The Event - Issue 173

Event the

Nominated for Best Student Magazine 2003/04 at the Guardian Student Media Awards. Jude would be proud!

Issue: 122

9th Februaury 2005

Will you be my Valentine?

The Old West Vs.

The New East Plus: Valentines Day Special Love Songs Explored Kneehigh Interviewed Anatomy Dissected

Contents 03

Contents Features

IS: concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk Philip Sainty

4 Love Songs 5 The Western 6 Kneehigh Interview 7 Eastern Cinema + Cinefile 8 Arts 9 Anatomy for Beginners 1 0 - 1 1 Valentines Special

concrete.event@uea.ac.uk Tim Barker concrete.eventeditorial@uea.ac.uk Sarah Edwardes Proof Reader: Hoffman Wolf concrete.arts@uea.ac.uk Editor: Luke Roberts Assistant Editors: Niki Brown, Roanna Bond Writers: Gabrielle Barnes, Simon Jackson, Simon Griffiths, Daisy Bowie-Sell concrete.film@uea.ac.uk Editor: Dean Bowman Writers: Mark Simpson, Dan Peters, Priya Shah, Stan Goodspeed, Toby SleighJohnson, Claudia Webb, Stephen Sharrock

Reviews

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

concrete.music@uea.ac.uk Editors: James Banks & Ben Patashnik Writers: Charles Rumsey, Matt Elliott, Joe Espiner, Catherine Lansdown, Victoria Holland, Nick Brookes, James Banks, Suzanne Rickenback, Hayley Chappel, Ben Patashnik, Chris Hyde, Simon Griffiths, Sophie Driscoll

Music - Albums Music - Singles Film - Cinema Film - DVDs

concrete.tv/digital@uea.ac.uk Editor: Kate Bryant Writers: Martha Hammond, Kim Howe, Stephen Sharrock

Arts TV/Digital

Creative Writing Editor: Merinne Whitton Writers: Zoe Neville-Smith, Wendy Cope, Luke Owen, Andrea Tllarita, James Conway, Dan Magee, Sir Walter Raleigh, Ruth Gordon, Naked Matt, Patrick O’Read, Ben Patashnik, Luke Roberts, Dean Bowmen, Peter Osthead

Creative Writing Listings

Competitions! Competitions! Competitions! Competitions!

Cube Zero Competition

Apologies

Hard Boiled Competition

Design Consultant Nathan ‘design consultant’ Hamilton The Event is published fortnightly by Concrete: Post: PO Box 410, Norwich, NR4 7TB

The Event apologises for a mistake in the last issue. The competition for Nathalie was credited to Optimum rather than Mosaic, and we apologise for this mistake. Sorry!

Tel: 01603 250558 Fax: 01603 506822 E-mail: su.concrete@uea.ac.uk Printed by: Archant

Editorial

W Dellacasa Competition

Thanks to the people at Mosaic Entertainment we have three finished copies of the DVD Cube Zero, which is available to rent/buy from 14th February.

For the chance to win one of these answer this tricky question: What was the original film in this series called? a) Cube b) Sphere c) Quadrahedron

Dellacasa have given us another meal competition this issue. If you can’t wait for this however see their add on pg. 8 for their number. If anyone wants a free meal just answer this question: Who framed Roger Rabbit? a) Judge Doom b) Judge Judy c) Judge Dredd

We have three DVD’s of Hard Boiled to give away, which is available for the great price of £5.99 from 7th february, thanks to Prism Leisure. Just answer this question if you want it for free: Roughly how long does it take to hard boil an egg? a) 1 min b) 8-15mins c) 1 hour Pleas send entries to: concrete.event@uea.ac.uk

eek Five, half-way through this term and it already feels like time is slipping away from us here at The Event. No matter how much caffeine we pump into our slowly decaying bodies we can’t seem to keep the hands of time from rushing past us in a blur of missed deadlines and drunken nights.

But at least you lot have The Event to anchor you temperally to the term every two weeks, with bucket loads of nonsense accompanied by mountains of witty interesting commment on the world of entertainment.

This issue is packed to the guns with stuff and we hope that you find it in your hearts to forgive us the few type-o’s, blood stains and coffee cup marks that sometimes spill into The Event. We hope you enjoy it and don’t read it all too quickly or it’ll go straight to your head.

Yours, The Editors.

09.02.05

04 Feature

That Old Black Magic The love song has long been a staple of any self-respecting lothario’s repertoire of seduction, but from whence did they come? Ben Patashnik spent a few days in the library tracking down the roots of this cultural phenomenon.

A

ccording to William Shakespeare, “music is the food of love”, the delicious prerequisite of happiness. Music and love are inextricably linked, at once both yin and yang, dark and light, but why? What is it about a configuration of tones that can make people cry out in the shrill ecstasy of a stolen moment, or sink ‘neath the choppy waves of selfeffacing misery?

Popular music was invented in 1765 when George III outlawed silence.

Groups of troubadours toured the country in horse and cart, playing for their supper and a roof over their heads.

Obviously, the live music scene left a lot to be desired for both performer and punter alike, since with the introduction and subsequent proliferation of poverty no one could really afford to sustain such an existence. So the few performers that did choose to eke out a living via music decided that they had to make their songs inspiring enough to be truly indispensable for anyone who encountered them. After the governmental edict of 1779 outlawing all mention of hope and aspiration for a better social climate, peasant musicians realised that they had to look internally for their inspiration – thus giving birth to the ballad of love.

Songs about fair maidens and dusky wenches became the main source of escape for England’s troubled lower classes. Tony Blackburn became Blackpool’s first compère in 1801 during a one-day festival that was only relatively recently upstaged by the inaugural Isle Of Wight Festival for the largest ever gathering of unkempt teenagers.

By far the largest cheer of the day was for The Wandering Lutes, a group based around Hull, with their original song Love Is A Warm Pikestaff. The authorities allowed this new trend to flourish because of the alarming rise in peasant happiness – if music was the food of love, it also acted as the lubricant of lust.

What had become obvious was that music was a medium which allowed

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scrawny youths with too much time on their hands to pour out their feelings to the subject of their affection, both avoiding embarrassment and calling attention to their ramblings. A brief baby boom followed as artists like Charles Rice, Rupert Smith and Hubert Carraba sowed their newly-coveted oats shamelessly. This provided the first known examples of Ironic Groupies – artists that exploit their supposed sensitivity and understated feelings in order to prey on impressionable young ladies, the sort of behaviour specifically contradicted in songs like Take My Love Away and For You I Plough Alone.

Victorian ideals provided the backdrop for much of the music of the early 19th century, with any mentions of love or lust having to be toned down so that they may be acceptable for all.The most notorious example of such censorship came when Molly Smythe had to perform her hit Place Your Hand ‘pon My Rump without any apparently “offensive” content. The audience was preparing for an onslaught of sexual verbs and nouns, but Smythe was forced to perform the edited version, which lasted only 13 seconds. A riot began when she flashed her calves at the baying hordes.

This marked a dry patch in the history of the love song, since any sentiment was squeezed out of the music in favour of prudish moralising. Historians have long considered this period as the the most barren, and the love song almost died out. In fact, Simon Schama described it as being “effervescent with shitness”.

With the advent of the 20th century, the love song was able to flourish and reach unsurpassed levels of blanket coverage. Just as cocaine signalled the advent of sleaze rock’s dominance in the latter part of the century, alcohol (and more specifically beer) was the precursor to the same phenomenon in terms of sensitive, personal music being successful. With the illicit pleasures con-

“If music was the food of love, it also acted as the lubricant of lust.”

tained by Speakeasies during Prohibition in the U.S., domestic audiences caught onto the blues and rock scenes in time to consign skiffle to history’s bargain bin of shame. As the music industry snowballed into the capitalistic behemoth machine we all know and deplore, executives realised that by the homogenisation of love, they could make a lot of money. And so, what is now known as pop music started to transform art into commerce.

R

ock ‘n’ roll’s emergence as the biggest threat to the nation’s youth since cholera sparked a new burst of vitality for this form of music.

Squalling guitars and screamed lyrics substituted for poetry for a disaffected generation, and the only way to describe the psychedelia of the ‘60s was the musical manifestation of feelings that had hitherto been unsaid.

Swirling soundscapes collided with buzzsaw guitars in a million teenage bedrooms and encouraged a form of

expression that is still being realised.

Love became both a language and a message that, despite Pete Waterman’s best efforts, remains elusive enough to still drive a multi-million pound industry.

What has seemingly prevailed since the invention of love in the 14th century, through the discovery of the amplifier in 1782, love being banned as a feeling in the Thatcher years, to its use as a global marketing tool, is that people want to feel like they are in love, and the most effective way of doing that is to market love as much as possible. At once both public and private, the love song has flourished in the MTV age as legions of lovestruck teenagers plaster their walls with pictures of their idols, continually ready to fall in love again. But, for The Event as for millions of others, the words of Sting provide a constant comfort: “Whoa baby, yeah baby yeah. Whoa, yeah, baby whoa.”

La gamme d’amour, (The Love Song) by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1717.“I seem seem to have dropped my plectrum down your top.”

06 Feature

Kneehigh and Rising Kneehigh, the biggest unsigned band in Norwich, explain to Alistair Laurence why you Greg got lost on the way to the office.

should support their bid for greatness.

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our first impression might be to gauge the “biggest unsigned band in Norwich” mantle up alongside “best Ukrainian center forward”.

Andriy Shevchenko's never going to the World Cup, despite banging them in for AC Milan week in, week out. So, that Kneehigh habitually pack out the city's cult (read: shoebox-sized) underground music venue, The Ferryboat, for their own gigs and were last seen stealing the crowd from under past-it pop-punkers Sugarcult at the Waterfront at the tail end of last year, it certainly does not entail that The Big Time is just around the corner.

Only this time, it just might be.

Having adopted a policy of selling their last 2 EPs for a paltry one pound sterling, the Thorpe (a suburb "about a mile out of town", according to frontman Greg Hackett) based quartet have ensured that they've been shifting the kind of units that rock A&Rs wish upon their fledgling acts, Kneehigh seem to have succeeded thus far by displaying a selfawareness and a shrewd precocious in managing themselves that instantly sees them stand apart from the rest of the local scene's endless procession of generic emo/screamo/side-swept haircut-core acts.

Their origins are much more predictable. "We formed four years ago, just as four friends from high school," recalls Greg. "We started off playing Blink 182 songs, the usual covers and

then gradually started writing our own stuff. We got our first break by playing [now-defunct Norwich rock club] Fat Pauly's, supporting people like Reel Big Fish and Hundred Reasons. We were called No Comply back then," he chuckles, well-aware of the south coast skapunk sextet currently taking the toilet circuit by storm with their kinetic live show "so one of the first things we did was change our name."

From then on in it was a question of the then-15 years olds piling into a van and playing wherever to whoever, which formed the start of their now-impressive word of mouth network, which predates the economical boom provided by the internet and its mp3s, band websites and Myspace profile pages. The inglorious nature of it all is still fresh in Greg's memory.

"We played places like

"We don't consider ourselves to be punk or emo…we don't try and steer away from anything, either" Greg surmises.

"We just write."

