PSP
Posted: Mon 28 November, 2005 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 3 Comments »A while back, Herself promised to get me a Sony PSP for my birthday. It was one of those things I didn’t really need but one of the guys at work had got one on the day of release, and I was pretty impressed with the entire thing. So yeah, it was on my “oooh, oooh” list.
Come the birthday, and it didn’t materialise for reasons like everywhere being out of stock. Fairly good reasons, to be fair. So Herself said she’d get it for me for Christmas instead – and I placed an order for one with Amazon, which she could pay for. Easy. Only, of course, Amazon are – on occasions such as this – tossers, and were out of stock, and couldn’t guarantee delivery even in time for Christmas. Bearing in mind it was ordered on about Nov 10th, I figure that’s a bit of a piss-take.
Anyway, last week I got an email from Dabs.com saying they’d got PSP “Giga Packs” in stock now, so I ordered it. And lo, it arrived the next day. Unfortunately, this was a whole month before Christmas, and I’m crap at the entire willpower thing. So Herself tried to motivate me…
“If you can not open it, and leave it ’til Christmas, I’ll buy it. However, you can open it now, but you’ll have to pay for it, and I’ll get you something else for Christmas”.
Of course, it didn’t work. I managed to wait a whole three days before cracking, but crack I did.
And it’s great – I’m still impressed with the entire thing. I’ve been playing Wipeout Pure and Colin McRae rally (you get the idea of the kind of games I like) since then, and it’s still cool. Once I’ve sorted out PC stuff, I’ll also be ripping DVDs or Tivo’d programmes onto the 1Gb memory stick that came with it, and that’ll be cool too.
I know, I’m sad – but hey, what the hell, it’s a gadget. And it was never going to survive untouched for a month. Like the man said, “I can resist everything but temptation”.
The Woman In White – Palace Theatre, London
Posted: Sun 27 November, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »So yes, “The Woman In White”. It’s off to a bad start in my book by being by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, but we’ll gloss over that for the moment.
All told, it was an enjoyable performance. Certainly over-done and over-acted in some scenes, but in a way that kind of fits with the entire “Victoriana” theme of the production. The set itself is technically fantastic, with sections moving around, revolving, and also having projections put on them to set the scene – very technical, but excellently done. On a couple of occasions the changes and perspective alterations became quite dizzying and disorientating, but overall it was an interesting way of providing the scenes etc.
Lloyd-Webber himself is still a plagiarising twat though. I keep finding myself identifying bits of rhythms within the songs, and sometimes that can be quite jarring. I swear that one of the main themes throughout the production actually uses the chorus chords from “Hey, Macarena!”. So you can imagine how annoying that is.
Overall though, it was an enjoyable way to spend a manky cold November afternoon. I wouldn’t want to see it again, but I’m glad that I did see it. If that makes any sense at all…
Harry Potter IV – Goblet of Fire
Posted: Sat 19 November, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »Hmmm – so, what to say? Well – have you ever watched a TV programme with the Ceefax subtitling on, even though you could hear what they were saying? The new Harry Potter film’s kind of like that.
If you’ve read the book (and obviously most of the people who’ve been dying to see it have read the book multiple times) then the film is like watching the subtitles. You get the main ideas, but there’s a whole shedload of detail missed out.
It’s a perfectly serviceable film – played a lot more for laughs than the other three have been, although with hindsight there could be an air of “the light before the storm” about that. But all told it’s a good film – and at 2½ hours, it certainly goes on for long enough. If your regular cinema’s uncomfortable, pack a cushion.
All told? About 4/5 I’d say – it’s fine, just there’s a lot missing.
HP IV
Posted: Fri 18 November, 2005 Filed under: General, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Off to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight. Review and Thoughts will follow either tonight or tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow.
Or Sunday. We’re at a quiz night that we’ve helped organise tomorrow night, so that may account for a fair amount of time tomorrow too.
Infamy, Infamy
Posted: Tue 15 November, 2005 Filed under: Music, Photography, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 3 Comments »Well, now there’s a turn-up for the books.
The semi-review mainly-rant I wrote last week following the Tracy Chapman concerts has been put up on the Tracy Chapman site, for the day we went. Now that’s kind of scary – a whole new bundle of people who might just link here having read the review/thoughts. Well, unless they were some of the lower primates solipsistically convinced of their own importance above all others. In which case they may be just a tad offended (assuming any form of self-awareness or introspection at all) and leave nasty rude comments here.
Who knows?
And frankly, who cares? *grin*
Now, maybe I can start angling for press credentials, which’ll let me get my Canon past the door-gorillas.
Wall and Piece
Posted: Tue 15 November, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »One thing I got for my birthday (well, through the joys of gift vouchers) was a copy of “Wall and Piece, by Banksy. I’ve been a fan of Banksy’s work for a long time, and this book is a fantastic collection of the work to date.
There’s a lot of good bits within the book, but my favourite is probably on the outside of the back cover.
“There’s no way we’ll give you a quote to go on that book”Metropolitan Police 2005
Tracy Chapman – London. The Concert
Posted: Thu 10 November, 2005 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »So yes, as Gordon pointed out, a bit more about the gig itself.
First of all, the Hammersmith Apollo is a sod to get to. OK, the parking in the area isn’t too bad, and it’s dead opposite Hammersmith Tube station, but it’s still something that, at street level, is a sod to get to. And we’ll gloss over £7.50 for parking.
Inside, the venue’s pretty stunning. However, as with a lot of the Apollos, and older venues in general where they seem to have been converted from theatres, the seating is a) tight and cramped, and b) uncomfortable.
Despite all that, the concert itself was stonking. She doesn’t do much on stage, yet there’s a certain amount of presence, for want of a better word. Not showy, just three people (and a bit of unidentified (pre-recorded?) percussion) doing what they do – and doing it bloody well. The standard well-known tracks (“Fast Car”, “Talkin’ about a Revolution” etc.) were all done, as were various items from all the earlier albums as well as the new one.
In addition, a couple of covers, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” added some variety, and a very much more rock-driven “Another Sun” which kicked things up a gear.
All told, an absolute stunner of a gig. Not much talking to the audience – although some members still insisted on yelling for tracks, or talking to her – just a pure-breed performance. Well worth the money, and the effort, and even of having to tolerate the fuckwits. Although it would’ve been better if I’d had a stungun…