So Bad it’s Bad.

I had very good intentions of visiting the cinema this weekend. With one thing and another, however, that just didn’t happen so I ended up streaming King Arthur, Legend of the Sword instead. Go me!

While my expectations were very, very low, they far exceeded the reach of the film and I truly, truly, wish I could get this part of my life back.

Charlie Hunnam is very sad I didn't like his movie

This utter steaming turd pile of a film was so bad that I got complaints about the smell from five miles away and a visit from the serious crimes against art division of Interpol. I go on trial for watching this piece of faecal matter next week.

 

Special Advance Viewing showing the good bits

The cast mostly sleep-walked through the utterly turgid script and if they weren’t up for being cast as Sherwood Forest in the next version of a Robin Hood movie, they most certainly are now, and I am sure they’d be up to award-winning standards for general woodenness.

 

Charlie Hunnam is ecstatic at my review

Add to the kind of lazy direction you’d expect from a sloth on valium, over-reliance on dodgy special effects, the odd bits of the film that do stand out are drowned in the utter sewage the rest swamps us with. Laughable in parts for all the wrong reasons, it even fails to be so bad it's funny. It’s just so bad it’s bad.

Yes, elephants - in a King Arthur Film - Elephants. Sigh

 So, does it have any redeeming features whatsoever? Well, I am sure the people who judge the quality of the acting on the quality of the six-pack will find Oscar-winning moments in the early parts of the film where Charlie Hunnam aimlessly flails his arms around in a way designed to show off said musculature. I am sure you will understand if I say I could care less about that part, but I would have to try pretty hard.

By the Power of the SIX PACK!

Is that it? Not quite. The film is at its poor best when Guy Ritchie does his street kid stuff and does feature such characters as ‘Wet Stick’ and ‘Back Lack’ and various interestingly named Bills.

Sadly, this doesn’t save it from being the most uninteresting generic pile of dung I’ve seen recently. Go watch Twilight 3, god help me it's far better than this manure. 

The David Beckham Cameo just tops it all off. Seriously 

Everything, Everywhere All At Once

 Yet Another Trip to the Cinema! 

Today I decided to utterly waste my time and instead of working on the flat, squander much of my day off heading to the Cinema once more to see Everything, Everywhere All At Once.

Coming out of the place I have to tell you I don’t think the time was wasted. Great performances, direction, and incredibly impressive use of a tiny budget all add up to a tour de force.

While you don’t have to see this on a big screen. I hope this one does well because we need to see more film-making like this.

The movie was beautiful, funny, emotional, action-packed, and utterly, utterly bizarre, completely living up to the title.

Make sure you see it.

I'm sorry to say there's nothing more in the review because while I made the attempt I found myself unable to expand on what I’ve written without keeping it spoiler-free. 

Do yourself a favour and go see this.

Trip to the Cinema - Top Gun Maverick

Intro - Skip if you come from Facebook

 

This is my first film review for a long time. I’ve not been to the cinema much at all for ages. I blame work. So there.

Most of you will have already decided whether you’re going to see this or not already. If you happened to be undecided, it’s well worth seeing and if you’re going to see it, for goodness’ sake see it on the big screen, don’t bother with this small screen rubbish

Full review here:-

 Maverick has been 40-odd years in the making. Do I care - not really. What I'm doing here for the first time is getting to one of the subjects I promised I was going to blog about! 

When I walked into the cinema I did almost wonder if they’d taken the old film off the shelf and just started to show it again. There was the danger zone song, Tom Cruise looking pretty much like he did in the 80’s (I am pretty sure that he had been preserved in amber honestly) and all the stuff you’d expect. My first thought was ‘Oh no, here we go again, yet another triumph of style over substance.’   

You know. I was wrong. This is a film of surprising depth. Yes, you’ll guess the plot within 10 minutes. Yes, the visuals are incredible, and all the more so because the aerial scenes were practical, and apparently had no CGI. Yes, there are chiseled jaws, cheesy soundtracks, Mav riding along on a motorcycle for no good reason, and a bunch of guys pratting around on a beach showing off their six-packs. 

