FIFA 2009 vs. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

A few years ago comparing E! A! Sports! 'soccer' franchise with the might of Pro Evo was a bit like making an ant with a brain tumour fight a van. However, the last few iterations of PES, on the next-gen formats at least, have been so face gnawingly abysmal that this year FIFA effectively has an open goal. To extend this torturous metaphor even further, can EA score??

First up, as any fourteen year old Games Master reader knows, teh grafix are everything. In this regard both games should taste the shame. FIFA's players bear the uncanniest resemblance to the House of the Dead zombies since the childhood trauma that was the terrifying approximation of Tim Henman in Virtua Tennis. An intro sequence depicting a John Terry with cardboard legs and eyeballs rolling into the back of his skull does little to further the FIFA cause. In fairness though, close-cam replays and some nice cutaways of players getting bitchy are impressive. Meanwhile, over in PES-land, Seabass and co are attempting to disprove the evidence of every sane persons eyesight by presenting us with a black Christiano Ronaldo. Er, what? Not satisfied with this, the bods at Konami have also transported all Pro Evo matches to Tatooine, two suns surely being the only reasonable explanation for the unearthly shadows and bizarre lighting effects on display. If you want to imagine what Pro Evo looks like, think of a budget PC game from 1998 with all the visual settings turned down to very low.

Away from graphics and, again, neither game is exactly mind melting in its awesomeness. The menus on display in FIFA are dark, endless and cluttered. Cutaways to a cardboard crowd so 2D it would shame Sega Worldwide Soccer are also inadvisable. This, however, is nothing compared to the sheer levels of ineptitude on display in Pro Evo. Last years version, of course, had two of the most retarded design decisions ever to sully the name of video games. Firstly, Konami decided a pleasant, normal view for penalties, where everyone could see clearly what was going on, was not acceptable. Oh no, obviously it would be preferable to place the camera in the bottom right hand corner of the goal net. Oh, sweet Jesus. Thanks to this 'sensational' innovation neither the penalty taker nor goalkeeper could see more than half the goal. Furthermore, if the ball was saved, or hit the post, the game would take a few moments to switch back to the normal view, meaning the ball would be effectively sitting in the goalmouth, with no-one able to do anything. Head-implodingly moronic. Oh, and they also made it so that the players form icons were the same colour as the menu. To approximately no-one's amazement this made them unreadable. I know, who'd a-thought it? Brilliant. Actually brilliant. Anyways, the big presentation innovations of PES this year are to remove these features. That's right, they are roughly right back where they were two years ago. Really pushing the football genre forward there guys.

Back in terms of gameplay, FIFA owns PES so brutally hard it hurts. PES has actually reached the point where it can't even scrape mediocrity any more, it is simply just shit in its purest form. Let's check list the PES 'features' that STILL haven't been fixed. Inexplicable imposition of an invisible wall around throw-ins? Check. Only eight possible directions despite analogue being invented last millenium? Check. Goalkeepers who like to fumble the ball more often than a 49 year old Neville Southall? Check. Team mates standing stock still when you're practically on your knees begging them to fucking just make a run? Check. Angles from which you always score? Check. Players that look like they're having an epileptic fit when sprinting? Check. Commentary so shit you want to weep? Check. Pitches on which you can't see the ball? Check. The computer passing around its back four for half an hour only to then score from a corner? Check. The 'football' having all the physics of a balloon? Check. The game just being so utterly and completely broken that it makes you question your own sanity? Check.

FIFA, on the other hand, has none of these problems. It feels like some kind of approximation of real football at least, unlike PES which frankly could be simulating the underwater hermaphrodite long-jump for all its realism. FIFA also has Carlisle United, enabling everyone to live the five straight defeats dream.

Basically, FIFA is actually pretty good. It's fun to play, reasonably reminiscent of actual football, and has a lot of features. Tonnes of lower league teams, everything fully licensed and excellent online support (such as the ability to play 11v11). PES, on the other hand, has only a handful of licensed teams, so look out for such titans of the English game as 'Lake District United' striding out at the feared cauldron that is 'Trad Brick Stadium'. And, if its anything like every Pro Evo ever, it will be borderline unplayable online, with lag, broken game modes and ten year old Man Utd fans quitting every match they start losing.

Lonehead Mayflower - Of Bowels

Trawling the Prelinger Archives for public domain footage is pretty addictive. Here's a video I made from various clips, set to a dreary acoustic song I wrote.

New Who: Series Four

Urgh. Last night I managed to waste an hour of my life watching Catherine Tate save the world by pulling random levers, Billie Piper single handedly invent a teleport system that enabled her to travel between dimensions (??) and a Time Lord and the Supreme Dalek argue over who closed a door. I am talking, of course, about the annual, and consistently abysmal, Doctor Who season finale. Last night's episode brought to an end perhaps the worst run in the shows 30 series history, although even I have to admit it has not yet quite plumbed the depths of the late Colin Baker/early Sylvester McCoy era just yet. Hence the best TV weekend ever (TM) got off to a bad start. Ah well, at least the F1 and tennis were awesome.

