Film Review: Gravity

Words: Charles Hay

To get straight to the point: this film ought to change Science Fiction in cinema and television. It left me breathless. It left me in awe, and in deep thought. It gave me a sense of physicality and reality regarding space and the operations there that no film has ever given me. It gave me a buzz about the possibilities of storytelling in the future.

The conceit is relatively simple. An astronaut has a truly, utterly dreadful few hours. The Russians blat one of their own satellites, causing a cloud of disastrously speedy shrapnel to career towards said astronaut's shuttle. This could have led to a regular disaster-flick, albeit a particularly interesting one, but for a few important points.

The visuals of this film are utterly breathtaking. Space has genuinely never been presented with such aplomb as this. The Earth is almost overwhelming in its enormity, solidity and beauty. The stars and the black veil of space are an endless vertiginous infinity, as anxiety inducing as the inexorable Earth. The space-stations, orbiters, capsules etc are real. There is no other way to describe them. They are there. In space. At no point do you question this. All this is lent even greater depth (deep deep deep oh god my stomach) with revelatory 3D treatment. No film has so far used 3D as effectively as this. Some of you are grimacing slightly. Don't. This is the proof of concept that will blow the endless gulch of CG blockbusters into obsolescence.

The soundscape of this film, too, is exceptional. The musical score keeps nerves jangling whilst the authenticity of the muffled sounds almost felt through space suits or the roaring of formless freefall fires gave me goosebumps. Interestingly, I definitely felt that the lack of sound in space added to, rather than detracted from the tension and adrenaline when the proverbial hit the extractor, and makes the gradual inclusion during one particlarly mind-melting sequence all the more effective.

This film could be summed up, accurately, if reductively, as 'humans battling physics'. This leads me to my next point. The action in this film is almost entirely based around the struggle to be human in a weightless, airless environment, and simply would not have worked so well if it wasn't for the utterly exhaustive attitude the film-makers have taken to detail. Many action films focus around the hero shrugging off reality and awesome-ing their way to justice. Gravity focuses on the hero entirely understanding reality and using guile and tenacity to survive it. I cannot quite fully express how refreshing this is. The environment is solid and unyielding, impervious to deus ex machina. Physics (odd to have to mention this, but given the track record of film, it seems necessary) is consistent throughout. Take note, uh, everyone.

Finally, I will say something very seldom said of films like Gravity. The characterisation here is wonderful. Sandra Bullock portrays humanity here with more subtlety, grace and panache than so many tumultuous dramas or navel gazing indie character sessions. There is earnestness and universality to this performance which should inform not just Science Fiction, not just Action or Thriller films, but all films. This is how you make people connect, right here. Not overwrought arguments or Shakespearean soliloquising. Not Ancient Greek vengeance fantasy or world changing righteousness. You do it through honest appraisal of humanity under pressure. You do it by acknowledging characters not as a chess piece moving through peril, but as an entire chess board, playing against itself, endlessly battling its own configurations.

Gravity deserves acclaim as a triumph of vision and creation. It is a tantalising glimpse of what could be produced through hi-tech storytelling once Hollywood finally calms down from its multibillion dollar onanising OTT CG mission.

Put simply: Gravity is a classic.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★★

Music Review: Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt

Words: Graeme Roberts

Pearl Jam recently returned with their tenth studio album in a career spanning four decades.  After the disappointing Backspacer (2009), Lightning Bolt sees the band collect their best elements together to create arguably their most consistent record since their stunning 1991 debut Ten.

Opening track ‘Getaway’ sounds like a more mature take on ‘Brain of J’ (which opened 1998’s Yield) with flashes of the middle moments of 2002’s Riot Act.  As in the better songs on their eponymous effort from 2006, the guitar riffs are edgy, the chorus as catchy as a pop song and the track is beefed up by pounding drums and driving bass.

Eddie Vedder’s gravel-like voice, one of sounds which defined the heyday of grunge in the early 1990s, is back to its best. The former surfer really gets his growl going on ‘Mind Your Manners’, an upbeat number with all the spunk and head-banging know-how of concert staple ‘Spin the Black Circle’ from 1994’s Vitalogy.

Lyrically, there are flourishes too. Take the chorus from ‘My Father’s Son’ which reminds of the reflective, pseudo-scientific mysticism of 2000’s Binaural:

   Can I get a reprieve?
   This gene pool drowning me
   Can I get a release? 
   I'm a volunteer amputee

   From the moment I fail
   I call on DNA
   Why such betrayal?
   Got me tooth and nail

It’s hardly Shaksepeare, but the simplicity of the message and effectiveness of the rhymes is a poetic success.  The last line is replaced in the final chorus with “I gotta set sail” and that is the fitting solution to the problem of biological constraints explored throughout the song. 

