matt pallatt

Yeah, whatever… the first time I ever saw pornography I was 15 and it didn’t warp my sense of much. That of course isn’t to say that I would want any child of mine stumbling upon what I found under a cabinet in my front room, or yours for that matter. Porn should be viewed by consenting adults who know what they’re getting into.

Equally, kiddy porn and child abuse is BAD full stop. Death is too good for those that peddle it (though it’s probably a good start), and there should be a special place in hell for those that enjoy it, or even view it for researching (that being if hell existed. Which it doesn’t).

That said the government is holding a summit which aims to tackle web pornography and images of child abuse.

GET REAL YOU IDIOTS AND START SPENDING MY TAX MONEY ON SOMETHING USEFUL!

In the same way that it would be quite nice if Michael Gove understood education and was forced to be a teacher for a month or so, being the secretary of state and all, wouldn’t it be nice if any of the government understood (or even tried to for that matter) the internet, and how there isn’t a “turn off kiddy porn” filter.

What is the summit aiming achieve exactly? There is no viable technical solution and so stop blaming ‘the internet’! The porn filter needs to be YOU! Be it as a parent or guardian or as a stand up member of society who realises that looking at pictures like *that* is more than a bit sick. The technical solution to ensuring that kiddy porn isn’t available is … well, checking every photo uploaded to the web (and manually of course, just to be sure – but then anyone checking and finding falls foul of my “going to hell” rule)! And the only solution to ensuring your 9 year old isn’t seeing huge fake tits bouncing up and down, is to look after your child and police your internet connection! Stop using your lack of knowledge as an excuse to beat other people and organisations; just be a better parent why don’t you?!

I wonder if any internet giants would let the as far as I can see absolutely useless Maria Miller come sit in their offices and do some learning for a while.

Alternatively, if Google, Facebook, Twitter et al could just block all content related to ridiculous government schemes & bullshit, that would work for me too.

Have you seen the FindAnyFilm.com trailers which attempt to get you to pay for going to the cinema and to stop pirating movies? If not, it’s available on youTube.

My issue with this (as well as most “Don’t pirate movies” trailers that you see at the cinema) is that is seems to “make out” that unless a movie has an “iconic hero”, unless a movie has an “amazing stunt team”, unless a movie has “over 2000 visual effects”, then the movie isn’t “worth paying for”.

Seems like an extremely dumb message. And it’s not just the Iron Man 3 spot either, they have spots for Pacific Rim too that I’ve seen… It seems that pirating is absolutely fine these days, so long as it’s not any kind of action move – so better stick to the rom-coms to avoid being in the wrong.

I’ve been going to the cinema in Leeds for years and years. I loved when The Light opened 10 or so years ago and brought with it Ster Century, it was a brilliant cinema which was fairly priced, had great popcorn, and what at the time was a great video and audio system. The seats were even nice too.

And then VUE bought the cinema/chain.

Over the time since this happened (probably about 7 years) the cinema has got worse and worse, and whilst at the cinema this evening watching Ruby Sparks, I realised what a shit tip the VUE cinema in Leeds has actually become.

And here are my reasons for believing this.

1. The screens, which once were brand new, are now old. I don’t believe (or at least you’d never guess to look) that these have ever been replaced, and there are a number of them that have fairly significant discolouration in the form of huge dark spots. Having a “Sony 4K digital cinema experience” means bollocks all when the screen been projected onto is stained.

2. The sounds, which ring out over light fixtures which still have Ster Century logo’s on, promise amazing Dolby ‘Profound Sound’. This would be fine except for again, it’s like this was set up on day 1 of the cinema opening and hasn’t been looked at since. A number of the screens have audible distortions, which really irritates. Equally, because the walls are so thin, when you have loud showings of an action movie next to showings of more emotional quieter movies, then there is bleed. This is unforgivable.

3. The seats, which much like the light fittings, all are emblazoned with Ster Century Logos and all 10 years old. Which means that lots of them sag. Or are just plain uncomfortable. Except the new VIP seats! Which are a few quid more per seat. You might think that VUE could invest this extra money into replacing all of the seats with Super VUE Stepped Seating.

4. The Prices of tickets go up in price what seems like 4 times a year, but not only this VUE have seen fit to introduce new categories of ticket… Like the Over 18 Ticket, where VUE promise that for an extra couple of quid on the ticket price you’ll get to experience movies without distraction. I’m not being funny when I say that a) that’s what I pay you for  in the first place – why aren’t you doing your jobs kicking idiots who are making noise out? And b) invariably, the people who are being noisy, irritating and obnoxious are generally over 18! So your plan’s failed.

5. The staff are obviously all lobotomised. Or just incapable.

6. The popcorn is abysmal! There once was a time that it was moderately priced, tasted YUM and was worth eating. Now you’re about 50% likely to get stale old cold popcorn that’s about 15 hours old. Much like the bread in the hotdogs.

