If Roger Moore Can Ski, Why Can’t I?
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat
I AM ALIVE!!
I got back from my debut skiing holiday, last night. in one piece! Posh is not the word for Verbier; it is unbelievably posh- so, posh is probably the right word, actually. Shut up! I have been away for a week and I can’t remember how to write. Never really knew how to in the first place. Anyway, I can now add skiing to my list of elitist sports along with once being a member of a golf club. Add to that, the fact that I am from Norfolk, which means that my ancestors were undoubtedly incestuous and that makes me think that my social status is changing, and I am entering the upper classes! What do you reckon?
So how did the skiing go? Well, I had my day’s lesson in the Snowdome, where I learned how to travel very slowly down a very small hill, and then it was off to Verbier, one of the most difficult ski resorts in the world. My Mrs, Peelo, is a really good skier, but, unfortunately, has no comprehension of what it is like to start skiing (yeah, she’s posh and has been skiing since she was ten). So there I am going up the Medran lift standing in the cable car, going up vertically over craggy rocks, straight to hell, and yeah, I am a little nervous. Several minutes later, we are at the top, and we have to get in another cable car, because we haven’t gone high enough yet! WTF!? Not high enough?
Up we go again, and to the top of a blue run, which looks like a vertical drop to me, and it is time to begin. I point my skis down to the bottom, and I go. I didn’t understand the concept of skiing. I thought I’d just slow down when the hill got a bit shallower.
I fly down, grin on my face, enjoying the wind whistling through my hair. A shout of “TURN! TURN! TURN!” came from behind me, and I realise that I didn’t really know how to turn, especially when travelling at high velocity. So I didn’t. I crashed, tumbled and slid for twenty metres, skis and poles flying.
“Are you alright?”
“…Yeah.”
“What were you doing?”
“Skiing.”
“Why didn’t you turn?”
“Don’t know how.”
I took things a little bit slowly, from there on in. Although I went down the hardest red in the resort to get to a pub, on my first morning, and then accidentally went down a black run, in the afternoon. I weren’t a happy bunny.
I always knew I was dicing with death when I tried on my skiing trousers, just before the holiday, and they did not give me the flexibility that I required. It was too late to take them back, so I thought I’d go for it. Day three: Last corner, massive spill. I was filled with pain and my ears were filled with the sound of ripping cloth as I slid down the mountain in the splits position. My trousers had ripped from my ass to my old fella.
I still had three days left, so i decided to stitch them up and add some ducktape to seal the deal. That morning, in the lesson, my instructor gets us to go a little faster, and I gladly oblige. It starts to worry me when my manbits start getting a little chilly, and children start crying and skiing off cliffs to get away from me. Yes, they had split again. I didn’t even try to hide the rip, after that. I finished skiing over 48 hours ago, and it still hasn’t warmed up.
Then, whilst chilling, literally, in a pub, I sat at the bar taking out the cotton with my thumb and forefinger. I wondered why I was getting some truly disgusting looks from the other patrons( poshness levels were through the roof, by the way) and then I realised that my rhythmical tugging of cotton from my crotch would have looked like a vile act, to all onlookers.
But then I started to get the hang of the skiing. I honestly hated skiing at first, as I couldn’t really do the stuff they were trying to get me to do in Ski-School. I quit the school, and just tried to get down, my way. I look awful, but by the end, I could ski all the way down the hardest red in the resort, with only one big spill. I enjoyed the holiday, but it is really expensive, and probably averaged at £5 a pint. I don’t think I have reached the upper classes. Some of the other skiers’ accents didn’t sound real. Another weird thing was that I only saw two people who weren’t white, in the entire resort!
Fifteen people have died in Verbier, this season. Most of them, however, were responsible for their own deaths. Two walkers were caught in an avalanche when there were avalanche warnings. They were thrown down the mountain, and to the bottom of a lake. Another paraglider did not service his equipment, and his parachute broke and he fell onto a pylon wire, where he was split into two. However, Switzerland has 500 accidents that involve head injuries from skiing or boarding, every day. Probably worth wearing a helmet, in future.
If you get the chance to give skiing a go, do it. There are so many amazing views and it’s really rewarding every time you feel you are making any improvements. The nightlife was really good, not that I made it out very often due to being knackered, most of the time. Plus, if you don’t like skiing, you can just go to the top of the mountain, grab a deckchair, enjoy a scandalously priced beer, and soak up the sun. It’s amazing how hot it is, 3000m up, if you haven’t split your pants.
If Roger Moore can ski, why can’t I?
Because Roger is the man.
Ciao, darlings!
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Tags: mark jackman, posh, Roger Moore, skiing, upper class, verbier
Viva La Vampire!!!
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Jacko: Author
Hey Guys and Gals,
Just letting you know that “Viva La Vampire!” is available to read, enjoy and cherish.
“When a Northern man nails a vampire’s Mrs., when on holiday on the Costa Del Sol, there’s gonna be trouble… for the vampire!”
If you enjoy that, you’ll love The Great Right Hope!
