Welshrogue

OVer three days 375,000 screaming fans watched Robbie Wiliams strut, dance, sing, prance, and generally own Knebworth. A fantastic concert from a singer who is very charasmatic and yet at times, appears to be unable to take himself serious. Mixing well known songs with some of his newer material, Robbie keeps the songs coming between taking to the audience, and his ability to connect with a crowd of well over 100,00 people is pretty impresive. The two standout moments for me were the total opposite in nature. The first was his rendition of Mr. Bojangles. The fact that he would even attempt to sing such a classic song to an audience of fans who may not have even heard his recorded version, let along the original was a challenge but it appeared that the song was as well recieved as any of his other songs with perhaps the expection of the final encore song. Angels is a song that pretty much saved Robbies singing career, written when he was down blah blah blah, its a beautiful song, and to hear over 100,000 voices singing it was very moving. I would have bought the ticket, stood for several hours and not complained, just to be in the audience when he sang Angels. Truely amazing. Robbie Williams is prehaps one of the biggest names in the UK music scene these days and based on his performance in the concert, it is where he deserves to be, on top.

A smothering seaweed, a pilots body frozen in a glacier, a search for eternal life, and an mad mother and son fill this book with kidnappings, escapes and adventure.

While in principal I don’t mind an author grandfathering in a new author to take over his stories, too often, it is just a money grab (can you say Tom Clancy?) rather than having stories to tell. While I enjoy Cusslers work a lot, I am nervous that what he started might loose some of its style and class when other hands are on the typewriter. Lost City isn’t a bad book, very typical Cussler infact with more ups and downs than a good rollercoaster.

The Cowbell Project

More cowbell. Enough said.

I don’t get it. We have hardcover, paperback and recently trade versions of books coming out. All aimed at different markets. The hardcover crowd like their books fresh from the print and/or to look good after they have read them and they live out their lives on a book shelf. The trade copy covers those books that the publisher believes wouldn’t make enough money if published as hardcovers. And paperbacks for the rest of the bookreading population.

But now, apparently paperbacks aren’t easy enough to read, they have to create a bigger paperback, with sentences spaced further apart, so that people who can’t read paperbacks have a book style they can read that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I have never had any problems at all reading a paperback, other than the odd one that I couldn’t read for content or writing style issues. Now paperbacks will be taller, so anyonewho has custom book shelves might just have to reinvent them!

I admit, I am unaware if there is a world wide crisis concerning the ability to read paperbacks. Maybe the smaller paperbacks are convincing our children to read magazines instead of books or perhaps its causing eye strain? Who knows, either way, I don’t see the point of these new fangled
books but I am sure we will see if they are sell or not!

BBC SPORT | Rugby Union | Sheep tackling ban in New Zealand

Maybe this is why the All Blacks are consistantly one of the best teams playing rugby today? They practice on sheep!! I always thought that it would be the Australians who got caught playing with sheep (and this is coming from a Welshman) but I was wrong!

Many moons ago, I played a first person shooter called Doom. It scared the living shit out of me, with its basic graphics, cheesy music and sound, it managed to do something that frightened me beyond reason. I would play for hours, and then take off the T shirt that was now drenched in sweat. I would play in the dark, because obviously, playing in the dark makes it more scary. I had the Army of Darkness mod, me and my boomstick would blow up floating heads like there was no tomorrow. I had the Alien’s mod that scared me more than anything else I can recall. Those little spider like creatures running towards me………….. ARGH!!!!!!!! Oh, those were the days my friend, those were the days.

Fast forward (like in the movies) to today. Doom the movie has finally been released, after many years of speculation about who might star in it (Stallone, Ahrnold) and starring is, The Rock…….. who wasn’t even heard of back then…. how times change! The story is based on the recent Doom³. The ‘plot’, as is features a breakout of something or someone at a research base on mars. What enfolds is a pretty basic monster hunt type of a movie, think Aliens with game tie in’s. As a movie, it was at best average, with a plot that didn’t really make sense moving the action along quickly enough that you didn’t have to actually think too much to understand it. A team of marines sent in to save the staff obviously gets beaten up, the staff they were sent to rescue die and then come back to life, and lots of groovy monsters hide in the shadows and kill people.

