A Wee Review.

The Mimic - Wednesday @10pm - Channel 4 - Peter Campbell


In a time gone by an impressionist was an impressionist. An actor was an actor. Shows like Copy Cats and Who Do You Do were rigidly stuck in the land of mimicry. Even in the past decade, The Impressions Show and Star Stories have not strayed from the flock. But star of axed impressions show Very Important People (another sheep of the flock) Terry Mynott has taken his talents out of the frying pan and into the fiery depths of sitcom.

Mynott plays Martin Hurdle, a middle-aged man in a dead-end job, living in the basement flat of best friend Jean, with no desire to change the way he is living. The only escape he gets from the tedious routine is to mimic the voices of other people and celebrities. In one scene, he is stuck in traffic on the way to work and you hear Terry Wogan's voice coming out of the radio. Only problem is there is no radio in the car. Martin is imitating Wogan.

Martin's world is turned upside down however when he receives a call from an old flame saying he might be the father of her 18 year old son, Steven. Steven is the antithesis of Martin, working in IT, he is both ambitious and confident, and knows what he wants in life.. Steven is played by Jacob Anderson, best known for his role in British film Adulthood. The relationship between Martin and Steven develops when they realise they aren't so different, despite their age and varying levels of success.

As the show progresses Martin tries to escape his personal and work life more and more by flicking to 'mimic mode', an alter-ego which is most entertaining. Mynott is one of the most talented mimics of the 21st Century and well worth watching for that. Alongside him are a talented cast of British actors and actresses, including Jo Hartley (This Is England) who plays Jean, ditzy but loyal best friend and landlord. Jean notices Martin's potential and encourages him to do something about it.

Sadly these pros are outweighed by the more numerous and far more crucial cons. The plot is far too mundane and 'samesy' to be followed avidly. Coupled with a depressing soundtrack this creates a sort of double-life of the show that mirrors Martin's life.

On one hand, the sitcom. Martin's personal life. Yes, heart-warming that he has a son who he bonds with over the first two episodes. But otherwise frankly quite dull and mundane compared to other modern sitcoms such as Outnumbered. On the other hand, his dual personality. The mimic. Highly entertaining and enthralling. A childlike joy can be gleaned out of trying to guess who Martin is mimicking. Trying to be both sitcom and impression show is like trying to mix bacon and custard. Puzzling.

The verdict? A funny show, but only because of Mynott's mimicry talent. The clunky join between the main character's personal life and his mimic life sort of works, but you feel like you're watching two separate shows. If you're a fan of Impressionism it's worth watching the rest of the series, Wednesdays at 10pm on Channel 4. It is a bit of a break from the ridiculous fancy-dress Impressionism of Star Stories. To the non-interested in mimicry, just another sitcom.

The Age of Technology. And the age of those who operate it.

So, I'm writing this from my brand-spanking new iPhone 5 and no, this blog post isn't going to be me bragging about my cool gear!!
At the same time as writing this I'm watching television. On my iPad.
(Ok that sounded boasty.)
My point is that while I stress constantly that I need this advanced level of tech, and my bank balance stresses over the same problem, is it really 100% necessary?

For example, I was rather bored the other day so I began surfing the App Store while on my iPad. I came across a free app (or so I thought) that was entitled "Paper".
In the words of the great Rolf Harris: "can you tell what it is yet?"
Yep, it's literally an app with sheets of paper that you can draw on. And what the dastardly company failed to tell me was that although the app is initially free, if you want to be able to look like you're doing a good job of drawing without actually putting pen to paper you had to buy the drawing pack for £5.
I mean, the cheek of them to try scamming me!!

But this is the mere tip of the i-iceberg:
The phrase goes "once you go iPhone, you'll never go back." And it really is true. I tried desperately to get out of the snarling pit of Apple, I tried going to Samsung, HTC, Nokia. They all tried to pull me out, with much help from the knowledgeable man at Phones 4 U. Sadly to no avail. I was lured back in by the mesmerising mer-song of the iPhone. If you can call that ringtone a song at all.

