Off Topic The Review Thread

Just came on here to post about this interview, which I thought was excellent. Definitely an emotional chap!

 

Beth. BETH!

Nick Cave on tour late spring. Thought you’d want to know. It’s mid size/large venues sadly, but I will be targeting the Birmingham gig. His last album was brilliant, and heartbreaking.

 

When I was young, which feels like a very long time ago, journalists were respected and sometimes heroic figures - the Sunday Times reporters who exposed the thalidomide scandal, Washington Post and Watergate, Incredible reporting from Vietnam and Cambodia. Panorama and World in Action were genuinely important TV programmes.

Nowadays the focus seems to be on invading the personal lives of “celebrities” and presenting a story from a particular viewpoint (or bias), making stuff as simple and misleading as possible rather than losing the audience’s attention. So it’s always a pleasure to see Jeremy Bowen, a true hero, refusing to dumb down, going into detail on very complex matters, and not being afraid to show anger and passion at some of the terrible things he has reported on in the Middle East, a part of the world he clearly loves. He can also be very funny. He’s just been on Newscast, and the contrast with Laura Kuenssberg is stark. She’s obviously clever but is so keen to show off, parade her wonderful contacts in the filthy world of British politics and be the centre of attention, and she so clearly enjoyed the chaos of the last three years because it gave her the opportunity to do these things endlessly, that I can no longer stand the sight of her face looming into my screen with some smug, smirking comment.

So thanks Jeremy, keep it up mate.

 

A new London venue for me today - Zedel, a cabaret bar near Piccadilly. I wasn't even aware of its existence, but it's a wonderful place. Upstairs is a bang ordinary café bar, but downstairs - below street level - is the cabaret venue for maybe a couple of hundred people, a brasserie, and a couple of bars. Very Parisian, with lots of Art Deco, it's just stunning. We'd been invited to see Gary Williams, a cabaret singer who does Rat Pack, Matt Monro, Nat King Cole and the like. He was unremarkable, but we had a bit of a sing-along and a very pleasant meal in the brasserie afterwards. Reasonable prices and highly recommended as a venue for an afternoon/evening out.

 

By contrast I had a family (or wife’s family) lunch out at the Belfry. To say this place is past it is an understatement, I described it as old fashioned, but my kids corrected me, it’s out of date. Mind you it’s popular, packed out with Brummies putting unfeasibly large amounts of overcooked food from the carvery (a name to strike dread into anyone who likes food - they are incredibly difficult to do well, especially with traditional English Sunday lunch on the scale they attempt at the Belfry) on their plates, multiple times. No fear of virus round that way.

To be fair my experience may have been blighted by being the designated driver.

 

We've just taken delivery of three artworks by Ross Muir for our living room.

He's an ex-drug addict and prisoner who turned to art whilst inside, and his works are now displayed in a couple of galleries in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A take on classic art, with a modern twist - these are the prints we've received...









There's a load more available on his website

https://rossmuirart.com/prints

I like this one too!

 

I like the Duchess.

 

Just watched ‘Lost Lives’ on BBC which is a film representation of some of the entries from the book ‘Lost Lives’, which chronicles (at the time) every death attributed to ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland.
Voiced by the likes of Kenneth Branner, Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt it gives just a small glimpse into the suffering of people from all sides, both young and old, and the tragic way they met their deaths.
Along with stunning cinematography, footage from various incidents of the time and a beautiful soundtrack......I’ve already watched it twice and it’s quickly become one of my favourite films.
The list of names of the dead at the end, chronicled year by year will bring a tear to your eye. An amazing film that deserves a far wider audience.

 

Off to see Stewart Lee at the Birmingham Symphony Hall this evening, a superb Christmas present from my daughter to my son and myself.

Full report to come, really looking forward to this.

 

Right, genius is a much overused word, but in the case of Stewart Lee it’s an accurate one. Two sets, the first Tornado, based around a mislabelling of one of his shows on Netflix, the second, Snowflake, a defence of political correctness. Of course including deconstruction of what he is doing at every step, repetition, call backs etc etc. Plenty of recognition of the virus situation, there were empty seats (as they had been paid for Lee didn’t care) but not so many. He promised to keep to time so we could all get home quickly, but both planned 50 minutes sets stretched out, blissfully, to 70 minutes, and I for one couldn’t tell what was improvised, except for him savagely berating people taking their seats late or getting up during the show.

