Get Me To The Lerche* On Time!

Sondre Lerche, Bar Academy, Birmingham, Monday March 7 2005.

Dead Kenny has been kept waiting on many occasion for a headline act to haul their sorry arses on stage and do that shit they do, so it's typical that when he arranges to meet someone for a quick drink before the gig tonight that Norwegian pop troubadour Sondre Lerche decides to be considerate to the poor metroproles who have to go to work next morning and emerges on stage before 9pm! Luckily being within hearing distance of the venue Dead Kenny is able to drink up, make his excuses and leave in time for the third number.

Fortunately your correspondent isn't required to fight his way to the bar or muscle in too brusquely to gain a decent view, as the combined temptations of The Raveonettes, Dogs and The Boxer Rebellion nextdoor and Ray LaMontagne at the nearby Glee Club has reduced attendance to about 30 hardcore Lerche-rs. Sondre is a diminutive-but-dashing character (resembling a strange morph of Billy Fury, Mark Owen and Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy) whom Anja has previously described as 'ugly' and at least one person seems to agree with her judging from the girl-in-front's cameraphone's viewfinder which seems to be focusing on just about every part of his anatomy but his face.

Sondre advises that he's just been to Nottingham where he's learnt that the 'h' in Nottingham and Birmingham is silent. This amuses him greatly, so cue exaggerated pronunciations of Birming-um ad infinitum, as several young females in the audience melt into a pool of their own vaginal discharge. The good folk of Nottingham had advised him that he had to get this right in Brum or he'd be in big trouble with the second city's fierce and warlike gig-goers, but instead he finds us to be cute 'like boy-scouts...and girl-scouts, of course'. And without further ado, he proceeds to tie our heartstrings into a fiendishly clever series of knots with some achingly beautiful songs of heartbreak and loss. But just as the emerging picture of a lovelorn and desolate hero seems to be getting too much for some of the more sensitive ladies in the audience, he shrugs and says 'Hey! I'm still here.' What a trouper (Sir Robert Baden-Powell would be proud).

Despite having settled in America and about to embark on a support turn for Elvis Costello's US Tour, Sondre reveals that he simply couldn't afford to bring a band with him on this occasion, so we get a completely solo (and mainly acoustic) set. He even dispenses with the microphone for an intimate 'campfire' rendition of 'Maybe You're Gone' for the set closer, sending everyone home suitably charmed, even those stood behind the 6ft 6in blockhead who insisted on standing right at the front throughout.

*Yes, I know that the 'ch' in Lerche is almost certainly 'a hard ch' but Dead Kenny is using poetic license, so smell my hard ch----, you pedantic linguistic muthas!

And Another Thing...

We interrupt other pressing business to wish Anja a happy 27th birthday, and point you in the direction of Large Hearted Boy's Best XI Albums of 2004 which includes Joanna Newsom, The Fiery Furnaces and (less convincingly) Delays. Of course, when the time comes (and it will come, rest assured) for me to give my own deliberations on the top aural delights of 2004 I won't be so kind as to include links to relevant mp3s as I expect total slavish trust on such matters without recourse to reinforcements.

Dead Space

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last week, but you'll be sad/mad/glad to know that, unlike Janet Leigh (she's faced her final shower curtain); Christopher Reeve (you'll believe a man can die); Aussie all-rounder Keith Miller (he had 'a good innings') and Jacques Derrida (will his body decompose or simply de-construct?), Dead Kenny is still very much as alive as a dead fella can be. We'd supply you with the lynx but here at Parallax View Towers we're currently suffering from a wildcat strike.

It's not been a good week or so for R'n'B stars either: in the 70s it was an A-Bomb on Wardour Street but in 2004 it's dynamite rocking the foundations, and rapper Beanie Sigel has been jailed for 12 months (apparently 'lyrics from Sigel's next album, in which he fantasises about taking vengeance on his enemies by pouring acid on their children and raping their girlfriends' didn't help convince the jury he'd turned the corner in his life).

Moving on, we have a big album review compendium brewing (including Interpol, Fiery Furnaces and Radio 4, amongst others) but to keep you going until then, take a look at the best promo vid Dead Kenny has seen so far this year, 'Pass It On' by Swedish electropop duo The Knife, which you can download in all its 13mb quicktime glory from this page.

