The real mental preparation was done yesterday. The show itself is solid I think, it is definitely something I would enjoy seeing, which is the best I can do really. I have also dealt with the fact that maybe, just maybe, nobody will come. (People will come Ray.) Anyway, that's besides the point for now, the point for now, and for today's post, is my thoughts on the phenomena that is Inception.

I liked it.

I didn't love it. No doubt a victim of it's own hype, I felt as though the film was going to be cleverer than it was. Ultimately what you got was Ocean's 11 in dreams, and it is about as fun as that suggests.

A friend on twitter pointed out that it would have worked better as a miniseries and I have to agree wholeheartedly. The central premise of the film is so interesting, and so complex, there felt like  mountains of unexplored potential in the movie. I wanted more trains in city centres, more abstract and disparate imagery.

Most notably though I wanted more character. Besides Leo, I didn't feel like I got to grips with any of the characters in the movie, they didn't seem particularly bonded to one another, and thus I didn't really care what happened to them.

Still brilliant though, of course. A film of such scope, and an original idea with such a budget is a genuine cause for celebration.

Plus, this infographic by dehas on deviantart is sick. CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

So, the first proper full dress rehearsal for the Fringe show is tomorrow night, Black friars Basement, Glasgow, 8.30pm. If you're about, you should totally come along. I'm excited, but still a little concerned. There are one or two bits that could go disastrously wrong. I'll report back.

Penn & Teller are genuine heroes of mine. They've been on TV a lot the past few weeks thanks to their run at the Hammersmith in London, (I didn't get to visit sadly, but I am going to Vegas in January) and they have reminded me how amazing magic can be, how cool, how interesting. P&T was where it all started with me, that trick above specifically, allow me to indulge myself with some nostalgic thinking.

I was about 12 when this clip originally aired. As a kid I was a serial taper. I would tape everything. To begin with it was because my older brother worked at a bar during the week, but would always come home for dinner on a Sunday. Thinking myself somewhat a connoisseur of the four channels on offer, I used to make a TV mixtape every week of all the shows I thought he should watch.

Some things were always the same, week in week out. Without fail there would be an episode of You've Been Framed, Quantum Leap, and the entirety of the Friday night channel 4 comedy block. For years this meant a new episode of Cheers, then Roseanne, then Whose Line is it Anyway? But then Penn and Teller came along. I had this whole series on tape and to this day it's the only piece of media I've worn out from playing too much.

I didn't get seriously into magic, performing magic anyway, until my mid twenties, but Penn and Teller have always stayed with me. The first magic book I ever bought was Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends, and it was them I was interested in, not the magic.

If P & T liked it, I wanted to like it. So instead of The Royal Road to Card Magic I bought Randi's An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Instead of Bobo's Modern Coin Magic and Corinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism I bought Martin Gardner's Aha! Gotcha: Paradoxes to puzzle and delight and the Annotated Alice.

My love of science and art and beauty and games all grew. My appreciation of a job well done, of analytical thinking. I'm now about to debut my own magic show, and hope that I can capture some of that early inspiration.

You've no doubt already seen the Old Spice ad where the incredibly charismatic and brilliant named Isaih Mustafa makes you feel less of a man (i've embedded it underneath if you haven't, and if you're not impressed, realise this was done in one take, and with CG only used for touch ups.) Anyway, this ad and it's follow up are both amazing, but Old Spice took it further, and a few days ago they created a series of personalised, one off ads for a truckload of  influential and infamous web personalities.  they pretty much won the internet.

Full story here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php

Also, and this doesn't usually happen when an Ad strikes me as being amazing or clever, I am actually curious as to how this smells. That must count for something.

Originally publsihed in 2007

Declan Dineen has been with the GLC since the beginning, he catches up with the band at their recent gig in Glasgow and tries to come to terms with the bands rise and rise, from local comedians to reality TV stars and more.

About five years ago I used to DJ in a music bar in Newport called Le Pub, it’s a cool place to be, and I loved my job. People would bring me records to play and often I would say yeah yeah and slowly put the record down onto the floor where it would never be seen again. This one time though, Keith came along with some people I didn’t know and said you have to play this, it’s funny as fuck. It was early on a Saturday night, there were only about 20 people in the bar and I was indulging myself so I figured I’d indulge them too.

The first track that started playing was someone doing a pretty bad impression of Ice T, letting you know that this record would contain foul language, such as skid marks, big, brown, skid marks. I was dubious but I started to enjoy it. I played a few more tracks, I really liked it, it was funny. A few months later a friend of mine handed me a CD by a band called the Goldie Lookin Chain, the CD was in an envelope torn in two, with the tracklist scribbled in biro down the one side, Sexy Ladies, Mike Balls Soccer anthem, Roller Disco, Monkey Love, Professor Doppleganger. This CD was to become a staple in my DJ set until I left Le Pub and Newport all together.

I took this CD with me to university in Exeter, I met a guy there from Newport and asked him if he had heard of the chain, when he said no I copied him the CD I had, plus a few more I had picked up along the way. He loved it, clearly, not only was it pretty good party music, but they were singing about Zanzibars! And Pill! I don’t even regard it as satire, this is what gangsta rap from Newport would sound like. There are no drive bys in Neport, but there’s plenty of draw. There’s no Ho’s and bitches but there’s plenty of sexy ladies and single mums. People don’t say word and for real, they say safe as fuck and fresh bra.

I didn’t particularly share the band with people from outside of Newport or Wales, I didn’t think they’d enjoy it as much. A few stoner friends enjoyed the songs about draw, but they would have enjoyed anything, god bless em. Regardless of my efforts, heard they were, armies of people were going away to uni with similar DIY CDs of the GLC and word soon got around. In my final year at uni I first heard Jo Whiley playing Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do on her lunchtime show. Suddenly Newport’s best kept secret went national.

Even then I didn’t think they’d become what they’ve become. Never did I think that the I’d eventually be interviewing the people who did the Ice T impression at the Carling Academy in Glasgow. Not that they’re rubbish or anything, far from it, I just didn’t think anyone from outside Wales would get the joke. But get it or not, they are loved.

