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Just bumping this thread up to say Get Carter is on ITV4 tonight at 2305 if anyone's interested.

Since when was being a parent seen as a pointless exercise?

Since people started being so fucking shit at it?

Is that all people or just some people?

Just some. But in some areas they're the majority.

Since when was being a parent seen as a pointless exercise?

Since people started being so fucking shit at it?

I've steared clear of this thread for a while, but for what it's worth here's my 2p.

These riots are not born out of any political motive other than getting free stuff, and kicking off at the police and government for a laugh.

My background is that I grew up in Great Yarmouth - which is, and has for a long time, been classed as a deprived area. When I was at school it had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country.
I'm the youngest of three and know all about wearing hand-me-down clothes and not having much money.(I also lived in Luton for a while and we all know what a state that's in).

Now my point is that Great Yarnouth doesn't need to be in the state it is in. It is in a downward spiral that is the fault of the residents in many cases.

For example, there is no need for so many to be unemployed in Yarmouth in the middle of the summer season. The holiday camps have to get people in from other towns, and put them up in caravans, to work the bars , catering outlets, swimming pools, shops, maintenance shifts etc. It costs the camp money to put these people up but there simply aren't enough locals prepared to do the work.


I have a nephew, who has rather depressingly just become a father, who is 21 and hasn't done a day's work in his life. He's a lazy little bastard. A friend once got him work at a signwriters which was a pretty good opportunity for someone who had flunked school - it was an opportunity to learn a trade. He walked out on the second day because they asked him to do some sweeping in the wokshop.
He has an absolute lack of respect for anyone, is totally selfish and thinks the world owes him a living. His friends are all the same.
I believe one of the main reasons for this is that his mum (my sister who has been on benefits most of her life) always gave him everything he wanted. I think this was partly a guilt thing - she didn't  want him to go without. He would get a mobile phone almost every birthday or xmas (usually a good one costing £100 +) and within a month he'd have sold it or 'lost' it and spent the money in the arcades or, later on, pissing it up.
The thing is I can understand why he doesn't want to work. For a start his mum never has. The main reason though, is because he has surrounded himself (and it has a great deal to do with the friends you choose) with people who, like him, have such narrow horizons that they simply see no reason to work.
All he needs is somewhere to live, enough money for crap ready meals, and an internet connection and second hand computer that he can use to download free movies. Every so often they'll have a piss up on cheap cider.
If these are your aspirations, why work?

My brother, on the other hand who was always a bit 'square' and was naturally very academic as a child ended up going to Cambridge University! He now lives with his family in Singapore. It's his lifestyle that broadened my horizons enough to make me want to work and to surround myself with better people.
I still know loads of people my age (34) from school who have never worked. These people trot out phrases about immigrants (to be fair Yarmouth has had problems with immigration) or about there being no jobs in a parrot fashion type way. They have fuck all political awareness and know very little about anywhere in the world apart from their own small town.
The nearest thing to a politcal uprising I ever saw in Yarmouth was when they put a stop to booze cruises in the late 90's (I'm not joking).

I believe these same attitudes are rife throughout the country. The trouble is if anyone tries to communicate this in the media they get shouted down. They seem to think it's an attack on the 'working class' (I hate when they call habitual spongers working class!) to say that people don't want to work and instead start blaming the government for the jobs market. I'm not saying the Government aren't due some criticism but it helps no one to deny the existence of this under class.

If we want to stop these things from happening in the future we need better education (and not just at school - you can't expect a kid not to fall behind on his reading if he grows up in a house with no books in it), a better and more obvious system of justice being seen to be done, and a willingness in the media and government to accept just how bad things have become.

My mate Ian and I once watched 'Confessions of a Window Cleaner' with his nan.
At the bit where the woman does naked yoga Ian's nan said 'I used to do that when I was younger' which was a bit surprising and conjured up some images I would rather have not imagined.

The first film I watched with my ex-girlfriend - at my insistence - was 'Deliverance'. Probably not my smoothest move! 

Surely everyone's favourite Captain?

I think it's more like 'I fancy a free laptop from Curry's' mania.

I think it's a shame that lovelly old 30's building on the corner, which survived the blitz, got destroyed by a bunch of scrotes.

Just watched Saturn 3.

I'd seen this years ago when I was a kid but couldn't remember much about it other than it had a killer robot and you saw Farrah Fawcett's boobs.

It's one of those films where everyone looks a bit uncomfortable and it has the crappest robot since that one in Logan's Run.
The special effects and designs are really terrible. It's hard to believe this was made three years after Star Wars. Forbidden Planet had better effects and a more believable robot about 25 years earlier.
The screenplay is a bit of a mess and it's badly directed but I got the feeling that this is one of those rare polishable turds. I really think this film could be remade into a pretty good thriller. It mainly depends on the robot being believable and scary which is much easier to do these days.

I really enjoyed Watchmen. I've read the comic loads of times so I know the story pretty much inside out and I think the film did a pretty good job.
I was never looking for anything deeper than the basic plot of trying to foil a baddy who turns out to be a strange sort of goody.
Watchmen is, in part, a comic about how comics work but the film isn't a film about how films work. I wasn't looking for that though.

Last night I watched 'Drive Angry' with Nicholas Cage. It was a right load of old bollocks but quite a good laugh - it was very much like Ghost Rider in fact. I was intending to rent 'Driven' but all the copies were on loan at Blockbuster.

I think it's unlikely that Moore and O'Neill will try to make out that Quatermain becomes Constantine. Constantine has a pretty well defined back story and family history - it just wouldn't make sense.
I suppose they could have a young Constantine meet up with Quatermain though. It could even be that Quatermain inspires Constantine's look?

Interestingly, as real world figures seem to have their fictional counterparts and Constantine was famously based on Sting, perhaps Mucous Membrane could become the Leagues version of The Police?

I really enjoyed 1969. I didn't know who Tom Riddle was either but it certainly didn't spoil my enjoyment or even make me think that I had to research it right away.
One thing the League has always been about for me is that it's a window into a whole world of fiction and alternate histories that I would otherwise probably never get around to finding out about.

For example - in League vol 1 - I knew who Captain Nemo was but I thought he looked like James Mason. I had no idea about his Indian background.

In 1969 I would definitely have wanted to find out more about the gangster character if I didn't know who Jack Carter was. People will now be watching Get Carter for the first time after reading this and that's no bad thing.

As far as I'm concerned you can take as much or as little as you want from the League. As long as you find the central story entertaining (which I do) you've got your money's worth and everything else is just gravy.

People seem to be critcising this version of the League - I think mainly because they know that the characters are supposed to be references and they find this distracting or frustrating. I've read plenty of scenes in comics with villains (probably even rapists) who weren't even half as fleshed out as Tom Riddle is in this.

I'm guessing there'll be some kind of intended 'cure' to make the apes go back to normal but it will instead infect the humans, turning them into fuckwits who can't speak.

I really want to get this game - looks like great fun!
I have so many games lined up though, i don't know when I'll get a chance to play it. May have to end up putting it on my Xmas list.

Got my copy. Only had a flick through and it looks lovely - bit rude though - not the sort of thing to leave lying around if there are kids in the house!

Super8

Really enjoyed it. It probably helped that I had very little idea of what to expect.
I think some people will say it's a bit mawkish and there were probably a ton of plot holes but I never seem to notice them on first viewing. It definitely gets a recommendation from me and I'd say it's quite evocative of films I watched as a child in the 80's.

[spoiler]I'm not sure if it's supposed to have anything to do with Cloverfield - there were rumours that it was related early in its development and the alien definitely looks like it could be related even though its much much smaller.[/spoiler]