The best thing that can be said about movies in 2021 is that it was a better year than 2020! Which is mainly because all the good films that were supposed to come out in 2020 were delayed to this year.
Cinemas reopened in the spring and the first film I saw was Nobody. A film about a middle aged man kicking ass.. My wife thought it was rubbish. I thought it was great. I think the film was more aimed at me than her.
The budget film of the year goes to Werewolves Within. A fun b movie with a tiny budget. Which means the werewolf is barely seen in the film. It shows what you can do if you have a good plot and likable lead actors.
Justice League is one of the worst superhero films ever made. It is therefore surprising to discover that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is one of the best. If anyone is unsure what a Director does then watch both versions of this film. You will see how two directors made two different films out of the same material.
For pure fun and happiness you can’t beat Free Guy. I recommend this film to lots of folk. They all said “I’m not watching that, it looks terrible” but once they watch it they say “It was actually great”. Watch it and you will see I’m correct.
And the best thing I saw in the Cinema was Dune. The plot is a bit clunky but it doesn’t matter. Every shot deserves to be seen on as big a screen as possible. Its a beautifully shot space opera that shows why films should be watched in the cinema not at home.
Is is our story of 20 years swimming, biking and running. Every one of our results tells a story, even the races we did not finish.
It is a story about finding the joy in racing whether you come first or last.
It contains stories such as ….
“It is a very common belief that twins, especially identical twins, are united by a strong bond of sympathy that each knows when danger or misfortune threatens the other, even when they are separated.”
A few years ago, I did an experiment so see whether this statement was true – would I feel anything if Andrew was in pain or in danger?
We did it in a very scientific way – we formed a comedy double act. Like a teuchter Ant and Dec but without their comedy timing, jokes or ability. We were so bad the only TV shows we could have hosted would’ve been Britain’s Got No Talent, or I’m Not a Celeb Leave Me Right Here.
I admit that this was not the best idea I’ve ever had. But I did have a genius idea for a joke. An idea that couldn’t fail – we’d do an experiment on stage where I’d get an audience member to hit Andrew with a rolled up newspaper whilst I looked away. I would then try to guess where upon his body he’d been struck. I thought it would be comedy slapstick gold…It wasn’t.
To test the idea out we went to a poetry night that allowed a bit of comedy because I reasonably thought nothing bad can happen at a poetry night.
When it came to our turn, we stood up and proceeded to tell a few gentle gags to get the audience warmed up. The audience laughed and applauded but as they’d just spent 90 minutes listening to poetry I think they would have applauded anything that wasn’t more poetry.
I stepped forward and asked for a volunteer from the audience. No one volunteered so I looked around the room and saw a man sitting by himself. He looked harmless enough. This was mistake number one – a man by himself at a poetry night must be a solid gold mental rocket of the highest order.
I invited him on stage and realized he was bigger than I thought. He was built like a rugby player. He was also a bit drunk. No worries – I’ll just continue the show. I handed him the newspaper and asked him to roll it up. This was mistake number 2 – never hand a man a weapon and ask him to load it himself. He rolled it very tight. So tight it was now stronger than a wooden baton.
I looked at Andrew. I could see fear in his eyes. I looked at the audience member. I could see violence in his eyes. I did what any loving brother would do. I turned to the man and said “I’m going to look away. Hit my brother as hard and wherever you like!”
This was mistake number three – I shouldn’t have turned my back on the scene of the crime.
I shouted, “Hit him”.
There was silence and then a large THWACKKKK sound before more silence….like the silence you get after a nuclear bomb has detonated but the blast hasn’t reached you yet. Then the audience gasped….Andrew screamed. He’d been hit so hard in the balls he was now my twin sister rather than brother.
If I was psychic, I would have felt something. I felt nothing. The audience member hit Andrew again. THWACKKKK….SCREAM…THWACKKKKK, THWACKKK….SCREAM! Each time he was hit I felt nothing.
As Andrew lay on the floor writhing in pain. His crown jewels having been pulverized. I asked myself “Are twins psychic?”