Manchester and Sheffield relatively early on, but we were paying to play sometimes," he explains. "We'd pay our own petrol costs to play to nobody, on occasion. In contrast to those big city gigs there were also gigs like the time we played Banbury, where we didn't actually play because our van broke down by the side of the road on the way there." Turns out paying for your own petrol only gets you places if you're put-

“Is that a long lens or are you just pleased to see us?”

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ting it in a decent mode of transport.

Things are more civilised these days. Well, slightly "We've got a driver and soundman who works at the Waterfront and he sorts us out, basically!" Why? Because they're very nice boys.

"We're just trying to make friends with everybody," Greg confirms "fans, promoters… rather than just emailing a load of people we don't know. It's even harder work trying to get gigs that way. What we do is more DIY, which is the work ethic at the heart of this band."

T

hat and friendship, apparently.

For our interview today Greg is joined by Kneehigh bassist Tim Swaby - the band's line-up is completed by absent second guitarist and Matthew Selfe and drummer Stuart Addison - who does less of the talking but is more prone to highlight specifics about Kneehigh evolving from four skater kids writing makeshift pop-punk in his garage to the hard-touring local live scene darlings, well-regarded for their incredibly tight live show and proficient output since their Open Arms debut was followed up by last year's aptly-titled Dignity Of Labour EP and another new EP, set to be made available at their epochal Waterfront gig later this month.

"From the summer of, er, '99," he casts back, bravely resisting the temptation to lapse into a Bryan Adams a cappella, "where Greg's English was so bad that he'd literally make up words so that the lyrics rhymed, to now, it's become more career-driven for us, definitely, but it's still based on friendship. It sounds like a cliché, but really we are four best mates who love hanging out together."

"I've been through some shit in the past couple of years," admits Greg, when prodded on what specifically has matured Kneehigh's chief songwriter. "We all have, though. When you write about that the songs get better, as they're more tied in with real life."

Before he can disappear off too far down a cul-de-sac of emotional

mopery, though, he's keen to point out that growing up does have its benefits. "I love Stevie Wonder now!" he grins, detailing how his and the band's musical tastes have diversified recently. "We don't consider ourselves to be punk or emo…" "But it's impossible not to be labelled as that, though, really" Tim cuts across him, keen to avoid piledriving into the first stock answer listed in the Musicians' Big Book Of Interview Clichés, aka the "we don't sound like anyone else" quote. "We don't try and steer away from anything, either" Greg surmises. "We just write."

It seems that, after choosing which label to shack up with for their next-but-one release (they're being courted by a number of names they refuse to drop), Kneehigh's next goal will be how to learn to harness the power of the soundbite.

C'mon guys, enough of how you're all great mates on an earnest mission to make the best music you can where are the fights, the weirdos and the stalkers?

"Oh, you don't like to say…" demurs Tim. "A drunk old man in Stoke told me 'I could get you in the charts'" offers Greg, more helpfully. "He said he needed to 'mellow us out' first, though."

Probably best not to drink too much of those pints he bought you, then. "He was, like, 'Let my people become your people…'" adds Tim. "He wouldn't tell us who his people were, though. It's always nice to get feedback, though, I suppose…". How about obsessive fans? Seen any Kneehigh tattoos yet? This question provokes some hastily suppressed smirks. "Not yet," says Greg, "but a girl did stalk us for about three shows - she travelled 70 miles to do it - and then went and got a Shuriken tattoo, who were the headline band we were touring with. So she might get us done next." Phew, finally, a nutter to write about. "Oh no," objects Tim "her and her mate were really nice."

"Yeah," concurs Greg, "really nice girls."

Kneehigh headline Waterfront on 17th February

the

Feature 07

Made in Hong Kong Dean Bowman pays homage to the high-octane world of Hong Kong’s hard-boiled Hollywood.

T

artan has always had a very respected Asian label, but it seems that they are finally getting some competition with Tai Seng Entertainment, the USA’s largest distributor of far Eastern cinema, set to open its UK distribution arm and Momentum entering the market with their new Momentum Asia offshoot. The latter has acquired much of the legendary Shaw Brothers back catalogue and will be releasing thirty of their classic martial arts films over the coming months. It seems the time is ripe for a reminder of why Hong Kong cinema is worth investigating.

Hong Kong is known as Dongfang Haolaiwu, “The Hollywood of the East“ and in his book Hong Kong Babylon Fredric Dannen calls it “the movie factory for all of Asia.” Before reunification with China it was producing over 200 films a year and was second only to the USA for exports, despite being only the size of Rhode Island.Yet Hong Kong has a population of 6.8 million, making it one of the most densely populated places on Earth.

Given the limitations on space, it seems incredible that in 1957 the Shaw Brothers, Runme and Run-Run Shaw, were able to build their ‘Movie Town’, which rivalled MGM studios in scale.

Built on 46 acres in northern Kowloon, it consisted of 12 enormous sound stages and an array of permanent sets including a whole Qing Dynasty town. King Hu, most famous for his 1971 Canneswinning Wire-fu masterpiece A Touch of Zen, which inspired such recent hits as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The House of Flying Daggers, started his career here by directing Come Drink with Me, as did John Woo. The Shaw brothers practically invented the Martial Arts genre, thus establishing

Hong Kong’s national style, with films such as The Heroic Ones and Two Champions of Shaolin, making an impressive 760 films in their thirty-year existence. Quentin Tarantino recently paid homage to the Shaw Brothers by using the ‘Shaw Scope’ logo at the beginning of Kill Bill.

In 1970, the ambitious producer Raymond Chow broke away from the Shaw Brothers and set up his own company, Golden Harvest, which quickly signed the new talent Bruce Lee, who remains the most famous of Hong Kong’s exports. His career, however, was tragically short and in 1973, after starring in the Warner Brothers/Golden Harvest co-production Enter the Dragon, he died of a brain edema.

Golden Harvest also discovered Jackie Chan, who inherited Bruce Lee’s fame and directed and acted in many films. Chan became such a star in Hong Kong, (and eventually in America) that he once said “in Asia I am Jurassic Park.

I am E.T.” His persona of charismatic comic and skilful fighter was massively endearing, especially to female fans, many of who were so obsessive that they regularly stalked him and one even attempted suicide outside his home after hearing a rumour that he planned to marry. Jackie Chan, like his key influence Buster Keaton, is renowned for performing all of his own insanely dangerous stunts and has injured himself more times than anyone can count, yet when it comes to his admirers he is not so fearless: “Some of these girls, they scare the shit out of you!”

The turnover of films in the Hong Kong film industry is incredibly quick, with one feature, Sexy and Dangerous, famously taken from conception to completion in just 20 days. Production, as a result, is often patchy. Fredric Dannen comments that “refinement is not a characteristic of the Cantonese

Vengeful: Chow Yun-fat in John Woo’s The Killer

Pensive: Tony Leung in Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046 movie. Perhaps the best way to describe the Hong Kong genre is to speak of its comic book aesthetic: it is a cinema of incessant action, eye-popping effects, and cartoon-like violence.” The contrast with mainland China’s highly wrought films of the Fifth Generation filmmakers, such as Chen Kaige’s Farewell my Concubine, is particularly striking.

W

ithin this chaotic culture of filmmaking, two directors stand out as obsessive stylists and creators of high-quality works, John Woo and Wong Kar-Wai. John Woo found his artistic voice with Hong Kong’s highest ever grossing film A Better Tomorrow, the film that made Chow Yun-Fat famous and established Woo as the undisputed master of the ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ genre.

His follow-up, The Killer, is one of the most famous Hong Kong films in the west and firmly established Woo’s key themes of chivalry and brotherhood.

Chow Yun-fat plays an ethical hit man who accidentally blinds a nightclub singer, falls in love with her and resolves to undertake one last job in order to pay for her cornea transplant.

Throughout the film he is tracked by a feckless cop (Danny Lee) who eventually befriends him, and together they face the Triad army. The final battle, set in an abandoned church, during which religious iconography is juxtaposed with extreme violence, is probably the greatest action sequence ever filmed.

John Woo followed up this hit with the astonishing Hard Boiled, which arguably has the highest body count in any film outside the war genre. The climactic scene is the assault on a hospital which the Triads are using as a headquarters, by Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung (the most charismatic actor since Bogart). In one particularly daring three-minute long unedited shot, packed with shooting and special effects, Woo demonstrates his incredible ability at directing action, which has led many to dub him ‘the poet of violence’. His kinetic editing and graceful camera movements give the bloody images a disturbing ballet-like beauty.

In 1997, amidst the backdrop of the uncertain reunification of Hong Kong with China, John Woo joined the largescale migration of actors and directors to Hollywood, where his output has been consistently disappointing. He has said that “in Hong Kong, I feel I work like a painter; in Hollywood I also work like a painter, but somehow my hand is [sic] tied by rope.”

Even if John Woo’s material is of a higher quality than most products from the Hong Kong film industry, it is still very generic. If there is one director who has broken out of the standard aesthetic and who can be considered an auteur and a one-off genius, it is Wong Kar-Wai. As a result of his visionary originality, he is ultimately more popular with international audiences than the domestic public. His film Chunking

Express, for instance, was the first film from Hong Kong to win at Cannes since A Touch of Zen. On the strength of his first more mainstream film, As Tears Go By, Wong was given free reign to direct Days of Being Wild, which established his penchant for jumbled impressionistic narratives. After seeing the finished product, his producers were said to have fainted in shock; the film was a flop at the box office but remains one of the most critically acclaimed of Hong Kong films. Wong bounced back with Ashes of Time, his most indulgent and enigmatic film, which demonstrates best his lengthy improvisational shooting style. As Fredric Dannen notes, “Wong took his all-star cast to the Yuri desert of China, shot hundreds of thousands of feet of film, and changed the script at liberty from day to day. After two years, the movie had run several million dollars over budget, and was still unfinished.”

“Perhaps the best way to describe the Hong Kong genre is to speak of its comic book aesthetic: it is a cinema of incessant action, eye popping effects, and cartoon like violence.”

How Wong Kar-Wai gets away with this in such an extreme film industry is incredible, but he now has sufficient international influence to have his own way. During the production of 2046, the recently released sequel to his masterpiece In the Mood for Love, his regular actor Tony Leung commented that he had been working on the film for four years and “still didn’t know what it was about.”

For his film Happy Together, in which the late Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung play gay lovers, the plot (or what passes for one in a Wong Kar-Wai film; it may be better to say the order of the images) was apparently made up by Wong in the editing room. Wong Kar-Wai always works with Christopher Doyle, who, despite lacking formal training and coming originally from Australia, is considered the best cinematographer in the industry and whose deep, rich images are vital to Wong’s abstract aesthetic. Doyle says that he doesn’t bother with Wong’s script anymore: “I assume the film is going to be about time and space and identity and isolation. And probably it’s going to be in the spaces he says it’ll be in – probably.”

The first in a series of Shaw Brothers films, The Heroic Ones, Spiritual Boxer and Heroes 2 (reviews appear on the Concrete Website) will be released by Momentum Asia on the 21st February. Tai Seng kicks off its UK distribution arm with the release of Cop on a Mission also on 21st February. Hard Boiled is being rereleased by Prism Leisure on 7th February for a bargain price of £5.99.