Football or breasts, it's difficult to choose between them sometimes, isn't it? But now you don't have to, as this West Ham lass (not safe for work, via upton lark) promises to get naked every time West Ham win a game (shy girl, then, obviously). Should see the Hammers get a bit of support from the neutrals, then, as well as giving the Upton Park faithful a rare chance to gawp at some recent cups. And we need all the help we can get, as we currently don't have a fit centre-half going into the weekend's game against high-flying and newly-hip QPR.

Still bored? Write Anja a story. About how they fight crime.

Fuckin' A

This post shouldn't be happening right now. I ought to be in a bar downing a few quick pints before heading off to see West Ham v Wolves at the Boleyn Ground. However, my personal chauffeur called in sick this morning (that's his commission of three bags of savoury snacks blown, then) my bowels are currently more irritable than my book reviews and my tummy's more upset than Ken Bigley's mum, so I didn't fancy a minimum six-hour last-minute return train journey too much. Still, on the bright side of things, my Striker mug arrived this morning, courtesy of my stoner postman dude ('hey, have a good day, maaaan!', they're obviously using stronger adhesives on their envelopes these days). Hmm...big kid's brain and an old man's body, what an attractive combination, eh? So, let that be a warning to younger readers - being middle-aged: don't let it happen to you. Maybe Pete Doherty's smarter than we think.

Meanwhile, my supanet e-mail account is playing sillier buggers than the Hammers defence, so if you need to relay info with any urgency to me, the best bet for the next few days is this address. Thanks also to Anja for quietly pointing out that I mis-spelt Nostradamus throughout my previous post (since amended, if only I'd had the legendary foresight to use Spellcheck, eh?). Now you know why I avoid having a comments facility here - to save me from the public humiliation.

Elsewhere, PJ Harvey's hour-long live performance for BBC4 Sessions is being repeated tonight (guess which station, huh?) at 1.10am. Great performance, well shot and with a set very heavily peppered with songs from her excellent latest album 'Uh Huh Her' plus a few upskirt shots to keep the pervs happy. It's Gillian Welch next week in what could a pretty good series for people whose intestines can't quite survive the strains of, you know, going out and stuff.

In brief
 
First off, many happy returns to Captain Paulos of the good ship Anglepoised and secondly, good luck to Ben who's guest-blogging over at Troubled-Diva over the next couple of weeks. This guest-blogging malarkey is very fashionable at the moment, and although it gives people like Ben a deserved opportunity to widen his exposure, and I'm not singling out the tribbly diva for criticism here, I can't help feeling that generally it smacks a bit of taking your website a little too seriously. This news just in: the world *will* keep turning if your blog doesn't update while you're on holiday, or otherwise busy, drunk or hungover. Which is a bit of a relief all round, really, not least for Superman (who, after all, *has* just lost his dad).

Paul Foot RIP. There was a good piece on the renowned investigative journalist by Mark Steel in today's Independent but it's already in their pay-archives so I shan't link to it.

The Fiery Furnaces' inexorable rise to world domination continues with a 9.6/10 Pitchfork review for new album Blueberry Boat.

Shola: Ama Coke Fiend. Let's not tell her no-one can remember who she was or what she sung - the poor dear's probably paranoid enough already.

For reasons a little too elusive for PV to grasp, Juliette Lewis is back in fashion. Chuck Palahniuk even ditches his dayjob to interview Geoffrey's gal about Bob De Niro's clean thumbs and how to 'become a rack'. Strange days, indeed.

Mercury Music Prize nominees in. No Moz or Jamie Cullum, but apart from that no alarms and no surprises in the selection. If there's any justice in this world, the choice will be between Basement Jaxx, Belle & Sebastian and The Streets. But of course there *is* no justice in the world, so stick your shekels on Joss Stone instead.

Jessica Alba is The Invisible Girl in the Fantastic Four movie adaptation. Nah, can't see it, myself.

Congratulations to Anja on her explosive piece of nanofiction being selected for inclusion on Warren Ellis' Die Puny Humans (scroll down page to last story and cute pic).

