Category: Blogs

FLCL and Me – A Prologue.

This ones going to be a little bit more “From the heart” to be completely honest with you. I was intending on making this a video, I wrote it literally in the early hours of this morning with the full intent to record it this afternoon and have it live before the night was out. but having edited it a little bit and re-read it a couple of times I just dont feel it fits in with my usual video stuff. As a result I’ve decided to make it a spur of the moment blog post instead, though I will properly review FLCL at some point in the future but in order to make this work the way I want it to I kind of have to rely on my memories because otherwise it would be pretty meaningless for what im About to get into into.

In 2008 I was at a relative low point in my life, I was in the midst of some of the most difficult examinations I’d have to go through to date as a knock on to that I realised that even if I finished the exams with a good grade I had no plans for what to do once I’d passed, Id also found out that a good chunk of my friends from that time were basically only being my friend because they thought they could get something from me. And I was trapped in a situation where I was forced to be in close contact with someone who I had feelings for who didn’t feel the same way with no real means of escape from that situation for at least another 18 months. In short 2008 was a pretty shitty year. I felt trapped, alone and stressed out in a way that I’ve never been before or since.

As a result I pretty much spent that year desperately trying to escape from the real world because It was all a bit too much and I didn’t want to tip myself over the edge. There are moments in your life where things will perfectly align. I don’t particularly believe in a god or an afterlife but there are some moments that are so well timed as if to suggest that the world surely cant be a random mish mash of happenings. And in 2008 two of those moments happened that saved my life and fundamentally altered the way I look at the world.

(This was the other lifechanging thing, but thats another story for another time…)

One of those moments was in the middle of summer and I was asked to do some research for a business report. And like any good student with access to the internet that meant I spent a good chunk of my time on youtube watching videos. It was while I was there at my computer on that humid summer afternoon that I first discovered FLCL, or Fooly cooly, or Furi kuri depending on your preference. I’d briefly had a fling with anime and manga a couple of years prior to this and I thought I was on the way out from it by this point. But there was something in that 140p resolution video, that animation style, that vibe that just kept me watching. Back then youtube would only let you upload 15 minute chunks and the 6 parts that made up this series were all split up into there various pieces, all with varying quality and all with varying stopping and starting times. But at the time that didn’t matter. I was captivated.

I’d never seen anything like it, the tone, the animation, the music, the philosophy. The whole thing was just totally unique. It wasn’t ashamed to be what it wanted to be and it looked damn fine doing it. I Devoured as much of it as I could get my hands on. I remember that finding a complete version of the 5th episode (Brittle bullet) was particularly difficult due to the fact it dealt predominantly with guns which at the time Youtube  didn’t really tolerate. But eventually I saw the whole thing and it was absolutely beautiful.

(I mean, Just look at it! This was made in 1999!. its astounding!)

I don’t fully understand the philosophy of the show at this point anymore. I last watched it in full nearly 7 years ago, but at the time it was this radical stand out piece of art that spoke to me directly, it told me it was okay to be different. It was fine to do your own thing, that you didn’t need to rely on what other people thought of you or saw in you because someone out there will accept you for who you are regardless of what you do or don’t do in life. That it was okay to be childish sometimes but equally that responsibility for your actions and life choices are absolutely of equal importance.

At the time I was just beginning to get into film making, I’d started about a year and a half prior to this and I was in the midst of making my first feature film. I had no idea what I was doing and it was genuinely a terrible movie. But that’s because at the time I didn’t really know what art house was, I didn’t know what experimental cinema was. I grew up in a small backwater town where we had 2 cinemas and neither of them played anything other than mainstream fodder. So here I am producing an experimental drama channeling my feelings visually into the piece with no idea what an experimental film was. And im showing these rushes and scripts to people who had no idea what experimental cinema was and they just didn’t get it…and at the time I don’t think I fully understood it either…I’d later realise that experimental cinema was really quite a niche genre and that it wasn’t about making sure as many people saw it as possible more that it was making sure the right people saw it. watching it back now I can pick apart the whole thing. Its incredibly literal and im very embarrassed by the whole thing. But I digress.

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(It was about as bad as this…and that’s pretty bad…Still you gotta start somewhere…thats what I tell myself at least…)

FLCL hit me at just the right time because while I was working on this film in my spare time I’d be marathoning the anime pretty much non stop in my down time. And everytime I would come up against someone who would attack me personally for the way I dressed, or spoke or anyone who just didn’t like my films. FLCL would be the thing I would tune into to tell me that it was alright to be me. And that the people out there who thought it was okay to try and bring me down either just wernt accepting of people like me or they were just trying to make themselves feel better.

There was just something about these 6 episodes that really connected with me. I think the varying animation was definitely a factor. It’s a very different experience to watching any other kind of anime. The plotline was bittersweet as well, its to this day one of the only series I’ve ever seen that mixed hardend robot fighting anime with slapstick comedy, Hardened experimentation with the format and also a pent up will they/wont they romance angle. They got the balance right between mixing well written and very human characters with crazy off the wall extremism. The soundtrack, almost entirely composed by the pillows and was revolutionary to my ears, the direction was near pristine, the editing and styalisation was almost unmatched. And for a year or so I was as ingrained into it as it was into the counter culture.

Over the following 18 months I’d collect as much FLCL merch as it was possible to get my hands on, I bought the manga, the novelisations, plushies, T-shirts, I managed to import 2 out of 3 of the original soundtracks from Japan, I had a beanie with Haruko’s P! symbol on it, a wall scroll that’s still on display in my house to this day, my computer was decked out with stickers from the show and both my wallpaper and my screensaver were images from the show and my most prized possession is the limited editon US DVD boxset. Which is not only the most expensive DVD boxset I’ve ever bought, but It’s now also the most expensive DVD boxset in my collection. In 2009 I spent £210 shipping that set from America to England (It cost £80 up front, followed by another £80 to release it from German customs, followed by a further £50 to release it from English customs) now if you’re a nerd for your media history then you’ll know that just over 12 months after I spent this frankly ludicrous amount of money for 3 dvds and a free t-shirt coupon. That an official UK release of the series came out for £20 and I very nearly cried…but y’know what? In 2014 I sank another £25 into rebuying the UK set on Bluray which is still sealed on my shelf to this day.