Finally, Wong Kar-Wai’s latest masterpiece 2046 is currently showing in cinemas and is unmissable.

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08 Feature

Set in Stone Roanna Bond and Daisy Bowie-Sell ask ‘deceased’ UEA graduate Jon Stone about getting his first collection of poetry I’ll

Show You Tyrants published...

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ew aspiring writers have been published by the age of twentyone, but The Event is here to meet one of them. Jon Stone is dressed in a brown floor length trench coat, leather gloves and black hat, which makes a dramatic first impression.

Concerns about not being able to recognise him when he enters the pub, in which The Event awaits an interview, disappear immediately. Yet once he sits down, he is a very softly-spoken, thoroughly intelligent and thought-provoking man. Having studied for a degree in English and Creative Writing here at UEA, where he was president of the creative writing society, he is now working as a temp in Norwich to earn enough to combat his student debts. He has recently gained a place on next year’s prestigious creative writing MA, so he will soon be studying at the university again. Having just published his first book of poetry, I’ll Show You Tyrants, he is here to discuss it in a little more detail.

The most pressing question The Event wishes to ask him is why on the back of his book he claims to have died in a car crash, when he is quite clearly alive, well and sitting here drinking a beer? It turns out Stone feels that poets who have passed away are “presented better, as you are introduced to the poet before the poetry collection and it makes the poems far more interesting to read.” His influences are as diverse as Ted Hughes, Rambo and Catullus, who is, The Event discovers, a Roman Poet.

He is currently working on a novel, Manley and I, and has plans to release another collection of poetry soon. He has been writing “since the very beginning of mem-

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ory” and likens his work to that of “Albert Camus, Errol Flynn and Tintin.”

Getting your first piece of writing published is never a simple task, but Stone seems to have managed this with surprising ease. He was initially writing for a publishing website called UKA, who then decided to set up a small publishing firm. By this time Stone had a fairly extensive backlog of poetry and UKA’s transition to publishing company provided a timely opening for I’ll Show You Tyrants. It appears that the harder part came later, when trying to get the book adequately distributed and advertised. Amazon and Bertram Books have

“Getting your first piece of writing published is never a simple task, but Stone seems to have managed this with surprising ease.” copies ready for order, and he is currently attempting to convince Waterstones and Ottakers to stock the book as well.

The collection is separated into seven sections. The poems are a feast of linguistic exploration and excitement.

Stone brings moments to the mind with such voracity and individualism that they transport the reader into poignant, dark and mysterious worlds. Most of these worlds seem to be from within the poets mind whilst some simply seem to be observations of his surroundings. As always with poetry, catching the explicit intent, effect and beauty can be difficult at first and Stone’s poetry is no exception. Poetry is inherently personal, both for the writer and for the reader.

No surprise then that at first glance confusion is lurking behind each page.

However, reading Stone’s poems at a leisurely rate, taking time to enjoy the ambiguities within each poem lets the reader come away feeling like they have experienced

Stone by Moore beautiful and meaningful moments in life which could easily have passed them by.

Although the dense references within the poetry may not spring to mind immediately, they are written in such a way as to enable the reader to relax in the knowledge that essentially it doesn’t matter. Not only that, but the references are made in such a way that if you don’t realise them at the time of reading, you feel there is life just around the corner which will open doors into the layers of Stone’s poetry.

The language, structure and irony behind the poems enrich their reading.

The collection starts with the poem Balcony, and the images within it create a feeling of an encounter fuelled with quiet lust, invoking a self-recognition; a conscious bearing of Stone’s attitude to himself as a poet. This is self-revealing and reflects the rest of the collection’s intimate nature. The poems re-create travelling, romantic escapades and moments of beauty which are everyday.

Yet Stone decides to give them their true worth. His use of language is full of vitality and voluptuousness, creating a feast for the eyes and senses.

I’ll Show You Tyrants could be recommended to anyone who is contemplating trying to be published, purely because Stone’s use of his immediate surroundings reassures any writer that the benign can be made intense. As a first collection it is a worthwhile read, in order to witness new poems without the potential qualms of first-time publishing. As a book of poetry without context, it is worthwhile for the pure enjoyment.

It is clear that Stone derives great pleasure from his writing, that the day job is simply a way of earning money, while his poetry is what he “goes home to”. The poems he writes are infused with a sense of dislocation and loss, inspired by the fact that he feels he “doesn’t really come from anywhere in

England.” He has moved around a fair bit in the course of his early life.You can sense a kind of uncertainty about him, in the way he glances away at frequent intervals. This makes him extremely endearing to talk to somehow, and is perhaps part of the mystery of what makes his poetry so invigorating to read.

When asked where he sees himself in a few years time, Stone’s answer appears at first surprisingly bleak. He explains that he’s “not really a fan of goals, as you’re not satisfied until you get to it and then not satisfied when you’re past it because then it’s over and

done with.” Instead he prefers the idea of “the uncertainty the future offers.”

Despite these reservations, Stone has now taken the first steps towards becoming an established writer.

Jon Stone takes a well-earned coffee break

Feature 09

Lights, Cadaver...

Action!

Kate Bryant takes a look at the weird and wonderful Anatomy for Beginners series...

W

e all, squeamishness aside, tuned in t o Channel 4 to watch Prof. Gunther Von Hagens don his Fedora and chop up a few of his nearest and dearest in Anatomy for Beginners.

If the name does not spark a knowing and wary ‘mmm’ from your lips, cast your mind back to 2002 and the furor over Prof. Von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibition. Corpses preserved by a plastination process, skinned and sometimes dissected but always striking, were all over the place as backpacked tourists wandered around gawping at the splayed out red and white matter. The Autopsy followed, as autopsies often do, and there could have been little more public disapproval of his actions if Prof. Von Hagens had come onstage laughing manically with a huge drill in one hand and a half drunk bottle of whiskey in the other and proceeded to splatter his subject up the walls. Now with an entire series at his disposa, Prof. Von Hagens has enlisted the help of Prof. John Lee, as official explainer of what on earth is going on, and is delving into torsos like nobody’s business. Like a jazzed up version of a 4Learning programme for sofa-bound medical students, Anatomy for Beginners is the newest way to get your mortality-based kicks on the box.

However, the intrigue of the series lies not in the OU style illuminations of the miracles of the human body, but in the palpable ‘realness’ the shows have.

To say something is ‘real’, especially in the context of television, is problematic to say the least. For decades we’ve hankered after the constructed realism of quality fiction, the twists and turns of

narratives acted out on glossy film.

The further shows would go to persuade us they were ‘real’ with intricate plots, shaky cameras and regional accents, the more divorced from the inexplicable and rather tedious aspects of reality they became, and we loved it.

We didn’t need reality when the pretend version was quite entertaining enough, thank you. There is an unquestionable sense of comfort that comes from the idea that for every dead body the cops come across on the filthy city streets, there is an explanation.

We have all grown to accept that every now and again the good doctors and nurses on Casualty or similar will lose a patient, but that’s ok when we know exactly what has gone on. No matter if it’s poorly done or incomplete, we are always given some story we can pin onto each fatality that makes it all a bit easier to digest.

Needle-eyed with more than a passing resemblance to a mad scientist, Prof. Von Hagens confronts us with the end, giving none of the lead-up that we have all grown so used to and reliant upon. There is no comforting explanation of the sallow, nude body residing on the steel slab. We’re not even afforded a face to put the innards to, as there is a rather ominous white plaster mask shielding each body’s face.

There is nothing to Anatomy for Beginners but the rather visceral amusement of being able to marvel at the inner workings of a human body.

There is a bizarre moment of recognition that comes over anyone watching the programme as they realise that the jelly-like bits wobbling away inside each of Prof.Von Hagens’ volunteers are also wobbling away inside of them.

The body on the telly that is being peeled back in layers reveals things we all know should be there, brain, heart, liver is also making us all a little too

Gunther does a mean impression of the Grinch aware of them pumping away inside ourselves. The body on the telly isn’t somebody, it is a body, and it is reduced to the features we all hold in common.

For all the thought-provoking, dramatic moments held over operating tables in ER, there only needs to be a glimpse of a real pair of lungs inflating to have an impact on audiences. No debates about whether or not it looks fake, or if that’s what they would do ‘in real life’, we have no choice but to let Prof. Lee explain the intricacies of the respiratory system as we lift our jaws off the carpet.

L

eaving for a moment the shows’ place and function in the evolution of television, it should be duly noted that they proved compelling viewing.

Ultimately it was a show that was intended to be viewer-friendly (hence Prof. Lee’s words of wisdom) and this shouldn’t be forgotten. It may be a little too dismissive to compare Anatomy

for Beginners directly with the contents of the freaks’ tent at a particularly gruesome Victorian circus, but there is definitely something macabre about the cold, clinical set all the action takes place on. The informative but overly-jolly voice of Prof.

Lee, Dr Jekyll to Prof. Von Hagens’ Mr Hyde, only serves to truly disquiet the casual viewer who momentarily flicks

Anatomy for Beginners is the newest way to get your mortality based kicks on the box over from the News. The educational effects are undeniable, but hardly essential and arguably not the best reason to have tuned in. There is very little that can be done to dress up the idea of looking at dead bodies as useful, but its curiosityquenching qualities shonethrough and had us all tuning in.

The biggest drawback to all the tuttutting that has greeted the Anatomy for Beginners series (and Prof. Von Hagens’ work in general) is that it will eventually have to die down. Not even the most prim amongst us will be able to keep up such levels of disapproval, and eventually the whole attraction of watching groundbreaking and controversial television will fade away and we’ll all be used to seeing the contents of random people experiencing a rather odd fifteen minutes of fame. It might be exciting to marvel at the dead bodies Prof.Von Hagens and his buddies roll out, and pretend not to be eyeing up the live models as Prof. Lee doodles all over them, but once we’re all used to it, they might as well just be the fake bodies ER uses – at least they’ve got good storylines going on too. Sadly, exciting as this series of Anatomy for Beginners has been, the shine will soon have worn off and there will be little but shock value grabbing viewers. Perhaps the next series could pep things up with a celebrity episode. No?

09.02.05

10 Feature

Feature 11 Michael J. Fox epitomises 1980s cinema like no-one else. As well as the one film we all remember (Back to the Future), the fresh-faced young star also made a name for himself in such luminous movies as Teen Wolf and Doc Hollywood.

Most memorable moment: It might be a long time ago now, but to us Michael will always be Marty McFly.

est b I d e h s t s r e f y an rs). ys o n B o c ill bou eet r t o s t B igh k e h Bac v t a bo Ne 3) h “I ncied from g!” FTV Nick, Kevin and the other three were the boy-band all fa al ( a sla ate ( boy-bands envied. Backstreet Boys M hat K had everything: synchronised dance moves, matching outfits and pop choW ruses big enough to reverberate through sports centres and youth clubs across the land. But no matter how good they were, it was never enough to forgive them the singing career of Nick Carter’s pre-pubescent brother Aaron.

Most memorable moment: Backstreet’s Back, alright!

Dieter Brummer, best (or perhaps only) known as Shane in Home and Away, was the soap pin-up of 1994. He was a lone figure of cool in the eternal melodrama that was life in Summer Bay. Most memorable moment: The sun, the sea, the sand, the wetsuit...

