Quench - Issue 52

Q U E N C H QUENCH.GAIRRHYDD.COM > VOL 4.52 > MAY 2007

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D IA N G UA R N T E D U T S Z IN E A G MA HE T F O YEAR

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BUYING MANGA IS SO ABSOLUTELY NOT UNCOOL IN ANY WAY

COMIC GENIUS

Books get geeky and turn to Manga for their graphic pleasures FASHION GETS IN LINE TO SEE MOSS’S N EW COLLECTION IN CARDIFF’S TOPSHOP

08INTERVIEWS

Direction: Black Book director Paul Verhoeven talks to Quench

22FEATURES

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It certainly was an experience, not unlike drowning in Rock and Roll soup

Music on Quench’s gig/ page 32

PHOTO: JAMES PEROU

features

CONTENTS

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QUENCH.GAIRRHYDD.COM > VOL 4.52 > MAY 2007

What’s your stereotype?

Features investigate those student stereotype

18GAY

Men-ogomy: Gay examine homosexual monogamy

#49

46DIGITAL

ts...

esen

dd pr

rhy gair

C H Q U E N

n

50th editio

Q U E N C H’S

The old days: Re-live gaming the old school way

LOCAL MIXTAPE the best of you some of Quench brings Cardiff’s music scene

regulars

Editor Sophie Robehmed Executive editor Perri Lewis Assistant to the Editors Elaine Morgan

04THE BLURB

32BOOKS

06DEBATE

34ART

07GRACE

41FILM

12FASHION

50GOING OUT

16TRAVEL

52CULT CLASSICS

20FOOD

54THE FINAL WHISTLE

Fash off

Never a waste of space Girls aloud

Miss Moss A new kind

All for a fiver

23REVIEWS Gets sexed up

Goes down under A fanny old place It’s a blaze of glory all on its own Summer city haunts We love Billy

Cricket ain’t crackin’

55TUNNEL VISION Feeling lazy

Arts Kim O’Connor, Rebecca Child Blind Date Rosanne and Olivia Books Daisy Beare Columnists Gareth Paisey, Grace DeVille, Dave Menon, John Widdop Cult Classics Tom Brookes Debate Caleb Woodbridge Digital Dom MukwambaSendall Fashion Leana Crookes, Matt Hitt Features Amy Harrison, Ben Bryant Film Ewen Hosie, Si Truss Food Joanne Grew Gay Deen Lloyd, Jenny Hall Going Out Kayleigh Excell, Rachel Clare Interviews Amira Hashish, Nicola Menage Music Mike Richards, Sofie Jenkinson, Will Hitchins Photography Adam Gasson, James Perou, Sarah Day Travel Chris Rogers, Jim Whiteley Cover Design Graeme Porteous Proof Readers Kate Dobbs, Kieran Harwood Contributors Aisling Tempany, Ben Read, Daniel Smith, Andy Tweddle, Rachel Greenwood, Becky Candy, Ria Jones, Amy Grier, Felicity Whitton, Claire Power, Tasha Prest-Smith, Natalia Popova, Tim Scriven, John Davies, Lizzie Pook, Richie Brown, Mary Hittchens, Mariam Bashorum, Leah Eynon, Gillian Couch, Sim Eckstein, A. Brooks, Tom Victor, Mike Bateson-Hill, Robert Malone, Ben Marshall, Fran jarvis, Kyle Ellison, Chris White, Tom Birts.

25MUSIC

Explosions for your eyes

QUENCH@GAIRRHYDD.COM

Best Student Publication 2005

Best Student Magazine 2005 & 2006

THE BLURB q.ed.

Life by numbers...

THE FIGHT The ‘Marlboro’ Man Strengths: A cowboy; allegedly well connected with violent, racist groups; stinking rich; strong political lobby

I

watched an amazing programme on the ‘ol’ box recently. Thanks to television producer, Nick Watts’ epiphany in the pub one day, he turned thoughts that have often circulated my grey matter and I’m sure many of yours, into a sensational visual feast – Human Footprint.

Quite simply, this programme was made in a bid to examine how much the average person will eat, drink, spend, love, suffer and waste in a lifetime, which was based on the concept that the average person lives to the age of 78 and a half years – or 2 billion, 475 million and 576,000 seconds, if you prefer. And the results were quite phenomenal. Yet equally, the extraordinary and spectacular stunts necessary to illustrate these points, was a wake-up call regarding how hedonistic and consuming we as people are during our lifetime.

Par example, the very British notion that ‘a cup of tea solves everything’ seems to have a ring of truth to it after all considering that as you read this, you are quite possibly drinking one of the 74,802 cups of tea that the average Briton will consume in their lifetime. Or, maybe you’ve just realised that it isn’t a myth – Facebook really is going to be the spanner in the works preventing you from graduating this year and thus causing you to shed some salt water.

In which case, you could be shedding a drop of the 121 pints of tears you will ever cry. Equally, the nymphomaniacs among you will be surprised to know that sex is generally on the cards just under twice a week, or 4,239 times over the 78.5 years. You could of course increase your chances of some horizontal jogging by taking one of 7,163 baths using one million litres of water, 657 bars of soaps and 197 bottles of shampoo. Or enlighten your mental capacity by reading one of the 533 books you will read unless you are a part of the 40 per cent that can’t be bothered, of course.

After falling in love for allegedly the third time, and making the last of the 314 visits to the doctor, and swallowing the last of the 30,000 tablets, the 104,000 dreams inside our heads will be all over. Indeed, our life will cease after 415 million blinks of an eye and it will be time for someone else to shed some of their 121 pints of tears.

And to switch the kettle on, of course.

FOUR

Weaknesses: Wheezy; vulnerable to heart disease and lung cancer; alleged reduction of the blood flow, causing impotence; Brokeback Special Move: ‘The Passive Poison’ - Using an ancient Redneck technique, Marlboro Man extracts the death and disease he’s contracted since the times before smokers were considered social lepers and releases it into the atmosphere.

Tony ‘Prime Minister/Not Prime Minister’ Blair

vs.

Strengths: Staying power; owns good real estate; untarred lungs; loves a fight Weaknesses: Getting on a bit; not cool enough to smoke; associates with the bad, ignorant and power-hungry Special Move: ‘The Spin of Confusion’ Using strategically positioned autocues, he spills enough mumbo-jumbo to confuse his opponents into turning onto themselves.

THE VERDICT When news about a nationwide smoking ban reaches Marlboro Country, the man in the denim smoking the reds gets angry. And across the water, when Mr. Blair heard of this hostility, a fight was inevitable.

The nervous PM started to break sweat early in Round 1, as Marlboro Man strutted into the arena and flexed his rugged body at the politician.

Losing his composure under the pressure of Marlboro Man’s suave and classic good looks, Mr. Blair hurriedly starts his ‘Spin of Confusion’.

Despite Tony’s timing seemingly letting him down again, the ‘Spin of Confusion’ works

quickly and unforgivingly.

Within moments Marlboro Man is thrashing around violently threatening himself with and old .44 Magnum and a broken bottle of firewater.

Just before a smug look manages to creep over Mr. Blair’s face, it suddenly contorts with fear as he hears his enemy try to inflict the passive poison on himself. But the more Marlboro Man flails, the more toxins he sends into the air.

With over 80% invisible to the naked eye, Blair has nowhere to hide.The Prime Minister was unable to speak to Quench directly after The Fight, but promised he would give an exclusive interview once the NHS had fixed his injuries. In 2009. Mike Richards

THEBLURB@GAIRRHYDD.COM

THE BLURB Red Dragonom Producer T Reeves tackles Quench’s five big questions

! s i h t r e Answ What's the best thing you've ever stolen?

Many a girl's heart.... Or factually....? Nothing really, I'm a very honest guy.

Boring but true. Although I've had some very good, what shall we call them?, free perks from working at Red Dragon. Like CDs, gig tickets etc that might be 'spare'. Um best shut up now before I get in trouble!

What's the best lesson you've learnt in life?

"To thine own self be true" - Shakespeare. So so true. And never mix business with trouble. And trust your gut feeling! There's lots. I am available for advice sessions you know!?

If you could be anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Probably Richard Branson. An inspirational guy and balls of steel. Or Gareth Edwards or JPR Williams. Or any legendary Welsh rugby player really. To be able to play rugby that well and to play for Wales would be my dream. Unfortunately I suck. But I talk a good game.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?

Southern comfort and lemonade. I'm constantly told by many people it's a girls' drink but I don't care, it's class and I can drink it until it comes out of my eyes! Although I do tend to drink JD now when I'm 'out with the lads' or anyone else actually.

What would your special powers be if you were a super hero?

Awesome! What a question! Definitely being able to fly. In fact pretty much everything Superman has - fast as lightning, strong, x-ray vision. Just a better costume - something a bit darker and edgy. And a cool car like Batman would be nice... Not that I'm greedy?!

Tom Reeves is the producer of Jase and Mel’s The Full Welsh Breakfast show every weekday morning from 6am only on Red Dragon

THEBLURB@GAIRRHYDD.COM

You may feel old but I feel older than all of you

O

ne day at a time, I am slowly taking over Gair Rhydd. And one day, maybe, people will remember how to say my name.

It has been an odd first year for me, returning to university. On onehand, it is great to be part of something again, after the meaninglesslow-paid jobs of the past 2 years.

But at the same time being older is very lonely and isolating. It is just so much harder to be naively enthusiastic and bright about everything when the real world is haunting you still. It feels like you have seen it all before.

It is isolating to be surrounded by smart people younger than you are, and it is isolating to know that some of the staff are only a few years older than you.

However the worst thing for me about university has been the fashion. Where did the culture of ‘scenesters’ come from? I never thought I could hate anything more than chavs. Please, all of you, make my life so much easier, and stop this stupid trend. Please stop wearing brightly coloured leggings and getting weird shaped haircuts. Stop wearing hundreds upon hundreds of cheap bangles, that conversely cost a fortune (although, they do warn me you are coming.)

Please, I just cannot take it anymore. I hope this madness all ends soon. I am an old lady, you know.

Aisling Tempany

“Where did the culture of scenesters come from?”

FIVE

DEBATE

Space The final frontier for humanity, or a distraction from life on Earth?

For

Against

Caleb Woodbridge

W

e are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” said Oscar Wilde. The heavens above have captured the imagination of scientists and poets alike for centuries. But is space travel just a frivolous waste?

No - there are many possible advantages. For the first time in history, we are getting close to having a chance of averting disasters like an asteroid strike. In 1908, the impact of a 20m asteroid flattened over 800 square miles of Siberian Forest with a force equivalent to the most powerful nuclear bomb ever devised. Just imagine that hitting a populated area, such as Washington or Beijing or Cardiff.

A lesson from history: Easter Island once housed a thriving society, seen in the thousands of remaining great stone statues. But rather than managing their resources, they cut down the trees on the island. With their resources dwindling and the ability to built boats to travel beyond their island gone, Easter Island: their society fell into warning from history? chaos and decline.

This island Earth faces the same danger. We are squandering our resources rather than investing them in the ability to travel beyond our own native sphere. There’s a whole universe out there to explore, and we’re in danger of trapping ourselves on this planet before we’re even started.

This isn’t just an abstract argument: our future, the future of Cardiff, of our descendants and humanity itself may rest on our decisions about this now. And the desire to explore, to know, to discover is all part of our common humanity. This debate asks what is the purpose of humanity.

There’s so much to learn about our vast and incredible universe, and there’s no knowing what we can learn and achieve out there. Let’s not confine ourselves to this single planet around a single ordinary star. Our imaginations have long soared beyond the stars; why not aim to make that dream a reality?

SIX

Ben Read

W

hy bother with space when we’ve got all of planet Earth to care for, from people in poverty to endangered species? From the outset, I want to make clear that I am not against space exploration per se; I just think that there are better things we could be spending our time and money on.

The key reason, in my mind, is the astronomic monetary cost. Japan spent $1.7 billion in 1998 on space research, with Britain spending $470 million (shouldn’t some of this be reallocated to provide better public services?). In the same year, India spent $410 million on space exploration. Surely priority ought to be given to providing relief for the destitute within India’s own borders.

Of course, by far the highest space budget is that of the USA, with NASA, in 2004, receiving $86 billion – a truly extraordinary amount of money, which could be spent on trying to resolve the terrible inequalities between rich and poor within that nation, shown graphically most recently in Shuttle: negligence? the wake of the New Orleans hurricane.

In a UN report of 1997, the cost to eliminate world poverty was estimated at $80 billion. Admittedly, poverty cannot be eradicated merely by throwing money at the poor. However, surely reductions in space research budgets and the resulting freeing up of funds, could be used to alleviate poverty and help in empowering the world’s poor, gradually bringing relief to the millions, if not billions, who are literally starving to death everyday.

Considering this, the amounts of money spent on space research seem a gross negligence of our responsibility as rich nations.

Announcing the NASA budgetary increase of 2004, President Bush suggested we choose to explore space “because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit”. It seems to me that there are better, cheaper, and less selfish ways of improving the lives of both our own nation and those across the globe.

DEBATE@GAIRRHYDD.COM

GRACE

Grace

T

onight, eighteen million people across the planet will be making sex eyes at each other.

One can only hope that this will be cumulative rather than collective.

In most aspects, women are (and deserve to be treated as) entirely equal to men. Anything men can do, women can do in a similarly rubbish manner. But, (with the exception of pacemakers) when it comes to matters of the heart, women behave in incomprehensively daft ways. I know this because contrary to popular opinion, I am in fact a woman and have been so for several years. I've seen women on the telly, read about them in books AND cohabited with them. I'd consider myself to be somewhat of an authority on women and their ludicrous antics.

Somewhere deep in the XX chromosome lurks a dark and deviant creature hell-bent on turning the most rational, effervescent display of womankind into a neurotic harridan.

This evil sprite only feels the need to surface when its host body is accompanied by other females. I blame Sex and the City. Its shadow has loomed over women of my age throughout adolescence and deep into adulthood, sending out the message that it’s perfectly normal for gaggles of females to sit in cafes and discuss their conquests in excruciatingly raucous voices. It’s NOT acceptable.

Yesterday I was in that last bastion of femininity, The Changing Room, when two women were loudly regaling a tale involving fellatio and an unspeakably daft prop. It baffles me that females feel the need to talk endlessly about their relationships, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status. Sometimes I think they should just pipe down.

Some of my single friends vocalise every pathetic aspect of their lives to anyone who is unfortnate enough to be with in earshot.

A Little Less Conversation Women: It’s time to put the volume firmly on ‘mute’...

They spend so long hypothesising the reasons for their abject loneliness and frequent solitaire-playing that they fail to notice anyone remotely eligible and therefore will remain alone for the rest of eternity.

These women ignored the chain emails that told them they'd be unlucky in love forever unless they forwarded them to ten people before midnight. These women believe that the God of the Internet is punishing them for this very oversight. These women trust the horoscopes in the Sunday supplements. You've probably encountered at least one of these women.

“

Although I'm partial to the occasional salacious titbit, I really don't care if soand-so touched your inner thigh at 11.45pm

with members of Ace of Base.

Coupled women are infinitely worse. Not only do they spoil the view at gigs putting their hands in their loved-one's back pocket at gigs and rubbing their bottom, they also continue to dissect things that simply require no discussion. Just because he normally texts you six times per day and only text you five times yesterday does NOT mean that he is having an affair with the only vaguely humanoid girl in his office, period.

It may well be Good to Talk, but perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Man Book and fashion ourselves into emotional mutes. The fact is that talking to your mates ISN’T going to make Barry from the Morrison’s cigarette counter fancy you. I propose that the purported paranoid streak in the female psyche is a result of too much discussion and not enough deep breathing. I’m off to put some heavy-duty duct tape over my mouth and buck the trend.

And let’s face it; Carrie Bradshaw was a massive slag.

Other women are very single and very predatory. They find that the length of the queue in the bank is directly proportional to how may people they'll cop off with in any given month. They spend time pondering which colour combinations and shoes will make them seem more alluring. Once they do find themselves entangled in the sinewy arms of another, they inform their friends of every nano-speck of the previous night's shenanigans. Although I'm partial to the occasional salacious titbit, I really don't care if so-and-so touched your inner thigh at 11.45pm. The only time I'd be interested in hearing detailed accounts of base-conquering would be if one of my friends had attempted to climb Everest AND simultaneously copulate

GRACEDEVILLE@GAIRRHYDD.COM

SEVEN

INTERVIEWS Interviews gets a behind the scenes account of the making of Black Book following last week’s DVD release

Director’s chair Paul Verhoeven made Floris, the most popular TV series ever in Holland. Wat Zien Ik?, Keetje TIppel, Soldier of Orange and Spetters drew millions to the box office, and Turkish Delight was honoured as the best Dutch film of the 20th Century. After The Fourth Man the acclaimed and controversial director went to Hollywood where he found new success with films like RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers.

Twenty years on, Verhoeven returns to the Netherlands with the thriller Black Book.

Were you happy to make a film in the Netherlands after twenty years?

Most of all, I was glad to have the opportunity to make a film from a script that Gerard Soeteman and I have worked on for twenty years. For a long time we couldn’t get the story to work. The basic idea stayed the same: a group of Jews are betrayed and killed in the Biesbosch and the main character hunts down the traitor. Originally, it had a male lead.

And that gave us a problem: we didn’t know how to get him to credibly infiltrate the German command.

EIGHT

Three years ago Gerard solved the puzzle: the lead should be a woman.

Then all the scenes we envisaged suddenly fell into place.

How would you describe Black Book?

It’s a thriller inspired by true events.

All the story lines in Black Book have their basis in true events. Most characters are based on real people.

Did the ‘black book’ ever exist?