Within about fifteen minutes of sitting down to talk with the GLC my little notepad is full of words. Triggers i use to remember what we were talking about, what I asked, and what their responses were. I’m looking at this now, and whilst I remember what the words mean, I cannot piece them together into a coherent narrative. It started off genially enough, we went backstage and were greeted by Eggsy, Mike Balls, Mystikal and Billy Webb. It was the obvious how are you’s and what’s going on. And I know for a fact that deal or no deal was on, which is what started us talking about Noel Edmonds. But from there, we managed to traverse an extremely broad range of topics. When I say us, I mean them. I would try and write it down as a conversation but that’s not really what it was, it was an external internal monologue by a group. So rather than try and recreate it I’ll give you the triggers and let you piece this beginning together yourself. Here, in full, is my first page of notes from the beginning of the interview, think of it as a look into the band’s collective psyche. The Michaels - Ball and Bolton. Eurovision. Imagine Little Voice with a Cock. Noel Edmonds/Sleeps in Fridge. Sarah Greene crashing a helicopter? Phillip Schofield has killed a man. BBC SEX and BBC DEATH.. Cock Brick Phallus/elaborate stage direction. Aberdeen has an IN Shops.

Thankfully, things begin to settle down after a while, and comfortable chat ensues. This is a nice atmosphere.

So, how’s the tour going so far?

Mystikal: Crazy bollocks.

What do you mean crazy bollocks?

M: Crazy Bollocks, just mental.

Billy Webb: Mostly drinking, sleeping, you know. It’s been good though, some good shows.

Mike Balls: Norwich was fucking nuts.

BW: Yeah, Norwich was a good one. London was a bit of a chore to be honest.

How do you mean?

M: Well, it’s the media hub isn’t it, you have to do everything when you’re there. We usually just get through it by drinking, ending up pissed in the afternoon talking to interviewers about sex with aliens.

You were in Iceland before the tour started, how did that come about?

Eggsy: This guy called Rads, real oldschool hard drinker, he just phones us up and asks us to do these random gigs. Plus we got to go and see Sylvia Nott. She’s like the Icelandic Avid Merrion or something, she’s just found out she’s doing the Icelandic entry for Eurovision this year. I met her at South by Southwest last year and she was fan.

Like Avid merrion in that she’s a crazy stalker? Or just pretends to be a crazy stalker.

E: Bit of both I reckon.

BW: She’s lovely. Tight clothes.

E: She is lovely, she’s like a mixture of material girl Maddona and Cyndi Lauper. She sent me DVD of the show but it’s all in Icelandic.

BW: There’s probably a subtitles option.

E: Yeah probably I just couldn’t work it.

You’re getting quite a following lads, there’s a massive queue outside.

BW: Yeah, it’s nuts. There were three girls here about three o’clock in the after noon.

Did you go and do the meet and greet, wave from the balcony thing?

BW: I went out and told them to go to the pub, it was cold like. They said they’d already been so I just left them to it.

M: It’s good now that Maggot’s done this Big Brother thing, it take.s all the pressure off the rest of us.

How’s he dealing with the new found fame?

BW: Head down, straight ahead, no eye contact.

M: A good thing to do is follow him down the road about ten paces behind and watch all the people do a double take as he walks past. Unless there’s some school kids running around him giggling.

So did endemol approach you as a band? Or just maggot?

M : I think it was more like a Reader’s Digest prize draw sent out to lesser celebrities.

BW: Yeah, cos like, Joe Pasquale had already done the jungle one so they needed someone to fill in the gaps. He’s the poor mans Joe Pasquale.

I see Killa Kela is supporting tonight, and Skinnyman was with you on your last tour. How do you think the more hardcore Hip Hop fraternity view you? Has anyone taken offense?

M: No, not at all really, we’re a party vibe band, that’s what we’re about. There was this French festival we played at where some UK band were taking a slight offense, asking us what we were doing and that we should be delivering a message. Well, the party vibe is our message, that’s what we do. We don’t need more people to complicate life with unnecessary hassles and worries.

BW: No religion, no politics, just keep it light.

M: I mean, who could get worked up over a couple of guys who get dressed up in tracksuits and dance about on stage? Get a grip. I know a guy who puts cheese in his pot noodle, now that’s fucked up.

With the hint of sincerity in the air the subject is brought up of the creative process of the band, is it collaborative, is it one person?

BW: Terry sorts it. Terry Elliot his name is, he runs it all behind the scenes. I’ve never seen him myself, have you seen Terry?

M: Not in the flesh no.

BW: He’s the brains of the operation, whenever we wonder what we’re doing or how we’ll do that the answer is always “Terry sorted it.”

Not too much sincerity then, that’s good.

The band need to go and do some horizontal relaxation so we head out to the show. The crowd, as you’d imagine, is a mixed one. I find it hard to tell the people in their leisurewear from the people in their ‘leisurewear’, you know? I don’t think it matters anymore. People see them as a piss take and enjoy them for that, or people see them as a proud reflection of their own life, or people don’t quite get the whole joke, but they like the fact that they sing about drugs and penises, or people just think they’re a great band. They’re probably all of the above, and it doesn’t matter, because everyone will go home happy and no one is being judged. No politics, no religion, keep it light.

The GLC have evolved from being an affectionate parody of hip hop and the Newportonian lifestyle, and have emerged as a genuine party vibe band. When they hit the stage the place goes nuts, and despite the meandering answers to questions and despite the fact that they clearly don’t take the whole fame thing particularly seriously, it’s clear from the way they perform on stage that they feel like the luckiest blokes on earth to be doing what they’re doing, and they put their all into it, and they give sincere thanks to the people who have helped them be there. It’s almost impossible not to be taken along with them. I often wonder, would I like the GLC were it not for the fact I was from Newport? Based on tonight’s performace, you fucking knows it.

QUOTES: I mean, who could get worked up over a couple of guys who get dressed up in tracksuits and dance about on stage? Get a grip. I know a guy who puts cheese in his pot noodle, now that’s fucked up.

