Junior High

West Ham United v Fulham, Upton Park, East London, Sunday October 4 2009, 3pm.

Digest review due to time constraints.

Pre- and post-match entertainment involved a couple of pints either side of game at the Black Lion in Plaistow with Dave R and Basingstoke Paul. A problem with the membership card (a system issue, apparently) meant your exasperated egocentric had to queue at the box office to get a printed ticket, so Carlton Cole scored the West Ham opener on our entry to the stadium. If the home support was happy then, they were positively blowing bubbles when a big Fulham midfielder got sent off for apparently putting his hand into Scotty Parker's face.

Half-time mainly memorable for Stone Cold Steve Austin coming on the pitch to flog a DVD and fail to convince anyone really that he's a Hammer at heart. He went on about opening a can of whoop-ass and if that sounds stinky 'twas nothing to the opening ten minutes or so of the 2nd half when schoolboy errors by England internationals Matthew Upson and Robert Green gifted the visitors a 2-1 lead.

Thus followed a lot of huffing and puffing from the crowd, and more of the same from the actual team, although minus a lot of the passion and direction coming from the support. Dispiriting stuff, so by the time Junior Stanislas got his deflected equaliser it felt like a point gained and two snatched from relegation rivals rather than a couple of vital points squandered. Whether that feeling will remain come the end of the season, we shall see.

Parallax Premiership Ratings: Green 6; Faubert 5, Tomkins 6, Upson 5, Ilunga 5; Diamanti 6, Parker 6 (Behrami 6), Noble 6, Jiminez 5; COLE 7, Hines 5 (Stanislas 6).

Tristan's Handy*

Aston Villa v West Ham United, Villa Park, Birmingham, Saturday April 18 2009, 3pm.

Dead Kenny's annual journey to the Villa Park away game often involves more hope than expectation, with a narrow defeat in a scrappy game the median outcome, so fortification was required beforehand in The Wellington, where met up with Dave R, Basingstoke Paul, Big Ray and a sizeable Hammers support contingent, and real ales were quaffed and musings made on a season that is turning out significantly better than it might have done.

Indeed, back in December when the sides last met in a match shown live on Setanta Sports, the Hammers were hovering perilously over the relegation trapdoor, lacking conviction under the unproven tutelage of rookie gaffer Zola, while a victorious Villa looked set fair for Champions League qualification at the expense of better fancied sides like Arsenal. Four months later and a consistent second half of the season has seen West Ham pull clear of relegation torment and have realistic aspirations of Europa Cup qualification, while just one point in six games has seen Villa fall away dramatically from the Champions League placings to be just two places ahead of the Irons before the game kicked off.

West Ham started the game in more positive fashion than is the norm for away encounters, with a lack of composure in the penalty area preventing youngster Junior Stanislas from converting good approach play into goals. Trouble was, we were also looking very vulnerable at the back, with Robert Green having to look sharp on several occasions, and the home side's second substantial goal attempt was converted by Emile Heskey following a sequence of clumsy defensive work from an unusually wobbly back four. Villa steadily gained in confidence and threat as the half wore on, prompting Zola to make an atypical early tactical change, taking off James Collins for Keiron Dyer to partner the industrious Mark Noble in midfield, with Lucas Neill moving back to his regular full-back slot, allowing the impressive Tomkins to move into central defence alongside England international Matthew Upson.

The second half remained relatively open, with the Hammers working hard and gaining a reasonable share of the ball only to find attacking moves petering out in the final third, the veteran strikeforce of Diego Tristan and David diMichele struggling to retain possession against a resolute Villa defence. Many Hammers fans were crying out for Zola to sort things out, but instead of taking off the hapless Tristan it was DiMichele and Stanislas who made way for youngsters Savio and Sears. The extra movement from the young lads seemed to unsettle the Villa rearguard and Hammers started to dominate proceedings until who else but the hitherto negligible Tristan's head steered Dyer's drive into the net for a just-about-deserved equaliser. From this point, West Ham looked the more likely to edge in front, although Villa had a penalty shout which was the far side of your correspondent's viewpoint so, to quote Mr Wenger, I deed not see it. Given that Villa beat us in December with the flukiest deflection in the history of the game ever, no-one should feel sorry for them.

