Jimmny's Modern Conundrums.

I've been spending a lot of time in my room as usual (quelle surprise). I can quite easily spend hours reading The Psychothronic Encyclopedia of Film and its amazing companion The Psychotronic Video Guide*. Check out Michael J Weldon's site here. Anyway alongside reading this and some old Curiosa Rubberlineas for nostalgia of PhD 'communities' gone by but I often ask myself these modern-day conundrums**:

1. Kids with trendy haircuts: since when did boys get to have trendy haircuts? In our day the only reason we got our hair cut was to stop bits of twigs getting stuck in it, they were also engineered for maximum embarrassment. From sitting on a plank to dangerously large clippers to old barbers cutting your hair while nonchlantly smoking a fag and chatting to you da, kids' hair cuts were a scary necessity. Since when did kids start looking like their fucking Razorlight or something, all perfectly styled mop-tops. Not to mention babies getting their own landrover-size pushchairs.

2. Mannequins with nipples: This modern conundrum has plagued me for years. Did mannequins always have nipples? or did I only start noticing them when my acursed libido kicked in? I think for once my libido is not to blame, loads of people have noticed it: see sex comes to the shop window and nipplemaina . Not to mention that crap Mazda ad a while back. Still doesn't really explain the insane manga style gigantic head mannequins that sometiems turn up in Cult, the shop for people who have to be told what's cool. You can even buy mannequin nipple enhancers to upgrade the old style mannequins! Christ, no wonder the earth's doomed when we expend energy making this twaddle.





3. Creme eggs getting smaller each year: Visual proof, via Ike, Mike and Mustard. Just generally, they way smaller things started to get marketed as better, the rot started with 'fun size' bars. Now the original 'fun size' bar is probably the same size as a current normal sized bar.



4. 'Travel Money' Part of Barclay's misguided attempted to be friendly and blokey and chatty. Is remaming the 'bureau de change' booth 'Travel Money' like we're too stupid to know what a 'bureau de change' is. It also assumes the only reason that you would need to change money is if you are travelling. Their pen holder says 'go ahead take one' like they know what your thinking. The great Charlie Brooker rants about better than moi.





5. Fucking Virgin Media: Of course telesales are always a pain in the hole but I found Virgin Media's blokey knob of a telesales guy especially pernicious. I got a good broadband deal of about £10 a month years ago and don't want it upgraded or generally fucked with, but this guy was wink winking and nudge nudging through the call like I'd met him in a pub."you'd like Bravo wouldn't you? does late night shows..you know what I mean, freeview? naw mate, naw you wanna get this" etc. I'm thinking 'I've got DVD's that'd melt your face, do you think I'm going to enticed by Laid Bare or Porn: A Family Buisness?'.



*Why do people always say the Bible or the works of shakespeare for the books they'd want on a desert island I'd want these babies. Similary to when I lived in a bedsit with no tv and would just read the tv lisitngs and imagine the programs the descriptions of the films is often more entertaining that Imagine watching them would be. Like Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swan, or Northstar aka The Einstein Man. or Spasmo or the classic Mutant on the Bounty.





**It goes pretty quickly from 'modern conundrems' to 'old style rants' , in the olden days we would call it 'observational humour' like 'what about those airplane peanuts' (c) Seinfeld and 'why do you not see white dog shit anymore' (c) Frank Skinner (I think)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Trailer

trailer doesn't really do it justice, it's fecking great plus robocop jokes!

Well now, here we all are: Ike, Mike and Mustard

One of the funniest and most quotable movies of recent years is Shane Black's great Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It has memorable quotes coming out its hole. Almost on a daily basis while having a shower* I say to myself:

Well here we all are: Ike, Mike, and Mustard

Said by literate henchmen, kinda like in Sin City, always intrigued me as I thought it was a reference to some obscure 1970s action movie or 1950s comedy troupe that I was not aware of. So geek that I am I spent about 45 minutes yesterday trying to find out who were, Ike Mike and Mustard. Like most Internet 'research' leads one round in trivia circles as all the search results reference the movie. There's even a blog called Ike, Mike, and Mustard this list of the best lines is good too.