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(This is my ACTUAL boxset in all its beautifulness…I dont think I’ll ever part with it…but its painful to even touch just for the price alone…it also took nearly 3 months to get to me…)

I have incredibly fond memories of FLCL, it was a series that changed my life in ways that I really struggle to put into words.it came in at just the right time and carried me through a very dark period. But like all dark periods they’re bound to pass eventually and at some point in the late 2010’s or early 2011 I just kind of…drifted from it. I went from at the peak a 3 month period where it would be the only thing I’d watch to in the end pretty much forgetting about it. By 2011 I had bigger fish to fry really, I’d recently started a new stint in education, I’d met a beautiful woman who’d go on to become my current long suffering partner and I was mixing and mingling with a new crowd of people who were genuinely interested in me for who I was, not for who they wanted me to be.

Looking back these days I feel like FLCL is an echo to a completely different time so far removed from my current life that it might as well be alien to me. It is to me this ghost of a 6 parter that came crashing into my world, changed my life and then left without a trace…in many ways echoing one of the shows main protagonists Haruko. And life moved on really…I grew older, built a meaningful relationship and several meaningful friendships, these friends and my partner grew older with me. And I forgot about that awful year that quite literally was nearly the death of me. Things were looking up…

(For anyone interested this is the wallscroll I own as well…it cost £30 and unlike the DVD boxset it cost me nothing in customs charges to ship it in from Japan.)

Then 2016 happened. 2016 for many people would at best be described as a difficult year. What with Brexit, Trump, rising tensions towards the possibility of nuclear apocalypse, rising food prices and half of the people you loved from your childhood dying randomly it was a difficult one to get through in one piece. There were also some personal troubles in my own life. My partner was going through some very messy health issues that I wont get into here but it put a lot of stress on both of us, I’d recently started to have a few tensions build up at work and most of my friends moved away for better job opportunities or were generally out of action…2016 was a pretty shitty year. And then there was an announcement that filled me both with dread and total excitement. FLCL was coming back. At the time there wasn’t a whole lot of information available all I knew was that it would be coming soon and there’d be 12 new episodes set in the modern day split over 2 seasons. It was like an old friend had just called me up after years.. and the reason it filled me with dread and excitement? Well. Because in my mind the show was perfect just the way it was. Why run the risk of pissing on a near pefect legacy by bringing it back for 12 more episodes? Equally I was very concerned that it personally might reopen old wounds  I’d not seen the show for years at this point and the only thing that would make it worse than it not being very good was revisiting the show I loved to find that it was garbage or that id built it up in my semi adolescent mind into something that it simply wasn’t. Obviously I was excited at the idea of it. If you’d have told my teenage self that FLCL would be coming back for a full 2 seasons I think he’d have cried. But there was just something sat in my mind that didn’t feel right about this. That was concerned about it.

(I got a bad feeling about this…)

Over the incoming 2 years that would follow a trailer or 2 would see the light of day that only further worry me. Mainly because it seems like they’ve jettisoned the strange and wonderful animation style that drew me to the series initially. It also seemed really quite overly angsty. Which I seem to remember the original series having a level of Angst about it but nothing quite like what this trailer was giving off…it also seemed like they’d gone all in on the comedy elements with strange and goofy characters littered throughout…bearing in mind that in the original series there was maybe 3 or 3 goofy characters and even they were tinged with a certain level of darkness.

Then last week, they announced the official launch of the series as the 2nd of June 2018 at midnight. And as of this recording I haven’t watched it. I don’t know much about the new series. I know it has the pillows in it and I know they got the original writers back in. But I don’t necessarily feel comfortable with the way this series has been resurrected…it feels like a nostalgia grab rather than a meaningful continuation… I think I might eventually watch it but I just don’t want it to ruin a show I loved. For my own sakes. At some point I will rewatch the original series again…and I’ll share my findings on here as and when that happens. It may be awful, it may be better than I remembered it. But with the new series im not so sure… for now I feel comfortable with those vivid memories of hot summer evenings plonked infront of a laptop discovering a show that no one In my country I knew had heard of.

(The mangas pretty bloody awesome too…I should really re-read it sometime…)

As is the custom occasionally I like to end these blogs with some music and I cant really think of anything more fitting than the end credits to the show, but in a resolution that I’d have killed for about 10 years ago. Enjoy.

(Part 2 of “A new career in a new town will be coming soon…but this literally kind of forced its way out of me in the last 24 hours so I thought it best to share…)
by tytdreviews

A New Career in a New Town (Part 1)

So it’s nearly one in the morning where I am and I was supposed to go out and record a couple of new episodes of “TYTD reviews” and “The Red Triangle” tonight but after some very frustrating attempts to get my laptop to connect to the internet which failed coupled with several awkward attempts to send the scripts from my non internet connected laptop to my Ipad I decided that the world just didn’t want me to go out tonight and I’ve decided instead to put my time to something more productive and instead therapeutically blog about my “Feelings”.

This past fortnight I’ve been incredibly unproductive but that’s not without good reason. While I may have dropped the ball in producing some lovely shiny new episodes of my show for you guys Its because in my real world actual life I’ve been dealing with a quite sudden and unexpected change in my delicate and heavily structured life. Mainly focussing on my career and my current workflow; It’s been a very stressful time and I feel that if I put it out there on this blog it’ll help me process whats happening a bit better and also it’ll let you guys understand why I may have been a bit silent recently on responding to facebook/youtube/twitter/reddit comments and why I haven’t been actively producing anything new apart from my readily scheduled episodes for the last few weeks.

I love my job. I loved my job. I’ve mentioned it in a few places but my current employment is as a manager of a media company, specifically the post production department of a media company. On average I manage a team of 3-4 editors in producing content for clients (Though I have managed up to teams of 10-15 in the past.) The client base range from solo artists looking to showcase there work though to some of the biggest companies in the country (I cant go into too many details here because Im under multiple non disclousure agreements but I can assure you that some of these jobs were BIG) everyday was a new adventure, everyday was a new challenge and its very rare that you’ll be put in a position in your life where you’ll get to work with a team that consists of your best friends, with no managerial constraints and deadlines that we are able to set. Quite literally I can turn up to work in the morning and hang around with my best friends cutting together enjoyable movies and managing the workflows and schedules of my friends till its hometime with minimal reporting to higher staff and very little kick back from clients. Its been a real blast.

