Quench - Issue 30

Q U E N C H INTERVIEWS - FASHION - GAY - TRAVEL - MUSIC - BOOKS - DIGITAL - FILM ARTS - FOOD - GOING OUT - TV - BLIND DATE - CULT CLASSICS

gair rhydd.com

3 VO L .

E U ISS 0 3 24 O C T. 20 05 EMAP T EN ST U D N

PUBL

IC AT IO

OF EAR E TH Y

Dead love

Gay returns

The Noble Kebab

The Verdict

S S A R SUPERG QUENCH CATCH UP WITH THE POP SURVIVORS

Contents Cardiff University

04 06 07 09 10 12 15 16 18 22 26 29 36 37 44 46

Best Student Publication 2005

quench@gairrhydd.com

Mr Chuffy: Conserve a Tory Interviews: Super Hairy Animals Gay: Why not? Come on, he’s back Fashion: Neu! Travel: More scares than a night with Jordan Blind Date: Street urchins Food: Abrakebabra Features: More love than Girls Gone Wild II Going Out: Missing The Point Books: You’re breaking my fingers Graham Music: John Peel in still-dead shocker Digital: Tamagotchi: it’s back. In Pog form Film: Alba-Dross Arts: A load of ball(et)s TV: TV Gareth goes XXX

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

Sub-editors Emma Wilkins, Sam Coare, Catherine Gee Ar ts Kim O’Connor, Rebecca Child Books James Skinner Columnists John Widdop, Tim Lewis, Gareth Paisey Cult Classics Matt Tur tle Debate Helen Rathbone Digital Sam Cur tis Fashion Charlotte Howells, Clare Hooker Features Kerr y Lynne-Doyle, Hannah Perr y Film Catherine Gee, Ryan Owen Food Sian Hughes Gay Fenar Muhammed-Ali Going Out Lisa O’Brien Inter views Xandria Hor ton Mr Chuffy Andy Johnson Music Sam Coare, Harold Shiel, Greg Cochrane One Trick Pony Geordie Photography Luke Pavey, Adam Gasson, James Perou Travel Bec Storey, Amy Harrison Vox Pop Culture Sophie Robehmed Contributors Jimi Williams, Jason Jones, Jennifer Dunkerley, Pippa Bennett, Vickie Hamer, Pedro Gemal, Tim Clark, Megan Conner, Lizzie Pook, Robin Miller, Fin Scott-Delaney, Max Wilkinson, William Young, Clare Hartnett, Andrew Anderson, Ewen Hosie, William Hitchins, Si Truss, Alan Entwhistle, Will Parkes, Tom Howard, Damaqu Ermeronvil, Steve Dunne, Tom Brookes, Aled Lleision Jones, Maura Bricknell, Emily Kendrick, Mark Smith, James Rendell, Stephanie Haughton, Cecilia Cran, Jenna Harris, Peter Brown, Becky Clissett.

Proof readers Jess Anderson, Rosey Leech, Alison Howe, Chris White Cover design Will Dean Thought of the week: “Well, how would you feel if I came and did that to your hedge?”; “...yeah and some guy called Andy Johnson got nominated, who’s he?”; Still no sign of the new Macs; Fuck off back to Creation and give me back my Fun Factory; Will’s getting a bucketfull of condoms.

3

QED

Best Student Magazine Nominee 2005

OTP: Sticky Wank Fest

24 10 05

S

omething about public transport hubs makes them a magnet for the socially challenged.

From trainspotters to preachers, to scary tramps; Britain’s rail network is a mecca for, erm, nutters.

The reason I’m at liberty to make this sweeping statement is because no-one in their right mind would choose to be on a train/bus or in a station for longer than is required.

In fact a chap from my hometown, who admittedly was a few tins short of a pantry, travelled on the buses so much (all day, every day) that First North-West buses gave him a snazzy yellow jersey which enabled him to travel around Greater Manchester all day, every day, for free.

‘So why the bitterness Will?’ I hear you ask. Well, after attending a Christening on Saturday afternoon in Tewkesbury, me and my (much) better-half proceeded to catch a variety of trains to get back to the ‘Diff in time to catch a game of Trivial Pursuit.

By the time we had got to Gloucester, and missed our second train, we weren’t in a fantastic mood.

So, it did me about 0.012% good to find someone on the 7.14 to Bristol shouting obscenities at me for being a “fatty” (it’s more of a festive pudge) and telling me “fuck your bird mate, I have” before getting his lad out and smearing it on the window of the train as it pulled off (ha!) towards Brizzle.

Now, the chap shouting this was obviously a brave man. At least twice my size and surrounded by about ten pals, it was obvious that, had I lost my cool, I would’ve beaten seven shades of semen out of him. Quite.

Alas, all I could do was stand there with my back turned, mentally writing this spiel.

Now far be it from me to judge the good people of Gloucester (*cough* Fred West *cough*) but shouting random abuse at people is so pointless it makes me want to go and punch the next person I see.

And the point of this editorial.

Well, there isn’t one really, I just wanted to share. But if I must: “The only thing more shit than the trains is the people on them”. Hmm.

4 One Trick Pony

24 10 05

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

W

every year I don’t know why I bother elcome freshers! Cardiff’s what’s the point anyway if you want great. You’re gonna love it, to change something about yourself but remember to always use why wait until the start of a New Year condoms, don’t say inane things to why not just do it? your new housemates, work hard, It’s Valentine’s Day isn’t it romantic play hard, come and write for Quench or play some sport or join a society. I actually no it’s a shameless attempt hear Gym Gym are quite good. If not then at least do something that isn’t watching This is blatant TV or drinking. hypocrisy Nearly Christmas because already it comes around quicker every year bloody I’m going to carry Noddy Holder at every on writing this turn a bit commercialised now though I hate column anyway Having Words Christmas anyway well I don’t actually hate it exactly but it’s at conning gullible and vulnerable massively overrated and I don’t people out of their money a conspirabelieve in Jesus anyway why am I celcy run by the Greeting Cards industry ebrating his birthday by devouring a and even more commercialised than massive bird and throwing most of it away and lying to children about some Christmas or are people that say that just sad losers with no girlfriend? fat guy with a beard?

Union Elections are coming up take New Year was rubbish I think but I time to really think about who you’re can’t really remember as I was very going to vote for and don’t just vote in very drunk and I’ve broken all my resthe loudest or most visible person olutions already it’s exactly the same

GEORDIE

“

they’ll be running your Union all year you know and if you vote in an idiot who makes a mess of it it’ll be all your own fault and you won’t be able to live with yourself and the whole Union will just like be totally rubbish...

It’s the end of yet another year and some of you will be back in September and so will we and some of you will be graduating and frankly it all goes downhill from there ha ha and we’d all like to thank each other in a self indulgent way because we’ve worked hard all year sweating in our office and none of you appreciate it.

(Pause for breath.)

Welcome freshers! Cardiff’s great you’re gonna love it and thus continues the neverending cycle of editorial content in student media ho ho ho just you wait and see now go and read a review they change sometimes and yes this is blatant hypocrisy because I’m going to carry on writing this column anyway.

(Overrated) On the face of it, spending an extra few hours in bed and getting up when you like might seem like bliss. However... Not having a lie in means (rather obviously) getting up at a specific time. Which, if you’re anything like me (and you’re about to discover that you’re very probably not) necessitates an alarm clock. The subconscious knowledge of the fact that I’ll be forcibly woken early means I often wake up ten minutes or so before the digital display ticks over from nine to zero (and whatever else you’re having) and the horrific electronic wail is unleashed. Time, then, for the interesting morning game that I’ve just decided to call ‘Cock vs Clock’. I.e. the race to knock one off before the alarm goes off. It’s a bit like a Danger Wank without any real danger, other than sticky buttons. See? That’s much more fun than an extra couple of hours in bed. ( The Lie In ) The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

HAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

HAHAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Ahem. Sorry. It’s like asking the BNP to host a 100 Greatest Immigrants Award.

( Irony, unintentional )

(Underrated)

L e g e n d

OTP

op p V OcXu l t u r e

KATE BUSH: Mental songstress. Lives on an island in the middle of the Thames. The only good person of that surname left

L

et’s be honest here, okay, the woman is a bit of a lunatic.

But in a world of sanitised, vapid, identikit ‘stars’, maybe a mentalist is what the world needs.

Kate Bush is a notorious recluse, and her privacy is ensured as she lives on an island in the middle of the Thames. That should keep the paparrazi out. When she had a child, the press were unaware that she had given birth until the child was eighteen months old. It’s nice to know that some people still care about privacy (see below).

The successful start to her career - which began, along with Dire Straits, against a backdrop of angry boys in punk bands from which Kate must’ve stuck out like

Michael Jackson with the rest of his family - is a testament to her ability as both a songwriter and a singer.

Maybe if the majority of this country’s established press weren’t celebrity-hounding shitweasels, and Bush hadn’t been pestered into a prolonged pseudo-retirement break in 1993, she would have continued producing quality records and become a Madonna-esque musical mainstay. Or maybe she would have succumbed to the Unifying Theory of Life (© Sickboy, Trainspotting, 1996) and just started producing crap. Who knows?

What we do know, is that the new album Aerial, out in November, will be very good indeed.

It should be, anyway, she’s had twelve years to make it.

T o s s e r

W

hat are we going to do about terrorism, Tony?

Legislate. What about the trade threat from China, Tony?

Legislate. Has your son had that vaccination then Tony? Er, legislate. It’s his answer to everything, see. New Labour passes laws like vegetarians pass wind.

And now, thanks in part to the hopelessly inadequate opposition, the ID Cards Bill has been passed

by Parliament, despite massive public dissention. (A pledge to refuse to register and to pay £10 into a legal fund has been signed by 10,000 people on pledgebank.com.)

‘Great’ Britain is fast becoming a nation founded on bureaucracy, and now you or I could be criminalised

5

for existing without the correct paperwork, on top of which we’re expected to trust a government with a record of telling lies not to misuse the information. Er, no.

If I have enough ID to qualify for a card, then surely I don’t need one. And if I can’t already prove my identity, I won’t get one. So the only real changes are the denial of the right to pretend to be someone else (even for an innocent reason, eh Mr and Mrs Smith?), and the institution of the national database. The national database whose computers invariably won’t work and I’ll bet my file will be confused with some criminal or other undesirable. A Tory, for example. (Yeah, that’s right, I’ve seen The Net.) Doubleplusgood.

MR BLAIR - NO, IN FACT, THE ENTIRE HOUSE OF COMMONS:

They’re supposed to govern, not rule. Has nobody told them?

Vox Pop-Culture delves into the murky world of your culture collections... this week Katie Rowe, 19, 1st Year History

FIRST AND WORST CD...

The first CD was Boyzone’s Said and Done and the worst CD has to be Blink 182’s offering, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

BESTEST BOOK...

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown because it quite simply, makes you think and combines fact and fiction.

THE LAST FILM I WENT TO SEE WAS...

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, which was crap; I preferred the original and this version scared me. I did like Charlie and the Oompa Loompas though.

FAVOURITE TELLY...

A selection of Living TV’s finest Most Haunted and Charmed. Home & Away and any of the Derren Brown programmes wins big Brownie points.

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

I would be Katie Bell from those Harry Potter books because she goes out with Fred Weasley, but I actually prefer George.

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

A cheesy pop compilation CD, which features most importantly, the Baywatch Theme Tune.

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

The Voice of Reason just got bird flu

Mr Chuffy Investigates...

I

The battle for Conservatory leadership

f you own a glass-covered house or room into which plants in bloom are brought, reading the forthcoming 658 words may evoke a violent urge to visit the water closet and empty your bowels.

The Association of Conservatories is in turmoil. Shamed former leader Transylvanian Guts was removed from office following video footage depicting Guts defecating in a conservatory whilst roaring with drunken laughter.

An election now follows with votes cast by subscribers to the magazine Conservatory and Zulu Hourly; a publication produced every sixty minutes with the latest developments in the world of conservatories and the Bantu people of south-eastern Africa. Four candidates believe that they have the credentials to take the conservatory baton. But do they? Do they? DO THEY? Find out now.

Any leadership battle worth its salt would probe the history of stoning exhibited by the candidates. Whilst admitting to having been stoned to death in biblical times for suggesting that Jesus rhymed with penis, youthful candidate Fallopian Crevice refused to comment on claims that he had smashed the window of a conservatory with a stone made out of babies. Although happy to discuss his Holy Land rock-based retribution, Crevice believes that he should not be held accountable for any stoning mistakes made in the past. Crevice did though concede his £400-a-day heroin habit, boasting to have

LION: Pride and prejudice

“chased more dragon than St George”.

Traditionalist candidate Keith Cervix injected hot-beef controversy into the contest when in a recent interview he announced that conservatories should distance themselves from the Gay Pride movement. The row erupted when Cervix, who is as gay as gravy, claimed that happy groups of lions are troublesome, often indecently cavorting around the savannah and wearing hats. Conservatory modernisers however have sought to use these Big Cats as an emblem, believing that this symbol of masculine virility may prompt the homeless to buy lots of conservatories. Mammal experts now predict that Cervix’s comments may result in the lions refusing to participate in the vagabond-courting campaign.

Candidate Fallopian Crevice “chased more dragon than St George” Candidate Fergus Piles is viewed as a reformist, and something of an outsider, due to his desire to form a federation of permanent external fixations. Piles, who gained notoriety after appearing in hit Channel 5 reality TV ass-fest I’m a haemorrhoid, get me out of rear, has the first name Fergus. Piles argues that through uniting the marketing of permanent external fixations to encompass sheds,

gazebos, greenhouses and even garages, the different factions can reach a larger group of consumers, even convincing people with a brain disability to buy one. His opponents claim that through formation of alliances with other structures, conservatories may lose their identity.

“Imagine”, said Felicity Friction chair of C.L.I.T.T. (the Conservatory Liberation and Independence Think Tank), “if people were to start keeping their car in the conservatory, it’s just utter madness, there simply isn’t the space”. Piles, who suffers from dilation of the veins under the skin of the anus, disagrees, countering that conservatories could maintain their individuality even if they were to make friends with their garage nemeses.

Latex-wearing candidate Freddie West is electioneering on the promise to ban the burial of family members under conservatories, citing “olfactory disturbances and structural considerations”. When West gets the painters in he is not referring to the décor of his conservatory, as the Gloucestershire candidate has a son with bleeding ears. Although claiming not to milk his auditory menstruation for political gain, West is often photographed compassionately inserting a tampon into his [on the] rag-eared son’s ear.

Whoever becomes leader faces an immediate emergency following the outbreak of bird flu in China. China is a country on the move and fears were exasperated when The People’s Republic was last spotted mucking about in a Norwegian fjord. The virus has reportedly mutated and is now transferable to permanent external fixations spelling certain doom for all British conservatories.

The outbreak is thought to have originated from a promiscuous Oslo conservatory having sexual relations with an ostrich over the bonnet of a Ford Capri. Leader of the American House of Sedated Representatives, Condeleeza Rice [and Pea], has already offered her assistance, pledging to invade Iran to quell further spread of the virus.

I n t e r v ie w s

interviews@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

7

Rouen to riches

Jimi Williams interrupted Supergrass’s dinner to grab a chat with the band’s drummer Danny Goffey Photo: James Perou

S

GAZ COOMBES: Slowly mutating into Ewan McGregor "music goes in cycles, crap music takes over for a while, and then the kids get bored".

“

Danny is quick to distance Supergrass from this period. "Britpop was the start of our career, but we don’t even figure on the Britpop film that’s just come out!" Sour grapes methinks? I wondered who the ‘Grass were getting behind during the heavyweight battle between Oasis and Blur. "I liked the aggression and bollocks of Oasis, if I was on a night out seeing a band I’d go for Oasis". There you have it.

Would Supergrass consider producing a soundtrack for a movie? "We’ve thought about it loads! We just haven’t been asked". I suggest a James Bond title song would be rather cool. "I think we would be really good at that too," he agrees.

Now, who better to ask for advice on facial hair cultivation than a ‘child of the monkey basket’? Goffey assures me that all one needs to be a success with the fuzz is "Testosterone…LOTS of testosterone"!

“

upergrass’s designated interviewee Danny Goffey (drums) joins me just as the other band members are tucking into their pre-gig dinner. As the fastest eater in the band, he is always nominated for interviewing duties.

When I start to question the drummer, I notice Goffey is looking somewhat uncomfortable; he leaps out of his seat and runs out of Solus, leaving me on my lonesome. To my relief he returns within a few minutes triumphantly holding a toothpick, uttering "bloody sweet corn! Stuck right in my front teeth". Crisis averted.

Everyone’s favourite Britpop survivors returned this summer with a new album and a new sound, recorded in a converted barn in Normandy.

"We wanted to make an honest record," he explains. Goffey was keen to emphasise the more relaxed way of life in France: "It was good living, lots of croissants and coffee in the morning and great wine in the evening".

The band’s fifth album Road To Rouen has been considered less commercially viable by industry critics, as "it’s not as loud or poppy; you want to change things or it just gets dull, we don’t do it for commercial reasons".