So I'm still not sure whether it was a genuine reference of a tv show or a made up reference to specifically annoy geeks like me into thinking they didn't 'get' something and they get 'trivia panic' and have to look up stuff in the middle of the night like, how many actors have played Orson Welles, or what's that film where Katie Holmes played an actress whose audition is to read the Rene Zellewegger part in Jerry Maguire, what stock footage from old sci-fi movies was used in other sci-fi movies etc. etc.

So it turns out more or less Ike and Mike just means salt and pepper, I found that in this list of Diner lingo so the meaning of Ike, Mike and Mustard kind works itself out, I'm disappointed they weren't some sort of Banana Splits type 1970s kids TV show. There's also Mike and Ike sweets, or 'candy' as they say stateside. Their Web site asks the reader to 'flav up' I presume that's marketing talk for 'eat sweets'.

Well now, here we all are: Ike, Mike and Mustard


*I have a shower on a daily basis, but don't often have the same thoughts every day.

A tubendium of Jimmnies

Why That's Delightful!: Graham Linehan's Hompendium of Dorithies is always a treat for great comedy clips and occasional analysis and thoughts on comedy writing and comics. Many dark Jimmny moments are instantly relived by a flick through the The Craggy Island Parish Magazine. I do love my comedy books*, but this is classic. See above, 'Edward Price' founder of the Christian Brothers falling off a horse after seeing "big diddies" written on a gable wall.

Apart from the content, I have been warming to the style of the livejournal stuff for putting up lost of small posts quite quickly. Being such a media monkey. the urge to just litter this blog with lots of demented clips and videos is hard to resist, and it's sometimes hard to get them in the right order to match up with posts. Plus, the take up valuable demented rant space. Hence I have created, because no on in particular asked for it:

Jimmny Homuncutube: funny things in wee boxes.

Previous Linehan lovefests here and here.

*HH has had to listen to my many many rants of old Comedy books, who remembers such 'classics' as 'Janet Lives with Mel and Griff', 'Lenny Henry's Well-hard paperback', 'Geoffrey the Tube Train and Fat Comedian', 'Spitting Images' and of course 'How to be Complete Bastard'?

Some of my priorities for Meath East

"I'm married to Ann...there's the cards!"...

The Hoff Impersonator

"Helen's Baywatch" Was it really him? er no...

The ghost of the 'Singing Brickie'

Back in the day before youtube and that malarky, yon Badbrute would record bizarre nuggets off of UTV and the likes for our drunken amusement at his and Oldgrom's Portrush Palace. One of these clips that is burned into my memory is of Conor McKay the Singing Brickie. What!you've never heard of the singing brickie? with his signature song:

The bricks and motar by day,
The microphone by night,
I'm the Singing Brickie
And I'll sing a song for yooouuu....

One such moment was when young McKay was being interviewed by UTV in his hardhat patting his dog and they asked him were the words to the songs hard to remember, and he just rocks back and forth and gurgles'

"hehe...it get's te be ya learn it too muuch!"

I always get tempted to use that as my answer for any academic question I get asked, 'I can't remember, it get's te be ya learn it too much!" In Norfolk we have The Singing Postman.

Anyway these two slices of unintenial humour almost match that.

1.Thomas Bryne: "There's the Wedding Cards".

The first is a campaign youtube clip for a Fianna Fail politician that a certain Dumb Riffer, Karl Whitney, currently undercover in our fine nation's seat of power discovered. He aptly describes it: "I've a feeling this might be like Eoin McLove meets Alan Partridge.With David Cameron-style pretensions". I can't stop watching it, why the wedding cards? Look I'm straight! I have the cards to prove it? where is the mysterious footballer wife? does he like jumpers and cakes? His youtube channel is here check him out on the road 'we're not going to force people any particular way of voting, but I hope they vote for us'. His priceless blog has some great lines:

Lovely day for a bit of canvassing. The bonus was that the swallows have landed back in Duleek and Ardcath, just today! The return of the fainleoga is something that really brings back the child in me. In a time of change, nature seems fairly constant and wonderful in some respects at least!