One of my biggest grievances with recent Pearl Jam records has been their tendency to produce an excess of soppy, unimaginative ballads where they once composed multi-layered slower songs of great poignancy.  The slower tracks on Lightning Bolt by no means match classics such as ‘Betterman’ or ‘Yellow Ledbetter’, but they are more accomplished and inventive than in recent years.  The guitar solo in ‘Sirens’ is one of the best on the album. 

Elsewhere, ‘Pendulum’ is a remarkably dynamic dirge which reminds at times of The Shadows, while stripped down closers ‘Yellow Moon’ and ‘Future Days’ could have been plucked from Vedder’s highly acclaimed solo Into the Wild soundtrack.

‘Infallible’ is the sort of song that has kept Pearl Jam bands loyal throughout the years.  A funky bassline and moody guitars blend with plinky percussion and Vedder’s sublime vocal melodies to create a triumphant sound that no other band on the planet could replicate.

Pearl Jam really soar on Lightning Bolt when they crank the energy up as high as their ageing limbs will allow, finding their finest groove with the title track and the bluesy ‘Let the Records Play.’ 

There are no bad tracks on Lightning Bolt, unlike many of Pearl Jam’s previous albums.  Deeper into the record, ‘Swallowed Whole’ and ‘Sleeping By Myself’ are tunes which refuse to sit still while offering some of the album’s catchiest choruses.

Although the songs on Lightning Bolt may not have the undeniable potency of legendary rock anthems like ‘Even Flow’ and ‘Alive’, they do exhibit a band now comfortable in its own skin yet still daring enough to tread new ground.  The balance, it seems, has finally been struck and I for one hope there’s plenty more to come from Pearl Jam.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★

Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Words: Rosie Parry

I do not have much experience of reading Oscar Wilde apart from the Importance of being Earnest which virtually leaps off the page with humour and life.

However, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a completely different genre altogether. The premise of the story begins with Dorian ‘sitting’ for his painter friend Basil Hallward. Dorian is an extremely attractive young man and his friend  Basil feels he is completing the best work of his life- so much so - that he feels his own soul is being exposed in the painting and he feels he will never be able to exhibit the piece as it is too personal. He also feels that Dorian is his ‘muse’ and as long as he has him in his presence his work is better than he has ever executed in his life before.

Enter Lord Henry Wotton, another friend of Basil’s, who happened to be present during one of Dorian’s sittings. He is excited and interested in Dorian himself. Wotton is a libertine and despite being begged by Basil to leave the young Dorian alone, it seems he is too enchanted by the boy’s beauty  and youth to leave him uncorrupted.

Dorian and Wotton become great friends and, during one of the last sittings of his painting, they exchange such an unusual conversation that Dorian expresses a desire to sell his soul to stay as young as he looks in the picture. The completed work is gifted to Dorian and he hangs it in his home proudly whilst all the time receiving instruction and publications to guide his course towards ruination from the blaggard Wotton.

Essentially, the story is sound and entertaining but is thwarted by Wilde’s soliloquies to his audience (the reader), who I feel  he is attempting to educate on works written by other literary greats throughout history and this does become boring to the reader.

The story continues with Dorian falling in love with an actress on the stage, whose beauty is breathtaking and whose acting ability is the same. However, on the evening Dorian decides to take his friends Basil and Wotton, she is no less beautiful but her acting has become wooden and unmoving. This leaves Dorian in a complete funk and when he meets his lover  Sibyl after the show he petulantly tells her he is no longer in love. As she entreats him to understand that having experienced ‘true love’ it has left her void of being able to ‘act’ as though in love. Dorian withdraws his marriage proposal and the girl, Sibyl Vane, kills herself (Juliet style) the very next day, before Dorian can have a change of heart. Dorian realises that his heart is not as entirely broken as he would imagine. It is at this point that Dorian notices that the painting has taken on an ‘aged’ and ‘cruel’ expression leaving Dorian completely unmarked by the experience. He decides to hide the painting from this point on and, despite living an extremely libertine life henceforth, he bears no marks of this existence but when he visits his hidden painting he watches it age and deteriorate before his eyes- finding it both fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

Eventually, Basil hears of all Dorian’s debauched behaviours and takes him to task- ending in Dorian allowing him to see the painting in all its fantastical glory and also resulting in Dorian murdering the creator.

Me and Oscar in London. (Charles Dickens seems to be behind us)

The disappointing part of the story is that apart from referring to an opium den Dorian frequents, the reader is protected from all of the other extremes of Dorian’s nature and have to rely entirely on their own ‘imagination’.

