Sunday 30 October 2011

The Apprentice Rap

Just a quick one for tonight, but for anyone who saw Harry Hill's TV Burp this weekend, or especially those that didn't, enjoy...

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Review: Quorndon Muffins

A week or so ago the Students' Union bars got in new muffins, with "traditional British flavours" such as jam and custard, apple and custard and spotted dick, among others, basically traditional British desserts in muffin forms. And tonight was my first chance at trying one.

Manufactured by 'Quorndon', which sounds like the vegetarian godfather, they have appeared on the bar in a very eye-catching bar-mounted display case.

Priced at £1.20 they are nearly twice the price of the muffins from the shop, about 2/3rds the size, and half as tasty. They're not bad muffins, in fact they are quite tasty, but don't quite reflect the flavour labelled on the packaging. I tried the spotted dick flavour, a dessert I enjoy but haven't had the chance for many years, and it didn't really taste of it. It was basically a muffin with raisins in and a weird yellow custard-style splodge within that didn't taste of custard and was the consistency that could lead to a crude joke involving spotted dick and an STD.

The muffins do proclaim themselves to be enjoyable warm or cold, so maybe heating them in the microwave brings out their flavour, but unfortunately it's rare you go down to the bar with such a piece of electrical equipment and, if you do, what are security doing letting you bring in large kitchen appliances?

Overall, not a bad tasting muffin but for 80p would rather try the bigger and tastier shop muffins and their supposed flavours are misleading. I shall try and pocket one later and warm it up to see what it tastes like. After paying for it, of course.

5/10

[And, yes, I know it's nearly one in the morning and I'm reviewing muffins... time for sleep methinks!]

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Bradford Monopoly [Review]

I have always been a massive fan of Monopoly since I was a little kid. It’s one of my very few claims to fame that, in 1997, I was the second best young Monopoly player in the UK, not a bad achievement really even if it does involve a particular year, the word ‘young’ and, of course, second. But, I did get to play the game in the Bank of England with real money even if I did miss the chance to go to New York as first prize.

But, I digress. Since then I have been a collector of Monopoly boards, snapping up ‘Here and Now’, ‘Classic’ in a wooden box replicating the original 1930s version, ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘Revolution’ versions, not including the old traditional one I have, plus the one for my home town, ‘York’. At one point I did contemplate buying every UK version ever made until a quick visit to Wikipedia made me realise just how many Waddingtons / Hasbro had released, and that I didn’t have rich parents or a swelling trust fund to help me fill my dreams.

As we near the end of 2011 the number of local themed Monopoly boards has become considerable – there is even a Leeds University one for heaven’s sake – and now we finally have one for Bradford. However, though I’m not scoffing at my adopted home town finally getting a board of its own, it doesn’t half smell of a cash-in.

At this point I’m going to disappoint some of the readers and say I’m not going to review the game of Monopoly. Chances (haha) are you’ll know if you like the game or not so changing a few place names won’t really make a difference to your enjoyment of the game. For those of you that haven’t, there is not enough time for me to spill out the rules of the game in this review, and certainly no reason to without boring the socks off the majority of readers.

You insist? Well, in a nutshell, up to six players journey around properties on a square board, buying them up and charging players who subsequently land on them rent, with the aim being to grab up sets of properties, build properties on them, and bankrupt the other players, all the time also having the opportunity to receive random gifts and benefits in the form of chance and community chest cards, whilst also trying not to be trapped at the dining table with your family for four plus hours waiting for someone to become skint or throw their money over the board in frustration. Satisfied?

Basically, the Bradford edition is like any of local adapted edition: the traditional Monopoly board with a makeover, with locations from London replaced with Bradford and West Yorkshire landmarks, buildings and areas, and a photographic montage stuck in the middle. Sadly, the houses and hotels don’t get replaced by mills and student accommodation, nor do the chance cards have ‘You receive a speeding fine for your quad bike’, ‘You come second in the Omar naan challenge. Receive £10’ or ‘You are assessed for building repairs but you are not Unipol registered so don’t have to worry’. Actually, scrub that, they have paid some attention to the cards. ‘You’re late for a show at the Alhambra Theatre’ (we’ve all been there); ‘You won a trolley dash around Morrisons’ (Clean up on aisle three); and ‘You have been caught littering on the streets of Little Germany’ (that was probably me, I live there), plus others, are included, so some imagination has gone into it. But still no mention of quad bikes.