It’s official: Supergrass celebrated their tenth birthday this year with a greatest hits album, ("we are definitely getting older!") The first track on the new album, Tales of Endurance (Parts 4, 5 & 6) has a distinct Franz Ferdinand vibe to it, though Goffey contests this by stating, "Gaz just picked up the guitar and put the amp in the barn toilet, it just sounded really mental."

Supergrass supported Coldplay on two dates in June. His opinion: "arguably the biggest {band in the world}, I wouldn’t say the best." You may be wondering if Coldplay decided to tag along on this Scottish piss-up "I don’t think they are massive drinkers…" Danny confirmed to me with a cheeky grin.

When asked about the current music scene, Goffey surmises,

Music goes in cycles, crap music takes over for a while then the kids get bored

Supergrass’s new video for Low C directed by Garth (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Jennings features the monkey boys cavorting underwater with some mermaids in Florida. It seems their music may have matured but it’s still nice to see Supergrass maintain their natural sense of adventure.

To understand Supergrass’s origins, one must look back to the golden age that was the Britpop era - though

8 Interviews

M

atthew David Scott is getting married next year. His wedding photographer has got lost on the way to his Newport home.

As he apologises for the distraction, I ask whether the wedding plans have begun to take on a life of their own. "In [my fiancée’s] mind yes," he admits, "but maybe it should be in my mind too!"

This summer has already been hectic with the release of his debut novel Playing Mercy, a story of a group of friends living on a sink estate in Britain. It has been marketed as the "first chav novel", but Scott rejects this label. "It’s annoying," he says.

"The term doesn’t appear in the book.

It’s about the great majority of life in Britain".

Originally from Manchester, Scott relocated to Newport after meeting his now fiancée, and teaches in Cardiff. I wonder whether character observations came from observations whilst teaching. "It’s funny, everyone locks onto that, it’s really just me and my mates updated," he laughs. When I contest that many people find it difficult to remember what it was like to be a kid, he grins. "It must be a gift then," he says. "I’m also incredibly nosy. If there’s a conversation on a bus I’ll be listening in. God, that’s such a writer’s cliché!"

So what do your students think of their teacher as an author? "Some in sixth form have [read it]. Thankfully, it was news for a week, and then I was just ‘Mr. Scott the English teacher’ again.”

People have theorised that the title is one of forgiveness, but Scott has a simpler definition. "It’s that game you play when you’re kids. All the characters, whether they like it or not, impinge on each other’s lives, like they’re holding hands. It’s like they’re playing a big game of Mercy."

Having written stage plays since university right up until A Verse and a Chorus in 2003, what restrictions and benefits did a novel offer? "I don’t

Xandria Horton gets the verdict on career, marriage and chavs according Newport novelist Matthew David Scott

“I’m incredibly nosy. If there’s a conversation on a bus I’ll be listening in!”

Scott on his research techniques know if one has any benefits over another, I found it harder to write a book though, it takes much longer.

Everything I’ve written has been very character based, from bad songs and poetry in sixth form. It’s always a study of characters.”

Reviews of Playing Mercy speak of a tangible affection for these characters, so I wondered which he had connected with the most. "Chris (the protagonist) is one of the few characters I’d like as a friend. However, even characters like Billy and Graham who are a complete mess you can have

affection for. It’s hard not to be sentimental though, I hope I’ve not done that."

If he could prescribe the book to one person/group of people? "It would be nice to say Tony Blair," he shrugs solemnly, "but then it’s not a political book. I do think when many [politicans] talk about the hard working families of the UK, I don’t think they have any idea what it’s really like."

So what’s next? "Another novel," he replies. "It’s different to Playing Mercy. Rather than belonging, it’s more about nostalgia and time passing. It’s also a bit more supernatural."

He pauses. "Not like Stephen King though!" He’s also adapting Playing Mercy for television, and has written a piece for an anthology entitled Perverted By Language. Each contributor writes a chapter on their favourite song by The Fall. Which one is his?

"Industrial Estate," he enthuses. That should keep him busy, then.

Playing Mercy review Page 26

MATTHEW DAVID SCOTT: No chavs please, we’re working class

Gay

gay@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

9

Having a gay old time?

As Gay comes back to Quench, Jason Jones takes a look at the darker side of the gay sex scene

F

ANTASY ISLAND REVELATION! Gay men do not have unsafe sex. We do not have casual sex, either. We like relationships. We like monogamy. We like commitment. We want all of these things. In theory.

The Dirty Realism of gay life is something starkly different. Face it: what we want doesn’t always correspond with how we behave. Even HIV hasn’t cured us of that. We still reside in a virtual reality where HIV does not, despite our best efforts, loom as largely on the horizon as it should.

But why? Why do people continue to have unsafe sex?

The problem is sex itself. Sex is a dark, leather-clad dominatrix stomping over our lives with its spiked heels.

It’s about red-light danger. It always has been, which, in part, is what attracts us. The whole point of sex is that it’s a risky game, the ultimate adrenaline sport. It feeds the escapism in us all. It supplies a haven from the mundane messiness of the everyday. Sex erases worries about money, career, relationships. It’s a kind of adult theme park, a darkroom Disneyland. HIV doesn’t penetrate this world because it’s a place of unreality separated from the cold, hard edges outside by self-created synthetic forms of fantasy. HIV is an unwelcome intruder; it forces us to think when we’d prefer not to think at all. We’d rather let our bodies do the oral and allow our minds to drift off for a well-earned package deal on some idyllic, faraway island. HIV is the reality principle pushing against the pleasure principle which is why the safe-sex message is blocked out.

In our incredibly mediatised times, sex, and images derived from it, saturate us. It bears down on us from advertising hoardings, magazine covers, cinema and television screens. Sex is everywhere. Yet, paradoxically, it’s nowhere all at once. We profess to be savvy about sex but we’re as sexually dyslexic as ever. We may appear to be more open and honest, but it’s a faux truthfulness. We

talk about it ad infinitum but we never truly ’fess up. It’s still a taboo in many ways.

People don’t admit to having sex without condoms because it’s considered verboten. It’s stigmatised because with the mine of information and education at hand it’s deemed as an act of stupidity, sheer self-destruction. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t go on. It just means that it is locked away behind the bedroom door within the secrecy of sex. It remains detached, compartmentalised in our brains, holidaying on fantasy island.

Like the cautionary tale about wayward buses and the importance of clean underwear, in an ideal world we would all be official card-carrying members of Club Condom. But sex is like Kryptonite; it mugs us of our pow-

ers of judgment and good sense.

Safe sex (or more accurately safer sex) still equals Sex Lite to most, when what we want is calorific Full Fat Sex precisely because of the risks, not in spite of them. The Ancients had a better understanding of sex because they acknowledged its murky dangers. It was a time when it was inextricably linked with death.

Today, the marriage between sex and death has never been stronger. In order to demystify sex, we should admit what we really do in the bedroom, genital warts and all, and then maybe we will be able to do something about it. We can maroon sex on a fantasy island holiday as much as we like, but the thing about holidays is you always have to return home.

SAFE SEX: Reality or fantasy?

Fashion

Military We’ve seen everyone from Kate Moss to Keira Knightly step out in a military jacket over the last few months. A key buy for autumn-winter, you can go for a jacket with military style buttons or the whole hog with a red soldier jacket embroidered with gold. And before you dig out your khakis and camouflage, this season’s military is old school, harking back to the regal blues of Napoleon Bonaparte and the rich reds of the English cavalry.

Tailoring There is a strong move towards 1950s’ film and screen star glamour this season. Princess line coats, pencil skirts and high heals are hardly ideal for lectures, but a waistcoat that nips in at the waist creates a modern silhouette that fits with this trend.

Wear with caution! The monochrome look can easily end in a zebra-like stripy disaster zone.

Make monochrome prim and proper with a white shirt and black trousers, or monochrome your accessories to bring a flavour of this trend to your image without looking as if you’ve walked through a 1960s time warp.

Monochrome

WIN THE LATEST TRENDS...

Fancy winning a £200 shopping spree, followed by the ‘girls night in’ at Dorothy Perkins on Tuesday 25 October from 5-9pm?

As well as 20% off on all merchandise, you can grab yourself a goodie bag for a £1 donation to Breast Cancer Care Charity.

Also enjoy a free manicure or make over courtesy of The Body Shop.

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ON D N LO FASHION

WEEK Spring/Summer 2006 Report Spectators had feared a downturn for the British Fashion scene with top homegrown designers Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Matthew Williams all shying away from London Fashion Week. Yet the event has been revived by London’s affinity with innovative new designers.

This year saw fresh, raw talent arriving on the fashion scene, as opposed to the older classics shown in Milan.

Julian MacDonald kicked off the week with a flurry of activity. His spring/summer show exploded onto the catwalk with the flamboyance of bright colours and patterning, as did a group of unwelcome protestors still reeling from the results of his last collection. Holding placards saying 'Fur is Dead' and 'MacDonald fur scum', protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals leapt between the models.

MacDonald, dressed in a Union Jack blazer, looked more amused and surprised than angry. After all the disruption has only resulted in more attention being drawn to his current collection.

Another highlight from the week came from Betty Jackson whose ‘Campari & Orange’ collection marks the return of the quintessential summer dress combined with continued high waists and classic cut lines. Sixties style chiffon dresses in acid prints and tulip cotton lace coats were also in the present collection.

A personal favourite from the ready-towear exhibition came from designers Belle & Bunty. In their latest collection delicate dresses, tailored trousers and a twist of old boho charm are all included.

Take note: Key themes for next Spring/Summer include defined high waists, dazzling prints, pastel shades and shorts of every style.

Jennifer Dunkerley

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Tr a v e l

travel@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

Haunted

Pippa Bennett explores the paranormal side of London

T

he British are a nation obsessed with all things supernatural. The roots of our cultural heritage are shrouded in mythical myths of bravado and beasts, with Halloween itself emerging from the combined feasts of the British pagan All Hallows Eve and Christian All Saints Day. These stories and our fascination with them have been retained in the public arena for centuries and today we are no less intrigued by spirits, tales of suspense and of legends than we were when Britain was in her infancy.

As testament to this national past time, we can not only pursue these morbid curiosities through literature, low-budget reality TV series and films, but increasingly, we can devote all our leisure time to ghost hunting and generally scaring ourselves silly with the scores of murder mystery weekends, haunted walks, and tales of ‘supernatural hot spots’ in every corner of the country.

A fantastic way to feed any interest you may have in all things spooky is to spend a thoroughly creepy two-night break in London, a city in possession of such a grim and violent history that you cannot move for ghost-watching opportunities or sites of particularly gruesome value.

London is so cheap and easy to get to from Cardiff, with National Express

always offering special city-hopping deals. You can find the latest at www.nationalexpress.com. Finding good accommodation in the capital, however, has always been a minefield as there is just too much choice. A good place to stay for those of you who aren’t hostel-friendly is the Rushmore Hotel near Kensington www.rushmore-hotel.co.uk - as recommended by Time Out London as being brilliantly comfortable and relaxing at just £60 for a double room.

London also has plenty of clean, friendly hostels. In keeping with the historical haunted theme, the YHA Holland House hostel www.yha.org.uk is a Jacobean mansion visited frequently by famous figures like Sheridan, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Wordsworth and Dickens. There are always fantastic special offers on London accommodation too and a good place to find what’s around is www.londonnights.com After settling in to your hotel, the best way to kick start a weekend of ghouls and gore is with a Haunted London Walking Tour (www.discoverywalks.com/London_Ghost_Walks.htm) These group walks are deliciously dark and are directed by the country’s most renowned ghost-hunter and paranormal researcher, Richard Jones. The company offers a selection of walks through the darkened iconic cobbled

streets of olden days London. It’s up to you whether you prefer the bloodthirsty tales of the Jack the Ripper murder site walk, or perhaps an evening recollecting tales of vampires and such demons on the notoriously nightmarish Hampstead Heath. Each walk costs around £6 and can be booked online, they are not to be missed. For Halloween each year, Richard Jones has a special walk that shows you the spot where werewolves can be found, takes you to hidden dungeons, and around one of the cities most perilous graveyards.

JACK THE RIPPER: Not his real name

24 10 05

13

London The Tower of London, Graveyards and Westminster Abbey Should you survive the walk, manage to get some sleep and keep your nerves in tact, then the next day head for Westminster Abbey (nearest tube stations are St James’ Park or Westminster on the District and Circle lines).

The Abbey is the burial ground for over 3300 people, including members of the British monarchy and some of our most important historical figures including Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, and George Frederic Handel. As such a history suggests, Westminster Abbey has a cold, nervous atmosphere and this unease is only further emphasised when you find the grave of the notorious 152-year-old Thomas Parr (no that’s not a typo). There are also regular sightings of ghosts in the Abbey. Most famously perhaps is the Benedictine monk who, due to the Abbey’s renovations over the years causing the floor to sink, hovers some distance from the ground.

Entrance to the Abbey costs £6 for students and the tour guides are always on hand to relay more eerie anecdotes.

In the afternoon, the obvious place to head for is the foreboding Tower of London (nearest Tube station Tower Hill) where Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn has been seen by many walking from the Queen's House to the Chapel of St Peter and Vincula,

leading a procession of dignitaries down the aisle to the site of her final burial place under the chapel's altar.

Your last evening can then be spent at one of the world’s most famously haunted pubs, the Grenadier in Kensington (nearest tube is Hyde Park Corner). The Grenadier earned its title as one of the most famous haunted pubs in the world because of the ghost of a young guards officer who was murdered after he was caught cheating at cards and is the source of many rowdy poltergeist stories.

If you are in London for Halloween, you could perhaps go on a haunted pub-crawl instead. For ideas, see View London’s suggested itinerary at www.viewlondon.co.uk/home_feat_ halloween_pubcrawl.asp After a weekend of hideous hearsay, you will probably need a break to ease your mind away from the shocking stories and unspeakable sights, but it will be a perfect Halloween for all of you who like a bit of a scare now and then.

More links and information Walking Haunted Britain – Richard Jones Haunted Britain Website www.haunted-britain.com

If the haunts of London are not enough for you why not try some other spooky UK cities?

YORK

The most haunted city in Europe with 504 recorded hauntings.

BATH

Meet the mysterious lady who haunts the Royal Theatre.

THE ISLE OF WIGHT Also known as ‘The Ghost Island’.

CHESTER

The paranormal is in abundance in the city’s narrow streets, crypts, cellars.

WINDSOR

Mingle with royalty; Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon are commonly found here.

14 T r a v e l

BACKPACKER:

Croatia

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 Vickie Hamer Travel Correspondant & Amy Harrison Travel Editor

C

t Don’ !

Miss

KORCULA

Every summer between July 10th and August 25th, Dubrovnik hosts a festival which showcases some of the best classical concerts and theatre

roatia is often ignored by holiday makers, due to the negative associations made with the country. Although the tragedy of the war is still apparent, the country retains a certain charm. Croatia is currently experiencing an increase in tourism, with more and more people heading there to soak up the sun. In comparison to other European destinations, Croatia is not yet flooded by hoardes of tourists, making it a great destination for backpackers.

There are four major airports in Croatia near the major cities of Split, Zagreb, Osijek and Dubrovnik. You can fly from the UK to all of these airports. Travel across the country is best done by rail as roads are not always of great quality, although the stunning coastal scenery makes up for the often bumpy rides.

to absorb their culture.

Accomodation is easy to find in Dubrovnik, with many hotels and hostels to suit all budgets. It is also possible to rent flats for short periods at reasonable prices.

Eating out in the old town can be pretty pricey, although if you head outside the city you are bound to find something which accomodates a student budget. The quality of food is not that great. Being by the sea, fish is a main dish in most restaurants.

Vegetarians are not catered for particularly well in Croatia, as it doesn’t seem to be the ‘done thing’.

DUBROVNIK

BRAC

The city of Dubrovnik is beautiful.

The Old Town is the place for tourists to go with a variety of sights in the medieval fortification. The city is surrounded by the crystal clear Adriatic sea which is home to much marine life.

When in Dubrovnik, it’s a must to sit back and enjoy the ambience relaxing in one of the many coffe shops in the middle of beautiful rustic surroundings. It is fascinating to ‘people watch’ the locals, so as

t Don’ !

Miss

Brac is the largest of the islands on the Adriatic Coast, it is also one of the sunniest. It is eaily accesible fom the port of Split. Ferries run almost every hour and cost just £9 to the port of Supetar on the island.

Also known as "Little Dubrovnik", Korcula can be reached by a three hour bus journey from Dubrovnik or from Split by ferry. Ferries to Korcula from Split run only once or twice a day.

THE ELAFITI ISLANDS

Day trips run to The Elafiti islands north of Dubrovnik. The islands are home to some stunning scenery but there is little to do other than sunbathe, fish and walk around the small towns. There are no sandy beaches so sunbathing can be a little painful as you have to find a rock to perch your derriere.

Useful websites Croatia National Tourist Board www.croatia.hr Croatia’s history and culture www.croatiaemb.net/culture.html Tours around Croatia www.infohub.com/TRAVEL/SIT/sit_p ages/Croatia.html Next issue Backpacker will be taking you to Hungary. Text your top backpacking tips to 07843393962,or email them to us at travel@gairrhydd.com.

The Old City Walls.

The panoramic views of the city are amazing from here. There is even a cute little ‘hole in wall’ bar where you can sit, enjoy the vistas and have a drink.