Wilde is obviously a most gifted writer and many have quoted his works with passion. I can only speak for myself as a reader and  say that I found the novel hard-going in parts. Whilst the essential story is remarkably clever and some of the descriptions of the painter’s garden were beautiful and made you long to be there, at other points it felt as though Wilde was indulging himself rather than concentrating on his own work.

The end of the book involves Dorian realising the error of his ways and he attempts to destroy the ‘ugly’ painting which carries his sins - at this point Dorian dies and takes on his true persona whilst the painting reverts back to the beauteous virtue it carried at the outset.

A richly woven story which I feel may be one of the few books better suited to stage or film (faster paced) than it does in print.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★

Book Review: My Secret Life- Anonymous or “Walter”

Words: Rosie Parry

 “I early had a taste for female form, it was born with me.”

The fascinating memoirs of a ‘respectable’ gentleman living in 19^th century London give a rare and unique insight into the attitudes towards women, sex and prostitution in a time of frigidity and repression.  Personally, this time in history interests me greatly and the book, which I had never heard of and stumbled across by chance, encapsulates the dark and mysterious world of the capital in the 1800s. The text almost escaped any recognition, being a controversial piece of erotica, and caused printers and publishers to be arrested or imprisoned due to their involvement with it. It is alleged that the original eleven volumes were locked away in a British library for some time, banned for their depravity, and were only published in their entirety in 1995. I discuss only the first three volumes which detail how the book came to be, Walter’s childhood and education about sex and also his experiences from teenage boy to young man. I focus on the relationships he had with certain women and also the ambiguity that surrounds the text. 

The text begins with a foreword from a man who was given a peculiar package whilst his friend was gravely ill. The instructions were that the package was not to be opened until the man had died, if he survived the package was to be returned to him. If not, it was allowed to be seen by the receiver’s eyes only and then burnt. The demise came and the parcel was opened, the inheritor writes, “the more I read it, the more marvelous it seemed.” For some years he wondered what he would do with it and, ignoring his friend’s wish, came to the conclusion: “feeling that it would be sinful to destroy such a history, I copied the manuscript and destroyed the original. No one can now trace the author, no names are mentioned in the book […] If I have done harm in printing it, I have done none to him, […] and given to a few a secret history which bears the impress of truth on every page, a contribution to psychology.”

As you can imagine, I was eager to learn more. The text reads like a gripping mystery novel and critics have wondered if the text is indeed purely fictional. However, many disagree because the novel is extremely repetitive and unstructured, written years after the events in a muddled manner which is unlike fiction. Regardless, the story continues to be obsessive because it is such an intriguing insight in to a world of pseudonyms and banned publication, an expose of the animal that raged within the Victorian.

Before delving into Walter’s world, I would like to state that this discussion is not for the sole purpose of recommendation. Walter was deeply infatuated with sex of any form: be it masturbation, voyeurism, pedophilia in one case, forced, bought or group. He is graphic in detail about some of the most debasing sexual acts probably recorded in this format at the time- hence the anonymity. For the purpose of this blog, I discovered that the word ‘c*nt’ appears 1,035 times in the three volumes I read. Therefore, I advise those who are easily offended to leave it be.

Walter was never educated about sex, the knowledge he gained was through spying with his cousin Fred or noticing that his baby siblings had something that wasn’t a penis. He and Fred would spy on their older relatives whilst they were using the toilet and discuss what they imagined sex and the uses of genitalia to be. Walter and his classmates would masturbate each other because they knew no better and many of Walt’s first sexual experiences were through maids and cooks that his mother employed . Is it much wonder that sex became so appealing to Walter? It was a tantalising taboo, Walter would even peek through keyholes in order to catch a glimpse of a woman in the nude and would then ‘frig’ himself into a frenzy whilst looking at the illustrations in Fanny Hill. To read the book is almost to become a voyeur yourself.

Once older, being of an educated class, Walt used money to buy himself the pleasures that many women wouldn’t give so freely. He writes about sexual experiences with every type and class of prostitute you could possibly imagine, from old to young or backstreet to grand apartment. Some he found repulsive, others he writes about as an artist who has found their Mona Lisa.