A good thing to do is follow him [MAGGOT] down the round about ten paces behind and watch all the people do a double take as he walks past.

Originally published in Scot/Campus

It’s 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon and I’m in Graeme’s flat having a cup of tea. Sitting opposite me is Alan Fletcher A.K.A Dr. Karl Kennedy A.K.A. Fletch. Surrounding him are five girls in their underwear. “I feel like James Bond,” he says. One of the girls, quick as a flash replies, ‘Well, I don’t feel like Halle Berry!” We all laugh, I take a sip of tea, the camera flashes away.

Wait, what just happened?

Three hours later and I’m in the Walkabout in Glasgow, somewhere I wouldn’t usually be on a Sunday evening, and the place is absolutely packed. There is a nervous anticipation in the air, the lights dim and the familiar drums of We Will Rock You begin. The stage illuminates and there he is, centre stage, arms apart, basked in light and glory, the crowd goes absolutely bananas. Fletch lives.

Seriously, no, hang on?

I’ve always said, Neighbours is about ordinary people getting up to extraordinary things.

It’s two weeks earlier now, and Alan has phoned me from Melbourne to do a phone interview, talk gets on to his fans, and boy does he have them. I point him to a website full of poetry about Dr. Karl Kennedy and I ask him if he ever gets worried about fans? Has he ever met crazy fans who can’t differentiate between Karl Kennedy and Alan Fletcher?

Never met a fan I didn't like and they all seem to differentiatebetween Karl and Alan! Two questions later I ask him, quite earnestly, if he’ll ever get back together with Susan. Who’s the crazy one now? (He didn’t give anything away about Susan by the way, just told me to keep watching the show and keep on eye on some upcoming storylines. What a pro.)

But you can’t help but be confused. At the rock show I look around the crowd and every second person has a phone or a camera held aloft, trying to get a picture, trying to get some evidence that this is actually real, that Dr. Karl Kennedy is in the same room as them. Sorry, Alan Fletcher.

You see, we’re used to seeing our soap stars outside of the TV, usually being beaten up by their wives or getting drunk at a place they shouldn’t be or losing their nose to cocaine or exposing themselves on the internet. They’re flawed on TV and they’re flawed in real life. We see them in the glossies, in the red tops, we see them everywhere. The characters in neighbours on the other hand, they’re unique, they’ve been in our homes twice every day, five days a week for almost 20 years. Just think of the screen time!

And yet they’re not discussed in the newspapers, Neighbours isn’t on the late review, it is a private pleasure, it is what you watch if you are off sick from school, or if you’re putting off some last minute revision, or if you’re just home from work getting your tea. It’s a private club that you talk about with some like minded friends. The closest approximation I can get is that to reading a book, the characters are yours, you create them, you enjoy them privately. And yet there he is, on the sofa in Graeme’s hall, talking about which axe (guitar) he would like to be photographed with. Just imagine that for a second.

We had been chatting on the phone for a while before I dared bring up the idea for the cover. I felt like maybe he would be outraged or think I was just some psychopath trying to lure him back to my lair. I beat around the bush for a while, I asked him what some of his favourite album covers were.

Aww well, that’s tricky, I mean, there’s so many. I mean, you have to think about Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt Pepper. You know, there’s just too many. It’s kinda sad nowadays though cos, back when I used to buy records it’d be vinyl and the covers used to be massively important, they would be something you’d talk about and look at while you listened to the album. Now with your iTunes and things you don’t get that. Not that I dislike The iPod or anything, it’s just different. Ok, here goes, I ask him if he’d be willing to pose with a bunch of semi clad ladies in a homage to the cover of Electric Ladyland. You provide the sea of women and I’ll give you a call when I get to Glasgow. High fives all round!

Back to the music though, because, easy as it may be to dismiss Alan Fletcher and his band The Waiting Room as a tasteless cash in, it’s unfair, and incorrect. Undoubtedly the majority of the people at the gig are there to see Dr. Karl Kennedy but there’s no denying that the guys put on a hell of a crowd pleasing show, and he really does love his music.

I’ve discovered my aspirations for music later in life. I mean, I’ve been playing music all my life, but just recently I’ve focused much more strongly on the music, on writing music, on recording with the guys. (Tommy Rando and Chris Hawker, the other members of The Waiting Room)

There comes a point in your life when you think, if I don’t start exploring this stuff now, I’ll miss out and I think the best way to learn is to just give it a go. It’s very much an adventure for me, and a very enjoyable one. You can see it in his eyes at the show, in the way he seemed a little embarrassed at the photo shoot, he is on an adventure.

Everything comes to you at a certain time in life, and this comes now. My primary musical influences come from 1970s punk music. British pub bands. Elvis Costello, he’s one of my favourites actually, Elvis has matured and evolved, changing styles. The Waiting Room are quite eclectic, my interests lie all over the place, the Killers, Oasis, classic British punk. I used to listen to a lot of swing music and country, but I think I’m having a second childhood, everything I listen to now is dirty rock n roll, good party music you know? I’m hoping to try and recreate that at the shows. Let me list, ahem, We Will Rock You, Somebody Told Me, Angels, Wonderwall, I’m a Believer and, my oh my, Five Hundred Miles. Yeah, he dropped that little gem into the set. Yeah, yeah it was pretty raucous. I swear I saw a girl nearby explode she had so many emotions running through her. One of the biggest compliments I can pay the band is that they are able to drop their own original work in between these anthemic rock songs and you don’t notice any distinct change in the atmosphere, the crowd are still into it. It’s in moments like these that you realise that this is a genuine band doing a genuine gig and they’re pretty damn good. I hate to sound patronising here, but you read on the band’s website that one of the ballads on the album is inspired by a poem written by Jackie Woodburne (Susan Kennedy). You do kind of cringe but give it a chance and quite a lovely little song is revealed. Some of the crowd are ahead of me on this one and already know all the words to all the songs, it’s sweet.

Actually lets talk about the crowd while we’re here, who comes to an Alan Fletcher show?

