Lauren talked me into going to watch recent formulaic chick flick The Vow on Sunday. I figured that she sat through so many superhero films last summer (and she's got some serious numb bum time ahead of her with The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man on the way) so with that in mind I can take one for the team.
Now while my taste in film is fairly gender typical I'm not opposed to a good love story. The 2006 indie Irish flick Once was a beautiful, honest and superbly acted tale of doomed romance, Punch Drunk Love was by FAR Adam Sandler's best performance (and by that I mean his only performance where I didn't want to hoof him repeatedly in the genitalia. More recently The Time Traveller's Wife made me genuinely well up and did a fantastic job of appeasing sci fi fans who hate romances and their girlfriends who love romance but hate sci fi.
Anyway, I went into The Vow with low expectations but something resembling an open mind.
After a highly risible trailer for the impending re-release of Titanic IN 3D!!!!!! and a whole load of hopelessly generic shit starring Katherine "What's My Appeal?" Heigl the film began in earnest.
All I can say is...
God, it was awful.
A fairly promising concept (a married couple are in a car crash, the wife suffers amnesia, she and her husband have to rebuild their relationship, they fall in love again, everyone goes aaaaaw) was mired by terrible dialoigue, a series of hackneyed cliches, a flat supporting cast and.... at the centre of all this a truly awful performance by Channing Tatum.
This was my first experience of Mr Tatum's work and I am prepared to commit violence to myself or others to ensure that it's my last.
Former male model, Channing Tatum has slightly less expressive capacity than your average wheelie bin. I've never seen an actor occupy so much screen time and make so little impact.
In fact I'm quite confident that if you held a loaded gun to Channing Tatum's head and shouted 'ACT MOTHERFUCKER!' he'd just stare absently at you.
Because that's his whole thing. Staring absently. Seriously, he looks confused all the way through the film. He acts like the subtext of hos each and every line is 'Have I let the gas on? I think I might have left the gas on but I'm not quite sure... Well it's nearly time for me to take my shirt off.'
For me, bad acting can really take me out of a film and if I don't care about the lead character then you're not going to sell me on the plot (especially one that feels absurdly contrived despite being 'Inspired by real events').
I never once got the feeling that Tatum's character was suffering any sort of turmoil at finding the love of his life replaced by a relative stranger. He strolls through lines and gestures like a robot designed to hit marks and spout dialogue.
Watching him act the only thoughts or feelings I could muster were along the lines of...
"That dude has a really wide neck. Seriously, he makes Matt Damon's look like a twig. Plus Matt Damon's a much better actor. Oh man, I could be watching The Bourne Identity right now. Thanks The Vow, for reminding me that I could be watching a much better film. I'd better get some serous brownie points for this shit."
It's very difficult for me to invest in a character played by a man whose only means of expression are staring absently, mumbling and intermittently taking his shirt off.
Right now you're probably thinking that the film isn't for the likes of me and this vitriol amounts to a bunch of sour grapes on my part because Tatum makes for a much better physical example of the male species than I do.
But I beg to differ. Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds have all enjoyed some sort of teen heart throb status and all three are amongst my favourite actors. I have no problem whatsoever with heart throbs so long as they can get some decent acting done while making girls dewy eyed.
Not only is Channing Tatum a dreadful actor but he brings the entire cast down with him. Rachel McAdams, whom I adore, is clearly doing her best with some terrible dialogue but her immense talents are wasted here and she spends the vast majority of the film looking adorable and having different hairstyles. New Zealand's own Sam Neil, whom everyone STILL thinks is British, is similarly squandered here as Ms McAdams' inevitable wealthy, domineering father.
Channing Tatum is, quite simply, an acting vacuum.
And to the several dozen 17 year old girls who felt the need to say 'Aaaaw' at every line he delivers, I hope you're prepared for the inevitable, crushing disappointment of real life relationships.
Oh God, Channing Tatum really is awful. I actually feel soiled by how many times I've had to type his name.
