Bullet In Wembley

Went to see Bullet For My Valentine on Thursday (5 December). Travelled over to Wembley Arena and saw three bands. On the way we took a wrong turn thanks to poor Sat-Nav instructions and me not paying attention (I wasn’t driving) and we ended up on the bottom of the M1 heading north where the first place to turn around is Watford, added half an hour to our journey, but we still arrived on time.

First band on were Young Guns. I think rather than be disparaging about their music it would be best to describe their set as very not my kinda stuff. Dave, who I went with, said this band looked like a “metal boy-band”, a bit manufactured.

Young Guns
Young Guns

Next up on the stage were a band called Asking Alexandria. Apparently from “somewhere up north” and from this fair isle of Great Britain this five piece were much better than Young Guns. Not brilliant but better. I was impressed, but then again, not enough to buy their album. The music was good but there was too much shouting singing for me and it didn’t sound like anything new. Skinny guitarists!

Asking Alexandria
Asking Alexandria
Asking Alexandria
Asking Alexandria

Next up were Bullet For My Valentine. They had a lovely curtain in front of their set. It made me almost patriotic. What I would say was that about one third of Wembley Arena was not used. There were curtains blocking the back part of the arena and some of the seats were covered. This could have been intentional to make it a more intimate gig but maybe they can’t sell 12,500 tickets in London?

The music in between bands was good. There was lots of AC/DC played and I liked that but the song that everyone sings is “Run to the hills” by Iron Maiden. This is not the first gig I’ve been to where everyone sings that song. It must be some kinda anthem for us British metal fans.

So, the opening music was Carmina Burana to get the crowd excited. This is, unfortunately, an overused piece of music. Ozzy used it in the 80s and 90s and I was seriously expecting him to come on stage. Also, the X Factor use it. Grow up and choose something really dark and mysterious. “Night on a bare mountain” for instance.

BFMV Flag
BFMV Flag

When they came on they played a song I had never heard. Never a good start. I really liked “Scream, Aim, Fire”. Over all they played a solid set and were musically impressive. Stage presence is something they don’t have and overall the stage show was a bit shit. It lacked something. Oh, they had flames and sparkly shit when they came on and then there was nothing but the unveiling of a giant screen that showed everything in black and white. The encore was 30 minutes long and they played a montage. I hate montages. Metallica played a “Kill ‘Em All” montage in 1990 and I hated that then and I hate montages now. Fuck off and play all the songs, or come on earlier. Oh, and they played a ballad. I don’t care if other people like them, I don’t. Oh, and further, oh, there was a guitar solo. Shit, a guitar solo. Bollocks. I was actually texting a mate during the ballad and ensuing solo. Arse.
Anyway, overall it was a 6 or 7 out of ten. The audience was composed of different types of people than I am used to, more women and more make up. I guess that might be who this music appeals to. If that’s the case then it’s a shame I listened to my stuff all this time (few women!).

BFMV
BFMV

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The journey home was much easier than expected.

What We Moan About

Firstly I shall make a number of presumptions. There’s probably plenty of evidence for these but I am not going to give citations.

  • Humans are tribal, belonging to groups makes us feel safe
  • Humans feel supported by groups and common interests
  • Humans are storytellers

I’ve been thinking about the things I moan about. Sometimes I explain those things on these pages, sometimes a short burst on Twitter and sometimes I like to moan to my family or work colleagues. It’s good to let off steam as long as you don’t come across to other people as a moaning bastard. Then again, it’s not always a bad thing to be considered the grumpy one, you tend to be left alone.

So, here goes.

The topics of our moaning need to be generalised. They should be topics that nearly everyone experiences or understands. They should be communal so we all feel involved and able to agree or chide.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the best topics for moaning are:

  • The weather
  • Driving
  • Supermarkets
  • Television

We all love to join in and be part of a gang. With these topics we can feel part of a gang straight away.
Just because we find cause to moan about these issues, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s getting worse. It might be different or worse or better. Anecdote won’t be able to tell. Let’s leave the details to the sociologists and scientists and engage in ranting every now and then. It’s good for you.

 

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

First off: I haven’t read the books. I probably won’t. I don’t get a great deal of time to read and so when I do I read other stuff I find interesting. I’m currently reading “Ring World” by Larry Niven and have been for about 4 months!