Mostly students, as you’d imagine, the ages of 16 to 24 are pretty well represented. Then, a gap. Then a fair few groups of women in their late thirties and beyond. I’d say two thirds of the crowd was female, but then you’d expect that wouldn’t you, he’s a handsome devil.

One thing the crowd isn’t is cool. In fact, this whole event is chronically uncool. I’d go as far as saying it’s pretty silly. Is it any good? Of course it is, you don’t come to see Alan Fletcher thinking about being cool, you are more than likely a fan of Neighbours, you know of Alan Fletcher because you’re a fan of one of the silliest TV shows ever, it’s one of its strongest points. And, like Jimi Hendrix, like the White Stripes, like Bill Hicks, like Techno, the UK fans understand that this is not something to be scorned. We get it.

You don’t always have to take things too seriously, I think it’s important to not take things too seriously. I’ve always said, Neighbours is about ordinary people getting up to extraordinary things, and these things can be very funny on occasion or very serious. I think in Neighbours sometimes these things go side by side, and I think it’s important to have that relief. It’s important to be able to have a laugh at yourself, I think the British fans enjoy this aspect of the show more than the native audience. You know, I can’t tell you how much we appreciate the UK audience, our main focus is really on the UK. Now don’t you feel special? I hope so. I feel special. Does Fletch feel special? Does he get bored? Do the fans who write the poetry scare him? Of course not. While we’re taking some photographs he mentions he doesn’t have too long because he has two interviews to do before soundcheck. He’s only been in town one day, I ask him if this will be the case in every town they play.

Oh yeah, absolutely, 14 gigs in 14 days, and usually I’ll pop in and do an interview with someone or other, I like to keep in touch with my fans, I try not to think, oh, are they famous? Are they important, it doesn’t matter to me, if someone takes an interest in my work then they deserve some of my time. Bear in mind that as well as this gruelling schedule, he will be sat for at least two hours after every gig signing autographs, taking photos, fielding the same bunch of questions from raving fans every single night. I ask him if he gets bored, if he gets sick of, how does he fight off complacency? I never get complacent, you just keep doing it for the fans, there’s no room for complacency. What a guy.

For more info on Alan Fletcher and his band The Waiting Room be sure to visit www.alanfletcher.net, obviously.

Radiolab is just an incredible radio series, and if you have any interest in sound design, ideas, science, stories or interesting things in general you should already subscribe. It is terrific. However since you're here you probably have some interest in deception and psychology, so you should particularly check out this show:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/02/29

It is a wonderful piece of radio, and holds a certain amount of inspiration for my own show.

There is a link on the page to listen. Once you're done you'll no doubt be intrigued by the embarrassing questions survey, and they happily have a link to that too. It reads like a twisted version of the barnum statements.

http://www.wnyc.org/files/radiolab/Self_Deception_Questionnaire.pdf

A whole bunch of columns I did for scot/campus magazine back in 2006

Opinion piece #1

Wristbands are so out yeah? Well, in a way. They have certainly lost whatever political or moral association they once held thanks to the frenetic cashing in on the trend by every charity and cause you can imagine. Blue is one of the most problematic colours. After starting life as a way of raising the profile of the anti bullying campaign set up by radio one, it could now mean anything from tsumani relief via democrat supporter (also more generally simply anti bush) to prostate cancer. The causes have become further lost as fashion has taken over from charity, and now we have high street stores and various cashers in creating wristbands that, appropriately, mean nothing at all.

This I find quite comforting though. The idea of the wristband was a genuinely fine one, and in the case of the make poverty history campaign I feel it was a genuinely important one. But it was so close to fashion that it was inevitable that people would start wearing them simply because someone they saw in heat was wearing them, regardless of the cause. This prompted nothing but negativity for those who did decide to wear wristbands, what sort of statement were they trying to make? Did they even understand what they were representing? but now thanks to the profusion of them they mean nothing, and that can only be good, since so muchof the negativity aimed at people with wristbands is about what people think they are doing? whether or not they are being a soulless cahs in? I find it much more comforting when someone is simply wearing something for fashion purposes, it removes any judgement on my part about their character.

Even better is when people just make up their own meanings, from people combining colours to match their outfits to people putting together the colours of their favourite football team. As long it’s not gone into the realm of fdashion advertising I’m hapopy. But my favourite recapturing of the wristband is the code. Oh kids these days, they are wonderful. Online magazine the lab recently surveryed 1000 teenagers aged between 15-19 and over 75% of them believe that the colour of the charity wristband is more important the charity, and even better than that, Nearly 60% of 15-19 year olds use the bands as a way to identify the sexual preference and availability of a potential partner.

Amazing scenes! the teenagers have borrowed the flag idea from gay communities, the colours people associated with the charities have been reappropriated and subverted to the kids own wicked means. Whikst they still won’t answer the age old question, ‘does she fancy me?’ it des take a lot of the unnecessary legwork from the dating game. Here’s a brief run down:

Pink = Straight female Blue = Straight male Yellow = Lost virginity Red = Sexually available White = Currently attached Purple or Turquoise = Gay Black = On the rebound

And of course, you don’t stop at one, you have to mix and match. You might think someone is trying to be mother teresa, but actually they’re a bi curious boy who’s lost his virginity but is recently on the rebound. So the next time you see a kid wearing a rainbow of wristbands down their arm don’t judge them immediately as self centred showoffs using other people’s misfortune to try and make out how great they are, because that might not be what they mean, and you don’t want to alienate them too much, they might be trying to pull you.

Opinion piece #2 Lost? Yeah, me too. But it’s just so intriguing isn’t it? I’m a little further ahead than most, my patience running as far as a few mouse clicks and perhaps a brush with the law, but I still don’t know what’s going on. Do I know where they are? Do I know what the thing in the jungle is? Do I know why the plane crashed in the first place? A resounding, bellowing no.

You know the game twenty questions? When you think of something, then someone has 20 questions to guess what it is you’re thinking of? Is it animal, vegetable or mineral, all that jazz? Well, imagine playing that game with someone who, when asked to think of something for you to guess, instead thinks of nothing at all, and just answers your questions arbitrarily until finally you are left, frustratingly, with no possible answer. Is it a polar bear? Yeah, I guess. This is what Lost feels like.