Now that sounds amazing, and for the longest time it really was. I left university and went straight into this job. In the interview they said they were looking for an “all rounder” and while I’ll admit to being one of the clumsiest gits on the planet (Seriously im a hazard to myself) at the same time I made it very clear that my passion was in editing and that while I could be versatile, editing was what I really wanted to do. And they accepted that in principle. So I started working there. There were a few initial hiccups. I had been led to believe that the company was based in my home town but it was actually based in the next town over…this wasn’t a problem because I could drive but it did bother me a bit that they wernt up front about it (Especially when they held the interviews in my hometown)  on my first day I found out that there was another minor deception when I realised that the “Offices” I’d be working in were actually not offices at all but rather my bosses back room of his house. Again a minor setback but the promise was of a successful projected future in which I’d have my own closed office, flexible working time and enough money to go and invest in a summer home somewhere in Europe. These things were not to come to pass.

Initially things were a bit frosty. They treated me with a quite “Hands off” attitude. While they wernt exactly hostile to me. They showed me the ropes and then expected me to just get on with it. If I made a mistake I’d be corrected, warned and if I made the mistake again at Any point in my tenure it would effectively  be an instant Disciplinary. I thought this was a bit odd but I took into account that this was effectively a small business and that accidents of any kind could mean the difference between keeping or losing a client and I soldiered on. When there were disciplinaries or incidents I usually accepted them even if I didn’t feel I was at fault. At the time I was grateful to have been given a job when, around the same time, about 80% of my fellow university graduates were on jobseekers allowance and desperately seeking employment with anyone who’d have them. I felt privileged. I was earning above the minimum wage, I was effectively more or less in control of my own workflow, the commute wasn’t awful and they were quite reasonable and understanding about being flexible with my working hours.

But as time went by things slowly started to lose there lustre a bit. For one thing working for a small business meant that I was effectively at the bosses whim on most if not all of his wishes. There was no procedures or codes of conduct because my boss simply didn’t think they were necessary because, in his own words, “Its all common sense mate” These are words that I’ve now grown to despise as a result of working for this company. My boss could best be described as having a bit of a split personality, some days he’d be your best mate. Perfectly reasonable, compassionate and willing to go the extra mile for you, Other days if you gave any less than 101% you’d be in a disciplinary and on the receiving end of a quite vicious shouting match. At first when I wasn’t in the line of fire I would consider his actions “Firm but fair” I was on the outside, so when other people would be pulled in for a disciplinary I would only hear the narrative my boss put out and I would agree with him. It was only when I was on the receiving end of a disciplinary where the narrative was spun purposefully against me that I realised he had these mental swings.

The first couple of years went by pretty soundly. There were no major incidents and what incidents did occur were remedied fairly quickly. I thought we were a pretty efficient team. And it was equally around this time that things started to go a bit wrong. One day completely at random the boss announced that we were moving to a new office and that he was looking for feedback as to what we’d need in a new space. My requests were pretty basic:

*Ideally if we move could we move somewhere I bit closer to my hometown?

*Ideally if we move could we get somewhere with a good internet connection because we’re literally currently on dial-up?

*Ideally if we move could we get somewhere that has reasonable parking?

The reason for these 3 were simple, the first was because travelling from my town to the next town over took me on average 40 minutes in the morning and 55 minutes every evening in terms of my commute, so even if he moved 10 minutes closer to me that would have been tremendously beneficial for me. The second was because where we worked at the time was out in the middle of the country side without broadband, which if your trying to run a digital media business that relies on sending multiple film projects to clients on a daily basis having a reliable and fast broadband connection really is a must. And third because, as I had to drive to get to the office, being told that I needed to park in one specific area and walk 20 minutes down a single carriage country lane with tight bends to get in every day was a situation that I thought was quite unreasonable. I could legally park closer. Much closer. Like. 30 seconds to get in closer. but when my boss had one of his mental switches he decided one day that he didn’t like me parking where I was (Even though it had no double yellow lines and wasn’t causing anyone any troubles) he demanded that I park on a nearby community center carpark and when I politely declined and told him I was happy parking where I was and that legally there were no issues with me parking there he left it for a day before giving me a disciplinary for talking back and telling me that if I didn’t park where he wanted me to I’d be fired.

But anyway I digress. I put these points to my boss who laughed at me and told me there was “Absolutely no chance” that we’d be moving closer to my hometown because he needed to be close to his house and that “Fast internet” wouldn’t be a problem because he’d happily invest in Satellite internet if we found somewhere in the countryside. Which he was seemingly hell bent on being the case.

In my bosses mind he wanted an office that was out in the middle of nowhere, preferably something along the lines of a closed pub which he could renovate into an office that would be a 5 minute commute to and from his house; mainly because he was obsessed with the idea of having an office that was surrounded by rolling countryside hills and areas he could take long walks in. But at the same time while he wanted the office to be miles away from civilisation, he equally wanted it to be very well connected with no more than 5-10 minutes travelling time to get a van onto the duel carriage way due to the nature of how some of our shoots had been organised. Basically what he was looking for was so specific it was almost impossible. and he was so obsessed with that vision that he would have been fully willing to pay an eyewatering amount to realise it. In the end however he settled on a very small office space in a nearby town center. It was bigger than our then current base of operations but at the same time it was further away than my current commute by about 10-15 minutes or so. It also had very limited parking and again he’d get weird about exactly where you were and wernt allowed to park…in a city center.

It was also around this time that I began to really look at my paycheque each month. When I started, the idea of being just above minimum wage was great, it made me feel like a big earner when compared to my peers but after 2 years; the promise in the interview that pay “Would be scaled in line with how the company grows” seemed like a distant memory. 2 years in a managerial position and I’d gone up £20 a month (Mainly due to hitting a tax bracket with my first payrise which meant I may as well have not had the first pay rise in the first place and a 2nd payrise in my second year which basically made me 20 quid a month better off) But while this was resting in the back of my mind along with the now extended 45-50 minute commute in and 55 – 75 minute commute out everyday…

It was around the time we moved that my boss decided to implement a new policy with me and my team, effectively the Ted turner approach. “Get the best people in to do the job and then get the hell out of there way”. This translated to him effectively leaving us alone to just get on with things unless he had extra work to put into the schedules or if he felt something wasn’t right. It was around this time he also abandoned appraisals and One to one meetings both of which he brushed away saying “If you have a problem just tell me.” Which at first sounds fine until you realise that there are some issues you really don’t want to broach unless asked first and while I imagine some people would bemoan appraisals and Im certainly not someone who constantly needs to be hand held or told im brilliant. Just being told “Hey you’re doing a good job” once every so often can really perk up the working experience. Likewise, Being told nothing makes you feel like your nothing.

