Um OK Yeah

Setting up an Animation Studio Outside the Capital

2011-02-28T15:39:00.004Z

Animation Forum WM have organised a talk with animator Neil Bushnell (that's him on the right) about setting up an animation studio. We'll probably be popping along on Tuesday 1 March (it's at The Studio in Birmingham), so we thought we'd let you know about it.

Animators from around the region will be getting together in Birmingham this Tuesday for a free masterclass in establishing an animation studio by Niel Bushnell, founder of successful animation and visual FX outfit Qurios.

Niel Bushnell worked as an animator on feature films such as Space Jam and Lost in Space before establishing the award-winning, Newcastle-based, animation and VFX studio Qurios in 2002.

Sounds good, no? To attend the event, you can RSVP via doing-it-the-hard-way.eventbrite.com. Directions to the venue can be found here.

What YouTube Looked Like in the 1800s

2011-01-07T20:12:00.002Z

A bit of fun.

Tom's Bedroom

2010-12-24T12:20:00.001Z

We've finally found out what Tom gets up to on his own...

The Pitcher of Dorian Gray

2010-11-26T18:00:00.003Z

Bromance spin-off film in the bag, right there.

Alan the Brilliant Professional Human Statue Entertainer

2010-10-14T10:36:00.003+01:00

...Or so say his proud talent agency, Xanadu. Anyone need a human statue for any kids parties?

If that doesn't warm the cockles, check out his other creation, Charlie The 10ft Inflatable Clown, perfect for all of those cheeky unassuming molestations. I would like to say I'm being a bit harsh. but just stare into those badly painted, naked eyes and tell me your very soul isn't terrified.

See Alan and the other bountiful talents of Xanadu by clicking the phrase, Saw IV.

Nicolas So Cozy

2010-10-09T17:38:00.004+01:00

Nicolas Sarkozy has never looked so cozy...

Clarke's Diary - Part Two

2010-09-13T10:42:00.000+01:00

In the spirit of transparency and legal obligation, we've decided to give you a peek into our inner workings. So, here's our teaboy, Clarke Denmark, who's on a placement with us (I think) to give you 'PART DEUX' of his Dice insight.

Filming

Hi hello, I'm Clarke again.

On filming days I normally arrive on set at around 4:00-4:30 in the morning. I rush about setting up lighting and audio equipment, preparing the costumes, and re-tiling the bathroom. Just any jobs that need doing before we get going.

~~The guys~~ My employers usually turn up at around one in the afternoon still ~~drunk~~ fresh from the night before. After some violent jostling and witty banter they calm down a bit and I make them breakfast; a Bloody Mary for Tom, a pro-plus smoothie for Ian, and for Louis, his speciality egg sandwich, a sandwich which uses fried eggs instead of bread.

One of my bosses will then 'get into the role'. Tom uses me to act out his character with, but he tends to get carried away. Sometimes I wonder why they write such violent and sexual characters.

With the filming begun, the mood turns professional and it's down to work. That's not to say the work is lacking in fun. Only this morning Ian used the director's clapping board on my face (OUCH!). My doctors say that the cartilage in my nose is ~~broken~~ stronger than ever!

When the film is in the can (not literally!!) we all look through the footage for ~~shoddy camera work or poor acting~~ stylised shots and nuanced performances. After a hard day's work we celebrate with a well-deserved pint. Of course I can't legally drink, so I pack up the equipment and clean the place up.

My day ends after I've dropped the guys off safely and I've refilled the van with tractor fuel. They say if I keep this work up they'll let me off probation in two months time, happy days!1!!

Great stuff. An invaluable resource to all the aspiring 'technical media assistants' out there. If you missed 'PART ONE', you can click this link here and read it.

Otherwise, you can subscribe to this blog for more fascinating tales from Clarke.

Clarke's Diary - Part one

2010-09-10T14:00:00.000+01:00

Now, we know it might look like all this Dicey business is run by the cube-headed fella in the crumpled suit, and perhaps it is, but it's not. It's actually much more of a team effort at Dice, and as such we're going to 'lift the veil', as it were, on what makes us tick, and indeed, tock. So, here goes with the first in a series of ~~special~~ guest posts from our 'documentator in residence' and teaboy, Clarke Denmark*. "Take it away Clarke."

Generating Ideas

Hi there and hello there. My name is Clarke and I've been working ~~with~~ for Dice Productions for about 6 years, so now as a ~~mature~~ 17-year-old, I can say I have a deep understanding of their creative ~~process~~ genius.

Ideas are the most important things in Dice. Without them, I certainly wouldn't be getting my £2.83 an hour (HA HA) or making tea in such a creative and rewarding industry. There certainly wouldn't be any animations or scripts or films made, so it's pretty "F***ING IMPORTANT" as Louis keeps reminding me.

~~The guys~~ My bosses usually do 'ideas-isation' separately, then come together to 'brain smush', as I've been told not to call it, and get down a single 'good' idea.

The initial inspiration could be from art, life, or persistent errors in payroll (it happens surprisingly often!!).

Once an idea is decided and the blood has washed off, the creative process really begins. Ian (writer), Louis (animator), Tom (writer) and Tatyana (cleaner), go into 'crybernation', which involves an intense period of writing, re-writing, shouting, and re-re-writing. The results and hair loss speak for themselves.

I've been told I can't spend more than 10 minutes on this, so I'll have to leave the rest to your imagination and get back to ~~work~~ making tea. Thanks for reading and stay safe (away from cars) for part two of my diary.

Coming up soon!!1!

Thanks Clarke.

For more insider insights, you can subscribe to this blog, refresh the page until it changes next, or keeping coming back and back and back again on an hourly basis. It really is up to you.

*This article has been edited by Dice Productions

This week I found a shop called...

2010-09-06T13:11:00.001+01:00

Found by me in Linz, Austria. No idea what they sold. I could think of a few other shops that could be renamed as this though.

(Photo by @melkins)

The Great Animation Challenge!

2010-09-02T13:12:00.007+01:00

This year, The Great Animation Challenge is to animate a segment of comedy stand up! Run by our friends Animation Forum WM and Flip Festival, the challenge is take a segment of one of the audio clips they've provided, give them some funny treatment, then upload them to the Vimeo group. Plus there's some juicy prizes to be won.

You can get the audio HERE or from the original article.

We've been a bit slow to tell you but the deadline has been extended to the 30th September, so get cracking!

Guess the Celebrity - Racoon Booze?

2010-08-26T11:13:00.002+01:00

A quick 'Guess The Celebrity' revival. Clue: It's 2 people.

Look at the pictures, what does it sound like, whose name doesn't it really sound like?

Birmingham Central Library - The New Alexandria

2010-07-15T20:53:00.004+01:00

I went to Birmingham Central library today. It is renowned as being the heart and soul of learning, culture and intelligence in the West Midlands region. It boasts an endless vault of wisdom, it is at the pinnacle of our human understanding, endlessly pushing the boundaries of the corporeal realm. Expelling the ignorance and banality that is ever present in our society. It's frequenters are the intelligentsia at the forefront of the neo enlightenment, casting inanity aside under their blows of reason...

So I was really happy to see this sign in the bog.

Just Gotta Celebrate

2010-07-14T12:09:00.006+01:00

... or Jut Gotta Celebre as they've rebranded themselves.

I love this place. I like to think the paper in the window is for privacy rather than because it's empty. From my reckoning it's stood exactly like this since 1998 - 12 years and counting.

So, come, take a trip to the otherwise pleasant Cotteridge, Birmingham and bask in pure tragic irony of 'Jut Gotta Celebre'!

*edit. It seems this derelict gem has been turned into a respectable house now. Take off your novelty hat and burst your gay looking balloon. 'Jut Gotta Celebre' is no more.

Why Louis does the drawings

2010-07-11T16:46:00.001+01:00

The Breakfast Bunch

2010-07-06T14:26:00.002+01:00

Here's a picture I made. It's kind of an allegory for sandwich making in the hood.

The Lying Down Game

2010-06-20T19:59:00.016+01:00

Bored? Unemployed? Both? Then why not try the lying down game? As I understand it this little beauty was some sort of Internet phenomenum a few years back, however the concept of lying down is now big and backer than ever, thanks to the pioneering work of Billy Guilfoyle and Anthony Stevenson. Two individuals with a penchant for, well, lying flat on their faces. Certain rules apply:

your body must be completely straight, with arms by your side
your face straight down.

Can you do that? I thought so.

Points are awarded for innovation, including originality of location, be it risky or interesting. The difficulty of the surface you are laying on also adds veritable spice to this game, as some positions test ones athletic prowess far beyond that of an Olympic game. Obvious physical pain as a result of lying down is not necessary, but sincerely admired by fans of this art/sport. So don't waste any more time, get yourself out of bed and go and lie down! There will be a prize of several virgins for those who send in the best pictures.

Uncle Grandpa by Peter Browngardt

2010-06-16T11:04:00.003+01:00

This is about as excited about a potential cartoon series as I think I've ever got. The concept is brilliant and potentially endless and the writing makes this one of the most quotable things I've seen in a while. It's been made by the ever so slightly under-exposed Peter Browngardt and is crammed full of amazing lines and visual gags.

For me it's a toss up between the slob mother and the super realistic flying tiger. But then again mistakes ARE God's rainbows.

It's probably not going to happen for a while though as he's working on a serires called Secret Mountain Fort Awesome.

Naval Gazing

2010-03-02T17:09:00.013Z

Naval fluff amazes me. ‘Why?’ ‘How?!’ Lately I’ve been able to present my girlfriend with some pretty hefty blue balls of lint thanks to a new T-shirt of mine – she’s not so enthusiastic. I started to get less mysterious about it when I realised it nearly all came off my T-shirt. Bright blue shirt – bright blue fluff. Easy.

But according to Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki (an evil supervillian’s name if ever I heard one) and his ‘systematic survey’ I’m wrong! Based out of the University of Sydney in Australia, his findings, amongst many, were that ‘contrary to expectations’ navel lint appears to migrate upwards from underwear rather than downwards from shirts or tops due to frictional drag of body hair on underwear.

This sir, I will not swallow and hopefully you will join me in petitioning for the return of his 2002 Ig Nobel Prize for Interdisciplinary Research. However one of my favourite statements on the matter is this:

‘The most disturbing story to emerge from the survey concerned a woman who used her brother's electric toothbrush to clean her exposed belly button, causing him to develop a fungal infection in his mouth. ‘

Possibly a contributing factor to why hairless women don’t get naval fluff.

I’m also quite willing to accept his theory that ‘Navel lint's characteristic blue-gray tint is likely the averaging of the colours of fibres present in clothing; the same colour as clothes dryer lint.’

Clever guy.
So let’s compare one time-wasting, resource-hogging layabout with another. How long can one man (almost exclusively apparently) play around in their belly button? According to Graham Barker, 25 years and counting. Finally someone from the street who’s actually on the frontline of this matter!

The depth of Graham's blog and his personal research is almost nauseating.

But even Barker admits, ‘...that there were still mysteries surrounding the origins of belly button fluff.‘ Added with the fact that his website has been garnered with 'useless site of the week' I persevered. A personal highlight is his '2005-7 fluff displayed as a stereo pair' (Best enjoyed using the 3D cross-eye method).

Actually, on even further inspection the extra-curricular activities of this obsessive, beard hording, God-fearing hospital worker is becoming increasingly amazing in my expectations.

To conclude, Graham proverbially rams the Ig Noble prize down Dr. Kruszelnicki's throught when he states:

'The fluff I collect is always the same colour... I almost never wear red clothing, so where does the red fluff come from?'

To learn more on this subject see Graham's research or ask in at any well stocked haberdashers.

Introducing the World's Funniest Chair...

2010-02-28T14:45:00.004Z

Mainly included this because I spent a bit too long researching the perfect chair for the new version of the website. That's right a new website! One that works!

Kenny Has A Problem...

2010-02-11T02:32:00.002Z

Can We Have Vigo the Carpathian Please?

2010-01-25T21:40:00.003Z

If we could ever afford it, we've always said that we want the original painting of Vigo the Carpathian (aka The Scourge of Carpathia, The Sorrow of Moldavia, Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised, and Vigo the Unholy) from Ghostbusters II hanging in our lobby just to really mess with anyone who entered. Turns out it sucks to be us. Lucas(F)Arts got there first like a bunch of dweebs... Idiots.

And, like, who the hell would want to have the original Slimer animatronics anyway! Sigh... Losers! Guess we'll just have to settle for the Scoleri Brothers... Friends of yours?