And, before any typical Telegraph and Argus trolls comment, there isn’t a large hole in the centre of the board to reflect the failed Westfield development. Jeez.

What you do get is seven playing pieces, two dice, a speed die, a wad of money, houses and hotels, a cloth bag, chance, community chest and place cards, an instruction manual, of course the board, and a nice new smell as you open the box. And the ability to mortgage Ilkley Moor, something I’m sure Bradford Council have considered between ruining the old Odeon and cocking up the City Park by opening it in, er, January.

The board, of course, lives and dies on its properties, and it’s on this where there is much more of a sense of commercial input that on, say, my York board. Yes, there’s been a lot of sponsorship of squares by local radio stations and papers on previous boards, but it’s taken to all new levels on this one. As well as the usual suspects of the Alhambra; the National Media Museum and Odsal Station, we also get ‘Richard Dunn Sports Centre’, clearly valid to share a set with Odsal Stadium and Valley Square; Bronte Water Coolers instead of water works balanced against, er, the standard electric company (Yorkshire Electricity missed a trick there) and two squares dedicated to ‘Prestige Car Care’ and ‘Prestige IT Support’. I mean – who? What? Clearly they paid to be on there (presumably about half-way along the rate card as they are on the orange spaces) but, is it just me, or would you personally rather pay a few extra quid for the board and have some proper properties on there, like perhaps the University or Little Germany or Lister Mill? I don’t think ‘Advance to Prestige IT Support’ has the same ring to it – face it, you’d get there, they’d umm and err, put you on hold and tell you to turn it off and on again – as many others and just adds to the smell of corporate cash-in.

Elsewhere the properties are as expected – though I’m not sure how happy Haworth will be with being stuck in the poorest properties – even if additions like the ‘City Park’, which isn’t even finished yet are not totally unexpected but weird. Maybe they should have stuck in a current photo of it unfinished and then Hasbro could post out a sticker of the finished version when they finally get round to it.

Overall, the Bradford Monopoly board is a worthy purchase if you live in our fair city. Effort has gone in to customise some of the chance / community chest cards to expand on the properties featured, and there’s not many other opportunities you’d get to own ‘Bingley Music Live’, the ‘Wool Exchange’ and the ‘Telegraph and Argus’, though the latter at 220 Monopoly pounds if quite steep considering it was under a quid last time I picked up a copy.

Sure, the board smells of a Hasbro call centre calling up local businesses asking for sponsorship (“Come on, shove your logo on a community chest square”; “ A square for Kirkgate Market? Nah, what about a car care company we’ve not heard about?” (that said, all the free publicity they’re getting in this review must make it worth it for them); or “Shall we PhotoShop the miserable looking chap walking in front of the Alhambra Theatre? No. OK.”) and I would rather pay more for the board than random sponsorship, but it does what it says on the Bradford-photography-laden box (Ooh! That Mosque near Laisteridge Lane! Ooh! A Dalek! Ooh! East Riddlesden Hall!) and for £25 it’s nice to have something more relevant and local.

Positives: Nice customisation of cards, well built, if you like Monopoly you’ll like this.
Negatives: Poor choice of some places due to sponsorship, if you hate Monopoly you’ll hate this.

7/10

Sunday 16 October 2011

Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation, St. George’s Hall, Bradford, Saturday 15th October 2011 @DaveGorman @jayforeham

Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation, St. George’s Hall, Bradford, Saturday 15th October 2011
Supported by Jay Foreham


My road to seeing Dave Gorman live has been like a story about the worst ever stalker. I’ve been a fan of the comedian since watching his ‘Astrology Experiment’ on television many years ago, then picking up his books, and keeping up with his work through his writing, stand-up DVDs and shows like ‘Genius’.