Hands up whose idea of a good plot is failed actors and z-list celebrities shouting nonsensical scientific mumbo-jumbo at each other? Oh, just you at the back then. Maybe someone should tell New Who 'mastermind' Russell T. Davies of the popularity of his ideal basis for a script. How on earth this man has managed to turn the imminent destruction of the entire universe into the most tedious television imaginable is quite incredible. Hence this quick list of what was wrong with season 4 closer 'Journey's End':

-Truly appalling resolution of the previous episodes cliffhanger
Rewind seven days back and it was all 'OMG the cast of rubbish spin-off Torchwood are gonna get killed by a Dalek!' and 'OMG the cast of rubbish spin-off Sarah Jane Adventures are gonna get killed by a Dalek!' and, most of all, 'OMG the Doctor is regenerating!'. Needless to say RTD, ever the genius writer, managed to tie up all three cliffhangers in, ooh, about thirty seconds. The Torchwood gang get protected from the Dalek by some kind of invisible force field. Which, hilariously, isn't explained at any point. You'll also be relieved to know that Sarah Jane didn't get exterminated either. Phew! You see, Billie Piper's family teleported in from another dimension at that exact moment, at that exact place. If that wasn't convenient enough they were also armed with guns that could kill Daleks. Lucky old Sarah Jane eh? So. Angry. Meanwhile, the Doctor put his regeneration energy into a jar, so didn't regenerate. Er, what the hell? In fairness though, it should be pointed out that the Doctor was going to regenerate because he had been shot by a Dalek. A Dalek that had been hiding behind a van. In a way this made me quite relieved. David Tenant having to regenerate because a Dalek had been chilling out behind a Ford Transit would have been down there with Colin Baker falling over as the lamest reason for a regeneration ever.

-Random weapons that make no sense
Comically shit character Martha Jones has a key that means she can fire 25 nuclear missiles simultaneously. Sounds pretty awesome, except she drops it on the floor and loses it. I wish I was making this up. Sarah Jane Smith, star of a CBBC spin-off for christsakes, has a necklace that can destroy an entire planet. Apparently she was given this by a 'Bavarian fortune-teller'. Hmmm. And while the Daleks are invulnerable to all weaponry the army can throw at them, as soon as Billie Piper turns up on the scene they can't wait to instantly explode at the first sight of her gun. Ooh-er.

-Mockery of a national treasure
The Daleks are a design icon, and the fact that they are just as popular now as they were in 1963 is a testament to their enduring appeal. While I've always personally rated the Cybermen as my favourite Who villain, the Daleks are most definitely close behind. And this is because of they're seeming invincibility, which I, and creator Terry Nation, saw as the key component of their success (as well as their alien yet fascist nature). Now, this is an area which I think the classic series of Who ignored to its cost. By the time people were defeating the Daleks by hanging a jumper over their head, any menace they may have possessed had evaporated. So, when New Who burst onto the scene, and the sons of Skaro made their first appearance in the brilliant sixth episode Dalek, I was delighted to see them taken seriously again. You genuinely believed that a single Dalek could wipe out the whole of North America such was its power. It also destroyed the myth about Daleks being unable to climb stairs once and for all (even though the excellent Remembrance of the Daleks had featured a flying Dalek over fifteen years previously). Unfortunately, RTD seems to have quickly forgotten the lessons afforded by classic Who, and we have again arrived at a junction where the Daleks possess no threat whatsoever. For example, Sarah Jane and Billie Piper having a conversation while rolling a spasming Dalek around like a wheelchair. Plus, it's become increasingly comical to view the Daleks swanning around their 'spaceship' (i.e. a set stolen straight from CBBC) claiming that 'no-one can stop us now!', only for the Doctor to inevitably, er, stop them.

-An increasingly irritating cast
Given how this was the series finale pretty much everyone had to be involved. Apparently. So, we had all my issues with New Who's cast of characters summed up in one episode. First up, David Tenant's portrayal of the Doctor. It seems the wacky side of Tom Baker is his main inspiration, cue three seasons of gurning and shouting. Now this is all well and good, but a little variety would perhaps be nice. I've always felt the underrated Patrick Troughton and Sylvester McCoy managed to convey the Doctor's eccentricity, yet simultaneously his knowledge, particularly well. Still, each to his own. Elsewhere in this episode we had Jack 'I'd Do Anything' Barrowman rolling out of bins (why does the Dalek mega death-star thing have bins??), Billie 'What the hell is wrong with her mouth' Piper failing to act her way out of a paper bag, and Catherine Tate.

Now, a confession. As any sane Whovian would I greeted the news of Tate's appointment with a repeated slitting of my wrists. Basing my judgement of her upon 'The Catherine Tate Show', a programme pretty much representing humanity's lowest ebb, I decreed that she would be the worst companion of all-time. And yes, that includes Adric. Well, I have been proven wrong. She is actually a really, really good actress. When the scripts allowed her to she shone, however most of the time the writers seemed to have her sketch show characters in mind and penned a load of shouting. Urgh. And only in Doctor Who would Bernard Cribbins effectively confessing to David Tenant that he wanks over him at night be considered an acceptable end to a series.

