From: it@aspire-recgroup.co.uk

I appreciate people who can spell. I appreciate people who can use grammar. I appreciate people who can use punctuation.

But in case someone isn’t quite so good at any of that, I appreciate people who can use the fucking spell checker. Especially when claiming that their made up job has been put on hold. So witness this slightly unedited delight from the people who bring you cv-library:

Dear Alf Boredofjam

Thank you for your recent application Infrastructure Domain/Systems/Software/Support Expert (reference: AS2495IDE.

Please excuse any delay in our response.

Unfportunately the client has put this role on hold.

We will be intouch as soon as we know more and we will certainly keep you details for any other suitabel roles.

Regards,

Aspire IT.

I am hoping that suitabel roles mean finding a newspaper and smacking the crap out of whoever wrote the above. I do hope they earn under the National Minimum Wage.

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cambridge folk festival line up 2

Last year’s festival was one of the best yet, however this year we’ve got a treat for all you people hopeless enough to sit on the telephone all day last Sunday.

The organisers and sponsors of this year’s The Cooperative’s The Cambridge Folk Festival are proud to announce the following additions to the already extensive and eclectic line up:

SCHRÖDINGER’S CAP
Winners of last year’s South-East Birmingham Roots Breakthrough award, these lively Brummies will get your feet tapping through mindless threats of violence toward your person, or those you know. Their crowd-pleasing double-A sider of “We know where you live”/”Our Mates, Our Crowbars” will make you rush back home and miss the rest of the Festival. They will be both appearing and not appearing on Thursday night.

SEMI_COLON
Formed from the remaining original members of 1940s blues band FULL TRACT, Semi_Colon play lightening-fast rhythm and blues, mainly because their bags need changing regularly. Controversial in the 1970s following their massed lower-gut removal operations in support of people with “glandular” issues,  Semi_Colon are now more laid back than ever (or as much as their commode chairs allow).
Focussing on themes such as the indignity of growing old, aren’t those nurses looking younger, and how come a loaf of bread costs about 40 shillings these days, the Semis will play their set on a rubber mat, just in case of dire need.

LOST PROPERTY
Usually accompanied by a sousaphone, a double-bass, some timpani and a grand piano, the Losts raise high roofs even higher! This year, though, following a time at Heathrow’s arrivals lounge filling in forms to get their instruments back, Lost Property will be singing a cappella.

FRANK IFIELD’S HALF UNCLES
If yodelling be the food of love, this is your night for a slap-up meal, Bro’. These award winning, title holding and exceptionally talented Half Uncles will soothe any sore heads with dramatic soundscapes produced by four uniquely talented men. And a gallon of beer each. Stephen Fry is said to be a fan (look out for him, he may be standing next to you in the queue for the toilet!).
See them after the Festival on The One Show with that lovely bird on the sofa.

THE UNDREACHEEVERS
Achingly beautiful songs make up literally .5% of the repertoire of the ‘Eevers. Brought together by svengali figurine Richard Thompson, the only man in music to make a guitar die from boredom, the band are brought to the stage whilst still asleep in their beds or whilst watching Hollyoaks.
Interviews with Dazza and Yo-Bizzle (Brian), the band are very keen to expand their expertise in COD5 and will demonstrate their l33t 5k1llz live on stage by throwing an XBOX-360 controller through £10,000-worth of giant plasma screen before declaring that their parents are “bloody bastards” and that they “never get nuffink nice no more” before “goin for a faaaaag ain I?”.

star trek 11: kirk hangs off stuff

Hands up, you caught me, I like sci-fi. I grew up enjoying the Original Trek movies. I liked Next Generation Trek, and I enjoyed the first few serieses of Deep Space 9.

Most importantly – most importantly – I like Shatner. Oh, I also like Nimoy and Kelley and Nichols and, er, Sulu and Chekov and Scotty (just not to the same extent). And the other ones (if there are any other ones, I don’t pay a lot of attention to what goes on on the screen): There are spaceships (pew-pew)! There are men with laserguns (pew-pew)! There are two of the Trumpton firemen (Pugh-Pugh)!  All good.

Etcetera.

So I rather went into the new Star Trek movie wanting desperately to hate Chris Pine and his take on Kirk. He isn’t Shatner, and nor does he try to be (to his credit). He kinda gets Kirk. For about 8 minutes throughout the entire film. Right at the beginning and in the scene with the Kobyashi Maru, which is a lovely homage to The Wrath of Khan. After that he reverts to pretty boy in a big-budget movie, but not to such an extent as that kid in Transformers/Indiana Jones 4.

I thought that the movie was great. A lot of the reviewers in the press are also saying this. The Onion did something amusing on a web video about it last week. I spit on The Onion and call them simple Iowa farmboys (get me with the reference, eh?). But they’re  the ones with the big famous website, and this is just my blog. And you, my dear friend, are my only reader.

Bless you (pew-pew).

Now, they’ve restarted, rebooted and reimagined the franchise. This could go two ways: towards Planet of the Apes (the best irony of that particular heresy is the removal of the “You Blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!” line), or in the direction of The Dark Knight. I’ll not mention Batman Begins, as it was a shockingly awful waste of celluloid.