I'm going to grab a shower.
Oh and you know who else is shit?
Sam Fucking Worthington.
Seriously, who did he blow to get so many acting jobs?
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Valentine's Awesomeness
A dozen roses.
Norah Jones.
Chinese Takeaway.
I did excellent romance last night!
Norah Jones.
Chinese Takeaway.
I did excellent romance last night!
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Getting Better At Being Me
Happy Valentine's Day folks... Or as single people prefer to call it... Happy Fuck You Day!
If you're looking for a light,fluffy, sentimental piece about the significance of Valentine's Day... Then you really don't know me at all do you? Let's get back to talking about me.
Last half term was not a good half term. In fact I'd even go so far as to say it was the worst of my career. It was always dark, always freezing cold. Teachers were tired, kids were cranky and ill-behaved and I think there was hardly a member of staff or student who wan't roaming the corridors looking for someone to punch in the genitals (except perhaps the site team who have the patience of saints).
For the better part of six weeks I felt like a slug in a Dan costume.
Despite spending an average of twelve hours a day working I never felt any sense of accomplishment and that made me depressed and moody. My teaching was probably complete crap. I felt stretched so thin, my attention focused in so many directions, that I found myself unable to do anything well. This was compounded by coming down with a horribly coldy fluey buggy thing on Friday.
In summary, then, I was not feeling good.
I'm up in Northumberland now, staying with Lauren and the in-laws, grateful for a change in scenery and already I can feel my old self coming back drip by drip like coffee into a percolator.
Wonderful, refreshing, life-giving coffee.
Excuse me a second.
....
Back!
So, I spent yesterday doing all the stuff I need to be doing more of. I went into Newcastle nice and early, had breakfast at Starbucks, looked round some cool shops and went down to the quayside to pay a visit to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
Andrea Zittel's exhibit 'Wagon Stations' was (and is) a charming ode to nesting instinct which feels like walking around a high concept Ikea showroom. Zittel has built, decorated and arranged a series of caravans that explore the different definitions of what humans need to survive (from improvised firepits to bookshelves). The caravans are built from a range of materials in a range of styles with a palette of uterine reds, earthy browns, rusty oranges and imperfect chromes that illustrate our tenuous relationship with our environment.
Also on show was a multi part video installation by Elizabeth Price which was equal parts impressive and bewildering. A quartet of short films across three screens which create a scathing attack on consumer culture through the medium of close ups of toy cars over the cheerful pop synth chords of Take on Me (no, I'm not joking).
So, just in case you were remotely bothered, I'm doing a lot of cool stuff and feeling a lot better about being me.
Now I'm off to put a dent in my endless pile of A Level coursework marking.
Toodle pip!
If you're looking for a light,fluffy, sentimental piece about the significance of Valentine's Day... Then you really don't know me at all do you? Let's get back to talking about me.
Last half term was not a good half term. In fact I'd even go so far as to say it was the worst of my career. It was always dark, always freezing cold. Teachers were tired, kids were cranky and ill-behaved and I think there was hardly a member of staff or student who wan't roaming the corridors looking for someone to punch in the genitals (except perhaps the site team who have the patience of saints).
For the better part of six weeks I felt like a slug in a Dan costume.
Despite spending an average of twelve hours a day working I never felt any sense of accomplishment and that made me depressed and moody. My teaching was probably complete crap. I felt stretched so thin, my attention focused in so many directions, that I found myself unable to do anything well. This was compounded by coming down with a horribly coldy fluey buggy thing on Friday.
In summary, then, I was not feeling good.
I'm up in Northumberland now, staying with Lauren and the in-laws, grateful for a change in scenery and already I can feel my old self coming back drip by drip like coffee into a percolator.
Wonderful, refreshing, life-giving coffee.
Excuse me a second.
....
Back!
