FrightFest 2009

So, that was a long rest I had.

Thought I might as well post from FrightFest – the annual horror film festval in Leicester Square.  It actually started yesterday evening but I didn’t have a chance to write anything.  Too busy drinking to be honest.

I’m not going to go on about it in too much detail (though I’m sureyou may want to avoid my tweets for a few days if horror films aren’t your thing.

Me and @moviegirlghost have been coming to bit of FrightFest for several years, initially just the odd film, then full days, and this year is the first time we’re here for the full thing (four and a half days).

There’s always a great mix of slightly crappy and really good films from a whole range of sub-genres, from slashers to ghost stories, and gore to just plain WEIRD.

Anyway, I’m currently sat on the floor, kind of right in front of the exit to the main screen in The Empire – Leicester Square and people have just started streaming out of it so I should probable hit “Publish” and get out of the way.

I’ll post laster or tomorrow with a few ill-observed and poorly written thoughts on some of the more notable films.  If you want some real comment, you could do much worse than go over to Total Film’s coverage or keep an eye on their tweets.

SLIGHT WARNING: Though I’ll try not to throw in any spoilers, inevitably I’ll give something away just by mentioning what sort of film some things are.

Who the hell are you?

On Christmas eve I got an email wishing me a happy Christmas.  How nice and thoughtful.  Except it was sent to lots of other people too, from somebody I’ve never met, never spoken to and never expected to be sent Christmas greetings from.

Turns out I’d been put on a new mailing list that Rex Osborn (a local Labour councillor) has decided to set up.  He didn’t introduce himself, explain where he’d got my email address from or why I might want to receive his updates.  In short, I’m pretty sure he’s in breach of the data protection act.

My local Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, is no better.  Despite regularly requesting (in almost all contact with him) that he only contact me by email and may not use my postal address, all responses come though the post. On all sorts of irrelevant topics (I really don’t care which care home he’s visited this quarter).

Don’t they train these people?  It’s really pretty simple. It’s not even about following the Data Protection Act to the letter. It’s about the spirit of the act and a basic respect for people’s preferences and rights over their own personal information.

Anyway, I’ve written back pointing this out (below, including the original email I received).  I’ll update if I ever get a response.

from:    mydogminton
to:    Councillor Rex Osborn <rosborn@wandsworth.gov.uk>
date:    28 December 2008 18:21
subject    Re: An seasonal message from Councillor Rex Osborn

Dear Rex,

Given that this a new mailing list which I didn't ask to be put
onto, you might at least introduce yourself (who exactly are you)
and say something of relevance rather than just a Christmas
greeting from somebody I don't know.  You don't even include a
link to a relevant web page so I can find out for myself.

You could also explain where you got the recipient's email
addresses from and why you thought we/they would want to be on
this mailing list. I am not saying that I don't want to receive
your updates - I simply don't know as I have no idea who you are,
what party you represent and what information might be in these
mail outs.

Starting off with a clearly labelled "Remove" option does not
absolve you from responsibilities under the data protection act.

Regards

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

from: Councillor Rex Osborn
to:   Councillor Rex Osborn
date: 24 December 2008 22:36
subject: An seasonal message from Councillor Rex Osborn

To be removed from Councillor Rex Osborn’s email distribution
please respond with REMOVE as subject.

Dear Friend

As a new initiative I have created an email distribution list and
for its launch I am sending everybody a seasonal message. So
before anything else let me wish you Season’s Greetings.

Over coming weeks and months I shall send out information and
occasional bulletins to this distribution list. In addition, if
you think I can help with anything then do let me know. (If you
are not interested or have moved away then I can easily remove
you from the list.)

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Wishes
Cllr Rex Osborn

Upon reflection…

There was a new Kiefer Sutherland film out a month or so ago* called Mirrors.  Like a lot of recent, samey, fairly sub-standard horror it’s a remake (yes it is, ignore anyone who says it isn’t) of a 2003 Korean film called Geoul Sokeuro (English title: “Into The Mirror”).

The film was okay but not really worth bothering with.  To be honest, the best thing I’ve seen about it is an advert in our local pub.

You know those advert-mirrors?  They’re in a few pubs’ toilets.  It looks a bit like a bad mirror (or some one-way glass) but then a light goes on inside and shows up an advertising image of some sort.  They generally look like something out of Phoenix Nights but in this case, because of the subject matter, it actually kind of works: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mydogminton/sets/72157607943676860/

* I wrote this about 2 months ago but never got round to publising it.

Short, sharp shock

Just a quick post to highlight a couple of very good short horror films I’ve seen in the last week or two.  (I’m too busy to do more but I’ll do a bigger round up later)

First up is probably easily the most simple but effective short I saw at the Frightfest over August Bank Holiday weekend.  It’s called He Dies At The End and I think it’s a brilliant example of what you can do with a simple, well executed idea – regardless of the money or resources you can get your hands on.

I met these guys (including writter/producer/director Damian McCarthy) in the bar after FrightFest and they were a little surprised (I think, I was drunk) at the overwhelmingly positive reaction but I wasn’t.

The second is quite different but no less brilliant at executing a simple and effective idea in a very short space of time.  I don’t even know what it’s called of who it’s by (poor research on my part, I’ll update when I’ve got time to look into it) but it’s the trailer for this year’s Raindance Film Festival (1-12 October, London).

