Another New Home

It's a long (and dull) story, but we can now be found here:

http://garbledcommunications.wordpress.com/

New material is online now, along with a great selection of the best of the old site.

The Healthy Blogger

With Doctor* Damien Hart PhD**

Hello, good evening and welcome to this, the very first entry in my exciting new health series. I wanted to start by dealing with the vexing topic of trying to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Obviously this is both completely impossible and utterly pointless, a fictitious target made up as a desperate marketing ploy by greengrocers. Fresh fruit and vegetables are generally disgusting, and anything that tastes that bad cannot be good for you.

However, sadly in today's Big Brother society can we really be sure that the government is not secretly recording who obeys its' ridiculous plant-related edict, with a possible view to deliberately infecting those of us who aren't vegetarians with flesh-eating MRSA and thus solving the forthcoming "now everyone's really old" pensions crisis? In such dangerous times it's best to seem to conform, so here's my guide to beating the bastards at their own game with five fruit and vegetables that won't make you sick:

1) Cornish Pasties - Yes, these delicious pastry-based snacks contain swede. It's amazing really because pasties are actually quite nice whereas swede is completely disgusting. You need to eat about three large Ginsters traditional Cornish pasties to get what the Health Department would consider a portion of swede, but hey, that's a plan with no drawbacks if ever there was one!

2) Cadbury's Fruit and Nut - The clue's in the name! Yes raisins are a fruit and you can count them towards your five a day. I've worked out that you can get your portion by consuming as little as seven standard bars, and you can even spread this out during the day. Yes girls, chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner really is good for you!

3) Chips - Some supposed scientists say potatoes don't count. This is a fucking lie. The potato is a vegetable, it says so on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato - so anyone who claims a plate of chips is not a portion of vegetables is a rotten stinking fraud. With herpes.

4) Marmalade - Ah Oranges. Tasteless and shitty. Yet smothered in sugar and placed in a jar alongside a racist depiction of a person of African ethnicity then the humble orange becomes half tolerable. I recommend a whole jar a day. Don't be afraid to toast up a loaf of bread to go with it. White bread, obviously. The wholemeal stuff is not a fruit or vegetable and plus it's repulsive so why bother?

5) Fairy Liquid. - The beauty of this is that these days Fairy Liquid is concentrated so just a few spoonfuls will give you a whole portion of lemons. It also makes your insides sparkling clean. The only drawbacks are that it tastes disgusting and you might die. But you could say the same thing about smoking!

And there you have it. A little bit of sanity in a world that that's gone properly psychopathically mad. There is no need to thank me.

Damien Hart.

Damien Hart is a recovering clairvoyant and former Neo-Nazi leader. He is only on the Sex Offenders Register by mistake.

* Solihull's third most popular Doctor Who Impersonator
** Photography Diploma

Previous Damien Hart columns can be read here.

The BBC - A New Low?

I received the following email from the audience tickets people Standing Room Only today:

"STRIP SEARCH

So you think you're fashionable? Maybe you're a wannabe designer, or you think you've got real model quality. Well now it's your chance to prove it. Strip Search is a brand spanking new game show for BBC3, where we'll be kick starting new fashions and pitting the most stylish boys and girls in the country against one another for the chance to take home a fantastic prize.

To get involved, all you need to do is come on down to the show and get your kit off for us! That's right - the audience will be stripping to their underwear, and a handful of contestants will be demonstrating their flair for fashion in front of a panel of expert fashionistas.

But if their style doesn't cut it, they'll be facing a quick exit - through a trapdoor.

Strip Search is recording at London's Elstree Studios at 7.30pm on Thursday 18th September. If you think you've got it and you'd like to appear on the show, then apply now! You may apply online via our website at http://www.sroaudiences.com/"

Now I wouldn't be too surprised if something this depressing turned up on the once lovely but now uttery deplorable Channel Four, but I expect more from our supposedly world famous for it's quality state sponsored broadcasters. I don't know what's worse - the fact that it's yet another crappy sounding fashion show, that they get the audience to strip down to their underwear, or the hilarious concept of the contestants being chucked down a trapdoor, but either way it stinks of twatty idiots who are appealing to the Balls of Steel type audience, yep, the kind of people who should be banned from having children (and even conversations in public) - and that's me being kind to be honest.

Armando Iaanucci's "We're so good at telly!" sketch rings truer by the day, and I only hope that one day the BBC suddenly realise what they've turned their group of channels in too, and fire at least 75% of their staff...I know that's nonsensical bollocks and it's only going to get worse, but you've got to have a dream, haven't you?

DVD Review: The Machine Girl

Over the last decade or so Asian horror films have come to the fore of the horror genre, offering intelligent plotting, smart characterisation and incredibly atmospheric and disturbing moments.

The Machine Girl contains absolutely none of the above. Anyone looking to be genuinely scared is going to leave disappointed, and the script is pretty weak as well, indeed it's quite embarrassing in places with too many cliches and one liners which don't work.