You mean the so-called ‘little black book’? Absolutely. Plenty has been written about it. Gerard first came across it in the book Moordenaarswerk by Hans van Straten that was published in the 60s. Gerard immediately thought it was a good start for a script. The ‘little black book’ was the diary of a Mr. De Boer, a lawyer in The Hague who was shot in the Goudenregenstraat just after the war. The killers were never found. During the war, De Boer negotiated between the German army command in The Hague and the resistance to try and prevent unnecessary bloodshed. The resistance would assassinate people and

the Germans would exact revenge by shooting hostages in the street.

When I was six years old, I was made to walk past those bodies. De Boer’s black book, which probably contained names of traitors and collaborators – all the way to the top – was never found.

If Soldier of Orange was a heroic story, how would you characterise Black Book?

As a correction to the heroic Soldier of Orange. Black Book is a more realistic depiction of history. That is the main reason why I wanted to make this film. I wanted to show in an absorbing way what reality was like then. Not black and white, but in shades of grey. The film follows on from the book Grijs Verleden by Chris van der Heyden from 2001, in which the writer reassesses the past. It used to be conventional wisdom that the Dutch and the resistance were heroes and the Germans and their Dutch sympathisers were villains.

Van der Heyden takes a fresh look at the Netherlands during the war. A post-modern look with plenty of alternative interpretations. People were neither heroes or villains. They could

INTERVIEWS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

INTERVIEWS We chose him because there is a sense of danger about him that fits the part, but mostly because of the chemistry between him and Carice.

There were other actors that I thought were right for the part, but none of them had the necessary sexual chemistry with Carice. Thom and Carice did a scene when they’re very close to each other on the train, and you felt the tension immediately. be heroic while behaving like villains, and vice versa. Jan Campert’s story is a good illustration of that (Campert, resistance fighter and author of one of the most famous anti-German poems of the war, was recently claimed to have behaved dishonourably in concentration camp Neuengamme, and possibly killed by fellow inmates). He had been placed on a pedestal, but now his legacy is in question.

You emphasise that Black Book is also entertainment.

Of course, films are a wonderful cross between art and business. The ultimate goal is to combine those opposites in some brilliant way.

That’s what makes for a film of lasting value and commercial success.

That’s what I always strive for: an entertaining film that appeals to a broad audience, from professor to shop assistant, that remains worthwhile for decades. Apart from David Lean few people have achieved that.

Are Rachel and Ronnie also inspired by real people?

In Rachel a number of people have been merged. Both resistance fighters like Esmée van Eeghen and Kitty ten Have, as well as an artist like Dora Paulsen. Gerard and I fused them into one character. Ronnie’s character is fictional, but in those days there were a lot of girls like that. Who went wherever the wind blew them. Politically she’s very naïve. Many people were, on both sides. The NSB, the Dutch Nazi party, had lots of members who were fanatical Nazis. And I don’t mean people who joined in 1941 for opportunistic reasons, but people who had been members since 1933 and who had lost their jobs as a result, but were even more zealous as a consequence.

INTERVIEWS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

Apart from the script, were there other reasons why you were glad to be working in Holland again?

The best thing was to be able to work with the biggest acting talent, These are actors of the highest quality. In America I had almost no access to that category. I would have loved to make a film with Nicole Kidman or Tom Cruise, but it’s almost impossible. The only way is a special project that’s tailored to the star. So in my American productions I have never been able to retain a fixed group of actors. The way in which in Holland I worked several times with Rutger Hauer, Monique van der Ven, Renée Soutendijk, and now again with Dolf de Vries and Derek de Lint.

How did you choose the leads?

Carice and Halina are both wonderfully talented and dedicated professionals. They are very gifted and have great intuition, which you need to really get under the skin of someone who lived 50 years ago. They’re also very attractive, charismatic and have strong personalities. Because Carice is more introverted Rachel’s part was better for her. Halina’s extraverted-ness was better suited to Ronnie. She’s a get up and go girl.

We auditioned over thirty actresses for these parts, selected by casting directors Hans Kemna and Job Gosschalk, but they were head and shoulders above the others. After fifteen minutes I knew. And to think I presented a Golden Calf to Carice for Minoes.

And why Thom Hoffman?

I knew Thom from The Fourth Man. But I didn’t specify I wanted to work with him. Like so many other actors he was proposed by Hans and Job.

Any disadvantages about working in Holland again?

Well, I wouldn’t call it a disadvantage, but in a Dutch context Black Book is an enormously big and complex production. There is not much experience in Holland with that kind of scale of production, and that can be difficult.

You didn’t consider hiring experienced Americans?

No, I wanted Dutch people to gain experience so the film would also have social value. When Joris Ivens made a film in China, he would get a local crew, “so they take something away from it too. I’m only here for six months, but they’ll learn a thing or two while I’m here.” I thought that was a nice gesture, and I’ve always remembered it. Now I have the chance, I wanted to do something similar. In 1995 two special stamps were issued to celebrate the Year of the Film: one featured a scene from Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight) the other a portrait of Joris Ivens. And now I’m following in his footsteps. Gerard and I have had a number of heated arguments about Ivens. Gerard hates him for his communist sympathies and his falsified images but I’m a big fan. Ivens has made some wonderful films.

Were there many old friends in the crew?

Most of the people I used to work with are retired or dead. On Black Book I was in the same situation as with RoboCop. A fresh start with a largely new team. We had to find a new camera man anyway. I spoke to Karl Walter Lindenlaub, who did Independence Day and The Haunting, in Los Angeles. We clicked.

NINE

INTERVIEWS

the lowdown

Celebrity updated with Amira and Nicky Gere sparks outrage by kissing Shilpa Actor Richard Gere twirled Shetty in his arms, arched her over and kissed her several times on the cheek at an event in New Delhi last week to promote AIDS awareness among Indian truckers.

An Indian court, acting on a complaint by a local lawyer, described the kiss as an obscene act in public and ordered Gere’s arrest. The kiss sparked sporadic protests in India.

Beanz Meanz Finez

H

ugh Grant has been arrested for allegedly throwing a container of baked beans at a photographer, London police said.

Although Metropolitan Police don’t identify suspects who haven’t been charged, it hs been reported that a 46-year-old man was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of assault and released on bail. No charges have been filed, police said.

Grant’s lawyers weren’t immediately available for comment. Photographer Ian Whittaker told the Daily Star tabloid that Grant had kicked him and shouted abuse before hurling the beans at him Tuesday morning.

The newspaper ran photos Wednesday showing the actor holding a plastic tub over his head.

Famous for five minutes It was just another day for second year English Literature student, Chris Rogers, untl the Interviews team launced him into his first five minutes of fame...

What was the first thing you thought of this morning?

I thought about how much I needed a piss.

What is your favourite type of cheese?

Any type of blue cheese that smells of feet Who is the last person you bought a present for?

TEN

I bought two stuffed woodpecker’s for my friend Will’s birthday.

Would you say you were romantic?

Well, I make a bloody good customised birthday card.

If you could be anyone else for the day who would it be?

Thom Yorke’s wife/girlfriend so that I could do naughty things to him.

What would your superpower be?

Being good at creating romantic gestures.

Tell us about your most embarrassing moment…

When I was seeing the first girl I liked we sat on the sofa together and she said move up a bit. I thought she meant towards her but she meant further away from her.

She thought I was an idiot.

Reveal a secret...

In the photo above I am not wearing any trousers or underwear.

INTERVIEWS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FASHION

K-DAY Fashion Desk takes on the crowds in Queen Street to battle it out for a piece of the most over-hyped collection of the year

D

espite its capital-city status, Cardiff has yet to experience a good, hard fashion-scrum.

The Anya Hindmarch ‘I’m not a plastic bag’ wasn’t even delivered to any Cardiff- based Sainsbury’s stores and, let’s face it, no one really gave a toss about the Madonna line for H&M. But with the high level of anticipation surrounding the Kate Moss for Topshop line, surely even the sleepy Cardiff fashion scene would get a little excited about one of the year’s biggest fashion events.

One thing is for sure; the amount of press coverage of the collection has been immense, and clearly cleverly orchestrated to attract a certain level of hype. Since the mini- preview in April’s Vogue, pieces of the collection slowly trickled onto the pages of various fashion mags, designed to get the fashion- savvy moss fans salivating.

After last Monday’s flagship frenzy at London’s Oxford Circus, the Cardiff Topshop prepped its biggest security team and hoped for the best, but yet again, to no avail. The crowds began queuing a measly hour before the shop’s doors were due to open; not a patch on some of

TWELVE

Britain’s other die hard shoppers, who were waiting a painstaking eight hours to get their hands on a piece from the collection. The student turnout was particularly disappointing, considering that we’re really the only Cardiff citizens with enough time on our hands to bother dragging our sorry-selves out of bed to catch a piece of the action.

“

With the high level of anticipation, surely even the sleepy Cardiff fashion scene would get a little excited The Cardiff store was treated to some of Moss’s key pieces; the white silk ruffle detail jacket, coinchain waistcoat, gladiator sandals and the iconic poppy dress. Some Moss fans waiting outside the store had hoped to snap- up the oneshoulder white dress and gold sequin accessories, but once inside, these garments were no where to be

seen. Even with the absence of some of the most sought-after pieces, the sheer volume of the collection that Cardiff received still seemed to be carelessly crammed into one tiny corner of the store.

Perhaps the Cardiff citizens wisely decided to shop from home and took their chances on Topshop’s online boutique, which began selling at 4.15am on Tuesday morning. All the collections ‘must- haves’ sold out online by 6.30 and then mysteriously appeared on eBay a few hours later selling for at least twice the price.

Those Cardiff city Moss fans who missed out on the madness can take comfort in the knowledge that this wasn’t a one-off ‘frenzy’; the press office for the Arcadia are working hard to maintain the hype, as items from the 60-strong piece collection are due to be added regularly.

There are also plans for another three seasons worth of collections from Moss - not bad for a cool 3 million. Maybe when Cardiff’s new improved Topshop store (rumoured to be second only to London’s flagship) opens its doors next month, disillusioned shoppers might be able to whip up more enthusiasm. LC

FASHION@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FASHION A word from behind the front lines in the Cardiff store...

W

items were deemed most appropriate by most.

The till point saw relieved faces that were by no means reluctant to give up large sums of cash for Kate or bombard us with questions. With their dignity restored by the fact they had been among the first the get their mitts on this collection, the shoppers trotted out triumphantly and I went back to sorting out the sale rail.

Ali Servant, Topshop resident

Vogue has been getting hyped about the Kate Moss collection for months, and finally on May 1, it arrived in Cardiff.

The uproar that the opening of the new Primark caused was an early warning that perhaps the good people of Cardiff and its student population were not on Vogue’s wavelength. Tunics for a fiver are more of a must-have than hotpants for £35. That said, there was a queue. Orderly and minimal, not worthy of the extra security, but still a queue.

All seemed calm and peaceful until the the doors opened.

Dignity was abandoned with people overtaking on the escalator to get their fashion-hungry hands on the floral-print shirts and candy-striped waiscoats. I managed to whip out my Twister moves to grab the last black 60s shift dress. At £54 with a student discount, I am undecided whether it is worth the 6:30am start. Well, if I change my mind there’s always eBay. £150 for a piece of fashion history anyone? Mary Hittchens, Shopoholic

PHOTO: JAMES PEROU

e’ve been anticipating it for months, been briefed for weeks and finally the rota was out. I was working the Kate Moss launch, every girl’s dream.

The early shift began with a bubbling sense of anticipation. Would we have huge queues? Would eager fans battle over the last pair of hot pants or final waistcoat? Would there even be people camping out the night before as one dedicated student assured me?

Well, not quite. It was more of an orderly operation in which fans scuttled in eyeing up their carefully planned out buys with hawk-like precision.

The apparent calm and collectivity soon faded when customers were informed that they could only buy five different items. The fitting room became a scene of frenzied-butfocused trying on and analysis of which buys would be best. Lucky for Miss Moss, the most expensive

The shopper’s view

FASHION@GAIRRHYDD.COM

THIRTEEN

FASHION

Dazed and Diffused Mariam Bashorun and Leah Eynon review the celebrity designed clothing lines invading the highstreet

B

ritish designer Giles Deacon brought his ‘Gold’ range to New Look earlier this year.

Unfortunately we thought most of it was hideous, most notable the main piece of the collection, the red polka dot puffball dress, which looked a bit bargain basement.

Much was expected from Deacon, but despite his intention to bring his designs to the highstreet and see them worn by women everywhere,’ he actually seemed to have lowered his standards to match the usual tat found in New Look. This collaboration always seemed a little doomed: diehard Deacon fans would not be caught dead in New Look and New Look regulars would not be able to tell Giles Deacon from Marie Antoinette.

FOURTEEN

Fronting this dubious collection was Drew Barrymore, a fairly irritating choice as it is unlikely that Barrymore would actually wear any of the items. All in all, we were not terribly impressed, but don’t take our word for it - the Gold collection is still available.

A little futher down Queen Street at H&M, Madonna has had another go designing for H&M after the disastrous attempt last year with her range of velour tracksuits. We were a little more optimistic this time around as she had designed clothes that could actually be worn outside the gym. The collection is apparently designed for the edgy working

MADONNA: White, like a virgin

woman; pencil skirts, empire line dresses and tailored jackets with no tracksuits in sight. Unfortunately, the colour scheme was a tad dull as it was largely monochrome with a splash of beige. However, the colour scheme prevented the collection from becoming frumpy by keeping it smooth with clean a-line shapes.

Sure, it wasn’t as exciting as Kate Moss’s stuff for Topshop, but it is still definitely worth a look.

Deacon’s puffball tragedy

FASHION@GAIRRHYDD.COM

TRAVEL

Travel broadens its horizons When the word ‘travel’ is mentioned, one would usually presume that a life changing, self-finding trip to the likes of Thailand or India is being referred to.

However, as a brief glance in any decent dictionary will tell you, this is not necessarily the case.

You may not consider a trip to Colchester as travelling, but then again, you may well be asked: “Does Colchester come to me?” and then mocked with the follow up: “Oh look, here comes Colchester down the motorway in a car!”

Introducing...

Richie Brown:Travel’s new columnist Oh look, here comes Richie Brown down the motorway in a car - travelling!

SIXTEEN

TRAVEL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

TRAVEL In each issue of Travel, Richie Brown will keep us updated on his ‘travels’ to the remotest parts of the UK, as well as the most mundane

S

aturday mornings are the best of the week. When you wake up, you know that there’s something to look forward to.

Whether it is a 600 mile round trip to Carlisle, or the relative walk in the park of travelling from Cardiff to Bristol, when Saturday comes, my week begins.

The most favourable mode of transport, for my money, is the car.

For a start, you actually get to the point where you recognise the ‘top notch’ service stations. You could argue that it’s an indication of a sad state of affairs when you get genuinely excited at unexpectedly discovering a service station that has yet to be visited, but it is moments like this that keep you going after a 1-0 defeat on a Friday night in Tranmere.

The mundane motorways become a thing of beauty, as well as the surrounding areas around the local grounds. Although I can see the appeal of travelling to Malaysia to save some turtles, the thought of discovering the delights of Colchester seem far more appealing to me. The fact that the vast majority of Cities that we visit on our football travels all seem to look remarkably similar is in fact a fascinating insight into the dynamics of English life.

Another great aspect of the away day for fans is that you get to discover parts of England that you would never normally expect to. For example, recently I followed my team to play Rotherham in South Yorkshire. As we approached the ground, we could see vast areas of wasteland and huge factories engulfing the area surrounding the traditional, old-fashioned ground.

Most of the factories were now not in use, and you could actually see how an old industrial town had been forgotten in the transition that Britain has experienced from an industrial nation to one which we

TRAVEL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

live in today.

Many argue that travelling to places all over the world opens your eyes and alerts you to problems that exist for others in the world we live in, but in my experience, travelling to places like Rotherham is as much a useful insight into how we have changed as a nation, and as the place now seems soul-less, because of the fact that the industry supporting the city has been ripped out, and a sense of depression seems to have overwhelmed the public, and it is genuinely fascinating to see this aspect of British life, as one would really not experience this were it not for the beauties of the football league and its ‘travel hotspots’.

“

The mundane motorways become a thing of beauty

A recent trend which is developing and disliked by many football fans, including myself, is the building of new stadiums in out of town locations. As much as one can understand why teams move to these new grounds- mainly in order to promote the status of the club and entice more fans, you lose the charm of old football stadiums. For example, Doncaster’s new stadium is built on a business park outside of the place itself, which takes away the possibility of discovering different communities and seeing a new part of England.

These new stadiums seem to

A passing traveller on his way to India mocks Brown, but Richie knows he will have the satisfaction of the last laugh. emanate emptiness- there is no feeling of tradition around these typecast stadiums, and all grounds look the same. Travelling to old grounds and standing in terraces still appeal to a lot of football fans.

It reminds you that the game has been going on for years, and that a sense of history surrounds every club, which brings home the importance to so many people, that football is genuinely a key part of the community.

A visit to the local pub next to the ground, with its rustic feel, coupled with a cup of Bovril and a pie at the stadium, provide a real feeling of homeliness to football fans, and one which we hope will never die out.

Travelling to an away game with hundreds of fellow supporters creates camaraderie and passion that you can only really experience if you go along for the ride. Distance is irrelevant; when your team play, you travel wherever they go- and this means that a committed football fan will have seen far more of the country than most; and if you offered me a trip to Thailand or a away trip to Oldham to watch my team play, there really is only one real answer.

I’ll leave you to decide for yourself, but if you agree with me, I’ll see you in the away end at Boundary Park next season.

SEVENTEEN

GAY

Men are from Mars...

Andy Tweddle studies the state of monogamy and wonders if such a thing is possible in Cardiff’s gay scene

G

ay guys are sluts. Not all of us, of course, but with the combination of men generally hating commitment and loving sex, the gay scene can often spell disaster central with maximum cock and minimal emotion.