Other poor-ass substitutes would be this, or even this. Maybe I can just conspire with a bunch of other nutters that there's actually a few other copies out there. Maybe I'm just going to have to hustle over there with a black balaclava and a cricket bat with George's name on it.

Do Not Hug This Man

2009-12-29T14:07:00.002Z

Here's a delightful rib tickler of a warning from the good people at everythingisterrible.com

I challenge you to watch this one all the way through. 'The Music Kiss' had me frowning at full crinkle.

Guess the Celebrity - Al Coholic-Stenchboom?

2009-12-17T02:30:00.007Z

Guess the Celebrity - Wellanger Hunchtill?

2009-12-12T21:57:00.001Z

I'm not going to lie, I quite like this one.

Guess the Celebrity - Bo Del Brickbrush?

2009-12-12T21:38:00.003Z

Ever wanted to look at pictures which when said out loud sound like a celebrity's name phonetically? Great! I'll start you off on an easy one.

... Jeff Goldblum

Available for Kids Parties and Inter-dimensional Jam Sessions

2009-12-06T16:57:00.001Z

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

I WILL Have a Career

2009-12-02T21:45:00.001Z

Saw this advert in a local paper... I'm not convinced

Thanks Pencil, Thpencil

2009-11-10T17:03:00.008Z

Now's as good as any time to make a little dedication to my favourite pencil. His name is 'Old Blue'. We met about 2 years ago in a cold student flat in the middle Edinburgh, he was hanging out with some other mechanical pencil buddies his previous owner had obsessively collected inside a meticulous stationary draw. We got along great, but after a while his nobbliness really starting to bite into me. After a while things started to get pretty bad, so I jammed a couple of pen grips over him. We had our rows, but after going through some highs and lows, we've been trough some pretty amazing stuff, and I'll never regret a moment. Thanks Pencil. Thpencil.

Ian's also got a clever little extendable pen we call 'Classy Clive'. It's non-gender specific, well more vague really. Tom generally just writes with his own blood, he's passionate like that, so... 'Tom' would be the accurate thing to put on his census form I suppose.

P.S. If you're reading Steve Wright, can I have 'Can't Live if Living is Without You' by Harry Nilsson. Anything else that makes me want to bleed with clichéd insincerity is fine too. Does he still do that Sunday show? I don't know.

She Isn't an Energy Saver

2009-11-06T17:14:00.003Z

Here's a boredom doodle courtesy of my brainhole.

How Many Japanese Businessmen Can You Fit On A Train?...

2009-11-04T21:07:00.007Z

...Dead or Alive?

Well that's it, it's official. Humanity is officially too ill to survive. And to think I get narked being in town on a Saturday.

The Weekly Wound Up: The BNP on Question Time - Could it be a Good Thing?

2009-10-20T22:31:00.011+01:00

This Thursday the British public will be able to witness the spectacle of BNP leader and overall moron Nick Griffin, appearing on BBC's flagship debate show Question Time. The fact that the Beeb have given the go ahead for Griffin's appearance has, in itself, created a widespread debate over their decision and the consequences that it might have on the public. Opposition for the decision has been far reaching and from all areas of the political spectrum, from the far left to the mainstream parties. Cabinet members such as Welsh Secretary Peter Hain have even labelled the BBC's decision as 'illegal' due to the parties illegitimate admissions policy and many BBC employees have threatened to take part in the protests set to take place against their own organisation.

Like most rational and sane human beings I think the BNP are deplorable on every level and I loathe every ignorant and morally bereft principle they stand for, however I believe they do have a right to be on the show and more so that a greater good can come of this.

On a technical level, the BBCs remit is and always has been, to remain politically neutral. The sheer brilliance of the organisation lies in that fact; it is the reason why the BBC is respected and renowned across the
globe for its media coverage and that is precisely because of its unwavering neutrality and lack of bias. So it is unsurprising that this neutrality has allowed the BNP the opportunity to appear on the show, when
other fringe parties such as UKIP and The Green Party have already made several appearances. The BNP are a similar size to these parties and has two elected MEPS, however unfortunate that fact is, it does make the BBCs decision on the matter understandable.

As far as the BBC is concerned, it is not their place to make moral and political judgements on our behalf, that is what separates it from such horribly partisan news channels such as the FOX News Network. It is the fact that the BNP has two democratically elected MEPs that justifies their place on the show and rather than blaming the BBC for their appearance, the public should look to themselves and ask the more important question, how did they get these votes in the first place? Thus making them eligible in to appear on the show.

The far right have been as popular as they have ever been, the only reason that the BNP are now gaining seats is because of the complete apathy of the majority. This is why I think something good may come out of this appearance, because the reasonable majority need to be woken up and re-ignited to politics and if ever there is a good reason to, this is it.

The middle brow spectators seemed frightened that this TV appearence will act as a platform for further recruitment and would rather quietly brush such troublesome parties under the carpet, holding their hands over their eyes, humming a tune while they pretend the fascists don't exist. This is what is wrong with the political situation as it stands, that people are switched off and choose to ignore it. These parties unfortunately do exist and rather than acting as a platform for the BNP, I think it will highlight and expose their foul and wretched views to the reasonable majority and make them realise that we cannot take anything for granted.

I hope the viewing figures this Thursday are massive, and then maybe the good people will see what evil exists when they choose to do nothing.

Popcorn, Popcorn! Get your Popcorn!

2009-10-16T13:32:00.000+01:00

I'm typing this through bleary eyes today after another cracking time at Popcorn Comedy at London's Roxy Bar & Screen last night, concluding our month of Popcorn-related fun. As ever, the films were excellent, particularly Birdboxstudio's 'Pub' which bucked the trend and gave everyone a hot slice of traditional animation amongst the more surreal entries.

As you may well know, we were asked to bring Popcorn Comedy to Birmingham recently to spread the potent mix of funny videos and live performances about the place like a particularly amusing rash. I think it's safe to say it was a success!

The Electric Cinema is a fantastic venue and really provides the perfect atmosphere for films to shine. Funny or Die hit the right notes with their Dawson Brothers-scripted Too Much Minerals sketch, and Rocket Sausage's CGI-brows went down a treat too. Misery Bear achieved his usual 'awww'-factor and Swatrick Payze's Funny Fish Finger Friends was a personal favourite. Another Funny or Die entry, Photocopier, looked great too and gave off more short film vibes than out-and-out comedy which changed the pace nicely.

We gave a new film its first airing too, which was both exhilarating and mildly terrifying. We're interested to see how that goes down on YouTube, as we peered through the cracks in our fingers on the night!

Because of the cosy, cinema setting people were a little quiet at first, so Doc Brown really had to work for those laughs. Luckily he was excellent and I can't wait to see more from him in the future. His 'Slang 101' rap was a highlight, and his gangsta-rap video about equestrian dressage is just awesome.

Sensing a conservative audience, Holly Walsh came out all guns blazing and used her energy and natural banter to rouse them. She's a very funny lady and I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of her on the tellybox very soon.

I have to say a big thanks to several people, including the Electric Cinema for being such a good venue and the staff for making it all work, Hello Digital for sponsoring the night, Birmingham Comedy Festival's Dave Freak for his continuing support, Holly Walsh and Doc Brown for coming up and doing a great job on stage, the filmmakers for submitting their lovely films, the people for coming to watch and Jon Petrie for giving us the opportunity to give it a go and helping everything run as smoothly as possible.

There were undoubtedly times when we had dark thoughts like: "Will the venue be OK?", "Will people come?" and "What if it all goes tits up and we look stupid?" Fortunately, none of those fears were founded and I'm sure everyone had a good night.

As one of the organisers I am hyper-critical of everything that went on, so the observations below are probably not indicative of the views of joe-public in the audience. But still, here's some other thoughts I think need airing.

Taking an established night to a new city is not easy. Promotion was tricky as many central venues wouldn't allow posters for out-of-house events. Listings websites also seemed slow to update given our admittedly short notice and the region's print media showed little-to-no interest in providing any coverage, a fact that I am still slightly disappointed by. Reaching the city's students is something to work on too.

Big shout out to BBC Radio though who interviewed Holly and Doc before the show, and Who's Laughing Now?, Animation Forum WM, and Created in Birmingham for the previews. Cheers!

Hyper-criticism aside, everyone seemed to really enjoy the night, we've proved to another city how unique Popcorn Comedy is, and we can't wait to bring an even better Popcorn Comedy night to Birmingham soon!

The next Popcorn Comedy night is at The Roxy Bar & Screen in London on 5 November. Check the website for more details and sign-up for updates here.

Stool Peril

2009-10-11T16:42:00.006+01:00

Ian broke out a pen and showed the white board who's boss the other day. Here's a nice iconic fancy that I cleaned up... I call him Hamish Giffins. What do you christen him?

Coming soon!... Double Stool Peril!

How to be Halloween Fabulous

2009-09-30T16:51:00.018+01:00

Everyone likes to dress up now and again. Some people prefer to keep their dressing-up habits private, and that's fine. But once every year, thanks to a frankly ludicrous American tradition, we're given the opportunity to go all out and dress as something fanciful. Yes, it's Halloween. My only problems with Halloween are that a) It doesn't mean anything, b) Most people can't be bothered, and c) When people do bother, it's always the same old costume every time.

Admittedly, some people do put the effort in, but they're in the minority. To help, I have come up with some dressing-up ideas to inspire you this Halloween. Feel free to steal, improve or ignore these suggestions.

1. The Traditional
You know the ones. Dracula, Frankenstein, witch... the classics. But be warned, even proven costumes can go very, very wrong. Firstly, all you Dracula fans. Please don't go half-arsed with your costume. If you're going to be the Prince of Darkness, make sure you look the part. Slick that hair back, get a decent cape (preferably with red lining) and work on that Romanian accent.

Also, Frankenstein. Firstly, you're Frankenstein's monster, not Frankenstein. Unless you go as a mad professor called Frankenstein, then a tip of the hat is in order.

2. The Topical
Probably the most annoying costume, but potentially the best. Mix a topical figure into a classic and you could be onto a winner. Last year everyone was dressed as Amy Winehouse mixed with the bride of Frankenstein ('s monster). That was boring after the first one, so be inventive. Don't go as Michael Jackson. I know a guy that went as a Zombie Rick Astley to a party. That was pretty good.

Or you could think of something slightly off the beaten track, like say, going as Bubbles the monkey. Think about it. A lost monkey, that once belonged to MJ, that is now alone, roaming the streets, rabidly looking for it's dead master, is creepy as hell.

3. The Controversial
This is a spin-off from the Topical and can go either way. Either you get away with it and it's funny, or you are the single most offensive person in the room, and possibly the world.

These are often inspired by things in the news. The most extreme suggestion I've ever heard was to dress as Baby P. But that's too fucked up. You might get away with a Jade Goody, but only just. Kerry Katona is still alive, so by all accounts, is fair game. Any over-enthusiasm for the drink at the bash will then only add to your adopted persona saving yourself much embarrassment.

4. The Reference

One for the geeks. Go as a retro movie character or something so obscure, you have to explain your costume to EVERYONE. I'm not even going to suggest anything here because there are geekier people than me out there that would put my ideas to shame. Leave some ideas in the comments for us.

5. The Gore
This is a niche, but an effective one. If you fail to come up with a cohesive costume, just crack out the fake blood and get creative. I want to see gashes in heads, bones sticking out, missing fingers, anything as long as it looks like you've been fed through a threshing machine and survived. Always impressive, but remember, EVERYONE will know how long it's taken you to put your masterpiece together. Highly uncool.

So there you go. I hope that helped. Get a party together and embrace the dressing-up box. Everyone should have one.

A Little Lie Down

2009-09-30T09:18:00.004+01:00

As a little treat, here are Robert Popper's silly phone calls that he introduced live at the last Popcorn Comedy. If you don't already know, Popper's alter-ego is Robin Cooper, author of the utterly brilliant Timewaster Letters books. The first clip is a phone call to Sky TV maintenance guy. He's very patient. Have a listen.

The next two vids are Popper doing his '65% good' (his words) impression of Margaret Thatcher calling the House of Lords about her lost bag. Enjoy.

If you get a call from Maggie Thatcher, I'd advise you ask if it's Robert Popper first. It'll save you a lot of time.

Popcorn = Fun

2009-09-22T15:09:00.013+01:00

We took a swift trip down to the capital on Monday to go to our new favourite comedy night Popcorn Comedy. On the menu was live stand up from Holly Walsh, Josie Long, Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz plus a load of hilarious videos from around the net.

For all our excitement we'd almost entirely forgotten we were screening anything ourselves at Popcorn. So, when the words 'Dice Productions' shimmered across the huge screen at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill as the first film up we were almost surprised.

