Soooo, nearly three weeks without an update, but the good news is that rather than being a layabout, I've been (largely) hard at work on the novel, and I'm getting pretty pleased with the state of things so far. At the moment I have the first 5 issues sewn up, a further four needing a second draft, and the bones of a story arc in place for a second narrative thread. I had a good meeting with the Jonic about developing the site itself, and while I don't think I'm anywhere near ready to launch, the progress is ongoing in a way that it hasn't been for months. A lot of this is down to having the support of a girlfriend who doesn't mind me buggering off to work upstairs of an evening and even kicks my arse a little to make sure I do. That this coincides with her wanting to watch Big Brother is, I am sure, a coincidence.

As well as working hard, Ellen and I both took all of last week off to spend time with our lovely little lady. Over the course of the summer a general lack of funds coupled with a plethora of events such as moving house have conspired to prevent us from doing a lot that is Rosie-centric this summer, so we decided to redress the balance. Rather than spend a week away somewhere (which we will be doing later in the year with a trip to Devon) we decided to take advantage of the many local summery things that are convenient and cheap and have the added advantage of being close enough to mean we could spend the nights in our own beds. And so over a packed week we went to Leeds to Tropical World and a lovely walk through Roundhay Park, to Scarborough for a lovely day at the beach, to Waterworld in York, and one lovely afternoon for Ellen and I in a beer garden whilst Rosie had a day at Nursery. To cap it all we then tested how excellent our daughter is by taking her to her first festival, Moor Music. I reviewed the festival itself for Demon Pigeon here, but it's worth noting that Rosie had a fantastic time and seemed to enjoy sleeping in a tent more than she does in her own bed. So it turns out our daughter is very excellent indeed. But then we already knew that.

Of course the downside to taking a week off work is that you have to return to work itself. But you can't have everything. I may have a password protected post going up over the next day or so, when that happens feel free to email me or hit me up on Twitter if you are so inclined and I'll provide said password.

Last night Ellen and I watched one of the myriad films that is currently clugging up our V+ box (we're verging on having enough to start our very own To Watch Pile) a thoroughly charming little film called Waitress, which I confess I had recorded simply for the presence of a Mr Nathan Fillion, but which surprised me by being in turns warm and dark and funny and sweet. On top of that, I'd say it was the first Rom Com I've seen in as long as I can remember where I honestly didn't see the end coming. Highly recommendable.

Aint It Cool News is reporting  that Star Trek reboot master JJ Abrams is considering whether or not to include the baddie from the original Star Trek II movie in his second film in the franchise.  Well, I say he is considering it, but the quote they give from Abrams is as much of a denial as it is anything else. As Aaron Sorkin may put it, a non-denial denial.

"While I don't want to approach the second film as a remake of episodes we've seen in the past, and I don't think any of the other writers or producers are interested in just rehashing or throwing characters in for the sake of it...Khan is certainly the most obvious one in the history of the series for me...I do think that there are...nothing is off limits in terms of what we're discussing."

So in other words, yes we know the fanboys would really like this, but we don't want to do it really, but who knows, maybe we'll be so stuck for ideas that we'll just do a tired old rehash and use up all the goodwill we earned on the first film.

May I officially stick my oar in and say for the love of Chekov please do not put Khan in the next movie. Wrath of Khan is easily the benchmark that all Star Trek movies must aspire to, but it was very much a product of that crew (can you have a Khan movie without there being the correlating story from the original series?) and also, the plot revolves around Kirk's son. How is that gonna work, and still have the relevancy emotionally?

So instead of tackling Khan again, here are my top 5 recommendations for what characters from the Star Trek universe could show up as villains in the second movie:

1. The Borg. Yes, they're not due to show up for another 100 years or so, but what's the point of blowing up the timeline if you can't have a bit of fun with it?  The Borg were the easily the baddest of all Trek baddasses. And besides, would be interesting to see how Kirk would line up against them.

