MMFy

Red Cafe is a joke forum. The Manure fans I know that read message boards will not go near that place, for it is inhabited by dullards, and the sort of glory hunting, know-nothing bellends the 'proper' fans want nothing to do with...

...to quote Red Cafe, you may as well quote Sickipedia.

'Magic Love' by Bent

Was going to ask if it was ambient...

Two year ban and a big fine for me. I've known a couple of people get banned for drink driving in recent years.

One mate had the back end of his Audi Coupe spin out on the Asda island in Tamworth after a couple of pints of wifebeater in The Boot on a Friday afternoon. His car rolled down the bank backwards and he couldn't get out the ditch. He wasn't drunk, but the cops got to him before the recovery truck got there and he eventually got banned for two years. He was only just over the limit. The cops wouldn't allow the breakdown truck to retrieve the car (there was no damage, it was just stuck) and took it away themselves. They then tried to charge him for recovery and storage, which resulted in him eventually handing the car's V5 over to them.

Another mate, sadly recently deceased, had been out on his bike on a Saturday morning about three or four years ago. He got back, parked his bike on the bricks at the front of his house and went into the house to get changed into t-shirt, shorts and flip flops before taking his dog for a walk. He had a few pints while he was out. When he got back home, he wanted to wheel the bike round to his shed at the back of the house. He had his front door open, his dig jumping up and down and running around him and he put the keys in the ignition, simply to release the steering lock. He never started the bike. Two cops jumped on him, charging him with drink driving, despite the fact he was never going to get on the bike and it was not on a public highway. The also charged him with operating a motorcycle without a helmet. He got a two year ban, and as a result lost £10,000 in bonus payments from his work as he could not drive the company van, picking up his colleagues each day.

I don't drink and drive. The police are absolute bastards for punishing it though.

Can we go a little more off topic. an icelandic shopping centre:

Good find. Only works from that angle though...

64.101096, -21.883596

im really starting to think,that Ashley is a Sunderland fan,honest why else would he do this shit??.

I've been thinking this for a while as well. For a man who is a self made billionaire, he should have an amount of business nous.

Something is afoot, and I like it.

I'm not a techno fan, but

Donny is as English as they come, hailing from Sevenoaks, Kent.

The drop after the second break (5:10) is **** nuts. Turn up your sub and get a couple of big knives out. You will need these to scare the neighbours when they come banging on your door in 5, 4, 3, 2...

Chelsea - won.

Liverpool - won.

Citeh - drew.

We can compete now. I'm **** loving this here!

Anyone seen 'Stuck'? I watched it the other day - not a bad film, but a long way away from commercial...

From the Grauniad, 02/05/07

This week, Anna Pickard watches and picks apart the video for Umbrella by Rihanna

It's an enormous moment in the twin worlds of advertising and music promotion. You have to boggle at the gall of this makeup company, sponsoring a whole artist, song and, in this innovative case, the video too.

Having bagged Rihanna as the new celebrity face of their big slap-brand, we can only imagine the scenes of heady excitement in the Advertising Account Manager's offices.

"People - great news! The end of 30-second promos is over! We have four-and-a-half whole minutes to play with here! A whole music promo! It's ours! All ours! The world is our big, dirty oyster!"

So what do they decide to do first? Well, as we all know, nothing says "makeup" like an underdressed woman in some fog.

The ad agency is on top of the world. They've got Rihanna: She's extremely young, extremely beautiful, and a rising singing star in the world of R&B.

So the important thing, apparently, in this case, is to not let her make any noise at all for the first 40 seconds while Jay-Z does his Public Information Broadcast thing. He pulls some Jay-Z faces and says Rihanna a lot so we know who it is we're watching. This must be a great song if Jay's involved.

And so it begins. Dressed in some kind of leather-hotpant catsuit, Rihanna is so hot, her bottom is quite literally smoking.

Some of the lyrics, it must be said, are questionable. I could be wrong, but the first verse seems to contain the lines

Baby 'cause in the dark

You can't see shiny cars

That's when you need me there

With you I'll always share...

Not the stuff lyrical legends are made of. We're not even sure what she's suggesting they may "always share", unless it is, of course, Rihanna's famed ability to see shiny cars in the dark.

Well, we all have our skills.

And our legs. Cleverly veering away from a completely literal interpretation of the lyric, the ad execs running this show have decided to capitalise on Rihanna's obvious strengths - having legs, a face, etc - and use those in the battle to sell tinted face-goo.

"Well, we've pointed out that she's beautiful, yes, we've clearly shown that she can attract powerful men, and we've done the smokin' ass. But people, we've got 4 minutes here! We need to broaden the message, point out that our make-up is for EVERYONE."

