Quench - Issue 28

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E U ISS 28 . 26 SEPT 20 05

I NTERVIEWS FASHION B OOKS - D IGITAL - F ILM -

G AY A RTS

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T RAVEL M USIC F OOD - G OING O UT

EMAP T EN ST U D N

PUBL

IC AT IO

OF EAR E TH Y

The Daily Show

Hard-Fi

Travel in Wales

Chuffy’s badger

E N N E I VIV D O O W T WES

F a s h i o n o n a v e ry British designer

Contents Cardiff University

04 06 07 10 12 16 18 24 25 28 36 37 43 44 46 47

Best Student Publication 2005

quench@gairrhydd.com

Best Student Magazine Nominee 2005

OTP: Fat, Scouse, house, etc.

Mr Chuffy: Environ-mentalists Interviews: Come Staines Food: Micro-Mexican waves Features: Best. Show. Ever.

Fashion: Viv-esection Travel: Wales. Killer!

Reviews: Gay Pride Books: Booker-roo!

Music: Passion of the Beard Arts: Photo-synthesis Film: Asian del Horno Cult Classics: Dick. Lots of Dick Digital: Bond age TV: Everybody Loves porn Raymond Bastian Springs: Funking the system

Editor Will Dean Executive Editor Tom Wellingham Assistant to the Editor Elaine Morgan

Arts Kim O’Connor Books James Skinner Columnists Bastian Springs, TV John Cult Classics Matt Turtle Debate Helen Rathbone Digital Sam Curtis Fashion Charlotte Howells, Clare Hooker Features Kerry-Lynne Doyle, Hannah Perry Film Catherine Gee, Ryan Owen Food Sian Hughes Gay MI-Gay Going Out Lisa O’Brien Interviews Xandria Horton Mr Chuffy Himself Music Sam Coare, Harold Shiel, Greg Cochrane One Trick Pony Geordie Photography Luke Pavey, Adam Gasson Travel Bec Storey, Amy Harrison Sub-editors Sam “put me above the proof-readers” Coare Contributors Pedro Gemal, Pipa Bennett, Jimi Williams, Andy Connolly, Naomi Cohen, Chris Heaton, Ewan Hosie, Andy Johnson Photographers and illustrators David Sutheran Proof readers Gary Andrews, Elaine Morgan, Kin O’Connor, Kirsten Adcock, Xandria Horton Cover design Will Dean Thoughts of the week: Yay, new computers for the office. Shit, there goes the printer. Where did the Golden Stuffed Crusts go? “Sorry guys, I may have fucked the pizza order in the ass” - Wellingham

09 05 09

03

QED ANYONE ELSE FEELING A BIT OLD? Every year without fail (well, perhaps not when the football was on ITV), I sit there watching the inevitable overrun while the Royal Albert Hall does just one more rendition of Jerusalem, thinking surely, surely it can't be Last Night of the Proms again already? It only happened last week. The same with one of the matches on MOTD – Arsenal versus Middlesbrough – they seem to play each other all the bloody time.

For two-thirds of you university has, or soon will, become like this, 'I can't believe it's enrolment again already' etc. The fact that things here are becoming routine isn't the scary point (I can live with getting up at eleven for the rest of my days), it's that in the not so distant future you'll be sitting at home with the kids watching Last Night of the Proms waiting for the Arsenal-'Boro match thinking, 'God, it seems like two minutes ago I was in my uni hovel doing this exact same thing.’

Perhaps I’ve used some me-specific examples there (although the Proms thing does seem to be gaining some sort of office consensus), but have a think about it. Do you find yourself going to the same clubs every week, watching the same TV shows and playing the same X-box games day-in, day-out? I know I do, and it’s fairly depressing - this is the only time of our lives (especially with eight hours of lectures a week) where we ought to be doing everything. Routine, like modern life, is rubbish.

So what to do? Well, unless in the time between you reading this and you turning into your parents (just you wait) someone has invented a time-travelling device, there isn't a lot you can do. However, and this is to become a theme here, go and try something a bit different. So that when you are annulled by the dreary routine of the commuter you can remember back to the year when you missed the Last Night of the Proms because you were reverse paragliding or something.

Could well just be me though. I hear some of you like to go out on Saturday nights.

04

One Trick Pony

26 09 05

Weston Mail

A

recognised by the Queen (or whoever t the end of each academic programs her). It is poor judgement year, the gair rhydd’s writers on the part of the University’s Powersand editors are faux-honoured that-Be to honour a man who has with the spoof ‘alternative media attacked the right of one of its stuawards’. One of these is the ‘Simon dents to the freedom of speech. A Weston Award for Media right that is enshrined in law. A right Controversy’, awarded to the author of the kind that Simon Weston himof the article that incites the most self has fought for. outrage amongst readYou either agree with freeers. dom of speech or you don’t.

This tradition began You can’t say "You have the after a TV-desker wrote a right to say whatever you derisive listing about a like, as long as you don’t say programme on the Royal anything that offends me".

British Legion, to which It’s hypocritical. It’s also remFalklands veteran Weston iniscent of George Bush’s reacted rather angrily. As Having Words suggestion that dictatorship an ex-serviceman – and is a good idea but only if he can be one most famous for having been the dictator. wounded in action - Simon had every (Incidentally, the ‘Dubya’ in the right to be offended. But he claimed name of the PG-Tips-advert-starthat, although the writer can say what turned-President stands for ‘Who?’, he likes, he should be kicked out of ‘Where?’, ‘Why?’, ‘When?’ and University. This, I think, is a bit ‘What?’, oweing to his perpetual conextreme. fusion. The sixth ‘Honest Serving This summer, Simon was awarded Man’, ‘How?’, is unnecessary - the an honorary Fellowship. For the charianswer is invariably ‘by military force’. ty work, I presume. But he’s already And if any of Our Brave Boys [sic] get got an OBE, so that’s already been

GEORDIE

injured, Simon can go and help out all those that promise not to say anything too controversial).

Mr Weston further suggested that the TV Ed in question should be "sent to Afghanistan or one of those regimes where free speech is not allowed." You have issues with the concept, Simon; if you’re that bothered why don’t you go there? If you can get onto the internet, you won’t even be too far away to impose your world view on the rest of us.

“He should be sent to Afghanistan or one of those regimes where free speech is not allowed” Of course, he may well turn out to be a jolly good fellow. If he doesn’t renew censorship attempts I’m sure I’ll get over my own Outrage. Because unlike Simon, though I disagree with what he said, I would, to quote Voltaire, defend to the death his right to say it.

(Overrated) Half-sincere to my Quench colleagues that have contributed to the Issue, but it really is shite. And because it’s so bad, many of the people that buy it don’t read it. They buy it to be charitable to the disadvantaged homeless people that sell it.

This is, in many ways, fair enough. However, it makes a nonsense of the Big Issue’s idea of ‘Working Not Begging’. Standing and endlessly repeating ‘Big Issue please’ instead of ‘Spare any change mate?’ - selling a product to people who won’t read it and buy it to help out someone less fortunate than themselves - is indistinguishable from begging. At least when you give money to your average tramp they leave you alone for five minutes - that way I can buy something I actually want. So I’ll be leaving the Big Issue to those peo( The Big Issue ) ple that actually want to read it. Both of them.

Whoever first thought up the aphorism ‘life is short’ was a liar.

Life is not short, how could it be when Time is so long? So very ( Time ) long. (A second, for example, is 300,000 km.) Think about it: when this hits the stands it’ll be 90 days until Christmas, and when it comes around people will invariably say ‘Ooh, it comes round quick’ or some such rubbish. But it doesn’t when you’re a kid. The time between opening the first door on the advent calendar and Christmas day is agonising. As I’m currently spending my time at work counting down until the end of the day, until the end of the week, until my job ends, until the end of term, until I see certain people again, I know how those kids feel. It’s taken less than five minutes to fill this box. Tick. Tock.

(Underrated)

L e g e n d

OTP

05

p o p VOX culture

WAYNE ROONEY Footballer. Gentleman.

Working-class kid made good. Comedic instinct to rival Jimmy Carr.

Absolutely not a twat.

F

ootball can do wonderful things to a man. Had he not signed a professional contract when he did, Wayne would almost certainly be a guest at one of Her Majesty’s less comfotable residences, a thuggish product of his environment.

Instead, he’s grasped the opportunity to turn his life around, and is maturing into a thoroughly well-rounded and polite young man, with just the right amount of aggression to play the game well - never going overboard.

And he’s funny! The sarcastic clap of the referee that earned him a sending-off against Villareal was a splendid display of wit of which Oscar Wilde would have been proud.

And he was absoultely right to criticise David Beckham’s lacklustre performance during the interval of England vs Northern Ireland - it wasn’t Wayne’s fault that it nearly ended in fisticufs.

He’s not at all the violent, petulant, potato-headed little child portrayed by the obviously anti-Manchester United-biased media.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: he’s taking the piss. Wayne Rooney would blatantly be in the box below this one were it not for Hitch and Gorgeous George’s shocking performances last week.

And you’re right.

T o s s e r

T

here seems to have been some mistake, guys. You’re clearly under the impression the Iraq war was all about you. It wasn’t, actually.

The time for a debate about the rights and wrongs of a war is, ideally, before said war takes place (or doesn’t, you choose). Participants in the aforementioned debate might have a bit more credibility if they stay on top and don’t let it get personal and resort to childish name-calling.

Hitchens obviously backed the war after backing the WMD line (like me) and is simply incapable of backtracking, in the absence of any Iraqi weapons, and admitting he was wrong (unlike me - I was wrong).

Galloway... Galloway’s an award winning twat.

Of course he’s going to oppose the war when he was so chummy with Saddam (and, more recently, Syria’s resident shitweasel dictator, Assad).

Whether he was right or wrong to oppose military action, his blatantly selfserving reasons for doing so render the morality of the decision irrelevant.

And he was the first to get personal, labelling ‘Hitch’ a “drink-soaked former-Trotskyite popinjay”.

Still, on the positive side, their televised argument made compelling viewing, particularly in the US, a country where political debate so heated is a rarity.

And it got that damn hurricane out of the news.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND ‘GORGEOUS’ GEORGE GALLOWAY A Politician. A Journalist. A pair of self-important tossers.

Vox Pop-Culture delves into the murky world of your culture collections... this week Cat, 83, Retired

FIRST AND WORST CD...

Many many Christmasses ago I was given My First CD Player and alongside it came both Take That albums. Worst album was probably East 17s last and most dreadful Up All Night.

BESTEST BOOK...

I’m not as big a reader as I wish I was but The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson always sticks in my mind.

THE LAST FILM I WENT TO SEE WAS...

The Forty Year Old Virgin which was better than I expected it to be. Like American Pie for immature grown ups.

FAVOURITE TELLY...

I watch increasingly less television at the moment but do love sitcoms which possess the rare ability to make me laugh out loud. Family Guy, Spaced, Black Books, and repeats of the Good Life on BBC2.

IF I WAS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER I’D BE...

In a moment of cross gender I’d be Bernard Black from Black Books because I secretly want to be Irish and shout at people.

THE ONE PIECE OF POP CULTURE I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT...

Jimi Hendrix. All of it.

Vox Pop-Culture needs you!

Look out for us on the Union steps armed with nothing but a dictaphone and camera.

Get thinking!

6 OTP

WARNING

This article contains material of a satircal nature which stupid people may find incomprehensible. The content may incite outrage in readers of the Daily Mail. Those of a sensitive disposition who are easily offended should come back when they’ve got a sense of humour.

Mr Chuffy Investigates...

I

The Sun Has Got His Hat On… He’s Gonna Kill Us All. Run… No, Quicker!

f the world was a metaphor it’d be fooked. Hurricanes, tsunamis and some light precipitation… we’ve brought it on ourselves. The US President refutes the existence of climate change, Blair once-monthly sacrifices a thousand dolphins as part of an ancient pagan ritual and even Chairman Mao hated sparrows.

It’s an idiosyncratic camel toe whether you be a suited Texan petrol-guzzler or a leprosy-stricken favela resident.

Climate change is global-wide. In the Antarctic, the cold has been reportedly turning into straw hats. In the Indian subcontinent the monsoon season took something of a U-turn when the torrential rain suddenly became a badger. And on the Costa del Sol unsubstantiated reports of the meteorological chameleon describe the Spanish summer transforming into a forty foot plasticine hymen.

Meteorological mayhem knows where you live; it’s the one in the stained raincoat watching you from the garden shed and it’s coming to Blighty to get you. New Orleans may have felt the full force of hurricane Katrina but in Derby slight wind Walter rustled some leaves and caused mild annoyance to a gaggle of Morris dancers.

Yet despite the warnings from Walter, Britain seems hell bent on celebrating those responsible for global mischief making. Only last month a sub-Saharan drought received an open bus parade through Central London after starring in cult TV reality show Pimp my Harvest.

Trafalgar square bustled with a

You can’t have ‘environmental’ without ‘mental’

Shit off polar bear, it’s a pointless continent Is the stricken polar bear on the thawing iceberg right to play Last Post on the bugle to a heavily perspiring Earth? Some might say “Shit off polar bear, it’s a pointless continent”. But deaded polar bears impact us all.

The price of ice rocketed on the news of the massive melt with high street demand for ice reaching unprecedented levels. Panic purchasers flocked on mass to fill their freezers with solid H20. In one Swindon supermarket panic turned to primitive animal savagery as one man was beaten to death with a recorder as a mad scramble for the final bag of frozen water cubes ensued. With blood and cerebral cortex dripping from his endblown flute, the assailant was heard to scream “ICE, ICE, BABY!”.

You can stop looking so smug.

The whole polyphonic experience is set to Whigfield’s Saturday Night and really is very special indeed.

However, with the US administration finally conceding climate change to be as serious a threat to global security as pigeons, the British legislative is beginning to respond. The forthcoming introduction of identity cards is thought to do something or other. However, a senior Home Office source accepts this may be insufficient, with the only way to stop this periodic warming being to “compel immigrant families to adopt British values”.

Protesters; you can’t have ‘environ-

IT’S RAINING BADGERS: Hallelujah crowd of seven. Some waved. The drought’s debut single, a cover of 1994 East 17 classic Let it Rain, is planned for release in early October.

With Wayne Rooney set to become the face of Nuclear Power it appears that environmental catastrophe is more of a commodity than a concern.

In the latest advert for nukes Rooney is pictured in Chernobyl ironically clapping the radioactive rain for being a bit crap.

The latest ring-tone craze to enlighten the inane features the sound of extensive South American deforestation conducted by that schizophrenic amphibian. The petulant frog can then be heard building a series of power stations along the Amazon whilst simultaneously clubbing a seal.

mental’ without ‘mental’…. unless of course you spell it in Hebrew; which is why the Israelis have built a giant wall made of stew in order to keep out any unscrupulous climates which seek to spread their ideology of change to the peace loving weather of Tel Aviv.

Has the risk been hyperbolised and exaggerated? Early scaremongering reports of periodic global warming and then cooling were initially found to be seasonal. Some of the larger oil refining companies have even claimed that global warming is actually beneficial to the animal kingdom with less rabbits and donkeys needed to make fur coats and fires. Donkey protection group C.O.C.K:M.A.D. (Care Of Creature Kingdoms: Mules, Asses and Donkeys) refute this, explaining that donkeys would still be used to make the fiddly bits on bras.

“What can I do to halt this continued warming?” I hear you compassionately cry in the tongue of Lord Byron. Simple, if it gets any hotter just turn up the air conditioning.

Interviews

interviews@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

07

Staines massive Greg Cochrane talks street with Hard-Fi: Mercury nominees, Warchild contributors and Staines’ most significant cultural export since Ali G.

B

usting out from the tower blocks, ring roads and ‘safe bruv, innit’ grey matter of every day Staines culture, Hard-Fi have had a blistering nine months. From huddling round the radio, one cold Monday night with Steve Lamaq spinning their first single and shaping debut longplayer Stars Of CCTV for the cost of a cheap bit of bling. All the way to a Mercury nomination, a track on Warchild’s recent compilation and a massive sell-out jaunt around the UK, all safely bagged. Things are still firmly still on the up for the four scallies from suburbia.

come from to where we are now. With the whole of the music industry, the paparazzi and all the other bands we were up against," explains Kai [Stevens, Bass] "It was actually fairly dull" pipes Steve. [Kemp, Drummer] So no playing your instruments with your teeth, getting slaughtered and throwing up all over Kaiser Chiefs then?

