September movie update

Here are the films that Pete and I have received from Lovefilm.com and watched on TV and DVD over the past few months in reverse order, with my ratings out of ten from my movie list on the IMDB.

Echo Park, L.A. (2006) 6

Gay themed movie - OK in parts.

   

Beastly (2011) 6

Certainly not high art, but starred the yummy Alex Pettyfer - so that's worth 6 points alone!

 

A Single Man (2009) 8*

I first saw this on a flight and watching on a proper screen helped to move the score up one point.

 

Killing Bono (2011) 6

A black comedy that didn't quite work, despite featuring the gorgeous Ben Barnes and the strangely interesting Robert Sheehan (From Misfits).

Submarine (2010) 7

An interesting film with an indie feel set in Wales.

 

My Dog Tulip (2009) 2

Awful animation about a man and his dog. Some parts were distasteful.

 

Definitely, Maybe (2008) 3

Crap romcom.  When will I learn?!

 

Departures (2008) 6

Very weird Japanese film about a traditional undertaker.

 

Little White Lies (2010) 7

French film about money, jealousy, selfishness and friendships that perhaps are not as true as they should be.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) 6

A Woody Allen film that doesn't suck!  Full of lazy writing and cliches though.

Battle: Los Angeles (2011) 7

Throwaway action movie - great fun!

Source Code (2011) 8

I really liked this (I know some do not) - silly science fiction, but entertaining all the same.

Kaboom (2010) 7

Sexy movie that is a bit bonkers. I find Thomas Dekker (who plays a bi guy) extremely sexy.

 

How Do You Know  (2010) 5

Not good - perhaps 5 is actually generous.

Limitless (2011) 8
Flawed storyline, but kept me interested throughout.

London weekend part 2

As I mentioned on a previous post, Pete and I were in London for the weekend with my friend Sonny.  We started with a walk into the West End via the South Bank (there was a food fair on) and had a few drinks en route as we walked through Covent Garden, Soho and St James.  We then went to see a play in Old Street, which is a bit of a trek from my friends flat, especially with the Northern Line closed for engineering.  The play was awful so we left at the break!  We walked around Hoxton and Shorditch - the new trendy areas of London.  It was packed with people and the pubs/bars/clubs were buzzing.  We ended up at Spitalfields for dinner.

On Sunday we walked through the near deserted streets to Tate Modern, had breakfast, looked around that ever-stunning museum before taking a slow walk along the Thames.

After a bit of shopping, we headed home getting stuck in some bad traffic jams.  You gotta love London!

Here are a few random images from the weekend:  A nose on Admiralty Arch (see here for more information!), graffiti artist under Waterloo Station (its legal there), book fair on the South Bank, the unfinished Shard, Sonny and Pete at Tate Modern.

Chav alert

I was in St. Albans today and I saw the perfect chav - she was walking along the street thinking how to spend her 'hard earned' benefits and was the perfect representation of this species... 

The female chav:

Scraped back hair ✓
Ponytail ✓
Football shirt ✓
Tracksuit bottoms ✓
Fat arse ✓
About 16 ✓
Smoking ✓
With a baby ✓
Walking with a pitbull ✓

All boxes ticked - amazing!

London weekend

Pete and I spent the weekend with our friend Sonny in London - I'll tell you more about what we did when I find 10 minutes, in the meantime here is an Instagram collage showing a few things we did and saw...

Olympic hopefuls #2 - Daniel Keatings

In the second of my series of fit and cute Olympic hopefuls for team GB, let me introduce you to Daniel Keatings.  He is a 21 gymnast and hopes to represent us in the all-around event - i.e. he needs to be good at many different things!

Sad news

I was very sad to read that REM have announced that they are splitting. As a big fan, I can't believe that I wont get to buy new music as soon as it's released!  Here is the official statement and edited comments from the band:

"To our Fans and Friends: As REM, and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening."

MIKE
"During our last tour, and while making Collapse Into Now and putting together this greatest hits retrospective, we started asking ourselves, 'what next'? Working through our music and memories from over three decades was a hell of a journey. We realized that these songs seemed to draw a natural line under the last 31 years of our working together."

MICHAEL
"A wise man once said--'the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.' We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it. I hope our fans realize this wasn't an easy decision; but all things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way."

PETER
"We walk away as great friends. I know I will be seeing them in the future, just as I know I will be seeing everyone who has followed us and supported us through the years. Even if it's only in the vinyl aisle of your local record store, or standing at the back of the club: watching a group of 19  year olds trying to change the world."

A while ago I posted a list of my favourite REM tracks - you can find that posting HERE.

