The Museum Of Modern Thinking

I recently bought (ok, on the first day it came out) Soul Calibur IV on my Xbox 360. I used to play a lot of Soul Calibur II at work with a good friend and colleague, and enjoying handing her arse to her on a regular basis (hi, Victoria :P). After a l-o-n-g drought of decent fighting games on the Xbox 360 (i.e. no Tekken), I was looking forward to it.

I’m pleased to say I’m not disappointed in it. Ok, so it’s missing a couple of gameplay modes, some fighters are overpowered, some are cheap, some are cheap and overpowered (I’m looking at you, Apprentice from The Force Unleashed), but it’s still a rollicking good time. I’m currently enjoying making my son cry by battering his wizened little Yoda into smush with my Kilik character - it’s fun

What I’m enjoying a lot, and what I didn’t expect to, is the character creation mode. You can create either male or female characters, based on existing fighting styles, and then go nuts accessorising them with hats, monocles(!), neck wear, underwear(!!), head gear, spiky shoulder pads, metal greaves, ninja tabi, etc. It’s a lot of fun, and practical too: some items carry points to be added to your character’s traits, e.g. Power, Impact and Gauge. Attributes include useful things like Nullify Ring Out so you can’t be ringed out (oo-er), or Soul Vamp which takes your opponent’s health and giives it to you on a successful hit. These attributes are used in the Tower Of Souls mode in which you battle up a tower to get more items to improve your character so they can battle higher up the tower, ad infinitum (or at least until floor 60). The extra attributes can also be used in two-player versus matches, which makes for a lot of fun.

Anyhoo, it was mentioned by Victoria that she and her boyfriend Daz both created likenesses of themselves in the game, so I thought I’d do the same:

It’s meant to be me:

My son’s Gandalf (in his earlier years), and his The Bad Guy:

My custom Ivy and Hellacious (hey, shut up, it’s art! :P)

Ok, ok, so the last three are a bit questionable, but there you go Here’s what someone with far more talent than me can achieve (i.e. M. freakin’ Bison!):

Another YouTube clip that made me laugh - the guy at the end with the accordion inspires me The music choice is also excellent…

Hat tip to TheFightGeek.org

At last, a council has seen sense on speed cameras, calling them a “blatant tax on the motorist” - which they are

Fatalities were falling year on year until the introduction of speed cameras, and they’ve fell markedly less after that. Speed cameras only catch people who are exceeding (usually financially-motivated) speed limits; they don’t catch drink drivers, drug drivers, people on their bloody mobile phones, uninsured drivers, untaxed drivers, drivers who are being idiots, etc…

Let’s hope this a start of something…

At the weekend, I took my son (and myself) to see Kung Fu Panda, a film I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. In this Dreamworks animated tale, Jack Black voices a panda called Po serving up noodles in his dad’s noodle shack, but dreaming of joining the Furious Five - a group of highly-skilled martial artists. Obviously,with a name like Kung Fu Panda, every character’s an animal, so the Furious Five are actually named (and actually are) the animals their styles are based on, e.g. Mantis, Monkey, etc.

Through what appears to be an accident, Po is picked as the next Dragon Warrior, tasked with protecting the valley from the fearsome Tai Lung, voiced by (of all people) Ian McShane. Amazingly, old Lovejoy is superb in the role, really sinking his teeth (ho ho) into his Snow Leopard role. Tai Lung is, of course, held safely in a mountain fortress whilst Po begins his training - which basically consists of having the tar kicked out of him as the sifu (Dustin Hoffman) and the other Furious Five want him to leave.

They eventually warm to him (apart from sifu) just in time to Tai Lung to escape and head to the valley, seeking revenge on the sifu and his master for not declaring him the Dragon Warrior. Can Po unlock the awesome kung fu powers within him to rise to the challenge? Will the Furious Five survive their rop bridge battle with Tai Lung? Why is everyone an animal? Why the heck is Po’s dad a duck?!