Boy arrives at X, boy meets other boy, a night of VK Blue-infused passion ensues and all we have to show for it is a ‘we hooked up’ relationship on Facebook. Is this really all we have now? Can’t gays find an ultimate soul mate and run away with them? Is romance officially dead?

The concept of gay couples and commitment is one being heavily disputed and discussed in the media today. Civil partnerships and similar are now a fully-fledged part of socie-

ty and this is great – but a closer look might suggest gay marriage is not as concrete as a heterosexual marriage.

Pursuing my gay singledom I found myself on a hot date with the TV last week and happened upon a show called ‘Wedding Stories’. The programme follows betrothed couples on the run up to the big day, chronicling all the disasters, angst and wrenching heartache that comes along with the beauty of marriage.

As luck would have it two gay couples were featured on this particular episode – I bolted for the fridge, whacked out a bottle of Pinot and settled in for an hour of unadulterated amazingness.

The first couple were lesbians having a Rocky Horror themed wedding (stereotyping? The BBC?), more interesting were the second pair – two gay guys, seemingly of sound mind, getting hitched with no gimmicks and little pink. On a night out, however, one of the grooms-to-be kissed another man.

I was crushed. I couldn’t believe this relationship that I’d invested at least 15 minutes in was doomed.

Then came the revelation that, in fact, these particular boys don’t mind their future husbands pulling randomers, so long as it’s OK-ed by the other first. It struck me that this would rarely happen in a heterosexual relationship.

On more than one occasion I have been approached by two men in a

Pride and Prejudice the gay scene is most certainly not EIGHTEEN

club and offered the coveted role of being their ‘third’. Flattering - yes.

Appealing - hell no. It doesn’t help that I’m a hopeless romantic but this kind of strikes me as a little odd… and borderline nauseating.

The gay club is a funny old thing.

It’s the only place you can meet someone you find hot and know that you might have a chance in them liking you back… but the very fact that they’re there almost seems to tar them with an Amyl Nitrate-laced brush. As soon as you start talking to a potential soul-mate you are forced to contemplate over how many people surrounding you they’ve shagged previously. Pride and Prejudice the gay scene is most certainly not.

Don’t get me wrong, I love gay clubbing – the music, the dressing up, the seven drink minimum – but I know I won’t meet the love of my life while dancing to the Girls Aloud Megamix. Basically I feel that the validity and importance of a gay relationship isn’t fully respected when certain members of the team decide to play away.

Gay and straight relationships will never be wholly the same as the differences are just too huge to overcome. But to be in a relationship that is founded on trust and loyalty can give such a huge sense of wholeness that an open relationship just can’t offer.

Maybe I’m being silly. Maybe the guys asking for the threesome are happy. Maybe they’ll go on to have a Rocky Horror-themed wedding and carry on completely content with the way they’ve lived their lives. And maybe, just maybe, some of us will find love in the most unexpected way, and run away.

GAY@GAIRRHYDD.COM

GAY But what about the lesbians?

A

s many homophobes have a field day with gays, spouting various studies demonstrating an apparent inability for the homosexual community to commit and adhere to morality, why has no one cried from the rooftops: “WHAT ABOUT THE LESBIANS?!”

Aren’t lesbians sleeping with the masses and spreading their own diseases as well? In my opinion, an awful lot more don’t.

From my three years on the Cardiff gay scene, I have come to the conclusion that the lesbian community bums commitment, so to speak. Everyone seems to like you a lot more when you’re in a nice long-term relationship. You represent decency, integrity and virtue in an environment of debauchery and poppers. A hero of some sort, having battled through the drama of synchronised periods and premature cat ownership, you seem less likely to steal somebody’s girlfriend.

I held this view myself for several years. I embraced monogamy and became one of its biggest supporters. I got myself a girlfriend; we moved in together after one month (how very lesbian!) and settled down. But like many other gays and straights alike, I decided this wasn’t for me yet. I rebelled against the lesbian stereotype.

Not because I’m unable to hold down a same-sex relationship, or that I’m too promiscuous to only sleep with one person indefinitely, but rather I’m too young.

My mother puts it best when she often says at the dinner table: “No more girlfriends, Jenny! Play the field!” Coming from a Sunday school teacher, this really was a little shocking but perhaps Mother Hall has a point. That’s not to say I won’t give monogamy a bash if Madonna finally gets out of that loveless sham of a marriage or the right person comes along.

Boys can commit too, when they want to

T

yping the words ‘Gay’ and ‘Love’ in to Google image search can be an interesting thing. It would seem that unfortunately these two words are not so easily linked (Unless, of course, you count ‘Backdoor Love Bandits 3’ as a good example of Gay relationships.)

So why is it that Gay people are seen as overtly sexual and promiscuous? We’ve all been there, you just come out, realise you have years of whoredom to make up for and take advantage of anyone who offers. But there is much more beyond this initial stage. The gay scene wouldn’t be the same without the drama and depravity that make up Wednesday nights and weekends, but there is more to gay lifestyle than this. In my experience the people who can’t hold down a relationship for longer than three weeks are those who crave attention and drama. Not everyone is like this.

Personally, it didn’t take me long to realise that I wanted to recognise the person I woke up next to. It is possible for gay people to work through commitment issues allowing themselves to be in a loving relationship that they feel comfortable in. Perhaps, initially gay people feel the need to live up to the stereotypes and replicate the behaviour of those around them and actually succumb to the bloke touching you, or himself, in a dark corner of Club X. Recently, proof that gay people can commit to their partners has been provided due to the increase in gay marriages thanks to the Civil Partnership Act. Gay monogamy is finally being recognised as possible in our country. Now all we have to do is accept it ourselves.

Can the latest edition to Cardiff’s nightlife, Pulse, live up to expectations?

T

he task of writing a review of the latest edition to Cardiff’s gay nightlife proved a little harder than expected. You see, when Team Gay walked through the doors of Pulse on Churchill Way, we noted the swanky Ikea wall paper, the novelty of lockable toilets and the buzzing environment, but we also noticed that drinks were stupidly cheap.

After several £3 doubles, the editors of Quench’s gay section were somewhat inebriated and most of what Pulse had to offer was wasted on us.

With three floors on offer, Pulse makes good use of the limited space available. It offers a comfortable bar area on the ground floor, a small dance floor upstairs and a larger dance floor in the basement that was not far reminisant from Mad Max’s Thunderdome due to its epic circular appearance. A far cry from the flash-

GAY@GAIRRHYDD.COM

ing floor tiles of Exit we all know and love. The environment was arguably more apocolyptic than the average gay club, with the cliental so het up, it was unclear whether they were hitting on you or starting on you.

Another problem lies with the allocated bar space being relatively small. This inevitablely resulted in long queues, frustrated punters and the devastation of missing out on such 90s RnB ‘classics’ as Ghetto Superstar. The play list, for saturday night at least, seemed a little hit and miss with several gays seen running for cover during Mika.

On a more positive note, the option of going somewhere different on a Saturday night was greatly appreciated. What us Cardiff gays have always lacked is a choice and now, with three sizeable gay clubs on offer, we can’t really complain. With Fanny Dazzle’s Monday evening karaoke and a Wednesday student

night set to rival Club X’s similar offering, it would seem that Pulse is playing it safe, dabbling in already established traits of the Cardiff scene. What remains to be seen is whether Pulse will thrive or fade in to oblivion, like Addiction did several years back. We certainly would hope not.

NINETEEN

FOOD

Get full on a fiver Whether it’s a dish for your mates, your partner or somebody you'd like to be your partner, it doesn't have to cost more than a fiver. Daniel Smith shows us how to cook like a chef on a student budget.

Ingredients

(Serves two)

A

A slice of pork belly about 3 by 10 inch, about £3.00. The better the meat you can find the better your dish will be.

brilliant dish isn't an expensive dish. Quite the opposite; most dishes you pay a lots for in an expensive restaurant cost as little as possible - Gordon (Rambo) Ramsay didn't become a millionaire by throwing money at his food.You don't need top of the range kit or loads of ingredients.

Chinese crispy pork belly Take crispy pork belly like you get from the Chinese. Then think about gorgeous caramelized onion and soft luxurious potatoes cooked slowly in chicken and pork stock. Now sharpen the whole idea with a drizzling of shallot dressing.

You will need something round and oven proof that’s about 10 inches wide, a pot and, preferably, a pestle and mortar – the ceramic bowl and bashing device sometimes found in a lab or the fake TV kitchen of a certain fat tongued mockney chef.

British Pork is awesome. The best can be found down the Central Market, but (if you really have to) the big T does sell it rolled with some nasty stuffing for about £2.60ish. Make sure the skin's scored otherwise it won't go crispy.

Five baking potatoes, peeled Three normal plain as the day brown onions – known as Spanish onion A chicken stock cube, made up as per instructions (about a 1 pintish) About half a bulb of garlic, 6 or 7 cloves, (peeled), don't worry it doesn't end up stinking of garlic A teaspoon of fennel seeds, you can get these from most Indian shops (a couple in Cathays) 50p to £1 for more than you know what to do with.

A long shallot, some flat parsley, a dash of nice vinegar and some olive oil

TWENTY

1

First heat your oven as hot as it will go.

2 Rub the skin of your pork with a bit of salt and leave whilst your oven’s heating up. This'll draw some moisture from it, which will help it go crispy – works for chicken to.

3

Slice the onions. First slice the pointy bit off the end, the bit that would point upwards if it were growing. Place it on this flat edge and slice through the root down. Peel the skin off and take a wedge out where the root is. If you look there are natural lines running down the onion, slice along these.

4

Once you've stopped crying, heat a sauce pan that you reckon might accommodate all your onion over a medium heat (about 2/3 of the way around the dial). Probably your biggest sauce-pan.

5 Heat it so that a knob of butter (utterly butterly or something like that should work too) foams when you drop it in. If it doesn't, take it out and heat it a little more. If it starts to turn brown, very quickly take it off the heat and chuck your onions in.

6 Sprinkle in a good pinch of

salt, - to draw the moisture out of your onions. Make sure you're stirring so that it doesn't catch on the bottom.

FOOD@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FOOD 6 Once you can see some moisture coming out and bubbling off you can turn it down ever so slightly and get to some pounding. Keep coming back to stir and give a good sniff every now and again. If it catches and goes brown (not black) all the better, just drop in a spoonful of water and stir, scraping all the lovely oniony goodness off the base. The onion should sweat in their own juices.

7 In your pestle and mortar, or

using a saucepan or a clean hammer or anything hard you can find, grind the fennel seeds down. Then put them in another bowl and mash up your garlic with a bit of salt (the moisture-drawing thing again) and a drop of olive oil. Chuck a bit in with your onions when they're cooked and add half of the fennel seeds to the rest.

12 Chop up your shallot, add a

pinch of salt and some vinegar (in a little bowl or a cup). Chop your parsley and stir together with some olive oil

13 Kick back, relax. Open a bottle of wine, put your feet up, get down to the matter in hand of chatting with your guest.....whatever.

14 You'll know it's done because

the pork skin will look like the best crackling in the world and the potatoes will be golden on top, with a thick oniony sauce. Put a large spoonful of potato on a plate, lay slices of pork on top and spoon over your shallot dressing. Nice served with green salad.

8 Brush any excess salt off your pork skin and rub your fennel and garlic mix all over it. Put this in a roasting tray and roast it in the oven until the skin starts to blister (about 20 mins, but check it before this).

Make sure your oven’s as hot as a hot day in hell so that you can start your pig skin crackling.

9

Whilst the pork’s in the oven.

Slice your potatoes as thinly as you can, the thinner the better, and finish cooking your onions to lovely sweet and soft oniony goodness. The softer and sweeter the better.

10

Lay one layer of potatoes in the base of the dish, season with salt and fennel seeds. Add a spoonful of onions and spread around. Pour in some stock, Potatoes, seasoning, onion, stock......on and on until you run out of potatoes and onion. Make sure you end with potatoes and that they're covered with stock.

11 Once the pig skin is blistered

but not coloured (it might go a bit brown at the corners) take it out of the oven and reduce the heat to about 160 °C (ish). Leave the door open to let it cool for a few minutes.

Then pop the pork on the potatoes and put the whole thing in the oven for about 2 hours.

FOOD@GAIRRHYDD.COM

TWENTYONE

FEATURES

Student Ster

Fabulous Fashionista

by Rachel Greenwood

W

altzing into lectures in their going-out clobber and swanning into seminars with a full-face of make-up and not a hair out of place, they look like they’re dressed for a big night out in Tiger Tiger. The dirty little stop-outs haven’t been home! But wait a minute, yes they have, this is actually how they like to look for the stresses and strains of everyday life.

We’ve all seen them and smirked at their attempt to dress to impress. OK, so maybe in the first week you tried to look presentable in the hope of bagging the handsome stranger in the corner, but when you realised they were just a dream, the beauty regime soon faded away into a distant memory. When you roll out of bed with 15 minutes to go, they’ve already been up for 3 hours washing, blow-drying and straightening their hair, applying their foundation, concealer, bronzer, eyeshadow, mascara, eye-liner, blusher and lip-gloss, before changing their outfit 5 times until they find the one that best flaunts their faaaabulous figure.

Except nobody notices. Because we’re still bleary-eyed from our lack of sleep. But whereas our lack of sleep is due to a mad night out that we’ll remember long into the future, theirs is because they’re desperate to impress people who are finding it difficult to even see as far as the end of their own nose. But don’t tell them all their efforts have gone to waste. Because later on when you’ve got some caffeine down you and spot one in the street, you can have a good chuckle to yourself at their vanity and comical appearance.

Nobody notices because we’re still bleary-eyed from our

TWENTYTWO

lack of sleep

FEATURES@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FEATURES

reotypes

Whic one h a you?re

Student ‘Grant’

by Becky Candy

S

tudent Grant has become a legendary icon of student culture. He is a product of the troubled middle-aged mind; a phantom created mainly by Victor Meldrew, who bitterly resent student living due to their own rapidly decreasing youth.

Student Grant, a Nirvana throwback, is lazy, broke, and has poor hygiene. His bathroom is self cleaning and he only washes his clothes when he realises he has nothing - and I mean nothing - left to wear. His hair hasn’t seen a brush, shampoo or a hairdresser since the 1990s.

When not busy “learning”, Student Grant, if lucky, will wake up from the coma he put himself into the night before, (his loan came through yesterday) and find himself on his mate’s bathroom floor. Thus follows he will unpeel the slice of the deep pan meat feast from his cheek and in true Neanderthal style lurch sloth-like to the kitchen in search of last night’s kebab or baked beans (Tesco value). After demolishing said kebab, he will open a can of foreign beer from Lidl and proceed to sit and watch crappy daytime TV. After sitting for several hours in a trashed sitting room, surrounded by leftover chicken off the bone, Carling cans and takeaway leaflets, Student Grant decides to take leave of the sofa and sloppily makes his way (headphones safely glued to his head) to his local watering hole to watch an underground band play ‘real’ music.

Basically, in the words of a true middle-aged moaner Student Grant is a waste of tax payer’s money.

The Journalist

by A. Nonymous

H

i! What do you do? And how do you know…?” (substitute “…” for name of respected associate here). This is the typical introduction you are faced with upon meeting a student journo media whore.

We, the scarf-wearing, notebook-wielding hacks, snoop around the cool bars and cultural hotspots playing eye-spy amongst the masses in an attempt to sidle up to the new Mr Horrors on the scene.

From our pathetically mediocre efforts at writing music, making clothes and acting we covet recognition in the next best thing - to write for the NME! Typing away into the early hours we burn the candle at both ends racing to meet the Dead Line. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, box of badges, and the number of the boy on the merch stand. We promote, advertise, critically acclaim and backstab. Don’t step on my turf.

We are dedicated followers of fashion (but we won’t admit it - we have our own “individual style”). Forget Hendrix - Jo Whiley is my idol. Without a MySpace account to my name my friends list reduces by 300. And I dare you to show your face at an event without your guest-list status (or I may fail to recognise you when I next see you out…)

FEATURES@GAIRRHYDD.COM

TWENTYTHREE

FEATURES

by Ria Jones

The Gig-goer

N

ick leans on the bar, pint in hand; his head nodding slightly to the music. His face is masked by long, greasy strands of hair, (he tells people that he hasn’t had it cut in over a year with a sense of pride). At last the headlining band come on stage, and Nick downs his pint and lurches forward into the crowd.

He pushes himself to the front so that some poor short-arse is arm-pit level with him. The bass starts to reverberate around the room and his tall frame convulses in strange, awkward movements. Soon the crowd share the delight of being covered in a sticky paste of beer and other people’s sweat. The bottoms of Nick’s ultra- baggy jeans start to soak up the gunk from the floor and his trousers begin to rapidly descend down his skinny legs.

As he gets pushed into a mosh pit, the writhing bodies and flailing limbs threaten to totally de-trouser our boy, but with unbelievably skill he manages to simultaneously pull up the nowbedraggled article from around his ankles and keep one arm up to punch the air in time with the beat. Skill. Amid the frenzy he sees his mate Gaz and they converse with a few heartfelt grunts.

Without warning, Gaz launces Nick up off his feet and throws him into the crowd. At first he’s a bit wobbly, but after using some guy’s neck as a launch pad he manages to crowd surf fairly gracefully, headbutting a few people on his way. As a surly bouncer pulls him over the barrier, he realises that he now only has one trainer - but what need for shoes when he has the music? At the end of it all, he slouches away, rolls a fag and contemplates the subliminal meanings of the lyrics, and which chippy to go to.

Rock on.

These trained hunters plume and strut around Solus, communicating in a series of strange grunts and cheers

The Jock

by Amy Grier

T

his unique species seem to breed only in the highly charged, competitive and testosterone filled world of University Sports. For the most part, they can be found loitering outside the back of the Union on a Wednesday, proudly wearing their red and black jackets.

In the natural world, red and black are used by insects that aren’t really poisonous to scare other animals so that they don’t eat them. It is bravado, a defence mechanism. Possibly the same can be said for our loveable jocks.