Cheers,
Jacko
Tags: Brian Garforth, holiday, mark jackman, Swordsman, The Great Right Hope, Vampire
The Last Action Hero
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat
I was chewing the fat today, at work, and it dawned on me that there are no heroes left in the world. I am not talking about real life here; I am talking about the manly men from the moving pictures who every teenage boy aspired to be. Mighty handguns, mighty hair-dos, and even mightier biceps took the world of the evil mastermind by storm. Kicking ass whilst making them feel self-conscious with snappy, witty one-liners, and often nailing their girlfriends at the end, as the credits rolled.
Up until the millennium, there had always been a great man to look up to. A man who beat up the bad guys and then bagged the women. A man who would confront danger no matter what the circumstances. A man who was scared of nothing. A man who didn’t feel any emotion except the manliest of all emotions: rage (this was only exhibited once per film, and took place after shooting of a partner, family relative, or pet).
Think about it…
Pre-’50s: Humphrey Boghart, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable,
The ’50s: Charlton Heston, John Wayne, James Dean
The ’60s: Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Steve McQueen
The ’70s: Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Roger Moore, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Chuck Norris
The ’80s: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van-Damme, Carl Weathers, Sly Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Harrison Ford, Burt Reynolds, Danny Glover, Jackie Chan
The ’90s: Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Stephen Segal, Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jet Li, Bruce Cambell
Now that list is nowhere near extensive, and I’d be interested in the heroes you miss, if any, or any disagreements you have with my chosen few. Christopher Lambert was omitted due to Knight Moves and Highlander 2, 3 and 4.
So, yeah, everything was pretty cool, pretty damn macho. So what about today…
The noughties: Erm… OK, you’ve got Clooney and Pitt, but these guys produced their manliest performances in the nineties (Fight Club: ‘99 and Dusk Til Dawn: ‘95), plus how many red-blooded males give a fuck about Benjamin’s fucking Button. Who else then?
Who else?
Anyone?
I don’t think there is anyone left. The Rock had a good go, but fell short, and look what they did to Bond… At the end of Casino Royale, Bond is rehabilitating in a wheel chair, with an old person’s blanket over his knees keeping him warm. I don’t want to watch that. Bond doesn’t do that! At the end of Moonraker (stay with me, I know it was shite), we had Roger Moore flying back from the moon, shagging a hottie called Holly Goodhead (seriously) and minister of Defence, Frederick Gray asks “What is Bond doing?” and Q replies, “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.”
That is what I want a hero to do. I don’t want a hero to remind me of Thora Hird.
1979
2006
It isn’t just Bond. It is everything on the bloody moving pictures. We have had rootin’-tootin’ Westerns from the ’20s all the way through to the ’90s. A Fistful of Dollars, Tombstone, The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Unforgiven are all brilliant! Why can’t we have one for the noughties. Why? Where did Brokeback Mountain come from? I’d like to have been a fly-on-the-wall when the story board was written.
“OK, how about a Western?”
“Yeah, I love cowboy films! We gotta have one of them bar brawls. You know, the ones with where people smash each other over the heads with whisky bottles, whilst chicks do the cancan.”
“That’s sort of been done before, though.”
“OK, well how about a big shoot out with a load of Native Americans. We can get a big ring of wagons, it will be brilliant!”
“Too cliched.”
“So what’s your big idea, then?”
“I was thinking, we get two cowboys…”
“I like it.”
“They get on really well.”
“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of camaraderie with the ol’ cowboys.”
“That’s what I thought. How about they have so much camaraderie, that instead of going out shooting Native Americans, bedding local prostitutes, and hitting other cowboys with whisky bottles, they end up bumming in a tent?”
“Sounds great; endings a bit weird though.”
“To be honest, the tent-bumming will pretty much be the entire film?”
“Go on then, let’s go for it. At least it will be better than Highlander 2.”
Before you send a letter of complaint, here me out. I have no problem with Brokeback Mountain. I know there’s a lot more to it; I am just being a cock, and I am still finding ways of fooling my Dad into watching it (not sure if that was a justification, or not?). My problem is with the films that haven’t been made.
Why can’t we have some of the heroes back? Why do they have to have emotions? Why do they have to be realistic? If I wanted realism, I’d go to the supermarket and wait behind pensioners who leave their shopping trolleys in the middle of the aisles and discuss rubbish. That is realism. That is my life. I queue in traffic. I spent nearly £300 on fucking taps last year for my kitchen and bathroom. I don’t want to spend £6 to go to the cinema and watch some other twat buy taps, do I? For 90-120 minutes, I want to live my life through a hero. I don’t want to feel his pain, or his weakness. There is enough of that in everyday life.
I want justified violence
I want easy buxom beauties
I want car chases
I want rocket launchers
I want one-liners
I WANT OUR ACTION HEROES BACK!!
Tags: 80s, action hero, brokeback mountain, eighties, film, highlander, last action hero, mark jackman
The Whole Five Inches
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Jacko: Author
Five Inches of steel continue to go from strength to strength. Taking on the challenge of an Elvis number, the fab five-ish nailed the song and brought a sexiness to the video that even the King himself couldn’t muster.
OK, maybe an exaggeration, but we got through it, and no-one was hurt. We have some big plans for Five Inches of Steel. Check the boys webpage out, and have a look at the videos we have produced so far.
Tags: boyband, Elvis, five inches of steel, mark jackman