And the demographic of the cyber-nation seems to be getting lower all the time. Needless to say Apple's marketing team have a good grasp on how to appeal to children, with games, bedtime stories, music, and films at the child's as yet unformed fingertips.
It seems that the phrase "once you go iPhone you never go back" should be changed to "if you don't go iPhone, never speak to me again and you no longer have any bearing on what is cool in this world."

Ok that was quite harsh, but you catch my drift. Just as children are pressured into wearing nice clothes and behaving badly so will having the latest tech be a necessity of surviving those pre-adolescent years where acceptance is everything.

As for me, well I am saying all this and wagging a disapproving finger at all you tech-savvy pre-teens, but I have a confession.

So yeah I bought the £5 drawing pack. And I drew a chair. Almost as badly as I would in the dinosaur way, with a pencil and paper.

Sorry for wasting your time with my procrastinating.

The Scum of Society. Our 'Role Models'.

I was sitting in a lecture today, a fairly tedious governance lecture about home affairs and economic policy. And so, as you do, I pulled out my phone, had a wee scan of Facebook, a peek at Twitter, before going to the BBC News app, where I was confronted by two disgustingly similar headlines.

The first, a police report explaining that detectives were chasing up over 120 leads to women who were harassed as teenagers by the late, but evidently not so great, Jimmy Savile. The second, breaking news that tv presenter and comedian Justin Lee Collins had been charged with harassing his wife, giving her death threats, assaulting her.
I'm disgusted.

These men are meant to be role models, and behaving like that, towards women who are meant to be in their care? Lock them up, throw away the key.

But that's not what will happen. JLC is to be given a light fine and community service, for allegedly abusing a recovering alcoholic partner who he should have been caring for. Had he been Joe Nobody he would have been sent away, but a light slap on the wrist and a raised eyebrow was deemed enough for the, for want of a stronger word, 'celebrity'.
In the case of Savile, well, he's dead. So immediately that makes it difficult to prosecute him. But even before he retired, many of his celebrity friends had reservations about him, and his attachment to teenage girls who appeared on his hit tv show Jim'll Fix It. One of his best friends, a journalist , was even afraid to "dob him in" for fear of who Savile's connections were. I mean Jimmy was friends with Charles and Diana for goodness sake!! He couldn't have been better connected and with the money he had, his lawyers would laugh any allegations out of the courtroom.

So these men, while scum of the earth, get off relatively scot-free. Sounds about right for the governments of today. But you want to know my solution? It's a masterstroke on my part, and wouldn't be any more hassle than usual.

I'm thinking an I'm A Scumbag, Get Me Out Of Here!! for the lowlives of the media. Send all the scum into the Australian jungle, a couple of boa constrictors and a gun. See how long they last and what sticky end they choose. Throw in a Newcastle presenting duo, and there's your new itv primetime show.

Or you could just address our PM directly on the matter, via his new twitter account. Moments after he tweeted for the first time he got a reply calling him a "cock-womble".

Nail on the head. Our country is a mess.

My New View on Mental Health

Hey guys, just thought I would take a bit of time out to talk about something that inspired me. A chance meeting on the train that has changed my view on mental health completely.

The other day I was on the train to university and the train was pretty full. So I found the nearest seat, at a table with a family of three.

I took out my shorthand notebook, plugged in my iPod and began working, whittling away the time until the train arrived at Queen Street.

It wasn't very long before I realised that the young girl (probably about 12/13) of the family was talking about me to her parents, asking what those squiggly symbols were.

I quickly realised that she obviously has some kind of mental illness, just by the way she was acting and speaking like a child of much younger than 12, more like 5 or 6.

