This blog asks you to do one thing – challenge me.  It should probably make a second request – for you to explain your challenge.  While “write more” and “eat breakfast daily” require little explanation, requests such as “review All High School Musical Films” are likely to leave people scratching their heads as to how they will improve my life.

When Gingell first set this challenge I wrote that “Sometimes I think Gingell is trying to fashion me into the gay BFF she never had.” but I think it’s more likely to be another attempt to emasculate me for her own amusement.

High School Musical

There are three kinds of people that hate High School Musical and I have sympathy for none of them.*

The first kind have assumed they don’t like this film without even watching it.

The second kind were “forced” to watch the film by a loved one.  These are the High School haters I seem to encounter the most.  The only problem with them is that when they’re telling me that “it’s got Zac Efron in it” and how they had to sit through “like songs and stuff” all I’m hearing is;

My girlfriend loves this film and loves sharing stuff with me. I spent an hour and forty minutes snuggling with her on the sofa.  There was beer and snacks.

I most definitely have no sympathy for you people.

The third variety of haters, however, are the most bizarre. In fact if you watched A Clockwork Orange and then complained about the lack of mechanised fruit you’d appear normal in comparison with these people.  These are the people who watched High School Musical and were disappointed there were songs in it, or watched this Disney movie and then complained that it was too cheesy.  Most everything you need to know about this film is contained in the title; Disney’s High School Musical.  If you’re still unsure about whether you’ll like this film, watch the first minute.  If you want to know where the plot’s heading, watch an additional three minutes, or alternatively, keep reading.

Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) share a love that dare not speak its name, the forbidden love of a jock and a nerd.

While Troy is captain of East High School’s Wildcat basketball team, Gabriella is a Hollywood nerd, by which I mean she’s like a regular nerd apart from she looks stunning, has good hair and skin, can sing and dance and lacks any kind of social dysfunction.

Brought together through ski lodge karaoke, the duo form a special bond which soon leads them onto activities that both their social groups deem unacceptable, namely auditioning for their high school musical.  With Troy and Gabriella’s names on the play sign-up sheet it isn’t long before other characters are confessing their deep dark secrets; everything from playing the cello to a love for baking.  These shocking confessions are revealed and promptly condemned in the musical number Stick To The Status Quo.

It is not just the status quo that is being threatened but also the positions of drama queen Sharpay Evans and raging queen Ryan. This brother and sister double act resort to dirty tricks when it looks like Troy and Gabriella might oust them from the musical’s lead roles.  Like all baddies in Disney movies, however, they ultimately fail, as do the jocks and nerds who try to dissuade Gabriella and Troy from trying something different.

All are shown the error of their ways when the star-crossed lovers sing Breaking Free (“You know the world can see us/ In a way that’s different than who we are/ Creating space between us/ Till we’re separate hearts”) and all renounce their wrong-headed and divisive ways in the final number We’re All in This Together.

The songs may not be amazing and the plot may rely on cliché but as a whole this film works, the characters are developed just enough to be engaging and the film is permeated by a gentle humour which means you can’t take it too seriously.  If you hated this film you probably hated every Disney film and every musical you ever watched. I have no sympathy for you, Disney’s High School Musical did nothing more than what it said it would on the box.

* Antonio, as per usual, you are an exception to the rule.  High School Musical family karaoke sounds truly horrific.

Last week I started work on a set of icons to represent each of the challenges on this blog.  Since you last saw them I’ve taken note of your suggestions, played around with them a little bit more and even drawn some new ones.  Over the next few days I’m going to be posting each icon, my reasoning behind its design and a progress report for the challenge.

Turns out I have a lot to say about my first challenge so this one gets a post all to itself.

1. Write More

A simple concept but one that is difficult to represent using an icon.  My first thought was to interpret the circle as a full stop but out of context this was meaningless.  Then I considered turning it into a single quotation mark but this suggested conversation and would probably have ended up as a poor imitation of the Vodafone logo.  I thought of ink blots, the end of a pencil, the ball in a ballpoint pen, weirdly shaped nibs on fountain pens and discounted them all as antiquated or meaningless out of context.

A screwed up piece of paper was the best idea I could come up with and as you can see I played around with a number of variations.  I’m not sure any of them work, after staring at them for this long I wonder why I’ve created buckets of oversized popcorn.

The challenge itself, with its various subsections, has become overly complicated too.  Let’s recap.