But I don’t want to criticise Lost, for all it’s meandering flashbacks and plot points that are brushed over, Lost has done something more than just entertain me, it has provided me with a tool for, ironically, finding people.

I’m new in town, I just moved to Glasgow and I don’t know too many people just yet and you know, sometimes it’s pretty daunting. Big city life can be an awfully lonely one in our atomised society, everyone is so guarded. You go into a coffee shop and can’t find a seat because all of the tables are filled with people sitting alone. I’m sure nobody would really mind you taking the seat opposite them, but would they talk to you? Would you talk to them?

One of the places many people find their friends if they’re new in town is in their jobs. You’d certainly like to make some friends but how do you know these people are friend material? How do you know you would get along, the conversation in a work environment is so clipped and edgy and meaningless, particularly if you work for some huge corporation, you have such a diverse bunch of folk, all viable friend material, how do you find the ones like you? How do you let them know who you are? One of the ways that the company I work for seemed to do this was by making us introduce the people next to us, where they are from, what they did before they gave up, and, for a bit of fun, their favourite film. I said The Princess Bride, no one had heard of it. Can you imagine how bad I felt! Perhaps I need to be more general. Hmmm.

I ask one question, did you see Lost last night? Bam! Defences drop, you have a common interest, you have something to talk about, and not just, yeah, it was alright, but OH MY GOD yeah I saw it! What did you think this bit was about, what does that represent? Do you think he knows all of the secrets!?

In a world where communal spirit is sorely lacking, with institutions, public societies and religions crumbling, with jobs occupying more and more of people’s time, and with pubs increasingly becoming somewhere you go to lose your fucking mind and hopefully get off with someone, TV becomes the ersatz third place, the common ground that exists between work life and home life. It becomes one of the few things we can all share. Of course TV itself falls foul to the same atomisation of our culture, with a million channels popping up pandering to a million tiny subsets of our society, which is why Lost should be celebrated. It is something that is flashy and funny and well made and brainy and it transcends these sociological boundaries. It is something a large portion of society can share actively as well as passively. This is the reason shows like Big Brother are so huge, they give people a common bond, a common group of people to bitch about over lunch, and while Lost shares a lot of the soap opera theatrics from these shows, (hell, the inspiration came from one of these shows, Survivor) Lost is also intriguing, it is a mystery and perhaps you can solve it together. Maybe J.J. Abrams is just playing twenty questions without thinking of the answer, maybe he is snaking us down a never ending path, maybe all we will be left with are more questions, just as lost as everyone on the island. But as much as I scream and I shout and I can’t believe that that episode is over and they didn’t even mention that thing, I think that sometimes, I don’t ever want to know the answers.

Opinion piece #3 You? You’re planning something special no doubt. It’s an important event; a celebration, and your friends have told you to expect something extraordinary. This isn’t just another night out with some friends, this is a personal epoch, this is a celebration of all that was and what is yet to come. This is not to be a quiet night down the pub; this is a blowout, a celebration of your time in the world. Maybe you’re getting married, maybe you’re moving away for a new job, maybe your first child has just been born, maybe you’ve finally finished school and are about to embark on your life’s ambitions. Whatever the case may be this is a rite of passage into a new, important and significant time in your life and you are not going to go quietly. This is a call to the world, I am coming world! You shout. Here I am! This is me! Here I come! It is a time for reflection, a time to bask and praise and give thanks to the countless people who have helped you on your way, a pause for thought on the million and one decisions that have led you to this precise point, this precise night, this precise moment. You are glowing, you are ready, now is the time to celebrate. But how to celebrate such an occasion? You and those closest to you have to make a mark on your town. This cannot simply be another night out, you have had many wonderful times with these people and you will have many more, but this night is about more than that, this night is about making an impact, of planting a flag in the road of your life. You will tell the city. The city, the home, this is where it has all happened. This place, these people, the faceless crowds in the streets, they are you and you are them and you want to share your new life with the world. Maybe you’re leaving and this is your fond farewell, maybe you’re deciding to share the town with someone else, maybe you’re bringing another life to this place. Whatever the case, this will all be different tomorrow, you will change, you are embarking on an adventure, you are heading down another path and everything is going to be different. You want to share your joy and your excitement with the town, this is not just a night out for you, you want to show everyone that things are changing, you want them all to look around and take in the endless possibilities and the constant shifting lives of those around them. Oh the people, oh, your friends, your wonderful friends, your raft in the sea of uncertainty, your angels and demons, your loves, they will be with you to mark this passing in style, you will all leave make and impact They arrive on your doorstep, this is it, the excitement is through the roof, and as you step out the door you see your carriage for the evening. And,oh! What a carriage. A gleaming beast of silver and red, a roaring behemoth taking time out from saving the world to swathe a path through the city for you and yours. An actual, honest to god fire engine. No one is getting saved tonight; this is pure statement and nothing more. As you hurtle through the streets you have walked up and down countless times, the streets which will soon be replaced by new streets or a new you, you want them to know you are passing, you want these streets and these people to share your joys, your apprehensions and the whole heady mix of emotions that have carried you through life and brought you to this point. Listen to us! We are you! This is life, this is a moment, share it with us! You want to enunciate, to inspire, to shake the world and let it know you’re passing. You want the whole world in this big red truck with you.

Me? I’m sat waiting for my bus on a Friday night as yet another limo carries A dozy group of hens around the block for at least the fiftieth time. Time was seeing a limousine coming down the street would make me vaguely excited, it would arose feeling s of anticipation. Nowadays it’s just another thing that makes me sigh. The next limousine isn’t quite a limousine; they seem to have given up on any semblance of class and decided to stretch out possibly the most tasteless car in the world, the hummer. But then oh my lord here comes the fire engine. An actual, honest to god fire engine whose sole purpose tonight seems to be a makeshift, mobile pub. It’s a good job it’s raining. I sigh again. When I get home I take out my notebook and decide to write about these carriages, and I reflect on what the women in these carriages (why are they always women?) said to me. And I quote, ‘WAAAAAAAUUURRGGH!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WAAAAAAAAA!!!!” their wails dopplering as they go around the block. As I think about this, I start to wonder why I sighed, and I started to think of their preparation for the Night, and I started to wonder why they felt the need to hit the town so hard. Ultimately I started to wonder how I would react were some of my friends to turn up to my house in a fire engine. And I thought about their words again. WAAAAAAAAUURGH!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WAAAAAAAAA!!” and I think I understood.