(what other respects is nature not wonderful? monsters?)

and

I was absolutely delighted when I heard that Ian Paisley accepted the Taoiseach's invitation to visit the Battle of the Boyne area in the next few weeks....After centuries of rancor between Protestant and Catholic, it is really like a dream. We are walking not on air, but on the solid foundations of a true lasting settlement.

I keep thinking up things in his 'style', Hall and Oates sang "we built this city on rock and roll, but cities are not built from rock and roll but bricks and mortar." I imagine historic events from the various politcal footsoldiers involved in his voice:

"Spring in Berlin! heard a class speech from some guy in Nuremberg the other day and he really inspired me"..... "It was great to meet Darth Vader today, he's such a good leader, I think our Death Star is totally invunerable with no weak spots whatsoever, hooray for the empire!".

2. The Belfast Hoff: yes,just like Clark Kent....

At the risk of incurring young Bob Bryne's hatred of people using 'the hoff', here's a story from Bloggorah that actually proves his point, if UTV live are using 'the hoff' as a term it has not only Jumped the Shark but and entire ocean of sharks, more than that a Waterworld style world full of sharks and someone is orbiting it continously.

"That's it Magnus, suck in the gut and look like you're about to murder someone...perfect."

Roman's Empire: Attack of The Killer Shit-Coms!!

Roman's Empire BBc2, Thursdays 9.30.

As those of youse who have the (mis) fortune to know me, not far down the list of my obessions after comics, sci-fi and movies (and, perversity, which goes without saying) is comedy, previous rants on shit-coms here. Because no one asked for it we somehow have a below-par Brittas Empire for the 21st Century in the form of BBC 2's 'new' 'sitcom' Roman’s Empire. Harry and Jack Williams, the writers, have a Web site here, they say:

There wasn't any money in the budget for a proper website, so this is the next best thing. It's run by us, the writers of the show, which is why it looks like it was developed in the '80s.

This show was a peer into the abyss where the lessons learned from genius like Father Ted and Peep Show go unnoticed. It was a look into a parallel dimension where these comic aspirations weren't there and where homage and stealing are one and the same. Oh, and if it wasn't bad enough, the titular character talks a bit like Swiss Toni.

It's obviously written by a film dweebs but a film dweeb of the most annoying sort, the kind who tell you about The Big Lebowski as if you've never seen it as if they are telling you something you don't know by quoting it badly at you.

First up the title, Roman's Empire a play on Roman Holiday (1953)? As his 'empire' is a holiday company. Is this a homage to the likes of The Good Life? where the title is a pun on the characters names, these things write themselves, I thought up this pitch it 3 seconds!:

The Golden's Years: Terry Thomas and Liz Smith play a bickering retired couple, The Goldens, and the spend their golden years together.

The opening sequence with explanations of characters to Pavement-esque/Violent Femmes' 'Blister in the Sun'-lite music is reminiscent of The Royal Tenenbaums. This sort of music that sounds like other music is beloved of ads, like when they use what sounds like Air's Sexy Boy or something but change just enough notes to avoid paying royalties, but this also the same amout of note changing that also causes nausea.

The show also seems to assume a potential audience is made up from complete morons and every character needs to be explained to them with a voice over from the main character, coupled with this sense of panic and that every character needs to be introduced within 3 minutes or people will turn over..to what? comedy wise Thursday evenings are always a bit of comedy dead zone. It's like The Charlotte Church Show or the new Graham Norton thing where every guest is introduced immediately because you might immediately turn over because Gwen Stafani and her dancing J-harem hasn't turned up within a minute.

Then there's the great cast Chris O' Dowd from the It Crowd, Nicholas Burns from Nathan Barley, and Mathew Horne from the Catherine Tate Show.
Things that stuck in my craw:

Embarrassingly out-of-date catchphrases: “Bosch!” is this a homage to a 1980s loadsamoney character or simply meant to be funny in his own right? .

A threatening talking baby ala Big Train . (at least it's voiced by Morwenna Banks but it was an almost shot for shot steal)

Speaking of theft, someone stealing a stapler like in Office Space

This was the worst: A character who wears a dressing gown, likes bowling and white Russians…need I say more.

