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This Week in Lumps
#49 [29/04 - 05/05]

· Gone are my careless teenage days of jumping on the next train to London (about 30 minutes train journey away) getting drunk with my friends, stumbling to a gig (more than likely to be Biffy Clyro), and having just enough time and money to get back to Kings Cross for the last train home. Gone are the days where I’d be sitting at home when a friend calls me from a gig or a festival during The Killers song ‘Andy, You’re A Star’, leaving me a smiling goon. Gone are the days that I’d not think twice about travelling hundreds of miles to see a band in a friends home town, and not care about where I’d be sleeping that night, or with whom I’d be sleeping with.

Now, a few years on, I’m in a different city, can make it to a gig in any venue in about 10 minutes, for a lot less money, and can be home in a sober state with plenty of time to get a decent enough sleep for work the next day. How depressing I’ve become in my old years. In fact, its in my old years that I now notice all the things about gigs that once didn’t bother me, and imagine my delight when I find from this article, that in annoys other people too. I feel bad for all the people I once stumbled into whilst trying to find my way to the front, I feel a slight remorse for all the people I stood in front of who were smaller than me, hell, I even feel slightly bad for all the times I ‘forgot’ to pay my train fare, costing First Capital hundreds. With that in mind, I urge you to read the article for the quotes and descriptions written by Much Music, as they list the ten things that really grinds their gears at gigs, the ten are:

Recording the show or incessantly taking photos with your cell phone.

Waiting until the show has started to secure your spot in the front row.

Talking throughout the entire show.

Being over 6′4 and choosing to stand in front of the shortest person in the crowd.

Continually crowd surfing or slam dancing even though it’s not that kind of show.

Being an unruly lout.

Spastic dancing and general disregard for personal space.

Holding up a sign or flag for the duration of the show.

Standing at a seated venue.

Waiting till the band plays their radio hit and then leaving.

Now, you may think this is just common sense, but you’d be surprised just how little drink it takes for some morons to completely disregard this. Think about it, how many times are you actually going to go home and sit and watch an entire song recorded very badly from your mobile? how many photos that you take are actually going to be of any decent quality, and especially when there’s about half a dozen professional photographers in front of you. In some cases, some people were even born into this stupid mentality, and sadly they always seem to appear at the gigs you attend. So, a plead; everyone who goes to gigs must remember these issues; one day you’ll be annoyed by them too, and then it’ll be you who will be pointing out to anyone breaking them, that they are being very annoying, and deserve taking outside and shooting.

~

· It’s astonishing to think that 19 years ago, straight after the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford sat down and decided that the development of the fourth Indiana film should be started immediately. Initially, George Lucas and Spielberg made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films, and maybe if it wasn’t for an initial disagreement between the two, we would have seen all five by now, but after a difference of opinions, Indy 4 was shelved, and both men went onto other projects. It wasn’t until 2000 that interest kicked off again, and after screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont and Jeff Nathanson all tried (and failed) to write appropriate drafts, Jeff Nathanson’s script satisfied all three men (Spielberg, Lucas and Ford), and after some touching up from to David Koepp, filming began last year, and finished in October.

As mentioned on these hallowed pages before, Sean Connery didn’t want to take part, citing that he was enjoying retirement too much, and in week 37, where I talked about the cast, but not a lot was known about the plot. Well, here’s the preview taster:

“Indiana Jones is having a quiet life teaching before being thrust back into his old adventuring. He battles agents of the Soviet Union for the crystal skull. Indy’s journey takes him across New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City, and the jungles of Peru, as well as the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

So, I’ve no need to sum up how much I’m looking forward to this film. I even neglected going to see Iron Man until next weekend, giving a review of it, as I wanted to talk about this again.

