Hungry Hungry Hippos

First of all, read a brand new interview with Abwehrschlacht conducted by Crucifixion 'Zine HERE.

He-who-cannot-be-named showed up at my house on Sunday morning and set fire to it. I ran out into the street with only the clothes on my back and everything else perishing in the fire. He stood there in front of me as I wept on the pavement and said 'You might as well come to and see a film with me, now that you're out of the house.' Being in an unstable state of mind I agreed and he dragged me bodily across York to the cinema to see The Hunger Games. He dumped my battered, charred and bruised body in the worst seat in the cinema and proceeded to masturbate throughout the film despite my protestations. I guess the sight of children killing each other is enough to get him going. He was quickly ejected by security as it became very apparent early on that two mid thirty year old men was not the demographic the film wished to reach. This is the first time I have been surrounded by adolescent girls since I was at school. I sank low in my chair just in case the Police decided to do a quick sweep of the theatre and my name ended up on their fucking register. Again.

Shoot the dirty old man!

The film is actually pretty good and explores some very adult themes for what is essentially a teeny movie marketed like Twiglet. The characters are fleshed out; in particular Woody Harrelson, as the former Humger Games winner and mentor of the new combatant kids. He starts off as a drunken oaf and as HWCBN pointed out, so would you be if you'd just had to kill 23 other children then spend the rest of your career teaching other children to do the same to other children. I'm not sure how much of the dystopian future, reality TV satire was recognised by the target audience, but it had two hunks competing for the beautiful heroine, so I guess they still went home happy. Over all I enjoyed it and would recommend that you see it if you were already considering going but don't break the doors of the cinema down to see it. Anyway, here is my in depth review:

Ratchet Formangler (Joe Bonomo) is an American First World War pilot flying for the Escadrille Layfayette in France in 1917. As a high scoring Ace, Formangler leads his squadron into a fray with the legendary Flying Circus of the Red Baron, he is separated from his flight during an unfair fight against 17 enemy machines. As he twists and turns above the French countryside, firing at the occasional Fokker that gets in his path, his plane is suddenly struck by lightening. Formangler is knocked unconscious by the strike and when he comes to he finds he is flying over a desert landscape unknown to him. He puts his battered SE5A down on a strip of land near an oasis and begins to drink from the pond. As he does so, he is approached by a beautiful woman (Yareli Arizmendi) dressed only in animal furs carrying a wooden spear. Initially cautious Formangler tries to make nice and discovers the woman only speaks in a primitive language unknown to him. She refers to herself as Ugg. Suddenly four men appear, dressed in furs and carrying clubs. One bashes Formangler unconscious and they drag Ugg off by her hair kicking and screaming. The hours pass and Formangler wakes to find Ugg gone but tracks leading off into the distance. He follows the trail, pistol at the ready and eventually comes across a cave dwelling where the four men and a tribe of others are gathered around a large fire dancing a sacred dance and banging drums made from human skulls. In the middle of the gathering is a large totem pole to which Ugg is bound. As Formangler watches, and formulates a plan of rescue, a Tyrannosaurus Rex appears above the mountain tops and advances on the congregation. Formangler suddenly realises that he was sent back in time during the dogfight! The crowd scatter leaving the struggling Ugg tied to the pole as a sacrifice prompting Formangler to run back to his plane. Quickly synthesising petrol from a nearby tar pit he starts the engine and takes to sky to do battle once again but this time against a dinosaur! As he presses home the attack on the T. Rex, a Pterosaur swoops down from the clouds and tries to bring the plane down. Quickly dispatching the flying menace, Formangler makes short work of the T. Rex with his remaining ammunition. Landing the plane again, he frees Ugg and plants a huge kiss on her. As this is a modern construct she has no idea what he is doing, but likes it. With the T. Rex dead the tribe return to their cave home and begin worshipping Formangler like a God, sacrificing the four men in his honour. Formangler marries Ugg in a primitive ceremony and lives out a long and fruitful life teaching the cave people the wonders of interpretive dance.

7 on 10

Fuck Yeah!!