1a. Began as “updating [this shiny new blog] at least once a week”.  I was so successful at this that I later wrote “I’m now going to aim to write 500 words a day and blog at least three times a week (one of these will always be on Monday).”  This obviously failed and I was later forced to admit that “the standard issue WordPress calendar is beginning to resemble an empty wasteland devoid of posts”.  Later still I attempted to resurrect the challenge and that too eventually failed.

let’s just knock this one on the head, I’ll blog as and when I feel like but no less than three times a week, unless life gets in the way, which undoubtedly it will.

1b. Hook the blog up to Facebook. Done.

Depending on my mood I turn this off and on  but it does bring a lot of traffic to my site.  Illogically, there are certain posts that I’m  happy for strangers to read but not comfortable with my friends on Facebook seeing.  I guess this is a combination of knowing that people who have taken the effort to read the blog genuinely do care and a realisation that my Facebook friend list is stuffed with people who I’ve forgotten I’ve added and the overly-sensitive.

1c. Install the Visual Bookshelf on Facebook. Done.

The reason behind this was to encourage me to read more and overall I think it’s worked.  So far I have read and reviewed Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn by the incomparable Stephenie Meyer.

I also read The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle De Jour and micro-reviewed it here (“made me realise how much is has been watered down for television.  If you think you’d enjoy frank, funny and full on sex stories then buy this book, otherwise probably best to give it a miss.”)  I also quoted it when writing about jogging.

The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl is another book that I have completed.  In fact I read this one first, obviously discounted prices and pictures of a scantily clad Billie Piper in some way inhibit my ability to read the word sequel properly.  Like the first time but not as tight is both an accurate micro-review and a rather obvious innuendo.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay is a book with a great sense of style and dark sense of humour.  You’ll enjoy it either way but if you’ve watched the tv series it’ll add an extra dimension to the characters you already know and make you realise how faithful they were to the original text on screen.

Back in January I alluded to my reading of The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.  You should definitely give this a shot.  Ignore that it’s chick-lit, ignore the film (I’m told they’ve changed a lot of things for the big screen) and just read this book, haven’t read something that has made me laugh so much in a long time (watch Rebecca’s letters to her bank manager grow more and more ridiculous as the book progresses).

I am currently reading Beloved by Toni Morrison (yes, still).

Frost/ Nixon, as referenced here, is another book I have yet to finish.  Dylan on Dylan, mentioned here, also sits on my pile of books to read.

Since then I’ve also picked up The Vice Photo Book (mentioned here, quoted there).  I micro-reviewed it as “Between it’s hardback covers Vice Magazine spend 336 pages documenting the shit-stained, sex-obsessed nature of humanity in all its full-frontal full-colour glory”.

I’m also reading Love All the People by Bill Hicks.  Bill and Belle make strange bedfellows in my post about jogging.  My penultimate read is Rebel Code by Glyn Moody.  Yes, it’s a book about open source software, deal with it.

Finally, I am meant to be reading the Bible.  I’ve discussed this before and even contemplated buying a New International Version.  This Easter Baines bought me a pocket sized NIV (thank you) so now I have no excuse.  I have decided that instead of starting from the beginning (again) I’m going to soldier on from Samuel I and attempt to get an overview of the entire book.

1e. Freelance.  Ultimate fail.

I need to do something about this.

1f. NaNoWriMo

I have the official National Novel Writing Month book which means I know how to capitalise NaNoWriMo correctly.  It’s now just a case of waiting for November and then attempting to write a 50,000 word novel.  Somehow I think I’m setting myself up for failure here.

Summary: This challenge has been half completed.  If you have any more writing challenges they’re getting a new number because this is just getting confusing.

Recently Gingell’s blog has been getting visits from people curious about running, which makes sense considering it’s a website about training for a race. The keywords people type into Google to end up here are a lot less easy to explain away. They confuse, amuse, inspire and disturb me in almost equal measure.

I’ve mentioned them briefly before and I tried to look at them again recently but Abbey Clancy got in the way.  Here’s a selection.

scribbleboy

Scribbleboy is a book written by Philip Ridley and illustrated by Chris Riddell.  It also seems to be a popular feature on a number of schools’ book lists.  Unfortunately there are no “novel essays on scribbleboy” here, nor are there “pichers of scribbleboy”, there never has been a “scribbleboy 2″ and I am unaware of any plans for “scribbleboy the filme”. It looks like you may be forced to read the book yourself and do your own homework.

