It’s not a classic Bond, and I couldn’t really follow the story very well (if indeed there was one) at times, but the 22nd 007 movie was still an enjoyable way to spend just under two hours in the cinema last night.
Following on from Casino Royale, it carries on Daniel Craig’s new gritty Bond, with lots of non-stop action. More of a Bourne film than a Bond one, it suffered for that, and the story was bitty at best, the writers having to string together a tale of an eco-tyrant; the original story by Ian Fleming wasn’t much of a story at all.
There were lots of good vehicle chase scenes, though. The plane dogfight was mostly done for real and had you gasping and almost ducking in your seat; the boat chase is full of action, while the pre-credits car chase was the best we’ve seen from Bond for a while.
Bettering Die Another Day‘s ice racing sequence, it’s fast-moving, tension-making, and very well-shot, setting the pace for the rest of the film that follows it. The sound of the Aston Martin DBS blasting through the tunnels around Lake Garda was worth our reduced Orange 2 for 1 entry alone.
Ford’s connection was very apparent, though, with almost every vehicle bearing a blue oval badge. As widely reported, the new Ford Ka makes its on-screen debut, but would Camille really drive something as cute and not old as that in Haiti?
Reportedly the US car maker’s last Bond big-screen deal, and with Aston now an independent company rather than part of Uncle Henry’s vast empire, what will our secret service hero be driving next?
The recent ‘Polo Confidence’ advertising campaign for the Volkswagen Polo – also known as ‘Singing Dog’ – has been honoured at this year’s Autocar Awards, being named Car Ad of the Year 2008.
Voted for by the readers of Autocar online, the ‘Polo Confidence’ TV commercial features a Jack Russell dog which is shown to be nervous and timid in everyday situations, yet, while in the Polo, ‘sings’ happily and confidently along to the soundtrack of I’m A Man by the Spencer Davis Group.
On accepting the prestigious award, Chris Craft, Director of Volkswagen UK commented: ‘We’re delighted to receive this award from Autocar – and it’s really special because it’s voted for by the public.
‘We wanted to develop the advert to reinforce the key messages of the Polo – safety, security and therefore confidence. We are really proud to have produced such a memorable advertisement and one which has clearly captured the public’s imagination.’
The Polo ad had some formidable rivals for the award. ‘This is the new Jaguar’ spot for the XF; Honda’s live skydive advert for the Accord and Renault’s ‘4×4 spirit’ advert for the Koleos were all up for the gong, but the clear winner was the Polo campaign. Charles Hallett, Editor of Autocar agreed with the readers’ choice: ‘It’s funny, memorable and in keeping with some excellent Volkswagen adverts over the years.’
Conceived and produced by Volkswagen’s advertising agency, DDB London, the advert was filmed over three days in Los Angeles, USA. Two Jack Russells, Bear and Cody, were used during the filming. Though almost identical, the two male dogs are not siblings.
One of the trainers from the dogs’ agency, Worldwide Movie Animals, said: ‘On screen, Bear did all the happy, singing in the car stuff and Cody did all the scaredy cat, shaking stuff. Cody has a command called “head down� where he lowers his head as you see in the commercial and it makes him look very timid. As soon as you release the behaviour, he pops his head back up and looks super happy again. They love chicken, playing ball, frisbee and tug of war. Both are really good tempered, well trained dogs that are fun to be around.’
The advert has so far registered over one million hits on the internet video site, YouTube, while 36 fan groups were set up on social networking site FaceBook. The soundtrack, which was not re-released, also peaked at number six on the UK Rock Top 100 on iTunes.
The fermenter has come out again. Actually, it’s a new one, and this time it has an airlock on it. And this time we’ve brewed (or distilled, I’m not quite sure) wine. Chardonnay to be exact, from a Young’s Wine Buddy 5-gallon 7-day wine home-brewing kit. Everything is included, and all we needed to do is to add in water and sugar.
It seemed at least as easy as brewing last year’s beer. Dissolving four kilogrammes of sugar into five litres of boiling water, we stirred the mixture until the water cleared, and then topped the fermenter up to the 22.7-litre mark with cold water. Then, the concentrate, wood chips (for that traditional fake-aged flavour) and yeast were added, before stirring again, covering with the water-filled airlock and lid, and leaving for around six days to brew.
All the kit ingredients are added to water and sugar and left to ferment
Or at least that was the theory. In the end we left it well over a week, as the kitchen was a little colder than the fermentation process would like, as wine would like to be kept between 20 and 25 degrees C to reach the necessary gravity of 1.06, which is measured by a hydrometer. This piece of kit is a must in home-brewing; without reaching that specific measure, your brew of wine of beer has a danger of exploding in the bottles.
When it was ready for clearing, the stabiliser and finings were added, and the mixture was left for a further day to settle. Once clear, we used the beer fermenter to siphon the wine into, in order to not get any sediment into the finished bottles. Sweetening can be carried out at this stage, with five dessert spoons of sugar stirred into the mixture. We didn’t want sweet chardonnay, though, so left it as it was.
Siphoning is easier if you have two fermenters and two pairs of hands
Raising the wine fermenter onto a crate so that the natural air flow would power the siphon, we sucked the end of the tube, and were away. The kit stated that we should get 30 bottles of wine, but in the end, 23 were filled with the honey-coloured liquid, and corked with the corker we bought for the volatile elderflower champagne. The shortfall didn’t matter, though, as the bottles we did fill work out at around £1.00 each, once the cost of the sugar and kit were factored in. With what we buy, that’s a saving of £3.00 per bottle.