Ah, Kylie. What more is there to be said? Sultry of voice and pert of bottom, even in the dark, dungareed days of Neighbours we all knew there was more to the diminuitive Aussie than the soap let us see.

Most memorable moment: Who could forget the day Charlene and Scott finally said their wedding vows?

26.01.05

h was the s u r c t s ir f y M “ Let blond one from to this Loose, though idea day I have no (LIT 1) why.” Sarah

ist: L ie o D Kyl adge o o t T r lette ter B ble rite lue Pe om dou W ) 1 in BJane fr W 2) nog 3) Smaths

With his flowing blond locks, cheeky smile, and way of holding a guitar in a manner that suggested he’d never even seen the instrument before, who could fail to love our Chesney? A consummate performer, he also starred in the film Buddy’s Song, for which he sang the theme-tune.

Most Memorable Moment: Mostly memorable because we hear it every week at the LCR, it has to be hip-shaking crowd-pleasing self-aggrandising single The One and Only.

quite “I was always ...” partial to Sonia(HIS 2) Steve

Love in the Time of Sonia What better way to celebrate St Valentine’s day than with a nostalgic ogle at the celebs we used to fancy? Here, for your viewing pleasure, The Event presents the great and good of yesteday’s pin-ups. Read on for a cavalcade of forgotten faces and terrible, terrible h hair, as the students of UEA reveal who used to adorn their bedroom walls.

“Who w as my first cru teacher” sh? My PE Luke (L IT

3)

“Se Reman Ma emb guire er h .

Tra im?” cy ( LA W1 )

Mostly remembered for keeping her cool whilst being defecated upon by various members of the animal kingdom, The Really Wild Show’s Michaela Strachan was the top pin-up of kids’ TV. Most Memorable Moment: Hosting The Wide Awake Club with perennial student favourite, Timmy Mallett.

ad . h I ago k n ik long T 3) h t ’t that (LI n o d “I mones Anon hor rry.”

So

It all started with Children’s Ward, a kind of gore-free Casualty for kids.

Who would have guessed that little Paul Nicholls would grow up to be troubled Joe Wicks in Eastenders?

Most Memorable Moment: Playing brooding Tim in stage-school drama The Biz.

Petite popstar and lad-mag favourite, there is space for Louise Nurding on anyone’s wall.

Most Memorable Moment: Long split from her Eternal bandmates, Louise attempts to revive her singing career with a cover of Stuck in the Middle With You. A nation of Reservoir Dogs fans weeps.

e Jet b p t s a “It h ladiators.” from G m (BIO 2) Ji

As far as excuses to watch semi-naked sportspeople writhing on bouncy castles go, Gladiators was one of the best. Remarkably, this show was regarded as innocent family friendly entertainment.

Most Memorable Moment: The Duel: two people batter each other with giant foam sticks. Phallic symbolism unintentional.

26.01.05

12 Music

Busted Buster

Albums

Ratings:

Busted are no more. But wipe

Sunny

Fair

Stormy

John Frusciante

away those tears as The Event

Curtains

looks back on the revolution.

Curtains is the sixth and final release in a six-month music marathon from Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist John Fruscaiante.

Like most of his solo work, it's terse, lo-fi and melancholy with occasional moments of studio trickery, such as the backwards guitars on Time Tonight that belie his love of New Order and Radiohead. Luckily enough, he does not forget his day job as he lets loose with a flashing, Hendrix-style solo on Anne that is equal to any of his best guitar work. However, none of this distracts from the core elements of his sketchy acoustic guitar and quavering voice, which is pitched somewhere between the nasal bite of Bob Dylan and West Coast flow of Roger McGuinn, and it's also tempting to find shades of his RHCP associate, Anthony Kiedis, in the delivery. Much of Fruscaiante's previous solo work has been an attempt to deal with the well documented heroin addiction he once suffered from, and Curtains is no exception, often describing the issue as though it were a love affair gone awry. So it's a real treat to hear this work, which displays a real sense of integrity and his deep obsession with music.

Cute, weren’t they?

Nick Brookes

Joe Ransom Fabric Live 20

Whatever you were doing on the 14th of January 2005, you probably felt it. Hanging out the washing you would have heard the muffled cries of despair in the wind; surfing the ‘net, you would have had that distressing pop-up: "Need to talk about it? Click here." Some were even reported to have felt it in their sleep, waking up shaking and in a cold sweat. That empty space in the pit of your stomach was caused by the shockwaves originating in a little Surrey town.

We can't say it wasn't on the cards. Busted were only pop because they so wanted to be rock, they were only mainstream because they yearned for the underground. Critics only saw them as uncool because they were so, so cool and there really was no way out from this. Charlie left because he hated the way Busted's fan-base of screaming teenage girls tied down his dreams. It was this curse that held them back from being respected by other musicians in the real world all a rock band wants is respect. Maybe it's also a curse that his new band Fightstar will have to overcome too. It has to be questioned what will become of Fightstar, when the bottom of every article proclaiming the Busted split adds that "Charlie is set to take his new band on the road this Friday. The band releases their debut EP, 'They Liked You Better When You Were Dead, on February 28". It seems like the same hurl into the limelight that brought Busted so much discontent. But then again, isn't this the same fate that Boyzone had, being forced to pass on their knowledge to young guns Westlife? Indeed, McFly are already taking the pop-rock/rock-pop/pop-punk thing a step further by appearing in a biographical movie.

Hang on a minute… does this remind anyone of S Club 7?

There is no doubt, however, that Busted did start something special. Those fresh faced youths perving on school teachers, air hostesses and brides-to-be could not have been more innocent, but at the same time they seemed so mature.

Playing their own instruments, not even miming live - they were doing their best to shake off the boy band allegations, maybe preferring the rumours of drug abuse and debauchery. OK, so maybe they could have done with a proper drummer, and maybe it would have helped if they did actually write their own songs (we all believed they did, but apparently not).

Then again, they did equal the all-time record by selling out Wembley 11 times, and got four number one singles. They also won the 2004 Brit Awards Best Breakthrough Act, and of course that that old chestnut Best Pop Act. Even their most unexceptional song of all, Thunderbirds Are Go, was voted best single of 2004. 80,000 screaming teenagers can't be wrong, or so they say.

But 80,000 screaming 12 year olds don't study at UEA, so instead The Event will predict that in their sorry death Busted will perhaps become as big as maybe Vincent Van Gogh, in a less dramatic sense. Maybe they will even release as many posthumous albums as 2 Pac. Everyone will look back in them in that "retro cool" light that somehow makes the Clangers the coolest thing this side of the moon.

They might have been a terrible rock group, but there is no denying them the award of rock's best ever boy band.

James Bourne, Charlie Simpson and Matt Willis will never live Busted down, but maybe they won't need to.

Charles Rumsey

09.02.05

Following on from last month's excellent Freestylers compilation, the latest instalment from FabricLive is an equally entertaining effort. Joe Ransom, one of the nightclub's most popular resident DJs, effortlessly mixes UK hip hop, electro, and dub to create a unique and catchy sound. The album features tunes by British rap stalwarts Rodney P, Ty, Seanie T, and The Nextmen, and even has room to include Dizzee Rascal's Stand Up Tall, plus some Drum 'n' Bass courtesy of Zinc. By having such a highcalibre roster, Ransom has ensured that his first Fabric album is as assured as the previous mixes made by John Peel and Hype for the FabricLive project. Put simply, this is a strong mix album, which is equally suitable as background music as it is for partying hard.

Joe Espiner

Clayhill Moon I Hide Anyone who recognises the name Ali Friend, double bassist from the fantastic but sadly defunct Red Snapper, might be in for a surprise.

Clayhill are the antithesis of Red Snapper’s jazz/drum ’n’bass fusion, and have a sound reminiscent of the desperately unsuccessful Hobotalk. Moon I Hide is a very chilled acoustic, folksybluesy affair, destined to fail.

But never mind, you get the feeling Clayhill are definitely not a band desperate for rampant commercial success. This record is all about artistic integrity by creating beautiful music for its own sake. If only more bands could lay claim to that…

Matt Elliot

Angra Temple of Shadows Who dares inhabit the fantasy world of melodic concept metal? Meet Angra: Edu Falaschi, Kiko Loureiro, Rafael Bittencourt, Felipe Andreoli and Aqualis Priester. Look at the names, look at the hair.

Yes, you have joined a cult.

However, their album is fun in a deviant society sort of way and they have a lot of talent (and speed, oh yes, can you say “frenetic”?). Amidst the consistent epic guitar, Temple of Shadows has some interesting moments - the peaceful momentary release that begins No Pain For The Dead, the string interlude in Temple of Hate, the occasional opera singer... The boldly titled Sprouts of Time is an interesting song - a change of tone, where the vocalist (can you say “Bruce Dickenson”?) suddenly takes on the voice of the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon and the band turns into a sort of Spanish Yes. In general, it is chronically obscure, but executed with commendable vigour.

Catherine Lansdown

Whole Sky Monitor Just Let Me Talk To Her Following on from the wellreceived We Grow Up EP, the Leeds four-piece Whole Sky Monitor have released their debut album, consisting of 11 melancholy tracks with lyrics covering politics, death, religion and confusion. Although at times the sprawling guitars can sound a touch depressing and downbeat, the music and lyrics blend very well, creating real emotion. The Basic Rock Song is more experimental and has a deliberate unproduced feel to it, whereas The Chosen is musically reminiscent of Bends-era Radiohead, and contains references to the conflict in the Middle East.

Another standout track is Horizon with its playful chorus.

Some people may find this album a bit bland, but the harmonies have the power to instill a sense of calmness and tranquillity in the listener.

Victoria Holland

Electric Six Senor Smoke Electric Six started their musical life in impressive fashion, with the fun dancefloor filler Danger High Voltage, which included shrieking backing vocals from (arguably, please don't sue) Jack White. But since then they seem to have descended into self parody and farce quicker than an episode of the Chuckle Brothers. Senor Smoke is full of the same rehashed Iron Maiden riffs and hyper camp humour, pretty much all of

which they've done before. It should send the serious music lover running a mile from this album before they've even risked pressing play.

Undoubtedly this is probably Electric Six's intention, but in my mind attempting to be crass, stupid, simple and repetitive is not ironic, just tiresome. If you want uncomplicated punk rock, with lashings of humour and quality hooks, listen to The Ramones, not this.

Nick Brookes

Erasure Nightbird As a follow up to their last, dire covers album, Erasure fans will be relieved to find on this record that the band has returned to their classic format: catchy chill-out synthpop harking back to the ‘80s golden age. Which means, to anyone else, that the album sounds like the music from Disney's Aladdin with a Kylie Minogue backing track, but fans will find it a treat. As a Valentine’s release it is emotional, with every song a timeless combination of love, lament and electronica. On first listen the tracks seem fairly similar, but in fact (annoying as it is), it's difficult not to find yourself humming along very quickly. This in itself is a sign of a good pop album.With The Killers having brought the ‘80s back into fashion, who knows, it might find a whole new audience but Nightbird remains Erasure and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste.