So, being the confident journalist-to-be, I pulled out my headphones and started talking to her. I showed her how to write her name in shorthand, and she told me that she was going shopping with her mum and dad. What a pleasant girl she was, so friendly and bright, even though she was speaking in a childlike voice.

I soon began to realise that her illness was actually schizophrenia, due to her mood swings and the way she kept asking what my name was again and again.

Her parents seemed friendly and chatted away, all the while anxiously glancing at their daughter like she was about to explode, but all I could think was how easy it was to talk to her.

*I should point out at this stage that I do know her full name as she told me plenty times I just don't want to disclose it to the general public, as you can understand.

As I left the train, and said goodbye to the girl, it started to hit home who I was speaking to, and the seriousness of mental health.

Those parents are true heroes, it really does make you wonder what's wrong with this country, when football players are on X-hundred thousand pounds a week and families like the one I met are struggling to cope, perhaps because they do not get the help, or cannot afford it.

Closer to home, as I walked up Buchanan Street, I realised that I am the guy who calls the disabled retards and spastics, when really I'm the one who is retarded when it comes to knowledge about mental health.

I will always remember that girl that I met on the train, and I will try to live a better life because of her.

Cannot believe Scotrail actually did something useful for once!!

British Pride. Isn't it about time we found a sport that we can be proud of??

Ok, so in my last blog post I described how Scotland seemed to be ‘glorious failures’ in all sporting events. Heroic losers is how I would describe our bold little nation.

The way we get riled up watching a Scotland football match is rather epic, like the famous Braveheart speech. But it would still take more than “fireballs” and “lightning bolts” to put us into an international tournament.

So, still glorious failures. We are the Neville Longbottom of world sport. Huzzah.

But instead of wallowing in our own self pity, crying our eyes out while watching Andy Murray getting put through the tennis equivalent of a Nazi firing range against Rafael Nadal, why don’t we get up off our bottoms and find a sport that Scotland can be proud of.

Grand Prix. Nope, the last great driver we had could barely get his anvil of a chin into his crash helmet.

Cricket. Too civilized, and besides, we don’t have a strong Asian community to hold our country up. With the exception of the south side of Glasgow. No.

Equestrian. Pur-lease.

Cycling. Yeah righ- HANG ON!!

Cycling. Why didn’t we see it before?? Cycling is the answer to our sporting nightmares. Explained so in these three quick and obvious points.

1. We are good at it. Chris Hoy, Danny Macaskill, Danny Hart. All big cycling names who are at literally the top of the cycling world.

2. There are so many different disciplines that incorporate cycling. TheUCI, which is the governing body for all forms of cycling rules over the disciplines: Road, Track, Mountain Bike, Cyclo-cross, BMX, Trials, Indoor cycling and Para-cycling.

3. This is the most important thing: WE CAN GET INVOLVED IN IT!!

Little is it known but Scotland has some of the bike venues  in the world.

Fort William, the home of the UCI Downhill World Cup in the UK and considered the best mountain bike track in the world by professionals, is just an hour’s car journey from Glasgow.

In Glasgow, a brand new Velodrome is being built for the up and coming Commonwealth games, supposedly able to hold 9,000 spectators.

And it’s not vastly expensive to do it yourself. A regular mountain bike from Halfords will cost you anywhere between £200 and over £1000 depending on how keen you are to get involved.

Now, a grand doesn’t sound like back pocket cash but if you compare to the likes of golf, where a bag, clubs, shoes, trolley, clothes AND membership to the country club are pretty much standard it is relatively cheap. And you won’t have to wear those awful chequered sweater vests. Well, unless you want to.

So, it seems we have succeeded in finding a sport that we can all enjoy, young and old, and that we can take pride in being the best in the world at.

Scotfail rides again!! But is delayed by half an hour.

A new year (happy 2012) brings a new semester for me at university and therefore a renewed hatred for the bane of my life, train travel.

I am from Falkirk and my nearest stop is Polmont, one of those stations that you will never get off at and wonder "who lives here?" when you stop.