I Adoor You

I have just dropped the car off at the garage. The problem? Well, on Saturday night as I pulled the car up outside the Charter's Arms in Rotherham to see Goat Leaf and 6Needles play, I went to lock the driver's door. The handle froze in the upright position and try as I might I couldn't get it unlocked again. Helpfully I had the back door unlocked as I had given Rhys a lift and he'd left it open he wasn't aware that the car wasn't blessed with central locking. I decided to leave the back door unlocked so I could at least gain access. You might be thinking I could have got in the passenger side door. Well, I could, had that door been working. It hasn't worked properly since I've had the car and only opens from within, as long as someone isn't pulling on the handle from outside, which is everyone's instinctual reaction to getting into a car and leads to me gesticulating wildly from inside for them to step away from the handle. Along with this, the passenger side back door has never worked either. So I was down to one door.

 And your exits are... well, nowhere, really.

I left the car unlocked as described before and went to the gig, which was wonderful. Surprisingly nothing was taken from the car as it sat outside unlocked in Rotherham. I got the car home eventually and thought of dealing with it in the morning. Problem was, when morning rolled around, to gain access to the mechanism that I needed to unlock the door entailed me taking the door panel off. The door panel would not come off with the door shut and I couldn't open the door with the door locked. You see my predicament? I gave it up as a bad job and I spent some part of Sunday morning cleaning the interior as it had been pointed out to me that my car was in quite a state, not that I think there's anything wrong with have a foot-well full of my finger nail clippings. I mean, it's not like they're someone else's, is it? But, apparently this does not constitute clean. I gained access to the vehicle as I had left the rear passenger door open overnight and cleaned the car. I thought, as I was out and about (I was using a vacuum at the local garage to clean the car through one open door and the windows...), I'd get on with some shopping and drove to Morrison's. The passenger door appeared to be working when I unlocked it from outside now, so I was confident that I'd be able to get back in again after buying my post-nuclear fallout supplies ready for when the balloon finally goes up and locked all the doors as I don't really trust the clientele of Morrison's. After buying my tinned foodstuffs I tried to unlock the door. Would you know? The fucking door wouldn't open now I was in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon.

 What I needed, but not what I got...

Mild panic set in as it appeared that I was now locked out of the car with two bags of shopping. This panic was replaced with delirium as I then realised that I could get into the boot to open the doors from within. So I opened the boot, took the parcel shelf out and lowered the back seat to facilitate ingress. I crawled into the boot (remember, in Morrison's Car Park on a busy Sunday afternoon), over the back seat and as I couldn't reach the front door handle, wound the window down of the rear passenger side door. I then clambered back out and thrust my hand through the front window and tugged like a demon at the door handle. This door handle is particularly tricky to open even from sitting in the driver's seat, so it was like a puzzle on the fucking Crystal Maze having to open it from the back window. All that was missing was some middle aged investment banker in a jump suit shouting 'Get the Crystal! Get out! Get Out!' at me

You are now entering the 'Car Zone'

Further to this, my boot is full of archaeological tools and hasn't been cleaned for a while. There was muddy Wellington boots, muddy low ankle boots, a muddy shovel, a muddy drawing board and a muddy waterproof coat. This mud gave me a khaki coating of dust and mud as I scrambled around in the boot. So there I was, in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon, covered in shit and tugging away at a door handle through the rear window. I managed to get in the car and away before the Police arrested me for TWOCing.

Mars Bars

I just went to see John Carter at the cinema. I haven't been to the flicks for a while so I thought I'd take myself off and have a look-see what was going on. As it's a Science-Fiction movie the cinema was empty except for a group of about ten Role Playing Sci-Fi nerds. How could I tell they were Role Players? They all appeared to be single, middle aged and fat. When they sat down the entire seating row groaned under their combined weight (which was to be added to by the copious amounts of popcorn and fizzy drinks they had) and they got with debating the heated issues of the day, mainly does Ewan McGregor play a better Obi Wan Kenobi than Alec Guinness? 

