People who put up posts without spell checking them also suck at Trivial Pursuit.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
PIE CHART #14. TRIVIAL PURSUIT.
People who put up posts without spell checking them also suck at Trivial Pursuit.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
THE STRANGE NOISES FROM EVERYWHERE ON EARTH. REAL OR FAKE?
Don't think that the "strange noise" phenomenon has passed Grumpy by. YouTube is alive with the strange noises that are from everywhere in the world. The explanations are as exotic and varied as any explanations of UFO sightings.I have listened to and watched loads of these and the first thing that strikes me is that the noises are different. Some sound like trumpets and others sound like wind, feedback, or rumbling thunder.
There are enough fake UFO videos on the web and they are harder to fake than some unidentified strange noise.
Maybe they're real, maybe they're fake. I don't think I'm going into believing mode until the sounds stop a news broadcast or a football match on TV.
Watch this space.
WTF. A BEAM OF LIGHT SHOOTING OUT OF CHICHEN ITZA. ARE THOSE MAYANS WINDING US UP AGAIN?
The Temple of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza is the Mayan pyramid in Mexico that draws in the crowds at the spring equinox to see the optical illusion of the feathered serpent god Kukulkan wriggling down the pyramid's staircase.
This incredible image was taken by a Mexican family who were sightseeing in 2009. They didn't see it, but the image came out on their phone. Here is a video from Mexican TV (with subtitles)....PROTESTORS AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM. THE RIGHT WAY AND THE WRONG WAY TO GET PUBLICITY.
The wrong way:
The right way:
The only observation that I would like to make is that the girls all seem to be reasonably attractive, which seems to be a little suspicious to me. Don't ordinary women want to save the world too?
The right way:
The only observation that I would like to make is that the girls all seem to be reasonably attractive, which seems to be a little suspicious to me. Don't ordinary women want to save the world too?
Saturday, 28 January 2012
THE OSCARS. GRUMPY MARKS THE ACADEMY'S CARD.
John Le Carrier wrote loads of good spy books that have been turned into films, but the movie makers avoided this one back in the day. Why?Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy became a memorable seven part TV series staring the brilliant Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kanobi) in the lead roll. Look it up. It's still well watchable today.
Do you think that it might have crossed the studio executives minds at the time. "Hey, lets make this into a movie."
Of course it did, but they rejected it because is was so long. Duh, that's why it was a TV series.
What a Jedi master was given weeks to accomplish, they expected Gary Oldman to knock out in an afternoon.
I couldn't work out who was who, what they did and what was going on half the time....and I knew the plot!
Everyone says, quite rightly, that Meryl Streep's portrayal of Mrs Thatcher is flawless. I saw the movie. All the time I was watching it I wasn't seeing an actress, I felt like I was watching Mrs Thatcher herself. Perfect.
On the other hand. Why didn't Will Ferrel get an Oscar for President Bush, or Rory Bremner get something for Tony Blair?
When is it impersonation and when is it acting?
Like Mrs Thatcher, Meryl Streep had a poor supporting cast. Another one where I couldn't work out who was who, what they did and what was going on half the time....and again, I knew the plot!
Another impression. With so many big time actors at it, no wonder Les Dennis can't get on TV any more.
Ok, so what did we learn here?
Hoover was a closet gay, racist and presidential blackmailer, who double hated the Kennedys, got old, then died....Wow....Who knew?
Er, everyone.
As interesting as yesterdays newspapers.
The real rape is of the original Swedish film, translated as: "Men Who Hate Women". The original was so good that you easily got past the lip-sync and fact that it was dubbed. An original story, unusual location and good acting all round, especially the girl, Noomi Rapace.
This remake is a total rip off. I think they even used the same locations and dialogue. All that money and effort just to give the James Bond guy a lollypop job. So good that I turned it off.
It doesn't matter to me that George Clooney is, well, sort of, the same-ish guy in most of his films, they are usually quite watchable. Nearer to the point is that that's what his lady fans want. I'm a kind of an if-it-'aint-broke-don't fix-it kind of guy.I supposes he's getting older now and the number of parts available are thinning out and he doesn't want to go back to TV, so he's having to "up his game", an Oscar on his CV wouldn't do any harm.
It's a miserable and depressing story, but it's an unusual, layered, plot in an unusual location. Watching Clooneys character keep adjusting to the ever changing circumstances is interesting to watch.
It does what it says on the box. Yeah, a film about a horse. Black Beauty is everyone's favourite movie...not. Turned it off.
If you are a white person and you believe that black people have got chips on their shoulders, it's because you have watched and believed shit like this film. Black people have gone through centuries of persecution. They don't need to see their freedom given to them by some little white girl.
It's not history, it's bollocks. It's taking the piss.
I'm sure that everyone involved with the film thought that they were taking part in a worthy project that was making an important social and political statement for the betterment of mankind. They would, wouldn't they, they're actors.
No, they were taking the piss.
While we are on the subject of taking the piss. This movie is the cinematic equivalent of being pissed on, whilst being told it's raining.Nominated for 10 academy awards?
