FATMAN SOUNDS

There has been a slow but sure input of big headphones back into public circulation. I guess the cost of them has comedown as the quality has gone up. The iPod has always come with it’s own lame in the ear headphones, I guess most people are looking for an alternative and the larger retro styles are suddenly becoming more popular. It can't have been me that started to notice that these headphones appearing on the larger proportioned generation. I must have seen two pairs a day on some of our larger community members over a three-week period. Once you spot one you start to spot them all. At first I thought it looked stupid and backwards. I understand the Bose noise reduction headphones for planes or noisy work environments, but on the street that's just chunky logic. Anyway that was several weeks ago in the UK and I'm currently back in Budapest eyeing up a retro pair of Panasonic headphones. When did this happen, nobody has fallen into that trap here yet. Maybe I am trying to start the trend here and passing it off as my idea, what a hoot. Hang on a minute I'm not a chubba any more, actually I've lost a couple of stone. But I am the king of cool here in my mind, and nowhere else.

HUMAN WING MIRRORS

At what age do people stop looking where they are going, not noticing who or what they are blocking? Umbrella spikes pointed forwards or backward on an upward swing always freak me out. Not to mention the tips that flit past you at eye level. What are the stats on eye scratching and gouging from brollies?

The standard offenders are still high on my shit list:

People who stop or chat in doorways

Groups of people who walk on the pavement forming an impenetrable human wall.

Anybody who stops at the top or bottom of an escalator to have a look around.

When I'm King it will be legal to actually punch these morons in the back of the head and leave them on the floor to get the idea. The 'Human Traffic Police' could be a volunteer group but would be very effective in the curse of the open mouthed human beanbags that slow down the community. I'm sure there would be plenty of takers for this new position. Or once charged they could be forced to wear head mounted wing mirrors to witness the carnage that they leave in their wake. Come on people there are lots of us now and we need to be aware of our surrounding fellow man at all times........ You idiot, PUNCH!

VEGETABLE NAZI

My healthy food kick started a few months ago when I decided to give vegetarian food more of a chance. I do like vegetables and good ones come at a price here in the Czech Republic. This did start to get out of hand as I was stuffing my face with meat-based products when others weren't looking like it was going out of fashion. We started a tour of the cheaper veggie outlets here in Prague and I began to get really stroppy. There is a restaurant called 'Beas' which can only be described as serving vegetarian prison food. The menus are set and you can't waiver from the slop that is on offer. The food is dropped into the segmented metal tray/plates and desserts overlap the boundaries into unwanted unrecognizable savory gruel. On one visit, I just wanted a side of the spinach lasagne that seemed to look quite tasty but they wouldn't give me any. I offered to pay but they said it was a different menu and couldn't let me have that as well. At this point I started to get quite narced and thought the only way I was going get a portion of vaguely edible slop was to don a fake beard and join the queue again. I damn these vegetable Nazis to a tofu based slow death. Anyway that lifestyle fell out the window when I started on a small film and McDonalds became the only option for breakfasts. But like most of these films are such hard work mentally and physically that the weight falls off me what ever I stuff into my face. Not a food Nazi in sight, which is nice.

FLESH OUT

At the end of last year I witnessed a sight that has possibly scarred me for life. At first a few heads were turning towards then recoiling at what appeared to be your run of the mill nutter. But soon the full horror flapped out in front of me. She was probably in here late sixties with a black leather mini skirt. Her face had been well lived in, maybe by several people. Chatting and spitting happily to herself, your standard loonie. The biggest problem that her skirt was split at the front and back revealing her withered undercarriage and pallid old ass. At first I couldn't believe it thinking it was some sort of Czech TV stunt but no, she was for real, as real as her dusty lady pocket in the cold Czech winds. Uuuuuuurgh!

FU 2009

Well that was a shit year. Sorry but it really was, possibly the worst year in my fifteen years in the film industry. Personal life was great and my girl is the best. Together we suffered great loss in this year, but just kept pushing through with people tip toeing around us. I just wish 2010 to bring things back to normal as much as possible. I generally blame everything on Hugh Grant, what a tosser. I had finally managed to wangle a job towards the end of 08 which would have not only taken me on a life changing journey to China but brought our funds back to a less fluctuating roller coaster. Huge Grunt pulled out of this film at the eleventh hour again because he was unhappy with the script. It was the funniest script I had ever read and was really looking forward to help bring this comedy to the cinema. Good funny films are rare and this was a corker. I started on the Monday morning only to be given my notice with the rest of the crew of the film the very same day. We saw out our weeks notice all believing the standard feeble chance of it actually happening. I knocked my pipe out that week completing all the drawings I had started. I was due to go on a recce that Sunday to China and there still is a fantastic unstamped visa in my Passport. The last I heard was that the script was being rewritten for an American actor, hopefully someone a bit more committed than old floppy. After that the dark cold winter and shitty 2009 loomed it's retarded face, oh sorry not you Hugh.

LOST HEROES

The third series of Heroes is just dull; we are so bored and confused by the stories. They have tried to stretch out the characters too far, and the plot got tooo thin to keep our attention. We just want it to finish so that we can give Lost our full attention. I saw a colleague popping series one of this Island based drama into his bag at work, I asked him if I could borrow it for a week. Me and me girl ploughed through these shows as Czech television is a poor man’s rip off of the worst British trashy shows. He told me that he had just got it back after a two year loan to someone else (don't get me started on people like that) Oh yes we like Lost, we have just finished the second season in one week. It's great to know that there are three more series to catch up on. We saw nothing of it when it was on the television and can't watch theses shows with a one-week break between each episode. If you can live without following the lemmings that must know everything about a show before it airs you have a very sad life. But hey look at me with my smug grin now picking these DVDs out of the bargain bin, just a few years to late. Now we can enjoy fresh new drama without the hype surrounding it. But at this speed what shall we watch next, any ideas?

DON'T BREAK MY STUFF

Often things I take really good care of are damaged by other people who sometimes feel no remorse about what they have done. Whether it was my shiny new Walkman or my un-scratched car it always seems to be someone else that does it. I take good care of all my stuff and am surprised when I see people handling things roughly that don't belong to them. The problem I think comes down to me needing an excuse to buy the latest version and almost justifying it when my last one gets slightly damaged. There is a tiny chip out of the bottom corner of my iPod, it's tiny but I still want to replace it with the latest model. My computer screen has a chip in it from a grain of sand that was crushed in there, mmm upgrade? The same day the computer got damaged a dog ate my Ray Bans and my new watch just stopped. The watch took five months to repair and the glasses needed just new lenses taking three months. Last week on my new camera's first day out, a large dog tried to jump and snatch it, mistaking it for a stick. The slobber came off and the damage was minor but please, it was it's first day.