Sucking all the fun out of the room

As a brave new internet experiment (I.e. something that could go very wrong, or worse - be completely ignored) I've created a new blog Killing the Joke. In league with the lovely Paul "Full" Nelson (author of the fantastic blog Plinx - which, if you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to do so. He's a legend at finding entertaining stuff on the web) we aim to deconstruct all of your favourite jokes in true post-modern fashion until very little humour remains. Have a look and submit something before it dies a death. PROMOTION ENDS.

As an aside recommendation in order to give this thread some slight credulity, if you haven't yet seen The Wrestler, I implore you to do so. A deserved oscar nomination for Mickey Rourke, and one of the most heartwrenching films I've seen in an age.

Pointless bloody remakes

I am currently annoying myself by watching Quarantine. For those of you who don't know, it's one of those Blair Witch style steadicam films (much like Cloverfield, that film that I quite liked but everybody else seemed to hate) done in a psuedo-documentary style. It's not the handheld stuff thats upsetting me though - in fact if anything that aspect of it is very well done - it's the fact that it's a remake of a far superior film called [REC]. The amazing thing is that [REC] was made way back in the depths of 2007 - a whole two years ago.

I knew I'd be annoyed by it but watched it out of grim curiosity, hoping that the plot might be slightly different - It's not, though. So far it's almost shot-by-shot identical. So, this begs the question "What is the point?"

[REC] is spanish in origin, and subtitled throughout. Are people that loathe to read subtitles that they'd rather watch an inferior copy of something? Does anybody out there really notice that subtitles are even there after the first couple of minutes?

Another excellent film shortly to be released over here - you may have seen the adverts on TV - is the beautiful and haunting vampire film Let The Right One In which must be one of the best films I've seen in the last decade. This one is also being remade in Hollywood - It's less than a year old. It beggars belief.

Anybody who would rather see a shoddy remade made so that stupid illiterate people can read it deserves all they get. Perhaps we'll hit a stage in history where Hollywood can remake a film while the original is still being made - maybe even release it a little sooner. I've already started plans to try and get my remake of Transformers 2 ready before the end of next week - to make it more appealing I'm going to make the explosions even bigger and have a large breasted supermodel explain whats happening in the story so far in a childish voice whilst jumping on a huge trampoline. On the top of a building. Which is made out of robots. Which is on fire. And in space.

Go and watch [REC] and Let The Right One In and restore my ever dwindling faith in humanity. Fucks sake.

Foeti with Toni & Guy loyalty cards

Yesterday evening saw The Young Knives perform at the Kasbah in Coventry - I hadn't set foot inside the Kasbah for at least eight or so years, and it had a different name back then - The Colosseum. It's gone by a few names over the years, The Tic-Toc club, The Colosseum, Uncle Franks Happy Drinkydrink boozy good times emporium, to name but a few.

My memories of the place are of clubbing on a Thursday night in the days when I could get home at three a.m. in the morning and still be conscious and sober enough for work the next day - Now I suspect I'd struggle to be match-fit by the following week.

The Young Knives aren't that popular, so we didn't prebook and got tickets at door. Tara got asked for ID ("Are you 18? No, I'm 29") which made her night and upon entry we were made to wear a wristband - turns out the wristband wasn't for gig entry, but to allow you to buy drinks. The gig was open to those of age 14 and over, and there were a fair few infants roaming the place.

Tara overheard some pre-pubescent waif in the toilets whining to her friends about how she couldn't buy drinks because they refused to give her a wristband without ID ("I only came here for a fucking drink and I don't want to sit through this shit sober"). £12 to get access to a gig you don't want to see solely because you might be able to get a drink? Aren't all self-respecting underage drinkers clogging up the alleys and street corners these days drinking 20-20 and Stella? And they say there's a credit crunch on.

The gig was great - because of low ticket sales they got moved to a smaller (and crammed) room, but if anything the smaller stage suited them well - but balls to this, I'm not reviewing the gig. After they'd finished we decided to hang around for a bit - it's a fair walk from any other pubs so we thought we may as well grab a few more drinks at the Kasbah before heading home. After a short while it became obvious that all the other gig attendees had fucked off home, and pretty soon it became obvious why.

Being old, I'm no stranger to feeling out of place in clubs. This place took the fucking biscuit though - and a Farleys rusk at that. The dance floor was full of what I can only describe as children - it was as though a creche had exploded. All of them with absolutely immaculate hair and identically dressed, all looking they were in the audition phase to play the same character in Hollyoaks. I'm surprised that in true Bugsy Malone style the bar staff hadn't pressed some hidden button and uncovered several taps of Biactol and Garnier Fructis on draught. And the music? Fuck me - again, I've been in clubs where I wished they'd play something more than ten years old but I'm ashamed to say that I didn't recognise a single tune in the half an hour or so we dared to stay there.

The past is like the place where you did all them murders - you can never go back.