Jonathan de Falco

A few months ago, I blogged about the cute and supremely confident Anton Hysen - a professional football who is out and proud.  He's enjoying gay life to the full it seems (via his blog) - appearing in magazines, on radio, lots of TV, film premiers, working with clothes designers, etc etc.  I like the guy and it seems he is really genuine.

With footballers in mind, there is news of another footballer coming out, but this time there is a twist to the story...

A professional footballer has made a new career using his tackle, by becoming a gay porn star. Former Belgian professional footballer Jonathan de Falco, formerly of Racing Mechelen and Oud-Heverlee Leuven, has assumed the name Stany Falcone to follow his dream of becoming a gay porn star.

The 26-year-old told the Antwerp Gazette: "I felt more and more content with who I really was. I had to really go on, but after a conversation with the club, we agreed that I should leave the club earlier and I would change my life. The football world is not ready for gay players. There is too much prejudice and generally low tolerance. Since I was 20 I have been in gay circles, but when I played soccer, nobody noticed anything. If my orientation would have been known, there would have undoubtedly problems."

So I have have been thinking.  There are around 4000 professional footballers in England.  If I use a very conservative 3% gay ratio (the gaytio*), then that means there are 120 closeted guys playing football.  It saddens me to think that there are so many guys who have to live a lie, cant be themselves and ultimately cant be happy. I hope that the experience of Anton Hysen will be positive enough to allow some guys to say "I'm gay, I play football, so what?!".

* Copyright Stephen Chapman 2011

Travellers

In recent days, reports in the media have focused on Travellers and their illegal occupation of land in Essex. Some of the stories are balanced, some not so. The broad range of articles usually look at how Travellers occupy land illegally and how local communities living in fear of being overun by Travellers, negatively affecting their lives.

 

For many, the perception of Travellers making their home on a site nearby, whether legal or not, is highly unfavourable. Whilst I have my own views and experiences, it seems that it is difficult to obtain the full facts to allow all of us to make informed decisions and furthermore, it appears that anyone who criticises Travellers is accused of being racist.

 

I would therefore be interested to know the truth, as my views are not positive and I feel that we could all benefit from knowing whether Travellers are disruptive or merely neighbours living unconventional lives. Ideally, this should be investigated by the media, but failing that, I would like to hear some feedback from my readers; not hearsay or rumours, but actual experiences on the following areas of concern when Travellers move in:

Some perceptions of Travellers sites:

• Increased crime in the local area, including theft, damage and car crime.
• An increase in anti-social behaviour
• Mess and damage during and after occupation
• Planning laws flouted on official sites
• Travellers pay no income tax and council tax, yet always seem to be driving shiny new cars
• Travellers still make use social benefits and local council services
• Traveller groups are buying land and illegally living on it - where do they get hundreds of thousands of pounds to purchase the land?
• House prices are negatively affected near to sites.

These are just a few 'perceptions' - so what is the truth... if its out there?

Buddy

We made the mistake of agreeing to look after our neighbours dog. He's a 13 month old Labrador and I hadn't quite appreciated how little he has been trained!

Coming from a home that has always had dogs (and trained at that), it has been an exhausting weekend trying to keep up with this powerful beast.  We have lost 2 balls that other dogs like to play with, some driftwood and very nearly lost the goldfish from the pond as Buddy clearly likes water!

We drove to Pete's uncle and aunt in Oakham for a lovely lunch and then walked around part of Rutland Water where we stayed last year.  We couldn't take him off the lead as there is algae in the water at the moment that is poisonous to dogs. So he dragged us for a few miles to the Finches Arms pub.  While we sat having our beer, I said to Pete: "be careful, I think you have let go of Buddy's lead".  He had not, Buddy had just chewed through the leather lead! My shoulders ache from pulling him back every few seconds.

Here is a view of the depleted Rutland Water reservoir:

Today we took the mad dog to Pete's Mum's house and then for a walk with Pete's brothers dog (Max).  It was hard work again, but this time I thought I would introduce him to the concept of "heal" and how to walk with a lead on.  He was actually getting the hang of it, but very slowly.  I took this picture of Max this  morning as he ran through the long wet grass.

New member of the family

It has been such a strange weather year with drought in the spring, followed by the wet and mild summer.  

Despite the huge potato crop that we have enjoyed, the unusual weather has meant that the tomatoes are only just ripening, the peppers didn't grow at all, neither did the courgettes - however, of the 10 chili plants I grew from seed, 4 have produced babies.

Here is red chili pepper number one.  I wonder how hot this little guy is going to be?