No, but "we had Abi Titmus sitting on the table behind us though, so she took a bit of our attention," Grinning, "Yeah I had my picture taken with her," smirks Ross. [Phillips, Guitar] Buxom beauties aside then, were you surprised by

we thought it was the fucking best album going." Perhaps not expectant but defiant at least then.

No sooner had the Mercurys been drunk away and the boys shot to the studio to record a new track for the Help: A Day In The Life compilation for Warchild. "We all bought the Help!

Album back about 10 years ago, and it was actually a really good album so it’s good to be a part of it now. I think this one’s going to be a good one too," says Steve sagely. Their contribution is a moody piano ballad called Help Me Please, "It’s a bit of a different vibe for us. Different to our other stuff I think." We felt it

HARD CASES: The boys mean business

Getting snapped by the paparazzi whilst being showered with questions and glitter, the Mercury Music Awards couldn’t really have felt further from the binge drinking chaos and scuffles outside the kebab van on a Friday night the boys were accustomed to, could it?

“Walking into the awards ourselves was like a real moment of where we’ve

a nomination, and did you think you could seriously win it?

"I wouldn’t say we were surprised actually, as far as we’re concerned we’ve made one of the albums of the year." Really? "Yeah there’s no point in just sitting there saying, yeah y’know we think we’ve made an alright album, that’s bollocks man, we wouldn’t of put it out unless

"fitted in with what the albums about and that."

A frantic few weeks then, and a trend that doesn’t look like halting. From Stars of CCTV on a Friday night in Staines to stars of CITV on a Saturday morning, it’s already been a seriously long journey for Hard-Fi. Stars of CCTV is out now

8

Interviews

interviews@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

Croeso i Caerdydd Local short story author Dennis Lewis talks to James Skinner about his book The Fevered Hive and gives us his unique take on our fair city...

I

t’s a sunny June afternoon in Cardiff when I meet Dennis Lewis’ agent in the Gatekeeper, and I truly have no idea what to expect of the author.

His book The Fevered Hive projects a vision of Cardiff peopled by prostitutes, pimps, and animalistic thugs; doomed alcoholics fall for young nurses in hospital wards, drug squads roam the streets practising their own perverted style of justice, and lonely middle aged men engage in disastrous blind dates.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, as young girls fulfil their dreams and Iraqi refugees find the city a friendly and warm home. I’m considering these contrasting viewpoints when Dennis bounds in to meet us, slightly late, clutching a pair of Big Issues ("you can’t buy enough of these things!"), and ready to breathlessly regale us with tales of his day thus far (he’s been in the pub. It’s half past two).

Drinks are ordered, my dictaphone is snarled at by Dennis ("fucking technology"), and the business of attempting to extract from this most outspoken of writers his views on writing, writers, and his own work begins.

Q: The Fevered Hive is the first of your collected short stories to be published. What is it that attracts you to writing in the form of a short story?

DL: Most writers start writing by jotting down a few lines of poetry. Then they move on to short story writing, which is an extended form of a poem… and then, you climb the Everest of a novel.

Short stories are a distillation.

“These questions are getting really fucking tough man! Could you lighten up a little? Ask me about my sex life or something!”

Dennis Lewis on interviewing techniques Q: Are there any other writers in this field that you particularly admire at the moment?

DL: No. No - everybody’s writing shit at the moment. Nobody’s writing the kind of stuff I’m writing. Not just in Wales… I mean, there are a couple of writers in the novel form I admire, but in the short story format, not really. I love the format, but when I read other peoples’ short stories, they bore the shit out of me.

Q: What was it that inspired you to become a writer?

THE FEVERED HIVE: Tales from Cardiff’s seedier underbelly

DL: Desperation inspired me. That’s a good question! Therapy; pure catharsis.

I was going through a period of my life when I was really into the booze in a big way and I couldn’t get off it; my job went, my family, everything. Then, I began writing down my ideas – what I was going through, what I was experiencing – but shit poetry really. That’s how I got into it. Fucking desperation.

It’s a natural progression: booze – drugs – writing. Write that down, it’s a

fucking great quote!

Q: The Fevered Hive is an example of ‘urban fiction’. Could you expand on this term? What does it mean to you?

DL: It could mean anything to anybody.

For me, it’s localised, about the people you know, who inspire you with ideas.

You know, guys sat around in pubs say things, and you develop an ear for it, as a writer. Urban fiction is all about pinning down the locality; it could be any city. You don’t meet many interesting people sitting in country pubs. Apart from the fuckers biting lumps out of foxes. These questions are getting really fucking tough man! Could you lighten up a little? Ask me about my sex life or something!

Q: We could get onto that later, if you want. But, for the moment, I was wondering whether any of the characters across the sixteen stories in The Fevered Hive share any common traits or values? Obviously, they’re very different.

DL: It’s the opposite. That’s the point of writing them. It’s… the atomization of city life; Cardiff has become fractured, more now than ever. You’ve got these… fucking post-80s yuppies living down in the Bay, and then you’ve got the peripheral estates where the ‘have-nots’ live.

And they’ve decided "fuck this, I’m gonna get it anyway", so they’re off down the Bay to pinch the fucking beemers and break into the flats and get involved in all that shit. It is a fractured city.

“Come at things from a different angle. I mean, everybody can write, but originality is what’s important” Lewis’ advice to aspiring fellow writers

Interviews 9

DENNIS LEWIS: Short story writer extraordinaire

thing. But that story… it’s the softest, most gentle thing I’ve ever written.

Q: Why the title, The Fevered Hive, for the collection?

DL: It’s a metaphor for the city itself. For all cities, and city living.

Q: Are you working on anything at the moment?

DL: Well, I’m halfway through writing a novel. Again, it’s about the underbelly of Cardiff. You’ve got a soldier who has served in Iraq, and upon returning home to Cardiff becomes involved in the drug dealing game. It’s a very powerful, provocative piece about how a man can change from a hero into a villain. In fact, it’s called Heroes and Villains. As I said, I’m only halfway through it, but it’s going to be fucking outstanding. I’m really pleased with the way it’s going.

Q: Okay… many of the stories in Hive are very bleak, and some of the characters seem inevitably doomed – there’s the story of the alcoholic who falls for Dr. Rosen – DL: That’s autobiographical.

Q: Yeah?

DL: Very personal. The love story – that was fiction – but the idea that some people can’t comprehend that alcoholics… they don’t want to live, but they don’t want to die – they’ll just settle for somewhere in between. Liver failure is a pretty awful way to go, I was told.

Q: There are characters, however, that seem hopeful. Jennifer, for instance, from The Other Side.

DL: My girlfriend – she loves Jennifer.

She’s hopeful. She’s getting out. I love Jennifer. I kind of included that story to give the collection some balance. I don’t do ‘soft’, you know? But I love that character. She’s the kind of person that, as a young guy, I would have loved to meet.

Q: Is it based on anyone in particular?

DL: It’s based on an ideal. You never fucking meet them though, do you? (laughing) Q: You mention that your stories are inspired by local characters, and people you know. To what degree is this

true? Is every story rooted in some kind of fact? I mean, there are some pretty nasty characters in the collection, like Skaggsy for instance.

DL: I live next door to him - he’s my fucking best friend! But no, honestly, I’ve got to be very careful what I say here, because they are based on people I’ve met, although not always particularly friendly with. The character Ginge – actually is based on my next door neighbour.

And if I haven’t met them I’ve heard of them. You know, from other people, and from the newspaper. I pick up a lot of stuff from the Western Mail and The Echo. But nevertheless it is fiction, and I want to stress that. I don’t want to get my ass sued.

Q: Are there any stories from Hive that hold particular personal significance to you?

DL: Well, they all do. The only thing any writer can work from is his own experience. You can only write when you’ve got something to say; something relevant.

Q: Is there any one story you’re most proud of?

DL: That’s a good one. I suppose it would be the Jennifer story, because it’s totally unlike my usual way of thinking.

I’m a pretty angry person, a pretty fucked up kind of guy. I’ve just got this huge chip on my shoulder about every-

Q: Okay. And finally, do you have any advice for young writers attempting to make a living from their work?

DL: Originality. Those who succeed are the ones who have something different to say. That’s what my experience of the publishing game has taught me. Come at things from a different angle. I mean, everybody can write, but originality is what’s important. And say something that’s fucking worth saying.

Fucking desperation. It’s a natural progression: booze – drugs – writing.

Write that down, it’s a fucking great quote!

Dennis Lewis on why he took up writing It’s now three pints later and I’m no closer to working out Dennis Lewis. He claims to be a beacon of angry resentment, yet is one of the most friendly writers I’ve met. Before long however, I’m facing the prospect of an early evening hangover while it looks like my interviewee is barely getting started. I’m wished good luck and re-emerge into the still sunny streets of the city.

The Fevered Hive is out on Accent Press.

26 09 05 Just smile, look pretty and pretend you can cook

11

HERES SOMETHING TO GET YOU STARTED, IT’S QUICK, EASY, HEALTHY AND TASTES DELIGHTFUL!

Vegetable Ratatoue Ingredients: 1 Red onion 1/2 Clove of garlic Sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil 1 Courgette 1 Red Pepper A generous handful of; - Cherry plumb tomatoes - Button mushrooms Mange toute Tofu (Can use chicken if desired) Creme fraiche Piri - Piri seasoning Tortilla wraps

Method:

you, which in the long run will benefit you the most.

Is there a way of breaking old habits and getting cooking? My answer is ‘yes!’ Although there is nothing worse than spending ages fannying around with chopping boards when you’re starving, or wasting an evening on something then ruining it at the last minute, with home cooking you at least get the added excitement of experimentation. Even the best chef will make something inedible every now and then, but when you get it right you feel a great sense of achievement, especially if you cooking to impress someone else.

For every Lambrini chicken you make (don’t try this, it’s horrible) you’ll get ten top meals and you can only improve. Another way of encouraging yourself is to cook with your housemates. Not only do you share the workload but it also means that you don’t end up eating all alone in your room.

Home cooking is on the up. With all the publicity raised by Jamie Oliver’s school dinners campaign and the ever increasing popularity of ‘real food’ groups such as the Slow Food Movement, founded in 1986 and aimed at resurrecting the pleasures of

eating real healthy food, there is no reason you have to confine yourself to the frozen shelves at Tesco. It could be the start of something beautiful.

CHEF: He’s so proud of his creation

First prepare all the vegetables by chopping them into small pieces.

Take a large frying pan and a wooden spoon, add the sundried tomato oil with a few of the tomatoes and the garlic for flavour and heat on a moderate heat for one minute.

Add the mushrooms and red onion and leave on a moderate heat for 3 minutes.

Next add the peppers, courgette, cherry tomatoes and mange toute.

Add salt, pepper and piri-piri seasoning and the tofu then cover, turn down the heat and leave for 10 minutes. *If you’re cooking with chicken, add it at the beginning with the onions and cook thoroughly.

Just before the food is ready to serve, take a few tortilla wraps and place them in the oven for a few minutes. When they are warm enough add the ratatoue allong with a generous dollop of creme fraiche.

Wrap into a neat parcel and enjoy.

12

Features

features@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

This isn’ t the news

THE DAILY SHOW TEAM: (L-R) Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and the now departed Steve Carell, star of The Office and The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is one of America’s funniest shows and it’s coming to the UK. Will Dean celebrates

S

o I'm standing in the most soulless bookshop in the most soulless row of box-malls in Western Canada. Kids scream in the in-store chain coffee shop (rhymes with 'arghbucks') and Ontarians overwhelmed by eight-feet high shelves of mediocre literature linger, before picking up something small and paperback-y and making a dash through the exit – which incidentally, is placed at the back of the coffee shop.

Yet inexplicably , I'm stood there smiling. Smiling like an idiot in a big Canadian book shop (or supermarket to be more precise). The reason for my cheer? It's the sight of Comedy Central's Daily Show anchor and my favourite American in the world beaming back from the not inconsiderate magazine stands on the face of not one, but three, different publications.

Brilliant.

Britain needs a show like The Daily Show. Thankfully, Channel 4 in their infinite wisdom have decided to start syndicating the show on their new digital and Freeview channel More4. So for forty quid you get Jon and regular

'reporters' like Ed Helms, Steven Colbert ("Col-bear. It's French bitch!") and Samantha Bee keeping you up-todate with all the oddities of American politics. Again, brilliant.

So why on earth would British students be interested in a programme mainly devoted to American politics and current affairs? Well anyone with a passing interest in US politics, or politics in general will find The Daily Show, not just funny but an excellent educational tool.

Despite proudly promoting itself as a 'fake news show', The Daily Show does more than any real one to get the most pertinent issues of the day to young Americans who have given up trying to decipher the politics from the parody. Indeed, during the November 2004 Presidential elections, The Daily Show was found to be trusted by 18-29 year olds more than the big-three US networks, not bad for "the one news organization with no credibility to lose" as the show's website boasts.

So important The Daily Show has become to modern American political discourse that leading politicians and

writers, like Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry (who appeared during the race for the Whitehouse) and Christopher Hitchens have been guests on Stewart's couch. The writers behind the show's book America: The Book – A Citizen's Guide To Democracy Inaction (sample line: South America – 'Come for the cocaine, stay for the kidnapping') has even sold almost two million copies in the US. Those buying the book, "people who get their news from your (Stewart's) show and the internet" according to Howard Dean, aren't just the uninformed getting their news from a comedy show – they are the informed ones.

Such is The Daily Show's profile some of its reporters have already moved on to their own shows.

Audience favourite Stephen Colbert is to host The Colbert Report and most famously, ex-Daily Show sleuth, Steve Carell has starred in the US version of The Office and hit Hollywood comedies Anchorman, Bruce Almighty and most recently, The 40-Year Old Virgin.

Stewart is also a star interviewee and made national headlines earlier this

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year when he appeared on CNN's now defunct Crossfire show and called host Tucker Carlson a “dick” for not using his position to rigorously challenge US officials. Like the team behind the show, Stewart may be very funny when he wants to be but is furious with the right-leaning US political climate. What better way to subvert this system than to humiliate it?

G re a t e s t H i t s o f The Daily Show

Stephen Colbert: After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who said "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."

Jon Stewart: No, that was Stalin.

Thomas Jefferson said that he'd "Rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press."

Stephen Colbert: Well, what else would you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer? ****** Stephen Colbert: It used to be that our elected officials were veterans of World War II, Vietnam, or the Civil Rights Movement. But with the election of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, I foresee a day when all our leaders will come from the movie Predator. Think about it. Governor Carl Weathers. No, wait, *Senator* Predator. I bet he has some pretty interesting things to say about tort reform.

Jon Stewart: Because the seating for the Pope's funeral went in alphabetical order, the leaders of the country sat in order - Iran, Ireland, Israel. Three countries and four religions that hate each other. ****** Mel Gibson: [during an interview with Diane Sawyer] God ordains everything. God made my bed, you know?

Jon Stewart: ... Mel Gibson is one lazy mother [beep] Can't you make your own bed? God has things to do! Make your bed! God can't say, "I have to end a famine... Oh, wait! Gibson's bed!" ****** Jon Stewart: The new Airbus plane, the A380 is capable of holding 800 passengers. Or, 400 Americans. ****** Jon Stewart: Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.

So why is The Daily Show so successful in a US TV climate that already features a multitude of latenight chat/comedy shows like Tonight With Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman? Well Stewart and his team of writers seem to focus much more on their skits and 'analysis' of the news than stroking the egos of their guests. The San Francisco Chronicle attributes the show's feverish following to the fact that Stewart, a successful stand-up, "Gets it. In a world gone mad, Jon Stewart is there to make fun of our sad plight. And we love him for it."

But will the Comedy Central hit prosper in the UK? Probably not. As bad as Tony Blair's labour governments have been at times, they have failed to raise the ire of the liberal public in the same way that George W. Bush's polarising policies (on tax, abortion, gay marriage) have. The best British satire has had to offer since the days of the incomparably good Spitting Image has been Rory Bremner's various shows and 2DTV, both solid programmes but incapable of achieving the rabid-cult following that The Daily Show has in the US. If anything, this Channel 4 import ought to give British comics a kick up the arse. Although you'd think the success of US dramas like Desperate Housewives, Lost and The Sopranos – to name a few - would have already had that galvanizing effect on a stale British television industry.

The moral majority depicted in Thomas Frank's bestseller What's The Matter With Kansas? May hold all the aces in American politics, but in Stewart and The Daily Show those ostracized by the American establishment have a pair of Kings.