Come last year I finally got the opportunity to see him live but, due to a combination of a burst ear drum, a brain infection, bells palsy and being admitted to hospital (I’ll put my violin away in a minute) I had to miss his tour due to being locked up inside Leeds General Infirmary and my ticket going to waste.

Fast forward fourteen minutes and, in full health, I finally managed to catch up with Dave at the Student Radio Awards in Hatfield where I finally got to talk to him about radio and finally meet someone on my list of people-I’d-really-like-to-meet. (Next up Rowan Atkinson, Nick Park and Danny Wallace if anyone knows there addresses).

Move forward another six months and I see that Dave is due to perform at St. George’s hall, about ten minutes from my front door: an opportunity not to miss! Unfortunately I knew I’d have to miss it because I was off to Wales with a friend to DJ with manager’s best friend’s wedding in a field in Wales, so I didn’t bother getting a ticket.

It was only two hours before the gig when I was surfing on Twitter with a pint of cider while two friends soldered some XLR cable (honestly I’m not making any of this weird intro story up yet) that I realised he was in Bradford on the night and, now not having to visit the land of our fathers, I was free, so a quick call to the theatre bagged me a ticket. All that was left to do was stumbled to KFC an hour before the doors, wolf down some fried chicken as all the other proper restaurants were full, and head over to the theatre.

Amazingly, as I am a sad individual who goes to the theatre on his own (last night’s excuse was I’d only bought the tickets within a film’s length away from the start), I actually managed to bag a decent stalls seat at the end of a row so got a good view of the two hours of comedy.

The gig was opened with a thirty-five minute set from probably the best comedy support act I’ve ever seen. I always enjoy seeing the support acts as they can bring something new to the table; I even bought tickets to see Al Murray just to see Chris Ramsey support, but found the main act just as good of course. I’ve not quite reached the level of some people who bought tickets to a film just to see the new Harry Potter trailer before it, as has happened.

The opening act was comedy singer Jay Foreham who performed a dozen or so comedy songs plus some other small skits, all of which were fantastic, especially ‘Stealing Food’; his musical take on the Royal Wedding which opened the set; and closer ‘Moon Chavs’, which he promised would stick in people’s minds for ages and ruin their week. Yes, it’s still circling in my head. It seems that I’m late to the game with Jay as, posting ‘Moon Chavs, Chavs on the Moon’ on Facebook during the interval gave my friends the opportunity to post the successive lyrics on my profile. Clearly someone who is popular with a lot of people.

Though it was a basic set-up of just him and a mic, there was a smattering of interesting extras thrown into his set, from lighting changes to a song-duet with a member of the audience, and though not all the songs was massively laugh-out loud funny, they were some of the best original comedy songs I’ve heard in a long time and all brought a smile to my face, up there with Weird Al and the Barron Knights. Plus, he was selling his CD during the interval for a fiver, one of which I snapped up – bargain! – so I’d recommend you grab one of them if you see a tour date.

Jay Foreham was a fantastic opener to the set; at thirty-five minutes it was far more than you’d expect from an opening act, the songs were catchy, funny and memorable, and he was a likeable person, even going out to meet people in the lobby.

After a twenty-minute interval it was time for Dave Gorman to come on stage, possibly one of the funniest Jewish comedians around. And if you don’t get that then go and see his show!

Armed with nothing more than a large screen, a clicker for swapping slides, a laptop and a lapel mic, Dave jumped straight into his PowerPoint Presentation, though arguably it really should be a KeyPoint Presentation as his laptop was by Apple, but calling it by that name would make it sound like it’d be a businessman showing off pie charts and graphs on economic strategy development. I also knew it wasn’t PowerPoint as there was no animated GIFs to be seen.

It is difficult to describe the show for two reasons: firstly, not to give away the hilarious jokes, which I won’t; secondly because, like surfing around on the Internet that makes up the basis of the show, the stand-up routine jumped from topic-to-topic so quickly it was like one of those conversations you have in the pub that you can’t remember how you got onto it from talking about something unrelated. It’s a tribute to the structure of the show that the majority of the topics came from him listing his vital statistics such as facial hair, religion and marital status.