The Rock plays the man in charge of the marine team, with Karl Urban as the focus of the team and Rosmary (it looks cold on mars) Pike playing a scientist and his sister.

While the movie itself is beyond rescue, two or three points made the movie rock, simply from a Doom geek point of view. Firstly, the BFG, or a Big Firing Gun as the ‘technical term’ was…. or as the Rock put it, Big Fucking Gun. The BFG is a firm favourite from Doom the game, saving your life when the odds seem stacked against you. The BFG is your friend, the BFG is good!!

The second point was the first person shooter portion of the movie, where rather than seeing the actor, you, the audience are holding the gun, running around corners and firing at anything that moves! A very cute way to pay tribute to the first person shooter genre and Doom itself.

Finally, and perhaps the best part of the movie, the chainsaw. The fight takes place during the first person portion and involves a monster that is half in a motorized wheel chair contraption. The chainsaw is the most basic weapon from Doom, used when you have run out of bullets, and used your last grenade. Just to hear the chainsaw revving up and being used to attack this mutant creature warmed the cockles of my heart. Made me smile and forget how poor the movie was.

A movie I had to see but just wish it had been better!

From the Publisher
A sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel, Masquerade, The Coil picks up several years later. Liz Sansborough, former CIA agent and now an academic, has managed to put the pieces of her life back together. But Sansborough has a dark secret – she is the daughter of the one of the most notorious Cold War Assassins, The Carnivore. When a series of prominent political figures are blackmailed into certain actions or die in suspicious ways, the CIA becomes convinced that someone has gotten hold of the Carnivore’s files and is using that information to further some secret agenda. Sansborough herself – the closet living link to the Carnivore – is the target of a murder attempt, her offices are searched, her files stolen and her TV program on the secrets of the Cold War inexplicably shelved by the network. When she learns her cousin Sarah Walker – who bears a close resemblance to Sansborough – is kidnapped off the street with the ransom demand being the Carnivore’s missing – possibly apocryphal – files, Liz is determined to save her cousin and uncover the swirling conspiracy, linked to a shadowy group known as The Coil, centered around the legacy of her father. But she’s far from the only one going after the truth behind the legendary assassin.

The Coil brings back Sarah & Asher, Liz and the canivore the successful assassin. Looking for the assassins diary as it were.

Not a bad book, with a couple of twists (although the final one was a little too obvious) and well created characters. The main characters brought back from Masquerade are interesting and enjoyable but the new characters (the members of ‘The Coil’) are easily interchangeable with each other and therefore slightly confusing. The story ends with the plot twists that nearly every book has and leaves the plot ends still twisting in the wind rather than all tidyed up. Still, an enjoyable read.

Based on the true life of Domino Harvery, the model turned bounty hunter. A different movie, still unsure how good it was but definatly watchable!!

Absolutaly brilliant!

OK, now I have recovered from seeing it, I can review it properly!! Claymation strikes again. After several shorts such as “The Wrong Trousers” and the full length movie “Chicken Run” (We’re the chickens!), Wallace and Gromit finally get to be center stage!! One man and his dog (went to mow a meadow….. oh wait, wrong story) have a thriving vegetable protection company, protecting cabbages from naughty nibblers everywhere until (insert dramatic music here) something big, hairy and hoppy starts eating everything that smells like a vegetable, tastes like a vegetable and happens to be a vegetable. Funny characters, great plot and clever references to other movies make this one of the funniest movies of the year!

Before the main event, the penguins from Madagascar make an appearance in a short christmas story about, well christmas. YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!! Its that good.

From the Publisher

Alexander Hawke, a direct descendant of the legendary pirate Blackhawke, is an expert on espionage and terror. A shadowy terrorist kingpin has orchestrated the systematic slaying of American diplomats, and as the death toll mounts, Hawke is called upon to avert a cataclysmic attack — while avenging a sensless crime that has left him devastated. From London to Indonesia, from Washington to the Florida Keys, Assasin is a “fast and furious” (Publishers Weekly) adventure with a hero who has redefined today”s action thriller.

An enjoyable book, filled with likeable characters following a plot that is only slightly unbelievable. Consistant with the first book, Hawke.