Catherine Lansdown

Music 13

Singles

Live Reviews NME Awards Tour 2005 LCR 31/01/05

Doves

Black and White Town From the pounding drums of the intro, punctuated by a pulsating crash of guitars coupled with distorted piano riffs, it's clear that Doves are back on form. Very few bands manage to successfully marry rock with electronic experimentalism to such great effect, and this time Doves are promising to fulfil the potential that The Last Broadcast suggested.

Coming nearly six years after their debut album Lost Souls, Doves’ new single Black and White Town is the first release from their forthcoming third album, Some Cities, and features more of what we've come to expect. No surprises there really - Doves seems to fill a niche of exigent yet also super-chilled, dreamy, and ambient (almost to the point of easy-listening) music, which very few other bands pull off successfully.

The Mancunian trio are wearing their hearts on their sleeves, as Black and White Town demands to be listened to. Fraught with raw emotion, honesty, and a sense of pain and regret, somehow Doves continue to deliver all this without sounding contrite or insincere.

The Doves’ sound could face accusations of being so 1999, but on this evidence there is definitely nothing wrong with that.

Matt Elliott Rammstein Kleine Lust

Ambulance LTD Stay What You Are

Quality is expected from the seminal German industrialists and quality is what you get.

Equally as shattering as their other offerings and better than their (already respectable) previous single Amerika, this one is fast paced and impossible to fight. Having continually established themselves at the forefront of modern industrial music, Rammstein have not let their music slip and are as furious as ever. Giving metal in 2005 a promising start, this is filled with uncompromising guitars and vocals.

If this doesn't turn either you or a packed dance floor into a frenzy, then there really is no justice. Buy this now.

Ambulance Ltd sound like nothing you've ever heard. In their own words, they mix "Motown, 60s psychedelic rock and blues, 70s rock, 80s Britpop/new wave and 90s shoegazing", and what a combination! The song begins with a moody instrumental that clearly shows the shoegazing influence, after which the guitar and drum loops kick in.

The vocals don't begin until nearly one minute later, followed after another minute by fiercer drumming and exaggerated guitars. This constantly unpredictable change in the song's style makes it completely fresh and incredibly rewarding. Listen to this - you won't be disappointed.

Suzanne Rickenback New Found Glory I Don't Wanna Know New Found Glory's latest release I Don't Wanna Know diminishes any promise that previous single All Downhill From Here had signalled for their forthcoming album Catalyst. Presumably intended for NFG's female teenybopper fans to devour teary-eyed during this romantically festive period, it ends up sounding more like a baby's lullaby stuck on repeat. Why they chose a playground-chant melody is a mystery, and the incredibly inane lyrics that could be the work of a budding eight-year-old poet top the theme off nicely.

Prediction: not even thirteenyear-old-girls wearing studded belts will take to this one.

Sophie Driscoll

U2 Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own The second release from U2's number-one album, Sometimes… is a beautiful monologue written by Bono to his father, who passed away during their last tour in 2001. A world away from Vertigo, Sometimes is a slower, more atmospheric song, building from a modest and mellow opening to an emotional climax, similar to past classics like With or Without You and All I Want is You. Bono's passionate vocals shine in this very personal song that'll have you accepting that U2 still have something special, making their current title "The Biggest Band in the World" a welldeserved one.

Chris Hyde

Idlewild Love Steals Loneliness

Us

From

Well, haven’t Roddy Woomble’s band of merry men changed in the last few years? Gone is the apoplectic bite of When I Argue I See Shapes or Little Discourage, in favour of a stadium-friendly sound that sounds like Michael Stipe on an off-day. REM already exists (and have made a fairly successful career out of being, well, REM), so there’s no need for what used to be one of Britain’s finest indie bands to try and bring a little bit of Athens to Arbroath. Love... is a relatively interesting tune that, to be honest, pales into mild insignificance when placed next to Idlewild’s back catalogue and as such is a bit of a let down.

Ben Patashnik Akon Locked Up

Nick Brookes Ed Harcourt Loneliness

Steriogram Go

For a man whose name has been synonymous with melody and tender emotion, this new single stands as something of a change of suit for the ivory-tinkling songsmith. Harcourt is joined here by a backing arrangement that has depth and texture, but lacks emotion. More bluntly, the track has a streak of bland running through it; the uncharacteristically simplistic versechorus progression, catchy as it may be, fails entirely to invigorate. A pity, as Ed Harcourt has proven himself as a gifted songwriter in the past, emulating the magic of the likes of Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen. This, unfortunately, lets the side down.

“New Zealand’s smartass retort to Sum 41”? If Steriogram happened to be homegrown here in Britain, they would have already achieved McFly status and I would be sitting here slating them for being pop in rock’s clothing. If they happened to be West Coast frat boys, they would already be in the long line waiting to be sliced up with crackers. I’ve never actually known why people use “radio friendly” as a criticism; Go is radio friendly, but it’s a flawless song. In fact, the Vanilla Ice style vocals in the verse of a rock song are quite clever, but an “instrumental” B-side for karaoke? Maybe not.

Simon Griffiths

Charles Rumsey

The sleeve might suggest another moody bad-boy, but on playing there appears a pleasant surprise. Locked Up, taken from the album Trouble, details Akon’s feelings in prison. He moved to New Jersey from Senegal with his family at seven, and - although despising hip-hop - discovered the ability to communicate sensitive issues through it. Refreshingly, he doesn’t use the genre to hype up his own trials. Instead, Akon tackles his songs in a way that softly draws the audience into the music. Locked Up is a cleverly crafted hip-hop track that will no doubt find its way into the Hive on a Thursday night.

Hayley Chappel

“Bigger isn’t better” Another year, another load of bands that are currently the NME’s darlings. I must admit that the only band that I was familiar with, and indeed wished to see, were The Killers. The other bands I had to suffer through in order to get the gold of The Killers were The Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party and The Futureheads. Neither of the previous bands lived up to the hype - the same formula prevailed throughout all of the support bands. There were people in the audience who loved them, but I have to admit that they were not really my cup of tea. In fact one of the few good things the Kaiser Chiefs had going for them was the cool light display.

Once the roadies unveiled The Killers’ lit-up back display - their name in lights - I knew that I was in for a treat. It was unfortunate that Brendon Flowers seemed to think that the LCR was not good enough for his band, saying "I was in a bad mood before I came out here. I guess bigger isn't always better". If that is good news for the Norwich fan base or the fact that at night the LCR looks better than Wembley, we don’t really know. The Killers started off with the fantastic Jenny Was a Friend of Mine which went down a storm. Right to the last chords of All These Things That I’ve Done The Killers played superbly. Even though The Killers are now a stadium band in the same light as their idols U2, they were able to make sure that the LCR really did turn into a stadium for a night.

James Banks

The Others Norwich Arts Centre 22/01/05 The crowd grows in number and in excitement for The Others and at 10 pm they come on… and stand there. Folk bands with an average age of 60 are more energetic, and we’re left with a band totally devoid of stage presence. Apart from the bassist who looks amusingly like Robert Smith, the singer is the only one who moves while performing, albeit like a doped up monkey complete with a blank stare. Drunk on NME fuelled hype and drugged up on their label's money, this is a band that does not live up to it’s reputation. They are devoid of passion and have a singer with a voice that sounds like a pissed uncle singing Parklife into a microphone. There are no memorable songs as they jar into one another and ride on the same tune. They show no excitement or gratitude at filling the Arts Centre. I left early.

Suzanne Rickenback

Henry Rollins LCR 21/01/05 The man is a legend. In two and a half hours, the political areas we expect are covered, inlcuding Bush, Iraq and the WMD. All subjects are interchanged deftly, and approached with a passionate self-deprecating humour. As topics range from sympathy fucks and new wave punks to Barbra Streisand, his intense approach to life becomes infectious and his anger inspiring. Even more compelling is Rollins’ likeness to every loveable ass that you’ve ever known and the realization that he is still very down to earth. Damn interesting, he put on an eloquent show without any need for a break and left the audience not wanting one.

Suzanne Rickenback

09.02.05

The Event handpicks three local bands for your listening pleasure, so go and find them!

14 Cinema

The Other Screen

The Main feature

A Very Long Engagement

The Sea Inside

M

any people would have been happy with a sequel to Amelie. Even those who could almost feel their teeth being eaten away by the overwhelming sweetness of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s tale of a lonely woman’s quest for love left the cinema charmed and wanting more. With his follow-up film, Jeunet goes part way to fulfilling popular demand, but adds enough new, bitter ingredients to give A Very Long Engagement a flavour all its own. (And with that, the metaphor collapses wheezing to its knees.)

Once again, Audrey Tautou is called upon to play a quirky, lonely woman, searching for a man to love.

Indeed, perhaps to prevent confusion, Jeunet has seen it necessary to include a way to tell Amelie’s Amelie and Engagement’s Matilde apart, by giving the latter a limp. Where the two characters really differ is in circumstance. While Amelie’s brush with tragedy was learning of Diana’s death on the news, Matilde must contend with the Great War. More specifically, Matilde’s fiancé is missing and presumed dead. In a stunning opening sequence, we are told of five soldiers, forced out into no man’s land for trying to escape the trenches with self-inflicted wounds. Among them is Manech, Matilde’s childhood sweetheart, now shell-shocked and lacking two fingers. But no sooner have the five cleared the barbed wire than the French army is ordered to attack. In the confusion, Manet is assumed to have perished; Matilde, however, has other ideas, and, once the war is over, sets out to discover the truth.

Engagement, then, is essentially a tale of detection. Each new person Matilde meets contributes another piece to the puzzle, with major revelations played out in sepia-tinted flashbacks. As with all his previous work (even Alien Resurrection, a movie cry-

I

t’s that time of year again. For the last few weeks, and for a good few more yet, Jonathan Ross is hindered further in his pronunciation, as he simultaneously froths at the mouth and talks about nothing other than The Oscars.

Then again, if you could choose any-

thing to be saturated with, glitz and glamour is not a bad option. In addition, the event serves the useful function of highlighting the must-see films of the year. This is most valued in the Best Foreign Language Film category, where usually the hype that we often use to guide our choices at the cinema is missing.

The favourite to win this award in 2005 is the Spanish film The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro). Directed by Alejandro Amenábar (The Others) and starring Javier Bardem (The Dancer Upstairs), the film tells the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro.

Paralysed from the neck downwards since an accident over 20 years ago, Ramón has decided that he would prefer to die than be dependent on his family and friends any longer. As a quadriplegic, however, he cannot realise his wish on his own – someone else must break Spanish law so that he can ‘die with dignity’.

The film superbly engages the key debates and moral issues surrounding the topical subject of euthanasia. It manages to tell an interesting and moving story while also being as informative as any documentary.

One naturally grows to sympathise with the main character and the film becomes generally pro-euthanasia.

However, differing views are expressed by other characters in the film (a visitor from the church gives the Christian perspective, while Ramón’s older brother

is passionately against euthanasia).

Many people will be put off by the fact that The Sea Inside is a subtitled film. At the “surprise film” screening this reviewer went to see, many people immediately walked out based on this fact alone. However, if you are in the mood to see a foreign language film, this one is as good as any. Javier Bardem puts in a fantastic performance and is ably supported by the rest of the cast.