2. Morn. You know, the one who sits at the bar through pretty much every episode of Deep Space Nine without speaking, without anyone knowing what his back-story was, save for that he died with a fortune, but then it turns out he didn't die.  It would be great to find out that he was previously an arch villain who comes up against the original cast. Bonus points for keeping him as a mute.

3. Wesley Crusher. In which the crew of the enterprise zoom through time to the future Enterprise and then beat seven shades of shit out of Wesley for his dazzling array of shit cardigans and jumpers.

4. They could remake Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, aka the one with the whales. Except this time rather than save the whales they find out that whales are responsible for global warming, which is actually caused by whale song, and spend months trawling the ocean brutally slaying every last one of them.

5. They could have an ORIGINAL FUCKING IDEA! Just a thought.

Anyway, I loved where they went with this year's reboot, which is probably going to be my film of the year come December, so I have every faith in Abrams being able to provide an excellent sequel. But please, no Khan.

Morning all, I'm afraid I am feeling a little worse for wear today, so you will have to accept my apologies if this is a bit meandering. Last night Ellen and I consumed a little too much of the wine and the spirit whilst enjoying two masterpieces by the recently departed king of chain smoking and looking mean, Mr Patrick Sawyze.

It being Sunday we started off with a bit of X Factor to wash down a particularly nice Roast lamb dinner. It's actually gotten quite good after an abysmal start, although it's now clear that Simon is going to win this year with the over-25 category. Check this back in December and you will find I am right. (Incidentally, for any of you sneering openly at the screen and mocking my television viewing habits, the rest of this post involves me watching Dirty Dancing, so you might want to look away now, or maybe come back tomorrow.)

After X Factor we were idly glancing through the schedules and marvelling at how quickly the networks have managed to shoehorn every Patrick Swayze movie ever made into any space they can.

'Ooh,' remarked Ellen 'I wonder when they will be showing Dirty Dancing then.' Unfortunately the answer to that was that it had just started over on Five. I tried for a second to come up with any kind of feasible excuse to avoid it, but there was no escape.

It had already started, but only a few minutes in there was dancing and frivolity the likes of which would have me normally reaching for the remote, but I knew I had to stay the course.  And then something strange happened. Somewhere between the endless dance lessons (in rooms, on logs, in water) and the faux-working-class diatribes, I found myself really enjoying it.

I actually wanted to know what was going to happen (although of course I didn't need the script to tell me) to the point that when the final dance rolled around, and Swayze holds Jennifer Grey aloft to the strains of 'I've had the time of my life' (which is the least 50's song you'll ever hear in a movie set in the 50's) I found myself inwardly cheering.

Now the cynic in me would say that the enjoyment of such a film would only have been aided by the fact that we had finished the wine and I was on Jim Beam by the end of the film, but for once I'm going to tell that little cynic to go away and just accept the fact that Dirty Dancing is a damn fine little film.

However, now I had the upper hand, and despite needing to be up early for work I suggested to Ellen that we should watch another Swayze film, as I figured that she was so hooked on his torso by this point that she would agree to watching anything with him in. I was right, and so I pulled out the DVD of Roadhouse.

I have already gone on record on this site as to how much I love this film, but having not watched it in a good few years I was pleasantly surprised by how well its held up, and even how much of an influence it has had.  Certainly From Dusk Til Dawn is heavily modelled on it, even down to the same house band in the first bar.  But as well as this it is massively charming, especially with the bad guy duo of Brad Wesley and his camper-than camp sidekick Jimmy, who has to be the campest thing to grace an action film since the volleyball scene in Top Gun.

Unfortunately we were only half way through before Ellen decried that she was too unable to focus on the film any longer, and I had to admit that I wasn't far behind her, and so we retired before the film was able to get into full throat-wrenching swing. Gutted.  But if she thinks for one second that we're not going to finish watching it tonight, then she has clearly underestimated the dedication to geekery of her man.