The Port of Dubrovnik

Blind Date

24 10 05

blinddate@gairrhydd.com

15

T R A P A S T E STRE SUZANNE, 3RD YEAR JOURNALISM STUDENT ...looking to grab herself a tall, dark and handsome streetmate to tame into the man of her dreams, James may fit the mould but are they on the road to coupledom or streets apart?

T

heir eyes met down a crowded street, James carefully selected from the throngs of males occupying the streets of Cardiff... attracted to his cute and innocent exterior Suzanne enlisted ‘Little Miss Cupid’ to snare him with her golden bow.

The pair arrived with nervous expectations but went away with a story to tell. Would they participate in blind date fever again, or were they scared off for life?

As first impressions go both our little streetmates were pleased with how the other turned out, smartly dressed and not a pair of trainers in sight. James was attracted to Suzanne’s zesty and sociable personality. With good food and free wine on the agenda the evening was set to be a good one.

After some preliminary small talk the conversation switched... not to an exchange of sweet nothings or romantic gestures but rather football.

Manchester United supporter James didn’t take kindly to Suzanne’s choice of team: Newcastle. Things got a little competitive but the situtation was eased with James’ gentlemanly gesture of purchasing a second bottle of wine.

With more wine, conversation con-

tinued to flow, sharing stories of their pasts and aspirations for the future. It seemed that sparks were beginning to fly.

Alas, with the lack of physical contact and no exchange of phone numbers, at the end of the night it was evident we were going to find more excitement at a Sunday School jumble sale.

So with a little and very un-continental kiss goodbye the pair departed, not knowing when they would see each other again.

JAMES, 1ST

YEAR LAW ST UDENT

The date @ ‘a shot in the dark’

Aww, what a lovely couple

Looking for love... or just some fun, why not email ‘Little Miss Cupid’ and let her take control of your love life for a night...

blinddate@gairrhydd.com

It’s all about Sharing the love!

S exual H ealth A w areness G roup.

The ShAg office is open week week days days between between 12 - 1 for confidenconfidential advice and suppor t.

Don’t be a fool, cover your tool!

16

Food

food@gairrhydd.com

“CHILLI SAUCE ME PLEASE” Whether you love them or hate them, there’s no getting away from them in Cathays, so Pedro Gemal takes us through the wonderful world of kebabs

D

onner, Shish, Kofte, whatever you want to call it, one thing’s for sure, we’ve all been there.

The drunken brain is a simple thing to please, and the equation of beer + food is about all that it can manage at three in the morning. But thanks to our lovely neighbourhood of Cathays, we are spoilt. The fun begins way before you even get one, as you embark on the difficult choice of which kebab shop to go for.

Getting a kebab is so much more than just buying food. Those less adventurous amongst us might opt for a burger or chips and only have to

worry about ketchup or mayonnaise.

But utter the words ‘Kebab, please’ and suddenly it becomes an event in itself. ‘Salad? Onions? Garlic Sauce?’

There are a million and one different possibilities.

Where did this food come from? It was surprisingly difficult to trace the history of kebabs, but according to most sources it originated in Turkey a long time ago. The word ‘donner’ comes from the Turkish word ‘döndurmek’, roughly translating as ‘it spins’, thanks to the vertical spit used to cook the meat, which consists of marinated strips of lamb

packed together in an elephant’s leg shape.

Kebab connoisseurs are quick to point out that a well-loaded donner contains all the main food groups: cereals (the bread), vegetables (cabbage and lettuce), fruit (tomatoes), dairy groups (creamy herb sauce), fats (oil) and let’s not forget the meats (donner or shish).

It’s even been said that due to its mixture of chillies, garlic and onions it is an effective remedy against the common cold. Impressive, eh?

CHEF: “Kebabs are good for you”

24 10 05

The Glaswegian ‘stonner’, (a 1,000calorie, deep fried pork sausage kebab that has been dubbed the most dangerous fast food in Britain)

“

The pitta pocket that we all love today is said to have originated in Germany, the country with the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey.

In Germany kebab sales outnumber McDonald’s, Burger King and Wienerwauld (German Sausage vendors) sales put together. This 1.5 billion Euros market sells 720 million kebabs a year. That many Germans can’t be wrong. It has adapted and evolved to effectively feed piss-heads all over the world.

There are many regional differences such as the French ‘l’americain’ (a kebab and French fries baguette), to the holy-grail of heart cloggers, the Glaswegian ‘stonner’, (a 1,000-calorie, deep fried pork sausage kebab that has been dubbed the most dangerous fast food in Britain). The Ruby Chip Shop in Glasgow, which sells the kebab, has provided a health warning to customers: "Due to the severe health damage of this fine dish, we

17

GET YOUR KEBABS OUT: Not you Jade

can only supply one Stonner supper per customer per week." This truly is pushing the absolute limits of kebab technology.

If there’s one good thing about kebabs, then surely it is their honesty. You’ll find no Happy Meal with a free toy lurking about, or a Kebab Klown enticing the kiddies. What you see is what you get, and you can bet your life that you’ll never come across a 'Diet Donner'. A kebab restaurant is also the only place where you’ll still find life in the dead of the night. Like moths to a llight bulb (or flies to shit) they are always full of action. Best friends declaring their love for each other, new friendships being made, and for comedy value the lone drunk, in pain from having stabbed himself in the eye with his fork. You’ll discover this drunk cinema most nights of the week. Like I said, its not a meal, it’s an event

Drunk: “It smells so nice !”

Sober: “Yeeeiuw”

2001 Calories: A KEBAB ODYSSEY It was during one of these late night sessions thatthe most amazing idea stuck me. If Morgan Spurlock could get the funding to eat nothing but McDonalds for a month then why couldn’t I do the same? Chilli Sauce Me: A Kebab Oddysey One man’s journey through the sleazy world of late night halal fast food. After brief consultation with a few good friends it was decided that it was ‘the best idea ever had by anyone; anywhere’.

Fast forward to the next morning and add a headache and a strange smell of garlic, I decided to make my way to the nearest kebabery and get a head start on this little project of mine.

But there’s nothing like the sober light of day to make you realize how drunk you were the night before. After I bit into that greasy breakfast Donner I’m not sure what went to the bin first… the horrible kebab or my stupid idea for a film.

18

Features

features@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

With its turbulent history of human rights violations, Tim Clark asks whether Cambodia can ever have a free press

F

ive minutes in Phnom Penh makes you realise that Cambodia works to a different set of rules.

From the dangerous driving to assassination attempts, it seems as if everything and everyone wants to get killed, just in order to survive.

Looking up from his morning coffee, Liam Cochrane, Editor of the Phnom Penh Post reassures me that it’s not just the jet-lag or the antimalarials at work here.

"It’s a fascinating place,” he says.

“I’ve been here two years and I still don’t think I understand it."

Liam, originally from Melbourne, has worked for two years on the Post and moved to an editorial position this year.

The Post was set up in 1992 as the country’s first English language publication and, alongside the Cambodian Daily, it has been bringing Cambodian news to the Englishspeaking world for well over a decade.

In the brief time that we spend together, he tries to explain what it is like to report from a country which suffers from almost every problem imaginable.

"It is at times a bit depressing, at others absolutely fantastic, especially when you take a step back and see

what you do, it’s the best job in the world".

The Post’s aim is to fill the gap in professional reporting that opened when the Khmer Rouge took power in the 1970s.

And as long as a free press is enshrined in law, Cambodia will continue to hold one of the most open press environments in South East Asia.

Yet as is usual practice in Cambodia, political pressure can, and does disregard the law.

Liam comments, "a few months ago we ran an article on the front page, passing on a story from an American source regarding the chairman of the Cambodian People’s Party, alleging that in its communist days it accepted bribes over an adoption scandal.

“The story was facilitated by the same woman who also broke Angelina Jolie’s baby story. We basically put on the front page that he was accepting bribes and though my publisher was worried, we had no feedback. In that case no news is good news."

The current political climate is a touchy subject in a country where the political opposition has had to flee to self-imposed exile or face prison.

In such cases the foreign press

has a privileged position; they rarely come under direct pressure to censor a story.

Khmer newspapers, however, are subject to more scrutiny and more political harassment.

Cambodian law is vague when it comes to what is and isn’t publishable, and any misquoted story can land a journalist or reporter in court.

"The ongoing spat between the King and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen is sensitive," says Liam.

"Human rights are also sensitive.

Often, people that we are up against are very powerful and not necessarily the nicest guys in the world.

"Every now and then someone gets killed so it’s fairly serious for us,” Liam adds.

"Recently we were considering running an article and a businessman connected to the government made a phone call to a member of staff and in very polite and gentle language asked us not to run it - which I thought was a polite and gentle request that we should refuse - but my staff member thought otherwise."

To understand the position of Khmer journalists, I enlist the help of Khieu Kola from the Club of Cambodian Journalists.

A veteran journalist, Khieu has spent the last three decades working

Features 19 for Khmer newspapers.

What worries Khieu is not so much the corruption, which is evident within Khmer media, nor government intimidation; it is the other influences that politics has upon the Cambodian press.

A recent study by the South East Asian Press Alliance - SEAPA showed that self-censorship is on the rise - and that political affiliation of Khmer newspapers is common conduct.

"I don’t want Cambodian newspapers influenced by politics - but it will take a long time," Khieu says.

The very idea of a politically-supported newspaper is something that Khieu finds disturbing, alongside titles that publish pro-government and opposition viewpoints.

"Do you find these words [pro and con] in London?” Khieu asks, "No! I would like to

f speech?

Freedomasosment of journal-

ar Political hntinuing problem in ists is a coCambodia. dozen jourover half a ers Since 1994 been killed and othich e h nalists hav jailed for stories w the have been ed ‘defamatory’ to were deemntry’s stability. cou s on what e ambiguoue and this su The laws ar is an ch s su ation. constitute r open for intimidhas a oo d ss e re th p leave n language The foreig rotection afforded to p of e re ssies but deg ed reign emba them by fo apers are not afford sp ew n er .

Khm this luxury

work hard to eliminate these words from Cambodian journalism."

His ideas are certainly ambitious and in practical terms the obstacles that Khieu faces are complex.

Cambodia suffers from a lack of education and has an exam system which is openly flaunted by students and the education authorities.

The law system and judiciary in Cambodia also suffer from inherent problems; a memo in the Phnom Penh Post’s office states ‘the lack of competent and independent judiciary makes any conflict with powerful people tough going’ – in other words, don’t get into trouble.

Cambodia may still be a one party state in all but name but Khieu’s outlook on society is optimistic.

"No one can stay in power forever; no one can live beyond 100; things change, it’s only natural." Khieu

argues hopefully.

"Khmer journalism will be a success if we can give people ideas and build a base for investigative journalism."

However, political meddling in press affairs is more widespread than Khieu suggests.

It is known that press coverage of serious problems - such as illegal logging - can be bought off, at least in Khmer newspapers.

Yet step by step, Cambodia is emerging from a time when even the idea of any press was incomprehensible.

The Khmer Rouge abolished not just freedom of press but everything that represented human liberty, and killed those who worked for it.

Even after their ruling, journalists could only criticise the regime at the risk of their newspaper’s closure, a legacy that still survives today.

"The people that are still in power were in power back then."

Liam says, "the Khmer Rouge trial

world at the moment, and it brings out the fact that they allowed the KR to sit at the table and represent Cambodia, which is controversial.

“And China, which was a big KR supporter, does not want to bring up its role.

“I am probably hopelessly naïve and optimistic. But I think it will be a positive thing for some form of prosecution to happen because there is an ongoing culture of impunity in Cambodia which really keeps the country treading water."

The state of the press mirrors the social and political development of any country and Cambodia is no different.

"Cambodia played a fascinating part in history," Liam adds, "as a side-show to the Vietnam War and a French colony prior to that.

“Now pretty much every social, health and environmental problem there is in the world you find in Cambodia.

“It has come out of a painful his-

LEGACY OF TERROR: Pol Pot abolished a free press in Cambodia is an ongoing controversy. A 25-yearold white guy like me who doesn’t speak fluent Khmer does not have much of a right to say “let’s talk about corruption””.

The trial, which received funding earlier this year, is a sensitive topic due to the amount of high ranking officials who may be implicated.

For this reason there is a lot of doubt as to whether the trial is a good idea at all, in a country that only emerged from civil war six years ago.

"A lot of foreign journalists doubt whether the tribunal will ever happen because there is no political will for it to happen,” Liam admits.

"The ruling party has certain reasons, the UN has bigger issues in the

tory and I have been fortunate to have the amount of freedom that I do."

Whether the country will be cleansed is an argument that the free press of Cambodia will face another day.

As for the current edition, Liam has a story on his hands.

I enquire again about its nature once our coffee is finished.

"Well it’s about an NGO and…."

He stumbles, once again reminded of the compromised position freedom of speech may land him in.

"I guess you’d better read it when it comes out on Friday."

In Cambodia, that’s about as straight an answer you’re likely to get.

20

Features

Sex, lies and modernity Is true love dead, or are we all just sex-obsessed? asks Megan Conner

W

hat with Jude cheating with the Nanny and Jen and Brad recently finalising their divorce, it seems that nothing is forever anymore.

In the aftermath of Freshers’ week, where romance is sharing a kebab with your one-night-stand, do we prioritise sex in our relationships?

When you really start to think about the differences between your relationships with the opposite sex and your parents’ at 21 (happily married probably), and then about your grandparents’ at 45 compared with couples of that age now (who are quite possibly separated) you begin to see a pattern: as the years have worn on, love has faded with them.

Following recent figures that show increasing divorce and marital separation, we’re inclined to ask, "How has this happened?" and, "Why is love no longer as powerful and intense an emotion as it used to be?"

It may be worth considering that, essentially, nothing has ‘happened’ to love. It is our society that has changed; not only our outlook on conventional relationships, but also the

marriages that once bound them.

Perhaps love never existed at all and still doesn’t exist, and perhaps we have just become more honest about our feelings. While, once upon a time, marital breakdown had dire social consequences for the people involved, today we have no obligation to treat our wedding vows as irreversible laws.

We’re sometimes encouraged to declare our detestation of our partners and are often rewarded for freeing ourselves from an unhappy state of affairs.

It wasn’t always like this. Many of our elderly relations may have miserably ‘plodded along’ in their relationships or made it to their ruby and golden wedding anniversaries out of habit. Centuries ago, the Elizabeth Bennets and Tess D’Urbervilles of this world refused to accept anything less than love in their lives, and now we recognise these women as the heroines they deserved to be. In this light, it becomes clearer that true love will never be dead; people are just more honest with themselves these days and won’t pretend they’re experiencing the true feeling if they aren’t.

More statistics in The Times show that boredom is the most common reason for men and women to be dissatisfied with their marriages. It makes sense to link the public’s fascination with (and exposure to) porn, nakedness and casual sex to the increased proportion of people who have affairs, and to the fact that men have more affairs than women.

Although infidelity is nothing new, we are less likely to do it for love these days, and given men and women agree that being a ‘best friend’ to their partner is the most important thing, it’s no surprise then that affairs often happen for purely sexual reasons.

While all this suggests that true love is a rare and wonderful feeling that must be strived for, it also sheds light on the fact that, having reviewed the plights of love in former generations, many of us simply can’t be bothered with love anymore. Hand in hand with marriage, love is a great test of character; it has its ups and downs, and as my boyfriend would say, it means ‘headwork’. With this considered, ‘nostrings-attached’ sex is the simpler alternative to love, and we crave that

MY LOVE: Is like a dead, dead rose Likewise, choosing not to marry seems to be less hassle than marrying these days. Our hedonism has caused us to lose our romanticism: there are too many exciting things we want to do or exciting people we want to date to sign ourselves away forever.

Attractiveness plays a huge part in this. Survey results show that the second most popular way to meet a partner is at a party, nightclub or bar, suggesting that our affection for our partner is based on appearance alone.

After all, there isn’t anywhere to talk in these places. Whereas in Jane Austen’s time marriage was all about economic advantage, today it’s all about greedy sexual pleasure. Either way, love as we might call it, is in many cases never really about love.

If we’re going to marry the person we meet at university, for example, we need to make sure it’s for the right reasons. Divorces are expensive, and it’s a huge pity so many people rush into marriage only to declare they’re bored five years later. The current situations celebrities such as Sienna Miller are facing only reinforce this; with so many people being unfaithful to their partners even at the early, ‘fresh’ stages of their relationships, it seems that even being beautiful, successful and dedicated to your partner is not enough.

This leads us to think that part of the reason nothing seems to last anymore is because of the competition we face from sexier, more sexually available people. Although I hate to pinpoint men here, it must be said that for them in particular, the grass often seems greener on the other side because our culture is so infused with female sexuality.

The finding in The Times survey that more than a third of young men find their partners attractive because they are better looking than their friends’ partners does nothing to convince us that love is about all the things we want it to be. Here, the girlfriend is seen as a trophy, much like the Champions League cup, so it’s not surprising that footballers such as Wayne Rooney, John Terry and David Beckham (allegedly) have been known to substitute their long-term partners for prostitutes or saucier models. Only 11% of women gave the same reason for finding their partners attractive, giving way to age-old male sexism: a woman can’t be found attractive (or interesting for that matter) on her own merit, and becomes ‘the one’ through a process of elimination.