Most home-brew kits state that the wine needs to be proved in the bottles for six months before drinking, but this one apparently only needs seven days. We won’t be sipping it that early, though; it should make an ideal tipple at Christmas, joining our 2007 and soon to be brewed 2008 batches of ale. Not to mention the sloe gin, apple schnapps, and non-alcholic ginger beer. Cheers!
After immersing ourselves in the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest for a night back in September, it was around to Mark’s again on Friday night for the 1982 competition. Meeting Bill there, we spent over four hours in South Woodham Ferrers watching the preview videos, and then the contest itself proper. Only 18 songs long, Jan Leeming steered the acts through the live show from 26 years ago as best she could, but all too quickly the winner had been announced.
Comparing the studio-produced songs with their live counterparts was interesting, as songs that were electronic-based (such as the UK’s One Step Further), ultimately sounded worse with Ronnie Hazelhurt’s live orchestra. They also didn’t score as highly as those whose simple orchestration changed little from preview to contest night. But, even more so than 1981, it was a classic competition, with many good songs worthy of the winner’s title.
Portugal kicked off proceedings. Their entry, Bem Bom, was a flamboyant number, and was sung by Doce, a four-strong female group with an equally outrageous appearance. Wearing what appeared to be musketeer outfits with some very straight-cut fake wigs, there was a lot of arm in the air action, and although we couldn’t understand the words, their strange drum-led tune appealed to me, if no-one else.
A favourite for all of us was Anna Vissi, fielded by Cyprus. Her haunting ballad, Mono I Agapi was very sophisticated. So too was Vissi herself, and with her monotone dress and jet black hair, she was very much a subscriber to 80s glamour. A Eurovision veteran of three contests, in 1982 she took more than a little inspiration from Dynasty’s Joan Collins. The song deserved to do much better than its final fifth placing and 85 points.
After the jubilant 1981 win, the UK stuck to its jolly, happy, electronic pure pop sound. The pairing of duo Bardo with their song One Step Further worked well, and their stage routine was polished, with lots of nods to the world of contemporary theatre. They were one of the arrangement casualties, though, and were placed seventh in the final result, scoring 76 points. A solid placing, though, and the Bucks Fizz connection was one we’d spotted; Andy Hill who produced the song was also heavily involved with the Brit foursome who had won just a year earlier.
But, our winner for the night was the husband and wife duo of Mess, representing Austria. Singing about Sundays with their entry Sonntag, it was these two who should have taken the trophy home and enjoyed the enduring success. The Same Difference of their day, their catchy tune and energetic dance routine was the perfect example of happy, shiny, pop. It could have flung them far, always raising a smile, but it wasn’t to be, and their 57 points score only took them to ninth.
And the real winner? Of course, after the excitement of Bucks Fizz’s win the previous year, we’d forgotten who came out on top in ’82. Once we’d seen the preview tape, though, it was painfully clear which song would come out on top. Germany’s Nicole with her Ein Bisschen Frieden (A Little Peace) was the runaway winner, and the 500th number 1 single in the UK upon its release.
Today marks the end of an era. I’ve just completed my last journey on the train from Ipswich for the foreseeable future, as my season ticket runs out next week. Now I don’t live in the Suffolk town, my new one runs from Chelmsford to London only. So now any journeys to the flat or mum’s in Lowestoft will be made by car, ending five years of travel down the mainline from Suffolk to the capital.
No more Intercity trains (which are luxurious when compared to the old Great Eastern rolling stock which run around the rails in Essex); no more 90-minute journeys which last 15 minutes more than they should; no more hideously long delays when trains run out of steam past Chelmsford; and no more being caught in the football crowds when Ipswich Town are playing at home mid-week (the Portman Road ground used to be part of my walk to the station).
Now, further down the line, I have arguably more crowded trains in the morning (they start further down the line, and Chelmsford is pretty much the last stop before London); smaller seats (the older, less plush Great Eastern rolling stock); and a 45-minute journey most mornings, which is still 10 minutes over what it should be, providing the service arrived on time in the first place.
There are good points, too, though. That shorter journey does help, but the daily delay doesn’t. The house move and shorter journey at least means that I get home much earlier, though, which has to be a good thing. There’s also no more journeying down on to Chelmsford on a Saturday morning as I sometimes used to, as I’m already there. Will I miss the day trippers who are noisier than commuters? I don’t think so.
So, that’s it. It’s now Chelmsford living proper. It won’t be the last time I’m in Ipswich for sure, as the flat still needs to be sorted for renting. But it will be the last train journey up the line for a while. And today was the kind of day we dream of: a sunny and bright one, when we get on a quieter train in the opposite direction to everyone else, rather than the crowded and unreliable trains run by National Express East Anglia usually.
I had the laptop out for the journey up today, but just sat and relaxed on the way back. Watching the flat and big-skied East Anglian landscape speed past the window, I thought about what had changed over the last five years, and how the twist and turns of life and fate have brought me to where I am now. I couldn’t decide what music to listen to on the return journey – which is a rarity – and couldn’t really settle either, so I flicked between songs that took my fancy.
A typically good off-peak on-time journey, as we pulled into a sunny and deserted Chelmsford station, the last track that had been playing stopped. What was it? Donna Summer’s Sentimental from the late 1980s was seemingly apt at least, if nothing else.