This adds nothing to this blog post

Anyway, here is my review of John Carter:

Set in a textile factory in Northern China in 1924, John Carter (Duke R. Lee) is a lowly stitcher with a young family of forty three living a hard but happy life. His story is told in dramatic flashbacks cutting between his happy family life and the tragedy that is to befall them. Tibetan Monks invade from the north capturing the factory and destroying the village of the workers. As John is away on a company business, selling patchwork quilts to hapless Japanese tourists, he survives the massacre but returns to see his family home burned down and the charred remains of his family buried in the rubble. Erecting a hastily built tomb of marble blocks, John swears vengeance on his family by going after the evil Dalai Lama (三船 敏郎). Whilst travelling into Tibet he hooks up with a hitchhiking student from Germany, Mittle Braun (Xenia Seeberg). The two soon fall in love, but greater issues are pressing when they are captured post-coital in their tent by the Lama's henchmen. 

 Neither does this

Taken to his Holiness' Great Golden Temple in the Eastern hills of Kathmandu. Carter and Braun are separated, Braun being treated to a life of sumptuous living in the Lama's harem, where she is prepared to marry his Holiness, whilst Carter is thrown into a rat infested well. It doesn't take long for our plucky hero to find a way out of his prison (I won't spoil the surprise for you, but watch out for one death defying moment involving a fez wearing, cigarette smoking chimpanzee!) and he gains access to the Lama's wedding ceremony disguised as a badger. Just as the (un)happy couple are about to exchange vows, Carter throws off his disguise, runs the evil Lama through with a flaming spear and escapes with Braun under his arm. With the Great Golden Temple burning and slowly melting behind them Carter and Braun make their getaway back to Northern China. With his ex-family now long forgotten Carter makes a new life as the boss of the regenerated textile factory and soon becomes President of Earth by rigging the vote. 

2 on 10

The cuts caused by the recession hit Disney's promotional team hard

Old School? New School? Shit, I didn't even go to school!

I haven't been writing this Blog for the past few weeks as much as before, as I have been putting my energies into other stuff, like reading books on the First World War so that I can write a fucking essay, so please, fucking excuuuuuuuuuuse me! I was actually going through the old Blog posts and found one I was going to write a while back and decided as it's Friday night, then I might as well write it now, since my life is one long unemotional roller coaster ride and all that.

Do I really have to write another blog post? I don't even get paid for this...

I have a pair of shoes that I have had for quite a while now and they are my 'best' shoes in that they are not the ones covered in concrete which I wear to work, nor are they a pair of wedding shoes that make me walk like a dandy when I wear them, neither are they a pair of sandals that still have the dust of Greece upon them and finally nor are they a pair of running shoes that have been untouched since my Dublin days. No, they are none of these, they are in fact a pair of Airwalk skater shoes. In black. I like skater shoes as they are comfortable and have a slight resemblance to the footwear one sees in Judge Dredd. I can imagine I'm wandering the mean streets of Mega City One in my Airwalks, as I prance around the quaint cobbled byways of Olde Yorke. 

 'Drokk!'

Problem is, in recent weeks the insides of the shoes have shattered. Something in the soles is made of plastic (I don't know what so don't ask me what, do I look like a fucking shoe scientist? Go and ask Mr Clarks, Jesus) and these have been turned into shards through the action of me walking. And these shards in turn have been cutting into my feet making me hobble through the streets of Olde Yorke rather than prance. It is the same sensation as having a small bed of nails in each shoe. Like I'm walking on broken glass. I have not had a chance recently to go shoe shopping and as you know how much I hate that, I needn't go into details here. Needless to say, my feet hurt and I still have to face the unbearable prospect of buying new shoes...

Just back from the garage to buy some milk...

And this Blog post would not be complete without an exchange between He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named and I:

Him: happy valentine's day alex, i hope you got me something nice this year, since you obviously forgot last year, you jerk.

Me: Was it you that sent me that envelope stuffed with ginger pubes? Not cool, dude. Not cool.

Him: No that wasn't me. I sent you the baby bottle filled with a mixture of my blood and semen. Did you get it?

Me: Yeah. I drunk it thinking it was ribena.

Him: Who do you love most, damien rice or james blunt? and you can't say both!

Me: I like rice's whining, but blunt's rugged good looks. Oh! I can't decide! It's too hard!

Him: Your face is like a bag of shit that's been set on fire and stamped out by a gorilla.