JOHN KERRY AND STEWART: The Daily Show provides a politcally aware and hip audience for politicians. ABOVE: The show’s bestselling guide to US poltics

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Features

features@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

Do you want fries with that?

Kerry-Lynne Doyle investigates the world of student jobs

T

here is one thing that most students have in common nowadays – having a job.

Whether it’s a part-time, temporary or vacation work, three in four students now work to give their finances a boost during their degree.

Besides the financial benefits of having a job, working during your degree is also the perfect CV-filler, showing an ability to work in the real world while studying.

However, with 59% of students surveyed by the NUS saying that working affects their studies, when does a student job become more hassle than it’s worth?

And who do you turn to if you encounter a problem at work?

The world of the student work encompasses a range of jobs - from shop work to bar work to dreaded waitress work.

It was during a temporary waitressing job where one Cardiff student started having problems. The student was refused breaks, physically stopped from leaving at the end of her shift and even witnessed racism.

"I was supposed to work until 7pm and was really tired as I hadn’t had a break", said the English Literature student, who wished to remain anonymous.

"When I went to tell the manager

that I was leaving he said "No, you’re not" and pushed me back out onto the restaurant floor.

"I was in shock – I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me."

That same evening the student witnessed the manager use racist behaviour by making a fellow worker stay in the kitchen all night because he did not wish customers to see someone of her skin colour on the restaurant floor.

The student made a formal camplaint about the incident and this complaint was forwarded on to the company.

So what should you do if you find yourself in a situation where you encounter racism or discrimination at work?

A spokesperson for the Equal Opportunities Commission said: "If you find yourself subject to sexual, racist or other forms of discrimination you should go through a formal grievous complaints procedure with your employer.

"If you get in contact with us we can also send a section 74 or an equal opportunities questionnaire for you to answer."

One final-year student encountered a problem of a different kind during her summer job – sexual harassment.

"I was sitting in the office alone doing some work at my desk and a male colleague came up behind me and commented on the underwear I was wearing", said the student.

"I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say and went home that evening feeling confused, embarrassed and upset particularly because I never thought it would happen to me.

"I always felt uncomfortable in the office around him after that and made sure I was never left alone with him again."

The student did consider going to her manager about the problem but felt that because her job was temporary it would be pointless to complain.

A student dealing with any form of sexual harassment can also approach the Equal Opportunities Commission for advice.

And anyone who is suffering from harassment or bullying at work should also keep an incident diary with times, dates, witnesses and details of what happened to show to your employer in case the matter is taken further.

Features 15

Trouble National at work?

0845 600 Minimum Wage H elpline Equal O 0678 p p o r t unities C 0845 601 ommission Student 5901 S 029 2087 upport Centre 4179

Another problem which is common within a student’s workplace is being underpaid – and being made to work long hours without a break.

"I worked one job where they simply refused to give me a break", said one student about a waitressing job that she did last year.

"One time I worked an 11 hour shift and only got a break because I asked for one – and that was only for half an hour!”

The student soon left the job.

While being overworked and underpaid is one of the eternal student job grievances, it needn’t be that way.

"If you are being paid below minimum wage you should get in touch with us", said a spokesperson for the National Minimum Wage helpline.

"We can then take the details of the complaint, look at shift patterns and the situation can be riskassessed. If we find that payment is in arrears we can then issue a letter

to the employer asking them to pay.

"If that doesn’t work it will then have to go through the courts."

And if your employer, or anyone else, tells you that you aren’t entitled to minimum wage because you are a temporary or part-time worker, don’t believe them; it is an urban myth.

"If anyone has problems with pay I would urge them to get in touch by phone or by email", the spokesperson added.

But as a Cardiff student you can also approach the Student Support Centre for advice if you are having difficulties within your job.

"The Student Support Centres at the Cathays and Heath sites have a team of advisors who are here to

Student jobs - know your rights - National minimum wage rises to £4.25 for people aged 18 to 21 and £5.05 for people aged over 22 on October 1 this year..

- You are entitled to a 20 minute rest break if you work a six hour shift or longer.

- Under law part-time workers have the same rights as fulltime workers.

- After you have worked 13 weeks for your employer you are entitled to four weeks paid holidays which should be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

help if you experience problems with finances or in part time jobs while at University", says Ben Lewis, Head of Student advisory services.

"It’s important that part time work does not interfere with your university life too much and put extra pressures and stresses on you that affect your studies and relationships.

"So seek support from us early if you feel this is happening and we will do our best to help."

However, for most Cardiff students holding down a job during their degree is a rewarding experience.

"Most students seems content with the jobs they hold while studying", reveals a spokesperson for Unistaff Jobshop at Cardiff Students’ Union.

"There tends to be a good variety and choice of work during term-time with anything from bar work to conducting tours, which can provide useful and transferable skills."

And for any Cardiff student who is looking for a job to ease their financial worries, Jobshop has one rather obvious piece of advice.

"Register with Unistaff Jobshop.

Students will then get regular emails of all the latest jobs within the University and the Union and be updated with any work opportunities within external companies.

"I would also advise students to come into the Jobshop if they are passing to check on any urgent vacancies that need filling."

Clearly, while having a student job can sometimes be a challenging experience, if you know your rights and work for caring companies you can avoid a student job headache.

But if your dream job does turn into a nightmare, there are plenty of people to turn to for advice.

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Fashion

fashion@gairrhydd.com

Queen

26 09 05

Viv

For thirty-five years Vivienne Westwood has been the most influential British designer. Clare Hooker explores her extraordinary career and why she still rocks the world of fashion Such an intense feeling of inspiration and pride, as though these creations were my very own, surged through me.

As I gawped at the museum-like items made from textiles that range from cotton to leather to tweed, fur, PVC and back again in styles that boast royalty, punk rock, lady at lunch, vamp, and probably everything in between, I was mesmerized.

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“

V

ivienne Westwood, you love her or hate her. I adore her. Which other designer can pride themselves on collections that scream sex, outrage, cheek and power simultaneously as they mould themselves around the figure with such strength? Not for the faint hearted, these clothes really could kill.

My interest in fashion design has grown up with me. My fascination with Vivienne Westwood is a fairly recent one. Last Summer I visited the exhibition at the V&A, London where her attention grabbing garments dressed the mannequins in her inimitable style.

The only reason I’m in fashion is to destroy the word conformiity” Westwood

These clothes don’t make you look, but make you stare. The more you look the more stare because the attention to detail is incredible and I was lulled into an extraordinary state of wonder.

The pieces can look as though they have been plucked from a Renaissance masterpiece or the 3-D image of a bad dream. The only thing typical throughout the collections is the expected unexpected. Based on inspiration rather than fashion, she gathers ideas from where others never dare to look. She has an ever evolving fashion vocabulary that should make Britain proud to have her.

Afraid of nothing, and with lively interest in everything Westwood is unstoppable. She defies logic, time and rationality. She teases the poles of masculinity and femininity, repeatedly goes against the grain and interrupts the flow of comparatively mundane fashion.

In the earliest collections black Tshirts were metamorphosized into a civilization threatening breed of textile politician. Emblazoned with anything that Westwood could get her hands on ranging from nipple revealing zippers, feathers, chains and provocative messages. It didn’t stop there.

Rubber wear and bondage was next.

This was the beginning of her global success.

Now an icon, who has received full recognition for her work with an OBE she is still keeping up the good work three and a half decades later. With so much admiration for this fashion superwoman, I am in awe. Clearly not driven by the commercial gain, but by pure passion for what she does, Westwood has inspired hundreds of looks, from platform shoes, corsets, kilts to crowns.

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Long live Viv!

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I’m not interested in tailoring, but the pull and push of the garment against the body

Westwood

Fashion

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WESTWOOD: A Brief History...

1970’spunk style was born

1981-Westwood’s first catwalk show that featured the ‘Pirate Collection”

1990’sWestwood launched her ‘Man Collection’

1992-Westwood is rewared her OBE where she famously declared that she was wearing no underwear 1999-the first US flagship store was opened

2002-Westwood launches her first beauty collections

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Tr a v e l

travel@gairrhydd.com

Wales in a weekend

Llangennith Beach (Above)

W

ales is a country of diversity, beauty, culture and adventure.

It’s difficult to write about Wales without sounding like a member of the tourism board because the Celtic Nation really does live up to the hyperbole. As other areas of gair rhydd are introducing Cardiff to our Freshers, this was a good opportunity to show students old and new that you don’t have to go abroad for the chance to have a break from the city and explore somewhere exciting and new.

Having lived in Wales for seven years, it didn’t take long to discover the richness of the culture and variety of the activities available.

So, if you fancy discovering Wales on a shoestring budget, here’s four very different weekends to suit almost anyone. Wales has a lot to offer and all of it is within easy reach from Cardiff, meaning you need never have an empty, bored day while at university.

LEARN TO SURF

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urfing may not be the obvious hobby in Wales, but every coastal region has a thriving surf community due to the Atlantic swells they enjoy.

You don’t have to travel far to get to some of the country's best surf - the Gower Peninsula is an hour’s bus ride from Cardiff and was Britain's first AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural

Pippa Bennett on how to spend a weekend in Wales Beauty).

It is home to Llangennith beach, a long lazy stretch of sand popular with all levels of surfers. You can spend a whole weekend learning to surf thanks to the brilliantly cheap prices offered by the British Surf Associationapproved Welsh Surfing Federation Surf School (www.wsfsurfschool.co.uk).

Your first 1/2-day lesson costs just £20 and includes board and suit hire, and any half-day after that is just £15.

The Hillend campsite lies literally on the sand dunes of Llangennith and is the perfect place to stay for a few hedonistic days of surf, sand and sleep (Tel: 01792 386204).

Llangennith can enjoy swells of up to eight foot but Pete's and Boiler's reefs will provide more of a challenge for more experienced surfers.

After a hard day's board action you can relax and refuel at the King's Head in Llangennith. A young, lively pub with delicious, if unexpected food as the owners have travelled the world and brought their favourite recipes with them.

If you want a break from tutorials and tarmac but haven’t the time for a weekend away, head to Southerndown. 20 miles west of Cardiff, near the town of Bridgend, it is part of the picturesque Glamorgan Heritage 'Golden' Coast.

Southerndown is used for swimming,

26 09 05

windsurfing, sailing and surfing. Check surf conditions for all beaches in the UK at www.surf-forecast.com and find other places to surf at the Welsh tourist board www.visitwales.com.

Getting There: The Cardiff to Swansea bus costs £9.10 return, runs frequently and can be booked online at www.nationalexpress.com. A bus then goes from Swansea to Llangennith. Timetable information is available on 0870 6082608. National Express also run buses from Cardiff to Bridgend every half hour for £3.70 return, from which you can hop on another bus to Southerndown.

ADVENTURE

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he Rough Guide to Wales describes Snowdonia as “the most dramatic and alluring region in the country”.

The Snowdonia National Park stretches for 840 square miles, with a landscape evocative of Austrian glacial lakes, and a feeling of freedom and wilderness. It consists of beautiful coastline, rugged peaks and enticing wooded valleys, but pride of place is Mount Snowdon, rising 1085 ft above sea level.

It is impossible to see it all in one weekend but there are walks round the highlights for newcomers to the area, as planned by the good people of www.walkingenglishman.com.

One hike takes you to from the haunting Beddgelert, to the Aberglaslyn pass and finishes on the heather slopes of Cwm Bychan.

Beddgelert is a village with a tragic past, named after the legend of Prince Llewellyn's wrongfully slain dog Gelert, after the dog was found covered in blood whilst the princes dog was missing. The blood belonged not to the baby, but a wolf. The Snowdon Mountain Railway (www.snowdonrailway.co.uk) departs daily from Llanberis and is another fantastic introduction to the park. It's pricey (a single ticket costs £11), but takes you to the summit of this magnificent peak. You can then choose against the train and walk back down instead (take note - this is the perfect lazy alternative to proper hiking). If you do trek down, please stick to planned routes such as those at www.eryri-npa.co.uk.

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Tintern Abbey (Above) Snowdonia's not just about looking at pretty mountains, it's about being on the mountains and is the best place for adrenalin junkies in Wales with some of the UK's best rafting, climbing and hiking (to name a few).

The Snowdon Lodge hostel (www.snowdonlodge.co.uk) lies within walking distance of the popular town of Porthmadog and costs just £13.50 per person per night for B&B. It's the perfect base for both those who want to enjoy the park, taking in the breathtaking scenery over walks, and also those who want more action as the hostel will help arrange any activity from paragliding to rock climbing.

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The Cog Railway... which runs from Llanbris to the summit of snowdonia.

Dont forget your camera because the views at the top are the most amazing.

Check the weather forecast before hand to try and avoid foggy days.

Getting There: Travel to and around Snowdonia used to be near impossible but public transport is almost preferable now with services like the Sherpa Bus taking you from the towns to the heart of walking country.

For all Snowdonia travel information, visit the excellent site www.traveline-cymru.org.uk, which combines all

modes of transport to give you the best routes. The quickest route from Cardiff is a train to Bangor via Crewe, and then a bus to Porthmadog.

HISTORICAL Wales is famed for having more castles per square mile than any other European country, meaning it's perfect to explore for anyone with an interest in history.

Visiting these forts need not be a harrowing flashback to school trips of yesteryear, when we were frogmarched through the fun bits like the dungeons in order to make 'the talk' on the geological features of the moat.

These castles are beautiful monuments constructed among some of Wales' most breathtaking scenery.

You could spend a lifetime visiting them all, so here’s a weekend of historical morsels and good pub grub for you to get a taste for these sites.

Start off in the quaint, cobbled border town of Monmouth (www.monmouth.org.uk) for a walk to the Kymin.

The Kymin Naval temple (www.nationaltrust.org.uk) was built in 1801 as a monument to officers, including Admiral Nelson who had strong links with the town. Standing high above the town the walk up to it and view from it provide spectacular panoramas of the Wye Valley. Maps can be found at Monmouth tourist information office in Agincourt Square Next stop is Tintern Abbey (www.castleswales.com/tintern). The Abbey, built in 1131, was the first in Wales. It is one of the country's most

19

important ruins and its romantic appeal and grandeur was admired by regular visitor, Wordsworth.

The Abbey was stripped of its lead roof by Oliver Cromwell and so acts as a monument to Britain's time as a republic. There is a blissful lack of guides and so you are free to reflect on its beauty by wandering round and taking in its grand stone arches at your own pace.

Tintern provides the perfect stopping place for the night too. Up the hill from the Abbey there is a hidden treat called 'The Cherry Tree Inn' (www.thecherry.co.uk), which despite appearing in the Good Pub Guide 2004, costs just £50 a night and serves delicious, cheap food.

Finally visit Chepstow Castle (www.striguil.co.uk/chepstow/chepstow_castle.htm), rumoured to be the final resting place of Arthur and his knights. Chepstow is a beautiful fort, marking the end of the Wye and is one of the few castles in good enough condition for you to run along the ramparts. Having worked your way up and down the Wye Valley, you are perfectly positioned to hop on a train back to Cardiff.

Getting There: Public Transport: Train from Cardiff to Chepstow. Then take the no. 69 bus to Monmouth. The no. 69 follows the river, and is the only bus you need for Monmouth, Tintern and Chepstow.

Times can be found at www.travelinecymru.org.uk.

This week: Train tickets and timetables websites 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

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www.thetrainline.com www.rail.co.uk www.networkrail.co.uk www.traintimes.org.uk www.virgintrains.co.uk www.centraltrains.co.uk www.eurostar.com www.arriva.co.uk www.britrail.net www.uknetguide.co.uk

any suggestions? email us travel@gairrhydd.com

20 T r a v e l

Capital city

Amy Harrison looks into Cardiff’s history to see what the future holds for our constantly evolving city.

“The only problem with Cardiff is that it is 40 miles too far west.” (Quote from a Londoner visiting Edinburgh.)

Sheep, rain and a language devoid of any vowels, all common associations made with Wales. Contrary to these stereotypes, there is much more to the Welsh capital.

Europe’s youngest city is now ranked alongside Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester on account of its cosmopolitan and lively atmosphere. The city has a lot to offer with its brilliant shopping centre, international and national sporting events, top clubs, variety of restaurants, and plenty of music venues; Cardiff has something for everyone. But Cardiff isn’t trying to be the next Dublin or Edinburgh. The magic charm that sets Cardiff apart from all other UK cities is the same charm that incites its criticisms, its Welsh-ness.