Lee is very keen that his work isn’t taken out of context (ie you see the whole show because everything is linked and incredibly carefully constructed) as it is regularly by ****s in the Daily Mail. Suffice it to say that this show would probably induce strokes in the ‘political correctness gone mad’ brigade and fans of Tony Parsons, Alan Bennett, Phoebe Waller Bridge and especially Ricky Gervais (a wordless 10 minutes on how Gervais would actually sound ‘saying the unsayable’ had me helpless). But it’s not meant for them.

He finishes on a song, a little gentle folky number (he can play the guitar and has a decent voice), an ode to political correctness and being a snowflake. It finishes on the line ‘Go **** yourself, Boris Johnson voting ****”.

Brilliant, highly recommended, download the whole show when it is available - he’s meant to be on tour until August, but I’m guessing that 2000 people in a closed space like we had last night won’t be allowed soon.

 

I love Stewart Lee and will look out for the download. I've seen him do Ricky Gervais stuff before and, whilst it was very funny, I have to admit to having felt a little awkward watching it because I quite like Gervais too.

 

I laugh at some Gervais stuff, although not as much as I used to, but I’ve never liked him as a person (at least his public persona - the comedy version of Jordan Peterson, with all this freedom of speech bollocks). Lee’s skewering of him is of course exaggerated but I loved it. Mind you I think Lee might be pretty unbearable, although in a self aware way, up close.

The response to him from the audience was fascinating, or would have been had I not been distracted by laughing. You would think by now anyone going to a Stewart Lee gig would know what they are going to get (indeed the Tornado set was essentially about this), but there seemed to be a fair number of totally bewildered people there.

 

Tesla Model 3P - Motor Car

I bought one in September last year. Due to reams of faults arising from diabolical build quality I didn’t get to use the car until late October when arguments over a refund and a thorough set of repairs had been finalised.

Straight line acceleration is fabulous - genuine Ferrari bracket. Tax breaks are great too. The good stuff ends there.

Build is shocking. My experience of service from Tesla is bordering on pointless.

I currently have a cracked windscreen and cannot get a replacement. Today (and it has prompted this cathartic whiny review) I suffered a flat tyre. The Tesla has no spare, no space saver nor even a pump up repair kit. Tyres are specific to the Tesla only and apparently cannot be repaired as they are lined with noise reducing foam. Fortunately, an emergency tyre service had one and replaced mine, for a mere £410 after I was stuck in Central London for an hour.

Overall, the car could be very good but I wouldn’t buy another or recommend this brand. If you want electric motoring, I’d wait for the established car manufacturers to catch up with battery technology.

 

No spare tyre
Sounds dangerous let alone expensive

 

Just watched Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, a documentary using footage shot during filming about Jim Carrey's portrayal of Andy Kaufman in the 1999 biopic Man On The Moon. I've never seen Man In The Moon, but having seen this documentary I will watch it as soon as I can. Carrey seems to have totally inhabited Kaufman's character and physicality for the biopic, as well as Kaufman's alter ego Tony Clifton. It's a funny and entertaining watch and Carrey, somewhat surprisingly, comes across as a genuinely warm and likeable person. Recommended.

 

Man on the Moon is the only bearable film Carey ever made, I find him the most irritating and usually unwatchable actor. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed MotM. I’ll watch the documentary now, cheers.

 

I’m too young (yay!) to have got into Cream first time round. But for some reason I got the riff from Sunshine of Your Love in my head last night (probably the only tune of theirs I could hum) and thought I d give it a listen. I used YouTube and watched the version from their 2005 reunion concerts in the Albert Hall.

Then I watched every other song from that concert.

**** me what a band. Has there ever been a better drummer than Ginger?

 

He's a genius. Totally bonkers, but amazing.

This is probably the best "rockumentary" I've seen, highly recommended to watch whilst you are self-isolating.

 

I'm too young too (just) but got into them after they split. I played the 'Goodbye' live album constantly. This is good, although they sometimes seem to be playing independently of one another....