Sarah Mavis seems to be “the one that got away” for poor old Walt. She was aloof, she was unlike any prostitute or lady he had even lain with because she was a woman who was indifferent to him, she intimidated him. Not to mention she had the physical form that Walter held so highly; “fleshy limbs and a fat backside.” She was expensive and infuriating; Walter seemed to have fallen for her at first sight: “I saw a pair of feet in lovely boots which seemed perfection, and calves which were exquisite.” It’s important to note that Walter was unhappily married during the latter volumes and had asked Sarah to elope with him. He’d offered to flee the country with Sarah - he paid for her living and wanted to provide for her as his mistress - he confesses to have loved her. She wouldn’t leave her husband for him and he was left heartbroken. He later writes that he believed she was found dead in the Thames. It’s not typically romantic but there seems to be something tragically Shakespearian about the whole seedy affair. 

I find the concept of this secret life extraordinary, had this man not written what he did, we would never know about Sarah Mavis or her sad existence or the worship one man had for her. The little conversations and glances would have died with them. The thing that frustrates me and draws me to the book is the subtle clues and jigsaw pieces that Walt gives us and Sarah Mavis is so intriguing because she is one of those pieces. Who was she? We are told she had been an actress in a troupe, she had been a model for artists and she had only begun prostituting herself in order to support her family and earn money to start a business.

Walt writes: “Then she told me she had in her youth been a model for artists, had sat to Etty and Frost, hers was the form which had been painted in many of their pictures, - and then she would say no more.” William Edward Frost is widely recognised as a follower of William Etty, both painted the female form during the Victorian era. I was naturally curious to see some of their work in the hope of seeing Sarah Mavis. The first picture of the female form I have included in this piece is by Etty and the second is a painting of a woman’s face by Frost. In my fantasy of discovering who Sarah Mavis is, I have re-read Walt’s descriptions of Sarah’s full form and depiction of her face and I’d love to imagine that either could be her.

Here is a short description of Sarah Mavis’ face by Walt:

“Handsome her face certainly was, but it was of a somewhat heavy character: her eyes were dark, soft and vague in expression which together with the habit of leaving her lips slightly open, gave her a thoughtful, and at times half-vacant look. Her nose was charming and retroussé, her mouth small, with full lips, and a delicious set of very small white teeth, her hair was nearly black, long, thick and coarsish dark hair in large quantity was in her armpits, and showed slightly when her arms were down, her arms and breasts were superb.”

 Of course, I will never know who either of them were but that’s part of the appeal of the memoirs. I found the description of Sarah to be so close to the picture included that I felt almost like Sherlock Holmes. My detective work leaves a lot to be desired but others are just as hopeless as finding out any more about the author’s identity. One critic genuinely believes that Walt was Jack the Ripper; saying that Walt had the “means and the motive” to be the prostitute slayer. So much secrecy and speculation is what makes the text so thoroughly obsessive. Many believe that Henry Spencer Ashbee is Walt, a collector and writer of erotic literature, but who is to say he is? Like Jack the Ripper, Walt’s identity is a dead man’s secret.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★

Book Review: The Book of the New Sun - Shadow and Claw

Words: Charles Hay 

This is not your usual science fiction novel. This is not your usual fantasy novel. Like Dune and Lord of the Rings, it occupies a space normally held for the likes of The Odyssey or Beowulf. The world building here is monolithic in scope and mind-bending in detail.

The Book of the New Sun is set countless years from now. The blurb would have you believe a million, but the details of the story suggest way beyond that, perhaps in the tens or hundreds of millions of years from now. Society on Earth (here described as "Urth") is stratified in the absolute extreme, with the majority knowing only the land-based toil of work and war, almost entirely unaware of the extent of power their leaders exercise. The top layer of civilisation here clearly has the power over the universe, wrapped and disguised in baroque systems of leadership and separation. It is an absolutely compelling world Wolfe has created here, very often bringing to mind the eternal truism of Arthur C. Clarke: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' And so it is here, on Urth. If there is awe of technology here, it is awe of something elemental and powerful, rather than awe of something novel or revolutionary.

The central protagonist, Severian, is a member of the torturers guild of his particular polity, and throughout this novel (comprising the first two books in a sequence of four), he starts his journey towards greatness. Now, this is a winding and serendipitous journey, and if there is one flaw here, it is that Severian's special skill seems to be being in the right place at the right time but I must stress that the narrative does account for this in ways too marvellous to ruin by describing here. Against the mesmerising, endlessly expanding and occasionally psychedelic backdrop of Urth, he sometimes seems a little flat, or perhaps bland, and this is something I would say about many of the characters here. They may have interesting personal traits, and incredible back-stories, but on the whole, they are dealt with in an almost incidental way that occasionally frustrates. It is not a technique that stands in the way of the imagination, - Wolfe always gives information enough to set your synapses alight - but I do sometimes wish he'd get a little excited about these fascinating people he's creating. The whole novel is ostensibly being narrated by Severian himself, however, so a reasonable argument could be made that this descriptive style is in keeping with the rest of the book.

