Friday again, so five songs with a link - feel free to guess what it is. Last week's answer was death. This week we have: Ben Folds: Brick Radiohead: Creep Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Follow you into the Dark MIA: Paperplanes Nirvana: Polly
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One of the problems that seem to have arisen from the apparent mainstreaming* of geek culture has been that it carries additional forms of pressure. The pressure to keep up, to not miss out (FOMO - which you know my feelings on), which is balanced by other impulses, the desire to establish one's bona fides as a 'real' geek, and to seek out authenticity. We've seen this not only in terms of the now infamous, and erroneous, belief that girl gamers must be fakes because obviously , no women really like comics, gaming, and other nerd stuff, right?** I'm guilty of nerd shaming myself, because I don't believe turning on a TV set to watch a superhero show is as authentically nerdy as going out to find your next fix in the form of a comic (especially as I date from a time when there was only Forbidden Planet to get a reliable flow of comics from, I remember going to a newsagents in Leamington hoping that they would have the next issue of Uncanny X-Men and I wouldn't...
Okay, last week's answer was that each song was to do with one of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom with a song at the end, for the whole UK. So, can you guess the link this week? The Manic Street Preachers: Theme from MASH Queen: Show Must Go On All About Eve: She Moved Through the Fair Metallica: Fade to Black Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Henry Lee
Soooo, I saw Thor: Ragnarok last night. Eve, my spouse, went to see it at the cinema and she's a massive Marvel Cinematic Universe fangirl, so she bought the DVD. Hence, me getting to see it. The short version of this review is, I didn't like it very much. You can stop reading here if you like? On the other hand, if you want to stay for the dissection then let's go... (Of course, this is a review, it's my personal thoughts on the film, and I'm not claiming to be an expert okay - it's my gut reaction). First, the film felt self indulgent and sloppy. It felt wasteful. Did we need the hideously jarring scene at Bleaker Street where the set kept changing, or indeed for Dr Strange to be in the movie at all? After all, he was nothing more than a glorified tourist board. Come to that, did we to be told how dangerous Hela was not once but twice? We saw her break Mjolinor and then, to add a great big exclamation mark to that, we have to see her slaughter the ...
This week has been rather difficult. On Tuesday we had to let our Tortoiseshell cat go. She had mouth cancer, something she'd developed very rapidly and the cancer seemed to have been spreading to other places, as she had a lump on her stomach. There was no way to save her and so we had to have her put to sleep. It's hard to think of it and both of us were crying our eyes out because it seemed so unfair and so cruel. Dita was a real character, the only cat I've ever met who seemed to have comic timing. She was a chatty, almost insolent character who would happily answer back to things you said, usually when she was hungry but it wasn't time for more food. She loved her fuss and had a fondness for junk food, which makes me think that when she was a stray she'd found a chippie and taken to raiding the bins. When we met her she didn't bother to get up out of her bed and just lay in her pen letting us fuss her. This insouciance towards life characterised mus...
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953 Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 ...