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Arsenal
Nickname: The Gunners
Stadium: Emirates Stadium
Stadium Capacity: 60,361
Song: Good Old Arsenal
She doesn’t strike you as a Gooner. Her majesty. Queen Elizabeth II. But when ‘Gooner’ is derived from ‘Gunner’ and was bestowed on Arsenal’s original fans because they worked at a weapons factory in Woolwich, it all makes sense. So who has the biggest cannons in the world? Take a guess. And it’s not Pornhub. Nor is it the Pope. He has canons. Instead, yes, you guessed it; it’s Queen Elizabeth II, commander in chief of the armed forces and ruler of the British Empire.
It’s no surprise Her Majesty supports a team that was once a significant force but whose fortunes have been on the slide. A team that was the first to be broadcast on radio; the first to be broadcast on television; and the first to be blocked by everyone in the world after Piers Morgan banged on about them every minute of every hour of every day on Twitter. And a team who seems to think that first is what you get if you eat too much salt. Let’s just say, if Arsenal were the monarch, we’d politely say, “you’re looking well, your majesty”, and not ask how many countries she’s conquered lately.
The Queen is not the only member of the Royal Family to support Arsenal. Prince Harry is also a fan of the Gunners. We can only guess why someone who is fourth in line for the throne and moves further away with each year would be attracted to Arsenal.
Arsenal, unlike Queen Elizabeth, has a notable first (she, of course, is the second of her name). In 1971, Arsenal released a single to celebrate reaching the FA Cup final. The song was the indirect result of a competition to find a song for Arsenal which could rival Liverpool’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone. However, unlike that song (which we talk about later), Arsenal wanted an original song and not one borrowed from the charts. Instead, a TV competition organised by ITV tried to find a worthy song. However, none of the entries were considered right, and football pundit Jimmy Hill (who will pop up again for his musical legacy for Coventry City) asked the then Arsenal manager, Bertie Mee, for permission to write a song for the club instead. Bertie said yes, and Jimmy wrote “Good Old Arsenal” to the tune of “Rule, Britannia.” This became the first record released to be performed by a football team’s squad to commemorate the club reaching the FA Cup final.
The Queen and Prince Harry are not the only famous fans of Arsenal. If you ask the average Gooner to name a famous fan, the Queen would not be their first choice. Arsenal fans have a more famous leader among their terraces: a man who brought more terror to the world than a ship of British boats laden with Earl Grey tea, Rich Tea biscuits, and a cargo full of bloody bayonets to stick it right up Johnny Foreigner’s foreign parts. Arsenal’s most famous fan is a deceased terrorist mastermind, Al-Qaeda leader, and professional recluse Osama Bin Laden.
As the Gooner chant goes:
“Osama, woah-woah
Osama, woah-woah
He’s hiding in Kabul
He loves the Arsenal“
(Source: fan chant)
This isn’t accurate – he was hiding in Abbottabad in Pakistan, which is not even the same country as the Afghan capital. If only Prince William (see Aston Villa) was a fan of Arsenal, he could have used his geography degree to point them in the right direction.
There are no chants about the Queen. If she is peeved at only being the second most famous Arsenal fan, she doesn’t mind. Even the Queen concedes there’s only room for two royal figures at Arsenal, and neither of them has the surname, Windsor.
There are two Kings at Arsenal. First, the team enters the Emirates Stadium to Elvis Presley’s ‘The Wonder of You,’ adopted as the club’s anthem in 2007. But, like the Emirates, the song has never caught on with fans has in recent years been replaced by ‘Lux Aeterna,’ a track from the soundtrack to the film Requiem for a Dream.
The second King, however, will never be forgotten. He is the King of Kings, Arsenal’s greatest player, Thierry Henry.
Thierry Henry is a former captain, a multiple winner of PFA and FWA Player of The Year, Arsenal’s all-time leading scorer (228 goals in all competitions), and winner of two league titles and three FA Cups. When Henry left to join Barcelona in 2007, we imagine that even Her Majesty bowed down to this King. All hail King Henry.
Film Friday is a weekly recommendation of one video to watch this weekend.
The Channel 4 computer games show Gamesmaster was the most offensive show to ever go out at teatime on national telly, It was brilliant. Especially at it was supposed to be a show for kids.