Oh good grief I wish I could go into the details of the book here. There is so much I want to write about but I absolutely cannot risk spoiling anything for people wanting to read it. The scope just increases and increases. On several occasions whilst reading, I found myself slowly lowering the book and staring into a mental image of what had just happened or been described. Several chapters were completely re-read. There is a wonderful dreamlike feeling to everything which, somewhat perversely, gives a very human experiential quality to events. The rigid and focused cause=effect dogma of drama is eschewed for the 'what the hell just really happened' reality of our actual lives. And, despite my earlier misgivings about Wolfe's descriptive style regarding characters, Severian's lack of narrative omniscience makes the world feel all that much more tangible and lived in. There are walls past which we cannot see, countless aeons of time lost in mist, lives blocked off from our scrutiny. Just as narrative experimentation, it is highly gratifying. As science fiction, a genre so often given to overt info-bombs and clunky exposition, it is a nigh-on miraculous feat of finessed restraint.

Here is a world filled with imported alien animals, a dimming red sun, hundreds of different perspectives of half-glimpsed history, humans as gods, humans as animals, humans as humans. This is a wondrous exploration into hypothesis that lends a cracked mirror to our own condition without ever being hackneyed observation. It is a transcendent attempt at representing the far, far future as not the future, but the now, with all its quirks and pasts and beauty and ugliness.

Gene Wolfe has created something here which is spellbinding and terrifying. I implore you to explore it.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★★

Film Review: Alan Partridge - Alpha Papa

Words: Graeme Roberts

A-ha!  Crash, bang, wallop - what a movie!  Norwich-based radio broadcaster Alan Partridge is the latest British comedy character to attempt the leap from the small screen to the silver screen, and he pulls it off in some style. Jurassic Park!

Packed full of hilarious lines (“Which is the worst monger - iron, fish, rumour or war?”), cringe-worthy moments of social awkwardness and the occasional piece of well-judged slapstick humour, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is the funniest British comedy since Borat.  Back of the net!

Unlike many contemporary films, the trailer for Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa does not cram all the best bits in and leave nothing for the cinema.  This is mainly because the jokes in the film are free-flowing and consistently very, very funny.

The trailer for Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

Indeed, as Alan himself might say, I found myself laughing approximately once every 45 seconds during the film, which is a cracking ratio by any standards.  If you want a reliable method of gauging for the effectiveness of comedy, laughs-per-minute is a ruddy good barometer.

The plot is straight-forward yet sufficiently flexible to yield enough interest and laughs to last the full 90 minutes.  A trendy company called Shape takes over North Norfolk Digital and aims revamp the radio station’s image, meaning either Alan or Irish dullard Pat Farrell will lose his job.  After some indulgent brown-nosing, Alan escapes the axe and continues his Mid-Morning Matters show with sidekick Simon.  However, Pat does not take the news of his sacking too well.  That’s something of an understatement, as Pat arms himself with a shotgun, gate-crashes the re-launch party and takes several of the station’s staff hostage.  Pat then selects his presumed ally Alan to act as mediator between himself and the police camped outside the building.

Naturally, Alan is as hopeless a negotiator as he is a DJ, with his vanity and lack of self-awareness leading to a series of rib-tickling gaffes.  Therein lies the brilliance of the Partridge character: pompous and relentlessly selfish, Alan continues to try to curry favour with his bosses even during the most sensitive of gun-point situations.  Ultimately, Partridge is a sad, middle-aged man whose ego comes first, with everything else trailing in its disastrous wake.  Yet he is likeable, because his quips are oddly witty and his flaws are eerily recognisable - there is something of the Partridge in all of us.

A clip from the TV series. Alan tries to get the attention of his new friend Dan.

A couple of characters from the TV series transfer successfully, with Alan’s long-suffering assistant Lynn and kooky Geordie friend Michael both providing some majestic moments, but ultimately Alan is the greatest source of laughs.  Steve Coogan’s comic creation pre-dates, has outlived and is altogether more accomplished than his closest copy, David Brent in The Office (Michael Scott in the US version). 

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is an outstanding example of wonderfully-written, expertly-performed comedy and must surely cement the status of Alan Partridge as one of the funniest fictional characters of all time.   

Oxford Road rating: ★★★★★ 

Find the film on IMDB: Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

Film Review: The Cabin in the Woods

Words: Graeme Roberts

When you first spy the promotional poster, The Cabin in the Woods looks like a generic remote-location horror movie in the mould of Deliverance and Cabin Fever.  This is intentional, as the movie’s plot relies on the audience making this assumption.  Yet it is apparent from the first scene, which is set in a bunker resembling Dr Evil’s lair from the Austin Powers franchise, that this movie has an extra dimension.