However, it is the jocks’ nocturnal activities that are the most interesting.

They hunt in packs - Rubber Duck being their preferred watering hole. They ditch the tracksuits and don instead very tight beige chinos, white shirts (rolled up at the sleeves) and navy blue ties. These trained hunters plume and strut around Solus, communicating in a series of strange grunts and cheers which presumably only their fellow jocks can understand.

Sometimes they can be observed taking part in some primordial bonding rituals, groups of them competing in such worthy events as ‘who can shout the loudest’, (Latin name: ‘Gigantum Pratus’), or another of my personal favourites – ‘who can down their drink the fastest’, (aka: ‘Spilimus Maximus Drinkus Downium Shirtus’).

But to the Jocks, I salute you! Rubber Duck would not be the same without you. And a warning to those not accustomed to the Jock; if you see on in their natural habitat approach with caution; they have been known to charge at unknown invaders. You have been warned!

TWENTYFOUR

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REVIEWS

IN REVIEWS THIS WEEK ! Arts get all womanly ! Music look back to the Quench gig they put on " Books start to ! Film check out what’s been happening over Eater !" " Digital step back into time and pay tribute to old games read comics !"

Wednesday March 7th

The Point

The Fall

REVIEWS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

Review of the week

PHOTO: MATT HORWOOD

I

t’s 10.20pm at the Point and for 15 minutes a video screen mounted behind the stage has been showing repeated slow motion videos of James Brown, moulded into Pavarotti, blended into Sadaam Hussain - or that’s what it looks like to me.

Over the top plays obnoxiously edited audio of shouting, screaming and a general cacophony of noises that wouldn’t be out of place in Abu Ghraib. Next to me stands a middleaged truck driver nursing a half pint of bitter, he leans over and says, “I’m never quite sure whether or not to let him get away with it”, and every Fall fan knows exactly what he means. Putting up with dock hand come intellectual come seminal rock front man Mark E Smiths own brand of anti-aesthetic bullshit is a constant challenge, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.

After the crowd have been subjected to fifteen minutes of this audiovisual wank the band emerge sans Smith, the most eye catching of which is a huge bearded bassist (one of two) who begins to bang out a floor rumbling bass line with sporadic shouting from him and his co-background artist. There is no room for personalities other that E.Smith in the Fall, over 50 members have had the pleasure to be Mark E’s next ex wife and there will be more; the current lineup having been picked up stateside are a jamming, improvisational team and bring a degree of spontaneity to the proceedings.

Then finally, from the back of the dark stage stumbles the aged wizened figure of Mark E. Smith, fifty this month but looking perhaps twenty years older than that…a life of cigarettes, alcohol, and being a bitter bastard has taken it’s toll. He approaches the front of the stage and begins snarling away into the

microphone, almost biting at it as he hunches over and delivers his northern vitriol.

The venue is perfect for such a gig, far more intimate than last years appearance at the Coal Exchange, and you can’t help feeling that the Fall are more of a religious cult than a band, with a leader who commands, nay demands nothing but utter respect. Those who are outside the cult simply fail to understand…like an obsessive fanatic I can’t help that feel anyone who doesn’t like the Fall is wrong, they simply don’t get it; come the apocalypse they will see the error of their ways. It is hot however, very hot, and even our leader is forced to remove his suit jacket, stripping down to a grimy old t-shirt; not a sight you see every day but one I will keep in the bank. Ahem.

As with the vast majority of Fall gigs the set list is almost entirely comprised of the most recent offerings from the band, there’s no looking back…what’s the point? The definitive version of a Fall track is the last version played. However we are treated to the bands ‘hit’, the title music from Football focus, Sparta FC; it fails to satisfy entirely because such is Smiths domination of the band (fiddling around with their amplifiers, taking away their microphones, un plugging their instruments) that when it comes to the backing vocals there are no mics for the bassist duo to shout into.

Well I suppose it’s all part and parcel of the wonderful and frightening world of the fall.

As the set hurtles towards it’s finale and the band come back out for an unexpected encore, with first track The Right Stuff fronted by Smiths staggeringly attractive bride, we’re all drunk on bombast and in the palm of this Manchurian deity.

He leaves the stage before the rest of the band…when he’s done what he has to do, finished what he is paid to finish, handing the microphone to the charged crowd. There’s only one sentence on everyone lips, “he...is…not…APPRECIATED”.WH

TWENTYFIVE

MUSIC

The Band Wagon Photos and Festivals...

PHOTO: JAMES PREROU

Thought of the week...

Where did all the good festivals go?

L

ast week saw Mean Fiddler announce the new additions to Richfield Avenue’s antics over August Bank Holiday weekend, with Mr T, The Shins & Cold War Kids gracing Carling’s super three days of music and drunken-fuelled mischief.

But the real question is: are the acts for this years British camping extravaganza’s really doing festivals any justice? Donnington’s Download has already announced My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park as two of the weekend’s headliners; a MASSIVE mishap considering both are shit and will obviously go down a storm with the festival’s regulargoers, who clearly are star members of Way’s Black Parade.

Reading and Leeds are doing a better job, starring Late of the Pier and LCD, but still is no match for Coachella or Benacassim. Let’s be honest, anything that combines bands of musical beauty, alcohol, sunshine and a beach, beats a weekend in a fucking Berkshire field in wellies enduring headliners like Razorlight. BUT! I for one, am super excited, and will see you guys front row centre in August. FJ

NEWS IN BRIEF: Ex-Beatles hero Paul McCartney is set to release a new full length album in June called Memory Almost Full. It will be his first since 2005.

Shithouse R and B jizz-stain R Kelly has taken it upon himself to do a tribute to those killed in the tragic shooting in Virginia Tech University.

Wouldn’t have been my first choise, but a good deed is a good deed.

Quite ugly rock slag Courtney Love will auction off a great deal of her deseased husband’s (ex-Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain) belongings.

She told the press that at least “a portion of the proceeds will go to charity.” Love did say, however, that her daughter will be left with his guitar and the lyrics of ...Teen Spirit.

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

The Spencer McGarry Season at Quench’s Local Mixtape: Quench’s Lord of the Picture-Box James Perou, snaps Spencer (right) and his funky band mate Steve (left) kicking out the jams at the start of the show.

Keep an eye out for these funky funsters over the summer, as well as Steve’s band Sweet Baboo

TWENTYSEVEN

MUSIC BRIGHT EYES Cassadaga Polydor

Snotty Nose

C

assadaga is another beautifully constructed album from Bright Eyes. Every song is wonderfully consistent and flaunts Oberst’s maturity. He has found a balance for the musical arrangements that suit his fragile voice perfectly. Most importantly the lyrics are as poetic and thoughtful-

ORANGE GOBLIN Healing Through Fire Mayan

Purple Mushroomfish

F

or ten years now Orange Goblin have asserted themselves at the very top of the underground heavy rock scene, seemingly moments away from battling their way into the rock and roll mainstream and showing the world that no one does heavy music like the British.

But no. Despite tours with some of the rock greats (Queens of the Stone Age, Danzig, Monster Magnet), Goblin have never crossed that threshold into international stardom. And I’ve always wondered why. But now it’s 2007 and Goblin have launched their latest bid.

Healing Through Fire has captured a sound that truly defines the band’s evolution. The psychedelia

SEEFEEL Quique (redux) Too Pure

Eeeeeeeeeeel

C

limactic Phase #3 gave me déjà vu again and again. It’s a dreamlike track, which somehow makes all normally per-

TWENTYEIGHT

ly observed as ever.

Oberst continues to tackle a diverse range of subjects, including religion, politics, love, and even invisible postmodern authors, but does so with a skilful subtlety.

Cassadaga will undoubtedly allure a whole new audience for Bright Eyes, whilst keeping the older fans more than happy. Oh, and its worth buying just for the free sticker and a ‘spectral decoder’ to keep you occupied for a while.

Bright Eyes will be playing Birmingham and London this July and it will be interesting to see how this fuller sounds works live.

9/10 Felicity Whitton and slow blues that was so prominent on their first album is now much more subtle, but by no means lost. In the same way, the metal influences that defined the previous album have also been tamed. But don’t think just because I’ve used the word ‘tamed’ that it’s any less abrasive, or in fact any worse than its predecessors. To my mind this the definitive Goblin record, and maybe even the definitive British heavy rock album of the new millennium. 9/10 Mike Richards

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB Baby 81 Drop the Gun

Left-eye Lopez’s tragic demise

I

have to admit, I’ve not listened to BRMC since 2002, in the days of their debut album B.R.M.C. But despite the five-year gap, I love Baby 81, their fourth album, even more than their first.

This album features their recently released single Weapon Of Choice, which is basically, bloody good. It’s an anthem with raw guitars, rasping but melodic vocals, and an adrenalin fuelled pace. The album retains the heaviness of their former selves, but it’s evident that their sound has been spiked with a wider variety of instruments. Need Some Air, is punchy and catchy, while Killing The Light takes the mood down to bluesy rock, with a dynamic chorus.

This album is massively addictive and there’s not one dull track, far from it; it’s elating, challenging and inspires the listener in a way which is normally only found at live shows.

10/10 Gillian Couch BRIGHT EYES: Like Cats

fectly tactile things seem hazy and imagined. While initially seeming daunting and eerie, it gradually becomes soothing and seeps into the background like a comforting smell.

If smoking yourself into a far away, self-constructed, worry-free world sounds like an ideal way to spend an evening, then this is definitely the soundtrack to do so to.

The songs are long and repetitive, but they’re almost like a musical

interpretation of the imagination.

The soft, subtle vocals of Polyfusion are reminiscent of daydreams, trips and scenes in films when the character slips into some other dimension.

But it’s nice. It’s not so dreamy that you get bored, despite my first thought of “Oh, this is annoying”, which I was surprised to discover, disappeared almost as soon as I’d uttered it.

6/10 Gillian Couch

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

MUSIC ANDREW BIRD Armchair Aprocrypha

THE MACCABEES Colour it In Fiction

Fat Possum John

Racist

C

olour It In is a charming debut loaded with delightfully jerky heart-stopping love songs that make this young lady want to give up her much cherished singledom and get one of those boyfriend things.

With tracks such as X-Ray and First Love The Maccabees prove more than capable of creating indiepop that makes you want to dance with glee and weep uncontrollably.

At the same time. The haunting yet sensuous vocals of Orlando Weeks combined with beautifully engaging lyrics are what set this band apart from the masses of silly hairinspired indie bands that are looding the scene.

On the other hand, The Maccabees do fall victim to the London scene mentality of randomly inserting bits of slang where it isn’t wanted. It’s highly unnerving to hear “Mary get out cos you are freezing and ting” at the end of what was an otherwise delightful song.

Aside from the accent exploitation, it is very much a brilliant debut. 8/10 Mariam Bashorun

MARK RONSON Version Sony BMG

Does what it says on the tin

A

s a rule, albeit one of over generalised and grandiosely assuming proportions, there are two occurrences in the field of music that are rarely enjoyable; cover versions and compilations.

The combination of the two smacks of arrogance with a hint of lunacy. Add to this already repugnant mix a marching band's worth of noodling brass instruments and you have is something akin to a reconstituted broth made from the unsuspecting body parts of ‘the talented’.

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

A

ndrew Bird is one of those artists who feel like they should be far more well known than they are, his previous album The Mysterious Production of Eggs being a wonderful array of plucked violin, perfectly picked vocal melodies and a plethora of found percussion.

Armchair Apocrypha is largely more of the same but this doesn't detract from the fact that it is a lovely collection of songs written by

JOSH PYKE Memories and Dust Ivy League

J

Fishy

osh Pyke is yet another bearded singer/songwriter joining the proverbial queue for the title of ‘best sensitive male with a guitar’.

With the queue already stretching out of the door, snaking in and out of those barriers made out of seatbelts and into the car park, one can only hope that his queue jumping skills are up to scratch.

Overtly summery by nature Version offers up glimmers of real enjoyment as a funked up beat saunters in, most welcome, in parts. No doubt this will make this album a storming success.

It is the combination of moments like these with the unquestionable talent and sheer presence of some collaborators that save this album from sliding into oblivion. Both Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse appear with pluck. Drenching note after note in their unique vocal stylings and intonation, respecting, rather than stamping on, the spirit of the oringials. The appearance of the late ODB is unsurprisingly spot on and saves an otherwise disastrous track.

However, for the most part every turn sees Ronson, pork pie hat and

a singer songwriter of astounding interest and originality.

As with the majority of his work Andrew flexes his multi instrumentalist credentials, playing the vast majority of the instruments on the record, except this time he has enlisted percussionist Dosh, who like Mr Bird does with violin, loops his drums to create wonderful layers of sound.

This is used in full effect in Simple X, one of the more unique tracks on the LP, where looped drums and vigorously played violin come together to make an upbeat dancey number.

This album isn't going to grab you instantly but give it time and Mr Bird will work his way under your skin, and perhaps into your heart.

8/10 Will Hitchins Memories and Dust, the Australian's first album, is a fairly valiant attempt at such a feat.

Echoing in parts early REM, the title track in particular rings with a vivacity and lightness that is uplifting, and like most of the best tracks on the album is soaked in harmonies that resemble those of the Californian country rock bands of the 70's.

However, very few of the songs manage to make the transition from pleasant to memorable, leaving an album that is all too easy to ignore.

In the end it seems, Pyke is just too polite to push his way to the front.

6/10 Sim Eckstein all, burying his shiny metal axe of a trumpet deep into the warm tender flesh of each moment of music gone by.

Sweet, sticky blood spraying out as each root, toot and toot diluting both the spirit and pace of the original, leaving nothing but a ghost in its wake. From groundbreaking British indie bands (The Smiths, The Charlatans) to iconic Americans (Britney, ODB) to new acts (Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs), nobody is safe.

Granted it is an interesting experiment, the kind that can move music forward but for the main part Version pushes in the wrong direction and ends up slumped against the wall.

Put simply, for the most part, this is a turgid lump of nothingness.

4/10 Sofie Jenkinson

TWENTYNINE

MUSIC THE VOICES The Sound of Young America Warner

The Sound of Young Cardiff

W

ay, way back in the nineties bands made music that didn’t just fill a demographic, but sounded different and difficult, music you had to work at.

Times have changed, but it’s nice to know some bands, such as The Voices are still carrying this tradition on.With the drone of guitars, piano and even organ never really letting up throughout the album with subtle melodies washed over the top the Voices certainly take some getting used too.

The sound itself is great, reminiscent of Slowdive or the Brian Eno produced Achtung Baby. However this is where the comparison, ends.

For all the layering, clever guitar and hunting vocals, the album is somewhat lacking in actual tunes.

There are a few stand out tracks, which come near the end, such as You Broke a Heart I Gave to You and Don’t let Go which both bring to mind Spiritualized in all the right ways and great tunes in their own right.

This is not factory pop, nor will ever body like it, but the album does show a band with real potential, who with the right material deserve to go very far indeed. 7/10 A Brooks

ARCTIC MONKEYS

Favourite worst nightmare Domino

Talkin’ bout the big monkey man

P

icture this: Cheeky little northern lad forms band, writes songs about clubs, bouncers and all that rubbish, gets massive and becomes the nations flavour of the week. What’s the next move?

The notoriously fickle music industry waits with baited breath. Well in

THIRTY

GROOVE ARMADA Soundboy Rock

THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE No Need To Be Downhearted

We’ve been trying to tell you how wonderful Cardiff based label My Kung Fu is for along time now, here’s another album to convice you

Columbia

Truck

It’s electrifying...and soft

I

t’s now four years since The Electric Soft Parade’s second and most recent - album. Given such a long time to work on a follow-up, one might expect the end result to be much better than No Need To Be Downhearted.

This tame offering simply makes us wonder what the band was doing in theintervening period. Admittedly some of the tracks are perfectly pleasant, however too few of them possess the spark of early singles like There’s A Silence, the likes of which gained this Brighton band great notoriety at the start of the century. Indeed with the exception of Misunderstanding and the lively Cold World, there is nothing on this album that you would recognise if you heard it again. Even these tracks are not really up to The Electric Soft Parade’s previous high standards, and this really serves to emphasise the lack of progress made.

I fear this may be the end of the line for The Electric Soft Parade, which is a shame after the promise they showed early in their career.

4/10 Tom Victor

“

It would be so easy to slate this album if it wasn’t...quite good Arctic Monkeys

the case of t’ Monkeys you follow it up with a collection of grime rock no frills songs about music industry sleezeballs clad in t-shirts and ties (Brainstorm) and a middle aged woman’s dreary sex life (Adolescent Fluorescent).

I mean it would be so easy to slate this follow up if it wasn’t … it pains me to say it… quite good.

Musically it moves away from the straight up power chord garage dirges that made them equally loved and despised.

Rather they succeed in changing their sound from the off with manic guitar/drum combo in Brainstorm, moving to spook rock with the snarly

It’s all about the groovy baby

G

roove Armada’s latest offering combines elements of house, electro, reggae and rock. At its best it’s innovative and infectious, whereas at its worst it’s repetitive and mindless.

Fifteen tracks feels like too much dance and electronica in the same place, and the album would be much more focused if the selection was smaller.

There is constant fluctuation between uptempo house tracks and down tempo tunes for chillaxing in the sun so your mood changes with each new track, which makes for chaotic listening.

The chillout tunes reveal the influence of Zero 7, while the electro funk of tracks like The Girls Say, See What You Can Get and Love Sweet Sound is uplifting and energising.

The real surprise is Song 4 Mutya, where the boys hook up with exSugababe Mutya Buena in a slice of commercial 80s pop. Sadly, the irritating Drop That Thing and Get Down are likely only to be of appeal to the chavs bopping away in Ibiza. Luckily, fast-paced tracks like The Things We Could Share and Save our Soul compensate with a catchiness that increases with each listen.