You couldn’t make it now but this is a really good update. There are three episode and each is better than the last.
We started a book club at work. The first book was ‘The Book Club’, a book about a book club targeted by a murderer. I wasn’t sure if I was joining a like minded group of literary enthusiasts or getting a big hint about what someone really thought about us.
The Book Club was crap, the murderer’s motive was to get revenge after they had to walk up stairs while their intended victim had stopped the lift for rumpy puppy with an office affair. All I could think about was office layout. How many floors do you need to have in your office to have a single lift which would still make sense to walk the stairs and not just wait for it to be fixed? Twenty floor would be too many floors to walk. But would 10? What about five? But would you stop a lift for five floors to get frisky? The rest of the book didn’t make sense but when the foundations of your story rely on modern office design, I’m not sure you have a great story to begin with.
Maybe it should have just embraced the illogicalities of it all. Just like my book of the year ‘The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds’ by John Higgs. A book that confirms that when the band, the KLF, burned one million pounds in the early 1990s, it was the culmination of a series of event linking the anti-christ Alastair Crowley, the illuminati and the quest to write the best pop song ever written. Or it might just because they were dicks who didn’t know what they were doing. And the difference between these stories makes a fascinating read, whether you know anything about the KLF or not.
Honourable mentions: Did I mention we have a book out? ‘DNF: Did Not Finish’? I think we might have mentioned it at least once…
The problem with releasing a book, and this year we also had ‘The Sound of Football’, is that it doesn’t give much time to read anything else as I must have read both of these at least twenty times, and some parts even more. So, the fact I’m still recommending them must say something about good they are? 🙂
And if you’re looking for non-TwinBikeRun reccomendations then I’d point you in the direction of Robert Galbraith’s ‘Troubled Blood’ for a novel by a woman who pretends to be a man but is hated because she has strong views about men who want to be woman, Louis Sachar’s ‘Holes’ for the chapter about the onions and Peter Bill’s ‘Planet Property’ if you want to read a good book about property.
Every year, Spotify members can download a report detailing how they used the service. This is what mine shows.
What does the report reveal about me ? It reveals that my wife has figured out my Spotify password! I don’t listen to any of these songs. These are one’s she likes!!
So Here’s a list of the tunes I preferred listening to this year.
The prize for best vocal performance goes to this performance by Bruno Mars.
The Prize for best song by a band big in the 90’s goes to The Divine Comedy
And my favorite song of the year goes to Macklemore with “Next Year” which is as catchy and simple as pop music should be.
On a cold wet day in Troon I popped into a cafe. I was desperate for some soup. It was a soup sort of day. I asked the waitress what the soup of the day was. She replied “French Onion.”
“Do you have anything else?” I asked. “No” she replied. “We only have French onion soup.”
Surely if you are a cafe who only have one soup then you go make lentil or a tomato offering. Nobody’s favorite soup is “french onion” unless you are french.
I ordered it as I was desperate but I then watched as every other punter who came into the cafe asked what was the soup. And they too, all said when hearing of the choice. “Oh – do you have anything else?”
Thankfully the weather was better the next day. My wife and I popped down to Troon beach for a sunrise swim. The water was absolutely Baltic. My body felt sore when the cold water hit my hands and feet.
It was very shallow but I managed 10 minutes of near freezing conditions.
Don’t be fooled by this video. It was not as warm as it looks.
Ease of Access: https://goo.gl/maps/HKVy3g3ZW4ULQnmG7 we were staying at Loch Green Hotel. It was a 15 minute walk from the hotel to the beach. There is a path called The Smugglers Trail.
Water quality: I didn’t put my head under the water so it was hard to tell how good the water was.
Swim Quality: Perfect. Nice flat calm water
Other People: Not a soul.
Would I go back: I wouldn’t go out of my way to swim here but if I was near Troon then I would stop for a dip.