And finally...So Says I, LA hipster blogging complete with neat design, courtesy of Kerry, covering The Walkmen, Palahniuk and Showgirls, amongst others.

Parallax View Book Review Compendium

Well, Anja has a new website, but typically, by the time I've linked to it, she's too busy to update it again. She ran a poll asking the question - vivid gay sex in literature - yay or nay? and naysayers would be well advised to avoid Brass by Helen Walsh, as its opening chapter features its 19-year-old student protagonist Millie paying cash in order to orally pleasure a young prostitute in a Liverpool cemetery, and later has her inserting the bottom end of a lager bottle into a much older lady of the night. Cheers.

Thanks to the educational properties of my inbox I've become familiar with the acronym MILFs for 'Moms I'd Like To Fuck' so maybe we need a similar acronym for this generation of terrific-looking authors (Zadie Smith, Monica Ali et al) of whom part-Malaysian Walsh, with her dusky looks and fantastic breasts, is the latest addition - NILFs (as in novelists I'd like to...), maybe? To be fair, Walsh has an interesting and colourful past as a teenage red light fixer in Barcelona before working with socially-excluded youngsters in Liverpool. She's put that time to good use as her writing sings with the local dialect and she's able to write about a troubled youngster with a lack of condescension that allows the reader to feel compassion for a character with such unappetising predilictions.

It's tempting to glibly summarise Brass as a Looking For Mr Goodbar for the alcopop generation, but whereas Judith Rossner's 70s classic rewarded her promiscuous teacher with a violent bludgeoning, Walsh depicts Millie as young, vibrant and intelligent enough to deserve, if not a happy ending exactly, some sort of optimistic resolution. Millie is a believably complex character, cynical enough to exploit the local brass in appalling ways, yet still innocent enough to derive simple pleasures from 'bonny night' and trips to the Welsh coast. My only criticism would be some of the motivation for her extracurricular behaviour is a little too pat, but overall this is a fascinating, involving and moving read for those with a strong stomach who are not easily offended.

Maggie Gee, an elegant blonde lady in her fifties, probably qualifies as a NILF for the viagra generation. The Flood is a dystopian novel in the Ballard mould, set in the near future of a slowly-flooding city where the rich live in affluence at a higher level while the poor contend with the rising water levels below and all the dirt and disease that goes with it. Meanwhile the city's President Bliss, a charismatic but misguided man, is too busy concentrating his efforts on an unnecessary war to keep his eye on looming natural disasters on his own doorstep.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's supposed to. Gee doesn't waste time on subtlety in her use of a fantasy scenario to illustrate her anger at the way the country's currently going. The book uses characters from her previous novels in The Flood, but this didn't stop me from enjoying it, although you do have to concentrate hard while working through the busy plotting of a large and intertwining cast of characters in the first 100 pages or so. It's good to see a novelist bold enough to rage at such 'old-fashioned' concerns as social injustice and the chasm betwixt rich and poor, and furthermore be unafraid to steer the plot towards its logical, dark conclusion. Recommended, particularly if you share her disillusionment with modern society.

Just to show I don't only read books by authors I want to sleep with, I also caught up with Bay Of Souls by Robert Stone, who wrote one of my favourite books of the 80s in A Flag For Sunrise. Despite a swish cover, his latest is a bit of disappointment - a vaguely noirish tale of a nerdish college professor lured by an exotic colleague into voodoo and political intrigue on a fictitious caribbean island. It's readable enough, but in the final analysis it just didn't make any sense to me - Stone spends the first half of the book providing the main character's backstory but then renders this insignificant with the sub-Greene chicanery of the second half, where the character appears to completely change for no reason. Maybe there's a higher intelligence at work than I can understand, because to me this felt like a first draft in major need of a re-editing overhaul. Dispiriting - if you're a Stone fan, I'd suggest waiting for the paperback.

Irregular Features

It's perhaps fitting that on the 10th anniversary of the estimable Fierce Panda records the 150th NING, 'The Way It's Meant To Be' by The Features gets the coveted honour of Parallax View Single Of The Week. I don't know much about the band but these Features are hardly bland with their stomping glam take on The Pixies just edging out the rifftastic 'Saffron' by Eastern Lane. Not sure about the cardigans and flat caps, though.