-The music
The New Who soundtrack has always been terrible, but Murray Goldman plumbed new depths in this episode. At one stage I was actually reduced to laughter as an utterly tedious 'emotional' scene in the TARDIS was sound tracked by what appeared to be music lifted straight from a spaghetti western. So, so bizarre. Another trademark of Mr Goldman is as soon as anything resembling action appears on screen he increases the music to almost deafening levels. This occurred once again in this final episode, most memorably in a scene where some random German woman is pointing a gun at Martha Jones for no discernible reason. Incredibly this ridiculously loud music continued even after the gun had been put away, meaning the ensuing conversation was almost inaudible. And don't get me started on the current version of the theme music. The original Doctor Who theme is quite simply the greatest of any television show ever, minimalist and utterly alien. The new version completely misses the point as Murray 'loudest is bestest' Goldman enlists an entire orchestra to assist him in the desecration of a classic. God I hate that man.

-Deus-ex machina
Actually, RTD's scripts have now become so bad endless examples of deus-ex machina are no longer good enough for him. Oh no. Instead we now have a phenomena last seen in the darkest days of Pertwee, in which every episode is resolved with a character info-dumping that they 'defeated the bad monsters by intriangulating the post lateral current into the redux compressor in order to overload the mega proton chip' or some such nonsense. In this regard the final episode really took the piss. I still have no idea whatsoever how the Daleks were defeated. All I know is that Catherine Tate became a Time Lord (cough), but beyond that her explanation was just endless scientific jargon that doesn't even make any sense to RTD. Writing that is sensationally lazy, and insulting to the audience who have tuned in for an hour of this shit. How this episode is seemingly heading to be the highest rated TV show of the week I have no idea.


In fact, the whole series was just rubbish. Continuing New Who's mockery of the classic enemies (think the Master, Autons, Cybermen) we had the badly redesigned Sontarans planning to take over the Earth by, er, locking people in their cars. And then there was The Doctor's Daughter. Words really can't do justice to this one. Let's just say it takes incomprehensible awfulness to a whole new level. On the plus side, the 'daughter' was really hot, and apparently auditioned for the role of Rose. Damn you Piper! Elsewhere, it was nice to see Gareth Roberts, author of classic Missing Adventure novels such as The English Way of Death, be given an episode. He duly obliged with the enjoyable The Unicorn and the Wasp. Still, this was a rare highlight of a miserable series. Essentially, the season was summed up by the RTD penned Midnight. A brilliant concept, a sort of sci-fi twist on the Lord of the Flies, managed to become, in RTD's hands, 45 minutes of people shouting at each other.

However, to be clear, I am not complaining. Thinking back it is utterly bizarre that at school I was obsessed with some dodgy sci-fi show that was cancelled when I was barely a year old. A programme that I was almost in tears over when that theme music kicked in on the very first episode of it's resurrection, a moment I thought I would never see. I'm glad it's back on TV. Yet, that doesn't mean it doesn't have its flaws. The show is unmistakeably hamstrung by it's slot on a Saturday night. Essentially it has to be designed for an audience enraptured by such rubbish as the National Lottery and Fame Academy. It is difficult for it to satisfy hardcore nerds such as myself in this position. Just look back at the final two seasons of the classic series. After a difficult few years the show was undoubtedly back on form, and it was two years of brilliant episodes. However, it was up against Coronation Street, was predictably pulverised in the ratings, and finally cancelled after 26 years. This is the problem Doctor Who still faces today. It has to pander to the unimaginative morons who tune in to soaps every day, the same people who when confronted by science fiction instantly dismiss it because its 'unrealistic' and their tiny brains can't cope with it.

As a result of this dumbing down for a mainstream audience, every year numerous episodes pass by me that are beyond shit, and leave me wondering why I still rush home at 7 for this crap. Then suddenly, from nowhere, an utterly incredible instalment is broadcast which reminds me why I'm in love with the show in the first place. Last year it was the frankly exquisite Human Nature/Family of Blood two-parter, and this year it was Silence in the Library, penned by the consistently awesome Stephen Moffat, making it four out of four awesome stories for him. And guess who is taking over RTD's chair as the man in charge of Doctor Who for (the now delayed) series 5? Ooh yeah, Moffat baby. I'm hyped.

New Balls Please lololololol

Rad photoblog action coming up, documenting my thrilling trip to SW19 to see who is the best at hitting a small yellow ball over a net. As I was telling my tennis buddy Chris 'Mad Eyes' Collins, this trip made me the first person to leave my village since 1968. Back then, or so the tale goes, Big Dave the Peg Leg entered the Forest of No Return and, er, never returned. So it was crucial that I took some advice from Roger the Elder before setting off on my journey to the Big Smoke.