The Sea Inside could easily be a depressing film that sketches over the issues and adds nothing extra to a documentary on the topic. The audience, however, quickly grows to like the straight-talking, witty Ramón. The script contains some great lines, ranging from the humorous to the profound (Padre Francisco:“Freedom without a life is not freedom”. Ramón: “A life without freedom is not a life”).

The topic of euthanasia is nothing but controversial. Having been legalised in the Netherlands, some have called for the same to happen in this country. It is certainly not an issue that will go away. The Sea Inside is a useful addition to the debate, not to mention a very good film. As Ramón says in the film, only time will tell if his request is reasonable. In the meantime, don’t believe the hype of the big blockbusters and see this film instead!

Dan Peters

B-Movie

Meet the Fockers

O ing out for reappraisal), the sensation that Jeunet’s camera could go anywhere at any moment is central to the film’s appeal. In the early stages, this lightness of touch may feel a little inappropriate for the subject matter, but as the story progresses, the consequences of war begin to weigh more heavily. By the conclusion, Matilde’s willfully whimsical approach to the horrors she discovers are entirely justified.

Though hardly the film’s fault, the initially hesitant tone is not helped by a certain series of beer commercials. With its muted colours, subtitles and weathered-looking cast, it’s a good half-hour before you feel absolutely secure Engagement won’t suddenly try to sell you Stella Artois. This admittedly minor failing is indicative of a more major problem, that Jeunet occasionally appears willing to sacrifice narrative progression to find new ways of presenting warfare. A scene set in an exploding airship hanger is stunning but utterly unnecessary, and too much time is spent in a beautifully rendered CGI Paris, circa 1919.

All in all, A Very Long Engagement never quite convinces as anything more than a series of astonishing moments. While cast and crew are uniformly excellent, delivering scenes that are alternately funny, touching and shocking, the numerous distractions on offer (hey look – it’s Jodie Foster!) ultimately detract from the story at the film’s centre. Jeunet has shown he can do light (Amelie) and dark (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children); in trying to combine the two, he very nearly delivers the first disappointment of his career (ALIEN. RESURRECTION. WAS. GOOD. DAMN. IT.).

Stanley Goodspeed

09.02.05

ver the past year we have seen sequels such as Shrek 2, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Spiderman 2 gracing our screens and achieving box office success. Meet the Fockers, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Meet the Parents, is filled with sexual innuendo and toilet humour. This sequel follows Greg “Gaylord” Focker (Ben Stiller) and his fiancée Pam (Tori Polo) finalising arrangements for their upcoming marriage. However, both sides of the family inevitably have to meet, and this is where problems and personality clashes arise and escalate into an amusing comedy.

However, it is Bernie Focker (Dustin Hoffman) who steals the show, with his eccentric and laid-back portrayal of father Focker. He is in top form as he delivers powerful lines with a fantastic comic energy, infecting the entire cast.

In her first acting film role in ten years Barbara Streisand plays Roz Focker, portraying a caring mother, without being too overbearing. Barbara seems to enjoy this role, and her on-screen chemistry with Hoffman works well. A sex therapist to senior citizens, Greg struggles to hide this from his in-laws with much comic value.

After grudgingly being accepted into his future in-laws’ ‘circle of trust’, the audience observes Greg struggling to keep himself there, and wishing his parents would tone their New Age liberalism down. We witness the differences between the two families, the conservative middle class Byrnes and the happy-go-lucky, old fashioned Jewish hippies, the Fockers. The religious differences are discovered when

Greg’s foreskin flies into the fondue at dinner.

A surprisingly negative element was Robert De Niro in this sequel. His performance as Jack Byrnes was under par and even dreary in parts. In contrast, his role in Meet the Parents was entertaining and witty, as he constantly treated Greg with sheer condescension. In addition to that, Tori Polo has no screen presence whatsoever, and is very bland in her role.

A classic moment comes when Greg manages to teach Jack Byrnes’ treasured grandson his first word – “ass...hole”. This has the audience rolling around uncontrollably in their seats – a pure genius moment masterly accomplished – crude yet comical.

However, the script is far from spectacular, with too much forced humour dependent on the family’s moniker sounding like a certain naughty word.

Without the reinforcement of the prequel, some of the jokes and the constant ‘Fockerization’ would not make so much sense to a general audience.

Although there were a few laughable moments, it’s very difficult to claim this sequel was a good idea. There was potential for a good story here, and not the preventable same old gags and mediocre humour. Ben Stiller does throw himself enthusiastically into his role; he has had six films out in 2004 and could do with a sabbatical from roles like this one. However, for cheap laughs and a smile, its worth giving a chance. It is by far the best antidote for beating those winter blues.

Priya Shah

DVD 15

Play Movie

Director’s Commentary

Wicker Park

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icker Park is the story of soonto-be-wed investment banker Matthew, played by Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbour) who, on the eve of a business trip to China, believes he has spotted a long lost love, Lisa (Diane Kruger, Troy), who walked out on him two years previously and whom he has not seen since. Instead of going on his trip Matthew lies to his fiancée and begins a relentless hunt for Lisa. The plot thickens when Matthew’s trail ends mysteriously with a woman, also answering to the name of Lisa, who seems suspiciously like his lost girlfriend, and may just hold the key to what he is searching for. To complicate things further, Matthew’s friend Luke begins dating this mysterious girl, unaware of the part she plays in his best friend’s life. A story of betrayal, love, obsession and thrills is what ensues over the next couple of hours…or so

they lead you to believe.

Wicker Park is based on the French film L’Appartement, written by Gilles Mimouni and is directed by Paul McGuigan’s (of Gangster No.1 and The Acid House fame), and has been described as having a Hitchcockian atmosphere. It is, in part, quite stylish with its creative use of split screen and the blending of shots as the different characters lives cross, but that is where the creativity stops. The film consists mainly of a number of crucial flashbacks to earlier events in the characters’ history, but the way they are portrayed is uninspired and rather contrived. The characters spend a long time standing, thinking, while the flashbacks take place only to be jolted back to reality by a knock at the door or the infamous toot of New York taxi driver’s horn. The flashbacks are all that really drive the storyline, pushing the plot for-

Cube Zero hy would anyone even dare to attempt a prequel? They’re often divisive, and are always tricky to pull off, often ending up more of a doorstopper than an Oscar winner. This, you would think, would seem to apply especially when you are following the good low-budget original Cube (1997), and the not so-excellent, literally overhyped sequel, Cube 2: Hypercube (2002); in the minds of most aficionados, all of this climbing about in a Cube nonsense was a jinxed franchise, a lost opportunity, if ever there was one.

Fortunately, Ernie Barbarash, the director of the prequel Cube Zero, has chosen to disregard most of the above, and has come up with a thoroughly watchable and enjoyable film. Gone is most of the pretentious dialogue and plot of the sequel, and the dominating philosophy seminar style of the original; introduced instead is a more than welcome well-handled return to the basics; emphasising plot, action and effects, as well as throwing in some amusing and wellmotivated characters to care about.

Toby Sleigh-Johnson

The plot follows Wynn (Zachary Bennett), a technician analysing the prisoners from the cube’s control room. He develops sympathy for one of the prisoners trapped inside the cube, Rains (Stephanie Moore).

He’s a questioning, conscientious type, and can’t square this growing sympathy and love with his job; eventually he courageously enters the cube to try and rescue her, and what follows is an elaborate game of cat and mouse –his employers chase him, while he tries to find the exit and save the girl. Throughout this well-written adventure the inevitable deaths are dealt with elaborate CGI abandon – we see prisoners sliced, burned, spiked, electrocuted and infected; importantly though, these special effects never threaten to take over the story – are you listening, Lucas?!

There are other characters, apart from Wynn and Rains, to care about too; a small team of prisoners in the cube that slowly becomes smaller, a nerdy technician who annoys Wynn, and some smartly-dressed Agent Smith type characters who try to kill Wynn. The best of these supporting characters is an eccentric, faux-English aristocratic character named Jax, who is sent from ‘on high’ to the control room when Wynn enters the cube. He spends most of the film uttering witticisms, or else shaking his walking stick and monocle in rage at not being able to kill Wynn. In one scene, he even helpfully explains why the cube exists in the first place. All told, this strange mixture of characters actually fits well alongside each other, managing to be original and eccentric without diverting from the story.

Overall, Cube Zero is surprisingly involving; tapping in to the ambiguous nihilism that made Cube satisfying, while adding an extra layer to the original story that sets up Cube well. It is a well constructed film, containing just the right balance between interesting effects and interesting characters. As a prequel it deserves to be seen, as it more than matches the films that followed it. As a film in itself it is entertaining, as well as being heartening evidence that there is still room for great low-budget sci-fi films.

Cube Zero is released 14th february by Mosaic Entertainment.

Extra features

Music from Another Room

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usic From Another Room is a romantic comedy which follows the story of Danny, played by a young and weedy looking Jude Law, a twenty-something who is obsessed with the idea of fate and the quest for true love.

The film begins by showing Danny as a young boy, and tells the story of how he bizarrely ends up helping to deliver a family friend’s baby. On seeing the baby girl, Anna, who he has just helped to deliver, the young Danny proclaims that he is going to marry her when she is older. The film then skips forward twenty years and shows Danny, after growing up in England, returning home to the American town where he was born and where he helped deliver Anna. Danny then inevitably bumps into an adult Anna, played by Gretchen Mol, and he realises that he is in love with her, yet she is engaged to be married to the boring-but-rich Eric. Danny then proceeds to become entwined in the dysfunctional lives of Anna’s family and they all end up depending on him in one way or another, while he determinedly attempts to convince Anna that they are destined to be together.

As romantic comedies go, Music From Another Room doesn’t offer any novel ways of presenting the typical boy-meets-girl-story, and in fact the

whole idea of Danny’s obsessive determination to marry Anna is quite creepy and in some places a bit sinister. The film attempts to come across as a heartwarming story of love which has been destined from birth, but in fact there is not enough chemistry between the two main characters to keep the viewer even slightly invested in the outcome of their relationship.

Much more engaging are the relationships between the supporting characters who all have more interesting problems. Particularly compelling is the story of how Nina, Anna’s blind sister, manages to reclaim her life from her overprotective family.

As for the casting of the film, Jude Law definitely outshines his fellow cast members. Although Danny is not one of his best-chosen roles, he adds some endearing naivety to the character; however, it isn’t surprising that this is not one of the films he reels out when encountered with the question: ‘what have you been in?’ The film’s main problem is that it seems to be trying to be something that it isn’t. By adding elements of problems within a family the film attempts to cross the line of straightforward romantic comedy into pretentious social drama. In addition, the overuse of one particularly annoying Savage Garden song makes you at

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ward methodically.

The film does have its fair share of twist and turns which keep you guessing, but the film lacks any real suspense and sets up extra characters, such as the ex-husband of Lisa, who later rather mysteriously disappears from the plot after fulfilling his role as a red-herring.

To care about these characters’ mediocre plights would be as shallow and depthless as the characters themselves, who appear to have no history other than the predicament they are facing at this moment in time. One may find themselves creating new plots for the characters, most probably involving some sort of terrible accident or a time machine that accidentally wipes them out of existence. The film seems more interested in creating a twisty-turny plot line than character development, which is not necessarily a bad thing and would be in keeping with many Hitchcock storylines; however, the photography and acting are not really up to a high enough standard to justify such a plot-driven piece.