Unfortunately, Raindance have (perhaps unintentionally?) not made this available to embed so here’s a link: http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/raindance-independent-film-festival

Really Raindance, sort it the fuck out. You should know better.

Anyway, as I said, no time to go into any more detail on any of this now but I’ll be posting a review of the 2 days I was at FrightFest soon, plus (hopefully) a bigger post on some short/low-budget film stuff.

Tweet me, tweet you

A few days ago I saw (via @FabricOfFolly) that Twitter had removed and subesquently re-instated a couple of fictional Twitter accounts. As we all probably know, they were characters from the AMC (and BBC Four) show Mad Men.

It seems to have kicked off quite a debate about this kind of thing. While the terms and conditions on Facebook require you to use your real name (as Kitten Fluff can testify), Twitter doens’t seem to have any such rules. It turned out to be the result of a DCMA copyright takedown notice although the accounts went back up soon after once AMC realised that they were missing a lot of free publicity (not to mention looking a total arse).

Give it a day or so and Wired decided to round up some of the many other factional Twitter accounts. I suspect this topic has legs and will run for the next week or so getting progressively more ridiculous and less interesting.

That said it does raise an interesting issue in terms of fan fiction as well as the verification of famous identities online. A couple of weeks back there was a bit of a rush to try to establish with @JohnCleese was actually that John Cleese.

Anyway, I found all of this vaguely amusing because, by pure coincidence, I created two fictional twitter accounts about two weeks ago.

Basically, and for no good reason other than it seemed like a funny idea to me (no pun intended… actually, maybe it was intended), I decided to set up Twitter accounts for British children’s TV stars The Chuckle Brothers: @paul_chuckle and @barry_chuckle.

As anyone in the UK will know, they’re mainly famous for their “To me, to you” catch phase so I’ve basically spent the last couple of weeks tweeting “To me” and “To you” between them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mydogminton/2806876231/ (sorry – still fairly new to WordPress and can’t work out how to put an image properly, I’ll sort it later).

Anyway, just to clarify (before I get into any trouble anywhere):

• These are not the actual Chuckle Brothers, I have no affiliation with them, and I’m using their image and catch phase in good faith.
• The Chuckle Brothers official site can be found here: http://www.thechucklebrothersontour.co.uk/
• The closest thing I can find to a BBC page for them is this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/chucklevision/

Right then. That’s my achievement for August. What next….

Dogs, dogs, dogs

Tomorrow night, in North East London, a piece of history is being made… before being torn down.

Walthamstow Stadium has it’s final greyhound race meet tomorrow and will be formally handed over to property developers in September, then torn down to make way for houses.

I’ve never been there but I’ve been to Wimbledon dog track several times and always had a good time. I’ve never made or lost too much money (bets start at 50p I think) and there’s a good atmosphere with everyone from kids to regulars to hen-parties in attendance. It’s pretty relentless too: with a race every 15 minutes, that doesn’t leave you standing around with nothing to do for very long.

There’s a lot of analysis and strategy that can be applied to the selection of a hound to bet on; however I’ve always opted to stick to my own system. Like any good system, mine has simple, basic criteria which are always applied with a defined order of precedence:

1. If there’s a dog with a vaguely rude name, back it. Simple as that.
2. Next go for any name that’s either particularly silly or that can be said in a way that makes it sound a bit rude even though it’s not.
3. Finally, any dog that craps on the way onto the track is a worth a bet, just in case it wins thereby giving you a humorous story for later.

Anyway, the point of this post was that I’ve got a suggestion that Walthamstow Stadium Developments Ltd may wish to think about before knocking the place down.

I think there is a definite market for cat racing.

In particular I think that, providing a Turkish “Swimming Cat” can be trained to use a skate board (and there’s no evidence to suggest that they can’t) then there’s huge potential for a Cat Triathlon.

And the best thing about it is it would only require the alteration of a single letter on any signage: Walthamstow Mogs.

I know.

Trying not to fail again

As I mentioned before, this is not my first blog. The web is scattered with my failed attempts. I’m much better at twitter, partly because (let’s be honest) it really can’t take long to write 140 characters and partly (probably more importantly) I can do it from my mobile while I’m stood outside some pub or other.

Anyway, I found this old beginning (twice) of a blog: http://blogging-a-dead-horse.blogspot.com/

Clearly by far the best the only good thing about it is the title.

Political Compass

I was sent a link to the Political Compass earlier today.  I don’t think it’s new and I don’t really know how much use it is but I spend 5 minutes going through anyway.

It asks a serious of multiple choice questions and you get a position on a few political scales, drawn out on a grid, presumably confirming roughly how you thought of yourself anyway.

Anyway, as I’ve bothered to answer the questions, here’s the graph:

Apparently this is there I fall in the political scale

According to a couple of other grids on the site, that’s pretty much the mirror image (along the top-left to bottom-right diagonal) of where Thatcher was.  Which I’m taking as a good thing.

Hey! Ho! Let’s go!

This is not my first blog post.  It’s roughly my 12th first blog post.

I’ve spent the last 6 years or more planning to start blogging.  Occasionally actually written something.

Now I’ve moved from a very old blogger account and set up shop here.

Let’s be honest, this is just a test post.

The end.