2011

As a sequel to 2010, 2011 delivered mostly as expected.

With the same lead playing the young protagonist as he works from his first year into his second year of college, not much action is seen by way of big changes in this young man's life.

He gains some friends, particularly in the second half as the new students arrive. However, he is portrayed as a very gentle, passive character, who gently lets people drift away from him, rather than a more dramatic stand-off leading to a brief make-up before falling out for good. It's like this throughout the whole year, and makes for viewing better suited to a sleeping audience who don't want to be disturbed rather than an audience looking for excitement. Or anything at all.

There are a few major twists and surprises. Not to spoil the plot, but several characters played up as major villains in 2010 are suddenly killed off in this installment, much to the credit of President Obama making several return appearances, still played warmly by a wonderful Morgan Freeman. However, these big political characters are often kept in the background, having little impact on the protagonist. It's a wonder why the writers decided to kill them off so early in the franchise.

Overall, 2011 is a well acted, solid year, although the cracks do begin to show, for what it lacks in plot it fails to make up for in action. But promise for the much anticipated and long since announced remake of Roland Emmerich's 2012 is very high indeed, the rumours that the apocalyptic elements have been removed entirely (and leaving open grounds for a possible 2013?) only adding to the intrigue.

3/5 stars

December

Bugger me, and that's it is it?

Hang on, no, let's do this properly.



Ahh, the end of the year. These last few months spent winding down from the stress and excitement of ending what we laughingly call a summer holiday and rushing back to work and school and college like headless chickens on tranquilizers (the 70s has been coming back into fashion, right?). And then the past month is spent winding up for Christmas, then the spring broke.

A strange thing: it normally isn't 10 degrees. That's double digits in December. Are you drunk, December? Thanks to major slacking from you and January we didn't get any snow this year. Not a flake.

This month saw me visiting Birmingham's the German Market for the first time. It's exactly what it says on the cardboard sign indicating what it is, which is undoubtedly a good thing otherwise the sign wouldn't be doing it's job. It invades the city centre every year selling souvenirs, beer, food, pretzels, stollen, beer, stollen and beer for no less than £3 per thing. It also gets bigger every year. Birmingham is regularly vaccinated against it but it keeps coming back.

I didn't buy anything. Not out of sheer defiance of its existence to make a statement of shunning the masses to somehow look cool, but because I wanted to save money to buy my family Christmas presents this year. I didn't even go on the helter skelter. I've never been on a helter skelter.

Moneysaving didn't stop me from spending six quid to see the famous Scarlet Creek supporting a Strangle Kojak gig. Followed by a two hour DJ set of dubstep. I was late home.

I think I actually lost several important possessions inside one of the drops.

A bit later on, The Dying Light happened.

That play wot I made with my drama group and stuff. We performed it in the colleges' performance theatre. It went pretty well, apart from when I fluffed my lines and stabbed myself. Except that was part of the play in one of the bits I wrote.

What I'm really proud of is how the script called for "copious amounts of blood", but due to other college related commitments, I didn't have chance to work out a method of making copious amounts of blood. Until the very night before performance when I noticed Dad kept a box of Capri Sun's in the garage. I grabbed one, drank it, grabbed a plastic syringe, painstakingly filled the packet with water, put the straw back in and gave it a good whack, watching to my delight as water spurted out violently.

A plan happened, and all it needed was some of Riess' fake blood -- watered down, so that it would behave like water, like how I tested it -- and some sellotape. Which didn't work, so my tutor provided some gaffa tape and black cloth instead, but I still put a strip of sellotape over the straw hole, so no blood would come out before it needed to.

You had... you had worked out the blood-filled Capri Sun packet was strapped to me under my costume at this point, right? Right.

Naturally, I forgot to take the strip off right before the appropriate scene, but I undid it a bit while the lights were down and most of it came out in the end. It was a one-shot thing at this point, so I'm glad it did. I bent the (plastic) knife, which broke later on (but it was one of the actors who fucked up scene 7 when it was needed on stage, by helpfully carrying its' remains offstage. Brilliant.) And the costume? A pristine white formal shirt. Which I'll never wear again. But the whole experience was the perfect excuse to buy a bowler hat. That's in fact the only reason I bothered with any of this. And now I own a bowler hat.

In fact, fuck Christmas, a bowler hat'll do me. But my parents -- sorry -- Santa got me a HTC anyway, which is exactly what I asked for, so thanks Santa.

I'm gonna go off on a tangent here: Christmas is meant to me a time of sharing, of giving, of family and charity and peace and wine, etc. Giving is said to be more important than receiving. So why, for the love of Blitzen on a spit, why do we hide all the hard work of parents, the weeks of preparation and stress and the hundreds of money spent, behind the facade of a mythical fat bloke in red who'll simply give you presents for nothing? What the hell is that about? And Santa's even sponsored by Coca-Cola!