Second thing: People who eat from noisy packets should be escorted from the cinema. I go to the cinema about once a week and last night was the first time for quite a while where there were idiots eating from extremely noisy crinkly packets. I could understand it if you sneak food into the auditorium in a plastic bag and quickly get food out and make a “one-off” noise but making noise all the way through the film is not acceptable. It displays a complete lack of empathy and care.

Thirdly: Since I haven’t read this book this communication is simply about what I thought of the film and not how it did as an adaptation.

Overall, it was a good film. Very well made and filmed. The acting is ok and the storyline worked well, possibly apart from the final five minutes which left me a little non-plussed. Out of it all I think I liked the chariot ride the best. Well, that’s not much written for a film of 146 minutes but it’s not outstanding.

I do like the look of the Capital and the politics. It makes it quite interesting. The fashion looks good but then again flamboyant costumes have been used for years to enhance films. I can’t help thinking that the same story has been told many times. We all know how it’s going to end. I keep thinking of “The Running Man” and how this is essentially just a cross between that and “Battle Royale”.

It’s all cyclical, I guess. When I grew up I think that Swallows and Amazons was still quite a big thing for kids to read along with the Famous Five and also the Hobbit stuff. Over time franchises grow and decline giving a snap shot of the teen zeitgeist. Harry Potter and then the Vampire crap will all become a thing of the past with children only reading it because their parents buy it for them thinking it’s good stuff while a new story will rise and sell shed-loads. Is Lord Of The Rings really (I mean really) that good? This cycle is probably going to get worse with bigger blockbusters with a shorter lifespan because information travels so much more quickly via the internet now. My conclusion is that the grand-themes will return but jacketed within different characters, leading each generation to think they have “their” thing. Ha ha. It’s all been done before.

 

Addition 4 hours later:
Potential Spoiler

When Katniss fires her lightning conductor at the force field it breaks the shield. That’s fine but then there’s loads of roofing and girders crashing down to the ground. If you have a force field you don’t need a solid structure too. I don’t understand what was going on here. It doesn’t fit with the technology in the film.

Pigeon Check

This is a picture of the building where I predominantly work. You can see I have labelled certain parts of the building.

Over the last few years I have been here I have become aware that before I enter the building (through doors labelled A) I check the roof line (labelled B) for pigeons. This is because they poop over the edge of the building and I don’t want to get any of that on me. If I look at the floor underneath the eaves I can see a distribution of pigeon poop along the length of the building. If I spot pigeons directly above the doors I will adjust my approach to the building. In the picture the birds sitting quietly (labelled C) would not be considered a threat unless it was a windy day.

 

Pigeon Check
Pigeon Check

Don’t get me started on the seagulls on the other buildings!

Just Wrong

Maps eh? This is the picture of a wall chart by Michelin (the French company but for their English cousins). It is a Van Der Grinten projection with changes made by Michelin. I’m not sure it’s ethical to change a map projection but they did.

This map makes Great Britain look the same size as France. The real multiplier is that France is 2.2 times the size of the UK, let alone GB.
Spain is really twice as big as Great Britain.
Although it’s not on this picture Kenya looks about the same size as GB but is in fact 2.4 times bigger.

What have Michelin done? They’ve made it appear that Great Britain is larger than it is really. Oh dear. Perhaps we should all watch the

Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail

episode of the West Wing. It will explain it all, I assure you.

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By the way, the last time I saw this episode of the West Wing was summer 2013 in Keswick while I was visiting penguin.

H.G.

It was nice to see a plaque up on the side of a building in Baker Street that wasn’t dedicated to a fictional detective.

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I have to say that for half the time I was looking at this I had an image of H.G. from the television show Warehouse 13. A good programme.

Machete Kills

So, I didn’t really have any expectations apart from quite a bit of gore. I knew nothing about this film apart from Michelle Rodriguez being in it. I think I expected some sort of pulp violence movie.

Guess what I got? A pulp violence movie. It was certainly refreshing from the high budget “action” films I had seen recently. The effects were organic. I think I mean cheap but that just added to the film. This was never going to be a movie with a budget of $100m. I really liked it.

The acting was good, adding to the overall atmosphere of the film. Everything was over the top. The effects, the action, the gore, all of it.

If you want 105 minutes of laughter and gore then look no further. I recommend this film to all who know what to expect. I’m really looking forward to the sequel.

Lego 16 Model 60019

Reno, baby. That’s where I’d like to go one day, but not for the gambling but the air races. I love the idea of P51s racing 200ft off the deck. It would be a seriously sexy sport to watch. In the mean time I will satisfy my air racing passions with this little Lego racer.

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