But; I was absolutely shocked by the depth of the character and emotional beats, the clever tie-ins to what had gone before, and was even surprised by one or two things in particular, which I won’t mention because I am trying to keep this review spoiler-free. I actually ‘cared’ about the characters (as much as you can in a film of this nature and far more than I expected to) and I was totally immersed throughout. 

  

So this film delivers in every way you’d expect and a whole lot more. So long as you’re prepared to switch your brain off, ignore how absolutely anorexic most of the plot is and go along with what’s there, this is great, but then what did you expect? It's Top Gun for goodness sake!

 I was riveted throughout. See it on the biggest screen with the best sound system and prepare to be blown away.

From the Pits of the Hells

As we come to this weeks tale of Yellow Peril, my circumstances had changed somewhat. I was working as a labourer in the holidays, and I had two part-time jobs at Exeter. More importantly, I had to transport all my stuff on the bike, this amounting to three suitcases, a holdall, and of course the ubiquitous throw-over panniers which contained the ever-growing toolkit. I kept all this on the back seat of the bike with what was an absolute miracle of bungee engineering, which had everything locked down harder than a porn star's ding-dong on viagra and was widely counted as an engineering marvel of the modern world, especially if the number of times I got stopped by the police was any indication!

No photos exist of Yellow Peril any more but you get the idea

Anyway, I had this wondrous contrivance on the back of my bike, when the timing went on the damned thing, despite special attention being paid to the points cover screws before I left.   But, by then I was an old hand at this and I had done this so often that I knew exactly where to realign the points, so I stopped by the side of the road and started getting the tools out to make the fix.

Then 15+ huge bikes of the chopper variety rode up. No exaggeration! None! Not even a tiny bit!

Slightly more bikes than I got; but only slightly

One of the nice things about being a biker is that there’s a tradition of not only being friendly to other bikers by nods and waves, but also stopping to help out when you see someone in apparent distress. I have reason to know that it’s still current and it’s a good thing. 

However, on this one occasion, I’d have been quite happy to see these guys ride by. I’m sure you’ll understand why! 

However, that’s not what happened. They all stopped, and the first rider got off, I remember vividly that he was absolutely huge and had a massive chain wrapped around his torso. 

Yeah like this - only bigger with 

more hair, and more muscles, and...

The second got off and I noted that he had a knife sticking out of his boot, then the third, and so on. And yes, you’ve got it. I was surrounded by a Hell’s Angels chapter, complete with tattoos, colours on a denim waistcoat, and all the other trappings you expect. 

With no sign of Enya tracks or Irish scenery in the background, or indeed Michel Flatley and his Riverdance girls, I knew I wasn’t in an Irish episode of Sons of Anarchy (and if you’ve not read my review of it in a previous post, you should,  it’s a masterpiece!) and I thought I was in a lot of trouble. If these guys wanted to beat the crap out of me it was going to happen and there wasn’t much 18-year-old me could have done about it.

I didn't want to fuck with their bikes 

just for the record, you understand

‘GO and sit over there’ said the guy with the chain.

‘OK’ I said I am still quite proud that my voice didn’t come out as a squeak. 

Not quite a squeak.

So, I sat ‘over there’, while their girlfriends brought me over a cup of tea and chatted with me and the guys stood around Yellow Peril, talking amongst themselves. I heard such words of wisdom as ‘Engine’s Fucked’, and ‘Piece of shit’ and eventually ‘timing’s out’ after many manful attempts to get the engine going.

So, they fixed the bike up and got it going for me. Honestly, I could have got it done in a fraction of the time they took, but I am sure you’ll understand why I wasn’t going to tell them that. Besides the tea, and the company was nice!    

After they’d fixed the bike, they rode with me to what I remember as being the county line, me on Yellow Peril with the first wonder of the bungee engineering world strapped to the back of my bright yellow 250, in the middle of all of them with their huge Harleys and custom choppers. Did I feel utterly ridiculous and totally embarrassed? Oh yes. Would I have given the experience up for the world? Hell NO.

So that was it – at some designated place known only to them they waved me on and rode off into the sunset never to be seen again. The rest of the journey passed without incident. When (I am certain) some of their bikes broke down shortly after I am sure it was absolutely nothing to do with the individuals who took the mickey out of Yellow Peril. Honest! (Sorry about that.)