But, hasn’t love has always been like this? The prettiest girl gets courted; the sexier woman leads a man astray. As men and women across the world become more and more infatuated with sex, it seems that no matter what kind of person you are, you may not be enough to win someone forever. While 36% of men surveyed by The Times cited the fact their partners had ‘let themselves go’ as the reason they no longer found them attractive, a much smaller proportion of women

Features 21 said the same.

There definitely seems to be a difference between men and women in terms of what fuels their fire; while middle-aged men often expect to be as sexually satisfied as they were when they were 21 (and as consistently), women of the same age tend to look at other factors to determine whether they still fancy their partners.

Regardless of why love has changed, or rather, why our definition or tolerance of love has changed, our disillusion has led to many changes in the way we live. While cohabitation before marriage is now the norm for most younger people, two thirds of men and women interviewed on behalf of The Times said having children is a bigger commitment than marriage. And with divorce rates further quashing the conventional ideal of living ‘happily-ever-after’, the idea of being in true, everlasting love suddenly seems very fairytale-like. If we weren’t such romantic idealists, we might consider that perhaps the entire concept of love has always been make-believe.

C E L Eunconditional B S W H Olove D Ebefore CLARED

doing the dirty

WAYNE ROONEY While engaged to childhood sweetheart, Coleen McLoughlin, Wayne visited brothels at least ten times, paying £45 a go for sex with prostitutes.

DAVID BECKHAM Years into his marriage and two children down the line, it was reported that David allegedly slept with his PA, Rebecca Loos, and call-girl Sarah Marbeck behind wife Victoria’s back. More claims of David’s infidelity have followed since.

HUGH GRANT Almost ten years with hot babe Liz Hurley wasn’t enough to stop Hugh from accepting oral sex in the back seat of a Hollywood car from hooker Divine Brown.

BRIAN MCFADDEN On his stag-do, Brian McFadden engaged in oral sex with lap dancer, Amy Barker. He later

described the experience as a ‘moment of madness’, before leaving wife Kerry Katona for sexy singer Delta Goodrem.

BRAD PITT Even this marriage (perhaps Hollywood’s most promising) could not survive strains, particularly that posed by sex symbol Angelina. Brad left Jennifer for Angelina, who was famously quoted as saying: "I need more sex, okay? Before I die I wanna taste everyone in the world."

IS PETER ANDRE NEXT??

Married to Jordan, perhaps the raunchiest woman on the planet (apart from porn stars), surely this man won’t cheat.

Especially not after his wife recently said: "Whether I’ve got a child with him and we’re married or not, if he s**** on me, he’s just out." Pete, you have been warned.

22

Going Out

goingout@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

What’s The Point?

LEFT: A gig in the old church and ABOVE: The Point itself

With many of you still mourning the demise of the Toucan, Harry Shiel takes us out of the city to find Cardiff’s hottest live music venue

A

h, the bay, or Tiger Bay as it was once called, the seedy underbelly of Cardiff’s subculture. A hard-faced breeding ground for lascivious iniquity and the daytime home to many honest dockworkers desperately trying to provide for their families.

Nowadays it has taken on a far more cosmopolitan flavour with the Millennium Centre at the heart of a thriving melange of restaurants, art galleries and super clubs. There is still, however, a vague aroma of ‘what once was’, lingering around Mount Stuart Square. A couple of trendy bars have encroached but the original features are evident, and it is here that The Point can be found.

A place of salvation, a gateway to heaven and eternal life; in other words, a church. The Point was once a place of God where those who dwelt in the shadows went for absolution.

Now it is the newest of Cardiff’s evergrowing collection of live music ven-

ues. With the death of the Toucan comes the birth of The Point. It is unmistakeably still a church building but rather than try to hide this fact they have made the most of it. They have clearly put a lot of care and attention into the conversion with a large stage, a well-stocked bar and a few sofas for your pleasure.

Every last Sunday of the month they put on a ‘classic’ film, interspersed with short films and followed by a club night. This again, as an idea, is well conceived and aptly realised as one can sup a pint, smoke a cigarette, eat some food and enjoy a good film with friends, then dance the night away. This month they have Ghostbusters, with Gremlins and Scrooged still to come before Christmas.

They also have a monthly comedy night and are available to hire for weddings and conferences, as a rehearsal space and for general parties. There is a warm atmosphere and the vast

vaulted ceiling and wide space allows you to maintain your own personal space without feeling lonely.

The premier function of this place, however, is as a live music venue.

High up above the impressive stage is a banner which, via clever effect, looks like a statue of a rock-god is keeping its eye on the performer.

The lineup so far is sadly relatively sparse with far too many cover bands and pub rock acts. On a better note they have got the quality local promotion outfit, Forecast, on board and with gigs from Four Tet (supported by the glorious Explosions In The Sky) and The Incredible String Band, I for one will be visiting more regularly.

While it is a bit out of the way, being all the way down in the Bay (about one minute by train or twenty on foot), it is worth the effort to see The Goonies in a church with a cigarette.

Going Out is always on the look out for new contributors, so if you’ve been out somewhere new and think it deserves reviewing, or if one of your favourite haunts needs its praises singing, then drop me a line at goingout@gairrhydd.com. Reviews should be between 400-600 words in length and can be on pretty much anything. Pub, club or restaurant I’m not fussy. All ideas welcome and there’s even a chance of blagging a freebie.

Debate

PUB Lizzie Pook

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debate@gairrhydd.com

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h, ye olde public house. The ever-faithful watering hole where everybody knows your name and the ale flows freely. Think of the pub as a national treasure; like Buckingham Palace, the fish and chip shop and er… that PG Tips advert with all the chimpanzees.

It is unlikely that the notion of great tradition springs to mind when contemplating British club culture; which definitely cannot be said of pubs, they are just so much more agreeable. Now don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a jaunt to the club just as much as the next red-faced, sweaty-haired student-type, but merely feel it is my duty as a British citizen to preach the general superiority of the dwindling drinking establishment that is the pub. My pro-pub argument is fourfold and outlined as follows: Firstly, you are far less likely to get your scalp split open by a glass-wielding, white-shirted walking ASBO in a pub.

The lower noise level makes coherent conversation easier and "Excuse me sir" is less likely to be falsely interpreted as "I’ve just shagged your Mrs in my XR3i round the back of the Co-op".

Secondly, you may sometimes return from the pub with some form of coinage in your grubby mitts. This, however, is unlikely after an outing to a club when the cheapest thing you’ll be able to buy is the service of the waste-of-time toilet attendant who holds your hair back mid-vomit.

Thirdly, many deem the ambience of a club to be more ‘fun’ and ‘exhilarating’, but this in turn makes it more sexually charged than a pub. Let me tell you, if you were in a well-lit pub instead of that dim and shady club, the somebody you find drooling on your pillow the following morning probably wouldn’t resemble a Picasso that had been run over twice by a bus, quite so much.

Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, live music of the band variety is almost entirely impossible in a club.

After all, it’s hard to gaze adoringly at a beloved four-piece with your face shoved in someone’s damp, salty armpit and even harder to appreciate their musical forte when you CAN’T HEAR A SODDING THING! To conclude I implore you all to support your local public house. After all, if they weren’t there where would all the OAP’s, young delinquents, alcoholics, school truants, dropouts and, lets not forget, penniless students go?

24 10 05

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CLUB Robin Miller

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ike the majority of people in the UK I like to go out for a few drinks in my local. It’s a long-lived, accepted tradition in Britain that many enjoy on a Saturday night. It’s part of our culture. However...

Lately it seems that pubs are getting busier and busier, thus taking longer at the bar to get served.

Though a highly sociable affair, a trip to your average public house is often lackluster and uneventful. When last orders are called at eleven everybody knows it’s simply too early to go home. After all, there are still at least three hours of beer guzzling, shot slamming and drunken dancing to be had.

A club is where the music keeps pumping, the drinks keep flowing and memories are made. The focal point of a nightclub is usually the dancefloor where the eclectic mix of alcohol-absorbed punters attempt to dance with varying levels of success. The good, the bad and the ugly have the power to reduce you to fits of laughter, be consumed with lust or merely pluck up your spirits in appreciation. Also, there are always the few who truly believe they are Michael Jackson in the much loved Thriller video.

Whether the tunes on offer are the ultimate in cheese-fest, the slick smoothness of R‘n’B or the dirty beats of drum and bass, the club is the perfect place for an enthralling night out. A decent nightclub has an atmosphere that is almost electric. Smoke machines, lighting, dancers and various levels or rooms add a mystique to the unpredictable happenings about to unfold.

As more alcohol takes effect within the body the time flies by. You know it’s time to leave when either the club is closing or the uneasy concoction of hunger, exhaustion and the beginning of a hangover take over.

Then, as tradition dictates, the ‘meat’ kebab you would usually be hasty to dismiss suddenly appears rather tempting. You never remember much of eating it, but you can be sure it will stain everything.

As you awake the morning after, images of the night before flash rapidly through your dazed mind. Did you pull someone you wished you hadn’t? Did you cause a scene by loudly arguing with the barman that there’s no vodka in your double Smirnoff and Red Bull? Nine out of ten times you’re safe, but if not, at least you gave your mates a laugh before stumbling to the lav’ to see those beverages all over again! The routine may be formulaic but if it ain’t broke…..

Reviews

music@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

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REVIEWED THIS FORTNIGHT !"Gonzo on tour !" Broken Flowers !" Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit !"Babyshambles vs Artic Monkeys !" Domino !"Tim Buckley in Cult Classics !" Far " Jim Keeble’s The A to Z of us !" " Sky High !

Cry: Instincts !" " Menon Into the Blue !"Depeche Mode !"John Peel day !"

POPULAR MUSIC Mikael Niemi

w Revie e Of Th Week

Harper Perennial

P

Highly acclaimed debut novel from Mikael Niemi. The Swedish answer to Nick Hornby?

opular Music is an extraordinary tale of isolation and friendship, of growing up in a wildwest meets the arctic setting of violence, hard labour and family feuds.

Written with warmth and a touching poeticism, music is merely a single element of the novel, forming a backdrop to the wider process that is growing up.

So, anyone looking for a new High Fidelity may well be disappointed. Few popular references beyond The Beatles, Hendrix and Elvis are made. Instead, earbleedingly bad school gigs are performed; complete with pelvic thrusts, demented squealing and a proto-punk ethos, the young rock hopefuls earn respect and derision in equal measure, in an immediately recognisable episode chronicling the mixed joy of starting a band. Popular Music is more than just another musical novel, but an often fantastical yet authentic coming-of-age story in which passion for rock ‘n’ roll plays its part.

Set in a far-north arctic region of Sweden, narrator Matti is faced with an unforgiving, bleak environment, the only remedy to which is the magic and fantasy inherent in the snow-laden, tree sprawled landscape. Like many a small-town depiction the narrator is stuck between the past and present: his elders bemoan the downfall of age-old traditional values while the younger generation are desperately seeking a way out of their backward town. Matti moulds the mundane into the surreal, as he and semi-mute friend Niila ski beyond the speed bar-

SWEDEN: And (inset) Mikael Niemi rier, taking flight to the description of majestic explosions in the sky. Truly bizarre mythical tales make for fascinating, sometimes morbid reading, as hallucinations involving dead grandmothers and mysterious ex Soviet fighters veer into increasingly dark territory.

Other less surreal (though hardly

“more than just another musical novel... an often fantastical yet authentic coming-of-age story” conventional) rites of passage are tackled in a narrative punctuated by casual brutality; turning the usual father-son talk on its head, Matti’s dad names those who have wronged the family, in order that one day, when in a position of power, he may be able to seek vengeance. He goes on to warn his son to avoid frigid women and religion, but more importantly the reading of books and brooding - both inevitably leading to the ruin of a man’s sanity.

There are recognisable set-pieces

here, though all are transformed into outrageous and carnival-esque circumstances: family weddings break out into fierce booze-fuelled slanging matches and bouts of arm wrestling; and a summer job involving mice extermination ends in exquisite irony at the expense of a former SS officer.

Likened to the bloke-fiction of Hornby for its coming-of-age-via-popmusic formula, such comparisons do Popular Music no justice. A more viable comparison would surely be Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude, which led the way for the captivating mix of realism and surrealism that is both steeped in pathos but never sentimental. Niemi weaves a narrative abstract rather than concrete with dialogue: characters are defined more by their actions and merciless existence. Each chapter is like a separate parable often climaxing in an unexplained dreamlike event, contributing to a recurrent sentiment that the extraordinary is there, waiting to be unearthed amid such isolation and backwardness.

Seemingly losing next to nothing in translation, Popular Music is touching, tragic on ocassion, but always witty and enthralling.

Finn Scott-Delany

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24 10 05 Books Reviews: You want ‘em? books@gairrhydd.com

We got ‘em

PLAYING MERCY Matthew David Scott

Parthian Parthian latest. Do check out our wonderful Matthew David Scott interview (p.8)

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espite being dubbed the ‘first chav novel’ by its publisher, this portrayal of working-class life in Britain never actually uses the term.

Based around two groups of friends and their families living on a sink estate (an unnamed and therefore any-town community) over the course of an eventful weekend.

This is a place where kids deal in cut-price sweets and fags; ‘Golden’ Graham is the only man you go to in order to shift stolen goods or for ‘security’, and he lives with a police scanner in his living room for company. Even those who do want to go legit buy their clothes from the local sports

THE A-Z OF US

Jim Keeble Penguin

The ‘bloke-friendly Bridget Jones’. Is this a good thing? Max Wilkinson decides

T

he A-Z Of Us is the third novel

by Jim Keeble, a man who after his second novel (My Fat Brother) was compared to Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons. Being something of a Hornby fan myself, I embarked upon this book with great hope for ‘a rollicking good read’, although I have to say that the cover – adorned with a pink bow and a quote from Glamour magazine - made me slightly suspicious of the nature of the book.

This is the story of best friends Ian and Gemma. They met at university in 1993 (at an eating competition)

shop, Stolen From Ivor, but the more upwardly mobile can afford to spend their weekends in Ikea.

The story follows protagonist Chris and his year eleven friends Zeb, Kish and Snowman. Before long Chris’ date with Keeley is prevented by a revenge attack, the boys get out of their depth with Graham, and Chris’ brother David has to protect his hardman reputation whilst keeping togeth-

“ “

Blackly funny and brutally honest... any fans of Shameless are strongly advised to check this out er his family.

This book surprised me; using recognisable school etiquette and rituals – the kids who terrorised the teachers by playing "bollocks" in the classroom, the who’s-who and who’swith-who daily fodder that will ring true and are both now working in the real world, he as a travel writer, she an architect. An avid traveler, Ian is in his ideal job, and Gemma has a rich husband who she lives with in a dream house that is in the process of being renovated.

At best folks, this is light fodder that will keep you occupied for a couple of days So, everything’s just dandy for the both of them, before personal crises ensue. Ian breaks an ankle and is unable to undertake the last leg of his trip. He decides to make up the last of his reports, is found out by his editor and told that he’ll never work as a travel writer again. This is compounded by the fact he is being evicted from his rented flat. Gemma suddenly and inexplicably tells her husband

with anyone who remembers their school years. Scott’s eloquent style of writing lends something just short of grace to the characters whose lives he tells, yet he neither celebrates nor condemns their culture. His astute observations and lack of Ali G clichés allows you to immerse yourself in Chris, Zeb and Snowman’s world, along with his clever use of linking multi-stranded narratives binding the characters together, sweeping the reader through the book as quickly as the events themselves happen.

Blackly funny and brutally honest, Scott seems to have real affection for his characters and lays bare their ambitions, pride, and secrets, often allowing the reader to laugh at their expense… or maybe just to laugh at our own recollections.

Any fans of Shameless are strongly advised to check this out, a book that is above all about family, pride and growing up. Heartfelt and funny, it may well make you look at this recently defined group of people in a different light. Xandria Horton Raj that she no longer loves him.

She then calls Ian for reassurance and he turns up at her door, then stays with her to keep her company – and because he’s homeless. Oh, one other thing, Ian’s current squeeze is Gemma’s sister Molly – with whom she doesn’t really get along.

This book deals very effectively with the issue of whether relationships between birds and blokes can ever be truly platonic, as well as the pain caused by the breakdown of a relationship. Most of the characters are fairly likeable, and even the workobsessed Raj turns out to be a good chap after all. The press release cites Keeble’s ‘extraordinary capacity to write articulately and insightfully about relationships from the male point of view’; this is undoubtedly true, but at best folks, The A-Z Of Us is light fodder that will keep you occupied for a couple of days.

Max Wilkinson

B o o k s 27 SNAKES & EARRINGS Hitomi Kanehara

Vintage Paperback Prize winning, mega-selling, controversy - steeped debut from this 21 year-old Japanese talent

engaging, in places graphic and explicit, yet controlled and never gratuitous. She deftly explores the psyche of Japan's disaffected youth, rebelling against the strict, traditional backbone of this ancient and fascinating culture.

HITOMI KANEHARA FAST FACTS

D

ark and disturbing, bleak and exhilarating, Snakes & Earrings fully deserves its cult-classic status.