So, I spent yesterday doing all the stuff I need to be doing more of. I went into Newcastle nice and early, had breakfast at Starbucks, looked round some cool shops and went down to the quayside to pay a visit to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
Andrea Zittel's exhibit 'Wagon Stations' was (and is) a charming ode to nesting instinct which feels like walking around a high concept Ikea showroom. Zittel has built, decorated and arranged a series of caravans that explore the different definitions of what humans need to survive (from improvised firepits to bookshelves). The caravans are built from a range of materials in a range of styles with a palette of uterine reds, earthy browns, rusty oranges and imperfect chromes that illustrate our tenuous relationship with our environment.
Also on show was a multi part video installation by Elizabeth Price which was equal parts impressive and bewildering. A quartet of short films across three screens which create a scathing attack on consumer culture through the medium of close ups of toy cars over the cheerful pop synth chords of Take on Me (no, I'm not joking).
So, just in case you were remotely bothered, I'm doing a lot of cool stuff and feeling a lot better about being me.
Now I'm off to put a dent in my endless pile of A Level coursework marking.
Toodle pip!
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Losing the Plot?
When congratulating a friend on the birth of her baby daughter I said that I hoped the new arrival 'brings many hours of quality entertainment'.
I think I may have got babies mixed up with Sky Plus.
Is she going to punch me do you think?
I think I may have got babies mixed up with Sky Plus.
Is she going to punch me do you think?
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Film Review - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
When it comes to Hollywood remakes of highly successful Swedish films based on bestselling Swedish novels I've been burned before.
I'm referring, of course, to Matt Reeves' Let Me In, the 2010 remake of Tomas Alfredson's beautifully melancholic Let The Right One In which managed to quite spectacularly miss what made the original (and the novel) so special. Eschewing the original's slow burn pace and mounting sense of dread of the original, Reeves shoehorned John Ajvide Lindqvist's bleak parable of unhappy adolescence into a paint by numbers Hollywood shocker replete with predictable 'made you jump' gags, unneccessary gore and preposterous CGI that even the considerable talents of its young cast (including Chloe 'Hit-Girl' Moretz of Kick Ass fame of whom I'm a huge fan) failed to redeem.
Coming out of the cinema after watching that film I thought to myself "What's the point in remaking a film if the only thing that changes is the language?". My rhetorical question was answered by the couple exiting the cinema behind me, the male portion of which piped up with (and I speak not a word of a lie);
"I'd never watch the original... It's all in foreign!"
*Facepalm*
There you have it folks.
The multiplex patronising, popcorn guzzling, CGI addled Blockbuster crowd are too lazy to go and investigate a film (however good it may be) if it means they have to endure the cripplingly laborious task of reading subtitles because the film is 'all in foreign'.
Knowing this the suits of Tinseltown have for years been throwing together a slew of shoddily assembled English language remakes of decent films. The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, the list goes on and on (including those nauseatingly persistent rumours of an Oldboy remake). All of those films were subjected to the nip /tuck treatment and forced into the formulaic model of the Hollywood blockbuster, inevitably losing their intrinsic charm in the process.
Not to say that there aren't good remakes of non-English language films. Martin Scorcese's The Departed is in fact a remake of Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs relocated to Boston and given enough of a makeover to stand up as a film in its own right with its own merits.
But more often than not they're just awful. Absolutely fucking awful, artistically bankrupt cynical knob cheese designed to facilitate no creative vision other than the easiest way to rob cineasts of their cash.
Thus my expectations for the English language remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were pretty low but it was David Fincher's involvement that swung it for me.
I've been a fan of Fincher's ever since his first ill-fated and hugely underrated debut Alien 3. I've followed his work through the years and while there some of his films enjoy regular rotation in my Blu Ray collection (Fight Club, Zodiac, Se7en) even my least favoured of his films (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network) leave most of Mr Fincher's contemporaries in the dust.
Bluntly speaking I was expecting something stylish and visually interesting if ultimately unneccessary.
And that's pretty much what I got, which is by no means a bad thing.
Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo isn't exactly a game changer but that isn't to say it's not a compelling romp. As I type I have to prevent myself from typing the word 'enjoyable' because as much as I liked and appreciated the film, there's really nothing enjoyable about it.
Fincher sets up his stall pretty much from the opening shot with a bleak cinematic palette interspersed with moments of punk rock sexuality. Look no further than the opening credits sequence over which a melange of fetishistic CGI images merge in and out of each other to Karen O's industrial cover of Led Zep's The Immigrant song for a prime example of the film's Modus Operandi.
Watching the film made me realise that I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I did. The book is very... Swedish and I mean that as a compliment. It's a slow burn and relentlessly bleak with a mounting sense of dread building between the covers. The film thankfully resists the urge to rush itself by conforming to the conventions of flashy pacing and editing that plague Holywood today. The film ticks along nicely at its own pace without losing us along the way (much like Fincher's previous masterpiece Zodiac).
That mounting sense of dread I referred to in the book is transferred with great success to the film, due in no small part to the throbbing bass and scratchy strings of Trent (Nine Inch Nails) Reznor's musical score.
If you've read the book then you'll know what I'm referring to by 'the really, really unpleasant bit'. Suffice to say the filmmakers haven't balked at showing 'the really, really unpleasant bit' despite a Hitchcock-esque slow pan away from a closed door. Having lulled us into a false sense of security Fincher then throws us kicking and screaming into the room with the characters during 'the really, really unpleasant bit' which, while unrelentingly graphic, maintains a semblance of good taste and respect for the seriousness of the subject matter.
The acting varies from fine to excellent with female lead Rooney Mara pretty much delivering a beat for beat facsimile of her predecessor Noomi Rapace's performance. That's no criticism by the way, Ms Mara is superb and brings us an absolutely authentic Lisbeth Salander direct from the pages of the novel, although let's be honest any actress worth their salt should eat up material like that.
Given far less to work with is Daniel Craig who plays browbeaten investigative journalist and editor Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is gifted with none of the emotional beats afforded by Salander and even after three books remains a mystery to the reader. Craig brings the character to life with requisite charm and intelligence but it's hardly a role (or a performance, let's be honest) that calls much attention to himself.
The supporting cast are uniformly excellent (particularly the affable Stellan Skarsgard and I was delighted to see one of my personal heroes Steven Berkoff in there) although while I'm glad the remake kept the narrative in Sweden the film's 'Allo 'Allo conceit of characters speaking English with Swedish accents is a device that never really fits comfortably here. This is particularly jarring when a lot of written text appears to be written in Swedish unless it's important to the plot and then it's wierdly translated into English.
Ultimately I'm rather glad that I didn't watch the original version of the film (although I'm resolved to track it down now) as it allowed me to judge Fincher's film by its own merits, which are ample.
It's not amongst the director's finest work but it is indeed a compelling and immersive thriller that reminds us that, even when coasting, Fincher is still one of the best directors of his generation.
I'm referring, of course, to Matt Reeves' Let Me In, the 2010 remake of Tomas Alfredson's beautifully melancholic Let The Right One In which managed to quite spectacularly miss what made the original (and the novel) so special. Eschewing the original's slow burn pace and mounting sense of dread of the original, Reeves shoehorned John Ajvide Lindqvist's bleak parable of unhappy adolescence into a paint by numbers Hollywood shocker replete with predictable 'made you jump' gags, unneccessary gore and preposterous CGI that even the considerable talents of its young cast (including Chloe 'Hit-Girl' Moretz of Kick Ass fame of whom I'm a huge fan) failed to redeem.
Coming out of the cinema after watching that film I thought to myself "What's the point in remaking a film if the only thing that changes is the language?". My rhetorical question was answered by the couple exiting the cinema behind me, the male portion of which piped up with (and I speak not a word of a lie);
"I'd never watch the original... It's all in foreign!"
*Facepalm*
There you have it folks.