And so, for the good of the brand, Rihanna is presented as quite the sweatiest Betty that ever walked the earth.

Intercut with shots of Rihanna's pretty face looking composed and flawless are shots of her dancing with wild abandon. Every time she moves a limb, flips her head, twirls around, great showers of sweat come flying off her at every angle.

You can rest assured that if there's a clearing around Rihanna on the dance floor, it may not just be in appreciation of her moves.

"Ok, so now she's everywoman. The sweaty Midwest LOVE her now. So what we gotta do? Introduce a note of dignity, poise, and the concept of waterproof mascara, THAT's what. How? That's right! Ballet! With umbrellas!"

Sadly, ballet with an umbrella tends to look not so much sexy as Jake-the-Peg-with-Rickets. Or a novelty coffee table.

You cannot deny that Rihanna is impressive with the whole pointe thing though (that's standing on your toes, you barbarians). Although wait. Hang on...

"Whaddayamean she can't do the standy-on-her-toes-thing?! Well, then film the legs of someone's who CAN and her top half walkin'! No one'll ever know! I ain't been in the ad business for 20 years and learnt nothin', you know! Hell, I can make a Big Mac look edible!"

Call me a big cynic, but when all you get are separate shots...

...there's a very fishy smell in the air.

And yes, of course, in order to hush the critics, there is one picture of Rihanna on her tippy toes.

Aaaaaand she's hanging on to a big old trapeze. Brilliant.

The scene changes. "OK - we've introduced the waterproof angle, we've introduced the sweatproof angle, we've seen the flawless cover. What else do people want? They want to know we have different shades, people. How are we going to show them that? Jesus, do I have to do all work here? We put Rihanna in really big knickers and colour half the screen orange! Come on, people! Think outside the box!"

Ah, so from this, we can safely gather that this particular makeup company provides shades for all skin tones, from very pale - or, you know, grey, whatever - to orange. Which is good and useful information, because we all know that orange is an in-demand colour in the makeup world. Or those of us who've ever been to a nightclub in Stockport do, anyway.

Rihanna is a good mover, Let us give her that. She bends like a willow and wiggles like a randy worm in the wind. The video makes the most of that. If there's one thing we learn from advertising, it's that with the right colour blusher, our legs can suddenly become five and half miles long.

"Damnit, people, there's not enough ART to this. This ad is never going to be complete until we paint someone gold. We sell eye shadow, don't we? Well, get a bucket of that!"

And thus, with the aid of 18,579 metallic eye shadow palettes fresh from their "Nu Rave" line, some chip fat and a really big applicator stick, Rihanna is covered head to toe in shiny things. Some people might say this is an excuse to have a young and really quite naked lady front and centre. Others would say it was art.

Which would have course be rubbish. Look! Naked shiny Rihanna! Rowr!

In case people feel determined to copy her example and wander the streets wearing nothing but budget eyelid powder, the socially conscious company concerned have mocked up some street signs for use by local councils.

"DANGER: Shiny Naked Ladies Ahead". Very public spirited. They can cause dreadful damage to your bonnet, naked shiny ladies. They're worse than elk.

Suddenly a storm breaks, and Rihanna is surrounded by well-built male dancers wearing appropriate raingear and carrying protection. In a stunning moment of weather-consciousness, Rihanna actually opens her umbrella.

"What? What've you got her opening the damn brolly for?! I don't care if this song IS about sheltering under someone's pop-up water-waiver: This new powder-cream-foundation is meant to be waterproof to a depth of 50 metres! Get that damn thing down!"

And so, in the worst storm seen in years, Rihanna is forced to dance with hardly coverage at all. Both in terms of umbrellas AND clothing. She points the umbrella, she twirls the umbrella, but for a song that centres on the idea of you joining her UNDER her umbrella ("ella-ella-eh-eh-eh..."), she barely gives anyone a chance. Unless they're VERY thin and/or standing on her head.

So the umbrella in the umbrella song popped open just the once. Which is probably quite lucky, actually, as the rain, now that we look at it, appears to be composed of sparks of bright fire, and any common rain-shade would in the circumstances be dripping molten plastic on the user's head.

"And that's what we're saying, people! Our maxi-strength cover-up can deal with even the most obvious blemishes and/or third-degree plastic burns! Anyway! What's all this stuff about umbrellas? Why hasn't she said anything about the PRODUCT yet? This is our video! Our star! Our song! She's ours! All OURS! Mwa ha ha ha!"

And it is, after all, a corporate video. And to reinforce this point, the song fades out, and Rihanna appears. Just to contrast with the moody, sophisticated look of the video, they seem to have put her in photo booth at Disneyland and dressed her in New Look's early-teens range.