It was very satisfying to see Message in a Bottle on a big screen again in front of such a big crowd (including famous faces like David Walliams, Graham Linehan and Edgar Wright no less). It was even better to hear the eruption of laughter when the bottle smashes into poor old Melvin's crumpled face. Poppy, the animated popcorn tub host, even chided us on our frivolous waste of perfectly good wine. And rightly so.

After that good start the quality was maintained with Holly's observational lovliness and a film about why she never became a hand model, and Josie's presentation/lecture about a man and his devotion to breakfasts which was particularly splendid.

The videos were all great with the VMA People's Choice Award-winning CGI-brows by Rocket Sausage, Second Date by Joni Browne and Misery Bear by Nat Saunders and Chris Hayward (a.k.a Worm Hotel) standing out as highlights. I also loved seeing Doc Brown's dressage-inspired rap video again and subsequently can't wait to see him – as well as Holly – live at the next Popcorn Comedy in Birmingham.

Robert Popper gave everyone a dose of Robin Cooper's wonderfully silly phonecalls (including an amazingly patient Sky customer service man and a 65% good Maggie Thatcher impression – and Peter Serafinowicz rounded off the night with a cracking set as 1969-era Paul McCartney. If you missed it, don't fret, videos for his songs are currently in production at Funny or Die.

We also met a load of new people we know through Twitter and caught up with Julian and Gus from Kipple/Youpigs as well as meeting FoD head James Serafinowicz and Holly for the first time.

Big thanks to Jon for inviting us down and showing our stuff, as well as putting on a great show.
Our man in the field Chris went as far as describing the night as "the best £7 I've spent in London in a long time", and I'm inclined to believe him.

Roll on Popcorn Birmingham! To buy tickets, click this link HERE.

Dice x

Thunk

2009-09-02T13:39:00.002+01:00

It's all Greek innit.

Running Wild - Part I

2009-09-01T22:32:00.014+01:00

After finishing all five seasons of 'The Wire' and an end to the long cycle of weddings and numerous preceding stag does, I have found there is a void in the 'hobby' section of my life. The highly personal goal that everyone apparently needs to keep them fulfilled as a functioning human being, or at least to have something to lord it up over acquaintances and homeless people alike. So what have I found to keep me off a life of violent crime, the Tour de France? The Gloucester cheese rolling competition? Speed balling? Close but no cigar, I've enlisted in the most prestigious sporting event of our generation, the 2009 Birmingham Half Marathon.

In case you were wondering, that's thirteen whole English miles, 21 European kilometres or a staggering 42,000 half metres. In essence, it's quite far. To make life more difficult for myself I've also set a target of finishing the race in under two hours (the duration of around two episodes of the wire). This seemed to make complete sense at the time, until I signed up that is and I was struck by the sheer insignificance of my task when put into the context of human existence. Moments of soul searching followed and resulted in a serious rethink of my strategy in which I found my motivation; I have to win it.

You heard me right, I'm going to win the EDF Birmingham half-marathon 2009 on the eleventh of October. Apart from the glorious kudos one would receive from the small Birmingham based papers for winning, the champion also walks (or runs!) away with a handsome sum of pocket wedge, in the region of £30,000. For a man who's strapped for cash that's a hell of a lot of mullah, so it therefore stands to reason that my ambition to win far outstretches those doing it for reasons of health, charity or professional competition. I want thirty grand ergo I will run faster, it really is that simple. Just look at Paula Radcliffe, I'm pretty sure she doesn't just piss in the street for the fun of it.

I also have an ace up my sleeve, surprise! If you were to think of runners you would usually conjure up images of tall and slender individuals who can run for days with their veloceraptor like strides. I on the other hand am short, wide and indifferent. However I intend to flip reverse this disadvantage that nature has given me and turn it into an... good thing, by using my stature to nudge the more waif-like competitors out of contention in a Ben Hur chariot race sort of style. I'm unsure as to the rules on the use of physical contact/violence in long distance running, but I figure that a moderate/severe jostling of fellow runners may escape the glare of the dreaded marathon police.

So there you have it, physically, mentally and logistically I am prepared for victory (Disappointment training features later on). I shall update regularly with my progress, thoughts and running related paraphernalia. Wish me luck.

Happenstance Dance

2009-09-01T14:24:00.003+01:00

Here's what happens if you happen by chance to do the Happenstance Dance.

R.I.P Danny DeVito

Five Tip Top Hints to Wordualise a Literary Hit

2009-08-14T17:30:00.007+01:00

Here's a fantastic article that Ian found written by Bournville College. I'm putting this up here mainly because I know I'll loose the link and regret never being able to find it again.

The article explores George Orwell's 5 rules to good writing, including an inspiring smackdown quote from Ernest Hemingway. Here are the rules. Slosh about in the original article HERE.

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Here's Ernst to lead us out with a buzz phrase to look down thread super bitched up on the street:

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

Reid: Does the Recession

2009-08-13T23:18:00.016+01:00

Is it just me or is everyone else just about pissed off with hearing the term 'in the current climate', "In the 'current climate' you're lucky to have a job in the first place", "in the 'current climate' you should be happy with what you're earning. In the 'current climate' our Johnny's just thankful that he's still got his legs."

Of course the times are tough for the majority, but what annoys me is the decision makers who are more than happy to use the recession in order to shit on people from a great height. For many of them this is a great opportunity to get away with fiscal murder, as they now have the perfect alibi to dismiss and heavily underpay their employees. So how did this happen?

As all of you who already know me are aware, my forte happens to be macroeconomics and international reactionary monetary solutions, so let me explain the whole situation to you, IN RAP FORM:

DRUMS...
#It all started out with American banks,

Spunking money up the wall like they were having a wank,

But the mess they created was their mortgages,

And now the ordinary people can't afford-to-jizz.

Then it spread across the pond to the Northern Rock,

Then the money situation was truly focked,

Up. and. beyond belief,

Then the government was called in for fiscal relief,

So they bailed out the banks to save peoples savings,

But for Gordon Brown no, they never forgave him,

He spent all our money on quantitative easing,

He thought it would be good but it wasn't a’ pleasing,

So we're still pissed off about those toxic debts,

A fact that the general public never forgets,

And now we're faced with high figures of unemployment,

Something that's giving us no enjoyment,

But I’m bored now of this mother fucking recession,

So I’m off now to have a huge brain-storming session,

WORD.

After giving you such a concise and accurate context to the global recession, I'd like to discuss my practical ideas regarding the 'current climate'. It has become apparent that after the initial hype, mass suicides and Armageddon warnings have subsided, we have now come to terms with how powerless we are in the face of this problem and have accepted that our government is merely a limp dick on the feeble financial body of the world. So with that in mind, I have worked up a list of suggestions which reflects general public opinion, if not solving the problem altogether.

1) By legal decree, force all those in the financial sector to change their job titles from 'bankers' to 'wankers', a petulant and obvious amendment that will be enjoyed by 95% of the population as trips to the bank will be made comical and eerily representative. "Hi I'm James, I'll be your investment wanker for today..." or "Hello there, I’m your general wank manager, let's take a look at this wank account you've got with us. Well aren't I just a big fucking wanker."

2) Make all politicians wear happy face masks everywhere they go in order to reassure us proles that the situation is 'OK'.

3) In the spirit of quantitive easing, make Monopoly money legal tender for exactly one day.

4) Decimation of the wanking executives: Line up all of the CEO's in a random order and execute every tenth man or woman.

5) The dream factory of savings: Enforce a Deal Or No Deal type policy into Northern Rock and other state aided banks. With this government guaranteed savings goes out the window in favour of high drama. In this shit or bust game customers get to risk their entire life savings on one chance with 22 identical sealed boxes and a now publically owned Noel Edmunds.

6) 'Bring a homeless to work day': an adaptation of the TV programme Wifeswap only with tramps, it's basically a Marxist model of wealth sharing.

7) Pay everyone in loose change: Everyone will want to throw it back into the Economy as soon as possible.

8) Claim your own debts to be toxic thereby forcing the government to buy them off you; an easy way to get you back in the black.

9) For all those in abject fear of moving on to the property ladder, take yourselves and your loved ones and move into a ditch. Ditches are often overlooked as primary residences, but contrary to popular belief cost very little in upkeep and heating bills.

10) If all else fails suicide is ALWAYS an option.

I hope I’ve been of help to you in these most troubled of times. I’m off now to put my plans in to action before the economy turns around. Ta ta.

Entering Aladdin's Cave...

2009-08-10T09:14:00.017+01:00

This weekend, after a day pretending to be grown-ups at a friend's wedding in Bridgnorth, Louis and I took a stroll with our girlfriends around the old town to sooth our mildly hungover heads and damage our feet further in our inappropriate footwear.

Thankfully our friction burns were not in vain as we discovered a little antiques shop on the way home. At first, like you, we assumed this would be the usual knackered desks and Victoriana. But to our surprise (and yours) it was full of strange and wonderful things. Here are a few of our finds.

The first gem we unearthed was this rather stylish and most charming pink PVC recliner with black plastic trim and just enough seat space for a modestly proportioned rear.

As you can see, sitting in the chair induces feelings of jollity, childlike wonder and mild confusion, which you must admit, are qualities not found in most pink PVC chairs. Louis described the sitting experience as "ok" which i am taking to mean "alright", which I think is passable given its vintage nature.

After another mooch around Louis found these peculiar items sitting together. Initially I assumed they were mock-Victorian items, fashioned to resemble the humble rolling pin and iron. But Louis knew better.

"They're gang signs," he informed me, holding them in the traditionally menacing fashion of a violent youth to demonstrate. "The rolling pin symbolises control and the iron is a classical representation of hip-hop legend and household guru TuPax," he explained. Well, you learn something every day, don't you.

Now armed with our street weapons we continued, eager to discover more rare and valuable items. And boy were we in luck! For across the room sat a most extradorinary example of mid-1980s techno-art.

This item requires some detailed explanation. The piece comprises a white wooden box with a 'viewing window' for access to the core of the work.

Within lies a purple enclave with a lightning design, of course made popular by Dr Munroe Freshtackle. Set into the back wall is a clear moulded plastic face, possibly a representation of a bald Madonna. Below the face is a microphone in Microsoft beige.

Now here's the clever bit. If you speak into the mic, your voice activates a 'lightning ball' effect within the plastic skull. A feat that would have put you on a par with Uri Geller or Paul Daniels in the mists of the '80s. Why this item had yet to sell for the bargain price of £89 we could not fathom.

After adjusting our eyes back to the neon glare of the Noughties, we found a true collectors item.

Yes, it's a real one. An original pressing of Billie Piper's first album 'Billie' on stereo cassette. Louis could barely contain his excitement, while I, still suffering from the hallucinogenic effects of the '80s lightning face, thought it was all a preposterous dream. But no, it was true.

Sadly our coffers did not extend to such an extravagant purchase and we moved on, looking back longingly at the musical time-capsule we had to leave behind.

This here was another intriguing find. As it is a well-established fact that music lovers are also rather partial to the penguin, I shall not bore you with a history of arctic birds and their relation to popular culture.

But I will point out that this piece is of special note, as it caters for those 'high-end' collectors with 11 compact discs! Here is a suggested set-up:

Best of the Beatles
Best of Rolling Stones
Barbara Streisand Sings Christmas
Best of Bowie
Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard
Enter the Wu-Tang Clan - Wu-Tang Clan
Moon Patrol - Air
Aqualung - Jethro Tull
Coast to Coast - Westlife
Infest - Papa Roach
Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard (in case one breaks)

So remember, don't just walk past the next antiques shop you see, cursing its name. Go in, have a look around and find that special something for a loved one.

Words in the 5th Dimension - Hello Officer

2009-07-28T18:21:00.006+01:00

Closed in. Grey. Kitchen table. Door handle. Rain. Colours? Textures? Rhubarb? Ouch! Sharp in oh so many ways. Oh the pain! Stop mocking me! Bush russle. Faster. Hup. What a day to climb a fence in mother's underwear. I hope I don't - I'm snagged! How do you explain something like this? Maybe the police station will have a leaflet?

Hello officer. No, this isn't my house, no. Oh.

The Claw Hands are Coming!

2009-07-24T11:14:00.007+01:00

You wanna know what it feels like to be an animator?! Huh?! Well 4mations' Madevi Dailly (pictured) will tell ya what it feels like! HERE! I guess you could say it felt somewhat familiar.