It was perhaps at that point that the penny really began to drop. I was broken down, and HELLS ANGELS turn up to help me out. Coincidence? I don't think so! 

How I Begin to Learn That My Bike is Possessed by the Prince of Darkness

By the time I came to move down to Exeter to study for an engineering degree I had learned something of the trials of riding Yellow Peril. Clearly, I was getting the idea of what my bike truly was so yes, it had that name by then. However, for my first trip down to Exeter I was sensible and took the discounted railway tickets we were offered along with the vans that took our luggage to our halls. Once more, go me! I’m sure I saved myself a lot of suffering on the journey. 

However, in the term time where I commuted the 7 miles to uni, I learned the value of having a filter in the fuel line, after I lost a whole tankful of petrol to pieces of dirt that had accumulated in the tank while its previous owner had stored it. They'd made their way down into the carburetor, where they caused the fuel intake valves to stick open. Still, a tank and carburetor clean later, plus said filter, and I was good to go – and that’s when I discovered the superpower of the bike, because everyone who had a laugh at my expense, had their bikes break down shortly after! Justice!! Or was it more?

I joined the bike club at the uni and we had several rides out – with the usual results, but I’ll get to some of those in a bit. I was learning to cope with the unique nature of Yellow Peril and it bothered me a bit less as time passed.

Home from Exeter

Now, this was something quite different. Mum and dad had separated in my first term at uni, with all the usual hardships for all concerned which I won’t bother you about. What that meant was that they were unable to support me financially over my time at university, so I would have to find work. 

Fortunately, dad had found me a job labouring at a local fabrication shop. Unfortunately, we were going through pretty much the worst December I could remember and the ‘A’ roads between Exeter and home were closed. I was still on ‘L’ plates then.

Fortunately, however, they’d sent a snow plough across the A303, and there was a window of opportunity, with more snow forecast, to get back home, and no matter what I was going to take it. So on with the 3 sets of jackets, trousers, socks gloves, etc, on with the full tool-kit and complete once-over of Yellow Peril and I was off, no matter what the risks.

What can I tell you? In retrospect, this went far beyond mere stupidity, even beyond complete foolhardiness. I was literally an hour behind the second snow-plough over the A303, snow was, in sections, piled high on both sides of the roads, and despite all of the layers and the hot thermos, I was massively, massively cold. So cold that, in fact, I had to stop twice to warm my hands up (still in gloves) on the engine. When I finally got through Salisbury plain to a garage which was open and had somewhere I could warm up, when I tried to get off the bike, my legs collapsed underneath me and I needed help to get into the service station! There they let me sit down and have a cup of hot, sweet tea so I could warm up and put some fuel in the bike.  I was just so, so, glad that I wasn’t a brass monkey (I’ll leave you to look that saying up if you don’t know it, but I bet you do)

If Yellow Peril had broken down across the A303, in trying to fix it I would quite possibly have died of exposure, but I was young, invincible and the was the one time, the one time (at least back then) that the bike didn’t let me down. I was beyond lucky, or perhaps the demon possessing the bike wanted to get back too.

While the rest of the journey was massively easier than that part, I still can’t describe the complex mix of feelings I had when I just about managed to round the final corner and home was in sight.

For the next four to six weeks, I ran both my dad and I into work because the roads were too bad for his car (I could drive on the clear bits) and absolutely worked my arse off at this labouring job, because the alternative was giving up on the degree, at least as I saw it then. Would I make those same decisions today? Not a chance, but then I think we can all say that about certain stages of our lives, can’t we?

Oh, and I had learned at least some sense. When faced with similar conditions to get back, I said ‘hell no’. I got into trouble for that at university but I did get a couple more weeks labouring!

Tales of Yellow Peril Part 1

Presented here for the first time in print, are (most) of the Tales of Yellow Peril, a bike truly as awful as the name implies, and all mine! I've pre-wriiten much of this so the tales will arrive regularly, at which point I intend to carry on with the stories, reviews, etc this blog is intended to present.  

Yellow Peril was my first ‘proper’ bike. It taught me a lot, had countless hours of love and care lavished on it, gave me absolute hell, nearly killed me more than once, and, it must be said gave me some damned good stories. Yes, it was THAT bike. 