Here’s a top 5 of things you’re almost guaranteed to get with this film

1. There will be lots of jokes regarding how old Indy is now. Expect the odd ‘grampa’ jibes, and ’shouldn’t you be in a old peoples home’ comments. Joining him in his adventures is Shia LaBeouf, who I saw last year in Transformers, so expect lots of references to him being ‘too young’ to be on ‘these kinds of adventures’ and so on. And, although it may not be referenced in the films, you’ll also notice that despite Harrison being well into his 60’s, he’s been working out for this role. So yes, lots of old man muscles, possibly making him look like Ric Flair.
2. Shia will be young, cocky, and think he knows best. He has been put in the role of a Greaser, the 1950’s equivalent of the Fonz from Happy Days
3. Jim Broadbent succeeding in portraying an even better foolish sidekick than the equally talented Denholm Elliot, who played Marcus Brody. I take nothing away from Denholm, his chacter in the 1st and 3rd films was a great addition, but as Broadbent is one of my favourite ‘older’ actors, I think this kind of role will see him shine.
4. Ford will spend some of the movie trying to chat up the main bad female (Cate Blanchett) and will kiss her at some point too. And why not, he’s kissed Nazi’s before, but of course the film stars Karen Allen, so at some point Indy will…
5. …Finish with Marion in his arms, riding of into the sunset… and no-one good will die.

Indy 4, or to give it its full title ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ will be released worldwide on May 22nd. Just enough time for you to sit down with your pals and see the first three in one sitting, then.

~

· This weekend saw Steve Ballmer announce that he was abandoning Microsofts three-month-old blockbuster bid to purchase Yahoo after the two companies could not agree on a price.

The breakdown followed a meeting in Seattle on Saturday morning between Microsoft C.E.O. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, and Yahoo C.E.O. Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder and chief executive.

Here’s a few sites that have been covering the story since it broke over the weekend:

Rory Cellan-Jones, part of the dot.life team, which itself is part of the BBC News website, says:

“On the face of it, Microsoft certainly comes out of this pretty badly. It has huffed, and it has puffed, but instead of blowing Yahoo’s house down, it has walked away meekly into the night, grumbling a little. Did it realise, during the three months from bid to retreat, that Yahoo was not such a prize after all?”

and he goes on to say:

“What a bright and sunny Sunday for those clever chaps at Google. Without spending a cent, they have stuck a spoke in the wheel of the Microsoft machine, and brought its efforts to mount a serious challenge in online advertising to a halt. So Google played a blinder, Yahoo was more adept in defence than in previous games, and Microsoft bottled it in front of goal. But I’ve a sneaking suspicion that we may get a rematch before the year is out.”

Anders Bylund at Ars Technica follows up the pro Google talk, on how it may now jump on whatever carcass Microsoft left:

“In this Olympic year, I think it’s clear how the medals were distributed for the MicroHoo race: Google gets the gold, Yahoo silver, and Microsoft did not finish due to a severely stubbed toe. Or maybe it’s a broken heart.”

Monday was clearly not a good day at Yahoo, shares were down 22%, for those who know what that means:

“At the start of the session, the Internet search pioneer was down nearly 20 percent, and in premarket trading down 22 percent. Microsoft’s gains have been shrinking through the morning, leaving the software giant up 0.24 percent to $29.48 a share in late morning trading.”

This was further noted on Mashable, under the heading ‘Yahoo sets $14 billion on fire‘:

“On the plus side, if there is one, Yahoo is only down 18 percent so far today (Monday), and at $23, is still about 20 percent higher than it was before Microsoft made its initial offer.”

Mashable aslo brought the name NewsCorp back into the equation, saying that it was ‘not a likely alternative‘, even AOL have been mentioned again. Even debates on Ballmer losing his job have surfaced… It’s all getting rather silly now…

It’s quite clear that this is far from the last time these three will be mentioned in this context this year. However will it end?

~~~

That was the week in lumps, a week in which: London is in for a very interesting 4 years, Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby ( Eight Belles, the horse that came in second and was euthanized, was Hillary Clinton’s pick…), There is a final scene after the credits of Iron Man you’ll probably walk out before, a ’sex pest’ seal attacked a penguin, there are more than 500 Red Lions in the UK, and silence please, for the dumbest criminal of all time…

…and yes, you may be expecting a review of GTA:IV, since I was raving on and on about it, and bought it on the day of release, but as good as it is, I think firing my 5 pence worth isn’t going to make any difference. In short, I’m enjoying it one minute, hating it the next, baffled that I can’t seem to get the multiplayer to work thereafter. When I’m not playing it, I’m wanting to, and when I am, I’m getting frustrated with missions to the point of turning it off. This review does the best to some it up, so I take my hat off to the guy who wrote it.

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