Just realised that the photo above looks like a catagorisation of species. The pasty, hunchbacked Claw Hands are coming... to an obscurely tedious job near you! Although I think Willard Wigan already got there.

I'm not racist I just don't like raw cheese

2009-07-20T14:37:00.004+01:00

If you know me well you probably know that I'm not a fan of 'raw' cheese, whilst my dicey counterparts could be described as cheese-embracers. I admit that I have a problem. I want to change and already even have my exceptions.

Are there other Raw Cheesers out there? Are we just being socially pressurised by the filthy masses to consume their moldy lumps? Maybe THEY'RE WRONG!

Viva la fondu!

The New Adventures of Housebound Mickey

2009-07-09T07:17:00.011+01:00

Astound your kids with dissapointment as Mickey copes with life in his eighty's. His digestive system may be shot to pieces and his shorts maybe a few shades dirtier, but he's still the good old abusive and slightly racist Mickey we came to love as children ourselves.

Midi and Me

2009-06-04T23:13:00.006+01:00

For most of us music is an essential ingredient to the broth of life, reflecting our deepest emotions and representing who we are as individuals. It can move, excite, enrage or even conjure up vivid memories. As listeners we use music to echo the mood of a time and give us the soundtrack to our existence.

Short Shorts - Royal Teens

There are those among who us who are the songsmiths, crafting out the music from nothing but lyrics and notes. These are the true talents in our world, stars who are rightly admired and respected for bringing wonderful sounds to our ears. Then there are those whose talents slip under the radar of normal society. These true artists are misunderstood in their own time. They are often left to their own devices in secluded pockets of the cyber world. They are the ground breakers of sound, they are the masters of melody, they are kings among men; they are the individuals who convert ordinary songs into low quality midi files.

For those of you who are unaware of these gems, midi files are faithful adaptations of regular songs, performed by people with a good musical ear and far too much time on their hands. With the help of nothing more than a Casio keyboard these melodic nuggets are the perfect way to listen to your favourite tunes in a completely new light.

I know what you’re thinking. 'Where are these midis?' 'Who do I have to kill to get my hands on them?' Well don’t fret. I was once like you, alone, incomplete, but then Louis pointed me in the direction of Gary’s midi paradise.

The name is no exaggeration as I discovered upon my first visit to this surreal wonderland of crazed unreality. With its dazzling nocturnal background and its phenomenal three dimensional graphics, I was immediately blown away by the prospect of the fun which was in store for me.

Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash

The convenient A-Z library is bursting with recognisable classics performed in Gary’s own inimitable way. Just pick a song at random from this curious selection and you’ll understand why this musical pioneer is akin to the likes of the Beatles, David Bowie and Bobby Brown.

Feeling raucous, irresponsible and wild? Well nothing captures the balls out rock and roll feeling of Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’ quite like this version, as the heavy guitar riffs are ousted in favour of some camp keyboard work that’s reminiscent of a week in Butlins. If you’re a fan of Johnny Cash I strongly recommend this take on ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, with its swinging bass line and jazzy upbeat lead, the prospect of a long stretch in prison never seemed more exciting.

In the classic ‘Dock of the Bay’ we can clearly see Gary’s sensitivity and piercing vision shining through, as he is able to capture the melancholic reflectivity of Otis Redding’s song writing, whilst at the same time retorting “Cheer up mate, you’re at the seaside!” A must listen for any fan of music is this delightful romp on Jackie Wilson’s ‘Higher and Higher’, which to me sounds like the perfect music for a class A drugs party aimed at children.

Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson

Looking for a midi for that special someone, well nothing epitomises romance more than this take on George Harrison’s ‘Something’. Perfect for Valentine’s Days, anniversaries or the first dance at a weddings, this is a perfect example of midis at their most tenderest. So go on, surprise your other half with this, you won’t regret it till they leave you.

Something - The Beatles

Midi music files have undoubtedly changed my life in a very minute way, when listening to music now I can’t help but think, what would they sound like played on a cheap keyboard accompanied by a bank of badly sampled instruments? I can only hope that in some smal way this post will help to remember these forgotten geniuses and convert people to this most majestic of art forms. The future’s bright, the future’s midi.

YMCA - Village People

http://www.garyrog.50megs.com.

God's Mere Parlour Tricks

2009-05-15T16:13:00.001+01:00

If you want to see it 'super-sized', click here.

Clowns, Slap and the Egg Registry

2009-05-08T10:23:00.004+01:00

The other day I heard one of the most amazing and wonderful facts. One of those facts that on first hearing, seems unbelievable, farcical and absurd. You desperately want it to be true, but inevitably, it seems forever destined to be exposed as a sham.

I was reading an interview with the former ringmaster of the circus at Blackpool Tower, Norman Barrett, apparently one of the most famous ringmasters to crack a whip and don the top hat. He explained, in a most matter-of-fact way, about his life in the circus and the strains of traveling for a living. All routine stuff for a ringmaster you'd assume.

But then I came across this question, again answered in the straight-faced tone of utter truthfulness:

Q. Is it true that clowns have to register their faces with the clown museum?
A. Yes. They’re painted on eggs and kept so no one copies anyone else’s make-up. They are all slightly different.

This intrigued, amused and confused me in equal measure. Firstly, clowns have to register their face paint. That's incredible in itself. Secondly, the records are kept at a central depository. This level or organisation in the clowning profession is astounding. And thirdly, they keep the records painted on eggs! That, ladies and gentlemen, is genius.

I so wanted this to be true, and as such, I decided never to find out and remain in an ignorant state of happiness, safe in the knowledge that such a practice exists and is upheld. But after telling a few people, including an unbelieving Chris Unitt, a skeptical Emma Jones, and an amused Chris Randall, I was forced to back up my incredible claims.

With trepidation I entered my search terms. "Clown egg face". And there it was. The Egg Registry as a photo set on flickr.

With a rush of eggs-citement (groan) I dug further, finding the museum that holds the fabled chamber of eggs. Here is what they say on the matter:

One of the things to see inside the museum is the egg register. This shows the make-up (known as "slap") used by clowns both past and present. It is an unwritten rule that a clown never copies the make-up of another clown - each one is unique and is designed to suit the individual's face.

This was equally amusing:

** Membership includes a one off Administretion Fee which is used towards the cost of registering your 'slap' (clown face) on a china egg. which will be added to our famous Egg Collection.

If you'd like to see the eggs in all their glory, the Clowns Museum / Exhibition is now housed as part of the Wookey Hole Experience in Somerset. It is the place to visit if you enjoy the antics of the clowning profession and would like to see what and who lies behind the greasepaint.

What a fine and noble profession clowning is.

Covered in Glory: A Tribute to Tributes

2009-05-01T18:14:00.011+01:00

So you've accepted the painful truth. You want to form a band but haven't got the talent or drive to write your own material. It's ok, I respect your honesty. But what next? The answer, quite simply is...form a tribute act.

That's right, covers bands are the last remaining hope of the wannabe rock star and a tried and tested route to the stage and shining lights of...um...a back room of a pub. So, to help you on your journey towards mimicking your idols in a not-at-all fetishistic kind of way, here is some expert* advice:

You've accepted the inevitable, now you need a new goal. The first step is to pick the band you want to tributalise. But this is not as easy as it sounds. Choosing a popular band, like The Beatles say, may bring in scores of punters, but on the flip side, may also leave you open to the most extreme prejudice, abuse and possibly violence seen outside the penal system. Pick an obscure personal favourite and, well, who knows what could happen.

The safest option is to decide based on your probability of success. If you want to be Led Zeppelin, but can't master the first chord sequence in Wonderwall, then think again. If you want to be the Ramones but have the voice of Kathrine Jenkins, again, try something else. If, however, you can play a few Smiths tunes and have a yodeling mate with a quiff...you get the idea.

The Name

Key to any tribute band's success is the name. If walk into a venue and a tribute band with a hilarious name is playing, you will go to see them, it's practically the law. It is also your primary marketing tool. Somehow, if the name is good people automatically assume that the band will also, by extrapolation, be good. "What creative and insightful minds they must have!" they say in awe.

So, think hard. Past favourites have been AC/DShe, Bjorn Again, Fred Zeppelin, The Clone Roses, etc etc. But you can do better than that. My personal fave is the MeatLoaf tribute called MaltLoaf. Get this right, and you're half way to success.

The Look

Once you have a name, you need the look. This can go one of two ways. Surprisingly well, or really, really shit. On past form, expect the latter, but for best results aim for the former. Have they got an idiosyncratic hat? Are they famous for a certain outfit? Do they have characteristic movements or a unique bodily feature? Whatever ever it is, copy it as best you can. And this goes for all band members (if you have any). Although any Def Leppard tribute acts, may draw a line at amputating their drummer.

The Sound
This is probably the least important aspect of being a tribute act, but still you've come this far, why not give it a go. Step one is the singer. Without this you are merely a live karaoke machine without lyrical prompts. I suggest singing in the shower every day (and night for you clean types), because then you can blame the awful monotone warbling on the distortion caused by the water and steamy air.

Once the vocals are cracked, get your band together and practise. The key word in that sentence is 'together'. It's no use learning all your parts separately and rocking up to the gig to play. You will undoubtedly sound like discordant avant-garde jazz, despite trying to emulate The Beach Boys.

So there you have it, you're a tribute band. Now you can sit back, relax and think about why on earth you thought it was a good idea in the first place. Enjoy your meagre earnings, disinterested audiences and sweaty dives, you are well and truly a rock star.

*A lie

Words of Wisdom: The Dalai Lama

2009-04-29T23:10:00.002+01:00

The Dalai Lama (Mr. Lama to you!) is back with some kick ass styles to slap down those mother hubbards who've been calling him a pussy for the last 74 years.

Machinarium, Beautiful New Game by Amanita Design

2009-04-28T23:38:00.003+01:00

In true Video Wall tradition I don't normally post videos up on their own (You're too busy for that nonsense!), but this needs savouring. Machinarium is a beautiful new Flash animated computer game brought to us by Amanita Design. I don't really waste much time playing computer games anymore but I'd happily sit in front of this for hours I think - Just as long there's no overblown loading times. Clicky, Clicky Mr. Close Button.

Mmmm... suck it in.

Fair Trade on XtraNormal.com

2009-04-20T10:41:00.007+01:00

Louis stumbled across animation site XtraNormal the other day, and I'm already hooked. It's a pretty powerful online animation tool that lets you make your own animated films without so much as a clue of how to animate. All you have to do is pick a setting, pick some characters, and type in a script for them to read out. I had a play with it by putting one of our sketches called Fair Trade into the system, you can see the results here:

The only downsides are the robotic voices, but to be fair, they aren't that bad. It isn't likely to be free for long, so get your creative juices flowing soon.

The Birth of Easter

2009-04-12T00:50:00.002+01:00

Happy Easter! Here's an artist's impression of how it probably started.

Need to write a story fast? Use Frankenstory

2009-04-08T16:34:00.002+01:00

Using Frankenstory you can create a sort of blind story writing tennis match. You write 40 words, of which the next contributor can only read the last few words. When you've done 4 entries you have your story.

Ian served up the first 40 words, which ended with:

"...the park and before he knew it something terrible happened."

I accidentally lost the rest of it due to me serving it onto Tom (you can't play tennis in three's apparently) so here's how the rest went:

... St Mary's apple orchard had vanished. What was left? Biscuit crumbs. Tons of the stuff. This was the work of Fat keith. 'No more cider for Jack', he weeped as he sprinted full pace with his hands failing towards the devastation. The child wept as the chilling events unfolded before him, surely that old woman couldn't have been right? The blind man, the prostitute and the ferrel child scrambled for the last rust encrusted wrench.. Only one would be beaten to death. The sky gods turned their eyes away in disgust. There was no fight. There was no picnic. Just appalling rust induced hugging. 'What hope can there be if they can not learn to hate properly?' said Hovis the God of Elasticity. He backed off momentarily, catching his breath before allowing the last remnants of blood to dribble down his chin. He should have know all along, who else but Eamonn Holmes could have done this? He held his shins praying for death.

THE END

You can get to Frankenstory here: http://frankenstory.com/stories/34ac7a0f

A Bit of Light-Hearted, Feel-Good Melancholy

2009-04-02T13:41:00.006+01:00

Tom's decided to take that depressing old song, Needle in the Hay by Elliot Smith, and spruced it up with some feel-good melancholy.

You can watch it in HD (well, bigger) here.

If you've never heard of this song or you want to see it in possibly its best context, here's a clip from The Royal Tenenbaums.