Opinion piece #4 Sorry about this one, I’m trying to give you my full attention but I keep being drawn to the TV. Not just in some ADD afflicted way where I see something flashing or some bare skin, my whole body is being drawn into the decadent world in front of me. A world of gold rings and chandeliers populated by Vikings and Counts, the most glorious social club in the world. You know what I’m talking about, it’s that time of year. I’m drawn to the Lakeside. Ladies and gentlemen! Are you ready! Let’s! Play! Darts!

I never made a conscious effort to love the arrows; it genuinely did draw me in, deeper and deeper every year. It started when I was younger, when I’d tune into BBC2 after Neighbours hoping to find the Fresh Prince and I’d be confronted by the darts. I’d piss and moan a bit but it was better than the news. I’d watch it for a while, I didn’t really understand the rules back then but it killed half an hour and they were throwing sharp things which appealed to me as a youngster. (I used to be into throwing knives, my kitchen door took a hell of a beating, but that’s not important right now.)

I really fell I love with darts when I got to university. It’s one of the few sports that the BBC has left, so, along with snooker, they give it everything they’ve got. And as a student with lots of free time during the days you can’t really avoid it, since, on a typical weekday during the World Championship, between the hours of 12 pm and 1 am BBC2 shows eight hours of darts. Funnily enough, it was again caused by me flicking the channel after Neighbours, but now it was the 1.40 slot rather than the 5.35. The darts were on, I’d look at my housemates and we’d decide to leave it on while we all did some work, wrote some essays, read some books. Suddenly it was one in the morning and I’m making another round of tea because Andy Fordham has just made an amazing comeback and I know it’s a bit shit but I just want to see who wins.

And as soon as you see who wins, before you have a second to breathe, another two champions burst out to the sound of some wonderful and completely non ironic entrance music, usually something from the eighties, usually a bit silly, but it grabs your attention. Sometimes you’re slack-jawed, unable to comprehend a man who looks like that doing a funny little dance to a song you’ve not heard in about fifteen years. Suddenly they’re under way and you’re drawn in again. It’s an inevitability, just get sucked in, you’ll love it, there’s a lot to love.

You can go in blind too, the rules are pretty simple, I’m not explaining them here, you’ll pick them up, and in every game you’ll find someone to cheer for. Most of the players are some kind of British, but there’s the odd Australian and loads of Dutch. It’s the biggest sport in Holland outside of football. But whilst you can, and probably should, ally yourself to your country you’ll inevitably find yourself drawn to the guy with the most ridiculous haircut or the one with the most jewels. And that’s not always as simple a decision as it seems.

But let’s not dwell too much on the silly haircuts and the incongruous gold, because that kind of novelty will only last so long, there’s real drama here, genuine excitement, and, perhaps surprisingly, style.

Not in the game itself, I mean, you go to your local pub and watch some darts and you don’t see anything stylish, perhaps it’s just as exciting but it won’t be as wonderfully staged as it is on TV. I mean, think of any other sport that you watch in split screen? A sport where you can watch the player and his agonising pressure, his shaky hand, the release of the dart and then the magical split second between split screens where anything can happen, you hang like the dart in the air, unsure of where you’ll land, then you suddenly slam home with that wonderful acoustic thud. The split screen has gone three ways these days too, you get the board, the player and the player’s suffering family. Coupled with the rhythmic thud of metal on cork all they need is a little LED clock in the middle and you realise where the creators of 24 got their inspiration.

Not just the split screen either, darts has slow mo shots, board shots, hand cam, dart cam, slow mo dart cam, wide shots of the crowd, pressure zooms when they might get the 180. The slow motion dart throw actually reminds you of how impressive the players actually are, I’ve grown so used to seeing the split screen version I forget what is actually going on live, it’s taken for granted.

But again, like the jewels, the stylisation of the game illustrates a wonderful opposition, a reminder of the class system that we’ll never escape. It’s like a taxi driver doing a ballet, like the servants having a party in the manor house while Lord Snooty’s on holiday, like a bunch of screaming hens in a limousine. The whole thing takes place in a giant pub for chrissakes! You half expect a large proportion of the crowd to scuttle off to play the gamblers in the breaks between matches. And the post match analysis? Well, it’s the ubiquitous Ray Stubbs and Bobby George sat, where else, but at the bar.

Game on!

Opinion piece #5

Like all the best jokes, it’s the way you tell them. Sure, they can be inherently humourous, they can be funny situations, they can be quite unexpected, but how often have you told someone a cracking joke only for them to butcher it right in front of your outraged eyes. This is one thing to remember as I go on.

The second thing you should remember is that I don’t believe that something can be so bad it’s good. I think it’s a muddy phrase that we have been forced to use now that language is beginning to show the strains of an increasingly complex world. If something is bad enough to be classed as good then it should be simply good, not necessarily for everyone, but good for you. And good for you for taking the time to find something to enjoy in something you would automatically presume would be bad. You have assumed a certain amount of creativity in the thing you are enjoying, you have decided which parts of this to enjoy and why, you have created something new. People like Tarantino have made a career from this, and good for him too.There’s so much pastiche and irony these days to it would be fruitless to try and sift through to whatever the creator of the work was trying to say or show, and you’ll almost never get what the author meant to say in the first place anyway, never entirely. The end of the world is imminent, let’s enjoy as much as we can. Just a few things to remember there before we go on, a little insight into some of my personal philosophies.

Now, onto R Kelly.

