Location Location Location

Class war and other flavours:

Saw these today, is it just me or does "Croxton Manor" sound less like an aspirational foodie organic heaven and more like your towns dodgy sink estate("what d'ya expect she's from Croxton manor") or the local hard school that everyone's a bit scared of .

I bet bus driver refuse to drive past these crisps and estate agents try to say "well they are not really croxton manor cheddar more maldon sea salt and aged Siena balsamic fringes crisps...."


Every sane person knows crisps only come from one place .....Bradford

It’s a small world

Model Citizens:

Here's my latest craze tilt-shift photographs mainly because my flickr and real friend C pointed me in the direction of the website that quickly does them for you. Don't worry about the theory just enjoy thes of pictures of real life made to look like a model village. I hope you like my train set pic. Here's a proper example

Like most people of I always liked miniature worlds, I had rail layout as kid and part of the joy of it was the tiny people and getting down and looking at the trains from close up. Most people have imagined walking round a dolls house or driving a toy matchbox car. One of my favourite daydreams as a kid was imaging climbing up a pile of sand or broken concrete wall but at the scale of tiny airfix toy solider (1.72 kit fans).

It's also the fascination of what we always called snowstorms but seem to be now called snowglobes. Here's my film of my Anthony Gormley's snowstorm that someone on youtube wanted to buy the cheeky bugger.

Which leads to BLBW getting me this excellent book "Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu" for Christmas (I got him a space rocket and big war comic book) which is full funny and touching little scenes made with I suspect of model railway characters in tiny scenes on London streets, have a look at his site for the more. The book has a foreword by Will Self which is his usual windy arse.

The future is now part: 999

Robotson Crusoe: "I just popping down the Crater do you need anything.."
Sorry to bang on about the future already being here and that but here it is again on a Micro and Macro level.

Micro Machines: On the home front I got a little usb plug in freeview card for my lap top meaning 25 years after having to plug the computer into the TV I can now plug a TV into the computer and record TV etc and it worked out the box and is just sort of normal and yet incredible at the same time.

Macro Machines: On a larger grander level I was just reading about the Nasa Mars Landers that have been slowly and doggedly exploring mars remotely all those miles away. They have been doing it for 20 times longer than expected and have further deepened out knowledge and helped confirm the theory that water once flowed on mars. This is incredible that someone could build a machine that works so far from our reach to quote Douglas Adams if you think it's a long way to the shops well Mars is...
Further proof that sometimes we need to go and find out first hand is offered by the fact that one of the reasons the robots have lasted so long is that their solar cells have not got covered in dust because the winds on mars are stronger than expected and blow the dirt away. We probably wouldn't know this without going there. It's not a mars shattering fact but few pieces of information are it's when they are all put to that interesting things are revealed.
Of course there are other ways of getting to Mars. Over to you Francis Albert

Live version of Fly me to the moon By Frank Sinatra

The Global Village pt 1212: "The virtual school gate"

It seems that every female columnist this week has had something to say about the French government minster who gave birth and then went back to work the next day.

Sadly you can't not write a piece and then tell people I'm not writing a column about this because it's none of our business which would be my prefered point of view. Also her main crime it would seem is looking "hot" and skinny.

And of course blokes gossip and slag off in much same way we just like to pretend we don't.

Tonight’s Lottery Ticket

Film Review: Saturday night at the Movies

To London's busy London to celebrate with E&R&R&S..... Happy birthday E

We went to the Curzon and had a marvellous time seeing the excellent "Slumdog millionaire".

I've always liked Danny Boyle's work but I think this is his most complete cohesive film for ages. It's a modern thrilling fable set in Indian charting the childhood of 3 slum kids and is set around a miraculous gameshow appearance by the main character. I won't do the plot here as you'll have heard about it elsewhere. Just give some thoughts.

Firstly Ignore all the "feel good film of year nonsense", that is if you are expecting "My best friend's wedding" or "calendar girls" it's feel good only in the way that really good art makes you feel more alive excites you, entertains and engages. It's not feel good in the general meaning i.e. rolling skating with Dalmatians tampon ad "feel good" patronising nonsense let's kick ABBA to death way.
What to say:

• Slumdog looks great with excellent Kinetic camera work.
  
• It sounds good particular the scene on the train where they start playing the M.I.A track see below (if it seems a little 2007 I think they had problems releasing the film which is madness because it so good).
  
• The kids' acting especially the little kids is really good.
  
• Boyle credits poor people with a rich life which although hard isn't dull or meaningless but without being tedious, worthy and wholemeal about it, it's not a lecture on extreme poverty but doesn't trivialise hardship either. One thing to mention is that it does have violence in it from the start, nothing extreme but you don't get through life in ghetto without the odd black eye, bust lip or being turned over by the cops.
  
• My only complaint was that the Curzon's aircon was faulty, there must have dust or something blowing out because I got something in my eye towards eye just for a moment not for long what with my steely manly eyes mind you....
  


• So in short Slumdog Millionaire is definitely worth a trip to flicks, (it won't look as good on the small screen, India is after all a big country.)

Here's Danny Boyle playing doing magic with light!!

Here's the Clash sorry MIA paper planes

Friday, Friday.

Friday stuff not connected but just not disconnected probably

Overheard on the bus:
Posh trendy bloke probably called Josh to his mate and of course the rest of us.“Yeah, F*ck man Christmas was hellish, we went to Holly’s sisters in Paris and then back Suffolk. It was sooo mad I’m thinking of going to Thailand for 5 weeks at the end of month to get my mind sorted”Which amongst many other questions raises the idea of where do the Thais go to get their mind sorted or are their Christmas’ not as hellish?

War what it is good for...
In the paper they are bemoaning about the massive decline in UK manufacturing but a few pages later, in the international section they are up arms about a midland’s firm making engines for Israeli spy planes.

The Shoreditch burnt cream appreciation massive
In the Mediterranean café down leather lane theirs a bunch of Josh’s (probably) work mates, you know spiky hair, big coats, skinny stripy scarves (one of them keeps his trilby on while he’s eating) and one of them (thankfully bareheaded) is flicking through the pictures on his Iphone and they are not lairy shots of “a massive Nu year” but a second by second record of the making of some crème brulees. The desserts are discussed in the sort of spoddy detail only blokes can truly manage in ....“So you use a gas gun to caramelise the tops I just stick the grill full on....

Do tea tasters take coffee breaks?

Paging Picasso Opel kadett paging Picasso

The Name Game.
In a fit of madness the rail company gave me a seat this morning and on it was a free sheet which unusually I started reading and read a story about Kylie having a new bloke (good for her) and sharing a dog called Sheba with her ex.

The best bit however was that her Ex is now dating a Spanish actress (as you do, the same thing happen to me just as Raquel Cassidy trips out the door (we promised to stay friends) who should I meet down the market but Penelope Cruz and one thing leads to another and soon we are sharing morning espressos and next month we are going to adopt a pair Peruvian of twins) .....

Sorry where was I, oh yes Kylie ex’s new paramour is called “Goya Toledo” hurrah!
What a simply excellent name!

Let’s see if it passes the Mark Radcliffe playing out test.
(Scene: a small back to back terraced house in Malaga)

Knock, Knock.
"Hello, Tracey love ."
"Hello Mrs Toledo is your Goya playing out?"
Hmmmmm I’m not sure.

Top Goya Toledo fact:

She was in 5 epsisodes of a comedy called “Hermanos de Leche” which translates (roughly) as The Milk Brothers!