MyDoormat

Well gosh darn, I would appear to have a MySpace profile. Given that I’m not a thirteen year-old, a Ukrainian indie band or a kiddie-grooming sexual deviant, I don’t entirely understand how MySpace works, but hopefully I can use it to spread the Binky love.

Unfortunately someone has already nabbed the ‘binkythedoormat’ address, so I’ve had to drop the ‘the’. Very upsetting I can tell you, but I’ll just have to learn to cope with this impediment.

Have a looky at www.myspace.com/binkydoormat and feel free to smack the 'Add' thingy.

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Odeon RIP

After years of coughing, limping and general ill-health, the York Odeon is finally being closed down this August. Does anyone care? Apart from the staff (most of whom appear to be in various stages of undeath), it seems unlikely. I popped in on Sunday to watch Inside Man on one of the miniscule screens (about the size of a Gameboy screen), and there were only a dozen other people in the audience. And most of them had probably snuck in through the fire escape.

So why is it closing? The reasons are of course threefold:

1. City Screen is more central to town, shows a better class of film (i.e. not Free Willy 2 every sodding week), and is just better. Actually, City Screen is better than most cinemas. And I’m not just saying that because I helped build it.
2. Vue shows all the Hollywood crap you could ever need, and when you go there you can also marvel at the terrifying haunted shell of what was once Ikon/Diva.
3. The Odeon was just plain nasty. The suits clearly hadn’t paid for anything but minimal upkeep and maintenance and it showed. It’s advisable to have a tetanus shot after visiting.

The building is Grade II listed – something to do with it being a classic Odeon design but built in brick because of it’s proximity to the city walls – so it won’t be flattened. Chances are it’ll become a nightclub, bingo hall or it may even end up being converted into luxury apartments. Like every other building in York.

I just hope the fish in the random aquarium outside screen one find a good home.

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Smash Hits RIP

Once upon a Smash Hits was the only place you could find the lyrics to songs by We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It, but alas that time has passed. I blame the internet. And Thatcher.

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REM postponed

Yesterday was pretty horrible; I think we can all agree on that. But I think we Brits should also be pretty proud of how well we've dealt with it: the emergency services did an outstanding job and the British public displayed typical stoicism and grit. I think our collective response was best summed up by the closing lines of the BBC News last night, which, rather than describing the events as a tragedy or a disaster, simply said it was 'a day of difficulties'.

I was going to go the REM gig at Hyde Park tomorrow, but they've wisely postponed it for a week. All tickets for tomorrow are now valid for Saturday the 16th, or I think you may be able to get a refund if you can't make that date.

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Madonna at Live8: what went wrong?

I've been reading lots of reports of the Live8 concert in Hyde Park these last few days, and I just want to clear something up. A lot of these reports claim that Madonna's performance was one of the highlights of the day, and that she?s back on top form. This, I'm afraid to say, is utter cobblers. Not only was she not the highlight of the day, her cringe-worthy appearance was one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually a Madonna-hater – Like A Prayer and Ray Of Light are both classic pop albums, and I also have a soft spot for Bedtime Stories – but Saturday's performance was bad. Bad bad bad. Why? Well, the reasons are threefold of course.

1. After Sir Bob's rousing introduction of Birhan Woldu (who was one of the starving children in the memorable footage shown at the original Live Aid) onto the stage, Madonna then decided to grab hold of here, and not let her go throughout all of Like A Prayer. The poor girl could only stand there like a lemon while Madonna acted like the nice white lady who saved her. Any charity concert has to tread carefully to not come across as smug and worthy, but Madonna ignored this completely. To me it was as bad as Michael Jackson presenting himself as the Messiah at the Brit Awards in 1996. Where was Jarvis Cocker this time?
    
2. The swearing. I don?t mind a bit of swearing. In fact, I'm fairly sure that rude words make up about 70% of my day-to-day speech. But there's something about the way Madonna says "fuck"; and then just stands their with a ooh-look-aren't-I-naughty expression on her face that really pisses me off. She did exactly the same when she presented the Turner Prize in 2002 and it was embarrassing then as well. Bless her, she's always tried way too hard to be controversial, but this is just pathetic. Leave the swearing to Sir Bob, okay Madge?
    
3. Twenty years ago Queen sang Radio Ga Ga, and the entire crowd sang it back to them, creating one of the iconic images of the eighties. This was the power of Freddie Mercury. At Live8, Madonna decided that she was going to have a Radio Ga Ga moment too and insisted that the crowd sing back the dodgy chorus from nobody's favourite song, Music ('Makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel'. What?). Most of us did. Several times. But this wasn't good enough for her, oh no. She wanted every single person singing it back, and so refused to stop the chant for a good three minutes. Eventually she gave up, thank God. Desperation + Arrogance + dodgy lyrics = big embarrassment for 200,000 people. Nice one, your Madgesty.

