Stuff I've been absorbing of late

Bookwise: STUMP (Niall Griffiths)

A one-armed recovering alcoholic scouser is hiding out Wales, trying to get a grip on existence. Meanwhile a pair of useless scouse gangsters are slowly tracking him down in a crap Moggy Minor. You've got to read this book just for these characters. Very rarely in contemporary fiction do you get such a pungent depiction of the out-and-out crapness of daily life for a repentant drinker. Yes, the main (unnamed) character's life is shit, but you've gotta love him for the way he looks after his rabbit and grows his own veg. He's trying to make his way, with one arm, and it ain't easy. And you don't half feel for him.

The pair in the car are hilarious. They might have come straight of Central Casting at Brookside, but that show has been a dead a few years now and they've grown a few of their own pungent quirks. At one point Darren needs a shit and he stops the car, turns the roadmap to the page for Manchester, rips it out, and runs to the bushes. A nice touch.

There are very few genuinely invidual writers working in Britain these days, and Griffiths is one of them. The "what it's like for a one armed person" schtick might have been overplayed slightly, but that's the only fault here. I really liked this, and I'm going to read his other books now.


Whiskywise: LAPHROAIG

I am the only person I know who likes this particular single malt. Everyone else says it tastes like TCP (anticeptic). OK, so it smells a bit that way, but don't try and tell me what it tastes like. You never even put it near your lips, you tossers. You just sniffed it, went "uggghh - TCP", put it down, and cracked open a Bacardi Breezer. That smell is actually PEAT, and it swirls around my mouth and blends into my bloodstream quite nicely, ta. So you just stick to your Red Bull and Babycham.


Tellywise: DOUBLE DARE (by Dennis Potter)

I was walking around the house the other night, cigar and glass of Laphroaig in hand (celebrating a 200 word haul), when I noticed this on telly. I'd read about it a couple of times on the past - an early Dennis Potter effort. It's pretty much a straight play, none of the potteresque singing and trippy bits. But it fucks with your head nonetheless.

It's about a rather troubled writer who believes his life is actually a script he wrote, and everyone around him is acting (making matters worse for him, he keeps telling people what they're about to say). He's arranged to meet an actress (who he fancies) in a hotel bar, and he basically asks her what's the difference between having sex with someone on screen as an actress, and having sex with someone as a private person. What is real? Who the fuck am I? When I raise my hand, am I doing it to demonstrate that I can raise my hand, or am I doing it because my inner self really wants to? Bla bla bla...

It is actually a superb play, so make sure you catch it if you can. I'm just not up to doing it justice, here, on this frivolous blog thing.

(A side note - those 70s TV plays weren't half saucy.)


Waste-of-time-wise: PS2 GOLF, OR WHATEVER IT'S CALLED

Why am I always five years behind anyone else with these video game things? Oh, I know - I never actually buy them. I just wait for more hip people to shell out for the latest toy, then quietly take their old clunker off their hands. Ta very much, mate. See you in five years.


Earwise: THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)

Have I mentioned this one before? I think I did, on my old "clunker" website. Anyway, if you don't mind I'll just say (sing):

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said "Dear Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing in here
I'll stick it up your orifice"

It's actually the last two songs on the disc that I like best - CARRY ME and O CHILDREN - both gospely and whistful and you might want to nod off to them if he didn't say things like:

Pass me that lovely little gun
My dear, my darling one
The cleaners are coming, one by one
You don't even want to let them start

(Hey Philip - ta for turning me on to Nick Cave, quite a while ago now.)


Rockywise: ROCKY II

Anyone who stubbornly refuses to like Rocky, turn away now. On second thoughts - read on, you bastards...



I now know why the Rocky franchise petered out after Rocky 3. That guy up there - it's all about him. After Mickey died in III, the whole concept lost it's balance. Rocky was manifestly thick in the first two, and didn't seem too bothered about anything (besides chasing Adrian, and then the prospect of her catching "pet shop diseases" when he puts her up the spout). He's the cheerfully ignorant brute, in short. Burgess Meredith's grouchy old coach was his opposite - old, depressed, angry, worldly (in boxing terms), frail. Ah, it just works.

Then you get Rocky III, which is kind of a turning point. It's the pinnacle of Rockydom, mainly because it's just so full of conflict. Mickey is pissed off, Apollo is indignant, Clubber Lang is furious, Rocky is unhappy, Adrian is sexually frustrated... even Hulk Hogan is strangely subdued. But Rocky is still resolutely thick. However, you get his big disillusionment in this one - he finally sees the truth, and thereafter must carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Next came the downward slope of Rockys IV and V - Rocky carrying the weight of the world on his pumped-up deltoids. All angst, all conflict, all flash training montages, no humour. It just cannot be pulled off without Mickey, and flashbacks don't cut it. Also Dolph Lundgren and Tommy Morrisson just can't match up to Mr T's unshutuppable performance as the ROCKY III nemesis...



Still love em though. All five of them.