What The Hell? SuBo and JedWard

Is anyone else not getting fed up with the whole, how amazing are Susan Boyle and John and Edward, it has all gotten well out of hand now, normally I would say that it was the press which have had their hand in all this by nick naming these three very strange people more so to the twins as I cannot stand them, waste of space and have no talent what so ever. But it is also down to Simon Cowell and the producers of The X Factor who play the public into this whole con, which most of the time is only a one hit wonder. apart from the exception of Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke who are the Two only good singers to actually win the competition, the rest we have never heard from again.

As we all know, John and Edward cannot sing, and definitely cannot dance, so were does there talent lie? Well the answer to that question is very simple, they have none, they only got through the first audition simply because they were very cheeky to Simon Cowell and the other judges wanted to see more of that, then they only got through the next stage because as per usual Louis Walsh was acting like a big baby and insisted they go through because well they were a group and are Irish, so he Walsh as it has been proven from this show is pretty much a useless and just as annoying person, who now because of the face lift he has now had is left with only one very creepy expression as it looks exactly the same when he's annoyed and smiling.

So back to the twins, why is it that they kept getting voted through, clearly no one likes them, as people I know, in the paper, they all hate them, from what I saw the only people who actually did were little girls between the ages of 5 to 12, and then it has been said that they would be good as children's television presenters. Sorry but I find those to to look very strange looking, like they are on something, very pale and have strange eyes. If I had any children I would never let them watch them just because of how sadistic I think they look, also because of how annoying they were on the X Factor.

Now onto Susan Boyle, who yes I will admit has a really good singing voice, but when you watch her on the TV you can clearly see that she thinks in her head, I so deserve to be hear and has a look about her where she thinks she's perfect, that is my opinion and only what I think, but what really gets me about her is that everyone and also when she is being promoted is saying how amazing her story has been of how she has got to where she is today, people she only went on e television show, that is all she didn't do anything stressful or groundbreaking to get an album made, she only sang on Britain's Got talent, I have no idea just how stupid a lot of people can be to believe half the thing the papers make up and how the producers make them out to be a couple of saints. I have also noticed that Susan Boyle isn't exactly the smartest of people, as she never answers any of the questions given to her, she has to really think hard about what the presenter has said and comes away with something entirely different from what asked, such as on Sundays X factor where Dermot asked her how great was it to make the album and said how terrific she was, her response was, Aye I'm glad to be here, and she had no idea what he had just asked her, I only laughed at this while everyone else in the room hadn't even noticed.

But why is it that the press and the public have to nickname these people, SuBo, JedWard, Beniffer, Brangelina, is it so difficult to just let them have their own names nowadays, what is the obsession of it. Today in our present time musicians are no longer musicians, actors are no longer actors etc there are all only a celebrity, long gone has it been where people had a general talent, they are still about but are cast aside more so for the celebrity rather than for their talent, an example of this being in the Lord of the Rings films when I asked a few of my little brothers friends who they all like din them and they all said Orlando Bloom because he was the best actor out of the lot of them, I originally thought they were joking but they were serious, I then had to asked what they thought of Ian McKellen, to which they said, who? Again I was shocked and said Gandlaf, oh he was alright. I worry about where the future of talent is going and how it will be replaced by shear annoyance and talentless wannabes, John and Edward beating Lucy in the sing off where Simon let the public vote and Lucy go out, this yes was partly his fault but the public did vote and only barely voted for them in future weeks so they could say I'm not like everyone else so I won't vote for them this week.

Christmas

Well we are now a month away from that time of the year, that which I speak about is Christmas, December 25th, we all know the date, not a single person on the planet doesn't know when Christmas is, it is impossible not to notice it, it is everywhere, and to be honest it is getting more and more annoying how early it is starting every year. It is no longer a holiday that we cherish anymore, it has become a necessity.