THIS IS A SILENT MOVIE IN BLACK AND WHITE!
Yeah, that's right, no words, no colour, for an hour and a half. A silent movie in the style of old silent movies....you know....from, like a 100 years ago!
Don't follow the mob. Be the first one on your block to say that the king has got no clothes on. It's shit.
This is a sneaky, dastardly, crafty plot by the French to get the world to accept that mime is an art form and not the creepy activity that it really is.
Don't be fooled by the appearance of Roseanne's screen husband, John Goodman. This film is as French as the Eiffel tower.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Monday, 23 January 2012
Sunday, 22 January 2012
MICHAEL CAINE SAYS #3. "DID YOU KNOW I'M NOT THE ONLY MAJOR ARTIST TO LIVE IN SOUTH LONDON AND NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT."
When I was a lad, before I became an international super star I lived in Bermondsey. I always thought that me and Charlie Chaplin were the biggest artists that had lived in South London. I was wrong....
In 1873, if you had asked Vincent Van Gogh "Where do you live Vince?"
He might well have pulled out this sketch that he made, point to it and say in his acquired London accent....
"ear"
This is the only surviving sketch from the period that Vincent Van Gogh’s lived in Hackford Road, Brixton in 1873. It was from here that Vince used to commute to Covent Garden where he was employed by an art dealer.
It seems that this was the happiest time in his life. Unfortunately, his girlfriend blew him out for another guy, which sent him on the slippery slope to madness.
OK, so he went crazy and got into self mutilation, but you have to admit that the art improved.
When the Germans invaded France in 1870 the going got tough in France. The French in turn, got going. The Channel ports were rammed with Frenchmen needing to visit England urgently. Camille Pissarro the impressionist painter was one of them. Camille settled in South London and painted around a dozen pictures of Sydenham and Dulwich during his time here.The image above is of the original Crystal Palace in Sydenham Hill, which burned down in 1936.
The guy who invented Impressionist art, gardener, Claude Monet, was another French painter who followed the brown line to London in 1870. It isn't recorded where he lived, but he did hang out with Pizzarro. There was no tube in those days, so the chances were that it was in South London. Maybe it was a state secret because he was on the Victorian "watch list" because he was a suspected revolutionary.
Maybe the British weren't up with the latest fashions at the time because Monet's works were refused inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition in 1871.
At the turn of the 20th century he came back and painted a series of paintings of Parliament and Charing Cross bridge, accurately showing the famous London Fog, which even I remember from my youth.
It's been calculated by the angles of sunlight that he painted the series from this suite at the Savoy hotel. Obviously, business was better then and he was less keen on starting a revolution.
The "Poster boy" of post- impressionism and art-nouveau, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, lived in Catford in 1896. The hooker loving, absinth drinking, vertically challenged artist in his time here painted and designed the above image for the Simpson bicycle company.
It turns out that Henri was a big cycle racing fan, as many people were at the time. He didn't like it here, thinking he was being followed all the time. Unlike Monet, he was just paranoid because he was off his head.
Anyway, it turned out to be one of the last paintings he did before he died....and as I said earlier, not a lot of people know that.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Friday, 20 January 2012
"ETTA JAMES. I BOUGHT YOUR ALBUM WITH MY FIRST WEEKS WAGES. BYE, BYE."
It's absolutely true. I invested £1 of my first £5/10s weeks wages on "Etta James rocks the house." On Saturday mornings when I was a teenager I used to go to the basement of an electrical shop in Soho where they sold imported American soul tunes. When the records were released here they reduced the price, so I got a great album and a bargain. I've always loved Etta James.
I know Aretha Franklin is supposed to be the Queen of soul. Don't get me wrong Aretha's great. Aretha is matronly and churchy, she wants respect, she's a natural woman, who says little prayers for me.
Etta was better. With her trademark peroxide hair and black eyes, Etta was out there, druggy, boozy, passionate and sexy. When something gotta hold of her she was a pushover, all she wanted to do was make love to me....and all I had to do was roll with her....up....down...down....up....anyway I wanted....just let it roll.
If some people in internetland are prudish about the lyrics, just think about how they sounded to 1950's and 60's audiences.
They must have been horrified?
Nah, the BBC never played them here. They played Aretha, they didn't play Etta. Game over.
Etta's tunes were edgy. If she couldn't have you, she would have rather gone blind... either that, or she would mess up your wedding.
Maybe it was because of Etta's image that Beyonce was chosen to sing Etta's "At Last" at President Obama's Inauguration ball. This, quite rightly, pissed Etta off. She went on to say that she couldn't stand Beyonce and she would whip her ass. Etta was hurt. Instead of getting the real thing, Obama hired the tribute act.
It was additionally insulting because Beyonce played the roll of Etta in the film Cadillac Records in 2008.
It's a shame that Etta James will be best remembered forever for the 30 second "Diet Coke brake" commercial that everyone remembers....Etta was so sexy they bottled her and sold it. RIP Etta.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