The Welsh heritage is maintained across the city in various ways. Cardiff Castle, the heart of the city itself, revels in its Welsh legacy. Two thousand years ago a Roman fortress was built on the castle grounds. Ever since, the castle has been maintained by local lords and barons. The castle’s form has remained unchanged since the 1860s when the world’s richest man, the third Marquis of Bute, commissioned renovations.

The décor mirrors the Marquis’s affluence; gold glitters on tapestries, frescoes and chandeliers; rich colours, opulent fabrics and wooden panels adorn the fairytale-style castle.

The city has grown around the castle,

Welsh flags are abundant on match days keeping Cardiff’s pride in its history alive.

Just a stones throw from the castle is the Millennium Stadium. The stadium opened its doors and retractable roof in 1999 to 72,500 people. Every year since, the stadium has welcomed over a million visitors to watch football, rugby, motor sports, and athletics events.

On a match day, the atmosphere from the stadium oozes across the city with chanting and blasting claxons. Whether Wales are playing China or the All Blacks; whether they win or lose the city is electric with renditions of ‘Land of my Fathers’. The elation after this year’s Six Nations Rugby triumph united people of all ages in celebration of their country. The compact city centre was drowned in champagne and celebrations.

It is not just through sporting achievement that the Welsh unite; music also brings the nation together.

The Tsunami Relief Concert in January

Millennium Stadium can be mistaken for an oil rig

‘05 brought a vast array of music icons to the stadium. The audience’s response to Welsh artists including the Manics, GLC and Charlotte Church certainly overshadowed the presence of Eric Clapton. The support from the Welsh audience to their fellow countrymen was astounding.

The city itself continues to re-invent its various elements most notably Cardiff’s derelict dockland area is now being given a new lease of life with the ongoing Bay development. Despite its contemporary feel, it was not simply a matter of out with the old and in with the new. Alongside the Millennium Centre’s bronze armadillolike shell, stand buildings which retain a sense of the area’s past. The redbrick Pier Head building with its vivid colour dominates the skyline as it towers over the quaint Norwegian church. As you approach Mermaid Quay, a stylised glass building stands out from all the other shops with its sweeping roof line. In such a contemporary shop, the last thing you would expect to find would be traditional Welsh Handicrafts. Innovative designs blend with the traditional, preserving Cardiff’s past and revealing hope and prosperity for the future.

Although the Welsh gags go on, Cardiff provides a focus for the changing world we live in. Redevelopments have done wonders for the city, but Cardiff is a shining example of how a city can bring itself into the 21st century without losing its history. Cardiff is proud of its country and culture, retaining a sense of national pride in all aspects of the city.

BACKPACKER

Whistlestop Wales

T r a v e l 21

Welcome to ‘Backpacker’. Each fortnight we provide an insight into top backpacking destinations. Every issue we will let you know which location will be featured in the next edition of Quench. Travel needs you to text/email any tips you have for the next destination. It could be anything from the best campsite, the best place to visit, or which bus takes you to the most beautiful beach.

By Pippa Bennett Travel correspondant Bec Storey Travel Editor

B

ackpacking need not be at the end of a long flight to somewhere hot. Why not explore the country that you live in?

Backpacking is not only a cheap way to have a holiday but also a brilliant way of really experiancing the places that you visit.

Wales has a fantastic range of hostals and campsites that you can take advantage of but there are also a handful of tour companies that arrange bus tours round Wales for people pre-retirement age.

These tours are fantastic value and are a great way to see the best this country has to offer for minimal effort.

You stay in hostels whilst stopping at places of interest. Most tours have a theme, often to do with Welsh history.

One of this trend’s leading lights is Shaggy Sheep (www.shaggysheep.com) who run a 'Merlin' weekend tour of South Wales.

You hop on the bus at Cardiff on Friday afternoon and spend the night in Britain's smallest city, St David's in Pembrokeshire. Saturday and Sunday then include a seashore horse trek and walking in the Brecon Beacons.

Perhaps the most exciting thing is the price, as it costs just £125 for all activities, food and accommodation, If you like the sound of these tours but this particular one doesn't fill you with the urge to sing

along to 'Men of Harlech' with a coach full of fellow travellers, worry not. There are dozens of these companies, all run by people who enjoy backpacking and independent travel.

The best of the rest are: www.bushwakkers.co.uk, who also run horse riding and canoeing trips from their beautiful cottage near Swansea.

If Swansea is a bit near for your liking, it might be worth making the trip all the way up to Snowdonia. As well as being home to lots of big mountains, the

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...Horse riding around Abergavenny.

Organised by Black Sheep Backpackers hostal. A great way to see the country side with out the blisters.

TOP TIP…Make sure you take a role mat. Not just for comfort but to keep the famously cold Welsh weather at bay. national park is home to more than its fair share of camp-sites. For those not enamoured by amenities like showers and running water, lots

Useful websites

www.shaggysheep.com www.bushwakkers.co.uk www.karibuni.co.uk www.dragonbackpackertours.co.uk www.godo.visitwales.com www.buswalestour.com The Rough Guide: Wales Next issue Backpacker will be taking you to the Greek Islands.

Text your top backpacking tips to 07843393962,or email them to us at travel@gairrhydd.com. of farmers will let you camp in one of their fields for as long as you like for a couple of pounds. Just make sure you pay in advance!

If that all sounds a bit too, well, dirty for you there are 45 YHA youth hostels across the principality. The Youth Hostel Association can provide you with a list and all the information you could need about Welsh hostels if you get in touch with them at YHAWales/Cymru, Floor 4, 1 Cathedral Road, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, CF11 9HA or ring on 02920 396766.

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ABERSOCH Despite its yuppyish tendencies (think of it as a Hamptons for Manchester) Abersoch retains the natural beauty that befits its perch on the north of the cardigan coast. Come summertimes its full of surfers and water-skiiers but provides a focal point for one of the most visually spectacular areas of Wales.

CAMPSITE IN WALES: Back to nature

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Debate

debate@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

24-hour drinking laws A licence to kill Megan Conner

T

here are the obvious advantages of the 24-hour drinking licence for us students. After all, we’re an alcohol obsessed generation who binge, binge, binge, and never whinge that we want to go home at the end of a Saturday night. No? You see, as much as we like to play up to our stereotype, we’re not consistent. We have our wild Wednesdays, and our Freshers’ fortnights, but they are all short lived.

Knowing that we only have to dress up in silly costumes and drink dirty pints for a short duration of university is what keeps us crazy, not the thought of trying to endure 24 hours of alcohol on a permanent basis.

A

A licence to thrill Helen Rathbone

s the law now stands, people are forced to leave clubs by a certain time, resulting in the concentration of large numbers of people in one small area. Take St Mary’s Street for example. If people could leave when they wanted to this would lessen the chances of pissed-up brawling and ease the job of the police.

Implementation of the licensing laws would not necessarily lead to all venues staying open 24/7. In fact, it would have relatively little effect on a great proportion of bars and pubs. It’s unlikely that your local village pub will be staying open until 3am on any night of the week. As for city nightclubs, they will only have a large enough clien-

“the bar staff may as well be qualified nurses” As much as we might try to deny it, there is something we love about rules and routine. It’s like orange squash and biscuit time at playgroup; it never lasted long, but every minute was pretty damn wicked. And so with alcohol consumption, by starting at eight and finishing at two, our night shift is cherished and completed to the best of our ability.

Then there’s the kebab shop stop: If we didn’t know when to leave the club, we wouldn’t have prime time for picking up our chicken donners, or the pullage we usually take home with it. There would be no goodnight kisses or onenight stands if there were no night. And there would be no day either, for want of sleep.

Early morning pranks at halls of residence would go to pot.

The alcohol delivery service would go out of business.

There would be more hospital cases, not to mention more money spent on policing. Increased numbers of rape and violent crime would haunt us, along with urine and vomit

tele at the weekend to allow them to stay open 24 hours, as throughout the week people will be wary of having to go to work the next day.

A club won’t stay open until 6am if they are merely waiting for one hen party to finish off their fun and frolics as it doesn’t make economic sense. Just because they have the opportunity to stay open from dusk til dawn doesn’t necessarily mean they will do so. Even if a venue decides to leave their doors permanently open it will not automatically lead to people drinking more, all it will do is remove the intensity element. This can already be seen during sporting events where, although bars are open early, most people choose not to drink at 6am but instead opt for fried breakfasts and cups of tea.

People, particularly students, can’t afford either financially or physically to drink from 7pm until 6am. It takes no more than one binge effort like that to work this out!

“all it will do is remove the intensity element” splattered streets. Night services would no longer be for the people who clean the streets, or the support services that deal with the drunks. Hell, the bar staff may as well be qualified nurses, if we want to ask anything more of them.

The way the government is currently dealing with other issues on the political agenda hardly fills me with confidence. Can we truly trust them to organise a piss-up in a brewery sensibly? I think not. If you ask me, we need to keep closing time at a reasonable hour, and start calling time on the 24-hour alcohol licence.

The problem of alcohol-fuelled violence in Britain isn’t connected to the amount of time available to us in which we can purchase alcohol, it is to do with our attitudes towards drinking as a whole. Across Europe there are countless examples of a more relaxed attitude being the way forward. The new law gives Britain the opportunity to adopt a more mature approach to alcohol than the current teenage mentality it has now, in which ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ would like Britannia back in bed by 11.30pm.

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24

Reviews

film@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

Knightley Vision PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Dir. Joe Wright Cast: Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethyn, Matthew MacFadyen Out Now, 127 mins

T

o take on such a behemoth as Pride and Prejudice had to be such a risky and complicated project that one wonders why Joe Wright was brave enough to take it on at all. The Austen novel and BBC adaptation are both so ingrained in public memory that to attempt to meddle with it is bound to cause a rift among many a fan.

British beauty, Keira Knightley attempts to do the same justice to Lizzie as Jennifer Ehle before her.

Unfortunately, she comes up rather short of a credit-deserved performance. The decision to bring a lighter tone to Lizzie’s character is a poor one making her come across as little more than one of the ‘silly’ sisters made serious by the unfortunate events that take place.

She presents herself as not nearly as rational or intellectual as would be needed to capture the attentions and affections of Mr Darcy. Instead she spends enough of the film engaging in

useless giggling that could rival the younger two Miss Bennetts.

Not the only character to be dumbed down in this way, it’s a challenge to understand how a giddy, bumbling fool like Mr Bingley ever became accepted within polite society. Yes, he’s all nice and sweet but at times he becomes excruciating to watch thanks to his complete social ineptitude. It’s a wonder Darcy doesn’t throw him off the coach during a passing through the Derbyshire countryside.

That is not to say that Matthew McFadyen’s performance is much better. Attempting to rival Colin Firth as Mr Darcy must have kept the naïve actor awake at night, or at least one must hope. Interpreting the character’s solemn and serious attitude as ‘look grumpy as fuck at every given opportunity’ he fails to bring any real charm to the role. The subtle change in his emotions is held back by the restrictive two hour length, giving it no chance to properly develop.

Similarly poor, is the mercifully little used character of Mr Wickham.

Rather than appearing charming, friendly and kind mannered he would look more at home trying to impress the ladies on a nightclub dance floor.

The novel itself has an intricate, complicated plot, which becomes hampered by the need to try and squash it all into a two hour film. As a result the pace is saggy and haphazard. In an attempt to speed the story along gaping plot holes and factual errors appear. During Jane’s period of incapacitation in the Bingley household the man himself actually walks into the bedroom whilst she’s in bed and covered in a feverish sweat. To walk in the room while she was not fully-dressed would itself be inappropriate let alone dare to enter when the lady is ridden with flu. It’s surprising such a historical inaccuracy even made the cut.

Quite simply this is a film that did not need to be made. With an already perfectly adequate TV adaptation this is a film designed not to further explore the possibilities within Jane Austen’s work but to make money.

The casting of audience-pullers Knightley and, the utterly wasted, Donald Sutherland act to increase box office revenue but do little else.

Catherine Gee

Books

books@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

25

Tiny lights, giraffes and the MAN Booker: a history THIS WEEK: Will Dean enters the weird and wonderful world of Darren King’s Jim Giraffe, Kim O’Connor reviews The Bone Woman, and I delve into Patrick Neate’s City Of Tiny Lights and see what it has to offer. It’s also that time of year when the bookish equivalent of the Oscars is back in town, so we take a look at the origins and history of the MAN Booker prize. Are literary competitions really as boring as they sound? Check it and find out...

Tiny lights...

CITY OF TINY LIGHTS Patrick Neate Viking

In 2002 Patrick Neate picked up the Whitbread prize for his second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, an enormous, vibrant, century-spanning novel dealing with the birth of jazz in early twentieth-century New Orleans, witchdoctors and mythology in Africa, and the unlikely friendship that develops between a young English drifter and a retired prostitute searching for clues to her identity.

The London Pigeon Wars followed this in 2004, a tale of university educated London thirty-somethings floundering in their professional and personal lives while the pigeons wage war at one another in two rival factions above them (in a story that may or may not be linked to the goings-on below). But for all its sharp satire and clever use of language, it suffered slightly in lacking what Blues and his debut, Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko had in abundance – any truly likeable characters.

City of Tiny Lights then, his fourth novel (and second to be set in the capital), addresses this by introducing us to Tommy Akhtar – “cricket aficionado, devoted son, sometime

private investigator and sometime idol to West London’s thug-lites”.

Writing in the first person enables Neate to bestow upon his protagonist a fast-talking, whisky-swilling, chain-smoking sensibility that is at once borrowed from countless Raymond Chandler stories, yet rendered completely new by the relocation of the noir genre to the underbelly of London. Consequently, Lights is a consistent pleasure to read, Tommy’s narration and observations on city life never anything less than inspired.

The story begins when Tommy (TA Services) is hired by supposed highclass escort Exoticmelody, whose flatmate and fellow prostitute Sexyrussian has gone missing, last seen meeting a client - an MP - later found brutally murdered in his hotel room. Against his better judgment Tommy takes the case, and soon finds himself in a whole lot more trouble than anticipated, as a myriad cast of drug pushers, arms dealers, and even MI5 start expressing a less than honourable interest in his every move.

To discuss the plot further would detract from the compulsiveness of the story, but it soon becomes clear that Neate has taken the detective genre as a template to explore themes that are hardly synonymous with it. There is the question of

Tommy’s ethnicity – a self confessed “Paki-immigrant-Ugandan-IndianEnglishman”, named after Tommy Cooper, which gives him ample space to explore the multi-cultural facet of London.

The issue of prejudice steps up a gear as we learn more about the Akhtar family: the (preventable) death of his mother and following guilt-wracked excursion of Tommy’s into the mujahideen of Afghanistan and Lahore, before “falling out with the radicals and getting in with the yanks”, an episode Tommy describes to the reader in frank third-person.

And finally, as Tommy’s investigation veers into the realm of international terrorism and the lines between fundamentalism and fanaticism are examined, the book, written before the events of July 7th in London, takes on a new relevance that the author himself could not have foreseen.

But if all this sounds a little heavy, it’s testament to Neate’s skills as a writer that it remains a slick and engaging read, and his clear love of cricket - illustrated by the countless wicket-related metaphors that begin on the opening page and crop up throughout the tale – is merely one in a long list of reasons to love this book.

James Skinner A Patrick Neate interview is coming soon

26 B o o k s

Booker-roo

James Skinner looks at the history of one of the publishing industry’s most prestigious awards

I

n 1968 Tom Maschler, a highly respected publisher working for Jonathan Cape, approached the Booker Brothers company, who at the time were chalking up a tidy sum through owning the rights to the literary works of, amongst others, Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming.

He persuaded them to set up a British equivalent to the American Pulitzer or French Prix Goncourt, putting a little of their profits back into the literary world, and thus the Booker prize was born. The judging panel is appointed by an advisory committee and changes every year, with emphasis on achieving a balance between gender, articulacy and role, therefore featuring a literary critic, an academic, a literary editor, a novelist and a major figure.

Nowadays the prize is a very big deal indeed, aiming to represent the very best in literary fiction from the UK and the Commonwealth, the winner each year receiving the princely sum of £50,000. Previous winners include heavy-hitters such as Ian McEwan, Margeret Atwood and J.M Coetzee, and over its 37year history several of the books to have taken the prize have attained undeniable ‘classic’ status, such as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s

SALMAN RUSHDIE: Past winner

Children, a saga of two Indian children born on the eve of independence, or Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark, adapted with massive success by Steven Spielberg.