I work in Sainsbury's and what really got on my nerves was that we started stacking shelves for Christmas in the beginning of October, at the same time as the Halloween stock came in and before the fireworks, it was unbelievable, it was sickening to be honest, it is supermarkets and stores just cashing in on this occasion only for the sole purpose to increase their profits, along with getting people to spend more and more cash and cheat people out of their money without them even realizing it.

For me I try not to think about Christmas as early as that, I tend to think about it closer to December, so right about now to be honest, this gives me time to think about what I am getting people and allow myself enough time to buy them, or Christmas for me is mostly beginning when I first see the Coca Cola advert, then the time for getting excited is really coming, that is when it all begins for me, non of this months and months before it.

A few little traditions I have on the day are obviously like everyone else opening presents, and you are a liar if you say you don't get excited about that so don't deny it, I also tend to watch ever since it came out on VHS, I know VHS, shocking, The Muppet Christmas Carol, the best Christmas film to ever be made without a question, along with Miracle on 34th Street (both of them) and It's a Wonderful Life, they are the classics that I cannot wait for year after year, I have to watch them, but only on Christmas as this makes the actual day seem a bit more special. Then there is my favourite part of the day, the meal. We normally have two starters, prawn cocktail followed by homemade soup (the best soup in my opinion), then we start on the actual main course, before we have a selection of 3 deserts, Trifle, Christmas pudding or ice cream, followed a yearly argument from the grandparents, ah special times indeed.

This year I am really looking forward to Christmas as this year I am going to the Dundee Rep to see this years Christmas Panto, this years one happens to be A Christmas Carol, so I have to watch it on both days. I have not been to a Panto since I started the cubs when I was about 9 years old, so I am really looking forward to reliving a part of my childhood. CANNOT WAIT, is going to be amazing this year. So Merry Christmas for this year as I will most likely forget to mention it closer to the time and because I am writing this so am Mentioning it now.

Are Comedians Really Worth The Money

On Friday I was watching Children In Need with my family, as there was nothing else to do, and was quite excited when Terry Wogan said Peter Kay would be on the show, and me being a really big Peter Kay fan had to stay downstairs and watch the rest of it, and was even more excited when he announced that he would be going on tour at some point next year, but sadly he is only doing a four day tour in Manchester, but still to me that didn't matter as it is easy enough to get a train or bus down there.

What really shocked me though was that Peter Kay said that he would be donating a pound to charity from every piece of merchandising sold at his tour, but is a pound really enough to give, considering that a t-shirt will cost about £20 and everything else twice as expensive, it is fair that he is giving to charity but when you think about the price of these things that will be sold, surely a bit more can be given to charity.

The thing that actually made me quite angry was when I looked to see how much a ticket was going to cost I discovered that a single ticket for one of his shows was going to cost £80, which is simply ridiculous, I have never seen anything cost so much like that, to go to one show at £80 just bows the mind, you can see a football game for less than that, and that is about as entertaining as watching Gordon Brown rapping away to Vanilla Ice, it is just simply stupid. I never thought Peter Kay would stoop to that level, no person is worth that price, no one.

This then got me thinking to a previous comedian I went to see in September 2008 at the Dundee Rep, Dylan Moran, and he was simply awful. It was a very uncomfortable performance to watch as it was like listening to a very annoying friend telling you really bad jokes all night, you just wanted to tell him to shut up, was very disappointing as I used to be a really big fan of his. Also he came on drunk, at first we all thought it was part of his act, which it normally is, and usually has a bottle of wine with him on stage, but noticed that he was mumbling his words so half the jokes he was telling we could barely even hear and kept tripping over the microphones wire.

This has shown me that a lot of comedians are not really worth the money and are charging people too much to see them, especially when you consider people are being a bit more cautious in the current state that the country is in. Peter Kay to me is still funny but I would never pay that sort of price to see him, the only thing I would pay that sort of money is for T in the Park or similar music festivals as when you think about how much money you pay, the amount of bands you can watch is well worth the price and over a period of three days rather than £80 for an hour an a half, two hours maximum, it isn't worth it. To them it is now all about the money they make rather than entertaining people.