I started biking at age 17, scarily enough, on a bike I’d saved the money for myself, using the huge wage of £1.075 per hour (note that ½ p) from my amazing job stacking shelves at Waitrose That first bike was the oh-so-very-mighty Honda CB100n. While you’re going to get something about the CB, this bike just can’t hold a candle to what followed. For starters, it worked.

I was shocked to see a CB100n come up recently for auction at around £3500! Mine was needless to say somewhat cheaper at £300 – and quite honestly the guy who sold it to me shamelessly ripped a naive first-time biker off! 

However, as my very first Enchilada of Freedom it did the job, and I learned a fair bit from it. And at an average MPG of 130 it did everything very cheaply as well. Plus, the insurance was stupidly low for a new 17-year-old biker at £93 fully comp. I was very lucky because dad paid for that, but clearly only boring people rode this bike and it was never stolen or had accidents. Just for reference, I don’t pay much more today for a far larger machine, but that’s because I am an old fart with a dammed good record. Go me! 

So to get back to the story, the lack of chutzpah was the thing, especially at age 17. Yes, the bike did everything, but it wasn’t cool, and really didn’t have much by way of legs for longer journeys, so before very long I’d convinced myself that I need a bigger bike. I really did NEED it, you understand? Nothing whatsoever to do with the lack of coolness. Nothing. Look, I was 17! OK?

Back then as many of you reading this will remember, the limit for learners at 250cc with no cap in place for top speed or horsepower. However, the learner bike of choice back then was a Honda Superdream, which in my starry 17-year-old eyes looked great and had a lot of virtues, most of them to do with the fact that it was physically big for a 250, but many of them (in reality) stemming from the fact that it was essentially a 400 cc bike with 250 cc bore in it which made everything under stressed. Not that I cared about those things, it was just a lot cooler than what I had!

Actually, in retrospect I think the coolest bike learners could own was probably the Yamaha RD250, (maybe the Kawasaki KH even if the centre cylinder did seize.) Back then I believe the first Yam 250LC models were about to hit us, but I was firmly in the 4-stroke camp, thanks pretty much to my dad, so I stand by my choice! 

However, reality kicked in. The prices of most of the cool bikes at the time were way out of my pocket, so if I wanted to upgrade to 250 ccs I’d have to pull in my horns a bit. Time to go looking. 

Checking out the Thames Valley Trader (ye olde version of Motor Trader) gave me several possibilities and I found the bike I eventually chose at a dealer in Camberley. At 7,000 miles, I careful owner (a doctor) full-service history and £300. Right up my alley!  I’d already sold my CB100, and had some money saved for the extra tax and insurance so I proudly handed over my cash and I was good to go! Right?

Wrong. 

In retrospect, I am sure Dark gods started laughing as I rode home. I know the dealer was.

I quickly discovered that this was a damned awful piece of engineering – I don’t care what the retrospective reviews may say, this bike sucked harder than a toilet in an airplane’s bathroom. 

On a recommended service interval of 1500 miles, you basically had to change the oil every 750-1000 miles. You learned to adjust the cam chain as part of your weekly maintenance or it started making noise very quickly, and I learned to take a full toolkit on every long journey, because, for a long time, with pretty much ONLY 1 exception, something would go wrong every time I traveled more than 100 miles or something would fall off. Given that I lived in Exeter and my dad was in Marlow I did that a fair bit.

What was good about the bike? Well, it had Short Vehicle stickers (yes SHORT vehicle stickers), came with a free vibro-massage with every ride (which was the root of a lot of the problems I had I think) and it was fairly easy to fix.

 

Even looking back on the thing with rose-tinted specs I really can’t think of anything else! Well, actually there is one good thing. Everyone single person who took the mickey out of my bike broke down shortly after. Every SINGLE person. From that, and a few other things, I was led to the inexorable conclusion that this bike was possessed by the devil, well a demon prince at the very least. Christine, eat your heart out! (Ghost rider wasn’t a film yet). 

I’ve talked about the bike a fair bit, though I’ve not covered everything yet so I’m absolutely certain that It’s about time I stopped extolling the virtues of the machine and talk about some of the big rides I took it in. We shall start that journey with the next post.