What on earth is wrong with children!? This is probably the best thing to discuss for my first camp entry on the tube. I raise the question in relation to one point (because, let’s face it, there are many): violence.
So I introduced a game to my group of 10 – 12 year olds. The game involves one group silently acting out a scenario and being told to freeze, then the “audience” children are asked, “What is going to happen next?”
My first scene involved three boys and a bank robbery. The teller is giving money to a customer when in runs a thief with a gun. The boys are told to freeze when the gun is being pointed at the teller’s head. “What’s going to happen?” I asked. Half of my children responded, “He’s going to take the money and run.” Fair enough. The other half answer, “He’s going to kill him.” I asked if that was really a reasonable response and would he take the money anyway... Nope, they thought he’d just plain kill him. I turn to the gunman; “So, what will you do?”
“I’m going to take the money.” A sensible answer. A pause...
“And then I’m going to kill him.”
So off ran the boy, leaving a dead teller and a shocked customer – who of course called the police.
“And what is going to happen to the thief now? Will he go to jail?”
“No, he’s going to buy a Ferrari.”
...!
Now, this scene had a gun involved so the chances of it leading to first degree murder when a ten year old is involved are pretty high (right?) It’s the next four that had me wondering if I was perhaps doing something wrong...
1. A girlfriend overhears her boyfriend speaking to another girl on the phone. She slaps him and then, just as the audience predicts, she kills him. Not exactly sure how but he’s dead by the end of the scene.
2. A talent contest is being held and the first girl is utter rubbish. She’s told to leave and heads off crying. The second girl comes in and is very successful – the judge loves her. All of a sudden, the first girl is back in the scene with a chair, beating the second girl and the judge to death. What!?
3. A football match is taking place and one player kicks a goal. An angry fan runs onto the field and starts a fight with the player. (Italian football – I can see this actually happening, sure.) “Will the goalie help, or join in?” I asked this question, to which answers were divided. I asked the goalie and he said he would help, of course. The scene resumed and =BAM=, all of a sudden there was a dramatised knife fight going down – two out of three killed.
4. At the swimming pool, a diver misjudges a dive and needs rescuing before he drowns. He doesn’t drown because the lifeguard saves him (finally no death, right? Wrong!) The diver’s competition emerges to kill both the lifeguard and the diver. Trying to emphasise that killing isn’t actually as cool as it looks, I ask the question: “So what will happen to [the other diver] now?” The audience responds: “He will now be the winner. The better diver is dead.” (If only I knew how to spell the sound effect of when the palm of my hand hits my head.)
...
I must say I am a little frightened of these kids.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Heineken Jammin Festival, Venice, Italy
Time to experience a festival... Italian style. Heineken Jammin Festival is Italy’s biggest rock festival; held in Venice every year. Last year’s line up was internationally huge, with the likes of Cranberries, Aerosmith, Green Day, Pearl Jam and Massive Attack all on one bill! This year, the Italian heavyweights (Vasco and Negramaro) had their turn, except for the first of three days, on which English boys Coldplay took the reins. Here’s my rundown of the musical action (and not a rundown of how unorganised Italians are when it comes to letting people into a festival).
Echo and the Bunnymen were the first of five main stage bands and went straight into things without a hint of faffing about; but that’s the way they’ve always done things. An arvo timeslot did mean a lack of visuals of stage, which, when mixed with the band’s lack of motion, made for a not so eye-catching set. Still, they sounded excellent all the way through, from ‘Lips Like Sugar’ to the self proclaimed “best song every written”: ‘The Killing Moon’. No one ever said the man was modest. The set also ended with first a threat, then a sample of rain – obviously brought all the way from Liverpool (which Echo and the Bunnymen claim is the prettiest city in the world. Venice comes in second). Luckily, the rainy gloom passed us by.
We Are Scientists looked the happier part in front of their bright red banner, opening with ‘Nice Guys’ and immediately proving they were an active trio and indeed nice guys themselves with plenty of friendly small talk. “We’re from Venice... As of yesterday; so this is a nice homecoming for us.” The not-so-hometown show included standouts in old tracks ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ and ‘It’s a Hit’, in the set closer, ‘After Hours’, and as always in one dirty mo. They’re happy, they’re funny and they sing catchy songs – what’s not to like?