Seven Heavenly Sins Continued

As promised here is the package I have made for my materials and food nutrients packaging. And with it is the pint of sale I had to make that I will be using during our Dragon's Den style presentation.

Alan Moore

Now I am going to write about one of my favourite comic book story tellers, Alan Moore. This is a man who has written some of the best comic plots such as Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell and many more, and what is good about all of his stories is that the characters in them all have a meaningful story to tell, they have a secret and conflict within all of them, they all have a purpose for the plot of the story.

Alan Moore's most popular and best piece of work without a doubt is the graphic novel Watchmen, originally each chapter was released every few weeks in DC Comics in America and was a few years after the final chapter was printed that all of them were finally brought together to make the one big book, and thank god it was as it is a must have for all comic book fans, even Time magazine have it in their top 100 most influential books of all time, the only graphic novel to make it into the top 100.

At the beginning of his career after being expelled from school for dealing LSD, Moore started off as a cartoonist in the late 1970's, where he wrote and drew underground style strips for music magazines, including NME under the pseudonym, Curt Vile. He later began a weekly strip, Maxwell the Magic Cat, for the Northants Post until 1986. Moore realised that he could not make a living as an artist so decided that his area of expertise would be in story telling and so began his first steps into becoming one of the greatest comic writers of our time, not only in comics and graphic novels but a story teller in general.

Scripts he began writing for were for Marvel UK, 2000 AD and Warrior and then wrote short story strips for Doctor Who Magazine and Star Wars Weekly before a joint run on Captain Britain with artist Alan Davies. As I have said before that Watchmen is by far his greatest piece of work, a story of what if mask heroes did arrive in the late 1930's in an alternate version of Earth, but it has too be said that this is a very, and I mean very strange and peculiar man. When he was expelled for dealing drugs he called himself"one of the world's most inept LSD dealers. During his first marriage they both had a mutual lover, who his wife left him for taking their children with them, and believes himself to be an anarchist. A quote he had once said,

"I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation- that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice."

He has clearly stated that when Hollywood has approached him into making his stories into films that he gives them permission to make them, but wishes to have no other dealings with the film, giving him no deal with the company, therefore no profit, as he believes that the original story told in his work would be taken away and replaced with the usual glossy over coating of the film industry. His name is not on any of the films adapted from his scripts, which is a bit strange in my opinion as he could have been making a lot of money as there have been four very successful films adapted from his work. But this is part of the reason of why Alan Moore is such a great writer a you need a little bit of a crazy mind to allow your imagination and beliefs to be told through the story you are telling, it is part of how a good story is told, without it i don't think his work would have been as successful as it has been.

Tweenagers

This morning I had a lecture on advertising at Christmas, and were shown a video from a documentary from 2004 and how branding affects the mind of children of 9 to 12 year of age. This documentary followed three different children with different styles an asked questions why they think branded products are a must have and would not settle for less.

The youngest out of the three, a nine year old girl, I repeat, a nine year old girl, only wore brand clothing just so she could feel and look older, this meant she wore clothes that were so revealing it is quite disturbing to even think about let alone look at, that a young girl who is not even in secondary school dresses in clothing that was originally designed for adults, I find this to be shocking to be honest that the girls mother would pay for her daughter to wear these items of clothing, not only because of the way they can look but also because the brand names are more expensive, but this is only because of the name, there are less known companies who make just as much good clothing than say Nike etc as in the video, and can even make better clothing but its is only because big brands are well known they do have a right to sell it for a higher price, but not always it is good quality. The thing that got me about this girl was that she said if her parents through out all her big brand clothes and bought her new not as well known brands that she would not leave her house and sit in her pajamas all of the time. I was also amazed that someone so young was wearing as much make up as she was, even her father stated that he hated it on young girls, and I felt so sorry for him as no matter what he did to say no he couldn't in the end.