Unfortunately though, anyone hoping for a cult classic like their early single I See You Baby will probably be disappointed. 5/10 T Prest-Smith If You Were There Beware. Yet, perhaps the highlight of the album takes the shape of the chorus soaked ballad of The Only One Who Knows where Turner muses on romance with the accompaniment of a gorgeous lap slide.

Yet, unfortunately there are moments of dreariness (and not the good Smiths sort) where the band resorts back to their muddy sounding chip shop rock with Balaclava and Do Me A Favour. Yuck. But still its fair to say it’ll probably keep both the critics and fans happy. For another six months at least.

8/10 Mike Bateson-Hill

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

MUSIC

live live live live live live live live live live live live live Thursday 19th April

Astoria

Explosions In The Sky

I

JP

Tuesday 13th March

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

LCD Soundsystem Tuesday 13th March

T

o call LCD Soundsystem a ‘band’ would be somewhat like calling Robbie Williams ‘a bit of a drama queen.’ LCD Soundsystem are a fully-fledged multi-limbed funk contraption.

However, I must admit that I was somewhat skeptical about whether the sheer genius of both of the albums could be translated into a live performance, and to a certain extent, I guess I was right.

The ‘system was plagued by a

Love Is All

rch Tuesday 13th Ma

W

Bristol Academy

common theme between tonight’s headliner and support act lies in their frontmen. Both bands are truly led from the front by instrumentless wordsmiths.

Though they’re backed up by bandmates that are clearly more than able, these musicians do not come close to stealing the show.

However, there are great differences between the boys Eddie and Paul.

Art Brut’s Argos has the crowd eating out of his hand.

A vessel of some of the best, most grin-along, “did he really say that” lyrics from a Brit, this side of Darren Hayman, Argos yells tales of isolation and withering hearts, true outsider anthems. Paul Smith is also prone to the occasional brilliant lyric.

Though too often these are crammed into the first verse of a song, and the rest of it just seems to pass me by. Maximo Park’s singles are bonafide pop smashes, but too many album tracks drudge and fail to grab the audience’s attention.

Smith himself is, I’m sure, a lovely man, but his between song banter is from the Arena Rock school of chat, and this causes him to come across as self confident, and all too cheesy.

Robert Malone

Bristol Academy

A

Bristol Academy

Maximo Park

t’s a matter of mere moments before the arrival of Explosions in the Sky to the stage and the atmosphere in the Astoria is incredible. As with many of their post-rock peers, here is a band that demand nothing short of sheer adoration from their fans.

A wave of excitable, child like energy is running through the crowd stirring up memories of teenage anticipation, reminding us all of how good it felt to experience live music for the first time. The Texan four piece don’t disappoint, quite the opposite in fact. This is music written to be played live by a band who obviously love to do so.

Every note picked out on the three guitars is a precision assault

atching Love is All tonight is rather like eating an ice cream too fast.

Sweet, makes your head hurt, but by the end leaves you begging for more.

From the off, its undeniable that these scandi-boppers are experts in the art of puke-pop.Armed to the teeth with screamy Saxes, punchy guitars and singles such as, ‘Ageing Had Never Been His Friend’ and

on the senses. In the flesh the immense talent of drummer Chris Hrasky really comes to the forefront; creating crescendos on the cymbals with one hand and simultaneously building rolling snare hits with the other.

As the vocal-less melodies rise and fall and the songs seep into one another it’s impossible not to get inescapably lost in the music.

As the set (which focuses heavily on new album ‘All of a sudden I miss everyone’ along with 2001s ‘Earth is not a cold dead place’) draws to a close the fact that the amp of guitarist Munaf Rayani spontaneously bursts into flames seems oddly fitting.

After a quick change of amps and one final song the band are gone but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the feeling of euphoria will last for hours.

Si Truss myriad of sound and technical problem, but this didn’t adversely affect the band at all. In fact it may have even spurred them on.

Despite looking like a cross between a tramp and a PE teacher, the drummer was so precise it was like having a hairy tiny-shorts-wearing drum machine.

This mixed in with yelped Ziggy Stardust vocals and furious electro beats makes one very happy reviewer. You can stick your New Rave up your arse, because quite frankly, the old one isn’t dead and is living within James Murphy’s twisted, but brilliant mind. Ben Marshall ‘Make Out, Make Up, Break’ they make you thank the lord for European work permits.

All this punctuated by shouty ramblings from Elvin front woman Josephine Olausson I couldn’t help feeling like I was watching Bjork at a ten year olds birthday party.

Asking myself whether this was a good or bad thing these crazy kids ploughed into their latest release, a cover of The Pastels ‘Nothing To be Done’. With that I decide on the latter thinking it was the best ten year olds party I’d ever been to.

Michael Bateson-Hill

THIRTYONE

E

MUSIC

e live live live live live live live live live live live live live

W

hy are you so shit?’

Another Gindrinker concert, another moron not quite getting it. To be fair, it’s not hard to see why, screeched vocals about Bullseye and guitar rape in abundance does not a happy emo crowd make.

I literally do not care though, because Gindrinker are easily going to be the highlight tonight, and you should be pleased you got the chance to see them. Ashokan are next to take the stage, and are apparently Welsh Language. I couldn’t really tell, as whatever words there were to their songs was hidden behind needless retching and vomiting noises.

However, a rare gem emerged from the evening, with Suns Of Thunder bringing their epic, desert rock all the way from er… Swansea.

It certainly was an experience, not unlike drowning in Rock n Roll soup, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

Jesus Christ! My DeLorean works!

It’s 2001 all over again! Both

Dopamine and The Guns peddle lazy and tired nu-metal riffs that simply beg the question, why did you bother? Every kid in their sister’s jeans owns a thousand songs identical to this crap, and ‘zany’ onstage banter won’t save your awful performances tonight. Finally, the treat we’ve all been waiting for, The Blackout!

Oh wait, no. Just another bunch of screeching pretty boys howling for their mates’ benefit. An admittedly more professional outfit, and dare I say it, more pop band-esque outlook.

Unfortunately, this music is only appealing to 12 year olds and morons, and I am patently not a member of either of these groups.

There was one silver lining to some of these rather depressingly dark clouds in the main room, insomuch as it gave me a chance to wander through to the side room and see some thoroughly ace bands in there. Perhaps it was too much to ask to try and convert someone who prefers fey indie music to emotionally retarded pricks yelling and screaming, but I must admit I wasn’t totally repelled, and that is somewhat of a victory I must say. Ben Marshall Clwb

Mixtape 2 Wednesday March 7th

GETHIN: Whistful

THIRTYTWO

The alternative evening to the volume next door begins with The Spencer McGarry Season, a three man band from Cardiff, who boast a delightfully upbeat, eclectic sound, with jangly guitars and effortless vocals. Both charming and infectious, they'll make you tap your feet, smile and bob your head like a dickhead. Maybe it's the braces.

Gethin Pearson & The Scenery blend together a beautiful mix of complimenting strings, lyrics and guitar and is, to be honest, fucking fantastic. Ignore the occasional blast of emo shit from next door, and these three put on one of the best performances of the night, especially during single Shatterproof.

Having heard endless good things about The Loves, they were, in truth ultimately disappointing. They have a slight retro-jazz pop swagger about them that makes me understand why so many find them instantly alluring.

PHOTOS: James Perou

Tuesday March 6th

Great Hall

Mixtape 1

THE BLACKOUT: Ugly The Loves take on the psychedelic sixties thing well, but just not well enough.

My oh my. Little My are brilliantly clumsy on stage, and with 11 people crammed on what seems like the smallest stage known to live music existence, it's easy to see why. Yet this is why they're so unbelievably fascinating They trip over each other, they trip over their instruments and their lyrics, yet do it with such grace that you can forgive them.

Yet another act I'd heard so much of, and yet so little. The first five minutes of Halflight was undoubtedly brilliant; I hate to overuse the word beautiful so much in one review. The vocals are subtly sultry and dulcet, but after the first couple of songs, it all starts to sound way too familiar.

And finally, last band of the night, The Wave Pictures. These boys are brimming with unbridled enthusiasm.

They bounce off each other with effortless ease and confidence and just let the music speak for itself.

And the music is loud and clear.

Fran Jarvis

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

MUSIC

e live live live live live live live live live live live live liv Thursday February 22nd

London

Camden Crawl

Thank God for Global warming; It's mid –April and London's Burning.

We've fetched our wristbands from the back of Sainsbury's and there's five hours to burn before the first band comes on. Camden, the indie Mecca, is swarming with its resident freaks and hipsters but today they've been invaded by a glut of guitars, synths, drums and haircuts.

13:15 – 18:10 Much drinking at the Lock. Discussions include the price of lager, homelessness and who's a sexier frontwoman: Beth Ditto or Karen O?

rockers who fuse bittersweet lyrics with waves of guitars and chiming keyboards.

19:30 Kid Harpoon. With a newly acquired band of merry men behind him, he fails to please us and only now do we realise he's a sort of Billy Bragg impersonator.

21:13 A drunken Suggs is spotted clinging to a lamppost.

00:00 Lots of middle-class indie kids pretending to like Dizzee Rascal? It must be the Lethal Bizzle DJ set !

21:15 Malcolm Middleton/Kitty Daisy and Lewis: Mike wonders off to see a grumpy Scot armed with angsty pub rock lyrics whilst Matt jives to the youngest Rock n Rollers in London.

Barfly

Jack Penate Saturday 21st April

“

I’m going to have to dance again, aren’t I?” calls out Jack Penate, a man who is clearly going to regret giving himself such an adorable gimmick after his knees have given way and he’s left

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

from the indie-pop legends. Genius!!!

23:53 Grindie legend Statik is spotted checking himself out in the mirror in the gents of the Electric Ballroom

18:15 Cajun Dance Party: A Lanky bob Dylan look-alike in yellow trousers fronts danceable indie pop.

Not many people dance though.

18:45 Shout Out Louds: Cure esq. gloom Pop in the shape of scandi

23:15 Ash: Certainly not ashamed to bash out the hits, 90's anthem Girl from Mars from leaves the crowd dying for more

20:45 Jack Penate: Most certainly the highlight of the Crawl, Jack keeps it nice and simple with his own brand of rockabilly soul. He woos the women with his dance moves; one of which makes him look like he's trying to fan his crotch with his knees.

18:13 There's lots of lines to join at the Camden Crawl. Pushing in is officially the new queuing up.

18:37 We spot a plaid-clad Jack Penate leading a troop of hangers-on down the high street; presumably in search of a Ginsters pork pie.

Laverne.

22:30 Kids in Glasshouses: Putting a South Walian boyband in front of a Camden pub crowd is desperately unfair. Their sickly sweet Americana-pop punk prompts one crowd member to get his nob out.

It's the second one we've seen today.

02:00 We smile affectionately, while a tramp throws up on the night bus, and agree that the Camden Crawl is brilliant.

22:52 A woozy Matt leers at Lauren

Matthew Hitt and Michael BatesonHill

without a job. But as of this moment, he dances.

No, Penate doesn’t just dance; he prances around the stage like an indie Michael Flatly, belting out upbeat tunes as if possessed by his slightly worrying George Michael haircut. If you thought set opener and single Spit at Stars was going to be a one-off then prepare to be proved wrong, as each new song unleashed

by Penate is laced with a similar pop brilliance.

Wrapping up proceedings are a tidy homage to Sam Cooke with a cover of Don’t Know Much About History, and a final song which sees an army of fans invade the stage for one last dance with their blushing host. Let’s hope he’s got those legs insured.

Kyle Ellison

THIRTYTHREE

MUSIC ARCADE FIRE Intervention

bread.

6/10 TPS

As a fan of Arcade Fire, I really want to plug this single. But Intervention is not very good, sounding more like a hymn than their angry selves.

There are better tracks on the album Neon Bible, so buy that instead. Or see them live.

5/10 AT

MR HUDSON VS SWAY Ask the DJ re-mix

Sonovox

KAISER CHIEFS Everything is Average Nowadays Polydor

This must have been the Kaiser Chiefs attempt at irony, because, even for them, it’s really bland and ‘average.’ However, I am going to like this single to annoy all the trendy scenesters with leggings and haircuts from faux-Japanese hairdressers who regard them as ‘uncool.’ Because I hate them more.

9/10 AT

MAROON 5 Makes Me Wonder Octone

Upbeat and commercial, so unlikely to be popular with students. But the distinctive sound of Levine’s voice makes a welcome comeback; he is, after all, the best thing since sliced

7 Baked & bladdered

The FUN way to fill your fortnight...

10

THURSDAY

Groove Armada at Solus [Calvin Harris makes a cameo and he has love for you.]

14

MONDAY

Orange Goblibn at Clwb Ifor Bach [Expect lots of sweat, hair and riffing.]

THIRTYFOUR

Mercury Records

This collaboration works. Sway’s tight-fitting rapping about charity, football and his rise to success all work with the intermittent Mr Hudson lyrics. The two musical styles merge well together, as the remix is underpinned by the backing of the original song, which is invigorated by Sway’s lyrics.

6/10 GC

NOISETTES Scratch Your Name Vertigo

Scratch Your Name is a thrilling wall of sound which is laced with the soulful, sexual yet gentle tones of front woman Shingai Shoniwa. A satisfying chunk of pop-rock.

4/10 MB

CSS Let’s make love and listen to Death From Above Sub Pop

Scrummy electropop brilliance: this Brazilian sextet are doing the wise thing in re-releasing a great tune that fell under the radar back in

MONDAY

8

August. And, oddly enough, it does exactly what it says on the label, makes you want to go out, make love and listen to Death From Above.

9/10 LC

KLAXONS

Gravity’s Rainbow Polydor

Bursting out of the traps like a sprightly ‘Nu Rave’ greyhound is Gravity’s Rainbow. While the band might have since started a cult, popularised glow-sticks and revived indie-dance music, this re-released track is perhaps their finest moment, with thumping drums and a bass line to die for.

8/10 KE

LIGHT YEARS TO NOTHING Soft Hearted Scientists My Kung Fu

Jangly, mesmerising future folk guitar that undulates from the Cardiffbased pseudo-scientists specialising in lyrical one-liners. Complemented with soft touches of synthesiser that really does transport you into other galactic realms. Not necessarily the most memorable of twee-pop nuggets but certainly an intriguing listen with its optimistic layered vocals cooing.

9/10 GC

TUESDAY

9

WEDNESDAY

Willy Mason at The Point [Peoples said he was the new Dylan. He isn’t.]

The Twang at The Point [Leave your valuables at home, and also your ear s if you have some sense. ]

Popscene at Clwb Ifor Bach [This ain’t a scene, it’s a god damn pop scene]

11

12

13

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Saturday Looks Go od To Me at Clwb [Spenc er McGarry to suppor t.]

Manic Street Preachers at Great Hall [Welsh icons return at last]

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16WEDNESDAY 17

TUESDAY

65 Days of Static at The Point [Go to this, or feel our mighty Quench wrath!]

Help! She Can’t Sw im at Barfly [Rubber rings and armbands may be required.]

SUNDAY

The Lemonheads at Solus [Better than the coneheads, not as good as the talking heads]

THURSDAY

Topman NME Music Tour at Coal Exchange [fun with Rumble Strips & co.]

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

MUSIC

How does Scotland sound?

S

Behind the music..

cotland is a country that has a surprisingly diverse array of musical talent for a country of its size. It generally lacks the powerhouses of Wales, such as your common-garden Manics and Stereophonics, instead birthing bands with smaller but equally passionate fanbases.

On the indie-shaped side of things you have bands such as the dulcet Camera Obscura, post-rock legends Mogwai, the heavier angst drive of Biffy Clyro and Idlewild and twee darlings Belle and Sebastian (themselves one of the few big bands to play my hometown of Dunoon, along with Blur and Ocean Colour Scene).

Biffy Clyro is something of a cult favourite among peers back home,

What do you do?

I'm the joint founder and editor of Kruger Magazine and www.krugermagazine.com. We also promote events under the banner 'Kruger Presents...' and have just launched an online record label.

Why do you do it?

I've always been really into music, always wanted to work in a creative industry. To see it grow form an after-work hobby to a 20,000 circulation nationwide publication and busy website is inspiration enough to keep doing it.

MUSIC@GAIRRHYDD.COM

hailing from the small town of Kilmarnock, and responsible for the acclaimed Infinity Land that marks the highpoint of their punk revivalism. Our more popular exports include Glasgow’s Travis and The Proclaimers (all MOR anthemics and Hogmanay floor-fillers) as well as the quiet-of-late Franz Ferdinand, whose atmospheric rise during the early Noughties indie explosion saw a surge in silly German U-boat commander haircuts and tight trouserdom.

A personal favourite is the sadlydefunct Edinburgh-based Beta Band, who apparently thrived on the quest for quirk (synchronised drumming, Beta Band raps, outrageous brass sections and electro blips and

beeps).

Their final album Zeroes to Heroes is the most grandiose example of this eclectic style. In a fair world, they could have been the country’s answer to Blur. Going further back, there’s other luminaries such as the anarchic bark of 70s loonies the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and the dark atmospherics of the Jesus and Mary Chain (featuring future Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie), whose biting debut Psychocandy remains a post-punk pinnacle. And 80s teen favourites Simple Minds.

All in all, Scotland may lack a Beatles or a Rolling Stones, but we did push out Lulu and Eurythmics so up yersel’, big yin. Ewen Hose

How did you get started?

We were all keen to start a creative project, We all have very strong ideas about aesthetic and all share a passion for free press and off-beat journalism, so by combining these elements, we came up with the concept for Kruger as a magazine.

had amazing sets from Cate Le Bon, Spencer McGarry, The Toy Band, The Gentle Good and an ace collaboration between members of Attack + Defend and Los Campesinos!, while upstairs we had Evils supporting The Shakes, who absolutely killed it.

