Book Review: The Tipping Point
By Poppy Either you will accept the ridiculous notion of this film (or is it?) or you won’t, then you’ll find yourself fidgeting around in your seat every five minutes. Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) one day meets Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale). The two go out, have a wonderful time and seem meant for each other. Sara, however, believes that everything happens for a reason. She feels that if they were meant to be together, fate will bring them together again. So after an interesting night together, the two separate (risky!). A few years pass and both Jonathan and Sara get engaged to different people. But they both have this lingering feeling that they were meant for each other. So the movie begins, John is looking for Sara and Sara is looking for John. The movie is all about events. They just miss each other, one flies to New York, the other flies to San Francisco and so on. The cast is great. John Cusack, as usual, holds the film together well. He always seems to bring an amount of honesty to his characters that make them seem real and sincere. Kate Beckinsale was under attack the last time we saw her, in Pearl Harbor. Other cast members include the always entertaining Jeremy Piven, the strange but effective Molly Shannon, and the out of place Eugene Levy. Personally I thought it was an excellent combination of
comedy and romance with just the right amount of a twist to keep you
entertained and excited. I recommend it to all! Directed by Peter Chelsom Cast: John Cusack ... Jonathan Trager
Budgie - Never Turn Your Back On A Friend by Mott the Dog ***** 5 Star Rating The release in 1973 of “Never Turn Your Back On A Friend” was the band’s third studio L.P. It proved to be a major milestone in the long, hard gigging career of Welsh rockers Budgie. It also established their hard rocking style with the drums and bass thumping along together and Tony Bourge’s lead guitar work ruffling even the largest feathers. The first song off the perch was to become Budgie’s standard bearer, “Breadfan”. It opened with Tony Bourge’s rocking guitar, then the bass and drums come thundering in with the fuzzy crunch of twelve thousand banging heads. Add to this Burke Shelley’s very high pitched, quintessential 70’s metal singing (reminiscent of Geddy Lee of Rush but much sharper) and this heavy metal bird takes flight.
However, Budgie deliver it all in true hard rock style, pacing the album nicely with two acoustic songs to break up the heavy metal bluster. I’ll even forgive the one minute thirty eight second drum solo at the beginning of the fourth song as it’s so short, sharp and heavy. It’s the final song “Parents”, which is a supersonic power rock ballad that elevates you through the stratosphere. A song very similar in structure to Led Zeppelins’ “Stairway To Heaven”, Burke Shelley sings of the torment of turning from child to parent, hitting the heart fair and square with Mott who has a few puppies of his own. This song alone makes this album worth hunting down. The parents tell their children, “Wash your hands & up to bed, mind your manners or you’re dead, watch the cars ‘cos you got school on Monday”. Haven’t all parents at sometimes spoken in these jumbled spurts of love and warning? Though they never reached the dizzy heights of success like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath or Cream, Budgie did leave behind 10 hard rocking studio albums. Really, this is a million heavy metal dreams from their wild concerts attended by their substantial live following. Budgie also specialized in wonderful album and song titles. As well as the ones on this album, there was also “If I was Brittania I’d waive the rules”, “Impeckable”, “Nude disintegrating parachutist woman” and “Hot as a dockers armpit”. This, at least, proves that the boys from the valleys had a sense of humour. Well, you try fitting those words in a chorus! Add to this Roger Dream’s stunning artwork and you always got the complete package with this bird. This is one Budgie this Dog will never mess with. Track Listing 1. Breadian
Updated every Friday Updated by
Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk. |
Written
by Malcolm Gladwell, an accredited journalist, and published last year,
this is a paperback of around 300 pages. This is a book that examines the
“whys” when an idea or a trend or a concept suddenly takes off. This
is described as social dynamics, and the ability to firstly understand,
and then use to advantage would be a wonderfully powerful tool. It begins
with the fact that the humble Hush Puppy shoes went from 30,000 pairs a
year to 1.6 million pairs a year in two years - and yet the Hush Puppy
company had not driven this demand. How? Similarly, the crime wave
statistics in New York suddenly nose-dived. Why?
Mott’s CD review:
Metallica
tried to cover this song on their “Garage Inc”. This revealed them to
be the rather sad ‘covers’ band that they are.