Wrist Watch

Meanwhile, those crazy Norwegians are such johnny-come-latelies, don't you think? Let's hope the sadly-departed Anja has been treading carefully today.

Short Thrusts

Parallax View wishes a very happy birthday to Anja, possibly the one true defining genius of the internet, as well as still being damned hot at the grand old age of 26.

Meanwhile, Large Hearted Boy has opened up his enlarged pumping organ to select his First XI of albums released in 2003. Any list with The Thermals at #2 is okaysie-fantaysee by me.

Jessica Alba (steady, now) is to start work on her new movie Into The Blue which she describes as 'a remake of The Deep - without the wet T-shirt'. This sounds like a pointless exercise in so many ways.

And of course, this month Parallax View is reading Pynchon, because, frankly, you don't have the time to. Today's Mason and Dixon Watch takes us from pages 149 to 175. Dixon has returned to Cape Town where he nearly takes a bullet on Mason's behalf, before declining the advances of one of the Zroom girls bursting out of her bodice. Meanwhile, Mason has started seeing a ghost of his dead wife Rebekah, and reminisces about their first meeting, shortly after his altercation with a monster cheese rolling down a hill (you think I'm making this up, don't you?). Although the RevD Cherrycoke reveals there is no record of their wedding so has she always been a phantom? The plot is indeed thickening faster than a Westlife waistline.

Sorry to end tonight on a grim and ominous note but Jorn Barger, the man behind Robot Wisdom and who first coined the term 'weblog' is apparently missing. (via The Copydesk)

When In Paris, Do As The French Do

It seems it never rains, but il pleut. So first up, congratulations to the England rugby union team on their 24-7 victory over France earlier this morning which means they're through to next weekend's World Cup final against holders (and, indeed, hosts) Australia. Idiot reporter to triumphant coach Clive Woodward after the game: 'That was a great England win in typically English conditions'. A visibly perplexed Woody to idiot reporter: 'If I remember rightly it rains in France as well'. Idiot reporter put in his place.

The England soccer team did less well today, losing 3-2 at home to Denmark in a meaningless friendly. Thumbs up though for Joe Cole who marked his first full start for the national side with a goal, and another ex-Hammer, Glen Johnson, who made his international debut coming on as sub for a limp(ing) Gary Neville. Add in Frank Lampard in midfield, Rio Ferdinand on the sidelines and Jermain Defoe waiting in the wings, and it looks like yet again the Upton Park academy is providing the building blocks for a successful England future.

There's another fantastic short story by Haruki Murakami posted online. Entitled Hunting Knife it shimmers with an end-of-holidays ambience before cutting deep beneath the surface. I do love a short story with an atmosphere, as Russ Abbott once memorably didn't sing.

Oh, and Anja has redesigned. Is it that time of the week already? Just kidding, Anja! She also has a picture of herself in the bath, wearing a hat, talking to her cat, drunk. Relax though, boys and girls, this isn't explicit Paris Hilton-style material.

Speaking of the (possibly) chemically imbalanced PH there are reports that there will be a further video installment of her biology lessons available soon, as three different witnesses have alleged they have seen a video in circulation of Paris having lesbian sex with model Nicole Lenz before being joined by a male Hollywood star. It seems what you give to a girl who has everything on her birthday is a pert and pliable playmate and so considerate of her, don't you think, to have pre-recorded some sequels to her internet blockbuster? Lady Of The Ringtones trilogy, anyone?

Who knows what the truth of the matter is, although the video is alleged to have been recorded at a hotel the night of Paris' birthday bash earlier this year, and these pictures certainly place the skinny former playmate Lenz at the scene of the 'crime'. I should hastily point out that there's no suggestion that Nicole's companion in these photos had any involvement in the alleged video, let alone was the meat in the lo-cal whitebread sandwich.