If there was pretentiousness in jest with the first English band of the day, there was such for real with the appearance of Beady Eye third on the bill. “Oasis 2.0” (as they were labelled in the programme) may have seen higher places, but were more than willing to show their usual swagger – and they sounded pretty darn good. Even without the hint of an Oasis classic, Liam Gallagher’s voice is enough to get people excited, and on tracks like ‘The Roller’ that is indeed what happened – clearly this one is getting some air time here. Yet whilst the material (all off their debut) sounded good, the Gallagher grime is just ridiculous. For half the set he picked a fight with someone down the front, with threats he never carried out, and for the entire set he continued to roll a towel around his fist as though getting ready for such a punch up. It’s an image he’s trying to keep, but it’s pretty worn. And of course, bagging out the key sponsor was a choice moment: “Have ya had lots of Heineken? That’s a shit beer man.”
Smarmy could describe Gallagher, but it’s the perfect antonym for Simone Cecchetti, and his band – the only Italian act of the day – Cesare Cremonini. These guys, obviously with a home advantage, had the crowd in the palm of their hands very early and seemed to love every second of it. Cecchetti literally dripped energy all over the stage as he got the crowd singing to tracks that were either ballsy or cheesy, or both. Spending time either running, striking a pose, or hunched over his piano, this was certainly setting a high enough bar for Chris Martin...
...And with an hour of set up, that bar was suitably hopped.
Say what you will about Coldplay (all you “I like their old stuff better than their new stuff” people) – this is a band that knows how to put together a live show – with new and old both surpassing expectations. Visually, this set was bound to be spectacular from the very beginning; the theme for the band’s current tour is certainly “neon”, so this kept everything remarkably bright, with numerous screens, fireworks, confetti jets, giant balloons and (my personal favourite) a wicked laser show!
As far as the set list went, it was almost a three way split between A Rush of Blood to the Head, Viva La Vida and new songs. ‘Yellow’ made its contractual appearance very early, and ‘Fix You’ was played in the encore, but those two were the only deviations from that division. ‘Viva La Vida’ itself was the set’s standout, if for nothing else than the sheer volume of the crowd chanting the “whoa-oa-oa-oa-oa” parts. A reworked and enormous sounding ‘God Put a Smile Upon Your Face’ was also terrific. The new songs were well received by the masses, though Martin’s introduction to ‘Up Against the World’ – “if you don’t like it, f* it” – seemed to show the band were just out for some fun testing them. That one was the ballad in an otherwise very stadium/festival worthy bunch of new tracks.
An encore that included ‘Clocks’ got another huge reaction from the crowd, and interestingly this was equalled when the band finished with their new single, ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’. You can tell for yourself how that one went down:
Monday, June 6, 2011
It's me, Colin, in France
So I’ve been in France with these two bozos, right. I could pretty much sum up the last couple of weeks with this photo:
... But that would take the fun out of my goaty gloat (oh yes, I just said that). My name is Colin, and these are my French exploits (in photo format because I am so tech savvy).
