Here's Something I've Learned Today.

If your dinner consists of a load of prawn crackers and nothing else, you will get gut pains and really bad gas.

Just so you know.

How To Make People Come To Your Church.

Has today's modern and 'enlightened' (i.e. heathen) society lead to a decrease in people attending your local church services? Want to win back the increasingly disillusioned public? Well, why not take a leaf out of the churches in St Clements, and put up some quirky posters!

Just take a look at the kind of thing you could be doing!

Got some spare puns lying around?

Heck, don't just leave them there gathering dust, put them to good use!

Everyone loves sport, right?

Use that to your advantage!

Here's some clever wordplay that proves that those old sporting terms are more versatile than you might have thought.

Woah there! What's this?

Yeah, okay, see everything needs fuel of some kind to function, right?

Well, why is your soul any different?

I think you will agree that this has certainly given you something to think about, huh?

I bet that because of these amazing posters, the St Clements churches are full to the flipping brim with worshipers now. Quite frankly I don't know how I'm here typing this when my local church is just a short walk away with regularly inspiring nuggets such as these.

Axl's Thoughts On The Book 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'.

As I was walking to college today, I walked past Borders and in their window was a poster displaying some of their 'Books Of The Year'. On this poster was the book 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'. Now, my initial reaction was something along the lines of 'Oh my God, what the fuck is that doing on a 'Books Of The Year' list? For fuck's sake, that's ridiculous,' but then I started thinking.

See, I was listening to my iPod, and the Four Tet remix of 'Volcano' by Anti-Pop Consortium had just finished playing. I would say that this is one of my favourite songs of the year.

But it's a remix.

This got me thinking.

What's inherently wrong with 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but PP&Z is the book 'Pride & Prejudice' with some extra zombie scenes written into it, therefore putting the overall work into a different context. You could say it's someone remixing literature. That's what someone does when they remix a song after all, they change the context of it, writing new parts into it and therefore changing the overall effect. Okay, that is simplifying the remix process somewhat, but that is essentially what it is, right?

So what's wrong with remixing literature?

What is actually wrong with that?

Coz I haven't read it, I was making snap judgements on it based on what it is, and yet, thinking about it, I can see no reason to not like what it is. Sure, if I read it and thought it was trashy and stupid then fine, but I can see no problem with what PP&Z is doing.

NOW, someone out there is going to be thinking something along the lines of, 'But Axl, a remix of a song is totally different because the people involved in the song have specifically asked for their song to be remixed. With PP&Z, someone has just taken an out of copyright text and messed around with it. Jane Austin has had NO say in this whatsoever. It's being promoted as something new when in fact it's just a gimmick designed to make money, not an exercise in recontextualisation at all,' as indeed those are arguments against this book that I have heard and read before.

Well, this won't be very popular, but I reckon that unless you have read the book, you're not in a position to make that judgement. Fine, you can know the idea and decide that it's not for you, or that you don't think it's something you would enjoy, we all make those decisions all the time, but I don't believe that as an idea and a concept, it is something that can be written off.

Look at Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet'. The audacity of taking that play and putting it in modern times and re-writing very small elements of it (e.g. guns instead of swords, Romeo going to the Capulet party off his tits, etc), places it in a new setting and context and completely alters the work. Reaction? Trepidation and scepticism at first, but on seeing it most people agree that it is a very good film, and a pretty brave one too. Slightly garish in places yes, but come on, that's a really good film right there, and an adaptation that Shakespeare had nothing whatsoever to do with.

Also there are many, many things that get done in music with JS Bach, Mozart, and many other classical composers out of copyright music that is a complete bastardisation of the original works being repackaged and jigged about with, including things like 'The Well Tempered Synthesiser', JS Bach's 'The Well Tempered Clavier' played on synths, and 'Bach To Africa', selected JS Bach pieces played with African percussion accompaniment.

This is just a small selection of reworkings, rewritings and yes, recontextualisings of works that happens all the bloody time. Why novels should be the sacred cow among the arts I really don't know.

'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'? The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised it hasn't happened before, and that this kind of thing doesn't happen more often.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes.

Hey all.

