A militia man carrying a gun could control a small unarmed crowd only for as long as he was present; however, a single priest could put a policeman inside the head of everyone of their flock, forever.
Iain Banks
Friday 22 February 2008
Saturday 9 February 2008
Rules of the Wire
1. Play or be played
2.As such, life be divided into two camps; playas and playdas. Playdough may be shared between the two.
3. Everybody who aspires for any kind of power over their fellow man must be prepared to become really, really wealthy.Anyone who aspires to do good for their fellow man must settle with just really wealthy.
4. If you're going to be corrupt, be really corrupt. Swap bin liners full of cash for bin liners full of heroin. In broad daylight.
5. If you're police, drink a lot of alcohol. The more you're drinking, the better you can assess crime scenes or some shit like that.
6. The male/female role dichotomy cannot be broken, though there is considerable moral flexibility. Ditto police brutality.
7. Sheeeeit.
8. White men make very bad drug dealers. They try to hide this fact by doing bad impressions of black people.
9. If you're going into an interrogation thinking that you won't have to mentally or physically torture a suspect, you probably will.
10. If know how to pronounce someone's name, you will then have to learn how to un-pronounce it, bastardise it, or screw with it in some other way. THIS IS MANDATORY.
11. You fuck with me, I'll kill your whole family.
12. While drinking alcohol has the predictable effect of making the police drunk, violent and fucked up, drinking coffee and tea appear to have absolutely no effect on the smart, capable yet refreshingly laid back drug kingpins
13. If you are going to run a city, make sure it has a murder rate equivalent to a quiet mid after noon Baghdad. Or two Groznys.
14. The best, the absolute pinnacle of what you can hope to accomplish is to be a murdering, robbing, chain-smoking sodomite. Man up.
15. All accents are suspect. The thesps are clean, you can trust them.
16. S'all in the game, yo. Outside the game there will be refreshments served. (no vegans)
2.As such, life be divided into two camps; playas and playdas. Playdough may be shared between the two.
3. Everybody who aspires for any kind of power over their fellow man must be prepared to become really, really wealthy.Anyone who aspires to do good for their fellow man must settle with just really wealthy.
4. If you're going to be corrupt, be really corrupt. Swap bin liners full of cash for bin liners full of heroin. In broad daylight.
5. If you're police, drink a lot of alcohol. The more you're drinking, the better you can assess crime scenes or some shit like that.
6. The male/female role dichotomy cannot be broken, though there is considerable moral flexibility. Ditto police brutality.
7. Sheeeeit.
8. White men make very bad drug dealers. They try to hide this fact by doing bad impressions of black people.
9. If you're going into an interrogation thinking that you won't have to mentally or physically torture a suspect, you probably will.
10. If know how to pronounce someone's name, you will then have to learn how to un-pronounce it, bastardise it, or screw with it in some other way. THIS IS MANDATORY.
11. You fuck with me, I'll kill your whole family.
12. While drinking alcohol has the predictable effect of making the police drunk, violent and fucked up, drinking coffee and tea appear to have absolutely no effect on the smart, capable yet refreshingly laid back drug kingpins
13. If you are going to run a city, make sure it has a murder rate equivalent to a quiet mid after noon Baghdad. Or two Groznys.
14. The best, the absolute pinnacle of what you can hope to accomplish is to be a murdering, robbing, chain-smoking sodomite. Man up.
15. All accents are suspect. The thesps are clean, you can trust them.
16. S'all in the game, yo. Outside the game there will be refreshments served. (no vegans)
Friday 8 February 2008
Fun and Jeopardy
Well this week saw the return of Lost, one of the most infuriatingly overrated programs ever to be made. It didn't start out bad, in fact I really liked it at first and then it started to dawn on me, none of the writing staff knows what’s going on. They have no better idea about this island than anyone else, that’s why they answer every question in the series with about three more. It's like playing a game and just when you think you're winning someone changes all the rules. Also if you take away the mystery you're left with a lot of clunky dialogue, a list of poorly constructed characters and acting that’s sub-par at best. Solving mysteries in programs is entertaining, but when all the characters are so dull and unlikable (with the exception of Hurley) it feels like instead of watching TV I'm reading a series of long essay questions. It also reeks of the worst kind of pretension, at a quick glance it's a smart program full of mystery and intrigue but on closer inspection it's a poorly written soap opera hidden beneath a cloud of absurdity. It's dull and utterly lacking in any kind of heart, I have no attachment to these one dimensional caricatures and so I don't give a toss about what happens to them on their sodding island.
Modern British telly at the moment seems to be governed by two words, fun and jeopardy, this seemed absurd when I first heard it (Boys from the Blackstuff was without fun and so was Threads but Funhouse was full of it) but with BBC’s Ashes to Ashes it all makes sense. Thank god for this, it's everything it needed to be and more, the writing is crisp, there's mystery and bucket loads of nostalgia. The acting is great, Keeley Hawes is brilliant and Phillip Glenister is a dream to watch playing the role he was born to play. I love the way they've taken the fun to a new level (the music swells as the camera pans to a statuesque Gene Hunt) and actually managed to up the jeopardy with DI Drake having to get back to her life because of her daughter. Hawes performance with her onscreen daughter brings real heart to the new lead that was always lacking in Life on Mars. It's also really scary; the David Bowie clown will now haunt my dreams along with Zippy and fucking George. Ashes to Ashes has managed to perfectly capture both fun and jeopardy (Gene Hunt on a speedboat under
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