I adopted Scribbleboy as my email username because I liked the sound of it and had enjoyed reading the book (I also discuss my nickname in the comment section of this post).  Since I met Reg, who in the beginning was too lazy to learn my real name and instead called me by my email address, it seems to have stuck.  Over the years it’s been shortened to Scribble and Scribs.  Variations have included Squirrel and Scribblé (thanks to Gwyn for giving it that French feel).   Stokies pronounce it as Squiggle, Squizzle and Squibs (they seem to struggle sounding hard letters).

Gingell is currently testing out a new generation of variations that includes Scribblehead and Scribbilicious.

nude ukrainians

If that’s what you’re looking for I’d start by looking in the Ukraine.

adidas

Two weeks ago I wrote a rather controversial piece about Adidas’ Celebrate Originality ad campaign. People are now asking Google “the purpose of adidas house party advert”.  The short answer would be to sell sportswear and with questions like “what adidas originals trainers does katy perry wear?” and “where can i buy the trainers that katy perry wears in the addidas originals advert?” it seems like it’s working.  I did a quick search to try and find out for you but unfortunately I come up as the top result and still don’t know.  Answers on a postcard (there are a couple of people out there trying to scam you, if the trainers don’t look like the ones Katy is wearing at 0:47 in this Adidas interview then I wouldn’t be buying).

Jon Harrington

Now that’s just creepy, I don’t even want to know why you’re Googling me.  If you’ve got my number, call me, if you haven’t, there’s a reason.

wu-tang clan

I thought the note here would have cleared this up but apparently not.

The song is not called “big cash controlles everything around me” or “money controls everything around me” it is called C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) and is track eight on their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

If you want it on a t-shirt you can pick it up stateside here (can’t see any UK stockists selling this particular design).  Personally I’d rather wear the shirt on this page but I imagine that fans of both the clan and the man in black are in short supply.

As for people asking what samples are used, the answer is “‘As Long as I Got You’ performed by the Charmels used courtesy of Warner Special Products.  Written by Isaac Hayes/ David Porter”.  Read your liner notes people.

dildo vagina x-ray

No, no, no.

lent – give blood

Maybe it’s a new trend or maybe I just move in better circles these days but a lot of people I know seem to be taking up something positive for Lent rather than giving up something negative. Charity’s exercising and reading the Bible more often, Antonio’s painting and gardening, Baines is looking at random acts of kindness.  Giving blood seems like an excellent idea and you can find out all you need to know on The National Blood Service’s website.  I will be giving blood this Friday, hopefully it all goes more successfully then last time.

Well, I quite enjoyed that.  Hopefully I’ve helped some people and provided some kind of amusement.  We’ll have to do it again sometime.

I’ve searched the holy books
I tried to unravel the mystery of Jesus Christ, the saviour
I’ve read the poets and the analysts
Searched through the books on human behaviour
I travelled this world around
For an answer that refused to be found
I don’t know why and I don’t know how
But she’s nobody’s baby now.

Nobody’s Baby Now, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Anyone who’s known me long enough will know that I am fascinated with faith. More often than not this takes the form of stupid questions such as “Why did the Christian God guarantee Jews a place in heaven?” and “How do you live a good life if you’ve been reincarnated as a rock?”

Even though I don’t understand it I imagine faith would be a wonderful thing to have.  To believe that every good deed you do will be rewarded, that there is something more than life and that all seemingly random acts are part of a great plan must be reassuring.  To have a book to refer to in moral dilemmas rather than just trusting your gut must help too (although my gut’s getting quite good at this one).

I was not christened, nor were my parents regular churchgoers and so my first real encounter with Christianity was when I went to primary school.  We used to sing stuff like this;

I danced for the scribe and the pharisee,
But they would not dance and they would not follow me.
I danced for the fishermen, for James and John
They came with me and the dance went on.

Lord of the Dance, Sydney Carter

Back then I didn’t know what a scribe was, let alone a pharisee.  I still don’t know why everyone’s dancing.  This illustrates the problem with a lot of the stuff they taught me at school, they only taught me half of it (and most of that was wrong).  In my next post I will expose the deceitful treachery that is the song Who Built the Ark? (Brother Noah Built the Ark).

My second experience with religion was when I joined the Cub Scouts at the age of seven.  Just like at school we had to pray here too and just like at school I was getting nothing.  If I really squeezed my eyes closed I could get some weird patterns and I could always conjure up that night’s episode of The Simpsons in my head but this didn’t seem to be the point of the exercise.  Occasionally you’d sneak a peek at everyone else and wonder if it was working for them.