A supposedly hilarious film within a film called The Squid (presumably so the line 'killermari' can be used), isn't poking at bad horror films the lowest crappest joke of all, it’s like when people come up to me when they know of my obsessions and go, ‘I love those old b-movies’, what does that phrase mean? you might as well say 'I really like…movies'. 'b-movie' is a financial rather than generic description.

Anyway, it's probably be a big success with people who don't like any of the film and comedy I watch. So why make these references, they only piss off the people who could be a potential hardcore audience.

Oh god, how does this shit get made? The BBC could of spent the money on a new Snuff Box. Thank god for Peep Show and more Star Stories but how much Balls of Steel, The Friday Night Project, 8 out of Ten Cats, The Charlotte Church Show, do we have to suffer to get the former gems.

Update: No improvements in episode 2, the first five minutes or so explains everything that's going on and includes a clip of 'The Squid' again this time with another 'witty' pun on the poster. Some the supposed funny moments include: one of the guys from Banzai threatening Roman with a sword, unfunny use of a (not the) 'N' word, a character faking his own death and Roman casually committing his daughter to a stereotypical mental home, Roman not knowing what Romania is for comic effect (despite buying land in Bulgaria)....what hilarity.

Ah Fuck!

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

"I am a member of what I believe to be the last recognizable generation of full-time, life-time American novelists. We appear to be standing more or less in a row. It was the Great Depression which made us similarly edgy and watchful. It was World War II which lined us up so nicely, whether we were men or women, whether we were ever in uniform or not. It was an era of romantic anarchy in publishing which gave us money and mentors, willy-nilly, when we were young--while we learned our craft. Words on printed pages were still the principal form of long-distance communcication and stored information in America when we were young.

No more."

Kurt Vonnegut (1981) Palm Sunday

Big Bobbity Bob Bryne news

Bob Bryne dons his patented nodule hat to bestow clamnuggety goodness on the world

I have been meaning for ages* to put a big shout put to young Bob Bryne of Clamnuts who is soon to join the proud ranks of Irish contributors to 2000 AD. He is slated to have his own slot of 6-page silent stories. I think this pretty unprecedented for an artist writer to have a whole strand ofone-shot stories. It's called Bob Bryne's Twisted Tales:

There's a sneaky peak available here.

Bob had six pages of Mr. Amperduke published recently in Judge Dredd the Megazine. Check out a great early attempt at getting into the galaxy's greatest comic: Graylin. Oh and there's a new issue of the Shiznit out so if you're in Ireland find it, if not it's in a PDF file here. It's got lots of living in Dublin hatings, which I remember so well. Especially pertinent is the character "Gary Hyland...He's Just Back from Thailand". Whereas Irish parents would be loathe to see their little darlins acting like drunken bums for a two years if they stayed in Ireland, they seem to think it's a great idea for their offspring to do it on the other side of the world. Then these kids come home and either tell you how cheap everything is over there or start every sentence with 'when I was in Thailand' . See Bob's rants can be contagious...check it out.




*Explanation for blog absense: 70% work, 10% watching Battlestar Galactica in bed on my laptop and blubbing when the old Vipers turn up, 10% Star Wars Battlefront II, 10% cold-deflecting hot whiskeys.

Jimmy Bignutz strikes again

Man, I'm going to have to come up with things I hate, this blog's turning into a geeky love fest. I'm sure your aware of B3Ta if someone has sent you an annoying photomanip since this whole ethergut malarky started (I think the very first one was a stick figure with a straight line for a cock drawn on sent between two MIT boffins in 1979) then it probably came from B3Ta picture challenges. If you don't have net access just 'read' Nuts or Zoo that where they steal a lot of stuff, that and Bizarre magazine. B3Ta's Rob Manuel and co. sent in the ideas for the shit computer games from Look Around You, see below.