The multiplex patronising, popcorn guzzling, CGI addled Blockbuster crowd are too lazy to go and investigate a film (however good it may be) if it means they have to endure the cripplingly laborious task of reading subtitles because the film is 'all in foreign'.
Knowing this the suits of Tinseltown have for years been throwing together a slew of shoddily assembled English language remakes of decent films. The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, the list goes on and on (including those nauseatingly persistent rumours of an Oldboy remake). All of those films were subjected to the nip /tuck treatment and forced into the formulaic model of the Hollywood blockbuster, inevitably losing their intrinsic charm in the process.
Not to say that there aren't good remakes of non-English language films. Martin Scorcese's The Departed is in fact a remake of Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs relocated to Boston and given enough of a makeover to stand up as a film in its own right with its own merits.
But more often than not they're just awful. Absolutely fucking awful, artistically bankrupt cynical knob cheese designed to facilitate no creative vision other than the easiest way to rob cineasts of their cash.
Thus my expectations for the English language remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were pretty low but it was David Fincher's involvement that swung it for me.
I've been a fan of Fincher's ever since his first ill-fated and hugely underrated debut Alien 3. I've followed his work through the years and while there some of his films enjoy regular rotation in my Blu Ray collection (Fight Club, Zodiac, Se7en) even my least favoured of his films (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network) leave most of Mr Fincher's contemporaries in the dust.
Bluntly speaking I was expecting something stylish and visually interesting if ultimately unneccessary.
And that's pretty much what I got, which is by no means a bad thing.
Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo isn't exactly a game changer but that isn't to say it's not a compelling romp. As I type I have to prevent myself from typing the word 'enjoyable' because as much as I liked and appreciated the film, there's really nothing enjoyable about it.
Fincher sets up his stall pretty much from the opening shot with a bleak cinematic palette interspersed with moments of punk rock sexuality. Look no further than the opening credits sequence over which a melange of fetishistic CGI images merge in and out of each other to Karen O's industrial cover of Led Zep's The Immigrant song for a prime example of the film's Modus Operandi.
Watching the film made me realise that I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I did. The book is very... Swedish and I mean that as a compliment. It's a slow burn and relentlessly bleak with a mounting sense of dread building between the covers. The film thankfully resists the urge to rush itself by conforming to the conventions of flashy pacing and editing that plague Holywood today. The film ticks along nicely at its own pace without losing us along the way (much like Fincher's previous masterpiece Zodiac).
That mounting sense of dread I referred to in the book is transferred with great success to the film, due in no small part to the throbbing bass and scratchy strings of Trent (Nine Inch Nails) Reznor's musical score.
If you've read the book then you'll know what I'm referring to by 'the really, really unpleasant bit'. Suffice to say the filmmakers haven't balked at showing 'the really, really unpleasant bit' despite a Hitchcock-esque slow pan away from a closed door. Having lulled us into a false sense of security Fincher then throws us kicking and screaming into the room with the characters during 'the really, really unpleasant bit' which, while unrelentingly graphic, maintains a semblance of good taste and respect for the seriousness of the subject matter.
The acting varies from fine to excellent with female lead Rooney Mara pretty much delivering a beat for beat facsimile of her predecessor Noomi Rapace's performance. That's no criticism by the way, Ms Mara is superb and brings us an absolutely authentic Lisbeth Salander direct from the pages of the novel, although let's be honest any actress worth their salt should eat up material like that.
Given far less to work with is Daniel Craig who plays browbeaten investigative journalist and editor Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is gifted with none of the emotional beats afforded by Salander and even after three books remains a mystery to the reader. Craig brings the character to life with requisite charm and intelligence but it's hardly a role (or a performance, let's be honest) that calls much attention to himself.
The supporting cast are uniformly excellent (particularly the affable Stellan Skarsgard and I was delighted to see one of my personal heroes Steven Berkoff in there) although while I'm glad the remake kept the narrative in Sweden the film's 'Allo 'Allo conceit of characters speaking English with Swedish accents is a device that never really fits comfortably here. This is particularly jarring when a lot of written text appears to be written in Swedish unless it's important to the plot and then it's wierdly translated into English.