Though I would not want to spoil the ending for you, it is pretty clear from the start where this film is going, and if you happened to only catch the last couple of minutes you may be mistaken in thinking that you are, in fact, watching Love Actually and its similarly sickly airport finale. The film moves from a potentially thrilling mystery story with a Hitchcockian style and an off-beat soundtrack to a painfully slow fall into the realms of Hollywood pap, ending rather ominously with Coldplay’s Scientist, whose lyrics sum up the art of making a good remake and may at least be some consolation to the filmmakers: “Nobody said it was easy…”

Wicker Park is released by Momentum Pictures on 7th February.

times wish the soundtrack music was actually coming from another room.

Music From Another Room is released by Optimum on 7th February.

Claudia Webb

Stephen Sharrock

09.02.05

16 Arts

Theatre Preview Exit Napoleon Pursued by Rabbits at the Playhouse Saturday 12th Feb

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his solo performance of textless theatre, combining elements of mime, clowning, puppetry, dance and music had its premiere in Brighton last April and has been touring around the country ever since. The show is written and performed by Nola Rae. The play starts with an abandoned campaign tent flapping in the wind. An army cook advances towards the tent blowing his rusty bugle, alone in the world except for a company of ghost comrades.

Book Reviews Luke Roberts reads Nick Tomlinson’s Saint Valentine

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he first inklings of romance are stirring in Neil Flack. At thirteen, with the aid of his plot-hatching friend Brendan, Neil feels it is time to leave the world of ogling girls from behind uprooted trees. He has fallen for Adele, a serious, pretty girl from the popular crowd at school. Brendan has his eyes on Adele’s friend Gillian.

Cupid’s window of opportunity is presented by drama classes, where the boys try everything to get into the same group as their heartthrobs. Neil and Brendan set the cogs in motion, but realise with horror that they will actually have to start talking to girls and appear interesting.

Neil decides there is only one way

to win the heart of Adele: he must write her a poetic Valentine card. The young poet’s early verse is stilted.

Strawberries are red Violets are blue You’re tasty (yummy?) enough To put in a stew.

But with a little help from e.e. cummings, Charles Baudelaire and Pablo Neruda, the young poet produces a potent Valentine which causes quite a stir at Denesgrove Secondary. Neil must overcome his growing reputation as a pervert and fight off the attentions of the school she-bully. There is the chance that the Valentine’s card might just work some magic.

Neil’s home life is shaky. His mum has left and his older brother Craig lounges around watching tv and comparing his farts to gravy. Neil’s dad copes with the marital breakdown by

using his army training to teach his sons to break the bones of potential attackers. One slightly over-zealous demonstration of commando technique rearranges the bones in Neil’s leg. This inconveniences Neil’s spying habits, as he can no longer withdraw himself from outside of keyholes quickly enough.

The action of the book takes place from the 8th- 25th February 1983. Neil looks back as an adult, twenty-years on, with a mixture of nostalgia and cringing embarrassment.

Saint Valentine is Nick Tomlinson’s debut novel and is published by Transworld. It is a light, enjoyable read for teenagers and older and is a thoughtful portrayal of the tentative, and frequently confused manner in which adolescents begin expressing love and desire.

Saint Valentine is available from Amazon at £5.59

Definately time to leave Napoloen

Favourite Book: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

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He doesn’t know why he is walking through the tent, but something draws him. He sees signs of recent occupation, a tricorn hat, a French imperial flag, and a pair of boots with vicious spurs. The theme of the play is dangerous charisma.

This refers to various other dictators who all start as outsiders, yet manage to gain power and assert their flawed personalities onto those below them.

Simon Jackson Exit Napoleon Pursued by Rabbits will be performed at the Norwich Playhouse, Saturday, 12th February, 7.30 pm.

Tickets £8 (£6.50 with student cards).

his startling debut novel by Jon McGregor is the kind which inevitably provokes violent reactions in its readers. It is, undeniably, of the love-me-or-hate-me ilk. The introductory pages are, for those who delight in the poetic, utterly entrancing.

McGregor’s intimate observations of the sounds made by a city resound with a sing-song quality that is hypnotic. It is fair to say that some readers might be put off by the richly layered imagery, but it is that same tight, evocative language which will snare other readers in hopeless absorption.

The rest of the novel proceeds to explore two unfolding stories – one of a somewhat dilapidated street and its residents, and one following a resident a few years on; a young woman who lived on the street as a student. Both stories contain, buried within them, a deeply unnerving sense of the lurking

unknown. This ominous undercurrent pulses beneath McGregor’s beautiful depictions of everyday occurrences,

such as an old married couple walking down a street, or a child playing on the pavement, and generally unsettles the

Comedy Preview Perrier awarded comedy Jackson’s Way comes to UEA on Sunday 20th Feb

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EA plays host to Jackson’s Way on Sunday 20th of February, an act preceded by praise of the highest order. As well as winning the Perrier Comedy Award in 2004, the set has been described as “Simply the best, funniest, cleverest miracle of make-believe” by The Scotsman, “Thrillingly, inventively, hilariously odd” by The Times and “A belly laugh of a gig” by the Evening Standard. But who is this mysterious figure they call Chris John Jackson, and what of the comic mastermind behind the character?

Chris John Jackson is, foremost, a

09.02.05

loser. Furthermore, he is a loser with whom many of us can empathise - Chris is an over-zealous motivational speaker. Some may have had the misfortune to come into contact with such characters themselves, but for nearly everyone else, the deluded character of David Brent has become fondly engrained upon the mind, and Chris follows satirical suit as a walking parody, trapped in a world of corporate jargon and desperate futility.

What sets this work apart from the likes of Ricky Gervais is an element of first-hand sincerity, only truly attainable through stand-up. The comedian responsible is Will Adamsdale, gradu-

ate of the Oxford School of Drama and former BBC actor. After several years of experience and numerous television roles, Adamsdale gave birth to Chris John Jackson in a pub cabaret act in his native London.

Soon, his talents were noticed by Kate McGrath, producer for the Battersea Arts Centre. Jackson’s Way took up a residency at the BAC, appearing as part of the Scratch programme, a workshop for upcoming performers.

After a year or so of Scratch performances, Adamsdale was invited to take Jackson’s Way to Edinburgh as part of the annual Fringe festival. This was the launch pad for Adamsdale and his

comic creation, and following press adulation and favourable word-of-mouth publicity, Jackson’s Way hits the road for a 25 date tour around the UK and Ireland.

When Chris John Jackson takes the stage on Sunday, 20th Feb in the LCR, complete with compassionate smile and head-set microphone, I urge all UEA students to attend his infinitely helpful seminar.

Simon Griffiths

idea of the ordinary.

We are shown snatches of the private lives unfolding in every household on the street, yet most of the characters remain unnamed by the conclusion of the book. They are distinguished simply by the number of the house they live in, their age and their gender.

McGregor offers an incisive insight into their existences, and yet withholds the definitive identification brought by giving them names.

The result is that these stories, these loves and deaths, families and friendships, are immediately transferable to any place and to anyone. You find yourself casting a glance out of the window after you’ve finished the novel, with a strange heightened awareness of all the tragedies and comedies that are playing out all around you, screened behind brick walls.

Gabrielle Barnes

TV Preview: Britain’s Favourite Love Songs Monday 14th Feb, 9pm, Channel 5

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s the runt of the litter, Channel 5 can often be left behind its four comparatively burly siblings in terms of quality, innovative programming.

True to form, for Valentine’s Day they’ve dug deep, given it their best shot and have wound up with Britain’s Favourite Love Songs.

That’s right, a rundown of the nation’s most loved schmoozy ditties for happy couples to snuggle up in front of. The most obvious problem with this reasoning is that most happy couples will be busy wining and dining one another and the singles amongst us will find little appeal in a syrupy sweet version of Top of the Pops.

In favour of Channel 5’s valiant attempt at topical programming, the other channels seem to be doing little to

nothing to cater for the telly addict’s craving for seasonal romance, leaving Britain’s Favourite Love Songs as the top piece of Valentine’s viewing so far.

Unfortunately, it may be a rather nippy day in hell before any self-respecting individual will accept their significant other planning their special evening of romance around what’s on the telly.

The results Britain’s Favourite Love Songs will chart have been voted for by the British public, so we can expect all the usual: Sonny and Cher, Whitney, and Bryan Adams. The show also tells the story behind some of the more intriguing entries.While many of us have never wondered where the inspiration for Britney’s Baby One More Time comes from, there’s no harm in learning.

You’ve got to love them for trying, haven’t you?

Kate Bryant

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We will leave you in breathless anticipation as to how a wasp comes into one to one contact with ‘little Max’ – surely it will bring a tear to the eye.

In keeping with the romantic time of year, Hollyoaks has come over all hearts and flowers. Bombhead gets his first glimpse of true love but is sadly left broken hearted by the unfortunately named Cherry. The long running and often boring saga of Tony and Mandy takes a more interesting turn when the po-faced blonde jumps on a plane to Italy to win back her man. In the meantime, Tony has been getting cosy with bella donna Silvia and is checking out the sights of Rome. Will Mandy be too late in her quest to win back her true love? Will Tony swap the delights of Rome for Hollyoaks village? Why is it that women seem to fall at his feet? Oh, sweet mystery of life!

Martha Hammond and Kim Howe

Stephen Sharrock

Hollyoaks, Mandy jets off to Rome in search of Tony...

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Rocky and Bullwinkle hen you thought ‘cartoons’ and ‘tough satire’ were only brought together by the likes of The Simpsons and South Park, along comes this Rocky and Bullwinkle DVD box-set to remind you that isn’t so. The first season was shown in 1959, during the height of the Cold War, and yet it still remains as funny and cutting today.

In these recently restored episodes, we follow the adventures of Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose, both inhabitants of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.

This fun, freewheeling pair get themselves involved in simple enjoyable scrapes, and yet are never far from satire.

Throughout the series, two bumbling ‘Pottsylvanian’ ( r e a d : ‘Russian’) spies chase them across the globe. Perhaps funniest of all is a segment in which Walt Disney and his over-aggressive marketing are parodied in a piece titled ‘SleepingBeauty Land’.

Besides Rocky and Bullwinkle, we also have the fantastic ‘Mr Peabody’, a remake of Aesop’s fables (Aesop and Son), and a ‘Mr Know-it-All’. On top of this, we have a few added features, including a hilarious ‘Dear Bullwinkle’ Agony-Aunt segment, some fun TV trailers, and a rare, government-sponsored ‘saving stamps’ episode in which the foreign spies tell American viewers to buy ‘wasting stamps’ instead.

A firm favourite across the pond, this box set is well-timed to find new fans this side of the Atlantic, easily tapping into the tradition of clever, subversive, and popular North American cartoons we all know and love; just don’t pre-judge it by the tame De Niro movie.

Toadie is having a tough time of it on Ramsay Street, while in

oor old Toadie is in for a rough ride over the next few days. Having managed to put Sindi and Stewart’s betrayal behind him, he is faced with a whole new barrage of problems. Firstly, Stingray’s embarrassing mother Janelle arrives on the street avec caravan and demands that her nephew help her sue for compensation after a car accident has left her in a neck brace. Toadie refuses to represent her, causing Stingray to go over the top defending his mother. As if a family debacle is not enough, his relationship with Sindi

TV DVD:

Rocky and Bullwinkle DVD Boxset Released: 14th Feb

Soap News: Hollyoaks and Neighbours becomes even more complicated when Stingray leads her to mistakenly believe that he is going to propose.