I could have chosen many, but the three main reasons I love Trapped in the Closet by R Kelly are:

1. The moment when Rosie the nosy neighbour arrives with a spatula in her hand (like that’s going to do something against them guns.) 2. The protracted love scene from part four where our ladies man gets cramp and his girlfriend tells him very matter of factly that she is about to climax and he’s ‘cool’ with that. 3. The final lines of chapter nine and the ensuing spiral into pure farce (Please, please hunt this down yourself. Revealing it here would be like telling you what’s down the hatch.)

You see, I can understand why people would think Trapped in Closet is shit, I can understand why Graeme would decide to place it in the Not section of Hot or Not. But I can also say that no piece of music in recent memory has made me laugh so much, or literally physically gasp at the imagination, the thought processes, the little throwaway lines. I’m not laughing at him, this isn’t a mean enjoyment, this is a genuine enjoyment of a man’s writing style. There is an argument that Kelly did not mean all of the things I alugh at to be funny, and that may be true, but it doesn’t matter to me one bit. Like all the best jokes, it’s the way he tells it.

Kelly has decided to create a new genre, a Hip Hopera, an overblown series of scenarios and characters in hugely convoluted storylines largely based around couples cheating on each other and then hiding in the cupboard/closet/bathroom while the cheated on ex arrives, only to reveal an even more shocking secret in their life. The music serves as a constant backbone to the scenarios, a methodical beat which slowly builds and builds into a crashing crescendo at the end of each chapter. The music has it’s function, but it’s all about the singer and the story for me. This is deadpan Kelly. There is no embellishment here, there are virtually no adjectives. It’s laid out to you exactly as it happens, with the he said she said then he said dynamic lending the whole thing a second layer of rhythm, but making the ever more farcical scenarios more humorous gravitas as it goes along (The cliffhanger line of Chapter 9 being the breaking point.). It’s like if Dr Seuss decided to write Sunset Beach.

Remember too that this is R ‘I believe I Can Fly/Bump n Grind’ Kelly. Probably the most successful male solo artist of the nineties, both as a performer and as a producer. And like all good artists he’s branching out, exploring new territories, and thanks to his heritage he is able to give this crazy experiment some radio play. This is such a singular vision, the work of an auteur in a world where almost everything we see and hear is decided by a committee. Clearly there’s no committee behind this, I’m sure people tried to talk him out of it, but he is R ‘I believe I Can Fly/Bump n Grind’ Kelly, he can do what he likes.

Now go off and listen to it yourself, go off and think about the things I have told you. Now, imagine just for a minute that someone more credible had created this. Someone like Dave Chapelle or Chris Morris, would you be more inclned to like it? I don’t mean to judge you, but you probably would. Now try and take it completely out of context, forget R Kelly, forget whether or not he meant it to be funny and just listen to it. (And I do recommend listening to it rather than watch the videos. The music on the videos seems nothing moer than the world’s worst director’s commentary.) Doesn’t it then begin to stand out as something special? A truly original, truly shocking, and truly brilliant piece of popular music?

Opinion piece #6 Youtube.com has made me feel all sorts of emotions this month. All sorts. We’ll start on a positive, something silly and humorous that the internet does well. Brokeback to the Future, a fake trailer expertly crafted using clips from the Back to the Future trilogy and music from Brokeback Mountain. It’s very well done and it made me laugh. Then something else I found made me laugh, but also cry a little. I found the Kevin Federline jamming to Popozao video and it made me feel shame. I know nothing of Kevin Federline other than he’s the guy who married Britney Spears, and yet here I am, sat in a flat in Glasgow watching him dance to Popozao using his hands and his head and it’s so earnest but so ridiculous. I’m laughing at him, really hard, and I know loads of other people will be. But, like the star wars kid, I know there are times when we’ve all done stuff like that, it’s like we’re laughing because we’re relieved that we weren’t stupid enough to get caught on camera. I feel a little ashamed about that.

Luckily, Jason McElwain was just around the corner. The autistic kid who was given the chance to be part of the high school basketball team for just one game. It erased my shame and made me proud of our species and made me love hollering and whooping Americans which is no mean feat.

Then after watching some crazy Christmas lights and clips of Prince totally rocking out at a George Harrison memorial show and steven wright doing some incredible standup I realised I had been browsing youtube for almost a full evening. It had replaced my TV viewing, just endless snippets of pretty much anything you can think of, direct from the ether to my room. It was a glimpse into the future but it kinda worried me because there was no prolonged engagement with anything. It was like eating a whole packet of Haribo, only, the packet would never empty, you’d just want more and more. I just couldn’t stop, what if I missed something, what if someone saw something before I did.

Then someone saw something before I did and it made me sad. It was a clip from Family Guy where Brian dresses up as a banana, shakes his maracas and sings ‘Its Peanut Butter Jelly Time!’ in an effort to cheer him up. Not only did I miss that but I missed the ensuing fall out and endless copying. By the time I had scrambled back to my PC there were already countless imitators, most notably a remix of the Kevin Federline video from earlier, only now it was Peanut Butter Jelly Time! he was hand dancing to. How could I have missed that one! How do people find the time to do all of this. It annoyed me, I had a headache, I wondered why this annoyed me so much. I just gave in, relaxed, and started writing this.

I was exhausted. Endlessly looking for instant gratification, looking for the next cheap thrill had left me emotionally and physically drained. I turned off the computer and read a book. It was like a nice bath for my brain.

So yeah, read more books kids. After you’ve checked out all the videos I’ve mentioned of course.

Opinion piece #7 Animal Crossing : Wild World

The problem with cities is that there are just too many people. I was in Tesco’s on Saturday thinking to myself that there physically shouldn’t be this many people in a place at once, everyone desperately scouring the shelves, elbowing and pushing, a million simultaneous silent attacks, a matter of power while snatching at the bread and milk. On my daily walk to and from work I find myself becoming part of the swarm, the anonymous grey and black coated beast that runs like a river through the streets at least twice daily. I’m thinking on an average day about town I probably come into contact with at least one hundred new individuals. It’s too much to handle.

In my town in Animal Crossing there are nine people. Me, Lisa, Chow, Cyrano, Teddy, Mathilda, Vespa, Walker and Filbert . I know all of these people extremely well. They are super cute, they are funny, they don’t barge past me to get to the station a little bit quicker, they don’t grunt and moan when I reach past them to pick up a packet of biscuits. They stop and talk and tell me jokes and comment on my hair. They are good people.