The Sunday before we put on a picnic in the park behind the castle, where The Rumble Strips played, everybody smiled, the Maccabees played football, a couple got laid in the background, lots of cider was drunk. It was the sunniest and best dayyou could imagine and hopefully the first of many this summer.

What's coming up that I should know about?

We'll be putting on lots of events over the summer, some in clubs, others a little more off the beaten track. We're having a members BBQ in June, with a few special guests playing, so if you want to come you'll have to go over to the site and register.

What's the best gig/event you've put on?

The last two events we've put on have been pretty special. Last Friday we had a huge party in Buffalo with so many bands and DJS playing it was unbelievable. In the garden we

One all-time favourite record?

My favourite record of all-time is Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by The Wu-Tang Clan. It's still the rawest record I've ever heard and nothing else has ever taken me quite as far out of my comfort zone as that record did the first time I heard it.

THIRTYFIVE

BOOKS

The World of Books Australasia

Continuing our look at books from around the world, this week Books goes down under to explore the best of Australasia The Book Thief Markus Zusak Doubleday

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his is the first adult novel from one of Australia’s most treasured children’s writers. Set in Nazi Germany it concentrates on ordinary people.

Primarily it follows Liesel, a young girl who discovers the joy of books, and who consequently begins stealing them. Narrated by Death, he proves a sympathetic and beautiful witness of accounts.

The Book Thief concentrates on Gregory Day The Patron Saint of Eels Picador

the power of words, both the way they enthral and manipulate.

Despite a volatile context and quirky commentary, this novel is filled with optimism and hope.

Thought provoking and witty without being pretentious, this book is as enchanting as those that capture Liesel.

Felicity Whitton

THE BOOK THIEF: A book about words

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regory Day may be known for one of his many other talents, he is a playwright, poet, musician and artist, but it turn's out he's a dab hand at writing a novel too.

The Patron Saint of Eels won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 2006.

This moral tale examines an 18th Century monk who descends from Heaven to an Australian backwater town called Mangowak. Our narrator Noel tells the monk's story as he endeavours to save some eels trapped in a ditch.

This is a very clear and precise piece of work with a strong backbone in its confident structure. It concentrates on the delights of small town living mixed with the heartfelt interest captured by the humorous miracle. Avalyn Beare

THIRTYSIX

Kate Grenville The Idea of Perfection Vintage

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ate Grenville was the surprising winner of the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel The Idea of Perfection.

Born and still living in Australia, her literature has become internationally acclaimed. She has written eight novels in total, all of which are worth a read. Her most recent is The Secret River.

The Idea of Perfection is based around the idea of bridges, metaphorically and physically.

Grenville creates a beautiful narrative around this simplistic theme, and is also renown for her intimate characterisation and delicate humour.

Avalyn Beare

DEAD: Monk arrives two centuries too

Gail Jones Sixty Lights Harvill

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ail Jones is a writer and academic from Western Australia. Each of her novels and short story collections have stacked up a few Australian literary prizes and her fifth novel, Sorry is coming out this summer.

Sixty Lights, her second novel is an extensive reflection on photography and the haunting aspect of

catching a lost moment in time.

The novel moves through a series of images, true to its context, following the story of Lucy Strange as she grows and learns about the world around her and her magnetic drawing to photography.

The delicate imagery and snapshot structure reminds the reader that the things that make us human, such as love and forgiveness cannot be seperated from human morality. Avalyn Beare

BOOKS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

BOOKS

Manga A different kind of graphic no vel After the recent success of films based on graphic novels at the box office, Books examines its favourite style...

O

ver the past few years, there has been an influx of films storming the box office that are based on graphic novels. In a time when books sales are dropping in favour of other mediums, this can only be a good thing.

Success in the cinema, such as Batman Returns, Sin City and 300 have achieved, means that graphic novels are quickly becoming one of the best selling genres, especially amongst teenagers across the globe. Yet manga, one of the longest and best selling types of graphic novel, often slips under the radar in the UK, within our age group and above (this is not the case in younger children, in which the drawing/reading/watching of manga or anime has quickly become an obsession).

The term manga is used by the Western world to describe the style of Japanese cartoons or comics.

Many people who are only aware of the term would probably associate it with children, due to the popularity of girl’s manga or Shõjo, amongst younger teenagers. However, there are many different categories in manga, ranging from Jidaigek or historical manga to Mecha, which combines big explosions, giant robots and lots of action. Manga is more than a schoolgirl’s comic, it has a long-standing history entwined with the development of modern culture in Japan. Manga has origins in the woodcuttings of ancient Japan, but the style as we know it has been around since the early 1900s. It has often been used as a medium to

BOOKS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

voice concerns in a restricted society, even described as a form of ‘rebellion’ by former artist Ishikawa Jun. It isn’t surprising then to find that in the 1960s most of the manga could only get printed in pornographic magazines. Yet now manga in Japan is treated as a mainstream form of writing, on par with novels, and over 40% of all

book sales a year are generated through manga.

It is now quite different from those earlier series (although it does still reminisce about the explicit days; the women still invariably wear very few clothes). In the same spirit as these forerunners, it is often used as a reflection on the worries and uncertainties of society. In a country where in the year of 1995 enough manga was sold to provide 15 magazines for each person, it is a great art form to use to express your opinions. It is common knowledge that Japan has a love/hate relationship with technology, at many times in recent history they have been the most technologically advanced country, yet the history of their culture

seems to be at odds with this due to their close relationship with nature and the land that they live in. This is obviously explored through manga, not only through children’s manga such as Full Metal Alchemist and The Vision of Escaflowne, but through adult manga too, many of you will be very aware of the anime Ghost in the Shell or Akira. By reading manga it is possible to get a sense of a completely different and fascinating culture, one that is often stereotyped by the Western world to make it seem ancient and otherworldly. Manga is a far more reliable form of information when interested in Japanese modern culture than any film or TV series.

On top of all that, if you are not yet convinced that buying manga is absolutely not uncool in any way, then you can buy your favourite movies in manga instead. For example, Kill Bill has now been made into a manga exploring a very different story, or if all you really want is the ultra violence, the famous Battle Royale was originally a manga series too. Avalyn Beare

itles...

A few t ...to get you started Otomo Akira - Katsuhiro Hajime Yatate p bo Be oy wb Co l - Masamune Ghost in the Shel Shirow itsugu Iida Wolf’s Rain - Tosh tal - Hiroaki or Blade of the Imm Samura o Miura Berserk - Kentar

THIRTYSEVEN

ARTS

It’s a fanny old world

VAGINA MONOLOGUES Wales Millennium Centre 19 - 24 March bits and bobs

T DIVERSIONS New Theatre 21 - 24 March

dance on display

RUSSELL HOWARD St David’s Hall 20 March

wandering

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ussell Howard, recent star of Mock of the Week, is infectious. With a super-elasticised, improvisational mind and massive enthusiasm, his show was superb.

His act is largely positive and is based around real-life experiences.

He blithely takes the mick out of human stupidity, discussing everything from falling in love five times every train journey to the guy in the front row that walked into a tree.

Russell uses his material magnificently, and cleverly changes and adapts it throughout his show. He keeps his audience attentive and laughing.

His stream of consciousness leaps are fascinating and his quick wit and magical improvisation is very impressive. With a healthy spattering of Welsh-themed jokes and some inspired physical comedy, Russell enraptured the audience throughout.

His charismatic comedy genius and boundless confidence had the audience roaring for the whole two hours he was on stage. If you ever get the chance, go and see this guy.

Rebecca Child

THIRTYEIGHT

E

xposure sees Diversions return to the stage with a new triple bill for 2007. Each of the dances is remarkably different from the others and it’s this variety that draws audiences back to see the dance company time and again.

Up Close and Personal was a sumptuous affair to start off the evening, complete with rich velvet and lace costumes and an emphasis on the elegance of movement. The piece is set to one of Mozart’s piano quartets and the dancers fully immersed themselves in classic, traditional steps. However, Up Close and Personal seemed to lack some of the vitality that usually characterises Diversions’ work and left me feeling there was something missing.

In Ronsaria, someone clearly took the saying ‘the kettle sings’ a bit too literally and the result is a singing kettle. The kettle moves around the stage, weaving in and out of the dancers. It causes a lot of giggling from the kids in the audience, but baffles everyone else.

The highlight and saving grace of the evening was Itzik Galili’s Peeled.

The lighting and sound score are innovative and add depth to the dancers’ sharp, precise movements.

Peeled gave Diversions a chance to show the originality they are capable of. Let’s hope their future work continues to move in this direction.

Kim O’Connor

he Vagina Monologues: well, let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised. Thinking The Vagina Monologues was going to be full of feminists lecturing about women’s rights, I was initially apprehensive.

As it turned out, I was entertained by the real-life experiences of several women and yes, you’ve guessed it, their vaginas.

Jerry Hall, Ruth Madoc and Nikki Sanderson carefully crafted the humorous and intense experiences of women as they discover how to orgasm, live through the experience of childbirth and express the more tragic and serious events the women have encountered.

Jerry Hall begins with a monologue about shaving your wotsits down below at the request of her selfish husband. Ruth Madoc portrays the poignant story of an old woman who was afraid to discover herself. Nikki Sanderson brilliantly performs the delicate story of a refugee and the harrowing experiences she encountered as a result of gang rape. Just three of many varied monologues.

Now for the interesting facts that I have to share with you, or should I say ‘clit facts’. This truthful show added a bit of pantomime behaviour to get the audience in on the action.

We were informed of the ‘clit facts’ earlier on in the show and whenever anyone shouted ‘clit facts,’ everyone had to shout them out; prepare to be amazed (including you men). ‘Clit Facts’: - The clitoris is the only organ in the body made purely for pleasure - It has 8,000 nerve endings - It is more sensitive than the fingers, the lips and the tongue - And (this is the best part) the clitoris is twice, yes that’s twice, as sensitive as the penis. So there you have it, a show that is entertaining, heart-warming, empowering, funny, eye-opening and educational. A definite success.

Claire Power

ARTS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

ARTS ANGUS MCBEAN

What’s On

National Museum & Gallery 31 March - 3 June

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snap happy

cBean was one of the most prominent portrait photographers of the 20th century, with a career that was both imaginative and ever-evolving.

Many of his black and white portraits feature cinema greats, such as Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, the elfin Audrey Hepburn and the notoriously racy Vivien Leigh, with their iconic, sharply-cut cheekbones and sculpted lips. McBean, through his intimate and glamourous shoots, set many young women on their way to glittering careers.

McBean’s own career began with his Surrealist portraits of the 1930s, which reveal, even at this early stage, the depth of his creativity and jouissance. Dorothy Dickson’s face suspended between two lily pads in a fishpond, and Robertson Hare and Alfred Drayton’s heads surrounded by three ostrich eggs are just two examples from this set.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, McBean continued to cap-

Welsh National Opera @ Wales Millennium Centre, May and June

ture theatre actors and actresses in statuesque or unusual poses. By the 1960s, he switched to taking images of music stars for record sleeves, such as The Beatles, Shirley Bassey and Matt Monro. In the flamboyant 1980s, his work was rediscovered, and he produced quirky shots, such as the designer Jean-Paul Gaultier wearing, ironically, no clothes, with a frog perched on his shoulder.

When asked why people love having their portraits taken, McBean replied: “It’s simple. They want to be beautiful.” This inspiring collection proves that he fulfilled this desire.

WNO’s Summer Season features world-class performances of Carmen, Damnation of Faust and The Seven Deadly Sins, amongst others. It promises to be a brilliantly diverse programme of shows, featuring collaborations with Diversions Dance Company and singers from across South Wales, as well as a trilogy of operas based on wildlife and conservation. Tickets start at just £5, so there’s no excuse to miss out. Box office: 08700 40 2000.

Horrible Histories @ New Theatre, 8 - 12 May

It’s another chance to reclaim your inner child, as if you needed an excuse. Brought to life on the New Theatre stage are The Awful Egyptians and The Ruthless Romans. Learn all about gory gladiators, evil emperors and magnificant mummies in a show that promises to be fun and educational. What more could you ask for? You even get 3D glasses to watch it through. Retro.

Box office: 029 2087 8889.

Thriller @ St David’s Hall, 24 May

DRAWINGS - DA VINCI

National Museum & Gallery 23 March - 3 June artyfacts

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his exhibition offers an exclusive overview of da Vinci’s career and the variety of his subjects and techniques.

The drawings include scientific sketches of gun barrels and mortars, plants and studies for paintings and statues. As for the latter,

ARTS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

there is a surprising drawing based on Michelangelo’s David.

As always, the works are of brilliant inventiveness, yet they are also highly impractical. There are also two more light- hearted works involving pictograms, which reveal a more playful side of da Vinci, which is not known by many.

Although 10 drawings does not seem much, they are very well chosen, and will introduce you to, or make you more familiar with, the genius da Vinci was.

Natalia Popova

In another retro spectacular, this is a musical celebration featuring the hit songs of Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5.

Thriller is a multimedia stage and video event, complete with a full company of singers, dancers, gospel choir and a live band.

Who knows, maybe Michael himself will put in an appearance.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Box office: 029 2087 8500.

Contender @ Sherman Theatre, 8 - 12 May

This new production from the Wales Theatre Company tells the story of Welsh boxing legend Tommy Farr. Box office: 029 2064 6900.

THIRTYNINE

FILM

The great Quench film catch-up Lost in a pile of easter eggs, a mound of essays and a sea of sun tan lotion, we here at Quench Film have got a bit behinds on our film reviews.

So lets start the term with a bit of catch up on what we’ve been missing, eh?

BLADES OF GLORY Dir: Josh Gordon, Will Speck Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder Out Now, 93 mins

T

he Will Ferrell formula is one that can be broken down into three distinct ingredients. The first of these is that his characters must always be highly successful braggarts with delusions of grandeur.

The second dictates that he will prove an unlikely hit with the ladies, (always) flocking to him in at least one scene.

The third of these criterions is that he must always face a crushing blow from reality, realising that he is not the genius/maestro/lothario (pick as applicable) that he once believed thus providing a dramatic crux upon which the film can advance. The touching Stranger than Fiction stamped this once watertight formula into the ground, but Blades of Glory proves that it couldn’t quite kill it off. His portrayal of the obnox-

ious Chazz Michael Michaels, bad boy of the Olympic figure skating world is typical of the Saturday Night Live alumni’s earlier work, a character whose cocky swagger and improvisational style on the ice wows the judges and leaves the ladies’ quivering.

His biggest rival, the technically precise and ever-so-slightly camp Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder), is the Yin to Michael’s Yang. Snatched from the orphanage at an early age by the enterprising arms of billionaire sports tycoon Danny MacElroy (William Fichtner), he is trained in a mechanistic Ivan Drago fashion to become a flawless skater. When both are forced to share the gold at the 2002 Winter Games a fight ensues leading to their banishment from the category, but a loophole allows for them to compete under the pairs division, much to the chagrin of creepily incestuous skater pairs champions Stranz and Fairchild van Waldenberg (an excellent Will Arnett and Amy Poehler).

The classic mismatch of two main characters that begin by disliking each other but then grow to appreciate each other over time is in full effect here, and for the most part Blades of Glory works well, with Jon

300: It’s raining men Heder successfully shaking off his Napoleon Dynamite shtick in his role as straight man to Ferrell’s nonsensical outbursts. The physical comedy also, is a particular strong suit of Blades, with deft ice-skating sequences handled in a tongue-incheek manner by commercial directing team Josh Gordon and Will Speck.

If there is criticism to be levelled against the unpretentious Blades of Glory it can be found in its derivative nature. It really makes no attempt to take risks, and Ferrell apparently has no desire to pioneer a new comedic style, with many of his deliveries and mannerisms manifesting themselves in a near identical fashion to Talladega Nights or Anchorman.

Heder fares slightly better amidst Ferrell’s scenery-chewing performance, and he even finds time for a cute romantic subplot involving the competition’s little sister Katie van Waldenburg (played by Jenna Fischer from the American version of The Office).

All in all Blades of Glory is an entirely predictable but charming sports comedy fare. If you are already a fan of either of the two lead actors then you’re already set.

Ewen Hosie

BLADES: Um... Glorious?

FORTYTWO

FILM@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FILM

Life of Si Film Si fills you in on whats going on in his film infested mind

SUNSHINE: Total eclipse of the heart

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o apart from experimenting with rubbing baby oil on my chest to see if I can make myself look like one of the guys from 300, my easter break has involved little more than hidding under my blankets with my laptop immersed in a nerdy world of film gossip and trivia.

Ok, so one of the first things I learnt was why my baby oil attempts failled. Supposedly for the aforementioned homo-erotic, greek epic punch up the entire cast was made to not only spend six months bulking up before shooting even commenced but were forced to spend fifteen minutes working out before every take in order for their muscles to be looking taught and rippling each time they’re on screen.

Far too much effort in my opinion, although to be fair to director Zack Snyder what his film lacked in plot and any kind of intellectual content (as it was essentially just a two hour version of the trailer) it made up for in buff men killing each other.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I also stumbled across a brilliant youtube clip (http://www.youtube .com/watch?v=F86s4Vq59Ks) which I’m still not entirely sure is real, of director David O. Russell flipping out and going a bit mental on the set of I Heart Huckabees.

And finally I just have to ask, am I the only one not even the slightest bit excited about seeing Transformers? OK, they were quite cool toys but still, have some dignity students and get over this whole ‘retro toy’ obsession, its a fucking Michael Bay film: Michael ‘Pearlfucking-Harbour’ Bay. He directs his film’s through a mega phone from the back of a quad bike. Every film he has ever made has featured a shot of a car flying through the air towards the camera, something which he probably thinks is kind of like a cool ‘Hitchcock cameo’ style trademark despite the fact that in actuality it’s just shit. Film Si

FILM@GAIRRHYDD.COM

SUNSHINE Dir: Danny Boyle Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rose Bryne, Chris Evans Out Now, 107 mins

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he Sun is dying, and only eight intrepid astronauts can blast it back into life, where a previous mission failed. Sunshine has been billed as a splice between the Alien films and 2001: A Space Odyssey – but retains only the worst features of each.