Haven't seen any online viewings of Hilton's Lenz lesbian love-in as yet, but until then, we'll have to make do with Nicole's shattering solo video from the archives of her playmate days (requires RealPlayer, and completely NOT SAFE FOR WORK, as well as having a dreadful soft-rock soundtrack). Seems even back then, Nicole loved getting a bit of heir in her teeth, and judging on this evidence you have to concede that as a birthday present this was a capital idea. I'm going to have to quit with the puns now or I'll stop making seines.

Let's steer clear of smut for a while and introduce you to ShiftX a gameculture weblog from the shadowy but ever-so-dependable oh!skylab conspiracy. Doesn't mean a lot to me, I'm afraid, but there's a good review of Matrix Revolutions on there. Speaking of Neo fights, if you haven't seen it yet, this is a fun little manga-style spoof of Matrix:Reloaded. I'm still looking for a sensible deconstruction of the Architect scene, btw, but haven't had any takers yet, so I'm assuming you're all as nonplussed as I am.

Finally, this is currently the best place to find new tunes to download. Registration is needed (and has limited availability) for full access to the archives (via Paulos). Speaking of online music, I have a friend looking for good download sites for rock/metal choons - anyone know of something equivalent?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Some more album reviews due next week, as well as the usual stuff and, indeed, nonsense. Which will no doubt include bad puns, poor French translations, underdressed celebrities and cheap digs at my blogging brethren amidst other indiscretions.

I can start breathing again now, as Anja has resumed blogging after a frankly terrifying two-week abstinence. I've just about coped with trying to fill Graybo's boots during his period of genuflection but I think I'd have been out of my depth trying to replicate Anja's sexily vicious strops, obscure quotations, sociopathic suicide obsessions and scary cat pictures. Not to mention my complete lack of freckles.

Speaking of Graybo, in my continuing efforts to produce West Sussex content while we wait for him to Just Say No to his alleged soft drug stupour, I can report that his beloved Brighton and Hove Albion have got through to the next round of the prestigious LDV Vans Trophy thanks to a 'silver goal' victory over Boston. I must admit that I have no idea what a silver goal is, and really can't be arsed to find out. Sorry. But I do wish Graybo comes back soon. I for one can't wait to find out what his fantasy football team scores are. And, be honest back there, neither can you.

Some predictable but nonetheless sad news in today - Pete Doherty (ex of The Libertines) has been sent down for six months (still, cheer up Pete, I'm sure there'll be a nice queue forming to indulge your previously proclaimed rentboy fantasies) and Warren Zevon has died of lung cancer.

In other, much happier news, England have squared the cricket series against South Africa by playing out of their skins in the last four days of the final test at The Oval. Terrific stuff, with Marcus Trescothick and Freddie Flintoff's brutal batting the highlight.

And the red letter day is of course complete with news that Anja is baring more than her soul over at anjarchista.org. Hmm, denim. I mean, boobies. No, make that young people in lurve...get a load of them.

You still here?!

Just a quick post to reassure my worried little citizens that I'm safely back at HQ and ready to renew blogging activity. You may also be relieved to hear I've toned down the excessive enthusiasm and unusual candour of my previous Scandanavian-based bloggage and will return to my more familiar wry cynicism, withering sarcasm and oblique caginess from now on. That's what jetlag; a dicky tummy and the rigours of British public transport do for you, I'm afraid.

I haven't really got much of a clue what I'll be writing about this week but there will almost certainly be my Premiership preview/predictions and there's a better-than-average chance of a review of the Big Brother 4 Uncut DVD. There's a possibility of further reminiscences of Stockholm and I might even pull my finger out and find some links for you. Anyone who's spotted anything of interest during my absence please feel free to get in touch with your suggestion(s).

With Robyn in mourning; Anja on vacation and BoneyBoy off to Italy for four weeks, I'm all too aware you all need me now more than ever. Duty calls, Dead Kenny answers. But only after he gets himself some serious kip.

Meanwhile, just spotted this sad news: Actor/dancer Gregory Hines dead at 57.

There are certain inevitabilities in life - Bob Hope croaking; Jack Ryder and Kym Marsh splitting up and, of course, Anja returning with yet another new design.