Tonight I am off to a rare York gig, to see the terribly named but actually quite good And So I Watch You From Afar at Fibbers, which should be good. They were supporting Clutch in Leeds a few months back and although we only caught the second half of their set, they were very good in a Pelican/Red Sparrows/Karma To Burn kind of a way. So if you like spacey riffy instrumental music and are in York, you should come and join me.  I will be showing off my splendid new Alice In Chains T Shirt in public for the first time, which I am strangely excited about.

After that, Roadhouse!

Is that a bear? Oh no, it's a tree.

Two years ago Sean Penn's excellent 'Into the Wild' charted the life of Christopher McCandless, the famed Alexander Supertramp, who ditched what he saw as a fruitless existence fulifilling his parents ambitions and dropped off the map entirely.  Ending up in Alaska, he finally achieved his dream of total isolation, but due to his own naivete and basic planning, well let's just say the story doesn't have a happy ending.

Now, Channel 4 brings us Alone in the Wild, wherein adventurer and professional bear scaredy-cat Ed Wardle attempts to survive 3 months in the Alaskan wilderness completely alone.  Both films touch on similar ground, but despite the likeability of Wardle, the latter utterly fails as a compelling piece of work.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think what Wardle has achieved is a momentous achievement, and something I myself couldn't possibly achieve.  At least not unless I could get twitter to keep me company.  But the documentary of his escapades utterly fails in its stated aims.

First of all, there's the title.  Wardle attempts three months of total isolation, but how exactly is one supposed to achieve this when you are documenting every single thing you do for a pre-commissioned documentary to be shown on National television? Very quickly we can see that the camera is Wardle's companion. He converses with it, lovingly sets up shots of himself before he does anything, and constantly informs us as to his deteriorating state of mind through Courtney love-esque diatribes. Most of which are about bears.

Ah yes, the bears.  Wardle is absolutely terrified of the potential eating he expects to befall him, which is quite understandable given there are thousands of bears in his area, and only one of him. But the edit of the documentary makes it seem as though he's occupied by no other thought. One would imagine that a man that scared of bears would probably been better off vacationing somewhere where there aren't quite so many bears. Like CentreParks, perhaps.

Unfortunately for the editors of the film, there don't actually seem to be any bears around to make these fears real. And so Wardle wanders around like a puppy that has yet to recognise its own shadow, barking at it and then cowering in fear as it moves.

But other than the regular 'there might be a bear somewhere' updates, where this doc really falls down is that being in total isolation in the middle of nowhere is actually quite dull. Once you get past the initial culture shock of the circumstance, you're left with someone wandering a wood complaining about the fact that he hasn't eaten very much, and that he has blisters.

But what really grated me was the similarity in tone to Penn's film. The way the whole thing is framed, the notching of the belt, the worry over berries, even the incidental music, which is alarmingly like Eddie Vedder's masterful score, it seems the whole thing is based on Penn's film.

This is all very well, of course, but is made all the more perplexing given that the film and the life of McCandless are never mentioned, even in passing.  I'm presuming there must be some rights issue involved, but given that that tale is clearly the basis for the whole adventure, it's very odd.

I watched the first episode and attempted to do the same again last night, but halfway through had to turn over. It is only down to Wardle's immensely entertaining breakdown and the fact that he reminds me of Desmond from Lost that I lasted that long.

In all of the coverage of the death of Patrick Swayze, the focus has been on his hugely successful romantic lead roles, which for millions of young girls seemed to define the blossoming allure of the male form.  But for me, he also defined an early example of what masculinity was in two completely different movies.

Road House, in which Swayze played tough bouncer Dalton, was at the time an effortlessly cool movie. A tough guy movie, where the good guy rolls into to town and takes on the badass gangster who has taken it over, winning over the heart of a local girl in the process. Predictable enough, but Swayze put a different spin on the role, playing him as a peaceful man who centres himself with yoga and eschews material goods.

As the son of publicans, I grew up watching this film and imagining my parent's lives to be as glamourous and cool as Dalton's, but this film also provided me with a view of masculinity as something that can be understated, calm and reserved, rather than full of bravado. 

