Dear The Radio Stations of The Midlands,

Cany you stop playing Kelly Clarkson? She's really very shit. It's nice that you're playing a bit of manufactured pop, but must it be the stuff that could bore a glass eye to sleep? I've heard her 4 times today and haven't even been listening to the radio much.

Whilst on the subject... that new Robbie Williams song you keep playing is really, really bad. Yes, I know that it's him out of Take That and with the quite decent back catalogue, but even that shouldn't let him get away with the 5 car pile-u that is "Sin Sin Sin". You playing it just sends the message that he can keep releasing songs written in the car on the way to the recording studio.

Please digest these thoughts.

Take care,

Gareth xx

Black is the new red and blue.

Clicky here, MoFo.

Amazing.

x

Cup My Balls

Twat spotting.

I'm bloody sick of all this World Cup rubbish. Why exactly am I supposed to care?

Stop saying I have to. It's only a game for Christ's sake, and not even a very exciting, glamorous or particularly challenging one at that. And making the horrid special needs kids of the past into national heroes just doesn't sit pretty with me. Especially that Wayne Rooney. Someone who looks and acts like that should not be wheeled out for every tv show and newspaper. He should be locked in a dark room and fed fish heads through a grate in the door.

I can't stand how you can't go anywhere without being confronted by St George's flags. They're not even that nice to look at - all pasty colours and BNP connotations. The worst are the ones on the cars. They look even cacker due to the cheap materials and the fact that the ends are nearly always frayed. I saw a report on the news last week that they've even partly closed down a local horse riding school for the disabled, since the horses travelling on the roadsides were being scared shitless by all the vigorous flapping as the cars drove past and were bucking out of fear. I'm not sure what type of harm being thrown off a horse can do to the already wheelchair bound, but the moral: flags are bad.

Even more irksome are the fans. If I have to hear from one more person how this is "our year" to go all the way, because "we've got the strongest team ever" and all "the signs" are the same as in 1966 - like "Geoff Hurst's nan was 68 when we won... and this year Beckham's nan is 68" - then I'll have a nervous breakdown. Or at least get bit more wound up. The worst are the people who don't even like football, but suddenly become the game's biggest fan for the national tournaments and buy lots of merchandise and pretend they know what the fuck they're on about using all the jargon.

I even missed an eppy of Neighbours last week because of it. "Oooh I won't tape it, I'll be back for the repeat" - only to find some obscure match between two made up places taking the 5:35 edition's rightful place. This is unforgiveable. Nothing comes between me and Ramsay street.

I just hope we get knocked out soon, so that everyone can shut up about it. God forbid if we actually win. They're still going on about 40 years ago.

At least one good, no - brilliant - thing has come out of all this sorry business:



Wow. Best friends forever.


x


P.S. And don't get me started on fucking Wimbledon. Or this week's thing with the Queen and all the horses.

Happy Birthday, Darlin'

x

Application Form

Dear The Doctor,

I heard this morning that your friend Rose Tyler will no longer be able to travel with you through time, space and various parts of Cardiff and Swansea, due to her being dead. This is an awful shame, and please accept my condolences.

However! Do stop crying, because this presents you with a unique new business opportunity.

It just so happens that I have very little to do over the next two years/ the rest of my life, and would love to come with you in your tardis. Reasons why I am a kickass companion for you:

- None of that "PMT" nonsense.
- I can eat virtually anything without getting sick. Perfect for all those foreign alien foods.
- I am prepared to cut down on all the swearing, thus enabling your 7pm family documentary format to stay in tact.
- I am fluent in both welsh ("Bore Dah!", "Pobol Y Cwm!", "Fuckin' English!") and cockerney ("Cor blimey!" "Shine yer shoes, guvnah?", "You ent maa muvvah!"), so will fit right into all the locations we visit.
- I can bring my Boppit Xtreme and chuffin' great music collection for all those long hours a travelling.
- Normally, when in a group of people, I'm wishing at least half of them dead. Whenever you meet new people, at least half of them tend to die. Therefore me being a horrible people-hating bastard is actually a blessing here, as I won't get all upset.
- I'll fit into Rose's clothes, thus saving you the bother of lugging all those binbags to the charity shop. I've got my eye on that red hoodie of hers, and that blue thing she wore when visitting New Earth.
- I won't get all huffy and file for sexual harassment if you try it on with me. Unless you regenerate into Bill Nighy or something.
- None of my family will really notice if I die.
- I am more qualified than anyone else for this, due to the hours I've put in practicing with my action figure of you.
- My Godfather is a black, and would be more than willing to travel with us everyone now and then to fill your ethnic minority quota, ala Mickey.
- Though I will very rarely be arsed to run, I can go up stairs three at a time, thus being the perfect opponent for the Daleks. As long as we go back before they could fly.


