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The Top 10 Films I've seen this year

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  Top Ten Films As has been said in my last post fuck 2020. But thank god for films! I should say that featured here are only films that I've seen for the first time this year. Nonetheless, it's a cracking list if I      do say so myself. I've also put a film to watch if you enjoyed that particular film, feel free to ignore of course. Ignore all of it if you want. Here we go... 10. Diego Maradonna (2019) dir. Asif Kapadia The death of Diego Maradonna meant that there was no way this brilliant documentary wasn’t making the cut. He was simply the most brilliant player to ever have graced the pitch, and this documentary focuses on his glory years at Napoli, where he literally dragged the team almost single-handedly from mid-table to the top - and turned Naples against Italy at the 1990 world cup for his own benefit. I think what’s so brilliant about this documentary is it’s representation of both the good and the bad of Diego. Such an enigmatic and legendary figure...

The Top 10 Books I've Read This Year

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 Top Ten Books Fuck 2020. It might be the worst year I've ever experienced. Covid-19 has effectively ruined all the things in my life I love to do. Playing gigs, watching gigs, going to the cinema and heading to the pub. nothing's the same anymore. But, I have found solace in reading at least. Books have given me enjoyment and an escape in a climate that has produced anxiety and fear for the most part. So I've made a list of my favourites. This isn't year specific, but I've read 22 books this year, and I thought I'd organise them into a top 10 and give a quick thought/summary on each of them. I'd highly recommend all of these books to anyone who hasn't read them. Anyway, here we go... 10. Killing Commendatore (2017) by Haruki Murakami The most recent Murakami novel and one of voyeurism, a talking painting and an ancient mysterious bell. Honestly, whenever you try and give a brief synopsis of one of his novels you either sound ridiculous or mental - but o...

Part Nine: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

  The Travel Diary of South-east Asia Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels two years ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part eight click  here . Part nine concerns Siem Reap in Cambodia. 6th of February 2019 - Bangkok, Thailand > Siem Reap, Cambodia After a modest breakfast and lunch alongside the last 50 pages of my book, I was actually picked up personally by the coach at the door of my hostel. The proprietor must have something to do with the coach company. It was another long journey, but I’d learnt to grin and bear it all by now, and so I watched inconsequential things on my phone and listened to my downloaded playlist, soft folk pickings of John Martyn and Laura Marling as we rode from th...

Part Eight: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

  The Travel Diary of South-east Asia Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels over a year ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part seven click  here . Part eight concerns Hua Hin and the meeting of Marianne. 2nd - 3rd of February 2019 - Bangkok > Hua Hin, Thailand What on earth has just happened?      So I should state that during my trip I’d been speaking via Instagram to someone I’d met only once back home called Marianne. To be honest in the drunken haze I was in the only time I’d met her left me barely able to recall her, but she was also in Thailand doing her TEFL. After a few messages, I’d decided to take a detour down to Hua Hin where she was based to see her.    ...

Film: Incendies (2010)

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                 Oedipal War *Contains spoilers*      I don’t feel like I can shake off this film. I watched it yesterday and vivid snippets of it keep haunting my mind, which I’m sure was director Denis Villeneuve’s intentions. Villeneuve certainly doesn’t reinvent the genre of war thriller or anything here, but he certainly approaches it with a nuance which feels fresh, and a twist which sticks around with you almost with as much vehemence as something like Oldboy (2003).      Incendies opens with a masterfully shot opening scene, reminiscent of other war films like Apocalypse Now (1979), where nature is impeded by the violence of war to the sound of The End by The Doors. Here we see a beautiful landscape and a smooth movement of the camera as Thom Yorke’s voice fades in and we head into a disturbing house where child soldiers are being created by a mean looking militia. ‘Come on if you think you can take u...

Part Seven: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

The Travel Diary of South-east Asia Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels over a year ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part six click  here . Part seven concerns Ko Lanta, Railay Beach and Bangkok in Thailand. 29th of January 2019 - Ko Lanta, Thailand I woke up and swiftly found out that Dan had gotten food poisoning last night from the restaurant. I went in the toilet after him and he most definitely wasn’t lying. I guess steering away from the meat had done me a great favour then. Dan was out of the equation, and this would be a good opportunity to get a taster of what it would be like on my own again. In truth it had been only 2 weeks since our meeting on the bus to Kuala Lumpur, but traveling has ...