In terms of status and influence, the prize is unparalleled - the six authors to make the cut from longlist to shortlist are guaranteed a rise in global sales and exposure, and it seems the authors themselves are in thrall to the allure of the prize; last year’s winner Alan Hollinghurst (The Line of Beauty) stated that he will be grateful to

An unexpected winner

the judges for their decision for ‘the rest of my life’, and Graham Swift, who won in 1996 with Last Orders, pitched in as well: “Prizes don't make writers and writers don't write to win prizes, but in the near-glut of literary awards now on offer, the Booker remains special.

It's the one which, if we're completely honest, we most covet.”

Come the advent of the yearly shortlist and the disclosure of what manages to find its way on there (or fails to), an argument often breaks out over what it is, exactly, that constitutes literary greatness.

For example, the 2003 judges were met with a torrent of ridicule from certain stuffy and particularly old fashioned members of the press for what they chose to be the finest of that year’s crop, DBC Pierre’s debut novel Vernon God Little. The book itself is fantastic, a satire on modern life in America that takes bigger issues (such as the dominance of the right-wing media) in its stride while never forgetting to remain an essentially fun read, and was a brave choice by the panel.

Last year’s recipient Alan Hollinghurst conformed slightly

more to a broadsheet viewpoint of what constitutes a ‘timeless’ novel, but still perturbed a few dissuaded by the graphic nature of its sex scenes.

This year’s shortlist sees young writers such as Zadie Smith and Ali Smith rub shoulders with seasoned veterans Kazuo Ishiguro and Julian Barnes, and whatever decision the judges eventually reach, you can be sure that someone won’t be happy about it. More on that next issue, in the concluding half of our Booker special.

Two Booker Prize winners successfully adapted for the big screen

B o o k s 27

JIM GIRAFFE Daren King

Vintage Paperback

J

im Giraffe is an utterly conventional tale of what happens when your best friend in life is a ghost giraffe from the rough side of the jungle (or Surrey depending on who you believe), who becomes a television star before running off with your wife and your distinctly giraffe-like child.

Indeed when Jim, your giraffe friend, tells you that you are not long for this earth, it is pertinent to erect a huge carcinogenic phone mastin your neighbour’s garden, free a prostitute from her pimp, design a giraffeorientated computer game and perform every act in the lovemaker's lexicon ("it's a dictionary, not a shape Jim").

Confused? Well I certainly was, Jim Giraffe is a bizarre mix between Donnie Darko and Drop Dead Fred (Rik Mayall, Pheobe Cates – you know the one) tells the story of Scott

Spectrum, head writer for the Science Fiction Channel. Scott, or Spec' as Jim likes to call him is renowned for

THE BONE WOMAN Clea Koff Atlantic Books

Mass graves in Rwanda

C

lea Koff’s The Bone Woman offers a compelling insight into the world of a forensic anthropologist. The memoir documents Koff’s work in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as she exhumes the bodies of those massacred in genocide.

Her job is to identify the bodies and skeletons left heaped in mass graves. The task is painstaking, disturbing and often gruesome.

The governments responsible for the genocides often maintain that they never happened. In the case of the Rwandan massacre, it was explained as “spontaneous, tribal violence”. War crimes investigators such as Koff are able to provide crucial evidence of the bodies piled in mass graves so that the people responsible can be brought to justice.

The recovering of bodies provides the solid truth, and allows history to tell the real story of what happened.

The atrocity of the killings cannot fail to disturb a reader as Koff often exhumes bodies with their hands tied behind their backs or shot from behind, meaning that they could not have fought back. By identifying the bodies, relatives of the victims are finally able to accept what happened and can grieve for the dead.

The scenes of death and decay

his hit show, Space Man In Space, but lives a demure existence with his wife Continence, who is too busy fantasising about her vibrator ('Leroy') whilst scrubbing the skirting boards to notice Scott's misadventures.

During Jim Giraffe's frequent descents into madness (Scott and his wife are cured for 'brain-cancer' by a doctor shoving medicated cream up their backsides) it still retains a childish glee. Despite the madness surrounding, and often caused by Scott and Jim, characters often have very matter-of fact names – see Barry Rhino and Samuel Surreal and his Surreal Seal, Saul.

This lack of vivid description is reminiscent of Mark Haddon's autistic Christopher in The Curious Incident… and manages to make what, by all rights, ought to be a quite disturbing story, a wonder of the imagination and an absolute pleasure to read.

Will Dean make for a somewhat harrowing read, but this is lightened by Koff’s personal style and her incredible optimism in the face of a seemingly impossible task.

The Bone Woman isn’t a fluffy holiday novel-lite, but it is a fascinating and eye-opening account of the horrors that criminal governments conceal from their people and the world.

Kim O’Connor

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Music

music@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

“To the one true God above, this is my prayer...”

By Harold Shiel Music Editor

T

he first words of one of the most affecting and, more importantly, passionate songs it has ever been my pleasure to hear.

Prayer To God by punk-rock heroes Shellac is the angriest and most beautiful love-song there is. I have spent many a lonely evening trying to fathom why it is that this song is so powerful. How it is that Steve Albini manages to make you truly believe what he is saying. How he makes you understand every emotion he is conveying to the point where you too want the Lord to strike these two evil people down. How he then lets you realise that what he really wants is not for them to die, but to return to the love he once had with this woman. In knowing he never will, he can’t cope with anyone else being with her in his place. How does he do it?

I am always trying to write lyrics that do justice to what I am feeling and trying to say. I am never comfort-

able with the outcome. I never feel satisfied that I have covered all the bases, that people will fail to see what I am getting at, to understand my ‘witty’ wordplay and my lucid turn of phrase. It is this, however, that is my downfall. Through my own careful attention to how people will listen to my words I am ignoring the most important element: passion. When Albini wrote those lyrics he didn’t sit down and decide to write a song about splitting up with his wife and see what he could come up with. He sat down having recently actually split up with his wife and poured his aching, angry heart onto the page. He then stormed into the studio and sung these words that meant so much to him into the microphone.

Thanks to this we are blessed with a slice of his frailty so thick with passion that we cannot help but respect his cries.

The realisation that passion is the defining factor in the song’s effectiveness, made me think further. I listened to other stuff that had made me ask similar questions. I listened

to Antony & the Johnsons most recent Mercury winning effort and I was struck again. When singing about his deep-seated desire to have been born a woman you feel his delicate, mournful voice cutting into you, almost pleading with you to help him. Now I can see that this is because of the truth behind the words lending them this added passion so sadly lacking in so many more contrived songs.

This passion, this passionate belief in every word they are giving us, is what guarantees we can understand their strife, maybe even learn from it.

So many bands have a message for us, so many bands can’t understand why they fall by the wayside when they are ‘more talented musically’ or have a more ‘verbose’ turn of phrase, or are ‘prettier’ to look at than these valuable few. What they don’t understand, maybe won’t understand is that when they ask rhetorically, "what have they got that we haven’t," the answer that should be forced down their throats is, "Passion. You need more passion if you are ever going to mean anything to me."

ELBOW Leaders Of The Free World V2

Boozy Mancs’ best effort AFTER THE SWELL of post-millennial Mancunian soap-dodger rock, Elbow appeared to get left behind by the Mercury prize-winning exploits of Badly Drawn Boy and the chart success of Doves.

However their second album, Cast of Thousands featuring, a cameo by half the crowd at Glastonbury, managed to persuade a new audience that Guy Garvey and co. weren’t just another Fat Beardy Band.

Now they’ve repeated the trick. And how. Leaders Of The Free World is such an obvious step forward that it beggars belief. Lead-off single Forget Myself is an outsider’s tour of Manchester at 10pm on a Friday, and is an album, even a career for that matter, highlight. While Leaders of The Free World, in which the G8 leaders are cast as little boys, takes the baton for the middle of the album and

SIGUR ROS Takk...

EMI

Ethereal, glacial, and er, nice IS IT ACTUALLY possible to review a new Sigur Ros record without using the words 'ethereal', 'glacial' or 'shimmering'? Well, no, as aptly demonstrated. The question is, then, whether it is actually any good, or simply just sounds like Sigur Ros. The group's second album, Agaetis Byrjun, was beautiful and daring, but the follow-up (entitled () and lacking any song titles) seemed to lack focus and, despite some glorious moments, often seemed to meander down an increasingly gloomy path.

Sigur Ros joke that they've made a 'rock and roll' album, with this, their fourth full-length. One gets the impression, however, that they acknowledge this is the most immediately accessible album of their career (many of the songs clocking in at under five minutes), a feat they've managed to achieve without sacrificing any of their trademark resplendent wonder.

The guitar/bass/drums template is

keeps it until final track, the glorious Puncture Repair.

One of the most frequent putdowns of Elbow is that they are a pedestrian affair. This is mainly due to the other bands they have been lumped together with. Admittedly Garvey’s voice often sounds like that of a man with other things on his mind, but it also captures perfectly the emotions of a generation of men used to hiding their emotions behind a veneer of alcohol and sport. It’s music to contradict Robert Smith boys do cry.

Albums

It’s a thrill to see a group steadily grow with their careers. They may not be exciting, but by-God they’re effective. 9/10 Will Dean

Pick e of th k Wee

ELBOW: New leaders of the Free World

adhered to more closely throughout, and Jonsi Birgisson's unique, often wordless vocal melodies commandeer these vast soundscapes more effectively than ever before. Glosoli and Milano are perhaps the highlights here, as guitars, strings and pianos converge in increasingly transcendent, and, yes, joyous fashion.

Takk… ('Thanks…' in Icelandic) is a magisterial, huge, effortless album, and one that seems to offer more to the listener with each listen. 9/10 James Skinner

DEVENDRA BANHART Cripple Cow XL

Whacky beard. Whackier songs NU-FOLK, LIKE Nu-Metal, should be shit. Unlike nu-metal, however, it isn’t. From the childlike, harp-fuelled loveliness of Joanna Newsom, to the dark and soulful mournings of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; the scene is thriving.

We have one of the finest purveyor here, who, coupled with a handsome back catalogue and a charming take on life, has led the way for his con-

29

temporaries and heroes alike. With three albums behind him already (Oh Me Oh My The Way The Day Goes By The Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs Of The Christmas Spirit, Rejoicing In The Hands and Nino Rojo) his newest effort Cripple Crow has a lot to live up to.

Born in Texas and then swiftly moved to Venezuela, where he spent his formative years, thus his first language is Spanish. His mother remarried and he was moved again, this time to Encinal Canyon, California where he learnt English and ‘Music’.

22 tracks seems quite daunting and, despite his famed profligacy when it comes to writing, Devendra’s quality control lets him down here. To my mind his lyrical style is at it’s most potent when he uses repetitive mantras with inventive wordplay to build up an anthemic melee. There are some wonderful examples of this on Cripple Crow; Chinese Children and I Feel Just Like A Child to name my personal favourites. That still leaves 20 songs though.

This is the problem, there’s just not enough real quality to justify 22 songs. As a 10-track album this would be great, but as it is this is only OK. 6/10 Harold Shiel

OCEANSIZE Everyone Into Position

CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Eponymous

30 Albums

Beggars Banquet

4AD (Import)

MCFLY Wonderland Island

Faux Busted flop-out CRAWLING INTO the rabbit hole I fully expected to be confronted by a temporally-obsessed burrowing lagomorph and some psychotic playing cards.

Imagine my incredulity when aurally greeted by Beach Boys - Busted hybrid McFly, sporting haircuts usually reserved for sex offenders and clutching guitars as if their credibility depended upon it.

In this non-eponymous offering, Dougie, Danny, Tom and Harry provide an adequate soundtrack for prepubescent self-fumbling. Much to their credit the boys achieve in giving the punters exactly what they lust: fun, catchy yet superficial pop. Single-tastic I'll Be Ok is a strong opener, whilst rather more perturbing, during I Wanna Hold You I caught myself singing into my yellow vibrator at the mirror. Charidee favourite All About You serves as the stand out track, although it transpires not to be an ode to sheep. It's a jolly affair but ultimately shit. Save yourself a tenner and sponsor a donkey instead. 4/10 Andy Johnson

PAUL WELLER As Is Now

Jump for joy, say definitely

Manc noiseniks’ second coming

THIS ALBUM HAS grown close to my heart in the short time I’ve owned it.

From the delicate warblings of frontman Alec Ounsworth and his wonderfully placed harmonica blasts to the ambling niceties of the backing band.

Such joy is contained in the images conjured by the five well-placed words these boys have chosen to adorn the banner they will sail under for the duration of their (hopefully long) career. You will hear a lot more about this band as they receive rave reviews left, right and centre. After the anomalous cries of opener Clap Your Hands! they flow through umpteen reference points from the A-Z of good reference points while never lingering long enough to be called derivative. A good band who will have the world clapping and crying ‘YEAH!’ in unison before you can say ‘The Arcade who?’

9/10 Harold Shiel

PRECONCEPTIONS are a terrible thing. However you thought this’d end up, you’re wrong, I guarantee you that. 2004’s Effloresce was a rampant assault on the senses that battered and bruised before gently nursing you back to health.

The Music For Nurses E.P. sandwiched between these two full length releases, did more of the battering and less of the giving a shit. Everyone Into Position, therefore, is Oceansize’s way of saying sorry. Fuck the flowers and chocolates, this is far more absorbing. It’s not easy listening, but it’s rewarding to an unprecedented level, tugging on every emotion as it navigates through a quagmire of depravation, abuse and apathy.

In Music for a Nurse, the band ultimately produce their best ever recording; a brave dive into the expansive nature of the bands sound. Recent single Heaven Alive diverts in similar fashion, albeit into the more commercial traits of big-sounding guitar choruses. The orchestral harmony of Ornament/The Last Wrongs brings the curtain down in bombastic style, and SNAP, we’re back in the real world. It may not be as bleak as the picture so elaborately painted, but it sure as hell isn’t as beautiful.

9/10

NINJAH I Bless The Day I Found You Boobytrap

Rastafarian bin-banging Welshman

OI, YOU! YES, YOU!! Pretentious looking wankers sneering from behind your elongated fringe and drinking your bottle of Becks (It's more expensive and a smaller bottle - why drink it?). Paul Weller’s back! Who?!?

You know, he's that old fart whose released more albums than you have pin badges with ironic slogans. But then thats not cool is it? You'd allrather asphyxiwank over the new-newnew-Bloc Party, who despite not ever recording a song, your mate saw throw up in the Camden Barfly. And thats so rock n' roll. Pricks. 7/10

CORRECT, YOU read it right. Ninjah, the pipe-cleaner thin, seven foot something, golden dreadlocked Rastafarian who wears sequinned waistcoats, looks like a cat and bangs on the bins outside Littlewoods from 10am ‘til 10 at night, has made an album.

Extraordinarily, it sounds like Roots Manuva: double thick bass slopped over simple chiming beats and Ninjah’s ragged Carribean howl. Within this UK Mania represents the best rhymes and Suicide, the rawest with its three minutes of open-heart surgery.

Admittedly he certainly isn’t going to beat Dizzie Rascal’s sales anytime time soon but it’s a cultured effort from a bloke who most people dismissed as an escapee from the local asylum. May he and Toy Mike Trevor reign supreme as the Kings of Queen Street forever. 7/10

Sam Coare

Greg Cochrane

V2

Veteran mod-rocker returns

Sam Coare

GET INVOLVED...

As always, we are looking for new contributors for the coming year. We can’t offer much in the way of salary: in fact, we can’t offer any at all.

What we can endeavour to do though, is supply you with the latest releases and those sought after gig tickets in exchange for your creative contributions.

Simply come along to our weekly meetings,(Monday 6-7pm, 4th floor Union) have a chat with the editorial team and get involved. We don’t ask that you have any previous writing experience, and we certainly don’t ask for a level or style of work. All we ask is that you are enthusiastic about your topic and have a good grasp of deadlines.

Feel free to drop by the office at any time, or drop us an email if you’d prefer. gairrhyddmusic@gmail.com

THE

DECEMBERISTS

be together again, but know not if we can possibly wait that long. 9/10

Rough Trade

Harold Shiel

Picaresque

TRACY AND THE PLASTICS Culture For Pigeon

Songs to live your love-life to I LOVE LISTENING to an album that I can imagine loving a beautiful girl to.

Picaresque is just that. It’s macabre, burlesque, cabaret style throws emotion about like confetti at the climax of my imaginary wedding.