It certainly lacks the commitment to scientific accuracy of 2001.

Despite director Danny Boyle’s claim that the team went to the trouble of trying to get every calculation correct, they seem to have forgotten that the Earth actually moves. Yet perhaps griping about having to drive our Script Bus over the plotholes misses the point: it’s not about the hard science; it’s about the human stories. But they’re disappointing too.

The cast were subjected to spending a fortnight in close quarters for two weeks before filming started to try and give them an idea of the inevitable tension of living in a small space with other people for so long.

Particularly for a spaceship that’s meant to have been away from home for well over a year, this doesn’t come across on-screen at all. I’ve seen worse fights living in halls.

Any empathy with the characters is inevitably difficult when they admit themselves that their own lives are completely expendable compared with their goal of saving the entire species from an icy death on a frozen planet. The deaths come one by one, but who cares as long as one of them lives long enough to drop that nuke in the Sun? Self-sacrifice to save the world has effectively been done before, closer to home, in

Armageddon, and Sunshine fails to bring anything new to the party.

It has far greater potential than an Armageddon or a Deep Impact, but this remains unfulfilled. A spacewalk sequence to repair the outside of the ship succeeds in building tension, only for the remainder of the film to be given the most superficial treatment imaginable. Crew members’ mental issues and the moral dilemma faced in weighting the life of one crew member against the fate of humanity are glossed over in a manner reminiscent of the “plot” of your average pornography.

By the film’s climax the actual story has disappeared entirely up its own bottom to be replaced by incomprehensible-but-stunning visuals and a corking soundtrack. But it’s fallen apart long before the pretty pictures and music steal the show.

Fears that Underworld and I Am Kloot’s score is also effectively the death knell for remotely serious sci-fi are all but confirmed halfway in when Sunshine metamorphoses into a slasher flick, presumably to pander to a market made up mostly of teenagers and your stupider variety of adult. (Though premature ejaculation is fairly typical of Boyle. 28 Days Later certainly does it, and even the seminal Trainspotting flounders a little in the second half.)

Aside from that litany of criticisms – and despite wanting to dislike it – it’s not actually all that bad. As far as a couple of hours’ mindless entertainment goes, it does the job fairly well.

It’s just that it could have been so much more. That realisation that, like David Cameron or a footballer’s wag, it might seem alright on the surface but there’s nothing underneath – that while it might look alright, it’s actually just shite – brings to mind some of Boyle’s earlier work, a line from Trainspotting which he would do well to heed. “At one point you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever.” Beautifully illustrated. Chris White

FORTYTHREE

FILM THE SCOTSMAN Film Ewen gives us a sneaky insight into his life north of Hadrian’s Wall

T

here hasn’t been much of a life north of Hadrian’s Wall as the above statement so erroneously states, having been stuck in the fair Welsh capital for the entirety of my Easter holidays (save a lovely trip to the Big Smoke, that Tate Modern is bloody massive).

After a surprise visit from the folks I was relegated to the kitchen floor to sleep at night and make friends from time to time with Mousey, the resident house mouse, as he scurried across the kitchen floor (note: Mousey is a working title until I come up with something more appropriate for him/her).

My time on the floor at night did allow me much telly watching time, indulging in Film Four and the like (which seems to have gone down in quality since it went free) and various John Carpenter DVDs. I suppose I’m supposed to write something here about 300 by now. I mean, this ramble was already three paragraphs in with nary a whimper of a mention of the history-slaying Looney Tunes war porno that is. I went to see it with the folks and eldest brother in tow, a good oldfashioned night out at the flicks.

Surprisingly, my mum thought it was pretty good and the male party despised it. I’m personally fairly ambivalent on the film; if you’re an epic fan, there’s better fare out there (Gladiator say) and if you’re a Frank Miller fan, there’s also better fare out there (Sin City). It’s certainly one of the shoutier films I’ve seen in recent years. Got to round this up now. I’m still sick of the summer sequelitis (Fantastic Four 2, Spider-man 3, Hostel part 2, Bourne Ultimatum ad infinitum), annoyed about the Grindhouse UK split (p.s. fuck the Weinsteins) and still hoping Michael Bay can actually pull it out of the hat and make Transformers cool (Film Si will buy me a drink if he does).

FORTYFOUR

TMNT Dir: Kevin Munroe Starring: Patrick Stewart, Mako, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chris Evans, Zhang Zi Yi Out Now, 88 mins

K

evin Eastman and Peter Laird were two young comic book artists who conceived the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984 as the result of a joke.

A pastiche of violent ninja comics that were in vogue at the time (see Frank Miller’s Ronin), mutant superheroes and the anthropomorphised misanthropy of Cerebus the Aardvark, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exploded into a phenomenon. The precursor to similarly huge multimedia brands such as Pokémon or Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, the Ninja Turtles were an interesting concept that ran out of steam.

This reboot, which moves at an admittedly breathless pace, is set a few years after the demise of the turtles’ main nemesis Shredder aka Oroku Saki. Taking a more mythological bent than before, an immortal industrialist (Stewart) is attempting to re-unite with the generals he led into battle 3000 years before, restoring their mortality by returning 13 creatures they unleashed from a portal to their rightful dimension (or so the laboured opening narration informs us).

Team leader Leonardo returns after a year-long absence, having honed his ninja skills travelling the world: Donatello now works as an IT consultant: Michelangelo also works, at kids’ parties under the pseudonym ‘Cowabunga Carl’, while Raphael retains his traditional angst, prowling the rooftops as the

vigilante Nightwatcher.

The absence of Shredder has led to the inclusion of semi-replacement lady ninja Karai (Zi Yi), whose most memorable moment is a cringe-worthy allusion to future encounters with old enemies, suggesting Shredder (and sequels) will be on the way.

The biggest diversion from previous entries is the use of computergenerated animation instead of animatronics and puppetry in the creation of the TMNT universe. The leap in technology allows for breakneck camera movements that capture the dynamism and movement of the characters to impressive effect, but in the move to CG sacrifices weight and impact to the action sequences. The most expertly orchestrated of the film’s (many) set pieces is a rain-soaked battle between clean-cut sibling Leonardo and his younger, angrier brother Raphael which is skilfully handled.

Originality is not one of the film’s strong points, with its plot attempting to find a good balance of darkness and kid-friendly hi-jinks that fails to settle well. The dichotomy of tone is based on the fact that the source material by Eastman and Laird tracing back to the original comics is considerably bloody, but most who are familiar with the franchise remember it for its light-hearted Saturday morning cartoon. TMNT attempts to appropriate elements of both but it is a fairly unmemorable and unfortunate re-invention.

It may probably be best remembered as the last film appearance of Mako, having died upon completion of his voice work as the turtles’ wizened rat master Splinter, which, similarly to Orson Welles’ last appearance as a voice artist in Transformers the Movie, proves an unfitting epitaphs to an actor that deserved a better send-off.

Ewen Hosie

FILM@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FILM

dvds

Bateman’s Best 28 DAYS LATER: LIMITED EDITION (2 DISCS) Out May 7th little joyous dance commences at the discovery of such wondrous news. This new release of 28 Days Later features a startling ten minutes of deleted footage, three riveting alternate endings and a wealth of insights into this unique film.

This coincides with the release of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later, the new sequel of Danny Boyle’s zombiefest. For those unfamiliar with the 2002 standout, 28 Days Later is penned by regular scribe Alex Garland. A powerful virus is unleashed on the British public following a raid on a primate research facility by animal rights activists.

Transmitted in a drop of blood and devastating within seconds, the virus locks those infected into a permanent state of murderous rage. Within 28 days the country is overwhelmed and a handful of survivors begin their attempts to salvage a future, little realising that the deadly virus is not the only thing that threatens them.

28 Days Later is possibly the first film to have zombies that run and don’t seem to be induced by Alzheimer’s, and are genuinely scary.

Ryan Owen

A new release

SPIDERMAN 2.1: EXTENDED VERSION (2 DISCS) Out Now he extended editions of Lord Of The Rings are what any other extended editions are compared against, and inevitably this fails in comparison.

At first glance it does indeed seem like an obvious cash in, especially when considering one of the later releases of the Spiderman DVD featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes footage on the set of Spiderman 2, that inevitably found its way onto the said DVD. Pointless some might say.

However, this version of the film has an extended fight scene, a new commentry, and a look on the set of Spiderman 3. For the Harry Knowles all over the world, this is for you, for the rest, save your coinage.

Ryan Owen

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28 DAYS LATER: He really didn’t want The Big Issue

SPIDERMAN 2.1: Even more Kirsten Smut!

re-release

new release BLACK BOOK (ZWARTBOEK) Out Now return to form for Dutch director Paul Verhoeven and his first film shot on home soil in over 20 years, Black Book is a stunning WWII espionage thriller.

The story of Dutch resistance spy Rachel Stein (who becomes known as Ellis de Vries) and her infiltration of the Third Reich through a liaison with charismatic Nazi captain Muntze (the excellent Sebastian Koch) is refreshingly brash and Hollywood glossy; a rip-roaring thriller in the old-school Great Escape format.

The beautiful Carice van Houten is the strength of the film, her affecting performance resulting in a strong female character. Black Book is one of the best war films of the last 15 years.

Ewen Hosie

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BIG NOTHING Out Now ith a French director, American actors and a story set in Canada but filmed in South Wales you could be forgiven for being just a little sceptical of Big Nothing.

However, this is the darkest of comedies with more grim laughs than you could shake a stick at.

The contorted camera angles and lighting that is dark and shadowy, perfectly complimenting the corrupt characters, whilst Jean-Baptiste Andrea, keeps the laughs flowing relentlessly.

Big Nothing is a refreshing, fast paced comedy with more twists than a snake with stomach cramp.

While unlikely to leave a lasting impression the dark and often tense humour will keep you laughing throughout.

Ryan Owen

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DIGITAL

In Review:

In Review:

M.A.C.H

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However the game still manages odified Air Combat Heroes Is to feel a little empty. It is by no an acronym that has blameans an un-enjoyable affair. I have tantly been reverse engihammered the game, found myself neered by twatty marketing types. bizarrely attached to planes I have People who get to wear their own miss-spent time upgrading and been clothes to work and use phrases reminded constantly of halcyon sick like ‘edgy’ and ‘bling’ far too much.

However it is also the first aviation days playing Mario Kart and eating Sugar Puffs direct from the box. My themed racer to appear on the PSP, developed by the same company that problem though is while I can remember (and have cavities to brought us the brilliant F.E.A.R prove) spending such time on similar (A.K.A. First Encounter Assault titles I do not feel the shine will last Recon), a stupidly titled game that as long with M.A.C.H. proved unbelievably enjoyable Infuriating niggles appear after here’s hoping. short bouts of play, the A.I. whilst M.A.C.H. has two main game modes; F-Zero styled racing and Lylat cocky is un-adaptive and predictable.

During arena battles, fire a missile Wars-esque Arena dogfights, both and the camera pans to track it all can be played one level at a time, the way to its target prompting you but are at their best when strung to bash triangle to reset it only to be together to form the career mode. faced a screen filled with rapidly The learning curve of the game is approaching obstacles. M.A.C.H isn’t pretty respectful of players. Raising a bad game; it just isn’t a great difficulty levels between championships serves as a helpful nudge to game.

If there’s an empty space in your upgrade your plane more than a collection that Wipeout pure didn’t challenge for you to play until you fill this will tick almost every box, but either win or loose your thumbs.

The planes, unlocked through com- I doubt you’ll remember owning it in ten years time. Dominic Mukwambapleting challenges, can be upgraded Sendall in order to keep pace with the speed and firepower of your competition.

Whacking a Welsh flag on the wing can also help infuse each kill with a little national pride, and there are numerous extra modes tacked to the Email us 50 words about why you game from arena tag to simple time should get it for free: attack missions.

WIN THIS GAME digital@gairrhydd.com

FORTYSIX

n between spay-painting small horses with swastikas and sniffing glue the youth of today still like to chew the fat from time to time. Unfortunately the cretins have adopted a bizarre type of new-speak which can leave “memans” (myself and some of my close friends) “well vexed” (Perplexed, Peeved). That’s where the Urban dictionary comes in.

With this peer monitored compendium of British and American slang you can find out what the little twazocks actually said to you before you walked off full of impotent rage and self loathing. Yay. To elaborate. After hearing a rap-tune recently I heard the word “skeet” a term with which I was unfamiliar.

Consulting the Urban dictionary I discovered that skeet is a verb that describes, “Bustin’ a nut in a skizzles grill” or, the act of ejaculating onto a woman’s face. Other notable explanations submitted included the rather quaint: “To drop a banana item in Mario Kart 64, thereby causing a trailing opponent to slip on it and skid out” and the colorful “Something I would love to do on the Olsen twins. ”The real fun lies in contrasting the Neanderthal with the surely mock-serious entries. Of course some helpful souls point out the real meaning of the word (something to do with clay pigeon shooting) but it is all done very tongue in cheek. A running dialogue on the site led one poster to claim it was a word which White people only heard about from the comedian Dave Chapelle. This in turn led one of his fellows to inform us that it is a completely fictional word invented by black people because they needed something to do in between collecting welfare cheques. As if via osmosis the stupidity seeps into you brain and you can impress the Gs in your hood with your newfound knowledge and/or prejudices lest ye be merced by your in the know peers.

Tim Scriven

DIGITAL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

DIGITAL In Review:

COMMAND & CONQUER 3: TIBERIUM WARS

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‘ve looked forward to this game for ages and now I’m disappointed. If this game had been released four years ago it would be hailed as one of the best RTS in history, it would have received plaudits from the most resonant of it’s critics and I would’ve been absolutely chevved.

Unfortunately it has been released in the wake of titles like Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes, titles in which victory cannot be assured by simply building enough tanks to overwhelm opposition, where flanking units makes a difference and where effective full frontal assaults on enemy positions are as rare as sparrows teeth.

C&C as a series has never really been about tactical play. Base building always seemed more like preamble to a brainless yet colourful assault on enemy emplacements, in this respect C&C3 doesn’t disappoint. The same satisfaction arises from building as many tanks as Tiberium will allow and marching them right through the enemy’s front gate while humming Ride of the Valkyries and watching your isometric minions rain pain as ever. In a nod (get it) to Command and Conquer Generals you now have your arsenal of tech powers displayed on the left of the screen, so if your melee goes tits up you’re ecosystem altering A-bomb or ever so pretty Ion cannon is only one flippant click away. You also get the handy option of setting individual units to

DIGITAL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

stances like hold fire or to guard specific targets such as your projectile magnet of a harvester, which I might add is still just as thick as always.

As soon as your base runs out of Tiberium the damn thing just ups and leaves dragging its guards off to get blown to smithereens in the nearest enemy controlled Tiberium patch. Which is in essence C&C3’s problem, they’ve stuck rigidly to the original template. EA have battalions of game testers who’s role is to raise these problems, problems which players of the series have raised time and time again; why is the enemy A.I. only capable of churning out wave after wave of resistance? Why is positioning a building such a tedious and time-consuming affair that often draws attention from some critical skirmish on the other side of the map? Why do units left to their own devices choose to follow enemies out of their own territory to be blown to oblivion before you even notice? And why in shitting crikey do orcas once they’ve destroyed a target not return to base, choosing instead to hover above A.A. guns that dutifully blow them to pieces?

Command and Conquer seems in a perpetual transitional period, playing like an arcade game but not wanting to relinquish its real time strategy roots. The sooner EA realise they may never be competent enough to develop a strategy heavy RTS in house, embrace the most enjoyable aspects of C&C, the wanton destruction and discard or repair the obsolete leftovers the better.

Dom Mukwamba-Sendall

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DIGITAL

e h t g n i Re-liv d re a m

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he green creature that forward rolled and somersaulted into his opponents was my choice of character in Street Fighter 2, which I played on the super Famicom that my step-brother had bought mail order from China.

It was the only game that I would play by myself. To me gaming was all about standing up in a café feeding ten pence pieces into a big machine.

It was all about the company of the other kids crowding around a small screen to see if you could find the right portal or kill the end boss while drinking blue slush puppies through a straw.

So when I agreed to try and re-create these moments of beauty in my own home on my PC, by using something called an emulator, I didn’t expect it to be the most frustrating thing I have attempted since trying to catheterize a 74-yearold lady for the fifth time in a morning.

On the first attempt of loading up this emulator I managed to briefly play Joust; a game circa 1982 from the spectrum. In Joust, I am a knight on an ostrich and I have to kill other knights who are on giant buzzards. I love the

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Affable Idi Davies get ot John grips with s back to old-school gaming

imagination of the creators of old arcade games - pass me their narcotics please. It’s a static screen game and the only features are five platforms that just hang in the air.

You can move left or right or try and flap your bird’s wings by hitting a button rapidly until you take off.

The problem I had with Joust on this occasion was that I couldn’t find which key on my PC enabled this action, and I got killed very quickly by the baddies, without progressing to any further levels.

The next game I attempted to play was Bart’s Nightmare. I got very, very excited that I needed to wee when the Simpson’s clouds popped up on my screen.

In Bart’s Nightmare, you walk along a street avoiding grannies that kiss you, flying letterboxes, Jebadiah Simpson rotating heads, Lisa, and Otto in the school bus. You can spit at baddies, blow bubbles at them, move up, down, left right and you can jump, drawing comparisons to Pacland. This game got very boring very quickly and became

as repetitive as the background. I died quickly and didn’t achieve a higher grade than an F. Finally Bubble Bobble made me happy. I always remember that the home versions were never as good as the arcade and there was always little glitches in the gaming. The game is named after the two dragons that you can take control of, Bub and Bob, but you only get to play Bob on the two-player mode.