You can pay me in chewing gum and apples.

Best wishes,
Gareth


x


P.S. I suspect you've already been following me and know all this, since I'm sure I heard your tardis when I was in Birmingham the other week.

Well look who it is...

x

I want to see this:

... now.

Even though it probably won't be as good as the first. But if it's more of the same (Captain Jack beng funny, lots of swashbuckling, Keira Knightley's heaving femmiesacks, Orlando being pretty, general pirateyness...) then I won't be complaining. And then I want the third one in a month or so, since I just don't do deferred gratification.


Other films currently making me pant with anticipation:



Stormbreaker

Now this looks dead good, I've read two thirds of the Anthony Horowitz (my favourite author!!) book n' everything. It's really not his best.

Basically it's just James Bond for kids, which means it should be a bit more nimble and lacking the cackey sexual inuendo, which Are You Being Served? always did far better anyway.

It's set in Blighty and the cast includes Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, that guy who played Gollum and King Kong , along with Jimmy Carr for some reason. Plus there's him ^^^ with his lovely golden hair.

Marie Antoinette

My GCSE English course taught me two words - "juxtapositon" and "eponymous". If I wanted to look a bit clever I could use the latter to describe Kirsten Dunst's character in Sofia "quite good at making films, but still probably not as good as her dad is" Coppola's latest film. Although normally I'd say "titular", because the first three letters are like booby. Teeheehee.

It's meant to be all postmodern and have a nice contemporary soundtrack (including "I Want Candy" and stuff by The Cure), plus Antoinette seemed like an interest fella, so how can it be rubbish?

Except apparently it is, and was booed into next week at the Cannes screening. I still want to see it though, and most films are shit if we're being honest.





Superman Returns

I don't really like Superman - he's a bit nerdy/dull and Clark Kent's disguise of wearing glasses is just so rubbish that I can never get over it and tend to spend most of the time shouting "Are you fucking retarded??! Look at him!! He's quite obviously Superman!!" at all the characters too simple to work it out.

This one pretty much carries on from the other films, hence the fact that they've pretty much cast Christopher Reeve MkII. I only wanna see it because it's being directed by the genius Brian Singer, who made the first two X-Men and The Usual Suspects so ace.





Also:

• Southland Tales - Director Richard Kelly's apocalypse-set follow up to the nearly perfect Donnie Darko. Early buzz suggests that it's mind blowingly awful :( It's got Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar and The Rock in it though, so this isn't too suprising.
• Babel - Palme D'Or winner starring both Brad Pitt AND Gael Garcia Bernal. Which is just really lovely.
  

Film geek and proud.


x

Long Hot Summer

Even though I actually left over a week ago, I thought I should probably blog that the first chapter of my uni trilogy is now over forever and ever. Unless I have to redo the year. But that simply cannot happen, since it's a Film & TV course and the shame of failing such a thing would be tantamount to that of some sort of OAP date-rape scandal.

But yeah, it's been quite a good year. I've made lots of new friends, a couple of whom will probably be kicking around in my life until I or they die, and lots more who I'll probably get Christmas cards from every year and wonder if the new name since last year's is a new child or pet (I'm basing this all on my parents by the way). I'm expecting to enjoy next year more though, since I won't be in the single most rancid, uncomfortable halls in the country. Seriously - they're like the lebanese orphanages you see on Comic Relief.

My course looks set to get a lot better too by becoming more practical and less theoretical. Although a clash has led to me having to pick a replacement module (tactfully called "Bent Screens") that focuses on the potrayal of the gaymosexuals in the media :( But it was either that or Canadian Film. Plus I've picked the modules that contain no exams whatsoever. Yesssss!

So I've now got well over three months to fill back here at home. I had intended to get some sort of job to fill the days, but after a bit of a think I realised that this was quite frankly a ludicrous idea, since me wearing a uniform, being told what to do and having to be nice to people, along with the whole having to do work think, are as good a mix as White Spirit and Vodka on a night out. I'll get one next year though, honest.

Instead I plan on lying in bed and on a sunlounger and generally doing very little. I may start watching Home and Away too.

Just how will I fit it all in??!



x

The firey vortex to hell has been opened

...and Paris Hilton is the saviour of pop music.

Well, her debut single - which you may or may not be able to download here - isn't the total shit-fest that you might have expected. Even though it does sound a bit like UB40. Which you wouldn't expect.

But yes! I love it!

Well done Paris, though I doubt you've even heard it.


x


PS - Do you remember last year, when Charlotte Church was the saviour of pop? Ha!


PPS - Lily Allen's probably better. But of course you already know that, 'coz lots of folk have been telling you like it's some big exclusive secret that they're so in touch for knowing about.