It was around about this time that the procedure gaps started to show themselves. Because there was no policy on exactly what was and wasn’t acceptable and because we had no dealings with clients until the final post production stages, we had no idea whether we were dealing with just a bloke with a small art project or the literal Queen. It meant that sending out emails would become a veritable minefield as we adopted a standard form template explaining the services we’d offer and quite regularly my boss would come storming down to our department furious to know why we sent a standard form email to a client we’d never spoken who in fact would turn out to be a major contractor in there field, and as a result we should have been kissing there feet and calling them twice (if not thrice) a day to keep them constantly in the loop. Because of this it made sending any emails so paranoia inducing that I physically felt sick everytime I hit send because I couldn’t deal with my bosses disciplinaries.

Things came to a head one afternoon in autumn last year when I contacted my boss because a client had got in touch with me with a edit request and because I didn’t know if I was dealing with joe blogs or a far flung royal I sent an email to my boss explaining that the client had got in touch and asking how best to handle it. His response? “Has she sent instructions through, does she know what she wants”. I sent him an email back “She’s sent some through but not all the instructions we’d need to complete the edit”, his response? “Ask her”. So I emailed her back with a full set of instructions and asked her to get back to me with the bits we still needed. Half an hour later my boss runs into the office wild eyed and says “What d’yer think yer playing at mate!?” I was completely baffled. I said “What do you mean?” he says; “That email mate! That was totally inappropriate! I cant comprehend how you thought that email would be a good idea. We’ve got to offer the client now all our services and even some additional extras for free now because you’ve totally destroyed the relationship mate!”…I was stunned. Speechless almost… I said “But I only sent out the standard email we send to all the clients. I asked you what was the best thing to do you sai-“ he cuts me off, at this point shouting “IF YOU THINK THAT’S AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO SEND TO CLIENTS MATE THEN I DISPAIR I REALLY DO! ITS COMMON SENSE MATE I TOLD YOU TO CALL HER!”. I said “No you didn’t you said “Ask her” the conversation had been held on email so I thought it best to continue it on email. If you’d have said “Call her” I’d have called her. But this is the standard email we’ve sent out for years to clients.”…He looks at me like I’ve just grown another head…he (Again shouting) responds “MATE IF YOU CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BIG CLIENT AND A SMALL CLIENT AND YOU CANT HAVE THE INITIATIVE TO CALL A CLIENT WITHOUT ME HANDHOLDING THEN ALL OF THIS IS POINTLESS YOU MIGHT AS WELL GO HOME.” Still reeling I apologise but again reiterate my point that unless he informs us who are big clients and who are small clients theres no way we’re to know who we have to treat with extra care. He turns to my co-worker and says “IM GOING MAD. I MUST BE GOING MAD. MATE! IF YOU WERE IN THIS POSITION WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?”…and to his credit god bless my co-worker he said “Well you wernt very clear with “Ask her” so I’d have probably emailed…though I could see how it could be misconstrued.” My boss looked at us both like we’d were the aliens from “They Live!” and after a bewildered pause he shouted “RIGHT! RIGHT! WELL. THATS IT THEN. THIS IS GOING TO HAVE TO BE AN INQUEST. AND MATE IF YOU CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CALLING AND EMAILING THEN YOURE NOT GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO SEND EMAILS ANYMORE. ITS COMMON SENSE MATE AND YOU CANT BE TRUSTED. THERE’LL BE A DISCIPLINARY AND AN INQUEST. DON’T TALK TO ME.” And then he stormed off.

Now. that disciplinary never happened. Nor was there an inquest. Whether he forgot or whether he realised he’d not so much overstepped the mark more used it as a starting line for a relay race I’ll never know. A few weeks after that incident he called me to a private meeting with my manager in which he informed me that he didn’t want me to send external emails anymore because “We don’t feel its your strength” even though 12 months earlier he cited me as “One of the best people to handle clients in the business” but by that point it didn’t matter to me. His attitude and general behaviour in recent months, the lack of pay rises and the now gratingly unpleasant commute…not to mention that incident in particular had set in motion something in my mind that would eventually lead me to where I’ve been this week.

It’s now gone 2:15am and I need to be up for work in about 5 hours so, so I’m going to cut this blogpost short here…for now. But the story is far from over. Consider this a part 1 if you will. In part 2 things get much more saltier , but I like to think this story has a happy ending of sorts, theres certainly a final resolution though I think that’s another post for another time. Till then though.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rm790UdFo

(No pictures really did this blog post justice so im sorry it looks like a wall of text…btw I chose to end the blog with this music track because it’s been the only thing keeping me sane these past 2 weeks. Seriously the Housemartins have saved my life this week…)
by tytdreviews

Socialist Training Wheels (Part 2) The Harvest

So this was a long time coming, and now totally irrelevant but I’ve finally been able to get some time together to sort out Part 2 of my promised look into the Local elections. The last time I wrote about politics like this I was slowly nursing an alcoholic beverage and I feel that by the time I was at the end of it, I was probably a bit too far gone to be able to meaningfully convey my feelings about the local elections.

(I probably wasnt that far off this by the end of part 1…)

I feel now however that the time to talk about the elections in an analytical way has somewhat passed me by. Obviously its no secret that Labour (While not overachieving) more than held there own and made overall gains in large swathes of the country. The conservatives made a few gains and the liberal democrats seemingly cleaned up quite nicely in the wake of  the collapse of the UKIP vote. However to read the papers the morning after the polls closed you could be led to believe that the labour party had completely disintegrated overnight. They failed to seize several major targets and as a result the night was a failure for them. Except…it wasn’t really…y’see, those “Major targets” wernt initially set up by Labour, they were set up by the newspapers. They were the ones who were right off the bat publishing that Labour would be able to seize control of local councils that hadn’t been run by the Labour party in decades. When the situation was put to the Labour party they said the equivalent of “Well we’re aiming high!” which is a bit different than saying “We’re going to smash it and we cant wait to bring in big bad Galloway to kick arse and impose renationalisation”

The newspapers whipped up such a frenzy about how well Labour were going to do that realistically they could never have achieved the levels of success that the media was predicting. Equally they played out the idea that the conservatives were going to do terribly, to the point where when they didn’t absolutely burst into flames we were told they’d had a good night!