When Peter O’Toole said, “When did I realise I was God?  Well, I was praying and I suddenly realised I was talking to myself.” he might have been onto something, either that or he’s going to burn for all eternity.

The problem was you couldn’t ask people what they saw when they prayed, asking the difficult questions was always frowned upon.  I remember asking my dad what the animals on the ark ate and his response being, “Who have you been talking to?”

It was answers like this that made me attempt to read the Bible the first time around.  The only problem was that when I was little I thought you weren’t allowed to skip parts of a book and parts of the Bible are very boring (why they don’t put the family trees in an appendix like they do in The Lord of the Rings I’ll never know).  It is these tedious family trees that meant the first time I never made it past the third page.

In 2007 I tried again and managed maybe two to three books of the Bible.  It wasn’t until I took the Bible with me to China in 2008 (I’d promised someone that I would, don’t ask), finished all my other books and was stuck on a 24 hour train that I got as far as Samuel I (the ninth book of the Bible).

Unfortunately, when I got back to Britain I put the Bible on my “books I should read” pile and it’s been abandoned ever since.

When people find out that I’ve been attempting to read the Bible their response tends to be, “Why?  You’re not a Christian.”  This is true, I’d rather reject something I don’t fully understand than believe is half-heatedly.  it just seems weird that a book that has shaped our culture, is the basis for our legal system and has influenced the language and imagery of artists for generations is only read by Christians (and somehow I think they might be biased).

So, with all this in mind, every time I read a book of the Bible (yes, I’m starting again for a third time) I will try and write some kind of summary for the blog in a feature I have decided to dub “Atheist Bible Study.”  Hopefully it’ll be amusing enough for people to read it and inoffensive enough for my effigy not to get burnt in the streets.

This review is riddled with spoilers like Swiss cheese is riddled with holes.  If you want to fully enjoy the Twilight series then refrain from reading it until you have tackled the 754 page behemoth that is…

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (2/5)

Not since I made it half way through Crash, a book in which the principal characters are sexually aroused by car crashes, have I read anything quite so disturbing.

As with its predecessors, Breaking Dawn is a testimony to the power of love, however this time it focuses on the pain people are willing to endure in its name.

Once they are married Edward whisks Bella away to an island off the coast of Brazil for a romantic honeymoon/ to be date raped.  It is only due to the power of love that, when Bella wakes up in a broken bed, covered in bruises and down from the pillows that Edward has bitten through, she doesn’t press charges.  After all it’s what she wanted, even if she can’t remember most of it.

Unfortunately for Bella her sparkly vampire who doesn’t produce any bodily fluids is firing on all cylinders in one department and it isn’t long before she’s been impregnated with his hellspawn.  Once again it is down to the power of love that, with the foetus growing at an alarming rate and cracking ribs as it goes, no one thinks to abort the violent little half-breed.

During the pregnancy the baby forces Bella to start drinking human blood and it isn’t until the blighter decides to snap Bella’s spine that Edward performs a cesarean section, with his teeth.  Stephenie Meyer has managed to create a pregnancy scene that is so horrific it should be required reading on abstinence-only programmes across America.

The baby’s first action, it’s a girl by the way, is to bite Bella.  Yes, the infant tries to drink her own mother, which is rather harsh considering Bella is already on her deathbed.  Cue Edward injecting vampire venom directly into her heart and veins to save her.

With Bella busy writhing in agony on the Cullen’s sofa and Edward busy wringing his hands and generally being pathetic it is down to the literary third wheel that is Jacob Black to narrate the second part of the story.

This secondary perspective is incongruous with the previous three books and serves little purpose, perhaps only saving Stephenie from having to write with any kind of emotional intensity as Bella goes through an immense amount of pain for the vampire and the baby she loves.

The wolves want to destroy the hellspawn, Jacob doesn’t and forms his own pack.  The wolves don’t attack the vampires.  With this non-plot out of the way it’s time to return to the real story narrated by Bella who is now a fully fledged vampire.  She has decided to call her baby Renesmee because being half vampire isn’t enough, you have to get bullied at school as well.

