Friday, November 30, 2012
£200bn Christmas Present for Energy Companies
Moved here: http://thegreenwafer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/200bn-christmas-present-for-energy-firms.html
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Book review: Deception Point by Dan Brown
Oh God, another Dan Brown novel is inflicted on the World. Will this mans evil never stop? Deception Point tells the story of a meteorite containing fossilized remains of an alien animal that is found in a glacier. Except, it's all a fraud and there's someone behind this deception ... point.
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| This is the audio book cover. Sorry about that. |
First of all, I can quite comfortably tell you that the meteorite is not really a meteorite and that the 'alien' fossil is not really an alien without spoiling anything as it's ON THE BACK COVER OF THE BOOK. Yes, that's right, the main premise behind this 'book' by 'author' Dan Brown is revealed before you've even read the first page. That doesn't stop him going half way through the story before revealing this 'secret' - 250 pages of a 500-page novel. I really don't get this decision by the publisher to reveal most of the story in a paragraph summary, especially when half of the book is concerned with discovering the damn thing in the first place.
For what it's worth, I quite enjoyed the bit up to when the 'fraud' was discovered, even though I knew it was all phoney (because I'd read the back cover) and in the back of my mind I was constantly thinking, I wish he'd get to the point. Oh, I see what he did there - the deception point! Ha ha ha. Anyway, Brown's faux-scientific 'evidence' and 'facts' were quite interesting and thought-provoking without asking anything too demanding. After that however, it resorts to ridiculous hocus pocusery as a crack elite team of special force army types are assigned to kill just about everyone in sight who had realized the meteorite wasn't strictly a meteorite. I mean, come on, black helicopter rocket attacks a mile away from the White House? Really?
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| Maybe they just think it's a cool colour scheme? |
It's a shame as the premise is really quite good. A meteorite discovery with evidence of interstellar life is a great idea for a book. The implications for mankind are massive and all sorts of metaphysical, spiritual and existentialist questions could have been asked. In stark polar opposite to the direction taken by the great Carl Sagan in his novel 'Contact', Brown eschews all that nonsense in favour of a dire, chase-em-up and political shenanigan thriller. The end was never in any doubt (I can't point this out enough - it was on the freaking back cover) and so everything leading up to that point was just futile filler. He could have easily written this book in two or three sentences.
And another thing, why does Dan Brown insist on putting that little paragraph at the beginning of his books that states, 'all the technology exists and everything I describe herein is entirely real'? There really is no need. His Da Vinci novels suffered because of that little bit of bollocks (not JUST that, let's make it clear) as the source material for his 'facts' was actually based on a frigging hoax in the first place. If he'd made this stuff up, everyone would say, 'Ooh, I like Dan Brown, his imagination is great'. As it is, everyone *actually* says, 'I hate Dan Brown, he presents all this bollocks as real when acutally it's just a load of badger crap'. There are frickin' ice guns in this novel. ICE GUNS. Guns that fire ice and use snow as ammunition, you know, ICE GUNS. Knob off Dan Brown you moron. It goes downhill from there.
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| Wonder if this is what he meant? |
Maybe ice guns do exist, I don't know. But, if they do, and this elite special squad has them, there is a massive trail of accountability leading all the way back to the perpetrator of these serial killings and as such, they couldn't get away with what they did. I don't care who it is, they would have got caught, simple as. The point I'm making is that the crimes are so outlandish and therefore too unbelievable in the face of his self-proclaimed 'everything is true' mantra. Michael Crichton for example takes current technology then extends it just a little bit, asking the reader to make a small leap of faith into his imagination. So, while we are never left in any doubt as to its authenticity, his books are no less enjoyable. It's fiction, after all. Dan Brown doesn't do that. He says 'ALL of this is true, accurate and has an absolute base-line in fact' then crafts a stupid-ass story around it in those small, cliff-hanging episodelets of his. It's horseshit.
To sum up, half of the book you already knew the outcome to as it is described in the synopsis. The second half of the book is a lame-ass thriller with people running away from / being boffed by elite Government killer troops and the whole alien / meteorite thing, the actual interesting meat of the story, is largely ignored in favour of black helicopters, killer sharks, coincidental submarines and bonking politicians. Yawn.