Decent day's work for the Hammers then, given that of the six starting players in offensive positions only Noble could be considered a normal first choice, while for Villa, as the away support mercilessly chided, Champions League they *are* having a laugh. Looks like both sides will be limping towards the season climax, Hammers literally and Villa metaphorically.

Parallax Premiership Player Ratings: Green 7; Tomkins 7, Collins 5 (Dyer 5), Upson 6, Ilunga 5; Stanislas 6 (Savio 6), Neill 6, NOBLE 7, Boa Morte 6; Di Michele 6 (Sears 6), Tristan 5.

*with apologies to the gentleman author Tristam Shandy.

Mister Derrick

There Will Be Blood, Cineworld, Broad Street, Birmingham, Wednesday March 5 2008, 4.45pm.

The last time we remember cinema looking into what happens when a prospector strikes lucky, Nicolas Roeg's neglected masterpiece Eureka (1983) asked the question: what happens when a man gets everything he wants? In contrast to Gene Hackman's self-made man Jack ('I've Never Made A Nickel From Another Man's Sweat') McCann in that film, however, Daniel Day Lewis' Daniel Painview in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2008) is less a rounded personality than a physical manifestation of the will to power, a relentless one-man force of capitalist growth that can never by definition be satiated. Plainview is portrayed as a virtually sexless man, with only the vaguest yearnings for family bonding occasionally softening his edge, who seeks to impose his masculinity on the earth through his big fuck-off drills that are ultimately superceded by his big fuck-off pipeline that pulses and disseminates his oil.

Religion, in the shape of Paul Dano's preacher Eli, attempts to establish a moral conscience on Plainview, but succeeds only in nipping at his ankles, a nuisance too easily swatted away because you can never bullshit a bullshitter with total success, and the man-of-the-cloth's lies, hypocrisy and greed are all too easily seen through by the prospector for whom the truth is never acknowledged or spoken if there's any chance of it hindering profit and progress.

In many ways There Will Be Blood should have won the Best Film Oscar along with the Best Actor nod for Daniel Day-Lewis. It's rare indeed that a film with one such dominant role could reverberate with such political and historical resonance, and you could boil this movie down for eternity and still not find an ounce of fat - everything you see and hear serves a purpose of exposition, and that's even more scarce during a 150-min. running time. But given that There Will Be Blood holds up a mirror to the lies and corruption that helped lay the foundations of modern California, perhaps it's not so surprising that the Hollywood heirarchy found the Coen Brothers' admittedly marvellous but nevertheless relatively unfocused No Country For Old Men a more palatable prospect.

The Wrong Kind Of Leaving

The Departure/The Brite Lites/Guile, Barfly, Birmingham, Tuesday October 2 2007, 8pm.

As your garrulous guide makes his way to the Barfly venue his thoughts are occupied with one question: does anyone remember The Departure anymore, let alone care? Their debut 2005 platter 'Dirty Words' garnered many a play on our mp3 player, so much so it made Parallax View's Top 30 for that year, but it was a notable commercial flop which led to the sudden exit of the band's lead guitarist and questions asked as to whether they'd be dropped by their label.

Surprisingly, then, find that the venue is fairly heaving, possibly tempted by the fact that the first 50 punters through the door got themselves a free 7", or maybe drawn in by two local bands playing in support. Cannock's Guile make a pleasing drone-rock racket as we weave our way to the bar, but sadly this is the last track of their set so we make a mental note to be Guile-d in more detail at a later date. Birmingham's The Brite Lites immediately get your lank-locked layabout worrying - to wit, surely it's not time again so soon for crew cuts to be back in fashion? There's something short-back-and-sides about their radio-friendly sound too, sounding like Ryan Adams attempting to plagiarise the Radiohead back catalogue, and the result is intermittently interesting and foot-tapping but towards the end you sense the interest around you starting to dim.

