Round, all around the world.

Ulysses 31 : A co-production between France and Japan, it's the Greek myths... but set in outer space! Some fantastic music in this, the whole thing is obviously heavily influenced by Star Wars and even 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the Greek twist makes it completely unique, with Ulysses and co constantly trying to outwit the cruel Gods as they travel across the universe looking for home. Plus the main character has a massive beard = win.



The Mysterious Cities of Gold: When I first used the internet, this was one of the first things I looked for... that theme tune... listen to it. It's incredible. This was about a bunch of kids getting into trouble in the New Word, each episode was accompanied by short documentaries which fleshed out various aspects of South American history, but thankfully the cartoon itself doesn't worry too much about facts... I won't spoil the details but if you watch all 39 episodes of this epic show you won't be disappointed. Shit gets crazy!


Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors: This isn't in the same league as the previous two cartoons, in fact it's pretty shit, but the intro is hilarious. As with everything around these times, Star Wars looms large as an influence, the hero Jayce (the space version of Jason?) spends most of his time bleating about the dastardly "MONster MINDS!" and "Saw-boss" who are menacing the solar system for some reason. There's also a comedy pet side-kick, a floating space fish no less.


Inhumanoids: Cartoons were a lot weirder in the '80s than they are now, the theme tune for a start is just... odd. The show itself is pretty great though, with some pretty impressive and at times gruesome creatures. Even though a lot of these shows were designed to sell toys, there is the odd gem (but not Jem).


Dogtanian: Again, not a great cartoon by any means: The Three Muskateers - but with dogs! But worth mentioning for the theme tune, is it merely insipid or just plain monotonous? I spent most of my childhood trying to answer that question. Da-da-da, da-da-da!


Around the World with Willy Fog: Imagine listening to that for 80 days. This cartoon was always on, it polluted the schedules for what seemed like MY LIFE. In his quest to travel around the world within a strict time limit, Willy managed to make eighty days feel like eight hundred.




Oh, just one more thing...

Totally Ghostin' It Up Inside Your House

Hey, it's Halloween and shit, right? So now's as good a time as any to talk about a few creepy horror films, 'n junk. Everyone loves a good creepy horror movie, don't they? Well, don't they? I should have mentioned that this blog post requires audience participation, when you see a question you must answer it out loud, failure to do so will result in a headless yaffle Inceptioning your dreams. I'll also tell you about the time I had a fistfight with a pirate skeleton, so keep reading if you want to find out what happened. Really! A pirate skeleton, that also happened to be…. HAUNTED. You're shivering right now aren't you? [Pause for reaction]

Films don't really scare me anymore, although cheap scare tactics such as something jumping out of nowhere will always work of course, but any dickhead can jump out from behind a bush and go" BOO!", until they lock you up for it. But that's just being a twat. What you really need is an unsettling atmosphere, atmosphere is everything, literally (ha?). Just ask the manager of my local Tesco supermarket. They usually dedicate a whole aisle to shite like Christmas//Bonfire Night/Owl Appreciation Week/Valentines Day, but this month the Halloween aisle is extra spooky, how you ask? They dimmed the lights in that aisle, gasp! Tesco: maestros of terror and fright, and putting your local grocery shops out of business (but you shop there, hypocrite).



Which is all very interesting I'm sure you'll agree, right readers? [Don't pause for reaction, move on quickly]. Listen, I'll tell you about the skeleton soon, don't try skipping to the end though or… your eyes will fall out? Something, anyway. So onto some creepy films I've been thinking about lately, there's a Kathryn Bigelow film called Near Dark which is pretty great, it's about a family of blood-sucking vampires driving around the USA in a camper van, murderin' up the place. The creep-factor is aided by Tangerine Dream's music. Synthesiser soundtracks in horror movies seem to be a short-cut to creepiness in my brain. Which brings me onto John Carpenter, you can pick pretty much any early film of his and get a good creepy experience, but I'll single out The Fog. Another sparse synth soundtrack that sends you (well me, anyway) straight into creepy-town. A few shock scares maybe, but it's all about the unstoppable sense of dread. Ignore the recent remake. Perhaps you don't want to bother with any of these, some might say, dated 80s films, you can shove off then if that's your attitude. OR, you could watch an absolute classic from 1963 called The Haunting. It's about a haunted house, enough said. Probably the last film I can remember watching that actually scared me. As with any film, it helps to create the right conditions to maximise your enjoyment, so watch all these films at night with the lights off. Preferably with the branch of a tree gently blowing against your window. In a storm. After being scared you need a laugh though, I think that may even be written in the official horror handbook. An American Werewolf in London is the obvious horror comedy you'll want to watch, and it is great. You also have to watch a TV series called Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a piss-take of all things horror related.



I also like The 'Burbs, classic-era Tom Hanks obsessing over a creepy family who move into the neighbourhood. Hanks got an Oscar for Forrest bloody Gump, so I stand by my assertion that he should have received one for this. And one for The Money Pit. And Big. Another film I'll mention is Exte, it's not a great film or anything, but I did watch it so you're going to have to read what I think about it: It's about killer hair extensions! Gogo out of Kill Bill is in it, she fights this hair monster thing, and stuff. If you want to see a really crazy Japanese horror film though watch House (AKA Hausu). Yeah, so shitty horror movies, I watched a lot growing up, numerous Gremlins cash-ins like Ghoulies, Critters, Munchies. Actually the original Troll movie is kind of disturbing too, not scary or anything. The first Critters movie is still good fun though. It is!



One film you (specifically Callie) have to watch is Paperhouse, it's about a girl and her mad dreams, and you must stop reading this right now and go watch it! But I haven't told you about the fight I had with a pirate skeleton I hear you say. Well I'll tell you all about it right this second, because I'm standing right behind you.

THIS SPOOK-TACULAR BLOG WAS WRITTEN FOR THE SCREEN BY HORROR MASTER STPHEN KING. NO REFUNDS.

Callie and Mariam are Lost in Translation

YouTube has a new feature which transcribes the audio from videos into subtitles, aiming to make the site accessible to more people. It works fairly well, but it also throws up a lot of weird/funny mistranslations. For example here we have the wonderful Callie, and we find that the word yaffle is translated as “the awful”, after I stopped crying I realised that it was true and that I AM AWFUL . Further proof that it's actually transcribing the truth is that the word eddus is translated into "make scientists", which just seems to make sense to me.

It doesn't seem to work on all videos, not sure, more info here.












Somebody I Used to Understand.

Some of these captions very strange, like some kind of dadaist poetry.

Mariaaaaaaaaam, why do you say these things?!

Write a novel in a month. Paint a picture in a second. Sing a song in space.

I used to enjoy writing at school, however I haven't really done much since then, which is probably because every time I do start to write something I hear a little voice inside my head saying "this is shit", and more often than not the voice is right. Incidentally, I just heard my next-door neighbour through the wall yawn loudly, it's as if he can read what I'm typing right now! And another thing, one time I was walking in the park when suddenly a squirrel looked at me funny, so right there and then I vowed never to play the piano again. Neighbour yawned again.

So, here's what got me onto the subject of writing, this website: NaNoWriMo

The blurb:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

You know I think I might give it a go, anyone else fancy writing a bloody great stinking novel in a month? You can register on the website and get involved properly (which I can't really be bothered with to be honest) or you can just take away the basic concept: starting on the 1st of November, you will write an entire novel by the end of the month.

spag bol

I am thinking of making spaghetti bolognese, it will look something like this, adding meatballs to the dish seems like overkill to me though.

I always forget to buy/draw the parmesan.