The tale Colin Meloy weaves with his words in We Both Go Down Together is one of Shakespearian eloquence. Two star-struck lovers (both alike in dig...enough) united against familial adversity. I am led to imagine sitting together with this girl from my dreams knowing I couldn’t let her go even if I tried and she me neither.

With 16 Military Wives we’re dancing around our shabby, one-bedroom apartment in downtown New York City without a care for consequences.

We’re growing later and later for our underpaid yet satisfying jobs in trendy indie labels just happy to jump about, be together and annoy the neighbours.

My favourite moment, however, in both my relationship with this record and with my made-up love, comes in the shape of The Mariner’s Revenge Song. Separated by circumstance, we sit alone in our respective cells both listening to Meloy’s aching melodies of vengeance, and stare longingly from our windows, straining for a glimpse of one another once more. A single tear rolls down each of our cheeks as we know we will one day

Albums

31

WE ARE SCIENTISTS With Love And Squalor Virgin

Too Pure

Crack lounge piss-up

Unscientific spaz-disco rock

THE TITLE OF THE album should give the game away – this is music by mentalists, for mentalists.

Culture for Pigeon is the kind of record that might be made by the lovechild of (a much more tormented) Norah Jones and a drum machine in a crack lounge equipped with an organ.

(A real organ, mind, none of your electric shite.)

In spite of its bizarreness, or perhaps because of it, it’s utterly compelling stuff. Unlike most solo female artists, when Tracy sings it’s completely believable. Combine this with The Plastics’ (actually just pre-recorded Tracy AKA Wynne Greenwood) music the Washington feminist’s latest offering is lifted above your average light-angst Muse-esque whinge and made acceptable for your more pretentious muso too.

A more interesting alternative to both ‘alternative’ and mainstream genres alike, just one question remains: can we please book her for next year’s Summer Ball? 7/10

NEVER TRUST a moustache, and with this sentiment come the Californian handle-bar sporting twitpunks We Are Scientists. Less experimental than their name might suggest but still fantastically unruly and untrustworthy.

Cloaked in blood-stained lab jackets With Love And Squalor begins by revving furiously, sounding like someone performing plastic reconstruction on the Strokes, cutting and pasting body parts before giving Hot Hot Heat a makeshift triple heart by-pass.

In this frightful race to the finish post, first prize goes to Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt, a hell-raising disco nose-crusher, a tune so magnetic it sticks to your face. A close second, The Great Escape swerves and curves like a drunken bride on the dancefloor, before landing on the cake and passing out. Principally the rest is a puzzle of flourescent guitars injected with a sizeable dose of fuzzy dancability. As destructive as a wrecking ball and twice as much fun.

8/10

Geordie

Greg Cochrane

“

I spent the s ummer with. ..Amp Fiddle basking r

Well, to start with, the whole of the Amp Fiddler album is frankly superb. My justification for this is that I’m a big fan of a nice slice of chilled out funk hop, if that is even a genre, so Waltz was always going to win big with me.

The track itself is just really really mellow and reminds me of chilling out in the sun after my finals, sipping on cocktails or cold beer with my fellow course mates.

Tom Wellingham Student Media Mogul Dreamin’ - Amp Fiddler (From Waltz of a Ghetto Fly)

Amp Fiddler himself has wicked hair that only adds further to the appeal of the album for me, seeing as most of the tunes on here require you to have big hair and bob it in time to the laid back beat which Mr Fiddler supplies.

Summer chilling at its best.

32 Live

EX-MODELS

Cavern, Exeter Sat September 10 th

L READING FESTIVA

Reading

th August 26th - 28 AUGUST BANK holiday only means one thing.

The bi-annual Bog Snorkling Championships in Haemorrhoids: So Painful Shepton Mallet are upon us. No? Oh yes, and a little know gathering called Reading Festival. Here’s 20 bands reviewed in one word each due to time and inebriation constraints.

Blood Brothers: Hot Yourcodenameis:milo: Gash Dead 60’s: Dull Test Icicles: Explosive Mr Scruff: Jazzylicious The Tears: Forgot Pixies: DEBASER! Babyshambles: Surprising Arcade Fire: Smoking Goldie Lookin’ Chain: Safe Biffy Clyro: Bombastic Alkaline Trio: Acidic Iron Maiden: Mighty The Killers: ZZZZZZZZ… Queens of the Stone Age: Wounded Death From Above 1979: Smutty Bloc Party: In-out-in-out-shake-it-all-about Foo Fighters: Righteous Charlotte Hatherley: Delectable Iggy Pop: Rubbery Look out for next year’s issue where we will review every band via the medium of smell. Thank you. Music Eds

INNER

CITY P MOST BUSKERS are IRATES awful. They're usuB arfly ally either tone deaf, talentless Monda y 19th tramps after that Septem ber extra 20p to contribute to their 'White Lightning Fund' or they're tragic deluded fools who lie in wait hoping for that fateful day when Simon Cowell will make them a star. Innercity Pirates are, however, the exception to the rule. Ever since the demise of their previous incarnation, My Red Cell, Russell Toomey and his cohorts can regularly be found taking to the streets of Cardiff in an effort to gain exposure for their new material. And as a rammed Barfly suggests, they may finally be getting through to people. As always the band tear the place a new arsehole....

Their chaotic punky sound pulls them apart from the recent, seemingly endless, wave of dull Franz Ferdinand clones. And with songs as catchy as Bang Bang and Filming a ‘Pirate Video’ Locked In This Game it’s hard to see them having to busk for much longer.

Vince Noir Photo: David Sutheran

AN EMERGENCY has arisen from the ashes of two groups: the nationally lauded Tyler and The Red Letter Code. More ‘yelp’s and ‘wooh’s than ‘strain’s and ‘cry’s, they are certainly a sight to behold. Tonight, sadly only drummer Tom seems to be in the performing mood with guitarists Dan and Ben more interested in finishing than performing to their potential. The songs are tight but that’s all they are.

The evening belongs to the next band, Pit Er Pat. Their attention to detail is what makes them special. From the rack of individually created T-shirts and tops being sold on the merch stand to the intricate sound adventures they create on stage; every stitch, every drumbeat and every word has been lavished with due care, attention and passion.

How was he Their songs ever a model? are mesmerising, simplistic keyboards dancing atop drumming which never seems to replicate itself and a male backing singer with a more feminine voice than the frontwoman who only breaks concentration to smile for a second when her friend is struggling with the volume of a well-placed effect.

Tonight’s headliners are Ex-Models, an erstwhile four-piece, reduced to a two-piece. On the back of their album Zoo Psychology I am expecting great things but sadly they fail to deliver on most accounts. I have a softspot for gigs which are a chore to sit (or stand) through: The Locust at the Barfly; Spoon at ATP. This is one of those such gigs. I couldn’t say I enjoyed it but I did look favourably on their conviction, their stand against expectation. They weren’t going to let the hecklers get them down or make them compromise themselves: admirable but sadly not enjoyable.

So from fervour to fun and from focus to "fuck offs" tonight has a lot to be said for it. Harold Shiel

U2 All Because Of You Universal Island

I once gave this band nine from ten.

Shan't be doing that again.

'Cause this song is duller, Than a band of Simon Fuller, And that chap from A1 called Ben. 2/10 WD (Taken from the album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Out now)

ROBBIE WILLIAMS Tripping EMI

Bubbly but with an annoyingly sweet repetition, champagne rather than ecstacy. Refreshing yet recognisably Robbie, with its soothing instrumental melody that tickles until it’s loved.

This is set to be burning up the charts. 5/10 CH (Taken from the forthcoming album Intensive Care.)

JOSEPH ARTHUR Even Tho Vector

Playlist Troubling the Quench stereo this week...

#1 Music to prune the hedge to: The inoffensive dad-rock soundtrack to the morning school-run

Now onto his fourth album, Joseph Arthur seems a cut above the many singer/songwriters that have been trumpeted over the past couple of years. Possessing one of those soulful voices that can nudge the neck hairs into action, his time may well have come. 8/10 CG

Music

33

HARD-FI Living For The Weekend Warner

Robust drums, sing-along vocals, gigantic bass, but nut-crackingly painful. Your Auntie Mavis will love every second. 5/10 GC (Taken from the album Stars of CCTV. Out Now)

RICHARD HAWLEY The Ocean Mute Records

Lead off single from the former Longpigs and Pulp guitarist sees Hawley’s best Johnny Cash impression. It works though, in combining the sounds of his former bands.

However, it’s nothing to alarm the charts.

6/10 WD (Taken from the forthcoming album Cole's Corner)

NEW ORDER Waiting from the Sirens’ Call London Records

A big slab of cheesy, Bon-Jovi-wouldbe-proud piss-weak radio rock.

Instantly, if not somewhat guiltily, likeable. 7/10 SC (Taken from the album Waiting for the Sirens’ Call. Out Now)

(Taken from the album Our Shadows Will Remain. Out Now)

idol band-ter 1) If you could be anyone in the world for 24 hours, who would you be and why?

“Clint Eastwood on his day off, doing nothing but reflecting on his life and ddy wondering where the hell to go for dinner.”

Lytle, Granda n o s Ja 2) If you could have a signature piece of equipment what would it look like?

“TANK SHOES - Roller-skates that are also stealthy and don’t have the disco stigma.”

3) What’s your favourite album of the last 12 months?

“I don’t like to listen to music when I’m working on an album. But 18 months ago, I enjoyed an album called Das Not Compute by Division of Laura Lee.” 4) When and where was your happiest moment?

“Five years old drawing pictures, listening to headphones in my house before my family disintegrated.”

5) If you had a T.V channel, what would be on it?

“My own show, called What Weird Shit People Do On Their Lunch Breaks.”

Pr

34 Music Beginners’ Guide

og

Ro

P

rog-rock is, by its very nature, about the future, about pushing things forward, trying new things and experimenting. It does seem strange to write a history of such a thing, but a task awash with pleasures and treasures. Who came first… the Crimson or Yes? Or maybe Purple or the Floyd? There are arguments for all of them but, essentially, it’s not important.

What’s important is that Prog-Rock isn’t overlooked or brushed under the carpet.

Prog extends from the sublime The Mars Volta’s first album - to the ridiculous - when Yes’ eccentric keyboardist Rick Wakeman took his solo album, The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table, onto the ice. It was a laughing stock, but I still wish I’d seen it.

Thankfully Prog has had a resurgence of late. If you value talent, songsmanship and have a bit of time on your hands, you should definitely make in-roads into the weird and wonderful world of Progressive-Rock.

5

THE MARS VOLTA

De-Loused In The Comatorium Glorious musicianship with beautiful vocals from erstwhile At The Drive-In stalwarts and friends.

MIKE OLDFIELD

Tubular Bells The first ever release on Richard Branson’s fledgling Virgin label also provides music for The Exorcist.

KING CRIMSON

ck

DREAM THEATER

Metropolis PtII: Scenes From A Memory Laughable vocals about regressive therapy solving a murder, but in Mike Portnoy, the best drummer money can buy.

me Beco ert PINK FLOYD p an ex £50 AP.U.L.S.E live double-album with a complete rendition of Dark Side with Of The Moon, the best bits from

In The Court Of The Crimson King Robert Fripp, guitarist of King Crimson, is married to Toyah Wilcox of the Teletubbies.

The Wall and Wish You Were Here.

TOOL

Lateralus Elaboration gone over-board from the masterful mind of Maynard James Keenan, also of A Perfect Circle fame.

FIVE ARE-LIVE ...

The top five gigs you’d be a numpty to miss...

When: Sunday 2nd October Who: X-Ecutioners Where: Cardiff Barfly

Hip-hop purveyors and one-time Linkin Park collaborators arrive in Cardiff for the first time. Email us at gairrhyddmusic@gmail.com with X-Ecutioners in the subject line and your name and mobile number by September 30th, and you and a friend could get added to the Barfly guestlist to see the show for free, thanks to our friends at the ‘Fly. The winner will be notified on October 1st.

When: Sunday 2nd October Who: Nokia Raw Presents...Radio Soulwax Where: University Great Hall Towing both their live band and record bags, The Dewaele brothers serve up the best mash ups and a ferocious live dance spectacular.

When: Monday 3rd October Who: White Rose Movement Where: Cardiff Barfly London bleach-haired angular rockers attempt to blitz.

When: Tuesday 4th October Who: Joseph Arthur Where: Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach Slightly more kookie, horrendously more talented James Blunt-a-like plays Welsh Club supporting his new album Our Shadows Will Remain.

When: Sunday 9th October Who: Arctic Monkeys Where: Cardiff Coal Exchange They might have the worst band name since Ned’s Atomic Dustbin but that sure as hell ain’t going to stop them being 2006’s Libertines.

36

Arts

Photomarathon @ BayArt Gallery, Cardiff Bay

T

he second Photomarathon UK took place on August 13th in Cardiff and the results are on show at the BayArt gallery this month. A photomarathon works like this: entrants have to take 12 pictures of 12 different topics in just 12 hours. Over 200 people took part in this year’s competition, which is part of the Cardiff 2005 centenary celebrations.

The subjects presented to the snappers produced an interesting variety of images. My favourite in the ‘childhood’ category was a picture of

The Haunted Hotel @ New Theatre

T

he Haunted Hotel initially had me worried. The title was so clichéd that I imagined scenes of actors running around, dressed in white bed sheets, while Scooby and the gang solved the mystery.

However I was initially pleasantly surprised to find that it was not set within a hotel at all. Instead, the play, written by Wilkie Collins, uses the ‘play-within-a-play’ scenario, where actors are playing actors that are acting out a scene within a hotel.

arts@gairrhydd.com

one of those black and orange swings with gaps for your legs to stick through, swinging by itself, as if someone had just jumped off. An entry for the subject ‘5 o’clock’ featured an inspired photo of a shirt with top button undone and the tie in the process of being loosened. Slightly more bizarre was a photo for the ‘self portrait’ category of a toilet bowl with a poo floating in it. Nice.

Entry to the Photomarathon was open to all, with the key factor being not professional ability but creativity and imagination in interpreting the topics given. The exhibition features a photo-document of the event itself and it looks like a lot of fun. Obviously there’s a prize to be had, but the competition is also a chance for a day out with a difference. So, for any budding The play starts off well with the excellent William Gaunt strutting on stage. However, about five minutes into the play it’s clear that something is certainly terrifying, and unfortunately it’s not the supposedly “super special effects”.

The story dashes from trying to be amusing and scary but in an incredibly uneven way that leaves most people baffled on what is meant to be funny or scary. Too many times throughout the play the scene starts to build up intensity only to be ruined by some off the cuff remark.

The Haunted Hotel doesn’t know what it wants to be and subsequently falls flat on its face.

Andy Connolly

26 09 05

David Baileys among you, keep an eye out for details of next year’s event.

Entry to BayArt is free. Opening hours are 11am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday. www.photomarathon.co.uk Kim O’Connor

What’s on Horrible Histories @ New Theatre, September 27 October 1 Remember these stories from when you were little? You can’t miss this chance to reminisce about your childhood and it’s also educational.

Your mum would be proud.

The Fall of the House of Usherettes @ Sherman Theatre, September 28 -29 Gothic horror and crazy humour combine in this play that fuses live theatre with film projection.

Dove Naked Truth Comedy Tour @ Glee Club, September 28 A night of comedy hosted by Arabella Weir, this will make a perfect girls night out. The all-female comic lineup promise to reveal ‘what it’s really like to be a woman’. Who knows what they’ll come up with, but it’s guaranteed to have you giggling into your cocktail.

Film

SPACEY BALD

With Superman Returns soon upon us, we have been given first hand knowledge that Kevin Spacey will star as the totally bald and solar panel that will be Lex Luthor.

WATERSPORTS ANYONE?

Aronofsky’s The Fountain initially scrapped, word has it, that it is now back on starring Hugh Jackman and now current fuckbuddy Rachel Weisz.

Footage of the production has been viewed and from these sources, it has been called astonishing.

Film News

INVASION

BOND STRIPPED BARE

The next incarnation of 007 will be not as we know him. According to writer Paul Haggis there will be no more Q and no more gadgets. Surely not...

It has been rumoured that Nicole Kidman will star in the latest remake of Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers.

She might play the role of the disenfranchised human who wants to avoid being turned into an emotional version of a cabbage.

HOLLYWOOD FIGHTS BACK Six Hollywood studios have teamed up to fight the mighty battle of internet piracy. They’ve called themselves Motion Pictures Laboratories Inc. and intend to clamp down on incinema filming and file-sharing,

WICKER SHAM

Another in the long line of remakes, The Wicker Man is set for the 21st century treatment. Fortunately, someone is willing to speak out about the unnecessary endevour.

