Virgin's 'Dead Hamster'

You may have read it already, but this is superb. A truly hilarious story to pierce through the doom and gloom which is all over every news channel.

Movie Review: Hancock

I think Will Smith is great.

He can be a gung-ho, hilarious, apparently low intelligence action hero in movies like Men in Black, Independence Day, and I, Robot then do a film with a little more substance like The Pursuit of Happyness and come across as an ordinary person with proper feelings and emotions.

So I like to watch his movies. And until I see Seven Pounds I thought I'd hire Hancock from BlockBuster.

Wasn't really expecting much to be honest, since the reviews were not good. But they've been regularly wrong in the past, and I'm probably a little more tolerant than most.

At first it was a breath of fresh air, and I was riveted to the screen for probably the first hour or so. I liked the fact that he was drunk all the time, couldn't fly without waving his arms and legs all over the place and was more concerned about getting his next bottle of booze than not destroying stuff. But unfortunately I had to agree that it lost it a little when they explained why he had super powers.

I could've accepted a Spider Man or Hulk-esque 'bit by a spider' or 'fell in radioactive stuff' explanation more easily than the reason offered. It felt like they had gotten to the bit where they had to explain his superpowers, ran out of ideas and went cross eyed.

I hate it when a film goes awry like that, especially when it had a huge budget and started so well. But even with its faults, I did enjoy Hancock and will definitely watch the sequel because apparently Will Smith hated the first film and will be much more involved with the next. And even though this film has its faults, it's one hundred times better than the drivel that is Superman Returns.

I'd recommend it for the kind of night where you just want to sit and watch an action film which just washes over you. Get a beer and ogle Charlize Theron.

Fact of Life #1: You Get What You Pay For

Getting stuff cheap is good. You feel like you've won a small victory, that you've beaten those who'd extract all of the money from your wallet given the slightest opportunity.

Being a software developer, I drink coffee a lot. It's not that I find my job boring, and contrary to the stereotype, it's not just a case of sitting like a little monkey in a cubicle writing thousands of lines of code without any human interaction. So even though I do enjoy my job, coffee does help to put an extra positive spin on the day, and it tastes good (mostly).

The only drawback is that I find it quite expensive to support my habit. Obviously I'd prefer to have a Starbucks than an instant coffee, but if every coffee I drank was a Starbucks it'd cost me about £40 a week and I'd be so fat that I'd be the subject of a Channel 4 documentary. So I always have a jar of instant at my desk, because I refuse to drink the pig swill that comes out of the vending machine.

I've tried a few different brands, but learned a lesson when I brought in a jar of 'Nescafe Original'.


It was cheaper to buy than the other types, and you get a huge jar for the price. But the lesson I quickly learned this morning was that you really do get what you pay for.

It's vile. It induces you to screw up your face with horrible bitterness as you drink it, then leaves a taste in your mouth that resembles the pencil you chewed in Maths. I now have a huge jar of coffee on my desk that I won't use.

But in this office of stressed out people, if I leave it in the kitchen it will get used up by those who forgot to bring their own coffee, those who can't afford a Starbucks or just those who will take anything as long as it hasn't come out of the vending machine. So I'll do that.

It's back to the shops to get a better jar of coffee for tomorrow, and it definitely will not be Nescafe.

World of Weirdos

Recently, my mate in work told me that in the World of Warcraft game, one of the top players in the world had died in real life (or 'RL' as the WoW players call it).

Now that is not amusing for anyone, but it did lead to a hilarious story which made me wonder what kind of absolute weirdos spend their entire lives in this game.

Apparently (this all happened a while ago), the news of this player's death went out on a forum which is used by thousands of World of Warcraft players, and they arranged to down their weapons and hold an in game funeral at a 'contested' location set by one of the deceased player's friends. Some of the best players of the game had agreed to attend, and they declared a tentative ceasefire so that nobody would attack other 'griefers' during the online event.

But of course, you can't trust anyone on the Internet. The forum was being watched by a bunch of newbie players led by someone called 'azshira' who were looking to make a quick points bonus by killing the players who attended the 'funeral service'.