The events of part one forgotten, everyone now loves Renesmee the magical talking baby, some people a little too much.  When Leah (a character so insignificant I’ve never even mentioned her before)  joined Jacob’s pack I figured they’d get together; they both have an unrequited love and could have had lots of fun licking their wounds together.  Unfortunately, Stephenie decides to have Jacob develop a weird werewolf crush on a child barely out of the womb.  Yes, Jacob hates bloodsuckers and said Bella would be dead to him when she became a vampire but don’t let the facts get in the way of a mediocre story.

In contrast with part one, in which Bella suffered an obscene amount of pain, in part three she has it way too easy.  As a new vampire she has complete control over her raging bloodlust, even getting to meet her human father, and has morphed from a clumsy girl into a agile vamp with super powers.  To top it all off the Cullens have even built her and Edward a sex cottage (seriously).

It is at this point that Stephenie Meyer should have called it quits and hit the publish button on FanFiction.Net.  Unfortunately, she didn’t and the reason why is the same reason as ever.  At some stage someone (whose name if ever revealed will be cursed through the ages) bought Stephenie a how-to book on novel writing as a last minute gift.  Chapter three of this book is probably called something like “Plot: Your Story Should Have One”, unfortunately Meyer possesses a rare genetic mutation that makes this chapter invisible to her until she is at least three quarters of the way through writing her novel.

Roll plot.  The leaders of the vampire world the Volturi have heard of Renesmee, unfortunately they think she is a crazy vampire baby with an insatiable hunger instead of a half human child who is exploring far beyond her expected reading grade.

Knowing that the Volturi will kill the baby and punish those responsible, the Cullens begin to assemble a collection of witnesses to testify that the baby is half human.  There are 30 odd vampire witnesses that turn up, each of these characters is as paper thin as the next (they are all listed alphabetically by coven in the vampire index but there’s no point reading this because none of these characters develop the plot in any way).

After the new arrivals have spent a while showing off their powers (the ones that stand out being the ability to control the elements and to taser your enemies) and practising for the epic battle that will inevitably ensue the Volturi show up.  Unfortunately, Meyer disappoints on this count too and the entire dispute is peacefully resolved using the “super power” that is diplomacy.

So by the end of page 754 (“And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.”) the reader is back to where they were on 387.  The Cullens are content and the Volturi have returned to Italy where they can continue to be morally ambiguous in peace.

An all too neat ending to a disappointing series that was nonetheless compulsive reading.  This is the final nail in the coffin of the Twilight series and I promise to give you at least a month to recover before I even contemplate reviewing anymore fiction.

Related Posts

Twilight: Cheaper Than Heroin
New Moon: A Remarkable Achievement
Eclipse: Now With Added Plot

My copy of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo is 1,232 pages long and has been gathering dust on my classics shelf for a while now.  One day it will get read but not today (to be fair I’m probably going to read The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic first).

Sometimes I set myself reasonable targets with unrealistic deadlines (like reading Les Mis anytime soon).  My Little Monster Reward Chart, however, only sets four daily targets; get out of bed before 9:30am, eat breakfast before 12pm, apply for a job and write 500 words.

These targets and their deadline are very realistic (you probably do at least two of them everyday without even thinking about it) and yet in the previous week I awarded myself one measly tick.  If last week hadn’t been so much fun I would have had to write it off as an ultimate failure.

All I managed to achieve blogwise was to update this post with a full list of site modifications I’d like to make, a list of posts I’m currently working on (and their appropriate word counts) and a to-do list for my life (note that I achieved four of these).

Updating old work isn’t the same as creating new content, however, and the standard issue WordPress calendar is beginning to resemble an empty wasteland devoid of posts.  On Sunday the number of site visitors dipped to zero for the first time ever (almost as if there’s some correlation between more content and more clicks, weird).

Maybe I haven’t been typing but I’ve certainly been having fun.  Antonio showed up on Wednesday and we went for drinks with Lottie, another plus is that my housemates seem not to hate him (which is always good).

On Friday I went to Guy’s leaving do in Ember Lounge where I met (read “networked with”) someone who works for the Staffordshire Newsletter (a paid weekly) and learnt the phrase “nice to see you” in sign language.  I also learnt signs for the following words; pint, whiskey, vodka, walking, jumping, kicking, hopping, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, tea, coffee and cream cake.  Feel free to create a sentence that includes as many of these as possible.

The next day I got on a train and travelled to Oxford for Clara’s birthday celebrations.  Oxford is filled with bicycles, bookshops, scarf clad students, quaint little shops that seem to belong in Beatrix Potter (Ginger and Pickles anyone?) and places you can drink in without sticking to the floor.