The Problem With Scientists

2009-03-30T22:22:00.002+01:00

Message in a Bottle

2009-03-20T11:33:00.002Z

The Bust of Gared 'G-Force' McGonagall

2009-03-18T07:44:00.003Z

Video Wall 7

2009-03-15T02:01:00.002Z

Some crackers in this one.

Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie - Directed by Oren Lavie, Yuval and Merav Nathan. One of those that slowly build, and you start thinking, 'Wow. I wish I'd thought of that.' Found via the Flatpack Festival's blog.
How To Tell If A Relationship Is Over - Tony Roche. Tight 'as a toiger' sketch/short film from people who's names you wouldn't have recognised in 2003, but would have said, 'Give them a Job!'. Someone did. Tony Roche has now now worked with Armando Iannucci and written for 'The Thick of It'. Whilst more clearly starring The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barrett. I do think he's a bit better than Noel. Maybe he just hasn't SO obviously sold off his integrity. Maybe Noel doesn't give a flip about integrity and just wants a laugh and some fruit loops.
Snake by Frightened Rabbit - Bluestar Animation. For some reason when I saw the front image of this I wasn't too bothered. But for some other reason I decided to click on it. Glad I did. Very fun.
Owen Benjamin Ep2: Bad Breath Friend - Crackle Comedy. Bit of fun here from the Americans. Surprised there hasn't been more of an innitiative in the UK for well funded comedy content for the web.

Six Perfect Sideburns in Five Minutes

2009-03-12T15:50:00.007Z

Ever had trouble trimming the perfect sideburn? Ever wondered how much better your straggly excuses for facial adornments could be? Worried now that your carefully crafted fuzz strips aren't good enough? Well, worry no more my good sir! For I have found a solution. Yes, a cure!

http://www.perfectsideburns.com/sixsideburns.html

Reverend Colonel Truckett’s Miscellany of Conglomerated Words

2009-03-06T02:11:00.002Z

Do you find it difficult to join in conversation with other human beings? Do you sometimes struggle to get your point across to strangers? Are you generally considered to be a boring, pathetic individual?

Then never fear! Doctor Reverend Colonel Truckett’s Miscellany of Conglomerated Words is here to fill in that void where your personality should be. With these patented old timey phrases obtained through years of plagiarism and verbal pillaging, your life can be changed! Yes! That’s right, modified!

Chapter one of this Paperback Bing Bang Bonanza offers you the best in classic metaphors and shows you how to use them in everyday situations to create the illusion of meaningful conversation.

"But what about us who can't understand nofing?"

I hear you scream. Well not to worry. From the Queen of Belgium to the intellectually bereft (you), Truckett’s Miscellany will explain (tell you) every gosh darn saying you need to know!

"Storm in a tea cup? Live by the sword die by the sword? Don't knock a gift horse in the mouth? Are you queer or something?"

No silly, I'm just ‘yanking your chain’... I'm talking in sayings of course. These crazy and often half-sodden phrases will leave others bewitched with your verbal devilcraft. Let's start with some personal favourites.

'Those who throw stones shouldn't live in glass houses' – Because we all know that people who do throw stones enjoy their privacy greatly.

'Making a mountain out of a mole hill' - Making a big deal outta nothing (I used this exact defence in court when i had a misdemeanour with those chilluns)

'Pot calling the kettle black' - A racist slur

'One in the hand is worth two in the bush' - Positive admiration of the female anatomy

'Too many cooks spoil the broth' - Extreme irony, because of course we all know that they'd surely make it better

'You can't teach an old dog new tricks' - Someone sassin' yo mamma.

'Many hands make light work' - The benefits of communal masturbation

'Lightning never strikes the same place twice' - This is a lie.

'Variety is the spice of life' - This has seen many variations through history. Variety previously being interposed with drugs in the 1960's, Aryanism in the 1930's, paedophilia in the late Victorian period and finally spice in the 18th century.

For all these and many, many, many more poorer examples step right up and empty your billfolds to purchase Colonel Reverend Colonel Truckett’s Miscellany of Conglomerated Words!

In Chapter 2 we move on to Insults, so make sure you buy now you chiggling whoresons of a mongrel bitchdog!

Long Awaited Video Wall 6

2009-03-05T13:00:00.005Z

No particular reason for not putting up this video wall, just didn't make the time. Soz. If you want to see most of what goes on here first. Check out our favourites on YouTube.

Star Wars: Retold By Someone Who Hasn't Seen It - Joe Nicolosi In his own words "...I took out my voice recorder and asked her to start from the top. I then created some very basic animation in Final Cut to go along with her narration." Interpretative goodness.
Green Grass - PhylactereCola. This company's based in Quebec and they have some really, really nice ideas and techniques. This has got a making of that I've included at the bottom of the post, which makes the video even better.
Presto - Pixar. Awooga! What more do you really need to say. It was oscar nominated and it's by Pixar. Possibly their best short yet? It really harks back to the Tom and Jerry times of writing.
New MacBook Wheel - Onion News Network. These people are just amazing. The resources that go into it out strip any comedy that appears on TV in the UK at the moment. Why's it all so cheap and rubbery now? Anyway. I get annoyed with all the Mac obsessives queuing up to do indignant favours for Steve Jobs. He has lots of money now, just give him a steak sandwich. Yes, Mac does a lot of things incredibly well, but it does make some poo too, which people are more than willing to swallow (I won't make a link for that one).

Here's that making of I told you about:

Does This Man Have a Square Head?

2009-03-03T12:13:00.004Z

It's 176 past 289... or 4:20am last Thursday

2009-02-27T17:05:00.006Z

Whilst planning for a trip to New York and the implications of time zones, we got thinking about time as whole, or more precisely, the Gregorian shackles that are the UNITS of time that surely should have been chucked out the window with the shilling.

Why have 'they' never brought in metric time? Possibly for the simple reason that for the next 100 years everyone would be asking each other, 'What's that in seconds?'. 10 also isn't as round a number as you think. It only feels like it because we run out of numbers when we get to 9. What makes clocks catchy is the fact that you can divide them into quarters, 'Oh, it's about quarter past 5'. Easy! Can you divide ten into such a socially convenient shape. NO! If 'Ten' had 12 numbers in it (i.e. we added the additional numbers 'Gwek' and 'Pif') we'd be on course for a much more rounded 10. Now we can start making some sense with blowing down Greg's Old Dusty Calendar.

Now that we've established that '10' is officially not-that-good, we can go about cracking into shape these crappy days, weeks, months and years we've been putting up with. Most things we base these units on are stuff spinning round each other, and what’s good for measuring circles? Degrees. We already measure heat and angles with them, it's seems crazy we're not already measuring time with it!

So, 360 degrees in an hour, day and year? Can it work? Can We handle it? Of course not! That's the beauty. Human's have got to a stage where we've avoided evolution. 360Time^TM is a Darwinian kick start. What's more, 12 divides into 360 in many nice socially convenient and overly precise ways! What the newly proposed Ten^TM's affects would do to that harmony, I'm not going to consider, neither should you. If that's not already good enough for you, our years are already 365.25 days long. That means we all get to keep the ideal 360 day whilst GAINING a 5 and a quarter day shut down every year. It's the dark, cold, secluded holiday people just don't make time in their busy hussle-bussle life styles nowadays.

So, most things not considered, degrees hold the key to a universal system that makes EVERYONE better off, even if that means dead. The immense upheaval required for everyone to learn the new system would only be beneficial to tomorrow's stupider generation. The only question unanswered is, what name should this new, partially beneficial system have? A name that would suitably reflect its practicality and the confusion and pain it would cause. An unrelated stream of alpha-numeric code? Maybe with a skull and crossbones character? Or no name at all, so people would have to stay inaudible when they meant the word?

May my thoughts be with you and those that fall in the 360 Days War.

Torode's All-Consuming Mouth

2009-01-28T10:57:00.007Z

I'm no foodie and I'm certainly not a whizz in the kitchen, but one entry set in stone on my televisual menu is Masterchef. In an overpopulated market for reality cooking shows, Masterchef stands out amongst its peers. It doesn't teach you how to cook, it doesn't preach healthy-eating mantras, it doesn't even have an A-list celebrity chef. But what it does have, is personality. Bags of the stuff.

For starters, you've got the hosts. There's the gravel-voiced Gregg Wallace, with his orgiastic descriptions and oh-so-sweet tooth, and then there's John Torode, the jowly, straight-talking Aussie with the hanging put-downs and tendency to loiter.

To use the parlance of the show, Gregg and John are "big flavours". Fortunately for us, they compliment each other perfectly. Screw Ant and Dec, this is my favourite TV double-act.

Gregg is your meat and potatoes. The chunk of sustenance that keeps the show grounded and about the cooking. He shouts, all the time, grinding his voice to ever-increasing levels of intensity as the food, and competition, heats up. He's also genuinely excited by food and obviously takes great pleasure in the texture and experience of eating, resulting in some of the best lines in the show. He'll say: "I could literally take a running jump into that pudding", or "I could easily lick the plate clean after this", or (my favourite) "I could polish that off and profess myself happy". Once he nearly had tears in his eyes as he ate a bald man's scallops.

John, on the other hand, is a bit of a mixed dish. Sometimes he's the soufflé, a flamboyant, unpredictable scene-stealer. But at others he's the steak, simple, effective and tells it like it is (just consider his book called 'BEEF'). Watch him hanging around the contestants as they cook, peering into pots and pans, striking fear and doubt into the weaker souls, or building a cook's hopes in the feedback, only to shatter their dreams with the crushing blow that their mashed potato is not seasoned correctly. It's masterful.

Torode's ace in the hole, however, is his eating. He piles an impressive amount of chow onto his fork at every opportunity, so much so it teeters on edge of major droppage or shirt stains. Then, he attacks it with a variety of patented manoevres, sizing up his prey before a quick, neat dispatch of unrivaled accuracy and execution. He appears to be an all-consuming black hole at times, and I half expect Gregg and the contestant to get sucked in, unable to escape the belly of the beast.

What both hosts share is a way with words. The descriptions of the dishes and flavours laid before them is really quite entertaining. And you can learn how to speak like Masterchef too. All you have to do is take a mouthful of a dish and combine lots of contrasting adjectives. For example, say: "The sweetness of the X is matched by the bitterness of the Y, while the mellow A, crunchy B and creamy C collide with the spicy yet moist yet dry D, ending on a note of floral P." See, it's easy.

Aside from the hosts, Masterchef has an array of plucky contestants brimming with faux-enthusiasm and misguided dreams. Each week the cream rises to the top, and the leftovers are sent packing, but not before blaming the ingredients, or the time or 'bad luck', insisting that "one day" they will own their own cafe/restaurant/pub to tout their culinary wares.

Mix in some driving acid-techno-rave music from (what I presume is) John's ipod and some tasty editing to keep the pace up, and you've got one hell of a show. But then again, it might just be an acquired taste.

Ian

McCartney & Ringo Reunion

2009-01-20T21:15:00.006Z

Found this oldy. Drawn back before the divorce, it now as a wierd 'let's frame the bitch' sentiment to it... I like that.

What a cleverlutionary idea!

2009-01-19T10:45:00.002Z

Today I made up a new word:

Cleverlutionary (adj): something new and ingenious that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.

I really like it. I think I am going to try to be more cleverlutionary this year. I might not make a lasting change to society or human endeavor, but trying to be more innovative, spontaneous and smart in the things I do will no doubt result in some seriously good things.

So remember, be cleverlutionary, and let us know what cleverlutionary things you've been doing.

Ian

Brothers McLeod get BAFTA nominated!

2009-01-15T12:33:00.005Z

The Brothers McLeod's film, ‘Codswallop’ has been nominated for a BAFTA in the Short Animation category!

It's a nice coup for the Midlands considering it's running against Aardman's, 'Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf or Death', and will be featured in a BAFTAs crammed with Oscar winning ammunition. Ian also did a nice interview with Greg McLeod for 4Talent at the UK premiere of 'Codswallop'.

Well done lads!

Video Wall 5

2008-12-26T22:30:00.007Z

Did someone say, "Veritable fun feast for the eyes"? No? Well, it's on your plate now. See what you can manage. Now we're at the start of a working week again, here's some audio-light displays which I feel may help ease those uneasy work sensations.