They arrived on Lions and caused chaos, 'ganking' people indiscriminately. Here's the video. It's quite long but hilarious - if you get bored the action starts at 4:37.

To quote one of the 'lowbie' players who got 'ganked': "I hope azshira's Dad dies of a heart attack, then at the funeral some guy runs in naked and pushes the coffin over and runs around slapping people screaming 'LOL OWNED' and releases a video of it on the Internet."

For me this almost, but not quite, beats Leeroy Jenkins. 'God Damn it, Leeroy!'

Berlin

I used to think that Prague was my favourite city, with its unspoilt charm, cheap food and drink, and cool Eastern European style. But in the past few years, because of cheap flights on easyJet or Ryanair, it seems to have become festooned with beer swilling, prostitute-using idiots who seem to be trying their best to ruin it for everyone else before getting deported by angry Czech policemen (who hopefully batter them before putting them on a plane back home). So Prague has lost its charisma a little for me. Not to say that I'd never go back, but it has some pretty serious problems now.

Then there was Rome. Full of history, beauty and class, I thought I was in love with the place until I visited Paris, which blew me away. So for a while, Paris was my favourite city. Even New York couldn't topple it, but last weekend, the title of My Favourite City went to Berlin.

It was my second visit, the first time I was there it was because my brother was about to get married so we'd taken him there for the weekend. This time around, it was the turn of one of my best mates to get engaged - so when trying to decide where to take him, Berlin came off as the obvious winner.

My brother is a very convincing liar, so he had been tasked with telling Neil that we were taking him to Ullapool. We laughed from the bottom of our bellies at the disappointment he tried hard not to display at the prospect of freezing his ass off in a dingy town here in Scotland for his 'stag' weekend.

Struggling to hide his despair, Neil contemplates a weekend in Ullapool

It was only when we got to the airport and after a few fake phone calls that we told Neil that we were not in fact getting picked up by 'Alastair the Minibus Driver who was taking us to the train'. He was delighted that we had actually planned something decent, and that he was going to be freezing his ass off in Berlin instead. That made the effort of arranging everything worthwhile.

'Ah, ich spreche Deutsche! Ich hasse Ullapool.'

So on our descent into Berlin Schonefeld, we were greeted by snow covered fields and temperatures which were well below zero (apparently -20c at night). I'm not going to write an account of the entire weekend, but I'd like to write about some of the best sights we saw during our visit. Berlin is rammed with things to see, and if you're willing to stay in a Hostel, I'd thoroughly recommend The Circus Hostel at Rozenthaler Platz. It's clean, it's cheap, it's in a brilliant location (two stops from Alexanderplatz), it has great staff and a really nice Cafe and Bar for breakfast and booze (not necessarily in that order).

Great Places in Berlin

Pergamon Museum

I think the Pergamon Museum is great. When you walk into the main museum you're given an audio guide and headphones, which make the whole thing vastly more interesting than if you were looking at the exhibits with no idea what they are.

The Museum is split into three main parts, the central area which contains the stunning Pergamon Altar, and the two wings which contain the Market Gate from Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and some of the facade of the Temple of Artemis. It was certainly worth a visit, and you could spend hours there, poring over the incredible exhibits which take you back in time.

Tacheles

A lot of people who visit Berlin will never hear about Tacheles. And some who do would be afraid to visit there, fearing they'd be out of place or unwelcome. But it's a place that everyone should visit, since it is about as 'Real' as Berlin can get. (Click on the pictures for larger versions)

Tacheles, before the facade was repaired

It's quite hard to find, being tucked away in the Jewish area of the city. But it's a big place, having been a department store, then an office of the SS. When you walk in, there are artists selling their wares, usually prints of works they've done previously. It's pretty dark and every wall is completely covered in graffiti. On the first floor there's the club where they have paneled windows and a proper bar, with a DJ. Some people seem to think that having glass windows on Tacheles means it's not the same as it used to be. Further upstairs there are corridors with lots of locked doors and mysterious sounds coming from behind them. Some large areas are filled with bits of junk, some sculptures and yet more artists hoping to make a few Euro by selling their stuff. At the top there's an open air bar next to the gig venue, which serves beer by the bottle and lets visitors sit down on manky couches to look out over the city. You can see what's now this area if you look at the photo, at the top floor where the roof arches.

