Danny Boyle addresses Chinese (and Western) journalists
The latest target of a Jose Mourinho tirade was something I have spent my fair share of time ranting and raving about – the Chinese media.
The Special One was particularly irked after Inter’s defeat to Lazio in the Italian Super Cup, which was played in Beijing last weekend, when a Chinese journalist challenged his claim that the loss was down to the temperature and poor pitch by asking why Lazio were not similarly affected. It seems like a good question, but hit a spot with Mourinho who angrily responded:
“I know why Chinese football is so rubbish and why China has won gold medals in so many sports but not football, it is because the journalists are so unprofessional.”
When later questioned further by a Xinhua journalist, he claimed that the Chinese media “do not understand a thing”. Continue Reading »
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Last night BBC2’s Psychoville – probably the best British comedy since The Office or the early series of Peep Show – was brought to an explosive conclusion as the identity of the mysterious blackmailer was revealed.
Full of characters part-sinister, part-laughing stock, Psychoville’s world – beneath the absurd facade of one-armed clowns and delusional midwives – was remarkably well observed. It’s of little surprise. Creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, half of The League of Gentlemen, have a long history of creating characters far enough from reality to be funny, but at the same time close enough to be scary. Take David Sowerbutts for example. One the one hand he is a caricature of an obsessive serial killer. One the other he is the victim of an overbearing mother, childhood trauma and a lack of social skills. Perhaps it is a triumph for the series that by the end we are feeling sympathy for him, but it’s also this ‘human’ dimension to his character which makes him that little bit more eerie.
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Posted in TV | Tagged bb2, clown, comedy, David Sowerbutts, dvd, league of gentlemen, locket, mr jelly, Psychoville, ravenhill, Reece Shearsmith, snappy the crocodile, Steve Pemberton, tealeaf, twist | Leave a Comment »
I managed to make it down to Brighton on Saturday for the last day of a new music festival called The Great Escape.
The festival was similar to the Camden Crawl, in that a ticket gave you access to any of the several venues which had acts performing over the three days. Brighton’s compact city centre made this very convenient, and of the 25 or so venues which were taking part, the majority were within about ten minutes walk of each other.
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Posted in Music | Tagged Bon Iver, Brighton, Five Years Time, Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, Skinny Love, The Great Escape | 2 Comments »
Rock folklore has it that Win Butler spent three months following a British Sea Power tour around Canada
before recording Arcade Fire’s debut. The influence of the Brighton based band on Funeral was almost tangible, but four years on they attract only a modest following while the Canadian troupe have become one of music’s hottest properties.
British Sea Power’s third LP, provocatively titled Do You Like Rock Music?, sees the debt repaid. Not only did the band travel to Canada to record several tracks, but even invited former Arcade Fire drummer Howard Bilerman to produce them
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Posted in Music | Tagged British Sea Power, Do You Like Rock Music?, Howard Bilerman | 2 Comments »
Last Thursday, an old flatmate of mine stood for the Conservatives in a ward of the Rhondda Cynon Taff borough, in the local elections.
RCT is in south Wales. It is very Welsh, and covers an area of valleys, small towns and disused coal mines. Everyone votes Labour or Plaid. They have done so for as long as they can remember, and they don’t see any reason to change now. People aren’t ready to forgive the Tories for Thatcher quite yet.
My friend only found out he was standing a few weeks back. He had shown some interest in politics before but had done very little in terms of active participation. He had applied for some research jobs at the Welsh Conservatives, and someone suggested he stood in the elections. It would look good on a CV after all.
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Posted in Politics | Tagged Conservatives, llantwit fadre, local elections 2008, RCT, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Rhondda Cynon Taff Conservatives, Tories, Wales, Welsh Conservatives | 2 Comments »
They say history is written by the winners, and certainly the past’s heroes and villains have almost unanimously been decided by those who have triumphed. But while Hitler, Stalin, Churchill et al have been pigeonholed with relative ease, some of time’s more interesting characters are far trickier to categorise.
I was watching an episode of Chucklevision a few months back, and was somewhat surprised when Barry and Paul’s slapstick nemesis proclaimed himself to be none other than Maximilien Robespierre.
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Posted in History | Tagged French Revolution, History, Robespierre | 2 Comments »
Swedish football has long exported top players and managers to the rest of Europe, but there are signs that the trend is beginning to reverse.
This season Sweden’s top flight boasts more foreign players than ever before, all hoping to become stars in a new country just as the likes of Freddie Ljungberg and Zlatan Ibrahimović have across Europe.
Just one of the many foreign imports is James Keene, an English striker who was only 19 when he made the switch from Premier League Portsmouth to the Allsvenskran.
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Posted in Football | Tagged Alfonso Alves Sweden, Allsvenskran, Bo Nilsson, Football, Glenn Hysen, IF Elfsborg, James Keene, Jimmy Dixon, Roland Nilsson, Sweden, Swedish football | 3 Comments »
