Django Reinhardt

That's true Gemmill they seem to be unable to do gentle, natural accents it's always the full blarney and as such sounds ridiculously false. I haven't seen the two films you mention but I can't imagine they can be as bad as this. In saying I bet British actors doing American accents grate on them just as much. Hugh Laurie's turn in House strikes even me as laughably bad so I can't imagine how Americans might greet it. Really anyone who's ever seen A Bit of Fry & Laurie will hear little difference between the accent he used in the big business US parody, the one we all laughed at, and the one he adopts in House, which we're presumably supposed to take seriously. No that I begrudge him him success of course.

Well I suppose I'll join in with the haters. I thought it one of the worst films I've seen in a long while. I did watch it all the way through though but then I can count the films I've switched off before the end on one hand. My time isn't that precious. Why is it so bad? Where to start. As previously mentioned terrible acting coupled with the most atrocious Irish accents I've heard on film since Orson Welles tried one in the Lady from Shanghai. A horrible self-concious attempt to be cool throughout the film which backfires almost every time. Billy Connolly. Defoe's embarrassing sub-Oldman prancing. I'm sorry but my vitrol toward the film has been somewhat eroded by time. It seems though that it's either a film that you love or hate though I'm sure the lovers must love the idea of film more than the actual film. The idea of schoolkid vigilantes (or rather man-children) righting the wrongs of the world in a self-consciously cool (as defined by Tarantino) manner on some shallow religious pretext (see Sam Jackson's turn in Pulp Fiction). I suppose that might appeal to some people. And that's just fine.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Brokeback Mountain Rich and beautifully acted tale of forbidden hopes and dreams. This isn't a gaudy tale of sweaty cowboys humping each other (although it does happen at one point), it's one of angst and romance, of dreams and reality, of sadness and of hope. It should win the best picture oscar on merit alone let alone to upset the moral majority who insist on the biblical wrongness of man o' man love (though I suspect it's really the sweaty humping that gets their collective backs' up). The Constant Gardiner Ray Fiennes is a fine actor, a traditionally limp British stalward who seems often to be pinned for those roles of excessive politeness that are given to Hugh Grant in fluffier material. No this is a serious film, dealing with serious issues, how the unprotected people over there *points*, are being chewed and spat out by the mythical multi-conglomerate-pharmacutical-corperations or some such. Rachel Weiss does her best Kate Winslet impression and the film spirals somewhat confusingly out of control, as these conspiracy thrillers often do. It's a film of flashbacks, flash forwards, flash floods and flashy camera angles (at times). But it's nothing we haven't seen before, just a good solid conspiracy thriller with a top Ray Fiennes performance as the drippy British guy who slowly grows a Hollywood backbone. Cowboy love gets my oscar nomination out of the two, both are better than the horribly manipulative Crash.

Sneer at them and react to every question with a slight sigh as if you can't quite believe anyone would have the nerve to ask such a stupid question in an interview of all places. Lean forward in your chair and jutt out your chin aggressively. Laugh inappropriately, at odd times, when they've finished asking a question of when you've answered something in all seriousness. Honestly, the opportunites are endless. You could have some real fun in there if you're relaxed enough. Of course not getting the job is much simpler but if you want to have a laugh then some of the above is a good start.

Thanks Pilchard Chops, a little love keeps me going a long time and I'm sure you're right about that being another reason why they've been unfairly dismissed. Admittedly they have bowed to their own egos more than once but really how many great artists haven't? You'll love this collection I'm sure.

Oh dear. Super Furry Animals - Songbook Volume 1 Listening to the slightly misleadingly titled greatest hits/ best of album that is songbook, it's difficult to see why the Furries aren't one of the best loved bands of the last ten years. While they're undoubtedly well liked there's some sniggerring mistrust of them among the indie kid community at large. They're seen as too wacky, too flippant, too un-serious, maybe even too weird. They make pure pop songs, they make sugar coated elevator music, they make ballads that turn into happy hardcore, they sing songs in Welsh, they're not really fitting in with anyone else's bandwagon. One listen to this album tells you a whole lot about this band's qualities and makes you wonder why you haven't been listening to them so much in the past ten years. Just listen to the sublime calypso of Northern Lights, the honey soaked guitars of Ice Hockey Hair or the odd hybrid of Slow Life. This is a band that more people really should be clutching to their breasts and it's still not too late since unlike just about every other band of their vintage, they're still putting out the good stuff (see also Supergrass).

And so I did. Thanks Kenneth. RapidShare is an absolute marvel isn't it? Maybe we should give this link to Mr Souness, to let him know where he's going wrong.

That would be just dandy Kenneth. Just use something like RapidShare. It's simplicity itself to use.

Here are some more details taken from the Mirror website. How much of this is journo fantasy and how much Jose's work is open to question, especially in the diagrams linked to on that page. Not all of it is exactly rocket science and some of it seems patently wrong. Interesting stuff though.