Next we jump to another formulaic set-up, a group of American college students taking a road trip.  All of the clichéd characters are present: the flirtatious hot chick, her equally attractive but chaste female friend, the jock boyfriend, the marijuana-smoking layabout and the token darker-skinned guy.  It is so stereotypical it hurts, but that’s the point.  The Cabin in the Woods is no ordinary horror movie - it seeks to subtly parody the genre while still remaining true to it.

It almost works brilliantly, but is sadly flawed.  It becomes an ineffective self-parody at times, suffering an identity crisis by committing neither to genre adherence nor mockery.   The central premise of the movie, which reveals the purpose of the men in suits in the bunker, is so ambitious it borders on the absurd.  The movie asks a little too much in terms of suspension of disbelief from its viewers.

Cinematic trailer:

Despite these faults, there are many pleasing aspects to the film.  The CGI is sharp and impressive.  The plot is swift and the dialogue punchy.  Yet it’s not a classic and it’s not, as one mainstream review claims, a game-changer. 

If you are prepared to overlook the film’s shortcomings, it is a valiant attempt to challenge generic conventions.  More importantly, The Cabin in the Woods has enough humour and gore to make it an enjoyable way to spend 95 minutes. 

Oxford Road rating: ★★★ 

Find the film on IMDB: The Cabin in the Woods 

Food Review: KFC’s Mighty Bucket for One

Words: Graeme Roberts

On Wednesday, after a tiresome 45-minute photo shoot, I had one of my all-too-frequent cravings for fast food.  I decided to sate this desire by popping into the Stockport branch of Colonel Sanders’ world-famous eating establishment, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

After a brief glance at the tempting menu, I gave my order to the spotty teenage lad behind the counter. I wasn’t feeling overly peckish, so I plumped for a modest Mighty Bucket for One, a relatively new addition to the KFC range.  Their website describes this meal thus: “Two pieces of original recipe chicken, two hot wings, two mini breast fillets, fries, a dip of your choice, plus a drink to wash it all down.” It sounds awesome, but it was far from perfect.

Firstly, the meal came without a bucket.  It was incredibly naive of me to expect a meal called the Mighty Bucket for One to involve a bucket of some description.  I should have known from the product’s name that I’d be served the contents of the meal on two cardboard trays.  Next time I go to the seaside, I’ll be sure to take my tray and spade.

Secondly, I wasn’t offered a choice of dip.  This wouldn’t have been such a disaster, as I’d paid an extra quid for a tub of gravy, which was supposed to do the job of taking the blandness off the fries and enhancing the tastiness of the chicken.  But far from being the gravy that South Park chubster Cartman once got ruinously addicted to, this stuff tasted like thickened, hospital-standard vegetable soup. 

Despite these grievances, the chicken was pretty damn tasty, which may go some way to explaining KFC’s continued international popularity.  The original recipe pieces and breast fillets formed a triumphant conga along my digestive tract.  The wings gate-crashed the party a little; they lacked spiciness and were crispier than a bag of Walkers.  On that note, the fries were lukewarm but the portion - a large, naturally - was generous. Plus the hulking cup of sugar-infested Pepsi went a fair way towards balancing out the salt overload.

The meal was OK, but I’ve had much better KFC experiences.  The Mighty Bucket for One’s contents are a little bland; it is essentially a scrubbed up version of the working-class classic, chicken and chips.  I really did rue not being served the meal in a bucket, not least because I was planning on reusing the bucket as a trendy piece of headwear, just like this guitar demigod: 

Next time I visit KFC - and yes, I will be returning soon - I think I’ll get me a tried-and-tested Box Meal, probably the Big Daddy, with its towering burger, one piece and included-in-the-price side.  After the Stockport gravy incident, I may have to return to barbecue beans, which have the added bonuses of requiring a plastic spork and providing one of my five-a-day.  The green stuff on the burger might even take me up to one-and-a-half out of five-a-day, making the Big Daddy Box Meal practically health food.  

Oxford Road rating: ★★★

Music Review: Twin Forks EP

Words: Lindsay Bradley

Cynics might say that the world doesn’t need another jangly, foot-stomping folk band, but with this five-track EP, Twin Forks definitely bring something new to the genre.  They successfully blend the popular folk-rock style with classic roots and country, adding their own unique slice of joyous zest.

The band, featuring Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional), Suzie Zeldin (The Narrative), Jonathan Clark and Benjamin Homola (Bad Books), have been working together for a while now and it shows - you can really hear how much they enjoy playing as a group.  