Las Catch Up

Well it appears that after a brief hiatus the doors at the Swish Cottage have closed for good. This seems especially sad to me as David started his blog on the exact same day Parallax View made its messy, bewling entrance into the rarified blogosphere. Who knows though, maybe he will reopen at a later date as Spruce Bungalow or something.

I don't think it's the done thing these days to link to people just because they've redesigned but listen, this is Anja so the normal etiquette doesn't apply, OK? She's talking about her relationship to suicide at the moment, and you really want to read that, even if you think you don't.

That bloody Evanescence record at No.1 in the UK singles charts: it's the bastard lovechild of T'Pau and Linkin Park, don't you think? You see, this is what happens when abortion laws get tightened up.

The new Radiohead album Hail To The Thief (released on Monday) represents the band's return to rockier more guitar-based sounds. Can I be the first to say I preferred their earlier, electronic records?

Margaret Atwood sings! (via The Minor Fall The Major Lift)

Newcastle Brown ice cream! (via Mad Musings Of Me)

Mandy Moore gets naked! In a new Warner Bros movie, thus far untitled, in which she plays a rambunctious daughter of the President. The word rambunctious just doesn't get used often enough, does it? (via fark)

Back soon with a report on the Grandaddy gig in Birmingham last night.

Down and Out In London?

Troubled pop strumpets Girls Aloud celebrated the fact that No Good Advice has earned this week's accolade of Parallax View Single Of The Week by dressing up as schoolgirls over the weekend. Judging by the picture to your left of Nicola Roberts (taken from The Sun) maybe they should have included a dunce's cap in her outfit, as she clearly brought up the rear in spelling class.

Belated birthday wishes to green-fingered Graybo the blogging world's answer to Alan Titchmarsh. And I turn my back for a few days, and Anja has only gone and got her 'boobies' out. The things she'll do to get a link from me!

Bit late with this one, but if you haven't seen it already the final trailer for Ang Lee's The Hulk is now online.

My local team Telford United have finally announced their new boss. Amidst feverish town rumours of an imminent big name like Steve Cotterill or Jan Molby the club have incredibly plumped instead for an unknown 57-year-old Mick Jones. Not an appointment likely to generate much excitement amongst the townfolk, methinks.

While we're on the subject of football (if you must) thanks to Arseblogger and Ben for their commiserations over the relegation of my beloved West Ham. But there were no tears before bedtime in the Parallax View household - after all, I foretold our fate as far back as last November.

Talking of predictions, have a gander at mine at the eve of the season. I got the top two right, five of the first six (including surprise package Blackburn) and two of the three relegated sides. No prizes for guessing which one I got wrong, with The Hammers taking Fulham's rightful place in oblivion.

But anyway last season is history now. West Ham are now in a division which is actually a competition rather than a promotional puff-piece for Sky Sports and Manchester United, and ticket prices are being reduced to 20%. We'll find out how many of our players love the shirt and the rest of them can fuck off as long as the price is right by us.

The most bizarre moment of the weekend just gone was Brum manager Steve Bruce's amazing outburst that he'd been waiting eight years to send West Ham down, since the day the Hammers had the temerity not to roll over and die and let his team Man U win the title all those years back. Brucey boy, let's face facts, the Mancs have such a massive financial advantage over the rest of us we ALL hated you, every one of us, deal with it. Shame you had to reveal you're just as bitter and twisted as your wonky-nosed face...

And to paraphrase Nicola Roberts: Relegation? Botherd!

Picture This Although it seems to have escaped the attention of those careerist young pups at the NME there have been women in rock music for nigh on forty years. To illustrate this point (and for no other prurient reasons, natch) here are some vintage pictures of Debbie Harry nude (not safe for work, some popup/popunder ads).

Things on the site likely to be fairly quiet over the next couple of days - off out tomorrow to see Ladytron at the Birmingham Academy (really hope they play their version of Tweet's Oops Oh My, which they've been doing as an encore in their American shows) then doing a lightning daytrip to London to see ver Hammers in the latest episode of their 'Great Escape' from relegation at home to already-doomed Sunderland.

There should then be some increased activity on the site next week as I have some time off work and plan to install Movable Type so Anja can deliver the new site design. I also have three months worth of reviews to catch up with just in case the sun don't shine.

