COMPETITION TIME! Does Anything Get Better With Age?
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat, Competition Time
This blog has nothing to do with me turning thirty in April. It has nothing to do with me feeling older, physically, as I’m in the shape of my life, due to a chubby childhood. Nor has it anything to do with a recent issue I had with Virgin Media, which resulted in me writing my first ever letter of complaint. No. The realisation that everything gets worse when you’re older dawned on me last night, when I watched Labyrinth.
Labyrinth is one of the finest films to have ever graced the silver screen. It truly is a magical tale. There’s action and adventure galore in a classic battle between good and evil, supplemented with Jim Henson’s spellbinding diversity of puppetry. Yes, indeed, Labyrinth is the greatest film in the world…
…when you’re six.
When you’re 29, however, Labyrinth is utter bollocks.
I want those ninety minutes back, I can tell you. It was awful. If you’re reading this and saying “Labyrinth is brilliant!” Then I bet you haven’t seen it since you were a kidda…or you are simply…simple. When you’re six, annoying things aren’t annoying. Jennifer Connelly, star of the Hulk and the fantastically original and entertaining Dark City, is hot. Very hot. As a sixteen-year-old actress playing with puppets she is an annoying twat.
The thing I didn’t notice as a six-year-old lad, and I’m glad to say I didn’t otherwise I’d have had a serious messed up childhood, is David Bowie’s cock. David Bowie’s cock is on screen for literally half the film. I don’t want to see David Bowie’s cock anymore. Oh, what the hell, just one more time…
The Thin White Duke’s thin white duke
It just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t full of wonder and magic, it was a bit stupid, a bit boring and a bit rubbish. Labyrinth hasn’t changed, but I have. I’ve got older and Labyrinth has not grown with me. That’s the reason for this blog. I started to wonder if there is anything that gets better with our aging? With every year, things seem to get more serious; time goes quicker; the good ol’ days and our glory years seem further out of reach; more offence is generated from David Bowie’s cock; hair grows in places it shouldn’t and disappears from places it should be; fat is stored more readily; celebrities get younger and less talented; people who you wish found you attractive don’t find you attractive; the price of ham sky rockets; you wear one of them slippers that encloses both feet; you vote; you…
I’ve said enough. I’ve depressed myself. I’m looking to you, the reader, for hope.
And, as an incentive for you to help me, I’m going to offer a signed copy of The Great Right Hope.
Please, just name something, anything that improves with old age and the best answer wins a book (paperback or ebook). Leave a comment below, or email me at jackhammer@mark-jackman.com with your answer. Closing date is 25th Feb (payday!)
Tags: Competition, Dark City, David Bowie, David Bowie's cock, Jennifer Connelly, Labyrinth, mark jackman, old age, The Hulk, The Thin White Duke, young
You call it “Marriage” but I call it “Slasher Horror Killfest”
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat
I’ve been watching horror films ever since I was a kid. I used to love mindless slasher flicks. You know the ones. A beautiful group of late-teens embark on an adventure of fun and frivolity. They laugh, they cry, they screw, before they are massacred by a really angry man, one-by-one, until the pretty one remains, who manages to kill the sociopath in a disappointing and unrealistic manner before he opens his eyes dramatically after the credits.
Yeah, that’s the one.
My love for these horror flicks is waning. Maybe it’s because every year I transcend further into a age group that can’t relate to teenagers who seem to wander into increasingly dangerous and torturous situations, just wearing sexy underwear. Maybe it’s those new skin-tight boxer shorts that all the hunks are wearing these days that are pushing me away. I gave them a go, but they just aren’t practical. White and skin-tight is a combination that can only cause distress to womenfolk.
This man will only find trouble, come wash day.
However, I do remember a time when I used to run free, embarking on adventures of fun and frivolity with my teenage friends. It must be said, that we never had the money that most youngsters seem to have in the Hollywood blockbusters, so our adventures consisted of getting smashed down the park on cheap cider and hoping someone had left a few pages of a dirty magazine in a hedge somewhere. Also, my buddies and I probably couldn’t stand up to the Beverly Hills’ hearthrobs that seem to conregate in groups like suicidal lemmings, who, instead of throwing themselves off cliffs, throw themselves into dark caves, cellars, torture chambers, etc, etc. Nope, me and my mates have been beaten so hard with the ‘ugly stick’ that it broke and forced God to go back to his workshop to forge himself something so brutal, that it has caused females of all species to run at the mere mention of our names. Luckily for us, he also invented Malibu and coke.