We began in Beziers, a smallish town that we visited so I could say hi to my buddy, Watto (no, that’s not Tess, it’s Watto as is Mr Water Rat):
We then learnt all about the canal system together, and spent quite a deal of time sitting to watch water flow from between gates. Here’s Trex looking pretty chipper about it all:
However, the discovering the canals in all their glory was our own work. When we arrived at our hotel, the dude running the place could offer us very little advice on what to do about town; because let’s face it, Beziers is a hole – a very pretty hole, where everyone goes to bed at 6.30 pm. He did offer us one tip, and that was to bug the grumpy old dude in the cathedral to let us climb the tower. Some churches demand that God wants pennies for you to climb their tower, but in Beziers, for as little as no dollars, you get this:
Because of the offence the following sign caused Tess Watson, I will refuse to speak about Toulouse, which was our next stop:
I move on to Nimes, “the city with an accent”. Yes, it is in fact Nîmes. It may be a play on words, or it may be the case that Nimes is so chuffed about being the only French town name that uses an accent that it plugs that fact as its catchphrase. Nimes is very Spanish influenced; in their arena bull fighting is quite the popular spectacle. I was invited to partake in one such bullfight during my time here, to which I happily obliged. Decked out in all my finest bullfighting attire, I rocked up to the arena only to learn that they in fact wanted me to act as the bull – the bullfighter was too much of a wuss to fight a bull and they wanted to challenge me.. ME! I was so angry I turned him to stone. Don’t believe me? Well why don’t you head to Nimes yourself to check out the evidence:
And then I had free reign over the entire arena. This was kinda lame because without a fight the crowd didn’t want to stick around:
Then we visited this old thing, the Tour Magne. So get this, this is how stupid humans are. In the 12th Century, Nostradamus had this prophecy: “gleaming metals of the Sun and Moon beneath ancient vestal buildings”. So naturally, the people got to work at destroying old stuff to find shiny stuff. This guy, Francois Traucat, was convinced that the Tour Magne was covering said treasure, so he got permission to do as he liked so long as two thirds of any treasure found went to the king. Guess what he found... Nothing. Stupid humans. So here’s what it looks like in its non-treasure-looted state:
And to prove how stupid humans are in France, check out this sign:
And to further prove my point, why are all the emergency exit hammers of this bus at the front, next to the usual exit:
To their credit, however, the French did come up with this, one of the greatest inventions of all time:
Ok, so the silly photographer focused on the pole, but that hazy dude in the background is riding around of a motorbike with a giant vacuum cleaner on the back to suck up doggie doos! Genius! I left him a nice on just to set up this photo.
Also while we were in Nimes, we made our way out to visit to Pont du Gard, a giant Roman aqueduct that is mighty impressive:
And the only way to make that more impressive to have a photo of only me in front of it:
From Nimes we headed to Cannes, which is the kinda place you can just smell the money in the air. The film festival was a couple of weeks out of the way for the year, which meant the celebrity spotting wasn’t going to be as fun, but the beaches were in top form still. The walk of fame in Cannes was a little random for us, as we knew very little of the so-called “stars” on show. There’s always a priceless one waiting though:
Cannes also seemed to be the home of the biggest killer fulmars I have ever seen. Fulmars are ginormous seagulls that make it their business to kill pigeons (we saw this happen in Spain) and drag as much rubbish out of bins as possible. I’m honestly surprised the Cannes council haven’t issued guns to citizens to wipe the things out. They’re huge and they eat EVERYTHING! Forget vampires, the next horror series is gonna feature giant gulls. You heard it hear first.
Here’s a miniature rant: What’s with all the white clothes stores in the Cote d’Azur!? Seriously, the price tags are super high and the clothes are super bright, but I don’t understand how wearing white makes you any classier than anyone else. Maybe it is just “beachy” stuff, maybe it’s poncy, but it’s sure as heck funny when the white clad families (yes, entire matching families) get caught in an unexpected torrential downpour in Nice!
Here’s where you’ll be shopping:
After Cannes we headed to Nice for out final week of Frenchiness. Nice seemed to be all about the rain, so we hopped out on a few trips to Eze, Antibes and Monaco. Antibes was quite a pretty place, but they really need to catch up with Eze and name something posh after me like they have:
Monaco on the other hand is where I like to head for a few hands of poker (Bond style – yes, I’m a super hero/secret agent on the side, shh don’t tell) and a cruise around the Riviera in my boat:
^^Yes, that one is mine. And if that don’t impress you much (like that mole Shania sang to me that time), how’s about me owning the yellow submarine:
I purchased it from the offices of iTunes for a steal. Or I may have stolen it. Either way Paul loses out this time!