But Point Break, which starred Swayze as surfer/bank robber Bodhi, provided my adolescent self with that first definition of cool. Sure the film is a cliched manfest, with terrible dialogue and almost uniformly bad performances (most notably from the triumvirate of Swayze, Reeves and Gary Busey) but watch it again today and it's still so fucking cool.

Bodhi is a man who lives life on the edge, who does whatever it is that he wants to do, unbridled by modern society. A man who willingly dies doing something he loves rather than be shackled by society. As a thirteen year old this was an entirely new concept to me, and while I've never been an adrenaline junkie, the first seed that I could carve out a life as I saw fit took root with Point Break.

So cheers to the Swayze, the chain-smoking man's man, who showed me two small but important lessons growing up, through two terrible but brilliant films.

Genius. Of all the Bale stuff out there, this is the best I've seen (heard?) so far.

Top Ten Albums of the Year

1. Meshuggah - Obzen

A spitting, spiralling mas of polyrhythms that will melt your head and confound the ear.  Truly mesmerising.  Imagine all the worlds classical music being played at once by a robot with a distortion pedal and it would sound nothing like this.  I just like the image.  Brutal, technical metal that manages to be accessible and, well, rather splendid.

Meshuggah - Bleed (video)

2. Sigur Rós -Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

By far and away the best non-metal album of the year for me.  Alright, so it's not as good as Takk, or (), but it fills me with a sense of unbridled joy whenever I listen to it, and it pulls me back again and again.  Uplifting and yet mournful at times, I love this album.

Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook (Live With Bjork at Naturra)

3. Origin - Antithesis 

If you watched the Meshuggah video above and thought to yourself, 'bloody hell, that's a bit too heavy,' then you probably don't want to follow this link.  By far and away the most technically astounding album made this year, it is a relentless, bludgeoning cacophony of noise.  And it's brilliant.

Origin - Finite (video)

4. Portishead - Third

One of my favourite ever bands coming back, something that happened a lot this year (AC/DC, Metallica and Guns n' Roses) but this was the one album which really didn't disappoint.  Dark, mournful, harrowing, a truly stunning album, with easily my favourite song of the year, Machine Gun.

Portishead - Machine Gun (video)

5. Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling

A startling return to form by Scotland's premier instrumental weirdos.  A crystalline sheen sits atop these tracks, which became a staple of my listening when I was doing my nano novel.

Mogwai - Batcat (video)
 

6. Kings Of Leon - Only By the Night

Many purists see this as a dip in form, but to be honest I've never really been sold on Kings until now.  Slightly hampered by a dip at the end of the album, this nonetheless became a regular fixture in my household as Ellen loves it too.  And the bassline on Crawl makes my spine tingle.

Kings Of Leon - Crawl (video)

7. Mouth Of The Architect - Quietly

In a year with no new releases by Neurosis, Pelican or Isis, a brilliant slab of Post Metal which remains ethereal and bruising throughout from a band I had never heard of before Last.fm. No videos for this, you'll just have to wait for my mix!

8. Dozer - Beyond Colossal

Great dirty slabs of Swedish stoner rock.  If you like your rock dirty and fuzz-laden, seek this out.  No vids for this either.

9. Cult Of Luna - Eternal Kingdom

One of my favourite bands, I would hesitate to say this equals their early work, despite a return to heaviness eschewed on Somewhere Along The Highway, but it remains a fascinating listen, layers upon layers of Post metal noise linked to a central concept based on a book they found in a mental institute.

 
Cult Of Luna - Eternal Kingdom (Live in Warsaw)

10. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

I'm sure this merits a higher place in my list, but I did overplay this over the summer to the point where I can barely listen to it again, but this remains a rarity, a British indie album that doesn't make me want to throw things out of windows.  Great songs, brilliant lyrics, and a wistful melancholy that erupts into a joyful chorus by the end.

Elbow - One Day Like This (live at Glastonbury)

Honourable Mentions for; Metallica, AC/DC, Cancer Bats, Ben Folds, The Sword, Adele.