Questions aside, the humour in the film was spot on, not too much, not too little, just right. Jack Black holds himself in check to deliver some quality lines, and it’s always nice to hear Jackie Chan. I didn’t even twig that Tigress was Angelina Jolie, but Viper was obviously Lucy Liu.

What I didn’t expect from the film was a small but welcome amount of philosophy. Sifu’s master Oogway talks about Panda’s destiny after Panda was named the Dragon Warrior and says, “A man often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”. Later, Oogway and Sifu are discussing the nature (or illusion) of control, as sifu feels he let down everyone by turning Tai Lung into a psycho - yep, that’s right, sify did it. Anyway, Oogway and sifu discuss the planting of a peach stone - sifu says he can control where he places it, how it grows, and Oogway counters that sifu can’t control what it grows into - it’s peach tree, always will be, can’t be anything else.

And it’s there that the simple message of the film lies, but hey, this film doesn’t really need a message. It’s funny, the animation is outstanding (rivalling Pixar, I would say), the martial arts choreography is exceptional (Tai Lung’s prison break-out is especially good), and the last twenty minutes or so of the film is the epic final battle - and I’ve not laughed harder in a cinema for ages

In all, it’s a worthy 9 out of 10, with a point deducted for not letting Jackie Chan speak more. I value this film so much, I’m buying it on DVD. Whilst that sounds obvious, I can pretty much remember a film after a couple of viewings, so a film has to be a bit special before I buy it.

I’m an occasional visitor to The Onion, and the following is absolutely hilarious:

Brief, but funny

As a follow on from the rant below, I was watching the news tonight which covered some lads from the Mercian Regiment receiving very distinguished medals for gallantry from the Queen. One chap got his Conspicuous Bravery medal for retrieving his fellow wounded soldier whilst under attack from the Taleban after being shot - twice. The second bullet ripped through his hip and came out of his stomach, along with some guts. He just poked them back in and went to rescue his fellow soldier.

Frankly, I think I would have given up after being shot the first time. That’s some classic SUL, right there - well done gentlemen!

As a contrast to the long, long rant below, I cheered myself up by watching a parkour (no, not hardcore) video. I am in awe of the athletes in this video, if I could do just 5% of what they do, I’d be happy:

Phenomenal stuff - it’s a bit long, but worth the watch. Anyway, you weren’t doing anything important, were you?

I found the following image on a t-shirt over at BustedTees, a rather humorous t-shirt site in the US:

For those of you who are grammatically challenged, the joke is not that “we are #1″ (i.e. “we are”), but were, as in “once was, but not now”. As in, Britain is no longer the powerful and respected nation it was once.

So, where did it all go wrong? We could start with Ted Heath signing us up to the EEC in ‘73, although I’m sure he couldn’t have seen the never-ending EU interference in almost every aspect of our lives - even banning common garden pesticides that have been used for years, or writing the book on how to punish people who don’t recycle enough or close their bin lids.

Or how about the now-bloated welfare state? It’s propped up by decent, hard-working folks paying all their tax to support lazy, work-shy gits “on the sick” although they’re more than capable of working. John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue, once suggested that the Government should scrap the welfare system as it breeds laziness and encourages more welfare scrounging. I used to smile when I saw little kids with their mums, running along, but these days all I see is a girl who looks barely sixteen, smoking a fag with her baby (with pierced ears, obviously) and they’re both a drain on society.

How about education? We used to be ranked number 4 in the world and if I recall correctly, we’re now somewhere past number twenty-five. The education system is so bad I’m having to send my son to remedial lessons as the teachers don’t have the time to spend with him as they speed through the syllabus so they get to the important stuff: drilling the kids to pass tests, so the school looks good in the league tables. I certainly don’t remember getting homework when I was in primary school. Now, kids are just drilled to pass tests, instead of being taught something practical. And as for practicality, not every kid is a genius - there will be some children who are just not academically inclined (I count myself in that number) and who will not make it to university. That’s fine - we need labourers, we need plumbers, brickies, and the like. God knows I wouldn’t know where to start if I had to build a wall, although I had plenty of lessons from watching my dad, a seminal handyman.

