Ramblings of a Brit abroad

Much like Arsene Wenger, I refuse to concede the Premiership title. It is still there to be won. I would be the first to admit that after the Gunners 1-1 draw with Liverpool yesterday, things looked bleak, but then wouldn’t you know it, Boro went and upset the odds again. Annoying isn’t it. They just seem to raise their game when the big teams come to town.

As I see it, this weekend’s big winners were Chelsea who now sit only 3 points behind United and with Arsenal playing United next weekend and United still to go to Chelsea, this is far from over.

With all 3 teams still involved in Champions League stuff as well, this could be one of the best run ins in recent years.

Add to this an FA Cup final between Portsmouth and Cardiff, no wonder this is the greatest game on the planet.

Once again, thanks to those nice people at Netflix, we got to see another movie very soon after its DVD release here in the US.

Now, I quite fancied seeing this on the big screen, but as per usual, never got round to it so we spent yesterday evening in the company of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. He was joined by a large chunk of the “Harry Potter” gang, namely Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall. The story revolves around Benjamin Barker, a Barber ( Depp ) who is falsely transported to Australia by Judge Turpin ( Rickman ). He returns to London to gain revenge and reclaim his daughter. He sets up his Barber Shop above the Pie Shop owned by Mrs. Lovett ( Bonham Carter ) and a sinister partnership develops with Mrs. Lovett baking Todd’s victims into meat pies.

This film has Tim Burton written all over it. It is shot in a style similar to Sleepy Hollow which is a drained colour with certain dream sections shot in full colour. Depp gives a Oscar Nominated performance and has a good singing voice. Yes, this is, I believe, the first musical slasher movie. Whilst, I am not usually a fan of musicals, this was strangely watchable, although Mrs. Adams got a little tired of the amount of bloodshed and gave up about half way through. I would recommend this film to an adult audience and especially to those with a stronger constitution.

Watch out for a cameo by Sasha Baron Cohen ( Borat, Ali G ) as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, a character from Todd’s past who meets a particularly grisly end, as do most who cross his path.

Score 8/10

Thanks to the nice people at Netflix, we received a copy of “No Country for Old Men” on the day of it’s DVD release here in the US.

It is the story of a Vietnam Veteran, Llewelyn Moss ( Josh Brolin ) who stumbles across a gun battle in the desert with no survivors. There he discovers a massive haul of heroin and a trail of blood that leads to another body and 2 million dollars in cash. So he decides the best thing he can so is keep it. Big Mistake!!! Hot on his trail is Anton Chiguhr ( Javier Bardem ) in an Oscar winning role, as a psychopathic killer bent on retrieving the case of money by any means. Death and mayhem ensue with Chiguhr dispatching many of his victims with the aid of an air powered abattoir gun and a shotgun with a silencer.

In to the mix comes Sheriff Ed Tom Bell ( Tommy Lee Jones ) who tries to make some sense of the chaos going on around him in this small area of rural Texas, but with little success. All he discovers is bodies.
This is a stripped down crime thriller, expertly crafted by writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen, with little in the way of camera tricks apart from some spectacular gore, a very strong plot line and great performances, most notably by Brolin and Bardem. The latter quite rightly won the Best Actor in a supporting Role at this year’s Oscars as he gives a performance of a man so detached from real life that he can decide whether someone lives or dies by the toss of a coin.

I would thoroughly recommend this film to anyone as long as the smaller kids are tucked up in bed. And if you tend to not like graphic murders with an awful lot of blood, then you probably shouldn’t watch it either.

Score 9/10

It would appear, as my 45th birthday looms large, that I have reached what it commonly called a certain age.

I gave my beard a trim this morning and noticed a quite unusual amount of grey on my chin. Added to this, I seem to be losing the ability to grow hair on the top of my head and instead have become extremely proficient at growing hair from both ears and nostrils.

I have also noticed when getting up in the morning that I have run a marathon during the night as this can be the only explanation for being so stiff and achy.