(A similar set of front pages from 2017’s general elections…notice the flies on the front of the sun clearly illustrating where that rag of a newspaper belongs…)

This has been a recurring problem now for a couple of years at this point. The newspapers make an untrue or unrealistic statement about the labour party, its proven false or it doesn’t pan out in quite the way it should have, and then they seize on that with the force of me trying to get into my precert copy of Halloween 3.

Anti-Semitism has been the flavour of the day recently, with most of the major news outlets, the conservative party and even some of the labour party itself admitting that the party had a problem with anti-Semitic rhetoric. As a member of the Labour party and someone who’s regularly engaged in political debates both with leftwing and rightwing representatives;  I cant honestly say I’ve seen anyone from the party use Anti-Semitic sentiments on any of the social media pages I frequent nor have I seen anything while at Labour party meetings. Im almost certain there are Anti-Semites in the labour party. Statistically its almost inevitable. But at the same time I don’t think theres nearly as many as the mainstream media would have you believe and I think a major issue is that the right and even some members of the right of Labour are purposefully conflating “Anti-Semitism”  with “Anti-Zionism” and the two are completely different.

Now forgive me if im incorrect on this (and im more than happy to be proven wrong here) but I’ve been led to believe that originally there was Palestine, then the UK colonised parts of the middle east, before giving chunks of our colonised land to the Jewish people in what became Israel…and over the last 60-70 years Israeli forces have slowly but surely seized more and more of Palestine and oppressed the Palestinian people. Not that Palestine’s been entirely innocent either, they’ve given as good as they’ve got. However I feel it necessary to reiterate that it was there land originally and that they do have every right to be a bit pissed off at the fact that large chunks of there land have been taken and that the Palestinian people and government have been painted as brutal…in real terms it would be like if you owned your own house and one day you had a visitor who bought a friend over for the night, but the next day your friend had vanished and his friend was now saying that the bathroom is his and that he was eyeing up your kitchen…by the end of the week you had your bed and the skirting boards all the way to the door and your friends random associate is screeching at you for being unreasonable that you dared keep the bed.

(Its been doing the rounds on social media but its a pretty decent illustration to be fair…)

Now for having those opinions I would be considered Anti-Zionist. But to some people that would be enough of an opinion to label me Anti-Semitic. I would disagree with those people and I’d add that there really needs to be a concerted effort to make clear distinctions between the two groups because they’re very different groups.

Obviously though that something that the conservative party and the mainstream media have no interest in facilitating. As long as this Anti-Semitism thing continues to push on it continues to put the labour party on the back foot and it continues to make out that anyone who supports Jeremy Corbyns policies automatically hate Jews. Which is simply not the case. And this is before we get anywhere near the constant stream of racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic bollocks that the conservative party members and even there MP’s have come out with over the last 40 years (Seriously there are too many photos of Conservative MP’s dressed up in full nazi uniforms for my taste)

To conclude I’d like to say that I think we’ve finally entered a period in our political history where we are about to see the death of the current system. Democracy used to be run on base principles. If you lied while in office, if you misled the public or damaged the country, you’d be thrown out of power and shamed out of the position never to be seen again. As of 2018 we have a government who are propped up by a group of radical right wing northern Irish MP’s , stabilised by the media who have finally decided to give up the pretence of looking like they know what they’re doing. They can say the sky is purple and when they’re shown proof its blue they’ll silently walk off, wait till something bigger than there lie crops up and then use that as an opportunity to bury it. There most common current tactic is to simply abstain. If theres a vote or an urgent question or there asked to give a statement in relation to something that they’ve said or done. They’ll either just refuse to acknowledge it or if they do they’ll send an back bencher or an underling to give a generic statement. In doing this they’re effectively saying “We do not accept the legitimacy of what your doing” there have been several votes more recently in parliament that have effectively been rendered meaningless because the entire conservative party has just abstained from turning up and voting. In doing so they can then question the legitimacy of the vote and I don’t want to invoke “Godwins law” here but im angry just thinking about it so fuck it. That’s what the actual Nazis did just before world war 2. When votes or narrative wernt going there way they’d just up and leave and then refuse to acknowledge that a vote happened or implement a bastardised version of the asked policy before the vote could happen effectively making it meaningless because “We’re already putting similar legislation in place” it’s a dick move that erodes trust in the political system and its considerably nastier and thicker than anything that Thatchers government would have considered (And they’re seen as pure evil by most people above the southern border)

(Well its good to get a futurama meme into one of these blogs somehow)

How do we fix this? Well, I don’t know. I like to think that Socialism will win out ultimately but the question becomes a matter of “Will we see this change before or after we’ve been totally and utterly broken beyond repair?” The honest answer is: I don’t know…im not going to lie things arnt quite as awful as they were in 2017 so far. But they’ve only gotten marginally better largely because the EU have decided to just ignore America and the UK in terms of there leaders. I’ll give them this. The EU arnt perfect, but at least they’ve acknowledged that for the foreseeable that they’re on there own and that the US and UK are slowly eating themselves.

Maybe things will work out…maybe they’ll get worse…honestly at this point I’ve gone from having faith in my fellow man to constantly plotting out how I’ll survive the next inevitable downward drive in living standards. I like to think things will get better soon. But till then I guess im still stuck with my socialist training wheels.

by tytdreviews

Socialist Training wheels (Part 1) The Quickening

This one’s going to be a political blog. I kind of feel like I should open with that kind of a statement whenever I talk about politics in general partly because I feel like if I didn’t mention that this was a political posting that people would immediately dive into posts like this, get violently triggered and take it out on both me and my channel. But also because I realise there are some people out there who really don’t care that much for politics and don’t want it to get in the way of a good cult movie.