While this is quite enough for any one person to stand, the powers that be in soapland are inevitably fond of kicking a man when he is down. Toadie finds himself trapped in a bank with Stewart and Sindi during a robbery. Maybe it is the shock of his brush with armed crime that leads the lawyer to advise his best friend and housemate, Connor, to ‘snatch’ his daughter Maddy. The fact that kidnapping is illegal doesn’t appear to enter his mind – perhaps he missed the lectures on that section of the law, let this be a lesson to us all.

Viewers should also spare a sympathetic thought for Max this fortnight as his already ailing male ego takes another downturn. Not only does he have to deal with a rather painful wasp sting to his nether regions but must contend with Lynn’s ill disguised amusement.

TV/Digital 17

Digital Stuff: Sonic Mega Collection Plus A speedy, spiky wander down memory lane for the gaming connoisseur...

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he Sonic Mega Collection Plus contains everything the diehard Sonic series fan needs.

You’ll be able to relive all of those carefree days where your only objective was to get from the left-hand side of a linear course to the right hand side, and kudos to those who grabbed some shiny gold rings along the way. In fact, playing the Sonic Mega Collection Plus is a much needed reminder of just how important playability is to a game, regardless of graphics or elaborate narratives. This is exactly the element lacking in the latter efforts to update the Sonic franchise, and why that mustachioed Mario is still

a star character for Nintendo.

The Sonic Mega Collection Plus is a spruced up version of the Sonic Mega Collection, but with a few added bonuses thrown in for good measure. The most notable of these features is the ability to save your game at any point.

Purists may turn their noses up at this, but it’s a pleasant option to have and makes it a lot more enjoyable to spend time exploring the levels of these classics, which is one of the main appeals the collection sports.

The attraction of the collection is greatly diminished for those who didn’t catch the Sonic trend at the right time.

Failing to move with the times and

therefore falling out of favour with the average gamer, the word Sonic is no longer the familiar mark of quality it once was, and although its influence can be felt even now in new titles, the endearing faults of those in the Sonic Mega Collection Plus may not hold much sway with newcomers. Being relegated to the ‘best of’ range of produce shows that the well known spiny critter is not planning to have any new hits in the near future. Nonetheless, the collection is a worthwhile and enjoyable buy.

Kate Bryant

09.02.05

18 Creative Writing

Creative Writing In Association with d i t t o / Send contributions to: concrete.event@uea.ac.uk and/or concrete.turf@uea.ac.uk

Advice For Valentines (a cautionary tale) I oft do wonder how ye live thy days When thou insists 'pon walking joined at lips ‘Tis bad enough to know thy soul's ablaze Without you groping, grabbing at her tits.

She seems to like his, slurping at your ear And marches on in amorous parade And next her stoop to pat and pinch thy rear Is proof to all that ye are getting laid.

They oft bemoan this partnership, do friends, As victims of your love feel grave neglect.

I'd well advise you: seek to make amends For friends are allies, worthy of respect I pity much the insecure of heart For whom the single life seems so unknown But try and spend some time apart each day And t'is more sure you'll not end up alone So wrong me not; I loathe scorn love in bloom But heed my wisdom: get thyselves a room.

hurt my aching head.

3y - 19 = 7x + 7 What must x be equal to if y = 11?

The spindly Chattam "gets that" So she moves to question two.

She's clearly unaware that no, we haven't got a clue, And most of us are bored to tears, not having any fun And of that group, I have to say that I, like x, am one.

- Luke Owen The Tragic History Of Kenny (the saga continueth...)

"There is in land of Autumn Queen," Was the feathered thing's reply, "A valley called the Thunder's Dream.

A cave inhabited is nigh By an old being of the deep.

A being ancient more than we, Shapèd as a speaking sheep, And that being must you see.

- Zoe Neville-Smith Bloody Men (since we’re on a romantic theme...)

All the armour, swords and shields, The white horse and other needs, Trust in me, that creature yields, And must you take them for your deeds.

Cumberbund Humphrey-nose Egbert the Third Lived till sixteen without saying a word.

Thinking him an incorrigible fool, The Prime Minister cried that, according to The South’s alreday far too fat. rule, But so is Prescott, come to that.

He must be prepared, be made a tin hat, and - James “call that a sustainable comunites plan immediately sent off to Mars with a cat. you twat?” Conway Prince Jeffrey of Perth, as the feline was known, Had been crowned for his daring adventures in Frome.

Where The Sun Shineth Not He kept a small frog in a velveteen case (ode to pubic hair...mm, romantic) And had sewed it a fine coat with ruffles of lace.

The hairs are curled like hooks, they catch and He brought to the spaceship a flask of Earl Grey they cloy, With marmalade rolls arranged on a tray.

At one another locking locked bodies Thick with juices and sweat together, refusing to let go.

They serve no function, harbingers of puberty, The unseen ornaments, misplaced manes of genitalia.

They are shaved and waxed.

Unsightly curved follicles begone, You repulse me!

- Wendy Cope

The creature's name is Mondolar, Go speak it now and live your fate."

Thus the raven spread afar Its death-black wings, to elevate Its night-like body into the sky, Like a tear wept by a cloud.

At that young Kenny sent a cry Of joy so clear and loud, And stamped on his crop-yielding tools And scorned his shabby clothes.

"These are things for poor and fools; I'll soon be wearing mightier robes."

3y - 19 = 7x + 7 - Andrea “The Goose" Tallarita "Does everybody get that?"

Says Miss Chattam to us all.

We stare in baffled silence at the whiteboard on the wall, Where algebraic functions scrawled in black and blue and red Twist and turn and solve themselves, and hurt my little head.

3y - 19 = 7x + 7 What must x be equal to if y = 11?

Of course, nobody "gets that", We're just to scared to say That since we started algebra (a week ago today) It might as well be Arabic, or hieroglyphs instead That twist and turn and solve themselves, and

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So, Humphrey-nose, Froggy, and Jeffrey the Royal, Entered the rocket, a-wrapped in tin-foil.

It sputtered and sparked and set off with a sploosh, Trailing behind it a car and a bush.

They set off towards the magnificent stars And before tea-time were arriving at Mars.

Until that moment when we disconnect And as I roll over, off of your body, I feel our hair, wet, curled and soft intertwined and pulling apart like little fingers on little hands desperately grasping for each other.

Mars seemed a planet of unusual size Inhabited by sheep wearing wellies and ties.

Humphrey-nose found with incredible glee That they were all rather fond of truffles and tea.

They danced the bolero and tango till dawn - Dan “needs to get out more” Magee And feasted on turnips, well roasted, with corn.

Wishes Of An Elderly Man At A Garden Party

Bloody men are like bloody busesYou wait for about a year And as soon as one approaches your stop Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators, Offering you a ride.

You're trying to read the destinations, You haven't much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.

Jump off, and you'll stand there and gaze While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by And the minutes, the hours, the days.

The Incredible Adventures of Humphrey-Nose (A work of epic lunacy...)

I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I’m introduced to one, I wish i though What Jolly Fun!

They stayed with the tribe for a year and a day Before plummeting home in hats made of hay.

The world, so in awe of their wonderful feat, Pleaded for Humphrey to finally speak.

So he rose up before the multitudinous throng, And all of a sudden he burst into song, He warbled all of Duke Ellington’s hits, Then promptly turned mauve and exploded in bits!

- Ruth Gordon

- Sir Walter Raleigh

haikus...

Mr T's gold chains Teach us our brotherhood, and To pity the fool

The Sonnet of The Two Jaguars

- Naked ‘Matt’

Poor Prescott’s housing plans are wack And all his schemes are way off track, For quite despite the water lack All brownfields are for chavs on crack.

My tutor awaits An astute contribution Alas, I have none.

His plans are not sustainable, And London’s not containable, His goals are unexplainable, And truly unnatainable.

Immigrant nurses: They sustain the NHS. Howard is a twat.

That man whom all of us detest Has quite ignored the great North-West.

Demand may not be at its best, But that is why he should invest!

Syllabalistics, Words as trees, eat my comma.

Literature sucks.

Drop everything Stop what you are doing and Write more poetry.

- Anon Ymous

Music tripped off his tongue in ugly syllables Disrupting my calm.

- Luke Roberts

- Merinne Whitton

-Patrick O’Read

- Ben Patashnik

Rain against window Burnt pizza in oven.

It’s Valentine’s day.

- Dean Bowman

Football-studded shoes Are an affront to nature.

Please keep off the grass.

- Peter Osthead

Listings 19

Listings Film

A Very Long Engagement Friday 18th-Thursday 24th February Sideways Friday 18th-Thursday 24th February

UEA Arts 01.02

East Anglian Film Archive presents: Bygones Wednesday 9th February, 1-2pm

Even The Incredibles were scared when the Jehova’s Witnesses knocked

Forthcoming Releases Friday 11th February

Hide And Seek Laura’s Star Son of the Mask Sponge Bob Square Pants: The Movie The Sea Inside Audrey Tautou in A Very Long Engagement

Music

Union Films (LT1, 7.30pm) Inside I’m Dancing Thursday 3rd February i, robot Friday 4th February Alfie Thursday 10th February Bad Education Friday 11th February

Beats in Abundance The Hive Tuesday 15th February Hip-hop, funk, reggae, drum + bass

UEA LCR

Cinema City@The Playhouse

Pharcyde and Ty Saturday 12th February

Mondovino Sunday 6th-Monday 7th February

Biffy Clyro Saturday 19th February

Napoleon Dynamite Sunday 6th-Monday 7th February

Goldie Lookin Chain

The Motorcycle Diaries Sunday 6th-Monday 7th February

Wednesday 23rd February

The Waterfront

The Corporation Sunday 13th-Monday 14th February

Rooster Tuesday 15th February

Garden State Sunday 13th-Monday 14th February

Kneehigh Thursday 17th February

The Incredibles Saturday 19th february 11am

Arts

Playhouse

Norwich Arts Centre

Tony Robinson Wednesday 9th February

Preston Reed Wednesday 9th February

The Big Chris Barber Band Thursday 10th February

Deadstring Bros Thursday 10th February

Ed Byrne Friday 11th February

Aziz Wednesday 16th February

Think Floyd Thursday 17th February

Glenn Tillbrook Tuesday 22nd February

Maddermarket

Drama Studio A Call from Broadway Friday 11th February

Sleuth Thursday 17th-Saturday 26th February

Theatre Royal The Nutcracker & La Bayadere Monday 7th-Saturday 12th February Johann Strauss Gala Sunday 13th February Postman Pat Monday 14th February-Wednesday 16th February All The World’s A Circus Thursday 17th February Harry Hill Friday 18th february Errol Brown Saturday 19th February Scooby-Doo in Stagefright Monday 21st-Saturday 26th February

Spongebob Squarepants released on Friday 11th February. “A hero is rising”, apparently

Goldie Lookin Chain, back again

26.01.05