So then I headed to Monte Carlo for a few spins of the wheel:
And then had a lounge because the casino is exhausting:
And then headed back to Nice to sucker-punch Liam to the ground so I could have entire free reign over his blog. Actually, to be honest, I’m quite small – Liam was KO’ed at the thought of having to visit another Euro art gallery and just fell down in defeat:
So, having told you all that now, and with total control over this here post, I present the following run down of the kinds of things I ate in France. If you are not a fan of jealousy, I recommend you stop reading. If you are a fan of jealousy... Uh, you’re weird.
Let me being with this photo, one of the best Boulangeries we found (it’s in Antibes). Baguette hot from the oven and an amazing almond croissant to boot at low prices – yes please!
But the buildings in which you buy this kinda food have nothing on the food itself... I present to you my standard meal in France.
Entree – olives from the market (ridiculously cheap and tasty):
Entree two – chestnut crepe (who says you can’t eat dessert before dinner?):
First main – quiche (with self prepared salad including more olives!):
Second main – citron meringue pie (who says you can’t include dessert as part of your dinner?):
Third main – galette with mushrooms, egg, ham and Provencal tomato – the greatest tomato topping I have ever tasted:
First dessert – homemade caramel crepe (is your mind exploding yet?):
Second dessert – CAKE! Chock full of berries:
And to top all of that off, I present the pinnacle of French pastries: The almond croissant:
And if you think all of this has made me one giant fatty, I will neither confirm nor deny that thought. I will only say that there have been no photos of me since having this meal and there may not be any more for some time to come... I think I need to go for a jog... Oh wait, I’m in Italy, I’ll just go and get a pizza instead!
Hope everyone’s enjoying life as much as I am (bahaha)!
Catch you all very soon no doubt :)
~~Colin
... But that would take the fun out of my goaty gloat (oh yes, I just said that). My name is Colin, and these are my French exploits (in photo format because I am so tech savvy).
We began in Beziers, a smallish town that we visited so I could say hi to my buddy, Watto (no, that’s not Tess, it’s Watto as is Mr Water Rat):
We then learnt all about the canal system together, and spent quite a deal of time sitting to watch water flow from between gates. Here’s Trex looking pretty chipper about it all:
However, the discovering the canals in all their glory was our own work. When we arrived at our hotel, the dude running the place could offer us very little advice on what to do about town; because let’s face it, Beziers is a hole – a very pretty hole, where everyone goes to bed at 6.30 pm. He did offer us one tip, and that was to bug the grumpy old dude in the cathedral to let us climb the tower. Some churches demand that God wants pennies for you to climb their tower, but in Beziers, for as little as no dollars, you get this:
Because of the offence the following sign caused Tess Watson, I will refuse to speak about Toulouse, which was our next stop:
I move on to Nimes, “the city with an accent”. Yes, it is in fact Nîmes. It may be a play on words, or it may be the case that Nimes is so chuffed about being the only French town name that uses an accent that it plugs that fact as its catchphrase. Nimes is very Spanish influenced; in their arena bull fighting is quite the popular spectacle. I was invited to partake in one such bullfight during my time here, to which I happily obliged. Decked out in all my finest bullfighting attire, I rocked up to the arena only to learn that they in fact wanted me to act as the bull – the bullfighter was too much of a wuss to fight a bull and they wanted to challenge me.. ME! I was so angry I turned him to stone. Don’t believe me? Well why don’t you head to Nimes yourself to check out the evidence:
And then I had free reign over the entire arena. This was kinda lame because without a fight the crowd didn’t want to stick around:
Then we visited this old thing, the Tour Magne. So get this, this is how stupid humans are. In the 12th Century, Nostradamus had this prophecy: “gleaming metals of the Sun and Moon beneath ancient vestal buildings”. So naturally, the people got to work at destroying old stuff to find shiny stuff. This guy, Francois Traucat, was convinced that the Tour Magne was covering said treasure, so he got permission to do as he liked so long as two thirds of any treasure found went to the king. Guess what he found... Nothing. Stupid humans. So here’s what it looks like in its non-treasure-looted state:
And to prove how stupid humans are in France, check out this sign:
And to further prove my point, why are all the emergency exit hammers of this bus at the front, next to the usual exit:
To their credit, however, the French did come up with this, one of the greatest inventions of all time:
Ok, so the silly photographer focused on the pole, but that hazy dude in the background is riding around of a motorbike with a giant vacuum cleaner on the back to suck up doggie doos! Genius! I left him a nice on just to set up this photo.