I've just been reading about this again, having read about it the first time round without taking much notice. I'm wondering if anyone knows anything more about these so called leaked "dossiers". I'm sure like me many of you would be intrigued to see how he could possibly find five pages to say about the current Newcastle side (five pages of useful stuff anyway not just Jean Alain Boumsong written in big letters on the first three pages and Titus Bramble written on the last two). Sorry if this has already been discussed at length but if anyone has seen the thing or wants to pretend they have to come up with some quality jibes could they please post details below. Anyway I enclose a link to refresh your collective memory.

Catterick wasn't really this year was it? It seems like ages since then. Yes I loved Catterick and thought it the best thing Vic and Bob have done for years, arguably since their Smell of series maybe even Big Night Out. Actually it might just be the very best thing they've ever done. I do hope they make another series or something in a similar vein anyway.

Sadly, or perhaps not my parents were not musical beings, not to the extent of myself anyway. They in no way defined themselves or the moment with music. They were and are the type of people who listen to best ofs pretty much exclusively. Not to say they don't like music but it would be fair to describe them as non-musical. Obviously though as a teenager I rejected almost everything my parents had ever listened to with the possible exception of the Beatles, only as the years progressed to re-appropriate many of their favourite artists for myself following a radical re-evaluation period. Not exactly re-appropriating though since although they'd heard a couple of Elton John and Johnny Cash songs they were almost completely in ignorance of the greater body of work involved. Just because your parents may sing along to Candle in the Wind (whatever) it doesn't mean you can't listen to Honky Chateau and enjoy with almost a complete lack of irony. They claimed to be Beatles fans but hadn't heard Dear Prudence, claimed to be stones fans but didn't know Wild Horses. As you can see I've not yet cast off my teenage precociousness. In answer to you question though, Forever in Blue Jeans by Neil Diamond and Your Song by Elton John. Both great songs I would have rejected to the ends of the earth as a teenager.

Nope right now you have the dubious distinction of being the sole recipient of my rambling muses. Sole recipients I would say if I wasn't reigning in my egoitism. I've got the feeling that wasn't meant as a compliment but I'll take it as one anyway.

Cee-lo - Green in the Soul Machine You've got to love rap music, hip-hop where it sounds like they've virtually cast the kitchen sink into the mix. There's so much going on lyrically, musically, you just can't keep up with the sheer density of ideas being hurled around. Cee-lo's Soul Machine is a good example of everything I love about hip-hop. Not the stupid posturing of thug jawed retards, but the wit and the breathless way this density of ideas is put down. Still it doesn't sound cluttered and fussy at all, it all fit's together intuitively. Well it would do if your brain and your hips moved a lot faster than mine do. Accessible percussive complexity. Genius. Of course you won't read about that side of rap music in your daily red top, I suppose you might do in your broadsheet supplements but there's no way they'd use the phrase thug jawed retards. They'd be too scared to offend their bosses.

I almost forgot about Curb, I suppose I was really thinking primarily of British comedy shows. Of course Seinfeld and Curb are excellent if you like your Jewish comedy (which I do) although the whole Producers stage show idea was half baked at best and at worst, well, just shit. I did like some of the petty arguments with Stiller and Schwimmer though, they were pretty funny. The denouement of the series though was horribly contrived and unfunny. I never watch Sky One programs since their trailers make everything look terrible, even the Simpsons which is quite an achievement really. So I've not seen this Earl program. Oh it's on channel 4 is it? Well it's got a trailer very much like Dead Like Me or one of those other tacky American shows. Perhaps it is really funny but the trailer put me off. Slacker trailer-trash bloke wins the lottery and wants to put right all the wrongs in his life. That seems to be the skit. As a rule I don't find much American comedy funny, except the Jewish American stuff obviously. Personal preference I guess, or is it some deep seated xenophobia?

Although I enjoyed Peep Show I thought by the end of the series they were rather running out of ideas, it seemed increasingly forced and the characters just didn't seem to ring true. I can't really decide whether the quality was really declining or whether I was just getting sick of it (after all I watched the first series over a couple of nights on video just before the second series started). Still I enjoyed the first series more so I suppose that theory is out of the window. With the decline of Little Britain and my general dislike of the likes of Peter Kaye and Ricky Gervais (though The Office wasn't bad) I'm a bit worried about TV comedies at the moment. The Mighty Boosh suffered the second series blues and the likes of Little Britain has just about ground itself into the dirt. I suppose there's always the next Chris Morris vehicle to look forward too though I wasn't particularly enamoured with Nathan Barley. No, what we need is another series of The Day Today or even just some re-runs (to save me getting the videos out their boxes). Maybe I'll finally sit down and watch Nighty Night in the meantime.