Ultimately I'm rather glad that I didn't watch the original version of the film (although I'm resolved to track it down now) as it allowed me to judge Fincher's film by its own merits, which are ample.
It's not amongst the director's finest work but it is indeed a compelling and immersive thriller that reminds us that, even when coasting, Fincher is still one of the best directors of his generation.
Monday, 16 January 2012
The Big Three - Oh
Well, I'm now thirty.
They say that inside every thirty year old there's an eighteen year old wondering what the Hell happened and I have to say that at the moment that statement feels pretty accurate.
...
That doesn't mean I've killed and eaten an eighteen year old. Y'know, just to clarify that.
I suppose I should bleat on about being a responsible adult and how I'm looking back on my life and recognising the need to put aside childish things and move onwards and upwards with my life.
But the truth is... I don't feel my age.
Shit, I don't even feel like an adult!
I'm one of a growing breed. A thirty year old boy.
I like comics and video games and swearing and puerile humour every bit as much as I did as a teenager. In fact, moreso.
Despite the trappings of adulthood; mortgage, marriage, job, car, pension I'm every bit the angst riddled, self doubting, doe eyed simpleton trying to make sense of a world that seems to get a little bit more bewildering every day.
At first I thought that this was me. Some warped perspective borne out of emotional immaturity. Then I realised... This is how everyone feels.
The truth, kiddies, is that we grown ups are just as clueless and terrified as you are. The difference is that we're not allowed to admit it...
Plus we're bigger than you so we can beat you up.
As for my birthday festivities...
Well they surpassed my wildest expectations.
I left the house on Saturday morning expecting to go to Newcastle airport to fly to Berlin for a brief weekend of Bavarian fun. Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to visit my Mother-in-Law's place of work expecting to pick her up so she could drop us off at the airport and find nearly everyone I know bursting out of the woodwork yelling...
"SURPRIIIIIIISE!!!!"
Well, I certainly was surprised. In fact there are a plethora of photos on that Facebook thingy of the stupid face I pulled that I shan't re post here.
It was a wonderful evening and although a few important people couldn't make it (whom I've now burned in effigy and urinated onto the ashes) the amount of beautiful people that came from near and far just to spend the night with little-old-me moved me near to tears.
If you were one of those people then let me just thank you again from the bottom of my heart for making my Birthday Party so special.
Not to mention the absurdly abundant generosity of my friends, family and work colleagues who have showered me with awesome gifts and presents. Even a spectacularly sweet sixth former I teach was kind enough to come in from study leave to drop off a Batman birthday card with a Costa gift card in it.
And finally, of course, my beautiful wife Lauren.
I suppose I should be worried that I have a wife who's such an accomplished liar but to be honest I'm so bowled over that she went to such great effort and expense (even to the point of printing off fake e-tickets for out flight to Berlin) to give me such a glorious surprise, I'm literally lost for words.
Oh and we're still going to Berlin.
Compare your life to mine and weep, losers!
They say that inside every thirty year old there's an eighteen year old wondering what the Hell happened and I have to say that at the moment that statement feels pretty accurate.
...
That doesn't mean I've killed and eaten an eighteen year old. Y'know, just to clarify that.
I suppose I should bleat on about being a responsible adult and how I'm looking back on my life and recognising the need to put aside childish things and move onwards and upwards with my life.
But the truth is... I don't feel my age.
Shit, I don't even feel like an adult!
I'm one of a growing breed. A thirty year old boy.
I like comics and video games and swearing and puerile humour every bit as much as I did as a teenager. In fact, moreso.
Despite the trappings of adulthood; mortgage, marriage, job, car, pension I'm every bit the angst riddled, self doubting, doe eyed simpleton trying to make sense of a world that seems to get a little bit more bewildering every day.
At first I thought that this was me. Some warped perspective borne out of emotional immaturity. Then I realised... This is how everyone feels.