The second child was a young boy who was into skateboarding and to be honest seemed to be a bit of a wannabe, he said he never followed the big brand names because he didn't want to be a sheep like everyone else, but when we saw him shopping, well that was exactly what he was, he was as bad as the rest of them. I also noticed that he seemed to be a bit of a snob and a bit full of himself when he saw what the presenter was wearing, thinking his clothing was much more fashionable than his.

The last child at 12 years of age seemed at first to be a bit more mature, a normal girl about to go into her teens, already buying clothes but the difference was she bought hers from charity shops and car boot sales for a bargain price, she seemed that she did not want to follow in buying the big brand names too, but in the end contradicted herself by buying a new Bratz toy doll, But I will say this for her that because you may not always have enough money and try so hard not to buy big brand names does not mean that from time too time you cannot treat yourself to something a little special.

I think that is the category I would fit into, I do not always buy the big brand names which are often over priced, and tend to only do a shop of clothes once every six months or once a year as I have always just gotten the use out of most of my clothes but if I do see something nice that I want then I will buy it, therefore I also fall into the ploy by the company's who sell clothing and products, everyone and I mean everyone is partial to a bargain, no one is the exception, no matter how hard they try not too be.

To conclude this blog I felt sorry for all the parents of these children as they can't do anything to prevent their kids from watching adverts on the television and being influenced by these things, and am shocked that companies are trying to make children older than what they are only to sell more of the products to a new upcoming audience who can be more easily swayed.

Some do Like it Hot

For the other big project we had to do we were to team up in pairs and were to take part in another lucky dip same as with the material and nutritional foods, to pick out the title of a classic film, the film I picked out was 'Some Like it Hot'.

This film for those of you who do not know was made in the year 1959 by director/producer Billy Wilder. The setting of this film is in the late 1930's during the time of the depression. Beginning in Chicago with two down on their luck musicians, one bass and one sax, witness a mob hit similar to that of the St. Valentines hit. So the two now on the run for their lives decide to take up a job to go to Florida as part of a band but the catch is that this band is an all women's group. Now the two friends are posing as female jazz players, where they now meet the never forgetful Marilyn Monroe.

So back to the project. first we had to team up in pairs, then as expected we had to watch the film while taking down notes on the themes, setting, key moments etc. of the film. Major themes of the film I thought were about friendship, how these two men's relationship grew stronger throughout the film, and admittedly through very funny coincidences, There was also the idea of how these two guy's who at the start see women as only a pleasurable object but then begin to understand what it is like to be a women, this is through them dressing up, and also for the actor Tony Curtis's character falling in love for the first time with the female lead (Monroe).

After we had our little discussion on the film we had to express themes and key moments in the form of a mood board, and this would also included the style of the film, such as it being set in an art deco period, the music, the film style etc. It was from this moment we had to then make a sketchbook on how we were going to tackle to actual model.

I will admit that making the model was a nightmare, well the process of it, no matter what we came up with, the idea was rejected and we would have to go back and rethink what the film was, this went on for sometime admittedly, but through some inspiration from a previous students model, of how they made a sort of cartoonist style piece, we came up with a sketch of what it would look like and thankfully we were given the go ahead. Both my partner and I had an equal part in the project, I designed the characters and he built them up for the model and we both took the photographs for it, but sadly he wasn't happy with graphics so he decided to leave for fine art, and good luck, but am so glad he built the model up as I would have really struggled with it.

I will admit that when taking the image into In Design I had a lot more freedom of what I was doing compared to the rest of the other groups as I got to do the rest of the poster the way I saw it, which does have its advantages and disadvantages such as I get to do it the way I want it to be, but I don't get any other views of what can make it better to other people.

The final poster I feel takes an element of lightheartedness from the film, even though the film is in black and white I decided to give it a bit of colour so the actual image stood out more and also decided that the font I have used was from the opening credits from the actual film, which I feel blends very well with the image itself. As a final part of this project we are to now create a three dimensional invitation for a fictional film exhibition at the film theatre in London, and is to take a certain element from our posters, and to see this final product you will need to go to the end of year exhibition for graphics.