''Hark,'' said Roger the Elder (for it is he), ''the people of London are better than you. They are more highly evolved. No longer do they merely wave in greeting as us simple Mud Men do. Instead, given their heightened sophistication, they choose instead to stab each other. And wheras as us pathetic Mud Men who dwell in the wilderness must travel for long periods to reach our desired destination, the Londoner must, um, also do this...huh.''

At this point Roger the Elder was becoming tedious, so with a joyful slap of his bald head I began my journey to a land where the streets are paved with gold...

KK. Here's me engrossed in some TV tennis action beforehand. Y'know to amp up the anticipation. My favourite commentator is obviously Greg 'The Moose' Rudeski who routinely offers up some very insightful analysis. ''He'd really like to get this second serve in'' and ''Nadal wants to win this!!!'' are all valid points, that I would not have realised without being told so by some random Canadian.

Here's my ticket out of Mudville and into the Big Smoke! Er, hence the thumbs-up. The main highlights of the train journey were the lack of Zoltan and some random guy shouting ''you are a very rude gentleman'' at someone.

Wow. Anyone with a ticket fetish will be doing something to themselves over this blog. Somewhere on this document there were security warnings about how your bag had to be a certain size and stuff. Unfortunately for Chris 'Mad Hair' Collins he did not heed them. As a result, when he arrived at Wimbledon his bag was larger than the regulations allowed. So, a guard had to publicly search said bag for illicit items. At this point various, shall we say, 'personal' belongings of Chris 'Mad Ears' Collins were on display for all to see. Like everyone else, the guard was naturally repulsed by the stacks of hardcore man-on-armadillo pornography Chris had felt the need to bring to the tennis. Therefore, and in a decision I fully support, the bag was incinerated in front of Collins' very eyes. There is a lesson in this for us all: can we not at least last a day without lewd armadillo images?

Ooh, now it's really kicking off. This is me seeing if my camera's flash was on. By, um, taking a picture of the back of someones head. It took a long time to get to this point, mainly because I managed to get utterly lost on my way to the tennis looking for the mythical 'Bap Lane' (true story). Poor Chris 'Mad Dog' Collins had to wait forever for me to finally turn up after I had succeeded in wandering around suburbs and graveyards for what seemed like hours. Amazingly I managed to repeat this trick on the way back, inadvertently walking to Wandsworth which was literally miles from where I was meant to be. Still...back to the photo, the old woman on this lady's right got up to some consistently hilarious shenanigans, a number of photographs of which appear later in this blog!1!1!1

Here's Venus Williams, getting ready to annihilate some random Spanish girl. I think it was in this match that a ball boy fell over? Hilarious and definitely worth the entrance fee alone.

Yeah, this is the Spanish player preparing to get owned. Chris 'Mad Bag' Collins didn't want Venus to win. Make of that what you will...

Haha, now this was kinda gay. For some reason I took loads of pictures of this line judge. There's no point in even uploading anymore, this one pretty much sums them all up. Thinking back it's kinda bizarre, I mean there were far funnier line judges, such as the jumbo sized woman and the old man who every time he wheezed 'out' sounded like he was seconds from heart failure.

Check out this mass exodus of people, desperate to get home in time for the penultimate episode of Doctor Who. Probably.

This was the game after Venus had won in like 10 seconds. It was actually a good match, Gasquet stormed into a two set lead, Simon scraped the third set on a tie-break, before one more break proved good enough for Gasquet in the fourth. Unfortunately, me and Chris 'Mad Shirt' Collins were too hyped for the match we knew was to follow (i.e. we were going to get to see Jamie Murray's epic afro) and just spent the whole of this match desperate for it to end.

Here's the two players. Apart from a slight wobble at the end of the third set/start of the fourth Gasquet looked pretty good. He's got Andy Murray in the next round and I reckon will prove more of a test for Jamie's inferior brother than many people are expecting.

This is the comedy grandma I was talking about earlier. She was sat in front of us and basically just seemed to have an endless supply of cans of Carling which she was downing. Chris 'Mad Spine' Collins wanted to have a photo taken with her. It didn't turn out too well (why didn't he just look at the camera?) but the can of Carling took priority over any pictures of the Collins.

117 mph. Chris 'Mad Dad' Collins got a shot of a 130mph+ effort, so won this contest. Incidentally, the other day Nadal hit a backhand at 109mph. !!!

Oh yes. The moment everyone had been waiting for, as Jamie Murray's legendary afro makes its way onto court. Not a great photo this one, but trust me, once the hairband is on it gets epic.

The hairband is on! Aside from this though, doubles kinda does my head in. It goes on forever and the endless high fiving at every opportunity is really annoying. Like, Jamie Murray hits the ball out the stadium and his partner is still running over to high five him. Rubbish.

This is an OK picture. I'm kinda disappointed with how the afro has turned out in these shots. Trust me, in real life it proves an inspiration to us all.


Chris 'Mad Lib' Collins and a roof. What more could you want? Some random middle-class woman too? Oh, go on then.

As the doubles degenerated into four sweaty men high-fiving every thirty seconds yet more cans of Carling began to appear.

Ooh, Carling, but in a glass. Movin' up in the world...