Peace be with you.

Seeing as I'm too tight to go dial-up and mail out I'm going to need to do my various thanks and apologies on this here page (wot, you mean people use email for other things, like jokes and conversation? Pffft!).

So thanks to Anja and our Danish correspondent John Fogde for their Toby Litt recommendations. Only trouble is, they came up with different suggestions. So that's two more books for me to buy.

And I'm sorry Graybo, I didn't mean to make you paranoid, it was just an expression. Believe me, if I heard other bloggers bad-mouthing you or your rather fine jacket, I'd be the very first tittle-tattle to stir the shit raise the alarm, as I hope you'd realise.

But before I get off my knees I should perhaps sustain my grovelling position and plead mercy on my soul for thinking Bobbie hadn't updated his blog since November when in fact he'd changed URL to here months ago. Whoops, and indeed, a daisy. Must update my sidebar soon.

I guess this represents a good as opportunity as any to mention Bobbie also has a new project on the go - PolitX a community 'leftlog'. Because political activism isn't just for one nice day out in London a year, you know.

Litt Crit

Some time back someone recommended the author Toby Litt to me (I think it might have been Anja), so I checked out his new paperback, a collection of short stories entitled Exhibitionism. Part way in, I was beginning to think I'd made a mistake. Some of the stories were interesting stylistically, as exercises in form, but beyond this seemed a little pointless: the message was obscured/dwarfed by the medium.

Which is a shame, as when Litt sticks to more conventional narrative his talents are evident and plentiful, particularly his ability to build suspense and tap into the insecurities and idiosyncracies of masculine sexuality. I found myself getting more involved in the collection the further I read, my favourite stories being Of The Third Kind; My cold War (February 1998) and The New Puritans.

Although I consider Exhibitionism to be too uneven to be an unqualified success, I'm intrigued enough to explore some of his novels. Anyone recommend a good starting point?

Service Update

Apologies for the sparsity of updates in recent weeks. This week is shaping up to be a quieter one for me by recent standards so I should be able to get back into the groove of daily updates, although those are famous last words. The Blueyonder maintenance should have been completed six days ago but I'm still unable to receive or send emails through my blueyonder account. It's proving problematical to get through to their technical support so in the meantime I can still receive emails through my supanet account. Please bear with me as regards replies, as I can only send out mails through my old dial-up connection, which is expensive.

Further ahead, I'm mulling over the merits and otherwise to moving over to Movable Type, after which Anja has kindly offered a new redesign. Betcha can't wait, eh?

Algorithm's Gonna Getcha

Hmm. Google + Blogger = Zzzzzz if you ask me. If the blogging phenomenon has really matured maybe it's time for many of my esteemed colleagues to find something different to write about than blogging issues, almost certainly the least interesting thing happening on the planet right now, never mind what certain sections of the BBC or The Guardian might flatter us into believing.

Less meta is better from now on, surely.

Though that isn't going to stop me linking to this article because, as James kindly pointed out to me, that is my logo (designed by Anja, lest ye forget) at the head of it, so come on, fame and misfortune, do thine worst.

Actually, it's started already. A certain investigative journalist in particular is not taking no for an answer in his pursuit for an interview. I've tried to tell him that his flash sports car wouldn't last 5 minutes in my neighbourhood but still he persists. It was on his nineteenth answerphone message when he cooed that the single-minded devotion I showed to Myleene Klass was awesome and genuinely touching that I finally sussed he was setting me up for exposure as an online stalker by the time of his first commercial break.

So Marty baby, don't call me, I'll call *you*, 'kay?

