Things Read

John Irving's The World According to Garp is a fictional biography of a peculiar writer and his loves, loss and occasional lunacy. I've never read any Irving before so was pleasantly surprised by the rich characters, sharp wit and bizarre twists and turns shoehorned into it's 600 pages. Irving swings the narrative in and out of the darkness with alacrity and peppered as it is with sex, death, writing, wrestling, short stories, assassination and imagination this dizzying read attempts a simulacrum of life itself and makes a surprisingly entertaining effort. Sure it drags a little in the last third and it's maybe a little dated 30+ years later but it's well worth reading.

John Wyndham's scifi has a unique flavour and The Chrysalids, despite being a novel for young adults, is one of his best. A post apocalyptic agrarian community is determined to destroy signs of genetic abnormality but a bunch of kids develop a hive mind telepathy and struggle to hide their presence. It's to Wyndham's credit that he weaves some interesting ideas throughout the fairly simplistic or maybe lean adventure and like most of his novels it's a little dark, a little melancholy, anyways I loved it. I guess it's been overlooked as he returned to the telepathic kids trope in the more famous Midwich Cuckoos - a shame as this is a much better read.

Navel Gazing Gold

The Day of the Locust is a sprawling epic about pre war Hollywood and the cruelties of life chasing the tinsel town dream. Homer Simpson, repressed accountant and Todd Hawking, ambitious production designer, find themselves falling for the same wannabe starlet/prostitute in this occasionally rambling film but as the darkness unfurls in their lives the film shows it's teeth and it culminates in one of the most crazed, psychotic finales I've ever seen. Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Donald Sutherland & William Atherton put in sterling performances that counterpoint it's occasional lack of focus and have the necessary chops to handle the climax.

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is probably the classic critique of Hollywood life from the black and white era and rightly bagged a crapload of Oscars on release. Just in case you haven't seen it yet it's about a penniless screenwriter hack who rolls up into a faded, delusional, former movie queen's decrepit mansion and lands himself a plum job rewriting her lengthy film treatment. As you'd expect from Wilder the script crackles and the film is beautiful but it's the performances of Gloria Swanson and William Holden that dominate this rich, darkly cynical tale from the early age of Hollywood.

Massaging Musically

Sought & Found

Footprints in Tanzania that push walking/gait/"feet" back 2 million years. PastHorizons

Enceladus pissing over Saturn. ScienceDaily


Britain's earliest rock art? BBC
Method for tapping ambient electromagnetic energy. ScienceDaily

Tiny new moon for Pluto. Reddit

Water with a mass of 100 trillion times the size of our own planet's. Impactlab

700 tunnels under Bavaria. Reddit

Volcanic cluster on the dark side of the Moon. Physorg

Earth's first asteroid buddy. Space.com

Lupine Lore & Simian Shenanigans

Albert Finney, Gregory Hines and a young James Olmos star in Wolfen a supernatural thriller from the pen of Whitley Strieber. When one of the city's finest and his Mrs are found chewed to pieces in a public park a pair of detectives are tasked with the investigation and a bunch of Native American cult members come under suspicion. It does reek of the 80's with some early-predator style POV camera work and some ropey dialogue but it's not all bad with a modicum of tension and a couple of greasy kills along the way. It's not a classic by any means but it's smarter than expected and quite enjoyable nonsense: a little 80's curiosity, think of Q Winged Serpent but with paws.


George A Romero's Monkey Shines, about a paraplegic terrorised by his Capuchin chum, doesn't even manage the modest success of Wolfen as hampered as it is by it's unintentional hilarity. So some dude gets mowed down during his morning jog and ends up in a chair, paralysed from the neck down. His scientist mate gets one of his lab monkeys trained as a helper and it's not long before the protagonist and his hirsute hombre develop a "special" bond but things turn ugly and eventually homicidal. The acting is alright and a fairly decent cast and Romero does manage a few moments of dread but it's so ridiculous, so steeped in silliness that it never achieves it's ambitions and I spent the last 20 min laughing my face off. If you want some non-zombie Romero I stick with Martin.

Swords & Sniggers

Ironclad is a gory period-battler with Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox and James Purefoy. Idiot King John reneges on his Magna Carta deal and with the help of some Danish mercenaries begins to reinstate his dominion unfortunately for him a handful of fighters have secured Rochester castle and a bloody siege ensues. Despite it's modest budget it's a decent effort with a suitably grimy past, decent acting and lashings of headsplitting and grisly dismemberment. I'm sure history buffs will quibble over the details but I liked it. With our bloody history I'd be surprised if we dont see similar productions following on.

Horrible Bosses is a star stuffed Hollywood comedy about three chums suffering from the all too common problem of having dickish superiors and whilst drunk they decide murder is the best solution. Bateman provides his usual dry wit alongside Aniston, Spacey & Sutherland as well as a tonne of cameos and there's plenty of gags to spread around, but best of all, director Seth Gordon (King of Kong) avoids the bloat and unctuousness of recent Apatow pictures and keeps things snappy and it's all the better for it. A surprisingly amusing farce.

Good old Ken, ye ken

Ken Russell's The Devils is a gleefully blasphemous film about the strange happenings in the Loudun nunnery of the 17th century based on the book by Aldous Huxley. When perfidious Cardinal Richelieu decides to destroy the fortified town of Loudon a rebel priest Grandier, played with gusto by Ollie Reed, stands in his path. After tupping some local lass he provokes the ire of the loony, hunchback boss-nun played by Vanessa Redgrave, she calls in the Inquisitors and the holy shit really hits the fan. Russell doesn't pull his punches with lavish sets, giddy costumery, mass nudity and bonkers dream/vision sequences and he even manages to procure decent performances from everyone despite the madness. All in all I quite enjoyed rewatching it, it's a finely made, committed film that's more tragic than I remembered and it's a terrible shame it's been overshadowed by the inevitable the sex/blasphemy controversy.


The Lair of the White Worm was clearly made on a much lower budget than The Devils and even Ken's inventiveness couldn't patch up the cracks that scupper this foray into English folklore. An archaeologist uncovers a peculiar skull on a small farm dig near the fabled lair of the Lambton Worm and when the reclusive, predatory Lady Marsh arrives back the town begins to lose a few more residents. Starring Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi and a delicious Amanda Donohue this could have been something decent but the ropey script and rubbishy acting constantly deflate any mystery or tension and it limps along to a ridiculous bagpipe based finale.

Musik Regenguss