Here's Jamie Murray taking a break from carting that massive hair around the court. While this dismal excuse for tennis was unfolding before our horrified eyes, over on Centre Court 'Virtua Tennis' legend Tommy Haas was getting soundly beaten by Scottish dullard Andy Murray. Boo.

And this is how the day came to an end. A silhouetted grandma on her 9th pint, while Jamie Murray, a Chinese man with big socks, and two Russians who kept whispering in each others ears rally for eternity before us. Doctor Who was on in an hour. It was time to get the hell out.

But, as with all photoblogs, some important lessons had been learnt. That Knight child is German, not British. A grown man has wandered up to the fixtures board and gone ''Kiefer versus Nadal! Mwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha''. And walking around the endless suburbs of London for hours on end is not much fun. Marcus out.

My Top 25 Records of 2007

Time to jump start this blog again, with a posting that originally appeared on my Lastfm profile fact fans. It's my personal faves from last year (I'm nostalgic for the days when I listened to something other than Crystal Castles), although I've updated it since it's original appearance, given the rather baffling placings for Okkervil River and Bon Iver first time around. KK. Who will be number one????? Check it:

25. Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder

Listen to this too much and you're gonna get a pretty quick face to face reunion with your dinner. Pure sugar on a disc.

24. M.I.A. - Kala

Riggerz says he's sick of hearing 'Paper Planes' booming outta ma room, but fuck the haterz. 'Come Around' is also a 'choon'.

23. Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

Think I prefer the first album :( Still, out of the hundreds of Libertines wannabees who are still clogging up the charts (when's dance coming back!?) the Arctics are clearly not only in a different league, but on a different planet. CLICHES FTW

22. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Can be pretty dull at times and that woman's song is perhaps the worst piece of music heard since that fateful day when 'Strange Apparition' forced its unwanted way into the world. Good though. Well, at least it is as long as you don't mention, y'know, that certain other album they did.

21. Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If...

Not quite sure what's going on with the bizarre naming here. It's probably something to do with this supposedly being a solo record for BSS frontman Kevin Drew, and yet it sounds just like yet another BSS album. Huh. Not a bad thing mind.

20. Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Aside from the obscene cover art that gags your eyeballs and then proceeds to gang rape them in every orifice, my personal favourites are 'Carousel' and 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth'.

19. The Takeovers - Bad Football

Ageing drunk Bob Pollard takes time out from his busy schedule of endless shit solo records to team up with some other ex-GbVers, Malkmus and some random Decemberist. Cue a great album. Who'd a thunk it?

18. Justice - Cross

DVNO was like, the best thing ever. Then they gave it like, the best video ever. Now it's definitely...well, the best thing ever. The rest of the album's not bad either.

17. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil

'O Katrina!' may well have been the 'hit' (kinda) but the rest of the LP holds up just as well. Gooood stuff.

16. Bill Callahan - Woke On A Whaleheart

Quite what the point in going solo is when you were the only member of your old 'band' in the first place is probably beyond any sane being. Still, it didn't stop Callahan binning the Smog moniker. Resulting album in sounds just like a Smog record shocker.

15. Band of Horses - Cease To Begin

Man, if the music wasn't so good, this band, and their endless 'WE WANT TO BE AS BIG AS U2' bullshit, would be deserving of a good slapping.

14. New Pornographers - Challengers

Rivaling only Iron and Wine in the visual molestation stakes comes this horrendous cover courtesy of Canada's finest. The album itself is arguably their weakest yet. Still great though.

13. A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers

Brutal distortion-fest from NYC. Production perhaps leaves a little to be desired, but there's no denying the quality of the songs.

12. Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Not as good as Black Sheep Boy (what is?) but still delicious. A few rockin' upbeat numbers and the pwetty 'Savannah Smiles' make for a good listen.

11. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

Garden State looks so bad.

10. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Packs in the tunes. 'Someone Great' in particular is perhaps an all-time fave. Although if I ever hear 'North American Scum' again I'll probably vomit so much the room will be filled with half-digested brocolli and people will run screaming but they won't be able to escape the ocean of sick and they will all get swept away to their deaths. Heard. It. So. Many. Times.

9. Los Campesinos! - Sticking Fingers Into Sockets

First 'official' EP from indie-pop darlings of the moment. Teh amaze, and the full album that came out last month is also aces.

8. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder

'Satan Said Dance' and 'Yankee Go Home' rock the set yeah. Rest is more difficult than first album to get into, hence the backlash from the lightweights. Yeah, yeah.

7. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond

Usually sounding exactly like you did in 1987 wouldn't be considered a good thing. But in the reformed Dino's case it most certainly is.

6. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

It ain't no LCW, but ignoring the ridiculously shiny production the songs are gooood. Epic sell-out Brock needs to forget all that grubby money he's now got and start getting angry again though.

5. Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation

Slightly demented indie rock record, with a noticeable country-ish twinge to it. Throw in some traditional distorted songs, as well as the odd acoustic ballad, and it's aces.

4. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Once past the pretty uninteresting opening two tracks everything is ace, and definitely an improvement on the rather dodgy Hail to the Thief. Kinda wish 'Videotape' still had the big explosive finish though :(

3. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Amazing album that seemingly came out of nowhere. Haunting, desolate, blah, blah, blah. It's just incredible and has to be heard. Apparently Zane Lowe has started playing it now, so it must be good, right kids?

2. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

'For Reverend Green' pretty much ends music such is its awesomeness. Nine tracks of what is essentially perfection. And it's insane as usual of course.

1. The National - Boxer

Ah, sheer greatness. That it renders its classic predecessor 'Alligator' utterly irrelevant pretty much says it all really. Depressing in a lovely rich and warm way.

Disknee

*IMPORTANT* Ironically for a blog subtitled 'Frontwards', I managed to do this blog backwards. That means that you have to read it from the bottom up. Don't, I repeat don't, read it like you would normal, sensibly structured blogs. Thank you. *IMPORTANT*

And so, the Disneyland holiday came to an end. I had learnt many important lessons during the course of the trip, such as that Chris goes to bed at 9pm without fail, supposedly locked doors on the Aerosmith ride can be pushed open and that Disney (not including Pixar) have produced approximately nothing of worth in the last decade or so. Thanks for reading this photoblog. And thanks to me for making it, considering it has literally swallowed days of my life. What with the photos taking forever to load. And then more often than not failing at the last minute. SEE YA!

The last picture of this holiday blog. But hold back the tears because it is of the real star of our Disneyland excursion. No, not Ed. Namco's 1993 (?) arcade classic 'Race On!' Me and Ed were initally attracted to it by its exciting promise to 'take a picture of your face.' It does so, and you are then instantly plunged into the action. Your face hovering above your chosen generic arcade vehicle, so begins a 3 lap race through early '90s low-res polygonal hell. The exciting on track racing is perfectly complemented by a commentary still unsurpassed in video games to this day. Basically there is a straight guy, and the funny guy. The straight guy would say something like 'what do you think of this race Graham?' to which the other would reply with various howls possibly derived from recieving sexual pleasure. The comedy is only intensified by the omnipresent faces, constantly hovering above each others cars. I think by the end of the ferry crossing 'Race On!' had taken a deserved £6 pounds from me and Ed combined. Oh, and for the record, Ed is officially the reigning 'Race On!' master, winning 2 races to my feeble 1. Next time though...

It's the gang! On the ferry back! Ignoring the antics on the back row there, you will notice that I, me, Marcus, makes his first, and only, appearance in front of the camera! And in the process demonstrates instantly why he is better off behind the camera in the first place!

"Water Tower!" Geddit? "What a tower!/Water tower!" Well, waterever, it's your reward for getting past all those pics of the gay parade.

This is Pinnochio's Dad right? Two things to say about this picture. Firstly, it was funny how he danced, and how the weirdos dressed up like clockwork soliders around him danced. Secondly, on the bus back home Dean made a phone call. His greeting was "Is that Dad?" It was semi-funny at the time.

The Lion King float. I had taken pictures of the drivers of the floats but these had to be deleted to make more space for pictures of parades (rolly-eye smiley here). They looked so funny, squashed into the front of these rolling freak shows, their faces visibly regretting their chosen career path.

Smee (?) It sort of looks like he's watching me out of the corner of his eye, like the Mona Lisa. *Highbrow*

As yet more obscure Disney minor characters were wheeled out my attention wandered towards the hot totty positioned just to my left.

This is the 'loveable' Chicken Little.

Ah, now this is quite a cool float. There's Woody, who of course I've actually met!

And back to the bloody parades. This is Tinkerbell. Because we were in Disney Studios the theme of the parade was filming movies, so all the characters were pretending they were being filmed. I think that was the general idea.

"Got no money (Pokes, Pokes, Pokes)" The anthem of our holiday. Oh, and enjoy this pic because all but two of the remaining photos are from yet another parade. Whoop. Or something.

OK, here's that cross-dressing chipmunk thing I was talking about earlier. It struck this pose just for me (I think).

Us in Planet Hollywood. I got to see the Danni California video for the first time. Oh dear. At least the vid matches the quality of the song. Ed bought a Planet Hollywood cap. And check out my Mr Incredible Pez dispenser at the bottom centre of the picture. I think all the Pez had been consumed by this point.

Mr Incredible dancing for the assembled crowds. I wanted a souviner of the holiday but, almost without exception everything sucked (so much so that I almost spent 20 euros on that cuddly red car). So my sole reminder of the holiday is a Mr Incredible Pez dispenser. The Pez was eaten within 5 minutes.

Inexplicable. Notice the slight wetness of the ground on Chris' right. We qued for a fair while for the adrenaline thrill rush that is Aladdin's flying carpets, got to literally the front of the line and then there was massive amounts of rain and the carpets got closed. Meaning that was half of Disney Studio's rides out of action ;-)

"You wouldn't steal a TV. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a Morinov..." ARGH shuttup I bought the damn DVD, if you don't get rid of these stupid unskippble propaganda shorts before everything I'll just buy the pirate DVD instead, so I don't have to watch them. Happy now!?