Due to the ridiculous amount of spam I've been getting as comments on my blog recently, I have unfortunately decided that word verification and comment approval is now necessary. Don't worry, all your 'Oh Axl, don't be such a massive douche,' and 'Oh LOL Axl!!1!' comments will still all go up, I just need to weed out the stupid amount of 'miley cyrus nude miley cyrus nude miley cyrus nude' & 'hasjkhwud free xp3 hkjsHGDUI' etc etc type stuff that I've been getting.

I will only not approve of spam. Everything else will be approved, so keep commenting!

KTHXBAI

A Question I Ask Myself Every Time I Walk Into Town.

What the fuck is the point of this?

Seriously, these have to be the most pointless double yellow lines ever.

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Growing Up/Getting Older.

If I ever have kids, I'm going to make sure my kids know all of these things so they don't come to them as as much of a shock as they have come to me. I want them to be prepared for this shit.

* Watching your hair get gradually more grey as your life goes on is one of the most depressing things ever.

* Spots don't magically stop appearing on you when you reach 20.

* There will come a time in your life where you find that sometimes urinating takes actual physical effort. Not always, but sometimes.

* Almost every mistake you make will haunt you for the rest of your life. (However, I will add the point that when things are going well for you, some of them will haunt you a lot less.)

* Work can be just as unpleasant an experience as school sometimes, in every way.

* When you grow up, you still won't have all the answers.

I had more in my head earlier. If I remember them, I'll add them later.

However there are also a couple of things that I will make sure I point out to them.

* No matter what anyone tells you, your school days are not necessarily going to be the best days of your life. Not at all.

* You will almost certainly actually have very very little in life to be afraid of, no matter what anyone tells you.

If I had known all this in advance, I would be a much better person, and much more capable of dealing with the world than I am.

So What Does A Man Do When He Thinks No-One's Paying Attention?

FART.

AND SCRATCH HIS BALLS.

But never at the same time. That would just be weird.

The Internet Is Making Me Paranoid.

Facebook has started to make me feel like I'm a senile old man trying to converse with a museum full of statues. Twitter is starting to feel like I'm running up behind people and sticking post-it notes on their backs and then running away, not seeing that they've fallen off already. Worst of all tho, my blog, this blog, is being read by fewer people, and I lost a subscriber this weekend. This is making me start to feel like one of those mental preachers or bag ladies who stand around in the street shouting at passers by.

Oh internet, what have I done to displease you so? Have I let my standards slip? Do you want me to perform a ritual sacrifice? Would that put me back in your favour?

Urff.

Listening: I listened to the new album by Russian Circles today. It's really pretty fucking ace, which I was very happy about a) now that Pelican have stopped making good albums, and b) because I wasn't that keen on their second album.

New album 'Geneva' is a heavy slab of instrumental rock that essentially just ticks all the boxes, but it manages to sound exciting and vital while doing it. It's not doing anything new, but it's doing what it is doing very well indeed. I will definitely be buying it.

Although I did wonder what Russian Circles would sound like doing an album of covers of songs originally by the 90's indie band Geneva. I reckon it would be quite interesting.

Urff.

Right, so trying to ram a bunch of theory into my head, oh the joys of Russian formalism, structuralism, Marxism, materialism, binary systems, marzipanism, yadayadayadaism, and more besides I'm sure, has made every ism morph into one thing that I like to call "Dunnoism", because as they all morph into this blob in my my brain, all the sharp edges and details disappear and I'm left with just this smooth, grey spherical ism that looks exactly like nothing yet I know is supposed to mean lots of things and is vital to my course in some way. The really worrying thing is that other isms will no doubt come along all shiny and pretty, but once in my head will be assimilated into the "Dunnoism", instantly losing all sense of meaning and becoming one with the powers of "DURR."

Anyway...

Michael Buble's new album "Crazy Love" is out. Sadly, it does not include a cover version of "Amour Fou" by Vetiver. That is what always comes into my head when I see the words "Crazy" and "Love" next to each other. More specifically I think of the first time I went to Paris, which was with Emma, Johnny and Dawn, and how me and Johnny would sing "She wanted love, crazy love, love love love love crazy love," all the bloody time like we were infected with it or something. I'm pretty sure it drove Emma and Dawn mad by the end of it.

Talking of songs with the potential to drive you mad, I assume that you've all seen this by now, right?