In retrospect, I don’t think I was ever in a position to relate to the kids in the slasher flicks, but still, as youngsters, we had fun. And, somehow, with our neanderthal looks, our socially retarded mannerisms, our poor personal hygiene and our not so whiter-than-white boxer shorts, we all managed to find ourselves lady friends. Real ones, too.
So why have I given this blog the title of “”Marriage” or “Slasher Horror Killfest”?” and gone on a rant about my inability to wear hunk underwear (or hunkawear)? Well, I once considered marriage to be like a horror film. When I was younger, I sat back whilst, slowly, my friends were picked off, one by one…until I feared that only I’d remain.
“I’m off on holiday, lads,” said Danny.
“Yes!” said I, “Where’re we going? Boys’ weekend in Prague would be class.”
I knew something was amiss as Danny awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m going to Paris with Sophie.”
“What?” say I, with the venom of ten thousand vipers.
“Weekend away. You know…with the missus?”
“I don’t bloody know, at all. Anyway, you can’t go. We play snooker on Fridays,” say I, cheated, neglected, wronged.
“I’m going to propose.”
“ “ say I.
“Sorry?” said Danny, confused as to why George Lucas had destroyed the very essence of the greatest fictional villain in history.
“You bloody will be. You can’t get married. You’ll be first, then Gary, then George,” say I, in desperation. ”Then it’ll just be me and Terry, and that means I’ll be in for it next because Terry is never going to get a woman, unless he gets back with Three-Tits-Tracey, which is unlikely ‘ cos now she is shacked up with that bloke who used to wheel out the star prize on Bullseye.”
“I’ve got no idea what you are talking about?”
“DON’T LEAVE ME!”
Things change…
That was the young me. I’ve grown older and wiser. Do you know what? I’ve matured (hahahaha-no I haven’t-I still laugh when anyone says “come”).
This year, I’ve been on five stag dos and I’ve attended four weddings. I’ve been all across Europe. I’ve travelled from Lisbon to Latvia and from the Pyrenees to mighty Great Yarmouth. Through this, I have had my savings ripped from me, which means that I have never been further from the dizzying heights of billionairedom, as mentioned in my last blog: ”If I Were a Rich Man.” I wouldn’t have it any other way. The chance to spend the last days of freedom with my mates and then celebrate their marriage to some absolute sweethearts (not to mention, absolute stunners) is something that i wouldn’t swap for the world.
There were the stag dos…
I’ve partied with Oompa Loompas, WWE wrestlers, transvestite school girls, Latvian hookers (in McDonalds), inbred villagers from Norfolk, several blow-up dolls, lifetime friends and new drinking companions, alike. I’ve drunk cider, bitter, lager, vodka, whisky, jagermeister, brandy, red wine, rose wine, white wine, champagne and something that had a bull on it. I’ve been ill. I’ve been very ill. I’ve had fun. I’ve had a lot of fun.
Then there were the weddings…
Four beautiful princesses and four dashing princes declaring their love for each other before throwing a massive party with their friends and family. It’s been so much fun and I have been honoured to be there and to be part of their special days. This blog is dedicated to all of my friends whose weddings/stags I’ve been to. I love you all immensely.
As a man grows older, he realises that he can’t continue the life of a lone wolf, a lone stallion, or even a lone tapeworm. Men are bad for each other. Real bad. Stag dos are testament to that. When we are left together we spend hundreds of pounds a day on alcohol and dancing girls; we stop eating actual food; we start to smell and are convinced that a quick spray of deodorant masks our putrid pheromones, whilst emitting the ones which will make dancing girls love us, and not just the money we are waving at them; we become even more arrogant and ignorant because there is no one to tell us that we are twats; we swear more; we balloon in weight; we flirt with girls nearly half and over twice our ages; we don’t change our jeans for months; we convince ourselves that Xbox is a sport; we subscribe to the Playboy Channel; we turn to shit.