Anyway.

I ended up buying the annual round of CDs for my family. Coldplay for mum, Machine Head and Turisas for the Brothers. A blu-ray of Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop for dad. Brilliantly, in an act of sheer inadvertent perfection, dad also brought me Banksy's Wall and Piece book. It's fucking brilliant.

The Grandparents came round for Christmas, and it was lovely. Despite them having separated many decades earlier, they seemed to get on like old friends. We woke up in time for the afternoon. We opened presents. We had a three hour lunch. We played musical crackers (the Christmas crackers were crazy this year). We watched Doctor Who. We played with our toys. We ate chocolate. We went to bed. Yes, the same one.

No, not the same one. Jesus.

And Boxing Day wasn't bad -- oh wait. It was two days after Christmas instead of the orthodox one day, because of Bank Holiday Monday or some shit. So I spent the Bank Holiday not-Boxing Day playing with my HTC, and we still did our traditional family thing of visiting our dad's side of the family at one of my uncle's houses. We arrived late. We ate lunch. We gave gifts chocolate (for the kids -- I still count as a kid. Which is fine, my Heroes'll do just fine), alcoholic stuff in bottles (for the men), and plants (for the women). We played Pictionary. We lost. We ate dinner. The Brothers played with our cousins recording equipment. We said goodbye. We went home.

And now the new year looms. I've got the end of college to look forward to, with a generous helping of exams, and then a foundation course studying fine art at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, and then, if ludicrous Hollywood films and idiots who don't understand Mayan history are to be believed, The End of the World. I think I've lived through at least six prophesied apocalypses now, this'll be seven. Roll on 2012.

-

For those who've read since my January blog this year, well bloody done. Have a biscuit.

Also, I did get round to using Photoshop that my dad brought me last Christmas. And I definitely got drunk this year. Not that it's cool, or impressive, or something to aspire to, kids. Sam, I'm looking at you.

Hella fun, though.

November

Ah! November! Where have you been? We've been worried sick!

Not to worry! Not to worry! Come in, you must be freezing! Lets get your coat off.

I know, I know! It'll be much worse when it snows!

Oh, of course! That's December's thing, isn't it?

Isn't it? Well it was last year! Anyway, December's actually fun... No offence!

Good! Good! Can I get you a cup of something?

Oh you are funny! "I've never tried this 'something' before, is it nice?" Oh you're quite the comedian aren't you! Well I've got coffee or tea, I'm making tea.

Sugar?

How are you anyway? How's the wife?

Oh that is a shame! I'm glad you're holding out though.

Me? Well not much. The usual, you know.

Oh, you know. This and that.

Well, I completed the soundtrack on my play - well not strictly my play, you understand, we're in a group you see - and that took me a week, it's really good, it's got Massive Attack and weird samples and everything, you'd really like it.

Mhmm. And speaking of my play, we've finally thought of a title! I didn't come up with it, I'm not sure who did actually... Rhiannon told us on Facebook, Raj talked about it... Anyway, it's a really good title. It comes from the Dylan Thomas poster that inspired the play. It's called - shall I put this here? Hang on. There, that's it, now you've got a coaster - it's called The Dying Light.

Mmm, I know! We've blocked most of it as well! We've worked out the lighting, the stage, and my costume came the other day as well! It's freaky!

A bowler hat and a white mask.

No not at the same time! It would be great if I did though, wouldn't it?

Well perhaps not, no. It's a bugger to put on though.

The mask, not the hat! Especially since I've got to do it in ten seconds between scenes but there's also a black cape to go with it.

Yes, yes, the mask not the... Speaking of buggery I got a bugger load of art work done over the past couple of weeks or so. I was literally awake all through the weekend doing it.

Well no, not Friday evening.

I woke up at about two on Saturday, but I didn't sleep again until three o'clock on Monday, so bugger off. And I finished the written coursework that goes with it. Five thousand words it is, no exaggeration!

No, really!

I've been doing lots of work! Why do you think I haven't been going out this past month?

Oh well that's just hurtful.

Well I did go out once actually!

I'm doing this film thing for a friend of mine. So there!

I play a dead character.

I'm strangled, apparently.

Yes, the make up is very convincing. If I wanted to look like Gary Numan.

He doesn't wear make up?

I'm not sure either.

What are my plans for December? Well, more of the same I imagine. Except there might be snow and we'll be having Christmas and there'll be no work to do.

Yes alright you've made your point. Shopping, decorating, wrapping, etc,etc. But at least we actually make something out the numbing cold and constant dampness.

Rich coming from you!

Oh, well, I suppose you're right. It must be tough being November. Chin up, eh? Look, I'm really not the person to see about these sorts of things, I'd really rather a nice chat.

Well if you feel that's what you need. I suppose I've got things I need to be getting on with too. Do pop around next year won't you?

Good. Nice to see you then, goodbye!