I’ll also point my figure at the disgusting spectre of political correctness, the namby-pamby, don’t say anything in case you offend someone, self-censoring mindset that has become so prevalent under the last ten years of Labour “governance”. Folks, you will be, at some point in your life, grossly offended: get over it. My freedom of speech trumps your right to be offended, including a bunch of zealots who go mental over cartoons of their spiritual leader. I’ve been offended many times in my life, either to my face, in print, by something I’ve seen and you know what? I’ve spluttered, but then went home and had a strong cup of tea and got over it. People who make a big deal about taking offence are usually after something they feel they are owed, but as the great philosopher Rocky Balboa once said, “Nobody owes nobody nothin’. You owe yourself”.

I’ll briefly touch on another thing that’s diluted this once-great country: diversity. What a pointless, useless endeavour. If you have to be told to give everyone (man, woman, black disabled lesbian, muslim, whoever) a fair shake of the stick, you must be retarded, or you’re working for a retarded company that thinks you’re retarded. Diversity, or respect for another culture, can (and often does) lead to segregation, which is no good for anyone. Why, for example, is there a Black Police Officers Association? Do they really feel that hard done by? Where’s the White Police Officers Association? And before you reply, “The whole Police Officers Association is white”, I answer with why didn’t the black police officers join the Police Officers Association, and forget about their colour?

I won’t bother touching on religion, but we are a Christian country and I agree with various recent statements that we are losing our Christian values, e.g. no good samaritans any more. I put this solely at the feet of other, more influential religions, believed by people who are even more weak-minded than Christians. And if that offends you: get over it

Hmm, who’s next? How about the police? How have we gone from the good, hard but fair copper to police who think it is ok to arrest an ex-soldier for performing a citizen’s arrest on a little chav who was throwing sticks and eggs at his house? Why wasn’t the little chav arrested? You have police who do the bidding of private companies and go and arrest known protesters (see Taking Liberties for details), whilst recording them with “in your face” tactics (the Forward Information Team, very Big Brother). I suppose the arrests help them meet their Government-enforced targets, which explains why they arrested a man for shagging his bicycle (indecent exposure), even though he was behind closed doors. I shudder to think about being arrested and slapped on the DNA database, just awaiting a trawl through when a copper goes on a fishing expedition. As for the other part of the law, punishment: don’t make me laugh. The CPS doesn’t know its arse from its elbow, prosecuting people for mundane offences (e.g. leaving their bin lid open) whilst letting muggers, rapists etc go free. The hardened criminals who do get banged up can be released halfway through their sentence with good behaviour (thanks, Labour) or they can just wait until they get released early due to lack of prison spaces (thanks, Labour, again).

Oh yeah, I’m totally against unfettered immigration as well. It puts too great a strain on this country’s infrastructure and resources, brings in many undesirable criminal elements and their supporting networks (gangmasters, etc.), and makes Derby high street sound like Soviet Russia with sad dreary violins playing.

So, we come to the main reason why this country is no longer great: the Labour party. I have never seen such a bunch a mendacious, shifty, incompetent, wilful, arrogant, socialist, trough-snuffling, useless twats in my life. We’re rocketing back in time to the 70s, with rubbish on the streets, a summer of strikes looming, stagflation (look it up), rampant unions (the only people keeping Labour solvent, apart from Lord Sainsbury), high crime and all the other crap that a bunch of liberal “we know best” nanny-state gits manage to generate. And don’t give me “all politicians are the same” crap: how many other MPs resigned their seats in protest of the Labour Government’s disgusting 42 days detention bill? How many? Right, just one: David Davis, the man who, I think now, should be the one leading the Conservatives. Labour: they’ve ruined education, they’ve allowed massive immigration, they want to ride roughshod over the countryside with this new planning quango, they’ve ruined the economy (Gordon Brown, safe pair of hands? Prudent? My arse), they’ve turned Britain into the most surveilled country in the world: they want our DNA, they want ID cards, they want to inspect, to control, to dictate, to monitor, to guide….

