didn't really like the fact that they turned into animals, and that on a lot of them, the animal mode was worn on the back of the robot (left over parts of the alt-mode like this are called kibble), and they just weren't the same Autobots and Decepticons that were in The Transformers The Movie... These Maximals and Predacons?  Whatever.  I got into watching the cartoon series in first year at University, and I now think it's bloody brilliant!  There are a lot of smart in-jokes for the Fandom (whatever you do, do not annoy a fandom mmmmkay?) to enjoy, and the writing on the episodes is really top notch!  The computer graphics are really dated nowadays, but I think that's part of the charm in some of the visual gags as well.  10/10 I recommend this series (if you like Transformers).  What happened next, Beast Machines, is something that most people don't like to talk about.  I'm a little uneasy about it as well, with bizarre toy design and a story line that is still difficult to get my head round. 

That's basically as far as my collection goes.  I've got about 98 issues of the Marvel comics series from the 80s (another inherited gift from my brother) in a draw, as well as some ancient choose-your-own adventure style books too.  I don't really collect anymore because... I just don't really have the money!  It's sad, isn't it?  I have, of course, been to see all three of the new movies directed by MICHAEL BAY, and will definitely be going to see the fourth when that's released, but funnily enough don't own any of the toys.  Once again, the designs are the main draw here, and while I think they look pretty good on screen (they're instantly recognisable after all), I'm not sure about how they work as toys, possibly the first time that the design importance has been that particular way round.  The first film came out when I was in a pretty involved and long-term relationship (2007), and the subsequent sequels (2009 and 2011) came out while I was at university, and the only transformers I bought at uni were half of the build team from RiD (eBay purchases, but I only got half the team), and a beat up pretender shell for G1 Dreadwing.  I dunno... Oh!  And the War for Cybertron toy for Optimus Prime.  I have a talent for working out how to transform an transformer without having to look at the transformation instructions.  I love sitting and working it out, and it's pretty satisfying being able to convert them back and forth with a few swift clicks.

It is a little sad that I've stopped collecting for now, but at the moment I don't have the space to display them or the money to buy, being an impoverished choral scholar.  Even at Mum's house they almost all live in a crate... Although my room at her house is in a perpetual state of being half packed for when I move house AGAIN.  I keep up with a Transformers news site at least once or twice a week so I can stay abreast of new toys, new comic books, and of course news and rumours about the upcoming Transformers 4.  I guess this has been my longest running collection (I've been buying transformers even before I started getting antique music scores) really!  One day, when I have the time and money, I'll revive it.  Just you watch.

That's all.  For now.

Disc 1

So I was fleeced. Voluntarily of course. But still fleeced.

EDGE Magazine may be one of the best publications available, but along with GAMEStm and RetroGamer, is one of the more...expensive takes on videogame journalism. I like it though, and every now anad again I feel the need to buy some class in. This month has a large report on Batman: Arkham City, so obviously I need to know all about it. It also has a nice article on 50 games that defeated by their own genepool (or something), high cult titles. There's also a page column about videogames and storytelling, with the recent L.A Noire as the example.

The cut and thrust of this column is that games cannot be a great storytelling medium. Anyone who has ever played a recent Metal Gear Solid title, especially with an hour and a half cutscene in MGS4 will have an opposite opinion. I too have a different opinion, especially after recent games. Well, except for the MGS schtick. I mean, seriously.

A lot of classic games have no story. Not really. The 'story' only exists in order to make the macguffin mean anything at all to the player; the best know formula goes like this: You, the protagonist (main character) must collect [item] and/in order to stop [bad guy] and rescue [whoever]. Let's roll out some well known action/adventure games and see how it compares.
In the Sonic the Hedgehog series you have to collect the Chaos Emeralds and stop Dr. Robotnik (or more recently Dr. Eggman) and save the world.

In any Super Mario game, you collect Stars/Shine Sprites/whatever (it is always stars) in order to stop Bowser and save the world/universe and rescue the Princess.

In the Legend of Zelda...You know what, I give up on this one, we all know how this works. Collect whatever mystical items needed to stop Ganon and save Hyrule and the Princess!

Metroid games see you repowering your suit in order to stop the Space pirates and sate your appetite for revenge/save the galaxy. That time you are the Princess. Ooops, SPOILERS!
Even HALO follows this simple and effective model...except I guess you don't collect anything that time. Right?