'All I Want For Christmas Is...' - Paul Rayment. A Christmassy highlight for yow. This guy made a very nice music video for the Super Furry Animals in a similar style and got featured on da ChewYube.
'I Met the Walrus' - Josh Raskin. Academy nominated animation made to the recording of a 14 year old's impromptu interview with John Lennon. If you don't like the Beatles, don't worry, it's all about the intense interweaved animation and spot on cue hitting. Here's the story about it.
'Superhero Fashion Emergency' - Mike Parker (or at least he has the most credits). Made for College Humour TV. Good little mickey take and the site is also good for general smut and funnies.
'Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! - [adult swim] - Chan'. Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim are endless powerhouses of wierd chuckle nuggets. There really must be an inbalance there - they make A LOT of stuff. Good stuff. Really Good Stuff. I'm stuffed. Adult Swim is also well worth perusing.

Mince, Pies and Videotape

2008-12-17T14:07:00.035Z

As it's nearly Christmas, I'm going to help you decide what to buy your nearest and dearest to avoid those awkward "Oh...thanks...um...great" moments around the tree on the big day. And what better way to help than to suggest not only a great present, but a potentially life changing purchase...that could literally change your life.

That's right, I know what everyone needs after a gut-busting festive period. Why, a fitness video of course. But which one of the myriad titles festooned upon us this winterval should you choose? I've narrowed it down to two, both of which look obesely flabulous.

First up is the '5 Step Fat Attack' by former band/camp-dance-troupe/line-dancing-posse member, Claire from Steps. Claire - real name Claire Fromsteps - has clearly been busy since leaving the band. As the cover art shows, she made the most of the royalties from hits like '5,6,7,8' and...um...others, by piling on the pounds. Safe in the knowledge that she used to be a bit out of shape, you too can follow her lead and become a better person.

Let's take a look.

Inspiring stuff. So the message is clear, if you want to get fit, you've got to declare a war on terror...but on fat, preferably in a disused canteen. And remember, punching is the new not eating. Claire from Steps says so.

Next we have the other big hitter vying for your hard-earned dollar. It's from long-forgotten TV health hero Max Fitness who, after a long spell in the depths of deep self-loathing, has re-emerged with a new workout available on VHS, cassette and minidisc. Whack this on and Max will choke back the tears to bust a cap in yo' flabby ass, so to speak. There won't be a dry artery in the house after this is unwrapped.

Let's see his words of wisdom.

Just fantastic. With advice like this selling for a song on the street, it's a wonder why child obesity is still rife in the UK.

But which one should you choose? Which one will devour those love handles in minutes? Which one will counteract the 10 pints and kebab you had last night? To pick a winner, I have devised a test. My brother Phil is a fitness guru. I let him loose on both videos to crown the ultimate christmas workout video. I have plotted the results on the graph below.

It's pretty conclusive, I think it says it all really. So, all that's left for me to say is, have a healthy Christmas, don't eat too much, and watch your new video in the knowledge that you've got the best advice available on the market today.

But if that fails, Mr Motivator is on his way back to TV, no doubt in a spandex-clad private jet powered exclusively by squat thrusts and the occasional lunge (for steering of course).

Stay fit!

Ian Ravenscroft

Video Wall 4

2008-12-06T00:28:00.008Z

'Argent Content' - Philippe Dussol. This was shown during Gigbeth, with The Guillemots improvising a score for it. Interesting that whilst still shot in this decade it looks quite old. Amazing to think quickly low budget film making technology has improved. Still, can't beat an old pair of roller skates.
Economiclassics - Eva Becker. One of new subscribers on YouTube made this. I don't know what any of the words mean, but that's probably just as well. It's nonesensical loveliness, complimenting the fact that 81% of statistics are useless.
The Shining Re-Cut uploaded by neochosen. The power of editing turns The Shining into the next big feel good comedy of the year. Don't know who made this though.
Sheep Worrier 5 - Craig Hindmarsh (Animaxy). Part of series of 'Sheep Worrier' cartoons, this is my personal favourite.

Thoughts on the 4Talent Awards

2008-12-05T09:13:00.014Z

Having been fortunate enough to be invited for my contribution to the magazine, I popped down to London for 4Talent's annual awards ceremony to celebrate the latest bunch of worthy winners ready and waiting to 'hit the big time'.

After a busy and eventful week, I decided the night would be best enjoyed rather than spent 'working' (either by trying to nab a few words to do a write-up or trying to 'network', as was for many the main attraction of the evening I'm sure). And enjoy it I did.

Before the ceremony had even begun I was having a great time. Walking into Channel 4 HQ for the first time was extremely satisfying, especially as a fan and keen admirer of what the institution and brand stands for. As I made my way in, I noticed that the casual dress code was perfect for the night. Everyone seemed relaxed and ready to have fun, and no one seemed to have slightest whiff of "who are you and why are you wasting my time?" about them.

Perhaps it was because most were 'up and coming' rather than established stars, but I suspect a lot was down to the setting of the tone, especially evident in the self-effacing execs and judges that dished out the rather groovy luminescent gongs (see right).

The awards themselves were swiftly presented, pushed along by the MC for the night, who with his 'middle-class' Jimmy Carr-meets-Micheal Mcintyre shtick was generally very funny (although doing a joke about someone sleeping with – the now deceased – Jeremy Beadle's 15-year-old daughter, having already poked fun at the 'Brandgate' scandal, was a mistake and rightfully bombed). All of the acceptance speeches were very humble too, often funny and never grated like so many of the teary-eyed Hollywood schmaltz-fests.

After the informal formalities were done and dusted, I had a wander around and was pleased to meet some lovely, interesting and very talented people. Music winner Iain Woods, who I had blogged on at Gigbeth, was particularly friendly and genuinely nice to chat with. The same went for James Curran and James Knott, the music video winners I profiled in the magazine, whose approach to balancing the bills with success was inspiring.

Chats were also had with Timo Langer, one half of the film direction winners, as well as last year's film winner Vanessa Caswill. Personal congratulations were somewhat fleetingly meted out to animator Liam Brazier of LittleNobody and journalism winner Natalie Whelan too.

All in all, I think the organisers can be proud to have kept the atmosphere relaxed and informal, while the addition of beatboxer Beardyman to round things up was a nice surprise (all from his voice? amazing!). The only unfortunate aspect of the evening was not having time to stick around longer, being cruelly forced to leave the fun early to catch a train back to Brum. Personally, I hope I get the opportunity to go again, and I hope all of this year's winners fulfill their undoubted talent and start 'making it big' in 2009, it's the least they deserve.

Ian Ravenscroft

Video Round up 3

2008-11-27T16:25:00.003Z

O.K. Its the video wall again. Woop and indeed Di Doop.

'Grey' by Ivan Rusev. There's no real nitty gritty details about this guy which is shame. Think he's Canadian... or Bulgarian. This has really inspired me. The way that everything's drawn and animated finally makes me shake off all the snobbishness I picked up studying animation and the world of Richard Williams. The thing about Flash animation it really helps retain styles of illustration that would normally be deemed 'incorrect' in terms of it being a 3D object. It also means you just get to spend more time worrying about the most important thing, the story! So thanks, this has really given me a kick up the bum. But remember kids, Flash can make you lazy.
Fight scene from the undefendable, 'Undefeatable'. If we're going to be naming and shaming, 'Godfrey Ho' directed it. In the words of the YouTubian who posted it "This fight is complete with knife licking, shirt tearing, gratuitous shirtlessness." I think special thanks to all the cast involved is needed too. "Yeah. See yer."
Food Fight by Stefan Nadelman of Tourist Pictures. Brilliant video, racking up well over 3million on YouTube so far. Its a food reinactment of the major wars of the last century so it's meant to be sobering I guess, but funny, 'cos it's food. Here's more details about it.
Hogan Knows Depression by WTF-TV for Comedy.com (expensive domain name for sure). It's funny and it's like something we would make, but I get annoyed by the faceless 'Blam!' logos they put on these. It's all about the brand, and that's just a smiley face. How am I meant to interact with that?

2008-11-25T10:59:00.001Z

Great website where out of copyright music has been collected for your delectation and exploitation.

http://www.openmusicarchive.org/about.php

I Like... David Cowles' Illustration

2008-11-21T11:35:00.005Z

David Cowles does animation too, but I'm always impressed when someone can make a representation of The Beatles that stands out against the rest. David's illustration style obvously has a lot of Picasso influence and it's interesting to see how that converts into very commercial caricature. I'm dissapointed that this style hasn't really carried through into his animation though, it'd look great! There's no local links or anything, I just like.

Video Round Up 2

2008-11-14T22:23:00.000Z

The Black Hole by Phil Williams & Olly Sampson - Great film that won the Virgin Media Shorts competition recntly. Perfect, short premise for a quirky film. Love the character development, without any words.
Crime Fighter by Robot Chicken - Robot Chicken is an 'Adult Swim' program strangely co-created by Seth Green of Austin Powers (sort of) fame.
Don't tend to go for satire as it dates very quickly, but this is just a very nice, just sarcastic enough quick fire of events from ITN.
Cyriak's shouldn't be down at the bottom there. Doing very well for himself at the moment making relatively low tech, hypnotic, GIF avatar-based, repulsive, mahem animations. Just the trick.

Ceci n'est pas un T-shirt

2008-11-04T11:43:00.009Z

As Ian astutely pointed out, the next phase in degraded fashion design will be to sell T-shirts with pre-yellowed arm pits. If you want a 'Ceci n'est pas un Rolf Harris' T-shirt, get in touch or leave a comment and I'll try to sort it out at cost price.

Louis

Burlesque Life Drawing + Audience Participation

2008-10-31T11:50:00.006Z

I thought this deserved a plug, especially as it's Animation Forum West Midlands news. I've been wanting to go to some life drawing classes and 'Dr. Sketchy's' looks very interesting. It's not so much a lesson, as drawing wierd stuff whilst getting pissed at The Island Bar... with a competition thrown in apparently.

What I find the most interesting, however, is the fact that if it was just advertised as 'Burlesque+Animal bits', I would have probably blanked it. But, the only difference between the two is a pad of paper and a pencil... and I usually carry both! This confirms something that we've been thinking about. Audiences need to be told what they can do. Tell them to hand stands and they'll do it (reluctantly). Tell them to clap and they'll clap (much more British). More importantly, tell people to talk to each other and they will.

Most people aren't the life and soul of the party. So Dr. Sketchy's has given people extra options. Some people may be up for that. Some people may just want to stare a Fox-Woman with nipple tassles. That alone makes it an interesting experience, with a sort of counter-culture, hallucinagenic, cabaret ambience. The competition element however, puts a spin on it. People have now been told they might be interacting with the show somehow. That might put some people off, but it means the people who do go are prepared to engage and will innevitably make the effort to enjoy themselves.

Being a reserved, emotionally repressed Brit, I just don't know what I'm allowed to do without being told. So, giving people the option to engage in an exciting way is something I'd like to see a lot more in nearly all events, whether it be in the form of a compere or just the theme of the event. A professional point in case are the AFWM screenings. Whilst they are essentially film screenings, they're really relaxed and filmmakers are encouraged to talk in front of everyone so that you can put names to faces. What's more you're actually told to go and talk to someone, which at least prepares even the shiest members of the audience to socialise.

Here's Dr. Sketchy's MySpace.

Pause for Thought

2008-10-28T14:09:00.008Z

Sobering

Yeah, That's Really Good

2008-10-27T14:50:00.012Z

As part of my occasional pointing & staring at videos I like, here's some soul enhancing YouTube favourites:

First up, 'Stinks' by Qianqian "Lil" Liu. Made at the recent Digitoons Masterclasses run by the Brothers McLeod. Just a great simple idea.
Next, I should have posted this ages ago. Now nearly racking up 10 million views this is Poykpac's interpretation of Mario's post-mushroom kingdom stardom. I've always wanted to do a Mario Brothers Feature (Not a remake - the first one doesn't count) but this quenched my thirst for the moment.
Third, in no particular order, 'Hot Air Salesman' produced by the amazing Max Fleischer. Ian & Tom spotted this gem in the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham. Rubber hose animation and remorseless smashing only damped by the fact that Betty Boop was forced to clean up her act by this point in her career.
And last, a recent 'smash hit' commissioned by MySpace of all people. 'Italian Spiderman' by ALRUGO Entertainment is a fantastic spoof '70s soap, detective series with some fat smacks of shovinism, moustaches, whiskey, and guns thrown in for free.

Hopefully this'll cheer Ian up (see below).

Funny picture, LOLZ!!!!

2008-10-27T10:31:00.003Z

Having had a really crappy weekend and subsequently feeling like shite today, I thought I'd do an experiment. I typed 'funny picture' into Google images to see if it could cheer me up. It came up with this:

Suffice to say, it didn't work.

If you can do better, send me a funny picture to ian@diceproductions.co.uk and I'll publish a roundup of your efforts.