Except I couldn't get that picture to load for some reason. So here's a photo of some "fire?" instead.

A chipmunk thing. Forgotten what they are called. Adventurers? His 'wife', i.e. yet another example of Disney endorsed cross dressing, is above.

Ladies and gentlemen...the King of the Dwarfs! Pretty cool henchman too.


(8)'Cos Pearl HarboUr ROCKED!!!(8) I've actually seen this movie. Well, by "seen" I mean switched off in disgust after half-an-hour. But it's by the director of Armaggedon, so Chris lurves it.

Right, this stunt-car show was pretty cool. It ended up with a guy riding a motorbike through a !!!WALL OF FIRE!!! And he got set on fire and then walked around abit before, as Thurston Moore in all his bizarre colour filter glory would say, "the firefighters hosed him down."

Pump.


"Buzz!?" Nah, it's Woody.


"Philip!?" (In the foreground...) It's Jessie in the background folks! And her pardner Woody is oop there ^

It's out now! Don't all rush at once. Also go to www.sonypictures.com/movies/littleman where you can 'design your own Little Man poster'. Aweshome!

Twirly. Loads of small children were running around with these, and because they are really short you can just see these lights out of the bottom of your eye and I kept thinking the kids had lighters.

A giant Cars poster. There's even some real humans in the bottom left corner so you can see it to scale. No hidden racist messages here though. Unless the absence of a yellow car can be considered racist. Which I think it can.

And this KKK themed restaurant.

Apparently, Henry refused to join us on our Disneyland excursion because Disney is an 'evil corporation.' How we laughed. At least we did until we began to notice the racist subliminal messages scattered throughout the park. Such as this swastika...


Another thumbs up. This time for Nicholas Cage.

*Weak laughter*


More music memoribillia. The sign says Radiohead in case you can't see it. There was some signed Pearl Jam stuff as well. No pictures were taken.

Some R.E.M. tour poster. Got to see alot of this during the 10 (!?) times we qeued for the Aerosmith ride.

More novelty headgear modelling.

In my eagerness for further buggy goodness I attempted to take more pics. But then Dean obscured everything with his face.

OMG...Is that...is that THE Armaggedon buggy!? Why yes it is.


I thought this was a really arty picture. But apparently it's 'crap'.

H4rdcore.


Our home for the next twelve hours.

Mickey walking towards ME. While on holiday I invented my own joke. Q: "What is Mickey Mouse's favouite human body part?" Dean replied 'cock' but the actual punchline was 'knee.' As in 'Dis-knee.' Hilarious.

Where'd Ed and Chris go? I can only see Indiana Jones...(x2)

I look at this ride, and think 'I want an hour of my life back and I want it now.'


With the parade out of the way it's onto the next day, which was spent primarily in Disney Studios. Here's Chris giving a heartfelt thumbs-up to Armageddon, genuinely one of his favourite movies ever.

FINISHED!

Gawd this is dull. Er, it's the Little Mermaid. Don't worry, even when the pics of this parade ends I've got even more of the Studios parade!!! COOL.

The main man up close. I'm sure if other individuals were writing this blog they would incorporate the obvious word into an 'amusing' caption, but that would be far, far too immature for me.

The big players Mickey and Minnie riding the Steamboat Willie. In the night parade, on the back of the last float was a mouse, supposedly Minnie. However, eagle-eyed Disney geeks noted that her bow was missing...thereby exposing 'her' as a cross-dressing Mickey.


Hohum. What are these freaks from?

Draw your own conclusions to the mystery from this picture.





Now this is a damn cool pic. It's my new desktop wallpaper :-) Check the dwarf being led away by security in the background. *Mystery* What crime could he have committed?? *Mystery* EDIT: This picture is at the very top of the blog ^ For some reason that I can't be bothered to even attempt rectifying.


Is this Cinderella? By the time you've seen your 58th princess jiving on a float they all kinda merge into one.

And they just keep on coming.

If the excitement of these pics is proving too much for you, I'll just warn ya: there's hundreds more where these came from.

Booooooooooring. There was a similar float themed around the Beauty and the Beast which led to accusations of beastiality later on, along with some graphic descriptions.

Pluto discovers Millencolin have split up.

Snow White. The night parade was probably better but my camera took really bad quality pics of it, and then ran out of batteries. Chris was swearing and moaning in the midst of a sea of children and their mothers, while a spectacular float dedicated to Stevo stopped before us for a good 10 minutes.

The man. The legend. Goofy entertains the crowds.


Yeah, it's at this point that this dull blog gets even more boring. For some reason I took millions of pictures of the sucky "Princess' Parade". Actually, it was quite good, but that still doesen't justify how many photos there are of it.

"Schtar Warzzz!!!" X-Wing y'all.