To complement their cohesion, Twin Forks offer a remarkably diverse sound.  The opening track ‘Back to You’ has a very organic feel to it, the unrefined sound shows that the band are more focused on providing a raw and honest performance.  When listening to ‘Cross my Mind,’ it’s hard not to smile and to resist singing along to the catchy chants from the opening notes. It becomes clear that listening to the EP is only half of the experience - this is the kind of band you go see live and join in with.

The five tracks explore a range of experiences, from finding love in ‘Back to You’ to fixing things in ‘Scraping up the Pieces’.  One cannot help but root for the guy who sings ‘I don’t have no ring but I can steal one on the way’ by the end of the EP.  The message is simple and we are all invited.

Carrabba’s voice is often scratchy and cracks at points but it blends nicely with Suzie Zeldin’s sweet harmonies.  Very much like Dashboard Confessional, the band want the audience to join the party. Only this time it’s not just a one-man-band; throughout you hear the various members of Twin Forks encouraging each other.  

It isn’t a perfect-sounding record by any means, but it has plenty of charm.  Each track is recorded live, which is testament to an authenticity of sound so often lacking in contemporary music.  The Twin Forks EP is a wonderfully cheerful record that will win over those in doubt.

The band is committed to the project and this is just the beginning.  Carrabba tells Billboard.com that they have a wealth of material, even as far to say that he "would like to release a song a month from the stash that won't be on the record." Who wouldn't love that? 

A full Twin Forks album is expected to be released at the beginning of 2014.

The EP is available now via iTunes and can be streamed here.

Oxford Road rating: ★★★★

Music Review: Jimmy Eat World LIVE

Manchester Academy 1 - 13/09/2013

Words: Lindsay Bradley

After a fun-filled set at Download festival in June, Jimmy Eat World returned to the UK in support of their new album Damage. The sold out show still had people queuing outside over an hour after doors opened and in typical Academy 1 style, the queues at the bars were a pain.

This did not dampen the crowd’s spirits when Jimmy Eat World walked on the stage. They opened their set with their catchy new track ‘I Will Steal You Back’ showing their new material is on par with the old. The 1 hour and 45 minute set was filled with hit after hit and whilst it would have been nice to hear some banter, the 25 song set was enough to compensate.

The opening chords of ‘My Best Theory’ really got the crowd excited as they sang along word for word. This is something that continued throughout the set, hits such as ‘The Authority Song’, ‘Work’ and ‘Bleed American’ just signify how extensive their music catalogue is. The band has been together for nearly 20 years and they have released eight albums. The energy they produced on stage shows that there are no signs of them stopping soon.  

Front man Jim Adkins even played a mini acoustic set including ‘For Me This Is Heaven'. He gave it his all but unfortunately the sound in the venue made it difficult to hear for those standing towards the back.

The set was somewhat predictable, with most of the tracks performed coming from 2001’s Bleed American. It would have been nice to hear the band end with something other than ‘The Middle’, but the Manchester crowd loved it.

If you have never seen Jimmy Eat World live, you are missing out on something special.

Oxford Road rating: ★★★★ 

Book Review: The Casual Vacancy

Words: Rosie Parry

To pick up The Casual Vacancy with visions of being wrapped in the security of one of Mrs Weasley’s lovingly-knitted jumpers would be naïve. Long gone are the days of a clip around the ear from Uncle Vernon and the long anticipated and oh-so-sweet teenage kisses between Harry and Ginny. Instead, welcome to a world where the ‘conservative’ Rowling unleashes a world of domestic violence, infidelity, substance abuse, racism, self-harm, teen sex and intimations of inbreeding. Scary, even by the Dark Lord’s standards. 

The story follows the intricate web of lives of the people of Pagford, a quintessential small town inhabited by small-town folk, following the untimely death of the councilman, Barry Fairbrother. Barry, loved or loathed, left a seat on the Parish Council. Once filled, this seat could determine the outcome of a controversial effort to rid the town of its council estate (The Fields) and methadone rehab clinic, by allowing them to become part of the neighbouring city. The proud ‘Pagfordians’ who have lived in the town for generations, traditional views as unchanging as their DNA, would like to see the centre in a neat pile of rubble ready to be swept away and forgotten. The Liberal squad of doctors, social workers and teachers are pro-centre and so begins a deep-rooted and venomous feud that bubbles under the surface of the charming rural setting and infests it completely. 

