Dreams Never End

I really hate it when films are described as a cross between two renowned films. The cover of R-Point features a quote from 'Front Magazine': "Blair Witch meets Full Metal Jacket" - not even close. Inception has been summarised as The Matrix meets Ocean's Eleven.

All Together Now

Alex Song: Cameroon 2010, tsevis, 2009

Before the South Africa finals, I hadn't watched any football since the 2006 World Cup. Somehow I managed to completely miss Euro 2008. As Scotland failed to qualify as usual, I wasn't hindered by great expectations, dreams of glory or any other kind of emotional high. Unlike England. Despite thirty-two teams competing in the 2010 tournament; the one we have to hear about again and again is of course, that team that won it once a very long time ago. Any time England qualifies for the World Cup the national media (being mostly based South of the border) will drop 1966 into every possible topic or story. Only the Welsh and maybe Northern Ireland could also understand how irritating that is. Though only one thing could be more annoying that having to hear about a missed penalty for a week - England winning.

Extrinsic 5: Cities, Buildings Falling Down, Ideal Homes Falling Down

My photostream "Cyprus"

One of the day tours on offer in Cyprus is a trip into the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)- the highlight of which is the 'abandoned city' of Famagusta where we were told you could 'see' the long out-dated clothes on display in the shops. Or at least that's how it was sold. As I was in the last divided country in Europe; the chance of crossing through an armistice line into a place with its own zone of interdiction, like a tame North Korea, appealed to me.

I went on this trip on July 14th 2007 and intended to write a post the following day. For whatever reason, I didn't. I dug out the old notepad I had on holiday at the time and the entry for this consisted of the date, title, and a blank page. Here's what I would have written had I not scrapped the post two years ago...

As always these bloody trips require getting up at 0700 when the only thing on offer in the restaurant is fucking sandwiches. Our hotel was in Paphos which is conveniently on the wrong side of Cyprus. After a mind-numbing eternity on the motorway, during which we picked up our Greek Cypriot Guide, the bus eventually reached the Green Line which we followed to the Eastern Sovereign Base for the crossing into the North. The Green Line seemed to mostly consist of open field, warning notices and lookout posts. Our Southern guide mostly spent this time covertly denouncing the Ataturk, only to do a complete about-face on that topic when the Northern guide boarded at the checkpoint. As tourists in the South, you could be forgiven for slipping into the perception of the Turkish side as a muslim East Germany. Both guides had stories about how the invasion and division of the island had affected them and their families. Both hoped Cyprus could be reunited.

United States of Whatever

Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator! [Cropped], br7tt, 2007

What came first: idiots or misanthropy? I never fail to be amazed/depressed at the sheer ignorance people are capable of. The general public seems mentally in the pre-Galilean age
in which the stars are fixed, a burning ball of coal revolves around Earth and the Moon only comes out at night as everyone knows, whilst smugly proclaiming that simpletons in the middle ages thought the world was flat. Safe in their own delusions they watch reality television where they indulge in more delusions about their superiority over the trash who appear on screen. There is something seriously wrong in a world that turned Orwell's warning of totalitarianism into a yearly wet t-shirt contest.

It used to be you could laugh at those silly colonials on the other side of the Atlantic, with their god and guns and poor understanding of world geography. But then I noticed stupidity was a universal not tied to a specific state. I can lambaste an American for calling me English or confusing Slovakia and Slovenia, only because I know the difference between Washington state and Washington DC. I have done the research - I have the high ground. I've bothered to read about the latest models of quantum mechanics even though the mathematics is beyond me and I failed Higher Physics. Therefore I took exception when people were talking about the Large Hadron Collider going on-line and possibly creating a blackhole that could destroy us all, because they read it in a column in The Sun written by some celebrity who probably still thinks atoms are indivisible. Indeed, mass ignorance of the LHC's purpose was rammed home earlier this week when I realised I hadn't seen Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe in a while.