That's me folks. I'm the guy who stays in Polmont, a place so bad that the only directions anyone has ever asked me when they get off is: "Which way to the prison mate?"

All train travel is bad but at least Indian commuting has redeeming factors. Like pleasant commuters (even with the language barrier) or a sense that if it gets bad at least the engine fuel seeping through the floor might ignite and you will die.

Enduring half an hour of listening to some 'original gangstaa' blasting the Wu Tang Clan from his Dr Dre headphones before heading off to Uni for a day is like setting up a tartan factory in Scotland to be told it's not the 'in-thing' - total disappointment.

There are no pros to cramming yourself into an over-sized bog roll tube, though with a more pleasant interior. There are only cons.

To be honest, there is something to be said for hiding in the toilets on train journeys to avoid the conductor, for a few reasons:
1) The price of train fares is out of this world! (Coincidentally, this is where I would like to send the chief executive of Scotrail)
2) You can get a better conversation with the wall of a train toilet, rather then the moronic conductors.
3) Even a lone faeces on the cubicle floor is more pleasing then Scotrail train carpets.

Just buy a car folks.

"BRITAIN LOCKED IN FROZEN HELL!!!" Copyright: Daily Bollocks.

With winter fast approaching I often enjoy watching people getting prepared for "The Big Freeze", or so the Dailys would have you believe.

Mums packing that extra few tins of salt in the shopping trolley, not because it was half-price, but because they think that it will be their only salvation in the battle against the horrors of a frosty driveway. Or Halfords stocking up on WD40 because they know it's the only business they will get between November and January.

On Wednesday December 22, 2010, the Guardian published this headline:

"UK SNOW CHAOS: Some make it home, but thousands still stranded!"

"Both runways at Heathrow open but many flights off, with big freeze set to continue beyond Boxing day."

Why were both runways closed?? The answer is... there is no reason! What is the problem with gritters out on the runway 24/7? It's not going to cost more than cancelled flights, with hundreds of passengers stranded in the airports, unable to work and get our dire economy running again, but unable to do anything except be plied with hot drinks compliments of BA or some other idiotic airline company!

London Heathrow airport cancelled 3,700 flights last year, whereas the plucky Norwegians cancelled a massive number of..... 2 FLIGHTS! In the whole of Norway!

Now you may say the Norwegians are better prepared, that they drive around on snowmobiles and their family vehicles are snow ploughs but sadly no, for the majority, the Nor mode of travel is front-wheel drive hatchbacks, and they manage to get to ther work at the herring farms no problem at all. 

Now, don't get me wrong, last December was the coldest the UK has ever seen (with an average temperature of -1.0*C) so my arguement may fall flat here, but answer me this - could any of you genuinely not get to where you were meant to be during the chaos, through physical labour or some snow driving that would make Colin McCrae look like an Average Joe Sunday driver, or was it a case of "My car is stuck"- (the only valid definition of stuck is in a ditch or upside down), "I have the flu"- ('the flu' being some secret codewrod for 'feet in a basin of water, tea and a nice wee watch of daytime TV), or the classic "I'm snowed in" which is the most ridiculous saying I have ever heard! Unless you live in the house pictured below, skiving off work is not an option I'm afraid.

The whole transport network shut down last year as well. It was as if the Health and Safety Department of Everything (I'm pretty sure that exists) played Pin the Tail on the Road and just went mad with roads to shut down.

Now, unless you are a pair of men last year that decided it was a bright idea to drive, yes that is not a spelling error, DRIVE along a canal near Falkirk, (pictured below), I think you are able to make it into work every morning.

And so, my motto for this winter in terms of travelling is based on a George Orwell book:

"Four-wheel drive good, front-wheel drive ok."

Unless you have a BMW. You may panic if so.

Please leave any interesting or creative repsonses in the comment section below, or Facebook or Tweet at meh!

I'll be back soon with another rant so stay tuned!