The story exists so you can keep doing what you're doing with an added difficulty curve. This is really what's missing from life, with no over arching plot to guide you (once you leave education anyway), and a difficulty curve that resembles a sheer cliff face, I often feel like a few scripted events might be helpful. But anyway, the true focus of the videogame is the player. It's why the protagonist is often silent, so the player can simply insert themselves into the action. Link has never had a voice actor beyond his grunting, and I for one hope he never will. As technology marches on, the ability to present a videogame in the style of a movie that you participate in every now and then has come to the point where people are even beginning to think of it as a viable option. Yes Metal Gear Solid, I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

Of course, at the beginning of the summer vac I purchased a copy of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes form Fleabay for a buy it now! brand new price. I haven't played The Twin Snakes for years, having only borrowed a copy from a friend when it came out new, and haven played the original Metal Gear Solid for even more years since the end of my PlayStation years. This is the remix made for the Nintendo's GameCube, a system which sails on into its tenth year of operation. This MGS is nothing short of God damn freaking hilarious, with more slo-mo blurry cutscenes than a co-directed effort from Zack Snyder and the Wachoski brothers. I mean, talk about the cutscene that follows the Hind-D battle. Jumping on top of a missile and returning fire with the Stinger? And the Snow Field? Where our hero backflips and lands exactly on the butt of the PGS-1 in order to flip it back into his hands and land the kill shot. And the opening of the fight with Vulcan Raven? WHERE DOES HE EVEN KEEP THAT STINGER?! Phew. The dialogue at times sounds like a bad B-movie (hello MST3K), and of course, there's a Ninja. WHO CAN DEFLECT BULLETS. The amount of time spent developing the ridiculous story through text only codec conversations and massively long cutscenes is absolutely unbelievable! The pay off, of course, is listening to David Hayter as Solid Snake. His voice is brilliant, especially listening to the "I am a world-weary soldier who's just a pawn" delivery. Colonel becomes Kernel (say it in the voice). Wonderful.

The true story of Metal Gear Solid reaches far into the past of its own continuity, which is where MGS3 and its ilk comes from, with the 'Legendary Soldier' Big Boss, Snake's 'father', who Snake kills (but doesn't kill?) back in the 70's. And in the Jungle. But there are still the titular walking robots, just to reassure us that it is a Japanese game saga after all. Sadly the same problem afflicts all of the MGS titles, and it is the overblown cutscenes. The use of the player directing an already developed charcter is not problematic; you as the player (like I do) will probably identify better with this hero of cynicism as he is rather than if he were a Link style blank face. Snake's character becomes more moralistic as the game (and the sage) progresses, as he understands that he is nothing more than a pawn in a cataclysmic nuclear wargame. He's just this guy, you know? A great plus for this first 3D title is its sheer believability. The Shadow Moses Incident (as the common parlance has it) takes place in 2005. Everything except for the titular Mech is existing technology. And the Stealth Unit. This is the thing, it could be true.

No, the problem is that the player can, and often does become disconnected from the game by being forced to sit back and watch rather than play so much of it. Even Hayter himself described MGS4 as an "18 hour immersive movie" rather than a game. Who the hell wants to sit through an 18 hour movie? I can hear something about Wagner's Ring Cycle, but this is no place to debate videogames as high art. The issues of genetic engineering and nuclear danger are well handled by MGS though. Presented in this believable context of a theatre of a modern, cold war, could one successful Black-Ops insertion end the threat like this? We'll never know. That's the point of Black-Ops.

But games cast in this fashion will never succeed in telling a story like this. Too much is out of the players' hands. Theres so much political waffle behind it, not to mention real film cut into the rendered scenes. I like it. It's a good story! It's very importantly plausible. Who the hell knows what happens up in Alaska if the US Government are behind it and don't want you to know about it? But sometimes it's almost as if the sneaking sections are unecessary. Or just breaks between the next marathon cutscene.

Tune in next time for my poster child of games as a valid storytelling medium. There's a lot of politics behind that one as well, but I think it's expressed better.

And anyway, it's all a matter of opinion, right?

TL;DR oh shit.

Cdom7

I'm never one to do things in an orthodox manner.