There are too many topics to mention but his takes on Twitter, mobile phones and comments on Internet news articles were amazing, and because of the way he laid them out everyone leaving the theatre will be observing things as they go through their daily lives and these triggering memories of the show. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a mobile phone advert, in particular a HTC one, again in the same way.

His stand-up was supported by great screen shots, graphs, videos and photos and all combined to make it a visual and engaging show and, though themes would jump from one to another, he’d written in lines that harked back to completely unrelated stories and it all gelled really well. Plus, it’s a show connected to real-life as a lot of it spanned from his actions on Twitter and out there in the wide world and, yes, after the show I found the posts he would refer to, showing it was indeed all based in truth. Observational, and real-life, comedy, after all, is the best.

I really enjoyed Dave Gorman’s stand-up on Googlewhack and, if you enjoyed that, you will love this even more. At just over an hour it was maybe a little shorter than I’d like but he’d packed in plenty of observational humour into that time and I can’t complain as it was one of the best stand-up performances I’d seen, even if at times the speed of his delivery meant it wasn’t always easy to follow what he was saying. Plus, the timing of the show was crucial for one more joke which was possibly the best planned ending to a show ever and tied in nicely with everything, continuing the theme of tie-ing up as Jay Foreman was brought back onto stage during the show to support the encore.

If you can still get tickets to any of the later gigs on the tour I would highly recommend you do. A laugh-out-loud two hours from a solid support and excellent main act that, through the choice of subject matter and its relation to our everyday life in 2011, will stay with you for a long time. I just hope they bring it out on DVD so I can share the laughs with other people who may miss this.

9/10

Sunday 9 October 2011

REVIEW: Johnny English Reborn

Returning eight years after the first film, Johnny English Reborn sees English (Rowan Atkinson) returning to Britain after years in a Chinese Monastery, re-building his life after an "incident" in Mozambique, where the President was assassinated. His mission is now to stop a similar fate happening to the Chinese Premier, whilst trying to track down the three members of terrorist group Vortex, who are linked to it.

I loved the first Johnny English film, filmed with slapstick, funny lines and Rowan's ability to really bring a comedy film to life. It's a film that wasn't, maybe, as overall funny as spy spoof Austin Powers, but I have fond memories of it and re-watching it last week cerments it in my mind as a great comedy film with so many laugh-out-loud moments.

Though, to me, not as funny as the first film - though my parents who I saw the film with disagree - it's not the shameless cash-in it could have been, with a script that sees the titular character not as idiotic as he was in the first film, more Mr Bond than Mr Bean. That doesn't mean there aren't still the stupid, slapstick bits in it you'd expect, but the character himself is less stupid this time round.

Disappointingly, the trailer for the film did, as trailers do, spoil a lot of sections for me but there was still a lot to enjoy, and this time round the plot was much more twisty-turny and complex than the first film, feeling more like a movie rather than a series of sketches, even if I did work out who the mole is in MI7 from the back of their head, but it's not the point of this sort of film to make that a surprise.

There are a lot of stand-out moments in the film. My particular favourite involves the helicopter and navigational issues, but the running cleaner joke that punctuates throughout the film works really well, and there are scenes in it that stand up to the tow-truck chase in the first film.

Atkinson is once more on top form with his verbal and slapstick work, but credit also goes to Daniel Kaluuya as sidekick Tucker, who plays foil to Atkinson very well and the plot jokes of his age and living arrangements being some of the many laughs through the film, offering an alternative partnership to that of Ben Miller in the first film, who I would have liked to have seen cameoing in the film. But, if Twitter is to be believed, this cameo may have ended up on the cutting room floor so here's hoping for a director's cut on DVD and blu-ray!

Gillian Anderson, Rosamund Pike and Dominic West all play interesting, if maybe slightly underwritten characters, but Tim McInnerny, reunited with Atkinson from the Blackadder days, plays an excellent Q-type character, whose gadgets leading to a very funny conclusion to the film.

Overall, it's a film with lots of laughs and hilarious set pieces and, whilst maybe not quite up to the first film, is definitely worth a watch and one of my film highlights of the year. Make sure you stay around for the end of the credits for a funny extra scene that will bring a smile to fans of Morecambe and Wise.

[7/10]