The Thick of It The best comedy of 2005 in my opinion. A razor sharp satire of British politics with Chris Langham and Peter Capaldi brilliant in their respective roles as the somnambulant minister and the acerbic communications director. A street smart and savage take on the Yes Minister dynamic that is as daring as it is hilarious. I just hope they make another series of this and a good six parter at least, not these piffling three parters that leave you hankering for so much more. Armando's name is yet again a mark of quality and long may it continue (though I guess in a few years he'll probably be writing musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber). Hyperspace Now I've only seen the first episode, having foolishly decided to use Teleport Replay to compare and contrast this with the fitfully amusing Red Dwarf. No, I know it's never good to have such firm expectations but this has to be the worst comedy show I've seen in a long time. Well just imagine a whole half hour devoted to the Nick Frost we see in the Spaced and Shaun of the Dead without the likes of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright. You can see him reprising his part in all the gags we laughed at in those two infinitely superior offerings but with nothing else happenning, with no funny gags and no remotely interesting characters he and the show look dead in the water. Sorry to be so harsh Nick, I know the writers should take the brunt of the blame but you're the only semi-familiar face I can pin this one on.

Fudge Tunnel - The Complicated Futility of Ignorance I liked Fudge Tunnel a lot when they were around in the early nineties. I wasn't a metal fan at all back then and never classed Fudge Tunnel as metal. In a way they were quite far removed from my other loves; Joy Division, Dylan, Smiths. Listening to it now it really hasn't aged a bit (though this is the one album of theirs I didn't own at the time, 1995 was a different musical era for me). This is a really good record though if you can imagine yourself listening to a cross between grunge and metal. It's actually pretty funky in places, that rhythmic groove that always pervades the best rock and heavy metal music. Now I just need a free mosh pit and some heavy duty hair extensions. Actually no, this is short hair metal isn't it?

Personally I think you were searching for some answers to justify the self-loathing you feel whenever you imagine yourself coupling with young boys. Such is the fury displayed here I can only imagine you have a lot of self-loathing to justify but let's not follow that to its logical conclusion. Let's instead focus on why you felt the need to bring this to our attention. What motivated you to post the link in the first place? For us to share in the horror of your self-loathing? For us to exclaim impotently (sorry no offence) "oooh what a world, what a world!" like I imagine all those tabloid readers do when they read of the latest sexual deviants. It's much as how I feel when I see the proliferation of look at this sicko here threads on this otherwise fine forum, I feel like I'm reading the News of the World's grisly murder edition. Look at this sicko guys, why I'd like to string him up and ooo spit in 'is eye cor blimey woodneye! Surely we've got something better to talk about than to dredge the very worst of the trash media horror stories for our endless delectation. Call me an ostrich but I'd prefer not to give these "stories" more than a cursory glance let alone come to my favourite forum and find every second thread about this sicko or that sicko. Really, bad things happen, let's not roll around in them. It doesn't make me feel any more normal than I did before and it certainly doesn't increase my love quota towards the world in general (which wasn't particularly high to begin with). Now let me get on with commenting on films and music where my reality is stringently censored.

Excellent Meenzer, just the ticket to liven such a depressing tabloid headline thread.

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room Thoroughly entertaining look at the dark underbelly of the American Dream, market capitalism taken to the nth degree complete with power shortages being engineered to bump up energy prices and account books based on expected and not actual earnings. Hilarious stuff really if it hadn't cost people their pensions and livelihoods. Let's hope the men at the top are all rounded up and locked away for long enough that they'll never get to see their buried treasure. Wishful thinking considering the owner is a close friend of the Bushes. Still, I bet it was some ride and it's difficult not to feel some kind of empathy with an ideology based on greed. After all many of us are still Thatcher's children. Me and You and Everyone We Know Wilfully eccentric and disarmingly frank look at one of these mythical small town American neighbourhoods that seem to exist in many of their independant (in spirit) films. Full of snapshots of characters' eccentricities and idiosyncrasies (if they're not the same thing) and chock full of feel good niceness that makes you really want to like the film. Maybe this makes it a good film, I certainly enjoyed it. I'd really be the worst film critic in the world since I can never explain why I like a film, I just like it. I can tell you why I don't like a film, but why I like one. That's much harder. I like this film because it made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Eat that Barry fucking Norman.

I know it's a little distateful but I'm curious as to the impaling on railings thing. Did he impale them on separate railings or was it kebab style? Either way it's an unusually disturbing detail and I'm amazed he's even been considered for release albeit it was over thirty years ago. I'm sure it'll take considerable police resources to stop someone tracking him down and doing something equally disturbing to him. Perhaps coating him in flour and water and dipping him head-first into a man sized vat of boiling chip fat would be too good for him.

You're either a closet scouse sympathiser or a big team referee apologist, I can see no other reason for your massively wrongheaded opinions in this matter. Anyway, what better way for us all to vent our frustration at a sadly predictable outcome than to accuse the ref of big team bias? Hinting both at the gutless fear of a potential backlash and at the implication of a slimy backhander in some dark corner of Merseyside. Referees are scum and deserve to be blamed at every turn for almost any footballing misfortune. To be honest I'd blame them for my extra-footballing failings if I thought I could get away with it. Officious little ponces.

Sadly it looks like the referee has been a major deciding influence on the outcome. Firstly in giving Liverpool an erroneous penalty (which they fortunately missed) then by not sending off the Liverpool goalkeeper Carson when as the last man he felled an attacker who was clean through on goal. Good fightback by Liverpool but they were ably assisted by another gutless big team referee. Luton did rather capitulate but I won't let that get in the way of my big team referees rant