Does anyone know if there is a worldwide database of the e-mail addresses of men in their 40’s as the offers of pills for what is delicately termed E.D. here in the US, have accelerated at an alarming rate.

But what annoys me most of all is that nobody will believe that I am younger than my wife, Zoe, who is serenely approaching her 50th without a care in the world and still looking like a woman in her late 30’s.

So what do I have to look forward to? I am guessing that pretty soon the already poor eyesight will require glasses to help me read and no doubt, somebody will soon suggest that a prostate exam is in order. I refuse to have some quack remove hair from another part of my body and sew it to my head, and a syrup is definitely out of the question. So when the inevitable eventually happens I shall either shave it all off, or start wearing a lot of different hats.

So when you ask me next year how old I am, I am 39….. GOT IT!!!!!

I have created a new category on here purely to point out the stupid, banal and more often than not, pointless rubbish that the press come out with sometimes.

This weeks special prize goes to the Daily Mail who thought it both interesting and newsworthy to point out that Celine Dion took to the stage in Tokyo recently with hairy legs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=529448&in_page_id=1773

Now it wasn’t that Miss Dion is a particularly hairy person, far from it. It was the fact that particularly bright back-lighting made her look furry and this was apparently newsworthy.

Now I gave up buying printed news some time ago in favour of the free online version and is it any wonder. I shall be scouring the pages of the various tabloids in search of more gems of ludicrous reporting but for the moment I shall leave you with a quote.

“But despite the grooming oversight, she succeeded in wowing the crowd with a typically dazzling performance.”

I am pretty sure that her hairy legs ( and arms if you look closely ) were not her number one priority whilst earning several million bucks signing her little heart out!!!

At the start of today, the odds of both Manchester United and Chelsea being out of the FA Cup must have been huge.

Whilst United were at home, they were playing Portsmouth and would have been odds on favourites to take the tie handsomely. Unfortunately, Harry Redknapp has a habit of dumping United out of the Cup and he went and did it again today. By all accounts, United had the lions share of the game and could have had it wrapped up by half time, but missed chances and more heroics from David James kept Pompey in it. With the second half drawing to a close, Tomasz Kuszczak, on at half time for the injured Van de Saar, brought down Baros inside the area and was sent off for his trouble, although replays show he was not even close to being the last defender. Sulley Muntari dispatched the resulting penalty past stand in keeper Rio Ferdinand for Pompey to record a famous win. Apparently Sir Alex is not happy as only 4 minutes of stoppage time was played where his watch indicated 17 minutes according to one Darren Adams.

In the other game, Chelsea were even bigger favourites to beat Barnsley, although the Yorkshire team had already knocked out Liverpool in an earlier round. Again, the Premiership side had most of the ball but scores were level at half time. Chelsea fell to a sucker punch when a long ball was played into the box by Martin Devaney and Kayode Odejayi outjumped Cudicini in the Chelsea goal to power the header home. Chelsea laid siege to the Barnsley goal for the last 20 minutes but to no avail.

So 1-0 defeats for both Chelsea and United. Favourites for the cup now must be Portsmouth. It’ll be interesting to see what the semis throw up after tomorrows games.

Tonight in Milan, something had to give. Arsenal had never been knocked out of Europe by an Italian team. AC Milan had never lost at home to a team from England. The odds were pretty favorable on a Milan win. Nobody mentioned that to Arsene and his merry band of youngsters.

For the first 15 minutes, it looked like the odds were right with Milan having the majority of the ball, but slowly Arsenal go back to their game and started passing the ball. What was most unlike Arsenal was the tenacity that they were showing in the tackling. Of course, the Italians did their usual and went down like sacks of spuds thrown from the back of a grocers lorry at Covent Garden but it didn’t seem to rattle the Gunners. Fabregas hit the bar, Diaby went close, Hleb was caught on the very edge of the box for what looked like a free kick at worst but got booked for diving. The first half finished honours even.