Games are often lambasted in the media for warping our minds and turning us into sexually motivated killing machines with no sense of right and wrong. Well, maybe sometimes the world itself is the thing that is warping our minds and turning us into a culture of sexual predators and killing machines. I certainly felt like dishing out some divine punishment while in Tesco on Saturday, most Saturdays to be honest, people can be so blinkered and selfish. You can call it a game if you must but it’s not, it’s just a nice place to visit and to relax. Maybe sometimes you need games like Animal Crossing to calm you down, to make you stop and relax and enjoy the scenery.

You may think I’m either a ten year old girl or a massively underdeveloped man riddled with psychological errors for being so in love with this game but you’re wrong. This isn’t really a game at all, there is no score, no competition (that is until you take it online and visit your friend’s town and find out he has a bigger house that you and a cooler t shirt and wow, where did he get that hat!). There is no fire button or jump button. There is a plant a flower button, or a go fishing button, or a plant a tree button. You can take some time out and use the stylus to design yourself a new t shirt, or a flag, or some wall paper, or compose your national anthem. Something I only recently discovered was that if one of your villagers is too far away from you to talk to, you can tap them with the stylus and do a little smile and wave. More games should have smile and wave buttons. Life itself should have more smile and wave buttons.

Opinion piece #8 Genre mapping.

Pretty useless things, genres. I think they represent some of the most glaring inconsistencies in this language of ours. They represent how we try and order the world in a particular way, and when we find out the world just isn't like that, rather than try and think of new ways of seeing and understanding, we justmake up increasingly convoluted new genres, new ideas to try and represent new ideas. But they also provide us with sound tools for a bit of fun, if we just fuck them around a bit.

Take music for example, probably the worst offender in genre bending. With everyone desperately trying to find the new sound, and every journalist trying to claim they have found the new sound, they are forced to create new, ever more complicated pigeonholes to stick things in. Luckily for us, some muso's have had some fun, and in the late eighties and early nineties NME we had journalists just making up genres, and they stuck! People are so gullible. Not you people, of course, you guys are smart. You know that new wave post punk emo core riot girl band are essentially just a rock n roll band wearing different clothes, the ideologies are the same, it's all youthful rebellion and angst, just in more contemporary clothes, a little more makeup and a lot more swearing.

Stories on the other hand, films, books, all the storytelling media, they are a lot more constrained, they allow things to exist in different genres, Alien is essentially a sci fi film, but then, is sci fi merely aesthetics? Or ideologies? Alien could also quite happily be considered a horror film, why not just call it a sci fi horror, we don't need to complicate things too much. As much as films do get complicated, at least we don't make up vapid genres like emo to describe things, at least they are at least a little factual. My favourite recent example being Shaun of the Dead's tagline as being the world's first RomZomCom. Despite these clever word plays and hybrid genres, ultimately, out on the shop floor, someone has to make a decision and put these things in a place. These places may be correct in one sense, but often they could be in so many places. I wince everytime I wander through a bookshop and see Vonnegut in the sci fi section, not that he shouldn't be there, but just because there's so much more to him.

Anyway, I said there would be an element of fun and fucking around to be had, and I don't want to turn this into a sermon so here you go. From today, I want everyone to swap the genres around. I mean, why not? We shouldn't be so precious about these things, just mess them up. A change is as good as a rest and all that. From now on, Guns n' Roses are an action band. Die Hard is a rock film. Aphex twin is scifi/horror and Garden State is a singer songwriter film. You can keep going yourself, take it to the forum, take it to the streets, change your thinking.

Big thanks to @Huwman for the image and @Raphski for the designs. I wanted to try and incorporate a trick into the poster itself, so as some of the more visually astute of you will notice, this is actually a version of the Thatcher illusion.

I'm hoping people will attempt to read the upside down writing and then get freaked out by the eyes immediately. If not, it should be pretty good as a stand alone flyer.

I'm going to presume you haven't heard of the song Dare by Vince DiCola and Stan Bush. Unless you're familiar with the double barrelled synth rock  soundtrack to Transformers - the Movie it's probably passed you by. This is a shame. You see, this is one of the most joyous, uplifting, air-in-your-lungs, blood-in-your-veins-songs I know. Studying for exams in school we printed out the lyrics and pinned them around the classroom as a motivational aid. Seriously, if Walt Whitman had been around in the nineteen eighties, he would have written this song.

I'm doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. I've done a bunch of shows in the past, but this is going to be the most high profile and intensive run yet. Technically, the whole show could collapse. This is a magic show, there is a lot that can go wrong. Even worse that that though, is nothing happening at all. Night after night of empty rooms, an indifferent public. It's a terrifying thought.

This song makes me forget all that. Even if it does all go wrong, even if nobody turns up, I'll have done it. I'll have a new story to tell. In the end, what else is there? You may think it's crass, cheesy, unrealistic. That is fine, your opinions cannot sully this song.

So in case you're having a bad day, or ever have one again:

This is literally where the magic happens. I am excited, you should be too.

Details here:

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/lies-trickery-and-deceit-a-magic-show-free

Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/declandineen to keep up to date.

So we're in financially turbulent times and everyone's looking to be a little prudent, I totally get that. So I've come up with an ingenious way to offer my niche entertainment. Direct from the 19th century! Parlour shows.

Get enough people together and it's cheaper than the cinema, but a much better story to tell.

Not really magic news but here's a thing, Borne Magazine recently did a pretty neat photo shoot of all kinds of cool people from the Glasgow/Edinburgh area. The longest photo shoot in the world apparently, long as in length, not duration.

The details are not important. What's important is that I'm in it and you can take a look at it here, or, if you happen to be going to London Fashion week, you can see in the flesh. I'm about half way through the line up throwing my cards away in frustration. My ass doesn't usually stick out that much, I must have something in my back pocket. Still, I think this must be taken as absolute proof that I'm still both young and hip. I straddle demographics!