Robin Hardy, director of the original, demanded his name be removed from all promotional material. Good on

M ORE Steve Carell

26 09 05

film@gairrhydd.com

Rumours

After a wonderful turn in the 40 Year Old Vrigin as well as his roles in Anchorman and The Daily Show let’s see more of this man.

Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, fThe Producers, Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...

Think up your own ideas. For once.

Remakes

L ESS

" Sat 3 Out on DVD this week: Mon 26 Sept - Palindromes !" " Kingdom of Heaven Oct - House of Wax !"

Out at cinemas this fortnight: Friday 23 Sept - King’s Game !

Abnormal Beauty ! Friday 3 Oct - History of Violence ! " Deuce Bigalow - European Gigalow Corpse Bride ! Goal! !"

37

film@gairrhydd

By Catherine Gee Film Editor

T

his column was going to be my own creation of The Aristocrats joke. But the more I thought about it the more I realised I didn’t particularly want to write one.

By the way, if you’re already completely lost then I urge you to read the review on page 39 so you get the idea what I’m talking about.

So, I decided that I didn’t really like the joke. And since I have a few objections about the film as well it seemed somewhat futile and and most certainly not as ‘cool’ to write my own version.

To be fair, I was never going to include such incredibly graphic images of excrement and the paternal rapings of pre-teen daughters. I have a bit more taste than that, deciding I could be just as risqué without plummetting to such levels of depravity.

I even had it planned. Over the course of the week since I saw the film I decided that the joke would at least involve a badger, Geordie’s cock rot and a kwik-fit fitter. Whether or not that would have amounted to a funny joke is entirely your own decision. Either way it shall never be told. Mourn its loss if you will, or be eternally thankful that it will never see the light of day.

So you wanna be a Film writer?

Autumn term has started, you are wowing yourself at the ingenuity of Quench and thought ‘hey I can do that.’

If that sounds like you then come along to one of our Quench meetings on Mondays at 6pm on the top floor of the Union. Best to come to the office and ask where as we haven’t decided yet.

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Film

a p a t u o th i W

e l dd

The dingos ate my baby WOLF CREEK Dir. Greg McLean Cast: John Jarrett, Cassandra Magrath, Kesti Morassi Released: out now, 99 mins

T

hree young backpackers experience a terrifying journey after being abducted in the isolated Australian Outback.

Loosely based on the disappearance of two English travellers who went missing in the Australian in 1992. Liz Hunter (Cassandra Magrath) and Kristy Earl (Kestie Morassi) are British twenty-somethings backpacking in the isolated Australian Outback. Along with their new Aussie pal Ben (Nathan Phillips) they buy an old car and drive across the wide open roads. The first half of the movie is like any good road-trip movie with the archetypal bonding, sexual tension and obligatory roadkill.

They arrive at the National Park where Ben describes to them how the meteor formed ‘Wolf Creek’. Going back to their vehicle they find car trouble, but all seems dandy when kindly truck driver and classic Oz bushman type Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) chances upon them offering to

help. But in reality this is only the beginning of their troubles. He tows them back to his place, that of an abandoned mining site, to fix their car, and reminisces with them his past life as a vermin shooter. Then a poignant twist as Liz wakes up alone drugged, gagged and trapped.

Visceral nature of the crucifixion scene Wolf Creek has all the hallmarks for a great horror movie, with the lingering shots of the sparse and isolated outback to the voyeuristic shots of photos from past victims. Horror films in this vein are usually paraded as gratuitous, but this certainly isn’t and the violence and gore is used effectively in small doses. The visceral nature of the crucifixion scene where Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips) prises his wrists away from the lengthy nails that hold them (see Leatherface/TCM 3) is more than difficult to watch. Wolf Creek doesn’t ignore its genre source, and it’s refreshing to see the exclusion of

atypical horror movie clichés, as the romantic elements are not overdone and any explanation of communication loss is abandoned.

Wolf Creek tends to rely on reality rather than the fantastical logic reigns as Liz is methodically paralysed by having her spine stabbed. The first half of the movie is a road-trip movie, the second half couldn’t be more different. The relentless nature of the latter, never desists with the Duelesque car chases and the running through the fog (see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The film continues to heavily reference Tobe Hooper’s low budget TCM where the killer walks off into the sunset after disposing of the wannabe saviour.

The film’s strength lies in its relentless torture, isolated setting, and an unforgettable killer. The naturalistic acting also gives the film an organic and semi-documentary quality. It does have the occasional plot hole, but this is to be expected, given the subject matter. Akin to a cross between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Duel, expect to be uncomfortable as you shit your load.

Ryan Owen

Film

FOUR BROTHERS: Different mothers, shit film FOUR BROTHERS Dir. John Singleton Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Garrett Hedlund, Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin Out Now, 109 mins our brothers, indeed. Seemingly a breeding ground for unlimited decent plots, but in this case not.

The four brothers return to their childhood home when their mother is murdered. They seek vengeance after suspecting a dirty cover-up.

An exercise in over the top clichés, stereotypes and boredom, we see a multi-cultural set of four brothers; jock-fuck, indie-boy, macho sex addict and Outkast-boy. Am I double-crossing my inept family or not? Am I apathetic or do I just not care? For the entire length of this film, it is indeed the latter.

The saving grace, as so frequently one can be found amongst the most putrid of cinematic attempts, is only because of the entertainment to be found in seeing what a prick Wahlberg looks like with his hair slicked back.

Ryan Owen

F

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE Dir. Hayao Mizazaki Cast: Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal Out Now, 119 mins ith enough imagination to rival those boffins at Pixar, master animator Hayao Miyazaki (the Japanese Walt Disney) returns to the big screen with his follow up to the enchanting Spirited Away.

Bored with her life in a sleepy town, Sophie is cursed by an evil witch who transforms her into an old woman.

Sophie escapes her village to a fantastical roaming castle, owned by the mysterious wizard Howl (voiced by

Christian Bale). The story is a ‘love will conquer all’ fairytale that sees Sophie battle to reverse her altered state as she slowly falls for Howl’s charms.

Though we are now all too used to watching toys, insects, monsters and superheroes being brought to life through the wonders of CGI, this Japanese maestro resists the temptation of modern technology, which makes a refreshing change.

The use of visual falls infrequently into gothic territory and at times resembles those used in Monty Python’s Flying Circus thus engulfing the viewer in a truly bizarre world. The animation is flawless throughout and supports the fragile moments that comment on war, greed and lost youth.

Jimi Williams

THE ARISTOCRATS Dir. Paul Provenza Cast: Shitloads of comedians Out Now, 88 mins hen a film advertises itself using a poster that is filled, top to bottom, with the names of the cream of Brit and US comedy along with several critics’

W

39

positive comments it gives the impression that we’re in for an impressive 88 minutes.

It’s having seen such a declaritive poster that makes it bound never to meet expectations. Or maybe it’s just not that funny.

The Aristocrats is an American comedy industry backslap masquerading as a documentary about a joke. Paul Provenza gathers together every established US (and occasional Brit) comic in the business. The topic of conversation is a single joke that is well known amongst those in the industry but has rarely reached the mainstream light of day.

The joke itself is made up of the following formula: A man walks into a talent agent’s office and pitches a new stage show. He then proceeds to describe the most vile filth ever heard. Once finished the talent agent enquires about the name of the show to which the comic triumphantly replies ‘The Aristocrats!’

The joke itself is unique because it allows the teller full freedom to embellish upon the dirtiest imagery their minds can dream up. It encourages profanity and revulsion and rewards a comic who can dream something distgustingly original to add to the repertoire.

Probably the most amusing sequence in the film is the South Park animation created especially for the film.

Though entertaining and worth a look The Aristocrats ultimately fails to live up to the hype it creates for itself.

By falling too easily into the trap of self-congratulation it fails to examine any wider issues which may be associated with such vulgarity.

Catherine Gee

W

PENN AND TELLER: Cick if you can see a rubbish magician

40

Film

Film Desk’s Ryan Owen presents his top five Scorsese Films

2

1

Scorsese released Raging Bull in 1980, which saw Robert De Niro physically transform himself to play middleweight champion Jake LaMotta. The story of the fallen boxing champ earned two Academy Awards and was later selected as the best film of the decade.

In 1976 Scorsese directed Taxi Driver. The film achieved additional notoriety five years after its release when Bickle's (De Niro) concern for a teenaged hooker played by Jodie Foster inspired John Hinckley's assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

RAGING BULL

TAXI DRIVER

3

5

4

1990's GoodFellas (Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay), an exhilarating and frightening look at the everyday life of a Mafia ‘wiseguy,’ won wide acclaim and also reunited Scorsese and De Niro for the sixth time.

He teamed up with DeNiro - their eighth time - for Casino in 1995, for this ultra-violent film where Pesci watches as his brother is beaten to death before him. It also has one of the best voyeuristic shots perusing the casino inside in one shot.

Scorsese directed the gritty and powerful Mean Streets in 1973, a Little Italy slice of life in which the extremely confused protagonist (Harvey Keitel) tries to take care of too many people with disastrous results.

GOODFELLAS

CASINO

MEAN STREETS

In response to the Tartan Asia film festival now at Cineworld, Ryan Owen & Ewen Hosie present their TOP5 festival favourites

Film

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1 Shinya Tsukamoto has crafted a beautiful mini-masterpiece in Vital.

Medical student Hiroshi Takagi suffers amnesia induced from a car crash.

Eventually remembering his training, he studies dissection where he slowly discovers that the cadaver is in fact his ex-girlfriend Ryoko, who had died in the same crash. Weaving between Takagi’s surreal dreams of his exgirlfriend and an aberrant sexual relationship he shares with a medical student, Tsukamoto achieves a maturity with this film beyond his previous works such as Tetsuo. Despite its potentially off-putting surgical detail and themes of dissection, it is an extraordinary accomplishment.

2 One Night in Mongkok offers a sympathetic portrayal of both criminals and cops in the seedy underbelly of the Hong Kong underworld, alike Infernal Affairs. The plot is fairly convoluted, involving an unassuming, bespectacled young hitman Lai Fu, who is sent to Hong Kong to assassinate a Triad leader, in addition to looking for his girlfriend Sue. Harassed by a police team led by determined Officer Milo, Fu underplays his hitman-with-a-conscience to great effect whilst morality is portrayed in shades of grey throughout. Aesthetically, the film is starkly beautiful, with a flawless style recalling Heat-era Michael Mann and the violence when it comes is unflinchingly brutal. The blood-soaked conclusion is one of the best the genre has produced in recent memory.

3 Photography student Jin discovers a passion for capturing pictures of the dead and dying. Living with her lover Jas, her macabre pastime becomes ever more extreme as she begins to become increasingly detached from those around her. The film opens promisingly with atmospheric, neon-soaked cinematography and a strong central premise but it loses its way slightly in the last half hour, ushering in a serial killer gimp subplot that seems somewhat superfluous and a little bit revolting.

Not as engrossing as Oxide Pang’s similarly creepy The Eye, but worth a watch for its slick visuals and twisted sensibilities.

4 A serial killer thriller in the Se7en/Saw mould, Tell Me Something teases the viewer into thinking they have predicted the outcome prematurely, when in fact they are nowhere close. In this respect it doesn’t quite work, as it is a muddled film, but strengths can be found in its dark, dingy aesthetic and some respectable performances. Dismembered body parts are turning up around Seoul in bin bags, and Detective Cho finds out that all the body parts belong to ex-boyfriends of the beautiful Chae, who Detective Cho begins to feel for, but is she what she seems? Overall, Tell Me Something is a film that lacks coherence, neither terrible nor particularly exciting.

5 Another Public Enemy is a re-tread of the 2002 crime drama Public Enemy from director Woo-suk Kang. When corrupt public official and all-round evil bastard Sang-woo Han is implicated in the murder of his Myung-sun Foundation exec father, it is up to ass-kicking Chief Prosecutor Chul-jung Kang to sort it out when everyone else turns away. To complicate matters, it turns out that these two were school chums back in the day, and it doesn’t help that Sang-woo has friends in high places. Jun-ho Jeung makes for an effective villain in what is a familiar story, told with some style, although the action is done in a slightly exaggerated kung-fu style that works against the dramatics.

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Film

on Ring two ky o dvd. spo RING TWO, rel. 29th August IN THIS HORROR SEQUEL from Japanese master Hideo Nakata, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son Aidan (David Dorfman) have relocated. Rachel links a local homicide to the mysterious video tape, which she then finds and destroys the killer videotape. Soon after, Aidan is hospitalized; unconscious, perilously cold, and bruised. Rachel suspects this is the act of the vengeful ghost Samara Morgan, but the local physician, Dr. Emma Temple, suspects otherwise.

Having being blamed for child abuse

The DVDon

Reviews you cant refuse PUNK:ATTITUDE, rel. Out Now Punk: Attitude is a documentary on the music, performers, attitude and distinctive look that made up punk rock, that covers the lifespan and evolvement of Punk. Punk as an attitude is discussed in length in interviews through the eyes of Henry Rollins, Chrissie Hynde, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Jones, Paul Simonon and Jim Jarmusch. If that wasn’t enough it also features footage of the Stooges and the Sex Pistols.

The Don Says: “I once called Steve Jones a Punk. He proceeded to cut off all my limbs and sent them to my blind Grandma. She now uses my limbs for draught excluders” ONG BAK, rel. 29th August High kicking, kung fuing, judo chopping fun. Tony Jaa may well be the nearest the 21st century will get to Bruce Lee so catch him while he’s young and not finding his way to an early grave by fighting too much.

Competition and looking guilty as sin, Rachel returns to Seattle to dig deeper into the past of the ghostly Samara who is apparently trying to re-enter corporeal existence by using Aidan as a conduit/host. Will the secrets Rachel uncovers solve problems, or will they end more lives?

Email the answer to us at grfilmdesk@hotmail.com to receive one of three copies of Ring Two.

The Ring Two is out on DVD and be prepared to have it from FilmDesk for free. All you have to do is sell your soul by answering this simple question.

In When the Wind Blows, what happens to elderly couple Jim and Hilda when they hide under a door, obeying the government protect-and-survive information?

Admittedly it takes a strong stomach to put up with the graphic fight scenes let alone the female lead’s incessant screaming but if you’re game then don’t let that deter you.

The Don Says: “I once had a fight. I cheated and threw a house on the other chap. His parents weren’t happy, they were still in the bedroom when I threw it” WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, rel. 26th September With the help of government-issued pamphlets, a sweet elderly British couple, Jim and Hilda build a shelter and prepare for an impending nuclear attack, unaware that times and the nature of war have changed from their romantic memories of World War II. Jim and Hilda are slowly dying from the "fallout" radition poisoning and they will probably not survive.

Heart-breaking stuff...

The Don Says: “I once hid under a door to survive a nuclear apocolypse. I now have an aborted foetus on my forehead” THE EDUKATORS, rel. 26th September Filled with idealistic ideas in a corrupt world, The Edukators gives us a quick lesson in materialism and its evil ways. In many ways an accomplished effort with flawless performances and beautiful camera work.

Attributions of anarchy are somewhat misplaced in a film which focuses on

the rearrangement of furniture in strangers’ houses.

It is, however, up to the viewer whether they interpret it as inoocent idealism or leftist propaganda.

The Don Says: “I once tried to start a revolution. Unfortunately swapping the salt and sugar backfired and when the Queen came round for tea, I killed her. She haunts me every time I make a brew”

THE CANNELONI SPECIAL SIN CITY Rel. Out Now

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he ‘biggest’ release of the year has arrived on DVD. Everybody send out the parlour boy to go purchase a copy.

The juggernaut is here and you know every boy in the Western hemisphere will be quaking with anticipation. Fair that they should do that because it is a damn good film.

Rodriguez pulls together an impressive cast and uses impressive graphics to produce cinematic dynamite. The only beef, should we need one, is the extras are unsatisfactory. As a thank you to the paying public all we get is an eight minute behind-the-scenes promo.

Robert, this is not good enough.

The Don Says: “I once lived in a sinful city. I left because the tramps took over, using me as a whore for midgets”

C u l t C l a s s i c s

26 09 05

classics@gairrhydd.com

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This week we reach for the stars in an almost literal sense with some truly stonking Cult Classics that would even make a Dalek blush.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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ne Thursday lunchtime the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place.