Ian 'LMAO' Ravenscroft

The Re-Incarnation of Captain Scarlet

2008-10-23T12:40:00.005+01:00

How does it feel to be immortal now, Captain?

Deceptively simple yet inspired...

2008-10-21T12:57:00.005+01:00

I quite like the BBC website as a pot of interesting nuggets to brighten my lunch hour. One of my favourite features is the caption competition on the Paper Monitor blog. It's a quick, fun, exercise in wordplay, where mere mortals do battle for the small amount of kudos dished out to the top-five entries of the 600+ witticisms they receive each week.

I quite like scrolling through the other entries, laughing at the sometimes clever, sometimes painfully awful captions for the 'begging for a caption' image provided. Last week the image was of a church that allowed dogs to sit on their owner's laps during the service.

My entry was the minimal "Pewdle". A mix of pew (the type of seat) and poodle (the type of dog). A fair crack at it I thought.

Checking back the next day, I found I hadn't been selected in the chosen few .

I thought no more of it until I noticed this in my other BBC blog vice 'Your Letters' (which must be exclusively populated by upper middle-class jam-makers and gardening enthusiasts judging from its tone). The final letter said:

"I can forgive you for overlooking my caption competition entries, but I can't forgive you for overlooking the deceptively simple yet inspired 'pewdle'.
Sue, London"

Hilarious on many levels. First, my throwaway pursuit got some recognition from a woman named Sue from London, second, they felt compelled to write in to correct a perceived injustice, and third, that the BBC deemed it an important enough issue to print in their letters section!

My confusion only increased when I found this:

"Can I second Sue in London's support of the simple but effective 'pewdle' caption competition entry (Friday letters). However I must admit the 'dogging' entry made me chuckle the most, although I can fully understand why it wasn't chosen.
Mark, Portsmouth"

How odd. I must have some form of talent for captions. Previously I won two Glastonbury tickets for a four-word slogan to stop ticket touts ("Tout and you're out" if you were wondering), and five tickets to a Gomez gig for a description of what I'd do if I had wings!

So, thank you Sue from London, and Mark from Portsmouth. Your support was most welcome and brightened my day.

Ian "insert caption here" Ravenscroft

Max Fitness

2008-10-18T15:02:00.008+01:00

Cheeky bit of news for you.

We have a new film! It's called Max Fitness, and this is what it's about:

'After a failed career as Britain's second-favourite celebrity fitness coach, Max Fitness turns to German morning television for a final shot at cellulite-busting stardom.

Available on VHS, audio cassette and minidisc!'

Watch it here:

Tell us what you think with a comment and a rating if you're that way inclined.

Film Dash update: Totally scripted, cast, locations scouted and schedule planned. Half filmed, waiting for night for scenes of darkness. We're happy so far!

Many thanks to Sara Leung for joining the cast too!

Ian, Louis & Tom @ Dice Productions

Phonographantasmascope - Jim le Fevre

2008-10-14T14:19:00.005+01:00

Here's a bit of fun that my friend threw my way. It's a take on the Pixar's and Studio Ghibli's 3D Zeotrope Sculptures using 2 turntables. It's really quite cute. Shows what you can do with a bit of spare time and a technology who's only obvious use was to play music and rotate helpless kittens.

The creator, Jim le Fevre, also studied at my old art college, which was nice to see.

Here's Pixar's and Studio Ghibli's originals:

Do the Evolution

2008-10-09T18:30:00.007+01:00

I was reading the other day that evolution has stopped. Just given up. We have apparently reached the pinnacle of the human form and are indeed at the zenith of our species' achievement. Frankly, I find this hard to believe.

At present, humans walk and talk and think (occasionally) and make tea and buy shoes for ludicrous amounts of money among all sorts of other physical and mental capabilities. So, to many it might seem like we've got the whole world in our hands, being able to deal with any problem life throws at us. But every stage of evolution must have said this too.

There's still loads we can't do. Personally, I'd rather fly to work, unaided of course. It'd be faster (probably), it'd be 'green', and I could probably sneak in a quick loop-de-loop before I glide in through the window to my desk.

I can't do this because I am not evolved enough to fly. My limited understanding of evolution tells me that adaptation occurs over many generations to aid survival. So, although I can't expect to sprout wings (or a helicopter attachment, how cool would that be?) in my lifetime, perhaps the answer is that I'm not trying hard enough.

If successive generations of my family made it their mission to fly unaided (by jumping lots, moaning about it all the time, etc.), maybe eventually, wings (or helicopter blades, come on!) would start to develop.

And it's not just me. I was speaking to Louis the other day and he said: "Gills would be a massive advantage." And he's right. Humans are crap. Can't fly, can't swim, can't pick up heavy things, can't teleport, can't communicate without saying "erm" or "y'know" between every sentence, the list is endless.

Evolution needs to carry on. Otherwise all the human race has got to look forward to is bumping their heads off the undersides of desks and tripping over stationary objects. Some people don't believe in evolution, and you can see why. "We evolved into this?!" they say with disgust (probably).

Anyway, the message is clear. Evolution hasn't stopped, we're just lazy. It's the same reason my shelves haven't been put up, it's not that I haven't evolved enough to do it, I just haven't had the inclination.

Ian 'evolving but slowly' Ravenscroft

One more thing, about this chicken and egg debate over which one came first. I was thinking the other day, that even if a giant chicken came down from space, declared itself our God and proceeded to rampage around the globe eating non-believers, we'd still be asking the same questions: "But did it come from a giant space-egg?"

Answers on a postcard.

Thanks Richard...

2008-09-23T11:11:00.005+01:00

In line with the regimented world of the office, I dutifully took my turn to make tea. The kettle was still being a little odd, but my new 'system' avoided any unnecessary leg drenching. As I dished out the drinks, everything went as usual. My deputy editor made the noise which I assume means 'thank you', the subscriptions manager carried on with her work, saying 'thanks' a minute after I'd left, and I nearly spilled the editorial assistant's drink again because of the mug with the funny handle.

Then I took my editor his tea. I put it down on his desk as usual and started to walk away. But something different happened. "Thanks Richard," he said. I paused at his door as I heard it and turned around. My name isn't Richard. He looked at me quizzically, and then, realising his mistake, laughed. "I don't know why I just called you Richard. I don't even know anyone called Richard."

Why did he call me Richard? At first I ignored it as a slip of the tongue, but then I thought about the possibilities. Did I remind him of someone called Richard? Was this Richard person part of some secret which I wasn't supposed to know about? Did he want me to be more like a Richard?!

I told my deputy editor about it and another twist emerged. "Oh, that's odd. Now that I think about it, we used to have a guy called Richard that worked here. He looked like you actually," he informed me.

Now I was intrigued. "What was he like?" I asked, nervous to discover what I had reminded him of. "Well, he had dark hair." That's not much of a link I thought. "And he was a fundamental Christian. He used to wear a massive wooden cross and bring in copies of The Watchtower. Then he fell for the Jehovah's Witness that worked here and left. Oh, and he used to cry all the time."

"What?!" I protested. "Why does that remind him of me?!". "Dunno," he said, "probably just the hair." I hope he's right.

Ian 'not Richard' Ravenscroft

Of All The People In The World

2008-09-18T21:44:00.004+01:00

Would have liked to have gone into more detail about this recent art exhibition but 'Oh well'. I'll add to this post soon.

In the vein of being oafish and nonchalant, I managed to kick over one of the piles of rice that make up this wonderful and thought provoking installation. At first I was mortifyingly embarrassed. Especially so, as it was infront of all of the curators who were carefully scouring for more wonderful, thought provoking statistics to alert the world to the pitfalls in humanity like myself. Then I looked down to see that I'd taken out decent amount of Birmingham City Council. I think I regained some dignity and tried to make my peace.

Sorry Stan's Cafe, I really do like the exhibition and I promise to not scrounge a concessionary ticket next time.

Warning! Hot!

2008-09-18T13:26:00.002+01:00

Maybe it's just me being stupid, but hot things are really getting to me at the moment. It started last week when I kept opening the oven to retrieve my din-dins, only to be blasted in the face by a gust of hot, hot, burning steam. And it happened SEVERAL times. I thought I had it sussed by opening the door, facing away and waiting for a moment before reaching in, but no, blasted again. It's as if it had waited for me.

Then it was the kettle at work. Instead of pouring like a normal kettle it decided to start dripping hot, hot boiling water down its sides and onto my legs and shoes. I'm pretty sure it's the kettle and not me. Hot things have a conspiracy against me.

This week alone I have burnt my mouth on tea, coffee, spaghetti bolognaise and a chicken and broccoli pie.

Have you suffered unprovoked or undeserved burnings? Do you bear irrational grudges against kitchen appliances? Are you inpatient when you eat? Tell me about it and maybe we can heal together.

Ian the Burnt

Dork Side of the Moon

2008-08-31T12:33:00.006+01:00

The Time Warp

2008-08-29T13:21:00.009+01:00

History has a funny habit of re-writing itself. With every successive generation, everything that happened before a time called 'now' becomes clouded by the shiny, new, electronic present and must seem pretty irrelevant to the bug-eyed yoof of today. And now, thanks to Youtube, this has become even more evident.

Now kids who care enough to ask what happened before the X-Factor and the Wii can just log on and view videos that document most of the last century rather than open a dusty old book. Want to see what happened in 1983? Just type it in and have a look. Never before could you go to a museum and see who was on Top of the Pops in any given week of the year. Armed with this revelation, I decided to try it out.

Right, Youtube, open, typing, nineteen-eighty-three, bang there it is. First result and I've got an idea of what it was like to live in good old '83. "Kajagoogoo's debut single 'Too Shy" shot straight to number one in the UK charts in February 1983". A quick smash of the play button in my excitement and I'm there. I'm in 1983. There are perms, there's bleach, there's a mullet, there's a yellow vest. There's even a glitter ball. I'm in the sodding 80s!

But wait a second, what's this? A wartime dancehall? Khaki uniforms? No glitter? This isn't the 80s I've heard about. And then they get all mixed up. What?! Kajagoogoo welcomed back the troops from defeating the Third Reich?! Why have I never heard this before?!

Suddenly I realise something. This Youtube lark could become pretty confusing to an uneducated yoof. "Wow," they'd say between mouthfuls of chocolate-coated cheesestrings, "they wore some funky gear in '83. Wicked innit." And in the blink of an eye, some poor kid thinks Britons in the 80s were still going to dancehalls to waltz with their sweethearts in full officer's garb.

I decided to test out my theory. 1973. I'll go there. A quick scroll down the results and again, I'm getting a feel for the year. There's Led Zeppelin's 'Black Dog', Wishbone Ash progging it up, and Luxembourg winning Eurovision. So far so normal.

But wait, what's this? James Blunt, '1973'. That's not right. In fact, that's just plain confusing! A yoof in years to come could be conned into thinking that Blunt was moping around in the 70s too! He's practically re-writing history!

My mind at this point is spinning. What if Blunty boy knew this would happen? What if, in some cackling fit of evil genius, housewive's favourite James Blunt decided to plant himself back in time through Youtube to cement his place as an eminent artist, straddling the millenium like a massive time jockey? I always thought he had sinister eyes. A quick snoop on Wikipedia tells me he wasn't even born by 1973!

I sat in stunned silence. '"It's just like Terminator or Back to the Future," I thought "I have to stop him." But before I could embark on my time-travelling mission, my attention was diverted by a video of Led Zeppelin live at Madison Square Gardens in the real 1973. "Wait," I said, this time out loud and to nobody, "How do I even know this one is real?".

And in that instant I knew it was too late. An evil shadow was already lurking on the horizon, laying in wait to rise again and claim his lifetime acheivement awards and mult-platinum discs and acclaim. That man's name is James...Hillier...Blunt.

Ian Ravenscroft

TV and Shit

2008-08-27T14:06:00.010+01:00

There are many things in life which we know are bad for us if not respected; kebabs, booze, drugs, sticking your head out of moving trains etc, but all of these are eclipsed by the addictive power that the mighty television has over us all. So much so in fact, that I’m not sure we even care about what we’re watching anymore, as long as it involves ‘real people’ and a sense of competition, we’ll stare at it like shagged out crack monkeys. I’m talking of course about reality television.

I can safely say without exaggeration, that Big Brother is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. Everything about that programme makes me want to go on a killing spree, the way it’s advertised, the long periods of time in the so called highlights when nothing happens and last but not least, the self-confessed ‘Wacky’ contestants. I’ve happened to catch a lot of this series, because others around me appear to have lost their marbles as well as countless hours of their lives watching it and let me tell you something, I don’t like it.