Worst Album of the Year: Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy

As for gigs, the truth is that I have only been to two gigs this year, shameful though it is to admit.  However, that does at least allow me to do a best and worst gig of the year!

Best Gig: Conor Oberst - York Duchess

Worst Gig: The Streets - Leeds Academy

Top 5 Films

1. The Dark Knight

2. No Country For Old Men

3. There Will Be Blood

4. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

5. Juno

Greatest Thing to Happen This Year: The election of Barack Obama

Worst Thing to Happen This Year: Israel's bombing of Palestine seems to making a late grasp for the honours here.

Paul's quick capsule review of the year:

This year has been a good one for me, despite the world seeming to cave in around me.  Obviously the most significant thing to have happened to me was the start of a new relationship with Ellen, the mother of our wonderful little girl Rosie.  It was hardly the most traditional way to start a relationship, but I'm happy to report that nine months on, and everything is still tickety boo.  We clicked so immediately that I almost forget sometimes what a new relationship it is.  Not only that, but Ellen has brought something out of me, a drive that was never really there before, which makes me want to achieve things that will make the lives of my family move forward.  I've never really had direction before, and 2009 will hopefully see it being implemented.  But that's for another post.

As for all the standard geeky Paul stuff, it's not really been a great year for anything other than political reading.  Music had been a bit ho-hum, with not many great new bands and most of my favourites not releasing anything this year.  Telly has been a bit rubbish, with Heroes going a bit shit and nothing to really get excited about outside of the excellent Big Bang Theory, The IT Crowd, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, and the frankly excellent Dead Set.

This year has also been the year that I rediscovered the Internet, in all of its shiny glory.  Without Google Reader I think I would be adrift now, and Last.fm has introduced me to a ridiculous number of bands.

I also returned to Nanowrimo and managed to succeed yet again, although the book itself is far from finished.  But still, quite an achievement.

The other main event of the year was of course the economic collapse, but to be honest I really can't bring myself to care very much, as it seems the richer you were, the worse of you are.  Now I'm no raving pinko, but so?  It seems to me we are on the brink of some kind of epoch making shift in the way we all live our lives, and that everything terrible that's happening, from the meltdown to global warming, to the increase in mental religious nutbars killing each other for no particular reason, is providing a rich stew in which we can move forward as a race to find some better ways of dealing with the world around us.  Whether we will or not is another matter.

Blimey, I went a little bit Star Trek there.

So there you go, my review of the year.  I shall be doing a year end mix and posting soon, but not today.

Well I did it, 50,000 words in 30 days, and now have the shiny evidence of my ability to write a ton of drivel in a short space of time.  That may sound harsh, but it probably is drivel at the moment (I don't know either way, I haven't looked back on it at all) but hopefully once I give it s re-write, it may come out as something readable.

I'm sure you'll understand that this is the reason posts have been a little sparse of late, I only have the capacity for so many words at any one time, and they've all gone in the book.  If anyone is remotely interested in reading it, let me know and I will mail you a copy.

Other than that the main news is that I'm going to be a student again.  Starting February I will be doing an open university degree in computing, although I won't choose a specific path until I've done the basic modules.  I utterly messed up my last attempt at a degree, and I'm sick of being poor, and of not knowing more about computers.  So that's exciting.

With the nano month, I neglected to mention anything about the election, suffice to say when me and Jonic stayed up to watch the speech and the result, there were tears in my eyes.  At the time I was pretty pissed off with some of the coverage of the man's race, until a few days later when I listened to Nina Simone's Strange Fruit, and it hit me how far America has come in less than a century.

Other than that, my expert opinion on some things for you, in bullet point fashion:

• This video is one of the greatest things I've ever seen
• The new AC/DC album is alright
• The new Guns N Roses album is terrifyingly awful
• The return of Charlie Brooker, first with Dead Set and then Screenwipe, is a very good thing
• This video is beyond comprehension, Rosie...please never be like this
• Last.fm is my new version of online crack
• The new trailers for Trek and Watchmen blow me away
• Shopping for kids toys is brilliant
• I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here is every bit as horrifying as I'd imagined, only I never knew it would be this watchable
• The new series of Spooks is very silly
• Little Dorrit is marvelous

Lastly, I heard some truly horrible news today.  J+H, you are both in my thoughts, and if I were a praying man, you'd be in my prayers too.