And so to “Star Trek: See Kirk Dangling Into Pits, Crevasses and Multitudinous Deep Holes”.  No kidding, we start the film off with young Jim dangling from the edge of a cliff and it goes from there. Four or five times, I lost count. I have a nasty feeling that it’s a metaphor for something, but I can’t be arsed to look for it beyond an exasperated cry of “Dear god, stop doing that, we get it, you’re alluding to something. And we don’t care.”

There are two quite outstanding performances:

1. Karl Urban as Bones. My god, Jim, he’s got it right on the nail. Having seen him in “Doom”, where he couldn’t have acted his way beyond the “Exit” sign above the cinema door, this was some kind of freaky casting. But it works. The scenes that he and Pine share are some of the best, and Bones gets all the good lines.
2. Sylar as Spock. Although he just comes across just on the wrong side of being a wee bit effete.
3. Uhura in her pants.

Then there’s the part in the film where the entire cast turn to the camera and say something along the lines of: “For Our American Audience And To Make Sure We Get A Sequel, Let Us Explain That We’re Now In A Totally Different Timeline To The One That Would Have Been,” exposition, exposition, the story comes to grinding halt the music stops, everyone looks at each other, nods, takes a breath and we’re off again.

I was looking forward to seeing Simon Pegg as Scotty. I’m afraid, though, he is rubbish. And appears to believe that SHOUTING is the best way to be Scottish. Simon, Si Pegg, Si Pe: No. No darling. It’s not big and you’re not Brian Blessed. Stop it. And while you’re about it, get rid of the sidekick.

Nero, the villain of the piece, is less threatening than Evil Edna off Willo The Wisp. Maybe that’s down to Bana, the world’s most bland actor.

The guy they got for Sarek looks funny and Chekov sounds like Austin Powers. Replace whoever he is immediately.

The effects are lovely, except when they used little CGI men in one scene, they still suffer from looking like they’ve been generated by a PS2.

Oh and the Cloverfield monster appears, as does that other JJ Abrams staple, Slusho.

The film is over 2 hours long, and is very silly, but it just whips through. Go see.

Oh, and look out for the other Wrath of Khan nod between Spock and Nero.

Lovely.

lines from the new poet laureate

I’ve been given a new job
usually it belongs to one of those un-women with a nob
just like everything else they
ejaculate their bitter wars across their oppressive world
a depressive world, no longer an impressive world

Given a new job by Lizzie Regina
Used to know a girl nicknamed Lizzie Vagina
She was in luff with
The muff did
All the girls at Uni
Except, guessed it, me

Given a new job
Will write when I like
signed: Carol Ann Duffy (determined poet dyke)

swine flu (to the tune of “sex bomb” by mousse t and tom jones

Swine flu, swine flu
I’ve got swine flu
Got some H1N1
And I don’t know what to do
Swine flu, swine flu
I’ve got swine flu
Gonna cough and splutter
Gonna pass it on to you

(etc)

Further to this, there are now reports of further sicknesses about to hit the world:
Fly flu
Flea flu
Trains Syndrome (Choo-choo flu)
Potato disease (Tuber-culosis)
Teacher flu (aka the Academic Pandemic)
Jetlag (flew flu)

lines on the retrirement of andrew motion by andrew motion

I went to a restaurant
My Italian friend Romeo
In tow

Being related to the Queen
(More or less –
I’ve written her 8 poems
they were published in The Times,
you’ll have seen)

I don’t carry cash
Nor a credit card
Nor a calculator with a muliply function
Nor those lifesavers, the Voucher of Luncheon

So we sat and we filled
Our bellies, friend and I

Starters: Garlic bread
Mains: Some sort of fish (no chips)
Afters: Lemon meringue pie

And friend annouced that he would pay
My poor poetry-wage being all cheap, sweet sherry
He stood and patted down his jacket
His manly bag
His trouser pocket

“Oh woe,” cried he
“I have no moolah
“No quids, no pence, and even crueller
“My wallet has gone
“No cards have I
“Not a Visa, nor a Diners, nor a ‘Carte Barclay’ ”

“We’re in trouble, old chum there’s no escape
“It’s the washing up for us
“You rinse, I’ll scrape.”

Then coming here from over yonder
Our table’s waiter soon did wander
To our table, tip expectant
Invoice printed, free mint fondant

“Ah bonne afternoon, monsieurs, eet iz a lovely day”
Said the unconvincing Frog, accent more
Lambeth Way
than Champs Elysees
“Ow would vous aimez to pay?”

I asked,
“Do you have an offer on?
“Where two can eat for the price of one?”
And continued on
As our waiter eyed me
“Or even where two can eat for free?”

Accent dropped, and friendship, too:
“What?”
I went for the ultimate, “Do you know who I am?”
“Oui, monsieur, indeed I do.”

“But we’re out of cash, no card, no cheque”
With a Gallic shrug
And with some regret
We found that Romeoed
What Laureate.