The truth, kiddies, is that we grown ups are just as clueless and terrified as you are. The difference is that we're not allowed to admit it...
Plus we're bigger than you so we can beat you up.
As for my birthday festivities...
Well they surpassed my wildest expectations.
I left the house on Saturday morning expecting to go to Newcastle airport to fly to Berlin for a brief weekend of Bavarian fun. Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to visit my Mother-in-Law's place of work expecting to pick her up so she could drop us off at the airport and find nearly everyone I know bursting out of the woodwork yelling...
"SURPRIIIIIIISE!!!!"
Well, I certainly was surprised. In fact there are a plethora of photos on that Facebook thingy of the stupid face I pulled that I shan't re post here.
It was a wonderful evening and although a few important people couldn't make it (whom I've now burned in effigy and urinated onto the ashes) the amount of beautiful people that came from near and far just to spend the night with little-old-me moved me near to tears.
If you were one of those people then let me just thank you again from the bottom of my heart for making my Birthday Party so special.
Not to mention the absurdly abundant generosity of my friends, family and work colleagues who have showered me with awesome gifts and presents. Even a spectacularly sweet sixth former I teach was kind enough to come in from study leave to drop off a Batman birthday card with a Costa gift card in it.
And finally, of course, my beautiful wife Lauren.
I suppose I should be worried that I have a wife who's such an accomplished liar but to be honest I'm so bowled over that she went to such great effort and expense (even to the point of printing off fake e-tickets for out flight to Berlin) to give me such a glorious surprise, I'm literally lost for words.
Oh and we're still going to Berlin.
Compare your life to mine and weep, losers!
Friday, 16 December 2011
Blogology
Well once again a long dormant spell has been broken by an unusual occurrence that took place on Wednesday in the 'real' world in which I am occasionally obliged to spend time.
There I was savagely beating some of my A level students for not handing in their coursework on time when I was accosted by one of my former GCSE disciples who waved a piece of paper in my face and said;
"Sir, sir (put down the hammer please), is this from your blog?"
I put down the hammer, wiped the blood and viscera from my hands and perused the document in question.
I recognised the writing style as one recognises one's own reflection in the mirror, with equal parts vanity and self-loathing.
Fragmented sentence structure... Check.
Bizarrely ambling, discordant tangents... Check.
Gratuitous use of the swears... Big ol' check.
Anyway, the urchin in question informed me that her class had been studying my blog in their English lessons. The ensuing emotional double whammy was a bizarre mixture of affront and flattery. It was like finding out that someone has taken pictures of you in the shower with a telephoto lens, but then used those photos to give a lecture on exemplary human anatomy.
Of course, since my blog is, after all, within the public domain I have little right to outrage. In fact, a better analogy would be parading around naked at your living room window and then being outraged at the people who take photos... And on that note I think I'll be abandoning that metaphor right there.
I am, however, somewhat bemused at the idea of my blog being held up as an example of literary merit or worthy of analysis in any way. Seriously, what linguistic devices do I have in my arsenal worth observing other than my odd metaphors and Herculean use of the F word?
Anyway I'm unsure who the English teacher in question was but I'm pretty sure that they didn't
explicitly state that the blog was mine (I can only guess some bright spark recognised some weird idiosyncrasy of mine in the writing).
Still it was another lesson to me that this is not just me ranting incoherently into a vacuum. People actually read this thing.
Once again I find myself in the centre of an ethical conundrum.
Should I start sanitising the misanthropic ravings of my online doppelganger in the knowledge that my students may be reading?
Or should I remain with my arms folded in petulant indignation, blowing raspberries at anyone who suggests that as a teacher it's incumbent upon me as a teacher to consider my profession before putting virtual pen to equally virtual paper.
Once again I jam my fingers in my ears and start screeching "I HAVE A RIGHT TO A LIFE OUTSIDE OF TEACHING!!" at the top of my voice.
Or... Do I?
Or... Do I?
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