So consider this a “Trigger” warning. Not because Im going to say anything particularly controversial; But rather because if you don’t want to know my political affiliation, if you don’t care or if you think it would change your opinions of me fundamentally mentioning it now will give you ample time to click away or go and do something different. As it stands it’s a boiling hot Sunday night on the 6th of May, I have a white rum and Dr Pepper on the go as I write this, and I’ve spent the day pretty much getting my house straight as the bank holidays are really the only time I have to do that kind of thing. Last night me and my partner watched “Liquid Sky” and “A nightmare on elm street” the former was very strange and about as erotic as a cold cloth to the gunnels the latter was like stepping back into a well worn pair of shoes. What im trying to say is if you don’t want to faff around with hearing me waffle on about pie charts and various other political bits and pieces I highly recommend you go and check those films out. Let me know either in the comments here or on Facebook or my Youtube channel if you do go and watch them. I’d genuinely love to hear what you thought of them…

(My comments sections after this blog post gets read by anyone who cares)

…Right; So Im assuming if your reading this your invested. Good. So, a bit about myself. I was born in the North of England, my father was disabled (blind in one eye, damaged spinal cord and he’s missing a kneecap) and my mother worked minimum wage jobs up until about 10 years ago when she finally moved into a position she currently works in that pays above minimum wage and is very happy with. I’ve never known true struggling but I realise that my parents have done there absolute damndest to both protect me from that and to build the lives they currently have, and im incredibly grateful that they’ve given me the life they have. In many ways they’re both an inspiration to me. They had no handouts, they had no help and they’ve made themselves a very comfortable existence. They never talked to me about politics and I spent a good chunk of my childhood and early teens blissfully unaware of the political landscape mainly because I had no need to know about any of that stuff.

I find myself in a bit of a political quandary these days. As a citizen of the UK we’ve had a bit of an interesting couple of years politically. I myself first got involved in politics around the fall of Tony Blair. The “Happening” of Gordon Brown and the “Awakening of the Milliband”.  At the time I just kind of described myself as just “Left wing” really. In the vaguest sense I kind of thought “Well; Labour help people, the Conservatives help businesses and the libdems…well they don’t know what they want…BUT THEY WANT IT NOW!”  and that was pretty much how my political views went until about 2014…

(Changes were very much on the way)

In 2014 around the time of Ed Millibands general election run there was a sudden sort of change in politics in the country. Newspapers were chiming on about how Millibands policies were “Radically” Left wing and that he was effectively a “Loony leftie” trying to drag the party towards Socialism. But what the papers were saying and what I saw Ed say were two very different things. I didn’t honestly see all that much difference between Ed Millibands policies and the policies that had been generated during the Blair and Brown years. But for some reason the papers and the media in general were absolutely rabid at trying to tear the man down. That I’d say was my first introduction to the ideas of Socialism, but at that point I had no idea what socialism even was nor did I really have any interest in following it up. At the time I just thought that “Socialism” just meant “Very left wing” or “Not being a total arsehole” and left it at that. Little did I know at the time that Socialism would go on to effectively punctuate the next 4 years and is set to continue to define the UK political undertones for the foreseeable.

The General election didn’t quite go to plan and as a result there was a leadership election and in that leadership election a certain “Jeremy Corbyn” was entered into the running as a Joke candidate by members of the Labour party. In short; they were trying to be cruel. They put his name on the ballot in the same way that School kids would nominate the ugly guy and girl to win Prom king and queen. They never expected him to win and they thought it would be a funny way to give the far left of the Labour party a good kicking for a laugh. Little did they know that they’re “Cruel Joke” would go on to change the political landscape in insurmountable ways.

(10 years ago if you’d told me this man would change british politics as we know it i’d have laughed you out of the building)

Corbyn won. Corbyn won by a majority that was unheard of in modern political times. And this made the center left of the Labour party who put him on the ballot in the first place collectively cack themselves. They were terrified. It had all backfired on them, and what at first was supposed to be a way to remind the far left of there place very quickly became an empowering pandoras box of left wing ideology. Over the following 3 years the center left of the party, enabled by the right wing and the newspapers would do everything short of “Jeremy Corbyn ate my hamster” to try and dethrone the man. But as of writing he’s still firmly in seat and his popularity continues to grow at a previously unheard of rate. They’ve tried to smear him, it’s failed. They’ve tried challenging his leadership by putting up a new candidate with more center ground political values. He beat him increasing his share of the vote (Meaning that he broke the record for the most votes a labour representative has ever received in a leadership contest and then broke that record again with an even larger majority) When a snap general election was called the center left couldn’t contain themselves at looking for opportunities to try and tell people to vote for MP’s and not for Corbyn as leader. Hell even Tony Blair came out of the woodwork to decree that Corbyn would destroy the country if people voted for him…And then Corbyns vision of labour increased the majority of there party in parliament. Quite substantially really. He secured more votes than Tony blair did at the height of his campaigning (Tony Blair in the UK is often seen as the benchmark of how to be a left winger and succeed in politics) and even though he didn’t become prime minister, he gave the conservatives a bloody nose, sent right wing pundits into a tail spin and but the center left on notice.

It was a great feeling. For me; I’d always assumed that the kind of policies that I wanted to see implemented into the country; Proper funding for the NHS, UBI, greater care taken for people with mental health issues, a modernisation of the economy and a greater restriction put on shady business practises and media regulation in terms of promoting false or incorrect news. We’re all just wishful thinking. I never actually thought someone would come along and say  “Yeh mate; we can do that no problem”…And yet with Corbyns vision of labour it all seems quite possible.

(Cornwall under Corbyns version of labour in 2033)

I now feel a bit of confusion really about where I lie politically. Realistically my politics align with what would be considered modern socialism. At the time of writing theres been a tremendous gulf in the political landscape, with the conservatives absorbing a good chunk of UKIP (The party that put out the idea of Brexit in the first place…Far right wing and typically racist) back into there vote share they now have a robust arsenal of people ranging from the quite reasonable and ultimately decent just straddling a line of politics that I disagree with right the way through to racist thugs who pine for a country that never existed. The left wing consist these days of people who actively detest the party in its current form but refuse to move to the conservatives out of pure red blooded hatred of there past misgrieviences. Through to the full blown Communist left wingers who wake up to the USSR national anthem every morning and go to bed to the Internationale every night. Myself? I agree with what Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party has to offer to a point. It’s mainly there stance on Brexit that I disagree with. Im a firm voter of remaining in the European union though I accept that there needed to be a much needed conversation about the direction it was heading in…an opportunity that’s very unlikely to come about now.