It's a shame to moan about an event which was for such a good cause, but I think that needed clearing up. Now I urge you all to forget about Madonna and go to Make Poverty History and do whatever you can, even if it's just signing a petition.

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Death of the mix tape

I've finally returned from the many adventures that took me away from the world of Binking. Apologies for the disruption in service.

A quick summary of what I've been up to:

Glastonbury Festival

Very muddy, but very good. Highlights were Kaiser Chiefs, Brian Wilson, White Stripes, avoiding trenchfoot. Over the next few days I'll tell you about some of the other highlights and point you in the direction of some good music I discovered there.

Live8 in London

Involved lots and lots of standing. Missed most of REM because I was queueing for the loo for ages (eventually discovered that there was a couple having sex in there. Nice). Madonna was embarrasing, The Who were stunning.

Batman Begins at the IMAX cinema in Bradford

Wow. I now know all of Christian Bale's pores in great detail.

Before all of this happened though, a terrible thing happened. I decided to make a few tapes for the journey down to Glastonbury when I discovered that my tape-deck no longer works. This combined with the fact that they've stopped producing blank audio cassettes means that I will never again make a mix tape. Ever.

Like many like-minded music-lover, I've spent many an hour carefully compiling perfect mix tapes, creating very carfully balanced ninety minute playlists for myself and for friends. The artwork and titles were as important as the music - one of my best tapes was called 'Spider-Man In Hell'. I'm still not sure why. But I will never know that joy again. As much fun as it is whacking all of your music straight into iTunes, there was something very beautiful and spiritual about imprinting yourself onto an audio cassette, creating a time capsule of your tastes and feelings.

Sigh.

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James Bond rumours

Who the bloody hell is going to play the next James Bond? This question has been bouncing around for ages now, since Brosnan and the franchise parted company after the hit and miss affair that was Die Another Day (in summary: worst song of the series and terrible sub-playstation CGI, but also had the balls to deviate from the Bond formula … for about ten minutes).

After months of typical "it'll be Robbie Williams! It'll be Justin Timberlake! It'll be a woman!" speculation, things are getting a bit more exciting. The production compnay, Eon, have said that once director Martin Campbell (who also shot Goldeneye and an episode of Bergerac) finishes on his current film, The Unnecessary Return of Zorro (or something like that), he'll "be commenting a lot on all sorts of things." Zorro is released in October, so we may be hearing something very soon.

Here's the latest front-runners:

Daniel Craig - For some reason I always think he's really short. Don't know why, as apparently he's a healthy 6'. He'd be good I reckon, but I'm not sure if he's got the playful humour that's needed (not Roger Moore campery, you understand, but also not stoney-faced Timothy Dalton seriousness).

Julian McMahon - Not british, so immediately a bad idea. I'll reserve any further judgment until after I've seen Fantastic 'look we messed up Thing!' Four.

Clive Owen - Wasn't sure if he could do the playful side of Bond, but after seeing his amazing performance in Closer I'm fairly sutre he can do anything. He's repeatedly distanced himself from the Bond rumours that have followed him around since he put on a tux for Croupier, but he may still be in the running.

Hugh Jackman - Again, not British. I'm not being racist here, but we have to retain a bit of national pride here. Also, he's already Wolverine, the lucky bastard - isn't that enough for him?

Colin 'Fecking' Farrell - No fecking way is fecking Colin fecking Farrell going to fecking play fecking James fecking Bond. I like him (Phonebooth was ace), but he just isn't fecking right for this fecking role.

Ewan McGregor - No no no. Ewan is a great actor (although his aw-shucks American accent that he keeps inflicting on us is nearly as bad as Rachel Weisz's), but he is not Bond. No no no. Besides, he's already Obi Wan Kenobi. It would be wrong for them to be played by the same person. For some reason.

Plus, Dark Horizons are reporting that they may go back to Brosnan after all. This isn't a completely ridiculous notion - a similar period of fannying around occurred during Roger Moore's stint as Bond, with all parties refusing to talk to one another. I think it would be a crap idea personally, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Watch this space.

Films of 2004

My films of 2004:

• Lost In Translation

• The Station Agent

• Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

• Before Sunset

• The Bourne Supremacy

• Collateral

• Old Boy

• The Incredibles

• Garden State

• The House Of Flying Daggers

Music 2004

Just to wrap up the year, here are my songs of 2004, in no particular order:

For Lovers — Wolfman and Pete Doherty
You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve — Johnny Boy
Common People — William Shatner
Love Machine — Girls Aloud
Slow Hands — Interpol
Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime — Beck
Professional Distortion — Miss Kittin
How To Be Dead — Snow Patrol
Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do — Sigur Ros
We Want Your Soul — Freeland
Leaving New York — REM
The Bucket — Kings of Leon
First Of The Gang To Die — Morrissey
Can’t Stand Me Now — The Libertines
Walk Idiot Walk — The Hives
Take Me Out and Michael — Franz Ferdinand
Everybody’s Changing — Keane
Laura and Mary — Scissor Sisters