WELL, THAT’S ENOUGH! BASTA! I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more! Emigration is not an option - I can’t deride people coming into the country and then go and do the same myself. I’m staying here to fight to get my country back - my glorious countryside, cricket on a Summer’s day with warm beer, county shows and home-baked cakes, good manners and courtesy in abundance, police clipping local thugs around the ear and their parents being ashamed of them. No speed cameras, no ID cards, no CCTV cameras, no wind farms (I’ll go back to a horse and cart if need be), no EU interference in every small thing that I do, talking with complete strangers about the weather and inviting them in a tea, dealing with our problems with a stiff upper lip instead of airing them on the Jeremy Kyle show, reading Boys Own Stories to my son on a winter’s night in front of a log fire… It all sounds idyllic, but it’s what we had previously, and it’s what we can get back. The first thing to do is get rid of this corrupt Government (and admittedly, some of the corrupt Opposition) and start repealing the madness that has made its way onto the statute books over the last ten years.

What a long, emotional post that was for me. There’s still so much that I see wrong in this country, things that are ripe for improvement, but they’ll have to wait for later. God help you all if I ever become Prime Minister

So, I’ve been having some pain in my big toe for a while now (over a month), and went to my GP to get it looked at. After a prod and a poke, she sent me off to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary for an x-ray. I duly went, and a couple of weeks later got the results back - no sign of break, everything ok.

On going back to my GP again for a discussion, I mentioned I was now covered by my employer’s private healthcare scheme, so she suggested I went off to see them. On Monday, I saw a specialist orthopaedic surgeon who had a very quick poke and prod and bundled me off to x-ray. I was sent immediately and fifteen minutes later (not two weeks), was back in his office and he was pointing to the x-ray and saying, “Look, there’s the stress fracture…”, i.e. I have a broken toe.

Again, the NHS has missed something, primarily due to the fact that I was lying down for the x-ray, instead of being on my feet, which is when the pain occurs - genius! How much extra money has been pissed away on the NHS by Labour? Useless, totally useless…

A few weeks ago, my mother had a unpleasant fall and badly hurt her shoulder and her arm. I went visiting as soon as I could (the immediate) weekend, and have been calling every day to make sure she’s ok.

At initial consultation, they took four x-rays of her shoulder and two doctors and a physiotherapist looked at them and concluded there were no fractures. My mum, unfortunately, was still in a lot of pain and going through the rigmarole of getting pain relief from the doctor that helped with the pain and didn’t make her feel nauseous.

After a week or so of no improvement, she went back to the hospital who exmained the x-rays, concluded there was still nothing wrong and said she should continue with the medication and physio exercises. Today, she’s been to see her GP who finally diagnosed a DISLOCATED SHOULDER.

I mean, how hard is it to spot a dislocated shoulder? Why the hell wasn’t it picked up sooner? How incompetent were the initial consulants? What really gets me is mum’s been walking around for weeks in a lot of pain, bearing with it, and it’s been completely unnecessary.

Credit to my sister who went back to the original hospital and raised hell - if I’d have been there they would have got both barrels. Of course, now the hopital can’t do enough for my mum, but it would have been a lot easier four weeks ago. They tried to put the shoulder back in under sedative, but it kept popping out, so tomorrow they’re going to try putting it back in under general anaesthetic, but if it pops out she’ll have to cut open and pinned - a prospect I’m not pleased about.

My sister and and I will be raising an official complaint about the matter via PALS, and God help them if anything serious happens to my mother.

Obviously, a political point: how many extra billions have been poured into the NHS, and they can’t even spot a dislocated shoulder? It makes me think about the x-rays I recently had on my toe, where there was “no sign of fracture” - a second opinion is needed, methinks.

EDIT: Apparently, my mum has not needed to have her shoulder pinned as it popped back in (”reduced”) quite easily under general anaesthetic - so I’m relieved.