In Bubble Bobble, you fire bubbles at enemy badies, and then burst them with your spikes before they escape. Each level is on one screen which changes after completion in the time period set. There are a 100 levels, but I only managed to get into double figures once this time. I remember my record in the rendevouz café was around level 40. I don’t know anyone who actually completed Bubble Bobble and got to rescue the dragon’s girlfriends. There was a myth that a boy from the year above had reached level 98 before the café owner told him to clear of as he’d spent to much time in there without spending any money, and pulled the plug.

Bubble Bobble spawned a legacy of games including the beautiful Rainbow island in 1987. In this game, the screen was slowly sinking into the sea and the only escape was to climb the platforms by shooting little rainbows.

Enough now. Go out and get these emulators and rediscover games you loved, for they paved the way for your Wiis and Xboxes. Tomorrow I will be searching for my little Kiwi friend in New Zealand story and getting even with Segat, by forward rolling into him with Blanka.

DIGITAL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

DIGITAL

Oldies But Goodies/Baddies Super Mario Brothers When I was five I loved this game, and I still love it now. It was best played on its original UK release format the NES. Having no save function meant that after 15 arduous hours of Koopa stomping, the ridiculously un-ergonomic pad became harder to hold on to than a monogamous girlfriend at an ‘I-look-a-lot-like-that-guy-your-girlfriend-fancies’ party.

Perseverance as always was the key, and after numerous sick days I found myself treated to the delightful end sequence. Mario has crossed both fire and ice, dealt with monsters the likes of which most plumbers will never encounter. He could have stayed at home charging extortionate prices for fixing stop cocks.

But he went out on a limb for love. And how does frigid Princess Peach repay him? A simple, platonic kiss. At-the tender age of five I learnt a valuable lesson about the class system. Mario, no matter how hard he tries will always be a plumber and Kate Middleton will never reply to my letters.

Dom Mukwamba-Sendall

Game Gear and T.V. Tuner

Mini Disc Players

Some (misguided) people derided Sega's Game Gear because it consumed more batteries than the four grave-dodging slags in Sex and the City combined, had few decent games and weighed more than Australia. These naysayers have clearly never experienced the TV Tuner attachment. Just like Mogwais and water, or Paul and Barry Chuckle, when these forces combine they equal far more than the sum of their parts. The TV Tuner gracefully attached itself to the game slot in the top of the 'Gear, and enabled the lucky user to actually watch real telly! (Signal available in 4% of the UK). Fun for all the family then, as little Jimmy could get lost in Sharky and George, Dad could thrill to his favorite soccer team, and Uncle Merv could watch Channel 4 Racing if only he could get his shaky rollie-stained fingers to work the bloody thing. Tom Birts

The entire concept was crap.

Transferring music onto a MD was a gargantuan task, and the only advantage the MD player had over the personal CD player was the size. Three years ago the latest MD player would’ve set you back around £150, you can buy a 30G video ipod for £180 now. Even worse than the impracticality of the MD player was the kind of people who used them: I remember being greeted by a guy at the end of a charity walk who was interviewing people for the happening Isle of Wight radio with a microphone attached to his mini-disc player; he kept looking from me to his MD player and nodding as if I was supposed to think he was cool. The MD player should definitely be relegated to room 101.

DIGITAL@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FORTYNINE

GOING OUT

Food & drin Now that the sun has come out and end of term is fast approaching, Rachel Clare and Kayleigh Excell have selected some great places for you to enjoy this summer. From restaurants to clubs, here's your essential guide...

Dining in the sun Restaurants and cafes

Las Iguanas, City Centre (top right) Las Iguanas mixes mouth-watering dishes with intoxicating Latin rhythms playing seductively in earshot. Whether you are dining or merely lounging with cocktails and tapas, the welcome is all the same - Fantastico.

The Latin influence is here and it’s a place that just exudes summertime.

They serve all of the South American favourites such as Argentinean yellow fish tuna, Mexican enchiladas and Puerto Rican paella.

Bosphorus, Cardiff Bay (bottom right) Located overlooking the water this stylish Turkish eatery is in the heart of the Bay. Its cuisine is original in style and with the restaurant sitting on stilts over the water you couldn’t get a more amazing view over Mermaid Quay. You can eat inside or enjoy your meal outside while soaking up the summer rays.

Bosphorus specialises in modern Turkish cuisine, such as traditional dishes taken from the Ottoman Empire and European seafood. There is also a selection of dishes suitable for vegetarians. We recommend trying the scallops and bacon shashlik king scallops seasoned with herbs wrapped in bacon which are charcoal grilled.

The Italian Way, Canton If the funds are a bit low for a summer holiday this year then a good place for pretending you’re in Italy is The Italian Way in Canton. It’s a romantic little restaurant that would also be good for a dinner date, or just to dine with friends and family.

The menu is extensive, and serves the food as authentically as possible. A break away from the usual pizza and pasta is Penne Alla Lena: pieces of lamb cooked in wine,garlic and tomatoes.

FIFTY

GOINGOUT@GAIRRHYDD.COM

GOING OUT

k in the city Summer nights Bars and clubs Ana Bela, Pontcanna This restaurant has a beautiful, contemporary feel which puts you at ease instantly. The service is really friendly and has that ever sought after personal touch.

If you fancy a spot of Mediterranean style alfresco dining then you can sip a drink and eat your food sitting on one of the outside tables. Something yummy to try is the crab and haddock fish cake with chilli jam served with tangy sweet chilli jam.

If you want to try something a bit different then the roasted quail with wild mushrooms is worth a go.

The Philharmonic, City Centre Another popular club located on the St. Mary street club-run. Playing all the latest pop and dance tunes the Philharmonic is always a popular stop off for clubbers. It is also very chilled out during the day when you can drop in for a nice meal.

Lava Lounge, The Old Brewery Quarter Lava Lounge is a very popular club among student types. You can sing along to loads of cheesy tunes all night long, but be sure to get there early to avoid queuing. If you fancy a bite to eat they also serve a selection of tasty food including burgers, ciabattas and salads.

Que Pasa, City Centre (above) Que Pasa, Spanish for ‘what's happening,’ is a Latin-themed restaurant, bar and club.

Offering a range of delicious, spicy dishes during the day, and playing funky tunes throughout the night, Que Pasa has it all.

Chilli's, City Centre (left) Chilli's, formerly the Union, has just re-opened it's doors and is located on Churchill Way. Set over two floors the club plays the latest floor-filling tracks to get you in the mood for a good night out. Chilli's also serves some great food during the day and is right next to Capitol so very convenient for a mid-shopping trip stopoff.

GOINGOUT@GAIRRHYDD.COM

FIFTYONE

CULT CLASSICS

Billy Whizz

l-r: Murray, Murray, Murray, Murray & Murray

Lizzie Pook celebrates the cult legend behind some of the best movies of the last 25 years. All hail Bill Murray...

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fields offers for scripts and roles via mainstream actors. His portrayal of hen it comes to cult icons, hapless husband and dejected movie a personal answer phone. This fact there are none quite so has, allegedly, cost him many parts star, Bob Harris, opposite Scarlett effortless as Bill Murray. In that he showed interest in, including Johansson in Lost in Translation fact, he almost has us convinced the eccentric Willy Wonka in the (2003), won Murray immense critical that he’d rather be anywhere than 2005 remake of Charlie and the acclaim, not to mention a BAFTA, a in front of a camera. He is just so Chocolate Factory, which was frusGolden Globe AND a nomination for wonderfully average and understattratingly snapped up by a certain Best Actor at the Academy Awards. ed that one could be forgiven for Captain Sparrow. Murray’s complaHis dry humour and irreverent cynioverlooking the balding, middlecism seem so innate that we revel in cency has, however, also worked in aged guy shifting uncomfortably on favour. He is their screen. ear his erw und ar we ely rar I never overzealous Murray’s career kicke aus bec , “Chicks dig me with his comedy; started with a spot on NBC’s hugely popular and when I do it’s usually something unusual” his subtle asides and deadpan quips Saturday Night Live as part massage the comedy muscle, rather his misfortune on screen. In fact, of their ensemble cast alongside than attack it, all guns blazing. As a many of his more recent films porDan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who result Murray doesn’t dominate tray him as some sort of failure and would themselves go on to enjoy Murray has come to be the ideal rep- films, he merely improves them success as the infamous Blues immeasurably with his presence. resentation of male imperfection.

Brothers. His character sketches Bill Murray is thus undoubtedly a Such roles as the aging Don Juan earned him serious comedic credit, cult classic. He has the ability to (ingeniously named Don Johnston) in the film scripts ensued and early exude comedy with only the discreet projects such as Caddyshack (1980), Broken Flowers (2005), Steve raising of the eyebrow or furrowing of Zissou, failed documentary-film Stripes (1981) and Ghostbusters the brow. And the fact that he does maker in search of the elusive (1984) cemented him as one of this whilst looking like he doesn’t ‘Jaguar Shark’ in The Life Aquatic Hollywood’s most quotable comedic give a monkey’s makes him, in my with Steve Zissou (2004) and the actors. After all, who could forget book, all the more irresistible. uptight and static Freudian, Raleigh Murray’s John Winger (Stripes) St. Clair, in Wes Andersen’s The asserting “chicks dig me, because I Royal Tenenbaums (2001) have subrarely wear underwear and when I do stantiated Murray’s cult appeal and it’s usually something unusual” or reinforced his status as a successful his Peter Venkmen (Ghostbusters) failure. hollering “let’s show this prehistoric Ghostbusters (1984) To further corroborate his seeming bitch how we do things downtown!”

Rushmore (1998) idleness, Murray infamously has no More recently, Murray has become Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) agent or manager and sporadically the melancholic antithesis to other

CULT CLASSICS RECOMMENDS

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CLASSICS@GAIRRHYDD.COM

BLIND DATE

Love school

(or how to have a good study break date) It’s that time of year again. The lambs are a-leaping, the sun’s a-shining and the ice-cream vans are out in force while you’re sat inside sweating over your essays/exams/ whatever. Let’s be honest, dating is probably the last thing on your mind. Or is it? Here at Blind Date, we know what you’re thinking as you ‘concentrate’ on that coursework. So put down your books, turn off your laptop and follow our five fool-proof steps to snaring yourself some summer lovin’.

Play the ‘100’ game

Go for a walk in the park (partner optional) Instead of crashing out in front of Diagnosis Murder during that mid-afternoon energy low, get yourself up and out and into the park. If you’re nervous of bikes or runners then the gardens at Roath park are ideal for chilling out, while the wide open spaces of Bute Park are close enough to the library for a revision break. If you’re feeling romantic, take your partner and a picnic and breathe in a bit of that fresh(ish) air.

Made popular by Carrie Bradshaw, this game needs at least two players and around fifteen minutes. Make a date with a mate at one of the many tasty coffee houses Cathays or Roath has to offer, preferably one with a long street facing window (Blind Date recommend Kappuccino’s) and take a seat. Keep an eye on the street and for every person that walks past, decide whether you think they’re hot or not while keeping tally on a napkin. (Note: this must be done discreetly to avoid offence). A simple game, ‘100’ is a great distraction from anything even mildly intellectual and is a guaranteed stress-reliever.

Laptop loving

Facebook date (not to be confused with Facebook stalk)

Go Speed-dating

Let’s ‘face’ it, we’re all going to do it; Facebook is a welcome distraction when your life is filled with coursework.

So why not work it to your advantage? Have the courage to message that person you fancy instead of checking their profile obsessively, or find someone you find attractive and send them a message telling them exactly that.

A close friend of mine received such a message recently and she’s now been with her boyfriend for three months.

Facebook works. Fact.

BLINDDATE@GAIRRHYDD.COM

No, this isn’t what happens when you spend too much time in front of your computer. A new craze among Apple Mac Power Book owners, wi-fi daters share their music libraries over a wireless connection by changing the names of the songs in their music files to something more suggestive, which they then share. The fun comes when trying to guess who you’re flirting with, especially when everyone else ‘appears’ engrossed in revision.

Suddenly, a trip to the library doesn’t sound so boring…

Want an opportunity to get away from everyone who wants to moan about how much they hate writing essays/it’s sunny and they’ve had it with revision/they want to go to Faa-ctory? Well there’s never been a better time to get out and talk to people who have perhaps never heard of or care about W.H Auden/conflict and change in educational policy/land law. In the space of a couple of hours, you can meet up to thirty potential partners and even if you don’t click with anyone, you’ll probably get a good giggle out of it! So what are you waiting for? Bar Is It? are hosting an event on May 16th. Go to www.fleetingmeeting.com to book your place.

FIFTYTHREE

THE FINAL WHISTLE

t e k c i r c t o n t It ’s ju s Sports Editor Dave Menon on why the Cricket World Cup was a shambles

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n case you didn’t already know, the Cricket World Cup has finally come to an end. And those Aussies won again – what a surprise. But I’m not writing this to complain about the cricket. Quite frankly, the tournament was a complete sham.

Where do I begin? The competition format needs to be reviewed, the atmosphere was sterile, ticket prices were too expensive, the final was almost played in darkness, and needless to mention – England were dire.

Yet despite all these shortfalls, the World Cup was marred by the tragic death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer. Sadly, in what was supposed to be a carnival of great cricket, the dark side of the sport reared its head.

Although the cause of Woolmer’s death remains unknown, the speculation of match-fixing being linked to the tragedy is disturbing. If Woolmer was indeed murdered for reasons relating to cricket, the reputation of the ‘gentleman’s game’ will be tarnished forever.

Nonetheless, putting that tragedy aside, the rest of the tournament was hardly an advert for cricket either. Firstly, the format of the competition urgently needs to be reviewed. No prestigious sporting event should be 49 days long, because public interest is likely to wane halfway through proceedings.

The Super Eight stage was largely unsuccessful, because each team

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were required to play too many games, which caused the tournament to drag on. And disappointingly, some of these matches were meaningless.

Perhaps the ICC should work on an itinerary, which bears some resemblance to the successful Football World Cup. What’s wrong with having four groups of four teams, with the top two from each pool qualifying for a knock-out stage? Surely that would increase excitement and intrigue.

Secondly, the Cricket World Cup Bob Woolmer lacked the typical Caribbean atmosphere. The ICC enforced too many strict rules, which discouraged loyal West Indies supporters from attending matches. For example, local fans weren’t allowed to take conch shells into matches, which provide the soundtrack to Caribbean cricket.

Moreover, despite the intensely hot weather conditions, many fans weren’t even allowed to take bottles of water into grounds. Apparently, be expected to play in complete and they’re a security hazard. Or perhaps utter darkness. An extra day should the ICC wants to line their pockets have been used to ensure both by forcing thirsty fans to buy water.

That leads me onto expensive tick- teams had the allotted 50 overs in which to bat. This would have providet prices. You have to consider that ed a fairer result. many fans travelled across the world So there you have it. But on a to see their team play cricket. Flights positive note, at least there’s anothand accommodation costs are dear er four years until the next Cricket enough these days, so why increase World Cup. admission prices? Not all cricket Hopefully that will be enough time fans have the bank balance of for the ICC to put their thinking caps Richard Branson. on and organise a decent tournaAnd lastly, the final was nothing ment. more than a joke. Players shouldn’t

“

Sadly, in what was supposed to be a carnival of great cricket, the dark side of the sport reared its head

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T unnel Vi s i o n TV Will A fan of the right hand workout

R

ight, first off, I really hate it when people, namely students, bang on about programmes they used to watch when they were young. The top three offending programmes are as follows: Super Ted. Danger Mouse and the Magic Roundabout.

The type of conversation you are likely to over hear in the corridors of Talybont South may go as follows: “Man, you remember Superted? He was like a teddy bear but he also saved the universe. Mental.” Or perhaps even the hilarious drugs observation: “Dylan…what was all that about, he was such a stoner”.

SHUT UP. However today I am going to be a slight hypocrite and talk about a contemporary kids programme, one which is odder than the whole lot of them put together. Welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of Lazy Town. If you haven’t yet been graced by this latest phenomenon it is a children’s TV programme, halfpuppets and half-real actors, set in the primary-coloured comic book Lazy Town.

It is the brainchild of Magnus Scheving, Icelandic athlete, established writer and all-round mento. He set out with the aim to make children more active and decide the best way to do it was with a TV programme. Mmm… maybe. Either way it is very odd. He plays the character Sportacus, an athlete who aims to get the population of Lazy Town active again, from its frumpy mayor to six-year-old children. And before you think it, no, there’s no paedophilic undertones.

Although, come to think of it, Sportacus is a bit like the Fonz; he hangs around with kids half his age and…oh no, that’s it actually.

For some reason the unpalatable Robbie Rotten, who is played like a dark Jim Carrey, circa Ace Ventura, is endlessly trying to foil his plans for an active population. Firstly what is very strange is that there is never a backstory

given as to why Robbie would want to jeopardise the occupants of Lazy Town for seemingly no gain. I find it hard to associate with a character so needlessly evil to the sweet little children of the village. I think the most likely reason for this is that he had a father who had been an aspiring 100m runner but due to a series of unfortunate injuries his career came to an end. He never lived up to the high aspirations that everyone had for him. As a result he transferred all his athletic hopes and dreams onto his academic son, who although a fine mathematician was not a sportsman. This resulted in them having a very strained relationship until finally, unable live up to his fathers athletic aspirations, he ran away from Busy City to Lazy Town.

The characters in the show also sporadically break into song, the lyrics of which always relate to the plot in the show, which inevitably relates to sport and exercise and generally wholesome things. This week the song sung by Robbie Rotten sounded almost identical to the first track on Tom Wait’s seminal record Rain Dogs.

This was odd. I doubt there is a link between the two. Perhaps Tom Waits is the genius behind the show, subtly indoctrinating children with his unique brand of alcohol soaked, cancerous alt country. Need I say this would be far from healthy. Never trust a man who pursues a singing career after a laryngectomy.

Before you think it, no, there’s no paedophilic undertones

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