That all said, The Machine Girl's an incredibly fun film. It knows what it sets out to do, and does it well - and that is to cover the screen in as much gore as possible within it's 93 minute running time. A volcano's worth of blood must have been used, as every limb that's cut off, every body that's sliced in two, and every head that explodes pisses out blood in a way that's never been seen before.

The plot's wafer thin - Ami's brother is bullied, and then killed, and she seeks revenge on those responsible, but it doesn't really matter what's going on - all of this is an excuse for the director to come up with a great selection of wonderful, if bizarre, fight scenes.

Half way through and Ami's captured and has her arm chopped off, but soon helped and handily given a machine gun arm as a replacement, and then the final half hour is one blood splattered scene after the next. It's here that the film is at it's most inventive, and becomes a true (if slightly guilty) delight.

If you don't like ridiculously OTT gory films than you'll probably hate it more than anything you've seen - yes, even The Blair Fucking Witch Project - but for fans of the genre it's a must see.

Alex Finch.

Have any doubts about watching the film? Well, the trailer should convince...

Comedy: Stewart Lee

I've just spent the last five minutes working this out, and it turns out that there's 28 reasons why I love Stewart Lee and feel he's one of the finest comedians of the last two decades.

I reviewed his show Stand-Up Comedian here - and whilst that might be a slightly over the top review written an hour or so after being absolutely enchanted by his live show, you'll get the general gist as to why he's so good.

Thankfully the BBC have finally realised how great he is too, after all but a decade, and have given him his own show again, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, parts of which he is testing out at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It'll air in February 2009 according to Lee's latest newsletter, which seems an awfully long time to wait, but hey, at least it is happening at all so for that we should be thankful.

In the meantime, here are a few youtube clips that you should whet your appetite for the forthcoming tv show...

Film Review: The Mist

The US horror scene is in a strange place right now, with far too many remakes of classic films that throw out any semblence of subtlety or intelligence and we've reverted back to the 80's, with groups of screaming girls being chased around by insane killers for no good reason other than that they like to chow down on a bit of human flesh.

These new versions of classics like The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween et al have offered nothing new, but as they make money, don't expect this trend to end any time soon - indeed we're dreading the forthcoming 'revisualisation' of Nightmare on Elm Street.

Fortunately for horror connossieurs, there's still the odd rare good movie being made in America, last years 30 Days of Night being a great example with it's fast pace and refreshing take on vampires, and whilst The Mist doesn't share it's passion for bloodlust, both are intelligent horror films that allow the characters to be developed and they don't rely only upon gallons of gore being splashed all over the screen (not that a certain amount of that sort of thing is ever a bad thing of course).

It develops slowly at first, with an eerie atmosphere as out of the blue a mist suddenly envelops a small US town, and a selection of individuals are trapped in a local supermarket. For a while you may ponder where it's going on, but as soon as the first victim is claimed, you'll be intrigued, and it will keep you guessing for a fair old while - infact at one point I was convinced that it was going to be a "The End of Days" kind of movie, until of course we find out otherwise.

The central idea to the film is a intriguing one, but it is the individual characters who make this so interesting to watch, and which give you a lot to think about. The religious angle is handled well, mainly thanks to a great performance from Marcia Gay Harden, and for me she's one of the scariest creatures I've seen in recent horror, by the end you'll be actively despising her, I promise

It's the ending though that makes it a really devestating film though. Utterly bleak and tragically horrific, and it makes the film incredibly powerful - and is incredibly fitting in this examination of human weaknesses (and admittedly, in parts, strengths) which overall makes for a enthralling piece of work.

If I've one complaint it's that the cgi is a bit poor from time to time (especially when the bugs are flying at the windows) but I imagine this was due to budget limitatons more than anything else, and ultimately it doesn't spoil the film thankfully. And bar that it's very impressive stuff - a must see even for people who don't normally like this thing.

Alex Finch.

Film Review: My Winnipeg

A visual poem to director Guy Maddin's hometown Winnipeg, this is quite possibly one of the most self-indulgent films ever made. That said, in places it's quite delightful - it's just a shame that in others it wanders around almost aimlessly. A mixture of reality and fantasy, at points you'll never be quite aware of what's true and what isn't, as Maddin attempts to create a dreamlike feel to the film.

Beginning with the director desperately trying to escape the city he grew up in, he decides to revisit his past one last time, and to also reconstruct moments from it. Unfortunately this opening sequence drags, the repetitive narrative is almost enough to put the audience in to a coma, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the film.

However preceedings do improve from here on in, and the better parts outweigh the weaker. Shot mostly in black and white, with the odd flash of colour, it's visually arresting, and certain moments work very well - one where Maddin recounts watching the same drama series daily, which features a man who plans to commit suicide, only to be talked out of it by his Mother, is very funny, whilst a take on the city's gambling culture will make you grin throughout.