The creation of the late computer evangelist writer Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deservedly holds a place in many scifi fans heart. It’s distinctly British flavour allied with its outlandish plotlines and playful nonchalance have earned this story a place among the highest echelons of the sci-fi aristocracy and the series sits comfortably wedged in between your average fan’s Star Trek and Red Dwarf episode collections.

Although the recent re-make was a tad disappointing (Alan Rickman just doesn’t do miserable, he does evil) this story told in any form is well worth checking out. For readers this is especially true as the book has three brilliant sequels which broaden the story far beyond the settings of the first one.

Chris Heaton

Got a Cult Classic? Lets Have it at: cultclassics@gairryhdd.com

The Twilight Zone (Article of the week)

The Novels of Sci-Fi Writer Philip K. Dick

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Classic Dick

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ver the summer I started reading some of the novels written by this guy to see if they were any good. Turns out that Herr Dick was pretty damm important in the development of modern science fiction. His work struck me as starkly reminiscent of some classic sci-fi films. My hunch proved accurate when I read the oddly titled yet brilliant Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Suddenly I thought ‘Wait! this is like Blade Runner’. After looking into it my presumptions proved accurate. The films Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and Paycheck all owe their existence to this God of a man.

I’d describe reading Philip K. Dick’s novels as a pleasure. He is capable of passages that run in an entirely uncomplicated manner so that the plot is easy to follow. On the other hand his tales of false perceptions and twisted realities can be challenging to master since Dick often opens a novel by throwing the reader into a story without much slack.

Consequently figuring out the complexities and parameters of Dick’s world becomes a real task. Once this is overcome the character and engaging plotline of the story and takes hold, and as you can plainly see, I think these stories are pretty good.

Matthew Turtle

wonder if Rod Sterling realised it when he called his “weird stories of the Twilight Zone” the term would become part of modern language. Sterling describes his stories as “a journey into a wonderous land where boundaries are that of the imagination. As a child who grew up watching these shows, it was a wonderous journey whenever they were on and a show that never failed to capture the imagination.

Featured in a number of different episodes were big names such as Robert Redford, William Shatner, Charles Bronsen, Bill Murray, Lee Mavis and James Coburn to name but a few. Of the 156 episodes Rod Sterling was the writer of 92 of them.

His presence at the beginning of each show coupled with that familiar music and spacey opening became a lovable motiff for the show and a standard for others to follow.

I still watch all the old episodes. I did try the ‘re-make’ but it didn’t compare to the black and white originals.

Like many people I don’t believe in re-making older classics as I feel that perfection should be left alone. The originals offered a glimpse of a more innocent part of American culture before the explosion of the 60s and everything that came with it. What remake could compare with that?

Naomi Cohen

The Real Slim Shady: Shatner Appeared

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Digital

digital@gairrhydd.com

Cyber-bonding

26 09 05

Jimi Williams on how killing his housemates on a regular basis keeps him, and them, sane

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ake a moment to think back to all the times you have been really pissed off with your housemates. They never help around the house, always seem to be pissed or suffering from PMT, never contribute to anything and steal your food.

Now picture yourself locked in a chamber with your so-called-friends with a rocket launcher strapped to your arm. Now the fun can really begin. This is the kind of therapy that cannot be prescribed through the NHS. Call it what you will, but my housemates and I now share a healthy, accommodating relationship because we take that little extra time out of each day to blow the holy bejeesus out of each other.

Our Xbox has pride of place in our living room, and acts as a focal point for entertaining when we have friends over. It may sound strange to some of you but sitting around playing a video game together can boost the general morale in your household.

Halo and Halo 2 are the perfect shoot-em-up’s to vent this frustration with, and will provide you and your pals with hours of laughs, tears and victorious moments; heck some of you may even learn how to work together!

The Halo games also allow you to drive tanks, jeeps, and fly ships around if you are in a particularly destructive mood; there is no greater sound than that of your tank blowing away one of your closest friends on their little camp hover bike. A good portion of last year was spent communally playing our Xbox and it was a real bonding experience.

Our other favourite time consumer was none other than the male favourite FIFA 2005. There is nothing more thrilling than beating one of your housemates who has been bragging for ages that they are unbeatable; to only later give them a 6-0 spanking.

You can set up tournaments, create little players that look like your housemates or simply play the computer if you suddenly find yourself on your lonesome.

Just think, if you are one of those individuals who support a relatively unsuccessful team you can improve them with your managerial skills and take them to European glory. Ronaldo playing for Wigan anyone?

Both Halo and FIFA support up to four players simultaneously so if you live in a house of four you can all play at the same time and you even get to have your very own shiny controller.

Any more than four housemates living in your hovel and you may find someone feeling a tad left out skulking in the corner. Word of warning: multiplayer madness after the consumption of alcohol leads to spillages and sticky, crusty control pads.

As we start this new academic year I think it is important for our individual housing communities to feel more connected with one another, after all doing the washing up should be a cinch compared to winning the premiership and stopping an alien invasion surely?

Going Out

26 09 05

goingout@gairrhydd.com

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Food for

under a...

Is it possible to eat out in Cardiff for under a fiver without resorting to fast food? Lisa O’Brien finds out

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THE END Coburn Street

o be honest, I could have picked any one from a number of generic pubs from big chains. For example, if you are prepared to go 'double Dutch', Wetherspoon’s offers two meals for £5.99. Alternatively the Pen and Wig offers a cosy oldman-pub atmosphere while serving good traditional food, and most of its menu is just short of £5.

However The End boasts a big claim, all its food is under £3. Could this be true? Well, yes, and indeed it serves a useful purpose if all you want is to grab something quick (well fairly quick depending on how busy the pub is). The menu is nothing above standard, i.e. burgers, jacket potatoes, chilli etc. It could never be classed as a culinary delight, but nonetheless it is definitely value for money.

The pub is cosy, and although it is open plan in layout it is still relatively easy to find a corner to scoff your face. The long tables and bench seating, although highly practical for a large group of friends, can make your meal time feel like you are back in your school canteen.

It’s cheap and cheerful although not altogether inspiring.

5/10

A SHOT IN THE DARK City Road

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he newly refurbished A Shot in the Dark has always been a firm favourite with students due to its reasonable prices and relaxed atmosphere. A coffee bar by day and a trendy restaurant by night, this cosy little hide away has all angles covered. The ground floor, with slightly more formal seating, caters for those wanting a sit down meal. The upstairs, however, is far more laid back with big comfy sofas perfect for slobbing out with a coffee and fruit crumble – a personal favourite.

The menu is eclectic offering a selection of toasted foccacias and savoury tarts as well as a selection of tapas. With a recent change of hands, the restaurant is now fully licensed to serve alcohol, meaning a lazy lunch can easily become an evening out.

Not only does it serve great food but throughout the week it plays host to a variety of different events from comedy nights to poetry readings.

Some regular customers may feel the recent refurbishment has whitewashed the venue’s character, as it is now far more sleek and professional compared to its previous hotch potch set up. Decide for yourself, but I think it is still worthy.

7/10

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ZUSHI SUSHI Queen’s Street

f you fancy something a little different why not try Cardiff’s hottest new sushi bar? The sleek modern interior reflects the cuisine on offer but without feeling too formal or intimidating for any of you sushi virgins – like myself.

There is a seated area to the rear of the restaurant where you receive waiter service. Alternatively, you can choose to sit at the conveyor belt bar where you can simply pick up any of the colour-coded dishes that pass in front of you. All dishes are under £5, and if you go in the afternoon you can take advantage of the special lunch menu, where you can get four plates from the conveyor belt for £4.95.

If you have never tried sushi before, don’t be put off by the thought that its all going to be raw fish and seaweed.

This misapprehension is unfounded, as although this is on offer there is also a wide selection of vegetarian options.

And if public humiliation is your thing then Zushi Sushi has a karaoke night every Tuesday with the added incentive of a free saki for every song you sing.

For something a bit different its well worth it.

8/10

46 T e l e v i z z l e Tun ne l V ision

By TV John Television Editor

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verybody Loves Whatnow? Such was the reaction of fifty-million Brits when the Emmy results buzzed through the grapevine. It was inevitable, that, after 210 episodes and nine years (the average lifespan it seems, for Stateside sitcoms) the credit was finally going to be given to Ray Romano’s underrated and understated sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond.

Tabloids and teenagers alike mourned and wept for the defeat of Desperate Housewives by the all-conquering Ray in the best comedy category. But where’s the shock? Where’s the surprise? Desperate Housewives was, and never has been a comedy show, at least in my eyes. If it was intended to be, then excuse me whilst I don’t split my sides at the sight of suicide, gun-wielding kids and Bree’s husband croaking it in the finale.

television@gairrhydd.com

Basically, the Housewives punched below their weight, and entered the wrong category, because they knew they were never going to beat Lost.

The current flavour of the month, and proud owner of complete cultural dominance, Lost has stolen the Heat, if you excuse the pun, from it’s rival and despite not-really-particularly-let’s-behonest-here-being-very-good, the plane-crash-cum fantasy nonsense intensity-fest probably scared the Emmy’s panel into submission as soon as they’d seen the pilot episode.

But essentially, as dissectable items, both shows are very, very similar. Both ride heavy on tsunami-sized waves of press and hype and thrive on their lack of similarity in the current market. Both mix up a sense of familiarity, both with characters,

Raymond: Lovely

26 09 05

actors and plot scenarios, and juggle that with about ten seconds of “whatthefuck?” factor tacked onto the end of each part before the advert downpour begins, and then back from the break with the old faithful. Both shows have also given new leases of life to old tat as seemed to be the theme at the awards this year - Ian McShane, Teri Hatcher, Hugh Laurie all cropping up on the nominations, it’s certainly hip to be square on the networks these days. The fop who used to be in Party of Five must have creamed himself when he got the part in Lost.

To return to my original point, Everybody Loves Raymond is a gem.

Again, there’s nothing new going on here - man has job, has hilarious family. It’s not big, or clever. It’s not the biting, scything US Chris Morris letting rip. It’s just a casual guy who thought he’d give writing and starring in a sitcom a go. It’s quite funny, it’s not going to change the world, but to take on the five-headed behemoth of Desperate Housewives, and deck worthy challenges from the similarly underrated Arrested Development and Scrubs, (and really anything that beats the tawdry Will and Grace is fine by me) is an almighty triumph, to which I salute.

This life is more than just a read-through, it’s...

Vinyl

26 09 05

Resting

with Bastian Springs

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Place

K

areoke! Is there a rose that smells as sweet as the sounds of leering mugs grunting out What’s the Story...? offcuts with pained expressions in The Model Inn on a Saturday night? The answer, as I discovered last weekend, is no. It hurts me to admit I’ve been too snobbish to watch the fine art of hideous caterwauling before, but I’m hooked. In one evening, after said Oasis “fan” paid his due respects to his favourite band by spouting lyrics like hot sick: out of time, out of melody and out of his freaking mind, I witnessed one of the incompetent organisers of this debacle slaughter Boulevard of Broken Dreams. No comment necessary, although this was subsequently by a Land of the Dead check-out girl honking the greatest hits of Asda adverts, a bald

By Bastian Springs upstaged ape-faced valley degenerate chuff out a half-baked 5ive cover, and some posh bint missing the Pregnant point of covering Chesney Hawkes by knowing all the words. I left before the all star ...Amarillo (this isn’t Endurance for God’s sake) but hey, sing it loud and sing it proud today...

Record #15 - Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Don’t Stop Crime: Music for land-surfers and idiot back-packers

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ecisions, decisions.

Whilst there is absolutely no doubt the “Chillis” are incontestably pish, the matter of singling out just one seed from their Kleidis cocksplash career is more of a challenge.

I’ve selected Don’t Stop as it neaty incorporates RHCP concept no.1, known to those in the business as “utterly meaningless drivel barked over mid-life-crisis-inspired

trump-funk” mixed in with the cock-socker’s secret ingredient: beyond-hideous Jamiroquai-tastic “duuuude gizzus ‘nuvver toke” inspirational bollocks. That’s inspirational if you’re regularly inspired by JACK SHIT. Slotting neatly into their career timeline straight after The Zephyr Song, which people with fully functioning ears know full well, won the “most boring piece of recorded

music of the millenium” award at ITV1’s Festival of Buttsmoking, Fuck-Awful Gimpified Student Rock 2005.

Alas, they were pipped to the lifetime achievement award by Led Zeppelin, but the ever-reliable fourty-somethings are due a follow-up to the jawdroppingly bad By The Way sometime in the dark, twisted future, so expect to see Anthony Kleidis grabbing that Golden Asshole award soon.

Chillis: Hello Ladies

Record #16 - Goldfrapp - Ooh La La Crime: Sounding like ‘Spirit in the Sky’

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Goldfrapp: Rough

very genre under the sun has one: Maroon 5 make rock music for people who don’t like rock, Jamie Cullum makes jazz for people who don’t like jazz, Daniel Powter makes music for people who don’t like music FULL STOP, and here we have Goldfrapp: dance music for goggle-faced inbreds with three left feet who can’t dance.

Helped, I suspect, not hindered by the fact they sound like the sort of cosmopolitan turd-in-a-teapot hot drink guzzled by Evening Standard readers on the Hammersmith

and City line, and, quelle surprise! used in an ipod advert, just in case you hadn’t already racked the ‘Frapp just after Faithless in Satan’s chamber of unimaginable scrotum torture.

As an experiment, I just typed the phrases “Goldfrapp” and “Spirit in the Sky” into Google and came up with over 25 different reviews of their hot summer smash Ooh La La comparing it to Norman Greenbaum’s magnum opus. So here’s another one. It sounds just like Debbie Harry/Chrissie Hynde/Any other name of

any other female singer who has a functioning mouth, covering Spirit in the Sky. Wahey.

What these reviews failed to mention, however, is that Ooh La La also sounds like Goldfrapp’s previous hot summer smash Strict Machine, which also sounds like bloody Spirit in the Sky. What baffles me the most, is the quantity of unadulterated filthy hot love Joe Public is somehow convinced Alison Goldfrapp exhudes. Erm, no.

If heavy breathing constitutes sexiness, then hand me a mic and I’ll emphysema the night away.

Who’s up next week? Arctic Monkeys? Pussycat Dolls? Sex Pistols? Simon from Blue? Until then, rest in peace xxx Challenge Bastian to a ‘who knows more about shit music duel’... bastian@gairrhydd.com

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Food

food@gairrhydd.com

26 09 05

Home cookin’ or Micro Nukin’

In this age of convenience are we all too easily drawn to the microwave? Pedro Gemal explores this culinary dilemma.

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t’s revision time and you’re getting hungry. As you finish another bag of Revels washed down with Red Bull you suddenly realise you have to eat some real food. You walk to your grubby little kitchen and then it hits you - there is sweet F.A to eat. But it’s not a total disaster because as you reach into your freezer you find a microwave meal.

All is well again and in three minutes (one minute to rest) then another two minutes you’ve got yourself a lovely steaming Shepherd’s Pie, just like MICROWAVE FOOD: Makes your mouth mamma used to make. water!

In this age of convenience and technology why spend a food seems to be a desirable alternawhole hour making something you’ll tive. But a read of the ingredients in gorge down in a fraction of that time? most ready-meals seems to raise When you’re just cooking for yourmore questions than answers, like self it seems that you lose most of what the hell is Sodium Stearoyl-2the incentive you need to put real Lactylate? effort into cooking. We all know that Top chef Raymon Blanc suggests fresh, organic produce is better for that feeding your child a microwave you, but the reality is that with a student budget, a busy lifestyle and good meal is "an act of hate". So, with all the obscurity of the ingredients list, old-fashioned laziness, convenience

and the fact that most people don’t really have a clue how a microwave works, there is a strong argument that making your own meal is indeed the healthier option.

The first six foot, 750-pound microwave was invented by Dr Percy Spencer in 1946; he stumbled upon the invention almost by accident. By 1975 sales of microwave ovens had exceeded that of gas ranges.

The scientific explanation for why food heats is that every microwave contains a magnetron: a tube in which electrons are affected by magnetic and electric fields. The tube generates electromagnetic waves which cause the water molecules to vibrate. The motion of the water molecules leads to friction, which in turn leads to heating. Although it sounds like something out of Star Trek, it’s a perfectly good way of preparing food.

The only problem comes when the manufacturers of microwave foods add all kinds of additives to preserve it. Since you’ve got no control over that Shepherd’s Pie, you don’t really know what you’re eating. By cooking your own food you can ensure that all you eat is high quality and good for