Me: Your face is that gorilla, you brute.

Him: I hope you realise that the only reason i allow you to live is in case i need to harvest your organs one day.

Me: Don't bother, they're all fucked.

Him: Well, i wish you'd take more care of my property.

Him: Do you remember how during our degree i used to steal your lunch money and punch you in the back of the head in lectures? I still smile about that.

Me: I don't remember that at all. I do remember getting together with Julian Richards and Steve Roskams and flushing your head down the toilet. what larks ay?

Him: I do remember that. I wasn't laughing then and I'm not laughing now.

Me: I was and still am. So are those two, in fact, we all laughed like drains on Friday when I saw them. Julian was doing impressions of you.

Him: Julian can go fuck himself. He always picked on me. On our first dig he used me as a wheelbarrow for two days.

Me: It was for three weeks not two days. You're thinking of the time you had to clean the portaloo with your tongue.

Him: Thanks for opening up these old wounds. Now I'm walking home and i can't stop crying. people are looking at me with pity and disgust.

Me: Nothing new there then. I think my best memory of university is when Julian and I ran you over in that bus. I don't remember why Steve wasn't there. He must have been ill or something.

Him: You'll be fucking sorry when Ross turns up.

Me: Remember that seminar when Steve was stamping on your neck and shouting 'shit worm! shit worm!' over and over? How we all laughed. 

Except you, who couldn't breathe. 

I don't know what it had to do with the early Christianisation of Britain. Fucking funny, anyway.

Him: In a way you were hurting yourselves more than you were hurting me.

Me: No were weren't

Him: Shouldn't you be working?

Me: Shouldn't you be shutting your fucking sewer mouth?

Fin.

My hands are cold....

Below is a typical weeks exchange of text messages between myself and He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named.

Me: 13:42, 27 Jan; If we were in a band you'd be the ugly one at the back

Him: 13:52, 27 Jan; You mean I'd be the drummer? Cool.

Me: 14:28, 27 Jan; You misspelled 'bummer'

Him: 09:25, 28 Jan; We are not so very different, you and I.

Me: 09:29, 28 Jan; We are. Don't kid yourself.

Him: 14:50, 28 Jan; I am going to see the Artist today. it had better be good or I will fucking end you.

Me: 14:50, 29 Jan; What's your address, you twisted little shit

Him: 15:04, 29 Jan; * **** ******, ****** ******. What are you sending me? I hope it's something tasty.

Me: 15:05, 29 Jan; It's a dead rat.

Me: 19:35, 29 Jan; I'm not sending anything. I need to give the police an address.

Him: 19:39, 29 Jan; The police don't need my address, they've been around enough times already. Not cos of anything I did, just because my neighbours are fucking cunts with no sense of humour.

Him: 18:43, 1 Feb; I've been trying to think of what thing about you i hate most. And the answer is, everything.

Me: 19:31, 1 Feb; I hate your top half most. Although your bottom half is a close second.

Him: 09:11, 4 Feb; Racist

Him: 12:02, 4 Feb; Thank you for the postcard. I liked the cat on the front, that was the best bit.

Me: 12:04, 4 Feb; I hope you choke on it.

Him: 10:17, 5 Feb; Why do you love world war one so much? I just read up about it on wikipedia, it sounds awful. Literally thousands of guys were killed.

Me: 10:18, 5 Feb; I didn't know that. Fuck. I didn't know anyone got hurt during it. I hate that shit.

Him: 12:30, 5 Feb; Maybe you should drop out of your MA. You don't want people to think you are condoning that sort of violent behaviour.

Me: 12:31, 5 Feb; Yeah. I'll go to the next lecture and ask about it. I feel I should point it out to everyone else on the course as well. Maybe they don't know either.

Me: 13:34, 6 Feb; What's your favourite bit of the star wars trilogy? My bit is when you started crying because you were scared by Yoda.

Him: 13:36, 6 Feb; I wasn't scared. I just happened to think of something really sad at that moment. It was the holocaust. I thought of the holocaust and it made me sad.

Me: 13:37, 6 Feb; Why did you run out of the cinema screaming 'that little green man is going to get me!' then?

