The Navy Lark, Porridge, The Two Ronnies, Open All Hours...
So I finally get the time to go out and look through this week's new music releases. Witching Hour by Ladytron has finally been released (you may have seen my review of the MP3 leak back in mid-August, and it's just as good as it was then), so I pick up the copy with the free live DVD - £12.99 from Fopp or Avalanche - and a second-hand PWEI CD.
However, I also went out to buy the New Order DVD releases, and came back empty handed. This despite the fact that the releases are both desirable and well-specified, especially for a fan like me who's been unable to see this material before.
The problem is the way Warner Europe are ripping off the European consumer. In the USA, the two releases (a videos DVD and the documentary New Order Story, the latter released on VHS and laserdisc in 1994 and promptly becoming rare soon afterwards) are a single Item, priced at around $24.98 - £14.21 according to the Google converter. In the UK, they're two separate discs, retailing at £13.99 each; the dual pack is a HMV exclusive priced at £24.99. Ripoff Britain or what?
Now, there's usually a disadvantage of buying US discs of UK bands. Many of the music videos will almost certainly have been made on the cheap on PAL video, so there'll have to be a standards conversion to get them onto a US NTSC disc. The same applies to New Order Story. Even those videos that were made on film have probably been converted from a video source rather than going back to the original reels of 16mm, because it's cheaper. This can lead to picture quality problems, and should be avoided at all costs - you should always buy video-sourced material at the frame-rate and resolution it was intended for. This doesn't apply to films, as generally two transfers are made at the different frame rates - so avoiding conversion artifacts, which are much much more annoying than PAL speedup and thus no reason to avoid buying R2 films. But for video, you should always buy from the native source.
You would expect this would be the UK; they are, after all, a British band making videos in Britain and, throughout the 80s, on a very British record label (Factory). The only problem is that Warner aren't playing ball - the only difference between the UK and US discs of the New Order material is that the US one is region code 1 while the UK one is region code 2. That's it. We get the inferior standards-converted videos (and apparently VHS-quality New Order Story) despite the fact we shouldn't. And, to add insult to injury, we're made to pay £10 more for a different region code.
This piece of institutional cheapness is amazing. On Universal Interscope, Marilyn Manson (not my favourite either) released their complete video collection on the bonus DVD with the best-of, not charging all that more for it either. I want to see artists I actually want to buy doing that - the video collection and NOS should have been in the wasted-opportunity Retro box set (which, needless to say, I own). This sort of flagrant disregard of the fans is the main reason why no-one's buying CDs anymore, except schmucks like me.
Anyway, I have a multi-region player and a TV that can cope with raw NTSC, so Warner UK can get stuffed. I'm buying from the States. The band will get their royalty and Warner UK won't, so that's just fine by me.
So, now Malcolm Rifkind's out the leadership race (going for Ken Clarke), it's time to size up the contenders for leader of the Conservative party.
Really, Labour aren't going to have any opposition for a long time, more's the pity. Ken Clarke will get pureed over all his company directorships - especially the BAT one - and for very good reasons too. David Davis is boring. Liam Fox is boring, but in a scary way. Cameron is completely inexperienced, but there's something there; the best out the bunch, unfortunately, is Ken Clarke, who is at least a decent Parliamentary entertainer. (If you wanted that, however, you'd bring William Hague back.)
It'll be David Cameron, I think. So we can only hope that Gordon's better than Tony...
I saw Serenity last week. Having never seen Firefly, I went into the cinema completely unprepared, with zero character knowledge and just experience of the fandom to go on. This was slightly offputting; "Browncoat" is possibly the worst thought-out name for a fanbase since "Trekkie" (even if it is from series lexicon), bringing out the griminess of the insane edge of SFF fandom in its very syllables. And the fanbase makes every attempt to bring out this aspect of their personality; reading anything Serenity related on the movie message board of your choice (but especially AICN) is a trial of patience, and the Wikipedia entry for Firefly is one of those Wikipedia entries with ludicrously unnecessary amounts of detail in supplementary articles (although not nearly as bad as the Star Wars entries).
But I did see it, and lo, it wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, not all the character interrelationships are set up properly: a big shock late on in the movie obviously works for the fanbase (as can be seen from the many gushing reviews on DVDF et al), but didn't for me at all. And there are various other moments in the movie where, unless you're a fan, you just feel somewhat confused - the characters, with a few notable exceptions, are fully developed before they hit the screen. The same error, of course, was made by Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a movie that only makes sense if you're a massive Original Series fan; by the X-Files movie, too, which is just an overextended, overbudget double episode of the show.
Despite this, it is a really enjoyable movie: even if the plot is basically Han Solo and Crew with a few psychic and kung-fu elements. It's very well shot (by Clint Eastwood's DP), the script is witty and engaging, and the all-round acting is very good: especially Chiwetel Ejiofor as "the Operative" (a ruthless agent on the crew's trail), another fantastic role for him. It's very much worth whatever it costs you for a cinema ticket; especially if you thought a Han Solo prequel would have been much, much better than what we got. In fact, even though Joss Whedon pulls the "guy doesn't die until he's revealed an important bit of information/bit of personal philosophy" overused SFF/horror cliche, recommended.
The Wallace and Gromit movie is fabulous, by the way, so you should all be seeing it. Oh yes.
...for International Scumbag of the Year. There really is little other competition: if there is a hell, Fred Phelps deserves every last minute of it.
Best animated GIFs ever.
Star Wars in 168K: <http://www.b3ta.com/board/5247035>
Empire in 211K: <http://www.b3ta.com/board/5254259>
Can't wait for Jedi...
I have, and always have had, an ex-directory phone line. I see absolutely no need in having people know my phone number other than those who actually want to contact it; it is, after all, courtesy.
Needless to say, this means an absence of telemarketer calls, but sadly not entirely. I just got called by ICM doing a "music survey" in the middle of cooking something intricate. Asking them exactly why they were calling my phone number, the caller informed me of the method they use for picking telephone numbers:
Wonder if they check it against the DMA list. I'm not on TPS - it just lets them know who you are - but they really shouldn't do things like that. People who put numbers on things like the TPS list or go ex-directory are very unlikely to want to listen to "surveyors" or other telescum. But they're so insistent that you need to listen to them! (And apparently they get responses from ex-dir people too... AAAGH.)
I told the surveyer, politely enough, that I don't respond to unsolicited calls, and he hung up very curtly. Oh dear. At least the food didn't spoil...