Anyway, B3Ta were asked to submit questions for a interview with Adam Buxton (to be currently seen in not shit BBC Three sketch show Rush Hour and Hot Fuzz and yon Mr. Buxton methodically went through all of them and not only dignified them but also came up with some great answers, eg:


What were the best and worst nicknames you ever got given? (Afinkawan)

BEST: Let me see… on a good day I used to get called Genius Boy, Rimshot Masterclass, Fiery Apollo 5000, The Lazer Briefcase, Jimmy Bignutz, Harrison Ford, Cleverhandsome or Jesus Strength.

WORST: On a bad day it would be either Failure Face, Shitlamp, The Ugly Man, Shit On Face, Shithair, Dogshit Face & Neck, Fat Queer or Shit Instead Of Head. I think some of the names came from the fact that I had a bit of shit near my head in those days. Kids can be cruel.

Look Around You - Computer Games

Look Around You

thants...

I'm sure you've seen this before, but I recently got Look Around You Series 2 from the forum and I can't stop watching it. Look Around you is normally described as a 'spoof science show' but that does not do it justice, it is a delirious trip into a parallel universe where cassaroles are fast food, people get 'cobbles' a disease that turns them into rocks and the best computer game is Diarrhea Dan . Ropert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz are amazing, just listening to the commentary, you can tell they are fucking TV geniuses by how pissed off they are by such a great series, they seem to like only about 30 % of a series that for most, myself included, think is 99 % funny. One can imagine 'avid merrion' with about a third of they have and running with for 5 series.

medibot likes hundreds and thousands...

I'm such a dweeb I listened to all the commentaryso I can know where all the osbscure tv references are like 'Star Quality' and the 1979 general election. I like things like this and am amazed and so pleased people who like things like this got to make a top show, horray for now! it's got great TV! but a bad chance of survival, we'll all die in some sort of ball of flames...ah well, them's the breaks. Bet those Cylons have shit TV it's all whirring gutballs covered in metal all day or something and then some guff about god, those metalic fuckwits. (but more on that story laater)

Here's the scary picture from the series, read the warnings first

Get well soon Tom Tom Tomington

"Wearing his famed "Man of Ste" tunic young, Jimmny McHimmny meets Tom Moran at the famous "Roes TA B every" bar, fun times were had by all, they also "caught up" with people who do things in the Norfolk area"-EDP, (20.01.27)

"When Dr. Michael Caine was out caning it with lasses with guns during the filming of 'Bittman Begans', Mr. Tom Moran often stepped into the breach not only to act in the role of Alfrood Pennywidth but also to offer Chrastian Bile a.k.a Nightman IV some canapes, renamed on the set as......capes"-TV Quick (12.06.06)

Tom Moran, one of my friends and coworkers at the rose is sick at the moment with a dual operation, one bit involves his guts and another bit involves near his ball-ba-rigmusses, either way it's not pretty so I'm sending my love down the well to that tall funny fecker. He's got a comedy night: Laugh Out Loud and a indie/funk/neo soul band called The Scoundrels and has a comedy show on Livewire UEA radio station. Generally if confidence is "c" and that "c" is the confidence that myself and people I went to college with had, then "c-cubed" is what young Moran and the folks he deals with has. It's amazing to see them work at their media enterprises, and I'm slightly envious of them, but enjoy watching the madness from a distance all the same.

Anyway, he wrote a facebook note Musings from the mind of a recovering hernia patient which included a reference to me that I should put up on the blog as a sort of a blurb:

These notes are like internet blogs, and internet blogs are depressing and sad. There is only one person whose blogging I will accept and tolerate, and that is my friend and co-worker Lorcan McGraine, because he is Irish and studies superheroes, so he's allowed to be a bit quirky. Also, I think he may have a gun.

I don't have a gun, but in the words of the Look Around You series 2 commentary, when discussing Harry Enfield as Tchaikvosky's Ghost, if I did have a gun it would have 5 silver bullets and one gold bullet, all blank...

If I 'power blogger'

as the button below suggests, and it's a slow piece of shit and every time I try to blog I either lose my post or can't upload a picture, does that mean I'm a slow piece of shit. More posts above hopefully if I can get this spinning jenny of a computer fuckage to work...

P.S. I had a vaction on my scooter and I fell.