Him: 13:38, 6 Feb; Because I used to think Hitler had green skin. I had him mixed up with the incredible hulk.

Me: 13:39, 6 Feb; My other favourite bit is when you shat yourself at the ewoks.

Him: 16:47, 6 Feb; I saw on the news that Britain's roads have been declared 'treacherous'. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a traitor. So I'm going out tonight to teach the nation's roads a lesson they won't forget.

Me: 16:49, 6 Feb; Don't attack the red bits though. I hear they're a psychopath.

Him: 08:23, 7 Feb; I've got a restraining order on you from a judge. You're not allowed within a hundred miles of me. So you need to move house.

Me: 08:24, 7 Feb; That's not how it works. You got the order in place, you move.

Him: 08:27, 7 Feb; Whatever. You're the one who gets arrested. And anally raped in prison. Which you'd probably enjoy. Because you're a massive bender.

Me: 08:28, 7 Feb; Why are you so bitter?

Him: 08:29, 7 Feb; Because I know you.

Got Milk?

As I mentioned in the last post I went along to see War Horse with He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named as he made his way to York from D***** we had the following text conversation:

Him: Dear alex, i should be getting to york about ten past one. Shall i come to yours for lunch, or do you want to meet in town? Lots of love, ****

Me: Dear ****, I'm sorry to tell you I'm in Basingstoke today. So your journey is wasted. I hope you die. Lots of love Alex.

Me: Actually, i didn't check cinema times, did you?

Him: Yes, there's a show at 4pm. So you're not in Basingstoke? Was that some kind of fucking joke? Did you think you were funny, clown boy? Did you?

Me: I don't even know where Basingstoke is. Do you want to come here, but buy some tickets on the way over? We can have lunch here. What do you want?

Him: I'll eat whatever you put in my face, you know that. I'll get tickets on the way over. Basingstoke is in Hampshire.

Me: OK, I might get us a pizza! I don't know where Hampshire is. Or give a fuck for that matter.

Him: Hampshire is somewhere south of sheffield, that's all you need to know. I fucking hate pizza, and if you get pizza i'll throw it in your FUCKING FACE.

Me: Then I'm certainly not interested. What flavour do you want on your pizza. I know you love pizza.

Him: I don't mind. Get avocado ice cream flavour if you can. Or margherita.

Me: Pepperoni? Only gays eat gay flavour pizza.

Him: Yeah that's fine. Thanks petal.

Two hours later

Him: I'm at D***** station, i just bought my ticket to york, now i'm sitting on a bench waiting for my train to arrive.

Me: So?

Him: I just thought you might like to know that everything is going to plan so far.

Me: Fuck you and fuck your plan.

Five minutes later:

Me: In light of that, I'm changing dinner plans. We're having Mexican wraps instead.

Him: You can't fuck with the plans like that, it was all arranged. Now you've fucked everything up. And you probably expect me to pick up the pieces, as usual.

Me: Yeah.

Him: I just got on my train. At least i'm following the plan. Let's see if we can salvage something from this shipwreck of a sunday.

Me: Make sure you get good fucking seats at the cinema or I will set the dogs on you.

Him: Where would you like to sit?

Me: In the middle, you know where.

Fifteen minutes later

Me: And can you get some milk, please, I love you.

Him: For fuck's sake.

Me: I love you.

Him: Fuck off. You're only saying that so i'll get you some milk.

Me: No, I do.

Him: Right i've got the tickets. I'll pick up some milk. anything else i can get you? The golden fleece perhaps? The holy grail?

Me: Actually, I've decided i don't want to go to the cinema after all. I'm gonna stay in and paint some tanks. So don't bother coming over.

Him: Okay. I guess i'll see you around at some point.

Me: Don't count on it. Actually, will you put the milk on my doorstep? ring the bell so i know it's you, but fuck off immediately.

Him: If you let me in i can put the milk in the fridge for you. I wouldn't want you to over exert yourself by going all the way to the front door to pick it up.

Me: But I'd still have to get up to let you in. And I'd see you. No dice.

Him: I've left milk on window sill, i'm going back to d*****

I looked up and there was a pint of milk on the window sill.