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Arbroath
Nickname: The Red Lichties
Ground: Gayfield Park
Stadium Capacity: 5,940
Song: Tom Hark by The Piranhas
Arbroath was the home of Scottish singer and entertainer Andy Stewart, who lived and died in Arbroath. In 1961, Andy had a hit worldwide with his song ‘Donald Where’s Your Troosers?’ about a Scotsman wearing a kilt. If he’d been singing it in Arbroath, he’d have sung ‘Donald Where’s Your Longjohns?’ The Red Lichties play matches at Gayfield Park, next to the sea. As a result, it’s exposed to the shifting, strong and bitterly cold North Sea winds. This creates problems for visiting teams as the ball can get caught in the strong wind, confusing attacking players and goalies coming for crosses.
Like Grimsby Town, the fans like to sing ‘We Only Sing When We’re Fishing’:
“We only sing when we’re fishing!
We only sing when we’re fiiiiiiiishing!
We only sing when we’re fishing!
sing when we’re fishing!“
(Source: terrace chant)
And, whenever a goal is scored at Gayfield, the stadium tannoy plays ‘Tom Hark’ by The Piranhas.
The song was initially recorded in 1953 by Elias And His Zig Zag Jive Flutes and is based on “Kwela,” the traditional South African folk music (see Burnley for another origin tale).
The Piranhas’ saxophonist Phil Collis discovered the song in his mum’s record collection and persuaded the band to do a version. Phil wrote the lyrics as the group travelled in the back of a van from their hometown of Brighton to a recording studio in London.
“The original was an instrumental, so we brought it up to date with some lyrics,” says Phil. “I could say the words were deep and meaningful, but they don’t mean much. I scribbled them on an envelope in about an hour.“
The song itself is 2 minutes 45 seconds long. If the club had played it to celebrate every goal in 1855, it would have been played for 85 minutes during Arbroath’s most famous victory. A victory that took place the same day as another famous match.
On Saturday, 12 September 1885, Dundee Harp played Aberdeen Rovers in the first round of the Scottish Cup. The result made football history as Harp beat its Aberdeen rivals 35 – 0. But, what was thought to be the biggest ever victory, only lasted a few short hours.
Dundee Harp had an Irish player, Tom O’Kane, who lived in Arbroath. After the game, he sent a telegram home to wind up his friends and boast of his achievement. But, unknown to Tom, that very afternoon, Arbroath had gone one better. The rampant home team handed out a 36-0 thrashing to Bon Accord.
To make matters worse, Dundee Harp had scored more than 35 goals. The referee had noted at least 37, but as he was unsure of the exact total, he discussed it with O’Kane, and they agreed that the ref would tell the football league that the score was 35 – 0. Not knowing the tally was so important, O’Kane was happy to take the lower figure until he heard back from Arbroath.
At first, he thought their response was a joke, that Arbroath couldn’t possibly have scored one more goal at the same time as Dundee Harp was creating a new record. However, when Tom arrived back in Arbroath, he realised the truth – Arbroath had set a new record for the highest winning margin in football, a record that still stands to this day.
Even if Harp’s original 37 – 0 scoreline had been allowed to stand, there is evidence to suggest that Arbroath may still have beaten it. Many years later, the referee of the Bon Accord game, Dave Stormont, admitted in a newspaper article that he’d disallowed seven legitimate Arbroath goals, and the score should have been 43-0.
If it’s any consolation to Tom, the Dundee Harp game still officially holds the record for the game with the second-highest winning margin. And if they’d play Tom Hark, fans would have heard it for 82 minutes.
I got vertigo watching my telly during the film The Aeronaughts just because it had 90 minutes of ballooning. I’d hate to get in an actual balloon when even Eddie Redmayne in a basket in a studio surrounded by CGI makes me dizzier than water down a drain. But my wife loves rollercoasters, so I love (hate) rollercoasters and have to join her when we get the chance to have a go on one. It’s not fun and I blame the minister who married us. While he asked if I would take her in sickness or in heath he never once mentioned taking her in a basket in mid-air or, worse, a loop de loop at 90 miles an hour. If he had, I would definitely have said “no” and called off the wedding.
So, in order to try and overcome my fear I watched “Engineer Explains Every Roller Coaster For Every Thrill” and I now know the difference between a coaster, an ultra coaster, a mousetrap and, most importantly, the site of every major roller coaster in the world so I can make sure we never go on holiday anywhere near them. Perfect.
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 