Now, I've been playing the Tenor Banjo, off and on for some 7 or so years. I own an Ozark 2102T, the 2102 range being a range of beginner instruments, the Tenor model costing a mere £150 on average. I first took up the instrument after hearing the Banjo solo from the title track of the soundtrack to the Anime film Metropolis. Loosely based on the manga of the same name by Osamu Tezuka, widely regarded as the father of modern manga, can be found translated by Dark Horse Comics. Tezuka is also responsible for Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion (the source for The Lion King) and Buddha, a 14 volume account of the life of Siddharta Gautama, of course the Buddha. Anyway, the film version, directed by Rintaro, has a shit-hot soundrtrack, which opens with a Dixieland number, on the opening credits. Once the dialouge starts, the soundtrack fades out, and it is at this point that a Banjo solo starts. I wanted to play this solo more than anything at the time. I immediately petitioned my parents for a banjo. I didn't let up, which especially pleased my father (SARCASM)

So for Christmas, I recieved a Tenor Banjo, in a CGI Banjo bag. Wow. Actually, the lining of the bag soon ripped, which caused the bass side tuning pegs to become stuck. The thing about the art and science of tuning a banjo is that the change in position of the bridge and the pressure on the skin head means that all the strings must be fine tuned at once, making a restring a long-winded excercise. The Tenor model is tuned in fifths, namely CGda, the same pitch and tuning as the modern orchestral viola. The first string should therefore be A440. As a 9 gauge string, this is pretty high. Guitarists may recognise the 9 gauge as their first string as well. I like to string mine with Martin Vega strings, where the d and a are silver. Lovely jubbly. It can be a real life-shortener to tune the a up though, so I only replace my strings should one go, or once a year for the whole set. I put aside the 14th of February for this arduous task. See, I can have a sense of humour. This wide tuning, however, after some experimentation, I soon discovered was wrong for my chosen goal. After a year of following the excercises in the Mel Bay Banjo Method I had bought for me, I tried to play along with the solo...to discover the inevitable. The type of instrument used in the recording is presumably the Plectrum Banjo, tuned CGBd, with a long, 22-fret neck. The Tenor only has 19 frets. Hmmm.

My Banjo has somewhat of a unique feature, that of a perilously high action. Grim. Approaching and excceding the 12th fret becomes a nightmare proposition, even 7th fret on the lower strings can get a bit hairy. It's a shame, because it's actually got quite a nice tone for saying it's just a small open back. Even seasoned guitarist Mr. G. Smith of Oakwood was terrified and dismayed by the action. Its a matter of tuning though. The bridge is far away down the head to keep the tuning right all the way up. And Jesus Harry Christ have my fingers gotten soft! It's very painful , and the blisters are forming under my fingertips already. Why have I dusted off my Baby?

I want to play the Cello Suites. I can hear Herr Bach rising from his angry grave now, but turns out it's quite popular for Banjo players to take on the first suite prelude, particularly the iconic prelude (you know how it goes). I'm sure Cellists, not to mention classical music buffs and pretentious jackasses around the globe are grinding their teeth at the thought of their master, Joh Seb Bach's wonderful suites for the solo Violoncello are being rendered on such an instrument. Well who cares. I mean, seriously. Some idiot is always banging on about the inexorable nature of Bach, that he and his music will live on pretty much forever (helped by the great availablity of it on the internet, natch) due to some ineffable and architectural quality that carries on for all time...blaaaaaah. Whatever.

The Cello suites, are, unsurprisingly, very hard. Of course, they're idiosyncratically composed for the Violoncello...or are they? Various conjecture (or, my friend and yours Wikipedia) leads us to the hitherto lost instruments Viola da Spalla (literally Viol on the Shoulder, a smaller violoncello held by a strap to the player's shoulder) and the Viola Pomposa, a large viola/violoncello with a fifth string tuned a perfect fifth above the top a. This is specifically for the last suite, the D major, that according to three of the sources is "a cinqe cordes", with only one giving the exact tunings. There's a wonderful free edition on the WIMA that has everything which I'm using.

The G major suite is the most covered because it's technically the easiest. The prelude is very well known, and its a nice bit of Bach to roll out as a party piece. However, you'll notice that the action height on a 'Cello is really very low, as it your average internet Banjo players'. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Keep telling yourself it's good for your technique, and get on with it. The extra height gives extra punch, which allowed me to cut through the whole band in a UEA Grad Bar Jazz night. Tremolo solos as standard, and then block chords in the finest Dixieland style.