Who's Horse? (In a Northumbrian accent) Why, It's War Horse!

Von He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named rocked up his white stallion on Sunday afternoon to deliver my monthly thrashing and to drag me to see War Horse, the film he's been raving about all year. He hates horses and war, so this was the perfect film for him. I wanted to see it as well, because I'm SUCH A MASSIVE FAN OF THE BOOK, YOU KNOW, THAT BOOK THAT IS FOR CHILDREN. CHILDREN, NOT 37 YEAR OLD MEN.

Read an adult book, you slack jawed cunt...

I actually wanted to see it because Dr David Kenyon and TV's Andy Robertshaw had done the military advising on the film and Andy appeared as an extra. It became a game of 'Spot TV's Andy Robertshaw'. I won it outright as Herr He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named doesn't know what TV's Andy Robertshaw looks like.

That's one nil to me

There will be spoilers from here on in, so if you want to go and see this film then don't read on, though why you would want to spend your hard earned cash on this lump of shit is beyond me. I wasn't expecting greatness in the first place and I certainly wasn't disappointed. The film is full of the usual World War One tropes, but that is not the worst thing about it. We were supposed to empathise with the horse but He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named and I were talking about what was so special about the horse and we couldn't work out why everyone human seemed to want to have a love affair with the beast. Sure, it was a good looking animal, but it was patently rubbish. Despite being able to plough a field like a modern mechanical tractor it couldn't jump. What kind of fucking horse can't jump? A shit one, that's what kind. I guess this was a plot device in order to allow the fucking dumb animal to get tangled up in barbed wire in No Man's Land so Tommy and Jerry could have a bonding experience whilst freeing it and demonstrating how futile the First World War was. This last scene was supposed to be tense, with threat of the horse being blinded or dying during the rescue, but all tension was lost when you realised that the film is about the horse and there is no way on God's green Earth that the producers will allow an animal to die on screen. It just became a farcical and over long scene.

Otto Dix was thrown off the production after the unveiling of his storyboard

Speaking of dying, there was another unfathomable factor in this movie. The human 'star', Albert, is given his father's cavalry pennant and this finds its way onto the horse's tack as the horse is taken off to war as a good luck charm. It actually does the exact opposite and brings black luck on anyone that happens across it. The young officer who first buys the horse is killed during an attack, the two young Germans who go AWOL with the horse are shot at dawn without a trial (give me fucking strength...) and then the young girl who seemingly spends two years (as dated by the German soldiers helmets...) trying to teach the fucking useless horse to jump ends up getting killed. Even Albert is scarred for life with a gas attack. What kind of luck is that?

 Where's me pennant?

The final scenes really wound me up, when Albert is reunited with the horse it is at an Advanced Dressing Station. The doctor on duty has been pulled out of dressing station to have a look at the horse which is wounded. Now, my first question is, why didn't the Private take the horse to the Veterinary Corps rather than a fucking human doctor? He would have known they existed as the British Army of 1918 was dependent on animals. Secondly, why was the doctor pulled out of the Dressing Station to look at a horse when the men he was supposed to be treating were dying? Why would a single horses life count more than humans? This is the main premise of the film, that we supposed to care more about the life and death of one horse over the thousands of injured and dying men.

Leave those men, a horse somewhere is injured!

Anyway, the horse is injured and the doctor declares it cannot be healed so recommends that it is to be put out of its misery and a Sergeant steps up to the task. This is when Albert reappears, does his stupid owl hoot call and everyone is happy and joyful that the horse is actually his and not just some random horse. But what everyone seemingly forgets is that the horse is still injured and should be put out of its misery. But this fact is conveniently forgotten and the horse miraculously survives its injuries! This is literally scratching the surface of what is wrong with this film and I neither have the inclination or energy to detail everything wrong with it. Modern conception of the First World War is as a futile and senseless waste of life. I would argue that War Horse was a futile and senseless waste of my life.

Anyway, I was actually told off by a woman sat next to me for laughing so hard at the film. She told me to get myself an Airfix kit, I told her I already had some. I'm not really sure what she meant by that insult. He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named suggested the film would have been better had it been filmed by Ken Loach and I can't help but agree with him.

One on Ten.