The second half started well for Arsenal with the same kind of commitment shown in the first half. Milan were being outplayed and you could see it in their faces. This shouldn’t be happening at home.

Finally the breakthrough. Fabregas picked up the ball just inside the Milan half and headed forward. The defenders backed off and our Csec thought he’d have a go from all of 30 yards. It skidded off the turf and past the giant Milan keeper who was a little slow getting down. With only 9 minutes left, Milan had to push forward and were caught on the break by a great run from the recently introduced Walcott who skipped past a challenge and centered for Adebayor to fire into an empty net.

On the night the right team won and it was a night for the youngsters. Of course, Fabregas looked the world class player we know he is, Walcott looked sharp when he came on, so much so that Milan moved Maldini from his duties on that side because of his pace. Also a word about Pato of Milan. At 18 years old, it looks like there is another Brazilian sharp shooter that needs to be watched. I have seen him play a few times now and he has always impressed.

But tonight is Arsenals night. I wonder who we’ll get next.

I have a problem with the way people drive here in the USA and after much thought, I have come to a conclusion.

It is the NASCAR effect. More to the point, it is something called drafting, which is the process of placing ones car in the hole in the air punched by the car or truck in front. It can be seen every Sunday at raceways across America, performed by highly skilled and very well paid daredevils in machines designed to do exactly this. And yes, every now and again, they get it ever so slightly wrong and end up smacking a concrete barrier at close to 200 mph. This, as they say, is part of racing and with roll cages, fire retardant suits, crash helmets and medical people only seconds away, drafting is an acceptable part of racing.

Where I do not find it acceptable, however, is on the I4 Interstate between Orlando and Tampa, in the rain on a Saturday afternoon. I would like to thank the complete moron in the Hummer H2 for placing several people in mortal peril this afternoon by his antics of trying to drive about 6 feet behind me at 70 mph. I wasn’t even in the outside lane. He had plenty of room to go around me, but left it to the very last minute to not signal and then overtake on the inside. Thanks Buddy !!!

And as for the guy weaving between lanes in the stretch Lincoln Limo… there’s just never a cop around when you need one.

Driving in the US is all still a bit strange to me. Much like the UK, people have no concept of thinking ahead when it comes to lanes merging and therefore always cause tailbacks, where if everyone just gave it a tiny bit of thought, slowed slightly and signaled early, we’d all get there much quicker.

So why do i find it strange? Because at 4 way stop signs, Americans are the politest people on earth, with a friendly “after you” attitude.

Go Figure !!!

Now I am no doctor but I would like to point out something that a large majority of the attendees of rock concerts seem to be unable to grasp.

If you consume a copious quantity of Bud Light or other such liquid before taking your seat for the gig, you may be in for a surprise.

When seated, you will find that there is a very large sound system which produces sound waves large enough to disintegrate a good size kidney stone. Now imagine what this is likely to do to your bladder.

That’s right, it will make you want to pee quite a bit. We found this out last night when the 2 guys next to us must have shuffled along the line to get out ( we were at the end of the row ) at least 9 times. Now the concerning thing was that the 2 in question seemed to have matching bladders as they always went together making it a double pain in the butt to have to get up and let them out and then in again.

So this is a public service announcement to all those who like a few beers before a gig, from those who get a good workout standing up and sitting down so many times it got kind of annoying. Either have fewer beers or learn to hold it!!!!

At the back end of last year, The Police very kindly paid a visit to Florida and played a great gig at the St.Petes Times Forum in Tampa.

I, for one, thought that this would be the once in a lifetime opportunity to see them before Andy Summers goes into a retirement home.

But no, they have decided that Florida needs another dose of their rock/reggae fusion and are playing in Orlando on the 16th of May. As if this were not enough, they have sweetened the deal by adding Elvis Costello as support.

And thanks to the wonderful people at Citi who are sponsoring the tour, we got first dibs on tickets a full 5 days before they go on sale to Joe Public.

I promise to post a full review as soon as possible after the event.