"Hello! I'm Rihanna! Blah Blah Blah Makeup!" She says in a video statement with dubbing almost as bad as Bob Hoskins in Jamie T's new video.

And that's it. The big sell. The company involved must be so, so proud. Usually you have to wait until the end of a career before you can sell-out, don't you? Still. She's very pretty. Well done all round.

That's some damn good ranting right there. Sums it up nicely.

And, for the record, Jay-Z has never done anything significantly memorable in his career, despite the size of his reputation. For **** sake, his first commercial success was "Hard Knock Life", with samples of Aileen Quinn from the musical "Annie".

And further, it's not R&B. R&B, as stated, is rhythm and blues. This is just nothing more than chart pop gash.

Although I want to play Majik Most's 'Hearin Voices' - the best hip hop track ever...

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy - and I'm playing it to a pub full.

Also had the misfortune to watch the first half of "The Boat that Rocked" which I turned off as it was not funny in the slightest.

I watched that the other night. You're right, it was absolute gash. Typical Curtis bullshit.

Hahaha

D1 pointed me at Jonsi & Alex, which I must say is absolutely superb ambience...

Love it.

Best ambient I've ever heard is Global Communication - 76'14".

Roni Size - Dirty Beats

T'is the only song i heard and liked. BUT, the version on iTunes is nothing like the one i heard. I'm pretty sure the one i heard was on a compilation album like those NOW thats what i call music. It was Roni Size ft. some bloke.

It is my aim to find it.

It's on 'In The Mode', The second Reprazent album.

Amazon are selling it for £2.98 - bargain!

I reckon one of Roni Size's best tracks was Snapshot 3. Got to love that rolling old school beat...

Apart from Earth Vol III (LTJ Bukem), New Forms is easily my favourite D+B album, so bye bye Leftism for me.

Even better than Limewax's "Scars On The Horizon"?

New Forms had Brown Paper Bag and Heroes, but Leftism had Space Shanty, Storm 3000, Original, Melt and Song Of Life.

To it's disadvantage, Roni Size remastered New Forms last year and ruined Heroes, the track with the best beats on the album.

Leftism for me.

Had you included Breakbeat Era though...

I don't watch often but it's such a good show. Going for current event satire was a perfect, and Randy Marsh is constantly one of the funniest characters on TV.

Wow... That... is huge. That has got to be the biggest crap I've ever taken. He-... Hey Sharon. Sharon you gotta come see this. Sha-Sharon?

Didn't the world's biggest crap turn out to be Bono?!

South Park is an excellent programme which has improved massively over the years. Watching the early ones now is a bit tiresome, but the new format episodes are just fantastic. Favourites being Cripple Fight, The Michael Jackson episode where the police are trying to stitch him up, the Queef episode, the list goes on...

Cant believe Tommy got so many votes after chucking one into his own net at The Sty.

I thought that was Enckleman?

Enkelman let Mellberg's throw in past him at The Sty when the Blues beat us in 2002. Im sure you have seen it a thousand times.

Enkelman also spilled the ball at the feet of Geoff Horsefield when the Blues beat us at Villa Park in 2003.

Sorensen dropped one into his own net when the Blues beat us at Villa Park in 2004

Sorensen chucked one into his own net when the Blues beat us at The Sty in 2005

All four of our defeats to the Blues in the Premier League have been because we have virtually scored goals for them.

Seriously, what the **** was wrong with those two keepers?

Right you are, Sir. I stand corrected.

I didn't really rate James when he was with us. Yes, he was a good shot stopper, but his confidence was so low after Liverpool that he **** up once every game. His mind must have been wandering and he lost his concentration. It was a case of waiting for him to miss or drop a shot and hoping we had the players to make up for his inadequacies.

His lapse of concentration was best demonstrated by Di Matteo in the FA Cup final in 2000.

James became a good keeper a few years after he left us, further proving that goalkeepers do not need to shine in their early 20's. His career peak never really arrived until he signed for Portsmouth.

I do like James, but I think some people are rating how he has played over the last three years rather than how he played for us almost 10 years ago.

Cant believe Tommy got so many votes after chucking one into his own net at The Sty.

I thought that was Enckleman?

Dang, I've never seen this thread before!

Slightly off topic, but this is an arrangement of service hatches on the Square in Barnstaple.

Been three times, would live there given half a chance.

Absolutely the best place I have been in my life. No questions...

If we are to play 451 then who needs Heskey. He will warm our bench at best. The real question is though, if we do go back to 451, Carew or Gabby?

How about Carew for the first 65 mins then Gabby for the final 25 mins of a game, to provide fresh legs/ideas? Or the other way round, depending on the opposition? 'One or the other' and you end up with a knackered player in March.