The story focusses on Lui, a goodlooking, bored 19-year-old 'Barbie Girl' who becomes dangerously and obsessively drawn into a seedy world of body modification and sadomasochistic sex. She starts dating a punk with a forked tongue named Ama, who introduces her to Shiba, a sadistic tattoo artist. Lui quickly becomes involved in a bizarre and brutal love triangle with the two men which ends which ends violently and tragically for all involved.

Kanehara's style is direct and

SPOOKFISH Tom Fourgs Parthian

A new, and somewhat bizarre collection of short stories from Welsh writer Tom Fourgs

T

he intimidatingly bizarre blurb, which has absolutely nothing to do with the book itself (and is actually about the author), reflects the equally confusing short stories inside.

Yes, you read that correctly, this is a book of intelligently written short stories by an irrefutably interesting Welsh author. To give you some idea of the content of these stories, without giving away the plots, some of the titles include: Banana Squirrel; Nice Bear, Nice Bear and Bin Laden's Hiding In My Liver.

While the first tale, Into the Garden, sounds less daunting, the compelling narrative of two young men and their increasingly, well,

descend in the pursuit of pleasure - for such a short book she certainly says a lot.

Haunting and exceedingly readable, if you've got a spare afternoon - and the balls - Snakes & Earrings comes highly recommended.

William Young

HITOMI KANEHARA: Prize winningly good.

Attractive. And only 21 years old At times reminiscent of Jean Paul Satre, Kanehara delves depressingly into the darker side of human emotion, the corruption of love and the overwhelming evil to which man can insane acts towards one another is somehow both repulsive yet makes fascinating reading. Though perhaps not the best way to start the book, as some of the later stories are less likely to scar you for life (I'll enigmatically refer to ‘the bit with the dog’), it certainly encourages you to read on, if only to see if the rest are along the same lines.

“

Titles include Banana Squirrel; Nice Bear, Nice Bear and Bin Laden’s Living In My Liver This is a book which defies you to simply feel one way about it, unless from sheer confusion, and that has to be in its favour. It demands the reader be shocked, amused, or at the very least, interested in the short insight they gain into the often strange worlds of his characters.

It will probably confound you and undoubtably screw with your head at some points (see note about the dog,

- Kanehara stopped attending school aged eleven and left home as a teenager.

- Snakes & Earrings was written when she was only 19 yearsold.

- It went on to win Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize, much to conservative Japan’s consternation.

- The highly respected Japanese author Ryu Murakami (on the judging panel) stated that it was ‘easily the top choice’ for the prize.

- She has since sold over a million copies worldwide.

- I think I fancy her.

JS

above or equally the callous attitude of many of the male characters) but while you can feel free to put the book down between stories, I dare you to even try when you are half way through one. I would recommend reading this enthralling book to anyone with an open (or bizarre) mind.

And no, I still don't know what a ‘Spookfish’ is.

Clare Hartnett

“So, I was just, like, swimming along, when all of a sudden there’s this food, just dangling right there in front of me. I feel so stupid”

Music

music@gairrhydd.com

GEMMA HAYES The Roads Don’t Love You

AMPLIFIER The Astronaut Dismantles HAL

Source

SPV

24 10 05

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AUDIO BULLYS Generation EMI

“The road less travelled” M. Scott Peck

“It can only be attributable to Human error”- HAL, 2001:A Space Odyssey

“Step up to oche...” - Jim Bowen, Bullseye

IT'S A LONG WAY from Tipperary, but 26-year-old college dropout Gemma Hayes looks like she needn't return anytime soon.

The most famous Gemma on the planet's (fact: Google it) sophomore record may not be quite as accomplished as 2002's Mercury nominated Night On My Side but it's still a decent effort (that's what you get for touring with Counting Crows, I guess).

The bad news for Hayes is that, were she male and fronting a band of shaggy haired indie chancers, she'd be huge. You can imagine Gary Lightbody/Tom Chaplin et al. belting out half of The Roads… to a rapturous response at a festival near you.

It’s a shame, but perhaps being under the radar will give Hayes the means to build a solid career base. And good luck to her. 7/10 Will Dean

AMPLIFIER EXIST in a world where boundaries are tested, pushed and abused. 2004's seismic debut paved the bands ambitious blueprints in stone, introducing a free-thinking expansive sound whose intelligence was matched only by its bombast.

This time out though, they're just too clever for their own good.

Weak vocals drown in a sea of synthetic ambience; time signatures stop, overlap and evolve into a mess of spasmodic rambling. The Astronaut Dismantles HAL lacks shape, focus and direction, only briefly touching on anything near respectable. Frankly, it's little short of a cluttered fuck-up.

Like Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that inspires the title, The Astronaut… shouldn't be used as a grounding for opinion on an act capable of delivering so much more.

4/10 Sam Coare

THE AUDIO BULLYS have evolved since their last contribution, with this album sometimes taking us down a more relaxed road rather than mashing it up with some floorfillers.

Their collaboration with Roots Manuva is one of the albums highlights, along with a pounding remix of Nancy Sinatra’s Shot You Down, of course made famous by its appearance in Kill Bill. Generation wedges the band firmly in their place as Brithop stars, and ebbs them away from simply being hopefuls who were considered by many to be no more than the Streets’ little sister.

If you’re looking for a few tunes to get the adrenaline rushing before that heavy night on the sauce, or simply just to kick back and chill out to, this is just the ticket.

7/10 Will Schmit

Of Pick e Th Week

DEPECHE MODE Playing The Angel Mute “Salvation, lets their wings unfold” - Robbie Williams fter being around for a quarter of a century, The Mode triumphantly return with familiar tones and textures in Playing the Angel.

Evident in Lillian, a catchy 80s tune and The Darkest Star, a blissful, terrifying but simple track. The album has a noisily rhythmic atmosphere, focused on religion, death, sex and love. The Sinner in Me, is a dark and edgy offering with mixed vocals over chunky beats, whilst Nothing’s Impossible is also sinister but not without optimism.

Precious, the first single, shimmers with gorgeous analogue synthwork. Suffer Well is a clear candidate for hitsingledom, blazing with steady dancefloor beats and blissfully distraught melodies. Other possible single John The Revelator has catchy vocal hooks, sonic wizardry and ironic lyrics. Most importantly I Want It All reveals the restless spirit of a band poised ready to emerge from creative hibernation. A return to power. Maybe. Just maybe.

8/10 Ryan Owen

A

DEPECHE: Modey Buggers

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Music ELECTRELANE Rock It To The Moon Too Pure

“One small step for Man...” - Neil Armstrong A RE-ISSUE of Electrelane’s inspired debut, Rock It To The Moon is an album defying easy categorisation.

It was with this ambitious and primarily instrumental piece that the band sowed the seeds from which their eclectic, progressive style would grow. Making confident use of samples, harmonics and most unusually, the Farfisa organ, Rock It... is occasionally reminiscent of Dark Side-era Pink Floyd. Tunes vary in tone, with tracks such as Long Dark making playful, chirpy use of the Farfisa, whereas in Gabriel the aforementioned instrument instills a more hypnotic feeling.

In the latter half of the lengthy album, Electrelane produce a heavier

sound, with the likes of sparitakade’s churning guitar riff and synchronised hand-clapping amping up proceedings.

Whilst album highlight U.O.R’s wailing cacophony builds up to an eventual sonic breakdown in the course of eight angst-filled minutes of pure intensity. The melancholic ten-minute epic Mother, which is somewhat reminiscent of Joy Division’s Insight, is a fitting climax to a stunning debut.

Rock It To The Moon is excellent, and certainly one to discover if you missed out the first time round.

8/10 Ewen Hosie

BOARDS OF CANADA The Campfire Headphase Warp

“Canada is the greatest nation in this country” - Allan Lamport, Major of Toronto THE ONLY other release I have by BOC is called Geogaddi and despite being reliably informed by many of my "cool" mates that that record is a piece of art, I can find no redeeming features at all.

This record, however, is wonderful.

There are tracks with riffs and others with tunes and structures and stuff too. This may seem obvious fodder but believe you me, Geogaddi has none of the aforementioned. I am not impartial to a bit of experimental noise but they just climbed a bridge too far.

It would seem that all you have to do is mention Canada in your band name to succeed at the moment. It doesn’t appear to matter if you happen to feature two blokes from deepest, darkest Scotland and have no links to Canada whatsoever.

The album kicks off with an unnecessary bit of twiddlery before the beat and flow of Chromakey Dreamcoat gives us an idea of things to come.

Ambient niceties wander harmlessly through your mind, hopping and skipping in and out of focus. Some of the beats dropped into this album wouldn’t be out of place on any trip-hop compilation but is their use of real and created sounds in an equal and well-managed measure that sets tracks like ’84 Pontiac Dream and Constants Are Changing apart from the rest of the ever-more-tedious crop.

7/10 Harold Shiel

idol band-ter 1) IF YOU COULD BE ANYONE IN THE WORLD FOR 24 HOURS, WHO WOULD YOU BE AND WHY? “Will Smith. I reckon he leads a pretty ace life. I'd take a stroll down Miami beach before being driven to the set of his latest blockbuster movie for a spot of acting. Following that I would step onto my private jet to some classy restaurant for sublime cuisine and fine wines with friends, then head back home to the lovely Mrs Smith. Terrific.”

Lay, Editors d E 2) IF YOU COULD HAVE A SIGNATURE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE? “I never leave the the house without my iPod, so I'd love something similar with a digital radio player included so I could listen to the football A stroll down Miami when I know i’m going to miss Match of the Day. In true Editors style it beach...a spot of would be black, but U2 have already beaten us to it. The swines.”

3) WHATS YOUR FAVOURITE ALBUM OF THE LAST 12 MONTHS? acting...then back “Alligator by The National. It’s a really intense and brooding album, and home to the lovely its got tunes like Mr November that can go down a storm on the dancefloor.”

Mrs Smith. Terrific 4) WHEN AND WHERE WAS YOUR HAPPIEST MOMENT? “The day our album came out, we were preparing for a gig down in Bristol. I was in the middle of the venue, when I received a text from my Mum saying that she'd been to HMV to buy the album and it looked “Fantastic on the racks!” I had been so pre-occupied that I had completely forgotten that the record had actually been released. It made me proper smile.”

5) IF YOU HAD A TV CHANNEL, WHAT WOULD BE ON IT? “Theres nothing better than waking up to the latest sports news and analysis, followed by an episode of Top Gear and a Crystal Maze bonanza. Early afternoon would kick off with a family movie, maybe a Bond film or anything Disney. Comedy would come in the form of Alan Partridge, Brass Eye and Peep Show. Then there would be a live football match, before a smattering of the latest music videos leading us into a classy late night film.”

“

THE BABYSHAMBLES circus is in town! All the haircuts are here: the BABYSH Heat readers, the beer boys, and, of AMBL course, the tabloid vultures.

Great Ha ES ll Remarkably, so is a (slightly) healthiMonday er looking Pete, and with tickets at 10th Oc tober twenty-quid a pop, he’s expected to deliver.

Which he does on occasion - notably the rousing Kilamangiro and recent single Fuck Forever. All too often, however, Babyshambles’ set is littered with mediocrity, leaving pearls like Albion buried in a sea of sound too shit-strewn for the audience to make out.

Tellingly, between the songs all the chants are for Pete, perhaps a sign that if Babyshambles were here on merit rather than Doherty’s reputation, there’d be nothing of the blind adulation they receive from a sizeable chunk of the audience.

When the lights go on ten minutes early, some people are smiling, alot are drenched in sweat, and more than a few are left feeling slightly short-changed.

M u s i c 31

in the red corner...

FALLEN CHAMPION?

Steve Dunne

FIGHT NIGHT Pete vs Monkeys Battling it out

S ARCTIC MONKEY

Coal Exchange

er Sunday 9th Octob CROOKED, SPLATTERED and broken, bleeding on the canvas, flat on their face, and only six minutes in, this bout is surely over.

For any average band tossing your only two singles to date (Fake Tails Of San Francisco and I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor) away straight off would be a sucker punch, dizzily-pasted most would be slouched against the ropes. Not so for Sheffield pinkies Arctic Monkeys, more Prince Naseem than Mike Tyson, they might look light weight but they’re tunes are heavy weight Strokesy blitz-pop belters.

Not that being cuter than little cats (wearing spectacles, no less) nibbling honey coated candy floss should hold an advantage in a fierce dust-up but it certainly helps in the support stakes.

And it’s getting lapped up. Stage divers and surfers raining over the front, as Scummy Man and Mardy Bum - both villanous cocktails - ring out before the referee calls it off.

There’s the hammer blow, with more tunes than Doherty has spare needles in his emergency ‘sewing box,’ and each as catchy as chlamydia, the Monkeys ensure it’s not even a contest. Greg Cochrane

in the blue corner...

POTENTIAL HEROES? V E R D I C T: Doherty smacked up and made to look like a chimp by Monkeys

Perou PHOTOS: James

Music GONZO TOUR Barfly

JEMINA: Gobsmacked

REUBEN Coal Exchange Weds 12th Oct REUBEN TAKE TO the stage and rip straight into tracks from their debut album, Racecar Is Racecar Backwards. With their almost thrash speed and nasal vocals it’s a long way from audio pleasure. An undoubtable highlight is when Frank, (the Jesus-a-like merchandise guy) joins the self-acclaimed ‘post-hardcore powerhouse’ on stage for some delightful screaming.

Minus Frank, the band continue on the slightly boring path of predictable mellow melody punctuated by vicious guitars. However, as the set develops, Reuben settle into some of the more listenable singles and by the time Crimson arrives with its confident melody, the band have the crowd nestled in the bassist’s exposed ass crack. The lead singer’s saving grace is his ability to banter and by mid-set he’s confirmed as an all-round nice guy.

Thurs 13th Oct

Editors are a much more solid proposition of gloomy-rock loveliness.

See Munich: a shriveled slice of chunk-rock so dense you could bounce off it, and wirery mesh of Bullets a becloaked radio bonking frenzy easily beating the offerings of other moody types The Departure or The Walkmen into savage submission.

Accepted, the bleak Brummies might of rifled through Interpol’s closet and nicked some of their snaziest angular riffs and pointiest shoes, but it’s fun dressing up in someone elses clothes. Especially when it’s this convincing.

SINCE FUN-TIME scallies The Coral emerged, (seemingly from a kebab shop in a galaxy, far, far away) their influence has been clear to see, especially in tonight’s support The Little Flames. They too deal in mystical sounds and frenzied, feedback freak-outs but in Eva Peterson they have a singer with the looks, voice and attitude of a young PJ Harvey.

The Coral themselves may be a little baffled by tonight’s performance.

They now possess a real range of material from skank-until-your-feetbleed tracks like Dreaming of You to mellower numbers like Pass It On. Unfortunately, whenever they go near the always dreaded ‘new album’ the crowd seem to be struck with a collective bout of rigor mortis. With the exception of In the Morning and setcloser Arabian Sands nobody seems particularly interested. That isn’t to say the new material is awful, it’s just not as fun as it used to be.

Greg Cochrane

Tom Brookes

Most of the set feels like ‘sing-along with Reuben, which is wise given the continuingly patchy vocals. By Keep it to Yourself my foot is actually tapping. Where Reuben completely lack originality, they certainly aim to cover it up by extending the post-hardcore hand of friendship. Maura Brickell

set in front of a bewildered audience, Arthur delivers an electric version of Can’t Exist off his new album, a distinctly colourful and captivating number. Into his fairy-light strewn microphone, he follows with a warmly received A Smile That Explodes, a piece of acoustic genius and intense song-writing skill that shows us a wonderfully mellow aspect of his character.

With a winning formula of feel good songs and undeniable appeal, Arthur is set to be big. Aled Lleision Jones

ct Saturday 15th O “I WANT TO GO home, you guys suck,” japes prickly punk princess Jemina Abegg from behind a plastic ghoul mask. Briefly before launching into the riotous shrill insanity of Damn Damn Leash. Unhinged and unrehearsed goergeous chaos on the verge of collapse.

THE CORAL Great Hall

EDITORS: Just about to stab Zane Lowe

JOSEPH ARTHUR Clwb Ifor Bach Tuesday 4th Oct HAILED AS ONE of this year’s greatest singer-songwriters, Joseph Arthur does not fail to precede his reputation. Known for his dark and broody persona, the eccentric Ohio musician certainly pleases with his refreshingly individual performance. An eclectic fusion of upbeat melodies and a distinctly southern tone, Arthur flawlessly demonstrates why he has earned such a prestigious reputation.

Surrounded by a myriad of sound effects, and a canvas onto which he repeatedly splashes paint during his

Gasson PHOTOS: Adam

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JOSEPH: Not techi-coloured

LIVE, RAW and Obscure was how legend John Peel brought us The Smiths through to Bloc Party, and the demure Grandfather of new music could even crack a smile at tonight’s line-up.

Clwb was kick-started by Webb Brothers; three siblings capable of charming any audience with smooth affluent harmonies. Laid back, driving tunes displayed soft Texan underbellies.

Caribou were the highlight of the day. Double tempos began the phenomena that was their headlining: two kits thundering-on seemingly at random. Twinned with guitar melodies, they lulled you into trippy dreams in an attack on the senses.

In the whir of enjoyment it would be easy to forget the influences behind the music: until Caribou there had been disappointingly little mention of Peel himself. The band displayed extreme variations of electronic and acoustic tools cascading from immeasurable silences to Go! Team excitement. A quintessential live act.