It's main fault though is that sometimes the director wallows in certain sections of his past for far too long. One long diatribe about the demolition of his local sports stadium is a rant too far and feels out of place with the rest of the movie, especially as material similar to this had already been covered earlier on in the film, whilst the reconstructions of his past are uneven, with some being effective and others rather dull.

It has a playful sense of humour, and evokes a nostalgia for a city you may know nothing about and a time that quite possibly never really existed, and if it had been tighter it could have been something remarkable. But because Maddin presumably had no one to reign himself in, it's ultimately a film which will appeal to a limited audience, and only then some of the time.

Alex Finch.

Wish It Were True? News: Pingu In Porn Shocker

Following on from our previous expose in to the murky world of CBeebies, it's now been discovered that former children's tv star Pingu has become a hardcore porn movie star.

Making his first appearance in "Superstars of Penguin Porn 12", the once much loved penguin is seen being repeatedly buggered by Danny DeVito, who has also fallen upon hard times. When we contacted Pingu he just made stupid noises and said his name a few times, so we slammed the phone down on the fucker, but co-star DeVito was more than happy to talk about the happy times he shared with Pingu.

"I've auditioned for pornography since I was twelve, I mean I never wanted to make a selection of films where I play a vaguely likable but also quite annoying shortarse, but the porn industry rejected me time and time again", he told us, "But when the Dutch production company Evasive Angles contacted me and said, 'Hey Danny, would you like to bugger a penguin tonight baby?' who was I to say no?"

The diminutive actor also claimed that Pingu loved it "Yes, it may seem that he is crying on the cover, but those were tears of joy, not sadness, and are the same kind of tears that I've seen with every other woman and penguin that I have slept with."

Wish It Were True? News: Dogging Comes To CBeebies

The world of public service broadcasting was in turmoil last night after toddlers entertainment channel Cbeebies announced it would be screening CELEBRITY DOGGING in place of established favourites such as The Tweenies and Button Moon. The Director General of The BBC, Mark Thompson moved quickly to defend the move. "Reality TV has always seen casual sex as the holy grail and now we've hit upon a formula that will deliver in bucketloads. We felt it was important to grab as much publicity for this down market extraganza as possible and so scheduled it to attract the most press attention, i.e.by aiming it at 3 year olds."

Foul-mouthed Culture Secretary Andy Burnhamface was quick to condemn the publicly-funded corporation. "Those fuckers can whistle for their fucking royal charter now!" he tiraded. "First they let that fuck Rusell T Davies fuck up Doctor Who and now this!"

The complaints were joined by an angry reaction from Dogging Purist Robin Armstrong-Viner. "Dogging is a beautiful and necessary thing," he claimed, whilst naked, before going on to state that "I myself go dogging 4 or 5 times a week and don't care who I'm having sex with man, woman or animal. Getting celebrities involved will only cheapen and harm what for me is the most perfect way to spend my every waking hour!"

Mindful of the devestating reaction from the world of Dogging, a compromise was being sought by CBeebies where only celebrities that are already serious doggers can take part. This has restricted the field somewhat and left footballer Stan Collymore and Royle Family star Liz Smith as joint favourites to take the title and win a £3.70 grand prize.

However, the government will not find the BBC so reasonable. "Burnhamface can get fucked" said Thompson, repeatedly.

Film: The Original Ending To The Little Shop Of Horrors

Whilst some consider it to be sub-The Rocky Horror Show for really repressed middle class types, I've always thought that The Little Shop Of Horrors deserves more credit than it deserves. It doesn't set out to shock or offend like Rocky did (however unbelievable that now feels considering how much a part of mainstream culture it is), and Horrors is just a very smart and very fun pastiche of the b-movie genre, with a perfect cast and lots of incredibly catchy songs.

The original stage version ended on a far blacker note than the film adaptation, with Seymour and Audrey failing to survive and the plant taking over the world, but whilst it was shot, this ending never made it to the cinema's as studio execs stepped in and offered us a far blander (if admittedly quite sweet) finale.

For years this ending was thought to be lost, until it turned up on youtube a short while back. Unfortunately it's not in colour and the picture quality isn't great, but it's still fantastic to see, and hopefully one day we'll get a proper dvd release with the option to watch it with either ending. Until then, at least we've got this version...

We're Back!

I know, I know, it's been over two years since the site was last updated, but that was due to various personal circumstances (including 18 months with a broken leg) and a few other dull reasons that really aren't of any interest to anyone, trust me.

Anyhow, we're now back, but in lazy blog form so that a) the site can be updated far more quickly and easily, and b) erm, actually it's just the former reason really.

Things will be slightly different this time around though, in that we intend to cover less mainstream material unless it's especially worthy, or horrifically attrocious, and will centre around more alternative and independent culture. As well as making poor attempts at humour as always, of course.

We'll also be bringing you a selection of the more eclectic youtube clips out there, pointing you towards cool downloads, and having the odd crazed ramble, because, well, that's always fun too.