The Departure bound on stage in confident mood, and the new, almost impossibly fresh-faced, guitarist seems to settle down well enough in a set that is liberally sprinkled with tasters from their new album (due early 2008) plus the best stuff from 'Dirty Words' like 'Lump In My Throat' and 'Talk Show'. The new material sounds interesting and immediate, and there may yet be commercial mileage in their more accessible take on regurgitating the early 80s sound - in truth, they probably owe more to Depeche Mode than they do Joy Division and that could be an important distinction when trying to find their niche. The show seems to go down well with the crowd, anyway, so all the more curious that the group dispense with an encore despite hoarse entreaties to get themselves back on stage. Curfew or fuck-you issues? We're not entirely sure.

Still, have a bit of time to spare before the last train to sink down another pint as the Barfly club night slowly but surely whirrs into a flurry of activity. Upon leaving, however, your conscientious correspondent finds himself walking behind the band as they lug their equipment up stairs. It's clearly your helpful hack's seasoned roadie reflexes he falls back upon when one of their cases slips off and he picks it up in one fell swoop with a cheery 'whoops!'. Clearly overwhelmed by their evening's performance the band don't skip a beat, presumably having lost count of their number and mistaken your nonchalant nincompoop for a fifth member. At the top of the stairs, the singer turns with some bewilderment to find the said case handed over to him by a bemused blogger rather than a recognised compadre. Congratulating him on a good gig, we return his changed expression of utter disdain with our own practised shrug as we pace off in to the distance. We may have only been a member of The Departure for about seven seconds but we still know how to make a sharp exit.

So You Guessed I'm Self-Obsessed

StrangeTime/The Elements/Reverie, Artsfest, Birmingham, Saturday September 15 2007, 2pm.

We don't know much about Artsfest but this much we like: free culture in a city near us, so who's complaining? While there's justifiable grumbles about poor organisation and inadequate communications we do get a second chance to see Reverie on the Kerrang FM stage after getting our first taste of them supporting The Kissaway Trial in Shrewsbury back in July. Perhaps it's the sun on our backs but we enjoy their mellow take on acoustic folk with a classical twist much more this time, even though they do seem to be puzzling the tourists somewhat.

On to the Custard Factory to catch up with StrangeTime who are playing the main stage there. Every StrangeTime live experience appears to have a distinctive element and this is no exception with the swimming pool filled in post-Supersonic giving an added water feature. Add in the baking sun and sound guys who look like acid-fried casualties and we could almost be in Ibiza, with Kate Finch & Co. supplying the rocks. There's another cock-up start to the rather ace new song they debuted at the Barfly gig and a girl on the pool edge only just manages to get the lens cap off in time to get the video footage rolling. We also get a brand new song about narcissistic Mitherspace fiends which features the rather excellent couplet 'So you guessed/I'm self-obsessed' while 'Personality Disorder' manages the seemingly impossible by sounding even better than last time we heard it.

Hang around a bit afterwards to glug Guinness and cappuccinos while chatting to Kate, John, Chris, Sarah Accident from Violet Beauregarde and aspiring stand-up comedian/poet Henry while listening to The Elements' slightly-better-than-competent-but-slightly-less-than-exciting back-to-basics Britpop. Also learn a valuable lesson in post-gig ligging - never volunteer for helping shift the band's kit, you'll always end up lugging the most awkward bag, but we get our reward with a pint in Scruffy's and the discovery that your correspondent's beloved Hammers have whelped the 'Boro 3-0 to register our first home victory of the season!

Related links:
RussL delivers his in-depth Artsfest verdict.
Pete Ashton asks: How Was *Your* Artsfest?.