Without women that is what we become.* Maybe you disagree. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
“When is it your turn, Jacko?” you ask. I know you do. I’ve been with my beautiful lady for over six years and I must have been asked that question hundreds of times this year.
All I’ll say is that I’ll probably get married before that guy. Poor bastard.
* Disclaimer: We also turn into this after five years of marriage, and then we assume that it is the woman who has let herself go. This is genetic. Do not mess with Mother Nature.
Tags: Bernard Manning, boxer shorts, Bullseye, Darth Vader, heart throb, horror film, i know what you did last summer, mark jackman, Marriage, Nnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooo, proposal, Pyrenees, skidmarks, slasher, Star Wars, three-tits-tracey, wedding day
WARNING! Books Are Being Wiped From Existence!
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat
It reads like a warning from a tabloid newspaper, one written to drive fear into the public. If you are an author, you have developed a cold sweat. “What’s happening to my book?” you ask. As a reader, you are terrified that you’ll never be able to read your favourite story, ever again. I’m not joking, either. Soon, your book will cease to exist.
OK, I’m using the word “soon” on a universal level. And a couple of thousand years is a short period of time when considering the history of existence. But before you panic too much, let me tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
I am going to attack you with facts!
In the British library there are 150,000,000 items sat on 640 kilometers (398 miles for my American friends) of shelves. They have built a new depository at Boston Spa which will hold 7,000,000 books, weighing in at 12,000 tonnes spread over 263 kilometers (163 miles for my American chums) of shelves, and kept under a reduced oxygen atmosphere of 16% rather than the 21% that you are breathing right now.
That is a lot of books.
The British Library also holds 5300 tonnes of newspapers and here is the shocker. 1.4 tonnes are lost every year to the atmosphere. That means in 3800 years all the papers will all be gone! Can you imagine that? In a few millennia, our descendants will not be able to see a picture of Britney Spear’s lady-bits flashing out of a car, and they will not be able to find out how many slappers were nailed by our professional footballers round the back of London nightclubs.
Does it matter?
The British Library think so (you’d sort of hope so, wouldn’t you?) and they care so much they are investing 130 million pounds into the whole process.
How are they going to do it?
What do you love about books, apart from reading them? For me, it’s the smell. I love the smell of old books and libraries (although not when the local tramp comes in and starts downloading pornography on the library computer) and scientists at the British Library believe that the smell is the key to understanding how the books are degrading.
There are 109 chemicals that give us that magnificent smell. One of them is acetic acid. You probably know it. You probably put it on your chips/fries earlier tonight. At the moment, they think that it might be one of the chemicals that is causing the problem, but we shall see.
E-books rock!
E-books solve everything. Unless someone lets off a global EMP (electromagnetic pulse) bomb, like in “Escape from LA,” they will be stored on our computers for as long as there are geeks in the universe. The information from every book in the library can be stored on computers. You could argue that if there are no books, then we won’t have that wonderful book smell. Surely the 130 million pounds is worth that alone?
Actually, you can buy that smell, and it will probably cost a little less. CafeScribe, an e-book selling website, are releasing a scratch and sniff sticker that will give you that musty magic! What a great idea! People love great smells. Scientists are trying to recreate the new car smell… but in a non-toxic form. Yes, that’s right, the new car smell kills you! Everything does.
To end this scientific paper, I’ll ask you a question. Does it matter that we are losing our books? Isn’t the information the important thing? I, as a man, was born with the sentimental values of a horny tomcat, but I can understand why people want to save these beautiful books, packed with heritage and history. 130 million pounds is a lot of money, though. Think what we could have done with it and the people we could have saved. Is it worth saving books that are kept in a depository, which cannot be touched by human hands and are held in an atmosphere where you won’t be able to breathe properly? You tell me.
Your books are still dying.
Does that scare you?
Tags: British Library, britney spears twat, e-book, end of the world, Jacko: Author, mark jackman, pissflaps, science, science saves the day
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!
Tags: mark jackman, posh, Roger Moore, skiing, upper class, verbier
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