Emily Kendrick

M u s i c 33

John Peel Day Monday 10th October Clwb Ifor Bach (Left) and Barfly (Right)

RASS SUPERG all Great H th Oct Friday 7

Mike Richards

MAGIC NUMBER S Great Hall Sunday 9th Oct UNDOUBTEDLY ONE of the biggest successes of this summer’s festival circuit, The Magic Numbers brought their feel-good vibe to the Great Hall.

Their recent singles Forever Lost and Love Me Like You got the best GAZZA: Wailing reactions, even generating the happiest little mosh-pit you’ll ever see. The applause for the more ballad-driven tracks such as I See You, You See Me even managed to draw a tear from lead singer Romeo Stodart and vocalist Angela Gannon, once again revealing their genuine delight at performing.

The only disappointment (a patch of light drizzle perhaps) was the fact that guest violinist Angharad couldn’t be heard. Despite that technical hitch, the group’s cheeky rendition of Beyonce’s Crazy in Love kept the crowd jigging with delight until the end. Mark Smith ROMEO: Wherefore art thou?

rou Photos: James Pe

AT THE ARSE end of the term back in 2004 Supergrass rocked the union with a belting greatest hits set. Over the summer Chris Martin called them "the best band in the world" after the trio supported them. Tonight I await the arrival of a group famed for their ability to fashion three-minute wonder scores.

Once again the hits are there and they sound huge. But aren’t the band here to promote their latest album Road to Rouen? A nine track snapshot of a more introspective, and dare I say it, mature Supergrass. Tonight the band plays elements of both new and old which credits the brilliance of their musicianship but is detrimental to continuity and atmosphere. They are an idiosyncratic bunch, Britpop iconoclasts who we love for being free and easy. But they do acoustic just as well so they are also confusing. It doesn’t combine well tonight, but we know they’re a great band. Matthew Turtle

OPENING ACT, eViLs, played his broken techno beats from a Wendy house on stage to an almost empty audience. Despite the lack of support, eViLs worked well as an opener.

The beats became less broken as the set progressed and eventually came to a thumping crescendo as the floor started to fill for Culprit 1.

This two-piece of synth and bass put on a super-groovy set of electronic thunder with rock ‘n’ roll undertones that proved to be one of the highlights of the night. Their mission seemed simple; give the wiggles and make the bums shake. And shake they did.

Headliners Acid Casuals brought the mood back to chilled foot-tapping and funky body shapes. They combined flowing beats with well-structured musical melodies, perfectly complimented by weird psychedelia dancing in and out of the grooves.

Mr Peel would have been proud.

34 M u s i c

ALKALINE TRIO Mercy Me

ILIKETRAINS A Rook House For Bobby

After the success of Time To Waste you’d expect another scorcher from the trio. Unfortunately this isn’t it.

It’s repetitive and dull, not want you want in a single. Just buy the album.

6/10 JR

This is a mellow and introverted release. One for those who plan to spend this evening with a glass of port and a lot on their mind.

Psychedelic (but maybe a little weak) guitars float over a well-worked drum sound, which compliments the desperation-soaked vocals. This one is worth a listen. On a Sunday, if at allpossible. 6/10 MR

Vagrant

ELBOW Leaders Of The Free World V2

Mancunian quintet’s new single has failed to deliver anything. Their melancholy drones are dull and uninspiring. This single, like the majority of their others, just sounds like a cover version of something vaguely familiar. 2/10 CC

TOM VEK Nothing But Green Lights Universal Island

New single Nothing But Green Lights starts off all Talking Heads overlayed with cascading vocals from Tom Vek, leading to a nice interpolish riff.

Fairly average stuff from the guy quoted as being what The Rapture promised but didn't supply. 6/10 RO

Playlist Troubling the Quench stereo this week... #3 Elbow: The Bad Apple in a good bunch

LADY SOVEREIGN Hoodie Island

Produced by Basement Jaxx, whose style is firmly ingrained on the record, this single from rapping ragamuffin Lady Sovereign is instantly annoying. On repeat hearing this feeling settles to indifference. 6/10 WH

“

Sound Bites

Reawakening some latent hispanophilia - and not just from the ass-shaking in the Whenever, Wherever video - this album, frankly, made my fresher year.

The upbeat pop-rock interspersed with some soppy shit for the girls makes the Colombian’s first English-language record - dare I say it? - a masterpiece (though still not as good as previous album Dónde Están Los Ladrones?, her best to date). If all the indie kids could overcome their prejudices against pop, and the admittedly ludicrous confusing-breasts-withmountains metaphor, for long enough to actually listen to a couple of songs, they might agree. And she’s really fit.

THIS WEEK: GEORDIE Columnist and Bum Laundry Service - Shakira

Kids Records

PHARRELL WILLIAMS FEAT. GWEN STEFANI Can I Have It Like That Virgin

Slick beats from one of RnB’s most innovative producers. But the rap is bland, and the chorus shockingly so, Gwen failing to deliver some pizzazz.

Pharrell claims it’s the record of the year, hopefully he’s lying. 4/10 EK

THE RAKES 22 Grand Job V2

What 22 Grand Job lacks in substance it makes up for in character.

Although a tad annoying, and perhaps a bit familiar-sounding, this tune’s a grower and you will eventually come to love it. A bunch of cockneys shouting about money to a hard drum beat…how could you not?

6/10 BC

M.I.A Galang XL

M.I.A's Galang is bursting with HipHop and Reggae influences emphasising the political edge to her Mercury nominated songs. Although repetitive it sounds fresh, exotic and deserves to be heard. 6/10 SH

KAISER CHIEFS Modern Way B-Unique/Polydor

They’ve released good songs, but this isn’t one; an ‘artistic statement’ that in 4 minutes goes repeatedly from dull to gauche and back, and you can’t even dance to it. 5/10 JH

THE DECEMBERISTS 16 Military Wives Rough Trade

With its perfect mix of satirical lyrics, joyous hooks, honking saxophones and tambourines, 16 Military Wives is quite possibly the most eccentric, innovative and downright loveable anti-war song ever written. The Decemberists are a joy to behold.

9/10 PB

m u r D

&

Music

s s a B

Beginners’ Guide

D

GOLDIE

PESHAY

Debut from this pioneer of the genre and owner of the influential Metalheadz label.

One of the UK’s most popular drum and bass DJs, this debut album has leanings towards Jazz and Hip-Hop.

Timeless

RONI SIZE REPRAZENT New Forms

A record that won the Mercury Music Prize over Radiohead’s ok Computer, and got drum and bass commercial and critical attention.

Miles From Home

me o c e B ert p x e an £50 h t i w .

VARIOUS ARTISTS Earth (Volumes 1-7)

This series of mixes by LTJ Bukem is all about musicianship and experimentation.

Think less free party more Jazz club. Nice.

DJ HYPE, DJ ZINC AND THE GANJA KRU

LTJ BUKEM

Logical Progression Level 1

This Ugandan-born DJ began his musical career in a Jazz-Rock band. These days he brings us the best chilled music of the genre.

5

35

Super Sharp Shooter E.P

Some drum and bass addicts think this is the greatest record ever, others hate it. The title track is probably the most over-played drum and bass track ever, but a classic nonetheless.

rum and Bass, as a style of music, first emerged from the people in the increasingly commercial early nineties rave scene that weren’t entirely down with the idea of whistles, dungarees and shouting “accciiiiidddd” every couple of seconds.

Originally referred to as Jungle, drum and bass music generally comprises of heavy dub and synth bass lines laid over stripped down hardcore break beats. At its origins, it was only the territory of rave or free party DJ’s and accompanied by often questionable MCs. But these days, it’s not uncommon to come across live drum and bass acts, mainly thanks to the work of Roni Size and Reprazent.

In its early stages DJs such as Fabio, Grooverider and Hype were responsible for developing Hip-Hop and the darker end of techno into drum and bass but it was the likes of Goldie, LTJ Bukem and Andy C who began to take it into different directions and make it what it is today. Si Truss

FIVE ARE-LIVE ...

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

When: Monday 24th October Who: Bloc Party Where: University Great Hall

Cool-kids the world over will be queuing for miles to get a glimpse of these uber-cool, pencil thin indie boys so keep an eye out for touts.

When: Thursday 27th October Who: Four Tet/Explosions in the Sky Where: The Point Epic post-rock magnificence supporting calculated synth/glitch electronica pop. You have to be scene to be seen at this here seminal event.

When: Friday 28th October Who: Scout Niblett/Shooting at Unarmed Men Where: Clwb Ifor Bach Another triumph for the Lesson Number One crew. While Scout Niblett is on a mission to purify music, Shooting at Unarmed Men show you how to putrify music beautifully.

When: Saturday 29th October Who: The Loves/Darren Hayman Where: Howard Gardens (UWIC) They’re back and hopefully with a vengeance. It was sad when The

Loves left us but they have a new line up and, hopefully, the same wonderful pop sound. Darren Hayman, ex Hefner, should be magnificent as well.

When: Thursday 3rd November Who: The Warlocks/The Voices Where: Clwb Ifor Bach The Warlocks’ magical blend of doomy Drone-Rock comes on like nine people playing a magical blend of doomy Drone-Rock. Local hotly-tipped rockers The Voices are a welcome extra yet sadly without much magic, doom or Drone-Rock.

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Digital

digital@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

Far Cry: Instincts

Simon Ward finds out its a Far Cry from Halo

A

midst stunning rich forests, Apocalypse Now-tinged hues and frenetic action lies Far Cry: Instincts. Xbox cousin to the increasingly distant first-person shooter PC original, Instincts is Dead by Dawn to the original’s Evil Dead: retold, restructured and remixed; these questionable differences provide the strongest and weakest moments.

Most effervescent is the protagonist’s chemically-induced evolution released throughout the narrative of the game enhancing your player with Predator-like abilities. Impressive strings of set pieces pull the action together to reveal a clever reversal of the hunter/prey relationship as you move into the second half of the game.

It’s a shame then, that you feel so otherwise removed from the game world. A huge and inaccurate targeting reticule is compensated by an overly

TAMAGOTCHI YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT they were a passing craze that died as quickly as shag bands and Spice Girls trading cards, but the Tamagotchi is back. After spending all summer in a play club I can confirm that they are as annoying and addictive as ever before.

The best place to look for them is eBay, where you can pick them up cheaply which is probably the best idea if you can envisage yourself getting bored quickly. Otherwise toy shops are selling them for about £12.50. The newest version of Tamagotchi has infra red, so you can connect and mate with friends, resulting in the hilarity of digital pet sex.

The characters range from the very cute (when well looked after) to the terminally hideous (when you forget about them and leave them in a drawer) but never fear! For unlike reality, you will not be done by social services if you leave your offspring under your bed until it dies in a pile of pixellated faeces.

Kate Dobbs

generous auto-aim feature and AI that would shame even the most doltish mercenary. Indeed, the only time you feel involved in combat is during the melee-driven action sequences reminiscent of The Predator.

Visually though, the game is incredible, its liberal dosage of visual

effects in a startlingly organic world is so immersive that you begin to overlook, and even forgive, the occasional faults.

The abrupt ending leaves you short of feeling wholly satisfied and the game itself never quite reaches the heights of greatness.

All Games provided by the nice people at CEX situated next to Cardiff Station, The place to buy, sell or exchange games and gadgets Jungle Fun

Burnout: Revenge I Love the smell of gasoline in the morning YOU’RE HEAD TO HEAD with another sports car, you see the approaching pillars of a flyover, you nudge his car towards a pillar seeing the smoke as he brakes too late.

The game goes into slow motion and the camera rotates as you watch the crumpled vehicle career across the road in a lazy arc spewing shards of metal and engine components onto the tarmac; finally grinding to a halt in a cloud of smoke and sparks on the wrong side of the road, the oncoming traffic swerving to avoid him.

‘Take down!’ The camera speeds up, the nitrous-boost kicks in and you’re racing again leaving behind the crunching sound of the destruction you caused. Of such moments the high-octane brilliance of Burnout: Revenge is made.

Refreshingly it doesn’t rely on optimum cornering or precision braking: it’s all about the crashes. It isn’t original, featuring as in previous versions Racing, Crashing and Road Rage

game modes as well as the ubiquitous EA play list.

Crucially, it doesn’t need to be, it does everything right from the shiny graphics to the instinctive control method. As a result it remains instantly accessible and hugely addictive. Burnout is adrenaline-drenched cylinder-pumping fun. Sam Curtis

Sweet Destruction

Film

24 10 05

film@gairrhydd.com

CLINT DOES TWO AT ONCE

Clint Eastwood has been hard at work making his WW2 epic Iwo Jima movie Flags Of Our Fathers.

Eastwood's revelation of shooting a second movie to release simultaneously with Lamps Before The Wind, told from the Japanese perspective, whereas Flags Of Our Fathers will be from the American perspective.

ITALIAN STALLION RIDES AGAIN

Film News CLAY LIVES ON

So much for CGI taking over our films. Wallace and Gromit has taken over £15m at the box office after its second week of release. It just goes to show the old techniques are always best.

The sixth Rocky film is set to go ahead at Sony, Revolution and MGM. In Rocky VI, Rocky Balboa is looking at that final chapter in his life and deciding how he wants to be remembered.

Former Heavyweight Champion Roy Jones Jr will be playing Balboa's opponent Mason Dixon.

PREACHING ASLAN

A row has broken out about the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia and its parallels with the Bible.

According to author Phillip Pullman children will be corrupted rather than inspired.

BLOND BOND

The new 007 has finally been announced. And he’s blond. The first ever blond actor to play the role, in fact. The lucrative job has gone to Daniel Craig, the bloke out of Layer Cake and Enduring Love.

M ORE Claymation

Rumours

Sad as we are to see the Aardvark stuff go so dreadfully up in flames the new W&G proves there’s still plenty more room for clay.

Film Desk has a long term hate affair with Miss Knightley but surely the only person more pointless is Kate Beckinsale

Keira Knightley

L ESS

" Kung Out on DVD this week: Out Now - Mysterious Skin !" " A Lot Like Love !" " Revenge of the Sith Fu Hustle !"

Out at cinemas this fortnight: Saw II ! Ghost In The Shell 2: " Sophie Scholl: The Last Days !

Innocence ! Flightplan !"

Thumbsucker

37

film@gairrhydd

By Catherine Gee Film Editor

I

t’s getting closer. A mere 26 days from going to print and the moment will be upon us. And there will not be a single soul in the developed world that doesn’t know about it. Whether or not this is a good thing is entirely up to you.

On the 18th of November Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be hitting the UK screens and Hogwarts fever will take hold.

I recently saw the theatrical trailer for the new film and I must say it looks tear-breakingly, pant-soilingly good. Gone are the cushy Home Alone-esque days of Chris Colombus.

This is grown-up stuff here, make no mistake.

I’ll admit I’m a fan of Harry Potter anyway. I have seen all the films and I have read every last engrossing word of the books. What bothers me is that it has become fashionable to dislike Potter, as it goes with any phenomenon. There is always an inevitable backlash. Unfortunately, when people choose to dislike something just because they hear other people criticising it they jump headfirst onto the bandwagon without bothering to find out for themselves.

More often than not a Harry Potter critic is one who hasn’t seen the films let alone read the books.

Here’s my suggestion, from a Potter fan and a person who knows what makes a good film. Give the new one a chance, THEN make up your own mind.

What Quench did this week We watched Domino which was drop dead fucking awful.

It was so bad I put my pet cat into the microwave for fun. I then recorded the poor sod blowing up and sent the film to Tony Scott with a message telling him that animal cruelty was more fun than watching his films. Then I woke up... (It’s all lies)

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Film

FILM SCHOO L

Film De sk guid e you th rough

this for tnigh

t’s mov ie

pick

Smell my fingers

THIS WEEK: JIM JARMUSCH’S BROKEN FLOWERS

By Catherine Gee Film Editor

T

he long awaited Jim Jarmusch and Bill Murray collaboration is finally upon us. Broken Flowers has arrived, telling the tale of a man called Don who receives a letter from a former girlfriend telling him he has a 19-year-old son. He then sets out on a quest to meet his estranged offspring.

Another telling of ‘real’ America, the casting of Bill Murray was already in Jarmusch’s mind as he wrote the script. Having previously turned in similar lanconic performances in The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums and Lost in

CV: JIM JARMUSCH Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) Year of the Horse (1997) Dead Man (1995) Night on Earth (1991) Mystery Train (1989) Down By Law (1986) Stranger Than Paradise (1984) Permanent Vacation (1980)

Translation, he seemed the obvious choice.

The two first met in a bar with Steve Buscemi ten years ago where they talked about current scripts and their past encounters with women.

They worked together for the first time two years ago in Coffee and Cigarettes, albeit Murray’s role was a small one. Jarmusch then wrote a part for him as his leading man in Broken Flowers, with even a small part for Murray’s son, Homer. ‘He’s always had that balance of mischief and melancholy,’ according to Jarmusch.

Also starring in Broken Flowers is Sharon Stone who, never one to be understated, is playing yet another strong female role. There can be no doubt that her name, like Murray’s, is a box office puller. A woman imprinted in public memory after her performance in Basic Instinct, she is now filming the sequel entitled Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction. Yes, really.