Sound boring? Bring on the teenagers with schemes of sabotage and betrayal. Rowling’s infamously subtle approach to writing allows the reader to immerse themselves in this village of gun powder, treason and plot (whilst the rest of the train watches you sat over your kindle gasping with shock). I would almost compare the book to a soap-opera. Rowling’s notoriously descriptive style, noting each delicate change in tone or body language, allows her to paint a perfect still of each character whilst, adversely, her larger-than life portrayals of them almost reach caricature. (Admittedly this can be rather long-winded at times). The soap-opera metaphor continues down to the format she chooses, with each chapter centering on an individual character.  These characters are, in true Rowling fashion, mirrors to society with political tones framing them in all their glory. The controversial topics are indeed reflected in modern Britain but I found myself asking (as I often do whilst watching a soap), would all of this be happening in one little village? Who cares? It was dramatic, emotional and shocking. But then so is Emmerdale.

Perhaps this comparison is unfair. A lot of small-town dwellers may empathise with their own town issues and gossip. This idle chatter becomes as addictively enticing as reading the national news, if not more so. Pagfordian lives are intertwined, from the GP to the delicatessen owner, and this doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic. Conceivably, any small town or village inhabitant in the UK could pinpoint each of Rowling’s controversial topics in their own town: ‘she slept with her friend’s husband’ and ‘he is a smack-head’ etc. Either way, Rowling has Nimbus 3000-ed away from fantasy and has found herself firmly rooted in adult fiction. 

“This is a local shop for local people!”
 - The League of Gentlemen 

In fact, she’s so deep-rooted in adult fiction, she’s almost gritty. I found myself cheering her on at times, other moments it felt like my mother was revealing too much about her teenage years. How the hell does she know how to skin up a joint? Oh please life-giver to Dobby, don’t talk about sex! She delves into cyber-bullying, mimics accents and writes candidly about pornography and masturbation. Of course, she’s done her research but her keen eye on society doesn’t go unnoticed. Each character has a trait of someone the reader will have met in life: ‘she’s petty, just like my mother-in-law’ or ‘he loves himself, he reminds me of Dave from work', it would be fair to say she is the literary observationalist to Peter Kay‘s comedic. 

That The Casual Vacancy will draw comparisons to Harry Potter is as inevitable as Elizabeth ending up with Mr. Darcy, but at times I had to ask, is she going out of her way to steer away from expectation? Whatever her motivation, I lived in Pagford for the duration of my read and I’d advise you to give it a visit. 

Oxford Road rating: ★★★★

Book Review: Rot and Ruin

Words: Lindsay Bradley

Jonathan Maberry overhauls the zombie genre in Rot and Ruin as humans have long admitted defeat against the zombies. This twist is not new but what makes it worthy of attention is that it begins fourteen years after the First Night and the human race are no longer in charge.

The novel follows Benny Imura, 15, as he desperately attempts to find a job in the fenced community where he lives with his half-brother Tom. The only problem is that they don’t get along. What is peculiar is that it takes fourteen years for Tom to open up to Benny about what happened to their parents. Benny blames Tom for what happened and he simply allows him to believe that. The only way Tom is willing to communicate is if Benny chooses to become a bounty hunter like himself. Surely they would have talked or had some form of confrontation about something as important as their parent’s deaths.

Things get more exciting when Benny finally agrees to join his brother as an apprentice and they head into the rot and ruin. Their relationship too improves and becomes more complex and appealing as Tom begins to open up about his work. Finally Benny gets to see and experience what these zombies he has only heard about from behind the fence. There is plenty of gore and zombie-filled action but Maberry tries too hard to humanise them, as many humans would prefer to live out in the rot and ruin with them.

The town itself is well protected and everyone contributes to the community. It is oddly satisfying to read that although the world as we know it has ended, the human race has found a way to survive despite no longer being the leading race. Many of the residents are afraid and resent these ‘other’ creatures despite them once being human and a part of someone’s family. This is where Tom comes in. His job as a bounty hunter requires Tom to kill zombies but as he supposedly can do no wrong, he chooses to kill them with ‘dignity.’ The same courtesy is not extended to his colleagues. This raises the question: are zombies the real villains?

A major problem with the narrative is that Benny is depicted as incredibly immature. For a 15 year old, he most certainly acts much younger, throwing tantrums when things don’t go his way. The other characters are ignorant to his attitude and, for some baffling reason, look to him as a leader.

Overall, the action and plot are gripping but the issue is the relationships between the characters. Benny’s relationship with Nix feels forced and seems like it is used as a reason for Benny to go out into the rot and ruin.

That being said, the novel is likely to delight fans of zombie fiction as it gives a new twist to the somewhat overpopulated genre.

Oxford Road rating: ★★★