But my opinion is that “Well; I agree with 99 things that the Labour party are currently offering, I think I can swallow my pride over the 1 thing I don’t agree with” Brexits a really big thing admittedly, but we currently have so many home grown issues that Im not going to split hairs when I agree with a majority of what the party is putting out there. These opinions and views have been labelled “Active communism” by the modern press and are ridiculed by the right as “A load of students who don’t know any better trying to vote in a communist government”…but the thing is “A load of students” isn’t enough to make the kind of leaps that the current labour party have in the UK. This is a genuinely growing movement and the ideas that I thought were “Wishful thinking” have never actually been closer to coming true before. Both parties, left and right, have lurched to there relative extremes. And for the foreseeable future it would appear that, barring a tremendous incident, The entire countries at a stalemate.

 

(British politics in 2018 in a nutshell)

*Believe it or not; this blog post started with the intention of being about the recent local election though it appears I’ve rambled a bit. I’ve gotten quite carried away. I think im going to make this a “Part 1” if you will. Im going to broach the subject of the local elections in my next blog post all being well. But I thought I’d share my political affiliation with you lot because some people are really interested in that kind of thing. Equally I’ll end this post by saying that as a TLDR on my political affiliation. While Im aligned with modern socialism I don’t feel comfortable calling myself a socialist. Mainly because I kind of feel I haven’t “Earned” that right just yet. I’d feel like I was living a lie to start openly calling myself a socialist because I feel I’d be piggy backing on a current trend. I look at the people who weathered socialism in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s who sat there silently whilst being mocked and I think “I cant really say Im with these lot. These lot have suffered for there beliefs and I’ve just rocked up at the 11th hour” maybe someday I’ll lose my socialist training wheels. But for now I’m just a “Left winger”…and im happy to talk.

Addendum:

There’s a bit I wanted to put into this blog but I just couldn’t fit in anywhere. It’s a bit of a clarification more than anything else. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. Im not going to attack you for being left wing, right wing or center ground. What I will pick you up on is whether your a nice person in your day to day business and whether your hearts in the right place towards your fellow man. I have friends from the Far right and Far left side of the spectrum and while we may not see eye to eye politically on a number of things I realise that a persons politics does not define them anymore than the car they drive, the partner they marry or there choice of beer in a bar (Unless you drink Heineken in which case fuck you.) As a result I’ve had many interesting conversations with people, sometimes I’ll change there minds, sometimes they’ll change mine. Im a great believer in diversit of opinion and while I’ll admit this blog post is very promotional in its left wing values. The left are far from perfect and the day they make the “Perfect political party” is the day that I eat a car out of sheer surreal bafflement. What Im trying to say is; Believe whatever you want to believe Im not going to judge you whether your Labour or Democrat, republican or conservative. Its whats in your head and your heart that define you. And I realise that’s one of the hippiest things I could say. But I find it very true.

(Yeh theres going to be more of this…hopefully more coherent as well)

(In The next part! I work out my feelings a bit more and hopefully finally get round to talking about what I wanted to talk about in this part!)

 

by tytdreviews

Reelin in the years – Backdating the site and stormy weather.

So im writing this at a point in time where the websites kind of in a bit of a limbo of sorts. Its not yet publishing the newest content from my youtube channel but I am still posting some new content in the form of my Instagram pictures, Blogs and anything else that needs doing in order to make this site both interesting and useful. I wanted to make sure that before I officially announced this site to my youtube/twitter/Instagram/facebook followers that it was as up to date as it was physically possible to be (And if you are one of my followers and you’ve randomly stumbled across this site. First; Bravo! Second; let me know! I’d love to hear it!). This was mainly because no one wants to visit a half built website, But also because it’ll give people something to look at properly when I do announce this sites Launch formally. That being said it has kind of stirred a few emotions with me.

In a sense its kind of made me a little bit nostalgic for what was going on about 12 months ago. Back in April 2017 TYTD Reviews was just one of about 5 ideas that floated in and out of my head on a semi regular basis. To jump forward nearly 12 months and find that not only am I still producing content but that its taken me on a journey that’s led me to talking to some of my favourite movies directors. Inheriting a massive video tape collection and a channel that’s helped me make some really quite wonderful friends on message boards and youtube itself really makes me feel like I spent my time well this past year.

Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 00.11.05

(Behold! the original first thumbnail for “The Dragon Lives again” Gaze upon its crapness in awe and wonder!)

I’ve decided in my “Video review” section (Particularly with my older videos) to add a portion of text above the video retrospectively talking about those early reviews now that I’m quite a distance away from them. And its been a lot of fun looking at my early (And frankly shocking) reviews and seeing how far I’ve come in developing my talking style, video designs and the fundamental changes that have taken place over the months. There have been some that I’ve already decided will need to be revisited at some point because I really have failed to do the film justice in these early videos. But it puts me in a somewhat nostalgic mind-set. When I wrote and recorded my first four episodes (An un-produced pilot episode, The Dragon Lives again, The Last man on Earth and The American Ninja 2) I didn’t make any notes while watching the movies, and I actually went to the trouble of driving my car over to an empty supermarket car park so that I could record in private. I remember it being vaguely cold and feeling terrified that someone was going to drunkenly wander across the car park in the middle of the night and find me with my Ipad mini illuminating my face with some chunky headphones on so I could check my levels. I’d prefer not to be mugged/stabbed…

Nowadays every film I talk about has a minimum of 5 pages of reference notes, a 4-5 page script and a day or twos total video editing time. Even having come from a film background if you really knuckle down when it comes to youtube videos you quickly learn a new style, pattern and language that’s quite alien to the professional film industry. Its been a very enlightening experience.

So Im backfilling my site with 1-2 old videos a day and as of the time of writing I’ve just written my article for “Bloody Muscle Body Builder in hell” I reckon if I keep this up I should more or less be caught up in time for the launch of Season 4. Which would be a rather nicely timed thing really.