It's hard, and it hurts, but ultimately, the Cello suites are great. Fiendish, yes. I might have to purchase a new Banjo specifically for playing them. And what a shame that would be.

And the title? My tuning chord. it goes 0-3-2-3. Just think about it.

The Shape of Things to Come

Time for another episode of my life!  It's like I Hate It Here, with a little I'm so poor and depressed, topped of with pop culture references and then just a smidgen of wow hey there's this girl.  META.

I managed to go for the entirety of October without writing and publishing an entry here, and we're over halfway through November with almost the same statistic.  Basically, 3rd year has turned out to be what we in the trade call a shitter, much like the step from GCSE to A level really.  Last year, quite basically, fucked me up, and to be perfectly honest I'm very lucky to have stepped back onto campus let alone stay.  I'm going to make the best of a bad job, and clear as much of this mess up as I possibly can.  I have no idea how many weeks are left to term...about 4?  Makes sense; Spamcroft doesn't finish til the 19th of December, and term only just behind on the 17th.  I've got a horror story of things to do in that time, and most of this includes getting up early and eating regularly, the latter of which is usally one of my skills, the former famously a non-entity.  

Due to my complete inability to budget, I am down to YOU ARE FUCKED into my overdraft. Man, debt never got so self-perpetuating!  Zomg.  Actually it's really bad, this stuff is just slipping through my fingers, certainly not dripping any more!  Drat.  I don't know, it could be worse, but at the moment it's flat out bad.  Importantly survivable though, and a damn good character building experience!  At least, I'm sure that suffering builds character, right?  

Over the past term I have been asked to continue for an entire cantata, learn a new piece for a recital in 3 weeks, learn my sung recital in 2 weeks, play hymns, organise and direct a choir, direct evensong, be the librarian for the UEA choir, not kill anyone...&c &c.  You get the point.  Yes, I'm sure some of you losers out there will see all this off with the tipping of your voluminous hat, but for some of us this is difficult.  Very difficult.  I recieve no sympathy, because I don't ask for any.  Academic and musically based tasks can be shifted under my own steam with effort and that's it.  Making sure everything else is in ship shape is another matter though.  Work just about comes in on the radar, but I'm the tiniest bit behind (but constantly trying to not be), that 9am start on a Monday never gets any easier, does it?  YES I KNOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE 9AM STARTS EVERY DAY OF EVERY WEEK.  Jesus Christ...

Dissertation-wise, I actually feel pretty happy though!  I'm writing an incredible beard-scratcher about the English Pipe Organ in the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries.  I'm going out on a massive limb and say that in comparison to Continental building fashions, the English Organ was basically anomalous, but the developments that took place are a worthy addition to the international tradition of Organ Building.  Basically, due to the short length (10k-12k, bibliography and footnotes included), I will only have room to write about two things, which are the main focus of the anomalous trend anyway, the Swell Department and the so-called 'Iron Pedal, the Shifting Movement.  Registration aids never really caught on in the big continental schools like they did in Blightly, and enclosed departments even later...except for the Iberian school?  Much research is needed.  But it'll be good!  Honest.  If you're into that sort of thing though.  

And what about the most predictably ponderous part of my life?  What of that capricious and alluring female form?  Well, what of it indeed.  Current results are...hmm...Confounding.  I'm still having that same old problem of mixing messages and misreading signs.  Just like always.  At least some things never change, eh?  Tcham, to hell if I know!  There is one in particular (isn't there always?) who has really got my attention.  Without even trying, obviously.  There are points if you can guess, but I doubt anyone will, especially if I keep this cryptic enough...heh heh.  But it's strange, I have began to treat this girl slightly differently to others without even realising I'm doing so, in fact I found myself reacting mentally to my physical actions in a rather surprised way.  The long and the short of it is I have no genuine idea whether it'll go anywhere or if I'll get the "That's so sweet but..." line (oh how I tire), but you know, I feel a little closer to an actual human being than usual, and that makes me happy.  Who knows where anything else could go.  If I do indeed try, it means stepping up onto a supernatural stage, where truly I am an alien in foreign lands.  But as we all know, all the world's a stage and the rest...the rest is vaudeville.  

More time, and a little patience will tell.  Maybe some self belief won't go amiss either.  You know what he says...CREDO!