Cheers (aka Another Episode About Lesbians, Beer and Me)

I'm afraid I failed miserably in Anja's Pop Quiz For Customers. I was doing quite well at one point but just couldn't resist the answer 'I am the only person in the world who really exists, others are just extras in the great, top-rating sitcom that is my life'. I mean, c'mon doesn't everyone think like that? [cue canned laughter]

And because you can never be complacent about ratings (what with BBC Three and all, see below) I'm going to commission Anja (who has a positively smokin' new design btw, will it get banned in the US?) in her crucial supporting role as my crazy but talented Norwegian online chum to deliver an mpeg of her performing the I-Don't-Care dance post-haste. 'The I Don't Care-dance is an interpretive dance: The disgruntled service rep or salesperson jumps from foot to foot while clapping his or her hands and chanting I DON'T CARE loudly simultaneously.' David Brent eat yer heart out. [cue whoops, hollering and a word from our sponsors]

And now for a commercial break (via Off On A Tangent). This Miller Lite catfight ad [cue audience wolf-whistles] features two busty women arguing over the respective merits of the beverage, the action spilling over to a swimming pool and mudpit before suggestively taking the action (ahem) indoors. Think of it as Tatu for grown-ups. If you're on a dial-up or just want to cut to the chase though, here are some pictures of one of the Miller Lite girls Kitana Baker stark bollockless naked (not remotely safe for work).

The Second Annual Parallax View Xmas Message

I'd like to wish a Merry Xmas to all my readers. Have been really busy with one thing or the other (not so much of the other as I'd like but hey, you can't have everything) so have not been online much - hence the sparsity of updates and the regrettable fact that I haven't been able to send individual e-mail messages of festive goodwill as in previous years. And many thanks to Anja for her wonderful Xmas present. She's redesigned again too, so go take a look and say hello.

Hopefully 2002 began to help people regain some perspective on issues of an individual and global scale. Parents found that their children were at greater potential risk from the friendly uncle or cool caretaker than some lurking virtual presence on the demonised internet and many of us rediscovered that our immediate health and safety were jeopardised more by neighbourhood thugs than terrorists in turbans.

Evil is closer than the media would have you think. All any of us really need to conquer is the devil within.

Take care.

Rented Y Tu Mama Tambien via movietrak last week. This film has been one of the arthouse successes of the year and following over 3,000 votes has a not-to-be-sniffed-at 8/10 average user rating at IMDB. Yet it is also one of Anja's pet hates, and it's best not to mention it to her when there's cutlery lying about, to be honest. So who is right? 3,000 IMDB users or Anja? Parallax View decided to investigate.

Watching it, it's fairly easy to see why so many people like Y Tu Mama Tambien. It's a road movie-cum-male sex fantasy where two young men fall lucky when Maribel Verdu (playing a gorgeous woman who has just discovered her husband has been unfaithful) decides to join them on a road trip to a beautiful beach of near-mythical proportions. Its a sex comedy that's raunchy and funny, braver and more explicit than its Hollywood counterparts, laced with social commentary that's either poignant or contrived, depending on your viewpoint.

Yet the film is flawed and it's an easier film to watch than it is to think about afterwards. The script is spot-on when dealing with the bonding, sparring and competitiveness between the two young men, but is on conspicuously less sure ground where Verdu's character is concerned. She vacillates between dissolving into hysterical bouts of tears and confident, seductive dominatrix behaviour with the two horny Mexicans, sometimes in the same scene. Maybe Maribel Verdu is a versatile and talented enough actress to project vulnerability and sensuousness in such a way to paper over these cracks, but the more you think about it, the less her character makes sense except as a cypher through which to examine the lads' behaviour.

This shortfall is further exacerbated by the arbritary fate the film's clumsy, unnecessary epilogue deals to the Maribel Verdu character. Although I wouldn't put anyone off seeing this movie, there's no escaping the fact that it's a bittersweet confection that leaves a little nasty taste in the mouth.

Rush Hour

[links straight into your bloodstream]

Anja delivers an early review of Lilja 4 Ever the latest film from Lukas (Together) Moodysson.

The Modern Age has rock photos and links direct from New York City. Bookmark this one. (via chachacha)

Diego and Suzy take photos of themselves and their children on the same day each year, to create a document that feels strangely surreal, banal and profound all at the same time. (via Off On A Tangent)

Dirty Mack? - rapper Mark Morrison arrested as part of rape investigation.

The Minor Fall The Major Lift - top quality music bloggage for your perusal.

Dad's Utterly Muttley. And that's yer rassin' fassin' lot for tonight.

Redesigned (again): Anja. She makes me feel soooo lazy. Today she wants to fry willy.