7. My most recent reason for hating the VUE Cinema in Leeds (although I’m fairly sure this has rolled out to likely all the cinemas in the UK) is the Top Cat trailer which offers help to the visually and audibly impaired.  Here I go not being funny again, if you are impaired in one of these ways, but you’ve paid a tenner to watch a movie without checking these facilities are available, then you’re probably brain impaired too. Well, that trailer? Super annoying.

VUE Cinema’s have some nice cinemas – the one in Hull for example (I know, that statement seems oxymoronical) – but the one in Leeds, is overpriced, understaffed (quality wise) and about 8 years in need of someone cleaning the screens, looking at the audio and seating. I know that VUE are a commercial entity, but as the Future of Cinema, my god I’d rather be in the past than spend money in VUE. Which is why I can’t wait for Leeds’ new cinema to open next year. Maybe some competition will spur VUE into action, or maybe the new one will be so good I’ll never have to go to the VUE again. Either way, it can’t come quick enough.

Today I watched Ruby Sparks. I saw the trailer for this about a month ago and fell in love with the concept in the 90 seconds that the said trailer ran for.

Sad loner with amazing writing talent (yes, like me, but with talent) writes himself a novel about the girlfriend from his dreams, and the girlfriend becomes real. It’s a bit like Mannequin from the 80′s.

But then it’s not too. Mostly because Ruby Sparks is brilliant and Mannequin only really had a soundtrack and a dummy going for it.

It’s a tale that I expected to like, but one which I expected in all honestly to be pretty much one dimensional, and saccharin through and through.

It wasn’t. It was the right kind of dark, and the right kind of beautiful, and it went places I honestly hadn’t expected.

A beautiful movie, with a beautiful star in Zoe Kazan (she wrote it as well!) that I’d happily watch again right now.

Firstly, as I pointed out last week on twitter, sound it out… Crooks.

Of course, I don’t think they’re actually crooks (except where accessory prices are involved, where they’ll generally be found to be more expensive than even PC World…), but over the last 7 days I have come to hate them for an entirely different reason. That is their repairs team.

In the first 6 months the battery health had dropped from 100% down to about 97%, which having seen how quickly Dell batteries can deplete I thought was fairly reasonable. Unfortunately 6 months in and it started dropping at about 5% a week.

This is where my KRCS nightmare starts.

About 5 weeks ago I went on holiday and I asked a friend if they could take my MacBook in to have the battery replaced – not a complicated task right? Bottom off, battery out, batter y in, bottom on. Kerching!

No, they needed my password. “Why?” To run diagnostics and ensure it’s the battery at fault. “But I know it’s the battery”. Sorry sir, we have to check ourselves for the warranty.

So, unwilling to give my admin password out I decided to wait until I could create another user account for them to use which would give them no access to private files etc.

I did this last Monday and took it in.

The ETA on them looking at it? 1 week. That’s right. 1 week. To boot my MacBook and run a diagnostic. With the password that I’ve created for them.

They called today, they’ve managed to confirm that it’s the battery – I was shocked. They’ve also said it will be a few days while they order a battery in. Christ knows how long they’ll take to actually FIX it once it arrives.

You’d think they’d have a few batteries sat in storage wouldn’t you? 300 or 400 quid seems cheap to me when compared to me, and other people who can’t do without their laptops for a week, deciding never to use their shop again.

So I recently bought a brand new (as in they’d only just come to the UK as opposed to I didn’t buy it second hand) Nike+ Fuel Band.

It came in the post 3 days after I placed the order and I ripped off the packaging with the joy of a child at Christmas to get to the goodies inside. There it was, the brushed rubberisedness with the chrome buckle… and the LEDS, well, they flashed and danced in such a way that my heart raced at the beauty of the design. I would use the single button on the band to flick through to TIME and marvel at how the LEDS would tell me the time, I would press the button again and flick through to CALS and see how many calories I’d worked off that day, and then I’d press the button again and see the FUEL that I’d consumed… (No, I have no idea what fuel is either).

It was beautiful. And for 6 days I wore it always – it’s shower resistant you know.

And for 6 days I found that it didn’t change a bloody thing about how I went about my life. I wasn’t going out of my way to show more fuel depletion, I wasn’t finding myself going to the gym more in the hope of pushing my calorie burn up, I was simply doing the things that I always did.

It was at the point that I also realised that I hated it as a watch. It annoyed me that whenever I looked down at my wrist I had to press a button to find out the time. I hated that it was so light. I despised the fit which I’d originally thought perfect but turned out was actually just loose enough so that as I would walk it would “jangle” enough on my wrist as to be very annoying.

And then I started missing my Omega Seamaster.

And on day 8 I took my Fuel Band off and it’s laid on my dinner table untouched since.

I hate being an early adopter to things that look so shiney but ultimately end up being a bit turd coloured. Figuratively of course.