Also while we were in Nimes, we made our way out to visit to Pont du Gard, a giant Roman aqueduct that is mighty impressive:
And the only way to make that more impressive to have a photo of only me in front of it:
From Nimes we headed to Cannes, which is the kinda place you can just smell the money in the air. The film festival was a couple of weeks out of the way for the year, which meant the celebrity spotting wasn’t going to be as fun, but the beaches were in top form still. The walk of fame in Cannes was a little random for us, as we knew very little of the so-called “stars” on show. There’s always a priceless one waiting though:
Cannes also seemed to be the home of the biggest killer fulmars I have ever seen. Fulmars are ginormous seagulls that make it their business to kill pigeons (we saw this happen in Spain) and drag as much rubbish out of bins as possible. I’m honestly surprised the Cannes council haven’t issued guns to citizens to wipe the things out. They’re huge and they eat EVERYTHING! Forget vampires, the next horror series is gonna feature giant gulls. You heard it hear first.
Here’s a miniature rant: What’s with all the white clothes stores in the Cote d’Azur!? Seriously, the price tags are super high and the clothes are super bright, but I don’t understand how wearing white makes you any classier than anyone else. Maybe it is just “beachy” stuff, maybe it’s poncy, but it’s sure as heck funny when the white clad families (yes, entire matching families) get caught in an unexpected torrential downpour in Nice!
Here’s where you’ll be shopping:
After Cannes we headed to Nice for out final week of Frenchiness. Nice seemed to be all about the rain, so we hopped out on a few trips to Eze, Antibes and Monaco. Antibes was quite a pretty place, but they really need to catch up with Eze and name something posh after me like they have:
Monaco on the other hand is where I like to head for a few hands of poker (Bond style – yes, I’m a super hero/secret agent on the side, shh don’t tell) and a cruise around the Riviera in my boat:
^^Yes, that one is mine. And if that don’t impress you much (like that mole Shania sang to me that time), how’s about me owning the yellow submarine:
I purchased it from the offices of iTunes for a steal. Or I may have stolen it. Either way Paul loses out this time!
So then I headed to Monte Carlo for a few spins of the wheel:
And then had a lounge because the casino is exhausting:
And then headed back to Nice to sucker-punch Liam to the ground so I could have entire free reign over his blog. Actually, to be honest, I’m quite small – Liam was KO’ed at the thought of having to visit another Euro art gallery and just fell down in defeat:
So, having told you all that now, and with total control over this here post, I present the following run down of the kinds of things I ate in France. If you are not a fan of jealousy, I recommend you stop reading. If you are a fan of jealousy... Uh, you’re weird.
Let me being with this photo, one of the best Boulangeries we found (it’s in Antibes). Baguette hot from the oven and an amazing almond croissant to boot at low prices – yes please!
But the buildings in which you buy this kinda food have nothing on the food itself... I present to you my standard meal in France.
Entree – olives from the market (ridiculously cheap and tasty):
Entree two – chestnut crepe (who says you can’t eat dessert before dinner?):
First main – quiche (with self prepared salad including more olives!):
Second main – citron meringue pie (who says you can’t include dessert as part of your dinner?):
Third main – galette with mushrooms, egg, ham and Provencal tomato – the greatest tomato topping I have ever tasted:
First dessert – homemade caramel crepe (is your mind exploding yet?):
Second dessert – CAKE! Chock full of berries:
And to top all of that off, I present the pinnacle of French pastries: The almond croissant:
And if you think all of this has made me one giant fatty, I will neither confirm nor deny that thought. I will only say that there have been no photos of me since having this meal and there may not be any more for some time to come... I think I need to go for a jog... Oh wait, I’m in Italy, I’ll just go and get a pizza instead!
Hope everyone’s enjoying life as much as I am (bahaha)!
Catch you all very soon no doubt :)
~~Colin
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