Big Brother is the programme that gave us the adorable charm of Nasty Nick, the dry wit of Chantelle and of course gifted the nation with the bastion of tolerance herself, Jade Goody. So why do I hate it I hear you ask. Well, what’s particularly harrowing for me is the way that channel four can hold on to an audience of millions for years, without seemingly doing anything.

They struck upon the formula for Big Brother as we know it somewhere in the second series, when they’d begun to phase out all that psychological nonsense, you know, that stuff that actually gave it some credibility. Now the procedure is roughly as follows: Get a small contingent of attention seeking half-wits and put them into a house. Note, must be willing to make tits of themselves. These half-wits will ideally be (a) idiotic (b) willing to get naked (c) obnoxious and (d) part of a minority in society, preferably an obscure one so they can overcome adversity and gain acceptance by the nation. Put this rag-tag ensemble into a house with dozens of cameras and let the hilarity commence, as they do the washing up, dry their clothes and shave...

What fecks me off about Big Brother the most, is the effect that it has on the people who watch it. The fact that families are content to sit in silence, watching these ignorami whilst they perform banal menial tasks is a sad indictment of our society. Another sad reflection is how easily manipulated people are when it comes to voting, its idiotic enough that they spend their money on this shite, but now the viewers are pretty much told who to vote for. For example on celebrity Big Brother a few years ago, when the viewers were coaxed by Davina into saying ‘wouldn’t it be great if Chantelle won?’ Why? Just because she’s intellectually equivocal to a peanut, it doesn’t mean you should vote for her, or vote at all.

The viewers imbecilic tendencies tend to come to a climax during the last few weeks; take this year’s Big Brother, it’s blindingly obvious (no pun originally intended) that Mikey will win hands down. What riles me is that they even question the outcome and start to pose idiotic, quasi philosophical questions such as, ‘could Big Brother really see its first blind winner?’ Well of course it bloody will, because the morons who line channel fours pockets by voting for these cretins, now feel a moral obligation to vote for a guy would otherwise just be a moaning Scotsman. What’s worse will be the patronising gloaters, who as always will doff their middle class hats in celebration for modern Britain, totally ignoring the fact that he won through a mix of pity and guilt.

I just don’t get this obsession with reality television, on a positive note however, I believe that it must be on its way out, as the reality barrel appears to have been scraped by the BBC in their creation, ‘Last Choir Standing’. This pushes the reality competition to its very limits, as the show presented by the lovely Myleene Klass and Nick ‘that bloke from the building programme with the fat head’ Knowles, seek to find Britain’s best choir, or something. What is the point of it all? The best that the winners can hope for is to make an album which will inevitably end up in Woolworths bargain bins up and down the country.

At least with this ridiculous programme the contestants were enjoying their perspective choirs before the show began, but you can’t help but feel that they must start to get swept away by notions of stardom. Imagine the poor look on those welsh middle aged faces after the show, when they are tenderly led to the back of the BBC and informed, ‘What, you didn’t think you’d be famous did you? Ha ha, you’re a choir dickheads!’ Just save them all the years of unfulfilled dreams and put them all down now, it’s the only humane thing to do.

So there, I’ve got most of it out of my system. Why can’t we have a return to quality evening entertainment after this plague of reality baloney, or at least remove the infuriating attention seeking morons who drive me to insanity. Maybe I could set up a show where I try to find people in the country with self respect, I could call it ‘Britain’s got dignity’. Well it’s something to ponder, but I’m off to watch the X-Factor.

Tom Reid

The Power of Fish

2008-08-26T23:58:00.003+01:00

Mmmm, I didn't realise fish could be so nutritious.

Not me you see (Botched Court Defence)

2008-08-24T04:15:00.010+01:00

Video Recommendation: Kipple

2008-08-18T19:51:00.004+01:00

I think we can allow one of this blog's functions to be to allow us to show unusual videos that we like / wish we had made. For example, this one made us laugh till we cried.

I'd also recommend these: The Microwave Magician, Kipple Intro Rough, Robin Morley's Smelly Cheese. In terms of who the creators are, the nearest to a normal name that I can find is Peter Ward. A normal place? Sheffield?

Chicken or the Egg - Uncovered

2008-08-12T10:52:00.013+01:00

Here's a question that's been a bee in my bonnet. Which came first: Chicken or the Egg? It's annoying because anyone who accepts Darwin's theories could only logically conclude that the Egg was indeed first (as illustrated). Saying that though, whatever did poo out that egg would have given birth to what was essentially a mutant and would have got rid of the evidence before prehistoric society laid it's judging eyes on this odd-ball family. Or, maybe I just haven't quite grasped the theory of evolution. So, like a Channel 4 documentary, there are no real conclusions here, just lingering, time-wasting afterthoughts.

Car Sex Man + Flying Naked People

2008-07-31T09:54:00.006+01:00

Current affairs won't alway's fit into this blog, but I think you'll agree these make the exception:

Firstly, the creatively titled, 'Car Sex Man Enjoys Sex With Cars' article (originally by The Sun) really is a treat. And, in case that link breaks, heres the original manual of 'How to Make Love to a Car or Other Vehicle'.

What's more, the article's introduced me to long unused word, 'vehicular'. Sounds sticky. . . onomatopoeically. . . what a mouth full. . . mm.

In other news, here's an obsurd quote: 'All the passengers will fly naked... then they will be able to enjoy flight the way God intended.' The Metro.

A Curl for Every Day of the Month

2008-07-08T15:32:00.015+01:00

Here's a bit of fun. For chuckles, we occasionally take it in turns to draw on a piece of paper till it's full. It usually results in some sort of flailing cyborg / horrifically entwined freek parade. This one was no different.

Savour the Pain.

Louis Hudson, Dice Productions

Sun, love and debauchery on the white isle

2008-06-17T20:00:00.010+01:00

It’s a sweltering day in the West Midlands, I’ve just finished transporting numerous concrete blocks up a thirty foot ladder when I get a phone call from Aaron. “Hello?” I answered, panting down the phone, “Tom” he says, “Ibiza, September, three days, you coming?” He has a certain way of getting to the point. “um…. Maybe” I said and before I knew it, Aaron, Liam, Sam and myself were off to Ibiza. What could possibly go wrong?

The weeks roll on and it’s time to head off. I’ve got my passport, two hundred quid to spend, the shiny new camera and the extortionately expensive flip flops I’d just bought, sorted. After a plethora of drinks, we headed merrily on our way to Gatwick, ready to face Ibiza the English way, drunk.

After giddily finding our seats on the plane, Sam makes a startling revelation. “Lads”, he says, “the drinks are free!” With this in mind, we inadvertently went about destroying the last few remnants of respect that are still held for the British holidaymaker. “Excuse me” exclaimed Liam, as he hailed a member of the cabin crew, “I’ll have a bottle of your finest champizzle please stewardess.”

Apparently, the air pressure in an aeroplane is massively different to what we are usually accustomed to, due to the high altitude. This supposedly acts to double the sensation of inebriation felt by the individual. Now, if this is true, then it meant that we’d been drinking for close to eighteen hours.

I don’t actually remember landing in Ibiza, or what we did with our bags, instead my memory leads me to a small club that resembled a small swimming baths, which had been derelict for some years. I remember being confused at the time as to how I got there, I also remember that I hadn’t eaten much that night, but whatever it was that I’d consumed, It left me feeling happy enough, ecstatic you might say.

After leaving the swimming baths, all I can recall is walking solitarily beside the sea-shore, singing ‘Dock of the bay’ to myself, like some wandering vagrant from a Joyce novel. We somehow arrived at our apartments, but we couldn’t check in for another four hours. While Sam got some well-needed sleep by the pool, the rest of us did what seemed to be most logical at the time, strip down and go for a swim.

After our delightful breakfast, consisting of four large San Miguels, we set upon the long day ahead of us. Bora Bora beach; the air was salty, the view of the med was breathtaking and the people were gorgeous, perfect. However, as Aaron went missing and as Sam was unconscious back at the apartment it was left to me and Liam to have it large. Several beverages and more happy food helped us to make friends with everyone in sight. Within half an hour we were surrounded by women, I think it was at that point I realised that Liam is a genius.

Soon after, two gorgeous Irish girls joined our party and with that, Tom Reid fell in love. I can’t remember anything they said or particularly what they looked like, but I’m quite certain my feelings were genuine at the time. “Is that a Dublin accent?” I asked Ornaith (I think that was her name) and after learning I was correct, she asked me if I was Irish, I replied that I was and proceeded to wow her with my knowledge of Republican history. I knew she was impressed.

We were sitting on the sand, the waves tickling our feet when I came out with quite possibly the strangest attempt at a chat up line. “Did you know that this is the island where Odysseus was tempted by the sirens?” I said suavely. “Oh… really” she replied looking somewhat confused, to this day I’m really not sure what I was going for with that one.

As me and Ornaith continued to chat about nothing, her friend came bursting out of the sea like Ursula Andress in Dr No. She flicked her hair about, like in the loreal adverts as the water glistened off her immaculate body. I didn’t know girls like that existed in real life. “Jesus!” I blurted out unwillingly, as I continued to stare gormlessly at her flawless physique. I don’t think either of them were particularly impressed by this and somehow or other we parted ways forever...

Next thing I know, I’m in the sea with another girl, its important to point out at this stage that I wasn’t wearing clothes that were designed for swimming. I noticed Liam shouting by the edge of the sea, motioning to his pocket and then at me. I fumbled around in my pockets, only to pull out my new camera, which was now filled with sand and sea water.

Some time after falling in love and drowning my camera, I woke up alone on a sun lounger. My friends had vanished and my legs were bright red, what had happened? The only explanation to this question was the half empty bottle of absinthe that rested on my chest. I turned round to find two cockney blokes on the sun loungers next to mine, “Alright Tom” one of them said. To say that I was bewildered at this point would be a massive understatement.

After eventually finding our apartment and having the worst nap of my life, we headed on to one of Ibiza’s coolest clubs, Pacha. The club’s layout was the best I’d ever seen and the atmosphere was severely stylish, with a large emphasis placed on Faboolousness. For example, the Pacha dancers didn’t dance in the conventional sense of the word, but rather they just stood there, moving only occasionally in a constant attempt to look faboolarious.

The exertions of that day had taken their toll on me however, so instead of raving it up with Aaron and Sam, me and Liam chose to relax in the chill-out area and practice our new personas on some unsuspecting women. “Really?” one girl said impressed, “a life guard?” that one worked well, but my personal favourite was Liam’s inventive choice of vocation, a dolphin relocater.

Most of the second day was spent watching ‘Dr No’ in Spanish whilst eating a chocolate mousse without a spoon and trying to find another apartment after we were kicked out of our original abode. Needless to say I felt pretty low.

After the guys got back, we decided to go out for a well earned pint and at midnight we celebrated Liam’s birthday. “It’s my Birthday!” he yelled, as we consumed the most epic pint of our lives (he must have said it about four hundred times that day).
The final day of our holiday loomed and the plan was set: Space in the morning, use our lunch break to get some Desperados from the off license and then head back to Space to finish the holiday off before leaving for the airport at ten.

The music in Space was the best that I’d heard so far, but try as I might, I was struggling to move, let alone dance. It was then that an exquisite girl in hot pants came over to me at the bar, arms wide open as she says, “Hey Tom!”. Baffled once again I replied, “Alright…..” [Think Tom, think, what’s her name? God how could I forget meeting her? She’s gorgeous. Quick, think of something, come on, come on…nope], it just wasn’t happening. “You don’t remember me do you?” she responded, the smile gone from her gorgeous face, “No” I sighed. I learned that day that if you like a girl, being completely unaware of her existence isn’t the best way to get a rapport going.

After walking aimlessly around the club by myself for a while, knackered and dejected, my life was saved by one of man’s finest culinary achievements, ‘Snickers’. The chocolaty wonder had given me all the energy I needed to see off Ibiza in the most befitting way. So after the lunch break in which we downed some more Cervezas and after Liam and Aaron got a slap in the face from an Italian man who resembled Uncle Fester on steroids, we went back to the club to finish our holiday in style. The music was great and the company was better, it was a perfect end to a memorable holiday.

We had time for a few cheeky drinks before we had to leave for the airport and we vowed to polish off some free G and T’s on board, but we just couldn’t do it. I woke up at about half three, the plane was coming down and so were we. The holiday had been one that I’d never forget, and although I’d spent all my money and had my camera destroyed by the Mediterranean, at least I was safe in the knowledge that we couldn’t possibly have had it any larger than we did. Ibiza was well and truly, DONE.

Tom Reid, Dice Productions