"I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a police officer... except for the summer of 1979, when I wanted to be Kermit The Frog."
So says Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz. Just went to see it in the Vue in Cardiff. This is always a weird experience as the cinema is inexplicably designed so that you have to go up 2 escalators to get to the ticket and popcorn bit, then it's a further escalator to get to the screen. There's nothing quite like a few minutes of single file standing in silence to bring you down after a good film!It was...bizarre. By the end of the film I had decided that it was hilarious, but there was this whole section in the middle where I was thinking "hmm so now another person's been killed - old lady with gardening shears through her neck - and the comedy is where exactly?" But it definitely came through in the end. A big deal's been made of the fact that it's a 'British comedy' and all I can say is that it depicts British comedy as pretty twisted! But there is that traditional sense of irony in there, I suppose.
I don't want to give loads away about the plot but it's pretty much: very talented police officer gets reassigned to the sleepy village of Sandford...thinks nothing is going to happen...people start dying...the officer (named Nicholas Angel) ends up being almost solely responsible for getting things in order etc etc. Simon Pegg plays the whole dry humoured thing well, and writes an interesting article about the film in the Guardian here. One of my favourite scenes is a shoot-out in the local Somerfield. It doesn't get much more British than that!
To be honest, I only really started finding the film funny when it was quite a way through and one of the big plot points was unveiled. It was then that I realised just how ironic everything was. If you've seen the film and know why people were being killed, you'll understand me here. Until then I was feeling rather cheated because I'd heard it was a really good comedy but all I could see was people dying in rather gruesome ways. The fact that my medical student friends were wincing (or rather, hiding behind my shoulder) says something here! I'd recommend it though, if you like that certain painful kind of humour that we British seem to relish.
Mind you, I wouldn't mind having a watch of Charlotte's Web, too. I loved that book when I was a kid. I think I always reckoned I'd be quite good in the role of slightly strange little girl sat in the barn on her own, rescuing the runt of the litter and talking to the animals. I was a tiny baby - I think I empathised with the piglet, or something. Yeah, I was always a cool kid.
On a different note, I bought this t-shirt today, from Threadless:
Pretty cool, huh? I was indulging my whimsical and mildly feminist side =] I really wanted the "Shakespeare hates your emo poems" t-shirt but it only comes in cream, and frankly I'm so pale that I avoid white/cream clothing like the plague. It just doesn't look right. Bit sad 'bout that though.
Also, I was very excited today when I discovered that the latest issue of the Cardiff student magazine came out, seeing as I'd contributed to it! It was the 50th issue, so there's 50 different features in it to celebrate. One of them is the Digital section's list of 50 things in the technology world that have changed our lives. The first 10 were revealed today, and I was really pleased to find out that they've used 2 of my 3 contributions. I'm gonna post them here, so I can say that today I blogged about blogging.
Blogs: Whether you’ve experienced them or not, it looks like blogs are here to stay. Many in the communications world realise that they’ve revolutionised how we understand the media and find out about current events. They’ve provided insights into huge corporations: Robert Scoble, for instance, blogged while working at Microsoft. But they’ve also allowed millions of ‘normal’ people to express themselves and connect to like-minded others across the globe - even get married to them, apparently. Now how can that be a bad thing? Well, when your boring work colleague forces you to trawl through their travel blog, for a start…
Email: If you’re looking for dodgy prescription drugs, a fake diploma and a computer virus, look no further than your own email inbox. Filters may be getting more intelligent as time goes on but the fact is that you’re still getting spam. Email is a great tool for keeping in contact with friends, family and colleagues, but it’s hard to remember this when you check your emails on your mobile and spend a ridiculous amount of money downloading numbers of emails offering ‘V14GR4’ before seeing that no one you actually know has emailed you. Shame.
And my third suggestion, which may or may not be published at a later date -
Daytime TV: Once upon a time (1986 to be precise) it dawned on the people over at the BBC that it was time to start showing TV programmes all through the day, as they’d discovered a willing audience of the unemployed, the elderly, and the housewife. And so daytime TV was born – a tepid mix of talk shows, game shows, and the like. But love it or hate it, being a student makes it inevitable that you will one day succumb to its powers. Yes, you too will find yourself running to your room while shrieking “I’ve missed the start of Neighbours!” while your flatmates do the same.
Eating: Those [insert expletive here] chocolate digestives
Drinking: Regular tea, for once
Listening to: Infinity on High - Fall Out Boy
About to: Flick through the Daily Mail and the Daily Express for hopeful articles for my coursework. Hoping not to encounter any nakedness in these.
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