That is all for now, but now that I have gotten back in the writing frame of mind you can expect more frequent posts.

It is, as I am sure you will be aware, Big Bang day today, as Cern's super smashing Large Hadron Collider experiment gets underway.  And no, the world hasn't ended, as you can plainly see as you look out the window.  If anything, the world is actively continuing along its merry way. Go on, look!

Now I am absolutely an idiot when it comes to Physics.  At school my old Physics teacher, Mr Butt (a rather rotund fella with a penchent for fits of rage and collecting train tickets) would despair at my inability to grasp even the most simple of physics notions.  Science has held little or no hold over my interests as an adult, but even I can see that this is a monumental day in terms of the human race exploring into the nature of our very being, and something that will one day be celebrated in the same way as the works of Einstein, Darwin et al.

It seems to me that the increase in religious fervour worldwide has done a great deal of harm to the cause of science, with debate now actively raging even in this country as to whether the teaching of evolution diminishes a child's right to practice their own religion (as evidenced in Channel 4's excellent 'The Genius of Charles Darwin). Surely children have a right to be taught scientifically proven fact? But I digress.
It has been a while since science has come up with anything that truly captures the imagination of the people, and it has seemed in recent years as though we are all on a cultural and intellectual backslide towards a time when common sense has been replaced by dogma and superstition.  Here's hoping that today marks the start of a reversal of this trend.  The Mighty Radiohead are evidently also on my side on all of this, as this article shows.

To somewhat undercut this point, however, as I walked to work today I found myself musing on whether this experiment would destroy the world (a thought that for some reason never really fills me with dread, as it would at least be interesting to watch) I found myself thinking back to an episode of Angel where an over-keen physicist nearly destroys the world by freezing it in a time bubble, and I wondered if maybe Angel himself was stalking the corridors at Cern, making sure that nothing was askew or askance.

I have the rest of the week off after today, as Ellen is off away for a few days and so I have been placed on RosieWatch. Hmm, two days at work, or two days playing with Rosie.  Not in any way a hard decision.

If you haven't seen Hellboy 2 yet, go see.  Simply a marvellous, sumptuous treat, wrapped in a disarming and lovely character study of love and alienation. Awesome.

Lastly, it seems most of the traffic coming my way is off the back of a google image search for Chris O Donnell dressed as Robin.  Hello and welcome, and please feel free to tell me exactly why you are looking with such eagerness for such a picture.  Really, I would love to know!

News today that there may in the ether be a forthcoming Bill Hicks biopic movie delight me in the same way as mint choc chip ice cream, but the rumours that erstwhile Aussie nutbar Russell Crowe is sketched in as the lead worry me.  Sure, he looks the part, as Empire rightly point out, and he has a brooding intensity that goes well with Bill's stage persona, but I just worry that he doesn't have the necessary lightness of touch that Hicks coloured his life and his act with.

Ho hum, at the very least this will bring a bit more attention to the man who I can clearly state has been more of an influence on my way of thinking than any of the mish mash of pop culture that formed my personality.  I am a product of tv, music and radio, like many of my generation, but it wasn't until Bill came along that I saw the fallacy of these teachings and looked at them with eyes anew.  A true original, the greatest stand up ever, and ever since my first year of Uni, when a friend whose name I can't even remember now lent me a copy of 'Rant In E Minor' more of a God than a man to me.

Today I started reading 'The Liar' by Stephen Fry.  I have never read any of this books, and find I am already quite taken.  Yesterday I finished Cormac Macarthy's 'No Country For Old Men,' which was majestic and depressing, with an even more downbeat ending than the film, if that's even possible.