Yeah, Emma's probably lucky I can't come up to Newcastle next week. I would probably drive her fucking mental with this. I can't get it out of my head, and I'm pretty sure I've been singing it while walking in the street. At least, I'm assuming that's what the weird looks I was getting in the street today were about.

'Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea' & Me.

When I got back from my Malta holiday, one of the pieces of news I was greeted with was the fact that in the UK we will now have to wait until February 2010 for the new Hayao Miyazaki anime film, 'Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea'. This made me actually shout "Oh for fuck's sake!!" out loud to myself. This film came out in Japan in July 2008, and has been widely distributed around the world throughout 2009. Once again, we are the last place to get films in our cinemas in the world.

I was unbelievably frustrated, but my frustration was eased when I had a look on Sky Japan Shop. (I rarely let myself go on Sky Japan Shop's site, because they have so many anime dvds that I want, there is a serious danger I would spend all of my money.) They were selling a

Japanese dvd of 'Ponyo...' for £10.50, with free shipping. I pounced on it. With it coming out in the cinemas in February next year, I figured it'll probably be until about August before it gets to dvd. Not only could I see it 4 months early, but I could own it 10 months early! I simply couldn't resist.

A couple of days later, I got an e-mail from them telling me they've withdrawn it from sale due to complaints about the quality of the dvd. I assumed this was due to subtitling issues, I have a couple of anime dvds from Japan that have not been given the best quality of interpretation, and the subtitles can be pretty tricky to follow at times. They offered me a refund, or the value off another item. I thought, fair enough, I'll have a look later and see what I want. Then proceeded to completely forget all about it.

Last week I got another e-mail from Sky Japan Shop, telling me that my copy of 'Ponyo...' had shipped.

I was very excited.

Saturday morning, I got a little parcel in the post. I opened it. It was my copy of 'Ponyo...'.

I was INCREDIBLY excited.

Today I actually got the chance to sit down and watch it.

Okay, it's pretty obvious why there were complaints about the quality. It's very obviously a pirate copy. You can hear a couple of children's voices right at the start, and the sound is clearly being recorded thru a microphone. Having said that tho, once you get a couple of minutes into it, the sound really isn't a problem, it's actually fairly decent quality, and yes the tracking shots are a bit jumpy and sometimes the movement of characters on screen are too, but the translated subtitles are good and overall it is definitely watchable, right up until the moment at 78 minutes when someone gets up to go to the toilet. Then again at 85 minutes when they come back. Seeing a massive and shadowy figure moving across the screen and interrupting what you're watching is a very surreal experience, especially with an animation. It's just one step too far, and sadly I will have to return the dvd to Sky Japan Shop.

I say sadly, and I really do mean sadly, because 'Ponyo...' is an ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL film.

It's basic story is the same as that of 'The Little Mermaid'. A female mermaid wants to become a human, spurred on by loved for a human male.

The details are different tho. For a start both Ponyo and Sosuke (the boy she falls for) are 5 years old. In this way, Hayao Miyazaki tells us a very innocent story, with all his little trademark fantastical quirks and methods that I just love him so much for.

Very simply put, the story goes: Sosuke finds a little fish with a human head while playing by the sea and decides to keep it. He calls it Ponyo. He carries it around everywhere with him in a bucket, including back to the seafront where they become seperated. Ponyo tries to find Sosuke again, and brings with her a Tsunami...

It's a very endearingly childish, simple and engaging film. I really don't want to give too much away here, and I've described the story as simply as I can so as not to ruin any of the details of the film, because I would recommend every single one of you to go and see it when it comes out. It is just utterly, utterly wonderful and it PAINS me to have to return it.

The only reason I can think of that would justify the UK distributor pushing the release date back to February next year, is to stop it from clashing with 'Up', and they're trying to make sure people won't not go to see 'Ponyo' because of that. If I start going down that road tho, I'll start getting annoyed at how 'Up' was also released virtually everywhere else in the world before we got it. Grrrrrrr. Luckily only about half of the world is getting 'Where The Wild Things Are' before we get to see it. I'm counting that as a victory.

One more thing, when 'Ponyo...' does finally come out over here, if you possibly can, go and see it in Japanese with English subs. I've seen the trailer for the English language dubbed cut, and not only does the dialogue come across as pretty bad, but it also sounds like a new musical score has been written and recorded, and it sounds awful.