It was great to meet Clara’s family and a selection of her friends and we headed out for a night that started out in the Hobgoblin and ended up in the Carling Academy.  Learnt the sign language for “easy tiger.”

Sunday was spent drinking tea, eating toast, slowly coming to and watching The Devil Wears Prada (enjoyed critquing the outfits with Clara, Dacia and Vicky but probably need to watch it again and pay more attention to the dialogue).  Then we went to Frankie & Benny’s and ate cheeseburgers.

Today, my birthday, Clara and I went to a quaint little pub and had steak and chips for breakfast.  We then went to the cinema to see Frost/ Nixon.  This is a film that I wanted to see but there weren’t many people I could go with because the love interests and zombie hordes take a backseat to political interviews.  Here are my thoughts on the movie;

Anyone that’s caught me watching The West Wing on their TV or reading presidential debate transcripts on their PC will know that I’m fascinated by American politics.  The Nixon administration is the one that fascinates me the most because it ties in with another of my perversions, journalism (I have 0.25 of a degree in this subject).*

Hunter S. Thompson was the first journalist to spend an entire year on the campaign trail and Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972 was the year Thompson chose to do it.  Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post were the journalistic tag team that wrestled the Nixon administration to its knees over Watergate.  And when Nixon finally resigned before he could be impeached it was journalist David Frost whose televised interviews gave Tricky Dickie the trial he never had.

The book Frost/ Nixon is fascinating and worth the money (I paid £2), if only for the rather anal interview transcripts in which every hesitation is recorded (Nixon: “Ah, ah, so that in effect, ah, they, as they listen, ah, will be able to hear the facts, ah, make up their own minds.”)

Fascinating though it may be, the book is a record of political journalism and as such can be dry in places.  This film takes all the information and then injects the life back into it; Nixon becomes a fatally flawed yet bizarrely lovable former president (Frank Langella’s affectation of Nixon’s accent and mannerisms is truly impressive) and Frost (Michael Sheen) becomes a playboy that got lucky rather than the political hotshot he tries to make himself out to be in the book.

Choice lines have been culled from the original interviews and the dialogue that has been witten for the film is funny and insightful.  Alongside various visual touches it gives us a greater insight into the two main characters.

The timing of this film is also striking, when Nixon’s views on Vietnam are cross examined it is hard not to think of another unpopular president who waged an unsuccessful war, one who has recently left office.  Who in the media will try George W. Bush for his crimes against the world?  Somehow I imagine his defence will be less eloquent than that of Nixon.

* This sits alongside my 0.25 of a degree in Creative Writing and 0.5 of  “Your degree has been terminated.  Next time try turning up and actually doing something.”   I probably have point something or other of a degree in Graphic Design but that is beyond my mathematical capabilities.

Clara and I left the cinema and returned to cold grey Oxford, picked up my stuff, sat in a bar and discussed travelling and then I caught a train home.  On the way back to Stoke I finished reading Breaking Dawn, so expect a review whenever I recover.

My housemates bought me a big fluffy dressing gown that’s dark enough to disguise a multitude of tea stains (just like I asked for) and a High School Musical birthday card (includes a bedroom door hanger, one side reads “Do Not Disturb LOST IN MUSIC”, the other “Come in! Let’s have fun… ALL FOR ONE” , which is probably the weirdest way to phrase an orgy invitation ever).

It’s your Birthday!   …so REACH for the STARS

Scribs

Are you a young girl who uses this blog to inform your choice of teen fiction?  If so please let me know, it would be most amusing.  Also don’t read this review it may contain spoilers.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (2/5)

Mocking a book that uses fridge magnets as a recurring metaphor isn’t the most intellectually strenuous of activities, nor is it the right one.  Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight series, may have its flaws but it’s the best book that Stephenie Meyer has written.

After dropping a big hint that I’ll soon be receiving a whole load of physical intimacy and a car* Stephenie quickly gets to work introducing a plot within the first chapter.  This is impressive for an author who has previously only tacked plots onto the end of her novels as half-hearted afterthoughts.

A pack of vampires are running amok in downtown Seattle and sworn enemies the Cullen vampire clan and the Quileute werewolf pack must join forces to defeat them.  An impressive plot, considering her previous work, but one that is a long time coming.  After introducing the plot on page eight readers then have to wait until page 198 for any further development.  In the mean time we are to forced to explore the relationship between Edward, Bella and Jacob; a love triangle that is only rivalled in tediousness by the relationship between Thomas the Tank Engine, Lady the Tank Engine and the Fat Controller.