Hmm...these pics have gone abit out of chronological order. This is us having lunch at Pizza Planet. Yes, the star of Toy Story!!! The reason Ed and Chris are posing like this is because I wanted to get everyone into the photo. It didn't quite work though. There was alot of hate for Pizza Planet's fine cuisine from certain people. Bizarrely, when we went for dinner at 'Casey's', which served exactly the same food, said persons loved it.

Some more tea-cup drama, but this is of the entirely innocent variety. Riggerz enjoying the spinning action. On a related note I remember once going on a tea-cup ride where it was inside, and was like a disco, with the lights and ball and stuff. I think it was Drayton Manor, although it might have been Alton Towers. In any case it whups Disneyland's tea-cups.

And another pic of him, clearly loving it. Obviously I found it really funny.

Words cannot do justice to the insane level of photography skills required to capture these moments. The tea-cups were crazy man, you had no idea where our children loving friend was going to spin to next, making good quality photos of him a tall order. I'm satisfied with the results.

Now this was hilarious. A man alone in a pink tea-cup, surronded by (to quote) 'gyrating children' whips out his camera and films himself some hot action.

There are times when a caption is not required. This is one such occaison.

What a boring picture. The submarine from 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This was taken on the route to Space Mountain (Mission 2 y'all) for the third time. Just before this we had gone on the Cars ride. Basically, you can accelerate, and steer (to a degree) a car that travels on rails. Ed's car was in front of me, Chris behind. Ed stopped. I stopped. And so, Chris' car pushed us both around half of the ride, until a Disney employee sprinted over and seperated us, warning that the cars should not come into contact with each other. Apparently, straight after she said this Ed raced around a corner and slammed into the back of a stationary Dean's car, nearly breaking his neck..

Just some more touring of the land of fun. From this point on the tone of the blog may get abit more aggresive, mainly because I've already done the next few photographs but lost it when my trusty PC went haywire the other night. So from now on this is my second run through of this part of the damn blog :-(

Here's Pooh Bear hitting the mean streets of Disneyland. He was just one of many celebrities we met on our holiday, others include Sean Bean, the frontman of Father and Jeremy Irons.

Check the Peter Pan ride on the left. We got a Fastpass for it...coolio. You sit in a flying pirate ship that moves around veeery slowly. Every so often it stops 'cos a kid somewhere on the ride has fallen out of their boat or whatever. We stopped in a good place and for the next five minutes enjoyed the sight of Captain Hook having his crotch devoured by a crocodile.

And this equally delicious woman.

Our reward for navigating a fiendish maze was this delicious castle.

C3PO, while waiting for Star Tours. I don't think words can do justice to how funny this ride was. A 'you had to be there moment.' Basically, it's just a simulator and you watch a video of your ship slowly following the other ships along the clearly marked main route, when for no reason whatsoever your driver performs a near hairpin left turn and proceeds to drive through some No Entry doors. A 'wild ride' then ensues. Ending with you landing on completely the wrong planet, about which no-one seems to notice, nor care.

The King. Big Thunder Mountain. When me and Ed qeued for this some Germans in front of us did something funny but I can't remember what. I'll maybe edit this later.

Check out the poor guys on the right of the pic, queing for the sucky steamer! Why would you do that!? You spend half of your day in Disneyland sailing at walking pace around a toxic chemical infested lake watching people have fun on rides, and y'know, enjoy themselves. While you're stuck on some stupid tin can.

Chris wears his love for Mickey on his sleeve. Or, rather, on his EYE!


One of the few disapointing rides of the holiday: Indiana Jones. On the scale of boringness it was up there with Aerosmith for the 10th time. But more on that later.

'Caption Competition: What's Dean saying to Ed?'
My best effort= "Beats Castle Park." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

To quote Chris: "The mystical symbol of a magical land where your dreams always come true. Sleeping Beauty's Castle..."

Some more general map readage. No idea why it required two photos to demonstrate this. Chris is eagerly plotting the quickest route to the Armaggedon ride. Damn that sucked.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!! We are officially inside Disneyland now! And we are reading maps! WOAH.

WOW! Check out our luxury hotel apartment. Shame Chris had to pose in such a porn star manner for this photo. Ah well. Oh, and there IS a gap between my bed and Ed's. Everyday though, the cleaners would push them together again. Hint, hint methinks.

And here is the gang on said ferry. Liana appears to be being brutally strangled. Ed looks like this is the last place on Earth he wants to be. Chris is loving it.

The bus next to us suggests that this pic was taken while waiting for the ferry in Dover. However, as usual, Dean is fixated on Mario.

A mysterious stowaway soon finds his way onto an unconsious Dean's crotch. He would spend the rest of the holiday watching Chris sleep.

If you knew the details of what Riggerz was writing here you would violently vomit. Needless to say, the storyline of this novel shall forever remain the dark secret of the Dis-Knee crew. And possibly my Mum as well, for when she inevitably finds it in my bedroom.

The lengthy journey, Return To Oz ("a chicken!") and the absence of Bruno dispensed 'services' meant matters soon took an aggressive turn on the bus.

From right to left: Chris Riggerz, Liana's hair and Bran Flake get ready for the trip of a lifetime!1!1!