Tacheles isn't the kind of place you forget in a hurry, it's a view onto a completely different world.

Berlin by Bike

The other great thing we did was hire bikes. Even though the temperatures were well below zero, there was snow and black ice everywhere and we had no experience of cycling on busy German roads, we decided that the best way to see the city would be to hire bikes rather than walk everywhere or use the U-Bahn.

We covered about 22km on the day, which isn't bad for a few hours. You can see our route on this map:

Our route through Central Berlin

Starting out at Rozenthaler Platz, we went down Friedrichstraße to Unter den Linden which contains the foreign embassies and a few car dealerships, as well as the Brandenburg Gate at the bottom.

Jolley struggles to hide his delight at finding a hat almost exactly the same shape and colour as Neil's

The Reichstag is pretty awesome, but it takes hours to queue up to get inside, so we stood outside for a bit and admired it. Apparently Hitler wanted the Riechstag to form the gatehouse of the Welthauptstadt Germania, which would have made it part of the biggest building the world had ever seen. But of course, Hitler was an idiot and it never came to fruition because instead of the biggest building ever seen, he started the biggest war the world had ever seen. Still, the Reichstag is very impressive.

David wishes he was as tall as the Riechstag. Now THAT would be fun.

The Tiergarten is beautiful when covered in snow. It's nice to be able to cycle through a park without fear of your tyres being punctured by broken glass or a used syringe, and to have the confidence that you won't be beset by neds who want to nick your bike and sell it for money fur ra dancin'. Berlin is a world apart from the likes of Glasgow. It's full of culture, intrigue and the people of Berlin really love and take care of their city, rather than attacking each other and wrecking everything they can.

Alan just does not agree with Calum's sock-glove choice

By this time our collective nuts were beginning to freeze off. So preferring to keep at least the option of having kids in the future, we decided it was time to get some warmth. So we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts (not for the first, nor the last time on this trip) and refuelled. Then we arrived at a showcase section of the Berlin Wall. Across the street from the wall, there was an enormous advert for iPod.

The contrast between the old iron curtain divide between East and West and the new, colourful 'free world' image of the iPod was quite cool.

Maybe it was just me, but I always loved the Trabant. I think it's a symbol of East Berlin, communism, and the acceptance that people must have had for the crap technology to which they were subjected by their regime. The strange thing is, that even though it was small and unreliable, smoky and uncomfortable, the Trabant was loved by East Germans. It's still popular today, even after all this time.

When I saw a whole load of Trabants across the road, I had to have a look, while nobody else appeared to be interested. If I had a collection of cars (as opposed to one rubbish car), I'd definitely add a Trabant to that.

Next time I'm in Berlin, I'm going to hire one of these

Once we'd seen the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and the old Air Ministry, we headed up towards Eberswalder Straße, where I'd heard that the best Currywurst in Berlin could be had. I wasn't wrong! Then we visited the flea market and headed home before our fingers fell off from the cold.


Capt'n Schillo

On our final night we went to the Capt'n Schillo restaurant, which is a barge tied up on the Spree. We were running late, so basically sprinted across Berlin and onto the S-Bahn to try to get there on time so that we wouldn't miss our reservation. We needn't have bothered: we were the only people there! Not sure why, because it was a great little place. A single waiter served us really excellent fish dishes (some had steak) and kept his Amy Winehouse CD on repeat (that was a downer). Then it was speech time. Each person had to give a speech about Neil and why they'd enjoyed the weekend, as well as why he was a good guy who was worth the time and expense of visiting Berlin.

Petrie folk are notoriously emotionally and linguistically stinted, so the best speeches came from others who spoke about the past we'd all had together, the good times and hopefully the better times to come.

All in, Berlin was brilliant. I'd go back again and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

More pics can be found on Photobucket

Interest Rate Cuts Cut Interest

The Bank of England have cut interest rates again.

Clearly their goal is to benefit businesses because Joe Public who has a tracker mortgage will benefit while John Smith who has savings will lose out, so it must balance out to a certain degree.