One such actor who, despite being recognised within the industry as a very talented actor, is a virtual unknown to the outside world. Playing the character of Winston, Don’s close friend, is Jeffrey Wright (Manchurian Candidate, Ali, Basquiat). A very meticulous actor, Wright perfected an Ethiopian accent for the role which he would maintain by ringing up the Ethiopian Embassy with made-up questions, seconds before shooting in order to hear the man’s accent down the phone.

As the woman who bore Don’s son, Jarmusch cast Jessica Lange, one of the entertainment industry’s most

successful actresses. Both Murray and Lange had worked together before on the massively successful Tootsie and so knew each other already.

One can never say Jarmusch doesn’t know the ingredients for a successful film. As a man who has no interest in moralising his audience or dictating to them how to feel he relies on his storytelling skills to make an impression on his audience. His belief that everything in life occurs at random, like Chaos Theory, influences the way he works. The notion that we may know or be able to predict what’s coming, to him, is not interesting. It is life’s chance occurrences that make stories worth telling, which perfectly sets the scene for Don’s journey to find his son.

Broken Flowers review Page 41

JIM JARMUSCH: Director, big hair

Yes you can indeed get your hands on all this lovely stuff. Don’t be afraid to enter; in the words of Faye Ripley: you’re far more likely to win if you actually play.

Good luck and keep your eyes peeled next issue for even more giveaways.

Film

39

CORPSE BRIDE GOODIE BAG

H

ere it is. Tim Burton’s long-awaited animation feature, The Corpse Bride, is released on October 21.

It stars the voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter and tells the story of a young man called Victor who inadvertently finds himself engaged to a living corpse.

To celebrate, the lovely people at Warner Bros. have given us four goodie bags to give away to the lucky readers of Quench. All you have to do answer this question: What was Tim and Johnny’s first film together? a) Corpse Bride b) Edward Scissorhands c) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Email your answer and your details to film@gairrhydd.com.

F F U T S E E FR TERRY PRATCHETT’S DISCWORLD DVD BOXSET

I

f you’re a fan of Terry Pratchett then this is truly not one to miss. It features two animated versions of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters with the voices of Christopher Lee and Neil Morrissey.

Set in Discworld which lies on the backs of four elephants which stand on the back of giant turtle floating through space. This box set is worth 30 squid in the shops so don’t miss out on this chance.

For a chance to win answer this question: What TV show did Neil Morrissey star alongside Martin Clunes in? a) Men Behaving Sadly b) Men Behaving Poorly c) Men Behaving Badly Email your answer and your details to film@gairrhydd.com.

PUNK: ATTITUDE ON DVD

I

f you like your old skool punk, or if you want to like it then here is your musical education in one convenient film.

Don Letts has made a documentary charting the rise and rise of his favourite genre of music. It features such famous and talented bodies as The Stooges, New York Dolls, The Ramones, Sonic Youth, The Buzzcocks, The Clash, Chrissie Hynde and many many more.

If you appreciate a good ‘fuck you’ (like on the cover) and find yourself regularly partial to rude finger gestures then have a crack at the quesiton below: Which band was Joey Ramone a member of? a) The Ramones b) The Stooges c) The Buzzcocks Email your answer and your details to film@gairrhydd.com. Please. Thanks.

40

Film WALLACE & GROMIT IN T.C.O.T.W.R. Dir Steve Box, Nick Park

Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter Out Now, 85 mins

W

allace and his loyal dog Gromit set out to discover the mystery behind the garden sabotage that plagues their village and threatens the annual giant vegetable growing contest.

Inventor/cheese enthusiast Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his mute yet loyal mutt Gromit, spend their days capturing the local rabbits from their pestcontrol company 'Anti-Pesto'. A giant vegetable competition looms and everyone is hoping their veg will win the Golden Carrot. Unfortunately the town is plagued by ravenous rabbits who keep crop-chomping and it’s up to W&G to take care of the problem with their cracking contraptions. In spite of this, a huge were-rabbit terrorizes the village and eats all of the crunchy goods in sight. Local scheming rival, Lord Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) steps forward to kill the creature. In response, W&G set out to trap and dispose of the creature, in hoping to capture the affections of Lady Tottingham (Helena Bonham Carter).

Nick Park, the maker of this plasticine claymation (taking five years to make) has kept the charm, wit and inspired lunacy from The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and A Grand Day Out. His excellent mix of visual humour and claymation makes this some of the best animated footage ever put on the silver screen. The action is flawless, the sets imaginative, detailed and colourful. The characters are exaggerated to perfection, including, as ever, Wallace the enduring, bumbling, balding cheese-loving inventor. Gromit is Oscar-worthy with his exasperated, mouthless expressions and subtle nuances conveying dismay, concern, grief, genuine surprise and relief. The bunnies may be childishly precious but the British sense of humour will give you paroxysms of laughter, convulsions of guffaws, and spasms of utter hilarity. If laughter were a physical entity, they would have needed ten elephant keepers to shovel up mine afterwards.

Ryan Owen

DOMINO Dir Tony Scott Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez

SKY HIGH Dir Mike Mitchell Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning

Out Now, 127 mins

Out Now, 100 mins

W

S

Ryan Owen

Andrew Anderson

ords fail me, but I will try. Do not under any circumstances see this film. It is a travesty that Domino was ever made, and I cannot believe throughout the film’s production, no-one made Tony Scott stop this cinematic abortion.

From the get-go, Keira Knightley is horrendously miscast as butch bounty hunter Domino Harvey. The problem is, she’s two stone too light, with a Vidal Sassoon ‘punk’ cut, and a voice like Aled Jones. Hardly a good casting choice (see awful trailer voiceover).

Richard Kelly and Tony Scott have scribed a disjointed script that is a cluster of nonsense. The frenetic hyperactive editing, extraneous grainy colour-saturated aesthetics, and grating intrusive music make Domino an irritating two-hour Tony Scott music video. It’s as if he had an identity crisis abandoning any limits, preferring the stylistic to the subtle regardless of irrelevancy.

If you thought Revolver was a piece of shit, Domino is like adrenalin being injected into the same excretion. It’s also a shame that the recent Aardman Animations fire didn’t burn the Domino film reels. Whilst in the midst of faeces, I nearly forgot. We get over-sentimental with a dead goldfish, hard-bitch Domino tells her mum she loves her, and Tom Waits shows up in the desert sprouting spiritual crap. Did I mention this was shit?

ky High looks like a shameless profiteering Warner Brothers family film. It is, but you do kind of get into it.

It is the story of Will Stronghold and his first term at the eponymous Sky High, a levitating high school for kids with super powers. The American teen drama’s social convention of jocks vs nerds is cleverly construed into the hero and the sidekick.

Being a ‘late bloomer’ Will has no powers of his own and is demoted to sidekick, much to the disappointment of his father (Kurt Russell). After finally gaining his powers Will is forced to choose between his sidekick friends and the popularity of the heroes.

There are many funny moments to be had and it has fun playing with the clichés and conventions of the genre.

There are a few in-jokes for fans of classic superheroes, but it never gets much deeper than that.

Many colourful and memorable characters fill the screen and it refrains, mercifully, from being too cute or corny. There is a bizarre preoccupation with 80s music, such as The Smiths, The Thompson Twins and Spandau Ballet- which is no bad thing.

The film’s morals may suffer under closer scrutiny and it’s all been done a million times better by The Incredibles, but generally it is harmless feel good family entertainment.

Hooray for that.

Cheese... in a cake? Cheesecake??

BROKEN FLOWERS Dir: Jim Jarmusch Starring: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Sharon Stone, Julie Delpy, Jeffrey Wright

INTO THE BLUE Dir: John Stockwell Starring: Paul Walker, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin

Oct 21, 106 mins

B

eing something of a poster boy for independent American directors, Jim Jarmusch is a master of off-kilter cinema. With Broken Flowers, arguably his most accessible work to date, he delivers the goods.

Idiosyncratic but also charming, Broken Flowers tells the story of Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a ladies’ man who receives an anonymous letter through the post informing him that he has a son with an old girlfriend from twenty years ago. With the help and guidance of his detective-fiction obsessed neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright), the relatively indifferent Don goes on a road trip in search of the mother of his supposed son.

Jarmusch (who wrote his excellent script in a mere two weeks) makes use of a laid-back visual aesthetic which complements Murray’s laconic performance. The women of Don’s life are all good in their varying supporting roles, from Jessica Lange’s ‘animal communicator’ to Frances Conroy’s repressed housewife and Tilda Swinton’s white trash biker chick. Kudos should also be given to Jeffrey Wright who provides ample comic relief.

Broken Flowers is an excellent addition to the Murray canon for his continuing evolution as a dramatist, imbuing his performance with a pathos that pushes his acting beyond the comic realm. The film also represents a turning point for Jarmusch as a storyteller. Recommended.

Ewen Hosie

Film

GUY X Dir: Saul Metzstein Starring: Jason Biggs, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Northam

Oct 21, 110 mins

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nce again Jessica Alba proves that her purpose in life stretches no further than a ‘model of tart’s clothing.’ Hollywood’s latest resident porn star fitty is back and she’s wearing even less clothing than in Sin City.

This is a film made for voyeurs, its main purpose being to watch Mr Walker and Miss Alba prance around in skimpy swimsuits. This would do wonders for bikini sales, were the Caribbean not in hurricane season, that is.

In terms of plot, to pick style over substance (see Tony Scott’s Domino for a very real example of why an entire film comprising of 1.6 second shots is wrong) is a dangerous decision. Surely Stockwell would at least give his viewers something to chew on. But he doesn’t. Bear in mind this is the man who brought us such cinematic delights as Blue Crush and Crazy/Beautiful.

Somehow, four beautiful bright young things are able to snorkel to 150 feet below the surface to discover a sunken aeroplane wreck. On this wreck they find, not rubies and diamonds and pretty things, but cocaine.

And lots of it. What are they to do?

Do we care?

You get your light entertainment and then you get films that are simply painful to watch. Into The Blue crashes head first into the latter category.

If this amount of titillation is what you need to enjoy a film, you may as well stop pretending and just watch porn.

Catherine Gee

Out Now, 100 mins

J

ason Biggs shows the world those American Pie days are truly behind him as he excels in his understated portrayal of Rudy Spruance; mislaid army soldier. It’s just a shame that certain other parts of the film let him down.

The supporting cast all turn in memorable performances, all except for one, at least. The usually reliable Natascha McElhone, cast as the love interest, appears a bit of a non-entity, hindered further by the complete lack of chemistry between herself and Biggs. The supposed love story is thrown at the viewer right from the very beginning with persistent comments of ‘she likes you’ in a stab to ensure the point is not missed. To clarify, there’s a love story there, you got that?

Guy X is set in Greenland where, thanks to its proximity, the sun either doesn’t rise or it doesn’t set. You can imagine the opportunities this can offer to a film-maker alongside the stark yet amazing scenery. Fortunately cinematographer François Dagenais does not waste it and at times the film is stunning to watch, being hypnotic and indelibly beautiful.

The major letdown is the slippery plot. The main storyline and the Guy X of the title are not introduced until we are some way through, leaving it somewhat disjointed. Much as you may like to think you are watching a film about a fella starting up a barracks newspaper, it turns into something far more sinister. The big secret and its involvement with the antagonist is left under-developed, rendering us unsure of the full story.

The attempt to be a lightweight Apocolypse Now inevitably fails bu it is reminiscent of the novel Catch 22.

Nevertheless, it is worth a look for the breathless scenery and a grown up Jim but it will ultimately leave you feeling like you’ve ordered a four course meal but been given a ginger biscuit.

Catherine Gee

JESSICA ALBA: Tart

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Film ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW Dir: Miranda July Starring: Miranda July, John Hawkes Out Now, 95 mins

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pair of teenage girls with sex on the brain, a lonely businessman, a retired senior with an ailing wife, and an empty unfulfilled art director. All of these people exist in the circle of friends and acquaintances of Richard and Christine.

July plays Christine, an emotional erratic but aspiring conceptual artist.

She is obsessively stuck in unsure love with fragile dreamer Richard (John Hawkes), a father of two young boys. Newly single and lonely shoe salesman Richard struggles to connect with Christine in this unique take on contemporary life. Richard's sons, young brothers Peter and

The DVDon Reviews you cant refuse LOS DEBUTANTES , rel. Out Now The problem with Chilean gangster movie Los Debutantes is it contains too much sex. You see so many naked people in the first half of the film that later scenes including a rape, and several sexual assaults don’t shock like they should. It does however, benefit from a strong lead cast and a few truly beautifully directed scenes. Ultimately though, it just tries too hard to be cool and shocking. Si Truss The Don Says: “Whenever I feel a bit ‘Chile’ I lie beside a large horse’s head and think of Sophia Coppola’s beard” KUNG FU HUSTLE, rel. 31 Oct Martial arts movies undoubtedly lend themselves to comedy, the almost ballerina-esque fighting, the stupid

Back and For th...Forever Robby Swersey, each stumble upon fairly distorted reflections of adult intimacy. Richard's younger sevenyear-old Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), has a risqué Internet romance with a stranger, visiting an online sex chat room. Whilst his older 14-year-old brother Peter (Miles Thompson) is the obsession of female classmates, who use him as a guinea pig to practice oral sex upon.

Miranda July stars in her debut feature, a heartwarming, charming and poetic American Indie observation on how people struggle to connect in an isolating and contemporary world.

A Sundance Special Jury Prize win for originality of vision, as well as four awards from Cannes. Writer/director/co-star Miranda July's first big screen effort and debuting role is an artful, delicate and thought provoking example of how 'Indie Cinema' should be. She depicts the inno-

cence of childhood, the sexual curiosity of teenagers, and the complex emotions of adulthood through personal and original stories and situations, transforming the mundane moments of our lives. It takes the erratic parts of Life Aquatic, the style of Garden State along with the quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite and puts it into a big melting pot, cooking up this year's Sideways.

sound effects, the over the top facial expressions. Kung Fu Hustle embraces this. With silly python style humour all round and magnificent fight scenes, it is yet another great film to come from China of late.

There’s even a Matrix take off.

effect actions have on our lives. Not for those who like their films simple and ‘feel good’. Catherine Gee The Don Says: “I like the feel of young boys. Especially once I shed them of their ‘mystery’.”

One To h Watc

William Hitchins

The Don Says: “I once sang lead vocals in the shit band Ash. Kung Fu...”

AMITYVILLE HORROR, rel. 31 Oct The remake starring Ryan Reynolds and the ginger ‘un out of Home & Away star in this Hollywood-ised remake of distincly average eighties film of the same name. Ryan Reynolds goes all “Here’s Johnny” on our asses as he starts to take on an altogether psychotic persona.

Ryan Owen

The Don Says: “The ghost of Fred West lives in my basement. He locks himself in the toilet when I need a shit” MYSTERIOUS SKIN, rel. 31 Oct Starring that kid from 3rd Rock From The Sun and the younger sister from Buffy in roles that couldn’t be more different from the ones that made them famous. Mysterious Skin tells the tales of homosexuality, asexuality, abuse, alien abductions and the

Ryan Owen

THE CANNELONI SPECIAL REVENGE OF THE SITH Rel. 31st Oct

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eorge Lucas finishes his sixpart epic in triumphant style with Revenge of the Sith, tying up the story of young Anakin.

George Lucas was volunteering for a suicide mission on one of the most visible stages the world has ever known.

The first two should have been aborted. Sith surprised us all,even topping Natalie Portman stripping to the Smiths. It wasn’t as good as Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst experimenting with each others bodies, but then again, that was in my head. Anyway Sith was like Ghandi on crack, so go and buy it, or download it to piss off Lucas.

Ryan Owen

The Don Says: “I once fucked Jenna Jameson. She fucked me so hard that trying to maintain eye contact was like trying to read Dostoevsky on a rollercoaster”

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

classics@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

43

This week we bring the topsy turvy world of rock ‘n’ roll to your doorstep with some seminal artists and their seminal artistry

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vershadowed is a word that springs to mind when considering Tim Buckley. Young pretenders latch on to the legacy of Scotty Moorhead without recognising the man that made him..

What would the legacy of Scotty Moorhead be if he had never spent that few days with his Father and changed his name to Jeff Buckley?

Tim was the springboard for Jeff, but to this day he maintains his own musical autonomy via the creative evolution that encapsulates his nine studio albums.

Fusing folk, folk-rock, jazz, funk-rock and avant-garde Tim’s virtuosity is assured.

The engulfing beauty of such songs as Song To The Siren and Once I Was, delivered from his wildly tamed vocals, beckon every drop of empathy from your body as you become haunted.

Tim was a critical success yet unrecognised by the record buying public.

Married with a child at 18. Dead by 28. Meeting his son only once, and changing music forever.

Alan Entwistle

TIM BUCKLEY: Live in New York 1963

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riginally intended as a musical adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 and containing Glam Rock’s most recognisable stomp Rebel Rebel, Diamond Dogs has the hallmarks of a cult classic and is a superb rehash of diverse lyrical, conceptual and musical ideas.

Bowie’s eloquent oeuvre begins with Future Legend, a spoken overture presents Hunger City, a Burroughsian phantasm, rife with drugs and decadence before segueing into the sax-driven title track, introducing Halloween Jack.

Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise) follows, a jaw dropping operetta, the best thing Bowie’s ever committed to tape. Rebel Rebel and the languid show ballad When You Rock And Roll With Me provide some light relief before the chilling We Are The Dead claws you back into the nightmare.

BOWIE: Eloquent

Next comes 1984, a sublime slab of funk. But the closing sequence clinches Diamond Dogs’ classic status: The post-apocalyptic Big Brother giving way to the hypnotic chant of the ever circling skeletal family… This ain’t rock ‘n’ roll, This is genocide.

Will Parkes

D

warfed by the success of Nevermind, In Utero is the final piece of Nirvana’s creative legacy that confirms Kurt Cobain’s madness and retains his Punk-Rock credibility. A step back from Nevermind it is not; In Utero is a reaction to changes in Cobain’s life when he turned from small town rocker with a penchant for narcotics into a global superstar with a chronic heroin habit.

The vocal ferocity and lyrical depth matched with the classical song writing that made him famous results in an album rich with quality and power. The bloodcurdling vocals on Scentless Apprentice contain passionate anger whilst lyrics about demons, twisted love songs (Heart Shaped Box), 90 seconds of ferocious punk (Tourettes), and All Apologies make it least as good as Nevermind.

A Cult Classic forgotten by the masses. Never political, always personal, the self-obsessed album reveals the darkest recesses of a troubled mind. If the lyric "look on the bright side, suicide" from highlight track Milk doesn’t confirm to people that Cobain’s death was suicide, then nothing will.

Tom Howard

IN UTERO: A statuesque swansong

24 10 05 Arts Aussies, brothels and the language of love

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arts@gairrhydd.com

Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson @ St David’s Hall

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Mark Morris Dance Group @ Wales Millennium Centre

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n elegant lack of grandeur and dramatic indulgence epitomised the Mark Morris Dance Group’s performance at the Wales Millennium Centre.

Gracing the theatre’s stage as part of their 25th Anniversary tour, the internationally renowned group performed without the dazzle that often accompanies contemporary dance.

The bare stage, restrained use of lighting and simple, clinging costumes created a mesmerising link between the dancers, the live orchestra and the audience.

Somebody’s Coming to See Me Tonight, the first of four dances, saw the audience serenaded and wooed as the rituals of courtship and roman-

Act One @ CF10, Students’ Union

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hore Rooms: La Goulue is the first production of the year from Cardiff University drama society Act One. The production featured four scenes in four rooms by four different directors, linked by the same setting within a brothel. The concept was

tic love were brought to life. The dancers, dressed in rich purples and greys, were accompanied by hauntingly beautiful live vocals. This, together with the orchestra, made for an usual combination and gave a fresh dynamism to the theatrical language of love.

Mark Morris himself made an appearance in From Old Seville, a short piece which brought the humour always at the edge of the night’s performance firmly to the forefront.

Grand Duo ended the evening with an energetic, harmonious celebration of nature and the sheer primitive force of life.

The Mark Morris Dance Group bring a classical aesthetic to modern dance and this unique quality makes them truly a joy to watch.

Kim O’Connor

ustralia’s self-styled yobbus vulgaris returned with his own brand of tasteless-yet-hilarious comedy songs, invariably themed on the life of your average outback bloke.

So that’s principally drinking and screwing. Sometimes with animals (as I’m sure “the well-hung young goat-fucker from Kalgoorly” will testify). Though, apparently, roadkill doesn’t count.

Kevin’s stories of Aussie country life are brilliantly witty, if incredibly coarse. He managed to out-swear Roy Chubby Brown’s last Cardiff performance, with over two ‘fucks’ per minute.

While the songs themselves were entertaining, the filler material in between was mostly old gags – much of it recycled from material first heard on a recording several years ago. Very few comedians can get away with reusing so many jokes, and Kevin barely managed.

The over-scripting was also evident in his dealing with hecklers, insofar as he didn’t. Idiots in the audience were summarily ignored, whereas someone like Roy Chubby Brown, to whom Kevin is often compared, would have destroyed them.

Funny bloke, just don’t see him twice.

Chris White

thought up by member Andy Connolly and is influenced by 1995 film Four Rooms. The resulting performances were a heady concoction of drama, comedy, tragedy and romance.

After only two weeks of rehearsals, the cast of Act One performed on a makeshift stage at CF10 and were worth watching for their humour, dramatic outbursts and intensity.

Damaqu Meronvil GOAT: Faced killah

Coming to a stageyou A r t s ear

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s one of the UK’s arts hotspots, Cardiff has plenty to offer anyone looking for a bot of culture, innovation or side-splitting comedy.

And with some of the hottest names in the arts world hitting the Welsh capital during the next month, now is the time to get acquainted with the Cardiff arts scene, with something to tickle the fancy of every type of arts junkie.

COMEDY FANS The next month is going to be a good ‘un for all laughter addicts. The Wales Millennium Centre has Harry Hill taking his unique genius to the stage on November 6 while author, Blackadder writer and comedian extraordinaire Ben Elton will perform his one-man show at the Centre on November 27.

Meanwhile Cardiff Glee Club will do what it says on the tin with performances by a range of comediennes, fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, in Funny Women on Tour on November 2. The Club is also serving up Perrier Award-winning Rich Hall on November 23 to satiate your appetites for laughter.

St David’s Hall has its own impressive line-up on offer with an appearance from Ardal O’Hanlon, the star of Father Ted and My Hero on October 26th. Also performing are Jo Brand on November 9, Patrick Kielty on

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November 10 and, for those of you looking for a man who could never be categorised, Sir Bob Geldof on November 11.

CULTURE VULTURES

The Sherman Theatre will play host to three performances of Brian’s Friel’s Translations, which addresses the complex questions about Irish identity in the mid 1800s, on the first and seocnd of November. Meanwhile critically-acclaimed director Michael Bogdanov will take his production of Hamlet to The New Theatre. Set in the modern day, Hamlet will be performed bilingually, with performances alternating between English and Welsh.

And for a slice of farce, satire and light entertainment you can get down to the Wales Millennium Centre for a production of the Oscar Wilde classic The Importance of Being Earnest between November 9 and 12.

MUSICAL ADDICTS

Millennium Centre will be throwing the audience back to the seventies with Saturday Night Fever, which will shimmy onto the stage between October 25 and November 5. Jumpsuits and medallions at the ready.

THE CLASSICAL CANON Welsh superstar soprano Katherine Jenkins will be taking her dulcet tones to the Wales Millennium Centre in a concert on November 28.

In the meantime, St David’s Hall maintains its classical roots with a performance by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales on November 17.

Featuring the works of Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, the orchestra will explore the genius of Russian composers.

And if you like your orchestras to be from somewhere a little further afield, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra will take to the stage at the Hall on November 16.

Kerry-Lynne Doyle

Want some tickets?

Some of the most successful musicals ever written will be hitting Cardiff this autumn winter.

The King and I will then take to the stage between November 15 and 26, only to be followed by the musical legend that is Grease, which kicks off on November 28, Not to be outdone, the Wales

St David’s Hall: 029 2087 8444 Wales Millennium Centre: 08700 402000 The Sherman Theatre:029 2064 6900 The New Theatre: 029 2087 8889 Cardiff Glee Club: 0870 241 5093

A Sense of Space @ Bay Art Gallery

The Ritual Theatre @ CBAT

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PATRICK KIELTY: Mid-enema

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his exhibition combined various styles of work from numerous different artists.

Ranging from the defined black and white images of rural areas to the simplistic photograph of a full storage room, the exhibition title ‘A Sense of Space’ was broadly interpreted. The exhibition had a minimalist approach with some decidedly debatable art pieces.

The presentation of a red brick to represent the space of the rural area hardly seemed creative or artistic to me! The exhibition boasted few exhilarating pieces and had too few entries to fill the gallery. A Sense of Space: it certainly was a sense of space.

Rebecca Child

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avid Pearl’s creative idea was unique and interesting, an abstract take on everyday life.

His series of photographs combined a clever use of water and shadow movement, metaphorically entailing the idea of isolation versus chaos, with video footage to enhance.

However, the exhibition lacked substance with only two images to fuel the viewer’s appetite. The video footage failed to exhilarate with repetitive images unsuccessfully sustaining observer attention and with little else to see the full potential of this creative idea was far from achieved.

The artist’s idea was certainly distinctive, however it needed to be developed further to make this exhibition worth a visit.

Rebecca Child

46 T e l e v i z z l e

television@gairrhydd.com

24 10 05

4-TUNE: Hideous name. Hideous people. Spock look-a-like.

Tu n n e l V ision

By TV Gareth TV Till He Dies

F

irst off, X-Factor is good. No "sometimes I go the barfly, I know what real music is" highfalutin here. Plenty of highfalutin, always, but not from those quarters.

Sure enough it's a crude way of making our music stars but when it has created genuinely good, interesting pop acts with great songs like (pick any five) Girls (from a council estate) Aloud and American Idol's Kelly Clarkson then that's forgivable.

Yes, some of it is undeniably tragic.

For every Girls Aloud scuzz-pop smash there’s a Michelle McManus power ballad, but equally for every Steve Albini there’s a Pete Doherty. Every so-called genre of music has it’s highs and lows. But one thing is prevalent within the whole X-Factor thing; as a good man once said; “There is no greater pleasure than watching someone with blatant mental illness and a speech impediment impersonate Mariah Carey” (Acts (Ch. IX, v. 5)).

I'm sure my joy at watching the masochistic, deluded fools in the audition stages can be equated to the sort of psychology that makes us slow down whilst passing car wrecks on a motorway. If this is the case then the next time I pass such a sight I will order the driver to pull over and allow me to sniff and prod at the corpses.

For only this highly dysfunctional metaphor can illustrate my desire, nay, NEED to watch every repeat and XXX-TRA FACTOR that ITV2 throws at me.

This is a programme that angers more than it excites.

I know for a fact already that I will

never buy a record that any of this year's contestants will produce. I know that I won't vote. I know that sooner or later the oral sex-tacularly named 'Journey

“

There is no greater pleasure than watching someone with blatant mental illness and a speech impediment impersonate Mariah Carey (Acts (Ch. IX, v. 5)) South' are going to come out and perform an Aerosmith song. I know before I log on to the official website who the performers are going to list as influences (Boyz II

Men for the Leonard Nimoy fronted 4tune, anyone?). I know all these things, and I know that every week the cry of "It's Chico time!" is going to be the cue for my ears to start bleeding. But this is all okay because nobody should watch X-Factor in the hope of seeing their next favourite pop star. You should watch it because you want to see people cry in a context which isn’t news coverage of a natural disaster. Because you know that these people are idiots and want to see them fail.

Because you know something that they don’t know and are going to revel in their eventual misery. If it produces a couple of decent singles as well as this then that can only be a bonus. After all, the Milky Way Magic Star-turned-human that is supposed working-class hero Andy, may well be a good singer, but that’s no way as interesting as imagining using the giant ‘X’ stage prop as a crucifix for the dire Conway Sisters.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have my favourites. I want the one whose dad is apparently a rapist to win... unfortunateIy I’ve not quite worked out who this is though.

THE X-FACTOR JUDGES: Or are they? You decide. Wrong show.

...From the Rhondda to the Conwy Valley, none can escape the...

Vinyl

24 10 05

Resting

with Bastian Springs

47

Place

B

efore we get started, I am of Welsh descent, I chose Cardiff University above all others because it was in Wales, rather than for the course. I have a lot of time for Welsh lifestyle, and in most parts, Wales is rather marvellous. Now, after you’ve excused me vomiting my own stomach bile over the keyboard, we’ll move onto the important point, which is that Welsh musicians, in the most part, are fucking idiotic incompetent morons when it comes to creating music.

True. Fucking. Story. Give a kid from Caerphilly a microphone, and watch as any beauty contained in his valley accent, honks off out the window in a calamitous volley of drones, barks and gurgles the time the first chorus of Delilah kicks in. Likewise, Cerys Matthews treating us with her

By Bastian Springs by uncompromising squealing-antelope-in-a-mangle singing voice without the idea it was aurally disChasing the gusting even crossing her wooly-brained head. I’d love to discuss the wacky wonderful world of the Dragon Super Furries, Gorkys, the Manics and mmm - anyone for McLusky? But that’s beside the point.

Record #19 - Kelly Jones - Nothing Compares 2 U (Acoustic) Crime: This Banana is Shit

N

othing Compares 2 U is a beautiful, beautiful record.

Prince knew it when he wrote it, hence he never funked with it, wary of damaging this fragile fragment of genius he’d created. Sinead O’Connor knew it too - she even let the director chop onions all the way through the video shoot.

The year is now 2002: “It’s bin syeaveenn haaars and feeeyafteeen dayayaaysss /

siiince yow took yower laahhvv aaaaa-wayy-yeah”. Beautiful. It continues: “Awwwl the flahs that yow playanted mam-ma!

In the bark yad / awl dad when yow wayant aaa-wayyyyah!”

This is in case anyone had accidently let this monumental feat of melodical ineptitude slip their mind, or just hadn’t been alerted to this Richter-Scale-bothering seismic shit.

Kelly Jones thought it would be good to apply his mechanic-fisted-by-carpenter-wearingsandpaper-glove throat-farts, to not only a delicate, pretty little flower of a song, but to slap his rugged manly wanger over the mixing desk and bark “I want this shit stripped down man, I want my talent to shee-ine”. Ironically, what surfaced was, in terms of a miscast singer to song combination, incomparable.

KELLY: Brief Encounter

Record #18 - Feeder - Feeling a Moment Crime: Feeling a Moment

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FEEDER: ‘Feeling’ a Bit

n my first year at this university, I referred to Feeder as “crap” in a review of something different. Two days later, drummer Jon Lee committed suicide, and I as good as ate the words subsequently edited swiftly from the review.

None of which is particularly funny. What is funny, as in queer, is the stonking Eddiethe-Eagle with a 100lb weight, a grand piano AND a jam jar containing Kelly Jones puffing out the third verse of Traffic tied-to-him nose-dive Feeder’s career then decided to take. This particular cut,

taken from their second postLee ouvre Pushing the Senses is, without beating about the proverbial bush, precisely how morose, dribblingly sychophantic, and funny-as-in-queer a song called Feeling a Moment from an album called Pushing the Senses is expected to be.

They also now employ the services of the drummer from Skunk Anansie. Push those boundaries, guys!

The main problem with tapwater-era Feeder, is their insistance of using ambigous metaphors to hide the basic requirement of emotional

lyrics (I’m assuming by the snot-dribbling wank wiped off

by Grant Nicholas’ nose, it’s intended to be emotional) context, reason, direction and affect - are all mysteriously eradicated by swarthing clouds of nonsensical vague piss-steam.

That and the fact that rather than pummel your face with three-chord riffs and ridiculous fruit-themed shoutalongs like the Feeder of yore, they’re now more likely to tenderly caress your buttocks and whisper “was that nice?”. Which really is, very, very funny. As in queer.

Who’s up next week? Arctic Fucking Monkeys, Arctic Fucking Monkeys, or the Arctic Fucking Monkeys? challenge Bastian to a ‘who knows more about shit music duel’... bastian@gairrhydd.com

10

Fashion

fashion@gairrhydd.com

The WORD is ...

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ike hordes of women across the country, I was hoping that skinny jeans would have had their day this season. Only an option for sixfoot tall gazelles with superstretched super-slender pins, I certainly wasn’t working the skinny jean look this summertime.

So I had mixed feelings when the Autumn-Winter 2005 key trends were announced, namely Victoriana, Russian bohemia and the military look. Add to this a bit of monochrome, velvet and a hell of a lot of black and the season is officially a massive mixed bag of fabrics, colours and influences. So which trend should you start with? And how can you avoid a trend overload?

24 10 05

Kerry-Lynne Doyle’s anyone-can-wear-it guide to Autumn’s key fashion trends

Victoriana The Victoriana look has already been a hit, with celebs such as Claudia Schiffer donning its wares.

Team a Victorian-style high-neck top with jeans for a classy look, or wear it with a simple black skirt for a taste of vintage sophistication.

Victorian lace-up boots are hitting the high street in an array of colours and if you are going to make your footwear Victorian, keep the rest of your outfit sleek and simple. Making Victorian boots the feature of your outfit will keep you stylish and free from the danger of looking like you’ve raided a very old fancy dress box.

Velvet and black lace are two key fabrics for this season - plush velvets in a variety of hues and black lace bring a gothic flair to winter. Style queen Sienna Miller has already donned a black lacy dress, embracing its delicate feminine look. Invest in a stunning black evening top and indulge in a velvet skirt for staple wardrobe items that will give you your money’s worth.

On the catwalks the Russian look involved suede, velvet and lots of fur, but you can keep your look animal-friendly with a fake furtrimmed gilet worn with jeans or a denim skirt. With Russia being a major theme on the autumn-winter catwalks, you will find Heidi-style woollen cardigans, big fluffy boots and bold embroidery throughout high street stores. If you avoid a colour-clash by wearing too many patterns at once, the Russian look is a practical trend, which will keep you colourful and warm during the winter months.

How NOT to wear it: Fur Trim Bolero 29.99 River Island

Russian