So does anyone want a Nike+ Fuel Band?

Last month I underwent “Presentation training”. Was mostly a good experience, though of course no amount of training would be complete without me arguing with “The Trainer”. Can’t remember exactly what it was over; but he was wrong. But then again, you already knew that.

Last week I went to my third Bettakultcha – for those that don’t know, this is an event that takes place in and around Yorkshire where complete strangers get up and present 20 slides on subjects of their choosing for the merriment of the rest of the crowd. Before I’d attended my first, there had already been 6 others; and I’d marvelled at them on YouTube.

Whilst I never saw him, the “always nearly too passionate” Si Wilson had apparently done 20 slides on his trusty joystick (not penis) – a gaming fan and a confident guy he was never going to be anything less than buoyant and passionate in his approach to Bettakultcha, and that was the feedback I had heard.

Then Kristal Ireland – she’s clever, funny and darned pretty to go with it; she had done a couple of presentations before I saw her for the first time live 3 months ago – doing 20 slides on Tattoos; someone who looks at home on the stage she delivered her topic with style and grace; though admittedly not quite the comedy stylings of the Vampires bettakultcha she’d done previously – and I’d seen later on YouTube.

And then there was Lydia Slack; not a friend, an unknown, someone who filled up a 5 minute slot in the roster of 15 people that night at Bettakultcha 9. And who was mesmerizing, stunning, brilliant with her comedic delivery around what it was like to grow up on a farm. Yes, I was almost in love for about 5 seconds. Then I remembered she lived on a farm. Yes, I’m that fickle.

Anyway friends, do you see how these two things might intersect in my mind?

I too want to do my own Bettakultcha presentation, I too want to stand up and open myself for the kind of heckling that I so far have only levelled at a very few people, I too want people to clap at me and to be a near internet sensation when the video hits YouTube.

But MOSTLY I just want to be passionate about something that I can talk about it for 5 minutes. And my god I’ve wracked my brains. And come up with nothing. And the more that I think, the more that I can’t think or anything and that more that it makes me mad.

And I wonder then if this lack of passion to talk about anything makes me a bad person, and wonder if this is why I’m single and alone. And then I wonder if it’s not just worth pretending to be passionate about something.

“The prevalence of the meercat in modern day culture” maybe.
“Why the Catholic church should be sold to McDonalds” possibly.
“Tried and testing cures for insomnia” has a real possibility right now as I can’t get my eyes to stay shut, though I imagine it putting people to sleep.

I will continue to try to search for things that I feel passionate about. And hate myself awfully until I find something.

Then hate myself more when I realise I’ve volunteered to talk about it for 5 minutes in front of 200 people. Like an idiot.

The first thing to be said is that I only generally start reading once I’ve seen a really good movie, or trailer for something upcoming that makes me want to pick up the book and compare it… That then usually leads me to pick up other books until the phase fizzles out. The “phase” can be anything between 2 books and 20 depending on my mood at the time and the method I’m using to pick the tomes that I’m getting through – more often than not though I’ll get through about 3-4 books in any one “phase” of reading.

So the movie? Well, almost not pleased to admit and a little embarrassed almost actually, but it’s called “one day” and it’s got superhot Anne Hathaway in it. The book by comparison is written by a chap called David Nicholls and the inside cover is adorned with spectacular reviews – though admittedly mostly from women; and Tony Parsons.

Well, I bought it on Saturday, and as with all my reading phases I generally tend to start at apace, and then taper out such that books end up staying by the loo and taking weeks if not months to finish – that’s typical for men right? Anyway, I’m just over half way through – which is fairly good considering I’ve been hitting the 3D blu-rays and Playstation really hard over the last 2 days as well.

Again, half way through it, and the synopsis so far? Two people meet, fall in love, seem unable to admit that they actually are in love and then skirt around pissing each other off to the point where they don’t talk… I’m hoping they start talking again soon or the last 200 pages might be shit.

But in this, I find myself thinking of my own life, and the friends that I’ve had and lost – without care or emotion; and more importantly the friends I have now and I fear that I am losing – very much with care and altogether way too much, and equally definitely not nearly enough emotion at the same time.

And have absolutely no idea how to stop it happening.

I wonder that maybe I’m not cool enough, that maybe I’m too old, not gay enough; that maybe we’re just not compatible – me, a 30 something digital marketing director, her a 20 something gay engineer who up until recently I was unsure (well, extremely sure actually) of my feelings for; but after some serious internal counseling I’ve come out the other end of the rabbit hole just appreciating spending time with no matter what. And having done that the unthinkable has happened… There is a big fucking hole where our friendship once was. And that chasm between us keeps opening and opening… 3 months ago I couldn’t imagine a day not hearing from her, now I go a week  or two with only a single text message.

I’m heart broken. Another lost friend. And reckon I could probably write a shit rom-com right now. Watch yourself David Nicholls.