Plot, however, is not the only thing that Stephenie has developed; Bella’s character has changed for the better too.  Bella was always meant to be an intellectual but all she did in the previous two books was name check writers and dawdle two steps behind the reader.

Twilight

Bella:  “I wonder if Edward’s a vampire?”
Reader: “Well duh… it tells you on the back of the book.”

New Moon

Bella:  “I wonder if Jacob’s a werewolf?”
Reader: “Well duh… he told you in the previous book.”

This time Bella makes some not so obvious observations and actually reads and references Wuthering Heights on numerous occasions.  In the short break between New Moon and Eclipse Bella has also grown less whiny and improved her co-ordination.  Yes, she’s still insecure but at least this time you can see why.  Yes, she still has accidents but only twice and one of those is an injured hand caused by punching a werewolf.  The other occasion is when she cuts herself in the forest and even then she smears the blood around to leave a false trail for the rival vampires.

Disappointingly however, when it gets to the fight scene Bella is still as needy as ever and the closest she gets to defending herself is self harming.  Another negative is that the larger and more interesting battle is taking place some distance away and as readers we only witness it through what Edward chooses to tell us.

The Twilight series has never really been about plot though, it’s been about the emotional connection between Edward and Bella (read: will they ever get it on?)  Since Stephenie Edward doesn’t believe in premarital sex a certain something has to happen first though and we find out Bella’s answer in this book (the suspense).

All in all, not a bad book, however, the writing style has now become something that can no longer be excused as American English or the grammar of a teenage girl.  There are clear failures in proofing here and as I look at the length of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, the doorstop of a novel that follows it, I get the sinking feeling that Meyer’s publishers are too busy rolling in money to bother editing her manuscripts anymore.

*”I firmly believe that my fans are the most attractive, intelligent, exciting, and dedicated fans in the whole world.  I wish I could give you each a big hug and a Porsche 911 Turbo.”

Related Posts

Twilight: Cheaper Than Heroin
New Moon: A Remarkable Achievement
Breaking Dawn: Just Say No

…timing.  Ironic considering the poorly timed nature of this post.  I will be having a little look back at the controversy that surrounded Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross last year and then reviewing a comedy performance that took place on Sunday 7th December.

In case you missed the fiasco you can read the BBC’s summary of events; Russell Brand Prank Calls ( it would have been hard to miss; after the earthquake in Pakistan it was still front page news and and even when police shot dead a man in London the main story on BBC News’ England page was still Brand and Ross).

To summarise, Russel Brand called Andrew Sachs (aka Fawlty Towers‘ Manuel) after the actor failed to appear on the Brand’s Radio 2 show.  Brand got the answering machine and Jonathan Ross, who was a guest on the show, alleged that Russell slept with Sachs’ granddaughter Georgina Baillie (this turned out to be true).  the duo then made a series of further calls as they attempted to apologise to the actor is a humorous way.

The pre-recorded show was then approved at every editorial level and edits requested by Sachs were made to the recording.  The show was then broadcast to the nation and received two complaints (only one of which referred directly to the answer machine material).

Unfortunately, the one objector was obviously a Daily Mail reader and wasn’t long before the infamous tabloid was calling for the public execution of Jonathan Ross and for Russell Brand to be flogged in the streets of London (okay I made that part up but I wouldn’t put it past them).

The way the media spun this story was impressive.   In one of the messages Ross says “If he’s [Sachs'] like most people of a certain age, he’s probably got a picture of his grandchildren when they’re young right by the phone. So while he’s listening to the messages, he’s looking at a picture of her about nine on a swing.” and based on what you read in the papers you could easily imagine Georgina as a rosy faced cherub with flowers in her hair and a lace outfit styled by Little Bo Peep.  By the end of some articles you found yourself muttering “What nasty, nasty men, how dare they question the chastity of a lady?  Hanging’s too good for them.”

So let’s take a look at Georgina.  Some people would say you shouldn’t judge a person based on their appearance.  I would say “But she’s created a top for herself using a pixelated image of Frankenstein’s monster and a bike chain.  She’s then used black electrical tape to cover her nipples.”

Note how I’m linking to a family friendlyish image here and not stills from her lesbian porn movie, footage of her Channel X career or anything to do with her burlesque troupe Satanic Sluts Extreme.