In my real life; things are getting a bit stressful. I’ve been having a few issues at work recently that im really hoping to resolve sooner rather than later. I feel at times like I’m on the outside of my workplace looking in, rather than it being the other way around. I just feel a bit like I’m being purposefully isolated. And while I don’t mind the isolation to an extent I feel like it’s being applied somewhat maliciously by certain colleagues. Luckily Mrs TYTD, my family and her family have all been incredibly supportive of me during this time which has been very helpful in keeping my mentality and spirits high, They’ve really been amazing… and of course you guys (The people who watch my videos and actively seek out my blogs) have been a tremendous comfort to me during this time too! Every nice comment, thumbs up or share has really given me a morale boost so I really cant thank you all enough. As I say I hope this resolves itself sooner rather than later. Because frankly the issues im having have started to bore me a bit and I’d much rather just get on and keep my head down for a bit.

(Im in a weird place where this gif simultainiously perfectly sums up my current situation and yet at the same time it doesnt…and this is on an hour to hour basis at the minute…)

On top of this I’m also desperately trying to get my video Schedules back on track after an incident last month where I came down with flu for 2 weeks (Costing me approximately 3 maybe even 4 completed videos) it really knocked it out of me and realistically it was almost 3 weeks before I even sat down to watch a new movie to review. Luckily over the last few weeks I’ve been able to slowly catch myself back up and as it stands there are 3 episodes of Season 3 left to upload (Over 2 weeks) and 8 episodes of Season 4 fully completed (With 13 episodes written at the time of this publication) I probably overdo it on the pre-recording but I like the gap. Its sizable and it means I’m covered for every eventuality.  Though it does mean my recommended film reviews take a hell of a long time to get published (Which I do sincerely apologise for).

Short film Spotlight is also giving me a bit of grief at the minute so far I have 5 episodes written, 2 recorded audibly and 1 episode fully completed. I was aiming to make this one my 2nd weekly show. But its becoming very apparent that I may have to make it fortnightly just to help keep my sanity in check. (There’ll be more on Short film Spotlight in an update video I’m planning on releasing at the same time I formally launch this website) its actually surprisingly difficult to produce 2 research heavy shows a week…even if only one of them is long form…But I hope you enjoy it when it comes out.

Its not all doom and gloom though! I’ve recently reconnected with an old musician friend of mine who is currently working on a reworking of the TYTD reviews theme for me (Which should debut with Season 5) which will mean I’ll finally have a theme tune that’s  100% royalty free. I’ve also been working with my friend to produce some new music videos for him which has been fun. I’ve added a links and affiliates page to my site and I’m very happy to say that he’s agreed to affiliate with me and my channel in principle. As soon as he’s figured out what site he’d like to promote through this websites affiliate links it’ll be added to the list.

I’ve also got a cracking nights entertainment lined up this weekend as I’m going to a comedy show  to see a very British comedian whom I’ve seen at least 4 times previously and whom every time I see him I end up almost passing out laughing. So yeh; that should be a laugh (No pun intended) I’ve also finally started going through my massive Tape collection and there’s some absolute GOLD in there. So keep an eye out on the channel because I will be covering quite a few of these over the next few weeks.

I suppose to summarise; I feel like I’m somewhat losing control of some aspects of my life while simultaneously really getting my life in order in other aspects. And its weird and unusual and a little bit scary at times because for the last 5 years or so there’s been a tremendous sense of stability. Change is good though. It helps you learn to better adapt to your surroundings. Its just a shame I’m usually too sleepy or too busy to be able to actively grab the bull by the horns these days…

 

(Of course; Heatons got me through a hell of a lot in my life. I think this track is a pretty good way to end this…)

 

by tytdreviews

That Warm Fuzzy Glow (Why Medium Matters) – Opinion Piece

Largely for completionists sake; I thought it best to share this post here. This was an opinion piece I wrote a short while ago about how the format you choose to present your film in can be detrimental to how well/poorly it is recieved by an Audience. whether you choose to present it in HD, VHS, DVD hell even laser disc quality. the medium will effect the film differently each time. whether you need that pin point precise sharpness or maybe you wish to use the fuzz that VHS can offer to your advantage as a direction. I believe that choosing your format should be as important as shot compisition or the way the film is edited. (I also use this piece as a way to put across my genuine love of all things VHS so do prepare to see me wax lyrical about the joys of it)

(Ever since I optimised my editing desk to include a HD to SD to VHS converter deck I really must say that cutting stuff like this has been a breeze!)
by tytdreviews

The Dreaded Opening Gambit

Well I should probably make this both brief and somewhat welcoming. but in all honesty im really quite rubbish at introductions. Its something I’ve just never really gotten the hang of in all honesty. In real life I always either overdo it and come across as some grinning swivel eyed loon who just cant let a good silence do its thing. Or Im the diametric opposite; I come across as a little bit aloof and altogether overly cool and distant. More often than not im the former which usually in turn leads to several very clumsy and awkward interactions.

Y’see I suffer from that inherent awkward Britishness that plagues Richard Curtis films so charmingly. But in real life is just a bit peculiar. If we’re meeting for the first time I guarantee you something wont quite land right. From a premature handshake to getting my muddles worded up. To mishearing someone in a conversation and accidentally derailing it…even just standing/sitting in an awkward way. Its always happened and unless im in the other mindset (In which case people think im being purposefully grumpy with them…which I can assure you really isn’t the case) It always will happen.

(Basically this; Except I dont declare my love to everyone and I look like a shaved bottle of Sunny delight)

But you know what. For the most part im okay with this. After being the victim of multiple instances of things just generally being difficult and embarrassing I’ve learnt to just accept and roll with anything that happens on a day to day basis. If things get weird nowadays I either embrace it and double down purposefully making things worse…often turning an awkward moment into something at least partially resembling a humorous one or at minimum I’ll at least try to roll with it and see where things end up. I really have to be put in a very odd situation these days before even I have to throw my hands up and say “Well! I tried!”

In many ways that’s why I enjoy the ability to talk to people through instant messaging, youtube comments and email. It means I can take my time with things, really read whats being said and craft an answer without getting past my opening point and then spending the rest of the conversation coming across like this:

(Okay so Im maybe a bit more coherent than this in conversation…but not much…)

I always try to be as warm as I can with people. Hell if you’ve taken the time to read this, or watch one of my videos or just comment somewhere saying “Hi!” You’ve pretty much made my day already. It means a lot to me that someone would try to reach out in that capacity. That someone would actually put time aside to watch what I produce and feel like they WANTED to talk to me about film, the world or just something random. and while it may take me a little while to get back I almost definately will…

So welcome!, Im sorry in advanced. and I hope sometime you’ll stop by and say “Hi”sometime…

by tytdreviews