So if making money flow back into businesses is the goal, why haven't there been any initiatives to identify the best businesses, and reward them with government backed low interest overdrafts? Is there no way that the government can back up a certain amount of lending to businesses who have already proven their worth, those who have good credit scores and who can prove that they are more likely to be able to repay any debts?

Banks would be exposed to less risk and these companies would have the cash they desperately need to continue to operate.

Specifically, companies in industries like manufacturing, exports, etc - those who have not been responsible for irresponsible borrowing or lending and those who are the cornerstone of British business in the UK and abroad?

Artist Chen Wenling's impression of The God of Materialism

I feel sorry for the people who've worked hard to put some money away for a rainy day, without greedily gambling on property by taking out giant, irresponsible debts on the hope of making a few bucks from property.

Those people appear to be getting punished by other people's materialism and greed with these cuts in interest. The days of keeping cash under pillows appear to be close!

Anyway, those are my simpleton thoughts. It will be interesting to see how all this pans out.

Old Age Sucks

I hate how people you love have to grow old.

I've always been close to my Grandfather (I call him Papa), and he's one of the greatest blokes on the planet. Hard working, kind, always smiling, always interested in people, never angry.

But he's in his seventies, so age is beginning to take its toll on him. He has problems with his hearing, which can affect his balance, and yesterday he fell in the street and cracked his ribs, broke his nose and gave himself two massive black eyes.

It's horrible how there's nothing you can do to stop it happening. I've tried helping out to make his hearing situation better by getting him a portable loop system (wasn't really portable and didn't really work), and by getting him two Asus EeePCs with bespoke software on them that allows for IM over Wi-Fi. Those were designed to help by allowing someone to sit and type messages to him while a conversation was going on, to allow him to keep up. They worked perfectly but he didn't have the motivation to sit and use them or to ask people to type messages for him.

This is why I think old age sucks. You should be able to play football with your Grandad, or go snowboarding with him. You shouldn't have to watch him grow old and feeble, becoming more and more frustrated at what he can't do.

Good job my beliefs give me a hope for the future then.

Epidemic!

It seems there is an epidemic of cold and flu. Most people I know have had or currently have a cold or flu symptoms.

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to avoid people who've felt ill. The wife got a really bad flu on Friday and has been sick, tired and sleepy all weekend. So I slept in the other room, took a Vitamin C every day, kept the windows open and tried to keep my distance from her. Which was surprisingly difficult, it made me realise I like cuddles more than I thought I did! blech! ;)

And I thought I'd been successful in avoiding any illness, even though people around me were dropping like flies with runny noses, nausea and sore bodies! But no. I woke up this morning feeling freezing, sore all over and with a killer headache. So it's a pain in the ass, especially since I'm going to Berlin on Friday.

This led me to think about how people in the UK are far too willing to infect each other with minging viruses and colds. People who are ill go to work, thinking they should just 'power on through', and possibly unknowingly infect lots of the people they come into contact with.

For example, my wife is an optometrist and went to work on Saturday because she felt she had to because she doesn't get sick pay(!) and because she had to phone in a couple of weeks ago for another heavy cold she'd had. Her symptoms were so bad that she doesn't remember her working day, doesn't remember anything about the patients she had and had to turn her light off and sleep on the floor at lunchtime to avoid what she thought was a distinct possibility of fainting.

Good for her, you might think - and that's fair enough. But she should not have been allowed to go to work and probably pass her flu onto the people she was working with and her patients.

I think there should be rules in the UK about avoiding spreading these viruses and infections, especially if you work with the public. In the wife's case, she should have been told to go home straight away as soon as it became clear she was ill.

But now I'm ill, and I'm working today. So I should take my own advice and go home. But how bad would it have looked if I'd phone in sick on the first Monday back after Christmas/New Year?

"Hypocrite!" shout the non existent readers of this blog, "Hypocrite!"

But if there were rules in the workplace around sending ill staff home, then my boss would've told me to leave. Which would've been better than me awkwardly telling him I'm ill and need to get some rest.

Lemsip Max Cold and Flu Direct: Genius. Just hope I don't get a cough before I go to sub-zero Berlin, I can imagine getting whacked in the face by angry, sleepy roommates.