The worst that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand did here was call a ho a ho.

I’m going to wrap this up with, for me, the most confusing part of this whole sorry saga.  Since 1991 Jonathan Ross has hosted the British Comedy Awards.  In 2008 he resigned from his position as host saying that it would “take away from the awards themselves or the many talented winners of the awards.”

Ross’ replacement was Angus Deayton.  A man who was fired from the BBC five years earlier for snorting cocaine with hookers instead of spending time with his then pregnant girlfriend.

Comedians should be judged on their jokes alone and, if we have to pretend we have some kind of morality, we should at least try and be consistent.

One comedian who isn’t afraid of controversial topics, and as far as I know hasn’t been fired for sleeping with hookers yet, is Jason Canham.

I was meant to go and see him perform on Sunday 7th December but, as anyone who’s been reading my blog and taking notes will know, that day I only just managed to escape exhausted from Birmingham with a bad cold.

Jason Canham takes to the stage of the Leek Road Venue

Thankfully I was able to catch up with the six minute slot on his blog Student Giggles.  The first time I saw Jason perform was at the GKmedia Awards, this time he returned to the stage with more than a day’s preparation and some more mainstream material.

It’s hard to judge his performance based solely on YouTube videos.  I can’t properly gauge audience responses, I can’t see the comedian’s facial expressions and I don’t even know what acts preceded him.

Nonetheless, I’ve always been impressed by Jason’s acid tongued responses that seem to come from nowhere and these were apparent in his act.  His set covered national, international and student issues.  There were jokes about Barack Obama and child abuse but then there were also gags about Hollyoaks and a brilliant student game called Pull the Pig.

Jason’s nervous pacing, especially when he walked off camera, and the lack of links between the jokes were the only niggles I could find and with more preparation and practice he can only get better.  Hopefully next time he’s performing I’ll be well enough to see him in person.

New Moon, Stephenie Meyer (2/5)

Do you think that Edward Cullen is a dishy dreamboat?  If so you should avoid reading New Moon, avoid reading the rest of this review and continue with your programme of medication (you’ll probably never be allowed to sleep in a room without padded walls but on the plus side, with phrases like “dishy dreamboat”, you obviously have world class alliteration skills).

If, however, you felt that Edward’s patronising and arrogant personality was matched only by Bella’s whiny petulance then you’re in for a treat.  For the first 450 pages of New Moon, Stephenie Meyer’s second attempt at a novel, the alabaster Adonis is off gallivanting around Brazil, Italy and I-don’t-even-care-anymore.

Unfortunately, this means readers are subjected to an extended emotional breakdown on the part of Bella and not much else.

With Edward out of the picture Bella picks up some dangerous and uncharacteristic pastimes (riding motorbikes, talking to strangers, jumping off cliffs and listening to rap music).  If you’re thinking “Wow, the new Bella sounds a lot more fun than the old one.  I’m glad she’s gaining some independence.” then I’m sorry to disappoint.  The only reason she’s doing any of these things is so she can hear Edward’s voice warning her to be careful.  Yes, that’s right, she hears voices.

Bella’s also made a new friend, Jacob Black.  His main interests include being a native American Indian, smiling, restoring his VW Rabbit and turning into a werewolf.  It takes Bella a long time to figure that last one out and it causes plenty of conflict in the couple’s not so gripping non-relationship (maybe she should have just re-read Twilight and paid more attention to the part where Jacob talks about his family being descended from wolves).

In the tradition of Twilight it is not until readers are the majority of the way through the book that Stephenie realises she’s going to need a plot.  Cue Alice and Bella hopping on a plane to Italy to rescue Edward from vampire elders the Volturi.  Even a vampire who’s been going through a dry spell of 110 years would be forced to admit that this section of the book is one hell of an anticlimax.

In summary, New Moon is a remarkable achievement; Stephenie has managed to create something that is even worse than Twilight.  By now your mind will be numb to the pain caused by her poor grammar and rampant Americanese and you will no longer expect any kind of action or character depth to be present on the pages.  All that will keep you reading is the hope that Edward will return and that something will happen (SPOILER: Yes he does and no it doesn’t).

Related Posts

Twilight: Cheaper Than Heroin
Eclipse: Now With Added Plot
Breaking Dawn: Just Say No

“Bang.” is the first sentence of Deadline, a year long project on which Antonio and I collaborated. What happens next?  You’ll have to wait and see.

Happy New Year or somesuch.