Rating: 1 out of 5 for the first half (I'd have given it a 3 if the end result hadn't been given out beforehand) and -17 out of 5 for the god-awful second half, giving it a (not so) respectable -16 out of 10. Please stop writing books Mr Brown, you're putting the evolution of the human brain into minus figures. Before long, we'll all be dribbling amoebic cells (well, more so than we already are).
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Movie review: Taken 2 (2012)
A follow-up to the 2008 hit Taken was always inevitable. That film was a constant surprise and built up a great reputation as a solid, hard-hitting action thriller. Liam Neeson was nails and providing you left your brains at the door, it was perfect Saturday night entertainment. With a decent showing at the box office, healthy DVD sales and a recurrent interest in Neesons character in particular (his phone call to the Albanian sex traffickers as they kidnap his daughter has entered the Internet meme lexicon), why would they NOT make a sequel?
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| Coming for him? Big mistake ... |
Taken 2 sees the same character and his family abducted while on a short sojourn to Instanbul. Who knew that the gangsters from the original film had brothers and fathers and mothers and sisters? Apparently they do and they are seeking revenge. It's what they do in Albania. Conveniently ignoring the fact they were sex-trafficking, drug-dealing rapist murdering low-life scum, the father and brothers of those killed by Mills in Paris have not learned their lesson and are now offering themselves up as sacrificial lambs to the 'special set of skills' possessed by Brian Mills. After all, it's what he does best.
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| Nails, like proper well hard. |
And that, essentially, is the plot. If you've seen Taken, and presumably enjoyed it, Taken 2 is not going to offer up anything different in the formula. Except for one: the ratings certification. The first film was a 15, giving the director much more lateral freedom when it came to depicting the violence on screen. As a result, the ham-fisted plot and cardboard cut-out characters (not you Mills, definitely not you) could be all but excused for great thrills and lots of spills. Here, the 12A rating hampers the action so much, we're just about left with all the bad things about the first. It's a real shame.
That's not to say the film is all terrible as there are some terrific action sequences. Witness Brian and daughter Kim crashing through the US Embassy gates in a stolen Mercedes, some great fights between Brian and just about everyone and their dog and ... and ... that's about it. Neeson is as good as ever and even at 60 years of age doesn't look too old for this shnizzle. Maggie Grace as daughter Kim gets a slightly bigger part but Famke Jansson is largely perfunctory except as bad guy fodder. Oh and the Eurotrash baddies are as slimy and stupid as ever.
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| No, don't do it, it's not THAT bad. |
It's all so sanitized and routine and even Mills seems to have toned down his stuff. Where before he'd not even hesitate to shoot his best friends wife just to illicit some essential information, here he allows himself and his ex-wife to be captured with only a few broken baddies bones by way of payback. The finale barely stutters to an apologetic and muddled conclusion and whilst paving the way for a Taken 3, the lower age rating means we are unsatisfied by the despotic despatching. Forget shooting between the eyes, this is more like tripping on an uneven pavement.
On the way to the movie theatre, my wife and I talked about what we were expecting. Not so much Taken 2 but Taken Squared. We wanted more of the good stuff, ramped up beyond belief, not more of the bad stuff tamed down to an execrable level and yet, that's what we got. Taken Tamed, it should be. A disappointment really. I wouldn't say it to Neeson / Mills' face though, no way.
Rating: 2/5
A quick word about Vue Cinemas. Seriously, sort out your ticketing arrangements and organisation. We had pre-booked ours and 'inconveniently' the ATM's had broken meaning we had to queue at the concessions stand for our tickets. Whereupon, the assistant tried to sell us your over-priced snacks and drinks. Then, as Taken 2 was sold out (obviously no-one had read the reviews), there were several different queues all trying to get into the one screen, with no signs or directions or help from the harried ushers. THEN, once sat, there were arguments breaking out over who was sat in who's seat, the grumblings of which lasted well into the film. We paid a shit-load for this 'experience'. Not cool Vue, not cool.
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