olliethurley.co.uk

Man, this guy was awesome. And Will really likes his Vans apparently…

Oh by the way, you may have noticed the new addition of Google Adverts in the side bar. Yes, I am selling out… but only if you help me.

Decided to do it to attempt to offset the cost of me internet hosting. You know how it works, you click on the ads and I might get paid…

Help a poor student out: click on some shit you have no interest in…

Despite all the critical acclaim surrounding him, I’ve never listened to Elliot Smith before today.

I hate it when that happens, you hear about an artist, you know they’re supposed to be great, but for some reason you never get around to listening to them. Then finally, when you do, you get angry for having previously denied yourself the joy of listening. Then of course, you have to pretend to everyone that you’ve always listened to said artist so that nobody ever realises you could have been so ignorant as to miss out for so long. Alas, I’ll admit it: I have never listened to Elliot Smith before today. When I went home a couple of weeks ago my brother, James, gave me a couple of his albums. I stuck one on this morning and damn, its so very, very good. His song-writing, his performance, his vocal delivery, his lyrics… its all so beautiful…

…but hey, I’ve always been a fan of Elliot Smith…

Since I’m never that far from my Mac Pro or my MacBook, I’m never that far from the internet and therefore the news. Over the last few weeks though, I’ve been reading more and more of the blogs at the Guardian.co.uk site. Being at university and in a house away from my parents there are no newspapers in our house and I’ve only recently been reminded of this through the Guardian’s website.

Anyway, today I thought that I’d try and rectify this, so I bought a copy of the Guardian this morning on the way to College. Now this probably seems like such a trivial thing to most people, but although on the internet you can access much more detail, as it happens and in great detail, there is something beautiful about sitting back with something physical in your hands. Being able to flick through and skim read stories you may not otherwise navigate too, the pictures, the comments, the letters and even the adverts. Even though all these things exist on the internet, and in greater numbers, there is something that fills me with content as I hold a paper out and wrestle with the folds and pages. It must be the smell. Or maybe its the Su-Doku…

So last week I signed up to LoveFilm.com at Will’s behest. Apparently, if a bunch of his friends sign up, the tooth fairy will give him an iPod or something. Anyway, so at my brother’s recommendation, I rented the first disc of Satoshi Kon’s ‘Paranoia Agent’.

While Dave, who watched the first couple of episodes with be managed to write it off as “an animated episode of The Bill” (Bless Him), I thought it was brilliant. The premise is great: A series of attacks involving a young boy on skates and armed with a baseball bat takes place around Tokyo. However, is it one attacker? Is the attacker real? Are the assaults made up by the victims, the result of paranoia, a cry for attention-or even, to cover up other crimes? It’s a great psychological thriller, and although I’ve only watched the first two episodes, I’ve already started to form my own little ideas and had most of them dashed or distorted.

What I really like about this, is despite the dark undertones of the story (the idea of increased violence in youth culture), there is an almost childish playfulness about some of the characters. Tsukiko Sagi, an animator whose cartoon creation (Maromi) comes to life and converses with her. The schoolboy who imagines himself as the ‘perfect’ boy, or the Old Man who silently chalks out complicated formulas. Al the characters seem great so far and I think have the potential to turn out a fucked up killer or a victim.

If you have seen the whole series, please don’t ruin the plot for me, I can imagine that it’s going to be a brilliantly crafted story with many a head-fuck and hidden meanings. Theres something I could never say if it really was like an episode of The Bill…